The Oathsworn Series Books 1 to 3

by Robert Low

  ‘No matter of mine, cherem,’ he said and Avraham stormed angrily off.

  ‘What is this cherem?’ Gyrth asked.

  ‘A sort of decree,’ Morut answered, ‘that says you are no longer a follower of the Torah.’

  The Torah was their name for their sacred sagas. Breaking such a decree would mean Morut was no longer a Jew and I had met enough of such people – Khazars and Rhadanites both – in Birka to know that was the worst of punishments for them.

  The dark little Khazar shrugged again. ‘I am a trapper and a hunter,’ he said. ‘Avraham is of the warrior caste, so he must be a Jew and embraced it properly, even to getting his foreskin cut as a boy. I did also – but now half my family are in the south and have probably become Mussulmen. I may go there too, so may become one myself, though it means forsaking green wine and ale, which is a hard thing.’

  Finn ranted and argued firmly on the foolishness of a religion which stopped you drinking, not to mention one which put a blade anywhere near your pizzle. I was storing away the knowledge that not all Khazars were Jews. Warriors and other high born were, but I found out later not even all of them. There were Khazars in the guard hird of the Great City who were baptized Christmen.

  More importantly, here was the strangeness I had come across before and was bewildered by. How could you put on and remove a belief in the gods, as if it were no more than a clean cloak?

  Back in the village, I had more to worry about than that. After my head had been looked at, I met with Vladimir, Sigurd and Dobrynya in a quiet place, where we were joined by Crowbone. He and Vladimir went off into one corner, the latter clear in his delight that Olaf was safe.

  ‘Bone, blood and steel,’ I offered dryly as the other two offered their congratulations on my safe return. ‘That old oath of ours even brought my sword out, too.’

  Sigurd stiffened, for he knew I implied that he had only come after Crowbone, while Vladimir worried only about the sabre and how I could read a path from it to ‘his’ treasure. Only the Oathsworn had come after me alone, driven by the oath and the unveiling of that fact still left me dazed and shivering at the power in it – a power I had scorned and kicked against almost all my life, it seemed.

  Crowbone, on the other hand, smiled a knowing twist on to his face.

  ‘Right enough,’ he said flatly, which could have meant anything, but Sigurd looked as if he would argue the point, then swallowed, admitting it even as the truth made him avoid my eyes.

  Then Vladimir clasped Crowbone by both wrists and they stared into each other’s faces, like long-lost brothers and I felt a doubt about Vladimir wanting only the silver secret and the sword that guided me.

  I wondered, with a sudden sick lurch, if that boy was working some subtle seidr on the young prince. Even as I said the words: ‘He is only nine’ to myself, I could not rid myself of the suspicion. And now I owed him my life.

  ‘They were almost too late,’ Dobrynya went on in his bass rumble. ‘Tien says the buran came on more fierce and swift than any he has ever seen.’

  The buran, I had found out, was the name for these winter ice storms. Kvasir said that the rescue party had only survived it because Tien had insisted they pack his yurt, those little round steppe huts which seemed just a puzzle of saplings and acres of felt. Finn agreed, saying admiringly that the yurt was as stout as an Iceland steading.

  ‘Not just the buran was a danger,’ growled Sigurd.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘There is the woman.’

  Dobrynya tugged his beard into a two-tined fork and scowled. ‘Tien says it is likely they were all women, all the ones who attacked. He says they are believers in the old ways, the old Hun ways, including some strange practices that stretch the heads of chosen children.’

  We were all silent with wonder and the thrill of disgust over that one, while Vladimir and Crowbone grew loud in their private corner, laughing over Crowbone’s account of events. I gave odds on it including nothing about pissing himself.

  ‘These warrior women now belong to the Yass,’ Dobrynya went on, ‘though that tribe have little control over these women now. The Khazars ruled the Yass tribes and kept these Man-Haters from riding while they were a power, but now that we have broken the Khazars, it seems we have unleashed a horror on to the steppe.’

  ‘Why do they ride?’ demanded Sigurd, frowning.

  ‘To stop us,’ I said before Dobrynya could speak. I was sure of it, as sure as if someone had skeined the runes of it for me to read. ‘To stop us reaching Atil’s howe.’

