Behind us, torches burned at the raised wooden platform that marked the centre of the village — Needzee, Finn had called it, but Dark Eye had put him right on that. The luckless man had gasped out ‘nigdzie’ as Finn pounded his head to ruin, screaming to know what the name of this place was that we were all dying for, the place where Red Njal had gone to meet his granny.
Nowhere, the man had said in his own tongue and Finn had thrown back his head and bellowed with cracked laughter when Dark Eye told him that.
Now Dark Eye lit torches and knelt on the wooden platform, praying to her four-faced god, while the shadows flicked and men, too tired even to eat or talk, huddled in a sort of stupor, heads bowed, watching the smoke writhe. A pot steamed on an iron tripod and the men lay in a litter of helms and weapons, slumped with shields as backrests, crusted ringmail puddled like old snakeskins at their feet.
When Dark Eye wraithed herself back to the fire, a few heads lifted and dull eyes took her in. Styrbjorn, always ready with his mouth, curled his lip.
‘Praying for rescue?’ he asked.
‘Only the fearful pray for rescue,’ she replied, pooling herself into a comfortable squat. Styrbjorn stirred uncomfortably, for everyone could see that promised stake up the arse occupied most of his waking hours.
‘The man who says he is not afraid in this matter is a liar,’ he responded.
‘Tell Finn that,’ Uddolf chuckled harshly. ‘He is well-known for having no fear.’
‘Perhaps he can tell you the secret of it, Styrbjorn,’ Onund added with his usual bear grunt. ‘Then we will be quit of your whine.’
‘As to that,’ Finn said softly. ‘Since we are all about to look our gods in the face, it may be that you want to know the secret of having no fear.’
Now men were stirring with interest, me among them.
‘When I was young,’ he began, ‘I did matters which were not agreeable to certain men in Skane and, when they caught me, there was no Thing on it, no outlawing. Justice was rougher in those days and none rougher than Halfidi. He was as white-haired as any kindly uncle and as black-bowelled as a draugr. Slatur, men called him.’
There were chuckles at such a fine by-name — Slatur was a dish made by stitching pungently strong black-blood sausage into a lamb’s white stomach.
‘They kicked and beat me,’ Finn went on, ‘and starved me for a week, which was to be expected. Each day Halfidi, or one of his sons, would dish out the meat of a whipping and take delight in telling me when I would hang. At the end of that week, they took me to the top of the cliff they used, where a rope was fastened to an iron ring. They put the other end round my neck and tied a cloth round my eyes. Then they spun me and pushed me to walking, so that I did not know where the cliff edge was.’
Men grunted with the cruel power that vision brought.
‘Three days they did this,’ Finn said, soft, lost in the dream of it. ‘On the second day the shite was running down my leg and I was babbling promises not even a god could keep if they would let me go. On the third day I did the same, only for them to let me see.’
He stopped. Men waited; the fire flared a little in a wet night wind, throwing up a whirl of sparks.
‘On the fourth day, they were careless with the bindings and I worked one hand free, so that when they came to prodding and pushing, I tore the cloth from my eyes. There were eight of them, who all saw I had one hand free and so they came at me with spears.’
He paused, a long time this time, until Styrbjorn — that child would never learn when to put his tongue between his teeth — demanded to know what happened next.
‘I went over the edge,’ said Finn. All breathing stopped at the dizzying vision of that, of what it had taken to do it.
‘And died, of course,’ sneered Styrbjorn. ‘I heard this tale when I was toddling.’
‘I did not die. I went over the edge and, when I hit the end of that bast rope it snapped clean through. I should have had my neck cracked, but had my free hand taking a deal of the strain, so I was spared that. I hit the sea and got through that, too.’
Men were silent, for such a matter was a clear intervention of the hand of some god. Frey, suggested one. Odin himself, another thought and those who favoured Slav gods offered their own thoughts on the matter.
‘I have had no fear since,’ Finn said. ‘It was snapped from me by that bast rope. Nothing and no-one since has made me drip shite down my leg through terror.’
‘That is why you did not want that Vislan hanged,’ I said, suddenly seeing it and Finn admitted it.
‘And why you follow the prow beast,’ Kaelbjorn Rog added. ‘Since you cannot return to Skane while Halfidi and his sons are waiting.’
Finn said nothing.
‘They are not,’ I said softly, staring at him, rich with sudden knowing. ‘But you can still never go back, can you, Finn Horsehead?’
Finn stared back at me, black eyes dead as old coals. ‘I went to their hall in the night. That same night. I barred all the doors and fired it. No-one got out.’
It might have been the wind, or the trailing finger of that horror, but men shivered. The burning of a hall full of his own kind was the worst act a Northman could do and he was never forgiven for it.
It was cold, that burning revenge, for there were women and weans in it. It came to me then that humping a dead woman on the body of a dying ox was neither here nor there for a man such as Finn. I had been wrong, telling Brother John bitterly that I was leading the charge into his Abyss, for no matter how hard I ran down that dark, steep way, Finn would always be ahead of me.
‘Heya,’ growled Rovald. ‘That was a harsh tale — what did you do that so annoyed this Halfidi?’
We expected robbery, dire murder or killing his ma — or all of them, after what we had just learned. Finn stared at the fire, leaned forward and stirred the cauldron.
‘I fished his river,’ he answered. ‘Fished it once by moonlight for the salmon in it. He was not even sure it was me that one of his men saw.’
No-one spoke for a long time after that — then Onund suddenly leaped sideways with a curse and lashed out. Folk sprang up, hands on weapons and Onund looked at them back and forth for a moment, then grunted sheepishly.
‘Rat,’ he said. ‘Ran over my hand. I hate rats. They come out for the raven’s leavings.’
Crowbone’s new voice was still more of a clear bell than others and heads lifted when it spoke.
‘Pity the rat,’ he said. ‘It was not always as you see it now.’
He shifted his face forwards, to have it dyed by embers. His odd eyes were glinting glass chips.
‘In the beginning of the world,’ he said. ‘When Odin was young and still had both eyes and so was more foolish than now, he was more kind-hearted. So much so that he did not like to see folk die. So one day he sent for Hugin, Thought, who was his favourite messenger from Asgard to men. He told that raven to go out into the world and tell all people that, whenever anyone died, the body was to be placed on a bier, surrounded by all the things precious to it in life and then freshly-burned oak wood ashes were to be thrown over it. Left like that on the ground, in half a day, it would be brought back to life.’
‘A useful thing to know,’ Styrbjorn announced. ‘Find some oak ash and we will have our own army round these parts by tomorrow’s rising meal.’
‘Not now,’ Crowbone announced sorrowfully. ‘When Hugin had flown for half a day he began to get tired and hungry, so when he spotted a dead sheep he was on it like a black arrow. He sucked out the eyes and shredded the tongue and made a meal of it. Then went to sleep, entirely forgetting the message which had been given him to deliver.
‘After a time,’ Crowbone went on, looking round the rapt, droop-lipped faces, ‘when the raven did not return, Odin called for the smallest of his creatures — the rat. It was not a skulker in sewage and darkness then, but a fine-furred beast, even if he had no discernible use other than sleeping. Odin, in his foolishness, sought to raise the rat in life and sent him out with the same message.’