The Prow Beast

TWELVE

The wind went to the stern, or died to a whisper and let us make better time over the next few days, though it rained soft and hard, stippling the skin of the water. As Dark Eye had said, we saw no sign of life beyond the tree-fringed banks save in the far distance, but I thought it likely our presence was now well-known. I wanted to find peaceful folk to ask about a monk, a boy and a boat full of hard-faced men.

The ship, powered by all the oars, slid along so that the water creamed under the prow beast’s neck and the crew had an easy pull of it. Trollaskegg would not put up the sail, for the wind was twitchy and we did not have enough sea room for mistakes; the sky veered from a faded blue to a mottled grey, where harsh clouds piled up and looked like the face of a great, grim cliff.

The men, serene as swans on this water, sang their rowing songs, where each line was repeated by the opposite side, a pulling chant that helped keep time out on the open sea, where we did not need stealth. Here, the thinking was, everyone knew we were on the river and being loud would make folk realise we meant no harm.

What do we care, how white the minch is?

Who here bothers about wind and weather?

Pull the harder lads, for every inch is,

Taking us on to gold and fame.

This last was always boomed out, rolling over the water like the wind, which whined now, a hound too long tied up. It came in strange gusts, leaping and whirling round like an eager pup, then vanishing, so that I wondered where it went. Did it bowl on and on across the long floodplain, endlessly blowing?

‘Perhaps it is another type of djinn,’ Red Njal put in when I voiced this aloud. ‘Like the circling sand ones we saw in Serkland.’

‘Or the snow ones we had out on the Great White,’ added Crowbone, ‘the ones which always came before those buran storms.’

The Svears, who had sailed up and down the Baltic a few times and thought themselves far-farers, looked at the old Oathsworn differently after that, realising now just where we had been and nudged into remembering the tales of what we had done. That a boy of twelve had seen and done more than them, with their tangle of beard and growling, was to be considered; like all who knew Crowbone for a length, they were coming to realise that he was not the stripling he appeared.

The thought of all these clever far-farers as oarmates cheered them, all the same, so that they sang until their throats burned.

Skanish women have no combs.

Pull, swords, pull,

They fix their hair with herring bones.

Pull, swords, pull away.

The song floated out across the water, rippling past the tree-fringed shore, out across the meadowland of the floodplain, to where deer heard it, or, I thought aloud, perhaps a herdsman who hid himself and watched, unseen by us.

‘Deer,’ snorted Kuritsa when he heard this. ‘Not enough brush for deer.’

So far the hunters had shot five ducks, three geese and, once, a half-a-dozen fat wood pigeons, but nothing else. Further along, Kuritsa said, if the woods thicken like the girl said, we would find deer and maybe elk, too.

‘We need a strandhogg,’ Finn grunted. ‘Fuck your deer — let us find a place with flour and smoked meat and ale that we can raid. Aye, and women, too, else we will be fucking your deer.’

The Varmland men have no sleds.

Pull, swords, pull.

They slide downhill on old cod heads.

Pull swords, pull away.

The singing stopped late on in that day, when the wind came skittering down on the prow beast again and stole our breath away with the effort of rowing against it. The sky grew too dark for it to be night and then, across the front of us like a herd of black bulls, stormclouds rolled, spitting white stabs at the earth; rain lanced the river.

We took the sail over and used some awning canvas as well, but it was a miserable wet night, despite hot coals on the ballast stones near the mastfish which gave us grilled fish and soggy bread. We drank the last of the ale and hunched into ourselves listening to the rain hiss and the night bang; the blue-white flashes left us blinking and the air was thick and heavy with a strange, blood tang.

Red Njal said that it was a pity Finn had not worked out the use of his hat and Finn told the tale of it, of how he had taken Ivar Weatherhat’s famed headgear in a raid. Those who had laughed at the crumpled, stained object with the wide, notched brim now looked at it with more respect.

‘Keep away from your ring-coats and helms, lads,’ warned Alyosha, ‘for when the night smells of a hot forge, Perun is hurling his axe at any byrnied warrior he can see.’

‘Is that true?’ demanded Bjaelfi and men hummed and hemmed about it.

‘It is true, bonesmith,’ Alyosha declared, ‘for I have seen it and Perun is as like your Thor as to be a parted birth-brother. Once I saw a druzhina horseman in an autumn storm such as this near Lord Novgorod the Great. A proud man and brave, too, all splendid in brass and iron and he rode with his tall spear sticking into the rain and wind as if he did not care. Then there was a flash and Perun’s axe smacked him.

‘There was nothing much left but twisted metal and a black affair that might have been him. The horse had been turned inside out and we found one of its shoes in the summer, when we went to the wood a good walk away. It was stuck in a birch, half-way up the tree.’

