The Long Hunt (The Strongbow Saga) (6 page)

Ignoring Gudfred's and Hroald's remarks, Torvald leaned over, placing his head close to Hastein's ear, and spoke in a whisper that unfortunately was loud enough for all nearby to hear. "Hastein, we cannot just sail away with these men! We do not know their mettle. They are untested. They do not know our ways, nor we theirs. We expect to have to fight, if we pursue this hunt for Toke."

Gudfred bristled, and spoke angrily to Torvald. "Do not disdain us because we do not serve a great jarl, as you do. Do not think, because we cut hay with scythes tomorrow, that we cannot also harvest men with different blades. Hrorik, our chieftain, was no bench warmer. We raided with him every summer. We are all experienced warriors."

"I do not doubt it," Hastein told him, speaking quickly before Torvald could respond. "Hrorik Strong-Axe was a doughty warrior, and as you say, you all have sailed and fought with him. I have no doubt that you have courage, and can wield the tools of war. But there is some truth in what Torvald has said. In battle, in a shield wall, we must all fight as one. We should train together, at least briefly. If you would sail with us, on our ships, you must learn our ways."

He sighed. I thought it a restrained response. It was all I could do not to groan aloud.

"And the hay?" Hroald asked. Ivar sniggered.

"Ah, yes…the hay. How many days will it take to bring it in?" Hastein asked Gudfred and Hroald.

Gudfred glanced over at Hroald, who shrugged his shoulders, and said, "Ours is all cut, and has been drying. If the morrow is warm and sunny, our hay might be dry enough to gather by evening. If clouds hide the sun, maybe two more days to dry. But if it rains.…" He shrugged his shoulders again.

"And you?" Hastein asked Gudfred.

"That we've already cut has been drying for several days now. It can be brought in tomorrow. Cutting the rest, then drying it and bringing it in?" I felt my heart sink. He, too, shrugged his shoulders, as Hroald had done. There seemed to be much of that these days. "It would go faster with help," he suggested.

Ivar snorted. "When did you last cut hay, Hastein? Or have you ever?"

Hastein ignored him. To Gudfred and Hroald, he said, "You will cut your hay, and gather it, and we will help you. And we will train together, also. We must do all of these things as quickly as we can. Toke's trail grows colder every day that we delay our departure."

*  *  *

The following morning Ivar and Bjorn sailed. Before they departed, Ivar pulled Hastein aside. They obviously did not realize that I was near enough to hear their words. "You should come with us," Ivar said. "Give up this folly. This is not your fight. You do not owe Halfdan anything. He was nothing when you met. He was just an untested boy, and a former slave, besides. It is enough that you gave him the chance you did, that you took him into your crew. It is he who owes you a debt, not otherwise. And this Toke is dangerous. It would be unwise, and would put yourself and the rest of your men at risk unnecessarily, to pursue him with a ship full of farmers as your war-band and crew."

"If there is a debt between Halfdan and me, it runs both ways," Hastein replied. "In the battle with the Franks and Bretons, our line was breaking. Had it failed, many who are alive this day would have died. I might well have been among them."

"But our line did not fail," Ivar said.

"Had Halfdan not been there—had he not rallied the archers…" Hastein countered. "There, and at Ruda, too, he saved my life. The Norns have woven our fates together. I do not understand it, but I believe it is so."

*   *  *

It was a day for partings. Later that morning Svein sailed, taking with him on the
Sea Wolf
those of Hastein's followers who were not continuing on. "Fare-well," Svein told Hastein, clasping wrists with him before he turned to board his ship. "May you find Toke quickly, and finish this thing before winter settles on the land and sea. I will hope that we celebrate the Jul feast together."

The ship from the village up on the Limfjord departed, too. To my surprise, Hrodgar did not leave on it.

"I had a dream last night," he told Hastein. "My wife, Brynhil, came to me during the night. She was a good woman, and a good wife. She has been dead for ten years, now.

"She told me that great danger lies to the east. She said that many who sail with you on this voyage will not return, and if I sail with you on it, I will be among those who do not."

Hrodgar's words caused a shiver to run up my spine. Though living men cannot see into the future, the eyes of the dead are not so blinded.

