by Robert Low
At the end of it, he dabbed the ale from his moustaches, accepted a refill with a nod and a smile and said:
'Well, perhaps Skarpheddin can help you and you him.'
And why would that be?' I asked, then paused as someone tapped my shoulder. I looked up to see a girl with an ale flask, looking to refill my own. She was red-lipped and pale, with the skin flush and thick white-blonde plaits that spoke of someone who should never sit long in the heat.
She offered up a smile like a new sun and eyes shaped like almonds and I gawped until the girl grew impatient and said: If your mouth hangs open so much, you clearly cannot hold ale in it.' And with that she was gone.
Olvar frowned. 'A fostri of the jarl is Svala, from foreign parts. She is young yet and too clever and favoured for her own good.'
Nothing more was said, but now that I looked, other women were circulating, pouring ale, offering bread from huge baskets of them: Norse women, in fine embroidery and headsquares, hung about with keys and scissors. There were girls, too, like Svala, with their hair in braids.
I saw the Oathsworn smile and blush and hang their heads at being chided for needing their hair and beards trimmed, or their clothes cleaned and mended. The same men, I remembered, who had tripped screaming, veiled women in the dust of Kato Lefkara and tupped them, drooling, only days before.
Olvar then went on to say that Skarpheddin needed new men, for there had been losses in the fighting against the Arabs. He would broach it with his jarl and take us to him.
I saw Brother John hovering. When he caught my eye, he came across and sat down.
`We have injured,' he said to Olvar. 'Do you have someone who can help?'
Olvar smiled and nodded. `Thorhalla's charms are second to none,' he declared, at which Brother John scowled and, realising suddenly that he was talking to a Christ priest, the good Christ-man Olvar blanched and backed water.
Of course, there are priests of the Romanoi,' he added.
I was thinking more of someone who can fix wounds,' said Brother John sternly.
Olvar shrugged. 'That we get from the Greeks, who have chirurgeons for it, though some of them are Mussulmen and, being decent Christians, most of us have nothing to do with them.'
Brother John rose and left, shaking his head. Olvar was bewildered and frowning, then he brightened and offered to take me to see Skarpheddin. I had Finn and Brother John organise getting the Goat Boy to proper help, then asked Radoslav and Sighvat to come with me. The others, I thought, would be better staying with the boat.
It had rained, but the day was already warm and growing warmer as we set off, a fair procession of women and girls and men carrying their big baskets, still brimming with round loaves. Olvar said they did this every day, which was their free ration for being part of the army.
He also told us about the Serklanders, which was useful to know.
`They worship the Prophet Mahomet,' he said, 'and every man in the land is allowed to have four wives if he has embraced that way.'
`Four women should just about be enough for me,' grunted Finn, 'after the journey I have had.'
If you do become a Mahomet-follower,' Olvar pointed out, `you can never drink wine or ale or mead again.'
Kvasir laughed with his head thrown back and others joined in, for the struggle on Finn's face over what was more important to him was fine entertainment for a long walk.
Olvar, laughing also, added: 'My own belief is that the old gods are weak in this land and the Serklanders and Christ-men are stronger. The Serklanders only have one god and they call him Allah. The Christ-men and the Jews also only have one God, which is confusing.'
I felt I should point out — for him and all the others who could hear — that All-Father was a force no matter in what corner of the world his followers were and had the satisfaction of seeing Olvar flush.
The land swayed and dipped, as it always did after days at sea and I stumbled, bracing for swells that never came, across rock and scrub heavy with the scent of watered dust. Already I missed the salt breeze on my face. At the crest of the hill above the village, I turned back, to find the Elk lost in that litter of ships.
The heat grew, though the sun was just a glow, as if seen through brine, and we sweated in our leather boots and wool over the dusty green land, on a long walk along a road busy with donkeys and carts and oxen, robed men and soldiers in leather and iron.
The sun had moved towards the other horizon by the time we crested the last slope and saw Antioch for the first time. It was less a city than a jewelled reliquary in the late sun, a confection like the ones sold on trays in Mildagard, made of spun sugar and made more dazzling against the black-humped hills behind and the green and gold of crops and grazing land it sat in.
