Raven (18 page)

Wiglaf turned to Penda, who simply shrugged, if anything looking relieved, and so we left the church, blinking against the daylight.

‘We could take the goats,’ Bjarni suggested. ‘And some cheese.’ We had found three of the animals tethered on the far side of the church and beside one there was a pail half full of milk which we shared round, though Egfrith would not drink because he said the milk would be tainted by the sin of theft. At which Penda admitted that theft was a taste a man could get used to. But the monk was agitated now and wanted to be away.

‘Anyway, a goat is not a boar, Bjarni,’ I said, dragging the back of my hand across my mouth. The milk was thick and
still warm. ‘Bram will be the first to point that out when we return.’

‘That won’t stop him drinking two men’s share of milk,’ Bjarni said, eyebrows arched knowingly.

‘Are you suggesting stealing the sisters’ animals?’ Egfrith said. The cunning little weasel had learnt more Norse than I had realized. ‘I will not hear of it! We must go now, Raven, before the Lord sees fit to punish us. Oh, He will,’ he warned us all, ‘do not doubt it.’

Penda put a hand on the monk’s shoulder. ‘Father, are you still trying to coax this red-eyed son of a troll into the light?’ His eyes flicked to me. ‘You may as well try to talk the sea into not being wet.’

Egfrith narrowed his eyes at me. ‘
Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed saepe cadendo
. A water drop hollows a stone not by force, but by falling often,’ he said. ‘I am a patient man, as you well know. I have not given up hope for young Raven.’

‘Then you still have wood shavings for brains, monk,’ I said, turning to leave the convent.

‘What about the goats?’ Bjarni called after me.

‘Do you want to carry them through the marsh?’ I asked.

And so we left with nothing.

We had come far and so we spent only a short time searching for signs of boar – of which there were none – because we did not want to be caught out in the fen when night fell. As it was it would be hard enough to find our way back, but in darkness it would be near impossible. There was also the part of us that feared whatever strange spirits might wander abroad in the murky, pitch-thick darkness of the bog, though no one talked about that. And so we resigned ourselves to losing Sigurd’s contest. At least we returned with news.

At first Sigurd and the others listened keenly, their eyes glinting like fish scales at the mention of a god-house on the north of the island. But those eyes dulled soon enough when Bjarni told them the place was poorer than even the meanest
farmstead in their homeland. ‘My uncle had a turned foot,’ he said, ‘so he never went on a raid his whole life.’

‘Old Tjorvi walked like a one-legged duck,’ Olaf put in, smiling fondly. Those who had known Tjorvi – and some who hadn’t – laughed at that.

‘Aye,’ Bjarni went on, ‘he was piss-poor but even he had more loot worth taking. Which was why that whoreson Hogni Ketillson paid him a visit one summer. Hogni and his boys carried off two chests full. And what could my uncle do about it?’

‘They say poor Tjorvi limped after them,’ Svein the Red said, hitching across the soft ground before the fire pit and grinning like a fiend. The men roared. ‘Until his good foot struck a stone and turned the same way as the lame one!’

Olaf leant on Sigurd to steady himself. ‘Old Tjorvi has been walking in circles ever since!’

‘At least he never gets lost,’ another man added, fuelling the laughter.

‘So you did no killing?’ Sigurd asked, serious as the laughter faded.

‘We saw no one, lord,’ I said. ‘The Christ brides were hiding in the trees. We took nothing either.’ I added that because I knew why Sigurd was asking. He did not want word of raiders spreading as far as some lord of warriors who might feel strongly enough to come looking for us.

‘It was a good thing not taking the goats,’ Bjarni hissed in my ear, rubbing his palms together for warmth. I nodded. And then all our talk was forgotten because Bram was back with Knut, Bothvar, Hastein and Baldred, and hanging by its legs from a sturdy branch, dripping blood, was the largest boar I have ever seen.

