Читать книгу Viking's Sunset - Henry Treece - Страница 4

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It was Spring. Harald Sigurdson and Giant Grummoch were tending a sick cow up above Jagsfjord, with the wind blowing them half off their feet, when a shock-headed thrall came running up the hill to them.

Grummoch heard him and said, ‘That is Jango No-breeches. When he runs the world’s end is near, for he is the laziest thrall between here and Miklagard.’

Jango called out to them, long before he reached them, ‘Come quickly, masters!’

Harald said, ‘If the meat is burning, turn the spit and roast the other side. This cow is in calf and it would ill become me to leave her because the meat was burning.’

The thrall began to wring his hands. The wind carried away his words the first time. Then they heard him say, ‘The meat is burning with a vengeance, master. But it would ill become me to meddle with it.’

Harald Sigurdson had grown into a stern man, with grey wolf’s hair, in the twenty years he had been headman of his village, after the death of Thorn. Now few men dared stand against him in his anger, save Jomsvikings or Russians from Kiev, and they did not come up the hill every day.

But the thrall would not be silent. He ran to Harald and even took him by the sleeve of his leather jacket, which was a thing few men would have done save Giant Grummoch, who was his blood-brother and the second father to Harald’s two sons, Svend and Jaroslav.

The thrall said, ‘A wise man would come, even if twenty cows lay on the turf in calf, Harald Sigurdson. You have three barns a-burning, and your wife, Asa Thornsdaughter, leaving her broken spinning-wheel in bitter tears over the wounds of your two sons.’

Harald turned to him now and said, ‘I shall whip you for stealing the barley beer we had laid by for the Spring feasting, Jango No-breeches. You have fallen asleep and dreamed a dream. You listen too much to the skalds about the night-fires. Go back and dip your head in a bucket of water.’

The thrall flung himself onto the turf and began to roll about, wailing, for he was of the Irish folk and given to such demonstrations. Grummoch picked him up with one hand and held him out before him like a girl’s rag doll, with his two legs dangling.

‘Say your message, if there is one, then go home like a good dog,’ he said gruffly, his beard wagging close to the frightened thrall’s face.

Jango No-breeches said, ‘By Saint Colmkill and the Whitechrist, Haakon Redeye has been here while you were away. What torch has not done, axe has achieved. Down there is no more village left than a man could stow in a longship and carry away--and all charred timber.’

Giant Grummoch put the man down.

The thrall said, ‘I bring black news, not white, master. Many have gone to Odin in the last hour. Many have made the long dark journey and hang by their necks from the trees. Haakon Redeye brought eighty berserks with him, and only the young folk and the old were left in the village. How could they stand against eighty berserks with war axes and spears? Your sons were hurt with the others.’

Harald said, ‘I do not ask if they are badly hurt, or near to death. I only ask if they carry their wounds on their chests.’

The thrall nodded. ‘Aye, master,’ he said. ‘On their chests and their arms and their heads--but not on their backs.’

Grummoch, who loved the two boys, took up a piece of black bog-oak as thick as a man’s lower leg, and broke it across his thigh to show his rage.

‘In all the Northland,’ he said, ‘there is only one man who would do such things to old folk and young folk, and that man shall feel his neck snap like this twig before the day is over.’

The thrall said, ‘Haakon Redeye has already sailed, master Giant. You must needs mount a swan and fly after him if you would catch him. But let us go down, and save what we can of the village. I am but a simple man and no warrior, but I counsel thus.’

Harald said, ‘I am forty years old and looked to sit back in peace in my age. I thought my voyaging was over when I came from Miklagard, but now it seems I must put an edge on my sword again, if I can still lift it.’

The thrall looked at Harald’s big muscles and his broad back, but did not speak, for he had learned not to interrupt warriors and shieldmen when they began their boasting.

Harald said, ‘By this cow and her calf, I swear that I will harry Haakon Redeye to the edge of the world and will at last set his polished head on my shelf to smile at before this tale is over, for what he has done to me.’

Grummoch, who had picked up the manners of the Northmen in his years beside the fjord, said, ‘When I have visited his berserks, they will ask each other why the thunder was so loud, and why the lightning came so suddenly. That is, if they still have heads to ask with.’

Jango No-breeches said, ‘Come, come, masters. There will be time to bite the shield-rim and to bellow later, when you have seen what work is to be avenged.’

Then he ran on along the slippery path towards the village and the others followed him, feeling it no shame to be led by a thrall, this time.