The Long Hunt (The Strongbow Saga)

by Roberts, Judson

  I nodded. "We have met."

  The brevity of my answer seemed to leave Sigurd momentarily at a loss for words. He overcame it.

  "I had two other brothers," he said. "Eric and Agnar. They were born to Father's first wife, Thora. She died. Eric and Agnar are dead now, too. They tried to conquer the Svear kingdom and take its throne, but King Eystein defeated and killed them."

  This seemed a strange thing to volunteer to someone almost a stranger. "I did not know that," I replied, for lack of a better response. A desire to acquire a kingdom seemed to run in this family. It was certainly a hunger that afflicted Ragnar. I glanced sideways at Sigurd, wondering if he, too, wished to someday become a king. When I did, I noticed again that there was something strange about his right eye.

  "You are staring at my eye," Sigurd said.

  "What is wrong with it?" I asked.

  "Nothing. It is the sign of the serpent. I am called Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye because of it. My mother, Kraka, says it means that I have the spirit of a dragon within me, and that I am marked for greatness."

  It sounded like something a mother might say. There was a red line, sort of a wiggle, across the bottom of the colored center of his eye, but I would not have thought it to be a serpent.

  "I am finished," I said. I stood and slung the long strap of my quiver over my left shoulder so that its arrows hung at my right hip. Draping my cloak over my arm, and picking up my sword and bow, I told Sigurd, "Take me to the butt."

  It was a warm day, and a number of the folk of the household, as well as many of the members of our two crews, were standing or seated around the yard outside of the longhouse, enjoying the sunshine. Hastein and Arinbjorn were there, too, speaking together, and Torvald, Hrodgar, and Stig were standing nearby. As we passed them, Hastein called out to me, "Do not go far. One of Arinbjorn's captains did see the two ships we are seeking. He will be here soon."

  Before I could answer, Sigurd announced in a loud voice, "We are just going to the archery butt. Halfdan and I are going to shoot bows together."

  "I would like to see that," Arinbjorn told Hastein. "From what you have said, his skill is remarkable."

  Unfortunately, the prospect of entertainment when there was nothing else to do prompted most of those who were out in front of the longhouse to follow as well. I noticed that Gudfred, Floki, and Baug from the estate were among them.

  I had just hoped to get in a little practice with my bow. Having an audience to watch me shoot was bad enough. Torvald found a way to make it worse.

  "Jarl Arinbjorn," he said. "Are any of your men especially skilled with the bow? Perhaps they could shoot against Halfdan."

  I knew what Torvald was doing. He was hoping that there might be a contest which I would win, and he wanted to wager on it.

  "Sigtrygg is the most skilled archer among my men," Arinbjorn answered. "He is quite good." He turned to a man walking nearby—it proved to be a captain who'd sat at the high table the night before, the one who had made the jest about the Frankish sentry's bad luck—and asked him, "Will you shoot?"

  "With pleasure," he replied. "I will fetch my bow."

  The butt, made of rolled hay that had been bound around with cord, stood roughly as high as my shoulder. A small square of white cloth, about the size of the center boss of a shield, had been pinned to its center to make a target. As we approached, two of Arinbjorn's men, wearing helms and brynies and holding shields as if armed for battle, were practicing casting spears at it. Seeing the crowd approaching with their chieftain, Arinbjorn, in the forefront, they retrieved their spears from the target and stepped off to one side.

  The butt had been placed in a location that would allow the practicing of long shots, but Sigurd continued forward until we were only a spear cast away.

  "I do not have great skill with a bow," he said, apologetically.

  "One must learn to shoot well at closer distances first," I told him, "before attempting longer shots. This is a good distance to practice from."

  "What was the longest shot you have made, when you killed a man?" he asked.

  He seemed fascinated with killing. I thought about his question. It took a while—there had been so many times. But in truth, only during the great battle in Frankia, and that night on the Limfjord when Toke and his men had attacked, had I attempted shots at any great distance to speak of, and I suspected most of those had probably missed. The times I knew for certain I had killed a man with my bow—like when I had slain Stenkil's comrade, Sigvid, in Ruda—he had for the most part been fairly close.

