Oathsworn 2 - The Wolf Sea (39 page)

`Why?' I asked, sullen and unwilling to make the road smooth for them.

Hrolf looked at Kleggi and then at me. 'Well, he is surely dead, because you left him with the
Sarakenoi
to be hung in a cage and stoned, which is a straw death and so twice as bad.'

`He killed Brother John,' I pointed out, astonished at this. Ànd a woman. And wanted to kill me.'

`Murder, as it was,' Finn pointed out, 'since it was dark and unannounced. Nor did he cover the body.'

There was general agreement over this, but Kleggi and Hrolf were still unwilling to let it go, arguing that there was no proof Hookeye had done it, even if I had chased him off the roof, where he might have been innocently taking the night air, or chasing the real culprit. And anyway, the woman was a whore, probably a thrall, and so did not count. They wanted to say that Brother John was only a Christ priest and so did not count either, but even they knew how the old Oathsworn had revered the priest and did not dare go that far.

Most of the others shifted uncomfortably at what they did say, which was a step too far for most — even Kvasir who, it was clear to me, was unhappy that Hookeye had been left with the
Sarakenoi,
though he seemed to think it was their fault and not mine.

`So you think it was not murder? If a thing looks like a duck, makes a noise like a duck and walks like a duck, chances are it is not a chicken,' I told them. 'Besides, he confessed it.'

I looked them over hard as I told them this and that he had planned to return to Balantes on Cyprus and what he had been promised for it all. 'Nor was he alone in this,' I ended and watched the alarm crawl over their faces.

I had an idea they were the ones Hookeye had dragged into his scheme, but thought it unlikely he had told them much about what he would do, so that these events were a nasty shock to them. Now they heard the ice they walked on creaking.

`This means that he and those he spoke with broke their oath,' I pointed out and they now stood there feeling the lance-eyes of all the others, who sat behind them.

Then I shrugged. 'If he has kin who will not see it this way, I would rather have the matter settled, but we have no Law Speaker or summoning days or jury panel here, so it is a rough Thing at best. However, if you will allow Sighvat to justify on this, we can fix it all this night.'

Trapped, they could only nod, for Sighvat, everyone agreed later, was a deep-thinking choice, not only because he was clearly a full-cunning man, a
volva
of some strength, but his doom was on him, so there was no point in him grinding any new axes, as they say.

I had reasoned all this out and thought myself double-clever for it. As they say: if you want to hear the sound of gods laughing, all you need do is tell them your plans.

`Having reduced himself to a nithing by killing a Christ priest and breaking an Odin-oath,' Sighvat said,

'then Hookeye is worth no more than a new thrall, it seems to me. I set his death at twelve ounces of silver.'

Twelve ounces: the weight of a jarl torc. I wondered if there was more in that than there seemed, but faces were bland when I studied them.

The price was even better than I'd hoped, for Kleggi and Hrolf were too aware of what continued refusal would signify to the others — that they had been in the plot with Hookeye. I had no idea whether they were or not, but if it healed this widening breach I'd be happy. That way, I was thinking, we could all part, if not as friends, at least not as enemies.

`Just so,' added Sighvat. 'This must now be ratified and sanctioned by the gods, so a sacrifice must be made to Odin by Orm, who is godi here. I say a mule, which is as close to a good horse as we will get here.'

I bit my lip at that, for we needed the mule, but I nodded. So did Kleggi and Hrolf.

`Then we can all swear our Oath anew,' Sighvat said cheerfully, 'in case Orm is right and Hookeye managed to induce others to tempt Odin's anger.'

Then I saw Short Eldgrim, Finn and Kvasir nodding and smiling and suddenly realised why the long firepit had been dug and what they had planned to cook on it.

They had conspired this on their own and it was cunning, right enough. As Finn said later, mild as summer, I would have done it myself had I not been grieving for Brother John. That made me ashamed, for I was not grieving — I was blinded by the lamb-leaping idea that, at last, the Oath was broken and I was free of them all.

Now I had to sit and smile while Finn winked at me and rubbed his hands with glee at how their little scheme had saved the day.

