by Robert Low
Martin.
When I had first seen the little monk, in Birka years before, he wore a similar brown robe, but clean and neat and tied with a pale rope. He slippered over polished floors in soft shoes, though he wore sensible heavy wool socks against the cold. His face then was sharp, smooth, clean-shaven enough to reflect lantern-light, his brown hair cut the same length all round, shaved carefully in the middle.
His God was not treating him lightly.
'Orm,' he rasped, the all too familiar voice making my insides turn over. He leaned on his staff, both hands clasping it. I saw his nails were short, broken and black-rimmed, saw the maimed stump of his little finger. When he tried a smile, I wished he had not, for all it revealed was the mess of his mouth, smashed somewhere on his journey and the teeth left to blacken and rot.
'Martin,' I answered.
'You have grown and prospered,' he said.
'You have not.'
'I am rich in God.'
'If that is all you have to exchange for your holy stick, we can end this now.'
He leaned further forward, so tense his beard seemed to curl. Everything quivered, even his voice. 'You have it?'
'I have it. I took it from Sigurd Heppni in Serkland. He no longer had need of it, since Finn had cut his life away. A bad joke on Sigurd, to be called Heppni.'
He did not smile, though I knew he had enough Norse to understand that 'heppni' meant 'lucky'.
'I must have it,' was all he said, those dark eyes glittering.
Jon shifted slightly, anxious to join in with a few choice insults, but aware that I would be annoyed if he did. Around us, the marketplace of Novgorod heaved with life, buying and selling, shifting with furs and green clay pots and amber and offerings laid at the feet of Perun — yet it seemed that there was a circle round us three and, inside it, we were unseen, unapproached.
When I did not answer, Martin blinked like a lizard and grinned his rotting grin. 'I see you have a heathen sign on you, as always. Odin's sign. Swear on it that you will give me what I seek when I tell you what I know.'
'No great bargain for me there. I have no wish to know how to feed a multitude with a loaf and a herring, even if I believed you knew the trick of it. Mind you, if you know the way to turn water into wine . . .'
That harsh voice interrupted me. 'Judge for yourself. My secret concerns an old enemy and a tomb packed with silver.' And then he said simply, 'Brondolf Lambisson is the old enemy.'
When the dig of that did not make me flinch as he had hoped he narrowed his eyes.
'Brondolf went back to Birka,' I said, as casually as I could, as if the man meant nothing to me now
Martin saw it and nodded.
'Ja, Birka. Where else would he go? He sat there, watching the place die round him and desperate for something to save it. He failed; Birka is a town of empty doorways and crumbling timbers. Brondolf went to Hedeby, following the trade. When he found two Oathsworn he knew there, he must have thought the hand of God was in it — if he hadn't been a Hell-damned pagan.'
'So? What did he hope to gain?' I snarled, knowing full well.
'The secret of Atil's tomb, of course.'
'Cod-Biter couldn't find his arse with both hands and Short Eldgrim is . . .'
'Eldgrim,' repeated Martin, as if tasting the name. 'The little one with the scars on his face, ja?' He had become more German these days.
'He is addled,' I said and Martin agreed with a nod.
'Which is why Lambisson came to me,' he answered. 'He thought I owed him a debt, thought that I might know a way into Eldgrim's head. He had some of it from Cod-Biter, enough to let him know that this Eldgrim knew more.'
Now the gaff of it took me under the chin and made me jerk and Martin saw it. Aye, Eldgrim knew some of it. Me, who could speak Latin and Greek, had no better knowledge of runes than a bairn. Who else could I have asked to help carve the secret on that sword hilt but the man who, of all the Oathsworn left on the steppe then, made the least mistakes with runes?
A sore dunt in a fight in Serkland had left him addled. I wished I was sure his mind was washed clean of the secret, but his thought-cage was a strange place now, where he could sometimes recall old events as if they had happened the day before and yet forget everything that happened an hour ago.
'You could not help Lambisson,' I said flatly to the monk, more hopeful than sure.
Martin grinned his rotted grin. 'He persuaded me to do my best. He smashed all the teeth in my mouth and gave me healthy bowls of tough meat, which I could only suck. Until I managed to free something from Eldgrim's mouth, nothing would pass my own that I could eat.'
