Halvar put his head to one side, as if daring her to require him to repeat a third time and she lapsed into sulky silence.
‘That reminds me,’ he said. ‘Your phones and watches, please. They’ll be returned to you at the end of the week.’
A few minutes later, the train doors beeped closed and the platform began to ease away. They broke from Waverley’s long concrete tentacles and peered up at the nettle-strewn cliff that reared above them, with the castle perched atop. A little commuter train rattled alongside as they picked up speed, crammed with passengers so that its windows were already steaming up. The faces were tired, surly, sad, all lost in their own routine worlds. One or two glanced back at them and must have envied the empty comfort of the carriage.
There was a clatter as a staff member pushed a drinks trolley through the door at the far end. He stopped at the table beside Halvar and Freyja and they heard her ordering a bottle of white. The man busied himself opening it and placing glasses, then he came on down to the six Thralls and threw out a cheery smile.
‘Just you tonight. Nice and quiet. Are you heading to Stirling or Inverness?’
The question caught them out and no one answered. A voice in Punnr’s head, however, made him certain of the answer. ‘Inverness.’
‘Okay. We’re due there at 7.31 p.m. Would you like some refreshments?’
Calder twisted in her seat and peered down the aisle to Halvar. He raised a glass to her, the vessel looking ridiculously dainty in his huge paw. ‘Like I said, relax and enjoy.’
She ordered a Chilean Merlot and a Marlborough Sauvignon for the table. Erland and Vidar plumped for Tennent’s. As the train slid through Haymarket, past the golf courses and Murrayfield rugby stadium and then on through Broomhouse, the Gyle business park and finally across the ring road to the blackening fields beyond, the alcohol began to soften them.
Brante eased back in his seat and looked over at Punnr. ‘Why did you sound so certain about Inverness?’
‘I don’t know. Just this feeling that the Pantheon is removing us from the city because it needs places which are wilder, more… ageless. Landscapes that have barely changed since the Vikings locked shieldwalls. I reckon we’re going to lose ourselves somewhere in the Highlands, and isn’t Inverness the gateway to the Highlands?’
‘I wonder what they have planned for six days?’ Hertha asked.
‘Training. But it’s going to be different, I think. Harder.’
Brante was still watching him. ‘A lot more mud, I expect.’
‘Mud?’ Calder demanded.
‘I doubt they’re taking us all the way to the Highlands to lock us in another bloody vault.’
There was a spurt as Vidar opened a second can of lager. ‘They’d better not be thinking I’m running up any fucking hills,’ he said gruffly.
‘And I’ve a feeling,’ continued Punnr, ‘that we won’t be alone either.’
Calder’s huge eyes fixed him with a stare. ‘You mean the Perpetuals?’
‘Seems to me there has to be a reckoning with them and my money says it’s this week.’
‘We’re not ready,’ Calder said softly.
‘We’re going to have to be.’
They were served salmon fillet with minted new potatoes and peas, followed by chocolate sponge and coffee. They ate quietly, still unsure how to break the barriers and communicate with each other. Outside, night descended. They travelled along the southern shore of the Forth, catching the lights of the refineries, and then headed into deeper country. Vidar closed his eyes after the food and was soon snoring. Erland dozed fitfully.
‘Why are you here?’ Calder asked unexpectedly, turning to Brante beside her. He looked at her in surprise and she stammered her apology. ‘I’m sorry, I spoke before I thought.’
Brante relaxed. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t be asking why we’re here, but whether we’re prepared to do whatever it takes to succeed.’
Each of them looked searchingly into the faces of the others. Calder sipped her sauvignon and then said solemnly, ‘I am.’ Punnr believed her.
They dropped into an awkward silence again. The train pulled into Stirling and they saw figures come and go on the platform, but their carriage remained undisturbed. Later Hertha spoke up. ‘The Vikings never made it into the heartland of Scotland.’
‘What’s your point?’ Brante asked.
‘Punnr said we were going to the Highlands because those landscapes haven’t changed since the Vikings. But actually, although the Danish Vikings built a commanding empire in huge swathes of England, they were only ever coastal raiders in Scotland.’ Everyone looked at her and a hint of indignation crept into her voice. ‘Hey, I’ve been reading about the period. Seems to me that if the Horde wants me, I’d better know about their Viking traditions.’
