by Tim Severin
Finally we left behind the area of watchful natives and the land around us became more level. Here we turned aside into a small river that flowed into the main stream from the north, and began to steer much closer to the left-hand bank. I noticed that Ivarr scanned the shore intently, as if he was searching for a particular sign. He must have seen what he was looking for because at the next suitable landing place he beached our boat. All the other vessels followed.
'Empty the two lightest boats and set up camp here,' Ivarr ordered.
I saw the Varangians glance at one another in anticipation as the kholops unloaded the goods and carried them up to a patch of level ground. Ivarr spoke to the Varangian whose burned hand was still wrapped in rags soaked in bear's grease. 'You stay here till we get back. See to it that no one lights a cooking fire or uses an axe.' The man had learned his lesson well. He dropped his gaze submissively as he accepted his assignment.
'You, you and you.' Ivarr walked amongst the kholops and touched about a dozen of them on the shoulder with the silver butt of his whip. They were the tallest and strongest of our slaves. He pointed to where Vermundr and Angantyr were unwrapping one of the cargo bales. I saw that it contained weapons — cheap swords and a heap of light chain. For a moment I thought it was anchor chain, but then I saw that the links were longer and thinner than any ship's chain, and that it came in sections about an arm's span long. There was a large metal loop at the end of each length and I recognised what they were: fetters.
Ivarr handed each kholop a sword. This was taking a risk, I thought to myself. What if the kholops decided to rebel? Yet Ivarr seemed unconcerned as several of the kholops began to swing their swords through the air to test their weight. He was confident enough to turn his back on them.
'Here, Thorgils,' he said, 'you'd better come with us. You can make yourself useful, if necessary, by making us all disappear.' The rest of the Varangians laughed sycophantically.
With five Varangians and half a dozen kholops aboard each boat, we set off to row upstream. Again, Ivarr was watching the river bank closely. The oarsmen took care to make as little noise as possible, dipping their blades gendy into the water as we glided forward. Both Vermundr and Angantyr were with me in Ivarr's vessel and seemed tense. 'We should have waited until dawn,' said Vermundr under his breath to his companion. Ivarr must have overheard his comment because he turned round from where he stood in the bow and looked at Vermundr. His glance was enough to make Vermundr cringe.
Late in the afternoon Ivarr held up his hand to attract our attention, then silently gestured towards the bank. The slope was marked with footprints leading down to the water's edge. A large, half-submerged log was worn and smooth. Its upper surface had been used as a surface for washing clothes. A broken wooden scoop lay discarded close by. Ivarr made a circular gesture and waved on the second boat, indicating that it was to row further upstream. He pointed to the sun, then brought his arm down towards the horizon and made a chopping motion. The Varangians in the second boat waved in acknowledgement and they and the kholops rowed onwards silently. Very soon they were out of sight round a bend in the river.
Aboard our own vessel, the current carried us gently back back downstream until we were out of sight of the washing place. A few oar strokes and the boat slid under the shelter of some overhanging branches, where we hung on and waited. We sat in silence and listened to the pluck and gurgle of the water on the hull. Occasionally there was the splash of a fish jumping. A heron glided down to settle in the shallows a few paces away from us. It began its fishing, stalking cautiously through the water, step by step until suddenly it noticed our vessel and its human cargo. It gave a sudden twitch of panic, leaped up into the air and flew off, releasing a loud and angry croak once it was safely clear. Beside me Angantyr muttered angrily at the heron's alarm call. Another glance from Ivarr quietened him instantly. Ivarr himself sat motionless. With his glistening shaven head and his squat body, he reminded me of a waterside toad waiting in ambush.
Finally Ivarr rose to his feet and nodded. The sun was about to dip below the treeline. The oarsmen eased their blades into the water and our boat emerged from its hiding place. Within moments we were back at the washing place and this time we landed. The boat was drawn up on the mud and the men formed up into a column, Ivarr at its head, Angantyr right behind him. Vermundr and I brought up the rear, behind the kholops. All of us were armed with swords or axes, and each Varangian carried a set of manacles, wrapped around his waist like an iron sash.
