Scramasax (19 page)

The confrontation between Solveig and her father didn't escape the other women, of course. Drudges and camp followers alike, they noisily scorned her for being soft as eiderdown, and for failing to show the respect due to her own father.

‘She says one thing but does another,' Edla complained in her wheedling voice.

‘Exactly!' agreed Vibrog. ‘Not so long ago, she was happy enough to accept Saracen booty – that silver salt spoon Tamas gave her.'

‘Solveig's always right, and everyone else is wrong.'

‘She's her own worst enemy.'

The lioness Silkisiv stretched her golden limbs. ‘Solveig's still a child,' she said, ‘not a woman.'

‘Hang them!' That's what Harald said, and that's what Halfdan and his companions did. They hammered the gallows into shape. They erected them. They looped and lashed the three nooses and secured them. Then they dragged the two children and the old man apart from each other.

‘I'll hang them,' said Bolverk. ‘You can help me, Egil.'

‘Not so fast,' said Halfdan. ‘The hangman always gets paid for his work. We'll draw lots.'

So Halfdan and Bolverk and Egil drew lots with the other guards who had helped to build and erect the gallows – Gorm and Turgeis and Karly and Ulf.

‘Gorm!' said Halfdan. ‘Gorm's the hangman. Karly, you're his assistant.

‘Robbed!' growled Bolverk.

‘The girl first,' said Gorm. ‘Let's get her out of the way.'

So Karly lifted the little girl bodily on to the wooden platform of the gallows, and she just lay limp in his arms, as if she were dead before she was dead. When Gorm strung her up, she gazed at him with her big dark eyes and just whimpered a little.

After this, Gorm and Karly strung up the little boy, and unlike his sister he kicked and yelled.

Then the two guards hurried the old man up on to the platform. He said something, he kept saying
it, but they didn't know what it was, and they didn't care.

‘Right?' asked Karly.

‘Now!' said Gorm.

The two Vikings pulled away the wooden platform.

They hanged the old man and his two grandchildren by the necks until their tongues lolled out of their mouths.

‘Leave them there,' Harald told Halfdan. ‘As warnings. Witnesses. Leave them until they turn purple.'

Whatever Solveig did during the remainder of that day went wrong. Trying to sharpen the battleaxe of one of the guards, she sharpened her right forefinger instead. Her bright blood filled the cup of her left hand, and she trembled; late in the afternoon she began to incise a flat green stone with three stick figures – two little ones and a larger one – but the stone split in two; and when at dusk she ate for the first time that day, a sharp needle of bone stuck in her throat and made her gag.

That night the mood in the Viking encampment was sombre.

The jokes in the men's mouths were bitter; their ale tasted sour.

Only Harald, it seemed, remained in good heart, whistling as he rode right around the city walls, now and then issuing instructions, now and then proclaiming:

‘Leaders ride alone …'

‘No man favours his leader, no one forgives him …'

‘Men obey their leader. Their leader answers to the gods …'

T
he next day, Harald took steps to raise the spirits of his men and at the same time show his contempt for the Saracens.

‘We have this town by the throat,' he told Snorri and Skarp. ‘Time is our worst enemy, just as it was before, with Maniakes. Time starves a walled town, but it also exhausts the men besieging it.'

‘Yes,' said Snorri. ‘Time's a horseman. One day he gallops past, another he ambles and almost stops.'

‘Time's a sword, more like,' Skarp corrected him. ‘Unless you parry it, time's sword can wound you.'

‘Exactly,' agreed Harald. ‘Tell all my men that today is a day for games. Running, wrestling, weightlifting, leaping.'

Snorri and Skarp nodded and smiled.

‘Tell them to leave their helmets and shields and all their weapons in their tents. Have them gather at noon on the flat ground over there beyond the lemon trees, and tell them to ignore the Saracens.'

Although the Saracens could see that the Vikings were not carrying a single sword or scramasax between them, they were still suspicious. They walked to and fro along the ramparts, they watched, they waited, but the Vikings competed and shouted and brayed all afternoon, and took not the least notice of them.

The next morning, Harald Sigurdsson instructed the Varangian guards to return to the plain at noon for a second day of sport of all kinds. Not only running and wrestling and weightlifting and leaping but flag-waving, beam-balancing, stone-putting, catching and kicking bladder balls …

‘But not stallion-fighting,' Harald Sigurdsson instructed his men. ‘No kicking. No biting. We can't afford to lose a single one of our horses. They're too precious.'

The spirits of the Vikings rose and, seeing that they were still completely unarmed, the Saracens didn't bother to weigh themselves down with their scimitars and shields and spears. They paraded along the town ramparts in the sunlight, and so did pairs and small groups of veiled women, some of them holding their babies.

Then the Saracens boldly raised the town gate for the first time since the siege had begun, and several groups of black-bearded men hurried out to the little plots of eggplants and watermelons and other produce untouched by the Vikings because they were so dangerously close to the walls.

‘Ignore them!' Harald told his men. ‘Take no notice of them whatsoever.'

Unarmed Vikings, thought Solveig. Unarmed Saracens. It's as if both sides have worn themselves out. Maybe even men can grow tired of war.

At the back of her mind was something Edith had said-and-sung about a place where there was no fighting, not between humans, not between animals or birds … But what were the words? Solveig yawned. She felt so tired.

