The Viking Saga Page 15

  Men rushed from the nearest end of the table now, anxious to attack the first Irishman, who had recovered from the blow he had received from the drum; but they were too late. Harald had kicked the half-blinded man’s feet from under him and was sitting astride his back, his fingers deep in the man’s black hair, banging his head rhythmically on the hard earthen floor.

  Soon Arkil rose, smiling strangely, the sword of his opponent in his hand. He said simply, ‘That one will not spoil a feast again. Now let me take his brother outside, Harald, my friend. He shall have better treatment than he would have allowed me. He shall take his sword with him into the darkness.’

  No man, not even Thorn, could deny Arkil his right in this matter. And shortly the Dane came back into the hall, carrying two swords this time, and smiling as one who could now get on with his supper without fear of interruption.

  But first he flung the two swords on to the sheepskins beside the walls, saying, ‘The village boys will play happily with these. They are of no worth. I doubt whether a man could cut himself with them if he tried!’

  And to the sagaman he said, ‘One day, my friend, I will repay you a golden harp for that drum, for it saved my life this night’.

  Then he stood near Harald and took him by both hands. ‘May the seas have me and the crows eat my heart if I am ever false to you, my friend,’ he said, in the time-honoured oath.

  And when he sat down again, he put his hand inside his tunic and drew out two things; a long package and a round one. When he had unwrapped the deerskin from the long package, the villagers saw that it was a knife of gold, its hilt carved and moulded so beautifully that all the women gasped with envy; its blade chased from end to end with fine runes, which glistened in the torchlight.

  The round package, he opened more carefully, and then let fall a glittering cascade of coloured stones on to the table, where they lay, glinting beautifully as the light from the wall-torches touched them. Now all men rose to their feet in astonishment, and Arkil smiled and gathered his treasure once more into the bag.

  To Thorn he said, ‘You were right, headman, I was pursued; but I am pursued no longer. Those who came after me to regain their giant’s treasure are no more.’

  Thorn said, ‘You have stolen a giant’s treasure, have you! And an Irish giant at that! Well, and what do you mean to do now, Arkil the Prince?’

  The Dane smiled and said, ‘I propose to gather a shipful of fighting-cocks about me and to go back and steal the rest of his treasure, for this is but a tiny drop in the ocean.’

  Thorn’s eyes gleamed as red and green as the jewels themselves with greed. He said, ‘My stepbrother, Alaf, who farms higher up the fjord, has a good ship, which he is a little too old to sail in now. I have no doubt that I could persuade him to sell it to you for that bag of pretty stones.’

  The Dane smiled slowly and then said, ‘This bag of pretty stones, as you call them, would buy a ship made of gold with sails of silk, old man. Nay, nay, I will buy your stepbrother’s ship with three of my pretty stones at the most – not a grain of dust more!’

  Thorn’s face showed his annoyance and for a moment it looked as though he might quarrel with Arkil the Prince; but he saw the reason in what the Dane said, for after all, this man had risked his life to gain those precious stones, and the boat was worth no more than Arkil said.

  But Thorn was not a man to be beaten in a bargain.

  ‘Look you, Prince,’ he said at last, ‘buy my stepbrother’s ship, and I will provide her with a stout crew from the men of my village.’

  The Dane screwed up his eyes, amused now. Then he nodded.

  ‘That seems a good plan, headman,’ he said, ‘for I have seen that your village breeds good men. But what price must I pay for their service? I cannot imagine that you offer them for the love of it.’

  Thorn’s long forefinger drew a little pattern on the oaken tabletop as he spoke. ‘I shall ask two-thirds of whatever treasure you shall bring back, to be given to the village. For after all, it has not done badly by you in your need.’

  Arkil clapped the old man on the shoulder.

  ‘By Odin,’ he said, ‘when I next go to market to buy a cow, I shall take you with me, old man. There is not a better bargainer in the northern lands than you. Well, I agree to what you ask, for if we find the treasure I have mentioned, one third of it will satisfy me – and will keep me in comfort for the rest of my days.’

