Oathsworn 2 - The Wolf Sea (24 page)

Then, with Brother John, Finn, Radoslav and a couple of others as a fitting jarl-retinue, I went off to Skarpheddin's hov, for it would not have been polite to refuse to join in his feasting for Brand.

Also, we knew Starkad would be there. Since his coming, I had been as confused as a maelstrom about what to do. I needed to get the silkworm canister and Choniates' letter to the Basileus, for I couldn't trust anyone else. But the Great City was far away and Starkad was not.

The others, who still thought the leather case I had hidden on the
Elk
contained tiny pearls, were only concerned about Starkad being so close — Botolf especially. He wanted to kill Starkad for what he had done in enslaving him and the others, while Finn wanted to walk his entrails round a pole while waving the recovered runesword in his face.

It was a warming image, but Starkad was clearly part of the snow-headed Brand's retinue and that had been a clever move, for it made any attack on him a sure sentence of death. Yet again he was close enough to kill and too far removed to attack.

Finn fumed and bellowed and scowls were rife, but there was no walking round it and I was fretting as much as the rest. The Rune Serpent was here and we were here and yet it was as far away as ever.

Èasy, lads,' counselled Brother John. 'There are ways and ways of lifting something from a man and, as you know, I am no stranger to such a thing — in a godly fashion, all the same. God will show us a way, never fear.'

So we smiled wryly at one to another and settled to wait.

There were lots of guests at Skarpheddin's tented hov that warm night. Outside, his people baked flatbread and spitted whole oxen for a feast. Apples in honey, fish stewed in goat's milk and onions, fat cauldron snake, pork and lentils: it was good Norse food served in the swelter of a Serkland night, in the fug of a tented hov thick with fat candles and which soon reeked of smoke, blood, piss and vomit . . . the smell of home.

There was horseflesh, too, a neat trick by Jarl Brand. In later life, after Brand's lord, Eirik, whom they called Segersall — Victorious — became a king and made the Svears and Geats into Christ-men, Brand was baptised, but at this time he and his followers belonged to Odin and Thor. Since there were Christ-worshippers among Skarpheddin's people who would not eat horse, it being the mark of a pagan, it let Brand see easily enough which was which.

There was no ale, for no one had the means to make it here — this was Mussulman country and their god didn't drink. Right there, according to Finn, was why they were getting their arses kicked by the likes of the Roman-Greeks of Miklagard.

Instead, they were allowed
nabidh,
which the Christ monks of Antioch made and sold to the Jewish merchants, who sold it to the Mussulmen. It was made from raisins and dates fermented in water and, for the Mussulmen, the legal length was two days soaking in water only. Naturally, three- and four-day was a roaring trade among those Arabs who liked their drink — and both Finn and Radoslav discovered six-day was best, mixed with honey and wine, which made it taste almost like mead.

Skarpheddin was out to impress Brand, but he needed to invite the Jewish, Arab and Greek merchants he owed money to, as well as officers from the Strategos's army — but not the man himself, who had pressing business bringing more men from Tarsus.

`Which means that the army will be fighting soon,' Finn growled as we sweltered under the wadmal tent, raining with sweat now that so many were in it.

`Sooner we move off, the better,' I said, wishing now I had not worn the new cloak to show off the new pin. 'If we wait longer we will dissolve like butter on a griddle in this Odin-cursed forge of a country. Or end up standing in a Roman battle line.'

Which was so far from what we intended that we laughed. You should never do that while the gods are listening.

It was, then, a strange feasting, trying hard to be a hall in the north and yet somehow skewed, as if seen underwater.

The Jews and Mussulmen smiled politely and tried to make sure they had no pork on their eating knives and fashionable two-fined forks; the Christ-Norse sniffed meat warily to make sure it was not horse; and only the old gods' followers were careless and laughing, though a few of them tried the little two-fined eating things while drunk and ended up stabbing their own cheeks or tongues, which ruined their meal thereafter.

Skarpheddin, thin-shanked and butt-bellied, stepped forward, raised his hands and summoned his skald before sitting down on his gifthrone, for he was too important even to speak for himself. The skald, gold-browed but with dark patches showing under his nice green tunic, announced that the great jarl planned an offering to the good gods of the North.

