Raven: Sons of Thunder (4 page)

‘We want a quiet mooring,’ Sigurd said to his steersman.

Knut pulled his long thin beard through his fist and nodded. ‘Somewhere sheltered but with a nice view of the sea, hey,’ he said.

‘A wolf must have his lair,’ Sigurd agreed, throwing his green cloak around his shoulders and pinning it at the neck with a silver wolf’s head brooch. All the men were putting on cloaks so that their mail brynjas would be mostly concealed, at least from any distance, and I made sure my own brown cloak hid the sword at my hip. That sword too had belonged to Glum and it was a fine thing. It had a five-lobed pommel with silver inlay and twisted silver wire. On the crossguard the smith had traced eight tiny Thór’s hammers, four on each side, and each was perfect, showing that the smith knew his work and was skilled. Glum must have paid much silver for the weapon or
else killed a rich lord in battle and taken it. Perhaps he had even stolen it, though I doubted it, for even though in the end Glum had broken his oath and betrayed his jarl, he had once been an honourable man. But he was a simple man too, and Sigurd’s ways had befogged him. Where Glum would have made blood sacrifice, slaughtering a man for no better reason than because Glum feared the Norns and the gods, Sigurd would trust his own judgement. Where Glum would strike first and think later, Sigurd would weigh possible outcomes like hack silver on the scales, choosing the course that he could most easily read. Not that Sigurd was necessarily more cautious. I believed he would wrestle the Midgard-Serpent if he knew the skalds were watching, so that they could sing of it and their descendants’ lips would still be wet with it a hundred years after his death.

As I looked at Sigurd then, in his fine mail and with his great sword, the sword of his father, I thought of the hero Beowulf who slew the monster Grendal, whose stories had filled my head on cold nights around the hearth. I thought of brave Týr, god of battle, of mighty Thór the Lord of Thunder, and of Óðin god of war, Father of the Slain and Master of the Fray. For Jarl Sigurd was the marrow of our ambitions. He was the legends and the tales and the fireside whispers. But the ledge he walked was a narrow one and I think he knew it, too. Either the gods would love him and favour him because he was a great warrior and wise, or they would be jealous of him and seek his destruction. These were the thoughts that filled my head as we came to the Frankish coast, a stone’s throw from rocks and small islands, seeking a bay in which to plunge
Serpent
’s anchor.

My mouth was as dry as a herring hung in the wind, but I was not the only one on edge. I saw other Norsemen licking salt-cracked lips, clenching and unclenching their fists, and plaiting their hair to keep their hands busy. The coast we had come to, as dusk filled the world, looked windswept and empty, but that was not to say there were not warriors waiting in the
long grass, crouching behind boulders and lurking in the shady marshes. A lookout on a high bluff would have seen
Serpent
’s red sail long before we could have seen him, and by now there might be a hundred warriors waiting to cut us down when we waded through the surf. We rounded a bluff where the water broke, sucked and plunged, and beyond it we came to a bay carved out by an eternity of wind and waves. As we drew closer the air filled with a keening noise, which at first I took to be an effect of the wind, perhaps made louder by the surrounding rocks. Then I noticed that the sounds were slightly different in pitch and suddenly I understood. Seals! The black and brown ‘rocks’ were not rocks at all. Dozens of seals were hauled up on every kelp-slick skerry and crag, moaning and crying without seeming to, the way bees or flies hum.

‘Get the sail down, lads,’ Olaf called, gesturing for two men to ready the anchor, which was a boulder wedged into a wooden frame tied to a length of thick rope. ‘Oars out. Easy now.’ He moved to
Serpent
’s bow so that he could watch out for submerged rocks. Hastein, a squat man with a round face, red cheeks and yellow hair, was already there, leaning over
Serpent
’s sheer strake, taking depth measurements. He used a line on the end of which was tied a lead weight. Every time the weight reached the ocean bottom, Hastein hauled it back in and measured the line against the distance between his outstretched arms. He tapped the lead weight’s hollow bottom against his palm, depositing a dollop of wet sand there and holding it up for Olaf and Knut to see. Olaf nodded.

‘It’s a nice sandy bottom!’ he called to Sigurd. ‘And a rising tide.’

