Viking Saga, Page 3

  Together, man and dog rolled off the trail and fell down the cliff. As he fell, Halfdan pulled the snapping, kicking beast to his body and twisted in the air so that the dog was below him.

  The dog landed on the hard rocks, and Halfdan landed on the soft dog.

  The impact knocked almost all the air out of Halfdan's body; for a moment his eyes saw only swirling blackness, and he felt his mind drifting away, towards something like sleep.

  He lay on the motionless dog, gasping for breath, trying not to pass out completely. Finally, sight returned to his eyes, and he saw the dog's head resting right beside his own. It was dead.

  Halfdan slowly got to his feet. His body was full of pain. He was hurt in many body-parts. His belly was still sore from the arrow hitting his belt-buckle; his face had been scraped by a thorny raspberry branch; his shoeless feet were battered by trail-rocks; the nasty-looking dog-bite on his knee was pouring out blood; his legs and chest were torn by the dog's claws; and his ribs were broken, or at least very bruised, from falling off the cliff onto the dog. He desperately needed to rest.

  A man's deep voice nearby in the forest yelled, "This way! He's over here!"

  Halfdan scowled, then ran back towards the cliff and staggered unsteadily back up the narrow path. There was a flat area at the top, a little ledge strewn with gravel and small rocks. He found three bigger rocks, each the size of a man's skull. He picked up each of these, placed them near the edge of the ledge, and crouched. Only the top of his head could be seen from below as he peeked down and waited.

  Soon, five armed strangers walked fast out of the forest shadows and along the trail. They strode in single-file past the sacred waterfall. In the dim light, Halfdan could see that the men were all big and yellow-bearded. Four of them carried spears and shields. These men wore helmets and leather body-armour. The tallest man walked in front, without a helmet or shield or body-armour. He carried a long-handled and wide-bladed ax in both hands. He wore a black bear-fur over his shoulders. He looked like a berserker — a rare kind of fighter with no fear, no mercy, and notorious strength.

  Halfdan's unknown foes walked past the waterfall and the cliff covered with religious art, to where the trail started to get narrower and steeper.

  One of the four regular fighters pointed ahead and said, "Look. The dogs."

  Hiding above, Halfdan watched the group move closer.

  "They're both dead," one regular fighter said.

  Another said, "Really? How?"

  "He must have killed them."

  "Killed two dogs after losing his sword? How? Tor's thundering balls — what kind of man are we after?"

  "Shut up," the berserker said. "Come on. Do your job. He is near."

  They walked past the two dead dogs, four of the men looking reluctant, and started going single-file up the narrow cliff-side path.

  When they were half-way to the top, Halfdan stood up and, with both hands, he lifted one of the skull-sized rocks up over his head. The foes were right under him. They heard him move and looked up. Four of them flinched when they saw Halfdan's dark-skinned face, saw his shredded and blood-soaked clothes, saw him hurling a big piece of mountain-rock down at them, and they heard him grunt.

  The thrown rock hit the helmetless head of the berserker in front.

  Apparently unhurt, the berserker looked up at Halfdan with a sneer of contempt. After bouncing from the berserker's head, the rock fell down to land near the dead dogs with a sharp click-sound. The berserker did not move. Then his eyes rolled up in his head and the ax dropped from his suddenly-limp hands. The berserker collapsed. He sprawled awkwardly on the rock path, motionless except for one oddly-twitching leg.

  The four other fighters saw Halfdan quickly bend down, then stand again, raising another big stone overhead.

  "A troll!" wailed one of the remaining foes.

  Halfdan grunted with the effort of throwing it down at the fighter standing farthest up the trail. It missed, flying over all of their helmets and bouncing with a loud bang! off a boulder below them, then flying towards the sacred waterfall and splashing into its pool of water.

  Halfdan bent to pick up his last rock. After that, he would have nothing left to throw down at them but his exhausted and blood-smeared body.

  But the four fighters had seen enough. Cowering under their round shields, they started backing away, shuffling down the cliff-side path and scrambling across the rock-strewn bottom. They all ran away, past the dim waterfall and fast into the shadowy line of trees. They were gone.

