by Ken Hagan
The long-ship’s oars are drawn out of the water before its slender bows crackle ashore over the shingle. Rope-men, figures small and distant below, hoist the yard to its full height, pulling lines taut, fore and aft on their sail, all to command attention, all for a show of pride. The ship’s canvas, cross-sewn for strength in sea winds, is bleached by salt and sun. On the faded yellow of the sailcloth, daubed with fresh dye, is the emblem of a black raven.
Chapter 2
The long-ship has disgorged its ugly crew, what Ma would call the ‘brawn’ of the harrying trade. Our men from the three families have formed a line along the beach to confront the sea harriers. It’s a moot of sorts, and from the grim looks on faces of both sides it might lead to something worse.
The early exchanges have been dispensed with by the time Helga and I arrive. The newcomers hulk shoulder to shoulder, though with nothing threatening to hand. Each man’s spear, axe or shield has been left on-board, hasped to the gunnels of the ship. Even without weapons they are a menacing sight, bunched mob-handed behind their leader. I count a dozen in warrior kirtles, chain-mail to the knee, helmet in hand. There are bear-shirts and wolflings too, stark naked but for breeches and a hairy pelt of bear or wolf on their backs.
The leather-clad giant of a man standing to the fore of his crew must be Drak. He is known as Black Raven. I have not seen him before, but I have heard of his doings from Einar. He is distantly related to Grey Skar, and so to Helga too. The family connection is Ingrid. Ingrid is a daughter of Drak, one of his many brew scattered over the isles. She is the widow of Skar’s foster son. Helga’s grandpa took in the young mother and her baby after his foster son was murdered. The child-widow — Ingrid can’t be much older than Helga — is part of the Skarsons’ household, but she is dead against going to the ice lands. She would wriggle out of it if she could.
‘She has no say in it,’ is my stock answer, whenever Helga brings it up. ‘Like it or not, Ingrid is going on your grandpa’s ship.’
Our sheep and slaves are on the way down from the fell. I should tell Da, but maybe not yet. Everyone’s attention is on Drak,
‘Hear me out first,’ the Raven interrupts Jarl with a growling voice. ‘The King doesn’t want men who settle in a royal colony to doubt his authority overseas.’
Jarl plods heavily forward. Among our men, he has first right of reply. While he shouts his speech, there are plenty of oaths and groans from our side of the beach, adding weight to his words, all grumbling against the King.
‘A royal colony,’ shouts old man Jarl above the babble — and he lets loose a torrent of abuse that only a priest-man can muster. ‘Does the King think he can impose his rule at the far end of the world?’
Jarl sticks a fist in the air to milk a roar of approval behind him before firing off more abuse. ‘We are giving up land and steadings to find freedom abroad. We don’t welcome the King’s interference here, so why would we let him interfere with us in the ice lands?’
‘You can be fecking sure that we won’t,’ said Jarl’s son, Red Asgrim. He is bald-headed but for a hairy neck, red and grey, same as his beard. Tall, heavy-built like his father, he stuffs his brawny hands down his belt and marches his sons forward. His sons Mord and Eyjolf are grown men, like Sepp and Einar. The five Jarlson warriors, big and burly, are ranged against Drak’s crew.
My father is quick to step up, my brothers with him; Einar has an axe in hand, Sepp has his club. I have never seen Sepp look so wild, nor Cormac and Feilan. Da’s dog, brought here as a pup from the isles, sits alert at his heel, tail rigid. Like the good russet he is, Kol snarls and bares his teeth. The Skarsons are last to move, but no less menacing. I push in, trying to shape up like a man, taking my place between Einar and Feilan. I hear a low snarling growl from Kol, a bark held in waiting, deep in his throat.
Our women have been down at the beach, mending fishing nets, where yesterday’s catch is laid out to dry. They have dropped their nets and come running. Ma is among them and my older sisters Vrekla and Alufa, and Einar’s wife Jofrid, are at the front egging us on. Mel, my little sister, is letting rip, squealing at the top of her voice.
Drak hunkers down on the shingle as if to prove how little the insults have bothered him. He lifts his arms to feign amusement at the womenfolk, laughs and roars from the pit of his guts. The kirtle-men share in the joke, but not the bears or wolflings, whose faces wear a vacant look. These wild men seem only half-aware of what is going on, their devil-jaws hanging like dogs or drunkards.
