The White Raven

by Robert Low

  'Read less of his Norn-weave and more of our own,' I answered. 'Let's hope there is not a thread in it that winds his greatness round our doom.'

  That thought occupied both of us all the way to where the strug tied up to the wharf at Novgorod. Then the Norns showed us what they had weaved so far and Odin's laughter was louder still.

  The great walled fortress of Novgorod, with its central keep — the Slavs call them kreml and detinets — was a formidable affair even in those early days, before it was rebuilt in stone. All sharpened wood and earthworks, it glowered above the town like a stern father.

  Inside, it was then and is now, as snug as a turf-roofed Iceland hall, with fine hangings and sable furs and such — but it also has a stinking pit prison, all filth and sweating rock walls and meant for the likes of the ragged-arse Krivichi, Goliads and Slovenes, not decent Norse like us.

  The druzhina guards didn't see it that way at all when they pitched us in, jeering and pointing out that no-one climbed out who was not destined either to be nailed upside down or staked.

  We were all there — me, Finn, Kvasir, Jon Asanes, Thorgunna, Thordis, two thrall women who gabbled in some strange tribe tongue and Olaf who, for all his defiant chin, was trembling, both at what might happen and at the fact he had killed his first man.

  In the dark, chill and crushing as a tomb, our ragged breathing was all that told me anyone was there at all and yet it seemed to me that there were shapes, blacker shadows in the dark, shifting and moving. I felt them, as I had felt them the night of the fox-fires back in the stables in Hestreng; the restless dead, come to look and leach the last warmth of life from someone about to join them. Aye, and gloat, too, perhaps.

  The day started well enough, when we had made our way over the great split-log walkways, greasy with soft mirr and age, to the Gotland quarter where the Norse trading houses sat. I was seeking Jon Asanes, known to us as The Goat Boy.

  Eventually we found Tvorimir, into whose care we had handed The Goat Boy to be taught how to trade, deal with sharp men and read and write birch-bark accounts. Tvorimir, it was generally agreed, was the best for this, since he was nicknamed Soroka — Magpie — for his attraction to anything even vaguely sheened.

  His house, of the better sort called an izba, was like a steading hall dropped into a town, arranged on three sides around a courtyard, with stables, storage for hay and grain and one of the bath houses they liked so much. Instead of a pitfire, it had a clay oven in one corner, which was a fine thing.

  He looked less like a magpie than a fat fussing hen, a man built, as Kvasir noted, in a pile of circles, from the ones which made his fat legs, to the one that made his belly and the little red one framed with a puff of white hair that made his head.

  After we had been hugged and backslapped, been given bread and salt and ale from the cellar, he puffed himself to a wooden bench near the big clay oven and shook his head at the mention of Jon Asanes.

  'Quick and clever that one,' he told me. 'Works well, too — when he can be fastened to it. Has taken to writing, but not for accounts.'

  He paused, shut one eye and laid a finger along his nose. 'Love verse,' he said and laughed, an alarming effect of wheeze and wobble. He rolled his eyes heavenward and intoned: 'What fire in my heart and my body and my soul for you and your body and your person, let it set fire to your heart and your body and your soul for me and for my body and for my person.'

  'Tyr's bones,' breathed Finn, half admiring, half disgusted. 'We have arrived just in time, it seems,' Kvasir declared. 'You should write such for me,' declared Thorgunna, nudging Kvasir, who looked shocked at the very idea, then grinned.

  'Happily, I am unable to read or write, save a bit of rune here and there. And now that I am down to one eye, I will not risk straining it on such.'

  'Then whisper me such things instead,' countered Thorgunna, while Tvorimir closed one eye reflectively and said nothing. He was well-travelled was Magpie, but he was more Slav than Swede and, like all of them, knew women had their place. As all Slavs will tell you, a chicken is not a bird, as a woman is not a person — but they do not say it around a prow-built woman from the vik.

  'Where is Jon Asanes?' I asked and Tvorimir arranged his blackened teeth into a smile.

  'At the Yuriev Monastery,' he declared and did his wobble and wheeze laugh again at our faces.

