The Oathsworn Series Books 1 to 3

by Robert Low

  TEN

  The fur market of Novgorod dripped under a fine mirr of rain that had been falling since dawn and, no matter how hard they tried, the pelt-sellers couldn’t keep their wares dry under awnings and ended up dragging waterproofed wool over them, destroying any attempt at display.

  The richer traders, those with solid edifices, huddled under the eaves, hardly bothering to rouse themselves since custom was so slight.

  ‘This is a dangerous business,’ my father growled, dragging his cloak further up over his head. Einar thumbed snot off his nose and said nothing.

  ‘You are just wet,’ I told him and Valknut chuckled. But the truth was that I thought he was probably right. The rain had soaked my perfectly good cloak and the mud had splashed up my fine fat breeks even on the walkway.

  The hollow-socket stare of dead animals followed me from under every sheltered eave and from every trestle: long-snouted wolves, fox, highly prized sable, scabby rabbit and mottled hare. There were deer hides and antler-bone for the carvers and, slung from a hook in the middle of one room, a huge bear pelt with the head still on. The stink of hides from the tanners and leather-workers slunk to my nose now and then, brought by the wind and scarcely dampened by the rain.

  I tried to be cheerful and failed and I knew the reason. I no longer had Hild to consider. Illugi Godi was with her all the time now, whether by Einar’s order or her demand I could not be sure. But she ignored me as completely as she could and I should have been happy with that, but wasn’t.

  Everyone else knew why, of course – or thought they did. They nudged each other and grinned at my new, permanent scowl and at every pointed Hild slight.

  I touched the seax strapped in the small of my back, under the cloak, and felt the rain trickle down my neck. For days we had been hunting for Martin, or Bjorn, or Steinkel. You wouldn’t think it so hard in a town, but I discovered that a town is worse than a forest. You can hide everywhere and anywhere.

  But Einar wanted him and I knew why. Martin knew of the Great Hoard and that we had Hild, who knew how to get to it. The gods knew how he had collided with Gudleif’s sons, but what none of us wanted was to have him flapping his lip to the likes of Vigfus, or anyone else, in pursuit of his own dreams.

  I took on this task with enthusiasm. We were stuck in Novgorod until the spate ended; the rivers were too fast-running to travel until at least May, perhaps June. Down at Kiev, eighteen days at least by boat, the river rose around fifteen feet and spread from about half a mile wide to five or even six miles wide.

  Eventually, we heard that someone had seen a monk that might be ours and we listened to that one, because they said this monk wasn’t of the Roman church, but Western. Since most of the monks and Christ priests in Novgorod were Greeks from Miklagard, we thought this monk likely to be the right one.

  And so here we were, looking for Skudi the Finn in the Shelonskaya district, across the bridge from the Podol, the riverside quarter. Skudi was a man who had promised, for a price, to deliver this monk up to us. So Einar, me, my father and Valknut went to him, trying hard to look like Gotland traders.

  Einar, of course, smelled trap, but decided that more men might be too easily spotted and scare off the prize. In the rain of the market, though, I wished we had brought those men and more. I kept seeing thugs in every lumbering, bearded shape, every untrusting face smeared with fat to keep it dry.

  Valknut found the Finn, who did not seem to warrant a shop at all, since he huddled on a bench in a cloak with a rat-chewed fur collar, sparse hair splayed on his skull and a calculating look in his watery blue eyes.

  ‘This is Skudi,’ Valknut said and the man nodded, hearing his name. I didn’t speak so much Finn, so tried East Norse, while my father offered up West and Valknut, to my surprise, added Greek.

  In that complex maze of tongues, we managed to haggle out a suitable price and, at the same time, warn the Finn that Einar would slit him from balls to chin if he proved false. Einar fished out a purse from under his armpit and sorted out full silver coins from the collection of sliced and whole and slivers in the bag. The Finn looked at them, shook his head and went off on a long rant in three languages.

  ‘Tell him that’s all he is getting,’ Einar warned, narrowing his eyes. But that wasn’t the problem and I sighed. This was getting complicated.

  ‘He won’t take srebreniks,’ I said. ‘Says there’s not enough silver in them.’

