Without knowing how he got there Dagr was now at Halle’s side, watching with an open mouth the ship bear down on them. The men on board it were silent; there was no whooping nor war-cries, but Dagr’s fishing boat was their unmistakable target.
“Svear? Are they Svear?” asked Dagr.
“I hope they are not Danes,” Halle answered, without taking his eyes from the ship. “May Freyr protect us,” he added, under his breath.
The ship had now turned slightly, and they could see the carved figure of a clawed animal atop the raked prow. The sail had once been dyed red, but was now the colour of a faded rose, and blotched with newer patches of undyed linen. A weather-vane of gilded silver swung above the rowers. The ship was packed with men, those rowing who they could scarcely see, and many who stood, their faces set and eyes fastened upon them.
Dagr turned to look at Halle. They had no weapons with them, naught but their knives at their belts. There was a sea-axe which Dagr always carried in his tool-chest, and a few pikes to help with snaring nets. Nothing to defend themselves with against these warriors.
“What –” he began to ask, but before he could finish a voice cried out from the crowded deck.
“Your ship is ours,” it said.
Dagr recoiled; it would seem a bad dream, were not his insides churning.
He could not make out which man had spoken; most held spears and now he saw grappling-hooks in the hands of two or three. The warriors had not troubled themselves to put on ring-shirts or helmets, such show would not be needed against two fishermen.
“Your ship is ours,” repeated the man, who Dagr saw wore a padded red tunic and a cap trimmed with fur. “Drop your sail.” Another voice rang out, with words neither Dagr nor Halle could understand.
Halle straightened himself and bellowed out, “We are men of Gotland, and free born.”
This proclamation was ignored, and the war-ship dropped its own sail in preparation to come alongside.
The man who had spoken did so with the accents of the Svear. Halle tried again, “We are free-born Gotlanders.”
“Drop your sail,” was the only answer, and Dagr and Halle did, letting it lie as it fell along the keel.
“We sail to Asnen in Smáland, then to Lister and Kivik, with our herring,” insisted Halle, naming those ports of the Svear.
One hook was thrown, and then another, and the small boat strained at the force of being pulled, then gave a shudder at the glancing impact as the two hulls met. As soon as they did, men began leaping aboard, whooping and calling as if they were about to swing their swords. In fact few even had bothered to strap them on, and only three of the invaders had leapt over with spears in their fists. Some of the men were dressed as Gotlanders or Svear, in woollen or linen tunics and leggings, but fully half sported the full and gathered bagged trousers of the Rus, worn under the longer tunics favoured by them. The Rus were Svear who had long ago sailed to the eastern most limits of the Baltic, and thence down the great river Volga to the land of the packs of timber-wolves. The Rus were canny traders but came rarely to Gotland, and Dagr had heard they were feared warriors as well.
The man in the red tunic now climbed aboard. He was a few years older than Dagr, and looked like a Svear, with long yellow hair, but wore the gathered trousers of the Rus. At his side was a man about the same age, or perhaps younger, who wore a dark and sleeveless leather tunic trimmed with fur over a blue under-tunic. He wore his sword, one of some length, and Dagr’s eye fell for a moment on the garnets glowing redly in the pommel and guard.
Some of the warriors who had leapt aboard first were now ranging over the small boat, pawing over anything not lashed down. One of them snatched up Dagr’s new brown mantle which he had taken off in the afternoon’s warmth, and he watched the man swing it over his own shoulders. Another grabbed his blanket. Anything they did not want was flung into the sea. Out of the tail of his eye he saw the small pot of pitch be thrown overboard, and then his featherbed be tossed over the rail as well.
“I am Dagr, son of Gunne, and this is my boat,” he told the two men who looked to be the chieftains. Despite his fear his voice was strong, for he felt anger rise within him.
The one in the red tunic answered.
“Well. Your name may be Dagr, but the boat is ours.” His furred head was turning right and left, following the actions of his men who were rifling through Dagr’s things. He turned back to Dagr and Halle. “Give me your silver,” he ended with, gesturing to their belts. Dagr and Halle emptied their pouches of the few coins and bits of hack-silver they carried.
