Hawk Quest

XL

Vallon scourged them on like galley slaves, the women as well as the men. They lay up overnight in a side-creek and were back at their oars before they’d properly woken. Only the Vikings could sustain the effort. Rowing was their life’s work and their hands were as callused as a dog’s paws.

For everyone else it was more than muscles and joints could stand. Something tore in Richard’s back, forcing him to row one-handed. Hero jerked upright at Vallon’s shout to find that he’d been rowing while asleep. They hobbled ashore that night with their hands crooked into claws and their backs as rigid as boards. Each boat’s company cooked separately. An occasional snatch of conversation or laughter carried from the Vikings’ hearth, but everyone else was silent. Wayland and Syth were keeping watch on the river. Hero and Vallon drooped by their fire.

Drogo barged out of the dark dragging Caitlin’s maid, Asa. ‘Show him.’

The girl held out her hands to Hero, whimpering with pain. He saw why when he unwrapped the bandages. The skin on her palms was peeling off like a glove. He held her wrists. ‘Are your mistress’s hands that bad?’

Asa nodded tearfully.

Vallon hadn’t even looked up. He continued shoving food into his mouth. ‘I warned her it wouldn’t be a bed of roses.’

‘There’s no need to push us so hard,’ said Drogo. ‘They won’t chase us, not with Gleb dead. They haven’t even got boats.’

Vallon cocked a fire-reddened eye. ‘They can find boats in Smolensk. We have three days’ lead at most, and we’re at least twelve days from Kiev.’

‘I know that if you drive us at the same pace, by this time tomorrow you’ll be left with nothing but cripples.’

Hero intervened. ‘I’ll treat your hands with salve,’ he told Asa.

The girl couldn’t have been older than twelve. He dressed her palms with an ointment of lanolin and seaweed. When she’d left, he looked at Vallon. ‘Drogo’s right. Richard can’t sleep for pain.’ He showed his own raw palms. ‘I can hardly hold a cup, let alone an oar.’

Vallon stirred the fire. ‘You think I’m not suffering?’

‘That makes it worse. Your wound could open.’

‘We have to press on. My nightmare is that the Russians will slip past us during the night. Imagine coming round a bend to find them waiting.’

‘They won’t. Not with Wayland watching the river. I’m serious, sir. Another day like today and we’ll be fit for nothing.’

When Vallon didn’t answer, Hero rose and stretched, bunching his fists into the small of his back. He hiked up his shoulders against the chill and set off into the dark.

‘Will you treat Caitlin’s hands?’ Vallon said.

‘I’m on my way now.’

‘Thank you. You’ll make a good physician if you live.’

Fog was streaming off the hills when they gathered at the river next morning. The light diffused through the forest, casting no shadows, softening all outlines. The water had a leaden sheen. A fish eagle’s wild scream hung on the silence.

Most of the company were eyeing their boats with dull loathing when the Vikings jumped laughing and joshing into their own craft.

‘Wulfstan,’ Vallon called. ‘Today we’ll travel in two boats. Divide your men between them.’

Wulfstan eyed his men and gave an order. The Vikings trooped reluctantly from their boat and took up their berths.

They pushed off. Vallon told Richard to put down his oar and rest. He raised his eyebrows at Hero. ‘Happier?’

Hero grinned. ‘Much.’

The river ran slow, its current no faster than a geriatric walk. Even so, the boats must have covered fifty miles between dawn and dark. Their course led due south and after four days the river began to widen, in places stretching for two miles between shores, the surface like sheet metal under the great arc of sky. Hero drifted in a relaxed daze, only plying his oar to correct their course.

They meandered through a labyrinth of islands and sandbars and began to encounter fishermen and loggers poling rafts of timber. They paused in passing only long enough to find out how far they had to go before they reached Kiev. Villages began to appear every few miles. Sometimes they passed them in the dark, the only clues to their presence a bell tolling from a church, a rushlight shining through a door, a mother’s voice calling her children to supper. The voyagers always camped in the woods, choosing islands for preference.

