The Whale Road

Shingle beach stretched to a fringe of trees and, beyond, rose to red-brackened hills, studded with trees, warped as old crones. There were rocks, too, which I took for sheep for a moment and was glad I had not called out my foolishness.

Since nothing moved, everyone relaxed. Except for Valgard Skafhogg, who bellowed at my father as the keel ground on shingle stones, calling him a ship-wrecking son of Loki’s arse. My father bellowed right back that if Valgard was any good as a shipwright, then a few stones wouldn’t sink us and, from what he had heard, Valgard couldn’t trim his beard. Which was a good joke on his nickname, Skafhogg, which means Trimmer.

But it was almost good-natured as we splashed ashore, to a smell of bracken and grass that almost made me weep.

It was bitter cold and you could taste the snow. The sail was dragged out, unfurled and draped over a frame – not as a shelter, since it was sodden; we only wanted it to dry out a little. Then we’d put it back, for when we returned to this place, we’d be in a hurry to get away from it.

Lookouts were posted and fires were lit for us to dry clothes and, above all, get warm. I staked out the sheep, as I had before, on a long line for her to crop what she could of the frozen grass and brown-edged fern and bracken.

She had little time to enjoy it and I was almost sorry when she was up-ended, gralloched and spitted. Brought all that way in damp misery, simply to be the hero-meal before the Oathsworn went into fight: I identified strongly with that wether.

I wondered about the fires, since the wood was wet and smoked and you could see it for miles, but Einar didn’t seem bothered. Now that we were so close, he had tallied that warmth and a full belly was worth the chance of discovery.

My father, now free of any duties, since he had done his part, crossed to where I sat shivering by the fire and trying not to wear my drying cloak until the rest of me had lost some water.

‘You need some spare clothing. Maybe we’ll get some soon.’

I glanced sourly at him. ‘A seer now, are you? If so, tell us where we are raiding.’

He shrugged. ‘Someplace inland.’ He stroked his stubbled chin thoughtfully and added, ‘Strathclyde’s not a place to raid these days, never mind inland. Still, Brondolf is paying good silver for it, so we do.’

‘Brondolf?’ I asked, helping him as he started to erect a shelter from our cloaks, making a frame of withies.

‘Brondolf Lambisson, richest of the Birka merchants. He hires the Oathsworn of Einar the Black this year. And last, come to think of it.’

‘To do what?’

My father tied cloak corners together, blowing on his fingers to warm them. The sky was sliding into dour night and it would soon be colder yet. The fires already looked flower-bright comforts in the growing dark.

‘He leads the other merchants of Birka. The town was a great trading centre, but it is failing. The silver is drying up and the harbour silting. Brondolf seems to think he has found an answer. He and his tame Christ godi, Martin from Hammaburg. They keep sending us out to get the strangest things.’ He broke off at a thought and chuckled, uneasy as all Northmen were with the concept. ‘Who knows what he is doing? Perhaps he is working some spell or other.’

I knew of Birka only from old Arnbjorn, the trader who came to Bjornshafen twice a year with cloth for Halldis and good hoes and axes for Gudleif. Birka, tucked up in an island far east into the Baltic off the coast of Sweden. Birka, where all the trade routes met.

‘Is that where you have been all these years, then: searching out dead men’s eyes and toadspit?’ I demanded.

He made a warding sign. ‘Shut that up for a start, boy. Less mention of… such things … is always safer. And, no, I wasn’t always doing that. For a time I thought to have a white bear safely tucked away, the price of a small farm.’

‘Is that what you told my mother? Or did she die waiting for your return?’

He seemed to droop a little, then looked at me from under his hair – it was thinning, I noticed – one eye closed. ‘Go fetch some bracken for bedding. We can dry it at the fires beforehand.’ Then he sighed. ‘Your mother died giving you birth, boy. A fine woman, Gudrid, but too narrow in the hip. At the time I had a farm, not far from Gudleif as it happens. I had twenty head of sheep and a few cows. I was doing well enough.’

He stopped, staring at nothing. ‘After she died, there didn’t seem much point in it. So I sold it to a man from the next valley, who wanted it for his son and his wife. Most of the money went to Gudleif, when I made him fostri. Some he was to keep and the rest was for you when you came of age.’

Surprised by all this, I could only gape. I had known she died … but the knowledge that I had killed my mother was vicious. I felt clubbed by Thor’s own hammer. Her and Freydis. They’d do better to call me Woman Killer.

