The Prow Beast

TEN

Having hurled the axe of that into the middle of us, the hunchback laid out the saga of how he had found out about Randr. While we spoke with Pallig, he had gone off to find decent wood to fix the steerboard and quickly found an entire steerboard, in good condition, which he thought was ship-luck.

A few traders further on, as he looked for just the right cut of ash wood to make an elk prow for the ship — Crowbone shifted and scowled at that part of his tale — he had found good nails and ready-cut ship planks, far better quality than he would have expected in a place such as Joms. Then a trader said it would be better to have a whole prow rather than go the trouble of carving one and showed Onund one he had.

‘So I asked him where he had it from,’ Onund told us. ‘I had to be firm with him, too, for he was reluctant. I picked him up by the heel and hung him for a while until he spoke and we concluded the business. I was pleased to have done it with no violence.’

That got him chuckles and I wished there was no feasting that night, for I wanted to be away as fast as supplies could be loaded, if for no other reason than to avoid the results of Onund’s firmness with a trader.

In the end, Onund was shown the source of the snarling dragon prow he knew well — we all knew well. On the far side from the settlement, wallowing half-in, half-out of the weak Baltic tideline, stripped to the ribs and the keel and the charred strakes no-one wanted, was what was left of Dragon Wings.

‘We should go to Pallig and his brother,’ Finn growled after this news was out, ‘and use your little truth knife on them.’

Those who knew of the truth knife, which whittled off body parts until the victim stopped lying, agreed with relish and I felt the little, worn-handled blade burn where it nested in the small of my back. It had belonged to Einar the Black once and had served me as well as it had him, but there was no need for it now.

‘Randr Sterki had ship-luck to make it this far,’ I pointed out. ‘He would be coming to have it out with Ljot for leaving him and I bet he had more men bailing than rowing by the time he ran Dragon Wings ashore here.’

They nodded and growled assent to that.

‘What of the hoard they had from you?’ demanded Finn of Onund and the hunchback shrugged, a frightening affair.

‘If he did not take it with him, then it is scattered through the settlement,’ he answered. ‘And so lost to you, Orm — these rann-sack pigs took every last rivet from the wreck.’

There would be no hoard found, I was bitter-sure, for Randr would have used some of it to buy supplies and one of those tree-carved riverboats. The rest would be either with him or buried secretly and I had no doubt a deal of it went to Pallig, for no balm soothes like silver.

‘Why is he going upriver at all?’ Finn had asked. That one was easier still; to get Koll and the monk. The monk, in Randr Sterki’s hate-splintered eye, either owed money or blood or both and the boy was my fostri. He would want the boy alive, would know I was coming after him with Crowbone. All his enemies, sailing straight towards the revenge he was not yet done with.

‘He did not take the lesson from your last story,’ I said to Crowbone and he shrugged.

‘I will tell him a harder one, then,’ he growled back and everyone laughed at his new, deep voice, so that his cheeks flushed. He looked at me, those odd eyes glittering like agate.

‘I have a thought on how to get Styrbjorn away,’ he said, then inclined his head in a gracious little bow.

‘If my lord is pleased to hear it,’ he added and folk chuckled. I heard Finn mutter, though, and did not need to hear it clearly to know what he was saying: that boy is older than stones.

‘A prince’s wisdom is always welcome,’ I said and he grinned his sharp-toothed mouse grin and then laid it out. It was a good plan, put him at the centre of matters and at no little risk — which was what the fame-hungry little wolf cub wanted — and gave the skill and strength of it to Finn. I looked at Finn after Crowbone had finished.

‘Can you do this?’

Finn’s grin was the same one seen an instant before fangs closed on a kill and folk chuckled at so eloquent an answer with not a word spoken.

It seemed less of a good plan in the flickering red roar of Pallig’s feasting. He sat on my high seat flanked by two big men in ringmail and helms who scowled at having to miss the best of the feast because of this duty. Pallig beamed greasily while his men growled and gorged and threw bones at one another, or grabbed the female thralls who stumbled in with platters of mutton boiled outside in a stone-lined pit heated by rocks.

