Raven of the Waves Read online

  Gunnar gripped Gorm by the hair of his head. “Help me,” the sea chief said to Lidsmod, and the young man helped heave the struggling Gorm through the parting crowd of villagers. Behind them men struggled to keep the anguished Floki from reaching Gorm.

  Biter panted and shivered, struggling to his feet; his intestines slipped from the cut. Njord lifted his peg mallet, the one he had used for the godpins in Raven’s prow, and brought it down on the horse’s skull. Then he patted the neck of the fallen victor.

  Eirik began to sing a poem. It was an old verse, about a horse that belonged to Odin—beyond even the last battle, running forever under the blue sky. Eirik was a mighty skald, a poet. He began to chant a new song, one that celebrated a familiar truth: men and beasts both fall. The triumph is in the battle, not the victory.

  The feast began very quietly. The villagers filed into the long hall without joy. Wooden plates clattered. Women whispered, men looked straight ahead and did not speak.

  Lidsmod could not eat, but not only because of the blood he had seen. Blood was salt water, Lidsmod tried to tell himself, nothing more. It was the injustice of it that gnawed at him. Lidsmod stared at his mutton. Gorm owed a great price for the loss of such a horse, Lidsmod knew. This was how things were for men and horses. The loom squeaked, and the Dark Weavers tricked a man into a new pattern, and he was helpless.

  “Not hungry, Lidsmod?” said Opir. “I can always eat. I eat. I laugh. Floki will have Gorm’s skin,” said Opir, sucking fat off his fingers. “Or every ewe he owns. Don’t worry.”

  “Gorm shouldn’t come with us,” said Ulf, a massive, bald warrior staring at the wooden table before him.

  “He’s a good fighter,” said Opir. “There is no one quite like him. Except for me, of course.” Opir’s name meant “Boaster.” He made high claims for himself, but it was hard to tell how seriously.

  “Gorm will have to pay a great price,” said Ulf. That was the only way men could begin to balance the great unfairness of the world. By giving a price to things, man or beast, misfortune could be offset.

  Word began to escape the jarl’s hall. Negotiations were well begun. Floki had agreed that twenty of Gorm’s finest ewes would be a good payment for the horse. It was a formal situation, and despite the emotion between the two men, if it were resolved now and payment established, the matter would be finished and all could go on with their lives.

  “The heart loss cannot be paid for,” said the broad-shouldered Ulf sadly, drinking hard at his ale.

  Then word stirred the hall that Gorm would have to pay ten rams and more for the sorrow he had caused.

  “Agree,” said the jarl. “Or stay here all summer, tending pigs. Many good men will do the same.”

  In the jarl’s hall, Gorm couldn’t speak. He hated this village, this empty, hungry place. If it weren’t so poor, so overcrowded, there would be no need for journeys. Gorm was the youngest son of four brothers. What did life hold for him? Life had cheated him from the start. The three ships would need Gorm’s quick sword when they touched keel to sand. Then they would say, “Where’s Gorm, to help us with his steady hand?”

  But to be stalwart and trustworthy—that was more important to the men of Spjothof than skill with a sword. A man’s temperament, what he was like during long, salt-gritty nights, that was what mattered.

  So Gorm had to pretend. “It was wrong to cut the horse,” he said to the jarl. “I should not have done it. Twenty ewes and ten rams. I agree.”

  Word spread into the feasting hall, and when Gorm and the ranking men of the village entered there was a special kind of cheer, like a sigh.

  It was a great feast, with much drinking. Fastivi sat beside Gunnar, her long gold and silver hair tied back. Gunnar had told Lidsmod that of all the men he had known, Leif, Lidsmod’s father, had sung with the finest voice. It was a gift, such a voice, and even now the village remembered it with reverence.

  Only Torsten was not drinking. Men and women recalled the old song sagas: the Theft of the Horses from the Danish Cave, or the Horses of Ragnarok, the Doom Battle of the gods. But Torsten sat alone, a stout, still figure with a long, uncombed beard.

  The bench beside Lidsmod shook, and Opir belched as he settled himself. “My good Lidsmod, look happy. You’ll stay here with all these beautiful women, and no one else as handsome as you to distract them. You’ll be sore in all the right places, Lidsmod. Don’t let them wear you out.”