Another flash and bang showed the white-eyed stares of the listeners and everyone hunkered deeper into their own shoulders, shifted a little away from stowed weapons.

The storm wore itself to weary grumbles eventually and I drifted to sleep, listening to the water hiss and gurgle and comforted by the faint glow of the dying coals. Men were curled and twisted into odd shapes, round sea-chests and oars, squeezed in corners and all of them sleeping as if the places they touched leached rest into them. They snored and whistled and wheezed and that was as comforting to me as the glow of coals.

I saw Finnlaith, on watch, shift slightly, a vague silhouette against the faint blood-glow of the coals; as I watched, I saw him settle and tip, like a bag of grain not set down square and I knew he was asleep. That made me annoyed, for I had just got myself comfortable and was enjoying the fire and the men snoring and the river talking quietly to itself about the storm that had blown out. Now I was going to have to lever myself up and kick his Irisher arse awake.

Somewhere a wolf ached, sharp and sorrowful, threading its cry through the night like a bone needle and I struggled and grunted out of my space, feeling the chill as the cloak spilled warmth out — then I froze, astonished.

At first I thought it was a mangy bear, waddling slow and quiet towards the boat, for they do sometimes on the travelled routes of Gardariki, seeking meat or a lick of sweetness after their winter sleep. Then I saw it was a man, working slowly, easily, down towards the ship; a shift of brief moonlight slid along the blade he held.

I almost let out a yell, then, for all the while I had been thinking it one of the crew deciding to try his luck with Dark Eye while her guard slept — but this man was coming from the shore, from further down. Besides, the naked blade told the truth of it.

Moving slowly, rolling each foot along from heel to toe as old Bagnose had taught me, placing each one carefully between sleepers and stacked oars, I crept towards Finnlaith. Beyond him, the shadowed figure with the long knife paused, then came on again.

I snapped Finnlaith’s axe from his hand and flung it, even as the Irisher sprang awake with a yell. The long, heavy bearded axe spun through the air and I heard the crack and the grunt as it hit the creeping man; I leaped, hoping he was stunned at least and scrabbled for the place he had fallen, hearing Finnlaith bellowing behind me.

I landed on the man’s back, driving more air out of him, sprang a forearm under his neck and gripped his other shoulder, levering his chin up until I heard the neck bones creak. He swung wildly behind him and I saw he still had the knife, flickering like a wolf fang in the watered moonlit dark.

He grunted when I grabbed for the hand, spilled me off him and we rolled now, me desperate not to let go of his knife-hand. I banged my nose and the pain of it made my whole head explode in red.

Men were yelling and the world was a whirl of grass and cracking twigs, heavy with the fetid stink of sweat and fear and fresh-scabbed muddy earth. I heard shouts, felt the thump that hit the man I struggled with; he fell away from me then.

‘That will tame him,’ growled a voice.

‘After the other one…quick now. Move yourselves.’

A hand hauled me up and light flared as someone lit a torch from the coals and brought it. Finn looked me over with narrowed eyes as men thronged around, then he relaxed.

‘That neb of yours is not lucky,’ he pointed out, but I did not need him to tell me that, for it throbbed blindingly. Someone held the torch over a little and, as Finnlaith fetched his axe, grinning, I saw what I had been fighting.

‘Sure and that was a fine throw,’ he said cheerfully, ‘though you are lucky it is not so balanced and only the shaft hit him, else he would be dead.’

‘Sure and it is a fine thing,’ I answered, mimicking his tone, ‘that I did it when I did, else you would be dead and we would have to wake you to let you know of it.’

Finnlaith’s grin slipped a little and he nodded wryly, scrubbing his head with embarrassment. The giant red-head, Murrough, reached down and plucked a limp figure from the bruised grass.

He was a small man, dressed in a stained tunic that might have been white once and wearing bits of fur here and there, which is why I took him for a mangy bear. His face was mole-sharp and shaved clean, though he had greasy hair the colour of old iron worked in three braids, two from his brow and one behind him. He half-hung in Murrough’s grip looking one way then another with small, narrow eyes, as if to find something he could bite.

‘Is this a Wend or a Sorb?’ I asked. ‘Does anyone speak enough to ask him?’

‘Only the girl,’ growled Alyosha and Crowbone appeared then, his cheeks flushed and eyes bright from running.

‘The second man ran for it and we lost him in the dark — who is this one?’

‘A Sorb,’ grunted someone.

‘Or a Wend.’

Mole-Face said nothing, but tried a smile with more gap than tooth and spread his hands, moving them to his mouth.

‘Came to steal food, I am thinking,’ Finn growled. I picked up the man’s long knife; it was a good one, ground down from what had once been a decent sword, so that the hilt and fittings were all there and they were Norse. The likes of Mole-Face would have sold it long ago if he was so starving and I said so.

