by Robert Low
Each of us had two weapons and three shields and the challenged — I — struck the first blow. I had made sure to craft that part carefully enough.
If one foot went out — going on the heel, as we called it — the fight went on. If both feet went out, or blood fell, the whole thing was finished.
Thrain had not been in a holmgang either, had not been in a fight with weapons for five years, so he was nervous. He was grinning the same way a dog wags his tail — not because he is friendly, but because he is afraid. His top lip had dried and stuck to his teeth and he was trying to boost the fire in his belly by chaffering with his Danes about how this boy would not take long.
He had a shield and a sword and a leather helmet, same as me, but you could see the sword hilt was awkward in a hand that had held only a pick and hammer for five years and he knew it, was fighting the fear and needed to bolster himself as Kvasir shouted: 'Fight.'
He half turned his head, to seek the reassurance of his men once more, before bracing for the first stroke
— but I was fighting with Gunnar's best advice ringing in my head.
Be fast. Be first.
I was already across the space between us, that perfect, water-flowing blade whirring like a bird startled into flight.
It was as near perfect a stroke as I have ever done: it took him right on the strap of the helm and cut the knot of it, sliced into the soft flesh under his chin and kept going, even after it hit the bones at the back of his neck.
I almost took his head in that one stroke, but not quite. He must have seen the flicker of the blade at the last, was trying to duck and draw back in panic, but far too slow, for the blade was through him and he dragged it out by staggering back.
Then his body fell forward and his head fell down his back, held by a scrap of skin. Blood fountained straight out of his neck, pulsing out of him in great gouts, turning the dust to bloody mud as he clattered to the ground, spattering my boots.
There was a stunned silence, followed by a brief: `Heya,' from Finn.
One stroke. My crew cheered, but I felt nothing, heard nothing but the drumming of Thrain's heels, the slush-slush of his life ebbing away and the thunder of my own breathing, made louder under the helm.
`He should have talked less and looked more,' Kvasir noted, then nudged me. 'Now is the time to swear the Oath. A holm-gang death — this is the best sacrifice Odin will get from us this year.'
So, as jarl and godi both, bloody blade still in my hand, I called on the Danes to swear the Oath and they did it, still stunned. Then I had Thrain taken and buried in a good boat-grave and, because he had been Thor's man, they told me, spoke words over him to the Thunderer and put a decent silver armring in it — my last — which everyone noted. Brother John wisely kept tight-lipped.
It was well struck,' Finn growled later, coming with food to where I sat apart from the others at the fire.
He thrust the food at me, but it tasted of nothing in my mouth and I could not stop the shaking that rippled me, despite a cloak against the night chill.
`The Danes are annoyed,' Finn went on, 'but only because Thrain lost so easily. They all agree you struck an excellent stroke.'
And?'
Finn shrugged. 'And no one disputes that you are jarl, which is what was wanted. By the time we have defeated these goathumpers, they will be one crew and not sitting on opposite sides of the fire.'
I came to the fire later, into the quiet talk about home and where the Danes had been and boasting of our own exploits. Though no one spoke of Thrain, I could feel him lying cold under his stones, weapons on his breast. Five years breaking stones, to end like this.
I could not get warm all that night.
5
The rain spattered on the loop of cloak over my head, washing down from the mountains the Goat Boy said were called Troodos. We had climbed out of sight of the sea now, away from the olive and carob trees, into the limestone crags and their scatterings of pines, stunted oaks and fine trees Sighvat thought were cedars. It was cool and clean and wet here as we waited for the scouts to come back.
`Monastery fall down,' the Goat Boy had said, proud of the Norse he had put together, pointing ahead and shivering in his ragged tunic, even though Finn had given him a spare cloak which he had wrapped himself in until he was nearly lost. To us, though, the day was mild and Finn came stumping up to us booming: 'Almost like home,' and ruffling the Goat Boy's mass of black curls.
He had presented the Goat Boy and his brother to us, twin prows from the same boat it appeared, both dark-haired, olive-skinned and black-eyed. One was older, he told us proudly, being nine while his brother was merely eight.
