One King's Way

Chapter Fourteen

An hour later, Karli tucked his single oar cautiously between his thighs, straightened up on his precariously rocking craft, and stretched his overworked shoulder muscles. As soon as he started he had realized how different the sea was, even the sea of a landlocked fjord, from the shallow muddy waterways of the marsh. The gentlest of waves made the door pitch and toss. To keep his balance at all he had to straddle as near as he could to the center, which meant that his sculling-platform was behind him, not where he needed it. By trial and error he had found a way to stand, one foot far forward, one braced against the edge of the wooden tray. Fortunately he had made the oar long enough to reach the water even so.

There were two ways for a Ditmarsh fowler to scull, an easy way and a hard way. The balance problem ruled out the easy way—standing upright on one leg with the oar in the crook of the other knee, swinging it with both hands. He had had to switch immediately to the hard way, oar under one arm, other arm swinging the oar up and down, left to right in a continuous figure-of-eight. Karli had unusual balance, unusual strength in the arms and shoulders for a man of his weight. He could manage. Only just, and only slowly.

Still, no-one had picked him out. At the beginning he had poled his way out into water deeper than the length of his oar, then with relief pushed the dead body off the front edge and felt his wooden plank rise. The mail took the body down. It would rise again soon, but by then Shef would be rescued or Karli gone to join Stein in the next world.

Then he had sculled away from the island in a straight line towards the black shape of the Eastfold hills across the fjord. Five hundred weary strokes, fighting to keep his balance all the way. Then he had turned, looked cautiously behind him to Drottningsholm and the islands. He could make them out, but with no detail. He did not think that in the clouded, moonless night anyone from the guard-posts could see a crouching man on an invisible raft against the black sea.

He had turned and started to make his way towards Kaupang harbor to the north. Wind and tide were behind him. He kept changing arms as the weariness grew. It was discouraging to be able to see nothing, no lights, no sign of progress. He could have been on a shoreless sea, paddling from nowhere to nowhere.

As long as there was nothing out here with him. Over the hiss of the wind and the surge of the sea, Karli realized he could pick out something else. A steady creaking, something rhythmic, something chopping the water. He looked behind him, full instantly of terror at some strange water-hag swimming behind him for its prey.

Worse than that. Against the black sea and the sky Karli made out a shape, a fierce head lifted high, like a monster questing for swimmers. The dragon prow of one of King Halvdan's giant warships, out rowing his endless summer blockade. Karli could see the white splash of the oar-thresh, hear the rhythmic creak of the rowlocks, the grunting of the rowers as they put their weight on the oars. They were rowing very slowly, not going anywhere special, conserving their strength. Lookouts stood at prow and stern, alert for skippers trying to evade King Halvdan's taxes, for pirates sneaking by to raid Eastfold or Westfold. Karli lay down immediately on the plank, careless of the water soaking him. He dropped his face, pulled his hands back into their sleeves, trapped the oar beneath his body. On a dark night, he knew from much avoidance of husbands and fathers, nothing showed up more than white skin. He tried to look like a piece of floating wreckage, skin crawling as he imagined the bowmen taking aim.

The oars thundered in his ear, the door pitched and heaved as the bow-wave of the great warship went by. No challenge, no shot. As the stern-tail crawled past the corner of his eye he heard the lookout call something, an indistinct reply. Still no challenge. Nothing to do with him.

Carefully and shakily he climbed back on to his feet, retrieved the oar, began to scull slowly after the warship's receding stern. As he began to count off his strokes once more he felt the door begin to rise again beneath his feet. Another bow-wave? No, something greater, something closer, the whole clumsy contraption tipping over almost on to its side. Karli dropped on to his knees, clutched the edge, as he did so heard a great snort in the water not six feet away.

A fin his own size cruised gently past, standing straight up almost at right angles to the water. Beneath it a huge body rolled black and gleaming. Ahead of him the fin turned, cruised back to intercept. A head came out of the water, broad enough to engulf the door in one snap. Karli caught the flash of brilliant white barring beneath the black upper body, saw an intelligent eye observing him.

The killer whale, a bull orca out foraging for seals ahead of the rest of its school, considered tipping the man-thing off its floe and snapping it to pieces in the water, but decided against. Men-things were hardly fair prey, a gentle, irresistible voice told it. There was no excitement in chasing them. Sometimes porpoises followed their ships, and porpoises were a good catch. Not tonight. It ceased to follow the warship, ignored the thing on the floe, swam inexorably off to find its companions. Karli straightened again, realized the warmth inside his breeches was his own piss. Shakily he took up the scull, began to count off his strokes. This country was not safe. Both the men and the animals were just too big.

