The Viking Saga Read online

  15

  Leire’s Dun

  Leire’s dun was built on a promontory, backed by a gaunt purple mountain. Though to say built is not an accurate description; it had been added to as occasion demanded, its houses of widely differing types flung together helter-skelter in haste. At first there had been only a rough stone hut, to which Leire had come from Ireland, foraging. He had killed the shepherd who built the hut and had lived there himself, his small boat having been wrecked on the treacherous rocks that lined the narrow channel below the neck of land. Soon he was joined by others, each of whom had made a house for himself, of wood or wattle or rough stone mortared with mud. That was many years ago, though Leire’s descendants still ruled as chieftains in the place. Now there was a street and a square of sorts in Leire’s Dun, and in the square a strongroom, sometimes used for storing wood or even fish, sometimes for keeping prisoners for whom a ransom was expected. For Leire’s Dun was nothing more nor less than a pirate stronghold. The custom of the place was to lure passing ships on to the dog-toothed rocks that lined the narrow channel by lighting beacons on either side of the channel, as though there were a clear way between. Then when the ships had struck, the curraghs from Leire’s Dun would put out and salvage what they could, in kind or humankind, if the humankind were still living and saleable in any slave market. It was the dear hope of the village that one day a ship might run aground without breaking her back, then they would have a vessel that would let them forage out beyond the islands, where there would be good pickings from the ships that passed back and forth with holy relics and church treasures. But alas, no ship had ever survived the dog-toothed rocks, and so the pirates of Leire’s Dun still relied on their curraghs, long clumsy shells of tarred cloth or hide, stretched over wooden frames, able to hold a dozen men, the biggest of them.

  These men were of many kinds, of all races that lived along the western seaboard of Britain, but most of them Celtic. They were rough-living, hard-dying scoundrels to a man, who feared nothing, and loved nothing but gain, come at it how they might. Their chief, Leire, who bore his great-grandfather’s name as a point of primitive honour, ruled them like beasts of burden, nothing more. He was a massive one-eyed brute himself, almost bald, and with a hunched back as broad as a table top. His men whispered that he was hunched up like that from peering into treasure chests, for it was rumoured that he was extremely rich, though no man dared ask him outright. It was enough to ask him for one’s rightful share after a wrecking, let alone pry into his private affairs. But where Leire hid his treasure, no man knew. His house was large and rambling, for he had added to the small original hut that his ancestor had stolen; yet its rooms were empty, but for the haphazard rubbish that a sea-dweller might be expected to accumulate, fishing-nets, oars, benches, and even two comfortable beds, taken from a wrecked ship. Though Leire never slept in a bed himself; he preferred to lie hard on a pile of sacking. Inquisitive men had even searched these beds in his absence, hoping to find his treasure. But the beds held no such secret.

  Not that any man would have dared even go into his house, except on piratic business, had he been there. If he had discovered anyone in his house, he would either have killed him outright or have thrown him into the strongroom in the square to howl away his days, without food or water, as a warning to the rest of the village.

  But, however strong Leire was, he could not have kept his power in the Dun had he not had a body of cut-throats who were sworn to serve him to the death. These numbered twenty, a pack of blood-thirsty hounds rather than men, the most terrible of whom was Aurog, a monstrous creature, dumb from birth, who thought in his half-witted way that Leire was a god. Aurog never left his master, and tasted all food before Leire dared to eat. It was said that Leire found Aurog on the mountainside when the monster was a tiny baby and had brought him up as his own. Those who knew of such learned things said that Aurog was more like the Minotaur of Crete than any man should be, except that he didn’t have horns on his forehead.

  The short curly black wool of his head reached down to his shoulders, and over his chest. His nose was flat and his mouth unnaturally broad, with thick pendulous lips and great jowls that shook when he moved. Once a drunken Pict had removed Aurog’s shoes when he was asleep, to see if his feet were of humankind, or cloven hooves. Aurog had awakened and crushed the man to him, breaking his neck. So no one ever knew the truth.

