by Robert Low
I blinked at that; the idea of Crowbone as one of the Oathsworn was one I did not wish to think about at all for the dangers in it – but there was no easy way to refuse it, especially when it became clear that I needed him.
That was after the feasting was done and the real business commenced. King Eirik promised thralls and timber and men who knew how to build, as well as fat ships to transport all of this and supplies enough to see Hestreng through the lean time of summer to the first harvest.
‘I cannot spare fighting men,’ he added, frowning, ‘nor raiding ships, for I am battle-light in both and my right arm is felled for now.’
Eye to eye and alone in his closed room in the prow of the hall, he leaned closer, blood-dyed by torch glow. His neat-trimmed beard was faded red-gold and under the hat he wore for vanity he was bald save for a fringe round his ears. His feasting horn of mead was elsewhere; now he toyed with a blue glass goblet of wine and had offered me some, but I stuck with an iron-banded horn of nutty ale. Clear heads are best when dealing with kings – besides, my head hurt enough from the scar on my forehead and my blood-clotted nose to add wine fumes to it.
‘The Greek monk, Leo, has taken Koll as hostage and sailed with Ljot Tokeson,’ he said, pinching salt on bread to rid himself of the cloy of mead in his mouth. ‘Ljot is brother to Pallig Tokeson and Styrbjorn is with them both.’
Pallig, Lord of Joms. King Eirik looked at me with rheumy eyes and saw I knew the name, then waved a hand and sighed.
‘I know, I know – Styrbjorn is a young fool and will need to be punished – but he is my nephew and still has uses. I want him returned to me.’
I did not think Styrbjorn would want to return until he was sure of mercy rather than wrath and I said so.
‘Just so,’ Eirik said, looking at me. ‘So when you go to get your fostri, you may like to carry my mercy with you and let him know of it.’
‘Jarl Brand, lord?’ I asked, as bland and polite as I could make it. King Eirik stroked the neat trim of his beard and scowled.
‘It will sit hard with him, but he has placed his hands in mine and I will pay any blood-price for his losses at the hand of Styrbjorn, who is kin, after all.’
So there it was – King Eirik wanted Styrbjorn around, for his son was a bairn and bairns are fragile wee things; Styrbjorn was the only other heir he had. It came to me that Brand might not suffer it as lightly as King Eirik thought – what was the blood-price for a dead wife and the hostaged son of someone as powerful as Jarl Brand? Not enough if it was my wife and bairn.
He saw something of that in my face and, to my surprise, laid a friendly hand on the length of my forearm.
‘You are a good man, Orm Bear Slayer,’ he said slowly, as if picking his words from a chest of coins and wanting all the whole ones. ‘You have silver-luck and fame-luck and men follow you for it, for all that your birthing was awkward. You have served me well these past years.’
He paused and I said nothing, though it smacked me like a blow, the fact that a king thought my birthing awkward; if he did, then others thought the same.
The fact of it is that, in the north, knowing who fathered a child to an unmarried woman was important enough to have its own law. According to it, the old Bogarthing Law, a woman was asked the father’s name at the point of labour and, if she stayed silent, the child was considered a thrall from birth. If she named a man, he became ‘half-father’ and had responsibilities to the child.
My mother, of course, had married Rurik while filled full with me and he had claimed fatherhood. The truth was that another, Gunnar Raudi, had been the seed of me and was thought dead. By the time he returned, I was born and my mother dead of the strain of it – so I had avoided thralldom by the merest whisper of Rurik’s breath. All of which made the awkward matter the king spoke of.
He looked at me and took a breath; I braced for more daggers to come.
‘I would not do you offence,’ he went on, ‘but for those reasons and some others you will never be more than a little jarl and, for all your women and weans and sheep and horses, never a landsman farmer.’
He stopped, studying me carefully to see my reaction and the air in the room became as still and thick as a curtain. I kept my face bland and my hands on the table where he could see them; the truth was that he had the right of it, for sure, and though the blood was in my face, I could not do anything other than admit it by a silence like the stillness of rock.