The mule was duly dragged out and I, as godi, said suitable dedication words. The monks were outraged and started to demand that we quit the place but a few growls and waved weapons sent them scurrying. Finn had the mule's head off, neat as snipping an ear of corn, and, in the red-glowed dark, with the stink of fresh blood in our nostrils, we all intoned the Odin-oath once again.

We swear to be brothers to each other, bone, blood and steel. On Gungnir, Odin's spear, we swear, may he curse us to the Nine Realms and beyond if we break this faith, one to another.

Every word was a great Roman nail driven into me.

Hedin Flayer butchered the beast and Finn started to cook it while the rest of us trooped over, in packs and singly, to the church. The torchlight flickered on the little coloured tiles that made a picture of some robed, winged man with a bright sword and one of those gold circles round his head and I marvelled at all that work for something you walked on.

We let Dudo intone the Christ words, while Brother John lay on a stone table, wrapped in linen strips so that he was just a bundle with candles at his head and feet. At the end of it, when Dudo made the cross-sign in the air and said,
'Pax vobiscum,'
I heard a sob and found the Goat Boy, wiping tears into a damp sleeve.

`He is in heaven now,' he hiccuped. I hoped so, but it was the
pax vobiscum
that had crashed the whole thing on me. Somehow, the thought of never hearing Brother John spout Latin made him more dead than before. Botolf laid one of his ham-hock hands on the boy's head and patted it with surprising gentleness.

What with that and the weight of the rune serpents — both round my jarl torc and down that cursed sabre

— curling tight on my throat and twice as heavy, it seemed, to me, I could not choke much of the mule down.

I was surprised to see others were as off their feed as I was; the death of Brother John had affected us all more than anyone had thought it would.

In the end, we passed platters of it to the monks and, for all they wrinkled their noses at the 'pagan rites', they were too drool-mouthed to turn down meat after a long diet of boiled vegetables. They had a long discussion about whether a mule was a horse or not and the smell made them vote in favour of not, so they fell on it as the insects whined and fluttered.

But Kvasir kept the mule's head and spent the night huddled with Short Eldgrim, who knew his runes, carving great serpent skeins of them on a spear-shaft, winding from spearhead to butt, squinting into the fading embers of the pitfire. I watched him uneasily until my eyes slowly drooped to sleep.

In a charcoal land split by a ribbon of water blacker than old iron, black as a blind man's eyes,
I saw the dust of that place whirl like a jinni of raven feathers and there was no noise to it. I stood
while the river flowed without sound and, on the other side, gathering silent as a murder of crows,
came dark figures with pale faces: all the dead I had known.

There was Eyvind and Einar and Skapti Halftroll, still with his mouthful of spear. There was
Pinleg and I felt a pang at that for we had always said that, because we did not actually see him die,
perhaps he had not been hacked down, surrounded and outnumbered and berserking.

Then Hookeye appeared at my side, climbing into a boat which had not been there before. He
looked at me, his head canted to one side so that I could see the great blue bruise round his neck. I
knew — and didn't know how I knew —that he had shoved his head between the bars of his cage
and broken his own neck.

`Did it hurt?' I asked.

`Not as much as it will,' he answered, sitting down in the boat. It moved off, spray rising from it
and soaking my face, blinding me as if with tears, so that I could not be sure I saw someone limp to
the front of that throng on the other side of the river and stare at me with a face I knew.

A pale face on a pale man with pale hair. And no runesword.

I woke to see the Goat Boy and Botolf standing over me, the boy with one hand still dripping from where he had sprinkled me with water.

`You were dreaming of Starkad,' Botolf growled. 'Still, makes a change from that Hild creature.'

I struggled up, feeling the sweat cool on me. Odin's balls, did everyone know my dreams? Did they form above my head, then, like reflections in a still pool?

`That would be interesting,' chuckled Kvasir when I grumbled this out, 'but the truth is simpler: dream silently.'

It was dark, with a moon too like one of those pale faces from the dream for my comfort and a great wheel of stars, so vast a frosting that it shrank everyone beneath it. .

