by Tim Severin
Ivarr held court - that is the only phrase - in a large warehouse close to the landing place. Like all the other buildings of Aldeigjuborg, it was single-storey though far bigger than most. Two scruffy guards lounged at the entrance gate and checked everyone who entered, removing any weapons they found and demanding a bribe to let visitors past. Led across the filthy yard, I was taken into Ivarr's living quarters - a scene of barbaric squalor. The single main room was decorated in what I learned was a style favoured by tribal rulers in the east. Rich brocades and carpets, mostly patterned in red, black and blue, hung from the walls. Cushions and couches provided the only furniture and the room was lit by heavy brass lamps on chains. Even though it was midday, these were burning and the place smelled of candle wax and stale food. Half-eaten meals lay on trays on the floor, and the rugs were stained with spilled wine and kvas, the local beer. Half a dozen Varangs, dressed in their characteristic baggy trousers and loose, belted shirts, stood or squatted around the edge of the room. Some were playing dice, others were talking idly among themselves, but all took care to show that they were there in attendance upon their leader.
Ivarr was one of those remarkable men whose physical presence arouses immediate fear. I have met much bigger men in my life of travel, and I have observed men who make it their style to inspire dread with threatening gestures or a cruel manner of speech. Ivarr imposed his will by exuding sheer brute menace, and he did so naturally without conscious effort. Between forty and fifty years old, he was short and so thick-set that he could have been a wrestler, albeit a dandified one, for he was wearing a rust-coloured velvet tunic, and silk pantaloons, and his feet were encased in soft yellow leather boots trimmed with fur. His short, powerful arms had small hands, and his stubby fingers were decorated with expensive rings. The most striking feature about him was his head. Like his body, it was round and compact. The skin was the colour of antique walrus ivory and hinted of mixed ancestry, maybe part-Norse and part-Asiatic. His eyes were dark brown, and he had greased and perfumed his ample beard so that it lay on the front of his tunic like a glossy black animal. By contrast his scalp was shaved clean except for a single lock of hair, which hung from the side of his head in a long curl and touched his left shoulder. This, it seemed, was regarded as a sign of royalty, which Ivarr claimed to be. But for the moment my attention was caught by his right ear. It was decorated with three studs - two pearls and between them a large single diamond.
'So you are the poacher,' he said, thrusting his head forward pugnaciously, as if he was about to spring up from his couch and knock me to the ground. I tore my gaze away from the ear studs.
'I don't know what you're talking about,' I said calmly. There was a tremor of surprise from the Varangs in the room behind me. They were not accustomed to hearing their master addressed in this way.
'My men tell me that you were collecting furs from the Skridfinni in an area where my felag alone deals with them.'
'I did not collect the furs,' I answered. 'They were given to me.'
The truculent brown eyes regarded me. I noted that they held a look of quick intelligence.
'Given to you? For nothing?'
'That's correct.'
'How did that happen?'
'I lived the winter among them.'
'Impossible. Their magicians make their people vanish if any strangers approach.'
'A magician invited me to stay.' 'Prove it.'
I glanced around the room. The other Varangs were like a pack of hungry dogs awaiting a treat. They expected their leader to quash me. Two stopped the game of dice that they had been playing and another filled the pause before I gave my answer, by spitting noisily onto the carpet.
'Give me some dice and a tray,' I said, trying to sound disdainful.
The remnants of a meal were swept from a heavy brass tray, and I indicated that it should be placed on the carpet in front of me. I held out my hand to the dice players and they gave me the dice they had been using. Seated on his couch Ivarr adopted a bored look as if already unimpressed. I was sure he expected me to claim magical assistance in throwing the dice. Instead I asked for five more pairs of dice. This brought a stir of interest. Each of the Varangs carried his own set and I laid the twelve dice down on the tray, arranging them in the pattern of nine squares, three by three. In the first square I placed a single dice so that the number four showed. In the next square I put two dice whose combined total was nine. In the third square I again laid a single dice showing two. In the second row, the numbers were three, five and seven. The last row was eight, one and six. The pattern looked thus:
4 9 2
3 5 7
8 1 6
I stepped back and said nothing. There was a long, long silence. My audience was puzzled. Perhaps they expected that the dice would move on their own, or that they would burst into flames. They looked long and hard at the dice, then at me, and nothing whatsoever happened. I gazed straight at Ivarr, challenging him. It was for him to see the magic. He looked down at the dice and frowned. Then he looked a second time and I could see the sudden light of understanding. He glanced up at me and we shared the knowledge. My gamble had paid off. I had flattered his raw intelligence.
