The Wolf Sea

8

It was the final day of the Greeks' Paschal ceremonies, which had gone on for weeks, it seemed to us Norse, complete with banging bells and swinging gold ornaments reeking incense and priests wearing so much gold in their robes that we were tempted to storm them then and there.

There had been an image of the dead Christ in a wonderfully decorated coffin, taken in procession with chanting and the beating of a book, which Brother John -

with a hawk and a spit to them — said was the Greek idea of Gospels. It was only two years since I had known what a book was.

There had been singing and a scattering of bay leaves. There had been vigils and fasts and feasts. Of course, we had to join in, being good Christ-men, but I saw offerings of budded boughs being floated down the Orontes in honour of Ostara when it was thought no one could see. Not all of those who did it were our own Odinsmenn.

Brother John didn't care, for he regarded the Greeks as heretics and they, who considered most western Christ-men to be misguided, looked on him as worse. Come to that, every Christ-man seemed to look on the likes of Brother John as no true follower of the Dead God, which is why we all liked the little priest and had let him prime-sign us Christians. The shackles of that signing, never tight, were now falling away, I saw, for the reason we had done it had clearly failed: the Odin-oath was as binding as ever.

So we stood in the hot spring sunshine in our finery and watched the Greek priests, sweating in gold-dripping robes heavier than mail, wobble round Antioch's streets with their ikons and their Christ in a box.

Then, with Brother John, Finn, Radoslav and a couple of others as a fitting jarl-retinue, I went off to Skarpheddin's hov, for it would not have been polite to refuse to join in his feasting for Brand.

Also, we knew Starkad would be there. Since his coming, I had been as confused as a maelstrom about what to do. I needed to get the silkworm canister and Choniates' letter to the Basileus, for I couldn't trust anyone else. But the Great City was far away and Starkad was not.

The others, who still thought the leather case I had hidden on the Elk contained tiny pearls, were only concerned about Starkad being so close — Botolf especially. He wanted to kill Starkad for what he had done in enslaving him and the others, while Finn wanted to walk his entrails round a pole while waving the recovered runesword in his face.

It was a warming image, but Starkad was clearly part of the snow-headed Brand's retinue and that had been a clever move, for it made any attack on him a sure sentence of death. Yet again he was close enough to kill and too far removed to attack.

Finn fumed and bellowed and scowls were rife, but there was no walking round it and I was fretting as much as the rest. The Rune Serpent was here and we were here and yet it was as far away as ever.

Easy, lads,' counselled Brother John. 'There are ways and ways of lifting something from a man and, as you know, I am no stranger to such a thing — in a godly fashion, all the same. God will show us a way, never fear.'

So we smiled wryly at one to another and settled to wait.

There were lots of guests at Skarpheddin's tented hov that warm night. Outside, his people baked flatbread and spitted whole oxen for a feast. Apples in honey, fish stewed in goat's milk and onions, fat cauldron snake, pork and lentils: it was good Norse food served in the swelter of a Serkland night, in the fug of a tented hov thick with fat candles and which soon reeked of smoke, blood, piss and vomit. . the smell of home.

There was horseflesh, too, a neat trick by Jarl Brand. In later life, after Brand's lord, Eirik, whom they called Segersall — Victorious — became a king and made the Svears and Geats into Christ-men, Brand was baptised, but at this time he and his followers belonged to Odin and Thor. Since there were Christ-worshippers among Skarpheddin's people who would not eat horse, it being the mark of a pagan, it let Brand see easily enough which was which.

There was no ale, for no one had the means to make it here — this was Mussulman country and their god didn't drink. Right there, according to Finn, was why they were getting their arses kicked by the likes of the Roman-Greeks of Miklagard.

Instead, they were allowed nabidh, which the Christ monks of Antioch made and sold to the Jewish merchants, who sold it to the Mussulmen. It was made from raisins and dates fermented in water and, for the Mussulmen, the legal length was two days soaking in water only. Naturally, three- and four-day was a roaring trade among those Arabs who liked their drink — and both Finn and Radoslav discovered six-day was best, mixed with honey and wine, which made it taste almost like mead.

Skarpheddin was out to impress Brand, but he needed to invite the Jewish, Arab and Greek merchants he owed money to, as well as officers from the Strategos's army — but not the man himself, who had pressing business bringing more men from Tarsus.

`Which means that the army will be fighting soon,' Finn growled as we sweltered under the wadmal tent, raining with sweat now that so many were in it.

