Viking Saga

by Mark Coakley

  A snake had slithered across the road in front of King Njal, frightening his horse and making the beast rear up onto its hind legs. King Lambi's fire-black skull had swung up on the string, and its gaping, fleshless mouth hit King Njal's left leg — one sharp tooth poking through his wool pants, scratching the skin.

  A small scratch, which King Njal ignored, until it became infected.

  When folk saw King Njal walk, they noticed his limp.

  Word spread that the flesh around the tooth-scrape was growing more and more swollen. And that the disease-demons now living inside his leg were pouring out a stream of white pus, and that the flesh around the hurt was rotting.

  King Njal ordered his personal healer — a Sogn-man who had accompanied the invading army — to heal him. The healer tried chanted rituals, bleeding, the sacrifice of beasts and magic rune-carving. Nothing worked. The infection from King Lambi's death-bite only got worse. When the Sogn-healer admitted that he had failed, King Njal showed his cruelty by ordering a Sogn-fighter to poke out the healer's eyes, "a message about the cost of failure."

  King Njal had then sent horsemen to many of the nearby Fjordane towns, with orders to bring every healer they found back to Eid, willingly or not. Five local healers had been brought to Eid from various places.

  By then, the pus had been green and smelly, and the pain in the leg had felt to King Njal like torture.

  None of the conscripted healers had healed him. Calling them all "traitors," King Njal had ordered their eyes poked out too.

  Standing by Halfdan, Yngvild's grey-blue eyes went wide with fear. She blurted out, "Was one of the healers named Siv? Brought here from Loen?"

  "I don't know," the Eid-man said.

  "What happened to the healers after they were blinded?"

  "Some of them died. Maybe all of them did. I don't know."

  Over the roaring of the nearby flames, Yngvild wailed, "Mother! No!"

  Halfdan put a hand on her shoulder, saying, "Stay calm. Siv probably wasn't one of the healers brought here."

  To the Eid-man, Halfdan said, "Go on."

  Three days ago, King Njal had been carried on a stretcher to the docks and put onto a ship to take him to Sogn. Some Eid-folk had guessed that he went back to his own kingdom to find a healer who could be trusted; others said that King Njal wanted to die at home, where his burial-mound would be raised.

  King Njal left his eldest son, called Egil the Beard-Puller, behind in Eid to rule the stolen kingdom.

  "We were glad to see Njal leave, but Egil was not an improvement," the Eid-man said. "Egil is as cruel as his father. And as lustful. All of us who are parents were terrified that he would notice one of our daughters — the beast."

  Many Førde-men who had switched loyalty to the famous and experienced King of Sogn found it hard to take orders from his arrogant, over-aggressive, twenty-four-year-old son. The fighters from Sogn, who had known Egil for much longer, also had little respect for him.

  The panicked horseman from the mountain rode into Eid this afternoon, with an exaggerated story about a "large group of fighters" who had attacked the fort-guards and were on their way to Eid.

  Egil had commanded his father's fighters (there were almost two hundred of them in Eid) to take defensive positions on the town wall.

  They refused. Not knowing that the approaching army was only nineteen men and a healer-woman, nobody wanted to risk a battle.

  "Egil has bad luck," one Sogn-man had said.

  "We agreed to fight for Njal, not his brat," another had grumbled.

  "We have enough loot. It's time to go home."

  Egil had had no choice but to follow the will of his fighters.

  The defeatist foe had quickly loaded their war-ships with boxes and bags of loot stolen from Eid and other Fjordane towns. With torches and poured oil, they had set fire to each building in Eid and to each ship left behind and to the docks. Then they had sailed away, west along the fjord towards the Endless Ocean.

  Atli said to Halfdan, "So there is now no government here."

  "What about us?" Halfdan said.

  Atli nodded.

  While waiting for the fire to burn out, Halfdan told his fighters to help the crowd of Eid-folk. It was fall, and the radiant heat of the burning town hid the air's chill. When the fire died, folk without shelter would get very cold.

  Messengers were sent to the farm-houses outside the town walls that had been spared the fire, asking for donations of clothes and food and shelter-making materials. They were also asked to share their homes for a few days with the homeless children and old folk.

