Читать книгу Crowbone - Robert Low - Страница 9

The coast of Frisia, a week later …

CROWBONE’S CREW

IT was no properly straked, oak-keeled drakkar, but the Or-skreiðr was a good ship, a sturdy, fat-waisted knarr with scarred planks and the comfort of ship-luck. It had carried the trader safely from Dyfflin to Hammaburg and elsewhere – even back to the trader’s home in Iceland. Hoskuld boasted of its prowess as it hauled Crowbone and his Chosen Men out of Hammaburg to the sea, then west along the coast. The Or-skreiðr, Swift-Gliding, was Hoskuld’s pride.

‘Even when Aegir of the waters is splashing about in the worst way,’ he declared, ‘I have never had a moment’s unease.’

Crowbone’s eight Oathsworn, jostling for sea-chest space with the crew and the cargo of hoes and mattocks and kegged fish, found little humour in this, though some gave dutiful laughs. But not Onund.

‘You should not dangle this stout ship in front of the Norns, like a worm on a hook,’ Onund growled morosely to Hoskuld. ‘Those Sisters love to hear the boasts of men – it makes them laugh.’

Crowbone said nothing, for he knew Onund had sourness seeped into him, for all he had agreed to this voyage. The other men were less frowning about matters. Murrough macMael was going back to Mann and possibly Ireland and that pleased him; the others – Gjallandi the skald, Rovald Hrafnbruder, Vigfuss Drosbo, Kaetilmund, Vandrad Sygni and Halfdan Knutsson – were happy to be going anywhere with the Prince Who Would Be King. They were all seasoned Swedes and half-Slavs who had been down the cataracts from Kiev with the silk traders at least once and had sailed up and down the Baltic with Crowbone, raiding in the name of Vladimir, Prince of Novgorod and now Kiev.

Ring-coated most of them, exotic in fat breeks and big boots and fur-trimmed hats with silver wire designs, they swaggered and bantered idly in the fat-waisted little knarr and made Hoskuld and his working men scowl.

‘How do we know their worth?’ one seaman grumbled in Crowbone’s hearing. ‘Who decided on these instead of a decent cargo?’

‘They think we are just barrels of salt cod,’ Gjallandi announced, appearing suddenly at Crowbone’s ear, ‘while your new Chosen Men believe it is a day’s sail, with a bit of sword-waving at the end of it and yourself crowned king of Norway, no doubt. All will find the truth of matters, soon enough.’

He was shaking his head, which made all those who did not know him laugh, for he was not the figure of a raiding man. He was a middling man in most respects save two – his head and his voice.

His head was large, with a chin like a ship’s prow and two full, beautiful lips in the centre of it, surrounded by a neat-trimmed fringe of moustache and beard. The hair on his head was marvellously copper-coloured, but galloping back over his forehead on either side of his ears; when the wind blew it stuck straight out behind him like spines. Murrough said it was not his hair that was receding but his head growing from all the lore he stuffed in it.

That lore and his voice had made his fortune, all the same, first as skald to a jarl called Skarpheddin and then to Jarl Brand. He had left Brand after arguing that it was not right to come down so hard on Jarl Orm for the loss of Jarl Brand’s son – which, according to Murrough and others, showed how Gjallandi’s voice sometimes worked before his thought-cage did.

Now he had come with Crowbone because, he said, Crowbone had more saga in him and the tale of the exiled Prince of Norway reclaiming his birthright was too good to miss. Crowbone had joined in the good-natured laughter, but secretly liked the idea of having someone spread his fame; the thought was as warming a comfort as a hearthfire and a horn of ale.

‘The crowning will come in time,’ Crowbone answered, loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘Until then, there are ships and men waiting to join us.’

‘No doubt,’ said the steersman whose name was Halk and his Norse was strange and lilting. ‘Do they know you are coming?’

His voice had a laugh in it which removed any sting and Crowbone smiled back at him.

‘If you know where you are going,’ he replied, ‘then – there they will all be.’

It was clear that Hoskuld had told his men nothing much, which was not sensible in a tight crew of six who depended on each other and the trade they made. Crowbone did not much trust Hoskuld, for all he had come from Mann to deliver his mysterious message – without pay, no doubt, for Christ monks were notoriously empty-pursed.

‘For the love of God,’ Hoskuld had replied when Crowbone had asked the why of this and his face, battered by wind and wave into something like a headland with eyes, gave away nothing. His men said even less, keeping their eyes and hands on work, but Crowbone felt Hoskuld’s lie like a chill haar on his skin. Yet Hoskuld was a friend of Orm and that counted for much.

Crowbone sat and watched the land slip sideways past him while the sea rose and fell, dark, glassy planes heaving in a slow, breathing rhythm.

He watched the gulls. Hoskuld never got far enough from the land to lose them and Crowbone listened to them scream to each other of finding something that moved and promised fish. One perched on the mast spar, heedless of the sail’s great belly and Crowbone watched this one more carefully than the others. He felt the familiar tightening of the skin on his arms and neck; something was happening.

