Raven (29 page)

‘I will look after you, little brother,’ Svein the Red boomed, throwing his arm over my shoulder. It felt like an oak beam.

I tried to smile but my face was frozen. If I told them the truth of it, who would believe me? Who would believe that
Asgot had, in the dead of the night, cut the wing from my hair whilst I slept? I would look like a nithing coward trying to wriggle out of my wyrd. I would be marked as a man without honour. Then there was the fog around how it had happened. Asgot had taken the raven’s wing and put it in that sack of his – I was sure of that – but had he tied it to the thong on Bram’s claw pendant? Or was it just ill luck that it had snagged like that? Or perhaps that part really
was
Týr’s doing? I tore my eyes from the godi, the hot hate still in them when they settled on Cynethryth at his right shoulder. Had she known? No, I could not believe she wanted to see me killed in the arena. Her green eyes were silent as the grave and I looked away.

‘Let’s hear it for Týr’s chosen men!’ Bothvar hollered. Cheers rose with the mist and men slapped our backs and some went to fetch wine to celebrate even though it was early in the morning and my head still thumped like a sword hilt against the inside of a shield.

Over the next few days we trained hard. At the foot of the Aventine Hill, in the shadow of the crumbling Servian Wall, was an area of scrub amongst which a man named Paschal pastured his sheep, goats, and some horses. Sigurd gave the man a drinking horn full of amber for which Paschal happily gave over half his land for us to tramp around on. Sigurd and Black Floki worked me half to death, until my whole body trembled and I vomited. We mostly used spears whose blades we had sheathed in leather, for if you can use a spear well you will be better with the sword and the axe, too. Sigurd and Floki would attack me together so that I had to fight desperately, twisting this way and that, blocking again and again until my saliva was thick as porridge and my chest fit to burst. If I showed any weakness or began to tire, one of them would crack his shaft against my leg or shoulder and I had no choice but to fight harder or else suffer later. After each bout, when I counted the tender purple and green bruises on my body, I convinced
myself that they had been careful not to do me any serious injury before the big fight, though my battered flesh took no comfort from that.

We worked on our strength, too. Svein, Bram and I would stand together, our shields overlapping, facing a skjaldborg of six or seven or even ten men. Then it was a simple shoving match and our hearts hammered and our lungs seared as we put our shoulders into it and drove on. But even with Svein on our side, we would always be pushed back, our feet ploughing up great sods of earth and our faces red as Roman wine and sweat-soaked. And yet no amount of sweat and bruises would change the truth, which was that I was not even half good enough to beat Theo the Greek, Berstuk the Wend, or the blauman known as The African. Everyone else knew it too. Leading up to the day of the fight, some of the men were cold towards me and I suspected they were angry because they did not think I was worthy to fight for the Fellowship’s honour. Or perhaps they were simply envious because as they saw it Týr had favoured me with the chance to claim a fame-hoard that they believed should be theirs. That was not how I saw it. It was not how Penda saw it either.

‘By all the saints, lad, I still don’t know what you were thinking. They’re proper fighters, not some ham-fisted farmers called up to the levy. The Greek is fish-quick and has all the skill you could want. He’s clever with it too. The African could probably out-wrestle Svein, and the Wend has a born instinct for killing men that would keep me awake the night before I fought the bastard.’

‘I’ve killed better fighters before,’ I said, drinking weak ale. It was the night before the big fight and Penda had held his tongue whilst he helped me prepare, running through the moves and techniques that made him one of the best fighters I have ever seen. Perhaps the wine had unstuck his tongue, which was, as far as I was concerned, ill-timed, seeing as I’d be fighting for my life soon.

He shook his head, the whites of his eyes shining in the flamelight. ‘You’ve been lucky, lad. And you’ve got instinct too, but you’re not ready. I’ve seen better footwork from an eel,’ he said with a smile that faded before it reached his eyes. ‘Are you still trying to make up for ditching their damned silver in that Frankish river?’ He gestured at the nearest Norsemen who, like everyone else, were talking in low voices, counting out the silver they intended to put on us winning, and arguing over who they thought we should be matched with to give us the best chance of leaving the arena alive.

I shook my head. ‘They might not like it, Penda, but they know that our bones would be rotting in that river if we had not put that hoard over the side.’

‘Is it about the girl then?’ he asked. ‘Has Cynethryth a part in your wanting to get yourself killed?’

