Odin's Game

by Tim Hodkinson

  Ivar quickly stepped forward between the two men. ‘High One,’ he said to Guthfrith as he shot a reproachful glance in Skar’s direction, ‘these men are not from Jarl Thorfinn’s court. They are warriors of Eirik of Norway who accompany us on this voyage.’

  Guthfrith’s eyes narrowed and the latent suspicion that Einar had glimpsed came to the fore. ‘Are they, now?’ he said. ‘And what interest does Eirik Bloody Axe, the brother-killer, have in my family’s wedding arrangements?’

  ‘None, I assure you, High One,’ Hrolf said. Einar winced at his obsequiousness. ‘They came along to assist in another matter.’

  ‘We’re here to do some fighting for them,’ Ulrich smiled. ‘Ulrich Rognisson, at your service, lord. And this is my comrade and Stafnbúi, Skarphedin Harsson. Pardon his taciturn nature, he is a man of few words, preferring to let his actions speak for themselves. Yes, he has indeed been to Miklagard and served in the Varangian Guard of the King of the Greeks.’

  Ulrich’s tone was full of charm but his eyes were unapologetic and held a hard challenge. Guthfrith, head tilted back, locked eyes with both him and Skar for a moment, then smiled and nodded, clearly recognising in their arrogance and confrontational attitudes a kindred spirit. Einar realised that they understood each other perfectly. If they had to, they would not hesitate to kill each other. Until that time came, however, they would probably get on very well with – probably really like – each other. Einar marvelled that he had fallen among such a band of wolves.

  The small group parted as into the middle walked a woman. She did not so much arrive as sail into the gathering. Einar’s bottom jaw dropped open at the sight of her. How could such a backward country as Ireland hold so many beautiful women? She probably had lived through nearly thirty winters but her features were fine, her skin pure white and her eyes like the chips of blue ice in the Laxa river back home. Her hair was black and long and her dress flowed around her like smoke. At the sight of her Guthfrith’s face cracked into a grin of delight.

  ‘My dear, are these our northern visitors?’ she asked him.

  He nodded. ‘They are.’

  ‘And this,’ Hrolf said to the assembled Orkneymen, his face beaming with a pride to match Guthfrith’s, ‘will be my new mother-in-law, the Lady Aesa.’

  ‘You are the Princess Affreca’s mother?’ Einar asked.

  Hrolf aimed an irritated glance in his direction. ‘This is my cousin,’ he said in an offhand way. ‘He’s from Iceland, I’m afraid. I do apologise but those are his best clothes.’

  Einar felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment while at the same time rage boiled in his chest. He heaved a deep breath through his nose but his head still swam slightly. For a moment the room before him seemed bathed in a deep red light. His legs trembled a little. Shaking his head to clear it, he looked down at the floor. He had to keep control. His temper had got him in enough trouble already.

  ‘I’m a bit young to be Affreca’s mother, don’t you think?’ Aesa smiled at Einar but her jaw was clenched and she showed her bared white teeth.

  ‘Sorry. Yes of course,’ Einar mumbled in confusion.

  ‘Affreca is the daughter of my first wife,’ Guthfrith said. ‘Unfortunately she died. A sad occurrence, but it meant I was free to marry this beauty.’

  ‘A king should have many wives,’ Ulrich said. ‘Why did you have to wait for one to die?’

  ‘So many say,’ Guthfrith grunted. ‘but if I had so much as looked at another woman, Gunhild, Affreca’s mother, would have gutted me in my sleep.’

  ‘And I can assure you, my dear,’ Aesa said with a grin that was edged with playful menace, ‘that I will do the same.’

  Guthfrith laughed. ‘Women, eh?’ he said to the surrounding men with a shrug that prompted polite laughs.

  ‘And here she is,’ Hrolf said with sudden animation. ‘The Princess Affreca!’

  Affreca walked over to them, a broad smile on her lips. Her hair was braided and curled on top of her head and she wore a close-fitting long green dress, laced at the front. A necklace of twisted gold glittered at her throat. At the sight of her Einar felt his anger subsiding and his previous awestruck condition returning.

  ‘What’s going on?’ the princess said, her smile fading as she clearly sensed the slight awkwardness in the air.

