Blood Eye(46)

Though we half expected the English to attack us at any moment, they did not, and so friends greeted each other wearily and recounted what had happened to them. The sun rose still higher, warming our stiff bodies. Ealdred gave us time and space to look to our dead. Apart from white-haired Eric, three more had been killed in the fight outside the hall, making eleven in all who would never again take their places at Serpent's oars: Sigtrygg, Njal, Oleg, Eyjolf, Gunnlaug, Northri, Thorkel, Thobergur, Eysteinn, tall Ivar with the good eyesight, and Eric, son of Olaf. We wrapped them in their cloaks and carried them up a goat path to an outcrop that overlooked a sheltered cove. A rock was lashed to each corpse to take it down to the sea-bed, for there was no time to burn the bodies, and Sigurd preferred them to rot in seawater than Christian soil.





'Njörd Lord of the Sea will take them,' he said, 'to sit in Valhöll with their ancestors.' The heathens were quiet now, absent the laughter that usually followed them like gulls after a fishing skiff. I have learned how the death of a friend can tear out your guts. I watched the Norsemen carry the bodies of those they had known since childhood, when they played in the same trees and listened at the mead hall door to their drunken fathers' tales of battles and sea monsters and girls in far-off lands. I watched Olaf bear his dead son in his arms the way he must have done when Eric was a babe. Before he was wrapped in his cloak, the young Norseman's face looked peaceful; white like his hair. His father's face, beneath the bushy beard, was drawn. And wet.





When it was done, Sigurd shouldered his great shield and gripped his ash spear. His men took this to mean they should prepare themselves, and soon we were ready to set off in search of the holy gospel book of Saint Jerome. Glum had suggested we sail up the east coast and head inland along the river Thames into Mercia, but Ealdred and his men had laughed scornfully.





'I will honour our agreement, Ealdred, on my father's sword you have my word,' Sigurd said, affronted by the derision.





'Your word means spit to me, heathen,' Ealdred said, 'but I know what your longships mean to you. You walk to Coenwulf's land, or they will be ash carried on the tide.'





Sigurd's face twisted, his thick beard trembling, and I felt the rage come off him like heat from a hearthstone. For a moment I hoped he would kill Ealdred. He turned to his men, for a heartbeat holding the eye of Svein the Red and Black Floki and stony-faced Olaf, then he nodded.





'A jarl should be generous,' he said, addressing his Fellowship, 'and no jarl ever sailed with better men. It is right that your journey chests should bulge with a king's silver, and an English king's hoard is as good as any.' Then he turned back to Ealdred, resting his left hand on his sword's lobed pommel. 'A book for a treasure hoard?' He laughed, shaking his golden head. 'I will never understand Englishmen.'





And so, though in truth we had little choice, Jarl Sigurd somehow made it seem that we held the advantage and stood to gain much more than the English. There was no shame in the Norseman's face as he explained the plan to his men, filling their heads with visions of silver. Then we prepared to set off north on foot towards the kingdom of Mercia and the gospel book that would make us rich.





A score of English warriors clambered into the longships, torches burning in their hands, and Knut cursed them for fools for taking fire on to seasoned timbers caulked with tarred rope. Serpent was already scarred with burn marks. But there was nothing the Norsemen could do now except despise those who threatened Serpent and Fjord-Elk, and our mood darkened again as we made ready to leave. The main body of Ealdorman Ealdred's force had retreated up the steep hillside to the high ground to lessen the risk of a fight breaking out, for they feared us still, and their spear wall resembled a palisade, shield bosses and spear tips glinting in the afternoon light. I was watching them when I heard Black Floki curse.





'What in the name of Frigg's tits is the Christ slave doing?' he asked, nodding at Father Egfrith. The monk was hawking spit into his cupped hand and dipping a small knife into it.





'I think he's shaving his face,' Olaf said, staring in wonderment.





Floki touched his own beard, then his sword hilt for luck. 'And why would a man wear women's skirts?' he asked, his face a frown beneath the black beard. 'We are Sword-Norse, Uncle! And we're travelling with that?'





'He can wear a silk headscarf and a pair of tits so long as he makes us rich, lad,' Olaf said, slapping Floki's shoulder. 'You ever seen a Christ book?' Floki shook his head, still bemused. 'Well he has,' Olaf said, pointing at Egfrith, 'and that's why Ealdred is sending the little man with us.'