by Robert Low
He roared and beat me with the pommel end, each blow wild, so that I felt the crash of it on my shoulder, then one that rang stars into me and scraped the skin down my face. I tasted blood and knew the end was on me, for I could not hang on any longer.
Light burst in me at the next blow and my head seemed far away and filled with fire and ice. Then something rose up from the depths, a dark and cold and slimed something; for all I knew it well, Brother John’s dark Abyss, I opened myself like lovers’ legs to it, licked the fear and fire of it. Polite, that feral snarl of a place, it asked me at the last, winking on the brim of dark madness.
‘Yes,’ I heard myself say and opened my eyes to where the pallid pulse of the bearcoat’s throbbing throat nestled against my chin. I felt the harsh kiss of his beard on my lips.
Then I opened my mouth and savaged him.
They peeled me from the dead man not long after, but I knew nothing of it. Ljot was dead, with Finn’s Roman nail in his eye and the rest of his men were slashed bloody and pillaged swiftly, for the uproar had caused the rest of the hall to spill out like disturbed bees.
It was the sight of me chewing the throat out of a berserker that had done it, Finn claimed later to the awe-struck Oathsworn. Ljot and his men had hesitated on the spot at seeing that, so killing them had been simple. Then we had all run for the ship and the river, Styrbjorn included.
I knew nothing of it for a long time, only that my body ached and my head thundered and I felt sick and slathered inside. I had felt the toad-lick of the berserk once before, when I had fought Gudlief’s son after he had killed Rurik at Sarkel; I had lost the fingers off my left hand without even knowing it.
At least then I had fought decently with sword and shield and put the madness of it down to excessive grief, for I had thought Rurik my father until he told me the truth two heartbeats before he went to Valholl.
This time, though, there had only been the dark madness and the small-bird pulse of his throat, the taste of his blood in my mouth and the flood of his fear when he knew he would die.
I had enjoyed it.
ELEVEN
Perched as high as he could get, arms wrapped lovingly round the prow beast, Red Njal peered out ahead, looking for the ripple of water that told of hidden snags. He did not try and speak, for the wind took words and shredded them, as it flattened his clothes to his ribs and whipped his hair and beard, so that it looked as if it grew out of one side of his head only.
The oars bowed, the crew grunted with effort, eyes fixed on the stroke men – no-one beat time, like they did on Arab and Greek ships; what would be the point in sneaking up on a strandhogg raid while hammering a drum?
We were not silent, all the same. Short Serpent crabbed, rattling and creaking, up the wide river, which was stippled by that chill lout of a wind, bulling over the floodplain like a rutting elk, sweeping and swirling down the river, crashing through the fringing of trees on both banks.
I stood on the mastfish and smiled and grinned at the rowers, who had stowed their ringmail; half of them were naked to the waist and sweating hard despite that wind and because of it, too – it circled and beat sometimes on the steerboard, sometimes running into the teeth of the prow beast. The wind and the current meant hard work at the oars.
‘We should lay up and wait for the wind to change,’ Crowbone said in his cracked bell of a voice, hunched into his white cloak. I had no doubt that was what he would have done and had the men thank him for it and toast his name in the ale he would no doubt have broken out. Truth was, I would have done it myself if he had not mentioned it, but now he had and so I ignored it – and that made me irritated at myself.
‘We stop when I say,’ I answered shortly and, after a pause, the white-swathed figure stumbled to where he could sit and brood. I glanced at him briefly as he went and caught the eye of Alyosha, watching as always; he irritated me also.
‘Something to say, Alyosha?’
He raised his hands in mock surrender and grinned.
‘Not me,’ he said. ‘I am charged by Prince Vladimir to watch the little man and see he comes to no harm. There is no part in that which tells me to interfere when he is being taught the ways of the real world. He took the Oath like everyone else, save me and Styrbjorn, and now he must settle with it.’
