In later years he would say it was a good job he was a tall man. Standing on the rocks and earth that had fallen from the roof, he could just reach the root he had used to swing down. He pulled himself up into the hole the wolf had dug on its way down and, bit by bit, edged his way to the surface.
It was midday and the mist was clearing. The day was still and the snow of the land was sparkling under the new sun. He looked across at Aldeigjuborg, that marvel among towns, tucked into the elbow of the river. He had seen many marvels that day though, too many, and was sick of them. When he had stood to face the druzhina he had been sure he would die. But he had shouted to them that he had Loki’s luck, and so it had proved. The ice, which had seemed so sturdy around the ship, had suddenly given way, a black fissure opening from bank to bank, sending men tumbling into the killing cold of the river. He hadn’t stopped to see how they fared.
He was freezing in his wet furs and needed to find shelter and a fire. He couldn’t go to the town, he knew — some of the druzhina might have survived and be looking for him. What did he have? Flint and tinder, soaking wet, the Raven’s sword and some rings. He needed to get a ship to get back to Francia and liberate that gold he had buried. But how? He looked east. It was March and the rivers south would be thawing. He could pick up a boat and go to Kiev. There he would be just another northerner looking to make his fortune as a fighting man.
He felt a rumble through his feet and guessed the cavern roof had finally fallen in. He thought of his friends down there. They had died good deaths, deaths that would make them legends. He was sad for them, but no one could have hoped for more, he thought. He almost envied them. He would not die such a fine death.
So east then. He’d survive in the sun but by nightfall he’d need a fire. The trouble was that the forest, where he would be safe from any patrols of vengeful druzhina, was a day away. He needed a horse. Ofaeti heard something behind him. The wolf had dug an enormous hole, scattering snow everywhere and leaving the grass exposed. Unseen and unheard, the mule had approached and was now munching on the grass.
‘Come on,’ said Ofaeti. ‘Team up with me and I promise you adventure. The east, no snow, grass as high as your ears.’
The mule just looked at him. Ofaeti walked over and took its halter. He mounted.
‘Part of the bargain is that you have to carry a heavier burden than before, but you look after me and I’ll look after you. What do you say? I have a tale to tell to honour a great warrior and I’ll practise on you. Here goes. The gods in their schemes…’
He turned the animal east, past the barrows and towards the woods.
78
Byzantium
The winter moon hung low in the still evening, its light catching the spear tips of the army, turning them to little candles shining from the dark.
They were camped in fields three days’ march from Miklagard. The boy they called Snake in the Eye for the odd dark shape that seemed to surround the pupil of his left eye was excited and had even learned to speak some of the language of the Rus. The camp was enormous, six thousand men plus women and children in tow, and Snake in the Eye, who had a facility for languages, had become the conduit between his family and the rest of the grand prince’s force. They were all of northern stock, which is why Snake in the Eye and his kin had been greeted warmly, but the manners and dress of the Rus were alien to the boy. They fascinated him, though, these men of Kiev — tall, blond but dressed like easterners, their wide trousers bound at the ankle, their war gear decorated with silver and gold.
Snake in the Eye huddled into the fire. He loved the smell of the camp at night — all smoke and cooking — and the cold that nipped you if you left the fire but that made the heat when you returned all the more delicious.
He looked down at the pendant he wore at his neck. He had pestered his father for it for long enough and the old man had eventually given in. It was only a pebble — strange to make a pendant of a thing like that — but it held a fascination for him. There was a design scratched on it, a wolf’s head in the northern style. The way it was held by the thong was curious too — a little harness made of three knots. His father had told him it was a luck charm and that the leather would eventually rot. So he had showed Snake in the Eye the knots until he could tie them with ease. That was part of the magic, or so his father said.
The men were in good spirits because they were finally going to be paid. Prince Vladimir was a stingy ruler and his bravest and strongest warriors — those descended from the northern lords — had threatened to quit unless paid better and more promptly. His solution was to send them to Miklagard — Byzantium, the world city — to help the emperor defend against the rebel Phokas. So, despite the cold by the rocky river, the men were happy. Those who went by boat were three days from the city, the walkers a little further. But everyone would arrive together, that was the plan. They wanted to put on a display, to show the emperor he would have value for his gold.
The whole family was huddled around the fire when the stranger approached. He was tall and pale with a shock of red hair. Over his shoulder he had a big black wolfskin but was otherwise lightly dressed — only pantaloons in the eastern style and a raw-silk shirt. He dropped the wolfskin onto the ground in front of Snake in the Eye and said, ‘What am I bid?’
Snake in the Eye looked at the man not knowing what to say.
