Читать книгу The Oathsworn Series Books 1 to 5 - Robert Low - Страница 13

As my father said at the time, we should have hauled the Elk higher up the shingle, for this was no time to be out in a boat.

It was bad enough scrambling up the straked sides of it in the dark, with the freezing water sucking and slapping you, but once aboard, the rowers bent to it and took her out to where the black waves were white-tipped with fury in a howling night.

Then we fought the storm and the fear of splintering on Birka’s hidden rocks; three men leaned on the steering oar and the rest of us huddled in a sort of dulled stubbornness. I was charged with looking after the woman, who moaned and rolled eyes made even whiter by the night and gabbled incessantly in some tongue that almost approached the familiar.

In the blue-white flashes of lightning which seared through even closed eyes, I could see the pale face of her, like a skull, hair plastered slick to it, eyes sunk in deep, dark pools, mouth opening and closing on her meaningless sounds. I wrapped her and myself as tight as I could in a sodden cloak and her arms went round me.

We leached warmth from each other as the Elk staggered forward recklessly into the night and, at one point, I saw Illugi Godi, standing alone at the prow, an axe in either hand, chanting prayers. Then he threw them overboard, an offering to Thor, master of the wind and rain.

Dawn came up like thin milk in a bowl. We were alone under the great, white pearl that is the inside of the ancient frost giant Ymir’s skull, which is the vault of the sky. The wind no longer roared at us, but hissed a steady, cold breath, driving us north and east, up the great, grey-black, glassy swells, spilling white spray from their frayed ends – my father had instinctively headed for Aldeigjuborg, which the Slavs call Starya Ladoga.

The Fjord Elk slid up them, water foaming aft, staggering now and then as the bow knifed and water swirled down the deck into the nooks and crannies of her.

She was a good boat, the Elk. Not a longship in the sense everyone thinks they know: those are the drakkar, expensive warships built to carry warriors and not much cargo, with barely four or five paces in the beam. You can’t travel far in a longship before all those men need water and food you haven’t got and you have to call in somewhere to replenish it.

Nor was the Elk the fat-bellied little trading knarr that ploughs stubbornly through the blackest seas with tons of cargo in her well.

Which was why Einar did what he did next. Later, I worked out why. Vigfus in his little knarr would wait out the storm before heading north in search of the god stone he thought we were after. He had too many men for such a little ship and such overcrowding would be deadly in a storm, for such a ship depended on its trim to stay afloat.

Starkad, also, would wait, since he dare not risk his expensive ships. However, he would then race hard as those dragons can sail, aiming to make it to the same place faster than any of us and before his stores ran so low his men starved and thirsted. He would know where to go, because Lambisson would tell him, having no choices left.

So Einar spoke with Valgard and Rurik, huddled together, with much shaking of heads on their part and much curled lip from him. In the end, they broke apart and Einar announced: ‘Shields and oars.’

There was a general shifting around at that. Those who knew what was about to happen seemed as uneasy as those who hadn’t a clue. Gunnar Raudi scrambled up to me, forking a lump of bread out of a leather pouch and handing it to me and the woman. In the light of day, she looked no better, seemed no more sensible – but she chewed the bread avidly, which was a good sign, even if her dark eyes were strange and pewter-dull.

I caught Gunnar’s sleeve as he turned to go, asked him what was happening.

‘We run,’ he said and flashed a gapped grin full of half-chewed bread. ‘Hold on tight.’

Shields were fetched out, the bosses knocked from their centres and carefully stored in pouches, along with the rivets. The oars were run out, which was a puzzle, since I already knew it was madness to try rowing in that swell. Perhaps they were going to try to turn the ship for some mysterious hidden land my father had found in his seidr way.

Then the bossless shields were slid down on to the oars, which were turned blades flat to the sea. The shields were locked in place on the side and the oars couldn’t even be moved. I had never seen or heard of this before; quite a few others were similarly puzzled. But those who knew looked grim about it.

The oars, uniformly fixed in place, stuck out pointlessly, blades flat to the swell, like the ridiculous legs of an insect.

‘Up sail!’ roared Rurik.

