‘Are you bringing me to him?’
‘No. I am trying to save you. If not now then in times and lives to come.’
‘That is sacrilege.’
The woman took her by the shoulders. ‘Look at me,’ she said. ‘I have lived to see men born, grow old and die, though I have never aged. I have been the mother to a god’s sons, again and again. I tire of seeing the same boys born, knowing they only exist to satisfy a god’s need for sacrifice. Sacrilege, maybe. Truth, yes.’
Beatrice took a pace backwards. The woman scared her and Beatrice was convinced she was mad.
‘What do you intend to do to me?’
‘At the waters we will see. You need courage.’
‘I have none.’
‘Then you need endurance. The rope will provide your courage.’ She touched Beatrice’s bound hands then turned to the Vikings. ‘Keep going. Soon the way will become harder.’
‘If it’s open,’ said one of the men.
‘It will be open.’
‘The one on the hill wasn’t open and you foresaw that.’
‘This is the way we are destined to come. The Norns have woven our thread,’ said the woman.
Down and further down into the dark. The court slippers Beatrice wore were completely inadequate and quickly fell to pieces, but there was no respite for her bleeding feet.
‘This is ridiculous,’ she said. ‘I can’t escape. Why am I tied?’
They said nothing, but when they came to the tighter crawls untied her. Beatrice shuddered at the start of those breathless squeezes and several times panic took her as the lamplight was obscured for a moment and darkness came down. Her belly was so big and she instinctively sought to protect it. She was a small woman, which was lucky. Bollason had to remove all his clothing and crawl through naked. At one point his men had to tie his hands and pull him through. He made no complaint, just stood up smiling, filthy and obscenely nude at the other end.
‘Don’t think of one of your women while you’re in there, Bolli. If you get a hard-on we’ll never get you out,’ said a Viking. They all seemed to find this hilarious.
Splashing and shouting ahead. Flints sparked, lamps lit. Bollason picked up his sword, not bothering to dress. Beatrice had not noticed the sword before — a curious curved thing. She had never seen its like. Bollason hurried forward into the dark, two men behind him, one with a lamp.
Beatrice heard a shout. ‘Ragnar’s here! He’s hurt!’
The rest of Vikings ran down the passage, the woman following. There was no thought of tying Beatrice now — they knew they were too far in — but like a lost ship she followed any light.
The tunnel dipped and then widened. To her left a broad pool of water spread out into darkness, the reflections of the lamps shimmering like buried treasure among its pillars. On the floor lay a man, tall, lean, white- haired. She put her hand to her mouth when she saw him. He had arrived at her father’s court only days before she left. He was a cousin of Lord Richard and, it was said, the fiercest warrior who had ever sprung from the north. He had come for only one reason. To take her home and — she knew her father — to kill Loys. Mauger was his name.
Was he dead? Had God blessed her? No. He was coming out of a stupor. One of the Vikings brought him water from the pool.
‘You are a great warrior, Ragnar,’ Bollason was saying, ‘and to honour you I shall not let you die. Give him the drink.’
A Viking put a horn to Mauger’s lips. Mauger whispered something.
‘He’s raving,’ said the Viking.
‘He spared me,’ said Mauger. ‘He spared me.’
‘Who?’
‘The boy, for the service I did him.’
‘Which boy?’
‘Snake in the Eye.’
Bollason took the horn himself and put it back to Mauger’s lips.
‘That is an odd fellow. I have seen him too cowardly to strike another youth who called him womanly. Yet I have seen him charge the Greeks, a hero in every appearance.’
‘My life is a flame. He blew upon it and knocked me down.’
‘Troll work!’ said Bollason.
‘Seid magic,’ said the woman with the scarred face. ‘If the boy spared Ragnar and left him like this then we need look no further for the source of the deaths that have been stalking the city.’
‘We will kill him and win great honour with the emperor!’ said a Viking Beatrice had heard called Gregnir.
‘That may be,’ said the woman, ‘or it may not. We must get to the waters.’
Mauger came back to himself.
‘They’ve gone through those waters,’ he said. ‘The way is not easy. I have tried it.’
‘Beneath the pool?’ said the woman.
‘Yes.’
‘It is as was foreseen. Bolli, this will test even your courage.’
‘What do I need to do?’
‘Go under there and emerge the other side.’
‘If there is another side,’ said Gregnir.
‘There is,’ said the woman.
‘I cannot go in there!’ Beatrice couldn’t control herself. She heard her voice echoing off the cavern walls. Mauger glanced up at her, a faint smile of recognition on his face.
‘You can and you will,’ said the woman. ‘Bolli, you will take the rope. If you make it to the other side you can pull the rest of us through. It will be easier for those who go second.’
Mauger sat like a troll in the torchlight, his gaze unmoving upon her. What choice? The waters or here with him.
‘You said “they” had gone beneath the waters,’ said the woman.
‘Yes, Vala, a wolfman and the scholar Loys too,’ said Mauger.
‘You are looking to kill the wolfman?’
‘No, lady, the scholar.’ His gaze never left Beatrice. She leaped forward to strike at him, but Gregnir caught her.
‘He’s talking about my husband. Half my fortune to the man who strikes him down.’
‘You have no fortune, lady,’ said Mauger. ‘Your father will pay no dowry for you now.’
‘If you help us we will give her to you,’ said the vala.
‘No!’ said Beatrice. No one answered.
‘I will pay a man to stay here with the lady while I fetch the scholar,’ said Mauger.
‘Not possible,’ said Bollason. ‘She must come with us. If your scholar is on the other side then you will have both your quarries together.’
Mauger kept staring at Beatrice. ‘I won’t let any harm come to her,’ he said.
‘What harm comes to any of us is in the lap of the Norns,’ said Bollason. ‘You are a mighty man, Ragnar, and a bold killer. But so am I. Widows curse my name from the shores of Britannia to the Caliphate. You know my fame.’
Beatrice shivered. She recognised what was happening. Her father had done his best to take on French ways when he arrived in Neustria, but in an argument or a fight he went back to being the Viking he had been. His language would become elevated, more ornate in a clear message to his enemy — ‘I am preparing to write myself into a saga. This is how heroes talk.’
‘I do,’ said Mauger, ‘though I should like to test your worth.’
Bollason raised his sword but the old woman stilled him with a glance.
‘The way out is sealed,’ she said to Mauger. ‘Three hundred men guard the Numera now, and in the unlikely event you could cut down Bolli, you would not escape them. Nor me.’
