his tongue.
13
A silence fell on the clearing when the Raven cut down the monk.
Ofaeti walked over and looked down at the merchant’s boy, who was cradling the confessor in his arms. ‘Of your religion, I guess, son,’ he said. ‘Well, if that’s the measure of these men then we can all pack up and go home now. That is a man of iron, I’ll give him that. Eh, Raven? He did for you, didn’t he? Crippled, trussed, tied and enchanted, but he beat you at your own game.’ Aelis didn’t understand a word he said but caught the sentiment in his voice.
She looked down at the monk. His blood was black and shiny in the moonlight, one eye swollen and raw. The bird had virtually removed the eyelid, though the eye itself looked intact. His face and ears were a mass of cuts, the white nub of a cheek bone showing through and a hole in his cheek exposing a tooth. She removed the remains of the horrible hand at his neck and threw it away. No one tried to stop her.
‘He won’t recover from this,’ said Leshii. ‘The wounds won’t kill him but they’ll turn bad. I’ve seen it before.’
‘How much are god bones, by weight?’ It was the voice of Saerda. He gave a short laugh and prodded his boot at the monk’s side.
Aelis was on her feet in a second. Without thinking what she was doing, she had pushed Saerda in the middle of the chest. He was taken by surprise and fell back over a tree root. He didn’t take long to recover, though, drawing his knife even as he tripped, regaining his balance before he hit the ground and springing to stab at Aelis. It was four strides between Saerda and the lady. He took two before Ofaeti, with surprising quickness, stepped across and dropped his shoulder into the thin man’s side, battering him into a tree. All the wind went out of him as he hit the trunk. He slumped to the floor and lay there panting.
Ofaeti pointed at the monk and spoke: ‘This man has earned my respect for tonight. Let the boy care for him, if it suits his temper. If it’s a fight you’re after, Saerda, you needn’t be disappointed. I stand ready to oblige.’ Again, Aelis couldn’t grasp exactly what he was saying but the meaning of his words was clear enough to anyone.
Saerda stood and dusted himself down, still trying to recover his breath. Then he gave Aelis a look that needed no interpretation at all, smiled and backed off towards the camp.
It was night now and the big moon turned the clearing into a silver circle. Hugin said something in Norse to the merchant.
Leshii shook his head. ‘I don’t think he knows we are here.’
For the first time, the Raven fixed his eyes on Aelis. ‘Keep him warm for the night and give him water if he calls for it. He won’t die before tomorrow.’ He turned to Leshii again and said, ‘Tell the king what he said and that, one way or another, the monk will have given us all he has to give us by this time tomorrow. Now I need to think.’
He walked back across the clearing, taking his sister by the arm and escorting her into the trees
It was quickly obvious that Jehan was going to die. He was very cold and he shook. His wounds were awful, oozing stab marks across every inch of exposed flesh. Strangely, the birds had not pecked through his clothes. The habit and undershirt had put them off and they had gone only for the skin they could see.
Jehan was delirious, clinging to Aelis’s hand, gargling and babbling. His tongue was terribly swollen like a fat blood sausage and he could hardly close his mouth. Aelis tended to him, dabbing his mouth with a damp cloth to keep it moist, squeezing in a little water. From away in the trees, from the direction of the Raven’s shelter, chanting came, low and indistinct, a smoke of words, just a tinge of them on the breeze.
Leshii sat with her. He was a hard man who saw the world in terms of profit and loss, but even he had been shaken by the monk’s ordeal, she could see. A boy came running into the clearing and spoke to the Vikings. She saw the one called Fastarr nod and point towards her. The big fat Norseman came up and said something to the merchant. Leshii replied and the man went away.
Leshii said, ‘I have to go to report to the king. He has sent for me.’
‘On what?’ She spoke low, careful to see if she was observed.
‘What the monk said under torture.’ Leshii did not dignify what he had seen with the name of magic. The man had been half killed and had nearly revealed what he had guessed — that the lady was near him. No prophecy to that, he thought. ‘You have to come as well. They were insistent. Seems like you might have more slave work to do down there.’
She touched him on the arm. ‘The confessor is dying,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘I need to stay here with him. Let me stay here.’
Leshii shrugged and turned to the Norsemen and shouted something at them that Aelis didn’t understand. The fat one replied, shaking his head.
‘No, you have to come,’ said Leshii.
‘I will not leave him,’ said Aelis, averting her face.
The merchant spoke to the berserkers again. There was a brief discussion between them. Then the fat one shook his head and made an odd gesture. She heard the king’s name mentioned.
Leshii turned to Aelis. ‘Ofaeti says Sigfrid can fetch and carry for himself for one night. The priest has earned some comfort. The berserker will do your work for you if the king demands it. You look after the monk. If you can move him then go down the river to the woods by the ford. I will meet you there and I swear I will reunite you with your people.’ Leshii made to stand. ‘You have a friend there in the fat Viking, it seems, but I must be gone.’
Aelis stood and nodded to Ofaeti. She was afraid, but inside her a certainty was growing. God had put her together with the confessor. And God, she thought, knew well his friends from his enemies. If anyone should be scared, it was the sorcerer and his horrible servants.
14
Leshii and the berserks made their way back down into the camp, towards the house Sigfrid was using as his headquarters. The assault had been a substantial one that day and the Norsemen had taken many casualties. Fires blazed in the night, and the sound of rough music, pipe and drum, was cut through with groans and screams. Faces, pale and thin, loomed from the darkness. This, thought, Leshii, was what the land of the dead would be like.
The house was visible from a way away under the bright moon, its checked roof gleaming in the silver light. Leshii was tired and looking forward to the hospitality of the king. The advantage of dealing with monarchs was that — even in times of hardship — there was good wine to drink and good food to eat. He went in to find the king sitting on a chair in the centre of the room. It was no throne but had been put in such a position that it was clear it was intended to stand in for one. Leshii wondered if some formal court was taking place. In all his other dealings with the Norsemen they had rarely stood on ceremony, particularly in times of war.
The king gave Leshii a curt smile and held out his cup to be filled. Leshii noted that the man who did so was not Sigfrid’s normal servant but the skinny berserk Saerda. So this was where he’d gone when he left the camp.
‘You haven’t brought your boy with you, merchant.’
‘He is tending to the monk. The Frank has had a rough time of it today,’ said Ofaeti.
‘I said he was to be brought here.’ Sigfrid was pale and clamped his jaw tight, as if trying to bite down the anger that was rising inside him.
‘One servant’s like another,’ said Ofaeti. ‘I’ll stand the boy’s place, if I have to.’