We ate like kings that night. Black Floki’s party returned with a boar too, which had charged Ingolf, so that he had leapt into a thicket which had half flayed him. Still, beneath all the bloody scratches he was grinning now because while the beast
was going for him, Floki and the others had speared it. It was a large male but all agreed that Bram’s was bigger and so it was Bram’s party that won the silver. It turned out that the Danes were good shots with their bows for Rolf’s men came back with four hares, and all said it was a feast to make us forget for a while the stinging cold of that damp, desolate place.

With our stomachs full we built up the fires and men began to settle down for the night, leading blauvifs to their shelters or turning in alone. The wind was building from the north again and Amina was waiting for me and I knew she was naked under the furs. I was on my knees, half inside the shelter and half out, when something tugged at my cloak.

‘Fuck off, Egfrith,’ I growled, not wanting thoughts of him to sour my thoughts of what was waiting for me amongst those furs.

‘It is important,’ he hissed.

‘Amina, stay awake until I get back,’ I said, knowing that she did not understand a word and cursing Egfrith for pulling me back into the cold when I should have been warming up between a beautiful woman’s legs. ‘What do you want, monk?’

Behind Egfrith the flames stretched themselves into the cold night, their peaks breaking off and vanishing with a flurry of bright sparks. Some of those sparks died in a heartbeat but others surged high into the darkness. The monk’s face was shadow-shrouded but his bald head glistened and the whites of his eyes glinted, wide with alarm.

‘I overheard some of the men talking,’ he said. I must have looked surprised. ‘It is not a difficult tongue to grasp. I
am
a man of learning,’ he said. ‘Halfdan and Gunnar and some of the Danes plan to go north tomorrow.’

‘And?’ I said.

‘They want to see the convent for themselves, Raven. You know what that means,’ he hissed.

I shrugged. ‘What has that to do with me?’ I asked. ‘Or you for that matter?’

‘It will not do for men to go there again,’ he said, and from any other man I would have felt the edge of a threat in that voice. ‘Let the good Lord’s servants be about their work unhindered. Tell Halfdan and the others to stay here.’

‘And why would I do that, monk? I am not their jarl.’ My mind summoned Amina lying there just a few feet away. So warm. ‘Besides, the Christ brides were not even there. They saw us coming well enough.’
Next time we will have to try harder at stealth
, I thought to myself. ‘They’ll be hiding far off in the woods again before Halfdan and the Danes get within a bow-shot.’

The whites of his eyes vanished for a long moment.

‘That’s just it, Raven,’ he hissed. ‘They weren’t hiding in the trees.’ My mind sifted through what we had seen earlier that day, searching for the tracks that the monk, it seemed, had already followed. ‘I cannot say more,’ he rasped.

‘You’ll spit out what’s in your mouth or the next thing you’ll hear will be me snoring in there,’ I said, thumbing back to my lean-to. Though snoring was not what I had in mind.

‘God help me, I cannot say.’

I turned my back on him but before I could walk away a hand grasped my shoulder. I turned back to Egfrith. The fire crackled and spat noisily.

‘In the church,’ he said, his voice barely more than the whisper of leather shoes on stone.

‘The floor!’ I blurted.

‘Shhh!’ He flapped a hand at me. I remembered the mouse that had scampered across a small bare patch of the floor. There had been no rushes there because they had slid off when the trapdoor had been opened.

‘The Christ brides were hiding beneath the floor,’ I said, ‘which was why Wiglaf never got to finish his prayers.’

‘When I realized that the poor sisters were below our very feet I knew I had to get you all out of that place or else risk one of you discovering them. I thought you had seen, Raven. I
feared you were going to reveal their hiding place, but it seems you are as dim-witted as the rest of them, for which, this time, I thank the Lord.’

I ignored that. ‘Wiglaf and Penda wouldn’t hurt nuns,’ I said.

‘And Bjarni? And you, Raven, would you?’ I scowled because I had put Abbess Berta on her enormous arse with a savage blow. ‘Men are ruled by anger and lust,’ Egfrith said. ‘You must have seen the men’s eyes when you told Sigurd there were nuns living to the north of here.’ He shook his head. ‘The lust of a man is his shame.’

‘You tell yourself that when you are shivering alone tonight,’ I said, thinking of Amina.

