Tim Severin - Odinn's Child

'Get along and stop gawping,' Einar said from behind me.

'Who's the grey-haired woman standing in the front row?' I asked him.

'That's Sigtryggr's mother Kormlod, the Irish call her Gormlaith.'

I

was utterly confused. 'But I thought that she was the person

Earl Sigurd was supposed to marry as a reward if he came to help Sigtryggr. The person who would help him become High King.'

'Precisely. Until last year she was the wife of the High King Brian, but he divorced her after some sort of a row. Now she says that Brian doesn't deserve to remain on his throne. She hates him so much that she would support whoever marries her in a bid to replace him. She's got a lot of influence because she also happens to be the sister of King Mael Morda of Leinster, and at one time she was even married to Malachi, another of the important Irish chieftains who's spent years intriguing and fighting against Brian to become the High King himself. Whatever happens in high politics in this part of the world, you can be sure that Kormlod is involved. Now you'd better report to Sigtryggr's steward and see if he can find a place for you.'

Ketil the steward gave me an exasperated glance when I finally managed to get his attention. He was bustling here and there in a self-important manner, organising the storage of various boxes and bundles that his master's embassy had brought back from Orkney, calling for food to be brought from the kitchen and served, and generally trying to give the impression that he was essential to the smooth running of the royal establishment, though in fact he seemed to be more of a hindrance. 'You can be a temporary dog boy,' he snapped at me. 'One of those Irish chiefs the king is negotiating with has sent a couple of hairy wolfhounds as a present. Apparently it's a compliment, though I call it more of an aggravation. I'm told the brutes can only be exchanged between kings and chieftains, so you'd better be sure they are kept healthy in case the donor comes on a visit. Feed them before you feed yourself.' He waved me away and a moment later was berating one of the household servants for setting out the wrong goblets for the king's meal.

My charges were hard to miss. They were skulking around the back of the hall - tall, hairy creatures, occasionally loping in embarrassed confusion from one corner to the next. I had no experience whatsoever of looking after dogs. But even I could see from the way their tails were curled tightly down between their legs and their large flappy ears were pressed close to their skulls that they were unhappy in their new surroundings. I had come across a few of the same breed of dog in Iceland, where they had been imported in much the same way as Irish slaves, so I was aware that they were not as lethal as they looked. I succeeded in coaxing them outside the king's hall and giving them some scraps which I wheedled from the kitchen staff. The dogs looked at me mournfully, their great dark, oval eyes blinking through their drooping fur, obviously recognising an incompetent, though well-meaning, dog keeper. I was grateful to the lanky beasts because they gave me an excuse to stay in the background and pretend to be busy. Whenever anyone looked in my direction, I made a show of brushing their rough, harsh coats, and the hounds were decent enough to let me do so, though I did wonder if there might not come a moment when, fed up with my incompetence, they would sink their teeth into me.

Fortunately my role as royal dog boy was never put seriously to the test. King Sigtryggr lacked any real affection for the animals, regarding them as decorative accessories akin to his fine footwear or personal jewellery. My only real duty was to see that the two hounds were prettily presented, sitting or lying near his seat whenever he held court or had meals.

Queen Mother Gormlaith scared me, and not simply because she reminded me so often of Freydis, the organiser of the Vinland massacre. There was a calculating coldness about Gormlaith which occasionally slipped out from under her elegance as the gracious queen mother. She was still a very handsome woman, slim and elegant, and she had retained her youthful grace so that with her green eyes and haughty stare she reminded me of a supercilious cat. She had exquisite manners — even condescending to make the occasional remark to the lowly dog boy — but there was a flinty hardness to her questions and if she did not get the answer she sought, she had a habit of ignoring the response and then putting on the pressure until she got the reply she wanted. I could see that she was manipulative, calculating, and that she could twist her son, the showy Sigtryggr, into doing precisely what she wanted.

And what she wanted was mastery. Eavesdropping on the high table conversations, and casually questioning the other servants, I learned that Gormlaith was not so much a woman scorned as a woman thwarted in her ambitions, which were vaunting. 'She married Boruma hoping to control the High King of Ireland,' one of the other servants told me, 'but that didn't work. Brian had his own ideas on how to run the country and soon got so fed up with her meddling that he had her locked up for three months. Brian's an old man now, but that doesn't mean he would allow himself to be manipulated by a scheming woman.'

'Is the Queen Mother really that ambitious?' I asked.

'You wait and see,' the servant replied with a smirk. 'She sent her son off to Orkney to recruit Fat Sigurd, offering herself as the meat on the hook, and she'll do anything to get even with the High King.'

Not until the middle of March, nearly seven weeks later, did I understand what the servant meant. I spent the interval as a member of Sigtryggr's household, carrying out domestic duties, learning to speak Irish with the slaves and lower servants, as well as feeding and exercising his two dogs as their guardian. If I have given the impression that the Norse people are uncouth and unwashed savages with their raucous drinking bouts and rough manners, then my descriptions have been misleading. The Norse are as meticulous in their personal cleanliness as circumstances will allow and, though it may seem unlikely, their menfolk are great dandies. And of course King Sigtryggr fancied himself as an arbiter of good taste and style. The result was that I spent a good deal of my time pressing his courtiers' garments, using a heavy, smooth stone to flatten the seams of the surcoats and cloaks from their extensive wardrobes which they changed frequently, and combing not just the rough hair of the two dogs, but also the heads of the royal advisers. They were very attentive to their hairstyles, and would even specify the length and fineness of the teeth on the combs I used. There was a special shop in Dublin, where I was sent to purchase replacement combs, specifying that they should be made of red-deer antler and not common catde horn.

It was at a noon meal, one day in early spring, that I fully grasped the extent of the ambitions of Gormlaith, and how ruthlessly she worked her way towards achieving them. I had led into the great hall my two wolfhounds, setded them near the king's chair and stood back to keep an eye on them. King Sigtryggr was jealous of his regal dignity, and the last thing I wanted was for one of the big grey dogs to leap up suddenly and snatch food from the royal hand while the king was eating.

'Are you sure that Sigurd is going to keep his word?' Gormlaith was asking him.

'Positive,' her son replied, worrying at a chicken leg with his teeth and trying to stop the grease dripping onto his brocaded shirt. 'He's one of the old breed, never happier than when he's got a war to plan and execute. Cunning too. He's got a bunch of hard men at his court, Icelanders, renegade Norwegians and so forth. He knows that a campaign in Ireland will keep them occupied so they don't start plotting against him in Orkney.'