The Wolf Sea

13

Brother John wanted us to go after the Greek Giorgios and, as he said 'end his affront to God'. I told him we would go south as fast as possible, because I thought soldiers would arrive. Aliabu, when we got back to him, proved that I had the right, scratching out the warp and weft of it in the sand.

Around Aleppo, he told us, marking it out in stones while we gathered round, were the Hamdanids, who had led the fight against the Great City's army at Antioch.

Many of the ones we had fought had been made up from the Kitab tribe of Bedu.

To the east were the Buyyids, latest in a long line of such who held the Abbasids caliphs of Baghdad hostage. They had joined the Hamdanids to fight us, but were no real friends to them, while the Qarmatians of Damascus seemed to be the same sort of Mussulmen as the Fatimids, but the Fatimids said the Qarmatians were no Mussulmen at all. The Qarmatians were, it was generally agreed by everyone, not ones to fall prisoner to.

To the south — busy celebrating victory in the newly-named Cairo — were the Fatimids of al-Muizz under his general, Jawhar, with their pink and green flags. They were no friends to anyone who did not believe as they.

And all around were the almost hidden Bedu, with their own allegiances and blood-feuds.

`Fuck,' said Kvasir, grim with disgust. 'There are so many camel-humpers fighting over this place you would think it worth something, but look at it. It's stones and dust. Now, soft green fields I can understand fighting over. But what does this place have? Even the silver mines are empty.'

For one thing, Aliabu told us, there were horses. The asil, he said, is the best horse in the world and people kill for them. It was this horse, Aliabu revealed, that had landed him in the clutches of Jarl Brand at Antioch.

In the Kitab tribe was a powerful clan called the Mirdasid and Aliabu had been sent to them by his own people, the Beni Saher from around the Pitch Sea, to find out the pedigree of the forty head of horses the Beni Saher had lifted from them months earlier, a great feat which the Kitab still mourned.

`Wait, wait,' demanded Finn, thrusting his chin out with disbelief. 'What does he mean? Is he trying to tell us he went to the camp of the people his people had just robbed and asked him the value of what they had taken?'

It was exactly so. It seems that Aliabu's presence was as sacred as that of any herald, because the first thing a Bedu who gets an asil horse wants to know is its descent.

However, now that he had that information, Aliabu did not want to overstay his welcome in Kitab country and was taking the fast route home when he stopped to trade with the army at Antioch — and had his sons taken in care by Jarl Brand.

He would get them back when he delivered us to the Pitch Sea, as the Greeks call it. The Sarakenoi call it the Dead Sea, though it wasn't true that it was dead. In fact, as we saw, it was greener than anywhere, though the shoreline of it was white with salt and the water undrinkable, even if you strained it through wadmal.

Finn heard out Aliabu's marvellous tale, shaking his head and marvelling at how someone could walk, unharmed, in and out of the camp of someone they had just raided. Everyone talked of that all day — save Sighvat, who sat apart, drawing runes in the sand and scrubbing them out.

Brother John, meanwhile, spent his time protesting that it was not right to leave dead-eaters like Giorgios behind. I soothed him by reminding him that we had soaked Godwin in oil and burned him and all the rest of that underground larder. Giorgios and his friends would have to eat each other now, which was only fitting.

`Maybe they will manage it before soldiers come and finish them off,' I offered.

Brother John, his face burned leather-brown so that the wrinkles at the edges of his eyes showed white, looked at me and shook his head. `Malesuada fames,' he said. 'And there is more than one kind of hunger.'

A hunger that persuades to evil. Perhaps he was right, looking back on it. We were all full-sail with it, driven across this sand sea, still hungry for the silver of Atil's hoard. Still on the whale road, yet not a whitecapped wave in sight.

Not all were happy with this. There were thirty-eight of us left, burst-lipped, sun-slapped, sweating and weary and only a handful were the old Oathsworn. Two or three Danes from Cyprus, led by a muttering Hookeye, were already growling about being no closer to this silver hoard and others were starting to listen.

It did not help that Hookeye reminded me of myself when Einar led the Oathsworn; now I knew how he had felt.

Like him, I tried to ignore it and plough on, even if the furrow was stony. We staggered from shadow to shadow, the only safe way to travel in a land where the sun will kill you and even veils won't shield you from the glare that flashes up to your face.

