The Midgard Serpent

by James L. Nelson

  The priest nodded and turned and said something to the other, and he nodded as well, smiled at Failend, and then went back to replacing candles at the altar. The dark-haired Irish priest regarded her with a curious look. “Well…welcome,” he said. “I’m Father Conall. What brings you here, child? Alone and so far from your home?”

  Failend had her story ready. She did not want to lie, certainly not to a priest, but she saw no choice. So she planned to say that she had been taken by Northmen from her native country, and they were taking her to Frisia, she guessed, to the slave markets there. She had suffered horribly at their brutal hands, but had managed to escape when they landed at the town to the south a few days before. Surely the priest had heard that the Northmen were raiding just to the south.

  She opened her mouth and another thought came to her.

  “Father, will you hear my confession?” she asked.

  “Of course, of course,” the priest said, nodding. He gestured toward a chair that stood by the near wall and led Failend over to it. The priest sat in the chair and Failend knelt in front of him, her hands clasped in supplication. She could feel the cool, hard stones of the floor through her shift and wool dress. She bowed her head, and then looked up again.

  “Father…?”

  “Yes?”

  “The sacramental seal binds my confessor…you…doesn’t it?”

  “Of course.” Father Conall smiled his half smile. “I cannot break that seal. I can never reveal anything I hear in confession. I would be excommunicated if I did. So have no fear. But see here, I can tell by the way you speak you’re a lady, a woman of quality, and not some poor, sorry creature. I’m hard pressed to think a young woman such as you would have anything so terrible to confess.”

  Now it was Failend’s turn to smile, just a bit. She glanced over toward the altar. The other priest was gone now. She made the sign of the cross and said, “Forgive me father. It’s been…years since last I confessed…”

  And with that she set in and let the story spill from her lips. The fornicating, the murder of her husband, running off with Louis, joining with the Northmen. She told Father Conall about falling in love with the leader of the Northmen’s band, of joining with them in battle, raiding and plundering.

  The tears started in, just a minor leak at first, but soon they were running unchecked down her cheeks. Her voice trembled and stammered. She felt as if she had been smothered in layers and layers of blankets and now they were being lifted off of her, one by one. She let the entire tale come up from her bowels and spill out onto the hard stone floor. And finally she was done. She looked up at the young priest. She could see the surprise— the shock — that she knew she would be there. But not so much shock as she had thought she would see.

  “That is…quite a story,” Father Conall said. “You’re certain it’s all true?”

  “I’m certain,” Failend said. It seemed like an odd question, but an understandable one.

  “And you forsake that? You are truly penitent and mean to give up that life?”

  “Yes, father,” Failend said.

  “Well, then,” the priest said, reaching out and putting his hand on Failend’s head “Through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace. And I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Failend made the sign of the cross as the priest said those words. She felt light, she felt free, she felt new-born.

  Now what? she wondered.

  Behind the alter the door banged again and Failend and Father Conall looked over. The first priest was back, leading a much older man behind him. The older man was a bit portly, a bit stooped, but he moved with vigor. He wore a white gown, intricately embroidered, and there was nothing kindly about his face. Nothing kindly at all. Four young priests followed behind him, like wolves behind the pack’s leader.

  “This is the bishop, Bishop Ealhstan,” Father Conall said. He stood and Failend stood and the bishop hurried over toward them. “Seems word of your presence has spread and it’s made others curious.”

  Father Conall bowed and Failend bowed and the bishop began to talk. Failend had no idea what he was saying, save that he was talking about her, since he nodded and pointed at her as he spoke. Father Conall was apparently answering questions, making Failend more afraid with every word.

  “Father, you won’t say what I confessed, will you?” Failend interrupted.

  “No, of course not,” the priest said and the bishop snapped out some sharp words, and Failend guessed he did not care to have them speaking Irish in his presence. She could see the old man was getting angrier at every exchange between himself and Father Conall.