The Jews and Mussulmen and Christ-followers all stirred uneasily and Finn, sweltering, muttered something about Odin's armpit. Then he stiffened and stared. `Starkad,' he said.

Leaning forward like a hunting dog on scent Starkad stared back. He wore the rune-serpented sabre —

everyone was armed tonight — and one hand hovered near it like a white spider, though it seldom touched the hilt. His eyes, white-blue as old ice, were fixed on mine, as if he was trying to make me burst into flames with his hate.

So there we were, each aching for what the other had, each fettered by the threat of what would be unleashed if we simply sprang at each other's throats. Legs trembling, the sweat working its way down into the sheuch of my arse, I stood and wondered how safe that little container was, tucked on board the
Elk
in my sea-chest. Skarpheddin's skald droned to a halt. The exhaled breath of relief from his audience threatened to blow out the fat candles.

Matters were not over yet and Brother John grunted as if he had been hit, then made the sign against the evil eye.

Not even Skarpheddin dared oppose his mother in this and so she shuffled out, swallowed by the catskin cloak, dangled about with all her wards and amulets. There was a noise like a flock of startled birds as the good Christ-followers made the sign of the cross and Jarl Brand's men signed wards against the evil eye.

But it was not Thorhalla that struck me a blow like Thor's hammer, even though she looked like Hel's ugliest daughter. It was the Skarpheddin
fostri,
the one Thorhalla was training to take her place and who now followed in her wake, majestic and seal-sleek.

She wore a dress the colour of a lowering sky, with glass beads lying on the front of it. A black lambskin hood lined with white catskin covered her blond hair and she had a staff in her hand with a brass knob, set above with a spray of raven's feathers. I heard Sighvat suck in his breath at the sight of them.

She had a belt of touch-wood, sewn with slivers of hazel, which is Freyja's tree, and on it was a large skin purse which I knew held her talismans. She had shaggy calfskin shoes and catskin gloves and not a slick of sweat anywhere on her. Even as she made a hulk of all my hope, I thought that Svala had never looked more beautiful.

`She has taken your raven,' I heard myself say to Sighvat and he grunted, the pain of it thick in his voice.

`Worse,' he said, laying a hand on my arm to draw me away. 'I am thinking she has taken your heart.'

There was a roaring now and my voice seemed distant to me, though I was rock-sure of what I said, sick with the certainty now that it was not my wyrd to find true love, only the seidr shadow of it.

Ìt will not end up crowning her
volva
staff.'

Honeyed Six-Day is a vicious were-beast, by night filling you with all the power of the gods and, in the cold light of day, sprawling like a day-old corpse in the pit of your stomach, having shat in your mouth and started a fire in your skull.

I woke, though sleep is a sad word for what had eventually happened to me, into a stranger's body. My legs would not bear me upright and my fingers felt like fat rolls of felt. Brother John squatted beside me, grim as black rock, nodded into my squinting eyes and then swam away again before I could focus properly.

Then the world exploded into the sea, sucking the breath out of me, shattering the veil that kept me from seeing what I lay in or feeling the glare of the rising sun. I surfaced, shook my head, whimpered with what that did, then sat up, wiping water from my eyes and coughing.

The Goat Boy stood, pale and grinning, holding a wooden bucket upside down. Brother John held another, brought from the nearby river, and hefted it, but I held up a weak hand and managed to gasp at him to stop.

`You are the last,' he said. 'Finn and Radoslav, you will be pleased to hear, are as bad as you are, Kvasir Spittle and Hedin Flayer less so. But Ivar Gautr is dead.'

I was wiping my streaming face and slicking my hair away from it, so I missed what he said. Then it hit me and I looked at him, eyes wide. How could Ivar be dead? He had been with the crowd of us, helping me dive into goatskins of six-day
nabidh,
his swollen face as flushed as those of the rest of. us and, though that swelling mushed his speech like a mouthful of bread, he made us laugh still with his wit.

Brother John saw my look and sighed. The Goat Boy dropped the bucket and threw my own cloak at me to dry myself with.

`My fault,' said the little priest mournfully. 'I should have made him go to the Greek chirurgeons with that tooth.'

`They would have healed him,' the Goat Boy declared, hauling his tunic up to show me the great purple-red welt of his scar. 'They can raise the dead.'

