The Viking Saga

by Henry Treece

  Aun yelled, ‘Up Thorkell! Up the Nameless!’ Gnorre joined him in the cry, but Horic and Harald were silent. Yet all pushed on, and now, with the men beside him, even Harald felt a strange desire for battle. It seemed to him that now they were fighting with good cause, and not merely to win treasure. They were fighting a treacherous enemy, for their very lives, and to save their leader, to whom they had pledged themselves.

  They took the Picts by surprise. Some of them turned at Aun’s first shout and put up sword or small buckler as defence. But two at least of them were too late. Peacegiver rose and fell, rose and fell. Horic’s rough sword thrust to left and to right. Then a bundled dark shape launched itself at Harald. He heard Gnorre’s shout of warning, but it came too late. The man was on him, stabbing furiously with a short dagger. Harald felt the blade sear his shoulder, and then, in a great anger, he shortened his spear, and using it like a sword, struck with all his force at the man who attacked him. He felt the jar of the blow along his arm and then the man seemed to run on past him, sideways, dragging the spear from his grasp.

  Gnorre said, ‘Your first blood! Hail, Viking! Thorkell shall give you another weapon now.’

  Harald’s heart swelled, for he saw Thorkell’s eyes glance at him and a grim smile come across his leader’s face. Thorkell had seen him fight his first battle. Then a great wave of nausea swept over the boy, and he wished that the Pict had never run at him.

  The next thing he knew, he was standing next to Thorkell, and they were all pushing their terrible way to the open door, through which Harald saw the stars shining out of a deep blue-black sky.

  Behind them, still clustered in the hall, were their enemy. Feinn was leaning against the wall, his hand over his chest, the dark blood ebbing between his white fingers, a vicious grin on his swarthy face.

  Harald heard him gasp, ‘Thorkell Traitor, though you leave me so, my gods will follow you. Their arm is long.’

  Thorkell’s face twisted in a smile of sadness. It was as though he wished to go to Feinn. Then with a shrug he remembered where he was and they turned to go through the door into the night.

  Yet, even as they turned, a dark shape lying in the doorway moved. A man raised himself on his elbow and flung the short axe he had clenched in his hand. The blow was meant for Thorkell, but Gnorre saw the axe as it flew through the air and stepped towards it, keeping it from the leader. Harald heard the haft thud on Gnorre’s temples, and stepped across to catch him as he fell. Aun gave a great roar of anger and struck down towards the floor. The man lay still.

  Gnorre was unconscious and the blood flowed down his face. Aun took him on to his broad back and carried him. Horic and Thorkell paused for a moment in the doorway. They called to Björn, but he would not come. He still stood over the bodies of his comrades, singing quietly to himself, a terrible rhythm of death, like the song that oarsmen sing when they battle against a contrary tide.

  ‘Up – ay – aa! Up – ay – aa!’

  His sword struck again and again. His eyes were glazed. He did not know where he was, it seemed.

  Thorkell whispered, ‘Odin holds out his hands for Björn. He will never come away now.’

  Then he called out softly, ‘Farewell, Viking. We must go down to the ship your hands built. May they build even better ships where you are going.’

  Harald felt the hot tears running down his cheeks. He saw that Thorkell was crying too. As they turned, Björn snatched up a pine torch and was swinging it round him as he shambled towards the ring of men who waited, like hungry wolves, for his great strength to fail.

  When they were halfway down the hill that gave on to the beach, they looked back at the sudden glow in the sky behind them.

  ‘Björn has made himself a funeral pyre,’ said Aun. ‘Now if Feinn lives, he must build himself another hall!’

  Then they saw the Nameless. She was already afloat and ready to move away. Thorkell shouted, and down below them Ragnar answered, ‘Hurry, Thorkell,’ he said. ‘We had given you up for lost. The tide pulls us away. Hurry!’

  They struggled over the rough shingle and on into the water, breast-high before they reached the longship. Rough hands dragged them aboard. Harald saw Gnorre’s eyes flicker, and he heard him whisper something to Aun, who bent over him like a mother over her child.

  Horic whispered, ‘Gnorre’s wound is not deep, lad. Sleep happily.’