In their hut, the English catapulteers were preparing their breakfast and at the same time checking their weapons. Light was just showing in the sky, but ex-slaves rose early, out of habit. Besides, in spite of the pendants they all wore, in spite of being at the heart of their adopted religion, they felt uneasy, isolated, unsafe. Their leader had vanished, no-one knew where. They were surrounded by men of alien speech and unpredictable temper. In their hearts they knew that most of the Norsemen they met thought all foreigners were just slave-material waiting to be seized. They had come to Kaupang as men of a conquering army. Slowly their status seemed to be slipping away. If they were disarmed they would be back to tilling fields and herding goats, working under the lash once more. Without saying it, every one of them had determined that that was not to happen. If need be, they would have to break out. But how?

In the army of the Way in England there had been three main divisions: crossbowmen, halberdiers, catapulteers. No-one had made any effort to train them as swordsmen, though each carried a broad, single-edged seax-knife in his belt, as useful for firewood as for enemies. But Udd had made sure that each man there, whatever his original trade, carried and knew how to use one of the latest model crossbows, no longer wound by belt-pulleys, the spring-steel bow cocked instead by a long, pronged lever. It fitted under the bowstring and latched onto inset bolts. With a single, heaving effort the bow was cocked as the pull was exerted against a foot stirrup on the front of the bow's wooden frame. Osmod and three of the others also carried their unwieldy halberds, the combination axe and spear that Shef had invented for himself to make up for his lack of weight and training.

But the group's main weapon stood outside the hut: the mule, the stone-hurling catapult they had unshipped from the Norfolk and loaded into Brand's Walrus. The Thor-priests had been busy ever since they arrived, observing it, watching them shoot it, getting them to build further models of the two other styles of catapult they knew, the twisted-rope dart-shooter and the simpler stone-lobbing pull-thrower that the Way had already deployed on three battlefields. It was said that King Halvdan had ordered experiments on fitting mules to bow and stern platforms on his coastal patrol craft, large enough to take them if maybe too weak in the keel to stand the repeated shock of recoil. But till then the mule outside was the only one in the North.

There was one further innovation that no-one as yet had tried. Udd's invention of case-hardened steel as yet seemed all but useless. The material, once hardened, was too hard to work with any tools they had. Udd had suggested hardened crossbow-bolts, but as the others pointed out, the ones they had would go through any known armor anyway, so why bother? In the end Udd had made one thin round plate of the new steel, two feet in diameter, and pegged it on to a standard round shield of linden wood. Few warriors if any carried iron shields. The weight was so great that the shield could not be wielded for more than a few moments. Soft linden wood was used instead, to catch and trap the enemy's point or edge, usually with an iron boss as hand-guard. The plate Udd had made was so thin that if it had been normal iron it would have added no protection. But the case-hardened steel would turn any ordinary sword, spear or arrow, and weighed no more than a second layer of wood. Udd and the others had not yet worked out what the utility of the new shield was—none at all to men who fought as they did. It was a case where a new technique had not yet found a use.

At first, in the early-morning hubbub, no-one heard the scratching at the door. Then, as it was repeated, Cwicca paused. The rest fell silent. Fritha and Hama snatched up crossbows, cocked them. Osmod stepped to one side of the door, poised his halberd. Cwicca jerked out a peg, lifted the latch, swung the door open.

Karli fell in on hands and knees, barely able to support himself. The seven men inside gaped at him, then slammed the door shut and sprang to help.

“Get him on the stool,” snapped Osmod. “He's soaked. Hah, not all water either! Get his clothes off, one of you bring him a blanket. Rub his hands, Cwicca, he's half-frozen.”

Karli, supported on the stool, was pointing towards a mug. Osmod passed him the strong warmed beer, watched it go down in a dozen gulps. Karli finished, breathed out, sat up straighter.

“All right. I'll be all right in no time. Just cold and wet and dead-tired. But I've got news.

“First, Shef is alive, on Drottningsholm. The message he got was a trap but we got there just the same. So he's on the island, he's alive but he won't be much longer if he stays there. Trouble is, that queen of theirs is screwing him senseless and he won't leave. We're going to have to go and get him. But he won't come of his own free will and they've reinforced the guards over the bridges. And he's not the only one there who needs rescuing…”

Karli poured out his story to a ring of faces that grew grimmer as he went on. At the end Osmod silently passed him a refilled mug, looked at Cwicca, who as catapult-captain shared the leadership with him in Shef's absence.