No – a mistake, surely? In this wind and swell? We would run so fast we’d go arse over tip, plunge the bow into the waves and swamp her. I had heard such things – we had no keel for such travel …

But the crew sprang to it, the spar lifted off the rests, the great sail, soaked despite the sheep grease and seal oil, flapped, strained, bellied out like some grass-fed mare and the Elk leaped like a goosed goodwife.

The ignorant gasped and some yelled out with fear, but the Elk shook itself and sped ahead, the oars acting like the deep keel it didn’t have.

My father came across to me, squinting up at the sail, then back to the steering oar, where Skapti stood braced with it under his armpit and three others waited close by, in case he had to try to turn.

‘Not that he could,’ my father chuckled. ‘We run hard, fast and true – faster than anything. The drakkar will fall over themselves under full sail in this sea and are too big to try this trick – we have near half as much again on them and are rigged so that the inside of every wave adds more speed.’

It was true and men hung on as if about to be swept away. The Elk . . . flew. It planed up one side of the swell, surfed down the other, kissing the water with the oars, sweeter and faster than anything, while the wind thrummed the walrus ropes and, if you leaned out, you could see parts of the crusted strakes not normally exposed except during careening.

‘Get your arse inboard,’ roared Valgard, catching me by the belt and hauling me in with a cuff. I did not care. I was exhilarated, drunk on the sheer beauty of it.

Once, as a boy, I had dared to ride Gudleif’s best and fiercest, Austri, named after one of the dwarves who sit at the four corners of the sky. With no saddle or bridle or reins I sprang on him and he had taken off. His mane whipped my face, the wind ripped tears from my eyes, but I felt the surge of him under my thighs and calves, the sheer power and grace as we flew in a thunder over the meadow.

Of course, the red weals of that mane had given me away. Gudleif had beaten me for it but, through the snot and tears afterwards, I was still mazed in the feeling. The Elk did the same for me that day, too.

Gradually, as they grew used to the wonder of it, men relaxed – until Valgard had them watch the oars, lest one catch the water too hard and shatter.

I lay next to the softly muttering woman, feeling the heat of her, watching the weathervane swoop and soar with the rise and fall of the swell in long circles, listening to the endlessly-repeated sound that went with it, from the creak of the mast stays, the thump as it shifted in its socket, the snake-hiss of the water under the keel, the deep-throat hum of the wind in the ropes, like a struck harp.

Towards midday, I reckoned, a watery-eyed sun came up and everyone cheered; it was the first sun we had seen in a long time. Martin the monk watched Illugi Godi give thanks for it, his face dark as the black water under the keel. Einar watched Martin, stroking his beard.

Gunnar handed out sour milk and gruel and wet-mush bread later, together with a half-cup of water. The woman’s dull-eyed muttering only stopped when she ate, but even that was half-hearted. She felt hot and I palmed her forehead, which was clammy.

‘How is she?’ demanded Illugi, suddenly appearing at my side. I told him and he checked, grunted, moved to Einar and spoke with him. He nodded, looked at the sky, then called Rurik and talked to him. My father rubbed a hand across his wild, thin hair – a sign I now knew spoke of his unease – and moved to the side.

He studied the water for a long time, on both sides of the boat, looked at the sky, squinted at the weak sun, which was losing itself in a milky haze. He said something to Einar, who nodded and hauled Gudleif’s already tattered fur tighter round him.

Water dripped from my nose and we ran on towards night, heedless of land, of skerries, of shoals, of anything. We were on the whale road.

As the light thinned, Einar waved me to him and murmured to Ketil Crow, who fetched the monk. With Illugi Godi, we huddled under the little upturned faering which stood as the nearest thing to a shelter on the boat and which, of course, Einar claimed as his due.

‘Well, we are escaped, monk, and at no small cost. Now tell us why you should not go over the side as a sacrifice to Thor,’ he growled at Martin.

I refrained from saying anything, because the taste of it was bitter in my mouth. The cost was Eyvind’s and he had paid it in full, betrayed by the man who had made much of oath-swearing. That and the fact that the time to have thrown the monk overboard was at the height of the storm, when Thor and Aegir needed an offering.

