`Ha! And a god who hung on a tree and was stabbed with a spear?' Illugi argued, thumping his staff on the walkway.
My father looked at me, shrugged and gave up. I grinned. It was, after all, a celebration of my Name Day.
Neither of us could actually remember the exact day, my father being drunk at the time, as he admitted, so I had always celebrated changing age at the festival of Ostara.
And, in this one, I was now sixteen years old and a man.
Not that that mattered to Einar—later, as the mead and meat was being enjoyed, I was standing guard to Hild, watching and sober. Valknut, well drunk, was trying his hand with the flamestick belonging to some fire- dancers. The spear-length, burning at either end, was tricky at the best of times but the lean fire-dancer spun it round his body expertly. Valknut, in contrast, had twice set his hair on fire trying it and Gunnar Raudi, the second time, was gasping with too much laughter to help him put it out. In the end, he threw the contents of his ale horn over Valknut, who went around for a long time with a strange, lopsided hairstyle and the trailing smell of his charred locks.
Moodily, I managed to persuade Hild to see the fighting stallions. They were good, well-chosen beasts—
a black and a grey and, though I'd had no hand in picking them, I was impressed by their quality.
Betting was fierce and loud and, as I watched, a group of half-a-dozen men approached me, led by Valgard and my father.
Orm, lad, the very man we need,' roared the Trimmer. 'You know fighting horses, your father tells us.
Who will win this?'
`We will share our winnings with you, Bear Slayer,' said one of the men with them and that made me blink. He was one of the new ones, a man older than me with a faint white scar marring the red wind-beaten face up beside one eye. I had never spoken to him and, if I had, would have treated him as one would an older head. But here he was, deferring to me, calling me 'Bear Slayer' in a way that let me know he had heard the tale—probably Bagnose's verses—and was impressed by it.
Yet, even as I felt the heady rush of that, I remembered Ulf-Agar, the man who had wanted the taste of this more than life itself; I saw his twisted mouth and his yellow eyes.
My father—as usual—mistook my pause for reluctance and clapped one shoulder. Orm, for me, lad.'
`Not the grey,' I said. 'It will not be strong enough.'
My father closed one speculative eye, then whirled on the others and raised his hands in triumph. 'My son has spoken on the day he becomes a man. Now let us make money out of it.'
And they went, a few throwing me a backward glance. I saw admiration and envy there in equal measure.
The horse-fight was almost ready to start; people were drifting in from all over the open area—a few of them wet, where they had been trying to walk logs on the river, because no boat big enough could be sailed up it so they could walk the oars.
I placed my own bets with a few of the locals and watched the brave and drunk dart at the fighting stallions with sticks, trying to goad their favourites to anger by sticking them up the arse or in the balls. The horses were tethered on long lines, but well apart from each other and were already all bared teeth and flying hooves, so it was a dangerous business. I saw one man, slowed by drink, hirple away holding his ribs, already Purpling into a huge, horseshoe bruise and almost certainly broken.
It was then that I saw Gunnar Raudi, moving urgently through the crowd towards me, almost running and looking back over his shoulder. Orm, move,' he yelled as he came up. 'Back to the
`What . . . why?' I said, bewildered. He shoved me and I staggered. Then he looked back, grunted and dragged out a seax from under his cloak.
`Too late.'
Four men hurtled out of the crowd, which parted rapidly, since they were armed with long knives and one had an axe as well.
I blinked and stood in front of Hild. Einar had told everyone to come with only eating knives, since drunken quarrels were best settled with feet and fists. But, as Hild's guard, I was mailed and armed with a sword, since Einar took no chances with his key to a fortune. I had cursed it at the time as being hot, uncomfortable and unnecessary, but I hauled my blade out and offered thanks to Thor for it now.
The men paused at that. I swept up the hem of my cloak and looped it round my shield-arm, partly to keep it out of the way, partly as a padded block for a cut. Gunnar Raudi and I waited; the crowd yelled and someone shouted.
The men realised they were surrounded by enemies and that, if they were to get this done, they had to be quick. They were good and fast, no thugs. They came swooping in, three on me, with one to keep Gunnar busy.
I took a cut on the padded cloak that sliced it. Another cut me under that arm, on the ribs, the blow sending me staggering and spraying rings from the mail. I slashed and one fell back with a shriek, sword flying, fingers clutching at a bloody shoulder. My backstroke carved the lower jaw off the axeman, but I was wide open and would have taken a hard cut to my sword-arm that the mail maybe would not have absorbed.
Except that Gunnar Raudi nutted his man on the forehead, springing blood from them both and sending the man reeling. He lashed sideways a second later, the blunted point of his seax catching the man who would have cut my arm. It didn't even break his flesh, but the blow drove the wind from him with a wheezing grunt.
That gave me time to smash the pommel in his face, spraying his teeth and blood. Someone yelled: 'Bear Slayer. Bear Slayer,' and blades flashed, showing how many had ignored Einar's orders.
The men fled, dragging each other away through the crowd, some of whom were not even aware of what had happened. Gunnar, shaking his head to get the blood out of his eyes, winced and clearly wished he hadn't done that. He sank on one knee.
Is it bad?' I asked and he grinned up at me, blood trickles running either side of his nose.
I've had worse,' he said, climbing back to his feet as others swept around us, demanding to know what had happened.
I don't know,' I answered, truthfully enough, too concerned with the rent in my good new cloak—and worse, the sprung rings in my mail. My side, too, felt like I had been kicked by the screaming horses. Ask Gunnar. He had just come to warn me when they burst out after Hild.'
Einar and Ketil Crow came up, with Illugi Godi loping behind, in time to hear Gunnar growl, 'They weren't after Hild. They were after Orm.'
`Me? Why?'
`Good question,' said Einar, looking at Gunnar, who was mopping the blood from the split in his face and accepting, with a grateful grin, a horn of mead. He drank, then passed it to me and wiped his lips with one bloodied hand.
I saw Martin the monk,' he said. 'He was pointing you out to those ones.'
`Me or Hild,' I argued, but he shook his head. `You.'
`Martin the monk? Are you sure?' demanded Ketil Crow. Around us, the crowd had gone back to preparing for the horse-fight, save for those of the Oathsworn—the ones who knew of Martin, I saw—who were alert, hands near their hidden weapons.
When Gunnar nodded, Ketil Crow and Einar exchanged glances and fell silent.
Illugi Godi examined Gunnar's head and grunted, 'You'll live. Orm, can you wriggle out of that mail? I want to see that wound.'
It was harder than it looked and no one offered to help, of course. It slithered like a snakeskin to the ground eventually and I straightened up, holding my breath and feeling as bloodless as I looked. Both Illugi and Hild, I saw, were peering closely at my ribs as my tunic was hauled up.
If Martin is here,' I said to Einar, 'then how did he manage it, save with Starkad?'
`Starkad is dead,' Ketil Crow growled. 'I heard it on good authority from the crewman on a
I looked at Einar, who said nothing.
