Читать книгу Crowbone - Robert Low - Страница 10

The Frisian coast, a little later …

CROWBONE’S CREW

CROWBONE lay on the lip of the seawall, peering through the grass and meadow flowers. Bees hummed and, next to him, Kaetilmund lay, chewing a stem and squinting across the neat fields to the raised mound and the houses on it.

A terp it was called, a mound heaped up above the floodplain in case the earth dyke that Crowbone lay on was not enough to keep out the sea. The fields might be awash, but the Frisian folk of this place would keep their homes dry on an island of their own making.

‘What is that one doing?’ Kaetilmund demanded and Crowbone had to admit, for once, that he did not have any idea. The thrall had an axe and looked to be trying to cut a section from a branch that had a slight curve at one end to use on the pole lathe next to him. An old man was watching him, unconcerned, perhaps to make sure he did not use the axe for anything but woodcutting, though the thrall was not having a deal of success with that.

He cut once, twice – then the head flew off the axe and he went and fetched it, stuck it back on the haft and bent over the thick branch again. One, two, three – and the head flew off the axe. He went to fetch it. The old man shook his head in sorrow and spat.

The idiot thrall, small and dark and ragged, was not what occupied Crowbone. He and Kaetilmund had come to see if this was the place the snake-boat raiders had launched from and, if so, how many men they had left.

By the time the Swift-Gliding had been worked to shore with a makeshift steerboard fastening of poor bast rope there was the raid-thrill on all of Hoskuld’s crew, which made the Oathsworn laugh. Thick as linen on those who had never had much chance for raiding, it set them to staring at the land with their hands flexing, as if grasping hilt and shaft. They no longer saw wave or water, only riches and fame and Gjallandi, as grinning and glaured with it as any of them, clapped their shoulders and spoke of gold, boasting of old exploits and new ones to come.

Crowbone and Kaetilmund had gone ahead and now it was clear there were few, if any, fighting men left in the Frisian place. There was the idiot thrall who made Kaetilmund chuckle and that was interesting enough. There was the white-haired Frisian who watched him and the man in the cage nearby.

There was the strangeness that Crowbone studied, his head cocked to one side. The man had been imprisoned for a time, it seemed, and was hard to see into the shadows of the cage. Yet he was a man in a cage and, every now and then, the idiot thrall would stop and peer in, as if anxious, then go back to doing what clearly was fretting to Kaetilmund.

‘Odin’s arse, man – fix the fucking axehead,’ he muttered, as if the thrall could hear him. The thrall thought up a new way and tried many little, fast strokes, since large ones simply loosened the axehead faster. That caused the branch to shift sideways and, after chasing it for a few steps, the thrall put a foot on it and kept cutting, so that Kaetilmund sucked in his breath and at once by-named the idiot No-Toes, since he predicted that as the most likely outcome.

Then the thrall changed the branch round and this time, when he put his foot on it, he did it on the curved end, so that it flew up and smacked his shin. The old man shouted something; Kaetilmund stuffed his knuckles in his mouth to keep from laughing aloud and the effort squeezed a fart from him.

Crowbone did not laugh. Memory washed through him of another time he had lain hidden in the grass, a memory dark as Munin’s wings. Lying in the grass above Klerkon’s summer settlement on Svartey, the Black Island, having run away yet again. Of course, being an island, there was no escape from Klerkon, the raider who had taken Crowbone and his mother and killed his foster-father. For all that, escape was what Crowbone had done more than once and, each time, hunger had driven him back to see what he could steal – and each time he had been captured he had been punished more harshly than before.

They had seen him this time, too, so that he had crouched down and pretended to be dead, not moving, not breathing, hidden in the long grass and so small at eight that he could easily be missed as they swished a way towards him.

Then a fart hissed out of him. He thought that was good, for he knew that the dead farted, sheep and men both and so would add to his subterfuge. Then the hand had gripped him like a vice and one of Klerkon’s men, Amundi Brawl, hauled him up, laughing about how the smell had given him away.

Klerkon, his goat-face twisted with anger, had thrown Crowbone back to Inga, Randr Sterki’s wife, snarling at her to make sure the boy knew he was a thrall and not to let him loose again. Inga, furious at having been so embarrassed, fetched sheep-shears and a seax, then cropped Crowbone’s head to the bone and beyond, flicking off old scabs and scraping new wounds until the blood got in the way and she gave up.

‘There,’ she said, wiping her hands clean on dry grass brought by her own son, the grinning Eyvind, full of his ten years and malice at his ma’s tormentor.

‘Now,’ Inga said, ‘you will be fixed to the privy by a chain and stay there until you learn that you are a nithing thrall.’

‘I am a prince,’ he had spat back and she had smashed his mouth with a scream of rage. He had wanted his mother, then, but she was already dead, kicked to death by the man who had put his bairn in her. It was him, Kveldulf, who fastened Crowbone to the privy and left him there.

Revenge. The day Orm and the Oathsworn had come to raid Klerkon and freed him, the day Klerkon’s own precious bairn went against the side of a wall and had the life broken from it with a snap and a last wail, that day he got his revenge.

Inga, begging and pleading, snarling and fighting, as the Oathsworn held her down and someone – who had it been? Crowbone squeezed his head, but could not remember clearly. Red Njal, maybe? Finn? No matter – the man who had broken his way into Inga had stabbed her first and a frantic Eyvind had died trying to save her. Orm had taken off the back of his head with a sword-stroke.

Crowbone had bent to Inga as the men had left her, choking in her own blood on the flank of a dying ox.

‘I am a prince,’ he had said, his breath wafting the dying flutter of her eyelashes. ‘You should have listened.’

Princely revenge. He shook the memories from him and shoved them back in the black sea-chest he kept in his head. Stuffed full, it was, of all those matters a prince finds expedient and necessary. Lesser men are allowed to brood on them, Crowbone thought, but princes who would be kings cannot afford them. Vladimir had taught him that, having learnt it from his own father, the harsh Sviatoslav.

‘Thor’s hairy balls,’ Kaetilmund hissed with delight. ‘We have to have this thrall, Crowbone, just for the joy of watching him.’

Crowbone stirred out of the past and peered down. The thrall had cut his length of wood and fixed it to the lathe, wrapping the rope round it once, then twice. It was clear the lathe-grip was faulty, for when he pumped the footboard, the lump of wood spun obligingly – then flew off like an arrow from a bow, straight into the open doorway of a house. There was a shriek and a clatter, followed by a scream of woman who lunged out and proceeded to shriek at the old man, who in turn took to battering the thrall round the head and shoulders, grunting and red-faced with the effort.

