Tim Severin - Sworn Brother

heart gave a little lurch. It was a necklace, made very simply by joining a chain of silver coins together with links of gold. I had seen one around Aelfgifu's neck. It was the only item she had worn on the day we first made love.

'Your uncle said that I could look through the chest to pick out anything which I thought the queen might like.'

'Go ahead,' said Thurulf amiably, 'though I doubt that you'll find much that has been overlooked. My uncle knows his clients and his stock down to the tiniest item.'

He was right. I picked through the box of broken jewellery and managed to find no more than a couple of bead necklaces, some heavy brooches, and a finger ring which I thought might please Aelfgifu. They added up to a feeble excuse to visit her.

"Would it be possible to make up a coin necklace for her?' I enquired. 'I know that she would like that.'

'You'd have to ask my uncle,' Thurulf said. 'He's the coin expert. Even hoards them. But that's what you'd expect from a moneyer, I suppose. Here, I'll show you.'

He tipped the contents of a second pouch over the workbench and a cascade of coins tumbled out in a little pile. I picked through them, turning them over in my fingers. They were of all different sizes, some broad and thin, others as thick and chunky as nuggets. Most were silver, but some were gold or copper or bronze, and a few were even struck from lead. Some had holes in the centre, others were hexagons or little squares, though the majority were round, or nearly so. Many were smooth with handling, but occasionally you could still see the writing clearly and the images. On one coin I read the Greek script that the Irish monks had taught me; on another I saw runes that I had learned in Iceland. On several was a script with curves and loops like the surface of the sea riffled by a breeze. Nearly all were stamped with symbols — pyramids, squares, a sword, a tree, a leaf, several crosses, the head of a king, a God shown with two faces, and one with two triangles which overlapped to make a six-pointed star.

I slid the coins about on the bench like counters in a board game, trying to align a sequence that would make a handsome necklace for my love. Instead I found my thoughts flying out like Hugin and Munin, Odinn's birds, his scouts who fly out across the world to observe and report to their master all that happens. By what routes, I wondered, had these strange coins reached a little box in a strongroom belonging to a moneyer for King Knut? How far had they come? Who had made them and why were these symbols chosen? My fingertips sensed a vast, unknown world that I had never imagined, a world across which these little rounds and squares of precious metal had travelled by paths I would like to explore.

I assembled a row of coins, alternately gold and silver, that looked well. But when I turned them over to check their reverse sides, I was disappointed. Three of the coins were blemished. Someone had dug fierce little nicks in the surface with something sharp. 'A pity about those nicks and pits,' I said. 'They ruin the surface and destroy the images.'

'You find those marks all the time,' Thurulf said casually. 'Nearly half the old-issue silver coins that we get from the northern lands carry those cuts and scratches. It's something foreigners do to them, especially in Sweden and the land of the Bus. They don't trust coins. They think they might be fakes: a lead base coated with silver, or a bronze core which has a gold wash applied to make it look like solid gold. It's possible to achieve that effect, even in this small workshop. So when they are offered a coin in payment, they jab the point of a knife into it or scratch the surface to check that the metal is genuine all the way through.'

I abandoned the idea of making up a coin necklace for Aelfgifu, and instead prepared a package of the necklaces and brooches which I thought might please her. Thurulf wrote down a careful list of what I was taking. Then we left and locked the strongroom, and one of Brithmaer's burly watchmen escorted me and the jewellery to the palace.

I asked to see the queen's chamberlain and told him that I had samples of jewellery for the queen to view. He kept me waiting

an hour before he returned to say that the queen was too busy. I was to return the same day the following week to seek another appointment.

As I was emerging from the palace gate, a leather stump tapped me on the shoulder and a voice said, 'If it isn't my young friend, the huntsman.' I turned to see Kjartan the one-handed huscarl. 'Someone said you had found a job with Brithmaer the moneyer,' he said, 'but by the glum look on your face, it would seem that you had found Fafnir's golden hoard and then lost it again.'

I mumbled something about having to return to Brithmaer's workshop. My escort, the watchman, was already looking impatient. 'Not so fast,' the huscarl said. 'At year's end we hold our gemot, the dedication feast. Most of the brigade is still in Denmark with Knut, but there are enough of us semi-pensioners and a few back on home leave for us to make a gathering. Each huscarl is expected to bring one orderly. To honour the memory of our good friend Edgar I would like you to be my attendant. Do you accept?'

'With pleasure, sir,' I replied.

'I've just one condition to make,' said Kjartan. 'For Aesir's sake, get yourself a new set of clothes. That plum-coloured tunic you wore last time at Northampton was beginning to look very shabby. I want my attendant to be turned out smartly.'

The huscarl had a point, I thought, as I pulled my much-worn tunic out of the satchel when I got back to my room. The garment was spotted and stained and a seam had split. The tunic was getting a little too small for me. I had filled out since coming to England, partly due to exercise and good meals when living with Edgar but more from all the ale I was drinking. For a moment I thought of borrowing something to wear from Thurulf, but I decided I would be adrift in his larger garments. Besides, I was already in his debt for our visits to the taverns. I received board and lodging from Brithmaer but no wage, so my friend was always buying the drinks.

If I was to have a new tunic, I had to pay a tailor, and I believed I knew how to raise the money. Better still, I would be able to show my love for Aelfgifu.

When Thurulf had shown me the amber necklace with its missing crystals, I had immediately thought of my satchel. Closed deep in a slit in the thick leather where I had stitched them three years earlier were the five stones I had prised from an ornate bible cover in a fit of rage against the Irish monks who I felt had betrayed me, before I fled their monastery. I had no idea what the stolen stones were worth, but that was not the point. Four of the stones were crystals and they matched the stones missing from the necklace.

I suppose only someone so much in love as I was would have dreamed what I now proposed: I would sell the stones to Brithmaer. With the money from the sale I could repay my debt to Thurulf and still have more than sufficient to purchase new clothes for the banquet. Best of all, I was sure that once Brithmaer had the stones he would tell his craftsman to set them in the necklace. Then, at last, I would have some jewellery worthy to offer the queen.

With a silent prayer of thanks to Odinn I took down the satchel from its peg, slit open the hiding place and, like squeezing roe from a fish, pressed out the stones into the palm of my hand.

'How many of these do you have,' asked Brithmaer. We were sitting in his private room at the rear of the exchange when I handed him one of the gleaming flat stones to inspect. 'Four in all,' I said. 'They match.'

The mint master turned the stone over in his hand, and looked at me thoughtfully. Again I noted the guarded expression in his eyes. 'May I see the others?'