A thud, a ripple of loose earth. Hardly believing, Shef gaped at the boulder now embedded in the earth twenty feet from the side of his tower, looking as if it had been there since the dawn of creation. They had missed. Missed by yards. He had not thought they could.
The man in front of him, a burly figure in mail, was hurled aside.
Blood in the air, a thrum like the bottom note of a giant’s harp, a line in the air that came too fast to be seen and drove in and through the warrior’s body.
The bolt-machine as well as the boulder-machine. Shef stepped to the edge of the wall and looked down at the broken body now sprawled at its foot. Well, they might be in action now—but one had missed and both were too late. They must still be captured.
“Come on, don’t stand there like young maidens who’ve just seen the bull!” Shef gestured angrily at the men clustered in the tower’s exit. “It will take them an hour to wind their machines again. Follow me now and we’ll see they don’t get the chance.”
He turned and loped along the walkway behind the battlements, Ulf striding like an enormous nursemaid a pace behind.
They found Brand just inside the now-opened gates, in an open space scattered with the familiar debris of battle: split shields, bent weapons, bodies, incongruously, a torn shoe somehow parted from its owner. Brand was breathing hard, and sucking a scratch on his bare arm above his gauntlets, but otherwise was unhurt. Men were still pushing through the gates, being hailed and directed by the skippers according to some plan already agreed upon, all done with an air of frantic haste. As they approached, Brand called two senior warriors over to him and gave brief instructions.
“Sumarrfugl, take six men, go round all the bodies here, strip all the Englishmen and pile what you find over by that house there. Mail, weapons, chains, jewelry; purses. Don’t forget to check under their armpits. Thorstein, take another six and go do the same job up along the walls. Don’t get cut off and don’t take any risks. Bring back all the stuff you find and pile it with Sumarrfugl’s. When you’ve done that you can sort out our own dead and wounded. Now—you there, Thorvin!”
The priest appeared through the gates, leading a laden pack-horse.
“You’ve got your gear? I want you to stay here till we’ve secured the Minster and then come right along as soon as I send a squad for you. Then you can set your forge up and start melting down the take.
“The take!” Brand’s eyes gleamed with delight. “I can smell that farm in Halogaland already. Estate! County! All right, let’s get going.”
Shef stepped forward as he swung on his heel and grabbed an elbow.
“Brand, I need twenty men.”
“What for?”
“To secure the shooting-machine up in the corner tower, and then go on to the throwing one.”
. The champion turned, still eying the confusion around him. He grasped Shef’s shoulder in enormous metal fingers, squeezed gently.
“Young madman. Young snotnose. You have done great things today. But remember—men fight to rake together money. Money!” He used the Norse word fe, which meant every form of property together, money and metal and goods and livestock. “So forget your machines for a day, young hammerer, and let’s all go get rich!”
“But if we have—”
Shef felt the fingers tighten crushingly on his collarbone.
“Now I have told you. And remember, you are still a carl in the Army, like all of us. We fight together, we share together. And by the shining tits of Gerth the Maiden, we are going to loot together. Now get in the ranks!”
Moments later, five hundred men were tramping in dense column into the mouth of one of the streets of the inner city, heading firmly in the direction of the minster. Shef, at the rear, stared at a mail-clad back, hefted his halberd, looked longingly over his shoulder at the little groups left behind.
“Come along,” urged Ulf. “Don’t worry, Brand left enough men there to guard the loot. It’s share and share alike in the Army, and everyone knows it. They’re only there to keep off any stragglers from the English.”
The advancing column had speeded up almost to a trot and at the same time had shaken out into the familiar wedge-shape Shef remembered from his first skirmish. Twice it met resistance; makeshift barricades across the narrow street, desperate Northumbrian thanes hacking at their enemies across the war-linden while their churls and followers hurled javelins and stones from the houses above them. The Vikings stormed up, exchanged blows, poured into the houses, dislodged the archers and spear-throwers, broke down interior walls to take the English from flank and rear, acting all the time without orders and without pause, with a dreadful killing urgency. Each time there was a check, Shef seized his chance to struggle closer to the front, aiming for the broad back of Brand. He had to let them take the minster, he realized. But maybe once the loot had been secured, the precious relics of centuries, he could be spared some men to seize the machines. And above all, he must be near the leaders to save prisoners’ lives—the lives of the skilled men, the number-workers.
