Raven: Sons of Thunder

by Giles Kristian

  ‘Stupid Frank bastards,’ Penda muttered under his breath as Olaf stifled a grin and Ealdred agreed to the price. It was no easy thing keeping the dragons leashed against the fast-flowing river, but the Norsemen worked the oars masterfully whilst the English amidships did the best they could.

  ‘Fetch the coin, Raven,’ Sigurd said. Then he made a show of dipping his head respectfully to Ealdred. ‘How do we know we won’t have to pay another tax ten oar-strokes further up the river?’ he growled to the ealdorman through a smile. Ealdred nodded and asked Fulcarius, whilst I looked towards the river’s banks. The people of the place were still eyeballing the exchange, those armed with spears and shields having gathered into a war band of a hundred or more. I was trying to count them when off Serpent’s stern a salmon leapt, a streak of silver that splashed into the water, which looked like beaten iron in the late afternoon light. Above us, low grey cloud mottled and bubbled, slowly encroaching on the last patches of blue so that soon the smoke from Frankish hearths would be trapped and would spread like a pungent blanket across the river.

  ‘For another pound of silver Fulcarius is willing to give you a token,’ the fat man called, ‘a banner to tie to your back-stay to show that you sail upriver with the blessing of his highness the holy emperor’s shore guard.’ I saw his teeth. ‘Of course, there are no guarantees.’

  ‘What’s an Englishman doing sailing with Franks?’ Penda said distastefully, for it was clear from his accent that the fat man was no Frank.

  ‘What is an Englishman doing sailing with Norsemen?’ I accused him under my breath, at which Penda frowned and scratched the long scar on his face so that you might have thought I had asked him to count the grains of salt in the sea or the hairs in Bram’s beard.

  The deal was made and I stood amidships, holding three leather bags heavy with coin and hack silver whilst, a spear-throw away, Fulcarius barked commands at his crew. Those with arrows nocked or throwing-spears ready lowered their weapons, rolling and stretching the iron out of tense muscles. Those at the oars made ready to row.

  ‘They’re coming for the silver, Sigurd,’ Olaf warned, brows stitched together. He knew the English would see our war gear – brynjas, swords and helmets – in piles at our feet.

  ‘Just keep that piss bucket away from Serpent, Uncle,’ Sigurd said, watching the Frankish knörr like a hawk, his gaunt, bruised face slick with wound fever. Olaf nodded and took an oar from those stowed and Bram did likewise. At the bow of the knörr some Franks already gripped thick fender ropes and long staves to stop the ships crashing together in the currents. I could see Fulcarius clearly now and from the eager expression on his craggy, wind-burnt face I doubted he would notice even if Heimdall, warden of the gods, appeared then aboard Serpent and blew the Gjallarhorn to announce that Ragnarök was upon us. For Fulcarius’s eyes were stuck like slug slime to the fortune in my hands. But one of the others would surely realize what we were, even if they waited until they had the silver before they let on.

  In ten oar-strokes they would be upon us.

  ‘All-Father, give me strength and luck,’ I whispered, then I leant back and with all my strength hurled the first bag of silver high into the air and to my amazement it landed amongst Fulcarius’s men, who were roaring in anger and disbelief.

  ‘Have you lost your mind, Raven?’ Olaf growled in Norse as the other Norsemen, equally appalled, swore and complained under their breath, but I was already pitching forward and the second bag was in the air and that one landed by the knörr’s mast and must have split open, for there was a mad scramble amongst the crew. Fulcarius was all flailing arms, screaming at his men to keep their hands up where he could see them.

