Viking Warrior

by Judson Roberts

  “If it was later in the year, closer to summer, we could hunt where the forest runs down to the edges of the fields,” I explained. “At dawn, the deer like to sneak out from the forest to feed upon the crops. But the earliest spring plantings have barely begun sprouting in the fields, so there is little there now to draw the deer from the protection of the trees. We will have to hunt deep in the forest.

  “In late winter and early spring, forage is scarce. The deer will scrape the forest floor under oaks, looking for the last of the acorn drop, hidden by fallen leaves, or feed on the tender tips of green branches where they are just beginning to sprout, or on new rushes and grass along the edges of streams. This morning, we will follow the stream that empties into the fjord near the base of the death ship hill. Back in the forest along its banks, there are large stands of oak trees. I think it will be a good place to look.”

  “How did you learn the ways of the forest creatures, Halfdan?” Harald asked.

  “Gunhild and Sigrid enjoy variety in their meats at table. On rare occasions, you and Hrorik and the housecarls might schedule a hunt, and if you were lucky you would bring in venison or wild pig. But none of you like to hunt hares, or wild fowl, or other small game. You never considered that to be noble sport. Gunhild and Sigrid enjoy such fare, though, and so, for that matter, do you.

  “When I was still a young boy, Ubbe would sometimes send me into the forest to set snares for rabbits. That way, he would not lose a day’s work from a grown thrall. It was then I first began to learn the ways of the forest and the creatures that live there. Later, after Gudrod taught me how to make and shoot bows, I began harvesting the creatures of the forest with arrows. By then I’d learned to move through the forest as silently as the beasts themselves.

  “Did Ubbe know of your bow?” Harald asked.

  “Eventually,” I answered. “But he was glad to have a source of game for the larder, and no one else had the skill or interest to supply the farm with wild meat. Whenever my services as a hunter were requested, I lingered in the forest as long as possible. It was the only place I felt free.”

  “Was it hard being a thrall?” Harald asked. “It is difficult for me to imagine.”

  “If every day you could only do those things that Gunhild or Ubbe ordered you to do, but all around you others could do whatever they wished, would you find it hard?” I replied.

  Harald was silent for a long time. Finally he answered. “I do not think I could stand it. I think I would kill someone.” He grinned. “Probably Gunhild,” he said. “At least to start with. Then perhaps others. I would not like always being told what I must do.

  “How many deer have you taken, in your hunts in the forest?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “None,” I answered. “You and Hrorik and the housecarls ate duck or hare or goose without wondering where it came from, but the sudden appearance of venison on the table, when none of you had been out hunting, would raise too many questions that Ubbe might find difficult to answer. I have followed many deer, though, for hours, just for the pleasure of watching them. I have come to know their ways.”

  “So,” Harald said, looking pleased for the first time since I’d roused him out of bed that morning. “As to deer, at least, I am the more experienced hunter between the two of us. I have killed many.”

  I smiled but said nothing.

  We walked for a time in silence, then Harald spoke. “It must have been difficult,” he said. “All those years that you hunted meat for the table, yet as a thrall were allowed to eat none of it.”

  My face reddened. “Well,” I said, “You know you must watch thralls constantly, or they’ll steal from you every chance they can. If Ubbe told me Gunhild needed four hares, I would take five, and cook one in the forest. I’d eat my fill of meat in the forest as if I was a free man, and smuggle the remainder in to my mother. Gunhild was never the wiser, and if Ubbe suspected, he did not care.”

  By now we’d reached the point where the stream flowed out from the border of the forest, so we ceased our chattering and began moving quietly, as though we belonged in the forest with the other creatures. A gentle breeze was blowing downstream into our faces as we advanced, carrying our scent away from the area we hunted.

  Inside the forest, the limbs of the trees were still mostly gray and naked from winter, though numerous unsprouted buds on the tips of their branches gave promise of the foliage soon to show itself. Wisps of mist hovered over the stream. Dawn was rapidly approaching and as the sky lightened, we could see farther and farther upstream.

