Bloodsnake and Battlewolf – the Botners of Jórvík

[Revan86]

c0d5579: No problems! And tell me about it - now that term's started, I'm suddenly swamped with work... Rest assured, I haven't given up on this one either.

CatKnight: Many thanks for the kind words, and glad to have you on board!

GulMacet: That they are, that they are. And as far as they go, Geirr's actually one of the nicer ones...

 

[Revan86]

Thirteen. Three Marks

But from Óðinnsnýstaðr, the men of Jórvík would not wend back thence. They were called to further battle in that Haustmánuðr by Halfdan King, and Geirr would liefer undergo the blood-eagle than be found wanting in his troth to his king. Æthelred Æthelwulfing, the King of the Vestr-Saxar, known as ‘Ölfuss’ to the Northmen for his follies in drink, had marched the Saxar upon the lands of Barid Ívarsson. Of course Hvítserkr would drive back the fat drunken lout of a Saxon from so unwise a deed! But Geirr’s men were already afoot, they needed only push south and west into Æthelred’s lands, along the old Roman road that led to the Hákross, from whence they would leave the road and wend south to Øxnannafjörðr, where they would meet Halfdan’s men in mid-march.

Halfdan would meet with his nephew, Sigtryggr Ívarsson, now King of the Skotar, whose brother had beckoned him also to his aid. The King of Dunholm’s merkismaðr fell in with the rest of the hirð as they were bound east toward the Austr-Saxar. Again he took the rune-stave from his scrip and read each side for what must have been the hundredth time. He could not but think of his son back home, now grown into a man. He had yet to lay eyes on Bragi his first-born since he had returned from Jótland, but however much he yearned to find lease from his duty to the King, he would not turn aside. Geirr thought on what he might do yet for Bragi, as far from home as he was.

Gormánuðr was following hard on the track of Haustmánuðr, reddening the leaves and blowing them from the trees along the way. They came close by a wood which the Saxar of this place called Hǽþfeld, and thereupon joined Sigtryggr’s hirð and hosts, and meant to march eastward to take Colneceastre, the old Roman fort under the sway of the mighty Saxon Hereweard of Hailes. But while they were still at Hǽþfeld Wood, among the great oaks which loomed over the place, Geirr made bold to speak to his lord:

‘May we not stay and elt after some of the harts of this wood? It is good weather, and the hirð needs feeding – and better at Hereweard’s cost than our own!’

The White-Shirted King agreed at once. ‘Well-spoken, Bútnari! Nefi, will you gather the hounds and lead the men in this hunt?’

Sigtryggr, who had neither his father’s strength nor will, turned aside. ‘Nay, föðurbróðir! That honour should go rightly to the man who thought of it.’

Well by him! Thus it was Geirr who gathered his drótt, and the hirðir of Halfdan and Sigtryggr, and took them, hunting-bows at the ready, into the wood to hunt the healthy harts which would feed their men. The hounds they had taken from the Saxar living around the wood had elt after a strong smell, and were soon faring out deep into the wood. Geirr raised a halloa, and loped into the wood after them, followed close by the three war-bands. When he happened to glance behind him, he saw a grin upon his King’s face; he knew truly the worth of a hardworking hirðmaðr!

Now that they were in the thick of it, Geirr could witness that Hereweard truly did understand how to keep Hǽþfeld Wood. The elder oaks, broad of stem and branch, cast their gnarled-yet-mighty fingers out over the brush and tracks beneath, showering them with their bright reds and browns. Through the trunks Geirr could make out the well-trimmed leas, still green among the fall gold. Geirr breathed deeply the keen, cool air and the fresh smells of a true hunting-ground. Yes – the yearnings of the hounds not only for their marks but for stretching and running through such a fair old grove like this could easily spread to their owners. Geirr slowed his stride to a walk; Halfdan and Sigtryggr behind him did the same.

Until that afternoon, the most they had caught were a few grouse. But now, the hounds had come round and run into the lea before them a mighty crown-hart, twelve and a half hands high, its sleek hair and well-fleshed flanks rippling as it sprinted across the sky-open meadow. Baited to high wrath by the hounds in bay, the hart bolted forward straight toward Geirr along the wooded edge, and Geirr nocked one shaft to his bow. The bow was not Geirr’s first weapon, or his best; that flight grazed the hart’s neck but did not root itself to the flesh. The hart, angrier than ever, kept straight ahead, lowering its deadly wreath of brow-spears. Sigtrygg ducked behind a tree as the deer lit upon them; Geirr eked out one step from being gored, fitting another arrow to the bow and letting fly. This near, his shot struck true: the deer shuddered in its tracks as the steel head buried deep into its shoulder. It faltered forward, one step, two, but it was now baneful to no man of them. Five steps it took before it fell to earth.

Sigtrygg Ívarsson, looking hardly the king at all, let alone the son of his father, came out wheezing from behind his shielding stem, shaking his balding grey head. Geirr found he hadn’t the heart to scold him for his unmanliness, for he had very nearly come to great hurt at the crown-hart’s antlers. Halfdan let out a grunt and spoke to his merkismaðr:

‘Boldly stood, Geirr. But I think you need to work on your aim.’

~~~​

The hunt continued for several days longer. Of the deer they took from that wood, Geirr’s had not been the bulkiest or the boldest, but it had been worthy indeed. Though Geirr had not flinched from before the hart that had borne down upon him, he found he dreaded more making bold to the man who had fled for shelter behind one of Óðinn’s great oaken yard-arms. Yet each time he found his heart melting at the thought, he fished into his scrip for the rune-stave his wife had sent. This was for Bragi, his first-born. He owed Bragi this much, as a father.

It was on the eighth day of the hunt that yet again Geirr came very near to wrack. What happened fell out thus: Geirr had gone with Arnlaugr and Tyke into the very thickest part of the wood, where brambles were matted between the trees, and a man could see only down to his waist but two ells before him. The strawberries had long since gone to ground, but Baldr’s bane still clung tightly to the branches of the hawthorn trees, which, even if their leaves were yellowing, still bore their round, tart, blood-red berries. Geirr tried to keep his tongue-hall from flooding at the sight and at the smell. But he was not the only brown-haired one who yearned after them.

They came across the brown one, the one whose true name men dared not speak for dread of its might, and one of the last of his kind on all of this isle. The jötunn-strong bee-wolf, yclad in the mantle of madness which only the boldest of the Hanged God’s warriors dared to wear, was raiding no hives this day; he was pawing and stretching his full towering height up one of the hawthorn trees, to add still more bulk to his great belly to store for the oncoming winter.

Arnlaugr and Tyke joined their dróttinn, standing stock-still in awe. Though the great thing might be bane to wights and men much stronger than they three, once they had found their tongues they immediately set to quarrelling over whose right it was to slay the bruin.

‘Hand me the spear,’ said Arnlaugr af Skardaborg at once.

‘You?’ Tyke baulked. ‘A karl of Skardaborg, a son of ship-haven dock-men, slay this great thing? Battling the brown one is nothing like hauling freight!’

‘I am stallari,’ Arnlaugr fought to keep his voice from flying. ‘As you well know! I have fought alongside my dróttinn and given rede in as many fights as you. Not for nothing am I the first of the drótt!’

‘And what loss have you yet risked?’ Tyke’s hackles rose. ‘Need I remind you of Caernarfon?’

‘And need I remind you of how I wounded you in hólmganga?’ Arnlaugr shot back.

‘Hold your tongues, the both of you!’ Geirr thundered. ‘The matter was settled, and I shall settle this one. Give me the spear. I will fight the bruin.’

Geirr was good to his word. He took the spear and lit upon the bruin, which was still trying for the hawthorn berries. As he drew near, Geirr could not help his heart from stirring. The wight which towered over him must have been over five ells long! It pawed the air at his coming, and let out chuffing breaths to bare its long, sharp gum-skerries. Geirr leapt forward with the spear, and thrust hard. It managed to break the bruin’s tough skin, but could not break through the ribs. The bee-wolf let out a great roar and swept the wooden blood-snake away with its paw, nearly knocking it from the Týr-bold dróttinn’s hands.

The strong claw of the brown one struck Geirr’s head, knocking him near out of his wits, but his skin somehow stayed whole. The bruin then loped forward and reared, ready to strike with bone and flesh the blow that would slay its would-be bane, but Geirr had gathered himself too swiftly. Blood swimming before his eyes, Geirr made one stride forward and heaved all of his strength into one last thrust, which struck true, breaking skin, dodging ribs, stabbing heart and cleaving spine, before the steel head, glowing with the bruin’s fresh slaughter-dew, made itself seen through the long hair on the dread thing’s back.

Geirr left the spear and leapt backwards. Heavy as the great wight was, that spear was past redeeming. Wounded to death even as the bruin was, it could still crush the dróttinn’s ribs with its strong bones and tear the head from his shoulders in its jaws. But as he withdrew from reach of the bear’s mighty claws, he saw the light begin to fade from its small swart eyes as its life-blood ebbed out along the haft of his forlorn spear. He did not run, but waited as the bruin sagged in its gait, and slumped to earth, shaking the whole wood as it fell.

Arngrimr and Tyke stood, for once wordless, at the sight. Their dróttinn had somehow managed to slay the bruin.

~~~​

The bearskin would make a fair gift for his son, Geirr thought as Arngrimr hallooed to more hunters to haul away the bear-lich. The three of them together could not, indeed, manage to budge the hallowed thing one inch; Arngrimr reckoned that it must weigh over seventy stone. But that much flesh would readily feed the two kings’ hirðir through a siege or two!

Sigtryggr Ívarsson happened upon the men as they hauled away Geirr’s kill, and gaped at it as it went by. Geirr’s shyness and dread of the son of Ívarr melted away; he plucked himself up and spoke to Halfdan King.

‘My lord King, would you be my witness?’

