Raven

by Giles Kristian

  For the gods had not finished with us yet.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THAT SUMMER IN MIKLAGARD STRETCHED OUT LIKE ONE OF THE bright tapestries lining the feasting hall of the Great Palace. So long as we gave Nikephoros our word that we would cause no trouble we were free to roam the city as we pleased and it soon became clear that some of the men were sinking roots into that hard ground. We were rich and tall and for the most part golden-haired, which made us stand out in Miklagard. Even being viewed by the locals as barbarians only lent a sharp edge to our fame-lustre, so that often you could not spend your coin even if you wanted to. Greeks would buy us drinks and ply us with food and whatever goods they dealt in, such as leather and soap, spices, fruits and salted fish, all given freely with thanks for restoring God’s Regent on Earth to his rightful throne. As you can guess, this went down well with men who are usually pulling the oar, being lashed by storms or standing in the shieldwall, so that in no time at all everyone had employed servants – slaves were not permitted in Miklagard – who saw to our every pleasure so that no Norseman, Dane or Englishman had to lift a finger if he’d rather sit around on his arse all day drinking wine and farting strange spices.

  We spent less time together too. Ten of us always had to remain fully brynja’d and armed, ready to guard Nikephoros or Staurakios when they were about on imperial business, but that duty fell to a different ten each day, so that the rest were always off here or there looking for ways to lighten their sea chests or their balls, spending those pretty gold coins on even prettier women but also on weapons, silly Greek hats or even bright yellow or red birds which they kept in cages and claimed could talk, though I never heard one say a single word of sense. Some even began wearing Greek robes, claiming they were better than wool in that heat, which was likely true, but we gave those men such a tongue-lashing when we saw them that most were soon sweating and sulking in breeks and tunic again.

  No one talked of going home, for we were caught up in the excited wonder of Miklagard like a dog chasing its own tail.

  And all the while a storm was brewing which would soon have me in its maw.

  I had barely laid eyes on Cynethryth for weeks and normally I would have been happy enough about that, for we had grown so far apart that I doubted even Bifröst the Rainbow-Bridge could have spanned the chasm between us. Since Frankia and probably before that, Cynethryth had made it clear that she wanted nothing from me and at first the twist of that knife had ripped out my guts leaving me empty. I was past the worst of it by now though, sometimes even thinking I was better off without the girl, for she was a warped thing these days, moon-mad whispered some, on talking terms with the gods said others. For the most part, then, I could live well enough and there was nowhere like Miklagard to keep a man’s mind off bitter memories.

  But this particular day I was drunk. More drunk than usual, thanks to a foolish wager between me and Penda over who could drink the most Greek wine and still walk along a spear stave end to end without his feet touching the ground. I was drunk, and that Cynethryth knife was twisting in my guts again.

  I lost the wager, which probably didn’t help, though in truth it would not have made a difference. It was time to find Cynethryth, to face that gut-piercing knife, to ask her why she seemed to have forgotten the times we had lain together between Serpent’s ribs, giving each other warmth against those cold, bleak, soaking nights. Had she ever loved me? Or was it true, as I suspected, that she had only given herself to me on the Frankish shore so that she would have power over me when she needed it to spare her father, the worm Ealdred. For when a woman like Cynethryth gives herself to you you are trapped in a web even stronger than an oath to a jarl or sword-brother. For such a woman you will do anything, spit in the gods’ eyes, betray your friends. Doom yourself.

  Later I would blame myself. But after that I would begin to wonder what god had had his hand in the stir of it all, for surely it was too much coincidence that I should choose that day to addle my brain and go to find Cynethryth.

  Nikephoros had given Cynethryth her own bedchamber on the east side of the Bucoleon, saying that it was not right and furthermore an offence against God for a woman to live like a man, as he had seen Cynethryth do. Sigurd had reminded the emperor that she no longer appeared in thrall to his nailed god and so why should she care what offended him? The White Christ had let Cynethryth slip through his fingers, he said, to which Olaf had added, grinning, ‘That’s what happens when you have holes in your hands.’

