Valhalla's Champions: A Viking Tale

funny update, great work

Chapter 2: Journeys, Part I

". . . . and so Garm the Bronzesmith took his children, and his children's children, and their cattle and their households, and they boarded a boat and sailed to the south across the wide, wide oceans." The old man leaned on his walking stick and made motions of a boat on the waves with his free hand. His eyes grew wide and he leaned in closer to the half-ring of children seated at his feet in the small plaza. "The winds came from the north and blew and blew, and threatened to tip the boat!" A gasp went up from the rapt children as the boat-hand tipped precariously this way and that. "But Garm and his children held fast to the . . ."

"And his children's children," said a small boy.

"Yes, and his children's children . . ." continued the old man.

"And their cattle," piped another.

The old man fixed them all with an icy glare. "Cattle can't hold fast to anything. They haven't got a thing to hold with. And quiet, you rascals." He took a deep breath, popped his eyes wide and launched back into the tale. "Garm and his children, and his children's children held fast to the ship, and the brave men sailed it with skill and courage and cunning and soon found themselves in sight of the shore." Some of the children let out their breath as their heroes made it to safety. The old man glanced up to see an adult at the back of the crowd eyeing him. The man drew a quick circle in the air with his hand, and the storyteller nodded slightly.

"But that is all the time we have for today, my precious little ones," the old man said. He was greeted by general moaning and wailing and gnashing of tiny teeth, but he held firm against the torrent of abuse from the toddlers.

"But what about our city, Hrafvin?" one of the older children asked.

"Ah, the tale of the Haithabu's founding will have to wait for another time, little one. For now, I must go and you must run and play. Your mothers will be wondering why it has been so quiet!" The children reluctantly got to their feet - some assisted by judicious pokings from Hrafvin's staff - but were soon squealing, screaming, and generally terrorizing the streets of Haithabu as children are wont to do. Once they were scattered, Hrafvin walked over to the other man.

"Hail and well met, Bjarni."

"Well met, Hrafvin." Bjarni turned to the young man at his side, a child of no more than thirteen summers. "This is Hrafvin the Wise, Geirmundr. Greet him."

"Well met," mumbled the boy. He was carrying a half-eaten apple that he seemed to have forgotten in the presence of the famous storyteller and traveler.

"Geirmundr, eh? 'Spear of safety,' a good name. Let us hope your father named you aptly." Hrafvin turned back to Bjorn and raised one eyebrow. "That is why I'm needed, is it not? Safety?"

Bjarni nodded. His father had certainly named him aptly, for he was definitely a bear. Hrafvin, though stooped, was not a short man, but Bjarni towered above him by at least a head's height. Bjarni had braided his long brown beard in the new forked style and the two forks reached down to his folded arms. There they disappeared into a mass of arm hair so thick that it could be called a pelt. Most of his face was covered with hair in some way or another from his bushy dark hair to his enormous eyebrows topping the rocky crag of his forehead and the full beard that completely covered his cheeks.

"There are more coming, and the Council has requested words from you," Bjorn rumbled.

"Another tribe?" Hrafvin asked.

"Not a tribe - no women or children. More likely a war party, but it seems made up of a few tribes."

Hrafvin picked at something between his teeth with his index finger. "Not in my memory have the Easterners hated us more than each other." Hrafvin sighed. "Things like this used to be civilized. A party of raiders would attack us to show off for the other Eastern tribes, but no one really thought they'd defeat us."

"Why don't they just leave us alone?" Geirmundr asked, staring up between the two tall men. Bjarni gave a look to Hrafvin that was usually only given in the presence of the infirm and addle-brained and Hrafvin was hard-pressed not to laugh out loud. He knew that Geirmundr had been something of a disappointment so far - Bjarni has settled down later in life than some others and when he did, he found a wife that was to his own scale. He'd married a woman from a small village southeast of Nidaros who had a reputation for winning her local wrestling tournaments against the men of the village and everyone who knew them expected them to produce a race of giants. So far, Geirmundr seemed to be a runt, Bjarni's two daughters were plenty large but - as womenfolk - not cut out for war, and the next two sons were too young to tell.

"Use your brain, Geir," Bjarni said gruffly. He reached down and plucked the half apple from his son's hand then tossed it into his massive maw in one gulp.

"I wasn't finished with that!" Geirmundr said with dismay.

"You had it, he wanted it, young one," Hrafvin said. "And that is the same reason they won't leave us alone. A well-delivered object lesson, Bjarni."

"Fank u," muttered the big man around the apple. He crunched it into pieces, swallowed, then licked a few stray crumbs from his beard. "Now run along home, Geir. I have to take Hrafvin to the Council." Geirmundr glared up at his father, but knew better than to talk back so soon after being chastised. "Yes, I know I promised to take you to the next meeting, but that was when we were going to be talking about digging a new well and keeping cattle out of the town square, not discussing war plans." Geirmundr was not assuaged. "When you're older, Geir. Now run along. Don’t embarrass me in front of Hrafvin the Wise with your disrespect. Run along." The boy mumbled 'well met, Hrafvin,' nodded to his father, and ran off toward his neighborhood.

The two set off from the smaller Butcher's plaza toward the central square and Haithabu's meeting lodge. "I worry about that one, Hrafvin."

"He'll grow," answered the old traveler, walking stiffly with his stick.

"Oh, I know he'll grow some, and that's not what worries me. Certainly I'd hope for him to be large, but he's not too bright, either."

"That can grow as well," Hrafvin answered. "You've had the benefit of years on the battlefield to sharpen your wits. Nothing focuses your mind like someone trying to kill you, eh?"

"And I had the best teacher in Nidaros, Hrafvin."

"I wasn't the best. Only the best your father could afford," Hrafvin responded.

Bjarni rumbled a polite laugh, for his father had been able to afford whatever he'd wanted."He's not big enough to fight yet, not in earnest. And we're not in Nidaros. I enjoy life here; there's nowhere else I'd rather live. The fights all come to me, and even when I have to travel it's for weeks at a time, not months or years as I did before I left Nidaros. But Haithabu is a small settlement. It doesn't boast much in the way of learning. People here don’t seem to care, and when I try to care, they dismiss me as just a warrior. No one believes I can think as well as fight."

