One King's Way thatc-2

by Harry Harrison

  Udd nodded vigorously, recovering his nerve. “Yes, lord. You know that ore we saw down at the College at Kaupang? The sort that took so little working, because there's so much metal in the stone? It comes from Jarnberaland. Iron-bearing Land.”

  Shef nodded encouragingly, with no idea where this thought was leading. They couldn't eat iron, but sarcasm would cut Udd off completely.

  “There's a place called Kopparberg too. Copper Mountain. Well, the thing is, they're both over there.” Udd pointed across the harbor to the mountainous shore opposite. “On the other side of the mountains, I mean. I thought, if we can't sail, we could walk. It's not as if there's nowhere the other side.”

  Shef looked at the jagged forbidding shore, thought of the terrible cramping struggle up the side of Echegorgun's inlet. The path they had come upon. The easy ridge route Echegorgun had taken to bring them out opposite the island.

  “Thank you, Udd,” he said. “I'll think about that.”

  He walked on till he found Guthmund the Swede. Guthmund was in unexpectedly good spirits. He had lost his ship, and there was every chance of dying of starvation. On the other hand, the loot from the Crane had been surprisingly good. Ragnhild had taken half her ancestral treasure with her, to buy men and revenge, and it had been recovered from the wreck. Deaths in the attack had meant fewer people to share it with, too. Guthmund greeted his young leader with a smile. They called him Guthmund the Greedy. His ambition was to become Gull-Guthmund, or Gold-Guthmund in English.

  The smile vanished as Shef asked him about what Udd had said. “Oh, it's up there somewhere all right,” he agreed. “But I wouldn't know where exactly. You folk don't realize. Sweden is a thousand miles long from end to end, all the way from Skaane to the Lapp-mark. If Skaane is Swedish,” he added. “I am from Soderrnanland myself, I am a true Swede. But I guess, I guess this is about as far north as Jarnberaland.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “By the way the shadows fall. If you measure a shadow at noon, and you know how far it is from midsummer, you can tell how far north you are. It is one of the crafts of the Way, Skaldfinn Njörth's priest once showed me.”

  “So if we went up there and walked due east we would come to Jarnberaland in the country of the Swedes.”

  “You might not have to walk all the way,” said Guthmund. “I have heard it said that there are lakes up there in the Keel, the central range, and they run east and west. Brand told me that when the Finns on this side raid the Finns on the other—Kvens they call them—they take bark boats and paddle along them.”

  “Thank you, Guthmund,” said Shef, and walked on again.

  Brand looked incredulous when Shef reported the results of his conversations to him and Thorvin, still sitting together. “Can't be done,” he said flatly.

  “Why not?”

  “It's too late in the year.”

  “A month after midsummer?”

  Brand sighed. “You don't realize. Up here summer doesn't last long. On the coast, all right, the sea seems to keep the snow and ice off for a while. But just think. Remember what it was like in Hedeby, like spring, you said. Get to Kaupang and it's still ice-bound. And how far is that? Three hundred miles north? Here you're another six hundred. A few miles in from the coast—and that's as far as I've ever been, even chasing Finns—and there's snow on the ground more than half the year. The higher you go, the worse it gets. The high mountains never melt at all.”

  “So cold is the problem. But Udd's right, is he, it is Jarnberaland on the other side, maybe two hundred miles off? Ten days' travel.”

  “Twenty days' travel. If you're very very lucky. In some of the country I've seen three miles is a hard day. If you don't get turned round and die walking in a circle.”

  “Still,” Thorvin put in, pulling at his beard, “there is something few people know. And that is that the Way is strong in Jarnberaland. Naturally, for we are craftsmen and smiths. And smiths go to iron. There are priests of the Way there, working with the folk who mine the iron. Some say it is as good as a second College. Valgrim was against it. He said there could only be one College.”

  And he the head of it, Shef thought. Valgrim's errors had finally caught up with him. He had been in the boats that rowed back to the Crane, and only two of the men in them had survived, Brand and a young man who had remained hunched into a ball ever since they pulled him on shore, making small noises of fear. Ragnhild could have died that way too, Shef told himself. Just an accident. Another of the ones that surrounded him. Part of his luck, Olaf Elf-of-Geirstath would say, and King Alfred with him.