Anyone who stopped — or worse, collapsed and lay on the hot ground — was hauled up at once, because that sucked the water right out of your body. We learned to wrap our robes tight, which was better against the heat than having them flap loosely, and all our waterskins were coated with fat churned from camel milk to stop seepage.

Lie only in the shade, the Bedu told us. Maybe one of the lizards there will stand guard while you sleep

— since they are twice the length of your forearm, they make formidable watchdogs and only eat small animals. If you can't sleep, count the camel fleas, so big you can see them clearly.

We also learned a lot about food. The Bedu of the Beni Saher, for example, eat lean fox meat, which they say is good for sick bones. They also like rabbit, which they skin and gut like a goat, then cut the meat into pieces. Then they stuff the meat back into the skin and tie it up. A hole is dug in the sand and into that is put burning wood and two stones, one under with the wood and one over. The whole thing is then covered with embers and sand and left for three to four hours — perfect during the rest-up period of a long hot day, when no one wants to be near a fire. When it comes out, the meat looks like gold.

We ate it with the bread they made every day, taking wheat live with worms and mixing it with water and salt, the dough flattened and then covered in ash and cooked for five minutes on both sides, then removed.

The black soot was easily knocked off and it was a good taste.

All of us now had great respect for Aliabu, his brothers and his wives — but we were surprised to find that they considered us worthy of the same.

It's because you sail on the sea,' the Goat Boy told us. `They call it Ocean and fear it.'

Ocean, it turned out, has many of the most dangerous jinn, which seem to be like fetches are to us. They are everywhere else, too, but never touch the earth and you can only see them when the wind of their passing whirls the sand into little circles.

The Bedu don't talk about them much, which is sensible, for neither do we like to speak of fetches and for the same reason. These jinn can inhabit the bodies of men and make them mad in the head and Aliabu remembered seeing one such, so crazy he ate sand and had to be held down and prayed over. Even so, it seems, he was never the same.

He told us this because he was concerned about Sighvat, who was showing all the signs this man had before he started eating sand.

I was, too, and could not work it out, but Sighvat remained apart and silent and brooding all through the long days down to another ancient city, nothing but fallen pillars and ruin and which, I learned later, had been called Palmyra. We were then heading further south, into the true desert, said Aliabu, before turning west to reach the head of the Pitch Sea and then to Jerusalem.

`True desert?' gasped Short Eldgrim, sand on his lips and not enough wet in his mouth to spit with digust.

'What can be worse than we have already come through?'

We found out, moving in the dark between the colonnaded ruins of the old city of Palmyra and the Saracen stronghold called al-Gharbi, like ghosts in the night, unseen and unheard.

We rested up, as usual, all that next day, in a heat like a bread oven, with the sky a washed and weary blue. The land wriggled and the horizon was sliced through with sheets of water that were not there, or hills whose summits were halfway between earth and sky.

In the cool of the evening we set off again and, when night fell, the land leached out most of the heat and grew chill as a summer fjord.

`Muspell,' growled Finn, exasperated. 'We are in Muspell.'

`What is Muspell?' the Goat Boy wanted to know, so Finn told him. Burning ice and biting flame, that was Muspell, the place where life began.

It seethed and shone here, too, and before we had been on our way two hours, Thor unloaded his own fury and a great storm marched across our path just as we reached the remains of an old Silk Road stopping place, which was Odin luck for us.

We stopped and took shelter in this collection of ancient stones, huddled in a world gone dark, where blue-white sparks flickered in great masses of cloud, which we saw for the eyeblink of the flash.

The Thunderer spoke from them and then came a howl of sand-hail, until we were scourged and bent by a wind that scurried over the plain and took possession of the world. For all that fury, not one drop of moisture fell, which was strangest of all to us, who expected a soaking from a storm.

Even Brother John was cowed by all this, though he was more furious that we had travelled hard and fast by night, so that he had missed seeing the pillar near Aleppo where some Christ saint called Simon had perched like a bird for years, or the Street Called Straight in Damascus, or the old ruins of Palmyra.

If this was a simple journey, one of those walks you peregrinatores take,' I snapped back at his latest brooding, 'I would be agreeing with you.' I paused to let the latest flash light up his scowl, then added: 'But this is no silly Christ walk. We are surrounded by enemies and only by sneaking along in the dark can we get to where we must go.'

