by C. R. May
As the elderly brother bobbed his head and made his way from the room Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, took a sip from his cup and threw the man before him a fatherly smile. He had become carried away by the cut and thrust of his tale, and it was clear now that the scribe had been hard pushed to keep pace with his wittering in the gathering dusk. Bloodshot eyes stared back at him across the vellum, but the lad’s expression betrayed his keenness to continue and he asked the question anyway although he already suspected the reply. ‘Shall we leave it there for today? You look all in.’
Wulfstan was not to be disappointed, and he smothered a smile as the monk shot back a retort. ‘Perhaps we could just finish this part of King Erik’s tale, lord? If you think that we can squeeze it in before we break for vespers?’
Outside the rooks had finally quietened as the short winter day drew to a close, but the dogs had taken to yowling again and the pair exchanged a look of gratitude and amusement as a man growled a curse and a yelp cut the air.
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘If we forego supper beforehand, I think we can just about make it…’
Gunnhild had told herself that she would march smartly to the ship without a backwards glance, head held high, chest thrust proudly forward as her own mother had taught her so many years before; but the sight of Erik pulled her up short, and her eyes misted over despite her promises. She had never regretted her marriage to the bluff northerner for a moment; the gods knew that she had only escaped a marriage to a prince in East Frankia by the skin of her teeth. But she had never been really sure that she truly loved him until this moment, when all around were downcast, their hearts and courage in their shoes; Erik filled the waterfront like Thor himself: like a king. Unconquerable and full of life her husband was marching towards the gangplank, laughing, hailing one and all; looking for all the world like a man out for a summer jaunt on the waters of the Sound.
Gamli, their first born marched at his side, the lad’s face shining with the pride he felt to be in his father’s company after so long away. Recalled from foster with a trusted hersir in Halogaland, the man had made his excuses and sent the lad on ahead promising to follow on when he had settled some business or other. Erik had accepted the news graciously as was to be expected of a great king, thankful that he had the lad back at all. But all those there knew that the only time the two men would meet in the future would be if they found themselves glaring across the rim of a shield.
‘Halogaland!’ If the word had been a dark hair fished from her broth, Gunnhild could not have spat it out with greater venom. Overcome by the enormity of the events she was witnessing on that warm summer morning a maid made the mistake of glancing her way, but a withering stare drove the girl’s eyes back to the floor where they belonged: Halogaland.
It had been the moment that had broken Erik’s will to resist, the closest Gunnhild had ever come to seeing the steel which flowed through the Bloodaxe’s veins buckle when Arinbjorn had reported the news to a silent and fearful hall. The banners of Halogaland, and of Ragnar Jarl too, had been seen alongside those of Trondelag, Upland, Romsdal, even Moerr. They already knew that Hakon and Sigurd Jarl had not waited until Erik was ready to appoint replacement jarls and hersar to Vestfold and Ringerike and had stolen a march. Only Fjordane and Rogaland remained loyal, but even here support was lukewarm at best. Gunnhild sighed, despite her promises to herself. Arinbjorn’s brusqueness had been worth more to Erik than her denial. He had been right about this Christianity all along: woodcutters; smiths; farmers and the like. What price a dunk in a chilly stream if it helps to fill the bellies of your children and get them through another year?
Erik placed his hand upon his son’s shoulder and threw him a heartening wink. ‘Take a good look around,’ he said. ‘This is the home of the king of Norway.’ He raised an arm to point away to the North, pushing down the sense of shame which threatened to overwhelm him as he did so. ‘You see that barrow on the skyline?’
Gamli shaded his eyes and followed his father’s tree trunk of an arm. ‘The lefthand one, father?’
Erik nodded, ‘yes, the biggest one. That is the Howe of your grandfather and his father before him. When the wind howls like a wolf in heat and the moon shines like a Serkland dirham they come from the tomb to look out over the Sound, sinking horns of mead and swapping tales of the old days. Mark it well,’ he said as the wonder of the thing drew the colour from the lad’s cheeks. ‘One day you will lead men here, and when your ancestors next settle down upon their lofty perch to sink a draft or three, a new king will sit in the high seat at Avaldsnes and men will call him Gamli Hakon’s Bane.’
