Ofaeti shoved him towards the warming house. The door was open and bodies spilled out of it like a hideous tongue from a black mouth. Some were naked, some half dressed. The berserkers were still stripping them. Each living man had bags and sacks with him laden with as much gold as he could carry. The reliquary seat had been smashed, all its gilt panels and gems ripped from it. Astarth wore the fine silk robes of a priest, while Egil held the golden shepherd’s crook used in the mass.
Jehan felt something inside him, the cold shadow of an anger he would once have known. Now he was a stranger to himself. The energy that had coursed through him on the journey to Saint-Maurice was gone, replaced by a torpor, a slowness of mind. He felt that unless he focused very hard on what was in front of him and around him — the courtyard beneath his feet, the voices of the Vikings — then another reality just behind it was ready to break through and devour it.
‘Some quality stuff even for you, Christ’s man,’ said Egil.
‘Hey, I’m a man of Christ too,’ said Ofaeti. ‘Half a day worshipping him and we get all this stuff. Take my advice: offer him a prayer. You won’t be disappointed.’
Ofaeti threw Jehan a good cloak lined with fur. He sniffed it. Fox. The fur smelled to him as though it had never been washed. He sensed stress seeping from it, felt the animals’ terror as they were caught and killed, told male from female, young from old. He put the fur about him.
‘Here. What’s wrong with you?’ It was Ofaeti. ‘You have to get dry.’
‘The Raven’s been at him, I reckon,’ said Egil. ‘Look at his teeth.’
Ofaeti peered into the confessor’s mouth. ‘He’s bleeding,’ he said.
‘Strikes me that when a man gets cut in the mouth like that with no other mark on him then there’s some funny stuff going on,’ said Egil. ‘And who’s the king of funny stuff? The Raven.’
‘Are you all right?’ Ofaeti put his hand on the monk’s shoulder and looked into his eyes. Then he shook his head. ‘Reckon you’re right, Egil. Some sort of sorcery. But he saved my life so I’ll save his. Here, help me dress him.’
Ofaeti and Egil stripped Jehan, who made no effort to resist. Then they dressed him in clothes from Grettir’s men — two tunics, two pairs of trousers, a pair of fine boots and a couple of cloaks. As they did, Jehan had a glimpse of himself as he used to be — infirm, crippled, twisted. The monks had dressed him; the monks had washed him. Since he was young he had relied on others to care for him. A strange feeling of comfort came to him, of familiar things in familiar surroundings.
Ofaeti tied a beaverskin hat about Jehan head and in his hand he put the staff with the cross on it. Jehan dropped it, watching it fall without interest or concern.
‘Looks like I’ll take that then. We’ll need it until we reach our homelands,’ said Ofaeti. ‘You’re a cunning man, monk, to come up with this idea.’ He stared into Jehan’s face and saw no response. ‘Or at least you were. Shivering. Good sign. Often happens when you warm up.’
The Vikings had almost loaded up the horses they had found. Many wore three or four cloaks, fur hats and even gloves.
‘I’ll say this for Grettir,’ said Astarth, ‘he was a good king, a giver of rings. Look at this fine stuff.’
‘He hit a trader coming down from the north just as he came to join the siege,’ said Ofaeti. ‘A good haul too, thank Tyr and Christ and Jesus for us.’
‘Christ is Jesus, like Odin’s Grimnir. It’s a guise of his,’ said Fastarr.
‘All gods like a disguise,’ said Ofaeti, ‘the better to keep an eye on their followers.’
The kitchen had been raided but the food in the warming house had been left. The berserkers had seen the froth at the mouths of the dead and guessed they had been poisoned, so any bread, smoked meat or dried fruit was subjected to a lot of sniffing and poking. Egil was still doing this as he loaded it.
‘Here’s an idea,’ said Astarth, ‘we get the monk to eat it first.’
‘Good plan,’ said Varn. ‘Shall we give him some now?’
‘He’s not having any from my share,’ said Egil.
‘Your share of poisoned meat?’ said Astarth.
‘Still my share,’ said Egil.
