by Robert Low
The arrows whirred from somewhere unseen, for the step from light to dark lost us our eyesight and, until we gained it back, we simply had to stand and brace. The first flight smacked the shields and we huddled, grunting and sweating, with Finn, Arnor and others sheltering behind, shieldless and double-armed with axes and spears.
The next thrumming sound brought arrows lower, aiming for feet and legs, but we saw them now, seven men behind a barricade of a thick table. Kvasir yelped as an arrow stung his ankle, but the angle was awkward and they bounced and skittered everywhere.
We waited, sweating and breathing in jagged rasps. I could see nothing behind the shield, but Finn, hefting a spear, watched and calculated and, suddenly, yelled, ‘Now!’
A slew of axes and spears smashed across the space, just as the archers popped up for another salvo. At the same time, we three hurled forward, roaring out our challenge.
Finn’s spear took one full in the chest and hurled him backwards. An axe took another in the shoulder, blade on, a second axe slammed into the head of a third, shaft first.
Then we were on them and Black Robe, spitting curses, hurled himself at me.
We fought across the upturned table and he had clearly done sword-work before, for he knew the moves. He stabbed out, that serpent’s tongue curve of blade darting swiftly, so that my axe swings looked even more clumsy by comparison. I shield-parried, axe-parried, swung, roared and nothing made any difference while, around me, men panted and grunted and shrieked and died.
He had battled shielded men before, but ones of his own sort, with metalled shields, which was his undoing. His breath was ragged and he knew he was done for anyway, but he fought with the savage-grinned panic of a rat in a barrel – and stabbed at the lower half of my shield, which would force it forward and expose my neck.
That tactic worked only on a wooden shield like mine if the point of the sword was rounded and almost blunt, like a good Norse sword. When his sharp point stuck in mine, the alarm showed briefly in those olive-dark eyes and he made another mistake – he tried to pull it out instead of letting go at once and finding another weapon.
When I back-cut, under his outstretched sword-arm, the axe blade went in on the upstroke under his armpit and only the shoulder blade stopped it. He screeched, high and thin like a woman in childbirth, and jerked away, freeing the axe for a downstroke that, because I was clumsy and hasty with panic, did not take him neatly between neck and shoulder, but carved away his bearded jaw on the left side.
Blood and teeth sprayed. One hit me in the eye, making me duck and turn away, which would have been fatal save that he was already gone, backwards and keening, on to the blood-slick flagstones.
Then there was that moment of rasp-breathing, broken by moans of those who hurt so much they wished they were dead, the gurgles of those so near death they can no longer feel the pain. This time, there was also a deal of cursing from Arnor, who had had his nose split by a cut and was bleeding badly. Others moved purposefully among the whimpering Arabs, cutting throats and not being kind about it – the treatment of Starkad’s men saw to that.
Finn rolled his shoulders, as if he had just done some gentle exercise, and strolled over to look at the fallen leader, who was still gasping and gurgling, drowning in his own blood. ‘Messy,’ he declared, shaking his head. ‘I must show you some points of axe fighting, Orm Trader, for you seem to think you are chopping wood with it.’
‘You might be better with a good sword,’ Brother John said and indicated the area beyond the litter of bodies. Finn’s eyes grew as wide as his grin. Plunder.
It was, too. I had expected the weapons and battle-gear of Starkad’s men, perhaps some of the provisions from their vessel, and that would have been worth the death of Kol, even by his reckoning. I had not thought, of course, that these were seasoned pirates, who had been taking easy pickings for some time from merchants unlucky enough not to sail wider around Patmos.
There were ells of cloth, from fine linen to wadmal, barrels and boxes packed with little packets of what appeared to be dust and earth.
There was the yellow one called turmeric and the fine crimson crescents of the fire-plants that could raise blisters on the mouth of the unwary but, if cooked properly with meat, made dishes the Oathsworn could not get enough of.
There were golden mountains of almonds, black, pungent spikes of cloves, great heaps of brown dust which we knew to be cumin and coriander and barrels of instantly recognisable chickpeas.
