Crowbone (30 page)

Crowbone kept his eyes on Iron Knee.

‘Ships,’ he said. ‘Not wings. You will give me ships. The High King will give me men.’

Sitric glowered, waiting for his brother’s cutting comment. When none came he looked uneasy.

‘Four,’ Iron Knee said eventually, then found his mouth so dry he had to grab up his own cup and drain it. ‘Good
drakkar
all of them. You will fill them easily enough from those hired men who do not want to end up thralls to the Irish.’

Sitric’s eyebrows went to his hairline and he stared for a moment, then exploded upright.

‘Are you fucking crazed?’ he demanded. ‘This is the louse who killed our brother. Who was part of the army that ruined us almost out of Dyfflin entirely. Ships … four …’

‘Will you do it?’ Iron Knee said to Crowbone, ignoring his spluttering brother. ‘If you do not, I will know and I will not rest until you are dead in the foulest way I can dream. I dream very foul these days, Prince of Norway.’

Crowbone merely nodded.

‘In three days, then,’ Iron Knee declared, suddenly standing up. Bewildered, still working his mouth wetly, Sitric stared from one to the other.

‘Do what?’ he growled. ‘What is he to do?’

‘Come,’ Iron Knee said to his brother, smiling gently. ‘Time for us to go home to Dyfflin, where I will explain the game of kings to you, who may one day need the knowing of it.’

Crowbone sat for a time, listening to the mourn of voices, the odd squeal and distant sigh. The king of Leinster stirred, woke up, bokked to one side, then rolled over and fell blissfully asleep; the smell of ale vomit slithered to Crowbone’s nose, as apt a stinking seal on what had just been concluded as any.

The victory at Tara had opened up all doors for Mael Sechnaill, who got the Dyfflin Norse broken and contrite, the king of Leinster owing him life and freedom and Olaf’s queen as a wife, which made him overlord of Dyfflin as well.

Iron Knee got the crown of Dyfflin, even if he had to bend the knee to the High King. Sitric got an education in the game of kings.

For it all to work, though – for Iron Knee to be confirmed truly as Dyfflin’s king, for Gormflaeth to stay a queen and for Mael Sechnaill, good Christian that he was, to take her as a wife – a father and a husband and an old king had to die.

Men and ships, Crowbone thought. Enough of a price for the murder of Olaf Irish-Shoes, once he had told all he knew.

Sand Vik, Orkney, middle of Haustmánuður (double-month – October) …

THE WITCH-QUEEN’S CREW

Outside was cold and bright with sun, but the hall was dim, grey-smoked, dappled here and there where the light broke in through the open doors. Thralls chattered cheerfully, sweeping out the long beaten earth floor with birch brooms brought at great expense from Norway, scrubbing benches and tables; the sharp catch of ash and old rushes and white lye made Erling clear his throat.

‘The days are even, light and dark balanced,’ she said in her husk whisper voice and Erling wondered how Gunnhild knew this, since she never seemed to venture out. Even now, while the hall bustled and flared with life and thrall work-songs, she had closeted them in her private sleeping place, shaped like the prow of a dragon-ship and right into the dark of the place.

‘From now,’ she went on, ‘night will eat the light.’

Erling watched what he could see of Gudrod, which was only the dim gleam of a cheekbone, the bright glint of an eye as he turned; he could not see Od at all, but the boy was there all the same, close by, his breath a mist from the shadows like grey-blue smoke.

‘All the more reason to hurry. The monk-scratching reveals the place,’ Gudrod said, his bass rumble annoyed because this place was so lacking light that he could not set up a ’tafl board. The growl of him seemed to come up through Erling’s boots in the smallness of the room; once she had ruled all Norway and then the lands round Jorvik, now Gunnhild, Mother of Kings, barely had space to stretch out, small though she was.

‘Hurry,’ she answered and it was scorn-sharp. Erling saw her face, then, as she leaned into the faint light of the stinking fish-oil lamp high in the wall sconce, saw the strange beauty of it, as if seen through a spiderweb – saw the eyes that raked her last son with disbelief at his stupidity.

Gudrod leaned into it, as he had done since all his brothers had gone under to treachery and blade. Mother of Kings, he thought bitterly, except the last of her sons is not one. Not that she was much of a mother – he had seen others, listened to men talk of their ma and knew the difference between what they knew and what he had suffered.