When we reached the bridge over the river at the main gate, though, the spun sugar vanished and the white walls showed black scorch marks I knew only too well. Ox-carts and donkey trains straggled in and out of the gate, while several mounds nearby showed where the massed dead — probably the enemy, since nothing marked it — had been buried.
The Norse had started a camp near the river, where once there had been a Mussulman temple, which they called a mosque. The Strategos had handed this over to Skarpheddin as his hov for the while, but Skarpheddin was no fool, I saw, for he had not entered it, but had pitched a great swathe of tents instead, made from the striped wadmal of his sails, to remind him of what he had lost.
He knew that not all Mussulmen were enemy and did not want to outrage those still in Antioch by defiling one of their holy places, yet you would not have guessed all this cunning from the sight of this jarl, once ruler of Raknehaugen in Norway.
I came on him in his tent-hov, where he sat on a good seat, with the snarling prows rescued from his best ship on either side. Once he had been a powerful man, but never tall. Now he was a thin-shanked ale barrel wearing fine cloth the colour of the sea on a clear day and his hair was streaked with more grey than red.
Gold glinted on his chest and arms, though, and on the rings at wrist and ankle, for his feet were bare as he leaned forward for Olvar to whisper in his ear.
Then he looked up, frowning slightly and stroking the considerable length of his frosted red-gold beard, which had been forked into many plaits and fastened with silver rings.
`You are young,' he declared, leaning an elbow on one knee and cupping his chin. 'Younger than I thought, for I have heard of both you and the Oathsworn, though I thought Einar the Black led them still and had a young Baldur-hero join him, the slayer of a white bear. Now, it seems, young Baldur is the leader.'
If he had heard all that, he had heard also tales of a hoard of silver and more and my heart lurched. I could smell the greed-sickness off him from here, but swallowed and inclined my head politely enough.
I am that bear slayer,' I said 'though my name is Orm. This is Sighvat Deep-Minded and Radoslav, who is called Schchuka.'
From behind Skarpheddin, I heard a sibilant hiss and, for an unnerving moment, thought he had broken wind. Then I realised the sound came from a woman and Skarpheddin half turned as she came out of the twilight of the tent to where we all could see her.
My skin crawled at once. She was old, but had her hair unbound, falling in iron-grey straggle-tails to her shoulders. She wore a dress the colour of blue twilight in the far north, fastened at the waist with a belt looped like a man's and hung about with all manner of things: a couple of drawstring purses; the skull of a small animal; the tail bones of a snake. Round her neck was a circle of amber beads big as gull eggs.
But it was the catskin cloak thrown round her shoulders that let me know what she was: that and the seidr flowing off her so that the hairs on my arms stood up, as if a storm was coming. I had made a sign against evil before I'd thought of it and she gave a short laugh, like a dog barking.
`Do you fear this volva, then, Orm Bear Slayer?'
I found my tongue locked to the roof of my mouth, but it was Sighvat who spared me with a calm answer, as
if he were greeting her politely as an ordinary woman.
`There is nothing to fear as long as I am here,' he said levelly and Skarpheddin chuckled at the woman's frown, while both of them eyed the pair of ravens that Sighvat now took everywhere perched on his shoulders. Used to them, I suddenly saw it from the other side and how it marked Sighvat as a full-cunning man, one of seidr power himself, which was why the rest of the crew both respected and looked sideways at him; for a man to dabble in seidr was considered strange and unmanly.
`Well, Thorhalla,' said Skarpheddin, finally. 'It seems the Bear Slayer is well served' with his own seidr And that,' he added, pointing to Radoslav's tattoo, 'is a useful mark to have, I am thinking.'
Radoslav grinned. 'Your witch spells won't work on me,' he boasted. 'I am Perun's man and his hand is strong over me.'
Thorhalla hissed like the cats she wore and made a movement of her fingers.
Now, now, old one,' Skarpheddin chided with false bravado, `that's enough of that. These are guests.'