  "Most I shot at about this distance, sometimes less," I told him. Sigurd looked surprised.

  I laid my sword, in its scabbard, on my cloak on the ground. Straightening up, I began rubbing my hands up and down along the limbs of my bow.

  "What are you doing?" Sigurd asked.

  "It has been some time since I have shot my bow. When not used, its limbs get stiff. I am warming them, so they will be easier to bend and string."

  Bracing the tip of the bottom limb against the instep of my right foot, I grasped the bow's leather-wrapped grip with my right hand, and as I pulled back on it, I pushed my left hand hard against the upper limb, sliding the loop of the bowstring up along it with my thumb and forefinger as the bow bent, until I could slip the loop into the notch cut in the horn tip.

  Pulling my leather bracer out of my quiver, I slid it over my left forearm and tightened its laces, then slipped my fingers through the loops on the tab of thick hide I wore now to protect my fingers from the bowstring. I had only recently begun using it. Tore had given me the tab after the battle with the Franks. That day I had shot my bow so many times that even though they were thickly calloused, the tips of the fingers I pulled the string back with had become raw and bloody. "This was Odd's," he'd told me, when he gave me the tab. "He would be glad to know that it will be yours now. He thought highly of you."

  Sigtrygg approached from the longhouse carrying a bow and quiver. He looked to be a man who spent much thought and care on his appearance. He wore his beard trimmed close to his jaw—prudent in one who shoots a bow regularly. His hair—a gold so fair it looked almost white—he wore longer than most men do. It hung loose and gleaming down his back now, halfway to his waist, and admittedly looked very striking. I realized he had changed tunics while fetching his bow. Before, he'd been wearing a dull gray one, but now the tunic he wore was deep blue. Several women, including Asny and Saeunn, were walking with him, laughing at something he was saying.

  When he reached us, he made a show of looking back and forth several times from the butt to the ground at our feet, then proclaimed, "This is not a very challenging distance to shoot from."

  Sigurd blushed. When he did, it made him look very young. "I chose that we would shoot from here," he said, sounding embarrassed.

  I noticed that both Sigurd's and Sigtrygg's bows had flattened limbs. Such bows were easier to make—when old Gudrod had first taught me to craft a bow, it was a flat-bow we'd made together. But though far easier to carve from a stave, such bows could not be made to be as powerful as a well-wrought longbow, with its long, slender, rounded limbs. Sigurd's bow, in particular, looked as though it probably had a light draw.

  "Shall I shoot first?" Sigtrygg asked Arinbjorn. The jarl glanced at me, and when I shrugged, he nodded.

  Sigtrygg handed his quiver to Asny, who looked as if she felt very pleased that he had. Selecting an arrow from it and nocking it on his bowstring, he turned sideways to the butt, planted his feet, and came slowly to full draw. He held there for what seemed a very long time, while staring intently at the target, before he released.

  The shot was very good. His arrow embedded itself in the exact center of the square of white cloth which formed the target.

  Sigurd stepped up to shoot next. He had not exaggerated when he'd said he did not have great skill with a bow. When he drew his arrow, he did so entirely with his right arm, not using his back at all, while holding the bow clutched tightl
y out in front of him in his fully extended left arm. And he held it high, trying to sight along the arrow toward the target, rather than keeping his arms and the arrow down level with his shoulders. A powerful bow could not be drawn so. Sigurd held his draw long as he aimed, as if mimicking Sigtrygg. His arrow, when he finally released it, struck off to the left, just inside the edge of the cloth target.

  "Not bad, lad, not bad," Sigtrygg said. Sigurd blushed again and glared at him.

  The night before, at the feast, I had taken a dislike to Sigurd. He'd struck me as a spoiled and arrogant young man who held a high place in the world—or at least in Arinbjorn's household—solely due to his renowned father, rather than for any qualities he himself possessed. This morning, though, he seemed much more a boy than a man, and it struck me that by the airs he affected, he was perhaps merely trying to live up to being the son of Ragnar, and the brother of Ivar and Bjorn. It made him seem, if not likeable, at least a little less unpleasant.

  "I believe it is your turn to shoot," Sigtrygg said to me. He had a slight smirk on his face. His shot would be impossible to better, and he knew it. I found myself badly wanting to do so, though.

