Forged in Ice (Viking Odyssey)

by Ken Hagan

  Sigi needn’t worry. I will be waiting there for him at the top. I won’t be late. Once he or I have made a promise, one never lets the other down.

  The dale-run is Sigi’s thing. I won’t vie with him. I don’t want to steal his thunder. In any case, I’m not one for running, axe-tossing, tug-of-war, stuff like that. Wrestling is my sport. I beat Lar Finnson two-falls-to-one in the first heat, crushed Grith by a wipe-out in the second. I am ready to challenge those strangers from the north — if they turn up.

  ‘Make sure you hammer them, brother,’ says Sigi of the northerners. ‘We will soon see what those ice-heads are made of.’

  Behind the booths is where the local wrestling lads hang out, waiting for a challenge. Most of them are tough and cocky. They all fancy their chances. This is where to pick a fight. Seeing off two or three will do no harm to my standing. I need to keep winning to be sure of a place in the finals. Older wrestlers, known from past years for winning or losing, can sit it out in the opening days of competition. They have nothing to prove either way, whereas beginners like me have to take on fight after fight. If younger wrestlers don’t keep fighting — and winning — they are not taken seriously. The old wrinklies won’t give us a look-in at the finals.

  I stop in my tracks at the booths. In skies to the north, brownish smoke can be seen on the other side of the estuary, drifting from Osvik shore as far as Finn’s woods. It is a trail of smoke, thin and steamy, off dowsed fires — not a cooking fire but a signal. It will be our neighbours, the Grisedale men, calling for the ferry. I must get word to Cuin. I will call him out from Klepjarn’s booth so he can pass word to Father. Our friends from Grisedale have come — better late than never. Their arrival can be used to force Blot’s hand.

  *

  Here’s Uncle pushing towards me through the crowd of wrestlers. ‘You still here, lad?’ He asks, ‘Weren’t you supposed to meet Sigi at the falls?’

  ‘I hope to take on a challenger — score a win before I go. Did you see? Damp smoke over Osvik woods — must be our neighbours from Grisedale. Father will be pleased!’

  Cuin feigns interest in the wrestling. A fresh match has flared up from nowhere. Slegl, a stocky-built lad I was hoping to fight, is going hammer and tongs with a barn-hand from Skogurdale. Slegl is not an easy lad to throw over — I took him on last year and lost.

  I give Cuin a nudge. ‘Shouldn’t you tell Father about the smoke, Uncle? He will want to know.’

  ‘No need for that,’ he replies. ‘They are not at loggerheads. Everything is fine.’

  ‘Father and Klep are near to settlement?’

  A cheer for the wrestlers from behind the booths - Slegl has first fall.

  ‘Price was a sticking point at first,’ he replies. ‘But in the end they shook hands on it: one price for trading wool among ourselves, a higher rate for the easterlings.’ Talk of wool price leaves me cold. Cuin likes to tease. ‘It is Blot you want to know about, eh lad?’

  ‘I can guess the outcome. Is it bad news? Have the Grisedale men come too late?’

  ‘We are past that, now,’ replies Cuin. ‘We don’t need their help. It won’t come to a shout in the law-field.’

  ‘Stitched-up in advance?’

  ‘Blot’s case won’t be heard. The whole thing is settled. Blot will go away happy.’

  ‘I can’t believe Father would throw the case.’

  ‘Nothing of the kind! What can I say? Blot has been kept sweet as honey.’

  ‘Will Karghyll pay a fine?’

  Cuin winks and shakes his head.

  Another cheer: the wrestlers behind us have knocked over the poles of a booth, but with the canvas down, I can’t see who has made the fall. Is it Slegl?

  ‘Your father has wiped the slate clean on Blot’s debts, and in return, Blot has withdrawn his claim. In the law-field tomorrow, Klep will make one of his fine speeches. Everyone will hear the guothie of Laxvik eat his words. The right of salvage, the law of finders, keepers is upheld.’

  ‘So Karghyll has won, hands down.’

  ‘Not exactly. He has been asked to make a gesture to Blot.’

  ‘What sort of gesture?’

  ‘A proof of kinship. For Thor’s day he has to send a winter gift to Laugdale — sucklings from his best sow — a bagful of shoats for the feast.’

  Hethrun’s warnings about Blot and his craftiness ring in my ears. ‘But, Uncle, what if Blot goes back on his word? He has done it before.’

