Читать книгу The Oathsworn Series Books 1 to 3 - Robert Low - Страница 12

‘They were armed,’ Steinthor growled. ‘Armed and in the town, Einar.’ He held out his forearm, showing a rough strip of bloodstained cloth, the ends whipping in the wind. Around him, Einar, I, Illugi and others gathered, stone-grim.

‘Who were they?’ demanded Einar.

Steinthor shrugged. His eye was closing to a fat-puffed slit. ‘Six, maybe seven,’ he said. ‘We left the ale house at the harbour and they came after us. Danes, it seemed to Ulf-Agar and me, and looking for trouble, for we had offended no one.’

‘Let’s get there,’ snarled Skapti Halftroll. ‘Weapons or no weapons, I’ll grind them.’

There were savage chuckles at that and a few began to push past Einar on the wooden walkway, but he thrust out an arm and stopped them. ‘Wait. Let’s find out more. Steinthor, why did they take Ulf-Agar? And where did they take him?’

Steinthor touched his eye speculatively, squinting at Einar. ‘That’s the strange of it. They came for us and we thought it was just a fight. I wasn’t up for it much, having been light on my drink, but Ulf pitched right in. Then I saw the weapons come out – long blades they were and too long to be hidden under a cloak and brought in. Someone turned a blind eye to that.’

‘Now you can do that,’ called someone from the back and there were more chuckles. Steinthor spat and touched the eye again.

‘If it had been the edge of that blade, I would be a dead-eye, for sure. But it was the upswing that smacked me. Knocked me to the ground, right off the walkway and into the mud and shit. When I surfaced, they were hauling Ulf away and he was not making a move, hanging between two of them. He might be dead.’

That silenced everyone.

‘What did you do then?’ asked Einar. ‘Stand there and drip?’

‘No, I did not,’ retorted Steinthor hotly. ‘I followed them, thinking they would kick the shit out of Ulf-Agar and leave him. I thought they had picked on him for some reason I did not know – he can be an annoying little turd, as anyone will tell you.’

‘Indeed so,’ Einar agreed, nodding into the chorus of harsh chuckles. ‘But they didn’t, or else we would be binding his bruises.’

‘No,’ agreed Steinthor. ‘They hauled him to one of the warehouses at the main harbour. There were a lot of men there and two boats, high-prowed and gilded and bigger than the Elk, that were not there yesterday.’

This set everyone muttering. Illugi Godi looked at Einar and Skapti hoomed a bit, then said: ‘Two drakkar? What varjazi has two boats that size?’

‘None,’ muttered Einar, stroking his moustache. ‘Nor could a varjazi persuade the merchants of Birka to ignore their laws on weapons. Only a real power could do that.’

‘Such as one who now rules two lands?’ Illugi Godi said mildly, the wind whipping his hair into his face.

‘Bluetooth,’ Einar said and the name leaped from head to head, swirling away on the wind, setting fire to mutters and darkly exchanged looks. He looked at me. ‘You had it right enough. Someone more important than Brondolf Lambisson and a foreigner.’

Bluetooth, new King of the Danes and Norwegians. Somehow, he had heard of the Oathsworn of Einar’s Elk and their quest for some treasure. It seemed to me – and, I knew, to Einar – that he had heard more of it than we had, to seize one of us and put him to the question. It did mean, I was thinking, that you had to take Atil’s treasure hoard seriously, for surely no one would go to these lengths over some muttered foolishness about a saga tale? Surely he had not come after us over that?

There were chuckles when I hoiked this up, wide-eyed and wild-haired in the Birka wind.

Einar, though, frowned, for it had been revealed then that just about everyone knew the supposed secret of Atil’s treasure. And, of course, Einar was going to the same lengths over the foolishness of a saga tale and he did not like to hear that voiced.

‘Perhaps so,’ he growled. ‘I would like to know who has been sent by the King of Norway and the Danes. And what this someone wants with Ulf-Agar.’

‘We must get him back,’ said Illugi and there were mutters of approval at that.

Einar nodded. ‘We swore an oath to each other,’ he said. ‘It is Ulf-Agar’s bad luck that he knows nothing that would help Bluetooth in this matter, so we will do it quickly, before they kill him by accident.’

‘And,’ muttered Illugi, ‘you don’t know just what Ulf-Agar knows. Fox-eared, that one.’

‘He is, right enough,’ murmured Einar, then, louder: ‘Orm, go with Steinthor, who will point out the warehouse. Watch it carefully. After that, Steinthor should go to the Guest Hall and have his wounds tended.

‘Geir Bagnose, you will go to the fortress, to the gate there. A man will come out, cloaked, perhaps hooded. He has a face like a weasel and will be scurrying, I am thinking, like a rat out of a hole. I want to know where he goes without him knowing he is followed.’

Then he turned and led everyone else back to the Guest Hall.

Suddenly, there was just me and Steinthor on the dark street of greasy timbers, in a town now quiet save for a distant shout or two and a barking dog. The buildings were shadowed mounds, angular howes through which the wind whipped.

Shivering, I followed Steinthor as he limped between the houses, first this way, then that. Then he stopped and pointed. I saw a building slightly apart from the others and beyond it the black sea slapping an oak jetty. A lantern swung wildly, dancing weak yellow light over a door in the building. Two figures moved, stamping and dragging cloaks round them against the wind.

With a brief clap on my shoulder, Steinthor was away into the night, the fire and the ale. Bitterly, I watched him go, pulled my cloak tighter around me, up over my head and hunkered down in the lee of a fence, feeling the sodden ground soak into my boots.

