But these throwers would work against anything, Shef thought. Ships. Armies. How would a drawn-up battle-line fare against a rain of boulders from men well out of bow-shot, each one sure to kill or cripple?
He became aware that a cluster of excited, grinning faces was staring at him. The slaves. Runaways from the North-folk or from the lands of the king of the Mark, drawn to the camp here in the flat, soggy borderland between the streams of Nene and Welland by the astonishing rumor that here their collars would be removed. That food was to be had in return for services. They had been told, though they didn’t believe it yet, that they would not be re-enslaved once their masters moved on.
Each of the ragged figures was clutching one of the ten-pound stones, which they had spent the last day or so chipping into shape with a couple of Thorvin’s least-valued chisels.
“All right,” said Shef. “Take the pegs out, dismantle the machine, take the beams back and wrap them in their tarpaulins.”
The men shuffled and looked at each other. One of them, nudged forward by the rest, spoke haltingly, eyes on the ground.
“We was thinking, master. You being from Emneth and that. And talking like us and all. So …”
“Get on with it.”
“We was wondering, you being one of us and all, if you would let us have a shot.”
“We know how to do it!” cried one of his supporters. “We watched. We ain’t got the beef they got, but we can pull.”
Shef stared at the excited faces. The scrawny, underfed physiques. Why not? he thought. He had always assumed that what you needed most for this task was raw strength and weight. But coordination was even more important. Maybe twelve lightweight Englishmen would be as good as eight heavyweight Vikings. It would never have been true with swords or axes. But at least these ex-slaves would do what they were told.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll shoot five for practice. Then we’ll see how many you can loose while I count fivescore.”
The freedmen cheered and capered, pushing for the ropes.
“Hold on. This is going to be a speed test. So, first thing. Put the stones close there in a pile so you won’t have to move more than a step to get them. Now, pay attention …”
An hour later, his new team dismissed to store what they now called their machine, Shef walked thoughtfully towards the booth of Hund and Ingulf, where the sick and injured lay. Hund met him coming out of the booth, wiping bloody hands.
“How are they?” Shef asked. He meant the casualties from his other machine, the torsion-catapult or “twist-shooter” as the Vikings called it, the dart-machine which had released King Ella into death.
“They’ll live. One lost three fingers. Could as easily have been his hand, or arm for that matter. The other has most of his rib cage stove in. Ingulf had to cut him to get a piece out of his lung. But it’s healing well. I’ve just smelt his stitches. No sign of the flesh-rot. That’s two men badly hurt by that machine in four days. What’s the matter with it?”
“Nothing wrong with the machine. It’s these Norsemen. Strong men, proud of their strength. They twist the cogwheels tight—then one of them will throw his weight on the lever just to wring an extra turn out of it. The bow-arm snaps—and someone gets hurt.”
“Then it’s not the machine at fault, but the men who use it?”
“Exactly. What I need are men who will take so many counted turns and no more, who will do what they’re told.”
“Not many of those in this camp.”
Shef stared at his friend. “Not speaking Norse, certainly.” The seed of an idea had been planted.
The winter dark upon them now, he would take a candle and continue to work on the new mappa—the map of England as it really was.
“Nothing left to eat, I suppose, but the rye porridge?”
Silently Hund passed him his bowl.
Sigvarth looked round with a trace of uncertainty. The priests of the Way had formed the holy circle, within the rowan-hung cords, spear planted and fire burning. Once again the laymen of the Way were excluded: no one was present in the dim, sail-roofed shed except the six white-clad priests and Sigvarth Jarl of the Small Isles.
“It is time we came to a clear understanding, Sigvarth,” said Farman the priest, “and that is, how sure are you that you are the father of the boy Shef?”
“He says so,” replied Sigvarth. “Everyone thinks he is. And his mother claims him—and she should know. Of course she might have done anything once she escaped from me—a girl on the loose for the first time. She might have enjoyed herself.” Yellow teeth flashed. “But I don’t think so. She was a lady.”
“I think I know the main story,” said Farman. “You took her from her husband. But a thing I cannot understand is this: She escaped from you, or so we hear. Are you usually as careless as that with your captives? How did she escape? And how could she have got back to her husband?”
