THE VIKING

The horn sounds twice before dawn. One long note, one short, the signal Jarl Einar agreed on with his steersmen last night over the ale.

I am already awake. I have been awake since the middle watch, sitting on a sea-chest in the waist of the ship with my back against the strakes and my whetstone moving along the edge of my axe. Shhhk. Shhhk. The edge does not need it. A man must give his hands something to do while his mind runs ahead of him.

Now the whole river wakes with me.

Oars creak in their holes. Men grunt and curse as they work numb fingers into shield straps. Somebody in the stern is being sick over the side, which is what comes of drinking mead on an empty belly the night before a landing. The mist lies so thick on the water that the longships behind us are only dark shapes with dragon heads, nosing out of the white like beasts that have lost the herd.

It is the dead of winter. Anno Domini 870, the Christians say, counting from their god's birth. Frost rimes the gunwales, and my breath hangs in front of my face.

Beyond the bank, on the hill above the Kennet, stands the minster we have come for. It is a squat thing of pale stone and timber outbuildings, with a chapel at its heart and a bell that has been calling the monks to prayer since before the first of us landed. Half a morning's walk to the east, the rest of the Great Army is digging itself in between two rivers at Reading, raising a rampart of earth and timber to winter behind. An army that size eats like a plague of locusts. It needs grain, cattle, and silver, and the Saxons have been kind enough to store all three in their churches.

They never learn. Every abbot and thegn between here and Northumbria still believes his god will turn us aside at the gate.

I think he is wrong. I do not think it is my business to tell him so.

"Hear me, and hear me once!" Jarl Einar Iron-Hand calls from the prow of the lead ship. His voice carries flat and cold across the water, and every steersman on the river falls silent to listen. "We want the silver, the grain, and the cattle. Take what is useful. Do not burn what you cannot eat or spend. The stores are worth more to us than the thatch."

He pauses, and I know where his eyes are going before he turns his head.

"And I will have the hand of any man who fires a roof before the wagons are loaded."

A few of the younger men laugh. The older ones do not. The older ones know Einar means it.

Beside me, Halfdan Skinner crouches on the rowing bench, rolling his tongue around the gap in his teeth. He catches me looking and grins. It is not a friendly grin. We have shared a bench for three winters. I have seen him hold a drowning man's head above the swell until the waves settled, and I have seen him cut the throat of a prisoner who had already told us everything. He is no fool and no coward. He is a man who has discovered that the world will let him take whatever he reaches for, and has never thought to ask what it will cost him.

"The seer was frowning at you again last night, Wolf," says a dry voice at my other shoulder.

Ingrid Shield-Biter has been in the army since before I was old enough to lift an oar. She is built like a barn door, with a grey-streaked plait over one shoulder and a face like a closed fist. She does not look at me when she speaks. She is checking the rivets on her shield boss, one by one.

"Magda frowns at everyone," I tell her.

"She does not spit in the fire afterward."

I say nothing. I saw it. Magda Crow-Feeder had stared across the camp fire at me for a long while, with firelight crawling over the bones braided into her hair, and then she had leaned over and spat into the coals and said not a word. It is a poor sign when a seer will not spend her voice.

"She is an old woman who likes to be noticed," I say.

"She is an old woman who has been right more often than you or I." Ingrid finally glances up. Her eyes are the color of a winter sea. "Keep your shield close today, Torstein."

"I always do."

"Then keep it closer."

She goes back to her rivets.

I put my hand under my tunic and find the little silver hammer on its thong. The metal is cold. It is always cold in the mornings.

My father made it himself. I was nine winters old. We had no silver to speak of, only a few scraps traded for a season's salt fish, and he spent three nights at the forge beating them into a thin sheet while my mother fed the fire and my little sister slept in a heap of skins.

"Thor's hammer," he told me, pressing it into my fist while the metal was still warm. "Not for show. For when the world is trying to kill you. You hold it, and you remember what stands behind you."

I remember the smell of that forge: charcoal, hot iron, spruce pitch. I remember thinking his hands were the strongest things in the world, though they shook a little on the tongs. That was hunger. We ate bark in the lean winters. Sometimes the dog.

