The Sword Song of Bjarni Sigurdson (17 page)

‘It was thought among the Islands that you were sojourning in Norway,’ Thorstein said across the hearth, when the newcomers had had time to take the edge off their hunger.

The women and bairns had been carried off to the bower by that time, and the men were left to pass the ale-jars among themselves, and when Onund held
out his horn for refilling, Bjarni, gathering his legs under him, and reaching for the nearest jack, poured for him as he would have poured for his own chieftain. Onund drank deep, and sat with the horn on his knee. ‘A long story that is.’

‘The night is before us.’ The Jarl drank also. ‘Tell on.’

And Onund told, pitching his voice for the whole hall as the harpers do, and making of it a story indeed; a long story full of weapon-ring and burning thatch. And the hall listened to it happily as to any new story. Thrond’s father had died back in Norway, and Harald Finehair had claimed his land, since Thrond had up-anchored and gone west-over-seas. Thrond’s grandfather, with a warrior heart still inside his ancient body, had counter-claimed, and the thing had come to fighting, and the old man sent word to his grandson. So Thrond and Onund had taken out their longships and with a fair wind had reached the Norwegian coast and the grandfather’s house before any of the King’s men knew of their coming. Some kind of agreement had been patched up with the King, and Thrond had taken the value of the homesteading in goods and gear, and set sail for the Iceland settlements. Last spring, that had been.

‘He would have had me go with him, but I had hearth-friends and kinsfolk in the south,’ Onund said, ‘and I was minded to hunt in their runs for a while. So to the south of Norway I went, to Rogaland, not noising it abroad, and lodged for a while with an old shipmate who I made the Mid-Land Sea run with more than once when the world was young. While I was there, one brought me word that King Harald, knowing that I had been with Thrond, had taken land of mine – farmed by my kinsman, it was – and given it in charge to a man of his own, Harda by name. So
I gathered my crew and a few men from round about who were younglings with me, and went to Harda’s house and slew him and took his goods and gear and burned his Hall to the ground. But that same moon, another of the King’s men went to my grandfather’s house and mishandled the old man so that he died of it. See how one thing flows from another . . . We went to his house also, and burned the thatch over his head, killing him and thirty more. They were holding a great ale-brewing, and that made it easy.’ He sighed. ‘Almost too easy. Then came Jarl Anders with his own carles and a gathering of the country folk, and there was a fight – something of a fight – before we took him. I was somewhat weary of killing, just then, so I demanded of him wergild for my grandfather’s death – with a spear at his throat, I demanded compensation. He paid none so ill, with a couple of fine horses, three gold arm-rings, and the velvet mantle off his back, and we let him go. But after that it seemed that maybe the time had come to be away from Norway.’

There was a general nodding of heads and muttering of agreement.

‘So I headed back to Barra and picked up the women and bairns and those of the men who would be coming with me. And now the keel-road is for Iceland in the wake of Thrond and the rest of the Barra brotherhood.’

‘I have heard that there is good land to be had for the in-taking in Iceland,’ said the Jarl. ‘I have seen fine cattle grazing, and the blow-holes of hot water from the earth’s heart, that in some places keep the frosts at bay.’

‘Also it is not on Harald Finehair’s door sill, and a man may get on with his own living without the King of Norway breathing down his neck,’ added Onund.

‘And what of Barra? Yon’s too far to be keeping for
a summer keel-strand,’ Thorstein said, gazing into the depth of his ale-jack.

‘All the kings of Ireland may hunt the deer on Barra, as they did before my coming.’ Onund glanced with a quirking brow from Thorstein to the Jarl and back again. ‘Unless either of you would be for making your hunting runs there.’

‘For myself,’ the Jarl said, ‘my runs are closer to hand. Good hunting I have already each autumn across the Pentland Firth.’ He paused reflectively, again pulling at the ears of the hound against his knee, and his eyes flicked sideways at the Pictish envoys, drawing them in. ‘Good land there is there also, and in many places too few men to hold it, if Finehair brings his keels and his firebrands that way, as seems like enough he may.’

