Crowbone

NINE

Mainistir Buite (Monasterboice), Ireland, not long after …

Crowbone’s Crew

She walked beside Thorgunna in to where Crowbone stood — still a little pale, she thought, with a lurch. She was wearing a dress for the first time in months and the catch of it round her knees felt strange.

‘You kept the secret cleverly,’ Crowbone said, his face stiff. He had had some time of lying about recovering to recall all the clues he had missed about her, from her unnerving softness to the way she had avoided taking off her wet clothes on the night of the storm.

The strangeness of her was like something seen through rippled water — the face was familiar, like a round owl, the dark hair was down to her ears and raggedly cut, the eyes big and soft. Yet now it all belonged to a girl and not the youth he had thought and the dress she wore, even if it was made for Thorgunna and too large, only accentuated the curves everyone had failed to notice.

‘I wore a few tunics,’ she answered in a small voice, hearing the flat, bitter tone of his own. It would be the shared man-moments, she thought, when he told of how many women he had taken. ‘To hide the shape of me.’

Small wonder, Crowbone thought, looking her over. How in the name of Odin’s hairy arse had she hid those breasts from all of them? Those hips? She saw him stare and grinned, the old grin when she was one of the crew and not a woman.

‘You see what you want to see,’ she declared. ‘I had to hold in my business until landfall a lot of the time. Once or twice I could not and did it in my breeks, but folk just thought me smelly. Like all boys.’

She saw her error in the grim reef of his face and the smile wavered like a faint flame in a wind, then was lost entire.

‘Aye, you hid it well,’ Crowbone said, remembering all the little moments, feeling his face flame at some of them. It explained how he had felt, at least — which was a relief; those moments when his groin had tightened had been for a girl after all. Still, he did not understand how his body had known even if his mind had not and it was more than a little disturbing.

‘Did Grima know?’ he asked, sitting down. ‘Bergliot — is that the name now?’

She saw the strain in him then and made a move; the odd-coloured eyes stopped her like two fists in the chest and she stepped back a little way.

‘Stick to Berto,’ she said, a little more harshly than she had intended. ‘It is easier.’

‘Hardly,’ he answered wearily. ‘Those days are gone.’

‘Do not judge too harshly,’ Thorgunna said softly and he looked at her, sitting quietly with her hands folded in her lap and then shook his head.

‘I have problems enough with the men who follow me,’ he said. ‘They think my luck is flowing from me — they may be right. Now one they thought a comrade turns out to be a cuckoo in the nest.’

‘A cuckoo who saved your life,’ Thorgunna pointed out, but Bergliot saw the truculent flex of Crowbone’s jaw and the centre of her sagged.

‘Grima knew,’ she answered and left it perched there like a crow on a branch. She saw him work through it, his head tilted and thoughtful, as if he was a bird with a beakful of snail and a stone in front of it.

‘He did not touch you,’ he said slowly, weaving it as he spoke. ‘Made out that you were a boy of no worth …’

‘He stumbled on me during a raid,’ she replied flatly. ‘Just him alone. He thought I was someone else, then realised I was not.’

‘Still of worth,’ Crowbone mused. ‘Grima would have tupped you in an eyeblink and flung the remains of you to the others — save that you had value. Made you dress like a boy and keep the secret of it absolute, because he no longer trusted any of them.’

‘A bad matter,’ Thorgunna flung out, ‘when trust is shattered. Who is the betrayer then, little Olaf?’

He looked sharply at her, then back to Bergliot.

‘You went over the side after him,’ he rasped. ‘Why?’

‘Balle would have killed me,’ she answered simply.

‘And who are you, then?’

She shrugged and the tremble in her was obvious.

‘Bergliot. No more. Grima thought I was Geira, but I was only her handmaiden and he knew he had missed the greater prize. His men would have scorned his battleluck, he knew, and would take out their annoyance on me. But I was Geira’s friend, too, so that she would pay to have me back and Grima saw that.’

‘Geira?’ Crowbone asked and Thorgunna put her arm round the girl’s shoulders and drew her away.

‘Geira,’ she said. ‘Eldest daughter of Burisliev, King of Wendland, and a queen in her own right.’

A queen’s close friend. Close enough, Crowbone thought, to be worth something, one way or another and he said as much later, when he went to the men waiting uneasily in the church outbuildings, taking Bergliot with him.

They had already heard the tale of it; some could not look her in the eye as she stood there, wrapped in a warm, fur-trimmed cloak — another gift from Thorgunna, who had not, Crowbone thought wryly, left Hestreng too distraught to forget possessions entirely. Most of the old crew who had been with Grima would not even look this new Bergliot in the face. A few — the Oathsworn gifted from Orm, Crowbone noted — were easier about it.

‘This explains why you are not good with a pole lathe or an axe,’ Kaetilmund declared with a smile.

‘Just so,’ she answered with brittle brightness. ‘Does this mean you will stop calling me No-Toes?’

Kaetilmund scrubbed his beard with wry embarrassment while Stick-Starer and Halfdan chuckled and nudged him. For a moment, she felt the old warmth, then saw the men’s faces as they looked at Crowbone. More was revealed there than the surprise she had presented them with.

Crowbone saw it also, the blank stones of their stares, and had to heave himself up against the crush of it. Well, he thought to himself, if they cannot be made to love me, they can be made to fear, which is the way princes and kings must think.

‘Where are the prisoners?’ he asked and Mar stepped forward, his helmet dangling from his beltline and a spear in his hand. Behind came Kaup and Murrough shepherding a shuffling group whose sorrow and fear came off them like stink and, behind that, he saw Congalach, bound hand cradled in the crook of the other and his eyes wet with pain and misery.

Eight of them, Crowbone saw — Halk was there, sorrowed as a whipped dog, pleading with every look, though he knew there was no hope. And Fridrek, all sullen and twisted mouth.

He looked them over for as long as it took for Oengusso to come up, his arm across his son’s shoulder, then he turned to the lector.

‘What would you do with them?’ he asked. ‘Since it was you they offended last.’

‘Sure I would hang them,’ Oengusso said and there was a stir among the men.

‘No Christ mercy, then?’ Crowbone demanded harshly. ‘Some of them are Christ baptised.’

Oengusso laced his hands together, while his snub-nosed piglet of a son gazed adoringly up at him.

‘A mind prepared for red martyrdom, a mind prepared for white martyrdom,’ he said sonorously. ‘Rules Eight and Nine. Fervour in singing the office for the dead, as if every faithful dead was a particular friend of thine — Rule Twelve.’

‘That is not what the blessed Columba had in mind when he made the Rules,’ Mar declared bitterly. ‘I am sure of that.’

‘They broke the oath,’ Crowbone pointed out and Kaetilmund studied him for a moment, trying to work out if the odd-eyed boy spoke of the Oathsworn’s oath or the oath he knew others had sworn personally to the prince. He was still no wiser when Kaup started dragging the men away.

Halk babbled and pleaded, but Fridrek, half-stumbling, flung curses back at them over his shoulder and men who had known him a long time shifted and shuffled.

‘If you have a mind to allow it,’ Crowbone said, ‘I would like that dove flag you have.’

Oengusso blinked, then smiled and nodded, sending his son scampering to get it, then went off on his own; not long after they heard his great bell of a voice and the singing chants of the monks. They waited in the dripping day, while the bast ropes creaked and scoured the tree branches, hauling their kicking burdens high into the air.

When the dead had stopped swaying, Crowbone said his farewells to Thorgunna, who stood like a cloaked shadow in the shelter of the church, the great tower hunching itself into the sky over her shoulder.

‘What would you have me tell Orm if I meet him?’ Crowbone asked and she flicked a little smile on her cheeks, made old and withered in the harsh daylight, he saw suddenly, like the last winter apple in the barrel.

‘That you are sorry you did not hold to the Oath,’ she answered and the slap of that made him take a step back.

‘I meant about yourself,’ he answered, which was as good as admitting the truth of what she said, though he only realised this much later. ‘Shall I tell him where you are?’

‘You will or you won’t,’ she answered sadly, which left him no wiser. Then she dragged her woollens tighter round her and looked up at the sky.

‘I am leaving,’ she said, shivering a little, as if a wind had kissed her neck. Crowbone did not know whether she meant now, or this place entirely.

‘I am gone,’ she whispered, her eyes black as an iced sea and turned away; the bleakness she left was more of a desert than before.

As he marched out of the place, conscious of the men filtering along behind him, sullen as rainclouds, Crowbone turned to the woman he had known as Berto and held out the blue flag.

‘Here,’ he said, vicious as a slap. ‘You are a woman now. Sew this in the way I tell you.’

Teamhair, the Hill of Tara, some weeks later …

Crowbone’s Crew

There were horns blaring and the great reek of warriors, giving off so much heat that the air above the armies wavered like water. Irishers trotted past near Crowbone, one of them fumbling to try and fasten his rolled cloak over his right shoulder to leave his arms free; he had a leather helmet half-tilted over one eye and a long spear that smacked the shoulder of the man behind, who cursed him in a long spit of Irish.