We walked briskly along the track, which led inland. The path was sufficiently well worn for us to make quick progress and we made scarcely any noise. Very soon I heard the shouts of children at play and a sudden burst of barking, indicating that dogs had detected us. Within moments there came the urgent clamour of a horn sounding the alarm. Ivarr broke into a run. We burst out of the forest and found ourselves in open ground where the trees had been cleared to provide space for small plots of farmland and vegetable gardens. A hundred paces away was a native village of forty or fifty log huts. The place was defenceless — it did not even have a palisade. The inhabitants must have thought they were too isolated and well hidden to take any precautions.
In the next few moments they learned their error. Ivarr and the Varangians swept into the settlement, waving their weapons and yelling at the top of their voices to terrorise the villagers. To my surprise the kholops joined in the charge with just as much relish. They ran forward, howling and bellowing and swinging their swords. A man who had been working in his vegetable patch tried to delay our onslaught. He swung his spade at Angantyr, who cut him down with a back-handed swing, barely pausing in his stride. Women and children appeared in the doorways. They took one look at our attack and ran screaming. An old woman hobbled out of a house to see what was the matter. One of our kholops smashed her in the face with the hilt of his sword and she dropped to the ground. A child, no more than three years old, wandered into our path. Dirty and dishevelled, probably woken from sleep, the child gazed at us wonderingly as we raced past. An arrow whizzed past me and struck one of the kholops in the back. He sprawled on the ground. The arrow had come from behind. Vermundr and I turned to see a man armed with a hunting bow setting a second arrow to his bowstring. Vermundr may have been an uncouth brute, but he had his full share of courage. Though he had no shield to protect himself, he gave a bloodcurdling roar as he charged straight at the archer. The sight of the raging Varangian running towards him unnerved the bowman. He missed his second shot and a few strides later Vermundr was on him. The Varangian had chosen an axe for his weapon and now he swung the blade so hard that I heard the thud as he chopped his opponent in the waist. His victim was lifted off his feet and fell sideways in a heap.
'Come on, Thorgils, you arse-licker,' Vermundr yelled in my face as he rushed back past me to continue the sweep through the village. I ran after him, trying to make out what was happening. One or two corpses were lying on the ground. They looked like bundles of abandoned rags until you saw a battered head, a bloody outflung arm, or dirty, shoeless feet. Somewhere in front of me were more shouts and yells and out from a side alley burst the figure of an older man, running for his life. I recognised the short bearskin cape. It must have been the village shaman. He was unarmed and must have doubled back through our cordon. At that moment Ivarr stepped into view. He had a throwing axe in his hand. As smoothly as a boy throws flat pebbles to skip across a pond, he skimmed the axe towards the fugitive. The weapon went whirling across the gap as if the target was standing still.
The axe struck the shaman in the back of his skull and he sprawled forward and lay still. Ivarr saw me standing there, looking appalled. 'Friend of yours, I suppose,' he said.
There was no further resistance from the villagers. The shocking swiftness of our attack had taken them by surprise and they lacked the weapons or skill to defend themselves. We herded those still alive into the central square of their little settlement, where they stood in a huddled and dejected
group. They were an unremarkable people, typical of those who scratch a living from the forest. In appearance they were of medium height, with pale skin but dark hair, almost black. They were poorly dressed in homespun clothes of wool and none of them wore any form of jewellery apart from simple amulets on leather thongs around their necks. We knew this because the Varangians promptly searched everyone, looking for valuables, and found nothing.
'Miserable lot of shitheads. Hardly worth the trouble,' complained Vermundr.
I looked at our prisoners. They gazed at the ground dully, knowing what was coming next.
