"My father's priests said that my mark was a sign of family sin and a brand to forever mark me with shame. They said that I should always keep it covered."
"And did you believe them?"
"It was what I was taught, Master."
"Then they were fools. Never be ashamed of what your ancestors were, Ambrose. They are who made you. They gave you life, and for this they must be always revered.
Ah, I see the beautiful Anna has returned. My dear, would you be so kind as to rub some of that liniment on our young warrior here. We want him to be able to move in the morning.
Ambrose, what did Warrior Uigbiorn say about your prowess?"
"Master, he said I had quick reflexes, but had to work on developing the strength of my arms. We were using heavily weighted wooden swords, and my arms eventually grew numb from fatigue."
"Anna, leave off rubbing the unguent on him for a moment. Come, Ambrose, I have an idea. Follow me."
Canute climbed stiffly from his seat and walked quickly back to the arms chest. Throwing open the chest's lid, he reached deep and withdrew another weapon heavily wrapped in oiled cloth. He tore off the covering, and then held the weapon out for inspection.
"This is Victory-Maker. Have you ever seen such a weapon, Ambrose?"
"No, Master. My father the king had a vast collection of swords. Many came as gifts from foreign lands, but I have never seen such a one as this."
"What do you think of Victory-Maker?"
"It is beautiful. By the intricate work I would say that it may have belonged to a great nobleman or king, but it is thin, Master. Can it stand up to a heavy Viking blade?"
"Better than you think, young warrior. Our smiths often add a little carbon to the molten iron when they forge our swords. A lot of carbon makes the weapons much more able to hold a sharp edge, but it also makes them brittle. Our warriors prefer a blade that will bend rather than break. But the soft iron means that we do not attack with the point, nor can we achieve a razor sharpness on the edges.
Victory-Maker is different. It will cut nicks in the best Viking sword, yet it will not shatter. Here, hold it in your hand. Swing it, gently. What does it feel like?"
"Light as a feather, Master. I could swing this all day without tiring."
"Anna!"
Anna ran to approach old Canute.
"Yes, Master?"
"Fetch a small square of silk from my wife's chest, please."
"Which colour would you like, Master?"
"The colour does not matter. I want one a little larger than my hand."
Anna quickly returned with a small piece of bright red silk. "Here you are, Master."
"Good. Come, you two. Let us step outside. I need sunlight to show you my next trick."
The three stood side by side near the doorway. Canute smiled.
"Step well back. I don't want to hurt either of you. Watch carefully now."
Canute wadded the delicate material and threw it as high as he could. As it opened and floated gently earthwards, the old man swung the sword at it. To both Ambrose's and Anna's great surprise, the slim blade neatly sliced right through the material. Two separate pieces of silk landed on the ground.
Canute now grinned. "Have either of you ever seen a blade that can do that?"
Anna fingered the torn cloth. "No, Master."
Ambrose picked up the other piece and stared at it. "I have seen a razor once that could do it, but never a sword capable of such magic."
"Nay, Ambrose it is not magic. Some smith added unknown metals to the iron. See here? You can see by the ripples in the blade that the metal was heated, beaten, folded, and then beaten again. Whoever made this blade was truly an expert smith. He possessed skills and knowledge that our best smiths simply do not have. Even the best blades we import from Frankland cannot do this."
"Master, where did the blade come from?"
"Long ago when I was young and daring, we sailed through the passage we call Narvesund. We landed on the shores of a desert and surprised a caravan following the coastal road, killed the few guards who did not run and looted what pack-animals we could catch.
The animals themselves were very strange. They were much taller than a horse, and had a single large hump on their back. They had an evil temperament, and spat at us, yet they died quickly enough when we slit their throats. That sword was in the first pack that I opened."
Both Ambrose and Anna were enthralled. Ambrose spoke.
"Master, what happened after that?"
"It was as if we had disturbed an anthill. Within minutes, line after line of fierce mounted warriors attacked us. Whatever it was that we had attacked; it was not an ordinary caravan. We did, however, teach them proper respect for our skjaldborg.
