Odin’s Child (24 page)

†

Now, in the crowded streets of Nidaros people milled about the square, talking in worried voices and cursing the Fat Man (for so the king was called by those who didn't love him). If Olaf the Stout had any friends in that crowd, they kept their voices low.

After loitering for a while, overhearing conversations, I decided to go back to Karl's Doom and console myself with a jug and a girl. I already felt wretched about my quarrel with Kalf.

Entering the inn yard, I heard the excited voice of Ogmund Pot-Belly, whom I had seen in the square just a while ago. He was digging furiously in his sea chest, throwing things out to left and right, while he ranted at Stig, Starkad, and Bergthora. They watched him with amusement.

With a grunt, he hauled from the bottom of the chest a large and heavy sword in an old scabbard, and fumbled with the belt, which barely closed around his middle. It had been a long time, I imagined, since a sword had swung from his hip in place of his precious scales.

“Odd Tangle-Hair!” he called out. “Thank Heaven! You heard, didn't you? I appeal to you—will you not join me and command your men to do the same? Our King Olaf needs every Christman's sword.”

“Fight
for
him?” I thought I must have heard wrong.

“Of course, for him. Dear God, man, don't listen to what these northern savages are saying. Oh, they'll burn for it one day!”

“Now then, Master Ogmund,” warned Bergthora, standing in front of him and giving his sword belt a wrenching tug. “Fight for the Fat Man if you like, but your opinion isn't the popular one, and I don't care to have it shouted from my rooftop. It's bad for business, if you know what I mean.”

Ogmund slapped a fist into a soft palm. “Some things matter a deal more than your business or mine, Bergthora. It was our King Olaf who brought this country out of darkness, throwing down the filthy heathen idols with his own hands wherever he went. And when mice and snakes would scuttle out from underneath them, he'd tell the people, ‘
That's
what you've been feeding with your milk and bits of meat.' He brought 'em to Christ by the hundreds. There are plenty in the south who bless his name
for it. But these ignorant Tronders of yours—half of 'em out-and-out heathens and the rest not much better.”

“Now really, Ogmund,” Bergthora stopped him firmly, “'T'isn't near as simple as you make it out—heathen against Christman. Why, I'm a Christian woman myself, more or less, but Olaf was too harsh, and there's the truth of it. Too many heads and hands lopped off, too many hangings and eye gougings when people came slow to be baptized—and him a foreigner from the south to boot. And it isn't only heathens who oppose him. King Canute's a good Christian as I've heard, and so are our Tronder jarls, Christian to a man.”

Ogmund spat. “Your jarls are fools. They're playing Canute's game, and the day will come when they'll regret it.”

“Why, he's left us alone so far.”

“Look you,” cried Ogmund exasperated, “if a man stands with one foot in Denmark and the other in England and pisses, who gets wet, eh?”

“Well, you've a quaint way of putting it, Master Ogmund, and maybe you're right. All I know is, when war starts, silver goes into the ground, and that's bad for my trade. As for the Danes, they drink beer like other men—and piss like other men, too, I daresay.”

Stig and I laughed while Ogmund rolled his eyes. “God save us. Only a fool disputes with a stone! Odd Tangle-Hair, I appeal to you again, will you and your men offer your swords to the king?”

I took a thoughtful pull from the ale horn. “D'you know the old saying, Ogmund, ‘When wolves fight, the sheep rejoice'? No? Well, I just made it up. It means I don't care for your Christian king or your Christian jarls.

“I see,” he said stiffly. “You speak for all your men, do you?”

“I won't see them cut to pieces for no good reason.”

“Would there be profit in it?” wondered Starkad.

“Not likely,” answered Stig. “Farmers on the one side and vagabonds on the other—wouldn't have enough loot between 'em to make the trip worthwhile.”

“In that case,” said Starkad with a wide yawn, “I'm content to stay here.”

At that moment, in walked Kalf. Without a word to any of us, he went straight to his sea chest. A worried look came over Bergthora's kindly face. She went and laid an arm on his shoulder. “You look bothered, young Slender-Leg, what have you been up to?”

“Looking for Bishop Grimkel.”

“Whatever for, at a time like this? ‘T'isn't the Sun's Day, is it?”