Sigvarth rubbed his jaw reflectively. “This is twenty years back now. Still, it was funny. I remember pretty well.
“What happened was this: We were coming back from a trip down South. Hadn’t gone very well. As we came back I decided, just for luck, to look into the Wash and see what we could find. Usual stuff. Pushed ashore. English all over the place, as always. Came down on this little village, Emneth, grabbed everyone we could. One of them was the thane’s lady—I forget her name now.
“But I don’t forget her. She was good. I took her for myself. I was thirty then, she was maybe twenty. That’s often a good combination. She’d had a child, she was broken in all right. But I got the impression she had not had much joy from her husband. She fought me fiercely to start with, but I’m used to that—they have to do it to show they aren’t whores. Once she knew there was no choice, though, she buckled down to it. Had a trick, a way to her—she used to lift herself right off the ground, me too, when she reached her moment.”
Thorvin grunted disapprovingly. Farman, one hand clutching the dried stallion-penis that was his badge of office, as the hammer was Thorvin’s, hushed him with a gesture.
“But it’s not so much fun in a rolling longship. After we pushed up the coast a bit, I looked out for a good place. Bit of strandhögg, I thought. Light fires, warm up, roast some beef, get out a couple of barrels of ale, have some sport for an evening. Put the boys in good heart for the ocean crossing. But not take any risks, mind, not even with the English.
“So, I picked a spot. Stretch of beach backed by good, high cliffs. One stream leading down to it through a gully. I put half a dozen men there just to make sure none of the girls we’d caught escaped. I put one man on each of the cliffs to either side, with a horn to blow if he saw any sign of a rescue party turning up. And because of the cliffs, I gave each of them a rope tied to a stake. If we were surprised, they blew the horns, the party in the gully ran back, and the ones on the cliffs slid down the ropes. We had the boats, three of them, tethered bow and stern—bow to the beach, stern to an anchor well out to sea. In a hurry all we had to do was pile in, loose the bow-ropes, haul ourselves off on the stern-rope and set sail. But the main thing is, I had the beach sealed off tight as a nun.”
“You would know,” said Thorvin.
Sigvarth’s teeth flashed again. “None better, unless he’s a bishop.”
“But she got away,” Farman prompted.
“Right. We had our fun. I did it with her, on the sand, twice. It got dark. Now, I wasn’t passing her round, but the men had a dozen girls they were sharing, and I felt like joining in—hah, I was thirty then! So I hauled in my boat, I left my clothes on the sand and got in it with her. I pulled out on the stern-rope, maybe thirty yards out, and made fast. I left her there, dived in the sea and swam back. Fine, big blonde girl there I fancied. She’d been making a lot of noise.
“But after a while—I’d got a roast rib in one hand and a mug of ale in the other—the men started shouting. Just outside the light of our fires there was a shape on the sand, a big shape. Beached whale, we thought
, but when we ran over, it wheezed and came at the first man there. He backed off, we looked for our weapons. I thought it might be a hrosswhale. Whaleross, some say.
“And right that moment there was a lot of shouting from the top of one cliff. The lad up there, Stig was his name, shouting for help. Not blowing his horn, mind, but wanting help. Sounded as if he was fighting something. So I climbed up the rope to see what it was.”
“And what was it?”
“Nothing, when I got there. But he said, near in tears, he’d been attacked by a skoffin.”
“A skoffin?” said Vigleik. “What’s that?”
Skaldfinn laughed. “You must talk more to old wives, Vigleik. A skoffin is the opposite of a skuggabaldur. The one is the get of a male fox and a she-cat, the other of a tom and a vixen.”
“Well,” Sigvarth concluded, “by this time everyone was getting unsettled. So I left Stig up there, told him not to be a fool, slid back down the rope and told everyone to get back on board.