  ‘He has a choice, so has Karghyll. Take this settlement or nothing. As of now, the case is dead; it won’t go to the law-field. The two parties can keep wrangling and get nowhere or they can settle and pocket their gains. What would you do?’

  ‘If it were wrestling, Uncle, I’d want to win. No compromises, all or nothing!’

  He laughs and good-naturedly pulls at my beard. ‘I wish you luck,’ he says, ‘I’m off! I have a horn of ale waiting.’

  ‘Don’t send me away guessing.’

  ‘How is that, lad?’ he asks, a twinkle in his bleary eyes.

  ‘Klep’s daughters, and Father’s wedding talk: are we to have the girls or not?’ Cuin scratches his beard as if in doubt. He comes closer; whispers in my ear. I barely hear his answer above the din from the wrestling.

  Another fall, Slegl has won. No choice for me now: Slegl is the one I have to beat.

  *

  At fallow falls the thundering waters, coursing down, pound into pools and chasms. Black mist rises from below. Drizzle teems on rocks and ferns. The longest torrent — falling cold as ice — broils white at the foot of the gorge, churning the main pool to milky foam, to watery-brown. The falls are deafening to the ear, muting all other sounds. Blue sky above us, above me and the sorrel. We are hot from riding the fell. My horse, his neck larded with sweat, steams in the cool air. The sky is clear of cloud, bright of light — a blueness of sky washed from weeks of rain — the brightest — the happiest of days. Sunlight makes arcs of light under the falls— colours forming and fading, dancing and shifting — rising from the mist through the shadowy light of the gorge.

  A young man climbs out of the mist, his body wet from swimming under the falls, arms and head green with ferns; knees, feet and fists soiled in mouldering pith and moss from the wet rocks. Sigi Leifson, my brother, climbs up out of the brink and into the light.

  ‘Told you,’ he shouts, on seeing me. ‘Told you I’d be first across.’ I am off the horse and throw my arms around his chest, swinging him off his feet — an easy lift for me — Sigi is all skin and bone. No wonder he runs like the wind.

  I run to the edge, peer down into the mist. ‘Not bad, brother: no one in sight!’

  ‘You won’t see a thing, Kregin, not from here. Only now are they down the other side of the gorge. It will be ages before they show up on this side.’

  ‘Wiped them off the face of the earth!’

  ‘Not finished yet,’ he says panting hard, ‘still the run down-dale, first a breather.’

  ‘They won’t catch you in the sprint, no chance.’

  ‘Tell me, tell me, what’s the news?’

  ‘What do you think, brother? I’m through to the finals. They have to take me seriously. I took on Slegl; beat him two-falls-to-one.’

  ‘Hell’s teeth,’ retorts Sigi, laughing, ‘I never doubted you, but I mean the Klepjarn girls, not your damned wrestling!’ With bated breath he waits for an answer.

  ‘You can forget them, Sigi. Gudrun and Grima are promised to lads from Long-fiord.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘I got it from Cuin. He got it from the horse’s mouth. Two brothers from up north — twin brothers — they are to marry Klepjarn’s girls. It seems that guothie Klep settled it with the lads’ father when he last journeyed to Long-fiord to trade wool.’

  ‘So no Gudrun for me,’ says Sigi, looking suddenly fatigued and crestfallen. My brother bends to touch his toes — his head down, chest heaving — as if to catch his breath. He cannot hide his tears.

  *<
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  Laxvik common is deserted but for the horses; the camp and booths abandoned, not a hound in sight, muddy walk-ways, wrestling pitches emptied of people: If it weren’t for slaves drudging at fires, squabbling over wood, you might think it the last day of hustings; or that something unforeseen has brought the gathering to an untimely end.

  Sigi eyes the deserted hustings, the absence of crowds. For him it is a disaster and — like the loss of Gudrun — another blow to his pride. No one has come to Thor’s gate to see him sprint past the moot-stone — not a soul on the finish line, not even Cuin, Snorri Harelip, Ulph or any of our men from Osvellir.

  The reason soon becomes clear. Every man, woman and child has crossed at fallow ford and cut along the shore as far as ferry point. There is a big crowd over there. Whatever is going on, Sigi is denied his moment of triumph. The dale run and its runners are forgotten.

  ‘Here, Sigi.’ I give him a ‘hand-up’ to join me on the horse’s back. ‘Let’s ride over the ford and see what all the fuss is about — maybe the dog fights have started.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ he replies with a scowl. ‘It is too early in the day to blood the hounds. And why take them over the river?’

