The All Father Paradox Page 4

“AHA, THE PRINCE IS AWAKE at last,” said the man. “Our apologies, young master, but we all know a boy’s will is the will of the wind. We thought it best to keep you quiet, at least until we reached the docks. I had thought a gag would suffice, but Harald here is not one for half measures.”

  He gestured to the Jötunn-of-a-man looming behind him, who evidently swore the same way other men breathed. Before Botulfr could react, the giant reached down and effortlessly hauled him up through the hatch and onto the deck, where, struggling to find his sea legs, he careened over some leather sacks and clattered down heavily among them. The man who’d plucked him from the hold was a massive barrel-chested creature a full head taller than any of his companions. A blooded warrior in his prime, with a mane of straight blond hair. A long moustache overran a short-cropped beard, and there was a knot of charms inked on his powerful forearms.

  Botulfr could see now that it was a cargo ship—a byrding. Its hull wider, deeper, and shorter than a longship, it could be sailed with smaller crews, although never with as few as four. They must have been in a breakneck hurry to put to sea so short-handed.

  The two other men sat nearby, watching. The first was clearly learned—below his piercing blue eyes and a frothy crown of golden hair, he had four large copper beads knit into his beard and half a dozen bracelets on each wrist. Symbols of the gods.

  The second man was less well groomed, weathered even, with a thick dark beard and long moustache arrayed around a nose that had been broken at least once.

  “Introductions!” said the man with the accent. “I am Olaf, and this great brute before you is my brother Harald. Over here we have Askr of Brimarborg,” he said, nodding to the man with the bracelets. “And this stale old fart is Gest.”

  Botulfr searched his captors’ faces. He was expecting a twitch of madness, a butcher’s snarl, or even the cold, dead eyes of a draugr. What he wasn’t expecting was an array of expectant smiles and toothsome grins. No one was carrying weapons, although, with Harald aboard, perhaps they didn’t need to.

  Gest reached out a hand to shake and offered a greeting.

  “Heill ok sæll, my Prince.”

  Be healthy and happy. The prince took the hand but remained tight-lipped, his silence meant as an admonishment.

  “Yes, yes, we owe you an explanation,” Gest said, accepting the implication. “And so. Where to begin? No place like the beginning, I suppose. We are all honourable men, I believe. Men of good name and character. We fought for your father in Sikiley and in Spánn against the Grikk Emperor. Sometimes against the Frakkar, too. The emperor in the East is Gregoras. You have heard, of course, of Miklagard, the Great City that the Kristins call Constantinople?”

  Askr snorted. “Brawl with a pig and you go away with his stink. That explains Harald’s stench.” Luckily, Harald wasn’t listening, being too busy urinating in a wide arc over the side of the ship.

  Olaf sat down on his thwart and tapped the oar impatiently.

  “A prince of Himinríki understands the politics and geography of the world, Gest. Man can only rule the world from the city of Constantine. I’ve heard his father say that a hundred times on campaign. What’s more, he will have seen the likeness of Gregoras on bezants. I know that is hard to imagine for a farmhand whose idea of immense wealth is a silver penny.”

  Gest belched a reply, and the company laughed to a man. Botulfr tried hard to suppress a smile himself. The mariners seemed very comfortable in their own skin. Except for Harald, he thought, who was scratching around inside the great bear pelt clasped around his shoulders. The exposition was clearing annoying him. The rest of the men were dressed in brightly coloured woolen tunics trimmed with silk. If this Gest was a farmhand, he had seen many, many years’ good harvest.

  Olaf went on.

  “What Gest is trying to say is that the Kristin emperors are rich, and they have plenty of lands to plunder. We conquer their coasts, sack their towns, bloody their armies, and burn their priests—but our raids are bee-stings to a bull. A very rich bull, with big golden testicles.”

  Askr let out a deep, frustrated sigh.

  “Have you people no sense of perspective?” He turned back to Botulfr. “We were sorry to hear of your mother’s death. These men all take their oaths seriously. They heard plenty of treacherous rumours from the ranks, heard about the empress passing and assumed the worst would happen to her young prince. They are well intentioned, even if the ‘rescue’ didn’t go quite as planned.”

