Robert Low - The Wolf Sea

Not the last losses you will have,' Kvasir interrupted angrily. `We are not finished with you — take care to keep beyond reach of my blade, Starkad Ragnarsson.'

`What blade?' sneered Starkad and slapped his side. 'I have the only true blade you nithings owned.'

The door opened in a blast of wind and rain and a head hissed urgently at Starkad's back. It did not take much to know the Watch was coming up the street. Starkad leaned forward at the hip a little and his lip curled.

I know you, Kvasir, and you, Finn Horsehead. You also, boy Bear Slayer. I will find out the truth of what you say. If you spoke me false here, or if you get in my way, I will make you all unwind your guts round a pole until you die.'

He backed out of the door while I was still blinking at the picture he had placed in my head with that last one, for I had heard of this cruel trick.

There was a surge, like a wave breaking on a skerry, and I hammered the table to bring the Oathsworn up short, while the others in the tavern scrambled to be out and away. Finn hurled one luckless chariot-racing fan sideways, then stopped, sullen as winter haar.

`We have to kill Starkad,' he growled, sitting. 'Slowly.'

Is this sword so valuable, then?' asked Radoslay. 'And who is this priest?'

I told him.

`What holy icon?' demanded Brother John when he heard my brief tale of Martin and his spear.

A spear, like Odin's Gungnir, only a Roman one,' I answered. 'The one they stuck in the Christ when he hung on the cross. Only the metal end is missing from it.'

Brother John's mouth hung open like the hood of a cloak, so I did not mention that the metal end had been used in the making of the runed sabre Starkad had stolen to feed the greed-fire of Architos Choniates. I did not understand why Starkad had the sword, all the same.

Another Holy Lance?' Brother John was a flail of scorn. `The Greeks-who-are-Romans here swear they have one, tucked up in a special palace with Christ's bed linen and sandals.'

I shrugged. Brother John snorted his disgust and added, scornfully, `Mundus vult decipi.'

The world wants to be deceived. . I wasn't sure if it was a judgement on Martin's desires or on just how genuine the spear was. But Brother John was silent after that, deep in thought.

`Concerning this sword. .' Radoslav began, but the Watch piled in then and the tavern-owner went off into an arm-wave of Greek. There were looks at us, then back again, then at us.

Eventually, the Watch commander, black-bearded and banded in leather, peeled off his dripping helmet, tucked it in the crook of his arm, sighed and came towards us. His men eyed us warily, their iron-tipped staffs ready.

`Who leads?' he asked, which let me know he was no stranger to our kind. When I stood up, he blinked a bit, for he had been looking expectantly at Finn, who now showed him a deal of sarcastic teeth.

`Right,' said the Watch commander and jerked a thumb back at the tavern-owner. 'Not your fault, Ziphas says, but he still thinks you brought armed men to his place. Scared off his custom. Neither am I happy with the idea of you lot blood-feuding on my patch. So beat it. Consider it lucky you have no weapons yourselves, else I would have you in the Stinking Dark.'

We knew of that prison and it was as bad as it sounded. Finn growled but the Watch commander was grizzled enough to have seen it all and simply shook his head wearily and wandered off, wiping the rain from his face. Ziphas, the tavern-owner, still smearing his hands on his apron, finally left it alone and spread them, shrugging.

`Maybe a week, eh?' he said apologetically. 'Let folk forget. If they see you here tomorrow, they will not stay — and you don't spend enough to make up the difference.'

We left, meek as lambs, though Finn was growling about how shaming it was for a good man from the North to be sent packing by a Greek in an apron.

`We should follow Starkad now,' Short Eldgrim growled. `Take him.'

Finn Horsehead growled his agreement, but Kvasir, as we shrugged and shook the rain off back in our warehouse, pointed out the obvious.

I am thinking Starkad's crew are now hired men and so permitted weapons,' he observed. `Choniates will stand surety for them here like a jarl.'

Radoslav cleared his throat, cautious about adding his weight to what was, after all, not much of his business. 'You should be aware that this Starkad, if he is Choniates' hired man, has the right of it under law.

We will have warriors from the city on us, too, if blood is shed and not just the Watch with their sticks. Real soldiers.'

`We?' I asked and he grinned that bear-trap grin.

It is a mark of my clan that when you save a man's life you are bound to keep helping him,' he declared.

'Anyway, I want to see this wonderful sword called Rune Serpent.'

I thought to correct him, then shrugged. It was as good a name for that marked sabre as any — and it was how we got it back that mattered.

`Which brings up another question,' said Gizur Gydasson. `What was all that cow guff about the monk going to Serkland? Has he really gone there?'

That hung in the air like a waiting hawk.

If force will not do it, then cunning must,' Brother John said before I could answer, and I saw he had worked it out. `Magister artis ingeniique largitor venter.'

`Dofni bacraut,' Finn growled. 'What does that mean?'

It means, you ignorant sow's ear, that ingenuity triumphs in the face of adversity.'

Finn grinned. 'Why didn't you say that, then?'

`Because I am a man of learning,' Brother John gave back amiably. 'And if you call me a stupid arsehole again — in any language — I will make your head ring.'

Everyone laughed as Finn scowled at the fierce little Christ priest, but no one was much the wiser until I turned to Short Eldgrim and told him to find Starkad and watch him. Then I turned to Radoslav and asked him about his ship. Eyes brightened and shoulders went back, for then they saw it: Starkad would set off after Martin and we would follow, trusting in skill and the gods, as we had done so many times before.

Anything can happen on the whale road.

After Starkad's visit to the Dolphin, we moved to Radoslav's knarr, the Volchok, partly to keep out of the way of the Watch, partly to be ready when Short Eldgrim warned us that Starkad was away.

There was a deal to be done with the Volchok to make it seaworthy. Radoslav was a half-Slav on his mother's side, but his father was a Gotland trader, which should have given him some wit about handling a trading knarr the length of ten men. Instead, it was snugged up in the Julian harbour with no crew and costing him more than he could afford in berthing fees — until he had heard that a famous band of varjazi were shipless and, as he put it when we handseled the deal, we were wyrded for each other.

But he was no deep-water sailor and every time he made some lofty observation about boats, Sighvat would grin and say: 'Tell us again how you came to have such a sweet sail as the Volchok and no crew.'

Radoslav, no doubt wishing he had never told the tale in the first place, would then recount how he had fallen foul of his Christ-worshipping crew, by drinking blood-tainted water in the heat of a hard fight and refusing, as a good Perun man, to be suitably cleansed by monks.

`The Volchok means "little wolf", or "wolf cub" in the Slav tongue,' he would add. 'It is rightly named, for it can bite when needs be. My name, schchuka, means "pike" for I am like that fish and once my teeth are in, you have to cut my head off to get me to let go.'

Then he would sigh and shake his head sorrowfully, adding: `But those Christ-loving Greeks loosened my teeth and left me stranded.'