‘Everything is the king’s business.’
Disa took the last of the herbs from the roof and wiped a hand on her pinafore.
‘Not so. The law supports no interference from him in the affairs of free people. He won’t tell me who my children can have as friends.’
‘These are not children, madam. Vali is a man of thirteen summers and is likely to become king in his own right soon.’
‘Then who can tell him what to do?’ said Disa.
Bragi let out a growl, collected his weapons and headed back down the hill.
The old man was a figure of fun to Vali, but the following week he would be glad Bragi was at his side when for the first time he went raiding.
8
The ship had been in the great hall for repair and they’d had to pull it down to the water. Everything had seemed more intense than normal to him that morning — the creak of the cords, the rumbling of the keel on the logs, the acrid smell of the pitch on the hull, the heaving song of the warriors. Bend your backs, boys, don’t be slow Over and over the ocean we go Where our swords will dance on our enemies’ shields Like the glimmering fish on the sea’s blue fields So bend your backs, boys, don’t be slow Over and over the ocean we go.
He pulled as hard as he could. ‘Don’t leave all your strength on the shore,’ an old man said to him, and Vali had to smile to himself. He saw himself as he was, a young boy trying to show himself manly through his effort, frightened of the greater test of battle to come. The self-knowledge, though, did nothing to lessen the overwhelming nature of the experience.
The morning cold was sharp, the blue of the ocean dazzling and the cries of the sea birds made an echoing cavern of his mind. She had been there then, and this time he hadn’t needed to steal a kiss from her.
She fixed a bright purple sprig of betony to his cloak. ‘It fights evil,’ she said, ‘and it will keep you safe.’
‘I’ll still take my shield,’ he said.
‘It might be wise.’
‘Adisla.’
‘Yes, Vali.’
‘I…’
She put her hand to his lips.
‘Don’t say it,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘It brings bad luck. If you let the gods know you value something they will take it away from you. Come back to me. You don’t need to tell me how you feel.’
King Forkbeard had not missed their intimacies but chose to pretend to. His daughter Ragna stood at his side, six years old and playing with a distaff. Vali looked at Forkbeard and then back to Adisla.
‘He’s hoping I’m killed,’ he said.
‘But in a nice way,’ said Adisla. ‘He’d prefer Authun had sent him a different sort of prince. Tougher, more manly, more bad-tempered, that sort of thing.’
‘Let’s hope I’m alive to disappoint him.’
‘If you’re not you’ll be in Odin’s halls, drunk for all time in the company of heroes.’
Vali rolled his eyes.. ‘Listening to the likes of Bragi banging on about their exalted deeds of slaughter. Drunk for all time? You’d need to be to stand that.’
‘That’s sacrilege,’ she said, laughing.
‘Who cares? The gods are afraid of us — that’s what my father says.’
‘Everyone’s afraid of your father,’ she said.
‘Can you imagine it? Sozzled, with him glowering at me across the mead bench for ever. I’ll die a coward if it means I can be with you.’
Adisla blushed. ‘Don’t go soppy on me just because you’re scared,’ she said. ‘I shall be your Valkyrie, urging you on. Win glory, my darling, win glory! Return in triumph or not at all!’
She had put on an upper-class accent and pretended to dab at her eye with a cloth, just as the noblewomen did when their husbands went raiding. Vali knew her very well and understood that her light-hearted mood was for show. He smiled at her and touched her hair. The tears came into her eyes and he could not face them down.
Now he turned to the boat, splashing out into the water, shouldering the small chest that would be his seat for the journey. He heaved it into the longship, then climbed on board and picked it up. His feet stumbled on the spars and ballast stones of the undecked vessel as he looked for his oar place, trying to look calm, trying to look as though he knew what he was doing. There was no one he knew on the boat, and no one he even recognised.
He had a place on the drakkar, a sleek and slim warship with a carved bear’s head snarling from the prow, as befitted his status as one of the warrior class. Alongside were two fat-bellied knarrs, trading vessels that, empty, sat much higher in the water. They were for the plunder. On those boats were the farmers Vali knew. This made him slightly nervous. Normally, the way men recognised friend from enemy in battle was that they were put into groups from the same area who knew each other by sight. Among strangers and in the heat of a fight, he might be mistaken for a foe.
He looked around him as he moved down the ship, determined that he at least would recognise the faces of the men he was fighting with. Each man at an oar was huge, his hair and beard unkempt and shaggy, his clothes dirty, with a stale smell coming off him. Many bore so many tattoos they seemed almost blue. Vali glanced at them and tried not to use their shoulders to balance as he went forward. There were mutterings. Vali couldn’t tell if they were directed at him, at each other or were just ravings. It was an under-breath babble — the words were half formed; he could only just make them out. When he did, he wished he hadn’t.
‘Unmanly… frightened… Kill the cowards. I kill, smite, shit and piss. Know they’ve been in a fight. Kill all. None alive. Burn the earth, burn the earth.’
He glanced at their eyes. They seemed focused on nothing, red-rimmed like people who hadn’t slept for days, staring balefully ahead. Some of the men wore the pelts of animals about them or on their heads, and some were near naked, despite the dawn cold. Vali didn’t care for their company at all.
At the back of the boat, being sealed into barrels or tied to the stern, were their weapons — axes and spears. He’d seen only one sword. These were not rich men. Unlike themselves, however, the weapons were well cared for, the axe heads honed to brilliant silver, the spears as sharp as bodkins.
There was a hand on his shoulder.
‘Here’s your oar, son.’ Bragi had come up behind him, and Vali was glad to see him.
Vali put his chest down and sat on it. Bragi climbed in across from him, put down his chest too, sat on it sideways and lightly punched the prince’s arm.
‘Now you might wish you’d paid attention to what I had to say about sword, shield and spear.’
Vali, his flippancy driven off by nerves, just smiled back.
Bragi put his hand on Vali’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, prince, you’ll be fine. Though if you’d listened to me more, you’d be finer. I got you a place on the best boat.’
Vali, leaned away, resenting the intimacy.
‘None of my kinsmen are here.’
‘No, but you are among the best warriors in twenty kingdoms, ’ said Bragi.
‘These men?’
‘Yes.’
‘Berserks?’
‘Yes, from the northern cult of Odin the Frenzied, working solely for transport.’
‘And the plunder they can take,’ said Vali.
‘Only up to a point. They’ll take plunder for sure, but it’s not their main aim,’ said Bragi. ‘It might be better if
