The men I had sent out came back when the birds had finished yelling at the dawn.
‘They saw us,’ Kuritsa said, ‘just as the sky got light. We managed a shot or two, but they rowed off. There were only two.’
‘My fault,’ added another of the trackers wryly, a lanky Svear called Koghe. ‘I am not as skilled as Kuritsa here and let them see me.’
Kuritsa waggled his head from side to side, a gesture that meant the matter was neither here nor there. He also voiced an opinion that had been in my head, too.
‘It means the second man from tonight is still somewhere around.’
He had done more than well, what with this and other matters and I looked at him and knew what I had to do. Gripping him by one shoulder I bellowed it out so that everyone could hear.
‘I see you.’
Men turned; a few ‘heyas’ went up, for they liked Kuritsa and had long since stopped treating him as a thrall — which meant not noticing him at all. Now I had declared him as noticed and had Red Njal bring my drinking horn, filled with the last scum of the ale. Grinning, he handed it to Kuritsa, who then handed it to me. I drank and gave it back to him. He drank and everyone cheered, for Kuritsa was now a free man.
In some places there is more to it, involving six ounces of silver — if the thrall is buying his freedom — and him brewing ale from three measures, which is a powerful drink to present to his former owner, but all that is colouring the cloth of it.
‘Well,’ Crowbone said brightly, ‘now that we have no more thralls, we will have to rely on Finn Horsehead’s cooking.’
Which, of course, was what we had been doing already, for Finn was known for his excellent meals, but it raised a laugh as men clattered about, sorting themselves, trying to find sleep again and mostly failing. When the light was enough to see by, the ship was shoved off from the bank, the rowers settled on to their sea-chests, slid out the oars and bedded themselves into the rhythm of it, helped by Trollaskegg’s loving curses.
Dogs, he called them one minute and maeki saurgan the next, which strangers take as an insult, since it means ‘dirty sword’. They miss the part of how such a sword came to be so stained, by proving its worth and not breaking.
I took Pall by the scruff of the neck and hauled him to where Finn sat.
‘Here,’ I said. ‘Aim your scowls at this instead of me, Finn. This Pall might be useful yet, even if only in one of your stews.’
Finn managed a twist of his mouth, for he did not want a quarrel any more than I; Pall hunkered miserably, but I saw his thin face turn this way and that, cunning as a rat. A thought struck me and I cursed myself for a nithing fool.
‘Where were you going?’ I demanded. ‘Before you thought to be clever with our boat.’
He flicked his adder tongue over dry lips and I reached round into the small of my back, under the cloak, which made him flinch and cup his finger-short hand in the other.
‘Upriver,’ he answered in a voice as whiny as the wind, then, seeing me produce the truth knife, added hastily: ‘To warn the Saxlanders you are coming. Pallig wants you dead for killing his brother.’
‘Dare not do it himself, all the same,’ I pointed out scornfully.
‘Crucify him,’ Finn advised, then, remembering the Rus punishment for Christ-worshipping criminals, added: ‘Upside down.’
‘Christ Jesus,’ moaned Pall and collapsed to the deck, no doubt believing he was on his knees to his White Christ while the reality was he babbled with his nose in Finn’s boots; Finn laughed and prodded his face with a toe, while I added this latest bad cess to the growing heap of problems.
The rain started again and the wind swirled and circled, sometimes strong enough to catch the prow or the steerboard and lurch the ship sideways, like a balked horse. The current was strong, too and, in the end, I had us back at the east bank with the rowers drooling and panting. It had thicker woods nearby, so we stayed the rest of that day, sending men hunting or fetching firewood and fretting at having little food and less ale.
It gave me too much time to think, about when Odin would take me as his sacrifice, about what Thorgunna and the others at Hestreng would be doing and about the night-sneak by Pall and his oarmate.
When I had spotted it, I was thinking it one of the crew stealing up on Dark Eye, and tried to tell myself the feelings I had had were because she was valuable to us. Since then, she only took those eyes from me when she scanned the banks, as if hoping to see a face she knew. Even with my back to her I could feel the heat of those eyes.
She was young, yet old enough to grip the interest of all the crew, but she seemed like some animal fresh from a burrow in the woods, thrown into somewhere strange; I saw a hunger in those eyes, which I took to be for the woods and hills of her own place. I knew that hunger. Mine was for a fjord and misted cliffs and a distant blue line of mountain, like something seen on the inside of your eyelids when first you close them at night. I tried hard not to think of hers as another hunger and mostly failed.
That night we had a bigger blaze, just to cheer us and the glow of it fired the river and drowned the dark with blood red. I saw her, when everyone had gone to snores and grunts, a sharp profile against a sudden unveiled moon.
She turned and the firelight caught the shadow of a smile on a mouth that was neat as a hem, yet full enough for me to wonder if she knew how to kiss.
THIRTEEN
The woods seemed still until you were in them, when things moved and made noises; a brown bird flickering in a bush of berries, a fox picking delicately through the sodden edge of the meadow, rooks arguing in a tangle of trees, their new-hatched joining in with an uncertain clamour of young voices as broken as Crowbone’s.
I was enjoying this, a hunt and a scout both and free of the ship and the grumbling, quarrelsome crew, even if my bow-skill was likely to shoot my own foot as something tasty for the pot.
The scouting was more important — the day before we had spotted smoke, a thread in the weak, faded blue, no more — but it spoke of fresh food and ale and perhaps even women, so here we were, Kuritsa and me, plootering as quietly as we could through the damp woods in a sudden burst of warmth which brought out the insects in stinging swarms.
For all that I was bitten and had to keep spitting them out, felt them in my hair and trying for my eyes and nose, the pests could not make me unhappy. At times, a silence fell so that I thought I could hear the new buds straining to be free on all the branches, that I could hear the grass hiss and rustle out of the ground. It was during one of these moments that I caught the movement, like alfar at the edge of my eye.
I froze and turned, but Kuritsa had already seen it, no more than a shadow sliding in shadows — then I lost it. A curlew called, sharp and two-toned and I saw it, wings curved and gliding, so that just the tips of them fluttered; a mallard hen bow-waved out of nearby reeds, fluffing in anger and followed by a string of ducklings; the river swirled in fat, slow eddies.
Kuritsa placed his fingers on his lips and it was clear he did not like even that much shifting, so I stayed where I was in the willows and peered, feeling the sweat trickle and the insects nip; their whine became the loudest noise.
Somewhere behind, coming up with long, slow, easy strokes, was Short Serpent, looking to us for warning, for they were close to the east bank, the west being where the sharpest current swung downriver. And I was sure now that we were not alone here, even if only Kuritsa seemed to know that other men were about. Pallig’s men? Perhaps the two who had escaped in the boat, or the one who had fled on foot.
I was offering prayers to Odin that it be them when I saw the man, no more than an arm’s length away through the screen of new brush.