Crowbone

Hoskuld, beaming at the way they were skipping along, announced that he had many skills, one of them navigation.

‘We go out on to a big expanse of water dead ahead,’ he added. ‘Land on the berthing side, so you cannot really miss it. After a bit, we turn north. That is to the right. The steerboard side. The hand you use to pull yourself off.’

Crowbone forced a smile as Hoskuld moved off into the grins of his crew, while Murrough turned and looked at his fellow Oathsworn lazing there.

‘Never be minding, lads,’ he bellowed. ‘We have bread and fish and water if this short-arsed little trading man loses us. Also, there are Crowbone’s birds to steer by, when all else fails.’

Crowbone raised one hand in acknowledgement, while Hoskuld and his crew stared for a moment, stilled. Then they busied themselves and Crowbone smiled, for he knew no Norseman, especially Christ-sworn, liked the idea of a seidr-man and none of these liked to be reminded of the strange tales that surrounded Crowbone.

‘We will need no magic birds to get us where we are going,’ Hoskuld said eventually, with the scowl of an outraged Christmann. ‘Nor will I lose my way, Irisher. This is a ship blessed with God-luck.’

Right there, the lone gull on the mast spar took off from its perch and screamed, a mad laughing as it turned and wheeled away back towards the grey-blue line that was land. Crowbone watched it go, the hairs stiff on him; it does no good to tempt the Norns, he was thinking.

‘There was once a Chosen Man in the service of a jarl, don’t ask me where, don’t ask me when,’ he said and the heads came up. Crowbone had not meant to speak; he never did when the tales came on him, but those who had heard him before leaned forward a little. The steersman laughed but Murrough wheeshed him and the silence allowed the wind to thrum the rigging lines.

‘As part of his due he used to get bread and a bowl of honey each day,’ Crowbone went on, soft and gentle as the breathing sea. ‘The warrior ate the bread and put the honey into a stoppered jug, which he took to carrying around with him, lest it be stolen. He wanted to keep the jug until it was full, for he knew the high price his honey would fetch in the market.’

‘A sensible trading man, then, this warrior,’ Hoskuld offered sarcastically, but glares silenced him.

‘I will sell my honey for a piece of gold and buy ten sheep, all of which will bring forth young, so that in the course of one year I shall have twenty sheep,’ Crowbone said, the words tumbled from him, like slow, sticky sweetness from the tale’s jug.

‘Their number will steadily increase, and in four years I shall be the owner of four hundred sheep. I shall then buy a cow and an ox and acquire a piece of land. My cow will bring forth calves, the ox will be useful to me in ploughing my land, while the cows will provide me with milk. In five years’ time the number of my cattle will have increased considerably and I shall be wealthy. I shall then build a magnificent steading, acquire thralls and marry a beautiful woman of noble descent. She will become pregnant and bear me a son, a strong boy fit to carry my name. A lucky star will shine at the moment of his birth and he will be happy and blessed, and bring honour to my name after my death. Should he, however, refuse to obey me, I will whack him round the ear, thus—’

Crowbone smacked one fist into his palm, so that the listeners started a little.

‘So saying,’ Crowbone added softly, ‘he lashed out at the imaginary child. The jug flew from under his arm and smashed. The honey ran into the mud and was lost.’

‘Heya,’ sighed Murrough and stared pointedly at Hoskuld, who laughed nervously. The steersman crossed himself; no-one had missed the point of the tale.

The gull – the same one, Crowbone was sure – screamed with faint laughter in the distance.

Not long after, the steering oar broke.

One blink they were sailing along, scudding under a sail bagged full of wind, with the blue-grey slide of the land distant on one side. The next, Halk was yelling and hanging grimly on to the whole weight of the steering oar, which had parted company from the ship entire and looked set to go over the side. The Swift-Gliding leaped like a joyous stallion spitting out the bit, then yawed off in a direction all its own.

Men sprang to help Halk, wrestling the steering board safely on to the ship. Hoskuld, bawling orders, found the Oathsworn suddenly alive, moving with practised ease to flake the sail down on to the yard and bring the free-running knarr to a sulky halt, where it rocked and pitched, the slow-heaving waves slapping the hull.

