Winter's Fire: (The Rise of Sigurd 2)

by Giles Kristian

  ‘When I do it, lord king,’ Fionn interrupted. The stoaty little shit.

  ‘How much will it cost me?’ Gorm asked, not that he cared. He drank, feeling the ale course down his throat to bloom hot in his empty belly. He had not eaten yet today with his guts being sour. Gods, what a feast he would give when Harald’s runt was dead. When that thorn was out of his flesh.

  ‘Looking at that torc at your neck,’ Fionn said, ‘I think I will have the same weight in silver.’

  Gorm touched the twisted rope of gold at his neck. Thick as his forefinger, it was the kind of neck ring which skalds put in their songs of the ancient heroes, its dragon-head terminals facing each other across the hollow between his collar bones.

  ‘That is a lot of silver,’ Gorm said.

  ‘You will give me silver for my journey, and food. I will keep Haraldarson’s sword and any silver I find on him. Same goes for any of the others if it turns out I have to kill them too.’

  Gorm kept his face smooth as a sleeping sea. He would have given this stranger Storm-Bison, his favourite ship, in return for Haraldarson’s head on a spear. He nodded at the cup in Fionn’s hand. ‘I’ll fill that with hacksilver if you open Moldof’s belly too,’ he said. ‘If it turns out that he is now Haraldarson’s man.’

  Fionn shook his head. ‘I would be doing that one-armed fool a favour and will kill him for nothing,’ he said.

  Gorm studied him. What did he have to lose by sending him after Haraldarson? Nothing so long as he kept it to himself, in case the man made a mess of it and it reflected badly on him.

  ‘Tell no one,’ he said, tilting his cup at the Alba man. ‘As far as anyone else is concerned, you have moved on.’

  Fionn nodded. ‘I do not hunger to live for ever in some fireside saga,’ he said. ‘Nor do I need Haraldarson’s friends coming after me. No one will know it was me.’

  ‘Good,’ Gorm said, frowning as his guts bubbled and he felt the pressure of their foul contents as a dull ache; for a terrifying moment he feared he might shit himself in front of this man. ‘Now leave me,’ he said. ‘And do not return here until it is done.’

  Fionn nodded again, downing the rest of his ale in one go before putting the empty cup on the end of the long table and preparing to leave.

  ‘Wait,’ Gorm said and Fionn turned back to face him. ‘What happened to this king in Alba? You killed him?’

  ‘Yes,’ Fionn said.

  ‘And his wife whose belly was full of child?’

  ‘Her too,’ the man said.

  Gorm nodded. Fionn turned and walked away and Gorm watched him go, feeling the rush of cold air sweep into the hall as the Alba man opened the door and went out into the day.

  Gorm grunted at his clenching guts, finished his ale, then hurried off to the latrine pit, imagining the relief he would feel when Harald’s son was no longer in the world.

  ‘We have the sea to ourselves and can there be a better feeling than that?’ Solmund asked, gripping the loom of the tiller like the hand of a lover. His eyes, like Sigurd’s own, were watery in the frigid air and his nose was red as a rowan berry. ‘This is better than being stoppered up in Burner’s old hall like stale beer in a flask, hey!’ A drop quivered at the end of the helmsman’s nose and his bones must have been as cold as icicles for he did not have much flesh over them these days, but rarely had Sigurd seen him so happy.

  ‘It’s colder than Hel’s arse cheeks,’ Olaf said, clapping his hands as he stepped up to join them on the steering platform and watched the ragged coast slip by Reinen’s steerboard side. ‘There’s a reason crews don’t go raiding in winter. Why we trade the sea-road for the roaring hearth.’

  ‘Now who is the skald?’ Hagal Crow-Song said through a grin.

  ‘It doesn’t take much to be a better skald than you, Crow-Song,’ Olaf replied, and Sigurd felt the cold air on his own teeth as Hagal muttered curses into his beard.

  In truth Olaf too was happy to be at sea again, even in this biting cold and with barely a fart’s worth of wind playing on Reinen’s sail to push them south into the Bjørnafjord. It was better than waiting for your enemies to turn up, like a shipwrecked man treading water before inevitably sinking to the sea bed, as Solmund himself had put it.

