by Robert Low
People scattered and yelled and I had to balance awkwardly in the prow, my arms upraised to show how my hands held no weapons. Behind me, hidden from view, Fish nocked an arrow and watched.
We came in slowly, not wanting to beach the boat, because Gizur warned that we might not get her off again in a hurry. Finnlaith and Hauk splashed ashore with lines and fastened them securely; slowly, creep by creep, cautious people came closer to us.
They were Khazars, wintering here in their yurts with flocks and herds. When they found the magic glint of silver rather than steel in our fists, all fear was forgotten and we carried Thorgunna off and into a yurt, which amazed me with its bright comfort. Almost as amazing as finding I was paying for it with coins stamped with the head of some ruler called Valentian and dedicated to the glory of Old Rome.
We stayed there all that day and the rest of the night, in the cloak-wrap comfort of sights, sounds and smells we had all but forgotten — the hanging braids of garlic and onions, the limp, naked, dangle-necked bodies of duck and hare, the stink of burning hair and singed feathers, the quarrelling snarls of dogs fighting over the same scrap.
That night, Klepp Spaki proudly held up a louse between finger and thumb and declared that, with the return of such vermin, he now knew he was alive.
We spoke no common tongue with these Khazars, for all that we could summon up Greek, Latin, our own Norse, a good smattering of Serkland Arab and even some Krivichian and Chud. The Khazars spoke their own tongue, which some said was the same as the one spoken by Atil's Huns long ago and so no-one among us knew that. They also had the language of the Jews, but all anyone knew of this were the foul swearwords Morut used.
However, trade is a common tongue to all and so we had food and even some green wine — which Finn immediately took charge of — and, above all, news that the ice was melting from the centre of the Azov, for the whole sea had been frozen. It meant that there was now a flow to it and that had broken the ice in the narrowest part, where it entered the Sea of Darkness.
'So there is a way out for us,' beamed Gizur, having laboriously learned all this. 'We can sail anywhere you want, Jarl Orm.'
Onund cleared his throat meaningfully. 'As long as it does not take us more than a long swim from land. I do not trust this log boat.'
In the morning, I was chivvying them up and loading stores on board. In the night, we had howed up the Bjornsson brothers, re-wrapping them in full view of the Khazars so that they would see the dead had nothing with them worth digging up. That and a gift of hacksilver from the hoard would make sure the Khazars let the brothers sleep peacefully. They had no weapons or armrings, but I had openly promised their shares to their mother, so I thought their fetches would stay happy with what had been done.
Kvasir stayed with us, all the same, though I was not sure where he would finally rest — he would not last all the way back to Ostergotland — but Thorgunna had to have a say in that and she was pale as milk and sleeping when we brought her into the shelter of the boat's prow.
We pushed sweatily away into the middle of the river, while children ran up and down, cheering and pitching sticks at us as their parents looked on and waved, smiling.
Slowly, groaning with the effort of it, we swung the riverboat round the bend and away down the black river, the oars chopping up the thin porridge of ice, while the banks grew thicker with birch and willow. I watched until even the smoke of the Khazar camp had vanished, then turned and almost fell over Crowbone, wrapped in his filthy white cloak and staring over my shoulder with his double-coloured gaze.
'What?' I asked, thinking he still brooded on Finn's blow. 'Do not let Finn's manner bother you; he thinks well enough of you, but tempers are short . . .'
'No,' he said, still looking over my shoulder, 'I am not concerned with Finn — one day, I will claim weregild for that blow, all the same. It is the birds I am watching.'
Then I turned to look, squinting into the low, creeping mist. A skein of ducks arrowed high overhead.
'Good to see birds back,' I agreed, smiling. 'The winter is losing grip.'
'All the ducks are skinny,' remarked Crowbone. 'Like the ones hanging in that village we left. They are feeding furiously now that the ice is broken.'
I frowned, remembering the skinny ducks and not understanding why he was so concerned. Then he turned his flat, two-coloured gaze on me.
'Why, then, are hungry ducks flying off the water?'
It took me several seconds to answer that in my head and when I did, my heart leaped up and threatened to bang through my teeth and out my mouth entirely. Everyone else started with astonishment when I suddenly sprang forward, screaming.