‘Here — I have sewn it.’

She held out the tall spear, the furled cloth held tight to it with her fist, then let it go and flutter free; someone made a noise between jeer and cheer and Crowbone glanced up at it. A cloud-blue square with a white eagle on it, though there were those who thought the wings were strange. Not surprising, since it started life as a dove.

‘You have sewn it well,’ he said, which was the truth — the silly twig was unpicked and the thread saved had been used to curve the beak and add some talons. It was not, as Onund said pointedly, the Oathsworn banner, which was Odin’s valknut, but Crowbone merely asked Onund if he could sew one in a hurry and, if not, then this one would do, for Prince Olaf needed a banner.

‘Can I carry it?’ Bergliot asked, her face tilted and defiant.

She had done it well, as he had to admit. Now she stood there, in the middle of a stinking, bustling, roaring army about to dive headfirst into blood and slaughter, holding it on a long spear and asking her question. Men paused in what they were doing to hear the answer.

‘No,’ Crowbone said, though he could not help the leap in him at her courage. ‘You cannot carry the banner. That is work for a man, which you are not. Now take off those breeks and pull your dress down — we are at war here.’

Kaetilmund laughed at the scowl on her face, then plucked the banner from her hand and raised it high; the shouts were half-hearted at best and Crowbone saw Congalach striding up, his Irishmen at his back and Maelan trotting at his side in his own little fitted suit of ringmail.

‘I hope they fight better than they cheer, Norseman,’ he growled at Crowbone, then went off laughing to the side of Gilla Mo, raising his sword high so that his own men burst their throats with his name — Congalach, son of Flann, lord of Gaileanga.

‘Thinks well of himself, that one,’ said someone close — Bryti his name was and Crowbone was pleased to have remembered it.

‘So he should,’ Murrough said, slapping Bryti hard on the back, so that the rain spurted out of the wool cloak, ‘for he is a prince of the Ui Neill and so worth ten of you.’

‘Princes,’ snapped Onund and then spat pointedly, so that Kaetilmund chuckled. Crowbone said nothing, pretending that this was just the way of all Icelanders, but he burned inside, so that his belly hurt and the battered side of his head felt like ice.

‘Well,’ Halfdan declared, rolling his own cloak round his shoulders like a ruff, giving him better protection there and freeing up both arms, ‘he is a dead prince of the Ui Neill. He should have listened to his da — everyone else did.’

Folk laughed. The argument between Congalach and his old father Flann had been loud; the old man had wanted Congalach to stay out of things because the arrow wound meant he had no proper grip in his sword hand. He did not want his grandson in it, either, claiming the boy was too young at twelve.

Congalach had all but whined that neither would be left out of this, a great battle and the only one they might ever be involved in. Now he was striding off with his sword lashed tight in his fist and his son dogging his heels like a small shadow.

‘Things are moving,’ Murrough said and looked inquiringly at Crowbone, who took a breath and then ordered everyone to form up, sliding the wet helmet on as he did so. It felt strange, with the old fitted comfort of it battered out and where it now touched, the new bruising seemed colder than before, as if there was ice there.

They went into a two-rank line in the rear of Gilla Mo’s Chosen — at least it was that, Crowbone thought sourly, and not in the back of a bunch of horny-handed Irish farmers. The Irishers turned half round and muttered about having northmen at their back; one looked up at the flag and squinted a bit, then laughed and said something to his neighbour.

Murrough growled and spat Irish back at them, then turned to Crowbone, beaming.

‘That dung-smeared cow’s hole there said our flag looked more like a shot pigeon than an eagle, so I told him it was no eagle at all, but a stooping hawk.’

A Stooping Hawk. Crowbone liked the idea and resolved to tell Gjallandi of it when this stushie was done with — there was no point in looking for the skald in this, for he took care to keep away from such events, being no fighter of any note or inclination.

Horns made farting sounds close by. The men nearest to Crowbone rolled their neck muscles, fitted helmets more snugly, touched amulets, crossed themselves; a few glanced at him, their faces pebbled with rain and one even smiled. Crowbone wondered if they would fight for him.

‘Rain is an amusement when it is hissing from the gutters and you are in the dry and warm looking out,’ Halfdan said moodily and folk laughed, saying he was going soft. Kaetilmund called out that Halfdan was thinking he wanted to be back in the warm with Bergliot. The name and the memory of her — of him, who was now her — brought a silence that the rain lisped through while they moved, half-stumbling over tussocks and ruts. Crowbone did not know where they were when they eventually stopped, panting like blown bulls. Horns blared again.

Apart from Murrough, not even the grimmest of them could smile into a rain that came down like stones, stung the face, sluiced down ringmail and seeped through to wool and neck. Crowbone’s boots were sodden with it, his braids dripping and he wondered blackly if Ireland had any other weather.

‘Call this rain?’ Murrough demanded, grinning and happy as a hog in a wallow.

‘Only you and him do not seem to care,’ Halfdan answered and jerked water off his beard indicating the stone figure nearby. ‘Who are you thinking it is, eh, Crowbone?’

Crowbone did not know. It was weathered and bird-splashed stone, half the height of a true man, a youth with a scabbed dog caught by the ruff in one hand and the other arm raised, holding a dripping slather of slimed weed from the stump of a wrist. The face, worn and speckled, had an expression of bewilderment, not helped by the lack of nose.

‘Ask Murrough,’ he grunted, but the big man only grinned and shrugged, blowing rain off his nose.

‘Who knows? Cuchulain maybe. This is Teamhair — the place is thick with this sort of stuff.’

Teamhair, Hill of Tara, High Seat of Kings. The place where Ireland’s overlord was hailed by all the lesser kings, Crowbone had been told. A place of pillars and monuments, of course — and known to both sides. An easy place to arrange to meet in battle without all the tedious business of marching about seeking one another out.

A good place to play the game of kings, the true choosers of the slain.

‘Archers!’

The warning came from the front and shields went up as shoulders went down. There was a pattering, as if the rain had hardened. Something whumped into the chewed grass near Crowbone’s foot, but it was no arrow — a stone, Crowbone thought. No, a smooth lump of lead.

‘Slings,’ Murrough spat. ‘By The Dagda, but I hate them folk worse than I hate archers.’

There was a loud whanging sound and everyone jerked their necks in, then peered round. Bryti, his hand shaking, pulled off his helmet and looked at the dent in it.

‘By the gods of all Ireland,’ Murrough said into the man’s dazed look of wonder. ‘You have enough luck there to be Ui Neill.’

Bryti fingered the place where the lead shot had struck and looked up, grinning. The next stone took him in the jaw with a wet smack that tumbled him backwards, spewing blood and teeth. Murrough frowned, watching him choke and die, quivering like a terrified rabbit.

‘Well — perhaps not Ui Neill after all,’ he said, glancing at the straw-doll tangle of limbs. ‘Keep your shields up lads.’

‘Remind me again,’ Mar said grimly and he did so to be heard by Crowbone above all, ‘why we are here, good men of the north fighting Norsemen for the Irish?’

‘Something concerning an axe,’ roared a voice Crowbone did not know and the rage bokked up in him, so that the struck side of his head throbbed and he bellowed the cords of his throat raw.

‘Because it is my wyrd. I am Olaf, Prince of Norway who will one day be king and if you are wise you will all remember that.’

Then he slung his shield on his back and took a spear in either hand as they moved forward. Kaetilmund fell in on his right, the banner in one hand and a sword in the other, while Rovald fell in on the left, the only one with a shield up and charged with, somehow, protecting them both.

It had stopped raining, but the ground was churning under so many feet and the sharp smell of turned earth and torn wet grass was enough to make the heart leap, for it was the smell of life and death.

Horns bayed like staghounds and men stumbled over the rough ground, up to where the Chosen of Gilla Mo swarmed into a copse of trees and stood beneath the branches; Crowbone and his men joined them, feeling the drips spatter.

Crowbone looked at Kaetilmund, saw the drawn-back snarl of his lips and knew, if he looked to the other side, he would see Rovald the same. His own skin felt tight and the corners of his mouth gummy; his head ached and where the helmet touched still felt as if an icicle had been slid into his skull.

A brown bird whirred in to land on a branch above his head. It was exhausted from having been beaten from cover to bush by thousands of tramping feet, the swish of long grass on calves, the leather creaks and frantic shouts. Crowbone watched it closely as it perched on a branch and looked back at him with a bright black eye; he shivered at the wyrd of it.

Somewhere ahead there was a huge shout and a great thundering crack, as if a giant door had been slammed shut — the shieldwalls coming together. Now there was a stirring and the faint shrieks and bellows where the lines struggled in a ruck, but Crowbone could see nothing at all.

There was a deep roaring from the left, where the Leinster men forged forward, roaring out that they had come to free their king, held hostage by Olaf Cuarans in Dyfflin: they were determined to let him hear them from his prison.

Suddenly, Crowbone saw Gilla Mo’s banner raise up and go down — once, twice, three times.

