‘Yes.’ Ulfar’s voice was dreamy.
‘And you want to know what it is.’
‘Yes.’
Geiri looked firmly at Ulfar. ‘Well then, my travelling brother. I will bargain with you. We’ll go drink with the locals tonight, I’ll help you inquire sensibly’ – Geiri added a stern look for emphasis – ‘and we discover what there is to discover about this magical creature of yours. And we will try as hard as we can to do this. But if we don’t find anything, if she’s another man’s woman, if there is no hope of the gods or anyone else giving their blessing—’
Ulfar nodded.
Geiri finished. ‘— then we leave.’
‘As usual, you are the wiser one, if somewhat less pleasing to the eye,’ Ulfar said, smiling. ‘Thank you, Geiri. You are a true friend.’
Geiri shook his head.
‘No I’m not. I just get bored travelling alone.’
‘Liar,’ Ulfar said.
‘Coward,’ Geiri retorted.
They both grinned.
*
The circle had formed quickly, just like up north. They tended to do that whenever there was even a faint promise of violence, Ragnar mused. Just like animals and food. This had never been a fight, though. It was turning into some kind of display, one that seemed to be making the audience uncomfortable. The crowd shuffled nervously. Someone shouted: ‘That’s enough, Harald!’ but nobody stepped forward to stop him.
Right. Enough of this. He sought out his travelling companion, tapped his elbow and motioned for him to follow into a nearby alley. Oraekja lingered, casting a longing eye towards the centre of the circle. When he followed at last he was smirking. ‘At least there’s Norse in someone in this rotten sty,’ he said. Behind them, sounds of something breaking were followed by a muffled scream and someone vomiting.
Ragnar shut him up with a glare.
‘I am going to say this once and only once. I couldn’t care a yak’s arse about whether you live or die, but the job needs to get done. Keep your neck covered at all times, stay close to me and come when I tell you to. We go in, we do what we need to, when we’re done we go back to where we landed and wait for Skargrim. Stay out of the forest and watch out for the raiders in this town. Despite being born this far south, Sigurd’s men know their work. That’s three of them in the circle, and unless you want to end up like that poor sod in the middle I suggest you keep your wits about you.’
‘If they’re so proper then how come we’re inside their town?’ Oraekja said.
‘We’re here because we’ve used our heads. We’re not storming anything nor showing off our allegiance. We look like skinners, not like an invading army. That’s why we can walk through the front door. Did you look up when you went through the gateway?’
The young man gave him a blank look and shrugged.
Ragnar sneered. ‘From now on you note your surroundings, or I’ll be all too happy to leave you to Sigurd’s dogs.’
‘If they get me they’ll get you too,’ Oraekja shot back.
Ragnar felt a faint itch in the palm of his right hand. It would be so good to scratch that itch with a hilt, with the hilt of a knife, whose point he would happily bury in the little rat’s eyeball. But he couldn’t rightly do that now. It would create attention that he could do without. Instead he looked straight at Oraekja and smiled his meanest.
‘No they won’t.’
After a spell the little bastard looked away.
‘Now come on. We have things to do.’
*
‘Help! Please help!’
Valgard rolled his eyes. There really was no rest to be had. ‘Wait.’ He rose slowly and deliberately from his pallet, feeling every single pinched nerve in his back, every thread of muscle in his aching legs. He shuffled to the doorway and stuck his head outside.
‘What do you want?’
Two anguished and awkward men stood by the doorway, fidgeting nervously. While the fatter one caught his breath, his red-faced friend spoke up.
‘It’s our kinsman—’
‘He’s hurt—’
‘In the market in the middle—’
‘Got in a fight—’
‘We heard some seaman said he’d looked at his wife—’
‘Big man, reddish beard?’ Valgard interrupted.
‘Yes.’
He sighed and shut his eyes wearily. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll come as fast as I can. Run to the market and try to make sure your kin survives.’
