The White Raven

by Robert Low

  My right-hand axe hooked under the bar and I found myself roaring into the effort of lifting it. I thought it was easy at the time; it came up and out of the sockets as if greased and the gates swung wide and inwards, dragging Cod-Biter, still nailed to the right-hand timbers, the remains of his forearm and hand nailed to the other side. Thor gave me his strength and the muscles on my arm ached for weeks afterwards — even Finn was admiring, for the beam took two men to lift.

  I felt nothing at the time. I was busy trying to gently prise Cod-Biter off the timbers of the gate, while supporting his weight to stop the nail tearing through his remaining palm.

  I was vaguely aware of men piling through the opened gate, shrieking and howling, cutting, stabbing and cursing but I took no part in it and killed no-one. Even when the man fell from the top of the gate with a crack and a thump I hardly looked up until he started to writhe and scream, high and shrill like a hurt horse. By then I had worked the nail out and Cod-Biter was bleeding so badly that I concentrated on tying cords round his arms and forgot the screamer.

  'I will take him now, Jarl Orm,' said a familiar voice and made me look up from the pool of bloody slush I knelt in, blinking at the opaque orb of a face. Slowly, it became Thorgunna, who smiled a sad, blue-pinched smile and knelt. The fighting was over.

  'I will take him,' she said and I nodded and stumbled up, feeling Cod-Biter's blood start to congeal and freeze on my knees.

  'A rare fight,' said a voice and I looked round to where Dobrynya sat on his thin and weary horse. He lifted his sabre and saluted me. The little prince, of course, was already trotting triumphantly round the village square, demanding that Farolf be brought to him.

  Farolf was already dead and Gyrth's long-axe was so buried in his chest that both Finnlaith and Glum Skulasson were hard put to get it out. Finn was nearby, kneeling by the side of Harelip, who had taken two arrows in the back from the tower before the archers could be felled.

  'Farolf? Dead is he?' shrilled Vladimir, irritated. 'Well, he shall be staked anyway.'

  Gyrth grunted, a coughing sound like a poked bear.

  'He is mine. I killed him. He will lie at the feet of Runolf Harelip here.'

  Finn, as if coming out of sleep, stirred and blinked, then nodded at Gyrth and extended his wrist for the Boulder Brother to haul him to his feet. They both stared, cold-faced, at the little prince.

  Vladimir frowned angrily, then he saw Finn's look and was clever enough to see the mood — for which all the gods had to be thanked, I thought. Still, he was a prince and had been since four, so he was not so easily cowed.

  'You fought well,' he agreed, then added imperiously. 'I shall consent.'

  'Now there's good of him,' muttered Gyrth. Finn sagged a little then, suddenly seeming old and stiff. He dusted the snow off his knees and turned to me, eyes glassed with misery, one loose-held axe rimed with freezing blood.

  'Harelip,' he said to me, almost pleading. 'Harelip, Orm. I sailed everywhere with Runolf Harelip.'

  I had no answer for him. There were fewer original Oathsworn left than could crew a decent faering these days. Seven seasons ago, when a boy I no longer recognized scrambled up the strakes of Einar the Black's Fjord Elk, there had been a full crew, sixty or more.

  'Aye,' grunted Onund Hnufa, shoving Vladimir's horse aside with the lack of ceremony a man from Iceland always showed to men and kings both. 'It is a hard life at sea, right enough. Now — where is that dog?'

  'They had not known what we were, these Slavs of the Novgorod druzhina. A Norse band of sometime outlaws, ragged-arsed brigands at best and not to be compared to fighting men, who spent all their time training for war.

  They had swallowed the tales of the were-wyrms of Malkyiv, but they had never actually seen us fight. Now they had. The village had been taken in less time than it took to eat the dog in a stew and those defenders left alive were shaking with it yet, for they really were no more than hired knife-wavers.

  The villagers liked us, too, for we had not run mad as they had feared, killing and raping and looting and they were grateful for that and thought us decent. The gods would need to help them if other northers ever arrived at their door, who were not so cold that a short fight stole their strength and who could be turned from skirt-lifting by the first piece of chewable bread.

