One King's Way

Chapter Six

Shef woke in the morning feeling strangely calm and rested. For a few moments he lay on the packed earth floor and wondered why. The fire was out, and he had kept from shivering in the night only by curling into a ball and gripping knees with arms. His clothes had dried from body heat, but dried stiff and harsh from salt water. His belly was pinched with hunger. And he was alone and without resources in a strange and probably hostile land. So why did he not seem more anxious?

Shef got to his feet, stretched luxuriously, and pushed open the wooden shutter, letting in the sunlight and the fresh air smelling of grass and blossom. He knew the answer. It was because his cares and responsibilities had fallen from him. For the first time for many months he did not have to think about other people's needs: how to feed them, how to persuade them, how to praise them to make them do his will. His childhood had made him used to cold and hunger. And to blows and the threat of slavery as well. But now he was no child, but a man in his prime. If anyone struck him he could strike back. Shef's one eye noted the weapons he had leant against the corner of the hut. Hrani's sword and Sigurth's spear. They were the only possessions he now had, apart from the pendant round his neck and the flint and eating-knife slung from his belt. They would have to do.

Out of the corner of his eye Shef saw that the older couple had emerged from their box-bed. The man went straight out of the door. That could be ominous. The woman pulled a quern from under their rough table, scooped grain from a barrel into it, and began to grind it with a hand-pestle. The sound brought Shef's childhood back even more strongly. As long as he could remember, every day had started the same way, with the sound of women grinding grain into flour. Only jarls and kings could live far enough away from daily necessity not to hear it. It was the task warriors hated most, though on campaign even they had to do it. Perhaps women hated it too, Shef reflected. At least it showed these people had food. His belly cramped in response to the thought, and Shef glanced again towards his weapons.

A touch on his arm. The young man with the curly hair stood there, grinning as always. He held out a hunk of black bread in a dirty fist, strong-smelling yellow cheese on top of it. As Shef took it, his mouth running instantly with saliva, he produced an onion, divided it in his palm with a crude knife, and passed Shef half.

The two squatted on the floor and began to eat. The bread was hard, old, full of bran and gritty with stone from the hand-quern. Shef tore it with his teeth, relishing every mouthful.

After a while, his stomach relaxing in its demands, he remembered the soreness in his jaw, the strange events of last night. As his hand went up to explore the swelling, he caught the young man—what had the woman called him? Our Karli?—grinning at the gesture.

“What did you hit me for?” he asked.

Karli seemed surprised at the question. “I didn't know who you were. Simplest way to deal with you. Simplest way to deal with everybody.”

Shef felt a certain irritation rising. He swallowed the last lump of cheese, rose to his feet, spreading his arms and flexing the muscles in his back. He remembered the man he had killed yesterday, the young Viking from Ebeltoft. He had been a bigger man even than Shef, and Shef out-topped Karli by a head.

“You would not have done it if it had not been for the dark.”

Karli was on his feet too, a look of glee on his face. He started to circle Shef in a strange shuffle, not like a wrestler's planted stance. His fists were doubled, his head sunk below his shoulders. Impatiently Shef stepped forward, hands grabbing for a wrist-hold. A fist jabbed at his face, he brushed it aside. Something struck him below the ribs on his right side. For an instant Shef ignored it, tried again to grapple. Then pain shot up from his liver, he felt his breath leave him, and his hands dropped automatically to guard the spot. Instantly his head snapped back and Shef found himself staggering back against the wall. As he straightened, blood ran down into his mouth, his teeth felt loosened.

A surge of anger drove Shef forward with lightning speed, aiming to body-check, trip and go for a bone-breaker hold. The body was not there, and as he whirled to reach the darting figure now behind him, he felt another blow in the back, a stab of agony from a kidney. Again he blocked a blow at the face, this time remembering instantly to swipe downwards to thwart the liver-punch that followed. Still no grip, and another blow high up on the cheekbone as he hesitated. But the circling had brought Shef into easy reach of the spear propped against the wall. How would that grin look…?

Shef stood up straight, spread his arms wide in token of defenselessness. “All right,” he said, looking at Karli's grin. “All right. You would have knocked me down even if it had not been dark. I can see you know something I do not. Maybe many things.”

Karli grinned even more broadly than before, and dropped his hands. “I expect you know some things too—a seafarer like you, with a spear and a sword as well. I have never been outside the Ditmarsh—hardly ever outside this village. How about a trade? I will show you what I know, and you show me what you know. I could soon teach you how to strike and guard with your fists, like we do here in the Ditmarsh. You move very fast. Too fast for most of these ploughboys.”

