Dragons from the Sea Read online

  THE STRONGBOW SAGA

  ** BOOK TWO **

  DRAGONS FROM THE SEA

  DENMARK AND WESTERN FRANKIA

  A.D. 845

  JUDSON ROBERTS

  THE STRONGBOW SAGA, BOOK TWO:

  DRAGONS FROM THE SEA

  TEXT COPYRIGHT 2007 BY JUDSON ROBERTS

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

  NORTHMAN BOOKS.

  DRAGONS FROM THE SEA was originally published in hardcover by HARPERTEEN, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, in 2007.

  First Northman Books edition published 2010.

  Cover design by Luc Reid

  (www.lucreid.com/dbweb).

  Background cover photo by Becky Morris.

  * * *

  The Library of Congress has catalogued the HarperTeen/HarperCollins hardcover edition as follows:

  Roberts, Judson

  Dragons from the Sea: Denmark and Western Frankia A.D. 845 / Judson Roberts. – 1st ed.

  p. cm. – (Strongbow Saga ; Bk. 2)

  Summary: Fifteen-year-old Halfdan’s skills as an archer and a blacksmith win him a position on the crew of a Viking ship in 845 A.D., but as war breaks out in Western Frankia he becomes a scout, searching for the Frankish army—and taking captive a young woman who is preparing to be a nun.

  [1. Vikings—Fiction. 2. War—Fiction. 3. Revenge—Fiction. 4. France—History—To 987. 5. Denmark—History—To 1241—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.R54324DRA 2007

  [FIC]—DC22

  To Jeanette,

  Whom my fate finally led me to

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  List of Characters

  Chapter 1: Hedeby

  Chapter 2: The Jarl

  Chapter 3: Tell Me Your Tale

  Chapter 4: The Gull

  Chapter 5: The King's Council

  Chapter 6: Ghosts And Other Spirits

  Chapter 7: Sea Wolves

  Chapter 8: Ruda

  Chapter 9: The War-King's Ire

  Chapter 10: Blood Or Ale

  Chapter 11: Into Frankia

  Chapter 12: Dangerous Sausages

  Chapter 13: A Rich Prize

  Chapter 14: Trapped

  Maps

  Glossary

  Historical Notes

  Acknowledgements

  List of Characters

  BERTRADA: The wife of Wulf, a Frankish sea-captain and merchant in the town of Ruda, or Rouen.

  BJORN IRONSIDES: One of the sons of Ragnar Logbrod; one of the Viking chieftains who helps lead the Danish attack on Western Frankia.

  CHARLES: King of the Western Kingdom of the Franks, which roughly corresponds in territory to modern France. Sometimes referred to as Charles the Bald.

  CLOTHILDE: A Frankish woman who is the personal servant of Genevieve, the daughter of Count Robert of Paris.

  CULLAIN: Jarl Hastein’s personal servant, a former Irish monk captured and enslaved during a Viking raid on Ireland.

  DERDRIU: An Irish noblewoman captured by the Danish chieftain Hrorik in a raid on Ireland, who became a slave in Hrorik’s household and, as his concubine, bore him an illegitimate son named Halfdan.

  EINAR: A Danish warrior and skilled tracker from a village on the Limfjord in the north of Jutland, who befriends Halfdan.

  GENEVIEVE: A young Frankish noblewoman; the daughter of Count Robert of Paris.

  GUNHILD: The second wife of the Danish chieftain Hrorik, and the mother by a previous marriage of Hrorik’s foster son Toke.

  GUNTHARD: A retainer of Count Robert assigned to escort Genevieve, the Count’s daughter, on her return to Paris.

  HALFDAN: The son of Hrorik, a Danish chieftain, and Derdriu, an Irish slave.

  HARALD: The son of the Danish chieftain Hrorik by his first wife; Halfdan’s half-brother and Sigrid’s twin brother.

  HASTEIN: A Danish jarl who befriends Halfdan; one of the leaders of the Viking attack on Western Frankia.

  HORIK: The King of the Danes.

  HRODGAR: The chieftain of a village on the Limfjord in Jutland, and the captain of a ship of warriors that sails as part of the attack on Frankia.