"Skjaldborg?"
"The Viking shield-wall formation. We held off cavalry charge after cavalry charge. They were brave men and the bodies piled high in front of us. Finally the commanders realized that horsemen could not break our skjaldborg, so they changed their tactics and used their mounts to pass quickly by and loose a torrent of arrows at us. They were master archers and we would have died to a man if we had not managed to retreat to our boats.
"And so you did not learn anything about the sword, Master?"
"Only that I stole it from someone in Africa, and it was part of a treasure being taken somewhere. No, I learned one more thing, Ambrose."
"What is that, Master?"
"Look at the end of the blade, Ambrose. What do you see?"
"It is pointed and as sharp as the rest of the blade."
"Good, Ambrose. Unlike Deep-biter, the point is as deadly as the edge. Have you ever trained with a stabbing sword?"
"I have tried a stabbing sword based on the ancient Roman legionary model, Master, and Phillip, my weapons tutor in Wessex, taught me how to use my sax - my long knife, to slip through a crack in the shield-wall when I was in the Saxon shield-wall formation."
"Excellent. Then you know the power of a sharp point. This blade can give you an insurmountable edge over a Viking warrior armed with a traditional blade, if you but learn to use it properly."
"Master, I can not use Victory-Maker! It is worth a king's ransom."
"Ambrose, you are in training to protect me in my old age. I expect you to use the best weapons available. Is that clear?"
Ambrose noted the twinkle in Canute's eyes, and he grinned. "Yes, Master!"
Returning Deep-biter to the weapons chest, Ambrose spent the next few weeks concentrating on developing his skills with the fine and gently curved sword that Canute owned and insisted Ambrose learn to use. Of an unknown alloy of steel, and light as a feather, Ambrose could twirl it far more dextrously than the Danes swung their own clumsy swords.
The supple blade even bent two or three far thicker weapons. With his speed with Canute's sword and rapidly improving accuracy with the bow, Ambrose found himself becoming one of the more formidable of the village boys; although in sheer brawn they continued to well outmatch him.
Only once did Lief, father of Lars, watching his own son's sword swept out of his hand by Ambrose's fast-moving blade, argue again that a thrall should not be training with free-born Danes. When the matter went a second time to the village Thing, Canute merely spoke quietly.
"If Ambrose is not to learn the skills necessary to protect me, will you volunteer to sleep by my front entrance and guard my person? Will you, Lief, be my eyes and launch the arrow that will bring down the deer?"
Lief looked hard at the ground by his feet. "Well, I could hardly do that."
Canute called out. "I cannot hear you, Lief. Are you saying you will?"
"Uh, I cannot do that."
"Then perhaps you will lend me Lars."
"He has his duties. What you are asking is not reasonable."
"If you or your son are not able to protect me and hunt for me, then who is? Our laws are quite clear. A thrall may fight in his master's defence, and in time of war he wins his freedom by doing so.
Lief
, am I to have an untrained thrall to protect me against brigands and bears and such, or one who has learned the military arts? Or, perhaps, you are angry because Ambrose has the skill to defeat Lars? Ambrose was given to me to replace my own boy. I expect Ambrose to have the same training my own son got. Is this, neighbours and friends, such an unreasonable request?"
With the pattern of sleep, eating, school work, armed practise, and field work becoming a constant, Ambrose slipped from day to day, until several months were painlessly devoured. Polonius' pattern was a little different, as he worked at the school most of the time, and slept there, but the time slipped by as effortlessly.
One night during that first summer, Ambrose sensed Anna approaching naked from the master's room and bending over him. She whispered softly into his ear. "My lord, may I lie beside you?"
Taken aback, Ambrose didn't know what to say. He had never lain with a girl, and the hormones in his young body often caused an ache in his genitals that he only managed to assuage through hard work and violent exercise.
