The Viking Saga

by Henry Treece

  Those who noted only the many glittering rings that circled his long slim fingers, the thick armbands that clasped his arms, the gold gorget at his throat, would have been deceived, thought the apprentice lad, with a secret grin. This was no maid; this was Thorkell, call him by whatever name you cared or dared, but Thorkell.

  And when Thorkell came to the village, men were silent until he gave the word to speak. Even the old warriors, men who had killed bears in the high summer on the mountain tops. Some said he was the son of an outlawed king; some said he was a king himself, of another land beyond Ultima Thule; some, the oldest ones who had lost their grip on the life of ordinary men, whispered that Odin had sent him down among the Northmen to see what they were up to and to report back when he had seen. But when one too-daring young warrior in his cups had called him ‘Thorkell Odinson’ to his face, he had kicked the fool’s feet from under him and had come near to throttling him with those same slim, ring-laden fingers … So no one really knew what to think. And now Thorkell Whoever-he-was stood looking at the longship, looking and smiling faintly, out of those cold blue eyes, that seemed to see beyond the hull, beyond the ice blue fjord, beyond the farther hills and forests, and on and on, beyond the very rim of the world herself …

  Behind him stood another one. His sacking cloak hung as limply as the rough red hair that he had plaited loosely and had braided with leather shoelaces; a tall thin man, with the nose of a hawk and the quick eyes of a ferret. A man who was constantly scratching his side or poking a bony finger into his great red ears. This was a different sort of man. He wore no mail shirt, but a long leather jerkin, plated here and there with strips of iron to act as armour of a sort. About his thin waist he wore a rusting chain – not a gilt-studded belt, like Thorkell’s. But from that chain hung something more terrifying than the red-sheathed longsword that Thorkell bore; a mace of bog oak, into which a score of sharp flints had been sunk, each one jutting horribly forth, its sharpest point outward. This was a weapon to fear in all truth. The sword is deadly, but its work is done in a minute. Such a thing as this man wore might bring the torments of the damned upon a man before Odin smiled down on him and gave him some relief.

  The villagers saw the mace, saw the strange, sad, sheeplike face of the man as he scratched his thin hair or shuffled his high shoulders as though the nibbling-ants were at him. ‘Wolf Water-hater,’ they said. ‘Wolf who has never washed in his life and vows to stay like that until his time comes!’

  And even the children giggled and pushed closer to see this Wolf, who had sailed on every sea man knew, yet hated the very thought of water touching his tender skin!

  Then the long silence was broken. Thorkell turned his head towards the tall man. ‘Is she fair?’ he asked, laconically.

  Wolf stepped forward so pompously that even the apprentice lad smiled. He went onwards, his pale eyebrows raising and lowering themselves, and seemed to look at the longship as though he had never seen one before.

  He stopped and poked his red finger into one of the sixteen oar-ports that ran along each side of the ship in the third strake from the top. They were not round holes, but long narrow ones. Wolf ran his finger along them for a while, then turned and said, ‘Cut off the shipmaster’s thumbs; he is too lazy to carve a circle.’

  There was a stir among the folk. Björn was a true Norseman and did not wait for anyone to ask where he was. He stepped down from his plank and nodded to Thorkell. Then he waited for the other to speak. Thorkell said, ‘Shall we cut them off with your own knife or with mine?’ He drew a long thin blade from his girdle. The haft was set with coral, noted Björn. The village folk drew in their breath. The children were secretly cuffed into silence. The old man mending the net shrugged his shoulders and licked his forefinger to twist another knot, as though he had heard it all before and thought it little worth the noting.

  Björn said, ‘Yours, Thorkell. Mine is too tarry from the ropes.’ He held out his hand for Thorkell’s knife. It was a pretty one and Björn was curious to see how it was made. Thorkell handed it to him and the shipmaster examined it carefully and then returned it with a smile. ‘Not much good against a wolf, I should say,’ he said.

  Thorkell said, ‘You are wrong, Björn. If you were to keep your thumbs, I would bet you a horse against a yard of rope that this knife is just the thing to probe beneath a spring bear’s fat.’