Vestfold is a slab of black granite dropped into the sea, where a man takes to the oar or he starves. I took to the oar at fourteen, with my father's axe on my shoulder and my mother's silence at my back, and I did not go home for six years.

When I did, the hall had burned. The hammer was all there was.

I let go of the pendant and tuck it back beneath my wolfskin.

There is no use thinking of that now.

The prow grinds into the mud with a long, shuddering crunch, and the deck leaps beneath my feet. Men are already over the side, splashing up to their knees in the freezing shallows, shields raised against the first arrows. A big fellow near the stern slips on a stone and goes under. The others howl with laughter and haul him up by his belt, and he comes out spitting river water and cursing Loki and all of Loki's children.

Then the bank is a storm of boots, iron, and noise.

We run.

It is a hundred paces from the water to the minster wall, up a muddy track churned by the oxcarts of the monks. My axe bounces against my thigh and my shield knocks against my back. All around me, men are shouting names and curses and the names of gods, because no one in this world has ever learned to run into battle in silence.

"Odin!" a young warrior screams, thrusting his spear at the sky.

Then it is a hundred throats, and I am one of them.

"ODIN! ODIN! ODIN!"

The cry begins in the belly and tears out through the teeth. It drives out fear, and thought, and the sound of your own heart. I do not believe the gods owe me victory. No man with sense does. But a man may give them his courage, and perhaps they will remember it. If I am to die today, let the Allfather's ravens find me with my face toward the enemy and my axe in my hand.

An arrow hisses past my cheek. Another strikes the shield of the man beside me with a sound like a wet slap.

"Close up!" Ingrid roars from somewhere to my left. "Shields! Shields, you fools!"

We hit the gate like a wave against a cliff.

The first axe falls. The second. Splinters sting my face. A stone thrown from the wall takes a man across the brow, and he drops to one knee with blood pouring over his nose. I seize him by the back of his tunic.

"On your feet, ox. You can die when we are inside."

He laughs, or he screams. In the din I cannot tell which.

The gate breaks.

The timber caves inward, and the raid pours through it like water through a split dam.

I have seen a courtyard like this a dozen times, and each time it is a little different. Grey-robed monks with crosses instead of spears. Lay brothers with hay forks and kitchen knives. A few thegns' men in leather and mail, braced shoulder to shoulder before the chapel door. They have more courage than sense, and I think the better of them for it.

I take the first on my shield and bring my axe across his ribs. He drops. I step over him and take the next.

It is not glorious. Glory is something the skalds invent afterward, with a harp and a horn of ale. What this is, is work: the weight of the axe, the reach of the shield, the bite of iron on iron, the hard cold thrill that runs down the spine when an enemy's blade slides past your ear and you do not flinch.

Behind me, I hear Halfdan laughing.

He is standing over a young monk beside the well. The boy has dropped his wooden cross and raised both empty hands, palms out, and he is saying something over and over in Latin. Halfdan looks down at him, axe loose in one fist, like a child who has caught a frog.

"Halfdan," I say.

"Listen to him, Wolf. It sounds like geese."

"He is unarmed."

"Then it will be quick."

The axe falls.

It is a short, wet crack that I feel more than hear. The boy's hands drop away from his face and lie in the dirt, palms still upturned.

I stand very still.

I have seen men die in every way the world has devised. But there are two kinds of killing, and a warrior is the man who knows the difference. A man who cuts down an armed enemy proves his arm. A man who cuts down a helpless one proves only that he has found a victim.

Halfdan wipes his blade on the dead boy's habit and looks up, bright-eyed. "What?"

I spit between us. "I thought you were a better man than that."

"You thought I was a better fool." His grin widens. "There is a roof over there, Wolf. A nice dry thatched roof. Shall we see how it burns?"

"Einar said not until the wagons are loaded."

"Einar is on the river."

He strolls toward the nearest outbuilding with a brand pulled from a fire pot by the cloister door. I think of calling after him. I think of the warband around us, half of them already into the abbot's wine, and of how many men Halfdan has already convinced that the Jarl's orders are a matter of taste.

I do not follow him.

