The Prow Beast (42 page)

Men grunted with the cruel power that vision brought.

‘Three days they did this,’ Finn said, soft, lost in the dream of it. ‘On the second day the shite was running down my leg and I was babbling promises not even a god could keep if they would let me go. On the third day I did the same, only for them to let me see.’

He stopped. Men waited; the fire flared a little in a wet night wind, throwing up a whirl of sparks.

‘On the fourth day, they were careless with the bindings and I worked one hand free, so that when they came to prodding and pushing, I tore the cloth from my eyes. There were eight of them, who all saw I had one hand free and so they came at me with spears.’

He paused, a long time this time, until Styrbjorn – that child would never learn when to put his tongue between his teeth – demanded to know what happened next.

‘I went over the edge,’ said Finn. All breathing stopped at the dizzying vision of that, of what it had taken to do it.

‘And died, of course,’ sneered Styrbjorn. ‘I heard this tale when I was toddling.’

‘I did not die. I went over the edge and, when I hit the end of that bast rope it snapped clean through. I should have had my neck cracked, but had my free hand taking a deal of the strain, so I was spared that. I hit the sea and got through that, too.’

Men were silent, for such a matter was a clear intervention of the hand of some god. Frey, suggested one. Odin himself, another thought and those who favoured Slav gods offered their own thoughts on the matter.

‘I have had no fear since,’ Finn said. ‘It was snapped from me by that bast rope. Nothing and no-one since has made me drip shite down my leg through terror.’

‘That is why you did not want that Vislan hanged,’ I said, suddenly seeing it and Finn admitted it.

‘And why you follow the prow beast,’ Kaelbjorn Rog added. ‘Since you cannot return to Skane while Halfidi and his sons are waiting.’

Finn said nothing.

‘They are not,’ I said softly, staring at him, rich with sudden knowing. ‘But you can still never go back, can you, Finn Horsehead?’

Finn stared back at me, black eyes dead as old coals. ‘I went to their hall in the night. That same night. I barred all the doors and fired it. No-one got out.’

It might have been the wind, or the trailing finger of that horror, but men shivered. The burning of a hall full of his own kind was the worst act a Northman could do and he was never forgiven for it.

It was cold, that burning revenge, for there were women and weans in it. It came to me then that humping a dead woman on the body of a dying ox was neither here nor there for a man such as Finn. I had been wrong, telling Brother John bitterly that I was leading the charge into his Abyss, for no matter how hard I ran down that dark, steep way, Finn would always be ahead of me.

‘Heya,’ growled Rovald. ‘That was a harsh tale – what did you do that so annoyed this Halfidi?’

We expected robbery, dire murder or killing his ma – or all of them, after what we had just learned. Finn stared at the fire, leaned forward and stirred the cauldron.

‘I fished his river,’ he answered. ‘Fished it once by moonlight for the salmon in it. He was not even sure it was me that one of his men saw.’

No-one spoke for a long time after that – then Onund suddenly leaped sideways with a curse and lashed out. Folk sprang up, hands on weapons and Onund looked at them back and forth for a moment, then grunted sheepishly.

‘Rat,’ he said. ‘Ran over my hand. I hate rats. They come out for the raven’s leavings.’

Crowbone’s new voice was still more of a clear bell than others and heads lifted when it spoke.

‘Pity the rat,’ he said. ‘It was not always as you see it now.’

He shifted his face forwards, to have it dyed by embers. His odd eyes were glinting glass chips.

‘In the beginning of the world,’ he said. ‘When Odin was young and still had both eyes and so was more foolish than now, he was more kind-hearted. So much so that he did not like to see folk die. So one day he sent for Hugin, Thought, who was his favourite messenger from Asgard to men. He told that raven to go out into the world and tell all people that, whenever anyone died, the body was to be placed on a bier, surrounded by all the things precious to it in life and then freshly-burned oak wood ashes were to be thrown over it. Left like that on the ground, in half a day, it would be brought back to life.’

‘A useful thing to know,’ Styrbjorn announced. ‘Find some oak ash and we will have our own army round these parts by tomorrow’s rising meal.’

