by Robert Low
‘I waited to speak with my lord Arnfinn,’ he said and the sound of his voice seemed sucked away somehow.
‘Just so — and what did the son of Thorfinn Jarl have to say?’
The moth-wing hiss of her voice was slathered with sarcasm, for which Erling had no good reply. The truth was that the four sons of Thorfinn who now ruled Orkney were as much in thrall to this crumbling ruin, Gunnhild, Mother of Kings, as their father had been. Arnfinn, especially, was hag-cursed by it and had merely brooded his eyes into the pitfire and then waved Erling on his way without a word, trying not to look at his wife, Ragnhild, who was Gunnhild’s daughter.
Erling’s silence gave Gunnhild all the answer she needed. As her face loomed out from behind the blurring light of the lamp he was unable even to cross himself, was paralysed at the sight of it. Whatever The Lady wanted, she would get; not for the first time, Erling pitied the Jarls of Orkney and the mother-in-law they wore round their necks.
Not that it was an ugly face, aged and raddled. The opposite. It was a face with skin that seemed soft as fine leather with only a tracery of lines round the mouth, where the lips were a little withered. A harsh line or two here and there on it, which only accentuated the heart-leaping beauty that had been there in youth. Gunnhild wanted to smile at the sight of him, but knew that would crack the artifice like throwing a stone on thin ice. She used her face as a weapon and clubbed him with it.
‘I had a son called Erling,’ she said and Erling stiffened. He knew that — Haakon Jarl had killed him. For a wild moment of panic Erling wondered if she sought to raise the dead son and needed to steal the name …
‘I have a task for you, Flatnose,’ she said in her ruin of a voice. ‘You and my last, useless son Gudrod and that Tyr-worshipping boy of yours — what is his name?’
‘Od,’ Erling managed and mercifully Gunnhild slid away from him, back into the shadows.
‘Listen,’ she said and laid the meat of it out, a long rasp of wonder in that fetid dark. The revelations left him shaking, wondering how she had discovered all this, awed at the rich seidr magic she still commanded — the gods knew how old she was, yet still beautiful and still a power.
Later, as he stumbled from the hall, the rain and battering wind were as much of a relief as goose-grease on a burn.
TWO
The coast of Frisia, a week later …
Crowbone’s Crew
It was no properly straked, oak-keeled drakkar, but the Or-skrei?r was a good ship, a sturdy, fat-waisted knarr with scarred planks and the comfort of ship-luck. It had carried the trader safely from Dyfflin to Hammaburg and elsewhere — even back to the trader’s home in Iceland. Hoskuld boasted of its prowess as it hauled Crowbone and his Chosen Men out of Hammaburg to the sea, then west along the coast. The Or-skrei?r, Swift-Gliding, was Hoskuld’s pride.
‘Even when Aegir of the waters is splashing about in the worst way,’ he declared, ‘I have never had a moment’s unease.’
Crowbone’s eight Oathsworn, jostling for sea-chest space with the crew and the cargo of hoes and mattocks and kegged fish, found little humour in this, though some gave dutiful laughs. But not Onund.
‘You should not dangle this stout ship in front of the Norns, like a worm on a hook,’ Onund growled morosely to Hoskuld. ‘Those Sisters love to hear the boasts of men — it makes them laugh.’
Crowbone said nothing, for he knew Onund had sourness seeped into him, for all he had agreed to this voyage. The other men were less frowning about matters. Murrough macMael was going back to Mann and possibly Ireland and that pleased him; the others — Gjallandi the skald, Rovald Hrafnbruder, Vigfuss Drosbo, Kaetilmund, Vandrad Sygni and Halfdan Knutsson — were happy to be going anywhere with the Prince Who Would Be King. They were all seasoned Swedes and half-Slavs who had been down the cataracts from Kiev with the silk traders at least once and had sailed up and down the Baltic with Crowbone, raiding in the name of Vladimir, Prince of Novgorod and now Kiev.
Ring-coated most of them, exotic in fat breeks and big boots and fur-trimmed hats with silver wire designs, they swaggered and bantered idly in the fat-waisted little knarr and made Hoskuld and his working men scowl.
‘How do we know their worth?’ one seaman grumbled in Crowbone’s hearing. ‘Who decided on these instead of a decent cargo?’