“We've got to get him off. We could do it ourselves, but we'd never get away afterwards. That's what we've got to think about. Now, who in this place can we trust?”

“How about Hund the leech?” asked Cwicca.

Osmod considered a moment. “Yes, I'd like to have him with us. He's English, and he's the lord's oldest friend, and he's a Way-priest besides.”

“Thorvin the priest, then?” suggested one of the hammer-wearers. Faces round him twisted dubiously. Cwicca shook his head.

“He's more loyal to the Way than he is to King Shef. This is Way business, somehow. You can't tell which road he'd turn.”

“Can we trust any of these Norskers?” asked one of the others.

“Maybe Brand.”

A pause while they thought it over. Finally, Osmod nodded. “Maybe Brand.”

“Well, if we got him on our side, it's easy. He's nigh seven foot tall and built like a stone wall. He's the Champion of wherever-it-is, isn't he? He's just going to walk through them guards like piss through snow.”

“I'm not so sure about that,” muttered Osmod. “He got a sword right through his belly last year. They've patched him up, right. But they didn't patch his head up, did they? I don't know that he'd be champion of anywhere any more.”

“Are you saying he's gone yellow?” asked Fritha, incredulous.

“No. But I'm saying he's got a bit careful, like he never was before. In this country full of berserks, or whatever they call 'em, that's almost the same thing.”

“But you still think he'll help?”

“As long as we don't ask too much.” Osmod looked round, frowning. “Seven of us here, and Karli. Where's Udd?”

“Where do you think? Now the water's running he's up at the mills, seeing how they work. Took a hunk of bread up as soon as light showed.”

“Well, go and get him back, someone. The rest of you, listen. Because here's what we'll do…”

“…So that's our plan,” concluded Osmod, looking grimly across the table at Brand. “And that's what we're going to do. The only question we've got for you is, are you in or are you out?”

Brand stared down consideringly. Though both men were sitting, Brand's face was still a foot above the Englishman's. It was a real surprise, he reflected, how these men of Shef's had changed. Everything in Brand's make-up, culture and experience had told him all his life that a slave was a slave and a warrior was a warrior, and there was no way of making the one into the other. A warrior could not be enslaved—or only with massive precautions, like those King Nithhad had taken for Völund, and look where that had got him. And slaves could not be made into warriors. Not only did they not have the skills, they didn't have the heart either. During the battles in England the year before Brand had revised his opinion, a little. Ex-slaves were useful, he concluded, for war-with-machines, because they could be made into machines themselves: doing what they were told, heaving on ropes and pulling toggles to order. That was all.

But now here was one not just making up a plan of his own, not just telling him, Brand, that he was going to do it, but defying Brand to stop him. The giant Halogalander felt a mixture of irritation, amusement, and something like—anxiety? Fear was not something he would ever readily admit to.

“Yes, I'm in,” he said. “But I don't want my crew mixed up with it. And I don't want to lose my ship.”

“We want to use your ship to get away in,” said Osmod. “Sail back to England and get out of here.”

Brand shook his head. “Not a chance,” he said. “King Halvdan's got this coast sewed up as tight as a frog's ass. And the Walrus can't fight off one of his patrol ships, they're twice our size.”

“Use the mule.”

“You know how long that would take to ship, not just to carry, but to mount it so it can shoot. Anyway, any ship not specially designed will just fall to pieces if you shoot that thing off in it.”

“So how do we get away after we've got King Shef back off this queen? Are you saying it can't be done?”

Brand chewed his lip. “We can do it. Maybe. Not by sea. I think the best thing is this. I'm going to invent an errand and get off now—say I'm going out in the hills for some sport, they'll believe that after a winter cramped up indoors. I'll buy horses for the lot of you. When you've done your bit, meet me at a place I'll tell you. Then we all have to ride like smoke till we're out of Halvdan and Olaf's territory—they won't know right off which way we've gone. Then we all cut across country to the Gula Fjord. My helmsman Steinulf will take over here for me. I dare say with the Way behind him, or anyway with Thorvin and Skaldfinn and their friends, he'll be able to get the Walrus free and take it round the coast to meet us. Even if there's trouble, Guthmund should be able to get away with the Seamew. All meet up at the Gula and head back to England, like you said.”

“You don't want to be in on the attack?”

