Crowbone o-5

by Robert Low

  ‘Lord Olaf,’ Mugron began and Crowbone whirled on him.

  ‘Prince,’ he spat back and Mugron recoiled a little, then smiled.

  ‘I was talking to our brother in Christ, lord of Dyfflin,’ he explained greasily and Crowbone blinked, annoyed at his mistake. Anger made him rash.

  ‘No longer,’ he snarled. ‘Another has that High Seat and name now. Tell those dogs to lose the steel.’

  ‘I know who claims the seat,’ Olaf Irish-Shoes spat back, his face turning blue-purple and his breath wheezing. ‘My treacherous son, not fit to lick the arse of his brother, who died …’

  He broke off then and slumped back, his face deep blue. The Chosen Man nearest to him looked anxiously at him, then flicked his eyes back to Crowbone and the others, his hand clenching and unclenching on the sword hilt.

  ‘Are you well, lord?’ he asked Olaf Irish-Shoes over his shoulder, at which Murrough laughed.

  ‘Of course he is not well, you arse,’ he bellowed. ‘He has a face like a bag of blood and two monks sticking his arms with blades — are you blind?’

  ‘We were in the process of bleeding him,’ said the yellow-haired monk and Mugron frowned.

  ‘Again? Is that wise?’

  ‘He is choleric, lord abbot,’ the monk replied, but Crowbone interrupted him, harsh as thrown gravel.

  ‘You and you,’ he said to the armed men, ‘throw those blades down. I will not say this again.’

  ‘Dum inter homines sumus, colamus humanitatem,’ Mugron said nervously and Atli turned to Gjallandi.

  ‘I hope that he is telling them to be sensible,’ he growled and the skald, nervously backing away from the glinting steel, shook his head, then nodded, confused.

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ he began. ‘Something like being among humans and so being humane.’

  ‘Speak Norse,’ Crowbone declared to Mugron, then nodded to the two men. ‘Kill them.’

  Mugron started to protest; the dark monk shrieked and the yellow-haired one sprang back. Olaf himself struggled weakly, his blue cloak falling open to show his white underserk — the basin of his own blood flew up and crashed on him.

  It took moments — for all that the men were fine fighters, they were outnumbered and taken by surprise a little. Even Murrough was, for he had not expected the prince to be so bloody, so the fight was a mad flail of blades and ugly blood trails.

  Mugron knelt and babbled, the dark monk with him; the abbot was clearly shocked by this and Crowbone was pleased. Now he knows what he has let in his door, he thought and he turned to Gjallandi.

  ‘Oderint, dum metuant,’ he said, saying it carefully so as to get it right; it was the only Latin he knew, gleaned from an inscription on some weathered monument in the Great City. Let them hate as long as they fear. Gjallandi knew it at once — an Old Roman emperor had said it first and the skald licked dry lips at the drawn-back snarl of lip that came with it. That Old Roman ruler had been a madman, but Gjallandi said nothing on that.

  Olaf struggled upright, his belly plastered to the blood-drenched serk, but his eyes wild and angry.

  ‘Hoskuld,’ Crowbone said. ‘Where is he? And the monk that was with him. I know you know.’

  Olaf stared at the bodies, the blood pooling, gleaming viscous in the flickering torchlight.

  ‘Magnus,’ he said and looked at Crowbone. ‘I have known Magnus from when he was a bairn. My Magnus …’

  ‘Not yours now,’ Crowbone said. ‘Hel has him and will have you if I am not happy with your answers — shut that priest’s fucking babble!’

  The last was bellowed as he spun to where Mugron chanted; there was a meaty smack and Atli sucked the knuckles of one hand, grinning, while Mugron climbed unsteadily on to one elbow and wiped his mouth, then gazed, incredulous, at the blood on his fingers. Murrough leaned thoughtfully on his axe; he did not like what he was seeing here at all.

  ‘Hoskuld,’ Crowbone repeated and Olaf blinked once, then twice and seemed to see the odd-eyed youth for the first time. ‘Eirik’s axe.’

  ‘Hoskuld?’ he repeated. ‘How would I know? Ogmund had him and lost him to Gunnhild’s son and some Grendel of a boy he has in train. Eirik’s axe is a story for bairns,’ said Olaf scornfully. ‘Such as yourself.’

  It took an effort not to cut the old man down, especially when four or five questions later Crowbone realised, with a sinking stone in his belly, that Olaf Irish-Shoes knew nothing at all and Hoskuld was either gone to Gunnhild or dead. He looked at the proud old man and wondered; he had to be sure.

