Odin’s Child

by Bruce Macbain

  I surveyed us cheerlessly: ragged and dirty, our clothes and hair crusted with salt, skins burnt brown from the wind; and, except for Einar, strangely silent and subdued for men making port after a long haul. We were a crew no longer, and the fault was mine. What I had created over weeks and months, I had blasted in an instant, and had no idea how to repair it.

  I clapped a hand on Einar’s shoulder to reassure him, and the old man started up again at once. “Look’ee there now, captain, on the bluff above the town. You haven’t seen the likes of that—a hall built of solid stone? Jarl Ragnvald Ulfsson lives in that hall and holds the town for the Rus prince of Novgorod.”

  “The Rus?”

  “The folk who rule here. They were Northmen once, just like us, but you’d hardly think it now to hear ’em jabber away at each other. Their country, which is a big one, goes by the name of Gardariki. Now, Novgorod is the…”

  I stopped listening when I spied the ship.

  No mistaking the gleaming bronze vane on her prow. She lay rocking peacefully at the pier with none aboard her as far as I could make out. From her masthead a banner hung, white with a cross of gold.

  I knew where I’d seen that before.

  A few berths farther on, we found space where a merchantman had just departed. Moving like sleepwalkers, we went through the rituals of docking.

  “We need food,” I said, “and drink, and women. And for the Viper, timber and new tackle, though how we’ll pay for it is more than I know. Tree-Foot will come with me to scout the town. The rest of you stay close here. Stig…” Stig is in charge, I had nearly said from long habit. “I won’t be long.”

  Einar and I made our way up from the quayside and through the town gate, pressing through the crowds of sailors, hawkers, and bustling citizens who pursued their noisy business along the narrow, plank-paved streets. We bent our steps toward a tavern that he knew, where he hoped that his credit might still be good.

  We hadn’t gone a hundred paces when we met the giant.

  He burst on us out of a side street where two lanes crossed, he and a score of armed men, all talking loudly and laughing. With never a backward look he brushed Einar with his shoulder as he strode past, knocking the old man off his peg-leg and sending him into the mud. The fellow’s manners were no better on land than on the water.

  “Hi, you!” I shouted at his back. “Half-Troll! You’ve too much body for my likes—come back and I’ll shorten you by a head!”

  They turned.

  I hauled Einar to his feet and, with hands on our hilts, we stood to face them.

  “Jomsviking,” I said under my breath, “I’ve a feeling you may get to Valhalla sooner than you thought. Are you game?”

  “You needn’t insult me with asking,” he growled.

  I studied the young tree-trunk as he came toward us. He had grown even taller in a year, nearer seven feet than six I guessed, and broader in the chest and shoulders. His face, too, had taken on the lines of manhood, although the beard was still just a silky down. What was he now—sixteen? A year younger than myself.

  He stopped at sword’s reach and looked at us with hard eyes. “Heh? By Christ, isn’t it those beggars who nearly took a bath in the Neva! Well, you’ll die unbathed now!” This joke was greeted with laughter from the hirdmen at his back.

  “You know who this is?” asked one of them with a sneer.

  “I do believe it’s the Unnatural Weed,” I answered, “Olaf of Norway’s kinsman. Yet I thought I saw him die.”

  Still vivid was that scene of a year ago: King Olaf’s bloody corpse with its head hacked nearly off, dragged back and forth in the dirt as Tronder jarls fought with the king’s hirdmen for possession of it; and from the king’s side this boy—Harald, the slighted half-brother—standing astraddle of the corpse until the enemy overwhelmed him and he disappeared under a heap of bodies.

  I recalled also the rumor that Harald’s corpse, just like the king’s, could not be found afterwards. At the time, compared to the mystery surrounding Olaf, this had seemed a thing of small importance.

  “Saw me dead?” Harald laughed harshly, tightening his grip on his hilt. “Not as dead as you’ll soon wish me—draw your sword!”

  Behind him a gathering crowd of onlookers who had stopped to watch the fun, retreated to a safe distance.

