Three

The viking had been a good one.

All twelve ships had returned, laden with wonders, and the losses had been but six men, two of them from sickness.

And there was someone else, someone new.

As Father and Eirik and I walked up the beach, and Father greeted the village elders, there was a crunch of steps behind us, and a man that Eirik and I had never seen strode past us.

He looked down at us, and I was afraid immediately, I do not know why. I think, and I have thought about this for years, that it was the way that he looked at us.

He looked at us as though he wanted us. The way a wolf wants meat.

It frightened me, but I think it excited Eirik.

“Father!” he whispered, “Who is that? Where did you find him?”

“His name is Tor,” our father said. “And I want you to have nothing to do with him. You hear?”

We nodded, and stared secretly at the figure. He was tall and strong, maybe even taller and stronger than Father. He looked much older than Father, too. He was dark haired, and his skin darker than ours, as if he had seen much sunshine, for a long time.

Eirik and I believed him to be a stranger.

That was our guess, that he was someone that Father had shown pity for on his travels, and had brought back, and yet we were wrong, because the elders recognized him, and some even put their arms around him.

And he knew their names. So we knew he had been to Bloed Isle before.

“Bring the sleds!” roared Father again. “We have little light.”

He was right.

The short, weak day was nearly done, and there were twelve ships to unload and beach.

Before long, we worked by torchlight.

The whole village toiled.

Small boats put out to and from the ships, ferrying the spoils back to land.

Meanwhile, the shipmen set the wheeled sleds into the water at the prow of Father’s boat, and then the ropes were tied fast.

Taking a cue from the waves, the hardest part was swiftly done, lifting the ship’s prow onto the sled.

Then the hauling began, with great shouts and songs to make it easier, and everyone, every one of the village had some place on some rope, all but the smallest barn, and even those tiny children held the torches by which we worked.

I remember it.

What a night! The great ships towering above my head. The orange torchlight on the snow, black smoke coiling out of sight into the shadow-blue sky, the smell of the men, the smell of the salt water on the ships, the barnacles on their hulls like the stars in the heavens, our hands freezing to the ropes.

The songs, the laughter, the curses.

But I remember one thing above all others.

We worked next to our father, the Chieftain, so proud and happy to see him again after so many months.

We were struggling just then. It was the last ship, the last to be pulled from the water, and dragged through the piling snow, like a huge dead wooden whale.

Maybe the men were tired, but we struggled.

Suddenly the stranger, Tor, was there. “Not enough strength, Wulf?” he said to Father.

Father ignored him.

“Have your men lost their power?”

“Get on a rope, Tor,” Father said, but Tor didn’t.

He rubbed Eirik’s hair with one of his massive hands.

“Nice boy,” Tor said.

Eirik smiled, and father threw down his rope, and in a moment, he stood with his face a handsbreadth from Tor’s.

Everything went quiet, and there was a long silence.

The creak of the ropes, the shouts and songs, even the rush of torch fat seemed to go quiet.

Then Father spoke.

“Get on a rope, Tor,” he said.

Tor looked deep into Father’s eyes, and then, not looking away, bent down and picked up the rope.

There was a shout, we heaved, and the boat slipped into its safe haven in the snows of the meadows.

The work was done, and I remember just one more thing about that evening.

How, as Tor walked off toward the longhouse, Father watched him go.

Then he spat on the ground where Tor had stood.