Raven: Sons of Thunder (21 page)

‘Keep that lump of snot on a short rope,’ he said to Black
Floki, who dropped on to the bank behind a miserable-looking Ealdred and shoved the ealdorman forward, grimacing. I had thought Floki’s grimace was simply due to his revulsion for Ealdred but I soon understood it was something else. The comforting, sweet smell of the town’s woodsmoke mingled with the robust stench of human shit and there was another reason why this part of the shore was deserted. Fifty paces north along the bank a slick, glistening trail of filth oozed down the rampart to be lapped at by the Sicauna. We were almost moored in a river of Frankish shit.

‘Welcome to Paris,’ Olaf said, hawking and spitting into the mud.

Giving my spear to Bjorn I squelched back over to
Serpent
, extending a hand to help Cynethryth down, but she dismissed the gesture with the flick of a hand and jumped, bare feet plunging into the mud. ‘Maybe you should have helped your jarl,’ she said.

‘Cynethryth,’ I hissed, and her lips pouted so that it was all I could do not to kiss her there and then. Instead, though, I turned because someone barked that the Franks were coming.

There were three of them – two soldiers and an official in knee-length boots, an oversized ermine cloak and a conical hat made from rat fur. You only had to see the man to know he was a self-important prick and I felt sorry for the armed men with him as they squelched towards us, sometimes sinking to the knee, trying to keep up with Big Boots.

A stream of incomprehensible words cut the stinking air. Then in heavily accented English, ‘Who are you? What is your business here?’ Big Boots’s voice arrived long before he did. Sigurd said nothing until the man was within reach and staring at us balefully as his two men caught their breath and grimaced at the stench.

Sigurd looked at Ealdred, expecting the ealdorman to play his part as he had done before. But Ealdred said nothing, his long
frayed moustache twitching as he scratched his chin, perhaps weighing up several possible outcomes. Cynethryth looked at her father.

‘Who are you?’ Big Boots asked again, looking at Ealdred now. Sigurd frowned and nodded at the ealdorman but Ealdred pursed his thin lips, and there was the hint of a smile there.

‘I am Ealdorman Ealdred of the kingdom of Wessex in England,’ he said at last, and I released the breath I had been holding. ‘I have business with the emperor,’ he went on haughtily, glancing up at the palisade with a sneer as though he was not in the least impressed by the look of the place.

‘The emperor?’ Big Boots almost laughed. ‘You think the emperor lives here? In this reeking shit hole? The emperor only comes here when he wants more gold to build his churches,’ he said without malice. ‘And who can blame him for leaving again before his arse has warmed the imperial throne? His palace is in Aix-la-Chapelle. A very long walk north-east of here. Not that you will be walking anywhere until you’ve paid the landing tax,’ he added, smirking at one of his men, whose teeth worried his bottom lip. Then Big Boots frowned, glancing at the longships and back to us – back to Sigurd. ‘These men are heathens!’ he said to Ealdred. ‘I can smell it on them. They are heathen craft too,’ he added, pointing at the ships, a crack defying his cocksure arrogance. His men glanced at each other nervously. ‘You’re no ealdorman,’ he accused Ealdred, who merely shrugged and looked to Sigurd.

A bell was clanging inside the city now. I looked up at the smoke-bellied sky where loose mobs of jackdaws and rooks broke, several at a time, into the space above the valley to the south, then tumbled out of sight beyond the city’s palisade. Big Boots is a dead man, I thought to myself.

‘We are Christians,’ Egfrith said assuredly, making the sign of the cross as though to ward off the evil of Big Boots’s accusation.

‘You are heathens!’ Big Boots said, pointing a finger at Sigurd’s face, which was the stupidest thing he could have done. Either side of him the soldiers were shifting uncomfortably, clutching their spears with white knuckles, their jaw muscles working silently. ‘You are Danes,’ Big Boots said, which was at least a change from heathens. ‘I tell you I can smell it on you.’ Egfrith shot Sigurd an
I told you so
look but Sigurd did not see because he was moving. In two plunging steps he was on the customs reeve, clutching the man’s head and gouging his eyes. The soldiers turned and ran, leaving their screaming master to his fate. Sigurd pulled the man into his chest, turning at the hip, and gave a savage jerk, filling the air with a sharp cracking sound. Big Boots crumpled face first into the mire as the rest of us stood staring, apart from Black Floki, who was already running after the fleeing Franks.

