Paths of the Norseman, page 4
part #2 of The Norseman Chronicles Series
In a single movement her tunic and dress fell to her bare feet, revealing her sumptuous, naked body. Her breasts remained round and firm despite her years, because a child never suckled on them. I looked away only briefly to see that the brooches for which I paid most of my wealth before exile, had clanged to the ground. Without a word, she reached down and pulled my blanket back and climbed under it with me. I could feel the heat of her body, the warmth of her breast against my arm. She moved my long hair that covered my ear and began gnawing on its battle scars. At last Freydis thought fit to answer my question, “I want a real man inside me with the seed of a mighty warrior to give me offspring. I want the father of my child to be a man who has done more than raise goats and fill me with weak seed.” She immediately returned her lips and teeth to my ear while her hand plunged between my legs and my growing manhood. I rolled to face her and kissed her hard on the mouth and put my own hand on her magnificent breasts, squeezing harder than I ought.
Then I pushed away from her and climbed to my feet. With efficiency of movement I fastened my belt and swords to my waist, retrieved my bow from a corner, and grabbed my own musk ox coat, adding Erik’s coat on top for good measure against the cold. I did not look back to see the reaction on Freydis’ face. Instead, I unlatched the door in the gable end of the house and slammed it behind which caused a dog near the exit to growl and no doubt roll over upon a slumbering child. I marched into the frigid, moon-filled night to what end I did not know.
. . .
If I could have left Greenland that night, I would have. I would have left without revenge just to run away from reminders and pain and anger. All the frustrations of my life were embodied in Freydis’ naked, lonely form under my blanket in the hall. I was resigned to never love again after losing Kenna. To be clear I wanted to rut with Freydis out of lust, but still felt loyalty to my late wife. I had loved her so. Happiness in my adult life was so fleeting. It came in waves. But like waves, it quickly spent its energy, bouncing over the pebbles of the shore, and slipped back to the sea only to be replaced by the dreariness of existence.
There were some times I didn’t view life as a matter of base survival. Of course, meeting and sharing a short life with Kenna was one. Serving Olaf, raiding, sailing all seemed fulfilling while I was in their midst, but now I felt empty. But for the first time in my life, I refused Freydis and the temporary pleasures she gave. Of that much, perhaps I could be proud.
Dreary or not, I stood outside with the dancing northern lights partially obscured by the shining moon. Since my true father told me those lights were the resting place for dead, unmarried women, I had at one time wondered if Freydis would ever be found there. Now I knew she would not be, of course, married as she was to the dull-witted Torvard. I wondered if my mother, whom I never knew, was there now. Would she know me if she saw me standing out in the cold like a great bear covered in the fur of a musk ox? I pulled back the hoods of the coats I wore so she could see me and find me, maybe even guide me.
Foolishness. I didn’t even know her name. How would she be able to identify me since she hadn’t seen me since the day of my birth? I didn’t even know if she was dead or alive. But a large, dark cloud briefly obscured the moonlight and I saw the northern lights more clearly. Their irregular pattern mesmerized me for a moment and then I was certain that they brightened to a blue-green while narrowing as a hand pointing me the way. As swiftly as it came, the map was gone. But I noted where it had pointed and marched off atop the frozen snow pack.
I pulled on the woolen mittens and tight fitting cap from the inside pocket of my musk ox coat as I passed Erik’s empty pasture. The livestock were all safely stowed away in the barn to keep whatever warmth they could. Some would die this winter as some always did when the sun hid itself. It was cold that night, though with the snow, the plethora of rocks was at least enshrouded under a white blanket. I walked and walked further away from civilization. On several occasions my foot broke through the icy cap of the snow, which made me stumble forward headlong onto my hands. The going was tough, but I moved with purpose toward a goal I didn’t comprehend. In hindsight, I realize as I write this that it never occurred to me that I could freeze to death while following a sign from the dead spinsters in the sky.
