“You must be mad!” Wulf exclaimed. “I would never betray my own people!”
“Do not think of it as betraying your people,” Hastein told him. “You can save many lives.”
“Save lives? By helping you capture the town? Do you take me for a fool?”
When Ragnar and Ivar left to return to their ships, Hastein, who’d seen me standing nearby, had sent me to fetch Wulf from the Gull, where he’d been left tied and under guard. The Frank looked haggard. His hair was matted with dried blood, and his face looked pale above his short gray beard.
“We will take Ruda with or without your help,” Hastein told him. “Though without your assistance, it will be a hard fight, and we are likely to lose many warriors.”
“I do not care if your warriors die,” Wulf said. “I hope they do.”
“I do not expect you to care about my men’s lives. But if they lose many of their comrades, our warriors will be angry. Their lust for blood and revenge will be high, and they will vent their rage on the people of your town. Were you in Ruda four years ago when it was sacked?”
“No. I was away,” Wulf said.
“I was there,” Hastein told him. “It was I who led the warriors who attacked the town. By the time we finally broke in, many of our men had died, and many more were badly wounded. Our hearts were filled with anger and the desire for revenge. Many in Ruda died that day who should not have. It is the way of war. Towns that resist capture pay a high price when they are finally taken.”
“A high price?” Wulf said indignantly. “Those are just words to you. What do you know of the price Ruda paid? When your men took Ruda before, my brother was killed trying to protect his wife. Two of your warriors raped her. They hacked him to pieces when he tried to stop them.”
Hastein shrugged his shoulders. “It is as I am telling you. If our warriors suffer heavy losses when we take the town, their anger will bring a bloodlust upon them. When that happens, neither I nor anyone else can control them. Ruda’s capture is not in question. We will take the town, and we will plunder it. You would be a fool to think otherwise. But the fate of the people of Ruda is in your hands. Help us take the town quickly, and with few losses. The people of the Ruda may lose some of their wealth to our army, but at least they will keep their lives.”
I pitied Wulf. It was a bitter choice the jarl gave him. He stared into Hastein’s face, as though trying to read the thoughts concealed behind his pale blue eyes. His gaze was met with a cold, unwavering look. Hastein remained silent, giving him time.
Finally Wulf looked away and gave a heavy sigh. “You must guarantee the safety of my family,” he said. “They must be protected from any harm. And if the people of the town know of my role in this thing, it will mean my death once you are gone.”
“Done,” Hastein said. He pointed at me, and then at Tore, who had wandered near. “When we enter the city, these two warriors will follow you to your home, and guard it against attack. And they will billet there for as long as we hold Ruda. You will feed and shelter them, and in exchange they will keep others from molesting the safety of your family.”
Tore looked indignant. Wulf did, too. He pointed at me.
“I do not want this one living in my home,” he protested. “He killed the second in command of my crew. Alain was like a son to me.”
I shook my head. “I killed no one on your ship,” I told him.
“You lie,” Wulf said. “I saw you holding the bloody arrow in your hand, and I saw Alain fall, pierced by it.”
“I did not shoot that arrow,” I told him. “I merely retrieved it. Arrows are too valuable to waste.”
“It is true,” Tore added. “I was beside him on board our ship during the fight. He did not kill your man.”
Tore and I glanced briefly at each other, then looked back at Wulf. It seemed best if we did not mention that Tore had been the one who’d killed Alain.
“I am offering these men to guard your family,” Hastein told Wulf. “No others. It is not your choice how I command my men. If you do not want their help, protect your family yourself.”
“You are pagan devils, all of you,” Wulf muttered. “May God strike you dead for your sins against good Christian folk.”
“Call on your God if you wish,” Hastein said. “We do not fear him. And I do not think he will save you or your family. Only we can do that, for you are in our power now.
Give me your answer. Will you help us, or no?”
“What do you want me to do?” Wulf asked.