‘Not now,’ Crowbone announced sorrowfully. ‘When Hugin had flown for half a day he began to get tired and hungry, so when he spotted a dead sheep he was on it like a black arrow. He sucked out the eyes and shredded the tongue and made a meal of it. Then went to sleep, entirely forgetting the message which had been given him to deliver.

‘After a time,’ Crowbone went on, looking round the rapt, droop-lipped faces, ‘when the raven did not return, Odin called for the smallest of his creatures – the rat. It was not a skulker in sewage and darkness then, but a fine-furred beast, even if he had no discernible use other than sleeping. Odin, in his foolishness, sought to raise the rat in life and sent him out with the same message.’

‘Odin sounds very much like every king I have ever heard of,’ Onund Hnufa rumbled, ‘while his rat reminds me of every royal messenger I have ever seen.’

The laughter was dutiful, but so weak it dribbled out like drool from a sleeping mouth and scarcely made Crowbone pause.

‘The rat was, as you say, a poor messenger,’ he went on. ‘He fell asleep, went here, went there – and, though he eventually remembered the message, forgot what it was exactly; so as he went about among the people he told them that Odin had said that, whenever anyone died, they should be set on an oak bier, surrounded by all their prize possessions and burned to ash. In half-a-day, they would be brought back to life.’

Crowbone stopped and spread his hands wide.

‘Well – by the time Hugin woke up and remembered he had a message, it was too late. He flew around furiously yelling at people to stop setting fire to their dead and telling them of the message Odin had given him – but folk said they already had a message and it was all too late.’

‘And so,’ Crowbone said, ‘the Odin dead are always burned to this day; the god in a fury rescinded the secret of resurrection and went off to find the sort of wisdom that would stop him making any more mistakes like that.

‘Now no-one trusts a raven when it speaks – and the rat is hated for the false message he brought.’

Folk shifted slightly as the tale came to an end; Rovald shook a mournful head.

‘Think of that,’ he said, nudging his neighbour, who happened to be Styrbjorn. ‘If the raven had not stopped to eat – folk would all still be alive.’

‘Blame the dead sheep for dying, then,’ snarled Styrbjorn.

‘Or having tasty eyes,’ added Ospak moodily.

Koll stirred and moaned, came awake into his nightmare.

‘Moonlight,’ he said and a few folk looked up; like a pale silver coin, it seemed to drift across the sky between clouds.

‘Rain on the wind,’ muttered Thorbrand.

‘This place is famous for it,’ Ospak growled and that raised a weak chuckle or two.

‘The same moon,’ Koll whispered, ‘shines on my home.’

It was a link, right enough and the tug of it brought every head up briefly. Styrbjorn wiped his mouth, gone dry with the thoughts that flitted nakedly over his face – home was there, under that silver coin in the sky and just as unreachable. He would die here. We would all die here.

‘Tell me of your home,’ the monk asked gently and Koll tried, in his shadow of a whisper, a thread of sound that stitched all our hearts. Of running barefoot on the strand’s edge. Hunting gull eggs. Playing with his dog. Fishing. A bairn’s things that, to these hard raiding men, were as far removed as that same moon – yet close enough to be remembered, to make them blink with the sudden rush of it. A man grunted almost in pain as Koll lisped about sliding on the frozen river on goat-bone skates. Then the boy’s voice faded – mercifully – to sleep.

‘What of your own home, monk?’ I harshed out, eager to be rid of the pangs of Koll’s memories, sure that tales of Miklagard would be more diverting, since most of the men here had never been to it more than once and that only briefly.

‘The city walls rise like cliffs,’ Leo said obligingly, ‘and the towers and domes blaze with gold. In the morning, a mist hangs over the roofs, there is smoke and ships…’

He stopped and I was surprised to see his eyes bright. Murrough shifted his big frame and coughed, almost apologetically.

‘I have heard they have women of great beauty there,’ he grunted, ‘but veiled, like the Mussulmen women. I thought you were all Christ believers in Miklagard?’

‘Veiled, unveiled, beauteous and plain as a cow’s behind,’ Leo answered with a small smile. ‘All manner of women – but you are asking the wrong man, since they do not bother me. I am a priest of Christ, after all.’

‘I had heard this,’ Randr Sterki answered, frowning. ‘It is a great wonder to me that a man can give up women for his god.’

