Viking Gold (22 page)

Redknee kept his head down.
“Don’t stop,” he said to Sinead. “The fewer involved the better.”

But Olvir was like a dog with
a bone. “Hey!” He called again. “Where are you going?”

“We could do with the extra help,”
Sinead said to Redknee.

Perhaps she was right. He’d
seen the frenzied look in Harold’s eyes when the chestnut stallion tore the
grey apart. Redknee stopped. “Alright, he can come.”

Redknee scanned the crowd for
Harold while Sinead explained the situation to Olvir.

“I saw him go down to the
beach after the horse fight,” Olvir said. “He was carrying a torch and some
brushwood.”

Sinead glanced anxiously at
Redknee. “Do you think—?”

“The violence,” Redknee said,
starting to push through the crowd. “It’s what sets him off.”

They
pressed through the drunken spectators towards the beach. The crowd thinned as
they approached the bluff.

“I think he’s been obsessed
with fire,” Redknee said, scrambling down the steep path, “ever since Ragnar
burned our village.”

“There he is!” Sinead pointed
to a figure at the far end of the beach heading towards a crop of jagged rocks.
“He’s dragging something behind him.”

It looked like a sack, filled
with … with something that seemed to be
moving
.

Redknee vaulted the last few
feet and ran across the beach, oblivious to Sinead’s screams to wait for help.
But by the time he reached the spot before the jagged outcrop where they’d
spotted Harold, Harold had vanished.

Redknee tore on. He leapt the
rocks and skidded to a stop in front of a large pyre with a stake in the
centre. Harold had tied the sack to the stake; he held a lit torch in his right
hand.

“What are you doing?” Redknee
asked.

Harold glanced up, his eyes
feverish with excitement. “Stand back,” he said, “this is none of your
concern.”

The sack squirmed. Something
inside was alive. “By Thor’s blood,” Redknee said. “What have you got in
there?”

“Nothing.”

Redknee circled the pyre, his
eyes trained on Harold. “I know about your obsession with fire,” he said
steadily. “This is not the way.”

Harold snorted. “What do you
know? You didn’t see your sister melt beneath the flames. Her skin black and
curling like old leather.” Despair lined his face. “She was only nine.”

Redknee blanched at the
image. He hadn’t known Harold had lost his sister. “I saw my mother die,” he
said.

Harold’s eyes shone with
interest. “How did it feel to hold her?” he asked. “As she took her last
breath?”

Redknee shuffled
uncomfortably. It was clear Harold had gone mad. “You relive it, don’t you? Over
and over.”

Harold nodded slowly,
lowering the torch a little. Redknee saw his chance. He leapt across the pyre
and drove his fist into Harold’s nose.

Harold
fell, blood trickling from his nostril. The torch landed in the sand. Redknee
kicked it away and was on him in a flash. Fists clenched, he rained blows on
Harold’s ribs. Harold twisted and clawed like a drowning stray but Redknee
fought him down.

“Stop!” Sinead screamed.
“You’ll kill him!”

Redknee turned round. Harold
kneed him in the groin and followed with his fist in Redknee’s face. He flew
backwards onto the sand. Harold came at him. Something shiny glinted in his
hand.

The dagger.

Harold pressed the blade
against his throat. As Redknee pushed back with all his strength, wisps of
smoke reached his nostrils. The torch had made contact with the brushwood. He
saw Sinead and Olvir running to help him.

“No!” he tried to shout,
although his voice came out raspy and hoarse. “See to the fire first.”

Sinead nodded and began
tugging on the ropes attaching the sack to the stake while Olvir fought the
growing flames.

“I want to see your face when
you die,” Harold sneered, madness shining in his eyes.

“Get off me!” Redknee
shouted, squirming beneath his grip.

 Harold laughed. “Will
you cry, when I kill you? Like they say your father did when Ragnar killed
him.”