‘I’d say by the look of him he’s eaten some. The man doesn’t look well.’
Jehan looked around him. There was something strange about the light. It seemed more intense, the colours more vivid. The snow was no longer an even white. A sheen lay upon it, subtle, barely perceptible, with splashes of greens, reds and browns and around them an iridescence as the weak light split the water crystals to rainbows. And the walls of the monastery were slick and wet with colour. The colours brought smells: plants that he recognised as belonging to the woods of Paris on the skin of the Vikings, the piss and shit of animals and humans, frozen mosses and moulds, the iron of the rust that streaked down from a horse ring sunk in the stone, the wet wood of the trough that stood next to it, the sweetness and corruption on the breath of the men, the death stink on the corpses that hung on their stolen clothes, where it mingled in with the living sweat and grime of the berserkers. It was intriguing to him, and lovely. The world seemed gloriously stained. Only the pale girl at his side had no odour, no sweat, no signature.
‘You should soak us, monk. That way we’d get a haul like this every day,’ said Varn.
‘No one’s pouring water on me in this weather,’ said Egil
‘How do you go about it if it’s cold?’ said Varn. ‘They soak babies, you know. In their freezing churches in the middle of winter. I’m surprised it doesn’t kill half of them.’
‘It’s a way of sorting out the tough ones,’ said Astarth. ‘If the kid cries they leave it out on the hills, and that’s true because my uncle told me.’
They were talking about God, Jehan realised. God. The words from the Bible did not come easily to him now. He tried to think of a line, a prayer, a song, to clear his simmering head.
‘Father, why have you forsaken me?’
‘What?’ said Ofaeti.
‘He’s raving,’ said Egil. ‘Leave him here.’
Ofaeti shook his head. ‘There are twenty kinds of enemy between here and the north coast, and he may be able to help us with half of them. Tie him to a horse and stick another cloak on him. He’ll freeze if he doesn’t move. Come on. We’ll scout a river out from the high ground and take it north. If we can buy or pinch a boat, we’ll get through. We’ll be face down in our ale in the halls of the Horda before the month’s out.’
Jehan felt himself lifted, as he’d been lifted many times before. This time it took two berserkers to get him into the saddle.
‘What’s he been eating?’ said Varn.
‘Stone, by the weight of him.’
‘You’re a hardy man, monk,’ said Ofaeti. ‘Even if you have eaten poison I’ll bet you’ll be right as rain in a couple of days.’
Jehan’s hands were loosely tied to the pommel, his feet bound to the stirrups, and then the berserkers were on their way, heading back down the pass. Jehan glanced to his left. The girl with hate in her eyes walked beside him. He had the sense that she was happy with the direction they were travelling.
‘What is your name?’ he said. She did not reply, but for some reason a name came into his head, a name that seemed to trail a hundred others behind it. Svava. It meant nothing to Jehan. He could tell hardly anything about the girl, form no impression of her. He only knew that she hated him and he felt bound to follow her wherever she chose to go.
42
The Shattered Lands
Aelis had to be wary as she headed north. She needed to get a boat downriver to the coast and from there go east. Her only hope was that the wolfman had been speaking the truth. She had to believe he had. He had nearly given his life for her twice, may in fact have given it already. And she sensed no dishonesty in him at all, unlike in the little man who rode beside her.
Of course she was careful. She refused to let Leshii sleep near her at night, leaving him
to guard the horses while she found a place to hide. If he couldn’t find her then he couldn’t kill her no matter how many ravens came to warp his mind. A bigger problem would be getting hold of a boat. They needed to buy one outright and travel alone. She could not explain her odd behaviour to others and could not camp with any party of traders or pilgrims she encountered.
As it was, Leshii came up with the solution. He did a deal with a river family to take their boat down to the sea. There was no room for the horses so Leshii sold them at what, he kept repeating, was a scandalously low price. The problem was that there was only one buyer. He came from a day’s travel away and had only a few deniers. It was a question of take it or leave it. The man didn’t want the mule and Leshii was not about to leave the animal for whoever found it. He took it aboard and it settled down well enough after some initial coaxing. A boy and his two uncles followed in another vessel, to bring their boat back when they reached the sea. The men were fishermen not farmers, so there was no substantial spring planting to be done and they were glad to take the payment.