‘Move — fight in pairs. Keep together …’

If the Chosen Men were going in forward it either meant the battle was already won, or in the balance. Crowbone loped along, peering ahead as the solid ranks melted apart in front of him — a chase then, the battle won on this part of the field at least.

Others sensed it, heads went back and the great wolf howl of the Oathsworn rolled out, followed by the shouting of their name. The blue banner cracked in the wind and men started to tumble over bodies, seeing the backs of fleeing men and fevered by the sight, as cats are with running mice.

Crowbone stumbled to his knees over a body and started to lever himself up using one of his spears; then he paused at the sight of the little shape, unnaturally still and face down.

‘Are you hurt?’ panted Kaetilmund coming up to him, Rovald pounding desperately along behind him. Crowbone did not answer, merely stuck the butt of his spear under the small frame and rolled it over.

Maelan, his youthful face a fretwork of blood and bone where a blade had punched him. Even his own da would not recognise him.

Not that it mattered much — two steps further on was his da, who was past recognising anyone. Congalach lay on his back, staring at the sky, his sword still lashed to one hand, the other clutching the burst rings of the mail on his belly and the tarn of his own lost blood thick and dark around him.

‘Ah, shite,’ Murrough said as he came up and saw them. ‘A bad day for the Ui Neill and Gaileanga — are them the ones that did this?’

Crowbone looked to where Murrough pointed his hooked axe and saw the tight group of men moving backwards steadily, shields up and protecting a man in their midst. Beside him, like a great tree in a field of long grass, was a bareheaded giant with a mass of tow-coloured hair.

‘Christ’s bones,’ muttered Mar, ‘he is even bigger than yourself, Murrough macMael.’

‘So he has further to fall,’ Murrough answered, though he butted the axe and leaned on it thoughtfully — but Crowbone was already waving them forward, for he knew the sight of a lord and his picked guards when he saw it and wanted them at his feet, for his glory as a prince.

Kaup set out to unnerve them, capering in front like some great dancing draugr but Crowbone saw at once that these were better men, for they only hunched behind their shields a little more at the sight of a black warrior, gripped their weapons tighter and dared their enemies to come on them.

So Crowbone sent them, surprised that his men went, howling and roaring. The lines smacked; men hacked and slashed at each other, bellowing curses and screaming. A gap opened and Kaup fell back out of it, blood pouring from a wound on his thigh and his mouth large and wide with the shock. The tow-haired giant burst out of it like a boar from a thicket, clattering his way through the hole.

Rovald sprang forward and the giant’s shield swept him up and off his feet, flinging him back to gouge a trail through the muddy grass. Murrough roared, the great axe scything and the blade of it smacked the shield and staggered the giant, so that he had to let it go. He waved a sword wildly and backed off through the gap before it closed, away from the bright bit of the hooked axe. Murrough pointed it at him as he went, bellowing challenges.

‘Step back, step back!’

Crowbone heard the man in the rear call this, while the giant yelled out a repeat of it until the men stepped back, away from the fighting. Some of Crowbone’s men followed up, but most stood where they were, panting and sobbing, no breath left to shout now. The lines slid apart, them leaving their dead and groaning wounded; Svenke Klak stabbed one viciously in the groin as he tried to crawl away and the man curled round the spear like a pinned beetle, coiling and uncoiling in a writhe of agony until he died.

Crowbone stepped forward, Kaetilmund to one side of him, the banner whipping above his head. Rovald was being helped up and holding his chest, whey-faced, gasping and shamed that, yet again, he had failed to protect his jarl. Crowbone offered him a brief look and went on, the scorn slathered on him; it was clear the gods had stolen Rovald’s battle luck and he would not be Crowbone’s shield man after this.

The lord of the Dyfflin men stepped out and looked at the fluttering banner.

‘I do not know it,’ one called out, ‘but I am after thinking it looks like the dove of peace.’

‘Exactly the opposite,’ Crowbone answered. ‘The Stooping Hawk of Prince Olaf, son of Tryggve, of the Yngling line of Norway’s kings. No dove and no peace for you unless you beg for it.’

The man had a beard so pale it looked like clotted cream on his chin and his helmet was worked with brass or gold. He had blue eyes and a way of carrying himself that was so close to arrogance as to be a brother.

‘You say?’ he answered. ‘Well, I am Raghnall, Olaf’s son, wyrded to be lord of the Dyfflin Norse when my father dies, which will not be soon, I hope. This giant with me is Thord Vargeisa.’

Vargeisa. An interesting name, Crowbone thought. It meant Wolf-Ember and was a dangerous name to have, but the man who owned it carried it lightly enough on his ring-mailed frame. His face was smothered with faded yellow hair, though the skin which could be seen looked to have been ploughed over and his eyes were small and set so deep they were merely tiny lights in twin caves.

‘Oathsworn, you called out,’ he rumbled. ‘You do not look much, in rotting ringmail as you are. Are you true Oathsworn, or just liars? If you are, show me this Finn I have heard of, who fears nothing.’

‘Oathsworn we are,’ Crowbone replied firmly, ‘though neither Finn nor Jarl Orm Bear-Slayer are here — you need not be grateful for it, all the same, for the ones who are here are mine, the Oathsworn of Jarl Orm’s friend, Prince Olaf. I can show you some of their heroes — Murrough, who chewed the shield from your arm with his axe is one. Or myself, better known as Crowbone. Do not concern yourself much about the state of my ringmail, for I will certainly have yours by the end of this fight.’

They had heard of his name by the looks they exchanged and the sun of it swelled him with a fierce fire. Crowbone looked up at the sky, then to right and left, where men ran, or knelt plundering bodies.

‘This day is lost. The Irish are in the right and left of you, at the behind and the front of you. If you do not give in, you will have to run and you will all die. If you stand and fight, you will all die.’

Raghnall spat and twisted out a grin.

‘There is another ending to this tale,’ he answered. ‘We can kill you renegades and go our way.’

‘Not possible,’ Crowbone declared, shaking his head. Raghnall let out a bark of laughter, shaking his own head, but with admiration.

‘A stripling you may be,’ he said, ‘but you have the balls of a man, for sure. However, I am the lion here.’

‘You never saw a lion,’ Crowbone countered quietly. ‘I have. Once, in the days when animals spoke, such a beast went for a walk with his friend, the Fox. Lion began to boast and talk big about his strength. Fox had, perhaps, given him cause for it, because by nature he was a flatterer. But now that Lion began to assume so many airs, said he, “See here, Lion, I will show you an animal that is still more powerful than you are.”

‘They walked along, Fox leading the way, and met first a little boy. “Is this the stronger animal?” asked Lion. “No,” answered Fox, “he must still become one.”

‘After a while they found an old man walking with bowed head and supporting his bent figure with a stick. “Is this the wonderful stronger beast?” asked Lion. “No,” answered the Fox, “but he has been.”

‘Continuing their walk a short distance they came across a young hunter, in the prime of youth and accompanied by some of his dogs. “There you have him now, O king of beasts,” said Fox. “Pit your strength against his, and if you win, then truly you are the strength of the earth.” Then Fox wisely made for the shelter of nearby rocks to see how matters would turn out.’

‘Is this a long tale?’ demanded Raghnall, ‘for I am growing thirsty and have some good ale back in Dyfflin.’

‘You will never drink it,’ Crowbone declared, then cocked his head and went on with the tale. The yellow-haired giant stood, silent and droop-lipped as a bairn, listening.

‘Growling, growling, Lion strode forward to meet the man,’ Crowbone said, ‘but when he came close the dogs rushed him. He, however, paid but little attention to them, pushed and separated them on all sides with a few sweeps of his front paws. They bowled away, beating a hasty retreat toward the man, who pulled out a bow and shot an arrow, hitting Lion just behind the shoulder, but still the king of beasts came forward. The hunter pulled out his steel knife then and gave him a few good jabs. Lion retreated, followed by the flying arrows of the hunter, up to where Fox hid, watching. “Well, are you strongest now?” asked Fox.

‘The Lion shook his maned head, blood pouring from his wounds. “No, Fox,” he answered. “Let that beast there keep the name and welcome. In the first place he had about ten of his bodyguard storm me. I really did not bother myself much about them, but when I attempted to turn him to chaff, he spat sharpness at me, which took root and burned. When I tried to pull him to the ground he jerked out one of his ribs with which he gave me some very ugly wounds, so bad that I had to get away, chased by more burning roots. No, Fox, give him the name.”

‘So saying,’ Crowbone finished, ‘the Lion slunk off and admitted his lesser quality.’

‘A good tale you tell,’ Raghnall admitted, ‘and I see why you have done so — more Irish are coming to help you now.’

‘I do not need them,’ Crowbone answered as Raghnall backed off. The giant blinked once or twice and grinned a great uneven tombstone cave at him.

‘You have a pretty mouth,’ he said. ‘With it and your cheeks I will make a purse.’

‘You look like a troll-woman I knew,’ Crowbone yelled out as the giant trotted after Raghnall. ‘Her name was Cat’s Eye and I sent her running with just a few sharp words.’

