Raven: Blood Eye (10 page)

It never gets completely dark at sea, because any small light from stars or moon, even if they are veiled, reflects from the water. But it would have been too dangerous to sail and so Sigurd decided to row back towards land and anchor in the shallows. At the first sign of exposed rocks, we could back oars far more quickly than adjust the sail. By the time the heat from our bodies had warmed the water in our soaking clothes, we had found a bay sheltered from the west wind by a great peninsula, and Olaf had dropped the anchor to the sandy bottom. The crews of both longships settled down to sleep or played games by candlelight. Ealhstan and I sat together whilst white-haired Eric held Sigurd's lamp before his face and began to sing a song that Olaf told me was ancient when his grandfather was a boy.

'I can sing my own true story,
Tell of my travels, how I have suffered
Times of hardship in days of toil;
Bitter cares have I harboured,
And often learned how troubled a home
Is a ship in a storm, when I took my turn
At the gruelling night-watch
At the dragon's head as it beat past cliffs . . .'

The men were smiling and nodding in appreciation. They all knew the sea and knew that she would sometimes swallow even great men. But the sea was their domain too, and they loved her.

'Got a voice like honey, hasn't he?' a man named Oleg said without taking his eyes from Eric. 'Hard to believe, if you've ever heard his old man sing,' he added, nodding towards Olaf who glowed with pride.

'He sings well for a heathen,' I dared, but Oleg simply nodded. It was a fragile, beautiful sound and I thought Rán's daughters, those foam-headed waves, would take Eric if they could, to sing in their mother's hall for all eternity.

'Often were my feet
Fettered by frost in frozen bonds,
Tortured by cold, while searing anguish
Clutched at my heart, and longing rent
My sea-weary mind . . .'

Now Sigurd himself held up a hand and Eric smiled, inviting his jarl to take up the song, which he did in a voice neither sweet nor lovely, but gruff and full and true.

'Yet now once more
'My heart's blood stirs me to try again
The towering seas, the salt-waves' play;
My heart's desires always urge me
To go on the journey, to visit the lands
Of foreign men far over the sea . . .'

And then, with the sound of singing washing over me, I slept.

WE BENT OUR BACKS TO THE OAR. I WAS GETTING USED TO THE
rowing now and preferred to do it alone, but I knew it took Ealhstan's mind off the seasickness, so I let him sit beside me against the top strake, his arms moving with the oar though taking little of the strain. There was only the whisper of a breeze this morning, meaning that every pair of arms was needed to pull
Serpent
through the still seas. But there was some strange comfort in the smooth stave that had blistered my hands, in the rhythm of the stroke and the plunge of the blades into the grey sea. Before, I had felt like a prisoner, but now I understood
Serpent
's beauty, saw the magic in the way she flexed through the waves and carried us away from harm.

'I don't understand, Ealhstan,' I said, breathing heavily, 'how it is that I speak their tongue.' He stared straight ahead as though he had not heard me. 'The knife you found on me. How did I get it?'

He shook his lank white hair and panted, but I knew he was only feigning exhaustion. And so I kept the questions to myself. My mind reached back into the darkness, searching for an answer, but finding nothing. My earliest real memory was of waking up in Ealhstan's house. I remembered feeling hollow. Empty. Exhausted. Satan's dark angel. That was what Father Wulfweard had called me. After that, everyone avoided me the way they avoid cow dung in the fields. Everyone except Ealhstan. And though at first I could not speak his language, I fetched his wood and caught his fish and worked hard so that he would not think I was a useless, lazy foxtail, which was what Griffin called the other boys in the village. But Abbotsend was gone now, and maybe my answer with it.

Back came the oar again and again. There were twenty-six blades, all of differing lengths depending on the curve of the ship, and they sliced into the water in perfect unison. Ealhstan was grunting with each stroke now. I told him to rest but he would not.