Halfdan turned to his merkismaðr. ‘Gladly! To make a match for your son?’

Now was the eye’s-blink where truth would out. The sons of Ragnarr Loðbrók might not have been as close as kin ought to be, but brothers they still were, and still bound to want blood of any slight, brother to brother. Geirr, still of kin barely of jarl’s blood, might be on the brink of offering just such a slight to the sons of the adder-bitten lord. He found himself suddenly wanting to be back in the grove, grappling with the bear.

‘Sigtryggr Ívarsson Ragnarsson, mighty and great King of the Skotar, on behalf of my son Bragi Geirsson Bútnari, I wish to make known to you now that he is as yet in want of a bride. With my lord King’s say and your own, I would see my son matched to your young sister, Þóra Ívarsdóttir.’

Halfdan gave Geirr a long look. Perhaps he had been too forthright for his own good? But then Halfdan said to his nephew:

‘Nefi, take his hand on it. Geirr is an outstanding dróttinn who serves me well; there are many, many worse matches I wit you could make than to match my bróðirdóttir to Geirsson.’

They thereupon grasped each other’s hands and sealed their troth, witnessed by Halfdan Hvítserkr, and went on to haggle over the bride-price and dowry. It would cost Geirr dearly – he had never been as good with silver as he ought – but he would not be the loser in the end: it was then agreed that Bragi would wed Þóra after her sixteenth winter. Thus it was that on this hunt Geirr had felled three marks: deer and bear and Skottish king.

 

[tnick0225]

I keep meaning to read this new AAR, just been captured by the EU4 forum a little too much to come over and read CKII ones! But I'm slowly trying to read it It's pretty good as always, only on the second update at the moment.

 

[GulMacet]

Hmmm, you are nearing Oxford. For some reason, I find the idea of a modern Viking Oxford rather amusing - 'Faculty of Advanced Plundering and Raiding', where a lot of distinguished professors in tweed suits sit around discussing theory and stroking battleaxes. :laugh:

 

[c0d5579]

Hmmm, you are nearing Oxford. For some reason, I find the idea of a modern Viking Oxford rather amusing - 'Faculty of Advanced Plundering and Raiding', where a lot of distinguished professors in tweed suits sit around discussing theory and stroking battleaxes. :laugh:

Eventually I'll get around to the onetime Lorespeaker of Tongues, Jan Arturssen, and his role at Oxnafjord in Ivarssona Saga, but first I have to, you know, FINISH the current update. I'm reading this instead... and, more relevant to this thread, it's still extremely good. I had expected the "three marks" to be coins, but this works even better.

 

[Revan86]

tnick0225: Fair dos - I've been playing quite a bit of EUIV myself, and I plan to turn this AAR into a megacampaign if ever I get the chance. But I'm very glad you're onboard for this one; always glad to have you comment!

GulMacet: Haha! Yes, indeed that would be amusing - Viking dons of Oxford and Cambridge who have teams of raiders instead of punters!

c0d5579:

Eventually I'll get around to the onetime Lorespeaker of Tongues, Jan Arturssen, and his role at Oxnafjord--

Oh, they didn't... they did, son of a--! The Saxons called it Oxenaforda, didn't they? Damn - I'm usually really good at being etymologically correct; I didn't think to check the plural in this case! Many thanks for the catch, c0d5579; I'll be going back and correcting that error post-haste.

in Ivarssona Saga, but first I have to, you know, FINISH the current update. I'm reading this instead... and, more relevant to this thread, it's still extremely good. I had expected the "three marks" to be coins, but this works even better.

Many thanks for the kind words! I'm still getting caught up on Ivarssona Saga; I'm also highly impressed with it!

 

[Vindahl]

Have only read the first two chapters, but I have to say that I enjoy it very much - good writing style - and great story all in all, following the "underdog"...
I will try to catch up, but it might take some time, so this might be my only comment

 

[Revan86]

Vindahl: Very glad you are reading and enjoying! Even if this is your only comment, I truly appreciate your readership, and I certainly hope you stick around for more!


Fourteen. Under the Blood-Waves

When Geirr Bútnari went his way back to Jórvík, he was not laden down with gold and silver to greet his Bragi, now fully-grown into a man. Instead, he meant to lay upon his first-born’s shoulders the skin of the bear he had slain, and give him to know of the bargain he’d struck with the Skottish king to see him wed to Þóra Ívaring, of which he was sure his son would be main glad! And the time was fast in coming when his wife would be due. He may have gone home without a heavy hull, but he truly didn’t go without a light heart!

Yuletide was upon them ere he set foot upon the planks of the Jórvík docks. He had not thought to see his own Úlfhildr run down to greet him, and she with a belly rounder about than Miðgarðr showing beneath her night-blue mantle! Her wontedly calm and haughty brow was furrowed in worry, which shook her husband to the quick.

‘Come,’ she said merely.

Geirr followed his wife through the narrow street up to Castlegate, and from there into the mead-hall where she led him by the hand to their son’s bed, where he lay shivering and white, even wrapped in a sturdy blanket. His thick brows and neat, trimmed brown beard were glistening with his sweat.

‘He’d been feeling unwell since he returned from Jótheim. I had tended to him and cast over him spells to ward off illness, but now he is taken like this, with the heat upon him! I have cut runes for him and given him to eat ætihvönn from the old land, and his heat has ebbed since, but still he is not well enough to stir from his bed.’

Geirr took the bear-pelt he had borne over his shoulder this while and lay the thick, heavy skin over his son, and lifted a bidding to weapon-Eir to spare his son the fate of dying in his bed.

‘It is well I have borne you two sons already,’ Úlfhildr whispered, laying one brooding hand upon her swollen belly, as though praying for a third. ‘But Bragi is strong; he will live.’

‘I hope,’ Geirr answered. ‘Þóra Ívarsdóttir would be sore bereft if her groom should die ere they wed.’

The glad glow that spread over Úlfhildr’s face as she began to ken his full meaning was wondrous to behold. ‘Oh, Geirr…’

‘You didn’t foresee this?’ Geirr grinned wryly.

He had only been teasing her, but to his shock her brow fell and the smile-light left her face. ‘My wits seem to be leaving me,’ she said merely. ‘I have been away from Dol for too long, and the followers of Hvítakristr threaten the stead in my keeping. I am main happy that we have forged a friendship with the house of Ívarr, but after I have birthed, I must go back.’

To this Geirr agreed. Once again a bjargrýgr was fetched, and Úlfhildr Helgadóttir yielded the berry which had been growing to ripeness within her, and a fair and rosy one this! Once again Úlfhildr asked of her husband a name for the girl which lay in her arms.

Geirr was in anguish over the loss of his son’s health, and over the loss of his wife’s spá-sight. But if the gods of his folk were betraying him and his urðr, he would not so meekly let them to forget it! He cast within his mind for a name of the followers of Hvítakristr, with which to shame Óðinn and Þórr and Týr for their fecklessness, and very soon hit upon the best.

‘Let us name her Ellisif,’ Geirr told her.

Úlfhildr gave him a weak smile of bewilderment. ‘What riddle is this you set before me? Elli-Sif – the Sif of old-age? You wish her a long life?’

‘It is not a name in our own tongue,’ Geirr said quickly. ‘It comes from the men of the Eastern sands, and the men of Hvítakristr use it to name their daughters. I wit that El is how they call their God in their ways; and sif is their word for “troth”. By naming our daughter so, I w0uld remind our gods of their forgotten troth to us, and have them see fit to heal our son.’

Úlfhildr nodded in understanding as she cradled the young girl. ‘Very well, Ellisif. But Geirr, do not seek anymore to put our gods to such trials. With my own foresight at this low ebb, you will have no way of knowing how it falls out with us.’

~~~​

They spent the Yule blót in peace and merriment, this family now of five, before in the turning of spring Úlfhildr left by the Jórvík docks for Dol to tend the bautasteinn there, once more with child. It was a bittersweet day for Geirr, who had grown main used to Úlfhildr at his side; and it was fraught with worry for his wife and the waning of her cunning. The mighty madness of love was the great bane of many men and even kings, he knew – and until now he had never let himself fall to the weakness of getting too fond of the witch at his side, though being a man of middling wants he had never so much as sought another maiden’s bed.

It was only a few days after she left him, that a kirtisvein of the hirð at Dunholm came before him bearing grim tidings indeed. His King had seen fit, Geirr at length gleaned from the sullen and tight-lipped page, to strip him of his honour as merkismaðr, and give the same to another man. The kirtisvein would not, in spite of all Geirr’s plying and wheedling, give to him the name of the man who had seized his stead from him.

It was a blow, and one Geirr could not come easily to grips with. But from the kirtisvein’s bitten-out tongue he could guess that the one who had taken his rightful honour had been someone of Halfdan’s kin.

Geirr brooded. Were the gods now punishing him for daring them so? How could he regain where he had lost? He was surely not as full-cunning as his unknown foe of Halfdan’s folk, that he knew well enough. But there were still other ways enough. It was Friðrekr who came upon him in one of his lone sulks.

‘Faðir, do not fret so!’ Friðrekr told him. ‘Halfdan King surely knows your worth; and if he has given one of his kin the stead which once was yours, does it truly matter? Men already know your name, and dread or welcome it as they ought!’

‘Could you be settled with that?’ Geirr muttered.

‘I could be settled with a great deal less,’ Friðrekr owned.

‘That will never do!’ Geirr snapped. ‘Cattle die, kinsmen die, yourself the same will die, but the name one earns for one’s good fame dies never!’

‘But, faðir,’ Friðrekr smiled dryly, ‘what good fame can I earn? I know you and mother see me as the second-born, moon-cursed and weak, while Bragi’s flesh is full and strong. All good which comes to me I must take by my tongue and not by my arm.’

Geirr worked his tongue to answer his overbold son, but he found himself thinking better of it. ‘Good may be indeed earned by the tongue as well. Yes, indeed, if such ill can be wrought with nothing but words, so too can good,’ he murmured, as much to himself as to his son, who himself left thoughtful at his father’s words. It was then that he began to chew over the idea of taking anew the banner he had once borne for Hvítserkr.

