Raven

by Giles Kristian

  ‘They’re not so tight-lipped when the blood starts flying,’ I moaned as we turned our backs on another man who claimed he did not even know where the Amphitheatrum Flavium was. ‘You should hear it, Egfrith, the noise of so many people. It’s a wonder your ears don’t burst.’

  ‘It is barbarous,’ he said. ‘It hurts God’s ears, I am sure of that.’

  I thought that might be true and said so. ‘But I think our gods would pull up a bench, fill their mead horns and watch until the last blood sprayed the dirt,’ I said.

  ‘You would think that. Because you are a vile heathen, Raven, and your soul is damned.’ The crowds were thinning out as merchants packed away their goods and folk began to make their way home. There was still an edge of menace to the night because the soldiers that would normally patrol the streets were instead guarding the Lateran and Pope Leo. ‘What are we doing here anyway?’ Egfrith asked, stopping suddenly and sweeping an arm through the air. We were in the Forum, between the Palatine Hill and the Capitoline Hill and our ears rang with the clamour of countless hammers and chisels striking stone. Men were building towers from ruins, great strongholds from which they could watch over the city and, perhaps, their enemies. Workers, as white as bloodless corpses from all the stone dust, yelled to each other and argued. Others clambered up and down the wooden frames that surrounded the half-built towers like ribcages around beating hearts. Boys played amongst the ancient rubble. Dogs fought over scraps of dropped food. Whores waited patiently for newly paid men to finish for the day, and the whole place stank of sweat and shit from the oxen that were everywhere dragging sleds stacked with shaped stones.

  ‘I thought you would like it here,’ I replied, wincing. ‘Look at all the White Christ houses.’ Around the edge of the Forum were many Roman temples that had been turned into churches. ‘Besides, it seems to me that if you are a rich man in Rome this is where you build your stronghold. Near to the river but not so near that you drown when it floods, and far enough from the pope that you can do what you like. And you build it high, by the looks, so you can piss on other men’s heads.’

  Egfrith had to admit the sense in coming to the Forum, though in the end it was Red-Cloak who found us. Or rather his men did. We had come across a fat man selling honey-coated figs, which I had learnt should be eaten sparingly if you did not want to spend the whole day squatting over a bucket, and that man spoke enough English to understand that I was going to cut off his balls and throw them to the dogs if he did not tell us what we wanted to know. Egfrith had scolded me in front of the man, pissing on my threat somewhat, but I was tired and my feet were aching and I had not realized it would be so hard to find a man whose face was known to thousands who had seen him in the arena. Only when a small, rat-faced boy returned with five armed men did my memory pluck from somewhere the sight of that boy running off the moment I had grabbed the fig-seller by his fleshy neck.

  The fat man ranted to the soldiers, who had surrounded Egfrith and me though they had not yet levelled their spears at us, pointing at me as though I were a two-headed mountain troll. ‘You would have thought I had cut his balls off,’ I said, sickened by the fat man’s whining and his terror-filled eyes, for I sometimes forgot about my own blood-filled eye and the effect it had on others.

  ‘They want to know why you seek Lord Guido,’ the fig-seller said. So he has a name then, I thought. As it turned out, that wasn’t Red-Cloak’s name at all, but we were not to know that then.

  ‘Ask these sour-faced, maggot-arsed fart eaters how we are supposed to accept Lord Guido’s challenge of fighting those three pale-livered lumps in the arena if we cannot find him,’ I said. The fat man’s eyes bulged, so that I thought that they might pop, but so far as I could tell he asked my question of the soldiers. To Egfrith’s obvious surprise, and mine too, I admit, one of Guido’s soldiers smiled and so I shrugged and delivered the rest of Sigurd’s message. By dusk we were back at the wharf.

