The Prow Beast o-4

by Robert Low

  Sigrith’s voice was shrill and high. Before, it might have been mistaken for girlish, but fear of childbirthing had sucked the sweetness out of it and her Polan accent was thick, so her demands to know when they were sailing from this dreadful place to one which did not smell of fish and sweaty men, had a rancid bite.

  If Jarl Brand had an answer, he never gave it; one of my lookout thralls came pounding up, spraying mud and words in equal measure; a faering was coming up the fjord.

  Such boats were too small to be feared, but the arrival of it was interesting enough to divert everyone, for which Brand was grateful. Yet, when it came heeling in, sail barely reefed and obviously badly handled, I felt an anchor-stone settle in my gut.

  There were arrow shafts visible, and willing men splashed out, waist deep, to catch the little craft and help the man in it take in sail, for he was clearly hurt. They towed it in; two men were in it and blood sloshed in the scuppers; one man was dead and the survivor gasping with pain and badly cut about.

  ‘Skulli,’ Brand said, grim as old rock, and the anchor-stone sank lower; Skulli was his steward and I looked at the man, head lolling and leaking life as the women lifted him away to be cared for.

  Brand stopped them and let Skulli leak while he gasped out the saga of what had happened. It took only moments to tell — Styrbjorn had arrived, with at least five ships and the men for them, clearly bound for a slaughter against his uncle’s right-hand man, to make a show of what he was capable of if things did not go his way.

  Jarl Brand’s hall was burning, his men dead, his thralls fled, his women taken.

  The black dog of it crushed everyone for a moment, then shook itself; men bellowed and all was movement. I saw Finn’s face and the mad joy on it was clear as blood on snow.

  While Thorgunna and Thordis hauled Skulli off and yelled out for Bjaelfi to bring his skill and healing runes, Brand took my arm and led me a little way aside while men rushed to make Black Eagle ready. His face was now as bone-coloured as his hair.

  ‘I have to go to King Eirik,’ he declared. ‘Add my ship to his and what men I can sweep up on the way. Styrbjorn, if he is stupid, will stay to fight us and we will kill him. If not, he will flee and I will chase him and make him pay for what he has done.’

  ‘I can have the Elk ready in an hour or two,’ I said, then stopped as he shook his head.

  ‘Serve me better,’ he answered. ‘Call up your Oathsworn to this place. Look after the queen. I can hardly take her with me.’

  That stopped my mouth, sure as a hand over it. He returned my look with a cliff of a face and eyes that said there would be no arguing; yet he cracked the stone of him an instant later, when he shot a sideways glance to where Koll watched, round-eyed, as men bustled. I did not need him to say more.

  ‘The queen and son both, then,’ I replied, feeling the sick dread of what would happen if Styrbjorn sent ships here, for it would take time to send out word to the world that Hestreng needed the old Oathsworn back. Jarl Brand saw it, too, and nodded briefly.

  ‘I will leave thirty of my crew — I wish it were more.’

  It was generous, for the ones he had left would break themselves to run Black Eagle home, with no relief. It was also a marker of what he feared and I forced a smile.

  ‘Who will attack the Oathsworn?’ I countered, but there was no mirth in the twist of a grin he gave, turning away to bawl orders to his men.

  There was a great milling of movement and words; I sent Botolf stumping off to bring the thirty of Jarl Brand’s crew. They stood forlorn and grim on the shore as their oarmates sailed away — but there was none more cliff-faced and black-scowling than Finn, watching others sail away to the war he wanted. Then I gathered up Botolf’s daughter, little red-haired Helga, and made her laugh, as much to make me feel better as her. Ingrid smiled.

  Jasna waddled up to me, the queen moving ponderously behind her, made bulkier still by furs against the chill.

  ‘Her Highness wishes to know what blot you will make for the jarl’s journey,’ she demanded and her tone made me angry, since she was a thrall when all was said and done. I tossed Helga in the air and made her scream.

  ‘Laughter,’ I answered brusquely. ‘The gods need it sometimes.’

  Jasna blinked at that, then went back to the queen, walking like a loaded pack pony; there were whispers back and forth. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Thorgunna scowling at me and in answer I carried on playing with the child.

