Vigfuss Drosbo looked, but could not see Crowbone in the deck huddle; he wondered if the prince was looking for birds to guide them, then realised that, sensibly, they were all on shore with a head under one wing. He saw Kaup, clinging to the mast with one hand, his mask of a face twisted with terror; he did not like a sea storm, it seemed. No sane man did, though the way of it, as Vigfuss said to the Burned Man, was to keep bailing and not think hard on anything.
It was day, Stick-Starer said, though you would be hard put to know it, but Mar and Kaetilmund staggered down the length of the deck, handing out a rising-meal of wet bread with most of the mould removed. There were some of the old crab claws too, so that Rovald, grinning and dripping, declared that he would at least get to eat them before their kin ate him.
Crowbone blinked out of his head, where a storm raged almost as bad as the one sweeping the Shadow.
Martin was the Drostan Orm had told him of, that was clear. If there had been a real Drostan to begin with, that one was dead and gone. Martin was a venom-spider and Crowbone remembered him, remembered the way the Saxlander priest had slit the throat of Bleikr, the beautiful dog Vladimir had given him. It would not, Crowbone thought, be much of a step to slitting the throat of an innocent monk called Drostan.
That whirling wind of possibilities, lashed with the confused sleet of what Martin was plotting, was bad enough. What was worse, what was the shrieking tempest of it all, was the matter of Orm in it. What had he been told? Had he told Crowbone all he knew?
And the great crushing wave of it — could Orm be trusted? It had come to him that he had, perhaps, misjudged Orm, dismissed him as a little jarl. It had come to him that this might not be the truth of matters, that Orm had ambitions and silver enough to raise men and ships — and use the Bloodaxe for his own ends. His hackles rose as his stomach fell away at the thought of Orm standing against him.
Yet all that had happened pointed to it like a good hound scaring up game; Orm had sent him with Oathsworn, supposedly to guard and help him, but probably to spy as he tripped all the traps set by Martin for those chasing the secret of this Bloodaxe. Then Orm would snatch it at the last, was perhaps close by even now. The thought turned him left and right to search, burned him with the treachery in it.
The worst of the real storm was gone, Crowbone realised when he surfaced from all this, and he said as much as he eased the stiff wet of himself. Nearby, Berto sat and stared at the deck with unseeing eyes, while the yellow bitch lay, head on paws and eyes pools of wet misery as deep as the ones that sluiced the length of her and down the rest of the boat. Stick-Starer glanced at the sky while the wind tried to tear his beard out by the roots, then shook his head.
‘We are in the mouth of it,’ he said. ‘We are running hard with the wind and it will get much worse than this before we see the last of this weather.’
‘There is cheer for you,’ grunted Murrough and Onund, coming from checking the mast and steerboard and how much water was shipped, looked at Gjallandi and said: ‘A tale would be good while we throw water out of the ship.’
‘Not one about the sea, all the same,’ added Murrough, scooping water over the side with his eating bowl. He nudged Berto, who seemed to wake from a dream and took another bowl up listlessly.
‘Or dogs,’ added Vandrad Sygni, as the yellow bitch, staggering in the swells, shook water out of itself all over him.
‘You can stop a dog from barking and howling by turning one of your shoes upside down,’ declared Murrough and then stared, a crab claw almost at his mouth, when he felt eyes on him.
‘What?’ he said.
‘When did you know so much about dogs?’ demanded Kaetilmund, shaking a cask to see how much drinking water was left in it.
‘We of the Ui Neill know everything about good hounds,’ the big Irishman boasted. ‘The health of childer will always be better if you allow them to play with dogs. If you see a dog rolling in the grass, you should expect good luck or news.’
‘Or expect it to be covered in its own shit,’ Kaetilmund countered.
‘Good news?’ demanded Vigfuss Drosbo, looking at the yellow bitch. ‘Does it work if the beast rolls on ship planking?’
