I remembered how his mother had wailed when she had learned of their deaths. Why did you join this voyage? I wondered. Toke is not your enemy. Why do you not stay with your family?
* * *
The wind held steady out of the northwest all day, leaving most of us aboard the Gull with little to do. We sailed south after leaving the coast of Jutland, and by late morning the island of Samso came into view off the bow. At first Torvald closely skirted its coastline, keeping the low profile of the land visible off our steer-board side, bearing south and east along it, until the shoreline of the island began to gradually fall away toward the west, and we headed due south again.
At noon, Hastein took over the steer-board to give Torvald a chance to sit and rest his legs. Torvald, Tore, Storolf, and Asbjorn pulled their sea chests into a loose circle and sat on them, passing the time by rolling dice to see whose luck was the stronger. I pulled my own chest close and sat on it, watching. Torvald threw the highest roll the most often. He was lucky with dice. Tore, on the other hand was not, at least not this day. He rolled the lowest more than any of the others, and after a time it made him morose.
"Do you think it is true?" he suddenly asked. "What that woman said? Was the sacrifice rejected by the gods?"
"Our sacrifice was not rejected," Hastein said, from where he stood back on the stern deck.
"There was nothing wrong with the sacrifice." Torvald agreed. "You were just clumsy, but that is nothing new. If your clumsiness so angered the gods that they would kill us all for it, we would be long dead."
Tore glared at him. Turning to me, he asked, "You know that woman, Halfdan. Does she see things before they happen? Does she have the second sight? Or is she a witch? Did she curse us?"
My mother had possessed the sight. She sometimes saw things that had not yet happened in our world. She had known of Hrorik's return from England, and that he was dying, before his ship had reached the estate. But that had nothing to do with Tore's question.
I shook my head. "Gunhild is just a bitter and angry woman. She wishes ill on others, and hopes to see it happen. But she has no power to make it so."
"But what if it was an omen?" Tore persisted. "What if the woman spoke the truth about that? What if we are all going to die?"
"Of course she spoke the truth," Torvald said. "We are all going to die. It is the only sure thing in our lives, from the day we are born."
Storolf and Asbjorn began laughing. Even Hastein, up on the stern deck, smiled.
"You are mocking me," Tore snapped, and pushing his sea chest aside, he strode angrily toward the bow of the ship.
Torvald shook his head, watching him go. "Tore is much changed since Odd died. He has lost his laughter, and sees signs and portents everywhere."
Signs and portents. The words caused a shiver to run down my spine. Harald had spoken those same words, the first night of our voyage up to the Limfjord. We had seen a star fall from the sky, and he had said that some believed such events foretold the death of a great man. A few nights later he was dead, slain by Toke and his men.
"Do you not believe that sometimes there truly are signs to see?" I asked. "That sometimes there are warnings of things to come?"
Torvald shrugged. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. What does it matter? I myself would not wish to see such signs. It would be a great woe to know in advance of your own death. Every man must die, and no one can avoid death when his time is come. It is all in the hands of the Norns. It does no good to worry what the morrow will bring. What will be will be."
* * *
By midafternoon we left the southern tip of Samso astern, and as Hastein swung the Gull to head due east, we hauled on the braces and sheets, pivoting the sail to keep the wind behind it. The Gull tended to heel over with the wind blowing from more directly off her side, so we slid our sea chests to her high side, and stood or sat there to help balance her. But the sea remained calm, and still we made good time.
We made landfall—a narrow promontory jutting out from the western coast of Sjaelland—in the late afternoon.
"We have made good progress this day," Hastein said. "We will break our voyage here tonight, and on the morrow, if we have fair wind again, we should be able to make our way down the great belt, and hopefully beyond."
Sjaelland—the island of the Danish kings. I had been here once before, when Hastein had sailed from Hedeby to hold council with King Horik and other great chieftains of the realm, including Ragnar Logbrod. It was then that the decision had been reached to carry war to the Franks. Was it truly just earlier this same year?