'Row, fuck your mothers — row!'
We were too few and too late. The long black shapes slithered round from where they had set up feeding ducks, seemed to fly up to us, even laden with Vladimir and his mailed druzhina warriors.
Two boats; my heart collided with my battered boots. One would have been enough. In the end, I told my crew to ship oars and they did so in a scramble and started sorting out weapons and equipment, even before they had stopped puking and heaving in air.
'Well,' growled Finn, climbing up beside me in the prow that faced them. 'This will be a hard dunt of a day, I am thinking.'
A deadly dunt of a day, I was thinking, as I hefted the only weapon left to me, an adze axe I had found on board. All they had to do was sit back and have those Slavs and their curved bows shoot us down; half of us had no shields and we had one bow and a handful of arrows left.
The boats came closer, one with Dobrynya and the little shape of Vladimir up in the prow, the other with Sigurd Axebitten and a strange half-animal which dragged gooseflesh up on my arms until I realized it was Kveldulf, with a whole wolf pelt draped round his shoulders, the mask up and over his helmet.
'Well, well,' murmured Finn. 'There is the bladder I have to prick.'
'Is he really a Night Wolf?' I heard Ref ask fearfully.
'If he is such a shapechanger,' Onund answered scornfully, 'then he is no danger, for it is broad daylight.'
They came closer, a couple of boat lengths away and backed water, sliding to an ungainly halt. Together, we drifted like leaves, sluggish and turning imperceptibly.
'Give up Prince Olaf and the treasure you stole,' I heard Vladimir shrill. I had half an idea it was not what he wanted; what he wanted was to get close enough to throw his little spear and yell 'Idu na vy' then slaughter us to a man. What stopped him was . . .
Crowbone. He slithered between Finn and me, clear and vulnerable on the prow and between us and any arrows, making it impossible for them to even try and hit us. I laid a hand on his shoulder: despite the strange seidr in him, despite all he had inflicted on us, I liked the boy and did not want to see him hurt.
He looked up at me for a moment, then turned his head forward and cupped his hands to his mouth. 'There was once a man,' he shouted, high and shrill, 'let us call him Vladimir.'
'This is not the time for such matters,' Dobrynya interrupted, his voice echoing blackly over the waters.
'Vladimir had to drive his sledge a long way to the wood for fuel,' Crowbone went on, ignoring Dobrynya completely, his voice an arrow aimed at the little prince. 'Then a Bear met him and demanded his horse, or else he would eat all his sheep dead by summer.'
'Prince Olaf,' Dobrynya tried, then fell silent when Vladimir raised one imperious little hand, listening intently. His uncle, face as grim as Perun's wooden statue, fumed silently.
The boats slid closer together, so that Crowbone did not have to shout to be heard.
'The Man was faced with freezing or agreeing to the bargain,' Crowbone continued. 'For no Man likes to see his sheep eaten dead. He promised the Bear he would bring the horse to him tomorrow if he could be allowed to cart home the wood that night. On those terms the Bear agreed and Vladimir rattled homewards, but he was not over-pleased at the bargain you may fancy. Then a Fox met him.'
'Enough of this!' roared a
familiar voice, a bellow that startled thrushes from hiding with a whirr of wings.
'Is that yourself, Kveldulf?' Finn shouted back. 'I hear, with my one ear, that there is some part of me you would like to own. It may be that once this boy has finished with his tale I will present you with the gift of a priest.'
'I have heard of that sword,' came the roared answer. 'I shall use it to cut off your other ear . . .'
'The Fox,' trilled Olaf into the end of Kveldulfs scorn, 'asked Vladimir why he was down in the mouth and the Man told him of his bargain with the Bear. "Give me your fattest wether and I will soon set you free, see if I cannot," answered the Fox and the Man swore he would do it.
'The Fox laid out a clever plan, that when Vladimir came with the horse, the Fox would make a noise from hiding and when the Bear asked what it was, the Man was to say it was a bear hunter, armed with a powerful bow.'
When he paused to take a breath, you could hear the water gurgle in the silence.
