Odinn's Child (26 page)

'The greater pattern cannot be altered,' Thraud emphasised to me. 'Even the Gods themselves know that they must inevitably face Ragnarok and the destruction of the world. With all their power they can only delay that fatal time, not avoid it. How much less can we, mere mortals, alter the web that the Norns have spun for us or the marks they have cut in the timber of our lives.'

Thrand was a firm believer in divination. If fate was set, then it could be revealed by skilled interpretation. He owned a casting set of rune blocks, carved from whalebone and yellow with age. He would spread out a white sheet and throw the blocks on the sheet like dice, then puzzle over the way the symbols fell, reading the message in their random patterns and then explaining their symbolism to me. Often the message was obscure, even more frequently it was contradictory. But that, as he explained to me, was in the nature of the runes themselves. Each owned two meanings, at the very least, and these meanings were opposites; whether they occurred in light or dark conjunctions determined which was the correct sense. I found it all very confusing, though I managed to grasp most of the basic principles.

Galdrastafir, the rune spells, were more straightforward and reminded me of the smith's galdr that Tyrkir had taught me. Thrand would take practice pieces of timber and show me how to carve correctly the sequence of runes, dividing my lessons into categories: mind runes for bringing knowledge, sea runes for safe journeys, limb runes for healing, speech runes to fend off revenge, the helping runes for childbirth. 'Don't be surprised if they are ineffective sometimes,' he warned me. 'Odinn himself only learned eighteen rune spells when he was hanging on Yggdrasil, and we are presumptuous to think that we can achieve more.' The accuracy of cutting was not all, he stressed. Every stave had its own spoken formula, which I had to recite as I made the mark, and Thrand made me repeat the formula until I was word-perfect. 'Speak the words right,' said Thrand, 'and you will not have to resort to such tricks as rubbing the marks with your own blood to make the spell more potent. Leave such devices to those who are more interested in doing harm with the rune spells, not achieving good.'

Thrand also had a warning. 'If galdrastafir is done badly, it is likely to have the reverse effect from what was intended. That

arises from the double and opposing nature of the runes, the dual nature of Odinn's gift. Thus a healing rune meant to help cure an invalid will actually damage their health if incorrectly cut.'

Thrand, who was by nature an optimist, refused to teach me any curse runes. And, as a precaution, he insisted that at the end of every lesson we put all the practice rune staves into the fire and burn them to ashes, lest they fell into malevolent hands. On these occasions, as we watched the flames consume the wood, I noticed how Thrand stayed beside the dying fire, gazing into the embers. I had the impression that he was far away in his thoughts, in some foreign country, though he never talked about his past.

THIRTEEN

A
HORSE FIGHT
marked the end of my stay with Thrand. The match between the two stallions had been eagerly awaited in the district for several months, and Thrand and I went to see the spectacle. The fight, or hestavig, was held on neutral ground for the two stallions. To encourage them, a small herd of mares was penned in the paddock immediately next to the patch of bare ground where the two stallions would fight. Naturally a small crowd had gathered to place bets on the outcome. When we arrived, the owners of the stallions were standing facing each other, holding the halters. Both animals were already in a lather, squealing and lunging and rearing to get at one another. A visiting farmer — he had probably backed the animal to win — had boldly walked behind one of the stallions and was poking at his testicles with a short stick to enrage the animal still further, which led Thrand to comment to me, 'He wouldn't be doing that if he knew his lore. He could be making an enemy of Loki and that will bring bad fortune.' I didn't know whether Thrand was referring to the story in which the trickster God Loki changed himself into a mare to seduce a malignant giant in the shape of a huge stallion, or the comic scene in Valholl when Loki is given the task of amusing the visiting giantess Skadi. Loki strips off, then ties one end of a rope round the beard of a billy goat, and the other end round his testicles, and the pair tug one another back and forth across the hall, each squealing loudly until the normally morose giantess bursts into laughter.

