Tim Severin - Sworn Brother

Aboard our own vessel, the current carried us gently back back downstream until we were out of sight of the washing place. A few oar strokes and the boat slid under the shelter of some overhanging branches, where we hung on and waited. We sat in silence and listened to the pluck and gurgle of the water on the hull. Occasionally there was the splash of a fish jumping. A heron glided down to settle in the shallows a few paces away from us. It began its fishing, stalking cautiously through the water, step by step until suddenly it noticed our vessel and its human cargo. It gave a sudden twitch of panic, leaped up into the air and flew off, releasing a loud and angry croak once it was safely clear. Beside me Angantyr muttered angrily at the heron's alarm call. Another glance from Ivarr quietened him instantly. Ivarr himself sat motionless. With his glistening shaven head and his squat body, he reminded me of a waterside toad waiting in ambush.

Finally Ivarr rose to his feet and nodded. The sun was about to dip below the treeline. The oarsmen eased their blades into the water and our boat emerged from its hiding place. Within moments we were back at the washing place and this time we landed. The boat was drawn up on the mud and the men formed up into a column, Ivarr at its head, Angantyr right behind him. Vermundr and I brought up the rear, behind the kholops. All of us were armed with swords or axes, and each Varangian carried a set of manacles, wrapped around his waist like an iron sash.

We walked briskly along the track, which led inland. The path was sufficiently well worn for us to make quick progress and we made scarcely any noise. Very soon I heard the shouts of children at play and a sudden burst of barking, indicating that dogs had detected us. Within moments there came the urgent clamour of a horn sounding the alarm. Ivarr broke into a run. We burst out of the forest and found ourselves in open ground where the trees had been cleared to provide space for small plots of farmland and vegetable gardens. A hundred paces away was a native village of forty or fifty log huts. The place was defenceless — it did not even have a palisade. The inhabitants must have thought they were too isolated and well hidden to take any precautions.

In the next few moments they learned their error. Ivarr and the Varangians swept into the settlement, waving their weapons and yelling at the top of their voices to terrorise the villagers. To my surprise the kholops joined in the charge with just as much relish. They ran forward, howling and bellowing and swinging their swords. A man who had been working in his vegetable patch tried to delay our onslaught. He swung his spade at Angantyr, who cut him down with a back-handed swing, barely pausing in his stride. Women and children appeared in the doorways. They took one look at our attack and ran screaming. An old woman hobbled out of a house to see what was the matter. One of our kholops smashed her in the face with the hilt of his sword and she dropped to the ground. A child, no more than three years old, wandered into our path. Dirty and dishevelled, probably woken from sleep, the child gazed at us wonderingly as we raced past. An arrow whizzed past me and struck one of the kholops in the back. He sprawled on the ground. The arrow had come from behind. Vermundr and I turned to see a man armed with a hunting bow setting a second arrow to his bowstring. Vermundr may have been an uncouth brute, but he had his full share of courage. Though he had no shield to protect himself, he gave a bloodcurdling roar as he charged straight at the archer. The sight of the raging Varangian running towards him unnerved the bowman. He missed his second shot and a few strides later Vermundr was on him. The Varangian had chosen an axe for his weapon and now he swung the blade so hard that I heard the thud as he chopped his opponent in the waist. His victim was lifted off his feet and fell sideways in a heap.

'Come on, Thorgils, you arse-licker,' Vermundr yelled in my face as he rushed back past me to continue the sweep through the village. I ran after him, trying to make out what was happening. One or two corpses were lying on the ground. They looked like bundles of abandoned rags until you saw a battered head, a bloody outflung arm, or dirty, shoeless feet. Somewhere in front of me were more shouts and yells and out from a side alley burst the figure of an older man, running for his life. I recognised the short bearskin cape. It must have been the village shaman. He was unarmed and must have doubled back through our cordon. At that moment Ivarr stepped into view. He had a throwing axe in his hand. As smoothly as a boy throws flat pebbles to skip across a pond, he skimmed the axe towards the fugitive. The weapon went whirling across the gap as if the target was standing still.

The axe struck the shaman in the back of his skull and he sprawled forward and lay still. Ivarr saw me standing there, looking appalled. 'Friend of yours, I suppose,' he said.

There was no further resistance from the villagers. The shocking swiftness of our attack had taken them by surprise and they lacked the weapons or skill to defend themselves. We herded those still alive into the central square of their little settlement, where they stood in a huddled and dejected group. They were an unremarkable people, typical of those who scratch a living from the forest. In appearance they were of medium height, with pale skin but dark hair, almost black. They were poorly dressed in homespun clothes of wool and none of them wore any form of jewellery apart from simple amulets on leather thongs around their necks. We knew this because the Varangians promptly searched everyone, looking for valuables, and found nothing.

'Miserable lot of shitheads. Hardly worth the trouble,' complained Vermundr.

I looked at our prisoners. They gazed at the ground dully, knowing what was coming next.

Angmantyr and my particular enemy, Froygeir, whom I had humiliated at dice, strode over to the prisoners and began to divide them into two groups. To one side they shoved the older men and women, the smaller children and anyone who was deformed or blemished in some way. These formed the larger group since many of the villagers had badly pock-marked faces. This left the younger, finer men and children over the age of eight or nine standing where they were. Except for one mother weeping bitterly at being separated from her small child, who had been sent to join the others, this second group contained almost no women. I was puzzling about the reason for this, when the crew of our second raiding boat strode into the square. In front of them they were herding, like a flock of geese, the women of the village. I realised that Vermundr, Froygeir and the rest of us in the first boat had been the beaters. The second boat's crew had been given enough time to circle around behind the village and wait for us to flush out the game. The real prey in our manhunt had fled straight into the trap, as Ivarr had intended.

There were about twenty women in the group. Their faces and arms were scratched and torn from branches, several of them had raw bruises on their faces and all of them had their wrists bound together with leather thongs. With their straggly hair and grimy faces they looked a sorry lot. However, Vermundr, standing next to me, disagreed. 'Not a bad catch,' he said. 'Give them a good scrub and they'll be worth a tidy sum.' He went forward to inspect them more closely. The women huddled together, several looking piteously across towards their children, who had been set aside. Others kept their heads down so that their tangled hair concealed their features. Vermundr was clearly a veteran slave catcher for he now went from one woman to the next, seizing each by the chin, and forcing back her head so that he could look into the woman's face and judge her worth. Suddenly he let out a whoop of delight. 'Ivarr's Luck!' he called, 'Look at this.' He seized two women by their wrists, dragged them out from the group, and made them stand side by side in front of us. Judging by their bodies the girls were aged about sixteen, though with their shapeless gowns it was difficult to tell precisely, and they kept their heads bowed forward so it was impossible to see their faces. Vermundr changed that. He went behind the girls, gathered up their hair in his hands, and like a trader in a market who flaunts his best produce with a flourish, pulled back their heads so we could see straight into their faces. They were identical twins, and even with their tear-streaked faces it was clear that they were astonishingly beautiful. I remembered how I had bribed Vermundr and Angantyr with a pair of marten skins, perfectly matched. Now I saw in front of me the human equivalent: two slave girls of perfect quality, a matching pair. Ivarr's felag had found riches.