Scramasax (14 page)

‘Stay by this mast! You've got your scramasax?'

The Greek oarsmen obeyed Harald. Following their strokesman, they all rowed as one, but it was soon apparent that the dhow was the faster boat.

As the last of the sea mist vanished and the sea glittered as if some god had showered it with scales of mica, Solveig could see that some of the men aboard the Saracen boat were waving curved swords.

‘Sabres!' she whispered. Sabres, like the one King Yaroslav gave my father. Where are you? What are the Saracens doing? Why are they shadowing us?

‘All right!' barked Harald, devouring the deck with huge strides, bearing down on Nico. ‘All right! We'll ram them! Ram them and board them.'

Harald hurried back past her with battle-light shining in his eyes. He spoke to the strokesman, and the Greek immediately ordered the port oarsmen to raise their blades until the
ousiai
had swung round and was pointing just ahead of the dhow.

‘Vikings!' yelled Harald. And he raised his massive battleaxe above his head.

All around Solveig, the Varangians were pulling on their padded jerkins and scrambling for their swords, their scramasaxes, their twisting-spears.

And then she saw them, emerging from the gloomy horse-stalls below deck into the dazzling light, first her
father, then Tamas, and at once she called out to them. But what with all the rumpus on deck, neither of them saw or heard her.

‘Row!' shouted the strokesman. ‘Everyone! For dear life, row!'

Yes, thought Solveig. Life is dear. Every scrap and breath of it.

The
ousiai
began to pick up speed again. She surged through the sparkling water. And although the helmsman of the dhow saw what was happening, he had too little time to hand down orders to his crew or to change direction.

‘Greasy!' yelled Nico. ‘You sidling Saracen! We've got you!'

The helmsman of the dhow did his best to drag the double rudder towards him and veer away from the
ousiai
, but he couldn't escape. Nico drove the spiked ram right into the dhow just aft of midship and just below the waterline.

Oh! The jolt, the growl and then the splintering, the scraping and gnashing and grim grinding of it.

Solveig was thrown forward against the mast, and the great beam itself shook in its socket. Her teeth rattled. And then she heard the yelling and howling, the flapping and splashing.

Solveig could see the dark faces of the pirates, their pitch-black hair, the whites of their eyes. The iron ram had driven their dhow down and pinioned it, and they were trapped as the ravenous water rushed into the hold of their boat.

Hugging the mast, half-hiding behind it, Solveig watched one man climb right up on the gunwales of the dhow and then leap across, trying to board the
ousiai.

Howling, he fell between the two boats.

‘Careful!' said a voice behind her.

‘Oh!' gasped Solveig. ‘Father!'

‘They've got spears!'

Solveig stiffened. Every muscle in her body.

‘You're safe.' Halfdan stood behind his daughter and wrapped his strong arms around her. ‘This mast's in front of you. I'm behind you. You're safe.'

Now Solveig was trembling – all of her. Her lips. Her fingers, her kneecaps, her toes.

‘Pity!' growled another voice. Solveig tried to screw her head round to look up, but Harald Sigurdsson pushed the back of his hand against her cheek.

‘Stay where you are!'

‘Pity?' asked Halfdan.

‘She's filling so fast that the water will drag her off the ram before we can board her.'

‘Board her?!' gasped Solveig.

‘And if we can't board her, it's goodbye to our booty.'

Solveig was dry-mouthed. She kept trying to swallow.

Then Nico began to thwack the stern bell again.

‘In the name of Odin!' bellowed Harald.

He whirled round angrily. Then Halfdan loosened his hold on Solveig, and all three of them saw the helmsman was gesturing to starboard.

A second Saracen dhow was cutting through the water straight towards them.

‘That's why!' cried Solveig. ‘That's why the first boat was waiting.'

‘Get your jerkin on, man,' Harald told Halfdan.

‘Father!' wailed Solveig, and she grabbed his right arm.

‘And your helmet. They're coming straight for us.'

Just for a moment, but it seemed as long as a lifetime, the three of them stood side by side gazing at the dhow, Solveig flanked by her father and Harald. Then Harald
roared like a wild boar at bay, and the sound quickened the blood of every Viking aboard the boat.