“A trade,” Shef agreed. He spat on his palm and looked at Karli to see if he understood the gesture. The other grinned, and spat too. The pair slapped palms violently to seal the bargain.

As Shef wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his sleeve, they resumed their companionable squat.

“Now listen,” said Karli. “You've more important things to learn right now than fist-fighting. My old man has gone out to tell the village you're here. They'll assemble outside, make the ring, and decide what to do with you.”

“What are their choices?”

“First off”, someone will say you're a slave. That'll be Nikko. He's the richest man in the village. Wants to be a lord. But silver is short in the Ditmarsh, and we never make slaves of each other. Having someone to sell in the market at Hedeby is what he thinks about all the time.“

“Hedeby is a Danish town,” said Shef.

Karli shrugged. “Danish, German, Frisian, we don't care. No-one tries any tricks on the Ditmarsh. They couldn't find the path through the fens. And anyway, they know there's no silver here. Lot to lose for a tax-collector, nothing much to gain.”

“If I don't want to be a slave, what's the other choice?”

“You could be a guest-friend.” Karli looked at him sideways. “Like with me. That means exchanging gifts.”

Shef felt his biceps, regretting the last-minute decision yesterday to strip the gold bracelets from them. One of those would have bought him hospitality for a year. Or a knife in the back. “What do I have, then? A spear. A sword. And this.” He pulled the silver pole-ladder of Rig from under his tunic, and glanced across at Karli to see if he recognized the sign. No interest there. But Karli had glanced more than once at the weapons propped in the corner.

Shef stepped over to them, picked them up for a closer look. The spear with the ‘Gungnir’ runes: excellent steel, glinting new-forged, a beautiful balance in the hand. The sword: serviceable enough, but a little too heavy, the blade mere sharpened iron without a specially welded edge, beginning already to pock slightly with rust. Swords were more valuable than spears, the mark of the professional warrior besides. Still…

Shef held out the sword. “Take this, Karli.” He noted the way the young man took it, the way he held the blade slightly off the square, disastrous for a parry. “And I will give you two more things. One, I will show you how to use the sword. Two, if ever we stay by a forge, I will forge it again for you to make it a better weapon.”

The freckled face flushed with pleasure as the door opened. Karli's father came in, jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

“Come, stranger,” he said. “The doom-ring is outside.”

Some forty men stood outside in a rough circle, their wives and children forming a larger circle outside them. All the men were armed, but not well—spears and axes, but no mail or helmets. A few had shields on their shoulders, but not strapped on ready for use.

What the Ditmarshers saw emerging from the hut was a tall warrior, his calling unmistakable from his bearing: straight back, wide shoulders, no sign of the stoop or the cramped muscles of the peasant who had to follow a plow or bend every day over hoe or sickle. Yet he bore no gold or silver on him, carried only the long spear in his right hand. He was scarred as well, with one eyelid drooping over a sunken socket, and the whole side of his face seeming drawn in. Unnoticed blood smeared his face, and his plain tunic and breeches were dirtier than a peasant's. The circle stared at him, unsure how to read these signals. There was a low mutter of comment as Karli emerged behind him, gripping in inexpert hands the sword he had been given.

Shef looked round, trying to appraise the situation. The waking feeling of calm and confidence was still with him, unshaken by the brush with Karli. Thoughtfully he pulled the silver Rig-pendant up on its chain so that it hung outside his tunic. Another mutter of comment, men peering closer to try to identify the sign. Some of the men watching, maybe a quarter of those present, similarly hitched pendants into view: hammers, boats, phalluses. None like Shef's.

The man directly facing Shef stepped forward, a bulky man in middle-age with a red face.

“You came from the ships,” he said. “You are a Viking, one of the robbers of the North. Even such as you should know better than to set foot on the Ditmarsh, where the free men live. We will enslave you and sell you to your kin at Hedeby. Or to the bishop's men at Hamburg. Unless there is someone who will pay to have you back—not likely, from the look of you.”

Some instinct drove Shef forward across the ring, sauntering slowly till he came face to face with his accuser. He looked at him, tilting his head back to accentuate his greater height.

“If you know I came from the ships,” he said, “you know there were two ships fighting. One was a Viking. It was the Frani Ormr, the great ship of Sigurth Ragnarsson. Did you not see the Raven Banner? The other one was mine, and Sigurth was running from it. Get me back to it and I'll give you a man's price in silver.”