Anyhow, she thought, I'm sure this is no more than a time between times. Harald's a trickster. He's brutal. He hangs little children. What is he up to now?

On the third morning, Harald Sigurdsson invited his men to return to the plain again.

‘Leave your shields in your tents,' he instructed them, ‘but wear your helmets under your hats. Strap on your swords and scramasaxes under your cloaks.'

Seeing none of this but only that the Vikings had once again left their shields in their tents, the Saracens raised the great iron gate for a second time, and a few of them hastened to plots well away from the safety of the walls to see whether they could salvage anything from them.

Once more, the Vikings ignored them. But soon after the sun had reached the crown of the sky, and was glaring down at Vikings and Saracens alike with her cruel, blinding eye, Harald Sigurdsson summoned Snorri and Skarp and Halfdan.

‘Now,' he said. He pursed his chapped lips and sucked his cheeks. ‘Wrap your cloaks around your left arms. Round and round.'

‘Our cloaks?' exclaimed Skarp.

‘Instead of shields,' Harald told him. His voice was iron hard. ‘Tell all our men to do the same.'

‘But, Harald …' Snorri began.

‘Here and now!' snapped Harald. ‘We'll butcher them! Slit their bellies! Men, women, children. Each and every one. No mercy! None!'

As soon as Tamas heard the instructions, he came bounding over to Solveig, who was standing alone outside the women's encampment.

‘We're going in!' he announced. His eyes were shining.

Solveig screwed up her eyes.

‘Yes!' Tamas exclaimed. ‘Are you coming too? My cloak, Solveig. Shall I cut it in two?'

Solveig shook her head so fiercely that her one plait whipped from side to side. ‘You're worse … worse than my father.'

At this moment, Halfdan limped up to them. ‘This'll lift your spirits, girl,' he announced. ‘We're going in.'

Tamas threw both his arms round Solveig and squeezed her tightly.

‘You drink blood,' she said miserably.

‘Now,' said Halfdan, ‘don't you go a step nearer the walls than this. Solva, my Solva! There'll be booty for us all.'

Then both men turned away, her limping father, her tousled admirer. Solveig's eyes filled with tears and she trembled.

Already, the first group of Vikings was running towards the town gate, and they reached it before the Saracens could lower it. Hundreds more followed them, and Harald, Snorri and Skarp brought up the rear.

But the Varangian guard who was bearing Land Ravager was struck by an arrow – first it pierced the standard, then the man's ribcage. It felled him.

‘See that?' barked Harald. He turned to Skarp. ‘Your turn, Skarp! You carry it.'

Skarp rounded on his leader. ‘Me?' he retorted. ‘When you're leading from the rear?'

Harald Sigurdsson bared his teeth.

‘I'm not bearing your banner for you,' shouted Skarp. ‘You're a mouse of a man!'

Harald opened his mouth and, like a midnight hound, he bayed.

‘Harald, you coward!' yelled Skarp. ‘Trolls can carry your banner for all I care!'

Then Harald broke into a run. He ran towards the gates of the town, waving his sword and roaring.

Still rooted to the place where her father and Tamas had left her, Solveig shook. As the Vikings charged into the town, bawling and howling, she was blinded by her own tears. Her fear, her pity, her sorrow.

And then, all at once, as if everything blurred had become clear again, quite clear, Solveig hurried back to the tent she shared with Vibrog and Edla. Without looking at either of them, and without saying a word, she picked up her bag of bones and carving tools and swung it over her right shoulder.

‘Going home, are you?'

‘Good riddance!'

‘You sniveller!'

Deaf to their spiteful words, Solveig turned away.

She tried to steady her jerky breath.

She raised her eyes to the waiting, wild hills.

S
he had to get away. She had to distance herself from everyone. Everything. She didn't know where she was going, and to begin with, she didn't care.

Her head was hammering, and her heart … it felt as if someone had carved into her chest and was dragging it out.

Several times Solveig cried out, but only the circling birds of battle heard her. The ravens. The buzzards.

Solveig hugged herself. Not since that day, she thought. I haven't felt like this since the day my father left me. Now, he's left me again. He's different; he's not the same.

Where can I go?

At home, I'd go up into the hills. Away. That's what I'll do.

I'll find food, I'll find something. Some stream, some dewpond. Some peace.

Solveig followed a string-thin path away from the walled town, and not until she stood high on the scorched hillside did she begin to think of the dangers. Not just hunger and thirst, but hungry beasts, wolves, wild boar maybe, those and beasts of men as well. Bandits, body-snatchers, murderers.

But I'm fifteen, she thought. Fifteen summers. I know I can't speak Saracen, but I've learned to look after
myself. I've crossed the mountains from Trondheim to Sigtuna, and sailed to Ladoga and Kiev, and survived the cataracts …

‘Every day's a cataract!' That's what Red Ottar said. ‘Difficulties, dangers, choices …'

Solveig climbed right out of the valley until she could see back over the besieged town to the hills beyond it, and the hills beyond them, all of them as bare and blotchy and unwelcoming as the hillside she was standing on.

Yes, I can look after myself, she thought. I can.

Solveig didn't know where she was going, only that she was getting away, and she didn't know she would meet not a single person nor see one sign of human habitation during the remainder of that day. She didn't know she would find nothing to eat, nothing to drink, and would have to sleep under the stars.