Norseman Chief (13 page)

One bright winter day, sometime after the Yule and Christmas, of which I celebrated neither, I stood atop the snow wearing a set of snowshoes Hurit had strung for me.  The sky was clear so that the sun, low in the sky, glittered off the snow creating a blinding light that no amount of squinting could shut out.  The air was very cold, but I worked myself to a sweat under my full battle gear.  Kesegowaase, who just parried another blow from my sword, wore a deer hide tunic lined with soft furs on the inside for insulation.  He had already received another tattoo from successfully leading a band to steal from the untended traps of the Mi’kmaq.  This marking was of a fox that looked as if it were sneaking up on its prey, though it could as easily been sneaking up on the tribe’s nearby small garbage dump ready to snatch an unused bit of meat that had hidden itself too well from the women.  Occasionally, as we trained I could catch a glimpse of the fox whenever his tunic pulled aside to reveal more of his chest.

We trained.  Many of the other men had gone out with Rowtag and Etleloo on a great winter hunt.  The weather had settled of late and these men yearned for movement, their wives yearned for a little more freedom, and we all craved some fresh meat in our dinner bowls.  So it served everyone’s purpose when Ahanu decided to send them out.  Kesegowaase and some of the other men stayed behind to protect the village, though I am not sure what five or ten young men could do along with another batch of their aged fathers should a real threat materialize.

Ahanu, who had been suffering of late from his persistent cough, discovered a little more bounce in his step for the past week.  He chuckled in his musical laugh as he leaned on Nootau, while they watched his remaining men train with bows, spears, clubs, and axes.  Both Nootau and Ahanu clutched their pipes in their hands, intent on retreating to the warmth of shelter to share a smoke and call the spirits down upon them.  Hassun was busy in his father’s mamateek mixing a fresh paste from Nootau’s stash of herbs and dried animal remains.

It became clear that these people of Ahanu had a great prowess for strength and ferocity in battle, but they had no real tradition of training.  They relied on their daily lives to prepare them for combat.  Stalking a moose would teach them the stealth necessary to surprise an enemy.  Shooting a hare with a stone-tipped arrow at thirty paces would prepare them to halt an attacking intruder.

The young men grumbled for the first three days when, each morning I threw the flaps of their mamateeks back at first light, revealing them comfortably lounging with their families.  But eventually they began to see some value in the camaraderie, making our training into a set of games.  Some of the women even took a few moments out of their toiling around the village to stop and watch their strong warriors dance.

Kesegowaase swung down with his right hand which held a stone axe, sharpened to a startling edge.  I was slower than I remember myself being in battle.  My muscles had long ago acquired their own minds, not wasting time waiting for my head to direct them.  But that day as I was building my fifth decade of life, I noticed that they just did not move with the crisp attention with which they used to snap.  I would have to train all the more, I thought, to keep the ravages of age at bay, to prevent the extra layer of flesh that comes with a happy wife and a warm longhouse.  Yet do not think I was so slow that this young man, who was quickly making a name for himself among his people, would get the best of me.

I side-stepped his downward thrust and saw that he opened his back to me, something I had told him many times to avoid.  Perhaps another knot from my sword’s pommel would help the lesson sink in.  I gripped the sword hilt tightly, turning my knuckles white and drove that heavy pommel into his ribs.  He gave a gasp, spun around, but managed to stay on his feet.  I opened my mouth to taunt the man, but he beat me too it.  “Perhaps you should stop dancing with me and actually make a move to attack, owoosika.”  In calling me his adopted father, I think, he called me old.

He wanted me to lunge in anger, feeling the swiftness of his youth could work to his advantage, but I had been fighting and killing for well over twenty years.  His goading would not work.  We circled one another for a short time, each hoping the other would show a possible entry point for attack.  I toyed with him.  I pretended that my foot caught, causing me to wobble and lower my sword.  The bait was great and Kesegowaase latched on it like a bear snatching meat in a deadfall trap.