Hastein looked troubled, too. "This is not a good omen," he said. "Sometimes a dream is just a dream, but when the dead appear and speak to you, when they bring a message from the other side.…"

"Do you believe it was truly the spirit of your wife?" Torvald, who was standing nearby, asked. "Perhaps you just drank too much ale last night."

Hrodgar shook his head at Torvald's suggestion. "It was her," he answered. "She was wearing the same dress, the same brooches and necklace, that we dressed her in before burning her body."

"Then why do you choose to come with us?" Torvald asked. I was wondering the same thing.

"She also told me that I am an old man now, and I shouldn't pretend that I am not. She said I am too old for long sea voyages, and should stay at home, in the village where I belong, and let our daughter care for me in my old age." He snorted. "Although a good wife, she was always a nag. I was not too old to sail with the fleet to Frankia, and blood my spear there."

"But what if she spoke the truth?" I asked. I did not think that messages from the dead should be disregarded lightly.

Hrodgar shrugged. "You are too young to understand. She is right. I
am
an old man. I feel age-worn and weary. I no longer have the strength in me that I had when I was young, or even five years ago. One way or another, I shall die, for no one lives forever. But I would rather my life end while I still have the strength to hold a sword in my hand, than to finish my days sick and weak in bed from a fever—or even worse, to suffer the slow, wasting rotting that befalls those who do not have the good sense to know when it is time to die. And besides," he added. "Killing Toke is a thing that needs doing, and I wish to be a part of it."

Hrodgar said his wife had told him that many would not return from our pursuit of Toke. I wondered if she'd named to him any of the others who were fated to die. What if she'd named my comrade Einar, or Torvald, or Hastein? What if she'd named me? I almost asked him, but then decided I would rather not know.

*   *   *

Gudfred and the other men of the household, carls and thralls, had headed out to the fields early that morning. The departures, the exchange of fare-wells among comrades who were parting ways, were not their concern. The hay—the cutting, the spreading, and the drying—was. After the partings were spoken and the ships had sailed, I headed out to the fields to join them. The sooner the hay was harvested, the sooner our pursuit of Toke could begin.

The long rows of hay which had previously been cut, though still a faded green in color, had dried enough to be gathered and hauled to the byre for storage. Thralls using wooden rakes were rolling up each row from either end into two loose stacks at the row's center. As each row was completed, Fasti led a large two-wheeled cart, drawn by a single ox, to the stacked hay, and the thralls heaved it aboard with their rakes.

Beyond, a row of carls was advancing slowly through the unmowed portion of the field, swinging long-handled scythes. The slow, steady rhythm of their movements—swing, step, swing, step—and the
chuff, chuff
of the long blades slicing through the tall grass called a memory of my brother Harald to my mind.

Harald had never cared for the work of the estate—the growing and harvesting of the crops and beasts necessary to feed the folk who lived here. While Hrorik was alive, he'd had to assist, for Hrorik did not tolerate sloth. Could Harald have had his way, however, he would have devoted his life entirely to fighting and raiding, and in between to training to perfect his fighting skills. I think he had welcomed the need to train me in no small part because it gave him a reason to ignore the labors of farming.

The one exception was scything hay. "There is a skill to using a scythe, Halfdan," he'd told me one day, when trying to explain how my use of a sword was still lacking. "You do not just chop at the hay. You do not just hack it. The edge of the blade should slide across the grass, and slice through it. It is the same with a sword. Draw the blade across what you are striking as you swing through. You should slice, not hack. Your blade will cause a far deeper wound, with less effort, if you learn how to do this."

At the time, I had not found his comparison between scything and sword-work helpful. He'd forgotten that slaves were not allowed to use the big, sharp blades. Carls cut the hay; thralls followed behind with wooden rakes and spread it into neat rows for drying.

When I reached the field I found some extra tools lying in a pile at the edge, waiting for more workers to arrive and use them. I would have liked to have tried my hand with a scythe this day, but there were no scythes among them, only rakes. I took one and headed out into the field.

The scythers were moving across the field in a staggered line, each man far enough behind the one to his right so he could safely swing his long, cutting stroke to overlap the edge of the swath cut by the man ahead. Einar, who had come to assist in the harvest, was the fourth man over. He appeared to be the only worker who was not from the estate. None of Hastein's men had come out to assist.