  ‘This is not seemly,’ said an all-too familiar voice, jerking me from Helga’s gurgles. The queen stood in front of me, mittened hands folded over her swollen belly, frowning.

  ‘Seemly?’

  She waved a small hand, like a little furred paw in the mitten. Her face was sharp as a cat’s and would have been pretty save for the lines at the edges of her mouth.

  ‘You are godi here. This is not…It has no…dignitas.’

  ‘You sound like a Christ follower,’ I answered shortly, putting Helga down; she trundled off towards her mother, who gathered her up. I saw Thorgunna closing on us, fast as a racing drakkar.

  ‘Christ follower!’

  It was an explosion of shriek and I turned my head from it, as you would from an icy blast. Then I shrugged, for this queen, her young and beautiful face twisted with outrage, annoyed me more and more. I was annoyed, too, to have forgotten that the Christ godlet had been foisted on her father and his people; like the rest of them, she resented this.

  ‘They also confuse misery and prayer,’ I managed to answer and heard a chuckle I recognised as Leo. Thorgunna bustled up, managing to elbow me in the ribs.

  ‘Highness,’ she said to Sigrith, with a sweet smile. ‘I have everything prepared — what do men know of sacrifice?’

  Mollified, the queen allowed herself to be led away, followed by Jasna, who threw me a venomous glare. The ever-present, ever-silent Mazur girl followed after, but paused to shoot me a quick glance from those dark eyes; afterwards, I realised what had made me remember it. It was the first time she had looked directly at anyone at all.

  At the time, I heard a little laugh which distracted me from thoughts of the girl and turned my head to where Leo watched, swathed in a cloak, hands shoved deep inside its folds.

  ‘I thought traders of your standing had more diplomacy,’ he offered and I said nothing, knowing he had the right of it and that my behaviour had been, at best, childish.

  ‘But she galls, does she not?’ he added, as if reading my mind.

  ‘Even less soil there than here for your Christ seed,’ I countered. ‘Even if you get to the court. Your visit to Uppsalla is proving a failure.’

  He smiled the moon-faced smile of a man who did not think anything he did was a failure, then inclined his head and moved off, leaving me with the last view of Black Eagle, raising sail and speeding off into the grey distance.

  I felt rain spot my neck and shivered, looked up to a pewter sky and offered a prayer to bluff Thor and Aegir of the waves and Niord, god of the coasts, for a good blow and some tossing white-caps. A storm sea would keep us safe…

  I rose in the night and left my sleeping area, mumbling to a dreamy Thorgunna about the need for a privy, which was a lie. I stepped through the hall of grunting and snores and soft stirrings in the dark, past the pitfire’s grey ash, where little red eyes watched me step out of the hall.

  The sharp air made me wish I had brought a cloak, made me wonder at this foolishness. There was rain in that air, yet no storm and the fear of that lack filled me. Dreams I knew — Odin’s arse, I had been hag-ridden by dreams all my life — but this was strange, a formless half-life, a draugr of a feeling that ruined sleep and nipped my waking heels.

  Never before or since have I felt the power of the prow beast on a raiding ship as it locks jaws with the spirit of the land — but I felt them both that night, muscled and snarling shadows in the dark. Even then, I knew Randr Sterki was coming.

  Yet the world remained the same, etched in black and
silver, misted in shreds even in the black night. A dog fox barked far out on the pasture; the great dark of Ginnungagap still held the embers of Muspelheim, flung there by Odin’s brothers, Vili and Ve. Between scudding clouds, I found Aurvandill’s Toe and the Eyes of Thjazi after a search, but easily found the Wagon Star, which guides prow beasts everywhere. The one on Randr’s ship would be following it like a spooring wolf.

  There was a closer light from the little building that housed Ref’s forge, a soft glow and I moved to it, drawn by the hope of heat. A few steps from it, the voices halted me — I have no idea why, since they were ones I knew; Ref was there and Botolf with him and the thrall boy, Toki.

  Ref was nailing, which was a simple thing but a steading needed lots of them and he clearly took comfort in the easy repetitive task; he took slim lengths of worked bog-iron, flared one end and pointed the other, two taps for one, four for the other, then a plunge into the quench and a drop into a box. Even for that simple task, he kept the light in the forge dim, so that he could read the colour of the fire and the heated iron.

