The Bone Thief

by V. M. Whitworth

  ‘No court?’

  And then, Wulfgar thought, why am I surprised?

  ‘Shut up, there.’

  They were splashing across the Bray ford by early evening. Heads turned, and a few people jeered. Boys picked up handfuls of muck to throw, with results that clearly satisfied them. Tied as they were, there was no chance of ducking the shower of filth without risking falling off.

  ‘And that would make the brats even happier,’ Ronan muttered.

  Eirik did nothing to discourage the whoops and catcalls. Ednoth’s cheeks were fiery, but Wulfgar found he was past caring. It was only mud and dung. No stones. Or not yet.

  Eirik and his men made them dismount outside the stockade in Silver Street and they staggered, still tied and hobbled, through the gate, encouraged by spear-butts and kicks. The gate closed behind them, shutting out the jeering urchins.

  ‘Jarl Toli?’

  ‘Já, herra.’

  The guard turned to go inside, not to the hall as Wulfgar had expected but a small private bower set to one side.

  ‘Herra, the Jarl is not well. Can it wait?’

  But a tousled, fair-haired figure stood in the doorway, rubbing his eyes, wearing only his fine linen shirt and woollen leggings.

  ‘I’m nursing my hangover, that’s all. What is it, my Eirik?’

  Eirik jerked his head.

  ‘These,’ he said in English. ‘Thieves. Murderers. Found in my hall. I want you to give them to me, Jarl of Lincoln.’

  Toli half-turned and called something over his shoulder. Moments later a sleepy-looking girl emerged from the bower with a basin of water and a linen towel. Toli splashed his face and dried himself vigorously enough to raise red marks on his fair skin.

  ‘Bring me some ale and a tunic,’ he said, handing her the towel. He yawned and stretched. ‘Let’s start again. What did you say?’

  ‘Thieves. Murderers. Caught on my land. I want their heads.’

  Toli paused, tunic in his hands, and looked past Eirik for the first time.

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Ulfgeir, my friend, you seem to be making a habit of being arrested. Do you want to be a martyr?’

  Eirik broke into Danish then, a rapid but passionless mono logue.

  Bardney … Wulfgar heard. Treasure … thieves.

  Toli let Eirik talk himself out, nodding from time to time.

  ‘And what was this treasure?’ Toli’s eyes were gleaming. ‘Did they find it? Is there a share for your Lord?’

  Eirik’s voice was tinged with contempt.

  ‘Bones. One of their holy men. But such things are worth a lot of silver. And they killed my reeve. I have witnesses.’

  Toli swung round.

  ‘So, Ulfgeir, my Eirik says you and your friends are thieves. And liars. And murderers. But you’re also my sworn friend. So I’ll give you a chance to plead.’

  Wulfgar found his voice wobbling shamefully.

  ‘Jarl Toli – my Lord – my friend – we didn’t kill the reeve, Thorvald. That was someone else, not one of us. And – and you can’t steal a saint. Nobody owns him. If he comes with you, it’s because he chooses to come. I’m no more a thief than I ever was—’

  Ronan shook his head. ‘Be quiet, Wuffa. Toli of Lincoln,’ he said to the Jarl, ‘whatever we may have done, it’s immaterial. We’re not your men. We’re not your problem.’

  Toli smiled. ‘You’re quite right. Yes, I could send you back to Leicester, to Ketil Scar, but would you really thank me for it?’

  ‘Do you know what this man did?’ It was Ednoth, hoarse with anger, gesturing at Eirik with his bound hands. ‘He killed his wife. Killed her like a pig. Put him on trial, if you like.’

  Toli shrugged.

  ‘I never meddle in other men’s marriages.’ He took the cup of ale from the girl and downed a long draught. ‘Ah, that’s better! Now, let me see. Of course, I want to make my Eirik happy. To be sure, I don’t want to distress Athalvald inn hungrathr.’ He nodded at Wulfgar. ‘But I expect I can make it up to him, come All Hallows.’ Wulfgar was finding it hard to reconcile that sweet, boyish face with the words coming from his mouth. ‘What will you do with them, my Eirik?’

  ‘Hang them. The ash.’

  Toli held out his cup for a refill.

  ‘Will the big branch take three?’ he asked.

  Eirik’s lips were tight-pressed, white with satisfaction.

  ‘It has before. And I have rope.’

  ‘Toli,’ Wulfgar hardly recognised his own voice. ‘You swore—’ He broke off. We’re going to die. I’m going to die, unconfessed, with the blood of the man I killed still under my nails.

