Sworn Brother

I, too, had been watching the boat, and as it drew nearer, I began to feel uncomfortable. A chill came over me, a cold queasiness. At first I thought it was an expression of my mistrust of Thorbjorn Ongul. I knew that he was the man from whom Grettir had the most to fear. But as the little boat came closer, I knew that there was something else, something more powerful and sinister. I broke out in a cold sweat and felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. It seemed ridiculous. In front of me was a small boat, rowed by an aggressive farmer who could not climb the cliffs, floating on a pleasant summer sea. There could be no menace there.

I glanced at Grettir. He was pale and trembling slightly. Not since our shared vision of fire emerging from the tomb of old Kar on the headland had we both been touched by the second sight simultaneously. But this time the vision was blurred and indistinct.

'What is it?' I asked Grettir. I did not have to explain my question.

'I don't know,' he answered throatily. 'Something's not right.'

The fool Glaum broke our concentration. Suddenly he began capering on the cliff edge, where he could be seen by Ongul in the boat. He shouted obscenities and taunts, and went so far as to turn his back, drop his breeches to his ankles and expose his buttocks at the Ongul.

'Stop that!' ordered Grettir brusquely. He went across to Glaum and cuffed him so hard that the vagrant was knocked backwards. Glaum scrambled to his feet, pulling up his breeches, and shambled off, muttering crossly. Grettir turned back to face Ongul. He had stopped rowing and was keeping the little skiff a safe distance away from the beach.

'Clear off!' Grettir bellowed. 'There's nothing you can say that I want to hear.'

'I'll leave when I feel like it,' Ongul yelled back. 'I want to tell you what I think of you. You're a coward and a trespasser. You're touched in the head, a murderer, and the sooner you're dealt with the better it will be for all decent men.'

'Clear off! ' repeated Grettir, shouting at the top of his lungs. 'Go back to minding your farm, you miserable one-eye. You're the one who is responsible for bringing death. That young man would never have tried to climb up here if you hadn't encouraged him. Now he's dead, and with your scheme unstuck so badly you've been made to look a fool.'

As the exchange of insults continued, I felt shooting pains in my head. Grettir did not seem affected. Perhaps he was distracted by his anger at Ongul. But I began to feel feverish. The day which had begun with such promise was turning heavy with menace. The sky was clouding over. I felt unsteady and sat down on the ground to stop myself retching. The shouting match between the two men echoed off the cliffs, but then I heard something else: a growing clatter of wings and a swelling volume of bird calls, rising in pitch. I looked back towards the north. Huge numbers of seabirds were taking to the sky. They were launching themselves in droves from the cliff ledges, gliding down towards the sea and then flapping briskly to gain height as they began to group together. They reminded me of bees about to swarm. The main flock spiralled upward as more and more birds joined in, flying up to meet their companions. Soon the flock was so immense it had to divide into ranks and squadrons. There were thousands upon thousands of them, too many to count or even guess their numbers. Many birds still stayed on the ledges, but most were on the move. Section by section, breed by breed, the great mass of flying creatures circled higher and higher like a storm cloud, until smaller groups began to break away and head out towards the sea. At first it seemed that their departure was random, in all directions. But then I realised there was one direction which all the birds avoided: none of them was returning to Drang. The birds were abandoning the island.

I dragged myself upright and walked unsteadily to where Grettir stood. My head and muscles ached. I felt terrible. 'The birds,' I said, 'they're leaving.'

'Of course they are,' he answered crossly over his shoulder, 'they leave every year about this time. It is the end of their breeding season. They go now, and come back in the spring.'

He searched around in the grass until he found a rounded stone, about the size of a loaf. Plucking it from the grass, he heaved it above his head with both hands and let fly, aiming at Ongul in the boat far below. Ongul had imagined he was safely out of range. But he had not reckoned with Grettir the Strong who, since boyhood, had amazed everyone with just how far he could pitch a rock. The stone flew far out, its arc greater than I had imagined possible. Grettir's aim was true. The stone plummeted down, straight at the little skiff. It missed Ongul by inches. He was standing amidships, working the oars. The stone landed with a thump on a bundle of black rags on the stern thwart. As the stone struck, I saw the bundle shiver and flinch, and over the crying of the myriad departing birds, I heard distinctly a hideous cry of pain. At that moment I remembered where I had felt that same chill, the same sense of evil, and heard the same vile cry. It was when Thrand and I had fought the Danes in the sea ambush and I had had a vision of Thorgerd Holgabrud, the blood drinker and witch.

As Ongul rowed away, I was swaying on my feet.

'You've got a bad attack of some sort of fever,' said Grettir and put his arm around me to stop me falling. 'Here, Illugi, give me a hand to carry Thorgils inside.' The two of them lifted me down into the dugout and made me comfortable on some sheepskins on the earth floor.

I had just enough strength to ask, 'Who was in the boat with Ongul? Why didn't they show themselves?'

Grettir frowned. 'I don't know,' he said, 'but whoever it was is nursing a very bad bruise or a broken bone and won't forget this day in a hurry.'

Perhaps the birds began their migration because they knew that the weather was about to change, or perhaps - and this was my own private explanation — they were disturbed from their roosts by the evil that visited us that day. At any rate that was the last day of summer we enjoyed. By evening the rain had set in and the temperature began to fall. We did not see the sun again for a fortnight, and by then the first of the autumn gales had mauled the island unseasonably early. The ledges on the cliffs were empty of all but a handful of seabirds, and Drang had settled back prematurely into its gloomy routine though the autumn equinox had barely passed.

I continued very ill and weak with fever and from my sick bed I could see that Grettir was more subdued than usual. There was despondency in his face, perhaps at the thought of another winter spent in the raw, cramped isolation of Drang. He took to leaving the dugout at first light and often did not reappear until dusk. Illugi told me that his brother was spending much of his time alone, sitting staring out towards the mainland, saying nothing, refusing to be drawn into conversation. At other times Grettir would descend the ladders and, when the low tide permitted, walk around the island, furiously splashing through the shallows, always by himself. It was from one of these excursions that he returned with that look I had never seen before: a look of dismay.

'What's worrying you?' I asked.

'Down on the beach, I had that same feeling we both sensed the day that Ongul came to visit us and I threw the stone. I felt it mildly at first, but as I walked around the island it came on me more strongly. Oddly, I also had a stroke of luck. On the far side of the island I came across a fine piece of driftwood. The current must have brought it there from the east side of the fiord. It was a good, thick log, an entire tree trunk, roots and all, ideal for firewood. I was bending down to drag it further up the beach when I felt ill — I thought I was going down with your fever. But then it occurred to me that my feeling might have something to do with that particular spot on the beach - it faces across to that ruffian Ongul's farm - or perhaps it was to do with the log. I don't know. Anyhow, I took the wave of nausea to be a warning. So instead of salvaging the log, I shoved it out to sea again. I didn't want to have anything further to do with it.'

The very next day Glaum appeared with a smug expression at the door of the dugout. 'I've done well,' he said. 'Better than the lot of you, though you treat me as if I'm useless.'

'What is it, Glaum?' asked Grettir sourly.

We had all become weary of Glaum's endless vulgarities — his favourite amusement was to let out controlled farts, which did not help the fug of the dugout, and he snored so much that, unless the night was wild, we made him sleep outside. He had made a noxious lair for himself in the hollow by the ladders where I had first stumbled across him. There he pretended to play sentry, though there was little likelihood of any surprise attack now that the weather was so bad.

'I've salvaged a fine log,' said Glaum. 'Took me enough trouble too. Found it on the beach by the foot of the ladders and I've managed to hoist it up with ropes. There's enough timber to burn for three or four nights at least.'

It was one of those days when there was a brief break in the dreary weather and Grettir had half-carried me out of the fetid dugout so I could sit in the open air and enjoy the watery sunshine.

Glaum went on, 'Better cut up the log now. Before it rains again.'

Grettir picked up our axe. It was a fine, heavy tool, the only axe we had, too important for our well-being to let Glaum handle in case he lost it or damaged the blade. Grettir walked to where Glaum had dragged the log. I was lying on the ground so I could not see the log itself because it was concealed in the grass. But I heard Grettir say, 'That's strange, it's the same log I threw back into the water the other day. The current must have carried it right around the island and brought it back in the opposite beach.'

'Well, it's a good log wherever it came from. Well seasoned and tough,' said Glaum, 'and it took me enough trouble to get it up here. So this time it's not going to waste.'

I saw Grettir raise the axe with both hands and take a hefty swing. A moment later I heard the sound of a blow that has been mis-aimed - the false echo - as Grettir fell.

Illugi had been idling nearby. He rushed over to his brother, and was kneeling on the ground. I saw him rip off a piece of his own shirt and guessed that he was applying a bandage. Then Grettir's arm came up and took a hold around his brother's neck, and as Illugi strained back, the two men rose, Grettir with one leg bent up. Blood drenched the bandage. Slowly and painfully, Grettir hobbled past me into the dugout. Too fever-racked to move, I lay there worrying about how badly Grettir had hurt himself. Eventually, when Illugi and Glaum helped me inside, I found Grettir sitting on the ground with his back against the earth wall of the dugout. Instantly I was reminded of the last time I had seen Thrand, sitting in the same position when he had lost his foot to a Danish axe. But at least Grettir had both legs, though the injured one was leaking what seemed a huge amount of blood through the makeshift bandage.

'A fine lot we are,' said Grettir, his face twisted with pain, 'We've got two invalids now. I don't know what came over me. The axe bounced off that tough old log and twisted in my hand.'

'It's cut very deep,' said Illugi. 'Any deeper and you would have chopped off your leg. You'll be out of action for months.'

'That's all I need,' said Grettir, 'plain bad luck again.'

Illugi busied himself in rearranging the interior of the dugout to give Grettir more space. 'I'll light the fire,' he said to his brother. 'It'll be cold tonight, and you need to keep warm.' He called to Glaum to bring in some firewood, and there were sounds of grunting and mumbling as Glaum slowly backed into the dugout, dragging the unlucky log which had been the cause of Grettir's accident.

'That's too big to fit into the hearth. Get something smaller,' said Illugi.

'No, it isn't,' replied Glaum argumentatively. 'I can make it fit. You've seen for yourself that it's too tough to chop up into pieces.'

Illugi, I realised, lacked Grettir's authority over Glaum and I knew that the balance within our tight little community had gone. Glaum was wrestling the log into position in the hearth and turning it over so that it rested against the stone. As he did so, I saw something on the underside of the wood and called, 'Stop!' I crawled over to take a closer look. Part of the underside of the log had been cut smooth. Somebody had deliberately shaved down the surface, leaving a fiat area as long as my forearm. On the surface were a series of marks cut deep into the wood. I knew what the marks were even before I saw the faint red stain in their grooves. Thrand, my mentor in the Old Ways, had warned me against them. They were curse runes, cut to invoke harm against a victim, then smeared with the blood of the volva or seidrmann to make the evil in the runes more effective. I knew then that Grettir was the victim of black seidr.

For the next three days Grettir's injury appeared to be on the mend. The gash began to close and the edges of the wound were pink and healthy. Then, on the third night, he started to suffer from a deep-seated throbbing pain and by dawn he was in agony. Illugi unwrapped the bandage and we saw the reason. The flesh around the wound was puffed and swollen. Fluid was seeping from the gash. The next morning the flesh was beginning to discolour, and as the days passed the area around the wound turned dark blue, then a greenish-black, and we could smell the putrefication. Grettir could not sleep — the pain was too bad. Nor could he get to his feet. He lost weight and looked drained. By the end of the week he knew that he was dying from the poison in his leg.