~~~​

But still more ill tidings were yet in the air. His Úlfhildr had wintered over in Bertangaland, and he had no way of reaching her except by scribing his own rune-staves to be given to her by the Jórvík traders. None had he ever from her, but he still kept one ear to the ground for any news from Dol or from Hæsteinn King of the Bretar.

Long were the hours that he spent alone on the docks, staring out onto the glass-green sea. A wontedly quiet and withdrawn man, he found himself having more words with the dock-Danes than he had had ever in the twenty years before. The tidings they brought from Bertangaland were all very much to the ill. The King of the Vestr-Frakki, Clovis the Stammerer, had gathered his hirð and marched against each of the holdings of Hæsteinn in turn, and was taking them all. They burned and befouled each of the holy steads and markers of the old ways, and set instead their crosses and their stone temples to the White Christ. The men of Gwivir and Dol who knelt not to the Stammerer and still held to the old ways had had to flee for Hæsteinn’s last haven at Land’s End. Truly Úlfhildr must have been reckoned among them. As far as they knew, only one stead was left to her King, as they drove him back to the sea.

It was only then that Geirr began to wit his fault, of having dared the gods and angered them from shielding him and his kin. But it was as Einmánuðr was nearing its end that Geirr struck out with just a few of his drótt, setting sail on but one long-ship for the shores of the Bretar to the aid of Geirr’s woman. The Ermarsund on the southern shore was thick and foul with battle-smoke, and everywhere the elder gods were withdrawing. Geirr began to rue the trial he had put them to, for they had left his wife and their fourth unborn to their fates. But he had not!

Geirr stood at the prow, watching for any sign of friendly ships or good tidings – yet upon each Northman ship they hailed as it left the Frankish shore, there was no word of Úlfhildr Helgadóttir, the young völva of Dol. Dol and its bautasteinn had fallen long since; and none so much as knew if she yet lived or if she had been taken by the Frakki.

Geirr’s ship ploughed forward across the waves, toward the end of land before they met Jörmungandr. Soon they came to an inlet by the town the Bretar called Sant-Brieg, after one of their holy men of the White Christ. But there, the men of Christ had driven to the open water a small raft carrying several Northmen and -women, and had elt them in their own craft as they pelted string-hail down upon them. One of the men, a half-Breton with dark curling hair and plain homespun, held a shield which bucked each time a shaft struck it; at length, though, one of the Frankish bolts struck true and toppled the man into the welcoming arms of the ocean with a groan.

And then Geirr let out a gasp. The woman sitting just behind him had a head of all-too-known auburn hair, and high haughty cheeks and a long mouth ever-ready for laughs and frowns, which only a husband could know upon first sight, as Geirr did. He needn’t even have seen the ample swelling of her belly, though that he did also. A searing wave of white-hot rage overtook him at these men of God shooting at her – their White Christ was said to love children most of all, yet clearly they cared not a whit for his and Úlfhildr’s!

‘Row, you shiftless karls and foundling sons of hounds!’ Geirr roared. His men groaned as they pulled ever-harder, but it seemed to Geirr that they would never make it ere his woman and his babe were skewered clean through.

Now that their shield was gone, the níðingr of the men aboard the raft leapt from thence and into the sea like rats, causing the raft to overturn, spilling Úlfhildr in with them. Geirr’s heart leapt into his throat – truly, he knew that as a maid of the Bretar strands Úlfhildr was a swimmer from her childhood, but with the burthen she bore now he knew not if she could keep afloat! Geirr leapt over the prow and dove into the chill water after her.

In this close to shore, the Frakki bow-reeds were thick and crowded in around Geirr as they struck, but none cut into his flesh. Geirr paddled in his haste like a hound, drawing ever nearer but still far and far too far. Every eye’s-blink stretched to forever, every time his hand and his foot struck a wave and pulled him closer to Úlfhildr. He watched in hapless anger as a bow-reed struck his wife’s shoulder, and she went down without a cry. He thrust forth his arm uselessly, and began to curse at the sky between gasps of air. At length, her auburn hair broke the waves about her, and Geirr reached out one hand to her. Úlfhildr’s cool hand brushed his, and then grasped it hard, strong and wilful and very much alive. Geirr let out a bark of a laugh as he gulped the air and pulled her back toward the long-ship.

The pine loomed before them as still the Stammerer’s Frakki loosed their dew of bows upon them. Arnlaugr af Skardaborg took Geirr’s hand, and Geirr took Úlfhildr’s, and soon all three were in the hull. The string-hail still thudded against shield and hull alike, but could do them no hurt, as the skipper in the stern turned his scull and let the sails carry them back north toward their own isle. His wife’s arrow-wound, as he looked it over and bound it, had been lighter than he had thought, and had torn only through the flesh. It was bleeding heavily, but with the right runes and herbs, it would knit clean and not leave even a scar. Geirr thanked his stallari briskly and strode to the helm. It was not until he turned back that he marked, and not to his ease, how his wife in her blood-sodden shift was staring at him as a lost knarr-skipper stares to Víðópnir. Never before had those deep swart eyes looked to him as they did now, as though lightning-struck. Truly gone was her witch’s craft and cunning from him; she beheld him as shyly as when they were but newly met. But it was then that again the words she had spoken to him so many years before came back to him:

‘I felt the earth sink away from me, until I was drowning in a great sea of the slaughter-dew of sheep offered in blót. The bautasteinn sank within it; I tried to clutch at it, but it slipped away beneath the bitter iron waves. My skin was dyed red; I was just about to give over my breath in despair when I saw a boy’s hand come down. And a young boy’s face. Your face.’

He was a young boy no longer, but he wit not how her spá-sight worked. One thing he could not help but ken, though. She had not looked upon him with the mighty madness then, even as she foresaw how he would spare her her fate. But now, all her wonted cunning had left her as her eyes shot their lights toward him, with nothing any more which could hold her back from him. The all-wracking want which Brynhildr had borne so long for Sigruþr, ere in her bitterness she slew him and his kin, could not have been stronger than that which came from her now.

But not another word would she speak to him before they came to Jórvík, and even then only to whisper him her thanks.

 

[Revan86]

Fifteen. Raising a Bautasteinn

There was a newfound nearness between Geirr and his wife that he could not reckon for. He noted that Úlfhildr’s brow, though still haughty, softened whenever she turned his way. The auburn-maned völva poured the ale and mead in his hall as she always had, spear-straight in spite of the burdens of her swelling belly and feet, and queenly in her stride in spite of her mean birth, but now there was a tenderness whenever she held the horn for the Óðinn of her wall-steed to sup from. Although it was waxing main clear that Úlfhildr loved her husband above all men and gods, Geirr could not answer her, nor did he even rightly know how. True, she was his wife. True, she had borne him three children, and would soon give him a fourth. And true, all of her rede had been to his good. But Geirr’s fondness for Úlfhildr, deep and long though it was, had not become love as hers had. Long had he taken Refil’s and Tyke’s word that being too close to his wife would lead him wrong, as too many witches had led too many kings wrong in times past, to their wrack and to the wrack of their kinsman. He was beginning to bethink himself better of it, now that years of keeping a good length between himself and his wife were coming under threat by her sudden blitheness.

But for his bold deeds, his urðr was once again whole. That summer Bragi Geirsson rose from his bed, hale and sound again and cooled from the heat that had taken him, and at once set to his meat with the zeal of a starving man. As Bragi was reborn from his illness, he and his young brother Friðrekr welcomed into Miðgarðr, as Úlfhildr gave birth once more, a new sister, whom his parents hailed as Alvör. All thought the name right and fitting – she was indeed the ‘guardian of luck’, if the late happenings off the Bertangaland strands were any sign!

Friðrekr himself gave his newest sister his own bed to sleep in, which Geirr welcomed him to do. Geirr had long since given him the hof at Óðinnsnýstaðr, for him to reign over as its goði when he came of age, but for now he was raising the lad himself. It seemed his sons were likely to try and outdo each other in their open-handed ways; if it came to it, either would truly make a good and right dróttinn! But Refil, as he watched, beheld his dróttinn now with no small worry.

‘It is well,’ Refil told him, ‘for a man and woman to live within the same walls and to share the same hearth. But if you are to again hold high the raven banner of our King, you cannot afford to take your ease here! You must somehow remind Halfdan our King of your deeds and your worth.’

Geirr grinned at Refil af Rikfjall. ‘Yes, my friend, I have something of the like in my mind as well—’

He was cut short, however, by the sound of the goði Gandálfr af Steinnhof barging into the room and booming aloud, ‘Tyke af Konungsborg, you sow-mothered flincher, you mare ridden by endless better men! I will have your blood in hólmganga, or you will be known by all as the sore ragr arse you are!’

Gandálfr must have been wroth indeed to hurl such deadly curses at his foe. Tyke merely stood and laughed in scorn. ‘Do not judge all men by your own limp meting-rod, Gandálfr, forsaken of women! But if you’ve grown weary of this life and want a quick ship to bear you to Hel, I shall be main glad to speed you – that is, if my dróttinn will see to it.’

Geirr glowered first at Gandálfr, and then at Tyke for taking up Gandálfr’s score. The hólmganga was fair fighting, and Geirr saw the need for it in law in that it kept his men and their kin from slaughtering each other in feud, but it was still ill luck indeed for a drótt to be met so often by blood-Ullr. Geirr rose. ‘I allow it, Gandálfr. Stake out your grounds and shed your blood – I shall make the blót once more. But if it comes to blows with you once more, Tyke, it is not hólmganga but einvigi you will face!’

