The Burning Wharf

A long time ago (around 2000 a.d.) I wrote a pirate story, "The Burning Wharf" set on the Baltic Sea, northern Germany, around 1000 a.d. Last summer's project took this story as a starting point for some interesting paintings. Click images to enlarge.

Drops of Amber

"Have you brought a few drops of the amber with you?" Jör asked eagerly. I shrugged. From the leather bag I slung down I pulled my small vial and drew out a quill full of the precious commodity. The thickened liquid exploded as it touched the wine’s ruby surface. Immediately the rich scent emerged, as penetrating and evocative as spring thaw.

Felix, Karl, Ratka

Two young boys burst through the narrow doorway of the tavern at the same time, followed after a moment by a slower, slenderer shape. With a rush of bewilderment, I recognized the young woman who stood just inside the tavern as Jör’s oldest child, transformed.

Berserkers

In battle you find your man and take him, and I saw mine, a tall fellow topped with a tangled spray of yellow hair, a shaped leather helmet. He dodged the first murderous overhead sweep of my sword—but they always do that. Alert to the dangers of the weapon in my opponent’s hand, I simply stepped aside as he stabbed it futilely toward my guts, letting my own extended blade fall around heavily against his backside. The Viking went to his knees as pretty as a hamstrung hog and I spared him a lengthy contemplation of his foolishness.

The Christianic Woman

"The woman has been like this ever since she began this Christianic stuff," he explained dismissively. "Magya, do you think that your fine house here has grown by itself?" His broad hands swept the air, as though gathering together the rich fabrics that lined the walls of the large room. In the center of it, Magya slumped noticeably at the words.

"It's Christian, as you know," she said. "And I have always been 'like this'. For all the years you have had me here--wanting a world in which people's children were not seized and raped and taken to foreign lands."

"You came quite willingly, as I recall," Jör said. "I found Magya in a little village in Hungaria," he explained to me, "It was in the early days when I was trading in metals." Now his look took in the children as well. "You might today have a fine gypsy family, a hard-working tin miner for a husband."

"I went willingly," she replied. "We would wish for more choices."

The Giants Return

"This was in the days when the old gods still worked their ways with the world," I said, in deference to Magya, "which was not very long ago. Baldur himself was watching over Snorri and his clan, as they tended to the reindeer that spring. Now, it had been a hard winter again and yet even the year before that. And so even the beasts of the wild had come down from the uplands and mixed with their animals, and that was good, the family thought, because it meant that the herd would become stronger from the new blood.

One day the young boy Snorri was sent out to look after the reindeer and on this day the herd had pressed up against the hills where the green plants grow in the fresh snow streams. And what do you think he found there? It was the wastage of a young cow, her side torn open and the calf taken, with blood and evil smells everywhere, and a trail of crimson that led away from the place. Snorri knew when he saw this that the giants had returned.

Oh, Betrayer!

"Oh, it was a fine day to be wed and a sorry day for giants. For what the invader had never said was that this was the thousand years, and that these were the times when everything changes, when everything sits balanced on the edge of the sword. The giant knew that the woman he bore away could give him many children and it would mean the future for his race. Or else he would be the last of the giants, and fade away a muttering old man."

In the kitchen before the wedding was to take place the mother Mrrta helped her daughter prepare her cake. It was long and thick and fat, the outside of it glazed with summer honey and baked brown and hard, and it was the tradition that this cake be shared among the village whenever a wedding of consequence occurred

....
Now the naked belly of the giant began to swell and churn from the efforts of the young deerherders within—now it distended as they arched and prodded the inner linings with feet and heads and elbows—now the giant groaned and pressed his four fingered hands to contain this inner enemy. A bump appeared, poked between the fingers and Sateen gasped in misery as yellow bile burst away from the point of a sharpened knife, the very knife which Anika and her mother had baked whole within the wedding cake that morning.

"Oh, betrayer," the giant screamed, his last scream. And he dropped to his knees as Snorri ripped the blade through and opened his gut to the air. 'Your vow..."