The men paused at that. I swept up the hem of my cloak and looped it round my shield-arm, partly to keep it out of the way, partly as a padded block for a cut. Gunnar Raudi and I waited; the crowd yelled and someone shouted.
The men realised they were surrounded by enemies and that, if they were to get this done, they had to be quick. They were good and fast, no thugs. They came swooping in, three on me, with one to keep Gunnar busy.
I took a cut on the padded cloak that sliced it. Another cut me under that arm, on the ribs, the blow sending me staggering and spraying rings from the mail. I slashed and one fell back with a shriek, sword flying, fingers clutching at a bloody shoulder. My backstroke carved the lower jaw off the axeman, but I was wide open and would have taken a hard cut to my sword-arm that the mail maybe would not have absorbed.
Except that Gunnar Raudi nutted his man on the forehead, springing blood from them both and sending the man reeling. He lashed sideways a second later, the blunted point of his seax catching the man who would have cut my arm. It didn't even break his flesh, but the blow drove the wind from him with a wheezing grunt.
That gave me time to smash the pommel in his face, spraying his teeth and blood. Someone yelled: 'Bear Slayer. Bear Slayer,' and blades flashed, showing how many had ignored Einar's orders.
The men fled, dragging each other away through the crowd, some of whom were not even aware of what had happened. Gunnar, shaking his head to get the blood out of his eyes, winced and clearly wished he hadn't done that. He sank on one knee.
Ìs it bad?' I asked and he grinned up at me, blood trickles running either side of his nose.
Ì've had worse,' he said, climbing back to his feet as others swept around us, demanding to know what had happened.
Ì don't know,' I answered, truthfully enough, too concerned with the rent in my good new cloak—and worse, the sprung rings in my mail. My side, too, felt like I had been kicked by the screaming horses. Àsk Gunnar. He had just come to warn me when they burst out after Hild.'
Einar and Ketil Crow came up, with Illugi Godi loping behind, in time to hear Gunnar growl, 'They weren't after Hild. They were after Orm.'
`Me? Why?'
`Good question,' said Einar, looking at Gunnar, who was mopping the blood from the split in his face and accepting, with a grateful grin, a horn of mead. He drank, then passed it to me and wiped his lips with one bloodied hand.
Ì saw Martin the monk,' he said. 'He was pointing you out to those ones.'
`Me or Hild,' I argued, but he shook his head. `You.'
`Martin the monk? Are you sure?' demanded Ketil Crow. Around us, the crowd had gone back to preparing for the horse-fight, save for those of the Oathsworn—the ones who knew of Martin, I saw—who were alert, hands near their hidden weapons.
When Gunnar nodded, Ketil Crow and Einar exchanged glances and fell silent.
Illugi Godi examined Gunnar's head and grunted, 'You'll live. Orm, can you wriggle out of that mail? I want to see that wound.'
It was harder than it looked and no one offered to help, of course. It slithered like a snakeskin to the ground eventually and I straightened up, holding my breath and feeling as bloodless as I looked. Both Illugi and Hild, I saw, were peering closely at my ribs as my tunic was hauled up.
Ìf Martin is here,' I said to Einar, 'then how did he manage it, save with Starkad?'
`Starkad is dead,' Ketil Crow growled. 'I heard it on good authority from the crewman on a knarr, who came upon the other drakkar. He died of wound fevers, from a cut on his leg.'
I looked at Einar, who said nothing.
`The other drakkar took his body back, wrapped in wadmal and salt, for Bluetooth to see,' Ketil Crow went on.
`How long have you known this?' I asked.
'Not long,' Einar replied absently. 'If it is true.'
Ketil Crow's thin-lipped silence was better than words. He clearly believed it. Wanted to believe it. If Starkad was dead and the other drakkar gone back to Denmark, then we were one enemy less. A big enemy, too.
Ìf so, where did Martin come from?' demanded Illugi Godi.
`Vigfus?' I ventured and Einar's brief, lowered-brow gaze told me he had considered that. There was something more there, too, but I could not quite grasp it.
`Well,' he said, eventually, forcing a smile, `there is a horse-fight to be enjoyed and an oath-swearing after. If you are not fit to stay, Bear Slayer, I will hand Hild to two others and you can return to the ship.'
Ì will go with him,' said Hild quickly. Einar looked from her to me and had the grace to keep his thoughts from his face. He bowed acknowledgement, but I said I was fine to stay.
`Stay sober and don't take part in the wrestling,' Illugi Godi said with a smile. `Later, I will bind it with salves. Best to leave the mail off.'
When he had gone into the crowd, I pointedly looked at the mail, then at Gunnar. He grinned his understanding, picked it up and helped me into it.
Hild frowned, clutching her spear-shaft talisman. Ìllugi just said not to do that.'
Ìllugi is not the one armed men are after,' I pointed out.
Gunnar bent to me, under the pretence of adjusting the hang of the mail on my shoulders. 'Thing is,' he whispered, 'I recognised one of those men. Herjolf, the one they called Hare-foot, from the next valley to Bjornshafen. Remember him?'
I did, vaguely, a lanky man who came over with sheep to sell now and then, memorable only because of the long-boned feet that gave him his nickname.
`The further you go,' I mused, 'the more people you meet that you know.'
Gunnar hawked and spat. 'I don't believe in such wyrd,' he growled, while a bemused Hild looked on, one to the other. 'He was here after you. I am thinking that, if we find out where the other men are from, you could probably spit from one of their hovs to the other and all from the Vik.'
`What are you saying?' I demanded.
`Gudleifs sons are here,' he replied and wandered off to get his horn refilled.
That crashed on me like an anvil and left me stunned. I shook my head with disbelief.
Half a year ago—less—I had no enemies at all and now they were lining up to swing a sword at me.
Gudleif's sons. How had Martin got in with them? At the fishing village, perhaps. He could have reached that and met a ship with Gudleif's vengeful sons on board. Or perhaps he was with the surviving drakkar and Starkad's body when they met another ship with Gudleif's sons.
No matter. The wyrd of it was that Bjorn and Steinkel, no older than me and whom I had never seen, were out for bloodprice for the slaying of their father. And not just from me, I remembered.
`Who is Gudleif?' asked Hild.
À fetch who won't lie peacefully,' I answered and her head came up sharply at that, the knuckles whitening on her talisman spear-shaft.
I made my way through the milling, cheering crowds as the horses fought, seeking out my father. I found him as the grey foundered, reeling backwards on his hind legs, the black's teeth in his neck. Screaming, the black bore him to the ground and pounded him to a red ruin as the crowd roared.
Òrm, Orm, you were right and we have won a fortune,' my father roared, beaming and red-faced. 'How did you know, eh?'
`No matter,' I began, but he had the others round him, wanted to bask in the reflected glory of his clever son and insisted.
`White socks,' I said, speaking quickly. `The grey had white socks on the rear hocks. The hair grows white round old wounds or bad bone . . . His hocks gave out, because they were weak. A fighting horse that can't stand on his hind legs won't last long.'