The Long Ships (20 page)

At length everything was ready in King Harald’s great dining-hall for the Yule feast, and all the men were assembled there in their numbers, seated on benches. No women were allowed to be present at so tremendous a drinking-bout, for it was difficult enough, King Harald thought, to keep the peace when men were by themselves, and it would be many times harder if they had women to brag to in their cups. When everyone was in his place, the groom of the bedchamber announced in a gigantic voice that the peace of Christ and of King Harald reigned in the hall, and that no edged implements might be used except for the purpose of cutting up food; any cut, thrust, or open wound caused by weapon, ale-tankard, meat-bone, wooden platter, ladle, or clenched fist would be reckoned as plain murder, and would be regarded as sacrilege against Christ and as an unpardonable crime, and the miscreant would have a stone tied round his neck and be drowned in deep water. All weapons apart from eating-knives had been left by order in the vestibules, and only the exalted personages who sat at King Harald’s own table were allowed to retain their swords; for it was felt that they would be able to control themselves even when drunk.

The hall was built to hold a good six hundred men without crowding, and in the middle stood King Harald’s own table, with the thirty most eminent of the company seated at it. The tables for the other guests stretched down the length of the hall from one end to the other. Styrbjörn sat on King Harald’s right hand, and Bishop Poppo on his left; opposite them King Sven had Thorkel the Tall on his right, and a red-faced, bald old jarl from the Small Islands called Sibbe on his left. The others sat according to their rank, King Harald himself having settled each man’s place personally. Orm, though he could not be reckoned as one of the great chieftains, had yet been allotted a better place than he could have expected, and Toke likewise, for King Harald was grateful to them for their gift of the great bell, and was an admirer of Toke’s poetry. So Orm sat three places from the Bishop, and Toke four; for Orm had told King Harald that he would like, if possible, to sit next to Toke, in case the latter became troublesome through drink. Facing them across the table were men of King Sven’s company.

The Bishop read grace, King Harald having commanded him to be brief about it, and then they drank three toasts: to the honor of Christ, to the luck of King Harald, and to the return of the sun. Even those of the company who were not Christians joined in the toast to Christ, for it was the first of the toasts and they were thirsty for their ale; some of them, however, made the sign of the hammer over their tankards and murmured the name of Thor before they drank. When the toast to King Harald’s luck was drunk, King Sven got ale in his windpipe and had a coughing fit, causing Styrbjörn to ask whether the brew was too strong for his taste.

Then the Yule pork was brought in, and warriors and chieftains alike fell silent when they saw it appear, and took a deep breath and sighed with joyous anticipation; many loosened their belts, to save doing so later. For though there were those who whispered that King Harald was in his old age less openhanded with gold and silver than he had been of yore, this accusation had never been leveled at him in the matter of meat and drink, and certainly never by anyone who had celebrated Yule in his palace.

Forty-eight acorn hogs, well fattened, were slaughtered for his pleasure every Yule; and it was his custom to say that if this did not see them through the whole feast-tide, it would at any rate be sufficient to provide a tasty entrée for every guest, and that they could then fill up with beef and mutton. The kitchen servants entered in a long line, two by two, each pair bearing a great smoking pot, except for some who carried troughs of blood-sausage. They were accompanied by boys armed with long forked spits, which, once the pots had been set beside the tables, they plunged into the stew, fishing out large hunks of meat, which they gave to the guests in order of precedence, so that each had his fair share; in addition to which, every man received a good ell’s length of blood-sausage, or more if he wanted it. There were bread cakes and fried turnips set out on clay plates, and at the foot of each table there stood a butt of ale, so that no man’s horn or tankard need ever be empty.

As the pork approached Orm and Toke, they sat quite still, with their faces turned toward the pot, watching the boy closely as he fished for the meat. They sighed blissfully as he lifted out fine pieces of shoulder pork to put on their plates, reminding each other how long it was since they had last eaten such a dinner, and marveling that they had managed to survive so many years in a country where no pork was allowed to be eaten. But when the blood-sausage arrived, tears came into their eyes, and they declared that they had never eaten a meal worthy of the name since the day they had sailed away with Krok.

