Raven: Blood Eye (22 page)

'I'm just curious, Ealhstan,' I said, rubbing my cheek, but the old carpenter made the sign of the cross and pointed to the Norse sword beside me and shook his head, the last of his wispy hair floating in the breeze. 'A man should know how to use a sword,' I said, 'it is how he protects what he loves.' I remembered plump, red-cheeked Alwunn from Abbotsend and wondered if I had loved her. I didn't think I had. Then I looked back to Asgot, but Ealhstan tugged my shoulder and pointed at my face. Then he looked up at the leafy boughs above us and pretended to spit. I knew he meant that by taking on the ways of the Norsemen I was spitting in Christ's face. 'I don't want to make cups, old man,' I said tersely, half regretting the words, though it was the truth. Ealhstan pointed at my hands and sneered as though to say I did not have the skill for carpentry anyway. Then he turned his back on me and lay down. We rested quietly until the silence grew too heavy, and I left the growing warmth of the fire to see what Asgot was doing.

'What will you do with it, Asgot?' I asked. He held the thick slice of bark close to his face, then sniffed it and rubbed a finger across its surface.

'Asgot?' I said, not liking being so close to the godi but eager to know what heathen magic he was making.

He did not take his eyes from the bark strip. 'This tree has lived for thousands of years, boy. Maybe since the dawn of the world, and it's not dead yet. Not fully dead, anyway. As it takes many men's lifetimes to grow, so it takes as many to die.' He held up the bark as though it was as precious as a bar of silver. 'This tree has seen many things. It has secrets,
Raven
,' he stressed the name scornfully, 'and it will whisper them to one who is willing to listen.'

He turned away, so I gripped his shoulder and he flinched at my touch. 'Will you show me, Asgot?' I asked, spellbound. I had heard of the rune lore, but who of us has seen it with his own eyes? Asgot's grey eyes narrowed with suspicion and he screwed up his face as though I stank. Then he stared at Sigurd who was laughing heartily because a flame had leapt up to singe Black Floki's beard. 'Sigurd likes you, Raven,' he muttered, 'and though he has his faults, arrogance and recklessness included, he is far-seeing. I will not deny it. And he respects the gods.' He frowned. 'Most of the time.' Then those eyes flashed and the godi's mouth twitched within his grey beard. 'Yes, I will show you,' he said. 'Soon enough.'

So we journeyed north day after day, rarely seeing a living soul as we pushed deeper into Wessex. A sense of unease had been swelling within the belly of the Fellowship and I grew to understand why. The Norsemen were venturing ever further into a land that was strange to them. It was a land of Christ worshippers, men who despised them. And they could no longer smell the sea.

'It bodes ill to be so far from our ships,' Ugly Einar said. He was a flat-nosed man with a ruined lip and whenever he looked at me I knew he saw me dying beneath his broad-hilted sword.

'And going further still,' Glum moaned, looking up to the leafy canopy and the blue sky beyond. 'Nothing good can come of it, Einar. Only a fool tempts the Norns. I swear I can hear their fingers weaving a dark, bloody pattern for us.'

I knew there were at least two or three men of
Fjord-Elk
who agreed with their shipmaster. Ugly Einar belched loudly. 'Raven and the tongueless old fool have brought us bad luck,' he said, thumbing at me over his shoulder.

'What are you scared of, Einar?' Bjarni challenged him. 'Look around you, man. This is good land and there's plenty of it. We'll send our sons here one day, hey, Bjorn!' He slapped his brother's shoulder. 'They'll turn the soil and grow fat on pork and mead.'

'Brother, they'll take pasture from the English and live like kings,' Bjorn replied, kicking the head off a tall white mushroom, 'and all because we took English silver and drenched the land with English blood.'

'You two are too dumb to know when your luck has drained away,' Einar countered miserably, tipping an imaginary cup upside down. 'Men will always fight for land like this, even after you take it from them. The English must have won it themselves once. Farmers don't own rich soil for long, not unless they are as handy with the sword as they are with the plough. Remember that, Bjorn. Your brats' swords will never be dry.'

