Winter's Fire: (The Rise of Sigurd 2) Page 20

  ‘He was an ugly swine but he wasn’t blind,’ Olaf said.

  They turned on to a wider thoroughfare which led down to the harbour, passing between lines of houses leaking woodsmoke and snores and the sounds of folk swiving the night away. Most of these dwellings were wattle-and-daub affairs, but some were made of timber planks and still others were log houses caulked with clay; none of Sigurd’s crew had ever seen a place where so many folk lived ‘arse by arse’, as Solmund had put it. ‘A man with a long spear could poke his neighbour,’ the helmsman said.

  ‘Or his neighbour’s wife,’ Bjarni suggested with a wicked smile, and they all knew he was thinking about a different sort of spear.

  ‘I am glad you young bone heads have had your fun,’ Solmund said now, ‘for we will likely be thrown out of Birka tomorrow.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ Bram gnarred.

  ‘He’s right,’ Olaf said. ‘This King Erik Refilsson sounds like a hard bastard. I heard some Svear cup-maker telling his friend that the king recently went hunting and killed a bear with nothing but a scramasax.’

  ‘Ha! I have killed a bear with a fart,’ Bram said. Which was not altogether unbelievable.

  ‘There is no king in Birka now,’ Hagal said. ‘Erik is off fighting in the west somewhere.’

  ‘How do you know this?’ Sigurd asked, his eye drawn to the whirr of bats overhead.

  ‘The most popular stories have kings in them,’ Hagal said with a shrug. ‘So if there is a king around the place I like to know about it so that I can put him in my tale.’ He grinned at Olaf. ‘I will get that bear story in there somewhere though. But . . .’ he raised a finger, staggering almost sidewards across the street, ‘but King Erik has a man looking after Birka in his absence. A hersir called Asvith, whom men call Kleggi.’

  Horsefly was a byname which told you all you needed to know about a man, so Sigurd was certain that Solmund was right and that they would reap the consequences of pummelling the ale house keeper and his men. And a hersir, whilst not a jarl, was still a powerful man, a warlord who was usually rich in both silver and battle experience, so this Asvith was not a man to be taken lightly. He was likely up in the hill fort north of the town with enough spearmen to defend Birka in case there was a king or jarl with the ships, men and ambition to sack the place. A half crew like Sigurd’s would not give them cause for concern, but then you could hardly be accused of keeping the peace if outsiders were free to go around breaking fingers and noses.

  ‘No more fun tonight,’ Sigurd said, glancing back to see that Bjorn had fallen behind and was pissing against the side of someone’s house. ‘We will sleep aboard Reinen and wait on what tomorrow brings.’ There were some grumbles at this, because for the last two nights they had slept wherever they had drunk their last drop, and not all of them in the same ale house, though Olaf had not let King Thorir’s son out of his sight, because of the lad’s reputation. The last thing they needed was some man putting a sword in the boy for tupping his wife or daughter.

  ‘So who have you been fighting?’ Aslak called from Reinen’s side as they came down to the wharf against which four other ships were moored. He could tell just by the men’s swagger that they had been causing trouble and he looked sorry to have missed out.

  ‘It was all Bjarni’s fault so you will have to ask him about it,’ Hagal said, gesturing at Bjarni who was twirling round and round, arms outstretched, his face turned up to the fleets of clouds skimming across the night sky, as though he alone could hear some music of horns and drums.

  ‘You won’t get much sense out of him,’ Valgerd warned, as they jumped down into Reinen which was sitting low on the ebb tide.

  ‘I will tell you all about it, Aslak,’ Svein said, ‘as soon as I have a horn of ale in my hand for I have a thirst that needs slaughtering.’

  ‘No good story ever began with a dry mouth,’ Hagal agreed.

  Though it was cloudy, Asgot said it would not rain. They took their furs and skins and made their nests in the thwarts, each finding plenty of space, which was one good thing about being as crew-light as Reinen was. Sigurd had no sooner laid his head down on a rolled-up pelt than he was deeply and dreamlessly asleep.

  And in the morning, Asvith, whom men call Horsefly, came down to the wharf to bite them.

  Black Floki was the first to see them coming. He called to Sigurd, who was playing tafl with Solmund, the board and gaming pieces set up on a stool between two sea chests midships.

  ‘Told you we’d be hoisting the sail today, lad,’ Solmund muttered, disappointed to be finishing the game early, because he was winning.

