“Nor tomorrow, neither,” he added. “But how it is with this leg of mine I do not know.”
He limped into the house to have his injury examined by Ylva and the priest.
Inside the cowshed all was disorder, and the two berserks were lying across each other in one corner. Greip had the sharp end of the broomstick through his throat, and Ullbjörn’s tongue was hanging out of his mouth. They were both dead.
Ludmilla was afraid that she would now be birched, and Ylva thought she had deserved it for having gone in alone to the two berserks. But Orm pleaded for her to be treated leniently, so that she escaped more lightly than she had thought possible; and she described what had happened before the fight in such a manner that they agreed that no blame could be attached to her. Orm was not displeased with the incident, once Father Willibald had examined his leg and declared the injury to be slight; for though he was now certain that Gudmund of Uvaberg had offered him the two men in the hope of gaining his revenge, he was well pleased with his feat of having overpowered two berserks singlehanded and without the help of any proper weapon.
“You did wisely, Ludmilla,” he said, “to turn them against each other when they would have molested you, for I am not sure that even I could have defeated them if they had not already tired each other somewhat. My advice, therefore, Ylva, is that she shall not be birched, though it was rash of her to go in to them alone. For she is too young to understand the thoughts that are liable to enter men’s heads when they look at her.”
Ylva shook her head doubtfully at this, but allowed Orm to have his way.
“This affair has turned out well,” he said. “Nobody can deny that these two ruffians have done good work since they arrived here. I now have a well, a boathouse, and more honor to my name, and Gudmund has been well snubbed for his pains. So everything is as it should be. But I will take care to let him know that if he provokes me again, I shall pay him a visit that he will not forget.”
“I will come with you,” said Blackhair earnestly; he had been sitting listening to their conversation.
“You are too small to wear a sword,” said Orm.
“I have the ax Rapp forged for me,” he replied. “He says there are not many axes with a sharper edge than mine.”
Orm and Ylva laughed, but Father Willibald shook his head frowningly and said it was a bad thing to hear such talk from a Christian child.
“I must tell you again, Blackhair,” he said, “what you have already heard me say five, if not ten times, that you should think less about weapons and more about learning the prayer called Pater Noster, which I have so often explained to you and begged you to learn. Your brother Harald could recite that prayer by the time he was seven, and you are now twelve and still do not know it.”
“Harald can say it for us both,” retorted Blackhair boldly. “I am in no hurry to learn priest-talk.”
So time passed at Gröning, and little of note occurred; and Orm felt well content to sit there peacefully until his days should end. But a year after he killed the berserks, he received tidings that sent him forth upon the third of his long voyages.
CHAPTER TWO
CONCERNING THE MAN FROM THE EAST
OLOF SUMMERBIRD came riding to Gröning with ten followers and was warmly welcomed. He stayed there three days, for the friendship between him and Orm was great. The purpose of his journey, however, was, he said, to ride down to the east coast to Kivik to buy salt from the Gotland traders who often anchored there. When Orm heard this, he decided to go with him on the same errand.
As things now were, salt was scarcely procurable, however large a price people might be willing to pay for it, thanks to King Sven Forkbeard of Denmark and the luck that attended all his enterprises. For King Sven was now ranging the sea with larger fleets than any man had heard tell of before, laying violent hands on any ship that crossed his path. He had plundered Hedeby and sacked it, and was reported to have laid waste all the country of the Frisians; it was known, moreover, that he had a mind to conquer the whole of England and as much more as he had time for. Trade and merchandise interested him not at all, but only long ships and sworded men; and things had come to such a pass that of late no salt-ships had come from the west, because they no longer dared to brave the northern waters. So no salt was procurable except that which the Gothlanders brought from Wendland, and this was bought up so eagerly by the coastal dwellers that little or none ever found its way inland.
Orm took eight men with him and rode with Olof Summerbird down to Kivik. There they waited for several days in the hope that a ship might soon arrive, while many people gathered there from all parts on the same errand. At last two Gotland ships were sighted. They were heavily laden and dropped anchor a good way outside the harbor. For the hunger for salt had become so great that the Gothlanders now drove their trade cautiously, to avoid being killed by overzealous customers. Their ships were large, high-gunwaled, and well manned, and anyone who wanted to buy from them had to row out in small boats, from which they were only allowed aboard two at a time.
Olof Summerbird and Orm hired a fishing-boat and were pulled out to the ships. They wore red cloaks and polished helmets. Olof grumbled at the smallness of the boat, for he had wanted to be rowed out in greater state. When their turn arrived, they climbed aboard the ship, which bore a chieftain’s standard, and as they did so, their rowers, one of Orm’s men and one of Olof’s, cried out their names in a loud voice, so that the Gothlanders might understand at once that they were now being honored by a visit from chieftains.
“Olof Styrsson the Magnificent, Chieftain of the Finnvedings, whom many call Olof Summerbird,” cried one.
“Orm Tostesson the Far-Traveled, Chieftain of the Sea, whom most men call Red Orm,” cried the other.
There was murmuring among the Gothlanders when these names were heard, and some of the men came forward to greet them; for there were several in the ship who had known Olof in the Eastland, and others who had sailed with Thorkel the Tall to England and remembered Orm from that campaign.
A man was seated by the gunwale, near to the point where they had come aboard. Suddenly he began to moan excitedly and stretched out one of his arms toward them. He was a large man with a matted beard, which was beginning to grow gray; across his face he wore a broad bandage covering his eyes, and as he stretched his right arm toward Orm and Olof, they could see that the hand had been severed at the wrist.
“Look at the blind man,” said the Gothlanders. “There is something he wishes to say.”
“He seems to know one of you,” said the ship’s captain. “Besides what you can see, he has also lost his tongue, so that he cannot speak; nor do we know who he is. He was led aboard by a merchant from the East, while we were at anchor trading with the Kures, at the mouth of the river Dvina. The merchant told us that this man wished to go to Skania. He had silver to pay for his passage, so I accepted him. He understands what is said to him and, after much questioning, I have discovered that his family lives in Skania. But more than that I do not know, not even his name.”
“Tongue, eyes, and right hand,” said Olof Summerbird thoughtfully. “Surely it is the Byzantines who have treated him thus.”
The blind man nodded eagerly.
“I am Olof Styrsson of Finnveden, and have served in the bodyguard of the Emperor Basil at Miklagard. Is it I whom you know?”
The blind man shook his head.
“Then perhaps it is I,” said Orm, “though I cannot guess who you may be. I am Orm, the son of Toste, the son of Thorgrim, who lived at Grimstad on the Mound. Do you know me?”