‘You follow the prow beast,’ Eirik went on, ‘taking the Aesir with you out onto the whale road. Here on the land…’
He paused again and waved his glass to encompass his kingdom, slopping wine on his knuckles. ‘Here on the land, matters are differently done. Like the Christ priests at my table.’
‘I saw them,’ I gritted out.
The king nodded, sucked wine from his hand and sighed.
‘They come from the Franks and Otto’s Saxlanders and snarl at each other,’ he said. ‘Do you know why, Jarl Orm?’
‘They like to argue about their Tortured God,’ I answered and he blinked and smiled gently.
‘Aye, just so – and not so. What think you of the Christ Jesus?’
I gave him the answer I gave all who asked me that – I have never met the man. Then I added that I would say nothing more, for it was not a good thing to malign the Tortured God in a place thick with his priests and Eirik shifted a little on his bench at that.
‘They come and snarl at each other and smile at me because there is more to this White Christ matter than worship,’ he said eventually, then leaned forward a little, as if imparting some great secret.
‘They are always the first men to come. What follows is a binding among kings. Alliances, wealth and power,’ he hissed. ‘There are Frank priests and Saxland priests and even ones from the Englisc, all looking to bring their White Christ to my lands rather than suffer someone else to bring the White Christ here. They offer much in return for a dip in water. That is kingship.’
‘They offer a white underkirtle,’ I answered flatly, ‘or so I had heard.’
Eirik’s smile was lopsided and wry. ‘Kings do a little better – though sometimes I am thinking the prizes glitter well, but are not worth all the kneeling and praying they say has to go with it.’
‘So much the better for kicking them all out and offering a sacrifice to Odin for having the clever to do it,’ I answered stubbornly, more sharply than I had intended, but Eirik simply squeezed my forearm and shook his head sorrowfully.
‘Out on the whale road that may seem clear,’ he answered and, in that moment I saw he envied the thought of that and realised the true burden of the crown he wore.
‘So – you have Christ priests looking to prise you away from the Aesir,’ I growled, irritated with the maudlin king, more so because he was right in what he said. ‘What has this to do with the matter of Styrbjorn?’
King Eirik blinked and drank some wine.
‘You are a clever man,’ he said. ‘You know it was this Leo who brought the silver that let Styrbjorn buy Pallig, Ljot and their bearcoats. You have yet to ask yourself the why of it.’
I blinked, for he had it right and I felt the blood flush to my cheeks at this, as sure a sign of being a little jarl as he had claimed. King Eirik nodded.
‘All the Christ priests here are from the West,’ he said. ‘No Greek ones, the ones who cross their chests the opposite way. Vladimir of Novgorod has no Greek ones at his court either, which makes us friends. His brothers do, which makes them my enemies.’
I saw it then, in a sudden churn of belly and mind. Vladimir of Novgorod, facing off against his brothers Oleg and Jaropolk, was for the old gods of the Slavs, though he tolerated Christ worshippers for his grandmother had been one. His brothers had priests of the Greek type swarming all over them, but Vladimir did not care for those monks much.
This was the Great City at work. Vladimir stood in the way of their turning all the Rus to the Greek Christ – and so to the will of Constanti
nople – so it would try to oust him using his brothers. King Eirik, of course, had sent warriors to help Vladimir, so the Great City would prefer it if that changed. Enter Styrbjorn.
He saw I had worked it out at last and sighed.
‘I am thinking Styrbjorn’s failure makes him useless to them now. They will try another way. I may even have to accept that monk Leo back at my court, offering me rich gifts to turn my eyes away from Vladimir. Or a secret death in my wine or food. What they cannot force they will try to buy or kill.’
I felt pity for him then, this man who would be king, who had to bend and twist himself into unnatural shapes to make his arse fit the seat of it. I drank to take the taste away, but that only made it worse.
‘Go to Pallig Tokeson, where the monk Leo has fled,’ Eirik said. ‘If Pallig sees there is no trade to be had other than my friendship for the boy’s return, he will give your fostri back,’ King Eirik said. ‘If he has any clever in him at all.’
