Robert Low - The Wolf Sea

He was offhand, dismissive — I was a badly dressed varangii boy, after all, clutching a bundle wrapped in rags, accompanied by a big, hairy, fox-faced man and a tiny, bead-eyed heretic monk who spoke Latin and Greek with a thick accent.

After he had seen the coins, though, he grew thoughtful and that did not surprise me. They were Volsung-minted and the only ones in the world not in Atil's dark tomb were the ones he turned over and over in his fat, manicured fingers. He knew their worth in silver — and, more than that, he knew what they meant and that the rumours about the Oathsworn were true.

He asked to see the sword and, made bold and anxious to please, I unwrapped that bundle and everything changed. He could scarcely bring himself to touch it, knew then who this Orm was and saw the beauty and the worth of that sabre-curve, even if he did not know what the runes meant, on hilt or blade.

`Will you sell this, too?' he asked and I shook my head and wrapped it up again. I saw in his eyes the look I was fast getting used to: the greed-sick, calculating stare of those wondering how to find out if the rumours of a marvellous silver hoard were true and, if so, where it was. The sword, as it was bundled up again, was like the dying sun to a flower as Choniates stood and watched it vanish into filthy wrappings. I knew then that showing it to him had been a mistake, that he would try something.

The barbers and prinkers were waved away; he offered wine and I accepted and sipped it — it was unwatered and I laughed aloud at his presumption. By the end of a long afternoon, Choniates reluctantly discovered that he would get no bargain for the coins, nor any clue as to other treasures.

He bought the coins and trinkets, paying some cash then, the bulk by promise — and extra for trying a cheap trick like getting me drunk.

`That went well,' beamed Brother John when we were out on the rain-glistening street.

`Best we watch our backs,' muttered Sighvat who had seen the same signs as I had.

Then, as we turned for a last look at the marble hov, we both saw Starkad, quiet and unfussed, hirpling through the gate like an old friend, not exactly fox-sleekit about it, but looking this way and that quickly, to see if he was observed. Even without the limp, which Einar had given him, both Sighvat and I knew this old enemy when we saw him — but, just then, the Watch tramped round a corner and we slid away before they spotted us and started asking awkward questions.

That had been weeks ago and Choniates, it had to be said, had been patient and cunning, waiting just long enough for us — me — to relax a little, to grow careless.

Oh, aye. We knew who had the runesword, right enough, but that only made things worse.

Finn grew redder and finally hacked the pigeon he had been plucking into bloody shreds and flying feathers until his rage went and he sat down with a thump. Radoslav, clearly impressed, picked some feathers from his own bowl and carried on eating slowly, spitting out the smaller bones. No one spoke and the gloom sidled up to the fire and curled there like a dog.

Brother John winked at me from that round face with its fringe of silly beard and jingled a handful of silver in one fist. I have enough here for at least one mug of what passes for drink in the Dolphin,' he announced. 'To take away the taste of Finn's stew.'

Finn scowled. 'When you find more of that silver, you dwarf, perhaps we can afford better than those rats with wings that I catch. Get used to it. Unless we get that blade back, we will eat worse.'

Everyone chuckled, though the loss of the runesword drove the mirth from it. The pigeons in the city were fat and bold as sea-raiders, but easily lured with a pinch of bread, though no one liked eating them much. So the thought of drink cheered everyone except me, who had to ask where he had got a fistful of silver. Brother John shrugged.

The church, lad. God provides.'

`What church?'

The little priest waved a hand vaguely in the general direction of Iceland. 'It was a well-established place,'

he added, `well patronised. By the well-off. A well of infinite substance.

`You've been cutting purses again, holy man,' growled Kvasir.

Brother John caught my eye and shrugged. 'One only. A truly upholstered worshipper, who could afford it. Radix omnium malorum est cupiditas, after all.'

I wish you'd stop chewing in that Latin,' growled Kvasir, as if we all knew what you say. Orm, what's he say?'

`He says sense,' I said. 'Love of money is the root of all evil.'

Kvasir grunted, shaking his head disapprovingly, but smiling all the same. Brother John had no mirth in him at all when he met my eyes.

`We need it, lad,' he said quietly and I felt the annoyance and anger drain from me. He was right: warmth and drink and a chance to plan, that was what we needed, but cutting purses was bad enough without doing it in a church. And him being a heretic to the Great City's Christ-men was buttering the stockfish too thick all round. All of which I mentioned in passing as we headed for the Dolphin.

It isn't a church to me, Orm lad,' he chuckled, his curls plastered to his forehead. 'It's an eggshell of stone, no more, a fragile thing built to look strong. There is no hinge of the Lord here. God will sweep it away in His own good time but, until then, per scelus semper tutum est sceleribus iter.'

Crime's safest course is through more crime. I laughed, for all the sick bitterness in me. He reminded me of Illugi, the Oathsworn's Odin godi, but that Aesir priest had gone mad and died in Atil's howe along with Einar and others, leaving me as jarl and godi both, with neither wit nor wisdom for either.

But, because of Brother John, we were all declared Christ-men now, dipped in holy water and sworn such — prime-signed, as they say — though the crucifixes hung round our necks all looked like Thor hammers and I did not feel that the power of our Odin-oath had diminished any, which had been my reasoning for embracing the Christ in the first place.

The Dolphin nestled in the lee of Septimus Severus's wall and looked as old. It had a floor of tiles, fine as any palace, but the walls were roughly plastered and the smoking iron lanterns hung so low you had to duck between them.

It was noisy and dim with fug and crowded with people, rank with sweat and grease and cooking and, just for one blade-bright moment, I was back in Bjornshafen, hugging the hearthfire's red-gold warmth, listening to the wind whistle its way into the Snaefel forests, pausing only to judder the beams and flap the partition hangings, so that they sounded like wings in the dark.

Heimthra, the longing for home, for the way things had been.

But this was a hall where strangers did not rise to greet you, as was proper and polite, but carried on eating and ignoring you. This was a hall where folk ate reclining and sitting upright at a bench marked you at once as inferior, yet another strangeness in a city full of wonders, like the ornate basins which existed for no other reason than to throw water into the air for the spectator's enjoyment.

The reason I liked the taberna was because it was full of familiar voices: Greeks and Slays and traders from further north all talking in a maelstrom of different tongues, all with one subject: how the river trade was a dangerous business now that Sviatoslav, Great Prince of the Rus, had decided to fight both the Khazars and the Volga Bulgars.

It seemed that the Prince of the Rus had gone mad after the fall of the Khazar city of Sarkel, down on the Dark Sea — which event the Oathsworn had attended, after a fashion. He was now headed off to the Khazar capital, Itil on the Caspian, to finish them off, but hadn't even waited for that before sending men further north to annoy the Volga Bulgars.