Blood Eye(2)

After the time it takes to put a keen edge on a knife nothing had taken the hook, and I thought about trying another spot where I had once pulled in a rough-skinned fish as long as my leg with wicked, sharp teeth. It was then that I caught a strange sound between the rhythmic breathing of the surf. I wedged the rod in a crevice, the line still in the sea, and scrambled higher up the rocks above the shingle. But I saw nothing other than the sea-stirred vapour, which seemed alive like some strange beast writhing before me, concealing and revealing the ocean time and again. I heard only the shrieks of white gulls and the breaking waves, and was about to jump down when I heard the strange sound again.





This time I froze like an icicle. My muscles gripped my bones rigid. The breath caught fast in my chest and cold fear crept up my spine, prickling my scalp. The thin hollow note of a horn sounded again, and then came the rhythmic slap of oars. As if conjured from the spirit world, a dragon emerged, a wooden beast with a belly of clinkered strakes, which flowed up into its slender neck. The monster's head was set with faded red eyes, and I wanted to run but I was stuck to the rock like the limpets, fixed by the stare of a great bearded warrior who stood with one arm round the monster's neck. His beard parted, revealing a malicious smile, then the boat's keel scraped up the shingle with a noise like thunder and men were jumping from the ship, sliding on the wet rocks and falling and splashing into the surf. Guttural voices echoed off the rocks behind me and my bowels melted. Another dragon ship must have beached further down the shore beyond Hermit's Rock. Men with swords and axes and round painted shields stepped from the mist, their war gear clinking noisily to shatter the unnatural stillness. They gathered round me like wolves, pointing east and west, their hard voices rousing shrieks from gulls overhead. I mumbled a prayer to Christ and His saints that my death would be quick, as the warrior from the ship's prow stepped up and grabbed my throat. He shoved me at another heathen who gripped my shoulder with a powerful hand. This one wore a green cloak fastened with a silver brooch in the shape of a wolf's head. I saw the iron rings of a mail shirt, a brynja, beneath the cloak and I retched.





Now, after all these years, I might essay a few untruths. I doubt any still live who could prove my words false. I could say that I stuck out my chest and took a grip of my fear. That I did not piss myself. But who would believe me? These outlanders leaping from their dragons were armed and fierce. They were warriors and grown men. And I was just a boy. A strange and frightening magic fell across me then. The outlanders' sharp language began to change, seemed to melt, the percussive clipped grunts becoming a stream of sounds that were somehow familiar. I swallowed some of the fear, my tongue beginning to move over these noises like water over pebbles, awakening to them, and I heard myself repeating them until they became no longer just noises, but words. And I understood them.





'But look at his eye, Uncle!' the man with the wolf brooch said. 'He is marked. Óðin god of war has given him a clot of blood for an eye. On my oath, I feel the All-Father breathing down my neck.'





'I agree with Sigurd,' another said, his eyes slits of suspicion. 'The way he appeared in the mist was not natural. You all saw it. The vapour became flesh! Any normal man would have run from her.' He pointed to the ship with its carved dragon's head. 'But this one stood here as if he was . . . as if he was waiting for us. I want no part in his death, Sigurd,' he finished, shaking his head.





I prayed they would not see the fishing rod in the crack in the rock and I hoped the mackerel were still asleep, for mackerel fight like devils and if one took my hook the line would jump and the heathens would see me for what I was.





'I can help you,' I spluttered, buoyed suddenly by the hope that the outlanders were lost, blown off course on the way to who knew where?





'You speak Norse, boy?' Wolf Brooch asked, his strong, weathered face open now. The others were spreading out cautiously and peering northwards through the mist. 'I am Sigurd son of Harald. We are traders,' he said, staring at me as though wondering what I was. 'We have furs and amber and bone. The bellies of our ships are full of good things the English will like. We will trade with them' – he grinned – 'if they have anything we want.' I did not believe they were traders, for they wore ring-mail and leather and carried the tools of death. But I was young and afraid and did not want to die. 'Take us to the nearest village,' Sigurd demanded, his eyes so piercing it took all my nerve to look into them, and, just as no mackerel had swallowed my hook, I knew this man would not swallow my lie.





'Hurry, boy, we have much to give the English,' a giant red-haired heathen with rings on his arms said, grinning and clutching the sword's hilt at his waist.