‘Leather collar has snapped,’ Onund declared after a brief look. ‘Fetch out some more and we will fix it.’

Hoskuld glared at Halk, whose eyes were wide with innocent protesting, but then Gorm stepped into Hoskuld’s scowl and matched it with one of his own. He had been with Hoskuld ever since they had first set keel on water, so he had leeway. He had hands and face beaten by weather, but his eyes were clear and there was at least a horn-spoon of intellect behind them, even if his nose was crooked from fights and his body a barrel which had been scoured by wind and wave.

‘Not Halk’s fault,’ he growled at Hoskuld. ‘Should have stayed in Dyfflin for long enough to fetch such supplies as spare leather, but you would sail. Should have stayed in Sand Vik longer than to pick up this poor dog of a steersman, but you sailed even faster from there.’

‘Enough!’ roared Hoskuld, his face turning white, then red. ‘This is not fixing matters.’

He broke off, glanced at the thin line of land and wiped his mouth with the back of one hand.

‘This is the Frisian coast,’ he muttered darkly. ‘No place to be wallowing, dangled like a fat cod for sharks.’

‘Leather,’ Onund grunted.

‘None,’ Gorm replied, almost triumphant. ‘Some bast line, which will have to do.’

‘Aye, for you never stayed long enough in Dyfflin or Sand Vik,’ Crowbone noted and everyone heard how his voice had become steeled.

‘Save for picking up a steersman,’ he added, nodding towards Halk, who stared from Hoskuld to Crowbone and back, his mouth gawped like a coal-eater.

Folk left off what they were doing then, for a chill had sluiced in like mist, centred on Crowbone and the lip-licking Hoskuld.

Crowbone knew now where the steersman had his lilting Norse from. From Orkney, where Hoskuld had gone from Dyfflin and before that from Mann. Mann to Dyfflin to Orkney.

‘You know who this Svein Kolbeinsson is,’ Crowbone said, weaving the tale as he spoke and knowing the warp and weft were true by the look in Hoskuld’s eyes.

‘How many others have you told?’ Crowbone went on. Hoskuld spread his arms and tried to speak.

‘I …’ began Hoskuld.

Crowbone drew the short-handled axe out of the belt-ring at his waist and Hoskuld’s crew shifted uneasily; one made a whimpering sound. Hoskuld seemed to tip sideways and sag a little, like an emptying waterskin. The crew and the Oathsworn watched, slipping subtly apart.

‘You know from Orm what I can do with this,’ Crowbone said, raising the axe, and Hoskuld blinked and nodded and then rubbed the middle of his forehead, as if it itched.

‘Only because you have friendship with Jarl Orm is it still on the outside of your skull,’ Crowbone went on, in a quiet and reasonable voice, so that those who heard it shivered.

‘Svein Kolbeinsson,’ Hoskuld gasped. ‘Konungslykill, they called him. I was younger than yourself by a few years when I met him, on my first trip to Jorvik with my father.’

Crowbone stopped and frowned. Konungslykill – The King’s Key – was the name given to only one man, the one who carried King Eirik’s blot axe. Such sacrifice axes were all called Odin’s Daughter, but only one truly merited the name – Eirik’s axe, the black-shafted mark of the Yngling right to rule.

Carried by a Chosen Man called the King’s Key, the pair of them represented Eirik’s power to open all chests and doors in his realm, by force if necessary. It gave Eirik his feared name, too – Bloodaxe. Crowbone blinked, the thoughts racing in him like waves breaking on rocks.

‘This ship it was,’ Hoskuld said wistfully. ‘The year before Eirik was thrown out of Jorvik and died in an ambush set by Osulf, who went on to rule all Northumbria.’

What was that – twenty-five years ago and more? Crowbone looked at Hoskuld and while the gulls in his head screeched and whirled their messages and ideas, his face stayed grim and secret as a hidden skerry.

‘Svein Kolbeinsson was taken at the place where Eirik of Jorvik died, but after some time he escaped thralldom and fled to Mann. It seems he turned his back on Asgard since the gods turned their backs on him, so he became a monk of the Christ in the hills of Mann around Holmtun, in the north of the island. He died recently, but before he did, he told this monk Drostan a secret, to be shared only with the kin of the Yngling line.’

