The Viking Saga

by Henry Treece

  At length Rolf Wryneck called out to Harald, telling him to come and try his hand at steering. The boy forgot his lingering sadness, in face of this high honour, and moved over the gently swaying deck. As he passed along the shipside, the men he knew called out to him, smiling and patting him on the back, to keep his courage up. Aun Doorback pulled him aside and said, ‘Your father is a fine man, lad. And with strong arms like these of yours, you will do him justice on this voyage.’

  Harald went on along the deck feeling pleased at the big man’s words. Rolf Wryneck said, ‘Watch me for a few minutes, lad, and then see how you can hold her.’

  Harald did as he was told, and then took the long horn-shaped haft. The ship was now his, his to command and steer. He felt the steerboard shudder, then pull away from him, and, when he had used all his strength on the haft, felt it strike a course and hold it. He had the illusion that the ship was a living thing, like a horse, and that for a moment he had mastered it. Rolf was watching him, a bright light in his eyes. He smiled to see Harald’s new confidence and said, ‘Ships be like any other creature. Show them who is master and they will obey; but once let them have the upper hand and they will run wild and break their backs in rebellion.’

  Thorkell had watched all this, and laughed to hear Rolf’s words.

  ‘Does she ride well, you old gossip?’ he asked Rolf.

  Rolf shook his head, in his strange twisted way, and grinned, ‘Aye, Master,’ he said. ‘She rides smoother than any ship I have ever held except the Gullchaser that I made my first voyage in.’

  Thorkell saw the reminiscent gleam in the man’s eye. ‘What became of her?’ he asked.

  Harald saw that Rolf’s eyes were wet now. ‘She tried to leap a rock off the Northumbrian coast, Master,’ he said. ‘I was the only one to come away from her, and sometimes I wish I had stayed with my fellows. I have this twisted neck to remember that rock by. Some say I broke it that day, and that it never set right.’

  ‘Odin is keeping you for greater things,’ said Thorkell. Suddenly Harald felt his tongue unlocked and he dared to speak. ‘Shipmaster,’ he said, ‘there is something which weighs on my mind. I would tell you of it.’

  Thorkell smiled down at him. ‘If you wish to ask for Rolf’s job, save yourself the trouble. Rolf steers very well for my purposes.’ Harald would not be put off now by such jesting. ‘Shipmaster,’ he said, ‘I fear there is treachery aboard, to rob us of the Nameless. I heard men talking in the woods. Ragnar’s men.’

  Thorkell’s eyes narrowed and his lean jaws twitched. He glanced over his shoulder and then said, almost in a whisper. ‘Tell me no more, boy. A little bird has already whispered to me about something.’

  He saw the boy’s wide-eyed incredulity, and patted him on the arm, saying, ‘When you become a shipmaster, you develop eyes in the back of your head. And even the gulls bring messages to the man who can understand them.’

  Then he went amidships, without another word, leaving Harald staring after him, dumbfounded, and knelt down by Horic, who was sitting away from the other Vikings, looping and unlooping his length of twine and mumbling to himself.

  Harald wondered at this. It seemed that Thorkell wished to speak secretly with the Laplander, for no man could hear the words he spoke. But then Harald saw Horic rise and point back the way they had come, and then nod his head violently at something which Thorkell had said. After that, Thorkell came back and stood near the steerboard, but now with a distant, abstracted air, as though there were weighty things on his mind. He was a man who had more to work out than his years would let him do easily, it seemed. Rolf, who was wise in the ways of men, put his strong sinewy hand on Harald’s arm, and nodded in the direction of their shipmaster, as though to say, ‘Keep out of his way for the moment. Something troubles him, and a man who is troubled in his mind might bite and do hurt without intending it.’ So the boy watched carefully, but did not think to speak with his leader as he had done but a little earlier.

  In fact, none of the men spoke to Thorkell. He stood, chin in hand, his back against the ladder that led up to the platform at the stern of the longship, his eyes dark and foreboding. Even Ragnar, the arrogant Ragnar of but a few hours before, glanced back a time or two, and then decided not to disturb the young warrior’s thoughts.

