I heard the air hiss from him and there was petulance as much as disappointment in that, for young Crowbone did not like to be crossed.
There is fame and the taste of victory, he argued, pouting into my twist of a smile.
I already had fame, while victory, when all is said and done, tastes as blood-foul as failure which was the other side of the spinning coin in this matter. He scowled at that, his eyes reflecting me to myself what I saw there was old and done, but it was the view from a boy of twelve and almost made me chuckle. Then Crowbone found himself and smiled blandly; more signs of the princely things learned from Vladimir, I saw.
I will have the drum-frogs leap for me, all the same, he said and I nodded.
As if he had heard, Vuokko came into the hall, so silently that one of the younger thrall girls, too fondled by these new and muscled warriors to notice, gave a scream as the Sea-Finn appeared next to her.
Men laughed, though uneasily, for Vuokko had a face like a mid-winter mummers mask left too long in the rain, which the wind-guttered sconces did not treat kindly. The high cheekbones flared the light, making the shadows there darker still, while the eyes, slits of blackness, had no pupils that I could see and the skin of his face was soft and lined as an old walrus.
He grinned his pointed-toothed smile and sidled in, all fur and leather and bits of stolen Norse weave, hung about with feathers and bone both round his neck and wound into the straggles of his iron-grey hair.
In one hand was the drum of white reindeer skin marked with runes and signs only he knew, festooned with claws and little skulls and tufts of wool; on the surface, three frogs skittered, fastened to a ring that went round the whole circle of it. In his other hand was a tiny wooden hammer.
Men made warding signs and muttered darkly, but Crowbone smiled, for he knew the seidr, unmanly work of Freyja though that magic was, and a Sea-Finns drum held no terrors for a boy who saw into the Other by the actions of birds. I wondered if he still had some more of the strange stories he had chilled us all with last year.
This grandson of Yngling kings, I said pointedly to the Finn, wants a message from your drum on an enterprise he has.
The Sea-Finn grinned his bear-trap grin, as if he had known all along. He produced a carved runestick from his belt and then drew a large square in the hard, beaten earth of the floor folk sidled away from him as he came near.
Then he marked off two points on all the sides and scraped lines to join them; now he had nine squares and folk shivered as if the fire had died. In the middle square, the square within a square, he folded into a cross-legged sit and cradled the drum like a child, crooning to it.
He rocked and chanted, a deep hoom in the back of his throat that raised hackles, for most knew he was calling on Lemminki, a Finnish sorcerer-god who could sing the sand into pearls for those brave enough to call on him. The square within a square was supposed to keep Vuokko safe but folk darted uneasy looks at the flickering shadows and moved even further away from him.
Finally, he hit the drum once only a deep and resonating bell of sound coming from such a small thing; men winced and shifted and made Hammer signs and I saw Finn join his hands in the diamond-shape of the ingwaz warding rune as the gold frogs danced. No man cared for seidr magic, for it was a womans thing and to see a man do it set flesh creeping.
Vuokko peered for a long time, then raised his horror of a face to Crowbone. You will be king, he said simply and there was a hiss as men let out their breath all at once together, for that had not been the enterprise I had meant.
Crowbone merely smiled the smile of a man who had had the answer he expected and fished in his purse, drawing out his pilfered coin. He flicked it casually in the air towards Vuokko, who never took his eyes from Crowbones face, ignoring the silver whirl of it.
I was astounded by the boys arrogance and his disregard you did not treat the likes of Vuokko like some fawning street-seer, nor did you break the safety of his square within a square while he was in the Sitting-Out, half in and half out of the Other, surrounded by a swirl of dangerous strangeness.
Crowbone had half-turned away in his proud, unthinking fashion when the scorned miliaresion bounced on the drum, the tinkle of its final landing lost in the thunder it made. He turned, surprised.
What was that sound, Sea-Finn? he demanded and Vuokko smiled like a wolf closing in.
That was the sound of your enterprise, lord, he replied after a study of the frogs, falling from your hand.
After that, the feasting was a sullen affair coloured by Crowbones morose puzzlement, for now he did not know what the Sea-Finn had promised. Most of his followers only recalled the bit about him becoming king in Norway, so they were cheered.
I stood with Crowbone on the sand and dulse two days later, while his men hefted their sea-chests back on the splendid Short Serpent and got ready to sail off.