Hawk Quest (59 page)

Arne held up a hand. ‘He said that the meek would triumph over the strong and that judgement and punishment belonged to god alone. Thorfinn asked what sort of god it was that gave up his life to save criminals and cowards. The priest would have been wise to shut up, but instead he continued preaching until Thorfinn asked him if he had the courage to follow his god’s example.’ Arne stopped. ‘No, you don’t want to know.’

‘I can guess,’ Hero said. He shivered slightly.

‘Thorfinn told the priest about his violent deeds – how he ate the livers of his enemies and cut the blood eagle on them. Then he said that if this god was real, the priest must be prepared to sacrifice his life to save Thorfinn’s soul. The priest was terrified and cried out to his god to save him. Thorfinn crucified him.’

Hero stared at the ground. ‘Did he go to his death bravely?’

‘Men die bravely only in battle.’ Arne stood. ‘We’ve been away too long. Thorfinn will be growing suspicious.’

Two days later they rounded the end of the peninsula and entered the White Sea, anchoring at twilight in an estuary overlooked by iron-grey cliffs capped with eaves of snow. In the calm of the anchorage, Hero used his compass to confirm their new course. His heart flew into his throat as a blurred iron arc splintered the thwart beside him.

Thorfinn bent and picked up the scattered parts. ‘What’s this?’

Hero scrabbled backwards. ‘A direction finder. It can show the way when clouds hide the sun.’

Thorfinn loured over him, his right cheek puffed up, his eye closed in an obscene wink. ‘You think I don’t know how to find my way?’ He flipped the compass overboard.

Hero’s fear flashed into anger. ‘You ignorant heathen,’ he shouted in Greek. ‘No wonder your expeditions end in failure.’

Arne pulled him away. ‘Idiot! The tooth worm’s driving him mad. The only way he can deal with pain is by inflicting worse suffering on those around him. You’re lucky he didn’t strike you dead.’

For the rest of the evening, Hero couldn’t stop trembling.

When he boarded the longship next morning, two Vikings pushed him into Thorfinn’s presence. His legs almost gave way at the thought that the chieftain had discovered his part in firing the longship. Thorfinn sat slumped on a thwart, his face swathed in a filthy bandage. He cocked his good eye. ‘You claim to be a healer.’

Hero fingered his throat. ‘I’m a physician, not a dentist. In my country we leave tooth-pulling to barbers.’

Thorfinn’s pale eye twitched. ‘I’m not in your country and I’m not asking for a shave.’

Arne nudged Hero. ‘You’d better do it. I’ve seen men die from the tooth-worm, and if Thorfinn goes, he’ll take you with him. Believe it.’

Hero linked his hands to stop them trembling. ‘I’ll need to examine you. Lie on your back.’

Pain and the hope of release from it can tame the most savage soul. Thorfinn reclined on a thwart and opened his mouth. Hero inspected the claggy teeth, tried not to breathe the fog of putrefaction. The seat of infection was a broken and rotted upper right molar. ‘You’ve got a bad abscess.’

‘Aargh.’

Hero considered lancing it with a fleam, but the relief might be temporary and the operation could make the infection worse. ‘The tooth will have to come out. Any of your men will be able to pull it.’

Thorfinn grinned horribly. ‘I don’t want any of those ham-fisted butchers messing about with my jaw. I want
you
.’

Hero broke into a cold sweat. It would be like pulling a tooth from a bear. ‘I don’t have the proper instruments.’

One of the Vikings handed him a pair of blacksmith’s tongs. ‘These should do the job.’

‘No, they won’t. There isn’t enough tooth left to provide a firm purchase. The tongs will crush what remains and he’ll be in a worse state than before.’

Thorfinn patted his swollen cheek. ‘Enough talking.’

Hero glanced up at the yardarm. An idea came to him. He dismissed
it as absurd, but he couldn’t think of an alternative plan and he kept coming back to it. ‘Show me the tooth again.’ He studied the craggy stump, isolated in the infected gum. ‘Who can make the neatest job of whipping a rope’s end?’

The Vikings backed off. ‘Arne’s your man.’

Hero looked at him. ‘I want you to whip a cord to the tooth, using fine gut thread. I’ll supply the whipping.’

Arne inspected the tooth. He shook his head.

Thorfinn clubbed him. ‘Do what the Greek tells you.’

Arne grimaced. ‘The pain will make him lash out. I won’t be able to tie the cord properly.’

Hero remembered the sleeping draught in his chest. He took out the bottle, unstoppered it and asked for a cup. He measured out half the contents of the bottle and passed the cup to Thorfinn. ‘Drink it. It will dull the pain.’

Thorfinn smelled it and blinked. ‘Are you trying to poison me?’