The crew of the Or-skreiðr coiled lines, bailed, reefed sail, took the steering oar and stared at Crowbone and his eight men. He could almost feel their dislike and their distrust and, above all, their fear. Here were the plunderers, pillagers and pagans that peaceful Christ-anointed traders, farmers of the sea-lanes, could do without as they ploughed up and down from port to port.

Here were red murderers, sitting on their sea-chests, talking in their mush-mouthed East Norse way – made worse by all the time spent with Slavs – and eyeing up the crew with almost complete indifference when not with sardonic smiles at watching men work while they stayed idle.

Crowbone knew his eight Chosen well, knew who was more Svear than Slav, who had washed that weekday, who doubted their own prowess.

Young men – well, all but Onund – hard men, who had all, without showing fear, taken that hard oath of the Oathsworn: 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 had taken it when he was too young for chin hair, driven to it as those desperate and lost in the dark will run to a fire, even if it risks a scorching. He had kin somewhere, sisters he had never seen – but mother, father, guardian uncle were all dead and Orm Bear-Slayer of the Oathsworn was the nearest thing he had to any of the three.

He watched his Chosen Men. Only Onund knew what the Oath meant, for he had taken it long enough ago to have marked the warp of it on his life. Most of the others would come to know just what they had sworn, but for now they were all grins and wild beards in every colour save grey, laughing and boasting easily, one to the other.

Hoskuld, beaming at the way they were skipping along, announced that he had many skills, one of them navigation.

‘We go out on to a big expanse of water dead ahead,’ he added. ‘Land on the berthing side, so you cannot really miss it. After a bit, we turn north. That is to the right. The steerboard side. The hand you use to pull yourself off.’

Crowbone forced a smile as Hoskuld moved off into the grins of his crew, while Murrough turned and looked at his fellow Oathsworn lazing there.

‘Never be minding, lads,’ he bellowed. ‘We have bread and fish and water if this short-arsed little trading man loses us. Also, there are Crowbone’s birds to steer by, when all else fails.’

Crowbone raised one hand in acknowledgement, while Hoskuld and his crew stared for a moment, stilled. Then they busied themselves and Crowbone smiled, for he knew no Norseman, especially Christ-sworn, liked the idea of a seidr-man and none of these liked to be reminded of the strange tales that surrounded Crowbone.

‘We will need no magic birds to get us where we are going,’ Hoskuld said eventually, with the scowl of an outraged Christmann. ‘Nor will I lose my way, Irisher. This is a ship blessed with God-luck.’

Right there, the lone gull on the mast spar took off from its perch and screamed, a mad laughing as it turned and wheeled away back towards the grey-blue line that was land. Crowbone watched it go, the hairs stiff on him; it does no good to tempt the Norns, he was thinking.

‘There was once a Chosen Man in the service of a jarl, don’t ask me where, don’t ask me when,’ he said and the heads came up. Crowbone had not meant to speak; he never did when the tales came on him, but those who had heard him before leaned forward a little. The steersman laughed but Murrough wheeshed him and the silence allowed the wind to thrum the rigging lines.

‘As part of his due he used to get bread and a bowl of honey each day,’ Crowbone went on, soft and gentle as the breathing sea. ‘The warrior ate the bread and put the honey into a stoppered jug, which he took to carrying around with him, lest it be stolen. He wanted to keep the jug until it was full, for he knew the high price his honey would fetch in the market.’

‘A sensible trading man, then, this warrior,’ Hoskuld offered sarcastically, but glares silenced him.

‘I will sell my honey for a piece of gold and buy ten sheep, all of which will bring forth young, so that in the course of one year I shall have twenty sheep,’ Crowbone said, the words tumbled from him, like slow, sticky sweetness from the tale’s jug.

‘Their number will steadily increase, and in four years I shall be the owner of four hundred sheep. I shall then buy a cow and an ox and acquire a piece of land. My cow will bring forth calves, the ox will be useful to me in ploughing my land, while the cows will provide me with milk. In five years’ time the number of my cattle will have increased considerably and I shall be wealthy. I shall then build a magnificent steading, acquire thralls and marry a beautiful woman of noble descent. She will become pregnant and bear me a son, a strong boy fit to carry my name. A lucky star will shine at the moment of his birth and he will be happy and blessed, and bring honour to my name after my death. Should he, however, refuse to obey me, I will whack him round the ear, thus—’

Crowbone smacked one fist into his palm, so that the listeners started a little.

‘So saying,’ Crowbone added softly, ‘he lashed out at the imaginary child. The jug flew from under his arm and smashed. The honey ran into the mud and was lost.’

‘Heya,’ sighed Murrough and stared pointedly at Hoskuld, who laughed nervously. The steersman crossed himself; no-one had missed the point of the tale.

The gull – the same one, Crowbone was sure – screamed with faint laughter in the distance.

Not long after, the steering oar broke.

One blink they were sailing along, scudding under a sail bagged full of wind, with the blue-grey slide of the land distant on one side. The next, Halk was yelling and hanging grimly on to the whole weight of the steering oar, which had parted company from the ship entire and looked set to go over the side. The Swift-Gliding leaped like a joyous stallion spitting out the bit, then yawed off in a direction all its own.