Halfdan looked down at his daughter. ‘Now then!' But before he could continue, their bow kicked up, and the whole boat rocked from stem to stern as the weight of the water dragged the dhow off the ram.

‘What did I say?' Harald shouted, waving towards the sinking dhow. ‘The water got there first. Right, Solveig. Follow me!'

Solveig could hear the cries of the pirates as the dhow sank under them. Some were still standing on deck; some had jumped overboard and were grasping crates, spars of wood, oars, anything that would float. And around her the Vikings were humming and buzzing, all on the same pitch, as if the
ousiai
were a huge hive and they a swarm of vengeful bees.

‘Follow me!' Harald repeated, and he spun on his right heel and strode towards the stern.

Solveig looked beseechingly at her father.

‘Do as he says,' Halfdan told her. ‘He'd sooner lose his right arm than see anyone harm you.'

‘That's not true.' Solveig shook her head.

Halfdan raised his hand and stroked Solveig's hair.

‘What about you?'

‘Shoulder to shoulder. Each for the other. Each for ourselves. Like it was at Stiklestad.'

Solveig hurled herself at her father. She dug her fingernails into the back of his leather jerkin. She grazed her left cheek against his bristling beard.

‘Go on!' Halfdan told her. ‘Follow Harald!'

‘Solveig!' howled Harald. ‘Now!'

For just a moment the two of them looked the other in the eye, and then Harald planted his heavy hands on Solveig's shoulders.

‘Up here!' he told her.

‘The backstay?'

‘Go on.'

Solveig gazed up, up the thick rope to the top of the mast.

‘Go on! Shinny up.'

‘Down with the horses,' pleaded Solveig.

‘Up, I said.'

‘Wait,' Solveig told him.

‘Where are you going? No!'

Solveig ran to her sleeping quarters just aft of the mast, swept up her canvas bag and hurried back to the stern again.

‘My bones,' she panted.

‘How dare you!'

‘You don't understand.'

‘No!' said Harald very sharply.

But Solveig defied him. She hung the bone-bag around her neck, reached up and pulled herself off the deck.

‘Stand on my shoulders!' Harald told her. ‘Go on, now.'

Solveig began to haul herself up the rough, taut rope.

‘Go on! You're on your own.'

‘I am!' gasped Solveig.

‘Top of the backstay!' Harald called. ‘The only safe place on this boat.' And then: ‘If anyone comes up after you, use your scramasax. Poke his eyes out!'

The higher Solveig shimmied, the steeper her climb. Well before she was able to reach out and touch the mast, she was gasping. Her forearms and shoulder joints were aching and, tough as they were, her hands were burning.

More than forty feet below, the second Saracen dhow was sidling up to their boat, and Solveig could see that the men lining the rope rail were holding grappling hooks.

Then she saw how some of the pirates who had
jumped overboard were swimming round the back of the
ousiai
towards the second dhow.

Hanging from the backstay, Solveig watched the first dhow sink. Burdened by her cargo of water, she lay low, her gunwales scarcely clearing the waterline. Then, quite slowly, her bow rose, it rose upright. After that, the dhow went straight down, as if she were being pulled from below; gently she slipped below the wavelets. And above her, on the surface of the water, there was nothing but whorls of blue roses, black roses, scimitars of light, and a mass of popping bubbles.

Solveig gave a deep sigh. Several times more she dragged herself further up the backstay, and there she was! There she was, grasping the spar that ran along the top of their sail.

Solveig was able to swing one leg over the spar and sit on it as if she were riding a horse. She kept hold of the very top of the mast with both hands and, although the spar shifted from side to side and sometimes swung alarmingly, she felt reasonably secure.

Below Solveig, the pirates had gripped the
ousiai
with their iron hooks. They were vaulting on to the deck just aft of the banks of oarsmen. They were howling. Caterwauling. Whirling their sabres.

The Vikings waited for them, standing shoulder to shoulder. Almost fifty men.

Then the pirates leaped at them, and Solveig could see this was not a battle between a Viking troop and a pirate band but combats between pairs of men, pairs and sometimes trios, fighting to the death.

Solveig saw one Varangian swing his axe and cut off a pirate's hand. She saw the hand fall at his feet, saw his sabre skidding across the deck.

