Raven: Blood Eye Read online

  'I will buy the bishop from you,' Grey Beard said, 'for thirty silver coins.'

  'Pah!' Sigurd said, batting the words away with his hand. 'I will soon have all the silver I want. Enough to bury you in, Grey Beard.'

  'Not if King Coenwulf returns whilst you stand there watching the grass grow tall,' Grey Beard said with a grim smile.

  Sigurd tilted his head in the pretence of considering the offer.

  'You can have the priest for all I care,' he said. 'It will save my men the unpleasant task of cutting him up. I don't think even the ravens would want him. His stink would make their beaks fall off.'

  Grey Beard nodded. 'I will have a coffin lowered over the wall,' he said, 'and you will have your thirty silver coins.'

  Before the pale sun had fully risen, Svein the Red and Bram the Bear hefted a heavy oak coffin to the place where our makeshift shelters most obscured the Mercians' view.

  'Are you sure you want to do this, Raven?' Sigurd asked, putting a hand on my shoulder. 'If they discover you, they will kill you.'

  I nodded. 'The only thing I fear is the Mercians putting me straight in the ground,' I said. Though I feared much more than that. I had lived amongst Christians and my head had been soaked with their rantings about their god being the one true god, a god of inconceivable power. And here I was about to steal a treasure belonging to that god.

  'No, no, they won't do that,' Egfrith said, wagging his finger. His skin was still covered with chalk, which made the whites of his eyes and his teeth look even more yellow. 'Why would they buy the body only to bury it?' he asked scornfully. He sniffed. 'After treating the corpse with spices, they will display it in their church crypt in the hope that pilgrims and good Christian folk will pay to come and behold the martyr.' He looked at Sigurd, his expression stern. 'For they will announce that the bishop was cruelly slain by the heathens.' Sigurd shook his head in disbelief, then shrugged as though it mattered nothing to him. 'Now, Raven,' Egfrith continued, 'if the book is there, it will be by the altar, or in some other place of prominence. You should expect someone to be guarding it, keeping a vigil. A child if you're lucky, or even a woman.'

  'The gods will be watching you, lad,' Olaf said with a nod. His face looked kind in the morning light. 'Sigurd says your life thread and his are woven together. You'll be fine.'

  'I hope so, Uncle,' I said, managing a smile. My palms were clammy and my bowels turned to liquid as they wrapped me with my sword in the leather cloak so that even my face was covered. I wore no mail or helmet. Stealth would be my only armour once inside the fortress.

  'Orm has cut air holes in the sides,' Sigurd said. 'They're small. You can't see them when the lid's on.' He patted my chest. 'Remember to keep stiff.' He grinned. 'The bishop has been dead a good many hours.'

  I made no sound, nor moved a muscle when Svein hoisted me on to his shoulder and carried me to the open ground before the main gate and the Mercians, whom I felt watching me even from inside the skin, and there the Norsemen laid me in the oak coffin and sealed the lid with pine tar. That was when I smelled the rotting hare Black Floki had placed in the coffin to add the stench of death to the ruse, and I cursed him for having thought of it.

  I heard a clink which I took to be Grey Beard's purse of silver coins hitting the ground.

  'Leave the bishop there and retreat one hundred paces,' Grey Beard called. The next thing I heard was the creaking of the heavy gates and the grunts of the Mercians as they hefted me into their fortress, cursing the heathens for their wickedness. Eventually, they set the coffin down and I guessed I must be in King Coenwulf's church, as the Mercians' voices echoed off stone walls. I stayed as still and as quiet as a dead bishop. I waited for an eternity in the stinking dark and prayed that my gods were watching and that the Christians' god was not.

