Odin’s Child (55 page)

“Don't be stupid on purpose! Every nobleman on that field was fastened to a leash whose other end was, and is still, in London. Olaf was beaten by Canute—another king. Now consider your country—torn by feuds, unable to grow enough grain to feed itself or enough timber to build its own ships. How many years' grace do you think it has left? Depend upon it, Odd, the man who rules Norway will rule Iceland, too, one day. Only make sure that man is your friend and your enemies will crawl under fiery Hekla to escape you.”

I began not to like this argument and said coolly that I would know how to deal with my enemies when the time came. “In the meantime my life suits me. I've a ship and a crew and I sail where I please,”—I said this with more ease than I felt—“and what would I be trading that for in Novgorod?”

He shook his head and replaced the arm on my shoulder, for I had thrust it off. “How can I make you understand? You were lucky this time. You got away from the Finns with your life and a rousing good story, if
nothing else. Fine. A boyish ambition fulfilled. But that sort of thing will never get you what you really want. If you want that, you must learn to take it from the hands of a king.”

We had been standing for some time now on the dock where the Viper was moored. I turned to go up the plank but stopped and came back when a new thought struck me.

“Friend Dag, a minute ago you said Harald was so stubborn a fellow that he was willing to die to prove even a trifling point. What makes you think I'm not one, too?”

He looked embarrassed. “Well, Odd—I mean to say—on the Neva—someone had to have the sense to give way. And dammit, any sane captain would have done the same in your place.”

So that was it. No one on Harald's ship had heard Stig order my men to change course. They thought it was I who had blinked, who would, no doubt, blink again when given my marching orders. A safe, pliable sort of fellow to have for a cat's paw. Well. Let that be my secret.

“Good night, Dag Hringsson.”

“Will you think about what I've said?”

I lay awake for a long time that night.

The skulls on their stakes chatter all around me: “Too late … too late….” As fast as I push them down, more spring up—all chattering and whispering together: “He's too late … Oh, too late….” Nearby, Ainikki runs this way and that, searching for me among the heads, crying my name. When I try to answer her, I choke and no sound comes. Tears run down my cheeks.

Now Joukahainen leans against the doorway of Louhi's Hall, silently laughing, and now he springs at my darling, catching her in his skeleton hands, which move like white spiders' across her body. And now he is leading her to the sauna and she, hardly resisting, follows. Then suddenly, here is Lemminkainen, his mouth twisted in anger. “Traitor!” he screams at me, “You were too late!” And strikes my neck with his sword….

“Odd Tangle-Hair! Wake up, now, wake up! There's someone here to see you and says it can't wait.” Einar jabbed me hard in the neck with his crutch.

I moaned, still half in my dream, and with a great effort wrenched open my eyes.

“Captain, it's a woman.”

I tried moving and found my limbs were stiff with cold, tried swallowing and found my mouth dry and my throat very sore. Sitting up on the deck, I shook off the last shreds of dreaming, pulled my cloak about me, and glowered at my visitor.

“Khaptain Ott Thorvaldsson, called Tangle-Khair?”

“Who are you?”

“You khom wid me, please.”

She was wrapped in a hooded caftan of gray wool that hid her face and covered her to her feet. Whoever sent her had taken pains that she not be molested along the way. She lifted the hood just enough to show why. Her skin was the color of honey, her eyes jet black with heavy lashes.

“Khom, please.”

“Pity the lass,” cackled Einar. “Likely, she's seen you in the street and been smitten—young stallion such as you are! And Einar Tree-Foot'll come along for company—”

“No,” said the girl firmly, “only dis one.”

“Heh?” He yanked his beard and scowled.

I felt weak. Still, I got shakily to my feet, slapped the wrinkles from my clothes, and with a wink at Einar, bade my visitor lead on.

A few steps away, Stig huddled under his cloak, watching me.

Walking briskly ahead of me, the girl threaded a course through the jungle of pens and tents and open-faced shops where, even early on a wintry morning, the waterfront merchants of Aldeigjuborg were conducting their noisy trade.

We came at last to a spreading tent, far larger than any of the others, in front of which a man sat on a low stool. Seeing me, he waved and called out, “Here I am sir, over here!”