  ‘The king will come. Your insult will give him no choice,’ Moldof had said. ‘And he will come with four or five crews to make sure he stamps you out properly. He’ll bring enough spears to beat you even were Týr and Óðin themselves stood in your shieldwall.’

  Sigurd had known this was the truth, that his refusal of Biflindi’s offer and his killing of the messenger Freystein would be to the king’s reputation as salt water is to a sword or brynja: it would eat away at it like iron rot. Gorm had no choice now but to kill Sigurd and have the world see him do it. Which was why they had hauled the snow-crusted skins from Reinen’s thwarts, thumbed new tarred horsehair between some of the strakes, bailed out the seep water from the bilge, knocked open those oarhole covers which had frozen stuck and hefted their sea chests aboard. They had piled spears in the bow and stern, shields midships, water barrels in the small open hold, along with dry kindling, spare cloaks, tools, ropes and rivets, their brynjur and as much smoked meat and fish as they could get their hands on. But most of this space was taken up by bales of bear furs, wolf, fox and squirrel pelts, sheep skins, otter skins and even reindeer hides, which Thengil Hakonarson had hoarded up in the rafters of his hall. It had taken them half a day to bring all the bales down, and from the look of the bird shit and old nest material on the top bales, and the mice nests on the bottom furs, they must have been up there for years. And yet most of them were in fine condition and the whole lot was worth a good deal of silver.

  ‘Seems that fat toad Thengil was a raider in his way,’ Olaf had said, when the others started to carry the bales down to the jetty, Svein making a show of taking one under each arm. ‘If you had four legs and a hairy back you were as good as dead.’

  ‘Then it is just as well Bram was not born in these parts,’ Bjarni said, nodding at Bram who was bynamed Bear because he was all beard and bluster and shared a good many similarities with that animal.

  ‘Ha!’ Bram said, patting the top fur of the bale he was about to heft. ‘And I was just about to ask you and your brother if either of you recognize this pelt, for the last time I saw it it was between your mother’s legs.’

  The brothers appreciated the insult and grinned at one another as they lifted their own bales and followed Bram out of the dark smoky hall.

  ‘Thengil must have traded with the Sámi for the reindeer hides,’ Sigurd said.

  ‘Unless they were left over from his father’s time,’ Olaf suggested. ‘Old Hakon Burner used to collect tribute far and wide. Wouldn’t surprise me if he raided in the wastelands to the east just for the damned mischief in it.’

  However they had got there, those pelts would have been better used lining the planks of Burner’s old hall which was as big as Bilskírnir, Thór’s own dwelling place, and draughty as Svein’s backside, as Crow-Song had put it. Now the bales accounted for almost all of Sigurd’s wealth. He could not pay his hirðmen with skins, but he could trade those skins for food or silver and seeing as he was crew-light, those bales were more than worth the space they took up aboard Reinen.

  ‘So where will we go?’ Olaf had asked that night after they had watched King Gorm’s man row the torc-wearing corpse back to the waiting ship, and that ship had turned its stern post on them and sailed away.

  ‘South,’ Sigurd said, ‘then east.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Aye, so long as we sail beyond Biflindi’s reach – Hrani Randversson’s reach too come to that – it doesn’t matter where we go.’ Olaf had fixed those sea-grey eyes on Sigurd’s own then and his next words were heavy things, like loom weights in Sigurd’s ears. ‘But you will need to give them silver,’ he said.

  ‘I know my duties, Uncle,’ Sigurd had replied, prickling under the older man’s gaze, resentful of being reminded of his res
ponsibilities. He had not forgotten that those warriors freezing in Reinen’s thwarts, all but for Moldof, had sworn an oath to him, their lips touching the pommel of his sword, their words spoken over the blade. They would fight for him, had sworn sword and shield, flesh and bone, to not flee one step from the battle as long as the sun shines and the world endures, henceforth and for evermore. But an oath was weighed in the scales of honour and must be found to balance or else it was nothing more than chaff in the wind. To balance those scales Sigurd must give them meat, shelter and silver.

  There was not much in the way of shelter now, though, out there aboard Reinen.

  ‘Still, I am no jarl,’ Sigurd said. ‘And they are not like any húskarlar I have seen. We are all of us outlaws now.’ He gestured at the ship beneath them and the fjord around them. ‘Whoever wants more than this is free to jump overboard. I will not stop them.’

