Raven: Sons of Thunder

by Giles Kristian

  ‘Sigurd will know what to do,’ I said, scratching my beard. In truth it was still not much of a beard. A good breeze would have blown it off, but I was proud of it, though it itched like Father Egfrith’s fleas. To make matters worse, the biting flies that love summer drizzle were gathering in faint brown clouds and beginning to test our patience. ‘That hoard we got from Ealdred must be fat enough to buy another dragon the equal of Serpent or Fjord-Elk,’ I said. ‘We are rich men, Penda.’

  He shook his head. ‘It shines well enough, that trove,’ he said, gesturing to Serpent, which sat serene, gently dipping in the low tide, ‘but for me it’s like looking at another man’s wife.’ Two Norsemen had swum out to replace Bjorn and Bjarni, who were now wading ashore, their swords and shields held above their heads. ‘I will earn my own silver, lad,’ Penda said gruffly, touching the spear beside him. He stretched out a leg, kicking a burning stick back into the fire. It hissed angrily. Other Norsemen sat around more fires, waking slowly, drinking and talking in hushed voices. The day was foul but the air smelled green and fresh.

  ‘Sigurd knows your worth,’ I said, recalling the slaughter I had seen Penda make. The Wessexman was a rarity, a warrior worthy to join Sigurd’s wolves. He must have known it too, yet he still ached to prove himself as all warriors do.

  He shrugged. ‘When we run into that treacherous bastard Ealdred, your Jarl Sigurd will see me for what I am. My sword will talk for me. It will sing, Raven, like a good scop.’ He grinned, snatching some invisible thing from the air. ‘Then I will take what I am owed.’

  And so we spent the day complaining about the weather, playing tafl, looking to our war gear again – a constant job in wet weather – and being bored. Other than the scouting parties, we dared not venture far from the bay for risk of running into any Franks or in case we had to put to sea quickly because Fjord-Elk was seen in the channel beyond. But Fjord-Elk did not come. We ate seal again that night because the creatures were too stupid to get away from us, and the sky continued to spit on us, and this time there were few jokes around the fires.

  Sigurd brooded. The jarl kept his own company and Olaf was the only one who dared talk to him, though even he said little, wrapped in his own thoughts. Perhaps he thought of his son, white-haired Eric who had died full of arrows outside Ealdred’s hall. He had been Olaf’s only son and now there was no one to carry Olaf’s bloodline forward. I wondered if the man would ever return to the dead boy’s mother or whether he had set his course by another wind; a wind that would whip his own name into a story to be sung in future years in the stead of a living heir. For I had seen Olaf offer war against unbeatable odds on the English shore and this had made me believe that his heart was broken.

  The watches were set again and this time I was part of them. I was pleased to climb the wet hill, clutching tall saltbush stems and pulling myself up, the shield on my back, the sword at my hip and a spear in my hand. Penda went with me, though I guessed he was as reluctant to leave Cynethryth as I was.

  ‘The monk will watch over her,’ I said, breaking the silence as we climbed. We were about a hundred paces from a narrow ledge that wound steeply up and to the right above the northern end of the bay. This sheep path would take us to a headland crag of limestone, one of the lookout places from which a man named Osk from the previous watch said he had seen the Wessex coast, though the others said it was just low cloud on the horizon.

  ‘That old goat Asgot irritates me,’ Penda said eventually, hawking and spitting. ‘I’ve seen his eyes slithering all over Cynethryth and I like it about as much as I like wiping my arse with nettles.’

  ‘I’d take a burning arse over Asgot,’ I said, coming to a cluster of terns on their nests, which were shallow scrapes in the soft ground. I carefully stepped around the birds and they kept their black-capped heads low, watching me intently with blinking yellow eyes. ‘Asgot is a blood-crazed old fool,’ I said, admiring the birds’ courage, for not one of them fled to the darkening sky. ‘He’s probably not seen a woman like Cynethryth for thirty years or more, that’s likely all it is.’

  Penda grunted. ‘There are eggs here,’ he said, coming to the nests I had passed. ‘We could add them to tomorrow’s pot. It can’t make Arnvid’s stew any worse.’

