Tim Severin - Odinn's Child

Brodir woke me. Apparently I had been lying in the steam hut for six hours and there had been no sound. He had broken in and found me insensible. Brodir did not question me but waited until I had recovered sufficiently, then sent for Ospak to come to the beach. The three of us withdrew to a quiet spot, out of earshot of the other men, and there Brodir described his visions in the sweat hut. As I suspected, they were almost exactly what I had seen in my own dreams. But only I had the nightmare of the iron-beaked ravens. When Brodir rumbled, 'The lad has the sight. We should listen to him as well,' I described how Odinn's crows had attacked my shipmates and caused such ruin and disaster.

Only a fool would have been blind to the omens and Ospak was no fool. When Brodir asked whether he would be joining with him in King Sigtryggr's alliance, Ospak asked only for time to think things over. 'I need to consult with my shipmasters,' he told Brodir. 'Let us meet again on the beach this evening after dusk, and I will give you my answer.'

When Ospak returned to the beach that evening, there was barely enough light to see by. He was accompanied by all his ship's captains. It was not a good sign. They were all armed and they looked wary. I realised that they were frightened of Brodir, who, besides being very burly, was also known to be quick-tempered. I reassured myself with the thought that there is a prohibition among the Old Believers - not always obeyed - that it is unwise to kill someone after dark because their ghost will come to haunt you. Even before Ospak started speaking, it was obvious what had been decided. 'The dreams are the worst possible omen,' he began. 'Blood from the sky, men dying, weapons fighting among themselves, war ravens flying. There can be no other explanation than that there will be death and war, and that brother will fight brother.' Brodir scowled. Right up to that moment, he had been hoping that Ospak and his men would join him, and that he would be able to keep the combined flotilla together. But Ospak's blunt interpretation of the dreams left no doubt: Ospak and his ships would not only leave the flotilla, but he and his men intended to throw in their lot with the Ostmen fighting for King Brian. With the High King, they thought, lay their best chance of victory and reward.

Brodir did lose his temper, though only for a moment. It was when Ospak referred to the ravens again, almost as an afterthought. 'Perhaps those ravens are the fiends from hell the Christians are always talking about. They are supposed to have a particular appetite for those who have once followed the White Christ and then turned away.' Brodir had been some sort of priest during his Christian phase, I later learned. Stung by this jibe, he took a step forward and moved to draw his sword. But Ospak had stepped quickly back out of blade range, and his captains closed up behind him. 'Steady,' he called, 'remember that no good will come of killing after dark.'

Killing a man after sunset might be forbidden, but departing in the dark is not. That same night Ospak and his captains quiedy unmoored. Their vessels had been anchored in a group, close inshore, and their crews poled them out into the ebb tide so that they silently drifted past us as we slept. Later some of our men said that Ospak had practised some sort of magic so that none of us awoke. In truth several of our sailors did glimpse Ospak's squadron gliding past in the blackness, but they did not have the heart to wake their colleagues. All of us knew that, soon enough, we would meet again in battle.

FOURTEEN

'NONE OF US can escape the Norns' decision,' said Brodir heavily. He was fastening the buckles and straps of his mail shirt. 'We can only delay the hour and even then we need the help of the Gods.' Brodir's fingers were shaking as he did up the straps, and I thought to myself that he was not as trusting as Thrand. Brodir's mail shirt was famous. Like Thrand's helmet, it was reputed to have supernatural qualities. It was said that no sword or javelin could penetrate its links, rendering its wearer invulnerable. Yet I judged that Brodir did not believe in the magic qualities of his armour but wore it only as a talisman to bring good luck. Or perhaps there were few mail shirts large enough to fit the leader from Man.

Brodir's contingent, nearly seven hundred men, was getting ready for battle. Our position was on the extreme right of Sigtryggr's grand alliance of Dublin Ostmen, Sigurd's Orkneymen, King Mael Morda's Leinstermen and sundry Irish rebels who had taken this chance to challenge the domination of the Irish High King. Behind us, an arrow-shot away, was the landing beach of sand and shingle onto which the keels of our ships had slithered at first light that morning.

The plan had been to catch Brian Boruma off guard. For the past ten days the allies had been gathering in Dublin in response to King Sigtryggr's request that they arrive before the great Christian festival at the end of March. I thought this was an odd calendar to set for such staunch Old Believers as Sigurd the Stout and Brodir, but at the long, long war council in the king's hall which preceded our deployment Sigtryggr had explained there was a reason for this unusual deadline, a reason based on intelligence which Gormlaith had supplied. While married to Brian Boruma, she had detected that her ex-husband was becoming more and more obsessed with his religion as he grew older. Apparently the Irish High King had vowed to her that he would no longer fight on the high and holy days of the Christ calendar. It was blasphemy, he had said, to do battle on such sacred occasions and such days were ill-fated. When Sigtryggr mentioned this, some of the Norse captains exchanged nervous glances. Sigtryggr had come closer to the mark than he knew. Rumours of Brodir's raven dream had spread among the Norse and there were many who thought we had no business pursuing our campaign after such an ill-starred start. Brodir had not revealed the content of our visions on the beach at Man, nor had I — the source had been Ospak. From Man he had promptly sailed to Ireland and marched to Brian Boruma's camp to offer his services to the Irish High King. Ospak must have expected a vast haul of loot from Dublin because, that very day, he cheerfully submitted to being baptised by the Irish priests. On the other hand he put such little store by his conversion that he lost no time in spreading word about the raven dreams and how they foretold that Brodir and his men were doomed.

Gormlaith herself spoke at Sigtryggr's council of war and she was very persuasive. Brian Boruma's personal prestige had been vital to his previous military success, she told the hard-bitten war captains. His army rallied to him personally. That was the Irish habit. Their warriors flock to a clan chief considered to be lucky, and when it comes to a battle they like to see their leader at the forefront of the charge. So Sigtryggr's grand alliance would hold a crucial advantage if it brought the High King's army to battle when Boruma himself was unable to participate for his misguided religious reasons. The one day of the Christian calendar that Boruma was sure to refuse to carry weapons was the gloomy anniversary of the White Christ's death. Brian Boruma regarded it as the holiest day of the year, and there was no possibility that he could personally lead his men into battle on that day. Gormlaith had also pointed out that the morbid nature of such an anniversary would further dishearten the High King's forces. Some of his more devout troops might even follow their master's example in refusing to bear arms. Her logic impressed even the most sceptical of the council, and there was not a single voice raised in objection when Sigtryggr set Good Friday as the day most suitable for our attack. Sigtryggr also suggested that Earl Sigurd and Brodir might go back aboard their ships the previous evening and pretend to sail off. The hope was that Boruma's spies stationed on the hill overlooking the river would report that many of Sigtryggr's allies were deserting him, and the High King would be further lulled into inaction.