Prisoner of the Raven

by Kirby Crow

  "Get away from me, you pig,” he ground out. From the corner of his eye, he could see that Ranulf was deliberately not looking his way, and was instead in conversation with the yellow-haired warrior in the carved chair.

  Haakon said something to his companions—there were eight or ten of the crew of the Lymskyr clustered behind him in a knot—and the sokeman kicked Aleyn's thigh lightly with his boot, following it up with some crude insult. Ranulf turned his head and looked steadily at Haakon, though he did not move.

  Aleyn glared up at Haakon. The kick had not hurt. It was more the act itself, being spurned like a dog in front of so many witnesses when his wounded pride was already aching.

  "Go fuck yourself,” he snarled at Haakon, rising to his feet. His hands clenched into fists and he wished desperately for a weapon.

  Haakon laughed, but Aleyn saw the flash of rich pleasure in his eyes, and he sensed that Haakon had played him into a trap. Haakon hawked and spat on him, and as the gobbet of phlegm landed on his chest—on the ridiculous girl's garment—it seemed to burn there like a live coal, representing all the humiliation and fear and uncertainty he had faced since the cog ship was attacked.

  "Filthy, muck-eating dog!” Aleyn aimed a punch at Haakon's jaw. To his shock, Haakon did nothing to defend himself, and the blow landed square on his chin, knocking him back a pace.

  Every one of Aleyn's fingers sang in pain. Hitting a Viking's jaw was like striking iron! He hissed and shook his hand, sure he had broken something. Haakon was smiling at him, and from his belt he drew a long, curved knife.

  The music stopped. Someone shouted. Aleyn turned and saw that it was Gamelin with Oskell beside him. The pair was struggling toward the center of the tent, thrusting other guests aside to reach Aleyn and Ranulf. The yellow-haired old chief had not moved, but Ranulf surged to his feet, his lips drawn back in a feral snarl.

  Haakon's fist lashed out, and that was the last thing Aleyn knew as he fell back and his skull impacted with the wide foot of the carved chair. Everything went dark.

  * * * *

  "You are a Viking. You take what you are strong enough to hold. I don't matter."

  Aleyn's words played over and over in Ranulf's mind as he sat with Yric. On the outside, it looked as if he was locked in deep conversation with the respected jarl. Internally, Ranulf's mind was a muddle of tangled emotions.

  He believes I think him nothing, Ranulf thought sullenly, glancing down to see the alluring profile of Aleyn's face outlined in firelight.

  I never meant to care for him. I cautioned myself against it, like a man who takes a third or fourth cup of wine when he knows he should stop, but I was not serious and I only thought of myself and my own feelings. If I chose to indulge in love, I assumed it would be returned.

  It was not only unreturned: Aleyn despised him. That Aleyn might think of his very captivity as a brand of contempt never occurred to Ranulf. To be in bondage was the natural state of the weak, and the strong were entitled to any bounty their power brought them. As neither of these facts were in dispute (to his way of thinking), and as Aleyn was weaker than him, keeping a man he had come to care for as a bound thraell was anything but troubling. It was the way things were. Why could Aleyn not see that and open his heart to him? Why could Aleyn not see that he belonged with him, and why did he insist on playing the victim?

  Ranulf's mood for the evening had started out foul, and it had grown rapidly worse the moment Haakon entered the scarlet tent and made straight for them.

  There were words. Haakon kicked Aleyn—daring once more to touch his property—and then he spat on him. Ranulf had already stopped pretending to be locked in talk with Yric. When Aleyn punched Haakon, Ranulf got to his feet, and then Haakon drew his knife and hit Aleyn with his fist. Aleyn went tumbling back. There was a hollow thunk, and then the Irlander went very still.

  Ranulf's vision seemed to narrow down to one man, one focus of attention in the universe, and he went for Haakon's throat. Men scattered. The dancing girls screamed and fled the tent as the two warriors grappled with each other, dangerously close to the fire, their boots kicking and scattering burning coals among the rugs. Ranulf seized Haakon's knife-arm and pinned it. Haakon, younger and quicker, aimed a punch at Ranulf's eye. It landed, and Ranulf growled as his eye began to tear up and close. Haakon would not let loose his knife, and Ranulf thrust his knee into Haakon's belly and relished the gagging sounds that followed. He slammed Haakon's wrist on his knee, knocking the blade from his grasp. It fell almost into the fire, and Ranulf grabbed Haakon by the hair and delivered an uppercut punch to his jaw, spinning him to the ground.