“We are Gotlanders, and free-born,” Halle protested once again, but the one who wore the sword raised his hand. He said something in a tongue Dagr could not understand to the other.
“You Gotlanders always have gold,” said the red-tunic.
“We have stock-fish, salted and dried, to be sold in Smáland,” answered Halle, raising his own hand to the distant coast of the Svear.
“Are you not Svear?” Dagr hazarded to ask. He knew that traders on land could readily become raiders at sea, yet he hoped that his ship would be spared by reminding them of past bonds. Just a few days ago these very men may have landed peacefully at any trading post on Gotland, bartered, bought, and sold goods, and left his brethren at home nodding their heads in satisfaction. Once at sea they became ravening pirates again.
The red-tunic looked at him. “I am Svear,” he admitted. “But now I am with the Rus, and serve a Rus war-chief.” The one with the sword now spoke to some of the men, who began prying open the stock-fish casks, one after the other. The chieftain did not seem too crestfallen at the truth of Halle’s words; though the casks revealed no hidden gold, the fish could be sold at a profit, and also used to feed themselves as well.
The red-tunic turned to Halle. “You know the coast of the Svear?”
“From Birka to Skania,” Halle answered.
“Good,” returned the man. “You will be useful, and be our pilot. I am from inland, and these parts are not well known to me.” He lifted his head and spoke to some of those who had opened the casks. “Take him to the steering oar.”
Before Halle could speak he was propelled by a body of men through the crowded boat and up over the side into the war-ship. Dagr did not like to see him go, and was aware that when he swallowed he could feel the growing lump in his throat. Another command was given, and Dagr watched while strange hands hoisted his boat’s square sail and secured the lines.
The chief now looked at him, and spoke, with a flick of his wrist at the ship-rail and the water lying beyond.
“Get off,” said the Svear in the red-tunic, though it was all too clear to Dagr what the chief’s meaning was.
Dagr froze. The Rus chief drew himself up, and placed his hand on his sword hilt.
“Get off,” repeated the Svear. “Either your live body or your dead body is going over.”
He would not live long in the cold water, and they were three or more hours’ sail from land-fall; no man could swim that far. He was being told to end his life.
Of a sudden he recalled his boyhood self, and standing by his Uncle Ake by the well on his father’s farm. Ake had closed his blurred eyes and told Dagr that his Fate lay in water.
He shifted his eyes down at the deck, noticing a nail which needing pounding down, and stared at it as a precious thing.
The Rus chief spoke once more. Dagr looked again at the men, and then the Rus chief began to draw his sword. Dagr placed one hand upon the ship-rail and hopped over it as if it were a sheep-pen fence.
The shock of the water stung him, and he surfaced tossing his wet hair off his face. Both ships were already moving away from him. The oars of the war-ship dipped and rose. For one desperate moment he hoped to find a dragging line to cling to, some way to stay hidden under the curve of the hulls and be towed along. But even if he were not seen and a spear not sent through him, the cold of the water would kill him. He thrashed
about, unable to see the edge of the coast. The war-ship moved further away, trailed by his boat. He could see a few of the warriors aboard her. He propelled himself up out of the water for a moment, hoping to see where Svear-land was, so that he could turn away from it and die swimming back to Gotland.
Then he saw the billow of white upon the water, like a great swan’s wing. It was his featherbed. One corner was stuck up in the air. It floated upon the water a few strokes away. He reached it, closed his hand around one edge of the waxed linen. He heaved himself as gently as he could upon it, fearful every moment that his weight would send it under. But it did not. If he clutched the edges with his fists he could pull his head and chest out of the water. The mass of down billowed round him, captured in its casing of tightly woven cloth. He coughed and spat to free some of the water he had swallowed, pressed his face into the bed, and kicked his legs to warm them.
“Njord,” he choked out, calling upon the God of the sea. “If I live I will give myself to you.”
