Robert Low - The Whale Road

In the confusion, we melded into the darkness beyond. When I looked back, it seemed the whole of Birka was burning

5 As my father said at the time, we should have hauled the Elk higher up the shingle, for this was no time to be out in a boat.

It was bad enough scrambling up the straked sides of it in the dark, with the freezing water sucking and slapping you, but once aboard, the rowers bent to it and took her out to where the black waves were white-tipped with fury in a howling night.

Then we fought the storm and the fear of splintering on Birka's hidden rocks; three men leaned on the steering oar and the rest of us huddled in a sort of dulled stubbornness. I was charged with looking after the woman, who moaned and rolled eyes made even whiter by the night and gabbled incessantly in some tongue that almost approached the familiar.

In the blue-white flashes of lightning Which seared through even closed eyes, I Could see the pale face of her, like a skull, hair plastered slick to it, eyes sunk in deep, dark pools, mouth opening and closing on her meaningless sounds. I wrapped her and myself as tight as I could in a sodden cloak and her arms went round me.

We leached warmth from each other as the Elk staggered forward recklessly into the night and, at one point, I saw Illugi Godi, standing alone at the prow, an axe in either hand, chanting prayers. Then he threw them overboard, an offering to Thor, master of the wind and rain.

Dawn came up like thin milk in a bowl. We were alone under the great, white pearl that is the inside of the ancient frost giant Ymir's skull, which is the vault of the sky. The wind no longer roared at us, but hissed a steady, cold breath, driving us north and east, up the great, grey-black, glassy swells, spilling white spray from their frayed ends—my father had instinctively headed for Aldeigjuborg, which the Slavs call Starya Ladoga.

The Fjord Elk slid up them, water foaming aft, staggering now and then as the bow knifed and water swirled down the deck into the nooks and crannies of her.

She was a good boat, the Elk. Not a long-ship in the sense everyone thinks they know: those are the drakkar, expensive warships built to carry warriors and not much cargo, with barely four or five paces in the beam. You can't travel far in a longship before all those men need water and food you haven't got and you have to call in somewhere to replenish it.

Nor was the Elk the fat-bellied little trading knarr that ploughs stubbornly through the blackest seas with tons of cargo in her well.

Which was why Einar did what he did next. Later, I worked out why. Vigfus in his little knarr would wait out the storm before heading north in search of the god stone he thought we were after. He had too many men for such a little ship and such overcrowding would be deadly in a storm, for such a ship depended on its trim to stay afloat.

Starkad, also, would wait, since he dare not risk his expensive ships. However, he would then race hard as those dragons can sail, aiming to make it to the same place faster than any of us and before his stores ran so low his men starved and thirsted. He would know where to go, because Lambisson would tell him, having no choices left.

So Einar spoke with Valgard and Rurik, huddled together, with much shaking of heads on their part and much curled lip from him. In the end, they broke apart and Einar announced: 'Shields and oars.'

There was a general shifting around at that. Those who knew what was about to happen seemed as uneasy as those who hadn't a clue. Gunnar Raudi scrambled up to me, forking a lump of bread out of a leather pouch and handing it to me and the woman. In the light of day, she looked no better, seemed no more sensible—but she chewed the bread avidly, which was a good sign, even if her dark eyes were strange and pewter-dull.

I caught Gunnar's sleeve as he turned to go, asked him what was happening.

`We run,' he said and flashed a gapped grin full of half-chewed bread. 'Hold on tight.'

Shields were fetched out, the bosses knocked from their centres and carefully stored in pouches, along with the rivets. The oars were run out, which was a puzzle, since I already knew it was madness to try rowing in that swell. Perhaps they were going to try to turn the ship for some mysterious hidden land my father had found in his seidr way.

Then the bossless shields were slickdown on to the oars, which were turned blades flat to the sea. The shields were locked in place on the side and the oars couldn't even be moved. I had never seen or heard of this before; quite a few others were similarly puzzled. But those who knew looked grim about it.

The oars, uniformly fixed in place, stuck out pointlessly, blades flat to the swell, like the ridiculous legs of an insect.

Ùp sail!' roared Rurik.

No—a mistake, surely? In this wind and swell? We would run so fast we'd go arse over tip, plunge the bow into the waves and swamp her. I had heard such things—we had no keel for such travel . . .

