Book 3: 'Arrow Odd'

33.0 THE WAKING OF ANGANTYR

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

THE WAKING OF ANGANTYR

" Beneath my back is laid                the bane of Hjalmar,

All around it                          enwrapped in fire;

In the world walking                       no woman know I

Who would dare in her hand           to hold this sword?

The Ghost of Angantyr; Arrow Odd's Saga

(911 AD)  Four years after the Treaty of 907, Erik and Oddi once more led a fleet against the Eastern Romans. This time it was a show of force. Heavily armed longships accompanied the spring throng of merchants heading for trade in Constantinople. The longships waited on the Bosporos while the merchant ships carried on with their trade in the city. The full Roman fleet was home and on maneuvers around the Golden Horn, so there was much belching of Greek fire and a number of target ships were burned in warning. The Varangian Guard came out from behind the city walls to warn the Hraes' to respect the existing treaty, but they ended up drinking and celebrating with the Hraes' troops. The standoff carried on for several weeks until, eventually, a large number of Hraes' merchants and sailors were released from Roman custody.

The previous year's trade was marked by numerous storms on the Bosporus and the Scythian Sea and a number of Hraes' merchant ships sank or broke up on reefs and the survivors were often captured and enslaved by the Greeks and forced to work off their 'savior debt' by rowing in the bellies of Roman biremes and triremes. Varangians were prized as 'debtors' because they were born to the oar, and spent most of their lives rowing, and a trireme full of Varangers was the fastest warship on the seas. So, the Roman Hraes' Treaty of 907 became a fuller, more encompassing Treaty of 911, that included maritime laws protecting the rights of stranded and injured sailors and merchants of any nation. Strand laws more favorable to those being shipwrecked were implemented, as well as mutual laws in the handling of crimes. Asylum laws were also included granting rights of civil protection.

Once the treaty was concluded, Prince Erik returned to Kiev, but had extracted a promise of a visit from his son. King Oddi had been mulling over a return to Hrafnista via the Nor'Way, with perhaps a stop in Giantland along the way, followed by stops in York and Dub-Lin and Rouen and then perhaps even a stop in Stavanger Province to visit Hraegunarstead and Berurjod before an extended visit with his father in Kiev.

Prince Erik told Princess Eyfura that he had convinced his son to visit him in Kiev on his return trip from the Nor'Way. Princess Eyfura told Hervor, "It is time."

And Hervor said:

      "As quick as you can            equip me in all ways,

        wisest of women,                as you would your own son!

        In dreams is told me            the truth only;

        No contentment                shall I taste here now."

A longship was secretly prepared for Hervor and manned by stout young warriors of Kiev. They sailed north up the Dnieper, past Chernigov to Smolensk, then portaged across to Surazh and were discharged into the Dvina. They continued north down the river, passing by Polotsk, and kept sailing all the way across the Baltic until they reached Zealand. It was late summer, so Hervor passed herself off as Captain Hervard, and she and her crew spent the winter in the harbour town that served the Royal City of Liere. She spent time in the round fortress of her great grandfather, King Frodi. Tales were still being told by skalds of a great battle upon the ice there and the fall of the House of Westmar. Newer poems were being forged of a great holmganger fought on the Island of Samso between Hjalmar 'the Brave', representing Sweden, and his second, Arrow Odd, representing Norway, against Angantyr of Holmgard and his eleven brothers, serving King Frodi the Peaceful, and representing Denmark.