As we sailed up the fjord, Harald named the headmen and chieftains whose villages and estates we passed. Most were on the southern shore, which was more heavily forested than the shoreline on the northern side of the broad channel. When we approached the lands of one estate, Harald steered the boat across the channel so that when we passed it we were hugging the opposite shore.
“That is the estate of Ragnvald, the chieftain I told you of earlier,” he said. “From this side of the fjord, they will not be able to see who is in our boat.”
I wished that Harald would sit lower in the boat. I did not want him to be seen. I did not suggest it, though. He, of course, would never consider such a thing. It would show fear, and if Harald ever felt fear, he didn’t show it. I was afraid, though. I was afraid for Harald, because he had a powerful enemy who wished to kill him. I’d never thought, until that moment, of the possibility that Harald might someday die. I wanted him to live forever. He was my brother, and too fine a friend to lose, now that we had found each other.
Occasionally we passed other craft. Most were small-boats like ours, and the folk on many of them seemed to be fishing. One full-sized ship, loaded with cargo of some sort in barrels and bales, sailed past us, its large sail propelling it at far greater speed than we could manage.
Rolf had kept a line in the water every day of our journey since we’d left the estate. This morning he’d set his hook in a strange looking bait he’d concocted from the tail of the deer I’d slain. Now he sat, half dozing in the warm sun, with his line trailed out behind our boat. Suddenly the stick Rolf’s line was wrapped around jerked from his grasp. It bounced and spun wildly in the bottom of the boat. Ulf grabbed for it.
“Careful!” Rolf warned. “Don’t break the line!”
Ulf handed him the stick. “You take it,” he said. “I don’t know what you have hooked, but it is very strong.”
Rolf let the stick turn slowly in his hands, his thumbs pressing against it to control the rate at which the line paid out, in order to tire the creature pulling against it.
“Thor’s hammer!” he said. “It is that bait I made. I thought it might attract a big fish, but it feels as though I’ve hooked a sea monster.”
“Or a great log,” Ulf suggested.
It proved, after a lengthy struggle, to be neither a log nor a sea monster, but a salmon—a very, very large salmon, longer than a man’s arm.
“The old man will love this,” Rolf said. “We are bringing him fresh salmon and venison.”
“Aye,” Ulf agreed. “Aidan loves his food, for certain.”
I looked at Harald in surprise. Aidan was an Irish name, and I’d only ever heard of one man called by that name. “Aidan?” I asked. “My mother told me of a man with such a name.”
Harald sighed. “By the time we reach our destination, I will have no surprises left. It is the same Aidan your mother spoke of. He is a very old man now, but still hale. Aidan is the foreman of this estate, as Ubbe is foreman of mine.”
“But how?” I asked. “He’s a thrall. Mother said he was captured in Ireland in the same raid when she was taken.”
“When he was a young man,” Harald explained, “Aidan lived for many years among the Franks in the trading town of Dorestad, which lies near the coast in the lands south of Frisia. When Hrorik learned of this, he questioned Aidan often about how the town was situated upon the river, and what defenses the Franks had built to protect it. Aidan thought Hrorik was only curious, and did not foresee the use Hrorik would make of his knowledge. Perhaps he thought Dorestad was too strong to be taken. Hrorik used the knowledge he’d gained to persuade other chieftains to join him in a raid and to plan the attack. The raid was a great success, for it was the first time that Dorestad fell—and the town was filled with rich plunder. The raid brought Hrorik much fame and wealth.”
Ulf nodded in agreement. “Every member of every ship’s crew gained much plunder. It was a great raid—one that will long be remembered.”
“To reward Aidan for his help—though Aidan had not meant to help him—Hrorik freed him. Later, when Hrorik acquired the larger estate in the south, he made Aidan foreman over this estate, which is not large nor difficult to manage.”
Clearly, I thought, my father had valued wealth and prestige far above love. Aidan was rewarded with his freedom for unwittingly aiding Hrorik’s successful raid, but my mother—who had only her love to offer—had remained a slave and had died as one. Like coals that have been banked for the night, but burst again into flame when pulled clear of the ashes, my bitterness at my mother’s death flared anew. Thus I was in an angry mood when we finally reached the estate shortly after noon. Harald sensed that something was wrong, and made several attempts to draw me into conversation, but I sullenly refused to cooperate.
