Prince of Fools

SIXTEEN

We came to Ancrath along the border roads between Rhone and Gelleth. Snorri travelled with a native caution that kept us safe on several occasions, holding us back amidst a wood as battle-ragged troops marched south, taking us into the corn when brigands rode by in search of wickedness. I was keener to avoid such encounters than Snorri, but my senses were better honed to detecting the approach of trouble across a crowded feast hall or through the smokes of an opium parlour than on horseback across open country.

In the town of Oppen, just a few miles into Ancrath, I bought more serviceable travelling clothes. I made sure to buy sufficient quality to mark me out as a man of distinction, though of course normally I’d not be seen dead in sturdy boots and tough-wearing garments made to withstand rough treatment. I’d rejected the idea of letting a Rhonishman fit me for cloak and hat but decided I could suffer the attentions of an Ancrath tailor. Snorri snorted and stamped so much during the fitting that I had to send him out to find an axe more suited to his tastes.

The moment he’d gone I started to feel an unease. Nothing to do with the slight stretching of the magics that bound us, and everything to do with the certainty that the necromancer who had sought our deaths in Chamy-Nix would still be hard upon our trail. Her or that creature that had watched me from behind its mask at the opera. The Silent Sister’s trap had been set for that one. I was certain of it now. She’d been prepared to sacrifice the lives of two hundred, including some of Vermillion’s finest-including me, damn it-to burn that one monster. I could only pray the crack I’d put in her spell whilst escaping hadn’t let it free. And of course other servants of the Dead King might lurk around any given corner. Even in a tailor’s shop!

In the end I left Oppen with a sense of relief. Being on the move had become a habit, and I wasn’t sure I would ever feel entirely comfortable settled in one place again.

We skirted the Matterack Mountains, a dour range with none of the Aups’ grandeur, and found our way in time to the Roma Road, which I’d long argued we should have followed the whole way. “It’s better paved, safer, equipped with inns and whorehouses at regular intervals, passes through two dozen towns of note. .”

“And is easily watched.” Snorri guided Sleipnir out onto the ancient flagstones. She immediately started to clatter. I think of that noise, horseshoe on stone, as the sound of civilization. In the countryside everything’s mud. Give me a clatter over a clomp any day.

“So why are we risking it now?”

“Speed.”

“Will it make-” I bit off the words. Would it make a difference? To Snorri it would. His wife and younger son would have been captive for months now, even before he’d been dragged in chains to Vermillion. And if they had endured all this time, labouring at some task the Drowned Isles necromancers set them to, the chances were that a few days either way wouldn’t make much difference to their situation. I couldn’t say that to him, though. Mostly because I’m fond of my teeth, but also the angel that kept whispering to me wouldn’t approve, and you don’t want to piss off an angel that lives under your skin. They’re the worst sort. “We’ve been making good time, pacing ourselves for the journey. Why do we need to travel faster now all of a sudden?” I settled on letting him say it himself. It’s harder to lie to yourself out loud with an audience. Let him tell me he still truly believed his wife and child lived.

“You know.” He gave me a dark look.

“Tell me anyway,” I said.

“The voices. We need to get this over and done, get that bitch’s curse off us, before the voice I’m hearing stops suggesting and starts telling.”

That left me with my mouth open and nothing to say. Ron clip-clopped his way up another twenty yards of the Roma Road before I found the presence of mind to press my lips together.

“You’re trying to tell me you’re not hearing a voice?” Snorri leaned around in the saddle to scowl at me. He could manage the sort of scowl that reminded you he named his axes.

I could hardly deny it. The voice that had whispered beyond the edge of hearing in Compere had grown more distinct day by day, and its directives more frequent. It grew loudest each dawn. At first I had imagined that this was what people like Cousin Serah meant when urging me to listen to my conscience. I thought perhaps that too much fresh air and a lack of alcohol had opened me up to the nagging monologue of conscience for once in my life. Morning after morning of pious lecturing had me doubting my theory, though. Surely everyone couldn’t go around with some sickeningly moral voyeur hectoring them each moment of their life? How would they stay even vaguely sane? Or have fun?

“And what does this voice say to you?” I asked, still not admitting to anything.

Snorri returned his gaze to the road ahead, showing me broad shoulders. “I’m dark-sworn, Jal. Cracked through with it. What kind of secrets do you think the night whispers?”

