The White Raven

‘In exchange,’ he went on, ‘he says he will give you news worth the value of it to you.’

‘I doubt that,’ muttered Finn, ‘for he was ever as slippery as a fresh-caught herring.’

They tossed the tale of it between them for Magpie’s benefit – how Martin, the German monk, had stumbled on the secret of Attila’s treasure and been forced to reveal it by Einar, so putting all the Oathsworn on the hard road to that cursed hoard.

Martin, though, had only ever wanted one thing – the holy spear he swore was the one the Old Romans had thrust into the side of his Christ and whose iron point had been used in forging two sabres for Attila. They had been buried with him – and I had brought one of them out of the tomb.

I sat and listened to them chewing on it, though I already knew Martin and I would have to meet. I had no use for his Christ icon and had simply picked it up from the body of the man who had stolen it – but never throw away anything that might be of use, my old foster-mother Halldis had dinned into me.

‘You know where Martin is?’ I asked into the middle of their conversation, killing it. Jon Asanes nodded.

‘Where is best to meet?’ I asked. It would be better in a public place, this first one, for Martin was a man easy to dislike and somehow sparked me to anger like no other. I had almost killed him once and there were times since I wished I had.

Jon nodded, knowing all this. ‘The Perun likeness,’ he said. ‘Everyone uses it as a landmark and it is in the marketplace.’

I knew it well – you could not miss the great oak pillar on its mound of concentric circles, the top carved in the shape of a powerful warrior carrying an axe and with a head of silver and moustaches of gold. Perun, the Slav god of storms, who was as like Thor as to be his brother. I nodded.

We laid out the tale of what had happened to us thus far and Jon sucked it in as if it was no more than air, nodding and silent. At the end of it, he blew out his cheeks, stuffed bread in his mouth and rose from the bench.

‘We will start with Martin, then,’ he said simply and slammed out, dragging a warm cloak in his wake.

‘Bloody boy goes everywhere at a run,’ complained Magpie.

‘He will learn when he gets to our age,’ grunted Kvasir, ‘the truth of the old bull.’

We chuckled, while Thorgunna scowled. Magpie was too Slav to have heard this tale, so Finn took great delight in telling him, because it outraged Thorgunna that he did.

‘Let us not run down and hump one of the heifers,’ Finn finished, in his role of the old bull advising his eager son. ‘Let us walk gently down and hump them all.’

So we laughed and argued the rest of that morning, in the warm of Magpie’s izba, until Jon Asanes returned and said, simply: ‘Nones’.

I told them it was Latin for the way Christ-priests from the west judge the day – late afternoon, by which time it would growing dark.

‘We will keep a sharper eye open then,’ Finn said cheerfully, ‘in case he has found people stupid enough to try and take what he wants.’

I thought it unlikely, for he knew I wouldn’t bring the holy spear with me. Better for Finn to go with Kvasir and Thorgunna, who were taking Olaf to buy him new clothes.

‘You might need someone to help you string Martin up,’ Finn growled moodily, ‘while you use the Truth Knife on him to get what he knows. He is no stranger to it, after all.’

I shook my head, while the flash of memory, like lightning on a darkened sea, flared up the scene – Martin, swinging like a trussed goose from the mast of Einar’s Elk, spraying blood and green snot as Einar hacked off the monk’s little finger and threw it over the side. Einar’s magic Truth Knife, which, he told victims, knew when someone lied and would cut off a piece every time they did. It was now sheathed in the small of my back and I had used it once or twice myself. Most did not keep their secrets beyond two fingers.

Shrugging at my folly, Finn strode off after Thorgunna, Kvasir and Olaf, leaving me with Jon Asanes, who rolled his eyes towards the sky.

‘I have not seen Finn for some years,’ he said. ‘He seems even wilder than he was before.’

‘As you say,’ I countered, ‘you have not seen him for some years. You have just forgotten how he is.’

Even though I knew it was a lie.

We were silent, pushing through the throng on the wooden walkways of the city while the sky pewtered and the rain spat itself to sleet.

‘You seem… older,’ Jon Asanes said eventually, as we stopped to watch an army of carters manhandle a huge brass bell, almost as big as a small house, destined for the kreml

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