Raven of the Waves Page 8

  Egil and Berg did not show their excitement, but Lidsmod knew them well enough to see the blood in their cheeks.

  Ulf was back before all the weapons could be unloaded from the ships. Many peaked roofs, Ulf panted, and a gold fortress. “There were men there too,” he said. “Men with hammers.”

  “You’re sure there’s a gold fortress?” asked Gunnar.

  “It’s not finished,” said Ulf, breathing more easily. “They’re building a tall stone tower. Men are chiseling stone, and lifting it.”

  Stone walls, thought Lidsmod, testing the blade of his small ax on his thumb. There must be a great treasure to be guarded here. He looked around at the eager faces, men he had always known.

  He prayed to the God of Strength that his friends might live to see night.

  16

  Wiglaf and Stag had taken the sheep to the end of the abbey land. They had to pass the aldwark, an ancient crumbling mass of stone half tumbled into the green pasture. Aethelwulf had explained that Roman armies had built this fortress centuries ago, and Wiglaf’s father had told the colorful local tale about a giant’s wife needing to build a cupboard to cool her massive loaves.

  Wiglaf did not peer closely into the shadows of the aldwark. He did not want to discover whether Roman spirits or giant phantoms inhabited the place. Forni had said he knew a pig herder who saw a skeleton warrior one Midsummer’s night, grinning fleshlessly from behind a wall.

  Stag did everything that had to be done without prompting. He did not have to nip the sheep. The animals sensed his presence, and the dog encircled them with an invisible cord that held them together in a bunch, the sheep seeming almost fond of their crooked-jawed guardian.

  Wiglaf ate a wedge of abbey cheese at midday. As he finished, he heard the first cuckoo of spring. It was distant, far into the forest, its deliberate you too coming at times from more than one direction as the unseen bird turned his head one way, and then another. Cuckoos were notoriously difficult to spy.

  Far away, tiny mites against the green, his father and twin brothers dragged an oak toward the village. The laboring heads of the oxen rose and fell.

  Wiglaf worked the butt of his shepherd’s crook into a molehill. As afternoon shadows stretched, he and the dog worked the sheep near the river, where the grass was uncropped. The sheep did not like to look up; they liked to keep their fine teeth to the field. The sheep bell clucked. The dog blinked in the sun, making his lopsided smile.

  When Wiglaf saw the ships, he jumped up and ran to the bank. They were beautiful! Their sails were nearly entirely lowered, but they were white with scarlet stripes, and many bearded men rowed, the oars lashing the river white. The ships were fast, skimming the water, and shields lined the side of each boat. He could not breathe, watching such graceful speed.

  Ships passed Dunwic often on their way to the city. They were always freight ships, with a few dark-tanned men aboard their slow, heavy-burdened vessels. The men on the ships rarely took an interest in Dunwic or its people. Sometimes Wiglaf would wave, and a sailor might wave back. But these three ships were not like any Wiglaf had ever seen before. These were sleek, long vessels, with more sailors than usually manned any river craft.

  Wiglaf could not think of the words, but his blood and his breath answered the glory of these ships. These were like beings out of Heaven.

  The men were looking at him. They had golden hair, and their eyes took him in. These were not the faces of trading men.

  The rowing stopped at a command Wiglaf could just hear.

  Wiglaf dropped his crook and ran. He ran across the field, leaving the sheep untended.

  He ran until his side ached and his eyes wept, but he did not stop.

  Brother Aelle was sharpening a quill with his blade. Wiglaf could not speak, trying to catch his breath.

  “Whatever could it be?” asked the brother with a slight, lingering cough.

  “Ships!” called Wiglaf. “Ships—filled with strangers!”

  The brother was a scribe, an inkster of holy texts. His life was quiet, and perhaps he was pleased to be distracted for a moment by some news from the outside world. “Indeed, ships—how wonderful,” he said kindly. “On the river, no doubt.”

  “These are not river ships!”

  “How exciting!” said the brother, coughing.

  “Where is Father Aethelwulf?”

  Brother Aelle brushed his lower lip with the white goose feather. “He hurried forth again,” he said. When he saw Wiglaf’s impatience, he added, “Some further illness in the village. That mud cutter’s wife you visited recently. It seems she has swallowed her tongue.”

