by Henry Treece
‘You see,’ said Horic, ‘Aun was angry. Now he is glad.’
‘Yes, glad you let me get up again,’ said Aun. ‘But never fear, monkey, I will get the better of you one day.’
‘Perhaps when I am asleep,’ said Horic. ‘Or better still, when you are asleep, and dreaming!’
It was during these early days of the voyage that Harald learned of the many proverbs with which Norsemen sprinkled their talk. One of them that stuck in his mind went: ‘Praise no day till evening, no sword until tested, no ice until crossed, and no ale until it has been drunk.’ This was a saying which reflected the Viking’s cautious approach to many things in life. Yet there was another side to the Norse character that was also shown in the tales they told each other. It was a love of exaggeration that made them roar with laughter when it figured in a tale they were listening to.
For instance, there was the story of the brothers, to whom bad news was brought; one of them grasped his spear-shaft so tightly that the imprint of his fingers bit deep into the hard wood; another was playing chess, and crumbled the ivory chessman to pieces as he gripped it; the third was cutting his fingernails and sliced his finger down to the bone without noticing it, such was his rage.
As these tales were told, the men of the Nameless howled with glee at each succeeding exaggeration, and even vied with each other to make up still more impossible incidents.
Yet, despite this fanciful yarning, when it came to their own experiences, they were tight-lipped and dour, for to be called a boaster was considered worse than being called a thief. To be called a murderer, of course, meant hardly anything at all, since it depended on whether the man one had murdered had a weapon in his hand. If he had, then no man thought more of the incident.
Harald learned much about his fellow Northmen in the three days they spent in crossing the northern sea. But he learned little more of Ragnar, or even of Thorkell, for now they kept themselves away from the others and spent much time under the platform aft, talking quietly.
Björn said to Hasting, ‘Yon Thorkell must make the best of a bad bargain, I fear.’
Hasting replied with a wry smile, ‘I think he has bitten off more than he can chew, bringing Ragnar aboard.’
But Kragge, who was passing at the time, stopped and looked down on them sourly. ‘Let not your tongues wag too fast, my friends,’ he said. ‘This Ragnar may well be a better man to follow than Thorkell. I have watched him closely these two days and he seems to be a man’s man, even if a maid may not like his face so well as the golden-haired lad’s.’
Björn, who respected Thorkell and hated Ragnar, said, ‘You are a fool, Kragge. Are there any more fools aboard this ship like you?’
Kragge made a gesture of the thumb behind him. ‘Gryffi and Ivar, and a dozen others, think the same,’ he said. ‘We are not voyaging for our health, my friend. We come for treasure, and we count that leader a good one who takes us to where treasure may be found.’
Björn looked back at him with dislike, but said, ‘How do you know that this Ragnar will lead you to treasure?’
Kragge said, ‘I know the sort of man he is. I was farthest forward when he took the seal-spike and rode beside the wreck. There was a man there, clinging to a spar. And that man knew Ragnar, for I heard him call on him by name. You others could not hear that for the pounding of the waters on the ship’s sides. But I heard it. And I saw what Ragnar did with the harpoon he held.’
Hasting said, ‘Go back to your friends, Kragge, for you are a fool to follow such a man.’
But Kragge said, ‘And you are a child, Hasting, not to see that this Ragnar, being so ruthless, is such a leader as would stop at nothing once his mind was set towards a thing. He is the man to bring us to our hearts’ desire. He is a man to be followed.’
‘Aye, and feared,’ said Björn, turning his head in disgust.
‘Who thinks worse of a man for that?’ said Kragge. ‘That is what a leader should be, for if we fear him it means that our enemies must surely fear him more!’
He went back to his fellows at Ragnar’s part of the ship and soon seemed to be telling them what had passed.
Hasting said, ‘I have seen this happen before, and often it means that a ship does not return, for when the crew divide, the ship becomes her own master, and then breaks her sides on the teeth of the rocks.’
