Blood Eye(65)

'Your king is off waving his sword in the north, Grey Beard,' Sigurd yelled, pointing along the worn track, dotted with horse droppings, which Coenwulf had taken earlier that day. 'If you lie to me again I will cut out your tongue before I strangle you with your own innards.'





The guard turned and shouted a command and Mauger grabbed my shoulder.





'Tell them to raise their shields, Raven,' he hissed, just as the Mercian defenders appeared at the palisade with arrows on their bowstrings. But the Norsemen had already unslung their round shields and held them before their faces, and the arrows that came either stuck in the limewood or were deflected harmlessly away.





Behind his shield, Olaf nodded at his jarl, for the Mercians had just revealed their strength, at least in terms of bowmen. There were not enough to worry us.





Sigurd lowered his shield, which sprouted two white-fletched shafts.





'You have just called the birds of carrion to this place, Grey Beard,' he said, 'and they will come like a black cloud to block out the sun.' At that, Father Egfrith moaned and collapsed and Svein the Red dragged the monk unceremoniously back from the shieldwall at the gate.





When darkness fell, we lit torches and fires that hissed in the rain, a fragile ring of flame around Coenwulf's fortress. The Norsemen were well practised at constructing shelters from slender branches and the oiled leather cloaks they wore against sea spray and deluge, so we were comfortable enough. I took in the scene, the campfires of each band casting light on to the wooden walls, and it seemed to me as though a great host was laying siege to the place. But in truth we were not enough.





'What if Coenwulf comes back?' Bjarni asked. His face was etched in concentration as he closed a ring on his brynja that had broken at the join. We were sheltering from the rain, but we remained battle ready in case the Mercian defenders should come at us in the night.





'It will take him two days to reach his northern borders,' Father Egfrith said, rubbing his bald pate as he sat in his shelter on a bundle of hazel branches covered with long grass. 'Though God knows he'll make the return journey in half the time when he learns the truth.' His yellow teeth flashed in the flame light and I wondered if the monk should be taking such pleasure in the deception of other Christians.





'When he thinks there's a Wessexman, or, worse, some Welsh bastard, warming his throne, old Coenwulf will ride so fast his beard'll blow off,' Mauger added with a grimace.





Olaf joined us, a flaming, spitting torch in one hand, his shield in the other. Water dripped from helmet and shield. He had come from checking the Wolfpacks surrounding the fortress. 'There's only one other way out of the place and Aslak has it covered. Problem is, there's no easy way in. It's tight as a weasel's arsehole.' He looked to Sigurd, who had stood to receive his report. 'We'll have to burn it tomorrow, Sigurd,' he said, turning his face to the dark sky. 'If this rain ever stops.'





'No, Uncle,' Sigurd said, scratching his yellow beard. 'I have another idea.' He turned to me, his eyes glittering like fish scales in the firelight. 'Raven, you know of Óðin and of Thór, of Rán and of Týr Lord of Battle, but what do you know of Loki?'





'Only what I have heard from the others, my lord,' I said, 'that Loki is a cruel god and that any man who trusts him is a fool.'





'Ah, piss,' he said. 'Loki is famed for his wickedness and his wiles, yes, but all the gods have their pride, even Loki. Which of them would not be honoured by a warrior's seeking his help against these Christians, these followers of the White Christ who spread their twisted belief across the world as a farmer hurls swine shit across his field? Loki is, above all things, cunning. He has more stratagems than there are hairs in Bram's beard.' Bram grinned proudly. 'I have asked Loki the cunning for his help . . .' Sigurd's full lips spread into a smile, 'and he has given it to me.'





I learned then of Sigurd's plan. Father Egfrith was not sick at all. He had faked his collapse in front of the Mercians earlier that day.





'And the scarlet cloak?' I asked the monk. He was hiding in his shelter so that none on the palisade would see him. He looked like a rat in a hole.





'If the Mercians are to believe I am a bishop snatched from my flock by heathens, I must at least dress like one,' he replied, flicking a spot of dirt from the shoulder of the fur-trimmed cloth. 'Who would not pity one of the Lord's messengers who found himself in the midst of barbarians?' He was clearly enjoying the prospect of the deception Sigurd had woven with Loki the mischievous.





The Mercians stayed behind their walls that night, perhaps hoping we would move on to easier pickings, or that their king would return to give battle in the shadow of his own hall. The next day, Egfrith died. Kalf and gap-toothed Ingolf found some chalk which they crushed and rubbed into the monk's skin to give him a deathly pallor, and then we wrapped him tightly in an old balding skin, and Sigurd put round his own shoulders the scarlet, fur-trimmed cloak and clutched the silver cross, wrapping its chain around his fist. Then, as the sun rose in the east, Sigurd, Olaf and Svein stood before the main gate like gods of war. After standing there in silent, sword-bearing judgement, Sigurd eventually called up to the defenders, who had not left their posts all night.