  Everyone of Leire’s Dun prayed that Aurog would one day meet his match. Many men prayed that Leire himself would find death soon. Yet in spite of this dissension, most of the ruffians who inhabited the hovels on the promontory had to admit in their hearts that Leire had more luck than any other man when it came to luring a ship on to the rocks. He could find a treasure-boat in a barrel of apple cider, they said, and left it at that.

  Leire sat in his house, with his bodyguard about him. Aurog gnawed at a beef-bone by his side. Leire, who suffered from an interminable itch, scratched constantly. Now no one noticed it any more, they were so used to it.

  Leire had just had great news from the north. A messenger had run in that afternoon, one of a team of relays which Leire kept along the coast, to say that he had heard of a great Viking ship that was coming down south between the islands. The man said that it sailed slowly and appeared to carry much weight, and when Leire had asked what emblems the ship bore, the man had said, ‘Nothing. It flies a white pennant, but there is nothing carved either at bow or stern.’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Leire, scratching. ‘Well, out of nothing may come something!’ Everyone had forced a laugh at this, except Aurog, who never laughed. He had munched on at his bone.

  16

  Thorkell’s Peace

  A strange peace now came upon Thorkell. He understood well enough that Ragnar had taken over control of the Nameless, yet he made no mention of it. He seemed to accept it – as he did his blindness – as being inevitable. He did as Harald told him and often the two would sit in the semi-darkness of the aft-cabin, talking for an hour at a stretch, while sometimes Aun, sometimes Horic, sometimes Gnorre would come in for a few moments, when they were not needed in the ship.

  Once Thorkell had stood on the aft-platform, sniffing like a blind greyhound, his head held high. Harald was by his side, ready to prevent him from falling if the ship rolled too wildly. Kragge, yarning below with a group of his fellows, looked up and said, ‘Look at blind Balder; he has the young spirit of sunlight with him.’

  Someone said, ‘They might be brothers, from the colour of their hair.’

  The name ‘Balder’ stuck to Thorkell, though it was never said either in his presence or that of Ragnar, who, for all his masterful ways, his cruelty and his treachery, still admitted his blood-brotherhood with Thorkell, and would have thrashed any man who openly insulted Thorkell.

  No man could fully understand Ragnar, but once Aun said quietly to Gnorre, ‘Yon man is a villain, yet he has certain good qualities that I cannot understand. He will work or starve with us, claiming no privileges. He stole the treasure, yet is ready to share it even with those of us who hate him for his deceit in getting it.’

  Gnorre said, ‘I hate him, Aun Doorback, yet I too can see some sort of good in him. I think that once he was truly a worthy friend for Thorkell, but that somehow he fell on evil times and became bitter. Now I think that he is a thing of ambition, from his head to his toes. He is all greed – all but a faint shadow of what he was before, that lurks behind his ambition and his greed; and that shadow is his love for Thorkell which has never died fully.’

  Aun said, ‘I have seen such a thing between brothers. They may quarrel and even do each other a great hurt. Yet underneath there is a strange kind of love for each other. I think I loved my own brother – I certainly wept for him in the dark when no one was there to see – but I believed you did right to kill him, for I knew that he was evil.’

  Gnorre said, ‘Sometimes we kill the thing we love. Sometimes we see in our brother or even our close friend a part of ourselves. If we
kill our friend for evil, we still weep because we have killed a part of ourselves in doing so.’

  Wolf Waterhater, who had come up while the two were talking, said, ‘You Northmen are like old gossips by the chimney fire. You are for ever either killing something or explaining to each other why it should be killed. Can you never leave life and death alone?’

  Aun said, ‘We are a people not yet born. We are struggling to explain life and death to ourselves. When we all understand what life and death are, then we shall become a united people, like the Romans of old, or the Greeks.’

  Wolf said, ‘Many folk in Frankland and England and Spain, think you are nothing but savage axemen. They would not believe you if you said such things to them.’

  Gnorre said, ‘No one will ever give us time to explain. If we put ashore anywhere, immediately men run to meet us and shoot us with arrows. In England, the fierce islanders have even nailed the skins of flayed Vikings on their church doors.’