That was when they unleashed their assault. How they knew that Grettir was in a coma, I have no way of knowing.

The end was swift and bloody. More than a dozen farmers came up the ladders, which had been left in place now that we no longer had Grettir's strength to pull them clear. They came at dusk, armed with axes and heavy spears, and overpowered Glaum as he lay half asleep. They prodded him in front of them as he led them to our dugout, though they would have found the place soon enough for themselves. I heard them coming first, for they were working themselves up into a battle rage. Illugi, in an exhausted sleep, was slow to wake and scarcely had time to jam shut the makeshift door. But the door was not designed to withstand a siege - it was nothing more than a few sticks of wood covered with sheepskins — and it burst open after the first few blows. By then Illugi was in position, sword in one hand, axe in the other. The first farmer who ventured in lost his right arm to a terrific blow from the same weapon that had been Grettir's bane.

For an hour or more the attack continued. I could hear Ongul's voice urging on his men. But they found it was deadly work. Two more farmers were badly wounded and another killed, all trying to rush the door. Our attackers were like men who corner a badger in its sett and try to take the prey alive. When Ilugi held them off with sword and axe, they began to dig down through the earth roof of our refuge. From inside we heard the sounds of digging and soon the roof began to shake. I was as weak as water and unable to intervene, only to observe. From where I lay on the floor I saw the earth rain down from the ceiling and then the point of a spear poked through. I knew the end could not be long in coming.

Another rush at the door and the frame split. Our defence was collapsing around us. A spear thrust through the doorway caught Illugi in the shoulder. Grettir struggled to his knees to face the attack. In his hand was the short sword that he and I had robbed from old Kar's burial mound. At that moment a section of the roof fell in close to the hearth. Amid the shower of earth, a farmer jumped down. Grettir turned to meet the new threat, stabbed with the sword and impaled the intruder, killing him. But the man fell forward so that Grettir's sword arm was trapped. As he struggled to withdraw the blade a second man dropped through the hole and stabbed Grettir in the back. I heard Grettir call out and Illugi turned to help, throwing up his shield to protect his brother. This left the door unguarded and suddenly the dugout was filled with armed men. In moments they had knocked Illugi to the ground and were hacking and stabbing him to death. One man, seeing me, stepped forward and planted the point of his spear against my blankets. He had only to press down his weight and I too was dead. But he made no move, and I watched as Ongul darted behind Grettir to avoid the outlaw's sword and knifed him several times in quick succession. Grettir did not even turn to look at his killer. He was already so weak that he slumped to the ground without a sound. I lay there, unable to move, as Ongul leaned down and roughly tried to prise Grettir's fingers from Kar's sword. But the death grip was too strong and Ongul pulled aside my sworn brother's hand until it lay across the fatal fire log. Then, like a skilful butcher, he severed the fingers so that the sword fell free.

Picking up the sword, Ongul cut Grettir's head from his shoulders. It took four blows. I counted every one as Ongul hacked down on the corpse. By then the blood-splattered remains of the ruined dugout were crammed with sweating, jubilant farmers, all shouting and talking and congratulating themselves on their victory.

I bought my life for five and a half marks. That was the sum the farmers found on me, and I gave them a promise of ten marks more if they delivered me, alive, to Snorri Godi's son Thorodd for judgement. They accepted the bargain because, after the slaughter of Grettir and Illugi, some of them had had enough of bloodshed. They buried the corpses of Illugi and Grettir in the ruins of our dugout, then lowered my sick and aching body down the cliff face on a rope and placed me in the stern of the ten-oar boat they had come in. Destitute Glaum was not so lucky. On the way back to the mainland, they told him he had betrayed his master, cut his throat and threw his body overboard. Grettir's head they kept, wrapped in a bag, so Ongul could present the gruesome evidence to Thorir of Gard and claim his reward. Eavesdropping, I learned how we had been defeated: Ongul had gone to his aged foster-mother Thurid for help in evicting Grettir from Drang. Thurid was a volva, rumoured to use black arts. It was she who had lain concealed beneath the pile of rags when Ongul rowed out to quarrel with Grettir. She needed to hear and judge the quality of her victim before she chose her curse runes. She then cut the marks, stained them with her own blood and selected the hour on which Ongul should launch the cursed tree on the tide. My only consolation, as I listened to the boastful farmers, was to learn that the old crone was hobbling and in dreadful pain. The rock that Grettir threw had smashed her thigh bone and crippled her for life.

Ongul, as it turned out, never received his head money. Thorir of Gard refused to pay up. He said that, as a Christian, he would not reward the use of witchcraft. Ongul took this as a weasel excuse and sued Thorir before the next assembly of the Althing. To his rage the assembled godars supported Thorir's view - he may have bribed them - and went so far as to banish Ongul. They ruled that there had been enough bloodshed and, to forestall revenge by Grettir's friends, it was better that Ongul left Iceland for a while. I was to meet Ongul later, as I will relate, but in the meantime the Gods provided me with a way to honour the memory of my sworn brother.

Thorodd was lenient in his judgement, as I had anticipated. When I was brought before him, he remembered that Grettir had spared his own life when he had challenged the outlaw on the road, and now repaid his debt by declaring that I should be set free after I had paid my captors the ten marks I had promised. This done, Thorodd returned to me my fire ruby, saying that this was what his father had instructed him to do, and undertook to settle my affairs with Gunnhildr's family. He also surprised me by handing over Thrand's old hoard chest. Apparently Thrand had left instructions that if he failed to come back from Jomsburg, I was to be his heir. I donated the entire contents of the chest to Thor. Half the silver paid for a temple mound to be erected in the God's honour on the spot where Thrand's old cabin had stood, and the remainder I buried deep in its earth.

At the feast which followed the temple dedication, I found myself seated next to one of Snorri Godi's sons-in-law, an intelligent and well-to-do farmer by the name of Bolli Bollason. It turned out that Bolli was suffering from that itch for travel which is so characteristic of the northern peoples. 'I can hardly wait for the day when my oldest son can take over my farm, Thorgils,' he confessed. 'I'm going to put it in his care, pack and head off.

I want to see other countries, meet foreign peoples and see how they live while I am still fit and active. Iceland is too small and remote. I feel cooped up here.'

Naturally his words recalled Grettir's words, begging me to travel.

'If you had your choice, Bolli,' I asked, 'which of all the places in the world would you most want to see?'

'Miklagard, the great city,' he responded without a moment's hesitation. 'It's said that there is nowhere else on earth like it — immense palaces, public baths, statues which move of their own accord. Streets paved with marble and you can stroll along them after dark because the emperor who rules there decrees that blazing torches be set up at every corner and kept lit throughout the night.'

'And how does one get to Miklagard?' I asked.

'Across the land of the Rus,' he answered. 'Each year Rus traders bring furs to sell at the imperial court. They have special permits to enter the emperor's territories. If you took a load of furs yourself, you would make a profit from the venture.'

Bolli fingered the collar of his cloak. It was an expensive garment, worn specially for the feast, and the collar was trimmed with some glossy fur.

'The trader who sold me this cloak told me that the Rus get their furs from the northern peoples who trap the animals. I haven't seen it for myself, but it is said the Rus go to certain known places on the edge of the wilderness and lay out their trade goods on the ground. Then they go away and wait. In the night, or at dawn, the natives come out secretly from the woods, pick up the trade goods and replace them with the amount of furs that they think is a fair bargain. They are a strange lot, those fur hunters. They don't like intruders on their territory. If you trespass, they're likely to put a spell on you. No one else is more skilled in seidr, men and women both.'

This last remark decided me. Thor may have put the words in Bolli's mouth as a reward for my offerings to him, but it was Odinn who determined the outcome. A journey to Miklagard would not only carry out Grettir's wish, it would also bring me closer to my God's mysteries.

So it was that, less than a month later, I had a trader's pack on my back and was plodding through the vast forests of Permia, wondering if Odinn had been in his role as the Deceiver when he lured me there. After a week in the wilderness I had yet to glimpse a single native. I was not even sure what they were called. Bolli Bollason had called them the Skridfinni, and said that the name meant 'the Finni who run on wooden boards'. Others referred to them as Lopar or Lapu and told me, variously, that the name meant 'the runners', 'witches' or 'the banished'. All my informants agreed that the territory they occupied was barren beyond belief. 'Nothing except trees grows up in their land. It's all rock and no soil,' Bolli had warned. 'No crops at all, not even hay. So you won't find cows. Therefore neither milk nor cheese. It's impossible to grow grain ... so no beer. And as for vines to grow grapes, forget it. Not even sheep can survive. So the Gods alone know what the natives do for clothing to keep out the cold when they haven't any wool to weave. They must do something. There's snow and ice for eight months in the year, and the winter night lasts for two months.'

No one at the trading post where I had bought my trade stock had thrown more light on these mysteries. All they could say was that I should fill my pack with coloured ribbons, brass rings, copper figurines, fish hooks and knife blades. They thought I was mad. Winter was coming on, they pointed out, and this was not the time to trade. Better wait until the spring when the natives emerged from the forest with the winter pelts of their prey. Stubbornly I ignored their advice. I had no intention of spending several months in a remote settlement on the fringes of a wasteland. So I had slung my pack on my back and walked away. Now, with the chill wind beginning to numb my fingers and face,

I was wondering - and that not for the first time - if I had been incredibly foolish. The footpath I had been following through the forest was more and more difficult to trace. Soon I would be lost.

I blundered on. Everything around me was featureless. Each tree looked like the last one I had passed and identical to the trees that I had seen an hour earlier. Very occasionally I heard the sound of a wild animal fleeing from me, the sounds of its alarmed progress fading into the distance. I never saw the animals themselves. They were too wary. The straps of my pack were cutting into my shoulders, and I decided that I would set up camp early and start afresh in the morning. Casting around for a sheltered spot where I could light a fire and eat a meal of dried fish from my pack, I left the faint trace of the path and searched to my left. After fifty paces or so I came across such a dense thicket that I was forced to turn back. I tried in the opposite direction. Again I was thwarted by the thick undergrowth. I returned to the path and walked forward a little further, then tried again. This time I got only twenty paces — I counted them because I did not want to lose my track — before I was again forced to a halt. Once more I returned to the path and moved forward. The bushes were crowding closer. I limped on. There was a raw blister on my right heel where the shoe was rubbing and my foot hurt. I was concentrating on this pain when I noticed that the path led to an obvious gap between the dense thickets. Gratefully I quickened my pace and walked forward, then tripped. Looking down, I saw my foot was entangled in a net laid out on the ground. I was bending down to untangle the restraint when I heard a sharp, angry intake of breath. Straightening up, I saw a man step from behind a tree. He was carrying a hunting bow, its arrow set to the string and he drew it back deliberately and quietly, aiming at my chest. I stood absolutely still, trying to look innocent and harmless.

The stranger stood no higher than my chest. He was wearing the skin of an animal, some sort of deer, which he wore like a loose blouse. His head poked through a slit cut in the skin and the garment was gathered in at his waist by a broad belt made from the skin of the same animal. This blouse reached down to his knees and his lower legs were clad in leather leggings, which extended down to strange-looking leather slippers with turned-up toes. On his head was a conical cap, also of deerskin. For a moment he reminded me of a land wight. He had appeared just as silently and magically.

