The Long Ships

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CONCERNING TOKE GRAY-GULLSSON AND A MISFORTUNE THAT BEFELL HIM, AND OF A FOUL GIFT ORM RECEIVED FROM THE FINNVEDINGS

THEY sat over Toke’s ale late into the night, talking of all that had happened to them since they had parted. Orm told how he had gone a-viking in England under Thorkel the Tall, and of the great battle at Maldon and all the booty they had won there; how he had chanced to meet Father Willibald and had been baptized and had found again King Harald’s daughter (here the little priest had a good deal to add to Orm’s narrative), and of the great sum of silver that King Ethelred had elected to pay to buy himself and his country relief from the Northmen’s fury. Then he spoke of his voyage home, of his visit to Jellinge, and of his encounter with King Sven there; of what had happened at this meeting, and how he had then been forced to flee in haste to his mother’s estate in the border country, in order to escape the vengeance of his brother-in-law.

“But his memory is long, like his arm,” said Orm, “so that even in these distant parts he still pursues me, to avenge the nose-burn that this good priest gave him when last we met. This very spring I had to fight in night-darkness outside my own door with a traveler who was staying in my house as my guest, a man from Finnveden named Östen of Örestad, who had served at sea with the Danes. He had come with a strong band of followers to slay me secretly and send my head to King Sven. But instead he lost many men, and his horses and goods, and suffered a split skull into the bargain; which affair will, I doubt not, come up for discussion during the Thing. For as soon as his head had healed, I let him depart in peace, and two of his men with him; but first I forced him to become a Christian, because Father Willibald here, whose will I seldom oppose, preferred that they should be Christianized rather than killed.”

“Even the wisest of men sometimes act foolishly,” said Toke, “and a man who lets his enemy live has only himself to blame if he comes to regret it. I know that Christians sometimes do this, to put themselves in good odor with their god; but in these parts the old method is still regarded as the best. Next time you may find difficulty in killing the fellow, for he will certainly seek revenge for all he lost and for the insult you did to him by baptizing him.”

“We acted rightly,” said Father Willibald. “Let the Devil and his minions do their worst.”

“Besides which, Toke,” said Orm, “God’s hand is stronger than you would like to think. But tell us, now, how things have gone with you since last we met.”

Toke began to tell them his story. He said that he had not undertaken any long voyage abroad, nor undergone such adventures as Orm had enjoyed; but that he had none the less had just as many troubles to contend with, if not more.

“For coming home to Lister was like tumbling into a snake-pit,” he said. “Scarcely had I reached my father’s house and greeted the old people and deposited my woman and my goods inside the door when men came running to me with urgent tidings; and before long I found myself involved in a feud that embroiled the whole district.”

This was a feud that had been started by Orm’s men, Ögmund, Halle, Gunne, and Grinulf, as soon as they had reached home, having journeyed thither on Styrbjörn’s ship from King Harald’s castle, while Orm and Toke were still lying there wounded. On their return they discovered that they were not the only ones to have come back alive from Krok’s expedition. Seven years before, Berse had arrived home in one ship, with only thirty-two men at his oars but with a rich cargo, consisting of the best of all the booty from the margrave’s fortress, which he had managed to bring away in his two ships after the Andalusians had surprised them.

“Berse was a man of much wisdom,” said Toke, “even if it is true that he ate himself to death soon after his return; for in the matter of food he was greedier than other men, and his greed proved his downfall when he found himself a rich man with no need to bestir himself. He had lost so many men in the fight with the Andalusians that he only had enough left to man one ship, and barely that; but he took all the best of the booty from the ship he had to leave behind, and managed to reach home without any further misfortunes. His men worked themselves almost to death at the oars, but did so cheerfully, knowing that the fewer of them survived, the more each man would receive when the booty came to be shared out. Before Krok sailed forth from Lister, few of them had been fat enough to feed a louse, but when they returned, there was no man in the district whose wealth could compare with theirs. And there they sat, happy in their satiety, until the time came when our men returned and discovered how things were.”

“But our men did not lack for silver or gold,” said Orm.