  Then Harald fell his length on the hard wet boards, exhausted in body and in mind. He did not hear the gulls crying or the wind slapping against the great mainsail. He did not hear Thorkell’s harsh words to Ragnar, or Ragnar’s ironical laughter. Nor did he hear Ragnar say, ‘You are a fool, Thorkell. I and my band raided their treasure house while you slept. We have brought enough away to make us all rich men. And that is the thanks I get!’

  Thorkell said, ‘You traitorous dolt! I had taken a blood-oath with Feinn.’

  Ragnar pulled at his black beard and said, ‘The oath bound you, not me, my friend!’

  Harald did not see Thorkell strike the Dane full across the face then, for all men to watch. The boy was deep in sleep.

  11

  Harald’s Dream

  The Nameless rode wearily in the northern sea. It was now the best part of a week since she had put out from the rocky inlet under Feinn’s steading. It was such a week as made Harald think lovingly of the days when he lived ashore in Gudröd’s hall, with solid ground beneath his feet, a good meal three times a day and a warm bed to go to at night, out of the winds. The northern sea held no such comforts. Often the Vikings were wet and hungry, and often they must watch or row all night so that they might sleep in the sunshine on deck the next day. Harald thought many times of his father, almost tearfully now, wondering if his leg had mended well …

  During the week since the fight in the hall, the Nameless had put into shore twice, when Thorkell had sighted smoke rising above a village. They had been lucky enough to attack without warning and had carried away enough provisions to keep them fed, but without any luxuries. The first village had been an easy one to surprise, since most of the men were away on a hunting trip into the mountains. They had stormed the low stockade and had carried off meal and meat. Kragge had fired a hut or two before anyone could stop him. In this affray Wolf had stolen a little pig, but a small black-haired girl ran after him towards the longship, crying so bitterly that he had stopped and given it back. He gave the child a bracelet from his arm, after which she wanted to come with him on to the Nameless. But Thorkell made him take the child back, almost to the gates of the village. As he waved goodbye to her, an enthusiastic shepherd put an arrow through Wolf’s ear, which caused him great discomfort and made his comrades laugh, to see him jumping with rage, shaking his fist at the marksman, and waving to the little girl – all at the same time.

  The second foraging expedition was not so fortunate, generally. It was a much larger settlement, some of its houses being made of stone. The Vikings got into it easily enough, for it was night-time and the place was poorly guarded. But once inside, they found it more difficult to make their escape. Both women and men attacked the Vikings with whatever weapons lay at hand. One buxom woman laid open Kragge’s head with an iron ladle. Three others caught Rolf and flung him into a deep midden pit, almost dislocating his steering arm. It was only with great difficulty that Aun and Gnorre pulled the steersman up again, after which all men walked at some distance from him.

  While this foray went on, men from a neighbouring settlement made a detour and got down to the Nameless in the shallow bay. They were still striking at the ship’s sides with heavy wood-axes when Thorkell’s band returned. Luckily Björn had built a ship to last and they had done little damage when the Vikings trapped them, between the cliff and the sea. At first Thorkell would have struck off their heads, on the sand, for his anger was so great that a plank of the Nameless should have been touched by an enemy. Then he listened to Ragnar’s counsel, and took the protesting men aboard to act as oarsmen, and later to be sold as
slaves. They all felt that they deserved this fate, since they had interfered in a quarrel that did not concern them and had tried to damage a fine ship which had done them no harm.

  The captured half-dozen were young red-faced foresters, well used to hard work. They were chained at the ankles, but their arms were left free, so that they might row without hindrance.

  At first they were wrathful and silent. They even dared to sneer in Thorkell’s face when he spoke to them, telling them that if they behaved themselves he would try to find a good master to sell them to. But their bravado soon left them as the Nameless pulled out farther and farther into the northern sea. Then first one, then another broke down and wept. They began to implore Thorkell to set them ashore again and promised that they would pay a handsome price for their freedom. This made the Vikings laugh, for they knew that the men were lying, and had no more money than would buy a truss of hay for a horse. So it was that the twelve men of the Nameless who had been lost in the earlier fighting were replaced by the six Pictish slaves. It was a poor exchange, but better than none, for by now the ship had need of every hand she could find.