  'It used to be a salt-maker's yard,' he added, 'until some Bulgar monks arrived from a place called Ohrid with their White Christ and Greek ways. The young Prince Vladimir is interested in such things. It is useful, for they owe me and I can get the boy taught to write Latin and Greek.'

  It made good sense, for Jon Asanes was a Christ-follower from the island of Cyprus, where his mother still lived — if she still lived — and of the Greek style, too. He had done us a service on Cyprus and we had brought him away with us but, for all we had become his family, the gods of Asgard had made no headway in him.

  'He spends all his time with the Greeks there — priests and lay brothers, mainly, as well as merchants from the Great City,' Tvorimir continued. 'He learns a deal, but it has to be said that he prefers their ways to ours. He is pestering me to send him to the Great City, which he insists on calling Constantinople and tells me I am a barbarian for saying it is Miklagard, or even just the Great City.'

  'Ach — young Pai is just the same,' Thorgunna offered. 'Young men coming to manhood are always fretting with opinions on this and that.'

  Which was true enough and seemed an end of the matter. I should have paid it more attention, but had more to think about, so we sat and talked, of Jon's health — good, considering he was olive-skinned and practically a Serklander, none of whom cared for the ice and snow — and trade and Sviatoslav's mad war with the Great City that made it impossible.

  Tvorimir asked if we wanted to use his bath house, at which Kvasir choked on his ale and Finn gave the Slav merchant a look to strip the gilding off his house's fancy carvings. We were good Norsemen and, unlike the filth of the Franks and Saxlanders and Livs and Ests, were not against washing most weeks — though, in winter, you tend to be sensible about such things.

  Rus bathing was another matter altogether. I have seen these people at their baths, which they heat fiercely, then go into naked and pour some sort of oil over themselves, then beat themselves with young twigs until they stagger out, half dead.

  After that, they pour cold water over themselves. They do this every day, without being forced, in order to bathe and not as any strange personal torment. Even the Greek-Romans of the Great City are not as vicious at getting clean.

  Instead, we idled round the clay oven, picking salt out of the elegantly-carved little throne of a salt holder, sprinkling it on good bread and drinking. We talked of people we knew and what fish were plentiful in the Ilmen and, because it led to it from there, argued about how many rivers flowed into that lake — fifty-two, we counted in the end, though only one, the Volkhov, flowed out and down to Kiev.

  It was pleasant talk and easily turned to the trade in slaves and who was doing it and whether they had any new ones.

  Frowning, Tvorimir said: 'Late in the year for it. The Ilmen is freezing early and soon you will not get a boat out the mouth of the Volkhov south. If your slaves are from the north, you will be looking to go south. The only dealer still in Novgorod who is still planning to go south is Takoub.'

  Finn grunted and we all shifted a little. Takoub we knew well, because he was the one who had bought our oarmates as slaves some years before, when we had thought them snugged up in Novgorod while Einar led the rest of us in search of Atil's secret tomb and the silver in it.

  We had annoyed Sviatoslav doing it and he had seized our men and sold them to Takoub, who had sold them to an emir in Serkland. Those of us left after Einar had died had the unpleasant task of going after them, among other matters and it had been on that journey we had found the Goat Boy.

  We were still in the memory of it when the lad himself arrived, blasting in the cold a
ir and a smile that warmed us all. He glowed and beamed and was wrapped in bearhugs by Kvasir and buried in Finn's beard, both at the same time, until all three broke apart, faces twisted.

  'Fauugh, you stink.'

  'Is that perfume, boy?'

  They looked at each other and all of us burst out laughing. Of course Jon Asanes would be clean, washed and perfumed, for he was Greek and had been three years away from the honest sweaty wool and fish smell of us from the north. So far away it wrinkled his nose now, even as Finn wrinkled his nose at the sweet-smelling boy.

  All the same, we clasped forearms as old friends and I felt the leap of my heart at that — him, too, I fancied, from the look in his eyes. He had grown from the skinny boy with only a dozen years on him and his tangled black curls were combed and oiled and fell to the shoulders of the white shirt he wore over sea-green breeks.

  'Is that a beard?' demanded Finn and Jon Asanes, laughing and blushing, batted the gnarled and filthy hand which was trying to feel his chin. Little Olaf watched it all with interest, saying nothing.