The building the fence enclosed was a wattle hut with a patch of garden, now muddied. Inside, I heard chickens murmur to each other and two voices talking, though it was too faint for me to hear the words. I only knew that one was low and one was higher. It made me feel all the worse out here, with the rain spitting in my face and the wind swooping and swirling. On the black water, prows danced.

The voices tailed off. Someone snored and, far away, a dog yelped furiously.

Then I heard the first shriek from the warehouse and stiffened. I looked around, but there was no one. If Einar and the others didn’t come soon …

Another shriek, half whipped away by the wind. I clenched my teeth. Still no sign of anyone.

On the third scream, I could stand it no longer. I moved down towards the warehouse, edging always into the shadows, which took me away from the door and the wild lantern and the guards, round to one flat end of the building, then round again to where the curved back wall stood on a strip of ground, falling away to the shingle and the spraylashed water.

There were bulky shapes here; I scrambled over discarded barrels of rotting wood, old sodden wool that had once been a sail, frayed rigging, worm-rotted spars. I was sure I was blundering around like the clapper in a bell; every time I made a sound I froze in one spot and waited. But nothing happened.

Another shriek, louder this time.

I found a door, slightly recessed, and had to quietly clear old cordage from in front of it, so I knew it wasn’t used.

It was rotted and knot-holed, which let me peer through. I saw faint light, as if from a lantern, but nothing moved. I pressed on the door … nothing. I pressed again, harder – and it gave with a soft sigh of rotting splinters and insect husks.

I had an eating knife, the length of my finger, and it felt ridiculous clutching it in one sweaty hand while the blood thundered in my ears and I waited for the rush of feet and the flash of three feet of edged steel.

Nothing – but the next shriek nearly made me piss myself, so loud it seemed. It tailed off abruptly and I swore under my breath. Only bloody-minded stupidity was making me do this, I reasoned. I didn’t even like Ulf-Agar.

But I knew the real reason, of course. I had sworn the oath and, if it had been me, I’d rather know there was the hope of someone coming for me, than that I was doomed.

It was so dark I had an arm out in front of me, the knife held in the fist of the other, taking one slow, rolling step after another. I had the impression of beams, of a wooden floor, caught a spit of rain on my face and, looking up, glimpsed stars through the ruined roof, then clouds scudded across and they were gone.

There was rubbish everywhere: a series of traps for the unwary. I took two steps and almost went on my arse when my foot skidded off what felt like the shaft of an oar. I gave up, crouched down, started to slither across the floor, waiting all the time for whoever was in the darkness to erupt at me.

As the sweat ran in my eyes I swore that I could see them, waiting just ahead, so that my breath stopped in my throat.

I sent a nest of mice rustling off, exploded a ball of cockroaches, which ran all over my arm, almost to my face and, despite myself, I gasped aloud and slapped them off. Then I relaxed; if the room was filled with armed men, they were deaf or dead.

I crept towards the lurking shape, moving so that the faint glimmer of light silhouetted it and not me. Then I realised what it was and almost shouted out with the joy of relief. A prow. A gods-cursed, arse-wipe of an old prow.

I was wiping my face and trying not to weep with relief of the moment, when it suddenly struck me that the light seemed to be coming from the floor. I found a knot-hole in a door – there was a cellar.

The square of wood came up smoothly, revealing a set of wooden steps and, compared to what I had been in a moment ago, a lot of light. I lay down, craned my head as far as I could and spotted there was only one way: a passage, with a lantern stuck up on a niche on one wall about halfway down.

I crept down on to a stone floor and the reek of old hides and spoiled food. I started along the corridor and had almost reached the lantern on the wall when something flickered, a gleam and no more. I stopped, crouched, looked again. It was gone. I moved my head – light bounced off metal. I peered at it: a small bell, one of several strung on two or three strands of black horsehair, stretched across the passageway at ankle height.

I hunkered back and blew out gently, considering, searching, thinking. If I had set such a warning, so easily stepped over if found ... I saw the second one, at neck height to a man. Half-hunkered and awkward with caution, I slid between the two and on down the passage to where it ended in a blank wall and two doors, left and right.

I considered. The door left was closed, the one right slightly opened. I listened to the closed one, watching the open one. Snores from the closed one. No noise at all from the other, but there was light there – and heat.

I pushed it and it scraped open on the dirt floor, along a groove worn there with use. It was dimly lit and a sharp smell of smoke and sweat and blood hovered. There was a fire, like a forge fire of charcoal in a metal brazier. Wooden-handled implements stuck out of it. Silhouetted against it was the figure of a man, naked to the waist and muscled, the sweat-grease gleaming in the red light of coals.

Beyond, blood-red in the light, hung between two beams by his thumbs, his toes barely touching the ground, was a naked Ulf-Agar, head swinging, face hidden by his tangled hair. Dark patches marred the white of him and something black ran down his chest in a slow, viscous trickle.

I took two steps and the figure heard and turned, lazily, expecting someone else. I gave him the little knife, searching for his throat but missing by a long way and having Odin’s luck. It went in his left eye up to the hilt; it must have killed him instantly.

He went backwards, his mouth the ragged shape of a scream that never came, dragging the knife out of my hands, crashing down on the brazier and rolling off in a spill of sizzling coals at the feet of Ulf-Agar. His head came up slowly as I put my foot on the dead man’s forehead and hauled the little knife out, then sawed at the thongs that held Ulf’s thumbs.

‘You … ?’

‘Can you walk?’

He fell into my arms then, almost to his knees, recovered and shoved himself upright. There were wet, red burn weals all over him and his speech was mushed where they had burst his lips and splintered his teeth. The hilt of a sword, I thought as I steadied him.

