by Robert Low
The laughter was long, though Pallig had to force his out. For all that, he peeled off an armring and tossed it regally to the young Crowbone, who caught it deftly. The skald’s head drooped like a wilting stalk, seeing his own riches melt from him.
‘Good tales, well told,’ he announced. ‘If you continue the same way, I will give you the one off my other arm.’
Crowbone laughed, then looked sideways at me a moment and I nodded.
‘I have no more tales of momentous farts,’ he said to the assembled company; a few of them groaned in mock disappointment and Crowbone held up one hand with the ring in it.
‘I could tell of Thor fishing for the World Serpent,’ he said slowly, looking pointedly at Pallig, whose back rested on that very carving. He shifted nervously and caught my eye – I hoped my old high seat dug splinters in him.
‘On the other hand,’ Crowbone went on slowly, ‘tales of strength like that are best witnessed at first hand. Happily, we have one of the Oathsworn here with such Thor strength.’
On cue, Finn stood up and spread his arms wide as if to embrace them all, turning left and right and into as many jeers as cheers – though the jeers were muted, for most had heard of Finn’s fame.
‘I am Finn Horsehead from Skane,’ he declared, jutting out his badger-beard. ‘When I fart, walls tumble. Dragons use my pizzle to perch like birds on a branch.’
I watched Pallig, saw his eyes slide to one side and jerk his chin at a thrall, who immediately got up and went outside. Now comes the hard bit, I thought.
‘So – a feat of strength, then, Finn Horsehead,’ Pallig declared, grinning in a twisted way, vicious as a rat in a barrel. ‘Arm wrestling perhaps?’
‘With you, Jarl Pallig?’ Finn asked and managed to put enough sneer in that to make Pallig flush and start half out of his seat. Then he subsided and worked a smile back to his face.
‘My champion,’ he announced and, as if magicked up, the man himself came into the hall, bringing all the heads round. Breath hung, suspended and frozen.
He was ring-coated, of course, with a helm worked in silver and he had to duck coming under the lintel. With him came a long axe, mark of a Chosen Man of the jarl’s retinue and he carried it as easily as a child does a stick.
‘Stammkel War Tooth,’ Pallig announced and the hall rang with cheers from all his oarmates. Pallig looked at the great flat, stolid face of Stammkel, framed by a wild tangle of ribbon-tied beard like flame and the fancy helmet he wore, all silver and dented iron.
‘This is Finn Horsehead of the Oathsworn,’ Pallig went on. ‘He wishes to arm wrestle you.’
Stammkel grunted and peeled off his helmet, so that a great shock of red hair sprang up like a bush. Finn regarded him up and down, then turned back to Pallig.
‘Some mistake, surely,’ he said. ‘Is the father not available?’
The hall liked that and showed it with catcalls and table thumping. Stammkel may have glowered and narrowed his eyes, but it was hard to tell in that face. His voice was clear enough, all the same.
‘Arm wrestling is hardly a fair contest with this one,’ he rumbled, then stared straight at Finn out of the red tangle of his face. ‘I would kiss one of Odin’s Daughters with him, but I fancy he would be afraid of her lip.’
I felt my bowels drop, for this had not been the plan; Finn did not so much as blink. Into the silence that followed came the sound of Pallig clearing his throat.
‘So be it,’ he said – then I forced myself to stand, for it was always best to keep moving forward, even if your plan was askew. Pallig looked at me in some confusion.
‘A wager,’ I said lightly, ‘to make matters more entertaining.’
The hall growled and hoomed and thumped tables in agreement, so that Pallig had to agree, though he did not like it much, beginning to see a trap and not yet sure where to put his feet to avoid it. Too late, I was thinking – and sprang it.
‘Him,’ I said, pointing to Styrbjorn, ‘when Finn wins.’
Pallig, too late to back out of it, looked from the sullen youth to me and back again. Then he stared at Stammkel, the great long axe clutched like a honeycomb in a bear’s paw. Finally, he smiled and settled back in my old high seat.
‘What will be my reward, then, when your man loses?’ he demanded and I tried not to hesitate, or draw in a breath as I laid a hand on the jarl torc round my neck. Scarred, notched, it was a mere twelve ounces of braided silver – burned silver, which meant that it had been skimmed of impurities when molten – yet it was the mark of a jarl and, moreover, of Jarl Orm of the Oathsworn. A prize I knew Pallig could not resist; I was right, for he licked his lips and demanded that they bring Odin’s Daughter into the hall.