Fridr Rock was already behind me and I was making my way down a prominent rise out of sight of the village which slept at Brattahlid when my foot crashed through another weak spot in the ice covered snow. This time, however, the snow did not come to my knee level, or to my waist level, or to my chest level. No, I fell into a snow cave that was well over my head and at thirty-four years old, I was still over a fadmr tall! I crashed onto the hard rocky earth with my ass and it hurt mightily. My back fell against the snow walls of the cave so that I landed in a sitting position. I sat for a moment swearing to myself in a fit of mumbles and grumbles that the lights led me to a cold, deep hole. Tipping back, I noted it would be a challenge to scramble out of the slick-walled cavity.
Then the wind changed from a constant howling above to a growl, a low, rumbling growl. In the shadowy darkness in front of me I saw movement. The walls of the cave gathered together and formed a single object which rose tall above me. Then the wind changed from a low growl to an outright roar. Standing before me at over eight feet tall was a mother polar bear. Huddled behind her were two cubs. They must have only been about one month old since their hair was just coming in and they were only the size of a small dog. They bleated like lost goats behind their angry mother.
I would have liked to get a couple arrows into her from a distance before I had to engage her directly, but my bow stave was unstrung next to me on the cave floor. I had one choice. Grabbing the saex from my belt, I jumped to my feet and ran at the beast. With my weapon raised, I lunged for her neck, but her vast, claw-wielding paw swatted me away like a mosquito. I smacked into the ice packed walls and bounced, then slid back toward her rear feet. She looked down into my eyes and raised her paw again to swipe at me. I took the opportunity afforded by the delay to roll away. She missed with this second blow. But now, on all fours, the bear reached out her strong flat head and latched onto my furry coats with her teeth. She dragged me back and shook me violently. My body smashed back and forth against the walls or the ground or both, I don’t know which. The coats strained against my neck and I believe I was about to pass out when the clasps on the coats gave way. Momentum carried me to one wall, which I struck and again slid down to the center of the cave. Mother bear still shook the coats with all her might while I gained the strength and resolve for one last attack. But I chose trickery instead. While she finished killing the long dead musk ox coats, I pulled my saex onto my chest, lying on my back with my head closest to the bear. When she realized that she was the only movement in the cave other than the panicked cubs, she stopped her attack and dropped the coats. She sniffed the air and took a cautious step toward my silent, unmoving body. I tried not to breathe, but failed miserably as my brain and muscles demanded air. Her nose was only about one ell from the top of my reclined head, sniffing. Then her nose was at my hair, sniffing. She took a half-hearted bite at my hair and caught a portion of my scalp between her sharp teeth. Her fetid, warm breath scaled down my head to my nostrils. I wanted to scream in pain as the creature lifted my head off the ground, but I remained quiet. Then she dropped my head from her grasp and it slammed into the ground. I may have lost consciousness for a second, since I felt a wave of nausea come, but swallowed the urge and half-digested, regurgitated ale. At last she moved her nose to the blade of my saex which reflected the moonlight from above. Without delay I used every bit of strength I had left and drove the short blade up into the soft flesh behind her jaw. About eight inches of the blade became buried in the now howling beast. She rose again to her full height and promptly fell over onto her back, nearly landing on her cubs in the process. Her back feet flailed and she gurgled. I would live.
. . .
After killing her cubs, I skinned the polar bear right there in the den that night. I also took the skins from the cubs to make a pair of luxurious shoes from the soft leather. To climb out of the massive hollow, I drove my bow stave into the snow packed wall at shoulder height under the hole into which I fell and climbed onto it like a step. When I was out I simply rested on my belly, retrieving it. The northern lights’ guiding hand was long gone and so I made my way back toward the village. But the walk was not wasted since, while I skinned the animals, I decided how exactly, I would punish Bjarni’s men.
Despite being gone for several hours, the scene in Erik’s hall was nearly identical to what I had left with the exception of Freydis. She did not remain under my blanket. She did not return to her own place, next to her husband, Torvard. Instead she wrangled around naked under the blanket of Tyrkr while he went about her body with his own plowing. Her eyes saw mine as I walked by, and without a word, she told me she hated me. Tyrkr momentarily hit her pleasure spot and her eyes closed while she barred her teeth like a wolf from the forest.