‘Your tooth is poisoning you. Drink.’

Thorfinn tossed off the potion.

‘We have to wait for it to take effect,’ Hero said.

Presently Thorfinn’s good eye began to wander and he broke into ragged song. The Vikings stared at each other. ‘By Odin, I don’t believe it. Our chief’s drunk as a lord on a few spoonfuls.’

Hero nodded at Arne. ‘You,’ he said to one of the Vikings, ‘hold Thorfinn’s head steady.’

‘Whoo-hoo,’ crooned the chief. ‘Iddy-biddy boo.’

Arne set about whipping the cord to the rotten tooth. He muttered as he worked and kept having to break off to clear the site of blood and saliva. At last he rocked back on his heels. ‘That’s as tight as I can make it.’

Hero looked up at the mast, calculating more like an engineer than a physician. ‘Lay your chief on that thwart directly under the yard, head against the side. Tie the free end of the cord to a line long enough to run over the yardarm with about ten feet to spare. I need a heavy weight. A ballast stone will do. Also a sack for the weight and a short rope to hang it from the yard. Three feet should be enough.’

One of the men selected a large oval stone from the bed of ballast around the mast and held it up.

‘My favourite little stone,’ Thorfinn warbled. ‘I picked it myself from the strand on Saltfjord.’ He began to sing again, swinging one hand before his face like a pendulum.

‘Place the stone in the sack,’ Hero said. ‘Tie the short rope to it and hang it from the yard.’

One of the Vikings climbed to the yard and pulled himself along it. Hero calculated angles and forces. ‘Tie it there. Just outboard. That’s the spot. Stay where you are and cut the rope when I give the word.’ He looked round. ‘Toss the line from the tooth over the yard. Good.’ He estimated for a drop of ten feet and looked up at the man straddling the yard. ‘Take in the line. That’s enough. Cut it there and tie the end to the sack. Make it secure.’

With everything in place, Hero made a last inspection of the set-up. ‘I want two men to hold Thorfinn so that his head doesn’t move when the stone drops. Put his head as far back as you can. Someone had better hold his legs as well.’

The Viking on the yard held his knife ready. Someone sniggered. ‘The Greek’s going to drop it on our captain’s head.’

‘Cut!’

Down dropped the stone. Up flashed the line leading from Thorfinn’s tooth. It twanged as it met the ballast stone’s heft. Thorfinn convulsed, kicking off the assistant pinning his legs. The line whipped over the spar and the stone hit the sea in a spout and disappeared, dragging the line so fast that no one could see if was still connected to the tooth or had broken. Hero ran to Thorfinn. Black blood and pus poured from his mouth.

‘Keep hold of him.’

Hero splashed water into the pirate chief’s mouth. He mopped it with a rag and inserted a finger. Where the tooth had been was a gaping cavity.

He reeled back on his haunches. ‘It’s out. You can unloose him.’

Thorfinn groped to his feet like a drunken mariner waking in a storm. When he’d achieved a degree of equilibrium, he cracked open his maw and delved inside with a filthy finger. A crazy grin spread across his face. He pointed at Hero, took one step, crashed into a thwart and, after one last witless stare, fell full length, cracking his head a mighty blow on the gunwale. One hand closed and unclosed; one leg contracted and stretched. Then he fell still.

‘You’ve killed him,’ one of the Vikings marvelled.

Hero felt Thorfinn’s pulse. ‘He’ll live. When he wakes up, tell him to rinse his mouth out with salty water. Keep food away from the cavity until it heals.’

Arne smiled at Hero and winked. The other Vikings slapped his back and guffawed. ‘Hey, Hero,’ one called, using his name for the first time. ‘Give me a taste of your cordial. I’d pull out my own eye-teeth for a cup of that brew.’

They sailed south along the White Sea coast into the forest zone. Thorfinn hadn’t exaggerated the bounty of wildlife. Salmon packed the estuaries, waiting for an autumn flood to carry them up to their spawning grounds. The Vikings speared them from the ship’s boat, trapped them in wicker funnels, hooked them on gaffs as they threw themselves over the rapids like bars of silver.

Thorfinn’s jaw healed. The swelling went down, and with it his boiling temper. In quiet moments some of the Vikings sidled up to Hero and sheepishly asked him to cure their ailments. He agreed to do what he could in exchange for better food. He told the Vikings that their comrades on
Shearwater
were dining like lords on the game killed by Wayland. It wasn’t a lie. Once at a distance they saw Wayland, assisted by one of the hostages, catch a dozen grouse in a net drawn over the pointing dog and the sitting covey. At night the Vikings shifted to make space for Hero around the fire and sat rapt as children while he went on with his tale.