I handed it to Finn and added: ‘Well, I have my truth knife and it has never failed, no matter whether we speak the same tongue or not. So string him up and we will start with his fingers, until they are all gone. Then we will move to his toes…’

‘Until they are all gone,’ chorused those who knew the way of it, laughing like tongue-lolling wolves.

‘Then I will start on his prick and balls,’ I added.

‘Until they are all gone,’ came the chorus.

‘Ah, no, wait — Christ’s bones, no.’ The man’s tongue flicked like an adder and he stared wildly from one to the other.

‘That truth knife,’ Finn grunted, ‘seldom fails to impress me. Already we know he speaks good Norse and is a Christmann and we have not even drawn blood.’

‘I know who he is,’ Styrbjorn declared, bursting through the throng. ‘His name is Visbur, by-named Krok, but most know him as Pall, which name he took when he was baptised and chrism-loosened. He is one of Ljot’s men.’

‘You may not have any food,’ Finnlaith said to the mole-faced man, ‘but you are rich in names.’

‘Bind him,’ I said and men sprang to obey; the man panted and struggled briefly, but he stayed silent, stumbling back to the ship with the press of men at his back. Once there I had them loop a cord round his ankles and then hauled him a little way up the mast, where he hung and swung like a spider’s prey. I brought the truth knife out, feeling the cold sick settle in me, for I never liked this.

‘Now,’ I said, ‘I know you are called Hook and named after a Christ-saint called Paul and that you are no Wend or Sorb.’

‘True, true,’ he panted. ‘Let me down — I will tell you everything. Anything.’

‘Who was the other man?’

‘What other man? I was…’

He broke off, for I had grabbed one bound hand and whicked the little finger off him; the knife was so keenly sharp that he felt it as no more than a tug — then he saw the blood spurt and the pain hit him and he shrieked, high and thin, sounding like Sigrith when she was birthing her son.

‘Yes, yes,’ he screamed. ‘Two of us. We were sent by Pallig.’

‘I remember now,’ Styrbjorn spat out suddenly. ‘He was always at the elbow of another called Frey…something.’ He frowned, then brightened. ‘Freystein, that is it.’

The hanging man moaned and blubbered and Finn, with a scornful look, thanked Styrbjorn for his part, while wishing he had been a little quicker.

‘I am sure Pall here will forgive you for the loss of his finger,’ he added, ‘it being just a little one.’

Styrbjorn scowled and the pair of them bristled at each other for a moment — but this was Finn, who made stones tremble and Styrbjorn wisely slunk off. I was aware of them only at the edge of my mind, for Visbur/Pall had started to babble.

It all spilled out like blood from his finger-stump, while the torch guttered in a rising wind and he turned and swung and bumped against the mast.

Pallig had sent him and three others. This Pall and the one called Freystein had been dropped off when they spotted the boat; the other two had rowed their little faering silently past, the idea being to pick Pall and his oarmate up once they had done their task. They had planned to set the boat adrift, maybe even fire it if the occasion presented itself.

I sent men off down the bank and we waited moody as wet cats, while Pall swung and moaned.

‘Cut him down,’ said a small, light voice and Dark Eye stepped into the torchlight.

‘This is no matter for you,’ growled Finn. ‘Go and lie down somewhere warm.’

Dark Eye studied him and most would have said she did it as cool as a calved berg, but I saw the tremble in her and, suddenly, stepped away from myself to her side and saw it as she did — a band of savage-eyed, grim men, tangle-haired beasts gathered round a pole to poke and taunt a hapless victim. She looked at me with those seal eyes and I felt shame.

‘Take him down,’ I said and, after a pause, Red Njal and Hlenni did so. Pall collapsed on the deck in a heap and Bjaelfi, who never liked this business, came forward and thrust a scrap of cloth at him, one of the many he had rune-marked for healing.

‘Here,’ he said gruffly. ‘Bind the wound with this and keep it clean. Do not take it off, for the rune on it is Ul, a limrune, which is to say a healing rune, in case you have Christianed yourself away from even that knowledge. It invokes Waldh, who is an old healing-god of the Frisians.’

Dark Eye smiled, a small sun that flared for a moment and was gone as she moved off back to her place in the lee of the stern. Finn hawked and spat over the side.

‘So thralls rule us now,’ he growled and I felt a surge of anger; any less a man would have had my fist on him.

‘She is no thrall,’ I answered, stung. ‘A princess in her own lands and as valuable to us as a queen. And no-one rules us, not even me and, for sure, not you.’

He saw the thunder in my face and realised he had gone too far. Unable to row back from what he had said, he simply turned and rolled off down the ship to the prow, pulling off his crumpled hat and scrubbing his head with confusion.

The men I had sent out came back when the birds had finished yelling at the dawn.

