The Prow Beast. Robert Low

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 mine. That was why I had mentioned it.

      ‘Oh, aye,’ I said, as if just realising it, then shrugged. ‘Still. We would have to bring the queen and bairn safe back to King Eirik before he showered us with rings and praise and odal-rights on steadings – after all, it is his first-born and the heir to his wealth and lands. What would he not give for such a safe return? But – too dangerous, as you say. Better to cut and run, pick up the pieces of our old lives once these hard raiders have gone.’

      There was silence, broken only by the rain hissing in the dying fire and the snores of the sleepers nearby.

      ‘Would they really give us land?’ Botolf asked after a while.

      ‘Aye, sadly, for we are men of the sea, after all,’ Finn replied. ‘Still – skalds would write whole sagas about you.’

      ‘Fuck that,’ Botolf grunted. ‘I have such sagas already. You cannot graze goats on a saga. And for a man of the sea, Finn Horsearse, you are talking of steadings readily enough.’

      He was silent for a moment and I decided enough was enough; somewhere, through the rain mist, dawn was racing at us. I half rose and Botolf looked up and spoke.

      ‘Do you think we can win against ulfhednar?’ he asked suddenly. Finn laughed, quiet and savage; I sat down again, chilled by the term, which was used for madmen in wolfskins.

      ‘Have we ever been beaten?’ Finn demanded.

      Botolf considered it for a moment, then stood up, nodding and serious.

      ‘Then you are right. We are Oathsworn. We never run from a fight and this is our queen. I am with you, for sure. Now I am off to a warm bed, if I can squeeze in between bairns.’

      Finn watched him stump off into the dark beyond the fire and shook his head wearily.

      ‘By the Hammer – there are stones with more clever than him.’

      We both knew, all the same, that all Botolf had needed was an excuse to do what he already knew to be right, to have someone persuade him to it.

      Then Finn turned to me, sliding The Godi back into the sheath.

      ‘Do you think we can beat them?’ he asked.

      We had to. It was as simple as that. I said so and he nodded, rising and heading off for his own bed, leaving me with fire-shapes and weariness.

      Thorgunna, when I went to her, was awake, sitting hunched up and wrapped in blankets and almost under the wagon in which the queen of all the Svears and Geats groaned and gasped. Nearby, Kuritsa huddled under a cloak – not his own, I fancied – under the canopy and out of the rain and his black eyes watched me arriving. He was a thrall and his name meant ‘chicken’ because, when I had bought him, he had a shock of hair like a cock’s comb before it was cut to stubble.

      ‘No-one sleeps tonight,’ I said, trying to be light with it. Thorgunna pulled me down beside her, tenting me under her cloak and blankets, giving me her warmth. Her head was heavy on my shoulder.

      ‘Kuritsa just arrived,’ she said. ‘The two who ran off with him are still missing and Kuritsa does not know where they are. But he killed a man, he says.’

      That was news and I sat up. Kuritsa sat up, too, looking warily at me from out of the cave of his face.

      ‘You killed a man,’ I said to him and he nodded uneasily; I was not surprised at his wariness, since thralls found with weapons were almost always killed outright.

      ‘I took his little knife and killed him,’ he said, almost defiantly. ‘Then I took his bow and shot at his friend, but it was dark, I was hasty and I am out of the way of it. I missed.’

      He produced the bow and three arrows, СКАЧАТЬ