There was a noise out on the plain. I stood up and saw a rider, a Frankish cavalryman coming from downstream, galloping hard toward the encampment. After he reached the Franks’ camp, it exploded into activity, men saddling their horses and donning their armor.
“What is happening?” Genevieve asked.
“I do not know,” I told her. “The Franks out on the plain are arming themselves. I think they are going to attack.”
With a sinking feeling, I strung my bow, slung my quiver over my shoulder, and strapped on the Frankish helm I’d taken from Genevieve’s dead cousin. As I pulled its laces tight under my chin, I heard a faint sound from far downriver.
It was a horn. When it sounded again, louder this time, I realized I had heard this horn before. It was Ivar’s.
Frantically I searched the ground for tinder, for anything that would burn. After I gathered together a small pile of dried grass and dead leaves, I drew my dagger and stepped over to where Genevieve sat, still tied to the willow root.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice shaking. “You said you would not kill me.”
“I need a strip of cloth,” I answered, then knelt down and cut a narrow strip of linen from the edge of her undershift. I used it to tie the tinder to the end of one of my arrows, then lit it with my flint and steel. When it was blazing steadily, I laid it across my bow, raised it overhead, and shot it high into the sky.
The fire arrow arced above the river, trailing sparks, then stalled and dropped, like a star falling from the heavens. From downriver, the horn sounded again, three peals in quick succession.
“What is it?” Genevieve asked.
Tears were streaming down my face when I turned and answered her. I could not stop them, but did not care. Once again, the Norns had spared me. Once again, they had chosen to continue weaving the pattern of my life.
“It is a ship,” I said. “I am saved.”
Despair filled Genevieve’s face, and she began to weep.
Glossary
berserks: Warriors in Scandinavian society who were noted for their exceptional fierceness and fearlessness in battle, and for their moody, difficult dispositions in periods of peace.
Birka: A coastal town in Sweden that served as one of the main Viking-age trading centers. Birka formed the northern end of a long trade route running down several rivers through the lands of modern Russia, eventually reaching the Black Sea. Using the Eastern Road, as the trade route was called, the Vikings traded with the Byzantine Empire and with the Moorish kingdoms of the Middle East that lay beyond.
bracer: A long cuff of leather worn by archers on the forearm of the arm they hold their bow with, to protect against the slap of the bowstring when the bow is shot.
brynie: A shirt of mail armor, made of thousands of small iron or steel rings linked together into a flexible garment.
byre: A barn or animal shed.
carl: A free man in Viking-age Scandinavian society.
Danevirke: A great earthen wall built across the base of the Jutland peninsula of Denmark, from coast to coast, to protect the Danish lands from invasion by the Franks.
Dorestad: A Frankish port and trading center located near the convergence of the Rhine and Lek Rivers, in the area now forming part of the Netherlands. Dorestad was one of the largest trade centers of early medieval Europe.
fletching: The three feathers at the back of an arrow, used to stabilize its flight.
Frankia: Also called Francia; the land of the Franks, roughly corresponding to most of modern France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and western Germany. By A.D. 845, when Dragons From the Sea is set, the former Frankish Empire had split into three kingdoms: West Frankia, roughly corresponding to modern France; the Eastern Frankish Kingdom, stretching from the Rhine River eastward through the lands now comprising modern Germany; and the short-lived Middle Kingdom, which stretched from Frisia in the north to the Mediterranean coast of modern France, and also included parts of northern Italy.
Frisia: The coastal region of Frankia roughly corresponding to those lands comprising the present-day Netherlands.
fylgja: A beneficial spirit which attaches itself to a person and brings him good fortune. Some were visible and took the form of animals, often reflecting some aspect of the character or personality of the human they followed, such as a raven symbolizing wisdom, or a wolf representing ferocity. Others were invisible, but were generally considered to be female guardian spirits.
godi: A priest in pagan Viking-age Scandinavian society. The position of godi was usually held by a chieftain, and typically a godi would preside not only over religious festivals and sacrifices, but also over the Thing, or regional assembly. Godis also administered oaths, which were usually sworn on a special ring of iron or sometimes gold.
greaves: Armor, usually constructed of curved steel or bronze plates, worn to protect the lower leg from the knee to the ankle.
Hairy-Breeches: Hairy-Breeches, or sometimes Hairy-Breeks, is the translation for “Logbrod,” the nickname of Ragnar, a famous ninth-century Viking war leader.
