The Road to Vengeance

by Judson Roberts

  A small pair of blackened iron scissors—my mother had had a similar pair—hung by a cord from her belt. The old woman unhooked them, and held them out in her palm for me to see.

  “You did not kill them,” she said. “I cut the threads of their lives. You were just an instrument.” But the faces of the men ignored her and kept whispering, “You killed me, you killed me.”

  The sound of someone approaching startled me from my thoughts. I stepped behind a tree, hoping to remain unseen. I had no wish for company.

  A voice called out, “Halfdan, are you here?” It was Einar. I stepped forward and let him see me.

  “I was looking for you after the sacrifice,” he told me, as he drew near. “Torvald said he saw you coming this way.” He studied my face for a moment, then said, “You look troubled.”

  “Do you ever dream of men you have killed?” I asked him. “Do they ever visit you in your sleep?”

  He shook his head. “I have not killed that many men. And the ones I have killed deserved to die. Their deaths do not trouble me.”

  I wondered why he thought the sentries we had killed deserved to die. They were merely doing their duty, trying to protect their own comrades and people. And what of the Frankish warriors who had been hung this day? They had laid down their weapons and surrendered, believing we would spare their lives if they did. Why did they deserve to die?

  “I do not know what I am doing here,” I told Einar. “I swore to try and avenge my brother’s death. Why am I here, killing men whose names I do not know, whose faces I do not recognize, who had nothing to do with Harald’s murder? I loved Harald, but how can anyone’s death, even his, be worth all the blood I have spilled?”

  Einar stared at me in silence for a time, peering into my eyes as if trying to read the thoughts behind them. “You have changed greatly since the first time we met,” he finally said.

  Had I? Even then, he had called me a “rare killer.” Somehow, even at our first meeting, he must have seen into my heart; he must have seen in me what I was to become.

  “None of us can choose our own fate,” he continued. “We are but men. Rarely can we even understand what role our lives play in the great pattern that the Norns are weaving. We can but face the twisted paths our lives follow with as much courage and honor as we are capable of.

  “You do not seek to avenge just one death. Others died with Harald. My own kinsman, Ulf, fought and died beside him, and you have also sworn to avenge the deaths of the innocents, the women and children whose safety Toke falsely promised. You have pledged, on your own honor, to avenge the infamous deeds of one who has no honor. You have pledged to rid this world of a Nithing—one who is neither beast nor man. That is no small thing.”

  I shook my head. “How does that justify all I have done? Only a stone’s throw from here, in that thicket over there, I killed a man with whom I had no quarrel. How did that killing honor my oath?”

  “You are just a man, Halfdan,” Einar replied. “Why do you expect to understand the ways and plans of the Norns? Everything happens for a reason. Although to you, at this moment, your path seems to have strayed far from your purpose, you must trust fate. Your time here in Frankia, and all that you have done—including killing that Frank, and the two others, in these woods—were steps carrying you forward along the road to your vengeance.”

  The funeral feast was held that night on the center of the island in the Seine where our encampment had been set up. I was glad when darkness fell and the great oak tree out on the plain was no longer visible. Until the night hid them, the grim fruit that hung from its branches could still be seen swaying slightly in the breeze.

  A bonfire had been built atop the low hill forming the high point of the island, and a number of tables of various shapes and sizes had been set up around it for the chieftains to dine on. I supposed the tables, benches, and chairs had been taken from the nearby Frankish village, whose inhabitants had fled when they saw their army defeated. The rest of the army, grouped together by ships’ companies, were seated on the ground at smaller fires scattered around the base of the hill.

  The crew of the Gull were gathered seated or lying around two cook fires we’d built. Numerous Frankish horses had been captured in the battle, and a number of them had been slaughtered earlier in the day to provide fresh meat for the feast. Casks of very fine Frankish ale, looted from a monastery downstream from Ruda that our army had sacked, had also been provided to every crew.

