Raven: Blood Eye (13 page)

'That's some feast you men are in for!' The tattooed rider's voice was deep and sure. He was heavily muscled and his arms were bare but for the many silver warrior rings adorning them. Guessing that the man had spoken about the meat, Glum nodded and slapped the carcass on his shoulder.

'No feast, I'm sad to say,' I replied with a tired smile. 'My master is going on pilgrimage across the sea and we are fetching supplies for the voyage. We'll salt this lot and then it will have to last for many weeks, may the Lord protect us and bless our humble ship.' I smiled. 'Eosterwine assures me we have never tasted better beef.'

The warrior raised his thick eyebrows. 'Eosterwine brags like a king with two cocks,' he growled, then glanced at his companion; he was an older man with a jewelled sword at his side.

'An accident?' this other asked, nodding at my covered eye.

I stopped now and faced the riders, letting the Norsemen trudge on down the track. 'Hammer scale from the forge, lord,' I said, touching the strip across my blood-eye. 'I was apprenticed to a blacksmith but,' I shrugged, 'had to seek a new path. Can't say I'll miss Eoferwic my old master. He was a bastard.'

'Well, your new lord must be a worthy Christian,' said the older man, his back straight, hands resting on the lip of his fine saddle. 'A pilgrimage is a worthy undertaking. If only we could all summon the endurance for such work and abandon our more mundane . . .' he smiled, 'earthly responsibilities.'

'If ever a man was assured a place at our Lord's right hand, it's my master. He will not rest until he finds what he seeks,' I said. The man's eyebrows arched. 'Worthiness, lord, that is what he seeks,' I added with a solemn nod.

'And his ship is moored by the white rocks?' Rain dripped from his long nose and wilting moustache.

'Yes, lord,' I said. I saw no sense in lying and further arousing their suspicions. 'We sail on the ebbtide. If the wind favours us.'

'You sail at night?' he asked, shooting a glance at the big man.

'Our shipmaster claims he knows the sea as well as a heathen,' I said proudly, making the sign of the cross, 'and Lord Ealhstan trusts the Almighty to guide us and keep us from harm.'

'Then tell your master we shall turn a blind eye to the tax he owes us for mooring on our shore. Seeing as he is a good pilgrim with God in his heart.'

'Thank you, lord. I will tell him and I am sure he will pray for you at the Lord's shrine,' I said, giving a shallow bow, but as I leant forward the small bone-handled knife swung out on the leather thong. I casually tucked it away and set off again along the muddy track, expecting to hear the rasp of swords pulled from scabbards. Instead, I heard the click of a tongue and a horse's whinny and I exhaled gratefully, for I knew the Englishmen had turned their mounts.

'Will they be back?' Glum asked when I caught up with the others.

'I don't know. They might,' I said. 'If it was up to me, I'd lash
Serpent
to Svein's back and tell him that Freyja herself was waiting for him across the sea with her legs open.'

Olaf smiled. 'You did well, lad. Sigurd will be pleased.'

'Make him leave, Olaf,' I said, wondering if the riders had recognized the pagan knife with its bone handle of carved beasts. 'Please,' I added.

Olaf's eyebrows arched and I guessed his thoughts. Sigurd was not a man who could be made to do anything.

We approached Thorolf on watch on the bluff overlooking the small bay and he straightened as we neared, his eyes devouring the joints of meat on our shoulders. 'Save some for me!' he pleaded, as we began down the narrow, muddy track to the beach where the Norsemen had piled wood for cooking fires away from the rotting whale.

'Just keep your eyes open, Thorolf, or I'll have you on dried codfish till you sprout fins and drink seawater!' Glum threatened. 'We are not in Harald's Fjord now. The folk round here won't give a fart that your father says you're a kind lad who loves his mother. They'll nail your hide to a church door and spit on it twice a day.'

When Ealhstan saw me he nodded sharply. Then I saw him make the sign of the cross over his chest and I knew he must have prayed for my safe return. We stowed the meat in the ships' small holds, though Sigurd ordered fires lit for two huge joints of dark red beef marbled with thin threads of fat. It was still raining, but the wood washed up on to the beach was white as bone and twice as dry and would burn well enough.

Then Olaf caught my eye, scratched his bushy beard and gave a slight nod, and I watched him approach Sigurd. I went closer.

'Let's be away, Sigurd,' he said through a relaxed smile. 'It'll be good to put some brine between us and these English.'

'The men are wet and hungry, Uncle,' Sigurd said, picking a flea from his yellow beard and crushing it between his thumbnails. 'We're not leaving until they have eaten a good meal. Besides, the wind is from the south. I won't make them row against it with their bellies empty.'

Olaf squeezed the rainwater from his long, greying hair. 'We take a risk if we stay,' he said.

'If we were men ruled by fear, we would never have put to sea, old friend,' Sigurd replied, sweeping back his yellow hair and tying it with a thong. 'We will leave with the moon if you are worried about the English. But let them eat before you make them row.' He grinned. 'Our fathers were not men of the plough, hey?' Olaf nodded, accepting his jarl's decision, but now Glum stepped up. He picked up some dried seaweed and dropped it to test the wind.

'The boy thinks the English might come, Sigurd,' he said, touching his sword's hilt for good luck and looking at me. I moved closer.

'They were suspicious, lord,' I said, glancing at Olaf. 'It was in their eyes.'

Sigurd's brow darkened. 'I will not run from them, Glum,' he said. 'Óðin does not favour cowards.' Glum's face flushed red against the darkening sky and he seemed about to speak, but instead turned his back on Sigurd and marched away. 'Take off the patch, Raven.' Sigurd was looking at me, his beard broken by a thin smile.

