‘I got you here. You might have died under their lances too if it had not been for me.’

‘I cannot save you.’

Ofaeti nodded. ‘Then let’s go to them, lads,’ he said. ‘Best die on the attack than cringing here like shrews from a hawk.’

Aelis looked up at the monastery. A sensation of icy air, the glimmer of hail under the moon that she had seen from across the water, came to her. She said a name: ‘Munin.’ Nothing had changed. She was still pursued by terrible forces, still in the grip of unseen and dangerous enemies. She still needed to get to Helgi. The wolfman had died for her striving to take her there.

She looked at Ofaeti. ‘Will you take me to Helgi?’

‘If he’ll pay the ransom, love, he’s as good as the next king.’

‘Is that a yes?’

‘Yes. On my oath, if you save us.’

She nodded. The battle was over. There was laughter. Two Frankish knights were chasing a Viking up and down the beach. The man had no weapon, and the riders kept cutting him off, slapping him with the flats of their swords, making him turn and turn again.

A rider came alongside the boat and looked in.

‘Moselle! It’s me, Lady Aelis. It’s me. Put down your sword.’

‘Lady! You’re hard to find! We lost word of you halfway down the Somme. It’s only by the grace of God we came up here. We heard downriver there were Normans at the monastery and thought we might as well take a look. We’ve been watching them here for days looking for our chance and then God gave it to us on a golden plate. It’s good to have seen such a day!’

His face was flecked with sand and blood, his horse sweating up a lather, but he was grinning like an imbecile on the steps of a monastery.

‘Well, you caught them.’

‘You’ve seen your error, I take it. Shall I free you from these barbarians? You can die easy or hard, Norman. Touch the lady and you’ll suffer for a month, I vouch that.’

‘He doesn’t understand you, Moselle,’ said Aelis, ‘but he won’t harm me. These men are my paid protectors.’

‘You have a preference for foreigners over your own men, lady. A Frank would die before he took money to fight against his kin.’

‘A wonder then that we find so many of our fine swords sold to the enemy, and that the Norsemen have any spies at all. Let’s thank God for the help these Danes have offered me. They are good men. Look, this one carries the cross chalked on his shield. He is of Christ.’

‘Then I can have even fewer qualms about killing him if his soul is sure of heavenly reward.’

‘You will not kill him because, by the right of my family, I command you not to. Do you have any food?’

Moselle nodded and glanced behind him. As a man of the aristocracy he did not find it at all odd that Aelis, from a better family, should demand his unquestioning deference. He would have found it odd if she did not, and would certainly have expected any one baser born than him to obey his orders without question.

‘The monastery’s as good a place as any to spend the night. My God, when I think what these heathens have done to this land I should rather crucify the lot of them — make that abbey a new Golgotha — than share my fire with them.’ Moselle’s attention had shifted to shelter and a meal.

‘I ask again,’ she said, ‘do you have food?’

‘Plenty. Let’s go up to the monastery. They’ll have a warming room, and it’ll be good to sit by a fire and tell the deeds of the day. Not a man of us dead.’ He smiled and pointed his sword at Ofaeti. ‘All my life I’ve dreamed of catching these bastards in open order, and tonight that dream came true. If we could fight all our battles on sand like this there’d be no Norman threat. I’ll allow myself a cup of wine, I think.’

‘Good,’ said Aelis. ‘Lead the way. And tell your men not to harm my Danes.’

Moselle nodded. ‘I’ll tell them, though the northerners don’t eat with us or share our fire. They can sit apart in their own stink.’

‘Very good,’ said Aelis.

‘End your game!’ he shouted to the men chasing the Viking along the beach. One of the horsemen drew his sword and tried to behead the tormented man with a stroke. The Viking raised his arms and blocked the blow but at a terrible cost. His right hand was severed at the wrist. He sank to his knees, and the second horseman trotted in behind him, impaling him with his sword by hanging off his saddle and stabbing it through him with a scooping motion. The knight leaped into a dismount to bow to Aelis, then he and his companion joined their fellows looting the dead.

Ofaeti watched them. Aelis could see he was longing to rifle a few bodies himself but knew it would anger the Frankish knights.

‘Keep ready,’ said Aelis in Norse to the big man. ‘We’ll leave tonight.’

Ofaeti nodded. ‘Might as well be warm before we go then,’ he said and turned towards the monastery. Aelis sensed Ofaeti’s desire for a good fire — more than a fire, for the hearth, for home. He was sick of travelling, this Viking, and wanted to be among his people. That was why he would take her to Helgi and the Rus, the Normans of the east, to sit down in safety for a while among people he understood.

She looked up at the monastery. That sensation was gone: no more of that cold and silver rain that she had seen from the ship, no longer even the call of the wolf. But they would be back. The monsters were still hunting her, and she knew something had taken root in her mind, was growing there, sustaining her and being sustained — those symbols that seemed to burn and fizz, to chime and howl inside her. Their presence disturbed her. How had she controlled Moselle’s horse? How had she survived on that beach while around her Death feasted? How had Moselle found her? Had she called to him without knowing it? Was she a witch, unknown to herself, claimed by the devil? The thought nauseated her.

Aelis followed Ofaeti across the sand and up towards the monastery. She still needed his protection, no matter how uncomfortable that made her feel.

53

A Fireside Tale

There were large advantages to travelling with the Raven. The first was that the man had a fire steel and flint, so it was possible to get warm and to cook. The second was that he was an experienced trapper and fisherman, so they actually had something to cook. The third, of course, was protection from bandits.

The wolfman had been able to sense most ambushes miles ahead and the Raven was no different. The similarity between the two ended there, though. Chakhlyk would put up his hand, motion for silence and then turn off the main track and find a way around the bandits to avoid confrontation. Hugin employed a more direct approach. They were three days into the forest when he put up his hand and motioned for Leshii to stay where he was. Then he dismounted and passed him the reins of his horse.

It was noon when he left and an hour before dusk when he returned and mounted again. They followed the trail down. Six men lay in the bushes. One still had a piece of bread in his hand and was sitting upright, a black- plumed arrow through his eye. Two others had fallen directly back off the log they had been sitting on. Only the legs of one were visible but the other had a big wound at the neck. The others had clearly had time to get their weapons — two staves and a spear. It had done them no good. They lay butchered on the trail.

‘Are there others?’ said Leshii.

‘No.’

‘How do you know?’

Hugin gestured to one of the corpses, the one with only his legs visible. Leshii steered his mule over and looked down. The man had been mutilated, great gouges taken from his face, his eyes sucking pits of scarlet.

Leshii glanced at Hugin. ‘I guess he gave you his assurance.’

The Raven said nothing, just pressed on.

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