`Sooner we move off, the better,' I said, wishing now I had not worn the new cloak to show off the new pin. 'If we wait longer we will dissolve like butter on a griddle in this Odin-cursed forge of a country. Or end up standing in a Roman battle line.'

Which was so far from what we intended that we laughed. You should never do that while the gods are listening.

It was, then, a strange feasting, trying hard to be a hall in the north and yet somehow skewed, as if seen underwater.

The Jews and Mussulmen smiled politely and tried to make sure they had no pork on their eating knives and fashionable two-fined forks; the Christ-Norse sniffed meat warily to make sure it was not horse; and only the old gods' followers were careless and laughing, though a few of them tried the little two-fined eating things while drunk and ended up stabbing their own cheeks or tongues, which ruined their meal thereafter.

Skarpheddin, thin-shanked and butt-bellied, stepped forward, raised his hands and summoned his skald before sitting down on his gifthrone, for he was too important even to speak for himself. The skald, gold-browed but with dark patches showing under his nice green tunic, announced that the great jarl planned an offering to the good gods of the North.

The Jews and Mussulmen and Christ-followers all stirred uneasily and Finn, sweltering, muttered something about Odin's armpit. Then he stiffened and stared. `Starkad,' he said.

Leaning forward like a hunting dog on scent Starkad stared back. He wore the rune-serpented sabre -

everyone was armed tonight — and one hand hovered near it like a white spider, though it seldom touched the hilt. His eyes, white-blue as old ice, were fixed on mine, as if he was trying to make me burst into flames with his hate.

So there we were, each aching for what the other had, each fettered by the threat of what would be unleashed if we simply sprang at each other's throats. Legs trembling, the sweat working its way down into the sheuch of my arse, I stood and wondered how safe that little container was, tucked on board the Elk in my sea-chest. Skarpheddin's skald droned to a halt. The exhaled breath of relief from his audience threatened to blow out the fat candles.

Matters were not over yet and Brother John grunted as if he had been hit, then made the sign against the evil eye.

Not even Skarpheddin dared oppose his mother in this and so she shuffled out, swallowed by the catskin cloak, dangled about with all her wards and amulets. There was a noise like a flock of startled birds as the good Christ-followers made the sign of the cross and Jarl Brand's men signed wards against the evil eye.

But it was not Thorhalla that struck me a blow like Thor's hammer, even though she looked like Hel's ugliest daughter. It was the Skarpheddin fostri, the one Thorhalla was training to take her place and who now followed in her wake, majestic and seal-sleek.

She wore a dress the colour of a lowering sky, with glass beads lying on the front of it. A black lambskin hood lined with white catskin covered her blond hair and she had a staff in her hand with a brass knob, set above with a spray of raven's feathers. I heard Sighvat suck in his breath at the sight of them.

She had a belt of touch-wood, sewn with slivers of hazel, which is Freyja's tree, and on it was a large skin purse which I knew held her talismans. She had shaggy calfskin shoes and catskin gloves and not a slick of sweat anywhere on her. Even as she made a hulk of all my hope, I thought that Svala had never looked more beautiful.

`She has taken your raven,' I heard myself say to Sighvat and he grunted, the pain of it thick in his voice.

`Worse,' he said, laying a hand on my arm to draw me away. 'I am thinking she has taken your heart.'

There was a roaring now and my voice seemed distant to me, though I was rock-sure of what I said, sick with the certainty now that it was not my wyrd to find true love, only the seidr shadow of it.

It will not end up crowning her volva staff.'

Honeyed Six-Day is a vicious were-beast, by night filling you with all the power of the gods and, in the cold light of day, sprawling like a day-old corpse in the pit of your stomach, having shat in your mouth and started a fire in your skull.

I woke, though sleep is a sad word for what had eventually happened to me, into a stranger's body. My legs would not bear me upright and my fingers felt like fat rolls of felt. Brother John squatted beside me, grim as black rock, nodded into my squinting eyes and then swam away again before I could focus properly.

Then the world exploded into the sea, sucking the breath out of me, shattering the veil that kept me from seeing what I lay in or feeling the glare of the rising sun. I surfaced, shook my head, whimpered with what that did, then sat up, wiping water from my eyes and coughing.

The Goat Boy stood, pale and grinning, holding a wooden bucket upside down. Brother John held another, brought from the nearby river, and hefted it, but I held up a weak hand and managed to gasp at him to stop.

`You are the last,' he said. 'Finn and Radoslav, you will be pleased to hear, are as bad as you are, Kvasir Spittle and Hedin Flayer less so. But Ivar Gautr is dead.'

