The Varangians vs. the Goose (Part 6)

27th Mar 2022

Part 5

Now, in order to regale you with the final part of my tale, I must first, unfortunately, tell you about Melrakki.

With Heidir the Bold travelled many men of every shape and size; some tall, some short; some skilled with the axe, others with the bow; some with long hair and beards braided all the way to their waists, some bald as eggs. But none were so cunning or so downright troublesome as Melrakki. Honestly, he was a scumbag, and I don’t mind telling you as much. His hair was grey as a silver birch, which made his age impossible to discern - indeed, it was a topic of frequent debate, because Melrakki often made passing comments referring to his having been at particular places or battles that would have put him at seventy or eighty years of age, just to see whether anyone would call him out on it. Someone (entirely possible that someone was Melrakki) claimed his hair had once been a blazing red; but that he’d fallen from a longboat into the mouth of a sea serpent and as he fought the beast its stomach acid turned his hair to its present colour. He had stories for each and every one of his scars, each wilder and less plausible than the last, up to and including the notch on his left ring finger that everyone on the Vegr knew had come about because he’d been playing the knife game while drunk.

Long story short, the only thing Melrakki loved more than inventing crazy stories about himself was putting himself in ridiculous and dangerous situations in order to try and get material for him to tell even more crazy stories about himself. And to boot, dragging other upstanding members of Heidir's band with him, making them complicit. That even Sten, most cunning and well-learned of the crew, had been tricked into playing along with more than one of Melrakki's little games says all it needs to about the cleverness of that fiend's silver tongue.

With that in mind, let’s return to our story:

Smali thrust his torch into the shadows at the back of the barn to reveal Knuta the Freckled cowering in the corner with Viktar’s knife embedded in his thigh; Haseti crouching next to him with one arm over his nose; and who else but Melrakki, squatting behind them with an expression of panic on his face.

“Melrakki! What the fuck!” cried Lind. “You’re supposed to be on the ship!”

“Ahhhhhh! Motherfuckers!” moaned Knuta, clutching his leg.

Smali sighed. “Ugh, this is a nuisance. Get him up, we’ll need to get him back for Gunnarr to patch him up.” Bergrisi stuck his head around the door and went pale, then muttered something about going to get Heidir and ran off.

“Hold still,” said Haseti, and pulled the dagger out of Knuta’s leg, making him howl “Motherfuckers” even more loudly. Haseti waved the dagger about angrily. “What shit-for-brains threw this?”

Lind gestured to Lord Viktar, who was standing uncomprehending in the doorway. “That shit-for-brains, as you call him, is our employer’s beloved nephew, genius. What the hell were you thinking? Heidir is going to be mad at all of us.”

Viktar said, in Rus: “Why are your men hiding in a barn, Norseman?”

“Is nothing, milord,” said Smali. “They look for thieves. Please, do not worry. We fix problem.” He switched to Norse. “Come on, idiots!”

Lind leaned down to get his head under Knuta’s arm; Haseti grabbed the other and they pulled him to his feet. As they stumbled past Lord Viktar Haseti thrust the knife at him hilt first and said in broken Rus, “Milord, you dropped this.”

Out in the yard Bergrisi came running over with Sten, who was furiously eating a leg of chicken that he’d grabbed from the feast table. Melrakki started to laugh.

“Hilarious, smartarse,” said Sten. “This is all your fault.”

“Hey! We just wanted to get in on the action a bit, share some of the feasting,” said Melrakki. “You can’t keep all the good stuff to yourselves.”

“Yeah, and see if you can figure out where Lady Alena keeps her gold while you’re at it, I bet.”

Melrakki looked aghast. “Me?! You think so poorly of my reputation, do you?”

“Do I think you’d steal money from the defenceless old lady who hired us? Hell, yes, I do.”

“Not that reputation,” Melrakki said, and grinned. “You think I haven’t already figured out where she hides it?”

Sten stared. “You what?”

