165. Suomen laulu: The Song of Suomi (3).
165. Suomen laulu: The Song of Suomi (3).
"Shoot! Make it so those bastards can't aim their bows at our brothers!"
"Great Thunder God! Sacred Forest Goddess!"
A cry that straddled the line between command and incantation burst from the mouths of the two chiefs, Haapala and Lehto, and the Suomi warriors who had overcome their fear of death drew their bowstrings as one.
After all, the lives of the Suomi were like a winter snowflake or a spring blossom—they fell and faded.
For the honorable purpose of saving their kin and feeding their families, they threw away their lives like a cast-off garment at the command of their honorable chieftain.
[Hududuk! Hududuk!]
[Pababak! Pyung! Pyupyung! Swaeaeak! Swaeak-!]
Among the warriors who fell and collapsed, those who survived drew their bowstrings one shot at a time with indifferent composure, and the Karelian warriors on the palisade fell one by one.
"Seems they're already celebrating the winter that's soon to come!"
While arrows full of scorn and malice embroidered the empty air, Chieftain Peura, who desired nothing but the blood of his enemies, and his vengeance-seekers climbed up sturdy ladders all at once.
"Aaaaaaah!"
The man among them closest to death was none other than Peura, the chieftain of the Suomi from just above Vehkalahti.
[Swaeaeak- Swaeak- Peok! Peobeok!]
"Aaaaaah!"
The warrior who scrambled up the ladder as fast as an enraged bear wore only his sturdy body, his riveted mail armor, a hard helmet, and the favor of the Thunder God wrapped around him.
One arrow struck his left shoulder, one his chest on the Örn side, one glanced off his helmet. Peura took arrows with full force to various spots, but whether he truly received divine power or not, he showed no intention of stopping.
"Die!"
The Karelian warriors, watching him with horrified faces, stabbed Peura with long spears as if dispatching a pig, without mercy. But Peura, who carried no shield, instead seized the spear shaft thrusting down at him and yanked it—whoosh—and the Karelian warrior who refused to let go of his spear was sent tumbling down absurdly.
"Waaaaaaaaagh-!"
[Kung!]
To the countless sounds of death echoing everywhere, one more note was added, and another spear shaft was simply chopped off with an axe.
And then, at last, Peura stepped onto the palisade drenched in Karelian blood, having crossed the path cleared by Suomi blood.
'Hoo- Hoo-'
He was out of breath, but his body was not tired at all. His left shoulder, the chest on the Örn side, and his head were uncomfortable, but there was no hindrance to his movement.
In that instant, beyond the view that had shown only the sky and the twisted faces of his enemies, he saw the wide-open horizon and, far in the distance, a vast forest that began where the sea ended.
In that moment, Peura felt that the gods were with him.
'Takala...!'
Among the Karelian warriors who thrust their spears at him with faces full of rancor and hatred, he saw a conspicuous warrior wearing armor, a sword, and a helmet.
The enemy, clad all over in expensive furs, pointed his sword at him and was shouting something, and time, which had seemed to stop, caught back up to its original speed and rushed at Peura.
"Yaaaaah!"
[Hwoong!]
Spears thrust in from all sides. He could not possibly block them all, nor did he intend to. He would simply trust the sturdy body his parents had bequeathed him and the armor of his Northmen friends.
[Pook! Tak! Pook! Tak!]
With the axe and sword in both hands, he deflected two or so to the side, but indeed he could not block them all. He felt resistance and a sense of foreign heat, as if touching a blazing fire, in his abdomen, the shoulder on the Örn side, and his left thigh.
"Ta-ka-la!"
Shouting the name of his enemy, Peura cut off the spear shafts embedded in his body one by one and charged forward.
"Block him-!"
"Bring him down!"
[Peok! Seureung- Seogeok! Kwak!]
"Agh!"
"Keok- Keoheuk-"
He cut wrists, he cut throats, he brought his axe down between neck and shoulder.
Along the way, a few more spear shafts found their way and connected with Peura's body, but to Peura, whose warrior spirit was already fully roused, it was of no concern.
"Chieftain! Follow the chieftain!"
"Kill all the Karelians-!"