I was wiping my streaming face and slicking my hair away from it, so I missed what he said. Then it hit me and I looked at him, eyes wide. How could Ivar be dead? He had been with the crowd of us, helping me dive into goatskins of six-day nabidh, his swollen face as flushed as those of the rest of. us and, though that swelling mushed his speech like a mouthful of bread, he made us laugh still with his wit.

Brother John saw my look and sighed. The Goat Boy dropped the bucket and threw my own cloak at me to dry myself with.

`My fault,' said the little priest mournfully. 'I should have made him go to the Greek chirurgeons with that tooth.'

`They would have healed him,' the Goat Boy declared, hauling his tunic up to show me the great purple-red welt of his scar. 'They can raise the dead.'

`Blaspheming imp of Satan,' growled Brother John fondly. `Go and find Sighvat. Do not try and run, as I have warned you, or you will burst something.' He turned to me as the Goat Boy hirpled slowly away. 'He should not even be up, but he is leather-tough, that boy.'

I know the nabidh was strong,' I managed at last, 'but it only makes you feel like you have died. It can't kill you. . can it?'

Brother John passed me the bucket to drink from, which I did even though the thirst would not be slaked.

Ivar's tooth killed him. There was something festering there in all that swelling. You saw him. He would not have it seen by the Greeks, though it was clear there was much wrong. Poison from that tooth must have been filling him every day since the arrow wound he took on Cyprus.'

I remembered his face, bulging on one side, so that the scar on his cheek where the arrow went in looked stretched and puckered. The other side was hollow and yellowed and he looked like a wormed cheese, collapsing from the inside out.

`His tooth ate him,' I marvelled and Brother John straightened with a grunt.

`He will be the first of many deaths, I am thinking,' he said. 'Word has come: the Strategos, Red Boots, will be here in two days and the army is marching. Starkad has been telling everyone who will listen that the Oathsworn sacked churches on Cyprus and killed good Christ-men.'

I got up and slung my cloak round my shoulders, wishing my head was clear. 'Is anyone listening?'

Brother John shrugged. `Skarpheddin is. The Greeks who command the army here are. Jarl Brand, I have been told, laughed when he heard, which made the Greeks back water a little, for Brand raided his way all along the Middle Sea and I would be surprised if churches had not been included. The Greeks, it seems, need Brand and his men. All the same, Brand is bound to assist Starkad, since that dog has placed his hands in the jarl's fists and taken oath.'

`Doesn't church-sacking bother you, Brother John?' I asked, surprised at the ease he spoke of it.

It would if they were good monasteries of the old way,' he replied, 'but they are eggshells of faith stuffed with the sour meat of bad teaching. Lucri bonus est odor ex re qualibet, as Jarl Brand would say if he knew Juvenal.'

I had never met Juvenal either, but 'sweet is the smell of money obtained from any source' certainly made him sound like a good vik-jarl to me and I said as much. Brother John helped me up and back to our wadmal camp, my head spinning with fumes and thoughts of how we could safely get away from here before all our enemies closed the trap on us.

We burned Ivar Gautr in the East Norse way, for the heat was already making him ripe. The Goat Boy stood beside me, pale and still laboured in his breathing, trembling as men from Brand and Skarpheddin, who had also liked Ivar's wit, stacked what wood they could scavenge.

The Greek priests were suitably annoyed that someone prime-signed as a Christ-man should be burned like a pagan — and we all agreed, for we wanted to howe him up decently, with his armour and his weapons.

But those camel-herding grave-robbers would come in the night, since those weapons were worth a fortune, even if we broke them in three.

So we stood at an oil-soaked pyre and sent Ivar to Hers hall in a wind of sparks.

I was almost there,' the Goat Boy whispered and I squeezed his shoulder, feeling the terror rise and choke him. I could feel the heart in his chest flutter like a bird in a cage.

`You are not, so thank the gods.'

He looked up at me. 'How do you find the courage to face death, Trader?'

What a question. The answer to it was simple enough: when I do, I will let you know. But the Goat Boy needed a shield and I gave him one. I took the Thor hammer from round my neck, the one which had been round my father's neck until I raised his bloodied head from the mud-gore it lay in and took it off before the scavengers got to his body, under the walls of Sarkel.

`This is the best courage-finder,' I said, slipping the leather thong over his head. He fingered the amulet, as near to a Christ-cross as made no difference, and frowned.

I cannot. What would you do if you gave it me?'

