A shadow appeared at his elbow and I turned to the mailed and helmeted figure who owned it; he stared back at me from under his Rus horse-plume and face-mail, iron-grim and stiff as old rock.
Alyosha Buslaev, declared little Crowbone with a grin. My prow man.
Vladimirs man more like, I was thinking, as this Alyosha closed in on Crowbone like a protecting hound, sent by the fifteen-year-old Prince of Novgorod to both guard and watch his little brother-in-arms. They were snarling little cubs, the Princes Vladimir and Olaf Crowbone, and thinking on them only made me feel old.
The hall was crowded that night as we feasted young Crowbone and his crew with roast horse, pork, ale and calls to the Aesir, for Hestreng was still free of the Christ and mine was still the un-partitioned hall of a raiding jarl despite my best efforts to change that. Still, as I told Crowbone, the White Christ was everywhere, so that the horse trade was dying those made Christian did not fight horses in the old way, nor eat the meat.
Go raiding, he replied, with the air of someone who thought I was daft for not having considered it. Then he grinned. I forgot you do not need to follow the prow beast, with all the silver you have buried away under moonlight.
I did not answer that; young Crowbone had developed a hunger for silver, ever since he had worked out that that was where ships and men came from. He needed ships and men to make himself king in Norway and I did not want him snuffling after any moonlit burials of mine he had had his share of Atils silver. That hoard had been hard come by and I was still not sure that it was not cursed.
I did not answer that; young Crowbone had developed a hunger for silver, ever since he had worked out that that was where ships and men came from. He needed ships and men to make himself king in Norway and I did not want him snuffling after any moonlit burials of mine he had had his share of Atils silver. That hoard had been hard come by and I was still not sure that it was not cursed.
I offered horn-toasts to the memory of dead Sigurd, Crowbones silver-nosed uncle, who had been the nearest to a father the boy had had and who had been Vladimirs druzhina commander. Crowbone joined in, perched on the high-backed guest bench beside me, his legs too short to rest his feet like a grown man on the tall hearthstones that kept drunk and child from tumbling in the pitfire.
His men, too, appreciated the Sigurd toasts and roared it out. They were horse-eating men of Thor and Frey, big men, calloused and muscled like bull walruses from sword work and rowing, with big beards and loud voices, spilling ale down their chests and boasting. I saw Finns nostrils flare, drinking in the salt-sea reek of them, the taste of war and wave that flowed from them like heat.
Some of them wore silk tunics and baggier breeks than others, carried curved swords rather than straight, but that was just Gardariki fashion and, apart from Alyosha, they were not the half-breed Slavs who call themselves Rus rowers. These were all true Swedes, young oar-wolves who had crewed with Crowbone up and down the Baltic and would follow the boy into Hels hall itself if he went and Alyosha was at his side to make the sensible decisions.
Crowbone saw me look them over and was pleased at what he saw in my face.
Aye, they are hard men, right enough, he chuckled and I shrugged as diffidently as I could, waiting for him to tell me why he and his hard men were here. All that had gone before politeness and feasting and smiles had been leading to this place.
It is good of you to remember my uncle, he said after a time of working at his boots. The hall rang with noise and the smoke-sweat fug was thicker than the bench planks. Small bones flew; roars and laughter went up when one hit a target.
He paused for effect and stroked his ringed braids, wanting moustaches so badly I almost laughed.
He is the reason I am here, he said, raising his voice to be heard. It piped, still, like a boys, but I did not smile; I had long since learned that Crowbone was not the boy he seemed.
When I said nothing, he waved an impatient little hand.
Randr Sterki sailed this way.
I sat back at that news and the memories came welling up like reek in a blocked privy. Randr the Strong had been the right-hand of Klerkon and had taken over most of that ones crew after Klerkon died; he had sailed their ship, Dragon Wings, to an island off Aldeijuborg.
Klerkon. There was a harsh memory right enough. He had raided us and lived only long enough to be sorry for it, for we had wolfed down on his winter-camp on Svartey, the Black Island, finding only his thralls and the wives and weans of his crew and Crowbone, chained to the privy.
Well, things were done on Svartey that were usual enough for red-war raids, but men too long leashed and then let loose, goaded on by a vengeful Crowbone, had guddled in blood and thrown bairns at walls. Later, Crowbone found and killed Klerkon but that is another tale, for nights with a good fire against the saga chill of it.