I sat on a bench directly across the pitfire from Pallig, horn-paired with Crowbone for the feasting. None of my own men were here and Pallig knew why — they were with the ship, pointedly kept there because I did not trust him. I had already noted that, while Pallig’s women were clustered round him, there was no sign of Ljot, nor of the two bearcoats, last of the beasts, it seemed. Styrbjorn, his mouth in a thin, tight line, sat clenched in on himself on a lower bench and far enough away from the door that he could not make a run for it if he chose.

A skald had been wintering here, a man with a lean face and a body thin as gruel. His name was Helgi and he claimed the by-name of Mannvitsbrekka — Wisdom-Slope — though it was clear any deep thinking he had was long since slid away, for he persisted in trotting out the same old stuff he had most likely been giving them for months. Even the commands of Pallig failed to stop men deep in their ale from flinging bread and bone at him.

Crowbone looked at me with his odd eyes and grinned his mouse grin. Then he stood up.

‘I have a tale or two,’ he said.

Silence fell almost at once, for the marvellous tales of this man-boy were fame-richer than my own supposed heroics. Graciously, Pallig waved a hand for him to continue.

Crowbone told tales of Dyl U’la-Spegill, which was perfect for the audience he had. They were old tales and still told today, for the laughter in them. Dyl U’la-Spegill is sometimes a youth, sometimes an old man and his very name is as much a whispered mystery as runes; there were those present, I saw, who fancied Crowbone was Dyl U’la-Spegill himself and I could not have refuted it if asked, for he held them as if enchanted.

‘Once,’ Crowbone said into the silence, ‘there was a man down on his luck — we shall call him Ljot — who was given a piece of bread. Hoping this was a sign from Asgard’s finest, he went to the market stalls and begged, thinking some meat or a little fish would go well with his bread. They all turned him away with nothing, but Ljot saw a large kettle of soup cooking over the fire. He held his piece of bread over the steaming pot, hoping to thus capture a bit of flavour from the good-smelling vapour.’

Folk chuckled — those, I was thinking, who knew how it felt to be that hungry. Pallig glared them to silence.

‘Suddenly the owner of the soup — let us call him Brand — seized the unhappy Ljot by the arm and accused him of stealing soup,’ Crowbone continued. ‘Poor Ljot was afraid at this. “I took no soup,” he said. “I was only smelling it.” “Then you must pay for the smell,” answered Brand. Poor Ljot had no money, so the angry Brand dragged him before his jarl.’

‘Is that where Ljot has gone, then?’ shouted someone and I knew Finn’s voice when I heard it. Pallig snarled a smile into the laughter that followed and Crowbone went on with his tale.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘it so happened that Dyl U’la-Spegill was visiting with this jarl at the time and he heard Brand’s accusation and Ljot’s explanation. “So you demand payment for the smell of your soup?” he asked as the jarl struggled to come to a decision on the matter.

‘“I do,” insisted Brand.

‘“Then I myself will pay you,” said Dyl and he drew two silver rings from his arm and juggled them in his hand so that they rang — then he put them back, much to Brand’s annoyance.

‘“You are paid,” Dyl told the man. “The sound of silver for the smell of soup.”’

They laughed and thumped the tables at that one and, hidden by the noise and uproar, Finn slid to my side briefly and nodded, then rolled his shoulders.

‘They will choose the bearcoat called Stammkel, the one they call Hilditonn — War Tooth,’ he said quietly to me. I did not ask him if this would be a problem.

‘Once,’ Crowbone began again, ‘Dyl U’la-Spegill lay in the shade of an ancient oak tree, thinking as he always did, on the greatness of the gods and the mightiness of Odin.’

There was a loud throat-clearing sound from down the table, where the Christ priest sat and, for a moment, all heads turned to him, so that he flushed at being the centre of such attention.