I eased a little, half-ashamed at myself for being twitched as a flea-bitten dog. Crowbone had held to his promise at King Eirik’s feast and the whole crew with him, not a few bewildered to be taking such a binding Oath, but all of them awed by the fact that, having done so, they were now part of the fame that was the Oathsworn.
As godi, I did what was expected with an expensive ram and the whole business was done properly and drenched in blood – much to the annoyance of the competing Christ priests and King Eirik’s embarrassment at having such a ritual done in front of them.
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.
Simple enough for a mouse-brain to remember and harder to break than any chains, even the one that bound Loki’s cursed son, the devouring wolf Fenrir. Yet two handfuls of Odin oath-words were stronger.
At the time, Finn growled and grumbled at the business, certain that Crowbone would get someone from his crew to challenge me for jarlship of the Oathsworn and try to take over. He and Hlenni Brimill, Red Njal and others started taking bets on who it would be, the favourites being Alyosha and the half-sized, black-haired Yan, by-named Alf because, it was said, he was so fast in his movements that you only ever saw him flicker out of the corner of your eye, like one of the alfir.
Yet, that day, the day I thrust the challenge into all their faces, the memory of my mouth clotted with the throat of a berserker was still young and no-one had stepped forward; now the bets were all off.
Alyosha had told me straight away that he would not take the Oath, for he was service-bound to Vladimir and, besides, his gods were proper Slav ones. Yet he would come with us, for he was charged with looking after Crowbone – and, truth was, half the crew who sailed with Crowbone only did so because they knew Alyosha guided Crowbone.
Crowbone’s men were all free Svears who had fought for King Eirik until released to find blade work with Vladimir. They had followed Crowbone for the plunder in it – and because Alyosha was there to make the sensible decisions – and thought there would be buckets of silver now that they were in the famed Oathsworn of Orm Bear Slayer.
Styrbjorn, of course, had not been given the offer to take the Oath – and was now dragged along with us whether he liked it or not; it was clear he did not like it at all.
‘You can stay in Joms,’ I had said to his scowl, ‘but Pallig may not be as friendly as before and may work out that keeping you as a hostage is a waste of food and ale; Eirik might be daft enough to pay to have you back, but Pallig may not have the patience for it. You are safer with us – unless, of course, you trip over that petted lip and fall in the water.’
Finn, of course, had not been able to suppress a look and laugh at that, for he knew the truth of why we had rescued Styrbjorn and only wondered why the youth was still alive at all. So, I suspected, did Styrbjorn – and the truth of it was that the bearcoat’s throat was still so uppermost in my mind that it stole any stomach I had for red-murdering the boy.
He came with us all the same, wary as a wet cat and dragging his heels, a hand on the hilt of his eating knife – Eirik had sent him a fine sword, as proof of his forgiveness, but I had it snugged up in secret – and nursing all his grievances to him until he could pay everyone back.
I was thinking he would run for it first chance he got and was in two minds whether to let him or not, for if some skin-wearing tribesman killed him along the Odra, I could hold up my hands to the king and honestly say it was no fault of mine.
It was clear now that any who had designs on jarl matters were still stunned by what I had done and, taken with a
ll the other legends that swirled round me, were too afraid to speak up – even Crowbone, who might have tried it, for all his size and lack of years.
The truth of it all was clear to me and worse, of course, than Finn thought. Crowbone did not need to challenge me for the jarl torc. He knew the Oath bound us all, as it said, one to another; if it meant he had to sulk in the stern now and behave himself, one day he would call on us and we would be reeled in like fish in the net of that Oath, to go and help win him a throne in Norway. That I had stuck myself in that net was what irritated me, for I needed Crowbone’s ship and his crew.
All day we rowed and I took my turn at the oar like everyone else, so that I ached by the end of the day, a hot bar from shoulder to shoulder and my arse rubbed raw on my own sea-chest. Yan Alf saw it when I squatted over the lee side for relief and laughed.