Still seated, Drak claps his hands slowly, in the manner of a disappointed guest. ‘Come now. This is a fine welcome,’ he says, getting lazily to his feet, ‘I thought you might offer a taste of your ale.’
‘Forget the ale,’ says Skar, ‘out with it!’ Helga’s grandpa has a hard voice, hard as iron: it belies his years and a body long broken by wounds of his trade. ‘Where are your other ships? Since when has Black Raven gone to sea with a single keel to his name?’
‘Nothing much to tell,’ answers Drak, ‘I’ve sent my ships to Helgoland to collect the King’s tribute. While my men are there, they will leave a token of their gratitude, something to be remembered by. It will be a matter of days before they return.’
Einar’s angry words are out before Drak has finished. ‘You have other craft hidden beyond the ness. Isn’t that it? They are waiting to hunt us down when we put to sea.’
Drak pays no heed to Einar but instead directs his scorn towards my father. ‘From goose and gander comes an egg, once a thrall always a thrall. Is this how you teach your son to welcome a guest?’
‘You are no guest of mine,’ is Da’s curt reply.
Old man Jarl steps in to cool things down. ‘Let’s hear the King’s word and be done with it. No more insults!’
A shifty smile from Drak and he begins. ‘It’s to do with your land take in the ice lands.’
‘What of our land take?’ answers Jarl. ‘What business is it of the King’s?’
‘The King insists on a limit to how much land a man can claim.’
‘How can he hope to enforce his rule,’ says Red Asgrim, ‘and him so far away?’ At last Kol lets out his bark. It sets off other hounds down the beach. When the barking dies down, it is Drak’s turn to reply.
‘Men who fare west after you should be left enough land to settle in the ice lands. Why grab everything you put your foot on, without regard for those who will follow?’
Helga’s grandpa thrusts out his fist in anger. ‘Does the King mean to send more men into exile? He will have us all put away before he is finished, and maybe one day, you Drak, you will be one of them.’
Drak side-steps Skar’s remark. ‘Why shouldn’t more of our people occupy the empty ice lands? Prospects are good, not just for field and livestock, but fowl and fish, and no end of seals for hunting.’
‘What of it?’ This from Helga’s father.
‘Well,’ says Drak ‘would you have them snakes from the outer isles going there, biting and squirming, butting in, making a nuisance, looking to pinch our land?’
‘Don’t be a fool;’ says Idgar, ‘they have no sea-going ships able to sail that far west.’
‘Who’s to say they won’t capture ours, or build ships to match? One day, if there is trouble from them, you will be asking the King to bail you out.’
‘We would sooner be dead,’ replies Asgrim, ‘before asking help from that quarter.’
‘But doesn’t it make sense,’ counters Drak, ‘to set aside land for others? In the long run, if more of our sort settle there, from greater numbers will come greater strength?’
‘We have strength enough for our needs,’ says Helga’s grandpa, ‘We will take whatever land we want. To hell with the hindmost! What do I care who comes after? The King has no say in what we take and no stake in what we earn.’ Loud cheers to Skar’s defiance. ‘We have mouths to feed, obligations, we care for nothing else: am I right, Raff?’
Da replies with some force, but he motions Sepp
to put down his club. Einar, without needing to be told, tucks the heft of his axe into his belt.
Drak eyes Da with a mean look. ‘You should have taken the King’s offer, Raff. It was a good settlement for the likes of us.’ Drak’s remark is not well received, but he carries on, ‘Why should a little tribute come between friends? The isles are easy pickings. It won’t take me long to make up the King’s tax — two raids this summer and the job’s done.’
‘You can stuff your boots with dung for all we care,’ shouts Asgrim Jarlson.
A long drawn-out cough from Morfin ‘Stutty’ Skarson as he begins to speak. ‘Whuh-whuh-whuh we, whuh-whuh we all think you should stuff your boots with dung.’
How long is it since he gave voice to so many words? Helga’s uncle is sour as last year’s milk, he never gets round to saying much. That stutter of his doesn’t help. Even with his wife and sons he can go for months without speaking. Morfin nudges Idgar, a sign that he wants his brother to speak on his behalf.
