Crowbone

TEN

Isle of Hy (Iona), not long after …

Crowbone’s Crew

THEY splashed ashore at the Port of the Coracle, which was nothing much more than a good shingle bay, whooping with the stinging cold of the water. Crowbone went with a strong party up to the highest point, no more than a bump; Murrough said it was called Carn-Cul-ri-Eiriin — the Hill With Its Back To Ireland — where the wind caught them like a blow, stinging tears to the eyes.

‘The Colm Cille fellow was a priest and prince,’ the big man explained. ‘A man for the killing, it was said, who grew sick of it and himself and sought a cure from his god. He was told he would not find the peace of his god unless he went to a place where he could not see Ireland.’

As clever a way of getting rid of a rival as any, Crowbone mused. More fool Columba.

‘He searched a long time,’ Murrough went on cheerfully, ‘until he found this place. Even from up here, the highest point around, you cannot see Ireland, so Colm Cille was happy and this became a place favoured by the White Christ god.’

‘Not favoured enough,’ growled a big man, his arms full of water-skins, ‘for we are never done coming here and robbing them.’

‘And you a good Christian man, too,’ chided Murrough, laughing. ‘Or so you told us when you joined.’

Atli, Crowbone remembered, frowning with the force of it. His name is Atli and folk call him Skammi, which means Short. It is a joke, for he is exactly the opposite of a small man — but his brother is bigger, so say those who know the pair of them. Crowbone was pleased to have remembered all this, for there were four ships and some two hundred men spilling ashore, starting fires and sorting themselves out. He swelled with it, the thought of all those men oathed to him.

That had brought scowls and growls from the likes of Kaetilmund and Onund, but Crowbone had told them that it was better to find out the strength of these new men before getting them to swear the Odin Oath. After all, he reasoned, they were escaping thralldom in Ireland and so might say anything. It was a wonder the lie did not rot the teeth from his head, but his smile stayed bright and fixed while, one after another, the new men came and placed their hands in his.

Flouting that Odin Oath bothered him, all the same, like an insect bite that itched and festered. It was a powerful Oath and no good had come from defying it — but Crowbone, when he thought of Odin at all, fancied that One-Eye had no power over him, just as he had no power over the weaving Norns. Those three sisters, blind and in the dark, were what held the threads of Crowbone’s destiny, he was sure of that — so far, they wove true and Eirik’s axe, Odin’s Daughter, was a bright weft in it.

With that axe, Crowbone knew, he would be the chooser of the slain — not second on the Oathsworn’s boat, but first on his own. He was certain Odin himself was woven into the thread of that, yet Asgard’s jarl had power and a temper — his son was Thor, after all, who had inherited his red-haired fury from his da, for sure.

The surf was white against the dark shingle and men had moved up and over into the shelter of rocks. Fires flared. Men chattered and grunted, looked at the cloud-scudded moon and the sea beyond the surf, judged for rain, grumbled that it was cold. The sea was grey black, the waves rolling like old whales; folk made noises about going to the distant buildings, marked by pallid lights.

Crowbone looked for gulls and saw none; they were all nestling in the rocks and bleached driftwood and he knew rain was coming. This, the south part of the island, was the best spot to be when the wind drove the sea in according to Stick-Starer, who was happy that he had managed to get them safely here at all.

Crowbone moved among the men, settling them like storm-twitched cattle. He knew these men already, dirty swords who required plunder to keep them contented as fed wolves. The island monastery had been raided so often, he told them, that there was nothing much left to take, not even food. If it rained, they would all crowd into the beehive cells of the monks and the stone and wood buildings, though there would be precious little comfort in it.

‘Soon,’ he went on, ‘there will be wealth enough for all.’

They hoomed at him and went back to cooking or admiring their new weapons, liberally given by their rescuer, the young, confident youth who claimed to be a prince. Onund watched him stride through them, the corroded dags of his mail shedding rings as he walked, the coin-weighted braids of his hair flailing in the gusting wind; in the dark, he looked as if he had climbed out of some old grave mound and the Icelander shivered.

‘Aye,’ said a voice in his ear, making him take a surprised step sideways, hand on his hilt — but it was only Kaetilmund.

‘Orm was right about that boy, when he worried about him coming into the main of his years,’ he said, low and slow and Onund nodded. They went back to their own fire, where the old Oathsworn sat and listened to Rovald wheezing out the last of his life, wondering whether they should stay or make their own way back to find Orm, even though he had made them promise to keep Crowbone safe. It was clear to them, at least, that Crowbone did not trust any of the old Oathsworn, was braiding his doom with every new man he ordered bound to himself alone.

Crowbone came up not long after, but not to find out how Rovald was — the truth was that he had almost forgotten the man now and counted him already dead. Rovald had, he reasoned, failed to protect his lord three times, so what had happened to him was what was wyrded for him after his battle luck had clearly vanished.

He fetched Gjallandi, looked briefly at Bergliot sitting in the middle of the Oathsworn and smiling, then turned away, heading towards the monastery. He had seen Mar and others not far away and knew that he had several crews here, not one. Still, he had enough power to quell any of them individually, even the Oathsworn if they decided to try and exert themselves. He could gather one group against the other — the Christ-followers against the pagans or the other way around, or the new men from Ireland against those firm with the Oath. No matter who started in to snarling, Crowbone already knew how to play the game of kings with some skill.

He took Murrough, then added Atli and four others of the new men, enough to be a guard, not enough to be a threat, then moved through the tussocked dark to the buildings beyond. The wind ragged back their cloaks, blowing hard and bringing the boom of the sea as it crashed on the shore.

Seachd bliadhna ’n blr’ath

Thig muir air Eirinn re aon tr’ath

’S thar Ile ghuirm ghlais

Ach sn’amhaidh I Choluim Chl’eirich

Crowbone was heartily sick of the sound of Irish, which was as like a clearing of the throat as made no difference. That and the mourn of them made him want to slap Murrough, but he wisely kept that to himself and, instead, asked what poetry that was.

‘A prophecy,’ Murrough replied, hefting the axe on his shoulder, ‘to do with this place. Seven years after the Day of Judgement, the ocean will sweep over Ireland and elsewhere. Only this place, I Chaluim Chille — the isle of Colm Cille — will float above the waves.’

‘Would you listen to it?’ demanded a voice from the dark, one Crowbone did not yet know well enough. ‘The arrogance of these Christ folk takes the breath from you. Day of Judgement, indeed — the Doom of all Powers sucks away all, even the gods.’

They reached the monastery door then and Crowbone nudged Murrough, who hammered on it with the butt of his axe. A slat opened.

‘Olaf, Prince of Norway,’ Crowbone announced. ‘Open the door.’

‘Caelum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt,’ said the shadowed face, which meant nothing to Crowbone. He turned to Gjallandi, who shrugged.

‘They change the sky, but not their souls, who hasten across the sea,’ he translated.

‘Haste is right,’ Crowbone said, feeling annoyed at being thwarted by a door-warden, ‘if you do not open the door in your next breath, it will be your last breath.’

‘Melius frangi quam flecti,’ said the voice and Gjallandi sighed.

‘It is better to break than to bend,’ he declared and Crowbone, racing past reasoned argument, kicked the door with his foot, though he might just as easily have booted a stone.

