of course, smelled trap, but decided that more men might be too easily spotted and scare off the prize. In the rain of the market, though, I wished we had brought those men and more. I kept seeing thugs in every lumbering, bearded shape, every untrusting face smeared with fat to keep it dry.
Valknut found the Finn, who did not seem to warrant a shop at all, since he huddled on a bench in a cloak with a rat-chewed fur collar, sparse hair splayed on his skull and a calculating look in his watery blue eyes.
‘This is Skudi,’ Valknut said and the man nodded, hearing his name. I didn’t speak so much Finn, so tried East Norse, while my father offered up West and Valknut, to my surprise, added Greek.
In that complex maze of tongues, we managed to haggle out a suitable price and, at the same time, warn the Finn that Einar would slit him from balls to chin if he proved false. Einar fished out a purse from under his armpit and sorted out full silver coins from the collection of sliced and whole and slivers in the bag. The Finn looked at them, shook his head and went off on a long rant in three languages.
‘Tell him that’s all he is getting,’ Einar warned, narrowing his eyes. But that wasn’t the problem and I sighed. This was getting complicated.
‘He won’t take srebreniks,’ I said. ‘Says there’s not enough silver in them.’
The srebrenik was a new Rus coin, minted in Kiev from the same design as the favoured Serkland dirham, but the silver flow was now a trickle and the Rus ones had less in them than the Arab coins.
‘His own lord mints them,’ growled Einar, ‘and that’s what he pays us in.’
‘Doesn’t matter to him. He wants old Rus kunas, or Serkland dirham. Or milaresia from Byzantium if you have any.’
‘Fuck him,’ answered Valknut and his slit-eyed gesture with a thumb across the throat was eloquent in any language.
But Skudi was a trader and I had to admire him; he was used to hard haggling and never even broke into a sweat. Instead, he pointed to the silver torc round Einar’s neck, given by Yaropolk as befits a lord to his commanders.
‘That’s worth more,’ spat Einar. ‘He’s a cunning little swine, I will give him that.’
I made swift calculations and shook my head. ‘No, it isn’t. It’s a Rus grivna of silver, worth twenty five. The kuna is the same as a dirham here. He is losing slightly, but he can sell the torc for more since it is pure silver.’
Einar blinked. He had another couple of such rings, as befits a jarl, so could afford to miss this one. My father scrubbed his head furiously and Valknut just glared. Then Einar shrugged, bent the torc off his neck and tossed it to the Finn, who bit it with black teeth and nodded, grinning.
‘How you keep track of all this kunas and dirham and srebrooniks …’ muttered my father. ‘My head hurts with it.’
‘Srebreniks,’ I corrected and marvelled at them. I had already learned a valuable lesson: the Oathsworn and all the other bands like them were good at getting loot, bad at keeping it. A good trader would have the purse from under their armpit without having to beat them into the ground first, providing he could keep in his head the worth of all the different coins swirling around trade centres such as Kiev and Novgorod.
‘Just make sure he doesn’t play us false. I liked that neck ring,’ growled Einar moodily.
The little Finn made the silver circle vanish inside his shirt, then swept his ratty cloak over his head and scuttled out into the rain, us following, looking right and left and expecting trouble.
We left the furrier quarter and the tanner stink behind, splashed and slithered down the walkways until, suddenly, Einar stopped and said, ‘That’s Oleg’s hov.’
We all stopped and Valknut caught the Finn before he could go any further. Oleg, third of the sons of Sviatoslav. Vladimir and our own new lord, Yaropolk, were the other two, though Vladimir was born of a thrall. All of them circled each other like wary young dogs, kept from each other’s throats only by their father, the mighty Prince of the Rus.
The wooden structure was impressive, but strange, with wooden pillars holding up a portion of the eaves, under which two fully armed guards looked at us with barely disguised amusement and caution.
The Finn gabbled furiously and, between us, we managed to work out that the monk was part of Oleg’s retinue and lived and worked in a place round the back.
Einar stroked his dripping moustaches and then hissed to Valknut to take a casual stroll round. ‘Try to see him but not be seen,’ he growled. ‘There’s nothing we can do here and now, but we will come back when there is less chance of being seen.’
We moved, hauling the reluctant Finn with us, to the shelter of another building, away from the eyes of the guards, and waited, trying to look innocent. We all smelled like wet dogs.
Valknut was back swiftly, shaking himself free of rain. ‘It’s him, right enough. Two young boys with him, about your age, Orm. He is scribbling away in the dry, with a brazier of hot coals, the turd.’
‘Those boys will be Gudleif’s sons,’ I said and my father agreed. Einar released the Finn, who vanished into the mirr without a backward glance.
‘We will come back at night,’ Einar said levelly. ‘And put this monk to the question.’
I didn’t bother reminding him that the monk was protected, as part of Oleg’s retinue, as we were in Yaropolk’s. He knew that already, but what was making him chew his nails was whether Martin had told Oleg anything of our business.
So we were back under the same building hours later, when the rain had stopped, in the pitch black of a moon-shrouded night. There was a lantern spreading butter-yellow where the guards had been, but they were gone and the great timber doors closed. I knew that the hov was where Oleg sat during the day, dispensing justice, interviewing, all the things such princes do.
We slid round the side of the building and spotted the glow of another light, spilling from an unshuttered window. Valknut nodded at Einar and we all moved to the place, a mean timber outbuilding to the splendid hov.
Einar wasted no time; he hoofed in the door with a crash and rushed in, seax out.
Martin yelled and fell off a high stool; the youth with him – only one, I saw – went white with fear and scrabbled for the sword he had laid too far away. Valknut swept it up by the baldric and dangled it tantalisingly in front of him, grinning.
‘Martin,’ said Einar, as if greeting a long-lost friend. The monk rose from the floor, using the time to recover his composure. He smoothed his brown robe – new, I saw – and lifted the stool up. Then he smiled.
‘Einar. And young Orm. Yes, lots of old familiar faces here.’
The boy’s head came up and a flush brought colour to those chalk-white cheeks at the sound of my name. My father spotted it, too. ‘Which one of my nephews are you, then?’ he demanded.
The boy licked dry lips. ‘Steinkel.’
‘Where’s your brother? Bjorn, isn’t it?’ I asked and he shrugged. Valknut, at a look from Einar, slid back into the darkness to make sure we weren’t being ambushed.
Martin climbed back on to his stool and recommenced his work, grinding stuff in a bowl. He caught me looking and smiled. ‘Oak galls in vinegar, thickened with gum from Serkland and some salts of iron,’ he said. ‘Encaustum, from the Latin caustere, to bite. But you know that, young Orm, for you can read Latin. But you cannot write in any language.’
Now I knew the reason for the yellow-black scorch marks on his fingertips – which was one of the few familiar signs about him now. He had both grown and withered since I had seen him last. He had a beard now and his bald patch – a tonsure, I had learned – was freshly shaven. Yet he was thinner and something had chiselled away at his face, sinking his