The thrall took it all, half-curled, like a rock in a storm. When it had washed over him and the woman went off, panting, he got wearily to his feet, fetched the lump of wood, wrapped it in the rope and fastened it on the lathe.

‘No, no,’ Kaetilmund declared with glee. ‘Surely not …’

But he did. He pumped the footboard, the lump of wood flew off and smacked the side of the house, then bounced, scattering chickens in an irate din.

Crowbone turned and grabbed Kaetilmund’s shoulder, signalling that they should slither away, as the woman burst from the house with fresh howls.

There were more shrieks when men from the sea came down on them not long after, grey and snarling as wolves. Shrieking and running, dragging stumbling bairns by the wrist, what was left of the little terp went out across their mean fields like scattering sheep.

The Oathsworn did not bother with them much – there was no room in Hoskuld’s boat for slaves and enough of the better-looking ones had stayed, cowering, for men to look over and decide what to do with.

Hoskuld’s crew did the fighting and chasing, yelling and waving weapons, slick with the raid-lust that comes on men who never usually get a lick of the rann-sack – even Hoskuld himself puffed along with a long, single-edged old seax in one fist and kicked a door, beaming from the great headland of his face. His snarling joy was spoiled a little when the door did not give way and the force of his kick landed him on his arse. He got up, looking right and left, while folk pretended not to notice.

There were only two fighters. One was the white-hair, who came storming round the side of the main steading of the place, an axe in either hand and both wrists with enough old memories in them to show that, in his youth, he would have been feared.

Gorm aimed a wild swing at him, which the man easily dodged and, if he had not been slowed by age and stiffness, the return would have spilled a deal of Gorm’s belly into the kale patch. It did enough to make Gorm back off and call for help, so that Halk rushed in from one side and the old man, snarling with the desperation of the doomed, hurled himself on the Orkneyman with a shrill cry, like an owl threading the night with screech.

Crowbone watched Gorm and Halk cut the old man down, flurrying blows long after the blood-speckled grey hair was the only thing that moved on the man, wisping stickily in the wind.

‘Bravely done,’ Murrough growled and spat. Crowbone said nothing; brave or not, it was done and that was what mattered.

The other fighter was the idiot thrall, who took up the wood axe and moved to the caged man, turning this way and that, standing guard. Hoskuld scrambled up from his episode with the door and launched himself at the thrall, thinking the stub of a nithing would turn and run.

Instead, the axe whirled up and cut. It would have been a death-blow, for sure, save that the loose axehead flew off, back over the thrall’s shoulder and made Vandrad Sygni hunch his neck into his shoulders as it whizzed past him. But the thrall’s blow was with the haft only, which was battleluck for Hoskuld, since it took him in the left ribs and drove the air out of him as if he was a dead cow. Then the thrall followed it up with a head smack that laid Hoskuld flat with a groan.

‘Do not kill him!’ Kaetilmund yelled, as Vandrad, scowling, nocked an arrow to his bow. ‘That thrall is too valuable to waste.’

The Oathsworn agreed with some chuckles – all save Vandrad, who still had the memory of the axe-bit bird-whirring too close to his head – and closed in on the thrall, who

half-crouched with his stick. Inside the cage, the shadowed figure stirred and Crowbone saw the gleam of white hair or beard.

‘Hold there,’ Vigfuss said. ‘Drop that little stick and no harm will come to you.’

A choking laugh came from the shadowed figure in the cage. ‘Too late for that,’ he wheezed.

The thrall did not move at all, but a young dog the colour of yellow corn suddenly bounded out from behind some huts and skidded up to stand before him, legs splayed and growling.

The Oathsworn tensed a little, for no-one liked dogs, which were just fur bundles with a mouthful of filthy blades.

‘Call that hound off, thrall,’ Vandrad rumbled. ‘Or I will kill it and whack your bottom with your little stick.’

‘It is a bitch,’ the caged man growled. ‘A guard for the village.’

‘Not such a good one,’ Crowbone pointed out and felt the caged man’s eyes appraising him. He did not like to be watched where he could not see and so moved a little way round, to try and see more than just the gleam of white hair or beard; the thrall watched him, flexing his hand on the axe-shaft. The yellow dog wagged her tail and licked the back of the thrall’s hand.

‘It liked everyone too much,’ the caged man observed.

‘Now you have your reward,’ Crowbone said, ‘for if it had been on guard, perhaps your village would not be leaking blood down the street.’

‘Not my village,’ said the caged man and now Crowbone saw him clearly – a thin face, like a ravaged hawk, with a shock of white hair and a tangle of grey-white beard. He had a tunic and breeks, which had once been fine but were now smeared and stained with blood and the leakings from filthy wrappings round both of his hands. The eyes that met Crowbone’s own were fox-sharp, all the same.

Murrough, hearing women shriek and wanting to be off in that direction, finally had had enough. ‘Throw down that stick,’ he growled jutting his jaw, but the look he got back caught Crowbone’s attention and made him study the thrall intently.

There was no wolf at bay in those eyes, nor was there the wild flare of darting looks that sought an escape. Most revealing of all, there was the stare itself. A thrall who knew that his place was no more than that of a sheep would have stared at the ground. Instead, the thrall’s eyes, slightly narrowing, were a blue appraisal of Murrough, as if marking where he would strike for best effect. It was then, too, that Crowbone saw the thrall was fastened by a length of chain to the cage and, for a moment, felt the sharp bite of his own thrall’s chain on his neck, tasted the acrid stink of the privy.

Murrough saw the thrall’s look, too, and was made wary by it – which showed sense, Crowbone thought, but still he snapped a command for Murrough to be still just in case the Irishman launched an attack certain to include pain for one or the other and possibly a deal of blood. The others watched, wary as hounds round a stag.

‘Berto,’ said the grey-head, almost wearily, ‘I am done. Let their leader come up.’

The youth called Berto let the stick drop a notch and half-turned to the man in the cage, his bland, beardless face furrowed with concern. The tension leached away and, lumbering up like a great bear, Onund Hnufa clapped Murrough on one shoulder and glanced at the thrall.

‘Not bad, fetar-garmr,’ he said and folk laughed at the term, which meant ‘chain-dog’ and could be directed at both the thrall and the yellow bitch equally. Then Onund turned to Murrough and the others.

‘Leather,’ he said and they remembered why they had come and went off to hunt some out. Kaetilmund stayed and went slowly up to the cage and cracked it open with a sharp blow that made the dog squeeze out a bark. Murrough hauled out the man, gently enough, and the thrall knelt by his head. When Crowbone moved up, the thrall fixed him with summer-sky eyes dulled with misery.