‘They saw us,’ Kuritsa said, ‘just as the sky got light. We managed a shot or two, but they rowed off. There were only two.’

‘My fault,’ added another of the trackers wryly, a lanky Svear called Koghe. ‘I am not as skilled as Kuritsa here and let them see me.’

Kuritsa waggled his head from side to side, a gesture that meant the matter was neither here nor there. He also voiced an opinion that had been in my head, too.

‘It means the second man from tonight is still somewhere around.’

He had done more than well, what with this and other matters and I looked at him and knew what I had to do. Gripping him by one shoulder I bellowed it out so that everyone could hear.

‘I see you.’

Men turned; a few ‘heyas’ went up, for they liked Kuritsa and had long since stopped treating him as a thrall — which meant not noticing him at all. Now I had declared him as noticed and had Red Njal bring my drinking horn, filled with the last scum of the ale. Grinning, he handed it to Kuritsa, who then handed it to me. I drank and gave it back to him. He drank and everyone cheered, for Kuritsa was now a free man.

In some places there is more to it, involving six ounces of silver — if the thrall is buying his freedom — and him brewing ale from three measures, which is a powerful drink to present to his former owner, but all that is colouring the cloth of it.

‘Well,’ Crowbone said brightly, ‘now that we have no more thralls, we will have to rely on Finn Horsehead’s cooking.’

Which, of course, was what we had been doing already, for Finn was known for his excellent meals, but it raised a laugh as men clattered about, sorting themselves, trying to find sleep again and mostly failing. When the light was enough to see by, the ship was shoved off from the bank, the rowers settled on to their sea-chests, slid out the oars and bedded themselves into the rhythm of it, helped by Trollaskegg’s loving curses.

Dogs, he called them one minute and maeki saurgan the next, which strangers take as an insult, since it means ‘dirty sword’. They miss the part of how such a sword came to be so stained, by proving its worth and not breaking.

I took Pall by the scruff of the neck and hauled him to where Finn sat.

‘Here,’ I said. ‘Aim your scowls at this instead of me, Finn. This Pall might be useful yet, even if only in one of your stews.’

Finn managed a twist of his mouth, for he did not want a quarrel any more than I; Pall hunkered miserably, but I saw his thin face turn this way and that, cunning as a rat. A thought struck me and I cursed myself for a nithing fool.

‘Where were you going?’ I demanded. ‘Before you thought to be clever with our boat.’

He flicked his adder tongue over dry lips and I reached round into the small of my back, under the cloak, which made him flinch and cup his finger-short hand in the other.

‘Upriver,’ he answered in a voice as whiny as the wind, then, seeing me produce the truth knife, added hastily: ‘To warn the Saxlanders you are coming. Pallig wants you dead for killing his brother.’

‘Dare not do it himself, all the same,’ I pointed out scornfully.

‘Crucify him,’ Finn advised, then, remembering the Rus punishment for Christ-worshipping criminals, added: ‘Upside down.’

‘Christ Jesus,’ moaned Pall and collapsed to the deck, no doubt believing he was on his knees to his White Christ while the reality was he babbled with his nose in Finn’s boots; Finn laughed and prodded his face with a toe, while I added this latest bad cess to the growing heap of problems.

The rain started again and the wind swirled and circled, sometimes strong enough to catch the prow or the steerboard and lurch the ship sideways, like a balked horse. The current was strong, too and, in the end, I had us back at the east bank with the rowers drooling and panting. It had thicker woods nearby, so we stayed the rest of that day, sending men hunting or fetching firewood and fretting at having little food and less ale.

It gave me too much time to think, about when Odin would take me as his sacrifice, about what Thorgunna and the others at Hestreng would be doing and about the night-sneak by Pall and his oarmate.

When I had spotted it, I was thinking it one of the crew stealing up on Dark Eye, and tried to tell myself the feelings I had had were because she was valuable to us. Since then, she only took those eyes from me when she scanned the banks, as if hoping to see a face she knew. Even with my back to her I could feel the heat of those eyes.

She was young, yet old enough to grip the interest of all the crew, but she seemed like some animal fresh from a burrow in the woods, thrown into somewhere strange; I saw a hunger in those eyes, which I took to be for the woods and hills of her own place. I knew that hunger. Mine was for a fjord and misted cliffs and a distant blue line of mountain, like something seen on the inside of your eyelids when first you close them at night. I tried hard not to think of hers as another hunger and mostly failed.

That night we had a bigger blaze, just to cheer us and the glow of it fired the river and drowned the dark with blood red. I saw her, when everyone had gone to snores and grunts, a sharp profile against a sudden unveiled moon.

She turned and the firelight caught the shadow of a smile on a mouth that was neat as a hem, yet full enough for me to wonder if she knew how to kiss.