  The quarrel between Ragnar and Thorkell had healed itself, up to a point, and now even Thorkell liked to lift the deckboards and gaze down on the great bundles of gold torques and gorgets and drinking-cups that they had amassed in that treacherous raid.

  So, one way and another, the voyage went fairly well until a storm blew up late one afternoon and carried them eastwards, far from any land. One man of the Nameless was swept away when a great wave struck the ship on the beam. He was a Viking named Smörke, who had lost three brothers in the northern sea already. He had often said that this voyage would be his last, but all had laughed at him. As he was swept overboard, Gnorre swore that he heard the man yell out, ‘There, I told you so!’

  They all ran to the side, but there was nothing to be done. Smörke was borne away in a swirl of water, and the last men saw of him were the bull’s horns of his helmet.

  ‘That will confuse Odin,’ said Horic. ‘He will think that Smörke died in battle. A man should have the sense to take off his helmet if he is going to die in the sea.’

  But for all that, the Vikings were sorry to lose a good sailor. Yet the storm was so violent that they did not mourn for long. Their attention was needed for other things.

  Harald suddenly felt older, much older. Now the sea was an enemy, he thought, a ravenous salt beast that for ever gnawed at the timbers of a boat, and no friend. The boy smiled bitterly as he recalled his joy on setting out over the fjord, so long ago it seemed now. He remembered the smooth glassy sea, so harmless and so mirror-like, a deep blue-bronze, with the rich amber sun shining across it.

  Harald stood upright, clutching the swinging gunwales, the bitter salt spray smashing hard at his face and over his drenched body. He remembered Gryffi with the spear in him, Björn swinging the torch in the great hall, the faces of Ivar and Hasting as they sat dumbly against the wall, the man he had killed …

  He did not feel the spray then. He was lost in a dream, his wet golden hair stuck across his wind-reddened face; his cloak heavy with seawater, yet flung out in fitful gusts behind him as the gale tore at it, making its edges ragged. Harald’s pale-blue eyes stared blindly through the thick spume. He did not see it, did not feel the storm, even for a moment. Now he was back in memory on the fjord, with the amber sun staring at him from the west, casting a broad track towards him, magnificent and grim as blood. And over this ghastly sea of his memory, a deep and echoing voice seemed to say, ‘Come, young Viking. Come, come, come, come. Walk on the Whale’s Way, pace the Path of the Dolphin towards me. Come to the sun, warrior-lad, come, come, come …’

  He began to sway on his feet, and it was then that Aun caught him and carried him into shelter under one of the platforms. ‘The lad is suffering from a fever,’ he said to Thorkell. ‘He has seen too much and suffered too much since we started out.’

  ‘Yet he shapes well,’ said Thorkell. ‘He will make a good Viking yet.’

  Aun said, ‘He won’t unless we treat that wound in his shoulder. The young fool has said nothing to anyone about it, and now it is inflamed and swollen. If you won’t care for the lad, as you ought, since his father is maimed for you, then let me take him over. I am prepared to do my duty if you are not.’

  At first Thorkell was angry that Aun Doorback should speak like that to him. Then he made himself smile as he said, ‘I am sorry, Aun Doorback. I have had little experience at being a father to anyone. But I shall improve with time. Have patience with me, and in the meantime, let us both be father to the lad.’

  So it was that Harald found himself a second father, in the middle of the northern sea in a storm. He almost found death too, that night, for the ship’s mast snapped and crashed through the roof where he lay, missing him by the breadth of a child’s hand. Yet such was the lad’s fever that he knew nothing of these things for many days, until he was told.

  12

  A Ship and a Sword

  In the days that followed, the Vikings were beset by sore trials. Now though the storm wore itself out, they had to row from dawn to dusk to make headway. Their hands were raw and their backs breaking. One of the slaves fell into a stupor and at last lay still. Thorkell had him put overboard for there was no one to tend him. Then the fresh water ran out and now men dared not row for thirst. They tried drinking corn-wine instead, but that left them stupefied and witless and they lolled about the decks, disinterested in life. Nothing that Thorkell or Ragnar could do would rouse them.