Men sprang to help Halk, wrestling the steering board safely on to the ship. Hoskuld, bawling orders, found the Oathsworn suddenly alive, moving with practised ease to flake the sail down on to the yard and bring the free-running knarr to a sulky halt, where it rocked and pitched, the slow-heaving waves slapping the hull.

‘Leather collar has snapped,’ Onund declared after a brief look. ‘Fetch out some more and we will fix it.’

Hoskuld glared at Halk, whose eyes were wide with innocent protesting, but then Gorm stepped into Hoskuld’s scowl and matched it with one of his own. He had been with Hoskuld ever since they had first set keel on water, so he had leeway. He had hands and face beaten by weather, but his eyes were clear and there was at least a horn-spoon of intellect behind them, even if his nose was crooked from fights and his body a barrel which had been scoured by wind and wave.

‘Not Halk’s fault,’ he growled at Hoskuld. ‘Should have stayed in Dyfflin for long enough to fetch such supplies as spare leather, but you would sail. Should have stayed in Sand Vik longer than to pick up this poor dog of a steersman, but you sailed even faster from there.’

‘Enough!’ roared Hoskuld, his face turning white, then red. ‘This is not fixing matters.’

He broke off, glanced at the thin line of land and wiped his mouth with the back of one hand.

‘This is the Frisian coast,’ he muttered darkly. ‘No place to be wallowing, dangled like a fat cod for sharks.’

‘Leather,’ Onund grunted.

‘None,’ Gorm replied, almost triumphant. ‘Some bast line, which will have to do.’

‘Aye, for you never stayed long enough in Dyfflin or Sand Vik,’ Crowbone noted and everyone heard how his voice had become steeled.

‘Save for picking up a steersman,’ he added, nodding towards Halk, who stared from Hoskuld to Crowbone and back, his mouth gawped like a coal-eater.

Folk left off what they were doing then, for a chill had sluiced in like mist, centred on Crowbone and the lip-licking Hoskuld.

Crowbone knew now where the steersman had his lilting Norse from. From Orkney, where Hoskuld had gone from Dyfflin and before that from Mann. Mann to Dyfflin to Orkney.

‘You know who this Svein Kolbeinsson is,’ Crowbone said, weaving the tale as he spoke and knowing the warp and weft were true by the look in Hoskuld’s eyes.

‘How many others have you told?’ Crowbone went on. Hoskuld spread his arms and tried to speak.

‘I …’ began Hoskuld.

Crowbone drew the short-handled axe out of the belt-ring at his waist and Hoskuld’s crew shifted uneasily; one made a whimpering sound. Hoskuld seemed to tip sideways and sag a little, like an emptying waterskin. The crew and the Oathsworn watched, slipping subtly apart.

‘You know from Orm what I can do with this,’ Crowbone said, raising the axe, and Hoskuld blinked and nodded and then rubbed the middle of his forehead, as if it itched.

‘Only because you have friendship with Jarl Orm is it still on the outside of your skull,’ Crowbone went on, in a quiet and reasonable voice, so that those who heard it shivered.

‘Svein Kolbeinsson,’ Hoskuld gasped. ‘Konungslykill, they called him. I was younger than yourself by a few years when I met him, on my first trip to Jorvik with my father.’

Crowbone stopped and frowned. Konungslykill – The King’s Key – was the name given to only one man, the one who carried King Eirik’s blot axe. Such sacrifice axes were all called Odin’s Daughter, but only one truly merited the name – Eirik’s axe, the black-shafted mark of the Yngling right to rule.

Carried by a Chosen Man called the King’s Key, the pair of them represented Eirik’s power to open all chests and doors in his realm, by force if necessary. It gave Eirik his feared name, too – Bloodaxe. Crowbone blinked, the thoughts racing in him like waves breaking on rocks.

‘This ship it was,’ Hoskuld said wistfully. ‘The year before Eirik was thrown out of Jorvik and died in an ambush set by Osulf, who went on to rule all Northumbria.’

What was that – twenty-five years ago and more? Crowbone looked at Hoskuld and while the gulls in his head screeched and whirled their messages and ideas, his face stayed grim and secret as a hidden skerry.

‘Svein Kolbeinsson was taken at the place where Eirik of Jorvik died, but after some time he escaped thralldom and fled to Mann. It seems he turned his back on Asgard since the gods turned their backs on him, so he became a monk of the Christ in the hills of Mann around Holmtun, in the north of the island. He died recently, but before he did, he told this monk Drostan a secret, to be shared only with the kin of the Yngling line.’

The words spilled from Hoskuld like a stream over rocks, yet the last of it clamped his lips shut as he realised what he had said. Crowbone nodded slowly as the sense of it crept like honey into his head.

‘Instead, you went to Dyfflin,’ Crowbone said softly.

Hoskuld licked his cracking lips and nodded.

‘At Drostan’s request,’ he murmured hesitantly.

‘You are no fool, Hoskuld Trader, you got the secret from this monk Drostan, you know what he has to tell me.’

‘Only what it is,’ he managed, in a husked whisper. ‘Odin’s Daughter. Not where it lies, though.’