We stared at it all open-mouthed for, in one moment, we had all become as rich as we had previously been poor, such a change as to leave us stunned – until the realisation of it struck home and we delighted in each fresh discovery.
We laughed when Short Eldgrim unwrapped a packet from a barrel of them and sneezed so that it flew everywhere, filling the room with a golden dust that made everyone sneeze and weep.
Cinnamon, Brother John told us sternly and Short Eldgrim had just sneezed away a fortune of it.
That sobered us, so that we took more care and uncovered carefully packed and almost fresh produce – capsicums and the like and small golden-yellow fruits which made your jaws ache, and Brother John said were called limon.
The treasures went on and on: barrels filled with all different kinds of olives, when we had never seen more than one sort in our lives and only since we had come to Miklagard. And pepper both light and dark, as well as leather from the Nile lands.
There were weapons, too – a consignment of spearheads and knives and Greek blades needing hilt-finishing – and three beautiful swords, all clearly made in our homeland so that it made you almost weep to see them.
They were worth more than everything else put together and those blades I took, for they were well smithed and had their story written there, like water, just below the surface of the metal. Vaegir, they were called – wave swords – and that marked them as superior, even though they had little or no decoration on hilt or handle, just good leather grips.
One I took for myself, the other two I gave to Finn and Kvasir, marking them as chosen men, and that pair could not have been happier if I had been handing them out from a gifthrone in a huge hall, like a proper jarl. My first raid had brought them all riches and I felt the power of the jarl torc then.
So we spent the whole day moving all this to the Volchok, pausing only to give Kol a proper burial, with some of the spearheads and his weapons, in a decent boatgrave marked with white stones. Brother John said his chants and I, as godi, spoke some words of praise to Odin for Kol.
Later, Brother John showed Finn how to cook with the golden limon-fruits, so that we had minted lamb meat soaked in that juice, chopped and rolled with lentils and barley. We put it in a communal bowl – the same one the Arabs had been using – and ate it with some fresh-made flatbread. It was, by far, better than the ship’s provisions – coarse bran bread, pickled mutton, salt fish, and some dried fruit – but I still ate last, after I made sure men were on watch.
We chewed, grinning greasily at each other, fat-cheeked as winter squirrels and our bellies were full of that limon-flavoured lamb when we lolled by a fire near the slow-rolling Volchok, watching the Arabs’ ship burn to the waterline; we could not crew it and did not want any we had missed coming after us, full of revenge.
The men were admiring the helms and mail and swords they had, swapping mail shirts that did not fit for ones that did, when Sighvat came up, clutching a leather bag. Men stared; he had his two ravens free of their cages, one perched on either shoulder and there were wary and uncertain looks at that, the mark of a seidr man.
‘I found this in the gear when we were sorting it out, Trader,’ he said, ignoring their glances and handed out a bound parchment. ‘It is in that Latin you read. What does it say?’
I did not know and said so, but Brother John did, for it was Greek and he knew that language well. As he read it, his brow furrowed.
‘This is from Choniates, to the Archbishop Honorius of Larnaca, saying t
hat the men who have this message are acting on behalf of one Starkad, who is acting for Choniates and should be given all help … and so on and so on. It seems they were to collect something and carry it back to Choniates.’
‘Does it say what it is?’ I asked as everyone gathered round to listen.
Brother John examined the parchment further, then shook his head and shrugged. ‘No, not a word – but it must be expensive if Choniates handed him that sword for it.’
Aye, he had the right of it – Starkad had stolen the runesword for the Greek and then been given it back as payment for a service. If he was paid that richly, it was no small service.
‘What is so special about this sword?’ Radoslav demanded, scrubbing his head in fury.
There were shrugs. Eyes flicked to me and I smiled at the big Slav – then told him the truth of it, watching him closely as I did so. His eyes went large and round and he licked lips suddenly dry, a lizard look I did not care for much.
