‘Hasn’t been much time,’ Ulfar said.
‘There hasn’t,’ Audun said.
‘I died in Uppsala,’ Ulfar said.
Audun was quiet for a while, then, to the backdrop of camp noise and the steady scraping of steel on iron. ‘So that’s it, then,’ he said eventually. ‘Both of us.’
‘Seems to be,’ Ulfar said. The truth hung in the air between them.
‘Saw you when the old guys said they’d been dug up,’ Audun said. ‘Did you meet . . . him?’
‘I think I did, yes.’
‘Me too. He called himself Fjolnir—’
‘—Gestumblindi—’
‘—and he gave me a gift. A belt.’
This time Ulfar fell quiet.
Audun looked up from the knife’s edge. ‘You too?’
Ulfar nodded.
‘What was it?’
‘He saved my life. Scared off Karle in the forest.’
‘Hm. What does he want?’
‘I think I know, but I’m not talking about that here,’ Ulfar said quietly.
‘What are you two lovers whispering about?’ Thormund said from the darkness. Moments later his face appeared across the fire.
‘How Audun’s leaving me for you and your lovely beard,’ Ulfar said.
The old horse thief chortled and shuffled around the fire until he stood next to them. ‘You’re funny, Swede.’
‘Ulfar,’ Ulfar said. ‘And thank you.’
Thormund looked the tall young man up and down in the firelight. ‘Was it a woman?’
Audun suppressed a smile and continued sharpening the blades.
‘What do you mean?’ Ulfar said.
‘You pissed off their archer, what’s his name . . . ?’
‘Karle,’ Ulfar said.
‘Yeah, him. You got on his wrong side: if he could kill you with a look your limbs would be in seven countries by now. Was it a woman?’
‘You could say that. I caught him with a young girl – he was about to take what he wanted, and she didn’t want him to. We had a discussion.’
‘Broke his arm,’ Audun said.
Thormund’s expression softened somewhat. ‘Knew we’d get along,’ he murmured. ‘Suspect you might want to tread lightly in this camp, though. Heard some mutterings.’
Ulfar looked around, at the lean-tos and tents in the dark, at the heart of the black shadows in between.
‘Oh, they won’t come here. They don’t care for us much on account of us going with Forkbeard, but they’re staying five steps south of the Stenvik boys. They have a reputation,’ the old horse thief added.
‘Do they?’ Ulfar said.
‘Sure do,’ Thormund said. ‘Sigurd Aegisson? Sven? Oh, youth. You really do not know who you’re running with?’
‘Assume that we don’t,’ Ulfar said.
Beside him, Audun’s sharpening iron moved a lot slower.
‘As young men they would raid up and down the coast of Anglia. Aegir, Sigurd’s father, was a hard bastard and no lie. He was involved in the wars of the kings, about seventy summers ago, maybe. He taught the boys, Sigurd and Sven, everything there was to know about sailing a boat. They went south, as far south as anyone’s been, right down to the kingdom of the Turk. For the first forty years of their lives they must have spent four days at sea for every one on land. Their reputation grew steadily, until mothers in coastal towns everywhere within reach were sending kids to sleep saying Sigurd Sea-Wolf would get them if they weren’t good.’ Thormund’s eyes sparkled in the firelight. ‘When they came back, a great war was afoot – they’d started collecting the Danegeld, and there was room for hard men to get very rich indeed. So they signed on to sail with a terrifying crew.’ The old horse thief looked into the middle distance, as if he could spot the sail on the horizon. ‘One ship – just one ship – but every single one of those bastards was worth ten, fifteen normal men. It was a proper drake, too. It was called Njordur’s Mercy. Their captain was the hardest of them all, a big bull of a man. Legend had it he was from the Far North and his mother was a Finn-witch. When she saw the child, she carved a scar on his neck.’
‘Why?’ Audun said.
The old man cleared his throat. ‘There was a rhyme . . . I can’t remember it now, but it said that since he’d been carved by someone who loved him, he couldn’t be harmed by the ones who hated him. It wasn’t true – he got hurt plenty – but he believed it at first, and once he grew up to be big and strong he realised that other people believed it too and it became the mark of his trade. So when the time came, he carved a scar in his son’s neck, and another in his own. He was the captain, and he was called—’
‘—Skargrim,’ Ulfar said.