Angmantyr and my particular enemy, Froygeir, whom I had humiliated at dice, strode over to the prisoners and began to divide them into two groups. To one side they shoved the older men and women, the smaller children and anyone who was deformed or blemished in some way. These formed the larger group since many of the villagers had badly pock-marked faces. This left the younger, finer men and children over the age of eight or nine standing where they were. Except for one mother weeping bitterly at being separated from her small child, who had been sent to join the others, this second group contained almost no women. I was puzzling about the reason for this, when the crew of our second raiding boat strode into the square. In front of them they were herding, like a flock of geese, the women of the village. I realised that Vermundr, Froygeir and the rest of us in the first boat had been the beaters. The second boat's crew had been given enough time to circle around behind the village and wait for us to flush out the game. The real prey in our manhunt had fled straight into the trap, as Ivarr had intended.
There were about twenty women in the group. Their faces and arms were scratched and torn from branches, several of them had raw bruises on their faces and all of them had their wrists bound together with leather thongs. With their straggly hair and grimy faces they looked a sorry lot. However, Vermundr, standing next to me, disagreed. 'Not a bad catch,' he said. 'Give them a good scrub and they'll be worth a tidy sum.' He went forward to inspect them more closely. The women huddled together, several looking piteously across towards their children, who had been set aside. Others kept their heads down so that their tangled hair concealed their features. Vermundr was clearly a veteran slave catcher for he now went from one woman to the next, seizing each by the chin, and forcing back her head so that he could look into the woman's face and judge her worth. Suddenly he let out a whoop of delight. 'Ivarr's Luck!' he called, 'Look at this.' He seized two women by their wrists, dragged them out from the group, and made them stand side by side in front of us. Judging by their bodies the girls were aged about sixteen, though with their shapeless gowns it was difficult to tell precisely, and they kept their heads bowed forward so it was impossible to see their faces. Vermundr changed that. He went behind the girls, gathered up their hair in his hands, and like a trader in a market who flaunts his best produce with a flourish, pulled back their heads so we could see straight into their faces. They were identical twins, and even with their tear-streaked faces it was clear that they were astonishingly beautiful. I remembered how I had bribed Vermundr and Angantyr with a pair of marten skins, perfectly matched. Now I saw in front of me the human equivalent: two slave girls of perfect quality, a matching pair. Ivarr's felag had found riches.
We did not linger. The light was fading. 'Back to the boats!' Ivarr ordered. 'These people may have friends, and I want us well clear by the time they get together to launch an attack.' The last rivets were hammered tight on the fetters of the male slaves, and the felag began to withdraw to the sounds of wailing and sobbing from the despairing villagers. Several of the women captives fell to the ground, either because they fainted or because their limbs simply would not carry them away from their children. They were picked up and carried by the kholops. One male captive who refused to budge received a savage blow from the flat of a sword, which sent him stumbling forward. The majority of our captives meekly began to shuffle out of the village.
Ivarr beckoned to me. 'Come with me, Thorgils,' he said. 'Here's where you might be useful.'
He led me back through the empty village to where the corpse of the shaman lay. I thought he had only gone to retrieve his throwing axe.
'That's the same sort of cloak that you wear, isn't it?' he asked.
'Yes,' I said. 'It's a noiade's cloak. What you call a magician. Though I don't know anything about this tribe. They are completely different from the Skridfinni among whom I lived.'
'But if these people had a magician, then that means they had a God. Isn't that so?'
"Very likely,' I said.
'And if they had a god and a magician, that means they probably had a shrine to worship at,' Ivarr looked about us, then asked, 'And as you know so much about these noiades or whatever you call them, where would you guess that shrine is to be found?'
I was at a loss. I genuinely wanted to answer Ivarr's question because, like everyone else, I was frightened of him. But the village we had raided bore no resemblance to a Skridfinni camp. These people were settled forest dwellers, while the Sabme had been nomads. The village shrine could be anywhere nearby, hidden in the forest. 'I really have no idea,' I said, 'but if I were to guess, I would say that the noiade was running towards it, either to seek sanctuary there or to plead to his God for help.'
'That's just what I was thinking,' said Ivarr and set off at a brisk walk towards the edge of the dark forest in the direction that the shaman had been fleeing.