  Aun said, ‘Yes, such treatment gives a man no heart to land bearing gifts and sweet words. If you know that they will try to kill you, it is only natural to take an axe and kill them first.’

  Wolf began to laugh. ‘You are a pair of old hypocrites,’ he said, slapping Aun on the back and then rubbing his hand as though he had struck a lump of hard wood. ‘I do declare, you had never given a thought to it all till this moment. You have always sailed where you wished and plundered as much as the enemy would allow you!’

  When he had gone, Gnorre said, ‘Doorback, he doesn’t believe a word we have said.’

  Aun said, with a twisted smile, ‘No. Do you?’

  Then they went back to their oars and forgot their talk.

  Later Ragnar stood on the forward platform and shouted out, ‘Soon we shall pass across the route of the Christ-men. Their ships pass back and forth to Ireland and we may have the good fortune to meet one of them. They are not fighting men and no doubt we should overcome them easily. Therefore, I say to you now, that if any man in this company has no heart to fight with these long-robed prayer-makers, then him I will excuse. He may take his share of what treasure we find if he will. He need not if his manhood will not let him!’

  In the cabin Thorkell said to Harald, ‘Ragnar speaks to them fairly, boy. Yet there is no honour in taking a few goblets from old men whose minds are set on their cloisters and their prayers.’

  Harald said, ‘I have not given much thought to riches. If I had, then I might not worry how they were obtained. At the moment, I wish only to prove myself a warrior so that I can go back proudly to my father. I would not wish to fight a holy man who carried no weapon but his holy book.’

  Thorkell placed his white hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘I think as you do, Harald, yet it has taken this blindness to make me see more clearly. For a blind man there is no day, no night; it is all one interminable darkness in which he sees only when he is asleep, and they are dreams. And last night I dreamed that a man came to me. I saw him so clearly that at first I thought that it was day and that I had my sight again. This man was dressed in a long gown of rough linen and he wore the top of his head shaven close. He carried a paper in his hand and smiled and then read it, looking up at me from time to time. Then he spoke to me, in Norse, saying, “Thorkell Fairhair, sometimes called ‘Skullsplitter’, I have been sent to greet you and to tell you that all will be well with you. There will inevitably be trials, as there must be for all men, but if you are honest with yourself, all will be well.” Then he made a mark on the paper he carried, as though he had my name recorded there.’

  Harald said, ‘What manner of man was he, master? Would you know him again?’

  Thorkell smiled and said, ‘If I could see him I should. He was of middle height and his face was thin and pale, but patient-looking. I saw that he had a mole by his right nostril. Yes, I would know him again.’

  Then he sank so deeply into his own thoughts that Harald left him, going out quietly on to the deck to take his turn at the ship’s work.

  Just before middle day, as the Nameless skirted a long island that lay low in the sea, they all heard a sound of singing borne to them across the waters from beyond the island. Ragnar’s nostrils twitched like those of a hunting dog and he nodded to his men to hold ready.

  The long ship nosed round a rocky tongue of land and then Ragnar ordered the oarbeats to quicken, for immediately ahead of them lay a heavy slow-moving ship. Peering between the shields that were slung round the gunwales, the Vikings saw that though this ship bore a square hide sail, she was propelled also by many oarsmen, who sang at their work, for the currents about the island were at variance with the wind, because of the shallow channels wherein the tides turned back upon themselves.

  Harald told Thorkell, ‘By their long robes and shaven heads, I think these are the men we spoke of earlier.’

  Thorkell did not speak, but lay down on the thonged bed and buried his face in the coverings.

  The Nameless ran swiftly athwart the other ship and then Ragnar ordered that his oarsmen should stay their vessel. The Nameless stopped so abruptly that the other ran on and bumped against the longship’s side, knocking the oars out of the hands of three Vikings, who rubbed their wrists ruefully and swore to have vengeance.

  Ragnar stood in the prow and called to a long-robed man who stood on the platform by the mast of the holy ship. ‘What treasure have you aboard?’

  The holy man called back in a voice almost as strong, ‘Nothing that we have is our own, neither our immortal souls nor anything else, sea wolf. Delay us no longer for we go about our Master’s business.’

