by Peter Fox
‘What now?’ Rathulf said impatiently, irked that his friend just wouldn’t leave him alone.
‘I… I found something,’ Alrik said, his voice uncertain. ‘I thought you might like to see it, but I can come back later.’ He started to back out.
Rathulf took an involuntary breath when Alrik said those words, then he realised that Alrik had not found the trunk, but something else. ‘What is it?’ Rathulf asked, aware that his friend was only trying to help.
‘I know it’s not what we’re looking for,’ Alrik said, tentatively approaching him and holding out his hands, ‘and a little bit got cracked, see, but I think it’s still in one piece, and it’s one of your, you know, special things.’
He handed the object to Rathulf. It was the carved ivory box that had been a gift from Sigvald and that had held all his precious little belongings. Nothing of real value in a material sense, just small items important to him alone: a silver coin from Byzantium; a piece of amber with a perfectly preserved insect locked within its golden clutches; a small ivory figurine from the land of his birth, its hand broken off at some distant time in the past; and most precious of all, a single glass bead from a necklace Tegen had used to wear, and that Rathulf had played with as a child when she had held him in her arms. He felt a sob rise in his throat, but he forced it down again and blinked away the tears.
‘Thanks,’ he said gruffly, taking the box. He looked up at Alrik, who was smiling at him, but there was no hint of mockery in his eyes.
‘I know what it’s like to not have a mother, remember,’ Alrik said wistfully. ‘You and I are alike in that regard, although,’ he said, his grin broadening, ‘we’re luckier than most because we have Helga the mountain troll to look out for us.’ He grew serious. ‘Of course, your real mum mightn’t actually be dead, which has to be another good reason to go back there.’
Rathulf saw the sadness in Alrik’s eyes, knowing how keenly his friend had felt the loss of his own mother when she had been snatched away by the awful shuddering sickness that had swept through the fjordland settlements when they were still young boys. Alrik had never really gotten over it, and nor had his younger brother or their father. Bardi still refused to take another wife because the pain of her loss remained as equally acute as his son’s.
Seeing his friend’s frown, Alrik mistook the reason behind Rathulf’s reaction. ‘You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,’ he said, ‘and Thorvald doesn’t mean that stuff, you know. He’s angry because he thinks he won’t walk again. He also feels guilty about what’s happened to you, and he takes it out on you because you’re his son. Fathers do that,’ he added with a wry smile, ‘but if you really want to know what’s bugging him, it’s that you’ve found out about Dornamuna and he’s really scared that he’ll be left behind, especially now that he’s a cripple. I mean, we got him here, didn’t we? I don’t see why it’d be any different going south. He can still come with us, yeah? He’s still your father after all. Well, adoptive father, I guess, but at least he’s alive.’ Alrik stopped then, no doubt thinking he probably wasn’t helping.
Rathulf just looked at him, not really knowing what to say.
Alrik’s face brightened, and he gave Ra a friendly cuff on the arm. ‘He’ll walk again, you’ll see, and we’ll find your trunk, even if we have to take the whole place apart. And even if we don’t find it, we have our own longship, remember, so we can still sail south and reclaim your kingdom.’ His eyes lit up at that thought. ‘But only if you want to of course,’ he added in a rush, seeing Rathulf’s raised eyebrows.
‘Right,’ Rathulf said, amused. ‘I can see it now, you and me standing facing an angry host of Britons yelling for our blood. You throwing up your breakfast and me pissing my pants. A fine return that’ll be.’
Alrik laughed at him. ‘Who cares, Ra? I’m best friends with a king!’
With that, he splashed back out of the boathouse to return to his work party.
Rathulf looked down at the little box and sniffed away a tear. How was it that Alrik could be so insensitive most of the time, but when it really mattered, he knew exactly what to say?
‘Hey Alrik, wait for me.’
Rathulf got up and hurried after his friend. Alrik stood on the shore, his eyes bright with anticipation.
Rathulf rubbed his sleeve across his face and smiled at the young Norseman. ‘I really have to stop all this crying,’ he said sheepishly. ‘I’m not much of a Viking. Maybe it’s a good thing I’m not going to be one.’