‘We Skarsons had the best of land here,’ says Idgar readily, ‘so we’ve a lot to make up. It will take years to cut timber from the fells, drain land; build herds to what we had in Thwartdale. We need free-grazing in the ice lands, and we mean to have it.’
‘On heathland, yes,’ replies Drak, ‘on moorland too that’s understood. The King wants to limit title to land with boundaries, walled-in fields beside the steadings.’
Sepp folds his massive arms and shakes his head angrily. ‘What does the rule of law mean to a King who breaks the law when he chooses?’ Sepp has a habit of leaning his neck to one side. It comes from his lame bearing and awkward gait. He can’t help but squint from the corner of his eye. Drak stares at my brother, eyeing his disablement. Sepp returns the stare. Kol comes out with a roar. The bark shakes his body, muzzle to tail. Da holds him back by the hair of the neck.
Asgrim has been looking up towards the fells. ‘Why waste words?’ says he, ‘an easterly is blowing up. We can catch the tide. Let’s see to the raft, get the animals ready; time to put them on board.’
Old man Jarl turns his back on Drak to face our side of the moot; he lifts out his priestly chain from under his serk, kisses the emblem, the hammer of Thor, and then holds it over his head for all to see. He throws out his chest and shouts a warning. ‘We leave it to others to destroy what our fathers enjoyed!’ Cheering, for what reason I am not sure, but it seems our men will cheer anything now.
‘I won’t bow down,’ says Jarl, ‘I won’t grovel to a man who calls himself King, but I swear by almighty Thor on the sign of his hammer that we will keep the old ways when we settle in the ice lands.’ At the mention of Thor, a shout louder than before.
‘I can recall what my father once said.’ Jarl pauses to choose his words. ‘He said that a man should hold no more land than he can walk the length of, from sunrise to sunset on mid-summer day. That rule of his will stand us in good stead in the ice lands.’
Drak tries to speak, but his words are drowned by our men’s rousing angry cries, and a renewed chorus of taunts from the women and children. The warriors look to the long-ship, to their weapons on board.
Some women, among them Asgrim’s two daughters and Einar’s wife, have gone up the beach to fetch the fishing nets. They are shaking nets over their shoulders like birds’ feathery wings, cork-floats held beak-like to their noses, belting out an old landlubbers’ curse known to churn the stomachs of hardened sea-faring men.
‘Chew them, break them, jaws of the sea; spit them on the rocks’.
‘Jo has gone too far,’ says Da to Einar, ‘put an end to it. Go and see to your wife.’ Da has a word in Ma’s ear. Einar runs up the beach and snatches the net from Jo’s hands.
While the curses die away, Jarl and Grey Skar are set to whispering with Drak. Red Asgrim joins them, Morfin and Idgar Skarson listening intently. They are up to something. Drak gives a good-natured rub-down on Asgrim’s bald head with the knuckle side of his hand. Jarl is sharing a joke with the kirtle-men. It seems crazy that they can chew the fat together after all that has been said.
Da turns on his heel; pulls Kol away, chases the dog up the strand. He scans the fell for a sight of our sheep. Now he is off with long strides, making for our boarding-skiff at the edge of the waves; sea-water creeping over his boots, making wrinkles, rune-like, on the shingle.
Chapter 3
The short winter day back then is bright with sun, white fells glistening; a bottomless bowl of empty sky, clear and blue. Overnight there was the usual heavy blizzard. Before our five-a-sides can begin on the frozen tarn, it takes all ten of us, working flat out till noon, to clear our playing surface of snow.
Sepp, from our side, and Geir from theirs, are the ones trusted to mark boundaries at four corners of the ice, and pace the lengths of the goal line. The loose snow is pushed into banks on either side of the playing area, and piled high at our backs, making two walls of ice, battle barriers at each end, like white stockades raised against the opposing foe.
Five Thralson brothers — we are always together — are lined up against twins Bane and Gunnar Morfinson, and their chosen team on the day. Asgrim’s sons Mord and Eyjolf and Geir Idgarson make up the ‘five’ on their side.