Leshii explained that Aelis was a young monk travelling east and preparing for the life of a hermit so would need to be alone to pray at night. The fishermen were not curious sorts and asked no more questions, though their gaze did linger on the sword at Aelis’s side.
The weather broke as they travelled north, iron-black clouds igniting with halos of sunlight before blowing away to leave a clear and cold blue sky. The meltwater had gone and the river’s flow was slower but still enough to take them on at a good pace.
Aelis sat in the boat huddled under her cloak. The enormous change her life had undergone since leaving Paris had come home to her and she found herself shivering and rocking, not just with the cold.
The river narrowed and broadened, bent and straightened; they passed through small settlements and larger ones where curious villagers stood on the banks to see them pass. Many of the people looked very poor, their clothes tattered and torn, a number with limbs missing or leaning for support on their fellows. The houses too were mean things, flimsy-looking, many of them burned shells. Norsemen had been there and the land was shattered. Why did King Charles buy the Vikings off? she wondered. He should have driven them out.
Leshii was puzzled. ‘They have enough traders on this river. I don’t know why they look at us as if we had the many heads of Triglav.’
‘Who is Triglav?’
‘A horse god of my people. Four heads. His worship has fallen into disuse. Helgi holds the horse in contempt and prefers to fight on foot. He won’t have the animals worshipped in his lands.’
‘What do you know of Helgi?’
‘He’s a Viking, but not from the same place as the lot besieging your brother.’
‘How many did he slaughter to win his crown?’
‘None. His ancestors conquered Ladoga, then we overthrew them and set up our own king, or rather kings. We are a fractious people, lady, many loyalties of tribe and family. We could agree nothing. So we invited the Norsemen back to rule us.’
‘You asked them to make you slaves?’
‘Not slaves, subjects. There are no ancient grudges against the Norsemen. When the Norseman makes a decision he does it on the facts, not to spite one tribe or favour another. It was for the best, and we have prospered under his rule. Helgi attacked the lands to the south and established Novgorod, which is to be the new capital when it’s completed, and Kiev, which suffered badly under the rule of two wild Varangians, Askold and Dir.’
Aelis shook her head. ‘You are not a proud people to invite another race to rule you.’
‘We are too proud. That was the problem. We’d take a thousand indignities from a foreigner before we took one from a neighbour.’
Aelis looked out. The forest of the Arrouaise was tight about them, its big oaks in bud, the river gentle and pleasant.
‘Do you think he can help me?’
Aelis knew what the answer would be — Leshii was never going to say ‘no’. But she wanted some reassurance, even the sort the merchant had to offer — which was not much different to the patter he used to sell his wares.
‘If Chakhlyk thinks so, then I think so. He has laid down his life for you, so I think you can trust him.’
‘He said he was doing this for love. Do you know what he meant?’
‘Love of money, very likely.’ Leshii saw the joke had gone down badly. ‘Who knows, lady? These men are full of riddles. He is a sorcerer, a shapeshifter. His words can have a thousand meanings and none. I do not look too deeply.’
Aelis leaned back in the boat. The mule had gone down onto its haunches. Leshii was steering — the current was strong enough that they didn’t often need to row — and Aelis tried to sleep. It was cold but she was tired. The movement of the boat lulled her. She felt herself sinking and couldn’t tell if she was awake or dreaming.
‘You did it before; you can do it again.’ A voice, a woman’s voice.
She suddenly sat upright, reaching for her sword. She was on the boat still but it was night, the river cloaked in a strange dark in which moonlight turned the water to a shimmering veil of silver, the leaves of the trees to pewter, the sky to a forge-blackened steel. She had known that darkness before. At Loches, when she had walked in the night.
There was someone with her on the boat, but she couldn’t make her head turn to look. Where was Leshii? Nowhere. Where was the mule? Nowhere.