‘My thanks,’ the grey-hair said to Crowbone. ‘This is Berto. He is from the Wend lands. I am called Grima, from Bjarmaland.’

‘A long way from home,’ Crowbone noted and Grima chuckled, a moth-wing of sound. His wrapped hands soaked some fresh blood on to the old stains of his tunic. There was gold thread in that tunic, Crowbone noted.

‘Need help with those fingers, old yin?’ Kaetilmund asked. ‘We have a skald who knows some healing runes.’

Grima smiled and raised both blood-swaddled hands.

‘Hrodfolc’s joke,’ he said. ‘He fed me bowls of good stew with meat in, but cut a finger off and never let me know which stew it was in. Where is he, by the way?’

Crowbone told him and Grima’s grin was sharp and yellow.

‘Good. Nithing Frisian fud – he thought I would not eat for fear of swallowing my own flesh,’ Grima said and then laughed. ‘He knew better when I asked him to cook it longer – my own meat is a little too aged to be tender.’

Crowbone and Kaetilmund smiled at this, a defiance they appreciated.

‘Balle did this to me, the whore’s by-blow,’ Grima wheezed.

His eyes closed while pain washed through him, keen enough for Crowbone to feel it as well.

‘This flatness is no place for a man from the north mountains to die,’ he added. ‘Who are you, then, who is here to witness it?’

Crowbone told him, adding that the death was still a way off – then Kaetilmund finished unwrapping the first of the hands and Crowbone saw the ugly black and red and pus yellow of it. He realised the bright glitter of Grima’s eyes was fever.

‘Good,’ said Grima. ‘Now all truths are almost unveiled. The gods are kind, for I know your fame. With your help I will leave this cursed place and die where I belong. But I have little time, so listen, Olaf, son of Tryggve, now of the Oathsworn. I am Grima. Once I was known as you are known, for I led the Raudanbrodrum – do you know of them?’

The Red Brothers. Crowbone had heard of this varjazi band and their leader’s name, which meant ‘a full helm’ in the honest tongue of the north and was usually given to a man whose face was hard and set as iron, so that only his eyes gave anything away. He had not heard these names for some years and said so; Grima nodded weakly.

‘This is the last you see here. We are rule-bound – though not as fiercely oathed as you – and most of us did not do well faring out in the east, along the Silk Road, so we came down on to the decent waters of the Baltic and raided the Wend lands, where I thought they would be fat and lazy, since it had not seen rann-sack for some years. Well, here I am, dying for lack of luck – the raiding was poor and all we had was Berto here, which a certain Balle did not think enough. He is wrong – Berto is worth a deal as you may discover when the matter is ripe. I hear you were luckier – all the silver of the world, eh?’

‘Yet we are here, in the same flat shit-hole,’ Kaetilmund pointed out, hoping to take Grima’s mind off the second unwrapping, for the bindings were matted to the stumps and Grima hissed blood on to his teeth from his bitten lip.

‘You still fare better than me, I am thinking,’ he answered wryly, when he could speak, ‘since most of your fingers are still on the end of your hands and your life is not unravelled yet. Now here is the way of it. Balle was my Chosen Man, but he grew tired of waiting and did not want to challenge in the usual way, the white-livered tick. He killed all the men who were loyal to me – not many, the years had thinned them, but I realised that too late – and threw me over the side of my own ship. I would have been red-murdered then if Berto had not leaped after and towed me to shore. The gods clearly turned their back on me all the same – for this Hrodfolc took us both.’

Kaetilmund gave Berto an admiring grin.

‘Well, No-Toes,’ he declared. ‘You may have no skill with an axe or a lathe, but it seems you are more fish than chain-dog.’

Crowbone simply wondered why the thrall had done it, for there seemed little reason for it. Grima saw the look and knew it for what it was. When he spoke Crowbone jerked, as he always did when he suspected folk were reading the whirl of his thought-cage.

‘Perhaps because I did not kill him and he was no better than a thrall when I took him anyway,’ Grima said. ‘Nothing much changed for him except he breathed sea air. I am in his debt. I have nothing to give to him but what I can make happen in the short time left me, with my last breaths. He has eighteen summers on him and will prove valuable to you. Trust me in this and free him, in return for what I can give.’

Crowbone smiled.

‘What makes you think you have anything I need?’ he pointed out and Grima grinned; sweat rolled off him. Gjallandi had come up in time to see and make tutting sounds as he inspected the ruin of the old warrior’s hands.

‘You are a prince with no princely ship crew I can see,’ Grima grunted. ‘Unless you have more hidden away. Which means you have no princely ship, either. I am jarl of the Red Brothers, who are a crew with a ship and in need of a prince. Free Berto and I will lead you to them. Kill this Balle and those who follow him and make me jarl again – then I will hand crew and ship to you, for I have no use for them where I am going.’

Crowbone considered it and was thinking the old man might not last long enough for all this. He was set to scowling when Grima chuckled.

‘I will live long enough to watch Balle’s face when I arrive full in it with a prince and a fistful of the famed Oathsworn,’ he growled and Crowbone sat still for a time, put out at the idea of the old man reading his thoughts – or, worse, his own face being so blatant that anyone could see what went on inside his head.

Then he nodded and spoke the words aloud, so there would be no going back. The thrall blinked a little from the bland round of his face and Kaetilmund, grinning, cracked the links of the chain, so that the freed thrall could unravel himself.

‘There you have it, No-Toes,’ he said. ‘Fetch that axehead back and fix it on properly, for you can carry it like a man now. You had better thank Prince Olaf here, for now you are a warrior.’

‘I am Berto. I am thanking.’

The voice was high and thick with accent, for the Wend knew Norse only as spoken by Frisians and his own sort, which was as like the true sounds of men as dogs barking. Crowbone held the flat gaze of the Wend with his own odd eyes, seeing the deep blue eyes and round olive face of a youth not yet even into beard. He had seen Wends before, travelling up the Odra River with Orm. He had not thought much of them, so he was surprised to find himself being studied carefully and there was something both attractive and disturbing about that; not much of a thrall in his own lands, this one, he thought, that he can keep his head up and his eyes bold. He found he had muttered as much aloud.

‘No doubt a prince at home,’ Onund grunted, hearing it as he passed. ‘As all thralls are who are raided from others.’

He went away laughing, with others who knew how Crowbone had been rescued by Orm – and claimed his princely rank with his first words – joining in. Crowbone, remembering the slaughter that had come after, could not find a smile and turned to the old man instead, cocking his head in a question.