‘Eirik’s axe, Odin’s Daughter itself, still in the world and a monk has the where of it in his head,’ Crowbone said.

Now it was the turn of the Oathsworn to shift, seeing the bright prize of Eirik’s Bloodaxe, the mark of a true scion of the Yngling line – a banner to gather men under. That and the magic in it made it worth more than if it were made of gold.

‘Olaf Irish-Shoes, Jarl-King in Dyfflin?’ Crowbone mused, bouncing the axe in his fingers. ‘Well, he is old, but he is still a northman and no man hated Eirik Bloodaxe more than he – did they not chase each other off the Jorvik High Seat?’

Hoskuld bobbed his head briefly in agreement and those who knew the tale nodded confirmation at each other; Eirik had been ousted from Jorvik once and Olaf Irish-Shoes at least twice. Gorm muttered and shot arrowed scowls at his captain.

‘Well,’ said Crowbone. ‘You took the news to Irish-Shoes, then Orkney.’ Crowbone’s voice was all dark and murder now. ‘Not to Thorfinn, I am thinking.’

‘Thorfinn died,’ Gorm blurted. ‘His sons rule together there now – Arnfinn, Havard, Ljot and Hlodir.’

‘There is only one ruler on Orkney,’ Crowbone spat. ‘Still alive is she, the Witch?’

Hoskuld answered only with a choking sound in his throat; Gunnhild, Eirik’s queen, the Witch Mother of Kings. The tales of her were suddenly fresh as new blood in Hoskuld’s head: she it was who had sent her sons to kill Crowbone’s father then scour the world for the son and his mother. Now the hunted son stood in front of him with an axe in his hand and a single brow fretted above his cold, odd eyes. Hoskuld cursed himself for having forgotten that.

‘Arnfinn is married to her daughter,’ he muttered.

Crowbone hefted the little axe, as if balancing it for a blow.

‘So,’ he said. ‘You took the news to Olaf Irish-Shoes, who was always Eirik’s rival – did you get paid before you fled? Then you took it to Gunnhild, the Witch, who was Eirik’s wife. You had to flee from there, too – and for the same reason. Did you ken it out at that point, Hoskuld Trader? That what you knew was more deadly than valuable?’

He stared at Hoskuld and the axe twitched slightly.

‘You are doomed,’ Crowbone declared, grim as lichened rock. ‘You are as doomed as this Drostan, whom you doubtless betrayed for profit. Olaf will want your mouth sealed and so will the Orkney Witch. Where is Drostan? Have you killed him?’

Hoskuld’s brows clapped together like double gates.

‘Indeed no, I did not. Him it was who asked to go to all these places, then finally to Borg in the Alban north, where we left him to come to find Jarl Orm, as he asked.’

He tried to keep the glare but the strange, odd-eyed stare of the youth made him blink. He waved his hands, as if trying to swat the feel of those eyes off his face.

‘The monk lives – why would I kill him, then bother to come and find Orm – and you?’

‘Betrayal,’ Crowbone muttered. He leaned a little towards Hoskuld’s pale face. ‘Is that what this is? An enemy who wants me dead, or worse? Why sail to Mann if the monk is at Borg?’

‘He left something with the monks on Mann,’ Hoskuld admitted. ‘A writing.’

Crowbone asked and Hoskuld told him.

‘A message. I was to pick it up on the return and take it to Orm.’

To Orm? Crowbone closed one thoughtful eye. ‘And you delivered it?’

Hoskuld nodded.

‘You know what this message spoke?’ he asked and watched Hoskuld closely.

The trader shook his head, more sullen than afraid now.

‘I was to tell you of it,’ he replied bitterly, ‘when you asked why we were headed for Mann at all.’

Crowbone did not show his annoyance in his face. It was a hard truth he did not care to dwell on, that he had simply thought Mann was where Hoskuld wanted to go with his strange cargo. Either he was paid more after that, or Crowbone found a ship of his own was what the young Prince of Norway had assumed.

Now he knew – a message had been left by this Drostan, in Latin which Hoskuld did not read – he knew runes and tallied on a notched stick well enough, so he could carry it to Orm and not know the content.

And the thought slid into him like a grue of ice – there was a trap to lure him to Mann.

He said so and saw Hoskuld’s scorn.

‘Why would Orm set you at a trap?’ he scathed. ‘He knows the way of monks. They would not have written this message to Orm only once.’

That was a truth Crowbone had to admit – monks, he knew, would copy it into their own annals and if he went to Mann he would find it simply by saying Orm’s name and asking with a silver offering attached. For all that, he wanted to bury the blade in the gape-mouthed face of the trader, but the surge of it, which raised his arm, was damped by a thought of what Orm might have to say. He had fretted Orm enough this year, he decided – yet the effort not to strike burst sweat on him. In the end, the lowering of his arm came more from the nagging to know what this writing held than any desire to appease Orm.

‘Get me to Mann, trader,’ he managed to harsh out. ‘I may yet feed you to the fish if it takes too long a sailing – or if I find this message or you plays me false.’

‘We are sailing nowhere,’ Onund interrupted with an annoyed grunt, bent over the steering oar so that his hunched shoulder reared up like an island. ‘We are drifting until this is lashed. Fetch what line you have – I can get us to land safely and then we will need to find decent leather.’