I half drew my fine, watered blade. 'This is even more powerful, but too heavy for you to carry. You take the amulet.'

He gripped it in his little fist and grinned, all fear gone. I felt a surge then, something seidr. Perhaps Redbeard was in the amulet after all.

Finn and others had wanted to raise a stone to Ivar, but there were none suitable and no master-carver of runes within a thousand miles — in fact, in all my days I met only one such myself and I doubt whether there were a hundred in all the world then. Fewer now.

In the end, they dragged off Short Eldgrim, who made the least mistakes with runes, took him into Antioch and had him mark Ivar's name on the door pillars of one of the churches, while the priests wagged their beards and threatened to call the Watch.

As Finn said, the least the Christ-men could do for Ivar, who had been dipped in water with the rest of us and died a straw death, was mark his name on one of their god houses. They had enough of them, after all.

I reminded them that if the Christ wouldn't take him, Hel would and her hall was like herself, half foul, half fair. Those who died of sickness or age ended up on the brightly bedecked benches of Helheim.

It was at the pyre that we faced up to Starkad again, when he and his men came, supposedly to give polite honour to the dead Ivar. We stared at each other across the oil-slick wood, two packs of wolfhounds barely leashed by the presence of Ivar's fetch and the trouble a fight would cause.

Another one gone,' Starkad observed, caressing the hilt of the sabre as if it was a woman's thigh. 'If this goes on, there won't be enough of you left to bother anyone.'

`You seem a little diminished yourself, Starkad,' I launched back at him, trying not to look at his fingers tracing the runes I had scratched on the hilt. 'But we gave your dead on Patmos a decent send-off, in the old style, with the Sarakenoi who killed them at their feet. Of course, we took all they had as well.'

Starkad twitched a smile. 'Soon the Strategos will have word from Leo Balantes on Cyprus,' he snarled.

'Then it may be that we will have it all back and more.'

`Perhaps the Basileus will have word before that,' I answered sweetly. 'I am sure he knows Choniates'

finest hand in a letter that mentions your name and a package that will have your eyes out, you and all your crew.'

There was muttering behind him at that, but he ignored it and forced a smile. 'There is no need for this,'

he said. 'My quarrel is not with you and Jan Brand could be persuaded to help deflect any blow at you from Cyprus. We should be oarmates, for I understand you have as little regard for the Hammaburg monk as I do.

I did not know this before, so perhaps we were pulling oars on the wrong stroke. I am prepared to overlook the lie you told about the monk coming to Serkland, for I have since discovered it was true — though you did not know that.'

I tried not to blink at that one; he had a deal of clever, had Starkad, and ways of weaselling out the truth that knocked you off balance.

`Hand back that sword you stole,' I said, which was all I could think of.

He cocked his head like a curious bird. 'You put great store by this blade,' he mused thoughtfully. 'A good blade and valuable, but still.

`Will you trade?' I asked and he did not need to ask for what. He laughed instead.

`Why should I? Before long I will have what you took on Cyprus — and if the Greeks don't gather you up and blind you for it, then I will come for you myself. I have the protection of Jarl Brand, remember; you have no one.'

`Does Jarl Brand know you are King Harald's man?' I asked him and saw the blood in his eye at that.

'What will Bluetooth think of you swearing also to Jarl Brand? You take an oath too lightly to be now swearing peace to us.'

`For all that,' he answered thickly, 'peace is what I offer.'

I could not turn round, but I knew the eyes were skewering me and two of the deepest daggers in my shoulder blades belonged to Botolf. Deeper still were the eyes of those who could not see, kept in the dark and shackled. The weight of the invisible jarl torc, that other rune serpent round my neck, was crushing.

`Peace?' I replied sharply and paused. 'Why? Some of you are still alive.'

There were rumbling chuckles at that from behind me and Starkad whirled in a flare of red cloak and stalked off while the ranks of his men closed round him, looking darkly at us as they went.

The Oathsworn came round me, banging my shoulders and laughing. Botolf, rumbling with pleasure like some giant's cat, announced that he had seldom heard as gold-browed an exchange as that and others agreed. I did, too, when my knees stopped twitching. I thanked the gods for baggy Rus breeks.

`Well,' growled Finn, 'that settles matters. He will not trade, so we will have to take it from him.'

Back at the wadmal camp, hunkered round the pitfire and watching the black feathers of Ivar's fire thread the sky, Kvasir and Finn, whom I had appointed battle captains, agreed that the only thing left to do was seek out Starkad and fight him. What no one had an answer to was the problem of what to do with the container, for Starkad was right in that: as soon as he arrived, Red Boots would swoop on us.

