Fenrir (27 page)

Astarth had the mules alongside his friends and the berserkers leaped for the animals. Three got on and another three managed to clasp the packs as the animals turned for the far shore. Only Ofaeti had run out of energy. He stood swaying in the stream like a drunk man trying to remember the way home.

More arrows. Three horses had entered the river and were wading towards them. Ofaeti fell in a slow tumble, waving his arms for balance. As he fell he managed to twist and grip the riverbed, crouching on all fours facing the surging current. More arrows, but this time coming from the opposite bank. The berserkers were now firing back at the approaching horsemen. Jehan stepped forward, but the horsemen were too near. He might get ten paces dragging Ofaeti but no more. The confessor faced the oncoming riders.

There were three of them, their horses moving on with high and careful feet. A ridiculous situation had occurred. Now the berserks on the far bank were trying to ride the mules back to their friend’s aid, But the animals had made one return journey through the powerful current and were refusing to make another. The beserk called Vani was wading back but his progress was very slow.

The three horsemen had spears. Jehan didn’t know what to do. He helped Ofaeti to stand and the big berserk drew his sword, but it was all he could do to keep his feet, let alone fight.

Jehan went to take the weapon from him. Ofaeti gripped it and wouldn’t release it.

‘Please,’ said Jehan. ‘You can’t fight them without your legs.’

The Viking nodded and passed over the sword. The monk strode towards his attackers. The riders were unused to fighting from the saddle but had no choice. If they got down they’d be in exactly the same situation as Ofaeti, unable to balance, vulnerable to arrow or spear should their enemy allow his friends a clear shot.

Forward the horsemen came, stabbing down at Ofaeti and the monk. Jehan made sure he was the main target, leaping at the riders and slashing with the sword. A spear snicked past his chest but Jehan was quick, bringing the sword down hard on the rider’s leg. The man cried out and his horse caught his fear, staggering sideways in the stream and throwing him into the water. In a breath he was gone in the darkness. Another spear was driven down at Ofaeti, but he managed to grab it, tugging hard at the weapon. His opponent, though, was no fool. He just let go of the spear, causing Ofaeti to overbalance and go sprawling back into the river. Jehan flung the sword towards the bank and dived after him, out of the shallows of the ford and into the deep water. Suddenly the remaining horsemen were isolated and five arrows sang across the river. Jehan heard screams, animal and human, as he plunged forward through the black water.

Almost the second that he dived in, Jehan regretted it. The man he was trying to save was a pagan and an enemy of his people, but he had acted on instinct, not even knowing whether he could swim. But he cut through the icy water with ease. He caught a glimpse of something a way in front of him – the Viking’s big blond head bobbing on the surface.

Jehan didn’t have time to think how strange it was that he, who had been so afflicted he couldn’t even perform the most basic functions of life without help, was now shooting forwards through the bone-biting cold of the river to rescue a man who had been hailed a mighty hero by King Sigfrid.

Ofaeti had nothing to cling to, nothing to stop him being carried back towards Paris and the Viking camp; that, though, was the least of his worries. The water was numbing and the current strong. Jehan, though, was quick through the water, arrowing towards his target. The confessor seemed guided, the big man his clear objective, despite the dark, the rain and the swift-running waters.

In four breaths he was on Ofaeti, taking him in a powerful grip.

‘No good,’ said Ofaeti. ‘I will pull you down. Let go of me.’

Jehan said nothing, just kicked for the shore. The current was strong but he was stronger, and he quickly made the bank, dragging Ofaeti out of the water. The big Norseman lay spluttering on the cold grass.

Upstream Jehan could see Rollo’s forces hesitating on the opposite bank, peering through the darkness. On their side of the river the other berserkers were moving off.

‘Your friends are making for the trees,’ said Jehan. ‘We had better join them. I need your protection on the way to Saint-Maurice.’

Ofaeti lay back, his arms above his head, trying to get his breath.

‘How can you see so far? I can hardly see past my own boots in this darkness.’

‘You’re shocked from the cold,’ said Jehan. ‘You’ll regain your eyes soon enough.’

Ofaeti got to his feet. Jehan looked at the Viking’s face. The big man was staring at the confessor with something approaching fear.

‘My eyes are good enough,’ he said. ‘Let’s go before Rollo’s men gain the courage to cross. I thank you for what you did for me.’

‘Don’t thank me, thank God. None is saved nor lost but by His will.’

Ofaeti nodded.

‘Will you pray with me?’ said Jehan.

Ofaeti gave a short laugh. ‘When we are safe from our enemies, if it pleases you, I will. If it’s your god that saved me, then Lord Tyr won’t begrudge me giving him thanks.’

The confessor smiled. Was this what God had freed his limbs for – to convert the heathens? It had to be. He had thought none of the berserkers would ever return from Saint-Maurice. Now he saw a different way. These men would make formidable soldiers for Christ. They would welcome Jesus and his divine presence into their hearts, which would drive out the pagan lies they had been raised to. ‘Lord Tyr’ would be exposed for what he was, nothing more than a shade in a story that any child could see through.

‘Come on then,’ said Jehan. ‘Follow close if you can’t see your way.’

The two men scrambled up the bank and ran towards the line of trees.

In Ladoga, all those years before, the healer had sat and watched what he confidently expected to be his last dusk turning the river to a winding path of flame, like the road to hell. He was a Bulgar, a happy, dark little man dressed in bright yellow silks that did nothing for his pale complexion. Helgi had gone down to be with his warriors and the healer was alone on the roof apart from the little girl.

He shook his head and thought of the warning his father had given him: ‘You have a talent, but use it sparingly. Cure too many and the gods will be jealous.’