A little way off, the thatch catches. Smoke rolls up in a thick, oily column, and the courtyard begins to turn the color of a dying bruise.

"Fool," I mutter, and turn toward the chapel, because it is the last place where the Saxons are still holding.

I hear the singing before I reach the door.

Latin. A thin, steady thread of voices, rising and falling beneath the roar of the raid. It is a ridiculous sound, in the middle of all this. A hymn, sung to a god who does not seem to be listening, by men who have decided to sing anyway.

Something stirs in my chest, and I do not like it.

I touch the hammer at my throat. The White Christ. I have heard of him all my life. I have seen his priests die with his sign in their fists, and I do not know whether he hears them. I do not know whether Odin hears us. A sensible man makes no claims about the gods. He only avoids insulting them more than he must.

I put my shoulder to the chapel door.

The heat strikes first. Then the smoke. Then the smell: candle wax, scorched stone, old incense, blood.

The roof beams are burning. Someone has overturned the stone altar and smashed the colored glass above it, and fragments lie scattered across the floor like jewels. A knot of my own men are tearing a silver cup from a shrine, arguing over who gets to keep it.

"If you spend one more breath fighting over that," I tell them, "I will throw it on the fire myself."

They scatter, swearing. Ingrid, who has followed me in, takes one look at the roof and swears too.

"We do not have long," she says.

"I know."

Then I see you.

You are standing near the broken altar, half hidden by a fallen pillar, with the flames throwing long shapes across the wall behind you. I cannot see all of your face through the smoke. I see enough to know that you are not armed, and not running, and not praying, or not in any way I recognize. You are simply standing, with the whole chapel coming down around you, as if you have not yet decided what to do about it.

I find that I have stopped walking.

I am not sure why.

And Halfdan has seen you, too.

He has come in behind me through the south door, with a smear of soot across his cheek and his axe in his hand. He looks around the burning nave with open delight, the way a man looks around a feast hall, and then he finds you, and his smile widens.

"Well, now," he says. "What have we here? Hiding in the house of a dead god. Shall I send you to join him?"

"Halfdan," I say.

He lifts his axe.

I move.

My shoulder meets his chest before the blade can fall. We crash against a pillar so hard that dust rains from the stone. I catch his wrist, twist it back until something cracks, and take his axe out of his hand. He swings at me with his other fist, and I take the blow on the jaw and give him one in return. His head snaps sideways.

"You struck me!" he spits, blood leaking from his mouth.

"Aye. I will do it again."

"Over a Saxon?"

"Over a man who strikes the helpless and calls it battle."

His eyes go flat. Around us, a few of the men have stopped plundering to watch, some with interest, some with the lazy anticipation of those who enjoy seeing other men fight. Ingrid has stopped beside the doorway with her arms folded.

I let go of his tunic.

"This one is mine," I say, so that everyone in the chapel hears it. "I took them by the altar, with my own hand. By the law of the hird, the first hand that holds a captive holds the claim. You know it. Every man here knows it."

Halfdan glances at the men, and at Ingrid, and I watch him weigh whether any of them will back his case. None of them moves.

"If you have a quarrel, take it to Jarl Einar. He will judge it. Until then, this is my herfang, and if you lay a finger on them, I will have the hand."

He stares at me for a long time.

"You will regret this, Wolf," he says at last.

"Perhaps. But not today."

He spits at my feet, gathers his axe from the tiles, and walks out into the smoke.

A beam gives way overhead with a crash like thunder. Sparks drive down through the nave. The smoke is a solid thing in the throat now.

I turn to you.

"Up," I say. My voice is rough with soot. "Get up."

You do not move fast enough, so I stop asking. I cross the space between us in three strides, take hold of your arm above the elbow, and haul you to your feet. My grip is harder than I mean it to be.

"The roof is coming down. Move."

I drag you toward the side passage, ducking a burning rafter that falls so close I feel it on my neck. My boots slip on blood and scattered ash. You stumble against me, and I catch you with my other arm before you go down.

"Stay on your feet."

Behind us, the chapel gives a long, tearing groan, and something huge comes down at the far end of the nave with a roar that shakes the stones beneath us. A rush of hot air hits our backs and sends the smoke surging down the passage.