  After a long time, I began to feel things crawling on my skin and knew they must be maggots from the dead hare. Slowly and painfully, I repositioned my right arm and pulled the leather wrap below my eyes, then peered through a breathing hole. Sigurd was right; the hole was small and I could see nothing of the room beyond, but I guessed that night had fallen and that I had been in the coffin too long, constrained more by fear than the stifling casket. For all I knew, King Coenwulf might have been fighting Sigurd in the meadows beyond the palisade whilst I lay in that foul-smelling space. I could do nothing about the maggots and so closed my eyes, concentrating, stilling every sinew to help my ears decipher the world beyond. I heard nothing but the flickering of a torch and the scrabbling of mice on the rush-strewn floor. I was drenched with sweat, and the maggots crawled, and my body ached from keeping so still, and when I did try to move, my legs prickled horribly so that I had to clench my teeth to keep from cursing. Eventually and painfully, through small movements, my limbs came back to my body and I suddenly knew that I had to escape the coffin before it convinced me I was truly dead, before the maggots began to feed on living flesh. But even then it took an age to inhale the courage to break out, for I knew those breaths, however shallow and suffocating, might be my last.

  Orm had spread only a thin layer of pine tar at the top end of the coffin's lid and several thumps, which I feared would alert a guard, proved enough to break the seal. My lungs drank the cool air as I prised off the lid and clambered out into the dark interior of Coenwulf's church. Then I whispered thanks to Loki that I was alone. And my heart froze. There, by the small stone altar, a warrior in a short brynja was sleeping, his ash spear across his lap and his head resting back against a priest's knee cushion. The man was snoring loudly and I was amazed I had not heard him before. Beside him, on the oak altar illuminated by a spitting tallow candle, lay the holy gospel book of Saint Jerome. And it was beautiful! Its cover was a plate of silver beaten to a knife blade's thickness and inlaid with a gold cross studded with dark red and green gems. I stared at it and I shivered, because I knew that by seeing it I was somehow inviting it to try its power over me. But it was not mine yet and I was not its.

  The guard was snoring happily, but I could not risk his waking when I opened the church door. I put my sword to his throat and watched his Adam's apple rise and fall a hair's breadth from the blade's point. 'Óðin, guide my sword,' I whispered, though I could not miss. I gritted my teeth and thrust, but the blade stuck in the gristle of the man's gullet. His eyes opened in terror and I shoved the blade further until the point struck the stone wall behind. The man gurgled wetly, horribly, and dark blood drenched his mail. It pooled in his lap as he died, and I did not feel elation, but instead felt treacherous. Then I picked up the book, which was heavy because the back cover was also a silver plate. I placed it in a leather sack slung across my shoulders and walked to the church door, pulling it open a finger's width to peer out into the night. People with torches were moving about the place, the flames throwing strange shadows across the wooden buildings and palisade. The Mercians were finding it hard to sleep with a Norse war band prowling beyond their walls. Then my stomach lurched, because two figures broke free of an eave's dark shadow and were coming towards me, their hands clasped, arms swinging. I pushed the door shut, too hard, and stood behind it, gripping my sword and wishing I wore my mail. Five heartbeats later, a woman giggled. Then the door creaked open.

  'Be still or die,' I hissed, teeth bared, sword raised.

  The man stepped in front of the girl as I kicked the door shut. 'Don't hurt her,' he said, his voice edged with threat. He was young, but he wore mail and had a sword at his hip.

  'Shut your mouth, Mercian,' I growled, stepping forward to pull his sword from its scabbard, whilst keeping my own pointed at his throat. 'Over there.' I pointed to the darkest corner of the church. 'On your knees.' The girl did as she was told, but the man hesitated, staring at me with dark, hate-filled eyes. 'Do it now, or I'll kill her,' I said. He fell to his knees as I pulled the skin from the coffin and cut it into strips to tie the man and woman together back to back. I gagged them too and the girl whimpered and grasped for the man's hands when she saw
the ashen-faced guard whose ripped throat looked like a grim, black grimace hung with scraps of flesh.

  'You'll live, if you keep still and quiet,' I said, sheathing my sword. 'I have what I came for.' The girl looked to the bare altar and I heard shouting outside. I drew my sword again and braced for the door to burst open and warriors pour in with sharp blades and fury. But they did not come and the shouting continued, so I went to the door and opened it slightly. And then I knew why the Mercians were shouting. Men ran in every direction as panic gripped the fortress. Sigurd was burning the gate.

