Fenrir

by MD. Lachlan

  ‘What is hölmgang?’ said Aelis.

  ‘A ritual duel to determine the rights of a situation,’ said Leshii. ‘You are a lucky woman, lady, but you are going to need to be to get through this one.’

  ‘Now,’ said Giuki, ‘let us all sit around a fire, eat some seagulls and fish, and the merchant can tell us tales of the east. It’ll be a good night for all.’ He turned to Aelis. ‘I’d enjoy it while you can, boy. Kylfa has killed five men this way, and I tell you, all of them would have done for you without breaking a sweat.’

  Kylfa pointed at Aelis.

  ‘You’ll have me for a companion tonight. I shall be sitting beside you, and when I sleep my brother will watch you. The monks here ran away. You won’t.’

  ‘I am to die somewhere,’ said Aelis to Leshii. ‘It may as well be here.’

  Leshii bowed his head. For a moment the mad thought that he could take Aelis’s body to Helgi occurred to him. But brides were not like the Christians’ saints: no one would pay for them dead. He looked to the sky, wondering which god he had offended to make this girl the only chance of a comfortable life he had in the world. Somehow he would have to contrive to save her – again.

  46 A Wolf’s Treat

  The horses allowed them to make the river quickly. The Vikings did not know this route north but Jehan guided them, guided himself by the pale girl at his side. He took up the cross again, hoping its contemplation would help quiet his teeming thoughts. It did not, though the simple act of walking gave some respite. In a high bowl valley in the mountains they saw a large town below them.

  ‘We have horses,’ said Astarth. ‘We could trade them for a boat and take the river.’

  Ofaeti shook his head. ‘This is the enemy’s country. Monk – lord – do you know who owns that town?’

  Jehan had no idea what town it was but knew that the area, nominally at least, was under the rule of Charles the Fat and therefore allied to Paris and its ruler Count Eudes. But none of that seemed to matter now. His efforts were concentrated on fighting down the strange thoughts inside him and on prayer. The girl simplified things. She would take him to Aelis, to defend her from the hellish forces that were stalking her.

  ‘The river’s like a stream of goat’s piss up here anyway,’ said Ofaeti. ‘We won’t get a boat down it. Let’s make our way downstream for a couple of days and see if there’s anything we can make into a raft or steal if the flow gets bigger.’

  Ofaeti had now taken up an ostentatious form of Christianity, cutting himself a cross and carrying it before him. The men were Danes – this was clear by their dress, their hair, the axes they carried – but not every Viking in that country had come to pillage. The Frankish lords had recruited plenty of mercenaries willing to fight their fellow Norsemen for silver, so the sight of Danes travelling through the country under the Christian cross aroused plenty of suspicion but no outright aggression.

  The river valley fell through mountains which rose in great sweeps of rock and disappeared into cloud, tiny settlements visible on their slopes. At a roaring waterfall they encountered some bandits – ragged men appearing from the mists. They clearly wanted to attack but were nervous of the mail and the weapons of the Vikings. Ofaeti dismounted, drew his sword and made a stuttering charge towards them. It sent them running. The forts proved harder to negotiate. Men came to challenge them. But the gold was now hidden beneath Burgundian cloaks, and Jehan managed to control his voice and mind enough to explain that the Varangians were his guards and they were on a journey from Saint-Maurice to the pagan Vikings of the east, to convert them and turn them against the raiders who pillaged the north.

  Was this a lie? It was not the whole truth, that was for sure, but Jehan was distant from himself, his war with what was inside him taking all his energy. Still, the words went round in his head: These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him. A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

  He knew what he was – a sinner. They had called him a saint but they were wrong. Jehan felt as sure as he had felt when he had said Rouen would burn that he was going to hell. He was under an enchantment, he was sure. But even belief in such things was heresy. So then what had caused this rage in his veins, this excitement? His nights were turmoil. He saw her, the Virgin, there for him in the fields, but they were no fields he had ever known. He was on the side of a mountain, overlooking a body of water, and she was next to him, flowers in her hair. She was wearing a robe of black, not blue and white, and when she let it fall from her shoulders she was naked beneath.

