Crowbone nodded, though it was clear that Bleikr was deeper in his heart than these folk, who were only names to him. Even Sigurd. It came to me then that little Crowbone was a boy alone and, after all that had happened to him, might well be for all his life.
Finn looked at the white dog and grunted cynically. Olaf frowned.
'You do not like the name?' he asked. Then he pointed to the deerhound who had slunk back to Finn's knee.
'What is this one called, then?' he challenged.
'Dog,' Finn said flatly. Olaf, thinking he was being made fun of, scowled and pointed to the other deerhound.
'And this?'
'The other dog,' Finn answered, then cocked himself to the side and farted.
Kvasir chuckled as Olaf started to get his own hackles up.
'There is a wise rule we use,' he said, clapping the boy on one shoulder, 'and it is this never give a name to something you might have to eat.'
Olaf was taken aback at that and looked down at his new pride and joy, now trying to lick its own balls. 'Eat Bleikr?'
'Well not that one's tongue, perhaps,' Kvasir said and folk laughed.
'Aye,' growled Gyrth, surfacing from under a pile of cloaks and pelts, where he had been trying to keep warm and sleep. 'If we go to find that cursed hoard in this weather, we will end up eating worse than that before we are done. Helmet straps will taste good, mark me.'
'Do you no harm,' Finn answered and Gyrth patted his belly and smiled.
I was aware of the winter steppe, the Great White, brooded on it all the rest of that long day while the men in the hall surfaced, stretching and farting and shivering into the breath-smoking chill, dousing their heads and breaking ice in the bowls and buckets to do it, roaring and blowing.
Thorgunna and Thordis, who had wisely avoided the affair and the risk of being up-ended and tupped by drunks and the obvious reactions of Kvasir and everyone else to that were the freshest faces in that hall and made sure their healthy cheerfulness set everyone else's teeth grinding. They and the thralls bustled in, stirring the hearthfire to life, hanging pots, rattling skillets.
Eventually, chewing feast left-overs and picking their molars, most of the men all wandered off to sort out their lives Sveinald's men were heading home and I heard that Lyut was having to be litter-carried. That he was alive at all was good luck, I was thinking.
My own crew were staying, of course, and getting as ready as they could for a trip into the open steppe in winter. Most of them were unworried by what I had done they still thought they would get a share as they had been promised, and few looked beyond that. Some counted the involvement of. Vladimir as jarl-cleverness by me, since it would mean more protection and better supplies for such a dangerous trip.
Outside the keep, in the crushed snow of the kreml, there was now noise and purpose and carts with sledge-runners, the wheels slung on the sides like shields on a drakkar, just in case they were needed. There were strong little horses for pulling and others for riding and supplies being loaded and men sorting out gear and weapons.
Vladimir had expected me to point to his carefully-drawn vellum chart and mark it with the location of Atil's cursed tomb, but when it came to it, there was just a dot that read 'Biela Viezha', which was the Slav name for Sarkel, and acres of grey-white skin. Nor was I daft enough in the head to lay out the X of it, for him then not to need me at all.
No-one but me knew exactly where the tomb lay and the path of it was scratched on the hilt of my rune-bladed sabre. Short Eldgrim had a rough idea of it, for he had helped me with the runes I made, but even he did not know all the steps. Neither did I unless we got to Sarkel, the first landmark.
They saw it, of course, Vladimir and big Uncle Dobrynya. They looked from one to the other as I glanced scornfully at the vellum.
'I can take you,' I said, hoping my sweat was not visible in the dim light of that private room. 'There is no landmark on this chart.'
Silence, in which I was sure I heard men greasing a stake. Then Dobrynya rolled up the chart with brisk movements as he said: 'Of course you will.'
Now I wondered. The steppe in winter was as grey-white an emptiness as Vladimir's vellum chart and a sick chill washed me; I was loading a lot of lives and hope on those few runes I had scratched out.
Ostensibly, the Oathsworn were free to come and go yet all had been brought into Vladimir's own hall, even Martin the monk. Dobrynya had insisted: everyone who knew anything of the matter was to be kept where they could be seen. Now Martin was thrashing around like a fish in a keep-net.
He scurried up to me in the cold light of the morning, as Olaf chucked and snapped his fingers at the unresponsive elkhound, finally following it as it wandered off.
'Which pup is taking which for a walk?' demanded Finnlaith and others laughed, though they did so when they were sure little Olaf Crowbone could not hear and none of them was ashamed of being afraid of a nine-year-old boy.