The men took off south, towards the market square. Valgard watched the two ungainly farmers shuffle away and smiled to himself. Harald had a remarkable talent for causing trouble and pain. He ducked inside and quickly readied his emergency equipment. While his hands worked, his mind assembled the board and moved the pieces. He tried some combinations in his head and then a new possibility presented itself. Unexpected elements suddenly fell into place.
Valgard chuckled as he headed out of the hut and towards the market. There were some interesting moves to be made.
The intricacies of the game occupied his mind all the way to the market square, but when he saw Harald’s handiwork he had to push it out of his head.
It was hard to know where to begin.
At some point the pig farmer had vomited and soiled himself. Now he lay on the flat stones in a puddle of his own blood, bile and shit, shaking and crying, a shell of a man.
His nose was broken and blood trickled from his mouth. Three broken teeth lay on the ground. He was curled up in a ball, coughing and clutching his side. His left hand was grotesquely swollen, and Valgard casually guessed that Harald had stomped on it a couple of times. There were bound to be some broken bones in there.
He knelt down and inspected the miserable wreck.
‘Looks like you finally got the beating you were asking for,’ Valgard muttered to himself. Then he turned to the pig farmer. ‘You’ve had a bit of a rough day, haven’t you?’ The farmer just whimpered. ‘Right. This is going to hurt.’ With a firm hand Valgard started pressing on joints and bones, creating a road map of injuries, drawing lines by the volume of the patient’s screams.
Three broken ribs. One badly sprained wrist. Possible bleeding inside. Four teeth gone, as it turned out. Bruises from kicking, face would be colourful for a week. One knee twisted. Possible fracture of the shin. It was not good, but he’d seen worse. The man would live.
Valgard quickly searched his bag, bringing up bandages and a small leather bottle. Beside him lay what looked like two rods bundled together.
‘Straighten him out.’
The victim’s two nervous friends started gingerly moving their kinsman.
He screamed.
Valgard sighed. This was always the least pleasant part of the process. Bundling up a chunk of cloth, he stuffed it in the farmer’s mouth.
‘How will that make him better?’ one of his newly recruited helpers asked, straining to keep the farmer still.
‘It will shut him up, which will prevent me from getting distracted and killing him.’ The man looked shocked. Valgard smiled sweetly and added: ‘… by accident.’ Working quickly, he produced another cloth from his bag. He doused the cloth in liquid from a small bottle and held it over the farmer’s broken, bloodied nose. As the man’s eyes flew open and he started to struggle, Valgard looked straight at him. ‘You will not die. You will not suffocate. You will simply sleep.’ At that moment the pig farmer’s eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out.
Valgard reached for the bundle and unravelled it. A length of cloth joined the two sticks together, forming a stretcher.
‘You two – lift him onto this then grab an end each. Gently. And follow me.’
The two hapless farmers scrambled and strained to lift the big man quickly enough to follow Valgard, who was already heading back home.
*
Oraekja threaded the walkways of Stenvik, trailing Ragnar and staring at his back. No they won’t. No they won’t. Who did the old man think he was? It didn
’t matter that nobody had heard. It was a question of honour, and right now it took all of Oraekja’s strength to ignore what Ragnar had said. How he’d said it. That dusty old relic had dared to put him in his place, speak to him and treat him like a puppy. Like a boy. It was almost too much to bear. The only thing that made it better was the memory of her.
He turned warm inside just thinking of it.
She’d called him to her that night. Just him. He’d been scared stiff but she’d whispered in his ear. Told him why Stenvik needed to be razed to send a signal to those without faith and to rob this so-called king of a winter base to slow his advance. She’d even told him who she really was. Told him she could see the future, that she could see that he would be crucial to the will of the gods. Told him how Loki had come to her, told her what to do, how to do it. She’d even leaned in closer and told him he was really important to her. He still remembered the hairs rising on the back of his hands, his whole body vibrating with longing. He’d been rock-hard, too. He shook his head and grinned.