  “So if we crossed the mountains,” Shef went on, “we might even find help the other side.”

  “But you can't cross the mountains,” Brand repeated, exasperated. “The mountains are full of Finns and—”

  “And the Hidden Folk,” Shef completed for him. “Thank you, Brand.” He rose to his feet and walked off yet again, the lance marking his paces.

  The final word came from a man whose name he did not know, one of the Crane's crew, sweating in the pale sunlight as he and his mates heaved rocks on to a sled, to drag to the settlement to make a few more winter shelters. Halogalanders watched them from a distance, carrying bundles of seal-harpoons. Shef, still unsure of his proper course, paused to watch them for a moment. One of them looked up. A relative of Kormak, he spoke bitterly. “Today we sweat, you watch. We were defeated—but not by men, by whales! That cannot happen twice. Next time you will find no protectors. The Rogalanders are still looking out for you, and Ragnhild's kin will pay her bounty. And behind them, the Ragnarssons. Sigurth Snake-eye will pay as much for you as Ragnhild would have. If you go south, you will meet someone. You will never see England again, one-eye. The only man who could get through what waits for you would need an iron skin. Like Sigurth Fafnirsbane. And even he left a weak spot!”

  Shef looked down reflectively. He knew the story of Sigurth who killed the dragon Fafnir—he had seen a part of it himself, in vision, seen the dragon-mask. He knew too that Sigurth had been betrayed by his lover, and killed by her husband and his kin, once they found out that the dragon's blood that had made his skin impenetrable had been checked at one spot by a leaf that stuck to it, and left him vulnerable only in the back. He, Shef, had had an angry lover as well, though she was dead, and her husband too. And he had killed a dragon, if Ivar Boneless might be considered as such.

  The parallels were too close for comfort. And it was true enough that the North Way down the coast was also the one way south, and all too easily blocked.

  “I hear what you say,” he answered. “And I thank you for your warning. But you meant it in malice. If you have nothing better to say, do not speak next time.” He reached out, carefully, and tapped the angry Viking on the very throat-ball with the point of his lance.

  The human mind is strange. Nose-bleeds start from fear. A stammer is cured by a shock, feeble old women start from their beds in a crisis and lift great timbers from their sons' bodies. Kormak's relative knew he had spoken too freely. Knew that if the one-eyed man ran him through with the lance, there would be no complaint against him. As the point touched his throat, his gullet froze with fear. And remained frozen.

  As Shef walked away one of his mates said to him in an undertone, “You chanced it there, Svipdag.”

  Svipdag turned to him, eyes wide. Tried to speak. Tried again, and again. Nothing came out but a low gargling. Men saw the terror in Svipdag's eyes as he realized that he meant to speak, but had been robbed of the ability as if a cord had been tied round his windpipe.

  The other prisoners looked after Shef's retreating back. They had heard stories of him, of the death of Ivar, of Halvdan, of how King Olaf had handed over all his luck and his family's into this man's keeping. They knew he bore the sign of some unknown god round his neck, his father, some had heard.

  “He said, ‘do not speak’,” one of the Vikings muttered. “And now he can't!”

  “I'm telling you, he called t
he whales in too,” said another.

  “And the Hidden Folk come to his help.”

  “If I'd known all that, Ragnhild could have whistled herself hoarse before I came on this gods-forsaken trip.”

  “You don't have to do this, you know,” said Brand when Shef told him of his decision. “We'll think of something. Get those greedy louts from the Crane out of the way, things'll look better. We can send some lads south in the dories, maybe buy a boatload of food in Trondhjem, and a boat to put it in. You don't have to walk off into the snow, even if someone else does.”

  “That's what I'm going to do anyway,” said Shef.

  Brand hesitated, embarrassed. He felt he had spoken too gloomily earlier, provoked this insane decision. He remembered when he had first taken Shef under his protection, after they had put his eye out. He had taught him Norse, taught him how to use a sword properly, taught him the way of the drengr, the professional marching warrior. And Shef had taught him much too. Raised him to glory, and to riches—for the crisis now was one of food and fuel and ships, not of money.