Then the door was shoved further in and someone stepped in. ‘Hauk? Starkad says—’

He saw us then and I made to run at him with the little knife, but Ulf-Agar gave a growl, a low, terrible sound that froze me to the spot. He moved swiftly, but unsteadily, snatched something from the brazier and slashed the man across the face.

With a howl, the man fell, blood all over the hands he clasped to his face. Snarling, bloody froth all over his chin, Ulf rammed the white-hot iron down, through between the man’s knuckles, leaning on the thing with all his might while the man writhed and screamed, pinned like a worm on a hook.

The reek and sizzle of it snapped me to life. I crashed heavily into Ulf, knocking him sideways. ‘Let’s go,’ I hissed. ‘Follow me.’

I got out of the door as the one opposite opened, inwards. I booted it as hard as I could and it flew back, sending whoever was behind it sprawling, then I dashed on. Behind me, Ulf-Agar lumbered like some strange dark dwarf.

I heard the bells tinkle as I went through them – fuck it, everyone knew of our presence now, so alarm bells scarcely mattered. I hit the wooden steps, flung myself up and into the dark warehouse, darker still after even the little light we had had. I was lost in it, couldn’t work out which way was which, whirled in a complete circle, then realised I was alone.

Below, at the foot of the stairs, Ulf-Agar felled someone with a meaty smack, then howled at the men in the passage beyond. I could see only the sweat-gleam of him and the whirling red bar of the hot iron.

‘Fuck! Get up here. Others will come …’

He heard me, backed up the stair, leaped through and slammed the door on them, standing on it. I heard them rush the stairs, the clatter as they thumped on the door. Ulf rose an inch or two; he was too slight to keep them down.

I saw light, caught him by one wrist. ‘This way …’

I was at the front door, the one with the swinging lantern – that was the glimmering light I had seen. I hit it, smashing hard, my shoulder hunched into it. The door held and I bounced back into Ulf and the pair of us went over. Behind, I heard the trapdoor bang up and light spilled out, silhouetting the men who stumbled up the steps.

‘Odin’s … hairy … arse,’ Ulf gasped, getting to his feet. ‘It’s barred on the inside, you oaf. Lift it …’

He had no time for anything else. The men from the cellar were on him and metal clanged as he parried and leaped. Two of them, armed with wicked long seaxes and gleaming, frenzied eyes. In the half-dark, stumbling over debris, with no sound other than Ulf’s curses and everyone’s ragged breathing, they closed in.

I heaved up the bar in a trembling frenzy now; the door flew open, figures suddenly loomed up and a voice – such a familiar voice, a voice that filled me with a sickening leap of such relief I almost lost control of my bladder.

‘Stand aside, Orm!’

And big Skapti, clutching a fat wooden club, hurtled through the door, just as a meaty smack sounded behind me and Ulf howled. Then I was shouldered out of the way, slammed sideways out of the warehouse, where I caught my heel and fell. I lay, looking up at the rushing figures, saw Valknut, his face briefly lit in a snarling mask, Ketil Crow, almost throwing himself into the warehouse, Gunnar Raudi and his red flag of beard.

Then Einar stood, looking down at me, his hair streaming like night in the rising gale. His grin was sharp, wolfish. From inside the warehouse came the thwack and crack of wood breaking bone and laying open skulls.

‘I told you to watch, young Orm.’

My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth; I meant to tell him of the shrieks in the night, managed only the word: ‘Scream,’ and he nodded, as if I had told him the whole tale.

Valknut and Skapti appeared, a limp Ulf hanging between them, his feet dragging as they hustled him out of the building. After him, thrown out bodily, came a stranger, followed by Ketil Crow and the others.

‘Is he dead?’ Einar asked Skapti, who shook his head, his beard rippling in the wind.

‘Beaten, burned, a bad cut on one shoulder, but alive.’

Einar jerked his head in the direction of the Guest Hall, then turned to where the stranger was climbing to his knees, his head hanging, gasping like a winded pony. Bloody drool hung in strands from his mouth.

Einar bent, grabbed the man by his hair and hauled the head up. ‘Who is your jarl? Whose drakkar are these?’

The man’s eyes rolled and there was a great dark mark all along one side of his face. His voice, mushed from his smashed mouth, was hard though. ‘Fuck oor murrer.’ He tried to spit, but only succeeded in slicking his own chin.

‘Starkad,’ I said, suddenly remembering the name shouted by one of them – the one, I also remembered, with a sickening lurch, who wouldn’t be shouting anything any more, from a mouth rammed full of white-hot metal.

Einar’s head came up with a snap, like a hound on a scent. He looked at me, then the man at his feet, drew out a long seax from under his cloak and jerked the man’s head back.

‘Time to go, Einar,’ Pinleg warned, looking down at the harbour, where shouts and lights split the darkness.

‘Starkad Ragnarsson?’ Einar demanded of the man, ignoring Pinleg. The seax came to his nose and the man saw what would happen, blinked, swallowed snot and blood and then nodded. Einar flicked the seax up anyway, gave a sharp curse and flung the man’s head away, so that he sprawled, panting and writhing like a whipped dog, the blood spurting from his split nose. Ketil Crow kicked him viciously as he passed.

They moved swiftly, in a tight group – or as tight as they could along the wooden walkways – Ketil Crow bringing up the rear, turning now and then like a huge elk at bay. We caught up with Valknut and Skapti, a moaning, half-conscious Ulf between them.

As we neared the gate out of the town, there was a flurry of discarded clubs, blades stuffed inside tunics and Ulf-Agar was swathed in Skapti’s heavy blue-wool cloak, to hide his state. Like a party of drunks we spilled out of the gate, past the two bored, cold, envious guards and on to the Guest Hall.

