Raven: Sons of Thunder (30 page)

‘Which makes more pressing the need for us to vanquish the enemies of Christ,’ Karolus said.

‘Or convert them, lord,’ Father Egfrith amended with a raised finger and an almost imperceptible sideways glance at Sigurd.

I suddenly felt sick, for my mind had unravelled the knot that had hidden Egfrith’s reason for helping to sell the book. I had long known the little weasel had it in his mind to convert
Sigurd, but now I feared my jarl might have agreed in return for Egfrith’s help.

‘The book,’ Karolus demanded. ‘I will see it for myself.’

‘You have enough silver, king of the Franks?’ Sigurd challenged in his thick accent, his eyes wolflike below his helmet’s rim. ‘Or have you spent it all on blue cloaks and fish scale armour for men who would make better farmers?’

My guts twisted. The emperor glared at Sigurd. Egfrith’s face paled white as death and I thought we would all die in a great rush of Frankish steel. But then Karolus smiled, the lines round his eyes carved from a hundred thousand such smiles.

‘And who are you?’ he asked Sigurd, who stepped in front of Ealdred.

‘I am Sigurd, son of Harald,’ he said. ‘Some call me Sigurd the Lucky.’

‘You are a Dane?’ Karolus’s smile twisted into a grimace.

‘I am no Dane,’ Sigurd said.

‘Do you serve Ealdorman Ealdred?’ the emperor asked, nodding at Ealdred.

Sigurd spat and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

‘No, I did not think so,’ Karolus said. ‘And they are your men, aren’t they? And your ships moored there?’

‘They are mine,’ Sigurd said.

‘You are heathens then?’ Karolus challenged. That question rode the back of threat.

‘This monk has it in his mind to wade me into a river and push my head under the water,’ Sigurd said, gesturing to Egfrith. ‘It seems to become a Christian you need to be half drowned.’

‘And you have agreed to be baptized?’ Karolus said, suspicion making slits of his big eyes.

‘I have not decided yet,’ Sigurd replied. ‘Perhaps.’

‘The book, my lord emperor,’ Egfrith spluttered, offering the gospel book to Karolus, who flicked a hand directing the monk
to give it instead to Alcuin. The old man began immediately to pore over the thing, his face as creased as oak bark as the emperor’s eyes bored into Sigurd’s.

‘It is genuine, my lord,’ Alcuin said eventually, shaking his head so that I could not say whether he was simply amazed to have such a thing in his hands or horrified that the treasure had until now been in ours. ‘This book is impossibly important,’ he murmured, at which Karolus shot him a sour look. Alcuin might have been a deep thinker in some ways, but he was a poor trader to drive up the price like that. Sensing rather than seeing the emperor’s glare, the old man raised a hand acknowledging his carelessness, though to me he seemed much too interested in the gospel book to care.

‘Then I will have the book, Sigurd,’ Karolus said and with those words the worm Ealdred saw to the saving of his slippery skin.

‘My lord emperor, save me from these men!’ he blurted, wriggling past Sigurd and falling to his knees before Karolus. ‘I am a Christian lord and these heathens have kept me prisoner these last weeks. My daughter too.’

‘Bastard,’ I heard Penda snarl.

There was a tinge of distaste in the way Karolus looked at Ealdred, but as the burning light of Christendom he could not ignore such a plea.

‘You have my protection, Lord Ealdred,’ he said, gesturing for the Englishman to get to his feet. ‘Where is your daughter?’

Ealdred turned and pointed to the shieldwall and the Norsemen glared at him with promises of death. ‘She is back there, sire. Amongst the heathens. She is called Cynethryth.’

Karolus nodded. ‘Come forward, Cynethryth!’ he bellowed and there it was, the voice of an emperor. There was the clump and clatter of shields and the rattling of mail as Sigurd’s shield-wall parted to allow Cynethryth through.

‘Lord Karolus, this worm is mine,’ Sigurd snarled, but even Sigurd looked small before this great host of Franks.

The emperor gestured for Alcuin to give the book back to Father Egfrith and the monk nodded respectfully as he stepped back with that Christian treasure in his hand. ‘You will have your silver, Norseman,’ Karolus said casually with a flick of the wrist. ‘Come here, girl.’