  HRORIK: A Danish chieftain, known as Strong-Axe; the father of Halfdan, Harald, and Harald’s twin sister Sigrid, and the foster father of Toke.

  IVAR THE BONELESS: One of the sons of Ragnar Logbrod; one of the Viking chieftains who helps lead the Danish attack on Western Frankia.

  LEONIDAS: A young Frankish cavalry officer; the cousin of Genevieve, and a nephew of Count Robert of Paris.

  ODD: A crewman on Hastein’s longship, the Gull, and a skilled archer.

  RAGNAR: The Danish war leader of the attack on Western Frankia, known by the nickname Logbrod, or “Hairy-Breeches.”

  ROBERT: A high-ranking Frankish nobleman, the count who rules over a number of towns and lands in West Frankia including Paris; Genevieve’s father. Sometimes referred to as Robert the Strong.

  SIGRID: The daughter of the Danish chieftain Hrorik by his first wife Helge; Harald’s twin sister, and Halfdan’s half-sister.

  SNORRE: A Danish warrior who is the second in command of the chieftain Toke.

  STENKIL: A Danish warrior; the comrade of a man Halfdan kills.

  STIG: A follower of Jarl Hastein, and the captain of the ship the Serpent.

  SVEIN: A follower of Jarl Hastein, and the captain of the ship the Sea Wolf.

  TOKE: A Danish chieftain who is the son of Gunhild by her first marriage, the foster son of the Danish chieftain Hrorik, and the murderer of Harald, Halfdan’s half-brother.

  TORE: A crewman on Hastein’s longship, the Gull, and the leader of the archers in the crew.

  TORVALD: The helmsman and second in command on Hastein’s longship, the Gull.

  WULF: The captain of a Frankish merchant ship captured by the Danish fleet.

  1 : Hedeby

  Early in the year the Christians number the eight hundred and forty-fifth after the death of their God the White Christ, my fate led me to the outskirts of Hedeby, the largest town in all the kingdom of the Danes. I arrived there in the late afternoon, tired, hungry, and sore from spending many days atop a horse. At least I had not suffered too badly from the cold on my journey. Though by measure of days it was still the last weeks of winter, the weather had been unseasonably warm ever since the Jul feast, and on the day I reached Hedeby there was a freshness in the air that hinted of the coming of spring.

  Hedeby was not just a town. It was a fortress that squatted, fat and solid, against the shore of a shallow inlet along one side of the Sliefjord, a long, narrow gash of the sea cutting deep into the eastern coast of Jutland. A deep ditch ran in a half circle from shore to shore around the entire town. The earth dug from the ditch had been piled behind it to form an earthen wall, which was topped with a wooden palisade.

  I paused my horse at the edge of the woods and stared out across the open land that lay between me and the walls of Hedeby. Because of the season, the fields were still bare, with only low, weathered stubble from the remains of last year’s crops showing gray against the soil like a grizzled growth of beard against an old man’s cheek.

  My mare tugged impatiently at the reins, urging me toward the food and shelter to be found in the town. She’d been mine only a matter of days. I had taken her from a dead man. Indeed, much of the gear I carried—my iron helm, my shield, my leather jerkin and small-axe, and even the meager hoard of silver pennies in the leather pouch at my belt—I’d taken from men who were dead. Men I had killed. Only the clothes on my back, the long, heavy bow I carried, and the fine dagger in my belt were truly mine. The dagger had been a gift from Harald, my half-brother and my teacher.
He’d given it to me to honor my attaining the age of fifteen, and manhood. It seemed so long ago—had it truly been only a matter of days? The dagger was one of two gifts Harald had given me that night. The other was my life.

  Still concealed within the final fringe of trees, I ignored my horse’s urgings and sat staring at the town. It was not too late to turn back, and I dearly wished to, for my heart had suddenly filled with fear. Fear of the unknown, in part, for I had never seen a town so huge, nor even imagined so many people together in one place. Even more, though, I was afraid I would not measure up to whatever lay ahead.

