hand. He was wearing a mail hauberk and a coif covering his neck and head topped by a conical helmet. He was wary, stepping forward with the sword in front of him, prodding at the darkness.
‘Wolf?’ called the man. ‘Wolf?’
There was a stir at the other end. A woman, her flesh hanging in delicious ribbons that smelled of iron and salt.
‘Wolf?’ called the big warrior.
‘Fen dweller. Yes, fen dweller,’ said the woman.
Jehan glanced up from the meat. Something about this woman was different. Her attention was focused into a narrow stream, like an animal prowling around him, sniffing him out, focused on nothing and no one but him. And she was scared. There was an acrid smell of fear about her.
The warrior walked down the alley towards Jehan. ‘I am Odin!’ he shouted.
Then the moon tumbled into the cloud and the alley went even darker, the torchlight weakly pushing at the blackness.
Jehan stood, reeling from the taste of the flesh, from the sensations crowding in him. He had a thin patina of hair on his arms, he noticed. It had an iridescence in the torchlight.
‘I am Odin!’ shouted the warrior again and rushed to close with Jehan, his body filling the alley, his sword like something only half there, catching the light of the moon and then disappearing into darkness as it moved. Jehan looked up and felt his muscles loosen, ready to strike, preparing for the snap into tension that would propel him towards his opponent.
But as the big man charged a scream split the darkness. The woman’s scream seemed more than a sound to Jehan; it was a rush of icy wind, sharp with the bite of hail, a blast strong enough to drain all the power from his limbs. His legs gave way and he sank to his knees. He still had enough strength to ward aside the sword, but the huge Viking crashed into him, sending him sprawling. Jehan struck out, snapping the warrior’s head sideways with a terrible blow, breaking his neck. The corpse of the Viking fell on him, its dead weight pinning him to the ground. The woman screamed again, and all the strength seemed to go from his body, but then he was in a very strange place indeed.
The Vikings were gone and so was the monastery. He stood on a high cliff overlooking a land of fjords and mountains. In front of him was the woman, her face torn and ripped, her eyes ragged holes. It was as if the full moon itself had floated down from the sky and settled on her shoulders in place of her head. She was two things: this being in front of him and something else — something that stood behind itself, a fleeting manifestation of something old and permanent, something around which the rest of the world revolved in all its chaos, tumult and beauty.
Then the Vikings were on him, all of them in a mass. He bit and he kicked and he struggled, but the scream seemed to have weakened him, drained the power of his limbs. He was pinioned and roped, his feet bound and his arms wrenched behind his back, lashed and lashed again. They were kicking him and spitting at him. They tied a rope around him and then another. His arms were crushed to his chest, his neck constricted so it was difficult to breathe. When they saw he was helpless the Vikings really laid into him. Fists, boots, the butts of spears came down on him.
‘Hold.’ The assault stopped. It was the woman’s voice again.
He looked up. In front of him was the pale child. She turned and walked away from him and he knew that he had arrived at where she had been leading him. He was where she wanted him to be.
Suddenly Jehan began to weep. His mouth was full of the foul taste of flesh; his lips and his chin ran with blood. ‘Father forgive me. Father forgive me.’ He lay trembling on the cold stones. ‘I have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedness, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgements.’ Scripture came to his lips, and he remembered the taste of the vellum, his defilement of the holy word, his defilement of the human body.
The woman felt her way forward down the alley to kneel at his side.
‘You have not found your teeth yet, Fenrisulfr. We will meet again when you do.’ He recognised the voice — the woman who had held him and sung to him during his tortures at the hands of the Raven.
‘Find the penitential cell and put him inside it.’
‘Shall we not kill him now?’
Jehan sensed uncertainty coming from the woman. It was as if her thoughts buzzed with frustration like a fly against a cathedral window.
‘No,’ she said. ‘The gods will see their doom played out in the realm of men. His fate is not to die at your spears.’
‘What is it then?’
‘He will kill his brother,’ said Munin, ‘and after that…’ she seemed to search for the right words ‘… the dead god will go to his destiny. This is the eternal way and the end to which our powers are bent.’
49
Giuki took three candles into a small chapel, a bare room with an image of Jesus on the cross painted on the wall behind a simple altar. The room was relatively untouched because there was nothing to steal.
The pirate chief stared at Aelis then stepped forward and suddenly thrust out his hand to her tunic, feeling the breast beneath. Aelis pulled back, but he made no attempt to follow her, just stood there shaking his head.
‘ Domina,’ he said. ‘A lady. I have been a long time in a boat, girl, as have all my men. You’re welcome here tonight, indeed.’
Aelis returned his stare and spoke in Roman: ‘I am Aelis of the line of Robert the Strong, betrothed to Helgi, harried by enemies, pursued and alone save for this servant. Congratulations, Giuki, you have won a great prize. If you return me to Helgi unharmed and still a virgin then you are a rich man. Tell him, Leshii.’
‘You overheard me incorrectly, sir. This girl is my servant, no more,’ said Leshii.
Aelis spoke again, but in halting Norse: ‘You misrepresent me, merchant.’
Leshii’s eyes widened. ‘I thought I dreamed it in the courtyard,’ he said. ‘You can speak the language of the Normans.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you concealed it from me.’
Aelis turned to Giuki and spoke in Norse: ‘I am a Frankish noblewoman, betrothed to Helgi the Prophet. Take me to him and win great gold.’
Giuki said nothing for a while, just looked at her in the candlelight. At last he said, ‘Tell me, domina, why are you travelling with your hair cut like a country clot, in a man’s clothes with a sword at your waist? Why do sorcerers drop from the roofs to try to free you? You are Christian. Why do the men of our gods seek to help you?’
‘He is Helgi’s man,’ said Aelis, ‘and came to take me to him. We have been chased from one end of the land to another. My protectors are gone. This is why I wear this disguise. As a woman alone I am helpless. As a warrior, I have a chance.’
‘Are you a warrior?’ said Giuki. ‘I’ve heard of battle maidens but I’ve never seen one.’
‘I killed the king who owned this sword,’ she said. ‘Sigfrid the Dane died at my hand.’
‘That was a mighty king,’ said Giuki, looking very troubled. ‘I should call you a liar. No woman can kill a strong warrior. It is impossible. And yet on the beach you did for Brodir. That is odd, very odd.’
He stood quietly for a while.
Then he put his hand on the wall on the picture of Christ crucified and spoke to it: ‘Odin,’ he said, ‘god of the hanged, god of kings, god of madness and magic, give me insight. Tell me what to do. You who hung on the tree for nine days and nights, chilled by the moon and pricked by starlight, stabbed by the spear and strangled by the noose, guide me now and I will seek battle at the earliest opportunity. I will kill nine men for you.’
Giuki held his hand against the wall for some time. The candle was burning low by the time he turned.
