by Jason Born
While Leif strutted around on the small ship, Ketil crawled to his rump. The green tint of his face had waned. “You’re a big one,” he said.
“So,” I answered.
“I bet you’re good in a scrap.” Ketil pulled out a rag and wiped his face.
“We’ll see,” I huffed.
“Not very friendly are you?”
I shook my head. “No, I am the friendliest man you could meet. I have no time for someone who works against the king to whom I’m sworn.”
He clicked his tongue in his cheek. “That is a problem.” He patted my knee in a condescending manner. “Maybe you should reconsider that pledge. Maybe you’ve given an oath to a man who isn’t the king.”
I craned my neck to see the king standing on Raven’s Cross. He looked regal to me. “I don’t think so.” Then I glowered at the man who sat against the gunwale. “If you think you should be King of Man or King of all the Isles, why don’t you just show up with the farmers who supposedly support you and physically take it while Godfrey is weak?” That would shut him up, I thought.
It didn’t.
He gave a shrug that told me he knew things I would never know. “Maybe Godfrey is so weak that I can do it without a fight.” Ketil grinned with one half of his mouth and slid back to the planks. He closed his eyes and feigned sleep.
I thought it foolish to keep an enemy this close. But I understood nothing of politics. I was nimble with steel, not words.
. . .
As we ate a light midday meal of still-fresh bread and ale, Randulfr called from Godfrey’s boat that it was time to turn back to starboard. Soon we found ourselves on the lee side of a fat protuberance from the looming Anglesey. The swells eased when the cape halted the northwesterly winds we had used all day. Our pace slowed, but there was just enough breeze to keep us moving and since both the king and Leif wanted us fresh for whatever befell us upon landing, our oars remained stowed. Horse Ketil remained quiet.
The island began to close in around us and when we were two or three vika away from our landing beach, I became anxious. It was my first invasion. After today, I’d be a raider. My heart sped up. I chewed on my lip as I slipped my second-hand mail up, over my head. The shirt had several of the iron rings missing so that I had to use some stray pieces of metal to bind them back together. That repair work caused one side of the mail to ride higher than the other. I cinched my belt tightly about my waist. My sword and my father’s saex clattered against one another, telling me they, too, were anxious.
I ran fore, intentionally stepping on Horse Ketil, and peeked around the prow that had been carved in the shape of the ship’s namesake. To port a red-tan, sandy beach stretched for perhaps two rost into the distance. That beach was what Godfrey had called Traeth Coch when we shouted our final plans as we sliced through the seas. I would have called it rjodrstrandr in my tongue since the beach and waters splashing against it reflected an almost red hue. Rightward from the long beach were tall, jagged cliffs that grew straight up from the sea as if the giants had pushed them up from beneath Midgard at the forming of the world. We wouldn’t be making landfall there. The cliffs were too tall and wisps of smoke told me that a village rested on the plain above. At that time I believed that we were too small of a force to go kicking in the doors of a populous town. I was wrong about this, about what a few determined Norsemen could accomplish, but I get ahead of myself and will tell it all in due time.
Instead we made a direct heading for another beach, this one smaller than the first and without the red hue. Trees hung over it in places, making it appear nearly secret. It would provide easy access to shore and hidden cover for our longboats once we moved inland. To my knowledge the small patch of sand and rocks had no name.
Randulfr guided Raven’s Cross and Magnus steered Charging Boar toward the north end of the narrow bit of sand so that our grounded boats would receive a less severe battering if the swells grew with the flow tide. Straight inland, west from our landing area, the land rose gently to the plain. An eroding, rocky cliff climbed from the beach on our right.
Even when I wasn’t a raider and was just a simple boy, I found the last few moments just before a longboat shuddered into the shore exhilarating. The closer the land got, the faster it seemed we went. Gulls and other sea birds dashed around our heads, making it appear as if we soared over the very tips of the surf. The water began wearing caps of white as the waves spent the last of their energy, exhausted from racing across the ocean and seas from the Midgard Serpent all the way to land. The sound of those breakers, I thought deafening as a child. There was magic in those waves and they dumped it out in sound and power onto the dwelling place of men. They also dumped me and my men out on the shore that day. I remember hoping that we would carry their enchantment with us for riches and grandeur as we pillaged Anglesey.
