A shadow appeared at his elbow and I turned to the mailed and helmeted figure who owned it; he stared back at me from under his Rus horse-plume and face-mail, iron-grim and stiff as old rock.
Alyosha Buslaev, declared little Crowbone with a grin. My prow man.
Vladimirs man more like, I was thinking, as this Alyosha closed in on Crowbone like a protecting hound, sent by the fifteen-year-old Prince of Novgorod to both guard and watch his little brother-in-arms. They were snarling little cubs, the Princes Vladimir and Olaf Crowbone, and thinking on them only made me feel old.
The hall was crowded that night as we feasted young Crowbone and his crew with roast horse, pork, ale and calls to the Aesir, for Hestreng was still free of the Christ and mine was still the un-partitioned hall of a raiding jarl despite my best efforts to change that. Still, as I told Crowbone, the White Christ was everywhere, so that the horse trade was dying those made Christian did not fight horses in the old way, nor eat the meat.
Go raiding, he replied, with the air of someone who thought I was daft for not having considered it. Then he grinned. I forgot you do not need to follow the prow beast, with all the silver you have buried away under moonlight.
I did not answer that; young Crowbone had developed a hunger for silver, ever since he had worked out that that was where ships and men came from. He needed ships and men to make himself king in Norway and I did not want him snuffling after any moonlit burials of mine he had had his share of Atils silver. That hoard had been hard come by and I was still not sure that it was not cursed.
I did not answer that; young Crowbone had developed a hunger for silver, ever since he had worked out that that was where ships and men came from. He needed ships and men to make himself king in Norway and I did not want him snuffling after any moonlit burials of mine he had had his share of Atils silver. That hoard had been hard come by and I was still not sure that it was not cursed.
I offered horn-toasts to the memory of dead Sigurd, Crowbones silver-nosed uncle, who had been the nearest to a father the boy had had and who had been Vladimirs druzhina commander. Crowbone joined in, perched on the high-backed guest bench beside me, his legs too short to rest his feet like a grown man on the tall hearthstones that kept drunk and child from tumbling in the pitfire.
His men, too, appreciated the Sigurd toasts and roared it out. They were horse-eating men of Thor and Frey, big men, calloused and muscled like bull walruses from sword work and rowing, with big beards and loud voices, spilling ale down their chests and boasting. I saw Finns nostrils flare, drinking in the salt-sea reek of them, the taste of war and wave that flowed from them like heat.
Some of them wore silk tunics and baggier breeks than others, carried curved swords rather than straight, but that was just Gardariki fashion and, apart from Alyosha, they were not the half-breed Slavs who call themselves Rus rowers. These were all true Swedes, young oar-wolves who had crewed with Crowbone up and down the Baltic and would follow the boy into Hels hall itself if he went and Alyosha was at his side to make the sensible decisions.
Crowbone saw me look them over and was pleased at what he saw in my face.
Aye, they are hard men, right enough, he chuckled and I shrugged as diffidently as I could, waiting for him to tell me why he and his hard men were here. All that had gone before politeness and feasting and smiles had been leading to this place.
It is good of you to remember my uncle, he said after a time of working at his boots. The hall rang with noise and the smoke-sweat fug was thicker than the bench planks. Small bones flew; roars and laughter went up when one hit a target.
He paused for effect and stroked his ringed braids, wanting moustaches so badly I almost laughed.
He is the reason I am here, he said, raising his voice to be heard. It piped, still, like a boys, but I did not smile; I had long since learned that Crowbone was not the boy he seemed.
When I said nothing, he waved an impatient little hand.
Randr Sterki sailed this way.
I sat back at that news and the memories came welling up like reek in a blocked privy. Randr the Strong had been the right-hand of Klerkon and had taken over most of that ones crew after Klerkon died; he had sailed their ship, Dragon Wings, to an island off Aldeijuborg.
Klerkon. There was a harsh memory right enough. He had raided us and lived only long enough to be sorry for it, for we had wolfed down on his winter-camp on Svartey, the Black Island, finding only his thralls and the wives and weans of his crew and Crowbone, chained to the privy.
Well, things were done on Svartey that were usual enough for red-war raids, but men too long leashed and then let loose, goaded on by a vengeful Crowbone, had guddled in blood and thrown bairns at walls. Later, Crowbone found and killed Klerkon but that is another tale, for nights with a good fire against the saga chill of it.
