Sworn Brother v-2

by Tim Severin

  Rassa prodded me awake at first light. Neither Allba nor his wife were anywhere to be seen. 'We go to fetch the Old One now,' he said. 'I thank you for what you have done for the siida. Now it is the time to celebrate.'

  'Why do you keep on calling him the Old One?' I asked, feeling peevish. 'You might have warned me we were hunting for bear.'

  'We can call him a bear now that he has given his life for us,' he replied cheerfully, 'but if we had spoken directly of him before the hunt, he would have been insulted. It removes respect if we call him by his earth name before the hunt.'

  'But my saivo companion is a bear? Surely it is not right that I killed his kind?'

  'Your saivo companion protected you from the Old One's charge when he emerged from his long winter sleep. You see, the Old One you killed was killed many times before. Yet he always comes again, for he wishes to give himself to the siida, to strengthen us because he is our own ancestor. That is why we returned the gold ring under his arm, for that is where our greatgreat-grandfathers first found the golden arpa, and knew that he was the original father of our siida.'

  We skiied back to the dead bear, taking a light sledge with us, and hauled its carcass to the encampment. Under Rassa's watchful gaze the hunters removed the large pelt - the bear was a full-grown male - and then with their curved knives separated the flesh from the bones, taking exquisite care. Not a bone was broken or even nicked with a knife blade, and each part of the skeleton was carefully put on one side. 'Later,' said Rassa, 'we will bury the skeleton intact, every bone of it, so that when the Old One comes again to life he will be as well and strong as he was this year.'

  'Like Thor's goats,' I said.

  Rassa looked at me questioningly. 'Thor is a God of my people,' I said. 'Each evening he feasts on the two goats which draw his chariot through the sky - the thunder is the sound of his passing - and after the meal he sets aside their bones and skins. In the morning, when he awakes, the goats are whole again. Unfortunately one of Thor's dinner guests broke open a hind leg to get at the marrowbone, and ever since that goat has walked with a limp.'

  The siida made a great fuss of me for the three days of feasting it took to consume every last morsel of the animal I had killed. 'Scut of boaz, paw of bear,' was Rassa's recommendation as he helped me to the delicacy, explaining that to set aside or keep any portion of the dead animal would be an insult to the generosity of its death. 'The Old One made sure that the blizzard did not destroy us, and that the spring will come and the snow will melt. Already he is roaming the hills ahead of us, calling upon the grass and the tree shoots to appear and for the birds that left to return.'

  My only regret was that Allba still kept her distance from me. 'If she comes to your bed within three days of the hunt,' her father enlightened me, 'she will turn barren. Such is the power of our father-ancestor whose presence came so close to you. Even as you set off to hunt the Old One, his power was already reaching out towards you.' This seemed to explain why Allba had been behaving so strangely, and only when Rassa wore on his face the muzzle we had flayed from the Old One and every hunter -myself included — had danced around the central rock in imitation of Old Honey Paws on the final night of feasting, did she once again snuggle against my shoulder.

  She also made me a fine cloak from the pelt, long enough for my height. 'You are wearing the presence of the Old One, a sign that he himself gave you,' Rassa said. 'Even a Sabme from another band would know that and treat you with respect.' He was anxious to press ahead with my instruction, and as the days grew longer he took me on trips into the forest to show me strange-shaped rocks, trees split by lightning or bent by the wind into human shapes, and ancient wooden statues hidden deep in the forest. They were all places where the spirits resided, he explained, and on one special occasion he brought me to a long, low rock face shielded from the snow by an overhanging cliff. The grey rock was painted with many pictures and I recognised the images that appeared on the siida's magic drums, as well as some I had not seen before — outlines of whales, boats and sledges. Others were too old and faded to decipher.

  'Who painted these?' I asked Rassa.

  'I do not know,' he said. 'They have always been here for as long as our siida has existed. I believe they were left for our instruction, to remind us who has gone before and to guide us when we are in need of help.'

  'And where are they now, the painters?' I asked.

