Raven: Blood Eye Page 5

  Then it was over. Only one of the Norsemen had been killed, but all sixteen who had faced them lay in their own blood and the heathens made short work of any still living. Except for Griffin. They dragged him through the gore to the man with the piercing eyes and the wolf's head brooch. To Sigurd.

  'Before you die, you will see your village swallowed by flames,' the jarl growled, pointing to the houses whose hearth smoke still leaked through the thatch as though it was just another day, 'and in the afterlife you will know that you brought death to your people.'

  'The Devil piss in your skull,' Griffin managed. Skin and hair flopped horribly from the side of his head and I saw the broken bone beneath. Blood ran down his face like threads of a web, dripping from his short beard. But his body would not die. 'You . . . will beg . . . Christ's forgiveness at the coming of judgement,' he threatened in a dry voice. 'I swear it.' Brave Griffin smiled as he said the words.

  Sigurd laughed. 'Your god is weak. A woman's god. They say he favours cowards and whores.' The other heathens scoffed and shook their heads as they wiped their gore-covered blades on dead men. 'You are not weak, Englishman,' Sigurd went on. 'You killed a great warrior today.' He glanced at the dead Norseman, who had been stripped of his mail so that he looked no fiercer than any young man of Abbotsend, but for the many scars carved into his white skin. Sigurd frowned. 'Why do you follow this White Christ, Englishman?' he asked. Griffin's eyelids grew heavy and I hoped he would pass out. The Norseman shrugged. 'I give you to Óðin so that in death you will see a true god. A god who can make his enemies run from a battle back to their women in shame.' He then commanded his men to search the houses for booty, making sure to look in the hearth ash and in cooking vessels, even the thatch itself, for hidden treasures. The heathens did this quickly, fearing the arrival of the local levy, and began carrying bags of coin, tools, cloth, weapons and cured legs of lamb and pork over the hill to their ships. There were some screams, but not many. Most of the women had escaped into the woods and would not yet know their men lay butchered. I had seen Alwunn's father killed, but I knew she and her mother would have had the sense to get away. Poor Alwunn. But I had never loved her, and I am sure she did not love me.

  I knelt by Ealhstan, waiting for the heathens to notice us, for then they would kill us along with Griffin. I dragged my arm across my lip and looked at the bright blood, realizing that I no longer trembled. The carnage I had witnessed had somehow cured me of fear. I gritted my teeth. Griffin must despise me for what I had done, but he would not see me cower at the end.

  The Norsemen gathered seasoned timbers and built a pyre on which they laid the warrior whom Griffin had killed. One man took a spear and scratched a circle in the earth and dragged Griffin into it by his bloody hair. By now he was barely alive. The first thatch roofs broke into patches of flame and the dead Norseman's pyre began to crackle as the old grey-bearded warrior with bones plaited in his hair invoked their gods in a dry, low voice. A raven cried in the old ash tree, its head jerking hungrily as it watched the work of men, and I knew it was the same bird I had seen the previous daybreak by the watchtower above the beach. It opened its heavy beak and fluffed its throat feathers so that they stuck out like spikes. I looked back to Griffin and my stomach squeezed warm vomit into my throat.

  Ealhstan groaned, trying to stand, but I pulled him down. 'Keep still, old man,' I hissed. Half of his face had swollen into a livid purple bruise. He sniffed the air. 'It's burning,' I confirmed, my eyes too full of Griffin's mutilation to be drawn to the flames now crackling angrily. 'They're doing something to Griffin. It's the Devil's work, Ealhstan.'

  Griffin moaned pitifully, his ebbing life revived by horrible pain. Ealhstan grabbed for my arm, then flapped his arms, his rheumy eyes wild. 'The Eagle,' I breathed and those wide eyes said, Don't watch, you fool! Christ save us, don't watch.