“Hmm.” That didn’t sound good, though frankly I wouldn’t have minded swapping. Unsavoury suggestions bubbled out of the darkness at the back of my mind all the time. Most I ignored easily enough. Being upbraided on my own moral shortcomings at every turn, on the other hand, was proving most annoying. “Does your voice have a name?”

“She’s called Aslaug.”

“She? You got a woman?” I couldn’t keep the complaint from my voice. Nor did I try.

“Loki lay with a jötnar, a beauty with a spider’s shadow.” Snorri sounded self-conscious, no hint of the storyteller now, hesitating as he repeated unfamiliar details. “She birthed a hundred daughters in the dark places of the world, and none of them ever stepped out into the light. Old Elida used to tell us that tale. Now one of those daughters walks in my shadow.”

“So you got a beauty with a dirty mind, and I got a pious killjoy. Where’s the justice in that?”

“Called?” Snorri glanced back at me.

“Baraqel. I expect my father used to drone on about him from the pulpit. Damned if I know the name, though.” I was sure Baraqel would be eager to burden me with his lineage if I gave him the chance. He seemed to be a disembodied voice who liked the sound of his own pronouncements. Fortunately his visitations were limited to the few minutes between the sun cresting the horizon and clearing it-the rest of the time I could pretty much ignore him. And what with me being almost entirely made of sins that needed to be vilified, it didn’t leave much time for other matters.

“Well,” said Snorri. “It’s pretty clear we need to make haste, before Baraqel makes a decent man of you. And before Aslaug makes a bad one of me. She’s not fond of you, Jal, you should know that.”

“You should hear what Baraqel has to say about my choice of heathen travelling companion.” Not a bad return shot, but annoyingly my angel held Snorri up as something of a paragon during our morning chats, so it was better that the Norseman didn’t hear after all.

We rode all day and for once the sun blazed. It appeared that Ancrath was enjoying the summer so long denied to us on our trail. Perhaps the weather skewed my judgment, but I have to say that Ancrath struck me as a fine corner of the empire: free of the Rhonish taint, fertile lands well farmed, pleasingly humble peasants, and the merchant classes as servile as you like in the hunt for coin.

I kept close watch on Snorri all that day for any signs of evil, though what I’d do about it if I spotted any I hadn’t a clue. Being shackled to a battle-hungry Viking on route for a suicidal rescue mission had been harrowing enough. Now I was shackled to one who might become a creature of the night at the drop of anyone’s hat.

The day passed peacefully enough and Snorri showed no inclination towards the traditional demonic pursuits, though I did convince myself that his shadow was rather darker than everyone else’s and found myself peering into it every now and again, searching for any hint of his new mistress.

My own little blessing from the Silent Sister woke me at the instant of sunrise just as the cocks were throat-clearing for the first crow of the day.

“The heathen has become a servant of darkness. You should denounce him to some suitable member of the church inquisition.” Baraqel spoke quiet enough, but there’s something about a voice behind your eardrum that’s hard to ignore. Also he had a very irritating tone about him.

“Wh-what?”

“Have him arrested.”

I yawned and stretched. Pleased to find myself in a bed for once, albeit unaccompanied. “I thought Snorri was your golden boy. Everything I should strive to be?”

“Even a heathen can embody character traits that may be admired, and good role models are hard to come by in the wilds, Prince Jalan. However, his lack of true faith left him open to possession and he has been tainted beyond salvation. The rack and fire are his last best chance to lessen his sentence in hell now.”

“Hmmm.” I scratched my balls. Unfamiliar fleas were a small price to pay for the comfort of a bed. “I doubt he’d thank me for the favour.”

“Snorri’s wants are not of importance, Prince Jalan. The evil that has possessed him must be burned out. She must be cast into the fire and-”

“She? So you know Snorri’s passenger, do you? Old friend of yours?”

“You endanger your soul each time you mock me, Jalan Kendeth. I am God’s servant on earth, descended from heaven. Why wou-”

“Why would God create fleas? Did he ever tell you? Ah! Got one, you little bastard!” I cracked it between two fingernails. “So, what’s coming up today, Baraqel? Anything useful I should know? Let’s hear some of that divine wisdom.” It wasn’t so much that I didn’t believe he was an angel, and I certainly wasn’t about to dispute the existence of such-my neck still bore the trace of bruises where a dead man tried to throttle me-it was just that I felt Baraqel must be a rather poor example. After all, angels should tower above you in gold and feathers carrying flaming swords and speaking wisdom in tongues. I didn’t expect them to hide away and nag me to get up each morning in a voice suspiciously like my father’s.