  ‘Those beaks look sharp as arrows, Penda,’ I said. ‘Let the birds keep their eggs. As for Asgot, if he’s hatching some mischief, we’ll know. Though I’d wager Cynethryth can take care of herself.’ In truth I was annoyed with myself for not seeing what Penda had. Asgot was dangerous. I did not doubt it. Along with Glum and Glum’s kinsmen, the godi had killed my old friend and foster-father Ealhstan. They had hung the old man in an oak tree and strung the purple rope of his innards round the trunk. They had sacrificed my friend and one of them had died on my sword for it, but not Asgot. His old dusty lungs still creaked well enough and his bloodthirsty knife was sharp as ever.

  ‘Aye, we’ll watch him, lad,’ Penda said, ‘and the old bastard had better not try anything shady.’

  When we reached the white rocks it was dusk. It was still raining and even the marrow in my bones was sopping. We leant on our spears and looked east into Frankia. Grassland stretched across rolling hills as far as I could see. Scattered throughout this green landscape were darker copses of oak and beech and there were no human dwellings to be seen, though some of the scouting parties reported making out curling smoke against the sky from isolated farmsteads further inland towards the south. The bay we had moored in must have been less than a day’s sailing from the mouth of the great Sicauna river which snaked into the town of Paris, the only Frankish town I had ever heard of. Olaf said there were other settlements along that river’s banks, maybe even small towns, and I believed him, for if the river was as great as folk said, it must surely support many people.

  We knew Ealdred would have to pass our bay some time, for he was no fool and would stay close to land for safety and to harness the offshore winds, though they would be less than a fart’s worth in that dismal weather. But when he would pass was anyone’s guess and so we would just have to wait.

  Penda unrolled two oiled skins and unwound some slender rope from his waist and we laid one of the skins beside a large storm-crumbled rock. Using our two spears as supports and the ropes as guys, we made a passable shelter under which we sat looking out to sea as the incessant rain tapped against the leather, reminding us that we were about to spend a miserable night. For stealth’s sake Sigurd had forbidden the sentry groups from lighting fires. He did not want any Franks, intrigued by flames or smoke, to come blundering into his camp. Neither did he want the crew of Fjord-Elk to fear making landfall, though the Norsemen all agreed that when Ealdred did come, caution would most likely carry him directly from the open sea into the Sicauna river, thus avoiding the rocks that can tear into a ship’s belly, and the greed of men who would attack a ship for the treasures in her hold. But caution would not save Ealdred or his champion Mauger from us. Their wyrd was death and it waited for them on the Frankish coast.

  I took a hunk of stale bread from my tunic and held it beyond the shelter, watching as the rain turned it into a foul-looking mush that would at least spare my teeth. Penda lifted a buttock and unleashed a fart that would have filled Serpent’s sail for a day, then shook his head and chuckled.

  ‘I’ll never forget your face, lad, when the Welsh were all over us like flies on cow dung. That blood-red eye of yours shone like the devil himself. And your teeth . . .’ he gnashed his own like an angry hound, ‘you looked ready to tear hell a new arsehole. I reckon you would have scythed my head off if I had got too close.’

  ‘I’ll relieve you of it now if you fart like that again,’ I said, screwing up my face at the awful smell. He grinned contentedly, altering the course of the livid scar someone had carved from his left cheek to beneath his chin.

  ‘The Welsh must have thought some demon from their children’s nightmares had come for them,’ he said. ‘Poor bastards.’

  ‘The way I rem
ember it they mauled us, Penda,’ I said with a grimace. ‘It’s a miracle we’re still alive to enjoy this pissing rain.’

  Penda’s gaze rested on me, his eyes dulling like standing water growing a skin of ice. He had lost countrymen and friends that day. He nodded, his eyes sharpening again. ‘You never know, we might make a decent fighter of you one day. Give you some craft to go with that black temper of yours. You really don’t take it well when someone tries to kill you, eh, lad?’ He smiled. ‘Lucky you’ve got that over there,’ he added, pointing towards a rock half hidden in a tuft of grass.

  ‘Got what?’ I asked.

  ‘That invisible shield, you clod,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to get my hands on one of those.’

  I shook my head. ‘Very rare those invisible shields,’ I said, ‘you hardly come across them these days. But if I find another one I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Good lad,’ he said. But it was a thin joke, for Penda was not the only one who thought it some strange wyrd that I had survived this far when other war-skilled men had not. Perhaps there was some seidr shield raised before me. And perhaps that shield belonged to Óðin.

