PART ONE
WHEN WORDS NO MORE REMAIN
WHEN TEARS HAVE DRAINED THEIR PAIN
CALLING COMES FROM THE BLADE
Serenely, kelp and seaweed are swaying at the water’s edge. The fragrances waft over the sea and end up captured by a fog bank which has recently rolled in at the outskirts of the bay. Here, in the bay, there is a slow dipping of oars. In almost total silence, a ship’s boat stealthily glides into the deep inlet of Wahlheim.
The steering oar is slippery in Ian Big-Belly’s grasp as he sits at the stern. Like a freshly sharpened sword, the bow cuts through the mirror-like surface, and surely it is the soft hand of the water that caresses the hull.
“Satan,” he hisses. The water’s audible reply from the oar blades dipped in draws a simmer within him. “Who fails to understand? Long, soft strokes, have you already forgotten?”
The journey continues somewhat slower, and the vibrations in the steering oar are so faint the boat could nearly be at a standstill.
“Do you see?” hisses the man standing at the bow, stretching out an arm. “Ian, damn it, keep to larboard.”
“Aye, Thomas you are flailing like a scarecrow.” Ian Big-Belly cannot but smile at his brother.
He turns and looks aft. The other boats, he says within, shaking his head. Dare he hail them?
“Are you with me?” he whispers, maybe too loud, yet not even a tern’s silent wingbeat hovers over the dark surface.
In the wake of his own boat, swirls and bubbles whisper, and his words seem to drown in the milky white. He holds his breath, but not the slightest ripple reveals that his friends are there. With a sigh, he turns in the direction of their heading. What will become of them? he wonders. The only one who knows the way between the shallows and skerries sits in his own boat, the Norseman who betrays his people for silver.
As if from a drowned sailor whose soul has yet to find rest, a voice hovers above the water’s surface, morphing into an answer.
“Aye, proceed.”
Mists dance by, deeper, and deeper into the bay the rowboat cuts its way, and a smile forms on Ian Big-Belly’s lips.
Holmlög has just finished rinsing the nets and pulled his boat up on the beach. The braids in his golden blonde hair bounce against his shoulders, and a section of silvery strings swing against his chest. In one braid, a raven’s feather swings and entangles itself in the beard. He wipes his fist on his leather shirt, fingers the feather loose and gives it a caress before he lifts a basket containing the harvest the sea has given him. Along the jetty and out on the side runs his gaze, and further out on the bay it goes, where the fog, like a white wall, hides the rocky islets and the sunken rocks that he knows so well.
“Not even Raven Cliff is visible,” he says, shrugging his broad shoulders. A pendant, shaped as a Tórr’s hammer and hung on a leather strap around his neck, swings against his chest. “Grandmother,” he says melodiously, “how many ljósalvs do you intend to invite to this dance over the sea before the fog thickens to your liking?
With a grin on his tanned face, his double axe lands upon his shoulder and his basket dangles in his hand.
The ten steps leading to the cleaning block give testimony to the energy that contradicts all the fifty summers he has walked the earth and harvested the sea of its riches.
Two pikes, each the length of an arm, and so many perches that both hands’ fingers fall short to count them all, he lifts from the basket and sets aside.
“Well, now, you tasty pike, we’ll get you in order, right,” he says and bashes the pike on the cleaning block.
His axe, resting against the log, jerks. He spares it a quick glance and draws a knife out of its sheath.
“Fat and juicy you are, just how you’re supposed to be towards the late summer. Njǫrdr! Thank you for all your gifts!”
As he scrapes off the pike’s scales, the scent brings back pleasant memories of past feasts, with wine from the south slope growing, poems and singing, love and cordiality.
Just above the tail fin, he places a swift incision; and then carefully cuts along the stomach — he is not the one to puncture the gallbladder. The seagulls know very well what is about to happen, the message is being squawked across the bay, and the answers echo back from the fog.
The call of the seagulls and the scent of the sea, these he cherishes. The waves beckon, much like a woman enticing with pleasure and promises of adventure.
He recalls the feelings evoked by intense love. Not just once but twice. One meeting more intense than the other. The unexpected one, the overwhelming one ….
“Ragna’s fiery-red hair with the scent of summer flowers,” he says sotto-voce while caressing the pike. “And beneath all that hair, her alluring breasts during lovemaking. Indeed, that is really a memory worth dwelling on. Oh, you should have been there,” he says to the pike, slaps it on its side, making its scales splash all over the cleaning block.
It was on this very beach that it happened — a midsummer night when two became one. The morning sun glistened on her skin as her sweat dripped down on his hairy chest. And then, during the following winter, Ingemar was born.
Holmlög looks up towards the longhouse where his Ragna
is fast asleep beneath their bearskins, in all her loveliness. He thanks Freyja for making Ragna come into his life and for their five children.