The tip of the promontory ahead of us loomed over the sea, higher than the mast of the Gull, its sides falling off sharply down to a narrow, rocky beach below. When we drew closer, I could see a small building atop the point, and beside it, what looked to be a large pile of brush and wood. As I watched, three men came out of the building and pointed in our direction.
"Watchers," Torvald said. "King Horik's men." He turned toward the stern, where Hastein was standing, also staring at the men. "Hastein?" he asked.
Hastein nodded. "Aye," he said. "Show the peace-shields. Though I do not think they would light the beacon for just two ships."
Torvald went forward and unfastened two shields, each painted solid white, from where they had been secured in the peak of the bow, below the carved, brightly painted dragon's head that topped the Gull's front stem post. He lashed one on either side of the dragon's head, covering its fierce visage and showing that we came in peace.
Hastein steered the Gull closer to shore as we passed below the watch-post. Torvald pulled the tall standard pole down from the overhead rack, stripped off its cover, and— stepping back to the stern deck to stand beside Hastein— raised the standard so that Hastein's Gull banner rippled back and forth in the breeze above him. Up on the cliff, one of the guards raised his arm overhead, waving in acknowledgement and greeting, and Hastein did the same in reply.
The finger of land we were passing formed the north side of a broad bay. Hastein steered the Gull south now across its mouth, toward a second peninsula that jutted out from the big island's mainland, framing the bay on its south side.
"Where will we stop for the night?" Tore asked him.
"The north shore here is steep and its beach rocky, but there is a spot along the south shore of the bay, near its mouth, where the bottom is smooth and shallow enough for a good anchorage close to the beach," Hastein replied. After we'd sailed on for a short time, crossing most of the distance across to the far side of the bay, he called out, in a louder voice, "Prepare to lower sail. Oarsmen, draw your oars."
We rowed a short way along the south shore of the bay, near its mouth, until we found the shallows Hastein was searching for, and anchored the two ships close in and parallel to the shore. With their gangplanks extended from amidships, it was only a short wade through ankle deep water to dry land. Hastein and Stig dispatched four men to stand watch from the heights overlooking our anchorage, while the rest of the members of the Gull's and Serpent's crews set about the tasks of preparing to camp for the night. Some used the sail and awnings to pitch tent-like covers over the ships' decks, for shelter to sleep under. Others scattered ashore, searching for firewood. I elected to help Hastein's thrall, Cullain, prepare the evening meal, as did Tore, Storolf, and Gudfred from the estate.
Cullain and the cook for the Serpent's crew, a stocky, balding carl named Regin, set up their tripods on the beach and hung large iron cook-pots, half-filled with fresh water, from them. As our scavengers began piling the wood they found nearby, Tore and Gudfred used small-axes to chop up the larger branches and stacked the cut pieces beside the tripods, while Storolf and Regin laid fires beneath the cauldrons and lit the tender with sparks from their flint and steel.
I helped Cullain butcher the ram that had served as our sacrificial offering that morning, while nearby Regin began chopping carrots, parsnips, and rutabagas on a slab of wood. As he filled up the surface of the board with diced veg
etables, he would sweep them into the two pots, then grab another handful and begin chopping again.
Cullain had gutted the ram early in the day, to keep the meat from spoiling. Most of the offal he'd tossed overboard as we were sailing, but he'd reserved the heart and liver. We laid the ram on its back on the beach—its body had stiffened, making it somewhat awkward to work with—then with Cullain working on one side, and I the other, we slit the skin down the neck and chest and along each leg, and began working the hide loose from the body. Spreading the flayed hide out on the ground, bloody side up, we used it as a working surface to cut the carcass into sections on.
By now both ships were tented. Most of the crew members who'd help set the shelters came ashore, and having nothing better to do, several gathered around where we were working, to watch. Torvald was among them, as were two brothers named Bjorgolf and Bryngolf, who rowed in the Gull's bow. Hastein's men called them the ravens, perhaps because both had coal-black hair and beards, or possibly because they were twins, and looked so much alike it was difficult to tell them apart. Like Storolf, they had remained behind in Jutland to guard Hastein's lands during the Frankia campaign, and had only joined the Gull's crew on our return to Denmark, to replace men lost fighting the Franks.