There was much said about Pallig Tokeson but excessive clever was not part of it. He controlled Joms, which the Saxlanders called Jumne and the Wends, Wolin. There were other names for it, but the skalds – gold-fed by Pallig, no doubt – sang silly tales of the warriors of Joms, who never took a step back in battle and who all lived in a great fortress, where no women were allowed. For all that his men were no Northmen at all, but Wends, he had enough of them to be a dangerous man – and still had some bearcoats, which I mentioned.
‘Styrbjorn himself will help,’ King Eirik declared, ‘for he will want me to know how sorry he is for all that has been done and so will put himself at some risk to make Pallig see sense.’
The fact that I was putting myself at risk, of course, was neither here nor there, it seemed. I still did not think Brand would be so amiable about matters and was surer still after Finn and I went to see him, later in the night.
Brand had taken an arrow in the face, to the right of his nose and just below the eye. It had been a hunting arrow, which was wound-luck for him, for the shaft sprang free and left the head, which was not barbed. Normally, a hunter would cut the valuable arrowhead out of the animal and use it again - but now it was driven six inches deep through the cheek and into the back of Jarl Brand’s skull.
Ofegh, they called Jarl Brand. It was a good by-name for him and meant ‘one whose doom is not upon him’, though a man with four eyes would be hard put to see that in the face that turned to Finn and me. His main wife, Koll’s mother, was dead and his own life was down to a single strand of Norn-weave, it seemed to me.
In the light of a fat, guttering tallow his bone-white hair was lank and stuck to his yellowed face by sweat, but his eyes were still hot and fierce and his wrist-clasp strong. He had what seemed to be a tree growing from his face, though it turned out to be thin, stripped withies of elder, dried and stitched into silk marked with suitable runes, though they were not our own sort.
This was to widen the wound down to where the arrowhead was and, once the healer – a Khazar Jew – was certain it was deep enough, he would insert some narrow-point smithing tongs and take the thing out. Until then, there was only the great, raw-wet lipless mouth of the widened wound and endless agony, which had carved itself on Brand’s face, shaved clean for the first time I had known him.
‘Bad business,’ Brand said in a voice mushed with pain; the withies waggled as he spoke and the Khazar fussed with cleaning probes made from flax soaked in barley, honey and what looked like the pine resin tar we used on fresh ship planks. It stank.
‘Aye – it looks a sore one, right enough,’ I answered, which seemed inadequate when I could see Brand’s back teeth and his tongue waggle as he spoke. He waved one hand as if chasing a fly.
‘My son,’ he said. ‘That priest.’
‘I will get him back,’ I answered and he closed his eyes briefly, which was a nod, I worked out, the real thing being too painful for him. So was talking, but he did it.
‘The king will help. Styrbjorn.’
He meant he was owed by the king for what Styrbjorn had done. I told him what the king had said about him helping to free Koll and being brought back as if nothing had happened at all.
Jarl Brand blinked his blink.
‘Kingship,’ he mushed, which was answer enough, I now knew.
Men appeared suddenly, quiet and shuffling, bareheaded and twisting their hands – Rovald, Rorik Stari, Kaelbjorn Rog, Myrkjartan and Uddolf, with Abjorn at their head.
‘Nithings,’ Jarl Brand hissed and would have said a lot more if it had not been agony for him to speak at all. Instead, he waved a hand and sent them off, droop-headed and shamed, dismissed from his service – and into mine, of course.
‘Take care of them,’ he growled at me and twisted his face in what tried to be a smile, but failed for the pain of it. Then he flapped his hand again and a man appeared holding a sheathed sword. Brand took it and handed it to me.
‘I hear,’ he said, pain gritting his teeth between the words, ‘Randr Sterki took yours. Take this. Get your fostri back.’
Then he looked at me, pale eyes lambent with meaning.
‘Use the blade well, as I would,’ he forced out and gripped my hand like a raven’s claw.
It was his own blade and so a rich offering doubled. The hilt was worked with carved antler horn and silver, the sheath whorled and snaked with gripping beasts in fine leather. The gift-price of it did not go by me – I knew he wanted me to bury it in Styrbjorn – nor did his phrase: ‘Get your fostri back.’
