Authors: Jason Born
Norseman Chief
| Norseman Chief |
| The Norseman Chronicles [3] |
| Born, Jason |
| 2012 : |
came close, Odin, Providence, or Glooskap saw fit to change his path.
now, feeling no wiser, he finds himself in the midst of a new people,
the Beiuthook, a captive demeaned to the point of performing the
drudgery of the village women. But he has fought, bled, and killed in a
life thrust upon him. His mind has adapted to his lot so that he now
longs for the adventure and camaraderie of war.
The Beiuthook have
forever struggled against their more numerous rivals, the Mi’kmaq.
Halldorr arrives at a time when tensions are high with a new, aggressive
sachem controlling the opponents of the Beiuthook.
experience on the killing fields and aboard the pounding longboats see
that he is returned to a place of honor among men? Or, will he toil his
life away in chaste misery mindlessly scraping at the hide of someone
else’s kill.
Norseman Chief is the final installment of The Norseman
Chronicles, each of which detail the heroic life of Halldorr from the
icy fjords of Greenland, to sweeping battlefields in England, and now to
the foreign shores of Vinland and beyond in what he calls the merki.
NORSEMAN CHIEF
By
Jason Born
WORKS WRITTEN BY JASON BORN:
THE NORSEMAN CHRONICLES: THE NORSEMAN
THE NORSEMAN CHRONICLES: PATHS OF THE NORSEMAN
THE NORSEMAN CHRONICLES: NORSEMAN CHIEF
COPYRIGHT
NORSEMAN CHIEF. Copyright © 2012 by Jason Born. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission.
DEDICATION
My children:
Nathaniel, Simon, and Miriam
Thank you for your laughter.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Getting a work of fiction published by any means involves more than just a writer writing. As such, I have some folks to thank for their partnership, expertise, and friendship.
For the third cover in a row I partnered with Michael Calandra in Sylvania, Ohio. With just a couple minutes of background, he works hard and accurately captures the spirit of Halldorr, the Norseman. Our story’s hero properly shows his age and the strong Alsoomse makes her debut on the cover of this work due to Michael’s steady hand. His expertise and abilities make it so that am in a hurry to write another tale for the sole purpose of working with him. Sorry Michael, but you’ll be busy again!
Mike Brogan served as the cartographer on
Norseman Chief
as he did for
Paths of the Norseman
. His electronic drawing world brought the lands traversed by Halldorr, his Viking pals, and his new people – the Beiuthook – to life. I know whenever I read a work of historical fiction, looking at the battles and villages from a bird’s eye view always helps me visualize events, large and small. Thanks Mike!
For my editor this go-‘round, I was blessed to work with Debbie Harris Long. She’s a true master with grammar, fixing glaring and hidden mistakes with ease. Debbie owns the English language, schooling me countless times via her subtle, sometimes witty, other times harsh comments.
Thanks to you all and thank you readers for giving me another chance at storytelling!
PROLOGUE
Dreams ought to be banished from the minds of all mankind. I have said this while huddling around the hearth during the winter snows. I have said this while at the oar of our great longboats or at the paddle of a swift birch bark canoe. Each time I say it, no matter what the circumstance, the men around me react one of two ways. Some shudder at the thought of losing such an intimate entryway into the world of the spirits around us. How else can we divine what Glooskap or the One God is telling us, they argue? Most men however, grow wide-eyed setting a smirk across their faces, saying how else can I have my way with another man’s woman were it not for dreams?
Yet, I stand my ground. They are mistaken, I am not. Dreams are a scourge on man. They are no better than the mosquito feeding upon the blood from my neck or lice scurrying about the hair upon my head or, worse, elsewhere. Dreams come in to a man’s mind like a thieving neighbor enters his longhouse; they creep in during the night while the master sleeps. They enter a mind like I entered the traitors’ homes while I was avenging my wrongful exile, skulking. I killed those men. What better comes to me from my dreams?
