Banners of the Northmen

by Jerry Autieri

  Carefully sliding to the edge, slimy rock in her hand, she peered over. The sheer drop made her feel like it was dragging her down. Catching herself, she stepped back, heart thudding. Now she understood why Ulfrik forbid her from looking over the cliff, but was still determined to watch her rock plunge into the water below. Revising the plan, she got on hands and knees, the cold dampness seeping through her clothes, and crawled to the edge. Being grounded on all fours cured the vertigo, and she was able to look straight down.

  Releasing the rock, she watched it fall but was disappointed that it was too small to see it hit the water. The rock disappeared into the background of waves breaking at the base of the cliffs.

  "Well, now you've fulfilled your dreams, Runa. Congratulations." She laughed at the whole exercise, and began to crawl back from the edge.

  Then she saw the man.

  He was sprawled on a flat rock, debris floating on the water around him. While the sea battered sections of the cliff faces, clumps of large rocks formed natural wave-breaks, and the man rested within one now. Runa called down to him, but realized her voice would be lost in the roar of the sea. He lay face down to the rock, a tattered white shirt brilliant even in the shadows of the cliff. She suspected he might be dead, then he turned his head to another side.

  Backing away from the edge, Runa knelt in the grass and considered what to do. He could be an enemy whose ship was wrecked in the storm. From the distance she could not determine the man's age, but he appeared young. That would rule him out as belonging in these waters.

  In any case, she ran back to the hall, holding the sax steady as she did, drawing comfort from the feel of the leather wrap in her palm. Finding Gunnar outside, she called him over. "Gather the strongest boys, and meet me in the hall."

  Gunnar and his friends lowered their toy swords to the grass. "Enemies?"

  "Hurry," was all she said as she continued to the hall. Stopping at the entrance, she leaned inside. "I found a man washed up on the rocks by the northern cliffs. I'm taking the boys to help me rescue him." She scanned the blank faces, all stopped in the midst of whatever they had been doing, and found the man she sought. "Ornolf, I need your boat. Come with me."

  Ornolf, a man with shaky hands and white beard, stood with the care of the elderly, but he smiled. "Glad to finally have something to do."

  By this time Gunnar had arrived with three other boys. Together with Ornolf they ran for the shore where Ornolf's son left behind a small fishing boat. The rest of the hall emptied out behind them, women fluttering with speculation and worry. At the boat, Runa ensured they had rope, and tied it around all of them in case any one fell overboard.

  Ornolf steered his ship while Runa and the boys worked the short oars. Gunnar sat beside his mother, his young arms straining at the work and a determined scowl on his face. The gods favored them with calm waters, and Runa was further relieved to see no other ship in the foggy distance. They held a tense silence as they navigated to where she had spotted the man. Gunnar was the first to see him. "On the rocks over there! A man with a white shirt!"

  "Careful now," warned Ornolf. "Getting to him is another thing than seeing him. The tide wants to push us into the cliff."

  Warned, the boys refocused on their rowing. Runa moved to the prows of the small boat. Only two people could sit on a bench, shoulder to shoulder if they were men, Fortunately, her crew were slighter and the vessel could accommodate another passenger.

  Ornolf, despite his decrepit appearance, nosed the boat closer to the rocks with confidence and skill. He snapped at the boys to cease rowing and let the natural tide take over. As they closed, she first saw the man's bare feet, then his calf which had been cut. Entering the calmer waters, Runa gathered up the slack in her rope and leaned forward to call to the man. She saw a halo of disheveled yellow hair as the man barely raised his head, and she called him again.

  Bumping into planks of wood and sea weed, Ornolf guided the boat to the side of the rock. "Told my boy I could still do this," he said, and clapped his hands. "They should've taken me too."

  "I'm glad you stayed," Runa said, focusing on the man. She carefully stood, and Gunnar steadied her. "I need you boys to help me get him aboard. Ornolf, can you keep the boat against this rock?"

  "Not without a tie-off or anchor. Be swift, Lady Runa."

  "You there, can you hear me?" The man on the rock raised his head again, rolling to face Runa. He nodded. "You must help us get you on board. Can you move?"

