Fenrir

The oath wind fills our sails.’

‘I didn’t have you down as a poet,’ said Leshii to Ofaeti.

‘A warrior must be able to do the brave deed, but he must also be able to immortalise it, to have his sons sing it for ever.’

Hugin nodded. ‘Such things allow our sons to honour us. I’m glad you have this talent, Ofaeti. You will sing a song of our adventures for me to hear in future lives.’

Leshii had more pressing concerns. ‘Can this thing take us all the way?’

Ofaeti shook his head. ‘It’s not an ocean vessel; it’s hardly even a river vessel. It’ll be swamped by any decent-sized wave. But, trust me, there will be northern men here. After a battle like that, someone will have a damaged ship to repair; someone will need to replenish his crew with slaves or be waiting for stragglers. They will be here and not far.’

They disembarked and camped, and in the morning abandoned the boat and headed east. They’d walked half the morning when they found themselves above a little cove. There on the beach was a longship, men working on its steering oar at the stern. It was a big ship, long and low to the water, but its figurehead had been removed. There were only about twenty Vikings, three of them clearly wounded and laid out on the sand.

‘This is our ship,’ said Ofaeti and started to make his way down to the cove.

‘Hold, Frankish man!’ The Vikings had spotted him. ‘Know that we are ready for death but still ready to charge dearly for our lives. No horse can you bring against us here and must fight on your feet like a man.’ The man who spoke was tall and thin. He’d picked up an axe with one hand, though the other hung limp at his side and Hugin guessed it was broken.

‘Brothers,’ shouted Ofaeti, ‘I am no mare-bound Frank but an honest scrapper like yourselves.’

‘You’re a Horda man! I know you by your speech.’

‘To my bones,’ shouted Ofaeti, ‘which are cold enough. May I warm them by your fire?’

‘You speak fine words, friend, and I can see you are a witty man. Come, you are welcome,’ said another of the band.

They were given a good reception. The men had some fish stew, which they shared. They were Danes but had traded with the Horda and Roga peoples and so were well disposed towards the three. Hugin saw they were wary of him, recognising him as a sorcerer, but he did what he could for them, tending their wounds, splinting their arms and making poultices and bandages from what he could find. The Vikings agreed it was a lucky day that they had come upon such men.

As Hugin worked, Ofaeti came to his side. ‘A word,’ he said, slapping the Raven on the back as if telling him a joke.

Hugin stood and followed Ofaeti to the longship, where the big Viking pretended to be examining the steering oar, asking Hugin’s opinion on how it might be replaced.

‘I know these men, or one of them,’ he said. ‘This is Skakki the Long. He is an outlaw in our lands. It’s not enough for him to trade; he has snatched slaves too — good Horda men. I will repay him with his death.’

‘We need him and his crew,’ said Hugin.

‘I know. But know this: when we are nearly at land I will kill him and his men.’

‘They are twenty.’

‘Yes, and I will die. But they will be fifteen or less by the time I do.’

‘We can’t dock a ship with just you. I am no sailor.’

‘I will do it near the shore. Very near. With luck his men will jump and swim for it. If they don’t, you can swim in too. I expect no help in this.’

Hugin nodded but he couldn’t allow this to happen. He had to kill Helgi, that now seemed like the best course to stop the prophecy that the god would die at the teeth of the wolf. He was becoming convinced that Helgi was the god made flesh. Helgi was a great warrior, a patron of poets and of sorcerers. Odin was god of war, poetry and magic. And madness too. There could be no delay, so Hugin would have to kill Ofaeti. And yet he didn’t want to. The Viking had brought him a sort of luck. Was he Odin’s reward for all the warriors Hugin had sent to his halls? The fat man had shown him the wolf could be cut too. The Raven touched his sword. If he’d realised that in the monastery at Saint-Maurice, how different might things have been? When the wolf had still been in human form he might have been killable. Now? Hugin doubted it.

Could he call on Odin? Hadn’t he betrayed the god? Wasn’t he going to try to save the woman who would call the wolf? Who could he call on then? Loki? The words went through his mind before he could stop them: Lord of lies, friend to man, help me to my purpose.

The tall Viking joined them at the ship. ‘We’re trying to repair it but we can’t work with green wood.’ He tapped the broken steering oar. ‘We’ve had no luck at all on this voyage. We hit the Franks here with over a hundred ships, but Arnulf is a mighty king and he knows his land. He brought his cavalry through the marshes to attack us. I had never seen so many horses. We were slaughtered and only just made our ships. The oar got torn off landing here. Sandbanks.’

‘Don’t you have anything to show for your troubles at all?’ said Ofaeti.

‘Nothing. Well, only them — slaves we picked up down the river.’

Hugin followed the man’s nod to where two men sat tied back to back. He hadn’t noticed them before. One was a farm boy, terribly beaten, scarcely conscious. The other was a very strange fellow indeed — tall and muscular, his skin looked almost as if it belonged to the sea, pallid like the belly of a shark. His hair was bright red and stood up in a shock.

‘The boy’s not likely to make it, but the big one’ll fetch a bit at market.’

‘Let me look at the oar,’ said Ofaeti. ‘I have some skill as a shipwright and it won’t be too much bother to fix. I can borrow a bit from your deck and our little boat, if it’s still where we left it.’

‘I like you!’ said Skakki, slapping Ofaeti’s back. ‘I’m glad you’re aboard. Maybe now our luck has changed!’

65

The Ice

Jehan’s heart felt like a cooling rock, his once strong body was now a useless weight as Aelis had pushed his baggage of limbs up onto the horse. The world was fading. His sight had gone, and now the night sounds, once so sharp and clear, seemed muted, far off. Smell, a sense that had been stronger than vision to him, seemed stifled and blunt. The flavours he had known — the laden breezes of the forest, the teeming airs of the meadows, the tarry stink of far-off oceans, the million rots of bog and fen — were gone. In their place was the thin palette of human perceptions.

Aelis had called the horse — a big brindled mare. The animal had come trotting out of the woods to wait beside her while she helped him up.

The two travelled north to the coast and then turned east. Aelis easily found the way through the vast forest, guided by a rune that shone like a beacon. The other horses she had taken from the Raven and his companions followed them at the beginning of their journey. Then she raised her hand to dismiss them and they turned into the deep woods.

Jehan was finding the going very hard physically, almost impossible. His body chafed with the movement of the horse, his joints ached and his muscles trembled. His mind came back to him and he often wept with the memory of the things he had done, the people he had killed.

Aelis was beside him. ‘Do you want me to take off the stone for a moment?’

‘I cannot give in to murder.’

She nodded. The girl she had been was just like a movement of the light inside her, a rainbow that appeared in a fleeting alignment of sun and cloud and then was gone, as the runes took her mind once more.

When she did return to herself she longed for him — his voice, his touch but the confessor’s voice was weakening, his limbs no more use than dead branches to a tree.

Aelis knew they could not go on much further. She sensed people in the woods, watching from the darkness,