“They think themselves very clever, these Rus, but honestly I could’ve found it blindfolded - two of the villagers were talking about the best-guarded places in the estate and - ”

“Hey, now, I can see where this is going,” said Sten. “You’re having us on again. This is ‘there’s a barrel full of beer hidden in the pigsty’ all over again, isn’t it?”

Melrakki just smiled. “Just come see.”

We heard it before we saw it. We rounded the corner to find a hunched, hooded figure holding a shovel standing in the middle of the goose pen. But the figure wasn’t alone. They were circling warily around like a bareknuckle boxer and in place of an opponent was Grandpa the grey-headed goose. It hissed and waved its wings angrily at the intruder. But the intruder thrust the shovel at the goose and it backed off warily.

The figure made as though to start digging, but the goose was having none of it - it ran right up to the figure’s knees and started worrying at its cloak. The figure stiffly tried to kick it away, but the goose held tight. Then the figure struck the goose in the head with the flat of the shovel blade, sending the animal flying to the ground, where it lay still.

The figure lifted the shovel above their head and stuck it deep into the ground. Not scooping, as though digging - more like they were trying to stand it on end. Then the figure pulled the shovel out of the earth and did it again, in another spot a page away.

“What is he doing?” whispered Smali, but we were all too fascinated to answer.

Then Smali’s question was answered for us. On thrusting the shovel into the ground in one particular place, instead of the dry rustle of earth we heard the distinctive sound of metal on metal. The shovel fell to the ground and the figure stumbled to pick it up, fumbling for the tool and in the process their hood came off to reveal a woman’s tight-knotted hair.

Sten shouted, like an idiot, “Lady Alena?!”

In surprise the figure spun to face us and we saw it was not Lady Alena but Aunt Oksana, her sister-in-law.

We all looked at one another. On one hand, this was a feeble woman. On the other hand, she was clearly there to steal the gold. We had been specifically hired to protect the gold, but then again, gold was nice, and also gold was right there. Judging from his expression Melrakki was enumerating ways we could grab it and still make it look like it was someone else’s fault. The others were more honourable, but they still paused, weighing up the options like sausage on a butcher’s scale.

Oksana waved the shovel at us and said, “Don’t come any closer.”

And someone said, “Auntie?”

It was - what was his name? - Jan, the drunk cousin. His hair was wet, he was gently swaying, and Orvendr and Gufa were standing close by, ready to catch him if he fell over. He blinked very fast like someone does who’s trying not to vomit. “What are you doing with that shovel?”

Oksana said, “Go to bed, Jan, this doesn’t concern you.”

“What’s going on here?” Now it was Kiryla, the older cousin. “Jan, what’s going on?”

“Well Aunt Alena’s guards found Oksana here with a sh-sh-shovel,” said Jan, and burped.

“Aunt? Is this true?”

Oksana smiled at him. “Kiryla, my boy, I’ve known you since you were a lad - ”

But the group was growing. Someone must have heard the commotion outside and now villagers and cousins alike were forming a crowd around the goose-pen. “Who’s there?” “I hear it’s Aunt Oksana, with an axe she stole from one of the Varangians!” “No, she was caught with her arms full of gold, and the Varangians disarmed her and made her turn it away.”

Cousin Artem arrived and looked shocked. He spluttered out, “Mother, I - I - ” before collapsing into an enormous fit of sneezing, which in turn set the geese in the vineyards to honking and cawing late into the night.

When the household woke in the morning, several things became apparent. Firstly, the Lady Nastassia Blackhorse was gone, as was Lord Viktar, as was a fine stallion from the stock for which the Blackhorse family took their name. Lady Julija shut herself up in her room and refused to talk to anyone, but was seen through the window with her face streaked with tears, reading over and over a note that everyone assumed was from Nastassia (but nobody could get a hold of it to take a look).

Aunt Oksana and Cousin Artem left early with their retinue, red-faced and ashamed. It was whispered that Oksana had been having money problems since her husband died and was worried for her dear son, not wanting him to grow up in the manner to which lesser people were accustomed. She was not invited to any of the family events for several years. Orvendr and Gufa drew the short straws to guard the goose pen for the rest of the night, but not a peep was heard.