Chapter the Second: Another Island
IN the morning Dagr still lived. He had at times during the long night felt he had gone mad, or was already dead, and must somehow awaken either in his own alcove at his brother’s house, or amongst all lost seamen in Ran’s watery hall. As the Sun rose he was trembling with cold, but he knew he lived.
His legs, trailing in the water, were so stung with cold that he could not feel them. He tried to turn himself upon his back, but feared losing grip on the featherbed that had saved him. It was become his whole island, and he clung to it with clenched fists.
A sea-bird flew over his head, squawking, and then a second. Once he lifted his chin enough to see a few sitting on the water, preening their feathers with arched necks in the lifting light. They lived on water, but were meant to do so. He lowered his face, wondering what the odds of a ship finding him might be.
After a while the waves picked up, and began washing over his lower back. Each onrush of water felt like a lash against his chilled skin. If the weather was to turn he could not survive another night. But the Sun was lifting higher over his head, and the sky was that clear sharp blue of late Summer. The growing waves meant something else. He grunted and pushed himself up. His hands were covered by cold sea water as he did, but he could raise his chest enough to really see.
His heart leapt in his breast. There, beyond the billowing white margins of the featherbed, was land. It was not more than a hundred paces away, if he could walk it. That is why the waves washed over him; they were curling up from hitting the sea-bottom. He craned his neck and looked down over the edge of the featherbed. The water was clear, and he could not see the bottom. He was caught in a gentle current, floating offshore, heading South.
He looked again at the land. There were spruce and pine trees above a thin line of sand. Some boulders. No houses nor fishing huts, no sign of folk. But if he were to live he must reach it.
He tried to calm himself, gauge if in fact the current was bringing him nearer to shore. But he watched the shoreline slipping by, growing no closer. There was a promontory further down, and he feared that if he passed it he might be truly swept away from land again. So he began kicking his legs, or trying to, and throwing his body cross-wise across the featherbed so that he could angle towards the beach.
He kicked and kicked. He had so little strength left that he scarcely could hear the splashing they made. The waves retreating from the shore pulled him back, and he struck out at an angle. He wondered if he could still swim; clutching to the bed he could use only his legs, yet he feared giving it up.
My Fate may be in water, but it has not killed me yet, he told himself.
He unclenched his fists and pushed himself off the featherbed. He drew his hands to his chest and pushed them back out again through the cold water, and kicked with every bit of strength he could summon. He thrashed his way, almost clawing through the water, but he drew closer. Suddenly one foot hit bottom. He stumbled and went under for a moment, then stood, and with halting steps staggered out upon the sand, water streaming from his shivering body.
He fell upon the sand just beyond the reach of the water. He lay gasping, then turned himself on his back. The bile rose in his throat and he rolled over, retching up sea water. His belly heaved with racking spasms. His hands were still clenched in talon-like fists from gripping the bed all night, and as his belly roiled he rose on his knees and pounded them into the dry sand.
A few tears escaped his eyes. He had nearly died. His ship was gone. The Rus had taken Halle away. These few facts rolled about in his brain, first one, then the next, then the last.
He turned again to his back and sat up. He saw his boots were gone; he had not known that. He still had his knife and his belt. His lips were cracked and his neck and hands were badly sun-burnt. His throat ached from thirst.
He pushed himself up to stand, and then fell down again. When he awoke the Sun was high overhead. His head ached and his thirst was such he could not wet his lips with his tongue.
“Hej,” said a small voice behind him.
He turned to see three children, two girls and a boy, standing on the edge of the sand.
“Hej,” he told them. His tongue felt swollen and he thought his speech was slurred. He struggled to his feet, which made the children step back.
“I am a Gotlander. My boat was taken by pirates, and they cast me overboard. I need help.” He could just form the words. He did not try to move nearer them, for fear of frightening them away. He lifted his hands in supplication.
The elder girl nodded, and spoke to the others, words Dagr could not make out. Then all three turned and vanished into the trees.
