by James Duncan
A wave of snarling, armoured Northmen poured over the wall behind him as he surveyed the scene. Beyond the wall was a broad path, ten paces across, that ran down the whole front of the harbour along the sea wall. Behind that were buildings, storage sheds and fish-drying racks. To his left, down the path, a crowd of perhaps fifty armed men were pushing and shoving at the entrance to the docks, the sound of that fight still roaring in his ears. To the right, there was the sound of shouting and running men from deeper in the town.
For a moment, he couldn’t decide if he should run left and attack the defenders of the dock gate or right and intercept the oncoming but unseen enemy. At the dock gates, he could see a bloodied axe rise and fall into the crowd, a high scream cutting through the rest of the sounds of combat. Then a Norse helmet appeared in the throng, then another, and the whole mass of defenders visibly quivered and retreated a step as the huscarls and axemen of Birkir’s crews pushed through the gate in a fury of chopping axes and stabbing swords. The best armoured men, the most experienced, the hardened edge of the Norse warband, were cutting through the hapless guardsmen. Birkir didn’t need his help.
‘Shield wall!’ he roared, pointing his sword to the right where the sound of running men was growing louder. His men stretched out across the road, those with helmets, maille and short axes and swords going to the front two ranks. Men with spears and long axes filled the third and fourth ranks. The shields of the front rank crashed together to form a single solid wall of wood topped with peering eyes, steel weapons and iron helmets.
Not a moment too soon either. A large force of well armed and armoured men appeared from a path between two buildings and hastily formed into a mass opposite them, over a hundred, perhaps even three times his own number.
The enemy held their shields together in a makeshift wall of their own and nervously watched the silent Norse, a slab of foreboding enemies blocking them from the massacre of their comrades, who were being torn apart as their defence of the dock gate failed.
‘Forward!’ shouted Ragnvald from his place in the second rank. Sebbi was on his left, long hair flowing from the back of his helmet. Fenrir was on his right, Leif beyond him and others behind him. The huscarls formed a block in the second and third ranks where the best warriors always stood. The front rank was filled with younger men, eager to prove themselves in battle, willing to stand the risk of being at the front of the wall.
Ragnvald smiled wickedly at the thought of the coming battle with men such as these beside him. His men were more than a match for the citizens of any fat Frankish town. He always had ten huscarls. Some lords had more, some less, but Ragnvald always had ten, the cream of his warriors, honoured men who would fight at his side in battle, could be entrusted with small groups to command and who would sleep, eat and drink in his own hall when they were in Uppsala. When a huscarl died or grew old and hung up his shield over his door with honour, one man would be selected to replace him, and so there would be ten again.
Bjóðr was in his hand now, patterned steel shining brightly in the spring noon sun. It had been his father’s sword, a sword that had given death to many warriors over many seasons, and now he would use it to give death to his enemy. Now he raised it in his fist and pumped it with a shout, giving the order to advance. The Viking shield wall stamped forward on the hard-packed earth, warriors snarling and shouting curses and insults at their enemy, straining to get their weapons into the enemy ranks but maintaining the line of the wall. Anyone who broke the first rank to charge would never be trusted to stand in it again. A wall with holes in it, as every Norseman learned when he trained for battle, is a shitty wall. Norsemen don’t waste complicated words on simple concepts.
The enemy wall was pretty shitty by that standard. It had gaps, holes and a great kink in the middle where a few men were shrinking away from the oncoming Svearmen. Some of the shields were different types and sizes; some men in the front had spears and others had swords; some had no helmets. Some were old or terrified and clearly not fighters; others were steady-looking soldiers. But a skjaldborg is only as strong as the weakest man, and the Norse front rank was filled with hard men, Vikings of the old ways. Killers.