‘Enough priest tongue,’ he yelled. ‘I know you speak Norse well enough. Open up — I am seeking Olaf Cuarans, once king of Dyfflin.’

‘Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit,’ said the voice mournfully and Gjallandi, primed and ready, simply repeated it so that everyone could understand.

‘He has left, absconded, escaped and disappeared,’ the skald said, then shrugged as if apologising and was about to say more, but Crowbone’s snarl cut him viciously off. He nodded at Murrough, who spat on his palms, hefted the axe and swung it. The boom echoed distantly and chips flew. The slat slammed shut.

The second swing of the axe drummed out another long echo and more chips flew. Murrough paused then, frowning and examining the edge.

‘There are iron nails in this door,’ he declared. ‘It will do no good to the edge of my axe.’

Crowbone fought his rage, though his mind shrieked to visit bloody horrors on Murrough and Gjallandi and everyone around him. For a moment the edges of his vision turned red, then curled back and vanished.

The door slat opened.

‘Forgive Brother Malcolm,’ said a voice in good Norse. ‘He is a good man from Alba, but a little afraid, as are we all. Nor is he entirely full in his senses.’

‘Open the door,’ Crowbone replied sullenly. ‘We mean you no harm. I want only to speak with Olaf Cuarans.’

‘You have several hundred men,’ the voice replied, smooth and polite. ‘We have nothing of value and, if you take what food we have left, we will die of starvation.’

‘We want nothing that you possess,’ Crowbone replied, more patient now. ‘Only a word with your head monk and some few more with Olaf.’

There was a pause, then the slat shut. A moment later came the sound of a heavy beam being lifted off and the door opened to reveal a tall figure, neatly dressed in robes, shaved and with the tonsure of his head bouncing back the lantern-light held in the swaying hand of a small hunched man with the eyes and face of a rat.

‘I am Abbot Mugron,’ the tall man said and smiled, though the effect was spoiled when his nervous top lip, thin as a wire, stuck to his dry teeth.

‘Olaf, Prince of Norway,’ Crowbone declared, then introduced the others.

‘Est autem fides credere quod nondum vides; cuius fidei merces est videre quod credis,’ Mugron declared with forced beaming. ‘As the blessed Augustine said.’

Then he added, because he knew this prince would not have understood: ‘Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.’

‘I want to see the king of Dyfflin,’ Crowbone declared shoving past the priest. ‘I have faith in that, for sure.’

Gjallandi, who thought that rudeness was not princely or helpful, sighed and followed, with the others piling through. Atli gave the rat-faced brother his blackest scowl on the way past.

They clacked across the worn slabs to the rear of the shadowed place, into a forest of shadows where monks shifted, their voices humming in prayer. Crowbone wondered how they could live like this, huddling in the half-dark like fearful sheep each time a ship was sighted off their shores. A cowled figure scuttled away as they approached and Mugron, hands folded inside his sleeves, frowned and paused at a door.

‘I understand Brother Olaf has given up the world,’ he said and, for a moment, Murrough thought the monk spoke of this prince, then realised his mistake and laughed. Mugron, misunderstanding, raised his eyebrows, but Crowbone merely shrugged.

‘Brother Amlaibh,’ Mugron corrected. ‘The men who brought him said he had renounced throne and world in favour of God. Two of his men have stayed on, though they have not yet embraced God in total.’

‘Do they still embrace weapons in total?’ demanded Crowbone and Mugron inclined his head politely, frowning.

‘They yet retain the marks of their status as guardians of the king of Dyfflin,’ Mugron said, his voice stiff with disapproval, ‘even though such a personage does not exist here, only an old and sick man who has come, at last, to the fold of Christ.’

Crowbone looked back at Murrough and the others; then, hard as whetstones, they went through the door.

The room was bright enough for them to see that it was furnished well; Olaf Irish-Shoes had clearly not come to his White Christ empty-handed. The man himself sat in a good chair, as like a High Seat as next of kin, wrapped in a fur-collared blue cloak and with his feet stuffed, not in Irish sandals, but in sealskin slippers. His hair was trimmed to the ears and the ring-hung braids of his beard had been shorn, but the face that scowled at them was red as a wean’s fresh-skelpt backside, the eyes in it boarlike and annoyed.

There were others — two monks, one tall and blond, the other small and dark, fussing with a basin and cloths round the outstretched arm of the slumped Olaf. Two others, in coloured tunics and silver, bearded and long-haired, stood on either side of his seat and stepped forward, swords out.

‘Lord Olaf,’ Mugron began and Crowbone whirled on him.

‘Prince,’ he spat back and Mugron recoiled a little, then smiled.

‘I was talking to our brother in Christ, lord of Dyfflin,’ he explained greasily and Crowbone blinked, annoyed at his mistake. Anger made him rash.

‘No longer,’ he snarled. ‘Another has that High Seat and name now. Tell those dogs to lose the steel.’

‘I know who claims the seat,’ Olaf Irish-Shoes spat back, his face turning blue-purple and his breath wheezing. ‘My treacherous son, not fit to lick the arse of his brother, who died …’

He broke off then and slumped back, his face deep blue. The Chosen Man nearest to him looked anxiously at him, then flicked his eyes back to Crowbone and the others, his hand clenching and unclenching on the sword hilt.

‘Are you well, lord?’ he asked Olaf Irish-Shoes over his shoulder, at which Murrough laughed.

‘Of course he is not well, you arse,’ he bellowed. ‘He has a face like a bag of blood and two monks sticking his arms with blades — are you blind?’

‘We were in the process of bleeding him,’ said the yellow-haired monk and Mugron frowned.

‘Again? Is that wise?’

‘He is choleric, lord abbot,’ the monk replied, but Crowbone interrupted him, harsh as thrown gravel.

‘You and you,’ he said to the armed men, ‘throw those blades down. I will not say this again.’

‘Dum inter homines sumus, colamus humanitatem,’ Mugron said nervously and Atli turned to Gjallandi.

‘I hope that he is telling them to be sensible,’ he growled and the skald, nervously backing away from the glinting steel, shook his head, then nodded, confused.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ he began. ‘Something like being among humans and so being humane.’

‘Speak Norse,’ Crowbone declared to Mugron, then nodded to the two men. ‘Kill them.’

Mugron started to protest; the dark monk shrieked and the yellow-haired one sprang back. Olaf himself struggled weakly, his blue cloak falling open to show his white underserk — the basin of his own blood flew up and crashed on him.

It took moments — for all that the men were fine fighters, they were outnumbered and taken by surprise a little. Even Murrough was, for he had not expected the prince to be so bloody, so the fight was a mad flail of blades and ugly blood trails.

Mugron knelt and babbled, the dark monk with him; the abbot was clearly shocked by this and Crowbone was pleased. Now he knows what he has let in his door, he thought and he turned to Gjallandi.

‘Oderint, dum metuant,’ he said, saying it carefully so as to get it right; it was the only Latin he knew, gleaned from an inscription on some weathered monument in the Great City. Let them hate as long as they fear. Gjallandi knew it at once — an Old Roman emperor had said it first and the skald licked dry lips at the drawn-back snarl of lip that came with it. That Old Roman ruler had been a madman, but Gjallandi said nothing on that.

Olaf struggled upright, his belly plastered to the blood-drenched serk, but his eyes wild and angry.