‘Small wonder, then, that they wanted to avoid us,’ he offered, passing it all off as casually as he could, though his fevered eyes spoiled the stone-smoothness he tried for. ‘Why was Starkad not here?’ he asked, recovering, and it was a good question.
Because he was on a second ship and still looking for Martin. It seemed to me that he had sent his men racing ahead, armed and prepared to undertake this quest for Choniates, but it was my bet Starkad couldn’t give the steam off his piss about it, did not want to waste time sailing all the way back to the Great City. He did it for the payment, but he wanted Martin the monk – no, not even that. He wanted that stupid Holy Lance, so he could go home. He had sailed on to Serkland, as rune-bound in his way as we were in ours.
I just had to say that little monk’s name, though, and everyone understood.
Kvasir spat pointedly. ‘We were no threat to those men of Starkad, if they were armed with all this,’ he noted with a grunt. ‘Loki played a bad trick on them when he made them sheer away from us, right into the path of wolves with better fangs.’
A Loki trick that had won us a rich cargo. Finn beamed when I said this, his beard slick with lamb grease.
‘Just so, Trader, and a fine price it will pull down for us.’
‘True enough,’ mused Radoslav, running that dagger blade over his head again, his circle of runes puckered on his forehead as he frowned. ‘North-made blades sell well in Serkland – those watered blades especially.’
Finn scowled. ‘I will not sell the Godi.’
‘The what?’ demanded Radoslav. ‘Is this another marvellous sword that demands a name, like this Rune Serpent?’
Finn grinned and explained about the snake-knot of runes, adding, ‘But my blade has been named. The Godi.’
‘In honour of me, no doubt,’ said Brother John drily.
‘In a way,’ Finn answered. ‘Since I seem to be killing more Christ-followers these days, it seems the name to give my blade – because it’s the last thing they see before they die. A priest.’
‘Of course,’ I went on casually into the laughter that followed, ‘there is always the other matter.’
Finn looked at me quizzically and the others sat up, interested.
‘We also have a secret message, about something to be picked up in Larnaca – where is Larnaca anyway?’
‘The island of Cyprus,’ Radoslav said. ‘Orm has the right of it. Whatever they were to get for Choniates is worth much more than what we have.’
‘Gold, perhaps,’ I said. ‘Pearls, silver … who knows? Choniates is a rich man.’
‘Gold,’ repeated Finn.
‘Hmearls,’ breathed Arnor through his ruined nose. He fretted about it, for a slit nose was the mark given by lawmakers to a habitual thief and he did not like having such a sign. That and the pain, though, was forgotten in the bright balm of promised riches.
‘What of Starkad?’ growled Finn like a loud fart at a funeral. There was silence and shame as everyone worked out what the cost of delaying on a hunt for gold and pearls in Cyprus would do to letting Starkad escape with an even greater treasure.
Then I told them what I had thought out; Einar would have been proud of me. ‘Trapping is better than hunting. Instead of chasing Starkad all over the sea, let us have Starkad come to us. This treasure Choniates desires might be worth the price of a runesword to Starkad. He cannot afford to fail two masters. We have this letter, to be carried to an Archbishop who has never seen Starkad or his men. At most he may have been told Norsemen are coming.’
Radoslav grinned. ‘We are Norsemen.’
‘Just so,’ I replied and turned into Finn’s grin.
‘You are a man for clever, right enough,’ he growled. ‘Where, on this chart of Radoslav’s, is this Cyprus?’
FOUR
The Volchock was no sleek drakkar, or even hafskip, as I have said. It bounced on the waves rather than slicing them, and fought us, as a little bear might. But you could see why the people of the Middle Sea called ships ‘she’ – that was how you sailed a knarr, teasing her into the wind rather than using force, persuading her until you found one she liked.
Finn spat derisively when I started that, saying that you did the same with bulls and stallions and old boar pigs if you were sensible, adding that a ship was a ship and no good would come of dressing it in skirts. Especially skirts, for a woman was a useless thing at sea. There was good reason, he finished, that the word for ship in Norse is neither woman nor man.