Anger seared through Redknee.
How dare Harold speak of his father? Blind with fury, he spat in Harold’s face.
Harold thrust the dagger with new vigour. The blade nipped the soft skin at the
base of Redknee’s throat; then the pressure was gone. Harold was being lifted
off him and he had a clear view of the night sky and its endless tapestry of
stars. Redknee took great gulps of air.

A moment later, Astrid’s pale
face blocked the view. “You saved my darling Bleyõra,” she said, holding her
white cat up to her cheek. “I’m forever in your debt.” She bent down and placed
a kiss on his forehead. He felt himself blush as he wondered at her sudden
appearance.

Uncle Sven stepped forward.
“You all right?” he asked. It had been Sven, then, who had saved him.

Redknee
nodded. He explained his theory about the fire at Ivar’s farm.

“It was the violence of the
horse fight that set Harold off tonight,” he finished. “On the
Sheep
Islands
it was
the whale hunt.”

Uncle Sven’s face was a
sombre mix of acceptance and sadness. “This will cause trouble with Olaf,” he
said, as Astrid’s men led a sobbing Harold from the beach. “Which is all I need
since Karl the Woodcutter has just been found with his throat cut.”

Karl
the Woodcutter lay behind the longhouse in a pool of his own urine, a gaping
red smile parting the frigid skin of his throat. Redknee, Uncle Sven, Astrid and
Ivar stared at the body. No one needed to ask what Karl had been doing before
he was killed.

“Who was he last seen with?”
Sven asked.

“With your men,” Astrid said.
“I don’t know their names.”

“He was sitting with Magnus
and the Smithy at the feast,” Ivar said. “But I saw him leave the longhouse
alone, not long before the horse fight started.”

At this moment, Magnus and
Koll appeared, their faces almost as white as that of their dead friend.

“Did he get in a fight?” Sven
asked them. “Do you know if anyone had a grievance with him?”

Koll shook his head. “Not
that I know of. Has he been robbed?”

Sven pointed to the silver
Thor’s hammer still round Karl’s neck and the bronze ring on the third finger
of his right hand. “No thief would leave items of such value.”

“They may have been disturbed
in the act,” Magnus offered.

“True,” Sven said eventually.
“But I think there’s more to it than that.”

“
Reykjavik
is
such a busy place,” Magnus continued. “Karl was drunk. Any lowlife could have
slit his throat hoping to line their purse.”

“No,” Astrid said, shaking
her head. “My men aren’t murderers. It could just as easily be one of your men,
Jarl Sven. A dispute brought with you from home, perhaps?”

“This is a sorry day,” Sven
said. “I’ve known Karl for more than twenty years. He was a good man. I will
find whoever did this and see he pays.”

“Aye,” Koll said. “I’m with
you on that.”

Sven turned to Astrid. “Will
you ask your women to see to Karl’s body?”

Astrid nodded and left. Heads
low, the rest of the men followed her, leaving Redknee and Sven alone with the
body.

“This wasn’t a robbery or a
fight,” Sven said. “Someone murdered Karl. There’s a traitor in our midst, I
can feel it in my bones. Whoever it is, they’re in Ragnar’s pay. It’s how he
found our village.”

Skoggcat’s face flashed
through Redknee’s mind. Traitor?  What traitor.
He
was the traitor.
“Sir,” he said, taking a deep gulp. “Maybe that was just bad luck.”

“No, lad,” Sven said, shaking
his head. “You want to believe the best of people, and that’s a good trait. But
if you’re going to survive in this world, you’ve got to be smart. You showed
brains and mettle with Harold tonight, unwise though it was to go confronting
him on your own like you did. I’ll not have you behave so recklessly again, you
hear?”

Redknee nodded.

Sven crouched so that he was
level with Karl’s face. Gently, he untied the silver Thor’s hammer from round
Karl’s neck and closed it in his fist.

“Karl’s wife will be glad of this,”
he said. “By Odin’s eye, I’m going to find the traitor. He has blood on his
hands – the blood of many. And when I find him … or
her
, I’m going to
make them pay.”

