Raven (38 page)

It was lucky for us that there was not much wind and the Hellespont was smooth, because it meant Knut and the steersmen of the other ships could hold a true course without too much trouble. Besides which, our Greek companions claimed to know the strait better than the fish knew it, which I doubted of course. I reckoned those Greek fish were cunning enough bastards who knew a baited hook and a nettle-hemp line when they saw one, and were probably still laughing at me somewhere down there in Rán’s cold wet dark. Still, when we came to the narrowest part of the strait mine were not the only eyes riveted to the Greeks, for the truth was we needed them now. It was worse than rowing into the unknown and the fear of it was worse too: a cold dread that stirred in your guts and then crawled up your spine to slicken the back of your neck and make the hairs stiff as bristles. Miklagard, or Constantinople as the Roman Greeks called it, was, we had learnt, a kingdom of unequalled power. Tens of thousands of people lived in the city, safe behind enormous walls which Nikephoros claimed
were impregnable. Having seen the ancient walls of Rome with my own eyes I now knew some things were possible that most men would dismiss as the lie-weave of skalds, so that I think I would have believed Nikephoros if he’d said the stars hung as lanterns from Miklagard’s walls.

Now we sweated, scuffing our slick faces against our shoulders because we could not break the even pull of the oars which sent us gliding through the pinched part of the strait. On both sides we could see the land looming charcoal dark, pinpricks of flame here and there along the shore. No one uttered a word, for Bardanes had warned us that this was where three of their dromons prowled and even now their captains would be peering into the murk as we were. Except they would be ready with flint and steel to ignite the liquid fire should a Moor ship’s silhouette ghost out of the gloom. Or a dragon ship come to that. And so every creak of timber or rope had men wincing.
Fjord-Elk
and
Wave-Steed
ploughed our wake, silent as shadows as their oar blades stirred a white froth with each plunge. With each lift those blades dripped water in broken silver strings and now and then Máni, whom men call the moon, gave me a grey glimpse of a rower’s back and shoulders as he toiled.

I expected that at any moment the dark would be devoured by ravenous flame and we would be sheathed in fire tight as a sword in a scabbard. I was waiting for it, the knot of fear in my stomach growing with each dip of my oar because I thought we must be coming closer to the Greek ships and their vicious seidr fire. I could still see the blaumen leaping overboard, trailing flame that could not be quenched, and those are the kinds of memories you can do without.

My body laboured, warmed by the endless repetition of the stroke which had piled muscle on my chest, shoulders, back and arms, but my soul was frozen ice-still in clenching fear. And yet fear, it turns out, has more layers than an onion. Just when you think you cannot be more afraid something happens
which stops your heart and squeezes it small as a mouse stuffing itself through a tiny hole. That thing was Sigurd hissing like a goose. I caught the glint of his eye as he threw up a hand and turned an ear towards the moon-licked open water on our port side. We lifted our oars clear and heard the other crews do the same, then we listened to the soft gush of our bows through the still sea.

A flame licked somewhere out there, rising and falling with a ship’s roll. Fire streaked up into the night. I heard the muffled whisper of it as it soared, lingered for a breath, then fell. It was not the liquid fire, which so terrified us, but rather this was the work of any man: a cloth-bound arrow set alight and shot into the gathering dark. Another flaming arrow went up, inscribing a brassy grey smoke arc in the pewter sky, then vanishing again. Óðin’s arse but I don’t think I breathed until the third arrow went up. But then I blew out a stale breath because that arrow flew south, meaning that whilst the Greeks must have suspected they were not alone out there on the Hellespont, they did not know where we were.

The water was slapping our hull now as
Serpent
,
her impetus spent, gave herself over to wind and current and still we waited,
Fjord-Elk
and
Wave-Steed
drifting silently in the gloom off our stern. Part of me wanted to yell out, to break through the thick ice of that mute terror, for even chaos would be better than waiting – than expecting the fire to reach out of the night and eat your flesh. But I clamped my jaw shut as tight as my fists were on the smooth oar stave, and in my mind I heard Bram growl that he was fed up with skulking like naughty children and would rather face the slick-bearded Greeks and be done with it.

