Dismissed, Brann headed for the door for a second time. Under other circumstances, he would have more of a spring in his step after such praise, but he felt as if he had been mentally drained as much in the past hour or so as he had been during the events he had been describing. That was a nonsense, of course, but he was surprised at how much it had taken out of him.
He opened the door and beckoned Hakon inside. As the boy passed him, Brann absently plucked the sodden cloth, which had previously held the bundle of roughly hacked ice, from his hand. ‘You probably do not want to draw attention to that,’ he murmured.
Hakon smiled, nodded and wiped his hand dry on the back of his tunic as he continued walking. Brann offered the still-cold cloth to Olvir – after all, his jaw was swelling rapidly – but the glare he received in reply indicated that Ragnarr’s page was treating the gesture as an attempt at mockery. Brann decided against pushing the matter, and turned to Sigurr’s page, informing him of his release from duties.
‘What about me?’ Olvir asked shortly.
‘They never said,’ Brann answered, equally curtly, turning his back on the boy and leading the young page down the passageway. He was not rude by nature – on the contrary, he usually went out of his way to avoid any unpleasantness – and he knew that, especially in a foreign land and in unfamiliar surroundings, it was unwise to develop enemies. But he was finding it extremely hard to be pleasant to Olvir, thanks to the boy’s manner and compounded by his fatigue and the after-effects of the week’s activities, along with his constant resentment at being separated from his home and losing his family. In short, after all that he had endured, he just could not be bothered being nice to such an unpleasant oaf.
And, he smiled to himself, he was glad that Olvir had refused the wet cloth – he would much prefer the chance to return it to the girl who had supplied it to Hakon in the first place.
At the thought, his step did lighten at last and he began to chat to Sigurr’s page as he took him to the kitchen. The boy was still over-awed by his experience, however – not least Hakon’s response to Olvir’s provocation – and all that he could extract from the boy by the time they approached the kitchen was that his name was Erlandr.
He enjoyed even less success in returning the cloth to his intended recipient. Valdis was conspicuously absent. It transpired that she had been sent on an errand before being allowed to head home for the day, following the late hours she had been needed to work the previous night, but Brann was uninterested in the details: the simple fact of her absence was all that mattered. In no mood for conversation – the thought of Valdis’s company had been all that had provided him with any momentum – he left Erlandr to the tender mercies of the kitchen staff, who had already declared the small boy with the dark hair, darker eyes and heart-shaped face to be unbearably cute. They seemed to find his shyness an added attraction and were fussing around him with delight, so Brann felt he was leaving him in good company as he took a selection of food and his leave, and headed for his room.
Feeling ridiculous that he was so tired despite such a late rise – in his village and on the ship alike, he had been accustomed to rising at dawn – he ate his food more out of a sense of necessity than desire. With such a lack of enthusiasm, it was hardly surprising that he became bored with eating fairly quickly and settled back to doze and reflect on recent events. There was not much of a chance for reflection, however, as within minutes he had slipped into a deep sleep. He did waken at dawn the next day, however. Or, at least, was wakened. With no attempt at courtesy – in fact, without even a knock – Hakon burst into his room with all the enthusiastic excitement of a dog let out for its exercise.
‘Get up, get up, get up,’ he cried. ‘The sun is out, the sea is calm – and we are off to Yngvarrsharn.’
Chapter 11
He stared at it, as ever transfixed.
He had to force himself to reach out, to touch it. Not that it held a mystical magic. Rather its difference held the attention. The way that it broke the rules for its kind. Its otherworldliness.
Where others had a blade that curved as the crescent moon, this was straight, double-edged, tapering at its tip to a needlepoint; raised in a slight bevel along its length to stop flesh and sinew clinging to it as it was withdrawn for use again; the hilt, unadorned by jewel or wire of gold or silver, but merely wrapped in soft leather, tooled to afford a grip that would not slip, rather than wrought with ornamentation to draw admiration; a crosspiece, if it could be described as such, with no ostentatious turns or flourishes, but merely enough of a block to prevent the hand from inadvertently sliding onto the blade.
And that was a blade you would not wish to slide your hand along. He pulled a stray hair from his gown, a hair whiter than he cared to contemplate. Holding the hair’s end, he drifted it down against the edge of the blade held across in front of his tired eyes; the weapon was held just as easily as the hair, its bewildering lightness and perfect balance allowing one finger and thumb to perform the task; eyes that had seen so many wonders watched in awe as the hair parted, its unheld half drifting floorward in the firelight. Firelight that should have been reflected by the blade with brilliance; would have done on any other blade, the shining silver dazzling. But this was no shining silver. Obsidian black, with a dull gleam that seemed to absorb light, that seemed to hold the eye with fascination: this was the otherworldliness. Never had he seen its like. Never had anyone seen the like.
Nor would anyone, for now. With reverence, he laid it in its box, the black velvet fitting snugly around it, the wooden lid snapping shut. The box slid perfectly back into the alcove created for it in the side of the fireplace, and the brick fitted perfectly once again into the gap, showing no sign that it had ever been moved.
It was no ornament; it was a weapon. A weapon with purpose. And its purpose would come.
