He raised the great horn high above his head, then took a reverent sip from it. He handed the horn to Radspakr first, who held it in turn as Sveinn dipped his hands into the mead and ran his wet fingers through his hair and forehead. The ritual performed, Radspakr raised the horn above his head, sipped and handed it to Freyja. She held it as he too dunked his hands and wet his almost bald head. The pageant continued along the high table accompanied by total silence from the floor, then Halvar walked with the horn down to the end of Punnr’s table and offered it to the first warrior.
It took fifteen minutes for the horn to travel up and down the full length of both tables. Punnr drank of the sweet mead and Leiv held the horn for him to sprinkle more mead through his hair. Later Brante wetted his shaven and polished head so that it gleamed, and later still on the far side, Calder drank with an intense seriousness and applied the mead to her golden locks, so that strands curled down over her eyes. Throughout it all the hall remained silent and disappointment welled in Punnr’s stomach again because the procession of drinkers gave him ample opportunity to observe each and every one, and proved to him that his sister, Morgan, wasn’t present.
The horn finally returned to Sveinn and he carried it regally down the centre of the hall to the fire, where he flung it onto the flames. A mighty cheer rolled around the room and it seemed it was a signal for the feasting to end. Warriors stood and began to weave among each other, bantering, laughing, bragging and playfully punching comrades.
Punnr wandered into the centre of the hall, shouldering his way through the crowd. Already the doors were being opened and warriors were beginning to head out into the night. He circled the groups, staring at faces. Of the two hundred or more fighters, he counted forty women, but none of them was the one he sought. He closed in on Sveinn, who was listening to a group of five Hammer Regiment Shieldmen. Then he saw Halvar and wheeled towards him.
But before he could, he found himself facing Radspakr. ‘Well, well and what does Thegn Punnr think of his first Valhalla feast?’
Punnr didn’t even bother to answer the question. ‘My lord, am I correct in understanding that every member of the Horde is present tonight?’
‘You are. Our city stronghold is empty save for Vigiles sentries. This is the gathering of the Palatinate.’
‘Is it possible that some aren’t here?’
‘No.’ Radspakr did not elaborate, but the simplicity of his answer was enough to convince Punnr that all were indeed present. He tried to consider his next words, but his brain was frazzled with alcohol.
‘I’m looking for someone who I thought was a warrior of the Horde, but I can’t find her here.’
Radspakr had been glancing beyond Punnr, already bored of the conversation, but now his eyes came back and they could have been the only two men in the hall, such was the intensity of his stare. ‘And why would you think you know the identity of any warrior of Valhalla before tonight?’
In sober daylight, perhaps Punnr would have stopped himself saying the next words. ‘She’s my sister. She joined the ranks of the Horde several years ago and now, as you can imagine, I’m desperate to see her.’
A weight descended on the older man, an immovable glacier that froze him. After an age he spoke in a flat voice. ‘You are very much mistaken, Punnr the Weakling. Firstly, no person from beyond the Pantheon has ever known the identity of any single Valhalla warrior. Secondly, the Pantheon enforces a strict rule that no family member of a Pantheon trooper is ever recruited. It runs contrary to every rule of selection. Family ties from the real world are never brought into the Pantheon.’
‘But this time there must have been an oversight.’
‘I’m not party to the decisions of the Pantheon Selection Committees. I don’t have a say in who is recruited. But I can assure you that the research and resources available to the Selection Committees is second to none and if you ever had a sister in the Pantheon – in any of the Palatinates – your name would not even have made it to the shortlist. So you are mistaken. I am sorry your search has proved fruitless. You are nevertheless now Oathsworn to Valhalla.’ He broke his gaze and looked down the hall. ‘I believe you have private quarters and a proper bed tonight. It is a rare privilege for our new Thegns after the Sine Missione and will never be offered again. So I suggest you go and enjoy it. You will feel better in the morning.’