  He went towards Björn to illustrate what he was saying. ‘Look, the blade is thin and keen. You just slip it under his arm as he grasps, and you roll sideways, like this, and then he falls, but you must be ready to jump back for he weighs heavier than a chariot! He would crunch your leg like a winter stick!’

  As he said this he made the movements of the hunter, while Björn pretended to be the bear waked from his hibernation. The folk stood stock-still, sucking in their breath with expectation, for they were simple northern folk who readily gave themselves to a tale.

  Thorkell thrust with his thin knife, and the strong-armed Björn watched and twisted sideways as the hunter twisted. And the bear held the knife clasped firm beneath his armpit. Thorkell was trapped!

  So long the two held this lock that a child said, ‘Mother, the men are silly with the new sun. I want my milk, mother! Milk, mother!’

  Then Thorkell let his knife fall on the pebbled shore of the fjord. He straightened up and smiled. Björn straightened up and smiled too. Then Björn stooped and picked up Thorkell’s knife and gave it back to him.

  ‘Here are my thumbs,’ he said.

  Thorkell said, ‘Wolf, you are a fool. You should go back to the Caledonians and say that you are a fool. Björn is a sensible man. He has bear’s blood in him, like all proper Northmen. Björn will tell you why the oar-holes are not round.’

  Björn said, ‘Master Thorkell, saving your presence, Wolf is a fairly sensible man for a Pict, but he is hasty. That is all. The oar-holes are not round because my lad here has sense. In truth, he has never sailed farther across the water than this fjord, but he has sense. This is his idea. “When you have the sail up,” says he, “you do not need the oars, Master.” I spoke him fair and agreed with him. “All right,” says he. “When you pull in the oar, what have you left?” “A hole,” says I. “Right,” says he, “then make your hole flat and straight, so that an oar can come into the ship by it, allowing for the blade. Then make a little shutter over the flat hole, and you have got rid of the fear of water!” All this said the boy, and like a fool I followed him, for the idea seemed a good one to me. And I put little shutters, as he had said, over the oar-holes, so that the ship would be safe from the waves.’

  Björn moved across to the longship and pointed to the securely-bolted pieces of wood.

  Thorkell watched him. Then he turned his pale blue eyes upon Wolf, slowly, steadily, with a sidelong motion of the head. And the smile on his lips was not pleasant to see. The old man in the shadows lowered his war-torn face and said, ‘Aiee, Aiee, Wolf should not speak so fast!’

  Thorkell said, ‘Wolf, come you here, you dolt of dolts.’

  Wolf shambled back from the longship as readily as he had gone to it, a smile on his thin red face, his thin red hand still scratching under his leather jerkin.

  ‘Kneel before the shipmaster and beg his pardon,’ said Thorkell, looking down at him.

  The villagers stared as the thin man knelt.

  ‘Not with his knife,’ said Wolf, pleasantly. ‘I would prefer yours, Thorkell. Every man can make a mistake, but that is no reason why he should suffer more than a twelvemonth.’

  Björn said, ‘Must he take my punishment, Thorkell?’

  Thorkell said, ‘Who talks of punishment among a free folk such as this? A man may have a joke, may he not, without spoiling the hand of a good tradesman?’

  Wolf looked down at his red scarred hands. ‘What trade can these follow, Thorkell?’ he said, smiling quietly.

  Thorkell kicked him gently in the side and rolled him over on to the pebbles. Then Wolf rose, rubbing his long finger bel
ow his nose, with a comical expression on his face, and Thorkell put his arm about his shoulders.

  ‘Come, sideman,’ he said, ‘let us drink a horn of mead in this place and think about a name for the ship.’ Then as an afterthought, he said, ‘Come you, shipmaster, and let us drink together, for you seem a sharp fellow.’

  Björn said, ‘Not I, Thorkell, but my apprentice.’

  ‘Bring him, too,’ said Thorkell. ‘A lad who has thoughts about oar-holes like that should make a Viking one day.’