Hedeby: The largest town in ninth-century Denmark, and a major Viking-age trading center. Hedeby was located near the base of the Jutland peninsula on its eastern side, on a fjord jutting inland from the coast.
hnefatafl: A popular Viking board game, whose name roughly translates as “King’s Table.” The game was played on a board divided into regular squares, somewhat like a chess board. One player set his pieces up in the center of the board, and attempted to move his king to the board’s outer rim. The other player started with his pieces surrounding his opponent’s pieces, and attempted to capture the king before it could escape.
housecarl: A warrior in the service of a chieftain or nobleman.
i-viking: To go raiding.
jarl: A very high-ranking chieftain in Viking-age Scandinavian society, who ruled over a large area of land on behalf of the king. The word and concept “jarl” is the origin of the English “earl.”
Jul: The Germanic pagan midwinter feast, known in England as Yule.
Jutland: The peninsula that forms the mainland of modern and ancient Denmark, named after the Jutes, one of the ancient Danish tribes.
knarr: A general-purpose ship used in Viking-age Scandinavia for trade and other commercial uses. Though built of similar construction to longships, knarrs tended to be shorter and broader, had higher sides, and were designed to be propelled primarily by sail, though they could be rowed and typically had three to five oars per side.
Limfjord: A huge fjord that runs completely across the northern tip of the Jutland peninsula, providing a protected passage during the Viking period between the Baltic and North Seas.
longship: The long, narrow ship used for war by the peoples of Viking-age Scandinavia. Longships had shallow drafts, allowing them to be beached or to travel up rivers, and were designed to be propelled swiftly by either sail or by rowing. They were sometimes also called dragonships, because many longships had carved heads of dragons or other beasts decorating the stem-post at the bow of the ship.
niddingsvaark: Work of infamy; the dishonorable acts of a Nithing.
Nithing: Also Nidding; one who is not considered a person because he has no honor.
nock: The notch cut in the rear of an arrow, into which the bowstring is placed to shoot it. Also the notches cut into the tips of a bow’s limbs, in which the bowstring is secured to the bow.
Norns: Three ancient sisters who, according to pagan Scandinavian belief, sat together at the base of the world-tree and wove the fates of all men and of the world itself on their looms.
Norse: The Scandinavians who lived in the area of modern Norway. During the mid-ninth century, large portions of the Norse lands were at least nominally ruled by the Danish kings. Non-Scandinavians sometimes used the term Norsemen, or Northmen, to describe any Viking raiders from the Scandinavian lands.
Odin: The Scandinavian God of death, war, wisdom, and poetry; the chieftain of the Gods.
pattern-welded: A process used to forge the blades of fine swords and other weapons during the Viking Age. Numerous small bars or strips of steel and iron were hammered together under high heat to form a single solid steel blank, in which the individual pieces could still be seen as a pattern in the steel. As with Damascus forging, a similar process, blades produced through this labor-intensive method tended to be expensive, but very flexible, resistant to breaking, and often capable of taking and holding a very strong and sharp edge.
pig iron: Rough ingots of crude cast iron, produced from the initial smelting of iron ore, providing the basic raw material used for creating products of iron or steel by blacksmiths.
Ribe: A Viking-age town and trading center on the west coast of the Jutland peninsula in Denmark.
Ruda: The Viking’s name for Rouen, a Frankish town near the mouth of the Seine River.
runes: The alphabet used for writing in the ancient Scandinavian and Germanic languages. Runic letters, comprised of combinations of simple, straight strokes, were easy to carve into stone or wood.
scara: A unit of Frankish cavalry. Each scara was composed of several smaller units called cunei, each of which numbered from fifty to one hundred men.
Schliefjord: A long fjord on the east coast of the Jutland peninsula, near its base, on which the town of Hedeby was located.
scot: A tax or duty, usually in the form of military service, owed to the king.
seax: Also saxe; a single-edged knife, often quite large, widely used as a weapon and tool in the Scandinavian, Germanic, and Anglo-Saxon cultures.
skald: A poet.
strake: A plank used to form the hull of a Viking ship. The strakes were thin—often no more than an inch thick—and the hull was constructed by overlapping the strakes and riveting them together, rather than by nailing planks butted side by side against a frame, the other common method of constructing a wooden hull.
strandhogg: The practice by Viking ship crews of acquiring cattle and other needed provisions by coming ashore and stealing them.