‘God will not be mocked,’ he offered and Crowbone shrugged.

‘Then let him sit elsewhere,’ he replied, which brought laughter — though muted, for there were more than a few Christ men here. Pallig craned a little to look down the benches at the priest, who drew in his neck a little and, after a pause, the jarl turned his poached-egg eyes back to Crowbone and beamed.

‘Go on, little man,’ he said expansively, ‘for this is better stuff than we have had for some time.’

At which the skald scowled.

‘Dyl,’ Crowbone began, ‘considered the wisdom of Odin — and then questioned whether it was indeed wise that such a great tree as this be created to bear only tiny acorns. Look at the stout stem and strong limbs, which could easily carry, say, fat marrows that sprout from spindly stems along the ground. Should the mighty oak not bear such as a marrow and the acorn creep in the mud?’

‘I have often thought so myself,’ the skald interrupted desperately, but voices howled him down.

‘So thinking,’ Crowbone continued, ‘Dyl went to sleep — only to be awakened by an acorn that fell from the tree, striking him on his forehead. “Aha,” he cried. “Now I see the wisdom of One-Eye — if the world had been created according to Dyl U’la-Spegill, I would have been marrow-killed for sure.”’

Crowbone paused and stared at the priest.

‘Never again did Dyl U’la-Spegill question the wisdom of Odin,’ he finished and the hall banged tables and hooted; a few bones flew at the priest — in a good-natured way and Pallig stood and held up his hands for silence, planning no doubt to lay into them for treating the priest so poorly. Just as the wobbling-bellied jarl opened his mouth to the silence, he broke wind noisily.

Folk sniggered and Pallig went white, then red. Crowbone cleared his throat a little and spoke into the embarrassment.

‘There was once a jarl who farted dishonour to himself forever,’ he began and Pallig’s face had thunder on it — but there were enough drunks in the hall to cheer stupidly at another Crowbone tale, so he sat back down, silent and dangerously black-browed.

‘It was at his own wedding,’ Crowbone went on. ‘The bride was displayed in all her gold to the women, who could not take their eyes off her for the jealousy. At last the bridegroom was summoned to stand by her side, while the godi stood ready with his blessing hammer.’

At this point, the priest stood up and made the sign of the cross and there were as many who joined in as those who hooted. Say what you like about Christ priests, say they are as annoying as a cleg-bite in summer, say they have minds so narrow it is a wonder anything can live there — but never say they are afraid. I seldom encountered one who had no courage.

Crowbone favoured him with a look until the priest had finished and was sitting. Then he cleared his throat and went on with his tale.

‘The jarl rose slowly and with dignity from his bench,’ he said and then paused, looking round the breathless company.

‘In so doing,’ he went on portentously, ‘he let fly a great and terrible fart, for he was overfull of meat and drink. It was a Thor-wind, that one, a mighty cracking.’

‘I think I know this jarl,’ shouted someone, anonymous in the dark and Pallig shifted in his seat a little, then braided his scowl into an uneasy smile. Crowbone waited a little, then went on.

‘Of course, it was a great insult to the bride and her kin and, in fear of blood-feud and the ruin of a good day and dowry, all the guests immediately turned to their neighbours and talked aloud, pretending to have heard nothing.

‘The mortified jarl, in that instant, was so overcome by shame that he turned away from the bridal chamber and as if to answer a call of nature. He went down to the courtyard, saddled his mare and rode off, weeping bitterly through the night. In time he reached Dovrefell, went on across it to the very snows, where he sacrificed the horse and lived among the Sami for years.’

‘Safe enough there,’ observed a growler morosely, ‘since they are all expert breakers of wind in that country.’

He was hissed to silence and Crowbone went on with his tale.

‘Finally, this unlucky jarl was overcome with longing for his native land — like that of a lover pining for his beloved it would not be denied, though it nearly cost him his life. He sneaked away from the Sami without taking leave and made his way alone and dressed in the rags of a seer, enduring a thousand hardships of hunger, thirst and fatigue, braving a thousand dangers from trolls and wyrm and draugr. He eventually came to his old home and, eyes brimming with tears, walked among the houses of it, unknown, pretending to be an old seer of no account.’

