Odin’s Child

by Bruce Macbain

  We spoke a little then about Black Thorvald the viking. But he soon brought the conversation back round to Harald.

  “I’ve known him from a baby, you know. He and Olaf had the same mother, Asta, my kinswoman, though she bore them twenty years apart. She’s a strong woman and bred strong sons, but only Olaf was connected, through his father, to the Ynglings, the old royal line of Norway, descended from the god Frey.”

  “With the result that Harald was pushed into the background?”

  “Quite. His own father, Sigurd Sow, cared little for him. He was raised with Olaf’s brood of concubines’ children and bastards. It drove him wild being lumped with the likes of them. I can remember once seeing him—he was just a little thing, if you can imagine that—playing with wood chips in the pond and pretending they were so many dragon-ships under his command. Olaf and Asta happened by and Olaf laughingly remarked to her that she was raising up another king. No doubt he soon forgot the incident. Harald never did. It has made him—hard to deal with.”

  “And not helped any by his extraordinary size.”

  “Yes, that too. It’s forced him to play a man’s part too soon. It makes him less sure of himself, not more, feeling that older and shrewder eyes are always on him. And so he must always be proving something.”

  I replied that I’d had a taste of that already.

  “That silly business! I’m sorry—if I had been there—”

  “Weren’t you?”

  “No indeed. I came over from Sweden a month ago to—ah—sniff the air, so to speak, before Harald’s arrival. One can learn only so much from informants.”

  “And what have you learned?”

  “That we must step lightly—but let’s say no more about that just now. Harald, of course, bragged to me about what happened between you two in the river. Odd, there’s a kind of person who is willing to die to prove a point—even a very small point. Harald is one. He fought at Stiklestad, you know, because Olaf ordered him back. Trying to run you down when you wouldn’t make room for him was just more of the same.”

  “Meaning that because he comes to Gardariki with his cap in his hand we must all clear out of his way?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Men like that are dangerous, if they don’t kill themselves first.”

  “Aye,” he answered, “they are that. They may also grow to greatness. Do you know that the crewmen talk of nothing else. They idolize him for the sheer reckless stupidity of it, even though he might have stove in his own hull as easily as yours and sent some of them to the bottom.”

  Why, I thought with a pang, can’t my men idolize me for being equally a fool? I said, “That’s what worries you, Dag Hringsson, isn’t it? That he’s too much for you. That you can’t govern him.”

  He gave out a laugh and threw a friendly arm round my shoulders. “You’re quick to seize the point, Odd Tangle-Hair, I knew you would be. Let us say that it gets daily more difficult.”

  “Well, I wish you luck with him.”

  “But that’s what you and I must talk about.” He was instantly serious. “Won’t you take his offer of a place in the hird? To be a royal skald, Odd! A skald does more than just praise his lord. He shares his perils, performs missions in his name, and most important of all, advises him. He is his lord’s right hand. The skald of a great king is a great man himself, and his words live forever on the lips of poets. That must excite you!”

  “Maybe. Why me?”

  “Because he likes you. Dammit, I like you. I confess I had my doubts when you challenged us this morning—that was reckless. But the way you handled him tonight! There would have been murder done in another minute and ruin for us all. I couldn’t see how to stop it, but you did. Not many have that gift. Be his advisor, Odd. I and all the older heads were Olaf’s men before now, not his. He resents us. But his own man, someone nearer his own age—he’d listen to you.”

  “I’m no courtier. He’d profit little from my advice.”

  “The advice would, of course, be—weighed ahead of time.”

  “Ah. Then I wouldn’t be precisely his man…?”

  “We needn’t press the point too hard.”

  “I see. I’m sorry Dag Hringsson, your offer is kind but my present life—”

  “Don’t be an idiot!” he rounded on me with a violence that startled me. “I do nothing from kindness. The stakes are very high. I mean the crown of Norway.”

  “Norway belongs to the Danes.”