Our momentum kept us going as our shallow draft allowed us to skip up the shore. Finally, the ship’s weight and rules of nature took over and we slammed to a halt. My feet were pressed into the decking. My hands held the prow so I was prepared. Horse Ketil rolled and bumped his forehead on a sea chest. Aoife toppled off the baggage heap and landed on the drunken ass. She quickly pushed herself up and off of him. The young, dirty thrall appeared disgusted at having touched any part of Horse Ketil. Magnus again laughed at the little imp.
I leapt over the gunwale and splashed down into the rolling surf. Leif threw me a rope that was secured to a knee in the ship. I carried it to a mangled pile of stones and driftwood and tied it off. Men gathered shields and made a clattering racket as they poured over the sides after me. The noise they made, though great, was swallowed by the incessant pounding of the surf so that unless someone saw our approach, we had still not given away our venture. Looking at the eyes of the men, I could see our Greenlanders looked ready, but nervous. Godfrey’s experienced raiders appeared only ready – ready to steal and kill.
Our raid had begun.
. . .
“Tyrkr, you’ll stay with the ship,” instructed Leif. “Protect the supplies from the claws of Welsh children and wanderers.”
“How am I to earn the wealth for my freedom if I stay with the ship? Besides, I’m a better fighter than you,” protested the German thrall. He was right, I thought.
“Someone needs to protect our route out of here. Don’t worry about the plunder. You’ll get a fair share, just from your willingness to go.” Leif turned away, finished with the conversation.
Godfrey, on his horse, was giving similar instructions to Turf Ear on Raven’s Cross. He had to shout it three times. When the experienced warrior finally understood what his duty was to be, he frowned. His grumbles were exceptionally loud afterward due to his affliction, even though Turf Ear probably thought he spoke only to himself.
It was to be just the two of them guarding our ships. It was not really enough. Normally, we would have left a few more men behind to guard the boats, but we were already shorthanded. Mostly, we hoped the norns would spin us luck so that no one would look down in the isolated cove while our boats were there. Even if they were noticed, they would be safe from all but the hardest fighters. Tyrkr and Turf Ear, working in concert, could take on a dozen inexperienced men.
“Why don’t I leave my present behind?” I asked, pointing to Aoife. “One look at the little urchin will send the stoutest of men for the hills.”
Leif wasn’t amused. “She’ll either run off or, worse yet, give away the boats’ position. They’ll be burning by nightfall,” he said pointing to our ships.
“I can only hope she runs off. I can hardly afford to feed myself.”
Aoife was fuming. “I’m not here to nap on a grounded boat.” She reached out her tiny mitt. “Now give me that saex of yours.”
“So you can cut me?”
“So I can save your pathetic life when the time comes,” she answered.
“We’ll see,” I said.
“We have to move,” Godfrey called. The king was already inching his
horse inland. The beast kicked its hooves in celebration when it walked up out of the loose sand. “We’re not here to chat.”
Leif nodded to the king. The young man spurred a crewman out of Charging Boar by smacking his shoulder. He turned again to Aoife and me. “She’s coming with us. She’s part of the plan we worked out with Godfrey and I trust her. You should too.” I cursed my lot and stuck my paw up to the longboat. I grabbed her mangy dress. She was light and I plopped her down in the surf with one arm. The little thrall, with wide eyes, gave me a triumphant look all the way down.
Like a child myself, I stomped off after the king and his band. They were already snaking their way up the path that led to the upper lands. I grumbled to Loki, who trotted at the rear of Godfrey’s force. “I’m supposed to now take orders from a thrall. I am to trust her no less. I, after having my heart tortured by a real woman, am to trust a miniature woman and thrall.” I huffed. “The world is upside down.”
Loki was giggling. He didn’t really care about my plight. In truth, it wasn’t anything more than an inconvenience. Yet, it was something foisted on me by another and that fact made me hate it. Loki glanced my way. “Don’t you even have a war helmet?” he asked.
