huge banner with what appeared to be a wheel on it. Dark Eye said that was the mark of the Pol rulers, who had been wheelwrights until the favour of their god raised them up.
‘They will think we slaughtered all the folk of this place and burned some of it,’ Styrbjorn said bitterly. ‘Someone should tell them there is pest here and that we are doomed. That will send them running as far from this place as they can get.’
‘It would send you scampering,’ Alyosha replied, watching the enemy closely as they assembled — counting heads, as I was. ‘What they will do is keep a safe distance and shoot anyone who leaves with arrows. When we are all dead, they will burn it. The last thing these folk want is us running all over their land, spreading Red Plague.’
‘Better they do not know we have disease here,’ I said, loud enough for others to hear and spread the sense of it. ‘It will mean the reddest of red war and no-one will be able to throw down their weapons and be spared.’
Finn and I exchanged looks; we knew no-one would be spared anyway, once the talking had stopped.
‘I make it four hundreds, give or take a spear or two,’ Alyosha said, coming quietly to me. I had much the same; the rest of the men, grim and silent on the ramparts, knew only that the plain in front of the
‘Get them working,’ I said to Alyosha, ‘for busy hands mean less chance to think on matters. Send Abjorn to the river wall — there is a small gate in it, used by the fishermen, I am thinking. It may also be the only way to bring water in from the river unless you can find a well. We have small beer but not enough, so we will have to drink water in the end. Finn — since you can tally a little without having to take your boots off, find out what we have in stores. Slaughter the livestock if we cannot feed them, but leave the cows until last, for they at least provide milk.’
There was more — making arrows from what we could find, ripping out heavy balks of timber and finding all the heavy stones we could to drop on heads.
Hot oil, Crowbone told us with all the wisdom of his few years. Or heated gravel where there was no oil, he added and Finn patted him, as if he was a small dog, then went off, shaking his head and chuckling. It was left to Alyosha to patiently explain that flaming oil and red-hot stones were not the cleverest things to be dropping all over the wooden gate and walls of our fortress.
Randr Sterki came up to me then, badger-beard working as his jaw muscles clenched and unclenched.
‘Give us our weapons back and we will fight,’ he growled.
I looked at him and the men clustered behind him. They wanted their hands on hilt and haft, were eager — even desperate — to defend themselves, if no-one else.
‘We are in this leaking ship as one,’ I pointed out, more for the men behind than him. ‘Those dog-fuckers out there call us flax-heads, think we are all Saxlanders and will curl their lips at any man who crawls out to claim he can open the gate if only he is spared. They will kill him once he has served the purpose.’
Feet shifted at that and I knew I had them; Randr Sterki half-turned to his men, then turned back to me.
‘We will fight, until dead or victorious.’
It had been said in front of witnesses and was Oath enough, so I gave him my V-notched sword back, for I would not give him Jarl Brand’s own. He grinned, then drew it and stood, naked blade in hand and within striking distance of me, who had nothing in his hand but old filth and callouses.
‘If we survive, Bear Slayer,’ he said flatly, ‘there will be matters to discuss.’
I was sick of him and his matters, so I turned away, putting my back to him and the blade he held, though I felt the skin creep along my backbone as I did so.
‘I would not count on living out the rest of this day,’ I answered over my shoulder, going off to fetch Brand’s sword, ‘never mind having a cunning plan for tomorrow.’
When I was sliding the baldric over my head, Koll trotted up, followed by Yan Alf, whom I had set to guard him. The boy’s white-lashed eyes stared up into mine, sullen as a slate-blue sea and he wanted to know why I had stopped him from going near the monk.
‘He ran off with you,’ I answered, annoyed at this. ‘Is that not reason enough? Because of him we are here, a long way from home and…’
I stopped then, before the words ‘dying for the matter’ spat past my teeth; I did not want the boy — or anyone else — empty of hope.
‘He saved me,’ Koll persisted.
‘He has done killing in the night,’ I countered, ‘with some strange magic.’
I broke off and looked at Yan Alf, who shrugged.
‘Alyosha and Ospak stripped and searched him,’ the little man said. ‘The only way he could be more naked is if they flayed him. They found no weapon. Ospak guards him now and he has asked to help Bjaelfi with the sick.’
Very noble and Christ-like — but Alyosha would have turned the monk inside out rather than leave him as a threat to his charge, little Crowbone, and, if he had found no weapons…
Yet I did not trust Leo and said so.
‘Keep at arm’s length from that monk,’ I added and saw the hard set of Koll’s lip and, worse, the dull sadness in those pale eyes. I had told him of his mother’s death and he had taken it with no tears — and yet…
‘Did your father tell how to behave as a
‘This belongs to your father and so to you. You are come early to it and it is likely too large and heavy for you to use, even if you knew how. One day Finn will show you the strokes of it — but for now you can guard it.’
The pale blue eyes widened and brightened like the sun had burst out on a summer sky. He took the sheathed weapon in both hands and turned, grinning to Yan Alf, before running off with it.
‘Keep him away from the monk,’ I said softly to Yan Alf as he passed me, chasing his charge. If he had an answer, I did not hear it and turned away to hunt out a seax or an axe for myself. The whole sick-slathered wyrd of it had come down to this tapestry woven by the Norns and the picture of it was clear enough — a cliff in front, wolves behind.
I would not survive it, whatever happened, for I was sure Odin had, finally, led me to the place where he would take the life I had offered him.
First, though, there were the dance-steps of the rite, beginning with horn blasts from them to attract our attention. I had seen this before, though from the other side, when we had arrived at the Khazar fortress of Sarkel with Sviatoslav, Prince of Kiev. Ten summers ago, I suddenly realised, climbing the ramp to the tower over the gate, where Finn and others waited. I had Dark Eye with me, for she was the only one who could talk to these Pols in their own tongue.
A knot of riders came slowly, ambling their horses across the wet grass and scrub to where the raised walkway led to the gate. One of them, accompanied by a single rider bearing the huge red flag with a spoked wheel worked in gold threads on it, came forward a few steps more.
He was splendid in gilded ringmail and a red cloak, his elaborately crested helmet nestled in the crook of one arm, allowing his braided black hair, weighted with fat silver rings, to swing on his shoulders. His beard was black and glossed with oil and it was clear he was someone of note, which Dark Eye confirmed.
‘Czcibor,’ she said softly. ‘Brother of King Dagomir, whom folk by-name Miezko as a joke, for it means “peace”. He makes it by fighting all who resist him. This Czcibor is the one who beat the Saxlanders at Cidini and took the Pols to the mouth of the Odra.’
I had thought Miezko meant ‘famous sword’, but then his enemies would have a different take on it and there was no more bitter enemy of the Pols than Dark Eye. When this Czcibor spoke, I wondered if I could even trust what she said — then scattered the thought, half-ashamed at it.
Dark Eye listened and then spoke back to him and turned to me; heads craned expectantly.
‘He says you should give in, for you cannot win. It is better if you submit. I would be careful of him, Jarl Orm, for he knows Norse well enough.’
She spoke in a guarded, level voice; I looked at Czcibor, who grinned.
‘Is this true — you know the Norse?’
‘Of course. My niece, Sigrith, is a queen in your lands.’
