The White Raven o-3

by Robert Low

  Onund Hnufa gave the grunt that led any speech he made.

  'I don't need that bird to tell me it will be a bad winter,' he growled. 'The green wine is icing a month early.'

  Jon Asanes leaned over, his breath smoking warmly in my ear. 'White raven?' he asked in a whisper.

  I told him of the white raven, which the dwarves held in keeping with all the other secret things of the world — the sound of a cat's paw, the hairs of a maiden's beard, the roots of a mountain, the dreams of a bear, the breath of a fish, the spittle of a bird. All the things that should not be heard or seen, yet had to be kept somewhere.

  The dwarves hid them and only revealed them once, when they used some to make Gleipnir, the chain that bound the devouring wolf, Fenris. He was tricked into being tied with it only because the god Tyr placed his hand in the beast's mouth as security that the gods would untie the wolf afterwards. Tyr lost it as a result, but his sacrifice allowed the world-eating wolf to be secured.

  The only thing the dwarves made sure they did not use in making Gleipnir was a feather from the white raven, Odin's third pet.

  Sometimes old One Eye sends that bird into the world, as he sends the other two, Thought and Memory — but the white one does not come back to whisper secrets in the god's ear. It flies over the world shaking out feathers as snow to make the worst winters; a warning that, one day, it will make Fimbulwinter, the great freeze that heralds Ragna Rok, the end of days.

  'So Crowbone is telling us the end of the world is here?' demanded Jon.

  Finn gave a sharp bark of laughter. 'Little Crowbone is telling us that the birds think so,' he corrected. 'Since birds have thought-cages so tiny they can only keep a few in them, I am not concerned about what birds think.'

  Not all bird thoughts are of songs,' Crowbone said and that brought an echo of Sighvat, long dead in Serkland. I remembered Sighvat, hunkered down on the steppe, looking at the battered silver plate ripped out of the earth as we dug into Atil's tomb. It was the first sign that treasure was there at all, a blackened piece of a plate with pictures round the edges, which Sighvat said were the dreams of birds.

  'I never heard of a white raven,' growled Gyrth and Finn told him this was because he was an ignorant outlander. Gyrth gave him a scowl — he was named Gyrth Albrechtsohn and was as big as Botolf, with a belly bigger than Skapti's had been, but solid as a barrel. When he had strolled up like some huge bear to join us in Kiev and claiming to be a Dane, Finn had laughed.

  'Gyrth is an Englisc name,' he had chuckled, 'and your da was a Saxlander, which is plain to see. I don't see any Dane there.'

  'My ma was,' Gyrth had rumbled back, frowning.

  'Perhaps she had a horse, too,' Finn grinned, 'or a fast faering, to have got round so many men. You may not have any Dane in you, but she had, I am sure of it.'

  Men laughed and Gyrth blinked and frowned.

  'You are Finn,' he said slowly, 'who fears nothing. If you talk of my ma any longer, you will fear me, for I will fall on you.'

  Finn held up placatory hands and admitted that having such a rock fall on him would be a fearful experience, right enough. Then he clasped Gyrth by the wrist.

  'So Steinnbrodir it will be then — welcome aboard.'

  And Gyrth, grinning lopsidely at his new by-name — Boulder Brother — lumbered into our midst like an amiable bear, one Finn was never done baiting, as now

  'An ignorant outlander,' Finn repeated. 'Whose marvellously-travelled ma was too occupied to tell him such tales.'

  'I saw a white crow once,' Gyrth admitted, frowning. 'All its black brothers stabbed it with their beaks and chased it off.'

  'None is found so good that some fault attends him, or so ill that he is not of use for something, as my granny used to say,' Red Njal offered him.

  'Never heard of a white raven,' Gyrth persisted stubbornly.

  'But the green wine is icing,' Jon pointed out, shaking me back from where I still hunkered with Sighvat on the steppe, into the wither of Finn's frown. The iced wine was a sign you could not ignore.

  Made from young wheat, the brew was filtered through seven layers of charcoal and seven of clean, fine river sand and the resulting liquid was as clear as tears and casked in oak, which was Perun's wood. It was then left outside most houses all winter and people passing tried to guess when such a casking would grow the first ice crystals.