‘You did it before. Do it again.’
‘What did I do before?’
‘What you needed to. What you will do again. Do it.’
It seemed to Aelis that the river was flowing through a very strange place indeed. It was underground, and there were no stars, just the glimmer of strange shining pebbles in the dark; no trees, just great trunks of rock dropping from the ceiling of a huge tunnel.
The boat came to shore by a small black beach. A tunnel stretched away in front of her. She got out and followed it down into the earth. From somewhere far off she could hear a monstrous grinding sound, the like of which she had never heard. It was like a great stone moving over rock. In the streets of Paris she’d once seen a pair of horses harnessed to a cart spooked by a dancing bear. The cart had hit another, smashing a wheel and breaking a horse’s leg. The uninjured animal had panicked and tried to bolt, the cart scraping behind, the lame horse screaming and staggering. This sound was also of something stricken, broken, and brought with it a sensation of deep agony, something wrong in the order of nature. But Aelis felt compelled to seek it out.
She walked down the tunnel, and though it was dark, she could see. A light seemed to shine from within her, and she realised that another of those strange symbols had lit up inside her. This was nothing like the horse symbol: it did not breathe, it did not sweat, and though it shone, it was not with the lustre of a horse’s coat but with an intense flame. It was a much smaller presence than the horse symbol, not at all expansive but dense and bright with a light that seemed to illuminate not only her vision but her mind so that she became aware of the teeming darkness pricked by lights that spread out across the earth. There were so many living things around her shining from the vast night, she felt like a bright cold star in the twinkling field of the heavens.
‘You did it before. Do it again.’
‘What?’
‘Your lover is dead but he will live again. Without you if your courage fails.’
Aelis looked around her. Just the tunnels, just the rock. She couldn’t see where the voice was coming from. Then the tunnel dipped and turned, grew narrow. A gap was to her right, no more than a fissure in the rock. Something glistened and shone on the wall next to it. She put out her hand and touched it. She looked at her fingers. They were wet and shiny. She couldn’t see the red of the blood, the whole cave was bathed in a lead light that turned everything to shades of grey but she sensed red. Aelis went through the crack in the rock, edging herself sideways to get in. She was not a big woman but still it was a breath-crushing pu
sh, the fissure so narrow that at points she had to wriggle to get through. But she did get through. She was in a room, a small chamber just high enough to stand in, though after ten paces it began to taper to nothing, the jagged ceiling coming down to a sharp and stony floor like the jaws of a great animal.
It was a scene of carnage. On the floor lay a huge wolf, its eyes vacant, its tongue lolling, its throat cut, a pool of blood about it. It was dying, and the noise it made was a wet rasp that seemed to fill up her mind, leaving her incapable of thinking of anything else. The wolf’s breathing quickened when it saw her and it tried to get up, though it seemed fatally wounded and could not stand. She did not feel afraid and went forward to put her hand on its great head. Its eyes turned to hers and they seemed almost human, full of longing.
Next to it lay three bodies, or the remains of bodies. One was a man with long silver hair, his hand still clasped around the handle of a strange curved sword. She had seen that before. It was the Raven’s sword. The second hardly existed. It was no more than a ripped spinal cord hanging from a skull like a bloody plait. It was female, that was all she could say. The other body she knew. Its face was instantly familiar.
The man wore a dark wolfskin about him, and his muscles were strong and taut, but a gout of flesh had been ripped from his side. She thought of Sindre, who had struggled to rescue her from that thing with the torn face, but this was not Sindre. Though the face was much stronger, more vigorous, not drawn or wasted like that of the monk, still she recognised him. It was Jehan, the confessor. Aelis felt her throat tighten, tears come to her eyes. She heard her own voice speaking: ‘I loved you but the gods did not love us.’
Someone was watching her but she could not see who.
She knelt at the confessor’s side and pulled back the wolfskin from his face. He was dead. She lifted him. His body felt light in her arms. She dragged him through the fissure in the rock, pulling him through until she was back in the larger passageway.
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