“They were not poor,” said Toke. “Far from it; for they were all prudent and sensible men, so that they had brought much back with them from Spain, besides what they had received as their share of the price we got for the Andalusian rowers we sold at Jellinge. And until they reached home, they thought their luck good and felt well contented with their lot. But when they heard how Berse’s men had fared and saw them sitting fatly on their broad estates, with plump cattle and well-timbered ships, in such prosperity that even their slaves came puffing from their porridge without the appetite to scrape their platters clean, then their humor changed. Brooding and discontented, they reminded one another of all the hardships they had been forced to undergo during the seven years that they had spent in Andalusia, and so became still more inflamed with wrath against Berse’s men, who had barely set foot in Spain before turning for home with a shipload of gold and silver. They sat hunched on their benches, spitting on the ground as they reflected, and thinking that the ale they drank lacked its proper flavor.

“Man is always so,” said Father Willibald, “be he heathen or baptized; content with his lot only as long as he meets no neighbor who possesses more.”

“It is good to be rich,” said Orm. “Nobody can deny that.”

“Gunne was the only one who had anything to smile about,” continued Toke. “He was a married man when he sailed forth with Krok; and when Berse returned, all those who did not come with him were presumed dead. So his wife married again and, by the time Gunne reappeared at her door, had already borne her new man a lapful of bawling sons. She had, to Gunne’s eyes, aged, and was no longer the sort of woman that a man who had served in Almansur’s bodyguard would lust after, so that he now felt free to look for a younger and more beautiful woman on whose arms to set his fine silver bracelets. But even this consolation was soon swallowed up in the fury he felt at being cheated, and in the end the four of them agreed that they could not honorably tolerate so ostentatious a display of wealth by their former comrades. They gathered their kinsmen and went round the district demanding their rightful share of all that Berse had brought home. But they received only rough answers, barred doors, and weapons bared against them. This still further increased their indignation, and they began to think that Berse’s men not only owed them many marks of silver but were, besides, dishonorable traitors, who had fled like cravens from the battle, leaving Krok and ourselves to face the reckoning, and were, in short, to blame for our ship being captured.”

“There was nothing they could have done to help us,” said Orm, “for they had lost more than half their numbers. It was our fate to be chained to slave-oars.”

“That may be,” said Toke, “but the district was thick with Krok’s kinsmen, and their minds soon began to work similarly. They demanded that his share, as chieftain, should be paid to them. Then both sides unhooked their weapons from the walls, and a feud was declared and was waged without quarter. By the time I arrived, both Halle and Grinulf were abed wounded, having been surprised in an ambush; but in spite of this they were in excellent heart and lost no time in acquainting me with the situation. Several of their enemies, they told me, had been found dead in this place or that; two had been burned in their houses by Ögmund and a brother of Krok’s; and others, having grown soft with good living, had paid up in order to be allowed to grow old in peace. But others, it appeared, were more obstinate and had demanded that Ögmund, Halle, Gunne, and Grinulf should be declared outlaws; also, that the same sentence should be pronounced against me if I should take their part.”

“One thing I can guess,” said Orm, “and that is that you did not long remain neutral in this affair.”

Toke nodded unhappily and said that he would have liked to settle down peacefully with his woman and avoid quarrels, for they were well content with each other, as, indeed, they had been ever since the day he had stolen her; he had not been able to refuse his friends help, however, for if he had done so, his good name would have suffered. He therefore immediately agreed to take their part; whereupon, a short while later, at the wedding of Gunne and his new woman, he had been the victim of a fearful misfortune, a ludicrous and shameful humiliation that had caused him incalculable misery and had cost several men their lives.

“And you must know, both of you,” he said, “that when I tell you what happened, you may both laugh without fear that I shall draw upon you, though I have killed more than one man for twisting his mouth at this affair. What happened was as follows. On the evening of the wedding I went drunk to the privy and fell asleep as I sat there, as often happens to a man at a good feast; and there I was speared in the rear by two men who had crept up secretly behind the wall. I leaped high into the air, with all my sleep and good drunkenness gone from me instantly, thinking that I had been mortally wounded; which was also the belief of the two men, for I heard them laugh with delight as they ran away. But they had fumbled their thrusts, perhaps because the spears were somewhat long in the shaft, so that I escaped with lighter injuries than I at first feared to have sustained. None the less, I had to lie a long while abed, and on my stomach the whole time; and it was still longer before I was able to sit comfortably on a bench. Of all the things that have happened to me in my life, this was the worst—worse than being a galley slave among the Andalusians.”

“Then you never discovered the men who had wounded you?” asked Orm.