  ‘Raven, you fucking fool,’ I heard Penda say as I sent the last bag flying, but I misjudged this one, putting too much muscle into the throw given that the knörr was closer now, and that bag of silver would have splashed into the sea beyond her stern had one of the Franks not leapt brilliantly and caught it, toppling backwards into the river for his efforts. But this was proper Óðin-luck for us because the Franks began immediately to back oars, thrashing in their own wake to save the man, or more likely the silver, before it was lost. Fulcarius’s ship was all seething madness and Ealdred, trying to justify what I had done, yelled across to them that some of our timber strakes were old and we could not risk a collision, though I doubted any of the Franks even heard him in their panic. Oars banged and snared and Frankish curses hammered the still air. Then, as Sigurd gave the order for us to pull off and Olaf called the rhythm in heys, wild yells of triumph rose from the shore guard knörr and as I grabbed my own oar and pushed it through the port to join the rest, I saw the half-drowned hero hauled over the side on to the deck. Through a momentary gap in the throng I saw the man standing panting but victorious, holding the bag of silver above his head like a champion and grinning as his fellows cheered wildly, their backs towards us as we churned the iron-grey river and left them behind.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SIGURD AND EALDRED BOTH SUSPECTED THE SCRAP OF BLUE CLOTH we tied to Serpent’s back-stay was not worth spit, even guessing that this Fulcarius had quickly cut the weft from his own cloak in order to wring more silver out of us. But even three pounds had been a small price to pay for avoiding a fight and for the freedom to sail upriver. That much silver was, as Bram put it, a fart in a storm next to the hoard we would get from the emperor for the gospel book. Lucky for me it had turned out well, but that did not stop some of the Norsemen shaking their beards at me disapprovingly for taking such a risk with so much hard-won silver.

  Aslak in particular took a dim view of it. ‘That much silver would get you a fine brynja and a good strong helmet,’ he called from his journey chest on the port side, ‘or even two or three big-titted thralls to warm your bed. And you nearly sent it to the seabed! Damned reckless I call it. Makes me think you’ve been swilling Bram’s secret mead store.’ Some secret, I thought. Everyone knew of the bulging mead skins Bram had stashed beneath two silver wolf pelts in Serpent’s hold, but only a brave man or a half-wit fool would wet his beard with that nectar without the Bear’s consent. I wondered what that had made me when I had been dipping into that store to keep Penda’s tongue wet so that he would keep quiet about my feelings for Cynethryth. None of that mattered now, I thought, leaning back with the stroke and looking over to Aslak, whose nose I had broken though you could not tell, much to my disappointment since he had also broken mine which has been crooked as a hare’s hind leg ever since.

  ‘It would have bought us Rán’s favour, Aslak,’ I said, ‘which if you think of it is well worth having.’ What I was thinking was that if I ever met the Frank who had caught the last bag and gagged on the Sicauna for his efforts I would buy him a mead horn as long as my leg to wash the slime from his throat.

  ‘Rán’s favour?’ Bram bellowed. ‘For three pounds of silver the old bitch would have climbed aboard and humped you dry as a dead man’s fart!’

  But Rán had not got her hands on our silver, Fulcarius had, and because of that we were now rowing deeper into Frankia, our faces catching the molten iron light of the sun which was sinking in the west far beyond Serpent’s stern. Those Franks who had kept up with us, trudging along the river’s banks, began to disperse now, deciding that we were no threat, or at least guessing that we were not going to make landfall near their homes, meaning that we were someone else’s problem now, and I felt relieved to shed some of the weight of all those eyes. The river here was wide and free-moving. There were few houses along the banks of this stretch, for it is no easy thing to launch a boat in fast-flowing water, or even to moor one there – one slip and your boat will make a bid for freedom faster than an Irish thrall slathered in goose fat, and you will never see it again. Up ahead, the river would snake again, taming the waters, and on that coil there would be more houses, wharfs and moorings. And no doubt more curious Franks.

  The Wessexmen had played no small part in fooling Fulcarius and his Franks. By brandi
shing their crosses they had done as much as they could, though one man in particular deserved our thanks and that was the man who had upbraided Fulcarius and threatened to swim over and cut out his tongue. His name was not Leofmar but Wiglaf. He was a thickset man with short, thinning black hair which he palmed forward so that a few strands stuck against his sweaty temples. His face was red, his nose long and pointed, and his chin round like a crab apple, and maybe he had not been helping us fool the Franks at all. Perhaps Wiglaf was truly riled at being called a heathen and a Dane and really would have jumped overboard to slice the tongue from Fulcarius’s mouth. The man certainly looked shocked when Sigurd called him to Serpent’s stern and gave him a gold finger ring pulled from his own left hand. We had taken anything of value from the Wessexmen after the channel fight, swords, knives, brynjas, belt buckles, brooches, rings and strap ends, leaving them with only the clothes they stood up in and the wooden crosses some of them wore, which we did not like touching if we could help it. By being rewarded now Wiglaf was taking the first step towards regaining his pride as a warrior, and though he accepted the jarl-gold dourly under the gaze of Ealdred and his countrymen, he must have felt the embers of hope stir in his chest. He might have been Ealdred’s man and a Christian, but he was a fighter too and had seen Sigurd beat Mauger, who had been a formidable warrior. Wiglaf might have hated Sigurd but he must have admired him. Whatever, he put that gold ring on his finger and returned to his row bench, smoothly slotting the oar through its port and dipping the blade in time with the rest. His countrymen said nothing, but the big warrior Baldred, who had escaped Asgot’s knife, nodded brusquely and that gesture was loud enough.

