by Jason Born
Killian was mumbling about Leif’s frustrating condescension. I could understand the priest’s anger. More than once before that day and many times since that day, Leif had done the same to me. It was maddening. His confidence, his seeming knowledge of events before they happened could make even his friends find fault. But Leif was wise. He was mostly moderate and level-headed. Furthermore, Leif was usually right.
He spun to face us. “King Godfrey, you still want the coins? And you want them now?”
Godfrey spat a wad of phlegm into the brook. “Of course, I do.” He stood and walked over to the opposite bank. “What do you have in mind?”
Leif received the answer he expected and, therefore, ignored the king’s petition. Leif pointed to all the men who lounged in the mud. “Anyone with a war axe, prepare to dull it. Come. Come!” He waved both hands, encouraging them up. They obeyed the young fool. We were all fools, but I’ve said as much.
“Cut down all the straight trees you can. Make sure they are no larger in diameter than your balled fist. We don’t want to waste time chopping.” He was pacing now. “We need sixteen or eighteen that are between two and a half and three fadmr in length.”
Brandr protested, “It took me most of the day to make a good sturdy ladder to use around my long home. We don’t have that time.”
“And how many years do you expect to use it? You built it by yourself?” asked Godfrey, immediately enthusiastic about Leif’s plan.
“What?” Brandr began. “Yes, I built it myself, King Godfrey. It had better last the rest of my life.”
“Good. These ladders have to last less than one day. You’ll have dozens of hands helping. We’ll be done before midday,” answered Godfrey, hauling out his short war axe and taking the first swing at a thin oak. The blade left smeared, black blood from the morning’s carnage emblazoned in the cut near the tree’s base.
“We’ll be done by then if Halldorr runs back to the ships and brings all the cord he can find,” said Leif. He marched through the trees and pointed out to the men which ones he wanted brought down. They fanned out into the small woods. Soon the sound of a dozen axes sang.
“Why me?” I asked, immediately regretting I had bothered.
“You’re the fastest,” he said. “Besides, you’ll want to check on your thrall.”
Aoife? Something about the way Leif said it made me think that there may be trouble at the boats. Without further protest, I splashed my way back down the creek toward the shingle.
“Bring some sailcloth!” Leif called after me. Only I didn’t hear him. I know today that he told me such a thing because Godfrey scolded me later. I suppose it matters little that I didn’t bring the cloth. It should be quite obvious to you that I survived the day. I won’t be ruining my tale if I tell you that Leif lived. Many others lived, too.
Some did not. And only some of those who did not survive could be said to have died because I did not bring the sailcloth.
That is what I tell myself to keep my chin high.
. . .
The singing of the axes quickly faded as I approached the shore. The town’s fire still blazed. It audibly roared as I ran along the shingle toward the boats. Though the nearest burning house was fifteen fadmr away, I could feel the inferno’s heat. Based upon the works, the sluice, and the stench, that building was a tanner’s shop as well as his home. No longer.
I saw activity at the ships. More than I had hoped.
Perhaps a half score of villagers – all of them angry men – had come to the shingle seeking retribution. They carried no true weapons, though what they did hold – fishermen’s gaffs, scythes, hoes, wooden rods – could kill most men easily enough if given the opportunity. Our wounded fought valiantly to prevent them the chance.
One of our Welshmen already lay dead. If I remember correctly, he had an arm wound from the first fight. It would have healed in a short while if he avoided infection with the stinking pus. He was not so fortunate. His body lay sprawled out half on the dock, half on the shingle. He was the most ambulatory and, therefore, the first man to intercept the villagers. Eight more of a mixed bag of Welshmen, Manx, and Norsemen held off the crazed men from Watchet to varying degrees of success. These defenders limped and swung a sword if they could. If they were unable to heft steel, they swung fists or threw the errant stone.