'You're an ugly, whinging woman, Einar,' Bjarni said.

Einar grimaced, his strange lip white beneath his flat nose. 'Say what you like, but it'll be you next, lying stiff and bloodless like the others. Like young Eric with your arse full of arrows.' He glanced quickly at Olaf, then seemed encouraged that he had not heard. 'Thór's balls, Bjarni,' he blurted, 'the English runt put an arrow in you and you let him live!' I shrugged awkwardly at Bjarni, who raised his eyebrows as though he had surprised himself by sparing me. 'As for that dry-mouthed old bastard,' Einar continued, pointing at Ealhstan, 'he follows behind like a stray dog begging for scraps.'

'The lad's more of a Norseman than you, Einar,' Bjarni said, winking at me mischievously. Anger flared in Einar's face then.

'Einar's an ugly whoreson,' Glum added, 'but he's right. We should do what we are good at and leave the mercy to the White Christ followers. Did you know they are told to love their enemies?' He clutched his sword's hilt and I think he feared the words themselves. 'Mercy is the same as weakness.' He nodded. 'And Óðin All-Father despises weakness.'

'He despises cowards, too,' Svein the Red rumbled, 'and men who do not honour their jarl.' The inference was clear and Einar and Glum wisely held their tongues, for Svein would sooner fight ten warriors with his bare hands than betray his oath of loyalty. And his oath, like every man's in the Fellowship, belonged to Sigurd.

That night after making camp, I took the small knife which Ealhstan had found round my neck and turned it over in my hands, as I often did, in the hope that the feel of it might kindle some spark in my mind to burst into memory. But the two swirling serpents carved in the white bone hilt were silent, their secrets safe as a dragon's hoard.

'Men are not supposed to think so much, Raven,' Bjorn said, beckoning me to my feet, an ash spear in each hand. I had barely stood when he threw me one of the spears and gave a great beaming smile. 'Let's make better use of our time.'

And so, that night, my lessons began. Bjarni and Bjorn taught me how to kill with sword and spear. The next night, they taught me the use of the round shield, and the night after that they showed me how the shield was not merely for defence but could be used in the attack, to smash a man's face to bloody pulp. They worked me hard, making me repeat every move, whilst introducing new techniques that tested me sorely.

For my part I found that the more cuts and bruises I got, the better I became at avoiding them next time. Techniques that had at first felt clumsy became instinctive. Moves began to flow one into another, my feet working in harmony with my upper body as they stirred the forest litter. I sought openings in the Norsemen's defences, desperate to land blows in vengeance for my pains.

At first we fought with our swords wrapped in cloth, but even then we risked breaking bones and the blades themselves, so Bjarni made Ealhstan fashion practice weapons of ash, and because they were light I borrowed several of Svein the Red's great silver arm rings to add weight to my thrusts and shield parries. I admit during these bouts I let my imagination roam freely and in those wanderings the warrior rings were my own. Eventually, when at last I had mastered the basics, the other Norsemen took an interest in the fights, and every night I would take on all comers and they would batter me. I never won in those early days.

'YOU'RE GETTING HANDY WITH THE SWORD, RAVEN,' OLAF SAID,
tearing off a chunk of stale bread before handing the loaf to Black Floki. My shoulders ached from the previous night's training, but I felt a strange joy in the discomfort, as though my muscles and limbs had earned the right to rest. The forest floor was damp with dew and the day promised to be warm and bright. 'Still clumsy with the spear though, but the spear is not as easy as it looks,' Olaf added. 'Oh, every man and his dog uses the spear, but few do it well.' The ghost of a smile touched his face. 'My Eric was a good lad with the spear. But not as good as you with the sword. Comes natural to you, eh?'

'Like falling asleep after a good ploughing,' Knut said distantly, his mind no doubt on some braided blonde beauty.

'I've not won a bout yet, Uncle,' I said, rolling my shoulders to rekindle the warm pain. But Olaf's thoughts were of Eric.

'He'd have taken you with the axe, I'd wager,' he said. 'We spent months with the axe. It takes a rare skill and even then many years to master.'

