Fenrir (10 page)

Had Jehan heard right? ‘Lady’? The merchant hadn’t said
domina
, which even non-Latin speakers would recognise. He’d said
era
, which was mildly less respectful but probably wouldn’t be known to the Norsemen. So there was a woman there, a disguised woman.

The merchant spoke in Norse: ‘Serve the wine, boy; don’t stand there staring at the monk. Haven’t you ever seen a god before? You’ll be seeing another soon enough if you don’t hurry up.’ More laughter. Then the exotic voice in Latin: ‘Take heart, lady. This is the easiest way to make them see what we want them to see.’

‘The lad’s crying again!’

‘The monk’s a cripple, boy, like you can see on any roadside. By Thor’s bulging bollocks they don’t breed ’em very tough in Miklagard, do they? Maybe we should try our luck there. If they don’t like deformity we could just show ’em Ofaeti’s bollocks and they’d open the gates to us. That’s more like it, get another. Let’s drink this lot dry and think about seeing the king later. We deserve a little reward after our labours, don’t we, lads?’

It couldn’t be her, could it?

‘Give me that.’ It was a cold, hard Norse voice, close by.

Under his breath, more felt than spoken, he said the word: ‘
Domina
.’

The confessor felt fingers brush his face, a gesture of tenderness. He had the strangest sensation, the only way he could have described it was to say that it felt like her, but he had never touched her, nor any woman that he could remember. Still, the touch seemed to carry her signature, the note of her, like a distinctive perfume, almost. The pain and the indignities had not daunted him. This did. No one had touched him but to lift or bathe him since he had been seven years old. A chill went through him, a delicious cold tingle from his forehead to his knees. He had warned people about the pleasures of the flesh since he had been old enough to speak in church but to him such pleasures had been only dry things, spectres raised from the Bible by the readings of his brother monks. He had despised them without knowing them. One touch, though, and he had understood. Who had done that? Was it her? For the first time in years he hated his blindness. He needed to see, to know.

The men settled down to drinking and the confessor felt the cold of night deepen.

He calmed himself by focusing on preparing to face Sigfrid. He would not beg or bargain for his life, he was determined. The monk knew that the longer he stayed in the camp, the more likely the Emperor Charles was to come and rescue him. A living saint could not be allowed in the hands of heathens. Jehan made himself forget the strange feelings that the touch had raised in him and tried to reason. What would he do if he was Sigfrid? The Viking was no fool and he must see that holding the monk was dangerous for him. Would he ransom him? Jehan doubted it. Why bother? The city would fall soon enough and then he’d have whatever was in it for free. No, while he lived, the confessor realised he was only a unifying force for Sigfrid’s enemies. The Viking king would kill him, he felt sure.

He turned his mind to prayer but could only think of the touch that had set his skin singing. Jehan was in some ways a humorous man, and it did strike him as ironic that he had discovered the sin of carnal pleasure just in time for it to admit him to hell. He made himself pray: ‘Heart of Jesus, once in agony, receive my sinner’s soul.’ In the morning, thought Jehan, he would see Christ’s face and, he hoped, be taken into his peace. He knew his fate among the Normans was God’s way of chastising him for his pride. It was Lucifer’s sin, and Jehan’s old weakness, to think yourself better than others. He had let them call him a saint, a living saint. Well saints suffered and died, so God had granted that he would do the same. The Norsemen had crushed three churchmen at Reims with great stones. He put it from his mind. He was going on a journey. The conveyance did not matter.

There was the sound of shouting and the men all around him got to their feet.

‘Who are you?’

‘King’s man Arnulf. Sigfrid wants to see you straight away. You have something of his.’

‘That will be me,’ said the eastern voice.

‘The Christian holy man, the flesh eater, he wants him.’

Perhaps, thought Jehan, he would be seeing the face of Jesus sooner than he had anticipated.

Confessor Jehan had been taken. In the rush of her flight and the fear of her capture Aelis had forgotten he had been at her side when the Norsemen attacked. And her brother, what of him? Eudes was a peerless warrior, a prodigy at arms according to his tutors. It had never even occurred to her that he could be hurt, let alone killed. But the Norsemen had walked away with the confessor. Eudes would never have allowed that while he had breath in his body. She went cold. Did her brother still live?

She had touched the confessor on impulse, to reassure him, or rather just to let him know he was not alone. She could imagine what he would say to that. ‘I am never alone; I am with God.’ And yet it had felt right to reach out to him.

Now her mind began to clear and she was terrified. Inside the church she had been unable to bring home to the confessor just how real her dreams had been. And then the wolf had appeared, a wolfman rather, who had given his life for her. The simmering sense of danger she had in her dreams of the wolf now spilled over into her waking life. What of that thing that had come from within her to speak to the mules – what was that? She tried to force her attention back to the present. The immediate danger from the Norsemen should be her concern, she thought, not the threat of devils.

The Norsemen were all very drunk and stumbled to find their weapons. She couldn’t tell what they were saying but they seemed worried. She kept away from the imp, fearing him. The others had become louder and more friendly with the drink; he had become withdrawn, more sullen, sitting at the side of the fire with a weak smile of contempt for his guffawing companions.

They all went down a slight slope to the biggest house in the area. It was a mean dwelling, as all those outside the city walls were, timber-framed with unfinished mud for its walls. It had been decorated in a hideous pastiche of the Roman style, its steep pitched roof timbered but daubed in painted checks to try to give the impression of tiles, leaving it more unpleasant-looking than if it had been built as a simple peasant’s dwelling in unadorned wood. Scraps of vellum hung at the windows. Aelis guessed the Norsemen had cut them through when they moved in, unused to anything to keep the draught out. It was a small thing, a very small thing, but it seemed to bring home their barbarity to her. How could the Franks lose to such a rabble? Because, as her brother said, the emperor was fat and lazy and preferred to fritter away his people’s fortune in bribes to the Normans rather than face them in the field as a man. Eudes himself had shown they could be beaten, and more cheaply than they could be bought, but Charles insisted on paying them to go away. Her brother had maintained that payments in gold guaranteed the Norsemen would come back. Payments in steel meant they would not.