  Who are you?

  Do you not know me by my robe?

  You are the lady of sorrows.

  And then he took her in his arms and kissed her, touched her naked body and lay with her. When he awoke he was sweating and his belly was slick with sperm.

  The awakening of sexual feelings was very difficult for Jehan to deal with. Eudes had told him, ‘It’s easy to be pure when those natural urges are withered in you.’ He was not so pure now. He thought of the touch of Lady Aelis in the Viking camp. It was almost as if that had sparked the energy inside him that had raised him up from his infirmity, enabled him to walk and damned him to hell. He thought of her voice, and when he dreamed of the Virgin now that was how she spoke as they lay on the riverbank, the sun on the water, cornflowers in her hair.

  They continued north, scared away bandits, paid tolls and went on again as the river wound its way through a plunging valley, hour after hour of terraced vineyards. At a small town they finally traded the horses for a boat. It was a river craft, flat-bottomed, but the Vikings were pleased.

  ‘Now we’ll be at the sea before four days have gone,’ said Ofaeti.

  ‘You don’t even know where we are,’ said Fastarr.

  ‘Not too far inland,’ said Ofaeti. ‘Look.’

  Above them were gulls, big ones.

  ‘It’s the end of winter – they could be miles from the sea.’

  ‘Not too far,’ said Ofaeti. ‘Believe me, I can smell it.’

  Jehan did almost believe him. He had stepped through a gateway of sin into the earthly world, and it seemed so fresh and beautiful to him. The land was bursting into life all around him, spring coming to the land. The wet grass held a deep cold scent that transfixed him for hours; the smell of horse on his clothes smelled unlike any horse he had ever smelled before. Beneath the deep, pungent odour of its sweat was something else, a spicy succulence. The men too, the rancid stinking Vikings, had a subtlety to their aroma. It set his saliva running and he found himself frequently having to spit.

  He breathed in. He could smell the ozone of the sea, smell beach tar and the rot of seaweed, but he could smell a million things in between, pick them out, identify them, even take a guess at how far the nearest forge or cesspit, flock of sheep or market was. And with the smells came memories.

  He was travelling north on a boat, and the boat was full of people, all of whom were looking at him. There was something strange about the people in the boat, and he tried to work out what it was. They were cold-eyed, pale and motionless. They were corpses. This wasn’t a vision, he knew; this was a memory. He had travelled before as he travelled now, enchanted, in search of something, in search of her. But when? Were the Gnostics right? Was there a ladder of souls which we climb lifetime after lifetime towards heaven, reborn, striving towards perfection, touching a greater holiness and being reborn to do the same thing again? But he had not moved nearer to perfection in his lifetime. He had taken a step down the ladder. He knew the Gnostic heresy: the misdeeds of one life were punished in the next. He had been a cripple, hadn’t he, unable to move? And now he was strong and his limbs loose, what had he done with his freedom? He had moved away from heaven, feasted on flesh and been filled by lust.

  Cling then, cling to faith. Lord, hear me.
I have been a vile and troublesome man, undeserving of the release you have given me. Strike me down, Lord, let me suffer again. Make me as I was and vanquish this demon that grows inside me.

  ‘We’re not taking this thing out to sea?’ said Astarth.

  ‘Do I look stupid?’ said Ofaeti.

  ‘Yes,’ said the warriors as one, but Jehan couldn’t join in their humour; he could only think of the north, the pale girl who sat beside him, her cold hand in his, drawing him on to an unknown destiny.

  As they went on, they attracted less attention. The Vikings had been defeated there two years before, their king had become a Christian and some had settled. Though youths taunted them and called them ice munchers and whale fuckers, they suffered no attack. At one village they even received a welcome of a sort. A girl of around eight thrust a garland of snowdrops into Ofaeti’s hand.

  ‘For the blessing of the crowman,’ she said, ‘the wizard of your people.’

  ‘We thought you all barbarians, but he saved my son from the fever,’ said a woman.

