their glances and handed out a bound parchment. ‘It is in that Latin you read. What does it say?’
I did not know and said so, but Brother John did, for it was Greek and he knew that language well. As he read it, his brow furrowed.
‘This is from Choniates, to the Archbishop Honorius of Larnaca, saying that the men who have this message are acting on behalf of one Starkad, who is acting for Choniates and should be given all help…and so on and so on. It seems they were to collect something and carry it back to Choniates.’
‘Does it say what it is?’ I asked as everyone gathered round to listen.
Brother John examined the parchment further, then shook his head and shrugged. ‘No, not a word – but it must be expensive if Choniates handed him that sword for it.’
Aye, he had the right of it – Starkad had stolen the runesword for the Greek and then been given it back as payment for a service. If he was paid that richly, it was no small service.
‘What is so special about this sword?’ Radoslav demanded, scrubbing his head in fury.
There were shrugs. Eyes flicked to me and I smiled at the big Slav – then told him the truth of it, watching him closely as I did so. His eyes went large and round and he licked lips suddenly dry, a lizard look I did not care for much.
‘Small wonder, then, that they wanted to avoid us,’ he offered, passing it all off as casually as he could, though his fevered eyes spoiled the stone-smoothness he tried for. ‘Why was Starkad not here?’ he asked, recovering, and it was a good question.
Because he was on a second ship and still looking for Martin. It seemed to me that he had sent his men racing ahead, armed and prepared to undertake this quest for Choniates, but it was my bet Starkad couldn’t give the steam off his piss about it, did not want to waste time sailing all the way back to the Great City. He did it for the payment, but he wanted Martin the monk – no, not even that. He wanted that stupid Holy Lance, so he could go home. He had sailed on to Serkland, as rune-bound in his way as we were in ours.
I just had to say that little monk’s name, though, and everyone understood.
Kvasir spat pointedly. ‘We were no threat to those men of Starkad, if they were armed with all this,’ he noted with a grunt. ‘Loki played a bad trick on them when he made them sheer away from us, right into the path of wolves with better fangs.’
A Loki trick that had won us a rich cargo. Finn beamed when I said this, his beard slick with lamb grease.
‘Just so, Trader, and a fine price it will pull down for us.’
‘True enough,’ mused Radoslav, running that dagger blade over his head again, his circle of runes puckered on his forehead as he frowned. ‘North-made blades sell well in Serkland – those watered blades especially.’
Finn scowled. ‘I will not sell the Godi.’
‘The what?’ demanded Radoslav. ‘Is this another marvellous sword that demands a name, like this Rune Serpent?’
Finn grinned and explained about the snake-knot of runes, adding, ‘But my blade has been named. The Godi.’
‘In honour of me, no doubt,’ said Brother John drily.
‘In a way,’ Finn answered. ‘Since I seem to be killing more Christ-followers these days, it seems the name to give my blade – because it’s the last thing they see before they die. A priest.’
‘Of course,’ I went on casually into the laughter that followed, ‘there is always the other matter.’
Finn looked at me quizzically and the others sat up, interested.
‘We also have a secret message, about something to be picked up in Larnaca – where is Larnaca anyway?’
‘The island of Cyprus,’ Radoslav said. ‘Orm has the right of it. Whatever they were to get for Choniates is worth much more than what we have.’
‘Gold, perhaps,’ I said. ‘Pearls, silver…who knows? Choniates is a rich man.’
‘Gold,’ repeated Finn.
‘Hmearls,’ breathed Arnor through his ruined nose. He fretted about it, for a slit nose was the mark given by lawmakers to a habitual thief and he did not like having such a sign. That and the pain, though, was forgotten in the bright balm of promised riches.
‘What of Starkad?’ growled Finn like a loud fart at a funeral. There was silence and shame as everyone worked out what the cost of delaying on a hunt for gold and pearls in Cyprus would do to letting Starkad escape with an even greater treasure.
Then I told them what I had thought out; Einar would have been proud of me. ‘Trapping is better than hunting. Instead of chasing Starkad all over the sea, let us have Starkad come to us. This treasure Choniates desires might be worth the price of a runesword to Starkad. He cannot afford to fail two masters. We have this letter, to be carried to an Archbishop who has never seen Starkad or his men. At most he may have been told Norsemen are coming.’
Radoslav grinned. ‘We are Norsemen.’
‘Just so,’ I replied and turned into Finn’s grin.
‘You are a man for clever, right enough,’ he growled. ‘Where, on this chart of Radoslav’s, is this Cyprus?’
The Volchock was no sleek drakkar, or even hafskip, as I have said. It bounced on the waves rather than slicing them, and fought us, as a little bear might. But you could see why the people of the Middle Sea called ships ‘she’ – that was how you sailed a knarr, teasing her into the wind rather than using force, persuading her until you found one she liked.
Finn spat derisively when I started that, saying that you did the same with bulls and stallions and old boar pigs if you were sensible, adding that a ship was a ship and no good would come of dressing it in skirts. Especially skirts, for a woman was a useless thing at sea. There was good reason, he finished, that the word for ship in Norse is neither woman nor man.
Sighvat said it was a good thing. ‘After all,’ he added, ‘there is always expense with a ship as with a woman. And always a gang of men around. And a ship has a waist, shows off a top and hides a bottom.’
‘It takes an experienced man to get the best out of a ship and a woman,’ added Kvasir into the roars of laughter. They went on with it, finding new comparisons while they cursed it in equal measure. If you could gybe or tack, a knarr was a good vessel, but when the wind failed, you hauled down the sail and waited, rolling and wallowing, until another came up from the right quarter – or just sailed in the wrong direction.
Gizur had his own views on Radoslav’s ship. ‘The rigging needs to be served, seized or whipped properly,’ he declared to me with disgust. ‘The beitiass should be shortened, the cleats moved and blocks rigged to tighten it.’ He raised a hand, as if presenting a jewel of great value, though his face was twisted with disgust. When he opened his fist, there was a handful of what looked like oatmeal. ‘Look at this. Just look at it.’
‘What is it?’ demanded Radoslav fearfully and I was close behind him. Some wood-rotting disease? A rune curse?
‘Shavings, from the rakki lines,’ Gizur said with a snort. I looked up at the rakki, the yoke which snugged round the mast and took all the strain of hauling the sail up and down.
‘The lines are rubbing the mast away,’ Gizur went on, frowning. ‘It is falling like snow!’
Radoslav rubbed his chin and tugged his brow-braids, then shrugged shamefacedly and said, ‘The truth of it is that this is only the second sea voyage I have ever done. I am a riverman, a born and bred oarsman. I traded happily up and down from Kiev, furs for silver, and made