  He swallowed, newly aware of the pulse fluttering in his throat, the air in his windpipe, the stiff, tired bones of his neck. He hunched his shoulders and bowed his head, trying to shield the soft places under his chin. That rope, he thought wildly, that very rope I can see coiled over there – that’s the rope which is going to kill me. They’ll throw it over that big branch of the ash tree and make me stand while they loop a running noose over my head and pull it tight, and then they’ll go behind me and they’ll pull. They’ll haul on the other end and lift me off the ground. It’ll be slow, very slow, choking … sometimes they pull on your knees to make it quicker, but it’s never very quick … ‘Toli, herra, you swore to be my friend.’ He could hear the shameful, pleading note in his voice.

  ‘The dead have no friends,’ Eirik said, satisfaction in his voice.

  Toli shrugged, and smiled. ‘The law should be above friendship, Ulfgeir. What choice do I have, as Jarl of Lincoln, but to uphold the law?’

  And a new voice said, ‘Sell them to me.’

  They all swung round to stare at the gate. As he turned, Wulfgar tripped over the rope that hobbled his ankles and fell hard on the cobbles, his tail-bone bruised. With his hands tied, he couldn’t get up again. He found himself gazing up at a grey horse, with a splendidly dressed rider. Her upright figure was swathed in a soft black cloak trimmed with wide braids in blue and purple, the white fox fur around her throat skewered through its empty eye-sockets with a silver pin, which could have done double service as a dagger. The evening light flashed fire from the trinkets pinned in the great plaits and coils of her dark hair. Another couple of horsemen were riding in behind her.

  She urged her horse forward a pace or two.

  ‘Name your price, Spider.’

  Wulfgar felt a wild surge of hope.

  Eirik hawked and spat.

  ‘Too late, Bolladottir. They are already dead.’

  She raised an eyebrow at that.

  ‘What use are they, dead? That’s not like you, Spider. Not your style. When is a dead man a better bargain than a live one, eh?’ She glanced at Wulfgar, still lying on the dirty cobbles. ‘Jarl of Lincoln, do you hang men on hearsay?’

  Toli grinned up at her, pushing that errant lock of hair out of his eyes.

  ‘My Eirik brings more silver into Lincoln than any ten other traders. I want to keep him happy.’

  Gunnvor gathered up her reins in one hand and swung easily out of the saddle. Handing the reins to one of the men who had ridden in with her, she walked up to Toli, her skirts brushing Wulfgar as she went by, giving no sign that she had even noticed him. He saw how Toli stood straighter at her approach.

  ‘Toli, my Jarl,’ she said as she put her hand on his arm and looked up at him through those rook-feather lashes, ‘don’t you want to make me happy? What do I bring you?’

  Watching Toli’s expression, Wulfgar thought, look at him, the poor fool. When she’s close to him, he can’t think about anything else. And then, with a sudden twist somewhere in his chest, he thought, I know exactly how he feels.

  Without turning away from Gunnvor, Toli said, ‘Eirik, what’s your price?’ The courtyard had fallen silent, but for the clucking of a chicken who was pecking her way around the mules’ hooves.

  ‘I want them hanged.’ Eirik stared at Toli, but the Jarl’s attention was all elsewhere now.

/>   He’s like a butterfly, Wulfgar thought, a cruel, young butterfly. All shimmer and dash, taking what he wants from a flower and then moving on as soon as he gets bored.

  And he gets bored very quickly.

  Toli had covered Gunnvor’s hand with his but he let it drop then.

  ‘And I want them sold. To Bolladottir, if she’s offering. It’s just as good a judgment in law.’

  ‘Your father—’

  And Toli turned round.

  ‘My father?’ He flung the half-full cup of ale down on the cobbles to smash and splatter at Eirik’s feet. ‘Never tell me what my father would have done. My father is dead, thank Spear and Hammer.’ His fair skin had flushed deep red; Wulfgar could almost see the steam coming from his nostrils. ‘You’re a good servant to me, my Eirik, and I’ve been thinking of you as a good friend. My friends don’t remind me about my father, or make comparisons.’

  Eirik’s eyes were as flat as ever, but he had taken a step backwards. There were shards of clay and splashes of ale on the greasy leather of his shoes.

  ‘I will not forget this, Toli Hrafnsson.’

  ‘Put a price on them, my Spider. Or do you want me to give them to Bolladottir freely, as a gift?’ He took Gunnvor’s hand again. ‘A tribute to her beauty.’

