Jorvik

by Jorvik- A thrilling tale of Viking Britain (retail) (epub)

‘It is no fun to take from cowards,’ sulked the boy. ‘I had expected some sort of fight.’

  ‘And fight there will be when we meet Ethelred,’ Thorald assured him. ‘These men yield because they are of our blood. They know Swein will rule them better.’

  ‘Then why does the King need to take hostages?’ retorted Sigurd.

  ‘Sad to say, one cannot always trust one’s friends.’ The brute looked pained, then grabbed a passerby and roughly divested him of the goat cheese he carried.

  Sigurd watched the filthy fingers mangle the cheese. ‘Now that the North has surrendered we should have little trouble at Jorvik. When shall we go?’ He was nervous that his uncle might get there before him and then what would he do? He could hardly oppose the one who had given him succour for the past eleven years.

  ‘First we must capture the rest of England.’ A gap opened midst Thorald’s beard and the cheese began to disappear into it.

  Sigurd cheered up. ‘And kill Ethelred? I cannot wait.’

  Thorald stopped chewing and looked pensive. ‘For what you will see of him mayhap you would be better placed looking after the ship until we return.’

  The boy was horrified. ‘And put all that training to waste?’

  Thorald was patient, locking him in a sweaty embrace whilst making a disgusting noise in the consumption of the cheese. ‘It is impossible for all of us to kill one man, Smallaxe – and if you fall in battle then who will retrieve your estate?’ Seeing that he had introduced doubt to the boy’s mind, Thorald went on, ‘It will be no easy task to keep these hostages in order, but we trust you to do this and maintain the ship.’

  So, whilst Thorald and his men marched off with the King to harry English Mercia, Sigurd was left to idle away the summer months on the banks of the Treante.

  At least he was not the only one to miss the excitement: Swein’s younger son, Cnut, had been put in command of the ships and hostages. Sigurd had only ever seen Cnut from afar, a tall and strong-limbed youth with long fair hair and sharp eyes, in most things very good-looking, apart from his nose which was like that of an eagle. He decided that this was the opportunity to take a closer look. In bold manner he approached the royal ship and without hesitation hopped aboard.

  Cnut had isolated himself from his men and was hunched on the rowing bench nearest the prow. His pose was one of deep introspection which Sigurd mistook for boredom, and in the confidence that any attention would be well-received, he made his approach along the deck. Without asking permission, he sat down beside the King’s son. What need was there for reverence – he was as good as any man. However, he did donate a wide smile. It would be folly to alienate such a well-placed friend.

  The youth glanced up at the intrusion but did not question the boy’s presence and immediately returned to his thoughts. Sigurd put his age at about eighteen, though he had an air of maturity. His tunic was russet trimmed with gold, making Sigurd conscious of his own shabby garb. His yellow leggings were traversed with dirt and grass stains, and the rip had widened; thoughts of this drew absent fingers to his crotch which he fondled awhile as he thought of something to say. After a period of non-communication, he attempted to break the ice with a riddle. ‘What has breath but cannot breathe?’

  Cnut, being older, had heard this dozens of times before and sighed the answer. ‘The wind. If you must intrude upon my thoughts you had best come up with something more amusing than that, child – and stop playing with your balls.’

  Sigurd was peeved at being called child, but removed the offending hand. ‘I could tell you about my estate at Jorvik if it would not bore you too greatly, hersir.’ Cnut passed him a smile that spoke disbelief. ‘Forsooth!’ retorted Sigurd.

  With no hope of being left to his dream, Cnut turned full attention on the interloper, his gold armlets catching the sun. ‘Then why are you not on the estate attending to your affairs?’

  ‘Because it was stolen from me by Ethelred, but when my friends return I shall have it back.’

  Cnut realized that the boy was serious and now leaned closer, his odour that of any other man. ‘Come then, tell me more.’ He listened with interest whilst Sigurd related the entire saga, at the end of which he nodded in cognizance. ‘You have as much right to hate Ethelred as I. My own kin were slain in that massacre.’

  ‘Then do you not resent being banned from witnessing Ethelred’s death?’ asked Sigurd.

  Cnut shrugged. ‘It matters not who kills him so long as he is dead.’ He noted the feverish desperation in Sigurd’s eye. ‘But you, I think, feel differently.’

