by Susan Firman
CHAPTER 12
About the time when the sun dipped in the sky and the darkness of night was a time that was close by, the dragon boats that had been away for the Summer, sailed back up the long finger of the fjord. They were being guided back to their village by Jotenfjell, for the pull of the mountain was strong in the hearts of these men and their boats. They had been away longer than expected.
As soon as the dragon boats were close enough for the villagers to recognise the special cross-hatch pattern of their red and grey sails, small, broad beamed fishing boats were launched with the men at oars shouting and calling out to those who had returned.
The two drakkern sailed as far as they could into the calm, shallow waters before pulling down their sails and using the oars. But as they got closer, it became apparent that all had not gone well. There were not enough oars dipping into the sea and there were great gaps between the shields that hung on their sides. A third of the faces had failed to return.
The two longboats were beached. Bodvarr the Bellower stood in the bow of the lead boat. He was holding on to the dragon-head as the bow bit deep into the sand. Rough-bearded men, weary from the time out at sea, leaned over between the round shields and fell into the water. Slowly, they pulled themselves up, wading through the water and staggered up the shallow bank.
Bodvarr stepped off the bow directly on to dry land. He stood awhile and watched as gathering familiar faces pushed closer in towards the returned boats. Everyone in the villagers was eager to gain knowledge of the voyage. These men were their heroes with adventures they wanted to hear.
Bodvarr cast his steel-cold eyes around the crowd, seeking out that one face he wanted to find. His height made it easy. He immediately found the one he was looking for.
With long, determined steps he strode straight up to where two females stood. The tall man anchored himself in front of Næmr. An unmistakable sneer appeared and even though his beard was thick, Næmr could see clearly see it.
Bodvarr reached deep within his jacket and withdrew a silver pendant; the very one she had seen around Halldorr’s neck the day they had gone down to the boats together. It was her love token to him. With mean satisfaction he held the object aloft before her face and twisted its cord around in his fingers as though he were strangling out its life force.
“I believe this is yours, now!”
He spat the words out with contempt and then drew drew back his top lip and looked at her like a snarling wolf.
Næmr felt herself going weak at the knees. What did he mean? Why was Bodvarr holding up Halldorr’s pendant? Why was Halldorr not here to meet her?
She handed her baby to Heggar. How she wished Halldorr had kept her bone pendant and not had left it behind.
The tall man laughed, a wicked laugh that made her tremble inside.
“Your magic symbols on his boat did nothing to protect him!”
Her voice quivered with emotion.
“My husband? Where’s Halldorr?” she cried.
“You’ll not be seeing him again!” Bodvarr paused long enough to let the words sink in. “We buried his unfortunate remains in the southern land of the Saxons. He lies near those mystic stones that lured him to his fate. You . . . your magic’s gone! The gods have deserted you!”
She reeled back from him. The shock made her weak. Was her brave and handsome warrior no more?
“Lucky you got that!” he growled. “His last wish was that this should be returned to you.” Bodvarr let go of Halldorr’s necklace and its twisted cord collapsed into her hand. “See, I have done as he so requested.”
Næmr heard him speak but did not hear his words. She stood, transfixed, looking at it in her palm. Whose evil sorcery was stronger than their love for each other?
The baby began to cry. Heggar bumped him up and down on the palm of her hand. The soothing rocking quietened him.
“Why don’t you call to Hel, the goddess of the dead, to send Halldorr back?” she whispered to Næmr.
“I can’t! Hel listens to no one!”
Poor Næmr, an uncontrollable misery devoured on her mind. She flung herself down on the ground. She wept and called her dead husband’s name. She pulled and tore at her hair and beat her fists until her battered knuckles were swollen and red. How death tortured her. She clasped one of the discarded sea-shells that lay on the ground and slashed at the breasts that nourished her child until her bodice was sticky and streaked with her blood.
Heggar could not pacify her; too great was her grief.
“Why? Why did he have to die?” she cried.
Næmr sank slowly onto her knees as her tear stained face turned towards the crowd. “He said the Saxons wanted them to go. What went wrong that Halldorr should die?”
One of the warriors, who had been on her husband’s boat, knelt down and laid a sword before her. Immediately, she recognised the hilt. It was Halldorr’s sword. She looked but could not bring herself to touch.