He made no further move towards me, but clicked his tongue softly. From behind other trees and out of the thickets emerged half a dozen of his companions. They ranged from one youngster who could only have been about twelve years old, to a much older man, whose scraggly beard was turning grey. Their precise ages were difficult to tell because their faces were unusually wrinkled and lined, and they were all dressed in identical deerskin garments. Not one of them was tall enough to come up to my shoulder, and they all had similar features — broad foreheads and pronounced cheekbones over wide mouths and narrow chins, which gave their faces a strangely triangular shape. Several of the men, I noted, had watery eyes as if they had been staring too long into the sun. Then I remembered what Olaf had told me about the long months of snow and ice, and recognised what I had seen in my childhood in Greenland - the lingering effects of snow blindness.

They were not aggressive. All of them were carrying long hunting bows, but only the first man kept an arrow aimed at me, and after a few moments he lowered his bow and let the tension relax. Then followed a brief discussion in a language that I could not understand. There seemed to be no leader — everyone including the youngster had an opinion to express. Suddenly they turned to leave and one of them jerked his head at me, indicating that I was to follow. Mystified, I set out, walking behind them along the trail. They did not even look over their shoulders to see if I was there and I found that, despite their small size, the Lopar - as I knew they must be - travelled remarkably quickly through the forest.

A brisk march brought us to where they lived. A cluster of tents stood on the bank of a small river. At first I thought this was a hunters' camp, but then I saw women, children and dogs and even a baby's cradle hanging from a tree, and realised that this was a nomad home. Tethered at a little distance were five unusual-looking animals. That they were deer was evident because they had antlers which would have done justice to the forest stags I had hunted with Edgar in England. Yet their bodies were less than half the size. Somehow their smallness seemed appropriate among a people who — by Norse standards — were diminutive.

The man who had first revealed himself to me in the forest led me to his tent, indicated that I should wait and ducked inside. I eased the pack from my shoulders, lowered it to the ground and sat down beside it. The man reappeared and silently handed me a wooden bowl. It contained pieces of a cake. I tasted it and recognised fish and wild berries mashed together.

As I ate the fish cake, everyone in the camp continued about their normal business, fetching water from the river in small wooden buckets, bringing in sticks of firewood, moving between the tents, all the while politely ignoring me. I wondered what would happen next. After an interval, during which I finished my meal and drank from a wooden cup of water brought to me by one of the Lopar women, my guardian - which was how I thought of him - again emerged from his tent. In his hand was what I thought was a large sieve with a wooden rim. Then I saw it was a drum, broad, flat and no deeper than the span of my hand, an irregular oval in shape. He placed the drum carefully upon the ground and squatted down beside it. Several of the other men strolled over. They sat in a circle and another quiet discussion followed. Again I could not understand what they were saying, though several times I heard the word vuobman. Eventually my guardian reached inside his deerskin tunic and produced a small wedge of horn, no bigger than a gaming counter, which he placed gently on the surface of his drum. From the folds of his blouse he next pulled out a short hammer-shaped drumstick and began to tap gently on the drum skin. All the onlookers leaned forward, watching intently.

I guessed what was happening and rose to my feet. Walking over to the group, I joined the circle, my neighbour politely shifting aside to give me space. I was reminded of the Saxon wands. The surface of the drum was painted with dozens of figures and symbols. Some I recognised: fish, deer, a dancing, stick-like man, a bow and arrow, half a dozen of the Elder runes. Many symbols were new to me and I could only guess their meaning — lozenges, zigzag lines, irregular star patterns, curves and ripples. I supposed that one of them must represent the sun, another the moon and perhaps a third depicted a forest of trees. I said nothing as the little horn counter hopped and skipped on the drum skin as it vibrated to the regular tapping of the drummer. The counter moved here and there, then seemed to find its own position, remaining on one spot — over the drawing of a man who seemed to have antlers on his head. Abruptly my guardian stopped his drumming. The counter stayed where it was. He picked it up, placed it on the centre of the drum and began again, tapping a slow, repeated rhythm. Again the counter advanced across the drum and came to the same position. A third time my guardian cast the lot, this time starting the counter at the edge of the drum skin before he began to urge it into life. Once more the wedge of horn moved to the figure of the antlered man, but then moved on until it came to rest on the symbol of a triangle. I guessed it was a tent.

My guardian slipped the drumstick back inside his blouse, and there was complete silence in the assembled group. Something had changed. Where the Lopar had previously been courteous, almost aloof, now they seemed a little nervous. Whatever the drum had told them, its message had been clear.

My guardian returned the drum to his tent and beckoned to me to follow him. He led me to a tent set slightly apart from the others. Like them it was an array of long thin poles propped together and neatly covered with sheets of birch bark. Pausing outside the tent flap, he called, 'Rassa!' The man who came out from the tent was the ugliest Lopar I had yet seen. He was of the same height and build as all the others in the camp, but every feature of his face was out of true. His nose was askew and bulbous. Eyes, bulging under bushy eyebrows, gave him a perpetually startled expression. His lips failed to close over slightly protruding teeth, and his mouth was definitely lopsided. Compared to the neat foxy-faced Lopars around him, he looked grotesque.

'You are welcome among us. I am glad you have arrived.' said this odd-looking native. I was startled. Not just by what he said, but that he had spoken in Norse, heavily accented and carefully phrased but clearly understandable.

'Your name is Rassa?' I asked hesitantly.

'Yes.' he replied. 'I told the hunters that the vuodman would provide an unusual catch today and they should not harm it, but bring it back to camp.'

'The vuodman?' I asked. 'I don't know what you mean.'

'The vuodman is where they lie in wait for the boazo.' He saw that I was looking even more mystified. 'You must excuse me. I don't know how to say boazo in your tongue. Those animals over there are boazo.' He nodded towards the five small tethered deer. 'Those are tame ones. We place them in the forest to attract their wild kind into the trap. Now is the season when the wild boazo leave the open ground and come into the forest to seek food and find shelter from the coming blizzards.'

'And the voudman?'

'That was the thicket that kept turning you back when you were walking. Our hunters were watching you. I hear you tried to leave the trail several times. You made much noise. In fact they nearly lost our prize boazo who was frightened by your approach and ran off. Luckily they recaptured it before it had gone too far.'

I recalled the hunting technique Edgar had showed me in the forest of Northamptonshire, how he had placed me where the deer would be directed towards the arrows of the waiting hunters. It seemed that the Lopar did the same, building thickets of brush to funnel the wild deer in the place where the hunters lay in ambush.

'I apologise for spoiling the hunt,' I said. 'I had no idea that I was in Lopar hunting grounds.'

'Our name is not Lopar,' said Rassa gently. 'That word I heard when I visited the settled peoples - at the time when I learned to speak some words of your language — we are Sabme. To call us Lopar would be the same as if we called you cavemen.'

'Cavemen? We don't live in caves.'

Rassa smiled his crooked smile.

'Sabme children learn how Ibmal the Creator made the first men. They were two brothers. Ibmal set the brothers on the earth and they flourished, hunting and fishing. Then Ibmal sent a great howling blizzard with gales and driving snow and ice. One of the brothers ran off and found a cave, and hid himself in it. He survived. But the other brother chose to stay outside and fight the blizzard. He went on hunting and fishing and learning how to keep alive. After the blizzard had passed over, one brother emerged from the cave and from him are descended all the settled peoples. From the other brother came the Sabme.'

I was beginning to take a liking to this forthright, homely little man. 'Come,' he said, 'as you are to be my guest, we should find out a little more about you and the days that lie ahead.'

With no more ceremony than Thrand consulting the rune tablets, Rassa produced his own prophecy drum. It was much bigger and more intricately decorated than the one I had seen before. Rassa's drum had many, many more symbols. They were drawn, he told me, "with the red juice from the alder tree, and he had hung coloured ribbons, small amulets and charms of copper, horn and a few in silver round the drum's edge. I carried copies of the same charms in my trade pack.

Rassa dropped a small marker on the drum skin. This time the marker was a brass ring. Before he began to tap on the drum, I intervened.

'What do the symbols mean?' I asked.

He gave me a shrewd glance. 'I think you already know some of them,' he replied.

'I can see some runes,' I said.

'Yes, I learned those signs among the settled peoples.'

'What about that one? What does that signify?' I pointed to a wavy triple line. There were several similar symbols painted at different places on the drum skin.

'They are the mountains, the places where our ancestors dwell.'

'And that one?' I indicated the drawing of a man wearing antlers on his head.

'That is the noiade's own sign. You call him a seidrmann.'

'And if the marker goes there what does it mean?'

'It tells of the presence of a noiade, or that the noaide must be consulted. Every Sabme tent has a drum of prophecy, and someone to use it. But only a noiade can read the deeper message of the arpa, the moving marker.'

Abruptly he closed his eyes and began to sing. It was a thin, quavering chant, the same short phrase repeated over and over and over again, rising in pitch until the words suddenly stopped, cut off mid-phrase as if the refrain had fallen into a pool of silence. After a short pause, Rassa began the chant again, once more raising the pitch of his voice until coming to the same abrupt halt. As he chanted, he tapped on his drum. Watching the ugly little man, his eyes closed, his body swaying back and forth very slightly, I knew that I was in the presence of a highly accomplished seidrmann. Rassa was able to enter the spirit world as easily as I could strike sparks from a flint.

After the fourth repetition of his chant, Rassa opened his eyes and looked down at the drum. I was not surprised to see that the arpa was resting once again on the antlered man. Rassa grunted, as if it merely confirmed what he had expected. Then he closed his eyes and resumed tapping, more urgently this time. I watched the track of the brass ring as it skittered across the face of the drum. It visited symbol after symbol without pausing, hesitated and then retraced a slightly different track. Rassa's drumming ended and this time he did not look down at the drum but straight at me. 'Tell me,' he said.

Strangely, I had anticipated the question. It was as if a bond, an understanding, existed between the noiade and myself. We both took it for granted that I possessed seidr skill and had come to Rassa for enlightenment.

'Movement,' I said. 'There will be movement. Towards the mountains, though which mountains I do not know. Then the drum spoke of something I do not understand, something mysterious, obscure, a little dangerous. Also of a union, a meeting.'

Rassa now looked down at the drum himself. The brass ring had come to rest on a drawing of a man seated on horseback. 'Is that what you meant by movement?' he asked.

The answer seemed obvious, but I answered, 'No, not that sign. I can't be sure how to interpret it, but whatever it is, it concerns me closely. When the ring approached the symbol and then came to rest, my spirit felt strengthened.'

'Look again and tell me what you see,' the noiade replied.

I examined the figure more closely. It was almost the smallest symbol on the drum, squeezed into a narrow space between older, more faded figures. It was unique. Nowhere else could I see this mark repeated. The horse rider was carrying a round shield. That was odd, I thought. Nowhere among the Sabme had I seen a shield. Besides, a horse would never survive in this bleak cold land. I looked again, and noticed that the horse, drawn in simple outline, had eight legs.

I looked up at Rassa. He was gazing at me questioningly with his bulging eyes. 'That is Odinn,' I said. 'Odinn riding Sleipnir.'

'Is it? I copied that sign from something I saw among the settled folk. I saw it carved on a rock and knew that it had power.'

'Odinn is my God,' I said. 'I am his devotee. It was Odinn who brought me to your land.'

'Later you can tell me who is this Odinn,' Rassa answered, 'but among my people that symbol has another meaning. For us it is the symbol of approaching death.'

