matter what you call it,’ I spat back into his plump smile, ‘it is never let far from the Great City. Nor into the hands of such as Styrbjorn. I had heard it was a great crime to do so.’
‘Indeed,’ he replied sombrely. ‘The ingredients of what you call Roman Fire were disclosed by an angel to the first great Constantine. It was he who ordained that there should be a curse, in writing and on the Holy Altar of the Church of God, on any who dare give the secret to another nation.’
He paused and frowned.
‘Whether this is giving the secret is a matter for debate – the likes of Styrbjorn could not learn how to make it from what he has been given. However, such an event is cause for concern among many departments of the Imperium, where such weapons are strictly regulated.’
Concern? Burned ships and dead men were more than concern and I bellowed that at him. The rage gagged in my throat, both at his diffidence and the implication that the northers were barbarians too stupid to find out the secret of Roman Fire from weapons handed out like toys to bairns. It did not cool me any to know he was right in it, too.
He nodded, smooth as a polished mirror and seemingly unconcerned by my glaring.
‘Indeed. I would not be surprised if certain of those departments took steps to find out what has happened to their missing amounts.’
‘Such as sending someone to find out?’
He inclined his head, face blank as an egg.
‘I would not be in the least surprised.’
I watched him for a moment longer, but nothing flickered on it, no firm sign that he was the one sent to find out. He was young – not in the way we counted it, but certainly in the way the Great City did – but I suspected he had been sent and that made him a man to be watched. In the end, I broke the locked antlers of our eyes, turning to tell everyone that Styrbjorn had sent warriors here to end the life of Sigrith and the child she carried in her belly, so that he would remain sole heir to the high seat of the Svears and Geats.
The women grunted, while the men stayed silent. I did not say anything about why Randr Sterki had – I was sure – begged Styrbjorn to be the one to take on the task; those who remembered what we had done on Svartey did not need reminding of it. I told them all we would move north, across the mountains, as soon as it was light enough to see, trying to keep my voice easy, as if I was telling them when we would sow rye and in what field that year.
Afterwards, when others had rolled into skins and cloaks, I sat with Finn listening to Botolf snore – alone by the fire, for he had given his space beside Ingrid to Helga and Aoife and the other bairns, for better warmth. In the dark, I heard Aoife cooing softly to Cormac to soothe him – beautiful boy, she said. Where’s my lovely boy, white as an egg, then?
‘If it comes to it,’ Finn said eventually, ‘I will fight Randr Sterki.’
‘Why you?’ I countered and he shrugged and looked at me, half-ashamed, half-defiant. The memory of him humping away at the dying wife of Randr Sterki slunk sourly between us.
‘I killed his boy,’ I said sourly. ‘So it should be me. Red Njal, I am remembering, killed others of his family. Perhaps we should take it in turns.’
Botolf woke himself with a particularly large snore and sat up, groaning and wiping sleep from his eyes.
‘Odin’s arse…my shoulder and back hurt. I hate sleeping on the ground in winter.’
‘A hard raiding man like you?’ snorted Finn. ‘Surely not.’
‘Shut your hole, Finn,’ Botolf countered amiably, sitting up and wincing. ‘The worse thing is the itch in my wooden leg.’
There was silence for a moment; a last log collapsed and whirled sparks up.
‘What are we going to do?’ demanded Botolf suddenly.
‘About what? Your itching log-leg?’ I asked and he waved his arms wildly in all directions.
‘All this. The queen and weans.’
‘We take them to Vitharsby and then east to Jarl Brand,’ I told him.
‘Just like that?’ Botolf snapped. He rubbed his beard with frustration. ‘Hunted by toad-licking wearers of bear and wolf skins? And at least a ship’s crew of hard raiders? With a woman about to pup and half the bairns in the country?’
‘One of them your own,’ Finn pointed out poisonously. ‘Another is mine. Do we begin throwing them over our shoulder as we run, then? We will start with Helga Hiti.’
I saw Botolf’s face twist and frown as he fought to work all this out, only succeeding in fuelling more anger.
‘What do you think we should do?’ I asked and it was like throwing water on a sleeping drunk. He blinked. He blew out through pursed lips and surfaced with a thought, triumphant.
‘We ought to leave the queen and ride off with our own,’ he declared. ‘We could go to Thordis’ place, which will be Finn’s when he marries her. What are the fate of kings and princes to us, eh?’
It was astounding. I remembered Jarl Brand had said something of the same when we were in Serkland, only it was about the back-stabbing in high places that went on in the Great City. It never stopped amazing me, the things that stuck in Botolf’s thought-cage.
‘She is our queen,’ Finn growled, flailing with one hand, as if trying to pluck the words he needed out of the air. ‘We have to protect her. And Thordis’ steading is only a short ride from Hestreng – if it was not behind the hills here, you could probably see it burn.’
I looked at him, but if the thought of everything he might one day own going up in smoke bothered him, he did not betray it by as much as a catch in his voice. Botolf flung his arms in the air.
‘Protect the queen? Why? She would not give the likes of me the smell off her shit,’ he grunted sourly. ‘And how do we protect her? There is barely a handful of us.’
‘We are Oathsworn,’ Finn declared, thrusting out his chin. ‘How can we do anything else but guard a queen and the heir to the throne of Eirik the Victorious?’
There was silence then, for fair fame had closed its jaws and even Botolf had no answer for the grip of them. We were Oathsworn, Odin’s own, and would die before we took one step back, so the skalds had it. Not for the first time I marvelled at how fame had shackles stronger than iron to fasten you to a hopeless endeavour.
‘Might be a girl,’ Botolf offered sullenly and I shook my head. Thorgunna had done her hen’s egg test and it had come up as a boy, no mistake. I said as much.
‘Ah well,’ Finn said as Botolf continued to glower. ‘Perhaps you have the right of it, Botolf. I never did care much for wealth and glory; after all, we have all we need, though rebuilding Thordis’ place – if it is burned and if I wed her – will be expensive and all gold is useful.’
He stretched, winked at me where Botolf could not see and farted sonorously.
‘Anyway,’ he went on. ‘Once I have a ship under me I am a happy man – so perhaps we should tether the queen here like a goat and head for safety.’
‘Aha!’ Botolf declared triumphantly, looking from me to Finn and back. Then he frowned.
‘What wealth and glory?’
I shrugged, picking up from Finn as he looked wickedly at me from under his hair, pretending to wipe a scrap of fat-rich fleece carefully up and down The Godi.
‘The usual stuff,’ I said. ‘Meaningless to the likes of us, who have silver and fame and land enough already.’
‘I have no land,’ Botolf growled and I felt a pang of shame, for I had known this was a fret for him, since Ingrid constantly nagged and chafed him over it, wanting him to be first in his own hall rather than just another follower in