The words spilled from Hoskuld like a stream over rocks, yet the last of it clamped his lips shut as he realised what he had said. Crowbone nodded slowly as the sense of it crept like honey into his head.

‘Instead, you went to Dyfflin,’ Crowbone said softly.

Hoskuld licked his cracking lips and nodded.

‘At Drostan’s request,’ he murmured hesitantly.

‘You are no fool, Hoskuld Trader, you got the secret from this monk Drostan, you know what he has to tell me.’

‘Only what it is,’ he managed, in a husked whisper. ‘Odin’s Daughter. Not where it lies, though.’

‘Eirik’s axe, Odin’s Daughter itself, still in the world and a monk has the where of it in his head,’ Crowbone said.

Now it was the turn of the Oathsworn to shift, seeing the bright prize of Eirik’s Bloodaxe, the mark of a true scion of the Yngling line – a banner to gather men under. That and the magic in it made it worth more than if it were made of gold.

‘Olaf Irish-Shoes, Jarl-King in Dyfflin?’ Crowbone mused, bouncing the axe in his fingers. ‘Well, he is old, but he is still a northman and no man hated Eirik Bloodaxe more than he – did they not chase each other off the Jorvik High Seat?’

Hoskuld bobbed his head briefly in agreement and those who knew the tale nodded confirmation at each other; Eirik had been ousted from Jorvik once and Olaf Irish-Shoes at least twice. Gorm muttered and shot arrowed scowls at his captain.

‘Well,’ said Crowbone. ‘You took the news to Irish-Shoes, then Orkney.’ Crowbone’s voice was all dark and murder now. ‘Not to Thorfinn, I am thinking.’

‘Thorfinn died,’ Gorm blurted. ‘His sons rule together there now – Arnfinn, Havard, Ljot and Hlodir.’

‘There is only one ruler on Orkney,’ Crowbone spat. ‘Still alive is she, the Witch?’

Hoskuld answered only with a choking sound in his throat; Gunnhild, Eirik’s queen, the Witch Mother of Kings. The tales of her were suddenly fresh as new blood in Hoskuld’s head: she it was who had sent her sons to kill Crowbone’s father then scour the world for the son and his mother. Now the hunted son stood in front of him with an axe in his hand and a single brow fretted above his cold, odd eyes. Hoskuld cursed himself for having forgotten that.

‘Arnfinn is married to her daughter,’ he muttered.

Crowbone hefted the little axe, as if balancing it for a blow.

‘So,’ he said. ‘You took the news to Olaf Irish-Shoes, who was always Eirik’s rival – did you get paid before you fled? Then you took it to Gunnhild, the Witch, who was Eirik’s wife. You had to flee from there, too – and for the same reason. Did you ken it out at that point, Hoskuld Trader? That what you knew was more deadly than valuable?’

He stared at Hoskuld and the axe twitched slightly.

‘You are doomed,’ Crowbone declared, grim as lichened rock. ‘You are as doomed as this Drostan, whom you doubtless betrayed for profit. Olaf will want your mouth sealed and so will the Orkney Witch. Where is Drostan? Have you killed him?’

Hoskuld’s brows clapped together like double gates.

‘Indeed no, I did not. Him it was who asked to go to all these places, then finally to Borg in the Alban north, where we left him to come to find Jarl Orm, as he asked.’

He tried to keep the glare but the strange, odd-eyed stare of the youth made him blink. He waved his hands, as if trying to swat the feel of those eyes off his face.

‘The monk lives – why would I kill him, then bother to come and find Orm – and you?’

‘Betrayal,’ Crowbone muttered. He leaned a little towards Hoskuld’s pale face. ‘Is that what this is? An enemy who wants me dead, or worse? Why sail to Mann if the monk is at Borg?’

‘He left something with the monks on Mann,’ Hoskuld admitted. ‘A writing.’

Crowbone asked and Hoskuld told him.

‘A message. I was to pick it up on the return and take it to Orm.’

To Orm? Crowbone closed one thoughtful eye. ‘And you delivered it?’

Hoskuld nodded.

‘You know what this message spoke?’ he asked and watched Hoskuld closely.

