Gillian

"Saga" - Chapter 16, Part 2

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 14:40:31 GMT

Saga, Chapter 16, Part 2

For content, rating, A/Ns and disclaimer, see the chapter’s Part 1.

One afternoon in late summer, Einnis Elmarson stood by one of the newly erected stone fences and surveyed his farm with approval. It was a hot sweltering day, and he was both sweaty and weary from the mind-numbingly hard and incessant work, but his eyes were filled with quiet pride.

In front of him the new farm stood proudly; the finished hall, weaving-house, fire-hall, storage house and beyond the yard, a solid cow shed and stable. Incessant hammering could be heard from inside the hall, where carpenters were finishing the interior wooden walls and benches. Another crew of men was working on the roof of the weaving-house, placing square-cut grass sods carefully on a thick layer of dried birch bark.

Einnis drew a deep breath. The farm was near completion. The construction work would soon be over, and a new phase would begin here on this place, and in his life. He’d seen it through. Once more he dried sweat off his brow, and turned to walk slowly in the direction of the paddock where he kept his horses. No matter how busy his day, he always found time to check on them, hand them some small prune-like apples from yesteryear’s harvest, and pat their warm flanks and soft noses soothingly.

Suddenly he stopped short. There was a long feather lying directly in his path, night-black and glistening. A raven’s wing feather. He sometimes heard ravens in the woods behind Einstad, but they rarely showed themselves near the farm anymore, being wary of all the humans and their hustle and bustle. Einnis stared at the feather for a moment, then carefully picked it up, his face suddenly pensive and his eyes distant. It was soft and yielding under his finger as he gently and repeatedly stroked the glistening dark length, following the finger’s slow movement with his eyes. He sighed.

At that very moment he heard horses approaching, and looked up to see Ketil Efni and a few of his men riding up to the farm at a very fast pace. Einnis instinctively made as if to throw the black feather away, but at the last moment let it slip down the front of his tunic instead. There it came to rest plastered on the slick sweaty skin of his chest, hidden from view.

Ketil greeted him with a bleak smile, and at first seemed to have no errand, but asked to be shown around. His brother was more than willing to comply, and they walked around the buildings for a while, Einnis pointing out and commenting on the construction details and the progress since Ketil last visited.

Ketil was oddly distracted and uneasy, though, and Einnis eventually caught on to his brother’s unusual absentmindedness.

“Is something the matter, brother? You seem out of sorts.”

“Nothing is the matter,” Ketil said gruffly, kicking a pebble out of his path impatiently. “Well, nothing important, I suppose. I visited with Helga Hauksdottir yesterday…. ”

With that, his tale ground to a halt before it had properly started. Einnis shot him a searching glance. “And…?” he prompted.

“We sat talking and drinking for a while,” Ketil muttered. “She was in good spirits, and I enjoyed myself.” He shrugged. “Then I found it to be time to get to the point of my visit, and get her response to the proposal at last, but she said she wanted time yet before she would consider marrying anyone. Time! She’s had months to decide! She’s kept me waiting, a wretched fool dancing to her merry tune, like one of those poor trained bears in Novgorod! So….”

“Yes?” Einnis said quietly when Ketil once more stalled.

“I grabbed her by the shoulders, and gave her my point of view. I shook her, and tried to kiss her. She’d been asking for it, hadn’t she, but now she resisted me!”

Einnis looked at his brother in consternation. “What?”

“Well, what can you expect!” Ketil blurted out, suddenly furious. ”The bitch has been leading me on for months, talking nicely and smiling so sweetly and laughing and jesting like a wanton. Did you see her at Sigrid’s wedding? She looked ready to bed me right there on the hall table, hair down and half undressed! What was I supposed to think?”

Einnis shook his head and groaned, horrified. “Ketil!”

“Well, she tore herself free and looked at me as haughtily as if I were a thrall or a pig’s turd. She ordered me off her property, told me I’d outstayed my welcome and that I needn’t come back ever again unless it was to offer her an apology she could truly believe in. And she said that if it still was not clear to me, her answer to my proposal was ‘no’, and that was her final word.”

Ketil squirmed, glancing furtively at Einnis. “I…. got very angry. I pretty much lost it. I slapped her across the face, so hard that she fell to the floor.”

“Ketil!”

“Well, I was drunk. Ale makes another man, as the saying goes. And she was treating me like a thrall after tempting me for Frey knows how long! I won’t take such insults from anyone, I tell you - least of all a woman!”

Einnis drew a deep breath. ”You haven’t apologized to her?”

”No!” Ketil blurted. He fidgeted and nervously bit his lip. ”Do you think I should?”

Einnis sighed. He looked out over his farm, its newly tarred log walls under the green turf roofs gleaming in the evening sun. His shoulders slumped wearily.

“You know you have to, and to offer her the proper fines under the law, too. You do not want a feud with her brothers or her husband once she marries, do you? You risk causing division and much strife in the valley over this.”

Ketil looked obstinate, his temper flaring again. “She deserved it!”

“No, she did not!”

Einnis drew a calming breath. “Even if she did, there must have been witnesses. They won’t support you. You have no case, Ketil. Here you have been lecturing me endlessly about my duties to the clan, and then you risk our honor and prosperity in this senseless manner? You know you need to apologize, or else leave the farm behind and travel abroad again. Is that what you want?”

Ketil squirmed. “By Hel, let’s go get some ale, Einnis. It feels as if Tor is using his hammer hunting giants inside my skull, and my tongue tastes like goat dung. I can’t think.”

Einnis shook his head and gripped Ketil’s shoulder. “Brother, you have to apologize and offer her the proper fines. Everything we’re trying to build for the clan may be wasted otherwise, everything you’ve worked for! Come to your senses! There will be another woman you can marry, since Helga isn’t willing. Ride back there now and end this.”

He relented a little, seeing Ketil’s pained expression. “If you want to stay away from the valley for a while afterwards, you can ride directly on to Mjod with a message from me. I’m sure you will be well received there, Ketil.”

Ketil looked at him questioningly, the hint of pleading in his bloodshot eyes a marked contrast to his strong and tall warrior’s frame.

“Tell him that the farm has been finalized for his daughter to move into, describe the way it looks now.” Einnis made a sweeping movement indicating the houses, fences, and fields. “Greet Mjod and Arna from me, and agree a date for the wedding on my behalf. Sometime in fall, but not too late. She and I must finish moving in here before it’s time for the fall butchering.”

Ketil was silent for a moment, but looked relieved. “I suppose, if you want me to…. Yes, I guess I could do that,” he eventually muttered, looking fixedly at the ground.

“But whatever you do,” Einnis said with emphasis, staring at his brother insistently. “For the honor of every god and the love of every goddess, tell Helga you’re sorry and bow to her as much as you need to, and put any risk of feuding at rest!”

He pushed a hard finger into Ketil’s chest, looked him firmly in the eye and raised his voice. “And while you’re at Mjod’s, stay off the ale!”

Tbc…………

Notes and explanations;

Padraig - the Irish name for St. Patrick, 387 – 493. The name is fitting in more ways than one: When he was about 14 years old Patrick was captured from Britain by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Ireland, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family. After entering the Church, he returned to Ireland as an ordained bishop in the north and west of the island. By the eighth century he had come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland.

Sverri Svarte – The name means Sverri the Black (likely indicating the man’s hair). That Torgeirr names the boy after his mother’s father will mean that either Torgeirr's own father is still alive (and so not ready to “live again” through his grandson) or that Torgeirr is saving his father’s name for his first son born in legal marriage.

Ale makes another man – Another old saying from Grettir’s Saga

Gavlpryd – “Gable ornament”. This is the kind of pun the Norse enjoyed – especially since Gunnar is deemed to be ugly and hence no “ornament“, so the name also becomes a satire on his looks, not just the one drunken mishap he had and the gable carvings he had made.

Lawspeaker – A society where long written texts were still not available was dependant on men who knew the full law texts by heart and could recite them when required.

The Liberation of thralls – everything that Torgeirr explains here is according to the old Norse laws as eventually put down on parchment. Even after the one year’s service, and after paying his release fee and holding a prescribed “Liberation Ale Feast”, a previous thrall was bound to his master in many ways and through a number of obligations – for instance he could not travel out of the county without the master’s acceptance, or give witness against the interests of his previous master. If the conditions were broken he would revert to thralldom. It took 4 full generations(!) before the thrall’s family’s obligations to the master’s clan had been fulfilled and the fourth generation ex-thralls were considered “free-born men and women”. Liberated thralls therefore in reality became serfs. (The laws were written by the ruling, thrall-owning classes, and they evidently envisaged long-term needs for cheap labor…)

“A better burden may no man bear”, etc. – Another word of wisdom from Havamal (this is one of the poem’s better-known stanzas, in fact). Both Havamal and other Norse wisdom poems keep going on and on about the dangers and indignities of drinking too much, and the sagas are filled with men, including kings and lords, who are dead-drunk and therefore can’t defend themselves when someone attacks. Alcoholism clearly was a considerable Viking vice.

Padraig/Sverri’s two naming ceremonies – The baptism is based on a few elements of the old Catholic baptism ceremony, while Torgeirr’s name-giving is in abbreviated accordance with the Norse traditions of the times. He ensures that there are witnesses to his acceptance of the boy as his son (if this ceremony had not taken place, he would not legally be the child’s father and the boy would belong to whomever owned the boy’s mother). However, little Sverri is still not a full member of Torgeirr’s clan by any means – for instance he will not have equal rights of inheritance with any children born to Torgeirr in legal marriage.

Payment of fines – The Norse laws outlined fines to be paid either to the injured party or his/her clan for all possible crimes, up to and including premeditated murder. That was the only known punishment under the laws. It was up to the injured party whether he would accept payment of fines as recompense, however. If he didn’t, the matter was solved with swords.

The Viking homes and their bench spaces - (a relatively long explanation for those who might be interested)

The main Viking house/hall was rectangular with one main room inside. The houses would vary significantly in different sizes and levels of adornment depending on the wealth of the owner. Building material varied too. On Iceland, where wood has to be imported, the houses were built mostly of peat/sod, though wood paneling would be used for the interiors. Elsewhere in Scandinavia, logs or wattle was the outside building material.

The inside of these various Viking halls was surprisingly similar all over the “Viking world:” A main rectangular room with an open hearth in the middle, which was used for heat and for cooking on, even in big halls and manors, where there might also be an additional separate “fire-hall” (cooking house). The hall roof was supported by rows of wooden upright beams, and between those beams and the walls there were benches, which were used for sleeping on during the night, and for sitting on during meals and other daytime activities. At the far end of the hall would be a "high seat" and elevated bench space between decorated and /or finely carved upright poles, where the master and his family and guests would sit. Tables would be put up when needed and removed between meals, though the ordinary folks would take their food to the bench and eat it there, and wouldn't make use of a table.

Only the very noble and wealthy and their equally rich guests had their own beds in separate rooms, or closed-in bench spaces where they could retire and not be seen by all and sundry. Everyone else had to bed down in these communal sleeping quarters on the hall benches. It’s difficult to imagine now, but it’s a fair bet that modesty wasn’t high on the agenda.

People probably had rough sack “mattresses” filled with wool, straw or even dried sea-weed that they slept on, - if they didn’t just sleep right on the wooden bench, - and some sort of blanket as cover. The very rich could afford, and did actually have, mattresses, pillows and duvets made of down-filled linen.

Hall interiors:

Here are two pictures which show the interior of the reconstructed Stong Viking time farm on Iceland. You can see the hearth, and the benches. http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/daily_living/pix/Stong_hall_interior.jpg

http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/daily_living/pix/stong_int_skali.jpg

And here is a drawing of the interior of the great hall at Lejre, Denmark, based on archeological finds. The wooden beams, the benches and the hearth can all be seen. (Very few halls would have this huge size, though! I imagine that the farms in “Saga” are somewhere in the middle range between the sizes of the Stong and Lejre halls.) http://www.viking.ucla.edu/hrolf/media/Hallins.gif

Hall exteriors:

This is an example of the exterior of a Viking time hall, reconstructed at Trelleborg, Denmark:

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/rwb/www/teaching/engl209/pics/trelleborg-hall.jpg

Houses further north in Scandinavia may well have been log cabin-built, at least the storage houses if not the large halls.

And just for the fun of it here is the exterior of the reconstructed Viking hall located at the furthest reaches of archeologically proved Viking settlements (this one ca. AD 1,000) - at L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland: http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect6/l-27anse-aux-meadows.jpg

As can be seen, this was made in the Icelandic style.

"Saga" - Chapter 16, Part 1

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 14:32:20 GMT

Content – Saga is a Brokeback AuAu fic taking place in the Viking era (Scandinavia, ca AD 850). No warnings for this chapter. This chapter rated PG.

Disclaimer – The original Ennis and Jack who inspired this fic do not belong to me, but to Annie Proulx, Diana Ossana, Larry McMurtry and Focus Features. I intend no disrespect and make no profit.

A/Ns – Links to previous chapters follow after the cut. Explanations of names and terms follow after each chapter.

Since my wonderful beta has other commitments, I’m taking the chance on posting this chapter un-beta’d. Every error therefore is mine and mine alone, and I would appreciate it if readers pointed out really glaring ones, if any, so I may correct them.