“But when we hauled the boat in, the woman was gone. We searched the beach. I checked the party in the gully—they hadn’t moved an inch while we were getting ready, swore no one had passed. I. went up both ropes to both cliffs. No one had seen anything. In the end I was so angry, what with one thing and another, that I threw Stig down the cliff for sniveling. He broke his neck and died. I had to pay wergild for him when I got home. But I never saw the woman again till last year. And then I was too busy to ask for her story.”
“Aye. We know what you were busy with,” said Thorvin. “The business of the Boneless One.”
“Are you a Christian to whine about it?”
“What it comes to,” said Farman, “is that she could have swum away in the confusion. You swam to shore.”
“She would have had to do it fully dressed, for her clothes were gone too. And not just to shore. A long way, in the dark sea, to get round the cliffs. For she was not on the beach, I am sure of that.”
“A whaleross. A skoffin. A woman who vanishes and reappears carrying a child,” mused Farman. “All this could be explained. Yet there are more ways than one of explaining it.”
“You think he is not my son,” challenged Sigvarth. “You think he is the son of one of your gods. Well, I tell you: I honor no god save Ran the goddess who lives in the deep, whom drowned sailors go to. And the other world you talk of, the visions you boast of—I have heard them speak of it in camp about this Way of yours—I think them all born of drink and sour food, and one man’s blather infecting another, till everyone must tell his tale of visions to keep in with the rest. There is no more sense in it than there is in skoffins. The boy is my son. He looks like me. He acts like me—like I did when I was young.”
“He acts like a man,” snarled Thorvin. “You act like a rutting beast. I tell you that though you have gone many years without regret and without punishment; still there is fate for such as you. Our poet said it when he saw the Hel-world:
“‘Many men I saw moan in pain,
Walk in woe the ways of Hel.
Streaming red their wretched faces,
Punishment for the pain of women.’”
Sigvarth rose to his feet, left hand on sword. “And I will tell you a better poem. The Boneless One’s skald made it last year, of the death of Ragnar:
“‘We struck with the sword. I say it is good
For swain to meet swain in the sway of brands.
Not flinch from fighting. The friend of warriors
Shall earn women by war, by the way of the drengr.
“That is poetry for a warrior. For one who knows how to live and how to die. There will be a place for such a one among the halls of Othin, no matter how many women he has made weep. Poetry for a Viking. Not a milksop.”
In the silence Farman said mildly, “Well, Sigvarth. We thank you for your tale. We will remember you are a jarl and one of our council. You will remember you live by the law of the Waymen now, no matter what you think of our beliefs.”
He pulled open the ropes of the precinct, to let Sigvarth out. As the jarl left, the priests began to talk in low tones.
Shef-who-was-not-Shef knew that the darkness round him had not been breached by light for twice a hundred years. For a while the stone chamber and the earth round it had glowed with the phosphorescence of corruption, lighting up the silent, heaving struggle of the maggots as they consumed the bodies, the eyes and livers and flesh and marrow of all that had been placed there. But the maggots were gone now, the many corpses reduced to white bone, as hard and inert as the whetstone lying under his own fleshless hand. They were nothing but possessions now, without life of their own, as unchallengeably his as the chests and coffers round his feet and under his chair, as the chair itself—the massive wooden high seat in which he had settled himself seven generations ago, for eternity. The chair had rotted underground with the owner—the two had grown into one another. Yet still the figure sat unmoving, the empty eye-sockets staring out into the earth and beyond.
He, the figure in the chair, remembered how they had placed him there. The men had dug the great trench, slid into it the longship on its rollers, placed the high seat as he had directed on the poop, by the steering oar. He had settled himself in it, placed the whetstone with its carved savage faces on one armrest, laid his long broadsword on the other. He had nodded to the men to continue. First they brought in his war-stallion, held it facing him, and poleaxed it where it stood. Then his four best hounds, each one pierced to the heart. He watched carefully to see that each one was quite dead He had no mind to share his everlasting tomb with a trapped meat-eater. Then the hawks, each one quickly strangled Then the women, a pair of beauties, weeping and calling out in spite of the poppy forced upon them; the men strangled them quickly.
