Bracelet of Bones (13 page)

“Behind you,” said the helmsman in a level voice.

Bruni rounded on him. “You! You stole it.”

“Stole? Stole what?”

“My scramasax.” Bruni Blacktooth glared at Torsten and bucked his head like an infuriated bull.

By now, the entire crew was gathering around the blacksmith and the helmsman.

“Stole it!” rapped Torsten. “Are you mad?”

“You were alone on board.”

“I don’t steal from my companions,” Torsten said. “I don’t steal from anyone.”

“You thief!”

“Why would I steal one of your ragged knives, you . . . ghastly Icelander? Anyhow, I’ll remind you—you brought aboard those Bulgars. Five of them.”

Slothi stepped between them. “We did, Bruni. While Vigot looked after the stall.”

“It was one of them,” the helmsman said. “You mind the blade of your tongue, Bruni. I’m warning you.”

“Enough!” barked Red Ottar, and he glared at his crew. “If it was the Bulgars, we can’t do a thing about it. But if one of you here is the thief, I’ll cut off your right hand.”

13

V
ery early, before the cockerel, before sunrise, two men stood on the chill quay beside Red Ottar’s boat. Now and then they spoke quietly; now and then they paced up and down, flexing their arms and stamping.

They watched the boat gently bumping against the quay’s fenders—sealskin sacks packed with wool noosed over wooden bollards. They rubbed their eyes and pointed at something waterlogged drifting down the river. A bloated gray corpse, was it? Or part of a tree trunk. Then a mongrel came trotting along the quay, and sniffed, and turned up his nose at them.

At length there were signs of life aboard the boat. Odindisa sat up and, with the crown of her head pressing against their sail tent, murmured her morning invocations and charms; then Bergdis hoicked back her side of the sail, but the moment she got to her feet she started coughing and couldn’t stop; missing the warmth of the women who had been lying on either side of her, Solveig curled up, still pretending it was the last night watch.

Down on the quay, one of the men began to sing a dawn song:

Solveig listened. The man was singing of a journey, a journey made not to a destination but simply for the love of journeying. Then she started to think about the little bone flute she had made for Turpin, and she wondered whether, somewhere on this middle-earth, he was playing it at that very moment.

Before long, everyone was on their feet, and that was when one of the men on the quay cupped his hands and shouted.

Solveig recognized him, and her heart gave a little skip. “Edith!” she called.

But Edith was already standing right behind her, wide-eyed and smiling.

So the gangplank was pushed out, and Red Ottar allowed the two men to come aboard. “My name’s Edwin,” the first man told him in halting Norwegian, “and I’m an Englishman.”

Red Ottar screwed up his face as if he’d tasted something bad.

“My friend here is Sineus. Sineus the Slav.”

“So?” asked Red Ottar.

But before Edwin could answer, Odindisa asked, “Which of you is the songbird?”`

Edwin pointed to his companion, and Sineus gave Odindisa the most engaging smile, revealing a whole graveyard of broken teeth. His hair was a mass of rather matted dark curls.

“So?” repeated Red Ottar.

Edwin apologized for bothering the skipper so early. “These fine young women,” he said, pointing at Edith and Solveig, “told me that you’re bound for Kiev.”

Edith took Red Ottar’s arm. “We met him in the market,” she explained.

“Fine young women,” said Red Ottar. “That’s the first time I’ve heard them called that. A half-baked girl on a half-baked journey and a slave woman.”

“An Englishwoman,” Edwin replied firmly.

“Get on with it,” Red Ottar told him.

“Can you give us passage?”

“Give you passage,” Red Ottar repeated slowly.

“Can you find room for us?”

“Everyone aboard my boat is here with good reason,” the skipper told him. “To man the oars, to guide us, feed us . . .”

“We’re not oarsmen or helmsmen or smiths or cooks. Sineus and I, we’re men of words.”

“Words,” said Red Ottar with no great liking.

“My companion can sing praise poems.”

“Praising the Vikings?”

Edwin smiled. “At a price,” he said reasonably. “And I . . . I make arrangements.”

“Words, words, words,” Red Ottar said. “They get you nowhere.”

“Ah, but they do,” Edwin replied courteously. “Words are bridges. With words we discuss, argue, pray, talk to ourselves, we reach understandings and make wills and write letters; with words men sell their merchandise.”