  They were removed at once, for ice is water and the more you removed, the more powerful — and green — the drink that was left. The colder the weather, the more ice formed on the green wine, the more you removed and the stronger it got.

  It had to be cold for ice to start forming on the green wine at all and that was a bad sign this early, as was the snow and the clear, cold air that promised more of the same. This year would produce some of the strongest green wine and only those who had drunk too much of it would head out on to the steppe now.

  I had pointed this out to young Vladimir after we had been hauled out of the pit the morning Sviatoslav's death was announced in Novgorod and after I had told him of the hoard and how the Oathsworn were a benefit to him.

  'If what you say is true,' he answered in his strong, high voice, 'then this man Lambisson from Birka is already out on the steppe and every day we leave him, the closer he comes to my silver hoard.'

  And he looked at me with his clear blue eyes on either side of a frown.

  His silver hoard. Dobrynya saw the sick look on my face and offered only a throaty grunt of a laugh from the other side of the table, where I had spent an hour explaining why we should not be staked like Danica, the thrall woman.

  'By the time we have done with the rites for your father, the meetings with your brother's representatives and preparing for such an expedition,' Dobrynya then said gently to his young prince, 'it may well be so late in the year as to be better waiting for the thaw.'

  Vladimir shook his head angrily. 'Uncle, my brothers may not wait.'

  He had the right of it there, sure enough and all that Dobrynya had spoken of was simply time wasted for Vladimir, so that he was fretted like a dog's jaw with impatience.

  It took two days of tough talking with the veche and a deal of promises here and there to get them to accept the thrall woman as their only victim. It was finally managed with some cunning from Dobrynya, who told the veche that young Vladimir would not sully the memory of his father with the blood of common criminals. That one they bowed to.

  So we were released, but kept in the fortress, supposedly for our own protection, for the next five days. On the sixth day, as Vladimir and all Novgorod prepared to enter into the rituals to mourn the loss of Sviatoslav, Jaropolk's hounds appeared at the gates.

  Sveinald and his son Lyut they knew them as here, the father a grizzled old Dane who had served Sviatoslav as a general and who had brought back the remnants of the army after his master's death. Now he advised Vladimir's elder brother Jaropolk, as Dobrynya advised Vladimir.

  Jaropolk, though eldest of the three Rus princes, was barely into his teens and easily swayed. Sveinald and Lyut had always been an arrogant pair and now that they held their young prince in thrall they acted as if they ruled Kiev and not he.

  They had arrived as Jaropolk's representatives, to honour the funeral rites for Sviatoslav — at least, on the front of it. In reality, they were here to find out what Vladimir would do and had brought at least a hundred men, seasoned druzhina warriors with their armour and big red shields marked with a yellow algiz rune, which had been the symbol of Rurik when he had founded Kiev. Shield, it meant, and alertness, too — but now the Kiev Slavs called it 'a golden trident' from the shape, which was like one of those three-tined forks.

  It took four days to send Sviatoslav to the halls of his gods, four days of wailing and bowing and kneeling and bloody sacrifice round Perun's pole, where horse heads were stuck on stakes and young Vladimir exhausted himself, the gore dripping off his elbows. But everyone agreed he had done well for a boy of twelve.

  At night h
e had no rest, having to preside over the feasts in the kreml hall, where his men and the druzhina of old Sveinald snarled at each other, barely leashed. Here, the high table was a tafl game of words as Sveinald tried to find out if Vladimir was going to acknowledge Jaropolk as Prince of all the Rus or resist him and young Vladimir and his uncle tried not to say one thing or the other. Oleg, the third brother, I noted, was not considered at all.

  The rest of the Oathsworn had turned up by this time, summoned south from Aldeigjuborg and having brought the Elk with them. Gizur insisted on this despite the sweat and labour on a river already porridge thick during the day and iced over every night, for he did not want it left almost untended near Dragon Wings.

  'Klerkon's crew is divided,' he reported. 'Dragon Wings is too laid up for winter to sail and the way out to the Baltic is frozen solid anyway. Half of them are swearing revenge on us, led by Randr Sterki. The other half is leaving, in twos and threes. Most of those are hoping to take service with Vladimir, so they are coming here. They wanted to sail down with us, for they knew we were crew light, but I thought it best to let them find their own way.'

