by Jason Born
A light tap on my shoulder from Kenna interrupted my venomous thoughts. She had a way of appearing out of air because of her light step and diminutive size. She offered her hand; I took it, and she led me outside to the courtyard formed by four lodges. It was empty except for several chickens scratching in the earth and a small campfire burning in the center, next to which stood Thyre in a hooded cloak. Her smart profile was illuminated by the light springing from the fire. She looked sad. As we approached, she was lost in her own thoughts staring into the hypnotic, dancing flames. Kenna gave her a soft hug and Thyre’s face brightened as she looked at her friend and remarked, “Kenna, it is wonderful that we have had today to talk. Tomorrow my brother takes me to Wendland, a land of heathens, to be wed.” She paused. Distant thunder rumbled, and the sadness quickly returned, but she shook it for another moment and said, “I wondered what became of you when you never responded to my letters to the Dyflin nunnery. But now I see you were busy finding yourself a handsome husband.” I gave an embarrassed smile.
Kenna said to me, “You need to hear Thyre’s story.” She placed a hand on her old friend’s shoulder and gave her a nod to start. Lightening flashed and then thunder rolled once again, closer this time.
A sigh indicating a heavy burden came from the woman who would be Queen of Wendland and she said, “Sweyn always tells me I’m stubborn. He even told Olaf and you that very thing the first time I saw you in Ireland. I’m not stubborn, I just want to marry an honorable man whom I love.” That sounded reasonable to me and most women were free to do so, but I knew that those women from royal blood were not quite as free as those of the lower classes. They had to marry for the family and kingdom not for their hearts or loins. “So Sweyn has had enough of my fussiness. He wants alliances and has betrothed me to King Burizlaf. At first I thought it might be an opportunity and I went into my first meeting with the man optimistic. Along with my brother, he drank too much when he visited Roskilde last year. Burizlaf is a deplorable heathen. He is despicable. He is foul, wretched, and smells of urine. He is old, at least sixty years old. I detest him and have told Sweyn the same, but it is done and I have no choice but to leave tomorrow. I would be happy to marry Olaf in place of this man. His reputation is that he is honorable, gregarious, and fair. I find him pleasant to look at as well.”
I looked at the sad woman’s face when she finished speaking. A sharp thunder crack startled us all for a moment. She was in despair as she thought of her life leaving the course she had plotted. My life too never followed my plans and so I sympathized with her, but fate was out of our control. Even Crevan acknowledged that fact, though he called it Providence. In my mind they were one and the same; circumstances just did not work with us, they worked in the favor of the gods, or The God, or the giants for all I knew. “Lady Thyre, I share your anguish, but I am not sure what telling me of your plight can do to change it.”
“Thank you for your sympathy, Halldorr. Kenna thought you could offer some help.”
I looked to Kenna who stood quietly. She looked into my eyes and into my soul as she was apt to do. We spoke in our silent language and then she nodded as though she knew I now understood what I could do to help Thyre. “Thyre, I have learned to trust Kenna’s judgment and she’s right, there is something I can do. Both of you return to the hall and stay there, and stay together. Get to sleep early and be prepared for something in the night.”
“Thank you, Halldorr. And thank you Kenna for your help. I had prayed for deliverance from this burden and it’s come in the form of a small fleet of Norsemen.” As she finished speaking, the first rain drops began to fall around us.
“Please don’t thank us yet. We’ve got a lot of work to do,” I said and then we all returned to the hall. The women walked back to where they had been sitting and I returned to the Berserkers. I whispered to both Einar and Cnute, “No more ale for you. See to it that our friends, the Danes, keep emptying their mugs, but we only pretend to do the same. I want our hosts dead drunk within two hours and I want all of you sober.” They were good men, well-trained soldiers and didn’t question or skip a beat. They continued on talking and laughing with the Danes, but passed on my command to the other Berserkers in the hall. I stood and made my way through the hall, stopping to visit with the other clusters of Norsemen and refill my cup. I dumped it on the hearth each time I passed it by so that it looked as though I drank like all the others. Whenever I visited with my countrymen, I whispered orders in their ears; they were to leave in ones or twos and go back to the fleet to prepare to sail home. A nod of the head was all that they did to acknowledge their understanding.
