by Tim Severin
'Still worrying about that piddling little village idol, Thorgils?' said Ivarr that evening, sitting down beside me on the thwart.
'Don't you respect any God?' I asked.
'How could I?' he answered. 'Look at that lot there.' He nodded towards the Varangians in the nearest accompanying boat. 'Those who don't worship Perun venerate their ancestors. I don't even know who my mother's ancestors were, and certainly not my father's.'
'Why not Perun? From what I've heard he's the same God we call Thor in the Norse country. He is the God of warriors. Couldn't you venerate him?'
'I've no need of Perun's help,' Ivarr said confidently. 'He
didn't assist me when I was a youngster. I made my own way. Let others believe in forest hags with iron teeth and claws, or that Crnobog the black God of death seizes us when we die. When I meet my end, if my body is available for burial and not hacked to pieces, it will be enough for my companions to treat my corpse as they wish. I will no longer be there to be concerned with their superstitions.'
For a brief moment I thought to tell him about my devotion to Odinn the All-Father, but the intensity of his fatalism held me back and I changed the subject.
'How was it,' I asked, 'that our kholops took part in the raid for slaves with such enthusiasm when they themselves are slaves?'
Ivarr shrugged. 'Kholops are prepared to inflict on others what they themselves suffer. It makes them accept their own condition more easily. Of course I took back their weapons once they had completed the task and now they are kholops once again.'
'Aren't you afraid that they, or our new captives, will attempt to escape?'
Ivarr gave a grim laugh. 'Where would they find themselves if they did? They are far from home, they don't know which way to turn, and if they did run away, the first people to find them would merely turn them back into slaves again. So they accept their lot.'
In that opinion, Ivarr was wrong. Two days later he gave our male captives a little more space. The prisoners' wrist and ankle fetters had been fastened to the boats' timbers, so they were forced to crouch in the bilges. Ivarr ordered that the shackles be eased so they could stand and move about. As a precaution he kept them chained in pairs. This did not prevent two of our male captives from taking their chance to leap overboard. They flung themselves into the water and made no attempt to save their lives. They deliberately raised their arms and sank beneath the water, dragged down by the weight of their manacles, so there was no chance that our cursing oarsmen could turn and retrieve them.
The great river was now so wide that it was as if we were floating on an inland sea, and we were able to raise sail and greatly increase the distance we travelled each day. A full cargo of slaves and furs meant we had no reason to halt except to revictual the flotilla at the riverside towns which began to appear with increasing frequency. The townsfolk recognised us from a distance because only the Varangian craft had those curved profiles from the northern lands and the local traders were waiting with what we required.
We bought food for our slaves, mostly salted and dried fish, and cheap jewellery to prettify them. 'A well-turned-out slave girl gets ten times the price than one looking like a slut,' Ivarr told me, 'and if she has a pretty voice and can sing and play an instrument, then there's almost no limit to the money a rich man will pay.' He had taken me to the market in the largest of the river cities where he had a commercial arrangement with a local merchant. This man, a Jewish Khazar, specialised in the slave trade. In exchange for our least favoured slave, a male, he provided us with lengths of brightly coloured fabric for women's clothes, necklaces of green glass, beads and bangles, and an interpreter who knew the languages spoken along the lower river.
'What about the men and children we've captured?' I asked Ivarr as we waited in the Khazar's shop for the goods to be delivered.
'The children, that depends. If they are sprightly and show promise, they are easy to sell. Girls are usually more saleable than boys, though if you have a really intelligent male you can sometimes be lucky in Miklagard, the great city, particularly if the lad has fair skin and blue eyes.'
'You mean for men who like that sort or for their wives?'
'Neither. Their masters arrange to have their stones removed, then educate them. They become trusted servants, secretaries and bookkeepers and such like. Some have been bought for the imperial staff and have risen to power and responsibility. At the highest levels of the emperor's government are men who have been gelded.'