I had quickened my pace, running over scattering seaside rocks. That was when I realized that I hadn’t seen Aoife. She should have been in the thick of the fight. Even after her scare at Aberffraw, she had demonstrated a willingness to take risks that very morning. She would not hide away with the baggage on one of our ships.
A flash of movement further up the shingle, closer to the blaze caught my eye. It was Aoife. She struggled under the firm grasp of an Englishman who had clenched his fingers into the tawny rat’s nest that sat atop her head. He was a blacksmith. I could tell, for he still wore a long leather apron that flapped with each step. His forearms would be like the iron on which he pounded all day, every day. Aoife would not soon escape.
“Bitch tits,” I muttered. In the smith’s other hand he carried a long board. It was charred black along most of its length. The flames on the burning end fluttered as he waved it in the air. He meant to torch our ships and compel us to face whatever English force came down the herepath. Even just a single fire successfully kindled on one or two of our ships would spread to the rest, leaving only Randulfr’s boat – where that was I still did not know – as our last chance at escape.
The blacksmith closed on the boats and his comrades. I closed on the entire party.
As I have done many times since, when confronted with the poetic insanity that is battle, I screamed. It was the call of the Berserkers of time eternal. If I had the time, I felt like I would have stripped my clothes off and ferociously howled at the bastards who dared make their sortie. That’s what the ancients, my ancestors, had done. The tales said as much. Had I done so, I would truly have been like the battle-mad Berserkers of yore, their heir, their kin. I didn’t strip. I simultaneously drew my sword and jerked my small axe from my belt. I wailed with a rumbling, phlegm-filled madness.
The Englishman on the left of their so-called line was closest to me. Even though he spun to meet my attack, he tumbled to the earth moments later in wide-eyed terror. He thrashed about on the ground trying to stuff his innards back where they belonged. I placed a heavy boot on his chest and jumped over him.
Now, I must explain to you that this was an utterly foolish action. It was something that a skald would say a warrior did in battle because skalds, who are mostly cowards, tell tales and sing songs like the greatest of the heroes they portray, but never find themselves in the thick of the clash. The victories won by kings, jarls, and free men are enough to supply the skalds with warm broth and mead in exchange for their yarns. Dozens of things could have gone wrong with my leap. My boot could have slipped off his chest. Had I fallen, the next Englishman in line could have killed me with one swing of his staff crushing my temple. Or, the dying man on the ground could have found the presence of mind to ram his sickle into my shin. I would have fallen and again the man with the staff could have ended my life. Or, my death could have been the result of my landing on the outstretched gaff of a fisherman. Just because none of those things happened, does not mean that the act wasn’t foolhardy. It was.
While flying through the air I shrieked again. The second man in the English line drove his staff up. It connected with my thigh before sliding into my groin. It hurt mightily. I felt at once nauseous, but had no time for such nonsense. My path was set. Down I toppled onto the second man. He clutched the staff that had fallen between us. He should have let it go and proceeded to grapple or bludgeon my face with his fists. His mistake cost him his life. My axe hammered its way between his ribs. By the time one of his hands seized my face, the grip was weak and waning.
I rolled off and saw the other simple townsmen already fleeing. The blacksmith had tossed Aoife over his shoulde
r. The little thing roiled like a captured snake. I heard her hissing. She clawed like a feral cat cornered in an alley. I clambered to my feet. The smith had stolen my father’s saex from Aoife.
“Thor’s beard!” I swore. I meant to chase after my quickly receding property, but the blacksmith had the sense to throw his flaming board on one of our ships. Already the baggage and stowed sails had ignited. The badly wounded who could move, crawled and hurled themselves over the gunwale and onto the hard dock or into the shallow surf. Aoife and my father’s blade would have to wait. At least I knew she’d make it difficult on her captors. That is, until they made it difficult on her.
I clasped the arm of the nearest wounded, yet ambulatory, Welshman and dragged him the short distance down the dock toward the fire. We didn’t attempt to communicate verbally. I tossed him into the shallow waves while I leapt over the gunwale. Feverishly, I hurled the baggage overboard to the waiting Welshman who guided it toward the shore if it was of value or let it float away or sink if not. Alight with flame or not, it went over. I was indiscriminant. My hands were singed.