There was a little silence, and again Onund looked from one to the other, the beginning of a smile narrowing his eyes. ‘Ah-h! I was wondering what brought Orkney and Mull under one roof this end of summer, to say nothing of the lords of the Painted People.’

The silence closed in again and he shifted a little to find an easier position for his aching stump. Bjarni knew the signs. The three sea lords seemed for the moment linked together in understanding of what was not said between them, while their men looked on; and into the silence came the sounding of the sea, and the faint haunting note of the seals, who always sang in misty weather.

‘It is in my mind – almost – to wish myself with you on this new hunting-trail,’ said Onund; then shook his head like a horse with a fly in its ear. ‘Na, na! It is the far North and West, a new life in a new land, for me and mine.’

The night wore on, the men of three islands and
three fleets, who had fought each other before, and would like enough be at war again if they were to meet in open water, mingling together, sleeping safe alongside each other by the laws of fosterage and guest right when the sleeping-rugs were spread on the benches and the bracken-strewn floor. Only, Jarl Sigurd slept in the Hall among his guests and his house-carles instead of going to his own bed in the Women’s House, in a way which Bjarni thought might have some reason to it.

Next morning early, with the last rags of mist rolling away before a stiffening east wind and the light lying long and clear and level across the islands, Onund set his crews to watering ship. The women reappeared from the Women’s House, Aesa still empty-armed, while one of the Countess’s bower women followed after carrying the bairn, content enough now, on her hip. But maybe Aesa had had him to herself through the night, for a chunk of raw turquoise hung on a cord around his neck, that had not been there before.

When the water-kegs were refilled and safe aboard, with other stores which were gifts from the Jarl, they shared the morning meal together in the Hearth Hall, the babe now tumbling among the hounds at Jarl Sigurd’s feet. And, the meal over, Onund and his companions rose to go their way. Leave-takings were going on among the women, but through it all Aesa had her eyes on the bairn that she might not yet touch.

In the last breath of time – it was as though his son had been a hostage for the peace between them since last night – Onund said to the Jarl, ‘All good go with you on your hunting runs . . . I’ll be taking the cub with me now, not leaving him for a squalling burden to your Women’s House; not this tide. But if one day another tide should bring him back to you, do not be forgetting that he is your foster-son.’

For answer, Jarl Sigurd bent and scooped the bairn from among the hairy grey shapes. ‘Surely I will not forget.’ He set the creature on his knee for a moment, then handed him over with something of haste to his father, leaving a damp patch showing on the saffron colour of his breeks. ‘The gods grant that by that time he may be able to hold both a sword and his water.’

Onund took his son, and handed him on, also rather hurriedly, to Aesa, who had come up beside him.

She and the Countess had kissed each other tenderly at parting; but outside in the keen wind, huddling the damp baby under her cloak, she said in a bleak whisper to her lord, ‘I hope the water is worth it?’

‘You will think so, by the time we come to Iceland,’ said Onund Treefoot, turning his face to the way down to the ships.

Bjarni took the harbour path with them the one last time, his shoulder under Onund’s in the old familiar way.

‘What of the dog?’ Onund asked at the very end, when he was about to board
Sea Witch
.

‘Well enough,’ Bjarni told him, ‘though something lacking in speed, as you said he would be.’

And with nothing more said on the matter, the old grief was left behind.

‘Thara is safely wed to a mainland farmer, and the priest her father, Asmund, bides with his sacred wood and the Barra folk who remain,’ Onund said after a pause filled with the voices of men calling to each other, and the crying of the gulls. ‘Come with us, then.’

Something tugged at Bjarni, a two-way pull deep within him. Then he shook his head. ‘If I were to come with you, I would come, Asmund or no Asmund. But
my sword-service is sold to Thorstein Olafson, at the least to the end of the next summer faring.’