Brand shook his head silently. Osmod in his turn stared across the table. He too had always believed that a slave and a warrior were two different breeds, as different as sheep and wolves. Then he had found that given a reason and a fighting chance, he had wolf in him. Now he wondered about the giant figure facing him. This was a man famous even among the fierce, quarrelsome, everlastingly competitive heroes of the North. Why was he now standing out? Leaving the dangerous work to others? Was it right that a man who recovered from a wound that took him to the gates of death was never the same man again? He had stood by the door and felt the cold wind come through…

“You can leave that to us, then,” said Osmod. “Us Englishmen,” he added, rubbing the point in. “Do you think we can do it?”

“I think you can do it the way you said,” replied Brand. “You Englishmen. What worries me is getting you all across the mountains to the Gula Fjord. You've only met the civilized Norwegians so far. The ones who live up in the back hills, where we're going—they're different.”

“If we can handle King Halvdan's guards, we can handle them. And what about you? You're the champion of the men of Halogaland, aren't you?”

“I think taking you midgets across Norway will need a champion. I shall feel like a dog taking a troop of mice through Catland. They're going to think you people are just so many free dinners.”

Osmod's lips compressed. “Show me where we are to meet you with the horses then, Lord Dog. I and the other mice will be there. Maybe with a few catskins.”

The little convoy moving down to the bridge and the islands beyond it looked as ragged and unthreatening as it could be made. In the lead an old farm-horse pulling a battered cart, with one man walking by its side chirruping encouragingly to it. The cart's load was invisible, but a dirty tarpaulin held it all down, one end flapping loose. On the other side of the horse walked Udd, the smallest of the men, gaping near-sightedly at the horse-collar: a Norwegian invention which few Englishmen outside the catapult-teams had ever seen. It enabled a horse to pull twice the weight of the ox-style straight pole, and Udd, characteristically, had forgotten about the point of their journey in fascination at the new artifact.

Round and behind the cart straggled eight more men, the six remaining English catapulteers, Hund the leech, his white priest-clothes hidden under a gray mantle, and Karli. None carried a weapon in sight other than their belt-knives. Halberds were stowed inconspicuously on nails along the sides of the cart. The crossbows, already cocked, lurked under the loose tarpaulin.

As the cart dipped down to the shore, two guards by the side of the bridge straightened up, retrieved their javelins from the ground.

“Bridge is closed,” one of them shouted. “Everyone's off the island. Can't you see the sun, nearly down?”

Osmod pushed forward, shouting indistinctly in poor Norse. There were six men on this post, he knew. He wanted them all outside. The man leading the horse joined in, continuing to walk forward.

One of the guards had had enough. He jumped back, javelin poised, shouted at the top of his voice. Other men came suddenly out of the hut to one side, handling axes, picking up shields. Four more of them, Osmod silently counted. That was right. He turned and raised a thumb to the others clustered round the cart.

In an instant the crossbows were out and leveled, six of them, with Udd slipping back to seize his and join in.

“Show 'em,” said Osmod briefly.

Fritha, the marksman of the group, sighted and released. A sharp twang and an instantaneous thud. One of the men with shields gasped, his face suddenly white, stared down at the iron quarrel which had driven through his shield and deep into his upper arm. Fritha dropped the bow forward, thrust his foot into the stirrup, jerked over the goat's foot lever, dropped a second quarrel into place.

“You're all marked,” called Osmod. “These bows will go through any shield or armor. You can't fight us. Only die. Drop what you're holding and go into the hut.”

The guards looked at each other, brave men, but unnerved by the lack of face-to-face challenge, the threat of being shot down from a distance.

“You can keep your swords,” offered Osmod. “Just drop those javelins. Go in the hut.”

Slowly they dropped spears, shuffled backwards, watching their enemies, trooped into the guard-hut. Two Englishmen ran forward with bars, hammers, nails, quickly and roughly nailed bars across the door and the one shuttered window.

“We learnt something from King Shef,” remarked Cwicca. “Always work out what you're going to do before you do it.”

“They'll soon bust out,” said Karli.

“Then they'll reckon they've got us trapped. That'll give us a bit more time.”

The cart rolled on to the bridge, in winter logs embedded in ice, in summer with planks laid over the logs now floating. The men were carrying crossbows and halberds openly now, easy to see in the long Northern twilight. But there should be no-one to see or challenge till the other side of the first island and the next bridge.

Hearing the cart roll towards them, and knowing there should be no-one there, the pair of guards manning the second bridge had more warning and more time to decide what to do. Facing a line of crossbows, one of them immediately and sensibly turned and ran, hoping to get away and call for help. Aiming carefully, Fritha put a bolt through his thigh that brought him instantly down. The second man carefully grounded his weapon, eyes glaring vengefully.