  That night, as a chill dew seeped through our clothes and made everything aboard clammy to the touch, we moored in the shelter of a small holm in the middle of the river. Flat and muddy, it glistened by the light of the moon, which had cut through the clouds to curdle in long pennants and curls on the racing water. There was nothing on the holm to tie up to so both ships dropped their anchors and Olaf took the Wessexmen on to the mud to hammer in mooring stakes, and when they climbed back aboard they looked like walking turds with eyes. So they clung to ropes and washed in the river until they were clean and shivering, and all the while we laughed at poor old Uncle, who was a big, wet, white, naked growling monster. Then they hung their clothes over Serpent’s sheer strake to dry in the wind whilst they huddled in furs and Olaf asked us why it was that he, as the second oldest man aboard, was the one left to secure the ships whilst younger men sat around scratching their arses. It had been too dark to continue upriver but neither did Sigurd want to moor on the bank without knowing more about the river’s temperament, the surrounding area, and the mood of the local Franks. Moored to this mire we could not go ashore, but the ships were protected and we were safe from the Franks. Tomorrow we would choose where to make proper landfall before it got too dark to see where we were going.

  Cynethryth slept between me and Father Egfrith and when a stiff breeze began to whistle through the oar ports and over the sheer strake she shuffled up against me, the curve of her back inviting me to roll on to my side and envelop her. So I did, rearranging the skins so that they covered us both together, my right hand holding her hip and my right knee tucked snugly in the crook of hers. I slept breathing in the soothing scent of Cynethryth’s golden hair and if Karolus himself had climbed aboard waving a sword alight with holy fire, I would not have moved a muscle.

  The morning broke grey and damp and smelling of the weed and green slime that crept up the muddy holm and the river’s banks. The Sicauna had summoned a mist that rose sluggishly from the water like an unwilling soul departing a body. Men yawned and farted and stood along Serpent and Fjord-Elk’s sheer strakes, their steaming piss splashing and spattering into the river as they shook the sleep from their heads and rubbed the dreams from their eyes. Hair was wild and beards were crushed and we scratched and searched our clothes for fleas by the weak dawn light. I put the back of my hand to my nose and my stomach knotted itself because I could smell Cynethryth on my skin.

  Waking aboard a boat is a beautiful, unearthly thing. Yes, you are always damp and sometimes your bones complain about the ship’s hard ribs and hull, and often you feel like grass that’s been trodden underfoot and you just want to spring back up in the wind. But the seidr magic spans a boat’s deck like an unseen bridge to the spirit world. Men speak in low voices and all sound is muted and even our futures are silent, as though the Norns yet sleep or have not the light by which to see the life patterns, the wyrds, they weave for us. As for us mortals, the day is new and untarnished and we have woken upon the back of a dragon and so we are free to roam the sea road.

