Sworn Brother v-2

by Tim Severin

  That night the earl fled for sanctuary in Roskilde's White Christ church. It did him little good. At dawn Knut sent a huscarl to the church with orders to kill Ulf. There was uproar among the Christians that murder had been committed in one of their churches. But when I heard the story, I felt a more immediate chill. Ulf was married to Knut's sister. If a brother-in-law could be assassinated in the struggle for the throne, how much more likely a victim would be the queen's illicit lover.

  'I need the details!' said Herfid excitedly. 'It's perfect material for a saga — "The Last Fight of the Jomsvikings!" Can you describe to me the leader of the Danes? Was there any exchange of insults between him and Thrand? Hand-to-hand combat between the two of them? That would be a nice touch, to catch an audience's imagination.'

  'No, Herfid, it was just as I described it. Chaotic and savage. I didn't see who chopped off Thrand's foot and I don't even know who led the Danes. At first we thought they were on our side, on their way to join the king. But then they attacked us.' My throat hurt. Sometimes, when I was tired, my voice suddenly changed pitch like a boy in his puberty.

  By a happy coincidence Herfid was travelling on the ship that Kjartan had found to take me clear of court intrigue. Herfid had finally given up his attempts to find a permanent job as a royal skald, and was heading back to Orkney where the new earl might have work for him. 'Knut's got too many skalds as it is,' Herfid lamented. 'Sighvatr Thordarsson, Hallvardr Hareksblesi and Thorarin Loftunga, not to mention Ottar the Black, who is his favourite. They didn't welcome more competition.' He looked woebegone. 'But if I could compose a really good saga about the Jomsvikings, that might get me some attention.'

  'I think not, Herfid,' I said. 'Knut may not want to be reminded of the episode.'

  'Oh well ... if you ever change your mind. Meanwhile perhaps you could tell me some of the Irish sagas you heard when you were in that country, maybe I could work parts of them into my own compositions. In exchange I'll give you a few more lessons on style and structure. They could prove useful should you ever decide to make a living by story-telling. Besides, it will help pass the hours at sea.'

  The captain taking us towards Orkney was in a hurry. It was late in the season to be attempting the trip, but he was a man with weather luck and his crew trusted his judgement and sea skill. Herfid, by contrast, probably knew at least a hundred poetic phrases for the sea and its ships, but had no practical knowledge. He made a singular impression on our hard-bitten crew as he walked about the deck referring to the little vessel as a 'surge horse' and a 'twisted rope bear', even 'a fore-sheets snake'. When we cleared the Roskilde anchorage the waves became 'the whale's housetops', and the jagged rocks were 'the water's teeth'. I noticed several crew members raise their eyebrows in astonishment when he referred to our hard-driving skipper as a 'brig elf, and I feared the captain had overheard.

  Fortunately, just when I was thinking that Herfid was going to get himself tossed overboard for his presumption, we ran into the sea race off the tip of Caithness. It was an intimidating experience, as unnerving as anything I had yet experienced at sea, except perhaps for being wrecked on the Greenland skerries, but I was too young to remember that. The west-going tide ripped past the headland, creating overfalls and strange, swirling patches of water, until it seemed we were riding a huge river in full spate rather than the ocean. I could see why his men trusted our captain so implicitly. He timed his vessel's entry into the race with perfection. He thrust boldly into the torrent just as the tide was gathering, and we were swept along like a wood chip on the spring flood. Our vessel began to make a strange swooping motion, lifting up, then sliding forward and down as if we would be sucked to the bottom of the sea, only to rise again, check, and begin the next plunge. It required prime seamanship to keep the vessel straight. The captain himself manipulated the side rudder, which Herfid had called 'the broad-blade ocean sword', and by some smart handling of the sheets the crew made sure that we did not broach and roll. We hurtled through the race, our ears filled with the grumbling roar of the tide.

  Poor Herfid fell silent as the motion of the ship increased. Soon he had found his way to the rail and was hanging on to a mast stay, then in a sudden lurch he was doubled over the rail, throwing up the contents of his stomach. He was bent in that position for some time, retching and heaving miserably. When we were clear of the waves, and the motion had subsided enough for the skipper to be able to relinquish the helm, he sauntered over to Herfid and asked innocently, 'And what do you call the sea -"breakfast swallower" or "vomit taker?'" Herfid raised his green-white face and gave him a look of pure loathing.