  Yngvild's only concern was for her mother. She went among the crowd of Eid-folk, describing Siv and asking if anyone had seen her. One woman said that Siv had been one of the healers brought to Eid, but this Eid-woman did not know where Siv was now, "or if she's even still alive."

  Later, Yngvild found another woman who said, "You're Siv's daughter? Yes, Siv is alive — my family has been taking care of her. She's over there" — pointing at the base of a solitary tree, where folk had gathered.

  "Thank you!"

  Yngvild ran to the tree and found a stranger sitting at the base of the tree, leaning on the trunk. On this woman's lap was resting the head of a familiar-looking woman with a bandage-covered face.

  "Mother!"

  The bandage-wrapped face tried to turn towards Yngvild, saying in a weak and hesitant voice, "Is that really you, Yngvild?"

  "Yes! Oh, Freya, what did they do?"

  "They blinded me," Siv said. "With a bronze spike. Because I wouldn't heal that troll-king."

  "Wouldn't heal him? Or couldn't?"

  "Wouldn't. I know what is wrong with Njal, and how to heal it. But I would never heal the man who ordered the killing of Maris and Jann. Never."

  Yngvild, sobbing, crouched by Siv and put a hand on her shoulder. The shoulder felt thin and fragile. Yngvild smelled the reek of infection rising from the bandages on her mother's face.

  Yngvild changed the bandages over her mother's eyes, seeing the pair of sunken and scabby pits that had once held eyes just like hers.

  Yngvild arranged for Siv to move into a local farmer's house, until other shelter was available.

  Yngvild guided her sightless mother across a field towards that house.

  "So hot," Siv muttered.

  "The whole town is burning, Mother. I've never seen so much fire in one place before."

  Siv said, "A town can be rebuilt. I'm just grateful that Egil and his father's men didn't kill all of the Eid-folk before leaving. I've heard a lot of terrible things about that nasty young man."

  "Halfdan rules Eid now."

  "The ruler of a town on fire. Give him my congratulations. The Eid-folk deserve my condolences."

  "He's not like King Njal, or that Egil person. Halfdan will help these folk to rebuild Eid. He is good at heart and I care for him."

  "Obviously."

  At the farmer's house, Yngvild put her mother to bed, pulling the rough blankets over Siv's thin body.

  "Try to sleep, Mother."

  Yngvild sat by the bed, holding one of Siv's hands.

  After a while, Yngvild said, "Mother? Are you still awake?"

  "Yes, Yngvild."

  "Do you remember the last thing you said to me, before I left you in Loen?"

  "I asked you not to join your fate to Halfdan's."

  Yngvild whispered, "And you predicted that if I went with him, you would never see me again."

  "Yes, I remember."

  Yngvild said, "Now it's happened as you said it would. You will never see me again. If I had listened to you —"

  Siv reached a hand towards the sound of her daughter's voice and touched Yngvild's cheek; her bent, wrinkled fingers stroking the smooth, tear-wet skin of her daughter's face.

  "Don't blame yourself," Siv said, softly. "Nobody can escape their fate."

  Chapter 16

  TETTA WRITES TO ALCUIN *

  January 4, Year of Our Lord 7
93

  To the most venerable pontiff, Alcuin of York, shining lover of Christ:

  Tetta, a humble sinner, sends greetings of enduring affection.

  I have no words to express my thanks for the abundant affection you have shown in the letter brought by your messenger from beyond the sea.

  As the Israelites followed the Commandments of Moses, so shall I follow your wise advice regarding how to discipline that unruly Leoba. I have disposed with her as you suggested, in a small separate building which will provide her with complete solitude and darkness, and in that cell shall she remain, pondering on her errors, until her complete submission. She shall speak to no-one and no-one shall speak to her — she shall be seen by no-one, and shall see no-one — her eyes shall forget the light of sun, until she opens them to radiant Truth.

  We shall only open her cell's door when we hear her call out through the walls, in a sincere tone of voice, her repentance and request to submit to my authority.

