Odin’s Child (22 page)

Stig, in his customary manner, squinted into the distance. “Love, I'm not a man for goodbyes. Had a bit of trouble—nothing to speak of now—saw
a ship in the harbor bound for home and thought it might be time for a move. Don't take it to heart so. Though we did get on well, didn't we?”

And how had he fared since? she asked.

“Ah, not near so well as you, love.” Turning to us, he explained, “She was only in a small way in those days—little place on the wharf with just three girls in it. I tumbled 'em all, but in the end, it was the lady herself I liked best—and it wasn't so much her beauty as her wits, I may say. And look at you now, darling.” He took in the place with a sweep of his arm. “You didn't come by all this from picking sailors' pockets.”

Straightening herself and putting on a somber expression, she gave us to understand that ‘Poor Karl' was her benefactor.

“Poor Karl?”

“Him.” She raised her eyes to the carved dragon's head above the door. “Or, what's left of him. He was a shrewd trader but a careless sailor. His ship went down one day in a squall in the fjord. They only found bits and pieces of the wreckage, but he'd left a bag of silver in my safekeeping. We were that close. Well, there was no use in letting it go to waste, was there? I put it down on this wreck of a place, and Karl, such as he is, has the overseeing of it. I do miss him, poor thing. But,” she added quickly, “it was always you, Stig, that I favored most. You know that. Lord, the place does want a man.”

“Captain,” Starkad spoke up, “will we stay a bit or no?”

How much would she want, I asked, to bed us all down.

“Well, now that'd depend on how long you mean to stay. If it was for the whole winter, the rate goes down, and you'd have the place almost to yourselves.”

I tried to catch Stig's eye, but he gazed steadily away. “Let's say a week then, Bergthora Grimsdottir, and after that we'll decide again.”

Businesslike, she named her figure and explained that for our money we would get a place to stow our sea chests, room to sleep on the wall-benches or up in the loft, whichever, and a seat at the table for dinner.”

“And women?” I asked, trying to sound like an old hand.

“Oh them, too. Lord, yes.”

†

The rest of the day passed quickly. I marched the lads back to the harbor, arranged with a warehouse, and set about unlading our cargo—a
task that, with frequent stops to quench our thirst, occupied most of the afternoon. From time to time I saw Stig glance upward and followed the direction of his eye to the king's hall, high up behind its spiked palisade. There was still no smoke.

As we made our way back again through the town, the sun was going down, and the ‘Troll's Steeple' atop the cathedral cast its shadow across the square. I turned around to say something to Kalf. We had just been talking, and I thought he was behind me, but he wasn't. Stig nodded toward the church.

“Right,” I said, making my voice sound easy, “he knows his way back.” But it annoyed me more than I would admit.

†

At Bergthora's inn, which we had decided amongst us to call
Karl's Doom
, a side of venison now turned on the spit, filling the hall with its crackle and smell. In a steady stream, men and women trooped in, shouting hellos and pulling benches noisily up to the tables. Some were seamen who lodged there, others were townsfolk drawn by the inn's reputation for thick ale and good company.

Of the latter there was plenty to go round. Country girls, too poor to be dowered or just bored with the hard life of the farm, drifted into Nidaros, bedded down in one little shack or another on the waterfront, and lived by their wits. Six of them lived here, working for wages as well as what they could make off customers. Together with Old Ketil and his grandson, a scruffy boy named Toke, they got busy serving. Bergthora brought us ale and meat and sat for a bit, with her hand on Stig's knee, while we tucked into it.

But a good innkeeper can never sit still for long. She would tolerate a good bit of roughhousing from the guests, but when things got ugly, which happened often enough, she was instantly in the middle of it with a smile and a line of banter and if this was insufficient, sterner measures. One noisy fellow, swearing he'd been cheated by a girl and brandishing his knife, went down hard with Bergthora's knee in his balls. It didn't seem to me that she was any the worse off for the absence of Poor Karl.

This was the first time I had gotten drunk with my men—which is the best thing you can do, next to leading them into battle, to make them
yours. We roared with laughter and poured ale on each other, drank to our good luck, and named all the things we would buy as soon as we were rich.

