Odin’s Child

by Bruce Macbain

  “Ragnvald? And what small service are you performing now?”

  “Only to obtain promise from you, and in return to give, shall we say, indication of his high regard.”

  “I can’t say I noticed his high regard much yesterday.”

  The slave dealer clapped his hands in delight. “Ah! Ha, ha! That is very good! You are ignorant of the ways of courts, my friend. That much is plain. Jarl’s interest in you, of course, is not something he wishes to show openly, and so he employs me.”

  “I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about, but it’s time I was going, I’m feeling sick actually—”

  “No, no, please, not yet. Listen carefully now. Is concerning this young upstart, Harald, and that one called Dag Hringsson who advises him. On his cousin’s behalf Jarl is very troubled and thinks it would be useful—how plainly must I say it?—useful to know beforehand what are their intentions toward young Magnus, their schemes for seizing throne of Norway, other things, too, perhaps. And of course, a skald would know such things, yes?”

  He let the thought hover between us, while his fingers slid into the leather purse that hung at his belt. The coins which he drew out glowed in the lamplight, and he dropped them one by one into my lap until twelve gold ounces lay there.

  “Weigh them, bite them, sir, please.”

  It’s wonderful what gold does to the mind. Its power over us doesn’t strike home until one holds a quantity of it in his hands and feels the weight and warmth of it.

  “From Ragnvald?”

  “He has taken liberty of anticipating his cousin’s wishes. By time you reach Novgorod she will know who you are.”

  “So this is the price of a skald’s honor—forgive my ignorance.”

  A feeling rose in me that was part anger and part awe. That all this had been arranged between dinner and breakfast by a man who had done nothing but scorn me the whole evening long. I felt as though I’d grown suddenly older. I wanted time to think.

  “Master Stavko, to whom would I give this information which is worth so much gold?”

  “Ah, well, jarl’s eldest son, Eilif, is always at court. And I myself am often there—I keep shop in Novgorod and another one in Kiev, my trade takes me everywhere. Anyone can tell you where to find house of Stavko Ulanovich and,” he winked broadly, “no one will wonder why you ask, ha! Or, you will perhaps by invited to speak with Princess, herself.”

  “Are you acquainted with her, Master Stavko?”

  “Alas, only from distance.”

  “She’s quite a formidable old dragon, I gather.”

  “Dragon! What makes you say such a thing?”

  What had? I wondered, aside from the impression made on me by her cousin, the Jarl.

  “Then she has beauty?”

  “Beauty!” he snorted. “Beauty is cheap article, I trade in it every day. Princess Ingigerd has much more than that—nor is she so very old, either, except in wit and shrewdness. But come now, friend skald, have we arrangement or no?”

  Twice now in the space of a few hours, I thought wonderingly, someone has tried to tamper with my loyalty to bumptious young Harald before it is even a fact. Dag besieges me with reasons and the jarl with gold—both arguments, in their way, eloquent, though Ragnvald’s somewhat blunter. Perhaps I had underestimated the boy. And a thing worth being bribed for may be worth the doing—if not precisely in the manner intended.

  “Stavko Ulanovich, you may tell the jarl we have a bargain.”

  He heaved a sigh and hugged me again. Then, holding me at arm’s length, he warned, “Sew gold in your coat lining and mention this to no one, you understand?”

  “Of course.”

  It was a choice that would leave its mark on me forever and yet I made it so lightly, almost with no effort of the will at all. I would go with Harald to Gardariki. Once said, I couldn’t think why I had hesitated so long. There was no going on with the Viper. I didn’t like to admit it, but it was so. While here was a new world just beyond the tip of my nose—farther from home, it’s true, but sometimes we must go the long way round to reach our destination.

  Stavko, wiping his perspiring head, threw himself back against the bolster. “And now, my good friend, on to pleasanter business.”

  He crooked his little finger and the sleeping cats stirred. With slow grace they unwound themselves from their cushions, stretched, arching their necks and shoulders, raised themselves joint by joint, and padded silently forward to be admired.

  “Feel them,” Stavko chuckled softly at my elbow, “examine them, don’t hurry.”