Inside were only Oathsworn – all the women had been told to leave – and all of them were armed. Illugi had Ulf-Agar set down near the fire and bent to look at him, peeling off Skapti’s cloak. Skapti took it back, staring at the ominous stains with distaste, before bundling it up and moving to stow it in his sea-chest.

Einar put mailed guards on the door, then sat by the fire, elbow on one knee, stroking his moustaches. The Oathsworn spoke in low, quick tones, sharing the tale of the battle; now and then a sharp bark of laughter rang out.

There was a great thumping at the doors and everyone fell silent, half crouching in the red twilight like a pack of feral dogs, eyes narrowed. Steel gleamed. The thumping came again and a faint voice.

‘It’s Bagnose,’ said one of the mailed guards. Einar indicated to open the Hall door and Geir stumbled in, growling.

‘Fuck you, what took you so long? Thor’s farting up a gale out there and you keep me …’ Geir fell silent, seeing the red-lit faces of armed men all staring at him, seeing that something had happened.

Einar didn’t explain, simply summoned him. ‘You followed the little monk?’

‘I did,’ said Bagnose, looking round for ale. Steinthor, naked from the waist and strapped with ragged bindings, handed him one and Bagnose grinned and swallowed. Einar waited patiently.

‘He went to the Trade Harbour and a timber hov there. No, not a hov ... a Christ temple of a sort. Half-built. He met someone there.’ He paused, grinning, and took another swallow, then saw Einar’s eyes growing dangerous. ‘Vigfus. Old Skartsmadr Mikill himself.’

Vigfus. Vigfus. The name was spread in mutters around the Hall until someone – Hring, I thought – asked the question I wanted to ask. Who the fuck was Vigfus?

Einar ignored it. ‘Has he a ship?’

‘A solid, fat knarr in the Trade Harbour. And maybe twenty or thirty men – good fighting men, too, fresh from Bluetooth’s wars, though these ones are from the losing side, I am thinking.’

Einar stroked his moustache for a moment, then looked up at Illugi. ‘Illugi Godi and Skapti and Ketil Crow: we will talk this out.’

‘We should get out of this hall,’ growled a voice from the back. ‘We are trapped here.’

‘What do you think will happen?’ Einar shot back.

‘Bluetooth’s man, this Starkad, will come. If we don’t come out, he will burn us until we do,’ answered one called Kvasir, nicknamed Spittle.

Einar laughed, though there was no cheer in it. ‘Bluetooth, last I heard, was King of the Danes and Norway. Birka belongs to the King of the Swedes. He might be offended if Bluetooth’s war hounds ran around killing and burning people in this main trade town.’

‘No king cares about Birka. Birka is its own master,’ Finn Horsehead pointed out. ‘Lambisson is master here, in the name of the King of the Swedes. If the king still is Olof, that is. Eirik was fighting him for it, last I heard, and since Eirik is also known as Victorious, there’s a clue as to which one to put your money on.’

There was laughter at that.

‘Lambisson it is who has allowed Bluetooth’s men into Birka with full steel in their hands,’ answered Valknut. ‘Which gives you a clue as to whom to put your wager on for treachery. He is a practical man for money.’

There was more grim laughter at that. Einar scanned the faces, seeing the half-fearful, half-savage looks and the eyes gleaming in the red firelight. ‘Stand out in the wind if you want,’ he shrugged. ‘But Illugi, Skapti, Ketil Crow and myself will talk this out. Quietly, over some ale, in this warm hall.’

There were mutters about holding a proper Thing over something so important and fresh arguments began. Someone – I was sure it was Eyvind – said loudly, ‘Burn.’

Geir Bagnose blew froth off his fresh horn of ale and began to skald, loudly and with feeling. I winced as I realised he was making poetry out of the rescue of Ulf-Agar and, though I knew why he did it, wished he didn’t. But men stopped arguing to listen.

My father slid in beside me and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘You did well.’

‘I shat myself several times,’ I answered truthfully. ‘I should have waited … but he was screaming fit to shave the hairs off your arms.’

‘Aye,’ my father agreed, ‘he was bad handled at that—’ He broke off as men raised voices in appreciation of a particularly good kenning about ‘grim eye of the wyrm’, it being a clever play on my name. ‘Just as well Ulf is out of his head,’ he added. ‘He’ll hate this.’

‘He played his part,’ I argued. ‘He was defending my back in the end, armed only with a hot forge-iron.’

‘Let’s hope Bagnose puts it in, then,’ my father chuckled, then raised his voice as Geir stopped to take another pull at his drinking horn.

‘Well done, Bagnose. Now that the Hakon’s skald, the Plagiarist, is silenced by the death of his king in Norway, there’s service there for a good court verse-maker.’

Geir raised his horn in acknowledgement, wiped his lips, then stuck the tip of the horn in the earth floor to keep it upright while he continued extemporising verses.

‘Just thank the gods he isn’t Skallagrimsson,’ my father added and I hastily made a sign against the evil eye. Egil was a famous poet, but a man with blood behind his eyes and a great elk head with beetling brows that, it was assuredly reported, you could hit with Thor’s hammer and not dent. He was also as mad a killer as a wounded boar and not a man whose ale-elbow you wanted to nudge.

Which reminded me of our predicament – and questions I had. ‘Who is Starkad? And this Vigfus? And—?’

‘One foot first, then another,’ my father answered, leaning closer and dropping his voice. He ticked them off on his blunt, splintered-nail fingers. ‘Starkad Ragnarsson is one of Bluetooth’s best, a man loved by women and feared by men, as they say. He is possibly the only man Einar fears, so we should fear him, too. He has the reputation of a good boar dog – once he has sunk his teeth in, you will never get his jaws out save by slaying.’

I mulled that one over moodily, while my father raised another finger.