With this enigmatic forecast I began my time among the forest Sabme. My days with them were to be some of the most remarkable, and satisfactory, of my life, thanks almost entirely to Rassa and his family. Rassa was no ordinary noiade. He was acknowledged as maybe the greatest noiade of his time. His unusual appearance had marked him out from his earliest childhood. Ungainly and clumsy, he had differed from other boys. Trying to play their games, he would sometimes fall down on the ground and choke or lose his senses entirely. Norse children would have mocked and teased him, but the Sabme treated him with special gentleness. No one had been surprised when, at the age of eight, he began to have strange and disturbing dreams. It was the proof to the Sabme that the sacred ancestors had sent Rassa as their intermediary, and Rassa's parents unhesitatingly handed over their son to the local shaman for instruction. Thirty years later his reputation extended from the forest margins where his own people lived as far as the distant coast, to those Sabme who fished for seal and small whale. Among all the Sabme bands, the siida, it was known that Rassa was a great noiade, and from time to time he would come to visit them in his spirit travels. So high was his reputation when I arrived among them that no one questioned why he decided to take a lumbering stranger into his tent and instruct him in the sacred ways. His own siida believed that their great noiade had summoned me. Their drums told them so. For my part, I believed sometimes that Rassa was Odinn's agent. At other times I thought he might be the All-Father himself, in human guise.

Our siida (as I soon came to think of it) shifted camp the morning after my arrival. They did not trouble to dismantle their birch-bark tents. They merely gathered up their few belongings,

wrapped them in bundles, which they slung on rawhide cords over their shoulders or tied to their backs, and set off along the trail that followed the river bank. The fishing had been disappointing, Rassa explained. The local water spirit and the Fish Gods were displeased. The reason for their anger he did not know. There was a hole in the bottom of the river, leading to a subterranean spirit river, and the fish had all fled there. It would be wise for the siida to move to another spot, where the spirits were more friendly. There was no time to waste. Soon the river would be frozen over and fishing — on which the siida depended at least as much as hunting - would become impossible. Our straggle of twenty families, together with their dogs and the six haltered boazo, walked for half a day before we came to our destination, further downstream. Clearly the siida had occupied the site previously. There were tent frames already standing, which the Sabme quickly covered with deerskins.

'Birch bark is not strong enough to withstand the snows and gales, nor warm enough,' Rassa explained. 'For the next few weeks we will use a single layer of deerskin. Later, when it gets really cold, we'll add extra layers to keep in the warmth.'

His own family consisted of his wife, a married daughter with her husband and their small baby, and a second daughter who seemed vaguely familiar. Then I realised that she had been with the hunting party at the vuodman. With all the Sabme dressed in their deerskin blouses, leggings and caps, it was difficult to tell men from women, and I had not expected a girl to be among the hunters. Nor, during the previous night spent in Rassa's tent, had I noticed that he had a second daughter because the Sabme removed only their shoes before they lay down and they slept almost fully clothed. I had crawled into Rassa's tent to find the place half filled with smoke. There was a fireplace in the centre, and the chimney hole in the apex of the tent had been partly covered over because several fish were hanging to cure from a pole projecting over the fire. Staying close to the ground was the only place where it was possible to breathe freely. Arranged around the outer edge of the tent were the family possessions and these became our pillows when we all lay down to sleep on deerskins over a carpet of fresh birch twigs. There was no furniture of any kind.

Rassa asked me to walk with him to the river bank. I noticed that all the other Sabme stayed well back, watching us. The water was shallow, fast flowing over gravel and rocks. Rassa had a fish spear in one hand and a birch-bark fish basket in the other. Without pausing, he waded out to a large, slick boulder which projected above the water. Rassa scanned the surface of the river for a few moments, then stabbed with his fish spear, successfully spiking a small fish about the length of my hand. He carefully removed the fish from the barbs, knocked its head against the rock and laid the dead fish on the rock. Next he placed the fish basket on his head, and spoke some words in the Sabme tongue, apparently addressing the rock itself. Scooping up water in the palm of his hand, he poured it onto the rock, and bowed three times. With the curved knife which every Sabme wore dangling from his belt, he scraped some scales from the fish. Cradling the scales in the palm of his hand he returned to the camp, where he distributed them to the man of each family. Only then did the siida begin to prepare their nets and fishing lines and approach the water. 'The rock is a sieidde,' Rassa explained to me, 'the spirit of the river. I asked fishing luck for every family. I promised that each family that catches fish will make an offering to the sieidde. They will do this at the end of every day that we stay here, and will do so whenever we return to this place in the future.'

'Why did you give fish scales only to the men?' I asked.

'It is bad luck for a woman to approach the sieidde of the river. Ill luck for the siida and dangerous for the woman herself. It can harm her future children.'

'But didn't I see your daughter with the hunters at the vuodman. If the women can hunt, why can't they fish?'

'That is the way it has always been. My daughter Allba hunts because she's as good as many of the men when it comes to the chase, if not better. They can hardly keep up with her. She's quick and nimble even in dense forest. She was always like that, from when she was a little child. Her only fault is that she likes to talk all the time, a constant chatter. That's why my wife and I named her after the little bird that hops around in summer in the bushes and never stops saying "tik-a-tik".'

With every sentence, Rassa was strengthening my desire to stay among the Sabme if they would allow it. I wanted to learn more of Rassa's seidr and to honour my promise to Grettir by sharing in their way of life. Remembering the store of fish hooks in my trade pack, I went to fetch them and handed my entire stock to Rassa. He accepted the gift almost casually, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. 'We make our own fish hooks of wood or bone. But metal ones are far better,' he said as he began to distribute them among the different families.

'Do you share out everything?' I asked.

He shook his head. 'Not everything. Each person and each family knows what is theirs — clothes, dogs, knives, cooking gear. But they will lend or give that item to someone else if it meets a need. Not to do so would be selfish. We have learned that only by helping one another can we survive as a siida.'

'Then what about the other siida? What happens if you both want to fish on the same river or hunt boazo in the same area of forest?'

'Each siida knows its own territory,' he answered. 'Its members have hunted or fished in certain places down through the generations. We respect that custom.'

'But if you do have a dispute over, say, a good fishing place when there is a famine, do you fight for your rights?'

Rassa looked mildly shocked. 'We never fight. We use all our energy in finding food and shelter, making sure that our children grow up healthy, honouring our ancestors. If another siida is starving and needs a particular fishing spot or hunting ground, then they ask us and if possible we agree to lend it to them until their lives have improved. Besides, our land is so broad that there is room enough for all.'

'I find that strange,' I told him. 'Where I come from, a man will fight to defend what he owns. If a neighbour tries to take his land, or a stranger comes to seize his property, we fight and try to drive him away.'

'For the Sabme that's not necessary,' said the noaide. 'If someone invades our territory, we hide or we run away. We wait until the winter comes and the foreigners have to leave. We know that they are not fit to stay.'

He gestured towards the clothes I was wearing — woollen shirt and loose trousers, a thick travelling cloak and the same ill-fitting leather shoes which had given me blisters earlier. 'The foreigners dress like you. They don't know any better. That is why I've asked my wife and Allba to prepare clothes more suitable for the winter. They've never made clothes so big before, but they will have them ready for you in a few days.'

The unexpected benefit of Rassa's request for clothes that would fit me was that it silenced, temporarily, the constant chatter of his daughter Allba. She talked without pause, mostly to her mother, who went about her work quietly, scarcely bothering to reply. I had no idea what Allba was saying, but did not doubt that I was often the topic of her conversation. Now, as she sat with her mother stitching my winter wardrobe, Allba's mouth was too full of deer sinew for her to keep up her constant chatter. Every thread in the garment had to be ripped with teeth from dried sinew taken from a deer's back or legs, then chewed to soften the fibre and rolled into thread. While the women chewed and stitched, I helped Rassa prepare the family meals. One of the novel features of life among the Sabme was that the men did the cooking.

It must have been in about my fourth week with the siide that two events occurred which changed my situation. The first event was anticipated, but the second was a complete surprise. I woke up one morning at the usual time, just after first light, and as I lay on my deerskin rug I noticed that the interior of the tent was much lighter than usual. I rolled over and peered at the small gap between the edge of the tent and the ground. The daylight was shining through the gap so brightly that it made me squint. Quietly I got up, pushed aside the door flap, and stepped out. The entire camp was shrouded in a covering of heavy snow. The first great snowfall had come upon us in the night. Everything we had left outside the tents - firewood, fish baskets, the nets, the sleeping dogs — were humps in the snow. Even the six boazo had snowy coats. Winter had arrived.

That was the day that Rassa's wife and daughter finished my deerskin garments. There was much mirth among the Sabme as they came to our tent to see me being shown how to put them on. First came a deerskin shirt, worn with the fur against my skin, then close-fitting deerskin trousers, which were awkward to pull on though they had slits at the ankles, and a pair of hand-sewn shoes. These had the characteristic turned-up toes but no heels. 'For when you wear skis,' Rassa explained. He was teasing out some dried sedge grass by separating the strands, then arranging them into two soft padded squares. 'Here put these in your shoes,' he said, 'You'll find them better than any woollen socks. They'll keep your feet warmer, and when they get wet they'll dry out in moments if you hold them near the fire.' Finally he helped me into the long Sabme deerskin blouse. It reached down to my knees. A broad belt held the garment tight around my waist. When I took a few experimental steps, the sensation was quite different from any other clothes I had ever worn before — my body warm and protected, my legs free.

The second event took place on the night after the snowfall. When I entered the family tent, I found a second deerskin had been left on my usual sleeping place. As the weather had turned much colder, I pulled the deerskin over me as a blanket when I lay down. I was on the verge of falling asleep, when I felt the edge of the deerskin lift and someone crawl in beside me. There was enough light from the fire's embers to see that my visitor was Rassa's daughter, Allba. I could see the gleam of the firelight in her eyes and her face had a mischievous look. She placed her mouth against my ear and said softly, 'Tik-a-tik,' then giggled and snuggled down beside me. I did not know what to do. Close by slept her father and mother, her sister and brother-in-law. I feared Rassa's reaction should he wake up. For several moments I lay there, pretending to be asleep. Then Allba's hand began to explore. Very quietly she loosened my Sabme belt and removed my leggings. Then she slid inside my Sabme blouse and nestled against me. She was naked.

I woke up to find that I had overslept. Allba lay curled up within my outstretched arm and the tent was empty. Rassa and the other members of his family had already begun their day. I could hear them moving about outside. Hurriedly I began to pull on my clothes, and this woke Allba. Her eyes were pale blue-grey, a colour sometimes found among the Sabme, and she gazed up at me without the slightest trace of embarrassment. She looked utterly content. She wriggled across to where her clothes lay and, a moment later, she was dressed and ducking out of the tent flap to join her parents. Slowly I followed, wondering what reception I would receive.

Rassa looked up at me as I emerged, and seemed utterly unconcerned. 'You know how to use these, I hope,' was all he said. He was wiping the snow off two long flat lathes of wood.

'I rode on a ski when I was a child, but only a few times, and mostly as a game,' I answered.

'You'll need to know more than that. Allba can show you.'

It dawned on me that Rassa was taking my relationship with his second daughter as normal. Later I was to discover that he actively approved of it. The Sabme thought it natural for a man and woman to sleep together if both were willing. They considered it a sensible arrangement if it is satisfactory for both partners. For a while I worried that Allba was anticipating that our relationship would become a permanent bond. But later, after she had instructed me in a few words of the Sabme language and I had taught her to speak some Norse, she laughed at me when I expressed my concern.

'How can one expect something like that to go on for ever? That's how the settled people think. It would be like staying in one spot permanently. The Sabme believe that in life, the seasons change and it is better to travel than to stay.' I began to say something more, but she laid a finger on my lips and added, 'I could have come to your bed as an act of kindness, as you are the guest in my tent. But that is not why I joined you. I did so because I wanted you and you have not disappointed me.'