“I discovered them,” replied Toke, “for they could not keep their mouths shut, but had to boast of the deed to their women; so that the story came out and became known through the whole district. They were called Alf and Steinar, insolent fellows of good family, nephews of Ossur the Braggart, who was helmsman in Berse’s ship, that fellow who was always boasting that on his mother’s side he was descended from King Alf Woman’s Darling of Möre. I learned that they were the culprits while I was still in bed from my wounds. Then, as I lay there, I vowed that I would never enjoy ale nor woman before I had killed them both; and, whether you believe it or not, I kept that vow. As soon as I was upon my feet again, I was out after them every day; and at last I came upon them one day, just as they were wading ashore from fishing. I almost wept with joy when I saw them step on to the land; and there, sword in hand, the three of us fought until I killed Steinar. Then the other fellow fled, with me at his heels. It was a beautiful race, well run by us both, through groves and fields among herds at pasture and across the meadows toward his father’s house. He was a nimble-footed man, and was running for his life; but I was running for his life too, as well as to purge myself of my shame and of the great longing I had to be free of my vow. A short way from the house I caught him as my heart seemed to be about to burst, and cleft him to the teeth in the sight of his harvesters; and never have I felt so good as when I saw him there, lying on the ground at my feet. I went home with a merry heart and drank ale for the rest of the day and told my woman that our troubles were over. But this, as it turned out, was not so.”

“What troubles could you have left, after such a fine revenge?” asked Orm.

“The people of the district, my friends no less than my enemies,” said Toke darkly, “could not forget the circumstances in which I had received my wound, and there was no end to the mock they made of me. I had supposed that my revenge would put a stop to all this, seeing that I had killed both of the men singlehanded in fair fight; but this seemed to make little impression on their foolish minds. More than once I and Red-Jowl had to rid men of the habit of hiding their faces behind their hands when I appeared; but even this helped little, and soon I found myself scarcely able to endure the most solemn countenances, because I knew what lay behind their gravity. I composed an excellent poem about my slaying of Alf and Steinar, but soon discovered that there were already three poems in circulation describing the circumstances in which I had been wounded, and that in every house people were laughing themselves crooked every time they heard them. Then I realized that I would never be able to live down the shame of this incident; so I took my woman and everything else that I possessed, and journeyed up through the great forests until I came to Värend, where I have kinsmen. There I bought a house and have dwelt contentedly ever since, being now a richer man than when I arrived first, thanks to the good skin-trade. I have three sons, all of whom promise well, and a daughter, whose suitors will be hewing hard at one another before many years have passed. But never until this evening have I told anyone the reason for my leaving Lister. Only to you, Orm, and to you, little priest, have I told these things, because I know I can trust you both never to repeat them to a living soul. For should you do so, I would once again become a public butt, even though four years have now passed since this catastrophe occurred.”

Orm praised Toke for the way in which he had told his story, and assured him that he need have no fears about anyone hearing it from his lips. “I should like,” he added, “to hear these poems that were written about you; but no man enjoys repeating lampoons directed against himself.”

Father Willibald emptied his cup, and announced that stories of this kind, dealing with feuds and jealousies, with spear-thrusts delivered in this place or that, revenge and lampoons and the like, gave him little pleasure, whatever Orm’s attitude toward them might be.

“And you can be sure of this, Toke,” he said, “that I shall not run around gossiping to people of such matters, for I have more important things to tell them. If, though, you are a man who is willing to learn from events, you may yet gain some profit from this distressing experience. From the little I saw of you in King Harald’s castle, and from what Orm has told me about you, I know you to be a bold and fearless man, sure of yourself, and merry in your disposition. But in spite of all this, you have only to undergo some misfortune that causes foolish people to laugh at you, and you at once become cowardly and downhearted, so that you had to flee from your home district as soon as you found that you could not bully your enemies into silence. We Christians are more fortunate, for we do not care what men think of us, but only what God thinks. I am an old man and have little strength left in my bones; nevertheless, I am stronger than you, for no man can scare me with mockery, because I care not a jot for it. He who has God behind his back flinches from no man’s ridicule; and all their smirks and gossipings trouble him not at all.”

“Those are wise words,” said Orm, “and worth pondering; for, be sure of this, Toke, that this priest possesses more wisdom in his small head than we in our large ones, and it is always a good thing to mark his words.”