  The only exception to the strict terms of her excommunication shall be Bishop Higbold's annual inspection; when, according to the ancient custom here, he insists on interviewing each and every person at the convent. I am sure that he will insist on speaking to Leoba too, and I have not the authority to refuse.

  Dearest Alcuin, I regret to write that your promised shipment of olive oil for our Masses, and hunting-falcons for the King, has not yet arrived. I will continue to wait, in the hope that your generous gifts were not tragically intercepted, but merely delayed by some incident of sea-travel.

  My best beloved, please pray for me. Let your prayers guide the frail and lost vessel of my soul, exhausted by the tempests of this unjust world, into safe harbour. I eagerly beg, dearest confidant, to be sheltered by your prayers from the poisonous darts of the treacherous enemy of souls. Remember in your inspired prayers the friendship you promised me so long ago in York; a promise you have kept to date, to your eternal credit. If it is not itself sinful, to remember a past sin with nostalgia, then let us not — now in the winter of our lives — regret anything about that time in York; not even the mistakes we made in that spring garden. So long ago, my Alcuin; so long ago.

  May I confess to you the deepest-hidden yearning of my heart? I fear your disapproval of worldly sentiment, but I must share with you a secret wish, known to none but Our Father: after our passings, I wish for you and I to be buried in the same grave. I confess, to my fear of your refusal, that I yearn for our remains to become dust together — blended by the labours of blind worms — sleeping side-by-side under a single Scripture-carved stone. O my spirit-husband Alcuin, do I dare dream of our spent bodies at rest together, until we wake to trumpet-blasts on Judgment Day?

  Tetta

  Chapter 17

  WAITING FOR SPRING

  Winter ruled.

  Snow covered the partially-rebuilt town of Eid, falling thick and often. Daylight dwindled until there was none, even at noon. Sharp wind and gritty snow lashed against furry winter jackets and thick wool hats.

  Halfdan had unofficially ruled the town, and the kingdom, for almost three months.

  Many local fighters had joined his army.

  Life in Eid was returning to normal, after the disasters of conquest and fire.

  Halfdan lived with Yngvild and her mother.

  Almost every day, even when snow was falling, Yngvild and Siv would bundle themselves in furs and high boots and leave their temporary shelter for a walk. Arm in arm, they walked the shovel-scraped streets to the newly-rebuilt docks, where teams of ship-builders were working. Sometimes the women would rest on a log bench by the docks. Yngvild would look out at the pale grey-blue water of the fjord, the dancing of the waves, the sea-gulls circling.

  With the sharpened hearing of the blind, Siv listened to the sounds from the docks. Sometimes she heard the rattling of oak-planks on sleds. The jokes and complaints and occasional chanted poem from the working men. Sometimes, the men grunting or panting or cursing. The loudest sounds were from axes chopping into cold wood and hammers hitting onto iron splitting-wedges and the long saws.

  Sometimes a ship-builder on a rest-break would walk to the women to chat. Sometimes these men would share their bread or sliced onion or salt-milk with Yngvild and Siv, who were both well-liked and respected.

  The ship-building was supervised by a local master and his crew of skilled carpenters. Teams of less-skilled, less-paid workers went on foot into the forests to chop down the biggest and straightest oaks, then stripping off the branches and bark. The inner-bark was saved to make rope; the rest was burned. Teams of horses would drag the naked logs on sleds out of the forests and to Eid, where the master ship-builder would chop them by eye-measure into the shapes of keels and stern-posts and bow-posts and ribs. Other logs would be sawed from end to end for planks.

  The pieces of the war-ships were propped up on the beach and fastened together with iron spikes. After the skeleton of the ship was in place, it would be covered with overlapping layers of planks. The planks were held in place not with spikes but with bark-rope, which made the ships flexible in rough water. The outer sides of the planks were smeared with a thick layer of tar (made from boiled spruce-tree roots) to seal any gaps.

