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

by Giles Kristian

  ‘Aye, that’s him,’ Olaf confirmed. ‘Something about him, and I don’t mean those beard ropes of his which no doubt he thinks the women get wet between the thighs for.’

  ‘Come to think of it, I have seen him before too,’ Hagal said, scratching his chin.

  ‘You!’ Olaf called out to the man, who stopped and turned towards them.

  ‘Me?’ he said.

  Olaf nodded and beckoned him over, and the man shrugged, telling his companions that he would be back to work as soon as he had seen what Olaf had to say.

  ‘I know you,’ Olaf said. ‘What’s your name?’

  The man hesitated. ‘Kjartan Auðunarson,’ he said.

  Olaf shook his head. The name meant nothing to him and he turned to Sigurd. ‘You still don’t recognize him then?’

  Sigurd did not and said as much.

  ‘But I have seen you before, too,’ Hagal said. ‘And I do not forget a face.’

  ‘Who are you?’ the man asked him.

  ‘Hagal, but they call me Crow-Song for I am a skald,’ he said, ‘and before I joined this crew I travelled all over.’ He shrugged. ‘I see a lot of faces. Still, I remember yours from somewhere,’ he said, frowning.

  ‘Well, I do not know you,’ Kjartan told him, an iron bar cradled in his arms. ‘Nor any of you,’ he said to Olaf and the rest, ‘apart from by the reputation you are making for yourselves. That was bravely done yesterday.’ He grinned. ‘I would like to have been with you when you came through those gates and they realized they had let the wolves into the fold. It is just a pity that the worm Guthrum was not here himself. His face would have been something worth seeing.’

  ‘His face will be worth seeing when he gets here and learns that this borg is no longer his and that half his army is buried in the earth,’ Olaf said.

  That gave Sigurd an idea. ‘Thorbiorn, fetch the banner we made.’ Thorbiorn nodded and went to get it.

  ‘I have work to do,’ Kjartan said and Olaf nodded as the man turned and walked off with the iron bar.

  Olaf turned to Sigurd. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said, grinning.

  ‘Want to share?’ Svein asked, but it was Moldof who explained it.

  ‘If Guthrum sees his banner flying above us, he might think his men still hold the place,’ the one-armed warrior said.

  Sigurd grinned. ‘Worth a try,’ he said.

  They went to find Alrik, who agreed that Sigurd’s idea was a good one. ‘Though Guthrum is no fool, nor reckless like Findar was,’ he said, glancing at Knut, who agreed with that. ‘He did not rise so high so fast by not thinking a thing through. Look at this place. Guthrum is a man who does not put to sea until he knows that the wind is whispering his name and his strakes are tighter than a cat’s arsehole.’ He smiled then, smoothing his long moustaches with ringed fingers. ‘Still, Byrnjolf, I am beginning to think the Allfather himself sent you to me.’

  ‘I brought him, lord. Remember?’ Knut said. ‘So I will take some credit.’

  Alrik laughed, raising a hand by way of admission. ‘You did, Knut, you did. And I am grateful for it.’

  ‘And are you grateful to us?’ Sigurd asked him. ‘You said you would make us rich men if we took this fort.’ He fixed Alrik with a heavy stare. The dead lay in their stone ship in the newly raised mound. The fort was now Alrik’s. It was time to remind the warlord what he had promised. It was time to pay Sigurd what he owed.

  Alrik nodded. ‘I did and I will,’ he said, glancing from Olaf to Sigurd. ‘No one can say I am a man who makes empty promises. Or empty threats,’ he added, lifting an eyebrow. ‘I will have your reward brought to your longhouse tonight, Byrnjolf. But first I must prepare the defences and make sure we are ready to receive Jarl Guthrum should he show up unannounced. I am also a man who knows how to treat my guests,’ he said, spitting into the mud.

  ‘Another thing, Alrik,’ Sigurd said before the dróttin turned away. ‘I have heard you are raising a runestone to your dead.’

  Alrik nodded. ‘They fought well and should be honoured. One of my men, Soti, whom we call Chisel, is skilled at that sort of thing.’

  ‘Soti could carve runes on water,’ Knut said.

  Sigurd nodded. ‘I would like it if the stone made mention of Kveld Ottarsson,’ he said.

  Alrik frowned and looked at Knut, who shrugged and gave a slight shake of his head.

