Odin’s Child

by Bruce Macbain

  All day we sailed along the Finnish coast, and just at dusk, approached that gulf of the Varangian Sea that separates Finland from the country of the Ests. There we took a bearing on the setting sun and made our course south-southwest for Jumne.

  We were in good spirits and just thinking about putting food in our bellies when the sky fell.

  The day, which began cool, had by midday turned hot and close. The wind died to a whisper, yet something unseen was in the air that made us feel ill at ease. Then very quickly that sensation, whatever it was, increased a hundred-fold and we saw that the hairs on our forearms stood up and crackled when we touched them.

  The sky turned green, and all along the horizon, a wall of black cloud gathered and rolled toward us. From it, quivering tongues of lightning leapt down, marching across the water.

  “Put her nose about,” said Einar tensely.

  “Run for the coast.”

  A bolt struck so near us that we leapt straight up at the crack.

  “Secure oars,” I cried, “take in sail. We’ll ride her out!”

  While we rushed about the deck, the black wall rolled in, and a wind lashed us with volleys of hailstones as big as pigeons’ eggs. The sea rose and the deck dropped under me. The Viper pitched and plunged like a hooked salmon. It was only Ake the shipwright’s skill in making her so loose-jointed that saved her from breaking up. Still, she labored fearfully hard in that confusion of pounding waves.

  As for ourselves, we clung grimly to our handholds and begged Thor or Christ to save us.

  It was then that I caught sight of Glum. Through a film of streaming seawater, I glimpsed him standing amidships with one arm round the mast and the other brandishing his long-handled axe. Flashes of lightning lit his face—Great Odin, his wolf’s face! The mouth open, lips drawn back over the teeth, nostrils flared, eyes white and round. He shook his wolf-gray head in a fury from side to side and screamed, joining his howl to the howling of the wind in one indistinguishable roar.

  The All-Father had found him! In the midst of this crashing chaos he was the god’s berserker again, crazy for battle.

  Still the lightning licked around us, and at the top of the mast, where the shreds of our sail stood straight out in the wind, hung a crackling blue halo of light.

  “Glum, get away!” I cried, but the wind took my words. I started to crawl towards him over the tilting deck. Too late! A light more dazzling than day burst around me. There came a crack like the splitting of a mountain asunder, and a searing heat. I cowered with my hands over my face while black flowers bloomed behind my lids. The noise of the storm sounded as faint to my ringing ears as an echo in a shell.

  When I looked again, the stump of our mast was riven to the deck.

  And of Glum there was left—not a scrap.

  But the storm left us no time for wonderment. Rain pounded the deck and towering seas broke over us. The Viper shipped water and began to founder. Still dazed and clumsy from the shock of the blast, we struggled to lift out the deck planks to open up a place to bail.

  Flashes of lightning lit his face—Great Odin, his wolf’s face!

  Looking down at the water roiling in the hold, we despaired. Our treasure! The chest, had burst and all the precious silver tumbled everywhere in glinting streaks and eddies as the Viper rolled and pitched.

  We could try to save our riches, or we could bail and save our lives. To do both was impossible.

  We bailed—hour after hour, flinging helmets of water back into the face of the storm. And every foaming wave that swept over us went away with more of our silver in its pockets. Until, by the time the wind died late that night and the stars came out, it was gone, all but a handful of coins trapped in the folds of the awning and a length of silver chain that had gotten wedged between two strakes.

  Like the poor Kalevalans with their sampo, we stood in dripping clothes and gazed bitterly at the black water.

  Don’t mock us for our greed. Possessing that treasure, whether its worth was great or small, signified that our long pains and sorrows in the country of the Finns had gone for something. With that treasure we might have taken our ease in some cozy tavern, thumb in belt and feet to the fire, tipping a wink to the yokels sitting round, jingling our purse, and saying, “Finland, my friends, if its loot you’re after. Queer sort of place, though, thick with witches….” We would’ve spun the wretched straw of slavery into golden coins of stories.

  But without the treasure, we were dogs. Runaway slaves without fortune or fame.

