Raven: Sons of Thunder (26 page)

‘A good name for a river,’ Bjorn muttered.

Sigurd frowned. ‘I thought we were still on the Mass.’

‘We were on the Mass and now we’re on the Wurm,’ Winigis replied petulantly.

The wharf had been cut into the bank so that the boats moored against it were sheltered. At its upriver end a short jetty formed a breakwater that would further protect the moorings even from a current strengthened by heavy rain or swollen in springtime by snow melt. ‘This is Aix-la-Chapelle,’ Winigis said as Sigurd called to Knut to take us in to the wharf. There were boats all along the jetty, but a knörr laden with bolts of cloth was just untying and as soon as she cast off
Serpent
took her place. When we were moored up
Fjord-Elk
tied up to us hull against hull.

‘Look,’ Bram said, pointing further up the jetty where three short, narrow, high-prowed ships sat side by side. Their actual prow heads had been removed, but from what we
could see, the carvings along the sheer strake appeared to be Norse.

‘They could be the bairns of
Serpent
and
Fjord-Elk
,’ I said with a grin, for they were half the length of our ships.

‘I might take one back for the wife,’ Bram replied, scratching his thick beard. ‘She could row it into the fjord to fish.’

A crowd gathered on the jetty to see what we were. Father Egfrith greeted them all and made the sign of the cross in the air, though they understood him no more than we could understand them.

‘Winigis, tell them that Ealdorman Ealdred of Wessex in England has come to pay his respects to their emperor,’ Sigurd said, gesturing to Ealdred, who was cheerlessly polishing the silver and bronze brooch Sigurd had told him to wear. The wooden White Christ cross set with rubies hung over his chest and his cloak was of rich green cloth, its collar trimmed with white ermine fur. He had even shaved his face but for his moustache, which he had greased with seal fat so that the two thick, glistening whiskers drooped a thumb’s length beneath his chin.

‘Bastard looks like a lord again,’ Penda said, hawking and spitting off the jetty.

‘I hope he still remembers how to be one,’ I said, realizing that some of the Franks were staring and whispering about my blood-eye.

‘What in God’s hairy arse are you sheep fuckers looking at?’ Penda growled at them, at which they showed their palms and shook their heads and shuffled off. ‘Better get that covered, lad,’ he said and he was right, we did not need any extra attention. I took a clean strip of linen and tied it round my head, covering the eye.

‘But that’s the most handsome bit of you, Raven,’ Cynethryth teased, a smile playing at the corners of her lips.

‘That doesn’t say much for the rest of him,’ Penda said,
waggling a little finger and nodding at my crotch. I would have clouted him but Cynethryth did it for me, making Penda grin like some scar-faced fiend.

‘Raven! Come here, my boy.’ It was Egfrith. He was standing with Ealdred, Olaf and Sigurd by
Serpent
’s prow and he had that fox look in his little eyes. The rest of the men had secured the ships and were now filling the wharf, stretching in hauberks, arranging war gear and pissing off the jetty. ‘Move yourself, lad, there’s work to be done,’ the monk called, clapping his hands. I went, and because Penda refused to miss out on any fun I might have, he went with me.

‘Winigis says the emperor’s palace is some miles east of here,’ Sigurd said, nodding towards a distant stand of orange-leafed oak and elm at the end of the rich, grassy flood plain. Along the river bank there were several timber-built houses and to the west stood fields of stubble in which pheasants fed unmolested. Not liking the look of our mail, helmets, spears and axes, most of the locals had moved off, though some held their ground as though they were awaiting a chance to speak to Ealdred or Sigurd. ‘We cannot lumber into this emperor’s hall like a bear into a cave,’ Sigurd went on in English. ‘This Karolus will not deal with the likes of us. So Ealdred will go.’ He looked at the ealdorman, whose face was blank, though his eyes were alive. ‘Ealdred will go and he will tell this king about the Christ book. After what I have seen with my own eyes and from what Egfrith says it seems to me that Karolus will want the book. He will need it more than he needs food or ale or a woman in his bed. He will wonder how he has managed to live without it and he will give anything to have it. What we want is his silver, a hoard to make the dragon Fafnir jealous.’ Olaf grinned at that.
But Fafnir
’s
hoard was cursed
, I thought, though I said nothing. And what was more, the warrior who slew the dragon and stole his treasure died from the hoard’s curse. And that warrior’s name had been Sigurd. ‘The monk and the girl will
go too and between them they will convince Karolus that he can trust us enough to make an arrangement.’