Randr Sterki had a free raiding hand while matters were resolved with Prince Vladimir over the Klerkon killing, but when all that was done, Vladimir sent Sigurd Axebitten, Crowbones no-nose uncle and commander of his druzhina, to give Randr a hard dunt for his pains.
Except Sigurd had made a mess of it, or so I heard, and Crowbone had grimly followed after to find Randr Sterki and his men gone and his uncle nailed to an oak tree as a sacrifice to Perun. His famous silver nose was missing; folk said Randr wore it on a leather thong round his neck. Crowbone had been wolf-sniffing after his uncles killer since, with no success.
What trail did he leave, that brings you this way? I asked, for I knew the burn for revenge was fierce in him. I knew that fire well, for the same one scorched Randr Sterki for what we had done to his kin in Klerkons hall at Svartey; even for a time of red war, what we had done there made me uneasy.
Crowbone finished with his boots and put them on.
Birds told me, he answered finally and I did not doubt it; little Olaf Tryggvasson was known as Crowbone because he read the Norns weave through the actions of birds.
He will come here for three reasons, he went on, growing more shrill as he raised his voice over the noise in the hall. You are known for your wealth and you are known for your fame.
And the third?
He merely looked at me and it was enough; the memory of Klerkons steading on Svartey, of fire and blood and madness, floated up in me like sick in a bucket.
There it was, the cursed memory, hung out like a flayed skin. Fame will always come back and hag-ride you to the grave; my own by-name, Bear Slayer, was proof of that, since I had not slain the white bear myself, though no-one alive knew that but me. Still, the saga of it and all the others that boasted of what the Oathsworn were supposed to have done constantly brought men looking to join us or challenge us.
Now came Randr Sterki, for his own special reasons. The Oathsworns fame made me easy to find and, with only a few fighting men, I was a better mark to take on than a boatload of hard Rus under the protection of the Prince of Novgorod.
Randr Sterki is not a name that brings warriors, Crowbone went on. But yours is and any man who deals you a death blow steals your wealth, your women and your fame in that stroke.
It was said in his loud and shrill boys voice almost a shriek and it was strange, looking back on it, that the hall noise should have ebbed away just then. Heads turned; silence fell like a cloak of ash.
I am not easily felled, I pointed out and did not have to raise my voice to be heard. Some chuckled; one drunk cheered. Red Njal added: Even by bears, and got laughter for it.
Then the hall was washed with murmurs and subdued whispers; feasting flowed back to it, slow as pouring honey.
Did you come all this way to warn me? I asked as the noise grew again and he flushed, for I had worked out that he had not been so driven just for that.
I would have your Sea-Finns drum, he answered. If it speaks of victory will you join the hunt for Randr Sterki?
Vuokko the Sea-Finn had come to us only months since, seeking the runemaster Klepp Spaki, who was chipping out the stone of our lives in the north valley. Vuokko came all the way from his Sami forests to learn the true secret of our runes from Klepp and no-one was more surprised than I when the runemaster agreed to it.
Of course, in return, Klepp had Vuokko teach him his seidr-magic, which was such that the little Sea-Finn was already well-known. Since seidr was a strange and unmanly thing, there were whispers of what the pair of them did all alone up in a hut in the valley but muted ones, for Klepp was a runemaster and so a man of some note.
Vuokko, of course, was an outlander Sami sorcerer and not to be trusted at all, but it seemed folk were coming over the sea to hear the beat of his rune-marked drum and watch the three gold frogs on it dance, revealing Odins wisdom to those brave or daft enough to want to know it.
I saw Thorgunna, serving ale to Finn, Onund Hnufa and Red Njal, three heads close together and bobbing with argument and laughter. She smiled and the warmth of that scene, of my woman and my friends, washed me; then she gently touched her belly and moved on and the leap of that in my heart almost brought me to my feet.
Will you hunt down Randr, Sigurds bane, with me?
The voice was thin with impatience, jerking me back from the warmth of wife and unborn. I turned to him and sighed, so that he saw it and frowned.
The truth was I had no belly for it. We had gained fame and wealth at a cost too high, I often thought these days and now the idea of sluicing sea and hard bread and stiff joints on a trip even across to Aldeijuborg made me wince. Even that was a hare-leap of joy compared to sailing off with this man-boy to hunt round the whole Baltic for the likes of Randr Sterki.
I said as much. I did not add that I thought Randr Sterki had a right to feel vengeful and that Crowbone had played a part in fuelling the fire on Svartey.