Hawk Quest (60 page)

‘Curse you! Curse this place!’

Thorfinn laughed in Hero’s face, then his eyes narrowed in baleful intensity and he strode back to the camp.

Arne caught Hero’s arm. ‘Listen to me. It was your English friend
who gave the stone to the women. I heard him creep away in the night. When you go back, don’t speak to him. Don’t even look at him. If you think that Thorfinn can’t read your thoughts, you’re wrong. He sees into men very well, especially if they’re hiding what he wants to see. Stay here until I fetch you.’

‘Why? Are there more horrors to come?’

‘Thorfinn is going to hang one of the prisoners. He thinks one of them gave the stone to the women.’

‘Mother of God. You have to stop him!’

‘I can’t. He’ll kill me.’

After Arne left, Hero found himself looking across the strait to where
Shearwater
lay anchored. A thin column of smoke rose from the island and then flattened out with the wind. Over there they would be blowing life into last night’s embers, preparing breakfast, exchanging the everyday asides of travellers grown easy with each other’s company. He was still wishing himself across the gulf when Arne returned.

‘It’s over.’

Hero followed him back to camp in a sick daze. Try as he might, he couldn’t stop his eyes turning towards the hanged man. The poor wretch dangled with his head wrenched at a grotesque angle, eyes bulging from his mottled face.

‘Hey, Greek.’

Hero’s blurred gaze fell on what he’d imagined with horror but never really believed, and never for a moment thought he would see. It was true, though. Thorfinn sat on a log tearing with his huge teeth at the freshly plucked liver of his victim.

He waved the steaming offal at Hero like a man tucking in to a hearty breakfast. ‘Put that down in your story.’

XXXIV

Hero watched the coast draw closer, the flat black contour forming into a forest wall breached by a muddy river. The treeline was beginning to slice into the setting sun and the tide rippled red where it
lapped against the strand. Thorfinn ordered the sail to be lowered and the longship glided in and kissed the shore. The Vikings jumped down and then paused, half crouching, as if they were nervous of waking something. Hero followed and gave a shiver. It was so quiet. As if life here had still to be called into existence. The stillness amplified every stray sound. A leaf wafting down through branches clattered like broken earthenware. The shrilling of mosquitoes made him drill a finger into his ear.

He walked up the beach towards the forest. Many of the trees on the edge were blighted. Inside they clumped on islands surrounded by stagnant pools and bilious green bogs. Curtains of moss hung from branches like rotted mortuary shrouds. Clouds of mosquitoes danced in hazy spirals. The light was clotting in the thickets.

Along the beach stood some kind of effigy sited so that no one entering the river could miss it. Thorfinn studied it with his nostrils flared and then approached.

It was a tattie-bogle fashioned from ragged garments stretched across a wooden frame and crowned by a death’s head. The skull must have been pickled in tannin because it still wore its leathery skin and hanks of ginger hair sprouted from its pate. Thorfinn made a sound deep in his throat.

‘That’s Olaf Sigurdarsson,’ said one of the Vikings. ‘I’d know his face anywhere.’

‘And those are Leif Fairhair’s breeches,’ said another.

Arne leaned towards Hero. ‘Two of the men Thorfinn lost on his last expedition.’

Hero’s attention was riveted on a pair of stupendous double-curved tusks planted in the ground each side of the totem. ‘Elephants don’t live this far north.’

‘They’re the teeth of a giant rat that uses them to burrow through the ground,’ Arne said. ‘The rat dies if it comes into the air or is reached by sunlight.’

‘Perhaps the skraelings left them as scat,’ one of the Vikings said. ‘Perhaps they hope that by offering tribute, we’ll leave them in peace. That ivory will fetch a pretty penny in Nidaros.’

‘Don’t touch them,’ said Thorfinn. He growled again, his eyes switching from side to side. A raven flew overhead and rolled right over.
Krok
, it said.

They turned to watch
Shearwater
dropping anchor off the beach. Vallon and company rowed ashore with the Viking hostages. Thorfinn’s men fingered their weapons and looked to him for instruction, but the chieftain had his axe grounded and Vallon kept his sword sheathed. He stopped a few yards in front of Thorfinn. The hostages walked past him and rejoined their comrades with weak grins. ‘We’ve spoiled them,’ Vallon said. ‘I hadn’t realised how hungry you kept your men.’