  At length the afternoon gave place to early evening, and as it was springtime, the dusk came on quite soon afterwards. Now the air became sharper and a salt tang came to the nostrils of the Vikings. The sea was not far away. Now the birds that circled the masthead were not gulls alone, but also those feathered inhabitants of the deep-sea rocks, the cormorant and the shag, flying who knows whither? Carrying the spirits of drowned seamen who knows where? The Vikings looked upwards and shook their heads with foreboding.

  Once a goshawk, from the woods high on the hills that overlooked the widening fjord, poised high above them and seemed to set the pennant of the Nameless in its cruel eye, as though to swoop down. Then it decided that this was not its true prey, and swept away from the scene in a broad swoop of wings, away, away, towards the dusky forests.

  Then Harald noticed something unusual about Thorkell. The young man was listening, listening, not seeing, for sight over any distance was impossible now. It was as though he was listening to the wake that his ship made; listening even beyond that wake; beyond the village from which they had started that day …

  And suddenly he made a sign to Horic, who crouched beside him looking up.

  Harald looked towards Ragnar, almost instinctively. The tall Dane was listening too. His white hands were clenched hard on the gunwale nearest to him, his body was tense. Every muscle in his dark body seemed to be waiting for something.

  The men playing dice or yarning together did not notice these things. They only smelt the salt in the air and heard the different cries of the deep-sea birds. They only heard Thorkell’s voice, a new and urgent voice that they did not know, shout out, ‘Steersman, set course to shore. There we shall spend our first night’s voyaging.’

  Some of the men sighed with relief as the Nameless pulled into the shore and they knew that they would not spend their first night fighting the rolling waves that swung down from Iceland towards the Pillars of Hercules.

  So the longship beached in the dusk, less than five miles from where it was launched. Those who wished slept aboard, for a long tarred cloth was stretched over the centre-posts that stood one on each side of the mast. Those who wished went ashore and slept in their sheepskin bags, under rock or bush. Though they were not allowed to make a fire, by Thorkell’s strict orders; no man knew why.

  That night Thorkell said to Harald, ‘Boy, your father broke a limb serving me. Under our law I am now your father, being your accepted leader. That is my obligation. Until you can fend for yourself, you are my son. You will sleep near me and do as I say.’

  Harald secretly laughed at the idea of having a father so young as Thorkell; yet in his innermost heart he was proud that this warrior should take him as son. He bowed his head in acknowledgement and got into his sleeping bag at Thorkell’s feet.

  Then Harald fell fast asleep, without another thought of the ship, or the voyage, or Thorkell, or Ragnar, or Horic – or even of his dear father, five miles along that same shore, lying in the hut of the kindly headman, Thorn.

  When he woke, a chill air blew about him. Even the woods above him were still, as though the birds were not yet sure of themselves. He looked across at Thorkell, who was awake and staring out towards the fjord. Harald followed his gaze and saw that the waters were now leaden, and still ruffled, as though a great storm had swept them in the night and had not yet died down

  Thorkell said, ‘Make ready, boy, for I shall not wait long here.’

  Then Harald went aboard again, but noticed that Thorkell was walking with Horic, and that Ragnar was behind them, pulling at his beard with anger.

  The longship sailed again before the Vikings had fed. They ate what they could aboard as the dawn came slowly across
the sky behind them. Some ate of oatmeal, soaked in fresh water, others of barley bread, and yet others, the hardiest of the voyagers, of dried fish. This was a meal to turn the squeamish stomach, for the herring were strong in smell and taste, and might not be enjoyed by any but the toughened traveller.

  Soon the Nameless began to rock. Harald looked ahead and saw great foam-headed breakers. They were approaching the sea – that vast world which the poets had called ‘the gulls’ way,’ ‘the whales’ way,’ ‘the track of the dolphin,’ and other fanciful titles. To Harald it was something new and different and frightening. A young Viking among Vikings, he was, in his heart, afraid. Though he would have lost an ear rather than admit it. The sea was before him. The deep, salt sea!

  Now the sailors put out their oars and helped the sail to do its work, and Harald heard many words spoken that he had not heard before, for these men knew what it was to fight an incoming tide. They knew how a tide will first warm, then blister, then crack the skin of their hands; will bend the back and then bring it nigh unto breaking. These were old Vikings, who knew the sea as a friend, and enemy, a grave.