  “Ragnar paid for this,” Torvald told me, patting his hand appreciatively on the cask propped beside our fire. “He bought them all from the warriors who took the monastery where they were brewed. He has provided the feast ale for our entire army.” I wondered if Ragnar thought the army’s good will could be regained so easily.

  I had eaten my fill, and drunk enough to dull my mind sufficiently so it was no longer possessed with images of men kicking and jerking as they choked to death. I did not feel in a celebratory mood, though.

  Ragnar stood up beside the bonfire in front of the high chieftain’s table and addressed the army. When he began speaking again about how greatly the Gods had shown favor toward us, I stopped listening.

  Suddenly I realized Ragnar was calling out my name.

  “Halfdan!” he cried. “Where are you? Stand and come forward.”

  I was startled and did not move, wondering if perhaps it was some other Halfdan whom he summoned.

  Torvald, who by now was well into his cups, picked up a stick and threw it at me. “Get up,” he said, grinning broadly. “Go on, or are you too drunk to stand?”

  Slowly I rose to my feet. Seeing me rise, Ragnar called out, “Come forward. Stand here beside me, before the army.”

  When I reached the hill and took my place beside him, Ragnar placed one hand on my shoulder as if we were comrades. Then, in a loud voice, he continued the tale he had apparently been recounting.

  “Many of you may not realize how perilous was our position at the center of the shield-wall. Three times the fierce Bretons attacked us there, and so many of our warriors fell before their fire that our line grew thin. In their final attack, the Franks threw their entire reserve against our center, striking at our banners and seeking to slay Jarl Hastein and me. The Frankish army’s commanders knew that rare is the army that will not break if its leaders are slain.

  “For a time, in the center, the Franks had as close a chance to grasp victory as did we. The Frankish cavalry hacked more than one breach in our shield-wall. Many fine warriors, many fine comrades to us all, were slain trying to hold our line. But though fierce we fought, and many Franks fell, still more and more of the enemy pressed toward our standards.

  “Torgeir, my standard bearer, fell with a Frankish spear through his heart. I myself was thrown to the ground by the charge of a mighty Frankish champion. He tried to trample me beneath the flailing hooves of his warhorse, and with his sword he hacked at my standard, trying to bring the Raven banner down.”

  Ragnar paused for a moment and stood silently, looking back at the upturned faces watching him raptly. He was, I had to admit, a skilled tale-teller.

  “There is a prophecy,” he continued, in a voice so quiet that men in the back of the assembly had to lean forward and strain to hear, “that a witch-woman once made about me. She said that I will not die until the raven falls. I have a raven that I raised from a chick. It has shared my home and followed me on my travels for many years. I have always believed it was this bird whom the witch-woman spoke of. But when I saw the Frankish champion’s long blade chopping at my Raven banner, the witch-woman’s words echoed in my mind and I could feel the shears of the Norns brushing against the threads of my life. I could hear the approaching hoof beats of the Valkyries.”

  Ragnar turned and took something from the table where he’d been seated and held it high overhead for all to see. It was an arrow. One of my arrows. I recognized it from the color and pattern of the thread securing the fletching to the shaft.

  �
��But for this slender shaft,” he told the listening warriors, “your war-king would have been burned this day with the rest of our dead on the funeral pyre. This arrow, shot strong and true, struck down the Frank who sought to slay Ragnar and fell the Raven banner. And the same strong bow shot the fiery arrow high above the field of battle to signal mighty Ivar that the time had come for his fierce warriors to fall upon the Frankish rear and crush their army against our shield-wall.”

  “Halfdan,” he cried, turning back to me. “This is your arrow, is it not?”

  “It is,” I replied.

  “Halfdan Strongbow, take back your arrow, for we have enemies yet to fight. And accept this token of my gratitude, and of the honor you are due.”

  Ragnar slipped a torque from his arm. It was made of three thick wires of gold twisted together like a rope, capped on either end with intricately cast golden dragon heads. It was far more valuable than any single item I had ever seen, much less owned.