Gamli nodded with all the earnestness of a boy keen to make his father proud, and Erik exchanged a look and a wink with Arinbjorn as the last of the huskarls trooped aboard the Draki. ‘Go on, son,’ Erik said. ‘Lead your kinsmen aboard, and remember what I said. These lands are our lands, paid for with the blood of our ancestors.’
Foster-brothers from way back the pair watched him go, and Arinbjorn sucked the air through his teeth with a whistle as his mind wandered back over the years. ‘Who would have thought that it would lead us here?’
Erik’s brows dipped in question and Arinbjorn went on; ‘the fight.’
‘What fight?’
Arinbjorn shook his head and threw him a look. ‘The horse fight, back at the Gulathing; when we took an axe to Bram.’
Erik snorted as his mind drifted back to that far off day. ‘Bram,’ he said, the affection he felt at the memory taking him by surprise. ‘He was a good horse, a real fighter!’
‘Yes,’ Arinbjorn said. ‘He was a good fighter, but the horse fight led to Bolli Sigurdsson’s killing. You made an implacable enemy that day, and by a roundabout route it has led us here.’
Erik’s deep laugh rolled around the quayside, and the warriors sat at the rowing benches or lounging forlorn where they could find space on the decks of the longships exchanged looks of wonder at the sound. Gunnhild had reached them, sandy and ruddy haired bairns swirling around her skirts like the waters of the Moskstraumen itself, and his heart gave a kick as he recognised the pride in her eyes despite the grimness of the day. She shook her head in disbelief as he threw her a lascivious leer, but he could see the love there and his heart swelled with pride as he recognised just how lucky he really was despite it all.
‘Maybe you should have let it go?’ Arinbjorn said. ‘You might still be king of the Norwegians if you had.’
Erik pulled a face. ‘Sigurdsson deserved all he got. If I could go back to that time I would not change a thing.’ He looked at his foster-brother and poked his chest with a finger. ‘And neither would you Arinbjorn Thorirsson, for all your well meant words. Come,’ he said, ‘it is time we were away. Hakon’s host cannot be far off, and I have at least three more high seats to fill before the Norns snip my life thread.’
‘What do you mean, three more high seats?’
Erik threw an arm around his old friend as they trod the jetty. ‘I thought that you were there? In Finnmark when the shaman lost his head and Jomal gained a name.’
‘Oh, I was there,’ Arinbjorn snorted, ‘like as not swatting smaller pests. If the shaman told you anything about the future Erik, he did so out of mischief; it was a curse, and I don’t want to know. No man should know his fate, that is for the Norns to decide and no other.’ Arinbjorn pinned his lord with a look, switching the subject to more immediate matters as they came to a halt between the gangways. ‘Is it time then?’
‘Time for what?’
‘Time to let us all in on the secret of our destination.’
Erik laughed again. ‘Just follow my stern post; I can promise you though that we sail not into shameful exile, but to war.’
Arinbjorn’s face lit up at the disclosure, and he turned to share the news with the men crowding the Sea Stallion. Arinbjorn’s glee was reflected among the warriors sat ready at their oars, backs straightening, chins rising again as the news spread, and the leaders gripped forearms an
d each wished the other gods-speed as they boarded their ships. The news was passing from ship to ship, and men who dragged their feet on the way down from the hall found the spring return to their movement as hawsers were slipped and the ships began to pull out into deeper water.
The big skei were the first to reach mid channel, and Erik looked on proudly as they peeled off one by one and turned their prows to the South beneath a cloud of gulls too numerous to count. Heavily laden the knarrs tucked in behind, the tubby trading craft waddling into position as the snekkjur came out to form a screen to their rear. Thorstein watched as spars clattered aloft, sails were unfurled and oars stacked amidships for the journey. ‘The knarrs are sitting low in the water, lord,’ he said with a frown. ‘Imagine if one went down.’
