Rögnvald stayed behind. He was reckoned too young. Restless, he led off a dozen men who kept with him, the king’s son. They got in a six-oared karfi of his and went to the neighbor island Herdla. Afterward and always Gunnhild could well-nigh see the brightly painted hull, oars dancing on wave-sparkle, gulls white, Rögnvald’s fair hair like a banner at the prow. Eirik owned a big farm on Herdla. Its steward was one Thorir, called the Bearded, who had fostered Rögnvald and now gave him a hearty welcome. Here too was no dearth of drink.
Meanwhile Egil had let his ship drift for a few nights. When a strong sea breeze sprang up, he told his crew they had better make landing before they found themselves clawing off a lee shore. Near Herdla they took haven in a bight. After dark Egil went with two men in a small boat to Herdla itself and sent one ashore as a spy. This man garnered the tale of the two feastings—a drunken housecarl spoke freely to him—and that Önund, Önund’s brother Hadd, and Frodi were at Askey with no more fighting men than Frodi’s handful.
Back at his ship, Egil anchored offshore and had the crew arm themselves. He put twelve on watch. Seventeen fared with him in a skuta she had towed, through the strait to Askey. At eventide, on muffled oars, they entered a creek and nosed in among the reeds. Egil left the others there and walked into the woods. He bore helmet, sword at shoulder, shield on arm, and bill in hand.
Meeting some herd-boys, he fooled them into believing he had found a bear that had lately been raiding the farm. Yonder it was, in that thicket, he said. A boy ran off to tell them in the house. As was their wont, only Önund, Hadd, and Frodi were awake this late. They grabbed their weapons and followed the boy. By starlight and half-moon he led them to the edge of the wood and pointed to the brush the stranger—who had said he was going home—had shown. Seeing branches and leaves stir in the gloom, Hadd and Frodi ran to get between this clump and the woods. Önund went straight forward.
He met Egil.
He cast his spear, Egil his bill. Egil had slanted his shield; the spear glanced off. The bill went into Önund’s. The shaft dragged at it. Egil was first to unsheathe sword. He thrust into Önund’s belly. As Önund staggered, Egil hewed at the neck, almost beheading the man.
Hadd and Frodi heard. They dashed to do battle. Egil yanked his bill free and cast it again. It went through Frodi’s shield and breast till the point came out the back. Hadd’s sword clashed against Egil’s only a short while before Egil cut him down.
The fear-smitten boys crept nigh, ready to bolt across the field. Egil chopped a hand at the fallen. “Now be herders of your lord Önund and his fellows, so wildfowl and beasts don’t tear at their lichs,” he panted.
Back to the boat he went and fetched its crew. They broke into the farmhouse, surprising every suddenly awakened man, slaying any who did not flee. They looted it, and wrecked what they could not carry off. They drove the kine down to the creek, slaughtered all, and took as much meat as the boat would hold. Away they rowed, Egil at the steering oar. He was still in a killing rage. Nobody dared speak to him.
Daybreak shivered on the waters. Treetops stood wan above shadowy islands. A karfi rounded a headland, bound the other way. “That belongs to Rögnvald Eiriksson,” the spy said.
It came out later that someone had seen Egil’s ship and borne the word to Herdla. The king’s son had started at once to warn Önund.
Eirik half rose. “Row!” he bellowed. “Give it your backs, you scuts! Row!”
The skuta leaped. Her bow wave hissed. Men on the karfi gaped. Their oars faltered. This was happening too fast for them. Egil rammed her amidships. Though she was bigger, she heeled over. Sea poured across the bulwark. She righted herself but wallowed. Egil’s rowers upped starboard oars. Shafts snapped on the stricken craft as the larboard rowers swung the skuta alongside. Egil sprang. His men swarmed after. They were more, fully weaponed. Wading in water that soon splashed red, they slew everyone in that hull.
After they left the karfi and she drifted off, the gulls came wheeling downward.
When Gunnhild heard, the world went black in her sight.
She swam back from the whirling depths and looked forth into a day heartlessly bright. Rögnvald, cried her thought. Oh, Rögnvald, men died and too often it was the mothers that bore them who laid them out and closed their eyes. But so soon, Rögnvald, so soon? And she afar, he given to the seafowl.
