Tim Severin - Sworn Brother

I was stunned. First I had lost Thrand and now my cherished vision of Aelfgifu was smashed. Mother of two, ambitious royal consort, deceitful, conniving — this was not the sweet, high-spirited woman whose memory I had cherished these two years past.

Kjartan's voice softened. 'Thorgils, give thanks to Odinn that you are still alive. You could be a corpse along with your shipmates on the drakkars. You are young, you are free of restraints and from tomorrow you'll have money to spare. Tomorrow I'll take you to see the king's paymaster and you'll have your royal bounty. Look upon Knut's wish to be rid of you as another sign that Odinn protects you. The court is a snake pit of intrigue and you are best away from it. You may think that the king was generous in his payment to you, but if the Danish vessels which attacked you had reached Holy River in time for the battle, King Knut might have lost his crown. And monarchs do not like to know that they are in another's debt.'

His last observation made no sense. 'I don't understand how the defeat of the Jomsvikings could have saved the king. We never reached the rendezvous. We were no use to him,' I said.

'Think of it this way,' Kjartan replied. 'Recently Knut has been increasingly mistrustful of Ulf. He fears that the earl is plotting against him and your story of the ambush of the Jomsvikings confirms Ulf s double dealing. His ships attacked the Jomsvikings, knowing them to be reinforcements for the king. They did not expect any survivors to live to tell the tale. But as it turned out, the ambush delayed Ulf’s ships so they missed the vital engagement at Holy River. Had they been there, Ulf might have felt strong enough to switch sides and join the Swedes. And that would have been the end for King Knut.'

I thought that Kjartan was being overly cynical, but he was proved right. Soon afterwards matters came to a head between the king and Earl Ulf. They were playing a game of chess when Knut, a chess fanatic, made a wrong move on the board. Ulf promptly took one of his knights. Knut insisted in replaying the move, and this so angered Ulf that he got up from his seat, tipped over the chessboard and stalked out of the room. Knut called after him that he was running away. Ulf flung back the jibe that it was Knut who would have run away from Holy River if Ulf’s force had not fought on his side.

That night the earl fled for sanctuary in Roskilde's White Christ church. It did him little good. At dawn Knut sent a huscarl to the church with orders to kill Ulf. There was uproar among the Christians that murder had been committed in one of their churches. But when I heard the story, I felt a more immediate chill. Ulf was married to Knut's sister. If a brother-in-law could be assassinated in the struggle for the throne, how much more likely a victim would be the queen's illicit lover.

'I need the details!' said Herfid excitedly. 'It's perfect material for a saga — "The Last Fight of the Jomsvikings!" Can you describe to me the leader of the Danes? Was there any exchange of insults between him and Thrand? Hand-to-hand combat between the two of them? That would be a nice touch, to catch an audience's imagination.'

'No, Herfid, it was just as I described it. Chaotic and savage. I didn't see who chopped off Thrand's foot and I don't even know who led the Danes. At first we thought they were on our side, on their way to join the king. But then they attacked us.' My throat hurt. Sometimes, when I was tired, my voice suddenly changed pitch like a boy in his puberty.

By a happy coincidence Herfid was travelling on the ship that Kjartan had found to take me clear of court intrigue. Herfid had finally given up his attempts to find a permanent job as a royal skald, and was heading back to Orkney where the new earl might have work for him. 'Knut's got too many skalds as it is,' Herfid lamented. 'Sighvatr Thordarsson, Hallvardr Hareksblesi and Thorarin Loftunga, not to mention Ottar the Black, who is his favourite. They didn't welcome more competition.' He looked woebegone. 'But if I could compose a really good saga about the Jomsvikings, that might get me some attention.'

'I think not, Herfid,' I said. 'Knut may not want to be reminded of the episode.'

'Oh well ... if you ever change your mind. Meanwhile perhaps you could tell me some of the Irish sagas you heard when you were in that country, maybe I could work parts of them into my own compositions. In exchange I'll give you a few more lessons on style and structure. They could prove useful should you ever decide to make a living by story-telling. Besides, it will help pass the hours at sea.'

The captain taking us towards Orkney was in a hurry. It was late in the season to be attempting the trip, but he was a man with weather luck and his crew trusted his judgement and sea skill. Herfid, by contrast, probably knew at least a hundred poetic phrases for the sea and its ships, but had no practical knowledge. He made a singular impression on our hard-bitten crew as he walked about the deck referring to the little vessel as a 'surge horse' and a 'twisted rope bear', even 'a fore-sheets snake'. When we cleared the Roskilde anchorage the waves became 'the whale's housetops', and the jagged rocks were 'the water's teeth'. I noticed several crew members raise their eyebrows in astonishment when he referred to our hard-driving skipper as a 'brig elf, and I feared the captain had overheard.

Fortunately, just when I was thinking that Herfid was going to get himself tossed overboard for his presumption, we ran into the sea race off the tip of Caithness. It was an intimidating experience, as unnerving as anything I had yet experienced at sea, except perhaps for being wrecked on the Greenland skerries, but I was too young to remember that. The west-going tide ripped past the headland, creating overfalls and strange, swirling patches of water, until it seemed we were riding a huge river in full spate rather than the ocean. I could see why his men trusted our captain so implicitly. He timed his vessel's entry into the race with perfection. He thrust boldly into the torrent just as the tide was gathering, and we were swept along like a wood chip on the spring flood. Our vessel began to make a strange swooping motion, lifting up, then sliding forward and down as if we would be sucked to the bottom of the sea, only to rise again, check, and begin the next plunge. It required prime seamanship to keep the vessel straight. The captain himself manipulated the side rudder, which Herfid had called 'the broad-blade ocean sword', and by some smart handling of the sheets the crew made sure that we did not broach and roll. We hurtled through the race, our ears filled with the grumbling roar of the tide.

Poor Herfid fell silent as the motion of the ship increased. Soon he had found his way to the rail and was hanging on to a mast stay, then in a sudden lurch he was doubled over the rail, throwing up the contents of his stomach. He was bent in that position for some time, retching and heaving miserably. When we were clear of the waves, and the motion had subsided enough for the skipper to be able to relinquish the helm, he sauntered over to Herfid and asked innocently, 'And what do you call the sea -"breakfast swallower" or "vomit taker?'" Herfid raised his green-white face and gave him a look of pure loathing.

Birsay, the home of the Earl of Orkney, was just as I remembered it — a modest settlement of a few houses huddling behind tussock-covered sand dunes. As a port of call, Birsay only existed because it was on the crossroads of the shipping lanes between the seas of England, Ireland and Iceland. The anchorage was so exposed to the fierce winter gales raging in from the west that the local boats had been hauled ashore and secured in half-sunk sheds or bedded behind barriers of rock and sand. Our captain had no intention of staying a moment longer than necessary in such a dangerous place, and he paused only long enough for us to visit the long hall to pay our respects to the earl, and for Herfid to ask permission to stay.