Someone farted. There were some choked laughs at that and then, turning back to us, Sigurd rolled an arm, which was the signal for us to start rowing again. I think we were all glad to pull the oars again, for the strokes were deep and strong, dragging the sea past
Serpent
’s
hull and goading her to slick
speed from a standing start. I saw Nikephoros nod to Sigurd, his handsome face still clenched tight, though touched now by the finger ends of relief at having got past his own dromons. The emperor must have been sweating like a blacksmith’s arse throughout all this. Whenever we weighed anchor and came to new lands we could expect trouble for we were raiders, but Nikephoros was an emperor. It would be some cruel wyrd that saw him burnt alive by the very men whose pay comes from his own treasury.

‘Part of me wanted to see those ships vomit their liquid fire again,’ Gap-toothed Ingolf said a while later when the rowing was steady and we were sure that the Greek ships were far behind.

‘That’s because you have all the sense of a shrew, Ingolf,’ Black Floki said without turning to look at the man. Ingolf glowered as he pulled the oar and I chose not to say that I knew how Ingolf felt and that part of me had wanted to yell out and turn that still night into seething madness. Instead we had crept even closer to Miklagard, like three hungry wolves stalking up to a rich, well-stocked farm.

IT WAS STILL NIGHT WHEN WE CAME TO THE ISLAND CALLED ELAEA
in the Marmara Sea. There were several islands we could have moored at, but this one had a ragged coast of creeks and sheltered bays in which we could easily hide once we had dropped the tallow-smeared fathom weight over the side to test the depth and seabed. In daylight we would have been able to use our own eyes, for the water was so clear, but even so it is better to use a knotted line than to find yourself cursing another man’s eyes as the sea gushes in through a torn hull.

We had come out of the dark narrows and suddenly what moonlight there was had flooded across the Marmara Sea, so that we felt about as inconspicuous as Svein the Red in a White Christ church. I could even see Kjar’s face at
Fjord-Elk
’s tiller and I should think he could see all of our faces who were turned towards
Serpent
’s stern as we rowed. But it was a wide sea compared with where we had come from and on the open sea we Norsemen are without equal. We had Sigurd. And Sigurd was the most sea-bold Norseman of all.

Not that we needed boldness now. What we needed was sleep, which is not easily gained when your blood is still up and the fingers of fear are still grasping. Yet, other than the
soul peace that swamps you after a good swiving, the sound of waves rolling themselves on to the shore is the best thing to get you into sleep and keep you there. Someone must have stayed awake, taking first watch from the stern and gawking out at the moon-played waves, but it wasn’t me. Nor did anyone wake me for my turn, which was probably because we were already at the arse end of the night and dawn was swelling somewhere in the east.

The early part of the morning, when there was still a breath of freshness in the air, was far too short. I had barely been upright long enough to work the previous day’s rowing knots out of my shoulders before the crushing heat filled the world. You could see it shimmering like water above the brown rocks on the shore and Penda moaned that he thought he was drunk until he remembered he hadn’t had a decent drop of anything for weeks and his mouth was drier than a burnt bush. I told him he had that right enough for we were all thirsty. Even what little wine we had was sour and foul-tasting now and we would look up at the endless blue sky, hoping to see rain clouds that were not there. Men had gone ashore looking for fresh water and others had begun rigging skins in the thwarts for shade.