‘I would hurry, hunchback,’ said Halk the Orkneyman, staring out towards the distant land. ‘It would seem the sharks have found their cod.’

He pointed, leading everyone’s eyes to the faint line, marked with little white splashes where oars dug, which grew steadily larger.

‘It is all of us who are doomed,’ Gorm hissed, his eyes wide, then jumped as Kaetilmund clapped him on the back.

‘Ach, you fret too much,’ he said.

Gorm saw the Oathsworn moving more swiftly than he had seen them shift since they had come aboard. Sea-chests were opened, ringmail unrolled from sheepskins, domed helmets brought out, oiled against the sea-rot and plumed with splendid horsehair.

‘Our turn to do the work,’ Murrough macMael grunted and hefted his long axe, grinning. ‘You can join in if you like, or just watch.’

Gorm licked his lips and looked at the rest of the Swift-Gliding crew, who all had the same stare on them.

Not fear. Relief, that they were not Frisians.

Hrodfolc was smiling, though his teeth hurt. He did not have many left, yet the few he had hurt all the time these days – but even the nagging pain of them could not keep the smile from his face, laid there when the watchers brought word to the terp that a fat cargo ship was wallowing like a sick cow just off the coast.

It had been a time since such a prize had come their way. Ships sped past this stretch of coast like arrows, Hrodfolc thought, half-muttering to himself, for they know the red-murder fame of the folk living along it.

He turned to where his twenty men pulled and sweated, grunting with the effort, slicing the long snake-boat through the slow, rolling black swell. No mast and no sail on his boat, which is how cargo ships with a good wind at their back could always outrun us, Hrodfolc thought, leaving us rowing in their wake.

Not this time. This time, there would be blood and booty.

‘Fast, fast,’ he bellowed, the boom of his voice in his head bursting tooth-pain in him. The riches called to him and he could see them, taste them – wool and grain and skins. Casks filled with salt fish, or beer, or cheeses; boxes stuffed with bone, buckles, boots, pepper. Perhaps even gold and silver. Honey, or some other lick of sweetness after a long winter. His mouth watered.

‘Fast,’ he called and his men grunted and pulled, wild-haired, mad-bearded, their weapons handy to grab up when they left off the oars and flung them inboard.

Hrodfolc eyed the fat ship, focusing the pain on them, the ones on the ship. He would rend them. He would tear them …

They streaked up to the side of the slow-rocking cargo ship and saw pale faces, four, maybe six and that widened Hrodfolc’s brown smile. The oars backed water furiously, then clattered inboard a breath or two before the long, sleek boat kissed the side of the knarr, a gentle dunt. Men hurled up lines to lash themselves to the side; others grabbed up weapons and scrambled to climb up the thwarts of their higher-sided victim, Hrodfolc snarling ahead of the pack with an axe in either fist.

It was a surprise to them all, then, when a line of shields suddenly rose up and slapped together like a closing door. It was shock when a great, bearded axe on a long shaft arced out from under them, making Hrodfolc shy away sideways, though he was not the target of it. The axe chunked over the thwarts, the powerful arms wielding it snugging the snake-boat to the knarr like a lover cinching the willing waist of his girl into an embrace.

Crowbone saw the gaping, snaggle-toothed mouth of the man who led these Frisian raiders, his face a great rune of terror at the sight of the shields and ring-mailed, spear-armed men who stood behind them, scowling from under the rims of horse-plumed helmets.

Crowbone hurled his own spear and it took the man in the middle of his twisted tooth, which flew out of his mouth as he fell backwards, spraying blood and head-gleet all over his own men. He hurled his second spear with his left hand and it went through the thigh of another Frisian, pinning the man to the deck of the snake-boat – his screeches were as high as a gull’s.

Yet more spears flicked and the men on the snake-boat screamed and flapped like fox-stalked chickens. A few grabbed up oars and tried to push their boat away, but Murrough’s long axe and a grip like a steel band held them. There were splashes as men hurled themselves into the sea rather than wait to die, for the Oathsworn were pillars of iron with big round shields, spears which they hurled and blades which they followed up with, crashing to the rocking deck of the snake-boat. The Frisian raiders had cheap wool the colour of mud and charcoal, spears with rusted heads and little wood axes.

Some did not even have that and Drosbo took a half-pace backwards as a raider with a knife, fear-maddened to fighting like a desperate rat in a barrel, hurled himself forward, screaming, slashing. The knife scored down the ringmail with little hisses of sound and Drosbo let him do it for the time it took him to grin and the Frisian to realise it was doing no good.

Just at the point the Frisian thought of aiming for the face, Drosbo brought his sword down in a cutting stroke that took the man in the join between neck and shoulder, a great, wet-sounding chop that popped the blade out of the man’s armpit and the whole arm, knife and all, into the sea.

Then Drosbo booted him in the chest, hard enough to pitch the shrieking raider into the slow-shifting, crow-black water in a whirl of blood.