I was prepared to dislike Aidan, out of loyalty to my mother’s suffering, but found it difficult to do so. He was a short, jolly man with a round belly and twinkling eyes. His head was bald on top, but a wild, wind-blown fringe of white hair circled his head. He talked incessantly, pausing only occasionally to punctuate his words with laughter or to catch his breath.
“Harald!” he exclaimed as we beached our boat on the shore below the longhouse and climbed out of it, stiff from the journey. “Had I known you were coming, I would have prepared a feast. I would have ordered up your favorite delicacy—all the young ladies of the district.” At this, he tipped back his head and laughed. His eyes next fell upon Rolf’s salmon. “By all the saints in Ireland! You have captured Jonah’s whale!”
Rolf looked confused. “It is a salmon, Aidan. A big one, to be sure, but not a whale.”
Aidan laughed again. “It was a tale, not a fish’s tail, but a fine story I was referring to—about a great fish that swallowed a man whole. I’ll tell you the story this evening, while we take revenge for Jonah on this great sea beast you’ve brought.”
“We’ve venison, too,” Harald said. “This is our hunter who brings it to you.”
For the first time Aidan looked at me. His jaw dropped, and for a few moments he was speechless.
“Look at that face,” he said softly. “You can be no other than Derdriu’s lad. And look at your clothes. They are fine. Clearly you’re a thrall no more.”
Without warning, he threw his arms around me and embraced me. His aged appearance belied surprising strength, for he lifted me off my feet and whirled me around in a circle, to the great merriment of Harald, Ulf, and the others, then set me down and backed away.
“Ah, Halfdan, Halfdan! Let me feast my eyes upon you.” He turned to Harald. “So it finally happened? Gunhild’s pride would no longer let her share Hrorik—and she divorced him? Hrorik and Derdriu are finally wed? I’ve always thought it a strange custom you Northmen have to allow a woman to end a marriage, but in this instance I can say with all my heart that I’m glad you have it.”
Harald’s expression turned grave. “That is not how it happened, Aidan. Hrorik is dead. And Derdriu also. She sailed on the death ship with him.”
Aidan’s face turned ashen. “Oh, dear God,” he whispered. “Oh, dear God. I loved her like a daughter.” He dropped to his knees, clasped his hands together in front of his face, and raised his gaze to the sky. “Oh, most holy heavenly Father. Bless the immortal soul of Derdriu, who was baptized and raised in the love of your son, Jesus Christ. Her life was filled with hardship, and she died far from her home in a foreign land. Keep her safe now in heaven with you.”
I wondered whether my mother would rather be in the heaven of the White Christ or in the mead halls of Valhalla at Hrorik’s side. If Valhalla, I hoped that Aidan’s prayer had not just snatched her away. I did not know the power of Christians’ prayers—whether they could touch someone already in the afterworld. Certainly during this life, in the land of the Danes and their Gods, my mother’s prayers to the White Christ had had little effect.
My mother had taught me about the White Christ and had tried to persuade me to worship him. I did not thin
k he sounded like a strong God, though. He was not at all like the Gods who were worshipped in our village. He was not a God of storms, like Thor, or of war and death and wisdom, like Odin, or even of marriage and healing, like Frigg. The White Christ seemed to have no special powers. Though my mother said he was a God of love, even there he was not a God of the love between man and woman, like the goddess Freyja. It sounded to me as if he was a God only of liking rather than loving, and being of kind and forgiving. Certainly those could be good things, but they were not all that powerful.
We sat in the sun on a bench in front of the longhouse, drinking ale from wooden tankards that a serving girl brought out at Aidan’s command. Harald recounted for Aidan the tale of the battle in England, the voyage home with Hrorik hovering near death, the bargain my mother had struck with him, and the funeral. Aidan sat silent through it all, but when Harald had finished he let out a loud groan.