And where is that, young Orm?' Brother John answered bitterly. 'We pursue men, pursuing men, who pursue a priest into the bowels of Satan. If anything smacked of jinn-madness, this it it.'

It was not altogether wrong, I was thinking, and there were other faces flickering grimly in the darkness, other thoughts on the same subject.

Our way home lies along the track Starkad leaves,' I said, loud enough for them to hear, I hoped. 'We came to get the rune-serpent sword and free our Oathsworn comrades. After that, I will be going back to the Elk and sailing away from this gods-cursed country and hope never to see it again. Those still oathbound can follow if they will.'

On to a hoard of silver that will make you all kings,' Kvasir reminded them and there was silence while they drank in the rich mead of that and the sky grumbled.

If our comrades are not already eaten,' growled Short Eldgrim, his eyes white in the darkness. Thunder rumbled, as if agreeing with him. 'What if we are too late and they have already lost their balls?'

All the more reason for haste,' Finn said vehemently. If it were any of us. . By the gods, think of it.

Dragged along by dead-eaters, already having lost your balls? You would give up all hope, even of the Oathsworn.'

At least, if they have lost their balls,' Kvasir pointed out moodily, 'it is one less thing for the dead-eaters to cook.'

There were grunts and growls of derision at this, while Kvasir spread his hands and demanded to know what was so bad about what he had just said.

I said nothing, for the fear and uncertainty was rich in the voices I had heard. I caught Botolf's eye and the look that passed between us let me know he was thinking the same.

It isn't a disease,' said a voice into the sullen silence of this, in between the moody mumbling of the thunder. Sighvat.

`What say you? Woken up, have you? About time,' growled Finn.

Sighvat ignored him, shuffling closer as the wind screamed and Redbeard's unseen goat-chariot banged about the sky on iron-rimmed wheels. 'Eating the dead isn't a disease, nor are they fetch-haunted. It is hunger only, so bad that meat is meat no matter what it looks like.'

`Men are never the same after they have done it,' Brother John persisted. 'At best, they cannot be trusted.'

`None of us can be trusted then,' answered Sighvat sonorously, 'for we are all as likely to turn to it, given the same circumstance.'

`You would be last on my list of fare,' I offered, trying to make lighter of all this. A few chuckled, but Sighvat, curse him, was not for bringing cheer into that Thor-raging night.

I may be first available,' he said, flatly. 'For my doom is on me.'

`What's this?' demanded Botolf, alarmed. Doom was not a word anyone cared for and, for all his muscles, the giant was mortally afraid of the Norns and their weaving.

`That Godwin, the Saxon,' said Sighvat. 'He spoke to me first. My wyrd, as my mother has told me.'

The sky banged like a great flapping door and the blue-white seared my eyes. I felt the sick in my belly like a ballast stone, smooth and round and sinking, saw him look at the greyed sky on Cyprus and tell me how his mother had it from a volva in the next valley that her son would find his doom when the kite spoke to him.

Godwin's name, Puttoc, did not mean 'buzzard' — my Englisc was limited. It meant 'kite'.

Sighvat told them of it and everyone was silent. Those nearest to him touched a shoulder, or clasped his forearm in sympathy and none doubted the fact of his doom — save Brother John, of course, who was driven to a near frenzy of tongue-lashing over it.

He called us useless pagans, nithings, never to enjoy the fruits of the Christ heaven until we had stopped being stupid, hag-ridden barbarians and how a good dipping in holy water would be a waste of his and God's time.

I thought, at one point, that I would hear the meaty smack of someone hitting him, but none did. Instead, they hunched against his ravings as they did against the storm and, like it, he ran out of breath before long.

Then, burned away to the enduring husk, we staggered out of the desert. Which is easy to say and hard to do and, though it took us only a few days, it was through a world of sand, piled up in great waves like an ocean frozen in time. Rippled and ridged, it flowed round us like water, crawled as if alive into every crease and crevice.

Even here, in this absolute waste, I watched Aliabu dig in a certain place, insert a long reed and, like some seidr magic, there was water you could sip. Warm and filthy, but mead in that place.

It was our only comfort. Even Botolf's strength was fading by the time that great sand sea lapped on to firm rocks, but by then he was carrying the Goat Boy on his shoulders and the rasp of that little one's breathing, from the dust that lashed his barely healed lung, cut like an adze.