‘They think we are just barrels of salt cod,’ Gjallandi announced, appearing suddenly at Crowbone’s ear, ‘while your new Chosen Men believe it is a day’s sail, with a bit of sword-waving at the end of it and yourself crowned king of Norway, no doubt. All will find the truth of matters, soon enough.’
He was shaking his head, which made all those who did not know him laugh, for he was not the figure of a raiding man. He was a middling man in most respects save two — his head and his voice.
His head was large, with a chin like a ship’s prow and two full, beautiful lips in the centre of it, surrounded by a neat-trimmed fringe of moustache and beard. The hair on his head was marvellously copper-coloured, but galloping back over his forehead on either side of his ears; when the wind blew it stuck straight out behind him like spines. Murrough said it was not his hair that was receding but his head growing from all the lore he stuffed in it.
That lore and his voice had made his fortune, all the same, first as skald to a jarl called Skarpheddin and then to Jarl Brand. He had left Brand after arguing that it was not right to come down so hard on Jarl Orm for the loss of Jarl Brand’s son — which, according to Murrough and others, showed how Gjallandi’s voice sometimes worked before his thought-cage did.
Now he had come with Crowbone because, he said, Crowbone had more saga in him and the tale of the exiled Prince of Norway reclaiming his birthright was too good to miss. Crowbone had joined in the good-natured laughter, but secretly liked the idea of having someone spread his fame; the thought was as warming a comfort as a hearthfire and a horn of ale.
‘The crowning will come in time,’ Crowbone answered, loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘Until then, there are ships and men waiting to join us.’
‘No doubt,’ said the steersman whose name was Halk and his Norse was strange and lilting. ‘Do they know you are coming?’
His voice had a laugh in it which removed any sting and Crowbone smiled back at him.
‘If you know where you are going,’ he replied, ‘then — there they will all be.’
It was clear that Hoskuld had told his men nothing much, which was not sensible in a tight crew of six who depended on each other and the trade they made. Crowbone did not much trust Hoskuld, for all he had come from Mann to deliver his mysterious message — without pay, no doubt, for Christ monks were notoriously empty-pursed.
‘For the love of God,’ Hoskuld had replied when Crowbone had asked the why of this and his face, battered by wind and wave into something like a headland with eyes, gave away nothing. His men said even less, keeping their eyes and hands on work, but Crowbone felt Hoskuld’s lie like a chill haar on his skin. Yet Hoskuld was a friend of Orm and that counted for much.
Crowbone sat and watched the land slip sideways past him while the sea rose and fell, dark, glassy planes heaving in a slow, breathing rhythm.
He watched the gulls. Hoskuld never got far enough from the land to lose them and Crowbone listened to them scream to each other of finding something that moved and promised fish. One perched on the mast spar, heedless of the sail’s great belly and Crowbone watched this one more carefully than the others. He felt the familiar tightening of the skin on his arms and neck; something was happening.
The crew of the Or-skrei?r coiled lines, bailed, reefed sail, took the steering oar and stared at Crowbone and his eight men. He could almost feel their dislike and their distrust and, above all, their fear. Here were the plunderers, pillagers and pagans that peaceful Christ-anointed traders, farmers of the sea-lanes, could do without as they ploughed up and down from port to port.
Here were red murderers, sitting on their sea-chests, talking in their mush
-mouthed East Norse way — made worse by all the time spent with Slavs — and eyeing up the crew with almost complete indifference when not with sardonic smiles at watching men work while they stayed idle.
Crowbone knew his eight Chosen well, knew who was more Svear than Slav, who had washed that weekday, who doubted their own prowess.
Young men — well, all but Onund — hard men, who had all, without showing fear, taken that hard oath of the Oathsworn: we swear to be brothers to each other, bone, blood and steel, on Gungnir, Odin’s spear we swear, may he curse us to the Nine Realms and beyond if we break this faith, one to another.
Crowbone had taken it when he was too young for chin hair, driven to it as those desperate and lost in the dark will run to a fire, even if it risks a scorching. He had kin somewhere, sisters he had never seen — but mother, father, guardian uncle were all dead and Orm Bear-Slayer of the Oathsworn was the nearest thing he had to any of the three.
