by Robert Low
It was such a mistake: I wish I had waited to see Botolf fight them before we'd started in to free him, for there were rocks with more clever in them than those two. It was only when they were within a few steps of him that they suddenly realised that they had no weapons at all and here they were, about to take on a giant armed with a Dane axe.
Botolf popped the butt end between the eyes of one of them, which slammed him to the ground, where he flopped like a sack of cats. Then he slapped the flat of the axe on the fancy helmet of the other one, proving the lack of worth in that battle-gear, because the blade caught the ornamental crest, snapped the chinstrap and screwed the whole thing sideways, so that the cheek-flap was now over the owner's nose.
Blinded and bloody, the man screamed and stumbled away into Finn, who had chased off his opponent and now stabbed this new one in the thigh.
`Stairs!' screamed Brother John, pointing, and we all sprinted for them, me bringing up the rear just as the howling crowd surged forward — which at least got them between us and the rest of the better-armed bruisers who were supposed to keep order.
`Keep going! The door,' I shouted, pointing upwards. A hand grabbed my tunic and I heard it tear, so I whirled and let him have Botolf's chains, ring-bracelets and all. He fell back, screaming and losing teeth, which made the rest of the crowd think twice about crowding up behind me.
Ahead, Botolf pitched someone off the gallery and his shriek only ended when he hit the floor below with a meaty smack. Finn hauled me up and past him, turning to threaten the crowds. Something whirled through the air and smashed: an empty wine flask. A coin tinkled on the iron railings and Radoslav grinned.
`We must be good — they're throwing money-' He ended in a yelp as another coin smacked his elbow with a vicious sound. `Turds — who did that?'
We were stuck on the stair, I saw, unable to go ahead until Botolf dealt with the armed hard men keeping us from the door. He was too dangerous, with that Dane axe, for them to rush in and tackle but there were too many for Botolf to take on if he left the narrow gallery for the open area round the exit, where they could surround him.
The crowd below threw curses, jeers and anything they could find. Coins and cheap pottery bowls rained on us and it stopped being funny when Brother John went down with his head bleeding. I helped him up, to the poor shelter under the jut of the inlet valve and took a swift glance at the flap of skin, while the blood poured over his face.
`Morituri to salutant,' he gasped, which was apt and let me know he still had humour in him. Finn and Radoslav backed up the stairs, their little shields up — though we'd have more chance keeping dry under a fern, for all the use they were.
Then I heard Radoslav start muttering the chant that would set his Helm of Awe to working and I knew things were desperate but the clash and clatter were a cloud on my thinking. When I had to duck a missile and clonked my skull on the rusted inlet valve I roared with frustration and pain.
The inlet valve.
`Botolf!' I shrieked and he risked a half-look over one shoulder and saw me frantically waving for him to come to me.
`Finn. . Radoslav. .'
They lumbered off to take his place. Something smashed into fragments and the crowd, seeing the swords disappear, were cautiously coming up the stairs. More coins whirred and rang to the catcalls from the crowd.
Botolf, a cut on one massive bicep, loomed over me and I pointed to the rusting valve.
`Hit it.'
Brother John scrambled frantically from under it as Botolf spat on his hands, gripped the Dane axe and whirled it up. A wine bowl bounced off his shoulder and I doubt if he noticed. The axe came down, the boom of it echoing round the brick walls. It smashed the rusting valve open, the axehead snapped off and was whirled away in the great gouting stream of water that spat out, catching Brother John on one arm. It would have torn him away if I hadn't grabbed the other and the roar of it drowned out everything else.
The crowd baulked when they saw it arc out, as if Thor himself had decided to take a piss. Then they realised what it meant and went mad with panic.
Of course, we were first to the door and beat the rush. I found myself shooting out into the empty, cool night air of the amphitheatre, spilling from the dark entrance out into the middle of the dusty circle.
Alongside me, one of the hard men, spat out in my wake and on his hands and knees, looked at me, thought better of it, scrambled to his feet and darted off.
Finn and Brother John came up, then Radoslav and then, ambling carelessly away, the splintered shaft of the Dane axe across both shoulders, came Botolf, grinning and leaking blood. Behind him, spewing from the doorway and shrieking, came the fans of gladiators.