He was dressed in the local fashion, with billowing trousers over his boot tops, a long-skirted coat with shiny buttons, and on his head a shaggy fur hat.

As the girl slipped past him into the tent, he trotted towards me, arms thrown wide, and pounced upon me with a wet embrace.

“I am Stavko—Stavko Ulanovich, merchant, dealer in fine wares. I rejoice to see you, Odd Thorvaldsson, or Tangle-Hair—I may call you so?”

“The invitation was hard to resist,” I answered, wrestling free of him. “Do you always entice your customers this way?”

“What? Oh, no, no, no. No, you very special customer, very special. But come in, come inside where is comfortable, ah-ha-ha.”

He had a trick of chuckling as he talked, ending every phrase with a string of little wheezes. I saw, too, that his hair hung down to his shoulders in greasy braids, weighted at the tips with lead balls, and that his face was round and sparsely bearded, with bulging eyes, upturned nose, and full
lips. He licked them with the pink tip of his tongue.

“Come into tent of Stavko and see—ah, what shall I call them? What makes young men old and old men young? Eh? Ha, ha!.”

Grinning and chuckling, he propelled me through the open tent-flap. The entrance gave onto an antechamber, screened by a curtain from the larger space beyond. Pushing that curtain aside, he drew me inside. At first I was aware only of an enveloping blanket of warmth thrown off by heated stones that lay on a brazier.

Then of odors: sweat and the bodily smells of lovemaking. And other scents, heavy and sweet, that I could not put a name to.

Then of shapes: from the ridge-pole, a brass lamp swinging slowly to and fro that threw shifting patterns of light and shadow over the carpeted floor and the heaps of silken cushions.

Coiled upon those cushions, limp as sleeping cats, were a dozen naked women.

Pressing my arm, he chuckled, “You see, Odd Tangle-Hair—ha-ha—you see what Stavko sells?”

He uttered some words in a strange tongue, quick and curt, and one of the women—the same who had just now fetched me from the ship—rose and crossed to where a little table stood with a brass tray upon it. While the slave-dealer pushed me down on a soft bolster and lowered himself beside me, the girl approached, dropped to her knees, and set the tray before us. Taking from it a flagon, she poured hot, honeyed wine into a cup and held it to my lips.

“Nourishment, my friend,” laughed Stavko, “for belly and soul.”

The girl was hung neck, wrist, and ankle with jewelry that chimed when she moved. Her fingertips were dyed red with henna and her body, in the soft glow of the lamp, had the oiled sheen of dark polished wood. Black hair spilled over her shoulders in lovelocks, through which her painted nipples showed.

In short, she was quite simply a different being from the thick-ankled, raw-skinned, rough-and-ready beauties of Bergthora's inn. Nothing in my young life had prepared me to think that anywhere within the circling stream of Ocean there breathed such a creature as this.

The honeyed wine warmed me all the way to my stomach, the heat from the stones seeped into my aching joints, and the girl's scent made my head swim. I rolled back against the cushions, feeling myself dissolve
in relaxation.

Surely, I thought, this is heaven, and Valhalla just a cheap alehouse with noisy guests.

“Is she not beautiful, sir? Belly like velvet, hips like a storm at sea. Her name is Jumayah, an Egyptian from Alexandria, and my favorite of them all. But mount her. Allow her to please you.” He gave my arm an affectionate squeeze, almost, it seemed to me, as though he were assuring himself of the firmness of my flesh on the chance that I, too, might one day be for sale.

“What d'you mean—now?”

“Certainly now. I, myself, enjoy it most in morning—prepares mind for day's business. Please,”—his pink tongue darted out and over his lips—“you need do nothing, girl knows what to do.”

Still kneeling, she separated my knees, put her hand between my legs, and began to touch me through the fabric of my trousers. I swelled, and Stavko, beside me, breathed, “Oh, magnificent, sir, oh, most impressive—”

“No!” I clapped my legs together and thrust her away.

“What is it? What is wrong?” The bulging eyes widened in dismay, in shock, in absolute despair. “Ah! Forgive me! I am so stupid—is
boy
you want! But I can produce one instantly—beardless with soft skin and—”

“Slaver, why was I brought here? Tell me at once or we say good-bye.” I made to stand up, but he held me by the sleeve of my coat.