Martin, wet and miserable and cold, with a great black bruise down one side of his face, sniffed snot into the back of his throat. Gone was the smooth, urbane scholar who had invited us to dine, but the drowned rat that remained still, he thought, had some teeth.

‘You would do well to treat me better, Einar the Black,’ the monk answered bitterly. ‘I hold the secret of what you want, after all.’

‘The god stone holds that secret,’ answered Einar coldly. ‘Between Illugi, who can ken the runes, and Orm, who reads Latin, I think we can prise out the secret. Give me another reason to keep your feet dry.’

Martin glanced sourly at me and nodded, slowly. ‘I wondered how you had known of the stone. I had not thought a boy would have such learning, though.’

He had marked me, that was clear, and the knowledge of it made me shiver. He seemed, to me, far too calm and cool about it all. To Einar, also, I saw.

‘Indeed,’ said Einar and nodded to Ketil Crow and another burly man, Snorri, who had a god mark on his face almost the same shape and in the same place as the monk’s bruise. They grabbed Martin; he shrieked and struggled, but they wound a good rope round his ankles and hauled him up the mast a little way, where he waved wildly and swung.

Einar stood, stretched, yawned and farted. Then he drew out a little knife I had not seen before, too small for a fighting seax and not his eating knife. He grabbed the little monk’s left hand and sawed off a finger at the first joint. Blood sprayed; the monk howled and jerked. Einar examined the digit, then tossed it casually over the side.

‘This is a magic knife,’ he said, bending close to the monk. ‘It can tell lie from truth and every time it finds a lie it will remove a finger until all are gone. Then it will start on toes, until all are gone. Then it will start on your prick and your balls …’

‘Until all are gone,’ chorused those in the know, with roars and huge, knee-slapping laughs.

‘Just so,’ said Einar, without the hint of a smile.

‘Let me down, let me down …’

He babbled well, did Martin. He wet himself – we knew because it steamed pungently – and prayed for oblivion, but his White Christ didn’t hand him that, for it was well known that a man upside down, with the blood in his head, can’t faint. He pleaded, offered everything in this world and, by virtue of his knowing his god personally, the next.

And he revealed everything. That Atil’s treasure existed. That the god stone didn’t matter, but the woman did. Vigfus, it seemed, had been sent to where the god stone originally stood, after Martin had found that the Christ ikon he sought had been taken there to be forged into part of Atil’s treasure: a sword, it seemed.

This was part of the gifts given to Atil by the Volsungs when they knew the only way to defeat that almond-eyed snake of a steppe lord was by sacrifice and cunning – a final great gift, of swords and silver and a bride, one of their own, a seidr witch called Ildico. Who killed him on their wedding night.

Martin, seeking clues, had sent Vigfus to find the forge, or any reference to swords or spears. Vigfus, who couldn’t find his arse if someone shone a light on it, failed to find anything, had seized the woman who now shivered and raved beside me because the local heathens seemed to hold her in high esteem, in an attempt to force the knowledge from them.

They had attacked Vigfus, killed more than a few of his men, and forced him to flee back to Birka with only the woman.

Martin, however, had seen the amulet she wore for what it was, had then remembered St Otmund and his mission, thought perhaps there might be a clue in his writings about the forge and sent us to Strathclyde. But there had only been reference to a god stone.

‘So,’ Einar demanded, while the monk’s blood dripped fatly on the deck and the snot ran into his eyes, ‘why are you now fearful of Lambisson, whose purse you have plundered for all this? If you are on the track of the Great Hoard, surely he would be pleased?’

The monk hesitated for the first time. ‘I … he … we simply disagreed. On a point of principle … Let me down. I will be sick.’

‘A point of principle?’ Einar growled, narrowing his eyes. He reached for the mutilated hand and the monk howled.

‘No, no … wait, wait … the ikon. It was the ikon …’

‘That’s what Bluetooth wants,’ I said, suddenly realising. ‘This Christ charm. To convert the Danes with. For that bishop who wore the red-hot glove.’

And Martin was sick, spilling it into his nose and his hair, choking on the slime-green of it until Einar, seeing he might well die upside down, nodded to Snorri, who lowered him to the deck. Seawater was thrown over him until, shivering and wretched, he could breathe again.