Links to previous chapters:

Chapter 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/22271.html

Chapter 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/32308.html

Chapter 3: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/33130.html

Chapter 4: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/33946.html

Chapter 5: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/34153.html

Chapter 6: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/34535.html

Chapter 7: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/35104.html

Chapter 8: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/35376.html

Chapter 9: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/36279.html

Chapter 10, part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/37232.html

Chapter 10, part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/37564.html

Chapter 11, part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/38138.html

Chapter 11, part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/38245.html

Chapter 12, part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/39029.html

Chapter 12, part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/39347.html

Chapter 13, part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/39503.html

Chapter 13, part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/39897.html

Chapter 14, Part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/40191.html

Chapter 14, Part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/40392.html

Chapter 15, Part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/40732.html

Chapter 15, Part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/41027.html

Saga - Chapter 16

Four days after the birth of her son, Muirenn was sitting up on the bench after the midday meal, cradling the infant in her lap. She’d had a hard delivery and had needed rest and care afterwards. This was the first day she felt well enough to get dressed and to do more than the merest cat-wash in the morning.

It was a fine, warm day, but Eoin was still in the cottage. She’d asked him to remain when the others went outside.

The little boy was sleeping, and she sat lost in thought, stroking his downy head with a gentle finger, humming softly. Then she loosened her long braid, fetched a comb from her little bundle of possessions and started working out the snarls and tangles in her hair with slow and careful movements.

Eventually she was satisfied and braided her hair into a long thick rope, dangling over her shoulder. She looked up at Eoin, who was sitting opposite her, watching the two of them. “Brother Eoin, would you fetch a bowl of water, please? My little one is not baptized yet, and there are no priests here, nor in Kaupang, I should think. The world is full of dangers, I don’t want his immortal soul to be at permanent risk. Would you baptize my son?”

Eoin smiled at her, happy to see her feeling better, and approving of her question, which did not come entirely as a surprise. “Don’t you want to wait till the child’s father arrives?” he nevertheless asked, making sure she’d thought her actions through.

“Torgeirr need not know about it,” Muirenn said firmly. “I think he would not accept it, and would stop me from having the boy baptized. In most matters I would not go against Torgeirr’s wishes, but in this I have no choice. My son will not be left to the mercy of the likes of Tor and Odin. He must be baptized!”

“Then so let it be done,” Eoin nodded. He walked over to wash his hands in the bucket of water by the door. Then he quietly went about the room, fetching a bowl of water, some grains of salt and Muirenn’s white scarf, before sitting down next to Muirenn on the bench, looking down on her innocently sleeping little boy.

“I am no priest, and I do not know the full ritual,” he said apologetically. “But I know the good Lord will receive him and bless him even so”.

He bent his head. “Let us pray.”

Muirenn immediately followed his lead. “Ave Maria, gratia plena….”

Eoin bent down and breathed gently on the little boy’s head. “May the powers of darkness retire before you!”

He looked up at Muirenn questioningly. “What name shall he be given?”

She did not hesitate. “Padraig,” she answered clearly.

Eoin smiled approvingly. “A good name.” He made the sign of the cross on the forehead and chest of the little one, and gently pried his lips open to place the few grains of salt in his mouth.

“Peace be with you, Padraig,” he said. Once more he and Muirenn bowed their heads, and now solemnly spoke the Lord’s prayer. Little Padraig started whimpering in his mother’s arms. He didn’t appreciate the salty taste on his tongue. Muirenn gently rocked him in her arms, watching him with tender eyes while holding him out towards Eoin.

“Hush, hush, little one. We’re almost there!”

Eoin held the bowl of water under the boy’s head, and three times carefully poured water from the palm of his hand over the crown of the little head. “Padraig, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

Now little Padraig started howling in earnest, protesting the cold water, and Eoin made haste to dry his head with the white scarf, the sign of innocence. He looked at mother and child and smiled warmly.

“The Lord be with you. The Lord bless you both. Amen.”

Muirenn happily stroked the cheek of her bawling son. “Thank you. Now I can rest easy!” She shook her head at a particularly loud scream. “Well, at least there will be rest when Padraig stops this infernal hollering!”

She hurriedly unfastened one of her brooches and let the front of her dress down just enough to be able to lay the boy to her breast, as Eoin modestly averted his eyes. Silence descended on the room as the infant started suckling, and Muirenn leaned back against the wall, tiredly closing her eyes. The tension of their secret baptism ceremony had taken its toll on her.

At that moment Gerd tore the door open and looked in on them. “Myrunn, the master is here! Look sharp!” With that the door banged shut again, and Muirenn looked to Eoin in consternation.

“I think I had better see him alone….”

Eoin at once got up and made for the door, but had only made the first few steps when the door was torn open once more and Torgeirr Haraldson ducked through in a hurry, his glance immediately drawn to Muirenn with their son at her breast.

“Muirenn!” he said breathlessly. “How are you?” He strode across the floor, sitting down next to her in the dim space on the bench and looking into her face. Muirenn bent her head so that her thick braid covered part of her suddenly blushing countenance. Eoin hurried out of the cottage before she could respond. The last thing he saw before closing the door quietly behind himself was Torgeirr placing one arm around Muirenn’s shoulders while gently cradling the head of the still-suckling infant with his free hand.

---

Some time went by before Torgeirr came to the door and looked out.

“Orm, may I borrow the house a little longer? I have some business to attend to. And Jaran, come back in again. Bring a bowl of ale with you. I am thirsty.”

When Eoin entered, bowl in hand, Muirenn had placed the sated and sleeping infant in his sleeping basket, and had brought her clothes into order. She was looking down into her lap and seemed both calm and collected.

Eoin set the bowl on the bench, quietly placed himself opposite the two others, and waited.

“I have recently seen the godi who is my neighbor and a well-known law speaker,” Torgeirr began. “I needed to hear what the laws say about liberation of thralls. I’ve never had occasion to look into it before, but the mother of my first-born son is not going to remain an ambatt. And from what my wife tells me, Muirenn is not the only thrall that I may be setting free. What say you, Jaran?” He looked quizzically at Eoin, who met him stare for stare.

“That is true, Torgeirr Haraldson. I do wish to buy my freedom, now that I have the means to do so.”

“Sigrid told me of the golden pendant. Would you let me see it?”

Eoin hesitated for a fraction of a second, glancing at Muirenn, then pulled the golden object out from under his rough tunic. Muirenn gasped, her eyes going wide as she stared at it, stunned speechless. The cross glittered in the cottage dimness like a star descended to earth.

Torgeirr looked at it in surprise, and shook his head. “It is a beautiful thing, and costly. Sigrid did not exaggerate. I do not know why my brother-in-law would give you such a magnificent thing. You must have done him a service beyond compare…?”

Torgeirr waited for a moment, but Eoin did not reply, and the Norseman continued. “I fully respect Einnis’s wishes, though, just as I respect him. He must have good reasons for keeping silent about the story behind this valuable gift to you. That tale is yours and his to keep and guard unless you will it differently. The gold pendant is yours, too, and you may do with it what you want. It is certainly worth more than what I paid Einnis for you.”

He looked at Muirenn, and then back at Eoin.

“Now the laws say that I may set a thrall free in front of witnesses, but that thrall will still remain just like a thrall in many respects,” Torgeirr began. “He can’t marry without my acceptance, and can neither buy nor sell. But if there is a Liberation Ale feast, and witnesses to prove that all formalities of the law have been followed, then the thrall will be considered free from then on and counted as a man - or a woman - and not as someone’s property. The law requires that a thrall works one full year for his master after liberation though, as a servant earning wages.”

A sigh escaped Eoin and was echoed by Muirenn. They were both taken aback at this news. “One year?”

Torgeirr looked uncomfortable. “That’s the law. I cannot change it. If we do not abide by it, you would risk someone capturing you and making a thrall of you again. The laws would allow that. In fact, the laws require it.”

Eoin sighed. “What then is this Liberation Ale feast? What must I do?”

He carefully listened to Torgeirr’s explanation, silently marveling at the strange Norse laws and customs, and nodded once the Norseman finished, drinking deeply from the bowl of ale in conclusion.

“All of that should be possible. If we are to travel to Kaupang, I can sell the gold, and then when you come there, I will pay to arrange a Liberation Ale feast, for both myself and Muirenn.”

Muirenn smiled, and Torgeirr looked pleased, his eyes moving from Eoin to Muirenn and back. “That is good,” he said. “In two weeks' time or so I will ride south to Kaupang to see to my clan’s business there, and my own trading. I will go with you to hear what the gold is valued at and what it weighs, so that you get your full price. I had intended to take you both south to Kaupang in any case.”

He paused, studying the two of them. “I suppose neither of you have ever heard of Gunnar Grimson Gavlpryd?” he asked.

Eoin and Muirenn exchanged a look, before shaking their heads.

“Well, he’s a master wood-carver in Kaupang,” Torgeirr explained. “The master woodcarver, would perhaps be nearer the mark. He’s an artist of the highest order, his work is as fine as it gets, he has carved ship stems and sleighs and wagons for earls and godis and even for kings and queens. But there’s a problem… he drinks too much. He drinks a lot. There’s no denying he’s living proof of the wisdom of yore;

A better burden may no man bear
when wandering wide than wisdom;
Worse food for the journey he brings not afield
Than too many draughts of ale.”

Torgeirr snorted in derision. “Because of all the ale Gunnar frequently doesn’t manage to finish his work, and neglects his orders, so rich patrons have started to shun him. It’s a pity. I made a deal with him when he came north this spring. I’ll help him get back on his feet and have someone manage his life and his agreements, and in return I will get a cut off his fees when he starts working his craft properly – as he should do. A talent such as his is too rarely seen.”

Distracted despite himself, Torgeirr leaned forward to gently stroke his sleeping son’s cheek a few times, staring in fascination at the tiny face, then sat back to continue.

“Do you know anything at all about wood-carving, Jaran?”

Eoin laughed, a harsh bitter bark.

The two others looked at him in surprise, and he shrugged. “Yes, I sometimes helped my father, when he had to hurry to make delivery of his orders. He was a wood-carver. He never taught me a thing, though, never once - but I learned from watching him anyway. To think anything to do with that man would become useful in my life!”

“Well, that’s good,” Torgeirr said, a bit uncertainly. ”My plan is that Muirenn will keep Gunnar’s house in Kaupang, maybe help sort out the agreements and the payments too, if the little one here leaves her time for it.”

He glanced at Muirenn. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, girl, and don’t you forget it!” he said, addressing her in a quick aside. “And I thought that you Jaran will accompany Gunnar on his travels to customers, help him with tools and the planks and logs and ensure he gets quality material, keep an eye on him, remind him to keep working, do your best to stop him from drinking all the time.” He shrugged. “He will be drinking now and then, not even Odin himself with all his magic and wisdom can stop that, but Gunnar will feel better when he can keep it together more and work his craft instead of constantly ending up dead-drunk in the nearest ditch.”

He shrugged. “What say you both? You will live in Gunnar’s house in Kaupang. As you know, thralls can’t marry, but people will likely think you’re a couple, even so. Both of you and the little one will be the safer for that. But what you decide to do between yourselves and behind the walls of your new home, is up to the both of you and no-one else’s business.”

Muirenn blushed and lowered her eyes. Eoin shifted on the bench uncomfortably. “I am a man of God, the Christian God, and I have sworn off women for the rest of my life,” he said slowly.

Torgeirr shook his head in wonder. “Man, you are truly missing out on the best things in life! Why would your god be such a killjoy, and require that of you? Why would he want you to remain childless? Having sons is every man’s delight, and his obligation to kin and clan!”

Torgeirr once more stroked the sleeping Padraig’s cheek, a proud smile on his face. “Just look at little Sverri, here!“

Startled, Eoin looked at Muirenn, who met his eyes and gave him the slightest shake of her head.

“He is indeed a fine strong son to make any father proud,” Eoin said, his voice neutral.

The three of them sat in silence for a moment, contemplating the child, then Muirenn spoke up in her halting Norse. “I will go to Kaupang with your son, Torgeirr, and do as you propose. It sounds good to me. I’ll look after the house of this Gunnar… Grimson?”

“Gavlpryd,” Torgeirr grinned. “He got the name because he carved dragon’s heads for the gables of one of the dowager queen’s manors. Then he got blind drunk and somehow managed to climb up on her roof and got stuck there, just like one of his own carvings, but looking far worse, so the story goes. It is true he is no Balder as far as looks go! Men had to climb up and set him free from there and tie him up to get him back down.” Torgeirr laughed. “Since that day, the name has stuck!”

He turned serious, and looked at Eoin. “What do you say?”

Eoin nodded and reached his right hand out to the other. “I agree with Muirenn. It is a good plan”.

Torgeirr gripped his hand firmly, and they shook hands. The matter was settled.

Now Torgeirr asked Muirenn to undress little Sverri, and bid Orm and Gerd, his herdsmen and the two free-men who’d accompanied him south to enter the cottage. In front of them he solemnly lifted the naked infant onto his round shield while he held it on his knees, and then poured water over the baby. It ran over the edge of the shield in rivulets and splashed down to the earth floor in front of his feet.

“This is my son, and his name is Sverri, after my mother’s father, Sverri Svarte,” Torgeirr said, his voice grave. “As his name-giving gift he shall have this ring, which his mother will guard for him till he can wear it in good health himself.”

Torgeirr pulled a golden ring off his finger, and dropped it into Muirenn’s palm. The witnesses all congratulated him on his healthy son and asked the gods to protect the boy and look to him in favor, and to make him strong. Sverri immediately set about proving that he had at least been gifted with strong lungs, and everyone laughed as Muirenn rescued her dripping-wet bawling son and started drying him off.