Men who had heard the story roared their approval. Raghnall’s Chosen set their shields with a slap and moved swiftly forward, eager to finish the business and escape. Crowbone’s men met them with a roar and a crash. Men struggled, locked boss to boss, faces within kissing distance behind shields, blades stabbing and thrusting and hacking.

Kaup felt the shadow fall on him and looked up at Crowbone looking down. The pain in his thigh was a deep, distant throb now and he felt light-headed, wanting only to lie back and look at the silver-streaked pewter of the sky.

Crowbone looked at the rent in the Burned Man’s breeks, saw the purple flesh parted like a lipless mouth, high up inside his thigh; his boots were half-a-foot length from the man, yet he squelched in Kaup’s blood. Red he saw, as anyone else’s.

‘A bad wound,’ Kaup heard Crowbone say, felt rather than saw the man squat beside him. ‘Too high up to tie off and blood pouring from it. If you have a god, Burned Man, I think it is time to pray to him.’

Kaup wanted to reply but felt too weary even to speak. He thought of his home and the far away of it brought a choke into his throat, for he knew he was dying and wondered if God minded him having fought for heathens. He made a dismissive wave of one hand, as if to say that he had suffered worse and would get through this, too, but all Crowbone saw was the fingers of one hand flutter briefly.

He straightened, sighing; he had liked the Burned Man.

Rovald hirpled up, his face the colour of old narwhal horn and wheezing a little.

‘You keep falling over when you should be shielding me,’ Crowbone said, but the joke of it was lost on Rovald, who only felt the shame of having failed twice.

The Irish arrived, but they were farmers with spears, looking for plunder now that the battle was clearly won and did not want to get in a new and dangerous fight, so they hung about the edges, or slunk away to search bodies. The great battle, or what was left of it, was now lost and everywhere Crowbone looked he saw dead, or shrieking, groaning wounded and the only ones moving swiftly were the plunderers, flitting like flies from body to body.

But in this part of Tara the clatter and clash and grunt went on. Men shrieked and went down. Mar staggered out from the pack, clutching his cheek and cursing, then saw Kaup and gave a great cry, stumbling to where the Burned Man lay.

‘The battle is not yet done,’ Crowbone said and Mar looked up at him, misery and flaring anger in his eyes.

‘He is already dead,’ Crowbone pointed out gently and Mar blinked, nodded wearily and climbed to his feet to get back in the fight. Just then, the end came.

Raghnall’s men broke, like a quarry stone chisel-hit in the sweet spot; the Oathsworn surged forward after them, howling their triumph. The giant, roaring and flailing, sent men scattering on either side and Murrough closed on him with a great bellow of his own, but was shouldered off his feet as the giant forged forward, straight at Crowbone, sword up and the slaver trailing from his mouth.

Crowbone’s first spear took the giant in the thigh, a slicing stroke that opened a great tearing mouth that trailed gore as the giant ran. The second shunked into Wolf-Ember’s side, bursting rings apart and biting deep, but the giant simply tore it out in the next step and hurled it back.

It smacked Rovald as he hirpled desperately forward, went through the shield and into his ring-mailed body hard enough to make him grunt and tumble backwards. Wolf-Ember kept coming and Kaetilmund dropped the point of the spear and thrust it, banner and all, so that the cloth of it furled round the giant’s head, blinding him.

Crowbone had his sword out now and stepped once, twice, spun to avoid the blundering flails of the giant and cut just once. His stroke frayed one end of the banner and went into the back of the giant’s neck, so that he arched and howled, falling like a crashing oak. Blood flushed up the length of the blue banner, even as Kaetilmund wrenched it away.

It was then that Crowbone realised that Wolf-Ember had been forging a path for Raghnall to reach him.

The son of Olaf Irish-Shoes had the eyes of a mad rat in a blocked tunnel and a fistful of vengeful steel. When he saw Wolf-Ember go down, he gave a great howl and a savage leap into the air, both hands on the shaft of an axe.

Crowbone saw it in a fixed flash, watched his doom come down on him and marvelled at it, for this was the way he had himself killed both Klerkon and Kveldulf. The gods’ jokes are seldom funny, but you can always hear them laugh if you listen, he thought.

Two blurs passed him. One was yellow and low to the ground, a fast snarling bitch who ploughed into the shins of the leaping Raghnall. The second was faster still, a bird-whirr of sound that stirred the wind on Crowbone’s cheek and took Raghnall in the throat, snapping his head back.

The heir to Dyfflin crashed to the feet of Crowbone, the yellow bitch’s jaws locked in his leg as it snarled and wrenched. The axe wyrded for Crowbone’s skull spun harmlessly over his head and skittered through the bloody mud.

There was no resistance from Raghnall, not even a sound, for the arrow that had taken him in the throat had ripped the voice and the life from him in one. His eyes were wide with surprise and his mouth worked once or twice then froze; after that the only movement from him came because the yellow bitch was jerking him to and fro and growling deep in the back of her throat.

‘Leave off,’ Crowbone snarled and the hound let go and slithered backwards on her belly, bloody jaws on her paws, tail moving uncertainly. Crowbone was only mildly surprised that the animal had obeyed him, but his mind was elsewhere. It was on what he hoped he would find when he turned his head — his legs, he knew, were not up to the task of moving at all from the shock. He hoped he would find Vandrad Sygni, nocking another arrow and grinning at him.

It was as bad as he had thought. No Vandrad Sygni — but back across the slope they had come down, over all the dead and groaning wounded, all the way back to the copse of trees — Odin’s arse, a hundred long paces or more — a small figure perched in a branch and waved her bow at him. Crowbone knew for certain it would be the same branch where the exhausted bird had sat, staring at him with a prophetic black eye.

‘By The Dagda,’ said Murrough admiringly, hefting his axe and testing the distance between its edge and Raghnall’s neck, ‘that wee woman of yours can shoot, Crowbone.’

Tmutorokan on the Dark Sea, that same day …

Orm

The walkway planks were hot beneath their boots and the resin smell from the sun-cracked roofs was as rich as the cackle of strange tongues. There was a stir in the crowd at the woman who was offered; anyone with a trader’s eye would admire the skill of the dealer.

A long fall of linen the colour of old slate covered the figure but it was clearly a woman who tugged slightly at the end of the thin line fastened carefully round sheepskin cuffs to her wrists, so the rope would not bruise the flesh.

The dealer, a Khazar Jew smiling the last of his teeth at the crowd, hauled a ratty fur hat off his head in a glorious bow, then pulled the veil away with a flourish; she stood before them naked, unable to crouch or use her tethered arms to hide herself. In the end, she stood in a slight curl, halfway between shame and defiance.

They were enthusiastic, the crowd, even though the day was hot. Orm caught Finn’s eye and the slave-master turned the docile merchandise this way and that with a practised hand as he called out to the crowd in Greek, which was the tongue of traders.

‘This one is a certified virgin. A captive princess from the far regions beyond the Khazar Sea, you can see from her shy ways that she has never known the hand of a man.’

You had to admire him, Orm thought to himself. She had almost certainly been humped full of at least one bairn and by a horny-handed farmer, since she was as much a captive princess as Finn was. Nor did she come from beyond the Khazar Sea and had clearly been told to fasten her mouth or it would be worse for her — whoever bought her would be surprised at the amount of Slav she knew.

The dealer took his fingers, heavy with bright-stoned rings, and grimed them through the woman’s thick, dark hair. In the crowd, the Arabs and Jews, rivals in anything and everything that could be bought and sold, shifted expectantly.

‘This incredible shade of night is her hair’s natural colour,’ he said, then took her firmly by the chin and raised her face up. ‘And this has had no help from dye pots.’

He turned and leered a little as he stroked the hand down one naked, flinching flank.

‘These delicate white curves speak for themselves. This is a rich ornament, worthy of any bek or jarl or sheikh. It is only due to chance and my own financial misfortune that such a rare creature is being offered at all, for I was keeping her for the Basileus in the Great City himself. I am stabbing myself in the heart to offer this to you.’

Someone would, this day or the next, if this slave trader kept lying at this level, Finn whispered out of the corner of his mouth. Orm agreed — but not before he had, hopefully, told where to find Takoub and his brother in this reeking trade town of the Khazars.

Tmutorokan was what was left to the Khazars after Sviatoslav’s Kievans broke them. Once, it had belonged to the Great City and probably would again, unless the Kievans got to it first, and it sat on the Dark Sea like a boil, pus-filled with crooked traders and hard men looking for work. It had buildings of brick with tiled roofs, more of wood — and, in the heat of summer, most of the Khazars sensibly took to living in tents, which sprouted like evil, coloured mushrooms on every spare piece of ground.

The place festered with everything else, too — bad drink, worse women and men prepared to do anything for money, even to telling the truth now and then. This time, it took only the sparkling spin of a whole silver coin to brighten the slave dealer’s day and point them in the right direction; they left, feeling the eyes of the Slav woman, hopeful as a hungry dog.