‘Too right,’ Brante nodded. ‘We should all be better informed.’
Punnr was itching for a cigarette. ‘You realise if we get to the Oath-Taking, there won’t be any turning back after that. No chance to return the amulets and say thanks very much, not for me.’
‘I think we all understand that,’ said Calder.
‘It’s said that once a warrior reaches the requisite number of Blood Funds or Blood Kills,’ said Hertha, ‘he or she may then depart the Pantheon for a new life with all the wealth they’ve earned.’
‘But that’s a long way off,’ said Calder. ‘Is that the only way to leave?’
‘I understand you can leave on the end of a sword point,’ said Punnr maliciously. Calder shot him a hard glance, but refused to rise to a response.
‘I don’t think they’d let us walk away with all the secrets of the Horde,’ Brante pondered. ‘Their numbers, locations, strategies. The Vigiles – whoever the hell they actually are – would never allow it.’
‘The Keepers of the Rules,’ Hertha interrupted. ‘That’s what they are. Impartial overseers with no loyalty to one Palatinate or another. Their role is to observe the activities of the Palatinates, to punish any transgression and to report back to the Caelestia.’
‘The Caelestia,’ Brante said dismissively. ‘I’ve read so much nonsense about them, but I still don’t get how they’re supposed to fit with the Curiate.’
‘I find a football analogy simplifies it. The Palatinates are the well-paid teams, that’s obvious. The Vigiles are the referees. The Kings – well, they’re the managers, training their players and working on formations. The general public are the fans in the poor seats. They have bad views of the action, but they love their teams and support them through thick and thin. Then you have those who pay extortionate amounts to occupy the best vantage points, to dine on lobster and champagne in warm dining rooms while the game plays out below and to upstage each other with more and more excessive bets on the outcome of the match. So those are like the Curiate. Ultimately, above it all, you have the chairmen and owners. Individuals who’ve lost track of how to spend their vast wealth, so they purchased football clubs to amuse themselves. They may seem distant from the action on the field, but behind the scenes nothing happens without their agreement.’
‘And they’re the Caelestes?’
Hertha shrugged. ‘It seems that way to me.’
Erland had woken long enough to hear Hertha’s explanation and now he snorted derisively. ‘Football? Bollocks.’
Hertha turned on him. ‘The Pantheon has rules, funds, seasons, competition and teams. You got a better analogy?’
Erland’s eyes soured, but he held his tongue.
It was Calder who spoke next. ‘Imagine,’ she said thoughtfully, dragging the word out. ‘Imagine riches beyond your wildest dreams. Now times them by ten. A hundred. We’re talking mega-wealth. The kind that buys governments, shapes economies, enervates security forces and makes a mockery of justice systems. What would you do with it? What’s next on the list when you’re bored of the parties and premieres, the cars, the houses, the planes? When you’ve had all the sex and drugs you’ll ever need? When you’ve owned every
sports team, every horse, every gambling syndicate you could ever want? What’s going to excite you all over again? Make your heart thump?’
‘Behold, the Pantheon,’ said Punnr.
‘Aye,’ nodded Brante. ‘One night twenty years ago, seven bastards just like that sat down and invented a blood sports competition because they needed something to get their rocks off to.’
‘It’s no different from how the Ancient Romans amused themselves,’ commented Hertha.
‘And so the wheel of time turns,’ said Calder.
No one responded and they sat wordlessly digesting these points as the train sped through the darkness. Punnr had a sense of high places rising to the east and he guessed they were skirting the Cairngorm plateau.
He shifted to look down the carriage and could see Halvar and Freyja in conversation. She had her back to him, but Halvar was drinking wine and smiling with a warm mischief that Punnr had never spied on his face before. On impulse he bid Hertha excuse him and walked down the aisle with his wine in hand until he reached their table. For a few moments they ignored him, then Halvar turned his head. ‘May we be of service?’
‘Can I join you?’
