I shivered in my cloak wishing I had a good blaze to warm myself by right now. ‘But fire is—’
‘Fire is your enemy, Prince Jalan. Enslave it and it will serve, but give it an inch, give it any opportunity, and you’ll be lucky to escape the burning wreckage of your home. You keep the fire at arms’ length. You don’t take a hot coal to your breast. No more should you embrace Baraqel or his kind. Snorri has done so and it has left his will in ashes – a puppet for the light to work its own purposes through. See how he looks at you. How he watches you. It’s only a matter of time before he acts openly against you. Mark these words, my prince. Mark—’
The sun sank and Aslaug fell into a darkness that leaked away through the hull.
We drew up at the quays of Harrowheim in the gathering gloom, guided in by the lights of houses clustered on the steepness of the slope. To the west some sort of cove or landslip offered a broad flattish area where crops might be grown in the shelter of the fjord.
An ancient with a lantern waved us alongside his own boat where he’d been sat picking the last fish from his nets.
‘You’ll be wannin’ me ta walk you up,’ he said, all gums and wisps of beard.
‘Don’t trouble yourself, Father.’ Tuttugu getting onto the quay with far more grace than he showed on land. He stooped low over the man’s boat. ‘Herring, eh? White-Gill. Nice catch. We don’t see them for another few weeks up in Trond.’
‘Ayuh.’ The old man held one up, still flipping half-heartedly in his fingers. ‘Good ’uns.’ He put it down as Snorri clambered out, leaving me to stagger uncertainly across the rolling boat toward the step. ‘Still. Better go with you. The lads are twitchy tonight. Raiders about – it’s the season for ’em. Might fill you full of spear before you know it.’
My boot, wet with bilge water, slipped out from under me at ‘raiders’ and I nearly vanished into the strip of dark water between quay and boat. I caught myself painfully on the planks, biting my tongue as I clutched the support. ‘Raiders?’ I tasted blood and hoped it wasn’t a premonition.
Snorri shook his head. ‘Not serious stuff. The clans raid for wives come spring. Here it’ll be Guntish men.’
‘Ayuh. And Westerfolk off Crow Island.’ The old man set down his nets and came to join us, making an easier job of it than I had.
‘Lead on.’ I waved him forward, happy to trail behind if it meant him getting speared rather than me.
Now that Snorri had mentioned it I did recall talk of the practice back at the Three Axes. The business of raiding for girls of marriageable age seemed something that the people of Trond felt beneath them, but they loved to tell tales about their country bumpkin cousins doing it. Mostly it seemed to be an almost good-natured thing with a tacit approval from both sides – but of course if the raider proved sufficiently unskilled to get caught then he’d earn himself a good beating … and sometimes a bad one. And if he picked a girl that didn’t want to get caught she might give him worse than that.
Men emerged from the shadows as we walked up between the huts. Our new friend, Old Engli, put them quickly at their ease and the mood lightened. Some few recognized Snorri and many more recognized his name, leading us on amid a growing crowd. Lanterns and torches lit around us, children ran into the muddy streets, mothers and daughters eyed us from glowing doorways, the occasional girl, bolder than the rest, hanging from a window recently unboarded in the wake of winter’s retreat. One or two such caught my eye, the last of them a generously proportioned young woman with corn-coloured hair descending in thick waves and hung with small copper bells.
‘Prince Jalan—’ I managed half a bow and half an introduction before Snorri’s big fist knotted in my cloak and hauled me onwards.
‘Best behaviour, Jal,’ he hissed between his teeth while offering a wide smile left and right. ‘I know these people. Let’s try not to have to leave in a hurry this time.’
‘Yes, of course!’ I shook myself free. Or he let me go. ‘Do you think I’m some sort of wild beast? I’m always on my best behaviour!’ I stomped on behind him, straightening my collar. Damn barbarian thinking he could teach a prince of Red March manners … she did have a very pretty face though … and squeezable—
‘Jal!’
I found myself marching past the entrance into which everyone else had turned. A quick reversal and I was through the mead hall’s doorway into the smoke and noise. Mead hut I’d call it – it made Olaafheim’s hall look big. More men streamed in behind me while others found their seats around the long benches. It seemed our arrival had occasioned a general call to broach casks and fill drinking horns. We’d started the party rather than crashed in on it. And that gives you a pretty good picture of Harrowheim. A place so desolate and starved of interest that the arrival of three men in a boat is cause for celebration.
‘Jal!’ Snorri slapped the tabletop to indicate a space between him and Tuttugu. It seemed well meaning enough but something in me bridled at the gesture, ordering me to my place, somewhere he could keep an eye on me. As if he didn’t trust me. Me! A prince of Red March. Heir to the throne. Being watched over by a hauldr and a fisherman as if I might disgrace myself in a den of savages. Me, being watched over by Baraqel even though I no longer had to suffer him in my head. I sat down still smiling, but feeling brittle. I snatched up the drinking horn before me and took a deep swig. The dark and sour ale within did little to improve my mood.
As the general cacophony of disputes over seating and cries for ale settled into more distinct conversations I began to realize that everyone around me was speaking Norse. Snorri gabbled away with a lean old stick of a man, spitting out words that would break a decent person’s jaw. On my other side Tuttugu had found a kindred spirit, another ginger Norseman whose red beard spilled down over a stomach so expansive it forced him to sit far enough back from the table that reaching his ale became a problem. They too were deep in conversation in old Norse. It was starting to seem that the very first person we met was the only one among them who could speak like a man of Empire.
Back in Trond most of the northmen knew the old tongue but every one of them spoke the language of Empire and would use it over beers, at work, and in the street. Generally the city folk avoided the old tongue and its complications of dialect and regional variation, sticking instead to the language of merchants and kings. In fact the only time the good folk of Trond tended to slip into Norse was when seeking the most appropriate swear word for the situation. Insulting each other is a national sport in Norseheim and for the very best results competitors like to call on the old curses of the north, preferably raiding the stock of cruel-things-to-say-about-someone’s-mother that is to be found in the great sagas.
Out in the sticks however it proved to be a very different story – a story told exclusively in a language that seemed to require you swallow a live frog to pronounce some words and gargle half a pint of phlegm for the rest. Since my grip on Norse was limited to calling someone a shithead or telling them they had very pert breasts I scowled at the company and opted to keep my mouth shut unless of course I were pouring ale into it.
The night rolled on and whilst I was deeply glad to be out of that boat, out of the wind, and to have a floor beneath me that had the decency to stay where it had been put, I couldn’t really enjoy being crammed among two score ill-smelling Harrowheimers. I had to wonder at Engli’s tale of raiding since the whole male population seemed to have jammed themselves into the mead hall at the first excuse.
‘—Hardassa!’ Snorri’s fist punctuated the word against the table and I became aware that most of the locals were listening to him now. From the hush I guessed he must be telling the tale of our trip to the Black Fort. Hopefully he wouldn’t be mentioning Loki’s key.
To my mind the Norse vilification of Loki seemed an odd thing. Of all their heathen gods Loki was clearly the most intelligent, capable of plans and tactics that could help Asgard in its wars