Robert Low - The Whale Road

They were unsure where we were, moving too slowly and too late to speed up when they spotted us.

They were a sally force to wreck the siege engines and were out to hit hard and run, but the sight of a hundred-odd men, mailed, with the obvious red cloaks of a druzhina and the grim faces of seasoned warriors, made them haul on reins.

The spear-points did the rest. That hedge wasn't for them. They came to a halt, rank upon rank crashing into each other, ruining their formation.

Our archers sailed arrows at them from flanks and over our heads, which clattered on them but did little harm. Then they lumbered round, cursing and shrieking, and moved off like some giant, frustrated beast, back into the mirk.

Someone cheered and we all took it up, pounding sword on shield and offering deep `booms' of taunt to them until the dust choked us.

We stayed there for another hour, eating the dry steppe until we were spitting mud, sweltering and baking, locked in the shield-wall, until someone remembered and sent word to stand down.

Weary, we tramped back to our scraps of cloth awnings and tents near the river—anything that gave shade—and dropped, gulping water the women and children brought, too choked and hot and tired to think of food. The whining insect clouds plunged on us at once.

`That was well done,' beamed Skarti, clattering helmet and shield down. 'We saw them off and no one got a scratch. A good day for the Oathsworn of Einar.'

A few agreed with grunts; most were too tired to say anything. We swatted flies when we had the energy and Skarti lost his good humour, maddened by them. 'What did they eat before we came?' he demanded, slapping furiously. Like all of us, he was covered in the red weals of their bites.

À pity Skapti never made it this far,' growled Kvasir from the dark of a makeshift lean-to. 'They could have eaten him all day and left us alone.'

Women slithered between us as the sun died, lighting pitfires and hooking cauldrons on their chains and tripods over them. The smell of woodsmoke made my heart ache for remembered fires and the eye-sting of it was a small price to pay for the disappearance of the insects.

Gradually, as the heat seeped out of the ground, the Oathsworn moved closer to the fires, found fresh energy and started to weave themselves back together. I knew they were recovered when Finn Horsehead hunkered down beside me and shoved a coin into my face. 'What's this, young Orm? You know coins like ostlers know horses.'

`He knows horses like ostlers know horses,' Ketil Crow reminded him and Finn acknowledged it with a wave as I looked at the coin.

It was gold, from the Great City, called in Greek nomisma and in Latin a solidus. It had the heads of Constantine VII and Romanus I, for the Greeks who called themselves Romans nearly always had two rulers, foolish though that was.

`Makes you wonder why they have lasted so long,' growled Eindridi.

`They have big walls,' Valknut pointed out.

Àpart from their big walls,' argued Eindridi, 'which can be scaled.'

`Lots of warriors,' mused Bagnose. 'Who are not sometime farmers, but warriors all the time.'

`Just so,' admitted Eindridi. 'Apart from the walls and the warriors.'

`These,' I said, tossing the coin so that it caught the firelight, turning red and yellow-gold, end over end, and locking all their gazes, like a snake on a rabbit.

Finn snatched it out of the air and the cave of his fist broke the spell. He scowled at them.

Àye,' sighed Eindridi. 'Coins like that would do it, right enough.'

Ìs it any good then?' demanded Finn. 'I had it off a dead man out there, but I have never seen stamped gold before.'

Ìt's a full-weight,' I told him, 'worth twelve of their silver milaresia, which is about the same in Arab dirham. The Great City mints gold coins and the only other ones who do that are the Arabs of Serkland. You can tell the difference because the Serkland coins have no little people on them, only squiggles of writing.'

`Just so,' breathed Finn, while the others craned to see. He held it between finger and thumb, turning it this way and that.

Ìs the treasure of Atil like this?' demanded Wryneck and I missed the bite of his voice and the fact that this was more for the shadowed figure of Einar than me.

`No,' I said scornfully. 'You are lucky, Finn, because this coin was minted about ten years ago. The ones of the new Emperor, Nicephorus, are identical, but gold-lighter by one-twelfth and traders are wary of them.

You won't get any of them in a hoard from the age of the Volsungs. No gold at all, probably, only silver.

Ìn truth,' I ploughed on, 'silver milaresia are always full weight and pure, but getting rarer these days.

The hoard of Atil will be pure, for that is the Volsung treasure that Sigurd took from the dragon Fafnir.

Òf course,' I blundered on, airing my skills, 'pure is a relative term, since it is also cursed—'

I stopped, realising the mire I had stepped into with both feet. There was silence, broken only by the distant droning hum of the army, the soft mutter of women, the crackle and hiss of fire and cauldron.