There was clever and vicious in it, but it was only another little Truth Knife when all said and done. I said as much and he glanced at the stump of his finger, remembering. It was a nasty lash from me, born of fear for Eldgrim and Cod-Biter and should not have been done, for he had an answer to it and more.
'I am alive. I ate.'
I was silent, the words penned up in me and my mouth locked.
'And Short Eldgrim?' I managed after a struggle.
Martin twisted his face in what was now the parody of a sneer. 'Alive. He and I raked through his mind and came up with just enough, when added to what Cod-Biter was persuaded to recall. But Lambisson took them both when he went to Sarkel.'
That name made me twitch and Martin's black grin grew even wider. Not for the first time I wished I had killed him when I had had the chance.
'And he let you go?' I managed scornfully, as if that fact made his tale no more than a confection for children.
'No,' he answered simply. 'He needed me, too. I took myself away at the first chance.'
Aye, he would have done that. Martin had many skills, but his greatest was the ability to vanish.
'He has had a month or more,' Martin said. 'He has hired men, as hard as the Oathsworn — Krivichians and even Khazars, I hear. He has taken your friends and gone after Atil's hoard, but there is a limit to how much Eldgrim can be made to remember. It may take Brondolf some time. He may not find it at all.'
Then he stiffened and one eye twitched.
'Christ's bones,' he said and I turned to where he looked.
Jon's hand on my forearm gripped tighter and I thought it was for what had been said, but when I looked, he was staring across the market square — to where Klerkon knelt at the feet of Perun, offering coins and trinkets.
Martin's stare was raddled with hate for Klerkon and as I strode past him towards Klerkon I wondered what he had been subjected to by his captor, only seeing, at the last moment, the little man with him, his high cheekboned face turning towards me, a grin revealing more gap than tooth —Takoub.
He held a length of chain and attached to it were three women, one of them Thordis. On the far side, coming up at a brisk pace, was Finn and, behind him, Kvasir and Thorgunna.
Klerkon straightened, bowed once to the great oak pillar and turned to see me. He blinked at me, turned and shot a glance round at Finn, then grinned.
'A fronte praeciptium, a tergo lupi,' he declared.
'That had better be translated as "here you are lads, sorry I stole them", or you will feel my blade up your arse, Klerkon,' snarled Finn.
'A cliff in front, wolves behind,' I informed Finn. 'Klerkon is caught and wondering how to wriggle out of it.'
Klerkon raised an eyebrow, stretched a languid hand —slowly, to show it was empty and going nowhere to be filled.
'It would not be a clever thing, I am thinking, to start something in the market square of Lord Novgorod the Great,' he smiled. 'Especially since Takoub here has just bought three slaves. Legally.'
'They are not slaves,' growled Finn, then scrubbed his face in confusion, for two of them were, in fact, thralls from Tor's steading. Only Thordis was freeborn. I saw her, face set like bad dough but with eyes hard and determined, knowing I would not let this happen. There was also the heart-leap in me at the knowledge that he had not known who Thordis was, or else he wou
ld never have sold her.
'Beatipossidentes,' smiled Klerkon. Finn's mouth twisted and even if he had understood about possession and the law, it wouldn't have mattered. I raised a hand and he stopped in mid stride.
'Greek boys and — well, well, the very Christ priest I came to find,' noted Klerkon, glancing over my shoulder to where Martin scowled and crouched like a rat looking for a hole.
'I was thinking you might come to find him and shut his mouth — not that you would be so quick over it, all the same.'
'You should not have come to Hestreng,' I told him. He spread his hands.
'Just a wee strandhogg. A dip of the beak. No hard feelings — you hardly lost a thing from it and had a rival neighbour removed. Hodie mihi, cras tibi.'
I felt Finn tremble on the unseen leash. One more drawl of Latin and there would be blood spilled, which I did not want. Klerkon was right; this was a city ruled by the veche, a council who treated their city as if it were alive, who settled disputes between them with mass brawls on the Volkhov Bridge and who staked people who offended the peace.