`He weighs about the same as the ring-coat I don't have,' Botolf muttered, which would have made us chuckle but for the fact our faces were fixed in masks of crusted sweat and dust.

Bergthor, who had been Kol Fish-hook's oarmate, had taken a cut in the fight at Aindara, a little slash on the forearm that had gone bad, spreading red lines and foul smells, despite Brother John wrapping it in a cloth marked with his most potent prayers.

Watery red pus oozed out of the wound, dripping on his breeks. It dried in the heat, but still managed to infect the air with a sickly sweet smell. Now Bergthor had turned green and staggered like a drunk when he walked and, as he saw the climb ahead, he sank to his knees and cried, though no sound came, only tears.

A strong man, who had survived everything the gods could throw at him, was crying because of a cut arm. Even as we marvelled that anyone had moisture left to waste, we looked away, because we were also strong men and knew we would weep when our time came. When we foundered, our eyes and minds struggling even as we lost control over our bodies, we would weep like this.

I should have used The Godi on him there and then, but wanted him to savour his last moments. Four of us carried him up to higher ground of rock and yellow-brown scrub, a sweating affair of groaning men and camels until, at the top, a breeze like balm took us and we saw the sparkle of water and the eye-aching sight of green.

`The Jordan,' Aliabu declared. 'My task is finished. I will lead you to where you can cross, then you will follow the road south to Jerusalem.'

`The Jordan,' Brother John said, blood seeping from lips too cracked to take his smile.

Is it safe?' panted Short Eldgrim.

Aliabu shrugged. 'Jerusalem is held by a Turk, called Muhammad ibn Tugh,' he answered. 'He has taken the title of Ikshid but his rule is a fragile thing, though he holds to the view that the city is holy to all People of the Book. There are more Christ-men in Jerusalem than either Jews or men of the True Faith.

`There are mosques and Jewish temples and Christ churches there, but the Jews fare better than Christians, for Christ temples are sometimes molested, especially when the Great City makes war. A law prevents either new ones being built or old ones repaired; but the city is holy to all, so none are molested, according to the law.'

`Mirabile visu,' said Brother John and got down on his knees and started to pray. He would have wept had there been any moisture left in him — and, to be truthful, so would we all, for it was wonderful to behold, as the little priest said. I have never seen a green so green as that day.

Then Bergthor vomited and the juice of it ran sluggish at our feet, mixing with the dust on our boots and forming small clumps of sand. Lines of blood streaked it and the desert sucked it up. Pus, thick and yellow as cream, dripped from the black ruin of his arm.

Of course, we should have killed him, for it was clear he wasn't going to make it, but I could not bring myself to it, not after what we had all done. I wanted him to live a little longer in the sight of the green and feel the breeze on his cheeks. When I said this, the others nodded and hunkered down, understanding it at once.

The Goat Boy made him a shelter and we sat and listened to him vomit into the dry desert sand. We gave him our water to drink, but he threw that up, too, and the desert lapped it up.

Towards the end, Finn shoved the handle of his seax into Bergthor's good hand, but he was too far gone to hold it, so I sat with it, holding his hand in mine, both wrapped round the hilt. It felt like a bird's wing.

Others stirred themselves wearily, began collecting stones and scuffing out a hole.

`This is how we will all end up,' muttered Hookeye and a few others growled their agreement. I said nothing, but saw where the lines were being drawn, saw that the weld between the old Oathsworn and the Danes from Cyprus was fracturing now

Bergthor started coughing, as if the sand was in his dry lungs, as if it had come to claim him. I saw it then, while my mind swam as if I were underwater, the desert snaking round him, consuming and absorbing him.

It wrapped itself around him, sticking to the water droplets on his face, painting him grey, minute by minute, clinging to his beard. He gasped for air, yet breathed only grit, seemed to decay in that spot, collapsing into nothing more substantial than sand.

Wearily, we howed him up under rocks when he died in the dark, then moved off, leaving him to the desert, that feeding animal which grows ever larger and will eat all who dwell in it, one day or the day after.

We came down into Jorsalir like sleepwalkers, drunk on the bustle and the green of it all, forcing the four camels Aliabu had given us for our gear along a road choked with beggars and cripples, pilgrims and thieves, merchants and soldiers.

None spared us more than a glance, not even when they saw our wild hair, blue eyes and weapons.