‘The boy has nothing to offer,’ said his father. ‘Let me see it and I will tell you what it’s worth.’
The man bent and picked up the skin. He passed it to the boy’s father — a tall fat man with hair the colour of straw.
‘It’s still bloody, man. No great coin can be paid for that.’ Snake in the Eye’s father was careful to use formal language, to show the trader he was a man of substance.
‘I do not ask for coin,’ said the man; ‘just to rest my traveller’s bones by your fire and to hear a tale or two.’
‘You should look to trade the skin for a cloak,’ said Snake in the Eye’s father. ‘You will freeze those traveller’s bones if you stay dressed like that.’
‘The fire of poetry warms me,’ said the man. ‘Let me have a story and I will need no fur to drape me.’
Snake in the Eye’s father shrugged. ‘Very well. I will begin by telling of a man who was called Sigi. It was said he was the son of Odin. Now there is this to be told-’
The traveller held up his hand. ‘I have heard this tale many times. I require a new one. Let the boy tell me a story.’
‘Do you want the story of a child?’
‘The story of a child or a child’s story — either will suit my appetites.’
Snake in the Eye felt embarrassed, put on the spot. ‘I know no stories.’
‘Did your grandfather tell you none?’
The boy thought for a little and then said, ‘It was years ago, before even the time of the great king Ingvar, who took the name of his mentor Helgi, called the Prophet, and, using it, conquered mightily so his renown echoed down the ages. In those days, as now, a mute slave was the most prized of possessions to those of royal blood, for all secrets do they keep. Just such a slave was in our lands, to the north. The slave had lived a long time, longer than her masters, but she grew neither old nor grey and was greatly valued for her diligence and honesty.
‘One year she travelled east with a princess to care for her and comb her hair as she went to marry a Wendish prince. The slave was well prized because, on account of a burn she bore on her face, no man would look at her so she was unlikely to fall pregnant and put herself at risk of death. The journey was smooth and the sea as glass, but on arriving at a certain market port the princess encountered a rich traveller who coveted the mute slave and wanted her for his own.
‘He offered the princess a great fortune for her — bars of gold and green emeralds — but the princess scorned him and told him she would rather die than part with such a treasured possession. The woman was blessed by the gods — or cursed — to never age so was an heirloom t
hat would be passed to her sons and beyond.
‘Then the princess set off down a certain river to the land of the Wendish king and a fever set in on her ship. One by one her crewmen died until only the princess and the slave were left alive. Then the princess herself began to boil and bake and eventually died. The slave sat on the boat wondering what to do but then noticed the rich traveller sitting next to her on the deck.
‘“Who are you?” she said, because in this man’s presence she found her voice.
‘“I am a fever,” he replied, “and I have lived inside your companions. Now I ask you — as you have no master to refer to — will you have me?”
‘And the slave said she would. So she lay with the man on the boat of the dead and he reminded her that he had loved her many generations before and she had borne him two sons. She said she remembered but that her sons were dead.
‘The traveller said they had died because he, their father, was an enemy of the king of gods, Odin, who had wrapped them in his schemes. The dead lord drew them on to fight him here on Middle Earth, to act out the battle on the gods’ final day when the wolf will kill the All Father and then be killed himself. So the boys had grown and become men and then one became a wolf who ate the other, killed the All Father in his earthly guise as a witch and scattered the magic runes. Some fell near and some fell far, but all fell to be reborn in human flesh. So the boys were born once more.
‘While they were apart they were safe, but when they came together their destiny pulled them down to face Odin, in the flesh here on earth, enacting a ritual that embraced death and rejected it in the same breath. She did not know what he meant. She knew only that she loved him and was afraid of him.
‘So the mother fell pregnant again and put the children far apart. She raised another boy in the ways of magic, a wolfman, to try to fool the god, to let him be ensnared in the god’s death ritual and let her own son go free. But the plan went wrong because Loki, who loved her and loved her sons too, knew that death in one lifetime did not matter. He wanted to free the boys from Odin’s schemes but knew that it was the work of ages. Loki was bound, tied and pinioned on a great rock as his son the wolf was tied and pinioned. And though he could send his mind forth to travel the nine worlds, there was a limit to his powers because if his scheming came to the attention of the king of gods, his torments would double. So he could not approach the boys directly but needed to influence their fate by more subtle means.
‘So he pretended to be on Odin’s side and used a prideful and arrogant king who thought he could defy the gods to speed the dead god to earth. In looking to prevent Odin living in the world of men, Helgi drew the hanged god ever on.