  Just ahead, the stony shoulder of a low hill blocked the stream’s course, forcing it to curve in a wide bend around the rocky obstruction. When we rounded the foot of the hill I saw—far ahead in the distance on the opposite bank—a stag pawing the earth beneath a stand of oaks.

  I touched Harald’s sleeve, held a finger to my lips, and pointed to the distant deer. Slowly and silently we backed out of sight behind the shoulder of the hill. Harald crept on his hands and knees to where he could raise his head and peer at the deer over the top of the rise. He whispered over his shoulder to me.

  “Gods, but it’s a fine deer, Halfdan. Sigrid will think us heroes if we can bring this one home, for she loves her venison. I wish we had beaters to drive it to us. I think we’ll have to stay behind this ridge and try to stalk close enough for a shot. It will be difficult, though.”

  While he talked, I slipped an arrow from my quiver and nocked it on my bowstring. I took a deep breath and blew it out, then stood slowly and, pushing my bow forward with my left arm and pulling back on its string with my right, brought my bow to full draw.

  Harald caught a glimmer of my movement and turned as I came to full draw. His eyes widened, as if he was seeing a disaster play out before his eyes. He whispered, “No, Halfdan, no! It is too far!”

  In truth, it was a long shot, a very long shot. I would not have attempted it had I not desired so much to impress my brother. I stared at the deer, then at its front shoulder, then at a tiny tuft of fur just behind the bend of its front leg. When I could focus my sight no tighter, I released.

  The arrow arced through the air, seeming to take forever to cover the distance. When the twang of my bowstring reached the stag, it raised its head and looked downstream toward us, searching for the source of the sound. I felt as though it was looking straight into my eyes, and I whispered, “Godspeed to your spirit.”

  The arrow struck. The great stag turned as if to flee, staggered a few steps, and collapsed.

  Harald was silent as we walked to where the deer lay. The arrow had passed completely through it and was imbedded in the ground several paces away. Harald stood over the carcass and looked back downstream to the shoulder of the hill from whence I’d made the shot.

  “Halfdan, my brother,” he finally said. “I have never seen such a shot, nor even heard of its equal in song or tale. I have known no man who could accomplish this. I know not what your destiny will be. No one can know what fate the Norns are weaving. But I believe you have been touched by the Gods, and given a great gift. Truly, I mean this.”

  8 : Toke

  When Harald and I appeared from the forest, carrying the deer slung between us on a sapling we’d cut, we were greeted with as much excitement as though we were heroes returning from a quest. Astrid, who was at the stream filling waterskins when we first appeared, ran to the longhouse, calling for Sigrid and Gunhild.

  They clapped their hands excitedly when they saw us as they emerged from its doorway, and Sigrid, who especially disliked dried fish and salted pork—meat that had been the basis for most of our meals since Harald had begun my training—ran to us and danced round the deer as we carried it to the meat shed to be skinned and butchered, planning what she would cook.

  “It’s so big!” she exclaimed. “I’ll take the long strap muscles that run along the spine and wrap them in a pastry dough, and bake them with a sprinkling of ale and herbs. From this great stag, there will be enough mea
t from the straps alone to feed us all.”

  By now, Ubbe and others had gathered round. Harald was excitedly telling the story of my shot that had felled the deer, with some exaggeration—though in truth, little was needed. I drew my knife and squatted by the deer’s body, starting a cut near the breastbone. Ubbe put his hand on my arm and stopped me. He bent close and spoke softly in my ear.

  “Let Fasti do this. It is a thrall’s work.”

  Ubbe beckoned to Fasti, who came over, took Ubbe’s long knife from his hand, and knelt beside the carcass. With a quick slash of the blade, he opened up the deer’s belly, and began pulling out its entrails. He kept his eyes averted from mine as I wiped my knife clean and sheathed it. I, too, made a point of avoiding his gaze. It felt strange—and somehow wrong—to watch my old friend doing what should have been my work.

  I stood up, glancing around as I did. No one but Ubbe seemed to have noticed my mistake. For that was what it was. I was a free man, but had unthinkingly acted like a slave.