“So what do you do?” Red Ottar asked him.

“Me? I’m a word trader.”

“A spy? Is that what you are?”

Edwin paused. “A go-between,” he said.

“What can you pay me?” Red Ottar asked.

“We can offer you contacts in Kiev—contacts you’ll be glad of,” Edwin told him.

The skipper put his hands on his hips. “More words,” he said. “I don’t deal in promises.”

Then he turned around and looked at his crew. And with the exception of the two fine young women and of Odindisa, who was gazing at Sineus, what he saw were scowls and suspicion.

“I’m the mouthpiece for my crew,” Red Ottar told Edwin carefully, “and in plain words, I say no. It’s true, good might come of bringing you aboard, but I won’t risk it. A crew takes time to pull together. If you come aboard, we’ll have to begin all over again.”

Edwin pursed his lips and shook his head.

“In any case,” Red Ottar said, “everyone here will think that one Englander is quite enough.”

“Not me,” said Edith very prettily.

“This won’t be our last meeting,” Edwin told Red Ottar. “We wish you a safe journey.”

As soon as the companions had filled their stomachs and visited the latrines at the end of the quay, Mihran came aboard. Then Red Ottar instructed everyone to sit on their chests and listen while their pilot described the journey ahead.

Mihran mounted the pile of skins in the hold, and Bard and Brita sat at his feet.

“Everyones!” he called out, raising his arms. Then he smiled gaily and with his right hand twirled his mustache. “We go together into the belly of Garthar! We go where things are strange and not always what they seem. When you come back, you will be changed.”

Brita gazed up at Mihran. “What do you mean?” she demanded.

“You mean we’ll change shape?” asked Bard.

“Like that girl who was changed into a fish?” added Brita.

Mihran smiled and bent down and took out of Brita’s grubby hand a hunk of black bread. “See this?” he said. “Good black bread.” The pilot squeezed the bread, and when he opened his fist it had disappeared. Then he closed his fist again, and when he opened it for a second time, in the palm of his hand sat a black swan, made of bread.

Brita gasped. “How did you do that?”

Mihran shrugged; his eyes were twinkling like dark stars. He gave the black swan to Brita. “First we row,” he told the crew. “We row this fine boat against rapids all day. Hard works. Slow works. Our slow way is guarded by the forts.”

“May the gods go with us,” said Red Ottar. “May they guard us—and my boat.”

Slothi crossed himself.

“Mokosh! May she go with us,” Mihran said.

“Who?” asked Odindisa.

“The goddess,” Mihran told her. “Damp Mother Earth. We ride the water between her banks. And the Lord of the Waters, may he go with us.”

“The Lord of the Waters,” Odindisa repeated.

“That’s what the Rus call him,” Mihran explained. “Each river has its own lord.”

“Well,” asked Torsten, “which god are we to trust?”

“The more gods the better,” Red Ottar replied. “We’re going to need them all.”

“Today is the first day of May,” Mihran told them. “The first trading station is Duboviki and the first town is Holmgard. That’s seven days from here.”

“How many days to Kiev?” Solveig asked.

“Twenty-three water days and three land days and five rest days,” said Mihran.

“What are land days?” asked Solveig. “Are they for trading?”

“No, you trade in the evening after you arrive. Land days are for portaging.”

“What’s that?” asked Solveig.

Mihran pushed the air in front of him with both hands—he pushed it so vigorously that he toppled off the pile of skins. “Pushing!” he called up, still on his knees and laughing. He rubbed his hands together and scrambled to his feet. “You see,” he said cheerfully.

When Torsten untethered the boat, the port oarsmen eased her away from the quay with their blades. The whole crew cheered, and on board their barrel-shaped boat, the Bulgars waved and Solveig felt a surge of excitement.

“Look!” she said to Edith, sitting opposite her. “The banks! Bright yellow.”

“Crocus,” Edith told her. “Flags, maybe.”

“Bright hopes,” Solveig said. “But I do wish Edwin and Sineus . . .”

“Me too,” said Edith.

As she pulled strongly at her oar, Solveig felt her right wrist jar against a lump in the pocket of her tunic.

My bead, she thought. I must cut a leather strip for it and wear it. Then it’ll see Vigot. If he stole it, he must have stolen Bruni’s scramasax as well.