‘And from the very first day, our boatsman was called Thormund,’ a voice said in the darkness, and Sigurd emerged from the shadows. ‘Well, not back then. We called him Cutter, because whenever there was fighting to be done he’d disappear. Then we’d do the counting and quite a lot of throats would have just got . . . cut. Sometimes, if the men had been a bit hard on the women in the place, they’d be our own.’
‘I – I—’ the old horse thief stammered.
‘Let me guess. You were going to slink away just as soon as you’d said goodbye to the boys?’ Sigurd said. ‘Some things never change, do they?’
Thormund’s shoulders slumped. ‘No. They don’t.’
‘But you said you hated boats,’ Audun said.
‘Didn’t always,’ Thormund said.
Sigurd came closer, a half-smile on his lips. ‘Good to see you, old friend. I thought I recognised you, but it’s been a while.’
‘Thirty years.’
‘I know the dark is calling you, and if I know you at all, I don’t think anything about this little party of ours is to your liking. But I am afraid there may not be any running away from this one.’
Suddenly, Ulfar felt the chill in the air. ‘Why not?’
‘Jolawer has agreed. We’re going to find Forkbeard. Apparently King Olav is gathering chieftains in the north, so we’re going up there to kick him in the teeth.’
None of the men spoke. Behind them, snowflakes drifted to the ground and hissed as they hit the flames.
*
In the king’s tent, Alfgeir Bjorne watched Jolawer Scot. The young king sat silently, just staring into the mug he held in both hands.
‘I still don’t understand why we need to have these old farts along with us,’ Karle said. ‘They’re nothing but trouble. And they have no respect. They just like to talk shit and pull faces and they won’t be able to back it up. I mean, half of their little army is Forkbeard’s, for fuck’s sake! What’s to stop them from turning on us when we meet Forkbeard himself, hm? What’s to stop them from squeezing us between them and him, falling on our backs? They get paid for getting you, Forkbeard is King of Sweden and the Dane-lands. Forkbeard wins. You die.’
‘Shut up, Karle,’ the young king said calmly, not taking his eyes off the mug. Alfgeir Bjorne had to swallow a laugh as Karle turned beetroot-red. The king didn’t notice. ‘Tomorrow you’re going to organise our camp. We need to be like they are.’
‘What?’ Karle sputtered. ‘What are you on about?’
Jolawer turned to face his cousin. ‘There are two camps here,’ he said, his voice calm and strong. ‘One is set by men of war. It is put together by men who are used to travelling, men who are ready to go at a moment’s notice. It is set with minimum effort, blades within reach, and you can bet—’ The king stopped, looked around again, then continued, ‘I’ll bet everything will be packed and ready to go at sun-up. The other camp – the other is a hodgepodge of tents, thrown up by farmers, followers and old men in rusted mail, grouped by allegiances and families, spread out over half again the space they really need. In an attack, it would crumble. Men would run out of their tents
and into each other. It says, loud and clear, that whoever runs it is not ready for a stern exchange of words, let alone a war.’
Stunned, Karle could do nothing but stare at King Jolawer Scot.
Unmoved, the king took a long sip of mead. ‘Now, which one is ours?’
Karle swallowed. ‘I think—’
‘Which one is ours?’
‘You can’t compare—’
‘I can, and I will. Next to Sigurd we look like children with sticks, Karle. And I don’t want to sit down opposite Forkbeard with a crowd of children at my back. Tomorrow, start making soldiers for me.’ He looked up and his eyes found the hulking figure of Alfgeir Bjorne. ‘You will help.’ Then he turned and kept his gaze steady on Karle. ‘And you will not tell me again what I can and cannot do. Understood?’
Karle stared at the king. ‘. . . Understood,’ he mumbled. ‘I will go to rest now, then.’
‘You do that,’ King Jolawer Scot said.
When the white cloak had swished out of view, Jolawer turned to Alfgeir again. ‘Was that . . . too much?’
‘Not at all, your Majesty,’ the old soldier rumbled, trying and failing to hide the grin on his face. ‘Not at all.’
