I chose Fasti, he who’d shown me kindness as a child. He’d once been a free man who’d managed his own lands, so I knew he could think for himself. Fasti was grateful and eager to learn, for he knew that by mastering a valued craft his chances of someday winning his freedom would be greatly improved.
For six days, we worked as hard as the dwarves that live in the hearts of the mountains—Fasti at the bellows keeping the fire glowing hot, I with hammer and tongs at the anvil. Always I taught him as I worked, showing him how iron, when brought to a bright orange-red, becomes as pliable as a green twig, and how two pieces of iron, when heated sufficiently, could be hammered together into one. I showed him how to quench the heated iron to bring hardness to it, or heat it, then cool it slowly, to draw the hardness back out.
We repaired knives, scythes, axe blades, an iron cooking pot, helms, and pieces of metal hardware for shields. We also made many new spear and arrowheads. It was from that work that Fasti learned most, for I showed him how to use the magic in the heat and coals of the fire to turn a pig of rough, crude iron into steel, and use different blows of the hammer to shape it till a weapon grew from it like a tree sprouts from the earth.
Men had always paid Gunnar for the work he’d performed for them, sometimes with bits of silver, but more often through trade. I knew nothing of what to charge for my services, for as a thrall I’d never bought or sold anything. I left to Ubbe the task of bartering with the folk of the village for the work they needed done.
Harald called a halt after the sixth day. “I’ve suffered your absence long enough,” he said. “I have plans that will wait no longer. I wish to travel to the Limfjord to see the northern estate. It is yours now. I’d originally hoped to make the trip to inspect the lands and surprise you with the knowledge that they are yours after you first saw them. The farm lies in a location that is very pleasant and fair to the senses. When Toke visited, though, demanding an inheritance, I felt you should learn from me, rather than his angry shouts, that Hrorik left lands to you. Still, though I can no longer surprise you with Hrorik’s gift, we should go now and inspect your lands. All lands are fairest in the spring.”
I was excited at the prospect of the trip. I myself had been property, owned by another, until recently. It still did not seem real to me that now I, Halfdan the former thrall, owned an estate.
Harald wished to travel by water. “We can continue your lessons on the journey,” he said. “I can begin to teach you how to read the sea and the winds, and how to sail. Among our people, there are few free men of your age, and probably none of your rank, who have never taken a sea voyage.”
It seemed there was no end to the things I did not know as a free man, but should.
We were to travel in the Red Eagle’s small-boat. Because there was no profit to be made from the voyage, Harald did not wish to take enough men away from the household and the village to man the Red Eagle herself, for she required a sizable crew.
Four carls from our household would travel with us. Ulf, he who had forcefully fed dinner to one of Toke’s men and almost precipitated a battle, would come, plus Odd, Rolf, and Lodver. Each of them brought their full war gear—shield, helm, and weapons—and stowed them in the boat. Rolf also brought a heavy leather jerkin with small metal plates riveted to it, and Ulf a mail brynie. Harald, too, brought his brynie, carefully wrapped in oiled wool and stored in a sealskin bag, plus his helm and shield, his sword Biter, and a spear. He handed me a shield and the helm I’d worn in our practice combats and a sword in a scabbard.
“This sword is almost a hand’s-span shorter than most swords,” he said, “and it does not have a fine pattern-welded blade, like Biter. It is well made, though, with good steel that’s flexible enough not to break, yet hard enough to take a sharp edge, and it has a good balance. It will serve until we can get you something better. You should bring your bow, also.”
I drew the sword from its scabbard. The blade was wide—wider even than Biter, as wide as three fingers side by side. Unlike Biter and most longer swords, whose blades tapered in width from the hilt to the point, the edges of the sword Harald had given me ran straight until the very tip where they curved in sharply to form a broad point. A wide fuller ran up the entire center of the blade to lighten it. The hilt was a simple, straight bar of bronze. The grip was wood wrapped with leather, and the pommel was a single, pointed bronze lobe, heavy enough to balance the blade. I tested the edge. It was very sharp.
