Fargoer (13 page)

When the dusk set, they finally pulled ashore to a small bay. Styr’s sons ordered their crews to collect firewood. Soon there was plenty and enough, but everything was wet and the fire could not be lit, even with the best of skill. The tired and cold men cursed, when one try after another failed.

“Can’t anyone get a fire going?” yelled Thorleik, annoyed by his men’s misfortune. “I promise twenty silver coins from the bounty to the one who makes a fire now.”

To everyone’s surprise, Vierra got up and answered.

“I can do it, if you let me go to the forest to find suitable wood.”

Thorleik looked surprised. A promise was a promise, nevertheless, and given in front of the whole group.

“Pesky bondwoman, you just try to scheme your way to escape or to bewitch us. Dark you are, and obviously a woodswoman, is it not that this is your homeland, where you were born and grown?” he spoke, trying to take back his promise.

“You should know where I grew, for you have been there. Besides, I, like yourself, have a desire for dry and warmth, and a woman’s success should not bother a chief of your magnitude,” said Vierra, with a hint of concealed ridicule in her voice.

Ambjorn suddenly intervened.

“I will go and guard her, so she can’t go anywhere. And she’s my slave anyway, so if she does, then it’s my loss.”

Both Thorleik and Ambjorn’s wife, Jofrid, looked at him askew. Why would a man protect his slave’s matters? However, as Ambjorn was the leader of the second boat, his word was obeyed immediately.

Vierra stepped into the dark forest with Ambjorn following closely behind. Thorleik had guessed wrong as these were not her homelands. But even if her native forests soughed much further to the north than this, the forest here talked in a language very familiar to her. It’s damp, cool feel woke up memories and feelings, feelings which endless labor and cruelty during her years of slavery had put out. She breathed the forest deep inside her, and its strength straightened her stooped posture.

“What do you intend to do,” Ambjorn asked when they walked further into the darkening forest. “You cannot lead me astray here.”

“I’m trying to get to warm myself, like I told you.” There was a trifle of the old willpower that she used to have.

After searching for a while, Vierra finally found a dry, resinous stump of a pine on higher ground, which was partly under the surface. No rainwater pooled here as it flowed easily to lower grounds. Vikings were able woodsmen, but they lived in houses and cultivated the ground. Vierra’s people had lived in forests since ancient times, and in their life, failure to make a fire equaled death. Ambjorn and Vierra went to work, and it wasn’t long before axes had broken off large pieces of the stump.

When they were already preparing to go back, Ambjorn suddenly grabbed the woman by the waist and pulled her against himself. His hands were trembling from the surge of emotion he had been holding inside. Vierra did not answer the gesture. Ambjorn pushed the woman away from him, and she fell down onto a tussock.

“All of you are the same, cold as the winter’s breath.”

This kind of behavior was not uncommon to Vierra. Even though she had been Ambjorn’s slave for just a while, he had already done this countless times. And as many times she had turned him down.

“Why don’t you take what you want by force,” Vierra snapped. “That’s what the other men of your tribe do.”

Ambjorn looked surprised, because Vierra had never before answered his approaches in any way. She had been like a dead fish in his large hands.

“I do not take love by force.”

“You had maids and slaves. Why didn’t you take them with you instead of me?”

Ambjorn thought for a moment.

“Nobody has the same kind of fire that you do. I know it burns inside you, even if you don’t show it to anyone else. Why won’t you give it to me? I have treated you well, better than anyone else. Do I not deserve your love? You have bewitched me.”

Vierra tried to find signs of deceit from the man’s eyes, or a glimpse that would tell something words never could. If Ambjorn remembered what had happened between them in the house amid the woods, he had kept it in. Something moved inside Vierra, something she had thought dead forever, but right there in the forest started to slowly come back to life. Ambjorn was an exceptional man, and Vierra understood she could never find better in this cold and hostile world. She got up from the wet moss.

“Then come with me. Grab my hand and I will take you to the forest. Let’s leave everything else and go back to my tribe’s lands. There I will share with you the joys and sorrows of my hut.”