  Ragnar hung the torque on the arrow and extended both to me. When I took them from him, and slipped the torque on my own arm, he shouted, “Hail, Strongbow!”

  All around the hill, the warriors of the Danish army roared their approval, echoing, “Strongbow! Strongbow!” While the army shouted and cheered enthusiastically around us, Ragnar spoke to me in a quiet voice. For once, his eyes did not look cold or angry as they gazed upon me, though they held no warmth, either.

  “I am in your debt, young Halfdan,” he said. “In more ways than you may realize. It is no small thing. Some day you may find my gratitude more valuable even than this torque.”

  I felt dazed. In the back of my mind, I recalled Hastein telling me of Ragnar’s need to distract the army from its anger. I knew this had been as much for his benefit as for mine. Yet I had been honored by our war-king before the entire army.

  Ragnar was continuing his tale of the battle. Behind me, I heard a voice calling “Halfdan!” It was Hastein, who was seated at the high chieftain’s table with Ivar and Bjorn. He was holding an ornate drinking horn, decorated with silver at the tip and around the mouth. “Come around here,” he said. “I wish the army to see that this night you sit at my right hand.”

  Hastein made a place for me beside him on the bench. When I took my seat, he held the horn out and Cullain, who was hovering behind him, filled it with ale from a cask at the end of the table.

  “To a life filled with honor and glory. You have made a good start this day,” Hastein said. “You have won a name for yourself, from a great war-king.” He drank a long draught from the horn, then handed it to me.

  “To honor and glory,” I echoed and drank from the horn. I held it out for Hastein to take back, but he shook his head.

  “This horn is fit for a hero,” Hastein told me. “It is yours—a gift from me.”

  Ivar raised his own cup. “Hail, hero,” he said, a sardonic smile on his lips and slightly glazed look in his eyes, and drank.

  Hastein continued, “It was a fortunate day for me when the Norns caused the threads of our lives to cross. I am well aware that Ragnar is not the only one whose life you probably saved. I, too, am in your debt.”

  “To the many debts you are owed,” Ivar said, his voice beginning to sound slurred. He drank again.

  Bjorn, who had been silent until now, looked at Ivar disgustedly. “Must you mock everyone and everything, brother?” he said. “It is not Halfdan’s fault our army is no longer strong enough to attack Paris.”

  “Ah, yes,” Ivar said. “That, in truth, is the pity of all this. Capturing Paris would have been my idea of a great victory.”

  Ivar’s words called to mind what Einar had said to me earlier that afternoon. “Everything happens for a reason,” he’d told me. And I also recalled the last conversation I had had with Genevieve.

  “Perhaps,” I told him, “there is a way.”

  10 : Paris

  An owl hooted nearby, and was answered by another in the distance. The woods were otherwise silent, except for the muffled sound of hooves on the thick mat of fallen leaves that covered the forest floor, and the panting of horses ridden hard all night.

  There were five hundred of us, mounted on Frankish cavalry steeds captured in the battle. Another hundred of our warriors, led by Ragnar himself, were cutting across country on the far bank of the river. We’d ridden east all night, as fast as we could push the horses. It was essential that we reach Paris by dawn.

  Over three days’ time, we’d ferried horses across the Seine to the south bank of the river. Frankish scouts had initially watched from a safe distance—ever since the battle and the sacrifice of the prisoners, they had been reluctant to draw near. But during the afternoon of the first day, Ragnar and Hastein had sent out strong patrols of mounted warriors to drive the scouts away and establish a screen of mounted pickets. After that, we’d finished the crossing and readied our army for its strike upriver free from watching eyes.

  Ships bearing the rest of our army would follow as swiftly as they could. Bjorn, whom Ragnar had left in command of the fleet, understood the need for speed. But every ship was undermanned due to losses in battle and the large number of warriors detailed to this overland attack. It would be at least a day after our initial assault before the fleet could join us in Paris. It would be up to us—our small, mounted attack force—to take and hold the town. If our plan failed—if we lost the element of surprise or our attack was repelled by Paris’s defenders—we would be deep within the land of our enemies and badly outnumbered.