  Ragnar scoffed and said, ‘If what you have is not your own, then you will not mind if we take it from you! As for going about your business, that depends on us; we wish to go about our business, and that involves keeping you a little longer.’

  The cowled man under the mast said, ‘You speak too well to be a fool, so I will ask you again to go your ways and let us do the same. Good journey to you and may God guard you.’

  He spoke to his own oarsmen then as though the interview were at an end. This angered Ragnar who leapt aboard the other vessel, to be followed immediately by a score of Vikings. Harald saw the grey-robed oarsmen rise from their benches and go to meet the warriors, their sleeves rolled up and their fists clenched. Many of them were great raw-boned men who must have spent more time at the oar than at the altar. One red-faced man with the shoulders of a blacksmith met Kragge and punched the Viking so hard beneath the ear that he fell over, carrying Sven and Ottar with him. The Norsemen still in the Nameless laughed loud at this and cheered on the big monk, who then looked sorry for what he had done and tried to help them up again. But Kragge, furious at this assault, drew a short knife and ran in on the big oarsman. He flung up his arms and fell to the deck. Aun Doorback clutched his own axe and swore that if he were within reach of Kragge, the man would go headless to Valhalla.

  The fight, such as it was, was soon over, for the monks did not pursue their first advantage, and the Vikings were not there to play games of courtesy. Soon men were coming back to the Nameless with heavy sacks and barrels, calling out to those who still sat aboard that the treasure was worth a better battle than that. Gnorre turned his head away. ‘They can take it who will. I want no share of it.’ Many others agreed with him, but did not say so openly, as he had done.

  At last Ragnar was left alone on the holy vessel. He told the oarsmen that they might go on to wherever they were bound. Their leader said sadly, ‘Now that you have taken away our reason for travelling, we have little reason for breaking our backs against the tides. If our entreaties will not touch your hearts to return the property of the Church, we shall return whence we came, sea-thief.’

  The last word seemed to nettle Ragnar who turned on the man and said, ‘You should be thankful that we have taken only your chalices and salvers, and not your heads and hearts.’

  The cowled man said, ‘Perhaps you have taken our hearts.’

  Ragnar said, �
�Then your hearts are trumpery things of gold and silver. I thought that you were of rarer metal than that!’

  The man in the cowl said, ‘You are not only a common water rogue, you are a blasphemer. If one of your men will give me an axe, I will break a vow and take your head from you. Who offers me an axe?’

  No one stirred in the Nameless, though Sven said, ‘This is a real man, despite his robes.’

  Aun turned on him and said, ‘What do you know of real men, farmer’s boy?’ Thereafter Sven and his brothers were silent.

  Ragnar, beside himself with rage, shouted, ‘Will no one lend this Christ-man an axe, if he wishes to commit suicide?’

  The Vikings sat mute. Ragnar turned to the Nameless. ‘Two of you,’ he shouted, ‘bring this praying beggar aboard. He shall come with us and taste Viking mercy at my leisure.’

  The cowled monk waved aside the two men who came to fetch him. Their names were Thurgeis and Hageling. They were quiet-natured men, who had no wish to harm the holy man. They allowed him to step aboard the Nameless without hindrance. When he stood aboard the longship he turned to his crestfallen followers and said gently to them, ‘Return home, brothers, and pray that these heathens come to God in good time. Do not pray for me, I command you. Goodbye.’

  He did not look at them again. He went where he was told and sat on the bench by the mast. The holy ship pulled away and sailed south-westwards then. This time the oarsmen were silent.

  Harald noted the cowled monk’s bearing and his quiet devotions as the longship set course once more. He turned to Thorkell and said, ‘I can understand why they followed this man. He has a strong bearing.’

  Thorkell said, ‘Is his face thin and pale?’

  Harald said, ‘Yes, Master.’

  Thorkell shuddered a little and then said, ‘Can you see his nose? Is there a small mole beside his left nostril?’

  Harald watched the man closely, as he raised his head towards the heavens and his cowl fell back on to his shoulders.