“What kind of ships chase Viking ships?” said the burly man.

“English ships.”

The listening crowd made noises of surprise, disbelief. “It's true the first ship was a Viking,” said a voice. “But he wasn't running. He was leading on. And he fooled the other skipper proper. If that second ship was English they must all be fools. Mast and sail all wrong, too.”

“Take me back to it,” repeated Shef.

Karli's voice came from behind him. “He couldn't do it if he wanted to, stranger. No boats. We Ditmarshers are bold enough in the marsh, but half a mile out to sea and that's pirate water.”

The burly man flushed and glanced angrily round. “That's as may be. But if you've nothing else to say, one-eye, then what I said stands. You're my slave till I find a buyer. Hand over that spear.”

Shef tossed the spear in the air, caught it at its point of balance, and feinted a lunge. He grinned broadly as the other man jumped clumsily away, then turned his back on him, ignoring the threatening axe. He began to stroll round the circle, looking into face after face, and addressing his words directly to the pendant-wearers in the circle. They were just like the Norfolk farmers whose disputes he had so often judged as a jarl, he decided. Get their interest and exploit their village divisions.

“A strange thing,” he remarked. “Man gets washed up on the shore, might be alive, might be dead, what do you do with him? Where I come from, the fishermen, if they have the cash, put a silver ring in their ears. You know what that's for. So if they drown and their bodies come to shore, the folk are paid for burying them. The folk would bury them anyway, in duty, but they don't like the idea of taking a last service for nothing.

“Now here I am, no ring in my ear, but not dead either. Why should I get worse treatment? Have I done any harm? I've made a gift to your Karli there, and in exchange he's knocked me down, bloodied my nose, loosened my teeth, and given me a sore jaw—so we're all good friends.”

A rumble of amusement. As Shef had guessed, Karli was something between an object of admiration and a standing joke.

“Now what surprises me is our friend behind me.” Shef jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the burly man. “He says I'm a slave. Well, maybe. Says I'm his slave. Did I go to his house? Did he capture me single-handed in peril of his life? Maybe you all decided that anything that fell off a ship belonged to him. Is that right?”

This time a definite rumble of rejection, and what sounded like a loud breaking of wind from Karli.

“So what I suggest is this.” Shef had almost completed his circuit now, and was coming back face to face with the burly man. “If you want to make a slave of me, Nikko, then take me along to Hedeby and put me in the sale-ring. If you can make a sale, well and good. But then you must share the money with the village. Till you get to Hedeby, though, I stay free: no bonds, no collar. And I keep my spear. Sure, you can guard me as much as you like. Finally, till we get there I'll work for my keep.” Shef tapped his pendant. “I have a skill. I'm a smith. Give me a forge and tools and I'll work at whatever you need.”

“Sounds fair enough,” called one voice. “I have a plowshare with its edge coming away, needs careful work.”

“He don't talk like a Viking,” called another. “More like a Frisian, only without the cold in his head.”

“Did you hear the bit about sharing out?” called a third.

Shef spat on his palm and waited. Slowly, with hate in his eyes, the burly Nikko spat too. They slapped palms perfunctorily. As the tension slackened, Shef turned and walked back to Karli.

“I want you to come to Hedeby too,” he said. “See the world. But we both have much to learn before we get there.”

Forty miles out to sea, within sight of the Holy Island, the English fleet rocked on the waves, sails furled, like a flock of giant sea-birds. At the center four ships were lashed together for conference: the Norfolk, escaped from the muddy channels of the Elber Gat, the Suffolk, commanded by the senior English skipper Hardred, Brand's Walrus and the Seamew of Guthmund the Greedy, to represent the Viking Waymen. Feelings were running high, and strong voices carried over the water to the listening fleet.

“I can't believe you just left him on the Thor-forsaken sandbank,” said Brand at a pitch just short of a bellow.

Ordlaf's face remained mulish. “Nothing else to do. He'd vanished out of sight, tide coming in, night coming on, no knowing if Sigurth and his picked champions weren't going to appear from the next sandbank. We had to get out of there.”

“Do you think he lived?” asked Thorvin, flanked on either side by fellow-priests of the Way called from their ships.

“I saw four men go after him. Three came back. They didn't look pleased. That's all I can say.”

“So the chances are he's stuck in the Ditmarsh somewhere,” concluded Brand. “All those bastards have webbed feet.”

“They tell me he's a fenman too,” said Ordlaf. “If he's there, he's probably all right. Why don't we just go after him? It's daylight now, and we can pick our tide.”