Hrafvin joked, "Well, I'm not sure if you can do either anymore, you big oaf, since all I've heard from you in the past few days is whining and moaning."

Bjarni sighed. "I know, I know. You jest in truth. A good fight will do me well. Get the old blood flowing - theirs, I hope, not mine. But I do worry, Hrafvin. He's my son and my future, and I want the best for him. Will you do something for me?" He stopped and looked at the old traveler. "Take him with you? When you leave? I want him to see the other settlements: the meeting hall in Nidaros, the bronzesmiths of Uppsala, sail the oceans, maybe even go to Amsterdam."

"Heh, I don't know if I'll last all that long, Bjarni. If he was to see the world, he should have come along in my younger days."

"There's no one wiser than you, Hrafvin. You've earned your second name. Help my son earn his. You'll need someone to help you soon, and you know it. He's an attentive boy, and you can mold him into something that both of us can be proud of. I've done what I can for him. Help me finish what I started."

Hrafvin stared into the great bushy face of his student and friend. He shook his head in resignation, then grunted. "Fine. Now, get me to this meeting. I'm only a guest here, after all, and if they take offense I'll blame you before taking credit myself. So hop to it, youngster! I've a few things left to teach you as well . . ."

Chapter 2: Journeys, Part II

Inside the meeting hall that air was warm and still. The rough lumber walls and roof had no spaces for windows, so once the large door was shut the only light was from four torches, two on either end wall. Seven men sat round the table, and an eighth seat at one end the table was empty. A stool was drawn up nearby.

"Hail and well met, Hrafvin," said the man from the head of the table. "Thank you for joining us at this council. Your words will be useful."

"Well met, Westrim the Brave. I hope that my meager wisdom can aid you." Bjarni moved to the end of the table, opposite Westrim, and placed himself in a large chair he'd built himself. There was some grumbling as he smiled and kicked the other council-members' feet out of the way so that he could stretch his legs out beneath the table, all the way to the center.

"There is a warband approaching, as I am sure all have heard. They are from the Eastern tribes, and the scouts tell us they seem to be Kalls and Vandals, mainly. And we have heard reports of another warband coming from the south." There was a mutter of apprehension around the small table at this, but no one seemed terribly surprised. There was plenty of lawless land not only east of Nidaros and Hiathabu, but also in the plains and jungles between them and the burgs of the Dutch merchants. "We must decide what to do."

"Rally the men. Bring in the fathers and their sons, and we will go to meet them in the field," said one, an old white-bearded man who had settled on the plains years ago, only to be followed by the hordes from Nidaros that turned Haithabu into a realy settlement.

"Think first, old fool," Bjarni rumbled. "Go meet who in the field? Which warband? Which field? We could leave, but then the other warband will no doubt catch wind of it and come and raid our city with our women and children undefended."

"We could send for aid? Perhaps the men from Nidaros are spoiling for a fight," suggested another.

"They always spoil for a fight, but unless they're already out on the hunt, they won't be here in time," answered Westrim.

"They should be the ones here fighting this battle. It is there fault. If they weren't always running of into the wild to steal more women for their beds and men for their work-gangs, the Easterners wouldn't be here. We don't have any slaves, why should they attack us?"

"We're all the same to them," Westrim answered testily. "You know this. Nidarans, Uppsalans, us; we all live in wooden homes instead of skin tents, and we have weapons and roads and they have none. We're all the same."

"So the Nidarans take slaves, the slaves' fathers and brothers get angry, and they attack us . . ." growled another man.

"The ways of world are wonderful, no?" Bjarni chuckled. "But what do we do about them? Hrafvim, care to live up to your name?"

"Nothing," Hrafvin said from his stool outside the circle. They turned to look at him. "We do nothing."

"That's not really doing anything, you realize," Westrim said.

"Which is precisely what I council we should do. Not anything." Hrafvin stood and began slowly pacing a circle around the table, causing the councillors to follow him with their eyes. "Nothing. The men here are great warriors, even if there are not many of them. Bjarni, here, and Westrim, and Guthmund and Alfrim and all of you, you are all great warriors. Who are these but some rabble of forest-dwellers wearing skins and weilding sticks? Every man in Haithabu has a blade and a bow. And did you not just receive a load of bronze from Uppsala in return for grain? Use it for axes instead of plows, and give your smiths time to outfit you for war."

"You speak of war, wise-man? This is just a rabble of tribesmen, as you said yourself," Westrim pointed out.

"War is always the way of it, and will come soon enough. Whether it is more of these or the Dutch or another, it always comes. And sharp axes never go out of style . . ." Hrafvin said. "We may even find that the iron we pull from the grasslands to the west is good for something besides plates and cups, once we learn what to do with it. Just send out riders to warn travelers to stay off the roads for a few weeks until everything plays out as it should."

"So we wait?" asked Westrim again.

"Wait. And they will come to you. And you will be all the more prepared for it . . ."

******

"You're sure this hill ends?" Hrafvin asked testily. He was having difficulty picking his way around the loose scree in the lee of the ridgeline, and Geirmundr's agile movements only served to underscore his own frailty. "Children these days. No respect for their elders." He paused a moment. "Of course, I don't know if they ever had any."

"Right up here. I can see them!" Geirmundr exclaimed. He was standing on the ridge with the sun at his back, staring down at the grasslands below.

A few minutes later Hrafvin pulled himself up to the ridgeline and ignored the view, looking instead for a nearby rock. Once he was safely situated and his beating heart had stilled, he took a moment to peer down.

The Haithabans were arrayed in a loose line, three men deep, to the west. They were outnumbered three-to-one at least by the look of the encampment to the east of them, toward the sea. After the warband from the south abandoned the cause in search of other pastures, the Kalls and Vandals and Goths and whoever else made up the pile of warriors had dithered and dallied, moving first this way and then that, finally skirting around Haithabu and finding themselves on the grasslands to the west. The few miners who were digging strips out of the land in search of iron had abandoned them long since and returned home to ready themselves for war.