The Viking wall hit the ragged line of defenders with a sickening crash and simply consumed it. Axes flashed over the line at the heads and shoulders of those who did not hold their shields high enough. Swords stabbed up at those who held their shields too high. Spears licked out to catch the unprotected faces of those in the second rank who were gawping at the oncoming violence. A dozen defenders fell in the first clash, and their wall degenerated into a mass of desperate and wounded men fighting for their lives, all cohesion lost, with men giving way or dying before they could re-form the wall. Ragnvald felt the man in front of him stagger back and heard his cry as an unseen spear punched through the Norseman’s thick woollen shirt, even as his killer was cut down. But he was one of only two Norse that fell in those moments of unleashed violence, as the discipline and experience of the Vikings made them wolves among sheep.
Into the mass of terrified men, a new horror arrived. Over the wall on the enemy’s left, a new wave of screaming demons appeared and jumped down into the flank of the townsfolk’s compressed ranks, spreading terror and death. Another of Ragnvald’s ship’s crews had arrived.
Ragnvald felt the pressure at his front ease as the enemy died or tried to face the new threat, and he smiled. ‘Break!’ he shouted, giving the signal that all his men loved to hear. The wall dissolved and charged, each man rushing into the enemy mass in a fury of violence that shocked the already demoralised enemy to the point of failure. The hammer strike of the Norse warriors, contrasted with the anvil of the skjaldborg. One moment there was a fight, and the next, Ragnvald was chasing a herd of broken and fleeing men. Sebbi howled with glee and lunged forward, putting his spear into the side of a man who was trying to turn and flee. Fenrir surged past the dying man and ducked a desperate sword swing, putting his axe into the back of the knee of his opponent as he passed, splitting the leg and bringing his opponent down with a piercing scream, quickly silenced by the man that followed. Ragnvald followed his huscarls as they ran forward, seeking their next victims.
There was no mercy as the Vikings surged through the town. Anyone with a weapon or armour was killed. Anyone the right age to carry them was killed. Anyone who got in the way was killed. Most of the town’s population had fled into the fields and woods outside the walls; those who stayed died or hid from the victorious, rampaging raiders.
Ragnvald and most of his crew headed for the stone church, the tallest building in the town and the one they knew would hold the greatest riches. As they broke down the door, a clutch of terrified citizens and priests screamed and tried to retreat from them, cowering into the corners. A single-armed man yelled in outrage and terror and then died with a choking cry as Fenrir rammed his sword into his guts.
Why do they always hide in the church? It’s the one place we always search. Idiots! Go hide in the shit pits and you would be fine. His ironic thought was interrupted by an old man in the robes of a priest who tottered towards him, yelling and swinging a large, ornate cross as a weapon. Ragnvald caught the cross in one hand, wincing at the weight of the blow, and calmly ran his sword through the old man’s chest. The priest’s eyes widened in shock, and he dropped to his knees, cries of pure horror coming from those huddled against the back wall of the church.
Ragnvald withdrew his sword and dropped the dying priest casually on the steps leading up to the altar. The altar itself was bare, he noted with a grimace. ‘Where is that new slave, the one who speaks our words?’
Fenrir went to the back of the group and pulled the slim man to the front, dumping him to the floor in front of Ragnvald.
‘Ask these people where the riches are.’
‘What?’ Otto gasped, recoiling in horror from the spreading pool of blood emanating from the now-dead priest.
Ragnvald snarled and grabbed a handful of Otto’s hair. ‘Ask t
hem where the church’s riches are. All churches have riches. If they give them to me, they live. If you don’t ask them, you remember what I said I would do.’
‘But these are people sheltering in the house of God! That man you killed is a priest – have you no shame?’ Otto’s horror overcame his fear for a moment.
Ragnvald nodded at Fenrir, and the huscarl stepped forward, grabbed Otto’s hand in a grip of iron and separated his fingers, holding the hand out for Ragnvald. ‘No, I have no shame. This is not my god, and this is no longer your hand. Believe me, I will have no shame a long time after you have no fingers.’
He grabbed the proffered finger and sliced it off with a single pass of the base of his sword.
Otto struggled and wailed again, but the grip on his arm was resolute.
Ragnvald placed his sword against the second finger. ‘Ask them.’
Otto turned his head to the cowering people and stammered out a string of unintelligible words. One of the still-living priests shook his head and pointed out of the door.
