The Long Ships

CHAPTER TEN

HOW THEY SETTLED ACCOUNTS WITH THE CRAZY MAGISTER

AS soon as the news spread of the attack on Gröning and of Orm’s return, neighbors came flocking to the house with men and horses, anxious to help him secure a good vengeance. Such opportunities, they complained, occurred all too seldom nowadays, and they greatly looked forward to what might come of it. Those who were Christians said that they were entitled to a share in the vengeance because of what had been done to their priest and church. Orm bade them all welcome and said that he was only waiting for the return of Toke and the others before setting forth.

On the third day, toward evening, Toke returned. They had followed the tracks of the bandits far to the north and east; and their best news was that they had with them Torgunn, Rapp’s widow, whom they had found starving and half-dead in the wild country. She had escaped from the bandits and had run and walked as far as her legs would take her. Toke’s men had taken turns carrying her back, and three of them had already proposed marriage to her, which had revived her spirits; but none of them, they said sadly, had seemed to her to be as good a man as Rapp.

She had important information to give them. Father Willibald was right; the man whom they called the magister was the chieftain of the band. He had recognized her and had spoken with her while they were returning to the bandits’ village. He told her that he had renounced God and could now do whatsoever he wished. He had burned the church in order to drive God out of the district; for, now that that was destroyed, there was no church standing within many miles.

His band, Torgunn continued, consisted of outlaws, criminals, and all kinds of ne’er-do-wells, some from as far distant as West Guteland and Njudung, who had sought shelter with him and now lived by plundering. They were strong in numbers and feared no man, and the magister wielded great power over them.

Of Ludmilla she could tell them little, save that she had been in good heart and had threatened the magister and the rest of them with speedy retribution. While the bandits were taking them back to their village, the great hounds had overtaken them. Several of the bandits had been bitten, one to death, and the hounds had driven off a number of the cattle, which had greatly angered their captors. She and Ludmilla had tried to run away during the confusion, but had been recaptured.

At length they had arrived at the bandits’ village, which lay near the northern tip of a great lake, which they had had on their right hand during the final stages of the journey. The bandits called their village Priestby. There Torgunn had been allotted to a man called Saxulf, a large, coarse churl of evil disposition. He had tied her up and thrown her on to a pile of skins in his cottage. In the evening he had come to her drunk. He had untied her arms and legs, but had brought neither meat nor drink for her. She had realized that she was now a widow; nevertheless, it had irked her to be forced to lie with a man who conducted himself so coarsely. Accordingly, a short while after he fell asleep, she had slipped out from under the skins and, looking round for a weapon, had happened upon a rolling-pin. Strengthened by God, and also by her hatred of the man and her desire to avenge Rapp, she had hit Saxulf over the head with this pin. He had not uttered a sound, but had merely twitched his limbs. Then she had crept out into the night and escaped from the village without being observed. She had made what speed she could for a day and more, following the tracks along which they had come, terrified lest they might be after her, with nothing to eat save a few cranberries she picked from hedges; then, overcome by exhaustion, she had lain down, unable to move farther, expecting death from starvation and fatigue, or possibly from the jaws of wild beasts, until Blackhair and his men found her and gave her food. She had had to ride home on the men’s shoulders; now, however, she was already beginning to recover from this dreadful experience.

Such was Torgunn’s story, and it told them what they most wished to know: where the bandits’ hide-out lay. Men who had been along their track, and who knew the country, said that the great lake she spoke of was that called Asnen; and two of Olof Summerbird’s men claimed to know those deserted parts and a way by which the place might be reached. They undertook to lead Orm and his companions there. The best plan, they said, would be to turn off after the first day’s march and proceed westwards, coming upon the bandits from that direction. Orm and the others thought this a wise suggestion, for by this means they would trap them with the lake at their backs.

Orm counted his men and found they numbered one hundred and twelve. The next day, he declared, they would set forth. Fearing for the safety of his Bulgar gold, he took Toke, Olof, and Blackhair with him late that evening, when all the rest of the men were asleep, and hid the chests in a safe hiding-place in the forest, far from all paths and tracks, a spot to which no man ever came. His great hoard of silver he did not think worth hiding; for he had lost his fear of silver, he said, and was content to let it lie in Ylva’s coffers, though the house would only be guarded by the few men who were to be left behind.

The next morning, before dawn, all the men were up and ready. There was some delay, however, before they could start out, for Orm was intending to take the great hounds with him, and they had first to acquaint themselves with all the strangers in the party, so that there might be no misunderstandings and the wrong men bitten. The hounds took but a few moments to accustom themselves to most of the men, merely sniffing them two or three times; but others they were more suspicious of and snarled fearfully at, appearing unwilling to accept them as people who ought not to be killed immediately. This caused much hilarity, for the men whom the hounds distrusted grew surly, claiming that they smelled as good as the next man, and words were exchanged on this subject.

