Blood Eye(47)

Bjorn thumped the earth with his spear's butt. 'Uncle, why don't we double back tonight when it's dark? We could slaughter these bastards and be on our way.'





Olaf shook his head. 'It's just as well you're not our jarl, Bjorn.'





Bjorn shrugged his shoulders and looked at Black Floki, who grimaced.





'They'll have men and bloody firebrands in the hulls till we're long gone, Bjorn,' he said unhappily. 'I'd rather fight every Englishman between here and the northern sea than watch Serpent and Fjord-Elk burn to ash.'





'He's right, lad,' Olaf said softly, and Bjorn nodded, relenting. Olaf turned and continued barking commands at the Norsemen. It had been his and Glum's job to see that the longships were securely moored and their small holds watertight, and now he was allocating burdens of food and water for the journey. Olaf was an overbearing presence as he checked the men had their whetstones and all their war gear and made sure they looked more like gods of war than mortal men, their mail polished to a sheen and their blades honed to a vicious edge.





'He has buried his sadness very deep,' Svein the Red said, nodding towards Olaf, who was now bawling at Kon for not combing the clotted blood from his beard. Svein hefted a sack of cured meat joints on to the back of a sturdy pony, one of three supplied by Ealdred. 'He buries it the way the yew tree digs its roots far into the earth.'





'You'd think Floki was the one who'd lost a son,' I said, hanging two dozen dried codfish, strung through the gills, across the pony's neck. The black-haired Norseman was still muttering to himself as he readied his brynja, straps and huge round shield. 'He's more miserable than a fasting monk on a feast day.' The slash in my shin was filling my leg with hot pain. I would soon need to bind it in fresh linen.





Svein laughed. 'Ah, there's more chance of those fish jumping into the sea and swimming back to Hardanger Fjord than getting a smile out of Floki!' he exclaimed, rubbing the small of his back and cringing. 'Thór's balls I'm stiff. This walk will do us good, I think.'





'Forget walking, Svein,' Bjarni said, slapping the hilt of the sword at his hip, 'we'll be dancing when the rest of Wessex realize we're Norsemen. How far do you suppose we'll get? You think we'll even smell Mercia?' I thought Bjarni was right. We would never pass for Wessexmen or Mercians. Our best hope was that no English fyrd would be gathered in enough strength to fight us. Olaf knew this too, I realized, which was why he wanted us to look vicious. His hope was that any who saw us would be held rigid by fear, or driven to flight.





We took every weapon from the longships so that each man carried a short or long axe, usually strapped to his back, a spear, a long knife and a sword. Several carried bows and all had steel helmets, leather gambesons beneath mail brynjas, great round shields, and sturdy leather boots. On Bjarni's shield a snarling green dragon writhed on a red background and his was not the only fierce painted beast amongst us. Sigurd said I had done well during the fight and he even thumped my back affectionately when recounting how I had blown the war horn to make Ealdred think Glum and the others were coming to sow their slaughter. As a reward he said I could keep Njal's arms. He also said I had proved worthy of the sword he had given me on the beach. None of the other men challenged the gift, and so I fingered the sword's leather-bound grip and smooth iron pommel, hardly able to believe I now owned such things.





'It's not a pretty sword like some, but it's the quality of the blade and the arm behind it that's important,' Sigurd said. He could see my pride in the arms and he nodded, satisfied with how I looked. 'A sword is like a woman, Raven. If you look after it, it will look after you. After a time, you don't even notice the way it looks, yet its worth remains.'





'Thank you, lord,' I said, sombrely, and Sigurd nodded. Then he was amongst his men, encouraging them and praising their bravery. I looked at Sigurd's Wolfpack and a shiver touched my spine. We may have been without our ships and in the land of our enemies, but we looked fearsome enough to freeze the blood. We were more than forty armed and mailed men. We were death walking.





Egfrith the monk shuffled over, rubbing his bald head and wincing. 'On this enterprise you will leave the talking to me,' he said, his eyes flickering and returning to my blood-eye as he spoke, 'for my inspiration in this task comes from a higher authority even than our king.' Svein the Red burped loudly and looked down at the monk with something like amusement, but Egfrith pointed a finger at the giant and I thought he was either braver than he looked, or a witless fool. 'And if you have any sense of honour in your twisted hearts,' he warned, 'you will keep your oath to Ealdorman Ealdred. No harm must come to any man, woman or child of Wessex.' Svein feigned terror, signed the cross mockingly and walked off laughing.