Now that he had more leisure, Wayland began manning the falcons. Each day he fed them on his fist, and since the task was time-consuming, he enlisted Syth’s help, showing her how to balance the falcon with the jesses and food held between thumb and forefinger. Only Wayland handled the white haggard. His other favourite was a blocky tiercel with plumage that gleamed pewter and silver and steel all at once. Though tame, this bird wasn’t as well-mannered as the haggard. She ate with the poise of a queen, always one eye on Wayland, her stare as quick and wild as the day he’d caught her.

Every second morning, weather permitting, he blocked them out by the river so that they could bathe. They rarely did, but spent the time bating against their jesses. The white haggard seemed to know she couldn’t break her tethers and yet she yearned for freedom and would crouch, fanning half-furled wings before springing up into thwarted flight in a way that made Wayland wince.

He and Syth spent part of each day hunting game from the skiff and rarely returned empty-handed. At every bend and inlet waterfowl spluttered across the water or sprang quacking into flight. He made Syth a light bow from a bough of seasoned yew he’d bought in Novgorod, planing the wood with a spokeshave that had belonged to Raul. When finished, the bow was D-shaped in cross-section, pale sapwood at the front for tension, golden heartwood at the back to resist compression. Shaping it made him think of Raul — his cunning hand at work while he told improbable war stories and outlined even less plausible plans for the future. And Raul’s death made him think of the dog and his gaze would wander over the forest as though its ghost still ran through these woods. Not even Syth knew how deeply he grieved for it. When she’d wept at the news of its death, he’d assumed an offhand manner. Only a dog he’d told her, until she drummed her fists against his chest and ran away to bawl her eyes out in private.

Only a dog. Its loss made him feel like a part of him had been torn out. Sometimes he spoke to it before realising with a clutch of his heart that it was gone. Once, a distant barking made him jump up in the delusion that somehow the dog had survived and had tracked hundreds of miles through the forest to find him.

One night a doleful howling woke him from sleep and he rose and followed the sound until he saw the silhouette of a wolf standing on a knoll above the river. It was howling at a full moon fretted with clouds. There were no clouds elsewhere in the sky and when he looked again he saw that the pattern was formed by wisps of geese crossing the moon like a mesh of black lace. He began to weep and he couldn’t say for whom he shed his tears. For the dog and for Raul, but also for the solitary wolf and for the geese on their pilgrimage south and for some pain too deep to fathom.

In the morning he nocked the ends of the bow with horn and strung it with gut. He measured Syth’s arm and shortened some of his arrows to fit her draw. He cut a target from cloth, pinned it to a tree and led Syth thirty yards away. He showed her how to stand with her weight balanced on both feet. ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘Don’t grip the bow with your fingers. Use hand pressure and keep your arm straight. You’re too tense. Push with your whole arm as if you were reaching for the target. Cock your elbow sideways otherwise the bowstring will hit it. Grip the string with the first joint of your fingers. Draw and aim at the same time. See the target in your mind’s eye rather than concentrating on it. Relax your arm and shoulder muscles. Let your back muscles do most of the work.’

Syth stamped her foot. ‘I can’t remember all that. Let me do it my own way.’

Wayland stepped back. ‘We’ll break it down later.’

Syth brought the bow up, drew and loosed. The arrow struck a foot above the target. She grinned at Wayland. Beginner’s luck, he thought. ‘You’ve got a sweet action,’ he said, and handed her another arrow. This time she hit below the target, but not by much. Frowning, he passed her a third arrow. It lodged quivering almost in the middle of the target.

‘You’ve used a bow before.’

‘My brothers made me a little one and showed me how to draw it. Where are you going?’

‘To feed the falcons. You’re a natural. I’d only spoil your talent.’

Next morning they went hunting together at dawn. Mist rose in curls from the river and a rusty moon hung low over the far shore. Waterfowl cackled like maniacs in the reed beds. The hunters paddled softly, each stroke dimpling the surface. When they reached a headland they laid aside their paddles and knelt with their bows bent into arcs.