Allba was the remedy for an ailment that I scarcely knew I suffered. My shabby treatment at the hands of Gunnhildr, my disenchantment with Aelfgifu, and my youthful heartbreaks had left me disillusioned with the opposite sex. I viewed women with caution, fearing either disappointment or some unforeseen calamity. Allba cured all that. She was so full of life, so active, so natural and uncomplicated. In love-making she was skilled as well as lustful, and I would have been a dullard not to have revelled in my good fortune. Beneath those layers of deerskin clothes, she was very seductive. She had small, fine bones which made her seem as fragile and lightweight as the little snow bird after which she had been named. Constant exercise while hunting and skiing meant that her body was in perfect condition, with slim shoulders and hips. Tiny, high, arched feet gave her a quick, graceful step, and I was roused to discover that the skin of her body and limbs was a smooth dark ivory in contrast to the dark tanned elfin face, its lines etched by snow glare and the wind. Although neither of us became hostage to the other, I think Allba relished our relationship. She was proud of my role as a foreign noaide. For my part I was entranced by her. In short, I fell in love with Allba and my love was unfettered and free.

She taught me how to travel on skis. Not as well as any Sabme, of course. The Sabme learn the skill of travelling across the country on wooden boards as soon as they learn to walk, and no one can really acquire their expertise. Just as the Norse are the finest ship handlers and shipbuilders, so the Sabme excel at snow travel. Nature seems to have designed them for it. Their light weight ensures that they glide across snow that would crack beneath a heavier burden, and their agility means they can thread their way across broken terrain that would thwart a clumsier man. They do not use the ski as the Norse do, riding a single board, with a stick to steer and propel themselves downhill or across a frozen surface. The Sabme attach a board to each foot and can stride at the speed of a running man. They keep up the pace for as long as daylight will allow them. Where Norse craftsmen know how to shape a hull or cut and stitch a sail to best advantage, the Sabme know how to select and shape the skis that bear them, birch wood when the snow is soft, pine when the surface hardens; every ski — they are unequal in length — is hand-crafted to suit the style and size of the user. In the end I learned to travel on the wooden lathes well enough to keep up with siida when we moved, or to travel slowly alongside when Rassa wanted to show me some remote sacred place. But I could never match Allba and the other hunters. They moved so confidently across the snow that they could run down a wolf and get its pelt. For hour after hour they would pursue their prey across the snow, the animal tiring as it leaped through the drifts over which the hunters glided effortlessly. Finally, when the exhausted wolf turned snarling on its pursuers, the leading Sabme would ski close enough to spear or knife the beast to death.

FIFTEEN

Allba wore around her neck an amulet in the shape of a bird. She never took it off, even when we were making love. The bird was her companion, she said, and she asked why I did not wear my own. As a man I should carry it on a cord looped round from my neck and under my arm, so that the talisman hung within my armpit. 'Are you so brave that you risk travelling alone?' she asked. 'Even my father does not do that.' I thought she was talking of a good-luck charm and I made a joke of it, telling her that I had a dozen talismans in my trade pack and was well guarded. It was one of the few times I saw Allba angry. She told me not to play the fool.

When I asked Rassa why his daughter had reacted with such intensity, he asked if I remembered where I had first joined the siida. 'The fishing had been very bad in that place,' he reminded me. 'The fish had gone away. They were still there, but they were not there. We had to move to where another sieidde would accept our sacrifices.'

'How could the fish be there and not there?'

'They had gone away to their own saivo river. I could have followed them, or sent my companion to plead with the water spirit who sent them there. But if the water spirit was still angry, the fish might not have returned.'

The saivo, according to Rassa, is a world which lies alongside our own. It is a mirror of our world, yet more substantial and in it live the spirits of the departed and the companions of the living. These companions come into our world to join us as wraiths and sometimes we can visit the saivo ourselves, but we need our guardian wraiths to guide and protect us.

'Our companions are animals, not people,' Rassa said, putting aside the wooden bowl he had been carving. 'Every Sabme has one - whether it is a fox, a lynx, a bird or some other animal. When we are very young the drum tells our parents which creature is to be our saivo companion through life. Occasionally the wrong choice is made and then the child gets sick or has an accident. So we ask the drum again and it indicates a new companion, one that will be more suitable. Since Allba was a baby her saivo wraith is the bird whose image she wears.'

'Among my people,' I said, 'there are fylga, the fetches. I have seen them myself at times of death. They are our other-persons from another world. When they appear, they resemble us directly. Do you mean that I have an animal companion as well?'

Rassa reached across to where his drum lay on the ground. It was always close to his hand. He placed the arpa on the taut drum skin, and without even closing his eyes or singing his chant, he gave a single hard rap on the drum with his forefinger. The arpa leaped, struck the wooden rim and bounced back. It landed on the outline figure of a bear.

I chose to doubt him. 'How do I know that my companion is a bear?'

'It was decided for you at the time of your birth.' 'But I was born on an island in the ocean where there are no bears.'

'Perhaps a bear entered the lives of your parents.'

I thought for a moment. 'I was told that when my father first met my mother, he was on his way back from a voyage to Norway to deliver a captive polar bear. But he had handed over the bear many weeks before he met my mother, and anyhow the bear died soon afterwards.'

'You will find that the bear died about the time you were born,' said Rassa firmly. 'The bear's spirit has protected you since then. That is your good fortune. The bear is the most powerful of all creatures. It has the intelligence of one man and the strength of nine.'

Before the sun vanished below the horizon for winter, Rassa suggested that if I wanted to know more about the saivo I should enter it myself. I hesitated. I told him that my experience of the other world had been in brief glimpses, through second sight, usually in the company of others who also possessed the ability, and that sometimes the experience had been disturbing and unpleasant. I said I was doubtful that I had the courage to enter the spirit world deliberately and alone. He assured me that my spirit companion would protect me, and that he himself could assist me to pass through the barrier that separated us from the saivo. 'Your second sight shows that you already live close enough to the saivo to see through the veil that divides it from us. I am only proposing that you pass through the veil entirely and discover what lies on the other side.'

'How do I know that I will be able to return?' I asked.

'That, too, I can arrange with Allba's help,' he answered.

He woke Allba and me long before dawn the next day. He had already lit a small fire in the central hearth and cleared a space at the back of the tent. There was enough room for me to sit cross-legged on a square of deerskin. The hide was placed fur side down, and its surface had been painted with the four white lines in the pattern that I had known from throwing the rune counters and the Saxon wands. Rassa indicated that I should sit within the central square and that Allba would squat facing me. 'As my daughter, she has inherited some of my powers,' he said. 'If she is near at hand, you may meet her in the saivo.'

Allba's presence gave me more confidence, for I was feeling very nervous. She untied the small leather pouch she wore on her belt when she went on her hunting trips and shook out the contents onto the deerskin in front of me. The red caps with their white spots were faded to a dull, mottled pink, but I could still recognise the dried and shrivelled mushrooms. Allba picked them over carefully, running her small fingers over them delicately, feeling their rough surface. Then she selected three of the smallest. Carefully putting the others back into the pouch, she left two of the mushrooms on the deerskin, placed the third in her mouth and began to chew deliberately. She kept her eyes on me, her gaze never wavering. After a little time, she put her hand to her mouth and spat out the contents. She held out her palm to me. 'Eat,' she said. I took the warm moist pellet from her, placed it on my tongue and swallowed. Twice more she softened the mushrooms and twice more I swallowed.

Then I sat quietly facing her, observing the firelight play across her features. Her eyes were in shadow.

Time passed. I had no way of judging how long I sat there. Rassa stayed in the background and added several dry sticks to the fire to keep it alight.

Slowly, very slowly, I began to lose touch with my body. As I separated from its physical presence, I felt my body trembling. Once or twice I knew I twitched. But there was nothing I could do about it and I felt unconcerned. A hazy contentment was settling over me. My body seemed to grow lighter as my thoughts relaxed. Everything except for Allba's face became indistinct. She did not move, yet her face came closer and closer. I saw every tiny detail with extraordinary clarity. The lobe of her right ear filled my vision. I detected the gentle blush of blood beneath the skin, the soft fuzz of hair. I wanted to reach out and nibble it in my teeth.

Suddenly there was no ground beneath me. I was suspended in a comfortable space. I knew that my body was there with me, but it had no importance. Without any sensation of movement I was in an endless landscape of trees, snow and rock, but I felt no cold. I glided over the surface without contact. It was as if I was riding on a gentle air current. The trees were a vivid green and I could examine every leaf and wrinkle of the bark in minute detail. The snow reflected the colours of the rainbow, the crystals shifted, merged and rippled. A small bird flew up from a bush and I knew that it was Allba's companion. Between two trees I glimpsed the upright form of a white bear, close, yet not close. It was standing upright, its two eyes gazing at me with a human expression and motionless. I heard someone speaking to me. I recognised my own voice and replied. The conversation was reassuring. I felt peaceful. A bear, dark brown this time, appeared to one side of my path, head down, lumbering and swaying as it walked along and our tracks were converging. When the animal was in touching distance, we both halted. I felt the brush of a bird's wing against my cheek. The bear slowly turned to face me and its muzzle beneath the eyes seemed to smile.

The eyes were grey-blue, and I realised that I was looking into Allba's face. I was back on the deerskin, still seated.

'You have come back from the saivo,' said Rassa. 'You were there only a short time, but long enough to know how to return there if you wish.'

'It seemed very like our own world,' I said, 'only much larger and always just beyond reach, as though it withheld itself.'

'That is appearance only,' said the noaide. 'The saivo is full of spirits, the spirts of the dead as well as the spirits who rule our lives. By comparison our world is temporary and fragile. Our world is in the present, while the saivo is eternal. Those who travel into the saivo glimpse the forces that determine our existence, but only when those spirits wish to be seen. Those who visit the saivo regularly become accepted there and then the spirits reveal themselves.'

'Why should a bear smile?' I asked.

Opposite me Allba suddenly got to her feet and left the tent. Rassa did not answer. Without warning I felt dizzy and my stomach heaved. More than anything else, I wanted to lie down and close my eyes again. I could barely drag myself back to my sleeping place and the last thing I remembered was Rassa throwing a deerskin over me.

Snow fell almost daily now, heavy flakes drifting down through the trees and settling on the ground. Our hunters made repeated sweeps of the forest to lay out their wooden traps because the fur-bearing animals had grown their winter coats and were in their prime. The siida made one final move. It was laborious because our tents were now double- or triple-layered to keep out the cold and difficult to dismantle and we were hampered by our heavy winter clothing. We went to ground, quite literally. The siida had its midwinter camp in the lee of a low ridge, which gave shelter from the blizzards. Over the generations each family had dug itself a refuge, excavating the soft earthen side of the ridge, then covering the crater with a thick roof of logs and earth. The entrance to Rassa's cabin was little more than a tunnel, through which I crawled on hands and knees, but the place was surprisingly spacious once inside. I could stand upright and though the place was smoky from the small fire in the central hearth it was cosy. I admitted to myself that the thought of spending the next few months here with Allba was appealing. Rassa's wife had spread the floor with the usual carpet of fresh spruce twigs covered with deerskins, and had divided the interior into small cubicles by hanging up sheets of light cotton obtained from the springtime traders. The contrast with the squalid dugout where Grettir had died could not have been greater. I said so to Rassa and described how my sworn brother had met his end through a volva's malign intervention, with curse runes cut on a log.

'Had your sworn brother met with such an accident among the Sabme, injuring himself with that axe,' commented Rassa, 'we would have known that it was surely a staallu's doing. The staallu can disguise himself as an animal, a deer perhaps, and allows himself to be hunted down and killed. But when the hunter begins to cut up the animal to take its flesh and hide, the staallu turns the knife blade on the bone, so that the hunter cuts himself badly. If the hunter is far from his siida, he bleeds to death beside the carcass of his kill. Then the staallu returns to his normal shape, drinks the blood and feasts on the corpse of his victim.'