  ‘He was the young man you slaughtered on the hill when you led your men to the borg,’ Sigurd said. ‘He fell and he knew he must die or else Guthrum’s men would see through our plan.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ Alrik said, remembering. ‘Lad came at me like a berserker. I had no choice.’ He laughed. ‘He could have made himself a reputation if he’d cut me down.’

  ‘He had never been in a real fight before,’ Olaf said, ‘but the boy had all the bravery in him you could want.’

  Alrik considered this and after a long moment he nodded. ‘I will have Soti put the lad’s name on the stone,’ he said.

  Sigurd nodded, thinking of the young man who had been about his own age and who now lay in a pit in the ground, a decent sword by his side. Perhaps Sigurd would see him in Óðin’s hall one day and if so he would thank Kveld for his courage and they would drink the Allfather’s mead together and laugh.

  Then Alrik and Knut were off giving commands and telling the men which of them would take that night’s watch from the ramparts, and Sigurd and Olaf carried the banner they had made to fool Guthrum’s men up the bank to fix it to the palisade beside the gates, in the hope that they might fool Guthrum himself when he came.

  It was Hagal who remembered where he had seen Kjartan Auðunarson before.

  ‘Örn-garð!’ he blurted, crouched by the hearthfire which he was attempting to poke and prod into life with an iron because the logs were damp. ‘The Eagle’s Dwelling-place,’ he said. Several heads came up at that, brows furrowed at the mention of Jarl Randver’s hall back in Hinderå, which now of course belonged to his son Jarl Hrani.

  ‘What of it,’ Sigurd asked.

  ‘That is where I’ve seen his face,’ Hagal said, using the iron tool to roll a hissing log into what flame there was. ‘That is where I’ve seen that man with the long moustaches, Kjartan Auðunarson.’

  Sigurd glanced at Olaf, whose face looked like a thunder cloud.

  ‘Are you sure, Crow-Song?’ Sigurd asked the skald. There were other men in the longhouse but they were busy with tasks, sharpening blades and repairing gear, drinking and talking amongst themselves.

  ‘Of course he’s not sure,’ Svein muttered.

  Hagal nodded. ‘I am certain of it,’ he said, as a shower of bright sparks burst from one of the logs, making him start.

  ‘When have you ever been certain of anything—’ Aslak began.

  ‘He’s right,’ Olaf put in, before any of the others could agree that Hagal was usually too blind drunk after one horn of mead to know his own name, let alone remember one man amongst a hall full. ‘I have seen him at Hinderå. As have many of you, though you have forgotten it now. He was one of Jarl Randver’s hearthmen. I remember him. He was one of those who helped Randver’s other son, Amleth, away from the fight after Floki had cut him.’

  ‘Then what in Óðin’s arse is he doing here?’ Bram asked, and Olaf gestured at him to keep his voice down.

  There was a moment’s silence but for the pop and spit of the damp logs while they thought about this, then Solmund said, ‘Same as us, I suppose. Trying to earn himself some silver. He was Randver’s hirðman you say? Then perhaps he did not want to fight for Hrani after Sigurd sent Randver’s corpse to the bottom of the fjord.’ He bit into a lump of hard cheese. ‘I’ll wager he ended up in Birka and was looking to make his fortune when Knut sniffed him out, same as he did us.’

  No one could think of a better reason for Kjartan Auðunarson, if that was his real name, having left Hinderå and come east into the lands of the Svear. The last of the other men who shared the longhouse were picking up their sp
ears and shields now, off to take their turn on watch.

  ‘Why he is here doesn’t matter a spit,’ Olaf said. ‘What matters is that if we recognize him, there is no possibility that he does not recognize us.’

  ‘No one can say we did not make an impression at that wedding celebration,’ Svein said with a grin. For Hrani had taken Runa in a raid on Sigurd’s village and had been part of Jarl Randver’s scheme to marry her to Amleth his second son. He hoped this would help legitimize his family’s claim to Jarl Harald’s lands and smooth over the waters after his and King Gorm’s betrayal of the Skudeneshavn folk. But the marriage had never taken place. Because Sigurd and his war band had gone to Hinderå and Sigurd had even sat in Jarl Randver’s high seat, waiting for him to return. In the fight that followed, he had killed the jarl himself, but he had lost too many good men that day.