  He looked back at the other men, with mock accusation in his eyes.

  Olaf smiled broadly.

  “I excuse myself of any impropriety by claiming insobriety instead. It is well known that birds of recklessness flutter o’er ale feasts.”

  “You oaf,” bellowed Harald. “You weren’t supposed to drink the ale.”

  The big man had decided enough was enough and began roaring his impatience at the sky again. Olaf and Gest glanced at each other, grabbed oars and started prodding the great bear. Askr, meanwhile, hurried over to the prince and muttered an embarrassed apology.

  “They are sworn swords; we can’t expect them to be articulate. Or attentive, it would appear. As odd as all this seems, we do have a plan, my Prince. There are no better men in your father’s hird and we can trust them with our lives.”

  THE BYRDING HAD SIX DAYS sailing ahead, across the Eystra Salt, and along the coast to Aldeigjuborg, a lowland village that that had been transformed into a major port by trade from the east. In Uppsala, envious merchants would mutter that it overflowed with dirhams and complain that their Rus rivals had both veins of silver and hearts of bronze. The reality was more prosaic. Aldeigjuborg, like all the towns of Garðariki, was a walled fort, linked by ships plying the Olkoga River at the edge of the empire. Where there was wealth, there was danger. Botulfr hadn’t travelled much—no further than his father’s broken promises had allowed—and ached with excitement. Nevertheless, he tried to feign an indifference to the men on board. It seemed more princely.

  Botulfr had plenty of time to learn about the crew—his crew, it seemed. Olaf looked to Botulfr to be the oldest of the group, old enough to have a family of his own, although not as tired as his father. He was a Norse-Gael, an Austman, born in Dyfflin to the west, and he wore the red shaggy cloak of the Imperial Guard with style and swagger. When he spoke, which was often, he was always several octaves above the other warriors. Words tumbled from him either in rapid, excited bursts or forlorn, wistful sighs. At first, Botulfr struggled to understand him, and Olaf would have to patiently repeat himself. Askr had explained that, as the Saxar, Vindr, and Englar came under the Norse yoke, their tongues were twisted together by the waves of invasion, creating a rough pidgin that could be broadly understood across the empire. Two hundred years of dynastic marriage and bloody battle—recounted at length in the sagas—cemented the common tongue further. Askr was happy to borrow words from any source, as long as it added to the beauty of his stories, he said.

  In fact, poetic license proved to be the whole basis for the “rescue” and the impromptu journey east. When pressed for answers, Askr would wave the prince away and tell him that all would be revealed in time. Not that Botulfr cared any for explanations. He was revelling in the freedom and had no intention of returning home. Besides, there was nothing to return home to. His questions seemed petty given that the guardsmen were clearly trying to put distance between them and Uppsala as quickly as possible, despite being short-handed.

  Big Harald was the son of a wealthy war-chief in the Uplands who had either married Olaf’s mother, carried her away in a raid, or both. He boasted that he was known as the Ravaging Tide, claiming it was because he beached his longship and stormed a Frakkar castle single-handedly. His elder sibling countered that it was because he pissed over the side of the boat twenty times a day, but in fairness, they all knew Harald was the only reason the byrding made it anywhere. He did the work of ten men. He argued like ten men, too, and never spoke when he could swear instead—
and always swore when he heard Olaf talk for more than five minutes.

  Gest was thankfully much quieter, a Dane and one-time candleman to Olaf before joining the hird himself. In peacetime, these armed companions acted as the lord’s officials, forming embassies, exacting tribute, gathering taxes or acting as messengers; in war, they formed the core of his army. Together, the three men had fought the fylkir’s wars for the best part of a decade. No wonder the prince hadn’t seen them before.

  Askr was cut from a different cloth. He was a skald, a court scholar, from Brimarborg in Saxland to the south. Like the other hirdsmenn, he was tall and strong, but Askr was also clearly a devout man, who dripped with charms, arm rings, and beads. From the days when the fabled Bragi Boddason penned Ragnarsdrápa, every king and chieftain had commanded skalds to record their feats and ensure their legacy lived on. The skalds had been the first to record the sagas on parchment, to bind them in books and to carry them across the lands of the empire. Over time, they had become clerical workers too, recording laws and happenings of the government, some even being elected to the regional Things, while others worked in temples, recording the lives and miracles of the godsmen.