  *

  Sigi was right. There are no dog fights on the sand — no bloodied mutts, yelping, cowering wounded in pain — but by the ferryman’s croft we see a knot of men arguing, father and Cuin among them. Blot and Olaf, Finn and Karghyll — even guothie Klep is there too — jostling the ferryman and his passengers. The ferryman, oar in hand, pushes free. It is not him they want. It is his passengers they are after.

  Hounds are on the loose, ignored and forgotten. They circle the crowd, snarling and showing their teeth, marking the sand with their paws, but avoiding each other’s eyes. Women and children stand off from the men, waiting fearfully to see what will happen.

  No sign of our Grisedale neighbours, of Pils or his sons. Three strangers have crossed on the ferry — from them foul words and wild gestures while they explain something to guothie Klep. The jostling unravels. Finn breaks away, Lar, Cuin, Olaf and others chase after him. Finn howls in anger and anguish, shaking his fists, wailing at the top of his voice. He falls to his knees on the sand. Lar hunkers helpless and ignored at his step-father’s side.

  ‘What have I done to deserve this?’ yells Finn, and he buries face in hands.

  Olaf turns to me with a horrible glint in his eye. ‘Disaster at Grisedale,’ he explains. ‘Mudslide from the tarn — a big one — ice and mud all the way down. Finn’s land in ruins, the dale is done for.’

  ‘Let’s not be too hasty,’ says Cuin. Uncle pulls Lar to his feet, offers Finn a hand. ‘Come, man, let’s get across the water. Let’s see what we can do.’

  ‘You have not listened, old man.’ One of the strangers hollers at Cuin as if he were deaf, ‘didn’t you hear? A landslip has filled the dale, mud and ice, some of it high as the trees.’

  ‘Nothing can survive what we saw,’ says a second stranger. He gives an uncaring shrug of the shoulders.

  ‘We have seen our fill of landslips,’ says Cuin, ‘plenty of them. Run-offs from the tarn, summer melt-waters, they always look worse than they are.’

  ‘But this seems bad,’ says Klep, ‘from what Gunnar tells us.’

  A complacent nod from the one named Gunnar. ‘Everything in the dale is destroyed under mud — no hope that anyone will come out alive. No one can risk going up-fell till the land has settled — on horse or on foot — it’s not safe.’

  Father ignores the stranger. ‘Finn,’ says he, ‘whatever happened — however bad — we must make an attempt to get up there. You and Lar, take the ferry across. We will ride by salmon-river ford, meet you in Osvik. What of Pils and the Grisedale folk? They might need our help too.’

  Cuin puts his hand on Lar’s shoulder. ‘Where are your horses, lad?’

  ‘Ma and the girls took every horse we own,’ answers Lar. ‘They were needed to carry milk.’

  ‘Worse luck,’ Finn mutters a terrible oath, ‘my horses and cows are done for.’ Father speaks to calm him down. ‘You will need help, man, however things shake out. — What about you, Karghyll? Will you lend a hand?’

  ‘You can count on me,’ replies Karghyll, ‘Blot, old friend, will you ride with us?’

  ‘Wild mares won’t stop me,’ returns Blot readily. ‘When in dire straits, what can we do but pull together?’

  Hals from Vorgha fell puts a finger to his teeth and makes a whistling signal used to summon help on the fells. He and his kin will join the rescue. Others add to the alarm, lengthening the sound into one continuous whine, high-piercing, long and shrill.

  Sanderlings, disturbed by the Vorgha men’s whistling, or harassed by chasing terns, rise as one mass from the marshes, filling the sky with their black shadow.

  A group of lads, twenty or thirty strong, has legged it back from fallow dale. Crossing at the ford, they look “dead on their feet”, but still they have answered the call. No Laxdale men have stepped up to offer a hand.

  Klepjarn raises hand and voice against the whistling. ‘Our duty is at the hall, these men from Long-fiord have come to say their vows. We can’t let anything interfere with my daughters’ marriage.’

  ‘To hell with your daughters,’ shouts Cuin in rage at the guothie. Uncle manhandles Finn roughly to his feet. ‘Come, man, up with you. Get the brass weights out of your boots!’

  ‘Father, shall we dismantle the booth?’

  ‘No, Kregin,’ he replies. ‘Let Olaf see to it — that’s what I am paying him for — you and Sigi collect the horses. Bring our mounts here. We make a start for Osvik. Our men can follow.’