  ‘Fetch those hangings,’ he said and men leaped to obey; not Murrough, he saw from the corner of one eye and ignored it. When they started to string Olaf up by his bound ankles, using the stripped hangings as rope over a beam, the Irisher cleared his throat.

  ‘I’m thinking this is not right or clever,’ he said and Crowbone turned, his odd eyes seeming to bounce the light, so that those who saw it drew back a little. Murrough was suddenly aware of the iron stink of blood, smothering air from the room.

  ‘Orm has done it,’ Crowbone replied, which was true and Murrough had to admit it. All the same, Orm had strung folk up with some sense to it — but Murrough did not say this, though he managed to meet the odd-eyed stare until Crowbone grew tired of the game and looked at the slowly swinging Olaf. His blood-soaked serk had drooped over his face, revealing spindle shanks, stained underclothes and thin, veined legs; when Murrough lifted the serk to look, he saw the old man’s face was turning bluish red.

  ‘You are certain there is nothing more to tell me?’ Crowbone demanded and Olaf, swinging and wheezing, merely glowered at him. Then he shook a little and foamed at the mouth — the yellow-haired monk moved swiftly towards him, but not as fast as Crowbone’s voice.

  ‘Stay,’ he snapped and the monk stopped, stared with cool grey-blue eyes and went on to the side of the dangling man, ignoring Crowbone completely. Finally, he looked up into Crowbone’s blazing face.

  ‘Cut him down,’ he said. ‘Or else he will die.’

  ‘Let him speak the truth.’

  ‘He cannot speak at all. Cut him down.’

  Murrough decided it, the axe scything briefly through the air and so close to Crowbone that, for the flicker of an eyelid, he thought he was the target — but the blade sheared through the cloth strips and Olaf Cuarans collapsed in a soggy heap, his heels drumming. Crowbone glared at Murrough, but decided to let the moment pass. He would remember it all the same.

  The dark-haired monk started to babble in Latin and Gjallandi, gnawing his knuckles at all he had seen, blinked out of the horror that was no part of the hero-sagas he told and into the moment, into what the monk was wailing.

  ‘A letter,’ he said and Crowbone turned.

  ‘A letter,’ Gjallandi repeated, pointing to the dark-haired monk. ‘That one wants the abbot to tell what was in it, before everyone dies.’

  ‘What is a letter?’ Atli demanded and Gjallandi started to tell him, but Crowbone snarled him to silence and rounded on Mugron. Behind him, the yellow-haired monk knelt by Olaf and muttered prayers.

  ‘What letter?’ he demanded and Mugron stirred from his prayers and unfolded his hands. He laid his hand gently on the shoulder of the dark-haired monk kneeling beside him and wearily climbed to his feet.

  ‘There was such a message,’ he said, ‘which dealt with the matters you seek. It was brought by Gudrod, who claimed to be the son of Gunnhild, the Witch-Queen. It was written by a monk in Latin and I translated it for this Gudrod, who went his way.’

  He paused and blinked a little, as if to get the horror out of his eyes.

  ‘We played a game,’ he said. ‘On a cloth with little counters. The game of kings. Do you play?’

  Crowbone wondered if the blow had addled the abbot and leaned his face forward a little.

  ‘I play,’ he growled, ‘but not on cloth with counters — you remember that writing-message. Tell it to me.’

  ‘So you can then kill me? All of us?’r />
  Crowbone shook his head impatiently.

  ‘No, no — only those two sword-dogs had to die. Have I harmed a monk yet? Well — apart from a wee dunt to your teeth, that is. I will hear what you have to say and go, taking nothing and doing no harm.’

  ‘Dum excusare credis, accusas,’ Mugron declared bitterly and Crowbone whirled to Gjallandi, who had been whispering about the nature of letters to Atli and had missed it. For a moment, the skald felt the world tilt and disappear beneath his feet at the sight of Crowbone’s fist of a face, waiting furiously to be informed.

  ‘When you believe you are excusing yourself, you are accusing yourself.’

  The yellow-haired monk rose slowly, as if his knees pained him.

  ‘St Jerome,’ he added, then made the sign of the cross over the rasp-breathing Olaf.

  ‘He will die, this night or the next,’ he said accusingly to Crowbone. ‘For no reason at all.’