  †

  As day broke, clear and serene, we took stock. Half the deck planking was lost, a part of the aft bulwark was stove in, and most of the sea chests had gone overboard—not that they had much in them, but they served us for rowing benches. The oars, at least, had been tightly lashed down; of those we had many more than we needed: with Glum now gone, we were only twelve.

  Spying a low coastline some miles distant, we made slowly for it. While we rowed, Einar Tree-Foot held up his thumb to the rising sun, tasted the water, which was hardly salt, and guessed that we had been blown far into the gulf and were somewhere along its southern shore, near the place where the waters of Lake Ladoga pour into it through the swift-flowing Neva. If he was right, then our nearest refuge was Aldeigjuborg, a prosperous town just beyond the farther shore of that lake. With winter closing in fast, it was foolhardy to try for Jumne now. I put it to the others.

  “Why not?” Stig laughed without mirth, “Einar Tree-Foot’s advice has been nothing but a blessing to us so far.”

  The old Jomsviking ignored him.

  But first we must try to rig a makeshift sail. This coast was a desolate place where nothing grew but grasses and shrubs, with here and there a slender pine tree sticking up. Vanished with Glum was his long-hafted broadax, the only axe we had. So, it was the work of a full day, hacking and sawing with our swords, to bring down a tree of the right girth and trim it up. Another day went to shaping a yardarm, rigging the awning on it, and fitting it to the mast-block. During those two days we had nothing to eat but raw plovers’ eggs, and only brackish water to drink.

  “Just like home,” said Stig, making a wry face.

  The night we spent on that shore was a miserable one, with nothing between us and a raw sea wind but our ragged shirts. We hadn’t even the comfort of a fire, for our tinderbox was lost.

  As I lay on the ground shivering, who should come creeping to my side but Einar.

  “Odd Tangle-Hair?” It was a halting voice, quite unlike his usual one.

  “Yes, Tree-Foot?”

  “I do miss him … I never thought….”

  “I know. I miss him too. It’s all right. The gods are deep-minded and lay their own plans. Don’t blame yourself.”

  “There weren’t so many of his kind left in the world, you know. What do you think’s become of him?”

  “Ah, there’s a puzzle. When that old sorcerer of the Lapps fetched back my soul, he went downwards to a place he called Jab … Jaba … well, I can’t pronounce it, but anyway. But then, Ainikki told me that the dead of Finland dwell in Tuonela, which lies beyond a dark river near by Pohjola. Her brother once visited the place, she said. While we Norse say that the dead land is up, in Valhalla, where Odin keeps his mead hall with feasting and fighting for the heroes all day long—or else in Hel’s cold hall beneath the ground for those who die in their beds.

  “The Christmen, too, I think, place it both up and down—up for themselves, that is, and down for the rest of us. But then again, it’s plain that the dead live on in their graves or, like my kin, in a mountain—and then, of course, there are the draugs that won’t stay put at all, but hang about their former homes injuring folk.

  “I’ve given some hard thought to it and come to the conclusion that everyone goes to the dead-place of his own nation and then returns at night to this world to sleep or walk. Because, otherwise, I can make no sense of it at all.”

  Einar was quiet for a while, mulling this over—it bei
ng more answer than he’d bargained for.

  “You know,” he said at last, “I never wanted to live as long as I have. Death always skipped me and took another. But there’s a thing I do fear: that sloping road to Hel where the old and sick go, the ones that die without any word-fame. It’s not the way for a Jomsviking.”

  “No,” I agreed.

  “They say you must die with steel in your guts to be carried off by the Valkyries to Odin’s Hall. Dammit, I’ve had a hundred chances to die that way and missed every one. And so I was thinking that, ah, maybe I will just turn Christman, for I hear it said that their god keeps a fine table, too, and makes no bother about how a fellow dies.”

  “Tree-Foot,” I answered, smiling in spite of myself, “the Christmen wouldn’t have you, you’re the very Devil himself. You know what I think. I think Glum’s in Valhalla this very minute, drinking Odin’s ale and boasting how he matched Red-bearded Thor blow for blow until the great hammer carried him off—and they’ll love him all the more for it.”

  “You think so?”