  But Nikephoros was insistent, claiming that a woman must preserve her modesty if nothing else and I suspected that he was just as enthralled and intrigued by Cynethryth as he was disgusted by her. For even now, when she was skin and bone and bitter-looking, Cynethryth was still beautiful – the kind of stray that Christians, for better or worse, think they can save.

  I did not know where this bedchamber was and must have worn down the soles of my fine leather boots chafing along those endless pillared, sconce-lit passageways before I eventually asked a servant the way. He had been half disappearing down another hallway, cumbered by a pile of clean linens, when I called out, but the greasy toad kept on walking, which got my hackles up and so I yelled savagely, the noise recalling the madness of the fight that had swirled through that place taking with it so many friends.

  The little Greek stopped and turned and at first I read his expression as one of fear, though I soon realized it was irritation. Nikephoros loved us. And why shouldn’t he? We had put his imperial arse back on his fancy throne. But many of the Greeks, especially the palace hounds and the silk-swathed, floor-kissing courtiers, tolerated us at best. To them we were barbarians, savage outlanders, heathens barely any better than beasts. I had no problem with that. To me they were soft, oiled, perfumed nithings, good for nothing, though Bjarni had said he might take one home to Norway to keep in his privy to improve the smell.

  Of course this servant could not understand what I was asking him – the wine had likely twisted even my Norse out of shape – but he saw I was a young man and drunk and it was late into the night for me to be prowling the Bucoleon and so he guessed there must be a woman involved.

  He sighed, shook his head, carefully placed the linens on the floor and walked off. So I followed him.

  That place was like a fox’s den, full of twists and turns. And foxes. But I knew the Greek had brought me to the right place even before we turned the last corner and saw the door, which was painted with a woman and child I now knew must be the Christ god and his mother. It was the smell that told me we had come to the right place and that same smell which struck me like a kick to the stomach.

  ‘Now go,’ I said to the Greek, nodding back down the darkened hallway. He shrugged, pursed his lips and slithered away, leaving me standing before that door like a man who is not sure he wants to know what waits on the other side. Maybe if I had not been full of wine I would have knocked. Instead I took a breath that was acrid with the herb stink coming from that room and turned the iron ring. The door opened without a sound and, saying nothing and swallowing the cough that wanted to get out, I walked into a room whose walls were panelled with the same rich dark wood that had made Bjarni’s new leg. The air was alive, thick with smoke through which I beat a path with a flat hand, rounding a great swath of shimmering cloth that hung from gold hooks in the whitewashed stone ceiling. What I saw then has stayed with me all the years of my life. I could have skewered out my eyes, rinsed them in salt water and held them over a flame and still they would be stained with the image.

  Cynethryth lay on a bed, naked but for a scattering of storks’ wings whose white feathers were still bloody from the dismemberment. She looked to be asleep, dead even, but Asgot was very much alive. The godi was on his knees at the foot of the bed and his head snapped up to me, hair bones rattling, eyes ablaze with fury. But he did not know true fury.

  I flew at him and he was only half standing when I hit him, throwing him back against the far wall with the force t
o break bones. He shrieked like some wild creature and I rammed a fist into his stomach, so that he folded like worn cloth, but then his shriek was answered by a low, bowel-melting snarl and my blood turned to ice as I turned to see Sköll crouched, hackles raised and fur bristling, its hate-filled eyes glaring at me. It leapt before I could draw my sword but I got my right forearm up and the beast clamped its jaws around it, so that for a heartbeat that great snarling bulk was hanging from my arm. Then we fell and I twisted to my right, driving my left shoulder into its belly, punching the wind from it, so that it yelped and released me. But in a blink it slewed out from under me and went for my arm again, biting viciously and shaking its head wildly and I thought my arm must be ripped off. Half on my knees I clubbed my fist into its head, missing as often as I struck it because of the shaking, but the beast would not let go and I felt the skin on my arm burst and its teeth sink into my flesh, so that I screamed with the agony of it. I was aware of Asgot cackling madly and of someone else in the room that was not Cynethryth, but mostly I was blind and deaf with terror and pain, my whole world made of this yellow-eyed stinking beast and its bone-crushing jaws.

