Crowbone (6 page)

‘So, we have caught them, then,’ he said and felt the relief of the men behind him, for it meant they could get off the horses and ease their arses. Even as he swung a leg over and slid to the ground, feeling his legs buckle a little, Ogmund kept staring at the figure on the hill. Unconcerned, was the word that sprang to his mind, as if the man was picking his teeth after a meal of bread and cheese. Ogmund felt a stir of unease and looked round at his own men for the comfort of seeing them sorting out weapons and tying chinstraps.

‘What are you thinking on this, Ogmund?’ asked Ulf.

That it smells, Ogmund wanted to say. That the monks whose mean little church was raided spoke of three men only and I have twenty, so should be feeling less like a maiden with a knowing hand on her knee.

Ogmund spread his hands and summed up the situation for his own benefit.

‘A monk had his face stirred up a little,’ Ogmund said, aware even as he spoke that it sounded like a whine. ‘Nothing of value was taken and some of their precious vellum was creased. Seems a strange crime to me, three raiders in ringmail and with good weapons and nothing of value stolen at all. Vellum and parchment taken and read and returned. When did you know ragged-arsed bandits who could read monk scratchings?’

‘Try telling that to Jarl Godred,’ Ulf replied shortly. It was clear he thought they should all be moving up the slope with shields set and weapons out; Ogmund had no doubt he would say as much to Godred as soon as he could flap his mouth close to the jarl’s ear and the jarl would have much to say to Ogmund as a result, none of it pleasant. Not for nothing was the ruler of this little part of Mann called Hardmouth – though never to his face.

For this reason, and because the weather was foul, Ogmund had not complained when not long since Godred chose Ulf to go and ferret out the truth of a report that two dead monks were to be found in a remote hut in the hills. Ulf had found them, two rat-eaten bodies. He was still bragging about it, though he had faced no threat, as Ogmund pointed out. Here was the opposite case, no serious crime had occurred yet the danger was very real. Ulf clearly wanted to show Ogmund, not to mention Jarl Godred, how ready he was to face any threat.

Ogmund sighed and waved the men forward, signalling for three to act as horse-holders. Ulf stayed mounted, which annoyed Ogmund since it made Ulf look like the leader. Ogmund would have liked to command him to get off, but knew that would look petty. He wanted to get back on his own mount but was not sure he had the strength of leg to spring up on it in his ringmail and felt the crushing despair of knowing there had been a time when he would have done it without thinking.

Too old, he thought grimly. Everyone knows it and Ulf grows impatient to be in my place.

The figure on the hill was suddenly close, so that Ogmund was startled at how he had daydreamed a mournful way to this point without realising it. He shook himself like a dog to sharpen his wits and stared at the man on the hill.

He was big and wore a helmet with ringmail covering the front of it so that none of his face could be seen at all; the eyes were no more than points of light in the cave of his shadowed face. It had gilded eyebrows and a raised crest and was altogether a fine helm, which had been greased and oiled carefully. The wearer had a long coat of ringmail, too, was thick-waisted, but not fat, had a shield slung on his back and one hand resting lightly on the hilt of a sword in a tooled leather sheath – though the hilt of the weapon was plain iron and sharkskin grip, without decoration.

All of it only increased the rise of Ogmund’s hackles. A little raiding man might well have a fine helmet, but he would not have bothered so much in the care of it, having almost certainly stolen it in the first place. Nor did this one stand like a little raiding man. He stood as if he owned the ground his feet were on.

‘Who are you?’ Ogmund demanded.

‘Gudrod Eiriksson from Orkney.’ The voice was metal-muffled, inhuman and that rocked a few back on their heels as much as the name. Bloodaxe’s son? Here in Mann?

‘Orkney does not rule here now,’ Ulf sneered.

‘Not now,’ replied Gudrod easily, ‘but soon enough again, maybe.’

Another man appeared from the trees, ring-mailed and armed, moving quietly to the left and slightly behind Gudrod. He had a sharp face and a weasel smile, hardly softened at all by the trim line of his beard. His nose was broad and spread out, as if he had been hit with a shovel and it fascinated Ogmund.

A third slid out, wearing a red tunic and green breeks, both so faded they held only a distant laugh of colour. He had a sword thrust through a ring in his belt but wore no armour at all, not even a helmet, and his face was round and boy-smooth, unmarked by war or weather so that the black hair which framed it made the youth look like an angel Ogmund had seen painted on the rough wall of the big church in Holmtun. Yet this angel moved strangely; like a padding wolf.