"And can you see your father?" Hrafvin asked. His eyes were still sharp and he could clearly make out Bjarni's huge form, but Hrafvim was still sizing up the son and wanted to know his skills and abilities.

"Heh. I could probably count his whiskers from here. He's the big one in the center, of course, wearing the helmet with cheekguards that meet at the nose. It makes him look funny, with just those holes to peer out of." As they watched, Bjarni cast off his long cloak that he'd been wearing against the morning chill and showed his bronze breastplate, polished to a bright sheen. Other men near him were doing the same and exposing bronze armor and helmets, as well as stretching and jogging, all generally preparing themselves for the battle to come. The tribesmen were still groggy. While some were bothering to roll up their beds and pack their camp, most ignored the daily ritual. After all, if they weren't dead at the end of the day they could deal with it then.

"So what will happen?" Hrafvin asked casually.

"How should I know? I'm not . . . ow!" Hrafvin's staff cracked down on top of Geirmundr's head.

"You should know because you have something between your ears." Geirmundr glowered at the old man and rubbed his head. "Your father has tasked me with making sure it's used for something besides just stopping rocks when they're thrown at it. Now use it, and tell me what will happen."

Geirmundr turned his sullen gaze out to the battlefield where the lines of the tribesmen were just forming up. They were in a mass five or six men deep, and still stretched out beyond the flanks of the line of Haithabans. "They're just a mindless rabble of tribesmen, so they will . . ." this time Geirmundr saw the blow coming and tried to dodge it. The staff caught him squarely on the shoulder and his right arm went numb. His only response was a sharp intake of breath sucked through his teeth. He didn't want to give Hrafvin the pleasure of his crying out.

"Don't think or feel that you are smarter than your enemy. It is enough just to know that you are. Just as you need not think or feel that you are less smart than the many, many people in your life who will be smarter than you are if you keep going like this. It is enough just to know that it is so. Emotion need not enter into it."
Geirmundr set his shoulders and stared out at the battlefield for long moments. A few of the barbarian leaders were conferring about something.

"Well?" Hrafvin prompted.

"I'm still thinking," Geirmundr answered testily.

"Good. A quick wit is useless; it fastens upon the first answer that it thinks of. A slow wit considers all the possibilities. That's why I rapped your father on the head so often, to make him thick-skulled and slow-witted."

The young man stared down, ignoring the comment. "They will try to wrap around our people. There are more of them. So they will try to surround them and pin them in from three sides. Numbers are their only advantage."

"And so, what would you do to counter that?" Hrafvin asked, staff at the ready.

Geirmundr stared down. A war horn blew from the tribesmen, then another, then two more. They began shambling into a run and the few archers in the opposing line opened fire. They weren't there to do much damage, but only to force the tribesmen to run across the gap in between, to tire them out when the melee came. "Drive through the center of their line. They are no stronger there than anywhere else. If the tribesmen surrounded me, they would be on three sides, maybe four. If I could split them in two, they would be in two separate forces on two sides, and they won't have me surrounded."

"Hmm. A decent solution. Inelegant. And it relies too much on having men like your father."
"If I have a man like my father, why not use him if the situation presents itself?" Geirmundr retorted. Hrafvin only nodded, then pointed his staff down at the battlefield.

A few of the tribesmen were down - either wounded or cowardly - but it was an insignificant number. The archers dropped their bows and readied their long axes or, if they were unfit to fight in close, melted farther back and tried to disappear. The tribesmen were fifty paces away and sprinting when the line of axe-wielding warriors eased into motion, just enough to have some speed when the tribesmen hit.

The two lines collided. Here an axeman blocked the fall of the heavy club and used the haft of his weapon to crush his enemy's face, causing the man to fall to the ground. The warrior behind him would finish the man. Here a Haithaban ducked the blow entirely and planted his shoulder in the tribesman's gut, using the momentum to flip the warrior over his back and to the ground. Here, an ill-timed dodge left a man open to the thrust of a club, which disrupted his balance. Another tribesman crushed the brittle bronze helmet and the skull beneath it in one wide swing.

Bjarni thrust himself deeper into the center of the line of the warband, followed by Westrim and two other members of the Council. Bjarni wanted to be deep into the enemy line where he was comfortable, for anyone within range would be an enemy and he could swing his axe with impunity. The others followed him simply to widen the shoulder of the incursion and keep a line of retreat open. Bjarni's axe - half again as large as any ever made in Uppsala or Haithabu - fell among the tribesmen and left devestation in its wake. He was faster than any of his enemies expected because of his size, and he used that to his advantage. The tribesmen would swing their clumsy clubs with bone-snapping force only to see Bjarni step into the blow or turn it slightly to glance off shoulder or thigh. He would step in and slam the butt of the axe into their gut, or the point up through their chin, or sweep the blade through them in a clean arc.

With more men thrusting in behind Bjarni the tribesmen were soon split in two, as Geirmundr predicted. The shouts and calls of battle drifted up to the hillside along with the screams of the dying. The yells from the Vandals seemed to be getting more urgent as they realized their force was being split. A war chief, head topped by a wolf skull, yelled to the few men around him and rushed toward the gap in the line represented by Bjarni. The fight began pressing in and the axemen could no longer swing in full arcs for fear of hitting each other. With a concerted grunt, a line of five Haithabans on one side of the salient threw back their enemies enough to get in a killing stab, then stomped over them with thick leather-bound bronze boots to move the line forward. To their right, Bjarni took advantage of the space to unleash a full swing of his axe, starting behind himself and hacking down like he was angling a cut into a fallen tree. The blow landed, glancing in under the tribesman's ribcage and ending at his pelvis. Bjarni tugged his axe free, but it wouldn't come. He place a boot against the man's chest, kicking away the arms that were clutching at the axe, and pushed hard. The axe slid free, and Bjarni stumbled backward into the attack from the war chief.

The war chief bellowed as he drove his attack home, and Bjarni yelled in return as the club fell across his back and the bronze split and cut into his back. Welfrim turned and dashed toward Bjarni as he dropped to his knees. Bjarni's huge axe flashed up, cutting a tribesman's leg off at the base, but soon another three warriors rushed at Bjarni and, in their haste, piled on top of him.

