Crowbone

by Robert Low

  Tormod Kark blinked a little. This limp-footed little ruin of a man did not look like any of the shaved, tonsured Christ priests the jarl had pitched into the sea, but he claimed the role and wore a battered cross. There was also something about him – Haakon had already agreed to provide ships and men, but he would not speak directly to the little priest because he worried what magic the man had and whether even his breath was a curse. It could be, Tormod thought bitterly, if the smell is anything to go by.

  Tormod, of course, had pointed out to Haakon that, if this ragged-arse priest really knew the way to Eirik’s famed axe, he had already promised all the others the same. Haakon merely smiled; this was the game of kings, as well constructed as a spiderweb and with much the same purpose – all you had to do was pick your way safely to the prize at the centre of it.

  He said as much and Tormod bowed, thinking to himself that the real trick was to pick your way out again with the riches. He said nothing all the same, just smiled, the same way he now smiled at the priest.

  ‘Your reward for this gift?’ Tormod asked, with the air of one who has already sold himself and thinks all the world is the same. Martin looked sourly at him.

  ‘A stick,’ he answered, which made Tormod blink.

  ‘A stick?’

  ‘An old spear. Orm will have it, or know where it is. Do not kill him until I have my stick.’

  Tormod swallowed, for he wondered if the priest was working some subtle magic, as Haakon had feared. He wondered if this spear-stick was part of it.

  ‘We will consider it,’ Tormod said and rose, easy and white-toothed. He spread his hands. ‘Meanwhile, I offer you the hospitality of the hall of Norway’s king.’

  ‘No gift from a thrall, who owns nothing, not even his own name,’ Martin said viciously, which brought the blood surging to Tormod’s face. ‘Thank the king for it from me, all the same. Tell him not to take too long in the considering, for the year turns.’

  Tormod swept off, trailing a chill cloak of indignity; Martin went back to sucking noisily on his meat, mainly because it kept folk from sitting near him and that suited him well enough.

  It would be endless day in the north now, but they were shortening fast and soon Bjarmaland and the Finnmark would be cloaked in long night and ice.

  Dark and cold, Martin thought. Like revenge.

  Mainistir Buite (Monasterboice), Ireland, around the same time …

  CROWBONE’S CREW

  ‘You were lucky,’ said the voice and Crowbone tried to see the face that belonged to it, but his eyes would not open entirely and the little they did would not permit focus; the light was blinding. A woman, he noted, with the part of his thought-cage that was not thundered with pain.

  ‘You were,’ echoed another voice, deeper and stronger. A man, then.

  ‘It was as well the girl squealed when she did,’ the woman went on, ‘for it made you more wary and Óengusso’s blow was badly struck.’

  ‘It was, so it was,’ echoed the man and the woman sighed.

  ‘Óengusso, go away. You are not helping here – drink this, young Olaf.’

  ‘I just wished to make sure the wee prince was not too dunted,’ the man answered, while Crowbone felt the bowl click against his teeth and a slightly bitter liquid filled his mouth. He swallowed and then felt warm breath, smelling of rosemary, close to his mouth, then his ear. The woman sang, whisper-soft and seeming nonsense, but Crowbone knew seidr when he heard it and the hairs on his arms rose. He felt her draw away from him and the voice of her was so familiar that her name was on the end of his tongue.

  ‘He will be finer than new linen,’ the woman replied firmly. ‘I have sung the charms of mugwyrt, plantain, lamb’s cress, cock’s-spur grass, camomile, nettle, crab-apple, chervil and fennel into his mouth and ears.’

  ‘In the name of God, I hope,’ the man said and Crowbone knew him for a monk by the tone. Suddenly, with a rush as warm as strong wine, he knew the woman, too, had heard that voice a hundred times when he could not see the face, as she sat behind him and combed his hair. Before that she had salved his scabbed, badly shaved head the day Orm had rescued him from his tether by the privy on Svartey.

  ‘Thorgunna,’ he said and opened his eyes into the great smiling sun of her face. Then the other face swam into view and ruined the moment.

  Óengusso had eyes like a pig, tiny and blue, fringed with straw lashes. He was big and fat-bellied, too, yet there was muscle under the monk’s garb and quiver of him, which Crowbone had to acknowledge when he saw his helmet, held out to him by apologetic hands.