`By Thor's arse, Orm,' Botolf declared, clapping me happily on the back, so that I was sure I had been driven into the ground, 'you are a jarl and no mistake. Even if Skafhogg never says it to you, I do, for sure.'
I doubted if Skafhogg, the old Oathsworn's grizzled shipwright, would ever count me jarl enough — but, for the moment, I had no care of it. Finn, on the other hand, had something to say.
`You can drown him in drink,' growled Finn, 'but somewhere else. You can drown us all in drink, for I lost money on you.'
I followed them out of the amphitheatre, limping on that old ankle wound, the sound of the chains I dropped behind me lost in the screams of those running from the arena.
`Does this mean I am not a slave?' I heard Boltolf ask and wished then I had held on to the chains, so I could hit him.
We came to Skarpheddin's camp and talked our way past the Watch and up to his great tented hall in the dark, which confused the door-thrall. We had some Odin luck, though, for he was an Irisher known to Brother John from the night before, so it was no trouble for us to pile into the hov with an extra giant and rummage for sleeping space amid the curses of Skarpheddin's disturbed household.
Most were snoring in the reek of smoke and meat and mead and sweat, but two were blearily shoving
'tafl pieces round the board and Skarpheddin's skald was muttering his way through some draupa verse. I looked for Skarpheddin but he was in his lok-rekkja, his curtained bed-space — as was his mother, for which we were all thankful.
We all sank down in a cleared space, whispering out of politeness and secrecy and all of us wanted to know the one thing right away: where Valgard and the others were.
Botolf, craning to examine the slash on his bicep, picked at loose flesh and shrugged. 'We were sitting in Holmgard, waiting for word that Einar and the rest of you were rich,' he told us. 'Then word came that the Rus had fought with the Khazars, who had been beaten, and Sarkel had fallen, so we wondered how you had fared, for no word came.'
`That is because we were not there for it,' Finn chuckled and Botolf scowled blackly at him.
`Just so — which was the cause of what happened next. Prince Yaropolk came back, with his father and brothers — and Starkad, who pointed us out as Einar's men. Since Einar had run off from Yaropolk's retinue and disgraced him, Starkad thought to get his drakkar back that way, but burned his fingers, for Yaropolk took us and the ship. Us he sold to Takoub, a slave-dealer I will one day meet and whose head I will tear off.'
`Did you not get our messages, then?' I asked and he nodded grimly.
`Starkad came to where we were shackled and told us, with some delight it seemed to me, that Einar and Ketil Crow and others had all died on the steppe — and that little Orm had been made jarl.' He paused then and glanced at me, a little shamed it seemed. 'This we thought a barefaced lie,' he added, `since the likes of Finn Horsehead and Kvasir were still alive. Valgard said it was unlikely that the likes of Orm would be preferred to Finn. No offence, young Orm.'
`What happened then?' I asked, ignoring this, though my face burned. Botolf shrugged his massive shoulders.
`Starkad said it was true, all the same, at which Valgard spat and said we could now expect no rescue from. . I mean no offence, here, young Orm. . a nithing boy.'
`
Skafhogg needs a slap,' Finn growled and Botolf, teeth gleaming in the half-dark, nodded agreement. I signalled for him to go on and he pursed his lips and frowned, thinking.
`Starkad wanted to know where that Martin monk had gone, but Valgard told him to go away and that he could as well die, screaming in his own piss. After that, we were shipped south, all the way to Kherson, and sold to the goat-fucking Arabs. Takoub packed us, nose to feet, in a big ship and sailed us off to Serkland.'
He stopped and blinked, the closest Botolf came to fear, it seemed to me.
`We came off the boat together, which was itself considerable luck,' he rumbled, shaking his shaggy head at the memory. `That was a grim trip right enough — others died, but none of the Oathsworn.'
`How is it you went one way and they another?' I asked.
`Someone saw me, I am thinking, and thought I would be better fighting than any of the others. All I know is that I was unshackled from them and shackled to another lot and we were taken away — north, I think. The others went their own way, towards Damascus, I heard.'
`Together?' I asked and he nodded.