More news followed.
When Egil landed on Herdla, he and his men headed straight for the farm. Thorir the Bearded saw them coming. He pelted elsewhere with the household. The wayfarers plundered, returned to their ship, and made her ready.
While they waited for a fair wind, Egil busied himself.
When the wind came, he went onto a rock that jutted toward the mainland. In one hand he bore a tall, stout hazel staff he had cut. In the other was the head of a horse. Standing on the rock while the sea moaned below and a wrack of clouds blew out of a nearing rainstorm, he set the horsehead on the staff and lifted it upright. “Here I raise a nithing-staff, and I turn its curse against King Eirik and Queen Gunnhild,” he called. He aimed the head at the hills that rose hazed across the strait. “And I turn this curse against all the land-wights who watch over this land, that they wander bewildered and cannot find their way home until they have harried King Eirik and Queen Gunnhild from the land.”
He wedged the staff into a cleft, the head still staring yonder. With his knife he carved runes on it. Thereupon he went down to his ship and his wife. Storm or no, his crew set sail for Iceland.
That was a dark and mighty spell he cast, Gunnhild knew. Next after a man, a horse was the foremost of offerings; and many were the men whose blood was on Egil’s hands. She thought belike those runes held the two poems in which he had asked for the wrath of the gods. Each half-verse would take thrice the number of all the runes, which Odin had hung for nine nights from the world-tree to win.
But she knew other powers, powers of drum, song, dance, food gathered in wilderness and drink brewed in loneliness, powers growing from the wet black earth and falling from the moon, to loose the soul and steer the weapon that does not miss. She had six sons left her, and a seventh in her womb. Her man had the kingdom.
Someday they would get their revenge.
XXI
Ships thronged the Boknafjord and its strands. Men arrived afoot and on horseback, day after day, to fill those hulls that had not come here already laden—carls, hinds, yeomen, led by their greatest landholders, few of them warded by more than a helmet, a shield, and a coat of leather, if that, but bearing spears, axes, swords, bows, slings. It was as big a levy, from as widely around in the shires that Eirik held, as he could lawfully raise or that could feed itself for as long as he could lawfully keep it.
Jarls, lendmen, hersirs, and their guards were fully, gleamingly outfitted. Packhorses trudged; wagons creaked. Tents bloomed on the shore, among the bags and blankets of the many who had none. Fires crackled and smoked; meat sizzled on spits or boiled in kettles; sausage and dried fish fried. Day by long day the noise and unrestfulness swelled, until the hills themselves seemed overwhelmed.
Then horns blew, ships slid into water, men scrambled aboard, masts and their rigging were raised on high. Well out to sea, sails went aloft, splashes of color strewn across the waves. A fair wind for the southeast had come up. It stiffened and shrilled. Waves brawled before it, spindrift flying off their white manes. Sails strained; rigging thrummed; strakes groaned; keels plunged. Yet clouds were scattered and hasty. The nights stayed light. Through their short silvery dusk one could still easily make out land, islands, reefs. By the second morning, land’s end was in sight and they put the helms over.
The wind lowered but also swung westerly, driving them up the Skagerrak in long, foaming tacks, sails poled out but no need to shorten. If anything, the worst trouble in the whole voyage had been to hold the swifter craft back from outrunning the slower. Dragon-prowed, wisent-prowed, stallion-prowed, swan-prowed, they swept toward the Oslofjord.
/> “I wonder if Queen Gunnhild didn’t witch us this weather,” muttered a man in his beard.
“Would you call that bad?” asked another. His laugh sounded uneasy.
When they reached the inlet that led to Tunsberg, the wind slackened off and died out. “We’ll stop here,” said Eirik, “get a little sleep, and walk on to our war.”
None cared for the work of making camp. They rested aboard under awnings or ashore under sky. But fires burned high and widely about, in fields and on hilltops, for this was Midsummer Eve.
Eirik found Arinbjörn a ways down the strand by his ships. Figureheads and masts stood tall athwart the wan gloaming, where few stars glimmered. Water sheened behind the shadowy hulls. It chuckled against them, very softly in the hush. The ness on its farther side was an eastward darkness above whose treetops stole already a faint brightening. Balefires made tiny candleflames or flickering red specks. Dew spangled nearby turf. The mild air smelled of it and of leaves. A stand of birch was as white as a maiden’s skin, their crowns as fair as her hair. An owl hooted from them, over and over.
