Hrald took everything in, remembering those things he had enjoyed as a boy with Ceric, and seeing so much more, as well. The ride itself, alone with his father, was a store of quiet pleasure. He had never travelled thus with his father, save for the overnight trip to Saltfleet, carried out with a troop of men from Four Stones. This time it was the two of them, alone, granting ample time in each other’s presence, even if no words were spoken.
They rode all day, stopping just to water the horses and eat some bread and cheese. They pressed on until close to dusk, when they reached a narrow but swift waterway and made their evening’s camp. There they unpacked the horses, staking them with long lead ropes where the new grass would keep them busy at their cropping. Hrald built a good fire, with a ready supply of sticks to keep feeding it when either awoke during the night, so that it might not grow entirely cold when they arose. Their supper was bread and smoked deer meat, boiled eggs, and some of the firm cheese made by Ceridwen, wrapped in the early fronds of dill. Unpacking all this, they found a small jug of mead as well. They sat in the fire light, their backs against their saddles, as their horses browsed about them. It was not fully dark, and the sky held a deep blue that foretold a clear and starry night.
After a while of silence Hrald lifted his eyes from the fire and spoke.
“I was wed.” he began, in the speech of Angle-land. “To a daughter of Guthrum.”
His father had been poking at the fire with a stick. He let it drop from his hand into the flames.
“Her name was Dagmar. She lived at Headleage, but I met her through Thorfast’s brother. Her mother was named Bodil.”
Sidroc’s surprise was great, both at this news and the fact that Hrald had not before mentioned it. The last-named woman struck him, though he said nothing. Bodil had been Guthrum’s wife during the term he had served as part of that King’s body-guard. She was a tall woman, of unusual allure. He had never seen the daughter, who would have been small then. But if she took after her mother, Sidroc could see why Hrald had succumbed.
“You had wed,” his father repeated. Hrald had spoken in the past, and of the clouding of his brow there could be no mistake.
He hazarded a question.
“Did she die,” he asked, “bringing forth a child?”
“No.” He gave his head a single shake. “I found her being kissed by another man.” He paused. “She had brought him to the treasure room. He had been amongst the last of Guthrum’s body-guards.”
Sidroc raised his eyes to the deepening sky. Any war-chief’s body-guards were his most favoured warriors. The danger of their service was great, and their lives correspondingly short, but while they served they might live richly indeed. They were rarely wed, but could command a choice woman as wife. And if any woman about the hall had roving eyes, her gaze would fall first upon the body-guards.
Hrald went on. “What there had been between them I do not know, but it was enough to find her in his arms, in my own hall.”
“In the treasure room,” his father said. His echoing the name of that near-sacred place made Hrald feel he was there again, in the moment of discovery.
“Yes.” Sorrow hung on that single word.
The silence which followed was broken by Hrald.
“I cast her from my hall, sending her away with her bridal goods. She took nothing from the hall that she did not bring with her.”
“No blood was shed?” his father asked.
“None.”
“And the man?”
“I let him go. But he heard her double betrayal, for she begged me to forgive her, in front of him, not wanting me to cast her away.”
His father, watching his face, knew that the rending of his heart was bloodshed enough.
Still, Sidroc wished to know the answer to what he must ask.
“Why did you not kill him?”
There was neither challenge nor judgement in his question, just a simple request to know more.
Hrald’s eyes shifted up to the darkness above them.
“I know I could have, in law, done so,” he said. “But why?
“She was willing in the act. She was no longer mine.” He turned his eyes to the fire. “I did not know it, but she had never been mine.”
A moment slid by, in which the fire crackled as a log split. Hrald went on. “Ashild would have killed him. And killed Dagmar too, I think.
“That kind of rage – I felt anger, yes, but to kill him…
“It would not bring her back to me. It would not undo what was done.”
They both studied the flames as it flaked the wood to glowing embers.
“You did right,” his father conceded, after thinking on this. The boy’s mother, the priest Wilgot, the Abbess – all these had shaped him, and for the better, Sidroc knew.
“Hrald,” he told his son. “There are many just and true women in the world. Your mother is one. My wife as well. One will come to you.”
Hrald was silent, but his father’s thoughts continued on. Both the women he named were of Angle-land. This spurred him to say the next. “A wife from Ælfred’s Wessex, or Æthelred’s Mercia, would serve you well.”
Hrald need respond to this, which he had not before considered. He looked at his father as he answered. “As alliance, yes,” he admitted. He thought further, of his mother’s long efforts at Four Stones, and their joint commitment to Oundle, which had only grown the stronger now that Ashild was there. “She must be a Christian, or ready to become so,” he added, “and any maid of those Kingdoms will be already devout.”
Sidroc nodded, glad to see him looking forward like this.
“I think, when you wed again, you will be a good father. My wife tells me this, and on such matters she is rarely wrong.”
Sidroc gave a short laugh, as he considered those offspring he shared with her.
“Eirian has it in her head to go to Wales.” He shook his head, but had to smile. “I know nothing of that land, save what I heard from Guthrum, of their fierceness. The women too.
“And Yrling – I named him for my uncle. And the Gods listened.