As his father fell, Geirmundr leapt to his feet and began running down the hill. Hrafvin's staff whipped out and caught between his running legs. He fell in a tangle, head downhill, and Hrafvin was standing over him with the staff in his gut with surprising speed.

"What are you doing?" Geirmundr yelled.

"What are you doing?" Hrafvin asked back coolly.

"My father could be dead!"

"And if he is? I have a responsibility to see to it - as his dying wish - that I turn you into something more than you are. Doubly so now that you are the head of a family. And if he is not? Then you must obey him, which means obeying me. What would you do? Charge into battle and get yourself killed, ensuring that you leave your mother and siblings alone?" He pulled the staff from Geirmundr's stomach. "Come, we're leaving. And if you turn around to look, I'll crack your head open, you have my word." Geirmundr stared up at the old man in open shock.

Hrafvin stepped back and watched Geirmundr stand, set his back to the battle, and begin walking away. The shouts and bellows of the fight died away as the pair walked down the hill, then turned south to avoid Haithabu and walk down the dirt path leading down the coastline. Geirmundr didn't even bother to ask where they were going.

Chapter 2: Journeys, Part III

The night was inky black and pouring rain when the two travelers entered Amsterdam. They trudged unerringly through the outskirts of town and past the guard house along the main road, where tolls and taxes were assessed on the merchants' carts during the day. The night guard at the main road was too cold and dejected to do more than simply wave them through, and besides, they were only one cloaked man on his nag horse and his servant on foot. They moved deeper into town, headed for a wealthier district near the market. After finding what he was searching for the older man dismounted and rapped on the door with his walking stick.

"Hrafvin? How are you, my old friend? Soaked, through and through. Inside, inside, quickly. Tell your man the stables are around the corner."

Hrafvin turned and barked something to Geirmundr in his native language then turned back before the boy's glare could touch him. "Thank you, Jozef." The old traveler stepped inside and surrendered his sodden cloak. The inside of the house was warm and bright, with wooden half-height walls finished in framed white plaster. A fire raged against the winter's cold in a deep stone hearth at one end of the room, and a smaller cooking fire burned at the other end with a soup pot bubbling over it. The leaded glass windows were covered inside and out with storm shutters, but the wind still found ways to claw a few breaths of winter into the room. "Hendrika! Warm wine!"

"You've been busy in my absence, I see," Hrafvin said, casting an eye around the room. "There are a few new rooms out back." His eye fell on two jewel-encrusted candle-sticks in the center of the table. "And your lands to the south are still productive as ever."

Jozef waved a hand dismissively. "We still mine some baubles here and there from the jungles and sell them to the natives to the south. Merchants have come up from there; they call themselves Malinese. They have some most interesting items - here, for example." Jozef reached into a basket and pulled out a thick quilt. He placed Hrafvin before the fire in the large chair and threw the quilt over all. "This is stuffed inside with the pelt of an animal. They say, though, that they can cut it and it grows back, and the animal is none the worse for it."

"Hmm, interesting. If only men's skins were as useful, we wouldn't need clothing." The back door banged upon and was then slammed shut against the storm. Hendrika, Jozef's wife, entered bearing a tray of mulled wine and leading Geirmundr .

"Come, sit," Jozef said, surrendering his place by the fire for Geirmundr to sit. The young man sloshed to the chair and plopped himself down, then accepted the cup of warm wine.

"Tank you," muttered Geirmudr. He took off his outer shirt and hung it to dry above the fire.

"Oh, you speak Dutch?" Jozef asked solicitously.

"Mmm," Geirmundr paused, then sipped wine. "I talk Dutch . . . small."

Jozef cast a glance at Hrafvin. "He means 'he speaks a little Dutch,'" Hrafvin said slowly, as much for Geirmunr's benefit as for Jozef's. He then switched into a rapid patter too quick for Geirmundr to follow. "But he'll know more by the end. I plan on leaving him here over the winter, as I have business in your gem mines to the south."

Jozef raised a hand. "Hrafvin, you know that we are the best of friends and I owe you much . . . but I cannot take in a foreigner all winter. I have a son-in-law who'll soon be . . ."

"No no, Jozef. I don't want you to do a thing. Except turn him out of bed tomorrow morning once I'm gone and send him on his way. Unless you want him as a slave."

"Is he not your servant? And you know we don't use slaves here."

Hrafvim raised a single eyebrow. "No slaves? Who mines those gems?"

Jozef smirked at the line of reasoning. "Criminals, prisoners of war. And all are free after a term. But you didn't answer my question. Is he your servant?"

"No, no servant, a student only."

Jozef chuckled and glanced at Geirmundr, who smiled back without understanding the joke. "A student. Poor child. You always were amazingly cruel to your students."

"My last and greatest student." Jozef raised his eyebrows at the old man. "I don't have many winters left in me. If I'm not careful, this might even be my last. I won't have time to teach another after him. Do you remember Bjarni, big bear of a man?"

Jozef rolled his eyes upward as if thinking. "Bjarni . . . hmm . . . I don't remember a man by that name. I remember a walking stomach with that name, however!" Hrafvim laughed as Jozef plowed on. "Remember him? How could I forget! I had to buy three extra cows every week he was here! The butcher and the vintner sang songs of praise whenever I walked into their shops!"

Hrafvim held up a hand as he finished chuckling. "Alright, alright, point taken. He does owe you at least four stone of his weight. This one is his eldest." Jozef cast another glance at Geirmundr, who had taken to staring into the fire since he couldn’t follow the conversation. "And don't worry, as you can see, he's a runt so far. He might have lost his father a few months back. We were watching a battle and Bjarni went down in the fray under a thicket of tribesmen. I made him leave before we saw the outcome."

Jozef looked alarmed. "Your methods have become even more extreme, Hrafvin. Isn't that just unnecessarily cruel?"

"Perhaps. But this one is smart. And strong. I'll do what I can to see what I can make of him." Hrafvim turned and stretched luxuriously in the padded chair. "I thank you for your hospitality, Jozef, but my bones are tired and soaked. And before you try to get me to stand up and try one of your beds I'll tell you it won't work. I've got a chair, a blanket, and a fire, and it's better than I've had in months. So don't try move me or I'll bite."