  I selected an arrow from my quiver, nocked it on my bowstring, and positioned myself. If I can hit his arrow, I thought. It would be an almost impossible shot, but if I could….

  I wanted it too much. I tried too hard. I pulled to full draw and held there, while trying to focus my gaze tighter and tighter on the end of Sigtrygg's arrow, silhouetted dark against the white patch of the target. But I was too aware of the crowd around me, watching. And the longer I held, trying to aim, the more I could feel my muscles straining against the power of my bow. When I finally released, I could tell instantly that I had jerked the string rather than letting it slide off my fingers as I eased them open.

  It was a bad shot. Worse, even, than Sigurd's. I missed the cloth target altogether.

  There was moment of silence, then laughter rippled across the gathered onlookers. Hastein looked embarrassed.

  "Well," Sigtrygg said. "It is fortunate that Ragnar Logbrod's life, and the safety of the Raven banner, did not depend on that shot."

  His remark provoked great hilarity. Arinbjorn's folk were laughing the loudest. No doubt they were pleased that their champion had so thoroughly defeated the challenger whose skill with a bow had been praised by Jarl Hastein, and who had even been honored in verse by the king's skalds. I noticed Floki and Baug were guffawing loudly, too, and even my own shipmates who had fought in Frankia with me seemed very amused.

  All except Torvald. He strode forward, scowling, and pulled me aside.

  "You are much better than that! What are you doing? I was planning on proposing a wager."

  I shrugged his hand off my shoulder and walked to the butt to retrieve my arrow. Torvald followed. "What happened?" he persisted. "You have embarrassed us all in front of Jarl Arinbjorn and his men. And look at Sigtrygg! He is prancing back and forth now in front of the women like a rooster. It is a good thing I did not bet on you."

  I glared at him, then snapped, "I am not used to shooting at the butts." As soon as I said it, I realized how foolish my words sounded.

  "What?" he asked, incredulously.

  It was too complicated to explain. I had been taught to shoot a bow in the woods by Gudrod the Carpenter, after he'd taken a liking to me. We could not shoot at the butts on Hrorik's estate, because a slave was not allowed to handle a bow or any other weapon. So I had first learned to shoot at targets such as pine cones lying on the ground, and as soon as I could hit those regularly, I had progressed to shooting at squirrels, birds, and other small creatures which would not stay still for long to allow careful aiming.

  My gaze happened to fall upon a woman standing among the crowd who must have stopped to watch while making her way back to the longhouse from the nearby fields, for she was carrying several cabbages in a large basket.

  "Shall we shoot again?" Sigtrygg called. "We can move closer to the butt, if you would prefer." Again laughter rippled across the crowd.

  "Jarl Hastein, Jarl Arinbjorn," I said, in a voice loud enough to carry over the laughter. "I apologize for my poor showing. In truth, I am not used to this kind of shooting—at the butts. With your permission, may we try a different sort of target?"

  "What do you propose?" Arinbjorn asked.

  "Help me with this," I murmured to Torvald, and walked over to the woman holding the cabbages. "I need two of these," I said.

  She looked at Arinbjorn, who told her, "Give them to him."

  Glancing around, I spied the two warriors who had been practicing with spears. "May I borrow two of those?" I asked them. "Just for a short time?"

  "Are you going to throw spears instead of shooting your bow?" Torvald asked, frowning.

  "Follow me," I told him, and walked back to the butt. Once in front of it, I handed Torvald a spear plus one of the cabbages, then impaled the other on the point of the spear I'd kept. Holding the spear's shaft at shoulder level, I pushed its butt end deeply into the big roll of hay, so that the cabbage was suspended upon the spear in front of the butt.

  "Ah," Torvald said, as I took the other spear and cabbage from him, and repeated the process.

  "You said you are not used to shooting your bow at the butts?" Sigtrygg asked loudly. "Did you learn to shoot it in a cabbage patch instead?"

  "Keep crowing, cock," I muttered through clenched teeth.

  "Good," Torvald said. "You are getting angry."

  I trotted back over to the two warriors whose spears I had taken. "Your helms," I said, "may I borrow those, too?"