'One of these days I'll give Bjarni some bruises to match these,' I said, rubbing my left arm, which had taken a hundred blows beneath the shield and was an angry purple. Olaf blinked slowly, then gave a shallow nod of thanks for my poor attempt to steer his mind from his son.

'I miss the lad,' Bjarni said, a sad smile hiding in his beard. 'When we return to Harald's fjord, I'll pay a good skald to sing of how he wet his axe in that worm Ealdred's blood.' The smile cracked several drying cuts and one of them spilled new blood into his beard.

'Eric was brave, Uncle,' I said, 'and his mother will be proud of the way he served Jarl Sigurd.'

'No, Raven, she won't,' he said, shaking his shaggy head. 'She cursed me for taking the lad away and she'll have my balls for getting him killed.' Now Olaf smiled but there was no warmth in it. 'I'll be lucky to eat another good meal as long as I live and breathe.'

'Quiet your bleating, Uncle,' Black Floki said. 'Your woman's no dried-up stick yet. You'll have another son, you old bastard.' I thought Olaf would burst with anger then, but he simply stared at the fire, which was pale in the dawn light, and half raised his eyebrows as though Floki was right. 'No woman stays angry for ever,' Floki added, plaiting his glossy black hair. He turned to me. 'They never forgive you, Raven, you'll learn that much, but they still like a good hump on a cold night just like the rest of us.' A murmur of agreement stirred the camp.

'Does Sigurd have a son?' I asked, glancing at the goldenhaired jarl who sat talking with the English priest and his bodyguard Mauger.

'He did once,' Olaf replied, 'but the boy's head was broken by a horse's kick. Seven winters ago that was. Sigurd's fury could have turned back the sea,' he said, shaking his head in remembrance. 'Poor little whelp died before he could talk.' He looked at Sigurd. 'A man like Sigurd must have a strong son. It's the way of things, but old Asgot reckoned he had somehow upset the gods and I think Sigurd believed him. He's been trying to win Óðin's favour ever since. And he will. You can bet your teeth on that. The All-Father must love a jarl like Sigurd.' His smile was warm this time. 'Look at him. He's not far off a god himself, and that's why men follow him. Any of the lads you see here would die in the shieldwall with Sigurd.' Olaf pursed his thick lips. 'Even Floki would cross Bifröst, the shimmering bridge, with Sigurd. Am I right, Floki?'

Black Floki thrust his knife into the tree stump he was sitting on and looked up, his eyes dark as bottomless wells. 'I long to spend the afterlife in Valhöll as much as any Norseman,' he said in a low voice, 'and any Norseman who knows Sigurd Haraldson knows there's a stout bench and a gilded cup waiting for him at the high end of Óðin's hall.' He grimaced as he pulled the knife free. 'I'll be at Sigurd's shoulder when the death maidens come for him. That much I know.'

'That may be sooner than you think, cousin,' Halldor said. Halldor was obsessive about sharpening his weapons and always expected a fight. At first I could not decide whether it was fear or bloodlust that filled the man, but now I know it was not fear. 'Who knows where that English priest is taking us?' he asked, inspecting the edge of his bone-handled knife. 'We should slit his measly throat and bury him here among the thickets. Let his white arse wear a crown of thorns in the afterlife. His god would like that, I think.'

'I'll remind you of that when we're sharing out the English king's silver, Halldor,' Olaf said, standing and walking off to take a piss. The others were readying themselves for the day's journey. 'Then you'll be glad you left his arse alone,' he called over his shoulder.

I had thought we were making fair progress, but later that day Father Egfrith moaned that we were too slow and would be lucky to reach King Coenwulf's stronghold before judgement day. 'We English have little to fear from Norsemen if they all amble like old women on their way to market,' he complained, shaking his tonsured head and giving a loud sniff. He was still wary of my blood-eye, but the fact that I spoke his language compelled his tongue to wag in my direction, and though I disliked the man I realized he was right about our slow pace. The truth was that the Norsemen were cautious creatures on land, as though they had stowed their confidence aboard their longships, and though Egfrith was a weak-looking man there seemed little wrong with his thin white legs as he strode at the head of the company, urging us to keep up.