‘Listen to me, Raven. Tell Halfdan and Gunnar that your gods have warned you not to go to the north of the island.’

‘You want my gods to help you?’ I said, almost smiling.

‘Tell them that you suspect there are Frankish warriors patrolling the place. Tell them anything but stop them going to the convent. Do this for me, Raven, if not for your own soul. I will not forget it. I will pray even harder for your salvation—’ He broke off because Hedin Long-face had emerged from his shelter to empty his bladder and now the Norseman stood behind him gathering warmth from the fire. Egfrith leant in closer, so that I felt his breath on my cheek. ‘I believe Christ will look kindly on you for saving his daughters,’ he said.

‘I will do what I can,’ I said. Not because Egfrith was asking me but because no matter how hard I had tried I had never forgotten the black-haired girl from Caer Dyffryn and what I had done to her. ‘But not now. I will talk to them in the morning when there’s less chance of them telling me to go and screw a bearded goat.’ Egfrith nodded, appeased for now at least. ‘Now leave me alone, monk,’ I said, ‘Amina will be getting cold.’

I crouched, pulled aside the bad-weather skin and crawled into my shelter. Then I cursed. Because Amina was asleep.

IN THE MORNING I WOKE EARLY. I HAD SLEPT BADLY, BESIEGED BY
dismal dreams that I did not remember when I woke, though their claws were still in me and I could not step out of the cold, dark mire of them as I watched the sun hoist itself in the east, shivering against the damp mist that wreathed the camp. In the stillest depths of the night I had woken and for a few confused moments had thought it was Cynethryth not Amina breathing gently beside me. Perhaps that is why I had determined to seek her out at dawn and try if I might reach the girl I had once known, behind the Cynethryth I hardly recognized.

The fire’s warmth had barely seeped beyond skin and flesh to chase the ice from my bones when Egfrith breezed over to me, his pale cheeks bristling with the beginnings of a beard.

‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ I said, which was a lie.

‘I did not think you would,’ he answered, which was also a lie – he would not otherwise have been waiting for me like a hound at a rabbit hole.

All around, men and women were stirring as the camp came awake. The low murmur of conversation was strewn with yawns, farts and the hawking and spitting of phlegm as men cleared throats.

‘It would be better to catch them early. Before they slope off.’

‘I need to speak with Cynethryth first,’ I said, and Egfrith must have known I would not budge on that, or else he was intrigued as to what I wanted with her, for he cocked an eyebrow and extended an arm, inviting me to get on with it.

Cynethryth had built her shelter on the camp’s eastern edge next to Asgot’s, which was recognizable for the many animal skulls hanging from a length of twine around the lean-to’s entrance. The largest were fox and badger skulls but there were many others: hare, stoat, yellow-toothed rat. The smallest were birds’ skulls, many of which had belonged to crows and ravens, and these hung threaded through their eye sockets. They looked like sharp white arrowheads.

Cynethryth’s wolf Sköll was nowhere to be seen, which was the first clue that Cynethryth was not in her shelter.

‘Where is she?’ I asked Bothvar, who was sitting on his sea chest making a fish-hook from a piece of bone.

‘I thought you had a new woman these days, Raven,’ he said with a grin, not taking his eyes from the small hook. ‘One of those pretty dark whores you’re keeping all to yourself when you should be sharing.’

‘Have you seen Cynethryth?’ I asked. Bothvar shook his head, his skin as grey as cold ashes, and so I called out to Asgot but there was no answer from his lean-to. A wind cut through the camp, rippling the skins of the shelters and causing some of the godi’s animal skulls to clatter against one another.

‘They could be off hunting,’ Egfrith behind me suggested.

I turned to him, my mind glimpsing again the old godi’s eyes when we had talked of the convent to the north.

‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ I said.

I fetched my spear and helmet and slung my shield across my back and when Olaf saw me arming he asked what was going on. I told him I was heading out to look for Cynethryth, but Olaf had been around too long to believe that that was all
there was to it and in the end I had to tell him that I feared Cynethryth and Asgot had gone in search of the convent. He swore and strode off to find Sigurd, leaving Egfrith and me standing there like tree stumps.