Takoub’s slave hold was a rough square of sharp-pointed timbers. The gate was merely a circle cut in timbers, which was woodworking skill in itself. In the arch at the top, in a semi-circle, was a spatter of sharpened staves pointing downward and, set across the entrance so that anyone had to step or stumble between them, was a second set of stumps, the ends dark with stains which might just have been old paint. The whole matter had been designed to look like a mouth, gaping open to swallow any who went in and the effect of it was such that it needed only a brace of bored guards, who lolled and leaned.

‘Let me guess,’ Finn said, strolling up to the guards, ‘you can get in on foot only, but not out at all. Am I right?’

They looked back at him with eyes unmoving as boulders, a pair of sweating men in leather with spears and long knives. If they had any humour it was in a locked chest in a deep cellar.

‘If you are selling or buying,’ one said, after a long pause filled with the reedy cries of hucksters, ‘you can come and go as you please. If you are bought and sold, you never leave through this gate, only enter.’

‘Which are you?’ the other asked, after looking Finn up and down. His voice was heavy with greasy dislike.

‘Tell Takoub that Orm Trader is here,’ he said. ‘Also known as Bear-Slayer. Tell him the Oathsworn are at his gates.’

The guards stared back blankly and one squinted, eyeing the pair up and down. They saw a jut-jawed northman with a black and salt beard plaited and ringed with silver, hard eyes and a worn-hilted blade in a scuffed sheath. They saw the man with him, younger by some years, with missing fingers, a scar across his forehead and lines at the corner of eyes that had stared at horrors few men ever looked at.

Seeing no overt sign of wealth the guard sneered.

‘You have heard of the Oathsworn?’ Finn demanded, his chin thrust out.

‘Aye,’ answered the guard. ‘Slayers of dragons and witches, or so I have heard children tell it.’

‘For men who found all the silver in the world,’ the other chirped, ‘you have clearly buried far too much of it and bought far too little.’

‘You should not scoff,’ Finn said to him, stepping closer and squinting sideways at him, ‘with a nose like that.’

The guard raised an eyebrow and touched his neb reassuringly, then scowled.

‘What is wrong with my nose?’ he demanded.

Finn’s right fist smashed it. Blood flew out, the guard flew back with a yelp and landed in the dust, throwing up a cloud of it and rolling over, groaning. The other one, taken by surprise, tried to grab his spear and back away at the same time, only succeeding in dropping the weapon. There was shouting and a deal of screaming from the man with the bloodied nose; Orm could sympathise, for he had had that done to him in the past and remembered the considerable pain.

The clamour had an effect; more men appeared led by a sword-waver, which showed that he had more rank than the others. Before matters could boil over, Orm told him who they were and the captain glanced at the disarmed gate guard, the one sitting dripping blood and then back to Orm.

‘Pick up your spear,’ he ordered the gate guard, with the sort of lip curl that promised the man a deal of pain later for such carelessness.

‘Wait,’ he said to Orm — though politely — and turned to go and find Takoub. Then he turned back, almost apologetically.

‘There would have been less trouble over this had you tried the gate on the far side. This is the Eater of Hope, where only slaves enter and through which no-one leaves.’

‘I said so,’ Finn declared to Orm, grinning. Orm shook his head in mock sorrow.

‘This place will make me remember to pay more attention to your wisdom,’ he replied wryly. ‘And save on noses.’

It was not, in the end, what they would most remember of the place. What they remembered most, when they came to the tale of it later, was the smell — the tented room was cloyed with it, a swirl of strong, spiced perfumes that hazed the still, hot air inside the canopy and, for all its muslin thickness, it had only managed to reduce the stink of rot to a faint thread.

Orm saw two men, one standing, the other swallowed by cushions and swathed in silk that had been drooped over his head and draped round his face, so that only the eyes showed, dark and shifting like rats in a hole.

The standing man stepped forward. He was big, had once been muscled but was running to fat, had once worn expensive silk but had stained and ragged it to near worthlessness. He had grimy hands and put one of them on a jewel-hilted dagger stuck carelessly in a sash-belt.

‘I say we kill them now,’ he growled and looked right and left into the shadows, to reassure himself that his hidden men were near. ‘We have removed their weapons and they will never be more in our power.’

‘You may have removed the weapons you can see,’ said the silk-wrapped man, ‘but this is the Oathsworn. That is Finn, who has at least one blade hidden about him. That is Orm, slayer of white bears and dragons and so favoured by his north god that he was led to all the silver of the world.’

It was rheum-thick, that voice, black with rot and Orm did not recognise it, or him, until the man leaned forward, his breath hissing painfully.

‘Is that boy still with you?’ he asked. ‘The one who axed Klerkon in the square in Novgorod?’

Takoub. It was Takoub the slave dealer and life had not been good to him.

‘Crowbone,’ Orm answered, recovering from his shock. ‘He stuck another axe into Klerkon’s right-hand man not long after. Same style — smack between the eyes. Then he did the same to Yaropolk, brother to Prince Vladimir of Kiev.’

‘He has grown a little,’ Finn added, grinning. ‘He does not have to jump up so far.’

There was a hiss and Takoub slumped limply on his cushions.

‘I dream of that boy,’ he said. ‘I dream he comes, sent by you for what happened to those of the Oathsworn I took as slaves and sold.’

This was blunt and clearly the other man thought so, too, for he growled and spun round to face Takoub.

‘Enough, brother — we can sweeten your dreams with their death, here and now.’

‘Barjik,’ said the whisper-thin voice. ‘Go and do something elsewhere.’

Barjik glared at his brother, then at Orm and Finn and finally rammed his scowl between them and went out, the wind of him trailing the rot and perfume over them like a lover’s fingers.

Takoub forced himself upright, a process of grunts and pain, then slowly unwrapped the silk from his head. Even Finn gasped.

It was worm-pale and eaten, that face. The nose was a collapsed ruin of wet blackness, the lips smeared with blotches, the cheeks looked as if rats had gnawed them and one eye was a shrieking agony of yellow pus. The rot was inside his throat too and made his voice a whispering rasp.

‘The Alexandrine disease,’ Takoub said. ‘There is no cure.’

‘Scale,’ Orm answered, then said it in Greek — lepros.

‘I am punished,’ Takoub said, ‘whether by your god or someone else’s is of little matter. But my own god has brought you here to give me some relief.’

‘Aye,’ Finn said before Orm could speak. ‘I could find my hidden blade and give you relief, right enough.’

There was a sound like wings falling and it took Orm a moment to realise that it was laughter.

‘I cling to what is left of my life, pain and all,’ Takoub answered. ‘It would be less bitter if sleep was the balm it is supposed to be.’

‘You want me to help with your sleep?’ Orm asked, bemused by all this.

‘My dreams,’ he hissed. ‘We are traders. I will trade for a lack of dreams. I have what you seek.’

‘You want this as a blood-price,’ Orm said, realising the path this was on. ‘You want to be told that I will not send Crowbone to you, armed with a little axe for what you did to my men.’

There was a rustling, like roaches in straw, as Takoub shuddered and nodded. Strange, Orm was thinking, how sickness and the nearness of death took some people’s minds. Here was Takoub, rank and cunning as a hunting stoat in his day, fearful of the boy he had seen once in the square in Novgorod. So fearful he was seriously bargaining for forgiveness and peaceful sleep, now more precious to him than silver or jewels. He was not to know, he thought, that the Oathsworn he had sold had turned on their former oarmates and had been killed for it.

Fleetingly, Orm wondered where Crowbone was and if he had uncovered the weft of matters concerning Eirik’s Bloodaxe — by now he would have uncovered who Drostan really was and what he had written. If he had had the clever to ask, he would have known it as soon as he fell to questioning Hoskuld, who had not been keen to keep quiet until Crowbone put the right questions in his mouth.

‘Why keep the boy in darkness?’ he had asked and Orm told him — because he has been fed silver and men and ship like skyr off a silver spoon. If he wants to make his own name, let him use his own cleverness.

Privately, Orm thought the whole business with the axe was foolish — but Martin was in it and that made it dangerous. If the boy held true to his course and the Oath he would be in Mann and know everything. If he decided to scorn Hoskuld and go off on his own, then he would have a harder lesson, though Orm never doubted that the notable man-boy was alive.

Then he corrected himself; not man-boy any longer but full grown. It was foolish to hold the old memory of an odd-eyed youth not yet into the power of himself. Orm wondered if he was still holding to the Oath he had sworn.

They would all find out soon enough.

Takoub rheumed out a wheezing cough. Orm had no interest in pursuing the slave dealer, with or without Crowbone, but Takoub did not know that, so Orm made this worthless coin ring true and paid for the bargain with it.

Takoub sighed, rang a little bell and someone slithered in to the rancid cloy of the place, a wrapped bundle in his hands, which he handed to Orm. Orm twitched a corner of the wrapping back and saw the old veneer of it, the nub end of black iron; it was the holy spear Martin sought so desperately, the one he had lost in the steppe. Orm nodded; he had given up wondering how Takoub had come into possession of it, or if he believed it was what was claimed. All he cared about now was that Martin had written that he wanted it, in return for the Bloodaxe which he seemed confident of lifting; Orm did not doubt that Martin had set all the dogs at one another’s throats and thought to sneak off with the prize while they fought. Well, even if he did, he would come, at the end of it all, to trade with Orm Bear-Slayer.

