Robert Low - The Prow Beast

Crowbone blinked his odd eyes back from the fire and into the faces round it.

‘It was not a tale. I was remembering the whale we found once.’

Short Serpent ’s old crew stirred a little, remembering with him and, bit by bit, it was laid out…on a desolate stretch of shingle beach, pulling in for the night, they had come upon a small whale, beached and only just alive. No matter that it was another man’s land, they flensed it, cutting great cubes of fat, thick as peats, thick as turf sod. They ate like kings, bloody and greasy.

It was the dream of home, of north water and shingle and it fixed us all with its brightness. For a reason only Odin could unravel, I kept thinking of the patch of kail and cabbage at the back of Hestreng hov. Thorgunna had grown a lush crop there, using the stinking water from the boilings of bairns’ under-cloths and it had survived everything, untrampled and unburned, when Hestreng was reduced to char and smoulder.

Uddolf crashed into the shining of this, asking for men to come and howe Arnkel up. His closest oarmates went and, in the end, we all stood by the mound; as godi , I placed one of my last three armrings in it, to honour him, which went some way against the grey grief of his loss.

It was a cloak that descended on us all. Onund wept and when he was asked why, said it was for the black sand and milk sea of his home. No-one mocked him, for we were all miserable with similar longings.

Through it all, two figures caught my sight. One was Dark Eye, still and slight and staring at the dark beyond the fire while men sighed and crooned their longings out; it came to me that this was how she must feel all the time, yet bore it without a whimper.

The other was the fire-soaked carving of the Elk , proudantlered, lashed to its spear-haft. I was thinking that a prow beast was leading us still, further than ever from where we wanted to be.

In the morning, stiff and cold, men moved sullenly in our camp on the hill, hidden in trees where the mist shredded and swirled. I was gathering my sea-chest together when Styrbjorn came up, with men behind him. Everything stopped.

‘We have been talking among ourselves,’ Styrbjorn said. Finn growled and men shifted uncomfortably. I said nothing, waiting and sick, for I had been expecting this.

‘It seems to us,’ he went on, ‘that there is nothing to be gained by continuing in this way and a great deal to be lost.’

‘There is a deal to be lost, for sure,’ I answered, straightening and trying to be light and soft in my voice, for the anger trembled in me. ‘For those who break their Oath and abandon their oarmates. Believe me, Styrbjorn, I have seen it.’

The men behind him shifted slightly, remembering that they had sworn the Oath, but Styrbjorn had not. One scowler called Eid cleared his throat, almost apologetically, and said that when they had held a Thing, as was right for bondi to do when they thought I was dead, it was generally understood that whoever was chosen would lead them home.

Men hoomed and nodded; I saw no more than a handful, all from Crowbone’s old crew of Short Serpent and that, while Styrbjorn stood with his arms folded, pouting like a mating pigeon, it was to Alyosha that these men flicked their uneasy eyes.

‘Now I am returned and there is no need for such decisions,’ I said, though I knew it would not silence them.

‘If I had been chosen,’ Crowbone added defiantly, ‘we would still be after the boy.’

Eid snorted. ‘You? The only reason any of us are here at all is because Alyosha was sensibly tasked by Prince Vladimir to keep you out of trouble after he gave you the toy of a boat and men. If anyone leads here, it is Alyosha.’

Crowbone stiffened and flushed, but held himself in check, which was deep-thinking; if he started to get angry, his fragile voice would squeak like a boy. Styrbjorn, on the other hand, started turning red, though the lines round his mouth went white as he glared at Eid; he did not like this talk of Alyosha leading.

‘Prince Vladimir gave Short Serpent to ME,’ Crowbone answered his crew, sinking his chin into his chest to make his voice deeper. ‘He gave YOU to me.’

‘No-one gave me anywhere,’ growled Eid, scowling. ‘What am I — a horn spoon to be borrowed? A whetstone to be lent?’

‘A toy, perhaps,’ grunted Finn, grinning and Eid wanted to snarl at him, but was not brave enough, so he subsided like a pricked bladder, muttering.

Alyosha, markedly, stayed stone-grim and silent, with a face as blank as a fjord cliff, while Styrbjorn opened and closed his mouth, the words in him crowding like men scrambling off a burning boat, so that they blocked his throat.

‘And there is the girl,’ added a voice, just as I thought I had the grip of this thistle. Hjalti, who was named Svalr — Cold Wind — because of his miserable nature, had a bald pate with a fringe of hair which he never cut, but burned off and never got it even. He had an expression that looked as if he was always squinting into the sun and a tongue which could cut old leather.

‘The girl is another matter,’ I answered. Styrbjorn recovered himself enough to smile viciously.

‘A sweetness we have all missed,’ he replied, ‘save you, it seems.’

I shot Ospak a hard look and he had the grace to shrug and look away, acknowledging his loose tongue and what he had seen and heard by the Magyar fires.

‘Am I a chattel, then?’ said a new voice and I did not have to turn to know it; Dark Eye stepped into the centre of the maelstrom , a hare surrounded by growlers. ‘A thrall, to be passed around? A horn spoon or a whetstone, as Eid says?’

No-one spoke under the lash of those eyes and that voice. Dark Eye, wrapping her cloak around her, cocked a proud chin.

‘I have a purpose here. The Sea-Finn’s drum spoke it and those who have heard it know its truth,’ she spat, then stopped and shrugged.

‘Of course,’ she added slyly, ‘if all it takes for such hard men to seek Jarl Orm’s fostri is a sight of my arse-cheeks, I will lift my skirts and lead the way.’

There was a chuckle or two at that and Styrbjorn opened his mouth. Dark Eye whirled on him.

‘You had all best move swiftly and catch me first,’ she said loudly, ‘for Styrbjorn is skilled at stabbing from behind.’

Now there was laughter and Styrbjorn turned this way and that, scowling, but it was too late — men remembered him for the sleekit nithing he was and that he had been the cause of all this in the first place. For all that, like a dog with a stripped bone, some still thought there was enough meat to gnaw.

‘This chase is madness.’

His name was Thorbrand, I remembered, a man who knew all the games of dice and was skilled with a spear.

‘Ach, no, it is not,’ Red Njal offered cheerfully. ‘Now, mark you, mad is where you chase a band of dead-eaters, who chase a thief, who is chasing a monk, and all in the Muspell-burning wastes of Serkland. That is mad, Thorbrand.’

‘Aye, madness that is, for sure,’ agreed Thorbrand. ‘What fool did that?’

Finn grinned at him and slapped his chest. ‘Me. And Orm and Red Njal and a few others besides.’

He broke off and winked.

‘And we came away with armfuls of silver at the end of it. The best fruits hang highest, as Red Njal’s granny would no doubt have told him.’

Styrbjorn snorted.

‘That sounds like one of the tales Red Njal likes so much. Is it written down anywhere? I am sure it must be, since it smacks of a great lie.’

‘As to that,’ Finn said, moving slowly, ‘I could not say, for reading other than runes is not one of my skills. But I can hear, even with just the one ear and I am sure you just called me a great liar.’