‘Go on then!’ Olaf said to Bjorn and Bjarni, who looked at each other, then dropped their shields and set off, released to the chase like hounds through the mud.

‘You are mad!’ Egfrith yelped, signing the cross for real now. ‘You are mad as beasts!’

Sigurd shrugged. ‘We would not have got very far with that bladdermouth bawling like a stuck pig that we are Danes,’ he said. ‘Besides which, it’s offensive. We are no more Danes than he is.’

‘What do you guess they will think you are now?’ Egfrith asked, shaking his head, his palms to the sky.

Sigurd sighed as though he was tired or bored. ‘They cannot know what we are now, monk,’ he said, which was at least true, though for how long who could say? I looked around. There was no one to be seen, which meant there was a chance that no one had seen what we had done. Black Floki and Bjorn were each dragging a mud-caked corpse back towards us, with all the ceremony of men lugging sacks of horse shit.

Ealdred was smirking and old Asgot grinned too, perhaps
because he thought Sigurd would give him the Wessexman now. The godi would in turn give Ealdred to the All-Father via his wicked sharp knife.

‘Back to the ships,’ Sigurd said. ‘We don’t know what we are dealing with here and we can’t fight in this.’ He frowned at the mud. There were no complaints as the Wolfpack worked the sucking, plunging mooring posts free and clambered back aboard.

‘Let me stay,’ I said, ‘with the monk.’ I surprised even myself with this request, but some part of my mind knew it made sense. ‘We’ll go into the city and ferret around. Dig up what we need to know.’ Most of the Norsemen continued preparing to set off, but Sigurd and Olaf stared at me. Cynethryth was staring too.

‘What if they saw us kill the reeve, Raven?’ Olaf asked, nodding towards the city ramparts. All were aboard now but for those who would help the rowers by pushing the longships backwards before wading out and clambering up the boarding ropes.

‘They didn’t see, Uncle,’ I said uncertainly. ‘And even if they know something happened here, which they will when the reeve doesn’t return, they will not lay it at the feet of a Christ monk.’ Father Egfrith had to admit this was the truth when I told him in English. I think he was as eager as me to have a sniff around this city of the Franks. He nodded forlornly as though still stunned by the reeve’s killing.

‘I’ll go with them, Sigurd,’ Penda said, leaping from
Serpent
’s prow without waiting for Sigurd’s permission. He slapped Egfrith on the back and grinned like a fiend.

The jarl looked at Olaf, who shrugged his broad shoulders and scratched his nest-like beard. ‘We will go upriver,’ Sigurd said, ‘and find a quiet place. Be here at sunrise the day after tomorrow. We will come for you then.’

I glanced up at Cynethryth, instinctively touching the raven’s
feather which she had tied into my hair, and I thought I must be a fool for leaving her to go into a place of more people than I had ever seen – and all of them Christians.

‘Look after Father Egfrith, Raven,’ Cynethryth said with knitted brows. The skin of her cheeks, which had been snow-drop white, was now wind-burnt brown, but she was still the most beautiful thing I had ever laid eyes on.

‘I’ll keep an eye on him,’ I said, wanting to say more.

‘And I’ll keep an eye on them both, lady,’ Penda put in with a respectful nod.

‘Take this, Raven.’ Sigurd threw me a black scrip which chinked when I caught it. Then I realized it was not a scrip but a hat tied closed with a leather thong. It was the ratskin hat Big Boots had been wearing when Sigurd broke his neck, and now it was full of hack silver. Which was just as well, I thought, as
Serpent
and
Fjord-Elk
slipped back into the Sicauna, their crews backing oars skilfully. For I was in Paris.