My stomach twisted at her name. ‘I care nothing for her now,’ I lied, and the Wessexman shook his head in frustration because my wish to fight far better warriors than myself made no sense at all to him. And so because Penda was my friend and because I knew he could sense the fear in me, the way a hunting dog catches a fox’s scent even if the fox is hiding underground, I chose to tell him. I told him the truth of how it was that Asgot had pulled my raven’s wing from his sack, and as I spoke his eyes bulged. His jaw dropped and his fists balled into hard knots.

‘The wily, venomous bastard!’ he exclaimed. I shushed him.

‘You will not say a word to any of them,’ I hissed. ‘On your oath you’ll say nothing.’

‘But you don’t have to fight,’ he said, barely able to keep his voice down. ‘They can draw another man’s fucking comb and you might get to live a while longer.’

‘What’s done is done,’ I said with a shrug. ‘There is no way out of it, Penda, not without looking like a pale-livered coward.’ Penda thought about this for a long while, scratching the scar that carved its way down his face, as he tried to fathom a way by which I might avoid the arena.

‘A man’s wyrd is inescapable,’ I said, holding out my hand for the wineskin leaning against his leg. The ale had not clouded my mind nearly enough and if this was going to be my last night, I would not have it filled with thoughts of death. Penda handed me the bulging skin and I got to work on it.

‘You’ll just have to bloody well win,’ he said.

Just then there was a great cheer from the men camped nearest the stone bridge that spanned the Tiberis. Many of us climbed to our feet and peered through the flame-licked night, eager, I think, to shake off the sense of apprehension that sat heavy upon the Fellowship. I saw Sigurd and Olaf and Rolf striding up the quayside, each with a pig’s carcass across his shoulders.

‘Has someone died?’ Sigurd yelled. ‘Have we lost a ship to this stinking Roman river? No? Then why are you all sour-faced? Hey, Uncle, have you ever seen such a gloomy crew? Such miserable-looking men?’ He was grinning.

‘Only Christians,’ Olaf said, shaking his head.

‘Tomorrow, Svein, Bram and Raven will hoist our fame high enough for all of Rome to see,’ Sigurd shouted, unburdening himself of the pig so that Arnvid and Bothvar could spit it above the cookfire. ‘If that is not worthy of a feast then I cannot say what is.’

The men needed no more encouragement than that. Bjarni found some Romans who could make music with pipes and a lyre with strings of twisted horsehair, and Bork and Beiner brought the women. We all came together around one great fire and drank and laughed and watched the fat drip from the pigs in glistening strings to hiss and seethe in the flames. When we had gnawed one of the carcasses to the bone, Olaf climbed unsteadily to his feet, ale sloshing over the sides of his silver-inlaid drinking horn.

‘To Óðin, All-Father!’ he yelled, thrusting the horn out before him.

‘Óðin, All-Father!’ we yelled back.

‘Now I would like to hear from our champions,’ he said, pointing into the crowd with a wandering finger. ‘Svein, you red-haired son of an ox! I pity the poor whoreson who has to face you tomorrow. Will you give him a quick death?’ There were shouts of ‘no’.

‘Stand up Svein Thór’s son. Let’s see you.’

The giant stood, a smile nestled in his great beard, and we cheered him. ‘Being so tall has both benefits and drawbacks, hey Svein?’ Bjarni shouted, turning to the rest of us. ‘Svein is the first to get soaked when it rains but the last to smell it when someone farts!’

‘What will we see from you tomorrow, Svein?’ Sigurd’s voice cut through the laughter.

‘I will cut my enemy’s belly open so that you will all know what he has eaten for breakfast,’ Svein said. ‘Then I will pull out his gut rope and strangle him with it.’ The men liked the sound of that. ‘If he is still alive after that I will introduce him to my axe which some of you know is called Skull-Biter. I don’t think he will like Skull-Biter.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘And that is a shame, for I think that Skull-Biter will like him very much.’

Everyone agreed it was well said, for this was the time for a warrior’s boasts and the more outlandish they are the better as far as a Norseman is concerned. Svein raised his own horn to the Fellowship, then sat down again.

‘Bram, Bram, Bram!’ The Bear let the chant ring a while before standing up, the glow from the greasy flames bronzing his face and beard. One hand gripped a saggy wineskin.

‘Well, Bear? Are you going to let your opponent walk from the arena tomorrow to screw the night away and boast of beating a Norseman?’ Sigurd asked, lighting the tinder beneath Bram’s famous pride.

