Raven: Blood Eye (29 page)

In that night's chaos, two Norsemen from
Fjord-Elk
had reached the church before me, and how their eyes must have lit up when they saw Cynethryth! But I had already killed three men that night and the bloodlust was upon me, and I had entered the church snarling at the Norsemen to seek their pleasure elsewhere. They had seemed ready to kill me, but Mauger burst in, his sword bloody, and the big Wessexman stood before the prisoners and persuaded the Norsemen that the couple would make valuable hostages. So, on Mauger's advice, Sigurd brought the Mercians along so that we might use them as currency should King Coenwulf catch up with us, which was more than likely, as we travelled on foot and he had horses.

I was walking beside Sigurd who was rolling his shoulder as though it pained him. He glanced at me. I looked away.

'What's on your mind, lad?' he asked. 'If there's a bad taste in your mouth it is better to spit it out.'

I hesitated. 'Are you injured, lord?' I asked. It was a poor attempt to deflect him.

He gave me a knowing look and I took a deep breath. 'Why did you attack the Mercians, lord? I had the gospel book. We could have been away without so much bloodshed.'

Sigurd seemed to consider this for a while, then he nodded, acknowledging that my question was a fair one deserving of an answer.

'These men risk their lives every time they unfurl the dragon's wing or dip their oars in the grey sea,' he said. 'Each day we spend in this land could be our last. Even a hunting dog must be let off the leash, Raven, to taste his freedom and be what he is.' He nodded towards the Norsemen in front. 'And these are wolves.' He smiled. 'A jarl should reward his men for standing in the shieldwall, don't you think? Silver. Women.' He shrugged. 'Whatever they hunger for.'

'I understand, lord,' I said. And for the first time I did understand. These men lived at the edge of life and they thrived in that place, like a wind-whipped pine on a desolate outcrop. Plunder was their reward. Enough had died for it. As for myself, I trained with these Norsemen. I ate and drank of their ambitions. Most of all, I had become a killer of men, like Black Floki and Bram and Svein, and yet I wondered if I would come to savour the killing as they seemed to.

'We don't have the men to row both
Serpent
and
Fjord-Elk
home,' Knut said, scratching at a patch of dried blood that filled the rings of his brynja. We had stopped to drink from a narrow brook. 'We'll need a good wind.'

'Raven, tell the Englishman that that bastard Ealdred better stick to his side of the bargain,' Bram added, belching loudly. 'If there's so much as a scratch on
Serpent
that wasn't there before . . .' He twisted an imaginary head off an imaginary body. We had drunk every drop of ale in King Coenwulf's hall before burning the place to the ground, and now our heads ached and our eyes were sore from the smoke.

'You'll get your ships, heathen,' Mauger said, after I had translated Bram's threat. 'Once Lord Ealdred has the book, you'll have your ships. The silver too.' The Englishman staggered off to piss.

Father Egfrith seemed impossibly happy. There was no sign of the scarlet cloak and he wore his simple habit again. He had been singing his psalms, but thankfully was now reduced to humming them because Black Floki had introduced him to the butt of his spear. In truth I preferred the monk when he was feigning death and, what was worse, he seemed grateful to me for my part in retrieving the holy book, which he now carried on his back. He seemed somehow taller, more vital, with the thing in his possession, and I know I was not alone in wondering what Christian magic lay beneath the bejewelled silver sheath, amongst the vellum and ink.

'Your jarl was wise to trust the holy gospels to my care,' Egfrith said proudly. Now that we had the book, Sigurd wanted nothing more to do with it. He would not even look at it. 'It could not be in safer hands,' the monk went on. 'Besides, simply being near the wonder's sacred leaves might cause a heathen horrendous pain.' I looked at the monk. 'Oh yes, Raven.' His eyes widened. 'It has the power to blister a heathen's skin and rot his bowels. That you bore it from Coenwulf's church without harm gives me reason to believe there is still hope for your soul. Slender hope, of course.' He stopped to consider me carefully. 'I think you will burn in hellfire for all eternity.' He scratched his head. 'But there may be some slender hope. Do butterflies not begin life as hairy worms?' He seemed pleased with the comparison.

'I care more for a dog's turd than your precious book, monk,' I replied, staring at him with my blood-eye. The little man recoiled, making the sign of the cross before my face, then shuffled off to annoy someone else. Though some of what he said knotted a worm of fear in my gut, the fear of an unseen power, I had chosen my god and he was not a god of the meek.

Sigurd made me responsible for the hostages and so I walked beside them, though I did not expect them to cause any trouble. Their hands were tied, they were surrounded by blood-stained heathens, and they looked terrified, but at least they still breathed, and this must have given them a glimmer of hope – enough perhaps to stop them from trying something desperate. Looking at them reminded me how wretched I had felt in their position. I thought of Ealhstan and the memory stirred a gloom in me, like an oar blade reaching beneath the sun-gilded surface of the sea. But the old man was gone now and it served no purpose to think of him, so I watched our prisoners, wondering what life we had torn them from.

I have never known my age, but I guessed that Weohstan was two or three years older than me. His mail was well crafted and his movements were assured. He wore his dark hair cropped short and he was handsome enough to make me conscious of my own broken nose and red eye. His shoulders were broad and his arms were thick, and his eyes were full of hatred. There was little doubt he was a warrior and even less doubt he would cut my throat given half a chance. Cynethryth was about my age, a girl just become a woman. Golden-haired and green-eyed Cynethryth. Bjarni said she was too thin and Bjorn mumbled that he had seen bigger tits on a dormouse. Perhaps her nose was strong for a woman and her eyes a little too far apart. But she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and that day, as I walked beside her, I cursed under my breath because I had terrified her and now she must hate me. More than once she glanced at me, but always looked away the moment our eyes met, and I believed she saw me as an unfeeling, wild creature. It was nothing new. Sigurd believed my blood-eye marked me as a favourite of Óðin, and that had certainly saved my life. But to a good Christian girl I was a lost soul. I was something hateful that belonged to Satan.