'Raven?' I said, relieved to be untying the sodden linen strip that covered my blood-eye.

He nodded. 'The All-Father has two ravens, Hugin and Munin. Mind and memory. At night, these great birds perch on his shoulders, but every morning they fly away to see what is happening in the world. They are Óðin's messengers and since you are from the All-Father, you remind me of them.' He pointed to Black Floki and the others. 'Besides, you can't expect them to call you by an English name. It sticks in their throats.'

'Raven,' I said under my breath, feeling the word on my tongue.

'Raven,' Sigurd affirmed. Then he nodded to Olaf who stepped up and handed me a sword in a leather-bound scabbard. I took it with trembling hands, suddenly as mute as old Ealhstan. Sigurd smiled and gripped my shoulder, then the two of them moved back to the fire, leaving me holding the weapon as though it were the greatest treasure in all the world.

Ealhstan was watching me and there was sadness in his face as undeniable as the deep creases betraying his years. But I did not care, for I had been given a sword. So it was that the name given to me two years before by the man who had found me died. And because I was dark-haired, unlike most of the Norsemen, and because Sigurd believed I was from Óðin All- Father, I became Raven.

I watched the meat turning above the embers of a spent fire, but my mind rested elsewhere and I realized that the warmth I felt came not from the fire, but from pride. These men, adventurers and warriors, had accepted me into their Fellowship and their jarl had named me. Raven. I liked the name. And feared it. For though the raven is Óðin's bird, it is also a creature of carrion, a scavenger of the battlefield. A thing of death.

The meat tasted as good as it looked, but the eating was over too soon. The rain had stopped and though our clothes were still damp, we were content. Our bellies were full and our blood was strengthened, and by the time the moon silvered the dark ridged sea we sat around rekindled fires, laughing and singing. As always, young Eric's voice was the sweet honey to the others' coarse oats, and sometimes they would stop singing so they could listen to his melody, which quivered gently and rolled like the waves. Glum seemed no longer angry with his jarl and the two men banged their ale horns together as they drank, spilling the liquid into their beards and down their tunics.

'Those filth-loving halfwits must have swallowed Raven's tale about us being pilgrims of the White Christ!' Ingolf said, his gap-toothed smile glinting in the firelight.

'Well, I am embarrassed about that,' Glum slurred. 'Fucking pilgrims? Were those whoresons blind? My father would fall off Óðin's mead bench to hear us mistaken for slaves of the White Christ.'

Sigurd grinned. 'Your father and mine likely shook Valhöll's timbers years ago, Glum, when they challenged the All-Father to a drinking contest and fell on their faces,' he said, crashing his cup against Glum's, and laughter rang out into the night.

But I could not forget about the man with the drooping moustache and his vicious-looking friend, so I decided to keep watch from the moonlit rise above the beach. 'If Bram is asleep,' Olaf called, snatching a burning stick from the fire and waving it at me, 'set light to the drunken swine's beard!' And I smiled and nodded, standing for a while to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. Then, with the sword at my waist, I began to climb.

Bram the Bear, who had taken over sentry duty from Thorolf, was as famous among the Norsemen for his love of strong mead as he was for his ability to put it away. But as I pulled myself over the last grassy lip, I saw I would not need to wake him. Bram was down on one knee behind his round shield.

'Get down, lad,' he growled, peering into the darkness. 'We've got guests.'

'How many?' I asked, glancing at the horn strung over Bram's back. The blood pumped deep inside my ears.

Bram shrugged his broad shoulders. He looked left and right, scanning the shimmering oaks and hornbeams that covered the hilly ground. 'Some of the bastards are close,' he murmured. 'I keep catching their stink on the wind.'

I looked back down to the beach where the fires danced and the Norsemen lay unaware of the danger. 'We run now,' I hissed, 'and warn the others.'

'Or we could give these bastards something to remember us by,' he offered with a grimace. 'Slow them down a bit.' He was looking straight ahead, but I knew he had one eye on Valhöll as he drew his sword with a low rasp. 'Let our lads hear the English squeal like pigs.'

I gripped his shoulder. 'No, Bram, we run,' I hissed.

He turned to me, his jaw clenched. 'All right, lad, we run. On three.' I nodded. 'One. Two. Three.' And I turned and scrambled back over the ridge, sliding on loose stones and jumping over rocks, my sword scabbard banging against my leg and my cloak trailing behind like a bird's broken wing. And I knew that Bram was not with me.

There was no need to shout, for the men on the beach heard the clack of rocks and stood, swords drawn and shields raised, as I fell over my feet where the rough ground suddenly evened out.

'Raven?' Sigurd stood tall, his empty drinking horn in one hand, his sword in the other, staring at the crest of the hill.

'They're here, lord!' I said, standing and fighting for breath.

'How many?' he asked, throwing down the drinking horn.

'Too many,' I said, gripping my sword's hilt. A long flat tone from a Norse war horn challenged the noisy surf. 'Bram,' I said, looking up at the moon-silvered ridge.

'Shieldwall!' Sigurd yelled. 'Shieldwall in front of the ships!' But his men were already moving, forming a wall of flesh and iron.

'Kill the flames!' Olaf ordered. 'Or do you want to show the English where to stick their damned arrows?' Sigurd, Bjarni and Bjorn left the line and kicked the burning branches of the fire, raising a shower of sparks that crackled into the night sky. But the embers still glowed, cloaking us in an orange hue that could prove lethal once the English brought their bows within range.