Baraqel remained silent for several moments, then a cockerel let out a raucous hallelujah to the morning close by, and I decided my angel had taken his leave.

“Dark travellers on the road. Born of flame. A prince has sent them. A prince of evil, of darkness and revenge, a prince of lightning. A thorn prince. They are his work. Messengers of the doom to come.”

The pronouncement startled me awake again. “That’s the sort of nonsense I could have off Dr. Taproot’s old fortune-teller for half a copper.” More yawning, more scratching. “What prince? What doom?”

“The thorn prince. He whose line will spill heaven into hell and rip the world asunder. His gift is the death of angels, the death of. .” And blessedly he trailed off, the sun having cleared the horizon somewhere out beyond the musty confines of my room.

I stretched, yawned, scratched, contemplated the end of all things, and went back to sleep.

We left the inn after a breakfast of liver and fried potatoes washed down with small beer. So far the famed cuisine of Ancrath had proved the least appealing aspect of the country, but riding a horse day in, day out for weeks on end gives a man an appetite of the kind that’s ready to try anything. Even horse.

Joining the Roma Road once more from the dirt track to the inn, I fell into my customary daydreaming, the sort that’s apt to get you killed in the wilds but is the kind of luxury civilization affords us. I realized simultaneously that I had no idea what a liver was for and that I also didn’t ever want to eat one again, especially not for breakfast with garlic.

Snorri stopped me pursuing that line of thought any further by drawing up in the road directly ahead of me. A ragged group of travellers were heading north towards Crath City, blocking the road, some pulling handcarts, others labouring under their possessions, others still flapping along in just the tatters they wore. And amongst them not a clean limb showed: All were black with filth of some kind.

“Refugees,” Snorri said.

Dark travellers. An echo of Baraqel’s prophecy ran through my mind.

As we caught them up I saw many bore wounds, still raw and open, and each of them-man, woman, child-was black with soot, or with dried mud, or black with both. Snorri nudged Sleipnir in amongst them, offering apologies. I followed, trying not to let any of them touch me.

“What happened here, friend?” Snorri leaned from his saddle towards a tall fellow, peasant-thin, an ugly rip along the top of his scalp.

The man offered a blank-eyed stare. “Raiders.” Little more than a mutter.

“Where away?” Snorri asked, but the man had turned from him.

“Norwood.” A woman on the other side, grey-haired and hobbling. “They burned it down. There’s nothing for us now.”

“Baron Ken’s troops? Is Ancrath at war?” Snorri frowned.

The woman shook her head and spat. “Raiders. Renar men. Everywhere’s burning. Sometimes it’s knights and soldiers, sometimes just rabble. Road scum.” She turned away, head down, lost in her misery.

“I’m sorry.” Snorri didn’t try to cheer her or claim her lot would soon improve-but he said something. More than I would know to do. A shake of reins and he moved on.

We made our passage through the refugees, thirty of them maybe, and picked up speed. It was a relief to be clear of the stink. I’d been poor for a day or three and hadn’t liked it one bit. The survivors of Norwood had been poor enough to start with, and now they had nothing but need.

“They’re hoping to throw themselves on the mercy of King Olidan,” Snorri said. “That’s the measure of their desperation.”

It still irked me just how much the Norseman knew about lands that lay across the sea from his. I’d heard of Olidan, of course. His reputation had reached even into my cosy world: Grandmother complained of his manoeuvring more than enough for that. But who ruled in Kennick and how relations stood between Ancrath and its muddy neighbour I had no idea. Snorri had upbraided me about my tenuous grasp of empire history, but I told him history’s just old news, prophecy that’s well past its sell-by date. Current affairs were more my thing. Especially my current affairs, and Crath City could improve those no end. There would be wine, women, and song, all much missed on our long and miserable trek so far-women in particular. In addition, where better to find some wise men to strike off the shackles the Silent Sister had bound me to Snorri with?

The Roma Road bore us swifter than a river and we came in sight of Crath City as the sun plunged behind its towers, making a black architecture of spires and spans. I’d heard Olidan’s capital rivalled Vermillion for the grandness of its buildings and the wealth spent there in bricks and mortar. Martus visited on an embassy two years previously and described the Ancrath palace as the stump of some Builder-tower, but my brother was ever full of lies and I’d be able to make my own judgment on that soon enough.