At length, however, everything was ready, and the band set out, the hounds being led by men whom they knew well.

They followed the track by which the bandits had gone, continuing thus the whole day, until they came near the place where Torgunn had been found. There they encamped for the night. Next morning they turned off to the left, with Olof’s two knowledgeable men leading them. They proceeded for three days across hard country through marshland and dense forest, broken by steep hills, without seeing a house or meeting a man. The hounds knew what they were hunting and ignored all scent of game; it was a great virtue with them that when they were hunting men, they uttered no sound until the moment when they were slipped from their leashes.

On the afternoon of the fourth day after their departure from Gröning they reached a place where two paths crossed. Here they halted, and the two guides said that the lake was now just ahead of them and that the bandits’ village lay between it and them. It had been a hard march, but both Orm and Olof Summerbird agreed that they should attack at once; for they were beginning to run short of food, and both of them were impatient to proceed with the business. Some of the young men in the band then climbed up into a tree on a hill to spy out the lie of the village, and Orm divided the men into three bands. Toke was to lead one, Olof the second, and Orm himself the third. He kept the hounds with him, so that they should not be slipped too soon. Toke was to attack from the north, and Olof Summerbird from the south. Blackhair went with Toke, accompanied also by Sone’s sons, who were already beginning to reckon themselves as Blackhair’s men. Orm commanded them that they should set fire to no house, and maltreat no woman, since some of them might have been stolen from good husbands. When Toke sounded his horn, both bands were to attack with all speed, though without war-whoops.

Toke and Olof moved quietly off with their men, while Orm and his band crept stealthily forward through the undergrowth until they reached the skirts of the forest a short way from the village. Here the men seated themselves on the ground and began to gnaw at the little food they had left, while they waited for the sound of Toke’s horn.

Orm took Spof with him and crept forward into a clump of elderbushes. There they lay, scanning the village. It looked to be large, and many of the houses in it were new. People could be seen working in the spaces between them, both men and women. Spof calculated that a village of that size might be reckoned to contain a hundred and fifty men. Between them and the village, in a dip in the ground, there stood a small pool, which evidently served the village as a well. An old woman, carrying a yoke with two buckets, came down to it, drew water, and trudged back again. Then two men appeared and watered four horses. After the horses had drunk, they became restless and began to prance, and Orm thought that they must have sensed the presence of the hounds. But the hounds stood stock-still behind Orm, sniffing and trembling and making no sound.

The men at the well got their horses under control and led them back to the village. A short while elapsed, and then three women walked down to the pool carrying a bucket in either hand. There were two men with them who appeared to be their guards. Orm caught his breath, for the tallest of the women was Ludmilla. He mumbled this into Spof’s ear, and Spof muttered back that they were within bowshot. Still Toke’s horn did not sound, and Orm was unwilling to disclose the presence of his men prematurely; however, he signaled to two men crouching near him who had been with him in the battle at the weirs and who were reckoned to be sure marksmen. They said that they thought they could mark the men at the well, rose to their feet, each keeping himself concealed behind his tree, and set arrows to their bowstrings. But Orm bade them wait awhile yet.

The women had by now filled their buckets, and turned to go back to the village. As they did so, Orm pursed his lips and uttered a cry like a buzzard’s call, repeating it once. It was a call that he could skillfully ape, and all his children were acquainted with it. Ludmilla stiffened as she heard it. She took a few slow steps after her companions; then she stumbled, so that all the water in her buckets was spilled. She said something to the men and turned back to the well to refill her buckets. She did this as slowly as she might; then, when they were full, she sat down on the ground and clasped her foot. The two men said something to her in stern voices and went up to her to force her to her feet; but as they reached out their hands to her, she threw herself on her back and began to scream.

Still no sound was heard from Toke’s side; but when the hounds heard Ludmilla scream, they began to bay, and Orm knew that their presence was now revealed.

Orm muttered a word to his two archers, and their bows sang as one. Their aim was true, and their arrows found their marks; but the men they struck were wearing thick leather jackets and remained on their feet. They pulled the arrows from their flesh and shouted for help. Then Ludmilla leaped to her feet, struck one of them on the head with a bucket, and ran with all her might toward the forest. The two men made after her and began rapidly to overtake her; meanwhile men appeared from the houses to learn the cause of all this confusion.

“Slip the hounds,” said Orm, and sprang out of the bushes. As he did so, Toke’s horn wound, followed by violent whooping.

