The sound of the Althing was in the air; first as a whisper, then as a voice, and then as a roar. For you hear it before you see it: the low hum of thousands of voices chattering together, as strange a sound in Iceland as silence in a city. Children who have not heard it before mistake it for the sound of the sea or the growl of some terrible monster. They clutch at their parents, weeping in fear, and are mocked with laughter.
As we rode across the black cliffs, the plain opened out beneath us. Cut deep into the valley, looking as if it were carved out by the shovelling hand of a god, and flanked by the great lake Thingvallavatn, bottomless and still. And everywhere that we looked upon that plain, there were people.
There are no cities on our island. No townships or great settlements of any kind. It is an island of families, a single village scattered across the landscape. A man may have a farm deep within the folds of a valley and, looking out, he might see no other neighbour, feel as if he is the only settler in Iceland.
Where there is a city, the local bully becomes a tyrant, the tyrant becomes a king. The gang becomes a warband, becomes a conqueror’s army. The people came to this island, exiles and dreamers and fools, because they had tired of such things. It was our isolation that kept us safe, or so we believed. We left nothing for a king to rule over.
Yet now we could see the thousands who gathered there, the great lake that was a cousin to the sea and a mirror to the sky. The Althing, the great gathering of the People. It is there that we trade and sing, see the friends we thought long lost to us. It is there that the law is spoken and decided. All things that a man could dream of lay there – we had only to find them and choose between them.
‘What will you do here?’
The voice a strange one to me, so long had it been. I stared at Gunnar, so that I could be sure that it was he who spoke and not some trick of the mind. He waved a hand at me, impatient.
‘I will go to the poets. There are songs I must learn. And I have a new song to sing. And you?’
‘I go to buy a horse for my son. I promised him a black gelding,’ he said, and he stirred his own mount forward.
Perhaps it was as simple as that – he owed me the courtesy of an escort, and honour had now been served. Yet just as I was ready to believe this, he turned in his saddle and spoke to me once more.
‘I shall see you with the poets. I will hear this new song of yours.’
My horse was tethered with the great herd in a canyon, my axe bound to my belt with white cords, for none may go to the Althing with a ready weapon. Then I was among them, passing into that sea of people like a swimmer into water, clearing a path through the crowd with my hands against their backs. Instead of the breaking of the waves, my ears filled with the cries of old companions reunited, of daughters seeing their fathers once again. I smelt the salt of sweat and not the sea.
I went not towards the great booths of the chieftains, where beneath the high black cliffs the Thirty-Nine gathered to discuss the great deeds of the people, to confer on the will of the gods. Nor did I go to the great trading grounds, where men and women gathered to see the treasures brought from distant lands – intricate silver jewellery, richly dyed clothes, fine Swedish steel – that few could afford but all could look upon and long for. I did not go to the Oxara river, to look upon the little island where countless duels of honour had been fought, where men had died for an insult, a word, a single untoward look. I went instead to that raised piece of ground to the west. I went to where the poets sang.
I sometimes wonder how the people of other lands speak of the Northmen. The Saxons and Picts whom we have raided time and time again. Perhaps they respect us for being braver warriors than they, for showing them how to fight and how to die. More likely they think us monsters and murderers. But that is because they have never heard us sing.
We may love the sight of a well-forged weapon, the glitter of silver in a chest, fine-worked jewellery, deep-dyed scarlet cloth. But there is only one true art that matters to the Northmen and that is poetry.
For we may spend much of our lives huddled close in the dark, waiting for the sun to rise. Those who do not die of sickness or starvation or to the feud spend their restless lives toiling in the fields and raising sickly cattle. Even our gods know that they fight a hopeless battle, doomed to die at Ragnarök. Yet we know what beauty is, and it is the voice that sings in the night. For when the shield is shattered and the sword is blunted, when all friends have broken fellowship and lovers grown cold, we will not be alone. The poets shall keep us company.
These were my people and there were not many of us. Many had gone abroad to find their homes in the courts of kings, for it is known that we Icelanders sing truer and sweeter than any other. There are few who could resist that call of glory, the court of kings – only those of us bound by poverty or feud or lack of skill remained behind.
I knew them all. Hallfred – but a boy at that time, but already we knew that he would be greater than any of us. Kormákr, his eyes mad with love and poetry, face marked with the scars of the many duels he had fought for love. A little way distant, I could see the towering figure of Egill Skallagrímsson – an old man now, but looking half a giant at least, still glowering with such ferocity that men half his age kept their distance from him. The greatest of all the warrior poets, who had won a stay of execution with a single poem, ended a feud with a song. And there were more there, others whom I shall not name.
They nodded at me then – I the least amongst them, but I had enough skill to earn my place. No great king would ever call me to his court. No man would sing of me a hundred years from now. Yet I had drunk of the mead of poetry as they had, that gift from the gods which few men may know. They looked on, and waited for me to sing.
A crowd gathered round; not so great as that around the chieftains or the traders, but large enough for my heart to quicken, to taste iron upon my tongue. But I would not look into the crowd in search of men and women I knew. My words were not for them.
I closed my eyes, and stilled my breath. I began to sing. I sang of a man who fought a ghost in the snow.
A careful song: I left no clue for the curious, no chance that they would know the meaning behind the words. Yet I sang of the battle in the snow, of a great warrior whom none would acknowledge. A proud man who needed no acclaim from his kin or chieftain. For this man, to be forgotten was the greatest of praise: he fought for himself alone.
If I had lost his friendship, then the words at least would remain. As some sing of the loves that they have lost, so I sang of my friend.
I see in your eyes that you wish to hear it. Of all the songs I have given you, perhaps you want this one more than any other. But you shall not have it. Soon, you will know why.
I saw them then. As I finished my song and the first words of praise broke over me, I looked amongst the crowd and I saw the two who I most hoped for.
Gunnar first, standing in the first row, his mouth slightly parted, his fighter’s eyes unreadable as ever they were. And Sigrid – further back, almost lost amidst the others, I could not see her face.
The words of the other poets fell upon me – guarded praise, questions of origin, a few cutting words. I did not answer them, but went forward to the crowd. Yet Gunnar was already gone. A little nod of the head that could have meant anything, and he drifted away into one of the shifting currents of bodies that ran through that sea of people.