‘We have a stöðvar,’ Grima said. ‘An old seasonal place where we lie up. The crew will be there, for Balle has all the clever of a rock and thinks me dead and gone.’

Berto the Wend bent his head over the old man while the yellow dog whined and tried to shove its scarred ears under an oxter. It was, Kaetilmund thought, a powerful, wedge-headed bitch and as ugly an animal as ever disgraced the earth. A strange friend for a thrall, he thought – but the Norns had woven them a deal of luck and you had to take such matters into account.

Berto cradled the old man’s head and waved away the greedy flies as Gjallandi marked out fresh runes on clean wrappings and rebound the blackening stumps. The metallic stink of blood was strong and the sweat ran stinging in Crowbone’s eyes.

‘This is Prince Olaf,’ Grima said to Berto, his eyes closed. ‘He will one day be a king and, if your life-luck holds as firm as it has done, you may profit each other yet, for all that he is of the Oathsworn and you follow the Christ.’

Crowbone looked at Berto and saw the fierceness in his round, large-eyed, sharp-nosed face, so that he looked, for a moment, like a hunting owl. He nodded. Grima spasmed with pain as Hoskuld’s men picked him up and half-carried, half-dragged him back to the ship.

Onund Hnufa lumbered up as the harsh stink of smoke wafted to Crowbone’s nose. The same wind brought distant sobbing and the crackle of burning and Crowbone turned moodily away as the terp started to flare and burn, spilling smoke to stain the sky.

Onund lumbered alongside, happily clutching their entire treasure – a stiff, thick square of half-cured leather the size of his chest.

Holmtun, Isle of Mann, some time later …

OLAF IRISH-SHOES

Jarl Godred perched on a bench in his own hall while Olaf lolled in his High Seat draped in a winter wolf pelt that ran like a river of milk down on to his shoulders. Under the fur coddling them his shoulders were still wide, despite his hair and the winter wolf pelt being the same colour. The matching white beard was twisted in three long braids weighted with rust-spotted iron rings. Above it, out of a knob-cheeked face, the eyes, feral as hunting cats, glittered like blue ice.

Godred saw that what could be a smile was hacked out of the Jarl of the Dyfflin’s lumpy face as he deviously questioned Ogmund about the raiders. Not only was the old war-dog spoiling for another bash at the Ui Neill – a war Godred had always thought beyond foolish – now he was showing an unhealthy interest in monks.

Olaf’s royal belly strained the tunic, which had been delicate green trimmed with red knotwork once but was now mainly food stains; standing close to him, Ogmund thought it might be possible to trace the whole life of Olaf Irish-Shoes in those stains, meal by meal, like reading runes on a raised stone.

‘This son of Gunnhild said he sought the monk Drostan?’ the Jarl of Dyfflin asked, the smile still like a cleft in rock.

Ogmund wished the lord of Dyfflin would not smile, for it was as off-putting as wolf-breath on the back of your neck. So was the look of his own Jarl Godred and he knew Hardmouth was less than happy with the entire business – especially the arrival of Olaf Irish-Shoes, stamping his authority.

‘Not in all those words,’ he answered, ‘but it was clear that was what he did when you tally matters up.’

He glanced at Godred, who sat next to Sitric, Olaf’s younger son. The twig does not fall far from the tree, Ogmund thought, for Sitric, still dark-haired, was round-faced and stocky. One day he and his da would be as alike as two gobs of spit – the eldest boy was a third gob of the same spit and limped so that no-one these days called him anything but Jarnkne – Iron Knee.

There was another son, Raghnall, back in Dyfflin and Ogmund had seen him, too. Tall and cream-haired, from a different mother, he was Olaf’s favourite. He liked his women, did Olaf – currently he was thundering himself into the thighs of an Irish beauty called Gormflaeth and showing little sign that his belly got in the way of matters.

‘We know Ulf found two dead monks in a keill up in the hills,’ Sitric growled, shaking his head. ‘One looked to have had his head beaten in, but the rats had eaten well on the pair of them, it was hard to tell. Two monks, all the same. This Drostan is dead.’

‘Then who was with Hoskuld the Trader?’ demanded Olaf, leaning back on the High Seat and spreading his feet to the fire – sensibly shod feet, Ogmund noted with surprise but then, the name ‘cuarans’, Irish Shoes, was only given by Norwegians and Danes as a sneer against the Dyfflin Norse, who were all thought to be half-Irish of lesser worth because they had forgotten how to be true people and taken to wearing Irisher sandals.

‘Hoskuld came to Dyfflin with a monk, but I never saw him,’ Olaf went on, fiddling with his beard rings. ‘Hoskuld came with a preposterous tale of how this monk knew where Eirik’s old axe was and that this monk he had was prepared to reveal the where of it for money. The monk, Hoskuld said, would only come to me in person once assurances had been given – which was not a little insulting, I was thinking.’

‘I thought it the worst attempt to gull you out of silver I had heard in many a long day,’ Sitric rumbled and his father nodded and grinned ruefully.

‘Aye – but Hoskuld is a good trader and valued, so I let him have his night’s hospitality, as if I considered the matter. Truth was I had already decided to send him packing back to his shy monk, or else bring the charlatan before me – but before I could do anything, Hoskuld left my hall. In haste. In the night. That was even more insulting, as if he thought I would do him harm.’

‘Not so stupid, though,’ Sitric growled, ‘since that is what he deserved for such a tale.’

His father looked sharply at him.

‘Yet here is Gunnhild’s last son, come from Orkney looking for a monk,’ he said. ‘A man with the sense of a stone can see that this tale of Hoskuld’s now has legs on it.’

‘Find Hoskuld,’ answered Godred and Olaf soured the jarl with a hard look.

‘Good idea,’ he snarled. ‘I had not thought of it at all now that it is clear Gunnhild seeks him hard enough to send her last son.’

Godred’s cheeks grew pale, then red, but he said nothing, merely picked moodily at a loose thread on the hem of his own tunic and perched on a bench in his own hall while Olaf lolled in his High Seat and his son grinned.

‘I want this Hoskuld,’ Olaf declared suddenly, ‘but unlike Gunnhild I do not have the ships to spare – I need them and you, Godred, for the war that is coming.’

Godred merely nodded and said nothing. Olaf Irish-Shoes had been thrashing around in a fight with Domnall and the southern Ui Neill for years and, only this year, Domnall had finally decided to throw it all away and enter the monastery at Armagh. Good news all round, Godred thought bitterly – but now the old man had decided to wave his sword at the new leader of the Ui Neill in the north, Mael Sechnaill.