‘Ach well, the Iceland road is open for all men to follow, and at all times,’ Onund said.

He swung himself over
Sea Witch’
s side, and Sven put up a hand to steady him as he made his way aft towards the steering oar.

Standing on the salt-caked timbers of the jetty, Bjarni watched
Sea Witch
cast off, watched the rise and dip of the oars as they were swung out, followed by the big, deep-bellied merchantman with the women and bairns and livestock on board, and
Star Bear
bringing up the rear. He saw the seas begin to take them out in mid floe, and the sails bloom out from the masts. Saw them heel a little before the wind . . .

He turned and went back up the looping track towards the settlement and the Jarl’s Hall.

‘The doubt was on me that I should be seeing you again,’ Thorstein said to him later that day, grumblingly, through the red bush of his beard. He had come down to the harbour again, to watch where his crews were readying
Sea Serpent
for the next morning’s homeward tide.

‘My sword is sold to you, at least for another summer,’ Bjarni said, not looking up from the rope he was coiling.

MULL AND THE
lesser islands of Thorstein’s ruling thrummed like a hive that was about to swarm. The armourers’ hammers rang early and late; while down at the ship-sheds of the main settlement there was a new war-keel on the slipway, and the rest of the fleet being made ready for sea; and the smell of pitch and paint, hot metal and raw new timber hanging over all. It was the hum of activity that broke out every year when the birch buds thickened and men began to talk of the seaways by day and dream of them by night. But this year it had been going on all winter long, growing more urgent as the time for launching the longships drew near.

Worn sails and rigging were renewed; dried and salted fish made ready, and on every hearth in the settlements the women were baking the flat round ships’ bannocks that never went stale. And it was said that in the Women’s House behind the Hall, the Lady Aud and her bower women were making a new banner of poppy-red silk from foreign parts worked with a great spread-winged raven, stitching into it
seven black hairs from her own head, and the ancient spells for victory that women weave at such times.

No harm in a spell for victory, even though the enterprise had been agreed with the Pictish envoys; no embassage could speak for all the tribes of Pictland.

In full spring, with the grey geese flighting northward to their nesting grounds, the small birds busy in the forest fringes and the lambs crying in the sheltered pastures, the time came to be launching the longships.

On the last night before sailing the crews gathered, some to the Lady Aud’s little stone chapel, the rest to the God-House where the altar to the White Christ stood beside the altars to more familiar gods. And there in the torchlit dark a young boar was slain, and the Priest dipped the sacred whisk into the blood and sprinkled the gathered warriors and smeared the waiting altars, all the altars, lest the White Christ should feel himself unfairly used.

Afterwards the war-bands swore faith to Red Thorstein on Thor’s Ring, the great arm-ring that lay with his Hammer on the tallest of the altars; the great brotherhood oath of the war-trail, on ship’s bulwark and shield’s rim, horse’s shoulder and sword’s edge.

Bjarni swore with the rest, but he had a sore and angry heart within him. He was not the only one – for along with a good few others, including
Fionoula
’s crew, he was not to go with the war-bands, not as yet anyway, but bide on Mull to guard the settlement, the Lady Aud and her granddaughters against all comers while the Lord of the island was busy elsewhere.

‘It was not for this that I sold him my sword for another year,’ he grumbled to Erp, squatting against the stable wall and pulling too hard at Hugin’s ears until the big dog growled softly in protest.

And Erp looked up from the broken headstall that he was mending. ‘And there was I, thinking that you
sold it in the way of these things, for whatever use he chooses to make of it.’

‘If he thinks so little of me, I wonder he would be wasting good silver on me at all.’

‘There is a thing maybe you have not noticed,’ said Erp. ‘That you are not the only one, and that among the others are some who all men know to be his foremost warriors. Are you thinking that Red Thorstein would leave the guarding of his womenfolk to the dregs of his war-bands?’