by Tim Severin
‘That would be to Snorri Godi, sir,’ I said. ‘Snorri still consults Thrand for advice before any sort of conflict.’
‘And you say that you studied seidr under Thrand?’
‘Yes, but just for a few months.’
‘Then we’ll see if you can be more than a dog boy. Next time I make a sacrifice to Thor, you can assist me.’
Brodir and Ospak held their combined flotilla at Man for another ten days. There was much coming and going between the two men as Brodir tried to persuade Ospak to join him in King Sigtryggr’s alliance. The two men were sworn brothers, but Ospak took umbrage at Brodir’s grand plan to become Gormlaith’s consort and felt that the new scheme had now replaced their own original agreement for a vikingr campaign. Ospak’s ambitions were more down to earth than Brodir’s. He wanted booty rather than glory, and the more enthusiastically that Brodir spoke about the wealth of King Sigtryggr and his potential as an ally, the more Ospak saw the assets of Dublin as something waiting to be plundered. So he prevaricated, repeatedly pointing out that an alliance with King Sigtryggr was dangerous. The High King Brian, Ospak noted, had the more impressive record as a warrior, and even if King Brian was now getting old, he had four strapping sons, all of whom had shown themselves as capable commanders on the battlefield.
Eventually Brodir became so exasperated with this hesitation that he suggested to Ospak they should take the omens and see which way the forthcoming campaign would turn out. Ospak was also an Old Believer, and he agreed to the idea at once, so a sweat cabin was set up on the beach. I have mentioned that the Norse are as clean a people as circumstances allow. Among their habits is to take baths in hot water, quite a regular occurrence in Iceland, where water already hot emerges from the ground; they also bathe in steam, though this is more complicated. It involves constructing a small and nearly airtight cabin, bringing very hot stones and then dashing fresh water on the stones so that steam fills the chamber. If the process is excessive, more and more steam fills the room until the occupants become giddy from heat and lack of air and sometimes lose their senses. In Iceland Thrand had told me how this could be done to induce a trance-like state and, if one is fortunate, bring on dreams or even spirit flying.
While the steam hut was being prepared on the beach, Brodir set up a small altar of beach stones very like the one I had seen Thorvall construct in Vinland, and asked me to cut invocation runes on several pieces of driftwood. When the heated steam stones were placed inside the steam hut with a bucket of water, Brodir took my rune sticks and, after approving the staves I had cut, added them to the embers. As the last wisps of grey smoke curled up from the little pyre, he removed all his clothes, coiled his hair around his head and squeezed his great bulk into the hut. I covered the doorway with a heavy blanket of cloth, reminded of the similar structure where I had met the Skraeling shaman.
Brodir stayed in the steam cabin for at least an hour. When he emerged he was looking dour and did not say a word, but dressed quickly and ordered his men to row him out to his ship. Seeing his expression, no one on board dared ask him whether he had seen visions and, if so, what they were. The following day he repeated the process with much the same result. If anything, he emerged from the ordeal looking even more solemn than before. Later that evening he called me over and told me that next day it was my turn. ‘Thrand would not have wasted his knowledge on someone who has not the sight. Take my place in the steam cabin tomorrow and tell me what you see.’
I could have told him that there was no need. I already knew. On both nights after Brodir had undergone his ordeal in the steamhouse, I had violent dreams. By now I knew enough about my own powers of sight to realise that my own dreams were echoes of his earlier visions. In the first dream I was aboard an anchored ship when there was a roaring noise in my ears and the sky began to rain boiling blood. The crew around me tried to seek shelter from the downpour and many of them were scalded. One man was so badly burned that he died. The dream on the second night was similar except that after the shower of blood the men’s weapons leapt from their sheaths and began to fight, one with the other, and again a sailor lost his life. So when the flap dropped down behind me in the steam cabin, and I poured the water on the stones and felt the steam sear my lips and nostrils and burn deep into my lungs, I had only to close my eyes and I was immediately back in my dream. Now the sky, instead of spewing bloody rain, disgorged flight after flight of angry ravens like fluttering black rags. The birds came cawing and swooping, their beaks and claws were made of iron, and they pecked and struck so viciously at us that we were obliged to shelter beneath our shields. And for the third time we lost a sailor. His eyes pecked out and his face a bloody mess, he stumbled blindly to the side of the vessel, tripped on the coaming and, falling into the water, drowned in the spreading pink tendrils of his own blood.