Alrik shrugged in sympathy. ‘I can’t talk. I’m not going to be much use to you if I fall down blubbing every time I get a cut.’ He lifted his slung arm to emphasise his point. ‘I can’t believe how much this hurt – still hurts – and it’s really nothing. What’s it going to be like if – when – we get into a real fight? I’ll become known as Alrik Wet-cheeks or worse!’
Rathulf could see that his friend was genuinely troubled by his apparent unmanliness but couldn’t help but smile. ‘I was thinking Alrik Piss-pants.’
Alrik gave him a scathing look. ‘I’m serious Rathulf. I’m really scared of going into battle now, thanks to you.’
‘Well that makes two of us,’ Rathulf said, not the least bit flippantly. ‘So let’s find this bloody thing and get it over with. I’m sick of worrying about what will happen when I finally open it. Sometimes I think a monster will spring from it and tear out my heart.’
Alrik laughed and shook his head. ‘You’re really weird, you know that?’
Rathulf spent the next two days with Alrik and Ingrith, rummaging through the remains of the house and immediate surroundings, but despite their best efforts, all they came up with were the usual household goods, most of which were broken beyond repair. Nowhere had anyone found anything like a trunk. A few things had survived, however, and these Ingrith and Alrik carefully packed away on the Wave Skimmer for later return.
‘Well,’ the jarl said that night as they sat around the fire, ‘I think we can safely say we’ve now turned over every stone, every clod of turf, every piece of wood there is to turn.’ The big man spread his hands in resignation. ‘It’s just not here.’
‘It has to be,’ Alrik objected. ‘Thorvald was certain he left it in the byre.’ He looked to the farmer for confirmation, but Thorvald was lost in his private world of grief.
‘Then again, the one you threw overboard could really have been Rathulf’s,’ Sigvald remarked.
‘No way,’ Alrik replied defensively.
‘So what now?’ Bardi asked.
‘I’m going back,’ Rathulf said, ‘whether or not we find it.’
They all turned to him, surprised by his matter-of-fact tone.
‘You’re really starting to confuse me,’ Sigvald said. ‘Yesterday you were saying the opposite.’
Rathulf shrugged. ‘I’m still not sure myself,’ he said, ‘but I need to go there, only not straight away, and not with some big war host. I want to see what it’s like first.’ And I don’t want all of you there to watch me fall on my face or see my disappointment, he thought to himself, for in truth I’m terrified at the thought of it.
‘I agree,’ Helga said quickly before her husband could object, ‘and you have an important rite coming up soon, one that you should complete.’
‘The Leap?’ Thorvald exclaimed, breaking into the conversation. ‘What is the point of him doing that? He’s a British prince, Helga. He’s leaving, so why are you all persisting with this foolishness?’
‘Because it’s what Rathulf needs,’ Helga said gently. ‘It may be his destiny to return to Dumnonia, but this is where he grew up, and as such it will always be his home; Ra has said so himself. You are part of that, Thorvald; you, Aurlandsfjorden, and indeed all that makes up your son’s life here. Without it, Rathulf has no foundation. We’ve had the honour of providing him with that base, but all fledglings must one day spread their wings and fly from the nest, and Rathulf’s time has come. Are those not the very terms of your blood pact? You need
to let him go, Thorvald.’
The farmer looked at Helga for a long time. Rathulf held his breath as he waited for his father’s reply.
‘I can’t walk,’ Thorvald said finally, as much to himself as Helga. He frowned at her, as if he was expecting her to deny it, then he turned to his son and shook his head at him, his expression helpless and vulnerable. ‘I can’t walk,’ he repeated, and Rathulf saw that the Norseman was close to tears. Suddenly he realised that he was looking at himself: a frightened little boy soon to be abandoned to an unknown fate, and in that moment of clarity, Rathulf finally found understanding of his place and his path.
He knelt down before Thorvald and took the farmer’s frail hands in his own. ‘Father,’ he said, speaking quickly lest he lose his nerve, ‘I know that you are frightened, that you don’t know what will happen now that you have been crippled.’ He winced, wondering if he was being too blunt, ‘but I’m just as scared as you, and I’d much rather none of this had happened. Sigvald is right. I don’t really want to go at all, but I have to see my birthplace, and who says you can’t come with us? We got you here didn’t we?’ He glanced at Alrik, who was smiling at him.