“Spark of Battle - I give you back. Halldorr was a great leader of men. I’m proud to have gone with him. He’s given us hope for the future for he showed us places where we could live and farm. He promised he would help us farm in our new land. I would not have wanted to serve any man but him.”
A second warrior walked forward. He was older than the rest, being a man in his mid-twenties. He knelt on his knee and picked up the sword, resting Spark of Battle between knee and open hand.
“Halldorr had a vision, one the rest of us wanted to share.”
“Be quiet, man!” Bodvarr shouted but others in the group called for the man to speak.
“First, we sailed south to meet with the other vessels that had offered their services to the Saxons. After battle, we took our boats along the coastline until we came to a broad river mouth. Hidden by the darkness of night and fog, Halldorr instructed us to row upstream and to keep well away from the edges so not to be seen. We could feel the danger of this place for many settlements and fortresses lined its banks. We felt the fear but Halldorr urged us on.
The river valley was rich and fertile and crops grew to the water’s edge. We rowed upstream until we came to where the river forked. Halldorr instructed us to hide our longboats under some weeping willow trees and rest until daylight.
On foot we marched the following day until we reached a grassy, scrubby plain.”
“Not far from the Saxon stronghold at Searobyrg,” another of the young men added.
The warrior continued.
“Like a true explorer, our brave leader led us overland still further until we saw monstrous stones upright and awesome in the evening light. There we rested among these circles of stones. And as the summer sun crept over the edge of the land at dawn, a shaft of blinding light fell upon Bodvarr and made him mad. I’ve many times seen beserkers wild and reckless throw themselves upon the enemy in a blind fury, but never had I witnessed such a vile and vicious act towards one of our own.”
Bodvarr gripped the hilt of his sword and immediately a group of four stepped forward and restrained him. They nodded to the warrior to continue with his report.
“Bodvarr set upon my lord with the ferocity of a wolf, and like Vali, he tore at your husband with both sword and axe. Together, they fought, steel clashing upon steel, axe blow upon axe blow. We could do nothing, for we stood bewitched, rooted to the ground just like the stones.
Bodvarr was possessed. Like some mad demon, he drew strength from an unknown source. Together, they fought like two demons possessed until Bodvarr’s sword sank deep.
As your brave warrior breathed his last, we carried him out of that magic ring and buried him not far away.
No sooner had we mourned my lord, then the Saxons attacked and we were forced to fight. We lost many and those of us who did survive were lucky to reach the boats.
I promised my lord that I’d return his sword to the place of his birth. This sword, Spark of Battle has seen so many battles and I am a man proud to call this place my home.”
He pointed the sword at
Bodvarr.
“I will not serve with such a monster that slew my master.”
It was too much for the tall man. Like a snapping wild wolf, Bodvarr threw off his restrainers. In one bound he reached Halldorr’s man and smashed his own sword into the earth as his opponent lept back.
The two men fought each other as fiercely as any warrior on the battlefield. Their swords clashed and thrashed, their flashing blades glinting in the light of the afternoon sun.
Suddenly, Bodvarr slashed sideways and caught his opponent across the chest. The man fell forward, fatally wounded. As his life began to ebb away, he raised himself upon his elbow and spoke for the last time.
“I see the Valkyries riding for me. I’m only sorry that Bodvarr didn’t die. He wanted to blame the Saxons for your husband’s death. Don’t trust him and beware any who swears allegiance to him. Remember this, wife of Halldorr!”
The warrior slumped forward and they knew that the Valkyries had come to take him to Valhalla.
“I’ll never forget!”
“My husband!” screamed a woman. “He’s killed my husband!”
Næmr reached down and picked up Halldorr’s sword. Revenge had made her dangerous. She plunged forwards like Storm Maiden in a gale and hurled the sword into the ground. Its hilt vibrated and hummed like a wasp in the air.
“What man here will avenge these deaths?” she screamed at the people. But no one dared to answer for fear he, too, would be struck down. She held the sword defiantly upwards. “Must it be left to a woman to revenge her husband’s murder?”
Her mood was taut like a drawn bow but with no-one willing to come to her aid. She let her arm drop until the tip of the blade touched the ground.
Slowly Næmr walked over to the boat and the villagers watched as she gently stroked its side. Her fingertips found the place where she had engraved their names into its hull.