Moving upriver required much work with the oars. Our journey was slowed even more by the pace of the captured merchant ship, which Hastein insisted was crucial to his plan. Inappropriately named the Swallow, it was broad of beam and, possessing only four pairs of oars, was clearly not built for swift rowing. Torvald told Wulf he should have named his ship the Turtle. “You insult the good name of swallows with this fat, slow tub of a ship,” he said. “They are graceful birds, and swift of flight.”
Our slow progress upriver provided ample opportunity for mounted raiding parties to ravage the countryside. The size of our mounted force grew daily, for with each day’s foray, more horses were taken.
The crew of the Gull did not join in the raids though, much to their discontent. On the journey upriver, Ragnar placed Hastein in charge of the captured merchant ship, since he had insisted on bringing it. Ten members of the Gull’s crew, including Torvald, Tore, and me, were detailed by Hastein to crew the Frankish trader with Wulf. The rest of the Gull’s crew were needed to man her own oars.
Torvald in particular bemoaned the assignment. He had longed to lead the attack on a large Frankish monastery located halfway upriver between the sea and Ruda. “We captured that monastery on our raid here four years ago,” he told me. “It was a very profitable undertaking. The high priests of the White Christ paid us twenty-six pounds of silver to free the priests we captured there, and six pounds more not to burn the monastery. I was looking forward to taking it again.”
Hastein was unmoved by Torvald’s wishes. “You will move this ship upriver a half day ahead of our fleet,” he told him. “If any Franks report back to Ruda that they have seen her, I want it to appear she is fleeing ahead of our forces. Have patience. Your reward will come in Ruda. Our crew will be the first to enter the town, so you will be the first to partake of the plunder there.”
Finally Wulf advised Torvald that we were less than half a day’s journey from Ruda. We tied up on the side of the riverbank, and Torvald sent a man downriver in a small-boat to carry word to the fleet.
A few hours later, a large band of riders approached, led by Hastein and Ivar. Ivar sent scouts to search the surrounding countryside and ensure that no Franks lurked nearby who might carry a warning to Ruda. The rest of the party rode to where the Swallow was tied at the river’s edge.
Hastein and ten other warriors dismounted and clambered aboard. Hastein turned and called back to Ivar, who was sitting astride a mottled gray horse, letting it graze on the lush grasses along the water’s edge while he watched us prepare to cast off.
“Do not move your men close to the town until darkness hides you,” Hastein said. “I do not want the Franks to realize how close our army is. If we succeed in capturing the gate, we will shoot a fire arrow up into the sky. When you see that signal, you must ride like the wind. There will be too few of us to hold for long.”
“We will come,” Ivar said. He held up a horn that was hanging by a thin strap over his shoulder. It had been highly polished and was trimmed with silver around the narrow end and the mouth. “When you hear this horn, you will know we are near.”
Our men took turns manning the Swallow’s oars. “I want no one to row until he is weary,” Hastein told us. “We will all need our strength in the fight ahead.”
Darkness had long been shrouding the river, slowing our progress even more, when in the distance we finally saw the first lights marking the town’s presence. They seemed to float high above the water, as though the town
had been built atop a cliff. I said so, provoking a harsh laugh from Wulf.
“Aye, there are cliffs at Ruda,” he said. “But they were built by men. Ruda is surrounded by high, stone walls, taller than two men, one standing on the other’s shoulders. Those lights you see, so high above the level of the river, are torches carried by guards atop Ruda’s walls.”
Hastein had told us Ruda was protected by strong walls, but I had not expected anything like this. Hedeby, the greatest town in all the kingdom of the Danes, was protected by only a ditch and an earthen wall topped with a wooden stockade. Building such massive walls of stone around an entire town seemed a task beyond the power of mortal men.
“How did the people of Ruda build such walls?” I asked Wulf.
“They did not,” he answered. “The walls were built long ago, before the memory of any living men, by the Romans, who once ruled these lands.”
I was glad we were only fighting the Franks, and not the Romans. I wondered what had happened to them. I hoped it had not been the Franks who’d driven them from these lands.