"What should I do with this one?" Jozef asked, hooking a thumb at Geirmundr.

"Turn him out in the stable for all I care. It's where he'll be soon enough." Hrafvim turned in the chair once and settled down to sleep.

He was snoring almost instantly. Jozef smiled and took the half-empty cup of wine from Hrafvin's limp hand, then beckoned Geirmundr to follow him. He led him into the children's bedroom and shooed his eldest daughter from her bed. He made sure Geirmundr was tucked in, then checked on his three children, now all in one bed. "You might as well have one last night before you're on your own," he said softly over Geirmundr's sleeping form, then blew out the last candle and went off to bed himself.

******

The first few days were difficult for Geirmundr. It rained for a week after his arrival in Amsterdam, and after a few days at Jozef's house it became clear he could not stay. Jozef did his best to find him some work, but the whole city seemed to be in a foul mood because of the weather. He began to feel that the failure was his and rather than subject Jozef to any more humiliation, he hid from him one afternoon and spent the night in a stable. He spent the next night in a different stable and ate only a loaf of bread that he stole from a windowsill. It didn't take him long to figure out that Hrafvin had abandoned him, and that Jozef's district - the wealthiest in town - was not the place for him.

He was bedded down in a pig stall in the small space behind a tavern and what he guessed were houses on the first morning that dawned clear. He was wide awake because of the rooster that lived in the next yard over and was ready when a man came back to feed the pigs. The man carried a bucket of slop in one hand and, when he saw Geirmundr, his other hand went immediately to the knife at his belt. The boy spread his open hands wide, smiled, and said, "Give me eat, will work."

The stranger looked at him and sized him up quickly, at least determining that he wasn't a threat. He took his hand off his knife and stroked his mustache, which was the only hair on his face. The rest had been scraped clean, though his hair was long and bushy. "You from Nidaros?"

Geirmundr shook his head. "Haithabu. I Giermundr Bjarnisson ap Haithabu."

The man guffawed once. "Gods, you foreigners always pick a mouthful for your own names. Axel. So simple. You should try it. A whole lot less lip moving, too." He glanced at the boy, who was smiling and clearly had no idea what he was saying. "Alright. Feed them pigs," he pointed at the bucket and that animals a few times, "and I'll feed you."

Geirmundr spent the day feeding pigs, mucking out the stalls, and sweeping floors in the back of the tavern. On his own initiative he went to sweep the front but was struck and pushed out by the Axel, who muttered something about "foreigners in the establishment." Geirmundr was scrubbing the kitchen floors when Axel opened the tavern and started bustling about, serving wine and food, and he was soon forgotten in the bustle. He kept working and trying to keep out of the way, but soon his hunger overcame him. The previous day had been a day of worship, and he hadn't found an open shop where he could have stolen any food.

As Axel came through the door from the other room, Geirmundr planted his feet and said, "I work, give me eat." Axel looked down, hands full of empty plates, and Geirmundr's stomach chose that moment to unleash an extended rumble.

Axel laughed out loud. "Alright, you little runter. I was gonna feed ya, I just forgot." He dumped the dishes in bucket, went to the cupboard, and pulled out a loaf of thick bread, two feet of linked blood-sausage, and a small jug of wine, then placed them all in front of Geirmundr, whose eyes popped. "Now, eat that, then get to them dishes, right?" He pointed to the bucket. "Dishes."

Geirmundr wolfed the bread and two of the sausages, but had at least the wisdom to save the other three. He drank enough wine to put a warm glow in his belly, then set to the dishes. He snuck out back and bedded down in the stall again before Axel could find him and tell him to find somewhere else to sleep.

The days stretched into a week. Geirmundr ingratiated himself with Axel by staying one step ahead of requests, smiling and bobbing his head often, and generally staying out of the way. Axel never bothered to learn the shorter version of his name, opting instead to just call him Long Name and chuckle every time he did so. Giermundr bedded down in a corner of the kitchen one bitterly cold night and stayed and, when Axel didn't comment on it, stayed in the same corner every night after. In the mornings Axel would wordlessly prod him awake with his foot and hand him a broom and a rag.

The weeks stretched into a month. Geirmundr slowly worked his way into the front room, first by coming in to sweep at the end of the night when the lamps burned low and only the most skilled drunks were lolling in the tavern, and then by cleaning in the early afternoon, just before and sometimes during when Axel opened up shop. He worked slowly to stretch these periods, finding tasks in the tavern to stay later and enter earlier. He stretched his ears and listened to the rough language of these rough Dutchmen and watched how they interacted with each other and with Axel. He made up his own names for them before he knew their real ones, and sometimes after. Big Nose, Red Face, Rich Man's Son, Wifeless One, Sad Eyes. When the tavern got busy and men were yelling for wine and food he would bring their orders before Axel had a chance to and soon none found him out of place, though the ruder or richer Dutchmen would still abuse him and laugh about it.

The months stretched into a season. He saw the rocks changing hands; tiny, colored pieces of seemingly glass or dirt at first, until he realized them for what they were. The gems that everyone always spoke of. The solid fire that lit Amsterdam's markets and caused them to burn so brightly. The poor, rough men who frequented the tavern never had access to large gems, nor to cut ones. It was nearly a month and a half before he saw a cut gemstone, a large ruby hanging around the neck of Rich Man's Son. Sometimes the kinder men would give Geirmundr a small stone - uncut, usally no bigger than a pebble - if he tended to them all night and made sure their wine cups never went empty and their sorrows never surfaced. Other times he would help a fully inebriated tavern-goer out to his horse and would slip a few pebbles from his pouch as payment, always careful to leave the one-way transaction unnoticed.

Winter stretched into spring and the rains stopped. It did not snow this far south near the jungle and Geirmundr found he didn't like it. He preferred the snow, the blanket of white over the land instead of incessant rain and mud and clinging wet. He began to expect Hrafvin's return along with the return of the better weather, and one day he found an excuse to leave the tavern on an errand and head to the market. On the way back, he stopped by Jozef's house. The gem merchant was amazed to see him and even more amazed to hear his Dutch, which was now passable and almost accentless, though a bit rough around the edges for the wealthier crowd. Geirmundr left word for Hrafvin where to find him and then left quickly so as to avoid Jozef's insistence that he should stay and at least eat a meal. He'd fended for himself for months on end. He wanted to keep his record intact.