“If one were to live two lives, then everything would be much easier. Nornir is spinning threads that I cannot see. Probably, that is how it must be — another meeting in love wherein the intimacy of souls is stronger than anything else. You came, you gave, you filled my soul and …
With a heavy sigh, he turns his face towards the high mountains and the deep forests. There, his gaze remains. Here, his thoughts stay and linger for several heartbeats. Intensely, he blinks away a tear, shakes his head and resumes pulling the skin off the pike.
Two terns are hunting on swift wings in a low flight over the calm surface. Suddenly, one of them darts down and returns with a gleaming catch in its beak.
A few quick throws with the bird’s head and down its throat, the catch glides. Out of the fog a flock of seagulls emerges. Their comrades have squawked the message that there are about to be fish scraps for breakfast.
Just as Holmlög inserts his thumb and index finger to extract the innards from the other pike, a pair of eiders cry out, and he turns around. With their young in tow, they head out to sea, over the headland, sheltering the bay from the east wind.
What’s going on? he says within.
In one fluid motion, he grasps his axe and rises. Men are already in the water, splashes swirling around their legs as they sprint towards him. He steals a quick glance up to the homestead where folk could have been stirring at dawn, yet nay, many are hunting in the mountains, and others lie out in the meadow huts.
More men are making their way through the water.
“Just an old fisherman! Slay him!” a bald man wheezes and points a spear towards Holmlög. “And you’re coming with me!” he shouts
to a man with a spear in one hand, a sword tucked into his belt, and a shield bouncing on his back.
Towards the slope leading up to the homestead, they run.
“Rovers,” Holmlög hisses. “By Tórr and Týr, come to me, my little friends, so that we can dance a merry jig. “Come and play my favourite game!”
The bald one and the man with the shield continue towards the slope, and four rovers take aim for Holmlög.
He stands to his full height, shakes his double-headed axe and his golden blonde curls flutter across his face. Like a torrent, blood rushes through his body, pounding against his forehead. With legs wide apart, he shakes his head, and in front of him, saliva hangs in the air as if froth from a madman.
The seagulls turn silent. For an instant, the world grinds to a halt and holds its breath. With a whistle, his axe splits the air. Four rovers are met by a double axe cleaving its way through the air.
“Daliardi demands his tribute, and the honour to fell ye is mine,” bellows one of the intruders, evading the path of the axe and countering with a thrust of his spear towards the Norseman’s torso. “Thy head upon my spear,” he hisses.
Holmlög spins around, the spearhead passing but a thumb’s width from him and at the same time Holmlög’s axe finds its aim. The man’s head bounces in the sand; his body staggers, then collapses to the ground.
Another man advances, brandishing his sword with intent to pierce. Yet, before the blade can find its mark, the axe seeks out his temple, and like an ox struck down, he crumples to the earth.
With the taste of blood on his tongue, the axe swings in Holmlög’s hands and more intruders run along the beach.
“More pismires, here I am!”
Two robbers remain from his encounter with the initial group of four men. The glances they cast at him testify that it is a wild animal, a bloodthirsty bear, confronting them.
Good, Holmlög says within. Here I come. Move aside. He charges at them. They both stagger backwards. One of them falls. The other stays on his feet and turns towards the fraction running up the hillside.
“Berserk!” he screams.
Halfway up the hillside, the bald man stops. “More are coming!” he cries, pointing towards a group sprinting along the shore.
“You, the bald one on the slope, come hither and frolic with me,” Holmlög roars. “Let the metal sing!”
“Women and gold await the one who arrives first,” the bald one shouts as he continues up the slope, upon which more rovers set their sights on the farmhouses.
“By all blood in Helheim, come to me,” Holmlög groans. Shall he pursue them to the farmstead? Nay, it is better to lure them towards him so that Ragna and Sveidirr might flee. Out to the jetty, it shall be. It spans a width of two strides, stretching straight into the cove. At its furthest end, it reaches a depth of nearly two lengths of a man.
Like a beast poised for the onslaught, a man approaches. Beneath a wolf pelt draped over his back and head, his eyes gleam. Another rover, spear in hand, leaps into the water, after a few strides, it reaches him to the chin.
“What the devil,” he yells out, smashes his spear shaft against the surface, turns back and throws his spear. With a swoosh, it passes by Holmlög, and with a splash, it ends up in the water.
The wolf-furred raider advances, crouching. If Holmlög sees aright, an attempt at a grim smile glistens in the man’s filthy face. Beside his shield-rim, a sword tip juts out, and skulking in his wake, come several men with a hunger for blood in their eyes.