Torgeirr grinned happily. “Now let’s all celebrate! Fetch more of your best ale, Gerd!” he shouted through the din.

---

Padraig thrived and grew stronger every day, and Muirenn soon felt well enough after her ordeal to venture outside the cottage and to enjoy the mild summer weather, taking her spinning outside, resting in the shadow of the house, and rocking and nursing the baby. When Torgeirr returned after a few weeks with a company of his men, Muirenn and Eoin immediately packed their few belongings, took their leave of Gerd and Orm and thanked them for their hospitality, and left without a single backward glance.

The ride to Kaupang went without incident. In fact, both Muirenn and Eoin enjoyed being on the road again, and Torgeirr and his men were good and cheerful company as the party rode at an even pace through green forests and small villages with brown houses and huts, and along fields of grass and of grain that would soon be turning golden.

They got their first glimpses of the fjord and the ocean beyond, and soon after rode into Kaupang. Gunnar’s house was a low wooden building in a row of other craftsmen’s very similar houses. The living quarters were in back, with a patch of earth for the growing of herbs outside, and the workshop was in front. The building had a decrepit, unused look about it, and the party found Gunnar snoring loudly on a bare wooden bench, smelling far and wide of ale and vomit, though it was the middle of the day. His wild and unkempt hair and beard and filthy clothes made it hard to form an impression of his looks, but a handsome man he clearly was not. Nevertheless he had uncommonly fine hands with long slender fingers.

Uncharacteristically irritated and clearly disappointed, Torgeirr shook Gunnar awake, briefly introduced Eoin and Muirenn by their Norse names, and had one of his men drag Gunnar off to the bath house without further ado. He himself went on to his clan’s house with the two Irish thralls in order to let them pick up things they would be needing, since Gunnar’s house looked completely empty. They returned with bedding and cooking utensils, foodstuffs and firewood. Muirenn did not want to place all these things inside until the filthy house had been cleaned, so she had Eoin collect water from the nearby well. Soon there was fire on the hearth and water boiling, and she set about changing Gunnar’s pigsty back into a home.

By nightfall the house was in reasonable order. Torgeirr returned to praise their efforts just as Gunnar reappeared from the bathhouse, looking clean and groomed, but drawn, emaciated and with dark circles round his sunken eyes. He appeared to be sober, though, and grumbled as the infant in Muirenn’s arms started mewling.

“Torgeirr Haraldson, you must be joking. Do you plan to keep me away from ale only to force me to live in this horrible racket?”

Muirenn shushed and rocked the baby, but he started wailing lustily, and she sent an apologetic look in Torgeirr’s direction.

Torgeirr shook his head, once more looking annoyed. “Gunnar, I’m leaving my son and his mother with you. Treat them well and with respect. Sverri is a healthy child, as you can hear. See to it that he remains so!”

With that Torgeirr took his leave and left the three strange bedfellows to take each other’s measure warily.

Gunnar grumbled as he went to seek his bench for the night. “Willful Irish thralls and horribly screaming infants, that’s who he’s giving me for companions. I’ve made a deal I’ll too soon regret, I wager. I don’t know how I’ll manage another day of this. Tor protect me!”

Muirenn and Eoin were too tired to take his spite to heart, or to respond. They too sought their benches as soon as Padraig calmed down, and soon all three of them slept deeply on this their first night in Kaupang.

Continued in Chapter 16, Part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/42148.html

"Saga" - Chapter 15, Part 2

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:52:06 GMT

Saga Chapter 15, Part 2

For information about content, rating, A/Ns and disclaimer, see the chapter’s part 1.

An easy companionship evolved between Eoin and Muirenn. They enjoyed being able to speak their own language and their own minds freely again at last, taking comfort in expressing themselves with ease to someone steeped in the same customs, fellow Christians who prayed to the same God and felt the same unease about the traditions and idols of the Norse. Their common fate as well as the sometimes harsh experiences and loneliness they had endured as thralls in a strange country became the foundation of friendship and respect for one another, which made life seem easier for both.

They would laugh together at strange Norse behavior and incomprehensible expectations and their own consequent misfortunes, and make sly little jokes at the expense of their original captors. Though unvoiced, their strong and ambivalent emotions tied to relationships with their respective masters, and their secret but very similar hopes for the future resonated in their talks and in their shared silences, and contributed to forging even tighter bonds of understanding and appreciation between the two.

During the days, Muirenn would continue with her spinning, sitting outside in the sun when the weather allowed, and moving her unwieldy bulk indoors when the afternoons turned chilly. Eoin for his part would help the shepherds look to the lambing. He never stopped enjoying the sight of every little lamb entering the world, each one a perfect God’s miracle of new life, rising on wobbly feet to seek the ewe’s udder and to drink its fill, its tiny tail waggling incessantly with intense delight at such a simple pleasure.

In the evening, after Gerd and Orm had retired to bed, Muirenn and Eoin had the cottage’s only room to themselves. They spoke of many things past and present. Sometimes they merely sat together in comfortable silence in the soft glow from the hearth’s fire.

They talked a little of what moving to Kaupang would entail, and pondered Torgeirr’s plans. Muirenn admitted she didn’t know exactly what he had in mind. He had promised to come greet his son once he’d been born, she said, and she was content to wait till that time to learn what his intentions for them were, and what fate would next have in store. In her current condition she could not have traveled to Kaupang anyway.

Eoin made his best effort every day to curb his impatience, and to still the cry of despair and longing in his heart. His diligent prayers became more earnest and more frequent as he returned to practicing the Monastery’s morning and evening rituals. Muirenn witnessed this respectfully and sometimes knelt down with him, head humbly bent and hands piously folded. She fervently added her own prayers to God’s holy mother for help and protection during her own imminent confinement. Orm muttered discontentedly at this turn of events, and Gerd started ignoring Eoin completely.

One evening in early summer Muirenn felt the first pangs of childbirth. Gerd ordered her to bed, made the men leave the house, set water to boiling and sent Orm for two women from neighboring farmsteads, one of whom was an experienced midwife.

Orm grumbled that he couldn’t see the need for such a large fuss and turn-out for an ambatt’s lying-in, but Gerd reminded him that ambatt or no, it was their master’s child who was about to enter the world. Torgeirr would hardly be pleased if the babe didn’t survive, and that meant taking care of the mother. Orm kept his peace and left to fetch the two women.

Eoin stayed outside the cottage the whole night through, waiting anxiously. He had never been close by during childbirth before. His mother had not born other children than him, and in the monastery there were no women. But he had heard stories in the thrall house at the Elmarsons’ farm to make his blood run cold.

He kneeled in prayer as raw, frantic screams of pain rose shrill into the misty dawn air. It seemed a very long time before the screaming stopped at last, and blessed silence descended. Some little time after, Gerd came out of the cottage, favoring her aching back while politely taking leave of the two women who’d helped with the birthing.

She looked to Orm and Eoin who had both gotten to their feet and stood waiting, and nodded. “A large, strong boy child. The master will surely be pleased. He should be notified. He told us to send for him as soon as it came to this. Have one of the men ride north right away,” she said to Orm. Turning to Eoin, she shrugged and added; “She wants to see you, thrall.”

Eoin ignored her small-minded disdain and entered the cottage reverently. Muirenn lay on the bench, drawn and pale, her long brown hair in a sweat-damp disheveled braid over one shoulder, a tiny bundle with a scrunched-up red and angry little face lying in a basket next to her. A big knife had been stuck into the wall above the bench, protecting mother and child from malevolent powers. Muirenn’s chest rose and fell regularly. As soon as Gerd left her side she had fallen into exhausted, healing sleep.

Eoin tip-toed across the floor to stand looking down on her and the child in the soft light from the smoke vent in the roof and an oil lamp left burning on the table. His heart filled with tenderness and a strong urge to protect them from harm. Both looked so innocent and defenseless in their sleep. They would be equally defenseless when awake, should Torgeirr Haraldson ever go back on his promise to support his ambatt and her son. Eoin had heard thralls talking of the custom of sometimes leaving unwanted or sickly newborns out in the forest, exposed and alone for the wild animals to feed on. Revolting as the practice was, he knew a thrall woman would have no means of stopping it, should her master decide on such a fate for her newborn, or decide to sell the child once it had been weaned.

His left hand sought the cross hidden under his tunic and clutched it fiercely. He pressed his fist and the cross to his chest and bowed his head. Drawing a deep breath, he lifted his right hand and carefully made the sign of the cross over the sleeping Muirenn and her son.

”In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.....”

The room smelled strongly of blood and sweat, smoke and the ale that the child had been washed in before being wrapped, but Eoin was too lost in his own thoughts to notice. He remained standing next to the bench, watching over mother and son for a long time before quietly stepping back into the glaring light of the bright summer day.

---

Einnis Elmarson returned to his property and the building of his farm soon after his sister’s wedding. Those of his men who knew him from before noticed that he was more taciturn and moody than he’d used to be, but he was never unfair, and he worked tirelessly without sparing himself in the efforts to complete the farm buildings.

The work on the site progressed steadily. The thralls cut peat in the nearby bog and hauled it back to the farm, and the other men worked on cutting and shaping the logs and planks that would be needed, and leveling the ground where the new farm houses would go up. Once the actual building work started, Einnis had two master carpenters fetched from the valley to oversee the work, and also hired a wood-carver to embellish the High Seat poles, the main hall’s beams and the closed benches. And so the new farm took shape under the hot summer sun.

Einnis didn’t return to sleeping in the little stone smithy where he’d spent the winter months. Instead he stayed in one of the makeshift sheds the men had erected, sheds that served them well enough in the warmer weather.

The smithy was used for storage for a while, but when the time came for the workers to lay the stonework base for the new main hall, Einnis told them to take down and use the smithy walls. He’d wanted to build a new and more practically located smithy for some time, he said, and the old one’s wood and stone should not be wasted.

Though the men didn’t fully understand the point in razing a perfectly usable little building, they did as ordered. Soon there was nothing left but a dark square of hard-packed earth in the field where the smithy had stood for many years. Weeds, grasses and trailing creepers wasted no time in reclaiming this long lost patch of ground for themselves and for nature.

The Einstad hall, however, was taking shape and rising majestically in its location near the fields, solidly built with fine, strong logs on a foundation that had the smithy’s weather-beaten and smoke-stained stones at its core.

Tbc………

Notes and explanations;

Valle – strained sour milk, commonly used to quench thirst, - once strained it could last for weeks.

Women’s hairdos – Depictions of Viking era women often show them having their hair tied up in a knot at the back of their heads but with the long end dangling down, sort of an advanced ponytail. This picture shows the style: http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/daily_living/pix/dressing_baby_sketch.jpg

Drop spindle – the common spinning tool. Drop spindle whorls have been found in nearly every woman’s grave from the era, and a perfect example was also present in the Oseberg find. Spinning and weaving were the daily activities of women from nearly every class. Here’s a picture showing a woman using a drop spindle: http://www.ydalir.co.uk/gallery/2005/denbigh/spinning_big.jpg

“The brave and generous”, etc – Torgeirr has chosen another Havamal word of wisdom as his personal motto.

Exposing newborns – this practice was legal under Norse laws. If a child’s father or a thrall woman’s master so decided, and for whatever reason, a newborn could be left out to die without legal repercussions. The practice was frowned upon, but several sagas mention it being actively used. Both in Gunnlaug Ormstunge’s saga and St’. Olaf’s saga one of the chief protagonists barely escape such a fate as newborns.

"Saga" - Chapter 15, Part 1

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:50:27 GMT

Content – Saga is a Brokeback AuAu fic taking place in the Viking era (Scandinavia, ca AD 850). No warnings for this chapter. This chapter rated PG.

A/Ns – Links to previous chapters follow after the cut. Explanations of names and terms follow after each chapter. Thank you very much to Soulan for excellent betaing of the chapter!

Links to previous chapters:

Chapter 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/22271.html

Chapter 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/32308.html

Chapter 3: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/33130.html

Chapter 4: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/33946.html

Chapter 5: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/34153.html

Chapter 6: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/34535.html

Chapter 7: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/35104.html

Chapter 8: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/35376.html

Chapter 9: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/36279.html

Chapter 10, part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/37232.html

Chapter 10, part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/37564.html

Chapter 11, part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/38138.html

Chapter 11, part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/38245.html

Chapter 12, part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/39029.html

Chapter 12, part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/39347.html

Chapter 13, part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/39503.html

Chapter 13, part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/39897.html

Chapter 14, Part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/40191.html
Chapter 14, Part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/40392.html

Saga - Chapter 15

Torgeirr Haraldson had increased his riches steadily during his adult life, partly through raiding, partly through trading, and also through inheritance. His little farmstead north of Kaupang had come to him as inheritance, and now two long-time servants, an elderly married couple named Gerd and Orm, took care of the place for him. They kept their own goats, geese and a cow there. Torgeirr himself had a large flock of sheep, and a few herders also stayed on at the farm. In the lambing and shearing season more men would be sent there to help out, but otherwise it was a peaceful little place, shaded by a couple of large spruces and with forests at the back, but moors and open fields in front, and with the northwards trail from Kaupang passing nearby.

One evening as soft spring dusk settled over the little farmstead, and the lamb-heavy ewes were lying clustered together in the field by their shed, three men came riding into the farmyard and dismounted.

Gerd, in modest attire and a strict old-fashioned wife’s coif, came out to wish them welcome and ask what their errand might be.

