Mark Lawrence - The Liar's key

“If you’re not worried about Snorri you might at least be worried about the key.” Tuttugu scowled and took a huge bite from the pig leg.

I raised a brow at that but Tuttugu’s mouth was full and I was too drunk to hold on to any questions I might have.

“Why are you even doing this, Tuttugu?” I ran ale over my loose tongue. “Hunting a door to Hell? Are you planning to follow him in if he finds it?”

Tuttugu swallowed. “I don’t know. If I’m brave enough I will.”

“Why? Because you’re from the same clan? You lived on the slopes of the same fjord? What on earth would possess you to-”

“I knew his wife. I knew his children, Jal. I bounced them on my knee. They called me ‘uncle.’ If a man can let go of that he can let go of anything. . and then what point is there to his life, what meaning?”

I opened my mouth, but even drunk I hadn’t answers to that. So I lifted my tankard and said nothing.

• • •

Tuttugu stayed long enough to finish my meal and drink my ale, then left to continue his search. One of the beer-girls, Hegga or possibly Hadda, brought another pitcher and the next thing I knew night had settled around me and the landlord had started making loud comments about people getting back to their own homes, or at least paying over the coin for space on his fine boards.

I heaved myself up from the table and staggered off to the latrine. Snorri was sitting in my place when I came back, his brow furrowed, an angry set to his jaw.

“Snolli!” I considered asking where he’d been but realized that if I was too drunk to say his name I’d best just sit down. I sat down.

Tuttugu came through the street doors moments later and spotted us with relief.

“Where have you been?” Like a mother scolding.

“Right here! Oh-” I swivelled around with exaggerated care to look at Snorri.

“Seeking wisdom,” he said, turning to narrow blue eyes in my direction, a dangerous look that managed to sober me up a little. “Finding my enemy.”

“Well that’s never been a problem,” I said. “Wait a while and they’ll come to you.”

“Wisdom?” Tuttugu pulled up a stool. “You’ve been to a völva? Which one? I thought we were headed for Skilfar at Beerentoppen?”

“Ekatri.” Snorri poured himself some of my ale. Tuttugu and I said nothing, only watched him. “She was closer.” And into our silence Snorri dropped his tale, and afloat on a sea of cheap beer I saw the story unfold before me as he spoke.

• • •

After leaving me in the dockside tavern Snorri had gone over the supply list with Tuttugu. “You got this, Tutt? I need to go up and see Old Hrothson.”

“Who?” Tuttugu looked up from the slate where Snorri had scratched the runes for salt, dried beef, and the other supplies, together with tally marks to count the quantities.

“Old Hrothson, the chief!”

“Oh.” Tuttugu shrugged. “My first time in Haargfjord. Go, I can haggle with the best of them.”

Snorri slapped Tuttugu’s arm and turned to go.

“Of course even the best haggler needs something to pay with. .” Tuttugu added.

Snorri fished in the pocket of his winter coat and pulled out a heavy coin, flipping it to Tuttugu.

“Never seen a gold piece that big before.” Tuttugu held it up to his face, so close his nose almost bumped it, the other hand buried in his ginger beard. “What’s that on it? A bell?”

“The great bell of Venice. They say beside the Bay of Sighs you can hear it ring on a stormy night, though it lies fifty fathoms drowned.” Snorri felt in his pocket for another of the coins. “It’s a florin.”

“Great bell of where?” Tuttugu turned the florin over in his hand, entranced by the gleam.

“Venice. Drowned like Atlantis and all the cities beneath the Quiet Sea. It was part of Florence. That’s where they mint these.”

Tuttugu pursed his lips. “I’ll find Jal when I’m done. That’s if I can carry all the change I get after spending this beauty. I’ll meet you there.”

Snorri nodded and set off, taking a steep street that led away from the docks to the long halls on the ridge above the main town.

In his years of warring and raiding Snorri had learned the value of information over opinion, learned that the stories people tell are one thing but if you mean to risk the lives of your men it’s better to have tales backed up by the evidence of your eyes-or those of a scout. Better still several scouts, for if you show a thing to three men you’ll hear three different accounts, and if you’re lucky the truth will lie somewhere between them. He would go to Skilfar and seek out the ice witch in her mountain of fire, but better to go armed with advice from other sources, rather than as an empty vessel waiting to be filled with only her opinion.

Old Hrothson had received Snorri in the porch of his long hall, where he sat in a high-backed chair of black oak, carved all over with Asgardian sigils. On the pillars rising above him the gods stood, grim and watchful. Odin looked out over the ancient’s bowed head, Freja beside him, flanked by Thor, Loki, Aegir. Others, carved lower down, stood so smoothed by years of touching that they might be any god you cared to name. The old man sat bowed under his mantle of office, all bones and sunken flesh, thin white hair crowning a liver-spotted pate, and a sharp odour of sickness about him. His eyes, though, remained bright.

“Snorri Snagason. I’d heard the Hardassa put an end to the Undoreth. A knife in the back on a dark night?” Old Hrothson measured out his words, age creaking in each syllable. The younger Hrothson sat beside him in a lesser chair, a silver-haired man of sixty winters. Honour guards clad in chain mail and furs flanked them, long axes resting against their shoulders. The two Hrothsons had sat here when Snorri last saw them, maybe five years earlier, gazing down across their town and out to the grey sea.

“Two only survived,” Snorri said. “Myself and Olaf Arnsson, known as Tuttugu.”

The older Hrothson leaned forward and hawked up a mess of dark phlegm, spitting it to the boards. “That for the Hardassa. Odin grant you vengeance and Thor the strength to take it.”

Snorri clapped his fist to his chest though the words gave him no comfort. Thor might be god of strength and war, Odin of wisdom, but he sometimes wondered if it wasn’t Loki, the trickster god, who stood behind what unfolded. A lie can run deeper than strength or wisdom. And hadn’t the world proved to be a bitter joke? Perhaps even the gods themselves lay snared in Loki’s greatest trick and Ragnarok would hear the punch line spoken. “I seek wisdom,” he said.

“Well,” said Old Hrothson. “There’s always the priests.”

All of them laughed, even the honour guards.

“No really,” the younger Hrothson spoke for the first time. “My father can advise you about war, crops, trade, and fishing. Do you speak of the wisdom of this world or the other?”

“A little of both,” Snorri admitted.

“Ekatri.” Old Hrothson nodded. “She has returned. You’ll find her winter hut by the falls on the south side, three miles up the fjord. There’s more in her runes than in the smokes and iron bells of the priests with their endless tales of Asgard.”

The son nodded, and Snorri took his leave. When he glanced back both men were as they had been when he left them five years before, gazing out to sea.

• • •

An hour later Snorri approached the witch’s hut, a small roundhouse, log-built, the roof of heather and hide, a thin trail of smoke rising from the centre. Ice still fringed the falls, crashing down behind the hut in a thin and endless cascade, pulses of white driving down through the mist above the plunge pool.