Ambjorn didn’t answer for a long time.

“I cannot, I have my responsibility for my men. And for my wife’s and brother’s honor.” He indicated for the woman to go back.

Vierra was surprised to find herself feeling disappointed.

Finally the wood cutters returned to camp and Vierra started to light the fire carefully. A spark that she had struck was alive, and she fed it with small chips of the pine stump. For a moment she thought, as if hesitating, but then started to sing birth of fire with a clear voice, like she had once done when among her own tribe.

Oh you seagull, bird of birds
Strengthen our pyre
Termes mighty, lord of heavens
Bring to us your fire

Give me now the brand of yellow
Spark of highest heat
Warmth to lonely forest dweller
Flame of life unsheathe

That was the first song that came off her lips after her son had died. As if sensing this shackled power, the flames started to blaze and rapidly grow. The Vikings backed off from the singing woman, and looked at her nervously.

“The slave hag will witch us all. I think I will kill her,” Thorleik stated.

“Let it go and watch, the fire burns already,” said Ambjorn, grasping his brother’s hand and stopping it from reaching for a sword.

The rain ceased and the night fell over, shrouding them and their small fires in darkness. Warmth, ceasing of rain, beer and food heightened the group’s spirits and soon the merry voices of chattering men echoed in the forest. They feared nothing, because the woods looked unsettled, and two longboats full of men were a tough adversary to any warband that this land had to offer. After eating, the men went to sleep and only the ones left to guard stared at the crackling fire and talked quietly. The boat leaders were conferring about the upcoming day.

“Do we reach the treasure tomorrow,” asked Ambjorn.

“Only a half-day of rowing left,” replied Thorleik. The glow of the fire made his scarred face look even more hideous. “Why does that wench slave of yours give me the bad eye? How much does it cost if I strike her dead? She brings me bad luck and women should not be present on this kind of journey at all,” he said with indignation in his voice.

Ambjorn considered his words for a moment.

“You very well know why the women are with us. And when it comes to Vierra I hope that you won’t carry out your threat. She was the one that made these fires, after all,” defended Ambjorn.

“I remember your story. The story of a darkening sun, of combat and of a longhouse in the center of a cursed forest. And that woman then saved you from there... a woman.” Thorleik did not hide the mockery in his voice. Finally he snorted: “It is useless to dwell on this. I will keep my sword sheathed for now. And you, brother, keep your slave in order and hope that your weakness does not drive us all to ruin, like it has driven you.”

Ambjorn’s eyes flashed with anger. Fighting between them was not in question, however. They were leaders of their crews and on a joint quest. So they also lied down, tired of the day’s burdens.

Ambjorn went to his wife’s side on the hides, and she looked at her husband with bright eyes in the lively gleam of the fire.

“Wouldn’t it be best for all if we sank Vierra in the sea or, maybe left her here?” asked Jofrid from her husband. “Men say women bring bad luck when searching for silver, so wouldn’t it bring half the luck back if one of the two women was gone?”

“I will kill nobody for a scant reason, especially anyone who has saved my life,” Ambjorn snapped for an answer. “It would bring twice the bad luck. Besides, if we find the treasure our father buried, we’ll need good slaves to rebuild our village.”

“Silver will buy slaves more obedient than Vierra,” answered Jofrid.

Ambjorn didn’t answer and they both fell silent and slept till the morning.

The guardians

The morning came, clear and cold. Wind had driven the clouds away and the sun rose starting its daily passage on the blue sky. The men shivered and did their morning errands briskly, to repel the numbness from their limbs. The boats were soon ready to go and everyone was eager to get their hands on the treasure. The rising sun and rowing drove away the last of the cold from the men, and the air was filled with joyous hum of voices.

The rising sun was followed by a rather mellow wind from the southwest, given the time of the year, and the boats hauled their sails, which immediately bulged promising fast and easy travel. The air warmed and the journey north progressed rapidly. The uninhabited shores were forested, but here and there were sandy dunes with pines and low, sandy beaches, glowing golden in the sun. The terrain was even, like cut straight with an enormous knife, and where the trees did not obstruct the view they could see far inland.