Hrafvin arrived five days later, in the middle of the day when the tavern was just opening. Only a few of the more committed drunkards were there - Red Face and Big Nose and Sad Eyes - and they didn't even bother to look up when the white-bearded Nidaran came through the door. Axel was behind the bar, dunking clay jugs in water and rinsing them in preparation for the day's rush. It was a cold day - for spring, anyway - and he was also stoking a small fire to warm mulled wine for the night crowd.

"Can I help you, whitebeard?" he asked. The term he added was ambiguous and innocuous, but usually meant respect for the elderly.

Hrafvin glanced around the bar. He seemed to pull it all in at once, the way Red Face would gulp a mug of wine at once and then wait an hour before a refill. "I'm looking for a little runt of a Nidaran. About this high. I heard he was here."

Axel's eyes narrowed and he set the mug he was washing on the counter, then placed his palms there as well. "Now look, I don't want no trouble. I didn't steal the boy, he just showed up sleeping with the pigs one night, and he was cold, so I kept . . ." Axel's mouth coasted to a stop as Hrafvin hoisted a purse - larger than most - and laid it on the counter with a heavy thud.

"You misunderstand me, my good man," Hrafvin said as he pulled open the drawstrings. "He wasn't mine to keep, so I don't mind if he ended up here. He is a student of mine, you see, and I was trying to teach him a lesson." Hrafvin peered into the purse and drew out two stones. Both were the size of a grown man's thumb, one a deep blue, the other a light, almost clear green. They were cut, and very well, too. "Since I'm sure he was a useless little thing, I offer you these as compensation for putting him up all winter." He laid the two stones between Axel's hands. "He probably ate his weight in soup and sausage."

"Useless? No, he was actually rather . . ." Axel wisely stopped speaking as Hrafvin rattled his bag yet again, digging through with one hand.

"Where were . . ? Ah, here they are." Hrafvin pulled out another pair of stones, roughly the same size or a bit smaller than the first two. "And because I was his teacher and I used you to help teach him for about two months, I offer these as payment for your services." He set the two stones next to the first two. A full palette of blue, red, green, and yellow-gold.

Axel blew his breath out between his lips. He stared down at the stones. He glanced around the bar to see if any of his regular patrons were noticing the incredible happenings, but anyone already drunk in a tavern at midday was likely not to notice the end of the world, let alone a little thing like a random Nidaran coming into his bar and throwing around riches on behalf of a servant-boy.

"I can't say as I should accept these, whitebeard," he said, with obvious difficulty. "I didn't do nothing but give him some bread and sausages for his meals and a place to sleep. He's only been in a corner of the kitchen these last two months, as I don't have no other bed and probably never will. I didn't teach him anything."

"Sure you did, Axel," Geirmundr said from the doorway to the kitchen. He stood with a small walking stick and a cloth bag tied to that propped by his side. A half-length woolen cloak was over his shoulders and he appeared ready for a journey.

Axel turned to look at him, incredulous. "You speak Dutch, Long Name?"

"Well, I does now. Mostly. Not quite perfect." He had a light accent but it quickly became a mere detail of his speech. "But I wouldn't talk to my Mum the way you's talk 'round here . . ." he added.

Axel once again looked at Hrafvin, Geirmundr, and then at the room for moral support. None was forthcoming. "I . . ." He closed his mouth. "Umm . . ." He pushed two of the stones - the two smaller ones, he was not a perfect man - toward Geirmundr. "I didn't earn these. At least, not these two. You did your work for what I gave you, a roof and food and all."

Geirmundr looked at the stones for a moment, then hopped onto a bar stool. He pointedly ignored Hrafvin, who was watching every action with open curiosity and a mild amusement. "Tell you what, a swap. You'll never make change with that rock. Someone would have to buy three casks of wine. Give me the big yellow one, and I'll give you these." He dumped out a small purse with thirty or forty small, uncut gems. The biggest was the size of a tooth, while the smallest was no bigger than the fat end of the big needles the tailors used to stitch clothing down near Market Row.

Axel drew back suspiciously. "Look, I like you Long Name, but if you've been stealing from my customers . . ."

Geirmundr shook his head and sent his unkempt hair flying. "No no. Some regulars gives me money when I kept their glasses full. Sad Eyes over there gives me - gave me - a little yellow one every day-after-worship-day for the past month. He says I'm like his son he lost last winter."

"Sad Eyes?" Axel asked.

"Holge. That one." He pointed. "That's what I call him. And sometimes when I drag Klark out to his horse, I have him give me a little tip, too, since I knew I'd earned it."

"Ha! Klark deserves it. His father's rich. He only comes here to remind himself he's rich, too."

"I know," Geirmundr answered. "I call him Rich-Man's-Son. I'd never steal from Sad Eyes or one of them, they don't have enough."

Axel blew another breath out, then pushed the large yellow rock toward Geirmundr and swept the pile of smaller ones into a drawer.

"Ready to go?" Hrafvin asked. Geirmundr looked at him for the first time since he'd entered the room.

"Do you still have a horse?" Geirmundr asked. Hrafvin nodded. Geirmundr hopped off his stool, trotted over to Sad Eyes, and sat in front of him. "Holge." The man's eyes slowly swam together and focused on the boy in front of him. "Holge, can I buy your horse?" Sad Eyes looked quizzically at the boy. He clearly recognized him but seemed to be having trouble convincing himself that he did. "Holge, I'm giving you this for your horse that's outside." He placed the yellow stone in the man's palm. "Go home and buy some cattle. I know your bull died this winter. Get a new one for breeding. Yes?" The drunkard nodded slowly, staring at the stone in his palm. Geirmundr patted his hand twice and walked back. "Axel, please remind him that I took his horse, yes? And make sure he holds onto that rock. Thank you." Geirmundr turned back to Hrafvin. "I'm ready now. Well met, Axel. Thank you." He picked up his stick-and-bag and walked out, followed by Hrafvin. Axel looked one last time after him, then back at the rocks, then shook his head and went back to washing wine jugs.