He mistook my look, which was the mark of us, father and son. Neither knew the other and constantly misread the signs.

‘Yes, that was the reason Gudleif’s head went,’ he said. ‘I thought him my friend – my brother – but Loki whispered in his ear and he used the money on his own sons. I think he hoped I would die and that would be an end of it.’ He paused and shook his head sadly. ‘He had reason to think that, I suppose. I was never a good husband, or a good father. Always trying to live the old way – but too much is changing. Even the gods are under siege. But when he fell ill and sent for his own sons, thinking he was dying, Gunnar Raudi sent for me and Gudleif knew it was all up with him.’

‘So he did try to kill me in the snow,’ I said. ‘I was never sure.’

Rurik shrugged and scratched. ‘Nor he, I think. If Gudleif had wanted you dead, there were easier ways, though Gunnar Raudi wouldn’t have gone with it. A sound blade is Gunnar and you can trust him.’

He broke off, looked sideways at me and scrubbed his head in a gesture I was coming to know well, one that revealed his uncertainty. Then he chuckled. ‘Perhaps, after all, Gudleif sent you to Freydis to have her make you a man.’ His look was sly and he laughed aloud when my face flamed.

Yes, Freydis had done that, popped me on her the way Gudleif used to put me on his horses when I could barely walk. He made you wrap your hands in the mane and hang on until you learned to ride or fell off. If you fell off, he would pop you on again.

When I thought of it, Freydis was much the same. Blurry with the mead I had brought, greasy-chinned with lamb, she had caught me by the arm and dragged me close, stroking my hair and answered the riddle she had set me and I had failed to understand.

‘I can manage everything, have done since my Thorgrim, curse his bad luck, fell down the mountain,’ she said dreamily. ‘The year after that, Gudleif arrived at my door. I can cart dung and spread it on the hayfields, herd cows, herd horses, milk, make bread, sew, weave … everything. But Gudleif provided the thing that was missing.’

I couldn’t move, could scarcely breathe, though I was hard as a bar of sword-iron and too dry-mouthed to speak.

‘Now he cannot and he sends you,’ she went on and rolled me on her.

‘Come. I will teach you what you were sent here to learn.’

‘Good was Freydis,’ my father said, himself bleared with fond memories. ‘Gudleif swore she was a witch and had made him return every year and stay until he could hardly crawl on the back of a horse to ride off the mountain. If Halldis knew, she kept quiet over it. She was rich as good earth, was Freydis… but lonely. All she wanted was a good man.’

I looked at him and he grinned. ‘Aye, me too. And Gunnar, probably. In fact, if there was a man who hadn’t ploughed that field, then he lived in the next valley but one and was too lame to travel.’

I said nothing. I wanted to tell him of Freydis and her spell and how she had killed the bear with a spear while I ran … A vision, again, of that head, lazily turning, spraying fat drops of blood in an arc. Had she smiled?

When I eventually crawled to the side of it, the bear was already dead, the haft of the spear driven clear up and out the top of its skull by the impact with a tree. It had hit the slope and over-run its own feet. It was still a huge cliff of snow, frightening even when still. I saw, numbly, that the hair under its chin was soft and nearly pure white. One sprawled paw, big as my head, was shaking gently.

I sat down, trembling. Freydis’s spell had worked. Perhaps the price had been her own death. Perhaps she knew. I blubbered and there was no one reason for it. For her. For the knowledge of my own fear. For my father and Gudleif and the whole mess.

Eventually, I was shaking too much to cry. I was half-naked in the cold and had to get back to the hall. The hall and Freydis. I didn’t want to go back there at all, where her fetch might be, waiting accusingly. But I would freeze here.

The bear shifted and I scrambled away. A final kick? I had seen chickens and sheep do that with their throats cut through. I didn’t trust this bear. I remembered Freydis and my fear, took a deep breath, crossed to it and drove Bjarni’s sword into where I thought the heart would be, deep inside the mass of that white cliff.

It was a good sword and I was strong, made stronger yet through fear. It went in so smoothly I practically fell forward on the rank, wet fur; there was no great gout of blood, just a slow welling of fat drops. The sword was in nearly to the cross guard and I couldn’t get it out.

Eventually, shivering uncontrollably, I gave up and slogged back up the slope, through the door and into the ruin of the hall, wrapped myself in her cloak for the warmth and waited, sinking into the cold, where Bagnose and Steinthor found me.