“We should skirt around.” Snorri had fallen behind and when I turned all his face lay in shadow, only the ridges of his brow and cheekbones catching the redness of the sunset.

“Nonsense. I’m a prince of the March. We have agreements with the Ancraths and it’s my duty to call in on the king.” Duty had nothing to do with it. Crath City was my last best chance to break the Silent Sister’s curse. With luck King Olidan could be persuaded to help. He would have magicians in his service. And even without his help there were always spell-smiths of one kind or another tucked away in such an ancient city. I’d never set much store by such things before. Smoke, mirrors, and old bones, I’d called it. But even a prince of Red March may have to revise his opinion on occasion.

“No,” Snorri said. I couldn’t see his eyes in the half-light, and as the shadows stretched out across the road I remembered that this would be the time she spoke to him. Aslaug, his dark spirit, would be whispering her poison while the sun fell from the world.

“Rushing in unprepared didn’t work so well for you the first time, did it? You want to save Freya? Little Egil? Cut Sven Broke-Oar into several pieces? It’s time to use your head, to understand what we’re up against and formulate a plan.” I had to move him somehow, even if it risked provoking the Viking in him and daring the consequences. “This is Crath City. How much of the world’s lore came from this very spot? Dig down far enough into anything the wise say and there’s a document from the vaults of the Loove at the bottom of it.” I paused for breath, having exhausted everything I could remember my tutors saying about Crath City. “Wouldn’t time here be well spent? Advice on the nature of your foe? Maybe an antidote to ghoul poison. Or even a cure for the curse on us. You’re risking the Roma Road, rushing north at full tilt, hoping to make it before the dark seduces you. . and the solution might be just behind those walls. The Silent Sister’s not the only witch in the Broken Empire, not by a long shot. Let’s find one who can help us.”

We faced each other now, horses nose to nose, me waiting for some reply.

The silence stretched. “You’re right,” Snorri said at last, and nudged Sleipnir into motion towards the city. The sense of relief that washed over me as he passed by proved short-lived. It occurred to me that I didn’t know for sure who he was talking to. Me or his demon? I waited a minute, then shrugged and rode on after. Who really cared? I got what I wanted. A chance. After all, that’s all a man really needs: a big city full of sin and sleaze, and a chance.

“Aslaug speaks of you,” Snorri said as I drew level on the road. “Says the light will turn you-set you in my path.” He sounded weary. “I doubt Loki’s daughter can utter anything that’s not half a lie, but she has a silver tongue and even a half-lie is half true. So listen when I say it would be. . poor advice. . that led you to try to stop me.”

“Ha.” I slapped him on the shoulder and wished I hadn’t, my hand crackling with painful magics. “Can you think of anyone less likely than me to listen to an angel, Snorri?”

• • •

Crath City opened her arms and invited us in. We drifted along the riverbank, enjoying the warmth of the night. Everywhere along the dusty path, inns lit the way from the right, barges from the left, moored and decked with lanterns. The city folk drank at tables, at barrel tops, standing in groups, lying on the sod, or on the decks of the barges. They drank from clay cups, pewter mugs, wooden trenchers, from jugs, bottles, kegs, and ewers, the method of delivery as varied as the brews poured down so many throats.

“A jolly lot, these Crathians.” Already the place had started to feel like home. Any wanderlust had wandered off the moment I smelled cheap wine and cheaper perfume.

A ruddy-cheeked peasant reeled backwards across our path, somehow maintaining his pint mug at an angle that spilled no ale, though he stumbled as if at sea on a stormy night. Snorri shot me a grin, the black mood Aslaug had left him with now lifting.

A crowd of men on the nearest beer-barge broke out into the chorus of the “Farmer’s Lament,” a bawdy ballad detailing in seventeen verses what amusement one can and can’t get up to with livestock. I knew it well, though in Red March it’s a Rhonish man who’ll have no peace till he grabs a fleece, not a Highlander.

“Must be a festival day.” Snorri breathed in deeply; the air came laden with the smell of meat a-roasting. That’s a scent that will set your belly growling after a long day’s travel. Snorri’s stomach practically roared. “It can’t be like this every night.”