‘It is a great wonder to me that a god would ask it,’ added Onund and men laughed now. I relaxed; this was better. Even Randr Sterki seemed to have covered the sharp edge of himself.

‘Worse than that,’ Finn growled, ‘these Christ folk say you should not fight.’

‘Yet they do it, all the same,’ Myrkjartan pointed out. ‘For these Pols we are killing are Christ men, or so I have been told – and there is no greater army than the one of the Great City itself, yet they are all Christ followers.’

Leo smiled indulgently.

‘They are told not to kill,’ Murrough corrected, ‘according to all the canting Christ priests of my land. Perhaps it is different in the Great City. I have heard they follow the same Christ, but in a different way.’

‘The rule,’ Leo said slowly, picking his words like a hen does seed, ‘is that you should not kill. A commandment, we call it.’

‘There you are, then,’ Finn muttered disgustedly. ‘The Christ priests command the army not to kill and the chiefs command the opposite. It is a marvel that anything is done.’

Leo smiled his gentle smile. ‘Actually, the original gospel commanded us not to murder, which is a little different and not too far from what you northers believe.’

There were nods and thinking-frowns over that one.

‘This is what happens when such matters are written,’ Ospak declared, shaking his head and everyone was silent, remembering Red Njal.

‘Then confusion will be king,’ Leo answered, ‘for the Mussulmen have some similar rules written down in their holy works.’

‘Are you Mussulman, then?’ asked Crowbone, knitting his brows together. Leo shook his head and his smile never wavered; another priest of Christ would have been outraged.

‘I wonder only,’ Crowbone said, ‘because I met a Mussulman once and he had sworn off women. He ate like you did, too, with one hand only.’

He looked at me when he said it, but just then Finn leaned forward, sniffed the pot, lifted the ladle and tasted it. Then he fished out his little bone container of emperor salt and poured generous whiteness into it.

‘Salt,’ he declared, sitting back. ‘A man should eat as much salt as he can. It cleans the blood.’

There was silence, while the fire crackled and the cauldron bubbled and men sat slathered and crusted with other men’s salt-cleaned blood and tried not think about it. Then Koll woke and managed to whisper out to Finn, asking him what he missed of his home.

Finn was silent and stared once out at the dark ramparts where our guards huddled and watched; I thought his head was back in Hestreng, was full of thoughts of Thordis and Hroald, his son.

I should have known. Thordis and he would never trade vows and Hroald was a boy ignored as much as acknowledged; Finn showed the truth of it all when he stretched out one long arm and pointed to where Onund’s elk carving perched on the gate tower, slanted slightly, but still upright and proud, a symbol that the Oathsworn were here and not leaving in any hurry.

‘I am home,’ he growled.

NINETEEN

We had left it too late; Czcibor had more men and bigger boats on the river; it cost us three dead to find that out and Styrbjorn came staggering back from the little river gate, clutching his bloody arm and ranting with the fear howling in him, for we were trapped.

That was the day we started burning corpses in a mad, desperate fear-fever that sought to try and scour the Red Pest out before it killed us all.

That was the day they brought up the ram and smashed in the gate.

They had tried fire, but lacked oil for their arrows and we had water enough to soak the gates and timbers where they tried it. Then we saw men hauling back a good tree, sweated out of the river further down, where it had lodged. It was, as Finn pointed out, as good an oak for a ram as any he had seen.

We had to watch it being crafted, too, for there was no place to hide out on that plain and every hammer and axestroke that shaped it rattled us to the bone, for we had no way of stopping such a beast. Their archers would keep our heads down – it was almost impossible to put your head above the timber-teeth of the rampart now, unless there were enemy climbing over it – and the ram would come up to the gate and splinter it to ruin.

‘Barrier the inside of the gate,’ I suggested and Alyosha nodded, then grinned.

‘Battle luck for you, Orm Bear Slayer, that you have skilled men here. Better than a barrier is our wolf-teeth.’

Alyosha and the Rus were old hands, having fought in sieges on both sides of the ramparts and they knew what was needed.

They had a house demolished for the great timbers of the roof-tree and lashed them together like a cradle. Then they gathered up spears and split the heads from them, or cut the shafts short, so that they were fixed to the cradle, all odd lengths and all deadly.

After that, it was shifted to a point just beyond where the curved groove of dirt showed how far the gate opened inwards.