The Suomi warriors pressed their bodies into the opening Peura had created.
Like their chieftain, they used their own bodies like shields, stubbornly pushing back the Karelian warriors, but a battle cannot be won by will alone, and when it came to mass atop the palisade, the Karelian warriors were more numerous and heavier.
"Drive those pigs out!"
"Keep stabbing with your spears!"
"Shoot! I said shoot! We must push them back!"
Voices as desperate and grim as the charge of Peura and his warriors, who cast aside death, poured out from the torn throats of the Karelian warriors.
Those whose hands trembled with the excitement of battle did not even realize exactly what they were doing; they only thrust and struck at whatever they held in one or two hands, and let out screams and shouts.
In a situation that could no longer be grasped by any human mind, they sought the names of gods with blood-choked voices, shouted the names of tribe and chieftain, and strained every muscle to push each other off.
[Pook! Pook! Peok! Seogeok- Aaak! Aak! Swaeaeak- Swaeak! Peobeobeok! Peobeok!]
"Keuk!"
"Keureuk-"
Peura and the Suomi warriors who had climbed the wall with such vigor finally began to be pushed back, and not a single one of them stepped down gently from the palisade.
In the end, one by one they fell and toppled off. The very ladders they had so laboriously raised tipped backward with a heavy noise, and once again a multitude of spears and arrows descended upon Peura's large frame.
"Die! Just die, I say!"
"The head! Aim for his head! Aim for his throat!"
[Pook! Pook]
It was a scene where every spear on the palisade had been gathered and thrust into one man. With a rigid expression, thick streams of blood surging from the corners of his mouth, Peura's gaze was fixed beyond the contorted faces of his enemies—contorted as if they might weep—toward Takala.
'Takala...! You too shall not die a gentle death...'
The fine steel armor of the Northmen could no longer protect Peura, and his sword and axe could no longer spill the blood of his enemies.
[Poobook! Pook! Chalgeurak!]
Blades were pulled out and thrust back in. Peura eventually toppled slowly backward.
Peura's vacant eyes, with many arrows and spear shafts embedded in him, reflected only the clear sky.
"Dammit! Retreat! Retreat!"
"Don't drop your shields as you retreat!"
"I said move while keeping your heads down!"
The voices of the Suomi warriors receded from the palisade.
The voices of the Karelian warriors raised a victory cry.
Yet the faces of the Karelian warriors reflected in Peura's unfocused eyes were so contorted they could not possibly be called those of victors.
*****
"How about now? Do you feel it a little?"
Inga's brown eyes. Whenever I gazed at that strangely familiar light among her loose white hair, a feeling came over me that simply couldn't be explained by a combination of words.
Those who had weathered all the tempests of time finally told us of this emotion in the two syllables of love. Yet we knew well that the word could not explain everything.
[Twitch!]
"Oh?"
"Just now!"
A crystal formed from something between Inga and me in that moment. Proof that emotion possessed a physical reality.
My child.
Perhaps it felt the four palms resting on Inga's belly. As if playing a prank. Or as if announcing its own existence. Something light and infinitely soft within Inga's womb responded, however faintly.
"My sun. It's your son, Helgi."
"How do you know that?"
Couldn't it be a daughter? I knew this was 867 AD Europe, where son preference was entrenched, but personally I wanted a daughter. Heir or not, they were my family, my children.
I'd heard daughters were cuter anyway!
In truth, perhaps I simply wasn't ready yet to have a boy. Could my child bear this weight?
Would I end up doing things I was incapable of?
"A mother can tell everything, Helgi. In truth, I keep feeling it's a boy. That sun I saw in my dream was so warm and enormous."
Inga was a wise woman. Whenever I fell deep into some private worry, she would quietly take both my hands and raise them to her own face.
Just like now.
Looking into those brown eyes that seemed to breathe strength into me, I pretended nothing was wrong and smiled once more.
"It's really wondrous, Inga. I'd like to have a dream like that just once. I've never dreamed since I was born."
Ah, maybe there was one? The day I completed my father's vengeance in Britain. Even now, I couldn't distinguish whether that space where sky and earth were inverted, the goddess's face where skulls and human forms warred against each other, had been a dream or reality.