He slumped down on the sand once more, his back to the sea, looking at the spruces. After a while the children returned, flanked by two men, one young and one old, holding spears. Dagr remembered them asking, “Can you walk?” but little else they said on the trip to the farmhouse.
There was a track through the trees they went along, and then an open meadow filled with sheep. A cluster of steep-roofed buildings stood beyond these, and as they grew nearer he heard the barking of dogs. A pack of hounds, some snarling, ran out to greet them.
A large number of folk milled about, and he was led inside the largest of the houses. There he was given ale to drink, and then hot meat broth. His damp and sandy clothes were taken from him and he was wrapped in a blanket. He sat by the fire, blinking up at his hosts as he ate and drank and told of what had befallen him. Then he was shown to an alcove, where he slept for how long he knew not.
The noise of the hall awoke him. The doors were opened to a bright and blue day. His clothes had been rinsed and dried by the fire, and the leather of his belt and knife sheath oiled to draw the salt out.
He had washed ashore on the island of Öland, a long slender spit which lay just off the East coast of Svear-land.
His hosts were sheep and goat herders, prosperous ones. The older man, Thorkel, had also traded as a youth, and his sons too had crossed the Baltic, South to the posts of the Prus, and many times to the West coast of Gotland. Now they were content to stay on their island home, for as Thorkel told him, “Hot-head young Svear range about the sea, and even Danes have sniffed about, snatching at what they can.” He was not surprised at Dagr’s tale of the Rus; they had been spotted around Öland and the mainland before, both pirating at sea and landing to trade at well-guarded posts. He questioned Dagr rather closely about the Rus chieftain, when Dagr was strong enough to recount the story in detail; and seemed disappointed Dagr had not found out the man’s name or lineage, “For I went twice up the Volga in the land of the Rus, and each time found it a profitable adventure.”
When Dagr told of how he had at last neared land and abandoned the featherbed which had saved his life, Thorkel listened thoughtfully. “It is a good thing you struck for shore just there,” he remarked. “Past the spit the current quickens. You would be half way to Frankland by now.” The old man w
as grinning as he said this, but Dagr stifled a shiver just the same.
Thorkel had two wives and many children, the eldest son of whom lived in the smaller house across the yard with his own family. Thorkel had a barrel-chest, short legs, long grey hair and a wispy beard that made him resemble one of his he-goats. The older wife was also grey, plump and sedentary, and marked by a ringing voice as she ordered her household about. The younger wife was not uncomely, but so modest and quiet that she was easily overlooked in any gathering. Thorkel’s married son was a gawky, raw-boned sort, weak-chinned and with colourless pale hair; and his wife young, pretty, and querulous. They had four young ones, adding to the large number of Thorkel’s own brood. There were as well a raft of serving folk, bonds-men and perhaps slaves, Dagr could not be certain; and also a number of youngsters attached to these folk. There were ten or more women of every estate working at spinning or standing at the tall looms beating up the woof; and maids and youths at work in the fields cutting hay, hoeing late weeds out of the rows of turnips, or toiling in the large kitchen yard.
The first full day Dagr did little but eat and drink. The older serving women clucked over him, giving him a hot drink of boiled sage-leaf broth, and smearing his chest with beaver fat to help soothe the cough he hacked with; his lungs burned as if sand had gotten in them. Towards the end of the day a serving man brought him a pair of boots he had made, cut from goat-hide they had tanned themselves on the farm, and Dagr thought he had never had a better pair.
Now that he was shod he asked Thorkel if he might have a rooster to sacrifice in thanks to Njord, which the old man readily provided. “Njord spat you back out, and is owed his due,” Thorkel agreed. He rubbed his face and added, “And I forget if he has had even so much as a hen’s egg from me this season.” Thorkel’s wavering voice was more like a bleat than Dagr had ever heard outside of a goat. They went together to the fowl-yard, and Thorkel pointed out a few likely subjects from amongst the young roosters that danced and hopped as they approached.
Tindr Page 3