And so Geirr and his drótt removed themselves once more to Steinnhof and marked off with hazel the grounds to be bloodied, after Geirr had first sprinkled calf’s-blood over the battle-isle for Ullr. After he had done and Gandálfr and Tyke began to beat each other’s shields with swords, Refil once again came near him.

‘So what was it that you had in mind, Geirr?’ the bald man asked.

‘I was thinking to raise a bautasteinn here in Jórvík,’ Geirr told his merkismaðr. ‘My lady lost hers, the ancient Bretar one at Dol, to the Frakki when they took Hæsteinn’s sway from him, and she needs a stead here upon which to do her spá-seeing.’

Refil nodded with a wide grin. ‘All the more need, then, to carve that bautasteinn in your own y-mind! It does not take a goði to ken there is no other god your Úlfhildr worships but the Óðinn of her own wall-stead!’

Geirr stood tall. ‘Very well! It shall be done!’

The hólmganga ended, but this time not with Tyke’s blood and silver, and the drótt went back down the gate into Jórvík. But Geirr did not cross the threshold of his hall. Instead, he went into the town and sought out one of the Anglo-Danish stonemasons he knew of: Biörn Steinwari. Biörn was not as great or as strong or as brown as his name, but had a firmness and deftness of the hand which was kenned wide and far for carving each rune right. He had not Geirr’s height or brawn, but his wiry shape had a strength which was not to be scorned. As Geirr fared into the stone-cutter’s house, the tow-haired man bowed deeply.

‘My dróttinn,’ Biörn spoke – not softly, but rightly agreeable, ‘you honour my lowly home! If you’re hungry, you are welcome to whatever meat or drink I have!’

‘Nay,’ Geirr smiled and waved off the thought, ‘it’s after your craft I’m faring now. I wish to have a bautasteinn carved and stood on Guttormsgötu on the edge of the Þing, overlooking the river.’

Biörn whistled. Geirr was well-aware that planting a bautasteinn right on the Þing was bold, even for one already wanting to raise a bautasteinn! But without boldness, he would never earn again what Halfdan had once given him and then withdrawn. ‘You high lords do nothing by halves, do you? That will cost you dear, you understand.’

‘Name your price, and I swear to you that it will be given,’ Geirr put forth his hand earnestly. Biörn took it.

‘Two hundred merkur in gold,’ Biörn told him unflinchingly. ‘I would be an utter fool to ask but one ounce less.’

‘Think on it as done,’ Geirr told him.

Geirr and Biörn from thence went uphill from the market gate and toward the great Þing of Jórvík; it was a v-shaped open lea ringed with trees, by which ran Guttormsgötu and Steinngötu, the roads leading out into the town proper. The two of them found a good spot where the stone would be readily seen, and talked for awhile about how large the stone would be and from whence it would be hauled. They agreed that it would be a grey field-stone, and a stone one fathom in height and two ells across would be most fitting.

‘What would you have me scribe upon it, my dróttinn?’ asked the stone-cutter.

‘Let it speak of me and my deeds,’ Geirr told him.

Biörn nodded. ‘Ah. And, um… begging your forbearance, my worthy and good dróttinn, but which of your deeds do you wish me to mark upon this stone?’

Geirr thought for a long, hard while. All of his best deeds were already known to Halfdan King, and if he were to cut them again here it would be no worthy boast.

‘Follow your own best rede, if you will,’ Geirr told Biörn. ‘The stone itself is the main thing.’

And so it was done. The stone-cutter and his journeyman had the stone hauled by horse from outside the town and raised upon the spot he and Geirr had chosen. This done, Biörn himself worked on the stone, aided by his journeymen, deftly striking and scraping and letting the small bits of stone fall, as the words began taking their shapes. The work took Biörn all of Gói and most of Einmánuðr, but once all was done and the stone had been carved and swathed in bright red and green and white, Geirr stood at last before it. There was a great, fine-wrought design of a curling wyrm, ringing about the image of a great howling wolf, thronged about with men and horses, bearing weapons of every kind thinkable. He read the runes aloud, though they were in the long style which made some words hard to read:

kair lit raisa staina þisa at sik kuikuan · auk ati ain ioruik lirmork auk nautingahiem · tir uiti nafn ans · biorn akui runar þisar​

‘Geirr raised this stone whilst he lived, and himself owned Jórvík, Leirmörk and Snottingaheim. May Týr know his name. Biörn hewed these runes.’

Geirr harrumphed, though not in scorn. He stood, arms crossed, and beheld it a little longer.

‘Is it to the dróttinn’s liking?’ asked the craftsman.

‘It is,’ Geirr grinned. ‘You do truly ken your craft, Steinwari – the inside of the naðr is most fair, and the runes are carved main clear!’

And so it happened that Geirr raised the bautasteinn at the edge of the Jórvík Þing-field. Whether this would draw Halfdan’s eyes and mind or not, Geirr could not know. But Refil had spoken truly about one thing: when his wife did her spá-craft, she took herself before Geirr’s bautasteinn and prayed to Týr, as well as to the Gautr of her house, the man who had saved her from a drowning death. And all she saw there, she spoke alone into his ear.

 

[GulMacet]

He is becoming too complacent, a true Viking goes out and conquers stuff for glory when he has nothing else to do! Odin would not approve.

 

[Revan86]

Not to worry, GulMacet, there will be battle and conquest aplenty soon enough!

 

[Revan86]

Sixteen. The Best of Enemies

It was in the following autumn that Halfdan fell to war with Bacsecg the Jute once more, to the help of Sigurðr Ragnarsson Ormr í Auga, King of the Danes, whose aim it was to bring all of the Danish lands and all of the Mörkfolk under his sway. There was no true frith to be had between the men who had once been as one in their fury against the Englar who had murdered Ragnarr Loðbrók. And Geirr with his King and his King’s kin sailed with Jórvík’s Engildanir back out over the North Sea to the home of their forefathers, to make weapon-play with their kin and foes on those grey sandy flats. Geirr knew that he had been away from his home in the land of the Danes for far too long; he set out on this faring eager once again to see those near-forgotten strands. In the twenty-five winters he had weathered on English shores under the raven banner of Hvítserkr, never once had he fared back to the land of his fathers.

Geirr, since his son’s betrothal to the Ívaring lass, had never been near enough to the inmost men of the hirð to know for sooth who had gained of his loss, though he had long had the prickings of his thumbs. But now, as he stood in the prow of his long-ship, he saw clearly now who it was flying the raven banner from the King’s lead ship. A fair youngster of no more than five-and-twenty years, and likely younger, but with a full beard, forked like a goat’s. His ample hair bore two narrow braids, and his sky-blue eyes flashed with a fullness of cunning Geirr could never truly hope to match.

‘That is Dan Ragnarsson,’ Tyke af Konungsborg told him upon being asked. ‘I know him easy enough to look at: that’s Hvítserkr’s grandson, all right, even though he has nothing of his grandsire’s looks or fell moods. They say of him that there is no quicker wit, no clearer tongue, no more fearsome skald in all the northern lands.’ Geirr could not tell if Tyke was gleeful at his lord’s misgivings, or truly kind in his rede. Somehow, Geirr felt the latter was untrue. ‘If Halfdan truly made him merkismaðr, rest easy – it was nothing to do with your lack, and all to do with that his grandson is a made speaker.’

Geirr looked forward at where the fair young man stood with his smooth white hand firmly upon the haft of his grandfather’s banner – the stand of honour which rightly belonged to him. Geirr was not a man easily given to the swart-sickness of the brow, and his eyes never grudged to men what was fairly due them, but he could not help but want back what had been given to that youth. It was then that he steeled his heart and bent himself upon seeking him out and asking to settle that score.

They crossed the shallows of the whale-road in the Dogger Bank, where the North Sea gave up the most of its riches, and crossed over to the realm of the riches-blessed lord of the Skánungar, at whose bidding they had come. Halfdan’s ships went the long way, rounding Jótland sunwise to strike at Bacsecg from between the isles to the east up the Horsanæsafjörðr, and take first the town of Horsanæs which lay at its mouth. The earthen march of murky woods from whence so many of those filling the hulls now rowing had come loomed suddenly before them, with the quiet of the low fall sun and the soft lapping of short-waved waters against a frithful rush-bound strand, belying the stormy rain of Þróttr which Halfdan’s holders of helmets and shields were about to bring down.

They leapt into the shallows and strode ashore at a stead yclept Hundalönd, and there met the hirð of Sigurðr Ormr í Auga. Sigurðr, now a elderly man and wont to take his ease, did not seem happy with the thought of sharing this fate with his men, and the coming weapon-weather – even though the cause in which they had been bidden was his alone. But as Danes trampling upon Jutish earth, with Danish battle-tools thirsting for Jutish blood, together they lit upon Horsanæs with a fury. Bacsecg’s men were taken utterly aback by this sudden strike, and rushed along the walls with their own weapons to fend off the Engildanir who had come across the sea for their heads. They made as ready as they could, and stood at their watches as the Engildanir ringed the town about.

The fair young man stood at the very front of Halfdan’s army, holding the banner and holding forth against any of the Danes of Horsanæs who came before him to speak. Days and weeks went by, and at last Geirr sought Dan out, going alone around the town before Halfdan at the very head of the hirð. He spoke straight to Dan.

‘Dan Ragnarsson,’ Geirr held forth, ‘You have been Norns-blessed enough to find a stead by Halfdan’s side as his merkismaðr, a stead which I once held. Whatever cunning and whatever craft with which you have convinced Halfdan King to bestow it upon you, I would now learn of you! What say you?’

Dan laughed scornfully at Geirr. ‘And why should I do that?’ he scoffed. ‘You were in your day nothing more than a bóndi raised beyond your rightful worth, and it was ever solely the goodness of my grandfather which gave you such!’

‘You overstep your mark, young one,’ Geirr told Dan.