  For four ships and crews, Crowbone thought and felt the wyrd of the moment — he had killed Olaf Cuarans, as he had agreed and had not as much as nicked him with a blade, so could be accused of nothing. Not that it would bother him, he persuaded himself.

  ‘He was Olaf Irish-Shoes,’ Crowbone replied harshly. ‘For some that is reason enough. He is even an affront to your god, for he was a pagan all his life and now seeks to crawl into your Christ valholl through a hole in the wall.’

  ‘God will not be mocked,’ Mugron answered stiffly and Crowbone laughed, a sound with no mirth in it at all, it seemed to Gjallandi.

  ‘Your god opens himself to mockery,’ he answered, then pointed to the dark-haired monk, whose eyes went big and round.

  ‘You — your name?’

  It took him three attempts, but he managed to tell the terrible youth that his name was Notker.

  ‘He is from Ringelheim in the Empire,’ said the yellow-haired monk. ‘As am I. My name is Adalbert.’

  Crowbone looked from one to the other, then at Mugron.

  ‘Here is what I propose,’ he said, seeing the weave of it unfold gloriously as he spoke. ‘You, Notker, and you, Adalbert, will argue why your god cannot exist. Mugron, your abbot — being holier than you and so worth the pair of you — will argue why he does. If Mugron loses he tells me the content of the letter — and you pair die. If the two of you win, I leave in peace, with nothing.’

  ‘The Lord is not a wager,’ Mugron spluttered, then sighed. ‘I will tell you what is in the letter.’

  Gjallandi saw Crowbone’s face and knew the truth.

  ‘Post festum,’ he said sadly. ‘Periculum in mora.’

  ‘What?’ demanded a man behind Atli, but Gjallandi just shook his head; there was no point in telling everyone that Mugron had come too late for this feast, that Crowbone had turned on to a new tack and was driven by some Loki wind along it.

  Murrough cleared his throat and this time he spat a gob on the bloody floor, as pointed a gesture of disgust as he dared make. He knew Crowbone had marked it, but the youth did not comment. Instead, he nodded to the man behind Atli, the one who had spoken up against Christ priests on the way in.

  ‘What are you called?’ he asked and the man, pleased to be singled out, heaved out his chest and told everyone that he was Styr Thorgeistsson from Paviken in Gotland. Crowbone nodded, picked up the bloody sword that had belonged to Magnus and handed it to the delighted man.

  ‘Make that pair begin,’ he ordered.

  Grinning, Styr poked Notker in the ribs with his new weapon and the monk whimpered, then began praying frantically in Latin, his voice rising until Adalbert, still calm, laid a hand on the man’s arm. Notker subsided, panting; the front of his robe darkened and his shoes got wet.

  Atli and the others chuckled, for it was reasonable entertainment when there was little drink and no women, but Murrough stared at the floor. Orm had strung folk up when he needed them to talk, dragging out his little ‘truth knife’ to whittle pieces off them until they told all they knew. That was for good reasons of gain. This was a sick thing, which you could see in Crowbone’s too-bright eyes.

  Notker started and everyone knew he was doomed right from the start if left to himself. He was devout enough — he had come to this place all the way from Saxland and you had to be mad for your god to do that — but his Norse was stuttering and he was too afraid, Murrough thought. Adalbert silenced him gently with a hand on his shoulder.

  Mugron was no better, Crowbone marked, disappointed suddenly. He had hoped for some moment, a flash of insight or understanding, a sign from some god somewhere. But Mugron was not it — there must be a God, he babbled, for if there was no God, there was no Judgement and that was surely unfair. And if there was no God, how could he, Mugron, be a priest and abbot?

  Atli and the others beat their thighs at that, trading comments on how the abbot would look with a second smile. Murrough looked at the two dead men and the dying Olaf Irish-Shoes, whose great belly no longer trembled with his breathing; the stink of blood was choking.

  Notker fell to his knees, all tears and snot and prayer, but Adalbert turned to Crowbone, calm as the mirror-water in a fjord and cleared his throat.

  ‘I will restrict my arguments to three,’ he declared in a firm, clear voice. ‘I could easily adduce more, but three will do.’

  Everybody fell silent, for this was new. Here was a monk, calmly announcing he had more than three ways to denounce his faith and his White Christ god. Atli laughed and declared that this was even better than seeing stumbling Styr try to walk oars. Styr offered back a scouring brow.