“This is the best smell of all,” said Orm in a small voice.

“There is thyme in it,” said Toke huskily.

He plunged his sausage into his mouth, as far as it would go, bit off a length, and slowly closed his jaws; then he swung hastily round, grabbing at the boy’s coat as he attempted to move on with the trough, and said: “If it be not contrary to King Harald’s orders, give me at once another length of that sausage. I have for some years past now fared indifferently among the Andalusians, where they have no food worthy of the name, and these seven Yules I have longed for blood-sausage and had none.”

“My case,” said Orm, “is the same.”

The boy laughed at their anxiety and assured them that King Harald had enough sausage for everybody. He ladled out on each of their plates a good length of the thickest that he had; then they were contented and began to eat in earnest.

For some time now, nobody spoke, either at the King’s table or anywhere else in the hall, except when somebody asked for more ale or mumbled a word between bites in praise of King Harald’s Yuletide meat.

On Orm’s right sat a young man who cut his meat with a knife that bore an engraved silver hilt. He was fair-skinned and had very long and exquisite hair, carefully combed. He belonged to Thorkel the Tall’s company, and evidently came of good family, for he was honorably placed at the King’s table although he had as yet no beard; besides which his nobility was apparent from his fine clothing and silver sword-belt. After the first flush of eating was over, he turned to Orm and said: “It is good at a feast to sit next to men who have traveled widely; and I think I heard that you and your neighbor have voyaged farther afield than most of us here.”

Orm replied that this was correct, and that Toke and he had spent six years in Spain.

“For various reasons,” he added, “our journey took longer than we had anticipated; and many of those who set out with us never returned.”

“You must have had many adventures worth the telling,” said the other. “I myself, though I have not traveled as far as either of you, have also recently been on a voyage from which few came back.”

Orm asked him who he was and what voyage he referred to.

The other replied: “I come from Bornholm, and my name is Sigurd; and my father was Bue Digre, of whom you may have heard, despite your long sojourn abroad. I was with him at Jörund-Fjord when he was killed, and I was captured there, together with Vagn Akesson and many others besides. Nor should I be sitting here tonight to tell the tale if it had not been for my long hair; for it was my hair that saved my life when orders had been given for all the prisoners to be killed.”

By this time a number of their table companions had eaten their fill and were beginning to regain the freedom of their tongues for the purpose of speech. Toke now joined in the conversation, remarking that what the Bornholmer had just said had an unusual ring about it and promised a good story; for his part, he had always regarded long hair as being more of a handicap to a soldier than an advantage. Thorkel the Tall sat picking his teeth in the aristocratic manner that was now beginning to be fashionable among great men who had traveled widely, with his face turned to one side and the palm of his hand raised before his mouth. He overheard their conversation and observed that long hair had proved unlucky to many a soldier in the past, and that sensible men always took good care to bind their hair up carefully beneath their helmets; however, he added, Sigurd Buesson would show by his story how a shrewd man might take advantage of the length of his hair, and he hoped that everyone in the hall would listen to what he had to say.

King Sven, by this time, was in a better humor, the appearance of Styrbjörn having shadowed his spirits for a while. He sat lolling backwards in his chair, gnawing a pig’s trotter, the bones from which he spat out on the straw that covered the floor. He noted with satisfaction that King Harald, who was engaged in a discussion with Styrbjörn about women, was eating and drinking more than anyone else. He, too, overheard what was being said farther down the table and joined in the discussion, pointing out that a wise soldier also always remembers his beard, for when a battle was being fought in windy weather a man’s beard could easily get into his eyes just when he was preparing to parry a sword-thrust or to avoid a winging spear; wherefore, he told them, he always made a point of having his hair plaited before marching into battle. But now he would be interested to hear how Sigurd Buesson had taken advantage of his long hair, for men who had fought at Jörundfjord usually had adventures worth relating.