  Ranulf stood over Haakon, breathing hard, and spat on his back as Haakon struggled to rise. The sokeman's jaw was probably broken, judging from the garbled sounds he was making.

  "I warned you, you puling, milk-sodden pup; do not touch what is mine.” Ranulf kicked him in the belly as he crouched, halfway on his feet, and the red Viking fell again.

  "And I warned him,” came a voice from behind Ranulf. “I warned him not to challenge where he is not worthy."

  Ranulf turned quickly. Oskell stood there, holding Haakon's knife. Gamelin was attending to Aleyn, trying to get him on his feet and out of the tent.

  Ranulf looked from the tip of the knife to Oskell's face, wondering what was in the huscarl's mind. For a moment, he wondered if he looked on his own death.

  Oskell spun the silvery blade in his fingers as he stepped around Ranulf to Haakon. Haakon was trying to rise. Oskell put his foot in the red Viking's back and shoved him to his belly, then knelt and straddled the Viking's back as if mounting a horse, pulled his head back by the hair, and neatly cut his throat.

  Ranulf stared as Oskell got up and calmly tossed the knife into the fire. “Why did you do that?"

  Oskell shrugged. “It was my duty to punish disloyalty to my jarl.” He looked at Ranulf sadly. “Just as this next thing I do is also my duty.” He looked past Ranulf to Yric. “Konge?"

  Ranulf turned. Gamelin had gone, and Ranulf knew a brief and joyous sense of relief that Aleyn had gone with him and was out of danger for the moment. However, Yric was regarding him with hard, calculating eyes.

  The aging jarl wrapped his cloak more tightly about him and settled back in his carved chair, which was almost a throne. He looked at the men gathered apart from Ranulf: Haakon's pack who had turned against their jarl. Yric's jaw tightened.

  "So be it,” he said, locking gazes with Ranulf. “Ranulf Eriksen, you have raided long enough. There is a land to tame here, and your wisdom is needed. Oskell is now jarl and master of the Lymskyr."

  Though Ranulf knew that Yric had been generous and had not said openly that Ranulf had foolishly lost the loyalty of his men, the words sank into him like a knife wound, cutting deep. For a moment, he wished Oskell had cut his throat instead of Haakon's. Yric was silent, giving him time to accept the verdict with dignity.

  Ranulf swallowed. He turned to Oskell, knowing that his fate lay with him now. “And what of me, Jarl Oskell?” he asked, being the first to give his old friend his title. He glanced at Haakon's corpse and lowered his voice so that only Oskell could hear. “I would appreciate a better death than that. Any death where I am holding a sword would be agreeable."

  Oskell shook his head. “My jarl,” he said reprovingly. He stepped closer to him and put his hand on his shoulder, and then embraced him gruffly. “You fool,” he whispered in his ear for him alone. “The crows have enough to eat."

  Oskell turned them both so they faced Yric. “Konge Yric, I give my lands on this island to jarl Ranulf,” he said loudly, emphasizing Ranulf's title to bring attention to the fact that Ranulf was diminished only in command, not in stature. “To protect and hold for me as reeve for the day when I leave the Lymskyr, or to be his forever if she sinks or I die in battle.” He looked from one fire-darkened face to the other in the tent, his gaze unsparing. “These are my words. If any man objects, let him come forward” he laid his hand on the hil
t of his sword “and we will discuss it in the usual manner."

  There was scattered laughter. The music started up haltingly, and Yric nodded as he accepted a cup of mead from a woman's hand. He grabbed her wrist when she would have left. “What is your name again, girl?” he asked her.

  The woman smiled winningly and slipped into Yric's lap. “Yasmina."

  "Come, brother.” Oskell's hand on Ranulf's shoulder tightened, and the jarl felt himself led away in a daze.

  When they were out of the crimson tent and into the clear night air by the shore, Oskell hawked and spat into the sand.

  "Fah!” he said, kicking up grains and pebbles with the toe of his boot. He met Ranulf's look and shrugged. “Nasty business,” he commented. They were in the shadow of the Lymskyr, and the full moon behind her made a sheer mist of her sails, which billowed in the wind like a woman's veil.