‘Do I?’ Dan mocked. ‘You think I came to be merkismaðr because of my cunning or because of my craft? I was given merely what was my due as Halfdan’s kin, and I will not give it up, surely not to an upstart foundling like you! Nor are you worthy to learn anything of me.’

‘You will come to rue those words.’ Geirr spoke softly, but there was no mistaking his meaning. He had openly marked Dan for his foe, and set himself upon a gate which would end only in one of their deaths. Dan had affronted his honour, and Geirr would wreak that wrong upon him – some other day. Only a þræll wreaks upon his foe straight away; and only a fool never does. But for now, the Engildanir needed to fight as one against the stronger foe, and Bacsecg would not sit still in Mörkfolk for long.

The Engildanir did not have long to wait to see blood shed, but they were looking the wrong way. It fell out as fall was beginning to wane into winter that the men of Jótland, hating the dearth and hunger these half-Englar wayfarers were making them bear, undertook to steal from them their own stores of meat and ale. In the brawl that then followed, the Jutish thieves were taken and slaughtered, but they had managed to cut deep into Halfdan’s war-band, and the losses they felt were great – including that of Halfdan King’s left leg, which was split so deep by Jutish steel that there was no way he could put weight upon it again. And it was not merely one raid they underwent, but a handful at a stretch, and each time costlier than the last. Upon the maiming of Halfdan there was after that much ease to be seen in the shapes that stood upon the walls of Horsanæs, swart against the grey Danish sky. Geirr swore then vengeance upon the Jótar of Horsanæs for his lord’s awful fate.

But to Geirr’s letdown, Bacsecg held off from them still. No dragon ships but their own could be sighted upon that strand, and for that Halfdan’s men daily gave most hearty thanks to Óðinn for his shielding blessings. The Jute’s men were seemingly fighting what was left of Halfdan’s men along the Mörkfolkish march, but without any ships of their own to bear them word the Danes of Jórvík were as yet still alone in the dark. Thus they passed each day there, around Horsanæs, most ill at ease in mind and flesh.

Halfdan’s hirð were kept in straightening and lifting the souls of the war-band they had brought with them. But each time Geirr and Halfdan’s grandson crossed each other’s path, the one would heap níð upon the other – each of them was aware of the shaky ground the other trod, and kept their biting words upon that hólm such that each did not leave his own manhood open to scorn by the other, yet did not speak any word that would have needed a truly deadly answer – though each often taunted the other to cross that line. The two of them so closely began to remind the hirð of Loki and Óðinn in the way they matched their skaldic flyting that Geirr began to become known mockingly amongst the hirð as the ‘prince-slaying skald’. Geirr was overmatched from the beginning in these bouts, but never forgot that one day soon, each of the wrongs which he had come under would be paid over again in Dan Ragnarsson’s blood.

The waiting dragged on. Týr held for them no sign that the men of Horsanæs would soon give over the town. However, it soon became clear that the murky woods of the Jutish march held things baneful to men, far worse than battle-tools and weapon-weather. The Engildanir ranks were quiet in that early morning as Yuletide approached. But the stillness of that grey dawn was broken with moans as several of the Angle karls there were taken with sudden chills and heat. But the first of the Angles to break out in baneful red boils made great swells of worry and dread amongst Halfdan’s war-band. They were now host to the bólusótt, and those the illness touched cursed with wheezing breath beneath their boils whichever seiðkona had cast this pall over them, and swore that that Jute would be slaughtered.

But the bólusótt didn’t leave; instead, it festered, and many of those it struck began to turn swart, and blackened blood began to flow from their noses and mouths. Once the svartsótt set in, the Norns had already wept, for their soul was already lost to Hel. Not a one whose skin had begun to blacken or who had begun to bleed could live. Geirr waited grimly with the rest of his drótt, but the bólusótt never touched him or his kin. For that at least, they ought to have reckoned themselves blessed – but Geirr could not. How could he not grieve, seeing his friends falling around him to an unkith foe, one which he himself could not strike, and one by whom he could not follow them to an honourable death. Geirr tore his hair and roared out to the gods, and knew not whether they heard him.

The losses the Jórvík army had taken, to fiends both seen and unseen, had led Bacsecg’s þegn of Horsanæs, a man named Kjartan af Horsanæs, to think his luck blessed – and with good grounds. But it had made the hapless þegn main over-bold. He bethought himself full-cunning, with his war-band sweeping out from the west gate and rounding the town walls to attack from the north, but sadly for Kjartan, Geirr happened to be waiting there.

It was not a stead of honour, to be watching the side gate to Halfdan’s march. Geirr had taken it willing, though, at the behest of his now-lamed King, furrowing his brow and grinding his teeth and gripping his axe-handle fit to slice clean through whatever unlucky wight happened to lack such wit as to stay out of his way – for he would wreak upon all the Jutes tenfold what they had taken from his King and lord. And who would ride straight into his way but the guardsman of Horsanæs, byrnie-clad and spear-ready?

Hapless Kjartan! He must have seen it from his stand upon the wall, when his men struck at the camp of the Ragnarsson brothers! The worse for him – the loss his men suffered there by the wall of his own town, cornered between town wall-timber and a blade-bristling wall of shields, were hewn to bloody pieces by the angered dróttinn lighting upon them below. Geirr’s blade flashed in the cool grey light – for in winter the sky-steed never shines upon Jótland – as its hue darkened from white to red. Not long was it before, as Kjartan þegn surely must have railed down from his watch and perhaps cast down an arrow or two, Geirr’s drótt had left nothing more of his men than a messy, bloody smear along the wall of Horsanæs. Nothing is more to be dreaded, even by another Dane, than an angered Dane willing to risk all and wreak all for his King. Surely Sigurðr Ormr í Auga was also looking on, and thanking the Norns that it was not him against whom Geirr fought!

It was just ere Yule that Horsanæs fell, and the Ragnarsson Danes swept within, burning Jutish homes and stealing Jutish silver. Into the hall where of late Kjartan af Horsanæs kept sway, the wayfaring Danes brought a Yule log and set it alight, and drank deep from his stores of ale and mead. Though Geirr was set low at the table and Dan Ragnarsson was given a high seat near to his kin, the dróttinn of Jórvík’s brow never blackened, his eye never grew sour, and his laughter never stopped – he drank his symbels full and toasted the health and wisdom of the man who was soon to be King of Danmörk. He knew that his comeuppance would take its course in the fullness of time.

 

[GulMacet]

There you go! Holding a grudge, family feuds, revenge all while wrapped up in a greater war - this is the stuff Norse sagas are made from. One day, they will tell the story of Geirr Botnari as the do of Erik the Red or Olaf the Hairy.

 

[Revan86]

Thanks, GulMacet! That being the case, I trust that the next few chapters will not disappoint!

 

[Revan86]

Seventeen. White Shirt and Bloody Shroud

Bacsecg the Jute having been strained to swear his troth to Sigurðr Ormr í Auga as the king of all Danmörk, Geirr sailed back across the whale-road to Jórvík with his drótt. Though Geirr had been eager to see the murky woods of Danmörk once more, all the murkier and mistier having been lost in the cloudy skies of his half-forgotten childhood, now he yearned yet more for the one stead he had long thought his only home. It was a bitter-sweet thought, that now he was no longer the youth he was when he first sailed away from Danish shores. For now he was a man of thirty-eight winters, and could feel his thighs start to slow, his arms and lungs begin to weaken to the fiend from whom there was no running, and against whom there was no fighting. He prayed Týr he may never have to die in his bed, and that the gods saw fit that he might fall to a worthy foe, as all in the end were bound to fall.

His fast-nearing age was given all the more weight by being witness to the mournful fate of his king, Halfdan Hvítserkr. Though he had stood fast against illness of every kind, and had never, until that Jutish blade had stolen his leg from him, taken a weapon-wound fit to lay him low, there were still as yet fiends which could take the minds of men and still leave their flesh whole. Though his brother had earned his kingdom, for which he himself had fought so hard, the gods had seen fit to send upon him a fate worse than death. It came on him suddenly as his wound kept festering: he could not stir from his bed, could not answer even the call of his own name, though his eyes stared straight and fixed forward, yet still he breathed and his heart beat in his breast. Bewildered and grieving for the lost soul of their lord, his men had borne him back upon his own ship to Dunholm.

Geirr rowed his ships aside to port at the Ymbra and stepped ashore at Jórvík at last amongst the ever-bustling knerrir, coming up the King’s Gate and striding into his own great hall. As he came over the threshold, a blue-mantled figure, draped with beads and jewels, flew at him from across the hall and wrapped him in her fathom with a cry, followed by their two young daughters.

‘My dearest Geirr!’ she whispered as she clung to him. It still put him main ill at ease, having a wife who worshipped him yet whom he still found himself wishing a little further from him. Awkwardly, he answered her with his own arms, wrapping her about with a milder fondness.

‘You have fared well?’ she asked him, lifting her warm brown eyes to his.

‘As well as we might have,’ Geirr answered. ‘Danmörk now sits under the rod and crown of Sigurðr King. But our own King has been taken with a fit, from which we cannot wake him.’

‘Those are in sooth most grave tidings,’ Úlfhildr told him, speaking now from her spá-craft, which had long before now healed fully. ‘A cross is before you, with three gates to flit through. But once you have chosen which gate you will take, there will be no turning back. When weighing friend and foe, turn all things surely in your mind. If you do not, king-foe and two-kingdoms’-bane, you and I both stand to lose all. Choose your foes with wisdom, and your friends with still greater.’

‘And you have no rede of whose friendship I should welcome?’ Geirr gave his wife a wry grin.

She answered in kind. They knew each other too well by now for him to have truly expected a right answer.

Geirr had grown used to his wife’s sight, and the love she bore him had turned it not a whit from the softness and depth it had once borne. If anything, her rede had grown yet more unfathomable, and he understood this was out of forethought for him. He had learnt that the best way to deal was simply to take all and mull it over in thanks. He took the hands of Ellisif and Alvör and let them lead him into the hall, with Úlfhildr following smilingly behind. It was then that his second son, clad in his own goði’s cloak, drew near, brows knit together in fret.