  “For the moment. You said yourself that they’re hated, while Olaf’s fame grows. The only question is who will pick up Olaf’s banner and drive them out—little Magnus the bastard, or Harald the half-brother? It must be one or the other, for Olaf fathered no sons with his queen. I’ve chosen to bet on Harald and I advise you to do the same. Don’t underestimate him just because he boasts—that’s the boy talking. There’s solid stuff underneath. He’s got Olaf’s energy without Olaf’s scruples. Where he begs today, tomorrow he’ll command—if, as you say, he lives long enough.”

  “All right, let it be so. Why should an Icelander care who rules Norway?”

  “Because you hope to go home someday with your outlawry lifted and your lands restored.”

  That brought me up short.

  “Odd, do you know what year this is as Christmen count them?”

  I thought for a minute. “One thousand and thirty?”

  “Thirty-one, actually. Time passes, Odd, by little and little, though we don’t notice it all at once. We live no more in the world of lawless chieftains and freebooters that your father and mine grew up in.”

  “So I’ve heard,” I said, remembering how Einar had laughed at us the night we told him that we wanted to be vikings.

  “All that is passing. This new world is a world of kings, and Christian ones at that—the Church being a friend to kings for good reasons of Her own. I spent years enough at Olaf’s court, as hirdman and friend, to learn that lesson. Ragnvald understands it, too, and the rest will learn it sooner or later.”

  I looked at him slyly and said it was a pity no one had explained that to the Tronder jarls.

  “Don’t be stupid on purpose! Every nobleman on that field was fastened to a leash whose other end was, and is still, in London. Olaf was beaten by Canute—another king. Now consider your country—torn by feuds, unable to grow enough grain to feed itself or enough timber to build its own ships. How many years’ grace do you think it has left? Depend upon it, Odd, the man who rules Norway will rule Iceland, too, one day. Only make sure that man is your friend and your enemies will crawl under fiery Hekla to escape you.”

  I began not to like this argument and said coolly that I would know how to deal with my enemies when the time came. “In the meantime my life suits me. I’ve a ship and a crew and I sail where I please,”—I said this with more ease than I felt—“and what would I be trading that for in Novgorod?”

  He shook his head and replaced the arm on my shoulder, for I had thrust it off. “How can I make you understand? You were lucky this time. You got away from the Finns with your life and a rousing good story, if nothing else. Fine. A boyish ambition fulfilled. But that sort of thing will never get you what you really want. If you want that, you must learn to take it from the hands of a king.”

  We had been standing for some time now on the dock where the Viper was moored. I turned to go up the plank but stopped and came back when a new thought struck me.

  “Friend Dag, a minute ago you said Harald was so stubborn a fellow that he was willing to die to prove even a trifling point. What makes you think I’m not one, too?”

  He looked embarrassed. “Well, Odd—I mean to say—on the Neva—someone had to have the sense to give way. And dammit, any sane captain would have done the same in your place.”

  So that was it. No one on Harald’s ship had heard Stig order my men to change course. They thought it was I who had blinked, who would, no doubt, blink again when given my marching orders. A safe, pliable sort of fe
llow to have for a cat’s paw. Well. Let that be my secret.

  “Good night, Dag Hringsson.”

  “Will you think about what I’ve said?”

  I lay awake for a long time that night.

  36

  A New Start

  The skulls on their stakes chatter all around me: “Too late … too late….” As fast as I push them down, more spring up—all chattering and whispering together: “He’s too late … Oh, too late….” Nearby, Ainikki runs this way and that, searching for me among the heads, crying my name. When I try to answer her, I choke and no sound comes. Tears run down my cheeks.

  Now Joukahainen leans against the doorway of Louhi’s Hall, silently laughing, and now he springs at my darling, catching her in his skeleton hands, which move like white spiders’ across her body. And now he is leading her to the sauna and she, hardly resisting, follows. Then suddenly, here is Lemminkainen, his mouth twisted in anger. “Traitor!” he screams at me, “You were too late!” And strikes my neck with his sword….

  “Odd Tangle-Hair! Wake up, now, wake up! There’s someone here to see you and says it can’t wait.” Einar jabbed me hard in the neck with his crutch.

  I moaned, still half in my dream, and with a great effort wrenched open my eyes.

  “Captain, it’s a woman.”