  ‘Nothing my dear,’ Hrolf said. ‘I was just introducing everyone.’

  ‘Oh good!’ the princess’s smile returned and she looked round at the assembled throng. ‘Can we eat yet? I’m starving!’

  ‘Really dear?’ Aesa said, shaking her head. ‘Is your stomach all you ever think of? You’re getting so fat Hrolf here must be thinking twice about this betrothal.’

  Affreca smile became fixed. ‘I’ve a bit to go before I catch up on you.’

  Aesa’s nostrils flared and she bared her teeth like a snarling dog. She slapped the king on the forearm. ‘Your brat dares to talk to me like that and you do nothing?’ she hissed.

  ‘Watch your tongue, girl,’ the king growled to his daughter. ‘Have some respect for your stepmother or I will beat it into you.’

  Einar took a sharp intake of breath.

  Affreca gave a quick nod and bowed her head towards Aesa in supplication. From the speed of her reaction Einar guessed she was used to being on the receiving end of beatings.

  Guthfrith shrugged and made an apologetic face towards the other men. ‘Soon it will be your job to beat some respect into this daughter of mine, Hrolf. I am sorry for your trouble.’

  This remark raised general guffaws from the gathered men but Einar did not join in. King Guthfrith opened his arms and turned to everyone around him. ‘Come. Let us begin the feast,’ he shouted.

  As the royal contingent moved off towards the top table, Einar felt a hand on his shoulder. Skar leaned close to him and grinned.

  ‘You look like that Thunder God of yours has hit you with his hammer again.’

  Twenty-Eight

  Hrolf and Ivar were shown to seats on the top table while Einar and the rest took seats on the benches halfway down one of the long tables.

  King Guthfrith sat on his high seat in the centre of the top table with Queen Aesa on his left. Before them thralls set a huge bull’s horn rimmed with silver and supported on a curled iron foot. Queen Aesa picked up the horn in both hands and carried it to the entrance of the hall where great vats of frothing ale stood. A slave dipped the heavy wooden ladle into the vat and filled the horn with foaming amber liquid. Aesa then brought it back to Guthfrith. As soon as he had been served, slaves began moving around the hall delivering filled drinking horns to the guests at the tables. When most had been served, the king rose to his feet. As he did so the conversation that bubbled around the hall died away and an expectant hush descended. Einar was pleased to see that even in this foreign land, it looked like the familiar tradition of starting a feast with toasts prevailed.

  Guthfrith held up both hands.

  ‘Friends and guests,’ he said, voice raised so it boomed round the interior of the hall. ‘Tonight we celebrate the betrothal of my daughter Affreca to Hrolf Thorfinnsson, a union that will bring peace between our realms for generations to come.’

  Cheers erupted round the hall. Looking around, Einar saw as many men shaking their heads as there were cheering. Clearly this peace proposal was not universally welcomed.

  ‘For years we have been rivals. Now, together, our realms will forge an alliance that no one will be able to withstand.’ Guthfrith continued. ‘Now let us commence the feast with the holy pledges. To Thor! Grant us victory in war!’

  He raised the great horn above his head then put it to his lips and took a long, deep draught. Einar watched his throat work as he swallowed gulp after gulp. He was impressed by just how much Guthfrith was quaffing and began to wonder if he would ever take a breath. Finally the king lowered the horn, cuffed the froth from his mouth with the back of his right hand and let out an explosive sigh of satisfaction.

  The rest of the guests th
en raised their horns to those seated around them and echoed the toast. ‘To Thor!’ all roared in an enthusiastic babble, though Einar noticed Ulrich and Skar’s lips moved to form a name that was not that of the Thunder God.

  When everyone had lowered their horns Guthfrith once more raised the bull’s horn. ‘To Njörðr!’ he cried, evoking the God of Peace.

  Again the toast echoed around the hall. Indeed if anything the noise seemed louder than before, as if many in the hall felt that toast to be particularly important. This time Einar noticed the two Wolf Coats did not drink at all.

  As the cries and belches echoed around the rafters, Guthfrith handed the horn to Queen Aesa. She raised it up and cried. ‘To Freya!’ and drank. The guests followed suit and this time Skar joined in though Ulrich still did not.