As we neared the town, eight of us, including Tore, Odd, and I made ready. We pulled rough, simple tunics, collected from raided Frankish farms and villages, over our armor to conceal it, and stowed all of our helms in a sack. Up on the raised bow deck, we built a makeshift litter out of four shields laid overlapping across the hafts of two spears, and wrapped the lot tightly with cloaks to hold it together. We piled our weapons on top of the litter, and covered them with another cloak to hide them. I stretched out atop all, playing the role of an injured crew member who had to be carried ashore—a role I’d won because I was the lightest member of our crew. Only Hastein actually carried more than just a knife on his person—he stuck his sword, scabbard and all, down one leg of his trousers and concealed its hilt under his tunic.
The rest of our warriors aboard the Swallow crouched low in the shadows on the center deck of the ship and draped themselves in their cloaks to conceal any glint from weapon or armor. Some squeezed up under the bow and stern decks, hiding in the spaces where Wulf’s cargo of wine had been stowed before we drank it.
“Do not forget,” Hastein told Torvald, whom he’d placed in command of the men remaining on board. “When you hear my call, bring our helms and the rest of our shields. We will need them.”
As the ship passed the edge of the cleared land surrounding the town, I heard shouts from the walls and saw torches moving toward the tower that formed the downstream corner of the town’s defenses. By the torches’ light, I could dimly see a quay along the shore below the walls. The edge of the bank had been shored up with timbers, and narrow piers—some with ships and smaller boats moored alongside—jutted out into the river.
Wulf steered the ship toward a vacant pier in front of the low wooden gate in the center of the wall. The torches above followed our progress, moving along the top of the wall from the corner tower until they stopped in a cluster above the gate. As we neared the pier, I could see the glint of spearheads and helms in the flickering torchlight, and a voice called in heavily accented Latin from the wall. “What ship are you? Who goes there?”
“It is the Swallow,” Wulf answered. “It is I, Wulf.”
A different voice spoke this time from among the guards atop the wall.
“Wulf, is that you? It is I, Otto.”
“He is a friend of mine,” Wulf murmured to Hastein.
“Otto?” he cried. “Yes, it is me.”
“How is it you come to be back here now, and in the middle of the night?”
Wulf did not answer for a few moments, as he concentrated on turning the Swallow in toward the shore, and letting the sluggish current drift her against the pier while the rowers pulled in their oars. He climbed over the rail and tied a line from the stern to a post, while Tore did the same at the bow.
Once the ship was secured, Wulf stood silently on the narrow pier, his hands on his hips, staring at the gate and the guards on the wall above it. Suddenly he began walking in the direction of the riverbank. I wondered if he planned to make a run for the gate and warn the Franks of our presence. The same thought must have occurred to Hastein, who stepped to the ship’s rail and whispered as Wulf passed, “Go no farther. You cannot run faster than I can throw a spear.”
For a few steps more Wulf kept walking. I thought he was going to risk Hastein’s threat, but he finally he stopped opposite the ship’s bow and shouted up to the Franks watching from the walls.
“We never reached Dorestad,” he said. “The sea was filled with Northmen’s ships. It was only by the grace of God that we saw them before they saw us, and were able to escape and regain the safety of the river.”
“The Northmen are on the river now,” Otto said. “Their ships have been seen not far from here. How is it they did not catch up with you?”
“The grace of God,” Wulf said again. “Surely it was He who protected us and hid us from their sight. Even so, it was a near thing. Just this day, at dusk, one of the Northmen’s ships did see us and gave chase. Three of my men were hit by their arrows. I think we escaped only because the pirates feared navigating the river in the failing light.”
To support Wulf’s claim, I let out a long, shuddering moan.
The Frank who’d first challenged us from the wall now spoke again.
“You will have to stay on your ship until morn,” he said. “The Count has given orders. None of the town gates may be opened between sunset and sunrise, while the Northmen are so near. We know not how soon they will arrive.”
“What if they arrive this night?” Wulf demanded. “I know they cannot be far behind us. They will slaughter us if they catch us here. You must let us in!”