  ‘Men say that the gods themselves fought beside you,’ Moldof said. ‘That is what they told King Gorm. I was there. I heard it.’

  ‘And did he believe them?’ Sigurd asked.

  Moldof lifted the stump of his wolf-jointed arm. ‘He said you are Óðin-touched.’ He drank deeply, then lifted the jug from the stool beside him to refill his cup.

  ‘If the gods fought beside us I did not see them,’ Olaf said, remembering that bloody day and all those brave men who had fallen. Then he looked at Sigurd. ‘So what are we going to do about this Kjartan? What is to stop him going back to Hrani Randversson, or even King Gorm, and telling them where we are?’

  ‘For all that Alrik is happy enough to share his mead with us, I cannot see him fighting Hrani or the oath-breaker for our sakes,’ Asgot said. ‘Not when one of them offers him a boatload of silver for our heads.’

  ‘We will kill Kjartan,’ Sigurd said. All eyes were on him and there were some nods. He had said it in a low voice, barely louder than the hiss of the wet logs in the hearth, and yet no one needed him to say the words again.

  Olaf agreed. ‘It is the only way to be sure,’ he said. ‘We’ll do it tonight.’

  ‘How?’ Bram asked. ‘We can’t just go up to the man’s bench and spear him when he’s asleep.’ Svein pursed his lips as if he didn’t really see why not.

  ‘Let me think about it,’ Sigurd said. But he did not get much opportunity for thinking about how to bring about Kjartan’s death, because just then the longhouse door opened, all but killing what feeble flames licked the damp hearth wood. Two of Alrik’s warriors came in hefting a sea chest carved with ravens and eagles.

  ‘Looks heavy,’ Solmund told the men, who were huffing and puffing with the thing, not that either of them owned a pair of shoulders worth a mention. With a grimace and a groan they put the chest on the ground before Sigurd.

  ‘That’s because it’s full of silver,’ one of the men replied to Solmund now that he had the breath to speak. He straightened, palming sweat off his forehead.

  ‘Iron too,’ said the other man.

  And they were not wrong about that. The intake of breath amongst the others as Sigurd lifted the lid of that chest would have drawn the hearth flames had there been any.

  ‘That is what I call keeping your word,’ Olaf said, slapping Sigurd on his back.

  ‘Aye, I am beginning to like this Alrik,’ Bram added.

  There were arm rings, whole ones like those many of Sigurd’s crew already wore. There were small pieces of them too, hacksilver, and finger rings, sword and scabbard fittings, Thór’s hammers, brooches, lengths of fine wire and solid ingots, all gleaming in the lamp-lit dark. Much of it had no doubt belonged to the men of the borg only days before, but now it belonged to Sigurd. Beneath the silver they found two roughly worked iron bars, which were themselves worth a fortune, as well as eight iron axe-head blanks, which could either be finished off by a half-decent smith or else used to trade with. There was a little gold in there too, just three finger-sized ingots wrapped in a cloth.

  ‘I have never seen the like of it,’ Bjarni said.

  Neither had Sigurd. ‘Fetch the scales,’ he told Solmund, who went to dig them out of his own sea chest. ‘Everyone gets a share,’ he said, ‘but the rest we will keep safe, for we will need it before we fight Hrani Randversson or King Gorm.’ They seemed happy enough with that, as Solmund weighed out each portion against one of the heavier arm rings, and Bram said that the only thing wrong with silver was that you could not drink it. But when Thorbiorn Thorirsson came up last to get his share, Sigurd shook his head and closed the lid of the chest. ‘Not you, Thorbiorn.’ He gestured at Bram and Svein and the others. ‘The rest of them have fought hard time and again and earned this silver and more besides. You do not get a share for waving a banner around in one little skirmish.’

  Thorbiorn scowled like a boy who has had his backside whipped with a hazel switch. ‘To be the merkismaðr is supposed to be an honour,’ he said. ‘Besides, how could I fight when I was busy holding that damn thing?’

  ‘Had it been my banner it would have been an honour,’ Sigurd said, ‘but it was not.’ He looked at Olaf, trying not to smile. ‘I do not even have a banner, do I, Uncle?’

  Olaf scratched his beard and frowned. ‘No,’ he said. ‘There hasn’t really seemed much point up to now, what with you not having a whole crew let alone a war host to worry anybody.’