There was a moment of crouching caution, then Murrough gave a coughing grunt, like a new-woken bear, and offered a final spit on the whole affair as he worked his bearded axe loose from the snake-ship’s planks and straightened, rolling the overworked muscles of neck and shoulder. Hoskuld’s crew stared at the astounded, gape-mouthed dead, at the blood washing greasily in the bowels of the snake-boat, at those still alive and swimming hopelessly for the far-away shore, black, gasping heads rising and sinking on the glass swell.

‘That is that, then,’ Onund growled out and clapped the stunned Orkneyman on the shoulder. ‘See if you can find some decent rope.’

Holmtun, Isle of Mann, at the same time

THE WITCH-QUEEN’S CREW

The wind rushed the trees and then bowled on over the scrub and broom, ruffling it like a mother does a son’s hair. Birds hunched in shelter, or were ragged away from where they wanted to go, steepling sideways and too busy even to make a voice of protest.

The sun was there, all the same, for the heat of it made riding in ringmail and wool a weary matter and the glare of sky, white as a dead eye, made Ogmund squint.

He was tired. They were all tired from plootering over hill and heather, a trail of curse and spit, the hooves of weary horses clacking on loose stones.

Somewhere ahead, Ogmund thought, scanning the distance and squinting until his forehead ached, were the raiders. On foot. How could folk on foot have kept ahead so well? And who were they, who dared to raid this corner of Mann, which had not been raided in years?

‘A warrior,’ said a voice as if in answer and Ogmund turned to where Ulf, forcing himself taller in his saddle to see better, was pointing ahead to the wooded hill. He had good eyes did Ulf and Ogmund saw the figure, dark against the glare.

‘So, we have caught them, then,’ he said and felt the relief of the men behind him, for it meant they could get off the horses and ease their arses. Even as he swung a leg over and slid to the ground, feeling his legs buckle a little, Ogmund kept staring at the figure on the hill. Unconcerned, was the word that sprang to his mind, as if the man was picking his teeth after a meal of bread and cheese. Ogmund felt a stir of unease and looked round at his own men for the comfort of seeing them sorting out weapons and tying chinstraps.

‘What are you thinking on this, Ogmund?’ asked Ulf.

That it smells, Ogmund wanted to say. That the monks whose mean little church was raided spoke of three men only and I have twenty, so should be feeling less like a maiden with a knowing hand on her knee.

Ogmund spread his hands and summed up the situation for his own benefit.

‘A monk had his face stirred up a little,’ Ogmund said, aware even as he spoke that it sounded like a whine. ‘Nothing of value was taken and some of their precious vellum was creased. Seems a strange crime to me, three raiders in ringmail and with good weapons and nothing of value stolen at all. Vellum and parchment taken and read and returned. When did you know ragged-arsed bandits who could read monk scratchings?’

‘Try telling that to Jarl Godred,’ Ulf replied shortly. It was clear he thought they should all be moving up the slope with shields set and weapons out; Ogmund had no doubt he would say as much to Godred as soon as he could flap his mouth close to the jarl’s ear and the jarl would have much to say to Ogmund as a result, none of it pleasant. Not for nothing was the ruler of this little part of Mann called Hardmouth – though never to his face.

For this reason, and because the weather was foul, Ogmund had not complained when not long since Godred chose Ulf to go and ferret out the truth of a report that two dead monks were to be found in a remote hut in the hills. Ulf had found them, two rat-eaten bodies. He was still bragging about it, though he had faced no threat, as Ogmund pointed out. Here was the opposite case, no serious crime had occurred yet the danger was very real. Ulf clearly wanted to show Ogmund, not to mention Jarl Godred, how ready he was to face any threat.

Ogmund sighed and waved the men forward, signalling for three to act as horse-holders. Ulf stayed mounted, which annoyed Ogmund since it made Ulf look like the leader. Ogmund would have liked to command him to get off, but knew that would look petty. He wanted to get back on his own mount but was not sure he had the strength of leg to spring up on it in his ringmail and felt the crushing despair of knowing there had been a time when he would have done it without thinking.

Too old, he thought grimly. Everyone knows it and Ulf grows impatient to be in my place.

The figure on the hill was suddenly close, so that Ogmund was startled at how he had daydreamed a mournful way to this point without realising it. He shook himself like a dog to sharpen his wits and stared at the man on the hill.

He was big and wore a helmet with ringmail covering the front of it so that none of his face could be seen at all; the eyes were no more than points of light in the cave of his shadowed face. It had gilded eyebrows and a raised crest and was altogether a fine helm, which had been greased and oiled carefully. The wearer had a long coat of ringmail, too, was thick-waisted, but not fat, had a shield slung on his back and one hand resting lightly on the hilt of a sword in a tooled leather sheath – though the hilt of the weapon was plain iron and sharkskin grip, without decoration.

All of it only increased the rise of Ogmund’s hackles. A little raiding man might well have a fine helmet, but he would not have bothered so much in the care of it, having almost certainly stolen it in the first place. Nor did this one stand like a little raiding man. He stood as if he owned the ground his feet were on.

‘Who are you?’ Ogmund demanded.

‘Gudrod Eiriksson from Orkney.’ The voice was metal-muffled, inhuman and that rocked a few back on their heels as much as the name. Bloodaxe’s son? Here in Mann?