  The man seemed unsure, but both his legs moved in reply. The boat bounced against the rock, and while the water was still, she put her foot on the rock. Her skirt restricted her and she had to immediately return to the boat. "You boys will fetch him. Gunnar, stay with me to steady the boat."

  "No, I will lead my friends," and he jumped onto the rock with his two friends following. She bit her lip, hearing Ulfrik's words in her son's voice.

  The rope had enough slack, but Runa tugged forward as they worked. They propped the man on his elbows and he shook his head. Gunnar hooked the man's arm over his shoulder while another boy did the same. The third boy steadied the boat as the man got to his knees to crawl forward.

  "Here's the difficult part," noted Ornolf. "Don't let them fall or we're all going to the bottom."

  "I'm aware of that," she snapped.

  The man shuffled on his bloodied knees. He was young and strong, though bruised and cut in a hundred different places. He wore tatters of what appeared to be fine clothes, and a gold torc clung to his neck still. She scanned him for weapons, and found none. At the side of the boat, Gunnar ducked from beneath the man's arm and helped him to the boat. Rather than assist, Runa found herself drawing the sax and pointing it at the man.

  "A Valkyrie? I am dead, then?" The man managed to smile, revealing teeth reddened with blood.

  "I am here to help, but I don't know you. I have many enemies."

  His head lolled and he muttered words Runa could not understand over the growling of the waves against the cliffs. The boys managed to roll him into the boat, and it rocked and pushed back. Ornolf steered it close to the rocks and all the boys rejoined. Gunnar gave her a sheepish smile. She pursed her lips, but patted his shoulder. His smile widened and his cheeks reddened.

  They began to row back, the man lying uncomfortably between benches.

  "Thank you for your kindness and bravery," he said. His bottom lip was split and his eye blacked, but confidence filled his exhausted voice. "You will not regret this, I promise."

  Runa nodded, squeezing the hilt of her short sword. Glancing again at the milky horizon, she saw nothing but the black dots of sea birds weaving over the ocean. The gods made no sign for her, good or ill, but her other hand sought the hammer of Thor beneath her robe. Fate had woven a new thread into her life, and winter was at hand.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  November 25, 885 CE

  Ulfrik watched Paris rise from the middle of the Seine River. He and his men gathered in the prow and strained for their first glimpses of the city between the hundreds of other striped sails obstructing the view. Silence spread from ship to ship in the great Danish fleet, and as Paris revealed itself to the crew, their excited voices stilled. The fire in Ulfrik's blood cooled. The fort called Pontoise now seemed like a fisherman's shack.

  As winds pushed the ship ever closer, the size of Paris grew. Its walls consumed nearly the entire island and were made of gray rock stained brown with age. The walls stood beyond a height rocks should be lifted. Towers rose above the walls, fat and round, and pennants fluttered from them. Worse than the walled city were the two bridges that barred passage deeper into Frankia. To Ulfrik's eyes, they were low, dense lines of black spreading across the river like the two arms of a giant. Each bridge was anchored to a mighty tower of stone, both square but with protruded round corners.

  "Now you see Paris," Humbert said, a note of triumph in his voice. "And you wonder how to get through those walls."

  Ulfrik frowned, then
stepped out of the prow to face his slave. He held his head back, one hand pulling his beloved red cloak tight against the chill morning air. Despite Humbert's defiance, he had to agree that Paris was formidable, though he dared not voice it before his crew.

  "If men built it, then men can tear it down."

  "Not if God protects it." Humbert's free hand made a strange sign, touching his head, chest, and both shoulders. He had seen Toki's wife, Halla, make the same signs in her prayers to the dead god. Several of the crew eyed Humbert suspiciously, though Ulfrik shook his head and returned to the tiller. Toki waved and shouted across the waters.

  "I hope the Franks pay the ransom."

  Ulfrik waved agreement, and the two ships continued forward with the main fleet. Ulfrik had managed a position close to Hrolf's and Gunther's ships, which were behind the front of the formation. Sigfrid led the way to Paris, and though nominally all ships were under his command, his personal count was still higher than any single jarl. Additionally, his ships towed massive war engines and siege supplies stored on crewless vessels. During the journey south, Ulfrik had seen them disassembled, tied down, and covered against the weather, and wondered how they would be used. Gunther One-Eye told him Sigfrid had experienced men to work them, and in one day the machines would turn any city into rubble. He trusted Gunther's assessment, and spit on the deck to dismiss his worries.