And I do not speak of the nightmares which capture the imaginations of frightened children or the prophetic monks with their proclamations now populating Norse settlements everywhere. I speak of dreams! – Dreams that bring with them a warming heart, simmering with the love or lust for a woman – dreams that bring news of good tidings from the One God or from his Providence or from the norns beneath the Yggdrasil tree for that matter. I speak of encouraging dreams – the kind of dreams that awaken me slowly with a satisfied smile behind my quickly greying beard.
What these dreams of which I speak all have in common is that they have given me hope throughout my life. At times, they came to me in deep, lonely or dangerous places when they were all I had to lean upon. Hope! Ha! Hope is an evil thing. Hope is a lie wrapped in a fine tunic. It is a stench covered in lavender. Hope is merely death with the eyes forced open by another man’s meddling fingers. It lulls a man away from the knowledge that most events stray away from plan, most things go against you.
Hope is an evil thing.
NORSE CONTACT – 1,008 A.D.
PART I – Ahanu!
1,008 – 1,010 A.D.
CHAPTER 1
I was most certainly dead, killed by my stubborn ignorance. At least I felt that way. Days I had spent building a canoe, then days I spent paddling it to the skraeling village to offer myself for a peaceful visit. I knew their welcome of me could be harsh, because of the misunderstandings and deaths between our peoples, but as I lay in the small bark home with the deep aching of my slowly recovering wounds, I felt utterly incompetent.
The burns on my chest from the hot embers set there by an old hag in the village itched mightily. It was just as well that my hands were now securely bound behind my back because had they not I would have likely scratched the open sores until they bled. Still the constant itching was maddening. I could not see my back, of course, but knew that it must have been an ugly mottled mess of brown, black, blues, and greens. They had beaten me relentlessly when I came to the shore against the wind two days earlier. My back received the brunt of the attack, but my eyes had their share of damage. My left eye was now completely swollen shut with skin and oozing pus.
For all the abuse my torso had been given, my legs remained strong and relatively unscathed. This allowed me to stand, when my captors would let me. Twice per day, three young warriors came to me and led me to the forest to relieve myself. These may have been the very men who attacked me, but I could not tell because during the original assault I never saw more of them than their feet before I was knocked senseless. They said nothing to me as they dragged me by my twine bindings, only indicating with hand gestures what I should do on our first trip. I understood their language quite well but when I did not ascertain the meaning of their motions, one relieved himself on my leg to demonstrate. After that we fell into a routine.
The skraeling woman, who successfully stopped the initial attack on my person, came back three times each day to tend to my wounds. My vomit and spittle was long since washed and combed from my hair and beard. After the warrior pissed upon my leg she huffed loudly from her lips, shaking her head in disgust as she stripped my trousers for cleaning. The woman was diligent in applying a green paste to the open cuts across my entire body which she made from water and the dried yarrow herbs that hung in the house. So thorough was she that some of the least damaging of the abrasions had already closed up and showed progress toward healing. All her attentiveness was pointless since when the chief of their tribe and father of Megedagik returned from the hunt, my death would be ordered. How would they kill me I wondered? Since they had no steel, I doubted they would drop a large blade upon my neck, separating my body and head. I wondered these things sitting alone in the hut.
The woman, my temporary savior and caregiver, brought me a cup of water in the morning along with a strip of lean smoked venison cooked with several wild roots. The same meal came in the evening, but I heard some men’s voices complaining out in the village that she wasted such fine food on a worthless captive who was as good as dead. The woman was strong-willed and spoke freely, without fear, “I’ll feed the man as I wish!” Perhaps she was a princess in their tribe for her to be given such liberties, I thought.
“Miigwech,” I rasped in her language as she came ducking through the door, “For the food, I mean.”
I think she studied me a moment because her feet planted firmly in front of me. My head sagged to my chest out of pained weakness so I could not tilt it back to return her gaze. The guards saw to it that I sat propped so that my back leaned against a hard post, causing a constant reminder of my wounds. At last she crouched down and fed me the meal not unlike a man feeds a baby lambkin that has been separated from his mother. I ate of it slowly yet the woman did not complain or fidget while she waited to serve me the next bit.
