to wear a cloak and hide a proper blade beneath it.
Bagnose nodded to me, then walked forward with unhurried steps. He stopped, turned and looked incredibly interested in the whole hog’s head a butcher was lugging through the crowd, dripping blood and trailing flies.
Another man had joined White Gunnbjorn, not tall, but so thin he seemed taller. He had a sharp face and stringy hair round the sides of his head only, while his beard was long and combed and forked, the ends fastened with ribbons the same colour as his leg-bindings, which were purple. That and a loose, red silk tunic, fat breeks the colour of cornflowers and a belt made of silver lappets made him easy to place, even though I had never seen him.
Vigfus, called Skartsmadr Mikill – Quite the Dandy.
Gunnar Raudi wandered up, as if he had just encountered me in the street, his eyes hard above the cheery grin, his face sheened with sweat and his frosted red curls tucked under a round wool hat that must be broiling his head.
‘Vigfus,’ he said and I nodded. He glanced back, to where Einar was well hidden from any eyes that might know him, and inclined his chin. Presumably he got an answer for he took a deep breath, adjusted his belt and walked unhurriedly up the street towards the four men on the wooden steps of the tannery.
I followed, slightly behind him, and knew the others were following me. I saw Bagnose turn, too, moving up behind the sweating butcher and his grisly load, using it as cover to get closer.
There was a blur of movement, blasting into the pain in my head, into the glare that had slitted my eyes. Stunned, I could only watch as a spear arced out of an alley to our left, whicking across the street towards Gunnar Raudi. They had left a cunning watcher and we had all missed him.
The gods know how Gunnar saw it – even he did not know much beyond a flicker at the edge of his vision. He dropped a shoulder, spun in a half-crouch and the spear missed him, the shaft scoring across his shoulder, plunging on into the dimness of a booth, where a screech announced its arrival.
The street was in uproar. Gunnar crashed into two men carrying a bale of cloth; I stood and gawped, until something smacked ringing lights and exploding pain in my head.
‘Move, you rat fart!’ roared Bagnose, surging forward.
I stumbled, collided with a screaming woman, fell to one knee and raised my head, blinking dust and confusion. I saw Gunnar Raudi vanish down the alley after the spear-thrower, roaring his anger and fear in that direction.
Bagnose had skidded to a halt, since White Gunnbjorn and the two others were whipping out lengths of sharp steel and coming in his direction, slowed only by the skittering, yelling crowd getting in their way.
And Vigfus was bolting into the tanners’ building.
I sprang up then and I will never know why – stung by Bagnose’s slap, or even my own fear, perhaps. I ran, swerving round White Gunnbjorn, hearing Einar and the others roaring their way up the street behind me, blades out.
For a moment, the transition from dazzling light to the dim twilight of the tannery blinded me and I skidded to a halt, blinking. Then I caught the brief gleam of silver from Vigfus’s belt as he skittered up a set of wooden stairs. I was after him, knife out, taking the stairs three at a time.
He bolted down a narrow work hall and shot round a corner into a room bright with daylight from opened shutters. I followed, cursing the worn-smooth soles of my leather boots on the wooden floors. I slid as if on bone skates, straight into a table, scattering shocked tallymen and their sticks and birch-bark notes.
Amid the shouts and the clatter and the pain of a bruised shin, I saw Vigfus reach the end of the room and thought I had him. There was no way out.
Save the open-shuttered window, which he took with a long-legged leap.
Cursing, I scrambled to my feet, fisted a red-faced, shrieking tallyman in the chest out of the way and sprang to the same window.
Beyond was the slanted short roof of the eaves, looking out over the sprawling yard of the tannery and its huddle of buildings. Between was crammed with vats, wooden frames, strung lines and milling, near-naked, sweating men hooking stinking hides on to long poles or feeding fires under boiling vats. The heat and acrid stink sucked the air away, as if I was breathing through wet linen.
Vigfus was skittering along the wooden shingles. He fell over a rope slung up for washing and rugs, rolled and, for one glorious moment, I thought he was over the edge and done for.
But he stopped himself, sprang up to all fours and looked back at me, for that moment like some strange spider. I thought he was set to come at me, so I slid to a halt and brought the blade up. He twisted his mouth into a scornful grin, sprang upright and raced along the short roof, stopped, looked both ways, then leaped outwards, his arms at full stretch, seax in his teeth.
I gawped. He had to be lying in the tannery yard, hopefully head first in a vat of piss. I ran to the spot – but there was nothing. Then I saw the rope, slung slantwise between buildings, backed up, took a deep breath and did a truly foolish thing, brought on by youth and the sudden grim obsession not to let the fart get away.
I stuck the seax in my teeth and dived out at the slender arc of rope.
I hit it, grasped, swung – as he must have done – and crashed towards a square opening, the shutters half closed.
I splattered the flimsy framework to shreds, felt splinters rip into my arm and plunged into the room beyond in a welter of flying wood, reed flooring and straw from a bed pallet that exploded under me.
I fell and rolled and came up tearing the seax from my mouth and slashing wildly, but the room was empty and all I managed to do was cut my tongue and the side of my mouth.
I saw the doorway, blocked by a simple curtain. I ripped it apart and found myself in another open hallway, filled with shrouded door openings. Stairs led down into the gloom and the smell of pine and tanners’ piss was heavy. I felt blood and sweat trickle and spat more on to the floor. The side of my mouth stung with the sharpest pain of them all. I was panting and soaked and desperate at the thought I had lost him.
I ran to the first room and frantically tore aside the hangings on the door openings: boxes, bales, dead rats, live rats. The next one was a room with another square opening blazing with light on the splintered debris of fresh wood; the one after that was a room with a straw bed and nothing …
A room with a smashed opening and shards of wood littering the floor. Where he had come in. And gone out again.
I sprang to the window, stuck the seax in my tunic and snaked out of it. I hauled myself upwards this time, on to the sloping wooden shingles, baking in the heat and so dry they cracked like ice. I slithered, cursing, on the ones that came loose.
I saw him then, his red tunic torn and fluttering, one purple leg-binding trailing and the fancy ribbons on one fork of his beard ripped loose. He glared wildly at me and scuttled down the tiles and over the far side.
Odin’s arse, would he never stop running? I skated after him, saw the short drystone wall he had dropped on to – astride it, I noted savagely – and was clambering up on, limping painfully and clutching his cods.
People were yelling at us from the tannery yard and on the other side of the wall was the street. I dropped heavily on to the wall, managed not to slam it into my groin, swayed alarmingly for a moment, then caught my balance as Vigfus walked along the uneven, crumbling, narrow wall-top, hands out for balance.
Then I saw Einar and Gunnar Raudi and others, spilling into the tannery yard – but the wall was too high for them to reach him.
He saw them at the same time as I did, reasoned at the same time as they did and avoided the weapons they were preparing to hurl at him by leaping down the other side of the wall, with a curse, to the street below.
‘Go round, go round!’ I shrieked and they all turned and headed the long way round the buildings, elbowing people out of the way.
They’d never make it in time