  ‘Sure, I am sorry for it,’ Óengusso said, watching Crowbone slowly sit up and swing his legs over the side of the pallet bed. He sat for a moment until the world settled, then took the helmet from the Irish monk; the left side of it was dented, the little plume-holder battered.

  ‘We could not get it more straighter, sure,’ Óengusso offered, seeing Crowbone’s silence as accusing. In fact, Crowbone was wondering what the side of his head was like if the helmet had been this bad; if the throb and ache of it was anything to go by, it was crushed and his left ear was almost certainly missing.

  ‘No, no,’ Óengusso said when Crowbone said as much. ‘Hardly a dunt on you. A good helmet that.’

  Crowbone said nothing else, for he was trying to stand up and the floor would not help him. It swayed like a ship side on to a swell and, eventually, Óengusso thrust out an arm for Crowbone to grip. It felt, he thought, like a bar of iron and he knew now where the strength that all but flattened his head had come from.

  He held it for a long moment, staring at the hanging on the wall until the bird on it stopped flying round in circles and stayed fixed on the blue square.

  ‘The dove of peace,’ Óengusso explained, seeing him look and thinking he was puzzling on it, ‘returning to Noah’s marvellous boat with a twig to prove that the Flood was ended and God had spared Mankind.’

  ‘We do the same,’ Crowbone managed to say, ‘though we use ravens to find land.’

  ‘I thank you for my son,’ Óengusso said and Crowbone looked at him. This would be the lector.

  ‘You are a singular Christ-follower,’ he managed, trying to keep the sickness from bokking up in him. ‘Not many of your kind hit so hard.’

  Except here, he discovered a day later, when he had recovered somewhat. There were many hard-hitting monks here, it seemed, for all the renegades had been laid out and six were dead of crushed skulls. The only casualty had been one monk with his thumb flattened – carelessly getting it between skull and hammer – and Congalach with an arrow through his forearm, though it was his pride that truly smarted.

  It must have come as a shock to Gorm and Fridrek, two of the dead, to find wolves when they sought mice, Crowbone thought. He asked if that had been the way of it when Óengusso brought him broth and the monk pursed his fleshy lips and frowned.

  ‘A person who would distress thee more, thou shalt not admit him to thee, but at once give him thy benediction should he deserve it,’ he said piously. ‘As the blessed Coluim would have it. Or thereabouts. So we gave them benediction.’

  ‘With what – a forge hammer?’

  ‘The holy cross,’ Óengusso replied blandly and fished it out from under his thick, rough tunic; Crowbone blanched, for it was as big as any forge hammer, suspended on a thick braided cord, the ends of the crosspiece capped with black iron, dented and streaked.

  ‘I had this from owld Brother Conchobar, who had it himself from one who knew it to have been wielded by Abbot Cathal of Ferns,’ Óengusso went on beatifically. ‘That was a wheen of years ago, when the monastery of Taghmon, assisted by Cathal mac Dunlainge, king of Ui Chennselaig at the time, made bloody war on the monastery of Ferns, in which four hundred were killed. Cathal made himself vice-abbot of Ferns after the victory.’

  He went on, while Crowbone stood, mazed and wary of the room, which was still not as steady as he would have liked. It was a long litany of head-bashing, attack and coun
ter-attack between Clocnamoise, Birr, Durrow, Drumbo, Taghmon and a score of other Irish monasteries. By the time Crowbone had finished the broth, he was reeling with Óengusso’s tales and had made up his mind that raiding Irish monasteries was not a sensible or easy occupation; if he wanted silver for ships and men he would look elsewhere than the Christmenn of Ireland.

  He was relieved when the monk tucked the Christ amulet back inside his tunic, but impressed; this was the first time he had come on Christ priests who would fight and who sired sons with no shame, though Orm had told him of a Brother John whom he had met and travelled with. He had been Irish, too, Crowbone recalled.

  ‘You should not be on your feet.’

  The voice brought both of them round and Crowbone smiled. Thorgunna stepped forward, neat in a sea-grey dress fastened with a loop of braided leather and wearing a white headsquare – it was a strange garb for her to be seen in, for Crowbone had usually seen her in brighter clothing and with more silver hanging off her, while the headsquare had not been part of her dress at all.