Òdin's balls, young Orm,' declared Finn admiringly. 'You are the one for business, right enough.'

Across in the shadows, made deeper by the fire's light, I suddenly saw the gleam of Einar's eyes, watching me as Finn showed his marvellous prize to the others and the stare went on and on until the arrival of one of the Greek priests broke the spell.

These priests, invited by Sviatoslav to cater to the spiritual needs of his prized Greek engineers, missed no chance to spread the Christ doctrine, determined to bring the whole of the Rus to their god.

This one, black-bearded and simply robed, introduced himself as Theotokios and had brought a flask of wine, for he knew how to win his way to the fires of the Norse. Wine was a rare treat and we welcomed him, as we had others of his kind, and proceeded to drink his gift and ignore his attempts to convert us.

After we had eaten, as the women were clearing up, Finn pulled one on to his lap and she, being a thrall and having no say in it, gave in to him after a token squeal or two. Certainly having Finn's greasy beard wiped over her face and his fingers in her secret places was preferable to slogging down to the river and washing out pots. Just.

Theotokios made a noise in his throat and Finn looked up from what he was doing, which involved hooking a breast out of the shift the woman wore and popping it in his mouth. 'What are you looking at?' he growled and Theotokios replied—in Greek, which Finn didn't understand.

I had picked up enough of it to tell him Theotokios was concerned for his sinful soul. Finn laughed and shook his head. `That's the problem with Christ-followers,' he said. 'Everything is a sin, it seems to me, if you are tempted. Yet how is it a sin if you can't help yourself? The more beautiful a woman is, the less you can help yourself, so the less of a sin it is, says I.'

I was impressed by this—but Spittle wasn't. He grabbed the woman next to him and pulled her down beside him, grinning as she fought and cursed.

`Nonsense,' he growled. 'As usual, Finn Horsearse, you have the wrong grasp of the Christ way of things.

You will enjoy having your beautiful woman and so that is a sin. Me, on the other hand—' He broke off and jerked the woman forward into the fireglow. She was short, red-faced with anger and pig-eyed with hate, which a squint did not help. Those who liked them fat might have found pleasure in her.

'I won't get much enjoyment out of this,' Spittle declared mournfully, 'so it won't be a sin. In fact, now that I see her clearly, I'll hardly have sinned at all. I may even get to this Christ Valholl, Heaven, on the strength of what I do next.'

Theotokios clearly had more Norse than I thought, for he had followed this and shook his head sorrowfully. 'The way to Heaven is through self-denial,' he intoned sonorously and the laughter brought heads round from neighbouring fires.

Ì prefer a prettier road,' yelled Finn and set to work finding it. Kvasir Spittle, with another mournful look at his catch, let her scramble up and away, amid the laughter and jeers of the others.

Ì do not feel up to being saved for Christ tonight,' he growled. 'Perhaps our Orm will do it for me, for I hear that he can hump a pile of shavings on a wooden floor.'

And that brought more laughter and a thump or two on my back. Across the fire, my father raised his ale horn in toast and, for a brief spark of a moment, I was one with them, this hard family, so that even the weight of Einar's eyes was almost a caress.

But that night, Bersi died raving, burned to a husk by fever.

By the end of the week, the corpses were piling up so fast Sviatoslav ordered them burned, had camps moved—and launched an all-out attack, presumably before his army melted like rendered grease into the steppe.

And that pimpled boy, Yaropolk, curse his memory, demanded the honour of leading the assault with his druzhina.

Us.

He was splendid with us; nothing was too good the night before and he brought ale and soft-skinned, doe-eyed women to our campfires, offered wine and choice food—well, by then, any food without worm in it—and the priests of our choice to cater for our spiritual needs.

But those who weren't shaking and dribbling evil bile were too knotted to eat and too shrunk with fear to attack the women, while the priests were too busy trying to keep the sick alive until morning to be bothered by those wanting simple comfort.

Nor was the friendly reminder that the garrison of Sarkel numbered no more than a thousand any help.

Even with all the able-bodied in their city added in, their forces were outnumbered ten to one. That was supposed to make us feel better, but most of us were depressed by the news that so few could hold off so many.

I saw, to my amazement, that Martin was moving among the fires, scowling and uncomfortable about it, but sent by his master Oleg to help the Christ-men of his brother's druzhina.