I do not look back. I have watched men die because they turned to look at the thing that was killing them.

We burst out into the courtyard.

It is worse than before. Half the buildings are alight, and the horses in the stable are screaming. Two men are wrestling over a chest in the mud while a third tries to break the lock with the back of his axe. Someone has climbed onto an ox cart with a stolen silver cup and is bellowing a toast to the Allfather at the top of his lungs.

"ODIN!" he roars.

"ODIN!" a dozen drunken voices answer.

I haul you past them.

A raider steps into my path and reaches for you, grinning with the careless hunger of a man who has had too much wine and sees something he would like to own. His hand is still stretched toward your shoulder when I turn on him.

He stops. I have not said a word. My axe is in my fist, and I suppose my face has said it for me.

"Find your own spoils," I tell him.

He raises both hands and backs away. "You have turned miserly, Wolf."

"Aye."

I take you down the narrow stair to the undercroft.

The noise of the raid falls away with every step. At the bottom, I put my shoulder to the oak door, shove it open, and drag you inside after me. Then I turn and drop the bar.

The sound is solid. Final.

For the first time since the horn, I can hear myself breathe.

I lean my forehead against the wood and wait for my heart to slow. My jaw aches where Halfdan hit me. My knuckles are split and slick with blood, some of it mine. When I turn around, you are still there.

This is the place I have made my own for the winter: a low, vaulted undercroft beneath the broken chapel, where the old Saxon dead are stacked in niches along the walls, skulls and long bones and scraps of cloth. It smells of cold stone, tallow, and old earth. A trestle table stands under a hanging lamp, with a knife, a whetstone, a wooden bowl, and a half-drunk horn of mead. My shield leans against a stone chest at the far end, and a heap of furs lies across its lid.

It is not a home. But the door bars, the wind cannot reach it, and the dead do not complain about the noise.

I look at you, then at the barred door, then at you again. I have no idea what I am supposed to do now.

"Hel take me," I mutter in my own tongue, and drag a hand down my face.

I have fought men and storms. I have eaten the dog and carried friends back to the ships over my shoulder. And here I stand in a crypt with a stranger I pulled out of a fire, and I cannot say why.

I take the silver hammer from my tunic and press it briefly to my mouth, as my father did. Then I go to the table, tear the heel from a loaf, add a slab of cold pork, and push the lot toward you across the boards. It comes out rougher than I intend.

"Eat."

I have to stop and search for the word in Saxon. I have learned some of the tongue from traders, and some from prisoners, and the rest by shouting across battlefields, and none of it is good enough for this.

"Eat," I say again. "Sit. Warm."

I pull a fur from the chest and throw it onto the bench beside you. Then I jerk my chin toward the axe leaning against the shield.

"Not touch."

I make sure you understand the gesture, even if not the word.

"Halfdan," I say, and spit the name like something bitter. "Bad man. Long memory. He comes to the door, you stay behind me. You hear fighting, you stay away. I say move—"

I snap my fingers.

"You move."

I lean on the table. The lamp throws my shadow huge across the vaulted ceiling. Somewhere above, laughter shakes dust from the stones, and a man begins to sing about a Frankish king and his daughters.

I wait for it to pass.

"Hate me, if you must," I say, slowly, so my broken Saxon does not betray me. "Curse my gods. Pray to your White Christ. That is yours." I tap the table. "But no man of my hird lays a hand on you, unless he answers to me."

The words fall heavier than I meant them to.

I straighten, irritated with myself for saying so much. I take the whetstone and drag it once along the axe. Shhhk. Then I stop.

I have been thinking of you as the captive. As the Saxon. As mine. They are names for something to be carried off and traded.

I look up.

"Hvat heitir þú?" I ask in my own tongue, and then, because you do not seem to understand: "What are you called?"

Overhead, something heavy crashes to the floor. A chorus of voices shouts for more ale.

I do not look at the ceiling.

I fold my arms, and I wait.

"Your name," I say, and the roughness is back in my voice, and I do not try to hide it. "I will have it. Or I keep calling you Saxon."