A Chosen Man carried it in, after a moment or two of delay which, I worked out, was involved in blowing the dust and cobwebs off her for she had not been used in a time and the reason for that sat in a brown robe, scowling disapproval from under his tonsure.
The Chosen Man laid her on a bench; folk drew back in a ring and Odin’s Daughter lay there, smiling, gleaming, naked and ornate.
It was a blot axe, a great heavy single-bit, worked with intricate knot-patterns, skeined with silver and gold. Such axes are never used for fighting – they are over heavy and ornamented for that work – only in sacrifices to Odin, hence the name. You can put such an axe head on any shaft you prefer and most are the length of a man’s arm from fingertip to elbow, easy for a godi to handle without making a mess of the work.
Odin’s Daughters, they call them, only half in jest, for Odin’s daughters are the Valkyrii, which translates as Choosers of the Slain and so also were these axes, some of them named. This had no name, but was a slender and tall daughter of Odin lying on the table for all that. Four times the length of a man’s arm from fingertip to elbow and thick as a boy’s wrist, this long axe was seldom used for sacrifice work in these Christ days, but was still the mark of the Jomsviking jarls and carried by a Chosen Man, to be raised aloft in the heat and dust of battle to show that the jarl still stood fast. There was only one other more powerful than this and that had belonged to Eirik Bloodaxe of Jorvik – but that was lost when he went under treacherous enemy blades.
Pallig wobbled out of his chair, holding up a length of red silk ribbon for everyone to see, then fastened it round the rune-skeined shaft, a forearm’s length from the bottom. He stood back and raised his arms.
‘Who wishes the first kiss?’ he demanded and Finn, rolling his neck and shoulders, looked at the impassive Stammkel, grunted and moved forward to take up the smooth, polished ash length in both hands.
Men drew further back as Finn then stepped up onto a bench and moved to the end of the table. It shifted slightly and Crowbone, being nearest, leaned forward on the other end, to keep it from tilting – a brave move, since it put him danger-close to the affair. Everyone else, I saw, had drawn far back and Pallig had moved swiftly back to the high seat.
Perched on the edge of the table like a bird – to add balance to strength and prevent any excessive bending to compensate for lack of wrist power – Finn took a breath or two and hefted the axe to feel the weight of it. I caught his eye, then, across the heads and down the length of the table and he flicked a grin through the great beard of his face.
He took the shaft, just below where the ribbon was tied and raised it in both hands, arms outstretched and locked at the elbow. Then he raised it higher and began tilting it down to his upturned face, blade first, until, with hardly a tremor at all, the power of his wrists lowered the razor edge of it to his lips.
There were a few cheers as he did so, then he leaped off the table and offered the shaft to Stammkel. He took it, climbed onto the creaking table and did the same; men roared and thumped on wood as Pallig stepped forward and, careful to let everyone see, lowered the ribbon by a hand-span.
That is kissing Odin’s Daughter. Each time the ribbon creeps to the end of the shaft, the axehead grows heavier and harder to control. Drunks or fools do th
is at feasts with ordinary long axes and rarely come out of it without scars, or bits of nose and lip missing.
The silence grew with each soft slither of the ribbon down the shaft until, at last, there was no room to grip with both hands and everyone held their breath, for this was where it started to get interesting and desperate. I was sweating, now, for I had seen Stammkel at work and he and Finn were like a pair of plough oxen, perfectly matched and moving in step. I was no longer as sure as I had been when we had made this plan based on Finn’s arm-wrestling skills.
Finn took the axe in his right hand and, with a look left and right at the pale, upturned faces gleaming in the red-dyed dark, he raised the one arm and slowly, slowly, tilted the axe head down. Sweat gleamed on his forehead, I saw – but the blade touched his lips, no more. There were no cheers, simply the exhaling of held breath, like a wind through trees.
Stammkel stepped up, hefted the axe and the flame-beard of him split in a grin that curdled the bowels in me. I knew he would do it and with ease – the great roar that went up when he did made the rafters shake and I saw Pallig settle back in my high seat, stroking his thin beard and smiling.