‘Orkney does not rule here now,’ Ulf sneered.

‘Not now,’ replied Gudrod easily, ‘but soon enough again, maybe.’

Another man appeared from the trees, ring-mailed and armed, moving quietly to the left and slightly behind Gudrod. He had a sharp face and a weasel smile, hardly softened at all by the trim line of his beard. His nose was broad and spread out, as if he had been hit with a shovel and it fascinated Ogmund.

A third slid out, wearing a red tunic and green breeks, both so faded they held only a distant laugh of colour. He had a sword thrust through a ring in his belt but wore no armour at all, not even a helmet, and his face was round and boy-smooth, unmarked by war or weather so that the black hair which framed it made the youth look like an angel Ogmund had seen painted on the rough wall of the big church in Holmtun. Yet this angel moved strangely; like a padding wolf.

‘You robbed a church,’ Ulf went on and Ogmund finally had had enough. The casual trio, the whole raid, had him ruffled as a wet cat and Ulf taking on the mantle of leader here was more than enough.

‘When I need you to speak, Ulf Bjornsson,’ he said, low and harsh as grinding quernstones, ‘I will find a dog and have it bark.’

Someone snickered at the back and Ulf jerked his reins so hard the horse threw up its head in protest and scattered bit-foam.

‘You lead here?’ demanded Gudrod and Ogmund nodded. The man with the squashed nose laughed, a high, thin sound. Ogmund saw his top lip stick to his teeth; that sign of nerves gave him a little comfort. He realised, suddenly, that the man had no bone in his nose, which gave it the look.

‘There was no harm done in the church,’ Gudrod went on easily in that hollow-helmet voice. ‘It was a misunderstanding. We sought enlightenment only, not riches. A priest decided that we were not Christian enough for him. And here is me, baptised and everything, as fine a Christian as yourself, whoever you are.’

‘Ogmund Liefsson, of Jarl Godred’s Chosen,’ Ogmund replied automatically, cursing himself for his lack of manners.

‘Godred? Is that Godred, son of Harald? The one who is called Hardmouth much of the time?’ demanded Gudrod, his light, amused tone still apparent even filtered through the ringmail over his mouth. ‘Does he still bellow like a bull with a wasp up its arse?’

A few men chuckled and Ogmund turned a little to silence them.

‘What enlightenment?’ demanded Ogmund, deciding to ignore Gudrod’s question. ‘What brings the last of Eirik Bloodaxe’s sons all the way to a wee chapel in the wilds of Mann? Is your mam looking for a priest to confess her sins to?’

The implication that there was no-one closer who would absolve Gunnhild did not wing its way past those behind Ogmund and there were more chuckles, which Ogmund was pleased to hear.

Gudrod may have scowled under his helmet, but only he knew. The hands shifted, spreading wide in a graceful gesture, like a smile.

‘We sought a priest, certainly,’ Gudrod replied. ‘Though it appears he is not to hand. So we will leave as peacefully as we came.’

‘Ha!’ roared Ulf. ‘You and your handful will get what you deserve – the end of a rope.’

The head turned to him and even Ogmund felt the wither of those unseen eyes.

‘Whisht, boy,’ said the metal voice. ‘Men are speaking here.’

Ulf howled then and Ogmund heard the snake-hiss rasp as he dragged his blade out.

‘Stay!’ he roared out, but Ulf had blood in his eye and was kicking the horse, which had started to doze and was now sprung awake. Shocked, it leaped forward and, without stirrups, Ulf swayed off-balance, so that his sword waved wildly.

‘Od,’ said the flat-nosed man. ‘Kill him.’

The beautiful boy-man moved like silk through a finger-ring. Ogmund had never seen anything move so fast – yet he saw it clearly enough, like a form in a storm-night, etched for an eyeblink against the dark by a flash of lightning. The figure flicked the sword up and out of the belt-ring with the fingers of his left hand, swept it from the air with his right, took one, two, three steps and leaped, turning in the air as he did so, bringing weight to the stroke.

There was a dull clunk and a wet hiss, then the man called Od landed lightly on his feet and turned to stride, unconcerned, back to where he had started. Something round and black bounced once or twice and rolled almost to Ogmund’s feet.

The horse cantered on, then tasted the iron stink of blood, squealed and tried to run from it, so that the body on its back, blood pluming from the raggled neck, tipped, slumped and finally fell off into the broom.

There was silence. Ogmund looked at the thing at his feet and met Ulf’s astounded left eye; the right had shattered in the fall and watery blood crept sluggishly from the severed neck.

‘This is Od,’ Gudrod said in his inhuman voice, waving one hand at the angel. ‘He is by-named Hrafndans.’

Ravendance. It was such a good by-name that men sucked in their breath at it, as if they could see those black birds on branches, joyously bobbing from foot to foot as they waited for the kills this youth would leave them. They looked at this Od, then, as he took to one knee, sword grasped by the hilt and held like a cross, praying. It was when he licked Ulf’s blood from his blade that they all realised that it was Tyr Of Battles, the Wolf’s Leavings, he was praying to, dedicating Ulf’s life to the god. There was a flurry of hands as they crossed themselves.

