Which let me know, from his accent, that he was more Slav than Norse and more learned than most — though one of the wise Sayings of the High One was scarcely gold-browed verse-making.
'No,' he added to Vladimir as I came up with Finn and the others, 'I do not think I am inclined to let you in, for all that you have done me the service of chasing off those madwomen. There is room enough only for me and my men.'
'Then there must be more than a few with you,' Dobrynya answered smoothly. 'Perhaps if you told us how many were in there, we could count out a suitable number that would not steal the food or shelter from you.'
'It is of no consequence how strong we are here, Uncle Dobrynya,' chuckled the man, thumbing his cold- reddened nose, 'since we are not letting any of you in. You should know that we are strong enough, all the same.'
'Do you know who I am?' demanded Vladimir indignantly and the man chuckled again.
'You are the young prince Vladimir. Your father is dead and you are now so far from Lord Novgorod the Great that you are in more danger here than I am and from your own brothers, too. You should have listened to your Uncle Dobrynya, boy, for I am sure he has advised you to go home.'
Vladimir flushed and fumed, for that was a solid hit to the mark. Dobrynya, seeing the boy fighting his horse, made anxious by nervous jerking, reached out a hand and touched his shoulder.
'We should talk this out later,' he said.
Vladimir rounded like a snake. 'Do
Dobrynya paused, then inclined his head in a bow. The man on the ramparts laughed out loud and everyone, myself included, was annoyed that the prince had behaved like a charcoal-eating nithing. Dobrynya stayed smooth and cool as a still pond.
'As you say, my prince,' he said to Vladimir, 'but this great fool has made it clear that he prefers to be staked rather than deal with us pleasantly. Let us not disappoint him.'
Still furious, Vladimir half-reined his horse round, then paused and stared up at the man.
'You know me,' he piped, fury making his voice all the more shrill. 'Tell me your name also, that I might have it marked on the stake I have driven up your arse for this.'
'Farolf,' the man said, not smiling now 'I know you — but I know the one with you better. Orm Bear Slayer, I am thinking.'
I jerked at the sound of my name and the by-name that went with it, the one that men used like a sneer, just before they challenged you. He grinned down at me and inclined his head in a mocking bow.
'I have heard much of you from Lambisson,' Farolf said. 'I heard more from that little scar-faced man he has, the one with his wits addled.'
'Then you know more than you did before,' I replied. 'Do you also know where Brondolf Lambisson is?'
'Gone from here,' replied Farolf cheerfully. 'Him and his little empty-head. Dead, probably — those ball-cutting women have gone after him and left some here to see if we would be stupid enough to walk out and ask them to slaughter us.'
'Now those Man-Haters are gone,' I answered carefully, 'and we are here instead. It would be wise to lower a knee to the prince and the bar from the gate. We are not women and we will not wait for you to come out.'
'No,' he replied seriously. 'I was thinking that. You and the prince seek the same thing Lambisson seeks. You are a power, even though you look a little. . diminished. For all that, I cannot see you getting in this gate.'
'You have left Lambisson,' I said, seeing it clearly. He nodded and smiled and it was his smiling that made me uneasy, for he was sure of himself, polished as a well-used handle. The others listened, swinging eyes from me to him and back, as if it was
'Did you betray him, or he you? Not that it matters — you now go your own way,' I went on, half musing to myself, working the weft of it in my head as I spoke. 'Yet you will not join us, which means you have plans of your own. If you seek the silver, then you seek Atil's howe. .'
It came to me then, in a rush and sick lurch of my belly. He knew where he had to go, or thought he did. The only way he could know for sure was if someone had told him. Short Eldgrim had gone with Lambisson, which left. .
He saw my face and laughed, then made a signal. Men, all leather and snarls, brought Thorstein Cod-Biter forward and he hung in their grip like a sack, raising his face at the last. Face was what it had been once. Now it was a bruise with eyes in it.
'Heya, Orm,' he said through puffed and bloody lips. 'What kept you?'
Before I could say anything, Farolf jerked his chin at his men and they dragged Thorstein away and non-too gently at that — I heard the thumps of him being clattered down the rampart steps.
'Now go away,' Farolf said, 'or else I will hang him upside down from the ramparts and cut his throat.'
I said nothing, conscious of Vladimir's tense, white face, his uncle, Sigurd and all the rest. Farolf had no doubt thought it a good ploy and if it had just been the Oathsworn it might have been a problem, but Cod-Biter meant nothing to anyone else, alive or dead and little Vladimir would not offer the smell from his shit for his safe return. He wanted revenge and stakes and if he had not been mounted he would have stamped his little booted foot and screamed.
Farolf, of course, wanted us to assume he had forced Thorstein to tell all he knew and so could carry out his threat to kill his hostage — but Cod-Biter had nothing true to tell him; he did not know the way to the howe, though a man will babble any lie under blade, blow or hot iron.
I turned away, for there was nothing left to say. Or so I thought — but Finn had something and he stepped forward, just as Farolf turned to leave.
It was another verse from the same place Farolf had found his, so apt an answer and so astounding coming from Finn that I could not say anything. Nor was I alone in this; the gold-browed cleverness of it settled on us slow and gentle and warming as broth in the belly, so that the fire of it took time to seep in. When it did, men hoomed and cheered and rattled weapons on shields.
But all we had done was made Farolf scowl. To do more, as Dobrynya and Sigurd pointed out, would take the Oathsworn.
'My lads fight from horseback,' Sigurd declared, as we hunched round a miserable fire that failed to prevent the ice forming on our moustaches. 'I can get them on foot, but they will not be good at it and their ring-coats are too long.'
'They have bows,' said Dobrynya. 'They can keep heads down while others get over the walls, but it is as Sigurd says — they are horsed fighters.'
Not even much of that, I was thinking moodily, remembering them reacting to the Man-Hater's attack. What the Oathsworn had to do would not be easy; the village defences had been built to keep out the marauding Khazars and Pechenegs and consisted of an earthwork topped with a palisade of rough-hewn timbers. It was taller than two men, so we would need ladders to get over it and that would take wood we did not have. The only trees for a good walk in any direction were some scrawny birches huddled in a copse.
'We could break up a cart,' offered Sigurd and Vladimir, only a red nose in a heap of fur-trimmed cloak squeaked out in his annoyed little voice, 'No more carts. How will we haul away the treasure if we break them all up?'
There was a moody silence and then Dobrynya cleared his throat. 'So, we cannot go over the walls. Nor can we go through the gate, which will take a ram we do not have and cannot get.'
If it was not for Cod-Biter we could go away, I was thinking, while the silent little Olaf, Vladimir's constant shadow, poked the fire with a stick and sent sparks whirling up. From the walls, as if to mock us, we heard someone stamping to keep out the cold.
'We will burn it,' declared Vladimir. 'The gate. We will set it on fire.'
'With what?' I countered. 'Those timbers are iced solid. They will not burn without oil. Do we have oil?'
'Then you work out a way,' Vladimir shrilled angrily. 'You won't, though, for you don't want to, since as soon as you do. .'