`Blaspheming imp of Satan,' growled Brother John fondly. `Go and find Sighvat. Do not try and run, as I have warned you, or you will burst something.' He turned to me as the Goat Boy hirpled slowly away. 'He should not even be up, but he is leather-tough, that boy.'

Ì know the
nabidh
was strong,' I managed at last, 'but it only makes you feel like you have died. It can't kill you . . . can it?'

Brother John passed me the bucket to drink from, which I did even though the thirst would not be slaked.

Ìvar's tooth killed him. There was something festering there in all that swelling. You saw him. He would not have it seen by the Greeks, though it was clear there was much wrong. Poison from that tooth must have been filling him every day since the arrow wound he took on Cyprus.'

I remembered his face, bulging on one side, so that the scar on his cheek where the arrow went in looked stretched and puckered. The other side was hollow and yellowed and he looked like a wormed cheese, collapsing from the inside out.

`His tooth ate him,' I marvelled and Brother John straightened with a grunt.

`He will be the first of many deaths, I am thinking,' he said. 'Word has come: the Strategos, Red Boots, will be here in two days and the army is marching. Starkad has been telling everyone who will listen that the Oathsworn sacked churches on Cyprus and killed good Christ-men.'

I got up and slung my cloak round my shoulders, wishing my head was clear. 'Is anyone listening?'

Brother John shrugged. `Skarpheddin is. The Greeks who command the army here are. Jarl Brand, I have been told, laughed when he heard, which made the Greeks back water a little, for Brand raided his way all along the Middle Sea and I would be surprised if churches had not been included. The Greeks, it seems, need Brand and his men. All the same, Brand is bound to assist Starkad, since that dog has placed his hands in the jarl's fists and taken oath.'

`Doesn't church-sacking bother you, Brother John?' I asked, surprised at the ease he spoke of it.

Ìt would if they were good monasteries of the old way,' he replied, 'but they are eggshells of faith stuffed with the sour meat of bad teaching.
Lucri bonus est odor ex re qualibet,
as Jarl Brand would say if he knew Juvenal.'

I had never met Juvenal either, but 'sweet is the smell of money obtained from any source' certainly made him sound like a good vik-jarl to me and I said as much. Brother John helped me up and back to our wadmal camp, my head spinning with fumes and thoughts of how we could safely get away from here before all our enemies closed the trap on us.

We burned Ivar Gautr in the East Norse way, for the heat was already making him ripe. The Goat Boy stood beside me, pale and still laboured in his breathing, trembling as men from Brand and Skarpheddin, who had also liked Ivar's wit, stacked what wood they could scavenge.

The Greek priests were suitably annoyed that someone prime-signed as a Christ-man should be burned like a pagan — and we all agreed, for we wanted to howe him up decently, with his armour and his weapons.

But those camel-herding grave-robbers would come in the night, since those weapons were worth a fortune, even if we broke them in three.

So we stood at an oil-soaked pyre and sent Ivar to Hers hall in a wind of sparks.

Ì was almost there,' the Goat Boy whispered and I squeezed his shoulder, feeling the terror rise and choke him. I could feel the heart in his chest flutter like a bird in a cage.

`You are not, so thank the gods.'

He looked up at me. 'How do you find the courage to face death, Trader?'

What a question. The answer to it was simple enough: when I do, I will let you know. But the Goat Boy needed a shield and I gave him one. I took the Thor hammer from round my neck, the one which had been round my father's neck until I raised his bloodied head from the mud-gore it lay in and took it off before the scavengers got to his body, under the walls of Sarkel.

`This is the best courage-finder,' I said, slipping the leather thong over his head. He fingered the amulet, as near to a Christ-cross as made no difference, and frowned.

Ì cannot. What would you do if you gave it me?'

I half drew my fine, watered blade. 'This is even more powerful, but too heavy for you to carry. You take the amulet.'

He gripped it in his little fist and grinned, all fear gone. I felt a surge then, something seidr. Perhaps Redbeard was in the amulet after all.

Finn and others had wanted to raise a stone to Ivar, but there were none suitable and no master-carver of runes within a thousand miles — in fact, in all my days I met only one such myself and I doubt whether there were a hundred in all the world then. Fewer now.