Hund walked from his place at the rear to glance at the wound the crossbow-bolt had made, clicking his tongue at the spreading blood, the bolt buried firmly in bone.

Osmod joined him. “Nasty job getting that out,” he remarked. “Still, better alive than dead, and the best leeches in the world over at the college at Kaupang.”

Hund nodded. “You, fellow, when you take him to master Ingulf to have his leg mended, give him the regards of Hund the priest and say the Englishmen spared this man's life, at my urging. Till then, pad the wound, check the blood-flow.” He showed his silver apple-pendant, sign of Ithun goddess of healing, and turned away.

The cart rolled over the second bridge, over the second island, and on to the final span to Drottningsholm. Occasionally looking behind them for signs of pursuit, the freedmen closed up. This time, they knew, they would have to fight.

The third guard post was the main one, a dozen men. They had already spent the day in serious anxiety, following the disappearance of their captain Stein. They had searched every part of the island for him except the queens' quarters, found nothing. They waited now only for word from King Halvdan before they searched the queens' hall too, but even so they did not expect to find him. They knew enemies were nearby, whether human killers or monsters from the deep. Some had seen a school of orcas cruise by, their great fins showing, and wondered if Stein had been fool enough to enter the water. The faint shouts they had heard from the brief clashes to the north had alarmed them further. As the cart and its escort came into view they moved on to the bridge to block it, four men abreast, three deep. From the rear rank an arrow flew, aimed at the horse's head. Whatever the cart and its cargo, they meant to block it. Wilfi, leading the horse still, now carried the new case-hardened shield. He lifted it, caught the shaft square on. It leapt back, point blunted.

Cwicca, Osmod, Hama and Lulla walked forward, halberds ready, dropped on one knee to make a hedge of points facing the Norsemen forty feet away. Four cross-bowmen stood behind them.

“Drop your weapons,” shouted Osmod. He had no hope that his order would be obeyed. A dozen veteran warriors surrender to less than their own number of strangers? Their mothers would disown them. Yet Osmod felt at least a flicker of compunction about shooting men down who were all but helpless, helpless against weapons they did not understand. He waited for the bows to be bent, the javelins to poise before he shouted again.

“Shoot!”

Four crossbows twanged together. At forty feet, against standing targets, no-one could miss. The Viking front line collapsed, one man lifted off his feet by the impact of the bolt, many foot-pounds of energy stored in sprung steel and delivered in a moment. A man in the second line gasped and flinched as a bolt passed through the man in front and plowed up his rib-cage.

Another man broke from the pile of fallen round his feet and hurled himself forward, sword circling back for one mighty slash. Foam splattered his moustache as he ran, desperate for glory and for one blow. He called hoarsely on Othin as he came. A crossbow bolt from the near-sighted Udd hissed past one ear, another from the inexpert Karli flew over his head.

As he came within three strides Osmod straightened from his kneeling position, gripped his long halberd close to the base, thrust forward in a long point from low down. The charging warrior ran straight on to it, splitting his own heart on the leaf-blade, running forward with the last strength in his body till the cross-fixed axe-blade and spike stopped him short. His last breath left him with a grunt, his eyes stared forward in shock.

The sword fell from his hand, the life left him. Osmod twisted the shaft once, cleared his blade, withdrew, dropped back to kneel. A series of clicks behind him as the crossbows cocked again.

The six men in front of him broke and ran, four sideways along the shore, two away along the bridge to Drottningsholm. Osmod gestured briefly. “Put those two down,” he said. “Let the others go.”

Bodies were dragged aside, and the cart rolled forward for the last time, the old horse now encouraged into a trot, some of the Englishmen behind it walking backwards, alert for pursuit. Osmod and Cwicca jogged in front of the others, eyes probing in the dim light for what they had been told to expect.

“There,” said Cwicca, pointing. “Tell Udd and Hund to secure the boat, they're easily spared. They only have to push it off and row it round the point.”

Osmod called directions, and the two men broke away. “The rest of you, put your shoulders to the cart and get it up this slope. The hall's on the other side, and we have to hurry now.”

Heaved on by the horse and eight men, the cart rocked up a brief slope, came through a copse of firs, and broke out into a clearing. In the center of it stood the Hall of the Two Queens, steep-roofed, ornately gabled, stags' antlers nailed up above the doorways. No sign of life except a frightened face peeping from behind a low shutter, but smoke seeped into the air from its one chimney.

The men swung the cart round so that its rear pointed at the hall, whipped away the tarpaulin, dropped the tilt, clustered round the squat bulk of the mule in the wagon-bed.