‘Ready?’

Hundreds of geese clattered into flight. Wayland snapped a shot as they rose and when the flock had cleared the water, one of the birds lay bobbing on the surface with an arrow through its body. He paddled up and reached out to claim it. Then he saw the fletching on the arrow. ‘It’s yours,’ he said.

‘She’s a Diana,’ Hero said that evening, goose fat glistening on his chin. And when he’d explained that Diana was the goddess of moonlight and a huntress, Wayland looked at Syth with such pride that she widened her lunar eyes in enquiry.

‘What?’

A wintry wind overtook them from the north, slashing the river into ribbons. With the sails up, the boats ran at a good clip, covering seventy miles for three days in a row. The forest thinned and river traffic increased. The left bank was flat, waterlogged and almost uninhabited. All the main settlements were built on the hilly right bank. It was on this side that late one morning they saw the gilded domes of St Sophia gleaming against a sky smogged with the smoke of ten thousand hearths.

They docked at a wharf beside Kiev’s northern merchant quarter. A fussy customs officer wearing the badge of the port-reeve questioned them at length until Vallon mentioned Lord Vasili’s name and produced his letters of introduction. For all Vallon knew, the birch bark documents instructed the official to arrest the travellers and seize their goods. He and Hero watched each other while the customs man shuffled through the papers. At last he looked up. Their eyes met. The officer drew himself up above his natural height, rocking on his toes and saluting. Lord Vasili was much respected in Kiev, he said. If there was anything he could do to make their stay a pleasant one. Accommodation for the voyagers and shelter for the horses and hawks? Of course. An airy click of his fingers brought a score of dockers running. The officer drove them up a street, wafting his hands before the voyagers as if to clear their passage. Under the city’s inner wall he unlocked a gate leading into a compound occupied by a crumbling clay-and-wood tenement and a Norse hall-house roofed with sagging thatch. It had been built by Varangian merchants, the customs man explained, and hadn’t been tenanted for years. If the travellers would prefer more luxurious quarters …

‘It will suit us fine,’ said Vallon. ‘We won’t be staying long.’

He installed his company in the tenement and allocated the hall to the other travellers. The customs man promised to find them a cook and housekeeper and asked if he could be of further service. Richard slipped him silver and told him they needed a river pilot for the journey to the Black Sea. The man threw out his hand in a gesture that encompassed any number of pilots, and marched out.

‘How long are we staying?’ Richard asked Vallon.

‘We’ll leave the day after tomorrow.’

Richard showed disappointment. ‘That doesn’t give us much time to explore Kiev.’

‘Make the most of it then. You’ve got the rest of the day.’

Vallon and Hero remained in the house waiting for the pilots and were still waiting when the sightseers returned after dark. They’d entered Kiev through a magnificent golden gate to find themselves in the most vibrant city any of them had ever seen. Forget Novgorod, said Richard. Forget London or Paris or even Rome. If art and commerce were the mirrors of civilisation, then Kiev must stand second to Constantinople. Wherever they looked, there were at least a dozen churches within eyeshot. Four hundred churches in all. They’d visited some of the city’s eight markets and been entertained by jongleurs and fire-eaters and musicians who charmed snakes with pipes. In the city’s squares and avenues they’d rubbed shoulders with Khazars and Greeks and Wends and Ossetians and Circassians and Armenians and people from places even Hero hadn’t heard of. A month wouldn’t be long enough to explore half of Kiev’s attractions.

Vallon listened to this eulogy sitting on a bench with his back against a wall and his legs stretched out. He gave a crooked smile. ‘Well, you might see a lot more of it before we’re out of here.’

‘Didn’t you find a pilot?’

‘None willing to take us to the Black Sea. Vasili spoke the truth, and that customs man was only after our silver. Nobody travels south at this time of year. Apart from the difficulty of negotiating the rapids, the pilots wouldn’t be able to return to Kiev before next summer. In a month or so the Dnieper will freeze over and stay frozen until March.’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘Hero and I will try again tomorrow. If we draw another blank, we’ll find our own way.’ Vallon drew in his legs and grinned. ‘We’ve sailed the icy oceans, trekked through the northern forests, navigated rivers with no names. Who needs a pilot?’