“Reindeer nuts!” I said. I stopped and trotted back past Leif and the others as they ascended the winding path on the hill.
Tyrkr was already holding the helmet in his hand when I ran up to the gunwale. “You might want this,” he said as he tossed it down to me.
I placed the old, tarnished, and battered helmet on my head. Most of the soft sheepskin cap inside had long ago dry-rotted away so that the left side of the iron helm rested against my head. I had meant to get it fixed before leaving Man, but had forgotten as it was buried in my luggage. Now, a single, lucky blow from any blunt weapon on that left side of my helmet would rattle and crack my skull. I turned and ran after our war band, wondering what kind of weapons a draugr would employ. Were they sharp, dull, or ephemeral?
I fought the sand and pebbles up the beach. I mumbled and cursed. Ahead Aoife skipped. Ketil teetered. He hummed a sailing tune like he walked along friendly shores gathering shells. I was a novice raider who’d thrown his lot in with misfits. I had forgotten my helmet, worried about a traitor, and babysat a young, deluded girl.
It was not the best of beginnings.
. . .
And it would get much worse before it got better.
“Help,” called Aoife as meekly and pathetically as she could. Killian had taught her the Welsh version of the word after she said she didn’t know it. At the time, the priest had chastised her for not knowing another Celtic tongue that was so related to hers. I didn’t know what a Celt was. The girl didn’t care what the priest said. She insisted it was more about feeling than getting the word just right.
Godfrey, who was mounted on a dappled charger, had held the beast’s speed back and allowed her to pace at just an amble. The king had let Leif lead our band on a circuitous path around the nearest village, giving it a wide berth, and did not want to get far ahead of the rest of his men who remained on foot.
My creative friend said he was looking for a certain sight – a lone worker – and a certain scent – human waste. Godfrey grumbled under his breath at the crazy boy to whom he had given so much power. However, the king could see, as most men could, that behind the youthful appearances of Leif, he owned a quiet wisdom that surpassed his years. That didn’t stop Randulfr from occasionally speaking questions into the king’s ear.
We passed by homesteads and farms where groups of men worked in fields together. Leif was careful to stay in woods or in low streambeds, sheltered from view. At last, he stopped us in a long, wide copse of trees when, in a sweeping land below us, Leif spotted a single man working in a field of green oats. It was the first time in my life I’d seen oats growing in a field. My three homelands were just too harsh for such grasses. The plants were already more than shoots, quite far along when I compared them to the grains we had ever been able to raise in Norway, Iceland, or Greenland at any time of the year, let alone this early in the season.
The farmer bent over and tugged up weed after weed before they would choke out his coming bounty. He tossed their green dying corpses into a basket that sat next to him in the field, occasionally kicking it along as he moved onto the next patch of unwelcome grasses or nascent thistle.
“Help,” Aoife nearly whispered again. Leif had told her to err on the side of too soft when she called. It was best not to scare the man, he said. We all stood in a thick part of the woods several fadmr in from the meadow. Leif had found several piles of human feces, dried and crusty and had us plant ourselves among it. Godfrey, whose horse was held by Loki some distance in the woods, wrinkled his nose at the thought of standing in another man’s waste. Killian made some joke about how life itself meant traipsing around in the refuse of others. Neither I nor the others laughed at it.
The farmer stood and stretched his back, pushing on his hips with his hands. He peered up at the sun and carried his basket heaping with broadleaf weeds and thin, invasive grasses to the edge of the field, closer to the forest. After taking a drink of water using a hollowed wooden cup dipped into a leaky wooden bucket that sat at the field’s edge, the worker walked up the hill toward the woods.
“Help,” called Aoife again.
The man tipped his head as he marched up the hill as if he wasn’t sure whether he heard anything or not. He shook his head, convinced he had not. His hands went to his trousers and he untied a fraying rope that held them up. Within one stride in that copse of trees, the man pulled his manhood out and stepped behind a thicket to release his bladder. He was out of my line of sight now.
“I knew he’d come up here,” whispered Leif, making a show of pinching his nose. “I smelled his morning dung. And capturing him quietly is better than rushing into the middle of a valley and having an entire village as witnesses.” Leif looked down to where Aoife lay on a path just five steps away and nodded.