I wondered what was in store for the twins we had captured. The Khazar Jew had offered to buy them, but Ivarr would not hear of it. 'The Jews rival us for mastery of the slave trade,' he said, 'but they are middle men. They don't take the risks of raiding among the tribes. If I can sell the twins direct to a client, the felag will make a far greater profit.'
He had given the two girls into the care of his favourite concubine. She was gentle with them, showing them how best to wash and braid their hair, how to apply unguents to their faces and wear the clothes and jewellery we supplied. When the sun shone brightly, she insisted that the girls wear heavy veils to protect their fair complexions. There was no possibility that the girls would be molested by any of our men. Everyone knew that untarnished twins were far too valuable.
The weather was very much warmer now. We set aside our heavy clothes and took to wearing loose shirts and baggy trousers made of many folds of cotton. The loose trousers meant that we could scramble unhampered about the boat, yet remain cool in the increasing heat of summer. At dusk we landed on sandbanks and slept in the light tents we had purchased so we could take advantage of the night breeze. The river had left behind the dense forests, and now flowed through flat, open country grazed by the cattle of the local tribes whose language, according our interpreter, was spoken by the horse-riding peoples further east. Whenever we encountered the boats of other river travellers, they sheered off like frightened minnows. It did not matter whether people thought of us as Varangian or Rus, it was clear that we had an unsavoury reputation.
'Ivarr! On the river bank! Serklanders!' Vermundr called out one hot afternoon. The excitement in his voice made me look round to see what had made him so eager. In the distance was a small riverside village and beside it a cluster of long, low tents made of dark material. In front of the tents half a dozen river boats were drawn up on the shore.
Ivarr squinted across the glare of the river's surface. 'Thorgils, you bring good fortune with you yet again,' he said. 'I've never known Serklanders so far north.' He ordered the helmsman to steer for land. With our slave raid fresh in my mind, I wondered if Ivarr planned to swoop down on the strangers and rob them like a common pirate.
I said as much to Vermundr, and he sneered back at me. 'Perun knows why Ivarr thinks so much of you. Serklanders travel well protected, by Black Hoods usually.'
As we came closer to the landing place, I saw what he meant. A squad of men, wearing long dark hooded gowns, emerged from the tents and took up positions on the river bank, facing us. They deployed with the discipline of trained fighting men and were armed with powerful-looking double-curved bows, which they trained on us. Ivarr stood up in the bow of our boat, his brawny arms held well away from his body to show that he was unarmed.
'Tell them we come to talk of trade,' he told our interpreter, who shouted the message across the gap. The leader of the Black Hoods brusquely gestured that we were not to land close to the tents, but a little further downriver. To my surprise, Ivarr meekly obeyed. It was the first time I had seen him accept an order.
He then sent our interpreter to talk with the strangers while we set up our camp. On Ivarr's instructions, we took more care than usual. 'Expect to be here for a few days,' he said. 'We need to make a good impression.' By the time the interpreter returned, we had pitched our tents in a neat row and Ivarr's favourite concubine had shepherded our batch of slave girls to their own accommodation, a separate tent set beside our leader's pavilion with its array of rugs and cushions.
'The Serklander says he will visit you tomorrow after his prayers,' our interpreter reported. 'He asks that you prepare your wares for his inspection.'
'The land of silk, that's Serkland.' Ivarr said to me, wiping the beads of sweat from his scalp. He was sweating more than usual. 'I've never been there. It's beyond the mountains, far to the south. Their rulers like to buy slave girls, particularly if they are beautiful and accomplished. And they pay in honest silver.'
Thinking back to my time with Brithmaer the royal moneyer and his clever forgeries, I hoped that Ivarr was right. 'If it's called the land of silk why do they pay in silver?'
Ivarr shrugged. 'We'll be paid in silk when we sell our furs in the great city but the Serklanders prefer to use silver. Sometimes they exchange for gems which they bring from their country, like these.' He tugged at his pearl ear studs and the diamond.
