Читать книгу Viking's Sunset - Henry Treece - Страница 5

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It was as bad as the thrall had said. Out of thirty-seven houses, only six remained, and no barns.

Harald looked at the old ones and the young ones who lay, no longer fearsome of the axe, and said, ‘To call this a bad business is to blow out hot air from the mouth. The only word is in the sword from this day forward. Where is my family?’

The thrall led him to where Asa Thornsdaughter sat, weeping and rocking back and forth. Her two sons lay on a pallet of straw, their wounds covered with moss. Harald lifted the moss before he spoke to her and then said, ‘My boys have fought like warriors. Their wounds will heal, Odin be praised, for they are cleanly dressed.’

Asa said through her tears, ‘Boys of ten and twelve should not be asked to carry wounds so early on, husband.’

Harald said, ‘Asa, loved one, do you expect me to weep like a woman or a thrall when my sons are hurt? The old bear does not love to see his cubs mauled by the wolf--but he knows there is no profit in sitting howling. He knows that for a finger he must take an arm; for a hand, a head. The old bear will go after the wolf and seek his bargain, for Haakon Redeye is outlaw and wolf’s-head and will not stand before the Thing to receive sentence. He will not pay the blood-money, so he must pay with his head.’

Asa began to cry again, and put her apron over her face so that no one should see the wife of a viking weeping.

And when the other young men came back to the village, Harald met them and said, ‘There has been a slight mishap while you were away in the woods catching hares. The village has been burned down through an oversight of Haakon Redeye, and your families have been entertained by eighty of his berserks. It seems that he was so upset by the nuisance his visit has caused that he has gone away to hang his head in shame.’

A young axe-warrior, given to fits when he was excited, stepped forward and ripped off his own shirt. His chest was covered with scars and so were his arms, from wrist to elbow.

He shook a great axe in his right hand as though it were a little elder stick. ‘Before Thor and Odin,’ he said, ‘I will not rest until I have shamed Haakon’s head still further.’

Harald said, ‘There you make a mistake, my friend. Haakon’s head is not yours for the shaming. I have laid claim to that prize already.’

The young berserk bowed his head, but whispered to his nearest friend that Harald must take his chance when they ran up alongside Haakon Redeye, for in a case like this all men had equal rights, headman or henchmen.

Then they drew out the longship from the creek where it was hidden under bracken and gorse, and they examined its timbers to see if it needed tarring again.

Gudbrod Gudbrodsson said, ‘This steerboard side needs caulking, Harald Sigurdson, but there is no time to waste, and we have helmets to bale out the water. They will do as well as any buckets!’

Harald said, ‘I will stick my finger in the hole if it comes to it, Gudbrod Gudbrodsson. Throw aboard dried meat, barley bread and two casks of ale, and then we will be off. A man must eat if he is to pay his debts with sword and axe.’

Before he left, he kissed Asa most tenderly and told her that he was leaving twenty men behind to guard them and to set up shelters for them once more.

He told her also that he expected to be back in three days, for his sixty shipmen were capable of repaying all the debts they owed to Haakon Redeye and his eighty.

‘A man with vengeance in his sword-edge is the equal of four who have burned a barn,’ he said, buckling on his iron friend, Peace-giver.

Asa said, ‘Have you got your woollen shirt on, husband? The Spring winds are bitter along the fjords and it would go ill with a war leader to be stricken with a cold.’

Harald said, ‘I shall keep warm with exercise soon, my love.’

When he bent over the bed of his two sons, Svend and Jaroslav, the boys smiled up at him and said, ‘May Odin speed the prow, father.’

Harald said, ‘I am blessed in having a pair of young hawks when many other fathers have only chickens.’

Svend said, ‘If we could stand up, we would come with you, whether you agreed or not.’

Jaroslav said, ‘I shall weep all the time you are gone, for I put a knife into Haakon’s arm before he struck me down with his club. It is not fair that I cannot finish what I have started.’

Harald patted their heads and said, ‘Rest awhile, my pretties, then one day you shall have long swords and go after such pirates as Redeye yourselves, while I lie in the straw and think of my cows and the ships I have sailed in.’

Svend said, ‘Bring me back Haakon’s dagger with the coral handle. And bring back his bronze shield for Jaroslav. It will help us to get better more quickly.’

As Harald went down to the longship, Asa whispered, ‘Bring me back something we can put on the shelf and smile at in the feasting times, loved one. Something closer to Haakon Redeye even than his knife and his shield.’

Harald said, ‘If I do not do that, I shall do nothing. An ornament is always pleasant in a house, Asa Thornsdaughter. But if the dice fall otherwise than what I think, then get yourself a cross of the Whitechrist and set that up as your ornament to smile at, for then you will know that Thor and Odin are no longer our friends.’

Asa did not watch as they pushed out into the fjord. She hated to see the longships sail away, for sometimes they never came back, and then there was always the misery of remembering how fine they had looked when they set off, with the gay oars rising and falling in unison, and the shipmaster laughing at the prow.