Blood Eye(6)

Ealhstan shrugged his bony shoulders and wagged a finger at me. 'I know, I know, Wulfweard's a man of God,' I said. 'I should show more respect. Even though he wouldn't piss on me if I were burning.' A child squealed and we both spun to the sound. 'They're just playing,' I said, laughing as the giant flame-haired Norseman growled like a bear to scare the three children who were clambering over him, one on his back and the others on either arm.





'Come here, Wini,' one of the boy's mothers called nervously and in no time all three children were shepherded away, leaving the Norseman beaming from his great shaggy beard.





'They don't seem like devils, Ealhstan,' I said. Ealhstan's white eyebrows arched. You didn't think that this morning, those hairy caterpillars said. They're bloody-minded heathens and you'd do well to stay away from them.





But I did not want to stay away.





Griffin had waited until the sun was in the west before sending a man out to tell Edgar the local reeve that strangers had moored, meaning taxes were owed, and Sigurd had agreed to spend the night ashore sharing mead with the men of Abbotsend. In any case, his ships were beached and he could not sail until the next high tide, so would risk the reeve's taxes for a night on dry land. Word spread that the men were to gather in the old hall when it got dark and I watched the heathens pack their remaining goods in chests and skins. It seemed they were even more eager to begin drinking mead than they had been to sell their wares.





'You'd better join us, Osric,' Griffin called from behind two thick, folded reindeer skins in his arms. Arsebiter was at his master's heel. 'We'll need you to make sense of the heathens' babble. How is it you understand them, lad?'





'I don't know, Griffin,' I said. 'I've no way of explaining it.'





He shrugged. 'Well, I'll see you later.' He grinned and jangled an amber necklace that was looped over his wrist. 'When Burghild sees this she'll not mind me spending all night drinking with those devils! Least, that's the idea.' The dog looked up at Griffin doubtfully.





'Maybe you should have bought her a brooch, too,' I said, stifling a smile, 'and some of that reindeer antler. Maybe one of those silver pins.'





Griffin peered round the skins at the amber necklace, then back to me, a dark frown gathering on his face. Then he turned and went on his way, with Arsebiter following him.





CHAPTER TWO




MEN CRAMMED INTO THE OLD HALL LIKE TROUT IN A WITHY TRAP. It was loud and it stank, but heathen and Christian were getting along better than anyone could have hoped. Even Wulfweard was there, though I did not see him talking to any of the Norsemen. He sat on a footstool drinking mead and fingering the wooden cross he wore round his neck as though the thing would keep him safe from the evil he saw all around him. He looked up at the roof suspiciously, seemingly fearful that the men's carousing would shake the old beams from their joints to fall and crush us.





The hall had belonged to Lord Swefred, but he had been in the ground six years and had no sons. Now, shadow-shrouded cheese presses, butter churns and empty barrels cluttered one end, while the rest of the space was used for meetings, trade and private disputes. Any and all used the place and so none saw why they should pay for its upkeep. Weeds were bursting through the packed earth floor. There were no hangings to keep out the cold and the wattle was damp and rotting.





But this night the place was alive. I thought of the story of Beowulf, when the Geats gathered in the great feasting hall on mead benches studded with precious metals, amongst tapestries worked in gold which glittered on the walls as the glorious warriors rejoiced in the feast. Perhaps this hall had been glorious once, and now these proud heathen warriors from across the grey sea reminded the old, soot-stained beams what they once were.





The Abbotsend men had not wanted their women around Norsemen full of mead, so their sons passed through the hall with bulging skins, filling cups and handing out cuts of meat from two pigs roasting over the hearth. Sigurd had bought the pigs from Oeric the butcher and I watched hungrily as fat hissed in the flames and the delicious smell smothered the stink of wood rot, damp earth and men's sweat. Men who could not make themselves understood shouted, thinking this would help, and others laughed. The noise continued well into the night as I made myself useful, turning strange words into sense for drunken men. Later, furs and cushions and straw were fetched and men settled down to sleep. Because the hall belonged to no man, the heathens had seen no reason not to bring their weapons inside. They sat and lay around the hall's edge, each man's round painted shield, spear and sword leaning against the wall behind him.





'I've never seen so much mail,' Griffin slurred in a low voice. It was late and despite having beds to go to the Abbotsend men were settling in for the night. Some were already snoring. Griffin and I were slumped at the north end below the hall's only window, a narrow slit with vellum stretched across it. Most of the candles had guttered out, leaving only the stone hearth in the centre of the hall to cast its glow across the shrouded, sleeping figures. 'I've fought for King Egbert, and Beorhtric before him, more times than I care to remember, lad. I tell you, I've never seen better armed men.' He pulled a louse from his beard and examined it. 'We'll all be better off when they clear out.' His gaze returned to Jarl Sigurd, who was talking quietly with an older Norseman with a round face and a bushy beard.