We told each other all over again how we had lifted Hrut's ship right from under his nose, and ridden out the fiercest gale that ever blew, and gotten children on the daughters of the dwarves—and said nothing at all about those other, grimmer, things—ghosts, madness, and mutiny. By silent agreement, we were creating a past for ourselves that would bind us together.

Then Stuf and Otkel danced a jig. Stig, not to be outdone, leapt up on the table, balancing right on its edge, and with wild shouts executed those mad capers I remembered from that night at Hoskuld's. All the room clapped and stamped, Bergthora more than any.

How many places like this one, I wondered, had my father seen the inside of in his viking days? How often had he laughed and danced like this, and felt as free and happy as I felt now?

By and by, Kalf came back, slipping quietly in through the door and sitting down quickly at the foot of the table. What in Hel's High Hall had he been doing with the Christmen all this time? Well, he could do as he liked. Anyway, I was too full of good cheer to ride him for it. I threw my arm around his neck and made him drink out of my horn, pouring the liquid half down his front, and he laughed and cuffed me. In a moment he seemed himself again and none the worse for wherever he'd been.

Some girls gathered around us, none of them beauties, but sturdy and willing. Soon they were sitting on our knees and brooches were unpinned and aprons lifted.

“Give me a girl with flesh on her!” cried Brodd as he buried his face between a pair of tits that were as fleshy as any man could want.

So the evening passed. I made good progress with a plump lass who squealed every time she was squeezed. We linked arms and drank from one horn, rolled in the straw, and afterwards drank more. Aud was her name, one of Bergthora's girls.

Sometime during the night, our hostess took Stig by the hand and led him to her bed-closet.

“Go to, Steersman!” I called after him. “For I suppose you know her channel as well as you know the fjord's.”

With a leer and a wave, he disappeared inside.

I began to grow muddled and drowsy. I remember only one other
thing clearly. Kalf was sitting down the table from me. The plump lass slid over to him, shedding the last of her clothes. She pressed against him, her belly, which made three folds, thrusting into the curve of his lap while she swung a thigh over his legs.

“Hi, Kalf,” I called, “remember the fair Thorgrima? Bears a strong resemblance, no? Give her your best, old friend!”

But Kalf sat frozen-faced, his head pulled down between his shoulders like a petrified animal. He shot me one ghastly look before his hands, as if by a will of their own, began to move on the girl's body.

About then, I think, I fell asleep.

Through the fog of sleep came Stig's voice booming in my ear, sounding too cheery by half. “Sun's up, hey, and we've work to do. Captain, get 'em on their feet, or must I do it myself?”

All around me, bodies lay sprawled amidst the wreckage of last night's celebration.

“You do it,” I groaned. The base of my skull felt as though someone had taken an axe handle to it.

He proceeded around the room, dragging our lads from the arms of their girls, rolling them out of puddles of beer, and cursing them generally for drunkards and weaklings.

Except Kalf.

Kalf sat bolt upright before Stig touched him, his eyes red-rimmed as though he hadn't slept at all. The plump lass nowhere near him.

“Fortify yourselves, my boys,” said Stig. “It'll be a busy day for us.”

We foraged amongst the remnants of the feast, finding hunks of bread, slivers of cold meat, and a few swallows of flat ale from the bottom of the cask. I wasn't the only one of us who held his aching head in his hands.

One of Bergthora's girls, whose name was Thyri and who could almost be described as pretty, fetched a basin of cold water from the well and we plunged our heads in it. She wrung out our hair and clucked sympathetically at our groans.

Last of all, Bergthora emerged from her bed-closet, dressed in yesterday's clothes, but minus her housewifely headscarf, as though a single night with Stig had made her a girl again. She motioned her ugly lover to her and after a short consultation, trumpeted in her brass-throated voice, “Master Ogmund! Hey there, Ogmund Pot-Belly, where are you hiding?”

The man so called poked his head out from under a bench, yawned heavily, and rubbed his eyes. “Really, Bergthora Grimsdottir, I protest—”

“Oh, don't do that, Master Ogmund.” Taking him by the shoulder, she lifted him to his feet and proceeded to give him a vigorous dusting off. “Master Ogmund, I've a favor to ask you, and I know you won't refuse, being as you're one of my oldest and dearest customers.”

“Yes, and one that likes to be let sleep after a night's exertions, as you well know.”

