blood in a wooden bowl as it gushed onto the ground; this blood he smeared on the post and flung onto the surrounding poles. The chickens he beheaded and threw into the air so that the blood could spatter all around, on the post and also the poles, which were Lord Odin's wives and children. When the animals were dead, the king divided up the carcasses, leaving choice pieces for the god and sending the rest back to the ship for his supper.
This commotion was, I think, performed more for the purpose of impressing the Kievan merchants than any desire on Harald's part to honour Odin, Thor, and Freya. But despite the bawling and thrashing of the animals and the king's loud proclamations, the bloody sacrifice failed to elicit even fleeting interest from Kiev's populace. No doubt the tired spectacle bored them.
The rite observed, King Harald strode confidently into the marketplace and arranged for water, grain, and salt pork to be supplied to his ships. The men, meanwhile, took it in hand to discover the other, less overt-but by no means less prominent-trade of Kiev. There were large dwellings at one end of the market square below the fortress before which were long benches, and on these benches were assembled a number of young women who, like everything else in Kiev, were for sale. One could purchase them outright for a price, and many men found suitable wives this way. For a lesser price, however, one might purchase a small measure of wifely companionship.
It was this companionship which appealed most to the Sea Wolves. Harald had forbidden anyone to bring a woman aboard his ships, and anyway most of the men had wives at home. The king had less prurient concerns on his mind, however.
He was not seeking trade or companionship, but information. Thorkel had heard it said-and so his map seemed to indicate-that south of Kiev lay enormous whirlpools and cataracts which could smash even the strongest ships. Harald wished to know how these dangers might best be avoided; he hoped, if possible, to find a guide, or at least to learn what other traders knew of the river further south.
To this end, Harald wandered the marketplace, pretending to admire the wares and engaging the various traders in conversation. At the king's behest, Thorkel and I accompanied him on his sojourn among the merchants in the event our skills were required. Most of the merchants, as I say, spoke Danish, or could at least make themselves understood in that tongue. Even so, we learned little for our efforts, as the merchants were interested only in dealing and trade and kept steering any inquiries towards the value and quality of their particular wares. On all other subjects they were reticent to the point of rudeness.
'I am thirsty,' Harald declared at last. We had walked the length and breadth of the market, enduring shrugs, silence, and insults for our trouble. 'Some ol, I think, will help us decide what to do.'
Crossing the market square, we directed ourselves to one of the larger houses, distinguished by the small mountain of ale casks stacked haphazardly outside. Several women were sitting on the bench, watching the activity of the market and enjoying the thin sun. At our approach, they began preening for us, to show their virtues to better advantage, I suppose. They were odd-looking women: black, black hair as fine as spider wisp, and deep dark eyes lightly aslant in full-cheeked faces round as moons, firm-fleshed short limbs with skin the colour of almonds.
The king paused to observe them, but found little to his liking and walked on into the house, which had been constructed on the order of a drinking hall, but with an upper gallery where, from sleeping places like stalls, people could look down on the proceedings below. Long benches lined the walls, with boards and trestles set up around a large square central hearth. A few men sat at the tables eating and drinking; more sat on the benches with jars in their hands. The huge room was loud and murky and dim, for there was neither windhole in the wall, nor smokehole in the roof, and everyone seemed bent on shouting at one another. One step into the room and I felt the gorge rise in my throat from the stink of vomit, dung, and urine. Filthy straw covered the floor, and skinny dogs slunk along the walls and cringed in the far corners.
Harald Bull-Roar had no difficulty in making his presence known. He strode boldly into the room and cried, 'Heya! Bring me ol!' The whole house shook with the force of this demand, and three dishevelled men scrambled to serve him-each with a jar of ale and several large cups. They sloshed the rich dark beer into cups and thrust them into our hands. I got one, but Thorkel and Harald got two each, which they guzzled down greedily-to the ardent encouragement of the jar-bearers, who vied with one another to keep our cups supplied.
I drank my first bowl at once, and then sipped the second slowly and looked around. There were men from many different tribes and races, most of them new to me: big, burly, fair-haired men dressed in pelts; short swarthy men with quick slender hands and hooded eyes above noses like hawk beaks; long-limbed, slender pale-skinned men in long, loose-fitting clothes and soft boots of dyed leather; and others whose appearance made me think of arid desert places. The only tribes I recognized were either men from our own ships, or other Danes. There were no Britons or Irish at all.
As the king and Thorkel drank, they let their feet take them where they would. The king's boldness and conspicuous good will drew other northmen to him, and he soon had assembled an amiable group of sailors and river traders. From these he began coaxing the information he sought. 'You must be brave men indeed,' the king observed, 'if you have been in the south. For it is said that only the bravest boatmen dare face the rapids south of Kiev.'
'Oh, they are not so bad,' boasted one great shaggy Dane who smelled of beargrease. 'I have twice been as far as the Black Sea this summer.'
'Ah, Snorri!' chortled his companion. 'Twice, to be sure, but once was on the back of a horse!'
'The other time was with a ship.' The big man bristled. 'And difficult it is to say which is the more dangerous.'
'They say,' continued Harald, directing more ale into the cups, 'there are ten cataracts, each larger than the last, and each big enough to swallow ships whole.'
'It is true,' said Snorri solemnly.
'Nay,' said the small man with him, 'there are not so many as that-four perhaps.'
'Seven at least,' amended Snorri.
'Maybe five,' put in someone else. 'But only three are large enough to swamp a ship.'
'What do you know of this, Gutrik?' big Snorri challenged. 'You stayed all summer in Novgorod with toothache.'
'I went there seven summers ago,' Gutrik said. 'There were but four cataracts then and I do not think the river has changed so much.'
'If only your memory was as reliable as the river,' taunted another man lightly. 'I myself have seen six.'
'Of course, six,' sneered an increasingly belligerent Snorri, 'if you count the little ones as well. I myself took no notice of them at all.'
Thorkel, though still holding cups in both hands, drank from neither, but listened to each man intently, trying to patch a whole truth from the various scraps each man contributed. 'I am beginning to think that none of them have been down the river at all,' he whispered to Harald at last.
'Then that is what we must discover,' replied the king. Turning to the men, who now numbered seven or so, he said, 'You all speak like men of considerable experience. But, aside from Snorri, who has been down the river this very summer?'
Each one looked to the other and, when they found no answer, gazed into their cups. Then the man called Gutrik spoke up. 'Njord has been downriver,' he declared. 'He has just returned with the ships this very day.'
'Heya,' they all agreed, 'Njord is the very man for you.'
'Find Njord,' Gutrik assured us, 'and you will learn all there is to know about the Dnieper. No man knows it better.'
'A piece of silver for the first man to bring this Njord to me,' said the king, withdrawing a small silver coin from his belt. 'And another if that be soon.'
Three of the men disappeared at once, and we settled back to wait. Thorkel and the king continued to talk to the rest, but I grew curious and looked around. It soon became apparent that the house had much more to offer than food and drink. From time to time, one of the women from the bench outside would enter, towing a seafarer behind her. Sometimes they would go up to the gallery to one of the sleeping stalls and lie down together; more often they would simply find a seat on one of the benches along the wall and copulate in full sight of anyone who cared to look.
This happened so casually, and occasioned so little notice from anyone that it might have been pigs or dogs in heat, rather than human beings. I saw a man enter the house and go directly to his friend who was engaged in