"I want all of the meat cut off of the bones," Cullain told me. "All that we can. We will cut it into small pieces, like this," he added, making a circle with his thumb and finger to show me. "We are starting this stew late in the day, and will need it to cook as quickly as possible."
We had already cut all of the muscles off of the neck, and had separated the front and rear legs from the carcass. Storolf and Tore began cutting the large sections of muscle from the neck into small chunks, as Cullain had instructed, adding them by handfuls to the cauldrons.
Cullain was using a knife to separate the sections of muscle from one of the rear legs and free them from the bone, tossing the bloody pieces of meat into a heap on a clear area of the hide as he cut them free. I had skinned and butchered many beasts while a thrall, and had come to think of myself as more adept than most at the task. But watching the speed with which Cullain turned the carcass of the ram into cleanly trimmed portions of meat, with quick cuts of the small, sharp knife he wielded and no wasted motion made me feel clumsy and unskilled.
I began using my small-axe to cut along the spine on either side, chopping the ribs loose. "Those," Cullain told me, "the ribs—we will have to just cut them into sections, and throw them into the pot bones and all."
"What will you do with the backbone?" Bjorgolf asked.
Cullain glanced up at him. "I have no plans for it."
Bjorgolf glanced at his brother, who nodded. "May we have it?" he said. "We'll dig a trench on the beach, in the shallows, and leave the backbone in the bottom. Perhaps it will catch us some crabs, or maybe even a halibut."
Cullain shrugged. I had finished chopping through the ribs. Taking his shrug as a yes, I held up the bloody backbone, the ram's head still attached.
"Not the head," Torvald told me. "Cut it off and give it to me. This ram was a sacrifice. It belongs to the gods. It is fitting that we honor the ram and the sacrifice by eating its meat. But to use its head as bait for crabs might offend the gods."
I used the edge of my small-axe to slice around the spine, between two bones in the neck, then twisted the head, breaking it free.
"What will you do with it?" I asked, as I passed the ram's head to Torvald.
"I will make a cairn of stones at the water's edge and place the head upon it, and leave it there for the gods."
"And crabs will still eat it, but we will not catch the crabs," Bjorgolf muttered.
I was surprised. Torvald had never struck me as a religious man. Had the earlier talk of omens and death unnerved him, too, despite his show of bravado?
* * *
Darkness fell while the stew was cooking. Once the vegetables began to show signs of softening, Cullain and Regin had added handfuls of barley to the pots, to thicken the contents and add heartiness. While we waited, Hastein, Hrodgar and Stig spread out a thick bearskin on the beach to sit on, and built a small fire in front of it. They poured cups of wine from a small cask Hastein had brought ashore and tapped, and after Cullain brought them a pottery bowl filled with the ram's liver, which he had sliced into thin strips, they skewered pieces on sticks and roasted them over the flames of their fire, as the members of the two crews watched hungrily.
In anticipation of the coming meal, Torvald, Tore, and I had waded back out to the Gull's gangplank and had fetched our bowls and cups from our sea chests aboard ship. Torvald's stomach was growling by now with hunger, and when he saw Cullain deliver the bowl of sheep's liver to Hastein and Stig, he let out a loud sigh, then walked over to the bearskin and sat down.
"I will join you. Thank you," he said. Hastein looked at him with his eyebrows raised, but said nothing. Their years together and their friendship allowed Torvald certain liberties with the jarl that no other man would dare assert.
Torvald held the small cask upright while he pulled the stopper from the bung hole, then he tilted it and poured himself a cup of wine. He took a long draught, sighed with pleasure, and refilled his cup. "Ale is good, very good, and well-brewed mead has a strength to it that no other drink can match. But wine…ah, wine!"
"I suppose you will want some of the liver, too?" Hastein said.
Torvald nodded his head and smiled. "Why, yes. I thank you." Turning to me, he said, "Halfdan, I need a skewer. Will you find me a slender branch from the firewood pile?"