The trader shook his head, more sullen than afraid now.

‘I was to tell you of it,’ he replied bitterly, ‘when you asked why we were headed for Mann at all.’

Crowbone did not show his annoyance in his face. It was a hard truth he did not care to dwell on, that he had simply thought Mann was where Hoskuld wanted to go with his strange cargo. Either he was paid more after that, or Crowbone found a ship of his own was what the young Prince of Norway had assumed.

Now he knew – a message had been left by this Drostan, in Latin which Hoskuld did not read – he knew runes and tallied on a notched stick well enough, so he could carry it to Orm and not know the content.

And the thought slid into him like a grue of ice – there was a trap to lure him to Mann.

He said so and saw Hoskuld’s scorn.

‘Why would Orm set you at a trap?’ he scathed. ‘He knows the way of monks. They would not have written this message to Orm only once.’

That was a truth Crowbone had to admit – monks, he knew, would copy it into their own annals and if he went to Mann he would find it simply by saying Orm’s name and asking with a silver offering attached. For all that, he wanted to bury the blade in the gape-mouthed face of the trader, but the surge of it, which raised his arm, was damped by a thought of what Orm might have to say. He had fretted Orm enough this year, he decided – yet the effort not to strike burst sweat on him. In the end, the lowering of his arm came more from the nagging to know what this writing held than any desire to appease Orm.

‘Get me to Mann, trader,’ he managed to harsh out. ‘I may yet feed you to the fish if it takes too long a sailing – or if I find this message or you plays me false.’

‘We are sailing nowhere,’ Onund interrupted with an annoyed grunt, bent over the steering oar so that his hunched shoulder reared up like an island. ‘We are drifting until this is lashed. Fetch what line you have – I can get us to land safely and then we will need to find decent leather.’

‘I would hurry, hunchback,’ said Halk the Orkneyman, staring out towards the distant land. ‘It would seem the sharks have found their cod.’

He pointed, leading everyone’s eyes to the faint line, marked with little white splashes where oars dug, which grew steadily larger.

‘It is all of us who are doomed,’ Gorm hissed, his eyes wide, then jumped as Kaetilmund clapped him on the back.

‘Ach, you fret too much,’ he said.

Gorm saw the Oathsworn moving more swiftly than he had seen them shift since they had come aboard. Sea-chests were opened, ringmail unrolled from sheepskins, domed helmets brought out, oiled against the sea-rot and plumed with splendid horsehair.

‘Our turn to do the work,’ Murrough macMael grunted and hefted his long axe, grinning. ‘You can join in if you like, or just watch.’

Gorm licked his lips and looked at the rest of the Swift-Gliding crew, who all had the same stare on them.

Not fear. Relief, that they were not Frisians.

Hrodfolc was smiling, though his teeth hurt. He did not have many left, yet the few he had hurt all the time these days – but even the nagging pain of them could not keep the smile from his face, laid there when the watchers brought word to the terp that a fat cargo ship was wallowing like a sick cow just off the coast.

It had been a time since such a prize had come their way. Ships sped past this stretch of coast like arrows, Hrodfolc thought, half-muttering to himself, for they know the red-murder fame of the folk living along it.

He turned to where his twenty men pulled and sweated, grunting with the effort, slicing the long snake-boat through the slow, rolling black swell. No mast and no sail on his boat, which is how cargo ships with a good wind at their back could always outrun us, Hrodfolc thought, leaving us rowing in their wake.

Not this time. This time, there would be blood and booty.

‘Fast, fast,’ he bellowed, the boom of his voice in his head bursting tooth-pain in him. The riches called to him and he could see them, taste them – wool and grain and skins. Casks filled with salt fish, or beer, or cheeses; boxes stuffed with bone, buckles, boots, pepper. Perhaps even gold and silver. Honey, or some other lick of sweetness after a long winter. His mouth watered.

‘Fast,’ he called and his men grunted and pulled, wild-haired, mad-bearded, their weapons handy to grab up when they left off the oars and flung them inboard.