She saw one pirate lunge at a Varangian and drive his knife straight into his stomach.

Solveig saw her father far below her, she saw Tamas, and she clenched the mast as if she were trying to squeeze all the breath from its wooden throat.

Solveig saw scarlet blood. Blood pumping, blood oozing. She smelt it. She tasted it on her tongue, in her throat.

She didn't know whether the Vikings were winning or the pirates were winning. All she could see was whirling and swinging, hacking, chopping, slicing; all she could hear was clanging, smacking, howling and grunting and choking and gargling.

‘Priskin!' screamed Solveig. ‘Priskin!'

But Priskin couldn't hear her, and even as he jerked away from one lunging pirate, a second man buried his knife in the Viking's back.

Priskin howled. And reaching for his back with his left hand, he exposed his chest. His throat.

Solveig screwed up her eyes as the pirates finished him off. She sobbed and shook.

At first, Solveig felt as if each slash, each slice were wounding her as well. Cutting deep into her. But she was so horrified at what she was seeing that she became dazed and confused. Her mind was like tangled rigging.

Tamas!

What if they kill my father?

Nico … What if … ? No! No!

Vibrog? Edla?

Alnath! Alnath!

Tamas! You. Where are you?

As if Tamas had heard her thoughts, Solveig saw him looking up at her. His shining face, his acorn hair. He was waving and he was shouting, but she couldn't hear what.

Solveig leaned right forward. She took one hand off the mast and reached towards him.

That was when the slender leather band around her neck snapped. Before she could do anything about it, her bead, her violet-grey eye, the one Oleg had given her, plummeted to the deck. It bounced, and bounced again. She saw a Saracen swoop on it as if he were a predatory bird, but the bead eluded him, bounced a third time and disappeared over the gunwale.

My eye! My third eye!

Burning as the day was, Solveig shivered. She could hear the jerkiness of her breathing. The thumping of her heart. The pounding of her own blood.

What if?

My father …

Harald …

What then?

But it was otherwise. Although the pirates did kill three Vikings and grievously wound two more, they paid a terrible price themselves. Thirteen of them lay sprawling on the deck of the
ousiai
, dead or almost dead, squirming and twitching in their death throes.

Solveig didn't know who gave the signal, but all at once the Saracens disengaged. They reeled back to the gunwales; trying to shield each other they tugged at their grappling hooks, they grabbed their dhow's rope rails and threw themselves back on to her deck.

One young pirate wasn't so fortunate, though. Two guards, Bolverk and Egil, cornered him against the mast, and he dropped to his knees and begged them for mercy.

His eyes, thought Solveig. They're like Maria's. So dark and shining.

‘Go down to Hel!' Egil roared.

‘No!' screamed Solveig. ‘Don't!'

But then Bolverk drove his scramasax into the pirate's throat, and his scarlet lifeblood leaped out of him. The boy fell over sideways.

Even then, the Vikings weren't finished with him. Staring down, aghast, Solveig could see the two men hacking at the boy's neck until they had severed his head from his body.

Egil lifted up the Saracen's head by the hair and glared at him.

‘Pray for mercy!' he gasped. ‘Beg for mercy now!'

Still holding the swinging head, Egil backed away from his companion.

‘Ready?' he panted.

Then he cradled the boy's head and tossed it to Bolverk as if they were playing a game of catch.

Solveig screwed up her eyes. She began to retch. She wished she too were dead.

Ruthless as he was, and hungry for booty, Harald counted his dead and wounded companions and assessed it would be too risky to board the dhow. He called his men off.

Solveig heard him bawling, ‘Enough! Enough! Let them carry the word!'

Carry the word! Carry the word! Solveig wasn't to know it, how could she, but those three words would keep her company – just as a refrain keeps company with the verses of a poem – for as long as she lived on this middle-earth.

Harald gazed up at her, still sitting athwart the spar above the sail.

‘Come down!' he called. ‘Solveig! Come down.'

But Solveig didn't want to come down. She didn't want to, not even when her father and Tamas joined Harald at the foot of the backstay. She sat in her high seat, feeling so numb, so empty, needing time inside herself before she came down into the world.