  Toki, a doll-like silhouette with his back to me, worked the bellows and hugged his reedy arms between times, chilled despite the flames in his one-piece kjartan and bare feet, his near-bald head shining in the red light.

  The place had the burned-hair smell of charred hooves, braided with the tang of sea-salt, charcoal and horse piss. In the dim light of the forge-fire and a small horn lantern above Botolf’s head, Ref looked like a dwarf and Botolf a giant, the one forging some magical thing, the other red-dyed with light and speaking in a low rumble, like boulders grinding.

  ‘That dog fox is out again,’ he was saying. ‘He’s after the chickens.’

  ‘That’s why we coop them,’ Ref replied, concentrating. Tap, tap. Pause. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Plunge and hiss. He picked up another length.

  ‘He won’t come near. He is afraid of the hounds,’ Botolf replied, shifting his weight. He nudged Toki, who pumped the bellows a few times.

  ‘Why is he afraid?’ the boy asked. ‘He can run.’

  ‘Because the hounds run slower but longer and will kill him,’ answered Ref. ‘So would you be afraid.’

  The boy shivered. ‘I am afraid even in my dreams,’ he answered and Botolf looked at him.

  ‘Dreams, little Toki? What dreams? My Helga has dreams, too, which make her afraid. What do you dream?’

  The boy shrugged. ‘Falling from a high place, like Aoife says my da did.’

  Botolf nodded soberly, remembering that Toki had been fathered by a thrall called Geitleggr, whose hairy goat legs had given him the only name he had known — but none of the animal’s skill when it came to gathering eggs on narrow ledges. His mother, too, had died, of too much work, too little food and winter and now Aoife looked out for Toki, as much as anyone did.

  ‘I like high places,’ Botolf said, seeking to reassure the boy. ‘They are in nearly all my dreams.’

  Ref absently pinched out a flaring ember on his already scorch-marked old tunic and I doubted if his horn-skinned fingers felt it. He never took his eyes from the iron, watching the colour of the flames for the right moment, even on just a nail.

  Tap, tap, tap, tap — plunge, hiss.

  ‘What are they, then, these dreams of yours, Botolf?’ Ref wanted to know, sliding another length of bog-iron into the coals and jerking his chin at Toki to start pumping.

  Botolf tapped his timber foot on the side of the oak stump which held the spiked anvil.

  ‘Since I got this, wings,’ he answered. ‘I dream I have wings. Big black ones, like a raven.’

  ‘What does it feel like?’ Toki asked, peering curiously. ‘Is it like a real leg?’

  ‘Mostly,’ answered Botolf, ‘except when it itches, for you cannot scratch it.’

  ‘Does it itch, then?’ Ref asked, pausing in wonder. ‘Like a real leg?’

  Botolf nodded.

  ‘Did some magic woodworker make it so that it itched?’ Toki wanted to know and Botolf chuckled.

  ‘If he did, I wish he would come back and unmake it — or at least let me scratch. I dream of that when I am not dreaming of wings.’

  ‘Does no-one dream of proper things any more?’ Ref grumbled, turning the bog-iron length in the coals. ‘Wealth and fame and women?’

  ‘I have all three,’ Botolf answered. ‘I have no need of that dream.’

  ‘I dream of food most often,’ Toki admitted and the other two laughed; boys seldom had enough to eat and thralls never did.

  ‘Sing a song,’ Ref said, ‘soft now, so as not to wake everyone. Pick a good one and it will go into the iron and make the nails stronger.’

  So Toki sang, a child song, a soft song of the sea and being lost on it. The wave of it left me stranded at the edge of darkness, icy and empty and wondering why he had chosen that of all songs and if the hand of Odin was in it.

  I had heard that song before, in another place. We had come ashore in the night, blacker than the night itself with hate and fear, unseen, unheard until we raved down on Klerkon’s steading on Svartey at dawn — a steading like this, I remembered, sick and cold. Only one fighting man had been there and he had been easily killed by Kvasir and Finn.

  Things had been done, as they always were in such events, made more savage because it was Klerkon we hunted and he had stolen Thorgunna’s sister, Thordis. He was not there, but all his folk’s women and bairns were and, prowling for him, I had heard the singing, sweet in the dawn’s dim, a song to keep out the fear.