“Please, my good friend, please, you upset yourself for no reason. You were brought here on small matter of business—only that—but is too soon for talk.”

“We have no business that I know of.”

“So,” he sighed, loosening his grip on me just a little when he felt me hesitate, “you are new to our ways, not yet true Varangian. All right. Please. Be comfortable. We take wine and cakes and talk business, yes? Later, perhaps….” he smiled on Jumayah, and with a flick of his finger, sent her back to the sleeping cats.

I let him draw me back onto the cushions and took another sip from the proffered goblet.

“What was it you said just now that I am not, Master Stavko—a ‘Varangian?' Isn't that what they call the Eastern Sea hereabouts?”

“Yes, quite right. Is also name we give to you Norse merchants and soldiers who come to Gardariki to seek fortune. Aldeigjuborg is thick
with them, Novgorod even more. There they have their own quarter of city. Prince Yaroslav values them most highly—warriors especially.”

“Vikings, in other words.”

“The same.”

“You're not a Varangian, I take it, yet you speak our language.”

“In my trade one speaks many languages—Rus, Wendish, Petcheneg, Bulgar, Greek—but my nationality, Rus—a Northman like yourself, except we are here longer time. You are ignorant of our history? I explain.

“Long ago Rurik the Dane came with his tribe, the Rus, to rule over Novgorod. Slavs invited him, for they were unruly and wanted master to keep order amongst them. House of Rurik still reigns, Yaroslav being fifth in descent from him.

“In time, of course, Rus and Slav mingle blood to where is only small difference between us now. Even most Rus nowadays barely speak Norse language. Disgraceful. But I—I speak very well, as proper Rus should, yes?”

He was evidently proud of this, although, in fact, he spoke it wretchedly.

“Prince Yaroslav, too, speaks very well language of old country,” he went on. “Of course, his mother was Danish.” He laughed and held up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Rus, Varangian, Slav! Is very confusing to newcomers. You will understand much better when you have been a while in Novgorod.”

“Novgorod! Who's said anything to you about that?”

“What? Am I mistaken? You are not Icelander who was offered place in Harald Sigurdarson's hird?”

“I think it's time, Master Stavko, for you to say what you want with me.”

“Ah! Again I am stupid! I begin things always wrong way.” He leaned close, breathing anxiously into my face. “Is my pleasure, you see, to perform certain small services for Jarl from time to time….”

“Ragnvald? And what small service are you performing now?”

“Only to obtain promise from you, and in return to give, shall we say, indication of his high regard.”

“I can't say I noticed his high regard much yesterday.”

The slave dealer clapped his hands in delight. “Ah! Ha, ha! That is very good! You are ignorant of the ways of courts, my friend. That much is plain. Jarl's interest in you, of course, is not something he wishes to show openly, and so he employs me.”

“I haven't the least idea what you're talking about, but it's time I was going, I'm feeling sick actually—”

“No, no, please, not yet. Listen carefully now. Is concerning this young upstart, Harald, and that one called Dag Hringsson who advises him. On his cousin's behalf Jarl is very troubled and thinks it would be useful—how plainly must I say it?—useful to know beforehand what are their intentions toward young Magnus, their schemes for seizing throne of Norway, other things, too, perhaps. And of course, a skald would know such things, yes?”

He let the thought hover between us, while his fingers slid into the leather purse that hung at his belt. The coins which he drew out glowed in the lamplight, and he dropped them one by one into my lap until twelve gold ounces lay there.

“Weigh them, bite them, sir, please.”

It's wonderful what gold does to the mind. Its power over us doesn't strike home until one holds a quantity of it in his hands and feels the weight and warmth of it.

“From Ragnvald?”

“He has taken liberty of anticipating his cousin's wishes. By time you reach Novgorod she will know who you are.”

“So this is the price of a skald's honor—forgive my ignorance.”

A feeling rose in me that was part anger and part awe. That all this had been arranged between dinner and breakfast by a man who had done nothing but scorn me the whole evening long. I felt as though I'd grown suddenly older. I wanted time to think.