Even that little rat-faced Christ-man, Martin,' he said. The news rocked us all; I heard the rumble of One Eye laughing in my head.
`The monk?' gasped Finn and Botolf nodded, grinning.
Aye, he was rounded up with us — Starkad did not see him and Valgard thought it a good joke that what he sought so avidly was feet away from him all the time.'
`Heya,' breathed Kvasir, looking at me. 'Odin's hand, right enough, Trader. There you are telling Starkad what you believe to be lies and it was the truth all along.'
`What of the icon?' demanded Brother John, dabbing his cut head and Botolf frowned with puzzlement, then remembered and brightened.
`That spear thing? Oh, Takoub took it with him.'
`Where are the others now?' I asked, shooting annoyance at Brother John's interruption.
Botolf shrugged.
`So we have lost them, then,' growled Finn.
`Not lost,' answered Botolf cheerfully, finishing examining his cut. 'They went to Fatty Breeks. I heard men say so.'
`Who in the name of Odin's hairy arse is Fatty Breeks?' shouted Finn and then rounded on all those who woke and told him to keep quiet, folk were trying to sleep.
Easy, Horsehead,' I said, laying a calming hand on his arm. `Let's sleep on it and see if we can find someone who knows about it when it is full daylight.'
Grumbling, Finn curled up, scowling. Botolf shrugged, then grasped my wrist.
`You did well, Orm,' he said. `Valgard Skafhogg was sure it was our wyrd to die like nithings, for he did not think you had the balls for the task of saving us. It will be good to see his face when we shake his chains off.'
He lay down and started to snore almost at once. I envied him, for I still heard that thumping beat of my thoughts, a tern-whirl of confusion. Now we had our oarmates to consider, as well as the rune-serpent sword, and I dared not wonder what came next, for it is well known that the Norns weave in threes.
In the morning, after we had splashed water on our faces, we went around Skarpheddin's camp, asking about Fatty Breeks, which got us strange looks and a few scowls, which big Botolf deflected with a look of his own. We learned nothing.
The camp was a busy place, a village of wadmal cloth in fact, where folk carried on as if they were still in a toft set in hills soft and round as a breast, clothed with the tawny grass of spring and alive with gull and raven.
They worked the pole lathe, turned shoes, pumped bellows and forged, cooked solid fare against a Norway chill and tried to ignore the rising heat, a sky so pale blue it was near white, a sere roll of scrub-covered hills and the slaughtered-pig screech of the norias on the Orontes River, those huge water wheels that carried buckets up to the old arched aqueducts of the Romans and watered the fields around Antioch.
Into this bustle came the merchants, the spade-bearded Jewish Khazars whose brothers I had seen in Birka and fought at Sarkel, fat-bellied Arabs, plush Greeks and even a few Slays and Rus, smelling trade and bringing bargains.
Since Skarpheddin had parted with some of the silver he owed us, we took the chance to repair our gear and I sent Finn back to the Elk eventually, with instructions to have men on six-strong watches for two days at a time, the rest to come up and camp here as one body.
I was frantic to be gone from here, to be on some sort of trail, but no trail presented itself, neither of Starkad, nor of this mystery place, Fatty Breeks.
Radoslav, Brother John and I then haggled for good wadmal to make tents with and I managed to get a new set of striped Rus breeks and a cloak with a fine pin to go with it.
Brother John took the chance to examine my knees and eventually straightened, scratching his head and then looked at the palms of my hands, all of which was alarming.
`What?' I asked, making more light of it than I felt. 'How long do I have, then?'
He frowned and shook his head. 'Longer than anyone else,' he replied and grabbed Radoslav by the hand.
'Look here.'
Radoslav's hand was calloused and scarred, old white ones, new red ones and a couple that looked yellow with pus.
`So?' I answered. 'Everyone gets them. Ropes. Sword nicks.'
`Yours are all old,' Brother John said. 'Healed long since. Your knees, which you skinned on Patmos, will have scarcely a sign of scar.' He sighed. 'It is an ill-served world, right enough. Vitam regit fortuna non sapientia — chance, not wisdom, governs human life. There is you, whose youth repels all ills, it appears. Then there is Ivar Gautr, who is turning yellow and shrinking, even though the arrow wound in his cheek is healed.'