  Dobrynya looked up through the grizzle of his eyebrows and grunted.

  ‘So Tien believes. He says the ancestors of these women were favourites of this Atil when he was a great chief of all the steppe tribes. Chosen, Tien says, because they amused him with their fierceness. In turn, they were his most loyal warriors, because it lifted them out of their womanly place.’

  ‘How did you not know of this?’ Sigurd demanded of me. ‘Did they not try to prevent you the first time you reached this tomb?’

  They had not and that was because they did not dare ride while the Khazars ruled. After all, these warrior women were the smallest part of one tribe of the Yass and the Khazars were a mighty empire at the time.

  I mentioned this – but kept other thoughts to myself. Like how they knew where the howe was. Later, Tien said he thought it likely that such knowledge was passed on to a chosen few. I said nothing and had my own thought on who had led them to the place; the last sight of Hild, black-eyed with hate as she hacked at me inside Atil’s tomb, rose up from the grue of my memories, like a corpse from silt.

  ‘We have broken the steppe apart and now that Sviatoslav is also dead, there is no strong hand to stop these madwomen,’ Dobrynya said.

  Sigurd carefully adjusted the press of his silver nose against the flesh of his face, for scowling made it hurt and he was doing a lot of that.

  ‘So we have a few women on horses who want to fight us as well as this Lambisson person ahead of us,’ he growled. ‘My lads are a match for all of them.’

  ‘Tien will go no further without a sword in his back,’ Dobrynya pointed out and Sigurd whistled down his silver nose, which was what passed for a snort of derision from him.

  ‘We should stake the little turd for that – but what of it? We have other guides.’

  It was Tien’s fear that mattered and I said so as Dobrynya nodded agreement. These Man-Haters may have been no more than a handful of good steppe light horse, but it was their strangeness, the sheer Other of having women shrieking down on you with bow and sword, that counted. Especially ones with stretched heads and blue marks all across their faces.

  The skjaldmeyjar – shieldmaidens – were no strangers to us, but they were from the Old Time, when Thor and Odin walked the earth. Visma was one and Vebjorg another and there were more, who had led a considerable number of heroes during old King Bjarni’s day if the fire-tales were true, and so must have been hard women.

  But that was then and this was now. While we admired a good woman who could take up weapons to defend what was hers, no man nowadays liked the idea of a woman who gave up hearth and homefire to stand in a shieldwall.

  So the rumours would spread; Tien’s fear would spread. Men’s bowels would turn to water by degrees and the magic of these women would grow at every conversation round a mean fire in the cold night.

  ‘We cannot turn back because of … women!’ Sigurd exploded and Dobrynya hushed him to silence, his eyes moving from him to me, grim and sharp as a nail to the palm.

  ‘The Prince would not agree to that, certainly,’ he said bitterly, glancing at me. ‘You knew the power of this hoard, eh, Jarl Orm. You have seen it at work before on the hearts of men.’

  I nodded, which was all that was required. The sickness of it was plain to see, slathering little Vladimir like an invisible slick of poison, feeding him dreams of salvation and greatness.

  ‘Then we go on,’ growled Dobrynya. ‘For we have no choice and non
e of the gods seem to be listening to my pleas.’

  We all knew that, had seen the charred remains of his quiet sacrifices to Perun Thunderer, Svarog Heaven-Walker, Stribog of the winds and even Yarilo, the Shining One, who was not much more than a great prick on legs. None of those Slav fakers were a match for AllFather Odin, who gave the whispered mystery of magic to the world and none answered Dobrynya’s begging to have little Vladimir come to his senses.

  ‘Ah well,’ muttered Sigurd, ‘a sandpiper isn’t big, but it is still a bird, as they say in Lord Novgorod the Great.’

  ‘Have you an old granny, by some chance?’ I demanded. ‘If so, it may be that Red Njal is another long-lost relation.’

  The boys heard this and stopped talking to look back at us briefly, before bursting into laughter at the scowl on Sigurd.

  It was scowl-dark, too, in the storehouse the Oathsworn were using as a hov. It was thick with fug and heat from a newly-dug pitfire but the faces round it, glowing in the reddim light, were drawn and long. They made an effort to be pleased to see me – Onund Hnufa even smiled – but Pai was sick and the weight of a dying lay on them and smothered all joy.