  Following Sigfrid's lead, the massive fleet pulled onto the shore northwest of Paris. While plans had been shared, not everyone remembered or followed them. Some ships continued forward while others dropped anchor, and others collided amid shouts and the cracking of broken oars. Being close to Hrolf guaranteed he understood the plan. Sigfrid would allow Paris to buy their lives at a dear price before he attacked.

  "By Odin's one eye, can you smell that?" Snorri asked as he assisted with taking in the sail. "Did all of Paris shit their trousers at once?"

  "It's the smell of big cities," said a flat-nosed man called Thorkel. "London is the same. I visited there with my uncle as a boy. They smell worse inside."

  Thrand glared with his good eye at Humbert, who still leaned over the railings and watched Paris like it was his lover. "So is shit what you've got waiting for you, slave? Is that your treasure?"

  Humbert ignored Thrand, but Ulfrik hissed through his teeth. He fell silent and returned to his task. Thrand's carelessness with their secret began to grate on Ulfrik. Had he not been a better man before drinking consumed his wits, Ulfrik would have dismissed him. Yet Thrand had once risked his life to save his wife and son, and he could not put aside that debt. Thrand, for all his careless bluster, deserved respect.

  Ulfrik and his crew disembarked, taking their shields off the racks but leaving their mail aboard. The bank of the Seine was muddy and soft, and the forest grew nearly to the river's edge. Sigfrid had found a cleared section for enough of the fleet to gather. Masses of excited men clustered and pointed at Paris, many hurled curses and insults at the fat block of stone plunked into the heart of the river. Ulfrik arranged his men in loose groups and waited for orders. Soon, Gunther One-Eye shoved through the crowd.

  "Hrolf wants you at the parley," Gunther proclaimed without preamble. He stood as if he had just awarded Ulfrik the kingdom of Frankia. "Meet at Sigfrid's ship."

  "And why me and not one of his other boot-lickers?"

  "He needs men thinking men. That'd be you and me."

  "I'll bring my slave to translate." He pointed at Humbert, who suddenly became wide-eyed and pale.

  "No." Gunther pushed Ulfrik's arm to his side. "Just you. Besides, we've got Franks who speak Norse on our side. Now get into your war gear and be fast."

  Gunther slipped away into the crowd, and Ulfrik gave bemused looks to his crew. Toki congratulated him.

  "It's an honor to go. You bring glory to all of us."

  Nodding, he clapped Toki's back and boarded his ship to wear his mail hauberk. He ensured his silver armbands showed beneath the short mail sleeves. The lack of silver and gold adornments fed his self-consciousness. The entire time he wore his mail and traveled to Sigfrid's ship, he fretted over his status. No matter how close he stood to Hrolf, he would look like a farmer playing at a lord.

  Before he had left, Snorri had surmised his thoughts and grabbed him close to growl confidence into him. "You're every bit their equal. What you wear on your arm is not as important as what you carry in your heart."

  The words buoyed him, but now standing in the ring of men attending the parley, his confidence fell out. Sigfrid was his usual self, a glittering mound of iron and gold. He took three bodyguards who wore mail and helmets scoured to unusual brightness. One shouldered an ax engraved with coiling dragons. The wealth of his three men glistened like scales of a fish. Only Hrolf, Gunther, and himself wore more practical gear.

  Sigfrid snorted and spit, then frowned at all of them. "If you've got a message for the Franks, let's hear it now. When we get up there, I do the talking."

  "You'll do well to remember we're all equals here," Hrolf chided, though Ulfrik knew he bridled the power of his voice.

  "And you'll remember I invited you to the feast, and that I dumped my fortune into the machines that'll tear up their walls. So I do the talking. Clear?"

  Muscles twitched about Hrolf's jaw, though he remained silent.

  They boarded Sigfrid's high-sided ship and a crew of thirty men rowed them up the current to where the mighty tower brooded in front of the bridge. Each jarl gathered his own men, Hrolf herding them to the prow where no one else stood. "Sigfrid places himself over us," he said to Ulfrik and Gunther. "He is like clear ice on a pond. I can see to the bottom of what he desires. But know this, I bend a knee to no one and you two only bend a knee to me. We decide whether to listen to Sigfrid. Remember that."