The man stepped toward me with his left leg to strike while pulling his axe back.  As his weight began to settle onto his front-most foot, I drove my left palm into the inside of his knee.  He crumpled toward me, the swing of his axe losing all power and control.  I lowered my shoulder while driving it into his belly.  Soon he was aloft, turning end over end behind me, tumbling in the cold, crystalline snow.

By the time I turned to face him, Kesegowaase was up, charging.  He waved his axe wildly in the air in his right hand.  Beneath my helmet, I shook my head.  The boy would have to learn control or else his enemies would have his scalp displayed at the ends of their spears.  I sighed and thought that maybe his flaring anger would serve as a good lesson to all the men fighting and sparing nearby, once I was able to beat it out of him with another slap or rapping from the sword.

The axe over his head looked ridiculous as it spun.  There would be no way he could control where its blow landed, but even an undisciplined stroke could dent my helmet, so I kept my eyes fixed on it.  I planned to again allow him a riotous strike downward so that I could add another lump on top of the last.  However, just as he should have begun his downward blow, I felt a crashing thud on my chest.  The breath escaped my mouth while I tumbled backward, plunging deeply into the snow.  In battle I would have had to stand immediately or else possibly find a spear buried into my groin.  That day I just gasped for air while counting the number of broken ribs by sliding my fingers under my mail coat.  One.  Two.  Three.  I winced while Kesegowaase walked to stand over me holding both his axe and his club.  I laughed, but the pain it brought caused me to stop breathing altogether.  The man smiled while looking down at me.  “That was good, young warrior,” I rasped.  “I thought only a fool would wave his weapon like that.  Yet, it was the right move.  I never saw you pull the club from your belt and so I would be the dead fool.”

That is when I heard two voices calling in my native tongue.  “Halldorr!  Ahanu!” they called.

The other young men who were training nearby were already running toward the excited voices, while Kesegowaase shoved the weapons back into his belt and roughly pulled me upright.  I fought every urge not to let out a string of curses on him and his people and anyone else I could think of.  Kesegowaase quickly joined his brothers-in-arms.

Nootau offered me his arm to lean on, but I slapped it away in frustration, “I don’t think a man so fresh from the trials can make me need an older man as a crutch.”  He shook his head and walked next to Ahanu who also wanted to walk on his own, despite another coughing fit which forced him to double over twice while he made his way back to the heart of the village.  During the second fit, my old friend snorted out bits of bright red spittle onto the snow.  It stood out markedly against the frozen pale landscape.  Ahanu seemed not to take note or care, jogging to catch up to the young warriors after gaining his composure.  I hobbled behind.

As I came toward Ahanu’s grand mamateek, I saw two of my countrymen who had come to live with the Huntsman.  Their faces were flushed from obvious exertion.  They and my neighbors spoke in agitated tones, neither group exactly understanding what the other said.  The Huntsman and his band had learned a small number of words in the al gumna kyn tongue, and the al gumna kyn knew some pleasantries in Norse.  Both groups of men were getting frustrated and had attracted a gaggle of spectators including Hurit and many other women.

They all looked to me struggling to make my way to them.  Hurit saw me favoring my ribs, and by the One God I loved the woman, but then she screamed and ran to me in worry.  Her hands tried to peel my own away from my chest so I hissed, “Woman, do not disrespect me with these men about.”  I took a step to move past her toward the commotion, but she slid into my path.

Thankfully her words were quiet, even though they were harsh.  “A man and his pride,” she snorted.  “You told me that it was pride that killed this Lord Byrhtnoth at Maldon.  I will be pleased with a husband with less pride and more life.”  I looked at her speechless until she finished with a smile.  “Oh, I’ll take care of you later.  I do not think you’ll die from some injury from this training.  Now get going to see what these young men are stirred up about.”

I snagged her upper arm and pulled Hurit to me, whispering in her ear, “Providence has seen fit to grant me all my dreams in you.”  Then a little louder to save what miniscule pride I had left, “See to my house, woman.”  She gave me a wink and went about her business.