  I rammed my head against its maw again and again, knocking myself half unconscious because the wolf’s skull was granite hard, and Sköll flung me from side to side and I thought I would die then. But I would not die on my knees and so I bellowed in pain and fury and clawed at one of those yellow eyes until I felt the wetness of it and then I ripped into it, getting two fingers into the bone socket, and the beast growled in pain so I dug deeper still. Then I pulled my hand free in a spray of gore and went for my long knife, my fingers closing on the familiar grip and snatching it from the sheath. I thumped the blade into Sköll’s belly and twisted it so that it came free and I thrust it again and again and the beast yelped, its hot blood drenching my hand and arm.

  It let go of my arm at last and its claws skittered across the stone floor as its legs buckled. But I was up again and facing Asgot, who had drawn his own knife, that blade which had killed so many men and beasts over the years. It would not have me.

  ‘I am your godi,’ he spat. ‘Touch me and you doom yourself, fool.’

  ‘A fair price for killing you,’ I said, aware of blood running down my right arm beneath the tunic. And that was when I saw Father Egfrith through the smoke cloud. He was up against the wall, arms stretched out like every picture of the nailed god I had seen, but in the place of nails were knives, slender ones too, that had been driven through the monk’s hands deep into the wood so that he hung there. His legs were bent and to one side, feet up on a bloodstained silk-cushioned footstool so that he could not use those legs to lever himself off the wall, and there he hung, watching, his face smeared with snot and blood. How Asgot had been able to do that to the monk by himself I could not imagine, but Asgot was as dangerous as fire in thatch, which was why I hesitated for a heartbeat. Then I flew at him but he was quick, too quick for an old man, and he jumped aside, slashing his knife across my left arm, opening the flesh. I turned, scything my knife at his face but missing and his blade streaked again, cutting my wrist. He was a wild thing, frothing from a grin as he came at me, lashing madly, and I threw out a hand, somehow catching his bony wrist in my fist and now I grinned because I was young and strong and burnt with hatred for the poisonous old crow. His eyes flared as I squeezed his wrist, crushing it so that the knife fell from his hand. Then I hauled him forward and rammed my forehead into his face, the crack of it loud in that smoky place. Ancient blood bubbled from the godi’s ruined nose and mouth. Then I brought my blade up into his guts and the air burst from his mouth, so that I smelt its foulness. I smelt Cynethryth on him, too, and I wanted to rip the skin from his flesh for that. Instead I yanked the knife free and grabbed his lank, bone-tied hair, pulling his head back so that he could not help but look into my eyes. His blood was spattering on my boots and the stone floor.

  ‘You are a dead man, Asgot,’ I spat. ‘I am going to piss on your eyes and shit on your heart.’

  ‘You are cursed … boy,’ he hissed through frothing blood, his face turning white as ash. I felt him trembling from cold as the lifeblood left him.

  ‘I am your death, old man,’ I said, throwing him back against the wall, down which he slid, grasping at the terrible wound in his belly. He sat slumped for a long moment just staring at me. Then he pointed at me with one bloody clawed hand and at first I thought he was working some foul seidr on me but then I realized that was not it. He wanted my blade, for without one he might not enter Óðin’s hall of the slain and that thought was more terrifying than death itself to the godi.

  I bared my teeth at him, which was enough of an answer and he seemed to shudder, his eyes growing heavy. Then I looked at Cynethryth, who was stirring as the effects of the potions Asgot had plied her with began to wear off, and I looked at Egfrith, whose face was a twist of agony. I walked over to the godi, kneeling by him, grimacing against his stink.

  ‘Take it,’ I said, grabbing his hand and folding the cold fingers around the knife’s grip. He might have smiled at that, it was hard to tell. ‘Wait for me in the All-Father’s hall, godi,’ I said. ‘I have not finished with you yet.’ Then I picked up his own knife, went back to him and plunged the blade into his windpipe, leaving it there amongst blood bubbles as Asgot’s last breath escaped in a soft gush.