‘Vigfus – no one has ever called him anything else. Apart from Skartsmadr Mikill, Quite the Dandy, which he hates. It seems he always dresses in the dark, as they say, for he has a worse way with clothing than Skapti Halftroll and the Oathsworn have had dealings with him before … certainly we know his like. He always manages to have some band of followers, all hard men, not to be trusted.’

‘Like Einar?’ I offered wryly and my father frowned and shook his head.

‘No, lad. Einar believes in oaths; he will hold to them. Vigfus is as treacherous as a snake with a foot on its tail.’ He sighed and scrubbed his chin. ‘There are too many players in this game,’ he added gloomily.

‘What game?’ I retorted. ‘We don’t know what we are playing.’

‘No, I don’t understand it,’ agreed my father, then shot a sideways, almost sly look at me. ‘Einar thinks you are a deep thinker,’ he went on, rubbing his beard. ‘What do you make of it all?’

I considered it. This King Bluetooth had heard there was something, enough for him to find two ships and armed men, for he had also heard the Oathsworn were involved and knew them as grim men in a fight.

He must have learned that before the Oathsworn came for me in the Vik – that already seemed an age, another life. I looked back on it and saw this boy stuffing gull eggs in the hemmed loop of his tunic and, though I knew it was me, he was already a stranger. In so short a time I had become a man and a killer of men.

‘Aye, just so,’ agreed my father. ‘We were with the Danes of Hedeby, then headed for the Vik, since it was on the way to Strathclyde. But no one was loose-mouthed in Hedeby – and after that we came for you, word having reached me.’

‘Can you be sure of that? I remember Pinleg spoke of Atil’s treasure on the beach at Strathclyde – how many more knew in Hedeby?’

He made a mouth like a cat’s arse and scrubbed one hand through his thinning hair, which was answer enough. ‘And Vigfus?’ he asked.

I shrugged. ‘Why should Lambisson have just the Oathsworn sailing for him? But there must be a good haul at the end of it, to be worth the outlay on more than one band, for men and ships are not cheap.

‘It is possible that he is making sure no one group knows everything about what he seeks – even if it really is Atil’s treasure – only a little part of it. And he won’t be happy that Starkad is here. He will not want the likes of Bluetooth setting his hands on whatever it is he seeks.

‘But I am thinking this Vigfus is not Lambisson’s man. He is Martin’s man and the Christ priest takes such pains to meet him in secret that there is the stink of treachery in it.’

‘Just so,’ said Einar’s voice behind me and, turning, I saw him, black as a scowl in the firelight. Behind him, Skapti and Ketil Crow were moving among the men, talking in urgent, quiet voices, clapping shoulders. Bagnose’s epic – thank the gods – had been brought to a halt.

Einar hunkered down beside the pair of us. ‘You have the right of it again, young Orm,’ he said. ‘Now we know the players of this game, we must find out what the game is.’

‘And the rules,’ I offered.

He looked at me, cold-eyed. ‘There are no rules.’

‘None?’ I asked, far too boldly. ‘What of the oath we swear – is that not a rule?’

‘It is an oath,’ he replied with a thin smile, ‘which is different. You are young and will learn the difference. I was young once and walked by myself. I counted myself rich when I found a comrade I could trust. And I could only trust one who would swear an oath.’ He turned to my father then. ‘Rurik, take the Trimmer and the men Ketil Crow is picking. Make the Elk ready for sea.’

‘In this gale? I’d be hauling her higher up the shingle …’

‘On the dawn tide, we must be gone from here.’

‘To where?’

Einar looked at him for a moment, then grinned. ‘The whale road.’

My father ran his age-veined hand over his face, saw Einar’s face, blank as stone, nodded and got up. He wanted to speak of hidden rocks, but saw it was pointless. Einar wanted away, in any direction – and fast.

I realised men were moving, swiftly and efficiently to pack, moving sea-chests and gear. Some were stripping off their mail, which I thought strange.

‘Here’s the way of it,’ Einar said to me quietly. ‘Men will make the Elk ready, others will take all our gear to the Tyr Grove, a place of birch trees not far from here. Illugi Godi knows it and will lead them.

‘I will need a few, enough to make a good group in the dark. And Orm, the Bear Slayer. We will fetch the little monk and be on our way before anyone knows the better.’

I blinked and swallowed.

Einar clapped me on the shoulder. ‘And we will walk through the gates with only our eating knives and friendly smiles, to try and meet with Lambisson and the little monk, for good sound reasons. Of course, once we do, we will make sure the little monk stays.’

I swallowed again. ‘And Lambisson?’

Einar shrugged, his mouth in a twisted grin, then rose and moved to give Ketil Crow some urgent, low-voiced instructions.

In a daze, I collected my cloak, realised it was filthy from the warehouse and tried to brush some of the worst off. I thought of using my knife to scrape it, but when I attempted to pull it from the sheath, I found it was stuck fast. When I eventually wrenched it out, I saw it was gummed with dried blood.

I remembered the man’s eye, felt the suck as I pulled the knife out. I had not been aware of it at the time, being eager to cut Ulf-Agar free, but the gods never forget and made me remember it now. I knew it was Loki’s doing when I felt the sick rising in me.

Bagnose grinned at me, hefting a sea-chest and helping Steinthor with another. He winked as he bustled past. Two others were making a seat out of two spears and a cloak, to fetch Ulf-Agar away.

Some saga hero, me. Sitting trembling in the midst of this preparing host, trying not to throw up all that lamb and wild garlic over my salt-crusted boots.

Einar came over, holding a long seax in a soft leather sheath and a handful of leather bindings. He handed it to me, then undid my tunic belt, hiked it up and undid the strings of my breeks.

