Tim Severin - Odinn's Child

These were mysteries to which I could not be privy, and the steward kept hold of my arm to make sure that I did not double back to rejoin Eochaid. Instead my guide led me to where his own people were waiting. They were from the farthest of the federate tuaths and had set up their camp at a little distance from the crannog. My escort brought me into the circle where the families had gathered to celebrate the successful conclusion of the ceremony. They had lit a central bonfire with their sacred flame and were seated on the ground, eating and drinking and enjoying themselves. I was greeted with nods and smiles. Someone put a wooden cup of mead in my hand, someone else handed me a rib of roasted sheep, and space was made for me in the circle to sit down and join the feast. I started to gnaw at the tendrils of mutton and looked around at the ring of faces. This was the first time that I had been exposed to the society of the true Irish, the ordinary people from the remotest fringes of their island, at a time when they were most relaxed. Now I was a guest, not a war captive, or a slave, or a novice. I savoured the mood of the gathering. Abruptly I felt a shocking lurch of recognition. Seated about a third of the way around the circle was Thorvall the Hunter. I knew it was impossible. The last time I had seen Thorvall had been when he had left our Vinland settlement, angry with Karlsefni and Gudrid, and sailed off in our small boat with five companions to explore farther along the coast. We had never heard anything more of him, and presumed he had been killed by the Skraelings or drowned, though someone did say that Thor would never let someone drown at sea who was so robust in his belief in the Old Ways.

I stared at the wraith. Not since I had seen the fetch of Gardi the overseer in Greenland eleven years before had I seen a dead man come back among the living. Thorvall looked older than when I had last seen him. His beard and hair were shot with grey, his face was deeply lined and his massive shoulders had acquired a slight stoop of age. But the lid of his left eye drooped as it had always done, and I could still see the mark, much fainter now in the creases and folds of his ageing face, where the bear claws had left the hunting scar that had made such an impression on me as a child. A leather skullcap was pulled down on his head and pressed his hair over his ears so I could not see whether, like the Thorvall I knew from Vinland, he had also lost the top of his left ear. He was dressed in the clothing of an Irish cliathaire, laced leggings and a heavy jerkin of sheepskin over a rough linen shirt. Laid on the ground in front of him was an expensive-looking heavy sword. I tried to remain calm. I had taken to heart what Snorri Godi had warned me about: that when you experience second sight it is wiser to pretend that all is entirely normal, even though you are seeing something invisible to others. I continued to chew on my meat, occasionally glancing across at Thorvall and wondering if his ghost would recognise me. Then I noticed the man seated on Thorvall's right turn towards him and say something. My flesh tingled. I was not alone in seeing the wraith. Others were aware of his presence. Then it occurred to me that perhaps I had let my imagination run away with me. The man seated on the other side of the fire was not Thorvall, but someone who looked very like him.

Getting to my feet, I backed away from the circle, then walked round to where I could approach the seated stranger from one side. As I came closer, the more certain I was that it really was Thorvall. He had the same big-knuckled, gnarled hands that I remembered, and I glimpsed around his neck a necklace of bear claws. It had to be him. Yet how did he come to be seated among Irish clansmen, dressed like a veteran Irish warrior?

'Thorvall?' I enquired nervously, standing a little behind his right shoulder.

He did not respond.

'Thorvall?' I repeated more loudly, and this time he did turn round and looked up at me with a questioning expression on his face. He had the same pale blue eyes that I remembered staring at me in the stable all those years ago when I was first interrogated about my second sight. But the eyes looking at me had no sense of recognition.

'Thorvall,' I said for the third time and then, speaking in Norse, 'I am Thorgils, don't you recognise me? It's me, Leif’s son from Brattahlid in Greenland.'

Thorvall continued to stare at me with no reaction except for a slightly puzzled frown. He had not understood a word I said. People were starting to take notice of my behaviour and glancing curiously at me. I began to lose my nerve.

'Thorvall?'

My voice trailed away in confusion. The man gave a grunt and turned back to face the fire, ignoring me.

I crept back to my place by the fire, thoroughly embarrassed. Luckily the tide of mead was rising and my strange actions were forgotten in the general merriment. I kept glancing across at Thorvall, or whoever he was, trying to resolve my confusion.

'Who's that man over there, the one with the big sword on the ground in front of him?' I asked my neighbour.

He looked across to the man with the scar on his face. 'That's Ardal, the ri's champion, though he's had very little to do ever since we allied with the other tuaths,' he replied, 'Just as well. He's getting a bit long in the tooth to do much duelling.'

I remembered Eochaid's warning about not asking too many questions and decided that it would be better to wait till next day to consult the brithem about the mysterious clansman.

'King's champion?' Eochaid replied next morning. 'That's an old title, not used much today. He's usually the best warrior in the tuath, who acts as the ri's chief bodyguard. He also represents the ri if there is a quarrel between two tuaths which is to be decided by single combat between two picked fighters. Why do you want to know?'

'I saw a man yesterday evening who I thought was someone I knew long ago when I was living in the Norse lands. I was told his name was Ardal and that he is, or was, the king's champion. But I was sure he was someone else. Yet that seems impossible.'

'I can't say I know him. Who did you say he was with?' Eochaid asked.

'He was seated among the people who came from the farthest tuath, the one near the coast.'

'That'll be the Ua Cannannain.' Eochaid and I were standing in the mead hall of the crannog, waiting to say a formal farewell to the ri. Eochaid turned to the ri's steward. 'Do you know this man called Ardal?'

'Only by reputation,' he replied. 'A man of very few words. Not surprising. He was half dead when he was washed ashore and it was thought that he would never live. But he was nursed back to health in the ri's own house and became a servant there. Then it turned out that he was so good with weapons that he eventually became the king's champion. Quite an advancement for someone who was fuidir cinad o muir.'

It was a phrase I had never heard before. A fuidir is someone half-free or ransomed, and cinad o muir is 'a crime of the sea'. I was about to ask the steward what he meant, when the man added, 'If you want to meet Ardal, it will have to wait till next year. Early this morning most of the Ua Cannannain set out to return to their own tuath.'

Eochaid looked at me. 'What makes you think that you knew this man Ardal previously?'

'He and his friend, a smith named Tyrkir, were my first tutors in the Old Ways,' I replied, 'but I thought he was dead.'

'He may well be dead,' Eochaid observed. 'We are now in

Samhain, the season when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest, and those who are no longer with us can pass most easily through the veil. What you saw may have been your friend who has returned briefly to this world.'

'But the steward said that he had been in this land for several years, not just at this season.'