  On Tyrsdays and Freyadays, Eid's central market was open. Yngvild would take her mother there, where Siv enjoyed listening to folk and smelling things. Yngvild would guide Siv through the crowds and across the slushy ground from booth to booth, describing rolls of cloth and iron tools and soap-stone utensils and walrus horns and bees-wax and slaves and sharpening-stones and furs and amber jewellery and salt and wine from the south and Frankish glass. Food-booths sold pickled herring and salt-milk and dried eels and cheese and smoked fish and root-vegetables and dried meats and barley and dried fruit. Siv would sniff a piece of dried whale-meat, or touch a roll of cloth, or pick up a flaky-skinned onion. Wonderful, vivid smells. Sometimes Yngvild would trade a sliver of silver for two pieces of warm herb-bread.

  The shortest and darkest day of the winter was called Yule. "Yule" was also the Old Norse word for "sun". It was said that at Yule, the sun had rolled so far away from the world that it might never return — a frightening thought. To convince the sun to wheel herself back to the world, bringing spring, Norse folk would offer gifts.

  Yule was the biggest fest of the year. A bronze vat of special mead — brewed with magic herbs, and only drank on this one day of the year — was carried by slaves into the small, temporary hall that had been built on the site of the old one. They put the vat on a table in the middle of the room, beside a carved, arm-length, walrus-horn statue. The booze was for the men, the statue was for the women. Men would wait in line for a chance to dunk their faces into the sweet brown honey-booze, gulping as much of it as they could before taking breath. Yule-mead was known to give luck to those who drank it in large amounts. Many poems were sang about men who died from drinking too much of it. Only women were allowed to touch the old walrus-horn statue, which was carved in the shape of a hard penis. Women would rub the nipple of a bare breast on the statue, while making a wish to Freyir, the god of male lust, or his sister Freya, goddess of lasting love. Yngvild wished for a divorce.

  At midnight, men dressed in beast-masks and beast-costumes ran in through the front door of the new hall, carrying a big bronze statue of a boar-pig. (This was a new, smaller one than King Lambi's, which had been taken stolen by King Njal.) The disguised men — Haki was one of them, in bear-mask and bear-furs, and Atli, in owl-mask and a suit covered with thousands of sewed-on owl-feathers — stomped with high kicks into the hall, chanting, "Yule! Spin back the sun for spring! Yule! Spin back the sun for spring!"

  They placed the fire-glittering bronze idol in the middle of the room, near the mead-vat and the walrus-horn statue and the Yule-tree. The branches of this pine — cut from the forest near the sacred waterfall — were decorated with bits of silver foil and shiny iron bells and sea-shells. The Yule-tree was topped by a seven-pointed star of hammered silver. The base o
f the Yule-tree was covered by a pile of cloth-wrapped gifts, which Halfdan handed out after midnight.

  In the late morning after Yule, a Torsday, a crowd of Eid-folk gathered by a small frozen bog-lake a short walk from the town. Many of them brought children, who played around the legs of the adults and munched on sweet Yule-snacks.

  This sacred part of the swamp was near where iron-ore was strip-mined.

  Ice was thick over the muddy water of the little lake. Brown plant-stalks with dead leaves stuck up through the surface of the ice. Cold, sharp wind. No hint of sunlight.

  Halfdan stood on the ice, blue paint smeared around his eyes, wearing thick and expensive boots and jacket. He was armed and armoured, a shined helmet over his tangled black curls. His battle-hurts had all healed, and his finger-stump was covered with skin.

  He was not Fjordane's king, just a temporary war-chief, but Halfdan would rule the government and religion of Fjordane until a king was elected at the yearly Assembly this summer.

  At Halfdan's boots, two men lay belly-down on the ice, ankles and wrists tied with bronze wire. Their heads were covered with grey-furred wolf-masks. Each of them lay near a hole cut in the ice. Between them on the ice lay a pair of bent and fire-blacked swords and two similarly-abused shields.

  These two men were spies, captured last week near the docks. Under torture, both had confessed to coming to Eid from Sogn to get information about Halfdan's plans and, if possible, to set fire to the half-built war-ships.

  Halfdan made a speech to the crowd about the evil of King Njal and the threat posed by Sogn to the traditional freedoms and rights of the folk of Fjordane.

  "The outlanders want to hurt us all!" he concluded. "But they can't! Because the gods above are always on Fjordane's side! And why is that? Because in Fjordane we give generously to the gods!"

  With that, Halfdan bent to pick up one of the ruined swords.