Sigurd nodded because these conditions favoured us. We could, if we wished to, ride
Serpent
right in, beaching her above the high water mark. I plunged my oar’s blade into the swelling surf with short chops, thinking that we were lucky and that the omens were good. But Sigurd had other ideas. He strode down
giles kristian from the stern fighting platform and marched along the deck, past us all, towards Hastein.

‘How tall are you, Hastein?’ he asked.

The man frowned. ‘Five and a half feet, lord.’ I suspected he was shorter and so did Sigurd by the smile that touched his lips.

‘Then you had better shout when we come to five feet of water, Hastein, otherwise you’ll hope you’re here because your mother fucked a fish.’ He turned to face us all. ‘Hitch up your skirts, ladies. I have heard the water in Frankia is especially wet.’

There were a few groans because no one liked to get seawater in his mail. There was also the very real possibility of a man’s drowning if he jumped off a boat wearing his brynja.

‘Stop your whining, you farts,’ Olaf bellowed, tying his helmet’s leather chin strap. ‘You’ll be lucky if Karolus himself isn’t somewhere up there waiting to send the White Christ’s legions against us with swords of fire and pagan-gutting spears!’

‘I’d rather jump into the middle of a hundred Christians than paddle to shore like a dog,’ Svein the Red grumbled, thumping his helmet down as the anchor was lowered over
Serpent
’s stern with a splosh. Two bow ropes would be taken ashore and tied to trees or rocks, making the ship fast in the bay where it would be safe from rocks and enemies alike. I wondered what Svein had to complain about, as he was so tall that the water would only come up to his chest whilst it leaked into other’s mouths.

‘Bjorn and Bjarni, you’ll stay aboard with Knut and the girl,’ Olaf said as we dipped the oars in the darkening water, carefully manoeuvring
Serpent
so that her prow remained facing the beach, whilst Hastein and a man named Yrsa slipped over the side with the thick mooring ropes. When
Serpent
was leashed, we stowed the oars and plugged the ports. Then we dropped into the cold sea, each of us holding his sword above his head
so that the fleece-lined scabbards would not fill with salt water and take an age to dry. I gripped
Serpent
’s sheer strake whilst my feet sought something solid and I knew that the shield slung across my back would prove a terrible encumbrance in the waves and currents.

‘I want to come, Raven,’ Cynethryth said suddenly, leaning over to me as I hung there afraid I would lose my footing and that the mail would drag me spluttering to the seabed. I tried to hide the panic in my face but must have only succeeded in looking angry. ‘Why should I stay aboard? My head has been churning all day and my stomach hurts from being sick. I just want some time away from you stinking men! I want some privacy. Can you understand that?’

I clung to
Serpent
, up to my chest in cold water, dreading letting go of the ship. The sea is a killer of men, and the Franks were killers of heathens. A wave rolled over me and the salt water went down my throat, making me retch horribly. ‘Besides,’ Cynethryth said, the hint of a smile playing at the corners of her lips, ‘you look as though you need some help. The others are halfway to the beach already.’

‘Do what you want, woman,’ I said, then let go, splashing into the sea. I was relieved when my toes stirred the soft seabed. I turned to the shore. There was another splash and suddenly Cynethryth was beside me. Then she was swimming ahead, as assuredly as an otter, whilst I lumbered and tiptoed along, looking up at the purple and black rimmed sky and holding my mouth tight against the swells.

‘Wait for me, Cynethryth!’ Father Egfrith called. It seemed he had finally summoned the courage to go ashore. ‘By all the saints, girl, wait for me!’ Another splash followed and I gritted my teeth and sprang forward, careless of the sea and Rán’s white-haired daughters, because I would rather take on every one of those greedy bitches than let a Christ monk beat me to the shore.

We squeezed the water from our sodden cloaks, jumped up and down in our clinking mail, and squelched about in our boots, all of which made the nearest seals waddle away or slip into the sea. The ones further away paid us no attention at all and I guessed that some of them would wish they had soon enough, for we were hungry. I could see from the high water mark further up the beach, where the sand gave way to rocks and jagged ledges, that the tide was more extreme here in Frankia than it was on the Wessex coast. I hoped Knut had noticed this too and had moored
Serpent
far enough out to prevent her becoming grounded at low tide.