  Birsay, the home of the Earl of Orkney, was just as I remembered it — a modest settlement of a few houses huddling behind tussock-covered sand dunes. As a port of call, Birsay only existed because it was on the crossroads of the shipping lanes between the seas of England, Ireland and Iceland. The anchorage was so exposed to the fierce winter gales raging in from the west that the local boats had been hauled ashore and secured in half-sunk sheds or bedded behind barriers of rock and sand. Our captain had no intention of staying a moment longer than necessary in such a dangerous place, and he paused only long enough for us to visit the long hall to pay our respects to the earl, and for Herfid to ask permission to stay.

  Like Knut, the new Earl of Orkney was of the coming generation — energetic, ambitious and completely without qualms. His name was Thorfinn, and Herfid was in luck. The young earl was looking for a skald to enhance his reputation and Herfid was given the job, initially on approval. Afterwards — as I learned — his post was made permanent when Thorfinn heard that he was becoming known as 'the Mighty', a phrase that Herfid had used to describe him.

  To my astonishment, the earl's grandmother Eithne was still alive. I had not seen her for almost eight years, yet she seemed to have changed hardly at all. Perhaps she was a little more stooped, and even more of her hair had fallen out, so that she kept her headscarf knotted securely under her chin. But her mind was as alert as ever.

  'So another battle nearly killed you,' she wheezed at me by way of greeting. I was not surprised. Eithne was acknowledged to be a volva, a seeress, and there was little that she did not know or divine. She was the one who had told me that I was a spirit mirror, my second sight occurring most frequently when I was with someone else who had the gift.

  'There's something I want to ask you about,' I said. 'There was a vision which I do not understand, and I have not mentioned to anyone as yet.'

  'Tell me about it.'

  'It was during a sea fight. In the midst of the battle a hailstorm suddenly lashed us, chilling us to the bone. The wind which brought the hailstones always seemed to be in our faces, never to hamper our enemies. It blew so powerfully that it turned our arrows, nor could we hurl our spears against it. It was unearthly. Everyone thought so. Some of our men from Wendland and Witland cried out that magic was being used against us.'

  'What did you think?' the old woman asked.

  'I think our enemies had a supernatural ally. I saw her — it was a woman — she appeared in the hailstorm. At first I thought she was a Valkyrie come to carry away our dead, for she seemed unearthly and she rode the wind. But this woman was different. She had a cruel face, a cold eye and was in a frenzy, shrieking and raging at us, and pointing at us with a claw-like hand. Whenever she appeared, the hail flew thicker and the wind came in stronger gusts.'

  Eithne gave a snort of derision at my ignorance. 'A Valkyrie indeed. Have you never heard of Thorgerd Holgabrud? That's who you saw.'

  'Who's she?' I asked.

  'Thrand could have told you,' she replied. 'She appeared at Hrojunga Bay, the first time the Jomsvikings were defeated. She is the patron Goddess of the northern Norwegians. Earl Haakon, who led the battle against the Jomsvikings, sacrificed his own seven-year-old son to her to obtain the victory. That sacrifice was so powerful that, even now, Thorgerd Holgabrud returns to ensure the extinction of the Jomsvikings. She is a blood drinker, a war witc
h.'

  I must have looked sceptical because Eithne reached out and gripped me by the arm. 'Listen to me: signs appeared in Caithness and Farroes soon after the great slaughter at Clontarf. There the Valkyries did appear to Old Believers — twelve Valkyries, riding horses. They set up a loom in each place, using the entrails of dead men as weft and warp, fresh skulls as the loom weights and a sword as the beater. An arrow was their shuttle. As they wove, they sang of the men who had fallen. You may never have heard of Thorgerd Holgabrud, or her sister Irpa, but those Wends and Witlanders were right. A volva was working against you that day, someone invoking the hailstorm and the gale and inciting Thorgerd to fight against you. Learn from this event. Be on your guard against those who use the occult to defeat you.'

  I forgot her words over the next few months and paid the price.