  I felt sick from the smoke and my savaged arm but mostly from the slice Asgot had given my left arm. I could see the bone gleaming in that wound and I cursed the godi’s blade for being so sharp. I’d always healed well and thanked Eir the healing goddess for it, but this time I feared the wound rot like never before, though said nothing as I went to Egfrith hoping he was alive. He was trembling with the red agony of it, so I ripped a wad of cloth from my cloak and stuffed it in his mouth for him to bite down on. Then he glared at me with those pain-filled eyes and, after several heartbeats, nodded sharply, which was the sign. But try as I might I could not lift my right arm and I knew that the bone was broken, crushed by that flea-ridden wolf that now lay in its own piss and pooling blood. At least I could raise my left arm – though the agony was blurring my sight – managing to grip the knife piercing Egfrith’s right hand and was about to pull it free when Cynethryth appeared beside me in an acrid billow of herb-stink. She was naked and did not even look at me as she reached up, taking hold with both hands of the knife pinning the monk’s other hand.

  Together we yanked the knives free and Egfrith mewed pitifully as I took his weight on my right shoulder.

  Cynethryth was staring at Asgot’s corpse which was slumped in the corner, still clutching my long knife. Óðin’s death maidens must be here soon, I thought, scowling at the sight of him.

  ‘I enjoyed killing him,’ I spat at Cynethryth. She looked at me, her eyes dull as old ice. Then I left her standing there naked, her skin white as marble, her breasts laced with storks’ blood above a ribcage straining against the skin. And I carried Egfrith away.

  I found the same Greek servant who had shown me to Cynethryth’s bedchamber and when he saw Father Egfrith he was all arms and gasps and led me to another room, barking at another servant to fetch who knew what? But he wanted the other man to be quick about it, for the Greeks knew that Father Egfrith was a servant of the White Christ and a man of learning, for all that he looked like one of us these days only scrawnier. The next thing I knew the room was buzzing with frowning, slick-bearded physicians who pawed over the monk, shaking their heads and mostly ignoring me as I sat bleeding into a plump, ornate couch, the room and everyone in it fading like last night’s dream.

  The next thing I knew I was lying in a bed of crisp linen sheets, the sea breeze coming through a small windhole by my head, bringing the smell of the sea with it. The sheets were bloodstained, at which I managed a grim smile, wondering what the little Greek servant would think about that. Then my guts clenched and I shoved myself up on one arm and spewed into the pail that suddenly appeared in front of my face. I thought my jaw wo
uld break with the force of it.

  ‘That’s it, lad, get it all out.’ I spied Egfrith from the corner of my eye. He was grinning. ‘The good Lord knows what they’ve been pouring into you but it seems to be working.’

  ‘Tastes like I’ve eaten a rotten dog’s balls,’ I gnarred, wiping my mouth with the sheets, which made the monk grimace. It was a small, simple room high up in the Bucoleon with a view of the harbour. My clothes were draped over an old chair at the foot of the bed. They had been washed by the looks of them.

  ‘Still,’ he said, ‘you’re alive.’

  I sniffed at the dressings and Egfrith must have seen the fear in my eyes then for he said: ‘There’s no decay, which is verging on miraculous, but these Greeks are more skilled than I could have imagined. The wounds look clean, lad. From what I have seen.’

  I nodded, feeling the sweat bead on my brow. ‘And you?’

  Egfrith held up his hands, the palms of which were linen-bound. Only a small spot of blood stained the middle of the left binding.

  ‘I am, praise be to God, fit and well,’ he said, ‘though don’t ask me to row any time soon.’

  ‘You look ugly as a cat’s arse,’ I told him, at which the monk gingerly raised his exposed finger ends to the scabbed gouges in his face – done by Asgot’s fingernails I supposed.

  ‘Beauty is a hollow chalice, Raven,’ he said with a chastising look, ‘from which you will never have to drink.’ He added that last with a weasel smile. Then he scowled as I waved the bucket away. There’s nothing like the smell of vomit to make you vomit. ‘You could have come along sooner,’ he said. ‘I had to watch that heathen devil working his foul spells on Cynethryth. Poor, lost soul.’ He shook his head at the memory. ‘That was worse than the knives,’ he said, staring at his swathed hands, and I believed him.