‘You robbed a church,’ Ulf went on and Ogmund finally had had enough. The casual trio, the whole raid, had him ruffled as a wet cat and Ulf taking on the mantle of leader here was more than enough.

‘When I need you to speak, Ulf Bjornsson,’ he said, low and harsh as grinding quernstones, ‘I will find a dog and have it bark.’

Someone snickered at the back and Ulf jerked his reins so hard the horse threw up its head in protest and scattered bit-foam.

‘You lead here?’ demanded Gudrod and Ogmund nodded. The man with the squashed nose laughed, a high, thin sound. Ogmund saw his top lip stick to his teeth; that sign of nerves gave him a little comfort. He realised, suddenly, that the man had no bone in his nose, which gave it the look.

‘There was no harm done in the church,’ Gudrod went on easily in that hollow-helmet voice. ‘It was a misunderstanding. We sought enlightenment only, not riches. A priest decided that we were not Christian enough for him. And here is me, baptised and everything, as fine a Christian as yourself, whoever you are.’

‘Ogmund Liefsson, of Jarl Godred’s Chosen,’ Ogmund replied automatically, cursing himself for his lack of manners.

‘Godred? Is that Godred, son of Harald? The one who is called Hardmouth much of the time?’ demanded Gudrod, his light, amused tone still apparent even filtered through the ringmail over his mouth. ‘Does he still bellow like a bull with a wasp up its arse?’

A few men chuckled and Ogmund turned a little to silence them.

‘What enlightenment?’ demanded Ogmund, deciding to ignore Gudrod’s question. ‘What brings the last of Eirik Bloodaxe’s sons all the way to a wee chapel in the wilds of Mann? Is your mam looking for a priest to confess her sins to?’

The implication that there was no-one closer who would absolve Gunnhild did not wing its way past those behind Ogmund and there were more chuckles, which Ogmund was pleased to hear.

Gudrod may have scowled under his helmet, but only he knew. The hands shifted, spreading wide in a graceful gesture, like a smile.

‘We sought a priest, certainly,’ Gudrod replied. ‘Though it appears he is not to hand. So we will leave as peacefully as we came.’

‘Ha!’ roared Ulf. ‘You and your handful will get what you deserve – the end of a rope.’

The head turned to him and even Ogmund felt the wither of those unseen eyes.

‘Whisht, boy,’ said the metal voice. ‘Men are speaking here.’

Ulf howled then and Ogmund heard the snake-hiss rasp as he dragged his blade out.

‘Stay!’ he roared out, but Ulf had blood in his eye and was kicking the horse, which had started to doze and was now sprung awake. Shocked, it leaped forward and, without stirrups, Ulf swayed off-balance, so that his sword waved wildly.

‘Od,’ said the flat-nosed man. ‘Kill him.’

The beautiful boy-man moved like silk through a finger-ring. Ogmund had never seen anything move so fast – yet he saw it clearly enough, like a form in a storm-night, etched for an eyeblink against the dark by a flash of lightning. The figure flicked the sword up and out of the belt-ring with the fingers of his left hand, swept it from the air with his right, took one, two, three steps and leaped, turning in the air as he did so, bringing weight to the stroke.

There was a dull clunk and a wet hiss, then the man called Od landed lightly on his feet and turned to stride, unconcerned, back to where he had started. Something round and black bounced once or twice and rolled almost to Ogmund’s feet.

The horse cantered on, then tasted the iron stink of blood, squealed and tried to run from it, so that the body on its back, blood pluming from the raggled neck, tipped, slumped and finally fell off into the broom.

There was silence. Ogmund looked at the thing at his feet and met Ulf’s astounded left eye; the right had shattered in the fall and watery blood crept sluggishly from the severed neck.

‘This is Od,’ Gudrod said in his inhuman voice, waving one hand at the angel. ‘He is by-named Hrafndans.’

Ravendance. It was such a good by-name that men sucked in their breath at it, as if they could see those black birds on branches, joyously bobbing from foot to foot as they waited for the kills this youth would leave them. They looked at this Od, then, as he took to one knee, sword grasped by the hilt and held like a cross, praying. It was when he licked Ulf’s blood from his blade that they all realised that it was Tyr Of Battles, the Wolf’s Leavings, he was praying to, dedicating Ulf’s life to the god. There was a flurry of hands as they crossed themselves.