‘It is done,’ Takoub said, ‘we part satisfied.’

For a shuddering moment, Orm thought he would spit on his rotting hand and offer it for the slap of a trader handshake. So did Finn, who chuckled.

‘Best not,’ he said. ‘Hard to find the bits that fall off in all those swaddlings.’

‘Sweet dreams,’ he added as they turned to leave. ‘You should know that it is not the living you should bother with. It is the ones who were balls-cut and died because you sold them to the Serklanders. Their fetch are coming for you, Takoub.’

Outside the walls of Dyfflin, not long after …

Crowbone’s Crew

You can always tell the beaten, Crowbone thought, for they take a deal of interest in the ground. Neither do they walk like men but shuffle like thralls.

He watched as they moved slowly, with their necks pulled in as far as they could get them, mud-spattered, bloody and, when they did look, it was with a fleeting gaze and eyes that were pools of shame.

‘Our own kind,’ Kaetilmund growled moodily, stirring the embers of the fire and watching the northmen prisoners on their way to be thralls of the Irish. Folk stirred and muttered; no-one liked to see northmen humbled, as Halfdan pointed out.

‘Unless it is by other northmen,’ Crowbone answered with a whip in his tone. ‘Anyway — these are men like us, hired to fight. Like us. The Oathsworn, who beat them hollow and reaped the rewards of it.’

No-one spoke, for the rewards of it were mixed. Three days after the battle, everyone had sorted out their plunder and Crowbone had been lavish, so that four swords had been given out as well as Raghnall’s brass-dagged ringmail, handed to Svenke Klak, who now strutted like a dunghill cock in it. True to his promise, Crowbone had Wolf-Ember’s mail, but it was too large even for Murrough.

On the other hand, they had howed up eight men, including Kaup. Sixteen more were wounded, but only one would not recover from it — Rovald lay coughing blood up and Gjallandi said that the giant’s spear throw, though it had not gone through the ringmail, had broken something in Rovald’s chest. It did not help, Crowbone thought moodily, that the men know it was my spear.

‘The Oathsworn.’

It was a dragon growl, thick with the bitter rheum of hate and Crowbone did not need to look round to know who it was.

‘The Oath is broken,’ Mar rasped, the scar on his face like a badly-done hem, for Gjallandi was poor with a needle. ‘Even by your own heathen rites, it is broken.’

‘The ones who broke it paid for it,’ Crowbone answered sharply. ‘And you gave your oath also to me, Mar. Twice oathed, twice cursed if you break it.’

It was not the time to give out such a warning, Onund thought, when he saw Mar’s eyes flare like the fire coals. Besides, there were too many oaths flying about here for the Icelander’s comfort and he saw that the gods of the White Christ and Asgard faced each other like two snarling shieldwalls. No good would come it, for men would have to choose where they stood in the end.

‘You should have let me stitch that,’ the girl said, stepping under their rough awning and into the firelight. She knelt by Mar and turned his cheek to see the scar better, but he shied his chin away from her. Her hand drooped like a willow branch, but only for a moment.

Then the head of her came up in a defiant tilt, the same way it had when she strolled down from her perch in the tree and smiled sweetly at Crowbone. The yellow bitch had loped from her side and sat, tongue lolling, close to Crowbone, looking at him, the tail moving a little.

‘You could have had my head off,’ Crowbone had growled and her smile grew more honeyed still at that. She went and plucked her arrow from the ground where Murrough had left it after his axe work.

‘Instead, it is Raghnall’s head which is off,’ Bergliot had answered and nothing more had been said between them from then until now.

Raghnall’s head had been severed and delivered to the High King, though Crowbone had heard nothing from it and that made him frown. He needed praise and the salt of gold to keep these muttering dogs at bay.

Murrough paused in cleaning the stubborn remains of Raghnall from his axe and looked up at the girl, smiling.

‘Come and sit by me, girl,’ he said amiably and the tension slid away slowly into the dark. Bergliot graciously accepted a seat beside Murrough and a bowl of whatever had been in the pot, while Crowbone tried not to scowl; he was not sure whether Murrough was being bland or clever in what was surely wooing, but he did not like it — liked the fact of that even less.

She looked too fine, Crowbone thought, her black hair like a river of pitch above the brat thrown round her shoulders and fastened with a fine pin. All plunder, he knew, given to her by various of those round the fire, who had thought of her in the middle of all that blood and guddling in bodies for loot. The thought of what they wanted in return made Crowbone burn deeper inside than any rage he had known.

Just then, another figure appeared, making heads turn. It was a tall man, with a cloak thrown over one shoulder and a spear he held like a staff; Crowbone had seen him before, standing behind Gilla Mo at Cnobha and filling his cup whenever it emptied.

‘The High King asks for you,’ the man said politely enough and with a little bow to it.

‘Aha,’ said Svenke, still basking in the glow of his ringmail, ‘more rewards for our brave efforts.’

‘Just so,’ Mar spat. ‘Perhaps he will give us some of those new thralls he has marched by us.’

‘You are just annoyed because you did not get an iron Irish sark like Svenke here,’ Murrough said as Crowbone levered himself to his feet, stiff after the battle and the sitting.

‘Come with me,’ he said to Murrough, who grinned with delight at the idea, ‘in case I need the Irish tongue.’

He broke off his walking after the messenger to look down at Mar, who kept his eyes fixed on the fire.

‘If the High King does offer me a thrall or two,’ he said, the promise of gold reward from Mael Sechnaill lending him new resolve, ‘I will ask for a black one for you, to replace the one you lost. Meanwhile, while I am gone, improve your mood, for your face is putting the fire out.’

It was a vicious slap, particularly about Kaup and he felt the twin embers of Mar’s hate burn his shoulderblades, but did not look back as they moved through the dark, where other fires glowed and men, blood-dyed with the light, looked up as he passed.

One or two acknowledged him with a brief ‘heya’ or a wave and Crowbone knew Gjallandi had been busy spreading the saga of Crowbone’s fight with Raghnall. He was sure there was no mention of a woman in it, all the same.

To the right of where they picked a way through the flowering field of fires, was the dark earth and rampart wall of Dyfflin, now under siege. Crowbone knew Mael Sechnaill had no val-slongva, the war-slings the Romans of Constantinople called ballista and, without them, the Irish would have to storm the walls or starve out the defenders. He knew the harbour was open and, though the Irish had taken some ships in a lesser trade harbour just outside the walls to the south, they did not have enough vessels to blockade the place.

So it would be over the walls, he thought to himself. He had the sick feeling in his bowels that this was really what Mael Sechnaill wanted to see him about — the Oathsworn, leading the way over the walls of Dyfflin. Crowbone did not think any of his men would follow him if he ordered it and would have been away with them if he could — but he had come into this mess because he needed to know what Olaf Irish-Shoes had found out from Hoskuld. He needed Hoskuld. If any of them still lived, they lived in Dyfflin.

The High King had a grand tent, a maze of poles and lines and as big as a steading, striped like a sail. Outside it was a fire in a brazier and guards who grinned at the messenger and stood with their spears butted under a tall pole which held the head of Raghnall.

Inside was all guttering lamps and harp music, a contrast with the dark that left Crowbone and Murrough blinking. There were, when either of them could see, benches filled with the lesser kings and their entourage, clustered round a raised wooden dais where the High King himself sat, listening to his harper, the blind Ollumh Meartach, who stopped playing a heartbeat before the messenger rapped a bench with his spear.

‘Prince Olaf of Norway and Murrough macMael.’

The High King looked up and there were a few cheers from those who had warmed to Crowbone and the Oathsworn after the day’s fighting. Mael Sechnaill grinned; even Gilla Mo looked pleased, though that was shown only by his lack of scowl.

‘Your val-haukr showed its talons today,’ Mael Sechnaill declared with a grin and Crowbone frowned at that — val-haukr meant ‘carrion-hawk’ in the Norse and he did not care for that description of his new banner. Wisely he said nothing.

‘Mark you,’ Mael Sechnaill went on, ‘there are folk here who would not, perhaps, agree with you.’

Bewildered, Crowbone looked cautiously around as he walked to the ushered place at table. Then a short, stocky man stood up, his blue tunic trimmed with red and a deal of silver sparkling at his throat and wrist. He offered Crowbone a stiff bow, as did another barrel of a man next to him and a woman, young and pretty in a long-nosed way with her dress cut tight and low, designed to have the effect it had on Crowbone’s groin. Not worn for him, he noticed. For Mael Sechnaill.

‘This is Gluniairn, son of Amlaib,’ said Mael Sechnaill and the stocky man bowed a little.

‘The other is his brother, Sitric,’ the High King went on, bland as milk. ‘This is Queen Gormflaeth.’

Crowbone reeled but managed not to gawp or make a sound. Murrough was not so good and let out a ripping curse, which he covered with a fit of coughing. The pair sat down, stiff-faced, grim as wet cliffs while Crowbone reined in the plunge of his thoughts.