“Then little Rodiaud came, at last. She was a special granting. An augury was made by an old spice merchant we met on our travelling here, who told my wife she would have two daughters. Eirian was the first, but the second was long in coming. Rodiaud closes that circle.”
They reached Paviken next morning, approaching by the river which formed its lagoon. A cluster of houses appeared first, and then as the current widened, the basin of water upon which the trading post sat. Two fishing boats had landed, the first just tying up, the second actively selling its fish to a group of men and women who stood around with baskets and hand carts to carry the catch home to flay. A third ship also was there, a war-ship of some thirty oars. The drekar was pulled up to one of the shipwright’s yards. Both prow and stern sported carved dragon heads, looking fore and aft, and even dead in the water it was as sleek and sinuous as those fabled serpents. The mast was not up, and none were aboard but the shipwright and his men, bent over some work at the keel.
At one of the brew-houses sat the men who must have come from the drekar. Two score of warriors, with all their war-kit either on their backs or at their feet, sat upon benches, cups in hand. Sidroc and Hrald, shields on their backs, swords at their sides, looked at them from their horses as they rode in. The Norse spoken by the warriors fell on their ears as they neared. Danes.
Sidroc smiled at his son. “Our brothers,” he remarked. The massed Danes were a formidable sight. Father and son, armed as they were, and with their three good horses, made their own impress as the Danes looked up at them.
The men were eating and drinking copious amounts, and both onlookers knew their purses were heavy with silver. One of the brew-house cooks was busy roasting fish threaded on metal skewers over an open fire, while another stirred an iron cauldron of browis with a long wooden paddle. A basket of eels, doubtless lately carried from the fishing boat, lay ready for gutting. A baker
arrived, come from his own ovens, his floured apron full of still-hot loaves, which he dropped upon one of the cooks’ work tables.
The two mounted men nodded a greeting to those nearest the walkway their horses trod upon. The Danes nodded back. Sidroc paused his stallion as they sized each other up.
“Rough going?” posed Sidroc. He inclined his head to the war-ship being worked on.
“Já,” returned one of the Danes, a scrappy looking fellow with a balding head of wispy yellow hair. “Bad storm crossing from the Prus. We did not lose the mast, but the mast lock cracked.”
Without the mast lock, a drekar was no more than a rowing boat. The fork-shaped block of oak set the mast securely upright in place.
Sidroc nodded in commiseration. “I wish you fair weather ahead.”
They moved their horses forward, then Sidroc turned his head to see if any were playing dice. They were not, but he had to laugh at himself for checking. They ambled on, to the line-maker’s stall to pick up the walrus-hide line destined for new rigging on Runulv’s ship. The line was ready, an entire massive hide of it, cut into one long thin strip of unvarying thickness. The line-maker went over every ell with Sidroc, that he be satisfied it was perfect. Sidroc paid him his silver, and the man recoiled the line. Sidroc did not loop it to one of his saddle rings as he would have common hempen line; it was far too valuable to display before the crew of the drekar. He pulled a linen sack about it, then set it within one of the leathern bags born by their pack horse.
They passed several stalls with arrays of goods, everything from foodstuffs, to empty casks to hold water, to the sellers of sundries such as cooking gear, steel needles, hammered nails, and fishhooks. Sidroc stopped before a woman selling carved combs. They were not of wood, as was common, but shaped from the flattened horns of oxen. He picked up one in swirls of cream and white, smooth and pleasant to the touch. He looked at his son.
“Eirian,” he said. The girl had never had her hair cut, merely trimmed, and now, at twelve years of age, it flowed down past her small waist like a dark waterfall. His shield-maiden wanted for nothing, but his daughter always hoped for a gift when he returned from any journey. This put Hrald in mind of Ealhswith, with her long yellow hair. He too selected a comb to take back, one of black and white swirls. Then Hrald laughed and chose a second comb, one swirled black and brown, for Yrling. The boy’s hair was jagged from his self-given shearing, long and short at the same time, but a new comb might encourage tidiness as it grew out.
It was time to quench their own thirst. They headed to the second brew-house, the one at which Hrald had inquired about his father. They tied their horses and sat down on a bench under a tented awning. The brewer came forward. “I see you found each other,” he said with a grin.
“Já,” Hrald said. “Your directions were good ones. I thank you.”
“Ale, or mead? I have Frankish wine, as well.”
Sidroc laughed. He knew the Danes at the other brew-house had likely gone right to the mead, or even the strong wine, as their ship might not be ready for them until the morrow. “It is early yet,” he countered. “Ale for me.”
Hrald nodded his agreement, and the man carried out two deep cups of the malty brown stuff.
There was almost no one else at his tables, but a man who sat alone watched Sidroc and Hrald as they entered and took their bench.
They lifted their cups. Sidroc said, “We will see how his Spring ale compares to that of Rannveig,” which made Hrald grin. They looked each other in the eye and took a deep swallow. It was good ale, distinct from Rannveig’s and less herbal, but of rich savour.