  The men had gathered beside the ships and there was not a single face missing. Even Cynethryth and her wolf Sköll were there, the beast nowadays as much a part of Sigurd’s Fellowship as those who had taken the new oath in Frankia. I caught Sigurd’s eye and nodded to say that our challenge had been accepted. His eyes flashed and he nodded back. There were no whores, no men selling pork fried in olive oil, garlic-laced mushrooms and bread. There were no men offering to sharpen blades or leather workers fixing holes in shoes, or boys bringing plump wineskins from across the river. There were just the men of Serpent and Fjord-Elk and Wave-Steed and Sea-Arrow. Their eyes were on their jarl, who stood at their centre like the boss of a shield, his golden hair in two thick braids, a green cloak fastened with a wolf’s head brooch over his granite shoulders and his father’s sword at his hip. Warriors’ pride hung thick as green leaf smoke in the air.

  ‘You are all the equal of any warrior Red-Cloak can find,’ Sigurd said, his voice easily matching the river’s gush. ‘You are all killers, skilled with the tools of death. But I have spoken with our godi and he agrees that in such matters as this, it is about more than a man’s cleverness with a spear or sword. The Norns have a hand in this, as well you all know. That is why it is not for me to choose which of you shall fight.’ I saw Svein’s face drop then, because I knew him well enough to be certain that he wanted nothing more than to fight in the arena and he must have thought that he would be chosen. The blauman Völund and Yngvar the Dane stood at the front of the press and I guessed they wanted to fight, too, to earn their place amongst Sigurd’s wolves.

  ‘Asgot will tell us how the choice will be made,’ Sigurd went on, lingering on a face here, a face there, ‘for the runes have spoken to him and we would do well to heed them.’ He stepped back and Asgot came forward. He had threaded the tiny skulls of five mice into his greasy ashen beard.

  ‘This is the battle god’s domain,’ the godi said, his yellow eyes scouring us. ‘His hand will be in this up to the elbow, mark me.’ He pointed a knotty finger across the moon-silvered Tiberis. ‘On the other bank, a short walk north-west of the stone warrior, there is a ruin that has been swallowed by briars. Hanging from a branch of the tallest tree there is a sack. Between now and sunrise, any man who wants to fight in the Romans’ arena must place some token in the sack, though he must not look inside.’

  ‘What kind of token, Asgot?’ the Dane Beiner asked, clawing at his beard.

  ‘It must be something that has travelled the sea road with you for a long time,’ Asgot said, one eye half closing, ‘long enough that it carries your stink. It will be a keepsake that you could pick out as yours though your eyes were blind and your fingers cut off.’ There were murmurs at that. ‘In the morning the battle god will help us choose whom to send.’ Men nodded and talked in low voices, careful of being boastful, as is wise when your godi tells you that one of the Aesir’s hands is moving the pieces on your tafl board. For the gods can be cruel and it is a brave man or a fool who crows too loudly when they are near.

  Then Olaf stepped from the crowd and lifted two wineskins out wide, like plunder won after a hard fight. ‘Seeing as we’re staying a little longer, it seems to me we might as well get on the outside of a few drops now, hey!’

  We cheered that idea, for the gods never had a problem with men getting drunk, and we spent the night celebrating because thousands of people would soon watch three warriors of our Fellowship beat the champions of Rome. There was a shining fame-hoard waiting for us in the arena and by its brightness the Norns were spinning our wyrds.

  The wineskins were passed from man to man and, judging it safe to mix with us again, the food-sellers and whores and ale-boys moved in like hawks, all smiles and nods and clinging like fleas, until Byrnjolf threw one of them into the river which carried him off never to be seen again, after which the rest gave us a little room to breathe, at least for a while.

  I explained to the Wessexmen what they would have to do if any of them wanted the chance to fight.

  ‘I don’t need to fight some bi
g, black bastard in the arena to prove I know one end of a sword from the other,’ Baldred said, putting a wineskin to his lips.

  Red-faced Wiglaf nodded, his little finger digging something foul from a nostril. ‘Let these blood-loving savages get themselves cut up for the crowd’s pleasure,’ he said, wiping his finger on his breeks.

  ‘What about you, Penda?’ Gytha asked.

  Penda reached inside his tunic and pulled out a braided length of red hair that was tied at both ends. I had seen the warrior put that lock to his nose many times before but had never asked him about it. The head it had come from was far away now.

  Baldred rapped his knuckles against his head. ‘Your brains are addled, Penda,’ he said, because Penda was going to put that lock of hair in Asgot’s sack.