“Oh, no!” she exclaimed as she hugged the sword close to her breast. “What have I done?”
The memory of Koro came back into her mind and she could hear his voice clearly almost as if he were standing close by.
You can’t carve, child. That’s for men. That’s always been the way and that’s how it is. Remember that. Don’t break tapu. If you do, something bad will always happen.
Næmr sobbed. She was still governed by the laws of that life she had experienced before. The laws of Koro were still her laws and the realisation that she had destroyed the sacredness of the boat through her desecration was more than she could bear. She was to blame. She had paid the price.
The following day, the men hauled the boat out of the water and dragged it across the verge until they had pulled it to a damp, boggy place that would become its grave. Never again, would Storm Maiden ride the waves or glide in triumph up the narrow fjord. Never again, would her warriors ride the wild waves safe in her belly. Never again, would Halldorr’s ship carry the living. For ever, she would lie hidden away in the bog: a monument to the dead, a gift to Hela, the goddess of death.
The people took Halldorr’s things to the boat and put them inside. Shields and knives, swords and drinking horns were placed in the hull. Silver pendants, two small bronze statues of Odin and Thor, fur boots and heavy fur-skin cloaks were brought to the boat so that the slain warrior could collect them as the boat slipped from this world into the next.
Yalda brought a woven jacket she had made. She asked Næmr to lay it beside Halldorr’s sword so that he could keep warm in the land of the dead.
“Why don’t you make something special for Halldorr?” she suggested. “He’ll be grateful for that.”
Næmr collected some of the stiff, wide leaves that Yalda had growing near her house. With Heggar’s help she scraped the leaves with one of the empty cockle shells she had picked up from the shore. Working from a distant memory, she wrapped them to keep them moist. She could vaguely remember watching her grandmother and a group of women laughing and talking as their dexterous fingers wove their leaves together. She must have been about twelve at the time because two years later her grandmother had died and that’s when Koro came to live with them. Them. Yes, she remembered them and her sadness increased.
She wove the leaves, carefully tucking each one under the other. As the basket shape began to take place, she could feel the pull towards those people of hers. It made her sigh, a deep, draw-out sigh that arose from the depths of her soul. She felt as if she were weaving two cultures together and as she laced leaf within leaf, she wondered if she’d ever see her family again. How like Heggar she was. Family, a distant memory and with that, a great emptiness. Who was she? What was she? Where was the place where she could stand tall and cry to all the world: this is me!
She worked intensively for several days, folding and shaping the leaves just like she remembered the women of her homeland did. When the bag was complete, she lined it with the softest material Yalda could find for her. Tucked inside, between the lining and the woven leaves, she concealed the small gold ring Halldorr had given her when they were betrothed. She took the lock of her husband’s fair hair that she had hidden away in a corner of her personal box and placed it deep inside her bag. She placed it his dragon boat, laying it alongside his sword. Spark of Battle had a friend.
The longboat was finally laid to rest in the oozing, red mud that was its tomb for eternity. As Storm Maiden settled down in the swamp, only the dragon head that had been mounted over the bow gave any indication of what lay beneath.
Yalda stood with her arm around Næmr’s shoulder and the two women watched the proud vessel slowly settle; a beautiful ship sink under the dark, muddy ooze of the swamp. ‘Storm Maiden’ had gone from them forever.
Næmr wept and her tears soaked into the depths of the swamp. She felt as if something had sliced her sinews and the cut the connections she had made with Halldorr and the villagers who lived beside the deep, green fjord.
Jotenfjell stood dark and brooding over the small settlement. Clouds clung to its rocky summit as the autumn weather got colder and colder. Then, one morning, Næmr noticed the first signs of frost and she knew that the long winter time was not so far away and she knew also that the returned warriors would be gathering in the Great Hall to tell of their adventures they had had during the period of the raids.
Halldorr would never return to the Great Hall, to tell of his adventures this year that had passed. His stories would remain locked in silence for eternity. Halldorr had gone and the days of Sirgud’s rule were now numbered. Bodvarr was widening his influence and he was determined to make himself the most powerful man in the valley.