Their mother, a plump woman swathed in black and grinning behind a hand to hide her lack of teeth, had carried water and food to the Danes for five years and was now, with others in the town, taking in our clothing to be washed and repaired. The Danes went in ones and twos to the bath-house and came back clean and combed. Then they had their hair and beards trimmed from five years of tangle — the most vain of all the Norse were the Danes.
Finn had taken a liking to the Goat Boys, white-toothed grinning little dogs who followed him around since they had come begging for washing work, their father being dead from fever some years now.
`They have some Arab in them, then,' I grunted to Brother John, when he told me they were rattling away in that tongue.
`Their mother certainly had,' chuckled Finn and curled his own moustaches, for he had an interest there, I was thinking, and her lack of teeth was a small matter to a man long at sea.
The hafskip was brought round under the stern eye of Balantes and duly turned over — though I saw he had stationed two dromon ships, light galleys with catapults on them, out at the harbour mouth, just in case we did something stupid, like try to run.
Gizur went aboard, with a Dane called Hrolf who had some skill with ship-wood and the rest of the Danes gathered in a huddle on the beach, looking and breathing in the distant pine and tar scent of her.
One, called Svarvar, told me its name was Aifur, Ferocious, and I asked if the Danes would care if we called it the Fjord Elk, which was the name the Oathsworn gave every ship they sailed on — even though, it seemed to me, we did not tend to have them long.
Svarvar said he would talk to them and I said I would call a Thing for it and we could all decide. Svarvar I liked, for he had come round to the new way of things swiftly and laughed a lot, even at his own misfortunes and the delight people took in them.
He had worked for a moneyer in Jorvik when he was a lad, ten years or so ago, apprentice die-maker to one Frothric, who minted coins for the young King Eadwig.
`But I never had the skill of it,' he confessed to his delighted audience. 'And then I made a good die, by my way of thinking, a skilled bit of work, with Eadwig Rex and the cross on one side and the name of Frothric on the other. But while the King's name was perfect, Frothric's side was upside down and able to be read only in a polished surface.'
Everyone chuckled at that and howled and slapped their legs when he added that Frothric had stamped the die on lead to test it, then thrown it out into the street in a fury — and Svarvar himself shortly after.
`So I decided skilled work was not for me and went viking that summer. Never stopped,' he added.
The new Fjord Elk was declared fit enough to take to sea, though its sail, having been flake-stowed on the yard for five years, needed considerable work and much of the tackle and lines needed replacing.
So I said that Radoslav, Kvasir, Gizur, Short Eldgrim and six of the Danes should stay behind, to guard and fix both ships, then showed the Goat Boys two silver pieces, minted in the Great City, one for each. One would come with us as guide and the other would stay. If there was trouble, he would bring news of it and Short Eldgrim would carve the runes of it on a stick, so that only Northmen could read it.
I will go,' declared the eldest, striking his chest proudly with a hand red-scarred by harsh work. 'But I will need
a sword and a shield. And possibly a helmet.'
Finn chuckled, gave him all three items from his own person and watched him wilt under the weight. 'A good coat of rings as well, brave Baldur?' He smiled, then tapped the top of the helmet which was swallowing the boy's head and asked if there was anyone in there. He took it off, ruffled the boy's hair and said: 'Stick to your sling, I am thinking.'
The Goat Boy laughed and handed the battle-gear back, glad to be rid of it. I realised I could not keep calling him the Goat Boy and asked his name.
Finn groaned. 'You should not have done that, Trader,' he said, shaking his head in mock sorrow. 'We may as well all take a seat.'
The boy took a deep breath and threw out a proud little chest. 'John Doukas Angelos Palaiologos Raoul Laskaris Tornikes Philanthropenos Asanes,' he intoned and beamed. No one spoke and Finn was grinning.
`His name is bigger than he is,' I noted. 'I think I preferred Goat Boy. I will not make the mistake of asking your brother the same question.'
`His name is Vlasios,' answered the boy, then stared, bemused and angry, as everyone roared with laughter.