Then they brought in the chests, two men to each one, grunting with the weight of them. He watched carefully again to see there was no delay, no reluctance. They would have kept his wealth if they dared. They would dig it up again it they dared. They would not dare. For a year to come the barrow would glow blue with the light of corruption beneath it; a man with a torch would ignite the bale-fires of the reek coming out of the ground. Tales would spread, till all feared and dreaded the grave-mound of Kar the Old. If grave it was for Kar.
The chests stacked, the men began to deck over the belly of the longship with its freight of corpses. Others piled stones around and behind him till they reached the height of the top of his seat with its silken canopy. Over them they laid stout beams, and over them in turn a sheet of lead. Around his feet and over his chests they tucked tarred canvas. In time the wood would rot, the earth fall in on the longship’s hold, the dead women and beasts would lie mingled in confusion. Still he would sit here, looking out over them, the earth held at bay. They had been buried dead. He would not be.
When all was done a man came to stand in front of the seat: Kol the Niggard, men would call him, son of Kar the Old. “It is done, Father,” he said, face twisting between fear and hate.
Kar nodded, eyes unblinking. He would not wish his son luck or farewell. If he had had the black blood of his ancestors, he would have joined his father in the mound, preferring to sit with his treasures for eternity than to hand them over to the new king pushing up from the South, to enjoy life with dishonor, to be an under-king.
The trusted warriors, six of them, began to slaughter the slave-laborers and stack them round the ship. Then they and his son scrambled out. A few moments later the loose earth of the digging began to fall in clods on the deck, covering it quickly, mounting up over the planks and the canvas and the sheet of lead. Slowly he saw it rise, to his knees, to his chest. He sat unmoving, even when earth began to trickle into the stone chamber itself, to cover his hand on the whetstone.
Still a glimmer of light. More earth raining down. The glimmer gone, the dark deepening. Kar settled back finally, sighing with relief and contentment. Now he had things as they should be. And so they would stay forever. His.
He won
dered if he would die down here. What could kill him? It did not matter. Whether he died or lived he would always be the same. The hogboy, the haugbui. The dweller in the mound.
Shef woke with a start and a gasp. Underneath the coarse blankets his body streamed sweat. Reluctantly he pulled them back, rolled with a grunt from the string-bed to the wet, tramped-earth floor. He seized his hemp shirt as the freezing air hit him, pulled it on, groped for the heavy wool tunic and trousers.
Thorvin says these visions are sent by the gods for my instruction. But what did that tell me? There was no machine in it this time.
The canvas flap over the booth-door pulled back and Padda the freedman shuffled in. Outside, the late January dawn showed only thick mist rising from the waterlogged ground. The Army would frowst late in its blankets today.
The names of the men in the dream: Kar and Kol. They did not sound English. Nor Norse, altogether. But then the Norsemen were great ones for shortening names. Guthmund was Gummi to his friends, Thormoth became Tommi. The English did it too. Those names in King Edmund’s riddle: … Wuffa; Wehha’s offspring …”
“What’s your long name, Padda?” he asked.
“Paldriht, master. Haven’t been called that since my mother died.”
“What would Wuffa be short for?”
“Don’t know. Wulfstan, maybe. Could be anything. I knew a man once called Wiglaf. Very noble name. We called him Wuffa.”
Shef pondered as Padda began to blow carefully on the embers of last night’s fire.
Wuffa, son of Wehha. Wulfstan or Wiglaf, son of—Weohstan, it might be, or Weohward. He did not know those names—he must find out more.
As Padda fiddled with wood and water, his pans and the everlasting porridge, Shef unrolled the vellum mappamundi from its waxcloth wrapping, spread it out, corners weighted, on his trestle table. He no longer looked at the completed side, the side with the map of Christian learning. On the reverse he had begun to draw a different map. A map of England, putting down all the information he could uncover. He would sketch in rough outlines, names, distances, on birchbark. Only after information had been checked and proved consistent with what he knew already would he ink it in on the vellum itself. Yet the map still grew with every day, dense and accurate for Norfolk and the Fens, doubtful and patchy for Northumbria away from York, completely blank down in the South, apart from London on the Thames and the vague mention of Wessex to the west of it.
The Hammer & the Cross Page 27