‘You do not hurry to this place,’ she said, sliding back into the dark. ‘This is a Sami place, deep in the Finnmark. Of course they would take the Bloodaxe back – they gave it in the first place.’

Her voice had grown sealskin soft and dreamy, which made the hairs on Erling’s arm stand like bristles. He heard Gudrod shift and grunt a little and knew he did not care for it much either; the air in the room grew thick, from too many people breathing it – or
seidr
, Erling did not know which.

‘Is she working magic?’ demanded a voice, in the sort of bad whisper that almost made Erling cry out. Od leaned forward, his beautiful face frown-creased; Erling felt like whimpering as Gunnhild put her face back into the light and laughed, but only with her voice, for her mask did not change at all.

‘You are curious, lovely boy,’ she answered. ‘That is good. You are like Odin’s own raven for the knowing of matters – but take care, for even ravens can be caught and plucked.’

Od opened his mouth and Erling moved swiftly to clamp his wrist so hard that Od stopped and looked down at the grip, puzzled. Gunnhild sank back into the darkness, with a sound like bats flying out of a dark hole; laughter, Erling realised.

‘Eirik did not win Odin’s Daughter,’ she said suddenly. ‘It was gifted to him, by me, as were all his sons and I cannot say whether birthing any one was harder than what I did to get that Bloodaxe from the Sami. I had it from them, from the two brothers, who should have returned it to the goddess but gave it to me instead … It was gifted before to other kings, all of the Yngling line. It was made by the smiths of the Sami and to them it has again returned.’

She trailed off and Erling paused, remembered the tales of her, of how she had gone as a young girl to learn from two Sami wizards. There were lascivious, tongue-on-lip rumours of what she had done until Eirik had come for her, though no man had ever mentioned it to her face – or his. Like Freyja and the
duergar
necklace-makers, he thought to himself, she fucked the prize right out of them.

‘I am wondering who took it back to them. Not those two Sami brothers, who were well dead by then. Was it Svein, the King’s Key, who carried it? If not, he knew who it was who took it to her. I remember Svein. He did not like me.’

Her voice was a dreaming rasp and Erling went cold at the idea that she might see into his thought-cage and almost leaped up there and then to leave. Gudrod’s voice, strangely, lashed him to the bench.

‘No man likes you,’ he said to his mother, which was harsh and bold. ‘Does it matter? We know where the axe is now. All we have to do is get it and use it to put me on a throne. That is what you want, is it not, mother?’

Gunnhild made a ticking sound with tongue and teeth.

‘Let me tell you of the Yngling kings,’ she said, her voice slow and circling as mist tendrils. ‘They all had Odin’s Daughter and the only one who died old was Aun.’

Gudrod said nothing, while sullen rolled off him in waves, tangible as heat. Erling cleared his throat.

‘The others?’ he asked, knowing the answer but hoping for better news.

‘One fell in vat of mead and drowned,’ she said. ‘Fjölne. He went to see Frodi in Zealand and a great feast had been prepared. Frodi had a large house where he stored a huge vessel full of very strong mead. Above the vessel there was an opening in the ceiling so that mead might be poured into it by men standing in the loft. After the banquet, King Fjölne was taken to stay the night in an adjoining loft, but he rose in the night and stumbled through the wrong door to fall into the great vat and drown in mead.’

Od clapped his hands and laughed with delight until Erling hit him on the shoulder and shushed him. Gunnhild never seemed to notice.

‘King Swegde then took the High Seat and the axe, but a black
duergar
lured him into the runestone which sat on his land and he was never seen again,’ she went on, weaving the words, thick as tapestry. ‘Then there was Vanlande, who annoyed a Sami woman called Driva. Great with power was Driva and Vanlande died, even though he was days away from her.’

The admiration her voice shivered Erling and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, so that he could not even swallow.

‘There were many others, murdered by plots from vengeful wives taken by force, or dragged out by the folk they ruled when drought or famine showed they had failed – King Dag had a hayfork through his eyes from a work-thrall over a quarrel regarding a sparrow, of all things. Alric and Eric, two brothers and great horsemen, quarrelled over Odin’s Daughter and beat each other to death with the iron bits of their bridles. King Jorund was hanged by Gylog of Halogaland when the axe betrayed him and he lost a battle. Egil was gored to death by a bull which had been wyrded for sacrifice by that axe, but escaped.’