In between bites I asked, “What became of my dog?”
She sighed as she was wont to do but answered, “Why do you insist on talking?” The woman shook her head again, gently adding a small morsel of meat to my mouth. Continuing, “He runs with our other dogs, but mostly my son watches him. The dog has taken to him and him to it.”
Almost imperceptibly I nodded. “Good,” I grunted. “He will need a good master once your chief returns and sees me killed.”
The woman crouched lower to look into my weak eyes, studying me for a time. In a short while she grinned with some satisfied knowledge, even bobbing her head once or twice as if agreeing with someone before stuffing a wild mushroom into my mouth.
Through the food I asked, “What is it? Why do you smile?”
Finally, the woman sat down to rest her knees, saying, “It is good that you now expect death. When you say thank you, miigwech, it is no good. Only when you have utter despondency can you be happy. You are there.”
We sat silently for a time on the brushed earthen floor while she fed me and I chewed on the meal and on her words. The woman was right. When my expectations for success were high, I had often felt lowest. Now living forty-two summers it was time for me to set my heart from the foolishness of hope and become comfortable with the inevitable that fate would bring me. I would die here when the leaders of their people returned.
“What is his name?” I breathed.
“Who? Our chief?”
“No, I do not care to know the man’s name who will execute me. What is your son’s name, the one who will become master of my dog?”
The woman was shaking her head again, in modest disgust with me. “You should not care about anyone’s name. Go to the Earth Mother with a stern face and stop talking.”
“I will go to the great hall of the One God and drink during the nights and hunt during the days, perhaps build a fine bench with the carpenter Son, but before I go, I’ll know the name of my dog’s new master.”
She gave a curse I had heard some of the men say in the past when they stubbed a toe or missed the mark with an arrow, then said, “My son’s name is Kesegowaase. It means swift and he is quick of foot and mind. He will be good with the stinking dog.”
I chuckled at her saying, “It is a good name. I am sure he is like his mother, strong-willed. He will be good for the dog.” Then I added, “I call him Right Ear.”
It was her turn to smile for she must have seen the mangled right ear of the beast. My meal was done and she was standing to leave, brushing the dirt from her backside when I said, “I’d like Kesegowaase to have my canoe as well.”
Stepping closer to me, the woman bent down and roughly snatched my chin so I looked up toward her pained, reddening face. “Don’t pretend to win my favor with gifts to my son,” she spat. “They are no longer yours to give. The men will divide your belongings as they see fit, once the chief returns. And don’t think I have a soft spot in my heart for you or your people. You heathens have made me an old widow twice over and I’ll not forget the hard life you’ve set in my path any time soon. I told you to cease in your talking. Think of yourself as dead, for you already are!” With that she tossed my head aside and marched to the door, ducking outside.
I did not have time to deal with her outburst before I saw her legs shoved aside from outside the door and a group of men piled in. The village was suddenly alive with chatter outside, shouts, and the gleeful screeches of scurrying children rang through the air. The chief and his men had returned.
For the first time in days my bindings were cut so that my hands tingled with blood flowing into their far-reaches. The sensation was almost more painful than the constant wearing of the twine on my raw wrists. Two of the warriors jostled me upright, nearly tossing me out the door. When I was again standing, I saw my savior to the left. She wore a stone-faced, far-away look that gazed miles past where I stood. In an instant I was shoved away from the bark hut that had been my prison and home for two days.
The way was parted, lined by the families of the tribe. They shouted insults and taunts at me. I heard the unmistakable bark of Right Ear who ran up to me, licking my bare knees as I went by. A young man of about fourteen, who must have been Kesegowaase, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck to drag him back to the line of unfamiliar faces. Right Ear gave me one last look over his shoulder and then went with his new handler willingly, sitting at his side.
