The Bear and the Wolf Read online

  Within a short time, I saw another island in the distance and I contemplated stopping there for rest but, as we neared it, I saw another group of islands another five or so miles further away. It was still daylight and the weather held; I wanted as much distance between us and the enemy as possible. The islands were within sight of the coast and if a storm blew up, we could either sit it out on the island or try to get to the mainland. I saw, as we approached, that the island had some stumpy trees and I saw seabirds. We could light a fire and we might even have eggs to eat. By my calculation, we were fifteen or so miles from the island where we had eaten seafood and that was four miles from the last place we had seen the Penobscot. It was worth the risk.

  I sailed us around into the lee of the island. We slowed and I let the cloak flap. I jumped into chest-deep water and pushed the boat towards the sand. Laughing Deer now understood what we had to do and she jumped out when the water was shallower. It lightened the load and she was able to help draw the boat up. The two of us drew the boat up on to the beach and I took the spear out of the hole I had made. Already it had worn looser, and I could see wear and tear on the spear. I hoped it would get us to Bear Island; after that, it would not matter for the clan would be there and we would be safe.

  A climb to the top of the island confirmed that it was uninhabited. The danger from the smoke was minimal as the wind was blowing north and east and the many islands would make it hard for an enemy to identify its location. However, I was now convinced that the Penobscot, if they still hunted us, would have to use the land. Laughing Deer and Stands Alone had gathered more shellfish, some seaweed and dug up some edible tubers for our stew. There were pools of rainwater and she used those, with a little seawater for seasoning, to cook the food. After we had eaten, we cleaned my wound and I applied some of the vinegar and then smeared it with honey. Laughing Deer did not see any sign of badness and the wound smelled healthy. All was well. This time the shelter she made had the fur from the boat as a bed and, after we had eaten, I lay down on it and was asleep, instantly.

  That night I dreamed, and it was a complicated one.

  I heard Gytha’s voice, but I did not see her. Instead, I saw many warriors, mainly Penobscot and they were fighting the Mi’kmaq. I saw Chief Wandering Moos and he was being assailed. Gytha’s voice said, ‘Aid them, Erik, for this is your destiny.’ And then the image faded, and darkness enveloped me but Gytha continued. ‘This is your land, and this is your duty. The fox will become a wolf and you will be the bear.’ Then the light came, and I saw a mighty waterfall. It was bigger than the one where Arne had died, in fact, it looked as wide as a sea. Water crashed down and then I awoke.

  It was raining and Laughing Deer was fetching the sail to lay against the entrance to our shelter. She was wet but she laughed in the dark. “It is good that we did not sail in the night, Erik. This was a wise decision.” As she snuggled next to me, I wondered about the waterfall and what it meant. I did not go immediately back to sleep. I listened to the rain pounding on my oiled cloak. I had known when I had dreamed of Laughing Deer, that my future might be with her but I had thought I would take her east on ‘Gytha’ and that we would begin a new life there. The battle with the Penobscot and the departure of my clan had forced me to think again about my future. It was no longer Laughing Deer and me, there was Stands Alone too. Was I to stay here? When I reached Bear Island would I have to say goodbye to Ada, Fótr, my son and daughter? When the rain ceased, I managed to fall asleep, but it was a fitful one and I did not rise refreshed.

  I managed to extricate myself from Laughing Deer and I stepped out on to a damp and soggy island. I saw that the birch bark boat had filled with rain. I emptied the rainwater into the pot we used for cooking. A hot meal before we braved the sea would do us good and having lost our enemies there was not as much urgency. I could sail without taking quite as many risks. I took some dry wood which Laughing Deer had placed beneath our shelter and I lit the fire. I had just got it going when Laughing Deer appeared and, putting her arms around me she kissed me, hard.

  “What was that for?”

