won’t have you injured while we’re still at risk of attack.’
‘What is holmgang? ’ said Aelis. The emphasis Giuki placed upon it had caught her attention
Leshii beat his fists on the floor and then got up waving his arms in protest. ‘If this boy is killed, where will be your reward from Helgi? Where will be your honour?’
‘Relax,’ said Giuki. ‘Monks are ten a dihram around here. If he’s killed, we’ll just pick up a few others on the way back. It’ll take a little trip inland maybe, but we need the plunder.’
‘He needs this monk. This is the monk he needs. No other will do.’
‘They’re all alike,’ said Giuki. ‘I couldn’t tell one from the other and you won’t tell me that Helgi’s a better man than me. A monk’s a monk. He’ll write for him, nag him and eventually Helgi will tire of him and kill him. The king couldn’t care less what monk he gets; he just wants someone to write laws and record his dealings. That’s the way it is with monks — old, young and everything in between. We’ll give him a monk, and you can say it’s the one he sent for, as I know you will. You are not a stupid man.’
‘What is holmgang? ’ said Aelis.
‘A ritual duel to determine the rights of a situation,’ said Leshii. ‘You are a lucky woman, lady, but you are going to need to be to get through this one.’
‘Now,’ said Giuki, ‘let us all sit around a fire, eat some seagulls and fish, and the merchant can tell us tales of the east. It’ll be a good night for all.’ He turned to Aelis. ‘I’d enjoy it while you can, boy. Kylfa has killed five men this way, and I tell you, all of them would have done for you without breaking a sweat.’
Kylfa pointed at Aelis.
‘You’ll have me for a companion tonight. I shall be sitting beside you, and when I sleep my brother will watch you. The monks here ran away. You won’t.’
‘I am to die somewhere,’ said Aelis to Leshii. ‘It may as well be here.’
Leshii bowed his head. For a moment the mad thought that he could take Aelis’s body to Helgi occurred to him. But brides were not like the Christians’ saints: no one would pay for them dead. He looked to the sky, wondering which god he had offended to make this girl the only chance of a comfortable life he had in the world. Somehow he would have to contrive to save her — again.
46
The horses allowed them to make the river quickly. The Vikings did not know this route north but Jehan guided them, guided himself by the pale girl at his side. He took up the cross again, hoping its contemplation would help quiet his teeming thoughts. It did not, though the simple act of walking gave some respite. In a high bowl valley in the mountains they saw a large town below them.
‘We have horses,’ said Astarth. ‘We could trade them for a boat and take the river.’
Ofaeti shook his head. ‘This is the enemy’s country. Monk — lord — do you know who owns that town?’
Jehan had no idea what town it was but knew that the area, nominally at least, was under the rule of Charles the Fat and therefore allied to Paris and its ruler Count Eudes. But none of that seemed to matter now. His efforts were concentrated on fighting down the strange thoughts inside him and on prayer. The girl simplified things. She would take him to Aelis, to defend her from the hellish forces that were stalking her.
‘The river’s like a stream of goat’s piss up here anyway,’ said Ofaeti. ‘We won’t get a boat down it. Let’s make our way downstream for a couple of days and see if there’s anything we can make into a raft or steal if the flow gets bigger.’
Ofaeti had now taken up an ostentatious form of Christianity, cutting himself a cross and carrying it before him. The men were Danes — this was clear by their dress, their hair, the axes they carried — but not every Viking in that country had come to pillage. The Frankish lords had recruited plenty of mercenaries willing to fight their fellow Norsemen for silver, so the sight of Danes travelling through the country under the Christian cross aroused plenty of suspicion but no outright aggression.
The river valley fell through mountains which rose in great sweeps of rock and disappeared into cloud, tiny settlements visible on their slopes. At a roaring waterfall they encountered some bandits — ragged men appearing from the mists. They clearly wanted to attack but were nervous of the mail and the weapons of the Vikings. Ofaeti dismounted, drew his sword and made a stuttering charge towards them. It sent them running. The forts proved harder to negotiate. Men came to challenge them. But the gold was now hidden beneath Burgundian cloaks, and Jehan managed to control his voice and mind enough to explain that the Varangians were his guards and they were on a journey from Saint-Maurice to the pagan Vikings of the east, to convert them and turn them against the raiders who pillaged the north.
Was this a lie? It was not the whole truth, that was for sure, but Jehan was distant from himself, his war with what was inside him taking all his energy. Still, the words went round in his head: These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him. A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
He knew what he was — a sinner. They had called him a saint but they were wrong. Jehan felt as sure as he had felt when he had said Rouen would burn that he was going to hell. He was under an enchantment, he was sure. But even belief in such things was heresy. So then what had caused this rage in his veins, this excitement? His nights were turmoil. He saw her, the Virgin, there for him in the fields, but they were no fields he had ever known. He was on the side of a mountain, overlooking a body of water, and she was next to him, flowers in her hair. She was wearing a robe of black, not blue and white, and when she let it fall from her shoulders she was naked beneath.
Who are you?
Do you not know me by my robe?
You are the lady of sorrows.
And then he took her in his arms and kissed her, touched her naked body and lay with her. When he awoke he was sweating and his belly was slick with sperm.
The awakening of sexual feelings was very difficult for Jehan to deal with. Eudes had told him, ‘It’s easy to be pure when those natural urges are withered in you.’ He was not so pure now. He thought of the touch of Lady Aelis in the Viking camp. It was almost as if that had sparked the energy inside him that had raised him up from his infirmity, enabled him to walk and damned him to hell. He thought of her voice, and when he dreamed of the Virgin now that was how she spoke as they lay on the riverbank, the sun on the water, cornflowers in her hair.
They continued north, scared away bandits, paid tolls and went on again as the river wound its way through a plunging valley, hour after hour of terraced vineyards. At a small town they finally traded the horses for a boat. It was a river craft, flat-bottomed, but the Vikings were pleased.
‘Now we’ll be at the sea before four days have gone,’ said Ofaeti.
‘You don’t even know where we are,’ said Fastarr.
‘Not too far inland,’ said Ofaeti. ‘Look.’
Above them were gulls, big ones.
‘It’s the end of winter — they could be miles from the sea.’
‘Not too far,’ said Ofaeti. ‘Believe me, I can smell it.’
Jehan did almost believe him. He had stepped through a gateway of sin into the earthly world, and it seemed so fresh and beautiful to him. The land was bursting into life all around him, spring coming to the land. The wet grass held a deep cold scent that transfixed him for hours; the smell of horse on his clothes smelled unlike any horse he had ever smelled before. Beneath the deep, pungent odour of its sweat was something else, a spicy succulence. The men too, the rancid stinking Vikings, had a subtlety to their aroma. It set his saliva running and he found himself frequently having to spit.
He breathed in. He could smell the ozone of the sea, smell beach tar and the rot of seaweed, but he could smell a million things in between, pick them out, identify them, even take a guess at how far the nearest forge or cesspit, flock of sheep or market was. And with the smells came memories.