Cynethryth came over to us and inclined her head to the emperor, her golden hair plaited so that she could not have looked more Norse, though Bram would have rumbled that her hips were too narrow.

‘You are safe now, daughter,’ Karolus said, and even though he was old his eyes lit up at her beauty. ‘Your captivity is over and you are free.’

Cynethryth’s eyes flicked to me. ‘My lord,’ she said in a sure voice, ‘I am no prisoner and chose to sail with these men. They may be heathens, sire, but they are honourable men.’ Then she pointed to Ealdred. ‘He is the one with no faith and if I were you I would not trust him any more than I would trust a fox.’

At that Ealdred snarled and stepped forward, backhanding Cynethryth viciously so that she staggered backwards, her eyes huge and full of shocked fury. Then she screamed and from her belt drew her eating knife and flew at Ealdred, fast as a hawk, and plunged the blade into his eye. Now Ealdred screamed.

I leapt, pulling Cynethryth back, which was not easy for she was frenzied. My mind was reeling at what had just happened as Karolus roared orders that built a wall of warriors with raised shields between them and us. Ealdred writhed on the ground, his hands slipping on the blood-covered hilt so that he was unable to draw Cynethryth’s knife from his eye.

‘The girl is bewitched!’ the emperor said, his eyes wide, though not as wide as Alcuin’s beside him. The old man looked about to fall from his palfrey. ‘You she-devil! These godless men have defiled your soul.’ Then his expression changed
from one of shock to inquisitiveness and he asked something of Alcuin, though it was in the Frankish tongue and so we could not know what it was. ‘But we will break that spell,’ the emperor said then, ‘with the Lord’s help. Step away from her, boy, or you will both die where you stand.’

I held Cynethryth tightly.

‘Do as he says, Raven,’ Sigurd said.

‘But lord . . .’

‘Now, Raven,’ Sigurd demanded, and so I released Cynethryth who simply stood there watching Ealdred who was flapping like a fish, his screams replaced by a strange gurgling sound. Except for Egfrith who was kneeling by him praying, no one moved to help the ealdorman, perhaps because it was obvious that there was no saving him now.

‘You will come with me, Cynethryth,’ Karolus said, ‘and, God willing, you will be . . .’ he paused, ‘healed,’ he finished and his stallion screeched and tossed its head as though in warning.

‘Cynethryth stays with us,’ I said, swallowing hard and feeling a tremor in the arm holding my spear.

Karolus looked down his long nose at me and his eyes seemed to catch fire.

‘You,’ he accused me, ‘are the thing that has twisted this poor girl’s soul. Satan has marked you as one of his own.’ He gestured at my blood-eye. ‘I knew it the first time I saw you. But the dark one holds no sway here, boy, and you will hold your fetid tongue if you want to keep it.’

‘I am afraid of no man,’ I said, raising my bearded chin. In truth I was so afraid I could have pissed down my own leg in front of them all. I glanced at Sigurd, who I could have sworn had the faintest of smiles playing on his lips, for there was a part of Sigurd that loved chaos.

‘There is no need to let high spirits lead us into foolishness,’ Alcuin said, calming his palfrey with a flick of the reins. ‘We
have more important matters to attend to.’ He looked down at Ealdred and made the sign of the cross for the ealdorman was quite clearly dead, the small knife, which must have pierced his brain, still jutting from his right eye.

Karolus sucked a breath deep into his large stomach and closed his eyes and when he opened them the fire was gone. ‘As always, my dear Albinus, you are the rein on my temper.’ He smiled at Alcuin, then looked back to Sigurd. ‘I will have three barrels of silver brought to you before the full moon.’

‘Five barrels,’ Sigurd said, scratching his chin, apparently unaware that we were in no position to negotiate.

The emperor frowned. ‘For five barrels I could build another palace,’ he said, shaking his fair, greying head.

‘Five barrels and I’ll let this Christ monk wash me in your river,’ Sigurd said loud enough for all to hear, and I turned to see Black Floki pull a face that could sour milk. He understands some English then, I thought. Olaf too was all beard and grimace, and the Wessexmen glowered because their erstwhile lord had not spoken for them. But Karolus must have thought he now had a deal worth making, for he simply nodded to Alcuin.

