‘After you’d punched him in the face and knocked the teeth out of his head.’
‘After he’d called me unmanly. The law’s plain. I could have killed him for that on the spot. I was willing to leave it at a broken nose. He was the one who wanted to take it further.’
‘They are massing,’ said Holmgeirr.
‘We could stand and fight,’ said Astarth.
Fastarr shook his head. ‘If few are to succeed against many then the many need to flee. They are Rollo’s men and will fight with a grudge. We can’t kill enough to rout them. We’d never run so many.’
‘We could just roll you down the hill to flatten them, you fat bastard,’ said Egil.
‘If you like,’ said Ofaeti. ‘The walk back up will do me good.’
‘It’s Hvitkarr, one of Rollo’s chieftains. At the mead bench I heard him confess he couldn’t understand a word the skald was saying. I think a man who cannot understand poetry must be a poor warrior,’ said Astarth.
‘True enough,’ said Ofaeti. ‘I once heard him telling the tale of a victory, and a dog could have made better verse. The spirit of Odin is not in him, so why would it be in his men?’
‘They are too many. Come on,’ said Fastarr. ‘If we make the woods to the south we’ll lose them. We’ll make for the ford.’
‘And then what? Steal a boat? Does the river go to this monastery, monk?’
‘It goes part of the way,’ said the confessor. ‘There is a short cross-country part where you can take the old Roman road, the Transversale, until you meet the Saone going south, and then you follow the Rhone to the door.’
Jehan was speaking from what he had heard from pilgrims; he had never travelled the route himself. The pass Saint-Maurice stood in was the quickest way through the mountains to Lombardy, Turin and ultimately Rome.
‘We’ll walk,’ said Ofaeti. ‘The rivers will be alive with spies looking for northerners. Come on. We don’t want to get caught by Rollo’s men while we’re crossing. The river’s high and it’ll be hard enough without those bastards coming after us.’ He took the halter of the mule and descended the back of the hill at a trot.
Jehan glanced back. Riders were joining the men at the edge of the camp. The confessor knew he and the berserkers would be caught. That did not frighten him much. However, a different anxiety was gnawing at him. The taste of that human meat in his mouth would not leave him. He felt sick but strangely elated, as if part of him had enjoyed his grisly meal. He also realised, with surprise and horror, that he was anticipating the fight to come. Saliva had risen to his mouth and his limbs felt light and quick. As he moved through the trees following the warriors, he offered a prayer that, should he kill, he should kill justly and take no joy in it. The Church was clear — it was good to kill heathens but not to revel in slaughter.
Everything felt so strange: there were so many changes for him to come to terms with. He had been blessed, he was sure. God had looked down on him in his torment and released him from the bonds of his disease. Whatever came after could only be God’s will. All he had to do was to pray and accept whatever happened, react as he felt God wished him to do.
Jehan also noticed he felt stronger. The pace was fine, though the warriors were running. He tried to pray and the words of the Creed, the statement of belief on the nature of Christ, came into his head: God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made.
They reached the edge of the wood and looked at the long drop towards the ford.
By the power of the holy spirit incarnate, through the Virgin Mary made a man.
The Vikings trotted down the hill with Jehan beside them. He kept glancing back but he could see nothing behind him. He felt joyful and full of life, and ashamed at that joy when he considered what had passed his lips not a day before. He felt a hand on his arm. It was the fat one, panting at his side.
‘Not so fast, monk,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t want to leave us behind.’
Jehan came to himself and checked his pace. He didn’t feel like slowing, though; he felt like tearing through the night to give vent to the boiling energy rising inside him.
30
Aelis felt the thump in her ribs. She awoke to see the half-naked man standing over her. He was sweating heavily, his eyes rolling in his head. She tried to stand but he kicked her legs from under her, driving the knife down between her shoulder blades. This time, as it hit the mail hauberk she wore beneath the cloak, the knife snapped. The blow was a heavy one, though, and she fell face first to the reeds.
People were on their feet, the whole house in uproar. The young man seemed nonplussed by the fact that his weapon had broken and sat down on the floor.
Aelis stood and a terrible pain shot through her. Her ribs were broken, she thought, front and back, but the mail coat had saved her life.
She bent for her sword but she was in agony and her movement was slow. The young man looked up at her, almost as if seeing her for the first time. Then he lunged from his sitting position, driving himself forwards to slam into Aelis, sending her sprawling. His hands were at her throat, but she had Sigfrid’s sword free from its scabbard. Her vision constricted to a tunnel, her head thumped, her ribs were on fire, but she shoved the blade into the man’s belly and kept pushing until the crosspiece hit his navel.
Her sight faded, the voices of the room were distant and echoing. The hands at her throat were unyielding. Then there was a thump and she could breathe again. The merchant was standing over the young man, who tried to get up but the handle of the sword dug into the floor and he gave a terrible cry. He pulled at the weapon, struggling to get to his feet as if drunk, one leg gaining purchase on the floor, the other flailing, refusing to obey his commands. For a second he was upright but then lurched forward and dropped to his knees, his shaking hands still tugging at the unmoving handle of the sword.
Aelis was doubled up on the floor, gasping for breath, coughing and choking, still uncertain as to whether she had been stabbed, so great was the pain in her ribs.
‘You’ll die for what you’ve done, nobleman!’
The boy’s father was striding towards her, an axe in his hand, but Leshii leaped between him and the spluttering figure of Aelis. The merchant had drawn an axe and held it above his head, ready to strike. An angry crowd of around twenty people faced them. The farmer’s wife, a big woman with raw cheeks, ran weeping to her son.
‘No one does anything until we find out what’s gone on,’ Leshii said. ‘Look to your boy rather than a fight you won’t win. The lord did for Sigfrid; he’ll do for you.’
The farmer looked at Aelis, clearly wondering what his chances were in a fight against the young nobleman. Not good, he seemed to decide. He went to where his wife was cradling her son’s head. The young man was still sitting upright, his eyes staring into nothing.
‘What happened?’ The farmer’s wife’s voice was gentle.
The youth’s mouth fell open.
‘My thoughts were a snake,’ he said. ‘He had been hiding inside me and he came forward to strike. The raven called him out. The bird bit at me and my thoughts went wild.’
‘This is sorcery,’ said Leshii. ‘The boy was bewitched. The Raven is a noted necromancer, an unholy priest of the Viking invader. Look, there is his instrument, the bird, that is what drove your son to this.’
The raven was in the open doorway. As if it heard its name, it took wing and flapped into the night.
‘He came at me while I was sleeping,’ said Aelis, each word forced out with what little breath she had. ‘If I had attacked him first with my sword he would have had no chance to strike at me. Look, he broke the knife on my mail.’
The farmer looked up to where the boning knife was snapped to its handle.
‘Get out,’ said the farmer. ‘Go from this place. You are not welcome to come here bringing devils to our door. Get out!’
Aelis stood and limped towards the door, the eyes of the crowd on her. Leshii, though, stayed.