****
Brann lifted his right hand away from the oar to wipe the smattering of spray from his face; strangely, he found it refreshing rather than irritating. Perhaps even more strangely, he had felt a sense of relief at returning to his position at the oar. What had seemed agonisingly unfamiliar not so long ago was, in comparison to the events of the past week, now a haven of normality.
‘Keep that hand on the oar,’ Gerens snapped in mock anger. ‘You are not a pampered page now, you know.’
‘Do not worry,’ Brann grinned, ‘I will pull my weight.’
His companion grunted, squatting beside him just out of the way of the oar’s movement as he massaged his bandaged hand. ‘Considering your lack of size, that is not the most encouraging offer of help we could have had.’
‘It is all right for you,’ Brann countered. ‘Poor Gerens is excused rowing duties because he has a sore finger. I am still trying to work the stiffness out of my muscles.’
‘He will not get away with that excuse, will he Grakk? You have all your fingers but managed to swan about with the nobility when you could have been reacquainting yourself with decent hard work. Although if they had seen you row, perhaps they would have realised that it would not have made much difference whether you were here or not.’
Cannick had wandered down the aisle, as he had a habit of doing on a regular basis. ‘If you can talk, you are not working hard enough,’ he growled. ‘Cut the chat.’
Accustomed by now to the grizzled warrior’s ways, they waited until he had moved back out of earshot before resuming their conversation.
‘There is one thing I do not understand, though,’ Gerens mused. ‘The folk around here do not seem to have slaves. In fact, you must have seen the reaction to the Captain being involved in that trade, and we have certainly found them to be awkward around us, as if they do not know how to react to slaves.’ He flicked his head towards Sigurr’s ship, which was leading the way, an arrowshot ahead of them. ‘So if that is the case, who is rowing that ship, then?’
Brann let out a mock-triumphant laugh. ‘At last!’ he said joyously. ‘There is something I can explain to you!�
�� He paused and leant towards Gerens conspiratorially, speaking in a low voice from the corner of his mouth. ‘Actually, Hakon explained it to me before we left, but please do not spoil my knowledgeable image in front of the others – it does not happen very often.’
The large rower in front of them glanced over his shoulder, and growled, ‘Oh, for the sake of the gods, just tell him. Everyone else knows the answer anyway. Just tell him and shut up before your chatter becomes so irritating that you find yourself swimming home.’ He grunted. ‘A shrimp like you would not make a noticeable splash, anyway,’ he added pointedly.
Brann smiled weakly. ‘The men around here are always warriors first and foremost, but they seem to see themselves as being able to adapt to anything related to the sea – warriors, traders, raiders, fishermen and sailors. They would take it as an insult if you suggested that they needed someone to row for them, and anyway it would mean extra mouths to feed on any voyage. This ship we are on is from a different land, with different traditions, and the Captain “acquired it”, and the galley slaves with it, at some point during his exile.’
He paused, catching his breath, realising that he may have revealed information that he should have kept to himself. Gerens’s expression, and his nod for him to continue, let him know that some amount of information about Einarr’s background seemed to have reached the slaves as well. ‘It is much bigger,’ he continued, ‘a sort of cross between a warship and a merchant ship, with bigger oars and more to carry, so it needs rowers like us to handle certain situations. We need to be able to fight at sea (as we did against the pirates) but their ships, even Lord Sigurr’s over there, are purely designed to transport warriors from one point to another as quickly and effectively as possible.’
Gerens nodded. ‘I can see that. They have a shallow draught,’ he noticed Brann’s puzzled expression, ‘which means they do not extend too far under the water. They can be run into quite shallow water, close to a beach and, more importantly, back out again fairly quickly and easily. And, being small and light, they would be able to out-run and out-manoeuvre any larger ships enough to stay out of their range.’
‘From what I have seen of this lot,’ Brann said, ‘I am not sure that they would run. They have probably got a trick or two that they could use if someone was mad enough to take them on.’
‘I would not be surprised,’ Gerens said, nodding solemnly. ‘Thank you for your explanation. Now I think we should cease our conversation before anyone objects.’ Without further ado, he stood and wandered to the stern.
Brann agreed and was glad that he was unable to see the expression on the large rower’s face in front. They spent the rest of the day in silence, alone with their thoughts, and – as his muscles became accustomed once more to the rhythm of the oars – Brann found his musings turning repeatedly to Valdis. He sighed. Nothing, he was sure, would come of it, but at least thoughts of the girl left him in a better humour than the morose brooding about home that usually occupied him at such times.
The wind picked up later, allowing the sails to be used and the rowers to be rested. When night fell, however, the wind did, too, and the slaves were called into action once more, as were the warriors in the ship in front, rowing through the hours of darkness as the ships pressed urgently forwards. The cool feel of the wind as it picked up again – and perfectly behind the vessels – shortly after dawn was as welcome to them as food to a starving man and within minutes of the sails billowing once more and the oars being stowed, the rowers were, to a man, sound asleep.
They were wakened as much by the rattle and clicking of the sails being put away as by Cannick’s bellowed orders to make the oars ready once more. Brann rubbed the focus back into his eyes. ‘How long have we slept?’ he mumbled, adding a stretch to his repertoire.