His lackeys still looked puzzled. None of them dared question their master. They were too frightened of him.
'You learned well,' said Ivarr. He had seen the magic of the pattern: whichever way you read the lines, across, sideways, downwards, or on both diagonals, the total that they gave was always fifteen.
'I am told that you will soon be going to Miklagard,' I said. 'I would like to accompany your boats.'
'If you are as good at trading as you are at numbers, you would be a useful addition,' Ivarr replied, 'but you still have to convince my men.'
The Varangians, still puzzled, were collecting up their dice from the tray. I stopped one of them as he was picking up his two gaming pieces. 'I'll gamble on it. Highest wins.' I said. The Varang smirked, then threw his dice. I was not surprised that they fell showing double six. The dice were almost certainly loaded and I wondered how many games he had won by cheating. His score was unbeatable. I picked up his two dice, made as if to throw them on the tray, then checked myself. I set one of the dice aside and picked up a replacement from the pile. It was a dice that had seen much use. Made of bone, it was old and cracked. Now it was not Rassa's magic that I used, but something that I had learned among the Jomsvikings. As I held the two dice in my hand, I pressed them together hard and felt the older dice begin to split. With a silent prayer to Odinn, I flung the two dice down upon the tray with all my strength. Odinn, who invented dice for man's amusement, heard my plea. As the two dice struck the metal tray, one of them broke apart. My opponent's dice still read its false six, while the other gave a six and a two. 'I win, I think,' I said and the other Varangs broke into guffaws of laughter.
The Varang I had beaten scowled and would have struck me if Ivarr had not said sharply, 'Froygeir! That's enough!' Froygeir snatched up his dice and stalked away, furious and humiliated, and I knew that I had made a dangerous enemy.
The felag had been waiting for the return of Vermundr and Angantyr, and was now ready to depart for Miklagard. I counted nine Varangians of the felag, including Ivarr, and about thirty kholops, whose task was to row the flotilla of light river boats they loaded with our bales of furs. Several of the Varangians also brought along their women as cooks and servants, and it was clear these unfortunates were part slave, part concubine. Ivarr, as befitted his rank, was accompanied by three of his women and also two of his sons, lads no more than seven or eight years old of whom he seemed extremely fond. So our expedition totalled rather more than fifty.
The way to Miklagard lay upriver through Kiev, so I was surprised when our flotilla pushed off from the river landing place and headed downstream in the opposite direction. I thought it best not to ask the reason. I was well aware that I was still unwelcome in Ivarr's felag. It was not just Froygeir who disliked me. His colleagues resented the ease
with which I seemed to have won Ivarr's favour and they envied the rich stock of furs that I had brought with me. I had not taken the var, the oath of fellowship, so I was a private trader taking advantage of their journey and this meant that my profit would not be shared. The Varangians grumbled among themselves and pointedly left me to fend for myself when it came to preparing meals or finding a place to sleep. So, by default, I spent most of my time on Ivarr's boat as we travelled the waterways across Gardariki, and I slept in his tent when we stopped at night and pitched camp on the river bank. This only made matters worse because the other Varangs soon saw me as Ivarr's favourite, and sometimes I wondered if it was our leader's deliberate policy to provide his followers with a focus for their malcontent. My travelling companions were a ferocious lot and, like the pack of wild dogs they resembled, they were only partly tamed. They held together only as long as they submitted to Ivarr's savage rule, and the moment that was lifted they would fight amongst themselves to divide the spoils and decide upon their next leader.