The way it worked now, of course, was that the pair kept doing it until exhaustion set in and a wrist failed. Finn had other ideas and he winked at me, that old Botolf wink that dried all the spit in my mouth.
Then he climbed on to the table and took Odin’s Daughter in his hand. His left hand; folk made soft mutterings, like moths searching in the dark. A fighting man was almost always right-handed and that was his strong hand – Finn had raised the stakes.
He lifted the long shaft until the pitfire gleam slid carefully along the winking edge of it, then slowly lowered it to his face, turned like a petal to rain, like a child to a mother. I saw it waver, just once and had to clench hard to keep my bladder in check. Then he kissed it – a harder kiss than before, perhaps, but not hard enough to draw blood.
There were a few cheers at this, for even Pallig’s men knew skill and strength when they saw it and Finn dropped to the beaten-earth floor of the hall and offered the axe back to Stammkel, his face impassive as a wrecking reef.
The big warrior took it, scowling – was that uncertainty in his eye? I grasped at that straw as I watched him climb on to the table edge and take the axe in his left hand. He hefted it for a moment or two and frowned – my heart gave a great leap at that. He was unsure; he did not have the strength of wrist in his left!
Finn thought so and grinned up at him, trying to add to the pressure. Hesitant, uneasy, Stammkel raised the axe high – and it wavered. Folk who saw it groaned and Finn’s grin widened, so that Stammkel saw it.
Then, to my horror, the red beard opened in a laugh. Stammkel raised the axe higher still, tilted it and brought it smoothly down, kissed it lingering and gentle, then straightened and lowered it to the floor.
‘You should know, wee man,’ he said to Finn, ‘that I fight with two bearded axes, one in either hand, for the fun in it.’
The roars and howls and thumping took a long time to subside, by which time I was slumped like an empty winebag; I saw Pallig look at me and the triumph was greasy on his face.
I saw Finn’s face, too and was more afraid of that, for it had turned granite hard, with all the laughing in it that a cliff has. He took the axe from Stammkel and paused. Then he swept up the other one, Stammkel’s own long-axe, and leaped onto the table end.
My heart was hammering so hard I was sure those nearest could hear it. Finn stretched his arms out, an axe in both hands – and one heavier than the other, which made matters nigh impossible, I was thinking – then looked down at Stammkel, whose face showed only mild interest and appreciation.
‘A good kiss needs two lips,’ he said and raised the axes high.
I hoped the skald was watching, for if anything the Oathsworn ever did deserved a good saga-tale then Finn’s kissing of both Daughters at once was one. He brought them down and I had to grind my teeth to keep from crying out when the left one – Stammkel’s own axe – wavered left and right. Then it settled and both Odin’s Daughters, delicate as maidens should be, kissed Finn’s lips.
Now there was uproar. I found myself bawling out myself, all dignity lost as Finn dropped lightly to the floor and grounded the butts of both axes.
Stammkel – give that warrior his due – nodded once or twice as the uproar subsided, for folk knew legend-making when they witnessed it and none wanted to miss the word-play in it.
‘You kiss well,’ Stammkel said, ‘for a boy. Here – let me show you how such matters are done when a man is involved.’
He was bordering on arrogance, so much so that I fretted. He could not match this, surely? No sane man would try.
Yet I knew, from the moment he measured the different weights with little bounces of his wrists, that he would do it. The cold stone of that settled like ballast in my belly – where did we go from here?
Crowbone knew it, too. I only realised that when I saw his blond head come up as Stammkel raised the axes high and the hall began to ring with the rhythmic thumping of fist and ale cup to the sound of his soft-shouted name – Stammkel, Stamm-kel, Stamm-kel.
It was at the point where he started to shift the axes to his face that Crowbone sat up a little straighter – no more than that, as if to see better, as if craning in a boy’s eagerness to witness this supreme feat of strength and skill.
The weight came off the table and it trembled a little, dipped slightly under Stammkel’s bulk. Stammkel wobbled. The right-hand axe, the true Odin’s Daughter, wavered. He almost recovered it, but it was lost – the harsh, unforgiving, ornate weight dragged it down and, with a sharp cry, Stammkel jerked his head to one side and sprang down in a clatter of falling axes. Blood showed on his face.