This time it was Brand's turn to look mulish. “Not a good idea. First off, no-one lands in the Ditmarsh, not even for water or an evening's strandhögg. Too many crews have vanished. Second, like I told you weeks ago, all this is pilot water. And you said you could find your way with lead and lookout! You got stranded, and you could again, maybe in a worse place next time.

“Third thing, though, is we still have the Ragnarssons around. They started off with a long hundred of ships, a hundred and twenty, the way you count. How many do you think we sank or captured?”

Hardred replied. “We captured six. The catapults sank at least a dozen more.”

“Which leaves them a hundred, to our fifty. Less than fifty, since they boarded the Buckinghamshire and cut a hole in her bottom, and I have half a dozen ships too weakly manned now to be useful. And we won't take them by surprise again.”

“So what do we do?” asked Ordlaf.

There was a long silence. Finally Hardred broke it, his careful Anglo-Saxon contrasting oddly with the camp-patois brewed from Norse and English of the others.

“If we are unable to rescue the king,” he said, “as I am told we are, then I see it as my duty to return the rest of the fleet to English waters, to take instructions from King Alfred. He is my master, but the agreement between himself and King Shef”—he hesitated before coming out with the words—“was that one should succeed to all the rights of the other, if the other should pre-decease him. As may now be the case.”

He waited for the storm of protests to die down, then went on, his voice gaining firmness. “After all, this fleet is now the main shield and protection of English shores. We know we can sink the pirates if they appear, and we will. That was the main aim and goal of King Shef, as of King Alfred: to have a peaceful coastline and a peaceful land behind it. If he were here he would tell us to do what I suggest.”

“You can go,” shouted Cwicca, the freed slave. “Go back to your master. Our master is the one who took the collars from our necks, and we won't leave him to have some webfoot half-breed put one on his.”

“How are you going to get there?” said Hardred. “Swim? Brand won't take you. Ordlaf daren't, not on his own.”

“We can't just sail away,” pleaded Cwicca.

Thorvin's deep voice broke in. “No. But it is in my mind that we can sail on. Or some of us can. Something tells me that it is not Shef Sigvarthsson's fate to die silently, or to vanish. Someone may have him for ransom. Or for sale. If we go to a major port, where news is gathered, we will hear something of him. I suggest we go on to Kaupang, some of us.”

“Kaupang,” said Brand. “To the College of the Way.”

“I have reasons of my own for going there, it's true,” said Thorvin. “But the Way has many followers, and many resources, and the college is deeply concerned about Shef. If we go there we will get help.”

“I won't,” declared Hardred flatly. “Too far, too risky, hostile waters all the way, and we know now the ‘Counties’ aren't fit for a deep-sea crossing.” Ordlaf nodded in glum agreement.

“Some go back, some go on,” said Thorvin.

“Most go back, I think,” said Brand. “Forty ships, even fifty ships, aren't enough to get through all the fleets of Norway and Denmark—the Ragnarssons, King Halvdan, the Hlathir jarls, King Gamli, King Hrorik, and all the others. They'd best turn back, to guard the Way in England. There are plenty who'd be glad to stamp it out.

“I'll take the Walrus. Go out deep sea, not hug the coast. I'll get through. I'll take you, Thorvin, and your fellows, to Kaupang and to the college. Who else? How about you, Guthmund?”

“Take us!” Cwicca was on his feet, face red with rage. “We aren't turning back. Take me and my mates, and our catapult too, we can unship it from the Norfolk if that Yorkshire fart won't risk his skin. Cowpang, Ditfen, we'll take them all if we got to.” A hubbub of agreement from the waist of the ship showed that the freed slaves of the catapult crews had been listening.

“Me too,” said an almost inaudible voice from a small figure lurking behind the mast. Brand looked in several directions till he realized it came from Udd, the steel-master, allowed on the cruise only in his former role of catapult crew spare hand.

“What do you want to go to Norway for?”

“For knowledge,” said Udd. “I have heard men speak of Jarnberaland. Iron-bearing Land,” he added, translating.

Another slight figure appeared to stand unspeaking by him. Hund, the leech, Shef's childhood friend, now with the silver apple of Ithun round his neck.

“Very well,” said Brand decisively. “I'll take my own crew and the Seamew as consort. I'll have space for no more than ten volunteers. You Hund, you Udd, and you, Cwicca. Cast lots for the rest.”

“And us as passengers,” said Thorvin, nodding to his two fellow-priests. “Till we reach the college.”