by Tim Severin
If I was to have a new tunic, I had to pay a tailor, and I believed I knew how to raise the money. Better still, I would be able to show my love for Aelfgifu.
When Thurulf had shown me the amber necklace with its missing crystals, I had immediately thought of my satchel. Closed deep in a slit in the thick leather where I had stitched them three years earlier were the five stones I had prised from an ornate bible cover in a fit of rage against the Irish monks who I felt had betrayed me, before I fled their monastery. I had no idea what the stolen stones were worth, but that was not the point. Four of the stones were crystals and they matched the stones missing from the necklace.
I suppose only someone so much in love as I was would have dreamed what I now proposed: I would sell the stones to Brithmaer. With the money from the sale I could repay my debt to Thurulf and still have more than sufficient to purchase new clothes for the banquet. Best of all, I was sure that once Brithmaer had the stones he would tell his craftsman to set them in the necklace. Then, at last, I would have some jewellery worthy to offer the queen.
With a silent prayer of thanks to Odinn I took down the satchel from its peg, slit open the hiding place and, like squeezing roe from a fish, pressed out the stones into the palm of my hand.
‘HOW MANY OF these do you have,’ asked Brithmaer. We were sitting in his private room at the rear of the exchange when I handed him one of the gleaming flat stones to inspect.
‘Four in all,’ I said. ‘They match.’
The mint master turned the stone over in his hand, and looked at me thoughtfully. Again I noted the guarded expression in his eyes. ‘May I see the others?’
I handed over three more stones, and he held them up to the light one by one. He was still expressionless.
‘Rock crystal,’ he announced dismissively. ‘Eye-catching, but of little value on their own.’
‘There’s a damaged necklace in the jewellery coffer which lacks similar stones. I thought that—’
‘I’m perfectly aware of what jewellery is in my inventory,’ he interrupted. ‘These may not fit the settings. So before I make you an offer I’ll have to check if they suit.’
‘I think you’ll find they are the right size,’ I volunteered.
I thought I detected a slight chill, a deliberate closeness in the glance that met this remark. It was difficult to judge because Brithmaer masked his feelings so well.
His next question was certainly one he asked every customer who brought in precious stones to try to sell.
‘Have you got anything else you would like me to take a look at?’
I produced the fifth of my stolen stones. It was smaller than the others and dull by comparison. It was a very deep red, nearly as dark as the colour of drying blood. In size and shape it resembled nothing so much as a large bean.
Brithmaer took the stone from me, and once again held it up to the daylight. By chance – or maybe by Odinn’s intervention – the winter sun broke through the cloud cover at that moment and briefly flooded the world outside with a luminous light, which reflected off the surface of the Thames and came pouring in through the window. As I looked at the little red stone held up between Brithmaer’s forefinger and thumb, I saw something unexpected. Inside it appeared a sudden vivid flicker of colour. It reminded me of an ember deep inside the ashes of a fire which feels a draught and briefly gives off a radiant glow that animates the entire hearth. But the glow the stone gave off was more alive. It travelled back and forth as if a shard from Mjollnir’s lightning flash when Thor throws his hammer lay imprisoned within the stone.
For the first and only time in my meetings with Brithmaer, I saw him drop his guard. He froze, hand in the air, for a moment. I heard a quick, slight intake of breath, and then he rotated the stone and again the interior lit up, a living red gleam flickering back and forth. Somewhere inside the jewel was a quality which rested until summoned into life by motion and light.
Very slowly Brithmaer turned to face me – I heard him exhale as he regained his composure.
‘And where did you get this?’ he asked softly.
‘I would rather not say.’
‘Probably with good reason.’
I knew that something untoward had entered our conversation. ‘Can you tell me anything about the stone?’ I asked.
Again there was a long pause as Brithmaer looked at me with those washed-out blue, rheumy eyes, carefully considering before he spoke.
‘If I thought you were stupid or gullible, I would tell you that this stone is nothing more than red glass, cleverly made but of little value. However, I have already observed that you are neither simple nor credulous. You saw the fire flickering within the stone, as well as I did.’