‘Hoskuld,’ Crowbone said. ‘Where is he? And the monk that was with him. I know you know.’

Olaf stared at the bodies, the blood pooling, gleaming viscous in the flickering torchlight.

‘Magnus,’ he said and looked at Crowbone. ‘I have known Magnus from when he was a bairn. My Magnus …’

‘Not yours now,’ Crowbone said. ‘Hel has him and will have you if I am not happy with your answers — shut that priest’s fucking babble!’

The last was bellowed as he spun to where Mugron chanted; there was a meaty smack and Atli sucked the knuckles of one hand, grinning, while Mugron climbed unsteadily on to one elbow and wiped his mouth, then gazed, incredulous, at the blood on his fingers. Murrough leaned thoughtfully on his axe; he did not like what he was seeing here at all.

‘Hoskuld,’ Crowbone repeated and Olaf blinked once, then twice and seemed to see the odd-eyed youth for the first time. ‘Eirik’s axe.’

‘Hoskuld?’ he repeated. ‘How would I know? Ogmund had him and lost him to Gunnhild’s son and some Grendel of a boy he has in train. Eirik’s axe is a story for bairns,’ said Olaf scornfully. ‘Such as yourself.’

It took an effort not to cut the old man down, especially when four or five questions later Crowbone realised, with a sinking stone in his belly, that Olaf Irish-Shoes knew nothing at all and Hoskuld was either gone to Gunnhild or dead. He looked at the proud old man and wondered; he had to be sure.

‘Fetch those hangings,’ he said and men leaped to obey; not Murrough, he saw from the corner of one eye and ignored it. When they started to string Olaf up by his bound ankles, using the stripped hangings as rope over a beam, the Irisher cleared his throat.

‘I’m thinking this is not right or clever,’ he said and Crowbone turned, his odd eyes seeming to bounce the light, so that those who saw it drew back a little. Murrough was suddenly aware of the iron stink of blood, smothering air from the room.

‘Orm has done it,’ Crowbone replied, which was true and Murrough had to admit it. All the same, Orm had strung folk up with some sense to it — but Murrough did not say this, though he managed to meet the odd-eyed stare until Crowbone grew tired of the game and looked at the slowly swinging Olaf. His blood-soaked serk had drooped over his face, revealing spindle shanks, stained underclothes and thin, veined legs; when Murrough lifted the serk to look, he saw the old man’s face was turning bluish red.

‘You are certain there is nothing more to tell me?’ Crowbone demanded and Olaf, swinging and wheezing, merely glowered at him. Then he shook a little and foamed at the mouth — the yellow-haired monk moved swiftly towards him, but not as fast as Crowbone’s voice.

‘Stay,’ he snapped and the monk stopped, stared with cool grey-blue eyes and went on to the side of the dangling man, ignoring Crowbone completely. Finally, he looked up into Crowbone’s blazing face.

‘Cut him down,’ he said. ‘Or else he will die.’

‘Let him speak the truth.’

‘He cannot speak at all. Cut him down.’

Murrough decided it, the axe scything briefly through the air and so close to Crowbone that, for the flicker of an eyelid, he thought he was the target — but the blade sheared through the cloth strips and Olaf Cuarans collapsed in a soggy heap, his heels drumming. Crowbone glared at Murrough, but decided to let the moment pass. He would remember it all the same.

The dark-haired monk started to babble in Latin and Gjallandi, gnawing his knuckles at all he had seen, blinked out of the horror that was no part of the hero-sagas he told and into the moment, into what the monk was wailing.

‘A letter,’ he said and Crowbone turned.

‘A letter,’ Gjallandi repeated, pointing to the dark-haired monk. ‘That one wants the abbot to tell what was in it, before everyone dies.’

‘What is a letter?’ Atli demanded and Gjallandi started to tell him, but Crowbone snarled him to silence and rounded on Mugron. Behind him, the yellow-haired monk knelt by Olaf and muttered prayers.

‘What letter?’ he demanded and Mugron stirred from his prayers and unfolded his hands. He laid his hand gently on the shoulder of the dark-haired monk kneeling beside him and wearily climbed to his feet.

‘There was such a message,’ he said, ‘which dealt with the matters you seek. It was brought by Gudrod, who claimed to be the son of Gunnhild, the Witch-Queen. It was written by a monk in Latin and I translated it for this Gudrod, who went his way.’

He paused and blinked a little, as if to get the horror out of his eyes.

‘We played a game,’ he said. ‘On a cloth with little counters. The game of kings. Do you play?’

Crowbone wondered if the blow had addled the abbot and leaned his face forward a little.

‘I play,’ he growled, ‘but not on cloth with counters — you remember that writing-message. Tell it to me.’

‘So you can then kill me? All of us?’

Crowbone shook his head impatiently.

‘No, no — only those two sword-dogs had to die. Have I harmed a monk yet? Well — apart from a wee dunt to your teeth, that is. I will hear what you have to say and go, taking nothing and doing no harm.’

‘Dum excusare credis, accusas,’ Mugron declared bitterly and Crowbone whirled to Gjallandi, who had been whispering about the nature of letters to Atli and had missed it. For a moment, the skald felt the world tilt and disappear beneath his feet at the sight of Crowbone’s fist of a face, waiting furiously to be informed.

‘When you believe you are excusing yourself, you are accusing yourself.’

The yellow-haired monk rose slowly, as if his knees pained him.

‘St Jerome,’ he added, then made the sign of the cross over the rasp-breathing Olaf.

‘He will die, this night or the next,’ he said accusingly to Crowbone. ‘For no reason at all.’

For four ships and crews, Crowbone thought and felt the wyrd of the moment — he had killed Olaf Cuarans, as he had agreed and had not as much as nicked him with a blade, so could be accused of nothing. Not that it would bother him, he persuaded himself.

‘He was Olaf Irish-Shoes,’ Crowbone replied harshly. ‘For some that is reason enough. He is even an affront to your god, for he was a pagan all his life and now seeks to crawl into your Christ valholl through a hole in the wall.’

‘God will not be mocked,’ Mugron answered stiffly and Crowbone laughed, a sound with no mirth in it at all, it seemed to Gjallandi.

‘Your god opens himself to mockery,’ he answered, then pointed to the dark-haired monk, whose eyes went big and round.

‘You — your name?’

It took him three attempts, but he managed to tell the terrible youth that his name was Notker.

‘He is from Ringelheim in the Empire,’ said the yellow-haired monk. ‘As am I. My name is Adalbert.’

Crowbone looked from one to the other, then at Mugron.

‘Here is what I propose,’ he said, seeing the weave of it unfold gloriously as he spoke. ‘You, Notker, and you, Adalbert, will argue why your god cannot exist. Mugron, your abbot — being holier than you and so worth the pair of you — will argue why he does. If Mugron loses he tells me the content of the letter — and you pair die. If the two of you win, I leave in peace, with nothing.’

‘The Lord is not a wager,’ Mugron spluttered, then sighed. ‘I will tell you what is in the letter.’

Gjallandi saw Crowbone’s face and knew the truth.

‘Post festum,’ he said sadly. ‘Periculum in mora.’

‘What?’ demanded a man behind Atli, but Gjallandi just shook his head; there was no point in telling everyone that Mugron had come too late for this feast, that Crowbone had turned on to a new tack and was driven by some Loki wind along it.