“The lost prince is back. Didn’t you know?” A woman in her cups, passing by and reaching up to paw at Snorri’s thigh. “Everyone knows that!” She reversed direction and walked alongside Sleipnir, hand still exploring Snorri’s leg. “Oh my! There’s a lot of meat down here!”

A husband or suitor managed to snag the woman’s hand and pull her away, frowning all the while but hardly in a position to blame Snorri. Which was probably for the best, all things considered. I watched her go. Tempting as the roast in her own way, well fed, fat some might say, but jolly with it, a twinkle in her eye. She even had most of her teeth. I sighed. I had been entirely too long on the road.

“Lost prince?” Hadn’t Baraqel said something about a prince?

Snorri shrugged. “You’re a lost prince. They always seem to turn up again. Some prodigal son has returned. If it puts the locals in a good mood, then that makes life easier. We get in, take what we need, leave.”

“Sounds good.” Of course, we weren’t talking about entirely the same things-but it did sound good.

We crossed the Sane by the Royal Bridge, a fine broad construction sitting on great piles that must have survived the Thousand Suns. Crath City rose from the docks on the opposite bank, sprawling over gentle hills and reaching up to the walls of the Old City where the money lived, looking out over what it owned. The Tall Castle waited in the middle of it all, high above us. I let the gradient guide the way. It took us into an ill-lit quarter where the sewers ran rank and drunks staggered narrow paths along the middle of the alleyways, not trusting the shadows.

“We’ll find a place down here tonight,” I said. “Somewhere unsavoury.” Tomorrow I’d be a prince again, knocking on Olidan’s doors. Tonight I wanted to take full advantage of my anonymity and enjoy the benefits of civilization to the full. The benefits of a decadent civilization. If Baraqel was going to wake me up at cockcrow for a lecture on morality, I might as well make it worth his while. Besides, if I found a low enough dive and woke amidst as much sinning as I hoped to, he might just decide not to show.

“There?” Snorri pointed down a thoroughfare broad enough to host taverns, the houses stacked three storeys high, each stage heavy-beamed and overstepping the one below so they crowded out into the street as they rose. Snorri’s thick finger directed me towards one of several hanging signs.

“The Falling Angel. Sounds about right.” I wondered what Baraqel would make of that.

With the horses given over to an ostler and stabled, I followed Snorri into the bar. He had to duck low to avoid the lanterns over the street door, and when he stepped aside the place lay revealed to me. A dive indeed, and populated by a collection of the most dangerous-looking men I’d laid eyes on outside a fighting pit. . and quite possibly inside one too. My instinct was to execute a rapid reversal of direction on one heel and find a less intimidating venue, but Snorri had already secured a table, and having seen him demolish Edris’s crew in the mountains I felt it might be safer to stick close to him than try my luck alone outside.

The Angel had that reek to it: sweat, horses, stale beer, and fresh sex. The serving girls looked harried, the three barkeeps nervous; even the whores were keeping to the stairs, peering down between the railings as if no longer sure of their chosen profession. It seemed as though the bulk of the customers crowding the place from front wall to back weren’t regulars. In fact, as I slid along the bench to sit beside my Viking I noticed that the night’s clientele looked every bit as far-flung as a Norseman and a native of Red March. The Nuban close by the hearth had perhaps travelled farthest. A powerfully built man with tribal scars and a watchful gravitas about him. He caught me staring and flashed a grin.

“Mercenaries,” Snorri said.

I noticed as he said it that almost every man in the place carried a weapon, most of them several weapons, and not the civilized man’s poniard or rapier but bloody great swords, axes, cleavers, knives for gutting bears, and the biggest crossbow I’ve ever seen occupied most of the table before the Nuban. Several of the men wore breastplates, grimy and battered as if from hard service; others old chain-mail shirts or quilted armour stitched with the occasional bronze plate.

“We could try that place down the street, the Red Dragon,” I suggested as Snorri raised his arm for ale. “Somewhere a bit less crowded and”-I raised my voice to compete with a cheer from the next table-“noisy.”

“I like this place.” Snorri raised his arm higher. “Beer, woman, beer! For the love of Odin!”

“Hmmm.” I saw cards and dice aplenty, but something told me that winning money off any of these men might be a short-lived pleasure. Beside Snorri an old and toothless man supped his ale from a saucer, still managing to spill most of it over the grey stubble of his chin. A young fellow sat next to the elder, this one not quite old enough to shave, slim, slight, unremarkable save for a fine quality to his features that might make him handsome in the right light. He shot me a shy smile, but the truth of it was I didn’t trust either of them to be what they seemed. Keep the company of brigands such as filled the Angel and you had to have some iron in you, probably a whole parcel of wickedness too.