The Vikings were up to a trot again, Brand only a couple of ranks in front of him. A turn in the narrow street, the men on the inside slowing fractionally to let their mates on the outside keep up—and there was the minster, looming suddenly above them like the work of giants, not sixty paces off, set back in its own precinct from the lesser buildings huddled round it.
And there too were the Northumbrians again, coming on one last time with the valor of desperation and the house of their God behind them.
The Vikings checked their rush, heaved shields high again. Shef, still thrusting forward, found himself suddenly level with Brand, saw a Northumbrian broadsword swinging like a meteor at his neck.
Without thought he parried, felt the familiar clang of a breaking blade, stabbed forward with the lance-head of the halberd, twisted and jerked to tear his enemy’s shield aside. His back to Brand’s, he lashed out blindly with a full-armed sweep. Space round him, enemies to all sides. He swung again, the axe-blade of the halberd hissing in the air, changed grip, and swept back as his enemies tried to dart in beneath the blows. A miss and another miss, but in those instants the Vikings had re-formed. Their wedge surged forward, the broadswords cutting from all angles, Brand leading them, swinging his axe with a joiner’s precision.
As one wave the storming column broke over the English defenders, trampling them down. Shef found himself propelled forward at a run into open space, clear ground all around him, the minster in front, whoops of exultation in his ears.
Dazzled by the sudden gleam of sunshine he saw in front of him—saffron cloaks. Unbelievably, the familiar grinning face of Muirtach, driving a spike into the ground. A line of spikes, roped together, like the rowan-berry line that guarded Thorvin’s forge. The whoops died uncertainly.
“Well-run, boys. But ye’re off limits here. No one over the rope, d’ye hear?”
Muirtach backed away, spreading his arms, as Brand stepped forward. “Now take it easy, lads. Ye’ll get yer share, I make no doubt. But it’s all been fixed over yer heads. Ye’d have got yer share even if yer attack had failed, now.”
“They came in the back,” shouted Shef. “They never followed us this morning at all. They broke in the west gate while we attacked the north!”
“Broke in, nothing,” snarled a furious voice. “They were let in. Look!”
Out from the minster door, as composed as ever, still dressed in scarlet and grass-green, strolled Ivar. By his side paced a figure in a garb Shef had not seen since the death of Ragnar a year before: a man in purple and white, a strange, tall hat on his head, a gold-decorated crook of ivory in his hand. As if automatically, he raised his other hand in benediction. The Archbishop of the Metropolitan Province of Eoforwich himself, Wulfhere Eboracensis.
“We’ve done a deal,” said Ivar. “The Christ-folk offered to let us into the town on condition the minster itself was spared. I gave my word on it. We can have everything else: the town, the shire, the
king’s property, everything. But not the minster or the belongings of the Church. And the Christ-folk will be our friends and show us just how to wring this land dry.”
“But you are a jarl of the Army,” bellowed Brand. “You have no right to make deals for yourself and leave the rest of us out.”
Theatrically, Ivar moved one shoulder, rotating it and grimacing with exaggerated pain.
“I see your hand is recovered, Brand. When I too am fit we will have several matters to talk over. But keep your side of the rope! And keep your men in hand or they’ll suffer for it.
“Boys too,” he added, his eyes falling on Shef.
From behind the minster men had been pouring, the Ragnarssons’ personal followers in hundreds—fully armed, fresh, confident, eyeing their scattered and weary comrades coldly. The Snakeeye stepped out from among them, his two other brothers flanking him—Halvdan looking grim, Ubbi for once shamefaced, eyes on the ground as he spoke.