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘I’ve had the stone in my possession for a while, but this is the first time I’ve looked at it carefully. Until now I kept it hidden.’
‘A wise precaution,’ said Brithmaer drily. ‘Have you any idea what you have here?’
I stayed silent. With Brithmaer silence was the wiser course.
He rolled the stone gently between his fingers. ‘All my life I have been a moneyer who also dealt in jewels. As did my father before me. In that time I’ve seen many stones, brought to me from many different sources. Some were precious, others not, some badly cut, others raw and unworked. Often they were nothing more than pretty lumps of coloured rock. Until now I have never seen a stone like this, but only heard of its existence. It is a type of ruby known vulgarly and for obvious reasons as a fire ruby. No one knows for sure where such gems originate, though I would make a guess. In my father’s time we used to receive many coins, mostly silver but a few of gold, which bore the curling script of the Arabs. So many were reaching us that the moneyers found it convenient to base their system of weights and measures on these foreign coins. Our coins were little more than substitutes, reminted from their metal.’
Brithmaer was looking pensively at the little stone as it lay in his palm. Now that the sunlight no longer struck it directly, the stone lay lifeless, nothing more than a pleasant dark-red bead.
‘At the time of the Arab coins I heard reports about the fire rubies, how they glow when the light strikes them in a certain way. The men who described these stones were usually the same men who dealt in the Arab coins, and I conjectured that fire rubies came along the same routes as the Arab coins. But it was impossible to learn more. I was told only that these gems originated even further away, where the desert lands rose again to mountains. Here the fire gems were mined.’
The mint master leaned forward to hand me back the little stone. ‘I’ll let you know whether I want to buy the rock crystals, but I suggest you keep this gem somewhere very safe.’
I took his hint. For the next few days I kept the fire ruby concealed in a crack behind the headboard of my manger bed, and when Brithmaer decided he would buy the rock crystals and have his workman repair the faulty necklace, I went to the pedlars’ market. There, using a fraction of his purchase price, I bought a cheap and ugly amulet. It was meant to be one of Odinn’s birds, but was so badly cast in lead that you could not tell whether it was eagle, raven, or an owl. Yet its body was fat enough for my purposes. I scraped out a cavity, inserted the ruby and sealed the hole. Thereafter I wore it on a leather thong around my neck and learned to smile sheepishly when people asked me why I wore a barnyard fowl as a pendant.
My other purchases took a little longer: a tunic of fine English wool, yellow with an embroidered border; a new set of hose in brown; gaiters of the same hue; and garters to match the tunic. I also ordered new footwear – a pair of soft shoes in the latest style, also in yellow with a brown pattern embossed across the toe. ‘Don’t you want to take away the leather scraps with you, young master, so you can make an offering for your Gods?’ asked the cobbler with a grin. The cross displayed in his workshop denoted he was a follower of the White Christ. He had recognised me as a northerner by my accent, and was teasing me about our belief that on the terrible day of Ragnarok
, when the hell wolf Fenrir swallows Odinn, it will be his son Vidar who will avenge him. Vidar will step onto the wolf’s fanged lower jaw with one foot and tear away the upper jaw with his bare hands. So his shoe must be thick, made from all the clippings and scraps that shoe-makers have thrown away since the beginning of time. The cobbler had made his jibe good-humouredly, so I answered in the same spirit, ‘No thanks. But I’ll remember to come back to you when I need a pair of sandals that will walk on water.’
Kjartan raised an appreciative eyebrow when he saw my finery as I presented myself at the huscarl barracks on the morning of the gemot. ‘Well, well, a handsome show. No one will think me poorly attended.’ He was looking resplendent in the formal armour of a king’s bodyguard. Over his court tunic he wore a corselet of burnished metal plates, and the helmet on his head had curlicues of gold inlay. In addition to his huscarl’s sword at his hip, with its gold inlay handle, a Danish fighting axe hung from his left shoulder on a silver chain. In his left hand he gripped a battle spear with a polished head, which for a moment reminded me of Edgar’s death facing the charging boar. But the item which caught my eye was the torc of twisted gold wire wrapped around his arm, the same one that lacked a hand. He noticed my glance and said, ‘That was royal recompense for my injury at Ashington.’
