Meartach came shuffling up, close enough for Crowbone to see the napped white hair, fine as a dusting of snow on his pink scalp, the lines and grooves of the man’s face. The
‘Have no fear, Prince of Norway. What can an old man do?’
‘Odin seems an old man,’ Crowbone answered uneasily, letting fingers trace his face; they were warm and dry as lizard skin, smelled of meat and old dust. ‘One-Eye, however, is dangerous to let close to you, even as a friend. And a king may do what he pleases in his own hall.’
This brought a chuckle.
‘Is he your god, this Odin?’ Meartach asked, moving on to pass his fingers over the grim smile that was Murrough, trembling like a horse at the start of a fight.
‘Not in this place,’ Crowbone answered and the High King laughed.
‘I thought Christ had reached the ears of the Oathsworn,’ he said.
‘The White Christ is everywhere,’ Crowbone admitted and had back a nod and wry twist of grin, while Meartach hovered around Gjallandi, making noises in the back of his throat, something between a cat purr and an expression of surprise.
Then he shuffled back to the platform and sat on the right of the High Seat, which Crowbone saw made the Brega king scowl.
‘A prince he is, for sure,’ Meartach announced, which brought a brief murmur, a moth-wing of sound racing round the smoky hall. ‘There is more there, but it is shrouded and I cannot tell of it.’
Mael Sechnaill seemed surprised and impressed, stroked his chin and then went back to sit down.
‘The others?’
‘A warrior, the big man,’ Meartach declared. ‘The other has song in him, but not as much as he would like.’
There were laughs at this and the scowl of pride it brought to the bristling Gjallandi. Crowbone was impressed, but it was tempered with the thought that the
It was, all the same, enough. The High King waved one generous hand at the benches opposite him.
‘In which case, Prince Olaf — welcome to this hall. You also, skald — and you, Murrough macMael.’
They climbed onto benches and food arrived — salmon and other fish, coal-roasted pork and fine venison in great slabs on a platter of flatbread. Women brought ale and Crowbone felt the heat of their bodies as they poured for him; it had been a time since he had taken a woman.
‘I was hoping you would not claim kinship, Murrough macMael,’ the High King said with a smile, ‘since I am over young to have sired something the size of you and not known it.’
Folk laughed and Murrough grinned, meat juice running down his beard.
‘The Mael I am sired from is as far from your High Seat as the worm from the moon — a simple farming man from down
This brought mutterings, for that was in the lands of the Dal Cais and, though they were also Ui Neill, Crowbone knew the rivalry between south and north was considerable.
‘I should have known from that axe,’ Gilla Mo chimed and then had to explain it all to the High King. Crowbone chewed meat and bread and watched the level of his ale cup closely.
‘Do you not bless your meat?’
The speaker was small-mouthed, long-fingered and had hair the colour of faded red gold, rippled the way sand does when the tide goes out. He looked truculent as a rooting pig as he stared at Crowbone, who matched it as cool as he could manage.
‘Do you?’ he countered, feigning astonishment.
‘Of course,’ the man snapped back, though bewilderment made his voice tremble.
‘Why?’ Crowbone asked. ‘Are you afraid of being poisoned by it?’
The man opened and closed his mouth, for any answer to this mired him in a swamp he did not want to put a foot in; Crowbone saw Meartach’s tooth-free mouth gaping in a silent laugh.
‘Seems to me you are no Christian at all,’ the man persisted. ‘It appears to me that you are as pagan as the amulet you wear under your shirt.’
‘This?’ Crowbone replied and pulled out his Thor Hammer. ‘Neck money, no more. There is at least four ounces in it of good burned silver — enough to buy you some better taunts than you are trying here. Perhaps I should lend it to you?’
Neighbours laughed and one of them was the High King. The red-haired man scowled and glanced sideways, to where the king of Brega sat, bland and unsmiling. Aha, thought Crowbone, so that is the way of it — you are looking to impress your fat old lord.
‘I have taunt enough for you, heathen,’ the man eventually sneered, which was so poor that Crowbone almost sighed.
‘I doubt it,’ he declared mildly, ‘considering that I frightened off a great troll with taunts once.’
The man opened and closed his mouth; Murrough, grinning, picked up the head of his salmon and mimicked the look with his fingers on the fish’s mouth; folk roared and some beat the table.
‘I had heard of the Oathsworn wonders,’ the High King declared, loud enough for his voice to carry over the burr and buzz of the hall and bring it to silence. ‘Did this troll-scaring take place on the hunt for that fabled hoard of silver?’
‘There or thereabouts,’ Crowbone declared, off-hand. ‘There was a range of hills, but the name of the place escapes me entire. A troll called Glyrnna — Cat’s Eye — lived there and I happened upon it by chance.’
‘The luck that wrecked you here holds true, then,’ snarled the red-haired man, seeing his chance at a sally. Crowbone almost pitied him.
‘Perhaps so — it was worse even than I knew, since Glyrnna was a troll-woman and they are worse than the men of their kind, for sure. Yet that same luck brings me here to the High King’s table, same as you.’
That brought more laughter and then Mael Sechnaill signalled for Crowbone to go on; somewhere, a woman shrieked and then giggled, only to be shushed — the story was more interesting than any fumbling in dark corners.
‘Mark you,’ Crowbone continued and Gjallandi saw his eyes, flat and glassed as a summer sea, with almost no colour in either of them save what the torchlight threw, ‘I do not deny that my breeks were not entirely clean after hearing her bellow. “Who comes there?” demanded the troll, stood standing there with a large flint stone in one fist and the same look on her face as Murrough here is giving that slice of fish.’
Murrough paused, a portion of the same fish bulging out his cheeks.
‘So I told this Glyrnna who I was,’ added Crowbone while the laughs burred round the benches, ‘but it did not seem to impress her much. “If you come up here I will squeeze you into fragments,” she yells at me and crushed the stone between her fingers into fine sand as she did so. “Then I will squeeze water out of you as I do out of this stone,” I answered, taking a new-made cheese from my bag and squeezing it so that the whey ran between my fingers to the ground.’
There were cheers at this and groans, too, for it was an old story-telling device. Crowbone grinned and flapped one hand.
‘Aye, aye,’ he went on, ‘you may scoff, but that old trick still works, as you can see. However, it did not make this troll any colder. “Are you not afraid?” she asked and I told her plain enough. “Not of you,” I said and there was more lie in that than truth. “Then let us fight,” says this Glyrnna, which was not what I wanted to be hearing, so I rattled around in my thought-cage and came up with — a taunting, I told her. A good taunt, as you all know, will get anger and anger always gives cause to fight.’
‘Well, this troll racked her head so hard over it I could hear the thoughts grinding round the inside of her skull. “Very well,” she says and thinking herself cunning, declares that she will go first. “Speak on,” says I and she takes a deep breath.’
The silence was as thick as smoke in the pause Crowbone gave, screwing up his face like a desperately- thinking troll. Then he roared out.
‘“Your ma was a crooked nose hobgoblin,”’ he bellowed and then shrugged apologetically. ‘That was her best. I was as sorry as you for having to hear it.’
‘What was your reply?’ demanded a voice and Crowbone spread his hands.
