by Robert Low
I smiled at him. I liked the little priest, so I said what was on my mind. ‘You took no oath with us, Brother John. You need not make this journey.’
He cocked his head to one side and grinned. ‘And how would you be after making things work without me?’ he demanded. ‘Am I not known as a traveller, a Jorsalafari? I have pilgrimed in Serkland before and still want to get to the Holy City, to stand where Christ was crucified. You will need my knowledge.’
I was pleased, it has to be said, for he would be useful in more ways, this little Irski-mann and I was almost happy, even if he would not celebrate jul with us, but went off in search of a Christ ceremony, the one they call Mass.
Still – blood in the water. Not the best wyrd to carry on to the whale road chasing a serpent of runes. Nor were the three ravens Sighvat brought on board, with the best of intent – to check for land when none was in sight – and the sight of them perched all over him was unnerving.
We tried to celebrate jul in our own way, but it was a poor echo of ones we had known and, into the middle of it, like a mouse tumbling from rafter into ale horn, came Short Eldgrim, sloping out of the shadows to say that two Greek knarr were quitting the Julian, heading south, filled with Starkad’s war-dogs and the man himself in the biggest and fastest of them.
We hauled Brother John off his worshipping knees, scrambled for ropes and canvas and, as we hauled out of the harbour, I was thinking bitterly that Odin could not have picked a better night for this chase – it was the night he whipped up the Wild Hunt hounds and started out with the restless dead for the remainder of the year.
Yet nothing moved in the dark before dawn and a mist clung to the wharves and warehouses, drifting like smoke on the greasy water, like the remnants of a dream. The city slept in the still of what they called Christ’s Mass Day and no-one saw or heard us as the sail went up and we edged slowly out of the harbour, on to a grey chop of water.
Wolf sea, we called it, where the water was grizzled-grey and fanged with white, awkward, slapping waves that made rowing hard and even the strongest stomachs rebel. Only the desperate put out on such a sea.
But we were Norse and had Gizur, the sailing-master. While there were stars to be seen, he stood by the rail with a length of knotted string in his teeth attached to a small square of walrus ivory and set course by it.
He also had the way of reading water and winds and, when he strode to the bow, chin jutting like a scenting hound, turning his head this way and that to find the wind with wettened cheeks, everyone was eased and cheerful.
Him it was who had spotted the knarr ahead, not long after we had quit the Great City, on a morning when the frost had crackled in our beards. For two days we kept it in sight, just far enough behind to keep it in view. Only one, all the same – and, if we saw it, it could see us.
‘What do think, Orm Ruriksson?’ he asked me. ‘I say she knows we are tracking her wake, but then I am well known for being a man who looks over one shoulder going up a dark alley.’
Then a haar came down and we lost her – or so we thought. Finn was on watch while the rest of us hunkered down to keep warm. The sail was practically on the spar and yet we swirled along, for we were caught in the gout that spilled through the narrow way the Greeks call Hellespont and only us and fish dared run it in the dark. I had resigned myself to casting runes to find Starkad when Finn suddenly bawled out at the top of his voice, bringing us all leaping to our feet.
By the time I reached the side, there was only a grey shape sliding away into the fog. Finn, scowling, rubbed the crackling ice from his beard.
‘It was a knarr, right enough – we nearly ran up the steerboard of it, but when I hailed it, it sheered off and vanished south.’
‘As would I have done,’ Brother John chuckled, ‘if you had hailed me in your heathen tongue. Did you try Greek at all?’ Finn admitted he had not mainly because, as he said loudly and at length, he could not speak more than a few words as Brother John knew well and if he had forgotten he, Finn, would be glad to jog his memory with a good kick up the arse.
‘Next time, try your few words first,’ advised Brother John. ‘“Et tremulo metui pavidum junxere timorem” as the Old Roman skald has it. “And I feared to add dreadful alarm to a trembling man” – bear it in mind.’
Everyone chuckled at a shipload of Greeks being scared off by a single Norse voice, while Finn, spilling ale down his beard and trying to stuff bread in his mouth as he drank, grumbled back at them.
