Campfire Tales and Golden Coins

A goshawk circled in the sky, surveying the land below. A caravan of covered wagons was making its way along the road, dense thickets of shrubs and trees lining both sides of the path. Within the lush forest, grey rabbits and small birds sought refuge from the gaze of larger predators, concealed by the abundant foliage and branches.

This was a ten-person merchant caravan, comprising four coachmen, a guide who knew the route, and five guards.

Henry shared a wagon with Hafdan, the elder of the two Norse brothers, riding in the leading vehicle. The ride inside was quite bumpy, with the wheels jolting and bouncing as they struck small stones on the hard-packed dirt road.

They had been traveling for two days and one night already, having just departed from the Opava Bishopric and set out on the road to Kroměříž.

Henry, seeking refuge in the shadow of the covered wagon’s canopy, was dozing, his head bowed. His head bobbed rhythmically with the wagon’s incessant jolting, his eyelids half-closed, revealing glimpses of the whites of his eyes. In such conditions, he remained perpetually in REM sleep, unable to descend into a deeper slumber.

A few black crows alighted on the wagon’s canopy, their raucous caws startling Henry awake.

He impatiently closed his eyes again, unwilling to humor the bothersome crows.

‘Just fly away, you cursed birds,’ he grumbled internally.

Yet the black crows stubbornly refused to leave, hitchhiking being a common tactic for intelligent corvids. They cawed incessantly from the wagon’s canopy, their persistent clamor making it impossible for Henry to rest properly.

Annoyed, Henry slapped at the canopy from inside the wagon. However, these cunning corvid bosses were not deterred by the threats of a bipedal creature; the black crows, reveling in their raspy voices, cawed even more boisterously.

He leaned halfway out of the canopy, waving his arms to shoo them away. The black crows, granting him a modicum of dignity, fluttered their wings and flew to the canopy of the second wagon, where they commenced harassing the other occupants.

‘As long as they don’t bother me, it’s fine,’ he mused. ‘Perhaps I should learn how to shoot a bow; then I could take care of these annoying black crows.’

Henry settled back inside the wagon, sitting face-to-face with Hafdan. The Norseman was idly toying with a gleaming gold coin, which appeared and disappeared between his nimble fingers with practiced ease.

They had been traveling for two days now, and the journey was proving dull and monotonous. Henry yearned for conversation, but the coachman remained silent, and Hafdan continued to play with his coin.

Finally, unable to contain himself any longer, Henry blurted out, “Hafdan, what is that in your hand? I’ve never seen a coin made of gold before.”

With a flick of his thumb, Hafdan sent the gold coin spinning into the air. After countless rotations, he slapped it onto the back of his hand.

“Heads!” he declared.

Removing his hand, he revealed the image: two men, one clad in lamellar armor and the other in a toga, jointly holding a holy staff.

“Damn it! Tails!”

Hafdan had just made a silent wager with himself: if the Histamenon coin landed on heads, he would ignore Henry; if it landed on tails, he would indulge the simple fellow in conversation.

True to his word, Hafdan flicked the coin, sending it bouncing off Henry’s forehead before catching it with a raised hand. “Bumpkin,” he declared, “this is a full-weight gold coin from ‘the Great City’.”

“The Great…” Henry stammered, his tongue tangling as he rubbed his throbbing forehead. He didn’t know the Norse name for it. “What place is that?”

Henry’s question seemed to stump Hafdan, who rubbed the coin with his thumb. Its raised patterns were intricate and delicate, far more beautiful than any denier silver coin.

Hafdan choked up slightly, a torrent of words threatening to burst forth from his throat, yet they jostled and jammed, obstructing his voice.

After a long pause, a single word finally escaped his lips: “Miklagard.”

The word was like the bung of a freshly tapped ale barrel, the effervescent carbon dioxide of fermentation causing a cascade of words and phrases, frothing like white beer foam, to spill from his mouth.

Gazing at the image of Jesus, adorned with a holy halo, on the coin’s obverse, Hafdan launched into an eager explanation. “Miklagard,” he began, “many call it New Rome, the center of the world.”

“The center… of the world?” Henry asked, bewildered. “Have you seen it?” He struggled to grasp the concept of a ‘world center.’ Did the world, like an apple, possess a core at its heart?

“I haven’t been there myself, but I’ve seen it in my dreams,” Hafdan recounted, his eyes distant. “It’s a city a hundred times larger than Hradec, with hundred-foot walls and houses of gold. The land flows with milk and honey, and nobles are as lowly as commoners within its bounds. A towering white palace stands at its heart, where the Caesar resides in mysterious grandeur. Maidens and eunuchs in the palace convey divine decrees, and countless battle-hardened warriors stand guard on either side of the great hall. I have journeyed there countless times in my dreams…”

As Hafdan prattled on, Henry’s eyes glazed over into spirals, his simple mind utterly overwhelmed.

Henry: (@-@)

Henry found himself utterly confused, lost in a fog of “Caesars” and “eunuchs.” His brain felt overloaded, on the verge of shutting down, so he deftly changed the subject. He looked towards the front of the wagon, where Noren rode her warhorse, accompanied by a golden-haired youth riding abreast of her.

“Who is that riding alongside the young lady?” he inquired.

