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  THE STRONGBOW SAGA

  ** BOOK ONE **

  VIKING

  WARRIOR

  DENMARK

  A.D. 845

  JUDSON ROBERTS

  THE STRONGBOW SAGA, BOOK ONE:

  VIKING WARRIOR

  TEXT COPYRIGHT 2006 BY JUDSON ROBERTS

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  NORTHMAN BOOKS

  VIKING WARRIOR was originally published in hardcover by HARPERTEEN, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, in 2006.

  First Northman Books edition published 2010.

  Cover design by Luc Reid

  (www.lucreid.com/dbweb)

  Background cover photo by Matt Steinhausen

  (http://www.steinhausen.biz/)

  * * *

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

  Roberts, Judson

  Viking Warrior / by Judson Roberts. – 1st ed.

  p. cm. – (The Strongbow Saga ; Bk. 1)

  Summary: Despite being the son of a chieftain and a princess, fourteen-year-old Halfdan lives as a slave in Denmark in A.D. 845 but through a tragic bargain he gains his freedom and sets out to claim his birthright.

  [1. Slaves—Fiction. 2. Family Life—Fiction. 3. Denmark—Fiction.] I. Title. II. Series

  PZ7.R54324VI 2006

  [FIC]—DC22

  To my sisters,

  Shelley and Trish,

  who have always been there for me.

  To Nick, Laura, and Connor—

  always dare to dream.

  And most of all, to Jeanette,

  for everything.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  List of Characters

  Chapter 1: A Ship

  Chapter 2: Hrorik's Doom

  Chapter 3: The Bargain

  Chapter 4: Derdriu's Tale

  Chapter 5: A Funeral Pyre

  Chapter 6: Lessons

  Chapter 7: The Bow

  Chapter 8: Toke

  Chapter 9: Harald's Dance

  Chapter 10: Halfdan's Run

  Chapter 11: Einar

  Chapter 12: The Road to the Sea

  Map

  Glossary

  Historical Notes

  Acknowledgements

  List of Characters

  AIDAN: The abbot of an Irish monastery who was captured by the Danish chieftain Hrorik, became a thrall, and later became a foreman on one of Hrorik’s estates.

  ALF: A member of Toke’s crew who hunts Halfdan.

  ASE: The wife of Ubbe and a priestess of the goddesses Freyja and Frigg.

  CAIDOC: An Irish king under the High King of Ulster, and the father of Derdriu.

  CUMMIAN: The young son of Aidan and Tove.

  DERDRIU: Daughter of King Caidoc captured by the chieftain Hrorik in a raid on Ireland, who became Hrorik’s concubine and the mother of Halfdan.

  EINAR: A skilled tracker from the village on the Limfjord in northern Denmark where Hrodgar is the headman.

  EANWULF: The ealdorman, or king’s representative, who governs Somersetshire in the West Saxon Kingdom in England.

  FASTI: A thrall, or slave, on Hrorik’s southern estate.

  FRET: A carl, or free man, who lives on Hrorik’s estate on the Limfjord in northern Denmark.

  FRIAL: An Irish king.

  GUDROD: A carl skilled in carpentry who lives on Hrorik’s southern estate.

  GUNHILD: The current wife of the Danish chieftain Hrorik, and the mother of Toke by a previous marriage.

  GUNNAR: A carl and blacksmith who lives on Hrorik’s southern estate.

  HALFDAN: The son of Hrorik, a Danish chieftain, and Derdriu, an Irish noblewoman who became Hrorik’s slave.

  HARALD: The son of the Danish chieftain Hrorik by his first wife Helge, and Sigrid’s twin brother.

  HELGE: Hrorik’s first wife, now deceased, who was the mother of Harald and Sigrid.

  HORIK: The King of the Danes during the ninth century from A.D. 813 to 854.

  HRODGAR: The head-man of the village on the Limfjord in northern Denmark near Hrorik’s northern estate.

  HRORIK: A Danish chieftain, and the father of Halfdan, Harald, and Sigrid.

  HRUT: A thrall, or slave, on Hrorik’s southern estate.