Erik snorted. ‘I would pretend that it was a sacrifice to Njord.’ He threw his huskarl a wink. ‘Rather that than gift the contents of my treasury at Avaldsnes to Hakon and my turncoat countrymen when they arrive.’
The wind came on from the North, sails bellied, pennants snapped, and before the sun had reached its zenith in the southern sky Skudenes, the rocky tip of the island of Kormt, was disappearing astern.
Gunnhild and the children had settled amidships and Erik, despite the gravity of the moment, found that he was chuckling happily watching the boys play rough and tumble with his men. It was a glimpse of a truth which victory would have denied him, and he recalled the pride he had felt at the admiration in young Gamli’s eyes back on the jetty. Real wealth was not measured in the number of spearmen at your beck and call, nor the size of your gift hoard; it could be found everywhere, even in the shabbiest shack. His mood lifted another notch as he shifted his gaze outboard, filling his lungs with salty air as he thrilled to the sight of the fleet porpoising south under a cerulean sky.
The huskarls had gathered on the steering platform, and as the wide inlet which led to Hafrsfjord opened up on the larboard quarter Anlaf Crow spoke for them all. ‘So, we shall be fighting this summer?’
Erik nodded, and the men thrilled as they saw his eyes flash in anticipation. Anlaf exchanged a look with the others as they waited for Erik to outline his plans, but after a while they realised that they were waiting in vain and the huskarl pushed again. ‘Did you have any particular foe in mind, lord? Or are we just waiting to see who crosses our path?’
Erik came back from his thoughts, and the steeliness they saw caused the battle hardened warriors to blanch as all the good humour of moments ago was chased away. ‘Christ men,’ he growled. ‘The kings of England and Frankia thought it a fine thing to topple a king, to buy another man’s gift stool with his own silver. But Oðin protects his own; the tafl pieces are moving now, the game has just begun.’
Afterword
Despite falling firmly within the period when historical records were becoming widely kept throughout Europe, the people of Scandinavia were still overwhelmingly illiterate at this time. Christianity with its monastic seats of learning and record keeping had barely begun to make the first tentative inroads into a society which still modelled itself on the heroic culture of the older Germanic and Celtic north. What little has come down to us today of the lives of the men and women who inhabited the North in those far off days is fragmentary and conflicting. Those written within Scandinavia itself were written hundreds of years after the events they describe, with even the simple matter of dating a reign proving to vary widely from one source to the next in a region which was late to adopt the Christian calendar. Luckily I could use two raids which can be dated with certainty using contemporary sources, the sack of Landévennec Abbey in 913 and Athelstan’s punitive expedition into Scotland in 934 to bookend the narrative in this book. Most histories have Harald Fairhair dying around the year 933, so this was ideal.
One of the primary sources for Erik’s life is the Saga of Egil Skallagrimsson, more often known as Egil’s Saga or simply Egla. First written down in Iceland in the thirteenth century, almost certainly by the scholar and lawspeaker Snorri Sturluson, Egla purports to tell the story of an Icelandic farmer/skald/warrior. A large part of the tale concerns Egil’s conflict with Erik Bloodaxe and especially Gunnhild. Most of what we think we know about Erik and Gunnhild comes from this, but the truth is that there is little independent evidence that Egil existed at all outside of these tales, much less that he almost single-handedly won the battle of Brunanburh for King Athelstan of England. It is a great story, as are all the Icelandic sagas and I recommend that you read it if you have not already done so, but to attempt to use this to reconstruct a history of Erik Haraldsson’s life would be pure folly, and I decided at the outset to leave the character out of my tale completely. Snorri Sturluson was a leading politician in thirteenth century Iceland, often the leading politician, at a time when King Hakon IV in Norway was looking to incorporate the commonwealth of Iceland into the realm. Initially a supporter of the king Snorri had a falling out which led to his assassination, but it is important to bear in mind what type of man Snorri was when reading his works regarding Erik, Gunnhild and Hakon, the king who even shared the same name as that in his own day, a man Snorri knew personally.
