The Long Ships (4 page)

When she had left them to prepare the ale, Odd remarked that if all her female ancestors had had tongues like her, Sven Rat-Nose had probably fixed on the Smalanders as the lesser evil. Toste demurred, saying that he agreed up to a point, but that she was in many respects a good wife, and ought, perhaps, not to be provoked unnecessarily, and that Odd should do his best to humor her.

That winter, they all noticed that Asa went about her household duties with less than her usual ardor and bustle, and that her tongue ran less freely than it was wont to do. She was more than ever solicitous toward Orm, and would sometimes stand and gaze at him as though contemplating a vision. Orm had by now grown big and could compete in matters of strength with all those of his age, as well as with many older youths. He was red-haired and fair-skinned, broad between the eyes, snub-nosed and widemouthed, with long arms and rather rounded shoulders; he was quick and agile, and surer than most with a spear or with a bow. He was fiery of tongue, and would rush blindly on any man that roused him, so that even Odd, who had previously enjoyed teasing him to a white fury, had now begun to treat him with caution; for Orm’s strength made him a dangerous opponent. But in general, except when he was angry, he was quiet and tractable, and always ready to do whatever Asa asked of him, though he occasionally had words with her when her fussing irked him.

Toste now gave him a man’s weapons—a sword and a broadax and a good helmet—and Orm made himself a shield; but he found difficulty in obtaining a chain shirt, for nobody in the household was of his size, and there was, at that time, a shortage of good mail-smiths in the land, most of them having migrated to England or to the Jarl at Rouen, where their work was better paid. Toste said that, for the time being, Orm would have to be content with a leather tunic, until such time as he could get himself a good shirt in Ireland; for there dead men’s armor was always to be had cheaply in any harbor.

They were talking on this subject at table one day when of a sudden Asa buried her face in her arms and began to weep. They all fell silent and stared at her, for it was not often that tears were seen on her cheeks; and Odd asked her if she had the toothache. Asa dried her face, and turned toward Toste. She said that all this talk of dead men’s armor seemed to her to be a bad omen, and that she was already certain that disaster would overtake Orm as soon as he accompanied them to sea, for thrice in her dreams she had seen him lying bleeding on a ship’s bench, and they all knew that her dreams could be relied upon to come true. She begged Toste, therefore, to listen to her earnest prayer and not to expose their son’s life to unnecessary peril, but to allow him to remain at home with her for this one summer; for she believed that danger threatened him in the very near future and that if he could only survive this immediate hazard, the risk would subsequently decrease.

Orm asked her whether she could see in her dream in which part of his body he was wounded. Asa replied that, each time she dreamed this dream, the sight of him lying thus had awakened her in a cold terror; but she had seen his hair bloody and his face pale, and the vision had weighed heavily upon her, the more so each time that it returned, though she had not previously wished to speak of it.

Toste sat silent for a while, pondering over what she had said; then he remarked that he knew little about dreams and had never himself paid much attention to them.

“For the ancients used to observe,” he said, “that as the Spinstress spinneth, so shall it be. If, though, you, Asa, have dreamed the same dream thrice, then it may be that this is intended to serve as a warning to us; and, in truth, we have already lost our share of sons. Therefore I shall not oppose your will in this matter, and Orm shall remain at home this summer, if it is also his wish. For my own part, I begin to feel that I should not mind sailing once more to the west; so perhaps, after all, your suggestion may turn out to be the best solution for us all.”

Odd concurred with Toste, for he had several times noticed that Asa’s dreams foretold the future correctly. Orm was not overjoyed at their decision, but he was accustomed to obey Asa’s will in important matters; so nothing more was said.

When spring came, and sufficient men had been hired from the hinterland to fill the gaps in their crew, Toste and Odd sailed away as usual, while Orm remained at home. He behaved somewhat sulkily toward his mother and sometimes pretended to be sick in order to frighten her, but as soon as she began to fuss over him and dose him with medicines, he would find himself believing that he was in fact ill, so that he gained but little pleasure from his game. Asa could not bring herself to forget her dream and, despite all the worry he caused her, it comforted her to have him safe with her at home.

Nevertheless, and in spite of his mother, he sailed forth that summer on his first voyage.

