Raven of the Waves (6 page)

His father began telling the old story of the dragon that lived in an
aldwark
, an ancient stone ruin, and how a man from Dunwic had killed the fiery beast with a wood ax. “Cut him head and spine,” said Sigemund, lifting his own ax from its place against the wall and letting the firelight play along its edge. “And so I'll cleave the head of any stranger,” he added, showing his yellow teeth. “I wish they would come soon.”

7

Aethelwulf and Redwald still sat in the light from a beeswax candle when Wiglaf returned that evening. The scent of the honey wax and the light were precious to Aethelwulf, like the love he felt for his Savior.

Redwald and Aethelwulf ate the roast cockerel and drank brown ale. They drank mead, and they drank from a silver pitcher of Rhône wine. Redwald enjoyed speech sport as much as any man in Dunwic, and he asked Wiglaf if the lad had heard any new riddles.

“One or two, my lord.” It was both polite and wise to wait for a ring giver like Redwald to offer permission, especially when one was seeking to baffle him in a game.

“Go on,” urged Redwald.

“
I am cut, polished, stirred, dried, bleached, softened
—”

“Too easy, Wiglaf. The answer is ale.”

“You tell one, then,” prompted the abbot.

“I believe I shall. A crafty one indeed.
My nose is downward. As I travel on one side, all is grassy; on the other track, gleaming black
—”

“A riddle fit for a child,” laughed Aethelwulf. “A plow. Everyone knows that.”

Wiglaf said that he knew yet another, one Brother Aelle had told him.

“Brother Aelle knows a riddle?” said Aethelwulf.

“A foe stole my life. He dipped me in hot sun where I shed my hair. A bird's joy and power sprinkled me over with meaningful drops. It made frequent tracks with its swallowed tree dye
—”

Redwald lifted a hand in mock surrender. “A monkish riddle, and I'll never guess it.”

“A book, my lord!” said Wiglaf.

Redwald laughed, and then said, “But I know nothing of books. They are always in Latin, every verse, and I have a head only for the English tongue, which only a monk would ever write down.”

Wiglaf listened in fascination as the two men began gossiping about the women of Fulford, a town of lascivious female folk, shameless as mares in heat, just outside the big city itself. “Pray for the souls of these women,” said Redwald. “And for the souls of the poor sinners who have to pass by their village on the way to see the king.”

Aethelwulf did not like to hear of such sinful bed play. And yet it did have a certain curious wonderment to it, an entire village of such fallen beauties. “And you have to ride through this town, my good Lord Redwald—there is no other route?”

“I ride north again in a day or two, back to another hall counsel, and my path will take me straight through this town of dazzling sinners.”

“How terrible for you,” said Aethelwulf.

“It is a strain, good Father,” he agreed, with a wry smile. “A challenge indeed.”

But both of them knew there were dangers in the wild spaces, descendants of Cain or children of Hell. This was why timber-stout walls were built, and why good men and women lived together. The threat of sinful women was a trifling matter.

“When I was young I used to converse with Alcuin the great scholar,” said Aethelwulf. “I had much to unlearn. I was as lusty as any hay cutter during the long summer twilights. I thought that dipping my goose-quill pen in oak-gall ink would cure me of lust, spending long hours writing holy texts.”

“And did it?”

Rain breathed against the shuttered window. The candle flame shivered. Aethelwulf gathered his robe around him. “Lust is a sin, Redwald,” he said. “But the greatest sin is not to trust God.”

“Indeed, I put my faith in Heaven,” said the nobleman.

“When you see the king again—” Aethelwulf was about to say,
Ask for shields and spears and helmets. Ask for chain mail and sword gloves
. But instead he said, “Give him my blessing.”

The abbot saw the drink-sodden Redwald onto his horse, Wiglaf helping the nobleman into the saddle. The lord's hall was a not a long ride through the night, and Redwald had been known to drink a goatskin of red wine at one sitting, and then ride all night to the king's table.

“I'll tell of the church tower, how it rises skyward,” said Redwald, gesturing into the dark. “In the great city walls I sing of the glory of Dunwic,” he half chanted, sounding like a tale sayer. Redwald was very drunk indeed. His horse splashed off into the darkness.