Björn said, ‘Perhaps it is not as bad as we think. Perhaps we shall become a crew again when we sight land. It is this sea-crossing that upsets a man’s mind. It comes hard, even to a Viking, after a winter spent on the sheepskins by a hall fire.’
Harald was lying close to them when this happened, his head pillowed on a coil of rope. He heard it all without meaning to. When the men had finished speaking he went to Björn and told him that he had heard. ‘Well, then, boy, you have heard, that is all,’ said Björn. ‘Which captain would you follow?’
Harald said, ‘I gave my word to Thorkell, and him will I follow through thick and thin, wet and dry, sun and shower.’
Hasting said, ‘You are a true Norseman, lad, like your father, Sigurd. One day, if sea and rock will let you, you will grow to be a Viking.’
Then Aun, who had been sent to act as look-out, called through his cupped hands, ‘Land ahoy! Land on the starboard!’
Harald ran towards Aun and stared in the direction of his pointing finger. A thin blue-grey haze seemed to rest on the surface of the waters, far away. Then it would disappear and Harald would wonder whether his eyes had played him tricks; whether indeed that haze existed at all. Then, when he had rubbed his eyes and had come to the conclusion that he had imagined it all, the haze would appear again, a fine ribbon, as distant and as flimsy as a dream.
Now all the Vikings ran to the starboard side and peered under their hands. They knew what to look for and there was no doubt in their exclamations of surprise and joy.
Thorkell gave the order for all men to eat and drink their fill, for soon they would be able to replenish their stores, and in any case, if there was fighting to be done, it was best that it should be done on a full stomach, provided there was time enough for the meal to be digested, and, from the look of the land, he said, they would not beach for another two hours.
8
The First Prize
It was at this point, when the seamen were sitting on the deck, knife and drinking horn in hand, that Aun shouted out once more.
‘A ship, a ship, lying in our course!’
This time Harald had no difficulty in seeing what had excited the great look-out man. Rising and falling with the surging tides was a small boat that carried a square sail. It was too far distant for him to see more, for the vessel looked no larger than a small seed rocking on the waters.
Now the men of the Nameless flung down their bread and their meat, and drank off their fresh water at a gulp. The deck-boards amidships were raised, the weapons distributed to their owners without delay. Once more Hasting caressed his axe, Dream-maker, and Rolf Wryneck his dagger, Battlefang. Only Horic was without a weapon, and, though he protested, Thorkell made him take a sword out of store, an unnamed rough-cast blade, meant for such an emergency.
‘See that it does such work as to deserve a name tonight,’ joked Wolf Waterhater. But Horic looked utterly lost, holding such a blade.
Now Thorkell became their leader again, wearing such an expression of severity on his youthful face that all men obeyed him without question.
He gathered the men about the platform at the stern, and standing above them told them what they were to do. First, the sail was to be furled and taken down, and they were to row to within a distance such that the other vessel would not see their oars. Then they would pull in the oars and drift, each man hidden under the platforms, or lying close to the ship’s sides, covered by skins or old clothes. On no account was any sound to be made. The Nameless was to appear deserted, as though the crew had abandoned her and she was left derelict.
All save Ragnar warmed to this stratagem. He only spoke up, s
aying, ‘Why do we not sail right in and take her direct, without such mockery of battle?’
Thorkell smiled down on him and said, ‘If this ship comes from the far coast, as I think she does, her shipmaster would see us coming and would turn for his own shore, to reach haven long before we could hope to catch him. Then what sort of welcome would we receive, think you? A hornet’s nest about the ears, and the end of a short voyage for us all!’
Some of the men, including Aun and Hasting, laughed and jeered a little at Ragnar, when this answer was made. But Kragge and Gryffi mumbled and muttered that Ragnar’s was the right way of tackling the problem. At last this whispering faded, however, and all men did as they were bidden.
To Harald, lying half-stifled under a pile of sacking, the waiting was never-ending. He thought that surely night must have fallen before he heard voices, speaking in a language which he did not know. Then he heard Gnorre whisper to Aun, ‘If this should be my day, I will take your greetings to your brother, though we were enemies in life.’ Then he heard Aun say, ‘I send him no greetings, brother. See that you stand back to back with me and we shall live to take a hundred more ships.’
