‘Yes, lord.’
Helgi nodded. ‘I have heard it said they will sometimes save a drowning man.’
‘And so it proved for me, lord. But I set the lady on a ship with paid guards. I am surprised she is not here by now.’
‘Did you not fear for a lady on a ship full of strangers?’
‘She is a powerful sorcerer, lord. Men move against her and die like mayflies. She appears from the shimmering air; kings fall dead before her, and evil powers cannot touch her.’
Helgi nodded. ‘These are the signs I expected. It was your doing that she came by boat to Aldeigjuborg?’
‘Yes, khagan.’
‘And the wolfman?’
‘Dead in north Francia.’
Helgi turned to a druzhina. ‘Bring the merchant a bench — can’t you see he’s wounded. And a cup of hot wine.’
Leshii had to resist the temptation to rub his ears. He couldn’t quite believe what he had just heard.
The bench was provided and Leshii gulped the wine down. Then he knocked back another cup.
‘A third,’ said Helgi, and the merchant’s cup was refreshed again. The prince was staring at Leshii like a money changer who suspects a coin to be false but can see no proof that it actually is.
‘But who are the two who travel with you?’
Leshii thought he should stress the fine qualities of Ofaeti and Hugin in order that Helgi might find them some service if their mission to find Aelis failed. ‘They helped me on my journey here. One is a mighty warrior of the north, a prince in his own realm. He is the most formidable warrior I have ever seen — next to yourself, khagan.’
‘Bring him in and let’s test that claim,’ said one of the druzhina. Helgi waved his hand to silence him.
‘On a ship here he was unarmed and yet went unflinching into a battle with five men and emerged the victor. He throws a spear well enough to pin a fly to the wall and is a mighty and formidable poet. His name is Ofaeti but he has many others that speak flatteringly of his battle prowess.’
‘And the other, his companion?’
‘A sorcerer and servant to your northern gods. He bears a message for you and would seek an audience.’
‘What is his name?’
‘Hugin, my lord.’
Helgi swallowed. ‘Did he travel with another?’
‘His sister, my lord. The witch Munin, though she is dead.’
Again Helgi swallowed and called for wine himself. Then he stood and spoke:
‘Over the spacious earth each day
Hugin and Munin set forth to fly.
For Hugin I fear lest he not come home,
But for Munin my care is more.’
He sipped at his cup. ‘Do you know the rhyme, merchant?’
‘I have heard it at the fire, khagan.’
‘Do you know where it comes from?’
Leshii didn’t want to belittle the northerners’ religion by calling it a story, so he said, ‘Is it not holy lore?’
‘It is the sayings of the mad god Odin, god of kings, magic and the hanged. So Munin is dead.’
‘The sorceress died in Flanders.’
Helgi nodded. ‘I had never thought that verse could be a prophecy too.’
Leshii knew better than to question kings uninvited but he wondered to himself what exactly it might prophesy.
‘The signs are all here,’ said Helgi, ‘all of them. This fog is not natural and a mighty warrior walks out of the ice in the company of ravens.’
‘That is not as mysterious as it sounds,’ said Leshii. ‘We met another sorcerer on the boat, a man of great power. He guided us here, helped us on our way.’
‘How?’
‘He caused the wind to blow and the frost to melt away. We sailed past the lake and a good way up the river before he took the ship and turned back.’
Helgi went white. ‘No man has power like that. Magic is a woman’s art. Only the gods in man’s form can perform such feats.’
‘This was a man, sir, tall and pale. One of your people, by his hair.’
‘What of his hair?’
‘It was bright red. As red as the comb on a cock, all stood up in a shock. He steered us here himself and kept us from the shore, which was a good thing because the Franks and the Jomsvikings have the whole coast in flames between them.’
The prince threw his cup down. The god, the one who had wandered in from the blizzard — Loki, on a ship. Helgi recalled the prophecy:
A ship journeys from the east.
The people of the land of fire are coming over the waves,
And Loki steers.
There are the monstrous brood with all the raveners.
It was a prediction of what would happen in the end time, before Odin fought the wolf on the Gods’ final day. This ship came from the west, though. But what was west? It had come through the Eastern Lake. Prophecies, he knew, were rarely clear.
The khagan regained his temper. ‘See the merchant is rewarded,’ he said. ‘Give him fifty dinars and he may stay in our hall if he wishes. Or wherever he chooses. I expect he wants a bed slave, and these Slavs have a peculiar love of solitude in such matters.’ He turned to a druzhina. ‘It is time,’ he said. ‘Bring the girl to the gate.’
‘And the foreigners on the ice, lord?’
‘Kill them. Take sixty men.’
‘Yes, khagan,’ said the warrior, and ran from the hall.
73
The shaft had been very difficult to construct and had already cost the lives of three eastern slaves when it collapsed half dug. Now it was done, smooth-sided, the depth of three men, sunk down to where Gillingr’s tomb had been.
Aelis was led forward, a spear at her back. The pebble was a dead weight and she stumbled forward through the fog. There was no need to bind her. Since the stone had been placed around her neck her mind had felt slow, her limbs heavy. She could not have run if she had tried. The runes were silent inside her. At the mouth of the shaft she stood and looked around. The fog had sucked all the colour out of the landscape; black rocks lay on a grey hillside.
A straggle of people followed — curious women and children glad to get out of the town under the protection of the druzhina after so long locked in by the fog. The merchant came along too, on his mule, though he had finally given up on his swords and left them in the hall. He had heard what was to happen to Aelis and had no appetite for profit.
At the mouth of the shaft he dismounted and hobbled over to Helgi. He seemed to be imploring the king or asking him something, but she didn’t understand what. Her Norse had faded. However, she had lived before, she