Two of the terribly wounded men who were resting on the ship’s decking and unable to flee the miniature blaze were already burning. Their trousers went first. The one who could still move his legs kicked madly. The other just bawled with a quivering lower lip as he watched what just that morning had been his strong fighting legs turn into taut crisps. I found an empty hudfat and threw it onto the nearest man, following behind with my body’s weight. My hands smacked at the sack.
Three more of the slow moving wounded who had defended the dock from the villagers finally struggled their way onto the boat. One began throwing buckets down to the Welshman standing in the water, which had been my plan all along. The other two found a blanket, wet from the morning mist and covered the second burning man. They stamped at the blaze as best they could. When the flames that sprang from that man were finally out, the pair pulled back the wet blanket. Entire sheets of the burnt man’s skin came up with the cloth, stuck in its fibers. We all cringed. In a way the norns spared the man the worst. He was already dead.
The fight went on. After many long moments and several score of buckets we discovered that the worst was avoided. The ship was saved, as were the rest. This one, which was a vessel pilfered from Maredubb days earlier, would only require a spare sail from another vessel, a new yard, and several fadmr of rope.
“Rope!” I said out loud.
The others looked at me, confused.
“I’m here for cord, lots of it.” I scanned the shore to see if I could lay my eyes on the blacksmith who carried Aoife. Only a glimmer of his motley band’s clothing flashed as they disappeared into a distant forest to the south and east. It is embarrassing to admit. I certainly didn’t own up to my thoughts back then, for I was young and proud. But, in truth, I hesitated for a few moments. I considered abandoning my quest for the cord in order to pursue the thrall thief. In the end I decided that Leif, with his keen mind, would better help me retrieve my little wretch than if I went headlong into an unknown forest alone.
To the hobbling wounded I shouted, “Go to the ships. Bag up every length of leather cord you can find.” None of them complained for I think they realized that my mere presence had saved their lives. They did, however, moan from the gashes in their sides that reopened as they bent to fill sacks with cord.
At last it was time to return to Godfrey, whose impatience would outstrip everyone’s combined. “Will you tell the king to send just a few warriors to guard us and the ships?” asked a nervous Norseman.
“No,” I answered plainly. “If you had a good look at what we’ve got to assault in that fort on the hill, then you’d know the king needs every able man he can muster.”
“But he has treasure already loaded on these ships. Another lucky toss from a villager will have it all underwater,” the man protested.
He made sense. We should have had more guards. Well, we should have had just some guards where we had none. We also should have landed at Watchet and met no resistance as the parchment found by Leif and Killian had said. I should not have been cast out from my own people in Greenland for a basket of horse dung. As I’ve said in another writing at a different place and time, should is meaningless. Is is all that matters. The reality of daily life is what determines whether a man lives or dies. Freeze from fear one day while the spears are flying? Dead. Freeze another day in the same situation? Live. Should? That is just the wishful thinking of senseless dreamers. Admittedly, I’m one of those senseless dreamers, guilty of pondering how this man or that woman should act or how I should respond.
Every man has the norns weaving him a crooked, harsh path. He must do what he will. Most men try to seize control and steer the path with a firm hand on the oak rudder. Leif did it. His father did it. By Hel, I did it. And now King Godfrey steered. Godfrey, though, not only attempted to maneuver, he was reaching. His arm was growing longer by the day and he was stretching it further. The king was trying to build his treasury and his army, but I think along the way and during those weeks of raiding he began to believe that he could build a truly respectable kingdom from his hodgepodge of islands that dotted the Irish Sea.
Life was about what a man could do and would do. Godfrey would seize what he could.
“No,” I repeated and ran off lugging bags bulging with cord.
. . .
