That night, in the great hall, the Viking warriors held a farewell feast. A long table stretched right up the middle of the hall, and it was covered in huge mounds of food.
There was roast chicken, boiled goat, grilled reindeer, stewed hare, leg of moose, rack of lamb, wild boar, fried squid, whole stuffed pig’s head, roasted pheasant, partridge soup…
And that was just the first course.
The Vikings liked to wash their food down with lots and lots of ale, which they drank from reindeer horns.
Thorfinn sat next to his father at the top of the table. Oswald sat opposite Thorfinn. At the far end of the table, Olaf’s father, Erik the Ear-Masher, glowered at everyone. He only had one eye, of course. The other was covered by a patch. But there was enough glower in it for two.
Viking feasts were a messy business. They ripped the meat apart with their bare hands.
Crack! Crunch! Ping! Rip!
Then they all went silent and the room was filled with the sound of ravenous men eating.
Chomp! Grind! Gnash! Chew! Slurp!
Then they spat the bones onto the floor for their dogs.
Snarl! Gnaw! Woof! Snap!
Then there was the burping, the cheering, the farting, more cheering and the odd fight. For the Vikings, any banquet without at least three punch-ups was boring.
There was a glint in Chief Harald’s eye as he picked up a huge roast leg of goat. He bit into it and a big squirt of grease shot out and hit him in the eye.
“Ouch!” he cried.
Thorfinn could only laugh. Unlike the others, he was calmly cutting all his food up with a knife, and eating it in small pieces.
“You see, Father, if you take the time to chop your food, it’s easier to eat,” he said. But his father wasn’t listening. He was too busy getting stuck into the goat’s leg, a great sliver of meat hanging off his beard.
After drinking ale, the Vikings sang lots of songs. Then Thorfinn’s father got up onto the table and blew a huge horn, which brought silence to the whole hall.
“Tomorrow morning at first tide we leave on another great voyage!” he cried. All the Vikings cheered.
“Huzzah!”
“Our plan is to sail across the great North Sea to the land of the Scots.”
To Thorfinn this was really exciting. After all, he’d never been to Scotland. He held up his hand.
“Pardon me, dearest Father.” All eyes turned to look at Thorfinn. Harald felt scared for the first time in his life. Battles and fistfights didn’t trouble him one bit, but his son embarrassing him? That was frightening.
“What shall we do when we get there?” Thorfinn asked. His father looked down at him as if he were mad.
“We all sit down and have a cup of tea, boy. What do you think?”
The other Vikings burst out laughing, slapping their thighs, but Thorfinn didn’t get the joke. His eyes lit up.
“Is that really what we’re going to do?”
“Don’t be daft. We raid all the villages,” said one Viking.
“We burn them to the ground,” said another.
“We nick the gold from their churches,” said a third.
To Thorfinn it seemed crazy to travel all that way just to burn everything. He thought it would be more fun to go sightseeing.
“I have heard that there’s some wonderful scenery along the Scottish coast. Wouldn’t it be great if we all took paints and brushes? We could sit on the deck and paint pictures. We could even have a competition.”
Suddenly, the great hall fell deadly quiet. The Vikings all stared at each other, completely stunned. Thorfinn’s father looked as if he’d just been asked to eat a salad.
“Bah! The idea! Can you imagine my ferocious Viking warriors flouncing around deck wafting paintbrushes? Are you mad?”
There was a huge burst of laughter, and then Olaf, Erik’s son, stood up. He was still determined to get revenge on Thorfinn for the dung-heap incident.
“Listen to this one,” he said, “Thorfinn the Sightseer!” The table erupted again.
Now Erik the Ear-Masher stood up. He drew his sword and whammed it down on the table, cutting the head off one of the roast pheasants and catapulting it into the air, along with a horn of ale. The pheasant head plopped into someone’s beer. The man just shrugged and went on drinking. The horn spun round a couple of times before landing upside down on a dog’s head. The dog yelped and then bolted out of the door. All eyes turned to Erik.
“Harald the Skull-Splitter,” Erik said, “we do not want that son of yours on our voyage.”
There was a big gasp from the other Vikings. Erik was challenging the chief of the village himself. It could only mean one thing.
There was going to be a fight!