‘But you can’t trust Ealdred,’ I said in Norse, ‘or the monk come to that. They will betray us, lord. They will bring the Christians down on us like before. You cannot trust them.’

‘But I can trust you, Raven,’ Sigurd replied in English, ‘and you are going with them.’ He turned to Ealdred now, the golden rope of his beard level with the ealdorman’s eagle’s-beak nose. ‘Listen to me, Englishman,’ he said in a voice that clutched my heart like an icy fist. ‘You will make the emperor want the Christ book. If you fail, if you betray us . . .’ there was a rasp as Sigurd drew his great sword and held it across his chest, ‘I swear on my father’s sword that I will come for you. Whatever hole you crawl into I will come for you and even death will not save you. I will come and I will cut slices of meat from you but I will not let you die. I will cut you and put fire to the wounds so that you cannot bleed to death and when you are out of your mind with pain and hunger and misery you will eat the rancid flesh I have taken from you and still you will not die. You will eat your own prick, scoff down your balls and your tongue, and then, Ealdred, I will let your daughter see you and if you still have a scrap of honour left in your rotten soul you will at last die of shame.’

I pitied Ealdred then, even after all he had done to us, because I knew Sigurd meant every cold word of it. I felt Penda behind me, felt him urging me on. ‘Can I take Penda, lord?’ I asked. ‘Another Wessexman can only help to fool them into believing we are Christians.’

‘He’s right, Sigurd,’ Olaf said. ‘The Englishman is handy in a fight, too.’

Sigurd pursed his lips and then inclined his head. ‘Black Floki goes too,’ he said, calling the Norseman over. ‘If this emperor becomes our enemy Floki will cut his throat.’ Black Floki simply nodded as though it would be as simple as drawing breath.

So we made ready. The Franks who had been waiting to talk to Ealdred and Sigurd were traders on the sniff for coin and this had made them brave enough to stay when the others had slunk off. From one of them Sigurd bought seven horses on the understanding that the merchant would buy them back when the delegation returned. Another man sold Olaf four barrels of mead, two wheels of cheese and some fresh butter, promising to return that night with some women skilled in entertaining men with heavy balls who have been a long time at sea.

But for us there was just the wide flood plain and the muddy track which led to Aix-la-Chapelle. The afternoon threatened rain so we took oiled skins for the journey, rolling them and tying them to the horses’ backs along with our brynjas and weapons and some food. Egfrith had grudgingly agreed to leave behind the gospel book of Saint Jerome, for we could not risk the emperor’s simply taking it, or thieves robbing us. He secreted it away in
Serpent
’s hold and seemed somehow withered without it. We mounted amidst bellows of ‘Óðin’s luck!’

‘Make us rich!’ and ‘Raven rides like a sack of rocks on a goat!’

Bjorn smiled like a young boy. ‘Raven, tell the king of the Franks that Bjorn and Bjarni of Harald’s Fjord want a brown-haired beauty and a barrel of wine each,’ he said, and then his face hardened. ‘If he brings them to us and pays his respects we might consider trading with him.’

With the sound of laughter in our ears we set off to meet an emperor.

THE CLOUD WAS LOW AND GREY. A COOL NORTHERLY PUSHED THE
heavy mass overhead, then on across the flood plain towards the southern horizon. Clouds of rooks tumbled out of the grey down to a ploughed field west of the oak woods, their toneless kaaing reaching us across the flat ground. To the east, tight knots of jackdaws approached a clump of alders already dark with roosting birds. I watched them jink sideways and up as though surmounting an invisible wall, then they seemed still for a heartbeat before dropping with perfect aim, each to a branch or twig amongst their brothers.

