Maidensong (32 page)

“Where are we bound?” Jorand fell into step with him.

“To Hel, most like,” Bjorn said sullenly.

“Then we’ll need a drink to cheer us along the way,”
Jorand said, not at all dismayed. He looked up and
down the main thoroughfare. “Not a decent tavern in
sight. I doubt we’ll find ale to match the brew in
Birka. What do the Christians drink, I wonder?”

“Let’s find out." From what Bjorn remem
bered from his boyhood visit, the bazaar district contained several thoroughly disreputable establishments that Ornolf had favored.

 
Night fell over Miklagard and the change showed not only in the darkening sky but also in the character
of the foot traffic in the twisted lanes. Honest mer
chants scurried to the safety of their homes, while cut-
purses, prostitutes, and more than a few assassins for hire roused to ply their nightly trades.

The urge to fight coursed through Bjorn’s veins. He
wished he had more than just a few silver coins jin
gling in the leather pouch at his waist. He and the lanky Jorand presented too sturdy a front to tempt an attack for so small a return.

The tavern they came to was even more squalid than any he remembered, dark with a haze of incense to
cover more fetid odors. The place suited Bjorn’s mood. He and Jorand discovered that the Christians
drank wine, deep and red. Bjorn downed eight bowls
of the sweet, strong concoction without feeling the
slightest hint of a buzz in his head.

Or the slightest
numbing of the pain in his heart.

The woman he loved was determined to become the
wife of another man. Not tonight and maybe not tomorrow, but soon. And there wasn’t a cursed thing he could do about it.

“How can she do it?” The words slurred over
Bjorn’s thickening tongue. Maybe the red stuff was
more potent than he thought.

“Practice, I imagine.” Jorand eyed the skillful
undulations of the scantily clad dancing girl. He nearly
touched his ear to his shoulder, tracking her move
ments as she contorted into a backbend and flipped
her heels over her head giving him a fleeting glimpse of her bare bottom. “Lots and lots of practice.”

Bjorn snorted. Jorand was being purposely thick. But maybe Jorand was right. No good could come from talking.

Action. That’s what he needed.
Two uniformed soldiers burst through the door and demanded service. They
were armed with short Roman swords, and moved
with the sturdy grace of men who knew how to use
them. Bjorn smiled.

“Hail, defenders of the city.” He staggered to his feet and gave them a mock salute. “Let me buy you a drink.”

The soldiers were more than agreeable. The older
one, a grizzled veteran with one eye and hard, ropey
muscles in his shoulders and bull-like neck, leaned against the bar and took Bjorn’s measure. “A Northman, are you?”

“That’s right.” Bjorn waved his empty wine bowl to
ward the serving girl and motioned for drinks for the
newcomers. The other soldier seemed fascinated by the long broadsword in Bjorn’s shoulder baldric. He
was half a head shorter than Bjorn, but stockier.

“Your empire is broad.” Bjorn tossed the girl a silver coin. “Where do you hail from?”

“You probably wouldn’t know of it,” the younger one said.

“Northmen have itchy feet. We are great travelers. Try me,” Bjorn challenged.

“Paphlagonia.” The veteran accepted a bowl of wine
and hefted it toward Bjorn in thanks before taking a deep draught.

“Oh,
ja,
I
know that province,” Bjorn said. “On the
southern edge of the Black Sea, lots of mountains.” He also knew the region’s principle exports were pork and mutilated little boys for the eunuch market in Mikla
gard. Crude rumor claimed the women of the region
were so homely, the men preferred coupling with swine or newly made eunuchs to avoid their ill-favored females. There was even an old slur on Pa
phlagonia he remembered from his last trip, one
able-bodied Paphlagonians considered a scathing re
proach on their manhood. Would the insult still grate
its citizens?

“Jorand,” he bellowed across the room. “You’ll
never guess who they’ve got guarding this fair city. A
pair of pigs’ arses!”

The older soldier dropped his wine and buried his fist in Bjorn’s gut, doubling him over. The younger one
leaped on his back, a beefy arm hooked around Bjorn’s
neck, trying to wrestle him to the ground.

The insult
was still potent, then.

Despite the wine swirling in his brain, Bjorn was
ready for the onslaught. He slammed backward into a wall, knocking the wind from his assailant’s lungs in a whoosh. The other tavern patrons scrambled out of
the way. In the far corner of the room, Bjorn heard the
enterprising proprietor laying odds and taking wagers on the outcome.

The two soldiers were upon him, raining blows on
his chest and shoulders. Fists flying, Bjorn lashed out, blocking a few of their punches and landing more
than few of his own with satisfying thuds. His blood
was afire. The lust to maim and destroy roared
through his veins. Pressure built inside him and ex
ploded through his lips in a
berserkr
cry, fierce as a
bear, feral as a wolf pack.

The soldiers reeled back, stunned by the unnatural
sound. Evidently they weren’t trained to attack madmen.

“Come, you pathetic little girls,” Bjorn taunted.

They gang-tackled Bjorn and the three of them went f
lying, rolling over a tabletop and crashing to the floor.
Bjorn caught a hobnailed boot to the kidneys as he
struggled back to his feet. He grabbed both soldiers by the neck and knocked their heads together. They wobbled, but stayed upright.

The veteran barked an order to his friend, and they
launched another assault. The fight boiled out the side
door and into a narrow alley in a tangle of arms and
legs. Jorand shouted encouragement to Bjorn and followed with the other onlookers.

Bjorn couldn’t see out of his right eye. He swiped at
it and his hand came back sticky with blood. One of
their blows had split the flesh of his forehead.