  They were short and tall, wide-hipped and narrow, big-breasted and small. They stood flat on their bare feet, with their arms loose at their sides, making no move to cover their nakedness, their faces were perfect blanks.

  “Jumayah, my pearl, is not for sale. But others—Pechenegs, Chuds, Volhynians, Finns, even Greek.” He pointed out each in turn.

  “Ah, it hurts me to part with single one, I am so very fond of them. But how they eat! I would soon be a pauper if I let my feelings guide me. And I am poor enough, for I am an honest merchant, not one of those thieves who sell sick slaves for healthy and pregnant girls for virgins. No, my friend, I am happiest when customer thinks he has taken advantage of me. Now, my friend, choose. A man of your importance—of your wealth, if I may say so—should have little girl to love him and care for him, no?”

  I could not tear my eyes away from one thin figure whose yellow hair hung to her waist.

  “Friend Stavko, shall I tell you something about slaves you may not have noticed, though they’re your stock in trade? I say it with good warrant, having lately been one myself. They don’t love you.”

  He started to protest.

  “How much for the little Finn?”

  “What? That one? Oh, no, no, no. Not for you. No, is good girl but inexperienced, moody sometimes. A man like you—”

  “How much?”

  “Why—ah—half a silver mark?”

  I tossed one of his gold pieces at him. “Change it for silver.”

  He rummaged in the cushions behind him for his scales and his strongbox, while I told the girl in Finnish to dress herself.

  Taking the fistful of coins he handed me, and shoving them in my wallet, I said, “No doubt we will meet again, Stavko Ulanovich,” and departed, leaving him with his mouth open.

  Outside, a blast of frigid air brought me back with a shock to the world of everyday. I was suffering with chills already and now my bones began to shake. But I gripped the girl by her shoulders and searched her with my eyes. She was taller, maybe a little older, not as pretty, her chin not as strong or her forehead as high. But her eyes, slanting and green as sea water—yes, they were her eyes.

  The memory of my nightmare leaped back with all the overpowering feeling that a suddenly remembered dream can have and for an instant I hardly knew where I was.

  “Who are you, girl? Are you Kalevalan?”

  The green eyes, seeing something frightening in mine, widened a little. She stammered the name of some strange tribe.

  And I felt suddenly a great sadness overcome me.

  “You aren’t her, are you? Not her little ghost come back to comfort me, to tell me my future with the all-knowingness of the dead. If only you were!”

  She fixed her eyes on the ground, clutching one thin hand in the other, fearing, I suppose, a beating for some unknown fault.

  “Still, who can say? May you not be a good omen for me anyway?” I took her face between my hands and kissed her, a lingering kiss, shutting my eyes against the memory of Ainikki, who had died because I’d been too late.

  “You’re free, girl, run far and fast!” I pressed a silver penny into her hand and closed her fingers on it. Without a word or a backward look, she bolted down the lane and in a moment was gone.

  I stood for some time staring after her. Then, too restless to stay still, I waited out the hours until evening, pacing the streets and alleys of the town.


  †

  That night we gathered once again in Ragnvald’s hall. “Odd Thorvaldsson, will you accept from me the place of skald and first of all skalds in my hird, to ride with me, fight with me, and stand always at my right hand?”

  Harald stood with Ragnvald on one side of him and Dag and I on the other, and addressed me in a voice that carried over the noise of feasting to the farthest corner of the jarl’s stone hall.

  Drawing his long sword, he placed on its tip an arm-ring of silver, cunningly carved in the shape of a coiled serpent biting its tail, and held it toward me. “The weight of this ring is eight marks and the value of it two-and-thirty milch cows. It is very old, having been taken from the Irish by my father’s father.”

  Up and down the tables went grunts of admiration for the worthy gift.

  I drew Wound-Snake and held it out before me so that the points of our two swords touched. “Wolf-Crammer, Feeder-of-Ravens, Ring-Giver,” I answered him, using all the ancient kennings for a chieftain or a king, “I take the ring.”

  It passed from the point of his sword to the point of mine, singing as it slid along my blade and ringing on the hilt. I took it off and clasped it around my arm while cheers went up all around.

