Raven of the Waves (10 page)

Lidsmod kept quiet, listening. He eyed the banks of the river. The entire country could not be made up of thralls. There had to be jarls and fighting men. There had to be
karls
—men who owned land and weapons and would not welcome thieves.

The wind grew weak. Every ship showed oars, the wooden paddles churning the current.

Opir gave a loud hiss. He pointed.

A river craft, with one man.

An ugly boat, a vessel like a cooking pot. The river man gawked at them briefly and then turned his attention to his own business. A roll of gray netting lay at his feet. The man plainly had seen trading ships before, and he appeared to assume that these were three sea freighters. His lack of surprise was a good sign, Lidsmod thought. Where traders came and went there was also gold coin. But then perhaps the river man was not certain about these ships—he kept looking back, his face the color of ram leather.

Njord chuckled. “We don't look quite friendly, do we?”

The river man began to row hard. It was truly a ridiculous boat, like a nutshell.
Raven
and
Crane
raced toward it, the two ships skimming the water. Trygg fixed an arrow to his bowstring, and fired the silver splinter high into the air.

It splashed beside the homely boat. The man had a peaked cap, the shape of an elbow. A man in
Crane
was spending arrows into the river too. It was a waste of arrow wood.
Raven
reached the man first, and Floki leaned between the shields and speared the man so hard that the point of the spear passed through him. It punctured the bottom of the boat, and the nutshell filled with blood and water, and sank.

No one spoke. No one was interested. The river man was unimportant to the seamen. He had been there; they had killed him. A river fisher was dead. No one cared except, perhaps, Trygg, who cursed his bow.

But Lidsmod could think of nothing else, his grip hard on the oar. Lidsmod had never seen a man killed before.

Lidsmod saw the boatman's face, even now. His slack, suddenly death-stupid face. And Lidsmod wondered at the carefree faces of his shipmates. Did none of these suddenly unfamiliar men feel the same, sickening chill? Lidsmod felt himself shrink. His grip on the oar was weak. Lidsmod Littleax. Lidsmod who did not want to kill.

The rowing quickened without any command.

There was a town, a squat, low town with a few low, ugly river craft. There was a tower, and a line of ugly roofs obscured by the smoke of cooking fires. It was distant, across the wide river, and no face showed to observe the three ships.

They rowed hard.

When the drab town was behind them, men muttered—too many people. But certainly a gold fortress was there. Perhaps on the way back they would share some blows with the city people after they knew how well these men could fight. They would see how badly these river women smelled.

But not now.

The riverbanks were lined with trees, and within these just-leafing trees there were almost certainly unfriendly eyes. The birdsong was sour, the pasture walls that ran along the river made not of clean, ax-sharpened wood, like the fences of Spjothof, but mist-gray, mossy stones.

It rained, and then stopped raining. The sky cleared, and there were soft clouds, white as Njord's hair. This was a very foreign sky, thought Lidsmod. This was a river-country sky. Unless they took keel to land again soon, and took some gold into their hands, the men would become uneasy.

They were parting the river water well now,
Raven
coursing far ahead of the other two ships. The very ease with which Gorm had taken lives last night made this land all the more mysterious. Some of the men began to sense a trap, and Lidsmod guessed what each oarsman was whispering to his mate: danger everywhere. They were not afraid for a moment, they convinced themselves. They were wary.

But they were growing apprehensive. The men of Spjothof did not have leaders, except for those men who were naturally most capable. If a leader became confused, or if he became tired, another replaced him. There was no shame in this. If one man could not lead, another would do the job. Gunnar, however, would be the land commander. He had proven himself against the Danes, and even Egil, leadman of
Landwaster
, listened when Gunnar spoke.

Lidsmod tried to fashion a quiet prayer. Thor was the provider of strength. He gave the fat herring, and he gave the field alive with lambs. He gave rain, and he gave vigor to the arm of man. Battle, of course, belonged to Odin, and so did the special strengths and twists of fortune that battle incurred. Poetry was Odin's, and the bear spirit of a man like Torsten. Power, sky power, and the power of the strong fist belonged to Thor. Lidsmod considered asking Eirik to fashion a song that would catch the god's ear.