That night, we rested just long enough to eat a meal of dried fish, cheese and some rich smoked meats meant for Coenwulf's table, for though we had gained the safety of thick forest, Mauger assured us that the Mercian king had not held his throne by keeping his sword sheathed. 'His dogs will be on our scent, Sigurd, don't you doubt it,' he had warned the jarl. 'We'll be looking over our shoulders till we make Wessex and even then it might not be ended. Not if Coenwulf believes King Egbert's behind all this.'

'If he finds us, he finds us,' Sigurd had replied loud enough for all to hear. 'We will see who is the hunter and who is the prey.'

There was no fire, no singing, and no fighting. Just forty-five men, a monk, and one young woman taking their food, resting their sore feet, and expecting at any moment Sigurd to give the word to set off once more. None complained that we would be marching through the night, for every step southwards took the Norsemen closer to their beloved longships. As they sat, their hands clenched and unclenched, hard, calloused palms eager to grip the oar again, even their soft beards longed for the salt of the ocean to encrust them.

'I swear I'd sooner row to Asgard itself than walk another mile!' Svein the Red hollered, rubbing the life back into his tired feet.

'I'll remind you of that next time Sigurd gathers a crew to row him to the home of the gods, you red-bearded brute,' Olaf mumbled, happily munching on a honeyed oatcake. He had found a dozen or more freshly baked beside a Mercian hearth. He had also found the woman who made them.

'Toss me one of those and I'll tug the All-Father's beard when we get there,' Svein said, grinning. He caught an oatcake and spent the next while sniffing it and making a low rumbling sound, which I took to be contentment. Olaf grinned and shook his head. The deal was made and Svein seemed happy with the terms.

I wondered if our prisoners felt the same stunned sickness I had felt when I had left Abbotsend burning behind me – when I had seen through smoke-stung eyes people I had known lying torn and bloodless. I watched the prisoners and they watched us, their jaws clenched in hatred and their eyes sometimes fearful, other times fierce with hope of vengeance, as though they believed their god would strike us down with spears of lightning.

Father Egfrith was sitting with them, soothing Cynethryth with words I could not hear, when Weohstan caught my eye. 'Loosen Cynethryth's bonds, heathen,' he demanded suddenly. There was no fear in his voice. 'The rope is too tight. It's hurting her.'

I stood and went over to them. The skin of Cynethryth's wrists was raw and her hands were blue from lack of blood. I took my knife and cut the rope and when it was done she spat in my face. Weohstan grinned sourly as I wiped the spit with the back of my hand.

'She'll not make a good wife, Raven,' Bram warned. 'You'd do better to marry your own right hand, lad.'

Glum wiggled a finger on his remaining hand at me. 'That English bitch would cut off your worm while you slept and you'd wake up choking on it,' he said with a grimace.

I was glad Cynethryth did not understand the Norsemen, for I was still in spitting range. 'I'm sorry for what happened to your people,' I said to the girl, ignoring Weohstan. 'That old grey-beard could have saved his people. We only came for the book.'

'That old grey-beard was my friend,' Weohstan spat, 'and his name was Aelfwald. He would rather open his own gut with a dull blade than allow a heathen to get anywhere near the gospels of Saint Jerome.'

'And now he is dead and we have the book anyway,' I said, holding his dark eyes. 'Aelfwald was a fool.'

'Be careful, boy,' Weohstan hissed. 'This rope won't hold me for ever.'

'But it holds you now,' I said, handing a hunk of bread to Cynethryth, 'and so you need a woman to feed you.' His hatred was almost a living thing, writhing in the space between us.

'Raven, get them up,' Olaf called as a buzz spread through the camp, 'time to go.' I yanked Weohstan to his feet and we set off in the darkness to put as much ground as possible between us and the king of Mercia.

The next days passed peacefully as we entered the heart of the old forest. Asgot pleaded with Sigurd to sacrifice the Mercians, but Sigurd wanted them alive as surety against an attack by Coenwulf, which grew less likely with every step southwards.

'You do not honour the gods as a jarl should,' Asgot complained. His hair rattled with new, small, white bones, and it sickened me to think they might have been Ealhstan's. 'It is your duty to make sacrifices, Sigurd! My hands were never clean of blood in your father's time.' He grinned wickedly. 'If it moved, Harald slit its throat and offered it up.'

'Aye, then it's a wonder you are still breathing, old man,' Sigurd answered. 'You buzz in my ear like a fly. One day I will tire of you.'

'No you won't,' Asgot said, scowling. 'Even with your arrogance you would not dare lay a hand on me.' But there was doubt in the old godi's eyes and I smiled to see it. For Asgot had hung Ealhstan's flesh in the sacrificial oak and it was only my loyalty to Sigurd that kept me from taking his head. No, that is not the whole truth. The truth is I feared Asgot. He was a bloodthirsty old hawk, and where to my mind Sigurd embodied the illustrious inhabitants of Asgard, Asgot the godi gave flesh to the gods' vicious sides. Their malevolence came off him like a foul stench.

Every night I listened to the Norsemen talk of their gods. They loved the old stories, the legends which each of them embroidered in the telling, and mostly they loved having fresh ears to try their tales on. They spoke of Thór's battles against the giants, of Loki's mischief-making and Óðin's wanderings amongst men, and the creation of the nine worlds, all of which are held together by the giant ash tree called Yggdrasil. For my part, I could not get enough and even though the stories were somehow familiar to me, like half-remembered dreams, I drank every uttered word like a man with an insatiable thirst.