Not as if he hadn’t known from the start. She wanted him. Sometimes he just knew with women, even more than they did. She might not admit it – not in front of the men, especially not Skargrim – but she did. That had to be why she’d given him the special instructions. He didn’t understand why, but he sure as hell didn’t mind. He would do what she said, for she was Skuld, sister of Urd and Verdandi, one of the three witches of fate, the Thread Cutters. And she loved him.
Oraekja watched Ragnar’s back and smiled.
EAST NORWAY
As midday faded into afternoon and the shadows grew longer, Finn turned in the saddle and looked back.
Outriders on fast horses. Others carrying long spears and pikes. Shields of a variety of sizes. Jerkins of every colour. The column seemed to snake on for ever, over fields and through forests. Finn knew his eyes were playing tricks on him, but he also knew how quickly their army had swollen. In the last two months their numbers had grown by nearly a thousand men. The hunters kept griping to him about how nothing was enough, how they couldn’t keep up with the ever-growing demand. He saw the fights break out because of too many men shoulder to shoulder in too little space.
He had to say something.
Riding beside the King at an easy walk, he cleared his throat nervously.
‘What?’ King Olav shot Finn a sharp look that made him stutter.
‘The – the men, my lord. There’s too many of them.’
Finn blinked. King Olav watched him impassively.
‘They … they come from different places. And not all of them believe in the White Christ, my lord.’ Finn did a rapid sign of the cross, looked down and folded his hands, as he had seen Olav do. When he looked up again, something in the face of the King had changed. There was a touch of curiosity there.
‘Continue.’
It all came out. ‘They are not happy, my lord. I have heard them whisper amongst themselves. They say they do not know why we are going around bullying farmers, my lord. Some of them miss their families. They do not understand why we are fighting the people who believe in the old gods. There may be more like those four we saw yesterday. I think they might run away or try to take you on, my lord.’
Out of breath, Finn waited for a response, but there was none forthcoming from the King. Instead the young man seemed lost in thought.
Their horses walked on, setting the pace for the men marching behind them.
Heading west.
STENVIK
Harald held a big calloused hand up in front of his face. ‘There are lines on my fingers. I’ve never seen them before.’ He furrowed his brow in concentration. ‘It’s hard to count when you’re lying on your back.’ He blinked, mumbled a curse, licked his lips and started again.
‘I can’t feel my mouth.’ An idiot grin spread on his face. ‘That shitty little pig farmer wasn’t much of a man after all. He shat in his stinking farmer pants.’ He giggled to himself, but then frowned again and looked at his hand. ‘It hurts.’ The knuckles were swollen and smeared with blood.
A small bottle stood on the ground next to his bed. A tiny drop of thick black liquid was making its way slowly down to the ground.
‘Trying to … ‘scape?’ he slurred. ‘Tryin’ to ‘scape, you li’l bitch?’ He reached for the bottle, grasped it and brought it to his mouth. With slow, deliberate movements he licked the drop off.
‘Can’t ‘scape me,’ he rumbled contentedly. ‘No one can.’ He fumbled for the cork, but couldn’t find it. This seemed to annoy him. ‘Cork. Cork,’ he muttered. He tried to prop himself up on an elbow, but lost his balance and fell back onto the bed. ‘Hm. Too much. Had too much. Sleepy.’
He slowly lowered the bottle back down to the floor. His eyes closed within moments and soon he was breathing regularly.
Watching him, she could taste her own fear.
When he’d come home covered in blood she thought he’d either been wounded or had killed someone. He’d grabbed her roughly by the hair, twisted her round and taken her then, pushed her to the ground and driven her legs apart with his weight. Fumbling, grunting and wheezing. She’d gone away in her mind as she always did, but now she felt sore. Raw. Her skin crawled at the sight of him lying there. A mop of reddish hair, greying at the temples. Ruddy, bearded jowls with a net of burst veins, a thick neck and massive shoulders. His eyes were closed, so she allowed the revulsion to show on her face. She would never dare do that when he was awake. He could so easily paralyse her with just a look, a promise, a single word whispered with a smile. Where Harald was, pain was never far away.