‘Has Orm the right of it?’ demanded Einar.

Martin, unable to do anything else, nodded and retched.

‘So,’ Einar continued, ‘Bluetooth knows nothing about Atil’s treasure, only that there is a god charm the Christ-followers revere. You did not tell Lambisson of it, but spent his money finding it for yourself …’ He was stroking his moustaches, thinking, thinking. ‘What is this Christ charm everyone wants?’ he asked, giving Martin a kick.

The monk spluttered, wiped his nose, coughed out an answer. ‘A spear. Once. Thrust. Into the side of our Lord by the Romans.’

‘Ah,’ mused Einar.

Illugi Godi nodded sagely. ‘Touched by the blood of a god, it would be a powerful thing.’

‘Forged now into a sword,’ someone said. The whole crew, I realised, was spellbound, for the monk’s answers had been screamed out for all to hear.

A sword. Made from god-touched metal. It was saga stuff, mother’s milk to the likes of us. There were great things in the world: silver hoards, fine horses, beautiful women. But no prize was better than a rune-spelled sword.

‘And the woman? What is she to this?’

Martin spat and heaved in breath. He looked like a rat fresh from a cesspit. ‘She is of the blood of the smiths who made the sword. She … knows where it is.’

No one blinked at that, though some shot anxious glances back towards the woman, for a witch was bad luck on a ship. Bad luck anywhere, I was thinking.

‘Does Vigfus know this?’ Einar demanded and Martin, rocking back and forward, ruined hand cradled in his good one, shook his head and whimpered.

‘He knows of the god stone, though,’ Ketil Crow offered. ‘He will seek it, not knowing it will do him no good – nor us, for it will bring him in the same direction as we travel now.’

‘A runesword,’ growled Einar, ignoring him. ‘A man with that would be a hero king indeed.’ He looked around and grinned. ‘A man with that, a mountain of silver and a crew like the Oathsworn need fear no kings.’

They whooped and cheered and pounded on each other, the deck, anything. As it died away and they went back to duties, or to huddle against the mirr, Einar turned, his grin fading as he saw my face, which I foolishly failed to disguise. Its black, scowling ugliness made him recoil a little.

‘That’s a face to sour milk,’ he noted, annoyed. ‘When everyone else laughs.’

‘Except Eyvind,’ I pointed out, ‘who is not here.’

Then he knew, as did Illugi Godi who was close enough to hear and put a hand on my arm.

‘Eyvind broke oath with us,’ Einar growled. ‘He put us all in danger with his Loki curse for firing everything.’

‘An oath is an oath. The one I swore did not say that foolishness or a curse made it worthless and got you killed.’

Illugi Godi nodded, which Einar caught. His scowl deepened. ‘I think you are smarting because you had to lose your breeks in the street,’ he said slowly. ‘It seems to me that your gift is in need of maturing before it is of use to me. It seems to me that you would be better staying with the woman.’

He stared at me and I knew I had been mortally insulted and was entitled to be angry. But this was Einar and I was so new I squeaked still. I quailed under that glass-black gaze.

‘I will call if I need you,’ he added and jerked his head in dismissal.

I stumbled away on watery legs and slumped down next to the woman. I heard Einar bark something angrily at Illugi and then there was silence, save for the creak-thump of the mast and stays and the hiss of the keelwater.

My father and Einar then huddled briefly and Martin was dragged over to join them. It was clear that a course was planned.

The sail came down, the shields and oars came in – you could not heel the boat over on a tack otherwise – then the men bent to it and hauled the Elk’s head round on to the new course, where the whole ship was rerigged once more and sprang into its mad gallop.

I did not have to ask my father where we headed, for it was obvious: to the forge where the woman was taken. She was going home.

The rain fell, the woman muttered and rolled her eyes up into her head and the Elk sped on, out along the whale road – and nothing was the same again.

Four days later the woman was burning with fever and babbling and Hring was casting hooks on lines behind, baited with coloured strips of cloth in a forlorn attempt to catch fish.