In the morning he and Hero worked their way along the docks, trying every hostel, tavern and eating-house. The response was always the same. A flat ‘no’ or a shake of the head. They spotted the customs officer at a distance but he scooted off before they could engage with him. By noon they were back at the house, sharing bread and wine in the dusty silence. A shout from the Russian housekeeper below announced the arrival of visitors.

Their caller was a slave boy who told them in Greek that his master, Fyodor Antonovich, was waiting downstairs and wished to address them on a matter of business.

‘Send him up,’ Vallon said when Hero had translated. ‘You do the talking.’

Soon they heard wheezing on the stairway and a short fat man oozing venality appeared. He gave the door a tentative tap even though it was open. His dark eyes and dangling flews gave him the look of an untrustworthy hound. His gaze wavered between them as if he were deciding which one to cheat.

‘Chairete, o philoi.’

‘Kyrie, chaire,’ Hero replied. ‘Empros.’

Fyodor crept in. ‘I understand that you carry letters of recommendation from my dear friend Lord Vasili of Novgorod.’

‘It’s true that we’re travelling south with Lord Vasili’s blessings.’

Fyodor took Hero’s hands and kissed them. He did the same to Vallon, his jowls trembling. ‘Any friends of my great friend Lord Vasili are my friends.’

Hero indicated the bench. ‘Please.’

Fyodor insinuated himself on to the seat. ‘I hear that you’re bound for Constantinople and can’t find a pilot.’

Hero shrugged. ‘It’s early days.’

Fyodor looked past him. Vallon stood at the window with his face in shadow. ‘How many soldiers do you have?’

‘A dozen.’

‘Seasoned warriors?’

‘Hardened killers to a man.’

Fyodor cast another glance at Vallon’s angular figure.

Hero leaned forward. ‘Perhaps you’d care to tell us where our interests coincide.’

‘Yes, yes.’ Fyodor dabbed at his brow. ‘I have a cargo of choice slaves destined for Constantinople. The slaves were brought from Pechora, far to the north-east, and they didn’t reach Kiev in time to sail with the summer convoy. They missed it by only three days.’

‘How galling.’

Fyodor turned a tragic gaze on Hero. ‘A disaster.’

‘Oh?’

It transpired that the wheels had come off a trading venture. The slaves were to be sold to a business partner in Constantinople in exchange for silks and icons that Fyodor planned to sell to Kiev’s nobility. He spread his hands. ‘You see my problem? Until I sell the slaves, I can’t buy the silks.’

‘Why don’t you sell the slaves in Kiev? They might not fetch such a high price as you’d get in Constantinople, but surely you’d make a profit.’

‘It’s complicated,’ said Fyodor. ‘Complicated.’ His gaze rested for a moment on the pitcher of wine. He sighed. ‘I purchased the slaves with money borrowed from my Byzantine partner. It was a short-term loan at high interest. I expected to pay it back within seven months, when the slaves reached Constantinople. With the profit from the Byzantine goods, I was certain to make a good return. But because of those three days, the seven months have stretched to twelve, and if I have to wait for next year’s convoy, I won’t see a penny for eighteen months. Imagine how much interest I’ll end up paying. And of course I have to pay for the slaves’ keep. Unless I can despatch them this month, I’m ruined.’

‘You want us to escort your cargo to Constantinople.’

‘It would be to our mutual benefit.’

‘How many slaves are we talking about?’

‘Thirty-one. Originally there were thirty-six. They keep dying. Every month that goes by, I’m losing money.’

‘How many ships?’

‘Two, each with a crew of eight.’

‘A dozen extra soldiers won’t count for much if we run into the nomads.’

‘You won’t. The Cumans will be in the steppes with their flocks. Since no convoys sail down the Dnieper in winter, there’s no point in them waiting by the river. A fox doesn’t sit by an empty burrow.’

