Robert Low - The Whale Road

`Where, then,' Einar demanded, 'is Brondolf?'

If he had hurled the silver cup to the polished wood of the floor he couldn't have created more of a silence. Martin looked round, blinked and sighed.

Ì had hoped he would be here to tell you himself, but it seems that he has been caught up in events,' the monk said in his gentle, accented voice. 'Things are happening in the wider world—Bluetooth, for one—

which have to be dealt with.'

`What was in the saint's box?' asked Einar quietly.

Martin shrugged. He paused, then answered, 'Bones. Some writings, but not what I had hoped.' He rose and crossed to a small chest, opened it and took out a cloth bag, which chinked softly. 'Brondolf is disappointed in me, I fear,' he went on with a wry, deprecating smile, which twisted his face into a gargoyle mask for a moment. `He is now looking for more . . . practical . . . ways of restoring Birka's fortunes, since my poor efforts have failed.'

Ànd what were these poor efforts?' asked Einar, leaning forward so that the black pillars of his hair framed his face, making it even more pale than usual, his eyes deep-sunk pools. I was reminded of Eyvind, who had seen Thought, Odin's raven.

Martin spread his arms dismissively and smiled. 'I thought I had found a great ikon of Christ, one which would have made a church in Birka a pilgrimage for Christians everywhere. It seems I was wrong.'

`What was this ikon?' asked Illugi. Einar's dark-pool eyes never left Martin's face and made it hard for the priest to broaden the smile. I knew, at that moment, he was lying and the vision of a great mountain of silver, Atil's hoard, made my heart lurch. It could be real after all.

Martin spread his thin-fingered hands—stained with what seemed to be burn marks—and shrugged. 'It scarcely matters, Illugi,' he said smoothly. 'You know how many there are. Like so many others, this turned out to be a fake. If you took all the knucklebones of St Otmund and assembled them you would find a miracle. He had four hands, at least.'

Smiling, he stepped forward and placed the cloth bag in front of Einar with a soft, chiming chink.

'Brondolf thanks you for your efforts. You are free to go where you please.'

The air grew still and no one moved. It was as if we were all frozen and the longer the moment went on, the more painful the attempt to move became.

Then Einar, with a swiftness that startled us up like swallows, scooped up the bag and stood. In a second, there was nothing but movement, as if that had released us from some spell. Einar strode off without a word.

Illugi Godi, I saw, sensed that something had happened but wasn't sure what. Politeness stayed him long enough to thank Martin and offer all the usual platitudes and get them in return.

For my part, I saw the monk's eyes flick, just once, to the door. On the back of it, on a hook, hung a hooded cloak.

Einar waited for us in the courtyard, where a fresh, clean, cold wind drove out the cobwebs, streamed out our hair, hissed over the flagstones and rattled the little gate as we were quietly ushered out and handed a lantern. No guide back to the Guest Hall, then.

`You might have had more regard for hospitality,' chided Illugi Godi and Einar, only half listening, grunted a reply.

`He paid in silver, in a town where silver is scarce as hen's teeth. He wanted no argument and he wanted no bartering for goods on tally sticks. He wants us gone, does Brondolf Lambisson—but had to leave it to the monk, such a delicate thing. So what could have been more pressing to him that he could not come himself?' He turned to me suddenly. 'What did you see?' he asked.

I knew at once what he meant, felt strange, as if perched on a cliff like some fledgling gull, waiting for a suitable wind, working to that moment of hurling off and trusting to new wings.

`He was lying,' I said, sure of it as I was of my own palm. 'Brondolf is somewhere else, as you say. Since he is so important, it must be someone more important than him. Since, I am thinking, there is no one more important than him in this place, then it must be a foreigner and a chief at least . . . '

Ànd the monk was waiting for us to go, for he has business abroad.'

I told him of the cloak on the back of the door. Illugi's eyes widened and Einar halted, so that we all nearly ran into him. He turned to me, a grim smile on that pale face. I wished he wouldn't do that, since it was worse than no smile at all.

`Most men think in a straight line,' he said, barely audible over the town's noise and the wind. 'They see only their own actions, like a single thread in the Norns' loom, knotted only when they thrust their life on others. They see through one set of eyes, hear through one set of ears, all their life.' He stared at me. 'To look at things through someone else's eyes is a rare thing, which cannot be learned. To those with the gift, it is not hard, nor complicated. But, to survive and be more than any others, it is essential. You have that gift, I am thinking.'

I was stunned and swelled with it. In that moment, I almost loved the great, glorious being that was Einar the Black, yet, even then, the very gift he praised me for slipped a memory, the blade-bright thought: this man had snicked off the head of Gudleif, for almost no reason other than he could.

We tramped back to the North Gate and were almost out when a figure loomed from the dark, with others behind. I saw Gunnar Raudi, Ketil Crow, Bagnose, Pinleg and others, wild-eyed, wild-haired—and sober.

Gunnar Raudi's grim face, grimmer still in the play of lamplight loomed up to Einar and said, 'Ulf-Agar is missing. Steinthor says men took him.'

4 `They were armed,' Steinthor growled. Àrmed and in the town, Einar.' He held out his forearm, showing a rough strip of bloodstained cloth, the ends whipping in the wind. Around him, Einar, I, Illugi and others gathered, stone-grim.