He left him and Punnr realised the hall was already emptying. Only small groups of warriors still idled at the tables. Sveinn had gone. So too had Calder and Brante, probably up to the beds they had been honoured with. Punnr stumbled morosely to the inner door. He climbed the stairs and found his way to his room. True enough, there was now a great oak bed with white pillows and a thick white duvet, covered with a fur for extra warmth. He stalked over to it, looking down at the infinite softness. He could collapse into that and sleep until only the gods could wake him.
But even as his knees began to give way, he could hear the voices of the troops outside. He forced himself to stay upright and went over to the tiny window. Below him, stretching from the hall to the loch, an army settled itself around campfires. He took the fur from the bed and wrapped it around him, then padded back down the stairs and out into the night. He walked around the fires and at last spied Halvar, seated on a spread of furs with the men of his Wolf Kill Squads.
‘May I join you?’
Halvar contemplated him. ‘You have a warm bed in the castle tonight to mark your success in the Sine Missione, and instead you wish to sit here?’
The eyes of Wolf Company were upon Punnr. ‘Yes,’ he said simply.
Halvar ground his jaw and then his face broke into a craggy smile. ‘After the day you’ve had, you would honour me by joining our fire.’
In the keep, Radspakr settled into his office. His giant desk was surrounded by screens. Televisions showed an assortment of live pictures from some of the cameras on site – the few stragglers still in the hall, an aerial shot of the night fires outside, the stairs leading up to the sleeping quarters in the tower. Other screens flicked through live images of all the Horde’s underground strongholds beneath Edinburgh’s Old Town. The places were quiet for now, awaiting the return of the troops. Another screen was freeze-framed on edited highlights from footage taken during the Sine Missione. The computers in front of him gave him instant access to the Horde’s funds and resources, to the details of the manpower and to an inventory of weapons and clothing. He could look at the payments made into each warrior’s bank account and edit the records of those who were promoted, injured or slain.
He called up Punnr’s record and reminded himself of his background. Tyler Maitland, that was it. Flat 6, 18 Learmonth Place. Information Assistant at Edinburgh University Library. He scanned the rest of the data. The Pantheon Selection Committees didn’t provide him with any family details, nor any reasons for their decisions. He switched to a second screen and tapped in a quick online search for Tyler Maitland. After several minutes of clicking through different pages he found the old newspaper report about his mother’s death in a hit and run and a reference in the same article to a sister, Morgan Maitland.
The name rang no bells. He ran a query through the Valhalla database, but no one of that name, or indeed even of just the Christian or surname alone, showed up in the records for the whole nineteen years of the Palatinate.
He sat back. The lad was obviously mistaken. But the wily politician in Radspakr still felt uneasy. There had been something in Maitland’s conviction. And more than that, everything about Tyler Maitland seemed wrong. The flirtations with cocaine dealing that showed on his record. The arm he could hardly use when Radspakr had first propositioned him on the steps of Fleshmarket Close. The weak leg. Reasons enough for the Pantheon to overlook such an individual.
Radspakr picked at his lip. And why had the rules been changed this time?
He didn’t like anything about this day, nor about Tyler Maitland’s presence in his Valhalla Horde.
He reached for hi
s phone and pulled up a number. It was time to make some calls.
Part Two
The Raiding Season
XXII
The Water of Leith was running fast and full as it twisted its way through Stockbridge towards the docks on the Forth. It was a grey, monotone Saturday morning and Lana was contemplating the river from the grassy bank in front of her flat on Reid Terrace when he came around the corner.
Eleven o’clock. As always, he was punctual. When she had called him the night before, he had been reserved, but had agreed after a few clipped sentences to come over the next morning. So here he was, striding towards her, blue jumper over white shirt, fitted tweed jacket, cream corduroys and burgundy brogues. Every inch the off-duty Edinburgh lawyer.
‘It’s cold to be waiting outside,’ he said brusquely.
‘I thought we could go for a walk.’
‘Ah, “a walk”.’ He thrust his hands into his jacket pockets and maintained a careful distance as she led him back out the terrace and north along Arboretum Avenue. ‘How’s your mother?’