  After a breakfast of cheese, dried seal meat and the last of the bread, which was by now harder than seasoned oak, we made ready to head upriver. Men tried to look busy, scheming to get out of having to untie us from the stakes in the sucking filth, but you could only take so long stowing furs, tying back your hair and fetching oars from the oar trees. And this time Olaf chose five Norsemen to help him, perhaps not wanting to aggravate the Wessexmen again, though more likely because we had laughed at him the day before, and I was unlucky enough to be one of them. We slipped and fell and slithered in the mud like new lambs in their mother’s birth fluids, but eventually we untethered the ships and when we had finished we were covered in seven layers of shit. Cynethryth had watched the whole sorry adventure from Serpent’s prow and when I petulantly barked at Bjorn to throw me a rope so I could hang on to it and wash myself in the river she giggled and that made me even more cross. Then Bram hauled up the slime-covered anchor and we threaded the oars through their ports and dipped them into the calm water, setting off towards the sun, which, in its pale golden chariot, rolled slowly but inexorably into the sullen sky. And with it rose my spirits. The morning swim might have washed the scent of Cynethryth from my skin, but it had also washed the sourness out of me, and as my hair dried and the rowing warmed my muscles I could almost see the funny side. Still, I would remember not to laugh at Uncle again.

  In our wake, Fjord-Elk sliced as smoothly as a hot blade through tallow, her oars dipping in flawless unison, more so than ours for the lack of inexperienced Englishmen at her benches. By the cross at her prow stood her captain, Bragi the Egg, named so because there was not a strand of hair to be found on the man from his head to the soles of his feet. Sigurd had made Bragi Fjord-Elk’s captain after her old captain, Glum, had betrayed him, and the Egg seemed to have the knack of it from what I could see. His brother Kjar was the new steersman, taking over from Glum’s kinsman Thorgils, who had died with Glum and big Thorleik that night outside the shepherd’s hut in the Welsh hills. I did not know Kjar well, but his pride at being made Fjord-Elk’s steersman was as blatant as a horse’s hard-on, and this I thought was a good sign as I watched him standing at her stern, the tiller safe in his sure grip.

  Even on a dull day like this the country through which we rowed was as colourful as the richest tapestry, and ever changing. We slid past bright limestone cliffs and valleys in which cattle grazed contentedly on lush green grass. We passed boundless fields of ripe yellow flax, yet even these eventually gave over to woodland of chestnut, beech, oak, walnut, fir and pine, amongst which pigs and boar rooted, their snouts muddy and their grunts carrying to us on the water. Deer could be glimpsed if you looked long and hard and Bothvar called out when he saw a huge silver wolf padding away from the river bank, though when we looked it was gone.

  ‘Who’s to stop us grabbing some of this emperor’s meat?’ Bram Bear offered to no one in particular. And no one had an answer for him, so a little later we tied up to a couple of willows on the bank and caught and butchered four pigs, an old boar, and three chickens which Black Floki found wandering free. Bjorn and Bjarni took skins and spears and built a smoking tent on the shore. Inside it above slow-burning oak and apple wood they hung the cuts of meat and then they joined the rest of us around a great open fire above which we t
urned the old boar and the three chickens which Cynethryth and Egfrith had plucked, stuffed with onions and rubbed with Wessex butter, coriander and salt. The smell of this made our mouths slippery and when Yrsa and Red-faced Hastein came round with bulging skins of mead, pouring the frothing liquid into horns and cups, I thought I must be in Valhöll.

  ‘This land tastes good,’ Bram mumbled through a mouthful of meat, wiping grease from his lips with the back of his hand. ‘More food here than a man can eat.’

  ‘And none of it guarded,’ Svein the Red said, a huge grin splitting his glistening red beard as he tore off another hunk of meat. To the Fellowship meat and mead were as fine if not finer than gold and girls. ‘These Franks are too generous,’ Svein added, sucking his fingers. ‘But no swineherds to batter. That takes the fun out of it.’

  Black Floki sighed, shaking his head. ‘Why do you think that is, you great lump of giant’s snot?’ he asked, raising his dark eyebrows at Svein.

  Svein held a chicken leg up like war booty, then made a great show of biting into it. ‘Their White Christ told them to feed the poor heathens?’ he suggested, chewing with a great smile as the others chuckled. Even the Wessexmen, who could not understand what we were saying, seemed happy enough filling their faces. All except for Ealdred, of course, who ate with them but could not have seemed further away.

  ‘This meat was not penned because whoever owns it believes no one will steal it,’ Floki said casually. ‘You are not in the north now, Red. I am thinking there are laws here, laws strong enough to keep these Franks blade-straight.’ He pulled a piece of gristle from his mouth and examined it by the light of the fire. ‘This Frank emperor holds his land and its people in a tight grip,’ he said, flicking the gristle into the fire.