  ‘It is the way Christian women wear it,’ she answered, seeing his look. ‘If they are married.’

  ‘You are still married, then …’ Crowbone moved slowly towards her and took her hands in his own. ‘If so, there is a husband looking for you.’

  ‘You have seen him recently?’

  Her voice, he thought, held only an echo of eagerness and he was sorry to hear so little.

  ‘Aye, not so long since. He seeks word of you, though he is in Gardariki lands at present. Conspiring with Vladimir, possibly.’

  She heard the bitter bite of that and studied him a little. How he had grown – fine and tall and true. As fine and tall as any son she had hoped to have …

  Crowbone saw the sudden flick of her head and the brightness in her eye, thought it was about Orm and was confused – apathy and now tears?

  ‘You have quarrelled with Orm,’ she said and he blinked a bit, wondering how she had reached out and grabbed that idea from the air. Before he could think, his mouth answered.

  ‘I am certain he has betrayed me.’

  There. He could scarcely believe he had said it at all, but when it was out, he knew it had tumbled from his heart. Óengusso, not part of this and bewildered, shuffled his feet and looked from one to the other, as if it was a blow-for-blow holmgang fight.

  Thorgunna showed no surprise; Crowbone had never been able to keep his heart stopped up when she asked and she was pleased that growing up with the games kings play had not robbed him of it. Not yet, at least.

  ‘Why do you believe this?’ she asked and the dam in him split, spilling the whole tale of it through the cracks until, at the end, he had to sit down again. He felt better, all the same.

  Thorgunna tasted the wormwood in it, saw his wavering pride and uncertain strength. Olaf Tryggvason knew what a king should be and would try to make himself one, she thought sadly, but it would eat the best of what made him a man.

  ‘I never liked this Martin,’ she said eventually. ‘Sleekit. Anything he was involved with always was rancid as old cod. You think he killed this Drostan?’

  Crowbone nodded, too numb even to speak.

  ‘You are after thinking that he sent word to Orm, then went round all the others – Dyfflin and Orkney and the like – to set a trap?’

  Again he nodded.

  ‘You believe Orm knew it was Martin who sent word? That he sent you without telling you of this because he desires this silly axe for himself?’

  It was the sick heart of what Crowbone believed and she saw it in his eyes. For a time, she did not say anything at all and, eventually, Crowbone regained some strength, so she went on.

  ‘The matter of Eirik’s axe is certainly true,’ Thorgunna said, ‘otherwise there would be nothing to tempt Dyfflin or Orkney at all. Martin will be promising them a dazzle of prizes. Olaf Irish-Shoes needs men and the axe will also make him feel he has one more triumph over his old enemy, Eirik. Gunnhild in Orkney – well, you know more of that. She wants you as much as she wants her man’s old axe.’

  ‘I had worked this much out,’ he answered and she raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Had you now? This cleverness did not give you cause for an easy sleep, or ease the worry of what Orm’s part in all this was.’

  He acknowledged it with a flap of one hand and Thorgunna sucked in a deep breath until her prow-built breast threatened the seams of her dress.

  ‘Ask yourself what Martin truly wants,’ she said simply. ‘Ask yourself what Orm truly wants.’

  Crowbone blinked a bit, but his mind was smoke and mirrors, so he smiled wanly at her and risked standing up.

  ‘Orm wants you, lady,’ he said and she laughed, a bitter, sad affair that reminded Crowbone of blowing red leaves and claw-branched trees.

  ‘Aye, may be,’ she said simply and then waved one hand. ‘He has his faults in that regard – he is always saying how he hates faring here and there, yet he was away more often than home. He loves his gods and his men more than he loves me.’

  ‘Come back to Hestreng and see,’ Crowbone said, but she shook her head.

  ‘I will never go back to Hestreng.’

  ‘Somewhere else, then,’ Crowbone answered, remembering why she would hate Hestreng, where the malformed mite she had given birth to had been left on a stone, put into the care of the gods. Crowbone had stood with Orm and others round that stone, had seen the tears in Orm’s eyes and said as much.