Allba, who was listening, gave a little scornful hiss. 'If I ever meet the staallu, he will regret the day. That's just a story to frighten children.'

'Don't be so sure, Allba. Just hope you never meet him,' her father murmured, then turning to me said, 'The staallu roams the forest. He's big and a bit simple and clumsy. We say he's like those coarse traders who come to acquire our furs in the springtime, though the staallu's appetite is even more gross. He eats human flesh when times are hard, and has been known to carry off Sabme girls.'

That same week I gave away the rest of the contents of my trader's pack. I had lost any ambition to barter with the members of the siida for furs and I was ashamed to hold back items which could be useful to the band. The Sabme were so generous and hospitable to me that it seemed wrong not to contribute my share to their well-being. Apart from mending nets and doing some primitive metalwork, I was useless to them, so I handed the pack over to Rassa and asked that he distribute the contents to whoever needed it most. The only item I kept back was the fire ruby — and that I gave to Allba as a love token. The jewel delighted her. She spent hours in the cabin, sitting by the fire with the ruby in her fingers and turning the gem this way and that so that the red light flickered within the gem. 'There is a spirit dancing inside the stone,' she would say. 'It is the spirit which brought you to me.'

The effect of giving away all my trade goods was the reverse of what I had expected — instead of ending my chances of obtaining furs to take to Miklagard, I was deluged with them. Nearly every day a hunter left outside Rassa's cabin the frost-stiffened carcass of an ermine, a sable, a squirrel or a white fox, whose luxurious pelt Allba would skin and prepare for me. There was no way of knowing which hunter was responsible for the gift. They came and went silently on their skis. Only the blizzards stopped them. When the blizzard spirit raged the entire siida would disappear inside their underground shelters and wait for the terrible wind and driving snow to end. Then, cautiously, the Sabme dug themselves out of the snow-covered lairs and, like the animals they hunted, sniffed the wind and set out to forage.

Of course we ate the flesh of the animals we skinned. Some were rank and disagreeable — marten and otter were particularly unpleasant. But squirrel was tasty and so too was beaver. Whatever meat was left over we placed in the little larders each Sabme family had built close to their cabin, a small hutch on a pole or set on top of a rock, so as it was out of reach of animals. The food never spoiled in the bitter cold. If a hunter was lucky enough to kill a wild boaz, he stored wooden bowls of the fresh deer's blood in the same place. Within hours it had frozen hard and could be chopped in pieces with an axe and brought within the cabin as required.

Rassa was called away by the spirits from time to time, though not always when he wanted. Without warning he would begin to twitch and writhe, then lose his balance and fall to the ground. If the spirit call was urgent, he foamed at the mouth. He had told us to press a rag into his mouth if his tongue lolled out, but not to restrain him if he was in spasms because, as his body writhed, his spirit was entering the saivo, and soon all would be calm. Rassa's family were accustomed to these sudden departures. They would lay the unconscious noiade comfortably on his face, place his drum beneath his outstretched right hand in case he had need of it in the saivo, and then await his return to our world. When Rassa did rejoin us, his mood depended on what he had experienced in his absence. Sometimes, if he had been fighting evil spirits, he would come back exhausted. At other times he was elated, telling us of the great spirits that he had encountered. Ibmal the Sky God was untouchable and unknowable, but Rassa sometimes met Biegg-Olbmai, the God of Wind, and wrestled with him to prevent a three-day blizzard. On another occasion he had asked the God responsible for hunting, a spirit he called 'Blood Man', that the siida's hunters should be rewarded. Two days later they tracked and killed an elk. The Gods and spirits whom Rassa revered were new to me, but his words aroused a faint recollection of a spirit world far older than the Elder Faith. I sensed that my own Gods, Odinn, Frey, Thor and the others, had all emerged from Rassa's saivo to take the shapes in which I knew them.

It was when Bolive, the Sabme Sun God, had begun to appear regularly over the southern horizon that one of our neighbours came to the entrance of Rassa's cabin and called excitedly down the tunnel. He gabbled his words so fast that I could not understand what he was saying, though Allba had spent many hours teaching me a working knowledge of her language. Whatever the hunter's message, Rassa immediately put aside the drum he was repainting and rose to his feet. Reaching for his heavy wolfskin cloak, he gestured for me to follow, and the two of us emerged from the cabin to find a group of eight Sabme hunters, looking towards him, impatient for instructions. One of the Sabme said something about 'honey paws', and when Rassa replied, the hunters began to disperse towards their cabins, calling out to their families excitedly.

'What's happening?' I asked Rassa.

'The time has come to leave our cabins and live in our tents again, though this is much earlier in the season than is usual,' he said, 'but the Old One wants it to be that way.'

'The Old One? Who's he?'

Rassa would not answer directly. He asked his wife and Allba to get ready to leave the cabin. So uncomplicated was the Sabme life that our entire siida was on the move within the time it took for the men, women and children to load our belongings onto light sledges, strap infants to their mothers' backs in tiny boat-shaped cradles lined with moss, and fasten on skis. I had no sledge to pull as I was so clumsy on skis, nor was I given a pack because I was already heavier than the Sabme and would have broken through the crust of snow.

We returned to the camp that we had left before we went into the cabins, and once again triple-covered the standing tent frames with deer hides. Everyone seemed in great good humour, leaving me confused as to what was going on.

'What is it?' I asked Allba, 'Why did we leave the cabins so quickly?'

'It's time for the most important hunt of the entire year,' she replied. 'The hunt that will ensure our siida's future.' 'Are you going on the hunt?' 'That is forbidden.'

'But you're almost our best hunter,' I objected. 'You will be needed.'

'Brothers are needed, not women,' she replied enigmatically as she tugged the final layer of the tent's deerskin into position.

I was still bemused the next morning when I woke up to find myself covered with a layer of snow a hand's breadth deep. The smoke hole in the top of the tent had been left open, and a late heavy fall of snow had half-buried the camp. No one seemed perturbed.

'Here, wear these,' said Allba, handing me a pair of shoes she had been working on all winter.

I turned them over in my hand. 'Can't I wear my usual shoes?'

'No,' she said. 'I stitched those with the seams inside so that the snow does not gather on them and I made them from the skin from a boaz head. The thickest and strongest hide, it is fitting that you should wear them today.' She also insisted that I put on my best winter garment — a heavy wolfskin cape — though it looked strange on me because the cape had previously belonged to Rassa, and Allba had lengthened it with a skirt of reindeer hide to make it fit my extra height. Rassa himself was donning his noaide's belt hung with the jawbones of the various fur-bearing animals we hunted, a cap sewn with sacred amulets and a heavy bearskin cloak. I had never seen him wear all these items at the same time, nor the short staff wound with red and blue ribbons and its cluster of small hawk's bells. When I offered to carry his sacred drum for him, Rassa shook his head and gestured for me to leave the tent ahead of him. Outside I found every hunter in our siida already waiting and dressed as if for a festival. Some had put on dark blue surcoats made of cloth acquired from the traders, and their wives had sewn the hems with strips of red and yellow ribbon. Others wore the familiar deerskin hunting garments, but had added colourful hats and belts and tied sprigs of spruce to their sleeves. They all looked excited and eager, and it took me several moments to realise that they were not equipped with their usual hunting bows and arrows, throwing sticks and wooden traps. Each man was armed with a stout spear, its shaft of rough wood, the tip a broad metal head.

I had no time to ask the hunters why they had changed their equipment because Rassa now made his formal appearance. He emerged from the tent and tramped through the snow to the flat boulder at the centre of our camp. With each step he softly jingled the bells on his noiade's wand and chanted a song I had never heard before. The words were very strange. They came from a language which bore no relation to that I had learned over the winter. When Rassa reached the rock he placed his magic drum on it, then faced towards the south. He raised the wand three times and called out what I took to be an invocation. Then he reached inside his cloak with his right hand and pulled something out from under his left armpit. He held it up for all to see. It was an arpa ring, but not of brass. From where I stood, I guessed that it was of gold and was sure of it when Rassa tossed the ring onto the drum skin. It fell with a dull and heavier thud than a token made of baser metal.

Rassa struck the drum's wooden rim with the end of his noiade's wand. The golden arpa skidded across the taut deerskin and came to a halt. Everyone craned forward to see the symbol where it rested. It lay on the serpent sign of the mountains. A shiver of delight ran through the crowd. The small, nimble men glanced at one another and nodded happily. The ancestors were observing and approving. Again the noiade rapped the drum with his staff and this time the golden ring came to rest on the figure of a bear. Now I detected that the onlookers were puzzled, almost doubtful. Rassa sensed their hesitation. Instead of striking the drum a third time with his wand, he snatched up the golden arpa and with a cry like a heron's angry croak he tossed it in the air so that it landed on the drum skin. By chance the ring landed on its edge, and began to roll, first to the edge of the drum, then rebounding it began to trace its path erratically. It wobbled along as if uncertain until it finally slowed, remained for a heartbeat on its edge, then toppled gently to one side and settled with the gentle reverberation that a coin makes as it falls upon a gaming table. Again all the spectators leaned forward to see where it had come to rest. This time the arpa lay upon the sign of my saivo companion — the bear.

Rassa did not hesitate. He picked up the ring, walked across to the nearest hunter and took away his heavy spear. Next he placed the golden ring over the spear tip. Finally he turned to where I stood and, with a formal gesture, placed the spear in my hand.

The drum had decided. The hunters dispersed to their tents to collect their skis and Rassa led me to where his wife and Allba were standing by our tent, watching. Allba knelt down in the snow to tie on my skis and, as she rose to her feet, I made a movement as if to embrace her. To my chagrin, she leaped back as if I had struck her and moved away from me, making it plain that she wanted nothing to do with me. Puzzled and a little hurt, I accompanied her father to where a little procession was forming up. It was led by the man who had first called Rassa from our cabin. I recognised his voice. He was the only one without a heavy spear in his hand. Instead he carried a long hunting bow of willow bound with birch bark. The bow was unstrung and a spruce twig was fastened to the tip. Behind him came Rassa in his bearskin cape, then myself, and finally the remainder of the brightly dressed hunters in single file. In complete silence we left the camp and began to ski through the forest, following the man with the bow. How he picked his way I could not tell, for the snowfall had obliterated all tracks. But he did not falter and I was hard put to it to keep up with the pace. From time to time he slowed so that I could catch my breath, and I marvelled at the patience of the Sabme hunters behind me who must have thought me half-crippled on my skis.

At mid-morning our leader abruptly came to a stop. I looked around, trying to see what had made him halt. There was nothing different. The forest trees stretched away on all sides. The snow lay thick on the ground and clung in little piles to the branches. I could hear no sound. There was utter stillness apart from the sound of my own breathing.

Our leader bent down and unfastened his skis. Still holding his bow, he stepped to one side and began to walk in a wide circle, sinking deep into the snow with each step. The rest of us waited, watching him, not saying a word. I looked across at Rassa, hoping for some guidance, but he was standing with his eyes closed, his lips moving as if in prayer. Slowly the bowman walked on, leaving his footmarks in the snow and finally coming back to his starting point. Again I tried to understand the significance of his actions. Everything was done so quietly and deliberately that I knew it had to be a ritual. I scanned the circle of footprints he had made. I still saw nothing. The circle enclosed a small rise in the ground, not even large enough to be called a knoll. For want of any other explanation, I presumed that it was a sieidde place. We had come to pay homage to the nature spirit.

