by Robert Low
It was a good grod, a well-raised earthwork, wooden stockade surrounding a cluster of dwellings, with a big covered watchtower over the gate. It had been built on a hill above the floodplain and the rising waters had swept round it like a moat, save for a narrow walkway of raised earth and logs, which led to the gate. The watery moat had since sunk and seeped almost back to the river, leaving bog and marsh which steamed in the sun.
The gate in the stockade was wide open and there was not a wisp of smoke. No dog barked, no horses grazed. Then the wind shifted slightly.
‘Odin’s arse,’ Finn grunted, his face squeezed up. He spat; the stink was like a slap in the face, a great hand that shoved the smell of rot down your throat.
‘A fight, perhaps,’ Styrbjorn said. ‘Randr Sterki and his men, I am thinking. The villagers have all run off, save for those he has killed.’
Styrbjorn grunted out that this was good work from only eighteen men, but most ignored him, cheered by the idea of a whole village lying open and empty and ripe as a lolling whore – perhaps Randr and his men had left some loot, too.
Then I pointed out that Randr and his men might still be there, waiting to ambush us.
‘Send Styrbjorn the Bold in,’ Abjorn declared and men laughed, which made Styrbjorn scowl and go red.
I chose Finn, Abjorn, Kaelbjorn Rog and Uddolf to go with me, leaving Alyosha to organise the others into a cautious defence; when we moved to the gates, magpies and crows rose up, one by one, flapping off and scolding us.
The place was empty, just as we had hoped. Wooden walkways led to a central raised platform of wood, with a tall pole on it, carved with four faces – their meeting place, with their god presiding over it. No Christ worshippers these. At first there were no bodies either, yet the smell of death was thick as linen as we prowled, turning in half-circles, hackles up and wary as cats. A goat skipped out of an alley and almost died under Abjorn’s frantic axe; a cow bawled plaintively from an unseen byre.
Uddolf poked a door open and then leapt back with a yelp; two dogs sidled out, whimpering, tails wagging furiously, tongues lolling from want of water – but they were full-bellied and the smell made my hair rise, made me breathe short and quick, not wanting to get the air anywhere deep in me.
I peered in, squinting through the gloom at the three bodies, black, bloated and chewed by the dogs. A man, his clothes tight against puffed flesh. A woman. A youngster, who could have been girl or boy.
After that we found others, one by one, two by two; a woman slumped against a wall, part-eaten, part-pecked. A boy whose face seemed to be peppered with scabs. A man with a bloated face that looked like oatmeal had been thrown at it and stuck. I grew afraid, then.
‘Sickness,’ Kaelbjorn Rog declared and he was right, I was sure, so I sent him back to fetch up Bjaelfi, who knew about such matters. We prowled on uneasily.
There were two handfuls of long timber houses, where kettles and cauldrons, horn spoons and looms sat, waiting for hands. There were storerooms and barns, hay in the barns and barrels of salted meat in the storehouses, while the bawling cow had teats swollen and sore, being so overdue for milking. The strange stillness became even more hackle-raising.
‘The livestock has been turned loose,’ Finn said, nodding to a brace of chewing goats. ‘So someone was alive to do that.’
Not now. We found them when we came up to a larger building, clearly a meeting hut. Here the truth unravelled itself from this sad Norn-weave.
‘Look here,’ Abjorn called and we went. A man and a woman lay at the door of the meeting hut, part-eaten but not as long-dead as the others. The woman had a wound in her chest, the man a knife in his throat and we circled, calling the tale of it as we read the signs.
‘The last ones left alive. He stabbed the woman,’ Finn declared.
‘Thrust the knife in his own throat,’ added Uddolf, pointing. ‘Missed, but bled. Did it again by putting it against his throat and falling on it, so he could not fail.’
We wore that little tragedy like a cloak as we filtered through into the meeting hut, almost having to push again the smell. Here they were, on pallets or slumped against the walls, dead, swollen, scabbed, eaten by scavengers, brought here to be more easily cared for, though there was no care that kept them from dying.
Bjaelfi came up, the fear slathered on his face. He had seen the other corpses, but he took one look at the stabbed woman’s body and turned it with his foot so that the flies rose up with the stink. One arm flopped and he pointed at the untouched, mottled flesh down her arm, where small red and white dots stared accusingly back.