  I tried moving and found my limbs were stiff with cold, tried swallowing and found my mouth dry and my throat very sore. Sitting up on the deck, I shook off the last shreds of dreaming, pulled my cloak about me, and glowered at my visitor.

  “Khaptain Ott Thorvaldsson, called Tangle-Khair?”

  “Who are you?”

  “You khom wid me, please.”

  She was wrapped in a hooded caftan of gray wool that hid her face and covered her to her feet. Whoever sent her had taken pains that she not be molested along the way. She lifted the hood just enough to show why. Her skin was the color of honey, her eyes jet black with heavy lashes.

  “Khom, please.”

  “Pity the lass,” cackled Einar. “Likely, she’s seen you in the street and been smitten—young stallion such as you are! And Einar Tree-Foot’ll come along for company—”

  “No,” said the girl firmly, “only dis one.”

  “Heh?” He yanked his beard and scowled.

  I felt weak. Still, I got shakily to my feet, slapped the wrinkles from my clothes, and with a wink at Einar, bade my visitor lead on.

  A few steps away, Stig huddled under his cloak, watching me.

  Walking briskly ahead of me, the girl threaded a course through the jungle of pens and tents and open-faced shops where, even early on a wintry morning, the waterfront merchants of Aldeigjuborg were conducting their noisy trade.

  We came at last to a spreading tent, far larger than any of the others, in front of which a man sat on a low stool. Seeing me, he waved and called out, “Here I am sir, over here!”

  He was dressed in the local fashion, with billowing trousers over his boot tops, a long-skirted coat with shiny buttons, and on his head a shaggy fur hat.

  As the girl slipped past him into the tent, he trotted towards me, arms thrown wide, and pounced upon me with a wet embrace.

  “I am Stavko—Stavko Ulanovich, merchant, dealer in fine wares. I rejoice to see you, Odd Thorvaldsson, or Tangle-Hair—I may call you so?”

  “The invitation was hard to resist,” I answered, wrestling free of him. “Do you always entice your customers this way?”

  “What? Oh, no, no, no. No, you very special customer, very special. But come in, come inside where is comfortable, ah-ha-ha.”

  He had a trick of chuckling as he talked, ending every phrase with a string of little wheezes. I saw, too, that his hair hung down to his shoulders in greasy braids, weighted at the tips with lead balls, and that his face was round and sparsely bearded, with bulging eyes, upturned nose, and full lips. He licked them with the pink tip of his tongue.

  “Come into tent of Stavko and see—ah, what shall I call them? What makes young men old and old men young? Eh? Ha, ha!.”

  Grinning and chuckling, he propelled me through the open tent-flap. The entrance gave onto an antechamber, screened by a curtain from the larger space beyond. Pushing that curtain aside, he drew me inside. At first I was aware only of an enveloping blanket of warmth thrown off by heated stones that lay on a brazier.

  Then of odors: sweat and the bodily smells of lovemaking. And other scents, heavy and sweet, that I could not put a name to.

  Then of shapes: from the ridge-pole, a brass lamp swinging slowly to and fro that threw shifting patterns of light and shadow over the carpeted floor and the heaps of silken cushions.

  Coiled upon those cushions, limp as sleeping cats, were a dozen naked women.

  Pressing my arm, he chuckled, “You see, Odd Tangle-Hair—ha-ha—you see what Stavko sells?”

  He uttered some words in a strange tongue, quick and curt, and one of the women—the same who had just now fetched me from the ship—rose and crossed to where a little table stood with a brass tray upon it. While the slave-dealer pushed me down on a soft bolster and lowered himself beside me, the girl approached, dropped to her knees, and set the tray before us. Taking from it a flagon, she poured hot, honeyed wine into a cup and held it to my lips.

  “Nourishment, my friend,” laughed Stavko, “for belly and soul.”

  The girl was hung neck, wrist, and ankle with jewelry that chimed when she moved. Her fingertips were dyed red with henna and her body, in the soft glow of the lamp, had the oiled sheen of dark polished wood. Black hair spilled over her shoulders in lovelocks, through which her painted nipples showed.