But, as Bagnose observed gloomily, they would have to be flying fish to catch up with the Fjord Elk. Meanwhile, the water in the stoppered leather bottles was being filtered through two layers of fine linen to get rid of the floaters.

Then an oar snapped with a high, sharp sound as a blade finally caught sideways on to the waves. The shards flew, the butt end leaped up and the shield slammed back across the thwarts. A man howled as it cracked his forearm.

And Pinleg, in the prow as lookout, called out, ‘Land!’

My father turned expectantly to Einar, who glowered and said nothing. So my father gave a short curse, then yelled out, ‘Shield oars inboard. Sail down. Move!’

For a moment, I thought Einar would leap to his feet, and braced myself to spring at him. But he only shifted, as if cocking a buttock to fart, then settled again, stroking his beard and staring blackly at the deck.

The speed came off the Elk like ice melting under salt. It felt like we were wallowing suddenly.

‘To oars.’

Stiff, wet, we climbed up and took position on our sea-chest benches. I hauled with the rest of them; the head of the Elk came round, slowly, slowly, and she started to inch her way across the swell, rolling like a drowned pig now, all grace gone.

We slithered into the shelter of a bay, with a low, grey headland where tufts of harsh grass, tawny as wheat, waved softly and patches of green showed through the russets and yellow. Seaweed and lichens crusted the stones studding a beach of coarse, wet sand, meadow-grass was already sprouting shoots beyond that and there was a flush of green shoots on the birch and willow clumps. Two small rivers trickled together to empty into a shallow tidal estuary.

We splashed ashore, dragging the Elk a little way up the sand, as far as we could on shaky legs and on that tide. Birds sang and the resin-tang of life was everywhere. When the sun came out, everyone was cheered; Bagnose began more verses and the Oathsworn swung back into the rhythm of things.

But nothing was the same.

Shelters were built, short-term affairs of springy branches roofed with wadmal cloth, the stuff we used to repair tears in the sail.

Some men took off on a hunt, having spotted deer slots, Steinthor and Bagnose among them, quartering ahead like hounds. Hring and two others dug trenches in the sand shallows to catch tidal-trapped fish, while I scuffed along the wide curve of the beach, gathering dulse and mussels until my back ached.

By nightfall, fires were lit and everyone had eaten well. The hunters had come back with some small game and a wild duck, shot in mid-flight by Steinthor, who claimed it was a lucky strike, though others disagreed. Bagnose, on the other hand, had missed and was still grumbling about having lost the arrow.

People began to dry out clothing and I had managed to wrap the woman in something warm, in a dry hut where a fire was lit just for her, since Einar knew her value. He had also paired Martin and me to make sure she lived and if ever anything spoke of his anger with me, that was it.

I was less angry than I thought I would be. Caring for the woman was a lot better than the back-breaking task I would surely have been given: four hours of bailing out the Elk for Valgard.

And there was something about the woman. I had stripped her with the monk’s help, although he was less than helpful since he insisted on doing it with his eyes averted, which was awkward, to say the least.

In the dim, gloomy light of the horn lantern, guttering because the whale oil in it was thick and old, she was fish-belly white, so that the bruises and welts stood out on her skin.

Illugi Godi, when he arrived with a wooden bucket of cold seawater for compresses, sucked his teeth and glared at Martin when he saw it.

‘Vigfus,’ sighed the monk mournfully, hugging his ruined hand under one armpit. ‘He misused her, I am afraid.’

She lay, feverish, open-eyed and staring, but seeing nothing. I cleaned a lot of the filth from her, saw the flare of cheekbones and the full, ripe lips and realised she was a beauty.

‘A princess, perhaps,’ Martin agreed, wringing out the cloth. From outside came the mutter and growl and bursts of raucous laughter that marked contented men relaxing. I wanted to be there. My father was there and I saw, with a sharp pang, that I didn’t fit with him, or them. That perhaps I never would.

‘I’m hungry,’ I said. ‘I will watch her if you fetch food.’

Martin scrambled to his feet, wincing. I could almost feel the throb of that wounded finger, which he should have had cauterised, lest it fester and the rot spread so that his hand or even arm might need to come off. I told him so and he paled, whether at the idea of losing the limbs or having it seared with a hot iron, I did not know. Both, probably.