  ‘I have not said we’re leaving,’ Sigurd said, standing to look in the direction Floki had pointed, thinking that in truth they might not have much choice in the thing, judging by the forest of spears which was coming down to the harbour from the town.

  ‘Keep your mouth shut, Bjarni. You too, Svein,’ Olaf told them, muttering that it would have been nice to stay a few more days in Birka. ‘The rest of you, try not to look like yourselves. Maybe we can convince this Asvith that the ale house owner started it.’

  ‘You think the turd will believe a Norse crew over a bunch of Svearmen?’ Solmund asked. ‘That he’ll take your side against a man from whom he likely gets his ale?’

  ‘No,’ Olaf admitted, ‘but I’d wager that a man whose jaw I cracked won’t be saying much of any sense to anyone this morning.’

  This got a chuckle from the others just as this hersir Asvith came on to the wharf, which was unlikely to help their cause, Sigurd thought, nodding to the man in greeting. He had brought some thirty warriors down from the hill fort north of Birka, which made for both an impressive display and a clear warning, if not a threat. The ale house owner was there too, with two of his swollen-faced, sullen-looking men at his back. No doubt the other three had been in no fit state to come down to the harbour.

  ‘Byrnjolf Hálfdanarson,’ Asvith Kleggi called. He was not a big man, nor broad or otherwise physically impressive, but he made up for all that by looking rich. His black boots, green breeks and red tunic embroidered with gold thread were obviously expensive. So was his brynja, for it had some gold rings scattered throughout it, each of them gleaming against the iron grey, which must have looked even more striking on a sunny day. Over his chest hung a silver Thór’s hammer on a gold chain.

  ‘I am Byrnjolf,’ Sigurd said, going over to the side. At least it was a rising tide, so that he was not having to crane his neck looking up at the man. Byrnjolf was the name Sigurd went by in Birka, for, far as they were from his enemies King Gorm and Hrani Randversson, it was safer if no one knew his real name.

  ‘Who are you?’ Sigurd asked, though he knew full well who the man was.

  ‘I am the law here in Birka. My name is Asvith Grettisson. I speak for King Erik Refilsson.’ The man’s hand fell to rest on the pommel of his sword, a gesture clearly intended to ring louder than the words he had spoken.

  ‘Well, if you have come with wergild for the injuries my men received at the hands of that ugly troll and his men, you did not have to. I am feeling generous this morning, Asvith Grettisson, and will let him off.’

  There were some chuckles from the row benches at that, but Asvith did not look like a man who did much laughing. The muscle in his cheek was twitching as he glared at Sigurd with eyes that must have seen all types of men tie up their boats at his wharf, from outlaws and killers to boasters and drunkards. Here he had all those types in one ship.

  The ale house owner gestured at one of his men to come forward, which he did, speaking in Asvith’s ear whilst the hersir continued to stare at Sigurd. Then Asvith looked across at Olaf and nodded. ‘I am told on oath that this man started the fight last night,’ he said, pointing at Olaf.

  ‘Are you?’ Sigurd looked at Olaf. ‘Did you?’ he asked.

  Olaf scratched his beard. ‘Is that what he says?’ Olaf asked Asvith, pointing at the ale house owner whose face was as lumpy as curds before straining. ‘I want to hear
it from him. If he is the man I am accused of fighting.’

  This was a reasonable request had Olaf not guessed that the man’s jaw was broken like a clay pot dropped on a rock, meaning he could not speak – and yet he tried his best. He stepped forward and attempted to accuse Olaf himself, but the words were mangled. They came out of the ruin of his mouth in a garbled mess of bloody spittle that hung from his beard. His eyes glistened with tears of pain or perhaps frustration.

  Olaf held out his arms and looked from Sigurd to Asvith. ‘Can someone tell me what he is saying? For I have heard more sense from a two-day-old bairn.’

  Asvith looked resentful of the man and told him to stop mumbling because he was making a fool of himself. Then he looked back to Sigurd, gesturing for one of the ale house owner’s men to come forward with the sack he was holding. This was the one whom Sigurd had last seen wrestling with a naked Bjarni, the two of them rolling round on the floor and Bjarni’s arse shining like the moon. The man moved gingerly now, though at least he had the pride to try to hide his pains. He reached into the sack and pulled out a wooden cup, which might easily have been the one from which Sigurd had been drinking the previous day, then gave it to Asvith.

