A couple of short portages brought them to a broad, slow-moving river. ‘Dvina,’ said Oleg. ‘Three days and we’ll be at the Dnieper.’
Vallon had a quiet word with Wayland while the porters readied the boats. ‘You’re wrong about Vasili. I’ve been watching Oleg like a hawk and he’s as honest as they come.’
‘Too honest. Most guides leading travellers through foreign parts would take them for every penny.’
Vallon shook his head in exasperation. ‘What was that phrase Raul used to use? “Your mind’s as twisted as a pig’s guts.” You don’t believe that the porters are part of Vasili’s plot.’
‘No. Which is why I think he’ll strike after we’ve paid them off at the Dnieper. Sir, we have to reach the river at a different spot from the one Oleg chooses.’
‘It’s not my place to tell our guide which route to take.’
At that moment Oleg turned to say it was time to board.
Most of the company dozed at their oars as they floated down through the forest. Their rest was brief. Only a few miles downstream, Oleg ordered them to row towards a tributary emerging from the left shore.
‘Where does that take us?’ Vallon asked.
‘Smolensk,’ said Oleg. ‘Two days.’
‘Lord Vasili advised us to avoid Smolensk.’
‘Yes, yes. We will reach the Dnieper below Smolensk. Tomorrow I will go ahead to hire more porters.’
That was the first fishy thing Oleg had said. Vallon kept his tone relaxed. ‘I’d rather you stayed with us.’
‘Ivanko knows the way as well as I do. Don’t worry. Tomorrow, we’ll eat supper together as usual.’
‘It seems a pity to leave this fine river so soon.’
When Oleg smiled, his eyes almost disappeared above his cheekbones. ‘Honoured sir, you can go down the Dvina all the way to the Baltic, but this is as close as it comes to the Dnieper.’
His manner was guileless. His behaviour had been exemplary. Wayland’s instinct wasn’t infallible. Two days and they would be at the Dnieper.
Oleg had turned away to oversee a rearrangement of the cargo. The porters were sharing a good-natured joke. Vallon could sense Wayland looking at him.
‘Leave the goods where they are.’
Oleg looked up. ‘Excuse me?’
‘We’re taking a different route.’
Oleg’s face wrinkled in bafflement. ‘But this is the route.’
‘I don’t like the look of it.’
Oleg assumed the manner of a man used to dealing with difficult clients. ‘I know all the portages and this is the easiest, I promise.’
‘It might be the easiest, but it isn’t the one I want to take.’
Oleg hid his annoyance. ‘There is another way, but it means rowing upriver and brings you out above Smolensk. You said you didn’t want to travel through Smolensk.’
‘I don’t. I want you to reach the Dnieper from somewhere downriver.’
Oleg stepped from foot to foot and pointed at the tributary. ‘But this is the path. There is no other.’
‘Find one.’
Oleg tugged off his cap and wrung it in his hands. ‘I don’t understand why you’re making this trouble.’
The porters and the rest of the voyagers looked on with incomprehension. ‘Have you lost your mind?’ Drogo demanded.
‘Stay out of it,’ Vallon said. He’d acted like a boor in the hope of dislodging Oleg’s mask. He hadn’t succeeded. The guide had behaved as any decent man would when confronted by a fool and an oaf. Well, it was too late to change direction.
‘If you won’t take us by another route, we’ll find our own.’
Oleg shut his eyes. He muttered to himself and then he threw up his hands. ‘Yes!’ he shouted. ‘Find your own way!’ He called out in Russian and stormed over to the porters, cuffing them across their backs. Clueless as to what had provoked the turnaround, they began packing up their things.
‘Leave the men,’ Vallon ordered.
Oleg turned on him. ‘They no longer work for you. There’s no point in them dragging your boats on a path that doesn’t exist.’
‘I’m the one who’s paying their wages.’
Oleg spat. ‘Keep your silver. Vasili will pay them from his own purse.’
‘Double wages for every man who stays,’ Vallon called.