Grakk pointed to the towering, shining walls of a fjord that they were turning towards. ‘What matters more is where we are – it looks as if we are nearing our destination. And it looks like your services are required elsewhere, young page.’ Cannick had approached with a replacement rower and Brann knew what was intended. The man had taken his place on the rowing bench as they had left Ravensrest while the pretence that Brann was Einarr’s page continued. Cannick nodded to Brann and, as he was expecting the move, the switch was made quickly and without the need for words. Brann felt self-conscious as he was led, between the other rowers, to the rear of the ship, but these men had seen many things that were far more unusual in their time at sea and scarcely even glanced in his direction.
He was deposited in the Captain’s cabin, where Einarr, busy with documents and maps that were spread across his desk, indicated a basin and a towel. As Brann approached him, he noticed the clothes he had worn in Ravensrest – and which he had swapped for coarser and harder-wearing garments on resuming his place among the rowers – laid out on one side.
He washed quickly and pulled on the clothes. As he was tugging his feet into his boots, Einarr swept the pages into a rough pile and pushed his chair back. ‘My apologies for messing you about, boy,’ he said, running his hands wearily through his hair, ‘but image is important to some who may be watching us. The requirements of the situation dictate our actions, whether we like it or not.’
Brann shrugged. ‘It may be a little confusing at times, but even a page has a better life than a galley slave, even if it is only for a short while.’
Einarr smiled, but it was more in sympathy than amusement or reassurance. ‘Unfortunately, this situation we find ourselves in means you are involved more than you, or I, would like. Not only have you had experiences that make you useful, but you will, as a page, be entering a world of politics and intrigue that you have been given no preparation for.’ He stood and, crossing the room, gripped Brann’s shoulder and looked into his eyes. ‘I do not mean to alarm you, but you need to be prepared. When I first made you my page, I expected to be paying a brief visit. Unfortunately, as you know, events have taken a dramatic turn that leaves us in a pretence that places more obligations on you than one in your position, with your background, should be expected to bear. But we cannot change that, so we must deal with it as best we can.’
He indicated a chair. ‘Sit down and listen carefully.’ He waited while Brann did so, then crossed to an open window at the rear of the cabin and stared out over the water as he continued. ‘When I say that you will face intrigue, I do not mean that you will have to deal with it incessantly, dawn to dusk. But any politics you come across, no matter how seldom, will be more than you are used to. The trick is to find out who you can trust, and there will be few that fall into that category: Loku has taught us that. You probably could trust most people – it’s just that you do not know which ones, so stay with the ones you know from Ravensrest – Konall and his page, basically – and, as far as the rest are concerned, just smile and be polite, and no more.’
He turned. ‘What I am about to tell you, one in your position would not normally be privy to but, on this occasion, it is important that you have an idea of what we are doing so you do not react in the wrong way at an inopportune time. If Loku appears, we will not take any action against him.’ The strength of the surprise on Brann’s face caused him to smile slightly. ‘Do not worry, we know what we are doing… we hope. As far as we know, Loku does not know that we have uncovered him: he has no idea that you overheard him at the settlement, and when he went to the pit, the slaves were gone and so did not see him. What is more, no member of the party pursuing you survived to say that you, and more importantly, Konall, were ever there. As far as he knows, the captives – including one that they thought was Konall – were confined to the pit before escaping and were fortunate enough to run into a patrol of our warriors. He will expect that we will destroy the settlement, so we have duly sent warriors to oblige – not that that was a hard decision to make, although I am sure that our men will have found it deserted when they got there. Loku will now have to play a dangerous game, for it is in the interests of whatever plans these fiends are l
aying that he continues his work among us.’
Brann blurted, ‘But surely then, his work should be stopped.’
Einarr gave a single nod. ‘That is one possibility. But we think that if we watch him and feed him the information that we want him to receive, then we can both discover more about him and subtly apply pressure in the hope that he will make a mistake. Ultimately, we want the person controlling him, and Loku is the only way we have of finding him.’
Brann nodded his understanding, and the Captain walked to the door. ‘That is all you need to know just now. It is enough for you to deal with, anyway.’ He opened the door. ‘Now let us go and enjoy some fresh air and the view. We must be nearly there, now, anyway.’
They climbed to stand beside the helmsman. At first, Brann was transfixed by the sight of the rowers, facing him, smoothly going about their work. There was an almost hypnotic beauty in the synchronised rise and fall of the oars. It was an image that was lost on those actually carrying out the action, yet, having seen it from this aspect, Brann found himself feeling pride at having been – and, presumably, soon returning to being – a part of it. He was also feeling uneasy, and guilty, at standing apart from it while his fellow rowers sweated before him, and he tried not to meet the gaze of any of them, until he realised that not one of them had even been interested enough to cast a glance in his direction. Apart from one: Grakk, predictably, had caught his eye; totally unpredictably, he had stuck out his tongue. The gesture broke the spell and Brann looked around him – and was astonished at the breathtaking beauty he had been missing while he watched the rowers.
Hero Born Page 36