  The boy’s answer was fervent. ‘What I would give to be the one to wield the death-blow! That is all I have lived my life for.’

  ‘It is a poor life woven around destruction,’ opined Cnut. ‘My intent is not to destroy men but to rally them to me. You think that brought face to face with Ethelred you could have defeated him?’

  ‘Easily,’ came the immodest reply. ‘With Odin at my shoulder.’

  Cnut was greatly amused by the lad’s confidence which matched his own. ‘I must have men such as you by me if I am ever called upon to rule – though for myself I would choose Christ to aid my battle axe.’

  Sigurd lowered his voice to an urgent whisper. ‘Let not the All-Father hear you!’

  Cnut laughed again. ‘Why? The Christian God is mightier by far.’ He cocked his ear, then: ‘Hark! Is that Thor who speaks? Nei, ’tis my growling stomach!’ He laughed at Sigurd’s jutting lip. ‘I mock you not, my friend! Come, will you honour me by eating at my table, Sigurd Einarsson?’

  Sigurd forgave the jibe and made graceful acceptance. ‘The honour is mine, hersir.’ He followed the King’s son from the ship to a house.

  At the merest signal from Cnut great activity began and soon trenchers of bream were being laid before them. As they ate, Cnut ventured; ‘You are lonely in your friends’ absence, ja?’

  Sigurd crunched on the less sharp bones and thought about it, but was unable to find the word that described his frustration. ‘Not lonely… buzzy.’

  Cnut laughed, inhaled a particle of fish and endured a bout of choking. ‘Buzzy!’

  ‘I feel like a bee in a pot. I long for them to return so that we can go to Jorvik.’ Sigurd glanced at Cnut who was now drinking from a silver goblet. ‘Mayhap I do not have to wait if you would…’

  ‘I regret, young friend,’ Cnut wiped the moisture from his eyes and impaled another piece of fish on his knife, ‘that my presence is required here.’

  ‘But you have nought of real import to do here, have you?’ Sigurd pointed out.

  ‘Nought to do?’ Cnut gave an astonished laugh. ‘What would you like to see me do? Go around prodding arses with my sword just to show my power? Power lies in here, boy.’ He tapped his breast. ‘You can be sure that if I were to desert my post and go to Jorvik then you would quickly see what effect my absence has.’ He soothed the boy’s disappointment. ‘Have patience. When the whole country is under my father’s rule then you shall have your estate back. If you should have any trouble just come to your friend Cnut and he promises to help you.’

  Sigurd grinned his thanks and decided that he liked Cnut more than anyone else he had met so far. The King’s son hailed him as a friend before witnesses!

  Cnut liked Sigurd, too. Not only was the boy amusing but he was ready to listen and learn. There were not many prepared to accept wisdom from an eighteen year old, be he royal or no.

  As an aid to digestion, Cnut summoned one of the King’s skalds to relax them with verse. After this cerebral sojourn, a leg-wrestling match took place. The lad was permitted to join in this, and all subsequent games that Cnut enjoyed throughout that summer. Battered but proud in this friendship, he even managed to forget about his estate at Jorvik for the time being.

  Alas, it was inevitable that Cnut should grow bored with one so callow and yearn for more adult pursuits. One day a wagon bearing a young woman and her maidservant trundled towards the horse trough where the two friends slo
uched idle. Sigurd, prattling away in boyish vein, became aware that Cnut was inattentive and gave him a dig in his left kidney. ‘Weave me a kirtle!’

  Cnut grunted annoyance and rubbed his side. ‘What nonsense do you spout, mustard shanks?’

  ‘You were away gathering wool, were you not?’ Sigurd was cross. ‘You must have gathered enough to weave a kirtle whilst I have been wasting my breath. How long have I been talking to myself?’

  ‘Since one more interesting came into view.’ Cnut reverted to his moonstruck pose. ‘Is she not the most beautiful creature?’

  Sigurd clamped his necklace between his teeth and peered up and down the narrow street, but could see only a cart with two plain-looking women in it.

  ‘I have made enquiries,’ confided the youth as the wagon drew level. ‘The Saxons call her Aelgifu. She has much in common with ourselves. Her father was an ealdorman of Northumbria who was cruelly murdered by Ethelred.’