  But I did watch. I watched as the old godi used his hand axe to hack into Griffin's back. Again and again he smashed the ribs away from the spine and my world was filled with a proud man's screams. The two Norsemen holding Griffin down were spattered with his blood as he writhed in agony. Then the heathen godi hooked clear the last of the ribs, exposing the meat within, and his hands plunged into the gore and pulled out Griffin's lungs, laying one on each side of his ruined back like glistening red wings.

  'They've opened his back,' I said to the old man, who had turned away. Then I lurched forward and retched, but my stomach was empty and there was just dry pain. 'The Blood Eagle,' I murmured, horrified to see in the flesh what I had only heard men talk of in whispers. Ealhstan crossed himself and began to make a low moan in his throat, as Griffin's screams became horrible, liquid gurgles lost amongst the crackle of burning wood and thatch and the roar of flame.

  The godi stood and raised his arms to the sky.

  'Óðin All-Father!' he called, shaking his head so that the bones in his hair rattled. 'Receive this warrior slain by your wolves! Let him sit at your mead bench so the White Christ cannot take him for a slave! Óðin Far-Wanderer! This eagle is a gift from Jarl Sigurd who rides the waves and seeks glory in your name.'

  Sigurd stared at me then, at my blood-eye, and gripped the small wooden amulet on the thong round his neck. It was a man's face, but one eye was missing.

  'Kill the old man,' he commanded with a flick of his hand, 'but not the boy. Bring him to Serpent.'

  'He is a carpenter, lord!' I shouted in the heathen language. 'Do not kill him!' The bearded Norseman I had first seen at the prow of the dragon ship shoved me aside and raised his sword to strike Ealhstan. 'He is skilled! Look, lord!' I said, drawing my eating knife from my belt and offering it up to Sigurd. The warrior above me snatched the knife away and glanced at it carelessly before flinging it at Sigurd's feet. Then he turned back to Ealhstan and grimaced.

  'Wait, Olaf!' Sigurd said, examining the knife. Like the pagan blade Ealhstan had returned to me the previous night this one was short and simple, but its hilt was carved into the shape of a porpoise. I had never seen such a creature, but as a boy Ealhstan had found one washed up on the shingle and he had made the hilt from memory.

  'It is bone from the red deer, lord,' I said, hoping that Sigurd's thumb stroking the white hilt was a sign he appreciated the workmanship. In truth, I had seen Ealhstan make much finer hilts for those who paid for them. Still, the knife was a gift and I cherished it. Only now did I realize that Ealhstan had given it to me to replace the heathen one he had found round my neck. Perhaps it had been his way of helping me begin a new life with him.

  'It is skilled work,' Sigurd admitted, scratching his beard. The man named Olaf, whom the Norsemen called Uncle, opened his mouth to protest, but Sigurd stopped him with a raised hand. 'There is an empty bench at the oars now, Olaf,' he said, glancing at the warrior whose pale corpse was blistering wickedly as the searching flames licked it. The fire was eating through the seasoned timber and the man's hair crackled and burned brightly, giving off a foul-smelling smoke. 'Bring them both,' Sigurd said, turning his back on me.

  And so we were dragged towards the sea and the waiting dragon ships which sat low in the water, heavy with the booty taken from the people of Abbotsend. The Norsemen took their places and began in unison to pull on the oars, dragging the sea past the slender hulls until a steady rhythm was set. And I looked towards the shore and breathed the yellow smoke of a burning village.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I WAS MISERABLE. NUMB. EALHSTAN AND I SAT HUDDLED AT THE stern by the Norseman at the tiller who grinned wolfishly whenever I caught his eye, as though he was amused that I had betrayed my people. And even though the folk of Abbotsend had hated me, and though it had never felt like my home, I believed I might have damned my own soul to drift for ever with the black smoke from burned homes. Ealhstan would not look at me and this made my chest ache. He had stood by me against Wulfweard, but now he blamed me, I was sure of it, and so I let the dark mood spread like a stain between us as I looked up at the sky, noting how much more infinit
e it appeared from the sea. Having burned away the morning's mist, the sun sat above us like the lord and judge of men and it seemed impossible that in the time it had taken to ascend its throne, a village had been wiped from the earth.

