Crowbone

‘I killed a boy who annoyed me when I was five,’ Od said, as if he spoke of cutting down a tree, ‘but Erling gave me my first man-kill for my name-day. A thrall we had captured. He was a Jutlander, I think.’

‘Gave you?’

Od looked at Gudrod, that bland sea-gaze, as if this was something that happened every name-day, that every uncle gave a nephew such a present. Gudrod felt the back of his neck prickle with a sudden rush of sweat.

‘Aye. I was learning how to properly cut throats,’ he explained and smiled, warmed with the old memory of his fine day. ‘There were ten thralls in all, but I was a fast learner and needed only six.’

Gudrod’s armhairs were bristled now and the back of his neck prickled with a sudden rush of sweat. He managed to point out that he was sure the remaining four were grateful and Od turned that bland sea-gaze on him.

‘I used those ones to learn how to hamstring,’ he said, then stretched and rose up, yawning.

‘Best name-day I ever had,’ Od said. ‘I was seven.’

He went off to find his cloak, leaving Gudrod in the darkness, feeling older than stones and colder than the hissing wind, which had long since upset the abandoned game of kings.

Valland to the Manx Sea, two weeks later …

Crowbone’s Crew

‘Each one of these should be coated with gold,’ Crowbone growled moodily, waving a crab claw. Kaup, cooking them on a coal-grill by the mastfish, grinned back at him.

‘We should not have traded, then, but raided these Franks,’ said Berto and one or two nearest him chuckled at his Wend fierceness towards northmen. When they said it was a foolish risk for crabs, he only scowled more deeply and spat back that these Franks were too far removed from northmen nowadays. Then he swaggered off, chewing and spitting out shell, so clearly a boy trying to be a man that men laughed, remembering what that had felt like.

‘They no longer speak decent Norse in Valland,’ Onund admitted. ‘Not for years. They are still northmen, though they have forgotten a lot of that and now call this coast Normandie. Now they cannot sail worth a fuck and have taken to fighting on horseback.’

He spat out shell, so that the wind whipped it away over the side, then worried more meat out of the claw.

‘They are Norse enough that it would be foolish to annoy them,’ he added and glanced sideways at Crowbone. ‘They are ruffled by us. It is this ship. You may as well shake a sword and scream at them. We should paint it an easier colour.’

Crowbone scowled, for he liked the black ship and bloody sail.

‘Once there was a fox,’ he said and, because the sail was up and rowing men were lounging in sheltered spots out of the wind, he was the centre of all their attention at once; already the crew knew that Crowbone’s tales were even better than those of Gjallandi.

‘This fox seated himself on a stone by a stream and wept aloud,’ Crowbone went on. ‘The crabs in the holes around came up to him and asked: “Friend, why are you wailing so loud?” The fox told them: “My kindred have turned me out of the wood and I do not know what to do.”

‘Of course, the crabs asked him why he had been turned out. “Because,” said the fox, sobbing, “they let it be known they would go out tonight hunting crabs by the stream and I said it would be a pity to kill such pretty little creatures.”

‘Then the crabs held a Thing on it and came to the conclusion that, as the fox had been thrown out by his kindred on their account, they could do nothing better than engage his services to defend them. So they told the fox and he readily consented, then spent the whole day in amusing the crabs with all kinds of tricks.’

‘Sounds like Gjallandi,’ said Halfdan, sucking his fingers where he had burned them on the grill; the cloak- swathed skald acknowledged him with a good-natured wave.

‘Night came,’ Crowbone went on. ‘The moon rose in full splendour. The fox asked: “Have you ever been out for a walk in the moonlight?” The crabs had not and told how they were such little creatures that they were afraid of going far from their holes by the riverbank. “Oh, never mind that,” said the fox. “Follow me. I can defend you against any foe.” So the crabs followed him with pleasure.

‘On the way the fox told them all sorts of pleasant things and made them laugh and think they were having such a good time. Then the fox came to a halt and gave a short, sharp bark. Instantly, a horde of foxes came out of the wood and joined their kinsman, all of them hunting the poor crabs, who fled for their lives in all directions, but were soon caught and devoured.

‘When the banquet was over, the foxes said to their friend: “How great your skill and wisdom. You are truly a prince of cunning.” Which was only the truth, after all.’

A few laughed, others frowned, for they knew there was a meaning in the tale but did not want to admit they had not understood it. Except Kaup, of course, who always wanted explained what he did not understand about men of the north.

‘Does this tale reveal that all crabs are stupid, or all foxes clever?’ he asked, smiling.

Crowbone, his head on one side like a quizzical bird, did not smile.

‘Perhaps it reveals that there is more than one way to catch crabs,’ he answered.

‘Perhaps,’ Berto offered, looking at Crowbone, ‘it is more a tale about how a fox can succeed by seeming to be a friendly prince.’

Crowbone smiled, but others frowned and one or two snorted, saying there had been hardly a mention of a prince in it at all and what did a Wend know of Norse tales anyway?

‘Now that you have warmed the pot of your skills,’ Gjallandi declared to Crowbone, before Berto boiled over into fighting, ‘perhaps you would favour us with another. Such as what they are saying.’

He uncoupled one hand from his cloak and waved it at a distant wheel of wind-ragged birds. Crowbone did not reply for a moment and let folk think he was considering matters, though the truth was that he was wondering whether the skald was worth the effort of keeping. He was more jealous than a woman when it came to his skills, seeing Crowbone as a rival and, though it was always good for a prince to have someone spreading your fame, Crowbone thought, Gjallandi was more irritating than grit in bread.

For a moment, he savoured the sight of the man’s big head, the fleshy lips opening in an O of surprise as he was pitched into the sea — but the thought brought back the memory of his foster-father, Lousebeard, and he shivered.

‘I can tell you what lies ahead,’ Crowbone announced and stared pointedly at Gjallandi. ‘Provided you have the stomach for the knowing.’

‘You can tell me what lies ahead,’ Stick-Starer declared, bustling down one side, following another wood chip’s bobbing dance, ‘provided it has nothing to do with crabs, for I have eaten too many.’

So Crowbone told them how the birds were struggling back to land, as fast as they were able, because a storm was coming. Men looked at the sky and squinted, but it was grey-blue, scudding with clouds and gave nothing away.

Stick-Starer stroked the grizzle of his face, then the yellow bitch barked once or twice and Berto declared that there was a storm coming, for sure. Men laughed and Stick-Starer shrugged.

‘I do not know the workings of birds,’ he said slowly, ‘but a man with his head up his arse could tell you it is late in the year for heading up to Mann. Storms are more than likely. If you want to follow the barking of an ugly bitch and the wheeling of birds, you must tell me and I will fold my arms and sit.’

Crowbone nodded and men groaned, for the wind was mostly from the shore and now they had to climb on to sea-chest benches and pull hard for land.

Later, when the drakkar was keel-snugged in the shelter of a natural scoop of shingled harbour, men huddled round a flattening fire on shore under a wool sail that flapped like a bird wing in the rising wind. They did not mind the wind or the ticking of rain on the canopy and joked about whether to thank Crowbone’s birds or Berto’s yellow bitch for getting them clear of bad weather.

Crowbone sat and stared into the darkness, wondering where Hoskuld’s knarr had gone.

The mica panels in the unlit lantern were loose and their trembling woke Thorgeir Raudi.