Crowbone paused; there was not a breath of sound.

‘He was delighted with being home,’ he went on, ‘thought of announcing himself and abjectly grovelling in apology for his foolishness in running away for so trivial a reason, no doubt forgotten a day or two after it had happened. Just as he had made up his mind to do just that, he passed a hut and heard the voice of a young girl saying, “Mother, tell me what day was I born on, for there is an old seer outside and I want him to tell my fortune.”

‘The mother did not hesitate. “My daughter,” she said, “you were born on the very night the old jarl farted.” No sooner had the jarl heard these words than he rose up from the bench and fled for the last time, for his fart was now a date that would be remembered for ever and ever.’

The laughter was long, though Pallig had to force his out. For all that, he peeled off an armring and tossed it regally to the young Crowbone, who caught it deftly. The skald’s head drooped like a wilting stalk, seeing his own riches melt from him.

‘Good tales, well told,’ he announced. ‘If you continue the same way, I will give you the one off my other arm.’

Crowbone laughed, then looked sideways at me a moment and I nodded.

‘I have no more tales of momentous farts,’ he said to the assembled company; a few of them groaned in mock disappointment and Crowbone held up one hand with the ring in it.

‘I could tell of Thor fishing for the World Serpent,’ he said slowly, looking pointedly at Pallig, whose back rested on that very carving. He shifted nervously and caught my eye — I hoped my old high seat dug splinters in him.

‘On the other hand,’ Crowbone went on slowly, ‘tales of strength like that are best witnessed at first hand. Happily, we have one of the Oathsworn here with such Thor strength.’

On cue, Finn stood up and spread his arms wide as if to embrace them all, turning left and right and into as many jeers as cheers — though the jeers were muted, for most had heard of Finn’s fame.

‘I am Finn Horsehead from Skane,’ he declared, jutting out his badger-beard. ‘When I fart, walls tumble. Dragons use my pizzle to perch like birds on a branch.’

I watched Pallig, saw his eyes slide to one side and jerk his chin at a thrall, who immediately got up and went outside. Now comes the hard bit, I thought.

‘So — a feat of strength, then, Finn Horsehead,’ Pallig declared, grinning in a twisted way, vicious as a rat in a barrel. ‘Arm wrestling perhaps?’

‘With you, Jarl Pallig?’ Finn asked and managed to put enough sneer in that to make Pallig flush and start half out of his seat. Then he subsided and worked a smile back to his face.

‘My champion,’ he announced and, as if magicked up, the man himself came into the hall, bringing all the heads round. Breath hung, suspended and frozen.

He was ring-coated, of course, with a helm worked in silver and he had to duck coming under the lintel. With him came a long axe, mark of a Chosen Man of the jarl’s retinue and he carried it as easily as a child does a stick.

‘Stammkel War Tooth,’ Pallig announced and the hall rang with cheers from all his oarmates. Pallig looked at the great flat, stolid face of Stammkel, framed by a wild tangle of ribbon-tied beard like flame and the fancy helmet he wore, all silver and dented iron.

‘This is Finn Horsehead of the Oathsworn,’ Pallig went on. ‘He wishes to arm wrestle you.’

Stammkel grunted and peeled off his helmet, so that a great shock of red hair sprang up like a bush. Finn regarded him up and down, then turned back to Pallig.

‘Some mistake, surely,’ he said. ‘Is the father not available?’

The hall liked that and showed it with catcalls and table thumping. Stammkel may have glowered and narrowed his eyes, but it was hard to tell in that face. His voice was clear enough, all the same.

‘Arm wrestling is hardly a fair contest with this one,’ he rumbled, then stared straight at Finn out of the red tangle of his face. ‘I would kiss one of Odin’s Daughters with him, but I fancy he would be afraid of her lip.’