‘Hello, faðir,’ his son said.

‘Ah, my Friðrekr!’ asked Geirr. ‘What is it?’

‘Could you help me here?’

Geirr nodded, put his young daughters from him kindly and handed them back to their mother, and followed Friðrekr to his sleeping-stand. Sheepishly, the young man pointed up above his bed to where a cobweb hung in the hall rafters. Geirr laughed and swatted the thing down.

‘This is what had you so worried? A mere attercob’s nest?’

Friðrekr hung his head in shame. It was not for a Dane to dread such small things as spinners and attercobs.

‘What is it about them that you dread so? Their bites? Their legs?’

‘I—’ Friðrekr stopped himself. ‘It’s their eyes – so mighty, and knowing that it sees me in my sleep…’

‘Hear me, my son,’ Geirr lay one kind hand on his young son’s shoulder. ‘When that attercob beholds you, it likely sees a jötunn where we would see but a young man! What do you dread it might do to you? Fearing the spider does the spider no hurt, and does you all – how many deaths do you believe the níðingr dies, before the one which truly kills him? And how many the bold man?’

Friðrekr smiled ruefully. ‘But the one,’ he answered, ‘and that one hurts him not at all!’

‘My son the wise and cunning,’ Geirr laughed. ‘Yes – leave the attercob to gaze upon you in wide-eyed dread, it isn’t for you!’

Geirr knew not whether but that small rede would heal him of his fear, but as Friðrekr joined him and his mother and sisters at table he seemed far less ill-at-ease, and that was always to the good. If only Geirr himself had such small matters as attercobs weighing upon his own mind! But the banes of Jórvík were much greater in might, and they loomed up before him in more than merely his wife’s forebodings and spá-sight.

~~~​

Geirr stayed in Jórvík through that winter, and all throughout that year as Jórvík’s fields and wild heaths and meadows and firths alike began to green and ripen and brown once more. But in those nights Geirr was set upon by Úlfhildr’s yearnings, which had not ebbed at all in the years he had known her as wife – indeed, they waxed ever stronger. Soon once again, even as she was nearing her fortieth year, her belly began to swell once more. It was as though she had felt her youth forefallen in bearing but two sons, and now willed to wring what longings and hurt could yet be yielded from her flesh. Or maybe it was her new-found fondness for her husband which he was slowly beginning to ken also for her. That year, though it saw gladness for both Geirr and Úlfhildr within their wall-steed, bore more worries and evils without.

Firstly, his bæjarstjóri Arngrimr af Snottingaheim came before him and begged him to ease the burden of sceatt-geld gathered from his town. Well enough Geirr knew that the Angles of that town had a much laxer burden than did those in the byes around it, and if he was ever to ease burdens of sceatt-geld in the lands over which he held sway he would do it first in the byes and thorpes where the bændr worked. Already he had done what no other Dane would, and turned down the fore-slaying of his stívarðr Refil to round up some of the Danes to take from the hides of Angle bændr what they would not yield willingly in Dane-geld! But he truly did not need Arngrimr’s ill-will.

‘My good friend and bæjarstjóri,’ Geirr told him, ‘truly I know how dear the welfare of the men of Snottingaheim is to your heart. But have you ever known me to scorn or spurn such a right and good-minded asking as this? I swear upon the good name of my father and upon my own, that just as I have now given you fair hearing as your dróttinn and as your friend, I shall do right in truth by the karla born ok kerlinga of your great town. Do give me this trust!’

Hearing such speech, what could Arngrimr do but agree? Geirr hated to give such unclear troth – it stuck in his craw and made him feel a liar even though he was none. But he did indeed wish to do right by all of the men under his sway – the karla of Snottingaheim also! But it was not two months later when worse tidings came upon him.

The kirtisvein came after the Yule blót had done with a heavy and grieving face, and Geirr soon wit why. It seemed that his stallari, Arnlaugr af Skardaborg, had fallen to that worst of banes, old age. Geirr grieved sorely, and tore his cotte and his hair for the loss of his friend and stallari, who had been with him in flesh and in mind and in troth since his very first faring into Leirmörk. If ever there was any man more worthy of Valhöll’s glory than he, Geirr had never heard of him.

Arnlaugr’s body was borne on a bier to Jórvík, where a stack of firewood was built, upon which lay meat and ale and the lich of a willing þræll-girl who had been strangled as mate for the dead bæjarstjóri’s soul on its faring to the hall of Óðinn. Geirr himself lit the kindling which soon burst into an outright roar of flame. Geirr bade a last farewell to his friend, and one lone tear rolled down his cheek as he watched the bier blow itself skyward in great roaring siles of wood-bane. Those ashes which lingered of his dead friend would be taken in his urn into the frozen earth, and a cairn erected over his barrow to keep his good name.

This burial was to be swiftly followed by another, still more grievous to Geirr than that of his stallari. Halfdan Hvítserkr did not wrest back his health from illness, and his mind just ebbed out of him just as the rule of his flesh had. Though in the meantime Úlfhildr had once more brought new life into Miðgarðr – another young maid, whom they had named Björg for the help of Geirr and his King – there was nothing but death in Geirr’s mind as he beheld yet another fire, this one at the mouth of the River Wear at Søndralönd, bearing their prayers for Halfdan skyward. Geirr tore his hair as what was left of his lord was lain in the hull of his ship, and that ship was taken beneath a mighty barrow in this English land he had taken and reigned over with his blood and his sweat – all now ashes.

That there were true mourners there, Geirr did not doubt. But even so, his misgivings were deep and unshakeable. Halfdan’s sons were all of them there: Guðfriðr and Ragnarr and Þórbrandr and Ingjaldr Halfdanarson, and though they all were grieving their father’s death, they eyed each other as fiends, with loathing and greed and mistrust written broadly across each of their faces. Geirr watched all and weighed all, and had readied himself long ere they drew near him.

Geirr heard the war-drums again thundering on the skyline. Jórvík was soon to be rent three or four ways in all, and it would be for him to choose one of those ways to follow. His wife had steered him right enough, but her course led him straight into the midst of a brewing storm.

 

[Revan86]

Eighteen. For Troth to Live, for Troth to Kill, for Troth to Die

The storm-clouds were gathering already, and the Yule blót at Jórvík had only just ended. The good year and frith Geirr had wished to his drótt was not to last. Geirr looked out over the swampy, slushy brown wastes with their rime-blanketed patches to the south of Jórvík and the Ymbra, and then up into the pearl-white sky. The storm-clouds he saw were not of heaven’s making, but of man’s. He was bound for Dunholm, this time alone – the fates of kings and kingdoms was there to unfold; from there the wolf would howl and the raven would cry out as their feasts were made ready, for without a Halfdan Hvítserkr to keep the frith of these lands, no man and no stead would be safe. The sons of Hvítserkr between them would see to that. And Geirr’s choice between them, he knew, in the end could mean the wrack of all of Jórvík and the deaths of its men and its glory. But he would never flinch from it. There was glory and more to be had in such trials of men, and that in it was to be welcomed.

‘King-foe and two-kingdoms’-bane…’

No. He would not let his mind wander to those unkith shores. His fate would unfold as it must. What was left to him was to choose boldly as a man does, and then hold to his choice just as boldly, to his death. As he set out along the gate to the north and to Þresk, with his head high and his gaze fixed steadily in the face of the ravening maw of Fenrisúlfr which now threatened to crush him, his wife came to him.

‘I had to see you,’ Úlfhildr said. ‘I will not hold you back – you must away, that I know. You would not be my Geirr else, the same man who thrust his arm beneath the waves to draw me up from Njörðr’s clutches. But I had to see you, and to let you know that I will ever be working my spells over you, that Óðinn might bless your glory and your victories.’

Geirr reached for his wife’s hands and grasped them between his own, before he pulled from his scrip a great brooch, as round and as broad as a shield-boss and wrought from brightest sterling silver and gilt with gold, with the deepest and sheerest of blood-red garnets set in the middle. He had bought it from one of the traders in town a long time since, and had set his mind upon giving it to his wife to show his troth and his love for her, and now he had the mayhap to give it to her and would find no better. Without a word, he put it in her hands and closed them around it.

One eye-blink between them was all either needed to understand the other. She unpinned the brooch which now held her mantle and pinned it again with that her husband had just given her. And she took his hands in hers and twined her fingers in his, and for a long time they clasped each other, never speaking. Glad she was, smiling warmly against his broad chest, knowing now that the lightning had indeed struck twice, and that her husband was as fond of her as she had long been of him. Geirr had taken his wife in his youth, when she was still a maid, and at that time he held her no nearer than any of his friends. But now there was no other woman he could hold, nor any man he could hold dearer. To die for her sake would truly be a good death. After a time, Geirr left his wife’s arms and bade her a long farewell.

Geirr went forth only with the closest and most needful men of his drótt, including his son Bragi, across those icy bare-treed fells north to Dunholm. The quiet of these rolling slopes, bedded in white blankets with black stitching, was left untroubled by the quarrels of mere men such as they. But not long would the gods stand without breaking that quiet. He and his men stayed and drank and ate and slept those nights in Þresk and Dýrnauðringatún. They drank not too deep from their rowan-bark horns, but spoke together in tones first glad, then fretting, then glad again: for each of them – Geirr, Refil, Tyke and Bragi – kenned full well that, whichever way the wood fell and the threads of urðr pulled them, among their foes in the winters to come would be men they had once called friends.

‘Would that I knew already whom they were,’ Refil thought aloud as they sat, as the three of them once had in another Angle farmhouse so long ago on a Yuletide just like this one, so long ago in a much surer time. ‘Things were easier when it was merely Halfdan’s raven banner before us, and all marching against it our foes. And now that banner shall be torn four ways – maybe more!’

‘Think on it this way then,’ Tyke laughed, clapping his bald friend on the shoulder. ‘You might have the mayhap to send your former battle-brothers to Valhöll yourself, or be sent thence by them in your turn!’

‘But whom will it be, for us, we brothers of Jórvík’s drótt?’ asked Refil. ‘Guðfriðr, Ragnarr, Þórbrandr or Ingjaldr? For surely our weapons if not our words will weigh heavily in the weft of the Norns!’

Geirr had thought long and hard on that riddle as well, but he had not wit yet which onto which gate he would turn. It was Refil’s roust again which shook him from his thoughts.

‘I know, my dróttinn, that of the four men, you hold Ragnarr to be the best and truest Dane of them, and certainly above Guðfriðr – but I also know how deeply you loathe the Dan who is his son.’

‘I make no troths from a grudge,’ Geirr told Refil. And he meant it.

Sooth be said, though, that had been – and still was – one of Geirr’s own worst worries. If he should throw his weight behind Ragnarr only to hand the crown to his son, how then should he deal? Could he ever bring himself to swear troth to the foe who had cast níð on his manhood? Yet if he were to kneel before Ragnarr Halfdanarson, weapon in hand, would that not be as good as doing the same for Dan?

‘Does it even matter?’ asked the dróttinn’s son. ‘Whichever man of them we hail as King, if we fight worthily, our names will ring loud across the seas and our sons will hold their heads high when they are made known by us!’

Tyke lifted his rowan heartily to that, and Geirr and Refil did likewise, but with less cheery brows as they mulled over their ales.