I wondered if, yet again, my life was turning back upon itself. It was Brithmaer who had told me the rumour that fire rubies came from lands beyond the mountains.
So I awaited the arrival of the mysterious Serklander with great interest to see what he was like.
I do not know what I had been expecting, perhaps a giant clad in glistening silks or a gaunt bearded sage. Instead the Serklander proved to be a small, jovial, tubby man with a pale brown skin and dark eyes. He was dressed in a simple white cotton gown, with a cloth of the same material wrapped around his head, and plain leather sandals. To my disappointment he wore no jewellery of any kind. His affable manner was emphasised by the dourness of his escort of Black Hoods, who looked every bit as suspicious as when they had warned us off. By contrast the Serklander smiled at everyone. He trotted round our camp on his short legs, beaming at everyone, kholops and Rus alike. He patted Ivarr's two children on the head in a fatherly way, and even laughed at himself when he tripped over a tent rope and almost went headlong. But I noticed that his alert gaze missed nothing.
Finally Ivarr brought him to where the slave girls were waiting. Their tent was like a market booth and Ivarr had ordered that the front flap should be hanging down as we approached. Our little procession consisted of Ivarr, the Serklander and his guards, the Serklander's interpreter and our own, and myself as Ivarr's lucky mascot. Everyone else was kept well back by the Black Hoods. We came to a halt, facing the curtain. There was a pause and I saw two of the Black Hoods exchange a quick glance. They suspected an ambush and made a move as if to step forward and check. But the little Serklander was too quick for them. He was enjoying Ivarr's showmanship. He made a small restraining gesture and waited expectantly, a cheery smile on his face. Ivarr stepped forward, took hold of the edge of the tent curtain and threw it open, revealing the tableau inside. The slave girls had been arranged so that they stood in a line, hands demurely clasped in front of them. They were dressed in all the finery that Ivarr's concubine had been able to muster — flowing gowns, bright belts, coloured necklaces. Their hair had been washed and combed and arranged to best advantage. Some had flowers braided in their hair.
I watched the Serklander's face. His glance swept along the line of the dozen women on offer and the cheerful smile remained on his lips as if he was highly amused. Then I saw his gaze halt and — just for an instant — his eyes widened a fraction. He was looking at the far end of the line of slave girls where Ivarr's woman had positioned the twins, so that the sunshine filtering through the tent cloth bathed them in a luminous light. Daringly she had decided not to decorate the two girls at all. They wore only plain, cotton gowns, belted with a simple pale blue cord. Their feet were bare. The twins looked virginal and pure.
I knew instantly that Ivarr had made the sale.
Nevertheless, it took a week to settle a price for the girls. Neither the Serklander nor Ivarr were involved directly. The trading custom was that the two interpreters proposed bid and counter-bid, though of course their masters were the ones who dictated the value of their offers. Ivarr mistrusted the man whom the Khazar Jew had provided, so instructed me to accompany our interpreter whenever he visited the Serklander camp to negotiate, to keep an eye on him. I found this difficult because the two men carried on their negotiation entirely by touch, not word. After the usual formalities and a glass of some sweet drink, they would sit down on the ground facing one another and clasp their right hands. A cloth was then placed over the hands to shield them from the gaze of onlookers and the bargaining began. It must have been done by the varying pressures and positions of fingers and palms in a code to signal the offers and responses. All I could do was sit and watch, and try to read their faces.
'It's impossible,' I said to Ivarr after returning back to his camp after one session. 'I can't tell you if the trading is fair and honest, or if the two of them are making a private deal and you are being cheated.'
'Never mind, Thorgils,' he said. 'I still want you to be there. You are my good luck.'
So I continued with my visits to the Serklander's camp, and thus I came to his attention. His name was Salim ibn Hauk, and he was both merchant and diplomat. He was returning from an embassy to the Bolgars of the river on behalf of his master, whom he referred to as Caliph al-Qadir. Meeting with our felag had been as much a stroke of good fortune for him as it had been for us. He had been charged with collecting information about the foreign lands, and wished to know more about the Rus.