Godfrey cursed up a thunderous storm at my tardiness. There is no sense in repeating his already repetitious words. It should suffice to say that I was some version of an ox or turd or a worn-out whore’s sagging tits. At one point I was a combination of all three. When I explained to him that I nearly single-handedly fought off a mess of villagers and put out a fire on a treasure-laden ship, the king’s anger waned. Only for a few moments, for then he found out that I had not brought sailcloth. He resumed his swearing. Neither I nor anyone else was again sent back. Godfrey was eager to move before real trouble arrived.
Leif and the others worked feverishly. They pulled out the tangle of cords from the sacks and began lashing together the narrow logs into ladders. Leif had efficiently directed his workers to lay out the rails in parallel with the rungs placed across them with an ell of spacing between. The work quickly drew to a close. It doesn’t take long for a few dozen sailors to tie off as many knots.
“Are we ready?” asked Godfrey, surveying the crew when the last cord was cinched.
Killian examined the crowd and answered for them. “By God’s strength, power, and grace, we are ready.” The priest crossed himself. His Christian brethren did the same.
Godfrey signaled that we should prepare. I grabbed a ladder by myself. Most of the ladders would be carried by two men just because they were so awkwardly long. Hauling them between one another enabled our attackers to carry their shields in their other hands for protection as we neared the mint. Brandr tried to take up the other end of my ladder. I curled my lip at him like a surly dog. He returned the gesture, but backed off. Tyrkr would carry my shield and his own until I set the ladder in place.
We crossed the narrow brook and foisted our newly constructed equipment on the bank that faced the fortress. Thorns and briars hooked men’s clothing and tore skin as we pushed through to the edge of the long clearing. It took many moments, complete with grumbling, for us to assemble. We were in plain view of the sentinels, a far, safe distance, but obvious nonetheless. We could hear their loud calls of warning to their comrades behind the stone wall. A tiny sliver of smoke curled up from the torched timbers of the bridge that led to the mint’s gate.
Godfrey stepped in front of us. I loved a leader that went into harm’s way before his men. Of course, it was foolish for a king to stand at the front. Yet, it made his men work for him and bleed for him and die for him, if they must. Godfrey, though partially Christian, was from a line of Norseman from old. It would have been wrong for him to command from the rear. He was a Viking from when the word meant something. If he wanted respect at the gloa
ming, he better earn it at dawn, every morning. Such was the fickleness of followers. I saw his confidence etched in every wrinkle of his taut, weathered face. I saw the tension in the muscles of his arm as he clutched his shield. The sight of the warrior king made me forget all about the harsh words he sent in my direction only moments before.
“Let us kill some more Englishmen,” said King Godfrey in a calm tone as he marched forward.
The Welshmen erupted in cheers, for the meaning was clear enough. They thought we were going to rush ahead. They ran a few paces before realizing their error. Killian told them, “Slow now, lads. Save your energy. We don’t hurry until we’re nearly at the ditch.”
We walked up the hill at such a relaxed pace it was as if we ambled hand-in-hand with our secret lovers to our favorite spot in the forest. Godfrey, showing his poise or covering his nerves, chatted with Randulfr about a hunt they had a few years earlier. It was in Normandy, they said. Neither could remember many of the details, for both had been inebriated to silliness at the time. They did recall that they had killed a few wolves that day.
“Why did we want sailcloth?” Tyrkr asked of Leif. I was glad he asked because I didn’t know and wasn’t about to appear the fool. For Tyrkr, it was a fine part.
“As I looked up the hill at the fort, I saw that trail of smoke where the entrance bridge once stood. They burned it to make us struggle through the ditch. It’s what I would have done if I sat behind those walls and watched what our force did to their army on the beach. If I commanded the garrison, I would have sent a rider for help and penned myself in until assistance arrived.” Leif picked a catchfly. He lazily tapped the rim of his shield with the wildflower. Its pale violet petals sprinkled down the front. A few came to rest on the iron boss, a fine example of the beauty of the meadow next to the harshness of what was to come.