Murrough cleared his throat and this time he spat a gob on the bloody floor, as pointed a gesture of disgust as he dared make. He knew Crowbone had marked it, but the youth did not comment. Instead, he nodded to the man behind Atli, the one who had spoken up against Christ priests on the way in.

‘What are you called?’ he asked and the man, pleased to be singled out, heaved out his chest and told everyone that he was Styr Thorgeistsson from Paviken in Gotland. Crowbone nodded, picked up the bloody sword that had belonged to Magnus and handed it to the delighted man.

‘Make that pair begin,’ he ordered.

Grinning, Styr poked Notker in the ribs with his new weapon and the monk whimpered, then began praying frantically in Latin, his voice rising until Adalbert, still calm, laid a hand on the man’s arm. Notker subsided, panting; the front of his robe darkened and his shoes got wet.

Atli and the others chuckled, for it was reasonable entertainment when there was little drink and no women, but Murrough stared at the floor. Orm had strung folk up when he needed them to talk, dragging out his little ‘truth knife’ to whittle pieces off them until they told all they knew. That was for good reasons of gain. This was a sick thing, which you could see in Crowbone’s too-bright eyes.

Notker started and everyone knew he was doomed right from the start if left to himself. He was devout enough — he had come to this place all the way from Saxland and you had to be mad for your god to do that — but his Norse was stuttering and he was too afraid, Murrough thought. Adalbert silenced him gently with a hand on his shoulder.

Mugron was no better, Crowbone marked, disappointed suddenly. He had hoped for some moment, a flash of insight or understanding, a sign from some god somewhere. But Mugron was not it — there must be a God, he babbled, for if there was no God, there was no Judgement and that was surely unfair. And if there was no God, how could he, Mugron, be a priest and abbot?

Atli and the others beat their thighs at that, trading comments on how the abbot would look with a second smile. Murrough looked at the two dead men and the dying Olaf Irish-Shoes, whose great belly no longer trembled with his breathing; the stink of blood was choking.

Notker fell to his knees, all tears and snot and prayer, but Adalbert turned to Crowbone, calm as the mirror-water in a fjord and cleared his throat.

‘I will restrict my arguments to three,’ he declared in a firm, clear voice. ‘I could easily adduce more, but three will do.’

Everybody fell silent, for this was new. Here was a monk, calmly announcing he had more than three ways to denounce his faith and his White Christ god. Atli laughed and declared that this was even better than seeing stumbling Styr try to walk oars. Styr offered back a scouring brow.

Adalbert stepped forward suddenly and slapped Styr’s shield, back-slung to leave his hands free. Styr grunted angrily and raised a meaty fist, but Crowbone merely leashed him with a blue-brown stare. Adalbert, ignoring all this, held up his first finger.

‘A shield, which you all have, has been made by someone. The very fact of it reveals such a thing as a shieldmaker. So the existence of the cosmos and all of nature, the flow of time and the greatness of the heavens, require a prior cause and a creator, one that does not move or change and is not confined, but infinite.’

He paused, looking round at the gape-mouthed and those who had a dim idea of what he meant. Gjallandi shifted slightly. ‘Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus,’ he said. Adalbert bowed.

Atli growled. ‘Fucking Latin — what does he say?’

‘Mountains labour and only a silly mouse is born,’ Gjallandi told him, which left him none the wiser.

‘It is a quote by an Old Roman called Horace about verses and really means something about a lot of work and nothing to show for it,’ Gjallandi declaimed and Crowbone rounded smoothly on him, that beacon stare silencing him, too.

‘If you know your Horace, perhaps you also know your Aristotle,’ Adalbert continued, folding his hands and bowing graciously to Gjallandi. ‘If so, you will recall that he said that this Unmoved Mover was God. In short, if there is a shieldmaker to make shields then there must be a God to make trees and the sea, raiders who come out of it and poor monks from the isle of St Columba the Blessed.’

This everyone understood and they nodded admiringly. Atli threw back his head and howled like a wolf, which made Styr laugh. Adalbert held up his second finger.

‘It has been argued,’ he said, ‘that no God exists because He could not allow such bad things to happen in the world — such things as this, for example. Evil events. In truth, the opposite is true.’

‘Aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus,’ Gjallandi intoned.

‘There you go again, you fat-lipped arse,’ roared Atli, exasperated. ‘If the monk can speak fucking Norse, why can’t you?’

Gjallandi scowled, but Atli glowered right back.

‘He said,’ Gjallandi offered, before things forged up to melting, ‘that sometimes even good Homer sleeps.’

‘Who the fuck is this Homer and what has he to do with any of this?’ growled Styr, scrubbing his head.

‘A better way of saying it is “you cannot win every time”. I am thinking the priest is losing,’ Gjallandi explained.

‘Why not say that, then?’ grumbled Atli. ‘Not that it is a secret, as anyone can see.’

He then glared at Adalbert. ‘What does this Aristotle Homer have to say on cutting your own throat? You are supposed to be arguing that your god does not exist. Good arguments you have — but you are charging the wrong way.’

Even Crowbone laughed and Adalbert inclined his head as Mugron declared desperately, breaking from Latin to Irish in his passion, about how Adalbert would die a martyr.

‘The very existence, the utter conception of evil requires the existence and the concept of good, likewise the freedom of the individual will to choose between the two,’ Adalbert went on, seemingly unmoved. ‘Only God could confer such freedom on us, his creations — otherwise we should be bound by the necessity of being, like the sheep or the ox. The fact that we know we have such choice, such free will, thus shows not only a divine presence but also that a spark of His divinity lives in us, in our immortal souls.’

‘My head hurts with this,’ moaned Styr.

‘You are a dead man,’ Crowbone declared, puzzled, ‘unless your third argument is good enough to undo all that you have said so far.’

Adalbert held up his third finger. There was a silence, save for the wheeze of Olaf’s breathing; even Notker and Mugron held their breath.

‘If there is no God,’ Adalbert said, voice like a bell, ‘then you, Prince of Norway, would not have to be struggling so much against Him.’

There was a hoot of laughter, then another and Atli clapped Adalbert on the back, grinning. For a moment it made Crowbone as mad-angry as a smouldering bag of cats — but he suddenly saw it, how the wolves and bears that were Atli and Styr liked the spirit of this Adalbert. Even Murrough was grinning, thumping the butt of his axe on the floor. Mugron, he saw, was bow-headed, hands clasped in silent prayer; Notker was slumped on the floor, as if all his bones had deserted him, the hem of his robe mopping up the pools of blood.

Still, Crowbone thought, slightly bewildered, Adalbert had argued badly. He was supposed to disprove the existence of his god and had done the opposite. He and Notker were the ones who should die. He said so, though his voice was weak with confusion — that last proof of Adalbert’s had had a barb to it. Still, the silence that followed was thick enough to grasp.

‘On the contrary,’ Adalbert said quietly into the middle of it. ‘No-one should die. For the proposition we had to put has lost — yet it is clear that your men have voted me to live. Under the terms you set for this game all of us have won.’

Right there is why law-makers will rule the world, Crowbone thought — if they live long enough. The monk dazzled him, all the same, so much that he laughed with delight and stroked his coming beard with wry confusion; this was the game of kings, right enough, but played in a strange and excitingly different way.