  ‘Eight cups,’ Asvith said. ‘One for each of the six men your crew attacked. One for King Erik because you have broken the peace in his town. One for me . . .’ he pointed to the boards beneath him, ‘because I have had to come all the way down here to speak with you. You will fill all of them with silver, or amber if you have it.’ He smiled then but it was as brittle as new ice. ‘Fill these cups and that will be an end to it.’

  ‘Will it now?’ Sigurd said, glancing at Olaf.

  All the silver that Sigurd had was in Reinen’s hold and there was not much of it. He would need all of it and more, much more, and it would be a dry day in Rán’s kingdom beneath the waves before he gave more than half of it to this shiny turd of a hersir.

  ‘I had thought men called you Horsefly because you are annoying, flying around the place biting people, making a nuisance of yourself,’ he told the man. ‘But I see you also got the name because you spend your time around shit,’ he said, gesturing at the ale house owner and his men.

  Even Sigurd’s crew thought this was a dangerous thing to say, for they stood up from their sea chests and bristled, looking for their spears and shields though not yet laying hands on them.

  Asvith’s face was all frown, as if he could not quite believe what he had just heard. ‘Are you still full of ale, Byrnjolf?’ he asked. ‘Or have you come to Birka to die?’

  ‘Neither, Horsefly,’ Sigurd said. ‘But nor will I give you eight cups of silver today.’ He raised his hand. ‘However, I will give you eight good pelts. Not as an admission that we began the trouble last night, but as a gift because I am a generous man and because we like it here and would stay a few more days if you are agreeable.’

  ‘I do not want your rancid furs,’ Asvith said. ‘I will have my eight cups of silver or else I will have your ship.’ His warriors, who stood in two lines across the wharf behind him, stirred like a forest in a gust, lifting shields and rolling shoulders and sensing that they might soon be called on to fight.

  ‘You will get no silver from me, Horsefly,’ Sigurd said. ‘But I will gladly give you steel if that is what you want.’ He glanced across to see that Solmund and Hagal were standing by the mooring ropes, axes in hand should Sigurd give the word to cut Reinen free of the wharf that they might fly from Birka. The others were picking up shields and spears now and coming over to the side.

  ‘I can see now why you only have half a crew, Byrnjolf,’ Asvith said. ‘Either you got the rest killed, or else these are the only fools who are mad enough to sail with you.’

  Valgerd gripped her bow and Svein his long-hafted axe. Aslak and Moldof were fetching oars from the trees, which they would use to push Reinen away from her berth before Asvith’s warriors could leap aboard.

  ‘You have struck the nail square with that,’ Sigurd said. ‘But you are forgetting that one Sword-Norse is worth two or three of you Svear.’

  ‘Norse arsehole,’ a warrior behind Asvith called.

  ‘Sheep-swiving shits,’ another man growled, but Asvith raised a hand to quieten them.

  ‘How old are you, Byrnjolf?’ he asked. ‘You are barely into that beard of yours and yet you lead these men?’ He glanced at Valgerd but did not correct himself. ‘Are you a man of reputation, Byrnjolf?’

  ‘I have always been a friend to the wolf and the raven,’ Sigurd said, ‘and have never been accused of letting them go hungry.’

  ‘Give the word and we’re gone,’ Olaf said in a low voice. ‘No point getting into a proper fight with this prick.’

  ‘But I have an eye on that brynja of his, Uncle,’ Sigurd said, loud enough for Asvith to hear.

  ‘If you make an enemy of me, you make an enemy of King Erik Refilsson,’ the hersir said. ‘Not that that will concern you, for you will be dead.’ He touched the silver Thór’s hammer on his chest and Sigurd wondered why, until he looked over his shoulder and saw Asgot up on the mast step, staff raised, eyes closed as he communed with the gods in words as unfathomable as those which had come from the ale house owner’s broken mouth.

  ‘I will have the silver I came for,’ Asvith said. ‘And this is the last time I will say it.’ With that he turned and gave a command and five men came forward with ropes and grappling hooks. They spread out on the wharf along Reinen’s length, uncoiling their ropes and making ready to hurl the hooks into the ship’s thwarts.

