Crowbone

by Robert Low

  He broke off his walking after the messenger to look down at Mar, who kept his eyes fixed on the fire.

  ‘If the High King does offer me a thrall or two,’ he said, the promise of gold reward from Mael Sechnaill lending him new resolve, ‘I will ask for a black one for you, to replace the one you lost. Meanwhile, while I am gone, improve your mood, for your face is putting the fire out.’

  It was a vicious slap, particularly about Kaup and he felt the twin embers of Mar’s hate burn his shoulderblades, but did not look back as they moved through the dark, where other fires glowed and men, blood-dyed with the light, looked up as he passed.

  One or two acknowledged him with a brief ‘heya’ or a wave and Crowbone knew Gjallandi had been busy spreading the saga of Crowbone’s fight with Raghnall. He was sure there was no mention of a woman in it, all the same.

  To the right of where they picked a way through the flowering field of fires, was the dark earth and rampart wall of Dyfflin, now under siege. Crowbone knew Mael Sechnaill had no val-slöngva, the war-slings the Romans of Constantinople called ballista and, without them, the Irish would have to storm the walls or starve out the defenders. He knew the harbour was open and, though the Irish had taken some ships in a lesser trade harbour just outside the walls to the south, they did not have enough vessels to blockade the place.

  So it would be over the walls, he thought to himself. He had the sick feeling in his bowels that this was really what Mael Sechnaill wanted to see him about – the Oathsworn, leading the way over the walls of Dyfflin. Crowbone did not think any of his men would follow him if he ordered it and would have been away with them if he could – but he had come into this mess because he needed to know what Olaf Irish-Shoes had found out from Hoskuld. He needed Hoskuld. If any of them still lived, they lived in Dyfflin.

  The High King had a grand tent, a maze of poles and lines and as big as a steading, striped like a sail. Outside it was a fire in a brazier and guards who grinned at the messenger and stood with their spears butted under a tall pole which held the head of Raghnall.

  Inside was all guttering lamps and harp music, a contrast with the dark that left Crowbone and Murrough blinking. There were, when either of them could see, benches filled with the lesser kings and their entourage, clustered round a raised wooden dais where the High King himself sat, listening to his harper, the blind Ollumh Meartach, who stopped playing a heartbeat before the messenger rapped a bench with his spear.

  ‘Prince Olaf of Norway and Murrough macMael.’

  The High King looked up and there were a few cheers from those who had warmed to Crowbone and the Oathsworn after the day’s fighting. Mael Sechnaill grinned; even Gilla Mo looked pleased, though that was shown only by his lack of scowl.

  ‘Your val-haukr showed its talons today,’ Mael Sechnaill declared with a grin and Crowbone frowned at that – val-haukr meant ‘carrion-hawk’ in the Norse and he did not care for that description of his new banner. Wisely he said nothing.

  ‘Mark you,’ Mael Sechnaill went on, ‘there are folk here who would not, perhaps, agree with you.’

  Bewildered, Crowbone looked cautiously around as he walked to the ushered place at table. Then a short, stocky man stood up, his blue tunic trimmed with red and a deal of silver sparkling at his throat and wrist. He offered Crowbone a stiff bow, as did another barrel of a man next to him and a woman, young and pretty in a long-nosed way with her dress cut tight and low, designed to have the effect it had on Crowbone’s groin. Not worn for him, he noticed. For Mael Sechnaill.

  ‘This is Glúniairn, son of Amlaib,’ said Mael Sechnaill and the stocky man bowed a little.

  ‘The other is his brother, Sitric,’ the High King went on, bland as milk. ‘This is Queen Gormflaeth.’

  Crowbone reeled but managed not to gawp or make a sound. Murrough was not so good and let out a ripping curse, which he covered with a fit of coughing. The pair sat down, stiff-faced, grim as wet cliffs while Crowbone reined in the plunge of his thoughts.

  Olaf’s queen and his two sons – Odin’s bones, half-brothers to the man whose head was stuck on a spear outside …

  ‘Prince,’ he said eventually, for he knew that Glúniairn was the Irish way of saying Jarnkne, Iron Knee, just as Amlaib was how they mush-mouthed Olaf, but he did not know if the man liked to be known only by his by-name. Mael Sechnaill chuckled.

  ‘King Glúniairn it is, since his da has given up his High Seat and taken himself off,’ the High King said and turned, all sweet innocence, to the glowering Iron Knee. ‘Where was it, now?’

