follow him thoughtfully.
Working for Thorvin had given Shef no chance at all to pursue his quest. Hund had been taken off almost immediately to the booth of Ingulf the Leech, also a priest of the Way, but one dedicated to Ithun the Healer, some distance away. After that the two had not seen each other. Shef was left to the routine duties of a smith's assistant, made more trying by being confined to the enclosure of Thor: the forge itself, near it a small sleeping tent and an outhouse with a deep-dug latrine, the whole surrounded by the cords and the quickbeam berries, which Thorvin called
It was the following morning when Hund came.
“I have seen her. I saw her this morning,” he whispered as he slipped into place beside the squatting Shef. For once Shef was alone. Thorvin had gone off to see about their turn for baking bread in the communal ovens. He had left Shef grinding wheat kernels into flour in the hand quern.
Shef jumped to his feet, spilling flour and unground kernels all over the beaten earth. “Who? You mean— Godive! Where? How? Is she—”
“Sit down, I beg,” Hund started to scrape hurriedly at the spilt mess. “We must look normal. There are always people watching in this place. Please listen. The bad news is this: She is the woman of Ivar Ragnarsson, the one they call the Boneless. But she has not been harmed. She is alive and well. I know because as a leech, Ingulf gets everywhere. Now he has seen what I can do, he often takes me with him. A few days ago he was called to see the Boneless One. They would not let me enter—there is a strong guard round all their tents—but while I was waiting outside for him I saw her pass. There could be no mistake. She was not five yards off, though she did not see me.”
“How did she look?” asked Shef, painful memory of his mother and Truda forcing itself forward.
“She was laughing. She looked—happy.” Both youths fell silent. From all that both had heard there was something ominous in anyone feeling or seeming happy anywhere within the range of Ivar Ragnarsson's power.
“But listen, Shef. She is in terrible danger. She does not understand. She thinks that because Ivar is courteous and speaks well and does not use her immediately as a whore, then she is safe. But there is something wrong with Ivar, maybe in his body, maybe in his head. He has ways of easing it. Maybe, one day, Godive will be one of them.
“You have to get her out, Shef, and soon. And the first thing is to let her see you. What we do after that I cannot guess, but if she knows you are near at least she will maybe be thinking of a chance of passing a message. Now I have heard another thing. AH the women, of all the Ragnarssons and their highest chiefs, will be going out from the tents today. I have heard them complaining. They say they have not had a chance to wash anywhere except in the filthy river for weeks. They mean to go out this afternoon and wash their clothes and themselves. They are going out to a backwater maybe a mile off.”
“Could we get her away?”
“Don't even think about it. There are thousands of men in the army, all of them desperate for women. There will be so many trusted guards on that trip you won't be able to see between them. The best thing you can do is make sure she sees you. Now this is where they are going to go.” Hund began to explain the lay of the land hastily, pointing to add emphasis to his words.
“But how am I to get away from here? Thorvin—”
“I thought of that. As soon as the women start to leave I will come here and say to Thorvin that my master needs him to come and put a final edge on the tools he uses for opening men's bellies and heads. Ingulf can do marvelous things,” Hund added, shaking his head in admiration. “More than any church-leech I have ever heard of.
“When Thorvin hears that, he will come with me. Then you must leave here, slip over the wall, and get well ahead of the women and the guards so you can meet them accidentally on the path.”
Hund was right about Thorvin's reactions. As soon as Hund sidled up to him with the request, and explanation of why he was needed, Thorvin had agreed. “I will come,” he said, putting down his hammer and searching for whetstone, oilstone, sleekstone. He went off without further ado.
And then things went wrong. Two customers in line, and neither of them ready to be put off, both of them knowing full well that Shef never left the precinct. Those got rid of, a third wandered up full of inquiries and surprise and desire to talk. When he finally stepped over the rowan-festooned cords for the first time, Shef realized that he was now bound to do the most dangerous thing he could in this crowded campment full of eyes and bored intelligences: hurry.
Yet hurry he did, loping through the crowded lanes with never a look at the interested faces, cutting suddenly through the ropes of a few deserted tents, up to the wall with its stockade of logs, two hands on the sharp, man-high poles, and over them in one powerful vault. A shout from somewhere told him that he had been seen, but there was no hue and cry. He was going out, not in, and no one had reason to call “Thief.”
Now, he was out on the plain, still dotted with horses and exercising men, with the tree-line of the backwater a mile away. The women would make their way along the river, but it would be suicide to run up after them. He had to get there first and had to be walking innocently back, or better still, to be standing where they would pass. Nor could he go near the gateway where the guards stood noting all that went on. Heedless of the danger, Shef stretched his legs and began to run across the meadow.
Within ten minutes he had reached the backwater and was strolling along the muddy lane which led beside it. No one there yet. Now all he had to do was look like a member of the Army taking his ease. Difficult: There was one thing that set him off from the others. He was on his own. Outside the camp and even inside it, the Vikings went round in ship's crews, or at least with an oarmate to bear company.
He had no choice. Just walk by them. Hope that Godive had the eyes to see him and the wit to say nothing.
He could hear voices, ahead, women calling out and laughing, men's voices among them. Shef stepped round a bank of hawthorn and saw Godive in front of him. Their eyes met.
At the same moment he saw a blaze of saffron plaids all round her. He looked convulsively to either side, and there was Muirtach, not five yards away, striding towards him, a cry of triumph on his lips. Before he could move, hard hands had him by each arm. The rest were crowding up behind their leader, their female charges for the moment forgotten.
“The little cock-sparrow,” gloated Muirtach, thumbs in belt. “The one who showed his hilt to me. Come out for a look at the womenfolk, is it? And an expensive look it's bound to be. Here, boys, take him aside a few paces.” He unsheathed his longsword with a chilling
“I'll fight you,” said Shef.
“That you won't. Am I a chieftain of the Gaddgedlar and to be matched with a runaway with the collar hardly off his neck?”
“There's never been collar on my neck,” snarled Shef. He could feel a heat rising within him from somewhere, driving out the chill of fear and panic. There was only one small chance here. If he could draw them into treating him as an equal he might live. Otherwise he would be a headless corpse in a bush within a minute. “My birth is as good as yours. And I speak the Danish tongue a deal better!”
“That is true,” said a chilly voice from somewhere behind the plaids. “Muirtach, your men are all watching you. They should be watching the womenfolk. Or does it need all of you to deal with this lad?”
The crowd in front of Shef melted away, and he found himself staring into the eyes of the speaker. Almost white eyes. They were as pale, Shef thought, as pale as ice in a dish—a dish of the thinnest maplewood, carved so thin it was almost transparent. They did not blink, and they waited for Shef's eyes to drop. Shef tore his own eyes away with an effort. Felt fear that instant, knew death was very close.
“You have a grudge, Muirtach?”
“Yes, lord.” The Irishman's eyes too were dropped.
“Then fight him.”