“Help,” she called, just a bit louder.
We couldn’t see the man. We could have easily chased him down and hoped that no one in a neighboring field saw us, but it was best if he simply disappeared until nightfall or the next morning when we were done with him. The worker would then be able to tell tales about being captured by dangerous Vikings and impress all the lasses of his village with his bravery. That is, once we were gone and our need for stealth had passed. So we waited.
After what seemed half a day, we heard his voice call, “Who’s there?” he asked, still unseen.
Killian, who lay down behind a fallen tree trunk next to the path, whispered to the girl, “Just say your name, dear one.”
“Aoife,” she answered weakly. “Aoife.” I chuckled to myself at just how frail the minute, but resilient, creature sounded.
“Are you alright?” the farmer asked. The voice was coming no closer.
“Help. Ankle.” Aoife was completely pitiable.
“Where are you from?” the man asked, suspicious. Bandits were common in everyone’s woods, on Anglesey, in Norway, everywhere.
I saw Killian bite his lip, puzzled. Say someplace too far, and the man would wonder why she was alone away from home. Say someplace too close, and the worker might ask more questions about people he knew. “Say Llangyngar. You’re from Llangyngar.”
Aoife repeated the conniving priest’s words.
“Where are you?” the man’s voice was moving closer now. I thought I could hear his feet falling on the path.
I nervously gripped my sword. It is humorous to think about now that I’ve been in what seems like a hundred battles. An unarmed farmer was walking into a trap with nearly sixty young and strong, armored and armed Norsemen and yet I was on edge. I’m embarrassed to admit it, even though by the time another man educated in Latin finds this parchment with my musings etched across it, I’ll be long dead. Godfrey frowned at me that day and held up a hand, calming me. The king hissed, “He’s no good to us dead.
I think he’ll succumb easy enough.”
And he did – sort of.
All of a sudden he was next to us on the path, crouching down to the ailing girl, who had begun to hold her ankle and whine as he approached. I think she was even able to produce a few counterfeit tears. “What are you doing out here? You must be six miles from home if you’re from Llangyngar?” he asked. Since most people never moved beyond three miles from the spot of their birth throughout their entire lives, it was a fair set of questions.
In answer, Aoife scurried to her feet before the rest of us had even stepped from our hiding places in the woods. The eager Irish thrall latched a hand on the man’s shaggy brown hair and tossed a leg over his back like she mounted a pony. She used her other hand to club the top of his head like a carpenter strikes with his hammer.
The man rose up and turned to run back toward the field. He scanned the forest for bandits while grabbing Aoife by her hair. I stepped out to cut off his retreat. The two of us locked eyes. The terrified farmer broke into a full run in an attempt to break through to freedom before his cause was hopeless. “Run!” the man screamed. He listed what sounded like a host of names and shouted again, “Run! To the king, run!” He jerked down on Aoife’s head and tossed her to the side of the path so that her little form bounced and skidded against a tree, unmoving.
I don’t know what it was that happened. If you ask me today, I’ll say it made no sense for me to get so upset about a thrall, a girl no less! But back then, in my youth when I had something of a soft place in my heart for such things, I became enraged. I pushed Brandr from behind and shoved my way onto the path. My mind was not totally lost, however. I didn’t want to kill the Welshman so I slammed my tarnished sword into its old, cracked scabbard. Just as the farmer was set to sprint past us into the field, I stretched my great paw out and snatched the one thing I could. My fingers became tangled in his shaggy hair and I gripped it, knuckles white. Then my feet became planted, almost rooted, on the packed road and I heaved with every bit of my vast, youthful strength. The farmer’s feet continued running forward and then flew into the air while his head jerked back. I never let him come back to rest. Instead, I wrapped my free hand into his hair and spun him around once then twice before letting him fly. “Run! Run!” He was screaming maniacally as if someone else had been in the field with him. It was too late to worry about that. I fell backward onto my rump while he shot into the king, both men tumbling over one another into Killian, whose small body was nearly swallowed by the rolling mess of arms and legs.
