mind smirking up your sleeve at your own cleverness.
Helgi looked down from the tower roof. The town was on an elbow of land that stuck out into the wide River Volkhov. Facing inland he could see clear green lands — the barrows of his dead countrymen nearest to him, the woods like a sea themselves beyond. They were digging a barrow for Gillingr now, his Viking brother, who had fought with him as far south as Miklagard, as far west as the Islands to the West. A gash of red soil had been cut behind the last complete barrow, ready for the construction of the burial chamber. There was a problem there, he had heard, but he was too taken with his daughter’s illness to enquire much about it.
His daughter would not have a barrow. She was a thing of movement, bright and quick. He couldn’t bear to think of her entombed under the earth. It would be fire for her, to match her spirit. He looked over the river. He felt like a bird, floating on light above the water, a bird that could turn in a moment and follow the river south to swoop on Miklagard, to plunder the treasures of the Byzantine emperor, to fly on to the Caliphate and return with all the jewels of Serkland. The girl moaned in her fever. He looked down at her and shook his head. He had allowed himself to love his daughter. Men, and kings in particular, should never love their girls, he thought. They were bargaining tokens, no more, to be traded with other kings for gold, land or peace. But he had loved her, for her fierce heart as much as anything.
Svava and her sisters were banned from approaching the king without a lady or their mother to supervise their behaviour. She, though, recognised no bans. She’d come to see him, sneaking in to watch as he dealt with traders, princes and war chiefs in his grand hall. The little girl thought he couldn’t see her, crawling beneath the benches with the dogs, but he saw her all right, catching his eye as he settled a dispute between farmers, robbing him of all sternness at the very moment he might have screamed at the complainers to get out of his sight. She made him chuckle, and although he should have beaten her until her legs were blue, he didn’t. He winked at her and threw her one of the apples the peasant plaintiffs brought as gifts.
He could never turn her away, and eventually she’d just sit by his side on the floor with Ingvar his heir on the other side on a chair as he did his work. He was aware of how it made him look to his men and was careful to pick occasional fights in order to show that, though he might be tender-hearted to his daughter, warriors could expect less kindly treatment. ‘There’s no respect like corpse respect,’ was a maxim his own father had drilled into him from an early age. However, he was pleased when he saw some of his chieftains had begun to allow their own girls to sit beside them at the mead bench.
‘Aeringunnr.’ He went to her and sat down, put his hand to her head and was sure she would die. He had called her by her full name only once before. To him she had always been Svava, or Mouse for her habit of appearing where he least expected. But Mouse was too timid a name for her and he had dropped it and settled on Svava, after a Valkyrie, one of Odin’s battle maidens. ‘Aeringunnr.’ He had called her that when he’d gone to see her on the day of her birth and given her the name. Now, he knew, he was using it to say goodbye.
Tears came into his eyes so he turned his face away from the healer. He spoke to the girl, his eyes on the distance. ‘See what you’ve done? I can’t go down like this.’ Below, warriors were gathering. It was one thing to be seen to have a soft enough heart to have the child on his knee, another to be seen nursing her like a servant.
The healer, who only understood the East Norse of his masters if he listened very carefully, said nothing.
Eventually Helgi composed himself and turned back to the healer. ‘If she dies,’ he said, ‘so do you. She’ll have a boat burned for her to take her to the afterlife. You’ll be in it. It will be a privilege for you, so be happy.’
‘She won’t die, khagan, not on the roof and surrounded by charms.’
‘Good,’ said Helgi. ‘If she lives I’ll leave you to seek a less noble death. You can fuck yourself to death in a whorehouse at my expense.’
‘You are generous, khagan,’ said the healer.
The girl turned slightly and the healer grabbed at her to stop her slipping off the roof.
‘ Ulfr.’
‘What did she say?’
‘I can’t tell, khagan.’
Helgi bent his head to the girl’s ear. She moaned again, repeating the word.
‘It’s likely nothing, lord,’ said the healer. ‘In fever people say all sorts of things that-’
‘ Ulfr.’
Helgi fixed the healer with a stare. ‘What are you talking about, man? She said “wolf” as plain as I can hear you. What does it mean?’
‘There are many forms of spirit that can enter her. It may well be that a wolf spirit has come upon her and-’
The healer was stopped by Helgi’s look of simmering, almost murderous appraisal. The prince was a good judge of men, the healer knew, and had seen through him. But the healer also knew he was the only hope Helgi had.
Helgi spoke slowly and the healer could tell he was struggling to keep his famous temper. ‘Keep her cool up here. If it rains bring her in. Apart from that, make sure she doesn’t fall off.’
‘Yes, khagan. Yes, lord.’
Helgi took one last look at his daughter. She was wet with fever, scarlet patches covering her face, her hair sodden with sweat.
‘And pray to our gods,’ said Helgi, ‘because tomorrow I think you are travelling to their lands as escort to a princess.’
32
The rain-swollen river was a sheet of crumpled lead under the moonlight. The air was beginning to spit with moisture and Jehan knew that the best he could hope for was a cold and wet night in sodden clothes, if they managed to make the ford and get away. They hurried down the hillside towards the water where it passed some ruined farmsteads. The river was flowing unusually fast. It had been a wet spring, the rain prolonged and heavy. But the ford should be passable, he thought. Then again, he had never had to consider such a thing in his life. He had spent most of it cloistered in Saint-Germain, never travelling anywhere.
The Vikings seemed less sure they could make the crossing. Up the slope horsemen had gathered. Jehan counted twenty. Beside them were more warriors on foot, maybe twice that number. They had seen the berserkers and the lead rider pointed his spear towards them and kicked his animal down the hill.
‘Can we make it?’ said Astarth. The young man seemed in a fever, undecided between attack and retreat, stepping one way and then the other, certain only that he didn’t want to stand still.
‘We have to,’ said Ofaeti. ‘Come on, get the mules in. Those not leading an animal link arms. The river’s shallow here but it will be powerful. If we can cross before they arrive, we can disappear in the woods the other side. Let’s make sure we don’t get caught in the water.’
The men splashed in, pulling the mules after them. There was no order, no line. They all leaped in at the same time, straining towards the far shore — a distance of a hundred and fifty paces. Jehan had no choice. He followed them.
The river was thigh deep and very powerful, and Jehan staggered as he stepped into it. Then he steadied himself. The wonder of his transformation had not left him and he was amazed by how strong and stable he felt, despite the push of the water. The Vikings were not so sure-footed. They staggered, stopped, tottered forward and stopped again, all the time fighting for balance.
Down the hill the riders came at an uncertain trot. Vikings were no horsemen, it was well known, and they struggled to get the animals to go faster. Still, there was no need for great haste. They were four hundred paces away but the berserkers were only ten paces into the river and already they were grabbing on to each other, forced to link arms to make headway. Jehan saw that some of the horsemen carried bows across their backs. The rain was coming down now and if only the clouds would cover the moon there would be the protection of darkness. But the clouds did not cover the moon.