~~~​

Later after midday on the third day, as dusk was falling about them, they came within sight of the great dragon Wear, leading them up toward the gate which led into Dunholm. They entered the hall as one man, these five stalwart and stout men, tried warriors all save the youngest, and hailed the lord of the hall. As all wise wayfarers do, however, they took the weight of each man there sitting, and marked each of the doors and tight ways within the hall. If the first blow of the coming weapon-weather was to happen here, as was like, none of Jórvík’s men would then find themselves off-guard and unready!

‘Hail the Lord of Hliðskjálf!’ Geirr flung his roust to the rafters. ‘And hail to the lord of the hall!’

His heart fell as purse-lipped Vigdis stepped out of the shadows and handed him the symbel-horn. Geirr spilt some onto the fire before him and quaffed the rest, before thrusting the empty horn back into the hands of the wife of Guðfriðr Halfdanarson. Until that eye’s-blink he had not truly kenned just how far he was toward kneeling before Ragnarr – and he was main glad his toast to ‘the lord of the hall’ had been kept nameless. This was a time for stillness of tongue and quickness of wit, not for rash and idle boasting, and certainly not for too deep a draught of ale! Truly there were others in the hall whose stares were all reckoning and no troth, whose words would all be for their own getting and none for their lord’s, of whom they would switch as quickly as the tides.

‘Sit here, good dróttinn of Jórvík’s hall, and let your men take their ease!’ called Guðfriðr from his high seat. His hand flung itself near to the front of the hall, and yielded to his sight a seat of honour. Geirr rose with his head held high and sat as the seat was offered him. He traded a glare of loathing with Dan Ragnarsson, but to the father he raised his hand a thought and saw him raise a thumb back at him. He had been seen and known, and that was well.

Geirr kept his tongue even as he drank, and waited, and watched, and listened to all. Not speaking to others was a strength in him, and now and only now it came ready to hand to help him! He gathered that Ragnarr Halfdanarson thought that he had the troth of Steinn Kráka, the high bæjarstjóri of Lauðrá and of Vestmærrland – but Steinn, the crafty fox, had neither a jarl’s heart nor the jarl’s blood running through it. He had no thought for the holy troth between lord and hirðmaðr, and would wash himself of his oath as readily as bathing. So still Geirr waited.

He had given to Ragnarr no oath; nor had he given it to Guðfriðr. But as Ragnarr drank ever deeper, and as his eyes grew ever wilder and his brows ever higher, it became clear as the great sky-shield to Geirr that the younger son of the white-shirted King would bespeak the crown from the elder’s head – or take Guðfriðr’s head, crown and all, from his shoulders, before the night was out. Fool that he was!

Sure enough, when near all the hall had grown merry and their heads were heavy with drink, the far-faring Varangian stood before the high seat and raised his roust high and clear:

‘Brother Guðfriðr, that burden of gold you wear about your head must sore weigh you down – if you would allow me to free you of our father’s crown, you could take your ease and rest your head in good keeping.’

‘Ah, brother Ragnarr,’ Guðfriðr sneered, taking the round thing off his grey head. ‘You seek this? You truly think you can wear it any lighter than I do? It would be well to know who your friends are.’

‘I have friends enough,’ Ragnarr told him.

‘Indeed?’ Guðfriðr raised a mocking brow. ‘If you are so sure, then take it and welcome. See now if you can hold it fast upon those red brows!’

To the gasps and shouts of the hall, Guðfriðr tossed the crown to his younger brother, who caught it deftly and stepped up to the high seat. Guðfriðr yielded it with a mocking bow – not lost on this new lord of the north was his elder brother’s cheek, for truly Guðfriðr thought that Ragnarr would be dead ere long. Guðfriðr himself did not sit, but strode briskly out of the hall, mounting in haste and haring out to his holdings in the west. Followed he was thereupon by Steinn Kráka, every bit as true to the lord to whom he had sworn himself up and down as Geirr had bethought him, then by his younger brothers Þórbrandr and Ingjaldr, and then by his systrungr Barid Ívaring, whose still-stiff legs had not forgotten Ragnarr’s father. Even his own son, Dan, had shaken his full-bearded head and followed Guðfriðr out of the hall. Geirr smiled grimly and crossed his arms as his foe left his own father for Guðfriðr’s side. If that was the way the land lay, then he had indeed chosen wisely to stay!

In the end, red-browed Ragnarr was left forsaken, together in the hall only with two Angle dróttnar – Burgheard Ceorlson of Dunholm, dróttinn of Lincoln, and Ælle Ælfgarson of Norðymbraland – and himself, Geirr Bútnari. The sudden emptiness of the hall was as sobering to the forlorn now-king as any ice-cold bucket of water could be.

Geirr rose and looked the red-haired lord straight in the eyes.

‘You are a fool, Ragnarr Halfdanarson.’

Ragnarr raised an arm and roared, ‘Go then! Go back to your lands, and raise your men against me! Is that not what you wish?’

Geirr held his lord’s burning gaze, unblinking. And then he knelt.

‘Fool though you may be, you are a better man by far than any of the níðingar who just walked out of here. I should be shamed to do the like, but never would I be shamed to kneel to you – as I do now.

‘I make known before all here the name of my forefathers: for my grandfather was that mighty drengr Frakki Geirsson Bútnari af Holtsetaland who, though low in birth, was wise in the ways of healing-runes, and who felled with his axe fifty Finns in one battle. I myself fared across the seas when I was thirteen winters, and was given lordship over the hall at Jórvík, a kindness I have forgotten never. I have slain Frankish-men and Skottish-men and Velskar-men by the hundreds. I have alone fought and slain the last mighty bruin in the woods of the Saxar. I have dared at Halfdan’s side to stand Sigurðr Ragnarsson king of all Danmörk, and wreaked myself upon all of Bacsecg’s men who gainsaid him, hewing even their bones to slivers. Greater deeds even than these shall these arms and hands do in this the hirð of Ragnarr the son of Halfdan whom until his death I followed faithfully, should the giver of rings now choose to take my oath!’

Ragnarr, shocked out of his anger at Geirr for having called him a fool, reached for his sword, holding it before him. ‘A mighty and weapon-bold man among men you are known, Geirr Bútnari. Into my hirð are you bound with wise rede and keen axe-edge?’

‘I am,’ Geirr spoke.

‘Swear then to me,’ Ragnarr thundered. Geirr dropped to his knees and lay his hand upon the sword-hilt.

‘I now swear to you, Ragnarr Halfdanarson King, that my axe shall be ever ready before you, that never will I forget the gifts you shower upon me and my kin, always to fight and earn glory in your name, and if you fall slain to wreak blood and flesh from your slayer or in trying fall myself – never to drop my axe, nor to flinch one step back from him, nor to forgive him one drop of the blood he owes while I still draw breath. As Týr and as Freyr see me now, let this very sword turn its blade back upon me if ever I should falter! No þegn or jarl here now shall ever be given grounds to scorn this oath I make, or find me wanting in its keeping! All this I swear to you, my King and lord.’

Ragnarr his sword hand toward Geirr with the hilt still within it, who then kissed it firmly.

‘Týr and Freyr and all the gods truly do hear your troth, as I do. Now, Geirr Bútnari, hear this oath I make to you: fire and frost both I shall send into your hands as you earn, and among my jarlar and my dróttnar you shall sit in great honour. In battles on the field or before the þing, I and all my hirð shall stand your steadfast friends and witnesses, as my father before me has done. May Óðinn sighöfundr hear me, may Freyr be my witness, and may Þórr who upholds right hold me faithful!’

With that Ragnarr took a gilt arm-ring and slipped it over Geirr’s outstretched hand and up over his cotte. Geirr stood.

‘And with this ring,’ Ragnarr told his newly-sworn dróttinn, ‘I hereby name you the stallari of my hirð. I fear I shall have great need of this troth you have sworn me, and soon.’

 

[c0d5579]

So glad I had a chance to catch up! I've been pillaging you shamelessly for other projects off the forum.

 

[Revan86]

What's a bit of pillaging among friends and Vikings, c0d5579? Happy to hear you've enjoyed the latest - and I'd be happy to see the links to your off-site projects!

 

[Revan86]

Many profuse apologies for the delay! I've been swamped by work of late, and have also on that account had a severe case of writer's block. But I'm not down or out yet!


