Book 3: 'Arrow Odd'

20.0 VALLEY OF THE MOUND BUILDERS

CHAPTER TWENTY

VALLEY OF THE MOUND BUILDERS (Circa 867 AD)

"Like a moth drawn to a flame, the Spirit of Queen Alfhild

was drawn to her Tiger Totem, and she visited 'Arrow Odd',

one night in a dream that was, both physical and spiritual."

Brian Howard Seibert

(867 AD) It took all the people of Watseka's village to portage six small Nor'Way ships around the Nia-Gara Falls. And, with the dozen York boats and supplies, it took the whole village a month at the Nia-Gara site and so they built a temporary village there and called it Kanatatoo, meaning 'Village too'. Once the portage was completed, Watseka's Mississauga people returned to their permanent village and Arrow Oddi took Watseka and their son, Ahanu, across the great lakes and south to the Mississippi River to overwinter in warmer weather and explore.

"My father liked the name of your village," Oddi told Watseka as they slept under the awnings of Fair Faxi. "He says Kanata sounds like our word knute, or knud, which means knot and he likens our Hraes' Trading Company as a great trading network composed of many trade stations or knots in a trading net that has been cast out to encompass trade from Cathay and the Land of the Rising Sun in the far east, and now, to Kanata and the Land of the Setting Sun in the far west, a truly world-wide company of merchants."

"I like that," Watseka said, snuggling into Oddi's arm. "A village is but a knot in a vaster net cast across the world for the benefit of all. Your father must be a poet."

"That he is, and more!"

"Is he really planning to make us a part of his trading net?" Watseka asked.

"I think he'd like to," Oddi answered, "but he's more in charge of the Varangians, the eastern Vikings, and my Uncle Roller, Duke Rollo, handles the western end of the business. They'll have to discuss it. And right now my uncle and I are in trouble with our King Frodi who is trying to kill us both."

"Is that the evil King that you fought with? The one who paid us gold and gifts to build the portage road you are now using?"

"Yes, the very one and the same."

"I don't like him," Watseka said. "His face looks like it's been clawed by a woman, like he's a rapist of some poor girl who made him pay for his conquest."

"He strangled his wife," Oddi told her, "and she's the one who clawed his face up in her last dying breaths. Her spirit told my Uncle Roller this one night as she slept with him. She told him that as she was dying she saw me being conceived by my father, Prince Erik and my mother, Princess Gunwar, and she saw that my conceptual spirit was a tiger and it gave her the strength to fight back and she tore up his face before he murdered her." He didn't tell her that it was actually his father Erik that had related the story to him after the spirit had also slept with him.

"That is such a powerful spirit story!" Watseka said, shivering and clutching Oddi. "But what is a Tiger?"

"It is a very big cat, very fierce...a man-eater!"

"We have those here in our Puma, and the Mayans have Black Panthers. That is a very powerful totem. No wonder your rapist king ran back to his trading empire."

"Tell me about these Mayans," Oddi begged.

"The Mayans have their own trading empire that is full of many evil kings," Watseka started, "but we shall be seeing that for ourselves, Gitchee Manitou willing. Tell me more about this murdered spirit queen who was sleeping with your uncle. How did he make love to a ghost?"