Robert Low - The Whale Road

Ìndeed so,' Einar agreed, nodding into the chorus of harsh chuckles. 'But they didn't, or else we would be binding his bruises.'

`No,' agreed Steinthor. 'They hauled him to one of the warehouses at the main harbour. There were a lot of men there and two boats, high-prowed and gilded and bigger than the Elk, that were not there yesterday.'

This set everyone muttering. Illugi Godi looked at Einar and Skapti hoomed a bit, then said: 'Two drakkar? What varjazi has two boats that size?'

`None,' muttered Einar, stroking his moustache. 'Nor could a varjazi persuade the merchants of Birka to ignore their laws on weapons. Only a real power could do that.'

`Such as one who now rules two lands?' Illugi Godi said mildly, the wind whipping his hair into his face.

`Bluetooth; Einar said and the name leaped from head to head, swirling away on the wind, setting fire to mutters and darkly exchanged looks. He looked at me. 'You had it right enough. Someone more important than Brondolf Lambisson and a foreigner.'

Bluetooth, new King of the Danes and Norwegians. Somehow, he had heard of the Oathsworn of Einar's Elk and their quest for some treasure. It seemed to me—and, I knew, to Einar—that he had heard more of it than we had, to seize one of us and put him to the question. It did mean, I was thinking, that you had to take Atil's treasure hoard seriously, for surely no one would go to these lengths over some muttered foolishness about a saga tale? Surely he had not come after us over that?

There were chuckles when I hoiked this up, wide-eyed and wild-haired in the Birka wind.

Einar, though, frowned, for it had been revealed then that just about everyone knew the supposed secret of Atil's treasure. And, of course, Einar was going to the same lengths over the foolishness of a saga tale and he did not like to hear that voiced.

`Perhaps so,' he growled. 'I would like to know who has been sent by the King of Norway and the Danes.

And what this someone wants with Ulf-Agar.'

`We must get him back,' said Illugi and there were mutters of approval at that.

Einar nodded. 'We swore an oath to each other,' he said. 'It is Ulf-Agar's bad luck that he knows nothing that would help Bluetooth in this matter, so we will do it quickly, before they kill him by accident.'

Ànd,' muttered Illugi, 'you don't know just what Ulf-Agar knows. Fox-eared, that one.'

`He is, right enough,' murmured Einar, then, louder: Òrm, go with Steinthor, who will point out the warehouse. Watch it carefully. After that, Steinthor should go to the Guest Hall and have his wounds tended.

`Geir Bagnose, you will go to the fortress, to the gate there. A man will come out, cloaked, perhaps hooded. He has a face like a weasel and will be scurrying, I am thinking, like a rat out of a hole. I want to know where he goes without him knowing he is followed.'

Then he turned and led everyone else back to the Guest Hall.

Suddenly, there was just me and Steinthor on the dark street of greasy timbers, in a town now quiet save for a distant shout or two and a barking dog. The buildings were shadowed mounds, angular howes through which the wind whipped.

Shivering, I followed Steinthor as he limped between the houses, first this way, then that. Then he stopped and pointed. I saw a building slightly apart from the others and beyond it the black sea slapping an oak jetty. A lantern swung wildly, dancing weak yellow light over a door in the building. Two figures moved, stamping and dragging cloaks round them against the wind.

With a brief clap on my shoulder, Steinthor was away into the night, the fire and the ale. Bitterly, I watched him go, pulled my cloak tighter around me, up over my head and hunkered down in the lee of a fence, feeling the sodden ground soak into my boots.

The building the fence enclosed was a wattle but with a patch of garden, now muddied. Inside, I heard chickens murmur to each other and two voices talking, though it was too faint for me to hear the words. I only knew that one was low and one was higher. It made me feel all the worse out here, with the rain spitting in my face and the wind swooping and swirling. On the black water, prows danced.

The voices tailed off. Someone snored and, far away, a dog yelped furiously.

Then I heard the first shriek from the warehouse and stiffened. I looked around, but there was no one. If Einar and the others didn't come soon . . .

Another shriek, half whipped away by the wind. I clenched my teeth. Still no sign of anyone.

On the third scream, I could stand it no longer. I moved down towards the warehouse, edging always into the shadows, which took me away from the door and the wild lantern and the guards, round to one flat end of the building, then round again to where the curved back wall stood on a strip of ground, falling away to the shingle and the spray-lashed water.

There were bulky shapes here; I scrambled over discarded barrels of rotting wood, old sodden wool that had once been a sail, frayed rigging, worm-rotted spars. I was sure I was blundering around like the clapper in a bell; every time I made a sound I froze in one spot and waited. But nothing happened.

Another shriek, louder this time.

I found a door, slightly recessed, and had to quietly clear old cordage from in front of it, so I knew it wasn't used.

It was rotted and knot-holed, which let me peer through. I saw faint light, as if from a lantern, but nothing moved. I pressed on the door . . . nothing. I pressed again, harder—and it gave with a soft sigh of rotting splinters and insect husks.

I had an eating knife, the length of my finger, and it felt ridiculous clutching it in One sweaty hand while the blood thundered in my ears and I waited for the rush of feet and the flash of three feet of edged steel.

Nothing but the next shriek nearly made me piss myself, so loud it seemed. It tailed off abruptly and I swore under my breath. Only bloody-minded stupidity was making me do this, I reasoned. I didn't even like Ulf-Agar.

But I knew the real reason, of course. I had sworn the oath and, if it had been me, I'd rather know there was the hope of someone coming for me, than that I was doomed.

It was so dark I had an arm out in front of me, the knife held in the fist of the other, taking one slow, rolling step after another. I had the impression of beams, of a wooden floor, caught a spit of rain on my face and, looking up, glimpsed stars through the ruined roof, then clouds scudded across and they were gone.

There was rubbish everywhere: a series of traps for the unwary. I took two steps and almost went on my arse when my foot skidded off what felt like the shaft of an oar. I gave up, crouched down, started to slither across the floor, waiting all the time for whoever was in the darkness to erupt at me.

As the sweat ran in my eyes I swore that I could see them, waiting just ahead, so that my breath stopped in my throat.

I sent a nest of mice rustling off, which ran all over my feet and, despite myself, I gasped aloud and kicked them off. Then I relaxed; if the room was filled with armed men, they were deaf or dead.

I crept towards the lurking shape, moving so that the faint glimmer of light silhouetted it and not me.

Then I realised what it was and almost shouted out with the joy of relief. A prow. A gods-cursed, arse-wipe of an old prow.

I was wiping my face and trying not to weep with relief of the moment, when it suddenly struck me that the light seemed to be coming from the floor. I found a knothole in a door—there was a cellar.

The square of wood came up smoothly, revealing a set of wooden steps and, compared to what I had been in a moment ago, a lot of light. I lay down, craned my head as far as I could and spotted there was only one way: a passage, with a lantern stuck up on a niche on one wall about halfway down.