Otto turned his wide, bloodshot eyes to Ragnvald. ‘They aren’t here. The other priests fled with the silver.’
Ragnvald glared at the huddled mass, thinking for a moment as disappointment gripped him. ‘I don’t believe them. There are three priests here. Are you telling me there were others enough in this one church to flee carrying all its riches?’
‘I… I don’t know,’ spluttered Otto, still vainly wrestling for control of his arm.
‘I’m not asking you, idiot. I’m asking them. You ask them. That’s your job, or do you need another reminder?’
Otto turned again to the priests and gabbled more of their strange language. Ragnvald was surveying the group and saw that, at the back, one priest was silent, pressed against the wall and looking nervous while the other one was at the front of the crowd, trying to protect the worshippers.
Otto turned again to him and shook his head. ‘They say the same thing. Please, the treasures are gone!’
‘Fenrir, take this useless shit away.’ He let go of the sobbing slave and stood up, eyes on the priest at the back. ‘You see how the priests are trying to protect their people? I have always found this with priests. They put themselves between what they seek to protect and me.’
‘What of it?’ replied Fenrir.
‘That priest at the back – what is he protecting?’
Fenrir’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth twisted into a smile. He strode forward, clearing the terrified people out of his way with the flat of his sword. The priest in the corner paled and started to wave his hands in front of him as if to ward the Viking off.
Fenrir swung at the man, his sword cutting right through an outstretched arm and deep into the priest’s face. The man gurgled and thrashed as Fenrir flung him aside into the lap of an old woman who seemed not to be aware of what was happening around her.
Under where the priest had been crouched, an area of the floor was exposed, but nothing else was there. Fenrir looked at it in confusion. Bare stone walls met wooden floorboards with no indication of a hiding place. Ragnvald stepped past with a sigh – Fenrir really was nothing more than a killer – and he dug his sword between the floorboards and levered one up. It popped up with no resistance, and the next ones too. Five boards came up before the hiding place beneath the floor was fully exposed.
Ragnvald smiled broadly. This is a rich church.
Ragnvald was walking back down towards the docks with his men when he found Jarl Birkir. The man was bleeding freely from a wound on the side of his head, but he appeared not to notice. He beamed broadly when he saw Ragnvald and swept his arms wide to embrace him.
‘Ha, brother! What a day! By the gods, I have missed this.’ He fell into step with Ragnvald, glancing back at the heavily laden men who followed. ‘Thor’s balls, you did well. Some great lord’s hall?’
Ragnvald smiled at the shorter man. ‘You have never raided a Christian town before?’
‘No, just Danes, or more recently the tribes along the shore of the Cold Sea. In fact, I’ve not raided for six years, not since my feud with Jarl Forkir ended. Damn, I missed having excuses to go raiding.’
‘Well,’ Ragnvald said with a smug smile, ‘the key thing to understand about Christians is they keep all their wealth in their churches. Most of it anyway.’
‘In their churches?’ Birkir said, looking around them down the narrow streets of the town. ‘How do you know which ones are the churches?’
‘Simple. They are the biggest, and they are full of bald men who dress like women.’
Birkir looked at him in pure disbelief and then roared with laughter. ‘What a fine load of horse bollocks that is, Ragnvald.’
‘No, I am serious. That is the truth.’
‘Fine. If you want to keep your secrets but I am no spring mare who would believe such amusing nonsense. My men have plenty of loot, and I don’t envy you your success. This was your raid. You keep your loot and your secrets.’ He thumped Ragnvald on the back.
Ragnvald laughed with him and protested. ‘Birkir, really, it is the truth. Go up the hill and see for yourself. In any case, you will have a share of the church treasure for your help with this raid.
Birkir grinned from ear to ear and turned to those of his men who followed him. ‘You hear that, lads? Jarl Ragnvald will share his treasure with us!’ His men gave a heartfelt cheer and shouted out their thanks.
‘And I will share my food and mead with you, Jarl Ragnvald, if you ever come to visit my hall.’
‘And I would be honoured to visit your home. We will arrange it.’
How the gods laugh at the intentions of men.