Our ale arrived, smacked down in earthenware cups and frothing over the sides. They were poorly fashioned, made in a hurry for the lowest cost, the sort of cups that expected to get broken. I sipped from mine-bitter stuff-and wiped away the white moustache. Across the room, through smoke and past the to-and-fro of bodies, a huge man was giving me the evil eye. He had the kind of blunt weapon of a face you could imagine breaking through a door, and he sat head and shoulders above the men beside him. To the giant’s left a man who seemed too fat to be dangerous but somehow managed to look scary anyway, with a patchy beard straggling down over multiple chins, piggy eyes assessing the crowd whilst he chomped the meat off a bone. To the right was the only normal-sized man of the trio, looking somehow ridiculous in their shadow, and yet I’d be giving him the widest of berths. Everything about him said warrior. He ate and drank with an intensity that unnerved me, and if a man can unnerve you across a crowded room just by cutting his beef, then you probably don’t want to see him draw steel.

“You know, I really think we’d be better off at the Red Dragon down the street,” I said, putting down my cup half-empty. “This is obviously a private party. . I don’t think it’s safe here.”

“Of course it isn’t.” Snorri gave me that same worrying grin he had offered on the mountain. “That’s why I like it.” He raised his cup, coming dangerously near to splattering another of the band with foam, this one a moustachioed fellow with an unlikely number of knives bound about his person. “Meat! Bread! And more ale!” I could imagine him now in the mead-hall of his jarl at a gathering of the clans, grasping a drinking horn. He looked more relaxed than I’d seen him since the blood pits in Vermillion.

I caught sight of the ugly giant throwing me another dirty look. “I’ll be back.” I struggled up between bench and table and went out the front to relieve myself. If my admirer across the tavern had stood and come over to make trouble I probably would have wet myself, so getting out of his eyeline to answer nature’s call seemed a good move.

The Falling Angel turned out not to be entirely without class. They had a decent purpose-built wall to piss against and a little gutter running down into the street gutter to carry away the used beer. Although the fact that someone was lying facedown in the street gutter and leaking blood into it did detract somewhat from the otherwise pleasant scene of life flowing through the less salubrious arteries of Crath City. Beyond him, bravos and labourers, goodwives with their goodhusbands, vendors of food on sticks, all came and went, glimpsed in the light of one lantern, lost, then seen again in the light of another, passing by the purveyors of affection on the street corner and lost again never to return.

I finished up and went back in.

“-think that but you’d be wrong.”

I’d been outside for two minutes, three at the most, and returned to find Snorri flanked by mercenaries and swapping stories like old friends. “No,” Snorri continued, back half-turned to me. “I’m telling you he’s not. I mean, you might think it to look at him, granted. But I hauled him out of this place, they had him tied to a table, wanted some information and the knives were out. And we’re not talking a gentle jabbing here-they were about to cut off the kind of bits you’d miss.” Snorri drained off the last of his ale. “Know what he said to them? Roared at them he did. I heard it out in the corridor. ‘I won’t ever tell!’ Shouted it in their faces. ‘Get the pincers out if you like. Heat them in the coals. I ain’t talking.’ Now that’s the kind of man who’s got fire in his belly. Might look like there’s nothing behind the bluster, but you can’t trust your gut with this one. Brave man. Charged an unborn all by himself. Thing must have been twelve foot of grave-horror, had me disarmed, and in came Jal swinging a sword-” Snorri glanced my way. “Jal! I was just talking about you.” He gestured across the table. “Make a hole!” And they did, two mean-eyed thugs sliding apart so I could wedge in. “These fine fellows are Brother Sim”-he pointed out the slight lad-“Brother Elban, Brother Gains. .” He indicated the old man and a tow-haired bully. “Well, they’re all brothers. It’s like a holy order of the road, only without any ‘holy.’” He waved his half-gnawed bone down the line. “Brothers Grumlow, Emmer, Roddat, Jobe. .” The knife-man, a stern close-shaved fellow, and two younger men, both sallow, one scar-cheeked, the other pockmarked. “More beer!” And he thumped the table hard enough to make everything on it jump.