‘And why are you all assuming I’ll stay in Dumnonia? If things really are as bad as Sigvald says, then we’d be better off here, wouldn’t we? Who wants all that responsibility anyway? Here in Norvegr, we can be whoever we want to be. Here, we’re all kings! That’s why I want to build a new house here father. Because I will come back. You’ll have more mouths to feed of course, and whether you like it or not, we are going to have a slave or two to help around the place, and who knows how many members of my family will want to come back with us as well? And we’ll have a proper byre that doesn’t leak every winter so we have to share the house with our flock.’
As he was saying it, Rathulf realised he meant every word, from the bottom of his heart. Yes, I want to see my birthplace – more than anything in the world, more even than Konstantinoupolis – but this is my home, here amid the majestic fjords and mountains of the north.
Thorvald actually managed a smile. Not a broad grin by any means, but there was a distinct upwards curve to his mouth. He sniffed and wiped a tear that had managed to escape from his eye. ‘What about the fire-hall?’ he said.
Rathulf shrugged. ‘We’ll have one of those too. A really big one of course, as befits a king and his princely kinsmen.’ He winked at Alrik. ‘So we will rebuild the house, I’ll take the Leap, then we all sail to Dumnonia to have a look.’ He grinned at the thought of it. ‘They’re going to get a bloody big shock when a shipload of Vikings turn up at their door. Knowing my luck, they’ll stick a spear through me before they realise who I am.’
‘Nah, that’s Ingrith’s job,’ Alrik said, laughing, and everyone joined in. Alrik’s expression changed, and he let out a sigh. ‘It’s a shame about the trunk though,’ he said, not quite able to let the thing go. ‘It would have been so much better if you had the stuff that proves who you are.’
Rathulf shrugged. ‘Well it’s gone now,’ he said, ‘and with all the ill luck it’s brought us, I’m glad it’s well out of our reach.’
✽ ✽ ✽
A cave in the high shielings above Horiksby,
Lustrafjorden, Norvegr
Leif slowly opened his eyes and stole one last look at the treasures that lay before him in the wooden chest, then he took a deep breath and closed the lid. He glanced down at the iron padlock and felt a pang of guilt as he slipped it back on the latch and pushed it shut. With a sigh he took the greasy leather pigskin down from the shelf and proceeded to wrap it around the box, pausing for a moment before once again covering the two wolves carved in its top. When he’d finished wrapping the trunk, he fastened the old leather belt around it, then he twisted around in the small space and hoisted the heavy box up onto the ledge at the back of the cave.
It had been an incredibly risky journey to take so soon after retrieving the thing, not so much for the perils presented by the weather and the hungry beasts of the night, but principally his father, who would doubtless find some new and wicked punishment for Leif’s unexplained absence. But Leif simply had to prove to himself that he was not delusional, that this really was the fabled treasure they had been hiding from Rathulf all these years, and that Leif had actually been back to Thorvaldsby and not dreamt this whole episode up as part of some despair-driven fantasy. How many times had he retreated into his inner world of dream and make-believe to escape the horrific reality of his existence? He often found it difficult to work out what was tangible and what was made up, for the life he led at Horiksby surely could not be real?
So it was that just three days ago that one of Eirik’s men, Snorri Egilsson, had stepped ashore bearing the astonishing revelation that Alrik had not in fact lost the trunk as had originally been thought, and that a concerted effort was now being mounted to find it.
Leif’s immediate reaction was a deep-seated panic that caught in his throat and emerged from his mouth as a guttural cry. His reaction had surprised Snorri, but Horik and the others had all laughed and mocked Leif, misunderstanding the boy’s response. Leif quickly gathered his wits, reminding himself that he already had it and that the news bore no impact on him or his plans. Let them search for they will not find it, he told himself. His confidence waned, however, and doubt quickly began to gnaw at him. What if I have imagined all this? The actuality was so implausible that it was highly likely he had made it all up in his mind: that complicated and improbable sequence of events which would ultimately lead to his triumphant arrival at Rathulf’s coming-of-age celebration bearing the most precious gift of all. Perhaps the avalanche was also a figment of his imagination; in Leif’s daily world of beatings, sickness and pain, everything was becoming a muddle of the likely and the unlikely, the real and the imagined. So he had waited for an opportune moment to slip away, sneaking out of the house before dawn whilst his father lay slumped in a drunken stupor and Leif still had the courage to act.