`Who were they?' demanded Einar.

Steinthor shrugged. His eye was closing to a fat-puffed slit. 'Six, maybe seven,'

he said. `We left the ale house at the harbour and they came after us. Danes, it seemed to Ulf-Agar and me, and looking for trouble, for we had offended no one.'

`Let's get there,' snarled Skapti Halftroll. `Weapons or no weapons, I'll grind them.'

There were savage chuckles at that and a few began to push past Einar on the wooden walkway, but he thrust out an arm and stopped them. 'Wait. Let's find out more. Steinthor, why did they take Ulf-Agar? And where did they take him?'

Steinthor touched his eye speculatively, squinting at Einar. 'That's the strange of it. They came for us and we thought it was just a fight. I wasn't up for it much, having been light on my drink, but Ulf pitched right in.

Then I saw the weapons come out—long blades they were and too long to be hidden under a cloak and brought in. Someone turned a blind eye to that.'

`Now you can do that,' called someone from the back and there were more chuckles. Steinthor spat and touched the eye again.

Ìf it had been the edge of that blade, I would be a deadeye, for sure. But it was the upswing that smacked me. Knocked me to the ground, right off the walkway and into the mud and shit. When I surfaced, they were hauling Ulf away and he was not making a move, hanging between two of them. He might be dead.'

That silenced everyone.

`What did you do then?' asked Einar. `Stand there and drip?'

`No, I did not,' retorted Steinthor hotly. 'I followed them, thinking they would kick the shit out of Ulf-Agar and leave him. I thought they had picked on him for some reason I did not know—he can be an annoying little turd, as anyone will tell you.'

Ìndeed so,' Einar agreed, nodding into the chorus of harsh chuckles. 'But they didn't, or else we would be binding his bruises.'

`No,' agreed Steinthor. 'They hauled him to one of the warehouses at the main harbour. There were a lot of men there and two boats, high-prowed and gilded and bigger than the Elk, that were not there yesterday.'

This set everyone muttering. Illugi Godi looked at Einar and Skapti hoomed a bit, then said: 'Two drakkar? What varjazi has two boats that size?'

`None,' muttered Einar, stroking his moustache. 'Nor could a varjazi persuade the merchants of Birka to ignore their laws on weapons. Only a real power could do that.'

`Such as one who now rules two lands?' Illugi Godi said mildly, the wind whipping his hair into his face.

`Bluetooth; Einar said and the name leaped from head to head, swirling away on the wind, setting fire to mutters and darkly exchanged looks. He looked at me. 'You had it right enough. Someone more important than Brondolf Lambisson and a foreigner.'

Bluetooth, new King of the Danes and Norwegians. Somehow, he had heard of the Oathsworn of Einar's Elk and their quest for some treasure. It seemed to me—and, I knew, to Einar—that he had heard more of it than we had, to seize one of us and put him to the question. It did mean, I was thinking, that you had to take Atil's treasure hoard seriously, for surely no one would go to these lengths over some muttered foolishness about a saga tale? Surely he had not come after us over that?

There were chuckles when I hoiked this up, wide-eyed and wild-haired in the Birka wind.

Einar, though, frowned, for it had been revealed then that just about everyone knew the supposed secret of Atil's treasure. And, of course, Einar was going to the same lengths over the foolishness of a saga tale and he did not like to hear that voiced.

`Perhaps so,' he growled. 'I would like to know who has been sent by the King of Norway and the Danes.

And what this someone wants with Ulf-Agar.'

`We must get him back,' said Illugi and there were mutters of approval at that.

Einar nodded. 'We swore an oath to each other,' he said. 'It is Ulf-Agar's bad luck that he knows nothing that would help Bluetooth in this matter, so we will do it quickly, before they kill him by accident.'

Ànd,' muttered Illugi, 'you don't know just what Ulf-Agar knows. Fox-eared, that one.'

`He is, right enough,' murmured Einar, then, louder: Òrm, go with Steinthor, who will point out the warehouse. Watch it carefully. After that, Steinthor should go to the Guest Hall and have his wounds tended.

`Geir Bagnose, you will go to the fortress, to the gate there. A man will come out, cloaked, perhaps hooded. He has a face like a weasel and will be scurrying, I am thinking, like a rat out of a hole. I want to know where he goes without him knowing he is followed.'

Then he turned and led everyone else back to the Guest Hall.

Suddenly, there was just me and Steinthor on the dark street of greasy timbers, in a town now quiet save for a distant shout or two and a barking dog. The buildings were shadowed mounds, angular howes through which the wind whipped.

Shivering, I followed Steinthor as he limped between the houses, first this way, then that. Then he stopped and pointed. I saw a building slightly apart from the others and beyond it the black sea slapping an oak jetty. A lantern swung wildly, dancing weak yellow light over a door in the building. Two figures moved, stamping and dragging cloaks round them against the wind.

With a brief clap on my shoulder, Steinthor was away into the night, the fire and the ale. Bitterly, I watched him go, pulled my cloak tighter around me, up over my head and hunkered down in the lee of a fence, feeling the sodden ground soak into my boots.