But the crew sprang to it, the spar lifted off the rests, the great sail, soaked despite the sheep grease and seal oil, flapped, strained, bellied out like some grass-fed mare and the Elk leaped like a goosed good-wife.

The ignorant gasped and some yelled out with fear, but the Elk shook itself and sped ahead, the oars acting like the deep keel it didn't have.

My father came across to me, squinting up at the sail, then back to the steering oar, Where Skapti stood braced with it under his armpit and three others waited close by, in case he had to try to turn.

`Not that he could,' my father chuckled. 'We run hard, fast and true—faster than anything. The drakkar will fall over themselves under full sail in this sea and are too big to try this trick—we have near half as much again on them and are rigged so that the inside of every wave adds more speed.'

It was true and men hung on as if about to be swept away. The Elk . . . flew. It planed up one side of the swell, surfed down the other, kissing the water with the oars, I sweeter and faster than anything, while the wind thrummed the walrus ropes and, if you leaned out, you could see parts of the crusted strakes not normally exposed except during careening.

`Get your arse inboard,' roared Valgard, catching me by the belt and hauling me in with a cuff. I did not care. I was exhilarated, drunk on the sheer beauty of it.

Once, as a boy, I had dared to ride Gudleif's best and fiercest, Austri, named after one of the dwarves who sit at the four corners of the sky. With no saddle or bridle or reins I sprang on him and he had taken off.

His mane whipped my face, the wind ripped tears from my eyes, but I felt the surge of him under my thighs and calves, the sheer power and grace as we flew in a thunder over the meadow.

Of course, the red weals of that mane had given me away. Gudleif had beaten me for it but, through the snot and tears afterwards, I was still mazed in the feeling. The Elk did the same for me that day, too.

Gradually, as they grew used to the wonder of it, men relaxed—until Valgard had them watch the oars, lest one catch the water too hard and shatter.

I lay next to the softly muttering woman, feeling the heat of her, watching the weathervane swoop and soar with the rise and fall of the swell in long circles, listening to the endlessly-repeated sound that went with it, from the creak of the mast stays, the thump as it shifted in its socket, the snake-hiss of the water under the keel, the deep-throat hum of the wind in the ropes, like a struck harp.

Towards midday, I reckoned, a watery-eyed sun came up and everyone cheered; it was the first sun we had seen in a long time. Martin the monk watched Illugi Godi give thanks for it, his face dark as the black water under the keel. Einar watched Martin, stroking his beard.

Gunnar handed out sour milk and gruel and wet-mush bread later, together with a half-cup of water. The woman's dull-eyed muttering only stopped when she ate, but even that was half-hearted. She felt hot and I palmed her forehead, which was clammy.

`How is she?' demanded Illugi, suddenly appearing at my side. I told him and he checked, grunted, moved to Einar and spoke with him. He nodded, looked at the sky, then called Rurik and talked to him. My father rubbed a hand across his wild, thin hair—a sign I now knew spoke of his unease—and moved to the side.

He studied the water for a long time, on both sides of the boat, looked at the sky, squinted at the weak sun, which was losing itself in a milky haze. He said something to Einar, who nodded and hauled Gudleif's already tattered fur tighter round him.

Water dripped from my nose and we ran on towards night, heedless of land, of skerries, of shoals, of anything.

We were on the whale road.

As the light thinned, Einar waved me to him and murmured to Ketil Crow, who fetched the monk. With Illugi Godi, we huddled under the little upturned faering which stood as the nearest thing to a shelter on the boat and which, of course, Einar claimed as his due.

`Well, we are escaped, monk, and at no small cost. Now tell us why you should not go over the side as a sacrifice to Thor,' he growled at Martin.

I refrained from saying anything, because the taste of it was bitter in my mouth. The cost was Eyvind's and he had paid it in full, betrayed by the man who had made much of oath-swearing. That and the fact that the time to have thrown the monk overboard was at the height of the storm, when Thor and Aegir needed an offering.

Martin, wet and miserable and cold, with a great black bruise down one side of his face, sniffed snot into the back of his throat. Gone was the smooth, urbane scholar who had invited us to dine, but the drowned rat that remained still, he thought, had some teeth.

`You would do well to treat me better, Einar the Black,' the monk answered bitterly. Ì hold the secret of what you want, after all.'