Afrangi, we heard them say, then offer whatever they offered to Allah to spare them from evil.

The guards on the gate looked us over warily and we did likewise to them, for these were Sarakenoi and we had been fighting them only recently. But such was the strange way of things here that they shrugged and passed us through the Bab al-Sahairad, the gate named after the Mussulman burial howes nearby and which means 'Gate of those who do not sleep at night'.

As we went, a guard said something which the Goat Boy, puzzled, told me was to do with 'the peace of Umar', which just bewildered us all.

It was fitting, when I looked back on this and other omens, that we should have come into this holy city of the Christ-men through a gate meant for dead men and later spat out of it through the Dung Gate, used to dump their shit.

The stink and the heat was a hammer blow and we stopped in a teeming square, the first one we saw with water, then had to bat the camels aside for a chance at it. I surfaced, blowing water and luxuriating in the feel of it coursing down my back. There were cries of outrage as we muddied the trough and the surrounding area, but we put hands to hilts and scowled.

My ring-coat was rolled up on a camel; but I still sweated in stinking wool and had gone through too much to be cursed at by a pack of Saracen goat-fuckers.

`Shame on you, Orm Ruriksson, in this holiest of holy cities,' growled Brother John when I voiced this same opinion out loud — and provoked laughter from the others, enough for me to think that all it took to fasten us together again was a little water and a common foe.

`The Trader's right,' Finn agreed. 'Let them mutter. I have skulked and crawled through their festering desert until even my prick is full of sand. Enough. If these shits want to kill me, here I stand.'

And he did, wet hair straggling, flying round his shoulders as he spread his arms wide and spun in a circle. 'Here I am, you goat-fucking eaters of dogs,' he bellowed at the top of his voice, thumping his chest with both fists. 'Finn Bardisson from Skani, whom they call Horsehead, is ready for you. Are there any takers?'

There was a moment when everything stopped and was still, a marvellous thing in that teeming place.

Then the noise crashed in again and people moved on their way and into their own talk, leaving Finn standing with his wild-bearded chin out and his arms flung high. Few looked at us now and none made growls in our direction.

Ah, shit,' said Kvasir suddenly, seeing two spear-armed guards come up. 'Well done, Finn Bardisson from Skani, whom they call Horsearse, we are not two minutes in the city and you have brought trouble on us, I am thinking.'

The guards stopped and rattled off in their tongue, which I had picked up enough of to know they wanted to talk to the leader. Me. The Goat Boy, pale but still standing, closed in beside me like a shadow and we fell into the three-handed conversation we had grown skilled at.

The exchange was brief and sharp and polite. We were in the wrong quarter and would be more at home moving to the foreign side of the city, for most afrangi and others usually entered through the Jaffa Gate, which was west. Unless we were Jews or Armenians, in which case we should go south.

Either way, we'd better do it quick, for the Peace of Umar was a pact which Sarakenoi had with the Christ-men, forbidding the latter to wear Arab clothing or carry weapons, among other silly things. We should comport ourselves more seemly, too, for there was bad feeling for Greeks and Christ-followers in the city, who outnumbered everyone else, but had no power.

`We aren't Christ-men,' snorted Finn, truculently, then caught Brother John's eye and shrugged. 'Well, just new ones and not like the puling bairns they usually see.'

We went west, pushing down the narrow, crowded streets, the Goat Boy in front to call out warnings and Finn, Kvasir and Short Eldgrim swaggering behind him, hands on sword hilts to make the point a little more firmly. On the way, I saw the marks of old fires, charred black buildings and ruins, so it was clear there had been trouble.

It took a long time in the swelter of early afternoon and we were practically at the Jaffa Gate when we spotted camels and what appeared to be mud-brick hovs for travellers. At the same time, we were swamped by those who wanted our custom.

I picked an evil, scar-faced individual and negotiated a price. The Oathsworn straggled in and started unloading their gear, in a street where cookstalls elbowed each other for space and the braziers and ovens belched out even more heat.

The smell of hot oil and cooking meat was heady enough to send most of us lumbering over for cubes of lamb on olive-wood skewers, or vine leaves stuffed with shredded goat, or flakes of fish, pungent cheese, figs, those limon fruits we loved. The desert had kicked out all our dreams of smiling naked virgins with bags of silver and a horn of ale and replaced them with ones of such food, washed down with fountains of crystal-clear water.