Stig rolled his eyes. Hastein shook his head, grinning, then to my surprise, said, "Bring two skewers, Halfdan, and join us."
"Fill your cup," Hastein said, after I'd sat myself down on the bearskin. Torvald held out his hand, took my cup, and filled it for me. As I took it back, Hastein began.
"I have been wanting to speak with you about this. I think that what you did— freeing the slaves—was very unwise. I cannot understand why you did it. Admittedly you can be rash at times, but normally I do not consider you a fool."
I had not thought that Hastein would approve. In his eyes, no doubt it seemed I was giving up valuable property for no reason. But to call me a fool, as he seemed to be doing, was harsh. I had not expected such bluntness, and was taken aback by it.
"Are you saying that you think me a fool?" I asked him.
"Until now, I have not," he replied. "I am hoping you can persuade me that in this instance, you were not."
I was silent for a long time, searching my mind for what to say, while Hastein stared at me expectantly. Finally, because I could think of nothing better to say, I told him simply, "I do not expect you to understand."
"That is your answer? It is certain I will not, if you do not even attempt to explain."
How do you make a man who has known only privilege his entire life understand how it feels to be the property of another?
"What would be the most bitter thing that could befall you?" I asked him.
Hastein thought briefly, then answered, "To lose my honor. A man without honor is not a man at all."
Stig nodded in agreement. "Aye," he said. "I would rather lose my life than my honor."
"Does a sheep on the farm have any honor?" I asked. "Does a pig?"
"That is a foolish question," Hastein snapped. "They are not men. They are beasts."
"And what, then, is a slave? Surely not a man, with honor. For he is just property, is he not? Nothing more than another beast on the farm."
Torvald nodded his head in agreement, and poured himself another cup of wine. Hastein began stroking his beard with one hand, and his eyes narrowed as he stared at me. "What you say is true, and yet it also is not," he said.
Stig frowned. "How so?"
"A thrall may be property, but he is more than a beast. Halfdan was a slave. Yet he clearly is a man who possesses a strong sense of honor. Was his honor suddenly born in him after he was set free, or was it there all along?" Hastein
replied.
"Perhaps Halfdan is different, and that is why the Norns chose to weave his fate in such a way that he became free," Torvald suggested. "Perhaps he was not supposed to be a slave. Perhaps he is different."
"Perhaps I am not," I said.
Just then, a shout came from the hill above us, where the sentries were posted. "Jarl Hastein! I see torches. Riders are approaching."
We all scrambled to our feet. Hastein and Stig picked up their swords, which had been lying on the bearskin beside them, and slipped their baldrics over their shoulders.
"We will speak more of this later," Hastein said to me. "I can see where you are leading me. I still do not understand why you did what you did, but your words are clever. They certainly are not those of a fool."
A party of riders appeared above us on the edge of the hill overlooking the beach. Six of them were armored with mail brynies and helms, and had shields slung across their backs. They were carrying torches to light their way, for the sky was cloudy and the night dark. The seventh, their leader, wore no armor and was unarmed save for a sword he wore, carried like Hastein's and Stig's by a baldric slung over his right shoulder, that held the blade in its scabbard suspended at his left hip. While his guard sat upon their horses watching, lined across the hill crest, he guided his mount down the slope to the beach, then walked it over to where we were gathered.
"My name is Ragnvald," he said. "I serve Horik, King of the Danes. I am one of his captains who stand watch over the lands of Sjaelland. My men reported to me that your two ships made camp here, and that they look to be carrying no cargo save warriors. I would know your purpose."
"I am a Dane," Hastein replied. "My name is Hastein. I am jarl over the lands around the Limfjord, in the north of Jutland, and I rule them for the king."
Ragnvald nodded. "My guards described the banner you flew as you approached their post. I thank you for that courtesy. What they described sounded to me like the gull banner of Jarl Hastein. I had thought they must be mistaken, but it appears it is I who was." He swung his right leg up over his horse's neck, and slid to the ground. Extending his right arm toward Hastein, he said, "Welcome, Jarl Hastein, to Sjaelland."
The Long Hunt (The Strongbow Saga) Page 8