  'Either you flew,' Jon said, looping a leg over a bench as if it were a horse and pouring ale, 'or my message to you is still sailing.'

  'What message?' grunted Kvasir, then was nudged by Thorgunna into making introductions. Jon Asanes had been told of Kvasir's marriage, but this was his first meeting with Thorgunna and everyone could see she was dazzled by him. It was hard not to be for, with a youth's summers on him, The Goat Boy now had a breadth of chest and a slender waist and a bright and even smile that was always echoed in his dark eyes.

  Then Olaf stepped up, having to look up to Jon Asanes, who now had some height on him, too. Jon was, I realized as I watched him and Olaf study each other, about the same age now as I was when we had met on Cyprus and called him Goat Boy. Yet, with less than a handful of years between us, I felt old enough to be the Goat Boy's grandfather.

  'You smell nice,' said Olaf. 'Not like a man, though. Like a flower.'

  Jon Asanes astounded me and showed how much he had learned about dealing with traders, for he didn't bristle at this, as I expected from someone of his age. Instead, he grinned.

  'You smell like fish dung,' he countered. 'And your eyes cannot make up their minds on colour.'

  They stared for a moment longer, then Olaf laughed with genuine delight and you could see the pair of them were friends already.

  'The message?' I asked and Jon Asanes smiled a last smile at little Olaf and turned to me, a storm gathering on his brow.

  'I sent it awhiles since, by a Gotland trader,' he said and looked sideways at me. 'An old friend is arrived,' he added. 'He is staying with Christ-followers in the German quarter. I say friend, but I doubt if it is true.'

  He paused and looked at me, then the others.

  'I did not tell Tvorimir,' he added, 'since it was a matter best kept between few, I was thinking.'

  I felt the chill then and it was nothing to do with draughts from the door. Magpie caught my eye and slapped a grin on his red face.

  'I will go if you like,' he said, but I shook my head; I trusted Tvorimir — well, as much as I trusted any trader — and, besides, we had few friends in this part of the world. Instead, I turned to Jon Asanes and asked, though I already knew the answer.

  'Who?'

  'Martin, the monk, with news for you, he says.'

  'Odin's eye,' growled Finn. 'That name again, like a strange turd in your privy. I thought he had died.'

  Not yet,' Jon answered with a grin, 'though he looks much like a corpse.'

  'I had thought to have seen the last of him in Serkland,' Kvasir admitted. Thorgunna, who had heard some of this, kept quiet and Magpie, who was bemused by all of it, looked from one to the other, demanding explanations.

  'What does he want?' I asked and, again, I already knew the answer — his holy spear, which I had in my sea chest, wrapped in sealskin. Jon Asanes confirmed it.

  'In exchange,' he went on, 'he says he will give you news worth the value of it to you.'

  'I doubt that,' muttered Finn, 'for he was ever as slippery as a fresh-caught herring.'

  They tossed the tale of it between them for Magpie's benefit — how Martin, the German monk, had stumbled on the secret of Attila's treasure and been forced to reveal it by Einar, so putting all the Oathsworn on the hard road to that cursed hoard.

  Martin, though, had only ever wanted one thing — the holy spear he swore was the one the Old Romans had thrust into the side of his Christ and whose iron point had been used in forging two sabres for Attila. They had been buried with him — and I had brought one of them out of the tomb.

  I sat and listened to them chewing on it, though I already knew Martin and I would have to meet. I had no use for his Christ icon and had simply picked it up from the body of the man who had stolen it — but never throw away anything that might be of use, my old foster-mother Halldis had dinned into me.

  'You know where Martin is?' I asked into the middle of their conversation, killing it. Jon Asanes nodded.

  'Where is best to meet?' I asked. It would be better in a public place, this first one, for Martin was a man easy to dislike and somehow sparked me to anger like no other. I had almost killed him once and there were times since I wished I had.

  Jon nodded, knowing all this. 'The Perun likeness,' he said. 'Everyone uses it as a landmark and it is in the marketplace.'