I felt my bowels drop, for this had not been the plan; Finn did not so much as blink. Into the silence that followed came the sound of Pallig clearing his throat.

‘So be it,’ he said — then I forced myself to stand, for it was always best to keep moving forward, even if your plan was askew. Pallig looked at me in some confusion.

‘A wager,’ I said lightly, ‘to make matters more entertaining.’

The hall growled and hoomed and thumped tables in agreement, so that Pallig had to agree, though he did not like it much, beginning to see a trap and not yet sure where to put his feet to avoid it. Too late, I was thinking — and sprang it.

‘Him,’ I said, pointing to Styrbjorn, ‘when Finn wins.’

Pallig, too late to back out of it, looked from the sullen youth to me and back again. Then he stared at Stammkel, the great long axe clutched like a honeycomb in a bear’s paw. Finally, he smiled and settled back in my old high seat.

‘What will be my reward, then, when your man loses?’ he demanded and I tried not to hesitate, or draw in a breath as I laid a hand on the jarl torc round my neck. Scarred, notched, it was a mere twelve ounces of braided silver — burned silver, which meant that it had been skimmed of impurities when molten — yet it was the mark of a jarl and, moreover, of Jarl Orm of the Oathsworn. A prize I knew Pallig could not resist; I was right, for he licked his lips and demanded that they bring Odin’s Daughter into the hall.

A Chosen Man carried it in, after a moment or two of delay which, I worked out, was involved in blowing the dust and cobwebs off her for she had not been used in a time and the reason for that sat in a brown robe, scowling disapproval from under his tonsure.

The Chosen Man laid her on a bench; folk drew back in a ring and Odin’s Daughter lay there, smiling, gleaming, naked and ornate.

It was a blot axe, a great heavy single-bit, worked with intricate knot-patterns, skeined with silver and gold. Such axes are never used for fighting — they are over heavy and ornamented for that work — only in sacrifices to Odin, hence the name. You can put such an axe head on any shaft you prefer and most are the length of a man’s arm from fingertip to elbow, easy for a godi to handle without making a mess of the work.

Odin’s Daughters, they call them, only half in jest, for Odin’s daughters are the Valkyrii, which translates as Choosers of the Slain and so also were these axes, some of them named. This had no name, but was a slender and tall daughter of Odin lying on the table for all that. Four times the length of a man’s arm from fingertip to elbow and thick as a boy’s wrist, this long axe was seldom used for sacrifice work in these Christ days, but was still the mark of the Jomsviking jarls and carried by a Chosen Man, to be raised aloft in the heat and dust of battle to show that the jarl still stood fast. There was only one other more powerful than this and that had belonged to Eirik Bloodaxe of Jorvik — but that was lost when he went under treacherous enemy blades.

Pallig wobbled out of his chair, holding up a length of red silk ribbon for everyone to see, then fastened it round the rune-skeined shaft, a forearm’s length from the bottom. He stood back and raised his arms.

‘Who wishes the first kiss?’ he demanded and Finn, rolling his neck and shoulders, looked at the impassive Stammkel, grunted and moved forward to take up the smooth, polished ash length in both hands.

Men drew further back as Finn then stepped up onto a bench and moved to the end of the table. It shifted slightly and Crowbone, being nearest, leaned forward on the other end, to keep it from tilting — a brave move, since it put him danger-close to the affair. Everyone else, I saw, had drawn far back and Pallig had moved swiftly back to the high seat.

Perched on the edge of the table like a bird — to add balance to strength and prevent any excessive bending to compensate for lack of wrist power — Finn took a breath or two and hefted the axe to feel the weight of it. I caught his eye, then, across the heads and down the length of the table and he flicked a grin through the great beard of his face.

He took the shaft, just below where the ribbon was tied and raised it in both hands, arms outstretched and locked at the elbow. Then he raised it higher and began tilting it down to his upturned face, blade first, until, with hardly a tremor at all, the power of his wrists lowered the razor edge of it to his lips.