  ING: A thrall, or slave, on Hrorik’s southern estate.

  KAR: A skilled archer from the village on the Limfjord in northern Denmark where Hrodgar is the headman.

  KILIAN: The oldest son of King Frial of Ireland, and Derdriu’s betrothed.

  ODD: A carl in Hrorik’s household, and one of Harald’s men.

  OSRIC: The ealdorman, or king’s representative, who governs Dorsetshire in the West Saxon Kingdom in England.

  ROLF: A carl in Hrorik’s household, and one of Harald’s men.

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

  SNORRE: The helmsman and second-in-command on Toke’s ship, the Sea Steed.

  TOKE: Gunhild’s son by her first marriage, and Hrorik’s stepson.

  TORD: A member of Toke’s crew who hunts Halfdan.

  TOVE: The wife of Aidan, the foreman on Hrorik’s northern estate.

  UBBE: The foreman of Hrorik’s southern estate in central Denmark.

  ULF: A carl in Hrorik’s household, and one of Harald’s men.

  1 : A Ship

  In one moment the Norns changed the pattern they were weaving in the fabric of my fate. It was a late afternoon, and I was working down by the shore, beside the boathouses. All that day I’d been squaring logs into timbers, and my back and shoulders were weary from swinging the heavy broadaxe. I didn’t mind the labor itself, for though I was but fourteen, I was as tall and strong as many grown men. And I enjoyed working with wood—since I was very young, my hands had possessed an unusual skill to create with both wood and metal, a gift that had saved me from much harder work in the fields. I minded, though, that always my efforts were for someone else. I minded that I lived only to serve the needs and obey the orders of others, because they were the masters and I was a slave.

  As it often did, my mind wandered as I worked, and I dreamed I was free, and a warrior. I had no right to harbor such dreams, for I had lived my whole life as a slave and by rights was doomed to die as one. Yet dream I did, for my dreams allowed me to escape the reality of my life. With each stroke of the broadaxe, I imagined I fought against the English, standing shoulder to shoulder in a shield wall with other warriors, other free men. Hrorik, the chieftain who owned me and the man who had sired me, was in England raiding even now. Most of the free men of his estate and of the nearby village were there with him. If I was free, I told myself, I could be there too.

  My mother came down to the shore and sat, wordless, on the slope above where I worked. When her duties permitted, which was not often, she liked to come and quietly sit and watch me at my labors. It embarrassed me for her to watch me so. It made me feel like a child, and once I spoke angrily to her over it.

  “I am sorry, Halfdan,” she’d said. “It gives me pleasure to watch my son at work. But if it distresses you I will stop.” After that I said nothing more to her about it, for there’s little enough that’s pleasing in a thrall’s life. I loved my mother, and would not take from her what scraps of pleasure she could find.

  After a time Gunhild, the wife of Hrorik, my father, stormed down from the longhouse and chided Mother.

  “You have chores waiting,” she snapped. “What are you doing here? Get back to the longhouse.”

  My mother did not speak to Gunhild, or even acknowledge that she’d heard. I looked up from my work and saw Gunhild’s face turning
red with anger. Gunhild was an ill-tempered woman at the best of times. She hated my mother because of the lust that Hrorik felt for her, a mere thrall. Her bitterness grew greater each night that her bed was cold and empty because Hrorik left her to lie with my mother. I do not believe Gunhild ever felt love for Hrorik. Theirs was a marriage built on position and wealth rather than feelings of the heart. But Gunhild was a proud woman. No doubt she felt humiliated that all who lived in Hrorik’s great longhouse knew how often he fled her bed for that of a slave.

  Gunhild stomped back up to the longhouse. I feared her wrath, especially since Hrorik, who sometimes would restrain her, was gone. I wished Mother would return to her chores and not provoke Gunhild so. But Mother sat silently on the hillside, staring out toward the open sea.

  A strange silence hung in the air; even the gulls had temporarily ceased their cries. Every breath of breeze died, and the water in the fjord turned as flat and slick as the blade of a fine sword.