Behind her a younger woman appeared. She was also simply dressed in a brown homespun dress, and had her long brown hair tied up in a loose knot and drawn forward over one shoulder. Two small bronze shoulder brooches adorned with one lonely strand of glass beads as well as a snowy-white linen scarf nevertheless lent her an air of grace and dignity, though she was obviously far gone with child. She peeked out at the three visitors and broke into a delighted smile as she recognized one of the men.

“Eoin! Brother Eoin! Truly, it is you!” she eagerly exclaimed, speaking Gaelic.

She stepped over the threshold and hurried towards him. “What a surprise! Torgeirr promised me he’d be buying another Irish thrall, but I didn’t know it would be you! I’ve been longing for someone who speaks my language, someone who knows my home, especially now, when…. Oh, I am glad to see you. Thank the good Lord!”

She smiled unguardedly, holding out her hands to him. Eoin slung his bundle of possessions over his shoulder and took her hands in his, keeping them in a firm warm grip for a moment. “Muirenn!” he said, pulling his mouth into a smile for her benefit. “This is a surprise. Well met!”

The older woman now shook her head at them and their incomprehensible speech, and made little shushing motions to make them both go inside. They did as requested and ducked in through the door, while Gerd herself remained standing where she was, talking to Torgeirr’s two free-men for a while. They had been sent south to help out with the lambing.

Muirenn showed Eoin into the small log-built house, no more than a cottage with a single room inside, and bid him sit down on the bench at the short end, where she’d left her spindle and basket of wool behind. She had been spinning when the newcomers arrived.

“We are making porridge, it is almost ready,” she said, indicating the pot hanging over the hearth. “But I can get you some valle, if you want?”

She ladled the cloudy white drink from a bucket by the door into a wooden cup, and handed it to him before sitting back down. The drink tasted even more bitter than it usually did, but Eoin thirstily drank it down, looking at her over the rim of the cup.

Muirenn’s drop spindle sank slowly down to the side of her bulging belly as she expertly resumed her spinning.

She looked up at him, her eyes warm in the firelight. “This is all I’ve been doing for many a long day,” she said. “There’s nothing else to do and no-one to talk to. In truth, you come here as if Heaven-sent!”

Soon the evening meal was ready, and Gerd put cheese, bread and butter on the table with the porridge, to fill the gaps as the food had not been made to still the additional hunger of three grown men. The little company for the most part ate in silence, occasionally exchanging a comment on the food, the weather or the prospects for the imminent lambing season.

Eoin noted to some surprise that Muirenn’s Norse was poor, and that she frequently stuttered or struggled to make herself understood, even on such simple topics. During the isolated months at Einstad he’d come to take his own near-fluent mastery of the language for granted.

After the meal the two temporary shepherds took their leave and went out to the shed where they would be staying, close to the sheep. Orm and Gerd also said good-night and went to their bed, a closed-off bench space by the door. Eoin and Muirenn were left sitting alone on the far bench. The fire on the hearth was burning low and the warmth in the little room was pleasant.

Muirenn got to her feet and stretched, pressing her hands into the small of her back. “Oh, he’s a lively one, this little one tonight,” she muttered, half to herself, and then looked to Eoin with a small smile. “I’ll go out to the storage shed and fetch us a bowl of ale. Talk flows less freely from parched throats.”

Eoin sat silently with hands in lap and head bowed as he waited for her return. He listened with a heavy heart to the reassuring crackling of the fire on the hearth. So many nights he’d fallen asleep to that very sound, comforting and familiar, in the smithy at Einstad, holding Einnis in his arms….

He looked up as Muirenn returned, and made an effort to return to the here and now. “I hardly recognized you, Muirenn, in your Norse dress… and your hair isn’t red anymore!”

“So you don’t notice anything else that’s different about me?” Muirenn quipped and looked down over herself, blushing slightly.

Putting the ale bowl down on the table she pulled a strand of hair forwards to look at it, shaking her head. She didn’t deny the truth. “These uncouth Norse forest-dwellers and berserkers – there’s simply no henna nor other proper hair colors to be had here in their valleys,” she admitted. “At least not for thralls. Unless I’d like to try the dyes they use for their yarn, of course!”

She sat down next to him and gestured for him to drink. “Not that it means much, now. No-one in this lonely place would have noticed if I shaved my head or dunked it in a bucket of soot.” She moved restlessly on the bench, seeking a better support for her back. “They only suffer me because I’m Torgeirr Haraldson’s woman and will soon bear his child.”

Eoin looked up at her sharply, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise, but he didn’t interrupt her.

“There’s been nothing to do but spinning, and Gerd doesn’t speak much on the best of days. I think she feels that an ambatt is too far beneath her.” Muirenn glanced at him. “Yes, that is one word I’ve had ample occasion to learn, thought I do find the Norse language difficult.”

She grimaced. “I suppose all this surely is a fitting punishment for me, brother. If I hadn’t always been so restless, and easily bored, and reckless enough to walk along the shore to get faster to the market in town, those Norsemen would not have spotted me and I would still have been back home with my parents.”

Her eyes went distant. “By now I’d probably have had a husband of my own.”

“Maybe the Lord has brought you here and shaped your life this way to test your endurance and your patience, and your faith,” Eoin said and sighed. “The Lord’s will is unfathomable, sometimes. We can but pray, and hope, and wait in humility.”

Muirenn glanced at him, and pressed her lips together with a frown. It was her turn now not to reply. Silence reclaimed the room while her drop spindle slowly sank and was lifted back up to have another length of new yarn twined around it. The spindle sank and was lifted, again and again. The regular rhythm of the repeated movement, constant as the ocean tides, lulled them both into a calmer mood.

Eventually Eoin broke the silence. “Muirenn, do you know what happened to the lady Bronagh, who took care of me onboard the Rafnavengju? Have you seen her after you left Kaupang?”

Muirenn shook her head, keeping part of her attention on the spinning as she replied. “She was still in the thrall market, I think, when Torgeirr Haraldson bought me and took me away from there. God grant she has met a good fate, wherever she is, in repayment for her kindness to the both of us.” She sighed. “Dame Bronagh knew my mother. As young girls they came from the same village.”

“Do you miss your home and your parents very much?” Eoin gently asked.

“Oh yes.” Muirenn’s eyes turned distant and pensive. “Well, yes and no. So much has happened since the Norsemen captured me, I feel I am not that girl anymore, the one who hurried carefree and happy along the shore to get to the market. I am another woman. Even if I could go home now, it would not be the same, for I am not the same.”

Her spindle sank again. She twined the strand of yarn around it, and reached laboriously to collect more wool, black and white.

“For a while, sitting there in the thrall market, with men ogling me and making me stand up and turn around, pinching me and tugging at my hair and feeling my body, haggling over a price…. I thought I would go mad with shame and grief and despair. They were leering, all of them, just like those two who forced me before I was dragged onboard the ship…. I was certain I could never survive such misery.”

The spindle whirred, Muirenn’s quick fingers working tirelessly, and the fire crackled as the last few logs shifted and collapsed in on themselves. She looked over at the hearth as if waking from sleep, and then back at Eoin. “Please, would you place some more wood on the fire, brother?”

Once he sat down again she continued where she’d left off. “When Torgeirr bought me and brought me to his house, I thought I would never see another happy day. But Torgeirr has been gentle and kind to me. He… made me see that what happens between a man and a woman need not always be painful and disgusting. He made me smile again, and made me feel safe, even though I’m just his ambatt, and he never pretended I would be more. He has promised he will not sell me to someone else, that he will help me set up a living and a life for myself - and for the child. I trust him. I am not sorry to be carrying his child, either. I only wish……”

She left the sentence unfinished, biting her lip. “Oh, I might as well wish for the full moon on a necklace to wear for high-days.”

Obviously anxious to change the subject, she looked at Eoin questioningly. “What happened to you, brother, since we last met? How have you fared this winter in the snow?”

Eoin shook his head and shrugged. “I’ve been living among other thralls, heathens all of them, and I’ve been working months on end in the forests as a lumberjack. It’s been very different from my life back home, but there’s not much I have to tell. I didn’t suffer, though the days were long and the work hard, many times.” He shrugged again. “And then the master sold me. I guess he got a decent price.”

“He was on the ship that took us from Ireland, wasn’t he? Muirenn asked. “I remember seeing him. Tall he was, with blond hair and beard, and many times he would be scowling. He ordered Bronagh to take care of you when you were ill. It comes back to me now.”

Eoin nodded in confirmation, but otherwise didn’t continue the talk about his life in captivity and his previous master.

They sat without speaking for a while, each pondering hopes that reality had thrown back in their faces, dreams that had proved elusive.

“Torgeirr Haraldson does seem like an honest, generous man… for a Norseman, that is,” Eoin eventually said, breaking the silence with an effort and speaking slowly as his thoughts came to him. “But I cannot make sense of him, nor of any of these Norse men. They behave like the very devils in hell when they go raiding in Ireland. They’re merciless, violent and evil, they kill and rape and maim, and then they come back here and sometimes prove themselves both kind and fair and generous. They’re most scrupulous about following their laws and guarding their reputation, so I’ve noted. Yet then they turn around again all of a sudden and behave like the heathens they are. This constant back and forth between light and dark, between right and wrong, between kindness and cruelty – it must mean their hearts are not like ours. I don’t understand all these contradictions. Norse men are a mystery.”

Muirenn glanced at him, her face sad. “I think we shouldn’t judge them all equally, though it’s true they are heathens, and I know it means their souls are lost. But Torgeirr… I can’t think of him as evil. He has always been good to me. He has been quoting a part of a poem to me, some ancient words of wisdom. At home he lives by them, I know he does, – I’ve witnessed it myself:

The brave and generous

have the best lives.

They’re seldom sorry.”

She let the spindle drop down on the bench, and drew a weary hand across her eyes.

“I’m tired, Eoin. We will have to continue our talk tomorrow. But Torgeirr will come here soon, I know, and explain what his plans for us are. He wanted me to go to Kaupang, but not till I could go together with the Irish thrall he’d promised me he’d be buying.”

A small smile lit her face, “He knows I pine for someone to speak my own language with, someone who knows the exact color green that I dream of at night. But I didn’t know that it would be you! Now that Torgeirr’s married – yes, I know he is, he told me why he traveled north – well, if I can’t be with him, I’d rather be in Kaupang. There are many people there, and much to see and hear and do. Here, it’s too lonely, and too quiet, and all my sadness and my regrets ring in my ears too loudly.”

Soon thereafter, Eoin said his evening prayers with Muirenn listening reverently and joining in his ‘amens’. Thereafter he bedded down on the bench opposite Muirenn’s for the night. For a little while he could see her eyes glinting, twin mirrors for the dying few flames on the hearth, but soon they closed and she slept, breathing deeply and evenly, her pregnant shape bulging under the blanket.

Eoin pondered her last words. He knew he agreed with her. If he couldn’t have the vast open spaces and silent lonely landscapes with Einnis Elmarson, he’d rather be surrounded by people, activity, noises and smells. All of it might distract him, help him hide the gaping hole inside, disguise the longing he felt like a physical pain, cover up the sense of bitter betrayal.

He shifted on the bench uneasily, beset by heavy thoughts.

The solid ground had shifted under him and turned to flowing mud when Einnis sent him away. He still hadn’t regained his footing, nor his faith, and he didn’t know whether he ever would.

Until Einnis brutally shattered his peace of mind, he’d been so sure, so sure of God’s hand guiding his life. The beauty he’d discovered in this most unexpected of places and human beings had been a gift that he hadn’t questioned, merely accepted in humility and gratitude.

The ride southwards after Einnis sold him off had been the heaviest hours and days in his life. He had been bewildered and in despair, his soul filled with darkest doubt, beset by turmoil and uncertainties. When he tried to pray, he had felt no response, no comfort, no inner light.

He’d feared he’d been wrong all along. Oh, he’d not been mistaken in acknowledging his own feelings for what they were; he had loved Einnis, he still did, and always would. But maybe that very love was nothing but a siren’s call, its fair form hiding foul evil blandishments at its core? Maybe it had been a test from God, a test that he had failed when he embraced Einnis instead of rejecting him?

Ever since the monastery’s doors closed behind him when he entered its safe and sacred halls Eoin’d had complete faith in God’s hand guiding him and his life. Maybe he’d not sufficiently minded the pitfalls along the way. Maybe he unsuspectingly had fallen into the devil’s trap of shameful carnal lust and sinful pleasures. The Norse gods and powers were evil forces, and might be stronger than he’d thought. Eve had after all been enticed and tempted to eat from the tree, and so the doors of paradise had been closed against her and her husband forever. Maybe he had just been evicted from his own wintry paradise for the very same reason.

Einnis was a heathen, an enemy, and a man. Loving him body, heart and soul was sinful and shameful according to the Church’s teachings and God’s word. Eoin knew as much. He’d always known. But it had felt so sweet, so right, so natural. It had been beautiful, had filled him with joy and gratitude, had seemed like a blessing from above. How could it have been evil, how could it have been wrong?

Everything in him had railed in protest against all his sudden doubts and fears, though he hadn’t been able to make sense of Einnis’s cruel words and deeds. Einnis had sold him, had sent him away with scornful words, had shrugged at Eoin’s devastation and rejected his heart, freely given. But he’d also whispered, sadly and softly, “there is no other way”. And he’d given him the beautiful, costly cross.