`We could find out where Starkad sleeps and take him at night. That way we will offset his numbers a little,' Radoslav declared.

Finn curled a lip at him. 'At night? That would mean it was murder and not red war.'

I explained it to Radoslay. Any killing done in the night was considered murder, even if we decently covered the body and immediately reported the matter.

`Hardly matters,' muttered Kvasir. `Jarl Brand will have our heads, even if we win. Even if only one man is left standing, he will have his head.'

I was sure that man would be either Finn or Kvasir, but was equally sure that it would not be a Dane. The Danes knew the sabre was valuable and why and had sworn our Oath, same as everyone else, but I still did not feel they would charge into a sure-death fight over it. The chance for unimaginable wealth was lure enough to keep them with me — that and the Oath they swore — but this? This was something else entirely.

There was other talk, too, as Finn prepared mahshi, an Arab pot with lamb, onion, pepper, coriander, cinnamon, saffron and other things, including murri naqi, a seasoning oil made from fermented barley. And this from a man who had learned the names of those spices only a few weeks ago.

While we watched with interest and drooled, we spoke of Red Boots and the Roman army he was bringing. Few of us could understand what riches or benefit could be got from conquering a land as dun-coloured as this — especially as this was the latest of many wars between the Great City and the Sarakenoi.

I spoke with that soldier, Zifus,' Brother John declared, sniffing Finn's pot appreciatively. 'He told me that the Basileus has promised God to bring His Word to the heathens. This is a Holy War.'

I knew all our wars were blessed by the gods of the North, who supported one side or the other depending on how well disposed they were to your offerings. I did not know what the Greeks meant by Holy War, but wanted no part of it. I learned — too late — that it meant a land-ravager war, where everyone was killed and everything burned. Since the Sarakenoi preached the same, it meant a wasteland, where even hope was murdered.

We were drooling at the smell of Finn's cooking when up strolled Svala, as silencing to the talk as a hand on your mouth. She looked round us all, almost sadly, and I was the only one who met her eye, though I was sweating as I did so.

Kleggi the Dane opened his mouth to offer something witty, but she looked at him and he snapped it shut.

Short Eldgrim glared at her, but while his scarred face carried no fears for the likes of her, no one dared even move to ward against evil as she crossed and hunkered down beside me, dressed simply now, her hair in coiled braids. I had never seen these hard men so cowed.

`Now you know,' she said, 'and I am sad for it, since you seem afraid of me.'

`You are the third volva I have met,' I said, which widened her eyes, since most men steered a clear course away from even one. 'Only one of them did me any good and even that was a blade that cut both ways.'

She pursed her lips at that. 'What harm have I done you?'

`None,' I told her. 'Yet. Nor have you done me any good. Nor should you have killed the raven.'

`He should not have set it to spy,' she answered sharply. Odin will not be pleased,' I pointed out, 'but you have more to fear now from Sighvat, I am thinking.'

`Freyja will keep One Eye away,' Svala said confidently, and your Sighvat as a worker of seidr cannot match two women such as us.'

I sighed, for talking to her was like feeling a storm cloud rise when you are in an open boat. The pitch and toss of it was made all the worse for what had been before.

I want no quarrels between Skarpheddin's mother, you, me or Sighvat,' I replied. 'But you should stay away from all of us.'

`You?'

Especially me,' I snapped.

She straightened, dusting her knees, then looked at me, long and slow. 'This Hild,' she said, while ice crept down my veins. I have seen her, dark and fetched in the night. She has a sword and you had its twin, once.'

I was frozen, tongue-cloven. Had she seen this, out there in the Other — or heard me mutter this while I dreamed?

She smiled. 'I have gifts. Listen, then I will trouble you no more. The first thing to say is that Skarpheddin trusts his mother's power — and so he should. Thorhalla has promised him that you will reveal the secret of your treasure hoard and it would go easier if you just spoke it to him with no trouble. Otherwise, he may do something. . ill.

`The second is that you should get the sword from Starkad, for it is yours by right.'

I swallowed the clump of dry dust in my throat, but I was angry with her, this slip of a girl who thought she could make cows out of the Oathsworn.

`Witch gifts come in threes,' I croaked, which was daring, but I was young and not so convinced that her powers were more to do with keen watching than anything Other.

Her smile, though, was sweet as rumman fruit.

I know the secret of Fatty Breeks,' she said.