There were a few cheers as he did so, then he leaped off the table and offered the shaft to Stammkel. He took it, climbed onto the creaking table and did the same; men roared and thumped on wood as Pallig stepped forward and, careful to let everyone see, lowered the ribbon by a hand-span.

That is kissing Odin’s Daughter. Each time the ribbon creeps to the end of the shaft, the axehead grows heavier and harder to control. Drunks or fools do this at feasts with ordinary long axes and rarely come out of it without scars, or bits of nose and lip missing.

The silence grew with each soft slither of the ribbon down the shaft until, at last, there was no room to grip with both hands and everyone held their breath, for this was where it started to get interesting and desperate. I was sweating, now, for I had seen Stammkel at work and he and Finn were like a pair of plough oxen, perfectly matched and moving in step. I was no longer as sure as I had been when we had made this plan based on Finn’s arm-wrestling skills.

Finn took the axe in his right hand and, with a look left and right at the pale, upturned faces gleaming in the red-dyed dark, he raised the one arm and slowly, slowly, tilted the axe head down. Sweat gleamed on his forehead, I saw — but the blade touched his lips, no more. There were no cheers, simply the exhaling of held breath, like a wind through trees.

Stammkel stepped up, hefted the axe and the flame-beard of him split in a grin that curdled the bowels in me. I knew he would do it and with ease — the great roar that went up when he did made the rafters shake and I saw Pallig settle back in my high seat, stroking his thin beard and smiling.

The way it worked now, of course, was that the pair kept doing it until exhaustion set in and a wrist failed. Finn had other ideas and he winked at me, that old Botolf wink that dried all the spit in my mouth.

Then he climbed on to the table and took Odin’s Daughter in his hand. His left hand; folk made soft mutterings, like moths searching in the dark. A fighting man was almost always right-handed and that was his strong hand — Finn had raised the stakes.

He lifted the long shaft until the pitfire gleam slid carefully along the winking edge of it, then slowly lowered it to his face, turned like a petal to rain, like a child to a mother. I saw it waver, just once and had to clench hard to keep my bladder in check. Then he kissed it — a harder kiss than before, perhaps, but not hard enough to draw blood.

There were a few cheers at this, for even Pallig’s men knew skill and strength when they saw it and Finn dropped to the beaten-earth floor of the hall and offered the axe back to Stammkel, his face impassive as a wrecking reef.

The big warrior took it, scowling — was that uncertainty in his eye? I grasped at that straw as I watched him climb on to the table edge and take the axe in his left hand. He hefted it for a moment or two and frowned — my heart gave a great leap at that. He was unsure; he did not have the strength of wrist in his left!

Finn thought so and grinned up at him, trying to add to the pressure. Hesitant, uneasy, Stammkel raised the axe high — and it wavered. Folk who saw it groaned and Finn’s grin widened, so that Stammkel saw it.

Then, to my horror, the red beard opened in a laugh. Stammkel raised the axe higher still, tilted it and brought it smoothly down, kissed it lingering and gentle, then straightened and lowered it to the floor.

‘You should know, wee man,’ he said to Finn, ‘that I fight with two bearded axes, one in either hand, for the fun in it.’

The roars and howls and thumping took a long time to subside, by which time I was slumped like an empty winebag; I saw Pallig look at me and the triumph was greasy on his face.

I saw Finn’s face, too and was more afraid of that, for it had turned granite hard, with all the laughing in it that a cliff has. He took the axe from Stammkel and paused. Then he swept up the other one, Stammkel’s own long-axe, and leaped onto the table end.

My heart was hammering so hard I was sure those nearest could hear it. Finn stretched his arms out, an axe in both hands — and one heavier than the other, which made matters nigh impossible, I was thinking — then looked down at Stammkel, whose face showed only mild interest and appreciation.

‘A good kiss needs two lips,’ he said and raised the axes high.