‘Hah! If he can walk on his face!’ Bram bellowed. My head was beginning to swim now, which might have been the wine but might also have been fear. ‘I am Bram. Some call me Bear. I fought for King Gorm at Fyrkat, where the blood ran in
streams and the wolves and the ravens glutted themselves, so that the wolves could not stand and the ravens could not fly. I killed King Hygelac Storm-Temper’s champion who was called Olof, and many other men besides.’ He could not resist looking at the Danes as he said this, for Hygelac was a Danish king and they must all have heard of the champion Olof. ‘At Ribe I killed the brothers Randver and Hreidmar, who were known as great fighters.’ Some ayes at this. ‘When I was young I swam the Kattegat Sea from Grenen to Læsø island. The man who challenged me drowned. I have never heard of another man swimming so far.’ No one challenged this, though I do not see how any man could in reality swim that far. Even a fish could not.

‘Didn’t you once kill a troll?’ Osk said. The stubs of his broken teeth flashed in the firelight.

Bram grasped his bird’s nest beard and gave an embarrassed smile. ‘It was an ugly beast as I recall,’ he said, pulling his beard through his fist. ‘But I have been wondering if rather than a troll it might have been some relation of Svein’s. A cousin maybe.’ Even Svein laughed at that and Bram shrugged. ‘It was dark and I had been drinking.’

‘Drinking? You?’ Sigurd’s eyes were wide with shock. ‘I do not believe my ears.’

‘Aye, and that’s another thing,’ Bram said, swinging the wineskin up as a challenge, ‘I’ve outdrunk the best men who ever tipped an elbow.’

‘Heya!’ Sigurd cried, lifting his drinking horn in Bram’s honour. We all did the same.

‘The ill-wyrded snot-eating son of a sow who fights me tomorrow is going to wish he’d never slipped out of his pig mother’s cunny.’ Men roared their approval and I began to feel eyes on me, which slickened my palms and dried my tongue like wind-lashed cod.

‘On your feet, Raven,’ Olaf called. ‘Don’t let those two puffed-up whoresons outcrow you.’

‘Give them what they want, lad,’ Penda muttered as I stood.

‘I wouldn’t want to fight the lad!’ the big Dane Beiner said. ‘I’ve seen him spear a blauman who just wanted to talk. The lad’s unhinged.’

‘He doesn’t fight fair, I know that much,’ Yrsa Pig-nose added. ‘Remember that big Frank who jumped aboard
Serpent
?’ They did. ‘I’ll wager he never thought to be killed by a damn brooch pin.’ Laughter rang out but Sigurd shushed them so that I could speak.

‘I am grateful to Týr that I will fight beside these two,’ I said, gesturing to Svein and Bram, ‘for I know of no braver men. Or better drinkers,’ I added, at which men raised their horns, cups and wineskins again. ‘But the man who fights me will not have an easy time of it. Since I joined this Fellowship many men have tried to kill me. Most of them have long since been eaten by worms, but I am still here.’ A murmur began and men leant together to share it. ‘Some have said I am Óðin-favoured, because I have walked away from fights that should have been my death. They whisper behind my back.
Blood Eye cannot be killed
, they say.
The Spear-Shaker’s seidr protects him
. I have heard many of you hiss as much when you have thought me asleep,’ I accused them. ‘I have even heard it said that death clings to me like a black cloak and that men should keep their distance from me if they want to live.’ They were not cheering as they had for the others. But the murmur was swelling like a river in spate. I held my tongue for a moment, scouring men’s faces with my gaze, letting my blood-filled eye work its seidr. ‘It is all true,’ I said. ‘The man who fights me tomorrow will learn it to his cost. I am Raven corpse-maker. He will not see another sunset.’ Some of the eyes looking up at me were pebble-wide, so that I could see the fire reflected in them. Others were slits beneath heavy brows. Not knowing what else to do or say I bent and grabbed the wineskin Penda and I were working on and lifted it high. ‘For Óðin!’ I yelled. The men raised their
own drinks and some of them repeated my dedication, but the whole thing was lacklustre.

‘I’m a piss-poor boaster next to Svein and Bram,’ I muttered, sitting back down. I put the wineskin to my lips to take a swig, but my head was spinning and so I thought better of it.

Penda did not answer and when I looked up I saw that he was staring at me just like the others. I said again that I ought to practise my swagger.

‘I couldn’t make sense of most of it, lad,’ he admitted, ‘but nobody cracked a rib laughing, that’s for sure.’