"Why did he call you Long Name?" Hrafvin asked as he unhitched his horse. He asked in Dutch.

"When we first met, I told him my name was Geirmundr Bjarnisson ap Haithabu," Geirmundr answered in his own language. "I thought it would make me more impressive." Hrafvin waited for him to speak more, while Geirmundr thought back to how Axel had found him, and what he must have looked like. Probably not much different than he looked right now. "It didn't."

"You speak Dutch well," Hrafvin said, still in Dutch. "Care to practice?"

"I speak Dutch with Dutchmen. With my own, I speak my own language."

"Fair enough," Hrafvin answered. They rode on in silence and, like their first journey together, Geirmundr didn't both to ask where they were going. "You knew I was coming?"

Geirmundr thought for a long time. "You didn't drag me away from my maybe-dead father to give me an education then abandon me in Amsterdam." Geirmundr glanced sideways at the old man's staff as he realized he'd been imprecise in his language. "Rather, you didn't drag me away to pointlessly leave me in Amsterdam. So it must have been part of my education. And I guessed that about when I started feeling comfortable where I was, that would be the time you'd come and take me somewhere new. So I made it easy on you. I left word with Jozef five days before you came."

"So what did you learn from being abandoned in Amsterdam then, Geirmundr Bjarnisson ap Haithabu?" Giermundr couldn't help feeling a sharp stab of longing at hearing his father and his home in the same sentence, prononunced correctly by a native countryman. He couldn't help feeling it, but he could ignore it.

"Survival." They rode along for a bit more, then Geirmundr dismounted to walk Sad Eyes' old nag. If she was to last, he would have to treat her well. "I'm from Haithabu, which isn't a big town. It's small, and in the wild. So I know how to survive in the wild. I skinned a fox for its coat after we'd been traveling two days, so it was clear I knew how to live in the lands." He glanced up to see if he was on the right track, but Hrafvin wasn't looking at him. "So you left me in Amsterdam. And I've never been to Nidaros, but I'd be willing to bet that Amsterdam is bigger than Nidaros, and less . . . . not less wild, but less wilderness. So you wanted to see if I could survive in the wilderness of men as easily as I survive in the wilderness of the land." Hrafvin still wasn't looking down.

Geirmundr walked along in silence for a few long moments, but then curiosity finally overcame him. He hated himself for doing it, but he was still a young man of fourteen winters, and he needed validation. "Is that right? Is that what you wanted me to learn?"

"Seems like a good enough lesson to me," Hrafvin answered. He glanced down at the boy, then had a moment of weakness of his own. "Lang Naame," he said, using the Dutch name but now speaking the same language as the boy, "I don't have a single thing in mind that I want you to be. I'm not trying to make you into anything. I'm trying to make you into whatever it is in your nature to be, and to make you the best whatever-that-is that I can. I left you in Amsterdam because it would be difficult for you and because it would force you to learn something. And you have learned something. Which was the point. Whatever you learned is yours to keep, and I cannot and would not change that for anything." A pause. "And you did well."

They trudged along for three hand-breadths of the sun before either of them spoke. Geirmundr realized that Hrafvin had let down his guard slightly, and he decided to do the same. "Fine. I'll ask. Where are we going?"

Hrafvin turned and cracked a huge smile. "The gem mines, my boy." He heaved a faint sigh. "And then Uppsala."

Again a nice update, love the story!
I will now wait patiently for the next update.

Thanks.

Wow, wait patiently? Such polite readership. Either that or the tale's just not riveting enough . . .

Thanks for the comments. It's good to know that someone's taking an interest, at least.

Chapter 2: Journeys, Part IV

Geirmundr sat in the tavern nursing a tall mug of the honey-wine the Uppsalan's called 'mead'. He would have looked like any other surly tavern-goer, except that he was chatting up the barmaid, which was an activity most of the men avoided since they were in the tavern because of women in the first place.

"Is it true that the Dutch make their slaves go naked?" asked the girl with a giggle.

Geirmundr smiled back. He had a sparse beard the was doing its best to grow in, and the rest of an awkward frame to go with it. He had grown tremendously in the two summers since Amsterdam and was now as tall as the average Uppsalan, which was tall indeed. His bones and frame were wide but sparse, promising of bulk to come if he managed to last that long. "Well, no. Sort of." He took another gulp of mead and felt it slide down his throat. He liked it more than the wine that they served here, but that was mainly because wine reminded him of being cold and hungry and sleeping on the floor. "First, they don't have slaves. They only use criminals and tribesmen and they force them to work, but let them go once they've mined enough gems for them."

"Those aren't slaves?" the girl asked, knitting her brow.

"They don't seem to think so. And they can't pass from owner to owner. Say that a man kills another man's son. He has to go work the mines until he pays back the first man."

"But if they can put a price on the son, then they can put a price on anyone. And they force the man to pay it. How is that not a slave?"

"I don't know," Geirmundr took another gulp. "But anyway, they only make the ones working the mines go naked in the spring and summer. When it gets cold, then get a fur cloak or an outer layer, but nothing else. They don't want them to have pockets."

"Why not?"

Geirmundr was starting to feel like he was being hounded by Hrafvin's incessant questions when he was trying to test out a line of reasoning. But an infinitely stupider Hrafvin. "They don't want them to smuggle out what they're mining. Even then some do. They, uh . . ." he blushed slightly. "They swallow them. Get them later."

"Eww. Why?" Another question.

"Wouldn't you?" Geirmundr couldn't help it. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a fist-sized gem. It was a pale blue and shot though with crack and sparks like lightning. He knew a man on the southern outskirts of Amsterdam, a man whose legs had been cut for cheating a gem merchant, who could cut a jewel better than anyone.

He knew it was stupid to show it in plain sight. He could almost feel the blow that would undoubtedly land from Hrafvin's staff, somewhere on his shoulders or his head or his arms. But the old man was all the way across the room. And the girl was pretty, or pretty enough, and seemed willing. He just wanted to impress her.