  As the distance closed, Ulfrik observed the bridge, which was constructed of stone. Sitting low to the water, no ship could pass beneath. The sides of the bridge provided cover for defenders and prevented scaling. Ulfrik admired the clever construction and anticipated crossing it in victory. Parisians already lined it, the tops of their conical helmets glinting. Many of the crew began to joke about children wearing their father's armor, but Ulfrik was more interested in the walls of Paris itself. From this distance, he could see no way inside. Humbert, if he had been honest, promised a secret entrance. While he did not expect to see it at a glance, he could not imagine where it existed. Every approach to the walls was observed from multiple angles. He wiped his face and shoved the worry aside for another day.

  Sigfrid pulled ashore a safe distance from the tower, then gathered them on the banks. His crew remained with the ship, but one man joined the group. He was a head shorter than all of them, dressed in plain clothes of green and gray but bearing a shield with Sigfrid's colors of black and yellow. He looked at no one, and went directly to Sigfrid's side. Curiously, he unfurled a white flag and held it aloft.

  "What is that standard?" Ulfrik whispered to Gunther.

  "Not a standard. It shows the Franks we come in peace."

  Ulfrik swallowed his laughter. "The bright white blinds them to the thousands of berserks waiting behind us?"

  Gunther and Ulfrik followed behind Hrolf, and all of them watched as the gates of the tower popped open and a party of armed men emerged.

  "They're like children," remarked one of the men, and Sigfrid laughed.

  "Makes it easier to crack open their heads," he replied. "Don't have to swing too high."

  Nervous laughter filled the moments it took for the Frankish party to cross the grass. Ulfrik's eyes flicked between the parley group and the Franks of the tower and bridge, expecting treachery from men who he did not expect to understand honor. The foul odor of the city hung in his nostrils, and that repulsiveness transferred to the Franks who arrived before them.

  Up close, Ulfrik found they were not as short as children, but their prideful and disdainful faces were immediate aversions. Two men went before, dressed in mail and wearing fine linen s
urcoats of blue and white. One had a round head with thin brown hair that clung to it as if soaked. Dark circles ringed his hooded eyes, and a barely contained snarl trembled on this thin lips. The other man was older, with a long and narrow head and curly gray beard. His motions were crisp and lively, and despite his obvious years, he held a posture like a man half his age. Ulfrik guessed him a fighting man. A heavy wooden crucifix hung about his neck. Behind these two were eight men-at-arms in helmets and mail, gripping spears. Ulfrik noted their knuckles were white and their eyes wide behind their noseguards. He held the gaze of one man until the Frank's eyes darted aside.

  Both parties sized up each other, sounds of the river current rushing by filling the awkward quiet. Ulfrik noted a crow passing overhead. Hrolf and Sigfrid noted it too, and like himself, Ulfrik guessed they surely took it for a sign of the gods' favor. Sigfrid watched the bird glide toward the city, another good sign, and he nearly laughed. This drew a frown from the Franks, who finally decided to speak.

  Their language sounded like the twisted speech of an animal. Ulfrik thought of geese. The round-headed man spilled them like beer, and once finished looked to another man Ulfrik had not noticed. The man had been obscured from Ulfrik's sight, and he was no more than fifteen years old. His beard had not yet formed on his soft jaw. He spoke fluidly, with a Danish accent.

  "My lord is the glorious Count Odo, defender of Paris. With him is the esteemed Joscelin, abbot of Saint Germain-des-Pres and bishop of Paris." Ulfrik heard the name of the priest as one long slur of weak sounds. "He knows of the great Sigfrid, but does not recognize his companions."

  "Tell your goat-fucking lord that Sigfrid and Hrolf, stand before them."

  "Courtesy, please." The abbot spoke Norse fluently enough to fool Sigfrid to searching his own men for the source of the admonition. When he realized Abbot Joscelin spoke, Sigfrid howled laughter. Ulfrik raised a brow, and thought of Humbert's pained rendition of the language. He also wondered if this priest was Humbert's enemy, and so studied him carefully.