THE THREE OF US TRUDGED SOUTH ALONG THE BANK, WATCHING
the perimeter for signs of a commotion, which would tell us the Franks had seen what we had done to their reeve.

‘They probably think we have done them a good turn,’ Penda suggested. ‘I don’t suppose they like paying the bastard any more than we would.’ Every step we took was accompanied by a squelch and a pop. ‘If they’d seen anything we would have a levy on us by now,’ the Wessexman added. ‘I am guessing there’s no inner rampart, fortunately. Otherwise we would have seen sentries peering over the wall.’

‘Even if they did see your savage jarl wring that poor man’s neck like a prize goose, they have no need to wade through this mire,’ Egfrith said matter-of-factly. ‘They can keep their boots clean; we’re coming to them.’ At that Penda and I looked at each other knowing that the monk was right. We could walk into that place and straight on to more spears than there are spines on a hedgehog.

A man and his son, both barefoot like Egfrith, had moored their skiff and were trudging up the bank carrying between them a reed basket piled high with bream and roach. I could
tell they were father and son because the boy had the same livid purple stain across his cheek and forehead as the man. Silver tails flapped helplessly among the mountain of fish, though for all their rich catch the father and son looked as miserable as two monks with a pretty whore. Perhaps the marks on their faces stirred hatred or fear in others, as my blood-eye did. At least they will not starve, I thought as they passed in front of us, ignoring us and the blessing Father Egfrith gave them.

Up we went, stepping on the grass between the planks, for the planks themselves were treacherous with slick moss, and then we passed through the open gateway and for the second time that day my nose wished it were anywhere else. Out on the water smells do not hang around long enough to trouble you, not even one of Bram’s farts, but in a place enclosed within a wall, the stink can water your eyes and make you wish you had rolled mint leaves stuffed in your nostrils. Human and animal shit, hearth smoke, cheese, spices, sweat, fish, damp wool, wet daub and straw, raw flesh, and the stale piss stench of the tannery, all created an overwhelming stink so thick you could chew it.

I suddenly realized why armed men had not poured from the place like water from a holed pail to avenge their reeve; they were far too busy doing a hundred other things to have noticed what was happening beyond the cesspit by the north wall.

The place was swarming with traders and craftsmen, fishermen and beggars and whores. A drunk with a pockmarked face stumbled past, falling against me and slurring something nasty as I shoved him off.

‘You want me to hold that, lad?’ Penda asked, nodding at the silver-filled hat in my left hand.

‘It’s safe with me, Penda,’ I said defensively, nevertheless gripping the ratskin hat even tighter. There was enough silver in that hat to buy a decent sword and earn me a beating if I lost it.

‘So many souls,’ Egfrith sighed, as though he were somehow responsible for them all or else pitied whoever was. Wooden trestles groaned with goods of all kinds. There were fine furs of beaver, otter, marten, fox and bear. There was pottery, glass and metalwear, and items made of deer antler such as combs and knife and sword hilts. There were brooches and necklaces and rings of gold, silver and amber, and there were stalls of meat and vegetables, herbs and spices and sweet golden honey. I felt dizzy in this stinking cauldron of noise and commotion. Penda was already talking to a dark-haired whore whose red-painted cheeks and naked tits were intended to steer your mind from the fact that she seemed to have only one tooth. Clearly it worked on Penda, who held a tit in each hand, pursing his lips as though he were weighing grain against the merchant’s price. Father Egfrith was too busy trying his Latin on a richly dressed horse trader to chastise the Wessexman.

‘Where on Óðin’s hairy arse do we start?’ I said, scratching my short beard and looking for a path through the buzzing knots of mud-spattered folk.

‘Did you leave your wits between your lass’s legs, lad?’ Penda asked, sending One Tooth on her way with a slap on the rump, at which she spat at him viciously and stomped off. ‘Where do you think we should start, you bone-headed heathen son of a goat?’ he grinned. ‘In the tavern, of course! Bad enough that we can’t speak the language of the place. Even worse we should have to try talking to these Franks with tongues stiff as dried herring.’