  I knew it well — you could not miss the great oak pillar on its mound of concentric circles, the top carved in the shape of a powerful warrior carrying an axe and with a head of silver and moustaches of gold. Perun, the Slav god of storms, who was as like Thor as to be his brother. I nodded.

  We laid out the tale of what had happened to us thus far and Jon sucked it in as if it was no more than air, nodding and silent. At the end of it, he blew out his cheeks, stuffed bread in his mouth and rose from the bench.

  'We will start with Martin, then,' he said simply and slammed out, dragging a warm cloak in his wake.

  'Bloody boy goes everywhere at a run,' complained Magpie.

  'He will learn when he gets to our age,' grunted Kvasir, 'the truth of the old bull.'

  We chuckled, while Thorgunna scowled. Magpie was too Slav to have heard this tale, so Finn took great delight in telling him, because it outraged Thorgunna that he did.

  'Let us not run down and hump one of the heifers,' Finn finished, in his role of the old bull advising his eager son. 'Let us walk gently down and hump them all.'

  So we laughed and argued the rest of that morning, in the warm of Magpie's izba, until Jon Asanes returned and said, simply: Nones'.

  I told them it was Latin for the way Christ-priests from the west judge the day — late afternoon, by which time it would growing dark.

  'We will keep a sharper eye open then,' Finn said cheerfully, 'in case he has found people stupid enough to try and take what he wants.'

  I thought it unlikely, for he knew I wouldn't bring the holy spear with me. Better for Finn to go with Kvasir and Thorgunna, who were taking Olaf to buy him new clothes.

  'You might need someone to help you string Martin up,' Finn growled moodily, 'while you use the Truth Knife on him to get what he knows. He is no stranger to it, after all.'

  I shook my head, while the flash of memory, like lightning on a darkened sea, flared up the scene — Martin, swinging like a trussed goose from the mast of Einar's Elk, spraying blood and green snot as Einar hacked off the monk's little finger and threw it over the side. Einar's magic Truth Knife, which, he told victims, knew when someone lied and would cut off a piece every time they did. It was now sheathed in the small of my back and I had used it once or twice myself. Most did not keep their secrets beyond two fingers.

  Shrugging at my folly, Finn strode off after Thorgunna, Kvasir and Olaf, leaving me with Jon Asanes, who rolled his eyes towards the sky.

  'I have not seen Finn for some years,' he said. 'He seems even wilder than he was before.'

  'As you say,' I countered, 'you
have not seen him for some years. You have just forgotten how he is.'

  Even though I knew it was a lie.

  We were silent, pushing through the throng on the wooden walkways of the city while the sky pewtered and the rain spat itself to sleet.

  'You seem . . . older,' Jon Asanes said eventually, as we stopped to watch an army of carters manhandle a huge brass bell, almost as big as a small house, destined for the kreml over the Volkhov Bridge. They love their bells, do the Slavs of Novgorod and Kiev and ring them on every ceremonial they can think of.

  I said nothing. We crossed behind the sweating, shouting men, to where the great statue of Perun, offerings littering his feet, towered over the marketplace.

  'I know what it is,' Jon said suddenly, stopping me to look into my face.

  'What?'

  'Why you seem older,' he said and grinned. 'You do not smile now,' he added.

  I gave him one to make him a liar; but he shook his head and forked two fingers at his eyes.

  'You can do it with your mouth,' he said, 'but not here.'

  He was right and I scowled at him for being so, while being proud of him at the same time. I never had a chance to say anything more on it, for I saw a figure who made my belly curl.

  He walked with a staff, wore a ragged brown robe which ended at his knees, yet trailed strips in the mud and flapped uneven dags wetly round his shins. Under it, he wore heavy woollen breeks, which might have been blue once. He had shoes, new and heavy — a gift, probably, from his German Christ worshippers — and leg-bindings filthy enough to have come from a corpse-winding.

  It was his eyes that told me who it was and they were all that could be seen in the thicket of his face. His beard was long and matted into his hair, which hung below his shoulders — but his eyes, on either side of a nose like a curved dagger, were still the dark ones I remembered, though the calculating look had gone from them, burned away by his obsession. Now they looked like the eyes of a pole-sitter, one of those crazed hermits who go out into the wilderness and perch in high places.