  Lidsmod blushed. Talk of the trip made his heart sink, but at the same time he knew Hallgerd, the jarl’s daughter, was watching. What if she could hear what Opir was saying!

  “Who’ll row with Torsten?” asked Lidsmod to change the subject.

  Opir gazed into his ale cup. “Torsten has surprised everyone. He’s decided to row in Raven. When I stride past Torsten, Torsten shivers! When I speak to Torsten, Torsten looks down like a maiden.” All of this was said in a low voice, with Opir glancing up to make sure that Torsten could not hear.

  Lidsmod asked, in a keen whisper, “Did you see Torsten against the Danes?”

  Opir smiled and slapped the table. “Come along, Lidsmod, eat your supper.” He used the word for a night meal, nattverdr, making his voice that of a mother coaxing a child.

  Lidsmod persisted. “What is Torsten like—in battle?”

  Opir did not answer at once. Soon Eirik would sing, and the jarl would offer words to Odin, and Opir would lead the merry ale faces in a cheerful song. Then they would all listen to a feasting saga from Eirik, perhaps of a bear the size of an iceberg, or of a fiery serpent from beneath the sea. Ale tales, nothing to turn a tear or remind a man scarred to the bone what the sea trail was really like.

  “Torsten is a berserker,” said Opir at last.

  “I’ll never be able to see Torsten fight, myself,” Lidsmod said, trying to sound as though this did not matter to him.

  “And you think that a great shame, don’t you, Lidsmod! Better you should see the world as it is—fjord and sky. And men as they are—some good, some not so good. If you have any luck, you will never see what a berserker can do.”

  Just then Hego ran into the feasting hall to say the sky was showering like burning straw, and the crowd streamed forth into the cold night to see. In the rush, Hego—a slow-witted man, who loved mead as he loved life—tripped over the threshold and fell hard on his face.

  3

  The next morning the village was very quiet except for Njord’s men, boatbuilders who could wield mallets and tighten ropes even with the worst mead headaches.

  The night before Lidsmod had gaped at the great rain of fire from the heavens, a wonderful omen, the spectacle over all too quickly. Now he was up early to see the ships go off on their voyage, his head thick with last night’s drinking, the sunlight serene and bright off the fjord. Sheep stirred in their pens. The echoes of hammering resounded off the high cliffs, and morning smoke drifted over the water from cooking fires.

  Hego stood by the fjord, hiding his face, gazing off at the perfect, still water. The stones beside the path were splashed with lichen and bright green moss. Gunnar put his arm around Lidsmod and said, “I have some news for you.”

  Lidsmod was filled with the farewells he was about to offer to the departing fighting men. He did not speak.

  “The village loves Hego,” Gunnar said.

  Lidsmod knew this was true enough but did not understand why this was news. A person like Hego was close to some truth about the weft of things. Odin himself had given one of his eyes so that he could drink from the Well of Wisdom. Hego’s wits had been taken years ago in exchange for something, too—kindness, and a steady, childlike nature. And yet, Hego’s strength was undoubted—he could flense a walrus all by himself.

  “He’ll make a good shipmate,” Lidsmod said.

  “Every sign has been good, for weeks,” said Gunnar. “The fulmars were seen winging north, and last week Egil saw a whale, playing like a seal in the mouth of the fjord.” Spring had come on hard, like a beast in ru
t, and the scum ice had aged and melted as men looked on from their knorrs, low in the water from their cargo. “Go speak to Hego.”

  Mystified, Lidsmod called to Hego, but the tall man turned his face resolutely away.

  Lidsmod took Hego’s arm. And saw what was wrong.

  The fall outside the mead hall had been brutal. Hego’s eyes were slits in a swollen, bruised face.

  Gunnar joined them at the water’s edge. “Can you see out of those eyes, good Hego?” said Gunnar gently.

  “I can see the feathers on a fox,” countered Hego lugubriously, an old phrase describing unnaturally acute eyesight.

  “Do you see the piglet that’s gotten loose, and runs along the shore?” asked Gunnar.

  There was no escaped pig. Lidsmod caught Gunnar’s eye and bit his lip.