Then, with spears and round shields and leather helmets sent out by Tagardis, the rest of the Danes lined up with my old crew and we headed off, laden with waterskins and dried meat and bread, into the depths of the island, on the day it started to rain.
Three days later, neither it nor the cold wind that brought it showed signs of stopping and we were high in the hills, having circled round to the east. We were now close to Kato Lefkara and the bigger town of Lefkara, which was said to be Farouk's stronghold, and the rain was a mirr that you had to wipe off your face and eyelashes. Yet the day was warm enough to make us all sweat in our battle-gear.
Those whose turn it was to carry the heavy sacks I had ordered brought along grumbled twice as much, but no one was happy about being soaked inside and out.
The scouts came in from three different directions. They were all Danes, for none of the original dozen Oathsworn had the skill of hunting or tracking much. These three did and the best of them was Halfred, who had spoken up against Thrain. Hookeye, they called him, since his left one was hooked tight to his nose -
yet, squint or no, he read signs and tracks as easily as monks scan Latin.
He came in with the easy, ground-breaking lope of a seasoned tracker, which he had been for Knud, whose hov was in Limfjord. Knud was known the length of Denmark as a greedy man and made his wealth dealing in slaves, Ests and Livs from further up the Baltic, which he sold to traders bound for Dyfflin and Jorvik.
It had been his job, Halfred Hookeye told us, to track down the runaways and, since Knud skimped on proper securing, Halfred had been kept busy until he grew restless for other things. That set him apart from the others, since no one liked a hunter of runaway men, even thralls.
I was glad of Knud's stinginess now, for Halfred Hookeye could read ground like my father once read wind and current — like those old, Oathsworn scout-hounds, Bagnose and Steinthor, once did, before Odin gathered them to Valholl.
One of those domed Christ places, Trader,' Hookeye said, addressing me as he had heard Finn and others do — which was a good sign. 'Ruined, like the Goat Boy says.'
It is called a church,' sighed Brother John. 'How many times must I tell you?'
Two Danish trackers, Gardi and Hedin Flayer, kneeling and blowing snot through their fingers, reported that they had seen nothing else but rain and stones and distant hills.
`There is not a living creature here,' Hedin Flayer said morosely, 'though I saw goat droppings, so something lives in this Christ-cursed country.' And, like the good Christ-man he was, he said sorry to a bedraggled Brother John and crossed himself while making a good Odin-ward against evil at the same time.
We moved up warily to the domed church, as silently as nearly three-score Norse could move with battle-gear, which wasn't very.
We crested a bald hillock, descended a scrub slope, then crossed a swollen stream and climbed up the other side to where the church stood — or three blackened walls of it and the dome, partially collapsed on one side. The sun was white and distant and threw no shadows; there was the faint stink of charred wood over the smell of damp earth — and something else, faint and sweet as mead-sick.
`Heya,' grunted Arnor, pinching the scabbed cleft of his nose. 'The dead are here.'
They were, too, and now that I was looking for them, it was as if a doe in a dappled wood had suddenly moved and showed all.
The dead lay everywhere, slumped and sunken like empty waterskins, the grass grown up through them.
I saw the tattered remains of worn robes, the yellow of bone and, when Gardi pulled at what he thought was a brown stick, he dragged out a bone, attached to a maggot-crusted brown mass that released a waft of stinging stink to make eyes water.
Cautiously, we wandered through the place, which had been gutted and burned. I posted watchers at once, even though the signs were months old. Brother John knelt and prayed, while the others poked and prodded in the ruins. The rain slid down again: a delicate offering, like tears.
`Strange place,' muttered Sighvat, 'even allowing for it being a Christ house. I have seen those — so have you, Trader — but this is different. Why have they all these wheels?'
Now that he had spoken of it, I saw what he meant. There were the remains of shattered and burned wood, bits of metal and, everywhere, charred wheels and bits of spoke. As he said, even allowing for the strangeness of the Greek Christ-men, this was new.