  Sigurd nodded and looked back at Thorbiorn. ‘I will not deny you did a good job with Guthrum’s axe banner,’ he said, and shrugged. ‘Perhaps you can ask to be his merkismaðr when he shows up.’

  There were grins around the place but Thorbiorn did not like it. Not at all. He glowered like a spoilt child, which was fine by Sigurd.

  ‘What would you do with it anyway, lad?’ Olaf asked him, putting his own pieces of hacksilver in the purse at his waist. ‘We have all the ale we could want and there are no women here to spend it on, unless Alrik has hidden them somewhere.’

  But Thorbiorn was already skulking off with his wounded pride, whilst Bjorn and Bjarni, Hagal and Svein were discussing what they intended to do with their share.

  ‘I would like a new smiting axe with silver and gold inlays,’ Svein said. ‘It will be so beautiful that women will be jealous of it. It will be such a fine axe that my enemies will enjoy being killed by it.’ This raised some laughter, then Svein looked at Hagal. ‘What about you, Crow-Song?’

  Hagal did not have to think about it for more than a couple of heartbeats. ‘One day I will own a handsome snekke,’ he said, holding his arms out in front of him as though he could already see the ship riding Rán’s white-haired daughters. ‘I will buy the thralls to sail her and visit all the jarls and kings—’ He stopped, frowning at Olaf and Sigurd. ‘All those we have not killed by then,’ he corrected, ‘and they will pay me to weave their fame in story and song.’

  ‘Ha! When was the last time any of us heard you come up with a story that we have not fallen asleep to twenty times before?’ Olaf said.

  ‘You see, it is talk like that which will make the Olaf of this tale I am currently spinning a spiteful, dwarf-like man with the manners of a troll,’ Crow-Song said, getting a grin from Sigurd, ‘and a shrivelled slug for a—’

  ‘Careful, skald!’ Olaf said, then pointed a finger at him that had a new silver ring on it. ‘Well, let us see how good you are at telling your tales when you are being strangled with your own tongue,’ he said, though he was half grinning when he threatened it. For they were still enjoying bathing in the silver glow and acting as if they had been up to the gills in mead all day. As for Sigurd, he fancied using a little of that gold to have a few rings made which he could rivet on to his brynja here and there. That hersir Asvith Kleggi at Birka had owned such mail and Sigurd had liked the look of it very much. Though he knew in truth he would save the gold and put it to better use. For he was rich now, rich as a jarl, which meant he could buy men and spears. He could begin to build a war host of his own. He could start to think about the day when he would sail back to Norway to challenge the oath-breaker king and have his revenge.

 
He leant back on his bench and closed his eyes, enjoying the insults and the chaffing and the boasts that were flying around the place. That would be a golden day, he thought, when he sailed back up the Karmsund Strait. When he had an army and a banner of his own. He smiled at the thought and opened his eyes to the reality. To the half crew before him. And yet Óðin himself could not have better than they in the centre of his shieldwall come Ragnarök. They were wolves, every one of them, and Sigurd was proud of them. Ha! He was in love with one of them, he thought, looking at Valgerd who had taken over the fire duty from Crow-Song and was at last getting some flame out of those wet logs.

  But for now those wolves were dazzled by the lustre of that silver hoard, so that it was not until deep into the night that Valgerd sat up and said that they had forgotten about Jarl Randver’s man Kjartan Auðunarson.

  ‘It will have to wait till the morning now,’ Olaf mumbled from his nest of furs, and the others agreed.

  But in the morning, when they spread out through the borg looking for the Hinderå man, there was no sign of him. Nor could any of Alrik’s other men say where he was.

  Kjartan Auðunarson had gone.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘AND YOU ARE sure it is him?’ Hrani asked, leaning over the cauldron to get a nose full of the steaming contents. Carrots and parsnips. Turnips, onions, hare and squirrel. Kjartan was eyeing the broth like one who has not eaten a proper meal for days. The man had too much pride to say he was hungry, or to expect the jarl’s hospitality given how things stood.

  ‘It’s him, lord,’ Kjartan said.

  Not that Hrani was Kjartan’s jarl, since Kjartan, who had been Jarl Randver’s man, had left Hinderå at the end of last summer to seek his fortune to the east in Svealand.

  ‘Tell me again why you left, Kjartan Auðunarson,’ Jarl Hrani said.