There was so much she’d forgotten since she became his, but she remembered the pain. The first weeks. When she’d cried and screamed. He’d enjoyed that. He’d enjoyed gagging her, watching her thrash about, watching her blue-grey eyes scream at him, seeing her cry and hate herself for crying. He’d relished breaking her, reducing her to this. A spark in a shell. A spirit trapped in a woman made of stone.
And the stone woman did his bidding, out of fear. Fear of the pain. She kept his house; she tried her best to give him sons. She didn’t let him see her cry. Not that he’d care. Not that he wouldn’t occasionally make her do it for his own enjoyment. The stone woman watched him go to sea; the stone woman stood on the pier and waited for him to come back.
She hated the stone woman with all her heart.
But right now, the stone woman was her prison. She was forced to sit beside him, wait until he woke up, do as he wanted.
Her thoughts went unbidden to the man with the green eyes. Man? Boy. Man–boy. She smiled inside. A current of thrill or fear ran through her, crackling with his words.
He’d called her a gem. Her, a gem in Stenvik.
Wasn’t that true, though?
Didn’t the tiniest, shiniest jewels come from the stone?
Lilia stood up, turned away from Harald and allowed her mouth to form the word.
Ulfar.
The wolf in man’s clothing.
Her spirit flew inside her stony cage and for a breath-taking moment she was alive again. She felt her skin. She tasted the air. She felt like sparkling, shining and twirling. Everything seemed new. The wooden walls, the gilt decorations, the tapestries. She turned to take it all in and met Harald’s eyes.
Harald’s open eyes, looking at her from the bed.
Cold.
Calculating.
‘What are you so happy about, then?’
AT SEA BETWEEN MOSTER AND STENVIK
Skargrim brushed the salt spray from his face and admired the view from the prow of the Njordur’s Mercy. In the distance, Wyrmsey rose out of the mist. The big cliff on the south end could have been a head; the long, curving beach to the north might have been a tail. The locals didn’t like it because it looked like the Wyrm rising.
Let the stupid old sailors cling to whatever stories they want, Skargrim thought. He believed in the old tales as much as the next man, but in this case he knew. This was no mo
nster, merely a rock – and Wyrmsey had what he needed. A fearsome reputation, distance from prying eyes, and a sheltered beach with room for ships.
Many ships.
He felt a feather-light touch on his arm and a tingling sensation in his body. She was behind him.
He turned.
As always when he spoke to her he was convinced that there was no one else in the world, just the two of them.
She smiled demurely at him.
‘You’ve done well, Skargrim. We will camp here and wait. When will they come?’
‘Soon,’ he muttered.
‘And have you sent the message I asked you to send?’ she asked, still smiling.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes I have. The men will be in place when they need to be, waiting for the signal.’
She nodded. ‘Loki will be pleased. We will do his work, and he will reward us. He will reward us well.’ Her smile stayed with him as she turned away and walked back to her lodgings at the stern.
Skargrim shook his head to clear the fog. Behind him, another eleven ships sailed towards the beaches of Wyrmsey.
STENVIK
The calfskin map traced a rough outline of the coast.
Sigurd’s knife pointed at Moster. ‘This is where Friar Johann’s church is.’
‘Was,’ corrected Thorvald.
‘… was.’ Sigurd amended, a hint of a grin playing on his face. ‘Can’t help it – brings back memories.’
‘Those were different days, were they not?’
‘They were. They were indeed. There were many good men who went over to stay. Many others went up to Valhalla when the Saxons fought back. That’s why it seems strange to me that he’s supposedly on the move. I thought he’d seen enough of it.’
‘Apparently not,’ Thorvald mused. ‘But we don’t know. So. Stenvik, Moster. If it really is him, he would be coming from Oppland’ – Thorvald marked out a spot to the far north – ‘and going … ?’
‘That is the question I’d like to pose to Mimir’s head if I could.’
‘So where do I send them?’
The Valhalla Saga 01 - Swords of Good Men Page 6