Some of us gathered as close as we could to Sigurd and the Greeks who stood on the fighting platform at
Serpent
’s bow. It was always the same faces these days, those men who were close to Sigurd or who felt they wanted their say in whatever schemes the jarl wove. Olaf, Black Floki and Asgot were there of course, as were Svein the Red, Bjarni, Aslak, Knut, Penda, Bragi the Egg and a couple of other
Fjord-Elk
men. Of the Danes, Rolf, Beiner and Yngvar were always nearby, along with the blauman Völund. More often than not Egfrith joined us too, though he was a different man these days. Whereas he had used to chatter like a bird, now he rarely spoke and looked nothing like the monk he was, for his beard was brown streaked with ash grey and his thinning, unkempt hair was almost down to his shoulders.

Cynethryth joined the gathering too, though I could not look at her these days without thinking of Bram and the black seidr magic she had spun, taking my doom and putting it on to him. A heavy secret that, like a pair of quern-stones grinding in my soul.

‘This will be no simple raid,’ Sigurd told us, ignoring the streams of sweat coursing down his sun-browned face and dripping from his golden beard. He spoke in Norse, which I translated for Penda though I suspected the Wessexman no longer needed me to. Nikephoros, his general and the warrior Theo stood dumb as posts but watching us all.

‘I would like to tell you it will be as easy as burning Jarl Alrik of Uppland’s hall,’ Sigurd said. Some happy rumbles at that memory, though not many and Sigurd seemed to reflect on that a while – how many faces he had lost along the way, men who now drank in the hall of the slain. ‘But you all know that the further a man rides along the whale road, the more dangers he will face.’

‘There are more ways to die than there are fleas on an old hound, as my father used to say,’ Olaf put in, sweat glistening on his scarred barrel chest. Most of us were bare-chested, letting every slight breeze off the sea cool our skin, but Sigurd wore a light blue tunic whose neck and sleeves were edged with criss-crossed red braid. He was silvered, too, with a jarl torc at his neck and rings braided into his hair. He looked every inch the Norse chieftain, a ring-giver, and even though he knew his men were oath-tied and loyal, there was no harm in reminding them whom they served, especially when there was an emperor around.

‘Emperor Nikephoros has laid bare the bones of it,’ the jarl went on, glowering at us. ‘He has a son and the chances are that the man who is now eating at Nikephoros’s table has the boy locked up with a knife at his throat in case his father should come looking for his favourite mead horn.’

‘It’s what I would do,’ Olaf murmured, though I was not clear
whether he was talking about the knife business or the mead horn part. Still, we all agreed that an all-out attack would likely see the emperor’s son Staurakios killed, if the traitor Arsaber was holding him, and whilst that did not overly concern most of us, it was something the Greeks were keen to avoid.

It was time to start Loki-scheming, then, and I said as much, at which Sigurd nodded.

Nikephoros leant on the rail and looked out to sea. ‘We are not the first men to cast our anchors into Elaea’s waters on our way to war,’ he said, turning his face back to Sigurd. ‘A king of Athens called Menestheus brought fifty black ships here on his way to fight against the Trojans in the great war. Though from what I have read I do not think he was a brave man.’

‘I have heard this story,’ Egfrith said, frowning with the mind-strain of digging up the memory. ‘The war was over a woman, I believe. Thousands of fools died over a woman.’

Nikephoros said this was true, but added that any man would have given his life for Helen of Troy. He cocked one dark eyebrow. ‘She was the most beautiful woman in the world.’

‘No point in dying for the wench then,’ Olaf put in, shaking his head at Svein. ‘You can’t swive a beauty if you’re dead. She’ll be off rolling around with someone else whilst you’re left with the maggots.’

‘Being dead is the only way an old fart like you could get stiff enough for swiving,’ Bothvar said, rousing some good laughs and earning himself a glower from Uncle. But Sigurd silenced them with a hand.

‘I want to hear more about this war over a woman,’ he said, gesturing for the emperor to continue, and it seemed he was not alone in thirsting for a good story. Men were clustering like flies on a carcass, tilting their ears towards the Greek, bracing to catch every word. For such men a fine tale will almost make up for a dry throat and empty belly.

Nikephoros nodded and I sighed because I was getting tired of turning English into Norse.