Then, as the woman slid back into the shadows, he spread his hands in apology. 'Forgive my mother. She clings to the old ways and too many of my people are considering Christ here.'
His mother. At once I felt pity for Skarpheddin doubled from before. Here he was, exiled and wasting away in a foreign land and, like bitter gall on the rotten meat of it, he had a — mother like that, a real spaekona. As Sighvat laid it out later: If it had been me, I'd have killed her long since as the cause of all his grief.'
After that came the hard talk and I knew Skarpheddin wanted us, not only for what he had heard of our skills, but for what he had heard of the hoard. I told him we were new-sworn Christ-men, heading for Jorsalir with our own Christ priest and he nodded, frowning. I could feel his own greed-plans ooze from him like sweat.
I am of the Aesir,' he added, with a mild smile, 'and though prime-signed for Christ I will offer my help, of course. If you were to place your hands in mine, naturally I would be oath-bound then to provide aid.'
I thanked him for that, but told him I did not want any more oaths than the one I had already taken to my sword-brothers, at which he frowned. I did not tell him it was an Odin-oath, but let him think it one made to the White Christ. I added that I would be pleased to accept his hospitality and, when our task was done, would return. If he were then to offer a fair price for our services for a season, as the Basileus in Miklagard had done with him, then that was another matter and closer to my heart.
He brightened at that: the idea of being like the Basileus in Miklagard appealed and so he did not quibble, which was a relief. This meant my men had the chance of free food and ale for the time it took to find out what was needed — where Starkad and our old oarmates were — and did not fasten us to this doomed jarl.
Skarpheddin then said my men could find warm beds and hospitality both in the tents of his own hov and those of others in his company. I saw that shoal and steered round it, saying my men preferred to stay with their own ship, which had been their hov for so long; I did not want the men split up and scattered in a strange camp. Einar would have been proud of me.
After that, we were horn-paired round two large firepits and feasted, while the abilities and far-sighted vision of Skarpheddin were hailed by a skald and his skill and bravery lauded by men with grease-glistening faces and hefty roast ribs in their hand. Red-faced and bellowing, they declared Jarl Skarpheddin the finest ring-giver who had stepped on the earth each time a glowing woman refilled the horns.
My horn partner was Torvald, one of Skarpheddin's chosen men, but he was dark and dour and I looked all night for the girl they called Svala, so we had little to say to each other.
Next day, bleary-eyed and hurting, I went down to the river with Radoslav and, shivering in the morning chill, we sloughed off the ale and grease. When I straightened, scattering water like a dog, she was standing there, a hip arched and a wry smile on her face. I was aware that I stood wearing nothing but drenched small-clothes.
Odin's arse,' roared Radoslav, surfacing and blowing like a bull seal. 'But that feels better. . Oh, I didn't see you there.'
Grinning, he sloshed naked out of the river and stood drying himself while Slava raised an eyebrow and managed not to turn a hair doing it. She was, I noted, older than I was by a year, perhaps two.
`You are smaller than you look,' she said tartly to Radoslay. `Perhaps you should get the Helm of Awe tattooed on something lower.'
Radoslav chuckled. 'It's only the cold, girl. It will grow bolder, like a chick rescued from snow, in the warmth of a loving hand.'
She snorted. 'Your own, I am sure.'
I liked her and she saw me grinning.
I came to tell you that your priest, Brother John, and the man with the face like a fresh-gelded horse are looking for you. They said to tell you the Goat Boy is in good hands. Is he the little one they carried to the Greek chirurgeons?'
I nodded, pulling on my breeks and wondering if she dared face Finn with her description of him. In the end, as she smiled sadly over the plight of the Goat Boy, I decided she probably would.
Is he badly hurt?' she asked.
I told her what had happened to us on the Cyprus shore — missing out what had brought us to it — and her eyes widened. I thought I saw something new there towards me, but I was probably wrong.
`Thank you for letting me know,' I said politely. 'Do you know where Olvar is? I would like him to come with us into the city, for I am thinking a guide would be a good thing there.'