  Pai was in a shadowed corner, the wheezing rasp of his breathing ripping through the bellies of all those in the storehouse we now called our hall. Bjaelfi hovered nearby, while Jon Asanes sat at the boy’s head, pressing cooling cloths to his brow.

  Naked and gleaming, slick with sweat, every breath from Pai was a sucking wheeze. Thordis kept trying to wrap him, for it was chilled this far from the fire, but Pai would throw the covers off, thrashing droplets of sweat everywhere. I looked at Thordis, whose stare was blank and yet said everything. Bjaelfi moved away, back to the fire where a pot bubbled.

  ‘How is the boy?’ demanded Gizur and Bjaelfi hunkered down to stir the pot.

  ‘Not good,’ he admitted.

  ‘He is choleric,’ declared Jon firmly. ‘I read it in one of the monk’s books in Kiev. Fevers mean you are choleric.’

  ‘Just so,’ muttered Bjaelfi. ‘I am sure you know best, Jon Asanes.’

  Stung, Jon scowled back at him. ‘What cures are you giving him? We would all like to know.’

  Bjaelfi spooned some of the liquid from the pot into a wooden bowl and straightened with a grunt. He gave his beard a smooth and Jon a level stare.

  ‘Sharing such wisdom would be like pouring mead into a full horn with you, boy,’ he said finally. ‘Much of it would be wasted.’

  Men chuckled and Jon flushed. Wearily, Bjaelfi turned to move back to where Pai lay and almost collided with me.

  ‘Jarl Orm …’

  ‘Bjaelfi. How bad is he?’

  The little healer shook his towsled head mournfully. ‘He will die. The cold has taken his lungs. I have seen it before and have used what I know – honey, lime flowers and birch juice, plus a good Frey prayer I know. Some recover – I thought he might, being young. But he is weak in the chest. Always coughing is Pai.’

  I watched the little man move back to Pai’s side, then found Kvasir at my elbow, his face strange in the darkness because his patch and the charcoal he smeared round the other eye against the day’s white glare melded into one and made him look like a blind man, eyes bound in a rag.

  ‘Two of the druzhina will die this night also,’ he told me quietly. ‘One with the same thing as this, the other bleeding from the backside. He spent too long squatting to have a shit and it froze in him, they say. He burst something inside straining, which is no way for a warrior to die.’

  Thorgunna appeared, holding a bowl of something savoury and a hunk of dark bread. She smiled and nodded. ‘Hard times, Trader,’ she said. ‘I wish I was back at Hestreng, for sure. I have a feather-filled blanket there I am missing now. That Ingrid will be cosied under it with Botolf.’

  She said it wistfully, with no hint of bitterness, using the sometime-name, Trader, that folk called me in happier times.

  I touched her arm in sympathy, knowing how she felt, sick with the knowledge of what we would have to face before she got back to her feather-filled blankets. She went back, chivvying the two Scots thrall women, Hekja and Skirla, into some work.

  Later, when Bjaelfi indicated that it was time, I moved to where Pai lay, panting and rolling with sweat, his hair plastered to a face as white as the snow outside. Finn was there, with Thorgunna and Thordis busy with cloths and soothing on one side, more to keep them from weeping than any help for Pai.

  Jon Asanes, pale and red-eyed, was on the other, his hand soft on Pai’s wrist. I remembered that they had been of an age and had been friends from the moment they had met in Kiev, had laughed and drunk together, as youths will. I remembered because I was not so much older and yet it seemed there were stones younger than me; I could never be part of their joy, envied them as they tested their strength and walked, arms draped round each other’s necks.

  ‘Heya,’ I said softly to Pai. ‘Here you are, then, lolling about with women dancing round you. I might have known.’

  He managed a smile, struggling so much to breathe that he could not speak. His eyes were wild, though, fretted and white.

  ‘I … have done … nothing,’ he managed and Finn shook his head.

  ‘The gods need no reason to inflict what they do,’ he growled, bitterly.

  ‘No. I mean … I have … not lived … enough. I wanted … to be known. My name …’

  He stopped, exhausted and I heard Finn grunt as if hit, the muscle in his jaw shifting his beard. Olaf stepped into the space between us and Pai managed a faint grin while his chest heaved.