  Halfdan dropped the big rock to one side. He stepped a bit back from the edge of the cliff, slowly sat down. He could not run anymore. He could barely think or remember why he was there. So he lay on his back on the hard, bare rock of the high ledge — his confused mind spinning and swirling, pain stabbing all over his body — until he passed out.

  Chapter 6

  ALCUIN WRITES TO TETTA *

  Translator's Note: Chapters marked with an asterix (*) are not part of the original Old Norse manuscript of Viking Saga. These extraneous chapters consist mainly of correspondence between Abbess Tetta (the head of England's Lindisfarne nunnery [destroyed by Vikings on June 8, 793]) and Bishop Alcuin (an English missionary in Germany, and Tetta's spiritual advisor).

  June 1, Year of Our Lord 792

  To the wise virgin and best-loved lady, the Abbess Tetta, and all of the other sisters in Christ on the Blessed island of Lindisfarne:

  Alcuin, a most unworthy servant of God, the Bishop and Legate of the Roman Church to Germany, sends you his heartfelt greetings in Christ.

  I am ever-mindful of your most sweet friendship, with which you most kindly received me long ago with all joy. I have never forgotten those summer days in York, when you and I and your brother worked side-by-side on Holy projects there; I always remember the wisdom of your mind, the gentle music of your endless prayers, and your obvious purity. Greatly as I then was glad in your presence, so greatly do I now suffer in your absence.

  I beg my gracious lady not to be offended by my lateness in sending a personal letter to you, in reply to your last learned letter, which I received long ago. This delay was owing to my great preoccupation with the restoration of the churches burned by the pagan Germans still infesting our parishes and cloisters. Despite our educational efforts, and the military support of King Charlemagne, the misguided pagans of Germany have recently pillaged and burned more than thirty churches. It was this disaster, not forgetfulness or change of feelings, which delayed my writing to you sooner.

  Despite the local unrest, God has recently also brought good fortune to our Holy Mission. The pagan German petty-king Rothbod, who once dared to hold myself as a captive when I tried to bring Holy Truth to his blighted province, is dead. I am told that while this dissolute man-fiend sat feasting amidst his filthy and illiterate nobles, the same evil spirit which had seduced him into defying the law of God suddenly struck him with madness, so that still in his sins, without repentance or confession, raving mad, gibbering with demons and cursing the Priests of God, he fell forward, into his half-eaten meal, and departed from life to the torments of hell; where Rothbod will witness in horror, as described in Scripture, the very bowels of the earth; millions of fiery pits vomiting terrible flames and, as the foul fires rise, the souls of wretched men clinging to the edges of the pits, wailing and howling and shrieking with pitiful cries, mourning their past deeds and present agonies; until they fall screaming into the pits, there to regret their errors forever.

  The German people are still extremely fickle and unfaithful. Uncountable numbers of Germans who chose Baptism after the war have — now that most of the King Charlemagne's soldiers have been sent elsewhere — shamelessly returned to their idols and druids and sacrifices. What a loss of souls for the Church, if we fail to re-convert them!

  I have been commanded by His Holiness and Supreme Patriarch, our beloved Pope Hadrian, to suppress all human sacrifices in this dark land. Incredibly, there are Germans who claim
to be Christians, who took Baptism and attend Church services, who have renounced human sacrifice — but who see nothing wrong with selling slaves to pagan druids, knowing full well that these slaves are to be drowned by the evil druids in a dirty swamp to praise false gods!

  I confess that I still do not understand many of the German customs. Some Germans refrain from eating ordinary foods which God created for our meals; other live on milk and honey alone, I hear. Such is the culinary depravity of the Germans, that I have also been commanded by His Holiness to suppress the eating of wild and tame horses in Germany. His Holiness, in one of his frequent letters to his most humble and undeserving of lowly servants, called horse-eating "a filthy and abominable custom" and demanded I suppress it, as of course I am zealous to do. King Charlemagne — an avid equestrian who, alas, is more often seated on a saddle than a church pew — also supports the ban on eating horse-meat.