Bishop Poppo had not succeeded in finishing all that had been placed before him, and the ale that he had drunk had given him hiccups; nevertheless, he was capable of utterance and he, too, joined in the discussion, saying that he would be happy to tell them the story of Prince Absalom, whose long hair had proved to be his downfall. This, he said, was a good and instructive story, which stood written in God’s own holy book. But King Sven cut him off promptly with the comment that he could keep such stories for women and children, if he could persuade them to listen to him. Words were then exchanged between him and the Bishop on this score; but King Harald said:

“A feast such as this, which lasts for six days, will allow us all time in which to tell our stories; and few things are better than to listen to good stories when a man has eaten his fill and has ale left in his cup. For it helps the time to pass easily between one meal and the next, and makes for less quarreling across the tables. But let me say this in the Bishop’s favor, that he has good tales to tell, for I myself have listened to many of them with pleasure, concerning saints and apostles and the old kings that used to reign in the Eastern lands. He has told me many stories about one of them whose name was Solomon, who was greatly beloved by God and who seems to have been very much like myself, though it is true that he had more women. I think that the Bishop should tell his story first, before the food and drink make him sleepy, for our Yule drinking does not have the same good effect on him that it has on us, since he has not had sufficient time to accustom himself to it. After him, let other men tell of their adventures at Jörundfjord, or with Styrbjörn among the Wends, or elsewhere. We have, besides, here among us, men who have been as far abroad as Spain, whence they have sailed to my court bearing with them a holy bell, which has been of great service to me; and I wish to hear them tell their story before this feast is done.”

They all agreed that King Harald had spoken wisely, and it was done as he suggested; so that evening, after the torches had been brought in, the Bishop told the story of King David and his son Absalom. He spoke loudly, so that everyone could hear him, and he told his tale cunningly, so that all the company except King Sven enjoyed it. When the Bishop had finished talking, King Harald observed that his story was well worth storing away in one’s memory, for one reason and another; and Styrbjörn laughed, and raised his glass to King Sven and said: “Be wise, O Prince, and pay heed to this tale, and cut thy hair short as bishops do.”

This remark appealed to King Harald, who smote his thigh and fell into such a fit of laughing that the whole bench on his side of the table shook; and when his men and Styrbjörn’s followers saw their masters laughing, they all joined in, even those of them who were unaware of the cause, so that the whole hall rang with merriment. King Sven’s men, however, were displeased; and he himself glowered sourly and mumbled something into his cup and gnawed his lip-beard and had a dangerous look about him, as though he might at any moment leap to his feet and break into violence. Styrbjörn leaned forward in his seat and stared at him out of his pale eyes, which never blinked, and smiled. There was considerable unrest in the hall, and it looked as though the Christmas peace might shortly be ended. The Bishop stretched out his hands and cried something that nobody heard, and men fixed their eyes upon one another across the table and groped for the nearest thing that might serve as a weapon. But then King Harald’s jesters, two small Irishmen who were famed for their skill in trade, jumped up on the King’s table in motley-colored tunics, wearing feathers in their hair, and began to flap their broad sleeves and puff their chests and stamp their feet and stretch their necks; then they crew at each other exactly like cocks, so that no man present could remember ever having heard a cock crow as finely as they did; and within a few seconds they had all forgotten their anger and were lolling in their seats helpless with laughter at their antics. So the first day of the feasting ended.

On the next day, when the eating was over and the torches had been carried in, Sigurd Buesson told them of his adventures at Jörundfjord, and how he had been saved by his long hair. They all knew about this expedition; how the Jomsvikings, with men from Bornholm, had sailed out in a mighty fleet under the command of Strut-Harald’s sons, with Bue Digre and Vagn Akesson, to win Norway from Jarl Haakon, and how few had returned from that enterprise; so Sigurd did not waste many words on this part of his story, and made no mention of how Sigvalde had fled with his ships from the battle. For it would have been churlish to have spoken of Sigvalde when Thorkel the Tall was among his audience, though they all knew Thorkel to be a bold fighter and were aware that he had been struck on the head by a large stone during the battle soon after the opposing navies had come to grips, so that he had not been conscious when his brother had rowed away.