  ‘Hy,’ Sitric growled before his brother could speak and had back a squinted glare for it. ‘The death of Raghnall and the day’s ills broke him entire. He has took himself to the monastery at Hy and left us to deal with the mess of it.’

  His voice was bitter, the words sludge in his mouth and Crowbone saw the mess and how the brothers and the wife had to deal with it. Olaf’s eldest son was here to make peace, to beg for the High Seat his da had disowned, though it meant being under the rule of the High King of Ireland. The quivering cleavage of their stepmother, Gormflaeth, was the seal on it.

  He should have been leaping for joy at not having to go over the walls of the place, but Crowbone only had one thought, even as he asked polite bland questions that revealed Hoskuld was not held by Dyfflin’s Danes and that Olaf Irish-Shoes was gone.

  He could do nothing but brood on it, all the same, while the hall roared and reeked. Folk drank until it came down their nose and then spewed most of it up and started in to drinking more. There was boasting and shouting, arm-wrestling and some frantic humping, not limited to the shadowed corners either. A few fights broke out, bones were flung, benches overturned and, at one point, a pole was split, so that the High King himself, red-faced and greasy-chopped, launched himself into the affray, cursing those who were destroying his fine tent.

  In short, it was as satisfying an Irish victory feast as any seen in the land, according to Murrough, shortly before his nose sank into a puddle of drink and he started in to snoring.

  Crowbone had sipped, watching the two brothers and their stepmother, who were equally light on their drink. At the end of the roaring and struggling round the pitfire, the High King staggered out of the ruck, his arm round the shoulders of a man whose long straight hair, streaked a little with grey as if a gull had shat on him, was plastered to a streaming face with eyes like a mad owl.

  ‘Dómnall Claen mac Lorcán,’ the High King declared blearily. ‘Sure, it is good to have you back among us, so it is.’

  ‘Good,’ agreed the man, who clearly wanted to say more but had little control of either legs or lips, for he slipped and sat, then giggled a little. His eyes rolled and he sank back on the reeking straw and snored.

  ‘Behold,’ Mael Sechnaill declared, waving one paw at the fallen figure, then clawing his way back to his High Seat, ‘the king of Leinster.’

  He sat down and gasped, blinking and grinning at the two brothers. Then he leered at Gormflaeth.

  ‘You should … know him well. He was your guest for some time.’

  ‘A year or two,’ Iron Knee admitted, his face wooden as the table he leaned on. ‘His freedom is part of the agreement making peace between us.’

  ‘Jus’ so,’ Mael Sechnaill said, nodding. He belched, then he looked slyly at Gormflaeth and Crowbone realised the High King was not nearly as deep in drink as he appeared.

  ‘My dear,’ Mael Sechnaill said, his words grime on her skin. ‘Patience. I have one more kingly act to perform, then you and I can discuss other parts of the agreement of peace.’

  Gormflaeth had the grace to flush a little, but she also wriggled in her dress, so that the cleavage deepened. Mael Sechnaill cleared his throat and blinked.

  ‘Reward,’ he said and though he spoke to Crowbone, he was unable to stop staring at what was on show. ‘Suitable. For your part in the victory. State your … what do you want?’

  ‘As many men as will follow me,’ Crowbon
e said, ‘rather than stay as thralls to the Irish.’

  Mael Sechnaill blinked away from Gormflaeth to Crowbone, then he sat back and laughed.

  ‘No gold? Silver?’

  Crowbone was tempted, but he had the riding of this horse now and he knew what he had to do. He had seen the shuffling prisoners and knew them for what they were – hired men, not about to stand and die for old Olaf Irish-Shoes; they would be looking for a way out of their predicament.

  Mael Sechnaill saw it too, stood up and held out his hand for Gormflaeth to take.

  ‘As many as will follow you,’ he said to Crowbone, ‘as long as it is out of Ireland and out of Dyfflin. How you do that is your affair but if you are here after a week, matters will alter. I do not want the likes of you with a bunch of sword-wavers at your back plootering about Ireland causing trouble.’

  He went off, towing Gormflaeth in his wake, pausing only to turn a snoring body out of her path with one elegant toe. Crowbone watched the brothers watching their stepma whore herself to the High King of Ireland.