  I was Harald’s man.

  Dag clapped an affectionate arm around me, and Ragnvald, smiling blandly, raised his drinking horn. At another table Stavko, too, lifted his cup. Each one of them believed that I played his game and all were wrong.

  I played no game but my own.

  †

  Earlier that day, as soon as they had returned from the hunt, I had sought out Harald in the stables and taken him aside, shown him Ragnvald’s gold and even pressed him to take it for himself. As I expected, though he eyed it longingly, he couldn’t, with honor, accept money from a man of lesser rank than himself. (I had kept back a portion of it anyway, just in case.) But the result was that he trusted me now as he might never have done otherwise. And that, I reckoned, would be worth a good deal more to me in times to come than the scant gratitude of the jarl and his royal cousin.

  About Dag, I said nothing. I’d made him no promises, whatever he thought, and saw no reason to embitter Harald against him. For all I knew, his advice was well worth having. But if I offered it to Harald I would do so openly, for I would be straight with my new lord for as long as it suited me to be his man at all.

  †

  We drank deep that night, skald and lord, sitting together on a bench, holding plump girls on our laps and shaping verses to the music of the harpers. My chills were drowned in the heat of mead and wine, and excitement drove me beyond the limits of my strength.

  Harald’s not a bad sort, I thought contentedly, once you’ve learnt the trick of managing him. And who knows what glorious adventures we two may share? Why, he reminds me a bit of my reckless brother, Gunnar—and what a good fellow he was!

  Tomorrow we would sail up the river to Novgorod. My nerves hummed like harp strings.

  But there was still one sad duty to perform.

  †

  I awoke next morning in the Jarl’s hall, where I had stayed the night, to find that my chills had turned to fever. My face was burning and my throat parched, but telling myself that I had no time to be sick, I drank several long draughts of cold water and splashed more of it on my chest and face and felt a little better.

  Dressed and breakfasted, though I could eat very little, I made my way alone down to the dock where the Viper lay.

  They watched me as I mounted the gangplank. Their new shirts were already soiled and their faces were pinched with hunger and cold.

  “I have something to say to you all—”

  “No, we have something to say to you,” Starkad burst out in a barely controlled fury. He was their spokesman. “We can’t go on like this, Odd Tangle-Hair, living like wharf rats, stealing our grub from the market place like common thieves. If there’s nothing for us here, then let us, for the love of God, put to sea again and find some village or farm to loot. We’d a lot rather die that way, if it comes to it. Now we put it to you—we must have a captain and a steersman again. Make up with Stig and do it now, whatever you have to say to him, say it, because now he just—well, you see for yourself. Dammit Odd—!”

  I looked at Stig. He was sitting on a sea chest as though he were all alone in the world, not moving, his eyes focused on nothing. A wine jug lay in his lap, though it was early morning still, and a soapstone mug of the kind they sold in the market place was in his hand. The irritating youth, Bengt, looking smug and important, sat beside him, though Stig paid him no attention.

  “No, Starkad,” I said, “it’s no use. It can’t be made up. There will always be a coolness between us, and a crew divided is no crew at all.”

  “And so?”

  “And so one must leave.”

  With sudden violence Stig spat out a mouthful of wine. “One must leave!” he bellowed at me. “You’ve found the stomach to say it straight out at last? One must leave, Odd Tangle-Hair? Well, don’t trouble yourself about it. I could fight you for this ship and win. You know I could. But I won’t do it—that’s how little I care! I’m a footloose man, and the company here begins to stink in my nostrils. One must leave, is it?” He thumped the hollow sea-chest and laughed, “Why, bless me, here I am packed already.”

  “The one to leave will be me.”

  He shut his mouth and stared. They all did.

  “Leave the Viper?” Starkad said softly after a long moment’s silence.

  Before I replied, I ran my eye along the length of her. She was sorely battered but her lines were still lovely and her sinews strong.

