'Where are you from?' Griffin asked. 'We don't get many outlanders here.' I saw him glance away and realized he was buying time for the village women who were dragging their children towards the eastern woods, though a slamming door said at least one had chosen to stay.
'We are from Hardanger Fjord. Far to the north,' Sigurd said, 'and as I told you, we are sometimes traders.' The word sometimes cast the shadow of warning.
'Do not threaten us, heathen!' boomed Wulfweard the priest, marching from his church holding a wooden cross before him. He was a huge man, a warrior once some said, and he set himself before the Norsemen like a squared stone from his church. He eyed Sigurd fiercely. 'The Lord knows the blackness of your hearts and He will not let you bring blood to this peaceful place.' He raised the wooden cross as though the very sight of it would turn the Norsemen to dust, and in that moment I believed in the power of the Christian god. The priest turned to me, plain hatred twisting his face. 'You are one of Satan's minions, boy,' he said calmly. 'We've always known it here. And now you have brought the wolf into the fold.'
Ealhstan grunted and dismissed Wulfweard's words with the flick of an arm.
'He's right, Wulfweard,' Griffin said. 'They'd have come anyway and you know it. The lad never rowed 'em here!'
Sigurd glanced at me as he drew his sword with a rasp, and Wulfweard looked at the weapon scornfully. 'You pagans are the last of the Devil's slaves and soon you will be dust like all non-believers before you.' He grinned then, his trembling red face full of the power of his words. 'The armies of Christ are washing your filth from the world.'
Some of the Norsemen shouted for Sigurd to kill Wulfweard then, as though they feared his strange words were the weaving of some spell. But to show he had no fear of words, Sigurd turned his back on the priest, lifted his great sword and thrust it into the earth before his men. Seeing this, the Norsemen took their own swords and spears and plunged them down with grunts of effort, sinking the blades into the soil where they quivered like crops in the breeze. Sigurd turned back to Wulfweard and threw his round shield at the priest, who jumped back. It struck his shin and must have hurt, though he showed no sign of it.
'We have come to trade,' Sigurd announced to the English shieldwall. 'I swear on my father's sword,' he said, placing a palm on the earth-sheathed weapon's silver pommel, 'I mean you no harm.' He glowered at Wulfweard. 'Does your god forbid you from owning fine furs? He is a strange god who would have you freeze when the first snows cover this village.'
'We would rather our blood froze in our veins than trade with Satan's underlings,' Wulfweard spat, but Griffin stepped from his line and thrust his own sword into the earth beside Sigurd's.
'Wulfweard speaks for himself,' he said, never taking his eyes from Sigurd, 'and that is his right. But the red deer are thin on the ground this year because our king covets the silver they fetch and his men hunt them greedily. A good fur can keep a man alive. We have families.' He flicked his head towards the men behind him. 'We will trade, Sigurd.' And with that he stepped up and gripped Sigurd's arm and the two men smiled because instead of blood there would be trade. I exhaled and slapped Ealhstan's back as the folk of Abbotsend welcomed the outlanders with gestures and handshaking, and the relief of those who have avoided death by a hair's breadth.
Wulfweard strode off back to his church muttering damnation and Griffin watched him go, shaking his head. 'He's the custodian of our souls, Sigurd,' he said, 'but a man must look to his life, too. We're not dead yet. And whether you and yours pray to a dog's balls or a twisted old tree means nothing to me if we can take from each other,' he held up his hands, 'peacefully and in good faith, the things that make life better.'
Sigurd nodded. 'Ah, my own godi chews my ears often enough, Englishman,' he said, batting a hand towards Wulfweard's back. 'Let them have their sour apples. They trade in misery. We'll have our silver and furs.'
'Agreed,' Griffin said, then he frowned. 'We will have to send word to our reeve, of course. He'd spit teeth if he found out you'd landed here and not paid him his taxes.' Sigurd's own brow furrowed and he scratched his beard. 'Don't worry, Norseman,' Griffin said, putting a hand on the man's shoulder. 'If we're quick we can make our trade and you can leave before Edgar gets his fat arse down here.' He shrugged. 'We are not going to stop you sailing off, that's for sure.'
Sigurd turned. His men were pulling their weapons from the ground and cleaning their blades. 'We will keep our weapons sheathed,' he assured Griffin who, along with some of the other Englishmen, seemed suddenly anxious.