  Harald was laughing and talking to Sigrid. Astrid emerged from the longhouse carrying two tankards of ale.

  “Refreshment for the returning hunters!” she announced with a bright smile. Her hand lingered a moment when it brushed Harald’s as she passed one of the cups to him.

  Gunhild may have noticed it, too, for she wrapped the deer’s liver in a cloth and handed it to Astrid.

  “Here. Take this and go inside,” she told her. “Cut it into chunks, skewer them on sharpened branches, and throw more wood on the cook fire. We shall have roasted deer liver now, as a special treat, to celebrate the successful hunt. Go on. Get to work.”

  Harald tipped his head back and drained his tankard in one long, continuous gulp. It was a skill he possessed that all the men of the estate admired. When he was finished, he belched, slapped me on the back, laughed, and said, “Life is good, is it not, my brother? It is still early morning, but you have wakened me early and worked me hard. Today we shall rest for the remainder of the day from your lessons. It is right, since this day you have been the teacher to me. Besides, I would have a soak in the bathhouse to drive the chill of the forest from my bones, and perhaps even a nap afterwards. I have worked hard these recent weeks, trying to teach you all I know about being a warrior. It is a lot to teach.”

  The bathhouse was attached to the longhouse, running off from it in a separate wing. While the wooden soaking tub was being filled with heated water, Harald and I disrobed and rinsed ourselves, shivering, with washing cloths and a basin of fresh, cold water. When we’d scrubbed ourselves clean, we gratefully lowered ourselves up to our necks in the tub of steaming water.

  Sigrid entered, carrying a heavily laden wooden platter.

  “Today,” she said, “I intend to treat the two of you like kings. You have saved me. If I’d had to eat one more mouthful of dried fish, I should surely have choked on it!”

  She handed each of us a large silver goblet. Mine was warm to the touch.

  “I’ve mulled mead with spices,” she explained, then handed Harald and me each a wooden skewer on which chunks of deer liver, roasted over the open fire, had been speared. The hot juices ran down my chin as I hungrily tore bites of the fresh liver from the skewer.

  When he’d finished his meat and wine, Harald stepped from the water and wrapped himself in his cloak. The rest of his clothes he scooped up into a bundle in one arm. His long blond hair hung wet and dripping down his back, and his legs and feet showed bare below the hem of the cloak. But he threw his chest out, and with a grave dignity that belied the informality of his appearance, he turned to Sigrid, and said, “Thank you, my sister, for the royal repast you provided.” He turned to me and added, “Teacher, with your permission, I will go now and seek the sleep you robbed me of this morning.”

  I felt no inclination to leave. The mulled mead and hot water were leeching the pain and stiffness from weeks of battering and bruises from my body.

  A low fire was burning on the hearth in the bathhouse, under an iron kettle suspended from a tripod. Sigrid lifted the kettle from the fire, and added more hot water to the tub.

  “Give me your cup,” she said. “I’ll refill it.”

  When she returned, she bore in one arm a stack of clothing.

  “I have been sewing again,” she said, as she handed me my mead. “You must have more than just the feast clothes I made before, and your old tunic.”

  She held up the first garment, a long cloak of thick gray wool.

  “I’ve made this of our thickest weave, to protect you in harsh weather. The wool’s natural oils will make it shed water in all but the hardest of rains. And this silver ring brooch, to clasp it, was Father’s. It is from Ireland, in the style that Derdriu’s people wear. I’m sure Father would have wanted you to have it. And here, this tunic I’ve made for you is also wool, though of a lighter weave. I did not dye it, but left it gray, like the cloak, for I know you love the forest, and I thought the natural color of the wool would better blend there. These trousers, though, I dyed brown—we cannot have you dressed all in gray. And last, I asked Ubbe to make you these new shoes.”

  I reached out and felt the shoes. Their tops were of deerskin, very soft, and the soles were from the thickest cut on the back of a bull’s hide. Ubbe was the most skilled on the estate at working leather. I’d never had shoes such as these, for he did not make shoes for thralls.