  The stranger from Long-fiord — the one who was rude to Cuin — breaks away suddenly, pushing past Klep, almost knocking off the guothie’s feathered hat. ‘I know you,’ he shouts, pointing at me. ‘Yes, you on the fecking horse!’

  Gunnar — it is Gunnar Morfinson, no other — coming towards me through the crowd. Sigi and I are seated high on the sorrel. Now all eyes are on us. ‘Would you believe it?’ says Gunnar with a grin. ‘Look what the bog turns up! Another Thralson from Thwartdale! Kregin, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’re right,’ says the second stranger, ‘Cormac’s younger brother, beard and all, but I would recognise his face anywhere.’

  ‘Where has your weedy saddle-mate fished up from?’ asks the third Long-fiord man.

  ‘Do you know these ice-heads?’ the furious shout from Sigi. ‘What prize shits!’

  ‘Sigurd,’ says guothie Klep, glaring at my brother. ‘Watch your mouth!’

  ‘We know nothing of these men, Sigi,’ says Father. ‘We will owe respect till we find otherwise.’

  ‘They are known to me,’ my angry response. ‘More is the pity.’

  Helga’s cousins, Bane and Gunnar, sons of Morfin Skarson, and the bald one, the third stranger — no mistaking his ugly face — is Mord Asgrimson.

  ‘Hell’s teeth, Kregin,’ says Mord, ‘we were told you drowned at sea.’

  ‘I made it. No thanks to you or your family. Old man Jarl sold us out.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ returns Mord, ‘grandpa is long dead and gone to glory.’

  ‘Trust a Thralson to spout horseshit,’ says Bane.

  Mord Asgrimson eyes Srelni, gives the sorrel an envious look: ‘I can see you live off the fat of the land. That brother of yours, “old worm-leg” Sepp, he barely scrapes a living. He and your Ma, if it weren’t for my father Asgrim, they would starve.’

  Chapter 19

  To reach Long-fiord haven, to be off-fell and pitching camp before sundown, that was Finn’s plan — but with sky dimming to our west, it looks unlikely that he can do it.

  ‘We will not make it,’ says Father with a firmness not to be contradicted.

  ‘I say we will,’ the defiant answer from Finn-buna, who is in charge of our horses. Cuin, who has been riding on the blind side of Finn, slaps his thigh, chuckling inwardly, keeping the joke, whatever it is, to himself.
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  Sigi and Lar are ahead. They have turned a bend below us on the drove-way and are out of hearing. Apart from Uncle, only Svena and I have heard the latest “words” between Father and Finn. Why do they argue so fiercely? And over nothing? No matter who is proved right, the arrival of nightfall — a fleeting moment of darkness — won’t change a thing. We won’t stop to rest our horses till we get to Long-fiord. In the height of summer, this far north, daylight lingers — and twilight passes quickly — the sun no sooner sets than it rises. Not long after midnight, it turns bright as day.

  Father has been in a hurry since we left Osvellir. That was five days back. He has pushed the pace and brooked no delay with the horses. If the smallest thing should hold us up, he has a go at Finn. From the moment of our breaking camp in the morning, the talk and banter between him and Finn is non-stop. For Father it is a case of how much farther, how much faster can our man drive the sumpters.

  Uncle knew all along what was going on, but only tonight has it dawned on me. Father has no interest in making up time on the drove or riding hell-for-leather to Long-fiord. The hustling of Finn was merely a game — a ploy of Father’s to stop the poor man brooding on the disaster.

  It must be said of Finn and Lar that they have done a capital job handling the horses. Cuin never stops praising ‘our friends from Osvik’. We have gained the best part of a day on the journey north, taking five days instead of the usual six.

  Had it not been for the ice-fall at Grisedale tarn — the landslide that destroyed all in its wake as far as Osvik — we wouldn’t have Finn and Lar taking care of things. We would have had to get by with Olaf muddling through, cursing his luck, belly-aching the day long, capsizing loads and upsetting the mares.

  Finn jumped at the chance to work for us. It was an opportunity for the steadman to put distance between him and his woes. No one can blame him for leaving Osvik. After the tragedy struck, there was nothing to hold him there. It suited Finn to grab the challenge. If he is rushed off his feet with horses and loads, puzzling how to approach every incline or descent, keeping a watchful eye on the drive-ways, so much the better for him. It is no skin off his nose to take orders from Father. If doing graft as a sumpter-man, working for a neighbour and rival, was a jolt to Finn’s pride, you wouldn’t think it to see the cheerful way he bends to the task.