Sighvat pointed out that if Finn did hail another ship as Brother John wished, it would turn round and vanish as well, for who wants to hear someone wanting to know how much it costs to have your balls licked?
‘Either that,’ added Kvasir, ‘or they will be confused by a demand for two more ales and a dish of mutton.’
But Radoslav looked at me and both of us knew, because we were more traders than the others, that the ship had held Starkad, or at least some of his men. Traders thrived on gossip: what cargo was going where, what prices for what goods in what ports. They sucked it up like mother’s milk and, to get it, they talked to every other trader they saw coming up against them or sailing down a route with them. Unless you looked like a warship, or a sleek hafskip, which could be more wolf than sheep, you hailed them all for news; you didn’t sheer away like a nervous maiden goosed behind her mother’s back.
Nor, if you were anyone but the Norse, did you run the Hellespont at night.
But it had vanished south and we followed. In the morning, Sighvat cast his bone runes on the wet aft-deck and tried to make sense of it, Short Eldgrim peering over his shoulder. In the end, Sighvat made his pronouncement and Gizur leaned on the steering oar as the sail cranked up; I saw we were taking the most likely trade route and wondered if that course had truly been god-picked or was Sighvat’s common sense.
What nagged me more was where the second boatload was – and if the one we had seen had had Starkad in it. For days I wondered where either had gone and whether we had passed them.
As always, Odin showed the truth, with a fingernail trace of smoke against the sky.
The smoking boat was a Greek knarr, listing and down at the stern. It had been on fire, but the waves had soaked out the flames, leaving a smouldering hulk. Two bodies rolled and bobbed among the ash and spars nearby, reluctant to leave even in death.
Up in our bow, Arnor used his harpoon to gaff one of the bodies and drag it closer. He was an Icelander and everyone had mocked at him for seeking out a whaling harpoon instead of a spear – but Arnor knew the weapon and it had certainly been of use now.
The bodies were gashed and torn, bled white so that the wounds were now pale, lipless mouths. They had been stripped of everything and made a sorry sight on the deck of the Volchok, leaking into the bilges.
‘Stabbed and cut,’ remarked Brother John, examining them. ‘That’s an arrow wound, for sure, but they recovered it. Barbed, too – look where it hooked out heart-meat when it was pulled.’
‘I know this one,’ said Finn suddenly.
‘Which one?’ I asked.
‘That one with the heart-wound and the squint. He was in the Dolphin guarding Starkad’s back. I remember thinking that he was an ugly troll and that if I had the chance I would knock his eyes straight for him.’
Anything can happen on the whale road …
I had that proved as the knarr gurgled and sank. Brother John fell to his knees and offered up prayers to his god and the Christ, which seemed a little harsh to me, for he was congratulating this Jesus on having led these men to this doom rather than us. I had not thought the Christ, white-livered godlet of peace, was so harsh – but I had much to learn; as Finn said, even as he followed me, the horn-moss was barely rubbed off me.
Of course, the rest of us joined in piously and those, like me, who thought no harm in getting all the help we could offered silent thanks to Odin, whose hand was in this for sure.
Now we knew.
We sat and worked out what
had happened as the remains of the knarr hissed away to nothing, leaving only the stink of wet char. A ship, perhaps more than one, had come on it and there had been a fight, though Finn reckoned the attackers had sat back and shot arrows until the defenders had given in.
It seemed to him that the others had been taken, probably as slaves, because there were only two bodies, but the defenders had given in when the ship had been fired. This showed that the attackers were skilled, not just for having fire aboard for arrows, but because they would have to have worked swiftly to secure cargo and prisoners in little time before the ship burned and sank.
‘It is a blade path we are on and no mistake,’ Sighvat offered mournfully, which got him some hard looks; a blade path was what steersmen call a hard pull into a gale, where the only progress was by the oarblade.
It also meant the road walked by those who had died as oathbreakers, a trail studded with sharp edges, so that those who cared enough howed such wyrd-doomed up with thick-soled ox-hide shoes, to help them walk their way to Hel’s hall.
