Tim Severin - Sworn Brother

There was a track, overgrown with grass and bushes but still discernible, leading eastward through dense forest. Our axemen went ahead to clear the path. The kholops were harnessed like oxen, ten in a team, to ropes attached to the keels of our three remaining boats. The rest of us steadied the boats to keep them level on the rollers, or worked in pairs, picking up the rollers as they passed beneath the hulls and throwing them down ahead of the advancing keels. It took us four days of sweating labour, plagued by flying insects, to drag our boats to the headwaters of a stream that flowed to the east. There we rested for another week while our shipwright - a Varangian originally from Norway -directed the building of four replacement craft. He found what he needed less than an arrow-shot from our camp - four massive trees, which were promptly felled. Then he directed the kholops in hollowing out the trunks with axe and fire to make the keels and lower hulls of our boats. Other kholops split the planks which were attached to the sides of these dugouts, building up the hulls until I recognised the familiar curves of our Norse vessels. I complimented the shipwright on his skill.

He grimaced. 'Call these boats?' he said. 'More like cattle troughs. You need time and care to build proper boats, and skilled carpenters, not these clumsy oafs. Most of them would be better off chopping firewood.'

I pointed out that two of the kholops from the far north had proved useful when the supply of metal rivets for fastening the planks had run out. The men had used lengths of pine-tree root to lash the planks in place, a practice in their own country.

The Norse shipwright was still unimpressed. 'Where I come from, you get only knife and needle.'

'What do you mean?' I asked.

'When you think you are good enough to call yourself a boatbuilder, the master shipwright who taught you gives you a knife and a needle and tells you to make and rig a boat, using no other tools. Until you can do that, you're considered a wood butcher, like this lot here.'

The Norwegian seemed the least vicious of our company. He spoke the best Norse, while all the others mixed so many local words into their sentences that it was often hard to understand them. I asked him how it was that, as a skilled shipwright, he found himself a Varangian. 'I killed a couple of men back home,' he said, 'and the local earl took offence. It turned out that they were his followers, so I had to make myself scarce. Maybe I'll go back home one day, but I doubt it. This life suits me — no need to break your back hauling logs or lose a finger carving planks when there are slaves to do the work, and you can have as many women as you want without marrying them.'

As we recommenced our journey, we saw only the occasional trace of human habitation, a footpath leading from the water's edge into the forest, a tree stump that had been cut with an axe, the faint smell of a fire from somewhere deep in the forest, which stretched without a break along both banks. But we did not meet the natives themselves, though once or twice I thought I saw far in the distance the outline of a small boat disappearing into the reeds as we approached. By the time we reached the spot there was nothing to show, the reeds had sprung back into position and I wondered if I had been imagining it. 'Where are all the people who live here?' I asked Vermundr. He gave a coarse laugh and looked at me as if I was weak in the head.

We did eventually come to a couple of trading posts and a sizeable town. The latter, situated on a river junction, was very like Aldeigjuborg, a cluster of log-built houses sheltering behind a wooden palisade, and protected on at least two sides by the river and a marsh. We did not stop. The inhabitants shut their gates and regarded us warily as we drifted past. I guessed that the reputation of Ivarr's felag had preceded us.

The river was much wider now, and we steered our course in midstream so I saw little of the countryside except the monotonous vista of green forest moving slowly past on either hand. I thought, naively, that we stayed in midstream to take best advantage of the current. Then I began to see plumes of smoke rising from the forest cover. The smoke arose ahead of us or from some vantage point, usually a high bluff overlooking the river. It did not require much intelligence to guess that unseen inhabitants were signalling our progress to one another, keeping track of our flotilla. Now whenever we came ashore for the night we set guards around our camp and, on one occasion when the smoke signals were very frequent, Ivarr refused to let us go ashore at all. We spent the night anchored in the shallows and ate a cold supper.

Finally we left behind the area of watchful natives and the land around us became more level. Here we turned aside into a small river that flowed into the main stream from the north, and began to steer much closer to the left-hand bank. I noticed that Ivarr scanned the shore intently, as if he was searching for a particular sign. He must have seen what he was looking for because at the next suitable landing place he beached our boat. All the other vessels followed.

'Empty the two lightest boats and set up camp here,' Ivarr ordered.

I saw the Varangians glance at one another in anticipation as the kholops unloaded the goods and carried them up to a patch of level ground. Ivarr spoke to the Varangian whose burned hand was still wrapped in rags soaked in bear's grease. 'You stay here till we get back. See to it that no one lights a cooking fire or uses an axe.' The man had learned his lesson well. He dropped his gaze submissively as he accepted his assignment.

'You, you and you.' Ivarr walked amongst the kholops and touched about a dozen of them on the shoulder with the silver butt of his whip. They were the tallest and strongest of our slaves. He pointed to where Vermundr and Angantyr were unwrapping one of the cargo bales. I saw that it contained weapons — cheap swords and a heap of light chain. For a moment I thought it was anchor chain, but then I saw that the links were longer and thinner than any ship's chain, and that it came in sections about an arm's span long. There was a large metal loop at the end of each length and I recognised what they were: fetters.

Ivarr handed each kholop a sword. This was taking a risk, I thought to myself. What if the kholops decided to rebel? Yet Ivarr seemed unconcerned as several of the kholops began to swing their swords through the air to test their weight. He was confident enough to turn his back on them.

'Here, Thorgils,' he said, 'you'd better come with us. You can make yourself useful, if necessary, by making us all disappear.' The rest of the Varangians laughed sycophantically.

With five Varangians and half a dozen kholops aboard each boat, we set off to row upstream. Again, Ivarr was watching the river bank closely. The oarsmen took care to make as little noise as possible, dipping their blades gendy into the water as we glided forward. Both Vermundr and Angantyr were with me in Ivarr's vessel and seemed tense. 'We should have waited until dawn,' said Vermundr under his breath to his companion. Ivarr must have overheard his comment because he turned round from where he stood in the bow and looked at Vermundr. His glance was enough to make Vermundr cringe.

Late in the afternoon Ivarr held up his hand to attract our attention, then silently gestured towards the bank. The slope was marked with footprints leading down to the water's edge. A large, half-submerged log was worn and smooth. Its upper surface had been used as a surface for washing clothes. A broken wooden scoop lay discarded close by. Ivarr made a circular gesture and waved on the second boat, indicating that it was to row further upstream. He pointed to the sun, then brought his arm down towards the horizon and made a chopping motion. The Varangians in the second boat waved in acknowledgement and they and the kholops rowed onwards silently. Very soon they were out of sight round a bend in the river.