Varanger

by Cecelia Holland

  Rashid put his piece of charcoal down, and held his hands over the brazier. “When I get back to Baghdad I will transcribe it into a book, annotate it, and put it in the House of Wisdom.”

  “Aren’t there already many books there? You said all the wisdom of the world was already there.”

  “Yes, the knowledge and measure of the center of the world. But of these borderlands, like Novgorod, and Hedeby, and the farther islands, we know little. In time to come, we will bring Allah into all these places. And by my study and writing, we will know more about them, and be better prepared.”

  Raef grunted. Suddenly he saw a different aspect to Rashid’s work here. The urge came on him to take the birch bark and cast it into the brazier.

  Perhaps Rashid sensed this. In any case he gathered up his sheets, stacking them, and slid them away inside the pouch at his side. He said, “Someday all men will submit to Allah, my young friend. Even you and yours. Toward that glorious day we all labor, even you, somehow, in your blind way are part of Allah’s plan to bring the whole world under His will and His law and His justice.”

  “Most other people already have gods. What if they’re happy with them?”

  “There is no god but Allah.” Rashid rubbed his hands together in the warmth of the brazier. He spoke as if to a child, his voice crisp with certainty, allowing no doubt. “Yet in His Mercy, which is beyond our comprehension, Allah the Compassionate, the All- Knowing, has ordained that there be no compulsion in religion. All must come to Him of their own will.”

  He gave a grave nod of his head, his eyes wide, the pure truth, the undeniable rightness of this idea shining in his face. He said, “There are evil people, of course, who willfully deny him, and they shall be killed. Or made slaves. We have a tax for people of the book, so-called, those people who have come part of the way along the path—the Jews and Christians—but who refuse to yield entirely to Allah. We’ve found this tax convincing to many. Also it is not permitted that any Muslim should own any other Muslim, because we are all equal in the eyes of Allah, and so many facing slavery see the truth by that means.”

  Raef could see a variety of problems with this. He felt the wicked urge to go angling for Rashid’s temper. He said, “Oh. But you do have slaves in Baghdad.”

  The older man shrugged, his face drawn long in a deep judicious calm. He was still teaching. He did not see yet that the game had changed. “Of course—there is no great enterprise of men without slaves.”

  “Then the whole world can never submit to Allah,” Raef said. “Or else you would have no slaves. That excludes a good part of the world. And you said something about others—evil people. So the world will never be entirely under Allah.”

  Rashid’s eyes narrowed. Now he saw the bait. Raef waited, patient, like a good fisherman, the fish circling below the wiggling fly. Corban had shown him this as a boy, how to turn his wrist just a little, to twitch the fly, and fascinate the fish.

  “There are always the ignorant and the savage, who cannot see truth even when it stands before them,” Rashid said, biting the words off. “And some men are made only for laboring in the cause of others. You must see that. Allah orders the world, we all submit to His will according to our fate. None of us can know our fate, which is in the Mind of Allah.”

  Raef said, “My mother was a slave. She never submitted to that.” He thought of her, wherever she was, whatever she had become. A bright blazing star. “She made her own fate. She was greater than any man.”

  Rashid looked down his long hooked nose at him, which meant cocking his head back, since Raef was taller than he was. “This is a sign of your delusion. Women are of no consequence, save as vessels.”

  “Men are of no consequence, without women, because without women, there would be no more men. Now you’ve excluded, oh, half the world from your Islam. At least.”

  “You think crookedly and narrowly, as befits your ignorant and savage condition.”

  “You don’t seem to me to think at all, but only to recite something.”

  At that, Rashid snapped, and like a fish caught on a hook, he leapt violently upward. “Recite! Recite! You don’t know what you’re saying! God, what a fool!” Clutching his pouch he stormed off across the courtyard, shouting in his own language.

  Raef laughed, satisfied. He wasn’t entirely sure which of his hooks had set but he knew he had buried something barbed in Rashid. Off by the gatehouse, he heard another little burst of laughter, and looked up. Pavo stood there, just inside the gate, watching. He had been listening. He looked Raef in the face and made a gesture with his thumb, approving. Raef laughed again, and got up and went back out to the city.