  Wiglaf ran.

  17

  Wiglaf ran hard to his father’s house and danced into the manure-scented half darkness where Sigemund was unyoking the oxen. The yoke left dark sweat patches. The ox hair was swirled and spoked, and the two beasts turned their massive heads to gaze at Wiglaf with dull curiosity.

  “So, little Wiglaf comes to see his father yet again—can’t stay away, can you, lad?” said his father, in a manner which was almost friendly. “And without his dog. Where’s your dog?”

  Wiglaf started. Stag would be hurt! But then he steadied himself. What ships would trouble sheep, or a small, lean dog? But he reminded himself that his place was not here either watching oxen give him their flat, stupid stare. He had to warn the abbot.

  Being in the presence of his father always steadied Wiglaf, or at least made him cautious. Just now he began to believe that all of his worries were the concerns of a fool.

  “There are ships,” said Wiglaf weakly.

  “Ships.”

  “Strange ships,” Wiglaf added, knowing how pointless he sounded.

  “Strange ships?” echoed his father, with something like gentleness.

  “Three.”

  His father found the hay fork.

  “And,” Wiglaf continued, thinking there was no purpose in stopping now, “a ship army.”

  “A ship army? A ship army floated past you on the river?” His father said the words for ship army—scip here—with special humor. He shook hay from the wooden tines. “Is that what you saw, Wiglaf? A mighty army floating by you on the river?”

  “Yes,” Wiglaf croaked.

  His father laughed. “Wiglaf, when I was a boy I shoveled shit. With that very shovel, worn smooth by my father’s hands, God keep him.” He indicated the broad, worn wooden shovel hanging on the wall. “I didn’t learn how to read or how to write.”

  He leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. “I did things that made me strong, and made my mind clear. I didn’t stand around looking at whatever happened to be floating by on the river, did I? So, what if there is for some reason a ship army? It has nothing to do with Wiglaf, or with me, or with anyone here, does it?”

  But Sigemund gave a thoughtful frown as he fingered the points of his hayfork.

  Aethelwulf hurried up the muddy street. “Frea is like a stone!” said Alfred the clay cutter. “Lying on the floor, her mouth agape, and going all over blue.”

  Aethelwulf prayed to Saint Anne, the patroness of troubled women, who understood their problems. He had to stop for a moment to catch his breath and lifted a hand to win the clay cutter’s patience.

  A maiden of the village was smiling from a doorway, offering him a plate of fresh-baked bread, and the abbot could not help lingering for one stolen moment, breathing the delicious yeasty fragrance. He had no time to take a taste, even though long experience told him that poor Frea was beyond all human aid.

  He heard a cry and turned.

  He saw the blood first. A man ran toward him down the muddy street, his face scarlet with it. The incredibly bright blood coursed and trickled even as the man ran. Blood washed the man’s tunic. That a man could run with so much blood flowing from his head was grotesque. And when the man spoke, his teeth were white within the scarlet mask.

  The man was an impossible apparition, jabbering at Aethelwulf. The poor creature held him with
a bloody hand. It was Edgar the fowler, a man who lived at the edge of the village, near the river, where the damp earth rose up in puddles that favored the raising of ducks.

  “Strangers, Father!” cried the injured man, sinking to his knees. “They’re killing everything that lives!”

  18

  Gunnar offered instructions, the men nodding as they listened.

  Njord and a few men from Crane would stay with the ships. The rest would march with their own crews, and if there was any attack, they would form three wedges, the leadman at the point of each. Lidsmod would come with the fighting men but stay well away from the shield wall. “Protect our rear,” said Gunnar. Lidsmod was being spared the greatest danger, and he was both grateful and resentful.

  There should have been darkness. There should have been more information about the land that lay ahead and around them. But there was no time. They had the old advantage, a warrior’s simplest trick—surprise.

  Every man realized this. The bosses of the leather-covered shields gleamed in the sunlight. Men adjusted belts and worked their heads into the peaked helmets. Sword belts were loosened, and mail chinked as men settled it around their shoulders. A few men wore such mail, and some had leather guards for their shins.