Black Floki was already loping ahead up the beach, spear in hand, his black plaits and shield bouncing as he ran up a narrow trail, heading for a high point from which he could keep watch and gain some idea of where we had landed. Egfrith looked like a drowned rat, his sodden habit clinging to the puny body beneath. I noticed that Cynethryth’s dress was clinging too, in an altogether more pleasing way, and after a moment I looked away, feeling a stab of anger when other men did not. Freyja, goddess of beauty, makes men lustful and even shivering from cold, her sopping hair stuck to her white skin, Cynethryth drew men’s eyes like a silver torc.

Sigurd pulled his wet yellow hair back, tying it at the nape of his neck, and looked back to
Serpent
, which was nodding gently in the sheltered bay.

‘She is so beautiful, hey, Raven.’ Low evening light spread pink and orange across the calm water, broken only where the surf rolled in with white hissing foam.

‘She is magnificent, lord,’ I said, still thinking of Cynethryth.

‘There is still a chance the worm Ealdred will pass by this place before dark. But I think it more likely he will have moored somewhere by now and will pass at dawn. So, we stay on this beach until
Fjord-Elk
comes.’

‘If we are lucky Njörd will blow her into this very bay,’ I said, watching two shrieking gulls high above tumble and plunge in the cooling air. Men said that Njörd loved sunlit coves and creeks because they were home to his sacred sea birds, and so he must have loved this place. Beyond the sand, pink sea thrift grew in low clumps, its bright blossom vibrating in the breeze so that it seemed in that twilight that the ground itself was shivering. Further up, dense sandthorn bushes sat stiff and steadfast, their pale silvery green leaves bearing thousands of bitter berries that would be orange by September.

‘Do you still think I deserve my name?’ Sigurd said, catching me off guard with the question. I knew he referred to ‘the Lucky’. He turned to me, his eyes temperate and unjudging.

‘
Serpent
’s hold could not take another brooch pin,’ I said, nodding towards the ship. ‘You have made your men rich with silver and all kinds of treasures.’ I smiled. ‘Svein is happy as a hog in shit and all it took was a new comb! And Floki . . . he’s content so long as he has something to brood about. Before I saw those seals I thought the noise was just Floki moaning because he was hungry.’

Sigurd dragged his teeth across his lip and made a low hum in his throat. He held my eye a while longer and then blinked slowly, giving the slightest nod. Then he turned on his heel and marched up the beach, his left hand clasping his sword’s pommel, barking orders for men to find their own bit of high ground and keep a lookout for
Fjord-Elk
. For a moment I watched him go, taking a deep breath and filling my nose with the oniony smell wafting off the sea thrift’s crisp flowers. Then I turned to see Cynethryth appear from behind three sea-smoothed rocks in the surf. I wondered if she was already regretting her decision to leave Wessex and come with us, for she could not hope to enjoy such privacy often amongst the Fellowship. The sun had gone completely now, leaving only gashes of orange light in the grey clouds to the west. On a rock
out at sea a cormorant, which had been drying its great black wings, took to the sky, its croak loud and hollow across the water. I sensed Cynethryth beside me.

‘He is troubled, your jarl,’ she said, her eyes following the bird skyward as it stretched its long neck and flapped away into the gathering night.

‘He thinks his luck is falling through his fingers. Like sand,’ I said, toeing a wet-looking tangle that looked like a worm. They were everywhere, as were the tiny holes from which they had been excavated. ‘He worries that the gods have turned against him and that he cannot give his men that which they desire above all else, above silver and furs and new ivory combs.’

‘And what
do
they want, Raven?’ Cynethryth asked and I knew she was really asking what did I want. Her eyes searched mine and I felt conscious of my blood-eye, the eye which had caused most men to hate and fear me but for which Sigurd had spared me, thinking I was touched by the gods, by Óðin himself. Before I could answer, something jabbed me in the back and I turned to old Asgot, Sigurd’s godi, who seemed about to poke me again with the butt of his spear.

‘I’ve swallowed it now, boy, so you might as well,’ he said in his ancient, cracked voice. I was upwind of the man but I still caught his stink and so did Cynethryth, because she put her knuckles to her nose.