  Little Vladimir was stunned enough by what we had done to become polite. Sigurd, the only one who had suspected what we were capable of, was lip to ear with Dobrynya for days afterwards, while Vladimir's uncle had a calculating look when he glanced over at me.

  The rest of the company, Slavs and thralls and those of Klerkon's men who remained alive, walked soft round the Oathsworn and the fear rose from them like stink on a hot day. There were mutterings of "Jomsvikings" — which was close to the truth, for those Wends of Wolin have stolen half our tales, puffed like pigeon chests by the saga-poets.

  However, the heroes of Joms had, the tales revealed, strange rules on women which Finn was quick to refute for the Oathsworn. The Oathsworn did not ban women from their hall, for any man who did not hump was a limp-dicked Christ-priest and a not a fighting man at all.

  Folk laughed, though uneasily, for fame is like that, even when you know it to be mostly a lie. Skalds will tell you the sea is a desert if they think it will get them a free meal, but the trick is to make it sing with poetry; that will get you a good armring as well. Such matters taught me that fame is the fault of rulers with fat rings to spare and who know the worth of a skald's praises spread far and wide. Rulers such as Vladimir.

  'We did not properly discuss your share in this mountain of silver,' the little prince piped up, after summoning me to his royal presence in the best of the mean huts available. Beside him, as ever, was Olaf and, looming at his back, was Dobrynya, stroking his iron grey beard. Sigurd was in the shadows beyond the light, where only his nose was visible as a faint gleam.

  'I do not think you should risk your life so readily, Orm Bear Slayer,' added Dobrynya with a warm smile that never quite crept to his eyes. 'After all, you are the one who knows the way to the hoard.'

  I looked back at the boy prince, his face made paler still by the violet rings round his eyes and the red chafe of his nose. We had not discussed any such thing as my share because, at the time, there was nothing to discuss — I had traded knowledge for life and nothing more. I wondered if he suspected the hilt-runes on that sabre were useless until we reached Sarkel. I hoped he did not suspect, as I did, that even then they might not be enough for me to find my way to Atil's howe.

  What had changed, of course, was that Dobrynya — and so also Vladimir — could not be sure their druzhina was strong enough to handle the Oathsworn. So the little prince, as advised by Uncle Dobrynya, smiled and acknowledged how marvellous we were at taking fortified places and lavished silver he did not yet have on all our heads.

  We sat round leather cups of good ale, speculating on what had happened to Morut the tracker, as if we were really friends, while I felt the sick dull ache of knowing that Cod-Biter fought for his life nearby and that Short Eldgrim might already be dead.

  Then, of course, Olaf put us all right on the matter of princes and friendships.

  'There was once a prince,' he said into the awkward silence. 'Let us not call him Vladimir,' interrupted Dobrynya smoothly, 'unless he is a good prince.'

  Olaf looked levelly back at the Dobrynya, then to where his silver-nosed uncle stood in the darkness, as pointed a gesture as to make Dobrynya stiffen. I doubted if Sigurd was as solid a protection as Olaf believed; if he lived to be older he would find that blood-ties are not enough to be relied on. Only hard god-oaths are to be trusted.

  'There was once a prince,' Olaf repeated, 'whose name does not matter, in a land, do not ask me where.

  'There was a girl who was so splendid everyone called her Silver Bell. Her eyes were like wild black cherries, her brows curved like Bifrost. Into her braids she plaited coloured glass beads from distant lands and on her hat there was a si
lver bell, bright as moonlight, which gave her her name.

  'One day the father of Silver Bell fell ill and her mother said to her: "Get up on the bay horse and hurry to the detinets of the prince. Ask him to come here and to cure your father, for it is well known that true princes can heal the sick with a touch."'

  'Well that is right enough,' beamed Sigurd, trying to show the tale was headed in the proper direction. Olaf smiled, sharp as a weasel on mouse-scent.

  'The girl leaped up on the bay horse with the white star on his forehead,' he went on. 'She took in her right hand the leather reins with silver rings and in her left the lash with a finely carved bone handle. The bay horse galloped fast, the reins shook up and down, the harness tinkled merrily.