Kjartan cautioned me as we walked towards the barrack’s mess hall, and his words reminded me of Aelfgifu’s mistrust of palace intrigue. ‘I rely on you to keep silent about what you witness today,’ he said, ‘There are many who would like to see all the veteran huscarls purged. The tide of affairs is moving against us, at least in England. We have fewer and fewer opportunities to celebrate our traditions, and our enemies would use our ceremonies to denounce us as evil pagans. The Elder Ways offend the bishops and archbishops as well as the king’s church advisers. So your task today will be to serve as my cup-bearer at the feast and to be discreet.’
Kjartan and I were among the last to enter the hall. There were no trumpet blasts or grand arrivals and no women. About forty huscarls were already standing in the room, dressed in their finery. There was no sense of rank or social standing. Instead an air of fellowship prevailed. One man I recognised instantly, for he stood a head taller than anyone else in the room, which was remarkable in itself because the huscarls were mostly big men. The giant was Thorkel the Tall, the king’s vice-regent. When the group around him parted, I saw that his legs were freakishly long, almost as if he were wearing the stilts some jugglers use in their performances. It made him look ungainly, as his body was of normal proportions, though the arms were long and dangled oddly by his sides. When he listened to his companions Thorkel was obliged to bend over to bring his head closer. He reminded me of a bird I had occasionally seen when hawking in the marshes with Edgar – the wandering stork.
‘Where do you want me to stand?’ I said quietly to Kjartan. I did not want to disgrace him in etiquette. There was no division of the tables as at Ealdorman Aelfhelm’s feast, where the seating arrangement distinguished between commoner and nobly born. Now a single large table stood in the middle of the room, one place of honour at its head, benches down each side. Service trestles had been set up in one corner for the tubs of mead and ale, and somewhere I could smell roasting flesh, so a kitchen was nearby.
‘Stand behind me when the company moves to table. Huscarls are seated by eminence of military prowess and length of service, not because they are high born or well connected,’ he replied. ‘After that, just watch what the other cup-bearers do and follow their example.’
At that moment I saw Thorkel move towards the place of honour at the head of the table. When all the huscarls had taken their places on the benches, we cup-bearers placed before them their drinking horns already filled with mead. I could not see a single glass goblet or a drop of wine. Still seated, Thorkel called a toast to Odinn, then a toast to Thor, then a toast to Tyr, and a toast to Frey. Hurrying back and forth from the service trestles to refill the drinking horns for each toast, I could see that the cup-bearers were going to be kept busy.
Finally Thorkel called the minni, the remembrance toast to the dead comrades of the fellowship. ‘They who died honorably, may we meet them in Valholl,’ he announced.
‘In Valholl,’ his listeners chorused.
Thorkel unfolded his great length from his chair and rose to speak. ‘I stand here as the representative of the king. On his behalf I will accept renewal of the fellowship. I begin with Earl Eirikr. Do you renew your pledge of allegiance to the king and the brotherhood?’ A richly dressed veteran seated closest on the bench to Thorkel stood up and announced in a loud voice that he would serve and protect the king, and obey the rules of the brotherhood. I knew him as one of Knut’s most successful war captains, who had also served his father Forkbeard before him. For this service Eirikr had received great estates far in the north of England, making him one of the wealthiest of Knut’s nobles. Both his arms sported heavy gold torcs, which were marks of royal favour. Now I knew why Herfid the skald loved to refer to Knut as the ‘generous ring giver’.
So it went on. One after another the names of the huscarls were called out, and each man stood up to renew his oath for the coming year. Then, after the pledges were all received, Thorkel called out the name of three of the huscarls who were in England but had failed to attend the gemot.
‘What is your verdict?’ he asked the assembled company.