  Bright orange sparks swirled into the black sky and women's screams cut through the night. I took my chance and ran, not south towards the main gate, but west towards a smaller gate beyond which I knew Aslak, Osten, Halldor, Thormod and Gunnar stood guard. In the panic no one gave me a second glance. I passed men arming themselves and women running for safety with their children, until I arrived before the western gate, which was illuminated by a pair of great noxious flaming torches. Two guards prowled anxiously in the shifting shadows, as though they resented having to remain there whilst other men headed for the main gate to face the enemy. I strode towards them, head down, gripping my sword tightly, the blood pumping in my ears.

  'What's happening down there?' the nearest man asked, rolling his shoulders restlessly. I answered by slashing my sword across his face. He dropped. The other raised his spear but I smacked it away with a wild swing, then rammed my sword into his open mouth. I yanked the blade free, ran to the gate and hefted the beam from its brackets, dropping it by the corpses.

  'Aslak! Aslak! It's me, Raven!' I called as I pulled one of the thick doors open. I did not want a Norse spear in my chest. There they stood like hungry wolves, swords raised in the shadows.

  'I thought they must have made a Christian of you, Raven,' Aslak snarled as he loped past, eyes and teeth gleaming. 'Let's see what we can find, lads!' he roared.

  I stepped up and grabbed Aslak's cloak and he spun on me. 'We can leave, Aslak,' I said, 'I have it! I have the book!'

  'There's silver in there, Raven,' he snarled, nodding towards the shadow-shrouded dwellings. 'If we die in this land, we'll die rich.' With that he pulled free and the small band of mailed Norsemen ran into the madness to sow their slaughter.

  'But I have it, Aslak!' I called after them, gripping the leather sack containing the holy book of Saint Jerome. But even if they heard, they did not care, because their bloodlust was up. For what was a book to men who could not read? To men who cared nothing for the gospels? What was a book compared with silver and furs and the warm flesh of a woman? I had opened the gate into King Coenwulf's lair. And the wolves had come to kill.

  I suddenly thought of the young man and girl I had left bound in the church. In their fury the Norsemen would kill them where they knelt. I imagined cold steel sinking into the girl's pale flesh and the thought sickened me. I ran back into the mad thunderous night. Into the slaughter.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE KILLING DID NOT LAST LONG. BY THE END, TWO NORSEMEN'S souls had been carried to Valhöll by the Valkyries, Óðin's death maidens. I saw the body of Grey Beard, the man who had spoken for the Mercians, but now his beard was black with drying blood and his eyes stared in lifeless shock. Sigurd had cut out his tongue just as he said he would.

  Jarl Sigurd spared the women and children so that they would live to utter in fear the name of Sigurd the Lucky throughout Mercia, and King Coenwulf would know that Norsemen fought like demons. Raucous birdsong filled a new dawn as we marched back southwards, the weak sunlight touching my left cheek. We had the book, for which we would be made rich beyond our dreams. And we had Weohstan and Cynethryth, the two who had discovered me in Coenwulf's church.

  In that night's chaos, two Norsemen from Fjord-Elk had reached the church before me, and how their eyes must have lit up when they saw Cynethryth! But I had already killed three men that night and the bloodlust was upon me, and I had entered the church snarling at the Norsemen to seek their pleasure elsewhere. They had seemed ready to kill me, but Mauger burst in, his sword bloody, and the big Wessexman stood before the prisoners and persuaded the Norsemen that the couple would make valuable hostages. So, on Mauger's advice, Sigurd brought the Mercians along so that we might use them as currency should King Coenwulf catch up with us, which was more than likely, as we travelled on foot and he had horses.

  I was walking beside Sigurd who was rolling his shoulder as though it pained him. He glanced at me. I looked away.

  'What's on your mind, lad?' he asked. 'If there's a bad taste in your mouth it is better to spit it out.'

  I hesitated. 'Are you injured, lord?' I asked. It was a poor attempt to deflect him.