My last stop was at Olaf and Sweyn. Sweyn was mumbling incoherently now and didn’t notice when I whispered to my third father. “Father, Thyre desires to marry you. She asks that you take her from here and from her betrothal to Burizlaf.”
“What? But Sweyn says otherwise,” despite his words, his countenance showed that hope had instantly returned.
“Thyre wishes to marry you. Look to the woman.” I pointed across the hall where Kenna and Thyre talked. They met our gaze and gave a subdued wave.
Olaf smiled, “I need to talk to Sweyn and. . .”
“King Olaf!” I hissed to cut him off. “We can’t talk to Sweyn. You heard him today, the decision is made and his alliances are all planned out. We must go tonight with Thyre. Your Berserkers in the hall are already organizing and the rest of your men are slowly returning to the fleet to prepare to leave. We are getting the Danes in the hall exceptionally drunk. We simply get up and leave with Thyre in the next hour or two and pull hard on the oars for home.”
Olaf pondered the situation for a moment and then said, “I like the plan.” Then he took out his purse and gave it to me. “Write Sweyn a letter and tell him that Thyre is a free woman, free to choose a man. Tell him that is the mundr for his sister and her morgengifu will be more than fair. Also tell him that I hope to discuss the dowry with him soon.” He finished, stood and walked across the room to get more ale. When he returned he put another cup in Sweyn’s hand and helped him get more of the drink into his stomach. As an afterthought he added, “Burizlaf is a friend; I’ll need to discuss this with him at some time.”
Within a short while the hall was quieting. Thyre and Kenna slept on the platform near the door under a shared blanket. Each Norseman who wasn’t in Olaf’s immediate bodyguard had vacated the hall, sometimes to the jeers of their Danish cousins. Those Danes weren’t jeering now, but rather slept strewn about the hall wherever they fell. Sweyn too, lay passed out, curled up under one of the raised platforms with piss-stained pants. I left the purse and letter tucked under one of his arms. Olaf politely asked the thralls to leave their cleaning until tomorrow morning so that he could sleep in peace. When they left we had the hall to ourselves. The Berserkers, Ox-foot and Vikar, escorted Olaf to the door, with Cnute carrying Vigi so that he didn’t awaken anyone. I gently shook Kenna awake who, in turn caused Thyre to stir. Then in twos and threes we walked in the heavy rain to the nearby gate, through the tunnel and to the ships. Kenna and I were the last to go and as we walked to the tunnel while sheltering ourselves from the rain a sentry called down from above, “Are none of you Norsemen able to keep up with the drinking of the Danes? Or are you all already drunk and stumbling back to your ships to sleep it off.”
In good humor I yelled up to the man, “They’ve all passed out by now. We go to our ships to sleep because the Danes’ ale-farts smell like the shit of well-fed hogs!” I heard a laugh in reply, and then the man turned and told a fellow sentry what I had said. Even Kenna softly chuckled at my side and I pulled her closer as we walked to the quay. When we climbed aboard Olaf was quietly ordering the men to their oars. The commanders of the other vessels did likewise and soon our entire fleet was silently slipping through the fjord under the cover of the night and the falling rain.
The letter was delivered on a trading vessel, called Valhalla’s Wind, laden with goods from Roskilde. The Swede co
mmander of the knarr said he was given the letter by King Twobeard himself and that the king looked angry even as he handed it over. The commander stood in Olaf’s hall with sweat running down his forehead only to pool in his single bushy eyebrow. The man was fat and nervous because he knew from his travels that angry kings sometimes did kill the messenger.