‘A fine of three mancus of gold, payable to the fellowship,’ a voice said promptly. I guessed that this was customary forfeit.
‘Agreed?’ asked Thorkel.
‘Agreed,’ came back the response.
I was beginning to understand that the huscarls ruled themselves by general vote.
Thorkel moved on to a more serious violation of their code. ‘I have received a complaint from Hrani, now serving with the king in Denmark. He states that Hakon was asked to look after his horse, specifically his best battle charger, for him. The horse was too sickly to be shipped with the army for Denmark. Hrani goes on to state that the horse was neglected and has since died. I have established these facts as true. What is your verdict?’
‘Ten mancus fine!’ shouted someone.
‘No, fifteen!’ called another voice, a little drunkenly I thought.
‘And demotion by four places,’ called another voice.
Thorkel then put the matter to a vote. When it was passed, a shame-faced huscarl stood up and moved four places further away from the head of the table before sitting down among his comrades.
‘All that talk of horses reminds me that I’m getting hungry,’ a wag shouted out. It was definitely a tipsy voice. It was beginning to be difficult to hear Thorkel above the general background hubbub.
‘Who’s the glum-looking fellow at the end of the table?’ I asked Gisli’s cup-bearer, a quiet young man with an unfortunate strawberry birthmark on his neck. He glanced across to the huscarl sitting silently by himself. ‘I don’t know his name. But he’s in disgrace. He committed three transgressions of the rules and has been banished to the lowest end of the table. No one is allowed to talk to him. He’ll be lucky if his messmates don’t start throwing meat bones and scraps of food at him after the meal. That’s their privilege.’
Suddenly a great cheer went up. From the side room where the cooks had been at work four men appeared. They were carrying between them the body of a small ox, spit roasted, which they lifted over the heads of the revellers and placed on the centre of the table. The head of the ox was brought in separately and displayed on a long iron spike driven into the floor. An even louder cheer greeted the four men when they appeared a second time with another burden. This time the carcass they carried was the body of a horse. This too had been roasted and its ribs stood up like the fingers of a splayed hand. The roast horse was also placed on the table and its head on a second spike beside the ox’s. Then the cooks withdrew, and the huscarls fell upon the food, hacking it up with their daggers, and passing chunks up the table. ‘Thank the Gods
we can still eat real meat on feast days whatever those lily-white priests say,’ a whiskery veteran announced to no one in particular, chewing heartily, his beard already daubed with morsels of horse flesh. ‘Makes no sense that the White Christ priests forbid their followers to eat horse flesh. Can’t think why they don’t ban mutton when they spend so much time talking about the Lamb of God.’
As the pace of eating slowed, I noticed the cooks and other servitors leave the mess hall. Only the huscarls and their cup-bearers remained. Then I saw Thorkel nod to the disgraced huscarl seated at the end of the table. It must have been some sort of pre-arranged signal for the man got up from his place and walked across to the double entrance doors. Closing them, he picked up a wooden bar and dropped the timber into two frame slots. The door was now effectively barred from the inside. Whatever was now going to take place inside the mess hall was definitely a private matter.
Someone hammered on the table with his sword hilt, calling for silence. A hush fell over the assembled company, and into that silence came a sound I had last heard in Ireland three years before, at the feast of a minor Irish king. It was an eerie wailing. At first it seemed to be unearthly, without rhythm or tune until you listened closely. It was a sound that could make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck – a single bagpipe, hauntingly played. I listened carefully, trying to locate the sound. It seemed to be coming from the side room where the cooks had worked. As I looked in that direction, through the doorway stepped a figure that made the blood rush to my head. It was a man and his head was completely invisible inside a terrifying mask made from gilded basketwork. It covered the wearer down to his shoulders, leaving only eye holes for him to see his way from as he advanced into the room. He man was wearing the head of a giant bird.
And there was no doubt that he was a man because, except for the mask, he was stark naked.
I knew at once who was represented. The man held in each hand a long spear, the symbol of Odinn, his ash spear Gungnir, the ‘swaying one’.