Thorfinn motioned with his chin and his men shoved the four Icelanders forward.

‘They’re half-starved,’ said Vallon. ‘What happened to the rations we gave you?’

‘Meat’s too precious to waste on captives. If I didn’t need the rest of the Icelanders for rowing and pulling at the portages, I’d let you take them off my hands.’

‘Where are the women?’

Thorfinn didn’t answer.

‘They killed themselves last night,’ Hero said.

Vallon shook his head. He put his arms around Hero and Garrick and led them away. ‘Thank God you’re back. Did you learn anything useful? See anything that we can turn to our advantage?’

Hero spluttered between laughter and tears. ‘Where shall I start? The Icelandic women? The man hanging by his neck and Thorfinn eating his liver so freshly plucked that the steam was still rising from it. Is that useful intelligence?’

Vallon stared at him. ‘We’ll talk later. Go and join your friends.’

Vallon stood alone on the beach after the two sides had separated. His gaze probed this way and that. The sun sank below the trees and he hunched his shoulders against air grown cold as iron.

They were at work early by torchlight transferring cargo to the ships’ boats. The craft were too small to hold all the people and horses. The Icelanders rejected Vallon’s suggestion that they draw lots, with the losers to travel in the longship. After hearing how Thorfinn treated his prisoners, they said they’d rather walk to Novgorod.

‘Good,’ said Vallon. ‘Because that’s the only alternative.’

Wayland came over looking very subdued. Vallon frowned. ‘Something wrong?’

‘I won’t find enough food in the forest to feed all the falcons. I’m going to release two of them.’

Vallon winced. ‘All our hopes rest on bringing four white falcons to Anatolia. We can’t afford to lose two of them this far from our goal.’

‘I didn’t reach the decision lightly. Better six healthy falcons than eight sickly ones.’

Vallon bowed to his judgement. Watching him prepare to turn the falcons loose, he thought of all the effort that had gone into their capture.

Wayland cast off the first eyas. It flapped away with clumsy strokes, tried to land in a tree, missed its footing and tumbled down through the branches. Syth cried out and ran after it. The second falcon headed out to sea, circled back and pitched on the beach.

‘Will they survive?’ Vallon asked.

‘I’ve fed both of them a full crop. They won’t feel the pinch of hunger for several days and by then they’ll have learned to use their wings. Falcons are quick learners and … ’ Wayland drew breath and shook his head. ‘No. That’s what I told Syth to avoid upsetting her. Almost certainly they’ll die. They were the weakest of the eyases and haven’t been taught to hunt.’

Vallon saw how much their loss pained Wayland. ‘Don’t reproach yourself. It’s a tribute to your skilful handling that you’ve brought the falcons this far without loss. I confess I sometimes forget that they’re the be-all and end-all of our enterprise. It frightens me to think how much our fortunes depend on them. If there’s anything you need for their welfare, ask.’

‘Fresh meat. A sixth of their body weight every day.’

‘That much?’

Wayland nodded.

Vallon stared at the brooding forest. ‘If necessary, we’ll fast ourselves rather than let the falcons go hungry.’

The falcons weren’t the only precious things they cast off. After six months’ voyaging,
Shearwater
’s journey had run its course. She’d been their means of escape, their seaborne home and their vehicle of trade. For weeks on end she’d been their entire world, the cramped cockpit for their dramas and passions. To her crew she had come to seem like a creature in her own right – a bluff and willing workhorse, though
not without moods and whims. They knew her down to her last creak and groan, and now they had to say goodbye to her.

Over breakfast they debated the most fitting send-off. Scuttling was out of the question. Like drowning your mother, Raul said. Burn her, he suggested, or leave her nodding at anchor until the next storm broke her into driftwood. The breeze decided her fate. It was blowing offshore and so a party went on board and raised anchor and hoisted sail one last time. As the panels filled and the water began to bubble under her stem, they climbed back into the boat and rowed ashore and watched her slant away to the north until she was just a tiny silhouette on a sea as bright as the back of a fresh-run salmon.

The longship had already begun the journey upriver. In a deathly hush the company climbed into the boats, fitted oars and began to row against the sluggish current. The shore party plodded along the right bank. When Hero looked back, the sea was already out of sight. It was like a door had shut behind them.