“Are these regions familiar to you?” asked Ambjorn from Vierra. He had walked to the aft of the boat, where the women sat silent. Ambjorn evaded the woman’s gaze and kept his eyes on the waves which gathered foam to the boat’s stern.

“Our people sometimes come south, to catch salmon and otter. The hunters luck has been always good, because nobody lives here. Old ones always warn about Termes’ folk, the ones who guard these shores. They say people lived here once; people who came from the south and built houses and cleared land to grow their hay. The Termes’ men drove them away and killed the ones who were not fast enough. They did not leave two stones side by side, or two logs together,” Vierra said, remembering the stories the old hags had told her.

“This is where we will drive ashore, in any case. Thorleik said he had buried the treasure somewhere here with our father, a mile or more away from the shore.”

“Then stay alert, or I will be left without a master again,” Vierra whittled back. The closer she got to her homeland, the more the old Vierra came out, the one that had not been subdued by years of slavery. She looked at the man’s eyes in a way totally unsuitable for a slave.

Jofrid listened to the talk from beside them, but could no longer contain herself. She slapped Vierra to the face with the palm of her hand and yelled.

“You forget your place and rank, slave. We are not in your fathers’ skin huts. Do not forget it.”

A fire, long thought extinguished, started to smolder in Vierra’s eyes.

“Hit again, go ahead. Your strikes will not dispirit me, unless you kill me. The time will come when I will hold an arrow on my bowstring and look into your eyes. Then we’ll see how Olaf’s daughter meets her maker.”

“Ambjorn, are you going to let a slave talk to me like that and stain my honor? She has to be killed before she bewitches us all.”

And Jofrid struck again, and a third time. As if all the anger pent up inside her was released, Jofrid continued to rain blows down on Vierra. The blows smarted, but Vierra didn’t let it show on her face. She had been struck hundreds of times during her slavery. Those blows had been useless, because one who had been born amidst the backwoods spruce shadows, and no longer cared whether she lived or died, could not be subdued with fear or violence. Many scars they had left on her body, but her spirit had been hollow and heartless, impossible to influence. Now, after many years, the blows had gained an effect again, but it was not one Jofrid had hoped for. With every blow, the old, independent Vierra grew inside the slavery-numbed woman, until finally Ambjorn grabbed her wife’s arm, ending the punishment. It was at the last moment, as Vierra’s bearing told that it would have soon turned into a battle.

“Enough! Vierra I shall not kill, as I owe her my life. If you want her dead, it will be up to a gathering’s decision after we have returned. Either that or you will have to duel with her yourself. I will take no part in this matter before then. Slaves beat half-dead are not useful, when the time to carry silver to the boat comes.”

“You and your honor, how about mine, or ours? Maybe I will take other things to the gathering as well and return to my father’s house.” Jofrid huffed rage in her gaze, but quieted down and sat to sulk on the rear of the boat.

The men in the boat were silent. Their luck didn’t seem to be about to take a turn for the better, no matter what. First a strange group of men had burned down their village, and now they were in this unknown land, on a journey led by Thorleik. Not one of them liked him, as he mocked them at every occasion, and called them earthdiggers and dwellers of the dry ground. Indeed they also feared him, and for a good reason. He had a fierce reputation and strong men with him.

Finally Thorleik stopped the boats, as they entered a bay, and ordered them to be steered to the shore. The bay had a sandy beach, but the water was deep and looked as if a boat haven shaped by nature. Midway along the beach were the remains of two longboats. The wooden boats had been mercilessly destroyed, even the sails had been torn to shreds. The men pulled their own boats to the shore, and Ambjorn detached the dragon’s head from the bow. Thorleik did not, and announced immediately that he was afraid of neither local nor foreign spirits. The sandy beach ended in a few dozen meters, like being cut out with a knife. From there started a plain, filled with rocks of different sizes. The rocky ground stretched inland for a third of a mile and followed with the shore on both directions, at least for few miles.