They wandered back, beards greasy, chewing and smiling and blowing burned fingers. They sat cross-legged in the shade and, within the space of an hour, were sorting through gear and starting to fix what they could.

`They seem quieter now,' muttered Kvasir, handing me two skewers of lamb. 'It would be better if we had some hope of plunder at the end of this, though, Trader.'

`We have had gods'-luck so far,' I pointed out, 'for these Mussulmen could just as easily have caused us grief. If we go robbing them, I am thinking their goodwill will be shortened.'

Kvasir nodded reluctantly. 'In that case, we had better find Starkad and get this over with in a hurry.

After that, I am thinking it would be a good idea to go back and raid Cyprus on the way to our silver hoard.

That way we will not only get loot, but the Danes will have had some revenge on those who held them prisoner.'

This was alarming, for Leo Balantes' promises still rang in my ears and getting past his ships would take more gods'-luck than I thought we had. Still, it came to me that it was no bad thing to tell the Danes, which thought I shared with Kvasir.

He chuckled and nodded. Now you are thinking, Trader. Einar could not do better.'

He meant well of it, but the fact that he was right chilled me on that searing afternoon, so that my smile back at him was sickly.

As he turned to spread this, casual as a rumour, I was at least glad Brother John was out of earshot, for one more knowing look from him would put an end to our friendship. The fetch of Einar hung about the rest of that day and into the yellow-lit night, where the smell of frying meat seemed to grow even stronger, the cries of vendors even more shrill.

We had scared everyone else off from this hov, much to Scar Face's scowling annoyance. He had twice tried to up his price and twice been sent packing, the second time with the threat of Finn's boot up the arse if he came back a third time. Since our purses were thinner than the wind, this was all he would get.

Those same thin purses kept most of the men sitting morosely round the fire, hugging dreams of Cyprus plunder and revenge to themselves as if they were naked women. Those with money juggled the sense of new boots with the hook of drink and women; I was wrestling with this myself, in the middle of this Street of Poor Cooking, when Brother John bustled up, bird-bright and wearing the brown robe of a Christ priest, which he had never done before.

I had it from the monks of the Holy Sepulchre, no less,' he told me cheerfully. 'Though they are unrequited heathen Greeks, they have such vestments for pilgrims.'

`The holy what?' I demanded, bemused by the sheer, shining ferocity of the little Irish priest.

`The Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The new one, since the original was broken down some three hundred years ago by the heathens, may God have mercy on their benighted souls.'

`Whisper that in this place,' I told him, shaking my head that anyone could think a three-hundred-year-old building was new. 'I am glad you found some friendly Christ-men, Brother John, for it seems to have lightened your spirits and renewed your clothing.'

`Renewed my spirit, boy,' Brother John corrected sonorously. I have stood on the spot where our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified and I have now achieved my dream. Now I can go home to Ireland.'

I blinked at that. Though the little priest could be a pain in the arse, I did not want to lose him quite as sharply as this. He saw my look and grinned, shaking his head.

I am hoping you will get me some of the way, young Orm, for I still do not swim well.'

`Just so,' I replied, then winced as a vendor bawled out a long string of words, of which I recognised only

'fish' and `Lake Galilee'.

I was not merely renewing my spirit and my clothing,' Brother John went on, falling into step with me. I sighed and went with it, taking it as a sign from the gods that the priest was with me, thus preventing me from heading for the lure of women and drink. New boots and sense, then.

`What else?'

`News. The burnings we saw came about only a few weeks

before, because the chief Greek priest here, the Patriarch John, publicly urged the Basileus to reconquer Jerusalem, the stupid man. So the Mussulmen and Jews attacked the Anastasias, set fire to the roof of the Martyrium and looted the Basilica of Holy Sion.

`They found the Patriarch hiding in an oil vat and dragged him out. Maybe a torch got too close to him, for he ended up burning. The Ikshid, this Turk, is very sorry for it and peace has been restored — but the Sarakenoi want no more trouble here.'

That was timely news; we would keep our heads down and our tongues between our teeth then.

`Just so,' agreed John, hugging himself with the glee of more news, which he finally threw out just as I was getting irritated. 'I know where Martin the monk went and so where Starkad is.'

Now that was news that stopped me in my tracks and, grinning at his cleverness, Brother John laid it all out.

