Raven: Sons of Thunder (7 page)

‘You still wear the feather,’ she said. I was pulling off my boots so I could wade into the surf with her. ‘I did not expect you to wear it for ever, Raven.’ She frowned. ‘It was meant in fun, that’s all.’

I shrugged. ‘I like it,’ I said defensively. The hint of a smile touched her lips, honing her cheeks into sharp edges. I stepped into the waves.

‘And the rest,’ she said, nodding at my tunic and breeks, ‘if they’re not stuck to your skin. We can’t have you befouling the ocean for the rest of us.’ I took off my tunic and dropped it next to my boots and brynja, giving Cynethryth a smile which she answered with the stone-face mothers give their whelps before letting the hazel switch say the rest.

‘Everything?’ I asked.

‘Oh, of course, Norsemen bathe fully clothed,’ she mocked, ‘in case the water is cold.’

‘Norsemen don’t bathe at all,’ I said, which was not true. We washed our faces and combed our hair in the mornings and liked to clean our hands before eating. We bathed too, when young English girls were not standing there with their eyes set like a pair of scales to weigh the goods. Cynethryth’s eyes rolled.

‘Don’t rush me, woman,’ I said. Under those eyes my fingers fumbled awkwardly and might as well have belonged to someone else for all the control I had over them. ‘Now look the other way,’ I said.

‘I will if you will,’ she replied, one eyebrow arching mischievously, and suddenly my breath snagged in my chest like a fish in a withy trap.

Because Cynethryth was getting undressed.

I PRETENDED NOT TO HEAR THE WHISTLES AND WHOOPS AS I LEFT
my clothes and brynja in a crumpled heap on the sand and walked naked as a bairn to the water’s edge. I knew the whistles were not aimed at me, for Cynethryth was naked too, or near enough. The short linen under the kirtle she wore lost its colour when touched by water, revealing the dark patch of hair at her groin. Her nipples were sharpened points pushing against the linen and I dared one last lingering look before ditching into the water. I came up quickly, shaking my long hair like a hound and blowing snot from my nose.

‘It’s colder than it looks,’ I said. Cynethryth swam easily, rolling on to her back and floating as I had seen the seals do in play.

‘When I was a girl my father told me that the Romans built great stone pools and filled them with water that always stayed hot. They bathed in hot water every day. Can you imagine that?’

‘How did they keep the water hot?’ I asked sceptically.

‘They built chambers beneath the pools and lit fires and the hot air from the fires travelled through these chambers,
heating the water above.’ For a moment I thought Cynethryth was teasing me, but the tight line of her lips told me she was not.

‘Then it’s no wonder the Romans lost their empire and that their city was burnt to ash,’ I said, ‘if they were too busy washing their skins to save them.’ I imagined crowds of men lazing in huge stone baths in some hot land, scrubbing each other’s backs whilst wild-eyed warriors pillaged and burnt their homes and raped their women. ‘Fools,’ I muttered, scooping a handful of sand from the seabed to scrub beneath my arms. ‘Warm water makes a man soft,’ I said with a shiver, then dived under again. When I surfaced and looked round all I could see of Cynethryth were her feet sploshing and churning the sea in her wake. I called out but she could not hear me above the surf and the seals’ keening and her own splashing, so I kicked my legs and clawed the water and followed her.

When we stopped I was exhausted. I had not known that swimming could leak a man’s strength like a cut vein, and whilst I had lost my respect for the Romans, my admiration for fish had grown. We were not very far out, but we had swum past
Serpent
, raising jeers from Bjorn and Bjarni, back on board, and around a small outcrop where the water sucked and plunged. Just beyond it a small, sheltered cove looked a good place to catch our breath.

‘You . . . should . . . rest,’ I managed to call, timing the words so that I only swallowed half the ocean’s water and not enough to sink myself, for I was always a poor swimmer. I was relieved to see Cynethryth already swimming for the cove with long, lithesome strokes. I confess I quickened my own flailing, hoping to catch another glimpse of that secret hoard hidden beneath her kirtle. Then I remembered my own nakedness.

She sat on the sand hugging her knees and shaking her hair free as I reached the beach, which was less than a spear’s throw from end to end. I lay in the surf with my face turned towards
the dawn sun, feigning contentment when in truth I was too embarrassed to stand up. The sand beneath my hand shuddered suddenly and I flinched, catching sight of a flat fish as it darted away in a cloudy swirl. White gulls tumbled and shrieked in the pale blue above, reminding us that we were intruders in this quiet cove.

‘Even you must be clean by now,’ Cynethryth called.

‘You were right,’ I shouted over my shoulder. ‘Some of this dirt has been with me a long time. It’s as stubborn as Bram Bear.’ I began to scrub, startled a moment later by hands on my shoulders. I looked up into Cynethryth’s eyes, swallowing hard, then took the hand she offered and stood to face her. Neither of us spoke. The gulls called and the waves supped at the shore. Then she led me to a patch of grass and sea aster on whose fleshy leaves and flowers a hundred black and orange butterflies rested. They muddled into the air like wind-whipped blossom. Cynethryth’s eyes, emerald green, endless and unbound in the first blush of the day, roved across my body like a dragon ship on the whale road. Her fingers brushed my cheek and beard as though her skin and mine had never touched and I trembled. We closed our eyes then, letting other senses rise, and my soul began to drift like a boat cut free of its mooring. Then Cynethryth’s fingers wrapped the crown of my head and I leant towards her and our mouths touched. A shiver licked my spine and I realized my excitement was blatant, but there was nothing I could do about it now. Her lips parted and our tongues touched and I tasted her and some deep part of me cursed because it knew that sweet taste had Gleipnir-bound me to this woman.