  ‘You should have taken the gold,’ Sitric said eventually, looking sourly at Crowbone. ‘The best of Dyfflin’s fighting men died on Tara – but you will have no shortage of offers from those nithings who gave up. They were not worth the hire.

  ‘You will only lose them again,’ he added, taking a sudden, deep swallow from his cup. There was a burst of singing, loud and enthusiastic, but it was not the bad key that made Sitric slam the soapstone beaker down so that froth leaped out.

  ‘Fucking Irish,’ he muttered. ‘Time we were gone from this feast, brother – they have started in to bad singing.’

  ‘You only waited for me,’ Crowbone said, ‘so let us now get to the meat of the matter.’

  Iron Knee’s head came up at that and his blue-sky eyes clashed with Crowbone’s stare.

  ‘I will not lose the crew I pick,’ Crowbone said, ‘for I will be gone from Ireland and Dyfflin within the week. Is that not so, Jarnkne?’

  ‘Magic them all wings, will you?’ Sitric sneered. ‘I have heard the tales of you, boy, such an event will be interesting to watch.’

  Crowbone kept his eyes on Iron Knee.

  ‘Ships,’ he said. ‘Not wings. You will give me ships. The High King will give me men.’

  Sitric glowered, waiting for his brother’s cutting comment. When none came he looked uneasy.

  ‘Four,’ Iron Knee said eventually, then found his mouth so dry he had to grab up his own cup and drain it. ‘Good drakkar all of them. You will fill them easily enough from those hired men who do not want to end up thralls to the Irish.’

  Sitric’s eyebrows went to his hairline and he stared for a moment, then exploded upright.

  ‘Are you fucking crazed?’ he demanded. ‘This is the louse who killed our brother. Who was part of the army that ruined us almost out of Dyfflin entirely. Ships … four …’

  ‘Will you do it?’ Iron Knee said to Crowbone, ignoring his spluttering brother. ‘If you do not, I will know and I will not rest until you are dead in the foulest way I can dream. I dream very foul these days, Prince of Norway.’

  Crowbone merely nodded.

  ‘In three days, then,’ Iron Knee declared, suddenly standing up. Bewildered, still working his mouth wetly, Sitric stared from one to the other.

  ‘Do what?’ he growled. ‘What is he to do?’

  ‘Come,’ Iron Knee said to his brother, smiling gently. ‘Time for us to go home to Dyfflin, where I will explain the game of kings to you, who may one day need the knowing of it.’

  Crowbone sat for a time, listening to the mourn of voices, the odd squeal and distant sigh. The king of Leinster stirred, woke up, bokked to one side, then rolled over and fell blissfully asleep; the smell of ale vomit slithered to Crowbone’s nose, as apt a stinking seal on what had just been concluded as any.

  The victory at Tara had opened up all doors for Mael Sechnaill, who got the Dyfflin Norse broken and contrite, the king of Leinster owing him life and freedom and Olaf’s queen as a wife, which made him overlord of Dyfflin as well.

  Iron Knee got the crown of Dyfflin, even if he had to bend the knee to the High King. Sitric got an education in the game of kings.

  For it all to work, though – for Iron Knee to be confirmed truly as Dyfflin’s king, for Gormflaeth to stay a queen and for Mael Sechnaill, good Christian that he was, to take her as a wife – a father and a husband and an old king had to die.

  Men and ships, Crowbone thought. Enough of a price for the murder of Olaf Irish-Shoes, once he had told all he knew.

  Sand Vik, Orkney, middle of Haustmánuður (double-month – October) …

  THE WITCH-QUEEN’S CREW

  Outside was cold and bright with sun, but the hall was dim, grey-smoked, dappled here and there where the light broke in through the open doors. Thralls chattered cheerfully, sweeping out the long beaten earth floor with birch brooms brought at great expense from Norway, scrubbing benches and tables; the sharp catch of ash and old rushes and white lye made Erling clear his throat.

  ‘The days are even, light and dark balanced,’ she said in her husk whisper voice and Erling wondered how Gunnhild knew this, since she never seemed to venture out. Even now, while the hall bustled and flared with life and thrall work-songs, she had closeted them in her private sleeping place, shaped like the prow of a dragon-ship and right into the dark of the place.

  ‘From now,’ she went on, ‘night will eat the light.’

  Erling watched what he could see of Gudrod, which was only the dim gleam of a cheekbone, the bright glint of an eye as he turned; he could not see Od at all, but the boy was there all the same, close by, his breath a mist from the shadows like grey-blue smoke.