Olaf’s queen and his two sons — Odin’s bones, half-brothers to the man whose head was stuck on a spear outside …

‘Prince,’ he said eventually, for he knew that Gluniairn was the Irish way of saying Jarnkne, Iron Knee, just as Amlaib was how they mush-mouthed Olaf, but he did not know if the man liked to be known only by his by-name. Mael Sechnaill chuckled.

‘King Gluniairn it is, since his da has given up his High Seat and taken himself off,’ the High King said and turned, all sweet innocence, to the glowering Iron Knee. ‘Where was it, now?’

‘Hy,’ Sitric growled before his brother could speak and had back a squinted glare for it. ‘The death of Raghnall and the day’s ills broke him entire. He has took himself to the monastery at Hy and left us to deal with the mess of it.’

His voice was bitter, the words sludge in his mouth and Crowbone saw the mess and how the brothers and the wife had to deal with it. Olaf’s eldest son was here to make peace, to beg for the High Seat his da had disowned, though it meant being under the rule of the High King of Ireland. The quivering cleavage of their stepmother, Gormflaeth, was the seal on it.

He should have been leaping for joy at not having to go over the walls of the place, but Crowbone only had one thought, even as he asked polite bland questions that revealed Hoskuld was not held by Dyfflin’s Danes and that Olaf Irish-Shoes was gone.

He could do nothing but brood on it, all the same, while the hall roared and reeked. Folk drank until it came down their nose and then spewed most of it up and started in to drinking more. There was boasting and shouting, arm-wrestling and some frantic humping, not limited to the shadowed corners either. A few fights broke out, bones were flung, benches overturned and, at one point, a pole was split, so that the High King himself, red-faced and greasy-chopped, launched himself into the affray, cursing those who were destroying his fine tent.

In short, it was as satisfying an Irish victory feast as any seen in the land, according to Murrough, shortly before his nose sank into a puddle of drink and he started in to snoring.

Crowbone had sipped, watching the two brothers and their stepmother, who were equally light on their drink. At the end of the roaring and struggling round the pitfire, the High King staggered out of the ruck, his arm round the shoulders of a man whose long straight hair, streaked a little with grey as if a gull had shat on him, was plastered to a streaming face with eyes like a mad owl.

‘Domnall Claen mac Lorcan,’ the High King declared blearily. ‘Sure, it is good to have you back among us, so it is.’

‘Good,’ agreed the man, who clearly wanted to say more but had little control of either legs or lips, for he slipped and sat, then giggled a little. His eyes rolled and he sank back on the reeking straw and snored.

‘Behold,’ Mael Sechnaill declared, waving one paw at the fallen figure, then clawing his way back to his High Seat, ‘the king of Leinster.’

He sat down and gasped, blinking and grinning at the two brothers. Then he leered at Gormflaeth.

‘You should … know him well. He was your guest for some time.’

‘A year or two,’ Iron Knee admitted, his face wooden as the table he leaned on. ‘His freedom is part of the agreement making peace between us.’

‘Jus’ so,’ Mael Sechnaill said, nodding. He belched, then he looked slyly at Gormflaeth and Crowbone realised the High King was not nearly as deep in drink as he appeared.

‘My dear,’ Mael Sechnaill said, his words grime on her skin. ‘Patience. I have one more kingly act to perform, then you and I can discuss other parts of the agreement of peace.’

Gormflaeth had the grace to flush a little, but she also wriggled in her dress, so that the cleavage deepened. Mael Sechnaill cleared his throat and blinked.

‘Reward,’ he said and though he spoke to Crowbone, he was unable to stop staring at what was on show. ‘Suitable. For your part in the victory. State your … what do you want?’

‘As many men as will follow me,’ Crowbone said, ‘rather than stay as thralls to the Irish.’

Mael Sechnaill blinked away from Gormflaeth to Crowbone, then he sat back and laughed.

‘No gold? Silver?’

Crowbone was tempted, but he had the riding of this horse now and he knew what he had to do. He had seen the shuffling prisoners and knew them for what they were — hired men, not about to stand and die for old Olaf Irish-Shoes; they would be looking for a way out of their predicament.

Mael Sechnaill saw it too, stood up and held out his hand for Gormflaeth to take.

‘As many as will follow you,’ he said to Crowbone, ‘as long as it is out of Ireland and out of Dyfflin. How you do that is your affair but if you are here after a week, matters will alter. I do not want the likes of you with a bunch of sword-wavers at your back plootering about Ireland causing trouble.’

He went off, towing Gormflaeth in his wake, pausing only to turn a snoring body out of her path with one elegant toe. Crowbone watched the brothers watching their stepma whore herself to the High King of Ireland.

‘You should have taken the gold,’ Sitric said eventually, looking sourly at Crowbone. ‘The best of Dyfflin’s fighting men died on Tara — but you will have no shortage of offers from those nithings who gave up. They were not worth the hire.

‘You will only lose them again,’ he added, taking a sudden, deep swallow from his cup. There was a burst of singing, loud and enthusiastic, but it was not the bad key that made Sitric slam the soapstone beaker down so that froth leaped out.

‘Fucking Irish,’ he muttered. ‘Time we were gone from this feast, brother — they have started in to bad singing.’

‘You only waited for me,’ Crowbone said, ‘so let us now get to the meat of the matter.’

Iron Knee’s head came up at that and his blue-sky eyes clashed with Crowbone’s stare.

‘I will not lose the crew I pick,’ Crowbone said, ‘for I will be gone from Ireland and Dyfflin within the week. Is that not so, Jarnkne?’

‘Magic them all wings, will you?’ Sitric sneered. ‘I have heard the tales of you, boy, such an event will be interesting to watch.’

Crowbone kept his eyes on Iron Knee.

‘Ships,’ he said. ‘Not wings. You will give me ships. The High King will give me men.’

Sitric glowered, waiting for his brother’s cutting comment. When none came he looked uneasy.

‘Four,’ Iron Knee said eventually, then found his mouth so dry he had to grab up his own cup and drain it. ‘Good drakkar all of them. You will fill them easily enough from those hired men who do not want to end up thralls to the Irish.’

Sitric’s eyebrows went to his hairline and he stared for a moment, then exploded upright.

‘Are you fucking crazed?’ he demanded. ‘This is the louse who killed our brother. Who was part of the army that ruined us almost out of Dyfflin entirely. Ships … four …’

‘Will you do it?’ Iron Knee said to Crowbone, ignoring his spluttering brother. ‘If you do not, I will know and I will not rest until you are dead in the foulest way I can dream. I dream very foul these days, Prince of Norway.’

Crowbone merely nodded.

‘In three days, then,’ Iron Knee declared, suddenly standing up. Bewildered, still working his mouth wetly, Sitric stared from one to the other.

‘Do what?’ he growled. ‘What is he to do?’

‘Come,’ Iron Knee said to his brother, smiling gently. ‘Time for us to go home to Dyfflin, where I will explain the game of kings to you, who may one day need the knowing of it.’

Crowbone sat for a time, listening to the mourn of voices, the odd squeal and distant sigh. The king of Leinster stirred, woke up, bokked to one side, then rolled over and fell blissfully asleep; the smell of ale vomit slithered to Crowbone’s nose, as apt a stinking seal on what had just been concluded as any.

The victory at Tara had opened up all doors for Mael Sechnaill, who got the Dyfflin Norse broken and contrite, the king of Leinster owing him life and freedom and Olaf’s queen as a wife, which made him overlord of Dyfflin as well.

Iron Knee got the crown of Dyfflin, even if he had to bend the knee to the High King. Sitric got an education in the game of kings.

For it all to work, though — for Iron Knee to be confirmed truly as Dyfflin’s king, for Gormflaeth to stay a queen and for Mael Sechnaill, good Christian that he was, to take her as a wife — a father and a husband and an old king had to die.

Men and ships, Crowbone thought. Enough of a price for the murder of Olaf Irish-Shoes, once he had told all he knew.

Sand Vik, Orkney, middle of Haustmanu?ur (double-month — October) …

The Witch-Queen’s Crew

Outside was cold and bright with sun, but the hall was dim, grey-smoked, dappled here and there where the light broke in through the open doors. Thralls chattered cheerfully, sweeping out the long beaten earth floor with birch brooms brought at great expense from Norway, scrubbing benches and tables; the sharp catch of ash and old rushes and white lye made Erling clear his throat.

‘The days are even, light and dark balanced,’ she said in her husk whisper voice and Erling wondered how Gunnhild knew this, since she never seemed to venture out. Even now, while the hall bustled and flared with life and thrall work-songs, she had closeted them in her private sleeping place, shaped like the prow of a dragon-ship and right into the dark of the place.

‘From now,’ she went on, ‘night will eat the light.’

Erling watched what he could see of Gudrod, which was only the dim gleam of a cheekbone, the bright glint of an eye as he turned; he could not see Od at all, but the boy was there all the same, close by, his breath a mist from the shadows like grey-blue smoke.