  Olaf raised an eyebrow at Solmund and Sigurd turned his back on them both to look out across the fjord, which was rippled and iron grey and cold as death.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THEY HAD ALL known that they would go south because where else was there to go? They could have sailed north up to Kaupangen where Solmund said there was a small settlement from which some supplies might be got. But beyond that there was likely nothing but jagged, empty coast and unless you wanted to raid for the wind-dried cod and smoked herring that the folk up there lived on, there was no reason to go there.

  ‘Fish is not the sort of silver we need,’ Svein had said when old Solmund had talked of his exploits in the north. Besides which, it was not the time of year to be going north. It was one thing to be at sea when most sensible men were snugged up by their hearths and jarls and kings had hauled their dragon ships from the water and tucked them up in their nausts; it was altogether another to venture into the freezing unknown, especially crew-light in a ship which had not been given the love and attention it would have had if pulled aground over winter. For that was the time to re-clink the ship, replace old strakes, sew sail rents and give the woollen cloth a new coating of pine resin and sheep’s fat to help it hold the wind better. The hull could be scraped of slime and of the mussels that cluster where the keel meets the belly. New horsehair string could be pushed into any cracks and the whole ship, from thwarts to mast, to the rigging and oars, could be coated in sticky resin to shield it from rain and salt water. But there had been little opportunity to treat Reinen so kindly and now they would make do with things as they were. And at least they were not going north.

  They had all known that they would go south, and no one doubted the dangers in that, so none was surprised when, on the third day out of Osøyro, they saw another ship ploughing its furrow through the wide sea.

  ‘If the witch were here we could have asked her who they were,’ Svein said, mainly to rankle Asgot who had not liked having a seiðr-wife around the place. But all he got from the godi was a sneer and he shrugged as if to suggest it was worth a try. The witch had left the previous dawn, trudging off into the brittle snow and being swallowed by the woods as though she had never been.

  ‘Wolves are one thing, Sigurd Haraldarson, but boats are another,’ she had said, the corners of her eyes creasing like well-used leather. ‘I have done what the gods asked of me. At least where you are concerned. Perhaps we will meet again.’

  But none of them, not even Sigurd whom she had come to warn, had been sorry to see the back of her and her cat skins.

  ‘My cock has been hiding since the day she arrived,’ Bjarni had said, but only when he was sure she was out of earshot, which was a full day after she had left.

  ‘You worry for nothing, brother,’ Bjorn had said, ‘for even a seiðr-wife cannot put a spell on something she cannot see. It would be like trying to hit a louse with a spear-throw.’

  The others had laughed at that and it was a good sound if a small one in Jarl Hakon’s vast old hall.

  ‘Bollocks but they really want us dead,’ Olaf said now, for who else but King Gorm would have a ship out there in the rough water west of Karmøy in the heart of winter?

  ‘Wanting it is not the same as having it,’ Sigurd reminded him as they stood at the prow. Some of the others were shrugging into their brynjur and grabbing spears though the ship was still a good distance off, having come round a headland like a hawk swooping from a branch.

  ‘Treat them like you would a dog turd in the street,’ Sigurd called back to Solmund at the helm.

  ‘We’ll give them a wide berth if we can,’ Solmund called back, ‘but that would be easier if you would all get back to work instead of puffing up your damn chests and laying your cocks over the side.’

  ‘You heard him! Back to the ropes!’ Olaf yelled, and they swapped spear shafts for tarred lines again. It had been hard work all morning, tacking Reinen into the wind, Olaf shouting commands and setting the sail from the feel of the gusts on his cheeks. Solmund would drive the steerboard hard to one side until Reinen turned so far into the wind that the wind on the front of the sail halted her and then blew her backwards. With one corner of the sail released and lines freed at bow, midships and stern, Bram and Svein would haul on the ropes stretching to each end of the yard in order to draw the sail to the other side of the boat, catching the wind to move forward once again. When they got it right Reinen would lurch forward and fly like an arrow from a bow. But it was hard work and mostly silent work too, each crew member playing their part with Olaf’s the only voice in their ears.

  Despite Solmund’s cautious optimism, Sigurd was not so sure they would get past the other ship before it came across their bows. Not against the wind. Not when all the other ship had to do was turn her bows towards the north and run with the wind.

