Viking Gold (34 page)

Bera nodded and scurried out
the great hall. Sinead entered in her wake. “What was
that
about?” She mouthed
to Redknee.

He just shook his head and
motioned for her to come stand beside him. Gisela remained on the dais.

“I think,” she said, turning
to Thorvald, “that was a good morning’s work.”

Thorvald nodded glumly.

Gisela scooped up the rune stones
from the bone tray she had cast them into earlier. Each stone was roughly the
size of Redknee’s thumb and contained one letter of futhark etched on its
smooth side.

“My magic is strong today,” she
said, pointing to Redknee from the dais. “You,” she said. “Traveller boy. Step
forward.”

Redknee looked about him to
ensure she really was pointing to him. There were about twenty other people in
the room; other than Thorvald’s men-at-arms, there were a few peasants, Brother
Alfred, Sinead and, he noticed from the corner of his eye that Astrid had also
slid through the door.

“Yes,” Gisela said again. “I
mean you, Redknee, or should I say, Jarl of Kaupangen?”

No one had yet referred to
him by his official title. If he even had an official title. Yes, a Jarldom was
inherited, but it also had to be earned. Besides, he no longer knew who his
father was. Redknee was as far from being Jarl of Kaupangen as Sinead was from
being the Queen of Sheba.

A finger prodded his side. It
was Sinead. “Go,” she said. “You’ve no choice.”

He stepped forward. “Really,
there’s no point casting the runes for me. I’ve already had them read.”

“Silence,” Gisela said,
raising her palm to face him. She took a small jewelled dagger from her belt
and slowly drew it from the base of her forefinger to her wrist. A ribbon of
scarlet blossomed across the whiteness of her palm. She squeezed her hand until
several drops of blood had splashed into the bone tray holding the rune stones.
She closed her eyes and stirred the tray with her finger, coating the stones in
her blood.

“You’ve recently suffered a
great loss,” she said. “Two losses, in fact.” Her eyes flashed open. “You’ve
lost two people close to you.”

Redknee nodded slowly.
Everyone knew this.

“The runes can make the dead
live again. But you must make your choice … for I can only bring one of your
loved ones back.”

Brother Alfred dashed forward
and pulled Redknee’s arm. “Necromancy is a sin,” he said.

“Didn’t Jesus raise Lazarus
from his grave?” Sinead asked. “And didn’t Jesus himself rise?”

Brother Alfred blushed,
unable to answer.

“I shan’t choose,” Redknee
said. “Because I don’t believe you can do it.”

“Very well. But even if you
do not believe, isn’t it worth the risk? You don’t have to do anything. Just
think the name of the person you want to meet again.”

“I don’t have to say their
name aloud?”

“Only in your head.”

Redknee thought of his uncle,
who died saving him from the whale and who’d lied to him his whole life, and he
thought of his mother, who’d always loved and cared for him, and who’d died
saving his uncle.

“Are you ready?” Gisela asked,
a broad smile on her face. “Have you chosen?”

Redknee screwed up his eyes
and nodded. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting – to see a body made flesh
from the air before him?

Gisela began to chant:

“I see, up in a tree,

a dangling corpse in a
noose,

I can so carve and colour
the runes …

 that man walks and
talks with me.”

Redknee recognised Odin’s
words. The words of the god of magic.  

When Gisela stopped her
incantation the room was silent. Redknee opened his eyes slowly. But there was
nothing. No apparition. No flames of hell, just Gisela standing quietly with
her tray of runes. He heard someone laughing, and realised it was him.

Gisela scowled. “You will
see,” she said. “Real magic is not fire and ice. Real magic happens quietly.
That is its power.”

The
next day Sinead paced the main hall, her fingers moving over the edge of her
cap, endlessly re-arranging it. “Where
are
Magnus and Egil?” she asked
for the umpteenth time. “The sun is high, and still they haven’t returned. They
should have found Olaf and Harold hours ago.”

“We should wait here a little
longer,” Redknee said, flipping a piece of meat from the table and onto the
floor. Silver pounced on it greedily. “A search party could easily miss them.”

“You’re frightened,” Sinead
said.

Koll laughed. “The girl is
right.”

Thorvald had left his guests
to eat their mid-day meal alone at the trestle table in the main hall. Everyone,
save Astrid, was happy to enjoy their fill of the roast pork, mutton and bread
on offer. Instead, Astrid had begged off, claiming a headache. When Redknee had
told her they were still on the right course for the Promised Land; indeed,
that according to Sinead’s reading of the
Codex
, they were nearly there,
she’d gone pale and shaky. He supposed the prospect of soon finding her husband
had come as a shock.

Redknee shoved a chunk of
bread into his mouth and stared at Koll. Did Koll
really
think he was
afraid? He wasn’t. But he couldn’t see the point in giving up the safety of the
tunnels to go looking for two people who could be anywhere. Not with Ragnar
outside. Besides, he wasn’t sure he trusted Magnus any more, after Sinead said
he’d given Thora the fish for the poisoned stew. If Magnus
did
have some
betrayal planned, if he
was
the traitor Sven had so worried about, they
were better to stay here and face what came head on.

Koll lowered his drinking
horn. “Ach, lad, it’s hard making decisions. This boy king,” he said, leaning
in so Thorvald’s men in the next chamber couldn’t hear, “is ruled by the
sorceress. It’s a bad state. A leader must keep his own counsel. If you ask me,
she’s put a spell on him.”

“Nonsense,” Brother Alfred
said, reaching for the jug of mead. “There’s no such thing as magic.”

Koll grinned. “When the witch
started chanting you looked scared as a pig in a blood-month.”