‘Orm is truly a great jarl,’ he yelled. ‘Look – he even prepared for a coming fog by making a beacon.’
They hooted and slapped thighs at the sight of my arse which, if it glowed like it felt, was indeed a fair light in a mist.
‘I went into a red forest,’ Bjaelfi intoned, waving a wax-sealed little pot. ‘In the red forest was a red house and in the house was a red table, and on the table was a red knife. Take the red knife and cut red bread.’
But I refused Bjaelfi’s potent charm against the rash on my cheeks, since it was accompanied by an offer to smear salve on the affected part. The men, enjoying the sight of their jarl so put out, hooted and guffawed and slapped themselves and each other, which was, I knew, as good a way as any of braiding them together. Unlike them, though, I could not put the bearcoat’s throat behind me.
I caught sight of Crowbone watching me, appraising and not the least put out. Another lesson learned for him, I thought, for I was no more than one of the spears he practised with each time we made landfall, throwing them with either hand and getting better all the while.
At night we lit fires and ate horse beans and bread, the bought stuff first before it got too moulded. After a week of this there were moans, which did not surprise me. Those with the skill wanted to hunt, Kuritsa among them.
‘If I eat any more horse beans,’ he grumbled, ‘I will blow the boat up the mountains to where this river begins.’
I said anyone who fancied it could hunt and saw the delighted looks among those who saw a way out of rowing; folk were even doing it in their sleep and elbowing their neighbours on the cramped boat.
Then I reminded everyone of the Redars and Czrezpienians, the Wengrians, Glomacze, Milczians and Sorbs, all of whom would be pleased to find Northlanders hunting their lands and would surely offer proper hospitality.
‘With a stake up the arse,’ Finn added and Red Njal flung back his head and laughed, the cords of his neck standing out.
‘Gefender heilir,’ he intoned a moment later, ‘gestr er inn kominn. Greetings to the host, a guest is come.’
‘Hvar skal sitja sja? Mjok er bradr, sa er brondum skal, sins um freista framr – Where must this one sit? He is very impatient, the one who must sit on the firewood to test his luck,’ Styrbjorn finished and those who knew the old Sayings Of Odin howled with laughter at their own cleverness.
That was the night I tried to talk sensibly with the Mazur girl. She was sitting, quiet as a hare and her eyes, those dark, seal eyes, were never still. They looked large and brimmed with fluid in her thin face, too big for it, too big for the small shoulders over which she had drawn a cloak given to her by Queen Sigrith, too large certainly for the legs that came out of the oatmeal-coloured shift and ended in small, clumpy turn-shoes, another gift.
For all that, the great hairy Svears and Irishers raised their brows and rolled their eyes at her, watching her when they could while she stared at nothing, like a little carving of wood. At night, I had men I could trust guard her, Finnlaith and Ospak usually; she was young and small but these were vik men and if some had not humped a dying woman on a dead ox it was only from lack of opportunity. They would hump a knothole if the mood took them.
I sat beside her and smiled. Her eyes flicked to my face and she said nothing; I saw the heads of the rowers we sat behind twisting themselves off to try and see what the jarl was up to.
They knew the girl was no thrall, was highly prized and that I had told them all to keep away, no talking to her, no hands on her or, by the Hammer, I would tie those who did to a tree with their pricks hanging and leave them for the Sorb women.
‘I hope you have some comfort and are not afraid,’ I said slowly, knowing her Norse was poor; I could speak neither Wend, nor Polanian, which she might know and certainly not Mazur. ‘You are worried about why I have brought you, no?’
‘No.’
The reply was flat and soft, surprising enough to make me blink, but her face did not change and the eyes, those eyes, were deep as a fjord. I felt there was some old wisdom gliding in the dark water of them; for a stabbing moment I was reminded of Hild, the mad woman who led us all to Attila’s hoard and, at the same time, caught sight of Crowbone, a shadowed shape looking at me, though his face was all darkness and I could not see his eyes.