‘In five days,’ Olaf declared, levering himself stiffly out of the chair, ‘I want you and your men in Dyfflin. Then we are off to teach this Ui Neill puppy a lesson. Send your best man after this Hoskuld – but no more than a snake-ship’s crew.’

Godred nodded and watched the old man stump off, calling for Sitric and complaining of the damp as he hauled his fur tighter round him. Battles, he thought bitterly. The old fool lives only for battle and will risk everything on the outcome of a stupid fight; he has lost as many thrones as he has gained. The thought of losing everything here on Mann if the old war-dog failed made Godred waspish.

‘Find Hoskuld,’ he snarled at Ogmund. ‘Take the Swan Breath and same arses you got to lie for you over the Gudrod business and see you make more of a fist of matters when next you meet that Orkney bitch-tick. Get this Hoskuld and the secret he holds. I was going to send Ulf, but you have contrived to get him killed. Now you will have to do.’

Ogmund watched Hardmouth leave the hall, the anger burning in his chest so hard that he found himself rubbing his knuckles on his breastbone. He would not have taken that when he had been young, he thought, then swallowed the sick despair at that truth.

He was no longer young when the likes of Godred could lash him and walk away.

The Frisian coast, a little later …

CROWBONE’S CREW

He had many names. The Arabs gave him Abou Saal. The Church called him Biktor the Nubian and the True People, the Ga-Adagbes, knew him as Nunu-Tettey – Nunu, because all the Nubii males were called after the Divine Celestial Waters and Tettey because he was first-born.

Here, they called him Kaup. Sometimes they called him Kaup Svarti. Kaup came from their mistake when he tried to tell them that he was a Christian, but not one they knew. Copt, he had told them, but they were stinking, ignorant northmen and thought he was saying kaup, which meant ‘bargain’ in their tongue and they thought that thigh-slapping funny, since they had hauled him from the ruin of an Arab slaver and so had got him for free.

Svarti, of course, because it meant black. Black was a poor word to describe Kaup, all the same; Mar Skidasson, closest thing to a friend Kaup had among the Red Brothers, had likened Kaup’s colour to the wing of a crow in sunlight, that glossy blue-black colour. He knew a good name when he heard one did Mar – his own by-name was Jarnskeggi, Iron Beard, and Kaup had to admit that Mar’s hair was exactly that colour.

Kaup grew no hair on his face and the stuff on his head was a tight nap that never got longer, only a little greyer at the temples, for it had been a long time since the slave ship in the Dark Sea. With little hope of returning home, Kaup had been with the Red Brothers of Grima for years and, after they had crept round the unnerving fact that he looked like a man two weeks dead, most of the northmen found Kaup good company. He laughed a lot and they envied the white of his teeth and the way his black skin always shone, as if buttered.

Still, in all the years with Grima, Kaup had never been sure whether he was a slave or a warrior. He knew slaves of the northmen were treated no better than livestock and not allowed to carry weapons, but Kaup had a spear and a shield and one of their long knives, called a seax. He had killed for them and had his share of loot – yet when something had to be fetched or carried, it was always ‘the Burned Man’ who was sent to do it and expected to carry it out with no mutter.

Standing watch was another of the matters he was expected to do. Wrapped in a wool blanket he had made into a cloak, standing on one leg like a stork and leaning on his spear, Kaup was less happy than he had ever been, for Grima – whom he had liked – was gone and Balle was now in charge. Kaup did not like Balle and neither did Mar, who had had to twist his face into many agreeable positions to avoid the fate of others who had been good friends with the old jarl.

Not long after Balle had thrown Grima and the Wend into the sea they had come down to this old berth, which they had not visited in many years. At this time of year, no-one expected to see another ship, yet before Kaup’s eyes a fat trader muscled in to the shingle and men spilled to the shore.

There was a tingle on him when he ran to report this strangeness and the skin of his forearms was stippled and grew tighter when he and Mar and Balle went to look at the newcomers.

‘A fat knarr,’ Balle said, a shine in his eyes, relief showing in his broad, deep-marked face the colour of old wood. It would be relief for Balle, thought Mar, for he would be eager to show he had better luck than Grima, luck that brought a great plump duck right into the teeth of all these foxes.

‘Teeth,’ said Kaup and Mar jerked at this echo of his thoughts, then looked at the knarr, seeing the helmets and the dull gleam – like still, dark water – of ringmail. His own eyes narrowed at that, for there were more than a few of them and the one who was clearly the leader had a helmet in the Gardariki style, with a white horsehair plume braiding out of it, like smoke from a roofhole. All of his men had similar helms, but his was worked with brass and silver. Truly, this knarr had teeth.

‘A hard fistful,’ growled Balle, studying the men, tallying the possibilities. ‘Yet their leader is only a stripling and there’s no more than a handful of nithing sailors.’

The Red Brothers numbered fifty-eight and, after all their bad raid-luck, even the ones who did not like Balle much and thought he still had matters to prove would follow him: it would be an easy prize with the numbers on their side. Even if it was empty, the knarr alone was worth it.

Mar felt Kaup shift beside him, tasted the big dark man’s unease along with the salt from the sighing sea. It smelled of blood and his hackles stirred a little.

Balle watched and waited, feeling his men filter up in knots and pairs to look, not wanting to turn round to see how many, which would have made him look as if he was anxious. He was pleased, all the same, when he caught sight of some, out of the corner of one eye; they were armed and ready.

He would wait until the crew of this fat trader had finished unloading whatever it was in the bundle they thought to appease him with. The stripling who led them would come, arms out and easy to show he meant no harm but wanted only to share warmth and food and maybe trade whatever was in the bundle. He does not realise, Balle thought, with a lurch of blood-savage, that all he has is already mine.

The stripling came and with him was a worryingly big man with a hook-bitted axe leading the helmeted ones carrying the burden. The stripling came with a spear in each fist and the walk of a man who did not want to appease anyone, which Mar and Kaup noticed and frowned at, glancing sideways at Balle. They all noticed the youth’s coin-weighted braids, the neat crop of new beard and the strange, odd-coloured eyes.

Balle had seen it, too, and pushed the worry of it from him as if it was a bothersome dog. The shine of that rich knarr was on him and the stripling was still a stripling, who had done as Balle had seen in his head, even if he had a giant at his back, spears in his fists, eyes of different colours and a measure of arrogance which had taken in the Burned Man and showed no shock. Balle had been disappointed at that; the sight of Kaup always made northmen lick uneasy lips and should have made this boy at least blink a little.