Sighvat said it was a good thing. ‘After all,’ he added, ‘there is always expense with a ship as with a woman. And always a gang of men around. And a ship has a waist, shows off a top and hides a bottom.’
‘It takes an experienced man to get the best out of a ship and a woman,’ added Kvasir into the roars of laughter. They went on with it, finding new comparisons while they cursed it in equal measure. If you could gybe or tack, a knarr was a good vessel, but when the wind failed, you hauled down the sail and waited, rolling and wallowing, until another came up from the right quarter – or just sailed in the wrong direction.
Gizur had his own views on Radoslav’s ship. ‘The rigging needs to be served, seized or whipped properly,’ he declared to me with disgust. ‘The beitiass should be shortened, the cleats moved and blocks rigged to tighten it.’ He raised a hand, as if presenting a jewel of great value, though his face was twisted with disgust. When he opened his fist, there was a handful of what looked like oatmeal. ‘Look at this. Just look at it.’
‘What is it?’ demanded Radoslav fearfully and I was close behind him. Some wood-rotting disease? A rune curse?
‘Shavings, from the rakki lines,’ Gizur said with a snort. I looked up at the rakki, the yoke which snugged round the mast and took all the strain of hauling the sail up and down.
‘The lines are rubbing the mast away,’ Gizur went on, frowning. ‘It is falling like snow!’
Radoslav rubbed his chin and tugged his brow-braids, then shrugged shamefacedly and said, ‘The truth of it is that this is only the second sea voyage I have ever done. I am a riverman, a born and bred oarsman. I traded happily up and down from Kiev, furs for silver, and made a good living at it until the troubles started with the Khazars and Bulgars. So I bought this, thinking to change my luck.’
Gizur at once changed, clapping the mournful man on one shoulder and all sympathy, for that was his way – which the others said came from being named for his mother, Gyda. His father, it was believed, had sailed off west following tales of a land there and had never come back.
We were rarely out of sight of land in this scattering of islands, so that we could put ashore each night. I preferred not to sleep there all the same, lying at anchor instead, since I was never sure of what lurked beyond the beach.
When it suited us, we sailed into the night, which was a dangerous business that no other seamen dared try – but we were Norsemen and had Gizur. The days turned warmer, but it still rained and we needed the sail as a tent on most nights, even though we slung it under a g
reat wheel of stars in a seemingly cloudless sky. The last filling of waterskins was before the long, deep-water run to Cyprus and a succession of days followed one on the other, with a steady wind that let the ship run on bluegreen water.
We never saw another ship but, on the last night before Cyprus, as the sun sank like blood-mist, Finn split and sizzled fresh-caught fish on the firebox atop the ballast and we settled cross-legged and ate them with thick gruel and watered ale flavoured with the limon-fruits, something we had all taken to doing to take away the stale taste of the drink, which had been too long casked. It was also as good as cloudberries at taking away the journey-sickness that brought out sores and loosened teeth in your gums.
We missed the taste of the cloudberries, all the same, and Arnor started singing mournful songs full of haar mists and the milk-white sea of the North, where the grit is ground out of the rocks by the ice.
Then talk turned to Cyprus and Serkland and the runesword and our oarmates and, in the end, always came down to that last, turned over and over like some strange coin, in the hope that handling and looking would suddenly reveal what the true worth of it was.
Only Radoslav knew much about Cyprus, for the Romans had only just recovered it from the Arabs. For some years, it seemed, both had tried to live shoulder to shoulder on the island, but then the Basileus had ordered the Arabs out two years before and any who stayed were warred against.
‘Just our Loki luck,’ mourned Finn moodily. ‘More heads to pound.’
As for Serkland, the only one who had been there was Brother John. Amund and Oski were two of the most far-travelled of us – with Einar, they had once raided down the coast of the Ummayads and through the Pillars of Hercules, which we called Norvasund, into the Middle Sea.
But Serkland, which we also called Jorsaland, was an unknown place to most of us. I only knew that they called it Serkland because the people there wore only serks – white underkirtles – instead of decent clothing.