left off with his watering and came closer to listen.
Onund grunted and went on. 'He also took Thord and as they were heading towards the steading, in the dark and cautious, he suddenly handed Thord his favourite blue cloak. For friendship he said, against the cold. Then they were attacked by three men and Thord ran, as he always did — but the attackers saw the cloak and thought it was Gisli.
'They hurled their spears and one went through Thord's back and out the other side. Then Gisli, who had spotted the men lying in wait for him, came out of hiding and killed them all, now that they had only seaxes.'
'Seems like a fair fight to me,' Finn growled and Onund shrugged, which was a fearsome sight.
'So others say,' he replied, 'but I thought it a mean trick on a helpless and faithful nithing, and one which brought no honour to Gisli, who was already lacking in that richness for many other reasons, not least his easy Christ-signing. So I left his boat unfinished and came here.'
'Others have signed to the White Christ,' Finn argued and Onund, who knew well that Finn, among others of the Oathsworn, had done that once, nodded, considering.
'I know it. The Englisc and others west of Jutland are nearly all Christ-followers now and will not trade with those who are not,' he growled. Tor all that, it is no honourable thing to throw off your gods, even for a little time, just for silver.'
'To be without silver is better than to be without honour,' Red Njal agreed sombrely, tucking himself back into his breeks and moving back to his bench. Finn, mired in an argument he felt he was losing, glared at him.
'Before you mention her,' he snarled, 'let me just say that your old granny should have remembered the oldest saw of all — a tongue cut out seldom gossips.'
Red Njal pursed his lips with sorrow, shaking his head. 'There is only mingled friendship when a man can utter his whole mind to another,' he countered. 'You have my granny to thank for that and my forbearance.'
'Never trust the words of a woman,' Finn intoned, 'for their hearts were shaped on a wheel.'
'With his ears let him listen, with his eyes let him look — so a wise man spies out the way,' Red Njal spat back.
'Shut up, the pair of you,' shouted Kvasir, which brought a brief spasm of throaty chuckles.
It was there, basking in that glow of being on a fine, new ship with the only true family I knew and aware that I was enjoying it, that I felt the breath of Odin, a sharp chill that shuddered me, made me turn to where the antlered prow beast snarled.
The grey-green sea was the same and the gloomed blue of the land — but now there was a dark stain on part of it and the evil wink of a single red eye.
I stared, trying to make sense of it, until Finn shoved his spray-dusted beard inches from my cheek and did it for me. 'Smoke and fire,' he said. 'Hestreng.'
I was still grasping at the swirling leaves of my thoughts when he turned back to where the men bent and pulled. 'Row, fuck your mothers!' he roared. 'Our hall is burning.'
We hauled hard, creaming the
The panic in me was a spur that kept me pacing like a caged dog from mastfish to prow beast and back, until Kvasir smacked the flat of his blade on my helmet, hard enough to ring some sense into me.
He did not have to speak at all, but I met him eye to eye and nodded my thanks. His grin was hard-eyed and I remembered, with a start, about his wife, Thorgunna, as well as Botolf, Ingrid and Aoife and all the others. Like a fret of swirling wind, the thoughts circled in me. Who? Who would dare?
There was no answer to it. We had more enemies than friends, like all sea-raiders and the curse of it was that I made us vulnerable by giving those enemies a place to attack, a sure place where they knew we could be found.
Gizur howled at the rowers, who grunted and sweated and hauled until the last moment, then clattered in the oars while the keel drove hard and grinding up the shingle and men spilled out.
I scrambled to the thwarts and hurled on to the shells and pebbles, stumbled a few steps and saw men ahead, fired by fear of what they might have lost, churning up the stones and coarse sand towards Hestreng.
'Finn. .' I yelled and he saw it and bellowed like a bull in heat, bringing most of them to a stop.
'Wait, you dirty swords,' Kvasir added at the top of his voice, as men swilled like foam. 'We go together. The Oathsworn. As a crew.'
They roared and clattered blades on shields at that, but the truth was that most of them had sworn no oath yet; even as they trotted after me, panting like hounds, I had to hope they would fight, if only to protect their own wee bits and pieces littering my hall.
It was clear, when we came up over the rise that sheltered Hestreng from the sea, that it was not my hall that burned, or any part of it — I felt a dizzying wave of relief, followed at once by an equal wash of guilt at those who had been unlucky.
'Gunnarsgard; Kvasir said, squinting to the feathered smoke and the red stain beneath it. 'Tor's steading has gone up.'
No real friend to us, but a neighbour for all that and I was on the point of stepping out towards the place when Kvasir bulled off towards Hestreng's hall, dragging Finnlaith and others in his wake. Heading, of course, for his wife; shamed, I followed on.
I heard the clatter of iron on wood and the high, thin bell of steel on steel. By the time I had caught up with Kvasir and the knot of Oathsworn grunting their way round the privy to the yard beyond, I could hear individual panting and roars.
When I spilled into the yard, Finnlaith and Ospak were already screaming 'Ui Neill' and charging at a knot of men held at bay by the great, sweat-soaked figure of Botolf, timber foot firmly rooted in the lower slope of the dung heap and a great long axe circling and scything in his hands. Kvasir, ignoring all of them, charged on towards the hall.
A man, all dirty fleece and snarl, heaved a spear at me, which took me by surprise so that I barely got my shield in the way and had it torn from my finger-short grasp by the smack of it.
There was nothing in me but stoked anger, blood-red and driving. I did not even have my own blade out of the sheath, but placed one booted foot on the shield and wrenched the spear from the linden. Then I came at the man, who had a seax and the red-mawed look of a man who knew how to use it.
I remember using the butt of the spear in a half circle, catching the short blade of his seax and whirling it sideways, bringing the blade of the spear down in a cut that made him jerk his face away. It tore down his fleece and he gave a yelp, but it was all too late for him.
I drove the point into his belly, just below the breastbone and kept moving, so that he jerked like a gaffed fish and shrieked, his legs milling uselessly as I shoved him back and back and back until he hit the side of the brewhouse, where I impaled him on the sagging wattle wall.
Finn dragged me away from him, eventually. Later he told me I had crushed the man into the wall and looked to be bringing the whole brewhouse down, screaming for him to tell me who he was, who had dared attack the Oathsworn.
The rest of the crew came panting up and those arrived too late kicked the dead in their disappointment — and all the men were dead, I saw. Six of them.
Botolf, panting and red-faced, stumped towards me, grinning.
'Nithing whoresons,' he said and spat on the nearest. 'A
Thorgunna. . my head came up, ashamed and guilty at having forgotten her, but Botolf broadened his grin.
'A woman, that,' he said admiringly and, just then, Kvasir appeared, Thorgunna with him, Ingrid behind her. Following on came Aoife, with Cormac on her hip and the thralls, Drumba and Heg.
'They had barred the hall door,' Kvasir said.
'That was sound,' Finn offered, beaming and Thorgunna huffed and folded her arms under her ample breasts.