I hoped the skald was watching, for if anything the Oathsworn ever did deserved a good saga-tale then Finn’s kissing of both Daughters at once was one. He brought them down and I had to grind my teeth to keep from crying out when the left one — Stammkel’s own axe — wavered left and right. Then it settled and both Odin’s Daughters, delicate as maidens should be, kissed Finn’s lips.

Now there was uproar. I found myself bawling out myself, all dignity lost as Finn dropped lightly to the floor and grounded the butts of both axes.

Stammkel — give that warrior his due — nodded once or twice as the uproar subsided, for folk knew legend-making when they witnessed it and none wanted to miss the word-play in it.

‘You kiss well,’ Stammkel said, ‘for a boy. Here — let me show you how such matters are done when a man is involved.’

He was bordering on arrogance, so much so that I fretted. He could not match this, surely? No sane man would try.

Yet I knew, from the moment he measured the different weights with little bounces of his wrists, that he would do it. The cold stone of that settled like ballast in my belly — where did we go from here?

Crowbone knew it, too. I only realised that when I saw his blond head come up as Stammkel raised the axes high and the hall began to ring with the rhythmic thumping of fist and ale cup to the sound of his soft-shouted name — Stammkel, Stamm-kel, Stamm-kel.

It was at the point where he started to shift the axes to his face that Crowbone sat up a little straighter — no more than that, as if to see better, as if craning in a boy’s eagerness to witness this supreme feat of strength and skill.

The weight came off the table and it trembled a little, dipped slightly under Stammkel’s bulk. Stammkel wobbled. The right-hand axe, the true Odin’s Daughter, wavered. He almost recovered it, but it was lost — the harsh, unforgiving, ornate weight dragged it down and, with a sharp cry, Stammkel jerked his head to one side and sprang down in a clatter of falling axes. Blood showed on his face.

Finn was at his side in a blink, looked, raised a hand and smeared the blood from the man’s stricken cheek. Then he grinned and clapped Stammkel on the shoulder.

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘A nice cheek scar. A name-wound, that.’

Stammkel looked at Pallig’s thunderous scowl. Then he looked across at Crowbone and my heart fluttered like a mad, trapped bird. Finally, he looked into Finn’s beaming face and I waited for the accusations, the fury, the blood that would flow. I groaned — this was not how it was supposed to be.

Instead, to my shock, I saw Stammkel nod once or twice, as if settling something to himself.

‘Next time, Finn Horsehead,’ he said and I saw Finn’s eyes narrow — then realised he had not seen what Crowbone had done, saw also that Stammkel knew this, too.

I wiped it from me as I stepped forward and looked hard at Pallig, then at the hunched figure of Styrbjorn, blinking stupidly.

‘Mine,’ I said and waved the youth to my side. He came, rat-swift and too stunned to even offer pretence of dignity.

‘Good contest,’ I said to Stammkel and dared not look him in the eye — but Crowbone, the cursed little monster, smiled so sweetly at him I felt I had to bundle him away before even Stammkel cracked.

Outside, in the cool of a night-wind washed with the promise of rain and the smell of wrack and salt, we moved steadily away from the hall, down towards the shore and the rest of the crew. My back creeped; I could hear the mutterings and feel the heat of hate on it from the hall we left, but I would not turn round to see.

‘That went well,’ Crowbone offered, his voice moon-bright in the dim.

‘Shut your hole,’ I growled at him, which brought me a puzzled look from Finn, but he was too occupied in carrying the torch that lit our way and herding the stumbling Styrbjorn, who had recovered himself a little and was beginning to make whining noises about his treatment and who he was.

‘Did you think simply to leave here?’

The voice was a thin sliver out of the dark and we came to a halt at the sound of it. Then Ljot loomed and, behind him, a handful of figures, dark with ringmail and intent. One, I recognised with sag of my knees, was the last bearcoat.

‘I have imposed on your hospitality too much,’ I managed and Ljot’s smile was a stain on his face.