  In the case of Prince Botulfr, the skalds could trace ten generations at least, in a direct line to Ragnar, the first ruler to boast the title fylkir. It was a long list, meticulously recorded. The Norse had always had a rich oral tradition, with a thousand years of sagas honouring mighty heroes and their deeds. The names Ivar Vidfamne, Harald Wartooth, and Sigurd Hring were known to every Norse child—but to Botulfr, they took on an extra significance. They were his ancestors and his guides. Long dead kings were not just an inspiration or a page in a historical saga, but names he could invoke for every aspect of daily life: a successful day’s fishing, a prayer for rain, a swift recovery from illness.

  Their spirits had watched over him since he was born. He had fond memories of his early childhood, every feast full of tales. His favourite feast had been Ostara, when the rime and hoar frost began to drip away. He would decorate an egg with oils, ochre, and lapis; this he always did for his mother, to wish her well for the months ahead. She encouraged him with warm smiles, watching him daub his masterpiece with intense pride—although he was often too intent on his work to notice—and every year, she received his gift like it was Midgard itself.

  Then he would be summoned to the great temple. His father presided over the larger feasts, rather than the goði, making them much grander occasions. The men all brought ale and began drinking at once, or often, several days before they set out from their farmsteads. Cattle and horses were slaughtered, and the blood collected. Then his father would take a blood staff and pace back and forth, dousing the altars and the temple walls in blood, both outside and inside, before he turned to his people and solemnly showered them in gore too. His father would bless the beef and horseflesh, then turn his eyes to the goblets of ale. First, Óðinn’s goblet was emptied for victory and power; then toasts were made to other gods for peace and a good season. Then the guests drained their cups to the memory of departed friends, and again, to those they were too drunk to remember.

  There were markets too, with all manner of goods from across the world: Serkland slaves, Grikk silks, Frakkar weapons, Groenland ivory. The freemen would gather for the Althing, voices raised to answer the official, the lawspeaker; they’d solve disputes and recommend new laws to be enacted and try not to trade blows as well as words. And finally, his father proclaimed the leidang, levying ships from the provinces and marshalling the fleets for that summer’s warfare. When Botulfr was too young to do more than watch from his father’s knee, the family skalds would keep him entertained, reciting whatever saga he requested.

  There were stories of the triumphs and travails of the gods across the Nine Worlds, and of course, their doom on the plain of Vígríðr. Ragnarok was long foretold as Óðinn’s last battle; the chief of the gods swallowed whole by the ravening wolf Fenrir, his son Thórr slain by the serpent Jörmungandr, the worlds consumed by the fires of Surt. Óðinn had seen how he met his end, but had not seen when, and so gathered the greatest warriors to his side at Valhalla, ready to resist the inevitable. From their gods, the Norse learned that it was foolhardy to struggle against fate, as foolish as sailing into a strong wind. If the outcome was already decided, the only thing that was important was how they stood to meet their end. Óðinn, whose very name meant fury, had chosen to fight and rage.

  Botulfr had long resolved to do the same. No one else in his family seemed to care.

  At the end of autumn, when the crops had been harvested and the animals had meat on their bones, his mother would organise the Álfablót, or elven sacrifice, just for the family, a private affair in their home, to ask the ancestors for their protection. His father and uncles would lift her gently over a doorframe to help her see into the worlds beyond. Those were the special times; quiet nights, safe in her arms, his uncles boasting of past glories. Then one year, his youngest brother had grown sick. Botulfr had asked the Álfar to help him, but they hadn’t listened.

  Yule was a time of fear and dread, the coldest, darkest part of the year, when ferocious winds and storms howled over the land. Óðinn led a flurry of spectral horsemen in a hunt through the night sky. The forest fell silent except for the barking of the hounds. Some said that Óðinn hunted with large birds when the dogs got tired, transforming a host of sparrows into an armed brigade. The year his brother died, his mother suggested he leave out hay in his stockings for Sleipnir, Óðinn’s eight-legged steed. She always seemed to be finding excuses for him to go and play. Botulfr thought better of it. The idea of the one-eyed, angry god walking into the stables terrified him. He didn’t want to be taken like his brother.