With one hand, he’d dealt a mortal blow, with the other delivered the precious gift of freedom.

The cross! “By this sign you shall conquer. By this sign, you shall be saved!” Eoin grinned mirthlessly into the darkness, a wry grimace of dawning realization. This golden cross resting against the bare skin over his heart was turning out to be his salvation in more ways than one. It could buy him his freedom and save him from the yoke and indignity of thralldom. But it also was his salvation from self-doubt, from doubt in Einnis - and in God. It was proof that his fears had been unfounded. He hadn’t lost Einnis.

He saw Einnis’s agonized face with his mind’s eye, and felt stinging pain and sorrow. But he saw not only Einnis clearly now, but also the forces swirling around them in a tug-of-war that had dragged Einnis down to his knees in surrender.

Eoin remembered Ketil Elmarson’s venomous glances, and the scorn and spite he himself had endured both from free-men and other thralls for being different. He remembered the harsh accusations and the unforgiving faces of men ready to lift their crowbars to end his life. He recalled Einnis’s whispered order for him to hide from Ketil’s men at Einstad. Such was the nature of the powers fiercely protecting the Norse men’s fame and honor and the laws of their gods, forcing him and Einnis apart.

God had not used their love to tempt and to test him. Instead, Eoin knew that their separation and what he was going through here and now was the test. And he would stand firm. He would not give up, though his love for Einnis was rare and unexpected and his true resolve was being tested all the more for that.

Eoin felt some measure of strength returning to his own bruised and battered heart.

His eyes had been opened now to the brutal truths he had merely chosen to leave to God, the many obstacles in his and Einnis’s way. He could never return to the naïve belief that love and beauty and God’s benevolent grace would insulate them from the realities of this most uncertain, dangerous world.

He remembered Muirenn’s words this evening, and pondered their truth. He could not now go back to being the Eoin who once lived peacefully in the monastery. And he could never again become the Eoin from this winter with Einnis, for he was not the same anymore. During those sweet winter months he had lived in a waking dream. Now the veils had been ripped from his eyes for once and all. He’d watched his illusions torn to shreds in an instant.

But the very core of his being remained intact. He would need to be strong, perhaps strong enough for two, but he would not give in to despair or hopelessness. He would bide his time, and pray, and wait, and if God ever granted Einnis and him a second chance, he would let neither men nor gods beat them down without at least fighting back.

He hitched up his rough tunic and let his hand slide up to firmly grasp the golden cross, so different from Einnis’s simple silver Tor’s hammer that he always wore. The cross carried a promise not only of eventual salvation, but of blood and tears. So be it.

Eoin folded his hands and sent a simple prayer to God, a prayer to guard Einnis and to keep him safe, and to give Eoin himself strength to stay the course till their reward was due and God’s blessing would be upon them at last, either in this world or the next.

With that, he fell asleep, exhausted in body and mind, and slept soundly for the first time since he’d had to leave Einnis and the farm behind.

Continued in Part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/41027.html#cutid1

"Saga" - Chapter 14, Part 2

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:56:27 GMT

Chapter 14, Part 2

For rating, content, A/Ns, and disclaimer, see the chapter’s part 1.

The wedding lasted for three full days, as custom and tradition demanded. By then the farm’s storage sheds were completely depleted and every guest sated and weary. Now all who could made haste to depart. Spring had advanced to the stage where proper work should commence in the fields - carting out the manure, ploughing and sowing. All hands would be needed on every farm, from the lowliest thrall to the master’s own kin. Whatever a man’s plans for the summer months, be it raiding or trading or going to the fairs and tings, late spring was a time when no farm’s master could afford to rest or to stay away from his home.

For this reason Torgeirr and Sigrid and their retinue also intended to leave as soon as the wedding guests had been sent off with thanks and blessings and well-wishes. The last evening of their stay at the farm Sigrid went to oversee the packing of the finer items of her dowry, clothes and jewelry, while Torgeirr sat down with his brothers-in-law over a final bowl of ale, stretching his legs tiredly out in front of himself and yawning.

“What frantic few days these have been! I’m exhausted! No sleep nor rest either night or day – every man should hope and pray to marry only once in his life, or he would be permanently worn out from revelries and feasting! Little joy would the poor bride have of him then!” His bright smile and the glint in his eyes left no doubt that his bride had had much joy of him already, and he of her. It was easy for all to see that Sigrid and Torgeirr appeared to enjoy each other’s company even better now that they were also sharing a bed.

Neither Einnis nor Ketil could find many words to say on the topic of married bliss, though, and the talk at the table therefore turned to mundane matters and some last-minute business transactions the in-laws were arranging.

Torgeirr had mentioned that he would soon be visiting Kaupang to see to his clan’s house and to plan for his own future trade activities there, so the brothers took the opportunity of agreeing that he would trade a little on their behalf. He would be taking various pelts from game felled during the winter with him southwards for the market, and would buy salt and spices and some fine foreign foodstuffs for them to be sent back north as soon as he found transport.

“Now I guess there is only one thing left to settle, your purchase of my Irish thrall,” Einnis said tiredly at last.

Ketil righted himself in his seat, his hooded eyes turning sharp like a hawk’s.

Torgeirr leaned back, shrugged and smiled. “Do you still want to sell him then? You’ve not changed your mind? I’ve heard he’s served you more than faithfully and true at Einstad over the winter months. If this is a greater loss than you could reckon with during yule…….….. ”

“My mind is made up,” Einnis said firmly in a low voice, looking down into his beaker and abruptly draining it. “Here in this backwards valley he stands out too much as a stranger, and he and his god keep getting blamed whenever something goes wrong, yes, even the smallest incidents. He isn’t safe here, and a dead thrall would be of no worth to any.” Einnis glanced at Ketil, then looked Torgeirr straight in the eye. “Your plans will take him back to where there are more people, people who are used to Irishmen and thralls and traders from many lands, and know that in what counts, they are like any men. He’ll be safer there. Our agreement stands.”

He smiled, a mere grimace stretching his lips. “Jaran is strong, and loyal, and does more than many a fit man’s work. I think the full price should apply.”

Torgeirr turned serious in his turn, sensing his brother-in-law’s strange mood. “Well, of course I’ll pay the full price! This purchase fits my plans perfectly, as you know,” he said in some confusion. “I’ll be more than happy to have him with me for good, and so will… uhm….well, someone else,” he ended sheepishly.

Ketil cleared his throat and gulped down some ale. He kept his peace.

Without hesitation Torgeirr now loosened the leather pouch hanging from his belt, and carefully counted the appropriate pieces of silver, one by one, into Einnis’s hand.

“That should be it. Do you want to take your scales out to weigh it?” he asked, tying the pouch back up.

Einnis put aside the silver with a hand that shook slightly. “That won’t be necessary, Torgeirr. I know I can trust you to behave generously and with honor in all matters.”

The brothers-in-law shook hands on their deal, and in this manner Jaran the Irish thrall became Torgeirr Haraldson’s property in front of many witnesses, though he himself was still not aware of his altered circumstances.

---

The next day Einnis was up very early, while most of the farm still slept. The chill misty air in the courtyard swirled before him like uneasy spirits disturbed by his approach, their damp fingers stroking his cold cheeks and clinging to his blue cloak. He walked with slow and heavy steps over to the thrall’s house and asked one of the men outside to go get Jaran the Irish.

Eoin appeared moments later, his face mussed from sleep but his eyes bright and eager. Einnis motioned for him to follow, and wordlessly they walked out of earshot, but not out of sight, of the few thralls and servants moving about in the chill morning hours.

Einnis turned to face Eoin, his eyes skittering right past the thrall’s face to settle on some object in the distance.

“I… I am glad that you seem well,” he began, restlessly shifting his weight from one leg to the other.

“Much gladder am I to see you looking well,” Eoin responded. “I’ve been worried about you. Einnis….”

He made as if to step closer, but Einnis took a step back and lifted a hand in warning.

“I am well, Eoin,” he said, glancing at Eoin’s face for a moment before letting his eyes drop to the ground. “I have come to tell you to pack your belongings, such as they are, and to prepare yourself to leave from here today.”

Eoin beamed, though he tried to appear calm. “We’re leaving already? I am glad! I’ve been longing to return to Einstad. This place is too crowded. There is no-where we can…”

Einnis bit his lip and turned a new shade of pale. “You are not going back to Einstad. As you know, I’m getting married to Arna Mjodsdottir come autumn, and I have to plan for that and to behave as is proper. You are leaving with my brother-in-law.” Einnis paused for a beat and drew a breath. “I’ve sold you to him – he’s your new master, and you his thrall. From this day onwards you will obey him in all that he bids you do. He is a kind and fair man. You need have no worries.”

His speech done and his orders delivered, Einnis nodded once, an abrupt jerk of the head, and made to turn on his heels as if to escape from there. But his body betrayed him, and he seemed to have difficulty moving.

Eoin too had frozen where he stood, looking at Einnis with wide eyes, lips slightly apart, unable at first to comprehend what had just been said. It seemed impossible that he had really heard those words spoken.

“But… I thought, I thought that now we’d …we’d….” Eoin eventually forced out, running out of breath and words before he could form a complete sentence, a slight twitch of his head in the northwards direction indicating the way to Einstad’s fields and wide open spaces. “Einnis! You can’t…. you don’t mean this. You don’t!”

Einnis fidgeted, his eyes darting round the courtyard, his jaws clenching, and his lips pressing firmly shut, no words or sounds escaping.

A wave of blood washed hotly over Eoin’s face. His body went tense with fury, despair and powerless incredulity. Without even realizing it, he slipped into his own language, the singing tones of the Gaelic words he ground out clearly communicating his state of mind, if not the meaning of each single word. “You really mean this, don’t you? You bastard! You … heathen….. false.... barbaric…. devious…. damned….. marauding and murdering….Norseman! “

Eoin’s voice dropped to an agonized whisper. “How can you do this to us?”

“There is no other way,” Einnis said hoarsely, once more glancing around the courtyard. Then his voice gained in strength, and his face set determinedly. “My mind is made up. Listen to my words, and obey, or face the consequences! Go now and pack. You’ll be leaving this place today.”

He stepped backwards, one slow step, and then another, and another. His final words came out soft as a sigh. “Farewell, Eoin. Wherever your fate may take you, may both our gods watch over you with kind eyes!”

With that he turned and hurried back to the hall, his steps gaining in speed and purpose as he walked. He never once looked back to see Eoin standing limply where he’d left him, slumped over as if he’d been punched in the gut, his expression not at all belligerent now, but one of hurt and stunned disbelief, his face pale and his blue eyes turning into shimmering pools of deepest, darkest desolation.

---

A few hours later the company of Torgeirr Haraldson and his wife left the farm and traveled southwards.

Einnis had said his farewells to Sigrid privately. They’d embraced and held each other close for a long time, needing no words between them. Eventually they had stepped back, Sigrid admonishing her brother with tears in her eyes to look after himself and to not overtax his strength, and to come visit her as soon as the work at Einstad would allow. At the very last they would meet again at Einnis’s own wedding – she and Torgeirr would be at Mjod’s farm for the revels without fail. Brother and sister had talked quietly and earnestly for a little while longer, and then it had been time for Sigrid to make ready to leave. She surreptitiously made use of her new wife’s coif to dry a few stray tears as she left her brother’s side.

The wedded couple’s company was large, for they had with them a goodly number of servants and men-at-arms, all those of Torgeirr’s family members who had traveled north with him, and many pack horses heavily laden with Sigrid’s dowry besides. Torgeirr’s new thrall rode last in the group, his brown cloak pulled firmly around his body, his few belongings rolled up in a tight bundle tied behind the simple saddle, and his close-cropped dark head dejectedly bent over the horse’s mane.

Ketil, Einnis, Ragnhild and most of the farm’s people came out in the courtyard to send the newlyweds off and to wish them a safe journey home. Sigrid had been a fair, kind and much respected mistress for nearly six years, and Torgeirr with his easy and cheerful ways had won himself many friends during his stay.

Einnis wore only his tunic out into the courtyard for these final farewells. Though it wasn’t raining there nevertheless was a distinct nip in the mid-morning air, but he had misplaced his cloak and there had been no time to have anyone search for it. He waved to his sister and brother-in-law and remained standing at the gates, staring after them as long as their company was visible, his tired eyes resting unwaveringly on the man riding at the end of the departing company. But Eoin didn’t look back as he left the farm behind and rode southwards through the valley.

Einnis returned to the hall and, telling the men there that he was tired and needed rest, went straight to bed, though it wasn’t yet noon. He spent the remainder of the day behind the boxed-in bed’s doors. No-one though much of it. Everyone was tired and out of sorts after the hectic feast days, too much ale and too little sleep, or - in the case of servants and thralls – too much rich food and too much work. Such things would get even the strongest man down in the end.

The following day Einnis rose early, and quietly went about his day as he’d been wont to do.

He told Ketil he was planning to ride north to Einstad at once – building the farm and getting it ready for Arna to move in would now remain the first, last and only thing on his mind.

---

Torgeirr and Sigrid’s company in the meantime traveled on, and they had a good time, for the weather was turning pleasant and getting warmer by the day. The mood was cheerful. The newly-weds were clearly enjoying themselves and their time together, and their happiness proved infectious so that everyone was prone to smiles and laughter at the least little opportunity.