`The god stone holds that secret,' answered Einar coldly. 'Between Illugi, who can ken the runes, and Orm, who reads Latin, I think we can prise out the secret. Give me another reason to keep your feet dry.'

Martin glanced sourly at me and nodded, slowly. 'I wondered how you had known of the stone. I had not thought a boy would have such learning, though.'

He had marked me, that was clear, and the knowledge of it made me shiver. He seemed, to me, far too calm and cool about it all. To Einar, also, I saw.

Ìndeed,' said Einar and nodded to Ketil Crow and another burly man, Snorri, who had a god mark on his face almost the same shape and in the same place as the monk's bruise. They grabbed Martin; he shrieked and struggled, but they wound a good rope round his ankles and hauled him up the mast a little way, where he waved wildly and swung.

Einar stood, stretched, yawned and farted. Then he drew out a little knife I had not seen before, too small for a fighting seax and not his eating knife. He grabbed the little monk's left hand and sawed off a finger at the first joint. Blood sprayed; the monk howled and jerked. Einar examined the digit, then tossed it casually over the side.

`This is a magic knife,' he said, bending close to the monk. 'It can tell lie from truth and every time it finds a lie it will remove a finger until all are gone. Then it will start on toes, until all are gone. Then it will start on your prick and your balls . . .'

Ùntil all are gone,' chorused those in the know, with roars and huge, knee-slapping laughs.

`Just so,' said Einar, without the hint of a smile.

`Let me down, let me down . . . !'

He babbled well, did Martin. He wet himself—we knew because it steamed pungently—and prayed for oblivion, but his White Christ didn't hand him that, for it was well known that a man upside down, with the blood in his head, can't faint. He pleaded, offered everything in this world and, by virtue of his knowing his god personally, the next.

And he revealed everything. That Atil's treasure existed. That the god stone didn't matter, but the woman did. Vigfus, it seemed, had been sent to where the god stone originally stood, after Martin had found that the Christ ikon he sought had been taken there to be forged into part of Atil's treasure: a sword, it seemed.

This was part of the gifts given to Atil by the Volsungs when they knew the only way to defeat that almond-eyed snake of a steppe lord was by sacrifice and cunning—a final great gift, of swords and silver and a bride, one of their own, a seidr witch called Ildico. Who killed him on their wedding night.

Martin, seeking clues, had sent Vigfus to find the forge, or any reference to swords or spears. Vigfus, who couldn't find his arse if someone shone a light on it, failed to find anything, had seized the woman who now shivered and raved beside me because the local heathens seemed to hold her in high esteem, in an attempt to force the knowledge from them.

They had attacked Vigfus, killed more than a few of his men, and forced him to flee back to Birka with only the woman.

Martin, however, had seen the amulet she wore for what it was, had then remembered St Otmund and his mission, thought perhaps there might be a clue in his writings about the forge and sent us to Strathclyde. But there had only been reference to a god stone.

`So,' Einar demanded, while the monk's blood dripped fatly on the deck and the snot ran into his eyes,

'why are you now fearful of Lambisson, whose purse you have plundered for all this? If you are on the track of the Great Hoard, surely he would be pleased?'

The monk hesitated for the first time., Ì . . . he . . . we simply disagreed. On a point of principle . . . Let me down. I will be sick.'

À point of principle?' Einar growled, narrowing his eyes. He reached for the mutilated hand and the monk howled.

`No, no . . . wait, wait . . . the ikon. It was the ikon . . . !'

`That's what Bluetooth wants,' I said, suddenly realising. 'This Christ charm. To convert the Danes with.

For that bishop who wore the red-hot glove.'

And Martin was sick, spilling it into his nose and his hair, choking on the slime-green of it until Einar, seeing he might well die upside down, nodded to Snorri, who lowered him to the deck. Seawater was thrown over him until, shivering and wretched, he could breathe again.

`Has Orm the right of it?' demanded Einar.

Martin, unable to do anything else, nodded and retched.

`So,' Einar continued, `Bluetooth knows nothing about Atil's treasure, only that there is a god charm the Christ-followers revere. You did not tell Lambisson of it, but spent his money finding it for yourself . . .' He was stroking his moustaches, thinking, thinking. 'What is this Christ charm everyone wants?' he asked, giving Martin a kick.

The monk spluttered, wiped his nose, coughed out an answer. 'A spear. Once. Thrust. Into the side of our Lord by the Romans.'