Brodir woke me. Apparently I had been lying in the steam hut for six hours and there had been no sound. He had broken in and found me insensible. Brodir did not question me but waited until I had recovered sufficiently, then sent for Ospak to come to the beach. The three of us withdrew to a quiet spot, out of earshot of the other men, and there Brodir described his visions in the sweat hut. As I suspected, they were almost exactly what I had seen in my own dreams. But only I had the nightmare of the iron-beaked ravens. When Brodir rumbled, ‘The lad has the sight. We should listen to him as well,’ I described how Odinn’s crows had attacked my shipmates and caused such ruin and disaster.
Only a fool would have been blind to the omens and Ospak was no fool. When Brodir asked whether he would be joining with him in King Sigtryggr’s alliance, Ospak asked only for time to think things over. ‘I need to consult with my shipmasters,’ he told Brodir. ‘Let us meet again on the beach this evening after dusk, and I will give you my answer.’
When Ospak returned to the beach that evening, there was barely enough light to see by. He was accompanied by all his ship’s captains. It was not a good sign. They were all armed and they looked wary. I realised that they were frightened of Brodir, who, besides being very burly, was also known to be quick-tempered. I reassured myself with the thought that there is a prohibition among the Old Believers – not always obeyed – that it is unwise to kill someone after dark because their ghost will come to haunt you. Even before Ospak started speaking, it was obvious what had been decided. ‘The dreams are the worst possible omen,’ he began. ‘Blood from the sky, men dying, weapons fighting among themselves, war ravens flying. There can be no other explanation than that there will be death and war, and that brother will fight brother.’ Brodir scowled. Right up to that moment, he had been hoping that Ospak and his men would join him, and that he would be able to keep the combined flotilla together. But Ospak’s blunt interpretation of the dreams left no doubt: Ospak and his ships would not only leave the flotilla, but he and his men intended to throw in their lot with the Ostmen fighting for King Brian. With the High King, they thought, lay their best chance of victory and reward.
Brodir did lose his temper, though only for a moment. It was when Ospak referred to the ravens again, almost as an afterthought. ‘Perhaps those ravens are the fiends from hell the Christians are always talking about. They are supposed to have a particular appetite for those who have once followed the White Christ and then turned away.’ Brodir had been some sort of priest during his Christian phase, I later learned. Stung by this jibe, he took a step forward and moved to draw his sword. But Ospak had stepped quickly back out of blade range, and his captains closed up behind him. ‘Steady,’ he called, ‘remember that no good will come of killing after dark.’
Killing a man after sunset might be forbidden, but departing in the dark is not. That same night Ospak and his captains quietly unmoored. Their vessels had been anchored in a group, close inshore, and their crews poled them out into the ebb tide so that they silently drifted past us as we slept. Later some of our men said that Ospak had practised some sort of magic so that none of us awoke. In truth several of our sailors di
d glimpse Ospak’s squadron gliding past in the blackness, but they did not have the heart to wake their colleagues. All of us knew that, soon enough, we would meet again in battle.
FIFTEEN
‘NONE OF US can escape the Norns’ decision,’ said Brodir heavily. He was fastening the buckles and straps of his mail shirt. ‘We can only delay the hour and even then we need the help of the Gods.’ Brodir’s fingers were shaking as he did up the straps, and I thought to myself that he was not as trusting as Thrand. Brodir’s mail shirt was famous. Like Thrand’s helmet, it was reputed to have supernatural qualities. It was said that no sword or javelin could penetrate its links, rendering its wearer invulnerable. Yet I judged that Brodir did not believe in the magic qualities of his armour but wore it only as a talisman to bring good luck. Or perhaps there were few mail shirts large enough to fit the leader from Man.