‘Now I will make you a proposition,’ Adalbert declared. ‘Mugron will tell you the content of the letter and you will take it and leave quietly, harming no-one. But I will come with you.’

Mugron’s head came up at that. Crowbone cocked his own and stared at the monk, who thought he resembled a curious bird.

‘Why would you?’ he asked softly and Adalbert smiled.

‘To bring you to God,’ answered the priest. ‘Probae etsi in segetem sunt deteriorem datae fruges, tamen ipsae suaptae enitent. A good seed, planted even in poor soil, will bear rich fruit by its own nature.’

Crowbone laughed, the hackles on his neck stiff with the wyrd of it all. Was this the sign he looked for?

‘At the least, you can teach me this Latin tongue,’ he declared, ‘so that I know when Gjallandi lies to me.’

The skald’s face was stone and Crowbone’s good-natured smile died away at the sight. Mugron unsteepled his fingers and looked up at Adalbert.

‘You do not need to make this sacrifice,’ he declared piously, but Adalbert’s returning gaze was cool, grey as an iced sea.

‘You did as much when Gudrod strung up your predecessor,’ he declared and there was iron in his voice. ‘I merely did it before an abbot died.’

Mugron flinched and bowed his head.

‘Pulvis et umbra sumus,’ he said and, in unison, Adalbert and Gjallandi translated: ‘We are dust and shadow.’ They stopped and looked at each other, one cool, the other glaring.

Crowbone laughed with delight as the abbot closed his eyes so that the letter was as clear as if it was before him. Then he started to speak.

Later, when Murrough came up to the fire, Kaetilmund raised a questioning eyebrow.

‘Do not ask,’ Murrough said, shaking his head and the Swede was stunned by the elf-struck bleakness of Murrough’s eyes.

Bay of Seals, Finnmark, some weeks later …

The Witch-Queen’s Crew

Men blew on their numbed fingers and huddled close to the snow-frosted ground, where the mist fingered them with icy talons. The sky was still blue, scudding with white clouds and the great rolling white expanse they had just come up folded away behind them. If Erling squinted, he could just make out the ships, slithered half up out of the grue of ice that wanted to be the Tana River.

‘Jiebmaluokta,’ Gunnhild said, her breath smoking out from under the veil she wore, a contrivance of silk that showed only her eyes, old as a whale’s. She turned her whole upper body, swathed in a white-furred cloak of grey-blue trimmed with red; another swaddled her legs so that only the sealskin toes of her boots peeped out and she had hands thrust in a great muff of white fox. The chair she sat in like a throne had poles thrust through it and the four men who carried her now knelt at each one, panting like dogs.

‘What?’ her son replied, distracted. This place was already cold and the guide, a Sami supposedly friendly, had disappeared. Gudrod did not like that much.

‘Bay of Seals,’ Gunnhild answered dreamily, ‘in the tongue of the Sami.’

Erling, vicious with hate for her and afraid she might know, thought bitterly that she was the only one enjoying all this. Well, apart from Od, who crouched like an adoring hound, staring up into the veiled face, wrapped in a wolfskin she had given him. Erling did not like the way the boy fawned on her.

Gudrod did not much care what this place was called. When they had heaved six ships into Gjesvaer, old Kol Hallson had welcomed them well enough, but pleaded to go lightly on his stores.

‘Haakon Jarl’s men have already eaten me out of half the winter,’ he moaned. ‘Now there is you — what is so interesting here that brings both Gudrod Eiriksson and the king of Norway’s men to Finnmark so late in the year?’

He had been warily respectful when Gunnhild was brought in to the fire all the same and did not stint on his stores after that, though it seemed to consist of whale and walrus and salmon. Gudrod learned that eight ships of the king of Norway had come to Gjesvaer two weeks ago, led by Haakon’s Chosen, Hromund Haraldson and including the king’s favourite, the thrall Tormod. There was also a Christ priest, Kol recalled, whom no-one liked the look of.

‘Is there to be war up here, then?’ he asked, alarmed. Gudrod soothed him, for though the steading was small, with almost no men and only three ships, it was the only decent shelter for days in any direction.

Kol lent them Olet, a broad-faced Sami who traded seal and walrus with him. He had, he confessed, offered the man to Hromund and Tormod, but they had refused, because the Christ priest said so. The priest knew the way, Kol said, clearly curious to know where the priest and everyone else seemed to be going. It was clear to Gudrod that this Christ priest was the Drostan everyone had heard of, though he was puzzled why the letter had been written by a priest called Martin and sent to Jarl Orm of the Oathsworn.

Another contender for the prize, Gudrod thought moodily and was not about to tell the Sami guide where they were headed before they left, which was two days later. He did not need Kol adding his interest to the crowd chasing the Bloodaxe.

Kol and the Sami guide made it clear, however, that chasing anything in Finnmark was beyond foolish — it was late in the year for plootering about up the Tana; the long night was closing in and the day scarcely a flicker.

Now Olet the Sami had vanished and Gudrod was hunched like a stunted tree among the rocks, two hundred men shivering around him and the mist trailing hag-hair over them. Somewhere ahead and heading for the prize was Haakon Jarl’s crew and the mad Christ priest, but Gunnhild was certain that they would not get the goddess to part with it. That needed her, she claimed, though Gudrod saw that no-one was happy hearing the word ‘goddess’; such magic did not sit well with them.

There was a movement off to one side and men tensed, weapons up; Olet wraithed up, his gait odd, as if he was trying to avoid leaving anything like a mark and the odd furrows and holes he shuffled into existence in the snow seemed to lack any destiny and collapsed as soon as he had passed.

He slid out like a tendril of the mist and moved through the knots of men to Gudrod’s side, where he took a knee and wiped his face, thick with bear grease against the cold.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Up ahead are some trees and a little hunting hut. There are reindeer everywhere, those big-horned ones, females fat against the winter. Someone will be watching over them.’

Gudrod did not doubt it; he had felt eyes on him for some time and the place was not helpful — grey rock patched greenish red with lichen, cut with gullies and sudden drops where water was turning to porridge, studded with icing tarns, stuck with little wizened trees like claws, clotted with early snow. He stood up and waved scouts ahead, to right and to left, then started forward, his presence dragging everyone else.

Erling rose up, stiff and cold. If he had known what Gudrod was thinking, he would have agreed and added in the reindeer, which scared him shitless, since they could hardly be seen at all except at the last and stood and stared instead of running off like sensible beasts. The fact that he was afraid of them did not help his mood.

After a toiling climb, they came to the hut, a low affair of stone, the roof a wither of old summer growth and branches. Beyond, a line of stunted grey trees hung with a witch-hair of frost-covered lichen, twisted themselves to the skyline; in the summer, Erling thought, they would be bright and there would be cloudberry bushes too …

Gudrod grunted, as if the sight had slotted something into place and now the whole cunning tiling was clear. In fact, he was now thinking it was time to give this up for the day, for plootering about in the sleet and mist as the dark grew was not sensible. Yet the night already seemed interminable.

‘Did you see Hrapp? Kjallak?’ he asked, naming the leaders of the scouts he had sent out, but Olet shook his head.

‘Well,’ said Erling, looking at him. ‘There is the hut. At least we can shelter from the cold in it.’