‘All the more reason to hurry. The monk-scratching reveals the place,’ Gudrod said, his bass rumble annoyed because this place was so lacking light that he could not set up a ’tafl board. The growl of him seemed to come up through Erling’s boots in the smallness of the room; once she had ruled all Norway and then the lands round Jorvik, now Gunnhild, Mother of Kings, barely had space to stretch out, small though she was.

‘Hurry,’ she answered and it was scorn-sharp. Erling saw her face, then, as she leaned into the faint light of the stinking fish-oil lamp high in the wall sconce, saw the strange beauty of it, as if seen through a spiderweb — saw the eyes that raked her last son with disbelief at his stupidity.

Gudrod leaned into it, as he had done since all his brothers had gone under to treachery and blade. Mother of Kings, he thought bitterly, except the last of her sons is not one. Not that she was much of a mother — he had seen others, listened to men talk of their ma and knew the difference between what they knew and what he had suffered.

‘You do not hurry to this place,’ she said, sliding back into the dark. ‘This is a Sami place, deep in the Finnmark. Of course they would take the Bloodaxe back — they gave it in the first place.’

Her voice had grown sealskin soft and dreamy, which made the hairs on Erling’s arm stand like bristles. He heard Gudrod shift and grunt a little and knew he did not care for it much either; the air in the room grew thick, from too many people breathing it — or seidr, Erling did not know which.

‘Is she working magic?’ demanded a voice, in the sort of bad whisper that almost made Erling cry out. Od leaned forward, his beautiful face frown-creased; Erling felt like whimpering as Gunnhild put her face back into the light and laughed, but only with her voice, for her mask did not change at all.

‘You are curious, lovely boy,’ she answered. ‘That is good. You are like Odin’s own raven for the knowing of matters — but take care, for even ravens can be caught and plucked.’

Od opened his mouth and Erling moved swiftly to clamp his wrist so hard that Od stopped and looked down at the grip, puzzled. Gunnhild sank back into the darkness, with a sound like bats flying out of a dark hole; laughter, Erling realised.

‘Eirik did not win Odin’s Daughter,’ she said suddenly. ‘It was gifted to him, by me, as were all his sons and I cannot say whether birthing any one was harder than what I did to get that Bloodaxe from the Sami. I had it from them, from the two brothers, who should have returned it to the goddess but gave it to me instead … It was gifted before to other kings, all of the Yngling line. It was made by the smiths of the Sami and to them it has again returned.’

She trailed off and Erling paused, remembered the tales of her, of how she had gone as a young girl to learn from two Sami wizards. There were lascivious, tongue-on-lip rumours of what she had done until Eirik had come for her, though no man had ever mentioned it to her face — or his. Like Freyja and the duergar necklace-makers, he thought to himself, she fucked the prize right out of them.

‘I am wondering who took it back to them. Not those two Sami brothers, who were well dead by then. Was it Svein, the King’s Key, who carried it? If not, he knew who it was who took it to her. I remember Svein. He did not like me.’

Her voice was a dreaming rasp and Erling went cold at the idea that she might see into his thought-cage and almost leaped up there and then to leave. Gudrod’s voice, strangely, lashed him to the bench.

‘No man likes you,’ he said to his mother, which was harsh and bold. ‘Does it matter? We know where the axe is now. All we have to do is get it and use it to put me on a throne. That is what you want, is it not, mother?’

Gunnhild made a ticking sound with tongue and teeth.

‘Let me tell you of the Yngling kings,’ she said, her voice slow and circling as mist tendrils. ‘They all had Odin’s Daughter and the only one who died old was Aun.’

Gudrod said nothing, while sullen rolled off him in waves, tangible as heat. Erling cleared his throat.

‘The others?’ he asked, knowing the answer but hoping for better news.

‘One fell in vat of mead and drowned,’ she said. ‘Fjolne. He went to see Frodi in Zealand and a great feast had been prepared. Frodi had a large house where he stored a huge vessel full of very strong mead. Above the vessel there was an opening in the ceiling so that mead might be poured into it by men standing in the loft. After the banquet, King Fjolne was taken to stay the night in an adjoining loft, but he rose in the night and stumbled through the wrong door to fall into the great vat and drown in mead.’

Od clapped his hands and laughed with delight until Erling hit him on the shoulder and shushed him. Gunnhild never seemed to notice.

‘King Swegde then took the High Seat and the axe, but a black duergar lured him into the runestone which sat on his land and he was never seen again,’ she went on, weaving the words, thick as tapestry. ‘Then there was Vanlande, who annoyed a Sami woman called Driva. Great with power was Driva and Vanlande died, even though he was days away from her.’

The admiration her voice shivered Erling and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, so that he could not even swallow.

‘There were many others, murdered by plots from vengeful wives taken by force, or dragged out by the folk they ruled when drought or famine showed they had failed — King Dag had a hayfork through his eyes from a work-thrall over a quarrel regarding a sparrow, of all things. Alric and Eric, two brothers and great horsemen, quarrelled over Odin’s Daughter and beat each other to death with the iron bits of their bridles. King Jorund was hanged by Gylog of Halogaland when the axe betrayed him and he lost a battle. Egil was gored to death by a bull which had been wyrded for sacrifice by that axe, but escaped.’

She stopped. There was silence, where the distant thread of thrall song was like a lifeline back to the light of the world.

‘They all accepted the Bloodaxe,’ she added dreamily, ‘and it made them kings, then betrayed them in the end, for they were not worthy of it. Not even my Eirik.’

‘King Aun,’ Od said, a slapped stone in the still pool of that dark dreaming place, so that Erling and Gudrod both shifted with the surprise of it. Gunnhild’s moth-chuckle rustled.

‘Wise, beautiful boy,’ she crooned. ‘Yes — King Aun grew old with the axe. No warrior that king and one less worthy to hold Odin’s Daughter cannot be dreamed. Yet he was cunning and made a trade with Loki, giving that one — who is now the Devil the Christ-followers fear — the sacrifice of a son in return for a bite of Audun’s apples. Those fruits keep the gods young and a single chew gave Aun ten years of life. Nine of his ten sons were spilled on an altar stone by Odin’s Daughter, but the last killed the godi with it and escaped, so Aun died, drooling like an infant, fed with a spoon and hated by all who were near him.’

‘I am taking five ships,’ Gudrod rasped when this was done. ‘I will sail before the winter ice closes Bjarmaland.’

We might make it there, Erling thought to himself mournfully, but the ice will close and we may never make it back. All for a blade on a pole that gave no good of itself to the owner.

‘Six ships,’ Gunnhild replied. ‘You are taking me.’

There was silence for a long heartbeat, then Gudrod sighed.

‘It is long and cold and dangerous,’ he said. ‘We will have to overwinter in the north, with luck in Gjesvaer, which is a miserable hole at the best of times. Haakon of Norway may also be searching for this prize, for I am believing this monk went to Norway. You will also have half a year of darkness to endure.’

A long dark, Erling thought, was no threat to the likes of Gunnhild. She shifted and brought her face slithering back into the dim light. Her eyes seemed to be no more than sockets in a skull and, for a heart-crushing moment, Erling thought she had read his mind.

‘This priest is trying a cunning plan,’ Gunnhild said, her voice sharp as a ship’s adze. ‘Speaking of monks — you did not kill the one on Hy, did you? The one who read for you.’

Gudrod blinked and shifted, then spread his hands.

‘I would have had to slaughter them all …’ he began and his mother made that disapproving ticking sound, which was shout enough to silence him.

‘Then the next man along will know what the monk wrote,’ she pointed out and sat back into the dark, a long sigh sounding like her last breath. ‘It will be Tryggve’s son.’

‘That boy,’ she added, her voice darker than the black. ‘That cursed son of Astrid. You should have killed him when you killed his father and been done with the brood.’

‘He was not even born,’ Gudrod said, his voice rising and she hissed at him, as like a snake as to make Erling shrink away.

‘Then you should have killed the mother.’

Even the thrall singing had stopped. Erling looked longingly at where he thought the door was, the way back to light and the world of men.

‘You play the game of kings well on cloth, my son,’ Gunnhild sneered, ‘but not in life. The Sami have Odin’s Daughter and you will need me to get it from them.’

No-one spoke; the seconds scraped past like claws on slate until Gunnhild sighed.

‘Go away,’ she said suddenly. ‘I need to work.’

Erling scampered from the place, needing no other instruction and not even wanting to dwell on what work she was doing. Outside, he sucked in the salt air and the sparkle of the sea.

Od was last out, ambling easily, the sword swinging nakedly from the ring at his belt. He stopped and yawned, then looked at Gudrod, who stood with lowered eyebrows, scowling out to sea but not looking at it.

‘Why do you want this axe?’ the boy demanded. ‘All it brings is death to those not worthy. If your da was not worthy, what makes you think that you are?’

Erling groaned silently to himself; the boy was always asking such questions and there was no way to learn him out of it. Gudrod stirred and turned slowly.

‘My mother,’ he said.

Od pursed his lips, looked back at where they had come from and nodded.