  “I do. And I’ll tell you another thing, old friend. You’ll drink with him again one day, for I undertake to see that you die with a sword in your belly, if I have to put it there myself.”

  “Heh?”

  “Which may be sooner than you think, if this Aldeigjuborg of yours proves to be as jolly a place as Pohjola was.”

  “Never fear, Captain,” he chuckled.

  33

  Rage and Pride

  Driven by an icy wind that tore at our makeshift sail, we worked along the barren shore and soon came within sight of the mouth of the River Neva. The length of this river, said Einar, was ninety miles, and its current so strong that it could be seen far out in the water.

  “Lay on the oars, boys,” I cried. “This next stretch will put iron in our muscles.”

  “More likely kill us,” muttered Bengt.

  “Why don’t you just walk it then, little flea,” said Brodd, cuffing him on the ear.

  Bengt looked alarmed. For it was a melancholy landscape that lay before us: everywhere stagnation, mud and mist. We tore strips from our ragged clothes and tied them around our hands for warmth. Then, as we had done before, I took an oar behind Stig while Einar worked the tiller.

  We had been toiling for hours and barely making headway against the current, when Stig’s eagle eye picked out a glint of gold in the haze behind us.

  “Tangle-Hair, look yonder.”

  It was the bronze prow ornament of a dragon ship. As we watched, a hull took shape behind it. She was big, with sixty oars or more and two men on each, and her broad sail strained at the shrouds. She bucketed through the water, throwing up great sheets of spray, riding in our wake and gaining fast.

  I saw myself viewing Aldeigjuborg from the top of a slave block—Pohjola all over again! My fingers itched for Einar’s throat.

  “We’ll die here if we must!” I shouted to the others.

  She was nearly upon us now, but hadn’t yet dropped her sail as a ship would do that intended to grapple.

  “She wants to overtake us is all,” called Einar to me from the poop.

  “Well, damn him, isn’t there enough river for the both of us!”

  A figure stood up in her prow, clad in silvered helmet and armor, with a scarlet cloak whipping around his shoulders. As they closed on us, this fellow hooted and waved us out of his way as though we were just some wretched fishermen!

  When one single drop is added to a brimming pail, the water spills over. So weeks of building anger spilled over in me: the gall of slavery, sweet Ainikki’s death, shipwreck and lost treasure, so many comrades gone.

  “I’ll not turn aside for this glittering ass,” I screamed into the wind, “I give way to no man! Einar, hold her steady!”

  “Odd, give way,” Stig said between his teeth, turning half round to me. “He’ll break us to splinters.”

  “Let him!”

  “Odd!”

  “Row, I say!”

  Not trusting Einar to obey me, I dashed to his side and took the tiller in my own hands.

  The other ship was so close to us now that I could plainly see that man in her prow. Tall as a tree—and yet beardless. Great gods, I had just time to think, don’t I know that face? Olaf’s young brother Harald, the unnatural weed? But he died at Stiklestad!

  “Give way there, you dogs!” he bellowed again through cupped hands.

  He meant to ram us—I could see it in his face. Well, let him see as much in mine! I’d send us all to the bottom before I’d move aside for this bully.

  Then Stig, the steadiest friend I had in all the world, betrayed me.

  “Port oars up!” he cried. “Back water, the starboard! Do it!”

  Instantly they obeyed him, and though I strained to force the tiller in the opposite direction, the Viper swung narrowly out of the big ship’s path. She missed us by feet. And as she shot past, rocking us and drenching us with her spray, the giant laughed and jerked his thumb.

  I drew my sword and went for Stig.

  It had nothing to do with will or wish. It was that busy, muttering madman in my brain. Rage.

  “Whoreson! Pig-fucking bastard!”

  I swung, splintering the oar handle that he held up in front of him. For the first time ever, I saw fear in his eyes.

  “Coward!” I screamed.

  He retreated until his back was to the mast. Again I swung. He leaned away. My blade stuck quivering an inch deep in wood. Before I could pull it free, he stepped in and hit me a short, sharp blow with his fist under the breastbone. I went down gasping.