  When that toast was finished, Aesa passed the horn back to Guthfrith.

  ‘To Patrick!’ the king said and took another gulp. The hall followed suit. Einar shot a puzzled glance at Ivar who just shrugged and took a drink from his own horn.

  Guthfrith’s face grew serious, as did the expressions of everyone in the hall. A reverent silence then settled on the feasters as Guthfrith raised his horn a final time.

  ‘In remembrance of those who have passed. The Glorious Dead,’ he said. His voice was raised but his tone respectful in contrast to the raucous roars that had preceded. Einar raised his own horn to those around him and they all drank a reverent toast in memory of the worthy departed. Of all the toasts drunk, the hard glassy looks they exchanged and the set of their faces suggested to Einar that this one meant the most to the two Wolf Coats at the table.

  After a suitable pause, a slave hurried to Guthfrith and refilled the great bull’s horn from a jug. The king spoke once again. ‘Now it’s time for the Bragging Cup. Does anyone wish to make an oath before me and this gathered company?’

  ‘I do, High One,’ Hrolf said, in what was clearly a prearranged move. Guthfrith nodded and passed the horn to him. Hrolf took it in both hands, some ale slopping from its mouth as he did so, then raised it high and spoke to the assembled guests.

  ‘I, Hrolf Thorfinnsson, do solemnly swear that I will keep this treaty between us,’ he said. ‘And help usher in a new age of cooperation between our realms. Together we shall achieve more than we ever could as rivals. And I swear I will love and protect my beautiful new wife, the Princess Affreca.’

  Hrolf grinned at her over the mouth of the ale cup. She smiled back. Einar, not wanting to see more, looked away and saw Ulrich scowling. Ivar looked concerned and Skar was pretending to vomit.

  ‘To Affreca and our marriage!’ Hrolf said and tipped the horn to his lips. The rest of the hall followed suit. Einar did not drink.

  After a short time, Hrolf lowered the horn and wiped his mouth as he passed it back to Guthfrith. The king turned back to address the assembled guests once more.

  ‘Now,’ he said, a broad grin creasing his face beneath his moustache. ‘Let’s eat.’

  More cheers erupted round the hall and the servants rushed forwards, straining under huge wooden trenchers stacked with food. This they deposited on the tables and the ravenous diners began helping themselves, spearing chunks of food on their eating knives or ladling it onto their own trenchers with the big wooden spoons provided.

  ‘Your cousin didn’t drink much,’ Skar commented as he lifted a big, still quite raw, lump of horse flesh with his broken-backed seax knife. The pink meat dribbled blood and juices across the boards of the table on its way to his trencher. ‘It looked to me like the queen drank more than him.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s much of a drinker,’ Einar replied. ‘I noticed you two didn’t join in the pledges.’

  ‘We drank the ones that mattered,’ Ulrich said.

  ‘A toast to Peace?’ Skar guffawed, shaking his head and clearly finding the very idea ridiculous.

  ‘I noticed you drank to Freya, though,’ Einar pointed out.

  ‘Peace and love are two different things,’ Skar said, as he spooned a heap of boiled kale onto his trencher. ‘As you will find, lad. It always helps to stay on the right side of Freya.’

  ‘Freya’s a contrary bitch,’ Ulrich said with a sour grimace, beginning to help himself to some roasted fish. ‘Odin is the only God we need.’

  ‘That, my friend,’ Skar said, pointing at Ulrich with the end of his knife, ‘is why you never get a ride. I give Freya her dues and she sends enough women my way to keep me happy.’

  ‘You both drank the remembrance toast,’ Einar said, genuinely curious.

  ‘When you’ve lost as many comrades as we have,’ Skar said, his face suddenly serious, ‘it’s the most important one there is. I hope someday others will drink it and remember me. Otherwise everything I’ve done in this world is pointless. What is left behind of us when we die except what folk remember of us?’

  ‘I talked to Ivar about why we’re here,’ Einar said, trying to sound as innocuous as possible as he reached for some food himself.

  Ulrich leaned back on his bench and took a surreptitious look around to see who else was listening. When he saw no one was, he leaned forward again and reached across the table to grab Einar’s outstretched forearm. Einar looked up and they locked eyes. Ulrich said in a low, reproachful tone, ‘We don’t discuss statecraft at the table, all right?’