“I’m surprised it balances so well, because the blade has no taper,” Harald said. “It must be due to the shortness of the blade, combined with so large and heavy a pommel. The good balance will give it a quickness that may somewhat make up for its shortness. In my opinion, it’s the best spare sword we have. I’m sure it will not be your last, though.” He grinned. “I predict that one day you’ll win a fine and famous sword, for some heroic deed.”
It was my first sword, and I loved it.
“Why are we traveling so heavily armed?” I asked.
“We are but six men in a small-boat, and traveling a far distance. There are men on land and sea who would kill us just to take our weapons, or even the clothes we wear on our backs. And there is another reason. The first man I ever killed in a duel, four years ago now, was the son of a chieftain named Ragnvald, who lives on the Limfjord. It was a fair fight—with witnesses—over insults he’d given, but his family was bitter his death. They presented a case against me at the Limfjord Thing that year. They sought to have me declared outlaw, or at least to force Hrorik to pay wergild, but their case had no merit and they lost. Whenever I’m on the Limfjord, though, I take extra care lest Ragnvald and his men come upon me seeking vengeance.”
I wondered if I would ever be a warrior like Harald. He seemed fearless and totally sure of himself and of all that he did. What would I do, I wondered, when someday I was insulted by another man? Would I swallow my pride and the insult—as I’d done with Toke—or would I fight to protect my honor? If I fought, would I win?
I had little to pack. I took the arrows from Hrorik’s quiver and used them to fill my own, for I had only a few. I left my feast clothes and my rough, thrall’s tunic in my bedcloset, and wore the new clothing Sigrid had made for me. At my belt, in a leather pouch I’d made, I carried flint and steel, an extra bowstring, and wrapped in a scrap of woolen cloth, the comb my mother had given me. I carried it as much to remember her by as to keep my hair untangled, for it was still much shorter than most free men wore theirs.
We set sail early the next morning. Hrorik’s—now Harald’s—estate lay slightly more than a third of the way down from the northern tip of Jutland, the Danish mainland. A large point of land extends out into the sea on Jutland’s eastern coast there, above the islands of Samso, Fyn, and Sjaelland. On the sheltered southern side of this point lie numerous fjords, the site of many chieftains’ estates and small villages. It was here the estate that was our home was located, and from its fjord that we sailed. As we headed out toward the mouth of the fjord, the brisk breeze carried a chill across the water, and I was thankful for the thick woolen cloak Sigrid had made for me.
Our fjord, and the forest that surrounded it, marked the boundaries of the only world I’d ever known. Once we passed beyond the fjord’s mouth and reached the open sea, I felt as though I’d crossed a threshold that led to the entire world beyond—a world that as a thrall I’d never thought I’d see. The wind became stiffer, and our little boat bucked and surged across the broad swells like a horse fresh out of the byre, impatiently pulling against the reins. The sun was shining brightly and the air smelled fresh and clean with a salty tang. Rolf trailed a line as we sailed, and over the course of the day caught three good-sized fish. I learned, on that voyage, that fishing was Rolf’s passion. We stayed always within sight of land, and for most of the day our course headed us into the wind, so our progress was fairly slow, but the adverse wind gave Harald opportunity to teach me how to tack and sail close to the wind.
Late
in the afternoon, we passed the last fjord and rounded the promontory that marks the end of the protected southern side of the great point of land. As we turned north, the shoreline now was smooth and unbroken. We had traveled only a short distance when we came upon a deserted stretch of beach, where Harald turned in toward the shore for the night. We beached our boat, turning it up on its side, and built our fire behind it, sheltered from both the wind off the sea and the prying eyes of passing ships. With the sail, mast, and oars we formed a rough shelter facing the fire.
For dinner we roasted the fish that Rolf had caught on spits over the fire and shared a skin filled with strong brown ale. The wind had blown the clouds away, and the sky above us was filled with stars sparkling like jewels. Their light shone so brightly that even though the moon was but a thin, pale sliver hanging in the sky, I could see easily in the darkness whenever I wandered away from the circle of firelight to relieve myself.
