He went off, towing Gormflaeth in his wake, pausing only to turn a snoring body out of her path with one elegant toe. Crowbone watched the brothers watching their stepma whore herself to the High King of Ireland.
‘You should have taken the gold,’ Sitric said eventually, looking sourly at Crowbone. ‘The best of Dyfflin’s fighting men died on Tara — but you will have no shortage of offers from those nithings who gave up. They were not worth the hire.
‘You will only lose them again,’ he added, taking a sudden, deep swallow from his cup. There was a burst of singing, loud and enthusiastic, but it was not the bad key that made Sitric slam the soapstone beaker down so that froth leaped out.
‘Fucking Irish,’ he muttered. ‘Time we were gone from this feast, brother — they have started in to bad singing.’
‘You only waited for me,’ Crowbone said, ‘so let us now get to the meat of the matter.’
Iron Knee’s head came up at that and his blue-sky eyes clashed with Crowbone’s stare.
‘I will not lose the crew I pick,’ Crowbone said, ‘for I will be gone from Ireland and Dyfflin within the week. Is that not so, Jarnkne?’
‘Magic them all wings, will you?’ Sitric sneered. ‘I have heard the tales of you, boy, such an event will be interesting to watch.’
Crowbone kept his eyes on Iron Knee.
‘Ships,’ he said. ‘Not wings. You will give me ships. The High King will give me men.’
Sitric glowered, waiting for his brother’s cutting comment. When none came he looked uneasy.
‘Four,’ Iron Knee said eventually, then found his mouth so dry he had to grab up his own cup and drain it. ‘Good
Sitric’s eyebrows went to his hairline and he stared for a moment, then exploded upright.
‘Are you fucking crazed?’ he demanded. ‘This is the louse who killed our brother. Who was part of the army that ruined us almost out of Dyfflin entirely. Ships … four …’
‘Will you do it?’ Iron Knee said to Crowbone, ignoring his spluttering brother. ‘If you do not, I will know and I will not rest until you are dead in the foulest way I can dream. I dream very foul these days, Prince of Norway.’
Crowbone merely nodded.
‘In three days, then,’ Iron Knee declared, suddenly standing up. Bewildered, still working his mouth wetly, Sitric stared from one to the other.
‘Do what?’ he growled. ‘What is he to do?’
‘Come,’ Iron Knee said to his brother, smiling gently. ‘Time for us to go home to Dyfflin, where I will explain the game of kings to you, who may one day need the knowing of it.’
Crowbone sat for a time, listening to the mourn of voices, the odd squeal and distant sigh. The king of Leinster stirred, woke up, bokked to one side, then rolled over and fell blissfully asleep; the smell of ale vomit slithered to Crowbone’s nose, as apt a stinking seal on what had just been concluded as any.
The victory at Tara had opened up all doors for Mael Sechnaill, who got the Dyfflin Norse broken and contrite, the king of Leinster owing him life and freedom and Olaf’s queen as a wife, which made him overlord of Dyfflin as well.
Iron Knee got the crown of Dyfflin, even if he had to bend the knee to the High King. Sitric got an education in the game of kings.
For it all to work, though — for Iron Knee to be confirmed truly as Dyfflin’s king, for Gormflaeth to stay a queen and for Mael Sechnaill, good Christian that he was, to take her as a wife — a father and a husband and an old king had to die.
Men and ships, Crowbone thought. Enough of a price for the murder of Olaf Irish-Shoes, once he had told all he knew.
The Witch-Queen’s Crew
Outside was cold and bright with sun, but the hall was dim, grey-smoked, dappled here and there where the light broke in through the open doors. Thralls chattered cheerfully, sweeping out the long beaten earth floor with birch brooms brought at great expense from Norway, scrubbing benches and tables; the sharp catch of ash and old rushes and white lye made Erling clear his throat.
‘The days are even, light and dark balanced,’ she said in her husk whisper voice and Erling wondered how Gunnhild knew this, since she never seemed to venture out. Even now, while the hall bustled and flared with life and thrall work-songs, she had closeted them in her private sleeping place, shaped like the prow of a dragon-ship and right into the dark of the place.
‘From now,’ she went on, ‘night will eat the light.’
Erling watched what he could see of Gudrod, which was only the dim gleam of a cheekbone, the bright glint of an eye as he turned; he could not see Od at all, but the boy was there all the same, close by, his breath a mist from the shadows like grey-blue smoke.
‘All the more reason to hurry. The monk-scratching reveals the place,’ Gudrod said, his bass rumble annoyed because this place was so lacking light that he could not set up a ’tafl board. The growl of him seemed to come up through Erling’s boots in the smallness of the room; once she had ruled all Norway and then the lands round Jorvik, now Gunnhild, Mother of Kings, barely had space to stretch out, small though she was.
‘Hurry,’ she answered and it was scorn-sharp. Erling saw her face, then, as she leaned into the faint light of the stinking fish-oil lamp high in the wall sconce, saw the strange beauty of it, as if seen through a spiderweb — saw the eyes that raked her last son with disbelief at his stupidity.
Gudrod leaned into it, as he had done since all his brothers had gone under to treachery and blade. Mother of Kings, he thought bitterly, except the last of her sons is not one. Not that she was much of a mother — he had seen others, listened to men talk of their ma and knew the difference between what they knew and what he had suffered.
‘You do not hurry to this place,’ she said, sliding back into the dark. ‘This is a Sami place, deep in the Finnmark. Of course they would take the Bloodaxe back — they gave it in the first place.’
Her voice had grown sealskin soft and dreamy, which made the hairs on Erling’s arm stand like bristles. He heard Gudrod shift and grunt a little and knew he did not care for it much either; the air in the room grew thick, from too many people breathing it — or
‘Is she working magic?’ demanded a voice, in the sort of bad whisper that almost made Erling cry out. Od leaned forward, his beautiful face frown-creased; Erling felt like whimpering as Gunnhild put her face back into the light and laughed, but only with her voice, for her mask did not change at all.
‘You are curious, lovely boy,’ she answered. ‘That is good. You are like Odin’s own raven for the knowing of matters — but take care, for even ravens can be caught and plucked.’
Od opened his mouth and Erling moved swiftly to clamp his wrist so hard that Od stopped and looked down at the grip, puzzled. Gunnhild sank back into the darkness, with a sound like bats flying out of a dark hole; laughter, Erling realised.
‘Eirik did not win Odin’s Daughter,’ she said suddenly. ‘It was gifted to him, by me, as were all his sons and I cannot say whether birthing any one was harder than what I did to get that Bloodaxe from the Sami. I had it from them, from the two brothers, who should have returned it to the goddess but gave it to me instead … It was gifted before to other kings, all of the Yngling line. It was made by the smiths of the Sami and to them it has again returned.’
She trailed off and Erling paused, remembered the tales of her, of how she had gone as a young girl to learn from two Sami wizards. There were lascivious, tongue-on-lip rumours of what she had done until Eirik had come for her, though no man had ever mentioned it to her face — or his. Like Freyja and the
‘I am wondering who took it back to them. Not those two Sami brothers, who were well dead by then. Was it Svein, the King’s Key, who carried it? If not, he knew who it was who took it to her. I remember Svein. He did not like me.’
Her voice was a dreaming rasp and Erling went cold at the idea that she might see into his thought-cage and