Her mother, yes. That had been the lie the Pantheon had created to cover for her week’s absence. When Halvar had returned their phones and watches, Lana had discovered an email conversation on her work account. On the first Friday, as she was breakfasting on honeyed flatbreads around the fire in Sveinn’s Mead Hall, someone had hacked into her work email and sent her estate agent employers on Nelson Street a message to say that her mother had been taken ill and she had felt obliged to race to Kirkcudbright overnight. Her boss had replied that they would have to redistribute Lana’s viewing appointments, but this could all be sorted in her absence and did she have an address to which flowers could be sent? With some panache, the hacker had thanked her boss and suggested that flowers could be addressed to Mrs D Cameron, Cedar Ward at the Dumfries & Galloway Royal Infirmary. Lana could only wonder how many times the flowers had been passed around the hospital in confusion.
‘She’s improving, thanks.’
It had been Thursday evening when the Pantheon released Lana and she returned to a flat which she had never been expecting to desert for a week. There were still dishes in the sink and her bedcovers were thrown back and the heating was high. The emailed conversation was not the only discovery on her phone. There were seven messages from Justin, starting concerned, turning mildly hysterical, then moving through anger, hurt and finally suggesting that if she couldn’t be bothered to get in touch then perhaps she should go to hell.
They wandered through the gates of Inverleith Park to the sounds of children on the swings and dogs barking. She looked up at the bare winter trees. They were an unwelcome reminder of the Highland valley and of Hertha and Einar, who were no more, and Lana wondered how she could be expected to come back to this normal life. The city continued in its usual lethargic Saturday morning routine of coffee, papers, shopping, dog-walking, perhaps a bit of jogging, but she was a woman utterly changed and she thought Justin must see it.
‘I’m sorry for not getting in touch,’ she said at last.
‘Just a text would have sufficed. Enough to know you were okay.’
‘I withdraw when I’m stressed, drop communication. It’s just the way I’m wired. And it’s best for everyone because you really don’t want to see me during the darker moments.’
‘But that’s precisely when I want to see you, because I hope I can make a difference. Any boyfriend would.’
Boyfriend. He had never used that term before and the sound of it on his lips appalled her. ‘Oh Justin.’
‘Oh Justin – is that all you can say? Five months, it’s been. Five months during which you’ve seen me only when it’s convenient, rarely confided in me about anything in your life and lavished about as much physical affection on me as you would a plague victim. But you know what? I’ve stuck with it. I’ve hung in there. I’ve ignored the voice in my head telling me it’s useless. I’ve kept convincing myself there might be a thaw one day, and why? Because despite every indication to the contrary, I can’t help hoping that maybe one day the two of us could have something.’
She looked into his eyes. He was handsome and honest. Reliable. Steadfast. A beacon of integrity. She shook her head sadly. ‘We won’t, Justin. I’m sorry.’
‘I’m in love with you.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘I have to. I’m not stupid. I can see what’s coming and if I don’t say it now, then I’ll never have another chance.’ He had reached for her hand and he thought that in that moment Michelangelo could not have improved on her gaunt cheekbones and the rigid line of her lips. She said nothing and fixed her gaze on the ground with her hand limply in his. Eventually he exhaled and released her. ‘Well, at least we both know our position. I’m sorry that loving you is such a crime. It shouldn’t have to be. But I won’t bother you again, Lana.’
Christmas. A groggy, stale, impenetrable celebration of loneliness, Tyler thought, sealed behind his curtains, lazing in his own spent air and tobacco smoke. Mornings of black and white films, afternoons of chocolate and evenings of whisky and Netflix. His duvet had migrated from the bed to the sofa. His phone hadn’t rung, his email not beeped. The radiators clicked and the gas heater wheezed. Books lay scattered, open at the page when his eyes had glazed over.