  “I did not thank you for slaying Yellow Feather and the others.” She gave me a chaste smile beneath hooded eyes, “And besides we both know that we are meant to be together. When we reach your Bear Island then Stands Alone can sleep with the other children there and we can lie together.”

  I had not explained yet, about Ada, and that would be tricky. Instead, I smiled. “I think my island is two or three days north of here. I vaguely recognise this island. If we have a benign wind, then we will sight it in two days. I will make some adjustments to the boat and you can cook food. The sea is chilly at this time of year and your sister looks frail.”

  I used the Mi’kmaq word weak as I did not know frail and Laughing Deer shook her head, “She is not weak but you are right, she needs to eat more and shellfish and tubers will not make her stronger.”

  I pointed to the sea, “One advantage of being at sea is that we can catch bigger fish. We do not have to eat them raw for there are many uninhabited islands between the mainland and Bear Island.” I went to the boat and inverted it to drain the last of the water from it. I also checked the seams; they appeared to be holding but I wanted pine tar or seal oil to seal it. I smiled to myself as I righted it. When we reached Bear Island then we would not need the boat!

  We left in the middle of the morning. The wind, which had veered in the night, now came from the south. It explained the rain. Had the wind been from the west it would have been a dry wind. Stands Alone smiled more now and I realised why. Each day took us further from the Penobscot. I wondered when she would speak again. Our progress was not as quick as I would have hoped, and I kept to the channel between the line of uninhabited islands and the mainland. The storm the night before had been a warning and I would heed it. If Stands Alone still did not talk at least she smiled occasionally. When the line I had baited with some animal guts from the long-eared animal caught a fish which was as long as my leg from my knee to my foot, she clapped her hands with delight. I used my seax to end its life and then gutted it while the wind took the sail and kept us on course. I threw the guts to the screaming sea birds above my head. That too made Stands Alone’s eyes sparkle. I did not mind the birds. They were the spirits of sailors lost at sea. I might have known them, and their noise was just a language I could not speak.

  As the afternoon approached evening, I sought the largest island I could see. This one had no undergrowth at all and that meant the sail would have to double as our home for the night. Thanks to the rain we had enough water, but I missed my mead and my ale. We still had a little kindling left and we used that to light a fire with the driftwood we found on the beach. I remembered that it had been a piece of driftwood I had found on Orkneyjar which had led me across the ocean. Wyrd. We sat beneath the shelter of the sail as clouds scudded from the south. The wind that brought them was slightly warmer than they had been, and I wondered what lands lay to the south. I shook my head; that voyage was for another. I had done with sailing on the Great Sea.

  I turned the fish when I saw the skin on the bottom had blackened and the flesh had begun to flake. As I sat down and with Stands Alone nestling her head in her sister’s lap, Laughing Deer asked, “What is your land like, Erik? I know that Bear Island is not your real home so, across the sea, where do you live and what are your homes like?”

  “They are totally unlike yours. We stay in one place and we farm. We raise animals like sheep and cattle.” I had to use the Norse words and her blank expressions showed me that she had no concept of them. I tried to explain them to her and then I realised that when we reached Bear Island, I could show them to her. “Our homes, you will also see on Bear Island for we used the earth to make walls and the trees to make the framework. We all live in large halls and we have a fire burning in the centre so that when the snow comes, we are warm.” She nodded. “However, there are places which are bigger than our villages and there they build in stone. So
me of the homes have an upstairs.” That was the hardest concept of all to explain and I was grateful when the fish was ready, and we could eat it. I put large pieces on the three wooden platters. We could all eat more and there would still be enough left for the next day. Laughing Deer insisted that, as the warrior, I should have the best part, the head. Up until that point, we had largely eaten stews to make the paltry amounts of meat we had go further. The fish felt like a substantial meal and that night I felt almost full.

  With the cloak and spears making a lean-to and the remains of the fire before us we lay together. I had my back to the fire and then Laughing Deer lay against me and Stands Alone on the other side. There was a difference that night for Laughing Deer faced me and her arms wrapped around me. She kissed me and her tongue tantalised me. I felt myself becoming aroused and forced those thoughts from me.