There was a sudden shout from the crowd as the two stallions were given slack and immediately sprang forward to attack one another, teeth bared and snorting with aggression. Their squeals of anger rose to a frenzy as they clashed, rising up on their hind legs to lash out with their hooves, or twisting round with gaping jaws to try to inflict a crippling neck bite. When all eyes were on the contest, I felt a discreet tug on my sleeve and turned to see a soberly dressed man I did not recognise. He nodded for me to follow him, and we walked a short distance to one side of the crowd, which was cheering as the two stallions began to draw blood. "Kari sent me with a message,' said the unknown visitor. 'He plans to go to Orkney, and has arranged to board a ship leaving from Eyrar two weeks from today. He says that if you want, you can travel with him. If you do decide to make the journey, you are to find your way to Eyrar and ask for the ship of Kolbein the Black. He's an Orkney man himself and an old friend of Kari's.'

I had heard nothing from Kari since the day at the Althing when he had refused to accept the godi's proposed settlement with the Burners. But plenty of rumours had reached me. It seemed that, as soon as the Althing ended, Kari launched himself on a personal and deadly campaign of revenge. He intercepted a party of Burners and their friends as they rode home from the Althing and challenged them to fight. They took on the challenge because Kari had only a single companion, a man named Thorgeir, and the Burners were eight in number. But Kari and Thorgeir had fought so skilfully that three of the Burners were killed and the remainder fled in panic. The leader of the Burners, Flosi, again offered to settle the blood feud and pay a heavy compensation for Burned Njal's death. But Kari was not to be placated. He persuaded his colleague Thorgeir to accept the settlement, saying that Thorgeir was not directly concerned in the blood feud, but that he, Kari, was a long way from settling the debt of honour that he owed to his dead family.

Kari was now outside the law and every man's hand was against him, but he refused to give up his campaign of retribution. Driven by the Norse sense of honour I mentioned earlier, he skulked in hiding for months, either living on the moors or staying with friendly farmers. He found another comrade-in-arms in a smallholder named Bjorn the White, a most unlikely associate as Bjorn was known as a braggart who boasted much and did little. Indeed, Bjorn's reputation was so low that even his wife did not think he had the courage for a stand-up fight. But Kari was a natural leader and he inspired Bjorn to excel. The two men ranged the island, tracking down the Burners and confronting them. Each time the combination of Kari and Bjorn won the day. Bjorn guarded Kari's back while the expert dueller tackled the Burners. By now fifteen of the original gang of Burners had been killed, and the rest had decided that it was wiser to begin their own period of exile and leave Iceland rather than be hunted down by Kari. In late summer the last of the Burners had departed from Iceland, intending to sail to Norway, and nothing more had been heard from them. Now, I guessed, Kari was planning to begin his own period of exile.

I told Thrand of Kari's message as soon as we got back to Thrand's cabin. My mentor's response was unhesitating. 'Of course you have to go with Kari,' he said decisively. 'There is a bond between you. Kari has kept in mind his promise he made to you at the Althing. With this offer of a passage to Orkney, he is honouring his pledge. In turn, you should acknowledge his nobility of spirit, accept his offer and go with him.' Then he made a remark which showed how — all this time — he had been aware of what was troubling me. 'If there is to be a final lesson which I want you to take away with you, let it be this: show and maintain personal integrity towards any man or woman who displays a similar faith and trust in you and you will find that you are never truly on your own.'

K
OLBEIN THE
B
LACK
sailed south from Eyrar at the end of November. It was late in the year to be making the voyage, but we had weather luck and the trip was uneventful. En route to Orkney Kari asked if we could stop at the Fair Isle, which lies between Orkney and Shetland, as he wanted to visit another of his friends, David the White, whom he had known from the days when both men were in the service of Earl Sigurd of Orkney. It was while we were staying at Fair Isle that a fisherman brought news that the Burners were nearby on Mainland, as the chief island in Orkney is called. The Burners had sailed from Iceland two weeks before us, but where we had good weather the Burners had encountered a heavy gale. Driven off course, their vessel was wrecked on the rocks of Mainland in poor visibility and they only just managed to scramble ashore. The mishap put Flosi and his colleagues in a real predicament. One of their victims at the Burning, Helgi Njalsson, was formerly a member of Earl Sigurd's retinue. There was every chance that if they were caught by the earl's people, the earl would put them to death for murdering one of his sworn men. The worried Burners spent a very uncomfortable day on the seashore, hiding in rocky clefts, camouflaging themselves under blankets of moss and seaweed, before Flosi decided that they had no choice but to walk across the island to Earl Sigurd's great hall, present themselves before the ruler of Orkney and throw themselves on his mercy.

