Something strange was happening. Two of the knarrs were full of rocks and men were casting them overboard into the harbour. Vali realised that this must be some sort of defence they were building, a screening wall against sea attack. The idea was so simple and so brilliant that Vali wondered why his people or the Rygir had never thought of it.
People were on the waterfront, a knot of fifty or sixty cramming forwards shouting to them, some waving weapons, which made Vali feel he wanted to reach for his sword. Others brandished bizarre items: rich cloths, blocks of iron, necklaces and arm rings, clothes even.
‘Do they mean us harm?’ said Vali, eyeing one particularly large man waving a spear.
‘Only to our pockets,’ said Bragi. ‘They’re trying to trade with us.’
He heard calls again in uncertain languages, gibberish, some words in a weird Danish slang, followed by, ‘Where you from? My friends, where you from?’
‘We are Rygir!’ shouted Bragi, which to all intents and purposes they were.
The gibberish ceased and everything became intelligible. ‘See these silks, carried for three years from Serkland, glass from there too.’ ‘If you have furs I will buy them.’ ‘Best price, best price. Ale and mead for the weary traveller!’ ‘Hello, mates. Let’s do business!’ ‘My father was Rygir, only the best deals for them!’
Men were virtually fighting each other to get to the front of the wooden jetty, some almost falling into the water. Vali realised why the houses were crammed so tight. They too were trying to be as near as they could to the source of trade - the inlet.
Now some of the traders were climbing into boats to row out, so Vali could see he needed to act quickly. Were they traders, though? One was very bizarrely dressed, with a wolf’s mask on his face, not like Feileg’s pelt but a stiff thing made of wicker and fur.
The prince stood up in his boat and shouted to the crowd,‘I am Vali, son of Authun the Pitiless, king of the sword-Horda, ward of Forkbeard, king of the Rygir. I am here to speak to your king, Hemming the Great, son of Godfred.’
‘Greetings to the son of the White Wolf!’ shouted the man with the mask on.
Three boats came towards them, two or three men in each. Vali realised he had little choice but to let them come alongside. When they did, he almost did reach for his sword. Not pausing for a breath, three men expertly stepped into his boat - one with iron ingots, another with a roll of carved daggers and the third in the wolf mask, a small fat man in many-coloured silks. Vali could see as he climbed aboard that his hair was black and as slick as a seal’s back.
‘Best iron in the world,’ said the man with the ingots. ‘We can deliver as much as you like to your homeland. Think of the swords your smiths could forge with this.’
Vali looked at the man. He actually did find his words persuasive and began thinking about how, when he was king, he would love to equip his bodyguards with fine weapons they could use on these Danes.
‘This dagger was used to kill a dragon in the lands of the east. It will pierce even the strongest byrnie,’ said the man with the knives.
‘And what are you selling?’ said Bragi to the man in the mask. Bragi had tried to drain the belligerence from his voice, which made him sound more threatening than if he’d just shouted.
The wolf-masked man let out a deep chuckle. ‘Everything!’ he said.
Feileg, who had watched all this with a kind of horror in his eyes, suddenly jumped up and roared at the man in the mask.
‘No!’ said Vali, gesturing for him to sit down, but the ingot seller and the dagger man had both instinctively leaped for their boats. The knife merchant managed to roll into his, but the other, in his panic to get away, missed his step and fell into the water, drawing a huge laugh from the crowd. Only the man in the mask remained. He seemed entirely unperturbed by Feileg’s display and the sudden exit of his two friends.
‘Sit down,’ said Bragi, to Feileg.
The wolfman ignored him and stood glowering down at the remaining merchant. Bragi put his weight suddenly to the side of the boat, wobbling it and forcing Feileg to grab for the rail.
‘I said sit down,’ said Bragi.
The wolfman did as he was told.
‘Berserks are such formidable bodyguards, are they not, prince? And yet never quite your men for a pleasant hello. I was brought up among them, if you can believe it. We call them the Vucari, men who live as wolves. First time in the big town for the boy, I bet.’
‘Who are you?’ said Vali.
‘I am your smoother of the way in Haithabyr, your scythe in a forest of doubt, your beacon in darkness, your—’
‘He asked who you were,’ said Bragi. ‘Unmask yourself and face us as man to man.’
The man took off his mask.
‘Veles Libor,’ he said, ‘friend to the prince and to all who travel with him.’
‘Veles!’ said Bragi. ‘Veles, is it you? What are you doing here?’
‘Living here,’ said Veles, ‘at the invitation of the late King Godfred, may whatever gods you find appropriate guard him in the afterlife, and the good King Hemming, may the same gods. . . Well, you catch my drift.’
‘You have abandoned your people?’ said Vali.
‘The good King Godfred abandoned them for me when he was so considerate as to burn down my home town of Reric. His generosity did not stop there though. He was kind enough to offer, nay insist, that we merchants transfer our business here. The chance to come to such a warm and pleasant land was far more welcome than the alternative, so here I am.’
‘What was the alternative?’ said Vali.