I was almost dizzy with relief, all the same; Klerkon had not known the true value of Thordis as a lever against me and had sold her as a simple slave. He had come looking for Martin, to see what he could force the priest to tell him — saw that priest, hunched and rat-crouched, looking to sidle away to the shadows.
Today me, tomorrow you, Klerkon had said and he was right. Except that I had already collected my tomorrow.
'I will buy them,' I said to Takoub and Klerkon smiled, knowing the price that the robbing little slave dealer would set. He relished me handing over the gold, even if the stone of my face denied him the pleasure of seeing me suffer.
I was not suffering; the gold was Klerkon's own and a ludicrous amount of it vanished inside Takoub's disgusting silks, then he unlocked the chains and the three women were free. Thordis moved to me briefly, tucked herself under my arm and I felt her tremble under my grip though her dirt-smeared face, so like her sister's, had no tear-streaks. She looked up into my eyes and nodded, just the once.
Then, from across the square, I heard Thorgunna shout: 'Thordis!' The sisters met, embracing, while Kvasir came up to stand near Finn. The two dull-eyed thrall women stood, heads down, like waiting cattle. Klerkon looked from the embracing sisters to me and back again, the truth settling on him slowly, like sifting snow.
He gathered himself well, though the white lines puckered round his cat's-arse mouth for a moment.
'Ah well,' he said, with a forced smile. 'I missed the prize, it seems and so there is a touching scene to end the day. Almost worth the cost, eh, Orm?'
He parried well, did Klerkon. No rant or rave about losing the chance to force me to reveal what I knew, just a swift coming about on a new tack. I knew what it was, too — Martin the priest. Klerkon was looking over my shoulder to keep him in sight.
Finn, of course, could not resist the moment.
'No cost to Orm, you arse,' he savaged out. Klerkon turned, a lopsided, sardonic smile on his Pan face. Finn grinned back.
'You need a new bed,' he said and Klerkon stiffened, jerked his head back to me, then back to Finn. The smile transformed to a feral snarl when he realized what had happened; Takoub shrank back — from experience, I was thinking.
I was also cursing Finn, for I knew where Klerkon would go, what he would do. I was only hoping that we could get back to the Elk and away back to Botolf before Klerkon managed to rout out his crew, sort out his half-dismantled ship and sail home. Then he would go to Hestreng for revenge.
Finn saw it, too, almost as soon as the words were out, and knew where his solution lay.
'Finn — no!'
To his credit, the blade was half out of the sheath and he still managed to slam it back, even when Klerkon sneered at him and turned contemptuously away. I was so rushed with relief, so blinded by it, that I did not see the little shape move across the square.
He took four quick steps, a skip and a hop. He gave a sharp little shout on the hop, just loud enough for Klerkon to turn and see what was about to happen to him —there was hatred and fear in equal measure on his face as Olaf Crowbone, the little monster, came at him, free of chains, free of the Black Island, dressed in new finery and armed with a brand-new little axe.
Like a salmon, Crowbone popped up into Klerkon's astounded gaze and buried his brand-new axe, with as good a stroke as I have ever seen, in the front of his hated captor's skull.
''Little turd,' grunted Finn as we were led to the pit.
'He had started speaking against Olaf almost as soon as we had been dragged to the pit prison from the yelling chaos of Novgorod's marketplace where the body of Klerkon lay in a spreading pool of blood like some long-nosed beast. People screamed.
''This is what comes of giving thralls a weapon,' Finn had growled, a scowl twisting his face into worse shadows in the faint light from the hole far above.
'I am not a thrall,' Olaf piped back. 'Jarl Orm said so. And I am a prince, besides.'
'The generosity of Jarl Orm is great, I am thinking,' countered Finn, 'but not as great as his bad judgement in that matter.'
'Leave the boy,' said Thorgunna from the dark, at which Finn hawked meaningfully and spat, careless of where it landed in the dark.
'I will speak as I please,' he growled.
'You are a fool, Finn Horsehead,' rasped the voice of Martin. It was the first thing the monk had said that was not a whining protest about how he had nothing at all to do with us. For once he spoke the truth and the fact that he was caught with us, despite his innocence let Finn gloat so much he did not even mind being called a fool.