“This is terrible, terrible. It is what I have feared would happen all these many years. The time has come that I must face retribution for my many sins. I never dreamed that my dear, sweet Derdriu would be part of the price.”
I had no idea what the old man was talking about. He seemed to be quick to reach conclusions, with little to base them on.
Harald was puzzled by Aidan’s words, too. “What foolishness are you speaking?” he asked, frowning. “What has Derdriu’s death to do with you?”
“My God works in mysterious ways,” Aidan answered.
“Which apparently include addling old men’s minds,” Ulf suggested.
“What sins do you speak of?” I asked.
“I helped these heathens take the Christian town of Dorestad. I, who pledged my life to serve my God and to be a shepherd to his people, helped the wolves break into the fold and get at the sheep. It has tormented me ever since, and I have been waiting for God’s vengeance to find me.”
It amazed me that Aidan thought Mother’s bargain with Hrorik, and her brave death to raise me out of slavery, had anything to do with him. I thought he gave himself far too important a place in the world.
“Then you must continue waiting,” I told him. “My mother chose her fate freely, because she wished to see me a free man and acknowledged as Hrorik’s son. I suspect she also chose to die because by taking the death ship voyage, she could finally take her rightful place at Hrorik’s side, something that was denied to her in this world. Do not detract from the courage and generosity of her acts by claiming they had anything to do with you.”
“Heaven’s mercy,” Aidan said. “Then it is worse even than I thought. I had assumed she’d died a holy martyr, that she had no choice in the matter. Do you not see, lad? There is no Valhalla. There is only heaven and hell, and I fear that if Derdriu willingly sacrificed her own life in a heathen ceremony, then her soul is doomed forever to hell.”
Aidan’s last foolish pronouncement pushed me over the brink from irritation to anger. But before I could think of a retort, Harald leapt to his feet and roared, “Silence! You blaspheme!”
In a quieter, but still angry voice, he continued. “For all of the years since you left Ireland, Hrorik tolerated your practice of your religion. He and I have allowed you your strange beliefs about the White Christ. We have never insulted your God, though in truth he seems weak and unmanly, for he was never a warrior and he allowed himself to be taken and killed without a fight. But you go too far now to say Valhalla does not exist. Such talk I will not allow. How can you know? You’ve not seen the afterworld, though if the priests of our Gods hear of the rubbish you speak, you will risk it. I am now the chief priest for our village, since Hrorik has died. It is my responsibility to see that the Gods are given their due and shown proper respect. Such foolishness as you have just uttered will surely anger the Gods. I will not allow it. Henceforth, I do not wish to hear of your religion again. If you must practice it at all, do so in your bed, alone, at night.”
I thought our visit did not seem to be getting off to a very good start.
Harald took a deep breath and shook his head. He filled his cup with ale and drank most of it in one long gulp, then he belched and sighed.
“Ale cools the fires of anger,” he pronounced. Actually, I’d also seen drink ignite men’s passions, but it did not seem a good time to contradict Harald. He turned back to Aidan, who was watching him nervously.
“Come,” he said, his voice calm again. “We must not quarrel. I wish this to be a happy occasion. Hrorik left this estate to Halfdan, as a gift from father to son. That is why we are come—so Halfdan can inspect his new lands.”
Harald was like Thor, the thunder God, whose rage could fill the sky with darkness and violence, yet a short time later the sun would shine brightly again. As we began to tour the estate, Harald acted as if his anger had never occurred. After a time, Aidan got over his fright at Harald’s outburst and acted that way, too.
The estate was situated on a small cove off of the Limfjord. It had been cleared from the forest many years ago, and the woods now encircled the cleared lands like protective arms. A narrow stream flowed through the center of it, running between the fields and into the cove. Along one side of the cove near its mouth, a great slab of stone reared up out of the water and leaned against the shoreline.
“There,” Harald said, pointing at the giant boulder. “Sigrid and I used to sit on that great stone as children. We would fish and watch for passing ships. It was your mother, Derdriu, who taught us how to fish, right there, on that stone.”