I clutched them to me, but he indicated, grinning, for me to drop them. Loud hoots of laughter greeted this. Then he started to show me how to strap the foot-long seax to the inside of one thigh, high up under my balls. Red-faced, I stopped him, fumbling the thing on myself, aware of my prick shrinking under the stares.

‘You’ll impress the women when you sit,’ rumbled Skapti.

‘But not when erect,’ growled Kvasir Spittle from the crowd and everyone laughed, the high, savage laughter of men about to stare Thor in his red-bearded face.

I hauled my breeks back up and Einar nodded, looked around the company and raised one hand. There was a short, deep-throated ‘hoom’ and then only the noise of men moving, gear clattering, feet shuffling. In seconds, it seemed, the hov was empty, with not so much as a discarded strap-end to show anyone had been there.

Hring and Skapti came up, carrying the spear and cloak bed I thought made for Ulf-Agar. Eyvind was there, and Ketil Crow, Gunnar Raudi and Einar, who looked at me and said, ‘Lie down and be dead, Orm. But give me that amulet from your neck first.’

Bewildered, I lay on the contraption and was bundled up in two cloaks, swathed head to foot, along with four long, naked swords. Einar grinned down and, just before he covered my face, said, ‘Remember: be still and dead, Orm Ruriksson. There’s more than one way to kill the bear.’

I felt him place something on my chest, then rocked violently as I was lifted. I heard the wind hiss and thump round the houses of Birka, but felt nothing through the swathe of cloaks. I smelled sweat and piss and blood, though, felt the weight of the wool, heard sounds dull almost into stillness and the night transform into a hotter, dryer blackness, clutching me like an eager woman.

I was not happy with it, the lurch and sway and the press of the wool and the feel of trying to suck air through it, thick as gruel. My eyes were blinking sweat; the edge of one blade, I swore, was slicing into my thigh with every stumble they made. I felt my lungs contract and my heart was banging against my ribs like a door in the wind.

We stopped. Someone said something, too indistinct in the wind. Then Einar, gloomy and sombre, announced: ‘One of ours is dead ... a Christ-follower, as you can see. We need your little monk to speak properly over him and do what rites the Christ-men do.’

The answer was gruff, almost offhand and I heard Einar spit. ‘It happened no more than an hour ago – in the town you are supposed to guard. Where were you, then, when the men from the drakkar had their swords and axes out, running riot in the streets?’

The guard grunted, shamed to silence. Another voice sounded, much closer. ‘Stabbed, was he?’

‘Stuck through like a pig,’ agreed Skapti sorrowfully.

I felt the cloth twitch back and the guard grunted. I lay, muscles frozen, willing my closed eyelids not to quiver. The cloth twitched back and Gunnar’s growl came low and fierce: ‘Have a care and respect, little man.’

‘No offence,’ I heard the guard say hastily. ‘I remember the boy from earlier. A shame. Pass through – though I think it unlikely you will get much from that monk, who somewhat lacks the proper hospitality all Christ-followers are supposed to have.’

‘Our thanks,’ Einar replied and the corpse bed lurched on.

‘Tell the guard at the door that Sten passed you,’ the guard called after and again Einar called his thanks.

Beyond earshot, he turned and hissed anxiously to the others, ‘Where’s Eyvind?’

No one knew. Muttering curses under his breath, he led us up the steps, to where another guard stood at the hall door. Einar recited the same story, used Sten’s name and, suddenly, there was a flash of blinding light as the cloaks were peeled back. I almost lost a finger in their rush to get the swords out in that empty antechamber.

Einar held up one hand. ‘Quiet, as you would tickle trout from a stream, or your woman’s fancy. We grab the monk, give him a dunt – no more, mind – that will lay him out as dead, then put him in the corpse bed and trust the guards don’t see, in the dark, that we are one more walking out than walking in.’

It was a good and daring plan, as everyone agreed afterwards. But, as Gunnar Raudi pointed out, plans are like summer snow on a dyke and rarely last more than a few minutes.

Which is what happened when we sneaked into the room where Einar, Illugi and I had dined. It seemed an age ago, but the dishes were still there.

And so were the soft-slippered servants, clearing them away.

‘Fuck—’

It was all anyone had time to say. There were four of them, all O-mouthed and frozen. There were six of us and they were still scrabbling on the polished floor when our nailed boots scarred a way to them and steel flashed in their faces.

Three died in a welter of sprayed blood and muffled shrieks. The fourth found Skapti sitting on him, driving the air from his body, slamming his head casually and rhythmically into the floorboards. I hadn’t even moved, found I had stopped breathing and started again with a savage, hoarse intake.

‘The monk?’ demanded Einar, leaning down to the dazed, battered thrall. His shaved head was bleeding, his eyes rolling. He had shat himself and Skapti, sniffing suspiciously, stopped sitting on him in a hurry, which had the added effect of allowing the man to breathe and talk.

‘There …’

Gunnar Raudi and Ketil Crow sprang forward. Skapti whacked the flat of his sword on to the thrall’s head, which slammed it back into the floorboards. Blood seeped from the thrall’s ears, I noticed.

Skapti moved on and probably thought he had been merciful in only knocking the man unconscious. I reckoned, from the rasping breath and leaking blood, that the man would almost certainly die. Even if he didn’t, he’d probably be witless, like old Oktar, who had been suspected of releasing the white bear at Bjornshafen.

The following summer he had been kicked in the head by a stallion and blood had come out of his ears. He had survived, with a big dent and no mind enough to keep him from drooling, so Gudleif had had him sacrificed, in the old way, his blood sprinkled on the fields, as a mercy. Another wyrd death to lay at the den of that bear – and, of course, at the feet of my father.