  “Look, no-one I know of has ever been deep into those mountains and come back, let alone come out the other side, Maybe the Finns do, but they're different. It's wolves and bears and cold. And where are you if you get through? Sweden! Or Swedish Finnmark, or somewhere. I can't see why you're doing this.”

  Shef thought for a few moments before replying. “I think I have two reasons,” he said. “One is this. Ever since I went to the cathedral this spring, saw Alfred and—and Godive marry, I've felt that things were getting out of my hand. People pushed me, and I went along. I did what I had to. From the sandbank to the slave-market to Kaupang to the queen. Across the Upland and up to here. Chased by the Ragnarssons and Ragnhild and even by the whales. Now I think I've retreated as far as I mean to. From now on I'm going to go back. I have been deep into the darkness, into the smokehouse of the Hidden Folk, even. Now I have to get into the light. And I don't mean to go back the way I came.”

  Brand waited. Like most of the men of the North, he believed deeply in luck. What Shef was saying was that he meant to change his luck. Or maybe that his luck had turned. Some people would say that the young man had luck and to spare. But no man could judge of another's luck, that was clear. “The other reason?” he prompted. Shef pulled his pole-ladder pendant forward from his chest. “I don't know if you think this means anything,” he said. “Do you think I have a god for a father?”

  Brand did not reply. “Well,” Shef went on, “I keep seeing things, as you know. Sometimes asleep, sometimes awake. I know someone is trying to tell me things. Sometimes it's very easy. When we found Cuthred, I had been shown to look for a man turning a great mill. Or had I heard the mill-wheel creaking already? I don't know. But then, and the time when Cwicca broke down the wall of the queen's house to get me out, I had a warning. A warning about something that was happening right then. All that's easy enough. But I have seen other things that are not so easy. I saw a hero dying, and an old woman. I saw the sun turn into a chariot pursued by wolves, and into a father-god's face. I saw a hero ride to rescue Balder from Hel, and I saw the White Christ killed by soldiers of the Rome-folk who spoke our own tongue. I saw the heroes in Valhalla, and I saw how those who are not heroes are received there.

  “Now all those sights were trying to tell me something. Not something easy. Not only from one side, from the pagans or the Christians. What I think they were trying to tell me—or maybe I am telling myself—is that there is something wrong. Something wrong with the way we all live. We are sliding into the Skuld-world, Thorvin would say. Virtue has gone out of us, out of us all, Christians and pagans. If this pendant means anything, it means that I must try to put it back. One step at a time, as you mount a ladder.”

  Brand sighed. “I see your mind is made up. Who will go with you?”

  “You?”

  Brand shook his head. “I have too much to do here. I cannot leave my own kin unfed and unsheltered.”

  “Cwicca and his gang will come, I think, and Karli. He came with me for adventures. If he gets back to the Ditmarsh he will be the greatest story-teller they ever had. Udd for sure, maybe Hund, maybe Thorvin. I have to speak again to Cuthred, and to your cousin.”

  “There is a skerry where I can leave a message,” Brand conceded reluctantly. “Your chances would go up a great deal if he would accompany you. But maybe he thinks he has done enough.”

  “What about provisions? What can you spare us?”

  “Not much. But you will have the best of what we still own.” Brand pointed. “One thing. Why are you still carrying that old weapon? All right, you picked it up in the smokehouse when you had nothing else, but look at it. It's old, the gold inlay is worn off, the blade is thin, it has no cross-piece. Not half the weapon Sigurth's ‘Gungnir’ was. Give it to me, I'll find you a better one.”

  Shef hefted the weapon thoughtfully. “I call it a good spear that conquers,” he said. “I'll keep it.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  In the end the group that Shef led to the foot of the mountains numbered twenty-three, all but three of them English speakers by birth. Cwicca, Osmod, Udd and their three remaining mates Fritha, Hama and Wilfi had joined him without question, as had Karli. So had Hund, saying that he had a feeling they would have need of a leech. More to Shef's surprise, Thorvin had agreed to make the trip, giving as his excuse that as a smith he wanted to see Jarnberaland and the College's outpost there. Once the news of the attempt spread, Shef had been much more surprised to find a deputation come to him, headed by Martha, the woman from Frisia, once a slave of Queen Ragnhild, and by Ceolwulf, the rescued slave whom the others suspected of having been a thane.