  Einar nodded as he wrenched his arm away.

  He lapsed into a surly silence as the feast continued. Conversation bubbled round him as the ale flowed and folk began to talk freely. The two Wolf Coats found themselves the centre of attention as the jarl’s men sitting to Einar’s left and the Norse-Irish sitting around them at the table pressed them for tales of their adventures. Meanwhile a constant stream of food was brought to eat. Einar had never seen so much pig meat. Thralls carried ten spit-roasted pigs into the centre of the hall for carving and distribution. As well as that there were chickens, beef, all types of fish and mounds of roasted and boiled vegetables – kale, turnips, carrots and parsnips – all swimming in melted butter. Accompanying all this was a delicious type of brown bread and hunks of cheese. It was washed down with ale, both plain and flavoured with berries. Despite his resentment, the ale and the food combined to lift Einar’s spirits and he could not help getting drawn into the conversation as Ulrich and Skar recounted tales of the many dangerous scrapes they had been through. The men around them listened with eager ears, hanging on every word, enthralled to be in the presence of men who lived the sort of life they only dreamed of. Ulrich was comparatively reserved, though Skar clearly enjoyed the attention and the normally taciturn big man seemed relaxed, even loquacious and more than willing to talk of enemies fought, dangerous voyages survived and exotic women bedded.

  At other sections of the tables there were women and children but where the Úlfhéðnar sat was filled with warriors so they talked freely with no need to restrain words or subject.

  As the evening wore on, the eating came to an end and music began. The prowess of Irish musicians was legendary and Einar was impressed and delighted by the lively tunes that cascaded from the instruments of a group of men up on the dais. The musicians were burly types who looked like they would have been more at home in a shield wall, but the music they created on harps, flutes and drums was enthralling, its speed exciting and their accuracy amazing.

  As it was getting late, a lot of the women at the feast began taking the children off to bed. This was a sign that the real revelry was about to begin.

  After a few more tunes another man joined the musicians on the dais. He was short, barrel-chested and dressed in a long yellow cloak of fine wool, swept back at his right shoulder and held in place by one of the big Irish brooches. His long grey hair was tied behind his head in a pony tail.

  ‘You Orkneymen are in for a treat,’ one of the locals sitting at the table said. ‘That man is King Guthfrith’s skald. The finest poet in all of Ireland.’

  Einar looked at the stage with renewed interest. His homeland was famous for it
s skalds and poets, but back on the farm the wanders, and others who called and entertained them in exchange for a few days’ lodging, were all second-rate men not good enough to win the patronage of a rich nobleman. Snorri his teacher was rumoured to have been good in his day but that was now long past. He had never had the pleasure of hearing the skald of a king sing before and now he realised the thought of what was to come.

  Without introduction the grey-haired man on the dais began to sing. Einar was immediately impressed. His voice was superb and, as the audience sat rapt, he recounted tales, poems and songs in his deep melodious voice. Some songs were accompanied by the harpist, some he simply recited. Most were in the Northmen’s language but some were also in the Irish tongue. They told the stories of heroes of old, of adventures and discoveries, treasure and monsters. One was about Guthfrith’s forefather, and how he had come to Ireland and seized the kingdom generations before. From the glances many folk made at the long tapestry at the top of the hall, Einar surmised that the tale was also depicted there. Some of the songs were also about great battles fought by heroes here in Ireland that Einar had never heard of. Occasionally the songs were funny; brutal parodies of some of the king’s enemies or even mockeries of some of his noblemen. Einar knew some of the songs but the rest of the folk in the hall knew all of them and let themselves be carried along with knowing nods of recognition, tapping hands and feet and cheering at the right places of the narratives in the sung tales; such as when a hero killed an enemy or lovers married, or raucous laughter when a nobleman’s silly behaviour was lampooned.

  Finally King Guthfrith rose to his feet. The musicians and the skald fell silent as the king tossed a purse to the bard.

  ‘I applaud you as always, Njal,’ the king said as the skald caught the purse, a broad smile on his face. ‘We will begin dancing soon,’ he continued, ‘however before that, I am told that there is an Icelander among us.’

  Einar froze. That could only mean him.

  Twenty-Nine