She stopped. There was silence, where the distant thread of thrall song was like a lifeline back to the light of the world.

‘They all accepted the Bloodaxe,’ she added dreamily, ‘and it made them kings, then betrayed them in the end, for they were not worthy of it. Not even my Eirik.’

‘King Aun,’ Od said, a slapped stone in the still pool of that dark dreaming place, so that Erling and Gudrod both shifted with the surprise of it. Gunnhild’s moth-chuckle rustled.

‘Wise, beautiful boy,’ she crooned. ‘Yes – King Aun grew old with the axe. No warrior that king and one less worthy to hold Odin’s Daughter cannot be dreamed. Yet he was cunning and made a trade with Loki, giving that one – who is now the Devil the Christ-followers fear – the sacrifice of a son in return for a bite of Audun’s apples. Those fruits keep the gods young and a single chew gave Aun ten years of life. Nine of his ten sons were spilled on an altar stone by Odin’s Daughter, but the last killed the
godi
with it and escaped, so Aun died, drooling like an infant, fed with a spoon and hated by all who were near him.’

‘I am taking five ships,’ Gudrod rasped when this was done. ‘I will sail before the winter ice closes Bjarmaland.’

We might make it there, Erling thought to himself mournfully, but the ice will close and we may never make it back. All for a blade on a pole that gave no good of itself to the owner.

‘Six ships,’ Gunnhild replied. ‘You are taking me.’

There was silence for a long heartbeat, then Gudrod sighed.

‘It is long and cold and dangerous,’ he said. ‘We will have to overwinter in the north, with luck in Gjesvaer, which is a miserable hole at the best of times. Haakon of Norway may also be searching for this prize, for I am believing this monk went to Norway. You will also have half a year of darkness to endure.’

A long dark, Erling thought, was no threat to the likes of Gunnhild. She shifted and brought her face slithering back into the dim light. Her eyes seemed to be no more than sockets in a skull and, for a heart-crushing moment, Erling thought she had read his mind.

‘This priest is trying a cunning plan,’ Gunnhild said, her voice sharp as a ship’s adze. ‘Speaking of monks – you did not kill the one on Hy, did you? The one who read for you.’

Gudrod blinked and shifted, then spread his hands.

‘I would have had to slaughter them all …’ he began and his mother made that disapproving ticking sound, which was shout enough to silence him.

‘Then the next man along will know what the monk wrote,’ she pointed out and sat back into the dark, a long sigh sounding like her last breath. ‘It will be Tryggve’s son.’

‘That boy,’ she added, her voice darker than the black. ‘That cursed son of Astrid. You should have killed him when you killed his father and been done with the brood.’

‘He was not even born,’ Gudrod said, his voice rising and she hissed at him, as like a snake as to make Erling shrink away.

‘Then you should have killed the mother.’

Even the thrall singing had stopped. Erling looked longingly at where he thought the door was, the way back to light and the world of men.

‘You play the game of kings well on cloth, my son,’ Gunnhild sneered, ‘but not in life. The Sami have Odin’s Daughter and you will need me to get it from them.’

No-one spoke; the seconds scraped past like claws on slate until Gunnhild sighed.

‘Go away,’ she said suddenly. ‘I need to work.’

Erling scampered from the place, needing no other instruction and not even wanting to dwell on what work she was doing. Outside, he sucked in the salt air and the sparkle of the sea.

Od was last out, ambling easily, the sword swinging nakedly from the ring at his belt. He stopped and yawned, then looked at Gudrod, who stood with lowered eyebrows, scowling out to sea but not looking at it.

‘Why do you want this axe?’ the boy demanded. ‘All it brings is death to those not worthy. If your da was not worthy, what makes you think that you are?’

Erling groaned silently to himself; the boy was always asking such questions and there was no way to learn him out of it. Gudrod stirred and turned slowly.

‘My mother,’ he said.

Od pursed his lips, looked back at where they had come from and nodded.

Isle of Hy (Iona), not long after …

CROWBONE’S CREW

THEY splashed ashore at the Port of the Coracle, which was nothing much more than a good shingle bay, whooping with the stinging cold of the water. Crowbone went with a strong party up to the highest point, no more than a bump; Murrough said it was called
Carn-Cul-ri-Eiriin
– the Hill With Its Back To Ireland – where the wind caught them like a blow, stinging tears to the eyes.