Crowbone (29 page)

On the other hand, they had howed up eight men, including Kaup. Sixteen more were wounded, but only one would not recover from it – Rovald lay coughing blood up and Gjallandi said that the giant’s spear throw, though it had not gone through the ringmail, had broken something in Rovald’s chest. It did not help, Crowbone thought moodily, that the men know it was my spear.

‘The Oathsworn.’

It was a dragon growl, thick with the bitter rheum of hate and Crowbone did not need to look round to know who it was.

‘The Oath is broken,’ Mar rasped, the scar on his face like a badly-done hem, for Gjallandi was poor with a needle. ‘Even by your own heathen rites, it is broken.’

‘The ones who broke it paid for it,’ Crowbone answered sharply. ‘And you gave your oath also to me, Mar. Twice oathed, twice cursed if you break it.’

It was not the time to give out such a warning, Onund thought, when he saw Mar’s eyes flare like the fire coals. Besides, there were too many oaths flying about here for the Icelander’s comfort and he saw that the gods of the White Christ and Asgard faced each other like two snarling shieldwalls. No good would come it, for men would have to choose where they stood in the end.

‘You should have let me stitch that,’ the girl said, stepping under their rough awning and into the firelight. She knelt by Mar and turned his cheek to see the scar better, but he shied his chin away from her. Her hand drooped like a willow branch, but only for a moment.

Then the head of her came up in a defiant tilt, the same way it had when she strolled down from her perch in the tree and smiled sweetly at Crowbone. The yellow bitch had loped from her side and sat, tongue lolling, close to Crowbone, looking at him, the tail moving a little.

‘You could have had my head off,’ Crowbone had growled and her smile grew more honeyed still at that. She went and plucked her arrow from the ground where Murrough had left it after his axe work.

‘Instead, it is Raghnall’s head which is off,’ Bergliot had answered and nothing more had been said between them from then until now.

Raghnall’s head had been severed and delivered to the High King, though Crowbone had heard nothing from it and that made him frown. He needed praise and the salt of gold to keep these muttering dogs at bay.

Murrough paused in cleaning the stubborn remains of Raghnall from his axe and looked up at the girl, smiling.

‘Come and sit by me, girl,’ he said amiably and the tension slid away slowly into the dark. Bergliot graciously accepted a seat beside Murrough and a bowl of whatever had been in the pot, while Crowbone tried not to scowl; he was not sure whether Murrough was being bland or clever in what was surely wooing, but he did not like it – liked the fact of that even less.

She looked too fine, Crowbone thought, her black hair like a river of pitch above the
brat
thrown round her shoulders and fastened with a fine pin. All plunder, he knew, given to her by various of those round the fire, who had thought of her in the middle of all that blood and guddling in bodies for loot. The thought of what they wanted in return made Crowbone burn deeper inside than any rage he had known.

Just then, another figure appeared, making heads turn. It was a tall man, with a cloak thrown over one shoulder and a spear he held like a staff; Crowbone had seen him before, standing behind Gilla Mo at Cnobha and filling his cup whenever it emptied.

‘The High King asks for you,’ the man said politely enough and with a little bow to it.

‘Aha,’ said Svenke, still basking in the glow of his ringmail, ‘more rewards for our brave efforts.’

‘Just so,’ Mar spat. ‘Perhaps he will give us some of those new thralls he has marched by us.’

‘You are just annoyed because you did not get an iron Irish sark like Svenke here,’ Murrough said as Crowbone levered himself to his feet, stiff after the battle and the sitting.

‘Come with me,’ he said to Murrough, who grinned with delight at the idea, ‘in case I need the Irish tongue.’

He broke off his walking after the messenger to look down at Mar, who kept his eyes fixed on the fire.

‘If the High King does offer me a thrall or two,’ he said, the promise of gold reward from Mael Sechnaill lending him new resolve, ‘I will ask for a black one for you, to replace the one you lost. Meanwhile, while I am gone, improve your mood, for your face is putting the fire out.’

It was a vicious slap, particularly about Kaup and he felt the twin embers of Mar’s hate burn his shoulderblades, but did not look back as they moved through the dark, where other fires glowed and men, blood-dyed with the light, looked up as he passed.

One or two acknowledged him with a brief ‘heya’ or a wave and Crowbone knew Gjallandi had been busy spreading the saga of Crowbone’s fight with Raghnall. He was sure there was no mention of a woman in it, all the same.

