Oathsworn 1 - The Whale Road (12 page)

I was stunned and swelled with it. In that moment, I almost loved the great, glorious being that was Einar the Black, yet, even then, the very gift he praised me for slipped a memory, the blade-bright thought: this man had snicked off the head of Gudleif, for almost no reason other than he could.

We tramped back to the North Gate and were almost out when a figure loomed from the dark, with others behind. I saw Gunnar Raudi, Ketil Crow, Bagnose, Pinleg and others, wild-eyed, wild-haired—and sober.

Gunnar Raudi's grim face, grimmer still in the play of lamplight loomed up to Einar and said, 'Ulf-Agar is missing. Steinthor says men took him.'

4 `They were armed,' Steinthor growled. Àrmed and in the town, Einar.' He held out his forearm, showing a rough strip of bloodstained cloth, the ends whipping in the wind. Around him, Einar, I, Illugi and others gathered, stone-grim.

`Who were they?' demanded Einar.

Steinthor shrugged. His eye was closing to a fat-puffed slit. 'Six, maybe seven,'

he said. `We left the ale house at the harbour and they came after us. Danes, it seemed to Ulf-Agar and me, and looking for trouble, for we had offended no one.'

`Let's get there,' snarled Skapti Halftroll. `Weapons or no weapons, I'll grind them.'

There were savage chuckles at that and a few began to push past Einar on the wooden walkway, but he thrust out an arm and stopped them. 'Wait. Let's find out more. Steinthor, why did they take Ulf-Agar? And where did they take him?'

Steinthor touched his eye speculatively, squinting at Einar. 'That's the strange of it. They came for us and we thought it was just a fight. I wasn't up for it much, having been light on my drink, but Ulf pitched right in.

Then I saw the weapons come out—long blades they were and too long to be hidden under a cloak and brought in. Someone turned a blind eye to that.'

`Now you can do that,' called someone from the back and there were more chuckles. Steinthor spat and touched the eye again.

Ìf it had been the edge of that blade, I would be a deadeye, for sure. But it was the upswing that smacked me. Knocked me to the ground, right off the walkway and into the mud and shit. When I surfaced, they were hauling Ulf away and he was not making a move, hanging between two of them. He might be dead.'

That silenced everyone.

`What did you do then?' asked Einar. `Stand there and drip?'

`No, I did not,' retorted Steinthor hotly. 'I followed them, thinking they would kick the shit out of Ulf-Agar and leave him. I thought they had picked on him for some reason I did not know—he can be an annoying little turd, as anyone will tell you.'

Ìndeed so,' Einar agreed, nodding into the chorus of harsh chuckles. 'But they didn't, or else we would be binding his bruises.'

`No,' agreed Steinthor. 'They hauled him to one of the warehouses at the main harbour. There were a lot of men there and two boats, high-prowed and gilded and bigger than the
Elk,
that were not there yesterday.'

This set everyone muttering. Illugi Godi looked at Einar and Skapti hoomed a bit, then said: 'Two
drakkar?
What
varjazi
has two boats that size?'

`None,' muttered Einar, stroking his moustache. 'Nor could a
varjazi
persuade the merchants of Birka to ignore their laws on weapons. Only a real power could do that.'

`Such as one who now rules two lands?' Illugi Godi said mildly, the wind whipping his hair into his face.

`Bluetooth; Einar said and the name leaped from head to head, swirling away on the wind, setting fire to mutters and darkly exchanged looks. He looked at me. 'You had it right enough. Someone more important than Brondolf Lambisson and a foreigner.'

Bluetooth, new King of the Danes and Norwegians. Somehow, he had heard of the Oathsworn of Einar's
Elk
and their quest for some treasure. It seemed to me—and, I knew, to Einar—that he had heard more of it than we had, to seize one of us and put him to the question. It did mean, I was thinking, that you had to take Atil's treasure hoard seriously, for surely no one would go to these lengths over some muttered foolishness about a saga tale? Surely he had not come after us over that?

There were chuckles when I hoiked this up, wide-eyed and wild-haired in the Birka wind.

Einar, though, frowned, for it had been revealed then that just about everyone knew the supposed secret of Atil's treasure. And, of course, Einar was going to the same lengths over the foolishness of a saga tale and he did not like to hear that voiced.

`Perhaps so,' he growled. 'I would like to know who has been sent by the King of Norway and the Danes.

And what this someone wants with Ulf-Agar.'

`We must get him back,' said Illugi and there were mutters of approval at that.

Einar nodded. 'We swore an oath to each other,' he said. 'It is Ulf-Agar's bad luck that he knows nothing that would help Bluetooth in this matter, so we will do it quickly, before they kill him by accident.'

Ànd,' muttered Illugi, 'you don't know just what Ulf-Agar knows. Fox-eared, that one.'

`He is, right enough,' murmured Einar, then, louder: Òrm, go with Steinthor, who will point out the warehouse. Watch it carefully. After that, Steinthor should go to the Guest Hall and have his wounds tended.

`Geir Bagnose, you will go to the fortress, to the gate there. A man will come out, cloaked, perhaps hooded. He has a face like a weasel and will be scurrying, I am thinking, like a rat out of a hole. I want to know where he goes without him knowing he is followed.'

Then he turned and led everyone else back to the Guest Hall.

Suddenly, there was just me and Steinthor on the dark street of greasy timbers, in a town now quiet save for a distant shout or two and a barking dog. The buildings were shadowed mounds, angular howes through which the wind whipped.

