Raven (5 page)

They turned at my approach, some nodding at my joining that strange party, and Halldor watched me from the corner of his left eye which was just visible behind the grotesque, oozing swelling. You could not see his right eye at all. He looked like some troll horror from a child’s nightmare and yet he half grinned at me before turning back to Asgot, who was talking to him in a low voice. Halldor was dressed for battle, his brynja polished to a gleam and his blades sheathed and belted. He wore no helmet and I suspected that was because it would no longer fit on his misshapen head, but other than that he looked ready to take on the Midgard-Serpent. Then I noticed Black Floki cloaked in Halldor’s shadow, his sword drawn and his face clenched in a grim frown, and I suddenly understood what Sigurd had meant when he said it was time.

‘Raven, here, lad,’ Sigurd said, and so I stepped up, the wind whistling across the dark beach, lashing sand against my cheeks. I turned to spit out a wad of salty grit, then held out the bone Týr carving to my jarl. Sigurd took it and turned it over in his hand, ‘hooming’ in the back of his throat. ‘I have seen shinier turds, Raven,’ he said disapprovingly.

‘That the best you could find?’ Olaf gnarred behind his hand. I shrugged, suddenly wishing I had brought a torc or a silver arm ring or at the least some hack-silver.

‘It will have to do,’ Sigurd said, creasing his brow. Then he nodded to Floki, who took a step forward, his sword raised
slightly as though that honed, hungry blade could scent blood.

‘No straw death for us, cousin,’ Halldor said, a nervous edge to his voice. His face twisted with a sour smile. Svein and Bram shared a bleak look, their loose, wild hair and beards tousling against the gusts, and Asgot stepped back from Halldor, nodding solemnly at Sigurd. It will happen now, I thought, glancing at Cynethryth. But she was staring at Halldor as though the man was already a haugbui buried in his death mound, and she was mumbling words which I could not hear.

‘Wait for me in Valhöll, cousin,’ Black Floki said, his eyes stony and his jaw clenched tight. ‘I will come soon enough.’ A blast of cold breath whined up the beach from the foam-flecked sea. I resisted the urge to pull my cloak tight at my throat.

‘You had better not drink all the good mead before I get there, you greedy whoreson,’ Bram warned, pointing a finger at Halldor. ‘And I’ll want a swan-breasted wench or two to warm my bed, too,’ he added, ‘so you make sure old Bram is not left wanting when he crosses Bifröst and comes knocking.’

Halldor nodded in Bram’s direction but his eyes were on Black Floki, who gestured at him to draw his own sword, which he did, the blade rasping up the scabbard’s throat.

‘I have something for you, Halldor son of Oleg, something to take on your journey,’ Sigurd said, stepping forward with the Týr carving. ‘It is not silver,’ he added almost apologetically, ‘but maybe you can show it to the Aesir to test its likeness.’ He pursed his lips. ‘It is skilled work, I’m thinking.’ Sigurd held the figure up to the ashen moonlight for all to see, and far from seeming disappointed Halldor appeared moved. The significance of his jarl giving him a carving of Týr, the bravest of all the gods, was not lost on him there under the cold shadow of Black Floki’s sword.

Sigurd stepped forward and handed the thing to Halldor and it seemed the two warriors would embrace. But there was a flash of steel and a low grunt from Halldor as Sigurd pulled the
man into him, so that Halldor’s one visible eye bulged horribly. Black Floki flew forward but Olaf stopped him with an arm and a glower as Sigurd closed his hand around Halldor’s so that the man could not drop his sword. Sigurd whispered something to Halldor then and I swear that a smile skimmed over the dying man’s lips like a flat stone across water. He gave a long gasping sigh and his head lolled on to Sigurd’s shoulder and his knees buckled though his jarl held him up until the last whisper of life had flown his corpse. And then it was over and the rest of us were left standing there and I do not mind admitting that there was a lump in my throat the size of a hen’s egg.

Slowly, Sigurd lowered the warrior’s now still body to the swirling sand and we turned to Floki, who had shrugged free of Olaf and was glaring at Sigurd.

‘That was for me to do, Sigurd!’ he spat. ‘He was my kinsman. He expected me to do it.’ His sword was still raised and for a moment I sensed it still hungered for carnage.