Red Ottar, meanwhile, was thinking about his helmsman and blacksmith. And later in the day, he cornered the two of them. “If I’d known before we left Sigtuna what I now suppose,” he said, “neither of you would ever have set foot on my boat. I can see there’s something bitter between you, but your first duty is to honor your companions. If one of you creates trouble, I’ll make both of you pay for it.”

At the end of the first day, when the boat nosed toward the mooring at Duboviki, most of the crew were skin-sore and bone-weary.

“Ah!” cried Mihran, pointing to the people gathered on the quay. “Who do I see?”

“Well?” said Red Ottar irritably.

“Just the man to lift our spirits,” Mihran replied.

“I’d as soon drown mine in a hornful of ale,” Torsten said.

“Easy now!” Mihran called out. “Easy!”

And as gracefully as a swan, a black swan, the boat glided alongside the quay, and Mihran expertly noosed a bollard and jumped out.

As soon as he saw Mihran, one of the men on the quay yelped. Then he got down on his haunches and—both feet, both hands, both feet—he hopped toward the river pilot. Mihran got down on his haunches too, and then the two of them pretended to box before standing up, laughing.

“Smik!” exclaimed Mihran. “My old friend!” And he told the crew, “Smik’s a laughter maker.”

“A what?” asked Brita.

Smik took hold of Brita’s earlobes and gently pulled at them. “Bigger ears!” he told her. “That’s what you need. Like us hares.”

“A laughter maker,” Mihran repeated, “even though he’s half Swedish.”

Smik pulled a long face. “No laughing matter,” he said. Then he turned to Bard. “Hello, creature!” he said.

“I’m not.”

“What not?”

“A creature.”

“Of course you are. A human creature. Each and every feature from your topknot to your ten toes. The whole lot. We’re all creatures.”

“Even dragons?” asked Bard.

“I did tell you,” Mihran said. “This is Garthar. The crossing place. Where human creatures can become wild beasts . . .”

“And beastly creatures become humans,” added Smik. And then he reached up, took out his right eye, and popped it into his mouth.

Bard and Brita gasped.

“Want a taste, Big Ears?” he asked.

Brita screwed up her face.

Then Smik took the eye out of his mouth and slipped it back into his eye socket, and both children laughed.

Smik looked around the crew. “Any of you got a glass eye?”

“I have,” Solveig heard herself saying in a clear voice. Then she just glanced at Vigot under her eyelashes and saw how the muscles on either side of his mouth tightened and twitched.

“Have you, indeed?” said Smik.

“A third eye,” said Solveig. “An eye that can see who a person really is.”

“Mm!” hummed Smik. “You’re a deep one.”

Everyone waited, but Solveig chose to say nothing more. Not now, she thought. The time will come.

That evening, they sat around a driftwood fire with some of the people living at Duboviki, and Smik told everyone a story.

“A Viking story,” he said, “to welcome this boatload of Vikings to Garthar. But remember, half the people living here come from Sweden and Norway and Denmark—or at least their grandparents did.”

Smik’s story was about hot-tempered Thor and how he was tricked by the giant king in a drinking contest. When Thor supposed he was drinking ale from a huge drinking horn, he was actually draining the sea, and when his companion Loki had an eating contest with a young giant, he was actually competing with Fire, and when his boy servant ran races against a young giant, he was actually racing the speed of Thought, and when Thor himself wrestled against a horrible toothless old crone, he was really grappling with Old Age.

Many of the people listening to Smik laughed and clapped each time mighty Thor or one of his companions was worsted by the giants. But Solveig thought of all the shape changers in the forests of Garthar around her, and when Thor and his companions had escaped with their lives and the story came to an end, she shook her head.

“Well?” asked Mihran.

“The right story,” said Solveig.

“I was watching yous,” the pilot told her.

“If Thor can’t be safe, how can we?”

Mihran spread his hands and shrugged.

“It matters,” said Solveig. “Choosing the right story.”

“It does. In the forest around us the bogatyrs . . .”

“Who?”

“. . . the giants, they were listening too.”

Solveig nodded.

“So were the spirits. The fire spirits. The water spirits.”

Solveig wrapped her arms around her waist.

“They were part of Smik’s story,” Mihran told her, “and so they were listening to be sure it was told right.”

“I know a story,” Solveig said, “about a young woman who told a story at the wrong time and paid a terrible price. I’ll tell you some day.”