“Not there,” called Karli. “That's the slaves' room you're pointing at. They'll have him there, in the private chamber. Train round right, right another six feet.”

The ton-and-a-quarter mule could not be lifted from its bed without immense effort. Instead the horse-holder slowly shuffled the horse round, inching the cart sideways on its solid axles.

“On!” grunted Cwicca hoarsely, raising his arm in the team's well-practiced drill. Fritha the loader lifted a twenty-pound water-smoothed rock from the bed of the cart, fitted it into the sling. The crew, all but Cwicca and Hama the launch-man, vaulted over the sides of the cart. They had not shot their weapon, with its monstrous kick, from inside a confined space before, and were not sure what effect it would have.

Cwicca checked his target again, dropped his arm in the signal to shoot.

Shef lay back in the great feather bed, in complete relaxation. In all his life he had never spent so much time lying down before, except when he was bedridden with the marsh-fever. A man who was awake should be working, or eating, or at rare intervals merry-making. That was what everyone he knew believed. The idea of rest did not enter their minds.

They were wrong. A day and a night now, he had hardly stirred from the great bed, except to eat his meals. Even those had been brought to him by the slave-women during the day. He had never felt better.

But then maybe that was the queen. She too had come to him at frequent intervals during the day, more frequent than he had ever imagined possible. In Shef's stern and gloomy home, dominated by the pious, angry Wulfgar his stepfather, all forms of sexuality were forbidden to all on Sundays, on the eve of Sunday, during Lent, in the Advent season, during the fasts of the Church. The servants had evaded his rules, of course, and even more the village folk, but sexuality had taken on an air of furtiveness, something to be snatched, got over in between bouts of work, or between sleep and wake. Someone like Queen Ragnhild had been the stuff of dreams, beyond the imagination or experience of any village-youth.

And what he had done had been beyond his imagination too. In amazement, considering what he had already performed, Shef felt his flesh beginning to rise again at the thought of what he had seen and felt. Yet the queen would not return for a while, gone out, she said, to walk along the shore. Better to save his strength. Better to sleep again, warm and well-fed. As he closed his eyes and lay back against the duck-down bolster, Shef thought vaguely of Karli. Better see what he was doing. One of the slave-women would know. He had never asked their names. Strange. Perhaps he was beginning to behave like a king at long last.

In his dream, Shef was standing by a forge, as he had before. It was not the great forge of the gods of Asgarth, which he had once visited, yet it was like that forge in that the whole working space was littered with boxes, logs, rough tables. There were hand-holds nailed here and there to the wall.

They were there, Shef remembered, because this smith was lame. In the body he now inhabited, he remembered the keen pain as they slit his sinews with the knife, the laughing face of his enemy Nithhad, the promise Nithhad had made him.

“You will not run far now, Völund, with your hamstrings cut, neither on feet nor on skis, hunter of the forest. And cut sinew never grows back. Yet your hands are unharmed, and you still have your eyes. So work, Völund, mighty smith! Work for me, Nithhad, make me precious things by day and by night. For there is no escape for you by land or by water. And I promise you, husband of the Valkyrie though you are: if you do not earn your bread every day, you will feel the lash like the lowest dog of a Finn among my thralls!”

And Nithhad had had him trussed up then and there and given him a taste of the leather for proof. Still Völund remembered the pain in his back, the shame of being beaten without reply, the glittering eyes of Nithhad's queen as she watched. His wife's ring had glinted on her finger as she did so, for they had robbed him as well as mutilated him.

Shef-who-was-now-Völund beat furiously on the red iron as he remembered, not trusting himself in this mood with copper or silver or the red gold that Nithhad demanded most.

As he limped and heaved himself from side to side he saw bright eyes watching him. Four of them. The two young sons of Nithhad, come to see the fire and the clangor and the sparkling jewels. Völund paused, looked at them. Nithhad let them come freely, sure that his slave could never escape, sure too that no matter how crazy he was for revenge, Völund would never take a revenge for which he could not escape retaliation. In the belief of the North, that would be exchanging one for two, neither sensible nor honorable. A revenge was no revenge unless it was complete.

High above, in the rafters to which his great smith's arms could swing him, lay the wings Völund had made: the magic wings to take him away. But first the revenge. The complete revenge.

“Come and see,” called Völund to the watching faces. “See what I have in my chest here.”