To the right of where they picked a way through the flowering field of fires, was the dark earth and rampart wall of Dyfflin, now under siege. Crowbone knew Mael Sechnaill had no
val-slöngva,
the war-slings the Romans of Constantinople called
ballista
and, without them, the Irish would have to storm the walls or starve out the defenders. He knew the harbour was open and, though the Irish had taken some ships in a lesser trade harbour just outside the walls to the south, they did not have enough vessels to blockade the place.

So it would be over the walls, he thought to himself. He had the sick feeling in his bowels that this was really what Mael Sechnaill wanted to see him about – the Oathsworn, leading the way over the walls of Dyfflin. Crowbone did not think any of his men would follow him if he ordered it and would have been away with them if he could – but he had come into this mess because he needed to know what Olaf Irish-Shoes had found out from Hoskuld. He needed Hoskuld. If any of them still lived, they lived in Dyfflin.

The High King had a grand tent, a maze of poles and lines and as big as a steading, striped like a sail. Outside it was a fire in a brazier and guards who grinned at the messenger and stood with their spears butted under a tall pole which held the head of Raghnall.

Inside was all guttering lamps and harp music, a contrast with the dark that left Crowbone and Murrough blinking. There were, when either of them could see, benches filled with the lesser kings and their entourage, clustered round a raised wooden dais where the High King himself sat, listening to his harper, the blind
Ollumh
Meartach, who stopped playing a heartbeat before the messenger rapped a bench with his spear.

‘Prince Olaf of Norway and Murrough macMael.’

The High King looked up and there were a few cheers from those who had warmed to Crowbone and the Oathsworn after the day’s fighting. Mael Sechnaill grinned; even Gilla Mo looked pleased, though that was shown only by his lack of scowl.

‘Your
val-haukr
showed its talons today,’ Mael Sechnaill declared with a grin and Crowbone frowned at that –
val-haukr
meant ‘carrion-hawk’ in the Norse and he did not care for that description of his new banner. Wisely he said nothing.

‘Mark you,’ Mael Sechnaill went on, ‘there are folk here who would not, perhaps, agree with you.’

Bewildered, Crowbone looked cautiously around as he walked to the ushered place at table. Then a short, stocky man stood up, his blue tunic trimmed with red and a deal of silver sparkling at his throat and wrist. He offered Crowbone a stiff bow, as did another barrel of a man next to him and a woman, young and pretty in a long-nosed way with her dress cut tight and low, designed to have the effect it had on Crowbone’s groin. Not worn for him, he noticed. For Mael Sechnaill.

‘This is Glúniairn, son of Amlaib,’ said Mael Sechnaill and the stocky man bowed a little.

‘The other is his brother, Sitric,’ the High King went on, bland as milk. ‘This is Queen Gormflaeth.’

Crowbone reeled but managed not to gawp or make a sound. Murrough was not so good and let out a ripping curse, which he covered with a fit of coughing. The pair sat down, stiff-faced, grim as wet cliffs while Crowbone reined in the plunge of his thoughts.

Olaf’s queen and his two sons – Odin’s bones, half-brothers to the man whose head was stuck on a spear outside …

‘Prince,’ he said eventually, for he knew that Glúniairn was the Irish way of saying Jarnkne, Iron Knee, just as Amlaib was how they mush-mouthed Olaf, but he did not know if the man liked to be known only by his by-name. Mael Sechnaill chuckled.

‘King Glúniairn it is, since his da has given up his High Seat and taken himself off,’ the High King said and turned, all sweet innocence, to the glowering Iron Knee. ‘Where was it, now?’

‘Hy,’ Sitric growled before his brother could speak and had back a squinted glare for it. ‘The death of Raghnall and the day’s ills broke him entire. He has took himself to the monastery at Hy and left us to deal with the mess of it.’

His voice was bitter, the words sludge in his mouth and Crowbone saw the mess and how the brothers and the wife had to deal with it. Olaf’s eldest son was here to make peace, to beg for the High Seat his da had disowned, though it meant being under the rule of the High King of Ireland. The quivering cleavage of their stepmother, Gormflaeth, was the seal on it.

He should have been leaping for joy at not having to go over the walls of the place, but Crowbone only had one thought, even as he asked polite bland questions that revealed Hoskuld was not held by Dyfflin’s Danes and that Olaf Irish-Shoes was gone.

