It was not hard to find them, these lurkers in reeds — there were tracks everywhere and signs, like sheepfolds and marked tillage, that a settlement was close. Not that we needed them, as Finn said.
‘Just follow the screamers,’ he growled, trying to cuff Pall, who was dragging on the end of a rope leash like an awkward dog.
It was not surprising, I was thinking, that folk fled from us, yelling and waving their arms and leaving kine and sheep behind. One man, with scarcely a backward glance, even left a toddler, all fat limbs and wailing; Hlenni scooped him into the crook of one arm and jogged him, though the red-cheeked, yellow-haired boy only started to gurgle and grin when Hlenni took his helmet off.
‘Lucky it was Hlenni and not Finn,’ Red Njal chuckled, sticking out a dirt-stained finger for the boy to grab. ‘To win over bairns and maids takes a gentle lure, as my granny used to say. That wean would have shat himself if Finn had taken his helmet off.’
‘I think he has anyway,’ mourned Hlenni, sniffing suspiciously at the boy’s breeks.
‘Na,’ said Finn, seeing his chance. ‘I am thinking that is just how Hlenni always smells.’
There was laughter and no-one thought Orm Trader could not gold-tongue and silver-gift his way out of this matter and into the smiles of the settlement. I was not so sure; we were all byrnied, helmeted, shielded and armed, moving with a shink-shink of metal, cutting a scar across their pasture and ploughland to where they perched on a mound behind a log stockade. Besides — we had just killed a lot of them; even before we had come within hailing distance, I heard the gates boom shut.
That brought us to a ragged, uncertain halt. It was a small settlement and the stockade was dark with age, yet it looked solid and the gate had a big, square tower with a solid hat of wood to cover it. Men appeared, just their heads and shoulders showing above the rampart edge. So did the points of spears.
‘You are the jarl and so should speak to them,’ Crowbone said and winced a little at the withering look I gave him.
‘Just so,’ I said. ‘Hold a little. I will learn their tongue while we make a fire. Perhaps Finn can make us a stew while we wait?’
‘I can,’ said Finn, ‘if I had water and someone found some roots and Kuritsa shot something tasty.’
‘I thought we brought Pall for talking to them?’ Crowbone persisted.
‘Aye,’ growled Finnlaith, giving the answer before I could speak, ‘but can you trust what the little rat tells you is being said?’
‘We brought Pall because I like him where I can see him,’ I pointed out and Crowbone, seeing it now, frowned a little and nodded. It did not diminish the truth of what he said, all the same. There was nothing else to be done, otherwise we had come all this way for no reason — but I did not have to like it.
Hlenni, Red Njal, me, Finn and the leashed Pall and Styrbjorn all moved out — the latter because I did not want him out of my sight — with Finnlaith and Ospak as shieldmen in case matters turned uglier than Hel’s daughters. Every step into the place where arrows might reach made my arse pucker and my belly contract. When I thought we had come close enough to be heard without bellowing at the edge of voice, I stopped and hailed them.
A head appeared, this one wearing a blue hat with a fringe of fur round it, probably what passed for the rank of riches in this place — everyone else I had seen was bareheaded. The iron-grey beard beneath that blue hat hid a mouth I knew would be a thin line.
He was hard, this headman, a nub of a man worn by toil even if he had managed to work himself up to a blue hat with fur round it; even at a distance I saw the lines on his face, etched deep by wind and worry.
‘We come to trade,’ I yelled, hearing the stupidity of it in my own voice, for we had just killed a half-dozen of his people, a hard dunt of menfolk loss in a settlement this size. He was not slow to point this out and I was surprised to hear him say it in halting Norse.
‘It seems we will not need you today, Christ-rat,’ growled Styrbjorn nastily and gave Pall a kick so that he yelped.
‘Go away, slavers,’ Blue Hat added, his voice carrying clearly with the faint wind that drove from him to us. ‘Nothing easy is here for you today.’
‘I seek a monk,’ I yelled back. ‘A Greek one in black. He had a boy with him.’
There was silence for a moment, while the damp warmth seeped and the insects annoyed us.
‘Escape you?’ came the reply. ‘Good.’
I sighed; this was going to be a long, hard day.
‘We can trade,’ I began, trying to keep the weary desperation out of my voice…but Hlenni stepped forward suddenly and held up the yellow-haired boy, swung him up and into the air at the end of both of his hands so that he could be clearly seen. The boy chuckled and laughed, enjoying it.
‘See?’ he bellowed. ‘We mean no harm.’
A woman screamed — probably the mother; I wondered how her man had explained how he had run off and left the lad.
Hlenni moved forward and someone — Red Njal, when I thought on matters later — called his name uncertainly, but Hlenni strode forward with the boy in his arms and set him down almost under the gate.
‘Growl not at guests, nor drive them from the gate,’ Hlenni said, grinning back at Red Njal. ‘As your granny used to say.’
The boy toddled a bit, lost his balance, fell forward, crawled a bit, then rose up, wobbling. Abandoned, uncertain, he began to bawl.
‘Cautious and silent let him enter a dwelling,’ Red Njal muttered. ‘To the heedful seldom comes harm.’
There was an argument above and a woman’s voice sounded shrill, so it was not hard to work matters out.
‘Your granny,’ Hlenni said, turning to grin at Red Njal, ‘was…’
Then someone hurled the rock at him from the ramparts.
A big one it was, big as Hlenni’s stupid head and the crack of it hitting in the curve of his neck and shoulder was loud; louder yet was the roar of disbelief and rage that went up from us. Hlenni pitched forward on his face and Red Njal howled and leaped forward.
Arrows came over with a hiss and shunk, some skittering through the wet grass. Finnlaith caught Red Njal as he hirpled past, caught and held him, though Njal raved and struggled and frothed and Ospak stepped in front of them both, shield up against the shafts.
Eventually we dragged Red Njal away out of range, where he subsided, gnawing a knuckle and trembling, his eyes fixed on the fallen Hlenni.
The gate opened and men darted out, grabbed the bairn and took Hlenni by the heels and dragged him in, which set all the men off again until Finn and I had to crack heads and draw blood.
Sweating, we crouched like wolves after a failed hunt, panting with our mouths open, sick with loss.
‘Perhaps he is alive,’ Styrbjorn ventured, thoughtful as only a man who did not really care could be. ‘They may regret what they have done and bind his wound.’
No-one spoke. I blinked the sting of sweat from my eyes and tried to think. In the end, though it wove itself around like a knot of mating snakes, matters came out the same way. I rose up and went back to the stockade to hail them.
I had barely bellowed when something arced over the stockade wall, smacked into the wet earth with a crunch and then rolled almost to my feet. I did not have to look to know what it was; none of us did.
Red Njal howled until the cords on his neck stood out and spittle flew, roared until he burst something in his throat and coughed blood. The rest of us did not speak for a long time and I only had to nod to send long-legged Koghe loping back to fetch the rest of the crew, for the sight of Hlenni’s bloody, battered head, the rough-hacked neck trailing tatters of skin, had sealed the wyrd of this place.
Hlenni. Gone and gone. One of the original Oathsworn from long before my time, who had survived everything the gods could hurl, save a stone from some dirty-handed, skin-wearing troll of a farmer.