*
‘This is not daylight,’ Audun grumbled, massaging a sore back. ‘This is just slightly less dark.’
Ulfar mumbled something unintelligible at him. Sigurd and Sven had been very insistent on the men being up before the crack of dawn, and Oskarl had gone one further and had some very calm but uncomfortable suggestions involving blades and armpits for those who felt they should be allowed to rise when they wanted to.
Around them the men of Stenvik worked quickly and quietly, folding up tents and shelters, packing up the camp. Audun thought of a pack of wolves as he watched Forkbeard’s newcomers fall into the rhythm without needing any instructions. Nobody howled, but there was an unspoken understanding that if you stepped out, you’d get bitten.
Sven moved up to their station. ‘Well done, boys,’ he said. ‘You’re on track.’
Ulfar leaned over to the old man. ‘Why are we doing this?’ he muttered. ‘None of the others are up.’
‘Which is exactly why we’re doing it,’ Thormund said from two tents over. ‘We want the young king and all of his men to see us, sitting and waiting for them. Makes us look serious, and if they’ve got any sense or shame they’ll tighten up some.’
Sven grinned. ‘See? The old boy still knows his stuff.’
‘So we gather,’ Ulfar said.
‘Step to it,’ Sven said. On some invisible signal he turned and shouted ‘Ready!’ across their camp, and soon Oskarl shouted back from the far end.
‘Go!’ Sigurd bellowed from the centre and in a sudden flurry of activity tents and shelters simply melted away as they shrank into their component parts.
Audun had to elbow Ulfar, who was gazing at the spectacle. ‘Move,’ he hissed.
Ulfar shook his head a couple of times, then kneeled down to help Audun bundle the sticks into the sheet and wrap it up tight. ‘That’s as sharp as anything I’ve seen,’ he said as they worked.
‘I only knew them from Stenvik,’ Audun said. ‘It’s like I only saw a very small part of what they were.’
‘You’re not wrong there,’ Thormund chimed in as he tossed his tent-pack, neatly trussed up, on the ground. ‘Ready to go?’
Audun gritted his teeth and forced his cold hands to work faster. There! He yanked the string and the knot slid into place. ‘Yes.’
‘Well, then you’d better be ready to sit and wait for a while. To be fair, though, Sigurd’s got what he wanted.’
The old horse thief glanced over at Jolawer Scot’s camp. Farmers, pot boys and soldiers alike were working hard to escape the attentions of Alfgeir Bjorne, who waded through the disorganised groups of tents cursing and shouting at anything that moved and shouting more at anything that didn’t. A flurry of activity followed in his path. ‘And look,’ Thormund added, ‘there’s your friend.’
Karle stood at the edge of the camp, glowering and pointing, yelling commands.
‘Looks like someone didn’t get all the sleep they wanted,’ Ulfar said. ‘Thank you. I feel better now.’
Soon a column of tired and grumpy men was marching through new-fallen snow. Audun cleared his mind. Left, right. Left, right. Marching was all right, once you fell into the rhythm – you could let your legs walk and your mind wander.
‘Listen,’ Ulfar said, coming up beside him, ‘tonight, we’ll go somewhere quiet and have a talk about . . .’
‘. . . our friend,’ Audun replied.
‘Yes,’ Ulfar said.
Audun nodded. ‘Anything else you want to tell me?’
Ulfar frowned. ‘Not really. Why?’
‘Because those two’ – he glanced towards the middle of the column – ‘have been turning around from time to time and staring straight at you.’
Ulfar scanned the line. When he found the people Audun had mentioned, he let loose a string of curses under his breath. When he’d composed himself he said, ‘I might need you to watch my back when we camp.’
Audun shrugged. ‘If I must,’ he said with a hint of a grin.
They marched on.
*
The world was nothing but white, grey and black. The treeline to the left of the marching column towered over them like a fortress wall, and giant wolf-shaped clouds chased across the grey sky. To the right the trees were starting to thicken, forming a corridor of white between the shadowy pines.
‘Who are they?’ Audun glanced at the couple over Ulfar’s shoulder as they walked.