The man sitting alone kept his eyes on them; he was almost staring. He looked a fisherman, from the tall boots he wore to keep his feet from wet, and the short cloak of oiled leather over his shoulders, one made to give ease of movement working aboard a ship. He could not seem to look away. Both Sidroc and Hrald noticed; and each, without speaking, wondered what would come of it. The fisherman finally got up and approached. He stood before them, eyes shifting from one to the next.
“You are Danes,” he told them. He looked again to Sidroc, who nodded.
“There is an old Dane, lives up the coast. You… you are like him.”
Sidroc’s sudden alertness was marked by both his son, and the fisherman.
“Both of you,” the man went on, looking at Hrald.
Sidroc felt a tightening in his chest. He had not really known where his father had stayed, during his sojourn on this island. But coming as he did from Dane-mark, it made sense that he would have landed on Gotland’s western shores.
“What is his name,” he found himself asking. His words were slow enough that his son took note.
But the man shook his head. “That I do not know; I stopped at his farm and sold him fish, once, only. But he lives on the sea edge, not a day’s ride up the coast.”
Sidroc uttered his thanks, and the man left. Hrald sat looking across at his father, his hands circling the thick walls of his pottery cup.
“Your father,” he began. “He is dead, lost at sea in a storm.”
Sidroc looked back at him. “That was what many thought of my wife and me,” he answered. “Taken by slavers, and lost for good.”
They sat in shared silence. Each, as young boys, had suffered what they had thought was the death of their fathers. Perhaps loss was the better term; that which was lost could again be found.
Sidroc made decision. “We will ride, now, and find him.”
They paid the brewster and set out. Not even the Danes waving to join them at dice could stop Sidroc. They turned their horses’ heads north, and followed the coast up.
There were few houses they came across, and no settlements. Fishing huts sometimes appeared, belonging to upland farms, but no farm at the sea edge as the fisherman had described. They rode all afternoon, across sandy beaches, marshland blurring from weeds to sea grass, and cold freshwater streams emptying into the Baltic. The Sun was beginning to lower at their left shoulders when the smell of a cooking fire met their noses, that mix of wood smoke and savoury broth telling of coming supper. Clearing a stand of beach-growing pines, they saw the farmstead.
It was set back from the water far enough to be safe from any Winter-churned surf, yet close enough that the small fishing boat hauled up on the shingle shore clearly was of the place. The sea waves reaching towards it barely crested, but the stones grated on each other with every lapping advance and retreat. Nesting shorebirds scrambled in their horses’ path, dancing in the air and scolding loudly at them.
Sidroc slowed his horse as they neared the boat, and just looked at it, recalling that vessel so like this one in which he had fished with his father. A short distance away, wind-fallen branches, anchored upright in the stones, held a fishing net left to dry. A rush of recollection rose like a storm within him, of the day he had become entangled in the net and his father had grasped his raised arm and saved him from drowning.
It was not just the wind picking up which made Sidroc feel chilled. He did not know what he would find ahead in the low timber house. It sat on a swelling rise, and across from it was a barn and a few outbuildings. All was spare and simple, but kept in good repair with that thrift shown by those who have worked with their hands all their lives.
They moved forward, and saw a figure in the work yard spanning house and barn. A plump and elderly woman sat on a stool by the cook fire, singeing the pin feathers off a plucked fowl. Another woman was with her, standing at the edge of the fire, tending something on the coals. A man came into view from the pasture behind the farm, bringing in two cows. The older woman with the fowl saw them first. She set down the bird and eyed them, and did so with growing raptness as they neared. They stopped a distance from her. Sidroc lifted his hand in a gesture which he hoped signified greeting. She rose from her stool and turned towards the barn.
“Hrald,” she called.
A man came forth, walking upright but a little haltingly. He was tall and
grey of hair. Sidroc got off his horse and took a step to him.
He looked at the old man, and knew.
“I am Sidroc.”
The older man was struck dumb. Then his mouth moved, the lips quavering before giving voice.
“I see… I see you are.”
It felt an endless moment. They regarded each other, face to face, after decades of separation and uncertainty.
The older man began to lift his hands, in a gesture of helplessness or mere wonder. Sidroc bridged the gulf in two strides. He threw his arms about his father, and the old man wept in his arms.
Hrald had quitted his horse, and stood just behind his father. The woman too, had moved closer, wiping her hands on her apron and watching with widened eyes.
When the old man’s sobs quieted, Sidroc stood back, and spoke.
“I live with my wife, and younger children, on the eastern coast. Our hall is called Tyrsborg, for the God I have given myself to.” He gestured to Hrald, who came closer. “This is my eldest son, come from Angle-land where he was born. The Gods sent him at the right time to meet his grandsire.”
“I am Hrald,” he told the wondering figure.
Hearing this, that Sidroc had named his own son for him, the old man wept again. Hrald embraced him, trying to give comfort. The man seemed overwhelmed, baffled even, at what was happening. He lifted his arms to Sidroc, in supplication.
The woman now spoke. “Your throats will be dry. We have ale.”
There was a good fire going in the cooking ring, and she led them to benches at the table nearby. She went into one of the small outbuildings, and returned with a jug and four cups.
“I am Stenhild, your father’s wife. Runa and her husband Ottar live here with us and help with the farm.”
For Me Fate Wove This Page 42
