Varanger

by Cecelia Holland

  Conn grunted, swung the jug up, and drank deep. Raef laid his forearms on his knees.

  “What do we do when we get to the top of the river?”

  Dobrynya said, “This river runs out of a lake, up in the high country. We don’t go that far. There is a place—maybe two days, maybe three—where we haul out and carry the boats over the hill:’

  Conn passed the jug to Raef. “Do we do that all ourselves, too?” His voice was harsh; he had covered over his temper, not put it away.

  “We will use the horses to help,” Dobrynya said. “It’s not a hard portage, nor long.” He wiped his mouth on a cloth and tossed it to the servant. “Then we come to another river, much bigger, south-flowing, which after some many days runs by Kiev.”

  Raef held the jug out to him, and he took it with a smile. “But let me warn you, soon we will come to the edge of the forest. This going on by yourselves is fine for a while, but the steppe is hun country, and you must stay close by us so that we can protect you.”

  Raef said, “I thought the Knyaz ruled this land.”

  “He does, and no question, but the huns come through in their yearly passages, and they have their own ways. And there are places where they’ll attack boats on the river—there are rapids, where you will have to walk the boats through, while we ride on the bank above. So watch out.” He passed on the jug to Conn; Raef marked he drank none himself. His gilded smile matched his mild voice. “A band of huns is no match for an army like this one, but they will take single boats, and I do not mean to lose these goods.”

  Conn said, “How far now to Kiev?”

  “Seventeen, eighteen days.” Dobrynya laid his hands on his knees. “You’ve sailed on the sea—are you as good at that as running rivers?”

  Conn wagged his head at Raef. “He can go anywhere there is water.”

  Dobrynya turned his gaze directly on Raef; he had always before spoken mainly to Conn, but now the full bright blue of his eyes fixed on Raef, like a bolt. He said, “So you are the navigator? There’s truth in a name, then.”

  Raef did not ask him why; he had guessed at the meaning of the word he had heard the Sclava calling him. Instead, he said, “This big river, up ahead, it flows into the sea?”

  “Into a certain sea. We call it the Greek Sea, because it is close by the land of the Greeks. The big south-flowing river we call the Sclava River, because it is ours. But the Greeks call it the Danapur.”

  Raef shook himself. Names meant nothing to him, and he knew only where this river went, ahead of them, but at the very edge of that knowledge he was beginning to sense something else, a fiery city, smoke, and blood. He felt himself suddenly covered all over in blood. His belly clenched, and the back of his neck prickled up; he started to say something and stopped. Conn and Dobrynya were staring at him as if he were an idiot. He got up and walked away, all his body tingling.

  Conn caught up with him before he had gotten halfway back to their own fire. They strode along together a moment, wordless, until Conn said, “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing.”

  “He’s playing us against Pavo. Thorfinn said he was always scheming. I wish I knew what he was up to.”

  “I don’t trust him,” Raef blurted.

  Conn’s head swiveled toward him. “Why?”

  Raef only shrugged. Darkness was falling. Ahead the red splash of their fire shone up on the faces of the men around it. Raef had brought up his bearskin from the boat, and now kicked it out flat into a place for them to sit. Leif turned toward them, holding out a slab of wood with some cooked fish on it.

  “Here. I saved this for you.”

  They sat down, Conn next to him, and Raef reached for the fish. The skin was crisp and delicious. Conn was sitting next to Leif; he said, “How is Vagn doing? Is he worth keeping?”

  Leif was slicing another fish down the belly, his hands quick and neat with the knife. He stuck his thumb into the fish and stripped out the guts in a ropy little pile. “He’s trying hard. He’s stronger than he looks. I’d say he’s getting the idea.” Raef handed him the wooden slab again and he laid the raw fish on it.

  The other men were coming and going around the fire, getting ready for the night. Vagn came in with an armful of wood and laid it down and began to feed the fire. Leif said, louder, “When you’re done with that, boy, haul some water up, quick now.”

  Skinny Harald laughed; he sank down across the fire, took out his belt knife and a piece of wood, and started to cut on it. “Anybody have a good story to tell?” Vagn vanished off into the dark with the buckets.