Ivarr himself was an unpredictable mixture of viciousness, pride and shrewdness. Twice I saw him stamp his authority on the group by brute violence. He liked to carry a short thick-handled whip, whose strands were weighted with thin strips of lead and the butt decorated with silver. I thought it was a badge of office or perhaps an instrument for striking lazy kholops. But the first time I saw him use it was when a Varangian hesitated in carrying out one of his orders. The man paused for the briefest moment, but it was enough for Ivarr to lash out — the blow was all the more shocking because Ivarr did not give the slightest warning — and the weighted thongs caught the man full across the face. He fell to his knees, clutching his face for fear that he had been blinded. He got back to his feet and stumbled away to carry out his orders, and for a week afterwards a crust of dried blood marked the welts across his cheeks.
On the second occasion the challenge to Ivarr's authority was more serious. One of the Varangians, drunk on too much kvas, openly contested Ivarr's right to lead the group. It happened as we sat around a cooking fire on the river bank eating our evening meal. The Varangian was a head taller than Ivarr and he drew his sword as he rose to his feet and shouted across the fire, calling on Ivarr to fight. The man stood there, swaying slightly, as Ivarr calmly wiped his hands on a towel held out to him by his favourite concubine, then turned as if to reach for his own weapon. In the next instant he had uncoiled from the ground and in a blur of movement ran across the burning fire, scattering the blazing sticks in all directions. Head down, he charged his challenger, who was too drunk and too surprised to save himself. Ivarr butted the man in the chest and the shock threw him flat on his back. Scorning even to remove the contender's sword, Ivarr grabbed his opponent's arm and hauled him across the ground back to the fire. There, in front of the watching Varangians, he thrust the man's arm into the embers and held it there as his enemy howled with pain and we smelled the burning flesh. Only then did Ivarr release his grip and his victim crawled away, his hand a blackened mess. Ivarr calmly returned to his place and beckoned to his slave girl to bring him another plate of food.
The following day I made the mistake of calling Ivarr a Varangian, and he bridled at the name. 'I am a Rus,' he said. 'My father was a Varangian. He came across the western sea with the rops-karlar, the river rowers, to trade or raid, it did not matter which. He liked the country so much that he decided to stay and took a job as captain of the guard at Kiev. He married my mother, who was from Karelia, of royal blood, though she had the misfortune of being taken captive by the Kievans. My father bought her for eighty grivna, a colossal sum which goes to show how beautiful she was. I was their only child.'
'And where's your father now?' I enquired.
'My father abandoned me when my mother died. I was eight years old. So I grew up in the company of whoever would have me, peasants mostly, who saw me as a useful pair of hands to help them gather crops or cut firewood. You know what the Kievans call their peasants? Smerdi. It means "stinkers". They deserve the name. I ran away often.'
'Do you know what happened to your father?'
'Most likely he's dead,' Ivarr answered casually. He was seated on a carpet inside his tent - he liked to travel in style - and was playing some complicated child's game with his younger son. 'He left Kiev with a company of his soldiers who thought they would get better pay from the great emperor in Miklagard. Rumour came back that the entire group was wiped out on their journey by Pechenegs.'
'Are we likely to meet Pechenegs too?'
'I doubt it,' he replied. 'We go a different way.' But he would not say where.
By the fifth day after leaving Aldeigjuborg, we had rowed and sailed our boats around the shores of two lakes, along the river connecting them and turned into yet another river mouth. Now we were heading upstream and progress became more difficult. As the river narrowed we were obliged to get out of the boats and push them across the shallows. Finally we reached a point when we could go no further. There was not enough water to float our craft. We unloaded the boats and set our kholops to cutting down small trees to make rollers. The larger boats and those which leaked badly we deliberately set on fire to destroy them and then searched the ashes to retrieve any rivets or other metal fastenings. To me it seemed a prodigious waste because I had grown up in Iceland and Greenland, countries where no large trees grow. But Ivarr and the felag thought nothing of it. Timber in abundance was all they had known. Their main concern was that we had enough kholops to manhandle our remaining boats across the portage.