  They are both beautiful, Wulfgar found himself thinking in a jealous agony, he so fair, and she so dark.

  I am inches away from dying, he realised then, and all I can think about is a woman’s face. A woman’s body. He closed his eyes briefly. How he had got here? Our Lady, Queen of Heaven, forgive me.

  ‘Do you want me to go on trading out of Lincoln, herra?’ Eirik asked. He made the title sound like an insult.

  Gunnvor reached in her turn for Toli’s other hand, lifting his fingers to caress the soft white fur that encircled her throat.

  ‘Shall I give the Spider twice the market price, my Jarl?’ she asked.

  Wulfgar saw in disbelief that Ronan had started to chuckle. ‘You’ve lost this one, Spider!’ he said. ‘Think on, the dead do have friends after all.’

  Eirik’s fingers were clenching like claws, his whole body trembling. ‘Next time, prestr, next time.’ He inhaled deeply through his nose, looking first at Toli, then Gunnvor, and then at his three captives. He breathed out then. His deep-set eyes had narrowed; he looked as though he was making some complex calculation. At last he nodded, very slowly. ‘As you say, herra. Twice the market price.’ Eirik walked over to Wulfgar and prodded his buttocks with the toe of his shoe. ‘Get up.’

  ‘I – I can’t.’

  ‘You can.’

  He knew Toli and Gunnvor were both watching him. Burning with humiliation, Wulfgar heaved himself onto his side, and somehow got from there up on to his knees. But he couldn’t bring a foot forward to lever himself up to standing: the rope hobbling his ankles was too short. Trying to stand just threatened to pitch him forward onto his nose.

  Gunnvor summoned one of her men with a jerk of her head. He dismounted and was at her side.

  ‘Untie him,’ she commanded.

  ‘They’re mine, Bolladottir,’ Eirik said.

  ‘For now, Spider.’

  With one ankle now freed, Wulfgar stood up, still stumbling and awkward, hands still bound, the rope trailing from the other ankle.

  Eirik walked up to him.

  ‘Stand with them,’ he told Wulfgar.

  Wulfgar shuffled into line.

  Eirik walked up and down, looking at all three of them. Eirik had frightened Wulfgar before, but he found the slave-dealer even more frightening now. He had changed, somehow sharper, more at home in his skin. There was something altogether inhuman in the way he was sizing them up. Wulfgar thought, he can’t see me for whom I am; he can’t see human souls as anything but a commodity. This must have been what Gunnvor and Father Ronan meant, he realised, when they had said there was no appealing to Eirik’s sense of honour. The slave-dealer didn’t have one. He didn’t care what other people think. He wasn’t aware that other people did think.

  Eirik reached out a hand.

  Wulfgar flinched away, but there was no escaping that probing hand, its grip relentless as a blacksmith’s tongs, assessing the muscles of his upper arm and shoulder.

  ‘Teeth,’ Eirik commanded, grabbing Wulfgar by the chops and digging his fingers into his cheeks. Wulfgar had thought he had plumbed the depths of shame already, but, as he opened his mouth to let the Spider assess his molars, he realised he had done no more than paddle in the shallows. Eirik pushed his mouth closed, gave him a shove, and said, ‘Run.’

  Wulfgar stared at him.

  ‘From here to the ash and back.’ Eirik flicked a hand at him. ‘Hurry. I want to check your wind.’

  Gunnvor had been looking up at Toli, seemingly giving him all her attention, but at that she said, ‘Eirik, that’s not needed.’

  ‘Market price,’ Eirik said. He bared his teeth.

  Toli nodded.

  So Wulfgar did as he was told, his hands still bound, shambling and stumbling over the trailing ankle-rope and the cobbles in the gathering dusk, desperate not to fall again. He wished Gunnvor wasn’t there to see it. He turned at the tree and came limping back. Now what? But that turned out to be the end of it, for him, though he had to watch first Ronan, then Ednoth, go through the same ordeals.

  Finally Eirik nodded, pointed at Ednoth, and said, ‘For him, thirty øre. For the priest, twenty. That one, five.’

  Five øre? Wulfgar wasn’t sure of the exchange rate, but could Ednoth really be worth six times what he was?

  Gunnvor shook her head.

  ‘The old man isn’t worth so much.’

  ‘Hey!’ Ronan exclaimed. ‘Watch it, Bolladottir!’