  They looked at each other, grinned, and handed me their helms. By now the crowd had stopped laughing and was watching with interest.

  I returned to the butt and seated the helms firmly on the cabbages, leaving only half of each still exposed. Then I returned to where Sigtrygg was standing, with Torvald trailing behind me.

  "These targets are not unlike warrior's heads, would you agree?" I asked him. "In size, and the way a helm covers them? Here is what I propose. We will shoot at the same time—you at the head on the right, I at the one on the left. We will each nock an arrow on the string, but we will not raise our bows and shoot until Jarl Arinbjorn gives the signal. He whose arrow strikes home first wins."

  "This is a foolish game," Sigtrygg sputtered.

  "We can move closer to the butt if you would like," I told him. His face turned red.

  "What say you, Sigtrygg?" Arinbjorn asked him. "I think it seems a clever contest."

  Having made such a show earlier, he had no choice now. "Very well," he said.

  "A moment, Jarl Arinbjorn, a moment," Torvald asked. "Perhaps some of your men might wish to support their comrade's skill with a wager that he will win? I will be glad to match them."

  Arinbjorn waved to him to proceed, and Torvald turned to the onlookers and called, "I'll wager two silver pennies that Halfdan will win, against all who will take my bet. Will anyone risk their silver, and match their pennies against mine?" Several men crowded forward to take the wager.

  I pulled an arrow from my quiver and stuck its tip lightly in the ground in front of me, then pulled a second out and nocked it on my bowstring.

  "Two arrows?" Sigtrygg asked.

  "The way I am shooting this day, I may miss with the first," I told him.

  The bettors having concluded their negotiations, Arinbjorn called out, "Archers, are you ready?"

  I was holding my bow down at my waist, both arms flexed, with the nocked arrow pointed at the ground. I turned so that my left foot and shoulder were toward the target, then looked over at Arinbjorn and nodded.

  "I am ready," Sigtrygg said. His left arm, holding his bow, was hanging down fully extended and he was leaning forward slightly, his right arm cocked over the string.

  Arinbjorn raised his right hand. "When I drop my hand, you may shoot," he said, then let his hand fall.

  I swung my bow up, simultaneously pushing my left arm
and the bow out and pulling my right arm and the string back as I did. I did not look at my bow at all as it rose into position—my eyes were on the cabbage which was my target, staring tightly just to the right of the helm's nasal bar. As my thumb, extended up above my right hand, brushed against my ear, I opened my fingers and released the string.

  Sigtrygg had raised his bow arm level and was just reaching full draw as my arrow flashed forward off my bow. The sight startled him, and he jerked off his own shot in response. His arrow hit the rim of the helm on his target with a ringing sound and glanced off to the side, sticking in the edge of the straw butt.

  As soon as I had released my first arrow, I turned my gaze down to the arrow stuck in the ground in front of me, swinging my bow back down and flexing my arms again as I did. Snatching the arrow with my right hand, I nocked it on the string and swung my bow up again in one fluid motion as my eyes found the second cabbage. Again I released as soon as my right thumb brushed my ear. As I did, Sigtrygg exclaimed loudly, "Your shot missed, too! It is not even in the butt."

  My second arrow smacked into the second cabbage. The force of its impact caused the helm, already knocked askew by Sigtrygg's shot, to tumble to the ground.

  Turning to Sigtrygg, I told him, "You are mistaken. I did not miss."

  Sigurd ran forward to the butt. Sigtrygg stared at me for a moment and then trotted after him.

  "It is true," Sigurd called out. "Halfdan's first arrow struck his cabbage and passed clean through. It is in the butt behind. He has shot both cabbages, and Sigtrygg hit none!"

  I did not anticipate the discord that my actions would cause. When Torvald attempted to collect on the wagers that Arinbjorn's men had placed with him, they angrily protested that they had been dishonorably tricked—that I had shot my first arrow badly on purpose to lure them into betting that Sigtrygg would defeat me. Instead of attempting to persuade them that such was not the case, Torvald inflamed the losers further by asserting that even if their accusation was true, they could not expect to be allowed to back out of a wager merely because they had been foolishly gullible.