  After so many long years living among these rude and savage Germans, I am sore at heart with longing for my native land of England, and our familiar traditions. Sometimes I dream of English food! A pastry baked in the true English way — stuffed with parsnips and pork-bits, the crust nicely browned — is, to an Englishman living where nobody cooks properly, a subject of longing and fantasy!

  Though I am but poorly equipped as a teacher, yet I try to be the most devoted of them all, as you yourself well know. Be mindful of my devotion and take pity on an ancient man worn out by troubles in this barbaric land. Support me by your prayers to God, and help me by supplying me with the Sacred Writings. May I be so bold as to beg of you to send me the copy of The Universal History Against the Pagans by Orosius, which Winbert, of revered memory, my former Abbott and teacher, left to your library when he departed this life? A copy of The Universal History Against the Pagans, such as I need, cannot be procured in this book-poor country, because with my failing eyesight it is impossible for me to read small, abbreviated script. I ask for Winbert's copy because I know that Winbert wrote each letter and each word clearly and separately. His copy will greatly help my teaching-work here, as it proves by example and by logic that the world before Christ's Coming was full of calamities and woe and tyranny, and that the supremacy of the Church has brought wealth and peace and justice to those who truly love Him. Should God inspire you to do this for me, no greater comfort could be given me in my ancient age, nor could you earn any greater reward.

  Sister Tetta, I beg you — nay, I command you — to write to me soon, in rich detail, telling me of life at Lindisfarne. I have not been to that Blessed island since your election as Abbess — when you became "a virgin mother of virgins" — and am curious as to what has changed at your convent, and what remains as I remember. I am also curious to read news of our lovely but trouble-filled kingdom of Northumbria, and also of the other English kingdoms. Any news is welcome, especially regarding my home-town of York; a place I miss almost as painfully as I miss you.

  Meanwhile, I pray earnestly that you will remember — as I remember well — your ancient promise to constantly pray for me, so that the Lord, who is the Redeemer and Saviour of us all, may rescue my soul from so many threatening dangers. Pray strenuously, therefore, to the merciful defender of our lives, the only refuge of the afflicted, the Lamb of God who has taken away the sins of the world, to keep me safe from harm with His sheltering right hand as I go among the dens of wolves; that, when my loins are girded as if for battle, the Father all-merciful may place a blazing torch of Truth in my hand to enlighten the hearts of the pagans to the glory of Christ. And I pray also that you may be pleased to pray for those pagans put under my authority by the wisdom of His Holiness, that the Saviour of the world may see fit to rescue them from human sacrifices and the worship of vile idols; joining them to the daughters and sons of the only true Faith, to the praise and glory of Him whose will it is that all men shall be saved and shall come to the Truth.

  My dear sister, implore God with clear and incessant prayers — as I trust that you do now, and as you have done since we last saw each other, and will continue to do, unceasingly — that I, lover of Christ and teacher of Most Holy Scripture, may be delivered, in the words of the Apostle, "from unreasonable and wicked men," who are so prevalent here. Please, pray to the Lord God, who is the refuge of the weak and the hope of the wretched, to shield my eyes from the temptations of this passing, wicked world.

  Farewell in Christ.

  Alcuin

  Chapter 7

  A FATEFUL MEETING

  Halfdan turned to look at the view. Since waking this morning with a hangover and worse, he had walked up a mountain overlooking Eid. He was wearing the berserker's boots and carrying his heavy ax.

  From where Halfdan had climbed, there was a good view of the fjord and the lands surrounding it. Eid could be seen — its two main streets going roughly north-south, seven smaller streets going east-west, dozens of grassy-roofed homes and other buildings, the royal farm-fields, all surrounded by the wood wall that Halfdan had scrambled over last night. Even from this distance, he could see that King Lambi's hall had been completely burned to the ground. There was a black-scorched, rectangle-shaped smudge where the famous hall had once stood.

  Halfdan looked away from that painful sight and looked west, at the brown-and-white ridges of mountains marching in rough lines to the horizon. The blue-green water of the fjord snaked between the mountains, towards the Endless Ocean.