  ‘Broad back, like a bear,’ Eirik said, sucking his teeth. ‘He might not last long, but he should work well while you have him.’ He stared at her. ‘You want I should take them down to the river and find another buyer?’

  Toli laughed. ‘And so little for Ulfgeir?’ he said. ‘You hear that, Ulfgeir? Five øre! Look, he’s blushing!’

  ‘Soft hands.’ Eirik shrugged. ‘Too much pride. Those ones turn to the wall and die – I have seen it often enough.’

  He and Gunnvor stared at each other.

  Toli grinned.

  ‘Go on, my Eirik. Say fifteen for the priest and ten for Ulfgeir.’

  Eirik shrugged.

  ‘She can pay more for him and less for the priest if she wants. The market price is still forty-five øre for the lot. So, ninety.’

  ‘Eighty,’ Gunnvor said instantly.

  ‘No, no, Bolladottir.’ Toli put an arm round her waist and pulled her against him, laughing. ‘This isn’t a game. Eirik wants them hanged. The least we can do is give him a fair price.’ He grinned at Eirik. ‘I’ll even forgo the Jarl’s tithe. Just this once.’

  Gunnvor nodded then, all wide-eyed acquiescence, soft-faced, smiling up at him and pulling away at the same time.

  ‘I’ll do as you say, Toli my Jarl, though it cuts me to the quick.’ She waved a lordly hand at one of her horsemen, who dismounted and brought a bag of silver over. ‘It’s hack-silver,’ she said.

  ‘Scales,’ Toli commanded. ‘And torches.’

  And then it was all a twilight blur of bonds being cut and Toli weighing out fragments of shining metal from Gunnvor’s bag, with Eirik hanging over the pans of the scales and sucking his teeth, and Gunnvor holding Toli’s arm and fluttering her eyelashes and vowing that his scales were out of true.

  One of Eirik’s men tied the bags of silver to the saddle-bow of Eirik’s horse. Eirik turned back to where Wulfgar stood watching. His long-fingered hand came out and grabbed Wulfgar by the chin again, and he leaned in close, with a carrion gust of breath, and said, ‘I do not know why, friend of Toli, but you are the one who makes me angry.’

  Wulfgar tried to pull away but Eirik’s grip was remorseless as winter.

  ‘I am letting you go now, to please the Jarl of Lincoln. But if I catch you again,
be warned. I will kill you.’ Only then did he let go.

  ‘You’ll have to learn to run faster, Ulfgeir!’ Toli called.

  ‘Kill another’s thrall, Spider?’ Gunnvor said. ‘What kind of law is that? If you want a bit of fun, go kill your own.’

  Wulfgar’s heart hammered. It was all he could do not be sick at the man’s proximity. Only when Eirik, and his three men, and their mule-train, had all ridden out through Toli’s gates into the dusk of Silver Street did he find that he could breathe anything like evenly.

  Toli put out a hand and caught Gunnvor’s arm though her cloak.

  ‘Stay and drink with me, Bolladottir.’

  ‘Another day, my Jarl.’ She stroked Toli’s cheek with the back of her hand and smiled tenderly. Wulfgar had to look away. She’s never yet smiled at me. ‘I want to take my new purchases home and wash them.’

  ‘I’ve made you happy, Bolladottir. Now it’s my turn.’

  She gave the Jarl a long, steady look. His face was unsmiling now and he held her gaze for a long time. In the end she bowed her head.

  ‘As my Jarl commands.’

  ‘Before dinner?’ Ronan muttered. ‘And with a hangover? Oh, what I would give to be young again.’

  Wulfgar turned away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE THREE MEN were settling themselves around the hearth in Gunnvor’s Lincoln house, adjoining her locked and barred warehouse by the river. Her old housekeeper brought fresh barley-cakes and new butter, and ladled out helpings of a rich, peppery broth. Wulfgar was dizzy with hunger, but for all that he found the food sticking in his throat. Drink with me, Toli Silkbeard had said, but that wasn’t what he had meant, was it? Not at all, not the way he had been looking at her.

  ‘Well?’

  Wulfgar looked up from his pit of misery to find Ednoth glaring at him from a few inches away, his face still pale and set.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You gave away our saint.’

  Wulfgar, caught unawares and with his mouth full, shook his head furiously, and tried to swallow.

  ‘What do you mean, shaking your head like that?’ Ednoth got to his feet. ‘I saw you. You gave him to that man. Your brother.’

  Still gulping, Wulfgar said, ‘No, Ednoth, I didn’t. I gave Garmund the other one, the monk of Bardney.’