Tim Severin - Odinn's Child

'Don't touch it if you want to live,' warned a voice sharply. An

Icelander, Asmund the White, chose this moment to desert his lord.

Thorstein hesitated, then turned away. At that moment I understood that my first interpretation of my omen dream had been correct. We had spurned our own emblem of Odinn, and the war ravens were our enemies.

Overweight and out of breath, Sigurd might have been a poor foot soldier but he was not a coward. 'Right then,' he growled, 'if no one else will carry the banner, then I will do so even if it means my death. It is fit that the beggar bears the bag, and I would prefer to die with honour than to flee, but I will need both hands if this is to be my final fight.' He pulled the red and black banner from the staff, folded it lengthways, and wrapped it around his waist as a sash. Then, with a sword in one hand and a round shield on the other arm, he stumped forward, puffing and wheezing. Only a handful of men followed him, and at least half of them were Burners. Perhaps they too realised that their lives were over and that, forbidden to ever return to Iceland, they might as well die on the battlefield. The final encounter was very brief. Sigurd lumbered straight towards the nearest Irish chieftain. Once again it was Murchad, who seemed to be everywhere during the battle. There was little contest. Murchad took a spear from a solder nearby, levelled it and when Sigurd came within range thrust forward so the weapon took Sigurd in the throat. The Earl of Orkney fell, and the moment he went down those who remained of his contingent turned and began to retreat towards the ships. A moment later I heard a deep baying cry and the wilder rattle of light drums. It was Malachi committing his fresh troops on the side of Brian Boruma.

I ran. Hugging my injured hand to my chest, I fled for my life. Twice I tripped and fell sprawling, crying out with pain as my spine was wrenched. But each time I got back on my feet and blundered forward, hoping to reach the safety of the boats. My eyes were filled with tears of pain so I could barely see where I was going. I knew only to run in the same direction as my fellows, and try to keep up with them. I heard a choking cry as someone close to me received an arrow or javelin in the back. And suddenly I was splashing through water, the salty drops flying up in my face, and my headlong rush slowing so I almost pitched forward. I looked up and saw that I had reached the beach, but was far from safety. During the battle the tide had come in, and the sand flats to which we had brought the longships that dawn were now submerged. To get to the ships our defeated men would have to wade, then swim.

I laboured forward through the pluck of the water, my feet slipping on the unseen sand and mud. Not all the men around me were fugitives. Many were hunters. I saw Norsemen who had taken Brian Boruma's pay catch up with their countrymen who had fought for Sigtryggr and cut their throats as they floundered in the sea. Blood oozed across the tide. The retreat was becoming a massacre. I watched a young Irish chieftain - he was the same man who had been pointed out as the High King's grandson — come bounding out through the shallows, his hair flying and his face alight with battle craziness. He closed with two Orkneymen, each far bigger than himself, and without a weapon his hand, he grabbed and pulled them down underwater to drown. There was a terrible thrashing in the water, and the three contestants surfaced several times before all three grew weaker until the youth and one of the Norse failed to come back and gulp for air. Their two waterlogged corpses were floating face down even as the third man, now too tired to swim the final gap, threw up his arms and sank from view.

As I watched him drown, I knew that my injured arm and hand would prevent me from swimming to the waiting boats. Turning, I waded back to land and by some intervention of the Gods I was left alone. Soaking wet, shivering with cold and shock, I emerged on the beach and, like a wounded animal, looked around me to seek shelter from my enemies. Halfway up the slope of the hill I saw a thicket of bushes at the edge of the wood overlooking the battlefield. Aching with tiredness, I laboured up the hill towards this refuge. For the last hundred paces I was panting with exhaustion and dreading the shout of discovery. But nothing came and as I reached the bushes I did not stop, but blundered forward until the tearing of the thorns slowed me. I dropped to my knees and crawled forward, holding my injured hand to my chest as a fox with a wounded leg seeks shelter after the trap. Reaching deep into the thicket, I collapsed on the ground and lay panting for breath.

I must have lost consciousness for some time, before the sound of singing penetrated through my nausea, and I thought that my ears were deceiving me. I heard the words of a hymn that my grandmother, Erik the Red's wife, had sung in the White Rabbit Hutch back in Greenland. Then the sound came again, but not in a woman's voice. It was a male choir. I crawled a few feet forward to find that my refuge was not as deep and effective as I thought. The bushes made only a thin fringe on the edge of the woods. On the far side of the bushes began a forest of young oak trees. There were wide open spaces between the tree trunks, and at that moment the nearest trunks gave the impression of being the columns of a church because, set on the forest floor, was a large portable altar. The sound of singing came from half a dozen White Christ priests who were celebrating some sort of ceremony, holding up sacred symbols, a cross, a bowl and even several candles as they sang. One of the celebrants was about my age and he was carrying a large dish covered with a cloth. The leading figure standing beside the altar was an old man, perhaps in his early sixties, grey-haired and gaunt. He was the high priest, I thought, because all the other priests were treating him with great respect and, though he was bareheaded, he was richly dressed. Then I heard the whicker of a horse and to my left I saw a large tent, half hidden among the trees, placed where it had a commanding view of the battlefield I had just left. Loitering beside the tent were half a dozen Norsemen. My brain was fuzzily trying to work out the connection between the tent and the religious ceremony when there was a great crashing sound. Out from the bushes, like an enormous enraged bear, burst Brodir. He too must have been hiding from enemy pursuit. Now he came lumbering out of the bushes and I caught a glimpse of the crusted streak down his right side where blood had leaked from his wound. Brodir still had his battleaxe in his ungainly left hand, but why he had burst from cover in this suicidal manner did not occur to me at once. I watched as Brodir ambushed the priests, and the young man with the dish tried to block his charge. The boy stepped into Brodir's path and held up the metal dish like a shield, but Brodir swept him aside with a single awkward blow from the battleaxe, and I cringed in sympathy as the boy's right hand was cut off, leaving a stump which spurted blood. Brodir gave a curious low growl as with another ungainly left-handed sweep he swung his axe at the old man's neck, half-severing his head from his body. The old man seemed to shrivel to a bunch of rags as he collapsed to the ground even as the men-at-arms came running forward, too late. Some knelt to pick up the fallen priest, the others, awed by Brodir's immense size, cautiously formed a half-circle around him and began to close in. Brodir offered no resistance, but just stood there, swaying slightly on his feet, the battleaxe hanging straight down from his weak left hand. He threw back his head and shouted, 'Now let man tell man that it was Brodir who killed King Brian.' At that moment I knew that the seidr magic of the black raven banner had been a hoax worthy of Odinn the Deceiver. I, the last person to carry the banner on high, had survived, yet we had lost the battle. By contrast our enemy, who had won the victory, had sacrificed their leader. I had witnessed the victory of the High King but the death of Brian Boruma.