“To ask his blessing. I'm going away.” Stig and Starkad looked up in surprise, first at him, then at me, but they said nothing. “But the church is empty,” he went on, “not even a deacon about, and I could find no one to tell me where the bishop has gone.”

“No mystery there,” replied Bergthora. “He's gone up-fjord to join up with the king. He's not lost a minute. I shouldn't be surprised if he secretly had some word from Olaf before now. He's the king's man.”

“He is indeed,” seconded Ogmund. “If you want his blessing, lad, then come with me to Stiklestad.”

“They say there's to be a fight there.”

“So there will. Are you afraid?”

“I would fear nothing, standing by that holy man.”

“I'm glad to hear you say it. Any man who fights in Olaf's cause will surely have God's blessing.”

“And remission of sins?”

“I shouldn't doubt it. What d'you say, lad?”

“I'll go!”

Thor's Billy goat! I thought. Kalf's no fighter. He'll lose his life for sure, and it'll be my fault if he does. What an ungrateful dog I am. When I lost my wits, did he hit me? Did he curse me? Did he abandon me? Now, I have a chance to repay him. Until he returns to his senses, I'll keep him safe, even if it means tying him to a tree, just as he tied me to the mast.

“Ogmund Pot-Belly,” I said, “I've changed my mind. I'm coming with you.”

“Don't,” said Kalf sharply, not looking at me. “What's this to do with you?”

“Well, I'm a poet, aren't I. And poets sing of battles, don't they? Now, isn't it disgraceful that I've never even seen a battle—not a real one, I mean.” I could see he didn't believe a word of this.

“Suit yourself,” he shrugged.

“What's happened between you two?” asked Stig at last, giving me a hard look.

“Nothing, Steersman, not a thing.”

“Shall I round up the lads and come with you, then?”

“By no means. This is Kalf's business and mine. We'll be back in a few days, I with my poem and he with his blessing, and both of us safe
and sound. Master Ogmund, we'll find ourselves a small boat—shouldn't be hard—and row up. Bergthora, we'll need provisions. How many days rowing is it to the top of the fjord?”

“I haven't the faintest, and I doubt you'll find the place without a guide.”

“We'll find it.”
With luck, after the battle's over
, I added to myself. “Today's almost spent. We'll leave at sunup tomorrow?”

Ogmund nodded, puzzled but grateful. Kalf gave me a long, searching look, as did Bergthora and Stig. Not caring to have my purpose questioned anymore, I made myself scarce for the rest of that afternoon and evening.

†

Above Nidaros, the high bluffs of Trondheimfjord give way to gentler hills and long stretches of flat land where the trees grow down to the water's edge, broken sometimes by a stretch of watery meadow or a tooth of granite thrusting up from the bones of earth.

Kalf and I pulled at the oars while Ogmund held the tiller. The day was hot and windless, and we soon shed our mail coats, laying them in the bottom of the dinghy beside our arms and rations.

Ogmund sensed the coolness between Kalf and me, and after trying for a time to keep up a conversation, lapsed into silence.

We stopped once to ask our way when we spied a woodcutter's hut by the shore. Ogmund hallooed was anyone at home and did they know where the king's army lay? The door opened a crack and a sallow-faced woman put out her head. A naked child peeped from behind her skirt. “To ficht agin ‘im or wi'im?” demanded the woman in a dialect I could barely make out.

“To defend our rightful king, of course,” said the merchant in his lofty way.

“Bad luck to ‘ee then. My man's gone agin'im.”

The door banged shut, leaving Pot-Belly fuming.

Night found us stiff and weary from rowing, and still far from our destination. To make short of it, we blundered about for two more days, stopping every so often to let Kalf scamper up a tree and look for the smoke of campfires. At last, with our food nearly gone and nightfall once more coming on, he sang out from the top of a tall pine that he could see
a smudge of smoke on the horizon.

“Praise God!” cried Ogmund. “How many campfires do you make it?”

“Ten thousand!” was Kalf's ecstatic answer.

But there were far fewer campfires than that when we stood on the shore an hour later and looked across the plain of Stiklestad.