  'In the saivo, of course,' he replied. 'And they are happy. In the winter nights when the curtains of light hang and twist and mingle in the sky, the spirits of the dead are dancing with joy.'

  With each day came more signs of spring. Our footprints in the snow, once clear and distinct, now had softer edges, and I heard the sound of running water from small rivulets hidden beneath the icy crust and the patter of drips falling from the forest branches. A few early flowers emerged through the snow and flocks of birds began to pass overhead in increasing numbers. Their calls heralded their arrival, then faded into the distance as they flew onward to their nesting grounds. Rassa took the chance to teach me how to interpret the meanings hidden in their numbers, the directions which they appeared from or vanished to, even the messages in the manner of their calls. 'Birds in flight or smoke rising from the fire. It is the same,' he said. 'For those who can read them, they are signs and portents.' Then he added 'though in your case it requires no such skill.' He had noted how my gaze lingered towards the south even after the birds had gone. 'Soon the siida will be heading north for our spring hunting grounds and you will be going in the opposite direction and leaving us,' he said. I was about to deny it, when his crooked smile stopped me. 'I have known this since the very first day you arrived among us, and so has every member of our siida, including my wife and Allba. You are a wanderer just as we are, but we retrace the paths laid down by our ancestors, while you are restless in a deeper way. You told me that the spirit God you serve was a seeker after knowledge. I have seen how he sent you among us, just as I know that he now wishes you to continue onward. It is my duty to assist and there is little time left. You must leave before the melting snow makes it impossible to travel easily on skis. Soon the staallu men will be arriving to trade for furs. For fear of them, we will retreat deeper into our forests. But before that happens, three of our best hunters will take our winter furs to the special place for the trading. You must go with them.'

  As usual, the Sabme, once they came to a decision, carried it out quickly. The next morning there was every sign that they were breaking camp. Deerskin coverings were being stripped from the tent poles and the three designated hunters were stacking two sledges with tight-packed bundles of furs. Everything was done with such bewildering speed that I had no time to think what I should say to Allba, how best to say goodbye. I need not have worried. She left her mother to attend to the dismantling of our tent and led me a little way from the camp. Stepping behind the shelter of a spruce tree, she took my hand, and pressed something small and hard into my palm. I knew that she was returning to me the fire ruby. It was still warm from where it had lain against her flesh.

  'You must keep it,' I objected. 'It is yours, a token of my love for you.'

  'You don't understand,' she said. 'For me it is much more important that the spirit that flickers within the stone continues to guard and guide you. Then I know you will be safe wherever you are. Besides, you have left with me something just as precious. It stirs inside me.'

  I took her meaning. 'How can you be sure?'

  'Now is the season that all creatures can feel the stirrings of their young. The Sabme are no different. Madder Acce, who lives beneath the hearth, has placed within me a daughter. I knew she would, from that day that we both visited the saivo.'

  'How can you be sure that our child will be a girl?'

  'Do you remember the bear you met on your saivo journey?' she answered. 'I was there with you as my companion bird, though you did not see me.'

  'I felt your wings brush my cheek.'

  'And the
bear? Don't you remember the bear you met at that time?'

  'Of course, I do. It smiled at me.'

  'If it had growled, that would have meant my child would be a boy. But when the bear smiles then a girl child is promised. All Sabme know that.'

  'Don't you want me to stay, to help you with our child?'

  'Everyone in the siida will know that she is the child of a foreign noiade and the grandchild of a great noiade. So everyone will help me because they will expect the girl will become a great noiade too, and help our siida to survive. If you stayed among us for my sake, it would make me sad. I told you when you first arrived among us that the Sabme believe it is far, far better to travel onward than to remain in one place. By staying you imprison your spirit, just as the fire is held within that magic stone you lent me. Please listen to me, travel onward and know that you have left me happy.'