‘Red Plague,’ he said and it hit us like a stone, so that we scrambled from the place. Fast as we were, the news of it was faster and, by the time we were hawking the bad air out of us, everyone knew.
Red Plague. We moved away as fast as we could, but I knew we would not outrun the red-spotted killer, that we probably carried it with us. I had expected to die for Odin, but the thought of thrashing out my life in a straw death, the sweat rolling off me in fat drops, my face pustuled and no-one wanting to be near me, was almost enough to buckle my knees.
We made camp at the top of a hill, in the shelter of some trees, where two fires were lit, smoking up from wet wood. Beyond a little way, bees muttered and bumbled, stupid with cold and spilled from their storm-cracked nest; men moved, laughing softly when one was stung, fishing out the combs of honey and pleased with this small gesture from Frey.
Warmth and sweetness went a long way to scattering the thought of Red Plague, as did Finn’s cauldron of meat and broth, eaten with bread and fine, crumbling cheese. Their bellies no longer grumbled, but it would not be long, as I said to Finn when our heads were closer together, when their mouths did it instead.
That night one of the sick died, a man called Arnkel, who had bright eyes and a snub nose and told tales almost as good as the ones Crowbone had once given us. Bjaelfi inspected him for signs of plague, but it was only the squits he had died of and he had been struggling for some time.
‘Ah, well, there’s an end to truth entire, then,’ Red Njal mourned when Bjaelfi brought the news of it to the fire in the dull damp of morning. ‘No more tales from him.’
‘Truth?’ demanded Kaelbjorn Rog, his broad face twisted with puzzlement. ‘In bairns’ tales?’
‘Aye,’ Red Njal scowled. ‘Told by those old enough to remember. Wisdom comes from withered lips, as my old granny told me.’
‘Was this just before she told you one of her tales?’ Kaelbjorn Rog persisted. ‘Made up completely, for sure.’
‘Only those written down,’ persisted Red Njal and men craned to listen, for this was almost as good entertainment as one of Arnkel’s tales.
‘You mean,’ Abjorn offered, weighing the words slowly and chewing them first to make sure the flavour was right, ‘that stories are only true if they are not written?’
Red Njal scowled. ‘If you are laughing at me, Abjorn, I will not take it kindly. Let no man glory in the greatness of his mind, but, rather, keep a watch on his wits and tongue, as my granny said.’
Abjorn held up his palms and waggled his head in denial. Finn chuckled.
‘Ask Crowbone. He is the boy for stories, after all.’
Crowbone, staring at the flames of the fire, stirred when he became aware of the eyes on him and raised his chin from where it was sunk in his white, fur-trimmed cloak.
‘When you hear something told, you can see the teller of it and pass judgement. But if you read it, you cannot tell who wrote it, and so cannot say whether it is true or not.’
Red Njal agreed with a vehement growl and Finn chuckled again, shaking his head in mock sorrow.
‘There you have it,’ he declared, ‘straight from an ill-matched brace of oxen, who cannot read anything written, not even runes – so how would they know?’
‘You do not understand,’ Red Njal huffed. ‘There is magic in such tales and if you needed the measure of it, remember Crowbone when he told them.’
Which clamped Finn’s lip shut, for he did remember, especially the one which had once snatched us from the wrath of armed men. He acknowledged it now with a bow to Crowbone and, seeing the boy only half notice it, added: ‘Perhaps the prince of storytellers will grace us with the one he is dreaming of now?’
Crowbone blinked his odd eyes back from the fire and into the faces round it.
‘It was not a tale. I was remembering the whale we found once.’
Short Serpent’s old crew stirred a little, remembering with him and, bit by bit, it was laid out…on a desolate stretch of shingle beach, pulling in for the night, they had come upon a small whale, beached and only just alive. No matter that it was another man’s land, they flensed it, cutting great cubes of fat, thick as peats, thick as turf sod. They ate like kings, bloody and greasy.