‘Then what’s preventing you from sending your ships unescorted?’

‘Ah, yes. It’s the pilots. Without experienced pilots, I risk losing everything in the cataracts.’

‘So even you can’t hire pilots.’

‘Oh, I can find pilots if I’m prepared to pay their price. And do you know what price that is?’ He leaned close. ‘Three silver grivna apiece.’ He wriggled on his buttocks, one finger to his lips. ‘Three silver grivna each.’

‘How much are your slaves worth in Constantinople?’

‘Ten grivna apiece, but that’s not the point. There are my overheads to take into account, the interest to be deducted. Six grivna on top of those expenses will reduce my profit to less than nothing. But if you were to pay for the pilots …’

Hero’s brow furrowed. ‘Excuse me. Did I hear you say that we should pay for the pilots?’

‘You won’t find one without my help.’

Hero leaned back. ‘Fine. We’ll do without.’

‘Without an experienced man to guide you through the rapids, you’ll lose lives and cargo. Don’t take my word for it. Ask anyone who’s made the passage. Anyone. Even with pilots, ships and men are lost in the cataracts every year.’

Hero traced meaningless patterns on the table. ‘When you entered, I had the impression that you were asking for our help. Now it seems that you want us to pay for the privilege of escorting your ships. What’s in it for us?’

‘My ships. Your boats aren’t big enough to cross the Black Sea and you won’t find any ships to charter at the mouth of the Dnieper. They’ve all left and won’t be back until spring.’

Exactly what Vasili had told them. Hero stroked his chin. ‘So if we pay for the guides, your ships will carry us to Constantinople.’

Fyodor bared his teeth. ‘Precisely.’

‘I need to talk to the captain.’

Hero laid out the proposition before Vallon. ‘I’m sure he’s playing down the threat posed by the nomads,’ he concluded. ‘I suspect there are other things he’s keeping to himself.’

‘Do you think he’s after our cargo?’

‘No. He wants us to cover his costs and perhaps more than his costs. I’d lay odds the pilots won’t see a quarter of what he claims they’re demanding.’

‘How much silver do we have left?’

‘Little more than twenty pounds. Novgorod was expensive.’

Vallon drummed his fingers on the windowsill. ‘We need a pilot and we need a sea-going ship. Fyodor can supply both. If we turn him down, we’ll probably end up being fleeced twice over in circumstances even less to our advantage. I don’t want to stay in Kiev a day longer than we have to. Gleb’s men could send word and have us detained on some pretext. The Vikings could slip their leashes and kill someone in a brawl. Every day that passes … ’ He broke off and stared over the rooftops at the Dnieper.

‘Sir?

Vallon turned. ‘It’s not as if it’s our own hard-earned money. Pay the rogue what he asks. Tell him I want to interview the pilots and that we must be back on the river without delay.’

Fyodor beamed when Hero announced their capitulation. He called out to his slave and the boy sprang away downstairs. ‘They won’t be long,’ Fyodor said. ‘I told them to be ready to present themselves.’ He seated himself on the bench and twiddled his thumbs.

Hero picked up the flagon of wine. ‘Perhaps you’d care to join us …’

‘Too kind,’ Fyodor said. He raised his cup. ‘To our mutual endeavours.’

Wayland and Syth stood under the central dome of St Sophia, holding hands like children and gazing up at a mosaic of Christ the Omnipotent surrounded by four archangels. They’d found their way into the cathedral after getting lost in Kiev’s teeming streets and now Wayland was too nervous to leave. Every aspect of the cathedral was designed to remind him that he was under the scrutiny of his maker. The saints portrayed in mosaics and frescoes on every surface followed him with their eyes. When he moved, his footsteps were amplified by earthenware sounding-chambers embedded in the walls.

A choir began to sing, the lead chant echoed by a polyphonic response.

Syth squeezed Wayland’s arm. ‘This is what heaven must be like.’

‘I’m not sure I want to spend eternity gazing at holy images and listening to a choir.’

‘What would your heaven be like?’