It was a bad enough memory to have rattling round your thought-cage. Now, to add to all that, there was a new horror: a vision of me, like a small bear, clawing another Freydis from the inside out, charging out from between her legs in a glory of gore and challenge. I couldn’t see the face of the woman, my mother, though.

I shook my head, near to weeping, and knew it was for me more than anyone and wanted to back away from that, ashamed.

My father gripped my forearm wordlessly. Probably he thought I was mourning Freydis, or my mother. Truth to tell, I was not even sure which myself.

More alone than ever, I picked my way through the camp, where men chaffered and yacked and busied themselves, out into the trees to get bracken, aware of his eyes following me, aware that he was as much a stranger as all the others.

I wondered if he had taken his brother’s head, or if Einar had. What must it feel like, to have to kill your brother? Even just to watch him die?

Yet they were still men, these Oathsworn. Grim as whetstone, cold as a storm sea, but men for all that.

Most had wives and families – in Gotland, or further east – and went back to them now and then. Pinleg had a woman and two little ones whom he sent money back to by traders he could trust. Skapti Halftroll had more than one woman in more than one place, but he spent all his money on finery. Ketil Crow was outlawed from somewhere in Norway and had no one but the Oathsworn.

There were others, though, who were men apart. Sigtrygg was one, for he called himself Valknut and wore that rune symbol on his shield, three triangles known as the Knot of the Fallen. It meant he had bound his soul to Odin, would die at the god’s command and even the swaggerers walked soft around him.

Einar himself was a mystery, though most people had the idea he was an outlaw, too. Pinleg joked that our jarl, dark and brooding under his sullen, crow-wing hair, had been thrown out of Iceland for being too cheerful. He was the only one who dared joke about Einar.

Later, when bellies were full and the conversation had died, men took to cleaning their weapons, taking great care with the blades to gently grind out all the dark spots they could. Einar stood next to the biggest of the fires and the men gathered silently round him in a half-circle, facing the black sea as it sighed on the shingle. Behind, a wet mist crept stealthily down the mountain.

‘Tomorrow, we head inland from here,’ Einar said, his dark eyes moving from one to the other. ‘Pinleg, you will stay here with nine others and guard the ship and our belongings.’

Pinleg grunted his annoyance at that, but he knew why … in a long, fast march, he wasn’t the best choice.

He also knew, I learned later, that he would get his share of the spoils, since no one kept anything for himself. In theory. Actually, everyone stole a little: silver dropped down breeks into boot-tops, or stowed in bags under his balls or armpits. Those caught, though, suffered whatever punishment the Oathsworn decided, which certainly started by losing all their booty and almost always included pain along the way.

‘We seek what will be easy to find: the Christ temple of St Otmund,’ Einar told us. ‘It will be the only substantial stone building for miles, with outbuildings of wood, so look for that. We raid it and get out, fast. This is a well-defended kingdom and the days of good raiding here are long gone, so take only what you can carry – no slaves, no livestock, nothing heavy.

‘The only thing we must get is a … a … reliquary.’ He stumbled over the foreign word, then looked at the puzzled faces. ‘It looks like a chest, well made, well carved and decorated. That we must get.’

‘What’s in it?’ asked Ketil Crow lazily.

Einar shrugged. ‘Bones, if everything I hear about such items is true.’

‘Bones? Whose bones?’ asked Illugi Godi curiously.

‘St Otmund, almost certainly,’ answered Einar. ‘That’s what these Christ-followers do with saints. Stick their bones in a chest and worship them.’

‘Fuck,’ offered Valknut disgustedly. ‘More spell stuff. What are they cooking up in Birka?’ He made a warding sign and just about everyone followed.

‘Good question,’ growled Skapti. ‘What does Birka want with this pile of bones?’

Einar shrugged and looked darkly at them all. ‘All you need to know is that they are outfitting us for next year. Every man will get enough for a new set of clothes, top to toe, and the Fjord Elk will be fitted with new gear, too. And we get to keep what we take from raids other than what was asked for.’

Everyone fell silent, nodding at that. Skapti hoomed in his throat and growled, ‘Just show me where they are, these saints.’

Those who knew better chuckled and Valknut told him: ‘Saints are dead followers of Christ. Their chief priests vote the best dead people to be gods in their Valholl.’