Brodir’s contingent, nearly seven hundred men, was getting ready for battle. Our position was on the extreme right of Sigtryggr’s grand alliance of Dublin Ostmen, Sigurd’s Orkneymen, King Mael Morda’s Leinstermen and sundry Irish rebels who had taken this chance to challenge the domination of the Irish High King. Behind us, an arrow-shot away, was the landing beach of sand and shingle onto which the keels of our ships had slithered at first light that morning.
The plan had been to catch Brian Boruma off guard. For the past ten days the allies had been gathering in Dublin in response to King Sigtryggr’s request that they arrive before the great Christian festival at the end of March. I thought this was an odd calendar to set for such staunch Old Believers as Sigurd the Stout and Brodir, but at the long, long war council in the king’s hall which preceded our deployment Sigtryggr had explained there was a reason for this unusual deadline, a reason based on intelligence which Gormlaith had supplied. While married to Brian Boruma, she had detected that her ex-husband was becoming more and more obsessed with his religion as he grew older. Apparently the Irish High King had vowed to her that he would no longer fight on the high and holy days of the Christ calendar. It was blasphemy, he had said, to do battle on such sacred occasions and such days were ill-fated. When Sigtryggr mentioned this, some of the Norse captains exchanged nervous glances. Sigtryggr had come closer to the mark than he knew. Rumours of Brodir’s raven dream had spread among the Norse and there were many who thought we had no business pursuing our campaign after such an ill-starred start. Brodir had not revealed the content of our visions on the beach at Man, nor had I – the source had been Ospak. From Man he had promptly sailed to Ireland and marched to Brian Boruma’s camp to offer his services to the Irish High King. Ospak must have expected a vast haul of loot from Dublin because, that very day, he cheerfully submitted to being baptised by the Irish priests. On the other hand he put such little store by his conversion that he lost no time in spreading word about the raven dreams and how they foretold that Brodir and his men were doomed.
Gormlaith herself spoke at Sigtryggr’s council of war and she was very persuasive. Brian Boruma’s personal prestige had been vital to his previous military success, she told the hard-bitten war captains. His army rallied to him personally. That was the Irish habit. Their warriors flock to a clan chief considered to be lucky, and when it comes to a battle they like to see their leader at the forefront of the charge. So Sigtryggr’s grand alliance would hold a crucial advantage if it brought the High King’s army to battle when Boruma himself was unable to participate for his misguided religious reasons. The one day of the Christian calendar that Boruma was sure to refuse to carry weapons was the gloomy anniversary of the White Christ’s death. Brian Boruma regarded it as the holiest day of the year, and there was no possibility that he could personally lead his men into battle on that day. Gormlaith had also pointed out that the morbid nature of such an anniversary would further dishearten the High King’s forces. Some of his more devout troops might even follow their master’s example in refusing to bear arms. Her logic impressed even the most sceptical of the council, and there was not a single voice raised in objection when Sigtryggr set Good Friday as the day most suitable for our attack. Sigtryggr also suggested that Earl Sigurd and Brodir might go back aboard their ships the previous evening and pretend to sail off. The hope was that Boruma’s spies stationed on the hill overlooking the river would report that many of Sigtryggr’s allies were deserting him, and the High King would be further lulled into inaction.