  She turned her face up towards me for one last kiss, and I took the opportunity to close her fingers once more around the fire ruby. 'Give it to our daughter when she is grown, in memory of her father.' There was a tiny moment of hesitation and then Allba acquiesced. She turned and walked back towards her family. Rassa was beckoning to me. The men with the fur sledges were anxious to leave. They had already strapped on their skis and were adjusting the leather hauling straps of the sledges more comfortably across their shoulders. I went across to thank Rassa for all he had done for me. But, strangely for him, he looked worried.

  'Don't trust the staallu men,' he warned me. 'Last night I visited the saivo to consult your saivo companion about what will happen. My journey was shadowy and disturbed, and I sensed death and deceit. But I could not see from where it came, though a voice told me that already you knew the danger.'

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but I respected him too much to doubt his sincerity. 'Rassa, I will remember what you have said. I can look after myself, and it is you who have the greater task - to look after the siida. I hope that the spirits guard and protect your people, for they are in my memory always.'

  'Go now' said the stunted little man. 'your companions are good men and they will bring you to the staallu place safely. After that you must guard yourself. Goodbye.'

  It took four days of steady skiing, always southward, to reach the place where my siida traded with the outsiders. At night the four of us wrapped ourselves in furs and slept beside our sledges. We ate dried food or, on the second evening, a ptarmigan which one of the hunters knocked down with his throwing stick. As we drew closer to the meeting place, I sensed my comrades' growing nervousness. They feared the foreign traders and the last day we travelled in complete silence, as if we were on our way to hunt a dangerous wild beast. We detected the staallu men from a great distance. In that pristine, quiet forest we heard them and smelled the smoke from their cooking fire. My companions halted at once, and one of them slipped out of the hauling harness and glided off quietly to scout. The others pulled the sledges out of sight and we waited. Our scout returned to say that two staallu men were camped in the place where they usually waited for the silent trade. With them were four more men, boaz men. For a moment I was puzzled. Then I understood that he was talking about the slaves who would act as porters for the traders.

  The foreign traders had already displayed their trade goods in a deserted clearing, the bundles hung like fruit from the trees. That night our little group furtively approached, and in the first light of dawn my companions examined what was on offer — cloth, salt, metal items. Apparently they were satisfied, for we hurriedly unloaded the sledges of the furs, replaced them with the trade goods, and soon the Sabme were ready to depart. They embraced me and skiied away as silently as they had arrived, leaving me among their furs.

  This is how the traders found me, to their amazement: seated on a bundle of prime furs in a deserted forest glade, as if I had appeared by magic, and wearing my noiade's heavy bearskin cloak.

  They spoke crude Norse.

  'Frey's prick! What have we got here?' the first one called out to his companion. The two men were clumsily pushing themselves forward across the snow with stout poles, each on a single ski in the Norse fashion. I thought how ungainly they looked compared with the agile Sabme. Both men were bundled up in heavy coats, felt hats and thick loose trousers gathered into stout boots.

  'Nice cape he's got on,' said the other. 'A bearskin that size would fetch a good price.'

  'So would he,' replied his companion. 'Go up to him slowly. I'll see if I can get behind him. They say that once those Skridfinni get going, there's no hope of catching up with them. Act friendly.'

  They sidled closer, the leader wearing a false smile which only emphasised that his bulbous nose was dripping a slimy trail down his heavy moustache and beard.

  I waited until they were within a few paces and then said clearly, 'Greetings. The bearskin is not for sale.'

  The pair of them stopped in their tracks. They were too astonished to speak.

  'Nor are the furs in the pack I am sitting on,' I continued. 'Your furs are lying over there. They are fair exchange for the goods you left.'

  The two men recovered from their shock that I had spoken in their language.

  'Where did you drop from?' the leader asked belligerently, mistaking me for a rival. 'This is our patch. No one trespasses.' 'I came with the furs,' I said.

  For a moment they did not believe me. Then they read the ski tracks of my Sabme companions. They clearly came from the rim of the silent forest and then returned again. Then the traders noted my Sabme fur hat, and the deerskin shoes that Allba had sewn for me.

  'I want to get to the coast,' I said. 'I would pay you well.'

  The two men looked at one another. 'How much?' asked the snot-nosed individual bluntly.