‘Votes, Sig? Like in a Thing?’ scoffed Skapti. ‘No fighting for it?’

‘They don’t believe in fighting,’ Valknut said loftily. ‘They believe in dying and when they do they are called martyrs. And the ones they think are better martyrs than others become saints.’

People who knew nodded, those who were learning this shook their heads in sceptical disbelief. Skapti hoomed disgust. ‘Well, if that’s the way of it, then we shall make lots of martyrs tomorrow, with little risk.’

Einar held up one hand, his hair like black water breaking round the stone of his face. ‘Don’t be fooled. What the Christ-followers say is one thing, yet this kingdom supposedly follows the White Christ and for people who don’t believe in fighting, they can make a shieldwall that will turn your bowels to piss if we are unlucky enough to meet one. Move fast, stay quiet and we’ll get in and out faster than Pinleg on a woman.’

Laughter and nudgings of Pinleg, who grinned and said, ‘I have heard tales of treasure, Einar. Dragon hoards, no less. I would not like to think I am pissing about in the rain chasing some child’s firepit story when I could be getting in and out of a woman.’

There was a sudden silence and I wondered why Pinleg had voiced that where others, clearly, had kept their teeth together. Later, of course, I found out why Pinleg could say what he chose.

Einar swept his black eyes over them once more. ‘There is such a thing being spoken of …’ He held up a hand as Pinleg cleared his throat to spit. ‘Rest your oar a moment,’ he said and Pinleg swallowed. Einar stroked his moustaches, looking round before he spoke.

‘This Martin, the monk, is a deep-thinker, who can dive into the world’s sea of learning and fish out choice morsels. Lambisson thinks highly of him and keeps him close – and Brondolf is no cash-scatterer, as we know.’

Grim chuckles greeted this and Einar scrubbed his chin. ‘I have … uncovered some things that make me believe there is more to these Birka matters than is carved on the surface. There’s a snake-knot tangle to it, though, so when I know more, you will know more.’

Pinleg grunted and that seemed to be assent. The others milled and muttered to each other.

Einar held up both hands and there was silence. ‘Now, we are Oathsworn and have two here – Gunnar Rognaldsson, known as Raudi, and Orm Ruriksson, known as the Bear Killer. You know our oath … is there anyone who will stand the challenge?’

Challenge? What challenge? I turned to my father, but he nudged me silent and winked.

Slowly, a man stood, uncomfortably it seemed to me. A second stood with him and my father let out his breath with relief.

Einar nodded at them. ‘Gauk, I know you have waited for this moment since your foot went bad on you and you lost the toes last year.’

Gauk stepped into the firelight, his face made more gaunt with the shadows playing on it, and nodded. ‘Aye. Without those toes, my balance is gone. Sometimes, unless I am careful, I fall over like a child. One day I will do it in a fight.’

Everyone nodded sympathetically. If he stumbled in a shieldwall, everyone was put at risk.

‘So you will step aside, with no fight and no shame?’ asked Einar.

‘I will,’ said Gauk.

‘For whom?’

‘Gunnar Raudi.’

And that was that. Gauk would be free to leave here the next day with whatever he could carry away and Gunnar Raudi would take his place. My mouth was dry. I realised that the way into a full crew of the Oathsworn was to challenge and kill someone already in it, then take the binding oath. Unless, of course, that someone volunteered to go quietly.

Gauk and Gunnar were already clasping forearms and Gunnar was (as polite custom demanded, I learned) offering to buy what Gauk couldn’t carry away on his back. Sweating and chilled, I glanced at the other man as Einar turned to him.

‘Thorkel? Are you going with no fight and no shame?’

‘I am, for Orm Ruriksson.’

There was murmuring at that. Thorkel was a seasoned fighter, a good axeman and I was, as Ulf-Agar yelped out, only a stripling.

‘A stripling who killed a white bear,’ my father snarled back at him. ‘I don’t recall any tales of your doings, Ulf-Agar.’

The little man’s dark face went darker still and I knew then what Ulf-Agar’s curse was – that of legend. He wanted one to live after him; he was jealous of those who had what he sought and could not steal.

He was welcome to it, I said to myself, since it was a lie and shame made me hide it from everyone’s sight, though it sickened me.

Einar stroked his chin, pondering. ‘It’s hard to give up a good man for an untried one. That’s why we fight. How do we know what we get if we don’t see newcomers fight?’