  Alla went out to the coldhouse, to bring in some cheese, and Conn cornered her there, just inside the door.

  She rounded on him, not afraid, frowning. “Stop following me,” she said. She held the big slab of the cheese in her hands, wrapped in its cloth like an infant.

  “I love you,” he said. “I can’t stay away from you.”

  “Well, you have to.” She pushed at the door, but he held it, so that she couldn’t get out.

  “Tell me you don’t want me,” he said. “I’ve seen you look at me.”

  The girl’s beautiful blue eyes were fixed on his. She gave a choked laugh. “What I want! What has that to do with anything? I am Thorfinn’s slave. I belong to Thorfinn. He takes care of me, because I obey him—”

  “You go to his bed.”

  “Whenever he calls me,” she said, staring at him. “Which is often.”

  “For an old man.”

  “For any man. And as long as I do he will care for me better than otherwise. And if I have his child the child will be free, as long as he can be sure it’s his. So leave me alone.”

  He saw in this a strange sense, that went crosswise of his purpose, and reluctantly, he stepped back, and she darted past him with the cheese. He pushed the door shut again and stood there with his hand on the plank. He liked the way she had faced him, unafraid, but he hated what she had said.

  A sound alerted him; he looked around, and saw Einar standing there, at the edge of the horse pens. He stooped, gathering the nearest ice for a snowball, and Einar sprinted away.

  He and Leif the fat Icelander went down onto the river, and slid stones, trying to knock each other’s stones farther and farther down the river. After they had moved the stones halfway down past the city Conn looked over at the bank and saw Pavo there, sitting on his horse, beside the ships drawn up on their blocks, and a little way down, Helgi, watching. He had learned how to give the stone a good smooth shove, the little push of the wrist as he let go spinning it to keep its course true, and he sent the next stone clipping down the ice of the river like a skimming bird.

  The ice between him and the target stone was clear and smooth. His shot struck Leif’s stone and knocked it off sideways, across some bumpy ice that launched it in quick jerks toward the far bank. Near the center of the river it fell into a patch of rotten ice and disappeared with a brief splash of slush. Leif grunted.

  “Well, we can’t have that happen too often,” he said. “We’re low on stones as it is.” He nodded. “Here comes some of Magnus’s men.”

  Conn straightened. The man he still thought of as Big Nose, whose name he knew now was Olaf, and half a dozen others of Magnus’s crew were sauntering out onto the ice.

  Leif said, “Likely they just want to throw some insults at you. I don’t have any trouble with them.”

  He stooped, and whipped the stone away down the ice, running beside it to clear away obstacles and try with strange hand signals to coax it back on the path to the target. From the side, Big Nose Olaf bent down and got a rock and heaved it awkwardly out onto the river.

  It was a short throw, but he got his stone directly into Leif’s path, so he had to veer out of the way. Free of his influence the sliding stone curved off into some rough ice. Leif turned and yelled, “Olaf! You want to throw? Come join us!”

  Conn circle
d off to collect the stone; once or twice the ice heaved a little under his feet. The river was finally flowing, down there somewhere, a hidden vein of free water. He picked up Leif’s bad miss and walked toward the Icelander in the center of the river, watching for the crinkling in the ice that betrayed a soft surface.

  Magnus’s men were lined up opposite Leif, each with a fat stone or a chunk of ice in his hands. Conn said, “I thought you had no trouble with them.” He set himself to drive the next stone.

  Leif bellowed a warning, and he whirled around to see a slab of ice hurtling toward him from Big Nose, and he leapt into the air so the ice passed under his feet. He came down and glared over at Pavo, still there, on his horse, watching, making no move to stop this. Clearly Pavo’s interest ended at the river’s edge. On the bank Helgi was still not taking either side, but Vagn had leapt up and was running back into the city. Conn had a stone in his hand, and he let out a yell, and swinging around as hard as he could fired the stone at Big Nose Olaf.

  Bjorn the Christian stared down at the tabletop, at the dice, his face graven with lines. “Double,” he said.