But both the horn and the whoops of the men were quickly drowned as the great hounds, slipped at last from their leashes, began to bay fearfully. As the two men chasing Ludmilla saw them, they halted in terror. One turned tail and fled screaming, until the swiftest of the hounds caught him and, leaping upon his neck, felled him to the ground; but the other, keeping his head, ran into the pool and, turning there, drew his sword and stood his ground. Three of the hounds leaped simultaneously at him; he met one of them with his sword, but the other two knocked him off his feet, so that he disappeared beneath the water; and only the hounds came up again.

Ludmilla danced for joy when she recognized Orm. She began at once to ask about Olof and the gold, and he told her. She herself, she said, had been treated as befitted a chieftain’s daughter and had not been forced to lie with any man save the crazy priest, who had treated her not unkindly, so that she might have suffered worse.

Orm sent after Spof, and bade him and two others of the older men take Ludmilla a short way into the forest and remain there with her until the fighting in the village had ceased. The other women came timidly up to them; they were, they said, the priest’s women. When the hounds had appeared, they had flung themselves face downwards on the ground and remained motionless, so that the hounds had not touched them.

By the time that Orm and his men reached the village, the fighting was already fierce. Olof’s men were engaging a group of bandits in a street between two houses, and his voice was heard to cry above the uproar that the man with the black beard was for his sword alone. Orm attacked the bandits from the rear, losing several men to arrows shot from the houses; but although the bandits defended themselves valiantly, they were at length encircled and overcome. Then Orm led his men into the houses to fight with the men who were still holding out there. He saw two of his hounds lying dead with spears through their bodies, but each of them had his man under him, and the others could still be heard baying fearfully toward the lake.

Orm met Olof Summerbird; his face was bloody and his shield heavily scarred.

“Ludmilla is safe!” cried Orm. “I have her in good keeping.”

“I thank Thee, Christ!” cried Olof. “But where is the blackbeard? He is mine!”

Toke’s men had met the fiercest opposition, for many of the bandits had rushed to meet them at the first sound of whooping. Orm and Olof gathered their men and led them to Toke’s assistance, attacking their enemies in the rear. Here the fighting became very violent, and many men fell on both sides, for the bandits fought like berserks. Orm pursued one, who had managed to break out, around the corner of a house, but as he passed a doorway, a man clad in a chain shirt and a bald man armed with an ax leaped out and attacked him. Orm hewed at the chain-shirted man so that he rolled on the ground, and in the same instant leaped nimbly aside to evade the other’s ax, but as he did so, his foot slipped on a heap of dung and he fell on his neck. As he fell, he saw the bald man raise his ax again, and, he said afterwards, his thoughts went back to the battle at Maldon long before and the shields that had covered him there, and he felt little joy at the thought that his next night’s camp would be on heavenly ground. But the bald man opened his eyes and mouth wide and let go his ax and sank on his hands and knees and knelt there, staring; and as Orm got to his feet again, he heard his name shouted from a house ahead of him and saw Sone’s sons sitting astride the roof, waving their bows in pride at their good marksmanship.

Orm felt strangely weary after this experience and stood where he was for a moment looking about him. The village presented a scene of wild confusion. Women were shrieking, men were chasing one another throughout the houses, cattle and hogs ran terrified through the streets, and most of the bandits who were still alive had taken to their heels and were fleeing toward the lake. Toke and Blackhair appeared out of a doorway. Toke’s sword was dripping redly, and he cried to Orm that he had not enjoyed better sport than this since his youthful days. But he had no time to say more and rushed furiously after the fleeing men, shouting to his men to follow him. Blackhair, however, remained with Orm, calling his men down from the housetop.

Then a great howl was heard, and a black-bearded man came running toward them with an ax in his hand and Olof Summer-bird at his heels. As the man caught sight of Orm, he changed his course, leaped over a low wall, and ran on. But Blackhair, turning, ran after him and struck him over the head so that he fell.

“He is mine! He is mine!” cried Olof breathlessly.

The man was twisting on the ground. Olof went up to him, gripped his sword with both hands, and drove it through the chain shirt and the man’s body beneath so that it stood fast in the ground.

“God! God!” screamed the nailed man, in a voice filled with pain and terror, and said no more.

“I have kept my vow,” said Olof.

“Is that the man?” said Orm. “It is difficult to recognize him beneath that beard.”

“It is an ill thing to wear stolen goods in a battle, so that they can be seen,” said Olof, bending over the dead body. “Look at this!”

Above the neck of the man’s chain shirt shone the glint of gold. Olof reached his hand inside and pulled something out. It was Almansur’s chain.

“It is he,” said Orm. “And, now that I think of it, there is another proof. Who in this place but he could have called to God? I wonder what he can have wanted of Him?”