‘This troll was first seen after the king united all Norway,’ said Kormak authoritatively. ‘That’s what folk say. And I never heard tell of him before that.’
Gest studied him. He looked at the others. Fear was on all their faces. He burst out laughing. ‘Fireside tales,’ he said dismissively. ‘You would be better fearing men who come in the night to burn the hall. Except—we saw them off.’
‘You saw them off,’ Hild murmured loyally. ‘But now you need rest and time for your wound to heal. Drink your ale and come to bed. It has been a long day.’
Gest allowed himself to be led, waving to the thralls to find their own beds. He lay himself down between the coverlets and even as Hild was sliding herself in beside him, he fell into deep, dreamless sleep.
In the morning, there was no token of her except a crease in the mattress where she had lain. He clambered out of the shut bed and found her in the hall, which was now dry and smelt quite sweet, speaking curtly with the milkmaids. Seeing him enter, she said something more in curt tones, then rushed over to him as they flurried from the room.
She changed his bandages, wincing at the black blood that crusted them. But the arrow wound had ceased oozing blood and so she washed the wound and plastered it with healing herbs, crushed to express the juice, then bound his arm with new bandages. Gest dressed himself and went out into the morning sunlight.
All was tranquil and quiet. The sunlight danced on the waters of Gandsfjord. Morning mist hung in places, but it was warmer than it had been. He inspected the charred timbers of the outhouse, and saw that they were no worse than the hole in the roof. He wondered how good his thralls were as thatchers. Would he have to look further afield for help?
He met Kormak and Dufthak at the gate, trotting back from the fjord with a catch of fish. ‘Good work, men,’ he said. ‘Take them to the drying sheds. I want you to look into rethatching the hall roof and the outhouse, and fixing the gate. Oh, and saddle my horse. I will be riding to Earl Sigvaldi’s hall this morning. Now, where are the corpses you mentioned?’
Kormak made a face, and indicated a huddled form in the meadow outside the gate. ‘We’ve not moved them,’ he said. ‘There are two more round the corner.’
Gest went to investigate. The first lay facedown, an arrow jutting from his back. Gest put a foot on the stiff, dew wet carcase, seized the arrow by its fletching and pulled. It came out with a loud sucking sound, black with blood. Gest wiped it clean on the grass, then thrust it into his belt. Now he rolled the body over with his foot.
The bearded face of a man in his late thirties gazed glassily back up at him, rugged, lined, weather-beaten; the face of a seafarer. Gest thought he recognised him as one of the men at the inlet, but it was hard to be sure. Their last encounter had not given him enough time to get to know the man well. Certainly it was no one he was familiar with. He went to investigate the others, retrieving and cleaning his arrows as he did. All were Northmen, burly and of thirty winters or more, wearing armour some of them, some armed with spears, one with a long handled axe. Vikings, by Gest’s reckoning.
He returned to the garth to find Grani saddled and snorting in the morning light, Kormak at his side. Gest nodded his approval, and leapt into the saddle. Looking down at the thralls as they gathered in a rough semicircle, he said, ‘I go now to Earl Sigvaldi. I will return later today.’
‘What of the bodies?’ asked Dufthak. ‘We can’t leave them unburied. They will come back to haunt us!’
‘You will bury them,’ Gest told him, ‘when I give you the order. For the moment, they will stay where they are. I want to show them to Earl Sigvaldi.’
Hild came out of the hall, spindle in hand, spinning absently. ‘What will you tell him?’ she asked.
‘I will tell him what has happened,’ Gest said impatiently. ‘And I will demand, in the king’s name, that he muster his men and the men of the neighbourhood and we go in search of these men and defeat them or take them prisoner. It’s clear that they are involved in some plot against the kingdom. Now get out of my way, woman. I must be going.’
Kormak ran to the broken gate and hauled it open and Gest cantered off down the meadow.
The weather was mild after last night’s storms. He rode along the fjord side, the woods on one hand, the calm grey fjord waters on the other. Buzzards circled above the trees. On the far side of Gandsfjord the crags rose high overhead, the black dots of cave mouths gaping in seeming surprise as Gest followed the strand round a headland and entered the lands farmed by Earl Sigvaldi.