A series of shouts and a scuffle snatched me from these thoughts. Ketil Crow arrived, more or less behind Martin the monk, who smiled smoothly at Einar – much to all our bewilderment. ‘Excellent,’ he declared. ‘How did you plan to get me out?’

‘How do you know we planned to get you out and not just lay you out?’ scowled Ketil Crow. Einar indicated the corpse bed Hring was dragging in and Martin’s smile grew broader still.

‘Clever,’ he said, then, briskly: ‘There is a woman next door. She will be the one for that bed, well covered. I will, if I may, borrow a cloak and helm – from Orm, who is my size—’

‘Wait, wait,’ growled Einar, scrubbing his stubbled chin. ‘What’s all this? What woman?’

Martin was already pulling the cloak from my unyielding shoulders, trying to prise my leather helmet off. I slapped his hands away.

‘Lambisson does not esteem me. He will be back soon, having realised that the woman I had brought here is more valuable than anything else he seeks.’

‘Valuable?’ demanded Einar.

‘She knows the way to a great treasure,’ Martin responded, tugging, then rounded angrily on me. ‘Let it go, you idiot boy.’

At which point, angered beyond anything I had experienced in my life, I swung my sword in a half-arc. It was wild – a bad swing entirely, as Skapti said later. It hit the monk high on the head, but with the flat, not the edge. He went down like a sacrificed horse, gone from a twisted-faced little weasel of a man to a heap of rags on the floor.

Einar bent, studied him for a moment, then stroked his beard again and nodded admiringly at me. ‘Good stroke. Hring, bring the little rat round. Let’s find this woman …’

We moved to the door, opened it as cautiously as possible and Ketil Crow moved in, followed by Gunnar Raudi, then me. Einar and Skapti stayed outside.

It was dark, lit only by a horn lantern, guttering low, and fetid, a strange, high smell which I came to recognise later as fear and shit in equal measure. Ketil Crow knew it well, for it put him into a half-crouch, blade held low in his left hand, hackles up. Behind, Gunnar Raudi moved to the left. Naively, I bumbled on, past Ketil and on to the middle of the room, to the only furniture in it: a low bed with a pile of rags.

It was only when the rags moved that I realised it was human ... or had been once, at least. There was a droning sound, a long muttering, then a sobbing – such a sound as to crack your heart. I backed away, my own hackles up. Perhaps this was the fetch of a woman who had died …

Gunnar poked the rags with the blunt tip of his sword and they moved rapidly, scuttling like an animal, reached the end of a length of chain and stopped. A head came up, framed with tangled, greasy hair, face pale as the moon and with two wild, bright orbs staring back at us. The woman – if woman it was – gabbled something which sounded vaguely familiar. Ketil Crow advanced slowly and, from the door, Einar’s impatient voice growled for us to get the bloody woman and be done with it.

‘It’s chained up,’ Ketil Crow said.

‘It stinks,’ added Gunnar. ‘And it’s chained by the foot.’

‘Then cut the fucking thing,’ hissed Einar. Behind him came slapping sounds and a low moan as Martin was brought back to life.

‘The foot?’ I gasped, aghast at such an idea, but knowing either of them was capable of it. Gunnar shot me a scornful scowl.

‘The chain, you horse’s arse.’ And he nodded to Ketil Crow to get on with it, but got only a scowl.

‘Use your own blade. I like the edge on mine.’

‘By Loki’s hairy arse!’ roared Skapti, barrelling in and knocking everyone aside, the huge Shieldbreaker sword soaring up. The pile of rags that was a woman saw it, screamed once and flopped. The blade whirled down; the chain shattered at the point where it joined an iron fetter.

Skapti swung round, his eyes boar-like and red. Instinctively, Ketil Crow and Gunnar backed away.

‘Now you pair of turds can carry her,’ he growled. For a moment, Ketil Crow’s eyes narrowed dangerously and I watched him, for I knew if he struck Skapti it would be from behind. No sane man would face an armed Skapti in a confined space.

Instead, he grinned like a wolf on a kill and moved to the woman. I followed Skapti outside, where Martin was sitting up and shaking his head, dripping from the contents of a ewer Hring had thrown on him. Hring, smirking, was trying to force the pewter pot inside his tunic, flattening it into uselessness as he did so.

Einar hauled the monk up on to unsteady legs and clapped him playfully on the shoulder. ‘Sore head, eh? Now you be quiet and nice, or I will let the Bear Slayer loose on you again.’

Everyone chuckled – save me and Martin.

‘I will want to know more of this, monk,’ Einar went on. ‘But, for now, we will follow your plan. Orm, give him your cloak and helm, for I don’t think Brondolf Lambisson will want him gone from here and may have left instructions to that effect. Lower the woman on to the corpse bed and cover her up. Then we can leave.’

They had completed their task, were hefting the bed and moving from the wreck of the room, when the door opened and Brondolf Lambisson strode in, holding a small chest close to his own.

There had been no warning for him. One minute he was coming into the neat, warm hov of his fortress, slippers on his feet, a nice warm hat on his head; the next he had stepped into a nightmare wreck of a room, reeking of shit and blood, littered with corpses and come face to face with the last six armed men in the world he wanted to meet.

He had time to give a strangled yelp and whirl back out of the door, though, hurling the chest straight at the nearest, which happened to be Skapti and Einar. It hit Skapti on the shoulder, smacked Einar on the forehead and dazed him. With a cry, Skapti dropped his end of the corpse bed, blocking the doorway.

‘Ah, Odin’s bollocks …’

Einar was clutching his head, cursing so hard I made a sign against angering the very gods he maligned. Blood stained his fingers when he removed them.

