‘Idle boy!’
Botolf had returned early and sober, no doubt to prepare for his performance that evening.
Ducking a blow, Skarfr blurted out, ‘Sweyn Asleifsson is come to Orkneyjar. We – I mean I – saw him beach his boat and he’s heading to the Jarl’s Bu by pony.’
The reaction was satisfying. Irritation at Skarfr changed to amazement, then a calculating look narrowed the hooded eyes in their wrinkled settings, almost sharpening the habitual watery vagueness. The usual sourness about his mouth in repose tilted upwards as he grilled his apprentice about the news.
Skarfr dutifully described Sweyn and his band, finishing, ‘He spoke to me, said you must do honour to him in your songs this night because he’s the greatest sea-rover who ever lived.’
Botolf looked thunder at being given such instructions and Skarfr added hastily, ‘Those are his words, not mine.’
Then he had a sudden moment of inspiration. ‘And you must—,’ he amended the offending word quickly, ‘should do honour also to his sister, the Lady Inge, who is to marry Thorbjorn Klerk.’
His mind once more on bigger news than his apprentice’s failings, Botolf mused aloud, ‘So it is true. Sweyn and Thorbjorn become blood-brothers while Jarl Rognvald looks on and smiles. What will this mean for us?’
Having been taught to recognise a rhetorical question along with the four hundred allusions that meant ‘warrior’, Skarfr held his tongue.
Botolf started pacing, his usual way in private to stimulate Óðinn’s gift, the verse that filled his mind and spewed from his mouth. He warmed up with well-known kennings, those poetic references that gained nods of recognition from all educated men and even some women.
‘Riding on wave-steeds to Ring-Breaker’s Hall, where
Bold-Hammer and Jarl-Snatcher will down one glad horn
and shout skål for their lady, the peace-goddess-born.’
Skarfr shook his head, marvelling. Why was the god’s gift bestowed on a man whose thoughts were as rancid as his unwashed feet? Understanding such verse was second nature to the boy now but he could no more compose such lines than spin gold.
‘Well?’ Botolf asked him, the cue for him to show he understood and appreciated every word.
‘On boats, Thorbjorn and Sweyn come to the Jarl’s Hall and seal their alliance through marriage with a draught from the same drinking-horn. The Jarl is the Ring-Breaker because he gives silver links from his chain to those who merit it. And the name-kennings are well found, Master, because Thórr is the hammer and Bjorn is the bear’s strength while all know that Sweyn is Jarl-Snatcher because he kidnapped Jarl Paul, who was never seen again.
‘Horn and born are neatly rhymed. And the Lady Inge is well portrayed too.’
Skarfr knew better than to criticise but his true opinion was that playing on Inge’s name as ‘peace-goddess-born’ was weak, rather obvious in referring to the goddess of peace and fertility, Ing, for whom she was named, and in emphasising the peace her marriage would bring. There was no evocation of the golden goddess who’d dazzled him. The woman in the verse could have been some dumpy matron.
If he were a skald, he would praise her so well she would … he would … he sighed and felt the sting of the girl’s curse. He would what? Be renowned throughout this land and the Old Country? As Botolf was.
The skald was preening at the praise so Skarfr risked a question.
‘Do you think our Jarl might react badly to the reminder that Sweyn put himself above a jarl in the past?’
‘Yes,’ said Botolf, serious. ‘It is a warning he should heed. A reminder to Sweyn too that a skald is beyond his orders and obeys a higher power.’
He struck a pose, his belly straining at his linen tunic, his legs thin as a heron’s. As he declaimed kennings on marriage and honour that ventured ever further from the common stock of images, his spittle hit Skarfr. Who merely blinked. Unless the skald was completely lost in composition, concern for his apprentice’s manners would always take priority, using the tool nearest to hand. Skarfr had been thrashed with bridle, belt and even a cooking pot, which had smashed into soapstone smithereens.
His own name jolted Skarfr back into the present. ‘Skarfr, you halfwit. I don’t have time for lessons today but you can practise these three lines until they’re perfect. And I’ll test you on them any time I choose so make sure they are perfect. Before tonight.
Golden Rán embarks for the heart’s world
proud at the prow which ploughs the raven’s field
and plants two hollow hand-fires for her and Strong-Hammer.’
That was more like Inge. Skarfr could see her in his mind’s eye as he repeated the lines, singsong, to show he’d memorised them. He would rehearse them all afternoon just so he could picture her, slim and regal, like the sea-goddess Rán, waves of golden hair gilding her dark cloak as she stood at the prow of her brother’s dragon ship. Preparing the battlefield with rings for the crop of a marriage.
Skarfr could see layers upon layers of meaning in the lines that he must work to understand before performing them. Botolf would keep the important verses for himself, especially those lauding the two heroes and their alliance, but Skarfr would speak hers, Inge’s. He glowed.
His master paid him no attention, too focused on his own work. ‘A rough gem but will polish up well enough tonight,’ was Botolf’s judgement and there was no chance he was referring to Skarfr.
‘Why are you still here, boy? There’s animals to feed before you pack for overnight at the Jarl’s Bu. Check Fergus has brushed, cooled and readied the pony for our journey. The lazy beast did little enough this morning but I don’t want him collapsing on the road. Bad bargain that was. I make too many bad bargains from kindness of heart.’
Botolf’s hard stare made it clear who else was a bad bargain. His kindness of heart had been dinned into Skarfr so often by neighbours as well as the skald himself that the boy no longer felt the bitterness that used to rise like bile at such a statement. He had learned to stomach worse and learning was his job.
‘You won’t need much.’
So deep had he retreated into his protective shell that Skarfr didn’t take in his master’s words at first. Then his heart pounded. He was going too. He would see this gathering of gods and heroes. Sweyn, Thorbjorn and Jarl Rognvald. Lady Inge, suggested his sly thoughts. And Hlif.