Lidsmod was first to see the boy on the riverbank.

15

The boy carried a shepherd's crook, and a dog tended the sheep.

The youth stared and ran at the sight of
Raven
. He stopped up-slope, staring hard again at the river.

The young man ran again, scattering sheep, and there was something strange about his gait, something awkward, one arm much thinner than the other. An alert shepherd, thought Lidsmod. A creature with enough wits to be worried.

Njord steered the ship toward the bank. “Smart lad,” said the helmsman. “Wiser than the river man.”

But the shepherd's haste had told the men of
Raven
they were close to a settlement. Even in his inexperience, Lidsmod knew that fleeing goosemaids and panicked harvesters always ran in the direction of their homes.

The afternoon sun showed fewer trees. Cattle had worn paths along the bank. The smell of hearth smoke reached the river, the odor of green, unfamiliar wood. Some of the trees had been cleared recently, the white ax cuts still unweathered on the stumps.

Raven
's keel sliced river bottom, and the men worked her out of the water as far as she would go and lashed her to a big tree.

As the other ships came up, Gunnar told Ulf to search alone, quickly, and see what lay before them.

Egil and Berg did not show their excitement, but Lidsmod knew them well enough to see the blood in their cheeks.

Ulf was back before all the weapons could be unloaded from the ships. Many peaked roofs, Ulf panted, and a gold fortress. “There were men there too,” he said. “Men with hammers.”

“You're sure there's a gold fortress?” asked Gunnar.

“It's not finished,” said Ulf, breathing more easily. “They're building a tall stone tower. Men are chiseling stone, and lifting it.”

Stone walls, thought Lidsmod, testing the blade of his small ax on his thumb. There must be a great treasure to be guarded here. He looked around at the eager faces, men he had always known.

He prayed to the God of Strength that his friends might live to see night.

16

Wiglaf and Stag had taken the sheep to the end of the abbey land. They had to pass the
aldwark
, an ancient crumbling mass of stone half tumbled into the green pasture. Aethelwulf had explained that Roman armies had built this fortress centuries ago, and Wiglaf's father had told the colorful local tale about a giant's wife needing to build a cupboard to cool her massive loaves.

Wiglaf did not peer closely into the shadows of the
aldwark
. He did not want to discover whether Roman spirits or giant phantoms inhabited the place. Forni had said he knew a pig herder who saw a skeleton warrior one Midsummer's night, grinning fleshlessly from behind a wall.

Stag did everything that had to be done without prompting. He did not have to nip the sheep. The animals sensed his presence, and the dog encircled them with an invisible cord that held them together in a bunch, the sheep seeming almost fond of their crooked-jawed guardian.

Wiglaf ate a wedge of abbey cheese at midday. As he finished, he heard the first cuckoo of spring. It was distant, far into the forest, its deliberate
you too
coming at times from more than one direction as the unseen bird turned his head one way, and then another. Cuckoos were notoriously difficult to spy.

Far away, tiny mites against the green, his father and twin brothers dragged an oak toward the village. The laboring heads of the oxen rose and fell.

Wiglaf worked the butt of his shepherd's crook into a molehill. As afternoon shadows stretched, he and the dog worked the sheep near the river, where the grass was uncropped. The sheep did not like to look up; they liked to keep their fine teeth to the field. The sheep bell clucked. The dog blinked in the sun, making his lopsided smile.

When Wiglaf saw the ships, he jumped up and ran to the bank. They were beautiful! Their sails were nearly entirely lowered, but they were white with scarlet stripes, and many bearded men rowed, the oars lashing the river white. The ships were fast, skimming the water, and shields lined the side of each boat. He could not breathe, watching such graceful speed.

Ships passed Dunwic often on their way to the city. They were always freight ships, with a few dark-tanned men aboard their slow, heavy-burdened vessels. The men on the ships rarely took an interest in Dunwic or its people. Sometimes Wiglaf would wave, and a sailor might wave back. But these three ships were not like any Wiglaf had ever seen before. These were sleek, long vessels, with more sailors than usually manned any river craft.