“Wiglaf, you will show me to my bed,” said the old priest. “My eyes are not as keen in darkness as they used to be. And I am weary from a day of study.”

“And perhaps, Father, the Rhône wine argued with the ale in your belly,” said Wiglaf with a certain politeness.

“A physician should learn of such things,” said Aethelwulf.

The abbot woke in the night and without wondering why, groped for his staff. There was no reason to expect it beside his bed. But when he could not find it he sat up and crept toward the wall to the place where it was leaning.

Such a terrible dream! Aethelwulf struck the span of ash wood on the stone floor. The staff made a ringing whisper.

He was a man of God, but in his youth he had handled an ax with skill. He stood in the darkness, holding his staff like a weapon. Could I now, wondered the priest, lift my arm and strike a man, knock him to the ground?

Could I fight hard enough to save the lives of the people I love?

8

Wiglaf read in a clear, careful voice.

Aethelwulf had never been a compassionate person in his early years but now, after decades of study and effort, he had become exactly what he had hoped to be: loving, and at peace. Saint Benedict had taught that to work was to pray. Now Aethelwulf believed that on some blessed days, to breathe was to pray.

Wiglaf was struggling through the lives of the saints. This was a precious book, one of the most holy in the abbey. The boy read of Erkengota, a saint whose corpse had exuded a balsamlike odor. He read of Dismas, the good thief, who died with Our Lord. And he read of Giles, the patron saint of cripples. That holy man had lived in solitude in a forest, and had been wounded by an arrow intended for a hind.

The boy stumbled on a word.
“Excepit,
” said Aethelwulf.
“Excipere
—you remember, surely.”

“‘Capture,'” said Wiglaf.

“Very good. ‘To capture.' And that's
ferum
, ‘wild animal.' They are hunting the wild deer, the hind, with a
saevo cane
—a fierce dog.” He gave a quiet laugh. “Perhaps it's as fierce as Stag.”

Wiglaf could learn as quickly as Aethelwulf could teach. It was a challenge, and Aethelwulf relished it. In his old age he had discovered this joy. As the boy read the handsome Latin sentences, the storied archer raised his weapon.

The arrow left the ignorant hunter's bow and pierced the saint.

Latin was the prince of all languages, but the next dawn Aethelwulf did something he had never done before. He began a poem—verses that the men and women of his parish would be able to understand. It was in their own earthy language, the speech of husbands and wives and horsemen. He marveled as he worked the poem in his mind what a fit word for God it was, and how God's power broke through the sounds of the syllables like light through a cloud.
“Micel,
” he said to himself. “Great. The Great God.”

He did not write down this poem with a quill and ink. Perhaps someday in the future he would have one of the brothers commit it to one of the vellum rolls that were not of the best quality. He kept the poem in his mind where he could knead it, where, with time, he believed it would grow golden and, if it were not too much to hope for, glorious.

Frea, the wife of Alfred, sent for help. One of her children, afraid to look around at this room of books and beeswax candles, asked for the good father's attention. “She can't get out of bed,” said the short, round-headed peasant boy in the accent of field folk.

Wiglaf and the abbot set off together.

The clay cutter was a moderately wealthy peasant, the descendant of generations of men with skill in preparing the earth used in building walls. The problem with Frea, as far as Wiglaf knew, was that she was the most grumpy woman in the world. She was meaner than a gander, thought Wiglaf, walking, as was proper, a full stride behind the abbot. Frea would argue with a stump.

“Frea has rheumatism,” said Aethelwulf, perhaps reading Wiglaf's mind. His mother had said that some wise folk had such thought-stealing power, and it would not surprise Wiglaf if the abbot was one of them. “We must have sympathy for her.”

“She's the greatest scold,” Wiglaf offered, feeling immediately ashamed of himself.

The abbot did not respond to this remark. “There is more nonsense about rheumatism than any other ailment. Some people think that if you drink the water a fox has been boiled in you can cure it. The truth is, Wiglaf, nothing can cure it.”

Aethelwulf put on his most cheerful manner as he entered the cot. To Wiglaf's surprise, it worked.

