Fenrir (26 page)

The man’s words seemed to fizzle and sizzle in Helgi’s mind with the sound of a branding iron on an animal’s back.

‘And how does he become one?’

‘How he does anything – by death. Three live with the runes within them. Fragments of the god. Eventually there will be just one, and your destiny will fall upon you and sweep you from the earth.’

‘Who are they? What do I need to do?’

‘Those who drink at Mimir’s well pay a price so to do. Odin gave his eye for wisdom; the bright god Heimdall gave his ear. What did you give?’

‘My peace.’

‘It was not enough. More is required.’

‘What?’

‘A child.’

‘Which child?’

‘The one who sits beside you in your great hall.’

‘For what?’

‘For death.’

Helgi felt a delicious current of anticipation flow through him. Could the god really be asking for Ingvar?

‘And if I do this, the god you have shown me does not come?’

‘Your debt to the well will be paid. Your name will echo down the ages as the mightiest
khagan
of the earth. You will have a vision, and the way forward will be revealed to you.’

Helgi smiled. ‘You are a god,’ he said. Helgi could sense it. The air around the man seemed to have a pressure to it that rendered the prince’s senses dull, as if he was underwater. Next to him, Helgi felt slow and fragile.

‘I am.’

‘What is your name?’

‘I have many. Here I am Veles and in Rome I am Lucifer. To you I am Loki.’

Helgi felt fear stopping up his breath like a suffocating hand. He composed himself. The terror quietened. He had come to the attention of the gods. He was important, marked for greatness.

‘They call you lie-smith,’ said Helgi.

The god smiled. ‘Those who do not listen make me a liar,’ he said. ‘Men hear what they want to hear, and when they curse me it is not for lying but for speaking the truth. Thank you for the warmth of your fire. I shall repay the gift when I return to take what you have promised me.’

He turned and walked out into the snow. Helgi watched him go, thinking how foolish the gods must be to demand as a sacrifice what he had been praying for them to take away.

That night he had dreamed of a lady who lived in the land of the Franks, blonde and beautiful, a lady who walked in gardens by a river.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘One of the three. You shall know me by these signs.’ She held out her hand. In it were eight wooden counters, all marked with a rune.

‘What is your name?’

‘Aelis, of the line of Robert the Strong.’

‘While you live, I prosper,’ he had said to her.

He had sent a delegation to her brother at Paris the next day, asking for her hand in marriage. He didn’t even receive a response. He had considered an attack but his army was tied up at Kiev, keeping the Pechenegs at bay. That’s when he had decided to kidnap her.

On the roof by the healer Helgi looked down at Sváva. He had not thought the god would ask for her. The god had said, ‘The one who sits beside you in your great hall.’ Ingvar was there at all meetings, beside him at every judgement he made, every farmer’s squabble he sorted out, every warrior’s weregild claim, even when visiting kings were entertained. He had given his oath to raise the boy, but if fate struck him down, if the gods struck him down, then Helgi would be free of him without breaking his oath and free to name any heir he chose.

The prince hadn’t even considered the girl – he was a warrior, how could he have thought her important or in any way interesting to the god? She was a scrap, a little thing not six years old. How could the god want her when he could take a boy now thirteen and already battle brave? But the god knew his weaknesses and Helgi had come to realise that you don’t bargain with such as he and walk away without paying in meaningful coin, never mind smirking up your sleeve at your own cleverness.

Helgi looked down from the tower roof. The town was on an elbow of land that stuck out into the wide River Volkhov. Facing inland he could see clear green lands – the barrows of his dead countrymen nearest to him, the woods like a sea themselves beyond. They were digging a barrow for Gillingr now, his Viking brother, who had fought with him as far south as Miklagard, as far west as the Islands to the West. A gash of red soil had been cut behind the last complete barrow, ready for the construction of the burial chamber. There was a problem there, he had heard, but he was too taken with his daughter’s illness to enquire much about it.

His daughter would not have a barrow. She was a thing of movement, bright and quick. He couldn’t bear to think of her entombed under the earth. It would be fire for her, to match her spirit. He looked over the river. He felt like a bird, floating on light above the water, a bird that could turn in a moment and follow the river south to swoop on Miklagard, to plunder the treasures of the Byzantine emperor, to fly on to the Caliphate and return with all the jewels of Serkland. The girl moaned in her fever. He looked down at her and shook his head. He had allowed himself to love his daughter. Men, and kings in particular, should never love their girls, he thought. They were bargaining tokens, no more, to be traded with other kings for gold, land or peace. But he had loved her, for her fierce heart as much as anything.

Sváva and her sisters were banned from approaching the king without a lady or their mother to supervise their behaviour. She, though, recognised no bans. She’d come to see him, sneaking in to watch as he dealt with traders, princes and war chiefs in his grand hall. The little girl thought he couldn’t see her, crawling beneath the benches with the dogs, but he saw her all right, catching his eye as he settled a dispute between farmers, robbing him of all sternness at the very moment he might have screamed at the complainers to get out of his sight. She made him chuckle, and although he should have beaten her until her legs were blue, he didn’t. He winked at her and threw her one of the apples the peasant plaintiffs brought as gifts.

He could never turn her away, and eventually she’d just sit by his side on the floor with Ingvar his heir on the other side on a chair as he did his work. He was aware of how it made him look to his men and was careful to pick occasional fights in order to show that, though he might be tender-hearted to his daughter, warriors could expect less kindly treatment. ‘There’s no respect like corpse respect,’ was a maxim his own father had drilled into him from an early age. However, he was pleased when he saw some of his chieftains had begun to allow their own girls to sit beside them at the mead bench.