‘It wouldn’t be very different from life on earth, except that nobody would go hungry or suffer misery and oppression.’

‘Would Raul be there? Would Vallon? Would the dog?’

‘I hope so.’

‘But Raul was a sinner. Vallon murdered his wife. Dogs don’t have souls.’

‘I’d rather be with them wherever they end up than sit around with a bunch of saints.’

Syth pinched him. ‘Ssh! God will hear you and then you’ll go to hell.’

‘I don’t care.’

Syth thought about it. ‘Suppose we died and I was allowed into heaven and you were sent to hell. That wouldn’t make sense, because without you beside me it wouldn’t be heaven.’

‘That’s what I mean. You’d have to join me in the fiery pit.’

‘Don’t talk like that. You’re scaring me.’ She moved closer. ‘One of the priests is staring at us.’

He was a youngish man with a benign expression. When Wayland made eye contact, his smile widened and he moved towards them. Wayland took Syth’s arm and began walking her towards the door. The priest called out and lengthened his stride. Wayland increased his own pace, saw the priest do likewise, and broke into a run. Feet flapping on the marbled floor, he and Syth raced towards one of the great arched doors and burst into the open, vanishing among the crowd while Syth’s laughter was still echoing around the cathedral.

The pilots were brothers, sinewy men with faces as wrinkled as dried figs. One was called Igor, the other Kolzak. Igor had suffered some trauma that made his face when relaxed sag in chaotic folds, as if the strings holding it together had been cut. They stood before Vallon and Hero, their eyes straying towards Fyodor.

‘How well do you know the river?’ Hero asked.

‘We’ve been navigating it every year since we were boys,’ said Kolzak. ‘Our father was a pilot before us, and his father before that. We know every rock and whirlpool, every ledge and chute.’

‘How far do the rapids stretch?’

‘Fifty, sixty versts,’ said Kolzak, shrugging to indicate that distance wasn’t the most important consideration.

About thirty miles, Hero calculated. ‘So it shouldn’t take more than a day or two to get clear of them.’

The pilots stared at him. Kolzak laughed. ‘The convoys take a week.’

‘A week!’

‘Sometimes longer. There are nine rapids and we have to carry the ships over six of them. In some places we have to drag the ships along the bank. In others the men must get into the water and lift the ships over the rocks with ropes and poles. At the worst rapid — the Insatiable — the slaves have to make their way on foot for ten versts along the top of the gorge. That alone takes a whole day.’

Hero didn’t have to confer with Vallon to know what his reaction would be. He addressed Fyodor. ‘That’s unacceptable.’

Fyodor laughed madly. ‘The pilots are talking about the big ships of the summer convoy. With small boats, there’s no need for all this lifting and carrying. Kolzak and Igor will run the rapids without you having to set foot on land once.’ Another laugh. ‘They know the river so well that they can run them in their sleep.’ He thumped the pilots’ backs. ‘Isn’t that true, men?’

They looked at their feet. ‘Yes, master.’

Hero knew that they wouldn’t tell him the truth while Fyodor was present. ‘What about the nomads?’

‘I told you. The Cumans have gone. They’re like swallows that are seen only in summer.’

‘Let the pilots answer.’

Kolzak shifted. ‘It’s true that the Cumans wander away from the river in winter. That doesn’t mean they aren’t a threat. They can turn up anywhere, at any time.’

‘Are they as dangerous as people say?’

Igor answered with surprising eloquence. ‘They devour the land as if it were food laid out for wolves. They sow our soil with arrows. They harvest our youth with their swords, winnow our fighting men with flails of iron and build haystacks with their skulls. They harry us like flies that can be beaten off but not destroyed.’

Fyodor laughed and gave Igor’s arm a twist. ‘Come, come. They’re men not devils.’

‘How soon can we leave?’

‘As soon as you wish. My ships are waiting at Vitichev, a day downriver, where the summer convoy assembles.’

Hero turned to Vallon. ‘He says we can go whenever you’re ready.’

‘I’m ready now.’