Thorkel shrugged. ‘No matter what he is like, he will fight better than me, for I do not want to fight at all. Not against the Christ-followers, for my woman in Gotland is one and I promised her – swore an Odin-oath – that I would not raid their holy places. So best if I leave, for if that is the way Birka’s thoughts are going, I cannot go with them.’

Einar scowled at that. ‘You swore an oath to us all, Thorkel. Is that to be overturned by a promise to a woman? Is your oath to us less than that to a woman?’

‘You have never met my wife, Einar,’ said Pinleg gloomily, his wiry body swathed in a huge cloak. ‘Breaking an oath to her is not done lightly.’

Everyone who knew Pinleg’s woman laughed knowingly. Before Einar could answer, Illugi Godi rapped his staff on a stone and there was silence.

‘It is not a promise to his wife,’ he said sternly. ‘It was an oath to Odin. However stupid that may have been, it is still an oath to Odin.’

‘Our oath is made to Odin,’ Einar argued and Illugi frowned.

‘Our oath is made to each other, in the sight of Odin. Thorkel’s own Odin-oath may be truer, but I am thinking he must live with the consequence of swearing too many oaths. Anyway, he does not break his oath to the rest of us if one stands in his place.’

There was nodding agreement to that and Einar shrugged and turned to me. ‘Well, you take the place of a good man, Orm Ruriksson. Make sure it was worth the trade.’

I stepped forward as bid and clasped Thorkel’s forearm. He nodded at me, then moved off.

And that was it. I was now part of the Oathsworn of Einar the Black.

Later, I saw Thorkel and my father head to head in conversation and something niggled at me and worried and gnawed until I had to voice it.

‘You arranged it,’ I accused and, to my astonishment, my father grinned and nodded, putting a finger to his lips.

‘Aye. Thorkel wanted to go, has done for a time. He has an Irish woman in Dyfflin, which is just across the water from here, but made no Odin-oaths over her. By Loki’s arse, what sane man would do that, eh?’

‘Why does he want to leave?’

My father frowned at that and self-consciously scrubbed his chin. ‘Tales of Atil’s treasure,’ he answered gruffly. ‘Thorkel believes it foolishness, thinks Einar’s thought-cage is warped.’

‘Why didn’t he say that, then?’ I answered, with all the stupidity of youth.

My father batted my shoulder – none too gently, I thought – and answered, ‘You don’t say such things to the likes of Einar, unless you have a head start and fast feet, or are prepared to fight. No, Thorkel wanted out when he got here and didn’t want to fight for it and didn’t want to lose all his stuff.

‘This way, he gets to leave safely with a bag of hacksilver – and you get a good sea-chest, a spare set of clothes and a decent shield.’

‘I have nothing—’ I began and he clasped my forearm, his eyes gleaming in the darkness.

‘I did little enough for long enough,’ he said. ‘I need take big strides to catch up and I will not make old bones on a farm now, I am thinking. So I will spend my shares how I choose.’ He paused then and added, ‘Keep your lips fastened round Einar. He is a dangerous man when his brows come together.’

So, in the star-glimmered dark before dawn, I found myself assembled with the others, sword in hand, clutching Thorkel’s shield with its swirling design of rune snakes, shivering and sick to the pit of my stomach.

We helped shove the Fjord Elk back off the shingle before the tide went out and stranded it there for hours. My father, of course, was staying behind since he was shipmaster and Pinleg would need him if they came under attack. So was Valgard, in case the ship was damaged. The eight others who stayed were hard enough men, but were all those who, for one reason or another, were not the fastest on their feet.

I was surprised that Skapti was going with the main body – not that I was going to say aloud that he was too fat to move fast – and more surprised than that to see him wearing a mail hauberk. A few others had mail, too, but had left off the padding of spare tunics usually worn beneath it.

Later, of course, I learned that no clever man expecting a fight and having good mail will willingly give it up and, since the easiest way of carrying it is to wear it, that’s what they did.

The two who were leaving said their farewells, hefted their bundles and packs and struck off in the opposite direction from the one we would take. By the time we reached the Christ temple, they would be far enough away not to be considered part of the act. If they moved fast, of course.

Ulf-Agar had unrolled his mail from the fleece it was kept in, the sheep-grease fending off the rust. I thought to try to mend the rift between us and stepped forward to offer a helping hand as he hefted the ring-heavy mail by the shoulders.