  I feared the fate that the Norns, the three ancient sisters who set the course of all men’s lives, were weaving for me. How could I possibly succeed at the tasks ahead of me? By my years I was now reckoned a man, and admittedly I was tall and strong for my age. But I was alone, all alone, and in my heart, a part of me still felt like a child and longed for someone to turn to for guidance. There was no one, though. All whom I had previously relied upon in times of need—my mother, my brother, even his men—were now dead. The Norns had cut their life-threads and left me to face my fate on my own.

  Shame at my own cowardice finally drove me forward. I knew I had to face my fear and overcome it, or I would dishonor myself. I owed a blood-debt. I had deaths I had sworn to avenge.

  I kicked my heels against my mare’s ribs and we headed down the road that led through pastures and fields toward Hedeby’s gate, gaping like a missing tooth in the wall surrounding the town. Ahead, the road crossed a dry moat over a wooden bridge and disappeared through the opening in the wall beyond.

  As I drew nearer, I saw an armed warrior was standing guard on the wall beside the gate. He watched my approach, looking out over the sharpened points of the stockade’s timbers with a bored expression on his face. The late afternoon sun glinted on his polished helm and mail brynie, and made the sharpened blade of the spear he held flash like fire.

  My horse’s hooves thumped across the planks of the bridge like a slow drumbeat. As I reached the opening in the wall, three more warriors came into view, squatting on the rampart behind the guard, rolling dice. They were, I knew, warriors from the king’s household, royal housecarls who’d been commanded by their lord to protect the town and collect the king’s share of the trade that passed through its busy market.

  I wondered if they were on the lookout for an outlaw and murderer. That was the lie told about me by the leader of the men who’d killed my brother, Harald. Had the tale made its way this far south? Had it reached Hedeby before me?

  I forced a blank, unconcerned expression on my face as I rode through the gate, though my stomach felt twisted into knots and I had to remind myself to breathe. I was prepared to wheel my horse and ride for the forest if the guard challenged me, but he did not. As I passed him, he leaned his spear against the log wall of the palisade and squatted down to join his companions’ game. I breathed a silent sigh of relief and entered the town.

  Once inside the wall, the dirt track I’d been following became a paved road, surfaced with thick timbers laid side by side in the earth. A short distance off the road, in the band of open ground encircling the town inside the perimeter of the wall, two pigs were rooting in a heap of garbage. They looked up at me briefly as I neared, then plunged their snouts back into the noisome mound. A small boy watching them swiveled his head as I passed, following me with his eyes.

  After the many days I’d spent in the open on my journey down Jutland, crossing windswept heaths and dark forests, the smell of the town was overwhelming. Odors of rotting garbage, animal dung, and human waste blended unpleasantly with whiffs of food cooking. Smoke from countless fires overlaid all. A barrage of noise assaulted my senses, too. Dogs barked, pigs squealed, chickens cackled, cattle lowed, and men and women strode up and down the road, babbling back and forth to each other.

  Though it had appeared large to me when viewed from the edge of the forest, the town felt even more daunting once I was inside its walls. I felt as though I had wandered into some vast maze. Alleys branched off frequently from either side of the main road. They were lined with houses, row after row of them, all much smaller than the great chieftain’s longhouse I’d grown up in.

  I did not understand how people could bear to live this way. Why would they wish to?

  Finally I reached the town’s center. The road opened there into a square of bare, open ground. From the crowd that bustled within, it was obvious this was Hedeby’s famed market, where goods from the farthest corners of the world could be bought or sold.

  The perimeter of the market square was lined with small fenced pens, containing sheep, cattle, and squealing pigs. Just beyond them on a low platform, a different kind of beast was being displayed for sale. Three children, two boys perhaps ten years of age, and a considerably younger girl, were squatting in the center of the platform. They looked dirty and hungry, and were wearing only ragged tunics, whose substance appeared to owe as much to the filth caked on them as to the coarse wool they were woven of. They were slaves. It was obvious from the thin ropes looped around each of their necks, tying them together. Even without the bonds, though, I’d have known. I recognized the dull, defeated look in their eyes. I understood why it was there. Where, I wondered, had they been taken? What land had they been snatched away from? What had happened to their homes and their families?