'Stop your barking, Englishman,' Black Floki bawled across from the steerboard side. Dark-haired, dark-eyed and mean-looking, it was easy to see where he got his name. 'Fucking mute! You sound like an old woman being ploughed by a horse.'

'Ah, leave the old fart alone, Floki,' said Oleg, who sat behind him. 'You're bitter as an old maid.' Oleg was a short, tough-looking Norseman whom I had rarely heard speak before. 'Hey, Osric, the girls back home whisper that Floki was born to a spiteful old she-wolf on the foulest night of the year.'

'And that night she had a great thorn in her arse which made her even meaner than normal,' a warrior named Eyjolf put in. The other men laughed. 'Floki is just jealous because no one talks to him. Isn't that true, Floki?'

Black Floki's brow furrowed, making him look even meaner. 'I have to share a boat with Englishmen and you wonder why I'm bitter,' he spat. 'And I'm hungry,' he murmured under his breath. Norsemen cannot get enough meat. They crave it constantly and see it as their jarl's duty to provide it. But we had long ago eaten the fresh joints taken from Abbotsend, and Sigurd was keeping the salted pork and mutton in reserve. For, as I had learned, many days can pass before it is safe to make landfall. There was a plentiful supply of cheese and the Norsemen never struggled to catch fish, but that was it, cheese and fish every day. Even Ealhstan was growing tired of mackerel and I had never thought to see that day. Griffin would not have believed it had he still lived.

Bjarni jerked a thumb at Ealhstan. 'I would swim back to his smouldering pigsty for a leg of lamb,' he said, closing his eyes as though he could taste it. 'Or a side of beef. No, boar, that's what I'm craving.' He stretched out a leg, kicking his brother's backside on the bench in front. Bjorn swore. 'And walrus,' Bjarni said, 'the way Mother cooks it with pepper and chives and garlic. Even an old horse would go down well, now that I think about it.' Kalf picked up an empty mussel shell from the deck and threw it at Bjarni. It bounced off his head, but he did not seem to notice. 'Horse can be good so long as you don't overcook it.'

'You're not helping, Bjarni, you sheep's dick!' Kalf said. 'We're all hungry. Give your tongue a rest, man.'

'Back home my slaves eat more meat than us,' Bjarni grumbled, taking a whetstone and running it along his long knife.

'Osric, this is your land. Where can we get hold of a fat pig and a few chickens?' Olaf asked. He was checking
Serpent
's caulking, making sure the ship's flexing was not pushing the tarred rope out from between the strakes. The morning had begun brightly, but now the sky had turned grey and threatened rain, and I watched Olaf, hoping there would not be another storm.

I shrugged. 'It is not my land, Olaf,' I said in Norse, glancing at Ealhstan. I was hungry too, but even if I had known where to find good meat, I would not have told him. I had already brought death to one village. And so Olaf continued to check the caulking, and the Norsemen bailed water, played tafl, complained about being hungry, worked on carvings, maintained their war gear, talked of home, and combed their hair.

The next day, there was enough wind to unfurl the great square sail so that we could rest and stretch our aching shoulders and backs.

'He's a curse on us,' Black Floki said, sliding a black seashell across the tafl-board. Svein the Red swore as another of his pieces was captured. There were only three white shells left on the board and now Svein's king was vulnerable. 'We should let Asgot do what he wants with him,' Floki muttered, sliding a piece so that another white shell was surrounded. He looked up, holding my eye for a moment before curling his lip and looking down at the board. Beneath his great red beard, Svein's face was pink with rage.

'What's pecking at your liver now, Floki?' Olaf asked. 'And let Svein take one of your pieces, for the love of Týr! Have a heart, man.' But Floki made two further moves, surrounding Svein's king and winning the game. Svein swore and swept a hand across the board, scattering the shells across
Serpent
's deck, then stood and made his way cursing to the bow where he stood looking out to sea. 'You're a mean bastard, Floki,' Olaf said, shaking his head.