There were some two hundred men here; twenty under Hrapp scouted to the east, a similar group under Kjallak to the west, while Olet alone skulked out in front. There were more men back with the ships and Erling, turning to look, swore he could see the red flower of their fires and envied them.

Gudrod did not like the hut, for the mist was closing in and they were going to be stuck there for the night, which was not a prospect with much flavour in it. He said as much, turning to his mother, and Gunnhild, snapping like an annoying dog at the men who were lurching her too much, glared embers through her veil and said: ‘Well, you are the man for the leading here — so lead.’

He hated her and feared her, yet he had seen her power, knew it well. She wanted him a king and he had thought he had wanted that, too, like all his brothers — but all his brothers were dead.

‘I am after getting cold here,’ Erling said pointedly and Gudrod blinked out of the thinking and into his scowl, then nodded. He signalled; men moved forward.

They were creeping-soft, as cautious as rats approaching that hut, along the length of the stream which slid past it, heavy with ice. It started to snow, fine as querned flour.

‘Look lads,’ said Ozur Rik, pointing with his spear. They followed it, shaking sweat and meltwater from their eyes to see the reindeer skins pegged out on a wooden frame. They were only half-frozen, newly flayed, a simple domestic task that showed the place had been occupied only recently — perhaps still was.

‘A proper cured one of those would be warm,’ a man growled.

‘The hut,’ Gudrod reminded them, more harsh than he had intended and men hunched hastily under his frown. From somewhere in the misted trees came a coughing bark; those who had heard it before knew it as one of the reindeer, but most thought it was a loose hound.

‘Hold the dog,’ a man called Myrkjartan shouted, which caused chuckles, for it was the traditional greeting you gave to announce to a hov that you were no threat, even though you were arriving as a stranger.

Then all the animals of the stunted wood rose up on their hind legs and howled down on them out of the misted trees.

The Borg, Moray, at the same time …

Crowbone’s Crew

The snow lay clumped on the sand, packed and powdered where the water had not melted it away; pools crackled with ice, luminous in a world of eldritch moonlight almost clear as day. The world seemed filled with the flicker of alfar, those hidden beings at the edge of vision, so that folk spoke in low voices or even whispers, touching iron for warding as they banked up fires and made their shelters.

To the left, Crowbone saw the bulk of the fort that gave the place its name, perched on a headland reached by a narrow neck. It had many names — Torridun, in the days when Sigurd of Orkney had come and pillaged it. Torfness, too, after the way the people who lived here cut up turves that burned like wood or coals.

Borg — fortress — was the best name for it all the same, thought Crowbone. In the years between Sigurd and now, the place had recovered itself. Three walls now stretched across the narrow neck and a great semi-circle of rampart behind that, all oak and iron and stone, so that the Bull Kings who claimed Moray could strut and trade.

Strange folk, for the most part, who spoke like the Irish and wore tunics and breeks woven in a pattern of squares — when they wore breeks at all — and with a fringing along the bottom. It kept the damp from sucking up from the hem, Bergliot said to those who marvelled at it, which was a sensible thing, especially for the long skirts of the women.

Adalbert said the Old Romans had called them pictii, meaning Painted People and so called because they had skin-marked their faces in blue. They named them with reverence, all the same, for these pictii were one of the few folk the Old Romans failed to conquer — but that was then and this was now.

They were sensible folk, Murrough thought, but they had had their day, the Bull Kings of the north, with their skin-markings and their strutting nobles and their endless chipping away on stones. Worse than the Norse, the Irisher thought to himself, for stone marks no-one but themselves could properly read and understand.

Scores of those stones lined the road up to the gate of the place and Crowbone was aware of the effect, knew it for what it was — another piece in the game of kings. Look at us, the stones demanded. Look at us, see the power and time it took to make and raise us. Only a great people can do this. We are choosers of the slain.

Yet three stones had started to lean drunkenly to one side, the foundations eroded, and Crowbone knew these people’s greatness was the same. Sooner rather than later, the Norse of Orkney would come and take the entire of Moray, if only to keep the Albans of the south from doing the same.

Meanwhile, though, there were declarations of peaceful intent to be made and gifts to be given to appease the haughty nobles of the place with their silly, fringed, wool tunics and Irish shoes. Of course, the nobles were sensible enough to keep the scores of Norse outside their fortress, camped on the great curve of bay between the borg and the town. The town was prepared to sigh with relief that the Norse were not about to rampage through them — and, once they learned that the men had good weight silver about them, flocked out to invite them in.

Crowbone was happy, all in all, as he sat down to feast with the nobles of Borg, for he had learned that Martin had been here and left for Norway and Haakon Jarl. The letter to Orm had been flat and cold, scarcely surprising since they were far from friends, yet it revealed what Martin wanted and where he was headed to get the Bloodaxe.

Now Crowbone knew, though had turned all the words of it over in his head as if examining suspect coin and still could not work out whether Orm was playing him false or not. He could not be sure that Hoskuld had not been charged to tell him of the letter when the time was right — like a bairn at learning, Crowbone thought bitterly. Yet Hoskuld had tried to run from him — though Crowbone was nagged with the idea that he might have caused that himself with his harshness.

Yet he was content. His men were in shelters on a cold beach, but they were used to colder still and he had handed them out buckets of silver, so that there was warmth and comfort to be had for a price in the town.

The silver had come from Orkney and the glow of it, the sheer surprise of it, still made Crowbone smile.

From Hy they had sailed for Orkney and come ashore at Sand Vik, storming through the creaming surf and forming up for a fight, Crowbone’s heart thundering as it never had before at the prospect of taking on the Witch-Queen, bane of his life — except that no enemy force appeared. Crowbone was confused by this, uncertain of whether to plough on to the hall and its huddle of buildings and did the worst thing possible — nothing at all. In the end, just as he cursed his uncertainty and made his mind up, Stick-Starer called out that riders were coming.

A fistful of men stopped a long bowshot away and dismounted. A man held the little stiff-maned ponies and the rest trudged towards them, one holding up a white shield.

‘They want to talk,’ Mar declared, which was so obvious that Crowbone scoured him with a glance that made him flush. He called out Murrough and Kaetilmund, with the Stooping Hawk snapping out behind him as he walked. He indicated to Gjallandi to join them, because the man was a skald and he wanted this remembered — and the priest, Adalbert, still getting his land-legs back and whey-faced from bokking up his dinner as an offering to the goddess Ran.

There were four Orkneymen in all, all ring-mailed and armed. One carried the raven banner — the hrafnsmerki — and Crowbone marked him; it was said that the banner had been made by Gunnhild, or one of her kind and that it made sure of victory, even as it guaranteed the death of the man who carried it.

The man, stern and spade-bearded, met Crowbone’s gaze coolly enough, but had the flat, grey eyes of the hopeless; later, Murrough wondered what made a man take the pole of that banner in his hand and Kaetilmund said a woman was at the bottom of it, needing money and driving the fool to fame. Crowbone did not answer, but he knew the truth; the man’s jarl, to whom the banner-bearer had oathed away his own reason, had chosen him as the slain.

One other was there to defend the banner and he held high the white shield of peace. The other two were chieftains, for sure, in their best war gear of brass-dagged long coats of rings and fancy silver-ended swords — one older and one young, built like a barrel of ale.

