As they drew nearer and nearer to Uppsala, Shef fell a mood of foreboding come over him. It should not have. Everything was going as well as anyone could possibly have expected. No resistance on the shore, the fighting men of the Swedes already marched for the assembly and the sacrifice, or so they were told. Guided by boats with lanterns sent out off shore, Piruusi had appeared with a heavy reinforcement of Finns, eager to strike a blow for once at the stronghold of their hereditary enemies. Scores of spare crossbows had been distributed and every man who received one given a short course of instruction and five practice shots—all that were needed to enable a man to load and fire a crossbow of the newest pattern, and hit his target at fifty yards' range. With the Finnish bowmen as a screen and two hundred crossbows behind them, Shef knew he had a force which was at least to be reckoned with, one that would defeat any casual or careless attack. He had had to detach only a dozen men and women to guard the boats and moor the
Morale was high, too, borne up by resentment. Also by the cautious welcome they received as they pressed forward—too much of a straggle to be called a march—through the villages of heathen Sweden. Those who were left behind in the villages were women and slaves and the low-born. Many of those, seeing the banner with lance and hammer, took it for some kind of a cross, as Herjolf had feared, and if they were of Christian origin saw it as a liberation. Others saw the Wayman pendants and cautiously joined the party, or volunteered information. Yet others had had friends or relatives snatched for the great sacrifice, and willingly asked for weapons, to help free them. There was a sense of support, of the army growing, not shrinking as so many did on approach to battle.
So why did he feel the foreboding, Shef asked himself. It was because of Cuthred. Shef had some inner presentiment that this matter was not to be decided by pitched battle: that in the end it would come down to a test of champions. Till this time he had relied implicitly on Cuthred, on his strength and skill, but most especially on his uncompromising spirit. Cuthred never had to be encouraged, always restrained. Never till now. But now he was silent, gloomy, without the aura of lurking menace that had always surrounded him.
Jogging along on a commandeered pony, Shef found Hund riding alongside him. As usual, he did not bother to speak, merely waited for Shef's opening.
Speaking quietly, Shef glanced at Cuthred's back ten yards away and muttered, “I fear I have lost my berserk.”
Hund nodded. “I had thought so too. Do you think you will have need of one?”
“Yes.”
“I remember Brand talking of what makes a berserk. He said they were not men possessed by other spirits, but men who hated themselves. Maybe our berserk—” Hund avoided using his name in case Cuthred heard it “— maybe he has been given some reason not to hate himself.”
Shef thought of Miltastaray and the strange remarks Echegorgun had made about the Hidden Folk, their disabilities, and their rare matings. He could see that Cuthred, if he did not think himself a man again, might have been able to think himself a troll.
“I don't want to give him that reason back,” he said, “but I would prefer him a bit more like his older self.”
Hund produced something from under the long cloak most of the men were now wearing, against the wind and squalls of rain. “It came to me that there might be another thing that makes the berserk. Just as your visions might be caused by something in you, or something in the grain, or something in the Finn's drink, so the berserkergang could be caused by something in the soul—or something in the body. I have talked to the Finns, with Ottar's help. The fly-killer mushroom is not the only one they use. There is this potion too.” He showed Shef a flask.
“What is in it?”
“A decoction. Boiling water poured onto another mushroom. Not the red one with the white spots this time, the one that makes the seeing-drink. Nor the other one I know of, the death-cap mushroom, the one—” Hund lowered his voice again “—that looks like a prick.
“There is a third. The Finns call it the tuft-ear mushroom, after the big cat that lives in the forests. It sends men into frenzy, makes berserkers of the mildest.” He handed over the flask. “If you need it, take it. Give it to Cuth—to our friend.”
Shef took it thoughtfully.
Outside the great temple at Uppsala was a yard, roofed over with thatch but earth-floored, wattle-walled, the rain driving in through every chink. Nine score men and women crowded into it, hands tied into iron rings set into long bars. Given time and effort, a man could break free, untie others. But guards patrolled up and down, clubbing savagely at anyone who shifted, made anything that looked like an attempt at escape. The guards were having more trouble than usual, as they remarked to each other. Not only were there far more for the sacrifice than in living memory. They were not the usual bone-bags, dying by noose or blade only days ahead of death from cold or starvation. That was as it should be, the guards said, aiming blows to break fingers or collar-bones. The gods would have fresh meat for a change. Perhaps the Swedes' ill-luck was caused by the gods having to boil their victims down for soup.
Cwicca, nursing a fractured arm gained when a guard saw him trying to pull the iron ring out of its bar, whispered out of the corner of his mouth to Thorvin next to him. “I don't like the look of Udd.”
The little man indeed seemed almost on the point of tears: natural enough, but neither Englishman nor Wayman wanted to give their enemies a chance to mock. He was staring at one of the Swedes, a priest, who had come into the slave pen. It was the custom of the Swedish priests of the temple, of the Kingdom Oak, to taunt and jeer at their captives, believing that their fear and despair were acceptable to the gods. Some said it was a custom set by their ancient king Angantyr. Others said the bastards enjoyed it. Udd's lower lip was trembling as he listened to the Swede's shouts.
“Don't think it will be quick! Don't think you'll get off easy. I have made the sacrifice at this assembly for twenty years. When I was young, then I made mistakes. I let men slide to the gods not knowing they'd gone. Not now! Those I hang, they'll still be awake with their eyes open when the ravens of Othin come to peck them out. How will you feel then, when the raven sits on your head and reaches out its beak. I've seen them! You'll try to lift your hands, won't you? But I'll have tied them down.
“And that's not all. Even after you've gone to death, gone to the gods, what do you think will happen then. You'll sit on clouds with harps in your hands, you Christians, eh? No! You are slaves here and you'll be slaves there.”
The priest began to sing a sacred song, his voice and rhythm strangely like Thorvin's. This was where the Way had come from, Cwicca realized with a flash of insight. From beliefs like this one. But changed, not made gentle exactly—the Way-followers were as fierce as any—but without the undercurrent of desperate anxiety that made the true pagans, the hard-core, so addicted to pain.
Udd's head dropped, his face twisted, the pagan priest saw and broke off his chant with a crow of victorious laughter. As he did so Thorvin too began to sing, his deep voice carrying on the very tune of the pagan's, but to a different rhythm:
