sign he did not agree. ‘There are a deal too many goat-humpers being talked of for my comfort.’
Sighvat nodded soberly, stroking the glossy head of one of his ravens and spoke, quiet and thoughtful and smack on the mark. ‘Well, what if Starkad is there? And our sword?’
Our sword, I noted. There was silence, save for Radoslav, who rubbed his head in a fury of frustration. ‘What is so special about this sword?’ he demanded. ‘Apart from cutting anvils. Why is it called Rune Serpent?’
‘What do we do with Starkad and his men if we free them?’ demanded Gizur, ignoring him. ‘The Volchok is too small for all of us.’
‘We could leave Starkad and his men on the island once the goat-humpers have been beaten,’ Brother John said firmly. ‘Alive.’
Finn grunted, which made Brother John frown, but none of us voiced what the rest of us knew; no one could be left alive to follow us once we had the runesword back.
Still, there were heads shaking over it, but I had seen another possibility.
‘What were Starkad’s men wearing when they stood at his back in the Dolphin, Horsehead?’ I asked and Finn frowned, thinking.
‘Well, I saw one had a good cloak and a silver pin that I liked. And there was a bulge under the other one’s armpit that spoke of a fat purse…’
I sighed, for Finn’s eyes saw only what he fancied. ‘A byrnie?’ I prompted and the frown lifted when the idea dawned on him. He nodded, creasing his face in a grin. They had come helmed and armoured.
‘Coats of rings. And no doubt good swords and helms and shields,’ I pointed out. ‘Even on a scabby Greek knarr Starkad’s men would go well equipped. And even if he is not there, that loot would be worth the risk.’
Brother John clasped his hands together and looked piously at the sky. ‘Et vanum stolidae proditionis opus,’ he intoned.
Vain is the work of senseless treachery – and Sighvat nodded as if he understood it and released the raven in the direction we knew Patmos lay. Screeching raucously, the bird wheeled off over the white-caps and Sighvat offered his own translation of Brother John’s Latin.
‘Shame to leave all that battle-gear to men who treat goats so badly,’ he said.
The raven did not come back.
From the brow of the ridge we could look down on the remains of Skala, a small town where lanterns bobbed in a night wind that sighed over the barren scrub and rocks. A huge fire burned in what appeared to be the central square, flattening now and then in the breeze, and I counted a good dozen round it, laughing, talking, eating from the one dish. All the good citizens of the town had long since fled to the wilderness, or been sold to slavery.
These raiders were not so much different from us, I saw. They’d had a good day, gained plunder and were enjoying the fact so much it never crossed their minds that anyone would be here. It was something I remembered after and always set men on watch.
I also remember wondering if this was how it had been with Einar, always noting little things, always having to deep-think until your head hurt, always having the others there, at one and the same time a comfort and a curse.
We had come up to it in a fever of constant watches, tacking, gybing and working the sail furiously against a hissing wind, mirr-sodden and fretful, which swung this way and that. We had to lower the sail for a while and rock there, licking dry lips and squinting at the faded horizon for the first sight of a sail that would be pirates, for sure.
Then the wind came right, smack on the starboard quarter, and we hauled up the sail again, which it was my turn to do. It is no easy task and was a mark of how strong I had become that Gizur left it to me and Short Eldgrim – me to haul, he to tail the line, making it fast round a pin.
I was so lost in the act I didn’t notice anything, for it was not a simple pulling, more of a falling to the deck with your whole bodyweight cranking the rakki – the yoke that held the sail – up the mast to where it should be.
The line slipped, as it always does, and made a fresh welt on my hand – all of the crew had cuts and welts, slow to heal in the constant damp, filled with pus and stinging. Except me. Mine healed quickly and left no scars, which had been a hackle-raising thing for me, convinced as I was that the rune-serpent sword was the cause.
Yet it had gone and that seemed to make no difference; I healed just as well. I was cheered by that and was starting to think that perhaps I should believe what Finn and Kvasir said, that I was just young, healthy and Odin-lucky.
I was examining the fresh welt when Kvasir yelled out: ‘Land ahead.’
We all craned to see. Sure enough, there it was, a sliver of dark against the damp pewter sky. Gizur looked at me questioningly and I looked at the sky in reply. We had, perhaps, four hours of good daylight and would be on the land in one. I signalled to him and we slipped the sail up a knot, so that the Volchok surged a little harder.
‘What do you think, Trader?’ asked Sighvat.
‘Your Odin pet was a strong flier,’ I told him, then turned to the rest of the crew who were off-watch and told them to break out weapons and shields. Sighvat crooned softly to one of the two birds he had left and stroked its glossy black head. It looked at me with a cold, hard eye, showing me the black cave of its mouth in an ugly hiss.
Men checked straps and edges, faces like stones. Twelve of us, all that was left of the Oathsworn here, which was just enough to crowd the knarr and not enough for a shieldwall. I wondered how many Arab sea-raiders there were and must have said it aloud.
‘Pirates,’ growled Radoslav and spat over the side. ‘Nikephoras Phokas drove the burnous-wearing shits out of Crete about five years ago, but the survivors took to the other islands and are now like ticks on an old bitch. Sooner or later, the Great City will have to do something, for attacks on merchants are becoming too frequent.’
‘They might scare Greeks,’ growled Finn, ‘but they haven’t met us yet. Now we are raiders of the sea, not just some goat-worriers in a boat.’
Radoslav nodded thoughtfully. ‘Those goat-worriers forced the Basileus to use hundreds of ships and Greek Fire to stamp them out of Crete. Took him a year.’
Finn grinned and wiped his mouth. ‘There’s too much Slav in you and not enough good Norse blood. Eh, Spittle?’
Kvasir growled something which no one heard clearly, but Finn beamed. ‘The Basileus should have used us,’ he boasted, slapping his chest. ‘Our steel and Orm’s thinking.’
My thinking was simple enough, arrived at after a Thing held on board as we reached the island, saw the lights and moved round to the other side of it, where we land-fastened the Volchok.
No one was left aboard, for we needed every man, but I had explained a plan to them that they thought cunning enough to agree on. Everyone was eager as hunting dogs for this, sure that we had Starkad cornered and that the secret of Atil’s silver howe would be back in our grasp before long.
Save me. I knew Starkad was not here. No pack of Arab dogs would have had such an easy time of it if he had been aboard the knarr. They were his men, right enough – but where he was remained a mystery, though I was sure he was heading in the right direction in another fat knarr. He could even be lurking somewhere close, out on the black, moonglittered sea.
Short Eldgrim and Arnor and two others circled round to the left, carrying the dead men we had fished out of that sea. Brother John had insisted on this, to give them a decent burial rather than leave them to Ran, wife of Aegir the sea god and mother to the drowned. I had agreed, but not because of his Christ sensibilities; I had thought of a better task for them.
The