“Tell me your thoughts,” Harald asked after we had eaten. I was lying back on the sand, my head in my arms, staring up at the sky.
“I was thinking that the sky above us is the same as it always has been,” I said, “yet for me, at least, the world has greatly changed. How can such change occur and the sky take no notice?”
Ulf laughed. “The doings of men have no more import to the heavens than the actions of ants have to us.”
As he spoke, a star fell out of the sky in a streak of fire.
“Yet some think the heavens contain signs and portents of things that have yet to occur here on earth,” Harald said. “Ubbe’s wife, Ase, who serves us as our priestess of Freyja and of Odin’s wife Frigg and knows more than most about the Gods, often reads signs from the stars. She would say, for instance, that the fall of yonder star foretells the fall of some great man.”
Ulf shook his head. “Believe in such things if you wish. For me, I say that somewhere there is always a great man dying, whether a star falls or no. If I concern myself with what happens in the heavens, which I cannot affect, I may not see a sign here on earth that gives me warning I can heed.”
“The Gods do not ignore men, Ulf,” Harald said. “If we do not honor them with sacrifices they become angry. And sometimes, for reasons we may not understand, they show special favor on one man or another.”
“It is good you believe that, Harald,” Ulf replied. “Now that Hrorik is dead, you are the chief priest for the estate and village. I’m happy that you will deal with the Gods for all of us. Me, I will limit my dealings to men, and the affairs of men. And for now, I will limit my dealings to sleep. It has been a long day.”
The next morning, we broke the night’s fast with bread and cheese, and Rolf roasted some hazelnuts in the coals of the fire. Before I could partake, Harald put his hand on my arm and pulled it back.
“It would be best if you do not eat this morning,” he said. “The sea off this coast is never smooth, and with the wind blowing as it is today, it will be very rough indeed. You’ve never sailed on such waters before. You should wait and see how it affects you.” Though my stomach growled with hunger, I did as he advised.
We sailed due north the entire day. As Harald had predicted, the sea was rough. Our little boat reared and thumped across the choppy waves.
By mid-morning, I understood Harald’s warning. My stomach tossed like the sea, and I felt deathly ill. Rolf, Ulf and the others made jokes about whether the color of my complexion matched the green of the sea. Shortly before noon, the fish I’d eaten for dinner the night before returned to the sea. Afterward, I wrapped myself in my cloak, pulled its edge over my head like a hood, and lay in misery in the bottom of the boat, oblivious to all that occurred around me.
As the sky began to dim toward evening, I realized I was feeling marginally better. I sat up, looked around, and croaked, “Have I missed anything?”
Harald smiled. “Just the vast, empty sky, the water changing colors as the sun passed in and out of clouds, and the drifting flight of many seabirds. You have missed the peacefulness of being out upon the sea.”
I did not think such seemed worth the ills brought on by sea travel, and said so, leaning against the side of the boat and groaning. “I don’t think I am cut out to be a sailor,” I added.
Ulf laughed. “We all experienced the sickness from the sea on our first voyages. For most, it happens once and never returns. It is almost behind you now.”
It seemed Ulf was right. By the time we made shore and prepared a spare meal of a simple salted pork and barley stew, cooked in an iron pot suspended over the fire, my appetite had returned.
We camped on a barren, windswept strand, where the northbound coast began curving west.
“We have rounded a great point that juts out into the sea from this side of the mainland,” Harald said. “In the Red Eagle, we could have come this far in one day’s sail. Even so, now it will be only two days at most, maybe less, until we reach the mouth of the Limfjord.”
We reached the opening of the eastern end of the Limfjord in the early afternoon of the second day. By then, we’d all grown weary of the forced inactivity and cramped confines of the small-boat.
“The Limfjord is a wondrous place,” Harald told me, as we entered its mouth. “At this end, it opens into the sea through a channel no wider than a river, but it cuts clear across Jutland. And there are areas inland where the water is so broad that a man cannot see across to the other side. It stretches so long that we will not reach the estate until tomorrow, and even then we’ll have traveled less than half the Limfjord’s total length. Ase has told me she believes that Freyr and Freyja placed first man and first woman of the Jutes—the ancestors of the Danes—into the world at the Limfjord, and that we Danes have spread, over time beyond remembering, down Jutland and onto the islands from here.”