  Each man was ready, in his own way. Gunnar drew Keen and let her cut the air with a whisper. Ulf lifted Long and Sharp. This ancient sword would eat its fill today, Lidsmod thought, envying his stout shipmate.

  Lidsmod hefted his small ax. His limbs tingled. Every blade of grass was sharp in his eyes. The land had a smell of ripeness.

  Horses were useless in battle, Lidsmod had heard. They were good only for travel over land. Two legs planted on a field were all a man needed. The shield bearers began to stride forward. No one spoke. Raven’s men swung to the right, across a pasture. The wet earth squelched under their leather soles. Sheep stirred and began to run in that curious, easy panicked way of such animals, but the men ignored them.

  Gunnar strode ahead. They would slaughter a few sheep on their way back, Lidsmod thought, for food. As much as men admired courage, no man wanted to be in a situation that required it. Lidsmod had heard the firelight fighting lore, long into the nights of his boyhood. It was always better to strike quickly, by surprise. Gunnar quickened his pace.

  Gorm began to run, pushing himself ahead of the ragged line of men. Gunnar ran too, remaining just ahead of Gorm. What a sight they all were in Lidsmod’s eyes. Swords, axes, spearheads gleaming, each man gaining speed.

  Surely this settlement was alarmed, Lidsmod thought, surely there would be men rallying to protect it. The men from Spjothof would slaughter them all. They ran recklessly now, and this was dangerous because some, such as Ulf and Trygg, were bad runners—strong oarsmen, thick-necked and deep-chested, but heavy-footed.

  A man in ugly, shaggy wool clothing stood surrounded by ducks and duck-soiled mud. The man raised a cry, and Gunnar gestured. A man from Landwaster cut at the man, knocking him down, then laid about him, scattering duck feathers.

  A town beyond leafless trees: roofs and a half-built tower and a gold fortress, surely that’s what it was. They did not even have to enter the town to find the gold! This was indeed a great gift, thought Lidsmod. And the little town itself, with its mud-yellow walls and its far-off timbered hall, did not look so poor. There would be gold in some of these dwellings. A rooster stretched his neck, his red plume arched like a scythe.

  They were a surf of men, like a battle force in a saga, a sword tide.

  A boy ran toward them, hurrying to reach the refuge of these stone buildings. Lidsmod recognized the shepherd with the withered arm. The youth twisted in his stride and hurried into the gold fortress.

  The rooster fled, a single, copper-bright feather floating in the air. Workmen stood at the base of the stonework; one held a hammer. They wore the plain gray tunics of thralls. One or two of them might have made good slaves. These were not weak men, but they had stupid looks of amazement. One man did, in fact, wield a hammer. It was a wooden maul, though, not a mighty Thor hammer, and Gorm and Ulf made quick work of the laborers before they could rally.

  Blood winged into the air, and swords made the squeal of steel cutting bone. As the stoneworkers began to fight back, hammers fumbled for and found, feet slopped in scarlet mud. One worker banged a steel rod off Ulf’s sword and then ran. He easily outsprinted the heavier swordsmen, but this caused great laughter among the men from Spjothof. Battle was not a foot race!

  Gunnar directed men to watch the exits of the gold fortress, lest men try to flee with gold. But above all, he directed them to watch for a counterattack. Lidsmod had heard the battle tales. Too many wise, stalwart men had died from a spear in the back. Even the men of Spjothof would kill a man from behind—it was so much easier. And so in this land of weak men, treachery was expected.

  The men of Spjothof surrounded the corpses of the workingmen, stabbing the bodies experimentally, and to give steel its blood taste. Lidsmod hacked at a leg, a hairy, sweat-gleaming limb. His small ax bit the flesh and left a red slice.

  Then they spread out as Gunnar directed. The door to the gold fortress was blocked, but Ulf kicked it easily aside. Would the fighting men of this country ever show their faces? Lidsmod joined a small group that entered the gold refuge.

  It was nearly dark inside, with a sweet, perfumed smoke in the air. Men sometimes hid in a dark place like this, and then speared the intruders. It was a stupid way to fight, but a trapped stoat fought this way—and was often very difficult to kill, as Lidsmod knew from hunts with his boyhood friends.