He reached inside it, pulled out a chain of gold links with a jewel between each one, red, blue and green in complex pattern. “Or see this.” He showed for an instant a box of walrus ivory with carved scenes upon it, inlaid with silver. “See, in the chest, there is much besides. Come, look in the chest, just peep over the side if you dare.”

Slowly the two boys came out into the light of the fire, holding each other's hands. One was six, the other four, the children of Nithhad and his second wife, the enchantress, far younger than their half-sister, the maiden. Böthvild who also came to eye him sometimes from the shadows. They were fine boys, shy but friendly, not yet spoilt by their father's greed, their mother's cunning. One of them had given him an apple the day before, saved from his own meal.

Völund waved them over, opened the chest, held its massive lid open with one hand. He was careful to hold it by the handle. Many an hour had he spent, in time stolen from sleep, welding on the edge to it, the sharpest edge he had ever made in his life. They were good children, and he did not wish them to feel pain.

“Come, see!” he said again. They peered over, squeaking like mice with excitement. Their necks were over the iron lip of the chest. Völund, cruel man that he was, averted his eyes as he prepared to slam down the lid…

I do not want to be in this body, thought Shef, fighting against the god's fingers that held him firmly, forced him to watch. Whatever lesson I am being taught, I do not want to learn it.

As he began in some unknown way to squirm free he saw another sight, far below the forge, somewhere in the deep rocky bowels, not of Middle-earth, but of the walls that surround the Nine Worlds of men and gods and giants together. A great figure, with the savage unpredictable face of a god, chained with monstrous fetters to the foundations of the universe. A great serpent hissing and spitting venom in its face, the face contorted with pain and yet still aware, still thinking, still looking beyond the pain.

The figure was the chained god Loki, Shef realized, whom the Way-priests believed had been bound and tormented by his father Othin for the murder of his brother Balder. Yet who would break free and return to revenge himself on gods and men, with his monster-children on the Last Day itself. The enormous staple on one wrist-fetter had been pulled almost free from the wall, Shef saw. When it came loose Loki would have one hand free to throttle the tormenting serpent sent by his father Othin. Already he seemed free enough to beckon, to be signaling to his allies, the monster-broods in the forests and in the depths of the sea. For an instant his furious eyes seemed to look from his prison up towards Shef.

As he tore himself away again Shef felt one more trickle of the thoughts of Völund.

Do the deed, they ran. Do it now. And then, then to scoop out the skulls and carve them like walrus ivory, then to polish the teeth till they shine like pearls, then to take the glistening eyeballs from their orbits…

Back in his own body again, Shef felt a monstrous slam, saw for an instant a sharpened lid swinging down.

The slam was real. He could feel the tremors of it still shaking the bed. Shef kicked his feet free of the linen sheet and woolen blanket, leapt from the bed, lunged for tunic, breeches and shoes. Was this the queen's husband come for him?

The door swung open and the boy Harald rushed in. “Mother! Mother!” He stopped as he saw only Shef sitting on his mother's bed. Without a pause he pulled his little eating-knife from his belt and lunged at Shef's throat.

Shef parried the blow, caught the thin wrist, twisted away the knife, ignored the furious kicks and punches from the free hand. “Easy, easy,” he said. “I was just waiting here. What is happening outside?”

“I don't know. Men with a—with something that throws rocks. The wall is all smashed in.”

Shef let the boy go, darted through the door from the bedchamber to the queens' parlor. As he did so a concerted charge smashed down the door from the main hall, and a wave of men poured in, knives drawn and crossbows pointed. Shef recognized Cwicca at the same moment that they recognized him, began to step forward waving his arms frantically for them to stop.

Karli sprang out of the ruck and came forward, shouting something inaudible in the din of voices.

“There's no need for it!” Shef bellowed back. “I'm all right. Tell them all to stop.”

Karli laid a hand on his arm, trying to drag him towards the door. Furiously, Shef threw it off, realized at once that Karli meant to knock him unconscious once more. He dodged the left lead, got a hand up in time to block the right swing, ducked his head into Karli's already-broken nose and grappled his arms, trying to prevent him getting in a clear blow. As they struggled, Shef felt other hands on him, arms and legs, men trying to pick him up bodily and carry him off like a sack. He heard a voice gasp in his ear, “Hit him with the sandbag, Cwicca, he won't stop fighting.”

Shef dropped Karli, swung the men holding his arms into each other, trampled his way free of the man clutching his leg, filled his lungs for another and more commanding bellow.