  Ranulf barely heard. He raised a hand to touch the curved hull of the longship. “So it is the straw death for me,” he said faintly. “I will die in bed of old age, addled and useless.” He shook his head. “You would have been kinder to kill me with Haakon's blade."

  "Stop speaking nonsense,” Oskell said harshly. “Battle and glory! Dead is dead. Don't waste the long life you have ahead for tales we heard as boys. We have both seen enough men die to know there is no glory in it."

  Still, Ranulf was stubborn, holding on to his sorrow. “I am no longer a Viking."

  "You were not born a Viking, either. No man is. What did you do before this?"

  Ranulf frowned. “You know what I did. Tilled dirt and grew things, like my father."

  "Who was a Viking in his time until he came home and became a Dane again to sire you.” Oskell sighed. “All things end, my lord."

  Ranulf gazed at him in surprise. “You still call me your master?"

  "You will always be my jarl."

  He means it, Ranulf realized, and he felt suddenly ashamed. I have been not been myself since the day we took the trade cog. Oh, Aleyn, you were a sorcerer after all, but it was a very common magic you put upon me, no more mystical than any man whose prick rises at the sight of a pretty rump, then wakes to find he has lost his head over what was attached to it.

  "I will make the best use of what you have given me,” he promised. There was only one matter that still worried him. “Aleyn—” he began.

  "He will heal. Just a knock on the head, I think. I swear that I will see the Irlander is put ashore near his home. Cianacht, was it? Gamelin said something like that."

  Ranulf nodded, though his heart felt like it was full of molten lead. “Yes. I promised him his freedom if he pleased me."

  Oskell cocked his head. “And did he keep his part of the bargain, your Irlander?"

  Ranulf sighed and patted the hull of the longship a last time before he turned away, leaving it, and Aleyn, behind.

  "He did."

  Chapter 5

  "Aleyn! Come back, Aleyn!"

  It was the same dream come to haunt him again. Aleyn shifted as he ran, transforming back to a younger self that raced through the trees with his friend Diarmit, running into the green woods outside the village. They played for a while, throwing dead leaves at one another and hurling taunts and insults, until they found a narrow ravine to hide in and sat on a hollow log, whispering and laughing. Diarmit, only a few years older than himself, had pushed his shoulder and laughed at him, and he had pushed back and thrown a few twigs. Diarmit, eyes alight, had leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.

  Aleyn's very heart seemed to stop. He shuddered and took a deep breath, and all around him the hushed forest seemed to glitter more brightly, as if a great secret had opened in his soul. Then Diarmit was kissing him again, arm winding around his neck to pull him closer.

  Aleyn's shoulder erupted with fire. He shouted and jerked away, scrambling back among the dead leaves, and saw his eldest uncle, Padraig, standing over them.

  Uncle Padraig carried the short, flat whip he used to hurry the cattle along with, and it was this that had cut Aleyn's shoulder. He had probably been looking for a stray calf and happened upon them here. Padraig's face was nearly purple as he lashed out at Diarmit as well.

  "Evil boys!” he raged, the whip landing among them. “Back home with you! Out! Out!"

  Diarmit grabbed his hand and they ran home, bleeding and bruised. They huddled all day in the barn, terrified of Padraig's return and the punishment that waited. But later, when they were called to supper, Padraig said nothing at all to Diarmit, only sent the boy home with the news that he had spoken to Diarmit's father. That alone made Diarmit burst into tears as he left. Aleyn was drawn aside and his uncle silently dressed the wound on his shoulder, his weathered face like iron.

  "Will scar,” he informed after he had done washing the laceration. “Your friend has a few to match.” He began to put the medicine and rags away. “It is a good thing,” he said without looking at him. “It will remind you to sin no more. Mark me well, Aleyn, if this happens again in my home, I will call you kin no more. I will see to it that you are not welcome in this village, or any place where my voice can carry. Do you hear?"

  His uncle's familiar face seemed to be that of a stranger. He did not know this man, this cold and unfeeling man who so casually threatened to cast him out of his home.

  "Yes, Uncle,” he said meekly, and went to bed. That night, he had a headache so fierce that it left him shaky and sick for days, and Padraig's fearsome wrath relented. They never spoke of the incident again, but the bright truth Aleyn had found in the green woods shriveled and curled in torment.