I don’t know why it’s so good to come out ‘on top’ at knatt, avoiding defeat at the hands of others. And afterwards, to brag about the winning. I suppose, if you are a man, it feels the same to be part of a harrier crew at sea: rove abroad in search of loot; pick a fight once you put ashore; knock the hell out of anyone who resists. The toughest sea harriers, the luckiest crews take home the prize.
A game of knatt-ball is different. It is only a game, after all. But why does it thrill to the bone to snatch victory on the ice, having battled with a stronger foe, to be ‘slagged off’ as underdogs, to be in danger of defeat, and yet win against the odds?
*
What a game! Looks like we are in for a beating from the start, defeat staring us in the face. They cross our line three times, ball in hand, making it look easy, three touchdowns one after the other, Gunnar’s two early strikes and Eyjolf adding a third soon after.
No score from us, none likely, little chance of breaking out, too hard pressed defending our line. We work hard to stifle their attack; put our weight behind the rucks; hem them in; crowd them out; force them wide; block the ball.
No thought of scoring. You can’t score if you can’t get hold of the ball.
The idea of getting our noses in front doesn’t enter our heads. Frantically we defend our line, hoping an ice-pass of theirs goes astray or a hurl overhead drops in our laps; Gunnar mocking our efforts, dishing out dirt, Bane gloating, giving us lip.
Mord stands guard at the back line, egging on his mates with smart remarks.
To be fair, Geir wants no part of it, nor does Eyjolf.
‘Save your breath, Mord, for the game,’ he says. The other three shout him down.
Geir is a snappy skater. He is at his best while in full flight, bat to ball; skimming the ice. No one can touch him in fair play. But in a battle like this, he has no chance to shine. Cormac is blocking him at every turn. Geir can’t break loose or build up speed.
‘Nail him!’ Einar yells to Cormac.
My brothers rush to grapple Geir, crowd him out; take the legs from under him, before he parts with the ball. But Geir is too quick, he is round Cormac in a flash.
Einar hammers into the gap left by Cormac. He misjudges his dash over the ice, slides early, misses his man; skews too far, leaving Geir free to make for the line.
Sepp sprawls in front of Geir, trailing that crooked leg of his, sticking out his bat.
Geir swerves, flies over lunge and leg, his skate-blades just missing Sepp’s head.
Only me in the way to stop a touchdown! Geir scoops ball to hand, he must hold it going over the line to claim a score. Ball in hand, bat under arm, he sways, dips his knees, builds speed; widens his stride, making it look easy. He knows he will beat me to the line.
Geir sees the danger. He lobs the ball backwards over his head.
Can’t see where it falls on the ice — the ball lands somewhere behind — can’t brake our speed; nothing for it but to crash ‘double-weight’ slap-bang into Geir, skates scraping ice, all three of us up-ended, head over heels, flying into a bank of snow, Feilan on top of me, Geir flung in the air, a nasty fall.
Back on my feet, I catch sight of Gunnar. He’s going over the line for his third, his side’s fourth touchdown. We are four strikes down!
Einar brings us in a huddle, exhausted, panting for breath; I feel Sepp’s beard on my cheek, Einar shouting in my ear: can’t hear his words, only the howl of his voice, Cormac and me cracking bats, hard, hard on the ice, to show we are angry, to show we mean battle.
Feilan kisses the ball. We know it signifies nothing, but the rhyming words and his panting voice sound like magic and we want it to work.
What is left for us but a slice of luck and one of Feilan’s crazy magic spells? Geir is out cold. A hold-up in play, that’s the rule, till the injured man is back on his feet.
Helga’s brother struggles on in pain; skating half-speed; right arm dead meat, hurling-bat trailing one-handed; legs wobbly on the ice; head weak as water.
Bane and twin Gunnar are in retreat, backing off. No more wisecracks from Mord. Eyjolf is exhausted. All he can do is defend the line. Einar and Cormac are raiding at will on the flanks. Their team is a man down or worse than just one man down, when you think of it. Geir was their best player. They are at our mercy — it is our turn to grind them down.
The sweetest thing is Cormac’s touchdown, our ‘clincher’, our fifth to win the game. It comes in ‘sudden death’ moments before nightfall. Until our victory is safe in the bag, the sun stops dead at the head of the fell. Cold daylight, still as ice, blood-red and bright the sky.