  Then at last, when the ship was moving smoothly again and the breakers were less noticeable, Harald looked back and saw the rocky headlands and the high forests only distantly. He knew that they were now truly a-voyaging!

  Some of the men had gone back to sleep, even the oarsmen, their blades pulled up and safe against the rollers. Even Ragnar, at the bow, resting his great dark head down on the gunwale …

  Then Harald woke with a start. Thorkell’s voice said, ‘Care, take care to steerboard, watch for the wreck!’

  All men looked where he pointed. On the surging waves rested the remains of a longship. She rolled carelessly with the tide, a neglected thing, her bright planks ignored by all but the seabirds that already sat upon her, gossiping. What had been her sail, a white sail marked with a black raven, floated in bellying ripples about her. Her oars jostled each other about her sides, for she lay turtle-wise, her loose keel uppermost.

  A great gasp ran along the Nameless. This was the end all sailormen feared – dreamed of, and feared. Now men clustered along the gunwales to see what there was to see.

  A covey of gulls swung about and about the wrecked longship.

  ‘Something must be living here,’ said Björn, who knew every mood of the sea and of its birds.

  Thorkell said, ‘Head towards the wreck, Rolf.’

  The Nameless shuddered like a shot goose as she turned her golden prow to where the seabirds were quarrelling.

  Aun said, ‘Odin save us from such an end, Gnorre.’

  Gnorre hung on his oar and did not speak.

  Harald, curious, thought he saw a hand raised, and dark hair floating with the tide. For some nights after, he even thought he heard a hoarse voice screaming for help. But he was not sure. All he knew was that Thorkell shouted, ‘Ease away, Rolf. A Viking clings to the spars. Alongside and get him aboard.’

  Then Harald saw Ragnar unhook the long seal-spike that hung beside him at the forward end, and lean over the bows, looking intently into the sea.

  Gnorre, who stood as he rowed, said, ‘He means to save the man.’

  Aun, standing beside him, said, ‘Who knows?’

  Then the Nameless swept past the wreckage and Ragnar turned back with a shrug of the shoulders, and a grim smile towards Thorkell.

  Harald ran to the steerboard side but could see no man. ‘Hold course,’ called Thorkell, with a sigh.

  Horic whispered to himself, but every man near him heard, ‘Look, there is blood upon the point of Ragnar’s seal-spike.’

  When the Vikings turned to look, Ragnar took the long harpoon and held it in the sea, so that the running waves covered it.

  ‘I have known men take a fish or two this way,’ he said with a smile, to the oarsman who sat nearest him.

  Wolf Waterhater, his red hair wet with sweat, did not smile back at him.

  7

  The Gulls’ Way

  From the day when the Nameless had run upon the wreckage, many of the Vikings hated Ragnar. For, like all true seamen, the voyagers both loved and hated the sea, but above all regarded her as a constant danger; and they felt bound in a strange way to give aid to all who suffered by the sea, even though the sufferers were men whose ships they had themselves wrecked in a sea-fight. Against the merciless waves, all Vikings were brothers, save in the most extreme cases when, by giving help to the wrecked, they might endanger the safety of their own longship.

  Yet, among all voyagers there were those with the hearts of wolves, who gave no quarter to any man. These were the fierce brutes who sailed down upon holy places and burned and pillaged without compassion. Ragnar was such a man.

  But as the Nameless pushed on across the northern sea, the Vikings had other things to occupy their minds. When they had muttered to each other for a while, they forgot the wreck and turned to their task of bracing the sail, or rowing when the winds lagged. Once they had to take buckets and bail feverishly when they struck a patch of water that rose above them like the foothills above the village they had left. Harald, seeing the great waters rising high above him, wanted to cry out in fear, for it seemed that they would topple down upon the frail shell in which he sailed, to crush everything into oblivion. He could not see how any craft might survive such a smashing blow. But though he was terrified, there was nowhere he might run, to escape the fury of the salt waters. He stood rooted and would undoubtedly have been swept overboard had not Gnorre pushed a rope into his hands and yelled in his ear, ‘Grasp this for your life! The sea does not play bower-games!’ Harald saw that all the others were clutching tight to anything that might be at hand. Even proud Ragnar held the ladder near the forward platform, his head bent as though he wished to evade the full force of the blow.