'Next day, matters worked out exactly as the Fox had said and the Bear grew afraid when he heard of the hunter and his bow. The voice in the wood asked if the Man had seen any bears. "Say no!" pleaded the Bear. And the Man did so. "So, what stands alongside your sledge?" demanded the voice in the wood. "Say it is an old fir-stump," pleaded the Bear. And the Man did so.'
'I have heard this story,' said a delighted Short Eldgrim behind me, but everyone shushed him to silence, for the story held us all, while the sweat trickled coldly down our backs at what might happen when it was done.
'The voice in the woods,' Crowbone continued, 'said that such fir-stumps were worth rolling on a sledge for fuel. Did Vladimir want a hand? "Say you can help yourself and roll me up on the sledge," said the Bear and the Man did so. "Bind it tight or it will fall off," said the voice in the woods. "Do you need help?"
"Say you can help yourself and bind me fast," demanded the Bear. And the Man did so.
"You need to drive an axe into that stump," said the voice in the woods, "to help steer it down the steep paths."
"'Pretend to drive your axe into me, do now," pleaded the Bear.'
Even with the tension visible as mist, there were a few who chuckled at what they saw coming.
'Then the man took up his axe,' said Crowbone 'and at one blow split the helpless Bear's head and so the Man and the Fox headed home to Vladimir's farm, where Vladimir said he would bring the promised wether out to him.
'When he came back, he had a sack in which something moved and the Fox started drooling, for it had been a hard winter. "Give me what I am owed," said the Fox and Vladimir untied the sack and two red hounds rushed out.
'The Fox sprang off, too fleet to be caught like that, but his voice was bitter when he said: "Well done is ill paid. The worst foes are those you trust to be honourable."'
The silence that followed crushed all sound save the quiet rill of water on wood.
'You did not behave like a prince,' Crowbone went on, breaking it like a slap. 'I am also a prince and my mother was a princess. She did not teach me such bad behaviour, Prince Vladimir. I counted you as a friend, as did Jarl Orm — is this how you repay friends for their help?'
'I remember your mother, boy,' bellowed Kveldulf and then Sigurd silenced him with a blow on his shoulder.
'I remember you also, Night Wolf,' answered Olaf. 'So does my mother.' His voice, scarcely a whisper, carried across the water, sibilant as the hiss of a snake and like to shave the hair off the nape of your neck.
'Surrender the boy,' Dobrynya persisted.
'Once,' I answered, 'you told me how one day I would be thankful for the friendship of princes.' The cold sweat pooled where my belt cinched my mail tight at the waist. 'There is another side to that coin — a prince may be grateful for the friendship of the Oathsworn.'
'I will stay with Jarl Orm,' piped Crowbone firmly. 'Until he brings me to Lord Novgorod the Great and reclaims his ship there. If any harm comes to him, I will not count it as a princely thing to do.'
He did not say what the consequences would be and, peculiarly, no-one thought to question what such a boy could do — they all had their own ideas on it and only one was not afraid as he bellowed out his anger.
'Fuck this,' roared Kveldulf and there were mutterings behind him; I saw then that some of the crew in his boat had been Lambisson's men, those who had fled and left Fish behind. That, I was thinking to myself, was a dangerous hiring.
'You will come to me in Novgorod?' demanded Vladimir.
'I will pledge myself to you there,' replied Crowbone. 'Soon, you will need men to fight for you, Prince Vladimir, if you wish to be Grand Prince of Kiev. Between us, we will scatter all our enemies. Here also, Jarl Orm is a better treasure than any silver and, if you fight him here, you lose his strength with you — and I would not be surprised if a careless blade cut my throat.'
It was so close to prophesy that I shivered and I was not alone, judging by the murmurs that leaped from head to head. Kveldulf was open-mouthed with disbelief, so stricken he could not speak at all and I was a little stunned myself; had this nine-year-old ancient just said I would kill him if we were attacked? Had he just pledged me to help Vladimir against his brothers?
There was a brief whispered exchange, then, Dobrynya's iron-grey voice rumbled over the water.
'The prince agrees,' he declared loudly. 'Go in peace and take what you have, Jarl Orm. Bring Prince Olaf to Novgorod by the end of summer next, unharmed. If you fail, the prince will hunt you down and have you and all your men staked along the Volkhov Bridge.'