Earl Sigurd knew at once who they were when the Burners arrived. Most of the Norse world was talking of the Burning of Njal. The earl was renowned for his violent temper and, as the Burners had feared, his initial reaction was to fly into a rage and order the visitors to be arrested. But Flosi courageously spoke up, admitting his guilt for Helgi Njalsson's death. Then, invoking an old Norse tradition, he offered to serve in Helgi's place in the earl's retinue. After some grumbling, Earl Sigurd agreed. The Burners had then pledged obedience to the earl and now were under his protection.

'Sigurd the Stout', as he was popularly known, was a pagan Norseman of the old school and proud of it. He always attracted fighting men. It was said that his two favourite seasons of the year were spring and autumn because at the first sign of spring he would launch his warships and go raiding his neighbours. He then came home for the summer to gather the harvest, and as soon as that was done he promptly put to sea again for a second round of viking. His most celebrated possession was the battle banner that his mother, a celebrated volva, had stitched for him. Its insignia was Odinn's emblem, the black raven. It was claimed that whoever flew the banner in battle would be victorious. However, in keeping with Odinn's perverse character, the person who carried the banner in battle would die while winning the victory. Given this warning, it was hardly surprising, that only the most loyal of Earl Sigurd's retainers was prepared to be his standard-bearer.

This was the man, then, in whose long hall at Birsay my mother had conducted her affair with my father Leif the Lucky, and the woman who had stitched the raven banner was my mother's confidante, Eithne the earl mother. According to the fisherman who brought us the news about the Burners, the earl mother was well advanced in years but still very much alive.

Kari decided that the most prudent time for us to cross to Mainland and arrive at Sigurd's great hall was during the Jol festival, when there should be several days of feasting and oath-taking. Sigurd still followed the old-fashioned tradition of having a large boar — an animal sacred to the fertility God Frey — led down his great hall so that the assembled company could lay hands on the bristly animal and swear their solemn oaths for the coming year. Then that evening the oath boar would be served up roast at a great banquet, at which the earl displayed his bounty by distributing vast quantities of mead and beer for his retainers and guests. For Sigurd the festival was a proper celebration in honour of Jolnir, another of Odinn's names, but he had no objection if the Christians chose to combine the earthy celebration of Jol with one of their holy days, provided they did not interfere with the priorities of eating, drinking, story-telling and carousing. Indeed, it occurred to me that it might have been under similar circumstances, fifteen years earlier, that I was conceived.

Kolbein's boat had a favourable tide under her and carried us across the strait between Fair Isle and Mainland in less than ten hours. Kolbein knew of a quiet sandy beach for our landing place, and he, Kari and I went ashore in the boat's tender, leaving a few men aboard at anchor watch. It was less than a half-hour walk over the rolling sand dunes to reach the earl's long hall, and there was still enough daylight left for me to have my first glimpse of an earl's residence. After hearing so much about the wealth and power of an earl, for which there is no equivalent rank in Iceland, I was frankly rather disappointed. I had expected to see a grand building, something with towers and turrets and stone walls. What I saw was nothing more than an enlarged version of the longhouses that I already knew from Iceland to Vinland. The only difference was that Earl Sigurd's long hall was considerably bigger. In fact it was almost three times larger than the largest home I had yet seen, with side walls that were over four feet thick. But the rest of it, the stone and turf walls, the wooden supports and the grassy roof, were identical to the domestic structures I had known all my life. The interior of this huge building was just as gloomy, smoky and poorly illuminated as its more humble cousins, so Kari, Kolbein and I were able to slip quietly in through the main doors without being noticed in the crowd of guests. We took up our positions just a few paces inside. There we could see down the length of the great hall, yet we were far enough from the central hearth, where Sigurd, his entourage and chief guests were seated. In the half-light and surrounded by a jostle of visitors, there was little chance that Kari would be recognised.