The woman stirred on the pallet of soft rushes and cloth, spoke again in that infuriating speech, so near to something I could understand, yet still foolishness. Her eyes opened; she saw me, stared, said nothing.

‘How do you feel?’ I asked. Nothing.

‘I am Orm,’ I said slowly and patiently, as to a child. ‘Orm,’ I added, patting my chest. ‘You?’ And I indicated her.

Her mouth moved, but nothing came. After all that babble, I thought wryly, now there is no sound at all.

Martin reappeared with two bowls of what smelled like meat stew. There was bread, fire-dried and with most of the mould cut off, and his arms were full of leather cups and a matching bottle.

The woman saw him and thrashed wildly, backing away. I held her, made soothing noises, but her wild eyes were fixed on him and she bucked and kicked until, exhausted, she couldn’t move.

‘Leave the food and go,’ I said, ‘otherwise she will be like this and no help to herself. Or Einar.’

He blanched at that name. ‘I did nothing to her,’ he bleated. But he left my bowl and cup and went.

I fed her small portions of the meat stew, which she sucked greedily, but seemed too weak to make much of. But when I looked, a fair bit of it had gone down her neck.

‘Hild,’ she said, suddenly, as I wiped gravy as gently as I could from lips whose fullness, I realised, had a lot to do with being swollen and split.

‘Hild,’ I repeated and grinned, pleased at this progress. She almost smiled, but her lips cracked open and oozed blood and she winced. Then, abruptly, she stiffened.

‘Dark,’ she said, staring at me, though I realised she couldn’t see me at all. ‘Dark. Alone. Dark. In the dark …’

Her eyes rolled up to the whites and she was gone, back into the babble. But I had understood her, saw now that she spoke some broad dialect of which I could understand one word in four. It was some form of Finn, which I had known because of Sigurd, Gudleif’s other fostri, who had come from that land.

A tear squeezed, fat and quivering, from under one eyelid and rolled down her neck. When Illugi Godi came with salves he had made for the bruises and welts, I told him what had happened and he sat back on his heels and considered, pursing his lips. A louse moved in his beard and he plucked it absently and crushed it, still thinking.

‘Well, at least Einar will have some more of this puzzle, but whether it solves anything is harder to tell,’ he mused. ‘At least he may be more pleased with you, boy.’

‘Not I with him,’ I responded and he nodded sadly.

‘Aye, he is in the wrong. Eyvind deserved better and to break an oath is a bad thing. I think he knows it, too.’

‘Perhaps the message from Odin’s raven was meant for him then,’ I offered and Illugi looked at me cautiously.

‘You have too many years for one so young,’ he muttered tersely and left, leaving the salves behind.

That night I dreamed of a white bear I couldn’t seem to avoid, one with black eyes who chased me round a wind-lashed room full of spars and sails and finally landed on my chest, a great weight, bearing down …

I woke with something warm and heavy on my body, the hut lit only by the remaining embers of the fire. I tried to sit up but a hand shot out, long and white and strong enough to shove hard on my breastbone and force me back on to the bed.

Her hair was hanging down in mad tangles, her cheekbones flaring in the red light, her eyes clear and black – black as Einar’s own, I noted. There were shadows under them and harsh lines carving the sides of that slapped-red mouth. The strong hand which fastened me to the bed had stark blue veins, proud on the pale skin.

Mesmerised, I watched her sway above me, lean down, stare into my eyes.

‘Orm,’ she said and I could not move. ‘I know what you seek. I know where the forge is. I went there, but was too big to get in, too afraid. The other … the Christ priest’s hound caught me. But I must go back. Take me back. I have to find a way to the dark … to the dark place where she is.’

And she was gone, fallen forward on to me, with no more weight than a husk and for all that it was a thump, it drove no breath out of me – just the opposite. I found myself holding her, caging her as her head lay on my chest, with the Thor hammer/cross biting into her cheek.

And I fell asleep like that, holding her – though, in the morning, she lay asleep in her own pallet and I wondered if I had dreamed it, but she woke and smiled at me and I saw that she was scarce older than I was.

And then she talked.