'By Thor's arse, no!' bawled Kveldulf, turning white and red in turns. 'Did I split my knuckles rowing for this?'
'You were paid,' Dobrynya snapped back at him, 'and will mind your manners. A stake is as easy to find here as in Lord Novgorod the Great.'
I choked Finn's guffaws with an elbow in the gut that left him coughing, for humble silence was best here. Gizur put everyone on the oars and we strained away from the death we were sure had been our lot moments before, rowing hard and hardly able even to believe our luck.
Eventually, much later and reined in like bolted horses, sobbing for breath and lashed with sweat and drool, we all realized that it was real. We had escaped. We would live.
Finn, pewter-eyed and so tired he could not even close his mouth properly, turned to where a wet-eyed Thordis wrapped Crowbone in her cloak. He patted the boy as if he was a particularly clever pup.
'Odin's arse, young Olaf,' he growled admiringly. 'If ever I quarrel with your tales again, simply remind me of this day on the river and my mouth is clamped shut.'
Olaf said nothing, simply gazed back along the river, only his eyes and the top of his blond head visible in the swathe of Thordis's cloak. I whirled, suddenly fearful, but there was nothing; when I turned back, Crowbone forced his chin out from under the cloak folds and smiled thinly.
'The ducks still fly. They fear the wolf.'
By night we had grown dizzy swinging round the narrowing bends of the river, unable to see much on either side through the thick, skeletal white branches of the trees. We did find an ox-bow curve of shingle where we crunched through the thinning ice and unloaded ourselves.
Crowbone's wolf comments had reached all ears by then, but the Oathsworn were defiant now and lit good cooking fires, daring the Night Wolf to come and find us. All the same, as Finn stirred what herbs and spices he had left into the two upturned helmets filled with a savoury stew, I had Toke and Snorri take first watch.
It cheered us all when Thorgunna hirpled, leaning heavily on the arm of Thordis, into the firelight and, wincing, took a cloak-cushioned seat by the fire. She smiled wanly at the smiles around her and accepted a wooden bowl of stew and even managed a few mouthfuls from her own horn spoon.
After a while, as everyone ate and talked quietly, about everything and anything other than where we were, where we were headed and what we would do with all the wealth when we got there, Thorgunna laid down her bowl and turned to me.
/> 'Thank you for bringing Kvasir,' she said. 'Tomorrow, I will surrender my man to the water, to Ran, who surely lives as much in rivers as in the sea. I do not trust those hereabouts to leave him in peace on land and now that I have his eyes back and he is whole for Valholl, I am content.'
When I looked in her dark eyes I saw the opposite of that — saw, too, that it was not for Kvasir but for the almost-bairn kicked out of her.
That night, I raked through the silver hoard while Finn held a torch up and finally found a hinged torc that even Finn whistled at. Twelve ounces if it was any weight at all, solid and carved in little S-curves connected by rosettes, which were fitted with red stones, most them still there. It ended in an intricate lock and Finnlaith swore that it was Irish and he might have had the right of it.
In the morning, with the mist still in tendrils, I placed the torc inside Kvasir's corpse-wrappings and had a fond smile from Thorgunna for it. She took his stiffened fingers and gently trimmed his nails with her little scissors, for it is, well-known that Naglfar, the boat captained by Loki and which carries the giants of Jotunheim against Asgard at the start of Ragnarok, is made from dead men's fingernails. It is right to delay the building of it.
Then she pulled out the bloody little pouch I knew contained his shrivelled eyes and tied it round one wrist, so they would not be lost. We weighted him with stones from the shingle beach and slid him over the side with scarcely a ripple and he sank quickly, while I commended him to the gods and tried not to choke on the loss.
Then, almost before we had shaken ourselves from the dark of it, like dogs losing water from a swim, Crowbone raised his head and pointed one arm.
'The Night Wolf is here.'
He came on loping swift, hoping to take us by surprise —but everyone, in honour of Kvasir, had been armed and mailed, so all I had to do was go to the prow nearest to the black ship that held Kveldulf and, as I had suspected, Lambisson's old crew.