‘I am his jarl, Floki,’ Sigurd replied, a snarl curling his lips, ‘he was oath-tied to me.’ Sigurd held up the blade which he had sunk into Halldor’s heart. Its bone handle, like the jarl’s hand, was slick with blood and I could see fog rising from it, vanishing into the night. ‘This was my right. Halldor had faced his own death for long enough and as straight-backed as any man could hope to. He did not need to stand there all night, eyeballing the sword that would bite his flesh. It is over.’ Sigurd looked to the rest of us. ‘We will meet Halldor at the high end of the All-Father’s hall, each in our own time.’ He glanced down at the body, at the puffed-up, dead face of one of his Fellowship. ‘It is over,’ he repeated tiredly, the words granite-heavy.

Floki loosened the cords in his neck and nodded shallowly, sheathing his sword. Then he went over to his cousin’s lifeless body and Svein offered to help him carry it but Floki would not take any help, lifting Halldor alone and hauling him over
his shoulder before taking him off to prepare the corpse for the pyre.

‘Back to your beds, ladies,’ Olaf said, hawking and spitting as an end to the whole rancid thing. ‘We’ll be rowing tomorrow if Njörd keeps farting in this direction.’

‘And while we’re rowing that whoreson Halldor will already be rinsing his beard with Óðin’s sweetest mead,’ Bram moaned to Svein, who conceded that to be a fair point, as they started back up the beach behind Asgot, Olaf and Cynethryth. Sigurd came over to me, his eyes gleaming dully in the half light.

‘Next time I ask you to find something shiny, bring me an arm ring or a handful of silver,’ he said, ‘not an old lump of bone.’

‘Yes, lord,’ I said, scratching my beard, but Sigurd was already walking down to the frothing sea to wash away the blood.

AT DAWN SIGURD STOOD AT
SERPENT
’S STERNPOST AND SAID SOME
words about Halldor. Mainly he spoke of his bravery and how well he had died, albeit after suffering the way he had.

‘The Norns spun a dark skein for our brother Halldor,’ Sigurd said, to which many murmured agreement, ‘but in the end he died as we all hunger to die, amongst our brothers, with a good sword in our hands. Even the Spinners cannot always cheat us of this right.’

We made a pyre for Halldor and laid him on it with the things he would need on the other side of Bifröst, the Rainbow-Bridge, and in one hand the corpse gripped his sword and in the other it grasped the Týr carving Sigurd had given him at the end. But even in death poor Halldor could not shrug off his ill-wyrd, for as soon as we had lit the sea-smoothed white driftwood beneath the corpse, the pitch-black clouds overhead began to spill stinging rain, with streaks of lightning and cracks of thunder loud enough to flay the skin from a man’s bones. For a long time the wood just steamed and even when a flame defied the deluge it did nothing more than singe the corpse above it. For all of us gathered round, huddled pathetically in furs and skins, it was a sorry scene and there must have
been many warriors there who shivered with the fear that they might one day suffer such a pitiful rite.

Eventually, though, Bothvar remembered that we still had a couple of pails of seal’s fat somewhere and when these were found we slathered handfuls over the wood and smeared it on to Halldor’s cloak and even into his beard. Olaf added some old dry lumps of pine resin to the flames and eventually the wood caught, for which we were all relieved, as much for the warmth of it as anything. A dirty column of smoke rose to meet the low-slung clouds and the water which had puddled in the sand hissed and steamed where it met the fire’s edge, and we watched from that blaze’s shadow, talking in low voices when the thunder would let us be heard, as the wood crackled and hissed and popped and Halldor’s corpse blistered and burnt.

‘If I’m killed you’re to make Father Egfrith say some words over me,’ Penda said, staring into the flames, water dripping from his woollen cloak, ‘and make sure they bury me properly. Nice and deep.’ He grimaced. ‘You can help them with the digging, I don’t want some dog digging me up and chewing on me, but leave the rest of it to Egfrith.’

I looked at the scar that ran the length of Penda’s face, a wound which could easily have seen him as dead as Halldor.

‘I’ll dig you a hole deep enough to bury Svein standing up,’ I said, ‘and screw Egfrith. I’ll speak for you, Penda. It would be an honour.’ He looked at me dubiously. ‘I’ll say, today we bury Penda. He was a bastard.’

He spat into the rain. ‘That’ll do,’ he said through a half grin, turning back to watch as Halldor’s beard burst into bright orange flame.