  “We don't want to be left here,” they said. “We have been too much among the Norse-folk, and want to find our way home. Our best chance is with you.”

  “Not a good chance,” Shef told them.

  “Better than the one we had a while ago,” said Ceolwulf grimly.

  So the party was expanded by four women and eight men. Shef had wondered whether to argue that the women would not have the strength to make the journey, but the words died as he thought them. He had traveled from Kaupang to the Gula with them, and they kept up as well as the men, certainly better than the puny Udd or the short-legged Osmod. As for the male ex-slaves, all of them wearing still their Rig pendants, Shef had not the heart to leave them. They might be an asset. Certainly some of them, like the formidable Ceolwulf, had talents of their own. They had fought well if briefly in the skirmishes against the crew of the Crane: some had died, over-anxious to get in a blow against the race that had enslaved and tormented them.

  The last member of the party was Cuthred. Brand had gone off one evening in the growing dark, making it clear that he was not to be watched or followed. As had been the custom of his family, he had left a message in a secret spot that his Hidden Folk relations knew. In some private code he had passed the news that he needed a meeting. But Echegorgun had not replied, or appeared. Instead Cuthred had walked in two mornings later. His clothes were dry and he was carrying his sword and shield, so he had not swum the narrow firth from the mainland. Echegorgun must have had some kind of boat or water-craft, but Cuthred was as close-mouthed about that as if he had already become a Hidden One himself.

  Told what was intended, he listened, nodded, sat silent during the day, and disappeared again in the dark. When he returned a second time he brought discouraging word.

  “Echegorgun won't accompany you,” he said. “He says he has been seen too often already. He says I am to come with you instead.”

  Shef raised an eyebrow. Cuthred spoke as if he had a better alternative—maybe to join the Hidden Folk for good, as a kind of exchange for the child Barn many years ago.

  “He says he will keep an eye on you, or on us,” Cuthred went on. “And he will pass the word to his relatives not to interfere with us. That is a great threat removed. You know why most hunters from here have never c
ome back. They ended up smoked like stock-fish. But that still leaves the bears and the wolves. And cold and hunger. And the Finns. We will have to take our chances with them.”

  Shef had agreed, having no choice, and turned to his preparations. In the end Brand had paraded every single member of the party in front of him, and gone through their equipment minutely. All had stout and well-greased boots that reached up to the calf. Thick leggings and thick wool trousers over them, for women as well as men. Wool tunics, skin mantles, hemp shirts. “Sweat is a danger,” Brand told them. “Freezes on you. Hemp soaks up the sweat better than wool. Better not to sweat. Just do everything at an even pace, but never stop unless you have a fire. That is the way to keep warm, but not too warm.” He had made sure that everyone had a bag to sleep in. Not, alas, the magnificent model Shef had bought at the Gula, which had burnt with so much else. But a store of feathers had survived the fire, and everyone had a two-layer bag of some material, wool or skin, padded with the down of the seabirds. Mittens and hats, scrims to go round the neck and pull across the face in a blizzard. For each person, in a back-pack, ten day's food, mostly dried fish and seal-meat, or the strong cheese made from sheep or goat's milk. Not enough, but a person walking all day in the cold needs four pounds' weight of food a day. Carry more, travel less. “If you see anything living, eat it,” Brand said. “Spin out what you carry as long as you can. You will be hungry before you reach the other side.”

  The party's weapons had been carefully selected as well, and not for war. The catapulteers carried their crossbows and their knives. Even Osmod had been made to abandon his halberd, too heavy and cumbersome. Thorvin had his smith's hammer, Hund was empty-handed. The others carried either wood-axes or spears, stout-shafted ones with cross-pieces, not javelins or harpoons. “For bear,” Brand explained. “You don't want one of them walking up the shaft at you.” Four short hunting bows were spread among the group as well, given to those who considered themselves good shots. Cuthred carried the sword they had taken from Vigdjarf, and his spiked shield. Shef had his lance as well as a broad sharp-pointed Rogaland knife taken from the Crane.