'The boy thinks the English might come, Sigurd,' he said, touching his sword's hilt for good luck and looking at me. I moved closer.
'They were suspicious, lord,' I said, glancing at Olaf. 'It was in their eyes.'
Sigurd's brow darkened. 'I will not run from them, Glum,' he said. 'Óðin does not favour cowards.' Glum's face flushed red against the darkening sky and he seemed about to speak, but instead turned his back on Sigurd and marched away. 'Take off the patch, Raven.' Sigurd was looking at me, his beard broken by a thin smile.
'Raven?' I said, relieved to be untying the sodden linen strip that covered my blood-eye.
He nodded. 'The All-Father has two ravens, Hugin and Munin. Mind and memory. At night, these great birds perch on his shoulders, but every morning they fly away to see what is happening in the world. They are Óðin's messengers and since you are from the All-Father, you remind me of them.' He pointed to Black Floki and the others. 'Besides, you can't expect them to call you by an English name. It sticks in their throats.'
'Raven,' I said under my breath, feeling the word on my tongue.
'Raven,' Sigurd affirmed. Then he nodded to Olaf who stepped up and handed me a sword in a leather-bound scabbard. I took it with trembling hands, suddenly as mute as old Ealhstan. Sigurd smiled and gripped my shoulder, then the two of them moved back to the fire, leaving me holding the weapon as though it were the greatest treasure in all the world.
Ealhstan was watching me and there was sadness in his face as undeniable as the deep creases betraying his years. But I did not care, for I had been given a sword. So it was that the name given to me two years before by the man who had found me died. And because I was dark-haired, unlike most of the Norsemen, and because Sigurd believed I was from Óðin All- Father, I became Raven.
I watched the meat turning above the embers of a spent fire, but my mind rested elsewhere and I realized that the warmth I felt came not from the fire, but from pride. These men, adventurers and warriors, had accepted me into their Fellowship and their jarl had named me. Raven. I liked the name. And feared it. For though the raven is Óðin's bird, it is also a creature of carrion, a scavenger of the battlefield. A thing of death.
The meat tasted as good as it looked, but the eating was over too soon. The rain had stopped and though our clothes were still damp, we were content. Our bellies were full and our blood was strengthened, and by the time the moon silvered the dark ridged sea we sat around rekindled fires, laughing and singing. As always, young Eric's voice was the sweet honey to the others' coarse oats, and sometimes they would stop singing so they could listen to his melody, which quivered gently and rolled like the waves. Glum seemed no longer angry with his jarl and the two men banged their ale horns together as they drank, spilling the liquid into their beards and down their tunics.
'Those filth-loving halfwits must have swallowed Raven's tale about us being pilgrims of the White Christ!' Ingolf said, his gap-toothed smile glinting in the firelight.
'Well, I am embarrassed about that,' Glum slurred. 'Fucking pilgrims? Were those whoresons blind? My father would fall off Óðin's mead bench to hear us mistaken for slaves of the White Christ.'
Sigurd grinned. 'Your father and mine likely shook Valhöll's timbers years ago, Glum, when they challenged the All-Father to a drinking contest and fell on their faces,' he said, crashing his cup against Glum's, and laughter rang out into the night.
But I could not forget about the man with the drooping moustache and his vicious-looking friend, so I decided to keep watch from the moonlit rise above the beach. 'If Bram is asleep,' Olaf called, snatching a burning stick from the fire and waving it at me, 'set light to the drunken swine's beard!' And I smiled and nodded, standing for a while to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. Then, with the sword at my waist, I began to climb.
Bram the Bear, who had taken over sentry duty from Thorolf, was as famous among the Norsemen for his love of strong mead as he was for his ability to put it away. But as I pulled myself over the last grassy lip, I saw I would not need to wake him. Bram was down on one knee behind his round shield.
'Get down, lad,' he growled, peering into the darkness. 'We've got guests.'
'How many?' I asked, glancing at the horn strung over Bram's back. The blood pumped deep inside my ears.
Bram shrugged his broad shoulders. He looked left and right, scanning the shimmering oaks and hornbeams that covered the hilly ground. 'Some of the bastards are close,' he murmured. 'I keep catching their stink on the wind.'
I looked back down to the beach where the fires danced and the Norsemen lay unaware of the danger. 'We run now,' I hissed, 'and warn the others.'