  “I never hope to sail a trimmer ship—but yes, Starkad, and all of you, I leave her to you. And for the refitting of her, take this.” I poured into his hands all the gold that Stavko had tried to bribe me with. “There’s enough here, I reckon, to keep you fat over the winter. And when summer comes, then sail out and plunder to your heart’s content! But first, you must choose a captain for yourselves. And it’s no matter to me whom you pick, but if I were in your place, I would trust my life to no other hands than Stig’s. And so, old friends, good bye.”

  Einar Tree-Foot stood apart from the others, stiffly erect and looking straight ahead.

  “Jomsviking,” I said, “have you fared as far as Novgorod in your time?”

  “I have not.”

  “All the same, I’d be glad of your company.”

  He answered with the merest nod, but his old cheeks colored.

  With Einar beside me I turned to mount the gangplank. My foot was on the step when Bengt sneered in a loud whisper, “Young fool and old fool!” I rounded on him just in time to see Stig’s hand, which held the stone mug, fly out to the side and catch Bengt in the teeth and Bengt roll backwards, choking, onto the deck.

  And Stig—Stig looked away into the distance as though nothing at all had happened, and smiled, just for a moment, with the corner of his mouth.

  Stig, who had helped me to steal Strife-Hrut’s ship and escape from Iceland; Stig, who had taught me navigation and seamanship; Stig, who had been everywhere and knew everything worth knowing. It was thanks to him—and I knew it—that I stood here now, skald to a king’s brother and on the verge of great adventures.

  I lifted my cap and made him a low bow.

  Then Einar and I swung down the gangplank and away.

  Post Scriptum

  Skalholt, the Cathedral November 19, Anno Domini 1077

  I, Teit the Deacon, write these words alone in my bed chamber. It is late and a winter storm howls outside my window. I have tried to pray, but can’t. It is a week since I returned from Odd Thorvaldsson’s farm, from that smoke-blackened hall under the volcano where the crazy old man lives like a hermit—no, not a hermit, like an animal. Because hermits are of God, but he is the Devil’s creature. My dear father, Bishop Isleif, gives me worried looks and asks me if I am well. Am I? In body perhaps, but not in soul. And it is his fault. It was his idea that
we should interview the old man, collect his reminiscences of the late King Harald of Norway.

  Some seven years ago, the old man returned to Iceland, rowing up from the coast alone in a small boat. He was skin and bone, say his neighbors, and near dead from exposure. And though he spoke to no one, rumors swirled around him: that as a young man he had served with Harald in the Empire of the Greeks, and had returned with fabulous riches, which he buried beneath his floor. And that he was a heathen sorcerer, like his father before him.

  “Never fear, my boy,” said my father, always the optimist. “We’ll get the old fellow to talk.”

  I was against it from the start, but my father has a way of getting what he wants. We came armed with food and a cask of ale, with sheaves of second-quality parchment, with pens and pots of ink. But when days stretched into a week, and the old man had not even mentioned Harald’s name, insisting upon telling us his story before anyone else’s, my father decided that he must return to Skalholt. “Keep him talking, my boy,” he said, “and write it all down because it’s not without some interest, the old fellow’s life. These were our forefathers, after all.” And with a cheery wave of his hand he left me alone with the madman, as winter closed in.

  I stood it for another two weeks. Two weeks in which Odd Tangle-hair, as he calls himself (though the hair is now only a fringe of white) wove his life around me. No, sucked me into it is a better image, talking by the hour, while my inky fingers struggled to keep up, pouring out his tale of blasphemy and lechery and sorcery; of blood and lust. Filled with lies, of course, for who could believe half of what he says? It’s all boasting and conceit. At last, thank God, the old man fell ill, coughing until he couldn’t speak. And I made my escape, taking the pages with me.

  I told myself that once safely home, those three weeks would pass like the shadow of a dream.

  I was wrong.

  On my first night under my own blankets, I dreamt such wicked things as I could never confess, even to my dear father. I am the same age now as the old man was when his tale began. And I feel my own blood stirring, though I fight against it. All through these last days, up to the moment of this writing, while I assist at mass, while I pore over the Lives of the blessed martyrs, even, God forgive me, while I kneel in prayer, always and everywhere the specter of Odd Tangle-Hair haunts me.