'Speaking of dogs,' growled Hauk Fast-Sailor and nodded towards the hurrying figure of the monk. I sighed; the deerhound sighed. Neither of us wanted to be bothered with this.
'You must speak to the prince,' Martin declared, his eyes wild and black from under his tangled hair and matted beard. 'I will not go on this cursed fool's errand.'
'Must I?'
'I will not go.'
I leaned slightly towards him, thinking yet again that I should have killed him when I had had the chance.
'Vladimir has decreed it. I do not want to go and yet I must,' I answered, more weary than patient. 'If I cannot get out of it, what makes you think I can make him leave you behind?'
'Christ will provide,' intoned Finn, in what he fondly believed was a mock of the Christ-priests. Martin savaged him with a glare, then folded his arms and stuck his chin out until his beard bristled.
'I will not go.'
'Then stay and sit on a sharp stick,' Kvasir said with a shrug, raising his head slightly from repairing the strap. 'You mistake us for folk who worry about you.'
'This is no matter of mine,' Martin insisted. His ruined mouth made white foam at the corners. 'I want no share in this silver foolishness.'
'Good,' grunted Finn morosely, 'then we'll take your share. If any of us get a share at all, that is.'
He shot me a knowing look but, to my surprise, it was Martin who managed to knock him off his perch.
'Why do you want it, this silver?' he snapped.
Finn blinked owlishly, for it was clearly a stupid question, which he said, then added: 'A hoard of silver? Why would you not want it?'
'Why do you want it, this silver?' he snapped.
Finn blinked owlishly, for it was clearly a stupid question, which he said, then added: 'A hoard of silver? Why would you not want it?'
'For what it can buy?' countered Martin. 'The fine food, the best drink and the most beautiful of women. And so you have them all what then, Finn Horsehead?'
'A magnificent sword,' commented Pai wistfully. 'Fine furs for a cloak.'
'Ships,' Jon Asanes threw in, grinning.
Martin nodded, but Finn was frowning.
'Until you have them all and more,' the monk said, flecks spilling from his ruined mouth. 'Then what? More of it until you puke and your prick drops off? What is the use of a magnificent sword if you never use it for raiding, eh Finn? Yet what is the point of raiding if you already have all you can want and more?'
'Ha,' said Red Njal, waving one hand dismissively. 'You are a Christ-priest, so what do you know of such things? You want riches, too that spear is your hoard. Deceit sleeps with greed, as my granny used to say.'
Martin's glance was sour, then he turned it back on Finn.
'I know it is no good thing for folk such as you to end your days bent-backed and stumbling with age, drooling on a bench and wondering if you have hidden your coin well enough to fool all the women who laugh because you can do nothing with them now, while your sons conspire and cannot wait for you to die.'
That straw-death vision silenced everyone and I was surprised to see something slither across Finn's face that I had never seen before.
Fear.
Into that long, painful silence, Jon Asanes offered: 'You will still have to go, I am thinking.'
'I will not go,' Martin said stiffly.
'Say that once more, you streak of piss and I will make it come true you will stay here forever,' growled Red Njal. 'Put to the sword those that disagree, said my granny and she had the right of it there, for sure.'
'I am, at one and same moment,' chuckled Gyrth, 'both sorrowed and glad that I never met this granny of yours.'
'You will go,' I answered Martin, staring back into the black coals of his eyes. 'I have a stick that you will follow.'
He blinked, hesitated. His face twitched, but a new hook was in and deeper than any. 'You promised me the Holy Spear for what I told you,' he snapped, hoarse with anger, trembling with it, so that his fingers shook and clenched.
'Things change. I don't care if you end up spitted, but Vladimir thinks you belong to me and so I am responsible. You will put no-one at risk. Obey me and you will get your little stick at the end.'
'Disobey,' added Runolf Harelip with a twisted smile, 'and you get a little stick in your end.'
Martin sucked in breath as if it pained him, while everyone else laughed.
'Am I to believe this promise above the last?'
'I swear it, as Odin is my witness.'
He sneered out a black grin. 'You swore that before, on your pagan amulet in the square in Novgorod. You swore to give me Christ's Holy Lance in return for the news I brought you. Is this new oath any better than that one?'
My head jerked at that who was he to dare accuse the jarl of the Oathsworn that he did not hold to any oaths? I leaned over and opened my sea chest, drew out a cloak, the runed sabre and the wrapped bundle that he wanted. He was fixed by the sight of it and his tongue darted like a snake's. I almost waved it back and forth to see if he would follow it with his eyes.
'I promised you your silly spear and so you will have it. I did not say when.'