The Long Ships (59 page)

For the two girls were, by now, beginning to grow up, and nobody could any longer doubt whether they would be pleasing to the eye. They were both red-haired and well-shaped, and men were soon glancing at them; but it was easy to perceive one difference between them. Oddny was of a mild and submissive temper; she was skillful at womanly tasks, obeyed her parents willingly, and seldom caused Ylva or Asa any vexation. On the few occasions when she did so, her sister was chiefly to blame, for, from the first, Oddny had obeyed Ludmilla in everything, while Ludmilla, by contrast, found it irksome to obey and pleasing to command. When she was birched, she yelled more from anger than from pain, and comforted herself with the reflection that before long she would be big enough to give as good as she got. She disliked working at the butter-churns or on the weaving-stools, preferring to shoot with a bow, at which sport she soon became as skillful as her teacher, Glad Ulf. Orm was unable to control her, but her obstinacy and boldness pleased him; and when Ylva complained to him of her perversity and the way she played truant in the forest, shooting with Glad Ulf and Harald Ormsson, he merely replied: “What else can you expect? It is the royal blood in her veins. She has been blessed with a double measure, Oddny’s as well as her own. She will be a difficult filly to tame, and let us hope that the main burden of taming her will fall on other shoulders than ours.”

In the winter evenings, when everyone was seated round the fire at his or her handicraft, she would sometimes behave peaceably, and even now and then work at her spinning, provided that some good story was being told, by Orm of his adventures in foreign lands, or by Asa of the family in the old days, or by Father Willibald of great happenings in the days of Joshua or King David, or by Ylva of her father, King Harald. She was happiest when Toke visited Gröning, for he was a good story-teller and knew many tales of ancient heroes. Whenever he seemed to flag, it was always she who jumped up to fill his ale-cup and beg him to continue, and it was seldom that he found the heart to refuse her.

For it was always so with Ludmilla Ormsdotter that from her earliest youth men found it difficult to gainsay her. She was pale-complexioned, with skin tightly drawn over her cheekbones, and dark eyebrows; and although her eyes were of the same gray as those of many other girls, it nevertheless seemed to men who studied them closely and returned their gaze that there were none to compare with them anywhere else in the whole border country.

Her first experience with men occurred in the summer after her fourteenth birthday, when Gudmund of Uvaberg came riding to Gröning with two men, whom he suggested that Orm should take into his service.

Gudmund had not been seen at Gröning since Orm had insulted him at the Thing, nor had he ridden to any Thing since that day. But now he came full of smiles and friendliness and said that he wished to do Orm a kindness, so that their old quarrel might be made up.

“I have with me here,” he said, “the two best workers that ever were; and I now offer them to you. They are not serfs, but free men, and each of them does the work of two, and sometimes more. This is therefore a fine service I am doing you by offering them to you, though it is equally true that you will be doing me a good one by accepting them. For they are both tremendous eaters, and though I have kept them for four months, I find myself unable to do so any longer. I am not so rich as you are, and they are eating me out of house and home. I dare not ration them, for they have told me that if this is done, they become dangerous; unless they eat themselves full each noon and evening, a madness comes upon them. But they work willingly for anyone who will feed them full, and no man has ever seen workers to match them.”

Orm regarded this offer with suspicion and questioned both Gudmund and the two men carefully before accepting them. The men did not attempt to conceal their shortcomings, but said honestly how things were with them and how they wished them to be; and as Orm had good need of strong workers, he at length accepted them into his service, and Gudmund rode contentedly away.

The men were called Ullbjörn and Greip. They were young, long-faced, and flaxen-haired, and a man had only to look at them to tell that they were strong; but as regards intelligence, they were less fortunately equipped. From their speech it could be heard that they came from a distant part of the country; they said they had been born in a land far beyond West Guteland, called Iron-Bearing Land, where the men were as strong as the bears, with whom they would often wrestle for amusement. But a great famine had afflicted their land, and so they had left it and journeyed southwards in the hope of reaching a country where they would be able to find enough to eat. They had worked on many farms and estates in West Guteland and Smaland. When food began to become scanty, they explained, they killed their employer and went on.

