Robert Low - The Wolf Sea

He saw that I had spotted it. He had a smile like the curve of that blade and, behind me, I felt the heat and the stir and heard the low rumble of a growl. Finn.

I have heard of the death of Einar,' Starkad said, making no effort to come closer. 'A pity, for I owed him a blow.'

`Consider it Odin luck, since he would have balanced you up with a stroke to the other leg if you had met again,' I replied evenly, the blood thundering in my ears, ringing out the question of how he came to be wearing that sword. Had he stolen it from Choniates, too? Had the Greek given it to him — if so, why?

Starkad flushed. 'You yap well for a small pup. But you are running with bigger hounds now.'

`Just so,' I answered. This was easy work, for Starkad was not the sharpest adze in the shipyard for wordplay. 'Since we are speaking of dogs — have you been back to sniff Bluetooth's arse? Does that King know that you have lost both the fine ships he gave you? No, I didn't think so. I am thinking he may not stroke your belly, no matter how well you roll on your back at his feet.'

The flush deepened and he laid one hand casually on the hilt of the sabre by way of reply. He saw me stiffen and thought it recognition of the blade and smiled again, recovering. In truth, it was the sight of his pale fingers, like the legs of a spider, sliding along the marks I had made on the hilt, watching them unconsciously trace the scratches, all unknowing.

`Look. .' began the tavern-owner, his hands trembling as he wiped them over and over on his apron. 'I want no trouble here. .'

`Then fasten yer hole shut,' growled the squint-eyed man, his affliction adding to the savagery of his tongue. The tavern-owner winced and backed off. I saw little Drozd sidle away from us, as though we had plague.

`King Harald can spare two such ships,' Starkad went on dismissively. 'I have been tasked with something and will travel to the edge of the world to obey my King.'

I mock-sighed and waved an airy jarl hand at a seat, as if in invitation to discuss this matter that troubled him. I hoped to get him closer, away from the door and the men at his back and the ones I was sure were outside. There would be a fight and blood, since they had weapons and we did not and that would bring the authority of the Great City down on us, but still. .

He was polished as a marble step and no fool. 'You are not what I seek, boy,' he said with a sneer that refused my invitation. 'Nor any of these who treat you like a ring-giver on a gifthrone, for all that you have neither seat, nor neck ring, nor even ship to mark you. No sword, either, since I took it.'

He drew back a little from his hate then and forced a smile into my face, which I knew was pale and stricken. I felt the Oathsworn behind me, trembling like ale at an over-full brim and Finn, quivering, barely leashed, finally snapped his bonds.

A bench went over with a clatter and he howled himself forward at Starkad, who whipped that sabre out with a hiss of sound, fast as the flick of an adder's tongue. Finn, with nothing but his fists, came up two foot short of Starkad's face, with the point of the rune-serpent sword at his neck. Someone squealed; Elli, I thought dully.

I held up my hand and leashed the others, which act gave me a measure of stone-smoothness, for Starkad noted that and was impressed, despite himself. I could hardly breathe; I wondered if he knew how deadly that blade against Finn's neck truly was. Even just resting it left a thin, red line. For his part, Finn had froth at the edges of his mouth and I knew that one more comment and he would run his neck up the blade, just to get his hands round Starkad's own.

I have heard tales of this blade,' Starkad said softly. 'It cut an anvil, I hear.'

`Just so,' I agreed, dry-mouthed. 'Perhaps, Finn, you should come and sit by me. Your head is hard, but not harder than the anvil that blade was forged on.'

The rigid line of Finn softened a little and he took a step backward, away from the blade. Each step laboured, he unreeled from the hook of that runesword. I breathed. Starkad, smirking, waited until Finn was seated, then sheathed the weapon; life flooded back to the room with a breathy sigh.

`You have the look of a jarl,' I said into Starkad's smirk, my chest still tight with the fear of what might just have happened, 'but you should beware the jarl's torc.'

`You should only beware it when you do not have it,'

Starkad spat back. 'The mark of ringmoney is the mark of a gift-giver, whom men follow.'

I said nothing to that, for Gunnar Raudi — my true father — had often told me that you should never interrupt an enemy who was making a mistake. I already knew the secret of the jarl torc Starkad was so proud of wearing. It was just a neck ring of silver, which we still call ringmoney, whose dragon-head ends snarl at one another on your chest.

The secret was that the real one was made of steel, carried by the men who wielded it for you. It hung round your neck, another kind of rune serpent, at once an ornament of greatness and a cursed weight that could drag you to your knees and which you could not take off in life.

I knew that from Einar, who had warned me of it as he died by my hand, sitting on Attila's throne. Now I felt the weight of it myself — even though I could not, as Starkad had seen, afford a real one.

I seek the priest, one Martin, the monk from Hammaburg,' Starkad went on. 'You know where he is, I am thinking.'

I was silent, knowing exactly what it was Starkad sought. Not a silver hoard at all, but Martin's treasure, the remains of his Christ spear, the one stuck in the side of the White Christ as he hung on the cross and whose iron head had helped make the sabre Starkad now wore. He did not know that and I leached a little comfort from the secret.

Now that King Harald Bluetooth was a Christ-man himself, he fancied this god spear to help make everyone in his kingdom stronger in the Christ faith — no matter that the Basileus of the Romans claimed such a spear already resided in the Great City. Like me, Bluetooth believed Martin had the real one.

`He fled,' Starkad added, when my silence stretched too far. 'The monk fled. To here, I am thinking, and to you, since you are the only ones he knows.'

It was a good thought, for Martin had been with us for long enough, but Starkad did not know that it was not as a friend. My tongue was already forming the words to tell him this when the thought came to me that we could not — dare not — take him here. It was certain that the Watch had already been called and Starkad was measuring his time like a shipmaster tallies his distances, down to the last eyeflick.

Miklagard was a haven for Starkad; he had to be lured out of it.

East,' I said. 'To Serkland and Jorsalir, his holy city.'

I have my own thoughts on who made me gold-browed at that moment, to come up with a lie and the wit to speak it with such shrugging smoothness. Like all Odin's gifts it was double-edged.

He blinked at the ease with which I had given up the information and you could see him weigh it like a new coin and wonder if it rang true when you dropped it on a table. I felt the others twitch, though, those who knew it to be a lie, or suspected the same. I hoped Starkad did not look in their bewildered eyes.

In the end, he bit the coin of it and decided it was gold. `Let this be an end of things between us, then.

Einar is dead and I have no more quarrel with the Oathsworn.'

`Return the sword you stole and I will consider it,' I told him. 'I once thought you a wolf, Starkad, but it turns out you are no more than an alley dog.'

He had the grace to redden at that. 'I took the sword the same way you took my drakkar — because I could and it was needful,' he replied, narrow-eyed with hate. 'It stays with me because you and your Oathsworn pack cost me dear and I will count it bloodprice for the losses.'