  “What’s the matter, Father?” Failend asked. She could feel the fear mounting.

  “The bishop is suspicious of you, I think,” the priest said. “People are on edge, with the heathens so close. He knows I can’t say what you confessed but he’s not happy about it.”

  This fresh exchange in a language the bishop did not understand only seemed to make the man angrier still. He turned to one of the priests behind him and the priest stepped around the bishop and over to Failend. Failend glanced at her confessor, hoping he might come to her rescue, but the man just looked on, silent and helpless.

  The priest reached out and tugged the cloth around Failend’s head loose. Failend felt frozen in place, unable to move. Terrified. She felt his fingers grab the cord around her neck and tug it up from where it was hidden under her shift. She heard gasps from the others, a smug and knowing look on the bishop’s face, as they saw the two silver pieces hanging from the cord’s end: the cross of Jesus and the hammer of Thor.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  I am sorely

  by afflictions stricken.

  Has the sea him deluded,

  or the sword wounded?

  On that man

  I will harm inflict.

  Poetic Edda

  Amundi was nearly overwhelmed by the rush of sensations, and surprised by his reaction to them.

  He could feel the wind on his cheek blowing harder, making the men’s hair and the women’s hair whip around to leeward. He could smell the tang of the salt water and the heavy, wet air. The spray blowing back from the bow made sharp pricks of cold on his exposed skin. The boat rose and fell, bucked and twisted in the mounting seas. The wood of the tiller was warm where he had been holding it against the pressure of the rudder.

  It was not a comfortable situation. His tunic and cloak were soaked with the spray, and the wind on the wet cloth chilled him. The motion of the boat was increasingly violent. Sometimes the stern would lift and then come down hard with an impact that jarred him right through. His arm was growing tired from steering, his whole body cramped from sitting in the same spot and bracing against the pitch and roll of the boat.

  But Amundi felt the energy coursing through him, like the first effects of a deep draught of wine. He felt strength in his arms and his legs, despite the weariness. He felt bold and reckless in ways he had not felt in many years. Not since he had been a young man in the company of other young men, raiding, fighting, drinking and feasting, before he had wife and children, an extensive farm to oversee, a position in the community that required him to be staid and respectable.

  I’ve lost it all, all that I have, he thought. It’s all been taken from me.

  Halfdan the Black had come to deliver a message. He had come to show what happened to those who would rebel. But more than that, by helping himself to whatever he wished from Amundi’s stores, by housing himself and his men in Amundi’s hall, and making Amundi and his people sleep in the stable, he had made it clear that Amundi owned nothing. There was nothing he had that Halfdan could not take at will. Amundi was as much a slave to Halfdan as Oleif was slave to Amundi.

  Halfdan had meant for that message to cow Amundi and to cow all of Amundi’s neighbors who received a similar visit. And at first it had. At first Amundi had been paralyzed by the realization. But
then something happened that Halfdan had not counted on. Amundi had been set free.

  I have nothing, Amundi thought, but the thought was not grief or self-pity. It was freedom. He had no farm, he had no people, he had no place in the community. There was nothing but the boat and the people in the boat and Skorri Thorbrandsson in their wake. It was clean and pure and unambiguous and it made Amundi feel alive.

  “Seems these fishermen don’t much care for the weather,” Onund said. He was sitting a little forward of midships and looking out toward the mainland, about a mile and a half off the larboard side.

  Amundi’s eyes had been moving between the sail and the seas ahead and the point of land to the north-west that jutted far out from the shore, but now he twisted around to look in the direction Onund was looking. The smattering of boats that had been chasing schools of fish in their slow and deliberate way had all given up on that. They were heading for the shore now, sails set. They looked almost comical the way they tossed and bobbed up and down in the waves. There was a small fishing village just south of the headland and Amundi guessed it was there they were headed.