  ‘Aye, aye,’ Thorgunna said. ‘If tears would undo the gods of Asgard, then I had enough to drown them all. They are unmoved; I am done with Asgard and Hestreng and the Oathsworn. If it means I am also done with my man, then so be it.’

  She stopped and sighed, then held up her hands.

  ‘I miss my sister Thordis and cousin Ingrid, though,’ she added, ‘not least because no-one here can sew me into my sleeves, or unpick them again at night.’

  ‘So you are one of Christ’s women?’ Crowbone said and could not quite keep the sneer from his voice. She looked sharply at him, then smiled.

  ‘A nun? Not me. I am not about to climb off my knees to Odin just to get back on them to Jesus.’

  Óengusso shook his head in sorrow and made the sign of the cross at her, but Thorgunna patted him lightly on one arm.

  ‘I am a Veiled Woman,’ she said. ‘Permitted to remain alongside priests and monks, provided I do not molest them or turn them from their ways. This is possible here in Ireland, less so elsewhere. I am happy here.’

  ‘Useful, too,’ said Óengusso. ‘Who knew that wearing the bone from a cod on your head takes away belly ache before she came? Or the Nine Herb Charm she worked on your head?’

  Crowbone looked at her sideways.

  ‘Seidr?’ he replied. ‘You always said that magic neither worked for you or against you.’

  ‘God love us all,’ Óengusso exclaimed, crossing himself.

  ‘For ever and ever,’ Thorgunna responded, then smiled at Crowbone.

  ‘Old healing is hardly seidr,’ she said. ‘Not like you and those birds.’

  Óengusso looked frantically from one to the other and Crowbone stared at him from under a single brow, his odd eyes glowering.

  ‘One crow, sorrow, two crows, mirth, three crows, a wedding, four crows, birth,’ he said, then winked at the astounded monk. ‘See what women bring down on your house?’

  Óengusso crossed himself again and then frowned, seeing he was mocked.

  ‘You should not be so hard on women, boy,’ he said firmly. ‘Sure, was it not one who kept my benediction from breaking the egg of your head entire?’

  ‘What woman?’ Crowbone demanded, puzzled and Thorgunna looked at him and laughed, seeing the truth of it.

  ‘The one you have clearly imagined to be a boy for some time,’ she said. Then, into his open-mouthed disbelief, she added:

  ‘The Wend you call Berto. Her real name is Bergliot.’

  NINE

  Mainistir Buite (Monasterboice),
Ireland, not long after …

  CROWBONE’S CREW

  SHE walked beside Thorgunna in to where Crowbone stood – still a little pale, she thought, with a lurch. She was wearing a dress for the first time in months and the catch of it round her knees felt strange.

  ‘You kept the secret cleverly,’ Crowbone said, his face stiff. He had had some time of lying about recovering to recall all the clues he had missed about her, from her unnerving softness to the way she had avoided taking off her wet clothes on the night of the storm.

  The strangeness of her was like something seen through rippled water – the face was familiar, like a round owl, the dark hair was down to her ears and raggedly cut, the eyes big and soft. Yet now it all belonged to a girl and not the youth he had thought and the dress she wore, even if it was made for Thorgunna and too large, only accentuated the curves everyone had failed to notice.

  ‘I wore a few tunics,’ she answered in a small voice, hearing the flat, bitter tone of his own. It would be the shared man-moments, she thought, when he told of how many women he had taken. ‘To hide the shape of me.’

  Small wonder, Crowbone thought, looking her over. How in the name of Odin’s hairy arse had she hid those breasts from all of them? Those hips? She saw him stare and grinned, the old grin when she was one of the crew and not a woman.

  ‘You see what you want to see,’ she declared. ‘I had to hold in my business until landfall a lot of the time. Once or twice I could not and did it in my breeks, but folk just thought me smelly. Like all boys.’

  She saw her error in the grim reef of his face and the smile wavered like a faint flame in a wind, then was lost entire.

  ‘Aye, you hid it well,’ Crowbone said, remembering all the little moments, feeling his face flame at some of them. It explained how he had felt, at least – which was a relief; those moments when his groin had tightened had been for a girl after all. Still, he did not understand how his body had known even if his mind had not and it was more than a little disturbing.