He watched his Chosen Men. Only Onund knew what the Oath meant, for he had taken it long enough ago to have marked the warp of it on his life. Most of the others would come to know just what they had sworn, but for now they were all grins and wild beards in every colour save grey, laughing and boasting easily, one to the other.
Hoskuld, beaming at the way they were skipping along, announced that he had many skills, one of them navigation.
‘We go out on to a big expanse of water dead ahead,’ he added. ‘Land on the berthing side, so you cannot really miss it. After a bit, we turn north. That is to the right. The steerboard side. The hand you use to pull yourself off.’
Crowbone forced a smile as Hoskuld moved off into the grins of his crew, while Murrough turned and looked at his fellow Oathsworn lazing there.
‘Never be minding, lads,’ he bellowed. ‘We have bread and fish and water if this short-arsed little trading man loses us. Also, there are Crowbone’s birds to steer by, when all else fails.’
Crowbone raised one hand in acknowledgement, while Hoskuld and his crew stared for a moment, stilled. Then they busied themselves and Crowbone smiled, for he knew no Norseman, especially Christ-sworn, liked the idea of a seidr-man and none of these liked to be reminded of the strange tales that surrounded Crowbone.
‘We will need no magic birds to get us where we are going,’ Hoskuld said eventually, with the scowl of an outraged Christmann. ‘Nor will I lose my way, Irisher. This is a ship blessed with God-luck.’
Right there, the lone gull on the mast spar took off from its perch and screamed, a mad laughing as it turned and wheeled away back towards the grey-blue line that was land. Crowbone watched it go, the hairs stiff on him; it does no good to tempt the Norns, he was thinking.
‘There was once a Chosen Man in the service of a jarl, don’t ask me where, don’t ask me when,’ he said and the heads came up. Crowbone had not meant to speak; he never did when the tales came on him, but those who had heard him before leaned forward a little. The steersman laughed but Murrough wheeshed him and the silence allowed the wind to thrum the rigging lines.
‘As part of his due he used to get bread and a bowl of honey each day,’ Crowbone went on, soft and gentle as the breathing sea. ‘The warrior ate the bread and put the honey into a stoppered jug, which he took to carrying around with him, lest it be stolen. He wanted to keep the jug until it was full, for he knew the high price his honey would fetch in the market.’
‘A sensible trading man, then, this warrior,’ Hoskuld offered sarcastically, but glares silenced him.
‘I will sell my honey for a piece of gold and buy ten sheep, all of which will bring forth young, so that in the course of one year I shall have twenty sheep,’ Crowbone said, the words tumbled from him, like slow, sticky sweetness from the tale’s jug.
‘Their number will steadily increase, and in four years I shall be the owner of four hundred sheep. I shall then buy a cow and an ox and acquire a piece of land. My cow will bring forth calves, the ox will be useful to me in ploughing my land, while the cows will provide me with milk. In five years’ time the number of my cattle will have increased considerably and I shall be wealthy. I shall then build a magnificent steading, acquire thralls and marry a beautiful woman of noble descent. She will become pregnant and bear me a son, a strong boy fit to carry my name. A lucky star will shine at the moment of his birth and he will be happy and blessed, and bring honour to my name after my death. Should he, however, refuse to obey me, I will whack him round the ear, thus-’
Crowbone smacked one fist into his palm, so that the listeners started a little.
‘So saying,’ Crowbone added softly, ‘he lashed out at the imaginary child. The jug flew from under his arm and smashed. The honey ran into the mud and was lost.’
‘Heya,’ sighed Murrough and stared pointedly at Hoskuld, who laughed nervously. The steersman crossed himself; no-one had missed the point of the tale.
The gull — the same one, Crowbone was sure — screamed with faint laughter in the distance.
Not long after, the steering oar broke.
One blink they were sailing along, scudding under a sail bagged full of wind, with the blue-grey slide of the land distant on one side. The next, Halk was yelling and hanging grimly on to the whole weight of the steering oar, which had parted company from the ship entire and looked set to go over the side. The Swift-Gliding leaped like a joyous stallion spitting out the bit, then yawed off in a direction all its own.
Men sprang to help Halk, wrestling the steering board safely on to the ship. Hoskuld, bawling orders, found the Oathsworn suddenly alive, moving with practised ease to flake the sail down on to the yard and bring the free-running knarr to a sulky halt, where it rocked and pitched, the slow-heaving waves slapping the hull.