Ìf that should fall . . .' Kvasir mused, looking up from where he was wrapping the head of the mule in sacking. I knew what he meant; it was like crawling through a tunnel and feeling the weight of the rock press on you. After the dream, the whole world seemed skittish and hair-raising with strangeness.

The one camel and the last mule were packed, the latter uneasy with the smell of blood from its late partner, whose wrapped head Kvasir swung over his shoulder, though I thought at the time it would be poor eating. We filed down from the Church of Aaron's Tomb and, at the foot of the hill, the men assembled.

I looked at them, stepping back a little in my head, that ability Einar had prized so much.

They were built like huge oxen, with muscled shoulders and broad chests, giants in a land of small men.

They had a wild tangle of bleached hair, beards that hung halfway to their chests and faces and forearms reddened by the sun. Their boots flapped, their tunics were ragged and almost all the same colour now, and their shields were scarred and battered — but they held axes and spears with sweat-oiled shafts and sharpened edges, their ring-coats were carefully rolled and stowed and helmets swung from tunic belts on firm leather fastenings.

They were grim as an edge, with eyes like pale stone in the blue dark before morning.

I knew what to say. I pointed south, beyond the dusty, moon-washed fields and the huddled town and told them how that was the way home. I reminded them of what Starkad had done to us and to our comrades.

I reminded them of the reward for disposing of the dead-eating brigands and hinted that even more plunder might be had there. I reminded them we were here to fulfil our oath to our oarmates, even if most of us had never seen them.

After all that, into the silence of their indifference, I spoke with Einar's voice. 'We are sworn one to another,' I said.

`There are other
varjazi
and we have heard recent saga tales of the men from Wolin, whom they call Jomsvikings and who are bright with fame. They say these live all together in one house and no women are allowed.' I let that drift like an insect in the night air, then shrugged. 'Well, that's a fame I could do without myself. If they take turns on the ninth night to be used as a woman that's their own affair.'

There were heyas and some sharp intakes at this, for this was strong stuff; that particular insult, to accuse a man of behaving like a woman every ninth night, was so bad it was forbidden by law in Iceland and other parts. I had heard it from old Wryneck once, who had died at Atil's howe, and thanked him for it now.

Òur fame will be brighter still after this,' I said. 'In winter halls from now until Ragnarok, they will sing of Botolf's hair, Finn Horsehead and the mighty Godi, the gold-browed wit of Kleggi.'

Ànd Kvasir One Eye's shame pole,' Kvasir said into the pause I took. He unwrapped the mule head and stuck it on the spear with the runemarked shaft, then drove the whole thing into a cleft in the rocks, turning the head to point towards Jerusalem. I said nothing, for only something momentous would have forced Kvasir to interrupt his jarl in mid-speech.

Ì set up this shame pole and turn this shame against Jorsaland and the guardian spirits who inhabit this land, so that they shall go astray, unable to detect or discover their dwellings, showering discord on this land until every person in it comes to the true gods of the Aesir and Vanir.'

He raised both hands and spread them. 'I say further and now that, though I was prime-signed a Christ-follower by Brother John, it was a mistake on my part, for if the Christ-god refuses even to save his own priests, what use is he to me? I say here that I am of the gods of the Aesir and the Vanir, and that I will honour the Disir, my hearth-gods, from now until my end and will not be turned from them again.

Now I promise that I owe them many sacrifice-deaths in payment for my lapse and shall fulfil my bargain.'

This was powerful stuff and, taken with all else, ran a stir through the rest of the Oathsworn, like a breeze ruffling dust. Shoulders went back, heads came up, hands went to hilts and, like a pack of wolves scenting blood, they growled in the backs of their throats.

They wanted riches, fame and the favour of the gods — as we all did — and I knew I had them with me then, though the way of it left me sickening. This jarl business was, in the end, like sucking silver — it seems as if something so prized would be sweeter, but it is always just a foul taste of metal in the mouth.

The same taste as blood.

We moved off into the darkness and on to the unknown, Oathsworn still.