  “That he will not!” Out of the knot of men beside Harald stepped a short, square-built man of about fifty. His square head, jowled like a bulldog’s, sat upon square shoulders with no neck between. “He’ll not draw his sword in the streets of my city nor you either, Harald Sigurdarson—not while I have the charge of delivering you to your benefactor.” The tone was quarrelsome and overbearing.

  Naturally, Harald’s reply was to draw his sword and raise his arm to strike. Einar and I fell back a step with our weapons up.

  “But you’re right, of course, Jarl Ragnvald!”

  The speaker of these words emerged from around Harald’s other flank. “It’s a thing of no consequence—an accident on the Neva two days ago, tempers flared. Now, Harald, there’s no cause for bloodshed here.”

  This one, too, I had seen before. That handsome, elegantly dressed man who had patched up a truce between Harald and Olaf before the battle, and was cheered by the army for it. I remembered the ironic smile and the observant eyes.

  He turned them on me now. “You were in that fight? On the king’s side?”

  I nodded.

  “Well now, Harald, our cause hasn’t got so many friends that we can afford to kill them off for sport!” It was said with an easy off-hand manner.

  I was on the point of telling them what I truly thought of their cause and king when I saw that his words were having an effect on the Unnatural Weed. His brows unbent and his blade came slowly down.

  The elegant one addressed me in the same easy tone: Was I a Norwegian?

  “Icelander.”

  “You’re a long way from home.”

  “I have my reasons, they needn’t concern you.”

  “Come, come, my short-tempered friend. I am Dag Hringsson.” He touched his fingertips to his heart. And you? Surely you owe us that much before you and your alarming companion carve us meat from bone. Will you name yourself?”

  The words worked on me even while I sensed the method behind them. I have known plenty of silken-tongued courtiers since, but that breed was new to me then. I dropped my sword point and motioned Einar to do the same.

  “I am Odd Thorvaldsson of Rang River-by-Hekla. My father was Thorvald-godi, his father was Odd Snout…”

  Dag Hringsson gazed at me in astonishment. “Thorvald Oddsson was your father? The same one who sailed among the Orkney Isles thirty years ago and more? By God, of course it is! You have those wild black brows of his. Black Thorvald! Why, he was often a guest in my foster-father’s hall when I was a child. He always had a brave word for me and would let me hold his drinking horn at dinner. Black Thorvald’s son! Well, if you’re half the fighter he was, I’d say we’re all lucky to be alive!”

  I was struck dumb. A man who knew my father from his long ago viking days? And liked him!

  Turning to Harald he said, “Prince, you and this young man must be friends for my sake. I won’t have it otherwise.” The tone, as before, was light, insinuating, purposeful.

  Reluctantly the long sword crept back into its scabbard and Harald extended to me a huge open hand.

  “I can deny nothing to my brother’s hirdman,” he said. “Please blame my behavior on the hotheadedness of youth.”

  Stilted and awkward, this speech, as though he had been made to learn it off by heart—probably by this smooth-tongued counselor of his. Dag’s words had their effect on me, too. Best, I decided, to let it pass. My troubles were heaped high enough already without adding a new one. Besides, I wanted to live long enough to hear more about my father.

  “All right, then,” I replied, “but my friend is owed the same apology.”

  Harald looked rebellious again for a mome
nt, but finally extended his hand to Einar too. “Will you join us?” he asked. “Jarl Ragnvald, our host, is leading us on a tour of his market place. We’re exiles and travel light, yet we mustn’t arrive in Novgorod empty-handed.”

  I said that we had errands of our own, but Dag leapt in before the last words were out of my mouth.

  “You and your crew will dine with us tonight!” And in the same breath, to Ragnvald: “We tax your hospitality already, Jarl—but as a favor?”

  The jarl frowned and grunted his assent.

  So that was settled, and we drew apart.

  “How many are you and where do you stay meantime?” called Dag over his shoulder.

  I answered, not bothering to add that we were penniless. Our rags told him that much.

  He answered with a smile, “I never knew an Icelander to stay poor for long. Till tonight.”

  The crowd of townsfolk, disappointed that there was to be no bloodshed, turned back to its own pursuits.

