afternoon, the listeners had heard faint cries of pain: a leech at work in a place where even poppy and henbane were unknown.
“Much to do up here,” said Hund, sitting down and accepting the bowl of food Shef passed him. “I had to break that child's leg again to set it properly. So much pain in the world. And so much of it easy to cure. Warm water and lye for the midwives' hands would save half the women who die in childbirth.”
“What about the mill?” demanded Shef.
“Late on they brought a thrall-woman to me. They did not want to, told me it was useless, and so was she. They were right. It was useless. She has a growth inside her and even in Kaupang with assistants and my best potions I doubt I could save her. But I tried to ease her pain. Her pain in the body, that is. There is no cure for what is in her mind. She was an Irish woman, stolen from her home when she was fifteen, forty years ago. They sold her to some man up here. She has never heard a word of her own tongue since, had five children by different masters, all taken away from her. Now her sons are Vikings, stealing women on their own. Never ask yourself why there are so many Vikings, so many Viking armies. Every man breeds as many sons from slave-women as he can. They do to fill the ranks.”
“The mill,” said Shef firmly.
“She told me there is a mill, as you said. It was set up only last year by a Way-priest who came up here, one of Valgrim's friends. Last year, too, they brought up a man to turn it. How can a man turn a mill?”
“I know,” said Shef, remembering the god-vision he had seen. “Go on.”
“She says the man is an Englishman. He is kept locked up there all the time. Twice he has broken free and run into the hills. Both times they ran him down. The first time they beat him with rawhide outside the temple. She said she saw that. She said he is a man of great strength. They lashed him for as long as it would take to plow an acre, and he never cried out except to curse them. The second time he ran, they… did another thing.”
“What was that?” asked Brand, listening keenly.
“When they say slaves are gelded, it usually means they cut off their stones, like a bullock or a cut stallion. To make them tame and docile. They did not do that with him. Instead they cut off the other thing that makes you a man. They left him his stones. He is still as strong as a bull, and as fierce. He has the desires of a man. But he can never act like one again.”
The men listening stared at each other, each one wondering what his fate might be in the morning.
“I'll tell you one thing,” said Cwicca definitely. “I don't care what promises anyone makes. If Brand loses tomorrow—and Thor send he won't—the man who beats him gets my first bolt right through him. And then we're all going to start shooting. We may not be able to get out, but I'm not going to be a thrall here. These mountain-trolls are as bad as the black monks.”
A rumble of assent came from the others, men and women together.
“She said one more thing,” Hund went on. “She said he's mad.”
Shef nodded, reflectively. “A mad Englishman,” he said. “As strong as a bull and as fierce. We will loose him tonight. I know there are sentries watching us. But they will expect us to try to sneak off with the horses. All of us will go to the latrine separately once the sun is down, but three of us will hide the other side of it till full dark. Me. You, Karli. You, Udd. Put your smith-tools inside your tunic, Udd. And a flask of grease from the meat-pot. Now, Hund, show us as much as you can about how the village is laid out…”
Hours later, in deep darkness lit only by the stars, the three men clustered in shadow outside a rough hut on the outskirts of the village: the place of the mill.
Shef glanced round at the lightless houses not far away, waved Udd forward. A heavy door, barred, the bar clamped down and secured with a heavy iron bolt. No lock on the bolt. There only to prevent someone getting out. No need for Udd's skill yet. The little man slipped the bolt, raised the bar, stood ready to open the door.
Shef fumbled with lamp and strike-light, catching the sparks, blowing on the tinder, finally lighting the wick that floated in the whale-oil container, and sliding down the thin-shaved, transparent horn screen that let light out but shielded the wick from wind. A risk to show a light out here, however carefully shielded by tunic and body. But if what Hund said was right, a greater risk to plunge into the beast-den blind.
The light working at last, Shef signaled to Udd, who jerked the door open. Shef slid inside like a snake, Udd and Karli just behind him. He heard the door pulled softly shut as he looked inside at the great mill. At the huddled shape lying under sacking a few feet away, by the wall. He stepped forward one pace, two, his eye drawn to the massive bar jutting out from the center of the upper wheel, the thick chain leading from it to…
A flash of movement and something was lashing at his ankle. Shef leapt in the air, still holding the lamp incongruously upright, came down three feet back.
The hand missed his ankle by an inch. A bone-wrenching thud. Shef found himself staring down in the uncertain light of the lamp at a pair of glaring wide-set eyes. The thud had been a chain jerked to the very last fraction of its run by a collar round a thick neck. The eyes glaring up showed not a flicker of pain, only bitter rage at having failed.
Shef's eye went to the chain. Yes, from the bar to the collar. Another chain from the collar to a shackle set deep into the wall. The hands gyved together and chained also to the collar, so that they could not move further than from waist to mouth. Why had all this been done? Slowly Shef realized it was so that the chained man could be dragged from the wall to the bar, and from the bar back to the wall again, without anyone having to go within his reach. The room stank. A latrine bucket. It was doubtful if the man used it. A pot for water. He must use that. No food, no light, only sacking to cover himself with in the cold air of the mountain spring. How had he lived through the winter? The man wore only a single ragged tunic, torn till one could see the matted hair of his chest and body.
The chained man was still waiting, still watching, without so much as a blink. Waiting for the blow. Hoping the striker of it would come within range. Slowly he shuffled back, attempting with an imbecile cunning to look afraid. Trying to tempt Shef forward, within the reach of the chain.
Something stirred within Shef's memory. Disfigured as he was, hair and beard trimmed only where they fell to the length of the circling mill-bar, the man looked familiar. And, amazingly, something like recognition was dawning in his eyes as well.
Shef sat down, carefully out of reach. “We are Englishmen here,” he said. “And I have seen you before.”
“And I you,” said the man. His voice creaked as if he had not used it for many days. “I saw you in York. I tried to kill you, one-eye. You were near the front of the men who broke in. Standing next to one of the Viking whoresons, a giant. I struck at him and you parried the blow. I would have killed him with the back-stroke and you a moment later. But the others got between us. And now you are in the Viking lands to make sport of me, traitor.”
His face twisted. “But God will be good to me, as he was to my king Ella. At the end I can die. God send me a free hand before that!”
“I am no traitor,” said Shef. “Not to your king Ella. I did him a favor before he died. I can do you one too. A favor for a favor. But tell me who you are, and where I have seen you.”
The crazy twist of the face again, like a weeping man determined never to shed a tear. “Once I was Cuthred, captain of Ella's hearth-band, his picked champions. I was the best warrior from Humber to the Tyne. The Ragnarssons' men pinned me between shields after I had killed half a score of them. Gyved me and sold me for my strength.”
The man laughed silently, throwing his head back like a wolf. “Yet there was something they never knew, that they would have paid gold to know.”
“I know,” said Shef. “You put their father in the worm-pit, to die of adder-bite. I was there. I saw it and that is where I saw you. I know something else too. It was not your doing, but that of Erkenbert the deacon. Ella would have set him free.”
He leaned forward, not quite close enough. “I saw you throw Ragnar's thumb-nail on the table. I stood behind the chair of Wulfgar my stepfather, whom the Vikings made a
The mad eyes were wide with surprise and disbelief now. “I believe you are the devil,” Cuthred muttered. “Sent as a last temptation.”
“No. I am your good angel, if you still believe in the White Christ. We are going to set you free. If you promise to do one thing for us.”
“What is that?”