  'The prince was in the courtyard of his fortress, playing with his hawks. He heard the clattering of hooves and saw the girl on the bay horse. She sat proudly in the high saddle; the bell fluttered in the wind, the silver in it ringing where it struck the gems sewn in her hat. The beads sang in her thick braids and the hawk flew, forgotten, from the prince's hand. "Great prince," said the girl. "My father is sick, come help us."

  'The prince looked back at her and said: "I will cure your father if you will marry me." Silver Bell loved another, a fine, strong hunter of wolves — frightened, she pulled the reins and galloped off. "At dawn tomorrow I will come to you," the prince called after her.'

  'This does not sound like any prince I know,' growled Dobrynya meaningfully.

  'Really, uncle?' said Vladimir with a delighted chuckle. 'I know two brothers just like this.'

  Olaf smiled quietly and went on, soft and level and compelling. 'The stars had barely melted in the sky, the meat in the kettles had not yet been cooked, the fine white rugs were not yet spread, bread had not yet been made, when there was a loud clattering of hooves at Silver Bell's home. The prince had arrived.

  'Silently, looking at no-one, he dismounted and, greeting no-one, he went into where the sick man lay. The prince wore magnificent clothes, dripping with silver weighing eighty pounds if it weighed an ounce. All day, from dawn to sunset, the prince sat beside the sick man without lifting his eyelids, without moving, without uttering a word — but it was clear that Silver Bell was not going to come to him and he grew angrier and angrier at her presumption.

  'Late at night, the prince stood up and pulled his fine sable hat down to his scowl. Then he said: "Drive out Silver Bell. An evil spirit resides in her. While she is in the house, her father will not get up from his illness. Misfortune will not leave this valley. Little children will fall asleep forever; their fathers and grandfathers will die in torment."'

  Dobrynya made a warning growl; even Sigurd shifted uneasily. Vladimir said nothing at all and Olaf did not even appear to notice any of this. Sweat trickled down my back and I felt it freeze there. He would get us all back in the queue for a stake . . .

  'The women of the camp fell down upon the ground in fear,' Olaf said. 'The old men pressed their hands over their eyes with grief. The young men looked at Silver Bell; twice they turned red and twice they turned pale.

  'The prince smiled to himself. "Put Silver Bell into a wooden barrel," he declared. "Bind the barrel with nine iron hoops. Nail down the bottom with copper nails and throw the barrel into the rushing river."

  'This said, he rode off to his hall in the fine, large borg and called his thralls round him. "Go to the river," he told them. "The water will bring down a large barrel. Catch it and bring it here, then run into the woods. If you hear weeping, do not turn back. If cries and moans spread through the woods, do not look back. Do not return to my hall in less than three days."

  'For nine days and nine nights the people of the encampment could not bring themselves to carry out the prince's orders. For nine days and nine nights they bid the girl farewell. On the tenth day they put Silver Bell into a wooden barrel, bound it with nine iron hoops, nailed down the bottom with copper nails and threw the barrel into the rushing river.'

  'This sounds a suitable punishment for one who insults a prince,' noted Dobrynya. Vladimir frowned uneasily and I swallowed the thickness in my mouth.

  'It is a tale about Odin,' I declared and saw Sigurd's head come up at this manifest lie.

  'Is it?' asked Vladmir, his frown deepening. 'He does not sound godlike to me.'

  'A master of deceit,' I acknowledged. 'Always his gifts are suspect. Recall the tale of the nine thralls and the whetstone . . .'

  I was babbling and heard myself, so I stopped. Olaf, blank as a cliff, gave me his two-coloured stare and cleared his throat, a high little sound.

  'On that day,' he began, 'the day the barrel went in the river, the hunter who loved Silver Bell was examining his traps, saw the barrel, caught it, brought it out of the river, picked up an axe and knocked out the bottom. When he saw Silver Bell, the hand that held the axe dropped and his heart leaped like a grasshopper. At last he asked: "Who put you into the barrel?" She told him.

  'The hunter thought for a minute, then went to his traps, where a huge wolf, white as silver glared at him and then got back to gnawing through its own paw. At this point, the hunter would have knocked it on the head; instead, he caught it by the ruff and dropped it in the barrel, nailed down the bottom with copper nails and let the barrel float downstream.