  3

  The Crew-Choosing

  Now she lay ready, the proud longship of the fjord. In the three days since Thorkell Fairhair had returned to the village, the master painters had been at work on her, using their bright hues to transform the smooth-planed oak to a picture of magnificent colour. Each strake of her sides was painted a different colour, red and blue and ochre. Her gunwales were gilded. Each shutter over the oar-ports was painted a deep black. Her tall mast stood silver in the sunlight. The high-flung bows and stern shone richly under a thick layer of gold leaf, varnished with an Eastern resin to withstand the salty ravages of any deep and distant ocean. Even the platforms, fore and aft, were coloured leaf green, with an especially durable pigment whose secret was known only to these travelling craftsmen who journeyed here and there along the fjords at this time, selling their skill to any community that had such a venture in hand.

  Thorkell Fairhair and his henchman Wolf sat at a rough table on the edge of the village, at the spot where the shore first started to run down to the fjord. On the board before them lay a heap of white knucklebones, perhaps four score in all. Thorkell’s long sword lay beside them in its sheath, its hilt turned away from his hand so that he might only draw it at a disadvantage.

  Behind the table stood the villagers, in many rows, old men, women and the children. Dogs and grunting pigs wandered here and there, some of them even stopping to rub against the trestles, or to push beneath the stools of the seated men.

  Before the table stood a long line of men, some of them villagers, even men who had wielded the heavy adze on the oaken planks or dragged the giant spokeshave along the tall mast; others were men from farther away, who had heard the news of the venture and were anxious to share the excitements of the voyage. Yet others came from beyond the fjord, from far away where different kings ruled and different gods haunted a man’s dreams. Yet all were welcome to Thorkell Fairhair, whatever strange tongue they spoke, whatever the colour of their skin.

  For Thorkell must gather about him forty sailors before his new longship might set her face towards the farthermost seas. Forty men who feared nothing and who used a weapon as readily as they pulled at an oar. It was not always easy to find so many men of such qualities from one small community. And now men stood before him, saying their names, and the name of their weapon, laying their hands palm upwards on the tabletop so that Thorkell could judge whether they were callused enough to pull at an oar for days on end … Those he rejected with a grim smile and a nod of his golden head smiled back as grimly and walked away, taking the path they had come, to find another village where a good ship was being pushed out into the fjord – for at this time a great restlessness was sweeping across the countries and men everywhere woke up with the itch to be moving … Those he chose were given a pair of the knucklebones to keep, as sign that they were under contract to Thorkell. They must keep these bones safely, until such time as they wished to break with him and leave the ship. Then, all they had to do was to hand them both back, putting one in his right hand and one in his left, with the words: ‘The snow leaves the hills, the leaf leaves the trees, the bird leaves the nest – and I leave you.’ Once the bones were given and the words spoken, neither man was under any obligation to the other, and might even kill each other should they feel the need to do so. But while the man had the bones and the words had not been said, he was bound to serve and to obey; nor might either harm the other even in the slightest degree, without becoming liable under the law of the folk-meeting to severe penalties. And these laws were strictly adhered to, even among men who might be called thieves and murderers by the rest of the world – the Christian world of the Franks and the English …

  ‘I am Rolf Wryneck, steersman, and my dagger is named Battlefang,’ said a thin man who carried his head on one side and seemed to sniff with a perpetual cold.

  Thorkell turned back to Wolf and both laughed. ‘This man should serve us well,’ said Thorkell, ‘for he will be able to see round the corners before we get there! Here are the bones, Rolf Wryneck, and may you steer us well!’

  ‘I am Gnorre Nithing, from Finland, and my sword is Grunter,’ said the next man, so stooping and round-shouldered that he almost looked deformed.

  Wolf said, ‘Nithing is a strange name, man. It is only given to one who has broken the law and whose life is any man’s to take.’

  Thorkell looked at him searchingly. ‘What did you do, Nithing?’ he asked sternly. ‘No outlaw can sail with me.’

  The Finn looked piteously at Thorkell. ‘Master,’ he stammered, ‘I killed a man. Only that.’

