Raven: Blood Eye Page 10

  'Will they be back?' Glum asked when I caught up with the others.

  'I don't know. They might,' I said. 'If it was up to me, I'd lash Serpent to Svein's back and tell him that Freyja herself was waiting for him across the sea with her legs open.'

  Olaf smiled. 'You did well, lad. Sigurd will be pleased.'

  'Make him leave, Olaf,' I said, wondering if the riders had recognized the pagan knife with its bone handle of carved beasts. 'Please,' I added.

  Olaf's eyebrows arched and I guessed his thoughts. Sigurd was not a man who could be made to do anything.

  We approached Thorolf on watch on the bluff overlooking the small bay and he straightened as we neared, his eyes devouring the joints of meat on our shoulders. 'Save some for me!' he pleaded, as we began down the narrow, muddy track to the beach where the Norsemen had piled wood for cooking fires away from the rotting whale.

  'Just keep your eyes open, Thorolf, or I'll have you on dried codfish till you sprout fins and drink seawater!' Glum threatened. 'We are not in Harald's Fjord now. The folk round here won't give a fart that your father says you're a kind lad who loves his mother. They'll nail your hide to a church door and spit on it twice a day.'

  When Ealhstan saw me he nodded sharply. Then I saw him make the sign of the cross over his chest and I knew he must have prayed for my safe return. We stowed the meat in the ships' small holds, though Sigurd ordered fires lit for two huge joints of dark red beef marbled with thin threads of fat. It was still raining, but the wood washed up on to the beach was white as bone and twice as dry and would burn well enough.

  Then Olaf caught my eye, scratched his bushy beard and gave a slight nod, and I watched him approach Sigurd. I went closer.

  'Let's be away, Sigurd,' he said through a relaxed smile. 'It'll be good to put some brine between us and these English.'

  'The men are wet and hungry, Uncle,' Sigurd said, picking a flea from his yellow beard and crushing it between his thumbnails. 'We're not leaving until they have eaten a good meal. Besides, the wind is from the south. I won't make them row against it with their bellies empty.'

  Olaf squeezed the rainwater from his long, greying hair. 'We take a risk if we stay,' he said.

  'If we were men ruled by fear, we would never have put to sea, old friend,' Sigurd replied, sweeping back his yellow hair and tying it with a thong. 'We will leave with the moon if you are worried about the English. But let them eat before you make them row.' He grinned. 'Our fathers were not men of the plough, hey?' Olaf nodded, accepting his jarl's decision, but now Glum stepped up. He picked up some dried seaweed and dropped it to test the wind.

  'The boy thinks the English might come, Sigurd,' he said, touching his sword's hilt for good luck and looking at me. I moved closer.

  'They were suspicious, lord,' I said, glancing at Olaf. 'It was in their eyes.'

  Sigurd's brow darkened. 'I will not run from them, Glum,' he said. 'Óðin does not favour cowards.' Glum's face flushed red against the darkening sky and he seemed about to speak, but instead turned his back on Sigurd and marched away. 'Take off the patch, Raven.' Sigurd was looking at me, his beard broken by a thin smile.

  'Raven?' I said, relieved to be untying the sodden linen strip that covered my blood-eye.

  He nodded. 'The All-Father has two ravens, Hugin and Munin. Mind and memory. At night, these great birds perch on his shoulders, but every morning they fly away to see what is happening in the world. They are Óðin's messengers and since you are from the All-Father, you remind me of them.' He pointed to Black Floki and the others. 'Besides, you can't expect them to call you by an English name. It sticks in their throats.'

  'Raven,' I said under my breath, feeling the word on my tongue.

  'Raven,' Sigurd affirmed. Then he nodded to Olaf who stepped up and handed me a sword in a leather-bound scabbard. I took it with trembling hands, suddenly as mute as old Ealhstan. Sigurd smiled and gripped my shoulder, then the two of them moved back to the fire, leaving me holding the weapon as though it were the greatest treasure in all the world.

  Ealhstan was watching me and there was sadness in his face as undeniable as the deep creases betraying his years. But I did not care, for I had been given a sword. So it was that the name given to me two years before by the man who had found me died. And because I was dark-haired, unlike most of the Norsemen, and because Sigurd believed I was from Óðin All- Father, I became Raven.

  I watched the meat turning above the embers of a spent fire, but my mind rested elsewhere and I realized that the warmth I felt came not from the fire, but from pride. These men, adventurers and warriors, had accepted me into their Fellowship and their jarl had named me. Raven. I liked the name. And feared it. For though the raven is Óðin's bird, it is also a creature of carrion, a scavenger of the battlefield. A thing of death.

  The meat tasted as good as it looked, but the eating was over too soon. The rain had stopped and though our clothes were still damp, we were content. Our bellies were full and our blood was strengthened, and by the time the moon silvered the dark ridged sea we sat around rekindled fires, laughing and singing. As always, young Eric's voice was the sweet honey to the others' coarse oats, and sometimes they would stop singing so they could listen to his melody, which quivered gently and rolled like the waves. Glum seemed no longer angry with his jarl and the two men banged their ale horns together as they drank, spilling the liquid into their beards and down their tunics.

