The monk groaned and then was quiet. Leshii admired him. He could tell that he wouldn’t give in to pain, to argument or to pleas. The confessor was the stuff martyrs were made of. Leshii’s mind was ever on profit and he thought that he might be able to get a few hot meals out of monasteries in return for an account of how the man had died.
Hugin opened his first bag. It contained a white powder. He took a handful and smeared it on the confessor’s face and hands. The sorcerer wasn’t rough, Leshii noticed; in fact he was very careful, patting at the powder, wiping it smooth with his thumb like a mother taking dirt from her son’s face in preparation to meet guests. Then he opened the second bag and removed a very curious item indeed — a carved wooden shape, like a short double- headed spoon with ties of leather coming from each end. Hrafn held it up to the monk’s eyes. Leshii could now see what it was — some sort of eyeguard, like the metal ones the Norsemen occasionally put on their funeral helmets. These were impractical for fighting use — the metal would like as not direct the tip of any thrust into the eye as much as away from it — but they looked impressive. This one, though, was not attached to a helmet and had no holes in it. Anyone wearing it would be able to see nothing. Hrafn did not tie it on; he seemed to think better of it and put it to one side. Then he opened the third bag. In it was a human hand, one finger tied to a looped cord. The shaman put this around the monk’s neck.
Leshii glanced at the berserkers. They were muttering to each other. The merchant could see the ritual — as it appeared to be — made them very uncomfortable.
Hugin walked to the ruined figure of his sister in the middle of the glade. He took her gently by the hand, guided her across to the monk and sat her down beside him. She put her arms around the confessor and sang.
Her voice was beautiful. It was a song in no language Leshii understood but it seemed almost to chime and ring as she sang. It was dizzying too. He felt himself drifting off, as you might doing dull work while the sun shines outside. The song carried him away and he forgot where he was. Presently he noted that it had become darker. The light had begun to fall. At first he thought it must have gone cloudy, but then he realised that it was dusk. There was a smell of fires from down the valley and the sun was low through the trees. The berserkers were quiet, laid out on the grass, as if asleep. The woman thing, the faceless horror, still cuddled and crooned at the monk; the Raven still sat on his knees nearby, staring into the middle distance. There was a noise Leshii couldn’t place. At first he thought it was the wind in the trees. It had that quality to it, rising and falling, but was not quite like the wind. More like the breath of a great crowd, a babble of voices.
The woman’s song went on. Leshii looked into the trees. All around them, silhouetted against the falling light, ravens were assembling, scraps of black dropping onto branches. They were beneath a ravens’ roost, where the birds gathered from their nests at night to seek the protection of numbers until the dawn.
Now one fell like a dark leaf from a tree and alighted on the woman’s shoulder, its head turning this way and that in apparent curiosity. Leshii watched as she held up her finger. It pecked at it, drawing a gout of blood. The woman seemed not to notice but slid the finger under the bird’s foot. It took hold and she felt with her free hand for the monk’s shoulder. Then she blew on the bird and it hopped forward onto the confessor. Leshii watched as the monk sensed its presence. He tried to draw his head away but it was held firmly in place by the noose. A normal man may have been able to writhe away, to frighten the bird, but the confessor could not. A tiny turn of his head was all he managed. The raven pecked, but not at the monk. It stripped off a tiny piece of meat from the hand hanging around Jehan’s neck and gave a loud caw. Leshii thought that if the night had a voice, that was what it would sound like. Now other birds tumbled from the trees with cackles of delight. The merchant watched as the birds tore into the hand at the monk’s neck.
There was another sound, an exhalation, a deep sigh, more like one of despair than of pain. The monk, noticed the merchant, had blood running from his cheek, then from his forehead, then from his neck and his ears and his lips.
Hugin went back to the confessor and crouched at his ear.
‘Odin, lord, in this offering of pain,
Odin, lord, your servants beseech you,
Odin, lord, who in agony won lore,
Odin, lord, direct us to your enemy.’
The words were a mumble, repeated and repeated.
The monk’s body convulsed, and one or two of the birds took flight, but four remained to tear at his flesh. They seemed almost leisurely in their feeding: pecking, swallowing, turning around, cawing and calling and pecking again.
The berserkers were standing up, some shaking their heads, some turning away and feigning indifference, one watching in fascination. Saerda seemed to be enjoying the spectacle. The merchant saw that Aelis couldn’t look away and was trying to speak, her voice reduced to an appalled stammer by what was happening. In a few seconds, thought Leshii, she was going to betray herself. He put his arm around her as a token of comfort but also as a means of restraint. He knew it must look odd to treat a slave that way but no one was looking at him; all eyes were on the confessor’s suffering. The red sun cast long shadows through the trees like welcoming arms to greet the incoming night. Leshii realised they had been there for hours.
The monk could hardly move but his voice was strong, passionate even. ‘I have come back for her. She is near me.’
The merchant pulled at Aelis. ‘Come away,’ he said. ‘Come away.’
‘She is here!’ screamed the monk. ‘She is here.’
‘Where? Where is she?’ Raven was at his ear, speaking low like a parent coaxing a fretful child to sleep.
‘Here, she is here.’
‘Can you see her? Where is she?’
‘Near me, she was always near me. Lord Jesus, let me resist this. I will not reveal her.’
A raven hopped up onto the monk’s face and took a tentative, inquisitive peck at an eye. Hugin held the monk’s hand and intoned again.
‘Odin, lord, take this agony for your agonies,
Nine days and nights on the storm-racked tree,
Odin, lord, who gave your eye for lore,
Lead us to your enemies.’
‘Aelis! Aelis!’ the monk was screaming. ‘Come to me, come to me. I have looked for you for so long. Aelis. Adisla, do not go from me — it will be my death!’
Adisla? Who was that? wondered Aelis. It sounded like a Norse name. And yet it seemed strangely familiar to her. She was overwhelmed by the urge to help the confessor. She started towards the monk but Leshii stopped her. His solemn faith that this magic would not work had been replaced by an equally solid conviction that it would. In a second, he thought, the monk would identify the lady.
Now the birds fell from the trees like leaves in a black autumn, mobbing the confessor’s body, shrieking and cawing.
Leshii had made up his mind. The silks didn’t matter, nor did the mules. His life and whatever reward he could get for the lady were all he had.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’re going.’
He couldn’t move her. She was rooted where she stood, trembling, her eyes fixed on the confessor.
That terrible woman was singing again over the coaxings of Hugin.
Then the monk gave a scream unlike any other, a sound of torment, a high note in the music of hell. There was confusion and shouting. The Raven was up, shooing the birds away from the monk’s body. He hacked at the rope with his knife and the confessor collapsed like a bag of wet sand. Aelis, unable to stop herself, ran to him, pushing past the berserkers, rushing past Hugin, who had turned away from the confessor with his head in his hands.
Leshii dashed after Aelis and then bent to try to control the weeping girl. ‘Remember,’ he whispered, ‘you are a mute, a mute. Say nothing or join this man in his torments.’
He had been trying not to look at the monk, but as he pulled Aelis away caught sight of him. The confessor’s tongue was lolling from his head. It reminded Leshii of a piece of liver, slick and shiny with blood, and ragged at one edge. The merchant could only marvel at the sort of mind capable of doing what the confessor had done. Jehan would not give them a prophecy, no matter how they enchanted and tormented him, and had done the only thing he could to spite his captors and stop himself from revealing Aelis. He had opened his mouth to let the birds tear out