  Then the green mountain of water crashed down upon them and for a while Harald only knew that a rushing, roaring nightmare had enveloped him. He heard nothing but the sound of great waters; he tasted nothing but bitter brine; and he was drenched through and through, as though the sea had penetrated to his innermost heart.

  At last he shook the water from his eyes and ears and was able to look about him. The oarsmen were lying sprawled in the lee of their sea chests. Only Thorkell and Rolf stood erect, and both were smiling. It was that strange smile which put new heart into Harald, and he tried to smile too. Thorkell saw the boy’s grin and beckoned him to come aft. ‘That was but the pat of a bear-cub,’ he said to the boy. ‘When we face the big seas beyond the islands, you will feel the weight of the grown bear’s paw!’

  Now the sun came out and the Nameless ran into clearer waters. The men took off their leather tunics and rubbed each others’ backs with rough cloths, to get warmth into their bodies again. It was then that Harald saw Aun’s back for the first time without its rough covering of bear-hide. It seemed to the boy that the breadth of his back was almost as great as the span of a child’s arms, held outstretched. But what most interested Harald was the great blue dragon that was tattooed there, its head between his shoulder blades, its tail disappearing somewhere into the rough leathern breeches that he wore.

  It was with something of a shock that Harald saw Gnorre’s back, for it was so thin and bunched, and worse still, it was covered with white weals, criss-crossed in many directions, the marks of a vicious whip. It seemed that Gnorre Nithing had not escaped unhurt from the land where he had killed a man. Harald felt very sorry for him, but wondered how such a man could possibly be the warrior men thought. For Harald had little experience of men and expected all fighting men to be cast in the same mould, that of a godlike hero, a Thorkell, or even a Ragnar.

  Later, when the shipmaster had sanctioned an issue of the warming corn-wine that was kept in stone bottles under the planking amidships, the Vikings let the mainsail do all the work, while they sat round in the sun, talking and singing. Rolf sang a song which they all seemed to know, for they joined in the chorus, thumping out the rhythm with t
heir fists on the planks beside them. To Harald it was all new and he listened, wide-eyed, his mouth half-open, to the tale it told.

  It was the story of a hunter who slept in a cave one winter’s night, warm and contented, only to find in the morning that the heap of skins on which he had rested was a sleeping bear, drowsy with hibernation. When the song came to the point where the hunter put out his hand and felt the animal’s wet muzzle, Harald gave a little gasp, and Wolf Waterhater slapped him on the back and said that he had once done the same, only the creature turned out to be a whale. Harald told him not to be so stupid, for whales didn’t live in caves. Wolf said quite solemnly, ‘Oh, this was a cave under the sea. As a matter of fact, it upset me so much that I have avoided water ever since.’

  The rough men about Harald laughed at the lad’s expression, for although he had been taken in by Wolf’s serious expression at first, he knew that he was being teased and felt angry that Wolf should imagine he would believe such nonsense.

  Then Wolf pretended that Harald meant to strike him, so still sitting, he clasped the lad round the waist and began to wrestle with him. Then, when he had tired of this, Wolf slung the lad over to Aun, who ruffled his hair and poked him in the ribs playfully – though hard enough to make Harald gasp – and so passed him round to Gnorre, who let him get up after giving him a slap. Yet it was all done with good humour, and Harald’s expression of annoyance at Wolf’s yarn had soon passed away.

  Horic, who had watched the horseplay, said solemnly, ‘That is good advice, Harald. When you are angry, go and wrestle with your friends. It will bring smiles back to your heart and you will forget your anger.’

  Aun said, ‘What do you know of wrestling, little monkey?’ He looked so fierce as he spoke that Harald thought a quarrel was about to begin, but the others laughed. Then Horic, still smiling, leaned over and grasped Aun’s thick wrist and slowly twisted it until the great man lay face downwards on the boards. And when Aun had beaten with his other hand three times, to signify that he would give in, Horic let him rise again, rubbing his wrist as though it hurt, but smiling now.