Then he saw the truth of what he had thought was a trade bundle and everything in him melted away, running like water out of his bowels and belly, so that he could not move and almost fell where he stood.

It was no wrap of trade goods. It was Grima.

Mar and Kaup grunted, the shock of it stirred through the rest of the Red Brothers like ripples from a stone in a quiet pool. Grima, who was thought drowned and dead, was back, sitting in a throne carried by great mailed warriors, guarded by a giant, preceded by …

‘Prince Olaf, son of Tryggve,’ announced the stripling loudly. ‘Come to hold up the falling roofbeams of Grima’s sky. Come to bring him back to those who tried to foist red murder on him.’

Now this was real luck to men who knew the shape and taste of it, for Grima had gone into the sea with nothing but the cloth on his back and yet, here he was, sprung out of it, with warriors and a prince at his command.

This was god-favour if ever it was seen and if Grima was so smiled on, then the man who had tried to kill him clearly was not – both those who were Christmenn and those who followed Asgard stepped away from Balle. He felt men draw away from him and anger surged in, which was as good as courage.

Then Grima stirred in his chair and Balle felt the better for seeing how weak and near death the old man was, saw the dark stains on the wrappings round his hands. He saw, also, the little figure appear suddenly from behind the mailed throne-carriers, a yellow dog prowling at his heels.

‘Berto,’ Kaup called out without thinking how much delight was in his voice, for he had liked the little man.

Berto raised one hand to Kaup in salute, then curled his lip at Balle, who almost went for the man then and there. Arrogant little fuck! A nithing thrall, with a look like that on him …

‘I speak for Grima,’ Berto said, his chin in his chest as he made himself gruff. The fact that he spoke at all in such a way so astounded Balle that he opened and closed his mouth once or twice.

‘He challenges Balle for the leadership of the Red Brothers,’ Berto went on. ‘He declares Balle a white-livered son of a sheep, who lets himself be used as a woman every ninth night by those who supported him in throwing Grima into the sea.’

There was muttering at that and a hissing sound of sucked in air, for there was no stepping back from that insult. The stillness that followed made the sea-breathing seem to roar and a gull cried out like a lost bairn; the stripling leader raised his head and searched for it.

‘I take the challenge,’ Balle said, ‘and after I have won I will not deal kindly with you, Wend.’

Then he twisted his mouth in a nasty smile at Grima.

‘Will you stand up long enough for me to kill you?’ he asked, knowing Grima was not the one he would have to fight.

The bundle on the throne shifted a little.

‘No,’ said the husked whisper, which a trick of wind carried down the beach to a lot more ears than should have heard it. ‘Yet you cannot kill me, Balle. I will live longer than you.’

Folk made signs on themselves and Balle had to resist the temptation to cross himself, or touch his Thor Hammer, which would have been as sure a sign of weakness as dropping to your knees and babbling for mercy.

‘I stand in his place,’ said the stripling with two spears.

Mar, looking at Balle as the youth spoke, saw the sudden flood of relief wash the man.

He thought it would be the giant, Mar realised, but thinks he can beat the stripling. That is wrong; if the stripling fights a big man like Balle, whose name is a warning since it means ‘dangerously bold’, it means he is their best. Better than a giant with a hooked axe. Mar studied the youth more closely now, but saw nothing in him that spoke of greatness, or even of prince. He was a tall youth with tow hair and a spear in either hand, nothing more. It was clear Balle thought this, too.

‘If you have a god,’ he growled, low and hackle-raising, ‘you had better ask him for help now.’

‘I have a god,’ the stripling declared, ‘and I dedicate you to him. I claim the Red Brothers for Grima and you are the price of it. Will you stand aside or fight?’

Kaup caught the unease that flickered on Balle’s face, a moment only, like a flare from a firestarter’s spark. Enough, all the same. Balle will lose this and the youth already knows it. Yet the little prince’s face was as innocent as a Christ-nun’s headsquare.

Balle spat on his hands, hefted the long axe and rolled his shoulders, which was answer enough. The youth smiled and the delight in his voice was a rill of pleasure.

‘Odin, hear me – take this Balle, as blot for this victory. I, Prince Olaf of the Oathsworn of Orm Bear-Slayer, by-named Crowbone, say this.’

There was a rustle, as if a wind had come up and rushed through unseen trees, as men stirred and sighed. Suddenly, the famed Oathsworn were here, launched out of a clear day and a calm sea like Thor’s own Hammer; Mar looked at Kaup and licked dry lips, for the grim mailed men with horsehair smoking from their helmets were now even more fearsome than before.

Balle, too, felt the chill lick of it, but was instantly ashamed and the anger that brought to him was a forge-fire. He hefted the long axe and calculated the distance between him and the stripling – then signalled for Mar to pass over his shield.

Mar paused, then handed it over with a look that flared Balle’s rage into his face. He would remember that scorn when this was done and then Mar had better look to himself. Overdue for having his head parted from him, Balle thought.

Kaup watched carefully, for he tucked all such matters of these northmen away in the sea-chest of his head and knew that this was no holmgang, with ritual and measured fighting area, but an einvigi, unregulated and unsanctified, which most vicious combats were. It did not rely on any god – though Ullr was claimed to be the deity who watched over it – but on skill and battle luck only. Once, when his people were young, Kaup knew that they had worshipped false gods, such as Bes and Apedemak, the god of war, who would have presided over such matters as this.

No matter which of the Asgard gods watched here, Kaup had to admit Balle looked the better man with his long axe on one shoulder, and shield held to cover most of himself against the stripling with two short throwing spears. They faced each other on the sand of a nowhere beach, where the tide-birds scurried, beaking up black mud from a strand silvered by the fading light of an old day.

‘You are a big man,’ Kaup heard Prince Olaf say said softly to Balle, ‘and no doubt of some value to Grima, once, before Loki visited treachery on you. At half your size, I will still be twice as useful to him and three times the fighter you are.’

Balle blinked a bit, worked the insult out and came up spitting and dragging the axe off his shoulder with one hand, though it was unwieldy like that. Yet everyone saw the battle-clever in Balle, for he was about to rush the stripling who had two throwing spears and a seax snugged across his lap.

The youth would get one spear off, which the shield would take – then Balle would throw the shield to one side and close in with the two-handed axe, before the youth transferred his second spear to a throwing hand. Everyone saw it. Everyone knew what would happen – except the youth, it seemed.

Balle lumbered forward; the spear arced and smacked the shield hard – harder than Balle had imagined, so that he reeled a little sideways with it and saw the point splinter through on his side. A powerful throw, but harmless, ruining only the shield.

