Gone Viking 01

Gone Viking:

1 Boarding The Longship

Wait. Wait at the water's edge. Wait at dawn. Shiver in the damp mists from the wide slow river. Why?

Adventure awaits! Or oblivion. Or Madness! Murder, glory and exhilaration! Riches! Sweat, pain and sickness. Companionship, comrades, devotion, and treachery!

Moments sublime, and terrifying. Deeds to be sung in the great Halls! Deeds, never to be acknowledged as they dishonor you.

Your feet are wet, soaked through from the muck of the riverbank. Your ass is damp from the mossy log you sit on. You wait.

You eagerly look for what you hope you see. As promised! You fear what you will see. As promised. You suspect, oh faithless one, that you will see NOTHING. The promise is a lie — an illusion, the ravings of a faltering mind.

You hear... before you see. The waters of the river lapping against... something? Wood? Driftwood? The pilings of the dock? The sides of a ship? Then the horn; ancient, foreboding, a warning, a call to actions. The horn requires a response. "I am here!

The horn is silent. Soon, another sound. The grounding of an oaken keel on the gravel of the riverside. Still nothing to see. Is this all still a dream?

"Come here!" a voice from the river; a young man. But you hear and understand a language you don't know but DO know. Ancient tongue. Echoes from YOUR past.

Still nothing to see. A torch! A torch flares nearby. You can see. The young man— tall, lean, sunburned. Blonde. A thin hint of beard on his cheeks and chin. Bareheaded, his shoulder length is bound by a strip of raw hide behind. His gray linen tunic and breeches, make him almost fade into the morning gray. Is he really there?

He is above you! So, there is a ship! Smaller than imagined. And no dragon heads.

The young man sees my confusion. "We come in peace, at least for now. The fierce animals are hidden, so as not to scare the timid!"

He helps me onto the ship, eyeing me with great curiosity, as I see a thing familiar yet very foreign. Boldly, he decides to find the answers.

"She... it is she!"

After enduring my punch to his hard midsection, for grabbing my breasts and female privates uninvited, he is not upset by my violent reaction to his boldness.

"You are not here to be a mistress to pirates. You are here to share our adventure!"

~~~~~

We (I immediately felt part of the crew) left our place on the riverbank. Familiar vistas seemed new, or old? All traces of my age, my time, my era were gone. Logs floated downstream on the spring flood. And bodies. Deer that had tried crossing on ice that was rapidly thawing, had trapped themselves in an icy death. There was trash and excrement from settlements to the north. Other People.

Everyone not US were the Others. This was a trading ship with an established "schedule." The Others expected us in the spring— barring war, disease, and bad luck. They would be at the agreed meeting spot, a day's row north— a hard row against the spring torrent. They would be there, camping, waiting, if not taken by famine, death by winter, or their enemies. Other "Others."

This I had learned from Ellaf, the leader of this expedition, the young man who had greeted me just that morning. He had told tales as an old man tells tales— to fill the time. He talked of the trade, the "Others" and his men, because, except for me, all his crew were men.

I rowed like the others. As I was an extra hand, I was valuable to spell the others; even though I was not as experienced an oarsman as any of them, I was strong despite my age. As a woman, and an older woman. (Women over thirty are seen as older women.) I was a wonder. Shield maidens were known in legend and in fact, but these were women who bravely protected home and family; rarely did women go abroad on trading missions. The men were expendable. A woman protected the next generation.

There were six rowing beaches on this ship, so six men per side; the crew was minimally twelve, thirteen with Ellaf, and fourteen with me. Ellaf explained that members of the expedition had names by which they were known to their shipmates. Many were hiding from misdeeds done in their homeland, so all took new names in solidarity. My shipboard name was to be Thyra, it also symbolized leaving behind a life in another time and place to go Viking.

I will not go into the details of the other crew members. Suffice it to say they were a rough lot, and kept mostly to themselves, having learned early in life not to trust others. Also, in a society where sudden death due to violence or disease was common, no one wanted to be too close to another because the parting was too painful.

They dealt with loneliness with strong drinks and certain mushrooms. While on board the ship, thirst was quenched with a small beer. Once ashore, the stronger drink helped pass the long nights.

But that is a tale for later.

Just a day's row to the north was our first meeting place. People who called themselves, the Abenaki.

I marveled at the river I knew... yet did not know. This was a different time and the river and the land around were different. I expected in this age, which I assumed was a thousand years in the past, I would find the land covered in dense forest, old-growth timber. But from the longship, I could see cultivated land, land lying fallow and land being burnt for future use, as hunting grounds or for farming.

Evidence of more habitation than I could have predicted.

Ellaf beached our craft on the lee side of a sandy islet in the midst of the main channel of the river. Dozens of canoes and dugouts were also beached here. Temporary shelters abounded in the high ground in the center of the isle. Smoke rose from a dozen cooking fires; the drying frames for fish faced south to get the maximum sun.

Ellaf stood on the bow of the longship gazing over the island. We could not land until we were "seen." When a strange ship appears from the south, the people wait to "see" if it is real or an illusion. If your shape does not shift when viewed from a distance, then we are "real" and may be approached.

This belief did not keep the small children of the encampment from teasing us "invisible" folk, or to keep young boys from urinating on our "invisible" ship.

A sharp word from one of the mothers in the camp stopped this foolishness, and the rascals departed whooping a mock war cry.

Niband was the name of the female who led this kin-based band. "Summer goddess" had seen over forty summers and was the wisest of her band. All daily decisions concerning the band were made by her; any decisions pertaining to the long-term needs of the band were decided in the council of elders where she had but one vote, but much influence due to her wisdom and gravity of character.

She was a widow but slept with the leaders of different bands, both male and female, as a show of solidarity and trust. Tonight, she would share her wikiup with Ellaf. Tomorrow the trading would begin.

To be continued.

Many thanks to my editor Kenji Sato!

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