Not his son. My fostri. My responsibility, my shame for losing him and my shame doubled if I did not get him back unharmed. I had known that and knew also that Brand was just cutting the runes of it clearly, like a prudent father, so I allowed no offence, bowed politely, took the sword and left, thinking to myself that it did not matter, that nothing mattered to a man as wyrded with doom as myself.
I hoped Odin might hold off enough to let me save Koll, all the same – and kill Styrbjorn, if possible. I brooded on that, sitting under the prow beast as it carved across the slate-water to the mouth of the Odra, saying nothing much and aware that folk were looking at me. I remembered, years before, we had all looked at the Oathsworn’s old leader Einar the Black in much the same way, when we were sure his doom was on him and so on all of us, too.
I spoke with Finn on it all, partly because I had to charge him with some of the task if Odin decided to take his sacrifice sooner rather than later. I wanted to mark it out clearly for him to follow – but this was Finn.
‘Get the boy back. Kill Styrbjorn. I need no tally stick for that,’ he growled.
I sighed. ‘Get the boy back, but kill Styrbjorn carefully. Remember – Jarl Brand wants him dead. King Eirik wants him alive. Both have power over the ones we leave behind us.’
Finn scrubbed his beard with frustration, but he nodded, blinking furiously. I spent the rest of the time trying not to pick the itching scar on my forehead, blow bloody snot out of my aching nose and brood on how Finn, a man who thought a quiet, subtle killing was not screaming a warcry and leaving your named sword in the corpse, would carry off the death of Styrbjorn if it fell to him. Or, for that matter, how I would.
Heading into the maw of Pallig Tokeson and his Jomsvikings did not help. The Joms borg was feted far and wide as a powerful fortress of sworn brothers, the best fighting men around, but that was all skald-puffed mummery; the reality was a moss-pointed square of timbers with a clanging alarm and a mad scramble of ragged-arsed Wends.
We backed water beyond long arrow range and waited, me standing in the beastless prow with my arms held out, until I was sure they had seen us and the peace-signs we made. Then I had the ship rowed beyond the main wharves, where Hoskuld, called Trollaskegg – Trollbeard – brought us to the beach with almost as neat a movement as Gizur or Hauk might have done.
The mar on it was a hard bang against the shingle, but Crowbone beamed, for the ship was Short Serpent and most of the sailing crew was his. They had all sworn
the Oath, of course, but I knew the braiding of us together was a loose affair so far.
‘Is it not the finest ship afloat?’ he yelled, bright with the excitement of it all and his men, used to his ways, laughed with him.
Onund Hnufa snorted.
‘You do not think so, Onund Hnufa?’ demanded Crowbone sharply – then took an involuntary step backwards as the great bear-bulk of the shipwright loomed over him, the hump on his back like a mountain. Onund did not have to use the word ‘boy’, for his whole body and voice did that for him.
‘You had this ship from Vladimir in Novgorod,’ he rumbled and Crowbone managed to squeak that he had the right of it. Onund grunted. Men paused in spilling over the side, armed and ready.
‘It was not a question,’ he went on. ‘It is an old ship, left there long ago, when Novgorod was more known as Holmgard – in my grandfather’s day, I am thinking. Maybe the crew sold it, for it was damaged and it is certain Slavs repaired it – look there. The original ribs of it are good oak, but several have been replaced and the oak is poor quality and cut too thick. Where those have been placed makes the ship less of a snake in the water, too stiff, like a wounded old bull.’
We looked; Crowbone gawped.
‘Planks were also replaced – see there?’ Onund growled. ‘The original rivet holes were burned all the same size – good work, from folk who knew and had pride in their skill – and so the rivets fit tight. The new ones were badly done and some of the holes are too big, so they leak. You need to pine resin it fresh, inside and out. Not oak resin, which will crack when the ship moves. You need to replace the oar-strap – it is loose and the steer-oar does not answer quick enough to the helmsman’s hand. That’s why we dunted the beach so hard.’
He paused. No-one spoke, but Hoskuld was nodding.
‘Anything else?’ Crowbone demanded bitterly, recovering himself.
‘Teach your crew and your helmsman better,’ Onund said and there were growls at that from the men formed up on the shingle, so he rounded on them like some angered boar and they all shrank back a little.