“I see that the ale is beginning to work on you both,” said Toke, “for you would not address such nonsense to me if you were sober. Is it in your mind, little priest, to try to make me a Christian?”

“It is,” retorted Father Willibald purposefully.

“Then you have set yourself a difficult task,” said Toke, “and one that will cause you more trouble than all the other religious duties you have ever performed.”

“It would be no shame for you to turn Christian,” said Orm, “when you consider that I have been one for these five years. I am not less merry than of old, nor has my hand weakened, and I have never had cause to complain about my luck since the day I received baptism.”

“All that may be true,” said Toke, “but you are not a skin-trader, as I am. No skin-trader can afford to be a Christian in this land; it would arouse distrust in the minds of all my customers. If he changes his gods, the Virds would say, who can rely on him in other matters? No, no. For our friendship’s sake, I would do much for you, Orm, and for you too, little priest; but this I will not do. Besides which, it would drive my woman, Mirah, crazy, for she retains this characteristic of her countrymen, that she hates Christians above all things else; and, to my way of thinking, her humor is brittle enough already, without whetting it with ideas such as this. It is therefore useless for you to try to convert me, little priest, though I am your friend and hope to remain so.”

Even Father Willibald could find no good answer to this argument; and Orm yawned, and said that the night was growing old and that it was time to seek sleep. They parted from Toke with many expressions of friendship; he and Orm were delighted with their luck at having once again found each other, and vowed to meet often in the future.

Orm and Father Willibald walked back to their camp. There all was peace and stillness, and in the moonshine men lay snoring under ribbons of pale smoke from the dying fires. But one of Orm’s men was sitting awake, and he lifted his head as they approached.

“A message came for you both,” he said sleepily. “See, here, this bag; the owls have not ceased to screech since the moment I received it. I was down at the brook, drinking, when a man came from the Finnvedings’ camp and asked for you, Orm. I told him that you had gone to the Virds. Then he threw his bag across the water, so that it fell at my feet, and shouted that it was a gift for Orm of Gröning and his long-nosed priest. I asked him what the bag might contain. Cabbage-heads, he replied, and laughed and went away. It is my belief that it contains something worse. Here is the bag; I have not touched the strings.”

He dropped the bag at Orm’s feet, laid himself down, and fell asleep at once.

Orm stared darkly at the bag and then at the priest. Both shook their heads.

“There is devilry here,” said Father Willibald. “It cannot but be so.”

Orm untied the strings, and shook out the contents. Two human heads rolled on to the ground, and Father Willibald fell to his knees with a groan.

“They are both shaven!” he cried. “Priests of Christ, murdered by heathens! How can human understanding comprehend the will of God when such things are allowed to gladden Satan?”

He peered more closely at the two heads and flung his arms toward the sky.

“I know them, I know them both!” he cried. “This is Father Sebastian, a most pious and worthy man, whom our crazy magister was to release from his slavery. Now God has released him and has set him high in heaven among the blessed martyrs. And this is Brother Nithard of Reims, who was at one time with Bishop Poppo at King Harald’s court. From there he went to Skania, since when nothing has been heard of him; he, too, must have been made a slave. I know him by his ear. He was always ardent in his zeal and passion for the true faith; and once, at the Emperor’s court, he had an ear bitten off by one of the Empress Theofano’s monks from Constantinople, that city which Northmen call Miklagard, during an argument concerning the nature of the Holy Ghost. He used to say that he had given his ear in the fight against heresy, and that he was ready to give his head in the fight against heathendom. And now his words have been fulfilled.”

“If he wished it to be so,” said Orm, “we should not weep; though it is my belief that the Finnvedings did not render these god-men headless as an act of favor, however holy they may have been, but that they have done this deed and sent their heads to us as an insult and to cause us grief. This is our reward for having baptized Östen and his two men and allowed them to go in peace instead of killing them when we had them in our power. Perhaps you now regret, as I do, that we acted thus mercifully.”

“A good deed remains good and should never be regretted,” replied Father Willibald, “whatever consequences it may bring with it. These holy heads I shall bury in my churchyard, for from them much strength will come.”

“A stink is coming from them already,” said Orm darkly. “But you may be right.”

Then, at Father Willibald’s bidding, he helped to gather grass and leafy branches, with which they stuffed the bag. Among these, with great care, they placed the two heads, after which they refastened the strings.