The field was shaped like a giant hoofprint pressed into the earth, the round end ringed by a wooded ridge that comes down to the water on both sides. Only one army so far was encamped there, in a disorderly sprawl of lean-tos and campfires that spread along the tree line to our left, fronted by a palisade.

In its midst a ragged banner hung from a standard, white with a golden cross: the arms of King Olaf Haraldsson. My two companions were for racing up straightway, but I insisted we first pull the dinghy into the underbrush at the edge of the field and cover it with boughs before anyone noticed it. I wanted it handy if we should need it in a hurry. Call it second sight, if you want.

That done, we crossed the grassy field to the king's camp—Kalf with his quiver and bow, Ogmund, manfully shouldering a heavy long-handled axe along with sword and shield, and I, with my new arms and armor, for no one with any sense goes to a battlefield unarmed, even if he has no intention of fighting. I toted our keg of ale, as well.

I don't know what I'd expected a royal army to look like, but something grander than what I saw. Any Iceland godi could boast better-looking warriors than these. Nor could I see a horse, a wagon, or a proper tent anywhere. Just as the galloper had reported, they looked like nothing more nor less than a band of hungry bandits on the prowl.

Where the banner stood, there was a lean-to made of pine boughs. Some spearmen lolled on the grass before it. Seeing us approach, they sprang up, and one of them ducked his head inside the shelter. Some moments later there emerged from under the boughs a big, broad-bellied man who shouted a greeting and bore down on us with arms outstretched like some amiable oak tree.

Ogmund, clutching his too-large axe, dropped to his knee and kissed the slab of a hand that was thrust at him. “King,” he said, “God knows I am no fighter but, such as I am, I'm yours.”

“Every man's a fighter when he fights for God!” cried Olaf in a thunderous voice, hauling Pot-Belly to his feet. “God bless you, man.”
His face split into a wolfish smile, showing all his teeth.

It was a square face—battered, brown, and scarred as an old chopping block; the beard square-cut and parted in the center, and the braided yellow hair hanging nearly to his waist. But for all his ferocity, there was a pinched, hollow look around the eyes as though he hadn't slept in days. His clothes told the same story—dirty and travel-stained from weeks of hard marching and lying out at night. At least this king seemed to live no better than his men.

“Have you come up the fjord from Nidaros?”

We nodded.

“Good men! I commend you for your haste, you've left the rest of your fleet far behind.”

“The rest…?” Said Ogmund faintly.

“Ask any favor of me when the war's over and, by God, you shall have it. Are you Norwegians or foreigners?”

Ogmund answered for himself.

“And you two?”

“Icelanders,” said Kalf.

“Well, damn my head!” He gave a loud laugh. “Icelanders. I love you! Christ, if only my Norwegians feared God as much as your people do. D'you know that every skald in my retinue is an Icelander? Best poets in the world, too. You must meet 'em.”

Then his eye lit on Kalf's bow and arrows. He took him by the shoulder, pulling him close to his face. “I need archers. Can you knock out a sparrow's eye at thirty paces? Say ‘yes' and I'll love you.”

Kalf stammered.

“Speak up!”

“I said, ‘Yes, I can'.”

“Well, then I
do
love you! I could, too, when I had a boy's sharp eye.” He took Kalf in a crushing bear hug.

“King,” Kalf said, “though I am a sinner, Bishop Grimkel has fired my soul to live a better life. If he is here, may I ask for his blessing?”

“He's not ten paces away. Come inside, all of you. Break bread and pray with us.”

There was such a crowd under the lean-to we barely fit in. Kalf went directly to the bishop, knelt, and kissed his ring. He would have kissed his feet if the man had let him. His face shone as Grimkel made the cross
over him.

Among the others, hastily introduced to us by Olaf, were Bjorn his marshal, and his six skalds. Their duty was always to be at the king's side to mark his every high deed and word and fashion them into poetry that would keep his memory green forever.

Alhough their clothes, like the king's, were soiled and worn, they bore themselves with such haughty dignity that I felt abashed in their presence, and glad I'd said nothing about being a poet myself. All the group huddled around Olaf. The man had an almost irresistible force of personality. I quickly gathered that one did not argue with Olaf, or contradict him. He talked and you agreed or said nothing. This frightened me, because his conversation was extraordinary.