‘I was told not to allow you to go upriver,’ he went on gently and the soft snake-hiss of his sword coming out of the sheath was sibilant in the shadows. ‘Now I will also relieve you of the burden of Styrbjorn. I am surprised that you thought you could get away so easily, Orm of the Oathsworn. There is too much arrogance in that.’

I nodded to Finn, who raised the torch even higher, as if to see better.

‘Not arrogance,’ I answered into the planes and shadows of his flickering face and jerked my chin. ‘Planning.’

The shink-shink sound of ringmail made him half-whirl, then back to me.

‘Is that an escort you are having there, Jarl Orm?’ called a familiar voice. ‘Or do we have to axe off their heads and piss down their necks?’

I looked at Ljot, his lip-licking face pale under the ornate helm and horsehair plume.

‘Your choice,’ I said easily. ‘What answer do I give Ospak and the rest of the Oathsworn?’

I was so sure of Ljot I was already starting to move round him, sure that he did not have the balls to do this. Bearcoats, though — you should never depend on those mouth-frothers for anything sane.

This one had a head full of fire and howling wolves, for he brought them all out in a hoiking mourn of sound that made me jerk back. Then he flew at the pack of us.

Out of the side of one eye I spotted Finn, hauling his Roman nail from his boot with a wide-mouthed snarling curse while, beyond him, Styrbjorn dived for the shadows and rolled away. Out of the other, I saw Crowbone leaping sideways, fumbling for the only weapon he had, an eating knife.

Ahead, though, was only the great descending darkness of the bulked bearcoat, rank with the stink of sweat and ale and badly-cured wolfpelt. Too slow to move, or reach for the eating knife at my belt, I was caught by him, but his wolf-mad eagerness undid him, for he crashed into me, too close to swing the great notched blade he had.

I clutched at him and we went over, crashing to the ground hard enough to make us both grunt and to drive the wind from me. He scrabbled like a mad beast to get away and stand, find room to start swinging, but I was remembering the fight between Hring and the berserker Pinleg, when the latter had gone frothing mad and chopped the luckless Hring into bloody pats; I clung to this bearcoat’s skin like a sliding cat on a tree trunk.

He roared and beat me with the pommel end, each blow wild, so that I felt the crash of it on my shoulder, then one that rang stars into me and scraped the skin down my face. I tasted blood and knew the end was on me, for I could not hang on any longer.

Light burst in me at the next blow and my head seemed far away and filled with fire and ice. Then something rose up from the depths, a dark and cold and slimed something; for all I knew it well, Brother John’s dark Abyss, I opened myself like lovers’ legs to it, licked the fear and fire of it. Polite, that feral snarl of a place, it asked me at the last, winking on the brim of dark madness.

‘Yes,’ I heard myself say and opened my eyes to where the pallid pulse of the bearcoat’s throbbing throat nestled against my chin. I felt the harsh kiss of his beard on my lips.

Then I opened my mouth and savaged him.

They peeled me from the dead man not long after, but I knew nothing of it. Ljot was dead, with Finn’s Roman nail in his eye and the rest of his men were slashed bloody and pillaged swiftly, for the uproar had caused the rest of the hall to spill out like disturbed bees.

It was the sight of me chewing the throat out of a berserker that had done it, Finn claimed later to the awe-struck Oathsworn. Ljot and his men had hesitated on the spot at seeing that, so killing them had been simple. Then we had all run for the ship and the river, Styrbjorn included.

I knew nothing of it for a long time, only that my body ached and my head thundered and I felt sick and slathered inside. I had felt the toad-lick of the berserk once before, when I had fought Gudlief’s son after he had killed Rurik at Sarkel; I had lost the fingers off my left hand without even knowing it.

At least then I had fought decently with sword and shield and put the madness of it down to excessive grief, for I had thought Rurik my father until he told me the truth two heartbeats before he went to Valholl.

This time, though, there had only been the dark madness and the small-bird pulse of his throat, the taste of his blood in my mouth and the flood of his fear when he knew he would die.

I had enjoyed it.