Hrodfolc eyed the fat ship, focusing the pain on them, the ones on the ship. He would rend them. He would tear them …

They streaked up to the side of the slow-rocking cargo ship and saw pale faces, four, maybe six and that widened Hrodfolc’s brown smile. The oars backed water furiously, then clattered inboard a breath or two before the long, sleek boat kissed the side of the knarr, a gentle dunt. Men hurled up lines to lash themselves to the side; others grabbed up weapons and scrambled to climb up the thwarts of their higher-sided victim, Hrodfolc snarling ahead of the pack with an axe in either fist.

It was a surprise to them all, then, when a line of shields suddenly rose up and slapped together like a closing door. It was shock when a great, bearded axe on a long shaft arced out from under them, making Hrodfolc shy away sideways, though he was not the target of it. The axe chunked over the thwarts, the powerful arms wielding it snugging the snake-boat to the knarr like a lover cinching the willing waist of his girl into an embrace.

Crowbone saw the gaping, snaggle-toothed mouth of the man who led these Frisian raiders, his face a great rune of terror at the sight of the shields and ring-mailed, spear-armed men who stood behind them, scowling from under the rims of horse-plumed helmets.

Crowbone hurled his own spear and it took the man in the middle of his twisted tooth, which flew out of his mouth as he fell backwards, spraying blood and head-gleet all over his own men. He hurled his second spear with his left hand and it went through the thigh of another Frisian, pinning the man to the deck of the snake-boat – his screeches were as high as a gull’s.

Yet more spears flicked and the men on the snake-boat screamed and flapped like fox-stalked chickens. A few grabbed up oars and tried to push their boat away, but Murrough’s long axe and a grip like a steel band held them. There were splashes as men hurled themselves into the sea rather than wait to die, for the Oathsworn were pillars of iron with big round shields, spears which they hurled and blades which they followed up with, crashing to the rocking deck of the snake-boat. The Frisian raiders had cheap wool the colour of mud and charcoal, spears with rusted heads and little wood axes.

Some did not even have that and Drosbo took a half-pace backwards as a raider with a knife, fear-maddened to fighting like a desperate rat in a barrel, hurled himself forward, screaming, slashing. The knife scored down the ringmail with little hisses of sound and Drosbo let him do it for the time it took him to grin and the Frisian to realise it was doing no good.

Just at the point the Frisian thought of aiming for the face, Drosbo brought his sword down in a cutting stroke that took the man in the join between neck and shoulder, a great, wet-sounding chop that popped the blade out of the man’s armpit and the whole arm, knife and all, into the sea.

Then Drosbo booted him in the chest, hard enough to pitch the shrieking raider into the slow-shifting, crow-black water in a whirl of blood.

There was a moment of crouching caution, then Murrough gave a coughing grunt, like a new-woken bear, and offered a final spit on the whole affair as he worked his bearded axe loose from the snake-ship’s planks and straightened, rolling the overworked muscles of neck and shoulder. Hoskuld’s crew stared at the astounded, gape-mouthed dead, at the blood washing greasily in the bowels of the snake-boat, at those still alive and swimming hopelessly for the far-away shore, black, gasping heads rising and sinking on the glass swell.

‘That is that, then,’ Onund growled out and clapped the stunned Orkneyman on the shoulder. ‘See if you can find some decent rope.’

Holmtun, Isle of Mann, at the same time

THE WITCH-QUEEN’S CREW

The wind rushed the trees and then bowled on over the scrub and broom, ruffling it like a mother does a son’s hair. Birds hunched in shelter, or were ragged away from where they wanted to go, steepling sideways and too busy even to make a voice of protest.

The sun was there, all the same, for the heat of it made riding in ringmail and wool a weary matter and the glare of sky, white as a dead eye, made Ogmund squint.

He was tired. They were all tired from plootering over hill and heather, a trail of curse and spit, the hooves of weary horses clacking on loose stones.

Somewhere ahead, Ogmund thought, scanning the distance and squinting until his forehead ached, were the raiders. On foot. How could folk on foot have kept ahead so well? And who were they, who dared to raid this corner of Mann, which had not been raided in years?

‘A warrior,’ said a voice as if in answer and Ogmund turned to where Ulf, forcing himself taller in his saddle to see better, was pointing ahead to the wooded hill. He had good eyes did Ulf and Ogmund saw the figure, dark against the glare.

‘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.