  I had all this to chew over — and Finn, scowling-angry because, he said, I had handed away the secret of Atil's tomb, without even a guarantee that we would get anything out of it. We had our lives, I pointed out to him and he grudgingly admitted that to be true, though it did nothing for his mood and it was a foolish man who crossed Finn at times like this.

  There is always a fool when you don't need one. Lyut had been elbowing and snarling among his own druzhina on the last feast night. You could see that they were used to it, deferring to him because he was Sveinald's boy and had power over them as a result.

  So, flushed and strutting, he made a mistake when Finn slid on to an ale bench to talk to someone he knew slightly.

  'You are in my place,' he snarled and Finn looked up in surprise.

  'Perhaps, though I do not see your name on it. I will not be here long — look, there is a place here and another over there.'

  'Move,' Lyut answered, 'when your betters order it.'

  Finn turned. There was silence now from those closest, a silence that spread slowly out, like the ripples from a dipped oar.

  'Betters?' he said, raising an eyebrow.

  'In fact,' Lyut said, sneering, 'so much better you should kiss my foot and acknowledge it.'

  He put his foot up on the same bench Finn sat on. No-one spoke. Sveinald, grinning over his ale horn, looked at Dobrynya, then at Vladimir. It was a challenge, pure and simple and all the ruffs were up now. I did not dare speak; no-one did. The silence began to hurt.

  Then Finn grinned, a loose, wicked grin. He inclined his head, as if in acceptance and Lyut smirked. Finn handed his ale horn to his neighbour, then placed both his hands on Lyut's ankle and raised the foot to his lips.

  I was stunned. Most of us were. I saw Kvasir half rise in outrage — then there was a yelp from Lyut, for Finn had kept on going, straightening with Lyut's foot in his hands, forcing the man to hop like a mad bird to keep his balance.

  With a final, dismissive gesture, Finn threw the foot in the air and Lyut went over with a yell and a crash.

  'Kiss my arse, boy,' Finn said, dusting his hands. The hall erupted with hoots and bellows and catcalls and it was clear that half of Sveinald's men were drunk enough to be pleased to see Lyut sprawled in the sick and spilled drink.

  Finn was no fool. A man with no clever in him at all would have turned back to his ale horn and the backslaps and appreciative howls of laughter and Lyut, coming off the floor in a scrabbling rush, whipping the seax from his boot, would have had him in the liver and lights.

  Instead, Lyut found his knife hand slapping into the iron grip of Finn's left. When he swung a wild fist with the other, he found it shackled in Finn's right. Then Finn grinned his wolf grin and butted Lyut, so that the snarling boy's handsome beak of a nose splayed and blood flew.

  Lyut fell backwards, over an ale bench and into the hearth-fire. It took no more than an eyeblink or two to realize he was not getting up on his own, but his hair was on fire by then. Those nearest dragged him out and beat out the flames.

  Now Sveinald's men were roaring and growling with anger, for this was another matter entirely. Sveinald himself kept his seat, his knuckles white on the fancy gilt-rimmed horn.

  Sigurd, his silver nose gleaming, moved a little closer to his charges, the young prince and his now-constant companion, little Crowbone. On that one's face I saw no fear, only a studied interest, as if he had found a new kind of bird.

  Finn turned, his face streaked with Lyut's blood, the seax held in one hand. He glared round them all and the roaring subsided.

  'I am Finn Bardisson from Skanii called Horsehead,' he said softly. 'Is there anyone else wants their foot kissing?'

  Silence.

  'SPEAK UP, YOU DOGS!'

  Behind him, Lyut whimpered and men were carrying him away, to where the women would balm his toasted face with goose fat.

  'Sit down Finn Bardisson from Skani, called Horsearse,' Gyrth Steinnbrodir called out into the silence. 'You have taught the boy how to dance on one foot and not to sit so close to the fire and now I want to get back to my drinking.'

  There was a chuckle or two, then the hall noise washed back in like a tide on the turn and Finn shunked Lyut's seax into the ale bench and took his horn back, raising it in toast to Gyrth. I raised my own to him and he acknowledged it, while I felt Sveinald staring, could hear him ask through clenched teeth who this Finn Bardisson was and who this Jarl Orm.