He rode straight across the fields and up to the gates of Earl Sigvaldi’s stronghold. At his appearance, guards let him in, helped him to dismount and led him across the muddy yard. Earl Sigvaldi stood in the doorway of his hall with several other men, surveying the busy scene as warriors trained together with wooden swords. The earl gave a convulsive shake of his head as if surprised to see Gest’s approach.
‘Welcome, king’s steward,’ he said with a laugh. ‘I had not thought to see you this morning.’
‘Men came in the night,’ Gest said, raising his voice over the ring and rasp of wooden blades. ‘Men with torches, to burn me in my hall.’
Earl Sigvaldi shook again, and looked to his warriors. All looked grim and sombre. ‘Men?’ he said. ‘Not trolls this time?’ He stared curiously at the bandage on Gest’s arm.
‘I never said that Thorstein’s killers were trolls,’ Gest said. ‘That was put about by your own folk. These were vikings, by their looks. And I know where they came from.’
Earl Sigvaldi raised his eyebrows. ‘Vikings, you say? Vikings raided my lands in the night and I knew nothing of it? But I have men on lookout at Kvitsoy by Boknafjord mouth, with beacons they are to light if vikings appear. But it is early in the year for vikings.’
Boknafjord was the fjord into which Gandsfjord flowed, from which it was possible to sail out into the open sea. ‘They did not come by sea,’ Gest said, ‘not this time. They followed me overland.’
‘Followed you?’ Earl Sigvaldi asked. ‘Followed you, you say? Where had you gone that vikings might follow you?’ He shook his head. ‘We see little of such folk these days. The king cruises the islands in the summer and puts paid to such threats. Perhaps they were outlaws you encountered, if you strayed too far from inhabited lands.’
‘Will you not dismiss your men?’ Gest asked meaningfully. ‘What I have to say is best said under four eyes.’
‘Very well,’ said Earl Sigvaldi, and he did so, telling his men to join the others out in the garth. Gest told him what had happened in the wood, what he had discovered, and how he had fled. And how they had come after him.
By the end of his tale, Earl Sigvaldi was looking less sanguine.
‘Vikings? Moored within my lands?’ He shook his head. ‘It is impossible to patrol everywhere along this coast. I do not have the men, they are needed here most of the time. I knew that outlaws laired in the wood, but they seldom troubled us. And I knew of the trolls…’
‘Trolls!’ Gest was scornful. ‘Why have you not taken your men to slay these outlaws, or these trolls even, if you knew about them? The king will hear of this slackness. You owe him your duty as do I.’
‘I am no fighter, not like my brother,’ Earl Sigvaldi said feebly. ‘But where is this inlet where you saw so many longships? I know of no such place. It would take days to sail into every fjord and inlet and sound, seeking ships.’
‘That must be why they chose these waters in which to hide their fleet,’ said Gest fiercely. ‘I could not take you there by water. It must be by land that we go, just as I went.’
Earl Sigvaldi looked about him despairingly. ‘I am not a strong man,’ he said, stretching out scrawny arms. ‘And I am not one for long journeys on horseback.’
Gest was furious. He strode out into the garth and snatched a wooden sword from one of the men, then snapped it over his knee. He brandished the broken sword as all the warriors turned to look at him in bafflement.
; ‘Is this all your fine fighting men are worth?’ he shouted at Earl Sigvaldi who was gaping at him from the hall doors. ‘Or are they men worthy of the name?’ He stalked back across the garth, ignoring the surly scowls of Earl Sigvaldi’s warriors. ‘In the name of the king, Earl Sigvaldi, I demand that you muster your men and ride with me through the woods until we reach the inlet I found. There we shall put the men we find to the sword or take them prisoner.’
Earl Sigvaldi shook as if in horror, but his eyes were bright. As Gest joined him, he reached out feebly to seize the housecarl’s paw in his own shaking grip. ‘Young man, your words have shamed me,’ he said, ‘but you have stiffened my spine. I am firmly resolved to do my duty to my king.
‘Saddle the horses!’ he yelled to his men. ‘Get swords and spears, not children’s toys like these!’ He snatched up the training sword Gest had broken and dropped it into a nearby midden. ‘We shall ride into the woods and put to the sword the enemies of the king.’
