M. Lachlan: Lord of Slaughter

Beatrice shivered. She recognised what was happening. Her father had done his best to take on French ways when he arrived in Neustria, but in an argument or a fight he went back to being the Viking he had been. His language would become elevated, more ornate in a clear message to his enemy — ‘I am preparing to write myself into a saga. This is how heroes talk.’

‘I do,’ said Mauger, ‘though I should like to test your worth.’

Bollason raised his sword but the old woman stilled him with a glance.

‘The way out is sealed,’ she said to Mauger. ‘Three hundred men guard the Numera now, and in the unlikely event you could cut down Bolli, you would not escape them. Nor me.’

Mauger looked into the woman’s ruined eye and bowed his head. ‘You are a vala and a great troll worker, I can see,’ he said.

‘The work we do here is for no earthly lord,’ she said. The sorceress too spoke in a self-consciously high manner. She was honouring Mauger, Beatrice understood, but at the same time emphasising her own position as someone who demanded respect. ‘Our destinies are set. The girl goes beyond here to the well. That is foreseen.’

Nothing was said for a while but it seemed Mauger had accepted he could not challenge the woman’s plan. Bollason spoke: ‘Give me a rope.’ I will go first. Tie the girl and she can go through bound if she’s going to become hysterical. Put one of those dead men’s helmets on her head. You have tinder for the lamps?’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘He is a killer!’ Beatrice pointed at Mauger.

‘The Norns weave out our fate, girl,’ said Bollason. ‘Accept yours once you see you cannot influence it. Better to go smiling to hard places than cowering like a child.’

He waded out into the water, only his sword on its belt about him, a helmet on his head. He paused as the water reached his waist.

‘Cold?’ said Gregnir.

‘It’s like a bath compared to Eithafjord,’ said Bollason and waded on.

Beatrice was prodded into the water with the butt of an axe, the Vikings following. The water was freezing and she cried out but Mauger’s hand at her back pushed her on.

Where the ceiling of the cave met the water Bollason turned. ‘Here?’

‘The wolfman went through a little to the left,’ said Mauger.

‘Then wish me luck, boys,’ said Bollason. He took three sharp breaths and dived under. It was quiet for a very long time. And then…

‘He’s tugging the rope,’ said Gregnir. ‘He’s through!’

‘The lady goes first,’ said the woman they’d called the vala. ‘You have a helmet for your head and try to go on your back and push away from the ceiling with your hands. It’ll be easier without breath in your chest, but you won’t believe me. You’ll have to discover it for yourself.’

They looped the rope to bind Beatrice’s hands, Gregnir grabbing the end to stop it being pulled all the way through.

‘If I lose my child then I will die and all your efforts to bring me here will come to nothing!’

‘You will not lose it,’ said the vala. ‘Your destiny lies deeper than this.’

From away in the caverns, up towards the surface a howl chilled the air.

‘Be quick,’ said the vala.

Beatrice turned back to Mauger. ‘You have come to find my husband?’ she said.

‘Yes, lady.’

‘Well, so have I,’ she said.

One of the Vikings gave two good tugs on the rope to tell Bollason they were ready; Beatrice took a big gulp of air and was pulled forward into the water. The cold clamped down on her terror for an instant as she was tugged under as if someone had placed icy bands of steel about her head and chest. Thought was impossible. The pull forward suddenly ceased and the rope went slack. She tried to cry out but the water forced its fingers into her throat, choking her, freezing the words inside her and she slipped into blackness.

Loys listened to the boy speaking. He was mad, the scholar was convinced. They had thought it was Mauger and had quickly taken to a side passage to hide, dimming their light. Only the lamp ahead and the glow of the rocks provided any vision now.

It was not Mauger, but the boy, wandering along as if he was out for a stroll on a sunny day. He mumbled to himself in Norse as he went.

‘Speak more of your stories to me. Do not run ahead so. How shall I fight this wolf? Not to fight? I am a warrior and must always fight.’ He became angry. ‘I run from him by the riverbank because I have no weapons to face a wolf. Give me a spear, sharp and cruel; give me a sword to cut him or a hammer to crush him. I will offer him blood all right, I’ll offer him his own. Here, wolf, I make a sacrifice of yourself to yourself. See how your hungers fare on your own flesh. Do not run from me, my friends; come back, let me touch you again. Send me to that place again and I will face him. He took me by surprise before. I am not a coward. Do not think me a coward. My destiny is death in battle. I am death. Do you not see the corpses I made for you? I have made a city of the dead for you. Come back. Hey, bright symbols, come back. I will build you houses of bones. Ho, what’s here and who’s here?’

Loys heard another voice, this time speaking Greek: ‘Help me!’

He glanced at the wolfman, scarcely visible in the dim light. The wolfman squeezed Loys’ arm — partly to restrain him, partly, thought Loys, as a gesture of reassurance.

‘He is Odin!’ whispered the wolfman. ‘It was he who was in the tent with the head of the rebel at his feet!’

‘Will you go to him to die?’ Loys didn’t want that at all. The wolfman was his protector.

‘He would need the sword.’

The voices again, now both speaking Greek.

‘This pool is a drowning pool. It whispers to me.’ That was the boy, Loys was sure.

‘Save yourself and save me. She has called us here.’ The voice sounded very strained.

‘For what reason?’

‘For death. There is a mad ghost in these caverns and she is hungry for your blood.’ This was accompanied by coughing and retching.

‘I am a man, not a boy. I am no coward and will face the ghost. I am likely a famous ghost killer and a god of death. Remain a while in the water, sir; it suits my temper to see you there.’

‘Can you not feel? Can you not understand? You bring the runes with you. You are a killer, true, but you are a fragment of a death god. She will have us united. The runes are slipping from you. Can you not feel it? I can feel it.’

‘I would have more of these pretty symbols. I cannot yet fathom their use but they take me to a place where I snuff out men’s lives. Take me there again, symbols.’

‘Let me out of the water; I will freeze. Let me out.’

‘Remain a while yet, sir, please.’

‘How old are you, boy?

‘Fifteen years, so my father said. I killed my mother when I was born.’

‘And not yet a man. Are you cut?’

‘No man would dare cut me.’

‘Then you have been held that way by luck or by enchantment. Listen to your voice. You are changing. No man can hold the runes, no man.’

‘You are a brave man to tell me that. I can hold them, true enough.’

‘She will kill you. She will kill me. Death is here. He’s talking to her. Can’t you hear him whispering?’

‘I can hear only you whining.’

The men continued arguing as the wolfman whispered to Loys: ‘Who is that?’

‘Who?’

‘The man in the water.’

‘The man is the chamberlain. The boy is called Snake in the Eye. He is a Varangian.’

‘You know him?’

‘He came to me for a cure for an enchantment.’

‘What cure?’

‘He said he could not kill.’