  So they shook hands on the bargain, and the next day Arkil and Harald went with Thorn to Alaf’s steading, higher up the fjord. Alaf accepted the price the Dane offered without any argument, for he was not a shrewd haggler as Thorn was.

  Alaf’s longship lay in the cow-byre, where it had been dragged when he gave up voyaging five years before. It was a well-built boat, but a bit heavy, the Dane said, for the rivers it would sail up in Ireland. He would have preferred a ship broader in the belly and sitting lower in the water.

  ‘But beggars cannot be choosers,’ said Thorn, ‘and I am setting you up with a crew straightaway; you will have no seeking to do.’

  The Dane looked at him through narrowed lids.

  ‘My friend,’ he said, ‘with my knowledge of the treasure, and my reputation in my own land, I could fit out fifty little ships like this, at one whistle.’

  Then, seeing Thorn’s crestfallen expression, he touched him on the arm and went on, ‘But I should find no better men than those of yours if I went whistling along every fjord in the northland.’

  So they paid for the longship, which Arkil named Seeker, and the next day twenty men dragged her on rollers down to the village.

  3. The Sailing

  Arkil found no difficulty in getting together his crew. The real difficulty lay in picking twenty out of the hundred men who jostled round the table, anxious to sail with him. Harald sat with Arkil at the table, for the boy was named shipmaster without any argument, while Arkil held himself merely to be the leader once they were ashore in Ireland.

  So, just as Thorkell Fairhair had done, five years before on that very spot, Harald gave the new crew the knucklebones, as symbols that they were signed on as crew members in the Seeker. And each man, as he took the bones, gave his solemn promise to obey orders and to fight for his comrades, whatever the odds.

  Many good men came up to the table that day, laying their weapons before their new masters and naming them as they took the oath. There was Haro Once-only, with his sword, Alas; Sven Hawknose, with his axe, Sweetheart; Elf Elfson, with his axe, Trouble-me-no-more; Kran the Lark, a great singer, with his dagger, Forget-me-not; Jago Longarm, with his axe, Wife’s Lament; Skirr Barrel, a great drinker, with his mace, Thunderstone; and many more. Harald had his long sword, which had belonged to his father once. It was called Sigurd’s Darling, and had a curiously carved hilt of walrus ivory which was the envy of all who saw it. As for Arkil, his only weapon was the golden knife, which he called Heart’s Desire. He refused to accept any offer of a weapon, for, as he said, when he needed a weapon, one always seemed to come to hand, whether it was a drum or a log out of the fire. And such weapons did not need cleaning and oiling as swords did!

  There was only one mishap before they sailed. It happened when they were stepping the mast. A sudden gust of wind swung the loose pole sideways, pinning Skirr Barrel against the gunwales and breaking his arm. But he took the event with all good humour, and said that in any case he had three casks of heather ale to finish up before it went off, so he did not mind, provided that they took his cousin, Radbard Crookleg, with them in his place.

  Arkil the Prince did not care for the look of this Radbard, whose red beard gave him a shifty expression, and whose badly set leg caused him to walk with a slight limp.

  But Harald accepted Radbard gladly, for he knew the man to be a true sailor and a brave warrior. As it happened, this Radbard was a lucky choice, and when he looked back on the affair, Harald was compelled to think that the gods who had sent the sudden puff of wind to pin Skirr Barrel down had acted well.<
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  So, when she was laden with dried meats, barley flour, five kegs of water and three of heather ale, all stowed beneath the deck, Seeker pulled away from the village, and at last came into the open sea.

  The men soon settled down to their new life and the voyage was an uneventful one, save for the occasion when they tried to board a tall ship, which wallowed clumsily off the Anglian coast.

  Then, to their cost, the Vikings found that the vessel was full of archers on their way to Frankland. Elf Elfson and three others were lost in that affair, though they took more than their own number with them to Valhalla.

  After that, both Harald and Arkil took a turn at the oars. And on the fifth day out, just when their water was finished, they sighted the port of Murdea, which Arkil told them was the nearest point to the kingdom they were making for.