  'The prince's thralls pulled out the barrel, brought it to the great hall and put it before the prince, then left as he had ordered. Even before they had closed the door, they heard him knock out the bottom of the barrel and call for help. Faithfully, they did as they had been bidden. They heard shouts, but did not turn back. They heard moaning and cries, but did not look back. For such were their lord's orders.

  'Three days later they returned and opened the door. A great, silver-ruffed, three-legged wolf, dead of exhaustion and blood-loss, lay on the floor. Nearby was the prince, more dead than alive — his flesh was torn to shreds, his fine clothes were tattered and torn and, when the thralls crowded round to find out what had happened, all that he could say that made sense was . . . "silver" and "curse". He never spoke sense ever again.'

  Into the silence that followed, Sigurd cleared his throat. Olaf, unsmiling and cool as a river stone, hopped down from his bench and silently placed a hand on Vladimir's shoulder. I waited, dry-mouthed, for the flaring of princely rage that would follow.

  Instead, Vladimir blinked once or twice, then nodded, as if Olaf had whispered to him.

  'When this business is finished,' he said, 'you must stay with me in Lord Novgorod the Great.'

  'Of course,' said Olaf with a smile. 'And you will give me ships and men and I will fight on your behalf. Jon Asanes must also come, for he is a clever man. Together we will make your name greater than that of your father.'

  The clarity of it shocked me, like the stun of a blow taken on your forearm. Of course — little Vladimir, hag-ridden by his father's memory, wanted only that; to be greater. That was what drove him after Atil's hoard.

  I stood up and took my leave while I was in the eye of this storm and — not that I was surprised — little Crowbone caught up with me not long afterwards. Outside, in the dark of the dead day, he trotted at my heels, pulling his cloak round him and trying to keep up with my strides.

  'You were right,' I said to him angrily. 'That is an affliction.'

  He shook his head, glancing up at me with that two-coloured frown and I was disconcerted, for he looked wise as a greybeard, then grinned like the boy he was.

  'That was clever about Odin,' he declared. 'As you say —beware his gifts, as the nine thralls should have done.'

  Then he was gone, silent as an owl, leaving me with the vision of those thralls, scrabbling for the whetstone One Eye threw in the air and cutting their own throats with their scythes in their greed. I shook my head over him, and not for the first time. Like his eyes on colour, I could not make up my mind on Olaf Crowbone.

  At the hut we had taken over, the original family bobbed and grinned, eager to please and keep their lives while th
ey tried to hide valuables and food. The Oathsworn counted, washed and prepared the dead for burial.

  'How many?' I asked and Kvasir looked up, his good eye red and weeping. Thorgunna had warm water and was bathing it.

  'Two will lie on either side of Harelip — Snorri and Eyolf.'

  Snorri I remembered getting an arrow through the foot. I did not recall seeing Eyolf, whom we called Kraka — Crow —because he was left-handed.

  'Aye, Snorri got pinned in the one place and danced round his foot until he ran out of steps,' Kvasir said, waving Thorgunna away irritably. She made a disgusted face at him and went. I saw she had applied more soot-black round his good eye.

  'A big Slav cut him down when he could dance no further,' Kvasir finished.

  'Eyolf?'

  'His sheath killed him.'

  I remembered how Eyolf had loved his hand-tooled sheath, leather the colour of old blood, stretched over oak and sheep-lined. I looked at Kvasir and he shrugged.

  'He would not take it off and the baldric caught on the timbers on top of the gate. He could not get free and hung there, afraid of being shot with arrows. So he wriggled until the strap broke and he fell — the sheath snapped and the wood of it drove into his liver and lights and he died.'

  I remembered the man struggling at the top of the gate while I fought for Cod-Biter's life. I remembered, too, the same man crashing down, the screaming and writhing. An idiot death; no man wears a sheath in a battle, for if it does not tangle in your legs then something stupid like this happens. Stabbed by his own sheath — there was a straw death to make Odin's hall ring with laughter.

  'Cod-Biter?'

  Kvasir shrugged and pointed to where Bjaelfi was working, Jon Asanes holding up a pitch torch for more light. Bjaelfi's elbow was pumping furiously and I knew what he was doing — trimming Cod-Biter's arm straight, cutting more bone and flesh from him. Cod-Biter was mercifully limp but not dead, otherwise Bjaelfi would not be bothering.