  Leif turned to Conn. “You know, somebody told me you were at Hjorunga Bay.”

  Conn grunted at him. Raef glanced at him and went back to eating.

  Harald said, “I heard something—they were going to kill you all?”

  “We lost,” Conn said, curtly. “I don’t like thinking of it. Leif, tell me about this Danapur River.”

  Leif pulled the plank out of the fire with the cooked fish. “That’s the big river south of here. It runs by Kiev. Here, you want this? How did you get out of that at Hjorunga Bay, anyway?”

  “We were damned lucky,” Conn said. He began picking out bits of fish with the tip of his knife. “They were cutting off everybody’s heads, one by one. One of the captains. Thorun, his name was, I think.”

  “Thorkel,” Raef said.

  “That’s right. His brother got killed in the fighting. He started with the wounded men who weren’t going to live anyway. He got about nine or ten of us.”

  “What happened?”

  “As he went along we were getting more lively, and everybody thought of an insult or a joke to make on him, as he was hacking us, and finally he lost his temper, and swung around and hit the man helping him, not the man he was supposed to be killing. And then he tripped and dropped his sword, and we all went for it, and one of us got loose and killed him.”

  Raef grunted. “What I remember most is hanging by the fingernails from that rock and watching Hakon’s dragons coming for us.” Vagn was back, gray-faced with exhaustion, lugging buckets of water.

  Conn said, “One thing I can tell you. Dobrynya says we’re going to fight the Greeks. This isn’t going to be a little slave and cattle raid.”

  In the gloom at the edge of the firelight, Rashid suddenly lifted his head. Raef got a cup, and found some wotka, and ate more fish. Leif said, “The Greeks don’t fight. And they’re all rich. Even if we just take one of their ships, we’d all be rich.” He gave a gurgling, luxuriant chuckle. Conn was bent over the food; Raef knew he wanted the conversation anywhere but Hjorunga Bay.

  Vagn sank down beside him, on the far side of him from Conn. Raef said, “Did you get something to eat?” and pushed the planked fish toward him.

  “I ate,” Vagn said. “Why—” His eyes gleamed in the firelight, aimed at Conn. “Why doesn’t he want to talk about it? It was a great battle.”

  Raef drank his cup empty. “Go get me some more wotka.” He stood up, and went a little way off, and made water.

  Vagn came up behind him, the filled cup in his hand. He glanced back toward the fire, and then turned toward Raef, his voice almost accusing.

  “It was you and him, wasn’t it. Who saved everybody there. It was a glorious deed. Everybody should know.

  Raef wheeled toward Vagn, his voice rasping. “You know what I found out at Hjorunga Bay? That everybody loses. So there’s nothing to brag about, either way.”

  The boy watched him steadily. He was filthy with dirt, and the hard work had worn him even thinner. “Why did you lose? Was it your fault?”

  “No. It doesn’t matter. Bad planning. Everybody loses sometimes. Where are you from?”

  At that, Vagn looked away, and his feet shifted. Raef said, “Somebody told me you escaped from a slave pen.”

  The dark head swung sharply toward him, taking insult. Raef watched him steadily, saying nothing. Eventually he took the cup out of the boy’s hand, and drank from it.
Finally Vagn relaxed a little, and shrugged. “Well, that’s so. It wasn’t back in Cymry. It’s been a long path.” His face quickened. “When you die in battle, you Varanger, you go to the war god’s hall. Is that only for you, or for all fighters?”

  “I don’t know,” Raef said. “I don’t really believe it.”

  “Well, I believe it. And I’m going to win my way up there.” The boy’s voice had dropped, confiding, fierce with his vision. “Why else are we tested? Except to be chosen. I’m going to be chosen.”

  Raef said nothing, and the boy went on, in the same soft, intense tone. “Everything that’s happened to me has been leading me somewhere. Why haven’t I died any of the times I could have died, in the raid in Cymry, in the ship, in the snow, the ice, except that something great awaits me? As long as I don’t give up.”