There was a silence then, and Harald found that his teeth were chattering violently. Under the pile of sacking, he clutched tightly at the long spear that Thorkell had given him.
So tightly, in fact, that for a moment he wondered whether his fingers would leave their imprint in its shaft, like the one in the saga he had heard. This made him laugh at himself, and he began to understand how men went ‘berserk’. He had never seen a Berserk, but he had heard many tales of them, for of all the Vikings they were the most respected. They were men who tore off their shirts and ran half-naked into the fray, careless of life, trying to take as many men to Valhalla with them as they could. Strangely enough, they lived to see many battles, most of them, whereas the saner fighters lasted a much shorter time.
As he lay under his sacking, Harald recalled that his father had once said that a good average for any man was a round dozen of battles. After that the chance of survival became gradually smaller and smaller. His father had gone on to say that this didn’t apply to a Berserk, for they were usually so drunk, one way or another, that they fell lightly and seemed to survive where a normal man would have broken his neck. He instanced one case where one Thor Baldhead, a notorious Berserk along the fjords, had fought with great distinction in eighty-five affrays, both great and small, in all places from Orkney to Miklagard. This Thor had once run amok in Frankland and had cut his way thirty yards into a solid phalanx of guards, until he reached the horse on which the King of the Franks sat, petrified. With a last sweep of his axe he had struck off the horse’s head and was then borne down by the spear-points of a dozen guards and left for dead. At dawn the next day, when the old women were searching the field for treasures, one of them had trodden on his finger and wakened him. He jumped up, wounded all over his chest and arms, and they had thought he was a spirit and had run away.
Then Thor found a mail shirt belonging to one of the Frankish king’s guards, and a helmet that one of the Vikings had left lying about, and had walked all the way back to the coast, a distance of twenty miles, unmolested. A month later he was back in Norway, and ready to go a-viking once more. This Thor, said Harald’s father, died at the age of forty-two, a great age for a Viking, from an adder’s bite when he happened to be trespassing in the garden of a Moorish Caliph in Spain. It was a sad end, thought his comrades, for the physician who treated him did not know of the Viking hatred of dying in bed, and so poor Thor died a cow’s death, with two Arab slaves holding him down as he tried to struggle to his feet.
All these things came to young Harald’s mind as he lay under the sacking, listening to the voices of the strangers in their square-sailed boat.
Then he heard the grating of wood on wood, and knew that the ships lay alongside each other. Suddenly a whisper ran through the Nameless … and all men lay tense and sweating, grasping sword or mace or heavy axe.
Then the tumult broke loose; light came upon them all, either because they had flung off their covering, or because the boarding party had dragged the sacking and skins aside.
Now the deck of the Nameless was a swarming mass of men, thrusting and stabbing and slashing at each other.
Harald saw Gryffi go down, a spear through his breast. Then he saw Kragge standing over Ivar, his knife Homegetter darting here and there, and at each thrust drawing a howl or a curse.
Aun and Gnorre were by his side, back to back, scything great swathes of men before them. And now Harald saw that Gnorre was smiling and even singing, a long low rhythmic tune, which Aun caught up in the chorus, so that they both were singing aloud at the end. And at the end of each verse, a man fell, and another verse started.
Once a man fell at Harald’s feet. His face was daubed with a blue paint, and his red hair was tied with bone pins. His eyes rolled horribly up at the boy and he seemed to be trying to get up and thrust with a long sword. Harald gripped his spear-shaft so hard that his hands became quite numb, and for the life of him he could not have stabbed down at his enemy. Then, as a thick haze seemed to drift across his eyes, a sword came out from behind him and the blue-painted man lay still. Harald turned, bewildered, to see Horic’s bland smile. Then the boy realized that each of the Vikings of the Nameless had paired up, and were standing back to back. Horic had silently chosen to be Harald’s war-friend. The boy smiled back, feeling rather sick, and Horic grinned as he kissed the blade of his new sword. ‘This Pict-pricker,’ he said, solemnly.