  The srebrenik was a new Rus coin, minted in Kiev from the same design as the favoured Serkland dirham, but the silver flow was now a trickle and the Rus ones had less in them than the Arab coins.

  ‘His own lord mints them,’ growled Einar, ‘and that’s what he pays us in.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter to him. He wants old Rus kunas, or Serkland dirham. Or milaresia from Byzantium if you have any.’

  ‘Fuck him,’ answered Valknut and his slit-eyed gesture with a thumb across the throat was eloquent in any language.

  But Skudi was a trader and I had to admire him; he was used to hard haggling and never even broke into a sweat. Instead, he pointed to the silver torc round Einar’s neck, given by Yaropolk as befits a lord to his commanders.

  ‘That’s worth more,’ spat Einar. ‘He’s a cunning little swine, I will give him that.’

  I made swift calculations and shook my head. ‘No, it isn’t. It’s a Rus grivna of silver, worth twenty five. The kuna is the same as a dirham here. He is losing slightly, but he can sell the torc for more since it is pure silver.’

  Einar blinked. He had another couple of such rings, as befits a jarl, so could afford to miss this one. My father scrubbed his head furiously and Valknut just glared. Then Einar shrugged, bent the torc off his neck and tossed it to the Finn, who bit it with black teeth and nodded, grinning.

  ‘How you keep track of all this kunas and dirham and srebrooniks …’ muttered my father. ‘My head hurts with it.’

  ‘Srebreniks,’ I corrected and marvelled at them. I had already learned a valuable lesson: the Oathsworn and all the other bands like them were good at getting loot, bad at keeping it. A good trader would have the purse from under their armpit without having to beat them into the ground first, providing he could keep in his head the worth of all the different coins swirling around trade centres such as Kiev and Novgorod.

  ‘Just make sure he doesn’t play us false. I liked that neck ring,’ growled Einar moodily.

  The little Finn made the silver circle vanish inside his shirt, then swept his ratty cloak over his head and scuttled out into the rain, us following, looking right and left and expecting trouble.

  We left the furrier quarter and the tanner stink behind, splashed and slithered down the walkways until, suddenly, Einar stopped and said, ‘That’s Oleg’s hov.’

  We all stopped and Valknut caught the Finn before he could go any further. Oleg, third of the sons of Sviatoslav. Vladimir and our own new lord, Yaropolk, were the other two, though Vladimir was born of a thrall. All of them circled each other like wary young dogs, kept from each other’s throats only by their father, the mighty Prince of the Rus.

  The wooden structure was impressive, but strange, with wooden pillars holding up a portion of the eaves, under which two fully armed guards looked at us with barely disguised amusement and caution.

  The Finn gabbled furiously and, between us, we managed to work out that the monk was part of Oleg’s retinue and lived and worked in a place round the back.

  Einar stroked his dripping moustaches and then hissed to Valknut to take a casual stroll round. ‘Try to see him but not be seen,’ he growled. ‘There’s nothing we can do here and now, but we will come back when there is less chance of being seen.’

  We moved, hauling the reluctant Finn with us, to the shelter of another building, away from the eyes of the guards, and waited, trying to look innocent. We all smelled like wet dogs.

  Valknut was back swiftly, shaking himself free of rain. ‘It’s him, right enough. Two young boys with him, about your age,
Orm. He is scribbling away in the dry, with a brazier of hot coals, the turd.’

  ‘Those boys will be Gudleif’s sons,’ I said and my father agreed. Einar released the Finn, who vanished into the mirr without a backward glance.

  ‘We will come back at night,’ Einar said levelly. ‘And put this monk to the question.’

  I didn’t bother reminding him that the monk was protected, as part of Oleg’s retinue, as we were in Yaropolk’s. He knew that already, but what was making him chew his nails was whether Martin had told Oleg anything of our business.

  So we were back under the same building hours later, when the rain had stopped, in the pitch black of a moon-shrouded night. There was a lantern spreading butter-yellow where the guards had been, but they were gone and the great timber doors closed. I knew that the hov was where Oleg sat during the day, dispensing justice, interviewing, all the things such princes do.

  We slid round the side of the building and spotted the glow of another light, spilling from an unshuttered window. Valknut nodded at Einar and we all moved to the place, a mean timber outbuilding to the splendid hov.