With a great roar of triumph, he hurled the speared shield to one side and threw himself forward. He had him; he had the youth, for sure.

Something whirred like a bird wing and there was a sharp tearing feeling in Balle’s belly, then he tripped and fell, rolled, cursing, scrambling upright and appalled at his bad foot luck. Ready with the axe, he spun in a half circle and almost fell again, looked down and saw a blue, shining rope tangled round his ankles. At the same time as he followed it back to the bloody rip in his shirt and into the very belly of him, a shadow fell and he looked up.

It was the stripling, a thoughtful look on his face and Balle snarled and went to strike, but the axe seemed stuck to the ground. Then something flashed and there was a burning sensation in Balle’s throat, harsh and fierce enough for him to drop the axe and spin away. He did not want to touch his throat, was afraid to touch it, but thought to get away from the stripling for a moment, get his breath and then work out how to get back in the fight, for it had clearly gone awry.

He could not hear properly and could not catch his breath and there was a terrible gargling, roaring sound; he found himself on the ground, felt a draining from him, like slow water falling, looked down at the huge bib of red that soaked his tunic.

Never get the stains out of that, he thought. My mother will be furious …

Crowbone stuck his seax in a patch of coarse sand once or twice, then wiped the rest of the throat-clot off it on Balle’s tunic sleeve, the only bit that was not already covered in the big man’s blood. He felt his left thigh start to twitch and hoped no-one had noticed either that or the fear-sweat that soaked him, stinging his eyes to blinking.

No-one spoke, then the Burned Man walked up with Crowbone’s second spear, the one that he had thrown with his left hand, the one that had sliced open Balle’s belly so deftly that the axeman had scarcely even noticed it until he fell over his own insides. He handed it politely to Crowbone and smiled, unnervingly white, out of the great dead-black of his Hel face.

‘Am I leader here?’ asked Grima in his hoarse whisper. Men nodded and shuffled.

‘Am I leader?’ Grima roared and then they bellowed back that he was. Grima, the roar almost the last breath left in him, slumped back in the makeshift throne and whispered to Berto, who nodded and straightened.

‘I told Balle I would see his death before mine and so it is and I can let Asgard take me,’ Berto said and, for all his piping and thick accent, no-one doubted it was Grima’s voice. ‘Prince Olaf will be jarl. My silver is his. My ship is his. If you have any clever in you, you will follow him – but mark this. The Red Brothers die with me. You swear to him and the Oathsworn now.’

Men looked at the so-called prince, a stripling digging his spear point into the sand to clean it. The giant with the hook-bitted axe, grinning, worked the other spear point from the shield, then handed the shield back to Mar.

‘Sure,’ he said, ‘there is a fair wee peephole in it now. A good thick leather patch is needed – ask Onund if he has some left from fixing our steer oar. He is the man with the mountain on one shoulder. My name is Murrough macMael.’

Mar looked thoughtfully at the finger-length gash and then nodded to Murrough.

‘I will leave it as it is,’ he answered blankly. ‘The breeze through it will be cooling in the next fight.’

The tension hissed away from the beach. The ring-mailed throne-carriers picked up the chair with Grima in it and started back to the knarr; the Red Brothers began to go back in little knots to their fires, but the stripling cleared his throat and they stopped.

He did not say anything, merely pointed – once, twice, picking two men. The third time was at the bloody remains of Balle. The men he pointed out hesitated for an eyeblink; Mar stepped in to that, scowling.

‘Pick him up,’ he said to the men. ‘He was a Christmann so we will bury him.’

He looked at Crowbone. ‘Do you have a priest in your crew?’

Crowbone eyed the man up and down, taking in the neat-chopped hair that came down round his ears only, the close-trimmed beard, the cool eyes the colour of a north sea on a raining day. The one, he noted, who had handed his shield to Balle with a look as good as a spit in the eye. A good friend to the Burned Man and the pair of them better on your side than against it. He smiled, for he felt good and the thigh-twitching had ended; he was alive, his enemy was dead and the triumph of it coursed through him like the fire of wine.

‘I am a priest,’ he said, ‘though a good Christ-follower would not think so. Better you say words over him, I am thinking. Better still, of course, if you kept him, for Grima will die tonight and he was no Christmann, I am sure. It would be good to lay this dog at his feet as he burns.’

Mar blinked.

‘Is that your command?’ he asked and Olaf spread his empty hands in a light, easy gesture and said nothing at all.

Mar nodded, satisfied; here was a follower of the old gods, but not one with his face set against the Christ as hard as he had heard the Oathsworn were. They lifted Balle and carried him away to be buried and Kaup stumbled out some Christ words, as many as he could remember.

Afterwards, they dug him up again and brought him back to the driftwood pyre being prepared for Grima; Mar nodded to Olaf, who smiled at this cunning.

Men came to the pyre, no matter which gods they followed, out of respect for Grima, and Crowbone watched them as Hoskuld, scowling at the cost, spilled expensive aromatic oil on to the driftwood. Crowbone saw which of them mourned, stricken, for Grima and which of them did him honour for what he had once been. There were others and he watched them closer still, the ones who hung at the back and shifted from one foot to the other, trying not to look at each other and make it obvious they were plotting.

Grima burned, hissing and crackling, throwing shadows and lurid lights over the strand. Crowbone stepped into the blooded ring it made and held up his hands.

‘You are the Red Brothers of Grima,’ he said loudly. ‘You have travelled as one, fought as one. You have rules for this and I want to know them.’

Men looked one to the other and Crowbone waited.

‘None may steal from another,’ said a voice and Crowbone knew who it would be, had already marked it and turned to where Mar was.

‘Or?’

‘Death,’ answered Mar. ‘Unless mercy is shown, but Grima was not a merciful man.’

There were grunts and a few harsh laughs at the memory of what Grima had been. Mar folded his fingers, rule by rule, to mark them.

‘Equal shares for all. If a man loses a finger in battle, he gets an extra share, but if he loses two he gets no more shares, for one is a sad loss, but two is careless.’

Orm would not have grown rich here, Crowbone thought, thinking of the three lost fingers on the Oathsworn jarl’s left hand.

‘If a man loses a hand, all the same, he gets a share for every finger and thumb on it, provided it was taken off with a single blow, for a hand removed by more than one blow shows the owner of it was not fighting well or hard enough.’

Crowbone nodded, but said nothing. These were good rules and he would remember all of them, though they consisted mainly of what a man got for losing pieces of himself. Death gained him nothing, though it was expected that the jarl would pay weregild to any family, if they were ever found, out of his own wealth.