  My mother had loved me all her life, and had protected me as best she could from the hurts life inevitably brings. No one, though, had ever showered me with gifts the way that Sigrid did.

  “Sigrid,” I told her, “I do not know what words to say to thank you. I am more than just at a loss for words. I do not even know what to think. I am not used to such kindness.”

  “Think that you have a family,” she said. “Think that I am your sister, and that these are but expressions of a sister’s love.”

  Sigrid sat smiling quietly at me after she spoke those words. A family. It was a strange thought. I’d never had a real family. I liked it.

  Before, as a thrall, the only sense of belonging I’d ever felt was the knowledge that I belonged to Hrorik, that I was his property. But now I belonged to a family. I had a brother and a sister. It was a totally different kind of belonging. We were bound to each other by bonds of love, not ownership.

  I studied my sister as she sat there smiling at me. In appearance, Sigrid was completely unlike my mother—the only other person who’d ever loved me. Mother had been of but average height, with raven-black hair and gray eyes. Sigrid was tall and willowy like Harald, who was her twin. Her hair was golden, the gold of morning sunlight rather than the metal, paler even than Harald’s, and her eyes were a deep blue.

  “Sister, may I ask you a question of a personal nature?” I said.

  “Of course. There should be openness between brother and sister,” she replied.

  “You possess such great beauty, both of appearance and spirit, and as the daughter of a famous chieftain, you are of the highest social standing. How is it you are not wed?”

  Sigrid laughed merrily. “Perhaps because I have rarely been the recipient of such pretty words, and certainly never from young men seated only an arm’s length away, wearing no clothes.”

  I blushed at her answer, and sank lower in the water.

  “The true reason is this,” she continued, smiling at my sudden discomfort. “I have almost no memory of my true mother, who died when I was very young. Your mother, Derdriu, was the only mother I knew. Later, when Father wed Gunhild, and I grew older, Derdriu remained very dear to me. She was a thrall, and I a master, and we both knew it. There was no escaping such difference in status, particularly with Gunhild as the mistress of the household. But though there was much we could not share, within our hearts we continued to feel friendship and love.

  “Many times Derdriu told me the story of how love grew in her heart for Father, and how the relationship between them blossomed and grew like a flower in the spring—un
til Gunhild came. I saw with my own eyes the happiness love can bring to a man and woman. And I have also witnessed, with Father and Gunhild, the unhappiness of an arranged marriage where there is no love. I resolved that when I wed, it would be to a man I loved.”

  I marveled that Sigrid had known so much more about my mother—about her feelings, dreams and disappointments—than I had. Had I been a bad son, so concerned with my own wants and needs that I never stopped to wonder about Mother’s? Mother had given me everything, even her life, and I had given her so little in return.

  Sigrid continued. “I remember clearly the evening that I announced my intention to Father. He’d been talking at dinner of a chieftain who lived on the island of Fyn, and how he was looking for a wife. I expected Father to react with rage, for he was prone to great fits of anger whenever someone disobeyed his will, and I knew that arranging my marriage to form an alliance was a thing he could use to great advantage. That night was not the first time Father had speculated aloud on who might prove an advantageous match for me. Instead of anger, though, a sad expression crossed his face. Then he clasped my hands between his, kissed my forehead, and gave me his blessing. ‘On this matter,’ he told me, ‘you should indeed follow your heart.’ I think he spoke so because he regretted that he had not followed his. Thus far, my heart has not spoken, so I am not wed."

  Hrorik had always seemed to me to have the disposition of a bear awakened from his hibernation slumber. These pictures of him painted by my mother and Sigrid did not fit at all. In what other ways, I wondered, had I failed to understand the truth that lay behind what I believed I was seeing?

  “And Harald?” I asked. “Why has he not wed?”

  Sigrid laughed again. “I suspect it will be some years before Harald is ready to assume the responsibilities of wedded life. I believe he views the female sex as a platter of delicacies to sample, and he does not lack for willing partners to indulge him. His current affection is for Astrid. Indeed, if you had not been keeping Harald so busy these past weeks, I do not know how I would have kept her out of his bed long enough to do her chores.”