But such a commonplace deception had clearly failed. Already depressed by whispers about Odinn’s ravens, our troops were further discouraged by the sight which greeted us as we came ashore. Drawn up on the hill facing us were the massed ranks of the High King’s army and clearly they had been expecting us. Even more clearly, they had no compunction about spilling blood on the holy day. ‘Would you look at that?’ said one of Brodir’s men who was standing next to me as we began to form up. He must have been a shiphandler rather than a fighting man as he was poorly equipped, carrying only a javelin and a light wooden shield, and had neither helmet nor mail shirt. ‘I can see some of Ospak’s men in the line right opposite us. That fellow with the long pike and the grey cloak is Wulf. He owes me half a mark of silver, which he never paid after our last dice game, and I didn’t dare press him for the debt. He’s got a foul temper, which is why everyone calls him Wulf the Quarrelsome. One way or another, that’s a debt he and I are likely to settle today.’ Like me, the shiphandler had been assigned to the rearmost of the five ranks in our swine array, the standard formation for a Norse brigade. It places the best armed and most experienced fighters in the front rank, shield to shield and no more than an arm’s length apart. Youngsters like myself and the lightly armed auxiliaries fill up the rearmost ranks. The idea is that the shield wall bears the brunt of any charge and is too dense for the enemy to penetrate, while the lightly armed troops can make some minor contribution to the contest by hurling spears over the heads of their fighting colleagues. Quite what I was supposed to do, I had no idea. Brodir had told me to bring the two so-called ‘fighting dogs’ on shore, but there was no role for such fanciful creatures in the swine formation. Not that the the two hounds were in the least interested in biting enemy flesh. They were nervously darting from side to side and getting their leads in a tangle. As I hauled on the dogs’ collars, I glanced across to my left, and with a sudden shock of surprise I recognised at least a dozen of the Burners among Earl Sigurd’s Orkneymen. The Burners had sworn their oath to Sigurd the Stout and now they were obliged to do their duty. Just beyond their little group rose Earl Sigurd’s famous battle standard with its symbol of the black raven. The sight caused me to have a sudden doubt. Had I misinterpreted my dream? I wondered. The iron-beaked birds who had swooped into the attack from far afield and torn men’s flesh, were they Brodir’s enemies? Or did they symbolise the arrival of Sigurd and his Orkneymen across the Irish Sea, following the raven banner to wreak havoc on Boruma’s host?
My confusion was increased by this familiarity of friend and foe. Here I was fighting alongside men who would have counted me their enemy if they had known of my role in Kari’s vengeance. And the sailor at my side was standing in the battle line facing a companion with whom, until a month ago, he had rolled dice. Nor was this mutual recognition restricted to the Norse warriors. ‘Are you there, Maldred?’ bellowed one of our front-rank men. He was a big, round-shouldered, grey-haired warrior, well armoured and carrying a heavy axe, and he was shouting his question across the gap that separated the two armies. ‘Yes, of course I am, you arsehole!’ came an answering cry from the High King’s forces. From the opposing rank stepped a figure who, apart from his stature – he was slightly shorter – and the fact that he wore a patterned Irish cloak over his chain mail, was almost indistinguishable from our own man. ‘No more farting about, now’s the time to see who is the better man,’ called our champion, and while the two armies looked on and waited as if they had all the time in the world, the adversaries ran forward until they came within axe swing, and each man let loose a mighty swipe at th
e other.
Each deflected the blow with his shield, and then the two men settled down to a bent-kneed crouch as they circled one another warily, occasionally leaping forward to deliver a huge blow with the axe, only for the other man to block the blow with his round shield and take a retaliatory swing which failed to connect because his enemy had jumped back out of range. When the two men lost patience with this alternate thud and leap, it seemed as if they reached some mutual pact of self-destruction, for in the instant that one man flung aside his shield so he could raise his axe with both hands his opponent did the same. Suddenly the contestants were charging at one another like a pair of mad bulls, each determined to deliver the mortal blow. It was the man with the cloak who struck first. He knew he had the shorter reach, so he let go of his axe as he swung. The weapon flew across the last two feet and struck the Norseman a terrific blow on the side of his face, laying bare the bone. The Norseman staggered, and blood sprayed from the wound, yet the surge of his charge and the momentum of his blow carried him forward so that the strike of his axe smashed down on the Irishman’s left shoulder, cutting deep into the neck. It did not behead the victim, but it was a killer blow. The Irishman fell first to his knees, then slowly toppled forward face down on the mud. His conqueror, dazed and disorientated, with blood pouring down his face, lasted only a few moments longer. As the two armies looked on, the Norseman wandered in a circle, tripping and lurching, the side of his face smashed open by the axe, and he too fell and did not rise again.