A short way upriver they caught up with the longship stuck in rapids. It was afternoon before they struggled into calm water. At dark the two parties pitched separate camps and set guards. Next morning when they set off, rain dimpled the surface and cloud hung in rags among the treetops. Mosquitoes and blackflies plagued them, whining inside their ears, infiltrating their clothes, crawling up their nostrils. The travellers wrapped their heads and smeared themselves with dung and oil. Nothing could keep the pests off. Worst affected were the oarsmen. Unable to slap away the bloodsuckers, they rowed as if afflicted by a palsy, hunching up their shoulders to rub their inflamed cheeks and brows. By the end of the day some of them had raw wounds on their wrists and their faces were so swollen they could hardly see.

The going wasn’t any easier for the Icelanders trudging along the banks. They sank ankle deep in spongy moss that made each step an effort. They had to detour around sloughs of grey ooze and graveyards of fallen trees. Sometimes they were forced to stumble along in the river itself. Where the current was too deep and the forest impassable, the boatmen had to set down their passengers and return to ferry the pedestrians above the obstacle.

Wayland was right about the lack of game. He managed to kill enough grouse to keep the falcons on half rations, but most of the creatures he encountered were predators in a wilderness lacking prey. He saw a pair of sable streaking through the treetops like eels, and he surprised a pair of gluttons dragging out the entrails of a bear so grey and gaunt that it must have died of old age. These gluttons or wolverines were creatures new to him and he found their ferocity incredible. When the dog pranced up to them, they didn’t give an inch, spitting and snarling with faces that haunted Wayland’s dreams for nights afterwards. The dog rolled its eyes at him, asking for help. He called it off. All day it kept snarling round as if the gluttons were on their trail.

Four days upriver the boat carrying Vallon’s company passed an old woman sitting on the bank beside the body of an old man. It was the woman Helgi had escorted from the abandoned Icelandic ship. The dead man was her husband.

One of the Icelanders called out. She raised cloudy eyes and said she didn’t want any help.

‘What’s going on?’ said Vallon. ‘Why have the Icelanders left her behind?’

‘It’s her own choice,’ Raul said. ‘She doesn’t want to go on. Her husband was all the kin she had.’

‘Let me talk to her,’ said Hero.

Vallon glanced upriver. ‘Don’t take too long. There’s another rapid ahead.’

Hero and Richard stepped ashore. Raul tossed a spade after them. ‘We’ll be leaving them where they drop before the journey’s over.’

Hero approached the old woman and cleared his throat. She peered at him.

‘Goodness. You’re one of the outlanders.’

He sank down beside her. ‘How did your husband die?’

‘Weariness. Despair. His heart stopped and those two men of Helgi’s just slung him on to the bank. You’d think they didn’t have fathers of their own.’

Hero put an arm around her thin shoulders. ‘We’ll bury him and when we’ve said a prayer we’ll take you back to our boat.’

She looked up and Hero glimpsed in her features the ghost of
youthful beauty. ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Erik and I have been together sixty years. I’m not leaving him now.’ She patted Hero’s hand. ‘You go on. I’m quite content.’

Richard leaned over. ‘Don’t you have any other family? Isn’t that why you were sailing to Norway?’

Shadows flitted over the woman’s face. ‘All our children and grandchildren are dead. Ah, it’s a bitter fate to outlive your offspring. Our youngest died last spring. With him gone we were unable to work the farm. Erik decided to sell it and return to Norway. That’s where he came from. We met when he sailed to Reykjavik on a merchant ship. Such a handsome man. Erik has family near Nidaros and he said we’d go and live out our days near his sister’s farm. He never did take to the Icelanders. Too clannish, he said. Too busy looking after themselves to bother with the wants of others. We’d be happier among his own kind. I wasn’t so sure. Better stay with what you know, that’s what I told him.’

‘I’m sure Erik’s sister will welcome you.’

The old woman snorted. ‘Imagine the fit she’ll have if I turn up at her door. Seventy-eight years old, nearly blind and penniless.’

‘You said you had money from the sale of your farm.’

‘Helgi’s men took it from Erik when we left our ship. That Caitlin said they’d look after it for me.’ The old woman pulled Hero’s head down. ‘She’s a bitch,’ she whispered. She nodded emphatically. ‘When you see her in a new dress and brooch, remember who paid for it.’