For the sake of appearances Sigurd had given Ealdred the best horse. After all, he was our lord now. It was a black stallion and spirited, the kind of horse that considers itself equal to, if not better than, the man on its back. I rode a broken old mare and the other beasts were not much better, which meant that Ealdred might have been tempted to make a break for it, despite Sigurd’s threat. So Floki, Penda and I rode close to the ealdorman, close enough to count the fleas on his stallion’s rump, and Floki had brought a pair of throwing axes with which he was a deadly aim. One kick of Ealdred’s heels
would see one of Floki’s axes embedded between his shoulder blades.

‘Aix-la-Chapelle used to be called Aquisgranum,’ Egfrith chirped after a while, breaking the silence that had grown as each of us imagined the weave of our wyrds. ‘In Roman times, of course. I think the name came from a Celtic god of water and health for it is said hot water erupts from the earth there and men bathe in these pools. Though I find it hard to believe the Celts went anywhere near them, whatever their heathen god’s name, as they were a filthy people and still are. They say the emperor bathes in these hot springs every day. His skin must be as clean as his soul.’

‘Maybe the emperor will let us wash our arses in his precious water, hey, horse?’ Penda suggested, rubbing his chestnut palfrey’s ears.

‘And taint the blessed pools till Judgement Day?’ Egfrith exclaimed. ‘Karolus will not have you filthy beasts anywhere near the springs, as God is my witness. But perhaps Cynethryth and I will have the honour. Ealdred too as a Christian lord.’

‘When your White Christ turns the water into wine, monk, then I’ll be interested,’ I said, dropping back a little to escape the man’s prattle. But in this welcome calm a fresh and troubling matter bobbed up to the surface to trouble me. Why had Egfrith agreed to help us sell the gospel book of Saint Jerome? I had once heard him say that such a holy treasure was not to be bought or sold, even to the likes of the Emperor Karolus. Yet here he was coming along to help grease the trade. But I soon buried these thoughts deep in my mind’s journey chest. My fathom rope was not long enough to test the motives of a man who served a god who let his only son be tortured and hung on a cross to die. For all I knew, Egfrith had curdled his own brains with prayers and nonsense and the White Christ’s belly-warming blood.

Leaving the flood plain, the track wound through ancient
woods, at the heart of which stood countless giant ash trees, silent and eternal, and we looked up at them in awe because their highest branches seemed to disappear into the sky. They were the kind of trees that would defy Njörd’s fiercest winds.

‘They’d make good spears,’ Penda said appreciatively. ‘Straight as a shaft of sunlight.’

‘Yggdrasil, the World-Tree, is such as those,’ Black Floki said, ‘but that is even more enormous. Its limbs hold up the nine worlds.’ His eyes were dark and serious as I translated for the others. ‘It was in that tree that Óðin All-Father hung himself for nine nights to gain wisdom. He was speared too. Here, I think.’ Floki touched his right side halfway up his ribcage. Even as I turned the words into English I saw the cloud settled on Egfrith’s face, which proved too strong a temptation for me.

‘Christ was hung on the tree of pain, wasn’t he, monk?’ I asked.

‘Yes, young man, our Lord and saviour suffered on the cross for our sins.’

‘And a soldier, a Roman I think, speared him as he hung there?’

‘It is true,’ Egfrith admitted, ‘though perhaps that young soldier was trying to end the dear Lord’s suffering.’

‘And is it true that Christ cried out before he died?’

‘He did,’ Egfrith said with a solemn nod. Then he looked across at me, his eyes narrowing. ‘But so would any man, I suppose.’

‘True,’ I admitted. ‘Because Óðin cried out before he died. That must have been some sound. Then, of course, he came back to life. Did Christ come back to life, Father?’ Cynethryth scorched me with a look.