With a gesture of his hand, Holmlög beckons them towards him. Meanwhile, he thinks of Ingemar and Reydia. Instead of hunting wildlife in the forests with the farm folks, they could have been here swinging their metal in combat. In addition, the twin brothers
Arnvind and Oddbjörn would have made the terms more equal with their bows and swords.
Steadily, the axe handle rests in Holmlög’s hands; he holds it with a light yet firm grip, as a smile slowly forms on his face. It is as if a longing to swing the axe has taken hold of him.
“Welcome,” he says, whilst more men make their way towards him. “Excellent, just like that, come and claim your trophy.” He beckons them over, blood dripping from both hands and axe.
– II –
A memory that never was and yet it strikes like Tórr’s hammer
Like a serpent, the longship winds through the waves. Hrafna is the vessel’s name, and Oddbjörn can count as many as sixteen rowing benches along one side. Firmly gripping the steering oar, its vibrations elicit a smile across his lips. His tanned face matches the hand that gently tucks a silver-white strand of hair behind his ear, creating a striking contrast with the rest of his golden-blonde locks.
To the west, at the distance of an arrow shot; two sails trace their silhouettes against the sky. “Spjótr and Ormen,” he murmurs within. “And there, the Draken in my wake. As mighty as ever, with brother Arnvind at the helm. Where else would he be when the wind is favourable, if not at the steering oar?”
But this time he does not catch sight of his twin brother. He turns to face his own course. In the distance, a ship breaks through a wave, plunging into the trough with its bow, sending water spraying over the gunwale.
Oddbjörn shakes his head. A ship should befriend the sea. The waves should be embraced like a loving caress over a woman’s soft cheek. Do not seek to fight the mighty forces of the sea, do not challenge Njǫrdr and his daughters, the waves. Listen to the voices of the sea through the steering oar, see how the light reflects in the sea and the clouds, read the winds and the flight of
birds, and let them all be your companions on the journey across the sea of life.
The two sails of the oncoming ship are as white as the mist on an autumn morning, and atop its aft mast, a black pennant flutters, evoking images of a bird’s wing. At the bow, a woman stands, her hands firmly gripping the railing and her mantle teasingly tugged by playful winds, along with her blue-black hair. She stands lofty, gracefully following the ship’s movements exuding a dominion as if the world were hers. At the same time, there is an aura, a sensuality that captivates his gaze — what is this? He should focus on his task.
The longship Hrafna and the two-masted vessel glide past each other. Towards the stern rises a low building. On each side of the hull is a steering oar. Next to each of them is a man with blue-black skin.
Arnvind — the helmsman of Draken, the elder of the two longships from Wahlheim’s farm — stands at the helm, just as his brother Oddbjörn had imagined. As agile as a doe, Draken glides through the waves. Indeed, she is slender as a swift vessel should be, with a keel that permits her to venture deep into bays and rivers. She slides all the way to the shore, her dragon-adorned head leading the way. Then, if need be, the men swiftly disembark onto the land with weapons in hand, before the gentlest wave can touch the shore.
“Tighten the starboard sail a notch!” Arnvind’s voice rings over the deck, whereupon two men rise to carry out his command.
Wahlheim, he can almost hear the winds whispering the name of the farm where life began. All that is needed is for Njǫrdr to let the wind and sea be in their favour, and then his gaze can rest on his parents’ faces, finally reuniting the family.
The two-masted ship that recently passed Oddbjörn and his Hrafna approaches. Arnvind estimates that the two vessels will meet at a distance of six oar lengths, if not even closer.
He alters course a notch; nothing more is needed. But curiosity does draw him, he must have a closer look at the two-masted ship. By an unexpected force, he is drawn to a figure in the bow whose locks are caught by the wind. Now he sees. It is a woman with lips as red as blood and large, almost luminous eyes in a well-formed face, the most beautiful he has ever beheld. She opens her arms, and the mantle draped over her shoulders comes to life, unfolding like an enormous wing of a black bird, and it is as though she might take flight. But she remains. As beautiful as a ljósalv descended from the crown of Yggdrasil, she stands. Who is she that holds his gaze? There is almost something familiar about her, standing there in a white dress that clings to her body like a second skin. Impossible, such a woman is unforgettable. Her complexion is as pristine as freshly fallen snow, creating a striking contrast against the black trim of her gown. But it’s the eyes; there is something about them.
Her ship rises and falls once more and, from the plunging neckline of her gown, swings forth a golden glistening pendant which form he cannot possibly decipher. The trinket bounces against one breast, twirls, and bounces against the other. It is as if Tórr’s hammer strikes him to the ground. In a dazzling flash, her locks become flames of fire, the pendant becomes a golden rose striking his face as a burst of a woman’s rolling laughter sets his eardrums aflutter, and fiery brown eyes sear into his own. In an unvoiced breath, he sinks onto the deck.