  Sigurd might not pay credit to her looks but on hearing this he immediately empathized… until faced with Cnut’s request. ‘Friend Sigurd, run and ask her if she would stop awhile.’

  The boy spat out his beads. ‘Why do not you go?’

  ‘I, the son of the King?’ Cnut feigned a regal air. ‘It would be far beneath my dignity to run after a wagon, and much it would impress her.’

  ‘Oh, spare no thought for my dignity!’ Sigurd looked offended. ‘And you said we were off to spear some fish.’ He mouthed his beads again and twiddled his fringe.

  ‘So we are,’ grinned his older friend. ‘Go! Before she gets away or I will spear you.’

  With bad grace, Sigurd unwound his legs and rose, plucking at his yellow leggings. ‘Which one is she?’

  Cnut roared, ‘You think I would waste my kisses on the old crone?’

  ‘They are both old,’ came the artless reply, at which Cnut lashed out with his feet and urged him to be gone. The torn braid on his kirtle flapping up and down, Sigurd pounded after the wagon which had now gained some fifty yards on him. The two women on board heard his breathless pleas to stop but merely giggled. Eventually, when she glanced back and noticed that Sigurd was about to give up, Aelgifu ordered the driver to rein in and waited for the boy to come panting alongside.

  Sigurd leaned heavily on the wagon, dust eddying around his bare feet, and spoke to the object of Cnut’s desire. Close to, she was still no beauty. ‘I bring greetings from my friend Cnut. He asks if you will tarry and speak with him awhile.’

  Aelgifu looked down her nose at him. ‘Why does he not come after me himself if he is so eager?’

  ‘My lady, the King of England’s son does not chase wagons like a dog. Am I to return and tell him you refuse his invitation?’

  ‘When his gallant little dog has run so far to deliver it?’ At the spark of mischief in her eyes Sigurd realized the foolishness of his last comment and, blushing with anger, spun away.

  ‘Tell your master I will be there in the time that it takes my wagon to come around,’ called Aelgifu good-naturedly.

  Sigurd wheeled, ‘Lady, I have no master!’ and marched back along the dusty road in the direction of Cnut.

  On seeing that the wagon moved on, Cnut met Sigurd’s return with ill-temper. ‘If she is lost to me because of you…’

  Sigurd incised the threat. ‘How shall the wagon turn in the narrow street? She has gone around the houses to get to you.’

  Cnut turned and looked the other way to see Aelgifu’s wagon appear from a side street. His amiability returned and he patted the boy’s shoulder. ‘Well done, friend.’

  ‘You will not think so when you speak to her!’ Sigurd looked grim as he sank to his haunches. ‘She is the most disrespectful creature I have met.’ He shoved his necklace into his mouth.

  Cnut merely laughed, straightened his richly-adorned tunic and ran a quick comb through his hair. ‘Then I shall not force you to remain in her company. Run along to your fishing now.’

  Sigurd did not care for being dismissed in such a manner, lisping through the beads, ‘You may well prefer the fish of my choosing after a few seconds in the company of that old trout.’

  Cnut did not take his eyes off the woman, but Sigurd was left in no doubt as to his anger. ‘Speak thus about Aelgifu again and it is not you who will be eating fish but they who shall be eating you.’ Reassuming his smile he went to greet his lady love as her wagon made its trundling approach. The friendship mutually terminated, Sigurd loped off to the river, wondering how the war was progressing.

  Faraway in Vestfold, Ragnhild wondered too. No word had come to tell if Sigurd was alive or dead. Corn-cutting month was over, the cattle and sheep had been rounded up and driven back down the mountains to the valleys, beasts were slaughtered and their meat dried for the winter. Ragnhild had contributed every effort to this but still she had been chivvied and pushed by her sister-in-law just as she had been for the past eleven years. And all her silent curses – just you wait! – counted for nothing. Now the outside work was almost over but with the doors shut firm against the coming winter there were hides to be worked into clothing and numerous other articles. The only thing to look forward to was the Yuletide feast and the hope that as the year ended news would come of Sigurd’s fate. As Ragnhild sat here with the smell of the byre in her nostrils, fingers sore from driving a needle through leather, she wondered yet again how the mighty army progressed.