“Greeting, King,” said Arinbjörn low. “A good faring, no?”
Eirik nodded. “I think we’ve come well ahead of the news of us.”
“Dwellers hereabouts have fled, some surely to the town.”
“What of it? Our foes have scant time left to busk themselves. Belike not all their levies have gotten here yet.”
King Olaf in Vikin and King Sigröd in Thraandheim had well understood what their brother was about. Sigröd came down with what men he could muster. That was merely some hundreds. It was a long haul from his kingdom; he could not promise they would be home for harvest; the law said that no man had to be gone when his land needed him. Although Olaf’s kingdom was smaller, its full strength would be too many to feed for weeks on end, so he had put off sending the war-arrows around until lately. He and Sigröd stayed together, in Tunsberg. The town must now be coming alive with shouts and torches, while horsemen galloped everywhere to bring in those who were out at the fires, helping bless the kine and dance the summer in.
“Glad I am to have you again at my side, foster brother,” Eirik said.
“I was never away from it,” Arinbjörn answered.
Eirik’s voice harshened. “Stoutly enough did you stand by Egil Skallagrimsson against me.”
“I told you, King, he’s my sworn friend. I’m grieved at the split between you. He’s not an evil man. Headstrong, a bad one to cross, yes.” Arinbjörn smiled. “There are those who say much the same of you, King.” He added nothing about Gunnhild. “But in his rough way Egil’s true to his own friends and honest with them. He may well be the best skald who ever lived. His wife, my kinswoman, is happy.”
“You know I want him killed.”
Arinbjörn sighed. “That must lie between you twain, unless I can somehow make peace.”
“Never can you or anyone else do that.”
“Then let’s set the whole thing aside, King. Egil is gone from Norway—forever, we may hope, though I’ll miss him. You’ve other, bigger foes closer to hand. I thought we might talk about how to meet them.”
Eirik eased a little. “Yes, that’s why I came looking for you. In spite of everything, your arm is mighty and I know you’ll keep faith whatever befalls.”
“Bare is brotherless back.” Arinbjörn did not tell the king that he had that saying from Egil. They went into the warlike business ahead of them.
Day broke. The host grumbled to its feet and, leaving a watch on the ships, rumbled up the road to Tunsberg. Dust puffed. Crops went flat where fighters spilled into fields. Farmhouses lay smokeless, stockpens empty. Birds and butterflies scattered, bright scraps of fear.
Erelong the stockade hove in sight, gates barred, the wharves and ships in front forsaken. Riding a horse that had been taken along, Eirik led the way around to the east side. Gilt helmet blazed, red cloak flamed in the young sunlight. A ridge lifted on his right. Ranked men roofed it. Spearheads flashed. A breeze rippled banners.
Eirik laughed, drew rein, and beckoned to his headmen. Shouting, stamping, his host gathered itself in three wedge-shaped arrays. He had the middle, gray Hauk Highbreeks the left flank, Arinbjörn the right. He gave the reins to a boy and swung down from the saddle. Horns dunted. War-cries howled. Eirik unlimbered an ax. Household troopers made a shield-wall around him, but he himself would also smite. His wedges moved forward. While Olaf and Sigröd held the high ground, Eirik’s following was much the greater.
Nearer he drew and nearer. Arrows began to whirr. Stones began to rain. Onward he came. Spears flew. Wounded men wailed, too hurt to remember manliness. Crows wheeled above, and the earliest of the ravens.
The armed throngs shocked together. Steel clashed on steel, thudded on shield, bit into flesh, broke bone. Men pushed, staggered, went forward, fell back, fell down, and then feet trampled over them and ribs crunched. Inward the wedges clove. It blunted them; their sides buckled toward each other; the strife churned around them. But a seasoned warrior kept an eye on his leader’s banner, swaying above the fray. He knew where he was and worked to stay there. Raw youths and unskilled hinds saw him and were not lost in the ruck. Thus they knew which of the bodies crowding in on them to beware of and strike at.