Daryna the washerwoman was seen leaving the camp where the Varangians had been staying in the early hours, hair in a mess and a big grin on her face. Unrelatedly, Hrjota walked into breakfast looking like the cat that got the cream and wouldn't tell us why, but when asked simply sighed and said, “We travellers are the luckiest and unluckiest of men: we can savour all the delights of the places we go, but we must eventually leave each one behind.” (Smali applauded at this, and Melrakki burst out laughing, calling Hrjota a philosopher, which because it was so unlike Hrjota immediately stuck.)

On the deck of the Vegr, Surgeon Gunnarr had wrapped a cloth bandage around Knuta’s leg, and the flow of blood had, thankfully, stopped. It remained to be seen whether he’d have difficulty walking, but Knuta swore he didn’t need to use his legs to keep up the bareknuckle boxing for which he was famous, so it was all much the same to him.

To get out of having to help clean things away, Torsten had taken Sten upstairs to show him the enormous ugly tapestry on the gallery. Sten was sticking his nose right up to the lion when Torsten broke off mid-sentence and he turned to see Lady Alena coming towards them.

“Oh, don’t ye go jumping around on my behalf,” she said, smiling. She indicated the tapestry. “What do you think of the piece?”

Torsten looked at Sten for a translation. Sten said, “It’s marvellous, milady. A very fine piece as befits you.”

“Really? I think it’s horrid.” Lady Alena sat on a long bench and looked up at it wistfully. “Leanid had it made when we were only just married. It cost a small fortune and it wasn’t even the most expensive thing he bought me in those days. There was a stallion the size of a house, and a golden dress which didn’t even fit me at the time. He wasn’t very smart or good with money, was our Leanid, but he had a good heart. Unlike the rest of his kin.”

Sten wasn’t sure why she was saying all this, so he rooted around for something to say. “Well then, your fortune must be great indeed if even despite such spending you are rich today.”

Lady Alena threw her head back and laughed, a long cackle that sounded for all the world like one of her geese.

Torsten looked at Sten. “What did you say?”

“I said she has lots of money. Why is that so funny?”

“Have you not figured it out?,” said Lady Alena, wiping a tear from her eye. “My ‘fortune’, as you call it, amounts to three chests of cutlery and spare change. Leanid spent the rest on frivolous nonsense a long time ago. Now he’s dead my good-for-nothing family won’t rest until they’ve seen their share. I thought perhaps if I was seen around some mangy-looking northerners I could claim they’d stolen my fortune when they left and then these bloody cousins would leave me alone. But this way is far better. I get an excuse to stop seeing them all and they never get to stick their noses into my personal finances.”

She stood and started back down the gallery. “By the time I’ve paid your fee I’ll have enough to keep mesself happy the rest of me days and not a penny more. Imagine the look on their faces when they come to ransack the estate! They’ll spend years digging and not find a thing. And good riddance! Ha ha ha.”

The door closed behind her and Torsten said, “What was she saying?”

Sten said, “These Rus are crazy.”

After the last of the carriages had crawled away over the horizon, Lady Alena and two of her most well-behaved geese came down to the riverside to watch the Varangians leave.

Heidir knelt and kissed her hand, and she went off in a fit of coughing before she could start to speak.

“Norsemen, you are honourable warriors. Truly I'm surprised and humbled by the bearing of your band, who when I expected treachery instead showed me loyalty, and who instead of stealing my gold caught a wretched thief and brought her to justice.”

Melrakki was standing right next to Heidir with a huge grin on his face. Sten fixed a gormless smile as he translated because he knew full well if he allowed it to slip he'd scream.

“For going above and beyond in my service,” continued Alena, “I have prepared for you a gift which matches my gratitude.” At this she turned and waved maniacally. “Gerron, ye slob! Go on, bring it out.”