Only Ivanko met his eye, shaking his shaggy head at how badly things had turned out. His team couldn’t get away fast enough. They paddled away upriver, Oleg punching the side of the canoe.
‘What in hell was that about?’ Drogo demanded.
‘Wayland thinks that Oleg was planning to lead us into an ambush.’
‘Oleg?’
‘Acting on Lord Vasili’s orders. He wants the falcons.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Vasili doesn’t have to rob us to obtain falcons.’
‘Yes, he does. We refused to sell them.’
‘They’re coming back,’ Wayland said.
Vallon watched the canoes return. Oleg stepped ashore, his face crumpled. ‘I can’t leave you lost in the forest. Lord Vasili will hold me responsible if you come to harm.’ He choked back a sob. ‘Keep the porters and pay them for the unnecessary toil.’ He thumped his chest. ‘But I will not be coming with you. What use is a guide if his clients won’t be guided?’ Tears ran down his cheeks. ‘Thank you very much. Lord Vasili entertains you like princes and you spit in his face. Thank you very much.’
He lurched away with Ivanko trying to soothe him. His anguish was so genuine that Vallon came close to running after him and begging his forgiveness.
‘Marvellous,’ Drogo snorted. ‘Now we have the worst of all worlds. If Oleg did plan to betray us, he’ll get to Smolensk long before we reach the Dnieper.’
Drogo was right. The only way to make sure was to murder the guide. The idea was so repugnant that Vallon put it out of mind immediately. The falconer had got it wrong, and that was that.
Not a word passed the porters’ lips as they travelled down the Dvina. After about ten miles they rowed into another tributary. Vallon looked at the stream winding out of the forest. For all he knew, it would bring them to the same place Oleg had been making for. Well, the choice was made. He nodded at Ivanko. Mute as beasts, the porters led the passage through the forest.
It was a hellish struggle. Every few yards they found the stream blocked by beaver dams and fallen trees, forcing them to haul the boats onto the banks and manhandle them around the obstacles. The problem was that the banks themselves were choked with dead trees. In some spots, a tree in falling had dragged others down with it, four or five at a time, sometimes flattening them, in places leaving them suspended in a drunken huddle. At each hurdle, they had to unhitch the horses, empty the boats and then lift and slide them across the tree trunk. Only to repeat the process a few yards further on.
They were at this toil until darkness and Vallon guessed that they hadn’t covered more than two miles. That night the porters ate around their own fire and refused the mead that Vallon sent them.
In the cold light of dawn they doddered to their feet and stood wincing and rolling the stiffness out of their joints. They plugged on. Unhitch, lift, push. Hitch, drag, unhitch, lift … At this rate, Vallon calculated, it would take them a fortnight to reach the Dnieper.
Around noon the light turned ashen and the air grew frowzy. The whole forest seemed to take an enormous sighing breath and billows of leaves streamed from the trees. The porters were terrified of the oncoming storm and dragged their canoes onto land, entreating God’s mercy and Perun’s protection. Darkness veiled the sky. The storm when it broke burst overhead with a long sizzle of lightning that seemed to light up the inside of Vallon’s skull. Thunder boomed and a mighty wind tore through the forest. Trees a hundred feet tall writhed as if they were saplings. From all around came the tearing groans of falling timber. A lightning bolt blasted a nearby pine, splitting it from crown to roots, hurling ten-foot splinters more than a hundred feet. Rain slashed down. Pa
gans and Christians alike crouched with their hands over their heads. Like apes.
The storm passed. The sun broke through. The voyagers took their hands off their heads and grinned weakly at each other. Every tree had been stripped of its leaves, each twig tipped with liquid crystal. Nobody had been injured. In fact the storm cleared the festering atmosphere and that night travellers and porters again ate around a communal fire. Vallon questioned Ivanko about the route and persuaded him to deviate from it so that they would strike the Dnieper at a spot never used on a regular portage. They clinched the arrangement with a handshake, silver transferring from palm to palm.