I hid my prizes in my baggage, threw wood onto the hearth, moved my own blanket next to Torvard since it was closer to the fire, and went to sleep to warm up from my trip.
. . .
Within two weeks of my encounter in the polar bear cave, the days were slowly gaining length, but the forbidding cold still bit hard. It was so frigid the snow was like dry sand and did not crunch beneath my heavy boots, but seemed to silently rustle around my foot with each step. The night was black and moonless. Even my constant companion, the northern lights, seemed dim as I made my way over the harsh, treeless landscape.
Several hours before, I had retired to my sleeping platform at Brattahlid earlier than normal with a feigned illness. When I was certain that the master and mistress of the house, Erik and Thjordhildr, were sleeping, I would leave on my errand. However, it was taking Erik longer and longer to fall asleep as the days went by because Thjordhildr had denied him the pleasures of marriage since she converted to the One God and he did not. Following his lack of intercourse and sleep, Erik was soon even lacking in his normal jovial mood. In private conversations I found myself agreeing with the household thralls that he should convert soon, or we would be stuck with his negative disposition for the entire winter. But eventually he did fall asleep that night for his snoring from behind the drawn curtain told me so.
I quietly rose and put on two pairs of the heaviest trousers I had and two pairs of woolen socks under my boots. Over top of several shirts and chain mail, I strapped my belt with my sword and saex. I pinned a cloak over my shoulders and then pulled two bear hides from my baggage. The first was the brown hide that Olaf gave me when he named me one of his Berserkers. The second hide was from the polar bear I killed in the cave. They may be cumbersome, but I would need neither speed nor agility while I was walking into the night. I pinned the brown pelt over my cloak and then the white one over that. To protect my face from the biting cold, I scooped some seal grease out of a pot and onto my cheeks. After donning woolen gloves and a cap, I stealthily left the longhouse to begin to exact my own personal blood feud.
Two hours of walking brought me to an isolated longhouse next to what would be a flowing brook in the summer. Now the brook was nonexistent and all was quiet. Smoke from the hearth seemed to breathe in and out of the smoke hole at the top of the gable with the blustering wind. Three of Bjarni’s men shared this house when they were in Greenland because, I learned, he didn’t pay them enough to live on their own or to take brides. They lived off the land by hunting or fishing when they were not sailing with Bjarni. I chose them as my first victims because they were remote. If I could survive attacking three grown men, the rest would prove to be easy.
I immediately put my simple plan in motion by walking down to the door. Unlike my long walk, for the attack phase, speed and agility were necessary so I paused outside the door to remove my heavy, warm bear hides. Just as I raised my hands to unclip the polar bear fur, one of the men burst out the door. He had only a light shirt and boots on, no pants. He stepped past me without taking notice and started pissing next to a wood pile. He groaned as he relieved himself, while the white skin of his bare legs turned red in the cold and the stream of urine sent steam away on the breeze. A female’s voice from inside yelled, “Dagr, you fool! Shut the door!”
“Shut up woman or I’ll send you out into the night to find some other man willing to share his bed with an old maid,” shouted Dagr. That brought amused chuckles from his two comrades inside the house.
I froze. I thought waiting until they all fell asleep might be my best course, so I moved back a silent step and tried to make myself small. The hide from the polar bear’s head acted like a hood and flopped down over my head as I shrunk into the shadows. Dagr finished his business with a high-pitched hoot against the cold, grabbed several logs, and turned to re-enter the house.
I was not small enough. From beneath my hood, I saw his ale-hazed eyes widen and brighten in an instant. Dagr dropped all the logs save one which he swung at me. I ducked and, using my instincts, pulled my sword from its fleece-lined scabbard and chopped off his arm with one motion. He fell face forward into the house shouting with madness, “Bear, bear, bear,” then screamed in agony as he finally felt the pain.