‘But now I say we leave this husk of a town behind us before someone comes to take it from us.’
‘You think its wealth is done? I submit to your greater experience,’ said Birkir, still beaming from the generous promise of wealth shared.
‘On the subject of greater experience, perhaps you should wear a helmet next time. It helps when someone tries to make a hole in your head.’ Ragnvald ribbed the shorter man gently.
‘Bah, this scratch? It’s nothing. Didn’t know it was there until the blood was pissing into my eye.’
Ragnvald shrugged. ‘Your choice.’
‘I don’t like helmets. Make my head hurt. Anyway, I have a reputation now. Putting one on will make me look bad.’
Ragnvald suppressed a laugh as he looked at the dishevelled and slightly rotund northern jarl, clotting blood caking his hair and beard on one side of his head, a slice the length of a finger in his scalp. ‘I don’t think you could look any worse.’ He dodged away as Birkir aimed a hearty punch at his ribs, receiving only a glancing blow.
‘Careful now, Ragnvald. Wouldn’t want me to embarrass you in front of your men.’ His smile betrayed the lack of heat in his words. ‘Wouldn’t want us to end up fighting, eh?’
The two men chatted and laughed away the nervous energy of the fighting as they walked back to their ships with their crews, oblivious to the fate their actions had brought.
In the desecrated church in that devastated town, lying dead with one arm severed, was the nephew and personal chaplain of Pope Paschal II. The pope had sent him on a goodwill tour of the German clergy to quietly muster support for his beloved pontiff during the period of conflict between Church and State in the Holy Roman Empire.
Paschal never had children, his brother was long dead, and he had looked on his loyal young chaplain as his own son. Europe would shake from the scale of his rage and the depth of his revenge.
Ragnvald had started a fire that would threaten to consume his world.
Chapter 3
The Smith and the Son
Minden, Lower Saxony
Autumn 1115
Thank God that’s finished. I fucking hate polishing. Ordulf was rubbing the final oily blemishes off the highly polished finished blade in his hands with a clean linen patch. Four days of hard, repetitive work finally behind him. He hated finishing the
top-quality blades for that reason – an ordinary blade required no real polishing, just grinding and a bit of smoothing with stones. Well, he didn’t hate all of it. He did love finishing a good blade; he loved the look and feel of the surface and the satisfaction of producing a quality piece of work. He just really hated the process. A whole week of running increasingly fine stones back and forth along the bevels, of knowing one mistake could set him back a day or two, of having aching, sodden fingers and a cramped and sore back. He had been in this side room for four straight days working this blade, and now it was done, the relief was almost physical.
As a journeyman smith, it shouldn’t really have been his job, but he regarded the apprentices as useless, so he just did important blades himself. His master scolded him and said it was a boy’s work, but the apprentices really were worse than usual at the moment.
A tall and broad young man of seventeen years, he had been an apprentice himself until two years ago, when his vast strength and particular skill with the hammer had seen him selected to become a journeyman, despite his young age. For his journeyman piece, he had made a fine arming sword from scratch. Blade nearly as long as his arm; straight and true fuller perfectly set in the spine; cross guard, hilt and pommel designed in the demure, geometric style of all the fashionable Christian knights. It was a sword he had been overtly proud of.
His master, Herman, a stern and barrel-chested smith with a stormy temper and a fine eye for forging, had given him an appreciative grunt and allowed him a day off and five silver coins to enjoy it with. He was taken to the guild house and given a forged steel miniature of a sword to pin to his apron. That was his only badge of rank, such as it was.
But that appreciative grunt and that miniature sword made him a journeyman of the Bremen Cutlers’ Guild and he was now a ‘someone’. No longer a lickspittle apprentice with no station, he had envisaged a new life of respect and reward. But now he was polishing swords again and, well, he really hated polishing swords.
With the sword done and the sun setting, he shrugged off his apron and stretched his aching back, trying to loosen the painful knots that a hard day hunched over the sword had created. He needed to loosen up, and he would be doing what most of the young men of the town did on the last evening of the week. They were going to the patch.