Somehow Snorri’s loudness had broken the tension and the Angel came alive. The staff relaxed, the girls came down off the stairs to ply their trade, and laughter ran more freely. I may have been the only man there still miserable. It’s in my nature to absent myself from danger whenever possible, and relaxed or not, this brotherhood we’d fallen in with sweated danger from every pore. Besides, Snorri’s magic hadn’t reached all corners of the room. I could still feel the giant’s hostile gaze searing across the back of my neck. I snatched up the ale set before me and knocked it back, hoping to deaden the sensation.

Relief came in the instant. An inviting softness squeezed against my neck to replace the feeling of being stared at, hennaed curls flooded over my shoulder, narrow hands massaged my upper arms, and the ridges of a whale-boned corset pressed the length of my back.

“Where’s your smile, my handsome?” She leaned around me, bodice offering her goods for display. Pale hands ran down across my chest, over the flatness of my stomach. I’ll admit that weeks of unwanted exercise and privation had stripped me of any padding. “I’m sure I could find it.” Her fingers slid lower. Years of experience in such situations kept my attention divided between the twin distractions of breasts served up on the bodice and the location of my own valuables. She leaned in and husked into my ear, “Sally will make it all good.”

“My thanks, but no.” I surprised myself. She still had her youth, and the good looks she’d been born with. Those had yet to be stripped by the bitter wind of experience that blows through the backstreets of such places. But I’m not at my best in a cold sweat, and every coward’s instinct I had told me I should be running. Under such circumstances my ardour grows softer.

“Truly?” She leaned in, breasts swaying, breathing the word into my ear.

“I’ve no money,” I said, and in an instant the warmth fell from her expression, her eyes dismissing me to seek out other opportunities. Snorri caught her attention, of course, but he was well wedged into his corner and attacking a slab of beef on the bone with such ferocity that Sally perhaps doubted she would be able to compete. In a swirl of skirts she was gone. Nervous or not, I still turned to watch her retreat and found myself the study of two veterans, grey heads, but lean and tough like old leather, the same dispassionate speculation in their eyes that I’d seen when Cutter John took my measure. I turned back to my plate, lacking appetite. Someone had called those two Brothers Liar and Row. I had no desire to find out how they came by their names. A roar of laughter from Snorri overwrote my fears, though I did flinch when he slammed his axe down on the table.

“No. That’s an axe. What you’ve got is more by way of a hatchet.”

As Snorri held forth about longboats, axe design, and the price of salt-fish, I glanced around with as much surreptitiousness as can be achieved over the rim of a beer mug. Aside from the trio of huge, fat, and deadly behind me, one other table seemed set on matters more serious than the emptying of barrels. In an alcove across the room, two men debated over a table. The few pieces of armour they still wore were far better quality than anything the Brothers had. Both were tall, both with long dark hair, one straight, one curled, the elder maybe thirty, a generous face perhaps not given to its current sombre look, the other young, very young, maybe not yet eighteen, but dangerous. If the rest of the Brothers set off my warning bells, this sharp-featured boy rang them off their mountings. He cast me a look the moment I found focus on him. A thousand-yard stare that told me to turn away.

Ale continued to flow and gradually my appetite returned, followed by my good humour. Ale has a way of washing away a man’s fears. Sure enough he’ll find them the next day, sodden and wrapped around his ankles, with a couple of new ones thrown into the mix and a headache fit for splitting rocks, but in the moment ale is a fine substitute for bravery, wit, and contentment. Before very long I was exchanging tales of wenching with the taciturn Brother Emmer wedged beside me. A fairly one-way exchange, truth be told, but I do warm to the subject once my tongue’s been loosened, as do most young men in good health.

By the time the next whore approached I was ready with a quite different answer to the one I’d given Sally. Mary had pared the corset-and-gown ensemble down to just corset, and the combination of her long dark hair, mischievous eyes, and the ample portion of recklessness the ale had lent me had me getting to my feet. At which point I noticed that the giant-the Brothers called him Rike-was inbound, his face heaped up over raw bones into a fearsome scowl. I sat immediately and suddenly found the bottom of my cup to be fascinating.

Relief sighed out of me as the giant’s shadow passed over us and moved on. The man was taller than Snorri by at least a hand’s width, his arms lacking the Norseman’s well-defined muscle but thicker than my thighs. Brothers scattered out of his way as he closed on Snorri: Young Sim literally slid under the table to avoid being caught between them-slippery that one, as I suspected. Mary also vanished with commendable speed. Snorri himself seemed unconcerned, placing his ale mug on the next table along and wiping the beard at the corners of his mouth to clean away any of the larger detritus from his meal.

