Tim Severin - Sworn Brother

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.