I waited for Rassa to begin his incantation to the spirit. But the noiade was now removing his own skis and so too were the other Sabme. I did the same. My hands were stiff with cold and it took me several attempts to undo the knots in the thongs holding the skis to the new shoes Allba had made for me. I was pleased to see that, as she had promised, the snow had not stuck to them. I laid down the heavy spear to use both hands to undo the knots, and fearing that the gold ring would slip off and be lost in the snow, I pushed it more firmly in place. I put my skis to one side and straightened up. Glancing round, I saw that the other hunters had spread out to either side of me. Rassa was standing slightly aside. The only person directly ahead of me was the bowman and he was walking to the middle of the circle he had made with his footprints. He still had his bow in his right hand, but it was not yet strung. Coming almost to the centre of the circle, the hunter took three or four steps to one side, then another five or six steps forward, and turned to face me. Some instinct warned me, and made me grasp the heavy spear more firmly. I wondered if he would string the bow and attack me. Instead he raised the bow with both hands, and plunged it into the snow at his feet. Nothing happened. Two or three times more he repeated the same action. Then, shockingly, the snow directly in front of him cracked open, and a massive shape came bursting out. In the next instant I recognised the snow-covered form of an angry bear charging straight towards me.

To this day I do not know whether I was saved by my natural sense of self-preservation or by following Edgar's hunting instructions given long ago in an English forest. I had no time to turn and flee. The snow would have hampered my flight and the bear would have caught and ripped me in an instant. So I stood my ground, rammed the butt of the crude spear into the snow behind me and felt it strike solid, frozen earth. Scattering snow in all directions, the bear came careering towards me. When it saw the obstacle in its path, its angry warning growl rose to a full threatening roar and it rose on its back legs, its paws ready to strike. If the bear had stayed on all fours, I would not have known where to aim the spear. Now I was confronted with the hairy belly, the small eyes glaring down at me in rage, the open mouth and pink gullet, and I guided the spear point into the open and inviting chest. The bear impaled itself and I did nothing more than hold the shaft firm. It gave a deep coughing grunt as the broad metal spear head entered its chest, and then it began to sink down onto all fours, shaking its head as if in surprise. The end was swift. For a moment the bear looked incredulous. Even as it tried to turn and lumber away and my spear was wrenched from my grasp, the Sabme were closing in from either side. I looked on, shaking with shock, as they ran up and with cool precision speared the bear in its heart.

Rassa approached the carcass where it lay on the blood-smeared snow. The hunters reverentially stepped back several paces to give him space. The noiade leaned down and felt the bear's body. I saw him reach behind the bear's left front leg, against the chest. A moment later the noiade stood up and gave a thin wailing shout of jubilation. Holding up his right hand, he showed what he had retrieved. It was the golden ring arpa.

Pandemonium broke out among the hunters. I thought they had lost their senses. Those with sprigs of spruce on their garments snatched them free and ran up to the bear and began to flog the carcass. Others picked up their skis and laid them across the dead animal. All of them were yelling and shouting with joy, and I heard cries of thanks, praise and congratulation. Some of the men kept chanting phrases from the arcane song that Rassa had sung in camp before we began the hunt, but still I could not understand a word. When the hunters had capered and danced themselves to exhaustion, Rassa knelt in the snow, facing the bear and called out solemnly to the dead animal, 'We thank you for the gift. May your spirit now roam happily in the saivo, and be born again in the spring, refreshed and in full health.'

Very soon it would be dark. Leaving the dead animal where it lay, we began to make our way back towards the camp. This time instead of skiing through the forest in solemn silence, the Sabme called out to one another, laughed and joked, and while still some distance from home they sent out long whooping calls that echoed far ahead of us among the trees to announce our return.

I shall never forget the sight which greeted us when we entered the camp. The women had lit a blazing fire on the flat-topped rock, and were standing where the light from the flames flickered across their faces. Every one of their faces was stained a bloody red. For a moment I thought there had been a terrible atrocity. Then I saw the movements of a dance, the gestures of welcome and recognised a song of praise for our hunting skill. I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was lie down and rest, preferably with Allba beside me. But when I headed towards our tent, Rassa took me by the arm and led me away from the entrance flap and around to the back. There he made me drop on all fours, and crawl under the hem of the tent. As I entered I found Allba standing facing me across the hearth. Her face too was stained red, and she was looking at me through a brass ring held up to one eye. As I crawled into view, she backed away from me and disappeared. Too tired to care, I crawled fully dressed to our sleeping place and fell into a deep sleep.

Rassa prodded me awake at first light. Neither Allba nor his wife were anywhere to be seen. 'We go to fetch the Old One now,' he said. 'I thank you for what you have done for the siida. Now it is the time to celebrate.'

'Why do you keep on calling him the Old One?' I asked, feeling peevish. 'You might have warned me we were hunting for bear.'

'We can call him a bear now that he has given his life for us,' he replied cheerfully, 'but if we had spoken directly of him before the hunt, he would have been insulted. It removes respect if we call him by his earth name before the hunt.'

'But my saivo companion is a bear? Surely it is not right that I killed his kind?'

'Your saivo companion protected you from the Old One's charge when he emerged from his long winter sleep. You see, the Old One you killed was killed many times before. Yet he always comes again, for he wishes to give himself to the siida, to strengthen us because he is our own ancestor. That is why we returned the gold ring under his arm, for that is where our greatgreat-grandfathers first found the golden arpa, and knew that he was the original father of our siida.'

We skiied back to the dead bear, taking a light sledge with us, and hauled its carcass to the encampment. Under Rassa's watchful gaze the hunters removed the large pelt - the bear was a full-grown male - and then with their curved knives separated the flesh from the bones, taking exquisite care. Not a bone was broken or even nicked with a knife blade, and each part of the skeleton was carefully put on one side. 'Later,' said Rassa, 'we will bury the skeleton intact, every bone of it, so that when the Old One comes again to life he will be as well and strong as he was this year.'

'Like Thor's goats,' I said.

Rassa looked at me questioningly. 'Thor is a God of my people,' I said. 'Each evening he feasts on the two goats which draw his chariot through the sky - the thunder is the sound of his passing - and after the meal he sets aside their bones and skins. In the morning, when he awakes, the goats are whole again. Unfortunately one of Thor's dinner guests broke open a hind leg to get at the marrowbone, and ever since that goat has walked with a limp.'

The siida made a great fuss of me for the three days of feasting it took to consume every last morsel of the animal I had killed. 'Scut of boaz, paw of bear,' was Rassa's recommendation as he helped me to the delicacy, explaining that to set aside or keep any portion of the dead animal would be an insult to the generosity of its death. 'The Old One made sure that the blizzard did not destroy us, and that the spring will come and the snow will melt. Already he is roaming the hills ahead of us, calling upon the grass and the tree shoots to appear and for the birds that left to return.'

My only regret was that Allba still kept her distance from me. 'If she comes to your bed within three days of the hunt,' her father enlightened me, 'she will turn barren. Such is the power of our father-ancestor whose presence came so close to you. Even as you set off to hunt the Old One, his power was already reaching out towards you.' This seemed to explain why Allba had been behaving so strangely, and only when Rassa wore on his face the muzzle we had flayed from the Old One and every hunter -myself included — had danced around the central rock in imitation of Old Honey Paws on the final night of feasting, did she once again snuggle against my shoulder.

She also made me a fine cloak from the pelt, long enough for my height. 'You are wearing the presence of the Old One, a sign that he himself gave you,' Rassa said. 'Even a Sabme from another band would know that and treat you with respect.' He was anxious to press ahead with my instruction, and as the days grew longer he took me on trips into the forest to show me strange-shaped rocks, trees split by lightning or bent by the wind into human shapes, and ancient wooden statues hidden deep in the forest. They were all places where the spirits resided, he explained, and on one special occasion he brought me to a long, low rock face shielded from the snow by an overhanging cliff. The grey rock was painted with many pictures and I recognised the images that appeared on the siida's magic drums, as well as some I had not seen before — outlines of whales, boats and sledges. Others were too old and faded to decipher.

'Who painted these?' I asked Rassa.

'I do not know,' he said. 'They have always been here for as long as our siida has existed. I believe they were left for our instruction, to remind us who has gone before and to guide us when we are in need of help.'

'And where are they now, the painters?' I asked.

'In the saivo, of course,' he replied. 'And they are happy. In the winter nights when the curtains of light hang and twist and mingle in the sky, the spirits of the dead are dancing with joy.'

With each day came more signs of spring. Our footprints in the snow, once clear and distinct, now had softer edges, and I heard the sound of running water from small rivulets hidden beneath the icy crust and the patter of drips falling from the forest branches. A few early flowers emerged through the snow and flocks of birds began to pass overhead in increasing numbers. Their calls heralded their arrival, then faded into the distance as they flew onward to their nesting grounds. Rassa took the chance to teach me how to interpret the meanings hidden in their numbers, the directions which they appeared from or vanished to, even the messages in the manner of their calls. 'Birds in flight or smoke rising from the fire. It is the same,' he said. 'For those who can read them, they are signs and portents.' Then he added 'though in your case it requires no such skill.' He had noted how my gaze lingered towards the south even after the birds had gone. 'Soon the siida will be heading north for our spring hunting grounds and you will be going in the opposite direction and leaving us,' he said. I was about to deny it, when his crooked smile stopped me. 'I have known this since the very first day you arrived among us, and so has every member of our siida, including my wife and Allba. You are a wanderer just as we are, but we retrace the paths laid down by our ancestors, while you are restless in a deeper way. You told me that the spirit God you serve was a seeker after knowledge. I have seen how he sent you among us, just as I know that he now wishes you to continue onward. It is my duty to assist and there is little time left. You must leave before the melting snow makes it impossible to travel easily on skis. Soon the staallu men will be arriving to trade for furs. For fear of them, we will retreat deeper into our forests. But before that happens, three of our best hunters will take our winter furs to the special place for the trading. You must go with them.'

As usual, the Sabme, once they came to a decision, carried it out quickly. The next morning there was every sign that they were breaking camp. Deerskin coverings were being stripped from the tent poles and the three designated hunters were stacking two sledges with tight-packed bundles of furs. Everything was done with such bewildering speed that I had no time to think what I should say to Allba, how best to say goodbye. I need not have worried. She left her mother to attend to the dismantling of our tent and led me a little way from the camp. Stepping behind the shelter of a spruce tree, she took my hand, and pressed something small and hard into my palm. I knew that she was returning to me the fire ruby. It was still warm from where it had lain against her flesh.

'You must keep it,' I objected. 'It is yours, a token of my love for you.'

'You don't understand,' she said. 'For me it is much more important that the spirit that flickers within the stone continues to guard and guide you. Then I know you will be safe wherever you are. Besides, you have left with me something just as precious. It stirs inside me.'

I took her meaning. 'How can you be sure?'

'Now is the season that all creatures can feel the stirrings of their young. The Sabme are no different. Madder Acce, who lives beneath the hearth, has placed within me a daughter. I knew she would, from that day that we both visited the saivo.'

'How can you be sure that our child will be a girl?'

'Do you remember the bear you met on your saivo journey?' she answered. 'I was there with you as my companion bird, though you did not see me.'

'I felt your wings brush my cheek.'

'And the bear? Don't you remember the bear you met at that time?'

'Of course, I do. It smiled at me.'

'If it had growled, that would have meant my child would be a boy. But when the bear smiles then a girl child is promised. All Sabme know that.'

'Don't you want me to stay, to help you with our child?'