It was the dream of home, of north water and shingle and it fixed us all with its brightness. For a reason only Odin could unravel, I kept thinking of the patch of kail and cabbage at the back of Hestreng hov. Thorgunna had grown a lush crop there, using the stinking water from the boilings of bairns’ under-cloths and it had survived everything, untrampled and unburned, when Hestreng was reduced to char and smoulder.
Uddolf crashed into the shining of this, asking for men to come and howe Arnkel up. His closest oarmates went and, in the end, we all stood by the mound; as godi, I placed one of my last three armrings in it, to honour him, which went some way against the grey grief of his loss.
It was a cloak that descended on us all. Onund wept and when he was asked why, said it was for the black sand and milk sea of his home. No-one mocked him, for we were all miserable with similar longings.
Through it all, two figures caught my sight. One was Dark Eye, still and slight and staring at the dark beyond the fire while men sighed and crooned their longings out; it came to me that this was how she must feel all the time, yet bore it without a whimper.
The other was the fire-soaked carving of the Elk, proudantlered, lashed to its spear-haft. I was thinking that a prow beast was leading us still, further than ever from where we wanted to be.
In the morning, stiff and cold, men moved sullenly in our camp on the hill, hidden in trees where the mist shredded and swirled. I was gathering my sea-chest together when Styrbjorn came up, with men behind him. Everything stopped.
‘We have been talking among ourselves,’ Styrbjorn said. Finn growled and men shifted uncomfortably. I said nothing, waiting and sick, for I had been expecting this.
‘It seems to us,’ he went on, ‘that there is nothing to be gained by continuing in this way and a great deal to be lost.’
‘There is a deal to be lost, for sure,’ I answered, straightening and trying to be light and soft in my voice, for the anger trembled in me. ‘For those who break their Oath and abandon their oarmates. Believe me, Styrbjorn, I have seen it.’
The men behind him shifted slightly, remembering that they had sworn the Oath, but Styrbjorn had not. One scowler called Eid cleared his throat, almost apologetically, and said that when they had held a Thing, as was right for bondi to do when they thought I was dead, it was generally understood that whoever was chosen would lead them home.
Men hoomed and nodded; I saw no more than a handful, all from Crowbone’s old crew of Short Serpent and that, while Styrbjorn stood with his arms folded, pouting like a mating pigeon, it was to Alyosha that these men flicked their uneasy eyes.
‘Now I am returned and there is no need for such decisions,’ I said, though I knew it would not silence them.
‘If I had been chosen,’ Crowbone added defiantly, ‘we would still be after the boy.’
Eid snorted. ‘You? The only reason any of us are here at all is because Alyosha was sensibly tasked by Prince Vladimir to keep you out of trouble after he gave you the toy of a boat and men. If anyone leads here, it is Alyosha.’
Crowbone stiffened and flushed, but held himself in check, which was deep-thinking; if he started to get angry, his fragile voice would squeak like a boy. Styrbjorn, on the other hand, started turning red, though the lines round his mouth went white as he glared at Eid; he did not like this talk of Alyosha leading.
‘Prince Vladimir gave Short Serpent to ME,’ Crowbone answered his crew, sinking his chin into his chest to make his voice deeper. ‘He gave YOU to me.’
‘No-one gave me anywhere,’ growled Eid, scowling. ‘What am I – a horn spoon to be borrowed? A whetstone to be lent?’
‘A toy, perhaps,’ grunted Finn, grinning and Eid wanted to snarl at him, but was not brave enough, so he subsided like a pricked bladder, muttering.
Alyosha, markedly, stayed stone-grim and silent, with a face as blank as a fjord cliff, while Styrbjorn opened and closed his mouth, the words in him crowding like men scrambling off a burning boat, so that they blocked his throat.
‘And there is the girl,’ added a voice, just as I thought I had the grip of this thistle. Hjalti, who was named Svalr – Cold Wind – because of his miserable nature, had a bald pate with a fringe of hair which he never cut, but burned off and never got it even. He had an expression that looked as if he was always squinting into the sun and a tongue which could cut old leather.
‘The girl is another matter,’ I answered. Styrbjorn recovered himself enough to smile viciously.
‘A sweetness we have all missed,’ he replied, ‘save you, it seems.’
I shot Ospak a hard look and he had the grace to shrug and look away, acknowledging his loose tongue and what he had seen and heard by the Magyar fires.