By King Eirik’s order, his skald Dag kept aside on horseback, trotting to and fro, overseeing the battle as best he was able. If he lived through it, his poems would tell the world how it went. Those inside saw only what was upon them. Otherwise it was shapelessness, wrath, and death.
So Dag beheld King Olaf’s standard go down, the bearer slain. A new man took it. But Arinbjörn’s had lurched close. When Olaf’s fell the second time, it did not rise anew. Arinbjörn thrust on ahead. The ranks before him splintered. Some men dropped their weapons and fled. Others stood alone or in forlorn small bands. Arinbjörn’s ringed them in.
Eirik burst through to the rear of the foe. He swung around and attacked from behind. Hauk’s flank closed in on Sigröd’s. He held it there while Eirik hewed into it.
Suddenly the fight was over. Men of the two lesser kings were running every which way, down the hill and across the grass, blind with dread. Men of Eirik’s hounded them. The badly wounded crawled or sat bewildered watching the life drain out of them or lay gasping or screaming or in jaw-clenched stillness. The dead sprawled everywhere, ungainly, faces ashen and agape. Blood smeared them. It puddled and steamed on the torn earth. The air stank. The fowl circled low. The boldest of them landed, to start picking and tearing.
In Eirik’s now ragged ranks men whooped, laughed madly, pounded each other on the back, jigged, skipped, alive, alive. A strengthening breeze unfurled his banners, many-hued, stitched with ravens, eagles, wolves, grinning and gripping little trolls, high against heaven.
Soon weariness brought quietness and slumped shoulders. “We’ll see if the town will open itself to us,” said Erik to Arinbjörn, Hauk, and others of his foremost. “If not, we’ll pitch camp and wait a day or two in hopes. We can set it afire if we must, but I’d rather take it unscathed.”
“We should first send searchers after Olaf and Sigröd, King,” said Arinbjörn. “I think they fell.”
“Yes,” agreed Erik. “We’ll give them honorable grave-mounds. They too were sons of Harald Fairhair.”
“And afterward?” asked Hauk.
“We’ll send the levies home,” Eirik said. “Our household troops will be enough to do what’s left to do. Against my father’s and my will, these Vikin folk hailed Olaf their king. We’ll go through their lands and bring them to heel.”
“I think we’ll often have a fight,” warned Arinbjörn.
Eirik laughed. “Of course. They’ll learn better from that, and from fire and plunder where needful.” He went stern. “Norway shall be whole again.”
The summer was old when he came back to Gunnhild bearing his victory.
XXII
A north wind roared down the throat of the Thraandheimsfjord a
nd over its wide inner waters. They ran iron-gray, in heaving whitecaps and flying scud, to spout where they struck rocks and burst on the strands. Rain slanted river-thick, arrow-sharp, often mixed with hail that skittered across the streaming ground. Lightning forked through. Thunder rolled down and down an unseen sky.
In the high hall at Hladi, flames beat back shadows. Smoke drifted bitter. Figures carven in wood and woven in hangings seemed to stir amidst the dimness.
Sigurd Jarl sat with his guests. They drank not from horns but from glass and silver goblets. Yet this was no feast. They were few. Nobody else was there but his trustiest guardsmen. A pitcher stood on the board before each man so that he could pour for himself. If it went empty, a trooper would fill it afresh. The hall reached hollow around them.
No dishonor was meant. Later many more would come, food and drink overflow, a skald chant his lays, Sigurd give goodly gifts. These few were of high standing, lendmen, hersirs, wealthy yeomen, such as Narfi of Staf and Blotolf of Olvishaug from the inner Thraandlaw, Kaari of Gryting and Aasbjörn of Medalhus from the outer. What they spoke of should not go beyond these walls—not yet.
They already knew their King Sigröd lay dead in the South beside his brother King Olaf. Sigurd had further news for the latecomers. “Faithful men got away to the Uplands with Olaf’s son Tryggvi and with Gudröd, son of Björn the Chapman, whom Olaf fostered,” he said. “I hear they’re promising lads, but only lads. And who knows how long they’ll be safe in the mountains? Eirik Blood-ax goes around Vikin, laying waste wherever they do not at once call him lord.”
“It might have gone likewise in the Southwest, had Eirik fallen,” said Blotolf dryly.
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