Jol, the Vikings called it before the Christians stole it. Yule. A feast of pork and beer traditionally held in mid-January. Sacrifices made to the gods to guard against the dark of winter, and toasts given again and again to bring good fortune in the year ahead.
When his mother had been alive, Christmas had always been a special occasion. Even in the hardest times in their small apartment, she had never stinted on the celebrations and together the three of them reminded themselves that beneath all the angst, they loved each other fiercely. They would wear hats and drink sparkling wine from antique flutes. The crockery was bone china, Edwardian, collected assiduously by his mother at car boot sales.
Tyler thought about his sister and glanced over at her ivory amulet hanging from the photo on the dresser. She had left it for him surely as an unequivocal sign that she had joined the Horde. Yet when he had spoken of her to Radspakr, the Thane had denied all knowledge. It made no sense.
On Christmas Eve he had found Oliver sitting on the stairs outside, hunched over his iPad.
‘Hey, lad.’
‘Hey.’
‘Why are you out here?’
‘We’re supposed to be off to Grandma’s, but Mum and Dad are fighting.’ He was scrolling through lists of names and transactions.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Accessing the customer database of a chain of hotels.’
Tyler sat next to him on the step and peered at the screen. ‘You are? Why?’
‘Dad says he stayed at one of them last week.’ Oliver looked sternly at Tyler, daring him to comment further. ‘I want to check if he did.’
‘I see… I thought that sort of information was confidential.’
‘Nothing’s confidential if you know where to look.’
‘If you say so, lad.’ He watched as Oliver closed down the lists. ‘Well, thanks for keeping an eye on the place while I was away. Have I had any visitors?’
‘All quiet. Where’d you go?’
‘North. I wanted to do some walking in big country. I’ve never explored up there.’
‘Did you fall over a lot?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Your face.’
Tyler ran a hand over his features and realised his cheek, lips and chin were still grazed. He pushed his fingers self-consciously through his long hair. ‘I did have a couple of tumbles.’
Oliver looked up from his screen and eyed Tyler with a sceptical half-grin. ‘Yeah sure. It’s so easy to fall on your face.’ He swiped up a drawing app and produced a stylus from his shirt pocket. ‘I’ve got a little bet riding on you. Want to know what it is?’ He wrote in large letters Is Tyler…
‘Am I what?’
Bu
t Oliver was already absorbed in drawing a series of triangular arms below the words. They all went into a central hub. An eight-pointed star. Tyler felt his neck tingle. The boy continued, filling in another set of arms behind the first, so that it became sixteen-pointed.
‘Or…’ Oliver said as he began to draw something next to the star. A horn. Then another behind, and a third, locking them into a tight knot. He finished and leaned back, admiring his handiwork. Tyler was wordless.
‘So?’ demanded the boy. ‘Which one are you?’
‘I’m not sure what you mean.’
Oliver used his stylus to stab at the emblem on the right. ‘The Triple Horn of Odin, symbol of the Horde of Valhalla,’ he said as if explaining a simple problem to a very slow student. ‘And the Star of Macedon. Although some say it’s the Sun of Macedon and it can be drawn with eight or sixteen rays.’ He looked up at Tyler. ‘It’s the symbol of Alexander’s Titans.’
‘And you’re asking which one I like best?’
‘No. I’m asking which one you belong to.’
Tyler forced a laugh. ‘How come you know so much about these?’
‘Everyone does. I read up about them all the time. Did you know Alexander’s resources have allowed him to recruit only one Electus this Season?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘But they say Sveinn has recruited as many as seven.’
‘Who’s they?’
‘Some of the experts online.’
‘Experts? Really, Oliver, you shouldn’t believe everything you read online. Does your Mum know you look at all this?’
‘She doesn’t care.’ He stared obstinately at Tyler. ‘Well?’
Tyler sighed theatrically. ‘I don’t really understand your question. I can promise you I’m not part of either Alexander’s Titans or the Horde of Valhalla. I’m sorry to disappoint, but I just work in a library. It’s not very interesting.’
‘Supposing you did belong to one, which would it be?’
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