Blood Eye(14)

As the sun fell to the sea, I sat at the stern, hugging my knees. The seasickness had weakened me, my stomach was empty and I wondered if the heathens would at last come for us, their blades eager to finish what they had begun at Abbotsend. I ran a calloused hand along one of the vessel's oak ribs, my fingers following the grain of the wood to the point where the rib met a hull strake as though the two smooth timbers were one. 'It's beautiful work, Ealhstan, you can't deny it,' I said. He huffed, then frowned and nodded reluctantly. 'Men used to call them surf dragons, least that's what Griffin told me once.' He nodded again. 'Surf dragons,' I whispered under my breath. I had asked Griffin about the name and he had laughed and said that we like to frighten ourselves half the time. He had shaken his head. Good oak is all they are, he had said. Good oak and pine worked by men who know the adze as they know the sea.





'Did you ever see one, Ealhstan?' I asked. He shook his head and raised his eyebrows as though he had never thought to find himself riding the grey sea in one either. Some came across the sea when Griffin was a boy. They say those were the first. At least that was when the priests began telling their stories and filling men's hearts with fear and their heads with nightmares. The Devil's ministers had come to defile God's houses and shit on saints' relics. That's what they told us. So men had sharpened their swords and made limewood shields, but the heathens never came. Not to Abbotsend. 'They're here now, old man,' I said, watching the Norsemen and wondering if Christ was planning some terrible vengeance on them for the death of His children at Abbotsend.





A wave broke over the top strake, drenching us. Ealhstan coughed and I wiped my eyes and ran my fingers along the smooth oak planks again. Griffin had been wrong. This surf dragon was more than oak and pine, much more. It rode the sea as though the waves were its subjects. And it was beautiful. My mind carried me back to the days I had spent with the oaks in the forest, always searching for the longest, curving limbs even though we had no use for them. How many such branches had been hewn and shaped to make Jarl Sigurd's ships? How many men had laboured, felling trees, splitting timber, drilling holes and tarring joints? I noticed a drip of tar that had set just below a dark knot in the strake at my shoulder. It looked like a tear beneath an eye and I picked it off with a nail, bringing it to my nose. It smelled sweet.





'Come here, boy,' Sigurd called. He stood on the mast support, one arm round the thick pole as the wind that rounded the sail blew his yellow hair across his face. I did not move. If old Ealhstan was not afraid, I would not be afraid either. 'The fishes must eat too,' Sigurd said, his voice edged with threat. 'But they would find you a sorry meal, I think. Come here, Red Eye.'





I got to my feet and stumbled into a Norseman who cursed and shoved me away as though he'd been burned. My legs had not yet learned the rhythm of the sea. I tried to bend them with the ship's roll. 'Do you know who this is?' Sigurd asked, tugging the small carving of a one-eyed man which hung at his throat.





'It is Óðin, the chief of your gods, lord,' I replied, remembering how Sigurd's godi had drawn Griffin's lungs out of his back. 'The Blood Eagle was done for him. A heathen sacrifice.'





'How do you know of Óðin All-Father?' he asked, his eyes narrowed. 'Your people worship the White Christ. The Christians shout that our gods are dead. Yet we kill the English and take their silver. We go where we please and your Christ does nothing to stop us. How can our gods be dead?' He clenched a fist. 'We are the spearhead of our people. We are the first. Do you think we could cross the angry northern sea if our gods were dead and could not watch over us?'





I shrugged. 'Wulfweard our priest says those who worship false gods are the Devil's turds.' But Wulfweard was dead, killed by the man standing before me. 'That is what he used to say,' I said.





'That fat man with the cross who tried to poison me? That red-faced pig's bladder?' I nodded. 'Did you like him?' Sigurd asked, as though he'd tasted something foul.





'No, lord,' I replied. 'He was a toad's arsehole.'





Sigurd nodded. 'It was a good thing to kill the priest. He talked too much.' He smiled. 'I have not known many Christians, but all of them were in love with their own voices. The toad's arsehole said you are from Satan. Satan is your devious god? Like our Loki? Loki weaves more schemes than a hall full of women.'





'Satan is not a god. There is only one God,' I said.





Sigurd laughed loudly. 'Fish puke!' he exclaimed. 'There are many gods, boy!' He waved at the sky. 'How could one god keep watch over so many men? There would be chaos! One god?' The other Norsemen laughed too, shaking their heads so that their plaits bounced as they played their games or worked on their carvings.