  There hadn’t been much in the way of ceremony after that. Just stolen trips to thieve for attention at the market, sullen feasts with the same tall tales repeated, again, and again, masks to hide the suffering. His ancestors were silent. She was gone now, his mother. There was no one to peer after her into the worlds beyond. No one to ask her to come back.

  BOTULFR LOVED THE OPEN WATER. Though at fifteen he was some ten years younger than either Harald or Askr, and not yet a man grown, he enjoyed hefting the oars, as well as the sense of routine that came with rowing. He felt his anger fall away, diminishing with each stroke, with every headland they passed. Of course, he was escaping, just like his father, but he began to understand the attraction of leaving your problems on a fast receding shore. The easterly currents weren’t strong, but they were constant, and a breeze would often pick up at noon to provide further respite for the oarsmen.

  The men sang as they rowed, or else they swapped stories. When they beached the byrding at night, Olaf would determine the distance run, dead reckoning between two crags or other landmarks. Botulfr oversaw pitching tents while the cooking fire was kindled, and when he was done, he would watch the shadows stretch across the mountains, fleeing the long, low rays of the sun. Gest would strum his harp, playing “The Harping of Gunnar” or the “The Wiles of Guthrun” long into the evening. Old songs, as old as the crags that ranged to the sea, echoes of times beyond memory. The fire would hold the men’s gaze and thoughts, and then suddenly all would be darkness, except for Aurvandil’s Toe, gleaming above the crescent moon.

  The travellers sat to either side of Botulfr every night, chatting conspiratorially. It reminded him of the way his uncles had spoken when his father was out of earshot, full of fond but merciless teasing and long explanations of what was worth fighting for. At first, the conversations dwelt on the practical, such as the best way to skin a bear or the respective merits of each man’s homeland. It took until the fourth night for the innocuous to become the insistent. No sooner had Gest began to strum than Askr sighed deeply.

  “Those songs were nearly lost,” he lamented, kissing one of the amulets that jangled around his neck. The skald pulled down his woolen cap tightly around his ears and stared into the distance.

  Botulfr
had no idea of how you could lose a song.

  “How?” he asked, incredulous.

  “Karl, the Butcher of Saxar. He wasn’t content with killing our gods, he even tried to murder our music. ‘Let them listen to the lector not the lyre, our house is not wide enough to hold both,’ he said. Well, in truth, it was his tutor Alkuin who wrote those words, but Karl did worse. His laws made refusing baptism punishable by death, the soothsayers were all handed over to the church, assembly at the thing was banned. You only had to look at a tree to receive a fine.”

  Askr swayed gently, listening to his friend sing.

  Botulfr liked listening to the skald. His father had told him that listening was the scourge of being a prince. Men wanted you to right ancient wrongs and to settle old scores, he’d complained; they wanted you on their side in the battles to come. But Askr seemed different. He simply enjoyed explaining the world and how it came to be. The past was a story to be told—an old ballad composed not just once, but brought to life again and again on the lips of friends and strangers. He spoke with the confidence of familiarity, reciting texts from memory as easily as if he held them in his hands.

  “We have had our revenge. ‘On the sixth of the ides of June, the havoc of heathen men miserably destroyed God’s church on Lindisfarne, through rapine and slaughter.’ That’s from the Englar chronicles. Ragnar led the conquests of the isles as a direct retort to Karl and his assault on the Saxar. Were you taught much history, my Prince? Who was it that tutored you? Unni? That bloated fool Oskar? No, they must have died years ago. Adalbert perhaps?”

  Botulfr didn’t recognise any of the names beyond his famous kinsman Ragnar and shook his head.

  “I read the king’s sagas and the legendary sagas, of course.”

  “In the runor? I am just trying to understand what clay we have been handed to mould, so to speak. Do you have any Latin? Have you read the Bible? Any of the great Grikk texts?”

  The runic alphabet had been used since time immemorial across the North. It had a practicality to it; if you had a knife and a piece of wood or bone, you could start writing by carving lines. The Latin alphabet was florid by comparison and only suited to parchment, in itself rarely seen outside of temples, so the Roman letters were all but nonexistent.