He dropped off the table, went to the door and made to open it.
The men jabbered but didn’t rush him. There was a clang. His seax had been thrown through the window.
Vali looked at the weapon. He made a gesture of refusal towards it.
‘No need for that,’ he said, ‘if you’re sensible. Better a slave than a dead man, I think.’
One of the men spoke. Vali understood some of the words.
‘Inroad from the sea. The hand of — ’ and there was that word again ‘- Satan in this.’
‘Just a good ship and the blessing of the gods,’ said Vali.
‘One god,’ said the man. ‘Christ Jesus.’ He pointed to the embroidery.
Vali looked at it. It was a strange but beautiful representation of Odin suspended from a tree, a spear piercing his side. It was a depiction, he felt, of the god’s quest for wisdom at the well of Mimir, where he had given up his eye for knowledge. But if these men were Odin’s, where was their fury and their fight? He couldn’t imagine walking into a place holy to the berserks and coming away alive.
‘He is on our side, not yours,’ said Vali. ‘Lay down your weapons and submit. I offer you my protection. On oath.’
The one word seemed to get through. ‘Protection.’
The men looked at each other. Then they put down the heavy silver and sank to their knees, pressing their hands together and muttering. The banging at the door became even louder. He walked up to the men in front of him.
One of them held a strange oblong object, like a slab of leather. Vali went to take it from him but the man held on. Vali wondered what it was that he should cling to it more dearly than silver. He went to the table, where there was another of these slabs. He picked it up and looked at it. It was paler on three sides than it was on the fourth. The pale edges seemed to be pressed together in layers. He went to put it back down but, as he did so, it fell open. Inside were lots of papers, like he’d seen Veles Libor carrying. The squiggly writing was all over them, along with some beautiful pictures. Then Vali saw it — these slaves could teach him to write. They valued these papers so they must be able to read them.
‘Lord!’
There was a face at the window.
‘Bragi!’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘How did you get up there?’
‘A ladder, lord.’
Vali laughed. ‘You could’ve saved your head, if we’d thought to look. I’m going to open the doors. Make sure no one, and I mean no one, harms the slaves I’ve taken. They’re my property. Can you make those Odin-blind idiots understand? ’
‘I can try, lord.’
‘Three knocks when you’re ready.’
Vali knew the challenge he would face once the doors were open and so, making gestures of calm, he picked up his seax and took the old man with the slab of leather by the arm. He was the least useful as a slave and the most at risk.
After a short time he heard the three knocks and removed the bar.
Light flooded the church as the doors opened. Two berserks rushed past him carrying spears and burning brands.
‘No!’ said Vali, but it was too late. Two of the slaves were stabbed and fell; one other — the young man of Vali’s age — ran for it, dragging the old man with him.
‘No killing!’ shouted Vali. Luckily the men fell into the hands of Bragi and the farmers and were merely smashed to the floor with pommel blows.
‘Silver!’ shouted Vali, and that was enough: the rest of the men poured into the church.
Vali didn’t know what to do to save his captives. Acting on instinct, he pushed them both up the hill at sword point, back towards the longship. It occurred to him to let them go but he was fascinated to learn how to write and saw it as a key to developing and maintaining his kingdom, when he came to rule it. Also Vali had met very few foreigners before and was interested to talk to them. These men, he thought, might have something interesting to teach him.
As they got back to the top of the hill, he picked up his shield and looked down. Now the church and the little huts were all on fire. Livestock was being rounded up and driven towards them. The men with Vali began to weep. Vali looked at them properly for the first time. They were clearly slaves, he thought, as their rough clothes and shaven heads denoted. Even slaves develop a bond with a place though. Again he noticed how enchanting the island looked: the sparkle of the sun on the ocean, the thick line of smoke stretching out over the sea to the mainland beyond like an enchanted causeway, the fires themselves. In the face of such beauty, it was difficult to remember that it was a scene of destruction.
He pressed on to the ships and, when he got to them, was the first back apart from five or six guards.
‘Good plunder?’ asked one as he arrived.
Vali just gestured to the slaves with his seax.
The guard nodded. ‘One of them’s a bit old, but the other one’ll be worth a bit at Kaupangen.’
He was talking about the big southern market. Vali had heard of it but never visited it. These captives weren’t going there; he had plans for them.
‘They’re mine,’ he said.
The guard shrugged. ‘Depending on the split,’ he said.
‘They’re mine,’ said Vali. ‘I’m the one who made the effort to save them, the others are more interested in easy kills than taking prisoners.’ The guard shrugged again and sat down on the shore.
‘See what the berserks say,’ he said.
It was nightfall before everyone returned. Vali sat by the fire and watched as herds of sheep and cows were driven to the ships. There were no slaves. Vali could hardly believe how wasteful the raid had been. All the loot from the church was piled up, along with flagons of wine that didn’t remain untouched for long. Some men even came with bales of hay they had stolen, more than would be needed to feed the animals on the short journey back. Vali was thankful that there were pebbles on the beach at home, otherwise he felt sure they’d be returning with a full haul of those too.
The berserks had taken no prisoners, though they had a quantity of coin and some silver plates, along with about ten slaughtered geese.
A change came over these men with the end of the day. They were no longer the baying animals he had seen get off the boat. Instead, they seemed listless, weak even, hardly talking, just crouching by the fires and staring into the flames through red and angry eyes.
‘Lord.’
‘Yes?’
It was Bragi’s hand on his shoulder.
‘Did you not hear me? We are to put out to sea. This island is linked to the mainland by a causeway that is open at low tide. We should leave. The burning buildings may have drawn attention to us and we risk counter- attack if we stay here.’
‘Why burn them then?’ said Vali.
‘What?’
‘If the fires give away our position then why light them? Surely it would’ve been better to plunder the place in secrecy.’
‘The berserks will have their fires,’ said Bragi.
The animals were loaded onto the ships, thrown in, roped in, hauled in, until the vessels were perilously low in the water. Some of the bigger creatures couldn’t be fitted in and were slaughtered at the beach and tied behind the ships. They would be dragged back, as long as the ropes didn’t break.
Vali waited with his slaves to take his place in the drakkar.
The helmsman was counting.
‘No room for those two,’ he said.