  Swein’s army, having won Oxnaford and Wintanceaster, now marched on Lunden where lurked Ethelred. But here there was firmer resistance. Ethelred’s force was backed by that of Swein’s former ally, Thorkell the Tall who, after a viking raid of earlier years, had seen how lucrative it was to be in the pouch of the English king and so had stayed behind to act as mercenary. With this combined force, plus that of its valiant citizens, Lunden stood resolute.

  When a section of his army came to grief in the Temes, Swein decided not to waste further energy on an untenable Lunden. Instead he turned his force westwards to Bathum where, under his skilful campaign, the viking army conquered the last pockets of resistance. With her King and only effective army locked in Lunden, England was obliged to accept Swein as monarch. The vikings marched in triumph back to Gæsignesburh where they took time to regroup and allowed Ethelred to stew. Sigurd considered this to be an apt accompaniment to his eleventh birthday, but hoped he would not be kept waiting here too long for it was now very cold and his ripped apparel was a poor shield against the November draughts. When offered a dead man’s cloak he accepted with gratitude, though huddled inside its threadbare folds he vowed that once in Jorvik he would never again be so reduced.

  Happily for Sigurd, Lunden could not maintain its lone fight, and finally came to terms. Swein’s demands for tribute and supplies for his army during the winter were granted – yet even then the demons from the sea continued to harry. With the vikings thus preoccupied, Ethelred sent his wife and children across the Channel to safety, left his mercenaries to defend the city and spent some time prevaricating in his ship on the Temes until shortly after Christmas when he decided it would be more politic to retire to Normandy. Deserted by its king, Lunden surrendered completely. Thorkell, his force too inferior to take on Swein, slunk off to Grenewic.

  There were celebrations with music, boat-racing and horsefights, feastings and fresh meat at Gæignesburh, carousing in the alehouses. Despite the funny diversions when Ulf lost his reserve under a glut of fruit wine and – dressed as a woman – slavered kisses over Thorald, and despite Eric’s almost indecent generosity, all this was anticlimax to Sigurd who had expected the war to end in Ethelred’s death. The festivities served only as obstacles to his main aim. He grew more impatient than ever to get to Jorvik, plagued by the certainty that he must bump into his uncle sooner or later, and it was a nuisance having to keep his eyes peeled for Olaf the entire time. The only helpful factor was that Olaf was not expecting him to be here, and amongst the thousands of men could quite easily pass by without noticing him. Still, Uncle would be mak
ing for Jorvik himself any day. Sigurd must be there before him. This he put to Thorald.

  ‘So be it, my friend!’ Thorald threw aside the bone on which he had been sucking, his beard slimy with grease. ‘I give you my word that we will go this very day. Let me see…’ The viking had amassed many weapons, shields and headgear after the fighting; now he pulled a conical helmet from the pile and rammed it on Sigurd’s dome with a helpful thump. ‘Here! This may come in useful.’

  Sigurd adjusted the helmet which was far too big. ‘The noseguard chafes.’ He lifted it from his head.

  ‘Does it? No matter, we will lop a bit off – come here.’ Thorald grabbed the boy’s neck and pretended to cut a piece off Sigurd’s nose. Roaring with laughter, he slapped the boy’s back fetching a grin to the mouths of his lice-ridden army. Sigurd did not care to be the butt of their merriment again and threw the helmet back from whence it came. ‘I will have one made when I get my estate back.’

  ‘If your head is not cleaved in two first,’ provided Ulf.

  Sigurd was ignorant over the amount of resistance to expect, but as he now said to Thorald, ‘With the backing of fifty men I cannot see failure.’

  Thorald hawked up phlegm. ‘True, but I do not intend to enlist such numbers, as the King has need of them here. Twelve of us should be sufficient to rout the usurper from your estate. I have been to Jorvik before – the people there are not fighters.’ Leaving the ship at anchor, they loaded food and weapons onto the captured horses and soon were on their way. Sigurd was going home at last.

  Chapter Three

  Eoforwic, or Jorvik as the Norsemen mispronounced it, was situated between two rivers, the larger tidal flow bisecting the heart of the city which was then rejoined by a wooden bridge; the other, a beck, curved around the stone walls and towers of the old Roman fortress, providing access for merchant vessels to the timber shacks of the suburbs. Much of the encircling land was very marshy. To the east of the metropolis lay a range of chalk hills; far to the west lay rugged mountains. Apart from the Saxon churches and Roman relics, it was a city built entirely of wood.