She wrinkled her nose. 'You don't need Olvar. I will take you.'
`Perhaps your mother would not like that,' Radoslav offered, `seeing as how going off with two handsome men, dangerous in the loving as they are, would be seen as reckless.'
Svala eyed him up and down and smiled, a dimpled, impish smile. 'Sadly she is dead — but had she lived to see two such as you describe,' she returned, 'she would have been concerned. However, there is only a limp man with a stamp between his brows and a boy.'
While my hackles rose foolishly at that, Radoslav threw back his head and roared with laughter and, eventually, I saw the humour of it and we all three went off, laughing, to meet Brother John and Finn and go into the city.
That, even with the sheen of past remembering on it, was the last truly good time of my life.
7
The Goat — Boy lay under clean linen in a cot in a shady room whose doors were framed with vines. It was at the end of a wide avenue so quiet that we were half afraid to speak and the whirr of a pigeon wing was enough to startle us.
It had been, one of the red-tunicked staff said, a place where Arab potion-makers — the staff man called them saydalani — mixed up their elixirs, and the place was ripe with the smells of spices. Some of them we knew; others, like musk, tamarind, cloves and a sharp tang Brother John said was aconite, were new to most of us.
Now it was a place where chirurgeons from the army treated their wounded and one of these blood-letters eyed us up and down before, reluctantly, letting us in to see the Goat Boy, on condition that we did not touch him, his wound or anything else.
Brother John asked him what he had done to it and the man, a grizzle-haired individual with skin like old leather, said he had put in a drain to rid the wound of accumulating fluid and that the boy's lung would heal itself if he was given time and rest.
`That's laudable pus,' exclaimed the priest, outraged. 'You will kill him if you take it away. It is meant to be there.'
The chirurgeon looked Brother John up and down, taking in the ragged breeks and tunic, the unkempt hair and beard. I have read Galen's Tegni and the aphorisms of Hippocrates,' he said. 'I have studied the Liber Febris of Isaac Judaeus. Have you?'
Brother John blinked and scowled. 'I cut the arrowhead out of him,' he answered.
The chirurgeon nodded, then smiled. 'The surgery was smart work but heathen prayers and chants are not suitable for healing. Next time, clean the blade, or heat it. If you want your boy to survive,
let me do what I do best.'
Muttering, Brother John let the leash of his annoyance fall slack and we went into the shaded, quiet place, where a few recovering soldiers sat and chatted. They looked up when we came in and a couple offered up salutes and cheers to Svala, who merely grinned back at them.
The Goat Boy was asleep, but the rasp of his breathing had gone and, though his closed eyes looked like two bruises, there was, I thought, more colour to him than before.
We chatted to the soldiers for a while, hoping he would wake, but he slept on. Instead, we learned how the Great City's army had come up against a great mass of Arab horse and foot determined to defend Antioch and the battle had been a vicious affair, though short.
An Armenian archer called Zifus, perched with his leg in a sling, said that this was the second time he had been to take Antioch and that this was something like the tenth war between the Great City and the Arabs. The Hamdanids from Mosul and Aleppo always managed to take Antioch back.
`Red Boots means to have it all this time,' Zifus observed, `for he has heard that old Saif al-Dawla is failing in health and he is the leader of the Hamdanites and the man who has kept the Romans of the Great City at bay here for twenty years, fuck his mother.'
It was all news and I was glad to have it, but only took it in with half an ear, as they say, while Brother John translated for Finn. Those silkworm eggs made the footing treacherous here and I planned to be gone just as soon as the Goat Boy was well enough — sooner, if I found out what we needed to know, though I would leave silver enough for him to be cared for.
If I wanted to make use of that silkworm stuff and save us all, I had to either trade it with Starkad or kill him and then get it to the Basileus of the Great City, the only one I could be sure was not part of any plot.
Either way seemed like digging through a mountain with a horn spoon.
We sat and drank nabidh, which is made from dates and raisins soaked in water, and talked more, with Zifus adding `fuck his mother' to the end of every other sentence he spoke.