  I arrived back in Iceland to find that Grettir was now a legend. Against all odds he was still at large and evading every attempt to hunt him down. What made his survival all the more remarkable was that no outlaw had ever had such a high bounty put on his head. Thorir of Gard had redoubled the reward he and his family would pay to anyone who killed or captured Grettir, and several bounty hunters had tried and failed to collect the prize money. I heard a great deal of chuckling about the fate of one of them. Grettir had overpowered him and forced him to undress and return home in only his underclothes. Other stories were more far-fetched and reminded me of when Grettir and I had robbed the barrow grave together. It was claimed that Grettir had thrown an evil troll-woman to her death over a cliff, that he had swum under a waterfall and found a giant living in a cave carpeted with men's bones, that he had shared a remote cave with a half-giant. On one point, everyone was agreed: Grettir was now living on an island in the north-west fiords.

  'Why doesn't someone get together a group of like-minded fellows to go and capture him?' I asked.

  My informant, a farmer from Reykholt with whom I was staying overnight, shook his head. 'You should see the island he's chosen for his retreat,' he said. 'Sheer cliffs that are near impossible to climb. The only way to the summit is by ladders and Grettir hauls them up whenever he sees a strange boat approaching. And he is not alone. His younger brother Illugi is living there with him and there's said to be a servant as well. A man called

  Glaum or some name like that. There may be others, too. It's difficult to be sure. Grettir has allowed no one on the island since he took it over, though I've heard that the local farmers are furious. Previously they grazed a few sheep on the flat top of the island. Someone would go ashore, lower down a rope and the sheep would be hauled up one by one. After you got the sheep on the summit, you could go away and leave them there without a shepherd. There was no way the animals could get off.'

  He said the island was called Drang, meaning 'sea cliff, and it was in the mouth of Skagafiord.

  'Is there any way of getting out there?' I asked.

  'There's a story that Grettir occasionally swims ashore, but that's impossible,' the farmer said. 'The island is too far out in the entrance to the fiord, and there are powerful currents that would sweep away a man and drown him. I think that tale is pure fantasy.'

  It was odd, I thought to myself, how a farmer would believe in trolls and giants living under waterfalls, but not in a man's ability to swim long distances. Yet I had seen Grettir do just that in Norway.

  When I stood on the shore of Skagafiord a few days later, I understood why the farmer had been so sceptical. Drang Island was far in the distance. Its shape reminded me of the massive blocks of ice which occasionally drifted into harbour at Eiriksfiord in Greenland when I was a boy. These ice mountains had stayed in the channel for weeks at a time, slowly melting. But the ice blocks had been a cheerful, sparkling white tinged with blue, and Drang Island was a dark, square, brooding oblong. It gave me the shivers. The thought of swimming across the intervening expanse of sea — I could see the tide swirl — was daunting. Someone on the mainland must be acting as a go-between, occasionally rowing out to the island to bring supplies and news.

  I made a circuit of the fiord's shoreline, staying at one farmhouse after another, claiming to be looking for land to buy. Already I was travelling under an assumed name as I had no wish for Gunnhildr and her father to learn that I was back in Iceland. The only man to know of my return was Snorri Godi, that wily old chieftain, on whom I had called in order to discuss the redemption of my fire ruby. He still held the gem in safe keeping, and I had left with him the bulk of my silver hoard, asking that he wait before handing on the cash to Gunnhildr's family so that I had time to meet Grettir. I kept only enough silver with me to show the farmers of Skagafiord that I could afford their land prices.

  I quickly identified the farmer most likely to be Grettir's contact. He owned the farm closest to Drang and there was a landing beach and boatshed on his property. More important, he was not a member of the group taking its lead from Thorbjorn Ongul, the chief landholder in the region. Thorbjorn Ongul I judged to be a hard man. Everything about him was off-putting. He had a scarred eye socket. He had lost the eyeball in his youth when his stepmother had struck him in the face for being disobedient and had half-blinded him. Now he was surly and belligerent, and obviously a bully. "We'll get that bastard off our island, if it's the last thing I do,' he assured me when I raised the subject of Grettir on the island. 'Half the men around here are too faint-hearted to take any action. But I've been buying out their shares of the island — we used to own it jointly — so that whoever takes the decision about its future, it'll be me.' He paused, and looked at me suspiciously. 'Anyway, what's your interest in the place?'