  ‘This Horsefly really is beginning to bother me,’ Olaf grumbled into his beard, because Asvith seemed to know his business. If it came to a fight those men would hook Reinen like a fish. Yes, Sigurd’s crew would cut the ropes, but it would be no easy thing to do it whilst also defending the ship from Asvith’s thirty warriors and pushing off from the mooring. The chances were that a good number of these Svearmen would spill aboard in the first rush, and with Sigurd’s lot fighting in the thwarts, more of Asvith’s men would climb over the side and Sigurd’s crew might never leave Birka.

  ‘Asvith Grettisson,’ someone called and the lines of Svear warriors parted to allow a knot of four men to come on to the wharf and approach the hersir. The one who had called the hersir’s name was the lean, dark-haired, one-eared man Sigurd had seen watching the fight the night before. There was no mistaking him with his long hair tied back and that little piece of gristle on the left side of his head where his ear used to be. A sword stroke had likely done that, Sigurd thought, and if not for a good brynja the same blow might have cleaved into his shoulder, ruining the use of his shield arm at best.

  ‘What do you want, Knut?’ Asvith asked. ‘I have heard you were at Fengi’s place last night. Did these Norse scum cause trouble with you too?’

  ‘Not with me,’ this Knut said, shaking his head. ‘But they dealt with Fengi and his men the way you or I would deal with a pack of unruly hounds.’ All three men with Knut looked like grizzled fighters, scarred and dangerous, their arms adorned with silver rings and their beard braids knotted with more silver.

  Asvith flicked a hand towards the men in Reinen. ‘So these Norsemen started the fighting? Three of Fengi’s men are in their beds with broken bones.’

  Knut looked at Sigurd and nodded. ‘Yes, they are to blame,’ he said, ‘and you should kill them now while you have the chance, and dump their bodies out in the fjord.’ Asvith nodded and commanded his men to make ready to attack, but Knut lifted a hand and Sigurd noticed that two of the fingers on it were mostly missing, having been cut off at the knuckle joints. ‘Or you could take four cups of silver as wergild and be done with it. These men will sail away and no one needs to die this morning.’

  ‘If you had two ears, Knut, you would have heard this young fool tell me that he will not give me any silver. His best offer is some furs, and I have no need of furs.’

  ‘I will fill four cups with my own silver,’ Knut said. ‘And I will take these
men away from Birka. You will have made a handsome profit for little effort and King Erik will be happy with you.’

  ‘What would you get out of it, Knut?’ Asvith asked.

  ‘You need not concern yourself with that, Asvith,’ Knut replied, then he walked up to the edge of the wharf while his men stayed where they were, eyeballing those aboard Reinen with as much hostility as Asvith’s men were.

  ‘Are you agreeable to this arrangement, Byrnjolf?’ he asked, and Sigurd had met enough killers to know that Knut was one of them. From the look of him he was a difficult man to kill, too, though clearly it had not stopped folk trying.

  ‘What do you think you are buying with your four cups of hacksilver, Knut?’ Sigurd asked him.

  ‘Your sword, Norseman, and those of your crew. And your woman,’ he added, nodding respectfully at Valgerd. ‘I serve a man who has need of good fighters. It seems to me that you have not come to Birka to trade. Perhaps you are running from your enemies.’ He shrugged. ‘Or maybe you are out to make yourselves rich. Do a little raiding here and there when you think you can get away with it.’ He hitched his cloak back over the sword at his hip and put his right foot up on to Reinen’s sheer strake. ‘What I can be sure of,’ he said in a lower voice, ‘is that you did not come here to get yourselves killed by this preening cock behind me.’ He grinned at Sigurd and then at Olaf. ‘You Norse are not renowned for your cleverness. Even so, you must know you will die if you fight these men. Seeing as I do not think it is your wyrd to end your lives here in Birka, it must mean you will accept my offer.’

  ‘Which is? Remind me,’ Olaf put in.

  Knut nodded. ‘To fight for my lord Alrik against his enemies.’

  ‘We have plenty of enemies of our own,’ Sigurd said.

  ‘What would we earn fighting for this Alrik?’ Olaf asked.

  ‘For a start, four cups of silver, the wergild for Fengi and his men. Give me your word that you will fight for Alrik and that debt is as good as paid. You will earn more silver for yourself soon enough and all of Alrik’s men enjoy plenty of food and ale.’ He scratched that little nub that was all that was left of his ear. ‘You fight for Alrik, perhaps until autumn, perhaps longer, and you get rich on plunder.’