Wiglaf could not think of the words, but his blood and his breath answered the glory of these ships. These were like beings out of Heaven.

The men were looking at him. They had golden hair, and their eyes took him in. These were not the faces of trading men.

The rowing stopped at a command Wiglaf could just hear.

Wiglaf dropped his crook and ran. He ran across the field, leaving the sheep untended.

He ran until his side ached and his eyes wept, but he did not stop.

Brother Aelle was sharpening a quill with his blade. Wiglaf could not speak, trying to catch his breath.

“Whatever could it be?” asked the brother with a slight, lingering cough.

“Ships!” called Wiglaf. “Ships—filled with strangers!”

The brother was a scribe, an inkster of holy texts. His life was quiet, and perhaps he was pleased to be distracted for a moment by some news from the outside world. “Indeed, ships—how wonderful,” he said kindly. “On the river, no doubt.”

“These are not river ships!”

“How exciting!” said the brother, coughing.

“Where is Father Aethelwulf?”

Brother Aelle brushed his lower lip with the white goose feather. “He hurried forth again,” he said. When he saw Wiglaf's impatience, he added, “Some further illness in the village. That mud cutter's wife you visited recently. It seems she has swallowed her tongue.”

Wiglaf ran.

17

Wiglaf ran hard to his father's house and danced into the manure-scented half darkness where Sigemund was unyoking the oxen. The yoke left dark sweat patches. The ox hair was swirled and spoked, and the two beasts turned their massive heads to gaze at Wiglaf with dull curiosity.

“So, little Wiglaf comes to see his father yet again—can't stay away, can you, lad?” said his father, in a manner which was almost friendly. “And without his dog. Where's your dog?”

Wiglaf started. Stag would be hurt! But then he steadied himself. What ships would trouble sheep, or a small, lean dog? But he reminded himself that his place was not here either watching oxen give him their flat, stupid stare. He had to warn the abbot.

Being in the presence of his father always steadied Wiglaf, or at least made him cautious. Just now he began to believe that all of his worries were the concerns of a fool.

“There are ships,” said Wiglaf weakly.

“Ships.”

“Strange ships,” Wiglaf added, knowing how pointless he sounded.

“Strange ships?” echoed his father, with something like gentleness.

“Three.”

His father found the hay fork.

“And,” Wiglaf continued, thinking there was no purpose in stopping now, “a ship army.”

“A ship army? A ship army floated past you on the river?” His father said the words for ship army—
scip here
—with special humor. He shook hay from the wooden tines. “Is that what you saw, Wiglaf? A mighty army floating by you on the river?”

“Yes,” Wiglaf croaked.

His father laughed. “Wiglaf, when I was a boy I shoveled shit. With that very shovel, worn smooth by my father's hands, God keep him.” He indicated the broad, worn wooden shovel hanging on the wall. “I didn't learn how to read or how to write.”

He leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. “I did things that made me strong, and made my mind clear. I didn't stand around looking at whatever happened to be floating by on the river, did I? So, what if there is for some reason a ship army? It has nothing to do with Wiglaf, or with me, or with anyone here, does it?”

But Sigemund gave a thoughtful frown as he fingered the points of his hayfork.

Aethelwulf hurried up the muddy street. “Frea is like a stone!” said Alfred the clay cutter. “Lying on the floor, her mouth agape, and going all over blue.”

Aethelwulf prayed to Saint Anne, the patroness of troubled women, who understood their problems. He had to stop for a moment to catch his breath and lifted a hand to win the clay cutter's patience.

A maiden of the village was smiling from a doorway, offering him a plate of fresh-baked bread, and the abbot could not help lingering for one stolen moment, breathing the delicious yeasty fragrance. He had no time to take a taste, even though long experience told him that poor Frea was beyond all human aid.

He heard a cry and turned.

He saw the blood first. A man ran toward him down the muddy street, his face scarlet with it. The incredibly bright blood coursed and trickled even as the man ran. Blood washed the man's tunic. That a man could run with so much blood flowing from his head was grotesque. And when the man spoke, his teeth were white within the scarlet mask.