The Prow Beast

‘Bad business,’ Brand said in a voice mushed with pain; the withies waggled as he spoke and the Khazar fussed with cleaning probes made from flax soaked in barley, honey and what looked like the pine resin tar we used on fresh ship planks. It stank.

‘Aye — it looks a sore one, right enough,’ I answered, which seemed inadequate when I could see Brand’s back teeth and his tongue waggle as he spoke. He waved one hand as if chasing a fly.

‘My son,’ he said. ‘That priest.’

‘I will get him back,’ I answered and he closed his eyes briefly, which was a nod, I worked out, the real thing being too painful for him. So was talking, but he did it.

‘The king will help. Styrbjorn.’

He meant he was owed by the king for what Styrbjorn had done. I told him what the king had said about him helping to free Koll and being brought back as if nothing had happened at all.

Jarl Brand blinked his blink.

‘Kingship,’ he mushed, which was answer enough, I now knew.

Men appeared suddenly, quiet and shuffling, bareheaded and twisting their hands — Rovald, Rorik Stari, Kaelbjorn Rog, Myrkjartan and Uddolf, with Abjorn at their head.

‘Nithings,’ Jarl Brand hissed and would have said a lot more if it had not been agony for him to speak at all. Instead, he waved a hand and sent them off, droop-headed and shamed, dismissed from his service — and into mine, of course.

‘Take care of them,’ he growled at me and twisted his face in what tried to be a smile, but failed for the pain of it. Then he flapped his hand again and a man appeared holding a sheathed sword. Brand took it and handed it to me.

‘I hear,’ he said, pain gritting his teeth between the words, ‘Randr Sterki took yours. Take this. Get your fostri back.’

Then he looked at me, pale eyes lambent with meaning.

‘Use the blade well, as I would,’ he forced out and gripped my hand like a raven’s claw.

It was his own blade and so a rich offering doubled. The hilt was worked with carved antler horn and silver, the sheath whorled and snaked with gripping beasts in fine leather. The gift-price of it did not go by me — I knew he wanted me to bury it in Styrbjorn — nor did his phrase: ‘Get your fostri back.’

Not his son. My fostri. My responsibility, my shame for losing him and my shame doubled if I did not get him back unharmed. I had known that and knew also that Brand was just cutting the runes of it clearly, like a prudent father, so I allowed no offence, bowed politely, took the sword and left, thinking to myself that it did not matter, that nothing mattered to a man as wyrded with doom as myself.

I hoped Odin might hold off enough to let me save Koll, all the same — and kill Styrbjorn, if possible. I brooded on that, sitting under the prow beast as it carved across the slate-water to the mouth of the Odra, saying nothing much and aware that folk were looking at me. I remembered, years before, we had all looked at the Oathsworn’s old leader Einar the Black in much the same way, when we were sure his doom was on him and so on all of us, too.

I spoke with Finn on it all, partly because I had to charge him with some of the task if Odin decided to take his sacrifice sooner rather than later. I wanted to mark it out clearly for him to follow — but this was Finn.

‘Get the boy back. Kill Styrbjorn. I need no tally stick for that,’ he growled.

I sighed. ‘Get the boy back, but kill Styrbjorn carefully. Remember — Jarl Brand wants him dead. King Eirik wants him alive. Both have power over the ones we leave behind us.’

Finn scrubbed his beard with frustration, but he nodded, blinking furiously. I spent the rest of the time trying not to pick the itching scar on my forehead, blow bloody snot out of my aching nose and brood on how Finn, a man who thought a quiet, subtle killing was not screaming a warcry and leaving your named sword in the corpse, would carry off the death of Styrbjorn if it fell to him. Or, for that matter, how I would.

Heading into the maw of Pallig Tokeson and his Jomsvikings did not help. The Joms borg was feted far and wide as a powerful fortress of sworn brothers, the best fighting men around, but that was all skald-puffed mummery; the reality was a moss-pointed square of timbers with a clanging alarm and a mad scramble of ragged-arsed Wends.

We backed water beyond long arrow range and waited, me standing in the beastless prow with my arms held out, until I was sure they had seen us and the peace-signs we made. Then I had the ship rowed beyond the main wharves, where Hoskuld, called Trollaskegg — Trollbeard — brought us to the beach with almost as neat a movement as Gizur or Hauk might have done.

The mar on it was a hard bang against the shingle, but Crowbone beamed, for the ship was Short Serpent and most of the sailing crew was his. They had all sworn the Oath, of course, but I knew the braiding of us together was a loose affair so far.

‘Is it not the finest ship afloat?’ he yelled, bright with the excitement of it all and his men, used to his ways, laughed with him.

Onund Hnufa snorted.

‘You do not think so, Onund Hnufa?’ demanded Crowbone sharply — then took an involuntary step backwards as the great bear-bulk of the shipwright loomed over him, the hump on his back like a mountain. Onund did not have to use the word ‘boy’, for his whole body and voice did that for him.

‘You had this ship from Vladimir in Novgorod,’ he rumbled and Crowbone managed to squeak that he had the right of it. Onund grunted. Men paused in spilling over the side, armed and ready.

‘It was not a question,’ he went on. ‘It is an old ship, left there long ago, when Novgorod was more known as Holmgard — in my grandfather’s day, I am thinking. Maybe the crew sold it, for it was damaged and it is certain Slavs repaired it — look there. The original ribs of it are good oak, but several have been replaced and the oak is poor quality and cut too thick. Where those have been placed makes the ship less of a snake in the water, too stiff, like a wounded old bull.’

We looked; Crowbone gawped.

‘Planks were also replaced — see there?’ Onund growled. ‘The original rivet holes were burned all the same size — good work, from folk who knew and had pride in their skill — and so the rivets fit tight. The new ones were badly done and some of the holes are too big, so they leak. You need to pine resin it fresh, inside and out. Not oak resin, which will crack when the ship moves. You need to replace the oar-strap — it is loose and the steer-oar does not answer quick enough to the helmsman’s hand. That’s why we dunted the beach so hard.’

He paused. No-one spoke, but Hoskuld was nodding.

‘Anything else?’ Crowbone demanded bitterly, recovering himself.

‘Teach your crew and your helmsman better,’ Onund said and there were growls at that from the men formed up on the shingle, so he rounded on them like some angered boar and they all shrank back a little.

‘Who is it that keeps dragging the boat out of the water on rocks and gravel? The keel is no doubt scarred and there is no avoiding that — but any sailor with the least clever in him knows to lift the steer-oar off. It is worn nubbed and splintered from such dragging — my teeth look better.’

And he snarled blackly at them to prove the point, while Abjorn and Uddolf and the others who had sailed Black Eagle nodded agreement, which did not endear them to the men of Short Serpent. With the few old Oathsworn, there were three crews here, not one; that would have to change, I was thinking.

There was shamefaced silence, then Crowbone opened his mouth to speak — and I used the moment. I may not have had what King Eirik thought of as jarl-greatness in me, but I had enough to know the timing of such a thing.

‘While we are talking with Pallig here,’ I said to Onund, ‘replace the oar-strap. The rest will have to wait until we can beach her and sort it out — at which time the crew, I am thinking, will be carrying the steer-oar as if it was their own bairn.’

There were wry chuckles at that and Crowbone, furious at being interrupted, opened and closed his mouth; I was aware, somewhere behind me, of Alyosha, watching and listening. He said nothing, for I was leader here, even if Crowbone had not realised it yet.

‘I am sure Crowbone here will want you to build his next ship, Onund,’ I added with a light laugh. ‘When he is king in Norway. He plans to call it Long Serpent and make it the biggest boat in the