  Einar wasted no time; he hoofed in the door with a crash and rushed in, seax out.

  Martin yelled and fell off a high stool; the youth with him – only one, I saw – went white with fear and scrabbled for the sword he had laid too far away. Valknut swept it up by the baldric and dangled it tantalisingly in front of him, grinning.

  ‘Martin,’ said Einar, as if greeting a long-lost friend. The monk rose from the floor, using the time to recover his composure. He smoothed his brown robe – new, I saw – and lifted the stool up. Then he smiled.

  ‘Einar. And young Orm. Yes, lots of old familiar faces here.’

  The boy’s head came up and a flush brought colour to those chalk-white cheeks at the sound of my name. My father spotted it, too. ‘Which one of my nephews are you, then?’ he demanded.

  The boy licked dry lips. ‘Steinkel.’

  ‘Where’s your brother? Bjorn, isn’t it?’ I asked and he shrugged. Valknut, at a look from Einar, slid back into the darkness to make sure we weren’t being ambushed.

  Martin climbed back on to his stool and recommenced his work, grinding stuff in a bowl. He caught me looking and smiled. ‘Oak galls in vinegar, thickened with gum from Serkland and some salts of iron,’ he said. ‘Encaustum, from the Latin caustere, to bite. But you know that, young Orm, for you can read Latin. But you cannot write in any language.’

  Now I knew the reason for the yellow-black scorch marks on his fingertips – which was one of the few familiar signs about him now. He had both grown and withered since I had seen him last. He had a beard now and his bald patch – a tonsure, I had learned – was freshly shaven. Yet he was thinner and something had chiselled away at his face, sinking his eyes deeper, while they blazed with a strange, yellow fervour.

  He waved at the litter on the table in front of him, while Steinkel trembled and everyone else waited to hear what Valknut found outside. So we listened to Martin.

  ‘These are what will make you and your kind fade to nothing and the word of God triumph,’ he went on, grinding slowly and smiling at Einar.

  ‘What is my kind?’ Einar countered and Martin’s mouth went thin.

  ‘Doomed,’ he said.

  The silence was something you could taste.

  ‘These are rolls, for tribute and taxes,’ Martin went on, to the chink-chink of his grinding. ‘These poor heathens used to make marks on tally sticks and even strips of birch bark. But you can’t run a kingdom like that. Oleg values me, for I can tell him who owes what and when. In time, his sons and his sons’ sons will know. The mixture bites into the vellum and leaves a mark. As my words will bite into the future and leave a mark.’

  ‘Aye, you are a clever man, right enough,’ Einar answered, unfazed. ‘Once before you showed me your cleverness.’ And he drew out his little knife and nonchalantly trimmed a thread from the weave on one cuff.

  Martin winced at the memory and I saw him pause in his grinding to touch the scabbed stump of his finger. Then he recovered his smile. ‘If you had not come to me, I would have come to you, Einar,’ he said easily.

  ‘Just so,’ Einar replied. ‘It was lucky for us both then that you showed these bold lads and their friends where to find me and mine. Such polite messengers.’

  Martin shrugged. ‘These boys came to me because I am a priest and they are baptised Christians. When they told me who they were, I knew whom they sought. That was God’s work.’

  ‘Just so,’ my father said. ‘Your god must be pleased at the helping hand you gave him to point these young lads and their killers in our direction. Some guidance from a Christ priest. Are you not supposed to tell them not to kill?’

  ‘You killed my father …’ Steinkel declared sullenly.

  ‘I did indeed, nephew,’ my father said and I looked at him, shocked. I had always thought it had been Einar. ‘He killed my bear,’ my father went on. ‘And he tried to kill Orm here—’

  ‘Enough,’ Einar interrupted and glared darkly at Martin. ‘Why would you have come to me?’

  Martin put down the pestle carefully as Valknut came back in, looked at Einar and shook his head.

  Martin said, ‘Take the boy outside.’

  Steinkel’s head whipped from one to the other, bemused, angry. When Valknut grabbed an arm, he pulled back. ‘What are you up to, monk?’ he yelled, his voice high and shrill. Valknut wrenched him into an embrace, whirled him round and took the collar of his tunic at the back of the neck, twisting it tight so that it choked him. He hauled the boy up so that his toes danced furiously for a grip on the floor, then the pair of them staggered through the door and into the night.

