One King’s Way. Chapter 29, 30
Chapter Twenty-nine
The new king of the Swedes, Kjallak, knew well that he had been chosen to succeed his murdered predecessor Orm for one thing only: to cope with the menace of the German Christians, and to a lesser degree the Way-folk now spreading through the country. To return the land of the Swedes, Sveariki, to the old ways and the old customs of the priests. Failure, and the priests of Uppsala-temple would choose again.
He laid his plans carefully. A sacrifice had been demanded. A sacrifice he would give them. And it would consist of men and women from all the groups that the Swedes hated and feared: Christians, Wayfolk, Finns and even the skogarmenn, the small scattered communities of borderers who lived in the forests or on the moors and paid no taxes.
Chasing Finns in the winter was useless. In the summer it was hard also, because they retired with their reindeer to the deep tundra. There was a time to strike, a time when the Swedes had a natural advantage. In the deep mud of the melting season, when no-one moved if they could avoid it, but when the matchless horses of the Swedish horse-breeders could make their way. Kjallak sent sleigh-loads of forage during the winter to selected places. Picked his men and instructed them carefully. Sent them out, a week before the equinox, in wind and driving sleet.
Shef too had laid his plans. At the equinox, he thought, the ice might have gone from the fast-running river, and conditions would be good to take the Fearnought downstream, on the first stage of the voyage home. His men were arming the ship carefully, stowing her dragon-plates of steel in the hold where they could be unshipped quickly, fitting beckets to the gunwales to hold crossbows and quarrels, chipping rocks for the mules.
As he watched, Shef realized that a group of Finns was heading towards them. They moved clumsily without their skis. There was still some snow on the ground, but much of it had churned to slush or mud. The Finns looked graceless, like birds with clipped wings. Yet they were often enough about the station, coming in to trade or to examine what went on. One of Herjolf’s priest-companions was a devotee of the goddess Skathi, the ski-goddess of the mountains. He spoke the Finnish tongue and often traveled with them, learning their lore. Shef saw him go to meet them and turned back to the loading.
A while later, he found Ottar, Skathi’s-priest, at his shoulder, and with him the Finn, Piruusi, a look of sullen anger on his face. Shef looked from face to face, wondering.
“He says the Swedes attacked his encampment two days ago,” said Ottar. “Many men on horses. They had not seen them come because the snow was melting. Many Finns were killed. Some taken.”
“Taken,” repeated Piruusi. “One Swede got drunk, fell from horse. We catch him. He tell us, Finns to go to the temple. Temple at Uppsala. Hang there on a tree in honor of Swedish gods.”
Shef nodded, still wondering why he was being told. “He wants you to rescue them,” said Ottar.
“Me! I know nothing of Uppsala.” But then Shef fell silent. He remembered the three visions he had had in Piruusi’s tent. Of them all, he had thought most about the first, his old enemies the Ragnarssons seizing power and blocking his path. Yet he had seen the king too, the new king, threatened by his priests into promising a proper sacrifice, not the cheap disposal of surplus slaves that the Swedes had carried out for many years. And the Christians, they had been in it too.
“Did he say anything about Christians, your Swede?”
Piruusi’s face lightened, he said something in Finnish. “He says he knew you were led by the spirits,” said Ottar, translating. “Christians too are to go to the great oak. And the men of the Way, or so Piruusi says.”
“We’ve had no trouble,” said Shef.
“We live far up-stream. And in any case, we aren’t all here.”
Shef felt his heart lurch at the correction. Thorvin had gone to the farm-town thirty miles off, while the snow was still good for sleighs, taking with him Cwicca, Hama and Udd, to trade iron for food. They had not returned. If they had been taken too… Shef realized with surprise that of them all, Cwicca who had saved his life by pulling him from Ivar’s drowning embrace, Thorvin who had taken him in as a wandering nobody, of them all, the one whose fate most concerned him was Udd. If he went, no-one could replace him. Many plans would die at birth without his inspiration.