  “Of course I can,” said Hego.

  “You are the village’s liveliest spirit,” said Gunnar kindly. “The geese would be restless without you, and the milk would curdle.”

  Lidsmod tried to make himself just a little taller and lifted his chin so that he might resemble a strong, calm man of power.

  Gunnar whispered in Hego’s ear and patted the man’s arm. Then Gunnar strode along the shore to the ships and called to Njord. Lidsmod followed, forbidding himself to feel hope. Gunnar said, “Hego will stay here.”

  “He’ll be missed,” said Njord. “His back is as strong as his head is empty.”

  Gunnar said, “Lidsmod goes in his place.”

  Njord’s creased face folded into a smile. “Our young Lidsmod, taking a chance at seafaring. Are you ready to earn a sword and shield, lad?”

  “With the help of Thor,” began Lidsmod, not wanting to appear too eager, and not wanting to offend the gods with the pride and hope that made his voice a rasp.

  Njord laughed. “With the help of your shipmates, you mean.”

  Eirik was singing as he packed his sea chest, the tune about the giants at the edges of the earth.

  Gunnar gave Lidsmod a mock scowl. “Don’t stand there gawking. Run and say good-bye to your mother.”

  “You’ll bring back gold,” Fastivi said to her son.

  “The stories are that there are halls filled with gold and silver. Lying there, like elf treasure,” Lidsmod said.

  “What sort of men would leave gold lying around with no one to guard it?”

  “Men it’s lucky to discover.”

  Lidsmod’s mother laughed, but then they both fell silent.

  “They are not good fighting men?” she asked.

  “Even worse than the Danes.” But the Danes could be fierce. Many men from Spjothof had come back from Dane battles with their bodies red as runes with sword cuts. Spjothof was far north of the land of Danes, in a country everyone referred to simply as Northland, or Norge. “They don’t know battle at all, these Westland men. They are like children.”

  Word had arrived on a knorr, a freight ship, in late summer the year before. A great raid, fifty ships or more, had fallen upon the Westland, and taken gold from men who would not fight. Much gold—goblets, shepherd’s crooks, and jewels, too, like the emeralds and sapphires traders carried out of the Mediterranean, that sea of legend.

  The men and boys of Spjothof had stirred. Spjothof meant “spear hall.” At one time, in the days of the sagas, it had been a village of warriors who could farm and fight off Danes and prosper. Now there were too many sons without inheritance after the eldest was satisfied, and all the men were restless. Sometimes a raid on the Danes was organized, but the Danes were difficult prey. Landwaster had burned three villages years before, and Ulf had come back wolf coated, with a prized fur that had belonged to a Danish king. There were many songs about this ship and its summer of fire. But there was need for another such summer, and soon.

  “You will come back with jarls in chains,” Fastivi said. “We’ll keep them as slaves. We will gather ransom for many years.”

  Lidsmod’s mother was a brave woman, tall and handsome, but he could hear the anxiety she did so much to hide. “I’ll come back with whole chains of silver,” he said, trying his best to sound sure.

  His mother turned away. She opened a shutter to let in the bright sunlight. “Tell these men-like-children that we value their gold more than they do. If they won’t look after it, they deserve to lose it to better men.”

  “I’ll tell them that. I’m sure it will cheer them.”

  Fastivi gave her son a smile that, she believed, hid her feelings entirely. Many summers ago her husband, Leif, had been killed by a yearling bear, and killing the beast had been a simple matter, as filled with fury and grief as she had been. She had killed the young bear and let the stream of ice melt carry the carcass away. The legends of her courage were merely fireside songs. Gunnar had been kind, and he was a good man, but she still mourned her husband.

  “Go down to the ship,” she said. “I’ll stand where you can see me as you sail.”

  Lidsmod hugged her and then left, hurrying into the daylight.

  It was cruel that a son should go down to sea. But she wanted him to be a man of virding, of worth. She was proud of Gunnar’s request. Every woman would watch her as she passed by, and know her pride.

  So soon a man, Fastivi thought. She trembled, and closed her eyes. But there were only three tears. Only three. Odin would remember. Sorrow would be repaid with joy.