‘If one man kills another,’ Mar went on, ‘there is no crime, provided it puts no-one else in danger, or sends the ship off course. Another may claim the right to settle blood-feud on such killing, but if there is none to right such a wrong, then no wrong has been done. If a Brother insults, offends or otherwise does you injustice, you may kill him for it, unless he kills you first.’

There were more, which were all the same matters, Crowbone noted – those with sharp edges and skill were in the right. Those with dull blades and fumbling were in the wrong.

Mar stepped back respectfully, leaving the flame-dyed space to Crowbone and the lifting sparks that whirled Grima to Odin’s hall.

‘The Red Brothers die here. We are the Oathsworn,’ Crowbone said and it was clear he meant all of them assembled, not just the ones who had come with him on the knarr. ‘We have no such rules and need none, for we have an Oath. We will all take this Oath while Odin is close, watching Grima come to him as a hall-guest. Those who do not take it will leave at once, for if they are nearby and in sight come dawn, anyone may kill them.’

He stopped and the fire hissed and the sea breathed.

‘Be sure of your mouth and your heart, where these words come from,’ he said and suddenly did not seem a stripling any longer, seemed to have swelled so that his shadow was long and eldritch. There was flickering at the edges of vision and those who believed in such things tried not to look, for it was clear that the alfar were close and those creatures made a man uneasy.

‘Once taken, this Oath cannot be broken without bringing down the wrath of Odin,’ Crowbone went on. ‘You can take it as a Christmann and stay one if you can – but be aware that the Christ god will not save you from the anger of breaking this Oath. This has been tried before and those who did so found all the pain of their suffering a great regret.’

‘God will not be mocked,’ said a voice and Mar turned to see it was Ozur, one of Balle’s men. Langbrok – Long-Legs – they called him and Crowbone listened to all of what he had to say, patient as the man’s bile flew like froth. At the end of it, Ozur spat into the funeral fire. Men stirred and growled at this insult, even some Christ worshippers who were friends of Grima; if they did not agree with a pagan burning, they at least wanted to do him honour.

Mar sighed. It would be Ozur, of course, who was hotter for the Christ than this funeral fire and now those who had followed Balle were at his back, uneasy that they were now in the few and not the many.

‘I will not foul my mouth with such a heathen thing as your oath,’ declared Ozur finally, then stared round the rest of the faces. ‘Neither should you all. It is a bad thing, even for you idol-worshipping scum.’

Eyes narrowed, for few men had liked Ozur anyway and none of the Thor and Odinsmen here cared for his tone. Yet there was a shifting, from one foot to the other, like a nervous flock on the point of bolting and Mar heaved another sigh; there had been enough blood and upset. The Red Brothers were gone for sure and nothing was left but for each to go his own way – or become Oathsworn. It wasn’t as if men like them had much of a choice, after all.

He said as much, marvelling at the faces turning to listen to him. Ozur scowled. Crowbone cocked his head like a curious bird and marked Mar with a smile; he liked the man, saw the pure gold of him and how he could be worn like an adornment for a prince.

‘You also are a pagan,’ Ozur spat back at Mar. ‘God alone knows what you and that burned devil you keep so close to you get up to, but it does not surprise me that you will take something as foul as this oath into your mouth.’

Rage sluiced over Mar and he was already curling his fingers into fists and looking for a hilt when there was a wet chopping sound and men were spilling away from where Ozur had stood. Now there were two figures, one on the ground and, as Crowbone and the others watched in amazement, Kaup – stripped naked and no more than a shadow in the shadows so that his eyes were the palest thing to be seen of him – heaved up the body of Ozur after plucking his knife from the man’s throat. He took three steps and threw it on to the pyre. Sparks flew.

‘This Ozur child should have paid more heed to the fact that I was not so close to Mar tonight,’ said Kaup in his thick, low, smile of a voice. Then he jerked his head at the pyre and Crowbone.

‘Now he goes to the feet of Grima. Say your oath, for I have a mind to take it.’

Crowbone recovered himself, blinked away the shock and surprise of what had happened and looked at Kaup.

‘That was the last such killing you will do among oathed crewmates,’ he said, ‘once you have spoken the Oath from your heart.’

He and Kaup stared at one another for a long moment and, in the end, the Nubian nodded. Crowbone said the words of the Oath and Kaup repeated them, then crossed himself, as if to clean off a stain and went to find his clothes. Slowly, in ones and twos, men stepped forward into the pyre light and intoned the Oath.

We swear to be brothers to each other, bone, blood and steel, on Gungnir, Odin’s spear we swear, may he curse us to the Nine Realms and beyond if we break this faith, one to another.

Crowbone stood and listened to them, the stink of oil and burning flesh circling him like a lover’s arms. There was a sudden sharp moment of heimthra, of longing for that which was gone; Orm’s Hestreng, where the jarl had tried so hard to bring the Oathsworn to rest, and failed, for they were raiding men, not farmers. There would be new grass in the valley there, unfolding leaves making tender shadows. There would be a sheen on the fjord and the screams of terns, swooping on everyone who came too close to their carelessly-laid eggs. It was a good jarl’s hall and Crowbone had envied Orm for it.

Crowbone wanted that. He wanted that and more of the same, with the great naust, the boatsheds, that went with it, huge lattice-works of wood as elegant as any Christ cathedral and, in them, the great ships and all around them the iron men to go in them. Ships and men enough to make a kingdom.

Why have the Norns brought me here, to this beach, Crowbone wondered, binding the thread of my life into the frayed remains of Grima? My greatness is lifted up by the last act of the jarl of the Red Brothers, as sure a sign of Odin watching over me as a one-eyed face appearing in the blue sky.

He brooded on that the rest of that long night and into the dawn, while men moved to fires and left the pyre to collapse into ash and sparks, hushed and reverent and awed by everything that had happened, swift as a stooping hawk, on this dark and lonely beach.

In the morning, they howed Grima’s ashes up in a decent little mound, marked out with light-coloured stones plundered from the shingle and circled in the shape of a boat to show a man from the vik lay here. Then they packed up their sea-chests and started to board the two ships.

Crowbone, last to leave, turned to look at the stone-ringed mound of Grima’s howe, a fresh scab just above the tideline, as far removed from the north mountains as you could get. Crowbone wondered if his fetch would be content with that.

He walked away, feeling the unseen eyes on his back from under that boat-grave, thinking on a band of sworn-brothers and the wyrd of their last leader, old, alone and dying on a distant shore.