One fine morning Thorfinn shaped a course away from the coast until it sank below the horizon. In a glassy calm they approached at evening an archipelago of wooded islands a day’s sail from the head of the gulf. The Vikings had used it as a waystation before and made for an islet set on the sea like a green crown, every tree and rock faithfully reflected in the water. Watching it draw close, Hero was reminded of the sacred groves where the ancients consulted the oracles.

He stepped ashore half expecting to see a rustic temple. What he saw confirmed his intuition and wiped the smile from his face. At the centre of the island rose a bubbling spring surrounded by pines and birches decked with votive offerings. Hero saw cast hammer amulets, the shrivelled wing of a raven, carved bone images of Freyr with his immense phallus. Scattered beneath the trees were many bones. Hero
recognised a horse’s skull and a sheep’s scapula, both green with moss. Hero spotted a more recent sacrifice and his blood ran cold. It was a human skeleton collapsed all of a heap, the bones still chalky white. His eye darted up. Directly above the skeleton the frayed end of a rope dangled from a branch.

He turned to see Arne studying a birch post carved with runes. ‘Who did you hang here?’

‘I don’t know. A captive, a skraeling …’

‘But why?’

‘Punishment, sacrifice … Ask Thorfinn.’

‘Sacrifice? You kill men to propitiate your gods? You’re savages. Worse than animals.’

Arne showed anger. ‘See that?’ he demanded, pointing at the rune-post. ‘It says “Thorolf made this for Skopti, died in the north.” I knew Skopti. He had a brother, Harald, who lived up the valley from my own farm. Harald had a wife and two children, a boy and a girl under five. Six years ago we had a very bad winter, the worst anyone can remember. So bad that the snow rose above the eaves and trapped us in our homestead for months. When the thaw came, we went to see how Harald and his family had fared. We called greetings as we approached the house and when we received no reply, I went into the farmstead and found Harald and his wife dead. They’d starved. I didn’t find their children, though. Only their bones. Their parents had eaten them.’

Hero began to walk away, but Arne grabbed his arm. ‘What would you have done? You boast about your homeland with its fields of wheat stretching to the horizon, orchards laden with apples, pastures crowded with sheep and cattle. Land shapes men’s lives. Don’t stand in judgement over others until you’ve experienced their sufferings.’

Hero stood mute and sullen.

‘We’re here for one night,’ Arne said. ‘Tomorrow you’ll go back to your friends. Shut your eyes and morning will soon come.’

That night the Vikings got drunk on birch ale and took the women into the grove and gang-raped them. Hero went to the other side of the island with Garrick and Arne and tried to blank out the sounds. The aurora danced in the north.

‘The skraelings say it’s the souls of the dead,’ Arne said.

‘Why don’t you join the debauchery?’ Hero asked.

Arne stared at the ghostly lights. ‘I have a wife and daughters. I think, What if it were them?’

‘Your companions have wives and daughters.’

Garrick put his hand on Hero’s arm and frowned. The aurora faded. On a neighbouring island the flames of
Shearwater
’s company licked at the dark. Snatches of conversation drifted across the gulf. Hero recognised Raul’s laughter. One of the women gave a smothered scream.

‘You know this journey will end in blood,’ Hero said.

‘Yes,’ said Arne. ‘If Thorfinn doesn’t take revenge, the men won’t follow him again.’

‘Change sides,’ Hero said. ‘Bring others with you.’

Arne rose heavily and went away into the night.

After silence had fallen, Hero and Garrick returned to the camp and settled down around the embers. Hero listened to the offerings clacking together in the sacrificial grove until he fell asleep. He dreamed of bones and woke in the dark to hear Garrick slipping back into his place, breathing in pained sighs. All around them the drunken Vikings snored and groaned. Garrick’s breathing steadied and Hero’s eyes closed again.

A commotion at daybreak snapped him awake to find men running in all directions. Arne hurried past with his sword drawn. ‘The Icelandic women have escaped.’

Hero began to rise but Garrick restrained him. ‘You don’t want to see.’

A blast from a horn sent the Vikings racing towards the eastern side of the island. With a wondering glance at Garrick, Hero followed. He found the Vikings standing around the women. Mother and daughter sat side by side on the shore, slumped together as if they’d fallen asleep waiting for the sun to rise. Hero stepped in front of them. They would never see another dawn. They had cut their wrists and their life-blood had drained away, leaving their faces white as chalk and their laps drenched with blood. On the ground lay the bloodied stone they’d used to commit suicide. Arne tried to stop him from picking it up, but Hero swore and shook him off. The mother had sawn her daughter’s wrists before hacking at her own. Hero’s face lost shape. He hurled the stone into the sea.