Everyone except the thrall Jaran. He seemed to be riding in a trance through awakening spring as if the powers had cast a spell of winter bleakness over him. Silent, pale and with haunted eyes he brought up the rear of the company, seemingly in a world of his own. No-one paid him much mind, though; - he was after all only a thrall, and a sad-looking one at that. He helped with the horses, and with raising camp in the evenings and taking it down in the mornings, and as long as he took orders and did his duty, everyone otherwise left him alone.

Eventually they were approaching Torgeirr’s farm, Sigrid’s new home. Torgeirr spoke briefly with Eoin then, and explained to him that the thrall would be riding on to a small farmstead that Torgeirr also owned, and would be joining the household there. The place was located some way further south; a couple of Torgeirr’s free-men would be riding with him, and Torgeirr himself would follow in a few weeks’ time.

Eoin listened without question or comment, his eyes lowered. He nodded in tacit acknowledgment of his orders.

Just as the little party made ready to leave the main group, Sigrid Elmarsdottir came up to Eoin and told him to walk aside with her. Wordlessly he followed her some steps out of the path and in among the trees, where they would be hidden from the rest of the company. Sigrid stopped and studied the Irish thrall for a moment.

“You do not look well,” she stated. “Are you ill? If so, you must let us know.”

He shook his head, not meeting her eyes. “I am well enough, mistress.”

He said no more, and Sigrid also remained silent for a beat, questions forming in her mind, but going unvoiced and unanswered.

“This is for you,” she said at last, handing him a small package, safely wrapped in a piece of cloth tied with strings.

Sigrid looked at Eoin with grave eyes. “My brother Einnis asked me to give you this, and to watch you unwrap it, on the last day that you would be in my presence before traveling onwards.”

She studied the little package in his hand for a moment, her eyes returning to Eoin’s face. “I do not know what it contains. You served him well, I know. Perhaps it’s some little token of appreciation.”

Eoin carefully loosened the strings and slowly unwound the cloth. He startled violently as he saw what Einnis had left him. Sigrid gasped too, her eyes going wide. Glittering on Eoin’s palm lay a small golden cross, adorned with exquisite and delicate filigree scrollwork. It had a masterfully executed inlay, equally in the shape of the cross, made from perfectly cut and alternating crimson garnets and misty rock crystals. The colors of blood and tears, surrounded by richest, purest gold.

It was a beautiful object, made with the highest goldsmith artistry, and was without doubt a cross worthy of a minor king.

Sigrid looked up at Eoin in utter amazement at her brother’s costly gift to a mere thrall.

“It is beautiful, Jaran, and very valuable,” she said. “Do you know what this means? You are holding your own freedom’s worth in your hands!”

Tbc………..

Comments and explanations;

Bride linen – the fact that free Norse-women wore a (linen) veil on their wedding day is documented in various poems, including in the Poetic Edda’s “Trymskvida” where Tor himself dresses up as a bride, pretending to be Freya whom the giant Trym demands to marry in order to give Tor’s stolen hammer back to its rightful owner.

Most of the wedding ceremony in this chapter of Saga however is pure conjecture on my part, as the contemporary sources do not describe the details of the ceremony. I find it reasonable that weddings would take place under the auspices of the god and goddess of fertility and sexual love, though.

Norse women’s clothing - Normally an apron overdress over a longer underdress, and with a domed oval brooch at each shoulder holding the overdress shoulder straps in place. Between the two brooches there would be strings of bead necklaces as well as other jewelry. A very good picture of such twin brooches, dress and strings of beads/jewelry, here; http://www.strongbowsaga.com/wiki/media/overdress.jpg

Dwarves – In Norse mythology there are many dwarves. They live in the mountains (ie. inside the mountains), mine for precious metals, and are greedy yet skilled goldsmiths. One of the most well-known Norse poems, Voluspa, “the seeress’s prophecy”, contains several stanzas listing Norse dwarf names. (For those interested in delving even deeper, I dare say that anyone familiar with “the Hobbit” and “the Lord of the Rings” will see where Professor Tolkien found inspiration for his band of Dwarves (and one wizard!) if they read Voluspa’s stanzas no. 10-17. http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe03.htm )

Brisingamen (The Brisings’ necklace) – Freya’s necklace is mentioned by name in a number of Norse sources including "Trymskvida" which I mentioned above. Its look is not known, but it clearly was big and finely wrought. It was made by four dwarves, the Brisings, who each wanted – and got - one night with Freya in exchange for the necklace.

Hov – Norse temple

Godi and Gydja – High priest and – priestess

Horg – Small cultish building, intended for more private use, or also an ancient sacred place outside, often a stone heap made for cultish purpose. The exact distinction between Hov and Horg has been a sometime hotly debated topic - if you’re into archeology! :-D

Oath-ring / ring-oaths – Solemn and legally binding “ring-oaths” are mentioned in various Norse poems and sagas, including in Havamal. The ring involved with the oath-swearing was not a finger-ring but considerably larger. (Bracelets and torques would also be called “rings” by the Norse.)

Ceremonial poles with carved dragon- or animal heads – five such animal head poles were discovered in the rich Oseberg barrow, buried with the queen and her ship. One of them is among the most recognizable Norwegian icons there are: http://ic2.pbase.com/o3/06/642806/1/87690309.7zz09FFn.DSC_8197AAA_filtered.jpg

Here is another of them: http://geopolicraticus.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/viking-carving-1.jpg

And another: http://www.pbase.com/drjaysel/image/87690609/original.jpg

The exact use of these carved animal heads cannot now be ascertained, but it’s a safe bet that they were intended for cultish/ceremonial use. They were affixed to long poles when they were recovered.

“Hail to you, day…etc.” – These two translated stanzas come from the Norse Poetic Edda’s poem Sigrdrifamal. The stanzas are widely acknowledged to be the only original prayer to the Norse gods that has survived Christianization.

Scales – Payments in gold and silver, even when made in coin, were always based on weight, and scales were necessary equipment for any tradesman. Jewelry frequently was cut up and used in payment in line with coins.

Witnesses – When Einnis ensures that there are credible witnesses to his sale of Eoin, and that the one person Torgeirr will be certain not to doubt witnesses Eoin’s gift-opening, it is in accordance with the laws and customs of the times: Written documents were not yet used, as the magical runes were not applied for such mundane matters, and most people were illiterate anyway. Therefore the laws placed a very strong weight on the confirmation of eye-witnesses for anyone seeking to prove a case. In the case of the golden cross, without a witness Eoin had risked being taken for a thief.

"Saga" - Chapter 14, Part 1

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:50:05 GMT

Content - Saga is a Brokeback AuAu fic taking place in the Viking era (Scandinavia, ca AD 850). This chapter rated PG.

A/Ns – Links to previous chapters follow after the cut. Explanations of names and terms follow after each chapter. Thank you very much to Soulan for betaing the chapter!

Links to previous chapters:

Chapter 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/22271.html

Chapter 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/32308.html

Chapter 3: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/33130.html

Chapter 4: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/33946.html

Chapter 5: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/34153.html

Chapter 6: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/34535.html

Chapter 7: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/35104.html

Chapter 8: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/35376.html

Chapter 9: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/36279.html

Chapter 10, part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/37232.html

Chapter 10, part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/37564.html

Chapter 11, part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/38138.html

Chapter 11, part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/38245.html

Chapter 12, part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/39029.html

Chapter 12, part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/39347.html

Chapter 13, part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/39503.html

Chapter 13, part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/39897.html

Saga - Chapter 14

The morning of the wedding between Sigrid Elmarsdottir and Torgeirr Haraldson dawned bright and clear. Spring by now held the valley in its firm but gentle grip. Green shoots and catkins were appearing in every field and thicket, the copses along the fields had bright tapestries of wood anemones and primroses on display, and bird song trilled through the air from dawn till well after dusk. Starlings and tits were already preparing for a busy season of nesting and raising their young.

Three days before the wedding Sigrid had surrendered her keys and the farm mistress dignity to Torgeirr’s aunt Ragnhild, who had recently been widowed but was still a strong and capable woman, and with a notoriously sharp tongue. She’d many years been the mistress of a large farm to the south and knew how to deal with servants and thralls, and how to plan for and oversee the workings of a large household. Ragnhild would be staying on after Sigrid had left, and the intention was that she’d function as mistress till Ketil brought home a wife.

On the wedding day throngs of revelers gathered in the hall for the morning meal. Guests living or staying on the neighboring farms would eat where they’d spent the night, before arriving at the farm for the ceremony, the blot and the wedding feast. Even so, the crowd in the hall was impressive, and the good cheer rose rafter high long before the ceremony could begin.

At midday the bride and groom and their clan and kinsfolk, friends and guests from near and far, set out from the farm in procession. Torgeirr and Sigrid rode in front, dressed in their richest outfits. The sleeves and long train of Sigrid’s linen under-dress and her costly bridal veil shot through with gold threads shimmered in the sunlight, and her silk overdress mimicked the very sky in its bright nuances of blue and violet. Draped across her chest were several strands of precious stones, amber beads and jewels secured to her large, domed shoulder-brooches, - riches enough to make any mountain dwarf envious. Torgeirr was hardly less sumptuously attired, and thralls and servants from the farms along the way who lined the road clapped their hands and shouted in admiration and awe as the couple rode by, wishing them luck and long life in their marriage.

Einnis and Ketil rode directly behind the bride and groom, together with Torgeirr’s brother and sister, and Olaf Haka. Behind them followed many distant family members, and all other wedding guests according to rank and clan. Most had already sampled the mead and ale, and were in high spirits as the procession made its way towards Freya’s sacred stone circle. It would have been too long a ride for everyone to travel all the way to the local hov and back in one day, and so the wedding would instead take place outside at the closest horg.

Einnis alone seemed pensive and withdrawn amidst the cheerful company, though he smiled reassuringly when Sigrid looked back at him, a slight worried frown marring her veiled face for a moment. He wore his blue cloak with its golden clasp and Holmhogg at his side – Ketil’s valuable gift was certainly fitting for this occasion.

A good hour’s ride down through the valley was an ancient sacred place, a wide circle of stones on a small hillock within a circle of oaks and aspen. Next to it a small wooden shrine had been built, its every gable adorned with intricately carved dragon heads, and containing the likeness of Freya herself as well as other objects needed for ceremonies in the goddess’s honor.

The husband and wife-to-be stepped up to the stones and entered the circle, while all the wedding guests gathered round its perimeter. The gydja responsible for the horg shook her large silver and iron rattle to notify the goddess of their presence, and thereafter opened the shrine doors wide so that Freya could watch over the marriage rite. Freya’s magnificent golden necklace, the Brisingamen, could be seen glittering in the shrine’s gloom like the stars shine in the night sky.

As had been pre-arranged, two men and two women solemnly collected four long poles with carved dragon heads from Freya’s abode. They took up position just outside the circle, one each facing north, south, east and west, and planted the poles in the ground. The dragonheads’ maws yawned threateningly and the carved eyes glared fiercely outwards and skywards. On this day it was imperative that all malevolent forces be kept at bay. The carved dragon likenesses, the runes carved on the long stakes and their combined magical powers would see to that.

The gydja offered the bride and groom a drink of mead from a fine silver cup adorned with runes of power, and spoke the incantations to the goddess in a strong ringing voice. Then the sacred golden ring from the valley hov was brought forth for the couple to swear their vows on. No marriage would be legal without ring-oaths properly sworn in front of witnesses. The hov’s godi was among the wedding guests and had brought the heavy ring with him from its customary place in the hov’s inner sanctum.

“… and to this I swear, so help me Frey, and Njord, and the most powerful of gods....” Both Torgeirr and Sigrid made their vows to each other and the gods in clear, unwavering voices. They toasted each other from the silver cup, and then turned to also toast and honor the goddess in her abode, and to speak the ancient ceremonial wedding prayer, one verse for Torgeirr, the next for Sigrid:

Hail to you, day!

Hail, sons of day!

Hail night and night’s daughter now!

Look to us two

With loving eyes

And grant that we victory win!

Hail to the gods!

You goddesses, hail,

And all the generous earth!

Give to us wisdom

and goodly speech,

And healing hands all life long!

With that, Torgeirr left the circle and went through the throng of people to where the sacrificial animal was standing ready, a small horse patiently waiting for a fate it couldn’t have seen coming on this bright spring day.

Torgeirr wielded the long blot-knife with such care and precision that he did not get the least little crimson splatter on his cloak or tunic. Most of the blood he let drain into the ground as an offering to Frey and Freya both, the earth and grass he stood on representing the deities’ joint forces of fertility and renewal, but a small bowl of fresh blood he brought back with him into the circle. The gydja carefully accepted it from his hands and turned towards the goddess in her shrine, hailing her power, muttering imprecations and smearing the blood around the statue’s base with a little brush kept there for that very purpose.

The godi next took over the bowl, and pondered the blood patterns and their significance, mulling over the crimson-stained silver vessel and its message. He looked up at Torgeirr and smiled. “I see only sons for you!” The wedding guests cheered. The stately godi turned from the couple to look out over the assembled crowd, and pronounced in a loud and carrying voice that he saw no ill omens, and that all the signs for the marriage were good.

With that the ceremony was over, and Torgeirr and Sigrid walked hand in hand out of the circle, Sigrid now with her face visible for all to see. They were thoroughly cheered, congratulated and embraced by eager and joyous family members and friends. Einnis held his sister very tight for a moment, and looked closely at her calm but glowing face surrounded by the shimmering veil. “A happy day, as I promised you it would be, sister mine. May it bring you and Torgeirr nothing but future joy and prosperity, and long lives, the gods willing!”