While they were shaking their heads and making warding signs, I considered matters. It seemed to me that these Arabs would not go far from home, though that was the arrogance of being Norse and believing that only we dared the far seas. I learned later that the Arabs are good seamen – but I had the right of here, for these Arabs were bandits with a boat, no more.
Radoslav fished out a square of fine sealskin from his purse and unfolded it to reveal another of walrus hide; we all peered curiously, mainly because it was clear he did not like revealing it. Gizur growled when he saw it, for it was a fair chart that he could have used.
‘Well, a sailor’s chart is a precious thing,’ Radoslav argued, scowling, ‘and not to be handed out lightly.’
Gizur hawked and spat meaningfully, then scowled at the lines and marks on the walrus hide. Like most of us, he only half trusted maps for how, as I had been told by better men, can you mark down with little scratches and pictures where the waves change with the mood of Ran? Experience had already taught me that maps were more fancy than fact – like all of the monk-made ones, this had Jorsalir at the centre and a guddle everywhere else – and a man at sea was better off using the knowledge of those who had sailed before, or trusting to the gods when he was on the whale road.
Still, using this one, we worked out that an island called Patmos was not so far from us, at which Brother John brightened considerably.
‘St John the Evangelist was there,’ he informed us. ‘He was one of the twelve disciples and was exiled to Patmos by the Romans for preaching the word of God.’
‘Those Romans are stupid,’ growled Finn. ‘They should have slit his throat. Instead, they stick him on an island with a bunch of goat-humping sea-raiders.’
Brother John hesitated, then decided against throwing light on Finn’s hazy grasp of the Christ sagas. Instead, he told us all about this saint and his revelations.
‘What revelations?’ demanded Short Eldgrim.
‘The Revelations,’ answered Brother John. ‘A holy gospel.’ We knew what a gospel was – a sort of saga tale for Christmen – and someone asked the obvious question.
‘It concerns the end of the world,’ Brother John answered him.
‘Ah, Ragna Rok,’ Finn said dismissively, ‘but that’s no revelation to anyone.’
Brother John was set to argue the point, but I gripped his shoulder and stopped him. ‘Is there anything you know about this island that is of any use?’
He blinked. ‘There’s a town, Skala. A harbour. A church. The cave where the saint lived …’
‘A nice little pirate haven,’ Short Eldgrim said. ‘Ah well, no ship-luck for Starkad, then.’
‘I trust we are not going after them,’ demanded Radoslav.
That is exactly what I planned to do.
Radoslav shrugged and rubbed one hand across his shaved scalp. ‘I was thinking on it,’ he went on, ‘and it came to me that we do not know how many camel-eating Arabs there are, or that Starkad is there, or this wonderful sword.’
‘I don’t care to know how many goat-botherers there are,’ growled Finn. ‘I just need to know where they are – and, if Starkad is there, the rune-serpent sword is there.’
Gizur grunted and hemmed, a sure sign he did not agree. ‘There are a deal too many goat-humpers being talked of for my comfort.’
Sighvat nodded soberly, stroking the glossy head of one of his ravens and spoke, quiet and thoughtful and smack on the mark. ‘Well, what if Starkad is there? And our sword?’
Our sword, I noted. There was silence, save for Radoslav, who rubbed his head in a fury of frustration. ‘What is so special about this sword?’ he demanded. ‘Apart from cutting anvils. Why is it called Rune Serpent?’
‘What do we do with Starkad and his men if we free them?’ demanded Gizur, ignoring him. ‘The Volchok is too small for all of us.’
‘We could leave Starkad and his men on the island once the goat-humpers have been beaten,’ Brother John said firmly. ‘Alive.’
Finn grunted, which made Brother John frown, but none of us voiced what the rest of us knew; no one could be left alive to follow us once we had the runesword back.
Still, there were heads shaking over it, but I had seen another possibility.
‘What were Starkad’s men wearing when they stood at his back in the Dolphin, Horsehead?’ I asked and Finn frowned, thinking.