‘An inventive, original and rare death,’ said Veles. ‘It was the easiest bargain I have ever struck.’
‘So you’re a thrall?’ said Vali.
‘But a comfortable one. If you’re going to be a slave, why not be the king’s slave? And besides, the price of my efficiency is a certain level of freedom.’
For the first time since he had returned to Eikund with the wolfman, Vali laughed. ‘It’s so good to see you,’ he said.
‘And you. You have grown mighty, my prince. You must have killed many men by now.’ Vali noticed he was looking strangely at the wolfman. Veles missed nothing, least of all something as obvious as the wolfman’s resemblance to the prince. It didn’t stop the merchant speaking. ‘I have arranged everything for your stay here. You are guests at my house. Whatever you want to buy here, whatever you want to sell, I will be pleased to do it for you. It would be my honour to conduct your dealings for you and lend you my expertise.’
‘We are a delegation.’
‘From Forkbeard. Some business about Haarik’s raid, no doubt.’
‘How did you know about that? No one could have travelled here more quickly than us,’ said Vali.
‘You are a seer?’ said Bragi.
‘Hardly,’ said Veles. ‘I simply asked them when they passed through.’
‘Which way?’ said Vali.
Veles looked hard at Vali.
‘Come on, man. It’s an easy enough question to answer. Were they on their way or coming back from the raid?’
‘On their way,’ said Veles. ‘They have something you value? A captive?’
‘Magician!’ said Feileg in a low growl.
‘My skills are baser, I assure you,’ said Veles. ‘It is my business to recognise want when I see it. There has been a raid on Rogaland; the esteemed prince is dispatched to retrieve something that can be carried in such a small boat. Very wise way to travel. You need five drakkars or none in these waters nowadays. Believe me, the pirates have nearly broken me in two. I bleed coin to them. Bleed it!’ He seemed on the verge of losing his temper but then caught himself. ‘So it is a single captive. I can’t think of anything else that needs diplomacy to retrieve. If it was gold I think you would come with war-paint on your eyes, not these fine lines fit to please a lady.’ He gestured at the kohl that Bragi and Vali had applied to each other.
‘Where is the girl?’ said Feileg.
Veles smiled broadly.
‘I do not have her here, but if she is to be found, then I can find her,’ said Veles. ‘A girl. A princess no doubt. Has little Ragna been taken? I will help find her and expect no payment; simply your thanks and whatever gift your generous people choose to bestow on me will be enough. ’
‘It is not Ragna, though the captive is no less dear to the king. No gift would suffice to thank you for her return,’ said Vali.
‘Well, let’s talk about the exact sums later,’ said Veles. ‘I’m joking of course. But, please, come to my house, where you will be my guests. And you must see King Hemming. We should start by asking for compensation for the raid and the abduction of the girl. I’m sure he couldn’t have sanctioned this, prince. He wouldn’t want to risk your father’s wrath. I will handle everything - the amount, whichever way it is paid, the form, the delivery. The details of mere trade are beneath princes, or at least that’s what the Franks maintain, and their empire seems to thrive on it. You need only return to Rogaland and wait for the happy outcome.’
Vali felt his heart leap. If anyone could locate Adisla, he thought, Veles could.
28 Bargains
Haithabyr was as much a marvel close up as it had been from the sea. Logs had been split and laid on the ground so there was a solid path, firm underfoot. The houses huddled in so close that the thatches nearly touched at some points, blocking out the light. Each yard was fenced, some with individual wells. People shoved and bustled on the waterfront, and even in the alleys that led up from the jetties you could hardly take twenty paces without encountering someone coming the other way. Still, the place was filthy. Piles of rubbish lay everywhere and in places the wooden path was slick with shit.
Would it have hurt, thought Vali, to have carried some of the mess down to the water and thrown it in? Haithabyr stank, and he wondered that people could live in such fetid conditions.
‘Danes,’ said Bragi. ‘They don’t know the meaning of washing and cleaning.’
‘They are a filthy people,’ said Veles, ‘say their enemies. However, I have always found them to be scrupulously clean, as such an opinion is more conducive to a long and happy life. This way, please.’
They moved up through the town, crossing a bridge over a small stream that ran down to the quay. Vali marvelled at that too - the stream had been cut into a channel and was as straight as an arrow. Was this stinking, teeming place the future? he asked himself.
Then, in a square not far from the channel, he saw it - the market. All around were open barns, which he could see contained livestock. One was smaller than the others, squat to the ground like a normal longhouse but without walls, the roof low and the space underneath it black. Vali went closer and saw ragged figures huddled in the darkness. Walking faster and faster, he ducked under the roof of the building and peered into the gloom. Pale faces looked back at him, some shrunken with starvation, others quite plump and healthy. All, however, were chained together. The smell was overwhelming.
His eyes went from face to face. There were two monks - as he now knew them to be - as he’d seen on the island, a mother and two children huddling together, a tall man who could only be a Swede, sitting upright and defiant, and, at the end, a girl of around seventeen, blonde-haired, pretty and staring blankly ahead. It wasn’t Adisla though, not her at all.