Ahanu was wheezing from laughter as I approached.  His illness caused him to sound more than a little mad while he wiggled underneath his warm wraps.  Nootau spoke, “Halldorr, make your talk so that we may understand one another.”

“What is it that you want?” I asked the two broad-shouldered Norsemen.

The first panted, “Thorhall the Huntsman sends word to our neighbors.  We have seen strangers, other skraelings, not of these people, hunting on Ahanu’s lands.”  He tried to speak some more, but the al gumna kyn were anxious to find out so I stopped him and translated to their tongue.  When they heard the news, the young men of Kesegowaase’s generation puffed up in anger at the mere mention of trespassers.  Ahanu and Nootau looked surprised but more thoughtful.  Without a word the older two men nodded at one another.

“It is likely the Mi’kmaq people from the Pohomoosh village.  After all, our proud warrior Kesegowaase led a band to steal from them just a matter of weeks ago.  This is how our relationship goes with them.  We steal from one another,” Nootau answered as if the discussion was over.

“You don’t worry about an invading army on your chief’s hunting grounds?” I asked, incredulous.

“As long as it’s just a little thievery, we do not usually take notice.  Nor do they note the hides or meat we take from their lands.”

I conveyed all this back to Thorhall’s men.  They immediately began shaking their heads in frustration.  “No.  This is not some boys out for a good time to steal a deer from the old chief.”  I gave the man a menacing glare.  “Chief Ahanu, I mean.  They did not find our campsite, but we saw them.  A huge band of them, perhaps one hundred warriors, marched through the snow.  Some of them stayed behind at the outskirts of Ahanu’s land.  But we think those men scout for all the hunters you sent out.  A smaller corps struck out from the main group yesterday.  They come straight toward your village.  They will be here by nightfall.”

. . .

We found the war arrow that same day.  A single man from the Pohomoosh Mi’kmaq people must have come to the outskirts of the village completely unnoticed some days earlier and buried their unmistakably decorated arrow into the trunk of a nearby tree.  Had anyone noticed it sooner, we would have had time to retrieve some of the other warriors out hunting.  But we could not contemplate such thoughts for such thinking was as the wind – falling on my brow, then gone, replaced by new wind.

I quickly learned that war among the various tribes of skraeling peoples seldom occurred this quickly.  Typically, a skirmish between two roving bands of hunters or warriors was more common.  If war was to be had, the tribes had come to utilize a highly orchestrated manner of communication.  The Mi’kmaq and their leader should have sent a delegation of men to discuss grievances with Ahanu.  Negotiations or amends could be made by both sides and full battle avoided.  Not so this time.  Ahanu did not know of any recent offense his people offered toward the Pohomoosh other than Kesegowaase’s thievery.  He noted they did have a new, young chief called Luntook who may have been trying to spread his influence.  Thinking on the offense, perceived, real, or manufactured, made no sense to me.  Death would be among us shortly.  Death would not take time to talk.

The messengers estimated that thirty hardened warriors would burst into the village in a matter of hours.  Our defenses were nonexistent.  The village had no wall; it could be entered from any direction.  The surrounding land was relatively flat with no prominent rise to which to retreat.  Our numbers were made up of mostly women and children; some older boys who had not undergone the trials; six young men, including Kesegowaase; eight old men, all but Ahanu and Nootau too infirm to be considered in the defense; and three Norsemen.  I reckoned that we could field twenty defenders, only half of which could handle any real fighting.

The only one of our defenders who was not shivering under a light covering of fresh snow as the sun set and the campfires were stoked was Ahanu.  At the end of the discussion we deemed it just too dangerous to risk placing him among those who would be the jaws of a trap.  One of his stray coughing spells could mean disaster for any shred of hope we had.  Hope!  Ha!  Thirty warriors who had taken countless scalps over the years against a handful of newly minted men, sprinkled with other men who would look more at home next to a fire with grandchildren pulling their hair, or beard in my case.