IN the fortieth year of King Harald Bluetooth’s reign, six summers before the Jomsvikings' expedition to Norway, three ships, fitted with new sails and boldly manned, set sail from the Listerland and headed southwards to plunder the country of the Wends. They were commanded by a chieftain called Krok. He was a dark-complexioned man, tall and loose-limbed and very strong; and he had a great name in his part of the country, for he possessed a talent for evolving audacious plans, and enjoyed deriding men whose enterprises had gone astray and telling them what he would have done if he had been in their shoes. He had never in fact achieved anything of note, for he preferred to talk of the feats he intended to perform in the near future; but at length he had so fired the young men of the district with his talk of the booty that brave warriors might win in the course of a properly conducted expedition against the Wends that they had got together and fitted out ships and had chosen him to be their chieftain. There was, he had told them, much treasure to be found in Wendland; above all, one could be certain of a fine haul of silver, amber, and slaves.

Krok and his men reached the Wendish coast and discovered the mouth of a river, up which they rowed against a strong current until they came to a wooden fortress, with piles forming a boom across the river. Here they went ashore in a gray dawn twilight and attacked the Wends, having first slipped through their outlying defenses. But the fortress was strongly manned, and its defenders shot arrows at them cunningly, and Krok’s men were tired with their heavy rowing, so there was a bitter struggle before the Wends were finally put to flight. In the course of it Krok lost many good men; and when the booty was examined, it was found to consist of a few iron kettles and some sheepskin coats. They rowed back down the river and made an attempt on another village farther to the west, but it, too, was well defended, and after another sharp struggle, in which they sustained further losses, they won a few sides of smoked pork, a torn chain shirt, and a necklace of small, worn silver coins.

They buried their dead on the shore and held counsel, and Krok had some difficulty in explaining to them why the expedition had not turned out as he had foretold. But he succeeded in calming their temper with well-chosen words, reminding them that no man could insure against bad luck or the whims of circumstance, and that no true Viking allowed himself to become dispirited by a little adversity. The Wends, he explained, were becoming redoubtable adversaries; and he had a good plan to put to them which would certainly redound to the advantage of them all. This was that they should make an attempt against Bornholm, for the richness of that island’s inhabitants was well known to them all, and it would be weakly defended, many of its warriors having recently gone to England. A shore-thrust here would meet with little opposition and would be sure to yield a rich harvest of gold, brocades, and fine weapons.

They found this well spoken, and their spirits rose again; so they set sail and headed for Bornholm, which they reached early one morning. They rowed along the eastern coast of the island in a calm sea and a rising haze, searching for a good landing-place, pulling briskly and keeping well together, for they were in high good humor; but they kept silence, for they hoped to land unobserved. Suddenly they heard ahead of them the clank of rowlocks and the plash of oar-blades dipping evenly, and out of the haze appeared a single long ship approaching round a headland. It made toward them, without slackening its stroke, and they all stared at it, for it was large and splendid to behold, with a red dragon-head at its prow, and twenty-four pairs of oars; and they were glad that it was unaccompanied. Krok ordered all his men who were not engaged at the oars to take up their weapons and stand ready for boarding; for here there was plainly much to be won. But the lone ship headed straight toward them, as though its helmsman had not observed their presence; and a stoutly built man, standing in the prow, with a broad beard visible beneath his bossed helmet, cupped his hand to his mouth as they approached and roared in a harsh voice: “Get out of our way, unless you want to fight!”

Krok laughed, and his men laughed with him; and he shouted back: “Have you ever seen three ships give way to one?”

“Ay, and more than three,” roared the fat man impatiently; “for most men give way to Styrbjörn. But be quick about it and make your choice. Get out of our way or fight!”

When Krok heard the fat man’s words, he made no reply, but silently turned his ship aside; and his men rested on their oars while the lone ship rowed past them, nor did any of them unsheathe his sword. They saw a tall young man in a blue cloak, with fair down lining his jaw, rise from his resting-place beside the helmsman and stand surveying them with sleepy eyes, grasping a spear in his hand. He yawned broadly, dropped his spear, and laid himself again to rest; and Krok’s men realized that this was Björn Olofsson, commonly called Styrbjörn, the banished nephew of King Erik of Uppsala, who seldom sought refuge from storm and never from battle, and whom few men willingly encountered at sea. His ship proceeded on its course, its long oars sweeping evenly, and disappeared southwards into the haze. But Krok and his men found their previous high spirits difficult to recover.

