to say who is more touched,’ I went on, not looking at anyone. ‘Her with her rolling eyes and shakes and sure wisdom that she knows where these riches are hid, or all of us for following blindly after.’ Then I gazed straight at Einar and said, ‘Maybe she is your doom. Sent by Odin, who does not like oath-breakers …’
I got no further, for his hand was on my throat and his black eyes so close to mine I could feel the lashes on my cheeks. I could not breathe, dare not move.
‘You have not been with us long, Rurik’s son, but already I am regretting being so indulgent for your father’s sake.’
His grip tightened and I felt my eyes bulge like a frog’s.
‘Einar,’ said Illugi warningly and even through the roaring in my ears I heard the anxious sound in his voice. The steel fingers closed a little harder.
‘An exchange of views?’ enquired a new voice, barely heard through the thunder in my head. ‘Or are you offering a kiss of peace, as the Christ-men do when they promise friendship?’
The fingers relaxed a little and Einar’s voice was booming, even though he spoke in the softest of growls: ‘This is no matter for you, Gunnar Raudi.’
I tried to look for him, but Einar’s eyes were locked on mine still, great tunnels, like the entrances to dwarven caves.
‘I shall not speak on it, then,’ said Gunnar easily. ‘I have another who will do that.’
The soft sucking sound of a blade from a sheath was echoed by Illugi’s indrawn breath. ‘Hold this,’ he declared, deep and stern and I knew, without seeing, that he had his staff up. ‘Gunnar, put peace-strings back on that. Einar, let the boy go. There is nothing but doom in this for all.’
The release, when it came, was sudden enough to make me fall to the ground, coughing, my throat thundering with pain and every breath in it a rasp with thorns. When I could finally look up and take Illugi’s offered wrist, I found my legs shook.
Gunnar Raudi, his snow-in-bracken hair tied back with a leather thong, stood easily, casually, one hand on the hilt of his sword. Einar, his lips like a scar, stood opposite him, the black cloak of hair framing a face pale as a winter moon.
Illugi stepped forward between them, as if to sever some unseen rope that seemed to be leaning them towards one another.
‘This Hun lord,’ he went on, as if nothing had interrupted the conversation, ‘was the Great City’s enemy, so it is believed. He fought them in his time and was slain for it by a general called Anagestes. He was brought back to the steppe lands to be howed up.’
The tension, like a sail emptied of wind, flapped once and was gone. Einar grunted, stuffed gear into a leather bag and looped it over one shoulder. His shield went over the other. No one was taking mail, despite the threats: the heat was too great for that.
‘Well, one thing is certain,’ Einar said, offering a grin free of any mirth. ‘Our Hild is leading him a little dance out on to the steppe.’
Our Hild. Like she was his sister. I watched him combing his hair to try to rid it of the worst of the nits, then tie it back with a leather thong against the heat. My own crawled with lice, but I would not shave it, as others did, since that was the mark of a thrall and I could not bring myself to go so far, sensible or not.
Einar shouldered past Gunnar Raudi and I swear I saw the hair on them rise, like the hackles on wolves, as they brushed against each other. My throat ached and I knew that there would be the mark of five livid bruises on it.
Our Hild. She was no more ‘our Hild’ than I could fart gold, but Einar clearly thought she was one of the Oathsworn, whether she had sworn or no. He did not, for an eyeblink, imagine that Hild could be playing him false and Vigfus was on the correct track, which was my thought on the matter at the time. Wrong, of course.
Illugi Godi looked once at Gunnar Raudi, then at me and shook his head. ‘You are fools, the one for his loose gob, the other for getting into a pissing contest with the likes of Einar.’
‘If you don’t want to get your toes wet,’ answered Gunnar Raudi with a chuckle, levering himself off the doorpost, ‘then keep your shoes away from my pisser.’
Illugi raised a defiant chin and his staff, the mark of his rank, but Gunnar merely grinned at him and swaggered off.
‘Asgard seems a little deaf to you these days, Odin priest,’ he threw back over his shoulder as he went – and I saw Illugi flinch, his head drooping for the first time that day.
There was no hint of any of that now as Einar took a knee, sweat-gleamed and grinning, to face the lolling-tongued dog-men he had led into the Grass Sea.
‘We must be close,’ he called out, glancing at the sun as it started to die, slow and glorious on the edge of the world. ‘Tomorrow we’ll be on them and get our Hild back.’
The men growled appreciative responses, muted and weary in the heat.
Einar climbed slowly to his feet and hefted his shield and gear to more comfortable spots. ‘For now,’ he grinned, ‘we move.’
‘Our Hild,’ I muttered morosely as I got up and Illugi, passing, heard it and cocked his head quizzically.
‘Our Hild,’ I repeated. ‘She has suffered nothing but hard knocks from us. He even took away the one thing she had, that bloody spear-shaft. And yet he imagines she is “our Hild”.’
‘She suffered worse under Vigfus and Lambisson,’ Illugi reminded me sternly, leaning on his staff, ‘from which we rescued her.’
I grudgingly admitted that and he eyed me carefully as I limped forward.
‘Make no mistake with Einar, though,’ he went on, for my ears only. ‘He calls her “our Hild” because that is what she is. Not Vigfus’s, or Lambisson’s, or the property of Martin the thrice-cursed monk. Ours, Orm. As the Elk is ours. As the silver hoard is ours. I would watch my sullen face and loud tongue round Einar these days. You have become … unlucky … for him. Next time he may rip the throat out of you.’
I looked straight back at him and saw the harsh lines etched in his face, lines of worry and strain, and Gunnar Raudi’s words came back to me. I saw the gods were crushing our priest with their apathy these days and he could find no way to speak to them that would get them to listen.
‘I know it,’ I replied and slapped my leg. ‘Let’s hope my limp gets no worse and he has, with all sadness, to leave me behind, eh?’
‘He would do it,’ Illugi said.
‘I have always known that, I am thinking,’ I said flatly. ‘The difference here, today, is that now so would you, Illugi Godi. A good offering to appease whatever gods Einar has annoyed, eh, godi? Better than a fighting horse, you think?’
I left him, savage with the triumph of the moment, turning away and limping after the others, out of the twilight forest and on to the baking steppe. Later, I was ashamed of myself for having said it, for Illugi had been patient and good with me. But too much had happened by then.
We reached another huddle of trees as the darkness grew and the stars came out. We had no fires and the night was cold, so that those who had decided not to burden themselves with cloaks found themselves shivering, doubly cold after the baking heat of the day. We shared, then, huddled in twos and threes, silvered by a great wheel of stars and moonlight in a perfect, clear night.
In the washed silver of early dawn we were up and assembled, coughing, farting, sniffing, chewing. Men shivered, took a final piss and sorted out their gear, knowing Bagnose had come in during the night with news.
The tomb was found and Vigfus with it, led by the nose to it, it seemed to me, following on after Hild. Steinthor was watching the entrance even now.
Einar listened and nodded and clapped Bagnose on the shoulder, then looked over the wolf-eager faces round him, their breath steaming in the dawn chill, and