  Turning away, I stood up in my stirrups and scanned the market square. Surely almost anything a person might want or need could be found here in Hedeby. What I did not see, though, was what I most hoped to find. I needed to sell my mare and her tack. Her service to me was done, for I had come to Hedeby to join the crew of a ship, a longship hopefully, bound i-viking. But none of the animal pens around the square contained horses, and nowhere I looked did anyone appear to be haggling over mounts. Indeed, there were few horses in the square at all, and those I could see looked to be objects of transportation rather than trade.

  I did not know where to turn. It should have been a simple thing. The market was full of people. I had only to ask someone where I might find a buyer for my horse, but I feared appearing a fool. I feared looking like what I was: a green youth from the countryside.

  As I took one last discouraged survey of the market square, I caught a glimpse, through a momentary gap in the crowd, of a man intent on a task I’d labored at many times myself. He was short and lean, with a weathered face, seated on a low stool holding a long, narrow stave of wood angled across his lap. He drew a thin, flat piece of steel down the stave in long strokes, shaving fine curls from it, searching for the shape of the bow concealed in the wood. I’d performed the same motions countless times myself in the work shed of Gudrod, the carpenter on my father’s estate.

  Watching someone labor at so familiar a task somehow made Hedeby seem less strange and threatening. I climbed down from my horse’s back and led her closer to where the man was working. As I drew near, I saw three bundles of arrows and a finished bow—the wares he was offering for sale—arrayed on the ground at his feet.

  The man glanced up, saw me staring at him, and studied me and my horse.

  “My name is Raud,” he said, “and if you’re looking to buy a bow, or arrows for one, you’ve come to the right place. Though it appears you have a bow already,” he added, nodding at the bow clutched in my hand.

  “I do not need a bow,” I agreed. “But I saw you working the wood. It was the first thing that has seemed familiar to me in this town since I arrived.”

  Raud grinned at my confession, but spoke in a kindly voice. “Aye, Hedeby can seem strange to one fresh out of the village. For what purpose have you come here?”

  “To join a ship’s crew and seek my fortune. But first,” I added, “I must sell this horse.”

  Raud nodded. “Can you use that bow? A wise captain always welcomes skilled archers into his crew.”

  “I can use it,” I answered. There was a great deal I felt uncertain about, especially since arriving at Hedeby,
but that much I knew to be true.

  He laid the stave he was working on the ground. “May I examine your bow?” he asked. “It looks to be a fine one.”

  I handed it to him. He rubbed his hands along the long limbs, caressing the wood, and closely examined the sharpened horn nocks, decorated with narrow bands of hammered bronze, which capped each end of the bow, pursing his lips and nodding appreciatively all the while. Finally he stretched his arm out and let the bow balance across his palm.

  “May I string it?” he asked. I nodded. He stood, bracing the bow against the arch of his foot, and bent it, sliding the loop of the bowstring up into the top nock as he did. Grasping the leather-wrapped grip, in one smooth motion he pushed the bow forward with his left arm while pulling the string back with his right, coming to full draw. He held the bow there briefly while he studied the curve of its limbs, then eased the string forward. Still not speaking a word, he unstrung my bow and handed it back to me.

  “Who made this?” he asked.

  “I did,” I answered.

  “You’re young to possess such skill. A longbow such as this is more difficult to make than a flatbow, and this is as fine a one as I have seen. I could not have done better myself, and that is the highest praise Raud the Bowmaker will speak of another man’s bow.”

  He looked at the sky. “It will be dusk soon. If you’re newly arrived here in Hedeby, I do not suppose you have a place to stay the night?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve been on the road for many days, sleeping in the open. I can do it again,” I replied.

  “That is not necessary,” Raud said. “I would not turn another bowmaker out, especially one so skilled. I was thinking of leaving the market soon anyway. Let me offer you the hospitality of my home this night. The fare will be simple, but you can at least sleep under a roof. Your horse will be safe behind my house, and in the morning I’ll take you to a man who may wish to buy it. He keeps a stable of horses. It’s not unusual,” Raud added, “that a traveler will reach Hedeby by ship, but need to continue his journey on land. This man sells mounts to such, and is always looking for sound horses to buy at a fair price.”