Olaf and his queen of two months sat next to one another in stout, unadorned wooden chairs. They clasped hands between the armrests. In front of and off to the king’s left, Crevan sat at a small table reading the letter in hushed murmurs by the light of a fish liver oil lamp, its cottongrass wick flickering weak light onto the vellum page. When he finished reading it through once silently, Crevan began reading aloud:
Olaf, Jarl of Trondelag and Vassal to Sweyn, King of the Danes, I, your king do wish you warm greetings and am hopeful to meet in the coming months and discuss your service to Denmark. Your mundr for my sister was received with utmost gratitude. I set it atop a great dung heap and we made much sport of several Norse women being held as thralls as they scaled the slippery mound of stinking shit. They were naked, of course, and being Norse seemed to enjoy their natural state of living in shit very much. The girl who reached the coins first was allowed to be raped by any man who wished. The losers were killed by some of our poorest archers. I really must teach them to aim for vital organs first rather than causing a slow death through multiple wounds. With regard to the heiman fyglia for Thyre, there will be none.
It is appropriate for me to list several of the wrongs done by you and your men to me and my kingdom before we meet again. Two times I requested your aid in attacking England in order to re-establish the Danelaw. Two times your lack of attention and weakness led us to agree to surrender terms with the feeble English king. You and your men were enriched while I just lost valuable men and time. You took your riches and built a fleet of warships to overthrow a beloved jarl of Norway, Haakon, who was in my service. Once you took over Trondelag and wrongfully killed a son of Haakon, you began to take territory that has been under my direct control. You forcefully caused men of the realm of the Danes to convert to the One God. Yet, like the One God, I am forgiving. I welcomed you with a fine feast and much ale and the sweetest honey mead in the land when you came ashore unannounced. We drank together that night. We shared roasted pork and cooked eels. By the next morning I awoke with my dear sister stolen. But despite all these crimes, I am still most willing to pardon your treatment of me if you agree to return to my service and return all lands seized except those in Trondelag.
As I close I believe you will be most interested to share in the excitement due to the tremendous privileges which have, of late, been bestowed upon me. First, Sigrid, Queen of Sweden, has most wholeheartedly agreed to be my wife and we are overjoyed at the prospects this union will mean for our two kingdoms. She has shared stories of the gift which accompanied your own wedding proposal. Sigrid also saw fit to tell me all of the important details of your meeting last year. In truth she has not been as forgiving as I have been willing to be, but please take heart for perhaps I will be able to carry some influence on her free will. The second bit of cheerful information I must share is that my own daughter, Gyda, is now betrothed to Eirik Haakonsson. I believe you are familiar with the man. At least he tells me you have met.
A Fellow Servant of the One God, King of the Danes, Sweyn.
Crevan finished reading and discovered that, unsurprisingly, the whole room had filled with awkward tension. Vigi lay at his master’s feet panting; he was the only one in the room not awaiting direction from Olaf that would determine our fates. The king tapped the fingers of his left hand on the armrest of his chair and studied the support timbers in the roof above him. Thyre, who knew Sweyn best, appeared ghost-like, so pale had her face become. She whispered something to her husband and when he didn’t respond she whispered again. At last he looked at her and gave her a kind smile, tapping the hand he grasped with his free hand. Olaf stood so that a ray of light from the smoke hole shone upon his face. It highlighted the surplus of white hair in his beard and atop his head. He was nearly forty years old now and getting older by the day. Not as old as Burizlaf, to be sure, but quickly aging, nonetheless. “Einar,” said Olaf, “see that the Swede is taken care of for his troubles in delivering the message. Supply him and his crew with enough food for the next leg of their journey and then you should return to Thordis and those fat babies of yours.” Einar nodded and led the commander of the Valhalla’s Wind out to the marketplace that had grown in Kaupangen. After he left, Olaf turned to Cnute and said, “I’d like you to begin drilling the men on fighting in the shield wall; on land and sea. Start today and use whatever ships or supplies you deem necessary.”
Cnute gave a short bow and replied, “Yes, lord,” then walked to the door.
Olaf called after him in a fatherly tone, “Cnute please don’t gamble away any of the treasury you need for supplies.” Cnute nodded his understanding and went about his work.