  'I just wondered: if I get a farm around here would I be able to purchase a share in the island and put some sheep on it?'

  'Not without my permission, you couldn't,' he said rudely. 'By the time you finalise any land deal, I'll have seen to it that I hold the majority share in the island. Grettir is dead meat. He's due for a surprise, the murderous son of a bitch.'

  I returned to the farmer whom I had guessed was supplying Grettir on Drang. Sure enough, when I offered him enough silver, he agreed to row me over to the island after dark. He warned me, however, that Grettir was dangerous and unpredictable. 'You want to be careful,' he said. "When the mood is on him, the outlaw turns violent. He swam over from the island last autumn and broke into my farm building. He was looking for supplies, but I wasn't at home at the time. So he stripped off his wet clothes, lay down by the fire and went to sleep. Two of the women servants walked in on him and found him stark naked. One woman made some sort of giggling remark about his penis being rather small for such a powerfully built man. Grettir had been half-asleep and heard the remark. He jumped up in a rage and grabbed for her. The other woman fled and Grettir proceeded to rape the woman he got his hands on. I know that he's been out on that island for a long time, but it was a brutal thing to do.'

  The farmer's story depressed me. I had known that Grettir was moody and unpredictable. I had seen enough examples of his loutish behaviour for myself. But he had never before been violent towards women. According to rumour, he had even been saved from capture several times by women who had taken pity on him and hidden him in their houses. I was appalled that he should use rape to punish what was nothing more than impudence. I began to fear that prolonged outlawry had unhinged Grettir, and he had become half-savage. It made me wonder what reception my sworn brother would give me.

  I paid the farmer handsomely to deliver me out to Drang under cover of darkness on the next windless night, and to keep my presence secret. He landed me on the small shelf of beach below the sheer cliff face, and I heard the splash of his oars receding in the distance as I felt my way to the foot of the wooden ladder he had told me I would find. All around me in the darkness I could hear the rustlings and scratchings of roosting seabirds, and my nostrils were filled with the acrid smell of their droppings. Cautiously I felt my way up the rickety wooden rungs, pulling myself up step by step. The first ladder brought me
to a ledge on the cliff face. Groping around I found the foot of a second ladder leading even further upward. I wondered at Grettir's confidence that he should leave the ladders in position at night, not fearing the approach of an enemy.

  It was when I had reached the flat crest of the island and was stumbling my way forward through tussock grass that I tripped over the body of his lookout. The man was sound asleep, wrapped in a heavy cloak and half buried in a shallow trench. He gave a startled grunt as I trod accidentally on his legs, and I sensed, rather than saw, him sit up and peer in my direction.

  'Is that you, Illugi?' he asked.

  'No, it's a friend,' I replied. 'Where's Grettir?'

  The half-seen figure merely grunted and said, 'Well, that's all right then,' and sank back into his hole to return to sleep.

  Fearful of stumbling over the cliff edge in the darkness, I sat down on the ground and waited for the dawn.

  Daylight showed me that the summit of the island was covered with pasture, closely cropped by sheep. I could see at least a score of animals. In every direction the surface of the island stopped abruptly, ending in thin air where the cliff edge began. Only behind me, where the wooden ladder reached the summit, was there any access. And between me and the ladder I could see the little hump of cloth which marked the location of Grettir's watchman. He was still asleep.

  I rose to my feet and went in search of Grettir. I could see nothing except for the sheep grazing quietly. There was no hut, no cabin, no sign of habitation. I walked across to the west side of the island. It took just a couple of hundred paces and I was at the cliff edge, looking straight down several hundred feet to the sea. I could see the white shapes of gulls circling and wheeling far beneath me in the updraughts. Puzzled by Grettir's absence, I turned back, retraced my steps, and searched towards the south end of the island. I had almost reached the lip of the furthest cliff when, coming round a large boulder jutting up from the soil, I came upon my sworn brother's home. It was a dug-out shelter, more like a bear's den than a human dwng. He had scraped out the soil to make an underground chamber roofed with three or four tree trunks he must have salvaged from the beach, for there were no trees on the island, not even a bush. Over the tree trunks was laid a layer of turf sods. A smoke hole at the back of the dugout provided a vent for the smoke from his cooking fire. It was a bleak, miserable place.