Gunnhild herself, known to later history as the Mother of Kings, is a character with conflicting origins. Some sources, notably Egla and Heimskringla, both probably written by Snorri Sturluson, say that she was the daughter of a minor nobleman in the north of Norway. I have chosen what I think is the far more likely background for this remarkable woman, that she was the daughter of King Gorm the Languid, later known as Gorm the Old, in Denmark, sister no less to the equally famous Harald Bluetooth. One of the earliest sources certainly back this up; commonly known as Ágrip, a history of the kings of Norway thought to have been written around the turn of the twelfth century. Erik himself had family connections with this part of the world through his own mother, a daughter of another Danish king after whom he was likely named. That Erik Haraldsson was not only provided with a spouse by his father from Denmark but was the only one of the king’s many sons to marry into Royalty, also serves to support the claim he was Fairhair’s intended Successor, as does the fact that he was fostered in the household of Harald’s own foster-brother Thorir Hroaldsson. The final piece of evidence supporting this would be the name of Erik and Gunnhild’s first born son, Gamli. King Gorm is still known in Denmark as Gorm den Gamle, old Norse Gormr gamli. It would not only honour Gunnhild’s father to name the child for him, but the continuation of a family tradition would serve to illustrate the feelings of respect and affection which the histories and sagas say existed between Harald and his son Erik.
All the sources agree that Harald Fairhair sired a prodigious number of children and lived to a ripe old age. The number of legitimate sons he produced vary from eleven to twenty according to which source you read, and there were many more born to various women of all social backgrounds. If Harald had died sooner there seems little doubt that a man of Erik’s qualities would have succeeded to the High Seat almost unchallenged; that the king lived to a venerable age was, to Erik’s position at least, unfortunate.
I have given Harald Fairhair the honour of naming his favoured son Bloodaxe, but the truth is it is far from certain that Erik carried the name within his lifetime. Ágrip again is the first to record the epithet which is usually explained by the ruthlessness with which Erik dispatched his half brothers as he sought to keep the crown, although another source, Fagrskinna, ascribes it to his success as a Viking. The truth is that we will never know for certain, but as all the sources agree that Erik was Fairhair’s choice to succeed him I thought that I would hand him the honour.
As mentioned above, the raid and sack of the Benedictine monastery at Landévennec in Brittany occurred in 913 which fitted my timeline perfectly. Christian religious houses were often sited on remote coastlines, and as I have attempted to show precious metals were not the only riches they contained. Important members could be ransomed, the younger monks were well fed and usually disease free, perfect fodder for the sl
ave markets throughout Europe and beyond.
Heimskringla tells us that Harald sent five fully crewed ships to Thorir’s hall in Naustdal when Erik turned twelve years old and became a man in law, with instructions that he go Viking and prove his worthiness. He spent a total of eight years raiding all around northern Europe before setting off to Bjaramaland where he ‘won a great victory.’ King Sveri and his daughter Snofrid were as they appear in our tale; the Finns were always renowned in early medieval Scandinavia for their witchcraft and dark magic and Erik could very easily have been acting on his father’s orders. The overwintering on the return journey was my own addition to the timeline, as was the attacks of the shapeshifter. From the vantage point of our twenty-first century world such things can appear absurd, but the truth is that the population of early medieval Europe and beyond believed that such things existed and people sometimes see what they expect to see. Most people have heard of the condition known as ‘cabin fever,’ and this would be a similar experience.
The Moskstraumen is far better known now by the simplified name given it in “A Descent into the Maelström,” a short story written in 1841 by the American writer Edgar Allan Poe. Whether Ægir was still swapping seafaring yarns with Skipper Alf there he fails to mention.