‘I am Arnfinn Thorfinsson,’ the older one said, peeling off his helmet to let the grey-streaked hair be ruffled by the sea breeze. ‘This is Sigurd, son of my brother Hlodvir and brought here for the learning in it.’

Crowbone nodded. Sigurd was older than Crowbone by two or three years, no more, and one day would be a ruler of Orkney — if his father lived and his uncles let him. Crowbone searched the boy’s face for a sign, a mark, anything that revealed why he had been picked for greatness and not another. There was nothing but his red-flushed cheeks and a lopsided half-grin.

‘Olaf,’ he said, before the silence grew insulting, ‘son of Tryggve. I am a true prince of Norway and the rightful king.’

‘Just so,’ Arnfinn declared. ‘I had heard this. You have come for my wife’s mother, of course and her son, the last of the brood. Did you know he was the one who killed your father? He tells of it often, for it was the first man he cut down in a fight and he is very proud that it was a king who blooded him.’

Crowbone raised an eyebrow. Was the man deliberately trying to provoke? Yet Arnfinn’s face was bland, almost cheerful.

‘Gunnhild and her son are gone, with a wheen of my men. Good riddance I say, even if it means I have fewer men than I would like if it comes to a fight. My wife is of the same mind, for she is nothing like her mother at all.’

Crowbone saw it then, a flare like flint and steel sparking in his head. Gunnhild and Gudrod had gone, following the instructions in the monk-message and taking a lot of Arnfinn’s men with them, so that Orkney was only lightly defended. Arnfinn wanted to deal and Crowbone had an idea what he wanted thrown into the trade.

When he realised what the offer was, the force of it took his breath away. Arnfinn hauled out buckets of silver and offered supplies for Crowbone and all he seemingly wanted was for Crowbone’s men to go away without a fight. All they took in exchange was the body of Rovald, who had wheezed his last and was to be decently howed up.

‘Just like that,’ Gjallandi declared into the delight of men loading the stuff on the ships. ‘With no fighting at all, only the threat of it. Young Crowbone here did not as much as wave his sword and all of Orkney handed him its riches.’

The knowledge that silver could be had for the threat stayed with them all the way to Borg and sat beside Crowbone on the Bull Kings’ feast bench as men roared and boasted and threw bones at each other. Crowbone smiled and nodded, but kept his counsel.

It did no harm for the men to think that Arnfinn and the rest of Orkney had handed out silver out of fear, but the truth was another piece in the game of kings, a truth arranged in private in the dim dark of the hall; if Gunnhild and Gudrod came back from this axe hunt, Arnfinn would be a man disappointed in the true prince of Norway. It was ceasing to surprise Crowbone, the way folk were prepared to pay to be rid of the unwanted.

When sufficient honour to each other had been done, Crowbone and the others he had brought — Kaetilmund, Onund and Murrough, who were the captains of his other three ships — thanked their drunken pictii hosts, wrapped themselves in their cloaks and walked out of the gate and back down the avenue of Bull stones, round to the curve of bay and bright red fire-flowers there.

‘One day,’ Murrough said, looking back at the bulk of the fort, ‘better men will make these strutters bow the knee.’

‘You are only annoyed because they say a man who fights with an axe is no man at all,’ Onund chided and Murrough chuckled in the dark.

‘Nor do they fight with the bow,’ he added and shook his head. ‘It is a wonder they have endured this long, what with all that and their silly little square shields and their tunics you could play ’tafl on.’

Crowbone was only happy to be leaving them entirely, though he notched the place in the tally stick of his head; one day, when Norway was his, this would be a good stepping stone for the rest of the north of Alba.

Back at the camp, music filtered, strange and fine in the night, as someone plucked strings in a delicate, leaping lilt. Men shuffled in a stamping jig, while others kept time beating hands on thighs and laughing; flames danced shadows and the smell of cooking was a comfort wafted on the cold wash of night air.

Crowbone came into the middle of them, grinning and getting chaffered about him deigning to join them from his richer revels; he acknowledged it with a good-natured wave and came up to the fire and the player. It was Bergliot, who smiled at him but did not stop her fast fingering of the instrument.

It was a gusli, which one of the Slavs from Kiev had brought with him, a five-stringed affair called krylovidnye which meant ‘shaped like a wing’. There was another type, bigger and shaped like a helmet and with more string, but this was a good travelling instrument and Bergliot played it well. When she finished, he graciously said so and she flashed flame-dyed teeth across the fire at him.

‘Shall I play you something?’ she demanded sweetly. ‘A wee cradlesong, perhaps, like your ma no doubt did for you to sugar your dreams.’

‘My ma never played such,’ he answered, harsh as a crow’s laugh. ‘Thralls were not allowed instruments and I was usually chained to the privy, so there was nothing much that could sweeten my dreams save revenge on those who did it to us.’

There was silence at that, both from those who knew the tale of Crowbone’s past and those finding out about it for the first time. Everyone now knew that the reason they had gone to Orkney was to visit that revenge on Gunnhild. Still, that and the pursuit of an axe now seemed better business with silver weighing the purses tucked under armpits or between their balls and, besides, this so-called prince of Norway had plucked most of them from ruin in Dyfflin.

Bergliot went still and quiet, her eyes bright in the firelight and so close to tears, it seemed to Crowbone, that he felt ashamed at having been so snarling.

‘She did tell me stories, though,’ he added lamely and the tension slid away from the fire. Bergliot wavered up a smile.

‘Long ago in Lord Novgorod the Great, lived a young musician,’ Crowbone said suddenly and there was a wind of sighing as those closest leaned in to hear better. ‘Every day, a rich merchant or noble would send a messenger to this man’s door, calling him to play at a feast. The musician would grab his twelve-string gusli and rush to the banquet hall and make them dance. The host would pass him a few small coins and let him eat his fill from the leftovers — on such as he was given did the musician live.’

‘My life entirely,’ said the owner of the gusli sadly, a man called Hrolfr, and those who knew him laughed.

‘Then you will know this man’s friends,’ Crowbone went on, ‘who would often ask how he could survive on so little. “It’s not so bad,” the man would reply. “I go to a different feast each day, play the music I love and watch it set a whole room dancing.”’

Crowbone paused. ‘Now that I think of it, I am sure — more than sure — that his name was Hrolfr.’

People laughed at that and clapped the man from Novgorod on the back, he beaming back at them. Crowbone saw Bergliot, her eyes round and bright as an owl.

‘Yet,’ Crowbone went on as more men filtered quietly in, attracted by the news that a story was being told, ‘sometimes Hrolfr was lonely. The maidens who danced gaily to his music at the feasts would often smile at him and more than one had set his heart on fire. But they were rich and he lived on thrown coins and leftovers and not one of them would think of being his.

‘One lonely evening, Hrolfr walked sadly beyond the city walls and down along the broad River Volkhov. He came to his favourite spot on the bank and set his gusli on his lap. “My lovely River Volkhov,” he said with a sigh. “If only you were a woman, I’d marry you and live with you here in the city I love.”’

‘It is true,’ Hrolfr burst out. ‘Is there another city such as Lord Novgorod the Great in all the world? Is there any better place to be?’

‘Silent is a better place to be,’ growled Stick-Starer from the shadows and Hrolfr, prepared to argue the point, was patted and soothed to be quiet.