He could do nothing but brood on it, all the same, while the hall roared and reeked. Folk drank until it came down their nose and then spewed most of it up and started in to drinking more. There was boasting and shouting, arm-wrestling and some frantic humping, not limited to the shadowed corners either. A few fights broke out, bones were flung, benches overturned and, at one point, a pole was split, so that the High King himself, red-faced and greasy-chopped, launched himself into the affray, cursing those who were destroying his fine tent.

In short, it was as satisfying an Irish victory feast as any seen in the land, according to Murrough, shortly before his nose sank into a puddle of drink and he started in to snoring.

Crowbone had sipped, watching the two brothers and their stepmother, who were equally light on their drink. At the end of the roaring and struggling round the pitfire, the High King staggered out of the ruck, his arm round the shoulders of a man whose long straight hair, streaked a little with grey as if a gull had shat on him, was plastered to a streaming face with eyes like a mad owl.

‘Dómnall Claen mac Lorcán,’ the High King declared blearily. ‘Sure, it is good to have you back among us, so it is.’

‘Good,’ agreed the man, who clearly wanted to say more but had little control of either legs or lips, for he slipped and sat, then giggled a little. His eyes rolled and he sank back on the reeking straw and snored.

‘Behold,’ Mael Sechnaill declared, waving one paw at the fallen figure, then clawing his way back to his High Seat, ‘the king of Leinster.’

He sat down and gasped, blinking and grinning at the two brothers. Then he leered at Gormflaeth.

‘You should … know him well. He was your guest for some time.’

‘A year or two,’ Iron Knee admitted, his face wooden as the table he leaned on. ‘His freedom is part of the agreement making peace between us.’

‘Jus’ so,’ Mael Sechnaill said, nodding. He belched, then he looked slyly at Gormflaeth and Crowbone realised the High King was not nearly as deep in drink as he appeared.

‘My dear,’ Mael Sechnaill said, his words grime on her skin. ‘Patience. I have one more kingly act to perform, then you and I can discuss other parts of the agreement of peace.’

Gormflaeth had the grace to flush a little, but she also wriggled in her dress, so that the cleavage deepened. Mael Sechnaill cleared his throat and blinked.

‘Reward,’ he said and though he spoke to Crowbone, he was unable to stop staring at what was on show. ‘Suitable. For your part in the victory. State your … what do you want?’

‘As many men as will follow me,’ Crowbone said, ‘rather than stay as thralls to the Irish.’

Mael Sechnaill blinked away from Gormflaeth to Crowbone, then he sat back and laughed.

‘No gold? Silver?’

Crowbone was tempted, but he had the riding of this horse now and he knew what he had to do. He had seen the shuffling prisoners and knew them for what they were – hired men, not about to stand and die for old Olaf Irish-Shoes; they would be looking for a way out of their predicament.

Mael Sechnaill saw it too, stood up and held out his hand for Gormflaeth to take.

‘As many as will follow you,’ he said to Crowbone, ‘as long as it is out of Ireland and out of Dyfflin. How you do that is your affair but if you are here after a week, matters will alter. I do not want the likes of you with a bunch of sword-wavers at your back plootering about Ireland causing trouble.’

He went off, towing Gormflaeth in his wake, pausing only to turn a snoring body out of her path with one elegant toe. Crowbone watched the brothers watching their stepma whore herself to the High King of Ireland.

‘You should have taken the gold,’ Sitric said eventually, looking sourly at Crowbone. ‘The best of Dyfflin’s fighting men died on Tara – but you will have no shortage of offers from those nithings who gave up. They were not worth the hire.

‘You will only lose them again,’ he added, taking a sudden, deep swallow from his cup. There was a burst of singing, loud and enthusiastic, but it was not the bad key that made Sitric slam the soapstone beaker down so that froth leaped out.

‘Fucking Irish,’ he muttered. ‘Time we were gone from this feast, brother – they have started in to bad singing.’

‘You only waited for me,’ Crowbone said, ‘so let us now get to the meat of the matter.’

Iron Knee’s head came up at that and his blue-sky eyes clashed with Crowbone’s stare.

‘I will not lose the crew I pick,’ Crowbone said, ‘for I will be gone from Ireland and Dyfflin within the week. Is that not so, Jarnkne?’

‘Magic them all wings, will you?’ Sitric sneered. ‘I have heard the tales of you, boy, such an event will be interesting to watch.’