“You did well to get here. Sorry you got a surprise. It will all be explained in full meeting. But what Ivar says is right. Stay outside this rope. Keep away from the minster. Apart from that you can get as rich as you like.”
“Small chance of that,” shouted an anonymous voice. “What gold do the Christ-priests leave for anyone else?”
The Snakeeye made no reply. His brother Ivar turned, gestured. Behind the Ragnarssons a pole rose into the sky, was driven firmly into the packed earth in front of the minster doors. A jerk on a rope and from it spread—fluttering limply in the damp wind—the famous Raven Banner, the brothers’ personal ensign, wings spread wide for victory.
Slowly, the once-united group who had stormed the wall and fought their way through the city lost cohesion, began to break up, mutter among themselves, count their losses.
“Well, they may have the minster,” muttered Shef to himself. “But we can still get at the machines.”
“Brand,” he called. “Brand. Now can I have those twenty men?”
Chapter Five
A group of men sat together in pale winter sunlight in a leafless copse outside the walls of York. Cords encircled them, rowan berries dangling scarlet between the spears. It was a conclave of priests, all the priests of the Asgarth Way who had accompanied the Army of the Ragnarssons: Thorvin for Thor, Ingulf for Ithun, but others too—Vestmund the navigator, charter of the stars, priest of Njörth the sea-god; Geirulf the chronicler of battles, priest of Tyr; Skaldfinn the interpreter, priest of Heimdall. Most respected of all for his visions and his travels in the other worlds, Farman, priest of Frey.
Within their circle was planted the silver spear of Othin, next to it the sacred fire of Loki. But no priest in the Army cared to take the great responsibility of the spear of Othin. There had never been a priest of Loki—though that he existed was never forgotten.
Inside the roped circle, but sitting apart and silent, were two laymen, Brand the champion and Hund the apprentice of Ithun. There to give evidence and, if asked, advice.
Farman spoke, looking round the group. “It is time to consider our position.”
Silent nods of agreement. These were not men to talk without need.
“We all know that the history of the world, heimsins kringla, the circle of the earth, is not foreordained. But many of us have seen for many years a vision of the world as it seems it must be.
“A world where the Christ-god is supreme. Where for a thousand years and more men are subject to him alone and to his priests. Then, at the end of that thousand years—the burning and the famine. And all through the thousand years, the fight to keep men as they are, to tell them to forget this world and think only of the next. As if Ragnarök—the battle of gods and men and giants—were already decided and men were sure of victory.” His face was as stern as stone as he looked at the circle of priests.
“It is against that world that we have set our faces, and it is that future which we mean to avert. You will remember that by chance I heard in London of the death of Ragnar Hairy-Breeks. Then it came to me in my sleep that this was one of those moments when the history of the world may take a different turn. And so I called on Brand”—he waved a hand at the massive figure hunkered down a few feet away—“to take the news to the sons of Ragnar, and to take it in such a way that they could not refuse the challenge. Few men might have survived that errand. Yet Brand did it, as a duty to us, in the name of the one who will come from the North. Come from the North, we believe, to set the world on its true path.”
The men in the circle touched their pendants respectfully.
Farman went on. “It was in my mind that the sons of Ragnar, falling on the Christian kingdoms of England, might break their power and be a mighty force for us, for the Way. I was a fool to guess at the meaning of the gods. A fool, too, to think that good might come from the evil of the Ragnarssons. They are not Christians, but what they do gives the Christians strength. Torture. Violation. The making of heimnars.” .
Ingulf, Hund’s master, cut in. “Ivar—he is of the brood of Loki, sent to afflict the earth. He has been seen on the other side—and not as man. He is not one to be used for any good purpose.”
“As now we see,” replied Farman. “For far from breaking the power of the Christ-god church, he has made alliance with it. For his own ends—and only that fool of an archbishop would trust him. Yet for the moment both are stronger.”
“And we are poorer!” growled Brand, driven beyond respect.