She hugged him back fiercely. “Oh Einnis, Einnis, I only wish from the bottom of my heart that the joy I feel today will soon also find you!”

Back at the farm the tables groaned under the weight of the wedding food. Nothing had been spared in order to make it a memorable occasion. There was fat pork and red beef, dishes of reindeer and moose, dainty pieces of roast chicken and forest fowl to be nibbled, nuts and dried berries, fine bread and butter and many rich cheeses made with herbs, and every drinking bowl was overflowing with good ale and expensive mead. The newly wedded couple and their close kin were also served horse meat from the wedding blot, as soon as it was cooked and ready.

Fires blazed on every hearth, and torches glowed along the walls. As the evening wore on, the heat in the crowded hall became nearly unbearable, and there was a constant rush as people moved around, going out for a spell in order to cool themselves down and to let the food sink, as the saying was, before they returned to have some more; much more.

Laughter and loud talk and ribald jokes rang out from every side, mingling with the music in the yard, and creating an unbelievable din.

Every servant and all the thralls were busy as bees carrying trays and platters, lugging ale for the hall and water and firewood for the kitchen, helping out over the cooking pits, and cleaning up after those wedding guests who had enjoyed too much of the ale too soon.

Today the fine food also was the thralls’ to enjoy, and the rich meats and fine cheeses settled pleasingly in their unusually full stomachs.

Eoin helped carry trays of food into the hall with the rest, but kept himself away from the high table, where the thralls had no business being even on this happy day. He stopped by the door for a moment and looked towards the high seat across the crowded hall, briefly studying the bride and groom before letting his glance slide quickly past Ketil at the bride’s left side to Einnis, who sat next. Einnis looked pale, and somehow distracted, but he smiled at his sister and her husband and toasted them with his mead horn even as Eoin watched. Reassured, Eoin returned to his work in the kitchen and his own platter of beef and bowl of ale.

The feast stretched out in time, hours went by, and at long last the time had come for the bride and groom to be accompanied by their close kinsfolk to the room that was ready and waiting for them. A small fire blazed on the hearth there, the bed had been beautifully made with down pillows and fine coverlets, and the walls were covered with tapestries.

By this hour most of the men were extremely drunk, and the explicit suggestions and indecent well-wishes they shouted out left nothing at all to the imagination. Sigrid hurried through the door as quickly as she could, while Torgeirr had to stay on the outside for a little while, being thumped on his back to within an inch of his life, and suffering a veritable barrage of suggestive jokes and advice for his first time as a wedded man.

Eventually the door was closed behind the two, and firmly barred, and the guests returned to the hall to continue their feasting.

Einnis however excused himself and went out of the hall. He had kept his promise: Sigrid and Torgeirr had been married according to agreement and tradition, surrounded by clan and kin, and no whiff of grief or grudge or gossip had marred their happy day.

As he made his way to the door he noted Ketil standing to the side, by now decidedly unsteady on his feet, and talking animatedly to a prettily flushed Helga Hauksdottir. Einnis greeted her with a nod in passing, and she responded in kind. Helga was laughing at something, her eyes bright in the torchlight. Her hair was coming down under her fine foreign coif, but then at this stage in the evening it would be difficult to find anyone who wasn’t a little disheveled, unless they were ill after overindulging, in which case they looked far much the worse for wear.

Einnis himself had drunk but little and had not had very much to eat. Perhaps for that very reason the heat in the hall and the noise level had become increasingly difficult to endure. He walked slowly across the brightly lit courtyard, studying the lively activities all around the farm.

Thralls were scuttling back and forth, people stood cooling off and talking in the fresh air, and a few servants’ children were running around long after bedtime, shouting shrilly and teasing the farm dogs with tempting meaty bones. Guests who had been dancing ring-dances in the yard had instead formed a long link of dancers, weaving in and out of the yard and around the hall, singing loudly to keep their frequently stumbling steps in time.

As luck would have it, no fights or brawls seemed to be brewing. Sometimes at feasts like this, when drink had removed most inhibitions, ill words would be spoken, grudges rekindled, and swords too quickly drawn – it was a common saying that no proper wedding feast would end before it had one or more casualties to show for itself.

Drawing deep, calming breaths Einnis walked between two of the sheds at the far end of the yard, stepping silently out to the darkness beyond. The wedding revels were still very audible - they could probably be heard for miles around - but here in the shadows the chill of the late spring night nevertheless held a soothing quality. Not only Einnis seemed to be craving the night’s solitude, though. To one side of him he could distinctly hear someone cursing and retching noisily, and to the other a woman was laughingly deterring an unseen suitor’s drunken advances.

Ignoring them all, Einnis leaned back against the wooden wall and stared up to the night skies. The stars were bright; the eyes of gods and giants twinkling in the vast darkness. He closed his eyes after a little while and stood as motionless as any carved statue in a hov. There would be no other rest for him for many hours yet. The halls were filled with people who had no intention of letting the revels cease till the morning hours, and as one of the hosts he would have to be there.

Yet he remained standing in the darkness, alone and invisible, for a very long time.

Continued in Chapter 14, Part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/40392.html

"Saga" Chapter 13, Part 2

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:04:37 GMT

Saga Chapter 13, Part 2

For rating, content, disclaimer and A/Ns, see part 1

When Einnis arrived home, he saw Ketil leave the high table, carrying an ale bowl and looking reasonably composed, though still with a murderous look in his eyes.

Einnis dropped down near the high seat himself, leaning his head back against the wall and closing his eyes. He sat like that while the hall filled with people for the evening meal. The buzz of voices was loud and grating compared to the peaceful quiet at Einstad. He didn’t open his eyes again before Sigrid sat down next to him, her coif askew and her keys jangling as she fanned herself with her hand.

Keeping the household in good shape while preparing for a big wedding and overseeing the packing of all her goods and gear was keeping Sigrid busy from before sunup till after dusk. She hurried between the hall, the storage houses, the kitchen and sheds, giving orders, overseeing work, checking on the stores, planning ahead, making decisions and arrangements on everything from what to serve at the next evening meal to what and how to feed the many wedding guests in abundant style in the middle of spring dearth, normally the leanest time of year.

Luckily she had long since been able to make her dowry ready, weaving and spinning year after year following her parents’ untimely death, and did not have to worry about completing it at the last minute.

“Now, how did it go?” she asked, clapping her hands for the servants to start serving the evening meal, and taking a long draught of the high table’s ale bowl. “Not well, I take it?”

Ennis shook his head. “I think it did go well. Helga was cheerful, and they talked much and friendly, but in the end she said she needs time to think about it. Ketil thinks she’s hoping for someone better to come along. He may be right, but who can blame her for wanting to consider her options? And who can say she won’t choose him in the end?”

Sigrid huffed. “He came home looking as if he had the wild hunt on his heels, so here I was, certain she’d sent him packing with a flea in his ear!”

Einnis lifted his knife and stabbed at the slivers of dried meat in the bowl in front of him. “He’ll just have to wait and see,” he said bleakly. “Though his chances will be poorer if news of his anger at her first response reaches her, I’m sure.”

“Ketil has always been rash, and he’s always had a temper too easily provoked, Sigrid said. “He won’t change this late in life, I think. He’s very different from you, Einnis – you always think before you act, even when you feel passionately about something. You always do what’s right.”

Einnis closed his eyes again. “What if I did something that wasn’t right, once? What if I did something that shamed and harmed the clan? What would you say then, and Torgeirr? Would he still marry you?”

Sigrid laughed. “All the arrangements have been made and all oaths long since sworn! We’re getting married in less than two weeks, Einnis. I hardly think you can manage many horridly shameful acts in that brief time!”

She noticed his look, and turned serious, staring at him with concern. “Are you in earnest? What would be the trouble, brother mine? Has something happened? It can’t be that bad, surely? You’ve always had the clan’s best interest at heart, and you’ve always acted calmly, wisely, and with honor. It makes me proud, and Arna too, I’m sure. And I know Torgeirr feels the same. He values your friendship very much.”

Einnis laughed, a mirthless shrill chuckle. “Wisely and with honor! Yes I have, haven’t I? Arna will be proud, and Torgeirr is my friend, and my sister trusts me, and my brother needs me, and the clan rests on my shoulders, and my duty and the laws of gods and men are clear as day…... Yes, look at my honor now!” he spat out, his words like a flurry of angry hailstones across the table.

Sigrid leaned forward, placing a hand on his arm and looking worriedly into his face. “Tell me what’s bothering you, brother. You don’t look well, Einnis. Are you ill?”

“No,” he muttered, rising from his seat abruptly and stepping around the table to get to the other side and to leave the hall. “Nothing….don’t worry…. I just need some fresh air…. “

With that he dropped in his tracks as if struck down by lightning.

Sigrid rose from her seat and rushed round the table to his side, even as everyone else in the hall stared in their direction, many rising from their meal to get a better view. The buzz of voices intensified.

“Einnis!” She shook him by the shoulders, rapidly checked his heart beat and his breath, felt his forehead and pulled his eyelids up to look into his eyes. They had rolled back in his head. He was out cold, but he was alive and breathing. She crouched next to him for a moment, her head bent, holding his hand.

Then she rose to her feet and clapped her hands sharply. “My brother is alive, but needs rest. Please finish up your meals quickly and leave!”

Einnis’s eyes fluttered open even as he was being carried to his bed, and Sigrid had to restrain him when he made as if to get up on his legs. Soon he was laid out comfortably on his own boxed-in bed, its doors flung wide open to allow access. Several of her women hovering nervously in the background, Sigrid made him move his arms and legs and flex his fingers, felt his abdomen and listened to his chest, and then placed several blankets over him carefully.

“I find nothing wrong, thanks be to Freya!” She sat down at his side, and took his hand, fighting tears.

“Einnis Eldhug, what is it?” she asked tenderly. “Is something wrong? Are you in pain? Tell me, little brother.”

His reply was clear and distinct even though it came in a weak and tired voice. “No, Sigrid. Nothing is wrong. I am sorry to have frightened you so. I’m merely exhausted from all the heavy work at Einstad. I must have been wearier than I knew, and I haven’t been able to sleep much. I just need a little rest, and I’ll be right as rain.”

His hand rose weakly to pat one of hers briefly. “I’ll be there at your wedding, and it will be a happy day, never fear!”

With that he actually seemed to fall into deep sleep, and after some time Sigrid set one of her women to look after him and went back to managing her many tasks and responsibilities. She looked in on her brother at regular intervals, a worried crease never leaving her forehead all the while.

---

Einnis Elmarson lay abed and seemed to be sleeping continuously for nearly three days. Sigrid had healing runes carved into a wooden stick that was placed in his bed, and kept him warm with heated stones. Under her watchful eyes he did manage to down some of the meat broth that she had prepared especially for him, and drink her medicinal herbal potions as well as some water. Most of the time he lay silent and still with his face turned to the wall and the doors to his bed closed. It was as if he was withdrawing from the world, a bear retreating to the safety of its hibernation den once too many hunters were on its tail.

Ketil had no useful information to give his sister. He spoke but little and kept away from his brother’s bedside, though she could see he was genuinely worried for Einnis’s health, and knew he had visited the barrow with an offering in his brother’s honor.

Sigrid Elmarsdottir didn’t know what to make of it all, but then at this point in time she barely had a minute’s free time to think, anyhow, and neither did anyone else. That was a good thing, she realized: if not for the frantic activity all over the farm to get ready for the wedding, people would have had time to worry about the displeasure of the gods, and to fire each other up with speculation about the possible reasons for Einnis’s illness. She herself instinctively felt that the answer, whatever it was, likely did not involve the gods and powers but would be found among humans down on earth.

On the fourth day Einnis rose from his bed. Pale and hollow-eyed he sat on the bench with his bare feet on the tiled floor and a small chest of his most valuable possessions on his lap. It was normally stored safely in the inner closet at the foot end of his bed.

He stared down into it, looked at the gold and silver, the coins and gems it contained. Riches meant to ensure Einstad got to a solid start as a viable and prosperous farm with all the cattle and livestock, household goods and thralls that were needed for the farm to thrive. Shunting the valuables on top aside, his hand found what he was seeking, hidden at the bottom of the little chest – he’d once thought it would surely be the most beautiful prize he’d bring home from his Irish raiding. He stared at the exquisite and costly object in his hand with sad eyes for a long time, turning it this way and that, all the while looking as a mourner at the side of a fresh grave mound.

Eventually he put his box of riches safely back in its place, locked it down, and rose to take his place in the daily activities of the farm. The first wedding guests would be arriving within the next day or so. His presence was needed, and he would do as his duty bid him.

Eoin had soon heard the news of Einnis Elmarson’s collapse, since the master’s strange and sudden illness had been all that everyone could speak of in the little time allotted them for talking. Malevolent forces once more seemed to be at work when one so young and healthy could be stricken down so suddenly.

The other thralls turned to Eoin with a mixture of fearful skepticism and intense curiosity. He had been close to Einnis for months, alone with him up at that other farm site – had he seen anything to explain this? Any signs of ill luck or portents of doom? Any indications that the powers were displeased with the young master?

When Eoin had no answers and tried to avoid the topic altogether, indeed hardly seemed to want to talk to them about anything at all, they withdrew and left him alone. They were all of them Norse, quite a few of them Danes, but many had been born in the valley and had never traveled far. Their glances turned worried and frightened, and their doubts over Eoin’s foreign god and strange behavior and practices rekindled. Perhaps he had caused Einnis Elmarson’s illness. They’d better keep their distance.