I felt ridiculous standing there with my stiffness pointing at Cynethryth’s belly and so I pushed her down to the sand and she did not complain but lifted off her kirtle, exposing her small breasts. Her nipples were dark and hard-looking as acorns. Then she lay back and I entered her and because she was wet it was
easy and she gasped, pushing her hips up hungrily. My hunger ruled me then. Cynethryth scarcely made a sound other than her breath, which was hot against my neck as I pushed deeper into her, our tongues ravenous. I knew I would be embarrassed afterwards, but I did not care. My heart hammered and every sinew strained to entwine with Cynethryth. With a shout of pleasure twisted with pain I shot inside her, my body quivering wildly, and she cried out, throwing back her head, and I bit her white throat.

Afterwards, I rolled over on to the sand and Cynethryth lay on her side, running her hand across my chest through the sweat that had churned white with salt. I stared up at the sky, grinning like a witless fool, aware once more of the gulls and the bees and the seals in the next bay. I assumed Cynethryth was as content as I was to lie in the wash of that new dawn, but eventually I turned to look at her and saw a tear dart into her hair.

‘What is it?’ I asked, suddenly afraid that I had done something wrong. Had she not pulled me into her? My memory conjured the face of a Welsh girl amongst the ruins of Caer Dyffryn, and my stomach twisted painfully. ‘What’s wrong, Cynethryth? Did I mistake you?’ Hot blood flooded my cheeks.

She sat up and reached for her kirtle, slipping it over her head as she stood. I stood too, feeling as coarse as a beast and yet vulnerable with my manhood still heavy and my clothes back in the next bay. I held her shoulders and asked again what was the matter. She chewed her bottom lip and looked about to speak, but then her eyes widened, the black holes in them swelling wildly at something over my shoulder.

‘What . . . ?’ I turned towards the sea and my chest thundered like two shieldwalls crashing together.
Fjord-Elk
had come.

for several heartbeats we stood silent, watching the dragon ship plough the smooth sea, a good arrow shot from the shore. Though you could hardly call it a dragon ship now. The snarling figurehead was gone and in its place sat a cross, showing that those aboard were in thrall to the White Christ. Her graceful clinkered hull creamed the ocean effortlessly. The long spruce oars dipped raggedly by Norseman standards but well enough in this sleeping sea to bring her on. My fists were knots, my teeth clenched against the rising fury of hard memories. When I had last seen that ship I had been trussed like a boar by Ealdred’s men on the Wessex shore, and as
Fjord-Elk
sailed away Ealdred’s champion Mauger had signalled to my captors to slit my throat. Those feckless goat suckers would have killed Cynethryth too for standing by me.

‘
Meinfretr
,’ I muttered. That rocky outcrop which separated us from the others might also prevent them seeing
Fjord-Elk
in time to spring the trap. There was the chance that when she did come into view the Norsemen would not recognize her, because her sail was not up and there was a cross at her prow. For a moment I agonized. I’ve always swum like a stone. It
would take me too long to claw my way back round to the beach. But I had no boots either and so running over the jagged prominence would not be easy.

‘Can you swim back, Cynethryth?’ I asked. She blinked slowly, spilling a tear which settled on her lip, shivering. She nodded and I cursed the luck that had brought
Fjord-Elk
now when all I wanted was standing before me. I searched Cynethryth’s face for one lingering moment, then turned and ran to the rocks and began to climb. The lower rocks, which were submerged at high tide, were treacherous with slick brown leaves and I fell more than once, cutting my knees and hands. I ran and jumped and scrambled over skin-tearing barnacles and crunching mussels. I splashed through sun-warmed pools where things that looked like blood clots lurked, and I must have looked like a wild animal, naked, my dark hair and its raven’s wing trailing. And as I ran I felt the grin spread on my face and that grin became a snarl, a wolf’s snarl, because the worm Ealdred had come and we would be unleashed to the kill. I jumped the last cleft, landing heavily on a smooth rock, then leapt down to the sand to see the Norsemen in a great, seething knot. They were fully armed with shields and mail and standing before Sigurd who, with his shining helmet and huge spear, could have been mighty Týr himself.

The men turned to me and more than a few of them laughed at my nakedness, but Sigurd did not laugh. ‘You look like a mountain troll, Raven,’ he growled, his top lip hitched, baring his white teeth.

‘I came as fast as I could, lord,’ I panted, wincing because my feet felt as though they were on fire. I glanced down to see that they were torn and bloody. Then Floki’s cousin Halldor winked at me and I instinctively glanced back at the rocks and saw a narrow high-up ledge from which Halldor must have spied
Fjord-Elk
in time to warn the others. I grimaced because
from there there was every chance he would have had a good view of the cove, too.

‘Now we repay the ormstunga!’ Sigurd bawled, and I thought calling Ealdred a serpent tongue was an insult to snakes, as the knot of men broke apart and I ran down to the shoreline where my clothes lay a spear’s length from being stolen by the rising tide. But the water would be too deep to wade out to
Serpent
. In mail and helmets we would sink like rocks. Then the Norse-men were running past me, crashing into the surf.