trunk and mounted. Moselle wasn’t slow to do the same.
‘Lady, you cannot outride me. Do not make me carry you back to Paris.’
‘I can outride you,’ said Aelis. She turned her horse and trotted it down the path towards the rising sun. Leshii kicked his horse after her, the mule trailing behind.
‘This is stupid,’ said Moselle and squeezed his legs on his horse’s flanks as a signal to advance. The animal didn’t move. Moselle kicked again. The horse didn’t budge. He kicked again and again, but still the animal stayed where it was. Then he got off and tried to lead it by the reins. It had never disobeyed him before, been alert to his every command as they’d cut their way through the press of Danes outside Paris, but now it simply would not go on. When he smacked its rump all it did was turn on the spot. When he led it in a circle it was happy to go back the way they had come but would take no more than a few paces to the east. Moselle knew it was insanity to follow her on foot without his men — there were legions of bandits, Slavs, Magyars, Norsemen and, who knew, even Saracens on the road to the east. A Frankish knight would be as vulnerable as — he tried to think — an old man and woman travelling alone.
Moselle had no choice, though: he would have to follow her, and for that he’d need another horse. He mounted and urged his horse forward one last time. The animal would not budge. He wheeled the horse around and kicked into its sides. It immediately trotted back down the path towards the camp where Sindre lay with the raven on his chest.
41
‘Monk? Monk?’
It was daylight, a weak dawn. Jehan was in the main courtyard of the monastery. The snow had stopped falling but the day was grey and the light flat. Ofaeti was in front of him. The fat berserker was wearing three cloaks and a pair of fine boots, and the bag at his side clunked and clanked with sacred vessels. There was bread on his lips and he was munching on a communion wafer.
‘Hrafn?’ said Jehan. It felt more natural to him now to use Norse than Latin.
‘Gone,’ said Ofaeti, ‘thank Tyr. Came past us like the wolf after the moon. Left the door open too, which was nice of him. What have you been doing? You’re soaked. Get some dry clothes off the bodies or you’ll be dead before we’ve left this place.’
Jehan didn’t feel cold. Next to him was the girl, the one who waited and hated at his side.
Ofaeti spoke. ‘Come on, get some clothes, I don’t want you dying on us. And sniff the wine before you drink it. Some of it’s poisoned, by the look of what happened to Grettir’s men.’
Jehan looked around him, trying to work out what had happened to him.
Ofaeti shook him. ‘Monk, come on, hurry up. We need you more than ever now. The cover is that we’re transferring this stuff on behalf of your Church. Getting it out of the way of those naughty Norsemen.’
The pale girl put her hand into Jehan’s. It felt tiny to him, her fingers so delicate and fragile. His own hand seemed swollen and puffy, painful almost. His whole body felt the same, like a shirt he had outgrown. His skin was tight on him and he flexed and strained his muscles against it. He felt as if his actions were not his own, or rather that he was remote from his body — it a puppet, he a distracted and drunken puppet master.
‘Do you not see her?’ said Jehan.
‘The whore you promised me?’
‘The girl. Here. The girl.’
Ofaeti looked about him. ‘Is this one of your stories? Fine, but wait until we’re gone from here. This place seeps death and I don’t want to give it mine.’
‘The girl.’
‘If we get back to Hordaland, I’ll buy you a girl, shortly before I sell you. Come on! There are cloaks and boots by the cartload on Grettir’s men. Get some, and take a spear too if you’re wise. Come on, monk, We’ll make a Viking of you yet.’
The girl turned to face Jehan. She hated him, he could tell, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her to go. He recalled the pond, the bodies — men and boys — and the Raven. His thoughts were returning to him, just there at the edge of his understanding, like a voice echoing from far down a valley.
Ofaeti shoved him towards the warming house. The door was open and bodies spilled out of it like a hideous tongue from a black mouth. Some were naked, some half dressed. The berserkers were still stripping them. Each living man had bags and sacks with him laden with as much gold as he could carry. The reliquary seat had been smashed, all its gilt panels and gems ripped from it. Astarth wore the fine silk robes of a priest, while Egil held the golden shepherd’s crook used in the mass.
Jehan felt something inside him, the cold shadow of an anger he would once have known. Now he was a stranger to himself. The energy that had coursed through him on the journey to Saint-Maurice was gone, replaced by a torpor, a slowness of mind. He felt that unless he focused very hard on what was in front of him and around him — the courtyard beneath his feet, the voices of the Vikings — then another reality just behind it was ready to break through and devour it.
‘Some quality stuff even for you, Christ’s man,’ said Egil.
‘Hey, I’m a man of Christ too,’ said Ofaeti. ‘Half a day worshipping him and we get all this stuff. Take my advice: offer him a prayer. You won’t be disappointed.’
Ofaeti threw Jehan a good cloak lined with fur. He sniffed it. Fox. The fur smelled to him as though it had never been washed. He sensed stress seeping from it, felt the animals’ terror as they were caught and killed, told male from female, young from old. He put the fur about him.
‘Here. What’s wrong with you?’ It was Ofaeti. ‘You have to get dry.’
‘The Raven’s been at him, I reckon,’ said Egil. ‘Look at his teeth.’
Ofaeti peered into the confessor’s mouth. ‘He’s bleeding,’ he said.
‘Strikes me that when a man gets cut in the mouth like that with no other mark on him then there’s some funny stuff going on,’ said Egil. ‘And who’s the king of funny stuff? The Raven.’
‘Are you all right?’ Ofaeti put his hand on the monk’s shoulder and looked into his eyes. Then he shook his head. ‘Reckon you’re right, Egil. Some sort of sorcery. But he saved my life so I’ll save his. Here, help me dress him.’
Ofaeti and Egil stripped Jehan, who made no effort to resist. Then they dressed him in clothes from Grettir’s men — two tunics, two pairs of trousers, a pair of fine boots and a couple of cloaks. As they did, Jehan had a glimpse of himself as he used to be — infirm, crippled, twisted. The monks had dressed him; the monks had washed him. Since he was young he had relied on others to care for him. A strange feeling of comfort came to him, of familiar things in familiar surroundings.
Ofaeti tied a beaverskin hat about Jehan head and in his hand he put the staff with the cross on it. Jehan dropped it, watching it fall without interest or concern.
‘Looks like I’ll take that then. We’ll need it until we reach our homelands,’ said Ofaeti. ‘You’re a cunning man, monk, to come up with this idea.’ He stared into Jehan’s face and saw no response. ‘Or at least you were. Shivering. Good sign. Often happens when you warm up.’
The Vikings had almost loaded up the horses they had found. Many wore three or four cloaks, fur hats and even gloves.
‘I’ll say this for Grettir,’ said Astarth, ‘he was a good king, a giver of rings. Look at this fine stuff.’
‘He hit a trader coming down from the north just as he came to join the siege,’ said Ofaeti. ‘A good haul too, thank Tyr and Christ and Jesus for us.’
‘Christ is Jesus, like Odin’s Grimnir. It’s a guise of his,’ said Fastarr.
‘All gods like a disguise,’ said Ofaeti, ‘the better to keep an eye on their followers.’
The kitchen had been raided but the food in the warming house had been left. The berserkers had seen the froth at the mouths of the dead and guessed they had been poisoned, so any bread, smoked meat or dried fruit was subjected to a lot of sniffing and poking. Egil was still doing this as he loaded it.
