The White Raven

'A smile blocks most cuts,' Red Njal shouted over his shoulder as he slung a shield up to the thwarts, 'but best to have a blade for those who scowl, as my granny used to say.'

The wind whipped my braids on either side of my face and the new, splendid sail bellied and strained above me. The prow beast went up a long wave and skidded down the other side and I heard Onund and Gizur cry out with the delight of it, while I stole a look at Finn, who was muttering and clutching his battered, broad-brimmed hat.

He caught me at it and scowled.

'There is a bag of winds in this hat, for sure,' he growled. 'I am thinking we should seek out old Ivar and have him tell the secret of it.'

Old Ivar, less his famous weather-hat and almost everything else he possessed, was fled to Gotland and unlikely to feel disposed to share any secrets with the likes of us, but I did not even have to voice that aloud to Finn. We stood for a while, he turning the hat this way and that and muttering runespells Klepp had taught him, me feeling the skin of my face stiffen and stretch with the salt in the air.

We ran with the wind until Gizur and Hauk decided they had found all the faults with beitass and rakki lines and all the other ship-stuff that bothered them, then we turned round into the wind, flaking the great striped sail back to the mast. Sighing, men took to their benches and started to pull back to the land.

Crew light as we were and running into an off-shore wind, the Fjord Elk danced on the water while men offered 'heyas' of admiration to Onund for making such a fine vessel. For his part, he hunched into his furs and watched the amount of water swilling down between the rowers' feet with a critical scowl.

I stood in the prow, glad not to be pulling on an oar. I stared out across the grey-green glass of stippled water to the dusted blue of the land, one foot on the thwart, one hand on a bracing line.

'It is the still and silent sea that drowns a man,' said a voice, like the doom of an unseen reef, right in my ear. I leaped, startled and stared into the apologetic face of Red Njal who had left his oar to piss.

'As my granny used to say,' he added, directing a hot stream over the side.

'Point that away, you thrallborn whelp,' roared Finnlaith from beneath him, 'for if you wet me it will be this silent sea that drowns you.'

'Thrallborn!' Red Njal spat back indignantly, half-turning towards Finnlaith as he spoke; men cursed him and he hastily pointed himself back to the sea, yelling his apologies and curses at Finnlaith for insulting him.

'Do not despise thralls,' Onund growled blackly at Red Njal. 'The best man I knew was a thrall, the reason I left Iceland.' The panting rowers lifted their heads like hounds on a spoor, for Onund rarely spoke of anything and never of why he had left Iceland. They kept their eyes on the man in front, all the same, to keep the rhythm of the rowing.

Onund went on, 'I was with Gisli, the one they call Soursop, from Geirthiofsfirth, in Thorsnes, who was declared outlaw there some years ago. He had a thrall called Thord Hareheart, for he was not a brave man, but a fast runner.'

There were chuckles between the pulling-grunts; a good byname was as fine as good verse. Finn moved down the ranks, offering water from a skin, feeding it to men who kept pulling as they sucked it greedily.

'Outlawed or not, Gisli was not about to quit Thorsnes,' Onund told us. 'So men hunted him. He took his spear, formed from a blade-magic sword called Graysteel, which he had stolen and not returned, though it worked out badly for him — but that's another story.'

Men grinned as they pulled, for the winter seemed to promise some good Iceland tales round the fire. Finn left off with his watering and came closer to listen.

Onund grunted and went on. 'He also took Thord and as they were heading towards the steading, in the dark and cautious, he suddenly handed Thord his favourite blue cloak. For friendship he said, against the cold. Then they were attacked by three men and Thord ran, as he always did — but the attackers saw the cloak and thought it was Gisli.

'They hurled their spears and one went through Thord's back and out the other side. Then Gisli, who had spotted the men lying in wait for him, came out of hiding and killed them all, now that they had only seaxes.'

'Seems like a fair fight to me,' Finn growled and Onund shrugged, which was a fearsome sight.

'So others say,' he replied, 'but I thought it a mean trick on a helpless and faithful nithing, and one which brought no honour to Gisli, who was already lacking in that richness for many other reasons, not least his easy Christ-signing. So I left his boat unfinished and came here.'

'Others have signed to the White Christ,' Finn argued and Onund, who knew well that Finn, among others of the Oathsworn, had done that once, nodded, considering.

'I know it. The Englisc and others west of Jutland are nearly all Christ-followers now and will not trade with those who are not,' he growled. Tor all that, it is no honourable thing to throw off your gods, even for a little time, just for silver.'

'To be without silver is better than to be without honour,' Red Njal agreed sombrely, tucking himself back into his breeks and moving back to his bench. Finn, mired in an argument he felt he was losing, glared at him.

'Before you mention her,' he snarled, 'let me just say that your old granny should have remembered the oldest saw of all — a tongue cut out seldom gossips.'

Red Njal pursed his lips with sorrow, shaking his head. 'There is only mingled friendship when a man can utter his whole mind to another,' he countered. 'You have my granny to thank for that and my forbearance.'

'Never trust the words of a woman,' Finn intoned, 'for their hearts were shaped on a wheel.'

'With his ears let him listen, with his eyes let him look — so a wise man spies out the way,' Red Njal spat back.

'Shut up, the pair of you,' shouted Kvasir, which brought a brief spasm of throaty chuckles.

It was there, basking in that glow of being on a fine, new ship with the only true family I knew and aware that I was enjoying it, that I felt the breath of Odin, a sharp chill that shuddered me, made me turn to where the antlered prow beast snarled.

The grey-green sea was the same and the gloomed blue of the land — but now there was a dark stain on part of it and the evil wink of a single red eye.

I stared, trying to make sense of it, until Finn shoved his spray-dusted beard inches from my cheek and did it for me. 'Smoke and fire,' he said. 'Hestreng.'

I was still grasping at the swirling leaves of my thoughts when he turned back to where the men bent and pulled. 'Row, fuck your mothers!' he roared. 'Our hall is burning.'

We hauled hard, creaming the Fjord Elk up and over the waves, pounding her into the shore, while those not rowing fixed helmets, checked thonging and studied the edge of blades for sharpness.

The panic in me was a spur that kept me pacing like a caged dog from mastfish to prow beast and back, until Kvasir smacked the flat of his blade on my helmet, hard enough to ring some sense into me.

He did not have to speak at all, but I met him eye to eye and nodded my thanks. His grin was hard-eyed and I remembered, with a start, about his wife, Thorgunna, as well as Botolf, Ingrid and Aoife and all the others. Like a fret of swirling wind, the thoughts circled in me. Who? Who would dare?

There was no answer to it. We had more enemies than friends, like all sea-raiders and the curse of it was that I made us vulnerable by giving those enemies a place to attack, a sure place where they knew we could be found.

Gizur howled at the rowers, who grunted and sweated and hauled until the last moment, then clattered in the oars while the keel drove hard and grinding up the shingle and men spilled out.