‘But the boys too tried to fight the will of the king of gods, to run from him and avoid their fate. The god had been crafty and hidden his runes well when last he died. Some had gone to a child in the mountains, some to a Varangian princess beyond the Eastern Lake. But the dying god’s slyest and cruellest plot had been to send his runes to the girl who the brothers loved, a girl who had formerly borne only one rune — the howling rune that stood apart from all the others and drew the wolf to itself. Now Odin’s runes stood alongside the rune that would call his killer and guarantee his death.’
‘Why does this god seek to be born in the world of men, only to die?’ asked the boy’s father.
‘I will come to that,’ said the boy. He poked a stick into the fire and went on: ‘The mountain child had guessed her divine identity. She tricked one of the brothers and kept him close, using him to track the other runes, to free them from their human carriers by death. She made him skilled in shapeshifting magic, strong and clever, so he might find the wolf and play his part by dying under its teeth. But this part of the god, who had by instinct sought the rituals to bring out and nurture the runes within her, thought the runes had been sundered only in two, when they had been split in three. Her enchantments failed her, and the brother she had deceived saw through her and killed her, placing her head before his true love’s feet.
‘Through many battles, which are too mighty in number to recount on a night so cold, the brothers fought to save the girl while one fell to his old ways and became a wolf. They came at last to a barrow, a hollow place for the dead, and they went inside. There brother slew brother and the god was made flesh in the girl.
‘This has happened many times and will happen many times again in years to come. There are three women — the Norns — who sit spinning out destinies beneath the world tree and even the gods must bow to them. The women require Ragnarok, they require the death of the gods. So Odin — wise in magic — gives them their deaths, ever rehearsing the gods’ final battle here on earth, played out by himself and the wolf made flesh. It is a ritual, but a ritual performed by the father of gods, an offering to destiny, to keep the end at bay. But when he fails in his ritual, as one day he will fail, then Ragnarok will happen for real. The twilight of the gods will be upon us and the old gods, those ancient savages, will die.
‘Old Loki works to this end. He is an enemy of the gods. And, though he sped the brothers to death at Aldeigjuborg, he knew in that death were the seeds of life. The wise and kind god Vidar had taken flesh as a fat warrior and, with Loki’s help, survived to kill the wolf. It is he from whom this story springs. He will carry the message to eternity, so that the humans who are the victims of Odin’s great ritual can realise their role and resist it.
‘It is said the telling of this story brings good luck, for if the brothers are reborn they may hear it and perhaps, in this lifetime or many to come, eventually avoid their fates. The god Loki, the lord of lies, prince of the darkened air, enemy of the gods of Asgard, blesses this story and smiles upon those who tell it.’
The boy finished his story and the traveller laid the wolf pelt before him. ‘Loki does bring you luck, boy, for the tale has won you this fine pelt.’
‘I thank you for it, sir.’
‘I hope my gift will encourage you to tell this tale in Miklagard. For I tell you this: if you do, you and your family will prosper to the tenth generation. Tell it when you can on the steps of the church of wisdom and you will have a greater reward than just a wolf pelt.’
‘Are you a seer?’ said the boy’s father.
‘To make the future is to see it, so I suppose I am a seer,’ said the traveller. He stood.
‘Let us at least offer you a cup of ale for your generosity,’ said the boy’s father.
‘It is you who are generous to share such a story,’ said the man, ‘but now I must leave. There are others I must visit before the night is over.’
‘You will be a welcome guest if you bring such gifts,’ said the boy’s father.
‘I am always well rewarded for my exertions,’ said the man with a bow.
The next morning the bright winter sun woke the boy and he wondered if he had dreamed the night before. But the wolf pelt was beside him. His father was up and making some porridge. He smiled at the boy as he came out of the tent.
‘I didn’t know we had a famous storyteller among us, Snake in the Eye. Where did you get that tale from?’
The boy walked to his father’s side. ‘Didn’t you tell it to me?’
‘One like it,’ he said. ‘It was said your great-grandfather once fought a great wolf, though few believed him when he said he had.’
‘He returned with a great treasure, didn’t he?’
‘He did, and tales of the east.’
The boy nodded. ‘Perhaps one day they will tell tales of me.’
‘Perhaps they will, Snake in the Eye, for you have a poet’s heart and so will be sturdy in battle. The emperor will let you write your own story.’
‘I will write it with my sword on the bodies of my enemies,’ said the boy.
‘You are a poet and a warrior,’ said his father. ‘I am proud to call you my son.’
‘I will be a great slayer.’
The boy touched the stone at his neck for luck. In the clear morning the ocean w
as visible. In a day they would sail towards the dying sun, he thought, west for Miklagard, for hope and for a future of blood.
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