Raven: Blood Eye (7 page)

'It is skilled work,' Sigurd admitted, scratching his beard. The man named Olaf, whom the Norsemen called Uncle, opened his mouth to protest, but Sigurd stopped him with a raised hand. 'There is an empty bench at the oars now, Olaf,' he said, glancing at the warrior whose pale corpse was blistering wickedly as the searching flames licked it. The fire was eating through the seasoned timber and the man's hair crackled and burned brightly, giving off a foul-smelling smoke. 'Bring them both,' Sigurd said, turning his back on me.

And so we were dragged towards the sea and the waiting dragon ships which sat low in the water, heavy with the booty taken from the people of Abbotsend. The Norsemen took their places and began in unison to pull on the oars, dragging the sea past the slender hulls until a steady rhythm was set. And I looked towards the shore and breathed the yellow smoke of a burning village.

I WAS MISERABLE. NUMB. EALHSTAN AND I SAT HUDDLED AT THE
stern by the Norseman at the tiller who grinned wolfishly whenever I caught his eye, as though he was amused that I had betrayed my people. And even though the folk of Abbotsend had hated me, and though it had never felt like my home, I believed I might have damned my own soul to drift for ever with the black smoke from burned homes. Ealhstan would not look at me and this made my chest ache. He had stood by me against Wulfweard, but now he blamed me, I was sure of it, and so I let the dark mood spread like a stain between us as I looked up at the sky, noting how much more infinite it appeared from the sea. Having burned away the morning's mist, the sun sat above us like the lord and judge of men and it seemed impossible that in the time it had taken to ascend its throne, a village had been wiped from the earth.

As I breathed in the heady mix of dried fish, pine and tar, the heathens laughed and joked and rowed as though nothing unusual had happened. Each man sat facing us on a chest containing his belongings, and whilst some stared at me as though wondering what I was, others would not meet my eye.
You are
alive because they fear you, Osric,
I said to myself.
Men fear
your Devil's eye, and these are men, aren't they?
So I closed my good eye, leaving the blood-filled one staring out at the Norsemen until some of them looked away. I tried to make them believe I could see into their thoughts and I think some of them feared that I could.

The dragon skimmed through the waves, her ropes and planks creaking rhythmically, and something grew in my stomach, writhing, encouraged by the sea's pitch and roll. Before long, I vomited bitter, green liquid and feared my stomach was tearing apart. My misery deepened still further with the cramps and dizziness.

At least we never sailed out of sight of land and this alone was the slender rein on my despair. We would aim out to sea to avoid sandbanks and rocks, but always headed inland again.

'We are sailing west, Ealhstan,' I said at the end of the day with the warmth of the falling sun on my face, 'which means they're not going home yet. These men come from the sea road far to the north.'

Ealhstan mumbled something in his throat that sounded like bastards and plunder and stinking, heathen pigs. And like him I knew there would be more death.

Later, as the Norsemen shared out their spoils, I caught sight of the treasures they kept amidships beneath oiled skins. Much of it was that which they had sold at Abbotsend but taken back after the fight: cream-coloured ivory and reindeer antler, brown furs and chests brimming with brooches, yellow amber, whetstones and silver coin. I saw the necklace Griffin had bought for his wife, too.

'They're rich men, Ealhstan, these heathens,' I said, desperate for the old man to look me in the eye. I was beginning to wonder if his empty, withdrawn stare was due in part to the beating he had taken, and, though it shames me to say it, I hoped it was, because it tore my heart to think he hated me for what I had done. The swelling across his face was yellowing now. 'The ivory alone must be worth a fortune.'

He flicked a wrist and grunted.

'You think they pillaged every last trinket, don't you?' I said. 'From other villages long since burned to black ash.'

Without looking at me, Ealhstan made a fist and stared out to sea, shaking his head. And I knew what he was thinking. Men like these would sail off the lip of the world for a fistful of silver.

'How's your head, old man?' I asked. One of his watery eyes was squeezed almost shut by the swelling. He waved the question away as though to say he'd had worse. 'Old men bruise like apples,' I said as he prodded the swelling gingerly. 'I know, Ealhstan – if you were younger you would have cleaved one or two of these whoresons in two.' I gave him a wry smile. 'Split them like oak.'

He batted the words away with a grimace and I looked out across the waves but saw only the faces of butchered men. I rubbed my chin, touching my swollen lip. It still throbbed with each heartbeat. 'The bow let us down,' I said. 'The string was rotten.'

Ealhstan turned and our eyes locked. Got the luck of the damned, you and me both, they said, and now we're sitting here chewing our own vomit. Then he gave a gap-toothed grin and I glanced at the Norseman who had a piece of one of my arrow shafts still jutting from his shoulder. He rowed as though it was not there, but now and then I caught him grimace with pain.
They might be bastard heathens,
I thought,
but they are proud
.

It was early evening when a warning voice called clear and strong from the other ship. It is strange how sound carries across water and a man an arrow-shot away sounds as though he's nearby. Sigurd picked his way to the prow where his shipmaster Olaf stood shielding his eyes against the sun, looking landward. At the top of a great cliff a knot of riders peered out to sea, their spears pointing to the sky. Edgar the reeve must have learned of Abbotsend's fate and sent men to track the heathens along the coast, which they could do well enough on horseback along well-used paths whilst we must make do with a mere breath of a breeze. Sure enough, when we rounded a great chalk bluff, the scouts appeared on the west side and Sigurd cursed. It meant that he would be unable to seek a sheltered bay for the night, let alone more plunder.