He took a long, wavering breath then turned back to the fire. His heart pounded in his chest and his throat felt dry, despite the cold, damp conditions of his little haven. Never had he seen such incredible riches so close to hand, and the sword! Sweet Baldur, what he would do to wear as fine a weapon as that! He closed his eyes, imagining himself dressed in a full-length maroon tunic, the ivory-hilted blade at his hip, jewelled circlet on his head and the golden wolves proudly charging across his breast. A shiver ran through Leif at the thought of it, and he let out a small sigh of delight. Leif, of course, had no idea as to Rathulf’s true identity, but it was clear from the contents of this box that whoever had owned these things before Rathulf had been more powerful and wealthy than any man he knew in Norvegr, Eirik included.
A blast of icy wind blew in through the entrance, and he drew his woollen cloak more tightly around his shoulders. It offered scant comfort in the frigid air, and the small fire at his feet filled the confined space with eye-watering smoke, but without it, Leif would have frozen to death. His cave was a small space, made when a squared-off lump of rock had fallen out of the cliff at some time in the distant past. Its edges and angles were all so sharp and neat that Leif liked to believe the little space had been fashioned by the Gods just for him, making a cosy enclosure which was surprisingly weather-proof despite its exposed entrance. It was large enough for him to stretch full out if he lay at an angle, and right up at the back in the most sheltered corner was a generously-sized shelf, on which he kept a blanket, some spare food, fuel, and a few of his most precious things.
He’d have to leave soon. Here on the high shielings snow still lay deep on the ground, and a cutting wind had picked up during the day. Leif held his hands up and blew into his palms in a vain effort to warm his face. When that failed, he stretched his fingers over the smouldering peat, trying to draw the heat into his numb body. His skis and snowshoes lay on the cold stone beside him, their bindings oiled and ready for use, but Leif let them be, reluctant yet to leave hi
s sanctuary.
He had been away for too long for his own wellbeing – he knew that – and the growing cold probably heralded the onset of fresh snow; another reason to leave. He reached into his pack and drew out another lump of peat, stolen from his father of course. He hesitated before dropping it onto the fire, knowing that he could ill-afford to use it. His precious supply of fuel would soon be exhausted.
He glanced behind him again to the ledge at the back of the cave, wondering what he should do. Looking back upon the day of the avalanche, it was clear that the Gods had sent him to Rathulf’s to rescue his friend, but why find the trunk? If they had wanted the trunk destroyed, why not leave it where it was? Why send me all the way over there to find it? Leif had asked himself that question repeatedly, and at first, had presumed that for whatever reason the Gods had wanted him to be the one to give it to Rathulf. Then, as he had sat with the heavy sword lying across his legs, Leif had begun to wonder whether there might be an alternative explanation for the strange course of events: perhaps the trunk was not meant for Rathulf at all. Perhaps the Gods had intended it for Leif himself.
With all that wealth at my disposal, he had told himself, I will be able to get away from my father. Had not Rathulf himself been telling me to do it? Now I have the means. I’ll take a selection of things of least value to Ra; some of the coins, a couple of arm rings, and perhaps the dagger and the little wolven ring. The sword and the banner are obviously important so should be left behind. I can then return to Thorvaldsby and hide the trunk somewhere in the wreckage where it will be found. I’ll smash it up of course and scatter the contents so that no one will be suspicious. Then I can leave at last, free to go wherever I please.
He had chastised himself for daring to consider such a deceitful strategy and told himself that he should carry out his initial plan: collect the chest and press on to Sigvaldsby while the weather held out. But he had again opened the box, and in so doing had encouraged an even more daring scheme to enter his mind. If Ra had been a baby when found by Thorvald, then no one in his homeland will know what he looks like now… Leif had laughed at himself when he had first thought of it; he didn’t even know where Rathulf came from, let alone possess the wherewithal to get there. And what will I do when I arrive? Did Ra’s people speak Norse, or were they like the poor thrall and speak a completely different tongue? But over the time that he had remained in his little cave, increasingly Leif’s mind had returned to this most audacious of plans, no matter how impossible it might seem today. I have the means to my freedom now, he told himself. Rathulf does not need it. I do. A fitting reward for saving his life.