He flinched at the tap on his shoulder. He realized he had half-expected the blow, even with the old man across the room. "Alright, alright. I'm coming. Go hitch the horses and I'll be out." He pocketed the gem. The tap at his shoulder came again, harder this time.

"Go away, old man. I'll be with you in a second." Geirmundr felt himself wrenched from his chair and spun around. For a moment he thought it was his father, but no, it was an equally-sized man who looked to have all the brawn and none of the brains of Bjarni.

"She's my wench, runt. And you've been yakking her up all night. So how about you give me that rock and we call it even?"

Geirmundr glanced around the bar. The big one in front of him had two friends to back him up, and at least three more seated around the bar who seemed to be acquaintances of his. Geirmundr, on the other hand, had an empty-headed barmaid and Hrafvim, who was standing in the corner with an enormous grin pasted across his cracked and weathered face.

"Bjorn, you've had too much mead. Just leave him alone."

Geirmundr's heart sank. Nothing guaranteed to get his head bashed in like the girl siding with him. He tried a new tack. "Bjorn, eh? That's my father's name. He was . . ."

"Judging by your looks, your father's probably a . . ."

Geirmundr didn't wait to hear what the big one thought about Bjarni. Instead he brought his knee up into the man's fatherhood then did his best to throw him back into the two men behind. He suceeded in getting the man to topple backward instead of forward.

"No blades no blood!" the tavern owner cried as he fished a four-foot leather-wrapped cudgel out from a cupboard and tried to heave himself over the bar. Geirmundr ducked into the grasp of one of the other two and tried to bowl him back into a table as the barmaid started screaming. The other man grabbed him around the waist to pull him off and all three tumbled into a table with two men seated at if, sprawling down in a massive pile of limbs and alcohol.

That was one down and three out temporarily by his count. He flailed and fell some sharp and bony part of himself connect with something soft and fleshy on someone else. The arms around his waist loosened. As Hrafvin always reminded him, just because two things happened at nearly the same time didn't mean they were related. He flashed a grin at the ridiculous timing of the thought as he rolled off the pile just in time to see the barman coming to settle the fight and two of the big man's friends coming to settle the score.

The barman - who didn't care who he hit as long as they stopped fighting - swnug wildly and connected with one of the two. He dropped to the floor almost instantly, followed by a few of his teeth soon after. The second took a solid swing at Geirmundr's stomach. He managed to be mostly out of the way and only caught a bit of the blow as he moved sideways and leapt onto the man's back, wrapping his arms around the man's neck. He kicked out at the barman as the cudgel came back for another swing. The barman stumbled backwards, tripped over the big man who was getting to his feet, and hit his head against the base of the bar.

The other pile was squirming apart but the two men who had been innocent bystanders were now out for blood. They went after the nearest men and it wasn't long before that group had toppled into another table and the whole bar was brawling. Everyone liked a good fight now and again, and they were all polite enough to keep the blades sheathed. Geirmundr's problems were a bit more immediate as he'd realized that he would have to let go of the man to escape, but letting go would mean the man could hit him. By the looks of the tavern he didn't have the few minutes necessary to choke him into unconsciousness.

The problem was neatly solved for him as the big man - now on his feet but not fully recovered - reached in a bear hug around both Geirmundr and the man he was choking and peeled Geirmundr's hands back. Hrafvin politely kicked the large door open and stood to one side as he saw the big man hoist his struggling student above his head. He heaved Geirmundr at the door but, probably due to the injury Geirmundr himself inflicted, missed. Geirmundr's torso hit the wall and his legs flew out the door. He slid to the ground like an awkwardly hung human hinge.

The big man started to lumber forward but was soon stopped cold. The barman ahd industriously decided to handle his biggest problem first, and as soon as he was on his feet, he had laid his cudgel along the big man's temple. The man slumped to the floor. Hrafvin poked a nearby bystander with his walknig stick. "I'll buy you a mead to drag this one out to the stables," he offered. The man shrugged and threw Geirmundr over his shoulder.

*****

"Awake?"

Geirmundr doubted he was even alive, except that it couldn't hurt this much to be dead. He opened his mouth to say something, couldn't, and tried for his eyes instead. He saw Hrafvin standing over him and blue sky above that.

"Good!" Hrafvin brought his staff down squarely on Geirmundr's skull. The pain - never inconsequential - now cascaded through his whole body and sent fire shooting up and down his skin. Even his hair hurt. Even his fingernails hurt. He couldn't even think for the few seconds it took for the pain to die down from colossal to simply excrutiating. It took him long minutes to sit up, and even then he couldn't open his eyes.

"I deserved that," he mumbled.

"For what?" Hrafvin asked. Geirmundr sensed the trap and he had never, ever in his life more wanted to avoid saying something foolish and feeling Hrafvin's staff on his skull. He focused his brain, like trying to slide a knife through the pain and pry it to one side, but it was still all very muddled. He remembered the girl, the jewel, the big man, his jewels, the fight, the cudgel, the doorway.

"For starting a stupid fight for no reason without thinking of the odds, or what I stood to gain," he mumbled again. It took him nearly a minute to work his way through the sentence.

"Hmm. Not totally complete. I would add that it was over a stupid girl and you were stupid to take out that gem, but for the moment, I'll say that you've inflicted enough pain on yourself to teach your lesson. Here, have some water."

Geirmundr reached out, eyes still closed, and accepted a skin of water. He poured a bit through his cracked lips, drank what he could, and poured more over his head. It was bracingly cold but served to still some of the pain by replacing it with numbness. He opened his eyes.

He was low against the side of a ship, facing aft. The sails were spread and catching a light wind, and the crew moved idly, obviously not near a port or anywhere else that activity was warranted. From what he could see there was no land to his right, and only a bit of green among the clouds to his left.

"We're going to Nidaros?"

"Very good! You've still got some brains left after that knock-about. Yes, you'd obviously had enough and were feeling too comfortable in Uppsala. I sold your horse, your extra cloaks, and your tools at the forge. The proceeds are in your purse. Rest up. Nidaros can take a lot out of a man." Hrafvin stared ahead for a few moments and smiled as the spray and wind blew back his hair and beard. "And you haven't got much left in you to take."