  I rode beside Hastein and Ivar at the head of the column. Hastein and the fifty warriors he would lead during the attack were disguised in captured Frankish armor and shields, most of which had been taken from Franks slain in the battle. Because I’d previously taken my armor from a Frank I’d killed, I already looked the part I needed to play.

  Hastein hoped to be able to penetrate at least some distance into the town before its citizens realized they were under attack. All of us fighting under Hastein’s command had tied strips of red cloth around our sword arms, so our comrades could recognize us during the assault and not mistake us for Franks. Ivar and the rest of our warriors were not disguised—they would not commence their own attack until after Hastein was in position.

  I wondered if Genevieve would be in the church, the one she’d told me of, when we attacked. It seemed likely. She’d said the church was located at the abbey where she and the other nuns lived. If they were servants of their God, surely they would be in his temple during the feast day’s ceremony of worship.

  She had called the feast Easter. It was the day when the Christians celebrated their God, the White Christ, rising from the dead. Fortunately Ragnar had not sacrificed all of the Frankish prisoners we’d captured in the battle. When I’d questioned them, they had been able to tell us on which day the Easter feast would be held.

  The night was still black, though dawn was not far distant, when we passed just to the south of yet another long, looping bend in the river. We’d ridden past several such turns during the night, and at the sight of each my anxiety had increased. Each serpentine twist and turn of the river would add to the time it would take our ships to reach us. The closer we drew to Paris, the more I worried this plan was too risky. If it failed, I feared I would be blamed. I was beginning to wish I had said nothing to Ivar and Hastein about what Genevieve had told me of the Easter feast.

  Just before the course of the river swung away from us again heading sharply north in another bend, we struck a road leading east and followed it. A short distance farther on, the forest ended. Ahead of us, beyond a wide swath of open fields and pastures, loomed a large hill. Even in the dim light cast by the stars and moon, we could see the angular outlines of buildings covering its sides and top.

  Hastein held up his hand and our column halted. “Dawn will soon be upon us,” he said to Ivar and me. “We must conceal our men and horses farther back, among the trees of the forest. Halfdan, you know what to do.”

  I kne
w, but I did not like it. I had to ride alone into the Frankish town, and scout the locations we would attack. A solitary rider dressed like a Frankish warrior and speaking the Frankish tongue would raise no alarm. Or so Hastein believed. But if he was wrong….

  As I drew closer, I could see that the river curved in a great, sweeping loop around the base of the hill and the town that had been built upon its sides. Out in the river’s center, opposite the hill, a large island was connected to the shore by a bridge. It was the fortress Genevieve had described. A stone wall encircled the island. Above it peeked the tops of several tall buildings located within.

  Not far downstream from the island, on flat, open land near the river, a large building I judged to be a Christian temple towered above a sprawl of smaller buildings, orchards, and tilled fields, all enclosed by low stone walls. I suspected the complex was a monastery. Though I had never seen one before at such close range, Torvald had described them, and had pointed one out to me on our journey up the Seine River on the way to Ruda. Because of the riches they contained and their lack of defenses, they were his favorite target to attack when raiding. I remembered Genevieve had said there were several in Paris. This looked to be a large one. Ivar would be pleased.

  From what Genevieve had told us, I’d known that the town would not be surrounded by walls. I was still anticipating, though, that sentries would at least be guarding the roads leading into it. I’d been worrying what I would say when they stopped me. How would I brazen my way past them? What would they think about the unfamiliar accent with which I spoke their tongue?

  But there were no guards. How could these Franks be so complacent? Did they feel they were safe from attack because the vast encampment of their main army lay little more than a day’s ride to the west? Did they believe that their army could reach Paris before ours if our ships should head up river? Or were the folk of Paris entrusting its defense to Saint Genevieve and their God, as they had centuries ago when the Huns had threatened?