—7—
The men cast away their training swords and swaggered into the hall to equip themselves with weaponry and war gear in earnest. Horses were led out from the stables, and soon the whole stronghold was buzzing with excitement as preparations were made for the journey. It seemed that Earl Sigvaldi and his men were stronger and more resolute than he had previously suspected.
Two men approached the earl himself, carrying between them a jingling byrnie, a freshly painted shield, an iron helmet chased with gold and studded with garnets, and a sheathed longsword. After they had helped their lord don his armour, Earl Sigvaldi said to Gest, ‘Please go to my armoury, king’s man, and equip yourself with whatever you think is needed for this expedition. Take them as my gifts.’
‘My thanks, sir,’ said Gest, and went into the hall.
In the coolness of the main room, he found men handing out arms and armour. He took a byrnie, a shield and a hand axe to go with the spear he had brought from Thorstein’s steading, then chose a dark corner to don them. As he struggled into the heavy byrnie, its polished iron rings flowing over his body like a weighty flood of silver, he listened to the chatter of the men.
‘Going to fight outlaws, is that it?’
‘Nay, vikings, they say.’
‘Vikings? What vikings are there in these waters, except…?’
Gest’s head popped out of the neck hole and he glanced over at the two dark forms talking nearby. One leaned on a long handled axe, idly fingering the filigree work that reached almost as far as the cutting edge, the other was tying up the embossed chinstrap of his helmet as he spoke. But as Gest turned to glance at him, his eyes glittered strangely and he turned abruptly away.
Gest picked up his helmet and placed it on his head. It fitted poorly, being too tight for his brain pan, and he took it off and went to get another. As he did so, he passed the two men who were ostentatiously silent.
What had the one been about to say? There were vikings in these waters? In which case, why had Earl Sigvaldi not mentioned this? Did the earl not know something that was clearly common knowledge to his men? If so, why? What plots were brewing here?
He found a helmet that fitted him better, with a long nasal that went down as far as his chin. Taking shield in one hand, spear in the other, he strode out into the sunlight and found the earl standing amongst his men, resplendent in helm and byrnie, his right hand resting on the pommel of a magnificently worked sword. Seeing Gest approach, he gestured at the horses that had been brought into the garth.
‘Will you take one of these?’ he invited. But Gest shook his head wordlessly and went back to Grani. The sturdy horse had served him well enough so far.
Now Earl Sigvaldi’s retainers were all kitted out with helmets and shields and axes. Some carried swords, the richest wore byrnies. None of them would have lasted five seconds in the king’s household guard, Gest knew that much. But they made a splendid sight as they mounted their horses and with Earl Sigvaldi and Gest in the lead, galloped out of the garth, thralls and commoners leaping aside to get out of their way.
They rode up the strand as far as the steading, where Gest halted to speak briefly with Hild, then they galloped on across the meadow towards the trees, and the path that Gest had taken on his last journey. Soon the whole line of mounted warriors, a troop of thirty drawn from Earl Sigvaldi’s household and men from other steadings along Gandsfjord, were trotting through the trees, with long aisles of trees on either side, the fallen leaves muffling the thudding of hoofs and jingling of equipment.
As they rode along, Earl Sigvaldi spoke with Gest. He was already looking tired and wan, not accustomed to so much riding. ‘How far must we go, king’s steward?’ he wheezed. ‘Few fare in these woods, other than woodcutters and worse. Outlaws infest these parts.’
Gest laughed. ‘You have nothing to fear from outlaws, sir,’ he said. ‘With so many armed men at your back, you are a match for any robber band. They will hear us coming and melt into the trees rather than attack. Besides, I met none and I went alone.’
‘But you were attacked,’ Earl Sigvaldi said anxiously, gesturing at Gest’s bandaged arm. ‘You did meet outlaws.’
‘I met men,’ Gest acknowledged. ‘Men with something to hide. Perhaps they were outlaws. But it is not the men so much as the ships they were guarding that concerns me.’