  “What do you make of them, Tree-Foot?” I asked when we were alone again.

  “What—the rough jarl and the smooth-tongued one? Two dogs eyeing the same bone, I’d say.”

  “My thought too. And a damned big bone, at that.”

  34

  The Uses of Poetry

  The approach of evening found us back at the Viper, footsore and discouraged. No inn would have us, no shipwright or timber merchant would even talk to us without hard cash down. My crew, who lay about on the deck, only grunted as if they had expected no more.

  “And where is Stig?” I asked carelessly, for he was not among them.

  “Out and about,” Starkad shrugged. “You know him.”

  “Well, I’ve one piece of good news at any rate,” I said, and told them how we would feast at the jarl’s hall that night. Which bucked them up considerably, until Bald Brodd complained that he, for one, was ashamed to visit a noble hall in the rags he had on. And though the others protested that they would go stark naked through the middle of town for a horn of beer, I knew that secretly they felt the same way.

  Just then we were hailed by a voice from the dock.

  Peering from under the flap of the awning, I saw a youth holding the reins of a pony cart in which, with some other baggage, was one large bundle tied up in a red cloak.

  “You, in the dismasted ship—are you Odd Thorvaldsson’s crew?”

  “We are.”

  “Well, Harald of Norway sends you this.”

  I went down to him and undoing a corner of the cloak, saw that it held articles of clothing.

  “Take these back to your master,” I said angrily, “and tell him that I’m his guest, not his man, and it’s not my custom to take gifts I can’t repay.”

  “Oh, now don’t come the great lord with me,” answered the youth. “I’m ordered to tell you from Dag Hringsson, if you should start in to ranting just as you are, that he begs you to accept it from Harald as amends for something or other, and from himself, too, out of respect for your pa which was the dear friend of his childhood. Now take it and have done, for I’ve more chores than this to do before I get my supper. The fancy dress is for you,” he added over his shoulder as he cracked his whip and wheeled his cart around.

  On the deck we spread the bundle out and saw it consisted of eleven white linen tunics, neatly stitched, with collar and cuffs of blue—one for each of my men. But for me, a costume the likes of which I had never before set eyes on, except that very day in the streets of the town. While the others looked on, I applied myself to its mysteries.

  First, I exchanged my tattered breeches for the trousers. These were of white linen, striped with blue, and cut so full you could have hidden a bushel in each leg. With them came a pair of red-dyed leather boots of amazing softness. I tucked the trousers in, letting them hang over at the knees.

  Next I approached the coat. It was of fine blue wool, with a high collar, long close-fitting sleeves, and a very full skirt. The puzzling feature was that it was entirely unfastened down the front.

  Were there pins somewhere?

  “By the Raven!” howled Einar, “What a bumpkin! D’you see the little knobs? These here, on the edge. Now d’you see those little slits opposite ’em. Well? Don’t stand a-gaping at me, just push the knobs into the slits—it’s all the fashion out here!”

  My fingers were sausages. The little knobs escaped me as I grasped them, the little slits winked at me. By dint of much cursing, I succeeded at last in connecting one knob with one slit, and after a deal more cursing, showed myself finally to Einar.

  “No … no….” he rubbed his chin, “you’ve gone wrong somewhere. She’s crooked. Have at ‘er again.”

  “By the gods, Tree-Foot, d’you mean to say men do this every day?”

  “Stand still,” said Starkad, chuckling, “ten bumpkins may succeed where one failed—we’ll put you to rights.”

  They set upon me all together, turning me this way and that, encouraging each other with shouts, fumbling and fastening and unfastening, and all of us laughing so hard that the tears rolled down our cheeks.

  “What a pretty sight.”

  Stig stood swaying on the gangplank, a wine jug under his arm and his face fiery red.

  Their hands drew back from me.

  “Oh boys, isn’t it an elegant, isn’t it a popular captain that we have!” His voice was thick and ugly.

  “Steersman, you were told to stay by the ship.”

  “Was I now? Not my way, Captain—not old Stig’s way at all.”