  It was while they were in this condition that a cargo vessel passed them, at a distance of not much more than a hundred feet. It was a high round-bellied tub, carrying two sails, a Frankish trader, a privateer, laden with amber and bear pelts and reindeer hides; a ship of the south, anxious to spoil the icy north, crewed with hard men who felt themselves to be man for man as good as any Viking of the fjords. This ship had sailed in upon a quiet village, too busy with its own affairs to think of guards, and had come away laden to the gunwales with enough barbaric finery to keep the Frankish Court in high glee for long enough. Thorkell had quickly judged it to be a Frankish ship, and wished that they could have boarded it. But the merchants on board the vessel could see the sorry plight of the Vikings, as they rolled on the decks of their mastless ship, and they came to the side of their boat and looked down on them, jeering. When Ragnar shouted back at them, they challenged him to come aboard and fight their champion on the foredeck. Such was Ragnar’s rage that he would have gone, not seeing that it was a trick. But Thorkell held him back, and the Franks passed on unharmed and laughing.

  ‘One day you will laugh on the other side of your face,’ yelled Ragnar, who hated to be bested.

  ‘Good riddance!’ shouted the Franks, and Black Ragnar beat his forehead on the gunwales with rage.

  The following morning, shortly after dawn, another Viking longship rode confidently up alongside them and flung grappling irons over the side of the Nameless. Her seamen could see well enough the plight of Thorkell’s ship and looked for an easy prize, but when their leader saw who was captain of the Nameless he climbed aboard and flung his arms round Thorkell and kissed him on the cheeks. It turned out to be his cousin, Knud, whom he had not seen for three years. Knud gave the Vikings two kegs of water and a sack of meal. He told them that if they steered due west they would strike an easy coast where the forests came down to the sea. There they might make another mast from some tall tree.

  In return, Thorkell told Knud that a big Frankish trader had passed them but a few hours before. Knud slapped him on the back and said, ‘Tit for tat! If I take anything worth having, I will keep a share for you!’

  Then his longship, which he called Hungry Hawk, set course and bore down after the ship which had so insulted Ragnar. ‘Strike off the captain’s head for me,’ yelled Ragnar. Knud laughed back. He was more interested in plunder than in killing.

  During the days that followed Harald slowly r
ecovered from the effects of his exhaustion and of the poisoned shoulder which had laid him low. Aun and Gnorre took it in turns to sit with him and to put cold water pads on his arm and chest to keep down the fever. Horic and Rolf came when they could and told him tales when he was able to understand them again.

  Horic had a lovely yarn about two brothers who went hunting bear in the great forest of Lapland. Their names were Festi and Vlasta, and they were great hunters but a little simple in all other respects. One night as they sat by their fire, Festi saw a big bear looking at them. He told his brother to make ready the pot and took his bear-knife and went after the animal. The bear ran away, but Festi soon caught up with it and, after a short struggle, was able to kill it. Then he thought that he would play a joke on his brother, so he skinned the bear and got into the skin, intending to frighten him. He made his way silently back through the woods until he came to a rock, near the fire where he had left his brother and, after making a great growling, leapt out into the firelight. But instead of his brother, a great bear sat by the fire, just finishing off the last of Vlasta. The real bear and the imitation bear stared at each other for a while, then each gave a yell and ran away, the bear back into the forest, and Festi to his village. But when the villagers saw Festi coming, they thought that he was the great bear that had terrified them for so long. Three strong men ran to meet him, and put three arrows into him as he ran towards them, because he was so wrapped about with bearskin that they did not recognize his shouts for help.

  Most of Horic’s stories were about bears. And they usually ended with someone getting eaten. He would roar with laughter when he came to that part and would rock backwards and forwards until he made Harald feel quite giddy. Then Rolf would come in and tell Horic not to be a barbarian. He would push him out and try to teach Harald the art of navigation. Rolf was a very kind person in spite of his forbidding appearance, and Harald came to like him as much as any of the Vikings.