“But is Ivar richer?” asked Vestmund. “I cannot see what Ivar and his brothers have from this deal they have made. Except entry into York.”
“I can tell you that,” said Thorvin. “For I have looked well into this matter. We have all seen how poor their money is here. Little silver, much lead, much copper. Where has all the silver gone? Even the English ask each other that. I can tell you. The Church has taken it.
“We do not understand—even Ivar cannot know—how rich the Church in Northumbria is. They have been here two hundred years and all that time they have taken gifts of silver, and of gold, and of land. And from the land they wring more silver, and from the land they do not own they wring yet more. To splash a child with water, to make her wedding holy, in the end to bury them in holy soil and take away the threat of eternal torment—not for their sins, but for failure to pay the toll.”
“But what do they do with this silver?” Farman asked.
“They make ornaments for their god. It all lies now in the minster, as useless as when it was first in the soil. The silver and the gold in their chalices, in their great roods and rood-screens, in the plates for the altar and the boxes for the bodies of their saints—it comes out of the money. The richer the Church, the poorer the coinage.” He shook his head in disgust.
“The Church will hand nothing over—and Ivar does not even know what lies in his hand. The priests have told him that they will call in all the coins of the realm and melt them down. Purge out the base metal and leave him only the silver. And then with that they will make him a new coinage. A coinage for Ivar the Victorious, king of York. And Dublin too.
“The. Ragnarssons may not be richer. They will be more powerful.”
“And Brand, son of Barn, will be poorer!” snarled an angry voice.
“So what we have done,” summed up Skaldfinn, “is to bring the Ragnarssons and the Christ-priests together. How sure are you now of your dream, Farman? And what of the world’s history and of its future?”
“There is one thing I did not dream then,” replied Farman. “But I have dreamed him since. And that is the boy Skjef.”
“His name is Shef,” put in Hund.
Farman nodded agreement. “Think of it. He defied Ivar. He fought the holmgang. He broke the walls of York. And he walked up to Thorvin’s meeting months ago and said he was one who came from the North.”
“He only meant he came from the north part of the kingdom, from the Northfolk,” protested Hund.
“What he meant is one thing, what the gods mean is anot
her,” said Farman. “Do not forget also: I saw him on the other side. In the home of the gods itself.
“And there is another strange thing about him. Who is his father? Sigvarth Jarl thinks he is. But for that we have only his mother’s word. It comes to me that perhaps this boy is the beginning of the great change, the center of the circle, though no one could have guessed it. And so I have to ask his friends and those who know him a question:
“Is the boy mad?”
Slowly, eyes turned to Ingulf. He raised his eyebrows.
“Mad? That is not a word to be used by a leech. But since you put it to me in that way, I will tell you. Yes, of course the boy Shef is mad. Consider …”
Hund found his friend, as he had known he would, standing amid a litter of charred wood and iron at the northeast tower, above the Aldwark, surrounded by a knot of interested pendant-wearers. He slipped between them like an eel.
“Have you worked it out yet?” he asked.
Shef looked up. “I think I have the answer now. There was a monk with each machine, whose duty was to see it destroyed instead of captured. They started the job, then scuttled back to the Minster. The men they left behind had no great desire to see the burning finished. This slave was captured,” he nodded at a collared Englishman inside the ring of Vikings. “He told me how it worked. I haven’t tried to rebuild the machine, but I understand it now.”
He indicated the pile of charred timbers and iron devices.
“This is the machine that fires the bolts.”
Shef pointed. “See, the spring is not in the wood, it is in the rope. Twisted rope. This axle is turned and twists the rope which puts more and more force on each bow-arm and the bowstring. Then, at the right moment, you release the bowstring …”
“Wham,” said one of the Vikings. “And there goes old Tonni.”
A grunt of laughter. Shef pointed at the toothed wheels on the frame. “See the rust on them? They are as old as time. I do not know how long it is since the Rome-folk left, or if these things have been lying round in some armory ever since. But anyway, they were not made by the minster-folk. It is all they can do to use them.”
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