Something about that disturbed me – but, then, I was all disturbance, like a cat in a high wind, fur-ruffled this way and that and made uneasy and twitched. Having your doom laid on you will do that. Ripping the throat from a man with your teeth will do that.
‘You are not worried?’ I managed and she shook her head.
‘No. You brought me because the flatfaced one with the drum told you to. You brought me because the Polanians will want me and you might have to bargain with them. It is dangerous; they will certainly try and take me by force when they find out.’
She had not missed the mark of it, right enough and spoke it in a detached way, as though it concerned someone else. The other fact of it was that, no matter what, she would not get back to her people, far to the east of the Polanians. Yet I was sure she clutched the hope of that tight to her.
She looked at me with her wood-carved look, then dropped those swimming eyes, saying nothing more.
‘Well,’ I said, though it was like pushing boulders uphill, ‘you have listened and watched, I am thinking. Now I need you to talk.’
I needed her to tell me of the river, for we had no guide. I needed to know where it narrowed, or shallowed, what settlements of size were on it and whether they could be trusted and where the Saxlander and Wend forts were. Further up still, I needed to know of the Polanians and what lay even beyond them, up to where the river stopped being navigable by a boat such as Short Serpent.
‘The river runs for days,’ she answered, ‘it runs for weeks. Forever. Here, where it is wide and slow are Wends, on both sides, but they do not live near the river unless there is high ground. They keep sheep and cattle and do not farm much, because the river floods.’
She paused and her mouth twisted.
‘They are sheep and cattle themselves, who do not fight.’
That was good to know, but beyond it Dark Eye was not much use. There was a Wendish settlement called Sztetëno further up, where two rivers met and made almost a lake, with islands in the middle. Saxlanders were there, too.
Beyond that – and by the time you could just shoot an arrow from a good bow to reach the far bank – there would be thicker woods and higher ground on either side. The river shallowed once that she could remember, at a place the Slavs called Sliwitz and the Saxlanders Vrankeforde – Free Ford – and there they had built a big log fort.
There were fur and amber traders there, she remembered, but mostly slavers, for both the Wends and the Polanians raided each other and sold the captives as slaves. Beyond that, further into the mountains, was a place called Wrotizlawa but Dark Eye had never been there. The only settlement either of us knew north of that was the end of the Amber Road, Ostrawa.
‘I was young when they took me down this river,’ she added defiantly, seeing my look of disappointment and I nodded and acknowledged it with a rueful smile
.
‘This ford – is it passable upriver by boats?’
She frowned. ‘The riverboats are hauled over it by long lines from the bank, but they take everything out to make them lighter. It is hard work and they can do it only because the boats are made from a single trunk. It is stony beneath the water, which comes up over the hub of a cart wheel. Another river comes to it here and there are islands in the middle, where it joins the Odra.’
If we took the steerboard up, Onund said later when I mentioned it, we could also haul Short Serpent over it, though there was a chance we would break its back and the keel would take bad damage.
‘Since we are not bringing it back on to a real sea,’ he added, with a sideways look at me, ‘that does not make much difference.’
I had not mentioned such a matter, of course, but should have known Onund would have spotted it. We would never get Short Serpent all the way upriver and I was prepared to follow this Leo through the Bulgar lands to the Great City if he took Koll there. I said as much and Onund nodded, with no sign of remorse for all his wood-skill.
‘Why all this, then?’ I added, nodding at the half-carved elk-head prow.
‘If we burn this ship,’ he rumbled, ‘I thought to burn her as the Fjord Elk. It is fitting – besides, I am trying to have the fame of being the shipbuilder who has lost more vessels of that name than any other.’
We laughed, though grimly; the tally of lost Elks was growing fearsome. I told him not to say anything to Crowbone and he grunted. That boy, however, had other matters on his mind and came up to me to air them.
‘She will run,’ he said, perched at my elbow like a white squirrel. ‘The first chance she can take.’