  When she realised that I was not responding Laughing Deer whispered, “Have I offended you?”

  “No, but Stands Alone is there and I would not cause the memories which are fading to be resurrected.”

  She kissed me again, “You are a good man and you are right. Soon we shall be on Bear Island and we can be as one.”

  The Norns were spinning and when we left the next day the wind became more unpredictable and we were hit by rogue waves which soaked us. I began to fear that we would not reach the island and then, through the murky spray, I saw the island. “Laughing Deer, we must paddle for the boat is struggling.” As I dug in with my paddle, I looked for the masts of the two drekar. The fact that I could not see them did not worry me for Fótr and Padraig might have decided to step the masts, especially if there had been a storm. Being so close to the island I forgot my hurts and the aching in my arms and I dug the paddle in to power us through the water. I saw Stands Alone take the third paddle and try to help. That she did not move us much mattered not, she was part of the crew and fighting.

  We were just three hundred paces from the entrance to the bay when I saw that the ships were not there. Until then I had deluded myself that they were hidden by the land but as we entered an empty bay without even a single animal clucking, then I knew they had gone. They had returned to the east. We paddled in and Laughing Deer turned and frowned. I could not lie to her. “My clan has gone, and I am abandoned. My life and yours is now bound here in the west.

  Just at that moment, a freak wind whistled through the hall Gytha and Snorri had used. The door was open and it sounded like a voice as it wailed. It was a sign. Gytha had tried to warn me in the dream and I had misunderstood. The clan had gone and I would remain. Wyrd.

  Chapter 2 Fótr

  I am Fótr Larsson and I now lead the Clan of the Fox. I did not choose to do so but after the disaster of the roaring water where my two brothers, my nephew and the best warriors in the clan died, then I had no choice. My father had led the clan and he was followed by my brother, Arne Larsson. It was he who had led the clan to the battle we need not have fought but it was my brother, Erik, Erik the Navigator, who had saved the clan. I had mourned my brother Arne’s death, but Erik was a harder loss to bear. I had now been given the responsibility of sailing the ship back to the east to seek the Land of the Wolf. Only I had made that voyage and I had been little more than a child when I had done so. Padraig and Aed were the other two who had skills as navigators and they sailed ‘Njörðr’ and ‘Jötnar’ while I steered ‘Gytha’, the drekar which we had made when we had lived on the island. I was the one with the compass and the hourglass. They had copies of the maps which Erik had so meticulously made. In the middle of the ocean, they would be of little use but we had a long voyage to reach the vast emptiness of the ocean. We would retrace our course, the one we had followed when we had come to this New World. We would sail north and east along the coast until we came to the island where Erik and I had been attacked by fierce Skraeling. Then we would head east by northeast back to our former home. Aed estimated almost a thousand miles before we reached the last spit of land where began the abyss of the ocean. I took out the spell which Ada and the volva of the clan had spun. They had incorporated their hair, my son’s and mine. They had woven runes into it and given it to me to keep me safe. I was now the navigator and while I did not feel that I was the one to lead them, the clan did and I would not let them down.

  We took animals with us. We could not take all of them for we had too many people. We had two cows and four ewes along with a pig and some hens. Before we left we slaughtered the bulls and rams and salted their meat. It was sad to have to do that but we needed the meat and they would die alone otherwise. This way they served the clan. Aed, on the snekke, had one of the ewes. That way we would all have milk. I knew that, once we left the land, we would have to feed them grain and that would not sustain them. At some point, we might have to slaughter the ones we carried, and I did not relish that prospect. It took days to take all that we could. There were many things we left behind for people were more important than objects. We packed as much as we could below the decks and then tied the barrels of food, ale and water on the top. The animals were at the prow and the barrels spread out to give balance.