My heart sank at the news that we would not reach our destination this day. I was weary of sea travel.
“Look,” Rolf said suddenly, pointing toward a clump of trees ahead of us on the southern shore of the channel. “Deer—coming to the shore to drink.”
I did not think the deer Rolf saw were coming to drink sea water, but I did not tell him so. After four days at sea in a small-boat, I didn’t care why they were there. Perhaps they came for the view.
“Harald,” I whispered. “Pull in to shore quickly, and wait here. If you do, I will get us fresh meat. Don’t any of you move about or make noise. When you see me come out on the shore upstream, sail down to where I am.”
The men looked at Harald, questioning that it was I who was giving commands. But Harald nodded to me and then to them.
“Go,” he said. “We will wait here for your signal.”
When the keel grated on the bottom, I eased overboard carrying my bow and quiver. Once in the woods, I paused to string my bow, then moved in a wide arc back from the shore, circling gradually toward the direction where we’d seen the deer. The smells and sounds of the forest and the feel of solid ground beneath my feet were more welcome to me than ale to a weary traveler.
I was well back from the shoreline when I crossed a small stream flowing toward the fjord. I saw a narrow trail where the earth was worn bare of fallen leaves and bracken along its far bank. I knew the trail had been formed by the regular passage of forest creatures. Fresh deer tracks were visible in its soft soil, headed toward the fjord. I crumbled some dry leaves in my hand and let them fall. The air was almost still, but what breeze there was would carry my scent downstream. I would not be able to hunt down the path, for my scent would travel ahead of me.
I moved back into the woods, as far back from the stream and path as I could go and still be positioned to make a shot from the side when the deer returned from the water’s edge to the safety of the deep forest. And return they would, along this path. I was certain of it. Their sanctuary would be in the depth of the forest, and this trail had been created by their regular passage to and from it. Harald could read the sky and the sea, but I could read the forest and the ways of its creatures. I
laid an arrow across my bow and nocked it on the string, then crouched beside a tree, waiting. I was as still as a stone, and with my gray cloak pulled around me, from a distance I must have looked like one.
It was late afternoon before I stepped out of the woods onto the shore, and signaled to Harald and the others where they waited beside the boat. As soon as Harald beached the boat where I stood waiting, he said to Odd and Lodver, “Follow Halfdan and help him bring out the deer he has taken.”
“He has not spoken yet,” Lodver protested. “How can you know he was successful in his hunt?”
“If Halfdan goes into the forest to hunt, there will be meat,” Harald said. “It is as certain as the sunrise in the morning.”
Harald’s praise and faith in my skills filled me with pride, but I was careful not to show it. I was a free man now, and a warrior in the company of men. Harald had taught me that a warrior accepts praise from his chieftain with dignity.
My taking of the deer left Harald in high spirits. He propped it up in the bow of the boat, its head resting on the stem-post as if it was the dragonhead on a ship. He and Ulf traded jests as to what we should now name our little craft. Based on the time it had taken us to make our journey, Ulf insisted that only the Slow Stag would fit. I couldn’t help but laugh at their jests, but I also felt a slight feeling of unease. I knew that the forest was a living thing, full of wildness that men could not see or understand. Some God or spirit had graciously given us one of its creatures to feed our hunger. It was ill-mannered behavior to now make the unfortunate beast the butt of our jests. I wanted to say something, but these were seasoned warriors, and I felt I did not have the right to correct them.
That night, we roasted the deer’s liver and choicest cuts of meat over the fire, and washed it down with the last of the ale Harald had brought for the trip. Early the next morning, soon after we set off, the sun broke through the clouds and warmed us. Ulf grinned and nudged Harald with his foot. “Signs and portents in the heavens, Harald,” he said. “The sun shines on Halfdan’s first visit to his new lands.”
Viking Warrior Page 14