Thralls trailed behind several of the scythers, pulling the cut hay into neat rows with their rakes. I recognized Ing behind the man cutting to Einar's right, and beside him, Hrut. For now, no one followed Einar. I suppose I will be Einar's thrall this day, I thought, and I began raking the irregular trail of hay he had cut. This was not the homecoming I had dreamed of.

I had been working for some time, raking the scattered, cut hay into a neater row for drying, when the carl mowing to Einar's right happened to glance back and saw me. He laid his scythe down and walked back to where I stood.

"Do you remember me?" he asked. I did remember him, though not his name. He had light brown hair, cut off so it hung just below his shoulders, and a beard which he kept trimmed and shaped to a sharp point. He was not as tall as Harald had been, but had a stockier, more heavily muscled build. He had been one of the carls Harald had recruited to help when he'd trained me to fight in formation, in a shield-wall.

"My name is Floki," he continued, when I gave no answer. "My brother, Baug"—when he spoke the name, he nodded his head back toward the carl scything to the right of where he had been—"and I were close comrades of Harald's."

I remembered that now, after he said it. The two of them, more so than any of the other carls on the estate, had been Harald's drinking companions in the evenings.

"Gudfred has told us, of course, that it was Toke and his men, not bandits, who killed Harald, up on the Limfjord," Floki said. "Had we known, Toke would be dead now. We plan to avenge Harald, and the others—Rolf, Ulf, Odd, and Lodver—too. They were all good men, and our comrades.

"But Baug and I have been talking, and thinking, about this tale you told Gudfred. About Toke's attack. And there is one thing we do not understand. How is it that everyone else—Harald, Rolf and the others, and even all of the folk of the estate up there—was killed, but you survived? Harald was the finest swordsman I have ever known, and Ulf a very skilled and experienced warrior. Yet they were killed, and you escaped unharmed. How did that happen?"

Floki's words took me by surprise. I had not expected them, nor the tone of his voice, or the scorn visible in his eyes. I could feel my face getting hot and flushed, and my feelings swirled in a confused mix of anger and shame, as I realized Floki believed—and was all but accusing me to my face—that I was a coward.

All but. And then, when I said nothing, he did.

"Did you run from the fight?" he asked, sneering. "Did you flee, and leave the others behind to die?"

Had this been Frankia, had this been a member of our army there, and I the warrior Strongbow, I would have killed Floki for his insult, or died trying. But this was my home, or so I had considered it. Here I was just Halfdan, not Strongbow. I had believed this man was one of my people, and I one of his.

Many moments passed in silence, as I struggled to gain control of my emotions while Floki stared at me with a disdainful expression. Finally, I answered, speaking in a low voice.

"Yes, I did run. In the end, we all did—all who were left alive. We beat back their first attack, giving better than we got. But we did not realize, in the confusion and dark, that those who'd surrounded the longhouse were Toke and his men. Harald thought they were the kinfolk of a man he'd killed in a duel, up on the Limfjord. In the lull after the first attack, he bargained with the attackers, seeking safe passage for the women, children, and thralls before the fighting resumed. The leader of the attackers—Toke, who was hiding his features and muffling his voice with a cloak—gave Harald his word that they could leave safely. As soon as they were clear of the longhouse and far enough away that they could not make it back to its safety, Toke and his men slaughtered them, in full view as we watched, helpless to intervene. Or so Toke thought. I did manage to hit him with an arrow, though it was only a superficial wound."

Floki's eyebrows rose at that. I suppose it did not fit well with what he'd believed had occurred.

I continued. "After that, Toke and his men set fire to the longhouse, and we were forced to flee into the open. We tried to stay together at first, using some of the beasts from the longhouse byre as shields from the missile fire Toke's men were raining down upon us, but we did not make it far before the beasts were all slain.

"Our only chance of survival was to reach the shelter of the woods. But it was at best the slimmest of hopes, for we were greatly outnumbered and surrounded. So yes, we ran from the fight, in the end. We all ran. Harald told me, as we made that last attempt to escape, that when he gave me the word, I must go, and leave him and the others behind. He died cutting a path clear for me to escape. I will never forget his words that night. ‘Someone must survive to avenge us,' he told me. ‘If you reach the forest, they will never take you. None can match you there. You must do this thing for me. For all of us. Survive and avenge us.' I did survive, and I will avenge Harald."