  Jehan could scarcely take in what they meant. He couldn’t eat the food he was offered, though he tried to force it down. Chewing the bread was like eating a bandage, the meat of a cooked chicken like wet leather to his palate. He was not hungry, not yet, and he gave thanks to God for that.

  They went on, into the flat lands, the river widening, the sky immense with a hollow blue light. When dusk came down, deep shadows fell across the river, but the water reflected the dying sun, and the faces and hands of the warriors seemed to glow in the copper light.

  ‘We’ll have to pick up a ship,’ said Fastarr.

  ‘All in the plan,’ said Ofaeti.

  ‘We have a plan?’ said Egil.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Ofaeti.

  ‘Marvellous. Don’t tell me what it is – I don’t think I can bear the disappointment.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Ofaeti, tapping his nose. ‘The plan will remain secret to you even after you’ve executed it.’

  ‘As normal,’ said Egil.

  ‘As normal,’ said Ofaeti. ‘Can you sail, lord?’

  Jehan said nothing.

  ‘I’ll take that as a no,’ said Ofaeti. ‘Is there a monastery near here, a nice juicy one?’

  ‘I will not lead you to slaughter,’ said Jehan.

  ‘Not what I’m looking for. Smell the air. It’s warmer, isn’t it? What’s that smell like to you, boys?’

  ‘Raiding season!’ they said as a man.

  ‘Right. The winter storms are past. Horda, Roga, Scylfing and every other seafaring man of the northern lands’ll be thinking the same. Anyone who’s not tied up in Paris or the Islands to the West will be down here, or some of them will. So where there’s a monastery, there will be a ship.’

  ‘I will not lead you to slaughter.’

  ‘Calm yourself. The pirates won’t be doing any slaughtering at the monasteries because the monks moved out years ago. The land’s barren for miles around and the people have come together into large villages that are well defended. The days of easy plunder are over, let me tell you that, my friend. The pirates will have a look, though, to check the locals haven’t moved back and that’s when we’ll approach them and ask them for their boat.’

  ‘But will they give it?’ said Astarth.

  ‘Willingly,’ said Ofaeti. ‘No one’s as willing as a dead man.’

  At that each of the Vikings smirked and nodded. This, Jehan could see, was the sort of wit that impressed them, though it made the confessor feel ill.

  The river was now wide and calm, opening into a large lake and then winding through low islands and marshes. There were few people about, just occasional fishermen who kept their distance. Then they saw, on a promontory of land, tall buildings, black against the oystershell sky.

  ‘What is that place, lord?’

  ‘A monastery. I do not know it,’ said Jehan. He was speaking the truth. His head was now heavy, his thoughts jumbled. It was as if he was watching himself without any conscious knowledge that he was controlling what he did or said.

  They moored the boat and walked across the salt marshes to the buildings. Ofaeti was right. There was no one there. The place had been burned within the past year or so. The roofs were gone and no attempt had been made to replace them. Graves had been dug in the cemetery and the grass had not yet grown over them. There were signs that the monastery had been used for shelter over the winter, but whoever had been there had left, not wanting to fall victim to the raiders.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ said Astarth.

  ‘Wait,’ said Ofaeti. ‘We’ve got food for a few weeks, a nice sea full of fish. There’ll be vegetables and mussels along the coast. We just wait for our boat home.’

  ‘Ofaeti,’ said Fastarr, ‘when we go raiding we take five ships. That could be three hundred men.’

  ‘Well let’s hope it’s not,’ said Ofaeti. ‘Look, the siege at Paris is going badly and a few of the lads will be coming back empty-handed. I think they’ll have a look down the coast before they head home. It’ll probably be Scylfings because this is on their way home. They stop to have a look at the church; we walk about outside without our weapons, looking like monks; they run up from the ship; we come down the back of these dunes and steal their ship.’

  ‘With nine of us against a force of – how many? One, two, three hundred?’

  ‘We distract them,’ said Ofaeti. ‘Wander about with our hands together like monks. They see us, they’ll charge up like dogs after a hare.’