Generally, even when a fight is inevitable, both parties take a short while to warm to the idea. A disparaging remark is aimed, the reply ups the stakes, someone’s mother is a whore, and an instant later-whether the mother was in fact a whore or not-there’s blood on the ground. Brother Rike favoured a shorter path to violence. He simply let out an animal roar and closed the final three paces at speed.

At the last moment Snorri shifted his considerable weight and the end of the hastily cleared bench shot up to smack Rike under the chin, then jam against his throat. Even with Snorri sitting on it, the bench scraped several inches along the floor before arresting Rike’s advance. Snorri stood, letting the bench fall as Rike reeled back, then in one quick stride seized the man behind his head with both hands and rammed him face first into the table. The impact sent my ale vaulting out of its cup and into my lap. Rike himself slid to the floor, trailing a long red stain across the beer-soaked boards.

The killer stood behind his fallen companion. Red Kent, they called this one. His hand on the hatchet at his side, a question on his brow.

“Ha! Let him sleep it off.” Snorri grinned at Kent and sat down. Brother Kent returned the smile and went back to sit with his fat companion.

Snorri returned to his place and reached across to retrieve his drink from the other table.

I felt much better after that. Rike’s sudden downfall filled me with no end of good humour. I snatched another ale from a passing serving girl, tossing a copper onto her tray.

“Well, Brother Emmer.” I paused to quaff-a style of drinking not dissimilar from swigging but which involves spilling rather more of the brew down your chest. “I don’t know about you but I’m in the mood for some more horizontal entertainment.” And as if on cue sweet Mary stood at my side, smile in place. “Hail Mary, full of grace,” I said, alcohol substituting for wit. “My father’s a cardinal, did you know that? Let’s go upstairs and discuss ecumenical matters.” Mary giggled dutifully, and with a hand on Brother Emmer’s shoulder I found my feet. “Lead on, dear lady.” I started a bow but thought better of it, most traces of balance having deserted me.

I followed Mary to the stairs, veering from one side to the other but thankfully not managing to spill a Brother’s pint or otherwise causing offence, and always drawn back on course by her tempting wiggle. At the bottom of the stairs Mary took a candle from the wall box, lit it, and led on up. It seemed I’d started a trend as someone else followed us up the steps, boots thudding.

A long passageway divided the second floor, doors to either side. Mary led the way to one of the ones standing ajar. She set the candle in a holder on the wall and turned. Her smile slipped away, eyes widening.

“Get lost.” For a moment I wondered why I’d said that, then realized that the voice had come from behind me.

Mary dodged aside and pattered back down the corridor whilst I wrestled with the business of turning around without falling over. Before I could manage it, fingers knotted in the hair at the back of my head and steered me into the darkened room.

“Snorri!” What had been meant as a manly cry for assistance came out more as a squeak.

“We don’t need him.” The hand steered me further in. Shadows swung as the candle moved behind me. “I-” A pause to deepen my voice. “I don’t have any money. Just a copper or two. The Viking carries for me.”

“I don’t want your money, boy.”

Even a skinful of ale only allows so much room for optimism. The edge of a bed frame pressed sharp against my shins. “Fuck that!” I swung round, fist flailing. The flickering light allowed me a glimpse of Brother Emmer before a two-handed shove sent me tumbling backwards. My fist found only air, and the candle went out.

“No!” It became a wail. The bedclothes engulfed me, lavender scented to obscure the stink of old sweat. I lashed out again but the blanket tangled my arm. I heard the door kicked shut. The weight of a body covered me.

“Emmer! I’m not like that!” A shout now. “I’m-” I remembered my knife and started to hunt it.

“Oh, shush.” Much softer tones, close to my face. “Just behave.”

“But-”

“It’s Emma.”

“What?”

“Emma, not Emmer.” An iron grip encircled my wrist as my fingertips found the hilt of my dagger. The body pinning me now stretched out on mine, hard with muscle but shorter than me, and at such close quarters, quite possibly female. “Emma,” she said again. “But let that slip outside this room, pretty boy, and I’ll cut your tongue out and eat it.”

“But-”

“Just relax. I’ve saved you half a silver ducet.”

So I did.