  He looked at the sky to the west, the dark clouds reaching up from the horizon, chewing up the softer gray overcast in their menacing advance. He felt the wind rise again, pressing the boat down a little farther to leeward, and another burst of spray came flying aft.

  No wonder they’re running, Amundi thought. The wind was cold and it had an ugly feel to it. He could tell that it had risen considerably since they had first rounded the island where they had landed, and the sky to the west suggested it would continue to rise. The boat they were sailing could live in the wind and seas as they were at that moment, but it could not take much more.

  “What do you think, Amundi?” Onund asked, speaking loud to be heard over the wind, the creaking of the rig, the thump of the hull against the water. “Should we follow their lead? Head to shore?”

  Onund had asked the question, but every person aboard the boat was listening anxiously for the answer. They were each of them familiar enough with boats to judge their present danger, and to understand how much worse it would get, and how soon.

  Rather than answer, Amundi twisted around the other way and looked astern. The boat in their wake had not turned, was not heading for shore like the others. Its course had not changed at all. It was about a mile astern and still driving as directly at them as it could go. If there had been any question that Skorri was in that boat, then that answered it.

  In his mind Amundi saw the geometry of the situation, the triangle formed by his boat, Skorri’s boat, and the village ashore. He considered the relative distances, the relative speeds, the courses that the boats could sail with the wind as it was.

  “If we head to shore now we’ll be sailing right into Skorri’s arms,” Amundi said. “We have to get around the headland there, off the larboard bow. If we can get around that ahead of Skorri, if he loses sight of us, then hopefully we can find a place to go ashore. Maybe lash the tiller and let the boat sail off on its own, hope Skorri follows it.”

  Onund nodded but did not say anything. Amundi looked at the others, at Signy and Alfdis and Thord, at Oleif and the rest. Their faces were grim, their mouths set. A few of them nodded their heads, almost imperceptibly. But on one spoke, no one objected. They all knew he was right. The only way to escape from Skorri was to get around the headland.

  The question, of course, was could they do it, or would the storm roll over them and drive them under before they were able? And the answer was that it didn’t matter. They were dead if they went down and they were dead if Skorri caught them, and of the two, the watery death was preferable.

  A gust of wind struck and rolled the boat further to leeward, far enough that the sheer strake dipped into the sea, scooping a good barrel-full of water into the bilge before righting itself. The water was inches high in the bottom, rushing fore and aft like a tidal race. It soaked the fur bed that Odd was lying on and soaked the arm of his tunic as well. Odd had managed to fall asleep, but with the shock of the cold water he moaned and rolled his head to one side.

  Signy and Alfdis grabbed the edge of the furs and hauled to windward, pulling Odd away from the water sloshing back and forth. The women looked back at Amundi, Signy’s expression pleading, Alfdis angry and accusatory, but there was nothing Amundi could do.

  “There’s a bucket, get that water out of the boat, quick as you can,” Amundi said. “And there’s a cook pot, use that as well.”

  Thord grabbed the bucket and began to bail. One of the other men pulled the cook pot free and Oleif found a drinking cup and they began to fling water over the leeward side. Amundi felt the boat heeling farther to leeward, threatening to dip the lee rail under again.

  He looked at the sail. It was bellied out taut, the windward shrouds that held the mast up quivering with the strain, the yard that held the sail bowing in the middle. They were right on the edge, and if the sail blew out or the yard broke or the shrouds parted then it would be over. Skorri would be on them while they were still sorting it out.

  “We’ll have to shorten sail,” Amundi said when the last of the water that could be got out of the bilge had been flung over the side. A series of short ropes were rove through holes in the sails, parallel to the bottom edge, so that the bottom of the sail could be gathered up and tied in place, reducing by a third the amount of cloth exposed to the wind. As much as he did not want to do it, Amundi knew they had no choice. They could not push the rig that hard. And in truth the boat would probably sail faster if it was sailing more upright, not heeling over so far.