He had worked out that, like him, Martin would head for one of the holiest places this holy city had to offer if he had reached it and there was none more Christ-kissed than this Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where visits from afrangi were few enough for the Greek priests to remember them all.

Sure enough, five or six days before, a hawk-nosed western priest carrying a bundle on his back had come to pray and had then asked the way to the tomb of Aaron. A day after that had come the limping man with golden hair, asking after the hawk-nosed priest. And now us.

Brother John beamed and stood, his arms folded, hands thrust inside the sleeves of his new robes.

`Fine work, right enough,' I said to him and his smile threatened to split his face, shining bright in the dying twilight. `Where and what is the tomb of Aaron?'

A church where it is said the brother of Moses is buried,' answered Brother John. 'And staffed with western priests.

Though still not good Celts, they at least cross themselves in the right way and so are better than Greeks, I am thinking. It comes as no surprise this Martin would go there, for he would be assured of rest and food.'

`Good work,' I said to him and watched him beam. 'No mention of Valgard Skafhogg, all the same.'

Even that,' grinned Brother John. A woman flitted silently behind him, paused, looked at me from over a veil, her liquid, dark eyes smiling. I swallowed, wondering if I was mistaken.

Oblivious, Brother John went on: 'The Greek priests are furious at rumours that some deserters from the Great City's army have come this far south on a raid. Caravans to the east, from Baghdad, have been attacked. The situation is delicate and they don't want any excuse to let the Mussulmen and Jews loose. .

are you listening, boy?'

I blinked, but he had caught where I was looking. By the time he had turned, the woman had drifted into an alley out of sight.

Of course I am listening,' I snapped. 'I was thinking, that was all. It sounds like the ones who have our comrades in thrall. Did they say how many?'

Brother John shook his head. 'Hundreds. Even allowing for rumour, there must be a fair few. No caravan would come from Baghdad these days without armed guards.'

Hundreds. Our comrades, perhaps growing fewer by the day out there in the desert with these dead-eaters, who were growing madder than the full moon's ghost. I saw this Dark-hearted One, crouched like a wolf in a pack, gnawing on the gods knew what and the shiver lurched along my spine so that the priest saw it.

`Just so,' said Brother John, grimly. Then he asked me brightly what I was doing now. So I told him a lie

— buying boots — while thinking of the woman and if she was still in the alley.

I'll come with you then,' he said.

`No. Buying boots is a solitary thing, priest. Go and tell Finn and Kvasir what you know.'

He looked at me, shrugged and then moved off, seeming to glide now that he had robes that went all the way down to cover his feet. I watched him disappear round a corner, then moved slowly up the alley.

She was there, I could see, for the alley had a strong yellow lantern hung at the end of it and, if I had been thinking at all, that would have warned me, for there was nothing there save some steps up on to the first level of the tangled roofs and why would a whore want to hump in lantern light?

I had no experience of Mussulmen women, so moved cautiously, knowing only that to lower their veils was a sin, though the Bedu women did this with no shame, which was confusing. Then she shrugged her shoulders, slipped the dress off and I looked at the most beautiful breasts I had ever seen, it seemed to me.

They glowed in that yellow-lit alley, tipped with dark berries and trembling. Dry-mouthed, I took a step and heard another behind me.

`Ha!' shouted Brother John. 'Boots is it, then?' He darted in front of me and raised one hand to make the sign of the cross at the woman. He started to speak as, annoyed, I was moving to thrust him aside with a curse. 'Begone,' he growled at her. 'Apage Satanas.'

I was about to roar at him when the arrow struck, a dull thump of sound that pitched him forward, leaving me to gape at this strange feathered sapling which had suddenly sprouted between his shoulder blades. The woman screamed.

I knew I was next and sprang forward, smacking the lantern off its hook, so that it clattered and rolled and went one way, while I went another, into the now darkened lee of the stairs. A second arrow whirred and the woman screamed again, then I heard her fall.

Black silence and the stink of smoking fish oil from the lantern. The woman gave a gurgling moan, but Brother John was still and quiet and the surging of blood in my ears was almost as loud as my breathing.

Strain as I might I could not hear anything around me.

Then there was a scuff, from above, from the rooftop the stairs led up to.