  Raef shook his head. “Just throw. I don’t have much money, if you win it all at once, the game’s over.”

  “You have that little gold piece.”

  “I’m not betting that.”

  Bjorn shot him a hard, scowling look. Cupping his hands over the dice, he shook vigorously, his lips moving, and flung his hands apart, so the bones burst down onto the tabletop like falling stars. He won. He swore, and scooped the money off to his side. “Double.”

  “Get us another cup,” Raef said. He stretched his legs out, uncomfortable on the stump stool, thinking suddenly for no reason of Conn, who was probably mooning after Alla again. Bjorn leaned back. He was short, square, older than Raef by some years; he always rolled exactly the same way, shaking the dice the same number of times, whispering something into his hands.

  “What are you saying?” Raef asked. Bjorn had signaled for more wotka. “When you talk over the dice.”

  “I ask Jesus to help me,” Bjorn said, looking surprised. He touched the cross around his neck.

  “You believe Jesus, the savior of the world, is interested in making sure that you win at dice?”

  “Well,” Bjorn said, “you’re pagan. Of the two of us . . . but I see what you mean.” He scratched his cheek, almost smiling. “You’re not being smart, though. Something is going on, isn’t it, between the gods. Some big war, and not just Thor and Jesus. A man can try to get on the right side of that.” He nodded at Raef. “You aren’t as smart as you think you are, Raef.”

  He reached for the dice again and shook them twice, as he always did, before he stopped, and said, “Double, now, damn it!” Raef smiled at him. He tossed a farthing on the table. “Not now. Throw.”

  Bjorn threw, and won. “Double!” he said, pushing the farthing, and another two of his own coins, out into the center of the table. “Double, now! Put that gold piece out there and I’ll match it, damn you!”

  Raef gave a shrug, not meeting Bjorn’s eyes, not feeling all that good about this. “You need to put a lot more out there.” He fingered up the little gold coin and laid it down on the pile of money. He could not sit well on the stump, and he shifted around again, trying to get easy.

  Bjorn pushed out half of his winnings, cast the dice, and threw the dead man. Raef drank the last of the wotka, and took the dice also.

  Bjorn’s face was red. When Raef reached out to sweep the heap of money toward him, the other man said, “Double again, damn you.”

  “If you want,” Raef said. In his hand the dice felt warm, fat, like two sixes. Bjorn dumped the rest of his money onto the pile, leaning over it, whispering to it, calling in Jesus on a throw of dice. Raef tossed the dice; he did that always the same, also, but he just threw them down. The two sixes won.

  Bjorn sat back. “I don’t know how you do it.”

  “What?” Raef said, uneasy. He could see other people watching from around the room. “I don’t do anything. You won more times than I did, just then. You can roll every time, if you want. Here.” He picked out his gold piece, and pushed half of the rest of the money back at Bjorn. “Get us some more wotka.”

  The door flew open, and Vagn came hurtling in. “Your brother’s in trouble. Down on the river. Magnus’s men.”

  Raef got up, realizing he had known this, had been ignoring this for a while so he could read the dice, and started toward the door. Bjorn said, “I’m with him. Ulf? You coming?”

  “I’m here,” said a voice in the dark, and they all went up the steps and out at a run after Vagn, toward the river.

  Leif leaned his head around the end of the stump, and shouted, “Magnus, I had no trouble with you, you had no reason coming at me, but now we have trouble, I promise you!” He sat down with his back to the stump, panting. “There are eight of them now. They can take us in one charge.”

  Conn said, “No, they won’t. We can knock down half of them before they even touch us.” Under a steady barrage from more and more of Magnus’s crew, he and Leif had retreated behind this great stump, halfway frozen into the ice, which gave them plenty of cover. He had gathered up a lot of rocks. Nonetheless he knew that he had gotten Leif into this; although the Icelander so far hadn’t said so outright, Leif knew it too. “We can beat them. If we run out of rocks we can break up chunks of ice.”