'Everyone in the siida will know that she is the child of a foreign noiade and the grandchild of a great noiade. So everyone will help me because they will expect the girl will become a great noiade too, and help our siida to survive. If you stayed among us for my sake, it would make me sad. I told you when you first arrived among us that the Sabme believe it is far, far better to travel onward than to remain in one place. By staying you imprison your spirit, just as the fire is held within that magic stone you lent me. Please listen to me, travel onward and know that you have left me happy.'

She turned her face up towards me for one last kiss, and I took the opportunity to close her fingers once more around the fire ruby. 'Give it to our daughter when she is grown, in memory of her father.' There was a tiny moment of hesitation and then Allba acquiesced. She turned and walked back towards her family. Rassa was beckoning to me. The men with the fur sledges were anxious to leave. They had already strapped on their skis and were adjusting the leather hauling straps of the sledges more comfortably across their shoulders. I went across to thank Rassa for all he had done for me. But, strangely for him, he looked worried.

'Don't trust the staallu men,' he warned me. 'Last night I visited the saivo to consult your saivo companion about what will happen. My journey was shadowy and disturbed, and I sensed death and deceit. But I could not see from where it came, though a voice told me that already you knew the danger.'

I had no idea what he was talking about, but I respected him too much to doubt his sincerity. 'Rassa, I will remember what you have said. I can look after myself, and it is you who have the greater task - to look after the siida. I hope that the spirits guard and protect your people, for they are in my memory always.'

'Go now' said the stunted little man. 'your companions are good men and they will bring you to the staallu place safely. After that you must guard yourself. Goodbye.'

It took four days of steady skiing, always southward, to reach the place where my siida traded with the outsiders. At night the four of us wrapped ourselves in furs and slept beside our sledges. We ate dried food or, on the second evening, a ptarmigan which one of the hunters knocked down with his throwing stick. As we drew closer to the meeting place, I sensed my comrades' growing nervousness. They feared the foreign traders and the last day we travelled in complete silence, as if we were on our way to hunt a dangerous wild beast. We detected the staallu men from a great distance. In that pristine, quiet forest we heard them and smelled the smoke from their cooking fire. My companions halted at once, and one of them slipped out of the hauling harness and glided off quietly to scout. The others pulled the sledges out of sight and we waited. Our scout returned to say that two staallu men were camped in the place where they usually waited for the silent trade. With them were four more men, boaz men. For a moment I was puzzled. Then I understood that he was talking about the slaves who would act as porters for the traders.

The foreign traders had already displayed their trade goods in a deserted clearing, the bundles hung like fruit from the trees. That night our little group furtively approached, and in the first light of dawn my companions examined what was on offer — cloth, salt, metal items. Apparently they were satisfied, for we hurriedly unloaded the sledges of the furs, replaced them with the trade goods, and soon the Sabme were ready to depart. They embraced me and skiied away as silently as they had arrived, leaving me among their furs.

This is how the traders found me, to their amazement: seated on a bundle of prime furs in a deserted forest glade, as if I had appeared by magic, and wearing my noiade's heavy bearskin cloak.

They spoke crude Norse.

'Frey's prick! What have we got here?' the first one called out to his companion. The two men were clumsily pushing themselves forward across the snow with stout poles, each on a single ski in the Norse fashion. I thought how ungainly they looked compared with the agile Sabme. Both men were bundled up in heavy coats, felt hats and thick loose trousers gathered into stout boots.

'Nice cape he's got on,' said the other. 'A bearskin that size would fetch a good price.'

'So would he,' replied his companion. 'Go up to him slowly. I'll see if I can get behind him. They say that once those Skridfinni get going, there's no hope of catching up with them. Act friendly.'

They sidled closer, the leader wearing a false smile which only emphasised that his bulbous nose was dripping a slimy trail down his heavy moustache and beard.

I waited until they were within a few paces and then said clearly, 'Greetings. The bearskin is not for sale.'

The pair of them stopped in their tracks. They were too astonished to speak.

'Nor are the furs in the pack I am sitting on,' I continued. 'Your furs are lying over there. They are fair exchange for the goods you left.'

The two men recovered from their shock that I had spoken in their language.

'Where did you drop from?' the leader asked belligerently, mistaking me for a rival. 'This is our patch. No one trespasses.' 'I came with the furs,' I said.

For a moment they did not believe me. Then they read the ski tracks of my Sabme companions. They clearly came from the rim of the silent forest and then returned again. Then the traders noted my Sabme fur hat, and the deerskin shoes that Allba had sewn for me.

'I want to get to the coast,' I said. 'I would pay you well.'

The two men looked at one another. 'How much?' asked the snot-nosed individual bluntly.

'A pair of marten skins, perfectly matched,' I suggested.

It must have been a generous offer because both men nodded at once. Then the leader turned to his companion and said, 'Here, let's see what they've left for us,' and began to grub among the furs that the Sabme hunters had left behind. Apparently satisfied, he turned back towards his camp and let out a huge bellow. Out of the thickets appeared a sad little procession. Four men bundled up against the cold in ragged and dirty clothes trudged along on small square boards attached to their feet, dragging crude sledges. They were what my Sabme companions had called the boaz people, porters and hauliers for the fur traders. As they loaded the sledges, I saw they had the beaten air of thralls and did not understand more than a few words of their masters' language. Every command was accompanied by kicks and blows as well as simple gestures to show what needed to be done.

The two fur traders, Vermundr and Angantyr, told me they were collecting the furs on behalf of their felag. It was the same word the Jomsvikings had used to describe their military fellowship, but in the mouths of the fur traders the meaning was much debased. Their felag was a group of merchants who swore to help one another and share profits and expenses. But it was soon apparent to me that Vermundr and Angantyr were both prepared to cheat their colleagues. They demanded my marten skins in advance, hid them in their personal belongings, and when we reached the rendezvous with the felag at the trading town of Aldeigjuborg they failed to mention the extra pelts.

I had never seen so much mud in my life as I found at Aldeigjuborg. Everywhere you walked you sank almost ankle deep, and within a day I had lost both of Allba's shoes and had to buy a pair of heavy boots. Built on a swampy riverside, Aldeigjuborg lies in that region the Norse call Gardariki, the land of forts, and is the gateway to an area stretching for an unimaginable distance to the east. The place is surrounded by endless forest, so all the houses are made of wood. The logs are cut, squared and laid to make walls, the roofs are wooden shingles, and a tall fence of wooden stakes encloses each house's yard. The houses have been erected at random so there is no single main street, and barely any attempt is made to keep the roadways passable. Occasionally a layer of tree trunks is laid down on the earth to provide a surface, but in the spring these trees sink into the soft soil and are soon slippery with rain. Everywhere the puddles are fed by the filth seeping out from the house yards. There is no drainage and, when I was there, each householder used his yard as a latrine and rubbish dump, never clearing away the squalor. As a result the place stank and rotted at the same time.

Yet Aldeigjuborg was thriving. Flotillas of small boats were constantly coming and going at the landing staithes along the river. They were laden with the commercial products of the northern woodlands — furs, honey, beeswax, either obtained cheaply by silent barter such as I had witnessed or, more usually, by straightforward extortion. Gangs of heavily armed traders travelled into the remoter regions and demanded tribute from the forest-dwelling peoples. Often they obliged the natives to provide them with porters and oarsmen as well, so the muddy lanes of Aldeigjuborg were thronged with Polians, Krivichi, Berendeis, Severyane, Pechenegs and Chuds, as well as people from tribes so obscure that they had no known name. A few were traders in their own right, but the majority were kholops — slaves.

With such a rapacious and mixed population, Aldeigjuborg was a turbulent place. The town was nominally subject to the overlord of Kiev, a great city several days' journey to the south, and he appointed a member of his family as regent. But real power lay in the hands of the merchants, particularly the better armed ones. They were commonly known as Varangians, a name by which I was proud to call myself in later days, but when I first met them I was appalled by their behaviour. They were out-and-out ruffians. Mostly of Swedish descent, they came to Gardariki to make their fortunes. They took the var - the oath which formed them into felags - and became a law unto themselves. Some hired themselves out as mercenaries to whoever would pay the highest price; others joined felags which masqueraded as trading groups, though they were little more than pirate bands. The most notorious of all the felags when I arrived was the one to which Vermundr and Angantyr belonged, and no Varangian was more feared than its leader, Ivarr known as the Pitiless. Vermundr and Angantyr were so terrified of him that the moment we arrived in Aldeigjuborg they took me straight to see their leader to report on their mission and seek his approval of what they had done.

Ivarr held court - that is the only phrase - in a large warehouse close to the landing place. Like all the other buildings of Aldeigjuborg, it was single-storey though far bigger than most. Two scruffy guards lounged at the entrance gate and checked everyone who entered, removing any weapons they found and demanding a bribe to let visitors past. Led across the filthy yard, I was taken into Ivarr's living quarters - a scene of barbaric squalor. The single main room was decorated in what I learned was a style favoured by tribal rulers in the east. Rich brocades and carpets, mostly patterned in red, black and blue, hung from the walls. Cushions and couches provided the only furniture and the room was lit by heavy brass lamps on chains. Even though it was midday, these were burning and the place smelled of candle wax and stale food. Half-eaten meals lay on trays on the floor, and the rugs were stained with spilled wine and kvas, the local beer. Half a dozen Varangs, dressed in their characteristic baggy trousers and loose, belted shirts, stood or squatted around the edge of the room. Some were playing dice, others were talking idly among themselves, but all took care to show that they were there in attendance upon their leader.

Ivarr was one of those remarkable men whose physical presence arouses immediate fear. I have met much bigger men in my life of travel, and I have observed men who make it their style to inspire dread with threatening gestures or a cruel manner of speech. Ivarr imposed his will by exuding sheer brute menace, and he did so naturally without conscious effort. Between forty and fifty years old, he was short and so thick-set that he could have been a wrestler, albeit a dandified one, for he was wearing a rust-coloured velvet tunic, and silk pantaloons, and his feet were encased in soft yellow leather boots trimmed with fur. His short, powerful arms had small hands, and his stubby fingers were decorated with expensive rings. The most striking feature about him was his head. Like his body, it was round and compact. The skin was the colour of antique walrus ivory and hinted of mixed ancestry, maybe part-Norse and part-Asiatic. His eyes were dark brown, and he had greased and perfumed his ample beard so that it lay on the front of his tunic like a glossy black animal. By contrast his scalp was shaved clean except for a single lock of hair, which hung from the side of his head in a long curl and touched his left shoulder. This, it seemed, was regarded as a sign of royalty, which Ivarr claimed to be. But for the moment my attention was caught by his right ear. It was decorated with three studs - two pearls and between them a large single diamond.

'So you are the poacher,' he said, thrusting his head forward pugnaciously, as if he was about to spring up from his couch and knock me to the ground. I tore my gaze away from the ear studs.

'I don't know what you're talking about,' I said calmly. There was a tremor of surprise from the Varangs in the room behind me. They were not accustomed to hearing their master addressed in this way.

'My men tell me that you were collecting furs from the Skridfinni in an area where my felag alone deals with them.'

'I did not collect the furs,' I answered. 'They were given to me.'

The truculent brown eyes regarded me. I noted that they held a look of quick intelligence.

'Given to you? For nothing?'

'That's correct.'

'How did that happen?'

'I lived the winter among them.'

'Impossible. Their magicians make their people vanish if any strangers approach.'

'A magician invited me to stay.' 'Prove it.'

I glanced around the room. The other Varangs were like a pack of hungry dogs awaiting a treat. They expected their leader to quash me. Two stopped the game of dice that they had been playing and another filled the pause before I gave my answer, by spitting noisily onto the carpet.