The shrine was less than an arrow flight away once we had left the open, cultivated ground and entered the forest. A tall fence of wooden planks, grey with age, concealed the sacred mystery. We walked around the fence — it was no more than thirty paces in circumference — looking for a gateway, but did not find one. I expected Ivarr simply to batter open a gap, but he was cautious. 'Don't want to make too much noise,' he said. 'We've not much time, and the villagers will soon be gathering their forces. Here, I'll help you over.' I found myself hoisted up to the top of the fence and I dropped down on the other side. As I had expected, the shrine was a simple place, suitable for such a modest settlement. The circular area inside the fence was plain beaten earth. In the centre stood what I first took to be a heavy wooden post set in the ground. Then I saw that the villagers had worshipped what Rassa would have called a sieidde. It was the stump of a tree struck by lightning and left with the vague resemblance to a seated man. The villagers had enhanced the similarity, carving out the shape of knees, and folded arms, and whittling back the neck to emphasise the head. The image was very, very old.
I spotted the latch that allowed a section of the surrounding fence to swing open, and went to let Ivarr in. He approached to within touching distance of the effigy and halted. 'Not as poor a village as it seemed, Thorgils,' he said. He was looking into the plain wooden bowl which the effigy held on its knees. It was where the villagers placed their offerings to their God. I stepped up beside Ivarr and glanced down into the bowl to see what they had given. Abruptly the breath had left my lungs. I felt giddy, not because I saw some gruesome offering, but because a poignant memory came surging into my mind and left me reeling. The bowl was half full of silver coins. Many of them were old and worn and indecipherable. They must have lain there for generations. But several coins on the surface were not yet tarnished and their patterns were instantly readable. All of them bore that strange rippling writing that I had seen during my days in London - a time I would never forget. It was when I had first made love with Aelfgifu and she had worn a necklace of those coins around her graceful neck.
Ivarr ripped the sleeve from his shirt, and knotted the end to create a makeshift sack. 'Here, Thorgils, hold this open,' he said as he lifted the wooden bowl from its place and poured in the cascade of coins. Then he tossed the bowl aside. He looked up at the roughly carved head of the wooden statue. Around its neck was a torc. The neck ring was so weatherbeaten that it was impossible to tell whether it was plain iron or blackened silver. Clearly Ivarr thought it was precious metal because he reache
d up to tug it free. But the tore remained fast. Ivarr was reaching for his throwing axe when I intervened.
'Don't do it, Ivarr,' I said, trying to sound calm and reasonable. I feared his violent reaction to anyone who thwarted him.
He turned to face me, and scowled. 'Why not?'
'It is a sacred thing,' I said. 'It belongs to the sieidde. To steal it will call down his anger. It will bring bad luck.'
'Don't waste my time. What's a sieidde?' he growled, beginning to look angry.
'A God, the local God who controls this place.'
'Their God, not mine,' Ivarr retorted and swung his axe. I was glad the blow was directed at the statue not me, for it decapitated the wooden effigy with a single blow. Ivarr lifted off the tore and slid it up his naked arm. 'You're too timid, Thorgils,' he said. 'Look, it even fits.' Then he ran for the gate.
It was dark by the time we arrived back at the river bank. The crews were already on board the two boats and waiting. They had made the captives lie in the bilges and the moment
Ivarr and I took our places the oarsmen began to row. We fled from that place as fast as we could travel and the darkness hid our withdrawal. No natives intercepted us and as soon as we reached our camp Ivarr stormed up the beach, insisting that everyone make ready to depart at once. By dawn we were already well on our way back to the great river highway.
The success of the slave raid greatly improved the temper of the felag. The underlying feeling of ferocity was still there, but the Varangians showed Ivarr a respect which bordered on admiration. Apparently it was very rare to find girl twins among the tribes, let alone a pair as exquisite as the ones we had captured. There was much talk of 'Ivarr's Luck', and a mood of self-congratulation spread among the Varangians as they preened themselves on their decision to join his felag. Only I was morose, troubled by the desecration of the shrine. Rassa had taught me to respect such places and I had a sense of foreboding.