  For a long time she stood still, the song in her heart the song of Odin’s ravens—his scouts—as they searched the world on behalf of the one-eyed god. The song was a prayer that no steel would touch her son, and that the mountains of the sea would fall away before him.

  The three ships made dark cuts in the fjord. The water was perfect blue, unstained by a ripple. The fjord looked like a long, crooked sword. Lidsmod saw how perfect everything was, and how quiet. Men worked, taking their places. Nearly all the men of Spjothof were there, and their work took little speech.

  “I feel as fit as a hundred men,” said Opir, standing by the shore. “My head does not hurt. I have held every sip of ale in my belly, and never vomited in my life.”

  Men fastened, tied, tucked.

  “I can drink a river of ale to the bottom, and then eat the fish,” said Opir.

  Men ignored him, not unkindly.

  “I’m ready to row with the stoutest,” Opir continued. “Thor could not outrow me this morning.” He stepped to the water and vomited. “My gift to the children of Loki,” said Opir.

  Gunnar caught Opir’s eye. He did not have to speak. Opir silenced himself and scrambled into Raven.

  Lidsmod’s friends gathered him into Raven with their strong arms. Ulf patted the chest top beside him, the storage place for food and weapons. Lidsmod took the pine oar in his grip, beside the hairy hands of Ulf.

  Lidsmod glanced up to wave to his mother. Fastivi was standing far up the beach, a dark-cloaked figure with bright hair. Then Lidsmod’s eyes were wet with a new cause, one he did not want to share with his shipmates. Hallgerd was waving too, and there could be no question. The beautiful daughter of the jarl was calling Lidsmod’s name, and waving. Could there be tears in her eyes?

  In a rush, the oars were in the water, and Raven lifted her head, alive.

  Their way was quick. The other two ships lingered behind, Crane and the black Landwaster. Raven was the fastest. The water rushed beneath the planks at Lidsmod’s feet. He could feel it rushing, like the rapids of a mountain stream.

  As they rowed, Ulf glanced over at Lidsmod and smiled with his white teeth in his golden beard. Lidsmod could not believe his good fortune.

  4

  Wiglaf hurried, leaving the shadows of the monastery.

  He scurried past the stonemasons, gray rocks piled around, surrounded by bright yellow straw to soak up the spring damp. Saint John’s Church was going to be dwarfed by its own tower someday, when the effort was complete.

  Stag the hound trailed Wiglaf into the village, along the north-south street, but he followed the straight route only briefl
y. The dog had flushed out a mouse, and he scampered, zigzagging, tearing at the ground when he scented the mouse’s hiding place.

  Wiglaf had been told this road led all the way to the city if a traveler walked straight on and did not fall to mischief on the way. The road was rutted from oxcart wheels, a family of ducks swimming one of the long, deep puddles. Far at the end of town was Beornbold, the shield hall, where Lord Redwald stayed when he was in his home. The hall was full of armed men whose ale rations arrived from upriver on barges, great barrels of it; sword bearers were rarely sober, according to Aethelwulf.

  Stag looked up at Wiglaf at the sound of his name and left the torn-up earth where a mouse now had a story to tell to his rodent kin. Wiglaf ran through the village, toward the river and the homestead where he had learned to walk and say his prayers.

  Aethelwulf, probably the kindest and wisest man in the land where the English tongue was spoken, had sent Wiglaf on an errand to seek a cockerel, a fine young rooster, for the evening meal this night. Wiglaf was excited about seeing his father and his brothers; it had been weeks since he had visited the cottage where he had been born, even though it was a short distance away, little more than two long bow shots.

  But when Wiglaf saw his brothers at last, he did not want to make a sound—there was serious trouble.

  Their bull was trapped in the river, an ancient, horrible, spotted bull that always rolled its eye at Wiglaf. The twins pulled at the rope, calling to the brute. They were strong young men, stocky, and slimed with mud. The bull lifted his muzzle, dripping with water, and gave a long, angry bellow, pulling against the two. The bull had sired every calf between here and Hunlaf’s village, and showed no wear from long seasons of servicing breed cows. The twins strained, but Wiglaf sensed they both had the same thought: if and when they dragged this beast from the water, what would this wet, furious monster do?