Nineteen. Run to the Hills

Geirr Bútnari wiped his chilled face, smeared with frost and grime from a week-long wait in the wintry half-frozen fens, and yelled out to his men for the onslaught.

‘Strike hard and fast! Let no man flee!’

A thousand Engildanir rose up as one out of that murky wet waste near the kirk founded by Saint Botulf, near the bye of Skírbekkr, and ran into the open, beards streaked with frost and fen-water and battle-shirts and battle-tools bared in the misty light, thirsting for blood. A roar went up to wake the gods as the Freyr-friends and Skáney-sons under the lord of Jórvík together drove across those rimy flats and crashed as one a wave of men upon the wooden shore behind which stood Barid Ívaring. For the third time now, Geirr faced the son of hinn Beinlausi in battle. And surely this time, he would not be made fool of or put to shame!

The weapon-din broke over Geirr’s hearing at once as his battle-giantess splintered the shield of the Suðfolk man, and as he side-stepped the thrust of his foe’s battle-wand, bringing the axe-head down again, only to be thwarted by his foe’s blade. These Austr-Englar were no such níðingar as Geirr had thought. As Geirr’s men failed to break through the East Anglian shield-wall, he saw many, too many, of his own men falling before Austr-Englar weapons. In the midst of the thundering storm where steel thundered against steel and where the rain fell red, Geirr groaned as he beheld a known face: the stout jaw and blond beard of Gyrþ, bæjarstjóri of Bjöðreksverðr! He held the line staidly, and though the right flank he led never rushed forward where his own fell back, the Angle still took a great glee in toying with the Danes before him, harming them with his sword and watching them die slowly in their anger.

Geirr waded through the high red waves of weapon-storm to where the best of his Engildanish húskarlar, Sigurðr, who had followed him back from Dunholm after he had sworn his oath, stood at the fore with his byrnie smoking with the blood of his slain East Anglian foes, of which more than a score lay about him, unable to flee the baneful bites of his battle-snake. Geirr rushed to the help of his mighty warrior and cleft open the back of an Angle who sought to strike at Sigurðr from the back.

By that time, more than half of Barid’s war-band lay dead or dying, as just under half of Geirr’s was. The flanks of Geirr’s war-band had fallen or fallen back; only the middle remained – though just as soon fell away the East Anglian war-band from the middle out. Barid Ívaring had long since left the battle. Geirr found Refil and Tyke and his son Bragi all thankfully still standing, and hailed them through the din to Sigurðr’s side. With that the four bold battle-trees bent forth and hared off in elt of Gyrþ, leaping over the raven-feasts and the battle-tools now fallen useless into the blood-soaked fen.

Again they smashed together, but this time the Austr-Englar shield-wall melted and ran, and Geirr and his drótt, the jötunn-strong Sigurðr also, made great sport in hewing asunder East Anglian backs and smiting helmeted heads from East Anglian shoulders as they fled. Gyrþ’s men were now in open flight, and the Engildanish steel was ruthlessly striking them down by the dozen. Gyrþ was following his lord and Swæfræd of Ely as they fled northward to higher ground, and toward the Ymbra.

Sigurðr let out a great halloa to Geirr’s drótt to lope after them, and eagerly they followed. But Gyrþ was swift and cunning – he kept the dry ground between his men and Geirr’s and cornered them into the wet; too soon Barid’s men outstrode their Jórvík haunters.

But in spite of the Suðfolk man’s wits, the men of Barid Ívarsson were ill-fated from the start. They were fleeing straight toward Jórvík itself, approaching from the southern strand. These were grounds well-known to Geirr and to his men, and the drótt of Jórvík’s hall soon gained ground over their quarry and caught them up by the time they had reached the south bank of the Ouse.

The fate-shape brought a fell, grim smile to Geirr’s shaven chin as he kenned from the bends of this brook he knew as home that they now had trapped Barid Ívarsson on the bank of the Ouse across from Steinnhof, where twenty-one winters before, nearly to the day, Geirr’s men had been slaughtered by Barid’s. Both men had been younger then; surely Geirr had been more foolish. But now, his urðr willing, he would on the same bend of stream wreak the same back upon the elder man.

But Barid, along with his bæjarstjóri and his bishop, all were skilled and well-weathered warriors, and they had no will yet to yield their lives to the men of Jórvík. Their shield-wall stood firm along the frozen rushes, and manfully weathered the first wave. The cracking of straining shields and the clash of steel rent the chilly air as Gyrþ shouted to his rear guard to follow the river upstream as they held off the men of Jórvík. But there was no help for it: beaten, cast down and disheartened as they were, the Austr-Englar could not stand before the Jórvíkmenn’s onslaught, only run. Gyrþ and Swæfræd and Barid themselves fell back from the line as Jórvík hared off after them, up into the hills.

Once again, though, Gyrþ was far too swift for them; and this time they lost sight of the Austr-Englar as they fled into the high fells around Djórabýr. Geirr’s men ached and groaned as they trudged upward through the snows. As they broke their march to rest a while, Sigurðr, Refil, Tyke and Bragi sat around him, whetting their weapons or whistling tunes to keep their souls glad.

‘Ahh, my heels and knees hurt,’ Refil groaned as he sat. ‘I’m getting too old for this sort of thing. May the Norns grant me a swift and worthy death!’

‘That tide may come soon,’ Tyke told him. ‘That Gyrþ is too full-cunning. Even though we are the ones who win at each turn of the wheel, their rear guard keeps taking more than their share of Jórvík necks. They have us follow into the fens, or onto the riverbank, or into the fells.’

‘But they haven’t anymore the strength or the will to starve out any of our steads, whether Jórvík or Leicester, and surely not after the new walls have been raised,’ Geirr spoke. ‘And truly no need to fear for our lord King’s hall in Dunholm!’

That much was true. Barid’s men, no matter how skilful the high men of his drótt were, could simply not reckon against even the low walls of a bye.

‘But we still have Guðfriðr to settle with,’ Geirr murmured grimly.

That was the hardest truth of all to face. And a grim stillness fell over them all, only the wind of the high fells swept through their hair and over their stern heads. All of the other sons of Halfdan Hvítserkr had risen as one against that bold, half-mad red-headed fool Ragnarr King to set Guðfriðr, the shame of his father’s house and a man not a quarter of Ragnarr’s worth, upon the throne at Dunholm. But even if they had not a shred of drengskapr between them all, the other sons of Halfdan had a fullness of swelling ranks which Ragnarr alone could not hope to match. Already Geirr’s outsent spy to the western lands had brought back tidings of a mighty here twelve hundred strong with Guðfriðr, which was already marching north and west to Dunholm itself. As they marched, his karl had said, they were gathering men of the Danish Mörkfolk who had scores to settle with Halfdan and saw their hap to wreak them upon his son.

As the men of Geirr’s drótt were, a mere four hundred, there was nothing they stood to gain for Ragnarr Halfdanarson by rushing into such a fight, where three westerners for every one of them would be their match. No glory for themselves, no thanks for their sons, no help to their lord and King would come of the feast of wolves Guðfriðr surely would make of them.

‘Only if we band together can we hope to put Guðfriðr to flight,’ Bragi said at length. ‘We gain nothing from elting after Barid in these fells whilst our men keep falling. Our hope lies in the northwest, where Ragnarr King and his men stand ready.’

‘But even then, have we the reckoning?’ Sigurðr spoke. ‘We here are four hundred and twenty. Ragnarr King could raise no more than seven hundred from the stead his father left him. Can we be sure that even together we may be able to stand against Guðfriðr, who stands to have near thirteen hundred men ere he lights upon Dunholm?’

‘You are new still to our fellowship, Sigurðr,’ Geirr laughed, ‘and have yet to know our ways. You are indeed full-cunning as well as battle-bold, but you let your fear shape your mind of me! If you had thought that any among us may in sooth be loose to our oaths as warriors of Ragnarr King, may you keep all such thoughts from your head! Do you think me witless to why Ragnarr named me lögsögumaðr as well as stallari, or to how you came to be among us in my drótt? Ragnarr thinks me slow and lazy because I did not flock to his cause swiftly enough, and made myself bold with my oath only after he took the crown.’

‘But, my dróttinn—’ Sigurðr held forth.

‘Hear me now, Sigurðr,’ Geirr cut him short. ‘And do not think to ill-weigh me again! I did hold off from throwing the wolf’s-head banner behind Ragnarr. Yes, I own it. And would do again and again. For what did it help Ragnarr to gain Steinn Kráka’s over-hasty oath, only to see him fall away at the one eye’s-blink in which that oath was needed? I shall not fall away, late though I knelt before Ragnarr’s sword. Because, from my friend and good þegn Refil here, I have learnt to keep my tongue and ready bide for the choicest stound.’

Sigurðr hung his head in shame from this scolding, and did not speak again. But Bragi, ever the good-hearted lad, lay a brotherly hand on Sigurðr’s well-fleshed shoulder.

‘As we shall do now,’ he grinned. ‘Guðfriðr Halfdanarson thinks himself almighty with that great here of his. But when we march north and west to fold in with Ragnarr’s flock, we shall be ready biding for the choicest stound – and then we shall strike fit to show the gods just who is fit to rule from Dunholm. For each of us here knows that it is not to be Guðfriðr!’

A mighty hail rose from the men sitting there at Bragi’s speech. Sigurðr could not but crack a smile.

‘Sigurðr,’ Geirr told his húskarl, ‘I have taken your oath, just as Ragnarr took mine. You needn’t fear my troth being loose, just as Ragnarr need not.’

The stout húskarl nodded. Geirr’s men again rose from their rest, but instead of following Barid on this wild hunt across the fells to the west, they followed the fells north and made fast to join their King and lord as he waited in the Skottish marches.

 

[GulMacet]

Whee! Civil strife, unrest and battles - this story truly has it all.