  The pale girl at his side squeezed Jehan’s hand and he spoke. He didn’t know where the words came from but they seemed true to him. ‘You have to wait for the right ship.’

  ‘Lord, I’m not going to say no because it’s got a bear on the prow and I’d prefer a dragon,’ said Ofaeti.

  ‘You have to wait for the right ship.’

  ‘We’ll take the first ship we see,’ said Ofaeti.

  ‘You want the lady?’ said Jehan.

  ‘Which lady.’

  ‘The one you took at Paris.’

  ‘If we could find her. She’d be a rare gift for Helgi, wouldn’t she? It’s well known he covets her.’

  ‘Well, then you will wait for the right ship. Have I brought you fortune?’

  ‘You have, lord.’

  ‘Would you be Christ’s men?’

  ‘We would.’

  ‘Then heed my word and wait for the right ship.’

  The Vikings looked at him strangely but Jehan wasn’t worried about them. He was certain of only two things. The first was that Aelis was near. The second was that he was becoming hungry.

  The first boat to check the monastery was a battered Danish karvi, a tiny vessel with only sixteen oars. It was ideal, and Ofaeti had to work hard to restrain the Vikings. But then Jehan told them to leave it, and leave it they did. They had seen what he had done to the Burgundians and now his word was good enough for them.

  The next raiders who came, a week later, were in seven big longships, two of them fast, sleek drakkar, out-and-out fighting vessels. The berserkers needed no encouragement to leave them alone and withdrew while the raiders searched the monastery. They spent the night ashore and sailed away the next day.

  Two weeks went by, and there was no sign of further ships. Jehan sat in the ruined church, looking up at the bare altar. He was hungry and no mistake, and he prayed for strength to hold on to his appetites. Prayer took him deep within himself, searching for God, searching for instructions to which he might offer his obedience. He found only her, the Virgin – on the shore with the sun in her hair, by the hearth cocooned in the light of a low fire in a house that seemed at once strange and familiar. And then he saw her differently, lying broken on rocks in a narrow cavern. He knew it for a sign of what his thoughts were doing to her immaculate heart. He wanted her, body and soul. The spiritual desire was noble but the physical was not. He struggled against the blasphemy of his thoughts, against using his mind to defile the Lady of G
race.

  The pale girl sat close by him, clinging to him, unwilling to be parted from him for a second. He prayed that he might be freed from her presence. She was a demon, a tender, comforting, attentive demon. The devil was a subtle fellow. Had Jehan expected him to come with smoke and flame? No, he came as the child who sat by him as he slept and watched him when he woke.

  The girl motioned to him to follow her out of the church. A moon like a dihram hung in the sky stretching a silver path across the void of the ocean. She stood by a mound of earth and he understood that beneath it was the wolf, the thing that gurgled and growled in his mind, drowning out thought, drowning out personality.

  He heard a voice, a hacking, coughing voice with a scrape to it like the fall of earth on a coffin lid. ‘With my nails I’ll dig for him.’ Whose voice was it? His own but changed. He felt thicker in the limb and the body but not at all slow or torpid. His muscles rippled with a new power, and the world of the dark was lovely, the heavy moon, the road of light on the ocean, the pallor of the girl next to him and all the night scents of the awakening spring.

  ‘In there? The wolf, in there?’

  The pale girl said nothing.

  ‘Yes, in there. They have bound him deeply but I’ll scratch him out.’

  He tore at the earth, pulling it out in wet clumps, his hands filthy, muddying his clothes on the soft damp soil.

  ‘Lord, sails. Sails!’ It was Ofaeti’s voice. ‘They’re red! It’s Grettir, who was at the siege. Three ships only. This could be our chance!’

  Jehan could hear a low growling from beneath the earth accompanied by a terrible note of protest, the awful cry of an animal in distress. He dug and dug until his hands bled, but they had not buried the corpse deep. The raw snarl of the wolf was in his mind, the hunger eddying through his belly, his arms, his legs, hunger like a whirlpool sucking him down. His heart beat in flurries like rain on a tent. His mouth was wet, his senses keen. He needed to eat, so he ate.