I could see Otto, Wulf’s friend, arguing with the man who had spoken, but we were too far away to hear what they said. Wulf called to him.
“Otto, please, have mercy on us. Do not leave us to die here, in sight of safety. Help us! Let us in!”
I moaned again, this time a high shriek, ending with what I hoped were heart-wrenching sobs. Tore, who’d climbed back aboard the Swallow after tying off the bow, muttered, “You sound like a woman giving birth. I hope you will not act this way if you are ever truly wounded.”
Up on the wall the sentry relented. “Come then,” he said. “But hurry.”
Hastein climbed onto the pier beside Wulf. He walked with a stiff-legged limp, caused by the sword in his trouser leg, and put one arm around Wulf’s shoulders, as though he was injured and needed Wulf’s assistance to cover the distance to the gate. Tore and Odd carefully eased the litter over the ship’s rail and lined up on the pier behind Hastein and Wulf. As the five of us headed toward the gate, the remaining three of our pretend Franks climbed onto the pier and fell in behind, and our little army of eight marched to capture Ruda.
When we neared the wall, I saw the helmed heads of three Franks peering down at us from the rampart above. Two were holding torches out beyond the edge of the wall to light our way, or perhaps to get a clearer look at who approached. One of the Franks pointed down at us and said something to the man beside him. He beckoned the third guard to come closer, and gestured at us again. I was sure they saw through our ruse. None of the rest of our men could see what the guards were doing, for they all had their faces averted, trying to prevent the Franks from seeing them. I wanted to warn Hastein, but we were too close to the wall now to speak without being overheard.
The gate, a single door built of heavy timbers, was just wide enough for a small cart to pass through. With a screech of hinges, it swung open. A single Frankish warrior holding a torch stepped out. Another stood just inside the doorway, a spear held loosely in his hand.
When the Frank who’d come out to meet us spoke, I recognized him by his voice as Otto.
“Wulf, where is Alain? I do not see him. And who is this?” he added, pointing at Hastein. “I have never seen him before.”
Wulf grasped Otto’s sleeve, and urged him back toward the open gate. “Let u
s get inside quickly,” he said. “I will explain everything when we are safe. Alain is dead.”
Wulf and Otto passed through the open gate, followed closely by Hastein, and entered the short tunnel leading through the base of the massive wall. Only a few more steps and I would be inside, too, safe from the spears of the guards above us.
Tore entered the passage carrying the front end of the litter. The Frank standing in the doorway pressed back against the wall to let us pass by. Then Odd, who was carrying the rear of the litter, tripped on the stone threshold of the doorway. He staggered to one side, the litter tilted sharply, and I grabbed wildly at the edge of one of the shields, trying to keep from being thrown to the ground. I could feel the pile of weapons sliding beneath me. A sword and a small-axe clattered onto the stone floor of the tunnel directly in front of the Frankish guard.
He stared down at them, not comprehending. “What’s this?” he said.
Tore released his grip on the front end of the litter and turned on the Frank. Grabbing him by his shoulders, he slammed the startled guard back hard against the tunnel wall, then swung his elbow and smashed it into the Frank’s face. The guard’s knees buckled, and Tore slung him facedown onto the stone floor. The Frank tried to rise back up onto his knees, but Tore straddled his back, grabbed his head with both hands, and wrenched it around. There was a sickening crack, and the Frank collapsed limply to the ground.
When Tore dropped the front of the litter, the ends of the two spear shafts bounced on the stone floor, jarring the shields loose and breaking the makeshift platform apart into a jumble of cloaks, weapons, and shields. I rolled off to one side, then scrambled back over the tangled mess, searching for my bow and quiver.
Otto, who with Wulf and Hastein had by now almost reached the far end of the tunnel, turned and began running back toward us. Hastein pulled his sword from the leg of his trousers, flung the scabbard aside, and drove the blade into Otto’s back with such force that the point jutted out through his chest. With a choking cry, the dying Frank fell to his knees.
Dragons from the Sea Page 11