  'Those filth-loving halfwits must have swallowed Raven's tale about us being pilgrims of the White Christ!' Ingolf said, his gap-toothed smile glinting in the firelight.

  'Well, I am embarrassed about that,' Glum slurred. 'Fucking pilgrims? Were those whoresons blind? My father would fall off Óðin's mead bench to hear us mistaken for slaves of the White Christ.'

  Sigurd grinned. 'Your father and mine likely shook Valhöll's timbers years ago, Glum, when they challenged the All-Father to a drinking contest and fell on their faces,' he said, crashing his cup against Glum's, and laughter rang out into the night.

  But I could not forget about the man with the drooping moustache and his vicious-looking friend, so I decided to keep watch from the moonlit rise above the beach. 'If Bram is asleep,' Olaf called, snatching a burning stick from the fire and waving it at me, 'set light to the drunken swine's beard!' And I smiled and nodded, standing for a while to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. Then, with the sword at my waist, I began to climb.

  Bram the Bear, who had taken over sentry duty from Thorolf, was as famous among the Norsemen for his love of strong mead as he was for his ability to put it away. But as I pulled myself over the last grassy lip, I saw I would not need to wake him. Bram was down on one knee behind his round shield.

  'Get down, lad,' he growled, peering into the darkness. 'We've got guests.'

  'How many?' I asked, glancing at the horn strung over Bram's back. The blood pumped deep inside my ears.

  Bram shrugged his broad shoulders. He looked left and right, scanning the shimmering oaks and hornbeams that covered the hilly ground. 'Some of the bastards are close,' he murmured. 'I keep catching their stink on the wind.'

  I looked back down to the beach where the fires danced and the Norsemen lay unaware of the danger. 'We run now,' I hissed, 'and warn the others.'

  'Or we could give these bastards something to remember us by,' he offered with a grimace. 'Slow them down a bit.' He was looking straight ahead, but I knew he had one eye on Valhöll as he drew his sword with a low rasp. 'Let our lads hear the English squeal like pigs.'

  I gripped his shoulder. 'No, Bram, we run,' I hissed.

  He turned to me, his jaw clenched. 'All right, lad, we run. On three.' I nodded. 'One. Two. Three.' And I turned and scrambled back over the ridge, sliding on loose stones and jumping over rocks, my sword scabbard banging against my leg and my cloak trailing behind like a bird's broken wing. And I knew that Bram was not with me.

  There was no need to shout, for the men on the beach heard the clack of roc
ks and stood, swords drawn and shields raised, as I fell over my feet where the rough ground suddenly evened out.

  'Raven?' Sigurd stood tall, his empty drinking horn in one hand, his sword in the other, staring at the crest of the hill.

  'They're here, lord!' I said, standing and fighting for breath.

  'How many?' he asked, throwing down the drinking horn.

  'Too many,' I said, gripping my sword's hilt. A long flat tone from a Norse war horn challenged the noisy surf. 'Bram,' I said, looking up at the moon-silvered ridge.

  'Shieldwall!' Sigurd yelled. 'Shieldwall in front of the ships!' But his men were already moving, forming a wall of flesh and iron.

  'Kill the flames!' Olaf ordered. 'Or do you want to show the English where to stick their damned arrows?' Sigurd, Bjarni and Bjorn left the line and kicked the burning branches of the fire, raising a shower of sparks that crackled into the night sky. But the embers still glowed, cloaking us in an orange hue that could prove lethal once the English brought their bows within range.

  'If you want a job done properly,' Black Floki said, stepping forward, dropping his breeches and pulling up his mail brynja. The embers hissed angrily as Floki casually pissed on them, then vanished in a cloud of grey smoke. The others cheered his daring, for even now the hillside was alive with black shapes, and fire arrows were clacking into the pebbles around us.

  'The whelps are trying to light us up,' Olaf said, but the stones were still wet from the earlier rain and most of the flaming arrows sputtered and died.

  'We should be out there on the bloody waves!' Glum barked, tightening his helmet's leather strap beneath his bearded chin.

  'When did you become an old woman, Glum?' Sigurd asked, pacing along the shieldwall like a hungry wolf. 'Easy, lads, keep those shields up.' A flaming arrow struck Bjarni's helmet. 'That's it, Eric, tuck that chin in unless you want a second mouth.'

  'Sigurd! They're out there too!' Old Asgot pointed his spear out to sea where dozens of flames danced above the waves. Fishing skiffs crammed with men clutching firebrands bobbed dangerously close to the sterns of Serpent and Fjord-Elk.

  'Whoresons are going to burn the ships!' Serpent's steersman Knut shouted, stepping from the line, but the man beside him grabbed his arm and shook his head.

  Ealhstan made a sound in his throat that could have been laughter and I turned to see him crouched behind the shieldwall, a strange smile on his lips as the English materialized from the darkness into a seething mass of shields and helmets and blades.

  'You promised me a land of monks and farmers, Uncle,' Sigurd said under his breath. 'One warrior in every ten, you said. These spawn don't look like monks.'