Finn was at his side in a blink, looked, raised a hand and smeared the blood from the man’s stricken cheek. Then he grinned and clapped Stammkel on the shoulder.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘A nice cheek scar. A name-wound, that.’
Stammkel looked at Pallig’s thunderous scowl. Then he looked across at Crowbone and my heart fluttered like a mad, trapped bird. Finally, he looked into Finn’s beaming face and I waited for the accusations, the fury, the blood that would flow. I groaned – this was not how it was supposed to be.
Instead, to my shock, I saw Stammkel nod once or twice, as if settling something to himself.
‘Next time, Finn Horsehead,’ he said and I saw Finn’s eyes narrow – then realised he had not seen what Crowbone had done, saw also that Stammkel knew this, too.
I wiped it from me as I stepped forward and looked hard at Pallig, then at the hunched figure of Styrbjorn, blinking stupidly.
‘Mine,’ I said and waved the youth to my side. He came, rat-swift and too stunned to even offer pretence of dignity.
‘Good contest,’ I said to Stammkel and dared not look him in the eye – but Crowbone, the cursed little monster, smiled so sweetly at him I felt I had to bundle him away before even Stammkel cracked.
Outside, in the cool of a night-wind washed with the promise of rain and the smell of wrack and salt, we moved steadily away from the hall, down towards the shore and the rest of the crew. My back creeped; I could hear the mutterings and feel the heat of hate on it from the hall we left, but I would not turn round to see.
‘That went well,’ Crowbone offered, his voice moon-bright in the dim.
‘Shut your hole,’ I growled at him, which brought me a puzzled look from Finn, but he was too occupied in carrying the torch that lit our way and herding the stumbling Styrbjorn, who had recovered himself a little and was beginning to make whining noises about his treatment and who he was.
‘Did you think simply to leave here?’
The voice was a thin sliver out of the dark and we came to a halt at the sound of it. Then Ljot loomed and, behind him, a handful of figures, dark with ringmail and intent. One, I recognised with sag of my knees, was the last bearcoat.
‘I have im
posed on your hospitality too much,’ I managed and Ljot’s smile was a stain on his face.
‘I was told not to allow you to go upriver,’ he went on gently and the soft snake-hiss of his sword coming out of the sheath was sibilant in the shadows. ‘Now I will also relieve you of the burden of Styrbjorn. I am surprised that you thought you could get away so easily, Orm of the Oathsworn. There is too much arrogance in that.’
I nodded to Finn, who raised the torch even higher, as if to see better.
‘Not arrogance,’ I answered into the planes and shadows of his flickering face and jerked my chin. ‘Planning.’
The shink-shink sound of ringmail made him half-whirl, then back to me.
‘Is that an escort you are having there, Jarl Orm?’ called a familiar voice. ‘Or do we have to axe off their heads and piss down their necks?’
I looked at Ljot, his lip-licking face pale under the ornate helm and horsehair plume.
‘Your choice,’ I said easily. ‘What answer do I give Ospak and the rest of the Oathsworn?’
I was so sure of Ljot I was already starting to move round him, sure that he did not have the balls to do this. Bearcoats, though – you should never depend on those mouth-frothers for anything sane.
This one had a head full of fire and howling wolves, for he brought them all out in a hoiking mourn of sound that made me jerk back. Then he flew at the pack of us.
Out of the side of one eye I spotted Finn, hauling his Roman nail from his boot with a wide-mouthed snarling curse while, beyond him, Styrbjorn dived for the shadows and rolled away. Out of the other, I saw Crowbone leaping sideways, fumbling for the only weapon he had, an eating knife.
Ahead, though, was only the great descending darkness of the bulked bearcoat, rank with the stink of sweat and ale and badly-cured wolfpelt. Too slow to move, or reach for the eating knife at my belt, I was caught by him, but his wolf-mad eagerness undid him, for he crashed into me, too close to swing the great notched blade he had.
I clutched at him and we went over, crashing to the ground hard enough to make us both grunt and to drive the wind from me. He scrabbled like a mad beast to get away and stand, find room to start swinging, but I was remembering the fight between Hring and the berserker Pinleg, when the latter had gone frothing mad and chopped the luckless Hring into bloody pats; I clung to this bearcoat’s skin like a sliding cat on a tree trunk.