“She thinks words are magic,”
said Sinead, finally tugging off her cap and flopping down beside Redknee. “She
means to increase her powers by learning to read Latin for herself.” Sinead
stared at her feet for a long moment, when she looked up her face was etched
with concern. “Was it wrong of me to read to her? I mean, if she learns to
read, could she really use it to increase her powers?”

Brother Alfred looked
thoughtful. “It depends what you mean. All knowledge brings power. That is
magic of a sort.”

Sinead furrowed her brow. “I
think she meant more than that.”

“Well?” Koll said, rising
from the table and rubbing his stomach. “I don’t know about magic. All I trust
is the strength in my right arm. But Thorvald shouldn’t listen to the
sorceress. Handsome though she is, something about her sends a chill through my
bones. By Thor’s hammer, this whole dark, damp turd of a place chills my bones.
So what of it, Little Jarl?” he said, looking at Redknee. “Are we going to go
find Magnus and Egil, and save their good for nothing, stinking hides?”

Redknee swallowed the bread
in his mouth whole.
Koll had called him a Jarl!

“Watch it there, lad,” Koll
said, thumping Redknee on the back. “There’s no place in
Valhalla
for a
man mastered by a loaf of bread.”

Sparks
flew into the air as Thorvald ground his axe along
the whetstone.

“What are you doing?” Redknee
asked, picking a battleaxe from the armoury walls; sliding it between the
leather straps on his back. He’d decided Koll was right. They couldn’t hide
here forever, relying on Thorvald’s favour. If Magnus
had
betrayed them,
better to know sooner. Besides, if their friends
were
in trouble … well,
they couldn’t lounge around feasting evermore; growing fat and soft.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Thorvald
replied. “I’m coming with you.” He wore a padded leather tunic beneath an old
mail coat that hung below his knees, almost reaching his ankles. He could
barely lift his arms.

“But it’s still daylight.”

“I’ve been cooped up too
long. I need to get out. Show my people I’m still in charge.”

“This isn’t your battle. It
was
my
village Ragnar burned,
my
mother he killed,” Redknee said,
placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. He felt Thorvald’s muscles tense beneath
the goosedown wadding. “You’ve done enough by sheltering us.”

Thorvald’s black and white
eyes stared back at him.

Redknee sighed. “You
will
go outside again, but not—”

“Seize him!”

Gisela stood in the doorway,
her arm outstretched, index finger pointing directly at Redknee. He reached to
draw his axe as six men-at-arms filed past her and grabbed him by the arms and
legs.

“What’s happening?” he
shouted as they bundled him through the door and down the corridor. He hadn’t
time to draw the battleaxe or even grab one of the swords that stood against
the armoury wall.

“I heard you,” Gisela said.
“We all heard you,” she said, nodding to the men-at-arms as they pushed him
into a dark cell. “You were inciting Thorvald to go forth during the day, an
offence punishable by death.” With this, Gisela turned and walked away.

“But …” Redknee shouted as
the door slammed in his face and one of the guards slid an iron bar across its
wake. “I’ve done nothing wrong!” He banged his fist against the wood. His
friends would find him, they would get him out. He called until his throat
became hoarse but still no one came. Gisela had taken him deep into the
labyrinth.

Sometime
later he heard footsteps approach along the tunnel. He peered through the small
window in the door, no bigger than a child’s hand. Thorvald had come and was
speaking to one of the guards. Was Thorvald here to rescue him? Or to authorise
his execution? He pressed his ear against the window and listened.

“Come, my man,” Thorvald said
in as deep a voice as a thirteen year old could muster. “This Redknee is my
friend. I command you to release him.”

Redknee’s heart soared.
Thorvald had come to free him. Everything would be all right.

“Sorry sire, but Mistress
Gisela’s instructions are to keep him locked up, no matter what. She said he’d
tried to influence you, sire. I’m sorry. She says it’s for your own good.”

Thorvald nodded and shuffled
back down the corridor.

Redknee slumped to the floor.
Suddenly he knew what it was like to be Thorvald. To be alone in the darkness,
jarl of nothing but mud and shadow.

A
long time passed. Redknee listened to the sounds of the dark. Became alert to
their patterns: a blacksmith hammering out his trade; snatches of disembodied
voices; the drip, drip of water.

He closed his eyes and
waited. Someone would notice him missing and come looking.
Wouldn’t they?

Heavy
footsteps woke him. He’d no idea how much time had passed. The footsteps came
from above, sending puffs of dirt from the ceiling. Voices joined them, grew
louder, fought with the screech of iron on iron. He scrambled to his feet and
pressed himself against the door, terrified the mud roof would collapse.

He peered through the window.
His guard had gone. Damn.
Had he been left to rot?
Well, he wasn’t
waiting. He forced his arm through the window and tried to lift the iron bar.
He couldn’t reach.

“Help!” he screamed,
withdrawing his arm and shouting as loud as he could. “Help me!” But the
shadows at the far end of the tunnel made no reply.

The footsteps above stopped.
The sound of metal scraping against rocks echoed through his cell. Digging.
Maybe they were sinking a new tunnel. He listened to the urgent clawing. They
were in a hurry.

A cloud of dirt blackened the
air in the tunnel. He covered his eyes. Men, five of them, tumbled through a
hole in the ceiling, scrambled to their feet and quickly formed a defensive
line. He squinted through his cell door. Their fine helmets glittered in the
faint torchlight of the tunnel. Their leader took charge.

“Spread out,” he said,
drawing his sword. “And remember what we’re looking for.”

Redknee
pressed his body flat against the wall. He doubted these men were his friends.
He heard them leave along the corridor. No one had thought to look in his cell.
He turned to peer through the window at their retreat and came face to face
with a bushy red beard and pair of watery blue eyes. Damn. He shot back into
the darkness.

“Sir,” he heard Red-beard
call, “there’s someone in this cell.”