  'A pair of marten skins, perfectly matched,' I suggested.

  It must have been a generous offer because both men nodded at once. Then the leader turned to his companion and said, 'Here, let's see what they've left for us,' and began to grub among the furs that the Sabme hunters had left behind. Apparently satisfied, he turned back towards his camp and let out a huge bellow. Out of the thickets appeared a sad little procession. Four men bundled up against the cold in ragged and dirty clothes trudged along on small square boards attached to their feet, dragging crude sledges. They were what my Sabme companions had called the boaz people, porters and hauliers for the fur traders. As they loaded the sledges, I saw they had the beaten air of thralls and did not understand more than a few words of their masters' language. Every command was accompanied by kicks and blows as well as simple gestures to show what needed to be done.

  The two fur traders, Vermundr and Angantyr, told me they were collecting the furs on behalf of their felag. It was the same word the Jomsvikings had used to describe their military fellowship, but in the mouths of the fur traders the meaning was much debased. Their felag was a group of merchants who swore to help one another and share profits and expenses. But it was soon apparent to me that Vermundr and Angantyr were both prepared to cheat their colleagues. They demanded my marten skins in advance, hid them in their personal belongings, and when we reached the rendezvous with the felag at the trading town of Aldeigjuborg they failed to mention the extra pelts.

  I had never seen so much mud in my life as I found at Aldeigjuborg. Everywhere you walked you sank almost ankle deep, and within a day I had lost both of Allba's shoes and had to buy a pair of heavy boots. Built on a swampy riverside, Aldeigjuborg lies in that region the Norse call Gardariki, the land of forts, and is the gateway to an area stretching for an unimaginable distance to the east. The place is surrounded by endless forest, so all the houses are made of wood. The logs are cut, squared and laid to make walls, the roofs are wooden shingles, and a tall fence of wooden stakes encloses each house's yard. The houses have been erected at random so there is no single main street, and barely any attempt is made to keep the roadways passable. Occasionally a layer of tree trunks is laid down on the earth to provide a surface, but in the spring
these trees sink into the soft soil and are soon slippery with rain. Everywhere the puddles are fed by the filth seeping out from the house yards. There is no drainage and, when I was there, each householder used his yard as a latrine and rubbish dump, never clearing away the squalor. As a result the place stank and rotted at the same time.

  Yet Aldeigjuborg was thriving. Flotillas of small boats were constantly coming and going at the landing staithes along the river. They were laden with the commercial products of the northern woodlands — furs, honey, beeswax, either obtained cheaply by silent barter such as I had witnessed or, more usually, by straightforward extortion. Gangs of heavily armed traders travelled into the remoter regions and demanded tribute from the forest-dwelling peoples. Often they obliged the natives to provide them with porters and oarsmen as well, so the muddy lanes of Aldeigjuborg were thronged with Polians, Krivichi, Berendeis, Severyane, Pechenegs and Chuds, as well as people from tribes so obscure that they had no known name. A few were traders in their own right, but the majority were kholops — slaves.

  With such a rapacious and mixed population, Aldeigjuborg was a turbulent place. The town was nominally subject to the overlord of Kiev, a great city several days' journey to the south, and he appointed a member of his family as regent. But real power lay in the hands of the merchants, particularly the better armed ones. They were commonly known as Varangians, a name by which I was proud to call myself in later days, but when I first met them I was appalled by their behaviour. They were out-and-out ruffians. Mostly of Swedish descent, they came to Gardariki to make their fortunes. They took the var - the oath which formed them into felags - and became a law unto themselves. Some hired themselves out as mercenaries to whoever would pay the highest price; others joined felags which masqueraded as trading groups, though they were little more than pirate bands. The most notorious of all the felags when I arrived was the one to which Vermundr and Angantyr belonged, and no Varangian was more feared than its leader, Ivarr known as the Pitiless. Vermundr and Angantyr were so terrified of him that the moment we arrived in Aldeigjuborg they took me straight to see their leader to report on their mission and seek his approval of what they had done.