Shivering, I followed Steinthor as he limped between the houses, first this way, then that. Then he stopped and pointed. I saw a building slightly apart from the others and beyond it the black sea slapping an oak jetty. A lantern swung wildly, dancing weak yellow light over a door in the building. Two figures moved, stamping and dragging cloaks round them against the wind.

With a brief clap on my shoulder, Steinthor was away into the night, the fire and the ale. Bitterly, I watched him go, pulled my cloak tighter around me, up over my head and hunkered down in the lee of a fence, feeling the sodden ground soak into my boots.

The building the fence enclosed was a wattle but with a patch of garden, now muddied. Inside, I heard chickens murmur to each other and two voices talking, though it was too faint for me to hear the words. I only knew that one was low and one was higher. It made me feel all the worse out here, with the rain spitting in my face and the wind swooping and swirling. On the black water, prows danced.

The voices tailed off. Someone snored and, far away, a dog yelped furiously.

Then I heard the first shriek from the warehouse and stiffened. I looked around, but there was no one. If Einar and the others didn't come soon . . .

Another shriek, half whipped away by the wind. I clenched my teeth. Still no sign of anyone.

On the third scream, I could stand it no longer. I moved down towards the warehouse, edging always into the shadows, which took me away from the door and the wild lantern and the guards, round to one flat end of the building, then round again to where the curved back wall stood on a strip of ground, falling away to the shingle and the spray-lashed water.

There were bulky shapes here; I scrambled over discarded barrels of rotting wood, old sodden wool that had once been a sail, frayed rigging, worm-rotted spars. I was sure I was blundering around like the clapper in a bell; every time I made a sound I froze in one spot and waited. But nothing happened.

Another shriek, louder this time.

I found a door, slightly recessed, and had to quietly clear old cordage from in front of it, so I knew it wasn't used.

It was rotted and knot-holed, which let me peer through. I saw faint light, as if from a lantern, but nothing moved. I pressed on the door . . . nothing. I pressed again, harder—and it gave with a soft sigh of rotting splinters and insect husks.

I had an eating knife, the length of my finger, and it felt ridiculous clutching it in One sweaty hand while the blood thundered in my ears and I waited for the rush of feet and the flash of three feet of edged steel.

Nothing but the next shriek nearly made me piss myself, so loud it seemed. It tailed off abruptly and I swore under my breath. Only bloody-minded stupidity was making me do this, I reasoned. I didn't even like Ulf-Agar.

But I knew the real reason, of course. I had sworn the oath and, if it had been me, I'd rather know there was the hope of someone coming for me, than that I was doomed.

It was so dark I had an arm out in front of me, the knife held in the fist of the other, taking one slow, rolling step after another. I had the impression of beams, of a wooden floor, caught a spit of rain on my face and, looking up, glimpsed stars through the ruined roof, then clouds scudded across and they were gone.

There was rubbish everywhere: a series of traps for the unwary. I took two steps and almost went on my arse when my foot skidded off what felt like the shaft of an oar. I gave up, crouched down, started to slither across the floor, waiting all the time for whoever was in the darkness to erupt at me.

As the sweat ran in my eyes I swore that I could see them, waiting just ahead, so that my breath stopped in my throat.

I sent a nest of mice rustling off, which ran all over my feet and, despite myself, I gasped aloud and kicked them off. Then I relaxed; if the room was filled with armed men, they were deaf or dead.

I crept towards the lurking shape, moving so that the faint glimmer of light silhouetted it and not me.

Then I realised what it was and almost shouted out with the joy of relief. A prow. A gods-cursed, arse-wipe of an old prow.

I was wiping my face and trying not to weep with relief of the moment, when it suddenly struck me that the light seemed to be coming from the floor. I found a knothole in a door—there was a cellar.

The square of wood came up smoothly, revealing a set of wooden steps and, compared to what I had been in a moment ago, a lot of light. I lay down, craned my head as far as I could and spotted there was only one way: a passage, with a lantern stuck up on a niche on one wall about halfway down.

I crept down on to a stone floor and the reek of old hides and spoiled food. I started along the corridor and had almost reached the lantern on the wall when something flickered, a gleam and no more. I stopped, crouched, looked again. It was gone. I moved my head—light bounced off metal.

I peered at it: a small bell, one of several strung on two or three strands of black horsehair, stretched across the passageway at ankle height.

I hunkered back and blew out gently, considering, searching, thinking. If I had set such a warning, so easily stepped over if found . . . I saw the second one, at neck height to a man. Half-hunkered and awkward with caution, I slid between the two and on down the passage to where it ended in a blank wall and two doors, left and right.

I considered. The door left was closed, the one right slightly opened. I listened to the closed one, watching the open one. Snores from the closed one. No noise at all from the other, but there was light there—and heat.

I pushed it and it scraped open on the dirt floor, along a groove worn there with use. It was dimly lit and a sharp smell of smoke and sweat and blood hovered. There was a fire, like a forge fire of charcoal in a metal brazier. Wooden-handled implements stuck out of it. Silhouetted against it was the figure of a man, naked to the waist and muscled, the sweat-grease gleaming in the red light of coals.

Beyond, blood-red in the light, hung between two beams by his thumbs, his toes barely touching the ground, was a naked Ulf-Agar, head swinging, face hidden by his tangled hair. Dark patches marred the white of him and something black ran down his chest in a slow, viscous trickle.

I took two steps and the figure heard and turned, lazily, expecting someone else. I gave him the little knife, searching for his throat but missing by a long way and having Odin's luck. It went in his left eye up to the hilt; it must have killed him instantly.