  Raef felt himself a coward. He wished he could believe in anything as much as Vagn believed in this. Vagn took back the cup and drank. He turned toward the fire, the cluster of men gathered into its light, and Leif, spinning out a long funny story about how the Greeks didn’t fight. Raef folded his aims over his chest, swiveled his head the other way, facing into the dark, the brush whispering and rattling in the night wind. He felt that inside him, that emptiness, where other men, even Vagn, had enormous palaces of ideas. He wondered if he should envy them, but it was all wind to him. Or maybe it really was he had no courage to believe. Eventually he went around the campfire and found his blanket and lay down to sleep.

  C H A P T E R N I N E

  Rashid said, “When I first came here, I did not believe these were horses.”

  His voice was still brittle with anger; they had been talking about god again. Raef had expected him to get up again and stalk off, after Raef said that he saw no difference between his god and Christ, but the Baghdad man stayed where he was, his face turned toward the meadow before them, where Conn was trying to ride a horse.

  For two days they had been traveling through a sort of highland, a stretch of gentle hills and rises, scattered with little lakes. They had left the river behind. Every day now instead of sailing they dragged the monochs along the deep dent of a much-used path. The work was hard and slow and hot. Old campsites and pieces of broken gear littered the trail. Twice they passed by shrines, with a four-faced post set into the ground, and a litter of old offerings around the foot. Great flocks of birds cluttered the many lakes and the hillsides and there was plenty to eat, easily killed.

  The Sclava spent the long spring evenings in the camp playing horse games. This day, with an air of great condescending amusement, Pavo had invited Raef and Conn to join them; Raef hated riding, and had declined, but now Conn was out there in the middle of everybody, trying to stay on a shaggy dun horse that apparently had no intention of letting him do so. Now, as he watched, Conn vaulted up onto the dun’s back again, and the horse squealed and bounded into the air, twisting and kicking, its head down between its forelegs. The Sclava all whooped and whistled, derisive, and with a terrific shuddering leap the dun horse cast Conn off.

  “What don’t you like about these horses?” Raef asked.

  Rashid sighed. His fine hands lay in his lap; his clothes were ruined from the hard travel. He said, “Where I come from, the horses are beautiful. Elegant, even. Their skin is like silk, their thighs like a woman’s. Their manes are as fine as a woman’s hair. We call them our children.” He heaved up another exhalation of longing.

  Raef was used to the idea that everything in Rashid’s home country was better than anything anywhere else. He watched Conn gather himself up off the ground and approach the dun horse again. The dun stood breathing in snorts, its ears back, and its forelegs planted hard against the dust. Conn took the reins again, and looped them up around its neck.

  “Your brother should give up trying to do this,” Rashid said. “The horse is clearly not ridable. You know Pavo means to see him humiliated. He’s foolish to let it happen.”

  Raef said, “Conn has never minded looking like a fool if it meant he could do something new.”

  This time Conn did not get on the horse right away, but stood stroking its neck, and talking to it. Rashid said, “If he were going to ride he would know how already.” His voice changed slightly. He said, “But of course Dobrynya isn’t interested in him as a horseman, is he.”

  Raef smiled halfway. “Fortunate, isn’t it.”

  Conn put his hands on the dun’s back and leapt on again, and the horse immediately stuck him back down on the ground. The watching Sclava sent up a strident chorus of jeers. Pavo roared, “Let him ride you, Raven! You’d do better!” He shouted with laughter, his hands on his hips. He wore no shirt; his belly rolled over the belt of his trousers, massive as if he had swallowed a rock. Dobrynya was on the far side of the meadow, under the trees, too far away for Raef to see if he was watching.

  Conn got up, and went back to the horse again. Rashid muttered something.

  “He is persistent.”

  Raef said, “He will go on until the horse drops dead, or he does.”

  The dun was tiring. It gave a few lazy hops forward, and then abruptly spun around with a squeal, and Conn slid sideways around its barrel and fell into the dirt. Pavo howled more insults. Among the other Sclava, though, a few men clapped their hands, and somebody called, “Good going, Raven! Try again, Raven! You can do it.” Raef looked over there and saw Janka there, in among the Sclava; obviously he preferred the horses to the boats.