‘Well, I saw one had a good cloak and a silver pin that I liked. And there was a bulge under the other one’s armpit that spoke of a fat purse …’
I sighed, for Finn’s eyes saw only what he fancied. ‘A byrnie?’ I prompted and the frown lifted when the idea dawned on him. He nodded, creasing his face in a grin. They had come helmed and armoured.
‘Coats of rings. And no doubt good swords and helms and shields,’ I pointed out. ‘Even on a scabby Greek knarr Starkad’s men would go well equipped. And even if he is not there, that loot would be worth the risk.’
Brother John clasped his hands together and looked piously at the sky. ‘Et vanum stolidae proditionis opus,’ he intoned.
Vain is the work of senseless treachery – and Sighvat nodded as if he understood it and released the raven in the direction we knew Patmos lay. Screeching raucously, the bird wheeled off over the whitecaps and Sighvat offered his own translation of Brother John’s Latin.
‘Shame to leave all that battle-gear to men who treat goats so badly,’ he said.
The raven did not come back.
THREE
From the brow of the ridge we could look down on the remains of Skala, a small town where lanterns bobbed in a night wind that sighed over the barren scrub and rocks. A huge fire burned in what appeared to be the central square, flattening now and then in the breeze, and I counted a good dozen round it, laughing, talking, eating from the one dish. All the good citizens of the town had long since fled to the wilderness, or been sold to slavery.
These raiders were not so much different from us, I saw. They’d had a good day, gained plunder and were enjoying the fact so much it never crossed their minds that anyone would be here. It was something I remembered after and always set men on watch.
I also remember wondering if this was how it had been with Einar, always noting little things, always having to deep-think until your head hurt, always having the others there, at one and the same time a comfort and a curse.
We had come up to it in a fever of constant watches, tacking, gybing and working the sail furiously against a hissing wind, mirr-sodden and fretful, which swung this way and that. We had to lower the sail for a while and rock there, licking dry lips and squinting at the faded horizon for the first sight of a sail that would be pirates, for sure.
Then the wind came right, smack on the starboard quarter, and we hauled up the sail again, which it was my turn to do. It is no easy task and was a mark of how strong I had become that Gizur left it to me and Short Eldgrim – me to haul, he to tail the line, making it fast round a
pin.
I was so lost in the act I didn’t notice anything, for it was not a simple pulling, more of a falling to the deck with your whole bodyweight cranking the rakki – the yoke that held the sail – up the mast to where it should be.
The line slipped, as it always does, and made a fresh welt on my hand – all of the crew had cuts and welts, slow to heal in the constant damp, filled with pus and stinging. Except me. Mine healed quickly and left no scars, which had been a hackle-raising thing for me, convinced as I was that the rune-serpent sword was the cause.
Yet it had gone and that seemed to make no difference; I healed just as well. I was cheered by that and was starting to think that perhaps I should believe what Finn and Kvasir said, that I was just young, healthy and Odin-lucky.
I was examining the fresh welt when Kvasir yelled out: ‘Land ahead.’
We all craned to see. Sure enough, there it was, a sliver of dark against the damp pewter sky. Gizur looked at me questioningly and I looked at the sky in reply. We had, perhaps, four hours of good daylight and would be on the land in one. I signalled to him and we slipped the sail up a knot, so that the Volchok surged a little harder.
‘What do you think, Trader?’ asked Sighvat.
‘Your Odin pet was a strong flier,’ I told him, then turned to the rest of the crew who were off-watch and told them to break out weapons and shields. Sighvat crooned softly to one of the two birds he had left and stroked its glossy black head. It looked at me with a cold, hard eye, showing me the black cave of its mouth in an ugly hiss.
Men checked straps and edges, faces like stones. Twelve of us, all that was left of the Oathsworn here, which was just enough to crowd the knarr and not enough for a shieldwall. I wondered how many Arab sea-raiders there were and must have said it aloud.
‘Pirates,’ growled Radoslav and spat over the side. ‘Nikephoras Phokas drove the burnous-wearing shits out of Crete about five years ago, but the survivors took to the other islands and are now like ticks on an old bitch. Sooner or later, the Great City will have to do something, for attacks on merchants are becoming too frequent.’