Skapti started to lumber after the fleeing Lambisson, but Einar grabbed him. ‘No. Time to row hard for it,’ he said through pain-gritted teeth.

Hring picked up the chest and shook it. It rattled with coin and he beamed at Einar.

‘You have a head for business right enough, Einar.’

The answer was a dangerous growl and a shake that sprayed everyone with warm droplets, like a dog climbing out of a stream.

Martin stumbled forward, my hand on the nape of his neck. He tried once to shake me off and I tightened my grip, at which he gave up struggling and trembled, part with anger, but mainly with fear.

‘The chest,’ he managed and Einar took it from Hring, opened it, shot a look full of questions at the monk.

‘On the thong …’ muttered Martin. Einar started raking about in the chest.

‘Time to go, Einar,’ warned Skapti. ‘Lambisson will raise the whole Borg in another blink.’

Einar fished out a leather loop, dangling from which was a heavy coin, punched with a hole to take the thong. It swung, gleaming in the flickering lights.

‘The woman had it round her neck,’ Martin said, thick-voiced with the pain in his head.

We all craned to see it, but it was just a medallion to me.

‘See it,’ Martin urged. ‘On one side and the other …’

Einar turned it over and over in his fingers, while Skapti hovered by the door. ‘Einar ... in the name of Thor, move your arse.’

‘On one side, Sigurd …’ Martin wheezed. And I saw it, as it turned and flashed. On one side, the head of Sigurd, slayer of Fafnir. On the other, the dragon head. ‘Volsung-minted,’ he went on. ‘From the hoard Sigurd took. There is no other coin like it out in the world.’

Skapti slammed the doorpost with his forehead and roared his anxious frustration at us all.

‘All the others, its brothers and sisters,’ Martin breathed, ‘are buried with Attila the Hun.’

Then we were out into the little room, composing ourselves and stepping as quietly as we could, controlling our ragged breathing with effort, to face the guard on the steps.

‘Wouldn’t that weasel-faced little fuck help then?’ asked the guard sympathetically. Beside me, I felt Martin stiffen and poked him meaningfully.

‘No. We will do it with our own rites,’ answered Einar and moved on, keeping his head turned as far from the man as possible, so the blood wouldn’t show.

We were halfway down the stairs when Einar stopped. A red flower bloomed in the dark, beyond the Borg walls. Shouts followed it. Another flower bloomed. The guard above us peered disbelievingly.

‘Fire … ?’

‘Eyvind,’ said Einar bitterly, as if the very name was a curse. Which, of course, it turned out to be.

Just then, the fortress alarm bell clanged out. Lambisson. The guard on the steps whirled, confused. Helpfully, I said, ‘Must be a fire in the town. That will be bad in this gale.’

The guard nodded, now unsure of whether to rush to the gate and find out, or stick to his post. Instead he said, ‘Get on now. Hurry.’ Then he turned into the fortress.

‘Move!’ hissed Einar, but that was a whip we didn’t need. We almost scampered across the main gate, where the guards were staring. Only two now – it seemed Sten had taken the others to help against the fire, which was luck, since he seemed to know my face.

The ones on the gate couldn’t give a rat’s arse whether we had found a monk or given our comrade suitable burial, being too busy craning to see what was happening.

They waved us through and we headed off along the walkway, moving towards the town wall. The reek of smoke, shouts, a whirl of sparks and flame showed that Eyvind’s handiwork was excellent. I remembered the raven, the doomed voice of Eyvind saying: ‘I was looking at the town and thinking how easily it would burn.’

A group of men and women with buckets charged past us, pushing along the walkway. Shouts whirled away with the wind, but some were louder up ahead, where a fresh red flower bloomed.

‘There he goes!’

Eyvind stumbled from the cover of darkness, vaulted a fence, fell on the walkway and got up again. He was wild-eyed and seemed to be laughing. He saw us and sprinted. Behind him, a crowd of pursuers made ugly noises.

‘Fuck his mother,’ hissed Ketil Crow. ‘He’ll have them all down on us …’

There was confusion. All the weapons were hidden with the woman on the corpse bed. Eyvind, half stumbling, laughing with relief, charged up the walkway to us, to safety and his oathsworn oarmates.

Einar stepped forward, whirled, wrenched my breeks to the knee and whipped out the hidden seax, all in one movement that left me frozen in place – which was just as well, since I felt the wind of that edge trail past my naked balls.

Eyvind was trying to speak, gasping for air. Einar stepped forward, for all the world as if to embrace him, and drove the seax up under the ribs and straight to the heart. Eyvind simply collapsed like a bag into Einar’s arms and he promptly threw the luckless dead man back towards the pursuing crowd, sprawling him bloodily on the walkway.

He turned to me and said, ‘Pull up your breeks, boy. This is no place or time to have a shit.’

Then he swiftly – piously – laid the bloody blade on the chest of the swathed figure on the corpse bed, switched a covering edge over it and signalled us to move on.

Some of the baying pack had seen what had happened, others further behind had not, saw only that their quarry was down and a boy was trying to take a shit in the walkway. There was laughter, confusion.

The crowd milled up to the dead Eyvind like some giant, slavering cat whose prey had suddenly dropped dead before it could be played with. They pawed it with kicks for a while, then started to string up the corpse as we passed.

The owner of the house they wanted to use was arguing furiously about having it hang from his eaves. More sparks whirled on the wind from the last fire Eyvind had started. Not one of them queried how he had died or that we had done it with a weapon we shouldn’t have had. It was, I noted numbly, pulling up my breeks, as if we were invisible.

We went through the town gate, out past the garrison, now stumbling into life in response to the clanging bells, the shouts, the fires.

In the confusion, we melded into the darkness beyond. When I looked back, it seemed the whole of Birka was burning.