But as yet no-one dared act upon those fears, and Eoin himself was too preoccupied to even notice the whispers.

The wedding preparations kept him busy like never before. Even the work at Einstad had been nothing, compared to this. Together with the other male thralls he chopped veritable mountains of firewood, hauled endless buckets of water, and brought hay from the out-barns. He had no time at all to himself, except for the nighttime hours, and the physical labor tired him out so that despite all worries and threatening despair he found rest, the deep sleep of the exhausted.

He had wanted to pray for enlightenment as to Einnis’s illness, had wanted to turn on his knees to God’s holy mother and all benevolent saints to humbly beseech them to help Einnis back to life and health, but he found no place for silent prayer, and little time. A brief and fervent prayer at morning and at night would have to do. He’d have to trust that the Lord and his angels would see the prayer written on his heart, even if he didn’t speak it out loud.

The veritable buzz of relief that spread like wildfire at the news of Einnis’s recovery was to Eoin like a ray of sun that pierces the thunderstorm’s heavy gloom. It filled him with sudden joy. He had to sneak away from his place to peek into the main hall during the midday meal - he had to see for himself.

And there was Einnis, sitting at the high table, looking pale and worn and weary, but calm and together – and he was eating, seemingly with good appetite. Eoin returned to his own frugal meal in the thralls’ house, all of a sudden walking as lightly as if his feet had grown wings.

He didn’t know what had happened, and on this overcrowded farm where people were thronging every corner to the rafters and wedding guests would soon be pouring in from many parts of the district, there would be no chance to talk to Einnis alone and unseen.

But Einnis’s recovery gave Eoin the reassurance he needed. God was not angry with them, was not out to punish either one, still protected them and held them in His powerful hands. Once the wedding was over they would return to Einstad’s large empty spaces with only a few other men about. They could talk then.

His life had taught him patience. He could wait.

Tbc…………

Notes and explanations;

Barrows – high-standing members of the clans (of both genders) were buried with many grave goods such as swords, ships, horses, and thralls in a big barrow. Unless they died far from home they would be buried near their clan’s chief seat, in order to continue to bring it luck. Offerings were habitually made to the occupants of the barrows, and several sagas and Norse poems have tales concerning how these dead ones in the barrows do not rest quietly but rise for various reasons, normally to interfere with the clan activities. One such tale can be found in perhaps the most well-known Icelandic clan saga of all, Njal’s Saga. Another saga tells how one particular minor Norwegian king was deemed so lucky in life that several parties wanted to have him (and his luck) buried next to their place after his death. The pragmatic solution suggested was to cut the dead body in four pieces to be buried one at each location!

At this juncture I might mention that the single most beautiful object to have been interred in a Viking barrow to be restored to us 1,000 years later appears in the Saga icon I’m using. The shape to the left in the icon is the stem of the Oseberg ship and its shadow. This is what it looks like in broad daylight in its museum today (here seen from the stern):
http://gfx.dagbladet.no/pub/artikkel/4/48/486/486672/osebberg_1166626124.jpg

(The ship was interred in the burial mound of a queen in AD 934, and excavated in AD 1904).

People who weren’t interred in this particular way were burned before burial, and if they were rich they would have a lot of grave goods with them on the pyre.

Bread baked with wheat – wheat was a luxury grain. Only the very rich could afford it, and only on highdays. Nobody used it for everyday eating.

Brännö - an island in the Swedish Göteborg archipelago, strategically placed for seafarers in Viking times, and the location of important tings and fairs at the time.

Runes – Runes were the Norse alphabet, but each sign and letter was also imbued with specific magical powers, some to harm and some to heal.

"Saga" - Chapter 13, part 1

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:00:32 GMT

Content - Brokeback AuAu fic taking place in the Viking era (Scandinavia, ca AD 850). No warnings for this chapter. This chapter rated PG.

A/Ns – Links to previous chapters follow after the cut. Explanations of names and terms follow after each chapter. Thank you very much to Soulan for betaing the chapter!

An object from Einnis's raiding in Ireland is mentioned in this chapter. It has not appeared in the story before, but have patience and all will become clear.....

Links to previous chapters:

Chapter 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/22271.html

Chapter 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/32308.html

Chapter 3: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/33130.html

Chapter 4: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/33946.html

Chapter 5: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/34153.html

Chapter 6: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/34535.html

Chapter 7: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/35104.html

Chapter 8: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/35376.html

Chapter 9: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/36279.html

Chapter 10, part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/37232.html

Chapter 10, part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/37564.html

Chapter 11, part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/38138.html

Chapter 11, part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/38245.html

Chapter 12, part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/39029.html

Chapter 12, part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/39347.html

Saga - Chapter 13

The group of men returning from Einstad arrived home at the farm just in time for the evening meal. The two freemen went to their places on one of the benches in the hall, Eoin had no other choice than to return to the thrall’s house after having unloaded the packhorse, and Einnis and Ketil found their places by the High Seat.

There was no sign of Sigrid. All the activities in preparation for the approaching wedding meant she never had a moment’s rest. That evening she was off visiting on a neighboring farm to make arrangements for wedding guests to stay over there.

After they’d sat through a subdued meal, Ketil sent for the bathhouse fires to be lit, and for one of the men who knew the use of the razor knife and scissors to attend to them there.

“We need to look our very best tomorrow, clean and groomed and well dressed. You look like a wild man of the woods, Einnis. It could hardly be otherwise, I know, but that’ll have to change, and quickly. Tomorrow’s an important day!”

Einnis had no reply, and as soon as he could, he left the table with a bowl of ale.

Tradition required him to greet the ancestors after a long time away from the farm. He sought the solitude this offered him and left the noisy hall for the barrows outside the main gate. Generations of important clan members had been buried in the grassy mounds so as to ensure they continued to care for the clan and to bring the farm luck even in death.

Einnis slowly walked to the largest barrow, where his original clan ancestor had been buried long ago, according to tradition. The tales had it that he on occasion would rise at night and ride from his resting place, fully armed, as a sign that the clan was in danger. It was long now since anyone had claimed seeing him ride under the moon, and everything was quiet tonight in the deepening shadows.

A few brave yellow coltsfoot flowers were nodding to Einnis from the side of the mound, greeting spring from amid the dried brown grasses of last year.

Einnis stood in the front of the grassy barrow for a while, looking slowly back and forth between it and the farm. His clan had lived here for many years, each generation defending, improving and adding to the farm before being laid to rest outside its gates with all due honor. He himself was named for the clan ancestor, Einnis Everwake the Old.

With a sigh he placed the bowl reverently at the bottom of the barrow for its occupant to enjoy, bent his head in respect, and walked with heavy steps back to the farm.

He followed Ketil to the bathhouse as soon as it was ready for them. The scathing steam loosened their muscles and had them gasping while sweat and dirt poured from every pore.

Ketil didn’t make any more attempts at jocularity, but kept quiet and sat with eyes closed in the billowing steam.

Einnis had his hair washed and cut and his beard and mustache neatly trimmed, and made the bathhouse thrall gave him a long and thorough rub-down as well. After the bath he drank several scoops of water and some ale, a new man in looks and smell, but not in heart and mind.

He told Ketil they would have to make the necessary plans the next day, as he was weary. This was evidently no lie; he was stumbling on his feet when he sought his boxed-in bed and closed its door between himself and the rest of the world.

---

The brothers and two of Ketil’s men left the farm at midday the next day, riding stately horses and dressed in their best finery. Both wore expensive tunics of foreign cloth, richly decorated, and blue cloaks with costly jeweled clasps on the right shoulder. The brothers’ helmets shone, and their swords and belts as well as the horses’ tackle glittered when an occasional glint of sun peeked through the shifting clouds. Ketil looked eager and alert with a becoming blush to his face, but Einnis had dark circles under his eyes and was unusually pale, even for the season.

They had talked on the morning, going over what Einnis would say and how he would present Ketil’s achievements and talents, as well as the clan’s position. Ketil had been much encouraged by the talk, happy that the fortunes and fame of their clan were already on the rise. Helga could hardly fail to realize that.

Once she had been notified about her visitors, Helga Hauksdottir herself came out to greet them and bid them welcome. She led them to the table by the high seat, and sat down to talk while her serving women put forth mead in beakers, thin fine slices of bread baked with wheat, tidbits of roast grouse and a selection of carved dried meat served in handsomely decorated bowls.

Helga Hauksdottir was not tall, but carried herself with considerable composure, had a generous smile and an equally generous bosom, and sharp eyes full of life. Her blond hair was covered by a silk-shot linen wife’s coif, but she let it show over her forehead and at her neck. She wore several strands of big amber beads and an impressive number of keys over a overdress that looked uncommonly fine for everyday wear.

Confident and self-assured, she nevertheless had an easy manner, and the conversation between her and Ketil flowed freely over the mead beakers. They had already met some few times during the winter months whenever gatherings were arranged on farms in the valley, and so had established some common ground.

Talk turned to Ketil’s adventures abroad, and Helga seemed to enjoy herself and asked many interested questions about the foreign lands, peoples and customs.

In this way they remained at table for a long time, Ketil and Helga talking animatedly, and Einnis on occasion inserting a brief comment or two. The mead in the beakers was replenished more than once.

Eventually Helga looked out over her hall, where thralls were now preparing the tables for the household’s next meal, and sighed. “My husband traveled for many years, far away both east and west in viking, before we married. He too told me many tales of the places he’d seen. I longed to see those places, Kiev and Dublin and Miklagard – but we never traveled further together than to the fair at Brännö, once.” She frowned, her eyes going distant for a moment. “He traveled for long spells to Novgorod twice after we married, too – leaving the rule of the farm and all his properties to me the while.”

Looking up with a slightly twisted smile, she was firmly back in the here and now. “But that proves unexpectedly useful, since I am a widow now and have to fend for myself and to manage my properties and those of my daughter on my own. I am glad of the experience I’ve had in handling my own affairs.” She shook her head. “To think, after all his travels and raids, it was his fate to be killed facing enemies on his own farm’s threshold! I miss him. It gets lonely, being on my own.”

Ketil did not miss this obvious invitation to get to the point of their visit. “Not for long should you have to sit lonely and husbandless, Helga,” he said, and nodded to Einnis, then nudged his leg under the table when his brother remained silent.

Einnis appeared to be coming out of a trance, quickly collected himself, and launched into the agreed-upon proposal of marriage. Helga sat with demurely lowered eyes while she listened to his words, but she nevertheless spoke up to ask very astute questions whenever there was a point she wanted to understand better or hear more about. Ketil several times jumped in to answer such queries himself, clearly chafing at not being able to speak directly with her at this most important juncture in his life and hers.

Einnis did as custom demanded, though, and outlined Ketil’s achievements and possessions. He praised his brother’s good qualities, and also described the clan connections in detail, including those of Arna Mjodsdottir and Torgeirr Haraldson. Helga knew Mjod and his daughters from before, and nodded in approval of Einnis’s wife-to-be, but she didn’t know Torgeirr, and wanted to know more. She seemed pleased with the responses she got, and smiled at them both. Eventually, Einnis concluded by formally asking for her hand on Ketil’s behalf.

Helga sat for a moment in silence, studying her own hands that were resting calmly in her lap, and then looked Ketil straight in the eyes, her face unreadable as she responded.

“I am most honored by this proposal, Ketil Elmarson, and I think it is suitable in many ways. But I am just a woman alone in the world, and I would hardly want to make such an important decision without first consulting closely with my kin and clan. I cannot therefore today give you my yes or my no, but I will respond in due course.”

With that she rose from the table, and they had no choice but to do the same. Ketil bit his lip and bristled, struggling to keep silent and to remain polite.

Helga followed them to the door, and gave Ketil her hand. “We will talk again,” she said evenly in goodbye and smiled at him. “We will meet at your sister’s wedding.” She took her leave of Einnis as well, and then the brothers were outside just as dusk settled over the farm, the first tentative bird song of spring rising in the air above them.

They had their horses brought and rode homewards in the deepening dusk, some distance in front of their men to ensure they could talk freely. Ketil was furious. “Consult with her kin!” he blurted. “Horsepiss! She’s waiting to for the next bidders to enter the game, that’s what! She’s hoping to see the stakes increase, is setting herself up as a prize! Here I thought we were getting on nicely, and then she sends me packing like a common, unwanted, beggarly nobody! By Thor, you’d think I was thrall-born!”

Einnis sighed. “Don’t take on so, Ketil, don’t let all that mead you had speak for you. This went as well as could possibly be expected. It’s not surprising that she needs time to think, this is one of the most important decisions she’ll be making in life!” He looked to his brother and spoke in low, soothing tones. “I could easily see that you two get on and are suited for each other, - even if she wants to wait for other offers, I’m sure that will speak in your favor in the end!”

Ketil swung at him angrily. “You could see! You could see? You seemed to be sleeping! Where were you? You sat there like you were bored out of your mind, dozing at the table, she must have thought it most insulting! Tor be thanked that you can boast of Mjod as your future father-in-law, or else you would not be of much use at all!” He snorted. “Imagine if any unflattering rumor about you had reached her ears – you know what I mean – then it would have been all over for me!”

Einnis’s eyes flared for a moment, but he shrugged and rode on, not bothering to reply. Ketil rode next to him for a while, silently fuming, and then kicked his horse into a gallop. He left Einnis and their men behind, riding home at break-neck pace.

Continued in Part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/39897.html