  Olaf shrugged. 'Things have changed since I last came, Sigurd,' he rumbled. 'It's been ten years.'

  Sigurd spat. 'Knut, take ten men on to the ships. If they burn, we're finished.' Knut nodded and he and his party ran into the surf, hauling themselves up the bow ropes into the longships. 'Right, lads,' Sigurd bellowed, 'let's hear some noise!' The Norsemen began thumping their swords against their shields until the clamour filled the night. 'That's it! Wake the gods! Let your grandfathers in Valhöll hear your battle song! Make old Thór jealous!' Sigurd roared. 'Show him how we make thunder!'

  The English were fifty paces away now, forming their own shieldwall. Some even banged swords and shields like us. In spite of the moonlight, I could not make out individual faces, but from the size of the heaving mass I knew we were in for a terrible fight.

  'Why aren't they shooting?' I heard Bjarni ask above the din and I realized he was right and no more arrows were coming at us. I glanced behind me at Serpent and Fjord-Elk and saw Knut and his small knot of men lining the deck with raised shields. They had even set Jörmungand the Midgard-Serpent at the ship's prow, though it was too late to scare off the land spirits now. 'They've not gone for the ships yet,' I said hopefully. Just one hurled firebrand could ignite their pitch-soaked timbers and then Serpent and Fjord-Elk would spit fire into the night sky.

  Sigurd's eyes were narrow slits and I knew he was trying to understand why the English were holding back when they could have driven us into the sea.

  'That's enough, lads!' he called, hefting his great round shield into the air, but one Norseman was still thumping with his sword. Sigurd snarled at him and he went still.

  'You bonehead, Kon,' Black Floki hissed.

  Sigurd walked forward and the shieldwall closed behind him. 'Have you come to fight?' he called in English into the shadows beneath the rise. 'Or are you going to stand there like fucking trees?' His voice echoed off the rocks, mixing with the sound of the surf. There was no reply. 'Well, English? I have mead to drink!'

  A shadowed figure moved towards him. 'I have come to talk with you, heathen,' this man said. He was tall and well armed and his moustache was long and smooth. 'After that, we can fight. If you want.'

  'Talk is for women!' Sigurd barked.

  'So is mourning, heathen,' the Englishman said, 'which is what your womenfolk will be doing if you are foolish enough to piss on this opportunity.' Sigurd held his tongue. 'Come, Norseman. I will meet you halfway.'

  'Don't go, Sigurd,' Olaf warned, having understood the conversation, for it was Olaf who had taught Sigurd the language of the English. 'They'll kill you.' Sigurd seemed to weigh up his chances, then rolled his broad shoulders, spat and stepped forward.

  'I'll go, lord,' I heard myself say. Sigurd turned to me as I stepped from the shieldwall, the gap sealing instantly. 'Let me talk to them. I know their words better than you and will sniff out a lie, lord.'

  Sigurd nodded, waving his shield forward. 'Go, Raven. Fly in search of the truth,' he said. I sheathed my sword and then, still holding my round shield, walked towards the English.

  Up close I recognized the man as the rider with the straight back who had spoken to us up at the village. To his left stood the other man, the heavily muscled warrior with the silver arm rings. 'You speak for your chief?' the Englishman asked.

  'I listen for him,' I replied. 'He will speak for himself, once I have told him what you have to say.'

  The man nodded, running a hand through his sand-coloured hair. 'I am Ealdred. This is my land. As outlanders . . .' he paused and glanced at my sword, 'as sword-bearing outlanders you are a threat to the people who look to me for protection.' He jerked his head to the west. 'We have enough trouble with the Welsh.' He tipped his head to one side. 'Are you a threat?' he asked.

  'We are more of a threat than you know,' I dared, meeting his eyes. I gripped my sword's hilt to keep my hand from shaking.

  Beneath his long moustache, the corners of Ealdred's mouth hinted at a smile. 'I could give one word and you would see your ships burn,' he said. 'But you know that, don't you?'

  'And without them we would have no choice but to fight until we fell or walked on your corpse,' I said. 'Have you ever seen the kind of death fifty mailed Sword-Norse can sow?' I gestured to our shieldwall. 'They are the finest warriors alive.'

  Ealdred frowned then. 'You talk much for a man who claims only to listen. And your English is good, for a heathen.' He stroked his moustache. 'Perhaps I can convince you that I have come with half a mind on peace.' He turned. 'Mauger, release the bear.' With that the burly warrior stalked back into the shadows, returning a moment later pushing forward a man whose hands were bound behind his back.

  'Bram!' By the flickering light of English torches, I saw that his face and beard were dark with blood and his eyes were swollen shut. And he was limping.

  'Never was much good at running, lad. Legs like bloody tree trunks,' he growled, looking ashamed to be tied up. Mauger shoved him forward and I drew my sword and cut his bonds before sending him back to Sigurd.

  'That animal killed two of my men,' Ealdred said, his eyebrows raised. 'But I spared his life as an act of good faith.' It must have been the truth, I thought. By rights, Ealdred should have avenged his men with Bram's blood. 'So, heathen,' Ealdred said in a low voice, 'are you ready to listen now?'