As Anna lay down, a beam of moon light from the uncovered window lit up her body, showing it to be lustrous and smooth. She lay beside him, and he felt her sweet breasts rub softly against his bare skin. His loins ached as he briefly saw the soft patch of downy fuzz that hid her maidenhood.
Anna lay shyly beside Ambrose, making no movement to touch his inflamed body, nor preventing him when at length he reached out one trembling hand to caressingly and shyly explore her female wondrousness. His hands slid over her cheek and mouth, sliding to her neck and exploring gradually lower. He cupped a warm breast in his hand, and could feel her heart throbbing almost wildly in her bosom.
Here he lingered, afraid of going any further in this madness. Well he knew that capture at this time could mean castration, a painful and lingering death at the hands of his master, or, worse yet, as a plaything for the women of the village.
As he struggled with his thoughts and emotions, Anna whispered softly into his ear, in a voice at once so gentle and shy that Ambrose trembled uncontrollably at the sound of it.
"My lord, unworthy as I am, I am yours to take as you will."
Ambrose responded, putting some of his anxiety into words. "Anna, you belong no more to me or any Saxon! You are the property of old Canute, who has the right to do with you as he pleases. Although I long for your body more than anything else on this mortal world, I fear for you if he discovers us!"
Anna bent her head in submission to Ambrose. "My lord, Master Canute specifically bade me leave his side. He said he has never been so tired, and he strictly enjoined me to make sure that you were comfortable. Thus I am here."
Ambrose's tortured body couldn't stand it any longer, and his hand, almost with a will of its own, plunged down her smooth belly to the ultimate secret place of womanhood. There, he explored clumsily. He felt Anna become clammy and then wet in desire for him.
Emboldened, he mounted her, and his penis, with an instinct as old as man, found its thrusting way into her. A gasp of pain proved to Ambrose that Anna, too, was new at this, and then she began to convulse in his arms.
Frightened at first by her response, Ambrose soon found his own body coming closer and closer to release. While her grasping vaginal muscles squeezed the head of his penis, he fought his way to the precipice. Both moaned and clung tightly to the other. They became oblivious to all else in their universe.
At last it was over, and both lay panting and quiet on Ambrose's bed of pine boughs. Anna spoke softly.
"My lord, I have long hoped for, and feared, this night. I prayed when I was taken captive that it would be someone like you who would relieve me of my virginity, and not some filthy pirate. I am grateful that you could find it in you to sleep with such a one as I."
Muffled sobs attested to the depths of her feelings, and Ambrose held her long into the night, caring little for the ache in his arms caused by the cramped position. A boy no longer, he felt shamed that he had taken her virginity, but wondered, too, that Canute had not done so long before.
CHAPTER 8.
Phillip Has Cruel Masters.
The months followed each other as one goose follows another in their twice yearly migrations. Winter came, and Ambrose's rhythm of life slowed a little. All was well at Canute's household, and Anna began to grow plump in her belly.
Canute smiled and told the two young slaves that he was terribly pleased that he had this uncontested proof of his sexual prowess. For Polonius, little changed. The classes with the village youths continued whenever they could be spared from work. When the weather allowed it, military practise continued.
Ambrose grew adept at snaring animals in the nearby woods. Polonius continued to stuff his head with what the scholar considered to be many important and interesting facts, and Phillip was at least no longer harnessed to a plough. With the food surreptitiously given him by Ambrose, taken with Canute's blessing, Phillip grew stronger than he had been for months. Often set to gather firewood, he and Ambrose spent some relatively carefree days in the woods, pairing up to chop wind-fallen timber.
A man of few words, Phillip was able to mutely express his devotion to his young former master. For his own part, Ambrose felt deep love for this giant thane who had long been his arms trainer, and had acted as his bodyguard and mentor. Anger at the angry welts that now crossed Phillip's back smouldered within the young prince.
Although Phillip never spoke of it, the stories of the family's cruelty was told to Ambrose by various Saxon thralls. Phillip dwelt in the house of Lief the Drunkard with several other slaves, the wife, and two sons. The offspring were great greasy louts who had few brains and a mean temperament. Lars, the youngest, avoided more contests with Ambrose, but continued to bully anyone he could.