A Black Hood was sent to fetch me to ibn Hauk's tent.
'Greetings,' said the cheerful little man, speaking through his interpreter. Ibn Hauk was seated cross-legged on a carpet in his tent, a light airy canopy spread over slender supports which allowed the maximum of breeze. In front of him was a low wooden desk and he held a metal stylus in his hand. 'I would be very grateful if you could tell me something about your people.'
'Your excellency, I'm not sure that I can tell you very much,' I answered.
He looked at me quizzically. 'Don't be alarmed,' he said, 'I only want to learn about your customs. Nothing that would be considered as spying.'
'It's not that, your excellency. I have only lived among the Rus for a few months. I am not one of them.'
He looked disappointed. 'You are a freed slave?'
'No, I joined them of my own wish. I wanted to travel.' 'For profit?'
'To fulfil a vow I made to a friend before his death. They are on their way to the great city, to Miklagard.'
'How remarkable.' He made a note with his stylus on the page in front of him and I saw that he wrote from right to left. Also he used a version of the curving script which had haunted me since I had seen it on Aelfgifu's necklace coins.
'Excuse me, your excellency,' I asked. "What is it that you write?'
'Just a few notes,' he said. 'Never worry. There's nothing magical in making marks on paper. It does not steal away the knowledge.'
He thought me illiterate like most members of the felag.
'No, your excellency. I was wondering just how your script conveys the spoken word. You write in the opposite direction from us, yet you begin at the top of the page just as we do. If there is more than one page of writing, which page is the first? I mean, do you turn the pages from left to right, or in the other direction? Or is there perhaps another system?'
He looked astonished. 'You mean to say that you can read and write!'
'Yes, your excellency, I have been taught the Roman script and the Greek. I know also the rune letters.'
He laid down his stylus with an expression of delight. 'And I thought that I had found only two gems for my master. Now I discover that I have a treasure of my own.' He paused, 'And just for your information, yes, I do write letters from right to left, but numbers in the opposite direction.'
The Serklander summoned me several times to his tent to question me, and he detained me for many hours so I could supply the information he required. That might have been one reason why he did not hurry the negotiations over the sale of the twins, and this meant, in turn, that our felag stayed camped on the river bank for longer than was wise. The Varangians had not tr
oubled to dig latrines, and our original neat encampment grew dirty and foul. As I have noticed in my travels, pestilence soon appears in such conditions, and this time the first victim was Ivarr himself.
His guts turned to water. One day he was healthy, the next he was staggering in his walk and vomiting incessantly. There were small white flecks in his bile and in the liquid that began to pour from his bowels. He retreated to his tent and, despite his bull-like strength, collapsed. His concubines hurried to minister to him, but there was little they could do. Ivarr shrivelled. His cheeks fell in, his skin took on a dull grey pallor and his eyes sank back in their sockets. It was like watching the contents of a full wine skin drain away. Occasionally he groaned and writhed with cramp and his skin was cold to the touch. His breath came in short, shallow gasps and by the third day ceased altogether. I knew that it was the vengeance of the village sieidde he had denied, but the felag thought otherwise. They blamed the Serkander or his servants for poisoning Ivarr and they may have had a point. When I reported the signs of Ivarr's illness to ibn Hauk, he immediately asked me to leave his presence and the Black Hoods struck camp that same evening. Before sunset the Serklander and his people were embarking on their boats and heading downstream, taking the twins with them. The felag took their hasty departure as evidence of their guilt.
Sudden death was commonplace for the felag. Their first response to Ivarr's death was to calculate how much extra profit would accrue to each member of the felag now that he was gone. Then, from respect to his memory or perhaps because it gave an excuse for much drinking, they resolved to celebrate his funeral rites. What followed is scarred into my memory.