‘No,’ answered Murrough with a grin, ‘but it is good luck to allow strange dogs to follow you home. And wherever else we are going, we are going to my home.’
‘Never give a pig away,’ Gorm offered, huddled with the others of Hoskuld’s men, who were doing nothing much at all. ‘I had that from my old da, before I took to the sea. He said it was a curse from the old time, but most who heard it thought it only sensible trading.’
‘No help, even if we had a pig,’ Gjallandi noted pompously. ‘Maybe, though, it would take your place at the bailing. Time you sleekit seals did something for your bread and water.’
Since he was wrapped imperiously in his wet cloak and doing nothing much himself at the time, this brought laughter — but the idea was sound and Hoskuld’s crew were handed buckets and bowls. Crowbone saw that Halk had moved to help Rovald at the steering oar.
‘Since you do not bail,’ Crowbone declared bitterly to Gjallandi, ‘it would be good to have those tales now.’ And he threw more water over the side, with a flourish to show that he was also working, prince or no.
‘As you command, my prince,’ Gjallandi answered wryly, though it was clear he had no stomach for the thought. Crowbone narrowed his eyes a little and stopped throwing water.
‘I am bound by the Odin oath, same as you,’ he said pointedly, ‘but do not press too hard on me keeping to it and not harming you at all.’
Gjallandi felt his mouth dry up, which made it the only dry place on that ship. He began to gather his thoughts, but Crowbone’s odd eyes had turned to soapstone.
‘A great bear, who was the king of a great forest, once announced to his subjects that he wanted someone to tell stories one after another without ceasing,’ he said and Gjallandi closed his mouth on his own tale.
‘If they failed to find somebody who could so amuse him, he promised, he would put them all to death.’
The men had all stopped and Onund kicked first one, then another, into starting bailing again.
‘Well,’ Crowbone said, settling back on his haunches, ‘everyone knew the old saying “The king kills when he wills”, so the animals were in great alarm.
‘The Fox said, “Fear not; I shall save you all. Tell the king the storyteller is ready to come to court when ordered.” So the animals did so and the Fox bowed respectfully, and stood before the Bear King, who ordered him to begin. “Before I do so,” said the Fox, “I would like to know what your majesty means by a story.”’
‘Something Gjallandi does not tell,’ bawled a man from down the deck; Bodvar, Crowbone remembered, by- named Svarti — Black — because of his nature rather than his looks. Gjallandi’s scowl was soot after that.
‘The Bear King was puzzled by this,’ Crowbone went on, ignoring the pair of them. ‘“Why,” he said, “a narrative containing some interesting event or fact.” The Fox grinned. “Just so,” he said and began: “There was a fisherman who went to sea with a huge net, and spread it far and wide. A great many fish got into it. Just as the fisherman was about to draw the net the coils snapped. A great opening was made. First one fish escaped.” Here the Fox stopped.’
‘Just as well,’ muttered Onund, ‘since a tale about the sea is not so welcome.’
Crowbone ignored him, too. ‘“What then?” demanded the Bear King. “Then two escaped,” answered the Fox.
‘“What then?” demanded the impatient Bear. “Then three escaped,” said the Fox. Thus, as often as the Bear asked, the Fox increased the number by one, and said as many escaped. The Bear grew annoyed and growled loudly. “Why, you are telling me nothing new!” he bellowed.
‘“I wish your majesty will not forget your royal word,” said the Fox. “Each event occurred by itself, and each lot that escaped was different from the rest.”
‘The Bear King showed his fangs. “Where is the wonder in all this?” he demanded.
‘“Why, your majesty, what can be more wonderful than for fish to escape in lots, each exceeding the other by one?” said the Fox. “I am bound by my word,” said the Bear King, gnashing his fangs and flexing his great claws, “or else I would see your carcass stretched on the ground.”
‘The Fox, in a whisper to the rest of the animals, said: “If rulers are not bound by their own word, few or no matters can bind them. Even oaths to Odin.”’