  Now the others rushed in between us, some holding Stig and some me, as I struggled to my feet.

  “Damn all!” Brodd swore. “Here we are lost in some filthy corner of the world and you two want to kill each other!”

  The others grunted and Starkad, his moustache twitching rat-like under his long nose, said, “Make it up, the both of you, while no blood’s yet been spilt.” And turning on me, he pleaded, “We had to follow Stig this time, Odd—you do see that?”

  Anxiously they watched us. But Stig and I stood mute, avoiding each other’s eyes. I wonder to this day what was in his mind.

  I know what was in mine.

  A year earlier, being the boy that I was then, I would have asked his pardon in a minute. Or he might have laughed and asked me mine, as when we were among the Lapps and he pledged to follow me although my sword-point was at his throat. Where only one is a man, there is no shame in yielding. But in the year since then I had changed. I had become the captain of my ship, not just in name, but truly. What he had done was mutiny and no captain can forgive a mutiny. Ever.

  Any more than he can be forgiven for uselessly risking his men’s lives. There was no room here on either side for pardon.

  Einar broke the silence to observe that while we stood idly about, the current was wiping out our hard won gains.

  “Tree-Foot’s right, back to your oars.” I made my face a mask and my voice low. I must seem, must be, in command again.

  We toiled again in silence, but I felt their eyes on me. Eyes that held that same veiled and sullen look as when last I went mad and they had wanted to drown me in the sea—the very same men, some of them. Oh, I hadn’t forgotten! And but for me, every one of them would have lost his head in Finland. The scum! Is a man’s credit so quickly exhausted?

  Those were my thoughts at first, and I was fierce with my oar, chopping the water as though it were Stig’s neck.

  But gradually my anger spent itself, and I began to feel ashamed. A hundred times I was on the point of jumping up and embracing him. My face grew hot and my heart quickened as I was going to … was going to … No! My legs, my arms, my tongue would not obey me, no matter how I willed it.

  No captain forgives mutiny.

  On the bench in front of me, Stig bent and straightened, bent and straightened over his oar.

  Stig, ask my pardon, I silently entreated, and we’ll be fri
ends again. Of course I was wrong to do what I did, and you were right to stop me. Just let it go and beg my pardon. Speak first, Stig. Damn you, Stig No-One’s-Son, you crow’s meat without even a father’s name, what is shame to you?

  But his back only bent and straightened, bent and straightened, without cease. And with every stroke, I felt us sink deeper into a pit from which there could be no escape.

  †

  Towards evening of that day we broke out of the Neva into Lake Ladoga, a vast sheet of water that stretches to the horizon like a sea, and coasted along its marshy shore until again we felt the rush of a current coming to meet us. This was the Volkhov, on whose bank, some eighteen miles upstream, Aldeigjuborg lay, surrounded by forest and fen. But the sun being low in the sky and ourselves exhausted with rowing, it seemed best to camp for the night before tackling this last stretch of our journey.

  Nothing felt right. Sitting wearily on the wet ground, I sneaked a look at Stig, caught him watching me, and quickly looked away.

  The next morning, under low, dirty clouds we boarded ship again and threw ourselves groaning into the mouth of the Volkhov. Past midday, after seven weary hours at the oar, we rounded a bend and saw Aldeigjuborg’s earthen rampart high up on the steep left bank of the river, and ranged along the quay beneath, a forest of masts rocking at anchor. I stood beside Einar at the tiller and searched the quayside for an empty stanchion to tie up to.

  “Next to Jumne I do love this place best!” he chuckled, showing me his toothless grin. “A man can find delight here—delight, I say! Oh, don’t it make me wish I had my parts! Though I’ve a one still, mind you, works as well as ever!”

  “Spare me that, old man.”

  He looked crestfallen and shut his jaws with a snap.

  I hadn’t meant to be sharp with him, but words must be sour with so sour a taste in my mouth.

  I was remembering myself a year ago on the morning that I sailed, warm with wonder and expectation, into the harbor at Nidaros—with the whole world before me and true friends at my side—trusty Kalf, resourceful Stig. How much had happened since that day, and how little of it good.