At sunrise the company found their way decked with cobwebs slung like silken canopies between the trees. The porters left their canoes behind and struck out overland, carrying the upturned boats on their shoulders. Their legs were caving in beneath them when they straggled at last out of the forest. Below them a wild meadow slanted down to a wide river curving away in a shining semicircle. On the opposite shore unbroken forest sloped up from limestone bluffs.
Ivanko pointed like a prophet. ‘Dnieper!’
Hero and Richard capered and even Vallon grinned and back-slapped his companions. But it was too soon to be certain that they were in the clear. Bends upriver and down restricted his view to no more than a couple of miles.
He pointed upstream. ‘How far is Smolensk? How long would it take a boat to reach us?’
Ivanko pondered. ‘One long day, maybe two.’
‘And from the spot where Oleg wanted you to take us?’
‘Half a day.’
Uncomfortably close. Vallon studied the terrain. A warm breeze blowing from the river tousled the grass. A brown bear and her two cubs browsed near the river. When Wayland clapped, she rose on her hind legs, peering myopically in their direction, then dropped to all fours and lumbered away like a giant furry inchworm with the cubs gambolling in her wake. On the other side of the river, a herd of deer popped into focus. They watched the intruders as though paralysed, then melted away into the trees.
‘Nobody’s been near this place in days,’ Wayland said.
Vallon glanced behind him. ‘It will take time to prepare the boats. Stay here and watch our backs until you hear the signal.’
‘No one’s following us.’
‘And no one’s waiting for us. You’re the one who started this, so let’s not relax our guard. You know the signals. One long blast of the horn means we’re leaving. Three short blasts and we’ve run into trouble.’
XXXIX
A more tranquil spot would have been hard to imagine. Here in its upper reaches the Dnieper was less than two hundred yards wide, sliding down a long pool before spilling away in a series of sweet-sounding rills. Shoals of minnows darted in the shallows. Blue and yellow dragonflies hawked over the surface. At the tail of the pool was a ford, its banks churned up by cattle of extraordinary size. They’d crossed recently and if their spoor could be used as a yardstick, their herdsmen must have stood ten feet tall. Vallon could place his entire foot in one half of the cloven prints.
The porters slid the boats into the water, then Ivanko approached and said that their job was done. Richard handed out their wages, the men craning over each other’s shoulders to keep a reckoning.
The voyagers lay in the grass enjoying the warmth. Some dozed with their palms shielding their eyes.
Vallon clapped his hands. ‘Let’s get the boats loaded.’
Hero opened his eyes. ‘Can’t we eat first?’
‘No. I want to get away as soon as possible.’
Wulfstan walked up from the bank. ‘Our boat’s sprung a plank. It must have taken a knock in the forest. It’ll need recaulking.’
‘Damn,’ said Vallon. The porters were kindling a cooking fire. If they’d had any hint of treachery, they would have cleared off as soon as they’d been paid. ‘Repair the boat as quickly as you can. The rest of you may as well grab a bite. You two,’ he called, addressing Tostig and Olaf. ‘Take the skiff and keep watch on the other side of the river. Don’t look so long-faced. We’ll save some food for you.’
Hero joined Vallon with an ear-to-ear grin. ‘At last we can dream of reaching journey’s end.’
‘There’s a long way to go yet.’
Richard drifted up yawning. ‘When I get on the river, I’m going to sleep for days. Wake me when we reach Kiev.’
The Vikings lit a fire to melt pitch. Over it the travellers hung a pot of broth. Vallon remained edgy, infected by Wayland’s suspicions. Oleg must have reached the Dnieper two days ago. By now an ambush could have been set downstream.
The travellers were still eating when Wulfstan reported that his men had repaired the boat. ‘Time we were going,’ Vallon called. ‘That bread will taste just as good on the river. Where’s the man with the horn? Ah, there you are. Call Wayland and Syth.’
