The White Raven

'Then the fox slunk into his hole to teach his children to stay away from men and wolves both.'

'Aye, true enough,' Red Njal agreed. 'The cod who swims with sharks is swiftly eaten, as my granny said.'

'Heya,' muttered Gizur, 'I hope you are friendly enough with men and wolves to get away with that insulting saga, little Prince Olaf.'

'And gods,' added Onund Hnufa meaningfully.

'With shepherds only,' answered Crowbone and some laughed, though it was forced. They still did not know how to read the runes of this boy.

Into the gentle warmth of this stepped a large, dark figure — Kveldulf, his bearded jaw thrust out challengingly and a scowl between his brows.

'I am the last of Klerkon's men,' he declared, glancing at little Crowbone. 'I am known as Kveldulf and noted as a shapechanging berserker. It comes to me that you are shorthanded and could use a good man.'

This was right enough, but I did not like or trust Kveldulf and did not want him in the Oathsworn. Crowbone's face was stiff and not all of it was cold; his eyes glittered, one ice, the other dark fire. I remembered that Kveldulf had been Klerkon's man and wondered what had passed between them when Crowbone was a thrall there.

'True enough,' I said, 'but we are the Oathsworn. You may have heard of us and the oath we take. Can you take it and keep it?'

'I am known all over Smalland as a man of my word,' he replied, angry at the hard sneer from me.

Crowbone cleared the choke from his throat, which turned all heads.

'Just so,' he said, in a voice thin as an axe edge. 'You promised me I would never see my mother again, the second time I ran off. True enough, I never have.'

The wind hissed into the silence that followed that, until I forced myself to speak.

'What skills have you that we might need?' I asked Kveldulf.

He blinked at that. 'I have said. I am known as a shapechanger and berserker. A killer am I. A serious jarl would welcome me.'

That was insulting and I felt the burn of anger. It was a surprise, that feeling, for it made me realize how much the cold had seeped in to the centre of me and numbed a great deal.

'Not known to me,' I said careless of insulting this man's fame, which was a dangerous business. 'Nor have I seen you bite a shield, for all the fighting we have done so far.'

'I was not well during the fight at the village,' he admitted, at which Finn gave a snort of laughter. Kveldulf curled a lip at him.

'I am well enough now to show those with no respect some manners. I have heard that the way into the Oathsworn is to fight one already in it.'

I felt Finn bristle and wanted none of this — wanted none of Kveldulf.

'Times are harsh and we are fewer,' I said. 'I have chosen a new way.'

Men leaned forward, curious now and not having heard of this. It would have been hard, since I had just thought of it and I blame the cold and the weight of events for making me savagely reckless.

I held up my left hand, swathed in a leather glove, which was still stiffened with rime. If I had not been at the fire there would have been a mitten over it.

'How many fingers do you see?'

He blinked, then grinned, clearly thinking this was a formality and no more.

'Five, of course.'

I bent the stiff, empty sockets of the glove and those who knew I only had two fingers and a thumb on that hand chuckled. Kveldulf's scowl returned, more thunderous than ever.

Kvasir laughed, loud and hard.

'There are stones with more clever in them,' he said. 'Jarl Orm should get one of them to swear to the Oathsworn.'

'Heya; rumbled Gyrth, smiling. I felt only the hot rush of shame, for it had not been right to smack Kveldulf so hard with words, him who blinked with the effort of understanding.

Kveldulf, trembling like water on the brink of spilling, finally spun round and lumbered into the dark, Finn's savage chuckles goading him. Slowly, conversation resumed but I sat silent, aware of disapproval across the fire.

Eventually, Thorgunna gave a snort. 'The hasty tongue sings its own mishap if it be not bridled in,' she intoned.

'You sound like Red Njal's granny,' I answered, trying to make light of it. 'Or my foster-mother.'

'You never had same, it seems to me,' she replied tartly, 'for she would surely have taught you to be kinder.'

Which was a tongue-cut too deep and Kvasir put a hand on her elbow to still her.

'Look where we all are, Jarl Orm,' Thordis interrupted, leaning forward so that the fire glittered her eyes. 'Here, in this place. Following you to an uncertain doom. If your wyrd is upon you, it is right we should speak. There are more lives at risk here than you know.'

That smacked up memories of Einar, too harsh for me to take easily and the hackles rose on me.

'Do you want Kveldulf? Take him and welcome — but I do not want him at my back. .'

Then it struck me, what she had said and I stopped, gaping. I looked from her to Finn and back. Finn looked stricken and Thordis chuckled at his dismay.

'Not me, Horsehead. . not yet.'

Thorgunna, swaddled in a cloak, raised her head. 'I am not alone.'

It was the way we announced it in the north and Kvasir had clearly known of his wife's condition for some time, since he did not even stir at this. I did, more than a few times. Jon Asanes laughed; Red Njal and others swapped the news, which sprang from head to head like a spark whirling from a fire.

'Are you sure?'

It was question a rock would have asked and her sheep-dropping eyes raked me with silent scorn.

'Even with the cold and the lack of food I can tell when life quickens in me, Jarl Orm,' she snapped. 'Anyway, I slept with an egg in there and lopped off the far end next morning. By the yolk, it will be a boy.'

I sat back a little, looking from her to Kvasir, feeling that, somehow, they had conspired against me. One of the big Slavs — the same who had sworn he could eat someone's leg — growled, 'An egg,' in a tone that wanted to know where she had got such a prize.

'So you see, Trader,' Thordis went on, ignoring all this, 'why we are concerned.'

I did and felt twice as ashamed as before, had to shake my head to clear it.

'The words were hasty,' I admitted, 'the reason was sound. What's done is done. The unwise man is awake all night and ponders everything over; when morning comes he is weary in mind and all is a burden as ever.'

'As your foster-mother used to say,' added Red Njal. 'She knew my granny, I am thinking.'

This last was greeted with chuckles; talk resumed, low and soft round the fire. But I could not take my eyes from Thorgunna, kept flicking back to her, wondering about the life there, marvelling at it happening at all in this place, fearing it at the same time.

I had women and youths enough to crush me with the worrying. Now the unborn were weighing my shoulders, even before they sucked in their first breath.

15

I stood on the back of a dun-coloured whale breaching a frozen sea and stared into the maw of its blowhole, listening to Finn and Kvasir and the others scoffing at me for having failed to recognize the place when I had seen it from the edge of the frozen lake.

We came to it down a slick of cold tragedy, each rimed droplet a huddle of stiff, jutting limbs and fleeing scavengers.

Little Morut led the way, waiting patiently for us now and then, stopping to feed his rib-thin horse on chopped straw mixed with animal fat. I admired the little Khazar, in the same way I had admired the Bedu who tracked so easily over the Serkland deserts and for the same reasons. Even Finn offered a nod to the little man while Avraham, that noble Khazar Jew, had scorn and relief chasing each other across his face like fox and chicken.

It was Morut who pointed out the splendid golden horse, no longer glowing, its limbs stuck out like a wooden carving and that glorious coat now sheened with ice. Wolves slunk from it when we came up, red-muzzled and thin, though they did not go far. They dropped to their bellies on the frozen, stiff-grassed steppe and waited, paws crossed, for us to go away. Patient as stones, Odin's hounds, for they had put in a lot of work on the beasts and men littering the area; there were no soft parts to start gnawing on an icebound corpse.