  He was still watching the other ship when Runa came to stand with him, clutching the sheer strake as Reinen’s sail snapped full of wind and she set off at the gallop on the new tack.

  ‘Are you two friends now?’ Sigurd asked, patting the rail beside his sister’s hand. Runa had not spent much time at sea and was still getting used to the way Reinen flexed through the water like a fish. Like all good ships her hull had been built to ride the waves and the current, not to muscle through the sea like a drunk man through a crowded hall.

  ‘We are on speaking terms,’ Runa said, her gaze, like his, fixed on the other ship that looked to be making its turn now in order to come at them like a spear with the wind behind it. Out here in the open water that wind whipped white spume off the waves and Reinen was flexing through her length; Sigurd hoped that the rivets would not begin to work themselves free of the strakes. She was a fine ship, but she was not made to endure the open sea for long and he could feel her trying to agree terms with winds and currents which were arguing amongst themselves.

  ‘How can you be sure they are our enemies?’ Runa asked. Her golden hair had worked free of her fur hat and was streaming and fluttering in the gusts, and she had one hand at her throat clutching the Freyja amulet which brought her luck.

  ‘Because we have no friends, sister,’ Sigurd said, for there was not a jarl or wealthy karl anywhere who would side with him these days. The only allies he had in the world were in that belly of oak, heaving and hauling on ropes, driving Reinen on, beating against the wind. ‘That is one of Biflindi’s ships and its skipper has been waiting for us.’

  Sailing down through the sheltered waters of the Karmsund Strait had not been an option. No ships could pass through the channel below Avaldsnes without paying the king for the privilege, and seeing as the king wanted Sigurd dead more than he wanted all the taxes in the world, it would have been impossible to slip through the net that way. So they had taken the sea-road west of Karmøy. There had been a chance that they would not meet any of King Gorm’s crews out there. For even though the king was bound to set the trap, a sea fog or sheeting rain might conceal their passing. Or the king’s skippers might prefer to keep their ships moored in some safe harbour than be patrolling amongst Rán’s white-haired daughters with the wi
nd freezing their cheeks and numbing their hands.

  In the event, though, there had been no fog and no veil of rain to hide Reinen. The king’s ships must have flown from Avaldsnes the moment he laid eyes on Freystein’s torc-wearing corpse and knew there could be no peace with Sigurd.

  ‘That’s Wave-Thunder,’ Moldof said, confirming it. ‘I thought it earlier but wanted to be sure. Her skipper is called Bjalki. I know him.’

  ‘Is he any good?’ Sigurd asked.

  ‘You’re asking his opinion now?’ Aslak said. ‘It was not long ago that he showed up meaning to hew off your head, toss it in his little boat and row it back to the oath-breaker.’

  ‘Winds change,’ Sigurd said, glancing at Moldof, who with Valgerd was putting spare shields in the rack on Reinen’s larboard side to form a higher rampart against spears and arrows and to make it more difficult for the enemy to clamber aboard.

  ‘Bjalki rarely eats at the king’s table,’ Moldof said. ‘But he’s ambitious. He’ll be hungry for this chance.’

  Sigurd nodded. How ambitious your enemy was was always a thing worth knowing.

  ‘It’s going to be close,’ Olaf called.

  ‘Close enough to smell the whoresons,’ Bram said.

  Asgot had a short axe in either hand, ready to cut the ropes of any grappling hooks that were thrown into the thwarts. The rest worked the ship.

  ‘Be ready with your compliments!’ Solmund bellowed from the tiller. ‘We’ll be cosy enough to share fleas and if you haven’t pissed yet you’ll have to wait.’

  Wave-Thunder had got her bows round now and was coming fast with the wind in her sail. Reinen was on her westward tack, heading out into the open sea, and would have time for one, maybe two more turns before the enemy was upon them. Sigurd was torn. He could take his crew from their work and have them arm themselves properly, but this would stop Reinen dead in the water and make the fight unavoidable. A fight they could not win, judging by the spears, long axes and shield-bearing men crammed in the belly of the king’s ship. Or he could have them work the sail and maybe they would edge past, but maybe they would be caught like a hare in the eagle’s talons and then they would die quickly because they were too few and not ready for the fight.