  In short, she was quite simply a different being from the thick-ankled, raw-skinned, rough-and-ready beauties of Bergthora’s inn. Nothing in my young life had prepared me to think that anywhere within the circling stream of Ocean there breathed such a creature as this.

  The honeyed wine warmed me all the way to my stomach, the heat from the stones seeped into my aching joints, and the girl’s scent made my head swim. I rolled back against the cushions, feeling myself dissolve in relaxation.

  Surely, I thought, this is heaven, and Valhalla just a cheap alehouse with noisy guests.

  “Is she not beautiful, sir? Belly like velvet, hips like a storm at sea. Her name is Jumayah, an Egyptian from Alexandria, and my favorite of them all. But mount her. Allow her to please you.” He gave my arm an affectionate squeeze, almost, it seemed to me, as though he were assuring himself of the firmness of my flesh on the chance that I, too, might one day be for sale.

  “What d’you mean—now?”

  “Certainly now. I, myself, enjoy it most in morning—prepares mind for day’s business. Please,”—his pink tongue darted out and over his lips—“you need do nothing, girl knows what to do.”

  Still kneeling, she separated my knees, put her hand between my legs, and began to touch me through the fabric of my trousers. I swelled, and Stavko, beside me, breathed, “Oh, magnificent, sir, oh, most impressive—”

  “No!” I clapped my legs together and thrust her away.

  “What is it? What is wrong?” The bulging eyes widened in dismay, in shock, in absolute despair. “Ah! Forgive me! I am so stupid—is boy you want! But I can produce one instantly—beardless with soft skin and—”

  “Slaver, why was I brought here? Tell me at once or we say good-bye.” I made to stand up, but he held me by the sleeve of my coat.

  “Please, my good friend, please, you upset yourself for no reason. You were brought here on small matter of business—only that—but is too soon for talk.”

  “We have no business that I know of.”

  “So,” he sighed, loosening his grip on me just a little when he felt me hesitate, “you are new to our ways, not yet true Varangian. All right. Please. Be comfortable. We take wine and cakes and talk business, yes? Later, perhaps….” he smiled on Jumayah, and with a flick of his finger, sent her back to the sleeping cats.

  I let him draw me back onto th
e cushions and took another sip from the proffered goblet.

  “What was it you said just now that I am not, Master Stavko—a ‘Varangian?’ Isn’t that what they call the Eastern Sea hereabouts?”

  “Yes, quite right. Is also name we give to you Norse merchants and soldiers who come to Gardariki to seek fortune. Aldeigjuborg is thick with them, Novgorod even more. There they have their own quarter of city. Prince Yaroslav values them most highly—warriors especially.”

  “Vikings, in other words.”

  “The same.”

  “You’re not a Varangian, I take it, yet you speak our language.”

  “In my trade one speaks many languages—Rus, Wendish, Petcheneg, Bulgar, Greek—but my nationality, Rus—a Northman like yourself, except we are here longer time. You are ignorant of our history? I explain.

  “Long ago Rurik the Dane came with his tribe, the Rus, to rule over Novgorod. Slavs invited him, for they were unruly and wanted master to keep order amongst them. House of Rurik still reigns, Yaroslav being fifth in descent from him.

  “In time, of course, Rus and Slav mingle blood to where is only small difference between us now. Even most Rus nowadays barely speak Norse language. Disgraceful. But I—I speak very well, as proper Rus should, yes?”

  He was evidently proud of this, although, in fact, he spoke it wretchedly.

  “Prince Yaroslav, too, speaks very well language of old country,” he went on. “Of course, his mother was Danish.” He laughed and held up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Rus, Varangian, Slav! Is very confusing to newcomers. You will understand much better when you have been a while in Novgorod.”

  “Novgorod! Who’s said anything to you about that?”

  “What? Am I mistaken? You are not Icelander who was offered place in Harald Sigurdarson’s hird?”

  “I think it’s time, Master Stavko, for you to say what you want with me.”

  “Ah! Again I am stupid! I begin things always wrong way.” He leaned close, breathing anxiously into my face. “Is my pleasure, you see, to perform certain small services for Jarl from time to time….”