the clever to ask, he would have known it as soon as he fell to questioning Hoskuld, who had not been keen to keep quiet until Crowbone put the right questions in his mouth.
‘Why keep the boy in darkness?’ he had asked and Orm told him — because he has been fed silver and men and ship like
Privately, Orm thought the whole business with the axe was foolish — but Martin was in it and that made it dangerous. If the boy held true to his course and the Oath he would be in Mann and know everything. If he decided to scorn Hoskuld and go off on his own, then he would have a harder lesson, though Orm never doubted that the notable man-boy was alive.
Then he corrected himself; not man-boy any longer but full grown. It was foolish to hold the old memory of an odd-eyed youth not yet into the power of himself. Orm wondered if he was still holding to the Oath he had sworn.
They would all find out soon enough.
Takoub rheumed out a wheezing cough. Orm had no interest in pursuing the slave dealer, with or without Crowbone, but Takoub did not know that, so Orm made this worthless coin ring true and paid for the bargain with it.
Takoub sighed, rang a little bell and someone slithered in to the rancid cloy of the place, a wrapped bundle in his hands, which he handed to Orm. Orm twitched a corner of the wrapping back and saw the old veneer of it, the nub end of black iron; it was the holy spear Martin sought so desperately, the one he had lost in the steppe. Orm nodded; he had given up wondering how Takoub had come into possession of it, or if he believed it was what was claimed. All he cared about now was that Martin had written that he wanted it, in return for the Bloodaxe which he seemed confident of lifting; Orm did not doubt that Martin had set all the dogs at one another’s throats and thought to sneak off with the prize while they fought. Well, even if he did, he would come, at the end of it all, to trade with Orm Bear-Slayer.
‘It is done,’ Takoub said, ‘we part satisfied.’
For a shuddering moment, Orm thought he would spit on his rotting hand and offer it for the slap of a trader handshake. So did Finn, who chuckled.
‘Best not,’ he said. ‘Hard to find the bits that fall off in all those swaddlings.’
‘Sweet dreams,’ he added as they turned to leave. ‘You should know that it is not the living you should bother with. It is the ones who were balls-cut and died because you sold them to the Serklanders. Their
Crowbone’s Crew
You can always tell the beaten, Crowbone thought, for they take a deal of interest in the ground. Neither do they walk like men but shuffle like thralls.
He watched as they moved slowly, with their necks pulled in as far as they could get them, mud-spattered, bloody and, when they did look, it was with a fleeting gaze and eyes that were pools of shame.
‘Our own kind,’ Kaetilmund growled moodily, stirring the embers of the fire and watching the northmen prisoners on their way to be thralls of the Irish. Folk stirred and muttered; no-one liked to see northmen humbled, as Halfdan pointed out.
‘Unless it is by other northmen,’ Crowbone answered with a whip in his tone. ‘Anyway — these are men like us, hired to fight. Like us. The Oathsworn, who beat them hollow and reaped the rewards of it.’
No-one spoke, for the rewards of it were mixed. Three days after the battle, everyone had sorted out their plunder and Crowbone had been lavish, so that four swords had been given out as well as Raghnall’s brass-dagged ringmail, handed to Svenke Klak, who now strutted like a dunghill cock in it. True to his promise, Crowbone had Wolf-Ember’s mail, but it was too large even for Murrough.
On the other hand, they had howed up eight men, including Kaup. Sixteen more were wounded, but only one would not recover from it — Rovald lay coughing blood up and Gjallandi said that the giant’s spear throw, though it had not gone through the ringmail, had broken something in Rovald’s chest. It did not help, Crowbone thought moodily, that the men know it was my spear.
‘The Oathsworn.’
It was a dragon growl, thick with the bitter rheum of hate and Crowbone did not need to look round to know who it was.
‘The Oath is broken,’ Mar rasped, the scar on his face like a badly-done hem, for Gjallandi was poor with a needle. ‘Even by your own heathen rites, it is broken.’
‘The ones who broke it paid for it,’ Crowbone answered sharply. ‘And you gave your oath also to me, Mar. Twice oathed, twice cursed if you break it.’
It was not the time to give out such a warning, Onund thought, when he saw Mar’s eyes flare like the fire coals. Besides, there were too many oaths flying about here for the Icelander’s comfort and he saw that the gods of the White Christ and Asgard faced each other like two snarling shieldwalls. No good would come it, for men would have to choose where they stood in the end.
‘You should have let me stitch that,’ the girl said, stepping under their rough awning and into the firelight. She knelt by Mar and turned his cheek to see the scar better, but he shied his chin away from her. Her hand drooped like a willow branch, but only for a moment.
Then the head of her came up in a defiant tilt, the same way it had when she strolled down from her perch in the tree and smiled sweetly at Crowbone. The yellow bitch had loped from her side and sat, tongue lolling, close to Crowbone, looking at him, the tail moving a little.
‘You could have had my head off,’ Crowbone had growled and her smile grew more honeyed still at that. She went and plucked her arrow from the ground where Murrough had left it after his axe work.
‘Instead, it is Raghnall’s head which is off,’ Bergliot had answered and nothing more had been said between them from then until now.
Raghnall’s head had been severed and delivered to the High King, though Crowbone had heard nothing from it and that made him frown. He needed praise and the salt of gold to keep these muttering dogs at bay.
Murrough paused in cleaning the stubborn remains of Raghnall from his axe and looked up at the girl, smiling.
‘Come and sit by me, girl,’ he said amiably and the tension slid away slowly into the dark. Bergliot graciously accepted a seat beside Murrough and a bowl of whatever had been in the pot, while Crowbone tried not to scowl; he was not sure whether Murrough was being bland or clever in what was surely wooing, but he did not like it — liked the fact of that even less.
She looked too fine, Crowbone thought, her black hair like a river of pitch above the
Just then, another figure appeared, making heads turn. It was a tall man, with a cloak thrown over one shoulder and a spear he held like a staff; Crowbone had seen him before, standing behind Gilla Mo at Cnobha and filling his cup whenever it emptied.
‘The High King asks for you,’ the man said politely enough and with a little bow to it.
‘Aha,’ said Svenke, still basking in the glow of his ringmail, ‘more rewards for our brave efforts.’
‘Just so,’ Mar spat. ‘Perhaps he will give us some of those new thralls he has marched by us.’
‘You are just annoyed because you did not get an iron Irish sark like Svenke here,’ Murrough said as Crowbone levered himself to his feet, stiff after the battle and the sitting.
‘Come with me,’ he said to Murrough, who grinned with delight at the idea, ‘in case I need the Irish tongue.’
He broke off his walking after the messenger to look down at Mar, who kept his eyes fixed on the fire.
‘If the High King does offer me a thrall or two,’ he said, the promise of gold reward from Mael Sechnaill lending him new resolve, ‘I will ask for a black one for you, to replace the one you lost. Meanwhile, while I am gone, improve your mood, for your face is putting the fire out.’