‘You should know that Od is only one of my crew. Nor did I come from Orkney on a little faering,’ Gudrod said. ‘I am the son of Queen Gunnhild and King Eirik Bloodaxe, after all.’

Ogmund licked his lips. Once he had had to beat a horse until it bled before it would cross a tiny rivulet to the green sward on the other side, and when it did so, the leap took it into the sucking bog that had only looked like a firm bank. Ogmund had spent a long, sweating time hanging on while the horse plunged and struggled itself back to trembling safety, knowing that if he fell in his ringmail he was doomed.

He felt that same fear now, glancing round at the trees where men were hidden, he was sure. How many ships would Bloodaxe’s son bring from Orkney? His sister was married on to the jarl, in the name of God – how many ships would he not bring? The trees hid long hundreds of men in Ogmund’s mind.

‘So we will leave,’ Gudrod ended, his voice cold as the metal rings which hid his face. ‘You will not stop us.’

Which is what happened. Ogmund considered the sight of them vanishing from him, then stirred Ulf’s head with one foot.

‘Gather this up,’ he said. ‘We will take him back and tell everyone that he died for pride and stupidity and that the three miserable bandits who raided were actually a prince of Orkney and many ships of men. Though they outnumbered us, our fierceness chased them off.’

The others agreed, because they had been too feared to fight and knew it, a secret shame they did not want out in the world. It began to rain a little, a cooling mist that refreshed Ogmund as he watched Ulf loaded like a sack on to his uneasy horse. Ogmund smiled to himself, careful not to let it show on his face; it had not been such a bad day.

Two miles away, the three miserable bandits rested on a knee and Gudrod took off the helmet, so that he could raise his face, like a bairn’s fresh-skelped arse, to the cool mirr of rain. His short, curled beard pearled with moisture.

‘No Drostan,’ Gudrod declared. ‘But at least we learned something from those monks – old Irish-Shoes is here on Mann, in Holmtun.’

‘Aye, well – the church in Holmtun was where Hoskuld said the priest lived. Olaf Cuarans will have him,’ Erling said with a certainty he did not entirely feel. ‘His hand is closer, after all – he rules here as well as Dyfflin, no matter what Hardmouth Godred MacHarald thinks.’

‘You would think that the priests of this place would know this Drostan,’ Gudrod said, baffled. ‘What news he brought – of a dead companion – is worthy of being written down by them who scratch down everything that goes on. If they did, they kept that writing hidden well – there is no mention of a monk called Drostan coming to them with news of two dead in the hills. You would also think that Godred Hardmouth would know that and tell his Chosen Men.’

Erling shrugged, having no explanation for any of it. Truth was, he had never thought to find any monk or priest and that tales of Eirik’s famous axe were just that – tales. As for searching out writings – well, none of them here could read and if the monks had admitted to it, the document they scribbled on would have to have been taken to someone who could unravel the Latin of it. He kept his lip stitched on all this, all the same, for Gudrod was Eirik’s son and the Witch-Queen his mother.

‘Olaf Cuarans is where we go next,’ Gudrod said, settling the helmet in the crook of his arm. ‘Old Irish-Shoes wants my da’s axe, that is certain and he is sleekit as a wet seal – it would not surprise me if he told no-one his plans, not even his hard-mouthed jarl here.’

Erling swallowed thickly at the idea of sailing into Holmtun proper and facing the might of the Dyfflin Norse.

‘Is that wise, lord? Orkney and Ireland have never been friends.’

‘My mother wishes it,’ Gudrod said and his tolling bell voice was as hard metal as if he still wore the helmet, ‘so we must find a way.’

‘She will have me be a king yet,’ he added bitterly and ran one hand through the iron raggles of his thinning hair. ‘Since I am the youngest.’

Erling got stiffly to his feet, saying nothing, though he knew that Gunnhild’s youngest had in fact been called Sigurd, by-named the Slaver. Klypp the Herse had killed him some time ago, after Sigurd forced himself on his wife while a guest in his hall. Gudrod was not so much Gunnhild’s youngest as the only one of her sons left alive.

This did not, he thought to himself sullenly, give him the right to put them all in danger.

‘Next time,’ he said bitterly, ‘we will take all the crew with us, I am sure.’

Gudrod only grunted, something between laughter and scorn, then jerked his fleshy chin towards Od, who was picking the congealed blood from the blade as he cleaned it, sucking his fingers now and then. He looked up and smiled blandly at Gudrod and Erling from under the dagged black curtain of his hair.

‘We have your heathen dog,’ Gurdrod said and then unlooped a small bag from his belt and grinned. Erling sighed.

‘Lord,’ he said, ‘we should be moving on. There is no time for hnefatafl.’

‘There is always time for ’tafl,’ Gudrod replied, unfolding the cloth and placing the counters. ‘Anyway, it should not take long – you are a poor player.’

Erling sighed, then turned to look at Od.

‘Do not do that,’ he said. ‘You will be sick.’

Od smiled like a summer’s day, his lips bright with blood.

‘I am never sick,’ he answered.