  As we left Bear Island, I felt great sadness. The dead were buried on our island home and they would be a reminder that the Clan of the Fox had made a mark. The turf and wood buildings would crumble, and the forests would reclaim the fields we had cleared but we had made a mark. I had left my brother’s belongings in the home he had shared with Ada. His bear cloak lay on the sleeping platform he and Ada had shared. I am not sure that Ada believed he was dead for she said that she wished to leave behind all that he had used. She had his son and his daughter to remind her of her husband. I had thought to take his spare seaxes, seal skin boots and hide jerkin but something made me leave them there, along with his mail. When I thought about it I knew that I had enough for we might be fighting the sea; we would not have to battle other men. Until we reached land then we could forget other clans and men. When we left Erik’s hut intact it was as though it was a memorial to him. I would keep his memory in my head.

  That first day we sailed in familiar waters for I had steered ‘Njörðr’ when we had hunted the whale. We sailed north and east keeping the land to the west. I led and Aed kept the snekke between Padraig’s ‘Njörðr’ and me. Although the decks of all three ships were filled there were but twenty-eight warriors who remained and they were spread out. Erik had told me that the winds generally helped when sailing east and I hoped so for, if we had to row, then it would be boys and women who would have to man the oars with the handful of warriors we carried. I had Ebbe with me and the Skraeling who was now a member of the clan. Bear Tooth had been saved by Erik and that, in turn, had saved us. The two of them were with me at the steering board. For Bear Tooth the voyage meant he was leaving the land of his birth to join us but he was happy to do so. He believed in his own version of the Norns. His family was all dead; we had killed his father and his brothers, but he did not hold that against us and was as much a member of the clan as any. As yet he did not look like a Viking, but I knew that, over time, he would.

  “What is your plan, Fótr?” The newest member of our clan was more curious about the voyage than afraid. When we had hunted the whale he had been terrified but having faced that ordeal, all else seemed easy.

  I laughed, “A plan? That suggests that there is some order in our life and there is none!” I sighed and calmed myself. I was young but I had to behave as though I was older. When Erik had first steered a drekar then he had been younger than I. I was a pale imitation of my brother, but I had to grow! I forced myself to be ordered and logical as I had assumed him to be, “We still have land to the west of us and we can use it to land and to conserve our water. I intend to land before it is dark and camp ashore while we can. My brother’s maps show land for at least four, perhaps five days.”

  Ebbe nodded, “That is what Erik did!” He suddenly looked embarrassed as he realised what he had said, “I am sorry. I meant no disrespect!”

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bsp; I laughed, “Ebbe, the shadow of my brother is a long one and I fear that I will walk in it my whole life.”

  He looked relieved that he had not offended me and added, “Do we sail to the land of ice and Fire?”

  I shook my head, “I do not see the point. Erik and I discussed this many times. We know that sailing east, we will find land eventually. The danger will be if the winds turn against us or we take too long and run out of food.”

  Ebbe pointed astern, “We should have lines for fish and rig hides above us to collect water.”

  I was now the one who felt embarrassed, Erik had told me that was how they had survived on the voyage back to the Land of Ice and Fire.”

  “Then let us do it. Organize the boys!”

  As he hurried off to set the handful of men and the boys to do as I had commanded, I looked at the skies. There was still no sun and so the compass was useless. It was fortunate that we still had the land and Erik’s map, allied to Bear Tooth’s local knowledge gave us some sense of where we were.

  I think Bear Tooth must have sensed my doubt for he came closer to me and said, quietly, “Fótr, the tribes will be heading inland soon, for the winter. We would see the smoke from their fires if they were close. When we hunted the whale, I was always looking to the land for, especially that first voyage, I was fearful. There are many beaches which we can use. The island of which you speak is not known to me and Erik told us that they were attacked there. It may be the tribe which lives on that island is not be the same as mine. Just as the Penobscot are different to us so we may be different from the tribes who live further north.”