  He started walking again. Near the cold, windy top of the mountain was a patch of summer snow. His body ached from a dozen hurts, and he was getting tired of walking uphill. He scooped a few handfuls of the crunchy frost into his mouth to drink the melt. As he was doing so, he saw something from the side of his eye.

  A stone's-throw away, a young woman was sitting on a rock with her face in her hands, her back to him, as her shoulders shook with sobbing.

  As he approached her, an older, frowning woman stepped out from behind a rock outcrop, holding a bow. She pulled the arrow back to beside her ear and aimed it at Halfdan.

  "Stop!" she shouted.

  Halfdan dropped the ax to the rocky ground and put his hands in the air, saying, "I mean you no harm."

  "Who are you?"

  "Halfdan son of Gødrød, of the town of Os. Folk call me Halfdan the Black. I am one of King Lambi's fighters." After a pause, Halfdan said, "I mean, I used to be. Now I have no job."

  "Why are you so dark?"

  Halfdan briefly explained his parentage. (He did this almost every time he met someone new.)

  The older woman said, "You said that Lambi is dead?"

  "Yes."

  The old woman's arrow was still drawn to beside her suspicious-looking face, pointed at Halfdan's chest. She said, "Who did it?"

  Halfdan said, "The kings of Sogn and Førde. Their men trapped King Lambi and all of my blood-brothers inside the hall and burned the hall down. I was the only one to survive. Because I ran away."

  Halfdan knew of the involvement of the kings of Sogn and Førde because when Halfdan had woken up this morning, the berserker lying on the cliff-side path had been still alive. Paralyzed, but alive and able to talk. After Halfdan had dragged him to the waterfall and held his head under a few times, the berserker from Sogn had spent his last moments of life answering Halfdan's questions.

  "Why did you run away?" asked the old woman.

  Was that a flash of contempt in her eyes?

  Did she think he was a coward?

  Was he?

  After running away from the burning of his king, what was he?

  Was he anything?

  Nothing?

  The old woman said again, "Why did you run away?"

  Halfdan's face-muscles tightened. He looked at the old woman with irritation and said, "Either shoot me or put that thing down. I said, I mean you no harm."

  "How do I know?"

  "You don't. So shoot me."

  "I might."

  But after a few moments of silence, she lowered the arrow and relaxed the draw-s
tring.

  "I will trust you."

  Halfdan picked up the battle-ax, saying, "Who are you?"

  The older woman was called Siv, and her daughter was called Yngvild. The two of them lived together on a farm in the town of Starheim. Both were clever and proud and sometimes too sharp-tongued.

  A rabbit-fur hood covered most of Siv's sparse grey hair. She wore a blue dress decorated with green glass beads, under a light blue apron held in place by oval-shaped wax-polished wood brooches at her shoulders. Dangling from her belt was a small knife and one of the small wood boxes in which women carried personal objects.

  Yngvild was a few years younger than Halfdan and beautiful in looks. She was dressed like her mother, but with more attention to fashion, and from her belt hung a bronze key, which showed she was married. Yngvild was tall, with a strong jaw and bold eyes. Her grey-blue eyes matched her mothers'. A grey head-cloth was over her long and braided yellow hair. She also carried a bow and some hunting-arrows.

  Siv explained that she and Yngvild had been visiting friends in Eid for the past few days. Yesterday, Yngvild and Siv had spent the day up on the mountain-side, gathering magic plants — Siv was a healer, and Yngvild training to become one — until late in the night, when they had returned to the home of their friends, to find it full of horror and tragedy. Their friends both lay on the floor, dead, both of them covered with gaping cuts and stab-holes. Their serving-girl's body was tied to a bed, half naked and grossly mutilated.

  Hearing violence from other houses, Siv and Yngvild had fled back up the mountain.

  Yngvild was sobbing again while Siv finished telling Halfdan their story. They were in a hidden cleft of rock on the other side of the mountain, still near the peak, sitting around a small fire. Siv and Yngvild were sharing a blanket around their shoulders against the chill. That was all they had for warmth. The air was chilly so high up, especially in the shade.