The king told Thyre that he would see her for the evening meal and excused himself. “Crevan, Halldorr walk with me,” and we all ducked out through the door to the great hall. Olaf led the way holding both hands behind his back as he went. He was familiar with many of the villagers and they exchanged cordial greetings as we passed their homes, shops, or gardens. The heather bloomed a brilliant purple and brightened the landscape at the higher elevations, reminding me that the warm summer was half over. The town grew each year with more settlers arriving to set up trading posts or supply the city’s inhabitants with the necessities of life such as cookware or spurs or rope. Olaf led us down to the point of land where the fjord and the River Nidelva met. He looked at the fjord and then the river and back again, thinking of something. Crevan and I stood behind him letting him ponder. “Crevan,” he said, “What do you make of the letter?”
Crevan was startled by the basic question but answered anyway, “My lord, its detestable what he did to the Norse women. Sweyn is treating fellow Christians in a most un-Christlike manner. His tone and his sarcasm are reprehensible when they are directed to such an honorable king.” When he was done he gave a curt nod indicating he was satisfied with his own response.
Olaf looked at the old priest for a time then kicked up a small pile of smooth round stones from the shore. He bent down and selected a few of them and stood, throwing them in turn out into the fjord. The king stopped in mid throw and asked, “What do you think Halldorr?”
I thought for a second then said, “My apologies for what I am about to say, Crevan. Sweyn is the dung heap himself. You made him rich enough to drink every day until he dies and never worry for wealth. Without you, he and his Danes would be carrion on the fields of Essex. He is weak. He is a dishonor to all seafarers. We should gather our Norse armada and attack him in his home. We should slice him from his sagging groin to his sagging man tits to his forked beard. We should let our sickest, foulest warriors rape his new wife in front of him until she is dead. Finally we should do the same to his daughter Gyda and I think we could even get some men to rape his cowardly new son-in-law Eirik.” The priest’s face stood agape. He was horrified by what I proposed. Olaf listened thoughtfully as though I just suggested we use red fabric versus blue fabric to manufacture a new sail. The king finished his throw of the stone into the fjord. He turned to his right and tossed a small stone into the air a few times, then launched it across the mouth of the river. It rattled into some underbrush and startled a long-legged crane. The bird flapped its broad wings with much effort a handful of times to gain altitude quickly, then coasted upstream out of Olaf’s range.
“Uh, huh,” muttered Olaf. “I believe that our time of attempting to ally ourselves with the Danes or the Swedes is over.” Understatement. “We would have more luck allying with the English now,” just the thought of allying with Aethelred made my stomach queasy. “And I would ally with them, for their king is a good brother in Christ. But that serves no purpose because they are weak and we are strong. Ha
lldorr, we will have to take more control of our territory and hold it against Sweyn and his shrew bride; to do that we will need ships and warriors. We will begin to plan for an attack on Sweyn as you suggest, but before that, I want my own fleet to become the envy of the seas.” I smiled to Crevan at the king’s acceptance of my proposal.
“My lord,” said the priest, “you’ve made a promise to God to not make war against fellow brothers in the faith. You cannot do this.”
“Crevan, don’t be a simple dung beetle! How can you say Sweyn is a man of the faith when he lets his people do whatever they wish? Doesn’t a leader have an obligation to cause his followers to come to the faith? Isn’t a leader going to be judged more harshly than the followers?” asked Olaf.
“Well, yes lord. . .”
“Then it’s settled. I’ll go about the shores of Norway from assembly to assembly to ensure we have the jarls and their people behind us. We leave next week,” said Olaf.
I answered, “Yes lord, father. I’ll prepare Serpent for departure and see that the fleet is called.”
“You’ll do no such thing!” shouted Olaf. “I want you here, right here where we stand as a matter of fact.” He said this with a stamp of his foot on the rocks below. “I want you to build a ship right here on this shore. It is to be larger than any ship in the fleet, even larger than Serpent. I want it fast and maneuverable. I want it to be able to travel up a river with the rest of our ships without needing too much depth. Use whatever resources you need.” He finished his orders and stepped up the bank, dragging Crevan along with him. “And name the damned thing whatever you wish!”