  It was a squalid-looking harbour, with wooden houses seeming to hang above the water, supported on piles which were gradually rotting, to let their loads heel slowly over into the dark and rubbish-littered tide. Over the township, which was set on a low hill, a heavy cloud of smoke hung perpetually, as the grey seabirds flew in and out of it, crying discordantly.

  Kran the Lark blew his nose lustily and said aloud, ‘Even a blind man would know when he had reached Murdea!’

  Sven Hawknose tugged at his long yellow moustaches and said quietly, ‘Could a blind man find his way back home from Murdea, think you, Kran?’

  Then there was silence on board Seeker, for they had all heard of the cruelties practised on Vikings who were unfortunate enough to get themselves captured in the townships they sacked.

  But Arkil cheered them up by saying, ‘You need have no fear here, my seacocks! I know the headman of Murdea as well as I know most of you – better, if the truth be told!’

  ‘That isn’t saying much,’ said Haro Once-only, grinning, ‘for we are a simple lot. We must be, or we shouldn’t be here now!’

  When they had furled the sail and rowed to their anchorage, they climbed ashore, up the dangling rope ladder, leaving Jago Longarm and another Viking to guard Seeker till they returned.

  ‘Have no dealings with the townsfolk,’ warned Arkil as they left. ‘Give them no offence and they will not harm you.’

  Jago grinned up at him and touched his sword-hilt lightly.

  ‘Have no fear, chieftain,’ he said. ‘The ship will be here when you want it again.’

  The Vikings walked in a body up the winding street, followed by a group of hangers-on and children, who admired their helmets and their various weapons, noisily and with many gestures.

  Sven Hawknose flung a coin to one of the raggedest of their followers. He picked it up and then spat on it, before flinging it back at Sven’s feet.

  ‘Now you know,’ said Harald, laughing, ‘Keep your money in your pouch, Sven; it is a bad bargain to throw it into the gutter without even getting thanks for it.’

  Sven muttered angrily and said that if he could lay his hands on that ragged rogue, he would cut his hair for him – with an axe.

  The headman of Murdea greeted them at his tumbledown door, but the look on his face was one of annoyance rather than pleasure. And when they were all inside, he said hurriedly, ‘My friends, things are not now as they once were here. The Vikings have made a bad name for themselves, and the folk of the town say they will stand it no longer. I who am half a Viking, my father having been a Dane, think that it is stupidity, but my wife, who is Irish, sides with them and says that the Northmen are a curse from God for our misdeeds in the past. Whatever is the truth, I do not know; but all I can tell you is to go away from Murdea with the next tide.’

  Arkil thanked him for his advice and then bought wine from him. They all sat together on the floor and drank from the few cups that the headman possessed, passing the vessels from one to the other.

  Harald noticed that the headman himself refused the wine, saying that he was suffering from a chill on the stomach and could not appreciate it. Harald spoke about this to Arkil, saying, ‘It is a bad sign when a man will not drink his own wine. I have heard of travellers being poisoned by that trick before now. The headman must drink his own wine, then we shall be sure that he has dealt with us in good faith.’

  So Radbard held the man still while Harald poured a cup of the tart wine down his throat. The man protested and spluttered a great deal, but did not fall dead; and so the Vikings were satisfied.

  Then suddenly the guard they had put on the street door, Goff Goffling, ran in and shouted out, ‘Come quickly, my masters, there is such a light shining down at the harbour as can mean only one thing!’

  The Vikings raced down the rough street, Harald and Arkil in the lead, full of foreboding. Their fears were realized, when they turned a corner and saw the Seeker a mass of fire, down to the water-line, and already foundering.

  They found Jago Longarm lying with his head dangling over the edge of the harbour jetty, a great wound in his back. He smiled up at them as they lifted him up and said, ‘Four of them will greet their gods tonight, master. But I am sorry about the ship.’

  Then he died without speaking again. As the Seeker slowly settled down in the water, the body of the other Viking guard floated up to the surface for a moment. All men saw the colour of his tunic and recognized it. Then he went down in the suction of the sinking ship.