The two of them looked at each other in genuine surprise and then Freyja shrugged, so Halvar beckoned him gruffly. ‘Be our guest.’
Punnr sat beside Freyja, but she continued to look ahead and sip her wine. Despite all their hours in the same vault, he hadn’t been in such close proximity to her before. Now he found himself looking at her hands on the glass. She had long, slim fingers with gold nail varnish that complemented her umber skin, and on both thumbs were silver rings with intricate swirling designs. On her left wrist was a thick silver bracelet which partially covered a labyrinthine tattoo flowing across her forearm, and the sleeves of her shirt were pulled up revealing arms rippling with tendon and muscle. A furtive glance at her profile revealed high cheekbones and lips painted in the same gold as her nails. There were hints of crow’s feet spreading from her lids and he wondered at her age. She wore no perfume, but the air around her called up distant orchards.
‘Have you been in the Pantheon for long?’ he found himself asking her, but it was Halvar who sucked his teeth and responded.
‘For as long as I can remember. I’m like the ones you saw in the warehouse.’
‘The Perpetuals?’
‘Aye, a Lost Child. Taken by a Venarii party when I was young.’
‘How old were you?’
Halvar’s eyes caught Freyja’s. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Too young to remember your life before?’
Halvar glared at him. ‘I said I don’t know.’
Punnr knew he should shut up, but the wine was getting the better of him. ‘Were you trained at the Valhalla Schola?’
The Housecarl studied him irritably, then relented. ‘Aye. Turned from a brawler into a soldier. And schooled. Taught to read, to count, to appreciate some of the finer things in life. Much more than I would have known in the real world.’
‘How many Lost Children are in the Schola?’
Halvar glanced again at Freyja as though seeking her permission to continue. ‘Here’s the way of it. No one knows how many apprentices graduate into the ranks of the Pantheon Palatinates, but in each Schola there are dozens of Lost Children living, learning and training. Some fail and are returned to the outside world. Those who make the grade are called up and enter the Pantheon at the most basic rank of trooper. In the Horde these troopers are called Drengr. How many are recruited in any one Season depends on the Blood Funds won by each Palatinate. Valhalla’s success last year against the Sky-Rats means that we have already initiated twenty-six new Drengr into our ranks in readiness for this new Season.’
‘And what of the eight in the warehouse?’
Halvar’s face twisted into a grim smile. ‘They are the best of the Schola graduates and seek a different way into Valhalla. Not content to be rank-and-file Drengr, they strive to be Thegns. Young officers. The Housecarls of the future.’ The big man fixed Punnr with a glare. ‘But they’re not going to make it, are they? Because you and your friends stand in their way.’
Punnr mulled the information and the other two sat in silence. They seemed unwilling to offer up anything more and so Punnr thought he had better leave.
Then Freyja spoke unexpectedly. ‘I’m like you.’
She turned and looked at Punnr. Her eyes were copper, exaggerated by heavy mascara. She stared right into his soul, opening it up, assessing it and weighing whether to continue. ‘It was eight Seasons ago. I was twenty-four, and ten months earlier I had returned to India with my Glaswegian fiancé. I wanted to show him the land of my birth, wanted him to see my village and meet my parents, so he would understand my humble beginnings. We took a climbing trip into Nepal. We were on the Lhotse face in the Himalaya when I watched the pins above me come out one by one and my fiancé fall past me. The rope snapped and he fell three thousand metres to his death. I searched for seventeen days, but I could not find his body and I swore I would never climb – or love – again.
‘When I returned to Edinburgh I never expected Radspakr to track me down and give me the amulet. I was taken to the same vaults as you and shown my new competition. There were fourteen of us that year. Fourteen Electi. But the Horde’s Blood Funds were limited and only allowed for one Thegn to join. I was the last Thrall standing.’
Punnr stared at her, imagining this warrior in her moment of victory. He tried to frame his thoughts. ‘Why… why do they need people like us if they have all these Lost Children already?’
‘I wondered that and I asked Radspakr before my Oath-Taking. His answer has stayed with me. He said, It is the very fact that Electi forsake their lives in the outside world voluntarily, which makes them so prized. People like you and me, Punnr, choose this path. Such choice is a powerful force. Used wisely, it can make us better warriors – better leaders. The Pantheon knows this.’