He did not add that he had once been an outlaw himself. Outlaws were men like any other, if perhaps more desperate than some. They were men who had made mistakes, who had fallen foul of local laws. He had robbed folk for money or food more than once in the days before he found a safe berth in the king’s hall, though he would never be fool enough to tell Earl Sigvaldi of this. But he had only ever killed in self-defence. Those had been miserable days while he made his slow, painful way south from Naumdale, hoping to seek his fortune. And what a fortune he had found, as a housecarl of the king.
They rode on. Soon they reached the broken down old hut, and Earl Sigvaldi insisted that it be investigated despite Gest’s avowals that he had already found it to be lifeless and deserted. They sat their horses on the edge of the trees while nine of Earl Sigvaldi’s henchmen got down off their horses and approached the hut as if it was a heavily defended stronghold. Gest had to stifle a laugh, watching their grim faces. At last they filed into the hut only to return shortly after, waving to Earl Sigvaldi in token that the hut was empty.
Earl Sigvaldi and his men trotted into the clearing and Gest came with them. Two men helped Earl Sigvaldi dismount and the earl himself inspected the hut.
‘No one has dwelt here for years,’ he wheezed, coming back out. Gest looked down from his horse, and sighed.
‘I told you as much,’ he said, finding it difficult to conceal his impatience. ‘There is nothing of interest here. What I found lies to the west.’
Earl Sigvaldi was helped into his saddle. He twitched a little, as he said, ‘The outlaws might have taken it over as a hideout since you left.’ His men nodded wisely. Gest fumed inwardly at this waste of time. They did not want to be benighted in these woods, and the more time they wasted the more chance there was of their still being here when night fell.
They rode on, leaving the trail and following another track that was so narrow and so rarely used that the men held their shields above their heads to protect themselves from branches, or use axes to hack a way through the trees. Gest rode with them, wondering how they would react when they found it necessary to dismount and proceed at a crawl before they reached the inlet. But that was still a long way off.
They came out into sparser woodland where they could ride in reasonable comfort. An awful hush hung over everything and the drumming of their hoofs was swallowed up. Occasional bird or beast calls filtered through the branches. From time to time a wind swayed the trees above them, soughing mournfully. Otherwise there was no sound, and little to see as they plodded onwards.
Gest rode at the forefront, looking about him carefully. He had only come this way twice, on his way there and on his way
back, and the second time he had been in no mood to note local landmarks. His wound was paining him again, and cold sweat trickled from beneath the coif of mail he wore under his helmet, and ran down his back. It was hot in the armour, and he wondered if it would not be better to cast it aside than be cooked within it. He untied his chin strap and nestled the helmet in the crook of his mailed arm, pushed back his coif and mopped his brow with the hem of his cloak. Earl Sigvaldi glanced across at him, his head shaking with palsy.
‘It is a hard journey, this,’ he told Gest pitifully.
Gest turned away, and set the helmet back on his head again, tying the rawhide strips together. Earl Sigvaldi was a weakling. He knew nothing of war. Why the king had installed him as the lord of this region Gest would never know. The very fact that he had yielded to the king while his brother had taken to the seas as a viking marked him out as a bad choice. Gest would say as much when he returned to Tunsberg, although he would be careful not to frame his report as if he meant any reproach. Norway was a vast place for one man to rule, and it was hardly surprising if even Harald Finehair made the occasional oversight.
They halted for a meal at midday, dismounting and sitting on fallen logs to eat twice baked bread and dried fish. Sentries were posted, and the men were forbidden to light any fires. The horses were tethered and began cropping the sparse grass that grew in the middle of the clearing. Earl Sigvaldi came to stand beside Gest as he stood to one side of the impromptu camp, head cocked.
‘Do you hear aught?’ he asked in a soft voice.
Gest looked up. ‘I thought I heard movement from among the trees ahead,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing now.’
‘Beasts,’ said Earl Sigvaldi dismissively. ‘I doubt even outlaws would dwell this far into the wood. How far are we from this inlet of yours?’
Gest rose. ‘I would say we have another hour’s journey, as long as we get going soon,’ he said, accepting a water skin from one of Earl Sigvaldi’s henchmen. ‘Once we are there, you will see…’
Viking Revolt Page 5