  As I breathed in the heady mix of dried fish, pine and tar, the heathens laughed and joked and rowed as though nothing unusual had happened. Each man sat facing us on a chest containing his belongings, and whilst some stared at me as though wondering what I was, others would not meet my eye. You are alive because they fear you, Osric, I said to myself. Men fear your Devil's eye, and these are men, aren't they? So I closed my good eye, leaving the blood-filled one staring out at the Norsemen until some of them looked away. I tried to make them believe I could see into their thoughts and I think some of them feared that I could.

  The dragon skimmed through the waves, her ropes and planks creaking rhythmically, and something grew in my stomach, writhing, encouraged by the sea's pitch and roll. Before long, I vomited bitter, green liquid and feared my stomach was tearing apart. My misery deepened still further with the cramps and dizziness.

  At least we never sailed out of sight of land and this alone was the slender rein on my despair. We would aim out to sea to avoid sandbanks and rocks, but always headed inland again.

  'We are sailing west, Ealhstan,' I said at the end of the day with the warmth of the falling sun on my face, 'which means they're not going home yet. These men come from the sea road far to the north.'

  Ealhstan mumbled something in his throat that sounded like bastards and plunder and stinking, heathen pigs. And like him I knew there would be more death.

  Later, as the Norsemen shared out their spoils, I caught sight of the treasures they kept amidships beneath oiled skins. Much of it was that which they had sold at Abbotsend but taken back after the fight: cream-coloured ivory and reindeer antler, brown furs and chests brimming with brooches, yellow amber, whetstones and silver coin. I saw the necklace Griffin had bought for his wife, too.

  'They're rich men, Ealhstan, these heathens,' I said, desperate for the old man to look me in the eye. I was beginning to wonder if his empty, withdrawn stare was due in part to the beating he had taken, and, though it shames me to say it, I hoped it was, because it tore my heart to think he hated me for what I had done. The swelling across his face was yellowing now. 'The ivory alone must be worth a fortune.'

  He flicked a wrist and grunted.

  'You think they pillaged every last trinket, don't you?' I said. 'From other villages long since burned to black ash.'

  Without looking at me, Ealhstan made a fist and stared out to sea, shaking his head. And I knew what he was thinking. Men like these would sail off the lip of the world for a fistful of silver.

  'How's your head, old man?' I asked. One of his watery eyes was squeezed almost shut by the swelling. He waved the question away as though to say he'd had worse. 'Old men bruise like apples,' I said as he prodded the swelling gingerly. 'I know, Ealhstan – if you were younger you would have cleaved one or two of these whoresons in two.' I gave him a wry smile. 'Split them like oak.'

  He batted the words away with a grimace and I looked out across the waves but saw only the faces of butchered men. I rubbed my chin, touching my swollen lip. It still throbbed with each heartbeat. 'The bow let us down,' I said. 'The string was rotten.'

  Ealhstan turned and our eyes locked. Got the luck of the damned, you and me both, they said, and now we're sitting here chewing our own vomit. Then he gave a gap-toothed grin and I glanced at the Norseman who had a piece of one of my arrow shafts still jutting from his shoulder. He rowed as though it was not there, but now and then I caught him grimace with pain. They might be bastard heathens, I thought, but they are proud.

  It was early evening when a warning voice called clear and strong from the other ship. It is strange how sound carries across water and a man an arrow-shot away sounds as though he's nearby. Sigurd picked his way to the prow where his shipmaster Olaf stood shielding his eyes against the sun, looking landward. At the top of a great cliff a knot of riders peered out to sea, their spears pointing to the sky. Edgar the reeve must have learned of Abbotsend's fate and sent men to track the heathens along the coast, which they could do well enough on horseback along well-used paths whilst we must make do with a mere breath of a breeze. Sure enough, when we rounded a great chalk bluff, the scouts appeared on the west side and Sigurd cursed. It meant that he would be unable to seek a sheltered bay for the night, let alone more plunder.