It had been several months since the boats had returned. Bodvarr’s power had grown strong. He was a cruel and harsh master to serve and many a man feared to cross his path. A handful of freemen who had followed Sirgud and his son slashed their own bodies until so much blood came out that they left the world of the living. They would rather enter the eternal land for the damned, rather than give allegiance to Bodvarr the Bellower.
Bodvarr seized all the lands of those who had been killed. As his power increased, he laid claim to what farmlets he could safely take and used them to bribe freemen and thrall to pledge loyalty to him. Sirgud, now made vulnerable and weak by the death of his son, could do nothing to stop Bodvarr. To protest would mean certain death and the old jarl was not prepared to be slaughtered like an animal. Sirgud and his widowed daughter-in-law left their large house and sought protection with a branch of the family who lived on the village outskirts, not far from the forest boundary.
The baby grew. He was a beautiful child, strong and intelligent; a contented child.. Næmr had called him Halldorr which was the usual thing done when a dead warrior’s son was born. He laughed and cooed to himself as he lay in the small wooden rocking cot Sirgud had made.
Life would have been pleasant for the family if Halldorr had still been alive but the dark cloud of Bodvarr’s rule hung like a curse and made life very hard. More of the villagers were becoming re
stless, filled with discontent, especially as more of their fishing trips failed to bring bountiful harvests of herring and cod. It was becoming clear to everyone that the gods were displeased.
The late autumn harvests lay in ruin. Unseasonable gales lashed the settlement, smashing the rye and barley just before harvest time. The mood was one of anger and despair. Vestlasa appealed to Odin to show mercy for any wrong-doings that may have occurred. Animals were slaughtered, their carcases taken to Yggdrasil and draped over the branches. It was hoped that fortune would return but the village waited in vain. Winter’s frosty children covered the tree tops earlier than anyone had expected and the snow fell early that year. Something more drastic was needed or the entire village would starve before winter’s end.
Bodvarr demanded an emergency meeting be called in the Great Hall but this time, Næmr was not permitted to attend.
“I told you before,” Bodvarr shouted in his booming voice to those assembled inside, “that dark forces had come to our settlement. Halldorr took the dark-haired stranger for his wife. Was that not a mistake? She had bewitched him. She made sure he would die. Who seeded our minds with tales of mysterious rings of stone? Surely you can all see how stupid it was to go right into those Saxon lands! Who led so many on to the pathway of death?”
“Halldorr!” A young warrior jumped to his feet. “I see those stones. I was there when the Saxons turned upon us and forced us to fight.”
“And how did Halldorr know the stones were there?” Bodvarr asked.
The youth turned and raised his fist in Sirgud’s direction.
“That fiend, he calls ‘daughter.’ She made it known. Only she had the knowledge of that place. She knew the henge. She knew of the circles of stone.”
Bodvarr grinned. He was like a king in his cloak of fine fur. This was exactly what he wanted the men to believe. They called him their true leader and he expected complete loyalty from everyone in the hall. He thrust both hands against his waist and glared from face to face before he spoke.
“The dark-haired one! Believe me, no goddess. A woman with dark hair like an ambatt! I brought her down from the mists of Jotenfjell like a slave! And, who is the one to protect you from her evil influences?”
His voice rose like the wild bellow of a stag.
“Bodvarr! Bodvarr! Bodvarr!” The men who filled the great Hall chorused in unison. “We owe you our lives!”
“Then swear your loyalty to me!” Bodvarr bellowed. “Only I can rid you of this she-wolf and her cub!”
A thunderous applause filled the hall until even the walls shook and vibrated under the noise.
“Bodvarr! Bodvarr! Bodvarr!”
The voices chanted uproariously; the feet stomped loudly. It was an ear-splitting noise. Bodvarr allowed it to continue a few minutes and then he held up his battle axe. The noise ceased and a hush fell over the crowd. Bodvarr waited. He was a second Thor and he wanted them to see him as such.
“Now, come! Who will be the first to swear his oath?”
One by one, the men of the village walked up to Bodvarr. Each man placed a hand upon the hilt of his sword and swore their undivided loyalty and obedience.
From this time forth, it would be Bodvarr the Bellower who would demand their unconditional loyalty. Sirgud and the Council’s power was no more. Bodvarr the Bellower now ruled the land. And he had made up his mind that he would take from that dark-haired woman what he considered, was his by right.