  Einar cocked his head expectantly at Martin, who sighed and put off sharpening his writing quill. ‘I have told Oleg nothing,’ he declared. ‘In return for this continued silence, I want the return of my Holy Lance.’

  ‘Your what?’ demanded my father.

  ‘Hild’s spear-shaft,’ I told him, ‘which she won’t like to give up.’

  My father looked from one to the other. ‘Why does he … What use is that? It has no point.’

  If he meant it as a joke, no one laughed. I looked at Martin and knew. ‘He has promised Oleg,’ I said. ‘In return, Oleg has promised … what? A Christ church in Kiev, or here in Holmgard?’

  Martin’s smile was blade-sharp and twisted. ‘Kiev. And when he succeeds his father, he will make me bishop there, with the blessing of the Pope. This country seeks a new and Christian religion.’

  ‘And it won’t be the Greek one from the Great City,’ I finished for him. He inclined his head generously in my direction.

  ‘There are two more of Sviatoslav’s sons,’ my father growled, ‘who may not fall in with this great scheme.’

  Martin shrugged. I saw he was confident of switching allegiances to whichever brother triumphed – if he had a great Christ charm to promise.

  Einar was silent for a moment. Martin and he exchanged sword-cut glances across the room, each knowing what the other was thinking. What was to stop Einar killing Martin now and thus shutting his mouth?

  The fact that he was Oleg’s man and that would mean trouble. Steinkel would know who had done it, so he would have to die. His brother would suspect, so they would have to find and kill him, too … there was too much blood, even for Einar.

  ‘How do I know you will keep your word, monk?’ demanded Einar flatly.

  ‘You will surely kill me if I don’t,’ he replied easily, ‘and I will swear it on the Christ cross, an oath if you will. You like oaths, Einar.’

  There was a moment of deadly stillness. I saw visions of blood everywhere and then Einar shook his head and I breathed again.

  ‘Swear on your Christ-god if you will,’ he said quietly. ‘Swear also to Odin.’

  Martin hesitated, then nodded. A pagan oath was easily broken in Martin’s mind, but one to his own god might hold. Of course, Einar would try to
kill him anyway, as quietly and secretly as possible and everyone saw that – including Martin. It would be a harder task to find him after all this, I was thinking.

  As we drifted into the night, I was less easy about taking the spear-shaft away from Hild and said as much. No one had a thought on it as we made our way back to the Elk.

  In the end, it was surprisingly easy. She held on tight to it, white-knuckled, until Ketil Crow – none too gently, it seemed to me – prised her loose from it. I expected rants, rages, even those rolling-eyed fits.

  Instead, she sank down on the deck with a weary sigh, slumped like a sack.

  Ketil Crow and Illugi Godi went off into the night to deliver it and witness Martin’s oath. As they left, with my warning to watch out for my cousins, doubly mad now, I would wager, she looked blackly at Einar. ‘There is a price to pay for this,’ she said and the blank chill of it made me shiver. Even Einar, sunk in morose contemplation of the subject, was jerked back by the simple vehemence of it.

  ‘Can you still find the howe of Attila?’ he demanded, alarmed, and she nodded, her eyes startling pits of pitch in the yellow lantern light.

  ‘Nothing will now keep me from that burial place,’ she declared. ‘But I will need something from you.’

  We moved to Kiev not long afterwards, in a mad, shouting, frantic chaos of boats and men, leaving Valgard and a dozen Oathsworn with the Elk.

  Novgorod was as far as foreign ships went. All the traders were forced to the Rus boats: the strugi and the larger nasady, which were expensive, but could withstand Baltic storms and the grind of dragging them over portages. It was as sound a way as any of making sure the Prince of Kiev controlled the river trade.

  But the traders stayed in the crowded anchorage this time, fuming and cursing, because every boat had been taken by Sviatoslav to move men and gear swiftly down to Kiev the Golden. From there, we’d move across to the Don and down it to face the Khazars.

  I remember the journey as one of the laziest I have ever had. The only lazier one was the sail down the Don afterwards.