Ì thought you'd be safe in Kiev,' I said to him in that red-glow night and saw his white smile in the dark beyond the fire.

`There are God's chosen among you heathens still,' he said, 'and they cry out for succour.'

Ànd you are the only Christ priest of your kind here,' Valknut pointed out grimly, having a sharp grasp of the religious realities. Ìf you did not come, then the Greek Christ priests would score another victory, eh?'

`There is only one true God,' Martin pointed out, kneeling to place a pot on the fire and stir it. Then he stiffened as Einar loomed out of the darkness, Hild a dark presence at his side. She crouched like a hound at his feet, staring at Martin and smiling, her head tilted as if she was sniffing him.

Ìs it safe, priest?' she demanded and he regarded her with narrowed eyes, knowing what she meant.

`Safe from you,' he answered levelly and I couldn't help but admire him, since I did not even dare look her in the eyes these days.

She smiled her fey smile and cocked her head like a bird. 'I may reclaim that stick of mine one day, priest.'

Martin rose, smoothed his ratty brown robes and picked up the pot from the fire. Then he made the sign of the cross at her and she laughed as he moved into the darkness.

Einar, fish-belly pale, knelt by the fire and heated his hands, for it was cold now—that gods-cursed steppe baked all day and then froze at night, so that Bersi had once woken up with his red-gold braids iced to the ground.

Bersi, who was now ash and memory.

`We should run for it tonight,' my father declared morosely from where he sat at my side. I glanced at him, since it was the first time he had shown any sign of such things. But Einar didn't even bother to reply—

it was too late to do that now and I think my father had known it even as he spoke.

So, huddled together and wrapped in cloaks against the cold, we sat and stared at the fire, listening to the shift and stamp and murmur of the vast camp, fiddling with straps and honing the serrated edges of blades, too tense to sleep.

Àfter your mother died,' my father said suddenly, as the sky began to grey out of the night black, 'her father, old Stammkel, whom they called Refr, Fox, on account of his cunning, wanted the farm back. It came as Gudrid's dowry, see, so he had claim on it after she died.'

He was silent for a long time and I was breath-locked with this. I felt I was hovering on the edge of something, as if trying to persuade a sheep back from the edge of a cliff, where one sudden movement would make it shy and plunge over.

Òf course, so did I,' he said eventually. Ànd so did you, though you were barely getting to your feet at the time and were wet-nursed by a good thrall.'

`What happened?' I asked, driven to make a movement, however reckless, when the silence that followed became too harsh to bear.

He stirred. 'He took it to a Thing for judgement. He had many to speak for him and I had no one.'

`What of Gudleif? Or Bjarni? Or Gunnar Raudi, even?' I demanded, astonished that none of those had helped. My father laughed softly.

`Gudleif and Bjarni would not speak against Stammkel. Not big-balls Stammkel, he who roared and bellowed. Not even after he came back from his raid on Dyfflin, which they they went on. Some six hundred men went and four hundred of those never came back and the whole sorry episode nearly ruined Stammkel, which was why he wanted the farm in the first place.' He paused and shrugged, scrubbing his face. 'I think Gudleif and Bjarni felt they could not stand in Stammkel's way, having in some way failed him in the raid.'

`They only got back because of Gunnar Raudi,' I said, remembering what Halldis had told me. 'Didn't he help you?'

My father shifted, as if something dug him in the ribs. Àh,' he said, gentle as a sighing breeze into the night. 'Gunnar Raudi. He was away so long everyone thought him and the others dead . . .'

He stopped for a long moment, then: 'Did you know that Gudrid Stammkelsdottir had hair the colour of yellow corn and could tuck it in the belt round her waist?' He shook his head with the bright memory of it.

'Gold she was. Gold and glowing and slender as a wheatstalk—and everyone wanted her. But she came to me in the end. Came to me when her father came hirpling back from Dyfflin with his balls shrunk to walnuts and too many lives laid at his door.'

He stirred and heaved a long sigh. 'Narrow in the waist she was—and too narrow in the hip, as it turned out. But she wanted me and Stammkel had to give up a farm which he could not afford to do and still keep the partitions from going up in his hall.'

There was silence again.

`What of Gunnar Raudi?' I asked and my father stared at the fire for a moment longer.

`Gunnar spoke for me at the Thing and judgement was given in my favour,' he said, all in one swift sentence and I blinked at that, for I had expected a different tale entirely. Which was stupid of me, for I remember my father telling me he had sold the farm when he fostered me on Gudleif.