The woman screamed while the men shouted. One of them had his hands on Dagr’s shoulders to drag him all the way into the small longhouse when I burst across the threshold. The hero craned his head back to look at me and shouted, “It’s a . . .” before I ran my blade straight into his neck. The other man had procured an ax. He held it in two hands and bounded across the single room toward me, screaming. The weight of the hero falling forward on my blade made it temporarily impossible to dislodge it from his neck so I let the sword go as the third man swung the ax down at me. I easily avoided the blow with a sidestep while digging under my hides for my father’s saex. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a completely naked woman jump from a sleeping platform and grab an unstrung bow.
The third man stepped on Dagr’s back to swing again with the ax. This was a wild sideways swat and I leaned back to watch the ax miss my face by less than half an ell. My right hand finally had the handle of the saex so I pulled it out from my belt and went on the offensive. It was not an evenly matched fight once I regained a weapon. I had spent thirteen years mastering sword and shield in magnificent battles while this man rowed an oar for Bjarni since their betrayal of the village. With two hands he made a mad swing from his left side. I raised my right hand and allowed the ax handle to strike my mailed arm. That was a foolish thing to do because he could have broken my arm. It hurt terribly but my bones were strong. Without hesitation, I gripped my saex more tightly and slid my arm down his outstretched arms. The short blade struck home on his right shoulder and removed a section of his jerkin and his muscle the size of a reindeer steak.
The man dropped the ax while he staggered back two steps. I pressed the attack, running the blade into his soft belly. He looked at my shadowed face under my hood. His eyes said he did not recognize me. I pulled the blade free while the man looked sleepy and fell to his knees. When he toppled to his face I wiped my blade across his back and panting from the skirmish, faced the woman. I recognized her from before my exile. Her breasts were large and pendulous, but they hung lower than all those years ago. It was Tofa, the woman known to share many men’s beds throughout the long winter. She was too old for a husband before we left and now she had no chance. It was amazing she still found a man to take her in, but I supposed that she had acquired a certain skill set from her years of humping men.
Tofa screamed and babbled out of terror at what she expected to come next. She still struggled to bend the strong bow to receive its string. I was in no danger for even if she did get it strung, she would never be able to draw the cord back. I went to the hero who lay dead next to Dagr and pulled out my blade. Bending, I slit Dagr’s panting throat to end his misery. Then I faced the naked Tofa with my massive polar bear hide splattered with the blood of three of the conspirators. I held a blade in each hand, rolled my shoulders and head forward, and roared beneath my polar bear hood. During the howl I spit out the words, “Revenge. Thirteen.” I was again a Berserker, or an Odin-inspired warrior who wore a bear shirt into battle.
I left Tofa sobbing in the longhouse. I could hear her cries above the wind while I began my long walk back to Brattahlid. Ten to go.
. . .
After sleeping most of the day, the next night began in a similar fashion. I ate great quantities of salted meat for energy and then invented a sickness to retire to sleep early. After listening to Erik try to coax Thjordhildr to spread her legs and receive him and then her firm, but loving rejection, I eventually did fall asleep again. The long hikes and skirmish of the previous frigid evening had exhausted me. I dreamt of Kenna and Norway. The short months spent with her were the happiest in my life. I wanted to remain in that moment but, a terrific snore from Erik startled me back to my reality in icy Greenland.
Without giving my dream a second thought, I dressed myself as I had the last night. This time, however, my polar bear hide had the unmistakable stains of blood. Closing the door silently behind me, I walked into the night. I planned to attack two separate homes as they were closer to Brattahlid and each other.
I passed around the inland-most tip of Eriksfjord, past Fridr Rock. Of course, it was the site of the skraeling attack where thirteen of my countrymen were killed. The attack was orchestrated by Bjarni and his men, although no one knew it but me. Leif and I had been punished, but now I was the dispenser of righteous justice.
Soon I came to the farm of the one of those on my list that night. Except for a lone sheep bleating in a modest barn, it was quiet and I passed it by. It was the neighbor who was to be my first visit.