Floki picked up a white shell and examined it. 'The boy has stolen Sigurd's luck,' he said, raising an eyebrow but not taking his eyes off the tafl piece. Some of the other men nodded or murmured their agreement.

'If not for Osric, we would be suffering Rán's cold embrace by now,' Bjarni countered, pointing at the waves. 'She wanted us down there and don't tell me you didn't feel the bitch's hunger.' He glanced at me, an anxious look in his eyes. 'Whatever the lad said, it reached Óðin's ear.'

'My brother is right for once, Floki,' Bjorn added, looking up from the spoon into whose handle he was carving a swirling pattern. 'Osric is favoured. Like Sigurd. And whilst he's with us, we're favoured too.' He resumed working on the spoon. 'That's what I believe.'

'That weird eye of his tells me everything I need to know,' Bram said in his gruff voice. Then he shrugged. 'Sigurd brought him aboard. It's up to him.' I looked at Sigurd who sat polishing his mail brynja with a lanolin-soaked cloth. Sea air is bad for mail and Sigurd rubbed meticulously at the rings round the neck that showed signs of rust. He said nothing, but he was listening.

Floki pulled the thongs from his plaits and shook out his hair, black as a crow's wing. 'Since laying eyes on him we've kindled a fire in this land, turned its people against us. Our brother Arnkel has been carried to Óðin's hall and we came within a strake's width of a grave below the waves to be gnawed by fish until the end of days,' he said through twisted lips. He held up a palm. 'I know he warned Jarl Sigurd of the White Christ priest's treachery, but old Asgot believes the boy is dangerous. Ask him, Bram.' It was a challenge. 'Let us hear what the godi says.'

All eyes turned to Asgot, who stood gripping
Serpent
's top strake and staring out across the wind-stirred waves. He turned to face us, his watery grey eyes narrowed in thought. 'Yes, Floki, at first like you I thought the boy was a curse on us. But now . . .' He shrugged. 'Now I am not so sure. It is never an easy thing to know the mind of Óðin All-Father. Óðin the One-Eyed,' he added, staring at my blood-eye. 'The All-Father can grant a great warrior favour in battle,' he said slowly, nodding his grey head, 'but he will take that favour away just as easily.' He snatched something invisible from the air. 'You can ask Jarl Sigurd why Óðin does this . . . if you do not already know. Why he can let good, brave men die.'

Sigurd held his brynja outside the shadow of the great sail, examining the iron rings in the sunlight. 'Óðin needs great warriors,' he said, frowning at his own work. 'He must gather fallen heroes to his own hall in preparation for the last day, when he will have to fight the final battle against the giants and the armies of the dark lords.' He laid the mail across his knees and looked at his men. 'You all know this, have known it always,' he said, 'for we learn it from our fathers who learned it from theirs. Those in Valhöll even now prepare for Ragnarök, the last battle.' Asgot nodded and Sigurd shrugged his broad shoulders. 'But these are the end of days,' he said. 'Ragnarök draws closer and Óðin gathers his army as he must. The boy is not to blame. That is what my heart tells me. The All-Father has given Osric to us for some purpose. Even you, Floki, cannot be sure this is not so.' Black Floki gave a slight nod, as though half accepting his jarl's words, and Sigurd began to rub the cloth across the iron rings once more. 'We will know soon enough if the gods have deserted me,' he said, not looking up from his work.

When I looked at Sigurd with his bright blue eyes, long yellow hair and full beard, it seemed impossible that his gods could desert him before he had filled his cup with glory. He was a jarl, a leader of men and a fierce warrior. He was a Norseman with a thirst for fame. I knew then that I would follow him off the edge of the world.

For two days and nights we sailed out of sight of land, using stars, cloud patterns and the flights of birds, so that any Englishmen watching from the shore would not know in which direction we were going. Then, when Sigurd was sure it was safe, Knut set the rudder to steer
Serpent
back towards land, her sail harnessing the wind so that the red dragon's wing flapped eagerly.