He hadn’t listened, of course, and had travelled from all the way beyond Kiev practising his trade. The charms and the potions were what he sold, but he knew that these, which his father had taught him, were only useful up to a point. The real secret of his success was that he had worked his first years for little or no pay, just taking a meal when he needed it. All he asked in return was that, if he was successful, people spread the word.

It had worked. The healed sang his praises and the dead never complained. By his third year he was sought all over the east. And then he had heard that Helgi was seeking a new physician. Like a fool, he had been pleased when the king had chosen him, not realising that a healer relies as much on his luck and reputation as on his skill.

He looked down at the child beside him. She was hot enough to set fire to the roof. She would burn him up too, for sure, if he didn’t cure her. It occurred to him to simply jump from the tower to save himself the pain of the flames. He had nothing more to give. His last hope had been to take her to the roof, to show her to the eyes of Tengri the eternal sky, but it was failing.

But then he remembered he had been taught a charm by a stranger who had joined him on the road to Kiev. He’d been travelling with a party of Khazars who were heading west. They’d kept their fire going all night because there was a rumour that a wolf was stalking the road. The healer had no liking for wolves and had found it difficult to sleep. Of course there always were wolves – he heard their howling in the hills – but to be told one was nearby and had raided a camp, taking only a goat when it could have taken a child, unsettled him.

Eventually, in the blackest part of the night when the clouds ate the moon and the only light came from the campfire, he had drifted off, slumping to the ground from his sitting position. A low snarl tight by his ear had snapped him back to consciousness. The wolf was sitting close by his side. He had started to scream but suddenly a hand was across his mouth, silencing him.

A voice: ‘You were about to cry wolf but which wolf is it that gives you alarm? The one that sits by the fire or the one who dwells in here?’ He felt a sharp prod in his chest, and when the hand at his mouth was released he turned to see a very strange fellow indeed. The man was tall, pale and beardless, with a shock of red hair protruding from beneath the bloody pelt of a wolf, worn as he had seen some shamans wear them, its head over his head, as if the creature had crept up behind him and sunk its teeth into his skull. Apart from that, he was entirely naked, his pale skin writhing with snakes of firelight.

The healer looked around for the wolf. It was gone.

‘There was a wolf here,’ said the healer.

‘Now it is here,’ said the stranger and drove his finger into the healer’s chest again.

‘I do not take your meaning, sir,’ said the healer.

‘Ambition is a wolf, is it not, that chases us on to who knows what heights? So I say again, here is the wolf.’ Once more the stranger’s finger jabbed hard into the healer’s chest.

‘Do desist from poking me so, sir,’ said the healer. ‘I bruise easily.’

‘Do you not have a salve for bruises?’

‘I do not.’

‘What can you cure? For I see you are a healer by your charms and philtres.’

‘I—’

‘Headache?’

‘Yes.’

The man cuffed the healer hard about the head.

‘Ow!’

‘Vomiting?’

‘Yes, I—’

The man thumped the healer hard in the stomach, so hard that his dinner came back up and he was sick on the ground.

‘Broken limbs?’

‘I have some skill—’ The man raised his hand but the healer quickly added, ‘—though not in that area.’

‘Ah, the gift of healing is so rare nowadays. It is hard to tell the honest man from the charlatan.’

‘I am a truthful man.’

‘All the best liars are. You are the king of charlatans because the first person you deceive is yourself. You are sincere in your insincerity, truthfully false. Liars have more truths in them than all the honest men of the world. You lie to yourself so much that you empty yourself of them. Then, when you tell the people you can heal them, that cannot be false, for all you have left in you are truths, so men must believe them. You eat lies and belch truth, such is the way of the self-deceiver. Sincere thieves are the best ones, I tell you most earnestly. The gold ring you wear on the chain about your neck, I need it. Pass it to me.’

‘Need it for what?’

‘It is a cure for the lying tongue.’

The healer had thought at the time that seemed a reasonable explanation and had taken off the chain to give it to the man who, if he recalled correctly, had dangled it above his lips before lowering it into his mouth and swallowing it whole.

‘That was my ring,’ said the healer.

The strange man leaned towards the healer and it seemed that his head became that of a gigantic wolf which opened its mouth improbably wide and said, ‘It prettifies my bowels now. Reach in and tickle it out!’ He spoke with such force that the healer flinched away from him.

‘You will bite my arm,’ said the healer. For some reason it didn’t seem odd that this man had become half wolf.

‘You see,’ said the half-wolf. ‘I have cured the liar in you, for now you speak the truth.’

‘What shall I have for my ring?’

‘Advice,’ said the wolf-headed man, smacking his lips with his tongue as if savouring the taste of the fine gold ring.

‘What advice?’

‘Go north.’

‘For what?’

‘To wait upon the lord of deceit himself. He who lies lying in Ladoga. That priest of pretence, hierophant of hypocrisy, monarch of mendacity, the tricky sticky fellow, the fakir of fakement, the wolf in wool, oath-breaker, foreswearer and god. King Shit himself. I am his servant, you know, but like all servants I hold my master in cold contempt. I will better him one day, though it may take me a year or two. Today we give him what he wants; tomorrow he may not be so lucky.’ The half-wolf’s tongue slapped around his muzzle as he spoke, and the healer feared the creature might fly into a rage.

‘You’re talking about Helgi the Prophet?’

‘Helgi? Do you know his physician has found all ailments’ surest cure? You should hurry to that king’s service.’

‘I cannot compete with a man who holds such knowledge.’

‘This is the cure!’ said the half-wolf, and from somewhere he produced a hangman’s noose tied with a tricky triple knot. ‘Surely you can hang as well as he. There is no talent for hanging, my fine fibber, no skill to it – the most untutored farm boy takes to it as well as the highest king.’

‘I do not wish to hang,’ said the healer.

‘Only he wishes to hang. Only he.’