  Stig, don’t do this! I pleaded silently, but said aloud, “There’s a clean shirt for you, a present from the boy on the Neva. It seems he’s King Olaf’s half-brother. We’re dining with him tonight.”

  He looked at the shirt and he looked at me. “Well, damn all,” he breathed, “you do work fast. I’ve never seen the likes of you. A nobleman’s rig for you, who would have sunk him if you could, and this bit of stuff for me who saved him from it!” He moved the shirt with his toe. “Am I ordered to this feast?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then excuse me to King-bloody-Olaf’s half-brother and just tell him that old Stig has lost his appetite in recent days—has had it taken clean away, so to speak—with disappointment.” He tipped up the jug and the red wine ran down his chin and throat.

  “I’ll tell him you were too drunk to walk! Follow me the rest of you.”

  For a long moment they stood frozen where they were. Then the Nidaros and Jumne men slouched to the gangway. Brodd went with them. “Empty belly wins the argument,” he growled as he passed in front of Stig.

  But Starkad stood by his friend, unmoving.

  I turned on my heel and left them.

  †

  As the sun was setting, we arrived at the gate of Jarl Ragnvald’s stone hall. Inside, the dining room was ablaze with torches and a great throng was assembled, with all the merry noise of feasting. Ragnvald was not, at any rate, a stingy host. I told the men to find places where they could, and catching sight of Harald’s head above all the rest, steered for it.

  Dag saw me coming and made room beside him at the long table. He, like Harald and the jarl and most of the other men there, was wearing the same outlandish costume as I, though theirs were more adorned with fur trim and jewelry.

  Jarl Ragnvald sat on Dag’s other side with his wife and his younger son, and opposite them, Harald, with a number of others, including a priest. Ragnvald, without putting down the bone he was gnawing, mumbled introductions while making a point of not remembering my name.

  The Unnatural Weed was looking pleased with himself. After I had thanked him for his generosity to my men and me, he said, “I trust your luck was as good as ours today, Odd Thorvaldsson. With the jarl’s help, we have purchased excellent gifts for Prince Yaroslav and his wife.”

  He waved an arm at a couple of servants who stood along one tapestried wall. They approached, one holding a box and one a cage.

  “For the Princess,” he said
, “a silver reliquary. She’s a lady of great piety, I’m told, and collects relics with a passion. And this for Yaroslav.” In its wicker cage, a young snow-white gyrfalcon strutted and mantled, shaking the silver bells of its jesses. “She’s a fine specimen, isn’t she! Come all the way from Greenland, I think.”

  “Or Iceland,” I replied. “We breed them, too, and sell them far and wide.”

  “Are you a falconer then?”

  “No, not I.”

  “But your father could fly a bird,” Dag struck in. “I wonder he never taught you.”

  “Could he? I didn’t know. My father in his later years—gave up many of his interests.”

  “Gave?”

  “He’s recently dead.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear it. I expect he’s sorely missed.”

  Then, of course, it was necessary to tell the story—though not quite the whole of it. I doubted they would care to hear how the Christmen’s religion had unmanned him; how Black Thorvald had turned blacker still in anger until the heart in him was as dead as an old coal. Not for this pious hall that bitter tale. But as shortly as I could, I told of the feud with Hrut, my outlawry at the Althing, my father’s sudden death, and the slaughter of my family.

  Dag looked distressed. “Icelanders,” he sighed. “You’re a quick and lively people. I’ve always had a fondness for you. But by God, you’re prickly, litigious, and bloody-minded. Feuding will be the ruin of you all one day.”

  “So now you lead a viking’s life!” said Harald with enthusiasm. “Christ, don’t I envy you! My brother Olaf was a viking before he decided to be King of Norway. It calls to me, too, I can tell you. Might you have an adventure for us? We would gladly hear it.”

  I had made up my mind that a man among strangers should listen much and say little, and I had said more than I meant to already. But Harald would not be put off, and so I told them how we had fared to Finland and what befell us there. All along the table, conversation died down as people paused to listen to my tale of Louhi and her garden of heads.