  He gave me a knowing look and I took a deep breath. 'Why did you attack the Mercians, lord? I had the gospel book. We could have been away without so much bloodshed.'

  Sigurd seemed to consider this for a while, then he nodded, acknowledging that my question was a fair one deserving of an answer.

  'These men risk their lives every time they unfurl the dragon's wing or dip their oars in the grey sea,' he said. 'Each day we spend in this land could be our last. Even a hunting dog must be let off the leash, Raven, to taste his freedom and be what he is.' He nodded towards the Norsemen in front. 'And these are wolves.' He smiled. 'A jarl should reward his men for standing in the shieldwall, don't you think? Silver. Women.' He shrugged. 'Whatever they hunger for.'

  'I understand, lord,' I said. And for the first time I did understand. These men lived at the edge of life and they thrived in that place, like a wind-whipped pine on a desolate outcrop. Plunder was their reward. Enough had died for it. As for myself, I trained with these Norsemen. I ate and drank of their ambitions. Most of all, I had become a killer of men, like Black Floki and Bram and Svein, and yet I wondered if I would come to savour the killing as they seemed to.

  'We don't have the men to row both Serpent and Fjord-Elk home,' Knut said, scratching at a patch of dried blood that filled the rings of his brynja. We had stopped to drink from a narrow brook. 'We'll need a good wind.'

  'Raven, tell the Englishman that that bastard Ealdred better stick to his side of the bargain,' Bram added, belching loudly. 'If there's so much as a scratch on Serpent that wasn't there before . . .' He twisted an imaginary head off an imaginary body. We had drunk every drop of ale in King Coenwulf's hall before burning the place to the ground, and now our heads ached and our eyes were sore from the smoke.

  'You'll get your ships, heathen,' Mauger said, after I had translated Bram's threat. 'Once Lord Ealdred has the book, you'll have your ships. The silver too.' The Englishman staggered off to piss.

  Father Egfrith seemed impossibly happy. There was no sign of the scarlet cloak and he wore his simple habit again. He had been singing his psalms, but thankfully was now reduced to humming them because Black Floki had introduced him to the butt of his spear. In truth I preferred the monk when he was feigning death and, what was worse, he seemed grateful to me for my part in retrieving the holy book, which he now carried on his back. He seemed somehow taller, more vital, with the thing in his possession, and I know I was not alone in wondering what Christian magic lay beneath the bejewelled silver sheath, amongst the vellum and ink.

  'Your jarl was wise to trust the holy gospels to my care,' Egfrith said proudly. Now that we had the book, Sigurd wanted nothing more to do with it. He would not even look at it. 'It could not be in safer hands,' the monk went on. 'Besides, simply being near the wonder's sacred leaves might cause a heathen horrendous pain.' I looked at the monk. 'Oh yes, Raven.' His eyes widened. 'It has the power to blister a heathen's skin and rot his bowels. That you bore it from Coenwulf's church without harm gives me reason to believe there is still hope for your soul. Slender hope, of course.' He stopped to consider me carefully. 'I think you will burn in hellfire for all eternity.' He scratched his head. 'But there may be some slender hope. Do butterflies not begin life as hairy worms?' He seemed pleased with the compari
son.

  'I care more for a dog's turd than your precious book, monk,' I replied, staring at him with my blood-eye. The little man recoiled, making the sign of the cross before my face, then shuffled off to annoy someone else. Though some of what he said knotted a worm of fear in my gut, the fear of an unseen power, I had chosen my god and he was not a god of the meek.

  Sigurd made me responsible for the hostages and so I walked beside them, though I did not expect them to cause any trouble. Their hands were tied, they were surrounded by blood-stained heathens, and they looked terrified, but at least they still breathed, and this must have given them a glimmer of hope – enough perhaps to stop them from trying something desperate. Looking at them reminded me how wretched I had felt in their position. I thought of Ealhstan and the memory stirred a gloom in me, like an oar blade reaching beneath the sun-gilded surface of the sea. But the old man was gone now and it served no purpose to think of him, so I watched our prisoners, wondering what life we had torn them from.