`Perhaps the Goat Boy knows,' I said, but Sighvat wasn't listening. He was staring at the sky and, when I looked up, I saw the small, circling black shapes.
`Crows?' I asked, for his eyes were sharp as needles and I couldn't see which way they were wheeling -
crows were left-handed, as Sighvat constantly told us.
He shook his head. 'Kites. Loki birds and treacherous. They will tell our enemies where we are, for they have smelled the old death unearthed here and think they can make new ones to scavenge.'
He shivered and that raised my hackles, for Sighvat was always sure with animals and birds. When I said so, he turned a grim face on me and shrugged. 'My mother said I would find my doom when the kite spoke to me. She had that off a volva from the next valley,' he said.
`Can kites talk, then?' I asked. 'I have been told crows can.'
`Neither has a voice,' Sighvat corrected morosely and shrugged again. 'There are many ways of speaking.'
`Getting darker, Bear Slayer,' announced Hookeye. 'We should move.'
Bear Slayer. He had been listening to the campfire tales and clearly liked how I had been found beside the body of a great white bear from the North, a spear up through its chin. I had not killed it, though no one knew that save me, but it was not a name I preferred. It was one of those names that made fame-starved warriors with scarred faces scowl, as if you'd just challenged them to a pissing contest.
I looked again at the sky, which was pearl-grey and empty save for the distant kites. I knew we had water and shelter here, but the violent dead made it an uncomfortable place to be near at night.
Turning, I signalled to move on, indicating that the scouts should move out ahead. Then I saw Brother John, his arm round the Goat Boy, crooning soothingly. The Goat Boy shuddered in spasms and turned his snot-smeared face to me, twisted in a grief so hard on him that he could barely make a noise with his weeping.
`His friends,' Brother John said and swept a hand at a litter of corpses.
I looked closer. They were all small, ruined little rag bundles of bone and weather-wrecked cloth.
Children. Scores of them.
`This is a silk factory,' Brother John said. 'John Asanes here once laboured for them on these wheels, teasing silk from cocoons — all the silk-teasers are boys — but fled because his hands hurt too much from the boiling water they use. He has never been back until now, but had heard the monastery had been attacked by this Farouk. That's why he wanted to come.' He paus
ed and patted the boy's shoulder. 'He thought he would be coming with an army to rescue them all, like some hero. He wasn't expecting this, I am after thinking. All dead. Ah well, lad — consumpsit vires fortuna nocendo.'
I doubted whether the Norns had exhausted their power of hurting. Those three sisters, I had found, were infinite in their capacity to inflict pain on the world of men. The Goat Boy certainly didn't believe it, for he was blubbering on his knees, then sank full length, shoulders heaving.
`Qui facet in terra, non habet unde cadat,' intoned Brother John.
If one lies on the ground, one can fall no further. There was truth in it but no help for the lad.
`Get him up, we are moving,' I said, harder than I intended, the stink of all those little deaths sharp in my nose. Brother John bent and tugged at the heaving shoulders, teasing the Goat Boy upright with soothings and croons and we moved away from that dead place.
An hour later, Gardi trotted back to us with news of a farm ahead and another stream beside it, just as the wind grew colder and the dark slid in like black water. 'There are dead there, too,' he added, which made my heart sink, for we could go no further now and had, it seemed, changed one field of corpses for another.
The farm was a huddle of ruins, but the outbuildings had suffered most, being almost all made of gnarled wood culled from the stunted pines. The main building had lost its roof, but the thick walls were intact, though blackened. Surrounding it were smoothed fields and what I had taken at first to be olive groves, but these were different trees, skeletal in the dusk. There were also the remains of splintered and burned wooden frames, like racks used to smoke herring in quantity, except that these were not slatted, but solid trays.
Finn turned a dry corpse over with a foot, a hissing rustle ending in a cracking sound as the shafts of two rotted arrows crumbled. 'Two dead here, no more. I think the others probably fled to the church, thinking it safer,' he muttered. He made a sign against any lurking fetch and I told Brother John to lay their Christ fetches to rest, just in case, for we had no choice but to spend the night here.