  I swallowed the wet bread as my mind swam back to that bloody day and the hillside where we had made our stand. Men had turned that grass greasy with gore and afterwards the pale dead had lain like a litter of bones. In truth Penda had saved my life, dragging me to my feet when my limbs had given up. I owed him. But then, I owed Sigurd too and all the Norsemen. They had stood with me, killed for me as men do for those in the shieldwall beside them, but more than this, they had taken me into their Fellowship. I was young and arrogant and wrapped up in the blind lust of young life, and yet, in the quiet times, I sometimes considered all I had been given: a row bench, a sword, a place amongst men who were weaving a rare saga tale. Whenever I thought about these things I became dizzy. I would shake my head and puff my cheeks. My chest would fill with warm pride and my heart would thump like an axe head on a shield. I wanted to repay the debt somehow. So on that pissing night I stared out across the bay, over the channel towards the north-west and the last glow of the fallen sun, hoping that I should spy Fjord-Elk and be the one to give Sigurd the news.

  The moon had bobbed and sunk again by the time Svein the Red and Bram Bear came to relieve us of our watch. Their figures loomed on the crunching ledge beside us, black shapes against a dawn the colour of dragon’s fire. At last the rain had stopped and in the pure morning air I could smell the mead on the two Norsemen as they approached.

  ‘I hope you two didn’t get too scared up here on your own,’ Bram said, winking at Svein. One hand gripped his ash spear, the other a bulging skin of mead.

  ‘With that Englishman’s hideous hair and Raven’s blood-eye, it would be a brave draugr that tried to spook these two,’ Svein said, resting the butt of his spear beside a thicket of sea thrift which rustled in the breeze. Just then a screech ripped the air behind us. Bram ducked and spun, extending his spear ready as a peregrine streaked like an arrow down into the long grass.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, Bram,’ I said, laughing with the others, ‘Svein’s got your back. You wouldn’t let that mean old bird peck the Bear’s beard off, would you, Svein?’

  ‘I might,’ Svein replied with a grin. ‘Something should be done about that beard. Bram’s face is hairier than Thór’s ball sack.’

  Bram growled something about us pissing off back to the beach, and I was sure his cheeks were red beneath his bushy brown beard. We stood and stretched our limbs, which were stiff as wind-hung cod, and Penda yawned and smacked his lips together drily, nodding at the skin in Bram’s hand and winking. I understood.

  ‘It’s thirsty work keeping watch all night,’ I said in Norse. ‘A man deserves to wet his tongue.’ Bram offered me the mead skin, though it clearly pained him.

  ‘Don’t know why I should give you any,’ he grumbled. ‘My old father would have skinned me alive if I’d spoken to my betters the way you do.’

  ‘He should have,’ I said, taking a step backwards and handing the skin to Penda. ‘A pelt like that could have made him rich,’ and with that Bram came for me and I scrambled out of his reach, leaving him cursing Svein for laughing.

  ‘I’ll deal with you later, whelp!’ he rumbled, picking up a stone and hurling it after me.

  We made our way back down to the beach, past the burrows of the terns and shearwaters, along the ledge of wind-moulded grass and through the field of sea thrift. Below, the seals had begun their keening again, the noise somehow too lusty for the still summer’s morning. The smell of onions and melted fat and sweet woodsmoke wafted up to me, making my mouth slippery and my stomach ache to be filled. It was a strong enough spell to dull the edge of my need to spy Fjord-Elk ploughing the channel, and as we drew closer it blended with the delicious sound of sizzling food and the foggy hum of low voices. Usually we left the cook to his work, only falling on him like wolves when the shout went up that the meal was ready. Now such a pack had gathered that only the rising smoke betrayed the cauldron’s exact whereabouts.

  Olaf turned to greet us, scratching his backside. ‘No sign of the goat dropping, then?’ he called.

  ‘Not so much as a ripple, Uncle,’ I replied, shaking my head and wondering if Sigurd had been wrong in thinking that Ealdred was clinging to the coast. Perhaps the ealdorman had taken the straight crossing as we had done and was already drinking wine with the emperor of the Franks. The jarl was sitting alone on a rock, running a whetstone the length of his long sword.