  There were no arguments about that decision. Amundi pushed the tiller over and the boat turned up into the wind. The sail began to flog as the wind spilled out of it and the men who were closest to the foot of the sail grabbed onto the canvas and knotted the short ropes together. Thord lowered the yard down a bit to accommodate the new, shorter sail and Amundi pulled the tiller back, turning the bow away from the wind until the sail filled again.

  The entire maneuver had taken very little time, but when Amundi looked back over his shoulder he could see that Skorri’s boat had closed another hundred yards or so, close enough that Amundi could see the white water curling around its bow, the fine burst of spray it flung up with every violent pitch. The boat still had its full sail set and yet was not heeling over too terribly far. And it was going very fast.

  He’ll have to shorten sail too, soon enough, Amundi thought, though he knew, unfortunately, that it was not necessarily true. Skorri’s boat might be more stable, more heavily built, the rig might be stouter or better balanced, the sail newer. Some boats were just faster than others, more able to endure the kind of punishment they were experiencing. And if that was the case, if Skorri’s boat was the stronger and faster, there was nothing much he could do.

  Amundi looked forward again. The men had finished with shortening the sail and were crowded up on the windward side, sitting as low as they could to get out of the spray flying aft. It was more comfortable on the high side, less chance of being soaked if they scooped another wave, and getting the weight to windward helped keep the boat on a more even keel, which in turn would make it sail faster.

  And it was all about that now. It was a boat race. Amundi and his people trying to get around the headland and out of Skorri’s sight before Skorri and his men came up with them. The prize was life or death.

  The blackness in the west continued to reach overhead, blotting out the more benign gray clouds, spreading its menace. Amundi thought he could see sheets of rain coming down, off to the west, and it would not be long before it reached them.

  “Signy,” he said, having to speak quite loud to be heard over the volume of noise made by the boat and the storm. “We’ll have rain soon, I think. We should find something to cover Odd. I don’t know if there’s a tarpaulin in the boat, or what we might have.”

  Signy nodded, but before she could move some of the others crawled toward the bow where bu
ndles of various things were stored: nets, small barrels, worn, stained canvas sacks. There had been no time to empty the boat out, and they had no idea what the fishermen had left behind. Now they rifled through the gear, looking for something that would be of help. There wasn’t much. An old blanket, a fragment of a torn sail. They pulled them out and covered Odd as best they could.

  Amundi looked astern once again. Skorri’s boat was driving hard, bucking in the seas. Closer. Noticeably so. The sail was billowed out solid — Amundi could practically feel the strain on the cloth and the rig.

  He’ll have to shorten sail, Amundi thought again. He didn’t understand how Skorri’s boat wasn’t already lying on its side in that blow.

  And then he thought of Skorri’s men. Skorri would not have come in pursuit with some meager handful of warriors. He would have brought as many as he could, because he did not know how many Amundi had. He must have crammed twenty or so men on a boat that size, big men, with weapons and even mail, perhaps. Twice as many as were aboard Amundi’s boat. In light wind they would have slowed him down, but in this blow, with all those men huddled up on the weather side, they would keep the boat on a fairly even keel despite the strength of the wind. It would drive Skorri’s boat much faster than theirs.

  How can his rig take that? Amundi wondered. With the sail full and all those men holding the boat flat it would be putting a tremendous strain on the sail, the yard, the mast and the rigging. If Skorri’s rig did blow out it would do so in a spectacular way, he imagined, the yard shattering, the sail shredding in the wind, the mast collapsing. But so far it showed no signs of doing any of that.

  Once again Amundi tried to ignore the boat astern as he directed his eyes and his attention ahead. The point of land they were steering to round was off the larboard bow and a mile or so away. Amundi nudged the tiller, trying to put the boat on a more direct course. But as he did so he saw the leading edge of the sail start to curl and he knew he could not steer any more directly into the wind. He was sailing as close toward the headland as he could, and as fast as he could, and there was nothing more he could do.