They rowed to the eastern skerries, which were uninhabited, and there they landed and cooked a meal and held long counsel. Many of them thought that they would do best to turn for home, seeing that bad luck had followed them even to Bornholm. For if Styrbjörn was in these waters, the island was sure to be swarming with Jomsvikings, in which case there would be nothing left for any other raiders. Some of them said that there was little use in going to sea with the sort of chieftain who gave way to a single ship.

Krok was at first less eloquent than usual; but he had ale brought ashore for them all, and after they had drunk, he delivered a speech of encouragement. In one sense, he was ready to admit, it might be considered unfortunate that they had encountered Styrbjörn in this manner; but if you looked at it another way, it was extremely fortunate that they had encountered him when they did, for if they had come ashore and met them or other Jomsvikings there, they would have had to pay dearly for it. All Jomsvikings, and none more so than Styrbjörn’s men, were half berserk, sometimes being even proof against iron, and able to lay about them with both hands full as well as the best warriors from Lister. That he had been reluctant to order an assault on Styrbjörn’s ship might, at first sight, appear odd to idle-thinking men; nevertheless, he regarded his reluctance as fully justified, and considered it fortunate that he had made his decision so promptly. For a homeless and exiled pirate would hardly be likely to have sufficient treasure stored away in any one place to be worth a bloody battle; and he would remind them that they had not come to sea to win empty honor, but to secure hard booty. In view of all this, he had thought it more proper to consider the general good than his own reputation as a warrior, and if they would reflect, he felt sure that they would agree that he had acted in this affair in a manner befitting a chieftain.

As he thus cunningly dispersed the fog of dejection which had settled on his men’s spirits, Krok began to feel his own courage rising anew; and he proceeded to exhort them strongly against making for home. For the people of Lister, he said, were inclined to be uncharitable, and the women in particular would ply them with painful queries regarding their exploits and the prizes they had won, and why they had returned so soon. No man proud of his good name would thus willingly lay himself open to the shafts of their mockery; therefore, he suggested, it would be better if they could postpone their return until they had won something worth bringing home. The important thing now, he concluded, was that they should remain together, face their adversities with courage and resolution, and determine on some worthy goal to which to proceed; on which matter, before he spoke any further, he would like to hear the views of his wise comrades.

One of the men then proposed that they should go to the land of the Livonians and the Kures,
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where there was a rich harvest to be reaped; but this suggestion won little support, for men of greater experience knew that large shiploads of Swedes descended annually on those regions, and it was not to be reckoned that they would proffer a warm welcome to any strangers who arrived on the same errand. Another man had heard that the greatest single hoard of silver in the world was to be found in Gotland, and he thought that they should try their hand there; but others of his companions, who knew better, said that nowadays, since the Gothlanders had become rich, they lived in large villages, which could be successfully attacked only by a powerful army.

A third man then rose to address them, a warrior called Berse, who was a wise speaker and prized by all for his sound judgment. He said that the Eastern Sea was becoming a crowded and unrewarding pasture, for far too many men were plundering its coasts and islands, so that even such peoples as the Wends were learning how to defend themselves. It would be a poor thing to turn meekly for home—on that point he was of the same opinion as Krok—but it was, he thought, worth considering whether they might not sail out to the lands in the west. He had never himself traveled to those parts, but certain men from Skania, whom he had met at a fair during the previous summer, had been in England and Brittany with Toke Gormsson and Sigvalde Jarl and had had much to say in praise of those countries. They wore gold rings and costly garments, and according to their report certain companies of Vikings had anchored their ships in Frankish estuaries for months on end while they plundered the hinterland, and these men had frequently had burgomasters and abbots to wait on them at table and the daughters of counts to make them merry in bed. How strictly his informants had kept to the truth he could not, of course, say, but, as a general rule, you could believe about half of what Skanians told you; and these men had made an impression on him of considerable prosperity, for they had invited him, a stranger from Blekinge, to join them in a grand drinking-bout and had not attempted to steal his belongings while he slept, so that their story could not be altogether false; besides which, it was more or less confirmed by reports he had heard from other quarters. Now, where Skanians had prospered, men of Blekinge ought to fare at least as well; therefore, he concluded, he, for his part, would suggest that they should sail to the lands of the west, if a majority among his comrades were of the same mind.