  ‘He’ll come, Uncle,’ Sigurd called without looking up from his work. Olaf shrugged and turned back to the pot and as he moved I saw what was holding the Norsemen’s interest. Cynethryth. She was standing there stirring the broth with a smooth stick. She wore a gown of woad blue, the hem sandy above bare feet. Her hair, gold as ripe barley, hung in two long braids, shining in the dawn light, and her skin, white as milk curds, gave her eyes an acute sense of life and intelligence. Amongst those travel-worn warriors she was impossibly beautiful. Just looking at her tore out my guts.

  ‘Have you told her, lad?’ Penda asked. I stopped suddenly and gripped his arms, turning him to face me before we got close enough for the others to overhear. I felt the blood rushing to my face. You could have cooked an egg on my cheek.

  ‘Told her what?’ I asked. It was a pathetic attempt at ignorance. Penda dipped his chin and raised his eyebrows. I sighed. ‘No, I have not told her,’ I said, ‘and neither will you, Penda, unless you want to feel my boot up your arse.’ He grinned and shook his head, scratching his long scar and running a hand through his thick hair, raising it into spikes.

  ‘You are a strange one, Raven,’ he said. ‘You’ll take on a horde of Welshmen for something to do, but your young knees buckle at the sight of a skinny-arsed girl.’

  ‘Don’t open that mead hole of yours, Penda,’ I warned him, aware of what a sorry sight I must have made, half threatening, half begging the man not to speak of my feelings. But I could not help myself. ‘Please,’ I added, the crown on my shame.

  Penda looked over to Cynethryth and then back to me, like a man standing at a fork in the road deciding which way to go.

  ‘I’ll keep your secret, lad,’ he said eventually, ‘so long as you keep my tongue wet with Bram’s mead. The sneaky whoreson keeps his own supply hidden away and if that last gulp is anything to go by it’s a damned good drop. My father used to say a jug of good mead can convince a man he can do anything. Told me he once walked three miles home on his eyebrows after a particularly tasty splash, so keeping your little secret shouldn’t be too hard.’

  I extended my arm and we gripped each other’s wrists. ‘I’ll get you your mead,’ I said. Bram was drunk as often as he was sober so stealing mead from his store could not prove too hard. Even a bloody nose or a black eye would be a price worth paying for Penda’s silence.

  ‘Keep stirring it but take it off the flame as soon as it begins to bubble,’ Cynethryth announced, handing the stick to Arnvid
as Olaf translated into Norse. From Arnvid’s face you would have thought he had hung nine days and nights starving and spear-pierced on the World-Tree and now grasped the secret runes of knowledge. ‘If you let it boil, you’ll ruin the taste.’ Arnvid nodded gravely. Then she sniffed the stew one last time before turning from it. The others watched Arnvid hungrily, their hopes hanging on him, and Cynethryth looked at me and smiled and the spirit of a peregrine flapped its wings in my belly.

  ‘You are filthy, Raven,’ she chided, running her eyes over me. My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth, so I nodded and smiled dumbly. ‘Well, you’ve no good reason to be, unless, of course, you haven’t noticed that drop of water over there.’ She nodded at the ocean, as flat as beaten gold beneath the dawn, except for the languid waves frothing on to the beach. ‘Let’s just hope there is enough to wash this grime off.’ She dragged a finger across my cheek. ‘Some of it looks older than Olaf.’ Then she linked her arm through mine and some of the Norse-men winked and nudged each other, but Cynethryth ignored them, leading me to the water.

  ‘You still wear the feather,’ she said. I was pulling off my boots so I could wade into the surf with her. ‘I did not expect you to wear it for ever, Raven.’ She frowned. ‘It was meant in fun, that’s all.’

  I shrugged. ‘I like it,’ I said defensively. The hint of a smile touched her lips, honing her cheeks into sharp edges. I stepped into the waves.

  ‘And the rest,’ she said, nodding at my tunic and breeks, ‘if they’re not stuck to your skin. We can’t have you befouling the ocean for the rest of us.’ I took off my tunic and dropped it next to my boots and brynja, giving Cynethryth a smile which she answered with the stone-face mothers give their whelps before letting the hazel switch say the rest.