Behind him, the old queen Asa had also entered the room. One of the English raiders stood goggling at the struggle in front of him, unable to bring himself to join in and lay hands on his master. Seizing the iron stake by which she summoned her slaves, the old queen struck him smartly over the head, snatched the seax-knife from his belt as he slumped. Took three quick hobbling paces towards Shef, the cuckolder of her son and danger to her grandson, still standing unawares with his back to her.

At the same moment the little boy Harald, also standing staring at the struggle, felt the prompting of generations of warrior-ancestors. With a shrill cry he too raised his knife again and ran forward to attack the invaders of his hall. As he ran past Shef at a line of grown men, Shef scooped him up and hugged him to his own body, wrapping both arms round him to prevent his struggles. He tried to shout again, “Everybody just stand still!”

The faces confronting him turned to alarm, men started to spring forward. Shef turned with the speed he had learned in the wrestling ring, Harald still clutched to his body.

Queen Asa thrust savagely upwards with the broad-bladed knife. Shef felt a thud, a prick of pain over his ribs. Looked down at the boy in his arms. Saw him turn up his face, start to ask some disbelieving question. Saw the knife driven clean through the boy's heart and body. The knife in the hands of his grandmother.

Somewhere, again, Shef heard a lid slam. Slam again and again.

The room had gone completely still and silent. Shef released his grip, slowly straightened the small body out, laid it on the ground.

As he looked down, his eyes seemed for a moment to blur. He seemed to be looking not at the slight shape of a ten-year old, but at a grown man, tall and burly, with a mane of hair and beard.

This was Harald Fairhair, said a cold, amused, familiar voice. Harald Fairhair as he would have been. You are his inheritor now. You inherited his treasure from King Edmund, and paid with your youth. You inherited his luck from King Alfred, and paid with your love. Now you inherit destiny from King Harald. What will you pay with this time? And do not try to shirk my visions again.

The moment passed. Shef was once more in the parlor, staring down at a bloodstained shape. Harald was dead now. Shef had felt the life go. Arms were at his shoulders again, hustling him away, and this time he did not resist. Behind him Queen Asa took slow step after slow step towards the body of her grandson, reaching out a tentative, shaking hand. Shef lost sight of her as they ran him through the door into the hall, out through the main door shattered by the catapult-stone, into the open.

Outside the hubbub broke out again, someone shouting, “But she's still got my knife,” other voices snarling at him, Osmod counting, “Seven, eight, nine, all right, that's the lot, get moving.” Cwicca appeared from somewhere with a firebrand and the barrel of dry kindling the slaves used, hurled first one and then the other into the cart, watched the flame spread as he slashed the horse free of its traces.

“They won't get our mule,” he shouted.

“What are you doing with those women?” Osmod shouted as Karli came into the light, a woman in each hand and two more running anxiously behind him.

“They've got to come with us.”

“It's only a six-oar boat, there's no room.”

“They have to come. Especially now the boy's dead. Their throats will be cut at his burial.”

Osmod, ex-slave himself, argued no more. “All right, move it.”

In an untidy stream nine men and four women ran down the path leading to the little beach where Martha had killed Stein only the evening before, Cwicca and Osmod bringing up the rear, crossbows raised. Half way down it, Shef heard a great shriek split the air behind him. Ragnhild returned from her walk along the shore. Behind it, men's voices shouting. The guardsmen they had left behind, rallied and anxious to avenge their defeats.

The run turned into a headlong dash, each person making for the beach and the boat they could see waiting, Udd and Hund with oars poised ready to shove off. Men and women poured over the thwarts, seized oars or were pushed out of the way. The overloaded boat jammed on the shingle, Shef and Karli leaped out again and heaved it bodily out six feet, ten, till the beach shelved away and they were dragged in over the sides, only inches above the water. Six men found their places, braced their feet, took one pull, another, as Osmod hoarsely called the time.

Framed by the light from the now fiercely-burning cart, Shef saw the figure of Queen Ragnhild walking down the beach, her arms stretched out. Arrows from the men behind her skipped over the water, but Shef ignored them, waved down the crossbows poised to answer.

“Luckstealer!” she cried. “Bane of my son. May you be the bane of all those around you. May you never know woman again. May no son succeed you.”

“It wasn't his fault,” muttered Wilfi from the bow, rubbing his head where the iron stake had split it. “It was that daft old woman who took my knife.”

“Shut up about your knife,” growled Fritha, “you should have held on to it.”

As the bickering continued, the boat pulled steadily away into the black dark, waiting for concealment before bending round away from Halvdan's cruisers to the mainland no more than a short mile off.

Shef stared over the stern till he could see no longer, at the woman still raving and weeping by the shore.