  Adalbert stepped forward suddenly and slapped Styr’s shield, back-slung to leave his hands free. Styr grunted angrily and raised a meaty fist, but Crowbone merely leashed him with a blue-brown stare. Adalbert, ignoring all this, held up his first finger.

  ‘A shield, which you all have, has been made by someone. The very fact of it reveals such a thing as a shieldmaker. So the existence of the cosmos and all of nature, the flow of time and the greatness of the heavens, require a prior cause and a creator, one that does not move or change and is not confined, but infinite.’

  He paused, looking round at the gape-mouthed and those who had a dim idea of what he meant. Gjallandi shifted slightly. ‘Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus,’ he said. Adalbert bowed.

  Atli growled. ‘Fucking Latin — what does he say?’

  ‘Mountains labour and only a silly mouse is born,’ Gjallandi told him, which left him none the wiser.

  ‘It is a quote by an Old Roman called Horace about verses and really means something about a lot of work and nothing to show for it,’ Gjallandi declaimed and Crowbone rounded smoothly on him, that beacon stare silencing him, too.

  ‘If you know your Horace, perhaps you also know your Aristotle,’ Adalbert continued, folding his hands and bowing graciously to Gjallandi. ‘If so, you will recall that he said that this Unmoved Mover was God. In short, if there is a shieldmaker to make shields then there must be a God to make trees and the sea, raiders who come out of it and poor monks from the isle of St Columba the Blessed.’

  This everyone understood and they nodded admiringly. Atli threw back his head and howled like a wolf, which made Styr laugh. Adalbert held up his second finger.

  ‘It has been argued,’ he said, ‘that no God exists because He could not allow such bad things to happen in the world — such things as this, for example. Evil events. In truth, the opposite is true.’

  ‘Aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus,’ Gjallandi intoned.

  ‘There you go again, you fat-lipped arse,’ roared Atli, exasperated. ‘If the monk can speak fucking Norse, why can’t you?’

  Gjallandi scowled, but Atli glowered right back.

  ‘He said,’ Gjallandi offered, before things forged up to melting, ‘that sometimes even good Homer sleeps.’

  ‘Who the fuck is this Homer and what has he to do with any of this?’ growled Styr, scrubbing his head.

  ‘A better way of saying it is “you cannot win eve
ry time”. I am thinking the priest is losing,’ Gjallandi explained.

  ‘Why not say that, then?’ grumbled Atli. ‘Not that it is a secret, as anyone can see.’

  He then glared at Adalbert. ‘What does this Aristotle Homer have to say on cutting your own throat? You are supposed to be arguing that your god does not exist. Good arguments you have — but you are charging the wrong way.’

  Even Crowbone laughed and Adalbert inclined his head as Mugron declared desperately, breaking from Latin to Irish in his passion, about how Adalbert would die a martyr.

  ‘The very existence, the utter conception of evil requires the existence and the concept of good, likewise the freedom of the individual will to choose between the two,’ Adalbert went on, seemingly unmoved. ‘Only God could confer such freedom on us, his creations — otherwise we should be bound by the necessity of being, like the sheep or the ox. The fact that we know we have such choice, such free will, thus shows not only a divine presence but also that a spark of His divinity lives in us, in our immortal souls.’

  ‘My head hurts with this,’ moaned Styr.

  ‘You are a dead man,’ Crowbone declared, puzzled, ‘unless your third argument is good enough to undo all that you have said so far.’

  Adalbert held up his third finger. There was a silence, save for the wheeze of Olaf’s breathing; even Notker and Mugron held their breath.

  ‘If there is no God,’ Adalbert said, voice like a bell, ‘then you, Prince of Norway, would not have to be struggling so much against Him.’

  There was a hoot of laughter, then another and Atli clapped Adalbert on the back, grinning. For a moment it made Crowbone as mad-angry as a smouldering bag of cats — but he suddenly saw it, how the wolves and bears that were Atli and Styr liked the spirit of this Adalbert. Even Murrough was grinning, thumping the butt of his axe on the floor. Mugron, he saw, was bow-headed, hands clasped in silent prayer; Notker was slumped on the floor, as if all his bones had deserted him, the hem of his robe mopping up the pools of blood.

  Still, Crowbone thought, slightly bewildered, Adalbert had argued badly. He was supposed to disprove the existence of his god and had done the opposite. He and Notker were the ones who should die. He said so, though his voice was weak with confusion — that last proof of Adalbert’s had had a barb to it. Still, the silence that followed was thick enough to grasp.