Halvar harrumphed. ‘Better leaders, my arse. Someone’s stupid theory. What it does do is make Thegns expensive. Four Blood Credits for every one Credit a Drengr costs!’
‘Just ignore him,’ Freyja said. ‘But he tells the truth. Thegns are expensive. That is why you must compete with the Perpetuals. King Sveinn has chosen to call just seven Thegns into his service this Season, when he could have used the Credits to buy a further twenty-eight Drengr from the Schola.’
‘So you’d better be worth it!’ interjected Halvar.
Punnr drained his wine and decided to push his luck. ‘What’s Sveinn like?’
‘That’s enough, laddie.’
‘He’s a good man,’ said Freyja simply, but then turned away.
Punnr ran his tongue along the sores on his lips. ‘Can we beat the Perpetuals?’
Halvar glared at him. ‘No.’
Punnr was taken aback by the reply. ‘Then why are you pitting us against them with so little training? They’ve been schooled for years!’
‘You won’t all beat the Perpetuals. Just as they won’t all beat you. Some from each of you will win and some will fail. It’s the way of the Armatura.’
‘When will we face them?’
‘I think, laddie, it’s time you returned to the other whelps. They’ve been staring at you for long enough.’
It was true. When Punnr rose, he could see Brante, Calder, Hertha and Erland all looking down the carriage. Only Vidar continued to snore.
They arrived at a windblown but dry Inverness at 7.45 p.m. and found themselves transferred to waiting Range Rovers. They drove beside the brightly lit river at the centre of the town and then into an absolute darkness that eliminated the need for blindfolds. Punnr sat with Hertha and Erland in one vehicle, Brante, Calder and Vidar in another, and Halvar with Freyja in the lead one. The vehicles’ headlights revealed twisting single-track roads, sudden deep puddles and heather verges which dropped away into nothing. At one point they passed a huge black expanse of water. Often they saw pinprick eyes in the night and gues
sed there were herds of deer roaming by the roadside. The clouds parted above and Punnr could make out stars and looming crags. Something in him quickened. He remembered his trips with Morgan and their mother during their early days in Edinburgh as they sought out the wild places of the north.
The cars moved fast. The drivers knew these roads and were practised in their switchbacks and steep inclines. Punnr couldn’t tell if they went north, south or west. He guessed it wasn’t east because they would have found the sea and lost the mountains, and he thought it wasn’t south because they would have run along the endless shoreline of Loch Ness. So he decided it must be west, deep into the Highland glens, seeking the remote emptiness of the interior.
When it seemed they had left the world behind forever, the vehicles braked and lurched onto a rough track which they banged along for an age before lights appeared ahead. The cars drove through a pillared gateway and the occupants could make out gardens. They sat open-mouthed as a castle materialised from the night and the vehicles pulled to a halt. They stepped out and the cold clarity of the air took their breath away. The silence too. It felt as though the whole universe was listening to the crunch of their footfalls.
They could sense an ancient keep lying in wait, but it was wreathed in darkness. Walls led away and to their right was the bulk of a medieval hall with flickering light playing at the windows. Halvar led the way up steps to oak doors which he shouldered open and they entered a high-ceilinged entrance hall with thick rugs underfoot and a roaring fire. Deer heads, swords and pikes lined the walls, as well as a circular shield above the fireplace. No one was present to greet them and it was as though the fire had burned alone for eternity.
‘Come,’ Halvar ordered and they trooped after him through a small doorway next to the fire, down a cold corridor and then right, through another doorway into the main hall. It was a huge room, almost a hundred feet long. The walls spoke of antiquity and stars peeked through high arched windows. Mighty beams crossed the ceiling, decorated with ancient coats of arms. The stone floor was littered with furs and benches ran along both sides. At the far end was a dais with a long table, above which hung a wooden carving of the Triple Horn of Odin. In the centre of the hall was a circular stone hearth and a fire burned ferociously, the flames licking up towards a hole in the roof.
The Wolf Mile Page 10