  Leif’s eyes rolled. “I’ve got a better idea. You know that patch of rotten ice? It runs from just over there almost all the way back to the north beach. We run out around behind it, they’ll cut across to meet us, they’ll get caught in the bad ice. We’ll get away easy:’

  Conn was watching over the top of the stump, across the short stretch of rock-splattered river where Magnus’s men were having a little council. At the same time he was stacking up his rocks on a flat part of the stump, ready to hand. “Raef will get here pretty soon. Then we’ll have them between us.”

  “Making it much worse,” Leif said. “And getting Pavo into it. I like my idea a lot better.” His voice wheedled like a woman’s. “There’s always another way, boy. See? Safer.”

  “Run, then,” Conn said, getting angry. He didn’t like mention of Pavo.

  “I want you to run first,” Leif said. “You’re likely a lot faster than I am.” He heaved his belly over his belt as he spoke. “And they’ll waste a lot of their blows on you.”

  Conn faced him, knowing reluctantly that Leif was making sense, and also that Conn owed him something for getting him involved in the fight in the first place. And he was right: Pavo would move in if the fighting turned much worse, or lapped up onto the riverbank and into the city, and they would all get the whip.

  He said, “Here comes Raef, anyway.” Up past the brickstack of the forge, he could see tiny shapes of men running along the boardwalk.

  Magnus’s men had seen them, too. They turned toward him and charged across the stretch of rock-strewn ice between them.

  Conn reared up and hurled all the rocks in his stack, as fast as he could, into the faces of the men rushing at him. He guessed he hit nobody. With Magnus’s galloping herd halfway to him he wheeled and raced out of the shelter of the stump. He cut around a ledge of upthrust ice he thought marked the beginning of the rotten stuff, the slush above the deep now-moving gut of the river, and the surface seemed to bounce under his feet. Rocks skittered and pelted around him and one caromed painfully off his shin. He glanced back, and saw Leif pounding after him, head down, knees pumping, his fists going back and forth with each step.

  But Magnus’s men were doing as Leif had said, had turned their charge to cut him off, run out on the treacherous stretch at the center of the river, and now the leader stumbled into halfmelted ice up to his knees.

  He yelled, then staggered, trying to go back, and thrashing sank in up to his waist. The men behind him stopped in their tracks. The trapped man screamed for help. The rest of Magnus’s crew stretched cautiously out, gripping arm-to-a
rm, and finally one man lay down on top of the rotten ice to reach the one trapped. The rest, holding him by his feet, dragged them both away.

  Meanwhile Conn and Leif, at a dogtrot, circled the end of the bad patch and came up along the bank, where the ice was still solid. They climbed onto the beach, close by Pavo, who had been watching everything. Helgi was there also, and half a dozen of the townspeople.

  Raef had been standing somewhat down the beach, but he walked up to meet Conn. Bjorn the Christian ambled after him, and another of Marten’s crew named Ulf, or Rolf, or something. Vagn had disappeared.

  “I’m glad you got here,” Conn said. “You almost missed the whole fight.” He hung his arm over Raef’s shoulder.

  “You got out of it easily enough.” Raef was looking past him, at Pavo. “I’m glad you didn’t let it get any worse.”

  “That was Leif’s idea. Smart one, too, actually.” He turned toward Leif, his hand stretched out. “That worked.”

  Leif shook his hand. “You did a good job, boy. They’d have made hash out of me, except for you.” He turned and they all watched Magnus’s men hauling the half-drowned, half-frozen man away to a warm fire. Nobody wanted to fight any more, not even Conn.

  The sun was setting, anyway, and the night cold descending. The red sundown spread its harsh bloody glow steadily higher across the sky, until the whole great bowl above them looked on fire.

  “The red eagle,” somebody muttered, behind Conn. The light spread out like great wings overhead, and then as the sun set they seemed to fly away into the west. Bjorn the Christian was crossing himself, his lips moving. Conn almost laughed. All these people spent too much thought on trying to figure out what everything meant, when it likely meant nothing, just the spinning out of the world. The red sky meant no more than ‘that night was coming, and he was cold. He pulled Raef along, up toward the boardwalk. “Come on, let’s go get the fire going.” As if he had released them, they all went back into the city, to their hearths.