After I had fetched her gruel and water, I went to Einar and found him cross-legged under an awning, fixing the boss of his shield back on. Men were busy with tasks; I saw Hring, out in the faering, trying for fish at the mouth of the estuary.

I sat down opposite Einar and waited, Eventually, he deigned to look up at me, taking some rivet nails from his lips under the black waterfall of his hair.

‘The woman is called Hild,’ I told him. ‘She is a Finn and her village is two days up the coast from here. Her father was called Regin and his father before him and so on back into the dim. Every smith was called Regin and the village name is Koksalmi.’

The black eyes fixed mine. ‘How can you talk to her?’

‘One of Gudleif’s other fostris was a Finn. I learned enough from him.’

Einar stroked his moustaches and looked towards the hut. ‘What makes this Finn woman so special?’

‘She is revered because she has the blood of the old smiths,’ I went on. ‘There is no smith there now and has not been for many years. The last one made the sword for Atil, she says, and no one but her knows the way into the forge now. All those with the blood seem to know it, but of this part I am unclear. She, too, I think. It does not seem to be a secret passed on, just something that … is.’

‘Why is the forge important? Why is she?’

I nodded, having anticipated that. ‘The monk found out that this magic Christ spear he sought had been taken there long ago and sent Vigfus to see if it was still hidden there and, if so, get it. When Vigfus failed, he tried to seize Hild, seeing she was so esteemed by the villagers and hoping they would hand it over in return for her life. She fled, to the forge, I am thinking …’ I stopped, for here her tale had splintered into fragments.

‘And?’

I shrugged. ‘Something happened there. Something that drove her into the clutch of Vigfus – but something that haunts her dreams still.’

‘A fetch?’ demanded Einar.

I nodded. The restless spirit of the dead, the fetch, sometimes invaded other bodies, or walked around in their old shape until some strange design of their own had been accomplished. Everyone knew it.

‘She says she must get back to the forge. I don’t know why, but it seems if she does, she will know where the Atil sword now lies. And the hoard with it.’

Einar stroked his moustaches. He had, I noticed, shaved his cheeks and his hair was washed and nit-combed clean. I felt my own filth more as a result.

‘Interesting,’ he mused. ‘Vigfus is far behind and heading in the wrong direction, towards the god stone that is no use to him. Starkad knows only this village by name and seeks a Christ ikon that no longer exists in the same shape.’

‘So, if we can get to this forge and the woman really does then know where the hoard is …’ I added.

‘We can leave them all behind,’ finished Einar. He tapped in a rivet and nodded sombrely at me. ‘You have done well. Let us forget the unpleasantness between us. You have, as Illugi Godi is pleased to remind me, an old head on young shoulders.’ He squinted at me. ‘Shoulders which, I am noticing, have filled since last autumn.’

He rose, moved to his sea-chest and rummaged in it, coming out with a long hauberk of mail. It was, I recalled, the one stripped from the dead fyrd leader after the fight at St Otmund’s chapel.

I caught it when he threw it at me and, when I slipped it on over my raised arms, the weight made me stagger a little, but it fitted well round the shoulders and was suitably loose round the waist that a cinched belt would take the rest of the weight off.

He nodded. ‘Take it. You have earned it.’

I bowed to him, as I had seen others do with Gudleif, and that pleased him. I fastened on my swordbelt and swaggered back to the fires, one hand on the hilt, salt-stained seaboots stumping.

There were good-natured catcalls and jeers and backslaps when the rest of them saw it – and not a few envious stares from older hands, who would have loved such a gift and thought a beardless youth didn’t deserve it.

My father was prouder than I was of it and offered advice on its care. ‘Roll it in a barrel of fine sand for a day,’ he advised and everyone hooted tears at that – fine sand for a day. On this gods-cursed shore.

But all the time I was thinking to myself that I would not trust Einar, oath or not. And, across the fire, I saw the fierce, yellow-eyed stare of naked hatred that came from Ulf-Agar, for all that he was still weak and bruised.

Life, I thought, bending and wriggling the mail off, to the thigh-slapping roars of laughter at this first attempt, was simpler when I climbed sheer cliffs for gull eggs.