Orm thought that they must have worked for a tame lot of masters if they had allowed themselves to be killed as easily as that, but the men stared earnestly at him and bade him take good note of what they had said.

“For, if we become hungry, we go berserk, and no man can withstand us. But if we get enough food, we conduct ourselves peaceably and do whatever our master bids us. For we are made that way.”

“Food you shall have,” said Orm, “as much as you want; if you are such good workers as you claim to be, you will be worth all the food you can eat. But be sure of this, that if you enjoy going berserk, you have come to the wrong place here, for I have no patience with berserks.”

They gazed at him with thoughtful eyes and asked how long it was until the midday meal.

“We are already beginning to feel hungry,” they said.

As fortune had it, the midday meal was just due to be served. The two newcomers set to with a will and ate so greedily that everyone watched them in amazement.

“You have both eaten enough for three men,” said Orm. “And now I want to see each of you do two men’s work, at the very least.”

“That you shall,” they replied, “for this was a meal that suited us well.”

Orm began by setting them to dig a well and soon had to admit that they had not exaggerated their worth, for they quickly dug a good well, broad and deep and lined from top to bottom with stone. The children stood and watched them work; the men said nothing, but it was noticeable that their eyes often turned toward Ludmilla. She showed no fear of them and asked them how it was with men when they went berserk, but received no reply to this question.

When they had completed this task, Orm told them to build a good boathouse down by the river; and this, too, they did quickly and well. Ylva forbade her daughters to go near them while they were working there, for, she said, one could never be sure what such half-trolls as they might not suddenly do.

When the boathouse was ready, Orm set them to clean the cowshed. All the cows were at pasture, and only the bull was left in the shed, he being too evil-tempered to be allowed loose. A whole winter’s droppings lay in the pens, so that UllbjÖrn and Greip had several days’ stiff work ahead of them.

The children and all the house-folk felt somewhat afraid of the two men, because of their strength and strangeness. Ullbjörn and Greip never had much to say to anyone; only sometimes, when they were spoken to, they told briefly of feats of strength they had performed, and how they had strangled men who had not given them enough to eat, or had broken their backs with their bare hands.

“Nobody can withstand us when we are angry,” they said. “But here we get enough to eat and are content. So long as things continue thus, nobody has anything to fear from us.”

Ludmilla was the only one not afraid of them, and several times went to watch them work in the cowshed, sometimes accompanied by her brothers and sisters and sometimes alone. When she was there, the men kept their eyes fixed on her; and although she was young, she understood well what they were thinking.

One day when she was there alone with them, Greip said: “You are the sort of girl I could fancy.”

“I, too,” said Ullbjörn.

“I should like to play with you in the hay,” said Greip, “if you are not afraid to do so with me.”

“I can play better than Greip,” said Ullbjörn.

Ludmilla laughed. “Do you both like me?” she said. “That is a pity. For I am a virgin, and of royal blood, and not to be bedded by any chance vagabond. But I think I prefer one of you to the other.”

“Is it me?” said Greip, throwing aside his shovel.

“Is it me?” asked Ullbjörn, dropping his broom.

“I like best,” said Ludmilla, “whichever of you is the stronger. It would be interesting to know which that is.”

Both the men were now hot with desire. They glared silently at each other.

“I may perchance,” added Ludmilla softly, “allow the stronger man to sit with me for a short while down by the river.”

At this they straightway began to growl fearfully like werewolves and seized hold of each other. They appeared to be of equal strength, and neither could gain an ascendance. The beams and walls shook as they stumbled against them. Ludmilla went to the door to be out of their way.

As she was standing there, Orm came up.

“What is that noise?” he asked her. “What are they doing in there?”

Ludmilla turned to him and smiled. “Fighting,” she said.

“Fighting?” said Orm, taking a step toward her. “What about?”

“Me,” replied Ludmilla happily. “Perhaps this is what they call going berserk.”

