The Wolf Sea

bands of silver circled each arm of the bright red tunic he wore. I watched him and his men march up the road and over the bridge into the city, to be presented in all pomp to the Roman general who commanded everything here, which honour Skarpheddin had not been given.

I ate the dust of their passing and smiled wryly at how I was a jarl also, which was the old way, when anyone with their buttocks not hanging out their breeks and two men to call on could be a jarl. Now the jarls wanted to be like the Romans and make empires. There was, I was seeing, less and less place for the likes of the Oathsworn.

Then Finn gave a curse pungent enough to strip the gilding off Brand's fancy mail, staring into the swirl of yellow dust like a prow-man searching for shoals in a mist.

I followed where he looked and saw a man limping along in the wake of the Svear chieftain, eating even more dust than I was, leading a pack as lean and wolf-hungry as he seemed himself. I did not see what he wore, nor what battle-gear his men carried. I saw only the curve of the sabre at his side.

Starkad was here.

8

It was the final day of the Greeks' Paschal ceremonies, which had gone on for weeks, it seemed to us Norse, complete with banging bells and swinging gold ornaments reeking incense and priests wearing so much gold in their robes that we were tempted to storm them then and there.

There had been an image of the dead Christ in a wonderfully decorated coffin, taken in procession with chanting and the beating of a book, which Brother John -

with a hawk and a spit to them — said was the Greek idea of Gospels. It was only two years since I had known what a book was.

There had been singing and a scattering of bay leaves. There had been vigils and fasts and feasts. Of course, we had to join in, being good Christ-men, but I saw offerings of budded boughs being floated down the Orontes in honour of Ostara when it was thought no one could see. Not all of those who did it were our own Odinsmenn.

Brother John didn't care, for he regarded the Greeks as heretics and they, who considered most western Christ-men to be misguided, looked on him as worse. Come to that, every Christ-man seemed to look on the likes of Brother John as no true follower of the Dead God, which is why we all liked the little priest and had let him prime- sign us Christians. The shackles of that signing, never tight, were now falling away, I saw, for the reason we had done it had clearly failed: the Odin-oath was as binding as ever.

So we stood in the hot spring sunshine in our finery and watched the Greek priests, sweating in gold-dripping robes heavier than mail, wobble round Antioch's streets with their ikons and their Christ in a box.

Then, with Brother John, Finn, Radoslav and a couple of others as a fitting jarl-retinue, I went off to Skarpheddin's hov, for it would not have been polite to refuse to join in his feasting for Brand.

Also, we knew Starkad would be there. Since his coming, I had been as confused as a maelstrom about what to do. I needed to get the silkworm canister and Choniates' letter to the Basileus, for I couldn't trust anyone else. But the Great City was far away and Starkad was not.

The others, who still thought the leather case I had hidden on the Elk contained tiny pearls, were only concerned about Starkad being so close — Botolf especially. He wanted to kill Starkad for what he had done in enslaving him and the others, while Finn wanted to walk his entrails round a pole while waving the recovered runesword in his face.

It was a warming image, but Starkad was clearly part of the snow-headed Brand's retinue and that had been a clever move, for it made any attack on him a sure sentence of death. Yet again he was close enough to kill and too far removed to attack.

Finn fumed and bellowed and scowls were rife, but there was no walking round it and I was fretting as much as the rest. The Rune Serpent was here and we were here and yet it was as far away as ever.

Easy, lads,' counselled Brother John. 'There are ways and ways of lifting something from a man and, as you know, I am no stranger to such a thing — in a godly fashion, all the same. God will show us a way, never fear.'

So we smiled wryly at one to another and settled to wait.

There were lots of guests at Skarpheddin's tented hov that warm night. Outside, his people baked flatbread and spitted whole oxen for a feast. Apples in honey, fish stewed in goat's milk and onions, fat cauldron snake, pork and lentils: it was good Norse food served in the swelter of a Serkland night, in the fug of a tented hov thick with fat candles and which soon reeked of smoke, blood, piss and vomit. . the smell of home.

There was horseflesh, too, a neat trick by Jarl Brand. In later life, after Brand's lord, Eirik, whom they called Segersall — Victorious — became a king and made the Svears and Geats into Christ-men, Brand was baptised, but at this time he and his followers belonged to Odin and Thor. Since there were Christ-worshippers among Skarpheddin's people who would not eat horse, it being the mark of a pagan, it let Brand see easily enough which was which.

There was no ale, for no one had the means to make it here — this was Mussulman country and their god didn't drink. Right there, according to Finn, was why they were getting their arses kicked by the likes of the Roman-Greeks of Miklagard.

Instead, they were allowed nabidh, which the Christ monks of Antioch made and sold to the Jewish merchants, who sold it to the Mussulmen. It was made from raisins and dates fermented in water and, for the Mussulmen, the legal length was two days soaking in water only. Naturally, three- and four-day was a roaring trade among those Arabs who liked their drink — and both Finn and Radoslav discovered six-day was best, mixed with honey and wine, which made it taste almost like mead.

Skarpheddin was out to impress Brand, but he needed to invite the Jewish, Arab and Greek merchants he owed money to, as well as officers from the Strategos's army — but not the man himself, who had pressing business bringing more men from Tarsus.

`Which means that the army will be fighting soon,' Finn growled as we sweltered under the wadmal tent, raining with sweat now that so many were in it.

`Sooner we move off, the better,' I said, wishing now I had not worn the new cloak to show off the new pin. 'If we wait longer we will dissolve like butter on a griddle in this Odin-cursed forge of a country. Or end up standing in a Roman battle line.'

Which was so far from what we intended that we laughed. You should never do that while the gods are listening.

It was, then, a strange feasting, trying hard to be a hall in the north and yet somehow skewed, as if seen underwater.

The Jews and Mussulmen smiled politely and tried to make sure they had no pork on their eating knives and fashionable two-fined forks; the Christ-Norse sniffed meat warily to make sure it was not horse; and only the old gods' followers were careless and laughing, though a few of them tried the little two-fined eating things while drunk and ended up stabbing their own cheeks or tongues, which ruined their meal thereafter.

Skarpheddin, thin-shanked and butt-bellied, stepped forward, raised his hands and summoned his skald before sitting down on his gifthrone, for he was too important even to speak for himself. The skald, gold-browed but with dark patches showing under his nice green tunic, announced that the great jarl planned an offering to the good gods of the North.

The Jews and Mussulmen and Christ-followers all stirred uneasily and Finn, sweltering, muttered something about Odin's armpit. Then he stiffened and stared. `Starkad,' he said.

Leaning forward like a hunting dog on scent Starkad stared back. He wore the rune-serpented sabre -

everyone was armed tonight — and one hand hovered near it like a white spider, though it seldom touched the hilt. His eyes, white-blue as old ice, were fixed on mine, as if he was trying to make me burst into flames with his hate.

So there we were, each aching for what the other had, each fettered by the threat of what would be unleashed if we simply sprang at each other's throats. Legs trembling, the sweat working its way down into the sheuch of my arse, I stood and wondered how safe that little container was, tucked on board the Elk