  I heard it stop, too. I had come upon the great tangle-haired growler who had cut it out of the girl’s throat with a single slash, his blade clotted with sticky darkness and strands of hair. He had turned to me, all beard and mad grin and I had known him at once — Red Njal, limping Red Njal, who now played with Botolf’s Helga and carved dolls for her.

  Beyond, all twisted limbs and bewildered faces, were the singer’s three little siblings: blood smoked in the hearthfire coals and puddled the stones. The thrall-nurse was there, too, forearm hacked through where she had flung up her arms in a last desperate, useless attempt to ward off an axe edge. Red Njal was on his knees in the blood, rifling for plunder.

  There were shouts then, and I followed them; outside lay a plough ox still dying, great head flapping and blood bubbling from its muzzle, the eyes wide and rolling. Across the heaving, weakly thrashing body of it, as if on some box-bed, three men stripped a woman to pale breasts and belly, down to the hair between her legs, while she gasped, strength almost gone but fighting still.

  Her blonde braids flailed as her head thrashed back and forth and two of the men tried to hold her, while the third fought down his breeches and struggled to get between her legs. She spat crimson at him and he howled back at her and smacked her in the mouth, so that her head bounced off the twitching flank of the ox, which tried to bawl and only hissed out more blood.

  They panted and struggled, like men trying to fit a new wheel on a heavy cart, calling advice, insults, curses when the ox shat itself, working steadily towards the inevitable…then the one between her legs, the one I knew well, lost his patience, unable to hold her and rid himself of the knee she kept wedging in his way.

  He hauled a seax from his boot and slit her throat, so that she gug-gug-gugged on her own blood and started to flop like a fish. The knee dropped; the man stuck the seax in the ox and his prick in the woman and started pumping while the others laughed.

  The boy came from nowhere, from the dark where he had seen it all, from where he had watched his mother, Randr Sterki’s wife, die. He came like a hare and snatched up the seax, while the man pumped and pumped, gone frantic and unseeing and the woman gurgled and died beneath him.

  My blade took the back of the boy’s skull clean off, an instant before he brought the seax down. I watched the back of his head fly in the air, the hair on it like spider legs, the gleet and brain and blood arcing out to splash the dying woman’s last lover, who jerked himself away and out of her, gawpin
g, his prick hanging like a dead chicken’s neck.

  ‘Odin’s arse…well struck, Orm. That little hole would have had me, liver and lights, for sure.’

  Grinning, Finn hauled his breeks up and grabbed his seax from the boy’s gripping hand, so that, for a moment, it looked as if the lad was raising himself up. But he was dead, slumped across his mother and Finn spat on him before stumping off into the dark…

  ‘Why are you standing out there?’

  The voice raked me back to the night and the forge. All the heads had turned towards me and Botolf chuckled. Toki, half-turned, was bloodied by the forgelight and, for a moment, I saw the face of the boy I had killed. Toki was the same age. Too young to die. Yet Randr’s boy would have killed Finn — had once laughed as he helped his mother scrape Crowbone’s head raw, then chain him to the privy as punishment for running away. What the Norns weave is always intricate, but it can be as dark and ugly as it is beautiful.

  ‘Listeners at the eaves hear no good of themselves,’ Botolf intoned. Toki dropped from his perch, breaking the spell.

  ‘Sleep comes hard,’ Ref grunted, ‘too many farters and snorers in the hall.’

  We all knew that was not the reason I was here, but I went along with the conspiracy, grunting agreement.

  Ref, seeing the flames change colour, lifted his head. ‘Back to the bellows, boy,’ he called, but Toki kept staring — he pointed behind me, away into the dark land where I had set watchers and fire.

  ‘What is that light?’ he asked.

  I did not need to turn, felt the sick, frantic heat of that warning beacon though it was miles away. When I spoke I stared straight at Botolf, so he would know, would remember what he had been told of Klerkon’s steading on Svartey.

  ‘That light is men who kill bairns and fuck their mother on a dead ox,’ I said, harsh as a crow laugh.

  ‘Men like us.’

  Men like us, following their prow beast up the fjord in a ship called Dragon Wings, grim with revenge, hugging a secret to them with savage glee, for they did not want a fair fight, only slaughter.