‘Am I a chattel, then?’ said a new voice and I did not have to turn to know it; Dark Eye stepped into the centre of the maelstrom, a hare surrounded by growlers. ‘A thrall, to be passed around? A horn spoon or a whetstone, as Eid says?’
No-one spoke under the lash of those eyes and that voice. Dark Eye, wrapping her cloak around her, cocked a proud chin.
‘I have a purpose here. The Sea-Finn’s drum spoke it and those who have heard it know its truth,’ she spat, then stopped and shrugged.
‘Of course,’ she added slyly, ‘if all it takes for such hard men to seek Jarl Orm’s fostri is a sight of my arse-cheeks, I will lift my skirts and lead the way.’
There was a chuckle or two at that and Styrbjorn opened his mouth. Dark Eye whirled on him.
‘You had all best move swiftly and catch me first,’ she said loudly, ‘for Styrbjorn is skilled at stabbing from behind.’
Now there was laughter and Styrbjorn turned this way and that, scowling, but it was too late – men remembered him for the sleekit nithing he was and that he had been the cause of all this in the first place. For all that, like a dog with a stripped bone, some still thought there was enough meat to gnaw.
‘This chase is madness.’
His name was Thorbrand, I remembered, a man who knew all the games of dice and was skilled with a spear.
‘Ach, no, it is not,’ Red Njal offered cheerfully. ‘Now, mark you, mad is where you chase a band of dead-eaters, who chase a thief, who is chasing a monk, and all in the Muspell-burning wastes of Serkland. That is mad, Thorbrand.’
‘Aye, madness that is, for sure,’ agreed Thorbrand. ‘What fool did that?’
Finn grinned at him and slapped his chest. ‘Me. And Orm and Red Njal and a few others besides.’
He broke off and winked.
‘And we came away with armfuls of silver at the end of it. The best fruits hang highest, as Red Njal’s granny would no doubt have told him.’
Styrbjorn snorted.
‘That sounds like one of the tales Red Njal likes so much. Is it written down anywhere? I am sure it must be, since it smacks of a great lie.’
‘As to that,’ Finn said, moving slowly, ‘I could not say, for reading other than runes is not one of my skills. But I can hear, even with just the one ear and I am sure you just called me a great liar.’
The world went still; even the birdsong stopped. I stepped into the silence of it.
‘The
re is only one safe way to stop heading the way I am steering you,’ I rasped, feeling my bowels dissolve, ‘and that is for one of you to become jarl. And there is only one way for that to happen – what say you, Styrbjorn? You will also have to take the Oath you have so far managed to avoid.’
There was a silence, a few heartbeats, no more, where Styrbjorn licked his drying lips and fought to rise to the challenge, even though his bowels were melting faster than mine. I relied on it; I knew how Styrbjorn liked to fight and it was not from the front.
It stretched, that silence, like the linden-bast rope that had held Short Serpent to the bank and the fear-heat spurted from it like water.
Just before it broke, Kuritsa loped up and parted it with a slicing sentence.
‘Fight later – men are running for their lives and one of them is Randr Sterki.’
They were running like sheep, all in the same direction but only because they blindly followed a leader; the water sluiced from under their feet and their laden drag-poles were flung to one side.
‘They will never get away,’ Abjorn grunted, pointing. He had no need to; we could all see the horsemen, big as distant dogs now and closing.
‘They are heading right towards us,’ Red Njal said, his voice alarmed.
Of course they were – Randr Sterki was no fool and he saw high ground with trees on top, knew if he reached it the horsemen would be easier to fight if they decided to charge in and, if they balked at that, the trees would provide cover from the arrows.
‘Form up – loose and hidden,’ I ordered, peering out, searching for what I had not yet been able to see.
‘We are going to rescue Randr Sterki?’ demanded Styrbjorn incredulously. ‘After all he has put us through? Let him die out there.’
Finn spat, just missing Styrbjorn’s scuffed, water-stained boots.
‘Fud brain,’ he growled. ‘The boy is there.’
Styrbjorn, who had forgotten why we were here at all, scowled, while Alyosha and Abjorn slid away to give orders; men filtered forward into the trees, half-crouched, tightening helmet ties, settling shields.