'Your Christ-god seems to have got himself entangled with the Norns' weave,' chuckled Finn and Martin turned, his eyes the only thing that showed in the dark.
'The Lord will not be mocked,' he said in that file-rasp voice of his. Finn's laugh was just as harsh.
'He mocks you, priest. Every time you get near that holy stick of yours, he snatches it away again.'
Martin's mouth flecked foam at the corners and he waved furious hands, as if to bat Finn's words away.
'You do not yet see the advantage in taking Christ,' he mushed. 'What can your goat-chariot god do for you now? Or your one-eyed All-Father, patron of devils? They give you nothing and you will die unblessed. I, meanwhile, need only repent and confess my sins and Christ will give me life eternal. No-one lives the way you want to live these days, as I am sure Orm has told you.'
I did not want this monk standing beside me as if I was his horn-partner at a feast and said so. I also added that I did not think it much of a bargain which says you have to die first to be saved.
'Better than what your gods offer,' Martin spat back. 'They save you from death only to go to this feasting hall — for what? So you can fight for them at the end of the world and die a second time?'
'Every man comes to die,' piped up that little voice from the dark. 'That is the price of life and what the Norns weave — all that remains is to meet it well.'
It was so well spoken that even scowling Finn could not bring himself to sneer at Olaf.
Martin snorted. 'That shows how weak the old way is —if there is no choice, a man is a worthless slave of fate, which you pagans call the Norns. Christ has freed us from that.'
'You have no claim on freedom,' Olaf said, quick as the dart of a bird's tongue. 'You Christ-followers are forever telling everyone how they should behave.'
'That is not such a bad thing in your case,' Finn growled. 'It might have stayed your hand from hitting Klerkon with that axe. Little turd — who do you think you are? Egil Skallagrimsson?'
Kvasir chuckled at that, for the tale of the six-year-old Egil smacking an older boy with an axe in a fight had been the talk of Iceland at the time and was so well known to us now that Egil was a fame-rich man.
The words tinkled from Olaf like ice into the darkness.
'My mouth strains
To move the tongue,
The choicer word;
Not easy to breathe
Odin's inspiration
In my heart's hinterland.
Little hope there.'
This left us stunned, for most of us knew this was a verse of Egil Skallagrimsson's lament to his dead son. Kvasir muttered a sibilant 'heya' and even Finn offered a grudging growl of approval.
I remembered Kvasir's fish-breath whisper in my ear. That boy is not nine years old.
'At least that stopped your mouth for a while, Horsehead,' Martin rasped into the quiet dim. The faint light from the hole above resolved his darker shape against the charcoal.
'Orm should have killed you when he had the chance,' answered Finn bitterly, hugging himself against the damp chill of the rough carved walls. 'I may yet step in and claim the right of it,' he added viciously.
'There was once a good Norseman from the viks,' said Olaf, high and sharp as a flighted arrow into the middle of this, 'who went out to chop wood.'
Kvasir laughed aloud and Thorgunna, sensing a story might calm things, urged Olaf to go on.
'This Norseman,' the boy went on, 'we shall call . . . Finn.' You could almost hear Finn's scowl squeak as it wrenched his face.
'So off went Finn to fetch firewood. The trees nearby had been cut away, so he walked until he came to a large oak tree at the edge of the river. His eyes lighted up with pleasure, for it was a tree that would make many fires in his house.
'He climbed up into its branches and sat upon the largest and most comfortable of them. Then he began to chop upon the very limb on which he was sitting. While he worked, a Christ priest from a nearby village came along. He looked up into the tree and saw Finn there. Finn was wary, for he had heard Christ priests had great magic.'
'Was this Christ priest called Martin, by any chance?' demanded Kvasir and Olaf, his voice a smile in the dark, agreed that this was just so.
'So Martin the priest asked Finn what he was doing,' Olaf went on. 'And Finn told him he was chopping wood for the fire. What else could it be? "That is a poor way to chop wood," says Martin. "It is the only way to chop wood," Finn said. "You take your axe and you chop."'