Following the path set by the curious, mocking villagers, I eventually recognized Hassun and Rowtag, the young warriors who came to visit me on Vinland. Looking through my good eye, I could not tell what, if any, feelings they had seeing me hobbling along, prodded by other angry young men. Their faces were granite.
I came to the end of the path of tribesmen and women where the two sides of people closed in front of me. I struggled to right my head to see more than my accusers’ feet. My heart leapt to my throat when I laid eyes upon Nootau and my dear friend Ahanu. So overcome with emotion was I that it felt like I tried to choke down a cawing raven whole. Unmanly tears welled, the salt burning the sores around my eyes. I decided I would burn the image of these two men into my mind as their people executed me. Certainly thinking of these good souls would help spirit me to the One God’s hall with honor.
Nootau raised both hands, waving them to shush the crowd. It took a moment or two while they got the last of their shouting out, but eventually they complied. After a heartbeat Nootau began, “Families. We have had much death amongst our people in recent seasons. This man, whom you have captured, was among the strange tribe of men who brought killing to our shores. Our chief will make his ruling.” He bowed almost imperceptibly as he finished.
The heat within me raised, my temper flared, the urge to live or at least to not die quietly burst forth, “I’ll not be ruled over by anyone until I’ve had my chance to speak!” My voice broke, wavering. I swallowed hard and continued in their language before anyone had time to interrupt my speech. “What Nootau says is true. My people and your people have battled, though I did not wish it.” The men who held my arms wrenched a hold of me more tightly, twisting me to bend at the waist. I used my last bit of reserve strength to jerk myself free and fell to one knee in the well worn path, a pebble jabbing into my skin.
I looked up at Ahanu whose expression was unreadable, like the rest, but he indicated with a hand that the young warriors could let me stand freely. I slowly rose while speaking, “I have served good men, honorable men. I have served kings and built cities. I have sailed farther than all your people have done put together. Sometimes my actions could be questioned in hindsight, but never could anyone question my loyalty to my people. Never! I serve whom I must; I serve the man to whom I am bound!” I tilted from weakness, catching myself by adjusting my step.
“This chief of your people may show himself the coward that he is,” an audible gasp rang out from those gathered. Ahanu raised an eyebrow, betraying no more emotion. “I saw this man’s son whom you call Megedagik killed by a woman. I call this man Segonku for the smelling rot of flesh he was. I am sure his father is no better. If I were a member among your people I would demand to be led by the likes of Kitchi. But he is dead, killed by Segonku – you likely never heard such things.” Why they let me continue I did not know. “Segonku came and told you that a white warrior killed your young man. He did it himself. Absent Kitchi, I think you ought to expel the weak chief you have in favor of the honorable man before me, Ahanu!”
The crowd erupted with shouts and more insults. One of my guards cuffed me on the side of my head, nearly sending me toppling to the ground. Nootau gave Ahanu a worried look, but then I saw the personality of my friend shine through. Ahanu gave a one-sided grin and shook slightly with laughter. At last he raised his own hands to quiet the crowd. To introduce his brother the chief, I thought.
“My people we have a passionate man before us. He serves with honor. I know this to be true. He leads with honor, and I know this to be true. At times, he lets his passions run him, as a younger man. Your chief will rule.” He stopped here to allow the chatter to rise and then subside. I looked behind him for his brother, but he did not come. Ahanu continued, “This man served his people in battle, but not for want of bloodshed. He came here alone, as a visitor, and our young warriors treated him most harshly. He is no longer a captive, but he will be bound to stay with us, serving where he can for one full year due to the affront he gave to our late chief and his family. His goods including his weapons will be returned to him immediately.” Ahanu looked directly at me then asking, “Do these terms meet your requirements?”
Dumbfounded that my friend had become chief, I gave a weak nod, but Ahanu was not satisfied. “My people expect a response, Halldorr.”
“I accept your ruling Ahanu, chief.”