“You want blood?” Bjorn roared. He drew out his
broadsword in a fluid motion and sliced the air with
the long murderous blade. “Let’s play like we mean
it.”

Baring their teeth, the soldiers pulled out their
swords with metallic rasps. They began circling.

Bjorn flexed his knees, waiting for the first lunge. But s
uddenly something cracked him on the back of the
head. Pain exploded in his brain in a flash of bright
light. He heard his own sword clatter to the cobble
stones. Then he crumpled in a heap and knew only
blackness.

 
When Bjorn struggled to the surface, pain was there
to meet him. He let himself drift downward again,
wallowing in oblivion, like a boar in a mud puddle.
Sometimes, he heard voices above him, some gruff,
some laced with concern, but no meaning registered
in his mind. It was the light that finally forced him to
consciousness.

“Close the shutters, for Thor’s sake,” he mumbled and burrowed beneath the scratchy blanket covering him.

“Sorry.” Jorand ripped off the blanket. “You’ve slept
all night and most of the day. You’re not getting any prettier, so I thought I’d see if you’d gotten less mean with the extra rest.”

Bjorn groaned. His mouth tasted like a Byzantine le
gion had tramped through on his tongue. Barefoot. When he tried to sit upright, his head threatened to
detach itself and roll off his shoulders. He thought it
might be an improvement.

“Mead and ale from now on.” Bjorn raised a steady
ing hand to his temple. “Promise me you’ll kill me yourself if I ever touch wine again.”

Jorand chuckled. “The wine’s not completely to
blame for your head. Some of that’s my doing.”

Bjorn frowned at him. “I’m not up to riddling. What are you talking about?”

“Before you get angry, I think you should know I
was under orders.” Jorand shoved a plate of fresh
bread and olives into Bjorn’s hands. “Ornolf told me before we arrived at the Arab’s house that I was to fol
low you last night if you tried to leave us. He’s not stu
pid, your uncle. Nor blind.”

Bjorn gnawed on the bread, hoping it would settle
his stomach. “So does the whole world know me for a fool?”

“Not a fool,” Jorand assured him. “Just a man in
love. By the way, Ornolf is really impressed with the
way you and the skald carried yourselves. He half ex
pected the two of you to bolt.”

“If I’d had my way, we would have.”

“Anyway, you’re past the worst now,” Jorand said. “
Ornolf told me to let you do something foolish if you
wanted, but not something deadly. That fight last night
was just what you needed, but when you drew your
blade, I had to end it.”

“You?”

Jorand grinned and snatched an olive from Bjorn’s
plate. “I had to repay the tavern keeper for the am
phora I broke over your thick skull, but at least you’re still in one piece.”

 
Bjorn slanted his gaze at Jorand. He knew his friend
expected thanks, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel
grateful. He was suffering from far more than the mis
eries of too much drink and a solid clout on the head.
Truly, his body was whole, but his heart was a stone in
his chest. Jorand was naive if he thought Bjorn had
seen the worst of it already. Bjorn’s pain was just beginning. The long stretch of years without Rika yawned before him. He chewed the bread slowly and
swallowed it on reflex, not tasting a thing.

“Where am I?” Bjorn looked down the long hall
lined with pallets like the one he lay on.

“The barracks,” Jorand said, pouring some slightly
lumpy whitish liquid into a bowl for Bjorn to drink. “
Argus and Zander were pretty decent once I explained things to them. Of course, the silver I crossed their palms with helped as well.”

Bjorn raised a brow at Jorand, then winced. Even that little movement hurt. “Argus and Zander?”

“They’re the soldiers you fought with last night.” Jorand held out the noxious-smelling bowl toward his
captain, urging him to drink. “You’re the not the first man to lose a woman, you know. They understood.”

Bjorn snorted and curled his lip at the bowl his friend offered. “What’s that?”

“Goat’s milk, two eggs and some other things you don’t want to know about,” Jorand said without the slightest sympathy. “Drink up. Argus says it’ll clear your head.”

Bjorn drained the bowl. “Ugh! Damn Paphlagonians are still trying to kill me.” He swiped his mouth with the back of his
arm. “Why are we here? Am I under arrest?”

“No, nothing like that,” Jorand said. “Seeing as you
were so keen to pick a fight, Argus thought you could
be tempted to join his regiment as a
tagmata.
That’s
what they call their mercenaries. He figured you might as well get paid for something you enjoy doing. He says there are already quite a few Northmen in service here.”

Bjorn’s ears pricked to some new sounds, the tramp
of many hobnailed boots and the clatter of wooden
blades meeting. He dragged himself to his feet and trudged down to the open doorway. Out on the expan
sive flat yard, men were drilling, sparring and honing
their fighting skills against each other and against clever devices that simulated the random thrusts of
combat. At the far end of the field, a cavalry unit prac
ticed tight turns and goaded their mounts into rearing and slashing with their hooves.

The evil concoction of goat’s milk seemed to be
working. Bjorn’s head felt surprisingly clear. Rika was
as good as dead to him. The dream of his own land
faded into the mists of his memory along with the rest
of Sognefjord. Any softness or ease he might have enjoyed with Rika at his side melted away with it. Blood and grit and a violent death were all he could see ahead of him.

As he watched the men in the yard, he felt a
growing kinship with them. Battle. That was some
thing he understood. This was where he belonged.

“They say the pay is only passing fair,” Jorand said.

Grim-faced, Bjorn nodded. “It’ll be enough.”