  A short time later Gunhild returned, hurrying with long strides, carrying in her hand a long thin branch that she’d trimmed as a switch. As she neared my mother she raised it high above her head, but before she could strike, Mother stood and pointed out across the water.

  “They come,” she said.

  A longship had pulled into view around the headland of the fjord. Its mast was bare; a sail would have been useless in the still air. The oars raised and lowered rhythmically, beating the surface of the water, dragging the ship forward.

  People began running from the longhouse and outbuildings down to where Gunhild stood anxiously watching the ship, the switch in her hand now forgotten. Ubbe, the foreman of the estate, whose leg was crippled from an old wound, arrived at a halting run. He carried his sheathed sword in his hand.

  “It’s a warship, my Lady,” he announced, though that was plain for all to see, even at that distance, for the ship was long and narrow, with many oars. “They could be raiders. I’ll have your horse saddled so you can ride to safety if need be. We have scarcely enough men left, even if we send for help to the village, to put up much of a fight.”

  Turning finally to face Gunhild, my mother spoke, a strange, triumphant look on her face. “There is no need to fear,” she said, in a low voice that was little more than a whisper. “Yon ship does not bear raiders. It is his ship. The Red Eagle. All day I have felt it coming. They are bringing Hrorik home to die.”

  2 : Hrorik's Doom

  When she’d sailed boldly away from our shore only a few weeks earlier, the deck of the Red Eagle had been crowded with a crew of more than fifty warriors. Half were housecarls from Hrorik’s estate, the rest men from the nearby village. All eagerly hoped to find fortune at the expense of the English. They’d laughed and boasted as they’d dipped their oars into the blue-green sea and backed the ship away from shore. How I had envied those who’d sailed away, and had longed to be a part of the Red Eagle’s crew.

  The longship we watched struggling back home this day, though, did not cut a proud figure. Only nine of her sixteen pairs of oars were manned, and as the ship neared land, I could see many men sitting or lying on the deck, wrapped with bloodstained strips of cloth that declared their wounds like scarlet banners.

  In the stern, Harald, Hrorik’s son born of his first wife Helge, manned the steering oar. As the Red Eagle neared the shoreline, he swung her sharply, so she slid sideways in the water the last few feet and bumped gently against the narrow wharf jutting out from the shore. It was well done. Normally the watchers gathered on the shore would have cheered his skill. Today they stood silent, the fear in their hearts muting their voices.

  A jumbled mound of capes and furs lay in front of the small raised deck in the stern where Harald stood. As the mooring lines were tied off, the heap of covers parted briefly and I saw Hrorik’s face, looking pale and haggard, peering from under a cloak. He stared listlessly toward the shore for a moment, then sank back into his coverings.

  From the time of the Red Eagle’s first sighting until she made land, a crowd had gathered along the shore. Nearly everyone, free or slave, who lived on Hrorik’s estate was there, and many had run from the farms of the nearby village. All wore concerned expressions, for word had spread quickly. The Red Eagle was not only back early, she was limping home.

  Many on the shore had hailed anxious queries to the ship as she’d approached land and moored. None of the crew responded. Some questions, though, needed no answer. For those who searched anxiously to find their loved ones among the crew, the absence of looked-for faces spoke volumes. As I watched, a number of the women standing near me in the crowd began quietly weeping. Grette Ormsdotter, the wife of a carl who owned the small farm closest down the road to Hrorik’s lands, pushed past me and raised herself up on tip-toe, trying to peer into the ship. Only a few weeks ago she’d stood on this same shore, watching her husband, Krok, and her two oldest sons, Bram and Grim, eagerly sail away. I’d noticed them then, as they’d called their happy farewells to her, boasting of the bounty they’d bring her by summer’s end. Grim was only a year older than I. Now, as she stood beside me at the water’s edge and searched the faces of the crew, of all her menfolk, only Bram could be seen.

  “Bram,” she cried out, her voice trembling. “Where is your father? Where is your brother, Grim?”

  Her son Bram, a tall young man with long reddish-gold hair, hung his head and turned his face away, saying nothing.

  Harald, Hrorik’s son, stepped from the ship onto the narrow planks of the wharf and held his hands aloft, signaling for silence.