  ‘Only that!’ echoed Thorkell, gazing at the Finn’s bent back and stooping posture. ‘What was he, a straw man in the spring festival?’

  The villagers began to laugh and the Finn’s face went red. He stammered and could not answer. His coarse hands trembled as he laid them on the table.

  ‘Come man, speak up,’ said Wolf, half jeering.

  Then the man behind the Finn pushed forward. In height and breadth he was the biggest man the village had ever seen. His harsh black hair hung down unkempt beneath his iron, horned helmet. About his massive chest he wore an untanned bearskin, pulled in to his thick waist with a length of rawhide. A double-bladed axe swung down to the ground from the strap.

  ‘The Nithing asks for work,’ he said to Thorkell, without any sign of respect. ‘He does not ask to be tried by the folk-meeting here. He killed a man who had killed his brother. But that man was a king in Finland, and so Gnorre became a Nithing. I would have killed him. Would not you?’ He fixed his red-rimmed eyes on Wolf and his great black beard jutted out towards Thorkell’s henchman.

  There were many about the table at that moment who edged away a little and took a firmer grip on their weapons, for it was at such moments as these that a deadly fight might begin.

  Wolf scratched the side of his nose calmly and came round the table. He stood within an axe-stroke of the great man and said pleasantly, ‘It is peaceful up there in the woods, among the trees. Here a man can hardly move for folk. And always there are women under his feet screaming that he will wake the baby.’

  The big man smiled back grimly and said, ‘I am of the woods. I get my clothes from the woods as you see. I am at home there. I know nothing of women and babies, but I will go with you to the woods.’

  Now all about the table sucked in their breath for they knew what these calm words meant. Only Thorkell seemed unmoved. He said, ‘Who are you to come here boasting of your prowess over bears? We have each killed a bear and do not go about parading his skin like a young man who is anxious for the girls to think him brave.’

  The big man stopped smiling and said, ‘I wish to call you Master, or I should answer you another way. I am Aun Doorback and this is Peacegiver.’ He rattled the great axe on the tabletop. ‘I speak now for Gnorre Nithing because he is not a man to speak for himself. He is a warrior and a Viking, not a talker about firesides.’

  Thorkell smiled up at him gently, ‘What right have you to speak for another man, Aun Doorback?’ he said.

  ‘The best right of all, Master Goldhair,’ said Aun. ‘It was my brother that Gnorre killed.’

  There was a murmur among the villagers.

  ‘Did you not wish to kill Gnorre, then?’ asked Thorkell.

  ‘No, Master,’ said Aun. ‘If Gnorre had not killed him, I should have done, for my brother was an evil man.’

  ‘Should you not be king in his place, then?’ asked Thorkell.
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br />   Aun said, ‘Yes, but when the folk-meeting judged Gnorre to be an outlaw, I could not stay and rule such a stupid people. I chose to go with Gnorre and keep men from striking him down unjustly.’

  Thorkell said, ‘Take you two pairs of bones, Aun. One for yourself and one for Gnorre. You may be a good man.’

  But Aun would not go from the table. He turned now to Wolf. ‘Have we a debt to settle?’ he said.

  Wolf said, ‘Let me feel the weight of your axe.’

  He took the great weapon and made the motion of raising it. The veins in his arms stood out and his face was red. He smiled ruefully and said, ‘I pity the bear on whose skull that falls.’

  He handed back the great axe.

  ‘I will fight you with knives or not at all,’ he said.

  Aun burst into a great laugh and said, ‘I have never used a knife but to cut my meat. I should not be able to do more than scratch at you.’

  Wolf said, ‘That would suit me, friend! As for me, I should burst a blood vessel if I swung an axe big enough to match that tree trunk.’

  They looked long at each other. Then Aun held out his hand and said, ‘You are too brave a man to feed the ravens. I will not send you to your death, Redhead.’

  Wolf took his hand and said, ‘It would be a pity to spoil such a great mound of a man with my wicked little knife.’

  Thus they were friends and Wolf went back behind the table, while Aun and Gnorre drew to one side to let the next man come forward.