  * * * *

  Aleyn woke up. The white scar on his shoulder seemed to throb in time with his head, and outside the gray tent he could hear the sound of shore birds scolding. The air smelled of dawn.

  He threatened to disown me, he thought sadly. My own kin, and for nothing more than kissing Diarmit in the woods. Diarmit never looked at me after that, never spoke a civil word to me again. When they saw what I was, they hated me, Diarmit most of all, because he saw the same thing in himself.

  He swallowed past the lump in his throat, slowly comprehending that he had never dared face this before. He knew now that, for him, there would never be any true family or home so long as he kept trying to mold himself to what others expected. Aleyn was shocked to realize that the only measure of acceptance he had ever found for his strangeness was among the Vikings, with Ranulf.

  I am free with him, he thought in wonderment. He may call me his prisoner, but I have been more myself with him in the past weeks than I ever was growing up at home.

  The revelation was unwelcome, but undeniable, and he was not sure he was happy to have the truth. He sat up slowly and felt the back of his skull. There was a lump there the size of a goose egg. He winced as he felt it, and then remembered Haakon striking him, how Ranulf had surged up just before the knife appeared in Haakon's hand.

  The tent flap drew aside and Aleyn turned his head quickly, making himself dizzy as Oskell entered. The huscarl kneeled down, inspecting Aleyn with his nearly colorless eyes.

  "How long have I been asleep?” Aleyn mumbled, forgetting that Oskell could not understand.

  "You have been asleep a full night and a day, and it is morning of the second day. How do you feel?” he asked in perfectly understandable Gaelic. When Aleyn only gaped at him, he reached out and felt the lump on his head. “We were getting worried for you. Any sickness or vomiting?” He held up his hand before Aleyn's face and waved it. “Can you see my hand, or do you see more than one?"

  Aleyn grabbed his hand and pushed it away. “You speak my language,” he accused.

  Oskell shook his head, sighing. “Of course I do, fool Irlander."

  "Why didn't you say so?"

  "I am not in the habit of revealing information to captives who may well use it against me later. You should have asked Ranulf if I could speak your tongue. He would have told you."

  Aleyn sagged. “Where is he?” he asked, knowing th
e answer. Ranulf must be dead. Why else would Oskell be attending to him? He was amazed at the torrent of grief welling in him.

  He's dead, he thought. He's dead and I never told him ... I never said...

  "He is at a farm-steading some ten hills to the west,” Oskell said. “Haakon is dead and Ranulf is still a jarl, but Yric has removed him as commander of the Lymskyr. The steading is mine. I have given it to Ranulf to hold for me."

  Aleyn looked at him in stunned relief. “He's not dead?"

  "Far from it."

  "But...” Aleyn's mind was whirling. He tried to grasp at a single thought, only to have it dance away from him. “He no longer commands the ship? He will no longer raid? How could he accept that? I thought it was what all Vikings lived for."

  Oskell shook his head. “Not all Danes are Vikings, Aleyn. Vikings are raiders. It is something young men do until they are killed or they stop doing it, and before he was that, Ranulf was just a Dane with a bit of land and a lot of wives. The ship was much to him, but not all. I made him see that, and he has gone."

  "But he's alive?"

  "Yes. Very much so."

  "Oh, thank you, thank you.” Aleyn closed his eyes and sagged, whispering a prayer of thanks, then looked up when he heard Oskell chuckling.

  The huscarl's cold eyes were sparkling. “All this time, I thought you had put a spell on him. Now I see you were spelled, too. You love each other."

  It was on the tip of Aleyn's tongue to deny it, but he could not deny the vast feeling of relief that had flooded him when he knew Ranulf was not dead.

  "I do love him,” he said after a moment. Suddenly, it was as if the admission had toppled a great weight from his shoulders. The priests call this sin, he thought, but it is the answer to what I am. How can it be a sin to be true to myself? That can never be wrong.

  Aleyn shook his head. “I can't imagine why I love him. He took me prisoner..."

  "When he could have easily had you killed, or he could have sold you to the Saxons the next day or he could have just left you there to rot on that ghost of a trade ship.” Oskell regarded him with something like interest. “Our laws are not your laws, Irlander. We do not live by the same rules, and by our code what Ranulf did was not only legal, but expected. Ranulf may have done you harm in your eyes, or he may not.” He shrugged. “It all depends on how you want to see it. Do you want to hate him?"