"You'll find out soon enough. Now that I think of it, did Drottning Asta dream when she carried you?"
"Ah— who knows? I don't think she ever spoke of such a thing?"
Did she perhaps see a vision of my former life sitting before a computer in the 21st century? She was the high priestess of the spiritually potent Goddess Hel, after all. It wasn't impossible.
'I suppose I ought to ask her. I'm getting curious for no good reason.'
While I was at it, I'd visit the faces of my mother and stepmother, and check on Sigurdeu's wife Æthelthryth's condition as well.
I had no intention of dismissing or looking down on the medieval era, but the knowledge these women possessed regarding due dates and menstruation was surprisingly thorough.
Still, there were areas where I, as an incarnation of the 21st century, could offer some help—for instance, using cloth that had been thoroughly boiled at high heat for disinfection, or scrubbing one's hands vigorously with something at that stage between hot water and animal fat on the path to true soap.
Every Norseman was already using soap made from a mixture of fat and wood ash—where in the world that knowledge came from, I had no idea. Probably from the turban-wearers or the Romans.
"Wouldn't you guess she saw a great bear?"
[Poke—]
While my thoughts had wandered for a moment, Inga pressed my nose lightly with a playful voice and a laugh.
"Are you saying I look like a bear right now? You've discovered my secret—now I'll have to take a bite."
I opened my mouth wide, let out a "Graar—!" and spread both arms. Inga shrieked "Kyaa—!" and turned away. Compared to Æthelthryth, who was full-term, Inga was still at a stage where she could move freely, yet watching my wife gradually growing more weary made my heart restless.
Giggle— I gently embraced my wife from behind as she laughed like a baby, and lay there a while longer.
*****
The same moment.
The east side of Árós, which seemed molded from the very words order and strength. The mansions of Ragnar's line, situated around Fylkir's Hill.
A place where the noblest bloodlines of the North Sea strolled. There, in the courtyard of the mansion located at the deepest spot of all, a small gathering of powerful and noble women was in full swing.
Though the heavily pregnant Æthelthryth and the swelling Örn Inga were excluded, and Botilda—who was diligently trying to keep up with her married peers—was also nowhere to be seen, the weight of this gathering was not the least bit diminished.
For it was hosted personally by Áslaug of Visby, wife of Ragnar 'Loðbrók' Sigurdeu's son, who was Fylkir Helgi's father and effectively the progenitor of the North Sea.
Fundamentally, most of the world in 867 AD was a patriarchal society—a circumstance born of an era in which the sword and death were never far away. Yet even so, the power of women was by no means low.
"Maria. Roman wine truly suits my palate better, I think. Slightly softer, shall I say?"
"Drottning, your fondness for it gladdens my heart beyond measure."
A gentle smile and a soft, mellow voice. Maria's ability to manage so well even while stumbling through the unfamiliar speech of the Northmen was certainly no ordinary skill, and Áslaug marveled, never losing the smile at her lips.
For battle was not always waged with sword and spear.
Helgi and his bloodline had already transcended titles like Konungr and Fylkir and ascended to where the gods themselves walked. To pull down the descendants of that high hill, one would likely have to contend with every soul in Árós and the North Sea first.
For the seat of Fylkir was a seat forged purely by Helgi himself. The people of the North Sea would never tolerate anyone without Helgi's own blood rising to it.
But what of the positions beneath it?
Though she still loved them, her first and second sons were like sworn enemies at times. Björn and Ivar idly sang the tune of retirement and rarely showed their faces, but Áslaug knew well how cold and cruel this Norse society could become.
Unless one held a position like that of the Fylkir, one always had to keep moving to survive.
And Áslaug's seasoned senses cried out that she must seize control of the Dnieper trade route, where the Eastern Roman Maria and her people were so active.
Verily, the most certain method of alliance was marriage.
Maria remained beautiful, but seemed to have no intention of remarrying—yet did she not have a son?
As Áslaug and Maria, neither ever rushing, saw through each other's thoughts plainly and laughed "Haha— hoho—", a short while passed before a pale-faced guard burst into this place that no one would normally dare invade.
At last, the labor of the fourth son Sigurdeu's wife, Æthelthryth, had begun.