‘Aeringunnr.’ He went to her and sat down, put his hand to her head and was sure she would die. He had called her by her full name only once before. To him she had always been Sváva, or Mouse for her habit of appearing where he least expected. But Mouse was too timid a name for her and he had dropped it and settled on Sváva, after a Valkyrie, one of Odin’s battle maidens. ‘Aeringunnr.’ He had called her that when he’d gone to see her on the day of her birth and given her the name. Now, he knew, he was using it to say goodbye.

Tears came into his eyes so he turned his face away from the healer. He spoke to the girl, his eyes on the distance. ‘See what you’ve done? I can’t go down like this.’ Below, warriors were gathering. It was one thing to be seen to have a soft enough heart to have the child on his knee, another to be seen nursing her like a servant.

The healer, who only understood the East Norse of his masters if he listened very carefully, said nothing.

Eventually Helgi composed himself and turned back to the healer. ‘If she dies,’ he said, ‘so do you. She’ll have a boat burned for her to take her to the afterlife. You’ll be in it. It will be a privilege for you, so be happy.’

‘She won’t die,
khagan
, not on the roof and surrounded by charms.’

‘Good,’ said Helgi. ‘If she lives I’ll leave you to seek a less noble death. You can fuck yourself to death in a whorehouse at my expense.’

‘You are generous,
khagan
,’ said the healer.

The girl turned slightly and the healer grabbed at her to stop her slipping off the roof.

‘
Ulfr
.’

‘What did she say?’

‘I can’t tell,
khagan
.’

Helgi bent his head to the girl’s ear. She moaned again, repeating the word.

‘It’s likely nothing, lord,’ said the healer. ‘In fever people say all sorts of things that—’

‘
Ulfr
.’

Helgi fixed the healer with a stare. ‘What are you talking about, man? She said “wolf” as plain as I can hear you. What does it mean?’

‘There are many forms of spirit that can enter her. It may well be that a wolf spirit has come upon her and—’

The healer was stopped by Helgi’s look of simmering, almost murderous appraisal. The prince was a good judge of men, the healer knew, and had seen through him. But the healer also knew he was the only hope Helgi had.

Helgi spoke slowly and the healer could tell he was struggling to keep his famous temper. ‘Keep her cool up here. If it rains bring her in. Apart from that, make sure she doesn’t fall off.’

‘Yes,
khagan
. Yes, lord.’

Helgi took one last look at his daughter. She was wet with fever, scarlet patches covering her face, her hair sodden with sweat.

‘And pray to our gods,’ said Helgi, ‘because tomorrow I think you are travelling to their lands as escort to a princess.’

The rain-swollen river was a sheet of crumpled lead under the moonlight. The air was beginning to spit with moisture and Jehan knew that the best he could hope for was a cold and wet night in sodden clothes, if they managed to make the ford and get away. They hurried down the hillside towards the water where it passed some ruined farmsteads. The river was flowing unusually fast. It had been a wet spring, the rain prolonged and heavy. But the ford should be passable, he thought. Then again, he had never had to consider such a thing in his life. He had spent most of it cloistered in Saint-Germain, never travelling anywhere.

The Vikings seemed less sure they could make the crossing. Up the slope horsemen had gathered. Jehan counted twenty. Beside them were more warriors on foot, maybe twice that number. They had seen the berserkers and the lead rider pointed his spear towards them and kicked his animal down the hill.

‘Can we make it?’ said Astarth. The young man seemed in a fever, undecided between attack and retreat, stepping one way and then the other, certain only that he didn’t want to stand still.

‘We have to,’ said Ofaeti. ‘Come on, get the mules in. Those not leading an animal link arms. The river’s shallow here but it will be powerful. If we can cross before they arrive, we can disappear in the woods the other side. Let’s make sure we don’t get caught in the water.’

The men splashed in, pulling the mules after them. There was no order, no line. They all leaped in at the same time, straining towards the far shore – a distance of a hundred and fifty paces. Jehan had no choice. He followed them.

The river was thigh deep and very powerful, and Jehan staggered as he stepped into it. Then he steadied himself. The wonder of his transformation had not left him and he was amazed by how strong and stable he felt, despite the push of the water. The Vikings were not so sure-footed. They staggered, stopped, tottered forward and stopped again, all the time fighting for balance.

Down the hill the riders came at an uncertain trot. Vikings were no horsemen, it was well known, and they struggled to get the animals to go faster. Still, there was no need for great haste. They were four hundred paces away but the berserkers were only ten paces into the river and already they were grabbing on to each other, forced to link arms to make headway. Jehan saw that some of the horsemen carried bows across their backs. The rain was coming down now and if only the clouds would cover the moon there would be the protection of darkness. But the clouds did not cover the moon.

The horsemen were three hundred and fifty paces away, the berserkers only fifteen into the river. It would be slaughter, and Jehan needed these men to get him to Saint-Maurice. Astarth had the idea of mounting a mule and rode it to the other bank. Three followed his example, clambering up onto the animals over their packs before making for the far shore.

Jehan strode forward through the racing water, seven Vikings struggling in his wake.

‘No good,’ shouted Ofaeti. ‘Best turn and face them.’

‘No!’ shouted Jehan. Astarth had collected the mules and was forcing his way back into the water with them, coming to the rescue of his comrades, riding one and leading three.

Jehan reached back to the first of the chain of seven. ‘Take my hand!’ he said to Egil, who grasped at him with a curse. Then Jehan pulled, dragging the men behind him.

The horsemen were two hundred paces away, Jehan could hear their catcalls now: ‘Run, you cowards, too unmanly to fight!’

‘Come in here and say that!’ shouted Ofaeti, though he was having terrible trouble standing.

Jehan drove on. He felt strong and stable in the water. The berserkers made better progress with him pulling. Fifty paces, fifty-five. The horsemen were now on the bank. Sixty paces, seventy. Something splashed into the water. An arrow.