“I've never been strong,” Frea said gently, without a trace of her usual humor. “Always given over to a fever every now and then.”

“It's not easy. Heaven understands this.”

“But you're so happy, Father. Happy Father I call you. Nothing ever troubles you.”

Perhaps the abbot laughed too loudly. Frea's head fell back to her rush-stuffed pillow-sack. “I shouldn't have spoken so, good Father. Please forgive me.”

“No, it pleases me to hear it,” said Aethelwulf. “As a younger man, and not so long ago as a not-young man, people thought me a very sour person. Always bitter, thinking how things could be and how they never were what they ought to be. With reason, I suppose—things never are quite what we hope. But something has happened to me since I came here to Dunwic. I've become happy. We don't have to be happy to be a child of God, you know. There's no reason to expect joy.”

Aethelwulf advised Frea to drink warm water. “Not after a fox has been cooked in it, or drunk from it, or anything at all having to do with a fox.”

On their way back to the abbey, Wiglaf said that Frea looked different.

“She has something very wrong with her, Wiglaf,” said Aethelwulf. “You saw her eyes?”

“The whites were yellow.”

“What does that mean to you?”

Wiglaf considered. He already knew that Aethelwulf now believed that Frea was a very sick woman. But what was the ailment called, and what prayer or what herb could cure it? Wiglaf admitted he did not know.

“I don't know either,” said Aethelwulf. “Perhaps she wants to have some peace in her last days. It takes so much courage, Wiglaf, just to be an ordinary man or woman.”

9

The sea crashed around
Raven
.

Lidsmod shivered, soaked to the skin through his tunic.

The heavy salt water drenched the wool clothing, and the rough salty fabric chafed the flesh. Lidsmod was bailing, flinging water over the side.

Ulf took the bailer when Lidsmod had to pause, out of breath. The big bald-headed man flung brine into the wind, although most of it streamed back into his face, and dripped from his beard. The bailer was oak, half bucket and half shovel. When Ulf was red-faced and panting, Trygg, a man whose nose had been nearly cut off in a fight out of legend, took over, and when Trygg wearied, something happened that stirred the men of
Raven
with surprise.

Torsten, the berserker, took the bailer, drew a deep breath, and when he was finished, there was no water in the ship. He handed the bailer to Opir, who wore it on his head for a while.

“What it takes for the sea,” Njord said to Lidsmod, “is not courage, or bear spirit, or anything like that. You want to be a steady man—
hofsmadr
. Someone your mates can depend on, the way they can depend on this steering oar.” Some day, Njord had promised, Lidsmod could be a helmsman, someone the ship would trust. But this was not likely to be any time soon, Lidsmod believed. Njord handed Lidsmod a dried, tough stick of salted herring, and the two of them drank a few swallows of morning ale, just enough to take the bite out of the salt spray.

Njord gripped the tiller in his right hand. He looked upward at the sky, as though he were not sailing the ocean at all, but the heavens. Lidsmod sat beside him on the raised platform beside the steering oar. This far at sea they had a good following wind, and no oars had to be manned.

“Feel how
Raven
flexes with the swells,” said Njord. The red-striped sail blossomed.
Raven
seemed to leave the water. She rarely rocked from side to side, like a freight
knorr
, but always upward, flexing like a living creature, so that the ship seemed to climb the sky.

Raven
was a good name for a first voyage, but a truly fortunate ship would earn a better, longer, or more storied name.
Crane
, while a fine vessel, had never become
Crane of the Wind
, or
Crane of the Victories
, because something about the ship had seemed not quite saga fit.
Landwaster
, on the other hand, had once been called simply
Fulmar
, after the strong-winged seabird.

A petrel scurried across the water, heading north-northwest.
Raven
coursed toward the southwest. Now that the oars were stowed, the sail billowed, and the walrus-hide stays fastened, the men occupied themselves by doing little: drowsing, talking quietly, enduring the water and the cold.

Njord reached up and tested the tension of the back stay.
Raven
was so flexible that even this tug could be felt throughout the ship. “Climb forward to the bowline,” Njord told Lidsmod. “Make sure it's taut.”