Gerron turned out to be a straggly-legged village youth stumbling under the weight of an enormous oaken chest. He was carrying it like you'd carry a flaming platter: over the top of one shoulder like you're scared it'll spit fire. Eventually he hauled it to the floor by Lady Alena's feet. “Gold,” she said, “and twice what we agreed, for how many men you actually number, for I hear they're mathematically inclined down in Constantinopolis, it wouldn't do to set you up unfairly. And as well as this, a little extra gift which is worth at least twice its weight in gold, to reward your bravery last night.”

Gerron backed right away as Hrjota and Haseti took one end of the trunk each and lifted it back to the ship, swinging it around easily. Heidir the Bold saluted the Lady Alena with one hand on his heart. “We accept your kind payment with the fullest of hearts, my Lady, and know that no gift you could grant us could match the worth of your praise and friendship, which we Norsemen value above all else.”

Sten translated all this as quickly as he could, because something seemed to be wrong with the box. Haseti was looking at it with a furrowed brow and muttered something to Hrjota. Please don’t stop and count the gold until we’re on the ship, Sten pleaded, it’ll be embarrassing. The village lad Gerron was looking at them with wide eyes.

The Lady Alena grinned. “Yeah, yeah, I know, friendship and love and kindness are your only motivations. Now, Norsemen, get off my land before I decide you don’t need that gold after all.”

Heidir bowed low and so did the rest of us, before turning and marching back up the gangway. Men shouted, “Cast off!” and the great sail was unfurled. As the Vegr began to move, caught once again in the gentle currents of the Dneiper, Heidir said to Bergrisi, “Go on, get the lid off and we’ll see how much cutlery she’s given us.”

Just as Bergrisi prised the lid open Haseti said: “Uh, boss? I think something’s moving in there.”

But it was too late. The lid came off and with a cry to wake the dead, in a whirlwind of dirty feathers, out came Grandpa the goose.

Having been stuck in a box for several hours, this goose’s temper had been raised. To call it angry would be to call the Midgard-serpent “reasonably big and probably not something you want to piss off”. It leapt from the box with the fury of a thousand ocean storms and about as much noise. Hrjota was the first to fall over from a white-hot ball of feathered fury flinging itself into his face. Bergrisi screamed like a little girl and fled to the opposite end of the deck. “Get it under control!” yelled Heidir, who was the only one to be keeping his head in the panic.

Haseti moved to grab the creature by the shoulders, but it moved too fast for him. Torsten swung at its long neck with one big hand but it dodged and ran cackling towards the stern, making oarsmen and sailors alike jump out of the way of that knife-sharp beak. Orvendr strode after it, arms wide, keeping his distance but trying perhaps to corner it when it reached the back. “Let it go! It’ll fly away on its own!” cried Sten.

By this point most of the crew were more or less wetting themselves laughing. Melrakki was rolling around on the floor - this was better than anything he could’ve come up with. One-eyed Odin, the ship’s cat, had crawled under an oarsman’s bench and was watching with alarm, fur bristling.

Grandpa, wings flapping wildly, reached the stern and seemed to look to and fro trying to make a decision. “Go on! Bugger off, will you!” said Torsten.

But the goose didn’t fly away. Nor did it hop on the rail and jump down into the river never to be seen again. Instead it fixated on the small pile of hay that acted as Odin’s bed, next to the helmsman’s spot. It poked at some hay with its beak and paced around in indecision.

“Just grab it!” hissed Sten to Orvendr.

“No, look,” said Orvendr. As he said it the goose sat, politely as you like, on the pile of hay. It made a soft gobbling sound and seemed content. Nimi, the taciturn Finn who had one hand on the tiller, hardly blinked at the new crewmate right next to him.

“Boss! Boss, look! No cutlery at all!”

Everyone had forgotten the chest, but when Hrjota pointed all attention switched from the goose to the gold it had been sitting on. For the chest was - true to Lady Alena’s word - full almost halfway up with gleaming gold coins, gold jewellery, gold cups and elegant silver rings. The men fell to admiring the hoard and so Grandpa was both immediately accepted and completely forgotten about.

And that is how Heidir the Bold’s crew acquired a goose as a crew member on their journey southwards to Miklagardr.

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