‘Leather collar has snapped,’ Onund declared after a brief look. ‘Fetch out some more and we will fix it.’
Hoskuld glared at Halk, whose eyes were wide with innocent protesting, but then Gorm stepped into Hoskuld’s scowl and matched it with one of his own. He had been with Hoskuld ever since they had first set keel on water, so he had leeway. He had hands and face beaten by weather, but his eyes were clear and there was at least a horn-spoon of intellect behind them, even if his nose was crooked from fights and his body a barrel which had been scoured by wind and wave.
‘Not Halk’s fault,’ he growled at Hoskuld. ‘Should have stayed in Dyfflin for long enough to fetch such supplies as spare leather, but you would sail. Should have stayed in Sand Vik longer than to pick up this poor dog of a steersman, but you sailed even faster from there.’
‘Enough!’ roared Hoskuld, his face turning white, then red. ‘This is not fixing matters.’
He broke off, glanced at the thin line of land and wiped his mouth with the back of one hand.
‘This is the Frisian coast,’ he muttered darkly. ‘No place to be wallowing, dangled like a fat cod for sharks.’
‘Leather,’ Onund grunted.
‘None,’ Gorm replied, almost triumphant. ‘Some bast line, which will have to do.’
‘Aye, for you never stayed long enough in Dyfflin or Sand Vik,’ Crowbone noted and everyone heard how his voice had become steeled.
‘Save for picking up a steersman,’ he added, nodding towards Halk, who stared from Hoskuld to Crowbone and back, his mouth gawped like a coal-eater.
Folk left off what they were doing then, for a chill had sluiced in like mist, centred on Crowbone and the lip-licking Hoskuld.
Crowbone knew now where the steersman had his lilting Norse from. From Orkney, where Hoskuld had gone from Dyfflin and before that from Mann. Mann to Dyfflin to Orkney.
‘You know who this Svein Kolbeinsson is,’ Crowbone said, weaving the tale as he spoke and knowing the warp and weft were true by the look in Hoskuld’s eyes.
‘How many others have you told?’ Crowbone went on. Hoskuld spread his arms and tried to speak.
‘I …’ began Hoskuld.
Crowbone drew the short-handled axe out of the belt-ring at his waist
and Hoskuld’s crew shifted uneasily; one made a whimpering sound. Hoskuld seemed to tip sideways and sag a little, like an emptying waterskin. The crew and the Oathsworn watched, slipping subtly apart.
‘You know from Orm what I can do with this,’ Crowbone said, raising the axe, and Hoskuld blinked and nodded and then rubbed the middle of his forehead, as if it itched.
‘Only because you have friendship with Jarl Orm is it still on the outside of your skull,’ Crowbone went on, in a quiet and reasonable voice, so that those who heard it shivered.
‘Svein Kolbeinsson,’ Hoskuld gasped. ‘Konungslykill, they called him. I was younger than yourself by a few years when I met him, on my first trip to Jorvik with my father.’
Crowbone stopped and frowned. Konungslykill — The King’s Key — was the name given to only one man, the one who carried King Eirik’s blot axe. Such sacrifice axes were all called Odin’s Daughter, but only one truly merited the name — Eirik’s axe, the black-shafted mark of the Yngling right to rule.
Carried by a Chosen Man called the King’s Key, the pair of them represented Eirik’s power to open all chests and doors in his realm, by force if necessary. It gave Eirik his feared name, too — Bloodaxe. Crowbone blinked, the thoughts racing in him like waves breaking on rocks.
‘This ship it was,’ Hoskuld said wistfully. ‘The year before Eirik was thrown out of Jorvik and died in an ambush set by Osulf, who went on to rule all Northumbria.’
What was that — twenty-five years ago and more? Crowbone looked at Hoskuld and while the gulls in his head screeched and whirled their messages and ideas, his face stayed grim and secret as a hidden skerry.
‘Svein Kolbeinsson was taken at the place where Eirik of Jorvik died, but after some time he escaped thralldom and fled to Mann. It seems he turned his back on Asgard since the gods turned their backs on him, so he became a monk of the Christ in the hills of Mann around Holmtun, in the north of the island. He died recently, but before he did, he told this monk Drostan a secret, to be shared only with the kin of the Yngling line.’