  Gorm wrenched open a shuttered window. Daylight fanned into the hall and ignited gold on a table at the hall’s end. One of the men picked up a bench and splintered it against a wall. There were other benches, and these were splintered too.

  Gunnar directed a guard to the side door. A counterattack was always most deadly at a time like this, when men were gold-stunned. Because, without question, Odin had guided them to treasure.

  19

  Gorm hefted a large gold object shaped like a sword hilt. It was a curious object, and Lidsmod did not like to see Gorm handling it so roughly; it could be dwarf craft and have some unknowable power. Gorm bit into it. He gave Lidsmod a smile. “Gold, pure as mare’s milk,” he said.

  A figure had been crafted from this rare metal—a bleeding man, magically wrought. If this was a sword hilt, Lidsmod would hate to see the blade that went with this hiltlike shape, or the man who wielded it.

  There were rich stones, Lidsmod knew, in the goblet Opir found, and in the mead cup Gorm held into the light from the window, laughing.

  Gold everywhere! Dark pictures of men with heads of fire were, if held into the light, made of gold leaf. Floki had found an ash shaft with a shepherd’s crook of gold, and there were robes that were certainly silk. This was a wealth cavern, a jewel hoard. All of this was rare and valuable, and some of it was too strange to be assayed in this hurried way.

  “Bring all of it,” Gunnar commanded. But it was an unnecessary directive. The men knew what to do.

  Axes splintered wood. The hall was torn apart; even the cracks between stones were scraped and tested with knives. When the hall had been searched and the contents, both useless and rich, piled outside in the late-day sun, Gunnar directed the search of the side hall to begin.

  Opir held up a skin with magical runes. Gunnar ordered it taken, although he told Lidsmod it was impossible to guess what worth it might have. Ulf dragged a robed man into the dying light and cut his throat. Fireside talk in recent months had described such men, unarmed inhabitants of these treasure places. The dying man wore a wooden bleeding-man shape on a leather thong. As he died he sputtered a stream of fervent words and gripped the wooden carving hard, as though to squeeze it of its power.

  Ulf hurried back into the side hall, but a scarred old seaman from Landwaster and another from Crane had just killed another three men. They had been hiding in a huge, beautifully wrought chest, crowded
together, trembling, uttering pleas or curses, words unknowable but plainly magical in intent. The two swordsmen killed them quickly and without interest, then dragged the bodies outside, where they stripped them, to see how such weak men were built.

  Ulf and Gorm flung open chests, emptied shelves of clay pots, and, as they stopped to thrust swords into the ashes of a central hearth, a figure rose from the dead coals. It ran as Lidsmod looked on, too surprised to seize the running legs.

  Opir laughed at the sight. The small ashy figure collided with the laughing Boaster, and Opir flung it to the floor. Gunnar emptied a pitcher of water over it, and a pale boy’s face squinted up at them. Then the boy was up, and his teeth sank into Opir where he had no armor, above his knee.

  “It’s a little weasel,” Opir laughed, and he brought the butt of his sword down on the corner of the boy’s skull. The youth with the withered arm went limp. “The first true fighter we’ve seen here,” said Opir. “And I felled him. I, Opir, the all powerful.”

  Gorm stepped to the fallen figure and lifted his sword, but Ulf’s sword, Long and Sharp, blocked the boy’s body. “I want him,” said Ulf.

  “This? You want this boy?” Gorm was nearly speechless. A man could take a slave but, with so little space on the ships, a slave had to be chosen very carefully. Only a man of great value could be taken, and usually only if ransom were a possibility. “Look at him! He’s a weak, dirty little mouse—”

  “The people of this village will pay to get him back,” Ulf said. “He’s a magic child; why else would he be here? I’ll buy him from you if you claim him.”

  Gunnar pushed Gorm aside. “This is a value place. Everything here, even the rune skins, must be valuable to the folk of this country. They’ll pay to get him back. Keep him,” he directed Ulf. “He belongs to all of us.”

  Gorm bit his lips and slashed a clay vessel to powder with his sword.