‘He is Ivar, and her name is Greta,’ Ulfar said wearily. ‘They are brother and sister. He stabbed me in the leg in Uppsala. I am pretty sure Karle put them up to it. Shortly after that I was poisoned.’
‘What did you do to her?’ Audun asked.
Ulfar threw his hands in the air. ‘Why is it always sure to be my fault? Why is everyone so certain that I—?’ He caught sight of Audun’s face. ‘Fine. I promised her I’d wed her, shagged her and left.’
‘I see. No wonder the brother is upset.’
‘A bit too upset, if you ask me,’ Ulfar mumbled.
Snow drifted gently down, melting on their faces and settling on their shoulders. They marched in silence for a while, settling into a rhythm that cost as little energy as possible.
‘Hey!’
Ulfar was jarred out of his walking half-dream by running into the man in front of him, who had stopped. Behind, the line was slowly doing the same.
‘Listen up!’ Alfgeir Bjorne’s voice rang out. ‘Men of the Dales! Northlanders! To me!’
Beside him, Karle shouted. ‘Southern boys! Lakefolk! To me!’ The two men then strode in opposite directions.
The men of Stenvik waited to be told where to go, but no instructions came. Instead, as Jolawer Scot’s men drifted to either side, grumbling under their breaths, a thin line of cold and tired warriors was left in the middle.
‘Now what?’ Audun mumbled.
‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this,’ Thormund mumbled.
‘I’m beginning to think you have a bad feeling about everything,’ Ulfar said.
‘And what of it?’ Thormund said. ‘I am old and alive, which is rare. Shut up.’
Up ahead, Sven barked out orders. ‘Right, boys: we’re going for a little meeting. We’re going up front with the king, as we figure if we show ’im the ugliest bastards first he’ll laugh so hard it might soften him some.’
‘Who the hell are we meeting?’ Mouthpiece whispered behind them.
Ulfar frowned, then caught Thormund’s eye.
‘Told you,’ the old man mouthed. Beside them, Alfgeir and Karle led their groups to the sides, off the road and into the woods.
‘Square UP!’ Oskarl s
houted up ahead.
*
The line spread all the way across the road and ran at least ten deep. Men clad in furs over chain mail and leather armour; lines of spears, lines of shields.
‘Old boy’s looking good,’ Sven said.
‘He always did,’ Sigurd said. ‘Took great care to make sure. Win the battle first—’
‘—then fight it,’ Sven added.
Jolawer Scot stood between them, staring at Sweyn Forkbeard’s army. ‘That’s at least, what . . . ?’
‘Fifteen hundred, I’d guess,’ Sven said.
Sigurd nodded beside him.
‘So what do we do now?’ Jolawer Scot said.
‘We do to him exactly what we did to you, and hope our surprise works,’ Sven said. ‘I’ll make sure the men behind us line up right.
At that, a hint of a smile crept up on the king’s face.
‘Let’s go.’
*
The men of Stenvik moved into formation, making a square behind Jolawer, Sigurd and Sven. In the middle, standing half a head taller than most, Oskarl shouted orders and encouragements.
‘Notice how his limp is gone?’ Audun said.
‘I think he’s just having too much fun,’ Thormund said. ‘He’s genuinely happy, I think. Like a dog with a purpose. Lob him a chunk of meat once a day and that one would follow Sigurd into Hel.’
‘I fear that we might have to test that,’ Audun said.
‘Heads up,’ Mouthpiece hissed next to them.
At the front, Sven was signalling for halt. The square stopped and hands tightened around pommels and spears.
Up ahead stood an unmoving wall of Danes and death.
‘We seek an audience with Sweyn Forkbeard!’ Sigurd shouted out.
No response.
‘Forkbeard! Come out!’ Sven shouted.
Still no response.
King Jolawer Scot stepped forward. One step, then three, then five – until he was standing well ahead of the square. He spoke softly, but his words carried on the wind. ‘King Jolawer Scot, Lord of the Svear, ruler of Uppsala and all of its lands, seeks parley with King Sweyn Forkbeard, Scourge of the Seas and ruler of Denmark.’
Then he simply stood and waited.
The Valhalla Saga Page 62