A sandy beach, where we’d landed our boat, ran along the shore from the end of the stone slab to the mouth of the creek.
“And Aidan, do you remember? One summer you carved me a toy longship, and I would sail it from this beach?”
Everywhere we went, as Harald and Aidan showed me the pastures, fields, and the longhouse of the estate, Harald recalled distant memories peopled by himself and Sigrid as children, and sometimes by my mother, too. It was as though he was seeing spirits from the past that came to life for him again as we traversed their haunts. As for me, I saw none. I learned I had been born at this place, but no memories of it lived in my mind.
The longhouse was much simpler and smaller than that on the estate in the south. On Harald’s estate, the animal byre and bathhouse were in separate wings running off from the sides of the main structure. Here there was only one long rectangular building, with the byre at one end, taking up perhaps a third of the length of the structure, separated from the main living area by a timber wall. It was a simple, efficient design, though the living area smelled more strongly of beasts than in Harald’s longhouse.
This longhouse had been built overlooking the cove, and its main door, near the middle of one of the long sides of the building, faced the beach. A second door, at the end of the longhouse, opened from the animals’ byre. Well-worn paths led from it to the privy located near the edge of the woods, and to the farm’s two pastures.
In addition to Aidan and his wife—a plump, friendly woman named Tove, who had grown up in the nearby village—eight carls, five with families, and six thralls lived on the estate. They seemed sturdy, hardworking folk, but farmers and nothing more. Clearly I had not inherited a war band; Hrorik had kept his warriors with him at his estate to the south. The longhouse walls were hung with the shields of the carls, but the only weapons visible were a few short hand-axes, and some bows and spears that I suspected had for many years been used solely for hunting.
I hoped the lack of war gear—and of men with an inclination to use it—was evidence that the Limfjord was a safe and peaceful district. I was not yet a warrior, and certainly not fit to lead a war band. But even more, I found myself thinking that perhaps I, too, was not the stuff warriors are made off. The quiet peacefulness of the little estate led my mind to dream of living there, leading the simple life of a farmer, in rhythm with the seasons. On a farm that was mine, if I was not a thrall who labored only for someone else’s benefit, it could be a good life.
After we
’d walked the fields and pastures and I’d met all the folk of the farm, Aidan excused himself and returned to the longhouse to supervise the preparation of a feast to celebrate our arrival. Ulf and Rolf also retired to the longhouse, to the corner used for bathing, while Lodver and Odd busied themselves in a wrestling match with several of the carls from the farm.
Harald took me by the arm. “There is one other place I would like you to see,” he said.
We followed a cart path that, after crossing the shallow stream, ran like a border between the edge of the fields and the dark overhang of the forest. After a time, the path turned and headed into the woods. We’d traveled but a short distance down it, away from the open fields, when we came upon a low, wooded hill rising beside the narrow roadway.
“Here,” Harald said, stepping off the road, and he led the way through the trees and up the side of the hill. Its top had been cleared, and upon it were four stone death ships, like the one we’d built for Hrorik and my mother.
“These are the graves of our ancestors,” Harald said. He pointed to the one closest to us. “Here Hrorik’s father, Offa, was burned, and over there is Gorm, Hrorik’s father’s father. Offa died an old man in his sleep. But Gorm died when still in his prime, of a fever that grew when a wound he’d received in a duel would not heal.
“This grave to our left is the death ship of Haldar Greycloak, who came to the Limfjord from the Vestfold, up north across the water in the lands of the Norse. He was the first of our line to settle here. He married the daughter of a chieftain and was the father of Gorm. Haldar was a great warrior. He was killed by wolves one winter. Hrorik told me the tale, as it had been told to him by his father. That winter the weather was especially harsh. There were many blizzards, and large portions of the Limfjord froze solid. The cold and the frequent snowfalls drove the packs out of the depths of the forest and close to the farms and villages to scavenge for food. Haldar was out hunting alone one day, and the wolves found him and killed him. Hrorik said when the men from the estate found the savaged remains of his body, it was surrounded by the bodies of four of the wolves. He had died fighting, and cost his killers dearly.”
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