‘Hrolfr played and the notes of his gusli floated over the Volkhov,’ Crowbone continued. ‘All at once a large shape rose from the water and Hrolfr yelled with fear. Before him stood a huge man, with a crown crusted with jewels like barnacles, with a great neck veil of pearls and, under it, a flowing mane of seaweed hair. “Musician,” said the man, “behold Aegir, King of the Waters. To this river I have come to visit one of my daughters, the Princess Volkhova. Your sweet music reached us on the river bottom, where it pleased us greatly.” It was all Hrolfr could do to stammer his thanks.

‘The King said that he would soon return to his own palace and that he wanted Hrolfr to play there at a feast. “Gladly,” said Hrolfr. “But where is it? And how do I get there?” The King laughed. “Why, under the sea, of course. You will find your way — but meanwhile, you need not wait for your reward.” The king dropped a large fish at Hrolfr’s feet. A fish with golden scales, which turned to solid gold as it stiffened and died.

‘Hrolfr was astounded, but the King waved a dismissive hand. “Say no more,” he said. “Music is worth far more than gold. If the world was fair, you would have your fill of riches and no rose would have thorns.” And with a splash, he sank in the river and was gone.’

‘Heya!’ bellowed a voice. ‘I am from Novgorod and all I ever got from the Volkhov was a chill.’

‘You cannot play as much as a bone flute, Wermund, so that is hardly a surprise,’ yelled a reply and people ordered them to whisht. Crowbone waited, then went on.

‘Hrolfr sold the golden fish to an astonished merchant, then left Novgorod that very day on a ship, down the Volkhov, across Lake Ladoga and into the Baltic Sea. As it sped above the deep water, he peered over the rail. “The sea is big enough to swallow whales,” he murmured. “How can I ever find the palace?” Just then, the ship shuddered to a halt. The wind filled the sails, yet the ship stood still, as if a giant hand had grasped it. The sailors grew afraid.’

‘I know these sailors,’ Adalbert interrupted. ‘Illi robur et aes triplex circa pectus erat, qui fragilem truci commisit pelago ratem primus.’

‘No, no,’ Crowbone shouted as Adalbert opened his mouth to translate. ‘Let me. As hard as — something — wood, I think — and three bronzes once is … the heart of him who … who … who …’

‘Is there an owl in this story?’ demanded Stick-Starer.

‘Or does it go on in the tongue of Christ priests?’ added Kaetilmund. ‘If so, I will need help with it.’

‘Not bad,’ Adalbert admitted, ignoring them all, ‘but it should be: As hard as oak and three times bronze was the heart of him who first committed a fragile vessel to the keeping of wild waves. Horatius.’

‘Was this Horatius on the ship then?’ bawled Hrolfr. ‘What happened to me?’

Crowbone held up his hands and smiled. Adalbert sat, stunned by the speed at which the youth was mastering the Latin that had taken the monk years to perfect.

‘The sailors prayed for their lives,’ Crowbone went on. ‘“Do not be troubled,” called Hrolfr. “I know the one he seeks.” And clutching his gusli, he climbed the railing and, before any could lay hold of him, jumped into the waves.’

‘Not likely,’ Stick-Starer declared, outraged and men laughed. Crowbone, ignoring them, continued.

‘Down sank Hrolfr, down all the way to the sea floor, where he saw, in the dim light, a white stone borg, big as the one to our left. He passed through a coral gate, only now beginning to marvel at how he was alive and breathing like a fish. As he reached the huge wall doors, they swung open to reveal a giant hall. The elegant room was filled with guests and thralls, all of them from under the oceans. Herring and cod and sand eels and sea scorpions, crabs and lobsters, starfish and squid, giant sturgeon and a brace of whales.

‘Standing among the guests were dozens of maidens — river nymphs, the Sea King’s daughters. On a great High Seat at the end of the hall sat Aegir and his Queen, Ran, her hair green as wrack and waving in the eddies. “You’re just in time,” called the King. “Let the dance begin.”’

Crowbone paused and the listeners shifted and grunted in their eagerness for him to go on. He took a breath.

‘Soon the whole sea floor cavorted. The river maidens leaped and spun and the King himself joined the dance, robe swirling like rippling sand, his hair streaming like weed. Above, though Hrolfr did not know it, the waves lashed and broke on the shore; ships were whirled like wood chips. By the end of the night, Hrolfr’s fingers were raw and the King well pleased — so much so that he wanted to marry Hrolfr to one of his daughters and keep him beneath the sea. “Your Greatness,” said Hrolfr carefully. “This is not my home. I love my city of Novgorod.”’

‘Just as well,’ Wermund interrupted, nudging the real Hrolfr hard in the back. ‘Your ale would always be salty and watered down there, for sure.’

‘But the King insisted and the one he chose was the Princess Volkhova,’ Crowbone said, not even hearing Wermund. ‘She stepped forward, her eyes shining like river pearls. She had thrilled to the music Hrolfr had played on the shore, she announced, and now she had him as husband.’

‘Hrolfr marvelled at the beauty of the princess, but Queen Ran leaned over so that her wrack-green hair hung close to his cheek and said softly: “If you but once kiss or embrace her, you can never return to your city again.”

‘That night, Hrolfr lay beside his bride on a bed of seaweed and sand and fine-crushed pearls — and each time he thought of her loveliness, the Queen’s words came back to him and his arms lay frozen at his sides.’

‘Aye, there’s the lie of this tale, right there,’ growled Murrough from the back, his voice thick with bitter irony and yet no-one laughed, hanging on the lips of their young jarl.

‘When Hrolfr awoke the next morning,’ Crowbone said, ‘he felt sunlight on his face, opened his eyes and saw beside him … not the Princess but the River Volkhov. He was back in Lord Novgorod the Great. “My home,” said Hrolfr and he wept.’

Crowbone stopped, confused by the sudden rush of memories, of his mother’s voice, of the privy chain and Orm looking down on him on the day he had released him, standing in Klerkon’s winter-steading with the light dappling through the withy.

‘For joy at his return,’ he faltered. ‘Or sadness at his loss.’

‘Or both,’ said Bergliot, smiling.

She came to him later, of course, as he knew she would, silent and drifting as seaweed through the cold dark, while Hrolfr played cradlesongs for the men and heard the tale of himself repeated back and forth as if it had been true.

‘Will you wake by the Volkhov?’ she said, sliding the length of her body against his, hot as if it had come from the forge, the fork between her legs hotter still as she moulded it to his thigh.

‘Nei. Drowned in the deep,’ he said, reaching for her and she laughed, low in her throat.

Later, snugged in the harbour of his arms, she asked what had happened to the story-Hrolfr and Crowbone told her — he became a merchant, and in time, the richest man in Novgorod, married a fine young woman and had strong sons, at whose weddings he played the gusli.

He was happy, Crowbone told her, yet sometimes on a quiet evening he would walk out to the river and send his music over the water. Sometimes a lovely head would rise from the river to listen. Or perhaps it was just moonshadow on the Volkhov.

She slept, her cheek resting on his shoulder and he could feel her breathe like the sea on a shore, feel the suck and sigh of her and he stayed as still as possible all night, trying not to disturb her, trying to keep her close and afraid that he might succeed.