The White Raven

'We could be married. Then you would be mistress and no gainsay.'

I said it lightly, as a wry jest, but the words tumbled out of my heart and the rightness, the answer to what I would do now, fell in to replace them. I was so stunned by it that I was left blinking as stupidly as she.

Her mouth opened and closed, then she snorted. 'You can say that, after carrying on with that Aoife like you did?'

'That was then — besides, she is only a thrall.'

'Ah, so you had to hold up her bottom with both hands?'

'No — well, not entirely. .'

My tongue stumbled to a dry halt and I was not as sure of matters as I had been a moment ago.

'Rams rut quieter than you,' she declared softly.

I stifled a groan. My stomach churned. 'Such matters are expected of a jarl,' I managed.

'Such honour and duty from a raiding man, even one of account. Anyhow — my mother warned me. Never marry a raiding man, for his heart is in the wind.'

'Was she a sister to Red Njal's da's ma, I am wondering? Besides — the one time she was right and you did not listen and married Kvasir anyway.'

'So now you mire the good name of my mother? I should get Thordis and both of us will thrash you.'

'Is that the same Thordis who let Kvasir sneak in and away again in the morning?'

She smiled at the memory; we both did. I felt better — then those sheep-dropping eyes hardened and her chin came up.

'Do not you try and throw mud on my good name,' she growled. 'I never let him stay the night until we were proper wed. And I never will you, either.'

'As I recall, your sister and Ingrid begged Kvasir and me both, on bended knee to take you off their hands.'

'They did no such thing!'

Tickleface, they called you. Thor-fist, too.'

'Lies. They would not dare slander me. .'

'Did you really trap Ingrid in the privy? And left a dead rat in Thordis's bed-space once?'

'I will kill them both. .'

She stopped, caught my eye. The wind blew her hair away from her red-cheeked face, streaming it back and flattening the thick cloak against her prow-built shape. She saw me look her up and down and flushed.

'Too soon,' she said eventually, staring at the slow-shifting wake in the black water where Kvasir slowly turned and sank. 'But I thank you for the offer.'

I smiled. She smiled. I pulled her to me and she grunted a little, for I was hard in my nervousness — but she did not shove me away, all the same.

'Was Odin's gift worth it all, then?' she asked. I had no answer to that.

We left the crow-black river for the Dark Sea and Odin's gift became perfectly clear on the evening, weeks later, when we slid into an island bay to make camp for the night. Our minds were glass, where the breath of home misted clear thoughts and we all but missed the three ships arrowing out the dim. It was Onund, his great shoulder-hump made bigger where he hung from the prow, who yelled a warning.

They came sidling up, wary and circling like winter-thin wolves on a fat wether.

'Heya,' Hauk called out, while bows were unshipped and arrows nocked — we were well armed now. 'Who are you there?'

'Men from Thrond,' came the reply, floated faintly across the water. 'With three ships to your one and hard men packed in all of them.'

Thrond was far enough away in the north of Norway for me to realize that these were raiding for preference, though they would claim to be traders if challenged by stronger men. Now they thought they had a fat prize and I could not deny they were right. For all that, I sat with my chin in my hand and tried not to look concerned, which is hard when your knees are knocking.

'We are the Oathsworn of Orm Bear Slayer,' Hauk called out. 'We want no trouble, but will give it if we get it.'

There was a long pause and one boat started backing water at once. On the other two, it was clear that arguments had broken out. Eventually, a voice called out — more polite in tone, this time, I was thinking — that they would come closer to see if what we said was true.

'Come as close as you dare,' bawled Finn, annoyed, 'but Finn Horsehead warns you to keep beyond the length of my blade.'

They turned then, all three of them, and rowed furiously out of the bay, chased by our laughter. Later, I met one of those who had been on the main boat, a good man who came to Hestreng on a trade knarr selling leather and bone craft. He told me that they knew they had met their worst nightmare when they saw Orm Bear Slayer sitting, unconcerned by them and calm as a windless day, chin in hand and waiting patiently for the Oathsworn to serve supper.

I did not tell him I was sitting, stunned, for I had just realized Odin's gift.

Fame.

The one he gave to himself, for our fame was All-Father's fame. Men gave up their White Christ thoughts when they heard of us and what Odin had given us. As long as the Oathsworn stayed in memories, Odin could keep the White Christ at bay in one small part of the north, no matter that the blind-weaving Norns warped the line of Yngling kings to an end and brought in the new god of the Christ.

We were a weapon in One-Eye's hand and had been, as Hild had been and Einar and all the others; the silver hoard was just the goad that had driven us to fame-greatness, the shine on Odin's name.

Yet the glow of that hoard still smeared the eyes. Later, when we stopped for a brief rising-meal, the insidious glitter slid into men's minds as they laughed about the latest escape they had had and the way the men of Thrond had scattered like starlings off stubble.

It was, I heard Gizur say as he chivvied men back to their benches, a sure sign that Odin's hand was over us still and the treasure we had was nothing at all to do with Fafnir and surely could not be cursed.

'On the other hand,' Ospak said, 'it could mean Odin means us still to have all the treasure remaining in Atil's howe.'

There were groans from some at the thought of doing all this over again — yet nods of agreement from those still silver-hungry enough to consider going back. I thought it time that everyone knew, all the same, and stepped forward in such a way that made them all look round at me.

Then I told them what I had avoided saying out on the steppe, the day we had run, panting, from Atil's tomb and the warrior women who ringed it.

I had stayed behind as the others hurried away, watching the slope-headed man-killers who guarded it and the woman who called herself Amacyn. With a runesword in each hand, she had walked to the hole in the tomb roof and straddled it, while all her oathsworn comrades sat their horses on the bank of that frozen lake and bowed their heads.

I had heard the chopping sounds. If her sabre was like mine, then it could cut an anvil and both together, working on that stone support beam, would slice through it long before her arms started to ache or the edge left those blades. I turned away, then, numb and cold and. . relieved.

The others were a long way off when I thought I heard the tomb collapse, but it may just have been the blood rushing in my ears, for I hit a crippling pace to catch them up, especially for a man weakened by hunger and cold.

But we had all heard the cat-yowl wail from those female throats, a last salute to their last leader.

I could see it in my head, the collapse of that great yurt of stone and wood and earth. The ice cracking, the swirl and roil of those black melt-waters rushing in to cover silver, dirt, bones — and the falling woman, her last task done, her oath fulfilled, tumbling down to her wyrd at the feet of Attila.

Last of her line, with no daughter and no secret and no longer any need to pass that burden on. I shivered at the passing from the world of these oathsworn, like us and yet stranger than a hound with two heads. I did not like to think that I had, perhaps, seen my own future in the woman's long, slow whirl of arms and legs.