  Haro Once-only turned towards the town, pulling at his moustaches and cursing horribly. He was a notorious berserk and had to be kept under control when any trouble started, or he was inclined to rip off his shirt and run screaming at the enemy, dealing dreadful slaughter. It was a madness that ran in his family, for his six brothers had also been berserks, though they had not lasted as long as Haro, who had never received a wound in more than fifty affrays and five voyages.

  Arkil went up to him and said softly, ‘Patience, friend Haro. I too am of the same turn of mind. My own shirt will seldom stay on my body once I feel the little hairs prickling at the top of my neck. But patience, we must wait. One day we will burn this rat’s nest out, and then our two will be avenged.’

  Now they had no ship and no food, and a hostile township before them. Arkil turned away from the harbour suddenly and strode towards the biggest house he could see. The others followed him. It was the house of a rich merchant, it turned out, and soon the Vikings had broken open two sacks of meal and had filled their flasks with clear grape wine.

  ‘At least we shall not starve for two days,’ said Arkil, ‘and that is all we need if I can find my way through the bogs again.’

  As they left the silent house, a shower of arrows came at them from the other side of the street. No one was hurt, but Harald felt one shaft pass between his arm and his body, and afterwards saw it still quivering in the door he had just passed through.

  ‘That is a good omen,’ said Arkil, ‘and, it seems to me, we shall need all the luck we can get.’

  Then, led by Kran, whose voice sounded out over the town like a great bell, the Vikings sang their war-song as they marched up the narrow winding street to the top of the town. No further harm came to them, though they often saw men run round corners, or draw back from windows as they passed, and not one of the crew but expected to feel an arrow shaft in his back a moment later.

  At the top of the hill stood a little white church, with a small square tower. Haro was all for going inside and sacking it, but Harald took him by the arm and said, ‘But for one of those men who follow the Christ, I should not be here today. If you lay a hand on the Christ-man’s belongings, you will have me for an enemy, my friend. And I should not like that, Haro.’

  Haro grinned and punched Harald in the chest. ‘No, nor should I,’ he said. And so they passed over the hill without burning that church.

  As for the Vikings, they were not so happy after an hour’s walking, for the memory of their lost comrades had come back to them, and made them wonder whether the treasure they had come to seek was not guarded by ill-fortune. Besides, they had now begun to strike the marshy land, wh
ere habitations were few and far between and the roads had almost ceased to exist.

  But Arkil strode on purposefully, giving no hint of the doubt that had already come into his own mind.

  4. Dun-An-Oir

  On the third day after their retreat from Murdea, the Vikings lay down, exhausted, in a little green gully that gave them some slight shelter from the night wind. Their clothes hung in shreds and each man was filthy with mud from the waist down.

  Now their minds were filled with nothing but the thought of that everlastingly green countryside, where the ground gave suddenly beneath one’s feet, to leave one floundering in the choking slime.

  ‘We cannot go on much farther, Arkil,’ said Harald himself. ‘I have known many hardships, but this is the worst; yes, even worse than the flogging-post at Leire’s Dun.’

  Arkil licked his dry lips. ‘Have courage, Harald boy,’ he said. ‘We have not much farther to go, if my reckoning is right. There is a great blue hill, shaped like a cow’s back, with hawthorns growing the length of it. And on the other side of that lies Dun-an-oir, the Fort of Gold. That is our journey’s end.’

  Haro Once-only said sharply, ‘You should not use such words, Arkil the Prince. Odin might make it your journey’s end in all faith.’

  Arkil said, ‘I am weary, Haro my friend. Do not tease me or I might hit you with my fist, and then you would fall into such a dreamland that even you would not care what Odin thought!’

  Haro shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘I wish you would, for I am dying slowly of hunger and thirst. Two cupfuls of porridge is no food for a grown man like me to live on for three days.’

  Arkil said, ‘Tomorrow you will feast on sweet sheep-meat and the crispest of rye bread. Have patience.’

  Then, to keep the men’s minds from hunger and thirst and cold, Arkil said, ‘There is not a poet among you all, save myself. Listen, I will tell you a verse I have just made: