The Sea Snake

Where Arith sits, atop the stone cliffs, he can see well across the grey water. The sea sings its song. Sometimes Arith thinks about jumping in.

He knows it would break him, though, and sometimes he wants that, but one can’t be put back together. He cackles to himself. He's a skinny, wiry-armed, vaguely effete figure that still sets the others in Langadalr on edge; he’s good with an axe, and they know this. His moods are mercurial, and they have some healthy fear of them.

At the end of it all, they need him.

He sits at the edge of the stone cliffs and considers the forever of the ocean. All Danish men know the sea. He sees the tiny, tiny head of a tiny, tiny boat, far at the edge of the world, or his little part of it. He can just make out the blood red sail. He knows it’s Magnus.

Magnus, the local jarl, is not his friend. He’s kind when he needs something. Boats mainly. Magnus is the picture of Danish manhood, with his long braids, his broad shoulders, his piercing eyes. Arith would not trade the wife he has – she handles his differentness with more skill than anyone could—but Magnus has a wife, Birgid, a shield maiden, who is better than he deserves. Arith has always thought so.

Arith remembers shaping the boat that now approaches him. He still has pitch on his clothes from the building of it. He remembers the muscles in his arms stretching to shave off the long planks from the trees, slender and cut with the direction of the wood’s grain. Bolt by bolt, he assembled the beautiful chain of limber planks that can miraculously slice the water.

He listened to the voice of – who? He was never sure, Tyr perhaps? – instructing him on how to carve the dragon head with such great care. The god that spoke in his head instructed him to make it fearsome. And so, the delicate shavings fell like slow, wooden snow as he shaped its graceful head, it’s open, snarling maw, bulging eyes, and long, sharp teeth.

Magnus was beyond pleased with his creation. “Nobody builds finer boats than you, Arith,” he said.

Arith knows this, of course.

Magnus’s blood red sail is painted with the runes of Thor, invoking his blessing, that he might not swing his rainy hammer on them as they cross. Magnus took this boat on a promise; the promise that on the other side of the infinite restless iron grey sea was a land, Suth-Sæxe, that waited to be plundered. The Saxons always kept their best treasures in unguarded churches. Magnus took the boat, that sylph-like sea-snake, for a share of the treasure he was certain to bring home.

Arith doesn’t trust Magnus. But Magnus means to be king one day, and he will be in want of more boats. He is not fool enough to cross his boat-builder. Probably.

The sky is foreboding. Arith notices a dark thunderhead squatting above the slowly growing dragon boat as it draws closer. Magnus has invoked Thor’s protection. Arith wonders whether the god that speaks in his own head is stronger.

A rumble grows out at sea. When the first lightning bolt strikes the water, it is not so very close to Magnus’s ship. He sees the yard lower and the sail fall – better to keep from being tipped in the strong winds.

But Arith’s pride is at war with itself. If his beautiful little snekke survives, it is Magnus’s prowess as a sailor that will get the glory. If it succumbs to the storm, it will reflect badly on his craftsmanship. And Arith will get none of the Saxon gold.

Magnus is not worthy of your gift, ship-builder, the god says in Arith’s head.

Arith presses his arm rings into his arm until they bite into the skin, a single blunt tooth.

He wonders whether anyone else has yet seen the approach of Magnus’s ship. Probably, hearing the first rolls of thunder, they have set about securing their beasts and shuttering their homes. Probably, they have not yet stared into the face of Thor and seen his eye roaming the edge of the world.

What do you want, asks the god in Arith’s head.

Arith cackles and answers out loud. He knows a trick question when he hears one. “I want what I deserve!”

And what is that?

Surely it must know. It is not only in his head, but in the trees and winds and rocks. It permeates. How can no-one else be aware of its voice? He would tattoo the god’s name into his arm, if it would help, but he doesn’t know it. It never says.

The waves far out under the looming black tower of cloud are rough and they slap the snekke about. Arith stares intently. He wonders whether his god will take the ship from the face of the sea, or punish him for secretly wanting Magnus to taste the agony of drowning within sight of his home.

Arith cannot see what the men on board are doing; it’s too far for that. He just sees the ship toss, twisting against the waves the way she was designed to do, imbued with all the grace that Arith doesn’t possess. The waves grow higher, roiling froth and pale foam like liquid ice. Arith knows that Magnus and the men aboard are struggling with the oars to keep the ship righted, and likely bailing water.

Down in the village, the cookfires will be starting soon.

Arith hears the approach of his wife behind him. She has one club foot, and he knows her gait. “Arith. It’s about to squall. Come home.”

He cackles so loudly it startles her. “But my darling, look! Magnus approaches!”

She squints at the water. “I can’t see a damned thing.”

He sighs. “Alright. I will come home with you.”

The sun sets. Arith stands in the open door of their humble home, peering out at the sea, which has settled and smoothed after its earlier roughness. The god in his head is quiet, but his wife talks to fill the space: soothing talk of bees, and honey, and mead, stories of weaving, something about some goddess of whom she’s fond. Most people’s chatter sets him on edge, but hers has no harsh corners on it. Arith would not trade his wife for anyone.

*

His sleep is restless. He extricates himself early from his wife’s arms and crawls free of the furs wrapped around them. In breeches and a hastily pulled-on kyrtill, he makes his way down to the waterline. It’s still half-dark, the moon almost faded completely into sky of pink and heather. He thinks he must be mad at first, because he believes he sees twinkling on the sand.

His heart floods suddenly with urgency. He runs toward where the cold foam breaks on the darkened sand and he sees them: gold coins, stamped with the face of what is probably a king. Another wave coughs up a small cross of gold, and then a large wave rolls in, and deposits a silver plate with an etching of people on it. The significance of their arrangement is unknown to him, but he feels it must hold meaning. Church treasures.

His eyes scan the water, and then he sees her, just barely: the snekke is sideways in the tide, more than half submerged, inching her way toward shore. She has returned to him and brought gifts. Magnus is not among them.

Arith charges into the water, and drags the snekke ashore. The fishermen will be coming soon, and he will prefer it if they are the ones to find his boat. It will look ill, he thinks, if he was skulking the water at an early hour. He stuffs the coins and cross into his pocket, and the plate under his shirt. He goes up to his perch on the cliffs and hides them all under a rock that no sensible person would ever have reason to move.

*

He slips out of his wet clothes and dries his beard. Then he slides back into bed with his wife. “Where did you go?” she mumbles.

“Just having a piss,” he says, and allows her to curl up against him. He wraps his arms around her. He cannot go back to sleep. He lies there on his back, staring up, holding his wife, waiting to hear:

“Bjorn! Get Birgid! Hurry!”

He holds no ill will against Birgid.

But he hopes she says that the boat is his.