They knelt behind a windfall lime, watching the aurochs grazing in the clearing. Sixty or seventy yards away stood a solitary black bull with pale finching down its back. It stood taller than a man, longer than a wagon, its head armed with lyre-shaped horns. Behind it, at the far edge of the clearing, five young bulls grazed. A herd of reddish-brown cows and calves came and went in the sun-dappled wood beyond. The beasts looked like they’d stepped out from a more ancient world, and what made the scene even more magical was the flush of brimstone butterflies swarming in the clearing. Hundreds of them fluttered around the old bull, attracted by the warmth radiating from its coat. The battle-scarred patriarch looked as if it were spotted with flowers.
‘Don’t you dare shoot him,’ Syth whispered.
Wayland smiled and shook his head.
As the bull grazed, its pizzle slowly extended from its sheath.
‘Golly,’ said Syth.
Wayland coughed quietly into his fist.
‘Wayland.’
‘Ssh, you’ll frighten them.’
Syth slid a glance at the aurochs, then compressed her lips and blew into Wayland’s ear.
His jaw worked.
‘Way-Land.’
‘What?’
She lay back with a sigh, eyes closed, arms spread.
He looked down at her, then grinned and sprawled beside her. His hands reached under her tunic.
‘Wayland, they’re not puppies.’
‘I love the feel of them.’
She draped a hand around his neck. ‘I wish we’d had the chance to be together in Novgorod, when we had fine clothes and proper beds.’
Wayland nuzzled her ear. ‘Adam and Eve didn’t have clothes or a bed.’
‘I bet Eve wished she had.’
‘What? She fretted about not having fancy clothes to take off for Adam?’
‘It’s all right for you. You like living in the forest. Sharing a love nest with creepy-crawlies isn’t my idea of bliss.’
Wayland leaned over her. ‘You’ll wear fine clothes, I promise. We’ll live in a grand house. You’ll see.’
She smiled, her skin luminous under its film of grime and her eyes reflecting the sky.
‘Raul said you were a nixie. He said you could turn yourself into water.’
She reached for his belt. ‘I can do more than that. I can turn you to water.’
When the horn blew, they were so absorbed in themselves and each other that they didn’t hear it. Yet Wayland must have registered some vibration because he wrenched his lips from hers and braced up on his arms.
Syth opened dazed eyes. Her chest was flushed scarlet. ‘Don’t stop.’ She wrapped her legs tighter. ‘Don’t. Stop.’
Vallon paced the bank, darting impatient glances up the meadow. A drawn-out cry floated across the river and the two Icelanders came sprinting down to the skiff. Vallon put his head in his hands and groaned. He looked up. ‘Everybody into the boats. Look to your weapons.’
As Tostig and Olaf jumped into the skiff and pushed off, the disjointed shapes of horsemen appeared through the trees behind them. Down they ambled, attired as if they were out
on a rustic jaunt. Their leader waved in greeting, not at all surprised to find a body of armed men in his path. He put his horse to the water.
‘The porters are running away,’ Richard called.
Ivanko and his men were hurrying up the meadow, casting frightened glances over their shoulders.
Drogo watched the horsemen file onto the bank. ‘We can be away before they cross.’
‘Not without Wayland and Syth. God knows what’s keeping them. Blow the warning.’
He cursed their absence and he cursed the awful timing. The strangers were feeling their way across the ford, the water up to their horses’ bellies. All were armed, most of them carrying bows. An ill-sorted pack of dogs paddled behind the horses.
‘Perhaps it’s only a hunting party,’ Richard said.
Vallon kicked the ground. ‘Who just happen to be crossing the river at the precise spot where we’re embarking.’
By the time the Icelanders landed, the Russian column had reached mid-river. At its head rode a ruddy and compact man with a skull shaved bare except for a sidelock. He wore a sleeveless bearskin jacket over a linen smock and his feet were shod in green kidskin. He leaned back as his mount surged up the bank, then slackened reins and sat with his wrists crossed on his horse’s neck, grinning down into the stony faces of the men and bowing lavishly to the ladies. From one ear hung a large pearl set between drops of filigreed silver. ‘Greetings, brothers and sisters. What have we here? A convoy of merchants. I can’t believe it. Why are you making the passage so late?’
Hawk Quest Page 55