  ‘If I get into that arena, God help the man who faces me. I don’t care which of those bastards it is, I’m going to gut them,’ he said simply, holding out a hand for the wineskin, which Baldred passed him. I shared a look with Wiglaf because we both knew that coming from Penda that was no boast. It was the cold truth. Because Penda was the kind of man who was born with a sword in his hand. In that way he reminded me most of Black Floki, though they were different in every other way.

  ‘And you, Raven,’ Baldred asked, tilting his head towards Penda, ‘tell me you’ve got more sense than this son of a rabid bitch.’

  I smiled. ‘I’m in no hurry to see what my guts look like, Baldred,’ I said.

  ‘Good lad,’ he replied with a satisfied nod. Penda nodded too, pleased with my answer, and we ate until we thought we would burst and drank ourselves to sleep. Several times during the night I stirred and caught glimpses of shadow-shrouded figures coming and going. And I knew that, somewhere across the river, Asgot’s oiled sack was beginning to swell.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I WAS WOKEN BY A CLAMOROUS, EAR-POUNDING BELLOWING. Nearby, on the large square base stone of some long-vanished statue, a massive bull was fighting ten men who were red-faced and straining to hold it still so that Asgot could get into the right position to cut its throat. The dawn was mostly grey and dank and the river mist seemed heavier than normal, clinging to the banks of the Tiberis and soaking into our clothes. But neither that nor our aching heads could dampen the mood that was spreading through the camp like fire through dry grass. Today was the day. Soon we would know which of our warriors would have the honour of fighting in the Amphitheatrum Flavium. Onions sizzled on hot iron. Men shredded fried fish on to warm bread and others were cutting wedges from a wheel of smoked cheese, and excited voices interwove, creating a hum to equal the river’s murmur.

  ‘I’ve got a good feeling in my bones about this,’ Bram said, tossing Bjarni a fish straight from the iron, which Bjarni caught and passed from hand to hand, blowing on it. ‘I’m itching to show these scrawny Danish whelps how we do things where we come from,’ Bram went on. The bull gave one last bellow of rage then Asgot’s blade sliced deep and an impossible amount of blood gushed out, splattering on to the stone and steaming in the fog. The beast’s forelegs buckled and its knees crashed down, then it slewed sideways and men were suddenly leaping clear, narrowly avoiding being crushed as other men laughed and Asgot invoked Týr, Lord of Battle.

  ‘I’m sure the Danes and the people of Rome will enjoy watching a warrior who was taught how to fight by Grendel,’ Bjarni said, trying not to smile, ‘but I imagine that they would rather watch someone with some skill. That is why Týr will choose me.’

  ‘Hah! I’ll wager the only reason you left your furs last night was to piss in the river,’ Bram said, and men chuckled at that.

  ‘It’s time,’ Sigurd said, placing a hand on Bram’s shoulder. A flock of screeching gulls passed overhead, following the river towards the sea and the fishing boats that would be casting off. Suddenly everyone was talking at once and converging on the bull around whose corpse was spreading a pool of blood and piss. The beast was a worthy sacrifice and I hoped it had been enough to lure the one-handed god Týr who was the bravest of the Aesir. ‘Asgot will draw from the bag three times,’ Sigurd said, holding up three fingers. His cloak, I noticed, was fastened with a leaping stag brooch that shone dully in the grey morning light and I guessed that his wolf’s head brooch was in the bag in Asgot’s grasp. ‘Each possession drawn will reveal which of us the gods want to see fight in the Romans’ arena, for it is the Aesir that grip the tiller on this journey.’ But it was Asgot who gripped the leather bag in his bloodstained hands and when everyone was gathered, Sigurd gestured at him to get on with it. The godi’s old fingers worried at the draw-rope until the bag yawned open. There was just the sullen gush of the river and the flat voices of men further along the bank on the wooden wharves as Asgot, his yellow eyes turned to the grey sky, plunged a hand inside the bag. The words he muttered to the gods were ancient, perhaps older even than Rome, and then out came the hand and in it was a comb. It was an old comb, many of its teeth missing, and I had thought to have seen the last of it long ago, but Svein must have kept it after all and now we who recognized it turned to the giant, whose red bush of a beard was split by a great, savage smile. Then we cheered, because there was no better man to fight for our honour than Svein, and the giant stepped up and took the comb from Asgot, then turned and held it aloft as though it were a silver jarl torc, and we cheered even louder. Roused by the noise, Sköll howled, adding his own approval of the choice, and I wondered what the folk of Rome must have thought to hear that blood-chilling sound from the bank of the Tiberis.

