‘We go on,’ said Veles.
‘To what end?’ said the berserk. ‘The prince is wrecked on the coast. We should turn round and look for him.’
‘Tell me, Bjarki,’ said Veles. ‘Is this near where you were wrecked with Haarik’s son?’
‘Half a day’s sail south,’ he said. ‘We never did get to the sorcerer’s gold.’
‘No. Perhaps we should just take a peek down the coast and see what we can see.’
Bjarki shook his head. ‘They enchanted me. I became weak.’
‘You’ll suffer fewer enchantments if you don’t drink their wine.’
‘It wasn’t wine.’
‘I dread to think what it was,’ said Veles. He knew very well — fermented milk, a drink he always found deeply unpleasant and one he’d had enough of in his travels.
‘It was enchantment,’ said Bodvar, ‘not the wine. Drums. They made me weak.’
Veles raised his eyebrows.
‘Well, I’ve been weak all my life, so I have no strength for these sorcerers to rob. Come on, just a peek. I think I can only guarantee a rock in the sea, but who knows? You might get enough to pay Forkbeard his compensation. You did vow to pay him, didn’t you? You should do something to show your mettle. You do have something of a history of failure.’
Veles was treading a fine line between goading the berserk to action and enraging him.
The berserk looked at him. ‘I saved you,’ he said.
‘And now I will save you. The prince, if he is alive, will be on the holy island. If not, then their holy men will have heard of him. And these are peaceful people — they lie down at the first threat. If there is no treasure then there will at least be fine furs to be taken.’
‘They are sorcerers.’
There was no point in appealing to reason any more. The best way was to agree that the Whale People were powerful sorcerers — in which case they were doing rather badly — and that their spells needed to be taken seriously.
‘I have thought of that,’ said Veles. ‘I have brought this mask with me. They use it in their ceremonies and it deflects their power away from you.’
‘Then the mask is mine,’ said Bodvar Bjarki.
‘As you wish,’ said Veles. ‘But if we are enchanted, I shall rely on you to come to my rescue.’
Bjarki nodded and took the wolf mask from Veles. He put it to his face. It was tiny against his massive skull and the ties at its back hardly reached around his head.
‘This will protect me?’
‘All of you, the crew included.’
‘Good. If you are lying, Libor, then I’ll cut off your head.’
Veles thought that if he was lying and the sorcery was real Bjarki might not be in a position to cut off anyone’s head. If the sorcery wasn’t real, well, he was sure the mask offered good protection against people clicking their fingers and banging their drums at you. The berserk didn’t really think things through, thought the merchant.
The boat travelled east down the north coast into the falling cold. The sea didn’t freeze but they began to see smears of white on the landscape. The little ballast fire did something to keep him warm but Veles couldn’t quite stop shivering. It was a sort of crafty chill that you could banish momentarily by the fire or by adding another fur but that always seemed to work a freezing finger in — a cold of the bones, dropping from iron skies.
Two weeks past the turn east they came to what he thought he was looking for, but when they stopped, the local Whale People told him that the island he was seeking — Domen, also known as Vagoy, the wolf island, the blood-red rock — was further east still. He gave them a little money and said he would prefer that island to be beneath his feet as he spoke but only a couple then said that it was. The Whale People weren’t liars, he knew, just very eager to please.
‘Is there treasure there?’ asked Bjarki, but Veles did not translate this. Instead, he said, ‘Do your people hold it very holy?’
‘It is the place where our ancestors are. It is the mouth of the other worlds.’
‘And offerings are left there?’
‘More riches than you can imagine.’
‘That’s quite a lot,’ said Veles in his own tongue.
‘What did he say?’ said Bjarki.
‘I don’t think we’re going to be disappointed,’ said Veles.
They went on, and a week later, under a sickle moon, spotted the island. The dusk was flat and cold and the island rose from the sea in a featureless hump with a thin snow covering.
‘This?’ Bjarki was at his side.
‘Fits, doesn’t it? The blood-red rock?’
‘Looks more black to me,’ said Bjarki.
‘Use your imagination. No, on second thoughts don’t bother,’ said Veles. ‘Just find a landing spot, will you?’
‘Will the prince be here?’
‘I think we’ve established that I don’t know,’ said Veles. ‘Something may be here that may lead us to him. If not, there may be something else for us. And if not that, then the next time I hear of treasure in Ultima Thule I’ll be able to tell whoever it is they’re talking rubbish. Or perhaps I won’t. Perhaps I’ll send them up here to freeze their backside to the boards as I’ve done.’
The ship reached a small beach, grounding easily in the calm sea. Veles noted that anyone on the island wouldn’t get off without help. There were a number of little boats across the narrow strait drawn up on a mainland beach but none on the island itself.
Veles disembarked, as did the berserk and his men. Bjarki had his sword drawn. Veles glanced at it. In his experience a sword was more of a liability than a help in some situations. What was the berserk going to do if two hundred baying Whale Men appeared to defend their holy island from invaders? Wasn’t it better not to appear threatening? Particularly and especially if you actually were offering a threat.
They made their way up a rusty slope of loose stones. Veles thought the Whale People had chosen a very unpromising location for their gateway to the gods. He had been in many such places and some of them were very pleasant — gardens in the sunshine, vineyards even.
Veles shivered. He wanted to get out of this place — but not until he had found what he had come for.
‘Aha!’ said the berserk. ‘Maybe you are right, Veles.’ He was holding up a fine reindeer coat. ‘This’ll fetch a decent bit when we’ve given it a scrub.’
Veles looked at the coat. It was well made and relatively new. It would fetch a reasonable price, he thought, though he was more inclined to put it on against the cold. He stroked the fur and something came off on his hand. Blood.
‘That, as my mother used to say,’ said Veles, ‘is the mule of stains, and very difficult to get out. It’s dried on too. It won’t fetch much.’
They went on and found other things. There were drums and shoes, clothes and packs. Everywhere there was blood. Then they came upon their first body. And another. And another. All were awfully mutilated.
‘It’s a corpse hoard,’ said Bjarki, ‘a trove of slaughter.’
Veles might have argued with his choice of words but not with the sentiment. The top of the island was a field of the dead.
‘Lord Odin has had some fun here,’ said Bjarki. He had the wolf mask over his face. He looked slightly ridiculous, as it only stretched to just below his mouth.
‘Indeed, indeed,’ said Veles. He looked around and was glad he had given the mask to the berserk. Whatever had done the killing seemed to favour men who masqueraded as animals. There were about thirty corpses, or what the birds had left of them. A wolf’s nose jutted out here, a gigantic beak there. The ears of a huge Arctic hare lay at his feet. Veles could read what had happened. The coats and drums had been dropped by people who had not wanted to risk anything hampering their escape.
He kicked over a mask with his foot. There was a head inside it.