  I was swelled with the pride of it, that my name was on lips all over the hall and aware also, with a sick, sinking feeling, that we had done neither ourselves nor little Vladimir any favours.

  Then, in the cold light of morning as everyone sorted themselves out for the day, the bird fell from the rafters and little Crowbone, his face whalebone-pale, cheeks flushed from the cold, started in to speaking about white ravens.

  He was wearing a fine tunic the colour of a robin's egg, wool breeks, fur-trimmed Slav boots and a white wool cloak trimmed with a swathe of sable fur that came up round his ears and met the rough curls of a fine goat-wool cap.

  He peered at the dead starling, while the great elkhound with him sniffed it and warily watched our own deerhounds. That huge white-grey beast, as like a wolf as a brother, only added to the unease surrounding Crowbone, for it had eyes of different colours, exactly like his.

  When he had first appeared with it, the warding signs made a flutter like bird wings and Klepp Spaki had been busy since, carving protection runes on bits of bone. Only Thorgunna, on whom seidr magic was wasted, was unafraid.

  'My, you look like a little prince now, right enough,' she said, beaming — then broke off to cuff the Scots thrall woman for dropping her pin case and spilling the bone needles out of it.

  All Olafs finery — even the white, wolf-ruffed elkhound — was gifted from Prince Vladimir. It was, as Kvasir had already pointed out quietly, just as well I hadn't decided to sell Crowbone as a thrall, since it seemed the little turd had charmed the ruler of Novgorod and had gone from slave to prince in one hare-leap. Things, he added, could be much worse.

  'How much worse can it already be?' grunted Finn, red-eyed from the night before and just as sullen in the chill daylight. 'The world is lining up to rob us.'

  'If you would rather have a stake up your arse,' I snapped back at him, stung by his scowling, 'I can probably arrange it.'

  One of the deerhounds laid its great bony head on my knee and sighed mournfully into the mood of the hall. The other snarled at the too-close elkhound, whose ruff stiffened.

  'Bleikr,' chided Olaf. 'Stop that.'

  Bleikr — White Fair, it meant to us, though most tongues could translate it no better than Pale. Whatever his name, the dog paid Olaf no heed, but was wise enough not to take on both deerhounds. None of the dogs wanted a fight, but the elkhound's ruff stuck out like hedgehog spines and the rough brindle
hair on the deerhounds' back was clenched and dark. We watched warily, not eager to get between them.

  Then Thorgunna gave a little grunt of annoyance at our holding back and moved in fearlessly, cuffing right and left. The dogs scattered, yelping.

  'Bleikr,' she said, tucking a stray wisp of hair back under her braids, while warriors did not dare look at each other for the shame of it. 'There is nice. Now you have a new dog — and kin, too, I hear. Your mother's father in Bjodaskalle and her sisters, too. Not forgetting your Uncle Sigurd here.'

  Crowbone nodded, though it was clear that Bleikr was deeper in his heart than these folk, who were only names to him. Even Sigurd. It came to me then that little Crowbone was a boy alone and, after all that had happened to him, might well be for all his life.

  Finn looked at the white dog and grunted cynically. Olaf frowned.

  'You do not like the name?' he asked. Then he pointed to the deerhound who had slunk back to Finn's knee.

  'What is this one called, then?' he challenged.

  'Dog,' Finn said flatly. Olaf, thinking he was being made fun of, scowled and pointed to the other deerhound.

  'And this?'

  'The other dog,' Finn answered, then cocked himself to the side and farted.

  Kvasir chuckled as Olaf started to get his own hackles up.

  'There is a wise rule we use,' he said, clapping the boy on one shoulder, 'and it is this — never give a name to something you might have to eat.'

  Olaf was taken aback at that and looked down at his new pride and joy, now trying to lick its own balls. 'Eat Bleikr?'

  'Well — not that one's tongue, perhaps,' Kvasir said and folk laughed.

  'Aye,' growled Gyrth, surfacing from under a pile of cloaks and pelts, where he had been trying to keep warm and sleep. 'If we go to find that cursed hoard in this weather, we will end up eating worse than that before we are done. Helmet straps will taste good, mark me.'