‘What is it you’re looking for, sir? Market is two weeks from now, but if you offer the right price the goods are yours. Or do you have slaves to sell? I will buy the right material.’
Vali turned to see a well-dressed man in a dark cloak. He was carrying a long switch of hazel. Beside him was a red-haired woman he guessed was a freed slave because she did not look Danish. She was carrying a set of keys.
‘I’m looking for a woman who might have been brought here, taken from the raid on Rogaland,’ he said.
‘The Rygir girls are cold,’ said the man. ‘Here, try this one at the end. She’ll set your bed on fire, as long as you’re willing to put up with a month of sulking while she gets used to you.’
The girl looked at him from the darkness. Her eyes didn’t contain hope, or anything in particular.
‘I want the Rygir girl,’ said Vali.
‘This one is from the western islands - that’s as near as you’re going to get to Rygir,’ he said.
‘So Haarik’s men have not been here selling slaves?’ said Vali.
‘They left a month back,’ said the slaver, ‘and I haven’t seen them since. Hey, you, pauper, come away from there.’
Vali turned to see Feileg inspecting the irons on one of the children. As the slaver ran across raising his switch, the wolfman turned and let out a low snarl - a raw and angry sound, a boiling expression of animosity, a communication of the kind certain animals have sent to humans since earliest times. It was the sound the wolf and the bear make to their prey, a sound that speaks to the instincts, not the mind, and says only one thing: ‘Run.’
Vali sensed the fear come off the slaver like the blast you feel when you pass the door of a smithy. The slaver dropped the switch and reversed direction, backing away from Feileg and falling back into some straw. The wolfman stepped forward and stood above him. Then Vali saw the knife. The slaver was a hard man and had recovered from the shock of Feileg’s fury as he had fallen. He pulled a blade from his belt and as he stood drove it forward into Feileg’s belly. There was a sound like a breaking branch, then another and then a thump. It all happened too fast for Vali to take in. A breath after the slaver fell back into the straw for the second time, Vali’s mind finally caught up with what he’d witnessed. Feileg had broken the slaver’s arm, snapped his knee joint and thrown him to the ground. His head flopped back into the mud with a squelch.
The wolfman dropped on top of his man, teeth bared. Vali instinctively knew what was about to happen and leaped forward to push Feileg off. It was one thing to get into a fight within a blink of coming into town - that might even be good for their reputation - but savaging someone with your teeth was a step too far. Vali pushed as hard as he could, but the wolfman just turned his body and Vali found himself face down in the mud. Feileg was tearing at the slaver’s face with his nails, pulling the flesh from the bone. The noise he was making was unbearable, a demented, keyless howl. The slaver lost an eye.
The woman stood watching expressionlessly as her companion suffered.
‘Feileg!’ Vali got back up and shook the wolfman by his shoulders, staring into his face as if into a mirror.
And then the nature of things seemed different: his consciousness seemed a wide and inclusive thing. It was as if the way of seeing things that he’d found in the mire had leaked into the day to day, as if the whole world was bathed in that dirty underwater light. Emotions pulled his head this way and that - the fear coming off the slaver and from Feileg a powerful sense of something trying to break out, something smothered under a blanket of pain. Vali forced himself to speak, though he didn’t know where he got the words.
‘Feileg, please,’ said Vali. ‘It’s all right. Just leave him. Come on, you must be tired. Veles will have a fine bed, I’m sure - better than the ground, eh?’
The wolfman looked back into Vali’s eyes and Vali sensed that he shared something fundamental with this man, something deeper than could be conveyed by any word. He was connected to him, more than that, the same as him. The feeling made him shiver.
The wolfman didn’t move, just looked down at the man beneath him. The slaver was silent - blue at the lips.
‘He’s dead of fear,’ said Bragi. ‘I’ve seen it before.’ Vali looked down at the body and it was as if its smells leaked memories. He tasted sour curds, sea and wood, sweat and blood, caught the scent of smoke and rain, saw piles of gold and wide bright skies. The sensations crowded upon him and then they were gone.
A crowd had been drawn by the noise.
The slaver woman now pulled at Vali’s arm. She wasn’t upset or angry. ‘I want weregild. Compensation for my husband�
�s death.’
Vali had the bearing of a prince, so she had naturally gone to him rather than the wild Feileg, who seemed in some sort of trance.
‘I . . .’ Vali didn’t know what to say. He was trying to think straight. The fight had registered in his mind on a level beyond the fact of its violence, terrible though that had been. The strength of the emotions had seemed to wake a new sense in him, something between smell and memory. He felt dizzy and his head began to ache. The wide consciousness of a breath before had retracted to a thin stream; there was a high-pitched ringing in his ears like the echo of a scream.
The woman spoke again. ‘Some compensation is right. I saw you arrive. You have a fine boat. If I can have that, then the matter is forgotten.’
Veles put up his hand.
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