  ‘All the more reason to hurry. The monk-scratching reveals the place,’ Gudrod said, his bass rumble annoyed because this place was so lacking light that he could not set up a ’tafl board. The growl of him seemed to come up through Erling’s boots in the smallness of the room; once she had ruled all Norway and then the lands round Jorvik, now Gunnhild, Mother of Kings, barely had space to stretch out, small though she was.

  ‘Hurry,’ she answered and it was scorn-sharp. Erling saw her face, then, as she leaned into the faint light of the stinking fish-oil lamp high in the wall sconce, saw the strange beauty of it, as if seen through a spiderweb – saw the eyes that raked her last son with disbelief at his stupidity.

  Gudrod leaned into it, as he had done since all his brothers had gone under to treachery and blade. Mother of Kings, he thought bitterly, except the last of her sons is not one. Not that she was much of a mother – he had seen others, listened to men talk of their ma and knew the difference between what they knew and what he had suffered.

  ‘You do not hurry to this place,’ she said, sliding back into the dark. ‘This is a Sami place, deep in the Finnmark. Of course they would take the Bloodaxe back – they gave it in the first place.’

  Her voice had grown sealskin soft and dreamy, which made the hairs on Erling’s arm stand like bristles. He heard Gudrod shift and grunt a little and knew he did not care for it much either; the air in the room grew thick, from too many people breathing it – or seidr, Erling did not know which.

  ‘Is she working magic?’ demanded a voice, in the sort of bad whisper that almost made Erling cry out. Od leaned forward, his beautiful face frown-creased; Erling felt like whimpering as Gunnhild put her face back into the light and laughed, but only with her voice, for her mask did not change at all.

  ‘You are curious, lovely boy,’ she answered. ‘That is good. You are like Odin’s own raven for the knowing of matters – but take care, for even ravens can be caught and plucked.’

  Od opened his mouth and Erling moved swiftly to clamp his wrist so hard that Od stopped and looked down at the grip, puzzled. Gunnhild sank back into the darkness, with a sound like bats flying out of a dark hole; laughter, Erling realised.

  ‘Eirik did not win Odin’s Daughter,’ she said suddenly. ‘It was gif
ted to him, by me, as were all his sons and I cannot say whether birthing any one was harder than what I did to get that Bloodaxe from the Sami. I had it from them, from the two brothers, who should have returned it to the goddess but gave it to me instead … It was gifted before to other kings, all of the Yngling line. It was made by the smiths of the Sami and to them it has again returned.’

  She trailed off and Erling paused, remembered the tales of her, of how she had gone as a young girl to learn from two Sami wizards. There were lascivious, tongue-on-lip rumours of what she had done until Eirik had come for her, though no man had ever mentioned it to her face – or his. Like Freyja and the duergar necklace-makers, he thought to himself, she fucked the prize right out of them.

  ‘I am wondering who took it back to them. Not those two Sami brothers, who were well dead by then. Was it Svein, the King’s Key, who carried it? If not, he knew who it was who took it to her. I remember Svein. He did not like me.’

  Her voice was a dreaming rasp and Erling went cold at the idea that she might see into his thought-cage and almost leaped up there and then to leave. Gudrod’s voice, strangely, lashed him to the bench.

  ‘No man likes you,’ he said to his mother, which was harsh and bold. ‘Does it matter? We know where the axe is now. All we have to do is get it and use it to put me on a throne. That is what you want, is it not, mother?’

  Gunnhild made a ticking sound with tongue and teeth.

  ‘Let me tell you of the Yngling kings,’ she said, her voice slow and circling as mist tendrils. ‘They all had Odin’s Daughter and the only one who died old was Aun.’

  Gudrod said nothing, while sullen rolled off him in waves, tangible as heat. Erling cleared his throat.

  ‘The others?’ he asked, knowing the answer but hoping for better news.

  ‘One fell in vat of mead and drowned,’ she said. ‘Fjölne. He went to see Frodi in Zealand and a great feast had been prepared. Frodi had a large house where he stored a huge vessel full of very strong mead. Above the vessel there was an opening in the ceiling so that mead might be poured into it by men standing in the loft. After the banquet, King Fjölne was taken to stay the night in an adjoining loft, but he rose in the night and stumbled through the wrong door to fall into the great vat and drown in mead.’