Generally idle, and often drunk, both father and sons terrorized the thralls. Lars was accused of raping a neighbour's woman-servant, but he was allowed to pay wergeld, and the matter was forgotten. When angry with each other, or when feuding with their neighbours, they took out their anger on their own servants, for, like many drunkards, they were cowards, and knew their thralls to be defenceless before their wrath.
Spring arrived, and soon the entire village was busy with the spring planting. The sandy soil was reasonably fertile, and, with great care, bounteous. Once Ambrose asked Canute why his people had taken to such a dangerous pastime as raiding other lands. Canute thought long before he answered.
"My boy, the land of the Danes is fertile, and we make good use of all of it, but it is small, and our population constantly grows. To the south, there are the Franks and the Frisians. To the north, the east and the west, there is only water. We have stolen some of the Frisian lands, but now we face the Franks. After Charlemagne's death they became divided and soft, but they are still as many as the spawning salmon.'
Canute shrugged. 'They have built fortifications against us along our southern border that we cannot easily broach, so we just slip past their walls by ship and sail to other, weaker parts of the land of the Franks. We have managed to raid considerable coastal stretches of Frankland, but we do not have enough young men to do more than raid the Frankish coast. We have countered with a wall of our own across the southern end of the isthmus, but I pray to the gods every night that the sons and grandsons of Charlemagne never manage to re-unite the old empire.
To the north and the east, over the waters, lie our cousins the Norse and the Swedes. We do occasionally fight with them, but their land is much less fertile than ours, and the climate is more extreme. The Swedes rule much of the inland sea that laps on our eastern islands, and they guard their trade routes jealously. They, too, have been forced to turn to their boats and sail in search of plunder, trade, and land for their children to farm. Thus, in Angleland, Irishland, Frankland, and the northern islands, our ships and armies are familiar sights. The Christ-believers there have grown weak, and we need their land for our children.
You must understand, Ambrose, that only the young and foolha
rdy sail to rape and burn. Far more important is the gold to buy food and weapons; and land to settle. It is our people who are settling now in the north of your island, and they want mainly to live in peace and settle. The Picts and your tribesmen, of course, hate all Danes as demons, and strive mightily to push us back into the sea. It is not so much greed that teaches us to be savage warriors and fearless sailors, but sheer need."
Ambrose nodded. "And you told me once that your religion teaches you that the only way to Valhalla is for a warrior to fall fighting bravely in battle."
"That is true, Ambrose. Our men are not suicidal, but most do not fear death. It makes for brave warriors. In time, when I become infirm, I would have asked my son to stand me up in battle with a sword in my hand. Perhaps that will be your task, young Ambrose."
"And only thus could you join the gods at Valhalla?"
"Only thus."
"May that time be far in the future, Master."
"There are days I feel ready to join my son at Odin's feast, young Ambrose, but no, I do not think that the Norns have woven my fate to end quite yet."
"The Norns, Master?"
Canute smiled. I do not know what the Christ-priests have filled your head with, Ambrose. The Norns are three maidens who live under the tree of life and weave every man's future."
Ambrose smiled in return. "I thank you, Master. You have explained much."
Ambrose spent some days mulling over what Canute had said, as well as discussing it with Polonius. In truth, it seemed to explain much which had previously been to him inexplicable. Now that he lived amongst the Danes, he had wondered how such simple people of the plough and sea had become famous as the cruelest marauders that existed on the face of the earth.
In May of that year, which Canute explained was called the month of Harpa, an important local Jarl's army passed through the little village. For the first time Ambrose and Polonius saw some of the regular Danish tribal levies. The expedition which had captured Ambrose and Phillip had been but a private venture, independent of the tribal raids that had started years before in northern Angleland.
Ambrose, Prince of Wessex; Trader of Kiev. Page 7
