I scrambled to the thwarts and hurled on to the shells and pebbles, stumbled a few steps and saw men ahead, fired by fear of what they might have lost, churning up the stones and coarse sand towards Hestreng.
'Finn. .' I yelled and he saw it and bellowed like a bull in heat, bringing most of them to a stop.
'Wait, you dirty swords,' Kvasir added at the top of his voice, as men swilled like foam. 'We go together. The Oathsworn. As a crew.'
They roared and clattered blades on shields at that, but the truth was that most of them had sworn no oath yet; even as they trotted after me, panting like hounds, I had to hope they would fight, if only to protect their own wee bits and pieces littering my hall.
It was clear, when we came up over the rise that sheltered Hestreng from the sea, that it was not my hall that burned, or any part of it — I felt a dizzying wave of relief, followed at once by an equal wash of guilt at those who had been unlucky.
'Gunnarsgard; Kvasir said, squinting to the feathered smoke and the red stain beneath it. 'Tor's steading has gone up.'
No real friend to us, but a neighbour for all that and I was on the point of stepping out towards the place when Kvasir bulled off towards Hestreng's hall, dragging Finnlaith and others in his wake. Heading, of course, for his wife; shamed, I followed on.
I heard the clatter of iron on wood and the high, thin bell of steel on steel. By the time I had caught up with Kvasir and the knot of Oathsworn grunting their way round the privy to the yard beyond, I could hear individual panting and roars.
When I spilled into the yard, Finnlaith and Ospak were already screaming 'Ui Neill' and charging at a knot of men held at bay by the great, sweat-soaked figure of Botolf, timber foot firmly rooted in the lower slope of the dung heap and a great long axe circling and scything in his hands. Kvasir, ignoring all of them, charged on towards the hall.
A man, all dirty fleece and snarl, heaved a spear at me, which took me by surprise so that I barely got my shield in the way and had it torn from my finger-short grasp by the smack of it.
There was nothing in me but stoked anger, blood-red and driving. I did not even have my own blade out of the sheath, but placed one booted foot on the shield and wrenched the spear from the linden. Then I came at the man, who had a seax and the red-mawed look of a man who knew how to use it.
I remember using the butt of the spear in a half circle, catching the short blade of his seax and whirling it sideways, bringing the blade of the spear down in a cut that made him jerk his face away. It tore down his fleece and he gave a yelp, but it was all too late for him.
I drove the point into his belly, just below the breastbone and kept moving, so that he jerked like a gaffed fish and shrieked, his legs milling uselessly as I shoved him back and back and back until he hit the side of the brewhouse, where I impaled him on the sagging wattle wall.
Finn dragged me away from him, eventually. Later he told me I had crushed the man into the wall and looked to be bringing the whole brewhouse down, screaming for him to tell me who he was, who had dared attack the Oathsworn.
The rest of the crew came panting up and those arrived too late kicked the dead in their disappointment — and all the men were dead, I saw. Six of them.
Botolf, panting and red-faced, stumped towards me, grinning.
'Nithing whoresons,' he said and spat on the nearest. 'A strandhogg, I was thinking, come to steal chickens and horses. Thorgunna saw them in the meadow, rounding up mares with no great skill and knew them for what they were at once.'
Thorgunna. . my head came up, ashamed and guilty at having forgotten her, but Botolf broadened his grin.
'A woman, that,' he said admiringly and, just then, Kvasir appeared, Thorgunna with him, Ingrid behind her. Following on came Aoife, with Cormac on her hip and the thralls, Drumba and Heg.
'They had barred the hall door,' Kvasir said.
'That was sound,' Finn offered, beaming and Thorgunna huffed and folded her arms under her ample breasts.
'That was only sense,' she spat back, 'when such friends as yours come to call.'
'No friends of mine,' Finn answered grimly and turned a body with his toe. 'Yet, mind you, this one looks familiar.'
'Parted at birth, I am sure,' Ingrid muttered bitterly and, for all they seemed more angry than afraid, I saw the fluster and tremble in them.
'My sister,' Thorgunna said flatly and I blinked at that, having forgotten that Thordis was at Gunnarsgard, wife to Tor.
'Finn — choose some good men,' I said swiftly, seeing the path clearly for the first time since the smoke had stained my world. 'Botolf — guard the women here. Kvasir — stay with your wife and command the men I leave.'
'Guard the women,' muttered Botolf moodily. 'Guard the women. .'
'And your tongue,' Ingrid snapped and then, to her horror, burst into tears. Thorgunna gathered her up and turned away.
'They came looking for you,' she said to me suddenly. 'Yelled out your name, as if they knew you.' 'Shot arrows into Hrafn, all the same,' Botolf added grimly, 'when he came at them for stealing his mares. The beast is limping about like a hedgepig, if he is standing at all.'
Finn and I looked at each other and he looked down at the lolled body of the man he thought he knew. 'Old friends,' he grunted.
3
It was a shock seeing him at his ease beside Tor's hearthfire, feet up on a bench, picking the remains of one of my mares out of his teeth with a bone needle and grinning, for he knew he had caused me as much stir as if I had found a turd at the bottom of my soup bowl.
Klerkon. He had a good Svear name somewhere, but the dwarves guarded it as carefully as they protected the sound of cat's paws, the breath of a fish and all the other things the world had forgotten. Klerkon they called him, after his father, who had been a klerkr. In the Svear tongue, that simply meant someone who had learned Latin, though it was more often given to a Northman who had become a Christ priest.
'A surprise for you,' he said, chuckling out of his button-nosed, bright-eyed face, the curl of grey hair framing it like smoke.
He had a face like a statue I had seen once in the Great City, one long broken in pieces so that only the head remained. It had sly eyes, tiny horns and tight-curled hair and Brother. John, who was with me at the time, said it was a little Greek god called Pan. He had had goat legs and played pipes and fucked anything that moved, said Brother John.
That Pan could have fathered this Klerkon, who shoved a stool towards me and indicated I should sit, as if the hall was his own. In the shadows behind him, as I searched for Tor or Thordis, I saw shapes, the grinning faces fireglowed briefly and then gone, the gleam of metal. I knew the rasp of hard men's breathing well enough and the rich smell of my own livestock cooking reeked through the hall.
When I strode out for the smoke of Tor's steading, sick and furious, a dozen men followed. First we saw that only outbuildings burned — a byre and a bakehouse. Not long after, we found Flann, Tor's thrall and, guddling about for plunder in Flann's blood, a stranger with sea-rotted ringmail and tatters of wool and weave hung about him. He looked like something long dead risen from the grave and climbed slowly to his feet at the sight of us, wiping his palms down the front of his breeks.
'Are you Jarl Orm?' he asked in a voice thick with Finn accent.
'Who wants to know?' I countered and he shrugged.
'I am Stoor and serve someone who wishes you well,' he replied, sonorous as if he was a real herald. 'He bids you come to the hall ahead, in safety. I was left here to guide you.'
'Fuck you,' Finn growled and would have said more, about traps and stupidity had I not stilled him with one hand. I looked at him and he at me. Then I followed Stoor, alone.