Sveas: Also Svear; one of the Scandinavian tribes or peoples who inhabited the area of modern Sweden.
Thing: A regional assembly held periodically in Viking-age Scandinavian countries where citizens of an area could present suits to be decided by vote, according to law. Lawsuits heard at Things were the forerunner and origin of what became, centuries later in English culture, the concept of trial by a jury of peers.
Thor: The pagan Scandinavian god of thunder and fertile harvests, of strength, honor and oaths, and the mightiest warrior among the Scandinavian gods.
thrall: A slave in Viking-age Scandinavian society.
wergild: The amount that must be paid to make recompense for killing a man.
White Christ: The Vikings’ name for the Christian god, believed to be a derogatory term implying cowardice because he allowed himself to be captured and killed without fighting back against his captors.
HISTORICAL NOTES
The distortions caused by the passage of many centuries have left a popular misconception of the Vikings as unruly barbarians who were the scourge of the supposedly more civilized European countries. It is not so widely known that during the eighth and early ninth centuries, it was the Franks—now viewed as paragons of civilization and culture during a dark time—who frequently terrorized their neighbors. In the latter decades of the eighth century, the Frankish King Charles the Great, or Charlemagne, waged a brutal, prolonged war against Saxon tribes living below the base of the Jutland peninsula. The Franks massacred thousands of Saxon captives, sold thousands more into slavery, and drove the remaining Saxons off their lands and into the wilderness regions along the eastern border of the Frankish empire.
Charlemagne also turned his eyes toward the Danes, and in the early years of the ninth century, he launched an unsuccessful campaign against them. Godfred, the Danish king at the time, repaired and extended the Danevirke, a massive defensive earthen wall stretching all the way across the base of the Jutland peninsula, the Danish mainland, in response to the Frankish threat, and attacked Frisia with a fleet of swift-moving longships to draw off the Frankish armies. The Franks again attacked Denmark—again unsuccessfully—during the reign of Louis the Pious, Charlemagne’s son.
By the year A.D. 845, when Dragons from the Sea is set, Louis the Pious had been succeeded by his three sons, who split the Frankish empire into three kingdoms. Although relatively small-scale Viking attacks had plagued the Frankish coastline for years, during the year 845, two large-scale assaults were launched against the Franks by the Danes. One fleet, which may have been led by the Danish King Horik himself, struck up the Elbe River and attacked and burned the Frankish fortress-town of Hamburg. The other, a fleet composed of 120 Viking longships, sailed up the Seine River, invading the Western Frankish Kingdom of Charles the Bald. According to Frankish sources, the leader of this army was named Ragnar.
Ragnar Logbrod, his sons Ivar the Boneless and Bjorn Ironsides, and the chieftain Hastein were all real Viking leaders who helped shape many of the major events of the latter half of the ninth century. In all probability, the Ragnar who led the attack up the Seine in 845 was Ragnar Logbrod.
Readers who would like to learn more about the world in which the Strongbow Saga is set are urged to visit www.strongbowsaga.com, an educational website dedicated to the Vikings and their age. Readers seeking information about the Strongbow Saga series and other books by Judson Roberts are urged to visit the author's website at www.judsonroberts.com.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
By the time it finally reaches the hands of its readers, a book is the result of a team effort. Although I cannot know the nature and extent of all the work put in behind the scenes by so many—most of whose names I do not even know—who helped bring the Strongbow Saga and the initial edition of this book into being, I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all for their diligent efforts. My special thanks go to Sarah Thomson, who edited Dragons from the Sea, and whose hard work and excellent ideas played a critical part in achieving the final version of this novel. Thanks also to Master Nathan, for his sharp eye.
The republication of this book in its second, revised edition would not have been possible without the assistance of my good friend and fellow writer, Luc Reid (www.lucreid.com/dbweb), who was able, with his mastery of programming and graphic design, to take my rough ideas and turn them into the striking new cover of this edition, to transform my crude sketches into the maps which are a new feature of this second edition, and who provided tremendous assistance in preparing the text and layout for the new printing. My thanks also go to Becky Morris, who graciously allowed the use of her photograph of the coast of Ireland to be used as the background of the cover.
And finally, my greatest thanks go to my wife Jeanette, for her unwavering support and faith in me.
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