  “We have had misfortune,” he said. His voice was low but strong, and it carried across the shore so all could hear. “That is plain for all to see. But our tale deserves a proper telling. Only thus may we give the honor due to those who did not return. For now, ask no more. Our journey home has wearied us, and our losses lie heavy on our hearts. Let us rest briefly. Tend to the wounds of those who are injured. After darkness falls, come to the great hall of Hrorik’s longhouse. There will be food and drink for all. Come, and then I will tell you of the doom the Norns spun for us after we sailed from this shore on our ill-fated voyage.”

  Harald stepped back onto the ship and gave an order. Those of the crew who were still able-bodied began stowing the long oars on the raised rack running along the center of the deck.

  Ubbe, the foreman, hooked the straps of his sword’s scabbard over his belt, then turned to one of the other men standing near him on the shore. “What are you waiting for? What are we all waiting for? These are our comrades,” he said, and stepped up onto the planks of the wharf. Several men followed him. I did too. We spaced ourselves in a line stretching back onto dry land, and the men on the ship began passing us their sea chests and shields.

  After the crew’s gear and weapons had been offloaded, four members of the crew lifted two long, cloth-wrapped bundles from the deck—clearly the bodies of two men, shrouded in their cloaks—and heaved them up onto their shoulders.

  “These two died yesterday,” Harald explained. “They almost made it home. One other died from his wounds on the voyage from England, but we had too many days still to travel to bring his body with us. We buried him at first landfall after crossing the sea.”

  After the rest of the crew had disembarked, Harald and three others, all warriors from Hrorik’s household, pried loose two of the long planks from the center of the deck from the area over the ballast stones where they were just fitted in place rather than nailed down. After wrapping the planks tightly with a cloak to hold them together, they laid them down beside Hrorik and eased his limp body onto them. Then they raised the makeshift litter to their shoulders and carried Hrorik up to the longhouse. I trailed behind them, my chores forgotten.

  I was filled with curiosity to discover what had befallen the Red Eagle and her crew. Unlike most of those around me, though, my heart was not filled with sorrow. Men I knew had died; that much was already clear. And Hrorik, my father, was gravely wounded, perhaps near de
ath himself, as my mother had asserted when the ship first came into view. At times she had the gift, or curse, of the second sight and could see that which had not yet come to pass. But none of the dead or dying men had been my comrades. Free men are not comrades with thralls. My heart was not touched by their misfortune. I knew that not a man who’d sailed on the Red Eagle would have shed a tear for me if were I who lay dying instead of Hrorik. I was only a slave, even to Hrorik. To me, my father was just the man who’d forced himself upon my mother. He was just the man who owned me. I had no reason this day to grieve for those dead or dying. I had no reason to grieve yet.

  After they entered the longhouse with their burden, Harald and the other men who carried Hrorik did not take him to the small sleeping chamber in one corner of the longhouse that held his and Gunhild’s bed. Instead they bore him to one of the raised platforms of stone and packed earth, topped with smoothed planks covered with furs and blankets, that stretched most of the length of the long side walls of the main hall of the longhouse. They laid him down on the platform bench in the center of the hall, where he’d be close to the warmth from the fires on the main cooking hearth out in the center of the floor. As the men eased the deck planks from under him, Hrorik groaned and his body twisted in a fit of sudden coughing. The force of the deep, shuddering coughs shook loose his covers, and revealed the terrible extent of his injuries.

  Hrorik’s right arm—as big around as my leg, and probably stronger—was gone, cut cleanly off above the elbow. Only a thick stub remained, its end wrapped in bloody cloths, looking almost like the stump of a thick branch jutting from the trunk of a great oak. Hrorik’s great barrel of a chest was bare, or would have been had it not been swathed with bandages. A dark stain of blood, as large as a man’s head, had soaked the wrappings through on the right side of his chest. Most of the stain was dark, and looked stiff and dry, but I could see fresh, wet blood shining in its center. A bright red splash of blood, brought up by his coughing, trickled out of one side of Hrorik’s mouth and into his beard, dying the gray hair red.