They arrived at the house and she stopped the mules. Warriors were all around, some standing in full armour, some sitting down playing at dice, eating or sleeping. Then she remembered one of the packs contained her hair. What would the king make of that if he saw it? The Norseman called Fastarr put up his hand and addressed the warriors. She couldn’t understand what he said but Leshii, seeing her fear, whispered a translation.

‘This is the king, boys. Remember, for once, that I’m the one you elected speaker so let me do the talking. It’s me he struck the deal with and me he’ll want to hear from. I don’t want one word out of any of you, is that understood?’

‘What if he questions us directly about what went on?’

‘Say you just followed me. Any more questions, just say you don’t know and that I had a better view of it than you.’

‘What if he asks me about my cock?’ said Ofaeti, scratching himself. Leshii translated, seeming to find any mention of sex or the seats of corruption of the body vastly amusing.

‘Well, I could definitely get a better view of that than you. You can’t have seen it these fifteen years, you fat bastard.’

There was laughter but Fastarr quietened it.

‘Seriously, no jokes. Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to. Let’s get in and out of here as quick as we can. Get the monk.’

Aelis stood and watched as Confessor Jehan was dragged inside and Leshii busied himself with the mules. The Norseman had forgotten about him, too worried by the king’s summons and he wasn’t about to remind them. She felt cold and in her mind heard that voice again, the crack of a raven’s call.

She looked down the slope towards the river, towards the formidable but battered tower on the bridge. She’d be shot by her own people before she even got within shouting range if she tried to swim for it. The only way was north, into Neustria, much of which was under Norman control. She would have to bide her time to escape; besides, it was her Christian duty to do her best to protect the saint.

She was too much in demand, she thought. Wolfmen, ravens, the Danes, all seemed to want her. For the moment it was safer to be a mute idiot boy.

She touched the leading mule’s ears and it nuzzled into her. At least, she thought, she had won an ally there.

Jehan smelled roast meat and a fire scented with pine needles. Fresh reeds had been scattered on the floor. There was a hum of conversation in the house which stopped as he was brought in.

‘Lord Sigfrid,’ said Fastarr, ‘we have captured this man, one of their gods, and we bring him before you to await your pleasure.’

‘Did you get the girl?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Why not?’

‘She escaped us in the darkness of the south bank.’

‘So why are you not there? It will soon be light.’

‘We had lost her, sir, and this man is such a valuable commodity we thought you would want him straight away.’

‘Or did you get bored, want to return to your drink and your women, and thought you might throw me a scrap to keep me sweet?’

No one said anything and Jehan heard the king snort. There was a noise like metal on wood. A cup or a bowl on a table? A sword?

‘Did the Raven get her?’

‘Not as far I know, sir. He shot another shapeshifter but didn’t get her, I think.’

‘Doesn’t like getting his feathers wet,’ said Ofaeti.

Fastarr breathed out. The monk could sense he was irritated that his request for silence was going unheeded.

‘Another shapeshifter?’

‘Yes, sir. A wolfman.’

‘Where did he come from? Could he be the wolf that was prophesied?’

‘I don’t know, sir. Anyway, he’s dead.’

‘Unlikely to be that wolf then. Has anyone seen the Raven since?’

‘I expect he’ll be back in the woods with his sister, provided she hasn’t died.’

‘In which case he’ll be cooking her,’ said Ofaeti.

‘Shut up, Ofaeti,’ said Fastarr.

The king gave a dry laugh. ‘You don’t fancy cutting the crow’s throat, do you, Fastarr?’

‘I would have done it in the city if he didn’t move so quick, sir.’

‘Really? I wasn’t being serious. He’s useful to me and an ally. We just have a disagreement on the correct path forward, that’s all.’

‘Above my head all that, my lord.’

‘Good.’

The confessor heard footsteps approaching. Sigfrid’s voice said, ‘This is the god?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘The crippled saint. That’s not a god, Fastarr; you should get your terminology right. But you act for God, don’t you, priest?’

Jehan said nothing.

‘You’re renowned, do you know that? Your men-at-arms shout your name as they pour fire and stones down on my ships. Is he a mute? Is his tongue as twisted as his body? Does he speak our language?’

‘He can talk, I reckon,’ said Ofaeti. ‘He said something in their temple.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He wasn’t a god.’

‘Well, we’re agreed on something then. How did you come by him, Fastarr?’

‘He was with the girl in the temple.’

‘So you had her and you let her go?’

‘The wolfman got her out, sir. He’s a sorcerer; there was nothing I could do. I broke a good sword hitting him with it and the lads here snapped a few spears on his hide.’

Jehan doubted that. The Norsemen hadn’t mentioned it, and something so remarkable would have been bound to excite comment.

‘And yet the Raven did for him.’

‘Enchanted arrows, sir. They can only be harmed by magic, and the Raven is a well-known magician.’

‘I wonder. So what happened to the girl?’

‘She jumped out of a window on the south bank. Ran up into the woods, and that’s where we lost her.’

Jehan heard someone breathe out and pace the floor.

‘The reason I allow you Horda in my camp at all is that you are supposed to be great heroes. Mighty men! And yet a girl loses you in the dark.’

There was much shuffling of feet.