Blood Eye(35)

'I will tell you my story soon enough,' Sigurd replied, 'but not with a dry tongue. First we drink. Just one cup,' he said, holding up not one finger but three. 'To the coming trade!'





'Of course, of course! Ethelwold, bring our guests something to begin with!' Ealdred called. In no time our alderwood cups were full of sweet mead, every drop as good as promised, and soon the ealdorman's hall was filled with noise as Norse and English shared their love of strong drink. Ealdred himself sat at the head of the table between the grizzled warrior who had questioned me the previous day and another man whose face was so scarred that his mouth was frozen in a grimace.





I found myself swaying as I sat, but Gunnlaug assured me it was normal after being at sea. The Norseman leant against me, his great bulk almost knocking me off the bench whenever he moved. 'I never thought English mead would taste so good,' he said, raising his cup to Ealdred. His fair beard was dripping with the stuff, and he wiped it on the back of his arm before giving a great belch.





'Our monks make it,' Ealdred called from the end of the table. 'Fair Honey Drop, they call it, though there's nothing fair about the price. They've got barrels of the stuff hidden away at the old monastery. Clever bastards make more money than I do!' He grinned, tilted his cup at Sigurd and drank deeply.





Sigurd raised his cup, spilling mead across the table, then hesitated, perhaps remembering Wulfweard the priest who had tried to poison him with hemlock. 'To the monks!' he called, inviting his men to bang their cups together in a clattering chorus. 'Long may their god fill their barrels with Honey Drop. Hey, Uncle, Óðin himself would wet his beard with this stuff!' I heard Svein the Red's booming laughter beyond the door and remembered that those outside had been given mead too. Ealdred's servants moved around the table filling cups from bulging skins, though I noticed some, including Olaf and Black Floki, refused more, and I saw them share a look of understanding. They would not let their wits be addled.





'You men must be hungry,' Ealdred said to white-haired Eric and Thorkel beside him. The two Norsemen grinned like devils when Olaf translated and Eric replied in Norse that he was hungrier than Thór after a day's giant-killing. Ealdred did not understand the Norse, but smiled anyway and leant back, giving a command to the retainer who waited at his left shoulder. Then he turned back to us. 'Bring my salt-dried guests what they've been waiting for!' he called, slamming both hands on the table.





Ealdred's cook began to ladle the steaming stew into bowls which his slaves brought to the table and set before us, but after Wulfweard's planned treachery at Abbotsend the Norsemen were suspicious of the food and would not take their spoons near it until they saw Ealdred himself slurp some of the stuff, oblivious of their fears. Seeing this they dug in, sucking air through puckered lips to cool the stew before swallowing, and in no time at all spoons were scraping on bowls' bottoms and we were given second helpings. The stew was flavoured with cloves and rich in meat – pork, hare and a tougher flesh which might have been goat – and after the previous night's feast by the breaking surf my stomach was soon hot and full and my head was looking forward to finding a straw pillow.





I was so tired I might not have noticed the booted foot beneath the wind-stirred tapestry of the crucifixion that vanished a heartbeat later when the hanging settled again.





A stab of fear stopped my heart and I glanced at Sigurd who was laughing with Olaf, then I watched Ealdred take a small bite of a honey and almond cake as he talked quietly to the big warrior beside him, who I realized had barely wet his tongue with the mead by his right hand.





'Hey, Gunnlaug, is the White Christ snarling or smiling?' I asked, forcing a smile and nodding at the tapestry at the hall's far end.





'If that weakling can smile with his hands and feet nailed to a tree, then he's . . .' he unhinged his jaw and gave a low belch, 'more of a god than I realized,' he finished, downing more Fair Honey Drop and wiping his beard on the back of his hand.





'I'll take a closer look,' I said, pushing myself up from the mead bench and moving towards the linen hangings, stumbling as though drunk so as not to arouse Ealdred's suspicion. I stood looking into the Christ's dyed thread face, for a moment wondering if the dead eyes of that white god were truly judging me for my sins. Then I stretched out a hand and pulled the tapestry aside. A fist hammered into my face and warriors burst forward, screaming death to heathens, and suddenly the room was all swords and spears and bared teeth.





'Óðin!' Sigurd roared and the Norsemen jumped from the long benches and hurled their cups and bowls at the English.