Then she scampered fearfully away, for she saw a look on Orm’s face that was new to her, and understood that a great anger had come over him.

An old broom was leaning against the wall. Orm wrenched the shaft out of its socket, and this was the only weapon he had as he strode in, slamming the door behind him. Then his voice was audible above the snarling of the men, and for a moment all was silence in the shed. But almost at once the snarling broke out afresh and with redoubled violence. The servant-girls came out into the yard and stood there listening, but nobody felt inclined to open the cowshed door to see what was happening inside. Someone shouted for Rapp and his ax, but he was nowhere to be found. Then one of the doors flew open and the bull rushed forth in terror, with its halter hanging loose about its neck, and fled into the forest. Everyone shrieked aloud at this sight; and now Ludmilla began to be afraid and to cry, for she feared she had started something bigger than she had intended.

At length the uproar ceased and there was silence. Orm walked out, panting for breath, and wiped his arm across his brow. He was limping, his clothes were torn, and part of one of his cheek-beards had been wrenched away. The servant-girls ran up to him with anxious cries and questions. He looked at them and said that they need not lay a place for Ullbjörn or Greip at supper that evening.

“Nor tomorrow, neither,” he added. “But how it is with this leg of mine I do not know.”

He limped into the house to have his injury examined by Ylva and the priest.

Inside the cowshed all was disorder, and the two berserks were lying across each other in one corner. Greip had the sharp end of the broomstick through his throat, and Ullbjörn’s tongue was hanging out of his mouth. They were both dead.

Ludmilla was afraid that she would now be birched, and Ylva thought she had deserved it for having gone in alone to the two berserks. But Orm pleaded for her to be treated leniently, so that she escaped more lightly than she had thought possible; and she described what had happened before the fight in such a manner that they agreed that no blame could be attached to her. Orm was not displeased with the incident, once Father Willibald had examined his leg and declared the injury to be slight; for though he was now certain that Gudmund of Uvaberg had offered him the two men in the hope of gaining his revenge, he was well pleased with his feat of having overpowered two berserks singlehanded and without the help of any proper weapon.

“You did wisely, Ludmilla,” he said, “to turn them against each other when they would have molested you, for I am not sure that even I could have defeated them if they had not already tired each other somewhat. My advice, therefore, Ylva, is that she shall not be birched, though it was rash of her to go in to them alone. For she is too young to understand the thoughts that are liable to enter men’s heads when they look at her.”

Ylva shook her head doubtfully at this, but allowed Orm to have his way.

“This affair has turned out well,” he said. “Nobody can deny that these two ruffians have done good work since they arrived here. I now have a well, a boathouse, and more honor to my name, and Gudmund has been well snubbed for his pains. So everything is as it should be. But I will take care to let him know that if he provokes me again, I shall pay him a visit that he will not forget.”

“I will come with you,” said Blackhair earnestly; he had been sitting listening to their conversation.

“You are too small to wear a sword,” said Orm.

“I have the ax Rapp forged for me,” he replied. “He says there are not many axes with a sharper edge than mine.”

Orm and Ylva laughed, but Father Willibald shook his head frowningly and said it was a bad thing to hear such talk from a Christian child.

“I must tell you again, Blackhair,” he said, “what you have already heard me say five, if not ten times, that you should think less about weapons and more about learning the prayer called
Pater Noster,
which I have so often explained to you and begged you to learn. Your brother Harald could recite that prayer by the time he was seven, and you are now twelve and still do not know it.”

“Harald can say it for us both,” retorted Blackhair boldly. “I am in no hurry to learn priest-talk.”

    So time passed at Gröning, and little of note occurred; and Orm felt well content to sit there peacefully until his days should end. But a year after he killed the berserks, he received tidings that sent him forth upon the third of his long voyages.

OLOF SUMMERBIRD came riding to Gröning with ten followers and was warmly welcomed. He stayed there three days, for the friendship between him and Orm was great. The purpose of his journey, however, was, he said, to ride down to the east coast to Kivik to buy salt from the Gotland traders who often anchored there. When Orm heard this, he decided to go with him on the same errand.