Harold’s
bones shook in his skinny frame as the whip cracked across his bare back. It
had taken four full-grown men to restrain Olaf. But Ivar had believed Redknee’s
story when he saw the charred ivory dagger and after hearing Astrid tell of the
near burning of Bleyõra on the beach. Ivar had given Redknee Harold’s dagger as
a reward. Despite the fine workmanship, Redknee doubted it would bring him
luck. Still, better in his hands than Harold’s.

It was only the respect Uncle
Sven had for Olaf, and his years of loyal service, that had spared Harold from
a worse fate. In the circumstances seven lashes was a light punishment. Redknee
would have liked to say he couldn’t bear to watch, that he didn’t relish each
desperate scream as the leather flayed Harold’s soft white skin to a pulpy pink
mush. But it would be a lie.

Redknee
watched through a crack in the door as Thora prepared a hot poultice for
Harold’s back. He was in a bad way. He had not coped well with the lashing and
had developed a fever. Redknee suspected it was a fever of pride. Olaf, worried
his son wouldn’t last the night, maintained a vigil at his bedside.

Thora left the longhouse. As
she passed Redknee, he whispered, “Will Harold live?”

Thora glanced behind her,
into the half-lit room. “I hope so. If he dies, you will have made an enemy of
Olaf for life.”

“Aye,” Redknee said, “and if
Harold lives, I fear I will have made two.”

Thora nodded and left.
Redknee turned to follow her, he needed to find Sinead, reassure himself she
wasn’t the traitor, when he heard Olaf start to speak.

“You did well, son,” he said,
stroking Harold’s damp brow. “Took the lashings like a man, just as I knew you
would.”

“I tried my best, father,”
Harold mumbled. “Did I do good?”

Olaf nodded and took his
son’s hand in his. “Yes,” he said. “You did just as I told you.”

At that moment, Bleyõra
sidled up to Redknee and began purring at the door. Olaf and Harold both looked
up. Redknee pressed his body flat against the wall and edged away.

Redknee
learned from Koll that Brother Alfred had gone into the foothills of the
volcano to thank his God for his release and Sinead had gone with him. He
wanted to speak to her before his uncle did; reassure himself she wasn’t the
traitor. He thought of the gash in Karl’s throat. Could a woman, nay, one
little more than a girl, really do that? Uncle Sven seemed to think so – if the
conditions were right. Karl had been drunk, that was true. Whoever killed him
had caught him while he was off guard. Maybe, under those circumstances, a
woman really could kill a full-grown man.

But Sinead?

He
shook his head. She’d helped him out of the fire at Ivar’s longhouse. Hadn’t
she? A little voice at the back of his head told him she’d been looking for the
book – saving him was only an afterthought.

No. He wouldn’t believe it.
No matter what his uncle thought, Sinead was his friend. Surely he could trust
her.
Couldn’t he?

As he
walked up the lower slopes of
Mount
Hekla
, Redknee cursed whatever madness had driven Brother
Alfred to thank his God in such a place. What greenery there had once been was
long dead – the skeletons of water-starved shrubs and grasses littered the
edges of the path. The brittle black earth burned hot beneath his feet. It was
like walking on the embers of a dying fire. Above him, flares of hot orange lit
the night sky. He wrapped his cloak round his head, fearful a stray flash would
fry him alive.

Silver whimpered.

“You’re right, little one,”
Redknee said, “venturing up here is
exactly
what my uncle would call
downright foolish.”

Redknee
found them praying. Two small figures kneeling before a wooden cross. Silver
bounded forwards, licking Sinead’s face until she opened her eyes and gave him
a hug.

“Karl the Woodcutter has been
found dead,” Redknee said. “His throat cut.”

Brother Alfred shook his
head. “Well, don’t look at me. I was tied up in the barn.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk
to you about. You see, my uncle thinks there’s a traitor among us. Someone who
is working for Ragnar. My uncle thinks this person murdered Karl.”