‘You should know that Od is only one of my crew. Nor did I come from Orkney on a little faering,’ Gudrod said. ‘I am the son of Queen Gunnhild and King Eirik Bloodaxe, after all.’

Ogmund licked his lips. Once he had had to beat a horse until it bled before it would cross a tiny rivulet to the green sward on the other side, and when it did so, the leap took it into the sucking bog that had only looked like a firm bank. Ogmund had spent a long, sweating time hanging on while the horse plunged and struggled itself back to trembling safety, knowing that if he fell in his ringmail he was doomed.

He felt that same fear now, glancing round at the trees where men were hidden, he was sure. How many ships would Bloodaxe’s son bring from Orkney? His sister was married on to the jarl, in the name of God – how many ships would he not bring? The trees hid long hundreds of men in Ogmund’s mind.

‘So we will leave,’ Gudrod ended, his voice cold as the metal rings which hid his face. ‘You will not stop us.’

Which is what happened. Ogmund considered the sight of them vanishing from him, then stirred Ulf’s head with one foot.

‘Gather this up,’ he said. ‘We will take him back and tell everyone that he died for pride and stupidity and that the three miserable bandits who raided were actually a prince of Orkney and many ships of men. Though they outnumbered us, our fierceness chased them off.’

The others agreed, because they had been too feared to fight and knew it, a secret shame they did not want out in the world. It began to rain a little, a cooling mist that refreshed Ogmund as he watched Ulf loaded like a sack on to his uneasy horse. Ogmund smiled to himself, careful not to let it show on his face; it had not been such a bad day.

Two miles away, the three miserable bandits rested on a knee and Gudrod took off the helmet, so that he could raise his face, like a bairn’s fresh-skelped arse, to the cool mirr of rain. His short, curled beard pearled with moisture.

‘No Drostan,’ Gudrod declared. ‘But at least we learned something from those monks – old Irish-Shoes is here on Mann, in Holmtun.’

‘Aye, well – the church in Holmtun was where Hoskuld said the priest lived. Olaf Cuarans will have him,’ Erling said with a certainty he did not entirely feel. ‘His hand is closer, after all – he rules here as well as Dyfflin, no matter what Hardmouth Godred MacHarald thinks.’

‘You would think that the priests of this place would know this Drostan,’ Gudrod said, baffled. ‘What news he brought – of a dead companion – is worthy of being written down by them who scratch down everything that goes on. If they did, they kept that writing hidden well – there is no mention of a monk called Drostan coming to them with news of two dead in the hills. You would also think that Godred Hardmouth would know that and tell his Chosen Men.’

Erling shrugged, having no explanation for any of it. Truth was, he had never thought to find any monk or priest and that tales of Eirik’s famous axe were just that – tales. As for searching out writings – well, none of them here could read and if the monks had admitted to it, the document they scribbled on would have to have been taken to someone who could unravel the Latin of it. He kept his lip stitched on all this, all the same, for Gudrod was Eirik’s son and the Witch-Queen his mother.

‘Olaf Cuarans is where we go next,’ Gudrod said, settling the helmet in the crook of his arm. ‘Old Irish-Shoes wants my da’s axe, that is certain and he is sleekit as a wet seal – it would not surprise me if he told no-one his plans, not even his hard-mouthed jarl here.’

Erling swallowed thickly at the idea of sailing into Holmtun proper and facing the might of the Dyfflin Norse.

‘Is that wise, lord? Orkney and Ireland have never been friends.’

‘My mother wishes it,’ Gudrod said and his tolling bell voice was as hard metal as if he still wore the helmet, ‘so we must find a way.’

‘She will have me be a king yet,’ he added bitterly and ran one hand through the iron raggles of his thinning hair. ‘Since I am the youngest.’

Erling got stiffly to his feet, saying nothing, though he knew that Gunnhild’s youngest had in fact been called Sigurd, by-named the Slaver. Klypp the Herse had killed him some time ago, after Sigurd forced himself on his wife while a guest in his hall. Gudrod was not so much Gunnhild’s youngest as the only one of her sons left alive.

This did not, he thought to himself sullenly, give him the right to put them all in danger.

‘Next time,’ he said bitterly, ‘we will take all the crew with us, I am sure.’

Gudrod only grunted, something between laughter and scorn, then jerked his fleshy chin towards Od, who was picking the congealed blood from the blade as he cleaned it, sucking his fingers now and then. He looked up and smiled blandly at Gudrod and Erling from under the dagged black curtain of his hair.