A Sea Queens Sailing | Page 2

won the time we fought for, and that was all.
Some of us got back to the hall, and the rest bided where they fell. As
for me, I had been stunned by an axe blow, which my helm had turned,
and came to myself to find that I was bound hand and foot, and set
aside under the stable wall with two others of our men, captives also.
Thence I must watch all that went on, helplessly, and after the roof fell
I cared no more what should be done with me, for I was alone and
desolate.
Nor did I know who these foemen were, or why they had fallen on us.
In the gray of the morning they had come from inland, and were round
the hall while we broke our fast. We had snatched our weapons as best
we might, and done what we could, but the numbers against us were
too great from the first.
They had come from inland, but they were not Scots. We were at peace
with all the Caithness folk, and had been so for years, though we had
few dealings with them. My father had won a place for himself and his
men here on the Caithness shore in the days when Harald Harfager had
set all Norway under him, for he was one of those jarls who would not
bow to him, and left that old Norse land which I had never seen.
Presently, he handselled peace for himself here by marriage with my
mother, the daughter of a great Scots lord of the lands; and thereafter
had built the hall, and made the haven, and won a few fields from the
once barren hillside. And now we had been well to do, till this foe came
and ended all.
They were not Norsemen either. The Orkney jarls were our friends, and

for us Harald cared not. Norsemen on the Viking path we knew and
welcomed, and being of that brotherhood ourselves, we had nothing to
fear from them. It is true that we owned no king or overlord, but if the
Scots king asked for scatt we paid it, grumbling, for the sake of peace.
My father was wont to call it rent for the hillsides we tilled.
Yet it would have been better to be swept out of the land by the Scots
we won it from, than to be ruined thus for no reason but that of wanton
savagery and lust of plunder, as it seemed. At least they would have
given us fair warning that they meant to end our stay among them, and
take the place we had made into their own hands.
Well, no doubt, I should find out more presently. Meanwhile, as I have
said, I cared for naught, lying still without a word. Then the men from
out of the hall were brought and set with us; for, blinded as they were
with the smoke, it had been easy to take them. That one who was set
down next me was black from head to foot and scorched with the
burning, but he tried to laugh as his eyes met mine. It was Dalfin of
Maghera, the Irish guest who was with us. He had taken a passage in a
Norse ship from Belfast, meaning to see lands across the sea, and had
bided here when he found that we could show him hunting such as he
had never heard of. The mighty aurochs still fed on our hills, and we
told tales in hall when guests wondered at the great heads that were on
the walls, of how this one and that had been won. The ship had put in
here to wait for wind, and of course we were glad to see her crew and
hear what news they had of the greater world.
"Friend," I said, "it is hard that you should be brought to this pass."
"It has been the best fight I ever knew," he answered. "The only pity is
that it has gone the wrong way. But yonder is a grand funeral pile for
the brave men who have fallen. Surely the smoke will bring down the
whole countryside on these ruffians?"
I shook my head. What happened to us was the affair of no Scot. Rather
they would be setting their own places in order in case their turn came
next.
"Well," said Dalfin, "whom are we fighting, then?"
One of our men answered him. He was a Norseman, named Sidroc.
"Red hand, wandering Vikings. Wastrels from every land, and no man's
men. Most of them are Danes, but I have heard the tongues of Frisian
and Finn and Northumbrian amongst them. We are in evil case, for

slavery is the least we have to fear."