Black-eyed, black-moustached, he wore blue-checked breeks like the Irish and a kirtle of finest blue silk, hemmed in red. One hand leaned on the fat-pommelled hilt of a sheathed sword, point at his feet. It was a fine sword, with a three-lobed heavy silver end to the hilt and lots of workings round the cross guard.
The other hand clasped a furred cloak around his throat. Gudleifs furred cloak, I noticed. And Gudleifs high seat but not his ship prows. I saw them stacked to one side and the ones that flanked the high seat now were the proud heads of an antlered beast with flaring nostrils.
Hard men, my fathers oarmates, who thought highly of him because he was their shipmaster and could read waves like other men did runes. Sixty of them had come to Bjornshafen because he had wished it, even though he did not lead this varjazi, this oathsworn band and their slim snakeship, the Fjord Elk.
Einar the Black led them, who now sat on Gudleifs high seat as if it were his own.
At his feet sat others, one of them Gunnar Raudi, hands on his knees, cloaked and very still, his faded red tangles fastened back from his face by a leather thong. He looked at me and said nothing, his eyes grey-blue and glassed as a summer sea.
The others I did not know, though I half recognised Geir, the great sack of purple-veined nose that gave him his nickname wobbling in his face as he told the tale of finding me half-frozen and slathered in blood, the headless woman nearby. Steinthor, who had been with him, nodded his shaggy head in agreement.
They were cheerful about it now but, at the time, had been afraid when they found the great white bear dead, a spear in its brain and Bjarnis sword rammed in its heart. As Steinthor happily admitted, to the grunts and chuckles of the others, he had shat himself.
There were two other strangers, one of them the biggest man I had ever seen: fat-bearded, fat-bellied, fat-voiced fat everything. He wore a blue coat of heavy wool and the biggest seaboots I had ever seen, into which were tucked the baggiest breeks, striped blue and silver, that I had ever seen. There were ells of silk in those breeks.
He had a fur hat with a silver end, which chimed like a bell when he accidentally brushed it against the blade of the huge Dane axe that he held, rapping the haft on the hard-packed hall floor now and then and going hoom deep in his throat when Geir managed a better-than-usual kenning in his story.
The other was languid and slim, leaning back against one of the roof poles, stroking his snake moustaches, which were all the fashion then. He looked at me as Gudleif looked at a new horse, weighing it up, seeing how it moved.
But no Gudleif, just this crow-dark stranger in his chair.
I am Einar the Black. Welcome, Orm Ruriksson.
He said it as if the hall belonged to him, as if the high seat was his.
I have to say, he went on, leaning forward slightly and turning the sword slowly on its rounded point as he did so, that things turned out more interesting and profitable than when Rurik came to me with this request to sail here. I had other plans but when your shipmaster speaks, a wise man listens.
Beside me, my father inclined his head slightly and grinned. Einar grinned in return and leaned back.
Where is Gudleif? I asked. There was silence. Einar looked at my father. I saw it and turned to look at him, too.
My father shrugged awkwardly. The tale I heard was that he had sent you into the mountain snows to die. And there was the matter of the bear, which had not been settled
Gudleifs dead, boy, Einar interrupted. His head is on a spear on the strand, so that his sons will see it when they finally arrive and know that bloodprice has been taken.
For what? growled the large man, turning his axe so that the blade flashed in the dim light. It was done when we thought Ruriks boy was killed.
For the bear, Skapti Halftroll, said Einar quietly. That was an expensive bear.
Was it Gudleif who killed it, then? asked the slim one, stroking his moustaches slowly and yawning. I am thinking I have just been listening to Geir Bagnose recount the saga of Orm Ruriksson, the White-bear Slayer.
Was he then to weigh the cost when it came at him in the dark? growled my father. I can see you count it up, Ketil Crow but by the time you got your boots off to use your toes, it would have been your head split from your body, for sure.
Ketil Crow chuckled and acknowledged the point with the wave of one hand. Aye, just so. I cannot count, that is true enough. But I know how many beans make five, just the same.
Of course, said Einar, smoothly ignoring all this, there is the woman, Freydis, who was killed. No thrall, that one. Freeborn and theres a price to be paid for that, since her death came because Gudleif let the bear go in the first place. Anyway, the bear was mine and worth a lot.
My father said nothing about whose bear it was. I said nothing at all, since I had just realised that the pole with the ball Caomh had been standing near was a spear with Gudleifs head on it.