There was a track, overgrown with grass and bushes but still discernible, leading eastward through dense forest. Our axemen went ahead to clear the path. The kholops were harnessed like oxen, ten in a team, to ropes attached to the keels of our three remaining boats. The rest of us steadied the boats to keep them level on the rollers, or worked in pairs, picking up the rollers as they passed beneath the hulls and throwing them down ahead of the advancing keels. It took us four days of sweating labour, plagued by flying insects, to drag our boats to the headwaters of a stream that flowed to the east. There we rested for another week while our shipwright - a Varangian originally from Norway -directed the building of four replacement craft. He found what he needed less than an arrow-shot from our camp - four massive trees, which were promptly felled. Then he directed the kholops in hollowing out the trunks with axe and fire to make the keels and lower hulls of our boats. Other kholops split the planks which were attached to the sides of these dugouts, building up the hulls until I recognised the familiar curves of our Norse vessels. I complimented the shipwright on his skill.
He grimaced. 'Call these boats?' he said. 'More like cattle troughs. You need time and care to build proper boats, and skilled carpenters, not these clumsy oafs. Most of them would be better off chopping firewood.'
I pointed out that two of the kholops from the far north had proved useful when the supply of metal rivets for fastening the planks had run out. The men had used lengths of pine-tree root to lash the planks in place, a practice in their own country.
The Norse shipwright was still unimpressed. 'Where I come from, you get only knife and needle.'
'What do you mean?' I asked.
'When you think you are good enough to call yourself a boatbuilder, the master shipwright who taught you gives you a knife and a needle and tells you to make and rig a boat, using no other tools. Until you can do that, you're considered a wood butcher, like this lot here.'
The Norwegian seemed the least vicious of our company. He spoke the best Norse, while all the others mixed so many local words into their sentences that it was often hard to understand them. I asked him how it was that, as a skilled shipwright, he found himself a Varangian. 'I killed a couple of men back home,' he said, 'and the local earl took offence. It turned out that they were his followers, so I had to make myself scarce. Maybe I'll go back home one day, but I doubt it. This life suits me — no need to break your back hauling logs or lose a finger carving planks when th
ere are slaves to do the work, and you can have as many women as you want without marrying them.'
As we recommenced our journey, we saw only the occasional trace of human habitation, a footpath leading from the water's edge into the forest, a tree stump that had been cut with an axe, the faint smell of a fire from somewhere deep in the forest, which stretched without a break along both banks. But we did not meet the natives themselves, though once or twice I thought I saw far in the distance the outline of a small boat disappearing into the reeds as we approached. By the time we reached the spot there was nothing to show, the reeds had sprung back into position and I wondered if I had been imagining it. 'Where are all the people who live here?' I asked Vermundr. He gave a coarse laugh and looked at me as if I was weak in the head.
We did eventually come to a couple of trading posts and a sizeable town. The latter, situated on a river junction, was very like Aldeigjuborg, a cluster of log-built houses sheltering behind a wooden palisade, and protected on at least two sides by the river and a marsh. We did not stop. The inhabitants shut their gates and regarded us warily as we drifted past. I guessed that the reputation of Ivarr's felag had preceded us.
The river was much wider now, and we steered our course in midstream so I saw little of the countryside except the monotonous vista of green forest moving slowly past on either hand. I thought, naively, that we stayed in midstream to take best advantage of the current. Then I began to see plumes of smoke rising from the forest cover. The smoke arose ahead of us or from some vantage point, usually a high bluff overlooking the river. It did not require much intelligence to guess that unseen inhabitants were signalling our progress to one another, keeping track of our flotilla. Now whenever we came ashore for the night we set guards around our camp and, on one occasion when the smoke signals were very frequent, Ivarr refused to let us go ashore at all. We spent the night anchored in the shallows and ate a cold supper.