We waited another two days on that miserable beach for the wind to die down a little and when eventually it did, we dug the ships free of the sand we had piled around them to stop them rocking, and prepared to sail. We had managed to catch plenty of fish, mackerel mainly, but also some hooked from the sea-grass beds in the shallows that were flat and shaped like
giant’s eyes but which tasted better than any fish I had ever eaten. We hung soaking furs over the sheer strakes to dry in the wind and we took to our benches, eager to put more of that treacherous, storm-lashed coast behind us and find smoother waters. We rowed for a while, until we were out in the depths and clear of the winds that swirled within the shadow of that rocky shore. Then all four ships hoisted their sails and we rested and worked in shifts, bailing or hauling the sheets, or else played tafl or watched wind-jumbled sea birds and the endless coast slip by.

In the next days we made good progress, mooring in the mouths of sheltered inlets at night and continuing on at dawn or when the wind allowed, thus decreasing the risk of being attacked by rock-hurling locals. At last the weather turned kinder. The grey sea, which had heaved and surged as though the rolling coils of Jörmungand stirred beneath, settled to an ill-tempered swell. The rain that had seemed sharp enough to pierce the skin on your face weakened to a steady drizzle that you hardly noticed, and men began to throw insults around again, which is a sure sign that they are happy. But the end of the storm gave Sigurd time to worry about another problem, and that problem was the Danes.

‘They need war gear,’ Sigurd said to Olaf one dusk, watching the sun slip out of reach of Sköll’s jaws behind the rim of the world. We were moored in the shelter of a rocky cove where the water was calm and the fishing good.

‘Aye, they do,’ Olaf said, chewing meat from one of the few remaining smoked pig legs. ‘Because at the moment they’re as useful to us as tits on a bull.’

Sigurd glanced across at the Danish ships, whose crews seemed in good spirits despite what we’d been through. I guessed that to men who had thought they would rot to stinking mush in Frankia, a faceful of storm was an improvement. ‘They’ll stand in the shieldwall if it comes to it,’ Sigurd said with a nod.

‘Then they’ll stand in the last bloody row,’ Olaf moaned, ‘and I’ll have their guts for twine if they stick any of us with their rusty bloody spears!’

For we had seen smoke palling in the sky beyond a promontory swathed in holm oak, yew and willow, and there was enough of it to suggest a large settlement. Sigurd was aware that his men needed something to get their blood pumping hot again and there was nothing that could do that better than a fight and the chance for plunder. But he knew nothing of the land here or its people, and without decent war gear the Danes would be vulnerable if we ran into proper fighting men.

Olaf’s teeth dragged his beard across his bottom lip. ‘I haven’t seen them in a scrap yet, Sigurd,’ he said dubiously. ‘Even if they had good gear we don’t know if they know how to use it. Thór’s hairy arse! I’ve seen more meat on a sparrow’s kneecap than on most of those Danes. A stiff breeze would carry them off.’

‘They’ll stand, Uncle,’ Sigurd said. ‘But I won’t ask them to fight without swords and helmets. Not until we know what sort of men those hearths belong to.’

‘So what’s your plan, Loki?’ Olaf baited, looking back to the Danes berthed the other side of
Fjord-Elk
. ‘You want to send Floki to sniff it out?’

Sigurd pursed his lips but said nothing and so Olaf turned to Yrsa. ‘Get off your arse, lad, and fetch that miserable whoreson Floki,’ he said, taking a comb from his belt and dragging it through his beard with a grimace. ‘And fetch us something to wet our throats.’ Yrsa nodded.

‘Floki is not aboard, Uncle,’ Bag-eyed Orm said. He was pissing over the side and the hot fluid was fogging the evening air. ‘He was ashore before the anchor thumped the seabed. Haven’t seen him since.’

The comb went still in Olaf’s hand as his brows arched. And Sigurd grinned.

Floki returned when a thin crimson was all that remained in the western sky. He was announced by the squawks of the black-faced gulls that bustled on the rocks we had moored up to and I knew he would have hated that, for Floki was a warrior who thrived on stealth. He was the kind of man who believed he could steal Óðin’s beard without the All-Father feeling the breeze on his cheeks. Now, he climbed aboard, naked but for his breeks, and shook the salt water from his long crow-black hair. The only weapon he had taken ashore was the long knife he now wiped dry with a linen strip before doing anything else. But even with a knife Floki was someone you would be a fool to take on. He was like the Wessexman Penda in that way: as dangerous as thin ice on a lake. A born killer.