  Ealhstan sneered at the Norsemen as though he considered them swine with no stomach for a fair fight. Mark me and mark me well, his raised finger said, these shit-filled heathens blow more hot air than a happy cow. He turned his head towards the steersman and tried to spit but there was just a dry popping sound and the Norseman hawked and spat a thick wad over the top strake in response. Ealhstan mumbled another insult, then hunkered down, wrapping his brown cloak around him and rubbing his empty belly.

  'I'm hungry, too,' I moaned, scratching my ribs. 'Puked my innards out this morning. Feels like mice gnawing my guts now.' But instead of sympathy I saw blame in the old man's eyes; blame for bringing him a horde of blood-loving heathens instead of a basket full of mackerel. God help your wandering soul, was what his eyes said, and I wished the man still had his tongue so that I did not have to choose the words myself.

  As a young man Ealhstan had agreed to be an oath helper to a man accused of theft. The accuser was rich and so one night three men tore out Ealhstan's tongue. Without a man to speak up for him, the accused was found guilty and died in thrall to the rich man. And so Ealhstan was mute, and now his rheumy eyes and my own guilt spoke for him.

  Now he closed those eyes and shook his head, murmuring to himself, and when I looked at the stick-thin carpenter with his swollen face and his wispy white hair floating on the breeze I felt ashamed for being afraid when a mute old man could be so defiant.

  With the arrival of a stiff northerly wind, Sigurd gave the order to raise the great woollen sail, allowing his men to stow their oars and rest. As the faded red sheet bulged, the Norsemen loosened their shoulders and necks and stretched their aching arms. Some of them took dice from their chests, or wooden figures half carved. Others sharpened blades or curled up to sleep. Two handed out dried salted fish and chunks of cheese, and a few cursed, boasting that they would rather make landfall and light a fire and eat fresh meat, even if it meant fighting the English.

  As the sun fell to the sea, I sat at the stern, hugging my knees. The seasickness had weakened me, my stomach was empty and I wondered if the heathens would at last come for us, their blades eager to finish what they had begun at Abbotsend. I ran a calloused hand along one of the vessel's oak ribs, my fingers following the grain of the wood to the point where the rib met a hull strake as though the two smooth timbers were one. 'It's beautiful work, Ealhstan, you can't deny it,' I said. He huffed, then frowned and nodded reluctantly. 'Men used to call them surf dragons, least that's what Griffin told me once.' He nodded again. 'Surf dragons,' I whispered under my breath. I had asked Griffin about the name and he had laughed and said that we like to frighten ourselves half the time. He had shaken his head. Good oak is all they are, he had said. Good oak and pine worked by men who know the adze as they know the sea.

  'Did you ever see one, Ealhstan?' I asked. He shook his head and raised his eyebrows as though he had never thought to find himself riding the grey sea in one either. Some came across the sea when Griffin was a boy. They say those were the first. At least that was when the priests began telling their stories and filling men's hearts with fear and their heads with nightmares. The Devil's ministers had come to defile God's houses and shit on saints' relics. That's what they told us. So men had sharpened their swords and made limewood shields, but the heathens never came. Not to Abbotsend. 'They're here now, old man,' I said, watching the Norsemen and wondering if Christ was planning some terrible vengeance on them for the death of His children at Abbotsend.

  A
wave broke over the top strake, drenching us. Ealhstan coughed and I wiped my eyes and ran my fingers along the smooth oak planks again. Griffin had been wrong. This surf dragon was more than oak and pine, much more. It rode the sea as though the waves were its subjects. And it was beautiful. My mind carried me back to the days I had spent with the oaks in the forest, always searching for the longest, curving limbs even though we had no use for them. How many such branches had been hewn and shaped to make Jarl Sigurd's ships? How many men had laboured, felling trees, splitting timber, drilling holes and tarring joints? I noticed a drip of tar that had set just below a dark knot in the strake at my shoulder. It looked like a tear beneath an eye and I picked it off with a nail, bringing it to my nose. It smelled sweet.