Ealhstan sneered at the Norsemen as though he considered them swine with no stomach for a fair fight. Mark me and mark me well, his raised finger said, these shit-filled heathens blow more hot air than a happy cow. He turned his head towards the steersman and tried to spit but there was just a dry popping sound and the Norseman hawked and spat a thick wad over the top strake in response. Ealhstan mumbled another insult, then hunkered down, wrapping his brown cloak around him and rubbing his empty belly.

'I'm hungry, too,' I moaned, scratching my ribs. 'Puked my innards out this morning. Feels like mice gnawing my guts now.' But instead of sympathy I saw blame in the old man's eyes; blame for bringing him a horde of blood-loving heathens instead of a basket full of mackerel. God help your wandering soul, was what his eyes said, and I wished the man still had his tongue so that I did not have to choose the words myself.

As a young man Ealhstan had agreed to be an oath helper to a man accused of theft. The accuser was rich and so one night three men tore out Ealhstan's tongue. Without a man to speak up for him, the accused was found guilty and died in thrall to the rich man. And so Ealhstan was mute, and now his rheumy eyes and my own guilt spoke for him.

Now he closed those eyes and shook his head, murmuring to himself, and when I looked at the stick-thin carpenter with his swollen face and his wispy white hair floating on the breeze I felt ashamed for being afraid when a mute old man could be so defiant.

With the arrival of a stiff northerly wind, Sigurd gave the order to raise the great woollen sail, allowing his men to stow their oars and rest. As the faded red sheet bulged, the Norsemen loosened their shoulders and necks and stretched their aching arms. Some of them took dice from their chests, or wooden figures half carved. Others sharpened blades or curled up to sleep. Two handed out dried salted fish and chunks of cheese, and a few cursed, boasting that they would rather make landfall and light a fire and eat fresh meat, even if it meant fighting the English.

As the sun fell to the sea, I sat at the stern, hugging my knees. The seasickness had weakened me, my stomach was empty and I wondered if the heathens would at last come for us, their blades eager to finish what they had begun at Abbotsend. I ran a calloused hand along one of the vessel's oak ribs, my fingers following the grain of the wood to the point where the rib met a hull strake as though the two smooth timbers were one. 'It's beautiful work, Ealhstan, you can't deny it,' I said. He huffed, then frowned and nodded reluctantly. 'Men used to call them surf dragons, least that's what Griffin told me once.' He nodded again. 'Surf dragons,' I whispered under my breath. I had asked Griffin about the name and he had laughed and said that we like to frighten ourselves half the time. He had shaken his head. Good oak is all they are, he had said. Good oak and pine worked by men who know the adze as they know the sea.

'Did you ever see one, Ealhstan?' I asked. He shook his head and raised his eyebrows as though he had never thought to find himself riding the grey sea in one either. Some came across the sea when Griffin was a boy. They say those were the first. At least that was when the priests began telling their stories and filling men's hearts with fear and their heads with nightmares. The Devil's ministers had come to defile God's houses and shit on saints' relics. That's what they told us. So men had sharpened their swords and made limewood shields, but the heathens never came. Not to Abbotsend. 'They're here now, old man,' I said, watching the Norsemen and wondering if Christ was planning some terrible vengeance on them for the death of His children at Abbotsend.

A wave broke over the top strake, drenching us. Ealhstan coughed and I wiped my eyes and ran my fingers along the smooth oak planks again. Griffin had been wrong. This surf dragon was more than oak and pine, much more. It rode the sea as though the waves were its subjects. And it was beautiful. My mind carried me back to the days I had spent with the oaks in the forest, always searching for the longest, curving limbs even though we had no use for them. How many such branches had been hewn and shaped to make Jarl Sigurd's ships? How many men had laboured, felling trees, splitting timber, drilling holes and tarring joints? I noticed a drip of tar that had set just below a dark knot in the strake at my shoulder. It looked like a tear beneath an eye and I picked it off with a nail, bringing it to my nose. It smelled sweet.

'Come here, boy,' Sigurd called. He stood on the mast support, one arm round the thick pole as the wind that rounded the sail blew his yellow hair across his face. I did not move. If old Ealhstan was not afraid, I would not be afraid either. 'The fishes must eat too,' Sigurd said, his voice edged with threat. 'But they would find you a sorry meal, I think. Come here, Red Eye.'

I got to my feet and stumbled into a Norseman who cursed and shoved me away as though he'd been burned. My legs had not yet learned the rhythm of the sea. I tried to bend them with the ship's roll. 'Do you know who this is?' Sigurd asked, tugging the small carving of a one-eyed man which hung at his throat.

'It is Óðin, the chief of your gods, lord,' I replied, remembering how Sigurd's godi had drawn Griffin's lungs out of his back. 'The Blood Eagle was done for him. A heathen sacrifice.'

'How do you know of Óðin All-Father?' he asked, his eyes narrowed. 'Your people worship the White Christ. The Christians shout that our gods are dead. Yet we kill the English and take their silver. We go where we please and your Christ does nothing to stop us. How can our gods be dead?' He clenched a fist. 'We are the spearhead of our people. We are the first. Do you think we could cross the angry northern sea if our gods were dead and could not watch over us?'

I shrugged. 'Wulfweard our priest says those who worship false gods are the Devil's turds.' But Wulfweard
was
dead, killed by the man standing before me. 'That is what he used to say,' I said.

'That fat man with the cross who tried to poison me? That red-faced pig's bladder?' I nodded. 'Did you like him?' Sigurd asked, as though he'd tasted something foul.

'No, lord,' I replied. 'He was a toad's arsehole.'

Sigurd nodded. 'It was a good thing to kill the priest. He talked too much.' He smiled. 'I have not known many Christians, but all of them were in love with their own voices. The toad's arsehole said you are from Satan. Satan is your devious god? Like our Loki? Loki weaves more schemes than a hall full of women.'