I saw a flicker of shadow. I wanted to get back to Brother John, pictured him bleeding to death, or lung-shot and gasping like a landed fish, able to be saved if help was at hand. But the killer lurked yet and I did a desperate, foolish thing: I charged up the stairs.

It took him by surprise and the arrow he had nocked hissed so close to my face that the flights flicked my cheek. I hit him then and heard him whoof out air, heard the bow clatter to the ground and then I was over and rolling, confused, across the flat roof. My elbow banged pain through me.

A shadow sprang up and leaped up a little way to another roof and I scrambled up and after him, grateful to all the gods that, as I only saw now, he had been alone. To my shame, I left Brother John, all thought of last-minute doctoring blasted away in the heat of the chase.

A dark shape — no cloak, I noted — vaulting over the lip of mud-brick to another roof. A pot clattered and he cursed, though he mangled it, as East Norse often do. One of Starkad's Danes, then, left to kill me in the dark.

The dark shape plunged down three short steps, fell over and cursed again. Voices yelled and figures sprang up; people, sleeping on their roofs for the cool of it, scattered as he hurled through them, cursing. I saw steel glint and so did they and they pulled apart, jabbering and yowling.

I went through them as if they were reeds and he saw me coming, though I still could not make out who he was. He slashed at someone with the knife, then ran on, leaped a fair gap and landed, stumbling, on a new roof.

I went after, landing better for I had the advantage of seeing what he had done. There were lights now, yellow flares in the darkness, as he raced down tiered rooftops.

The smell of cooking hit me and I knew we were stumbling across the roofs above the Street of Poor Cooking.

He skidded to a halt, teetered for a moment, then went over the edge with a sharp cry. I got there a second later and saw him crash into the street, hit a vendor's charcoal brazier in a spill of coals and hot oil, then sprawl in the middle of the road with a gasp and a grunt.

The vendor and his neighbours went wild, flailing the air with their arms and shrill words. They redoubled this when I landed in the middle of them, went over on my old ankle injury and crashed down in a pool of hot oil. Flames licked dangerously as the oil sludged into the dusty street, washing over spilled embers. Other screamers anxiously sprinted to scatter dust, or beat them with wet cloths.

They dragged up Brother John's killer, then recoiled as he flashed his knife at them. One, slower than the others, staggered back, put one hand to his side and then looked at the blood on it, before screaming and staggering away, showing this horror to everyone else around. They backed away from him, too, as if he had leprosy.

Hands grabbed me, hauled me up. A black-bearded face screamed into mine, spittle lashing me. I wanted to get round him to the killer, had to find out who he was, but Black Beard belted me one in the ribs, which made me wince. I hit him back and, suddenly, they were all on me, kicking and slapping and trying to tear my clothes, so I went down and curled into a tight ball.

There was one, a fat man in a ragged robe smelling of onions, who bent over me, his legs slightly apart, trying to grab my hair and beat my head in the dust while I slapped his hands away as if they were flies.

Then a booted foot shot up between his parted legs and the man screamed and flew through the air, arse over tip.

There was no way he was getting up again; he was blind with the agony of it and probably maimed for life.

Another man went sideways and bounced off a wall with a puff of dust. The others split apart and Finn stood there, Kvasir beside him; Botolf, who had kicked Onions to moaning ruin, stood next to him and others were coming up fast.

I saw the killer, knife still in his hand, start to get up, but there was something wrong with his leg. 'Grab him,' I gasped, pointing. 'He shot Brother John. . the alley.'

The killer was hirpling away, but Botolf's meaty hand took him by the collar and Short Eldgrim snicked the knife out of his hand as if a baby were holding it.

`Heya, you arse, stop struggling or I'll throttle you,' Botolf said amiably, holding the killer up with one hand so that his toes scrabbled an inch above the ground.

I uncurled and got up slowly, testing bits to see if they still worked. Botolf turned and brought the struggling, snarling killer with him, so that light finally fell on his face. When it did, when he knew it was all up with him, he stopped writhing and hung there, grim and jaw-clenched.

I knew the woman had been hired to lure me into the light of a neatly placed lantern and that Brother John had taken the arrow meant for me. The killer had silenced the woman when it had gone wrong, a ruthless move all done in the blink of an eye.

I had recognised that as deep thinking even as I had chased him across the roofs. I had thought Starkad had left one of his best men behind to make this mischief.

But hanging like a caught shark in Botolf's fist was Hookeye.