I felt the chill of it, for I had an idea what repelled all ills — would this fail, in time, now that Rune Serpent was far from my hand? Then Svala came up and drove all thoughts from me, for she seemed to glow.
Ignoring Radoslav and his broad smiles and winks, she cocked her head at me and said: 'The whole city is buzzing with talk of how the amphitheatre under-galleries were flooded last night, though no one can be found who saw it done.'
`You say so?' I replied flatly. 'To think we missed all this.'
She raised an eyebrow. 'The Roman soldiers are stamping up and down asking people questions and the engineers are fixing a huge leak in the arena's old underground cistern. There is talk of a giant and an axe.'
At which point Botolf came up, brandishing a new comb and trailing two or three giggling girls who were, it seems, intent on using it on his mane of red-gold hair. Spotting Svala, they found other business more pressing and looked almost afraid, which was strange. Svala smiled winsomely up at Botolf.
A giant,' she said, then looked at me. 'But no axe.'
It broke,' Botolf said with a grin, 'but if Orm gives me hacksilver, I have seen another at a fair price.'
I poured money from my limp purse, conscious of her eyes on me. Radoslav, chuckling, found something else to do and, suddenly, I was alone with her and my mouth worked like a fresh-caught cod.
`You are not as honey-mouthed as I had been told,' Svala said, then smiled and slipped an arm into mine.
'But that is no bad thing, for there is much about you that is strange and grand in one so young.'
`Just so,' I managed to croak, dazzled. Her face darkened. `Your dreams, for one thing.'
My body was a sea where my stomach and heart heaved on the swell. What did she know of my dreams?
She said nothing more, though, and we walked the camp in silence for a while, examining this and that. I saw Botolf again, stripped to the waist and showing off his skill and strength by spinning a Dane axe in one hand and a heft-seax in the other, which was a long, single-edged broad knife on a long pole. In the end, as the crowd applauded, the owner of the heft-seax had to allow he had won his bet and knocked down the price of both weapons.
Delighted, Botolf came and presented them to me for approval and I duly admired them. Behind, I saw the same giggling girls as before and, as he went
off, they slid to his side. Svala snorted.
`That Thyra is always in rut, so she comes as no surprise — but Katla and Herdis have no right to be doing that,' she declared. 'Their mothers will be furious, to say nothing of their fathers. And Katla should know better, for she only has to look at a prick and her belly swells. She has two babes already and a stupid husband, though his brain is not so addled he'll assume another is his, too.'
It was the word 'prick' that did it. On her lips it would have made one of the Christ saints kick in the door of his own church. Dry-mouthed, I could only stare at her and she must have felt it, for she turned, saw my look. . and looked down to where my new breeks, fat and striped as they were, could not hide what I was thinking.
A slow smile spread on her face and she looked me straight in the eye, put her head to one side and then laughed. 'As well you got some extra ells of material in the fork of those new breeks,' she said archly. 'Let us go into the city, for the walk will cool you, I am thinking.'
So we did that day. And the next. And the one after. We saw gold from Africa, leather from Spain, trinkets from Miklagard, linens and grain from the Fatamid lands, carpets from Armenia, glass and fruit from Syria, perfumes from the Abbasids, pearls from the sea in the south, rubies and silver from even further east.
On the fourth day, Brother John came with us, for we still searched for the strange Fatty Breeks and, though we again discovered nothing of that, I learned of the lands of Cathay, from which poured shiny-glazed pottery, the feathers of peacocks, excellent saddles, a thick, heavy cloth called felt and richer stuff worked with fine gold and silver wires. There was also a strange, purple-coloured stick with leaves known as rhubarb which was worth its weight in gold — though I did not know why, for it clapped your jaws with its tartness and made your belly gripe.
There was also the achingly familiar: the amber, wax, honey, ivory, iron and good furs from my homeland. Most painful of all, though, was the sight of speckled stone, the fine whetstones of the north. I snuffled them like a pig in a trough, fancied I was drinking in the faint scent of a northern sea, a shingle strand, even snow on high mountain rocks.