Gone Viking 2:
With the People
Drumming. Drumming. Except for Ellaf, who was with Niband in her wickiup, all of the crew was around the fire with the People. And the People were having a rip-roaring time. The winter is over! The warmth of the sun blessed them. They had gone through most of the starving time and the OTHERS, the Northmen and Northwomen had arrived. Good things had come to them.
Men and women smoked the pipe, or rather, the pipes that were being passed around in fellowship. We had all eaten of the old doe that was killed the other day; she tasted of pine-- but still was remarkably fat for having survived the winter. Cake made of the dried corn and sweetened with honey and maple syrup was our dessert. We were all stuffed and sleepy, and the tobacco was remarkably strong.
There was another 'herb' in the blend that I smoked.
We drank birch water and strong tea. Well-watered, I needed to leave the fireside to piss. I envied the dress of the People which was much more convenient to human needs than tight jeans and cotton panties.
More pipe smoke and drumming and singing 'til late. The youngest were led off to bed to be watched over by the oldest of the mothers. For the younger couples, this was a night of indulgence-- to sing, to dance, to laugh.
The crew of the longship was evenly divided-- some had been this way before; for others, this was a new land and a new experience. For those that had been this way before, there were women, both unmarried and widows, who had coupled with them in the past. This was not a shameful thing, but a sign of honoring guests and being honored by guests. The coupling was a sacred thing and a thing of much joy. A thing that the gracious People shared.
Some of the widows and young women who came to the crew were saddened that their partners of the past were not present. Sickness, the sea, drunken brawls, family issues had left these women without their expected partners. Among members of our crew there was also sadness.
Agnar, one of Ellaf's vetaran crewmen, a man at least a decade senior to Ellaf, sat near me, drunk with tobacco, and weed, his head in his hands. "Urpi, my dove, died this winter, died in childbirth. My child was too big for her to birth, and she was tired from a hard autumn, and weak from a fever that gripped her at the time of the Solstice."
His eyes wanted something from me, but I could not give it. I could not be his dove, even for this night.
He saw my resolution in my eyes and accepted it but stayed by me mostly in a companionable silence; sometimes reminiscing about his life, other times explaining things about the People and the Northmen.
"I see that you must wonder how we arrived so early in the spring. The late winter seas from the Norse lands make for a difficult voyage for all but the foolhardiest of captains; most would wait for at least another moon. But we have a winter camp at the outlet of the great river where this river meets an arm of the great North Sea. The last trading vessels of the fall would bring us trading goods to trade with the People in the spring and enough are stored so that we can survive the winter. We have a fortified camp with workshops and forges, so that we can make iron to trade. The round ships bring iron we make into tools. We have found that finished goods from the Norse lands don't match the needs of the People, and with a forge here, we can repair tools we have traded in the past. Thus, we keep our 'good name' with the People."
Agnar looked at me one last time with hopeful longing. Then he smiled. "I expect too much from a new friend and I would never ask such a thing from another shipmate. Forgive me!"