  ‘Story,’ he said. ‘A funny … one. Keep … it … short, mind. I have … places to go.’

  Olaf, his jaw so clenched I wondered if he could speak at all, nodded. They had been friends of a sort, I remembered – Pai admiring Olaf for his abilities, envying him for his status and Olaf, always amused by the glorious clothes that gave the youth his nickname, Pai, the Peacock. And, strangely, Olaf envied Pai, wanted to be that age himself, just that bit older than now and a young hawk in the wind.

  ‘There was an outlaw who had outstayed the time allotted for him to safely quit the land,’ Olaf began in a voice so low only those close to him could hear it. ‘We shall call him … Pai. He drank too much in a feasting hov and fell asleep, then dreamed a dream that the other guests had decided to kill him, since he was now fair game. Four came at him from every side. One held a spear, to stab his eyes from his head. One had an axe to smash his fingers to pulp and chop his legs. One had a sword of considerable size, planning to ram it down his throat and the last had a knife, to cut off his tozzle and stick it in his ear.’

  Pai gasped out a laugh, started to cough and could not stop for a long time. As he grew quieter, Olaf cleared his throat.

  ‘Pai woke with a scream to find that he had, indeed, been snoring in a feasting hall, but not a friendly one – he was surrounded by enemies. One had a spear and the grin of an eye-remover. One had an axe that had clearly smashed fingers before. One had a sword of considerable size – but there was no fourth man with a knife.

  ‘Pai looked everywhere, but there was definitely no fourth man. “Thank you, Odin,” he gasped, settling back on his bench as the men closed in, “it was only a terrible dream.”’

  Pai chuckled and coughed and jerked and his chest heaved for a few moments longer, then stopped. Thorgunna, after a pause, wet her cheek and placed it close to his mouth, then shook her head and closed his eyes. Jon Asanes bent his head and wailed.

  Finn let out his breath in a long sigh. ‘Fair fame,’ he grunted, to no-one it seemed to me. ‘That was what he wanted. In the end, that is all there is.’

  ‘A good tale,’ I said to Olaf. ‘You gave him what he wanted and not every man can do that for a dying friend. You have a gift.’

  Crowbone, his different-coloured eyes glittering bright, shook his head, made so white in the light that he looked like a little old man.

  ‘Sometimes,’ he whispered, ‘it is an affliction.�
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  There was talk of treating our dead in the old way, for we were all sure the people of the village would dig up the bodies and strip them of their finery. Vladimir refused, since that would have involved demolishing a building for the timbers to burn him.

  ‘You have stripped them of winter feed, so that they will have to slaughter what livestock they have left,’ growled Sigurd, annoyed that his men might not lie peacefully under the snow for long. ‘They will be eating their belts and lacing thongs by Spring – what does one building mean now?’

  Vladimir folded his arms and glared back at his druzhina captain. ‘They are still my brother’s people – but I will rule them one day. I want them to fear me – but not hate me.’

  Sigurd could not see the sense of it, that was clear – I was having trouble working out this princely way of ruling myself – but Jon Asanes made Vladimir smile and nod.

  ‘The Prince is a shepherd to his people,’ he observed. ‘A shepherd fleeces his flock. He does not butcher them.’

  I left them weaving words round it, feeling like a man walking on greased ice. I knew what Jon and Vladimir and little Olaf did was the future of the world, the way jarls and princes and kings did things these days and in the ones to come. I also knew I did not have one clear idea of how to do it myself and that Jon Asanes was more fitting to be a jarl of this new age than I was.

  But not a jarl of the Oathsworn. Not them, stamping their feet against the cold as they stood in sullen clumps round the dark scars of new-mounded graves, hacked out with sweat and axes from a reluctant earth. These were men of the old ways.

  I took the chance to braid them back to one with a few choice words on breaking oaths and what it had cost. No-one needed much telling; all those who had run off with Martin and Thorkel had died and Finn made it glaringly clear that anyone else who tried the same would not live to feel Odin’s wrath.

  We spent the morning sorting gear and finding new ways to wrap against the cold. Then we untied the tether ropes, bashing the stakes out of the frozen ground, chipped ice out of the horse’s hooves with a seax and lurched off south, into the steppe.