An almost imperceptible hint of jealousy tinged Henry’s voice. ‘If only I had golden hair and a handsome face,’ he pondered, ‘would I also be granted a horse and be able to ride alongside the young lady?’

“Tolke,” Hafdan replied.

‘Tolke,’ Henry repeated the name in his mind, committing it to memory.

****

“Tolke,” Noren began, “continue telling me about your life in solitude.”

Noren and the golden-haired youth sat by the campfire. She had already begun preparing dinner, intending to eat while listening to Tolke recount his tales of solitary living.

First, she melted a small knob of butter at the bottom of the pan. Then, she carefully placed several strips of reddish-brown cured meat onto the pool of oil. A brief sizzle erupted between the oil and meat, followed by the steady, inviting sound of frying.

The golden-haired youth leaned close to the young woman, admiring her exquisite cooking skills. The flickering orange-red campfire cast its glow upon his face, revealing a handsome yet still somewhat boyish countenance.

Tolke stood six feet tall, with sturdy, broad shoulders.

His appearance embodied the virtues of a traditional Norseman: high-set, deep-set eyes, with prominent brow bones. His golden, thick, and straight eyebrows seemed to have been brushed with an ink brush at the corners, accentuating their sharp peaks.

Yet, he differed from most Norsemen; perhaps his maternal lineage carried Slavic blood. His facial contours were softer, lacking the rugged, angular sharpness typical of traditional Germanic people.

He was like a gentle, appealing boy-next-door, his smile radiating warmth and sunshine. Indeed, he was quite pleasing to the eye, so long as he wasn’t pulling a long face like a dejected wretch.

His recent solitary life had even left him with a scar of honor, etched at the corner of his eyebrow. This mark added a touch of maturity to Tolke’s otherwise clear-featured face.

“Ahem~ Where was I in my story on the road?” the golden-haired youth coughed lightly. With a small knife, he hooked a piece of bacon, fried to a glistening golden-brown, from the pan Noren offered him.

“You were about to tell me what happened after you encountered the pack of wild wolves,” Noren prompted. She expertly flipped the pan, sending the golden-brown, oil-kissed bacon soaring into the air. It landed back in the pan, turned over, and continued its satisfying sizzle.

“Right, the wild wolves,” he exclaimed, slapping his thigh. “In the darkness of that night, countless glowing green eyes…” he began, vividly describing his encounter.

He knew Noren enjoyed hearing stories, and she, in turn, had recounted numerous myths and legends to him. These included tales such as ‘Zeus and His Troublesome Daughters,’ ‘Beowulf and the High-Heeled Succubus,’ ‘The Grievances and Loves of Jesus, Judas, and the Courtesan,’ and ‘The Cowherd’s Clothes-Stealing Techniques.’

He aimed to make his own stories as humorous, engaging, and full of twists and turns as possible.

“……Then a bolt of lightning struck,” he narrated, his voice swelling with drama. “Blue currents surged down the trunk and bark of a beech tree, pouring onto the ground. A towering wall, forged from lightning itself, erupted from the earth, blocking the path of the wild wolves. I knew that in this desolate, uninhabited forest, only one of us—the wolves or I—could survive. So, with my blade, I struck and struck, *crunch, crunch*, and the entire pack was utterly annihilated~”

A faint smile blossomed on the young woman’s face. She was like a parched traveler in the desert, and though the youth’s storytelling skills were undeniably raw, his tales were like an oasis’s mirage, offering her a spiritual quenching of thirst.

By the campfire, two warhorses, one grey and one white, snorted. They seemed utterly dismissive of Tolke’s narrative, their large eyes wide as they playfully nipped and groomed the short hair on each other’s flanks.

The remaining eight individuals, slurping their wild vegetable soup and gnawing on dry rye bread, listened to Tolke’s exaggerated story. They were divided between two campfires. The four coachmen, along with their wagons and a campfire, occupied the very center of the camp. To the left of the wagon’s cargo, Henry, Hafdan, Wiz, and Anna were gathered. To the right, Noren and Tolke maintained their vigil.

Anna, the guide for their journey to Olomouc, picked up a small piece of bread, dipped it into the soup, and fed it into her mouth, chewing delicately. “Truly an interesting story,” she murmured softly.

Henry muttered sourly under his breath, “Just a bard flattering the young lady…”

Hearing Henry’s grumbling, Wiz chimed in between chews, “Great adventurers are all excellent poets! All Norsemen wish to recount their wondrous exploits. When I come of age, I too shall venture out and live in solitude!”

“Hmph~~~ You’ll be going alone then,” Hafdan yawned, “I won’t be joining your foolishness. I’ll find someone to duel, or perhaps just get a scar and be done with it.” Having traveled all day, he was utterly exhausted.

“Speaking of which,” Hafdan asked Anna after his yawn, “how much longer until we reach Olomouc? These past two days in the wagon have left my back aching and my backside numb.”

“Per-perhaps two more days…” Anna mumbled, her head bowed, casting a timid glance at Hafdan from the corner of her eye.

“You’d better know the way!” he growled, feigning ferocity to frighten the dark-haired young girl. He had teased her in this manner several times throughout their journey.

Anna’s body trembled as she hugged her shoulders, a faint whimper escaping her throat. She huddled by the campfire, shrinking into herself, no longer daring to look at the mischievous golden-haired Norseman.