  Conn stood up, covered with dust, and faced the horse. The dun’s shoulders and neck were dark with sweat; it watched Conn with a wary suspicion, and when Conn took the reins again, backed away from him, its ears pinned flat back. It was the meanest-looking horse Raef had ever seen. Conn went hand over hand up the reins and stood patting the dun’s neck and talking to it, and then began to lead it around in a circle.

  Rashid said, “Obviously you had no horses, where you grew up. On the other side of the ocean.”

  Raef shook his head. “I would sooner walk, anyway. A man wasn’t made to fork a horse like that.” He reached down between his legs to comfort his balls. Rashid laughed.

  “You learn to keep them out of the way. But you certainly are excellent sailors. No wonder Dobrynya’s taking you on this expedition.” His voice altered slightly, silken. “You said this war is to be against the Greeks?”

  Raef saw no reason to satiate his curiosity; he only shrugged. He didn’t know very much anyway. Conn walked the horse past them in his circling; Raef could see in his face how tired he was, but his mouth was set tight, and he turned again to the horse as it walked along, and swung up onto its back again without stopping it. The horse kept on walking, its head down, carrying him along as if it hadn’t noticed.

  All around the watching Sclava there went up a yell. “Raven! Raven!” Pavo grunted and moved off, swinging his arms. His long mustaches drooped.

  Rashid said, “You know what they call you?”

  “I’ve heard it,” Raef said. “Oolyoch, something like that. Is it Sclava? What does it mean?”

  Rashid smirked at him. “Goose,” he said. “They call him Raven, and you they call Goose.” He got up and walked away.

  The gentle rises of the upland began to slant down again. The trampled pathway coursed through stands of oak trees, through open meadows of waving grass. One morning as they hauled the monochs along, the trail took them into sight of the river, running like a winding strip of the sky south across a limitless treeless plain. That night they made camp on the bank. The air smelled different here, not soft and leafy, like the wind in the upland, but dry, tangy, like something wild and free. The long feathery grass rippled in sumptuous waves, streaming silver and green. Herds of wild horses mixed with great-horned cattle and deer grazed all across the far side of the river. In the cloudless sky vultures coursed in their sweeping enormous circles up toward the sun.

  The only trees grew close down along the riverbank, just bursting into new leaf, their reflections lying on the cal
m water. These were not oaks, but trees Raef didn’t recognize, the peeling gray bark swirling around the trunks, the ground underneath deep in crunchy spiky seed husks. Whirring insects sprang up from the grass ahead of him. The bank and the ground along the river were punctured with the holes of little animals. He sank down on his heels by one, where the earth was freshly dug up, and lifted a handful of the black soil.

  He raised his head to look down the river again, and the vast distance drew him out of himself; he felt gigantic. He thought, I can do anything here.

  Rashid said, “What are you doing?”

  Raef stood up, not looking at the Baghdad man. He dropped the earth out of his hand. “Just looking around.” He stared off to the south. The sun was going down, and its long slanting light picked out the river’s meandering course, curving and curling along, sometimes not in one bed but in several. He thought if it had gone straight it would not have been half as long.

  “You’ve been here before,” he said. “How far to Kiev?”

  “A long way,” Rashid said. “There are a number of bad places, where we have to portage again, or if the river is slow enough, take the boats along under the bank.”

  Raef grunted. Finding the course would be interesting, and he felt his spirits lift, called to something, like the vultures rising toward the sun. He realized he had been low-minded since they left the other river. Now he yearned to get on the water again.

  Rashid said, “You should come on to Baghdad with me. You and your brother. You’d find it a lot more exciting than Kiev, I promise you.”

  “I’d like to know more about Baghdad. Is it a country?”

  “It’s a city. Our country is the whole world. We have no such confusion and chaos as you do, everywhere another border. Baghdad is the most magnificent city in the world, as full of wonders as Constantinople, and filled with the true faith.”