‘You will have your silver, Sigurd the Lucky,’ the emperor said, pulling his horse around. ‘Bring the girl,’ he commanded two of his men, who nodded, each taking one of Cynethryth’s arms. Then he and Alcuin walked their mounts back to the great, shining army. ‘And may Christ grant you the strength to see your purpose through, Father Egfrith!’ he called. And Cynethryth did not look back at me as they led her away.

Ealdred was dead at last, which was no bad thing. His death had been coming a long time, though none would have guessed it would come at the hands of his daughter. Still, I felt sick. I felt sick because Sigurd had agreed to be baptized as a Christian, but most of all I felt sick because Cynethryth was gone. Though,
other than Penda who cared for Cynethryth because he had loved her brother, none of the others seemed anything other than cheerful. We had met with the great Christian emperor and survived. Even more surprisingly, the man was going to give us more silver than we had ever dreamt of, and Norsemen dream in silver. The way they saw it, things could not have been better and most of them did not even seem to mind that Sigurd would be baptized.

‘It will make no difference,’ Bram Bear rumbled, chewing some dried seal blubber. ‘Sigurd is a wolf and will always be a wolf. Dunking his head in another man’s river won’t make a gnat’s arse of difference.’ He grinned, his lips smacking noisily. ‘But this emperor believes it will, and that’s why we’re going to be rich, lad.’

There were some, including Asgot, Black Floki and Olaf, who did not like that idea at all. Still, we were alive and would soon be rich, so even they could live with it for now. Men were left with the boats and the rest of us made for the nearest town, which was called Vaals. I much preferred it to Aix-la-Chapelle, because it was made of wood, not cold stone, and it was full of normal people and not Christ slaves. It was the first time in a long while that the Norsemen had had the chance to spend some of their well-earned silver and it was not long before we were all roaring drunk. As for the Frankish whores, they came out at night and could not give a spit that we were heathens. Smelling money, they were over us like flies on raw meat. I could only think of Cynethryth, but the others had no such thoughts to belt their breeks up. I stood drinking with Asgot, who claimed he was too old for ploughing, whilst all around the Norsemen humped for all they were worth. I swear I could hear bones rattling. Svein the Red had two women, one in each arm, their bare breasts glistening in the torchlight, and Sigurd was sitting at the back of the tavern with a black-haired beauty’s head in his lap. Even Hedin, who with his long face
was so ugly that men said even the tide wouldn’t bring him in, was at it. The sight of his white arse flying up and down like a washerwoman’s elbow was almost enough to sour the ale in my cup.

‘He’s watching us,’ Asgot creaked, his yellow eyes following a spider which was descending from a rafter on its invisible string.

‘The spider?’ I slurred.

‘The emperor, you brainless fool,’ Asgot hissed.

‘The emperor has gone to Paris, old man,’ I said, wishing I had not been left alone with the twisted old godi. It was hard to be near him and not remember how he had killed Ealhstan. I had killed one man, Ugly Einar, for his part, but I had not touched Asgot.

‘He has more eyes than a hound has fleas,’ he rasped. And I saw that the old cunny was right. There were men in the tavern who were clearly charged with keeping an eye on us. It seemed they did not even mind us knowing, for when I locked eyes with one of them, a young man with short black hair, I saw undisguised disgust in his face. But these spies seemed content to let us spend our money, and the Norsemen were too busy humping to care.

Later that night Bjarni staggered over to me, spilling a river of mead as he dragged a small Frank behind him.

‘This man is going to tattoo us,’ Bjarni said, his head seeming too heavy for his neck and lolling in circles. ‘He assures me he is very good.’ The Frank nodded uncertainly, searching Norse faces for one that looked less like those strange see-through creatures that float in on the tide. He could not find one and so he looked back at me and I looked at Bjarni.

‘What tattoo?’ I asked, not liking the idea at all because I was not in the mood for pain.

Bjarni’s eyes rolled and he staggered back, rocking on his heels. ‘Something that reminds us who we are.’ He frowned.
‘And what we are. We travel so far from home I don’t want to forget.’

‘I don’t think there is any fear of that, Bjarni,’ I said. ‘We are wolves.’ And with that his blue eyes blazed and his teeth flashed and I suddenly knew what mark this little Frank was going to carve into our skin.