  As Svein stepped back into the press of men, the portentous silence closed in again, thicker than the river mist. Nervous hands tugged beards and clutched amulets. Teeth chewed fingernails, throats hacked clear, farts squeaked and ripped and men wondered what their wyrds might be, for there were only two more choices to be made.

  In went Asgot’s hand, slower this time, as though he half feared that one of his sharp-toothed creatures might be hiding inside, cowering from the knife.

  ‘Watch him pull out another of Svein’s combs!’ a man barked, but few men laughed. The godi drew his hand out and someone yelled, ‘Frigg’s tits!’ and there was no mistaking that voice, for between Asgot’s thumb and forefinger, held up for all to see, was a bear’s claw: a black, shiny, finger-length curl of wicked sharpness. I grinned, turning to look for Bram Bear. But his eyes were already on me, his brow hoisted, and others were staring at me, too.

  ‘You damned fool, lad,’ Penda hissed. Confused, I turned back to Asgot, whose eyes were also riveted on me, and then my bowels turned to iced water and my knees threatened to give way. The godi still held up Bram’s bear-claw pendant, the leather thong hanging down, but somehow tangled up with that cord was a battered old scrap, black and frayed but still recognizable for what it was – a raven’s wing. The same one that Cynethryth had tied into my hair long ago in a forest in Wessex.

  ‘Does that count?’ someone asked.

  ‘Put the bird back in,’ Bjarni called. ‘It only came out because it was caught up with Bram’s claw.’

  ‘Put it back,’ Bram agreed and men nodded and ayed, but Asgot shook his head.

  ‘Fools! Can’t you see Týr’s hand in this?’ He glared at them. ‘The three have been chosen. We cannot change it.’

  ‘If Asgot says this is the god’s doing, who are we to interfere?’ Arngrim said, his brows sewn together.

  ‘Sigurd, the lad will get himself killed,’ Olaf objected. Sigurd frowned but said nothing, so Olaf turned back to the godi. ‘Asgot, draw another,’ he said, pointing at the sack.

  ‘He cannot, Uncle,’ Sigurd said, loud enough for all to hear, and the twist of a smile touched the godi’s thin lips. ‘That the wing came out even without Asgot laying a finger on it tells me that some scheme is being played out here.’

  I wanted to yell out that I had not put the raven’s wing in the godi’s sack. I did not want to fight in the arena. Even the thought of it was madness, for I had watched Guido’s fighters slaughter much better w
arriors than me. I would die, my guts unravelled in the dirt beside me, my ears stuffed with the crowd’s baying. Besides which, even if I had wanted to fight, I had been so drunk the night before that I had slept where I lay on the wharf, an empty wineskin beneath my head. I would have more likely fallen in the river than found my way over the bridge to the tree on which Asgot’s sack hung, and that, I realized, must have been how Asgot was able to take the raven’s wing from my hair without me knowing. I scowled at the godi, my eyes promising him a hundred painful deaths, but held my tongue.

  ‘I will look after you, little brother,’ Svein the Red boomed, throwing his arm over my shoulder. It felt like an oak beam.

  I tried to smile but my face was frozen. If I told them the truth of it, who would believe me? Who would believe that Asgot had, in the dead of the night, cut the wing from my hair whilst I slept? I would look like a nithing coward trying to wriggle out of my wyrd. I would be marked as a man without honour. Then there was the fog around how it had happened. Asgot had taken the raven’s wing and put it in that sack of his – I was sure of that – but had he tied it to the thong on Bram’s claw pendant? Or was it just ill luck that it had snagged like that? Or perhaps that part really was Týr’s doing? I tore my eyes from the godi, the hot hate still in them when they settled on Cynethryth at his right shoulder. Had she known? No, I could not believe she wanted to see me killed in the arena. Her green eyes were silent as the grave and I looked away.