He scowled peevishly at her while arranging his clothes and running a hand through his sparse hair. He was a man of middling age, round-shouldered and paunchy. I had noticed him last night drinking his beer in neat, small sips while one of the prettier girls nuzzled him like a puppy.

“Now then, Ogmund,” said Bergthora, “I want you to meet this young ship's captain here and see if you can't help him out a bit. It would mean so much to me.” With a hand on his shoulder, she propelled him in my direction.

“Master Ogmund is a wool merchant from Skiringssal in Oslofjord,” she explained, “and spends a part of every summer here trading. He's lodged with me since, oh, since donkey's years. Likes the beer and the fun, don't you Master Ogmund? Doesn't bother the girls much, but they do love him for his little gifts.”

We acknowledged each other without much enthusiasm, while the rest of my crew drifted over to listen.

“Now, coming to the point,” Bergthora went on, “Ogmund Pot-Belly knows every merchant and shop owner in the town by name, as well as every little trick of the trade. If you've never done business in Nidaros, he'll be a great help to you. You've only to ask him, the dear man won't say no to any friends of mine.”

Bergthora gave the round shoulder an affectionate squeeze.

“Delighted,” he said sourly, taking my hand as if it were a day-old fish. “Icelanders, is it? New at trade?”

“Yes, well, we bought this cargo—”

“Please!” he said quickly, holding up a hand. “I never ask a man how he came by his cargo, that's his business. You'll find it a useful rule.” Bergthora beamed at this instant demonstration of her friend's deep knowledge of affairs. “I'll fetch my scales.”

Going to his sea chest, he brought out a cunningly made little pair of scales with iron arms folded up double and the brass pans tucked neatly under them. With a flourish he hooked the instrument by a brass chain to his belt, where other men wear their swords.

“Not going to weigh our sealskins in those little things, are you?” brayed Stuf. Stig told him to shut up.

Squaring his round shoulders, Master Ogmund Pot-Belly marched to the door. With winks and smiles we fell in behind him.

†

I needn't say much about the week that followed. One glorious day ran into the next, while up and down the bustling waterfront we hawked our cheeses and our eiderdown, walrus ivory, antler, seal skins, fleeces, and furs—everything, in short, that we had left Iceland with or acquired from the Lapps, excepting the falcons who had all, sadly, died during the storm.

We soon learned the value of Ogmund's little pair of scales. Any sort of outlandish coin was good currency here: Arab dirhems, English sceattas, and a few which resembled that mysterious Greek coin that Gunnar had given me long ago and that I still wore on a chain around my neck.

Ogmund taught us to nick the edges of the coins to test if they were silver clear through, and to weigh them up and calculate their value. And not coins alone, but anything made of silver—rings, buckles, chains, and so forth—usually hacked into tiny pieces so as to make the amount come out exact.

For four days, under Ogmund's canny eye, we boasted, bargained, and roistered our way from one end of the harbor to the other, and in and out of taverns, where the best trading was done over horns of ale, until we had sold the lot.

Before that week was out, we were, without stretching the point, rich.

Bergthora fairly glowed when we displayed our wealth, and from then on, our position was secure as the lords of Karl's Doom. The choicest
morsels of food were saved for us, and the girls, who hungered for presents, were our willing slaves.

Like all rich men, we buried most of our treasure in the woods, each man going alone with his share and finding his own spot. But saving wasn't in my nature. I'd never had silver to spend before. Indeed, until I saw the wares of Nidaros Town, I hardly knew what there was to spend it on. I became wonderfully greedy, and haunted the shops of the weavers, the jewelers, and the armorers from morning 'til night.

Behold me swaggering along the waterfront on a sparkling autumn morning. A blue head-band bordered with silver thread, confines my hair, gold rings are in both my ears, my long-sleeved tunic is scarlet with wide embroidered bands of blue and black rosettes around the hem and collar. The links of my belt are silver snakes, my cloak is of dark blue tufted wool caught at the shoulder by a silver brooch and thrown back over my right arm so that one corner of it trails the ground as I walk. My trousers are fine white linen, snug-fitting and cross-gartered below the knee, and my shoes are fastened with silver latchets. These are the first clothes I have ever owned that my mother did not weave and stitch for me.