It was at this stage of the fight that many men heard a curious and monotonous chanting from above. They looked up to see Thorkell, his golden mail-shirt discarded, his wild hair flying about his shoulders, his pale blue eyes full of an empty ecstasy. In his hand the sword whirled so rapidly that the sun seemed to create a new globe of light about him. Harald understood the man’s secret then; he was a Berserk. That was why the others followed him.
Then Harald had his second shock. Ragnar was by Thorkell’s side, stripped to the waist, his black head beside Thorkell’s fair one, his great axe whirling in time with his friend’s sword. And together they sang a song which must have been rehearsed in many such a fray as this, for no syllable fell out of place.
For a while, the fighting below seemed to eddy and still itself. Then, with a frightening scream, the two men leapt down.
Harald closed his eyes, feeling weak at the knees. He was angry with himself at feeling so, and at the same time half ready to call out for his father, as he used to do when a small boy. Then something else came into his heart; a man was but flesh and blood, after all, his brain said. What one can do, another may attempt! And now he stepped forward, his spear-shaft held loosely, his eye on the alert for an enemy.
But he was too late. The fight was over, and the Nameless looked very different from what it had been but four days before. The other vessel had put grappling hooks into the gunwales of the longship and so could not get away easily. What remained of her crew were huddled in the other boat. The Vikings swarmed aboard her, led by Thorkell and Ragnar. Harald and Horic followed close, but Aun and Gnorre stayed aboard their own sea-home, binding each other’s wounds.
In the excitement, Harald had scarcely noticed what manner of men they were fighting. Now it was obvious that they were coastwise Picts of Caledonia, men much like Wolf Waterhater. Harald turned to see that Wolf was still aboard the Nameless, cleaning the points of his mace and affecting not to notice what went on. Then Harald recalled that Wolf too was a Caledonian, and that these were his own people. He could understand why this terrible fighting man did not wish to board the enemy.*
Now all was still. Thorkell, his wet hair swept back, and a shirt flung across his shoulders, was standing to face a group of Caledonians, who clustered about an old man dressed in black robes, and wearing a round hat of catskin.
No one spoke for a while, each trying to break down the pride of the other. Then, at last, t
he old man whispered to a blood-stained warrior who stood beside him, and the man, wiping the drops of sweat from his tired eyes, translated to Thorkell. ‘My master says that he intended no battle to you. He came to take what he thought was an abandoned ship. That is the law of the sea, in all Christendom.’
Thorkell said, ‘We are not Christians, my friend. We are Vikings. But say on. Perhaps you will tell us a story that will make us laugh.’
The man looked put out, but he turned again to his chief, the old man wearing the catskin cap, and listened to his instructions. Then he spoke again, ‘My master says that he has nothing to offer you for the ransom of the crew and the ship, but that he will pray for the success of your enterprise farther north.’
Thorkell said, ‘Thank your master for his prayers, and tell him that we pray to different gods. Tell him that we will be satisfied with his ship and with whatever cargo he carries.’
At this Ragnar smiled in his black beard, and Harald wondered what would come next. Then, to his great surprise, the old man in the catskin cap stepped slightly forward and said, without the aid of an interpreter, in good Norse, ‘Young man, you are a knowing one. I will not try to deceive you further. We are not of the new religion, as you will know. I am a druid.’
He waited, expecting that the Vikings might be impressed. But they were hard men who were not concerned with a man’s religion, but only with their own gain, with fighting, with their own gods, with the nature of sea and herring-shoal. Thorkell said at last. ‘We do not care what you call your gods. We fought you fairly for profit. Now we are entitled to your ship and to whatever she carries. We are also entitled to you – though Odin forbid that any of you scarecrows would interest us. If we were on our way back, well, we might take you with us as a midsummer sacrifice in the forests – but as slaves you would not be worth your carriage and victuals.’
