Forged in Blood Read online

  M’lym’s bloodshot eyes widen in tearful disbelief at how readily Hakon has agreed to put himself out. She makes a sign of the cross on her breast, licks her finger — her usual gestures to bring luck — and appeals to me. ‘Does he mean it, Ostman? What is he after? We have nothing to give in return!’

  ‘I don’t ask a bean, young stranger,’ says Hakon, laughing at her antics; not unmoved by her tears. ‘But say a ‘Hail Mary’ for me, if you like, for a safe haven for the Meuris; another for my voyage to Vadrar-fiord, and another,’ he adds as an afterthought, ‘for sinking a blade-hole in those bastards who killed Lunan and Kotter.’

  The skipper’s words, which began open and friendly to the girl, albeit in a gently mocking tone, become angered and murderous, when he talks of his dead crewmen. His bright face clouds over, darkened by the urge for revenge. I am worried that he might have second thoughts about dropping us on the beach.

  I say the first thing that comes into my head. ‘I heard the monks have cider-presses for apple harvest, and that they have built a sanctuary-house and tower on the hill. Is that right, Skipper?’

  ‘How should I know?’ Hakon scowls with resentment. ‘Never been in the high woods! I don’t stray too far on land hereabouts — not if I can help it!’

  Baldr looks up from his rope — in surprise at Hakon’s abrupt denial. ‘I can give directions to the abbot’s fort. Is that where you want to go?’ And then he adds thoughtfully, ‘I have been there twice to kiss a relic of the saint — Skip knows fine well I made a vow to be a Christian for the sake of my dead brother’s soul — and yes, they have cider-presses. They have vaults full of apple grog.’

  *

  We have rounded the south of Inis-deilg and have the isle’s east-facing seaboard on our larboard bows. Its sunny slopes are a mass of yellow gorse in bloom. Hakon sets a course north, rations water from the ship’s bag and doles to each of us a portion of brittle stock-fish. He calls Baldr to the helm and steps stiffly over the thwarts to the hold. Once there he unties withies, removes battens and pulls away the tarps that cover his stinking cargo, the cargo that was the death of Lunan and Kotter.

  *

  ‘Ugh!’ M’lym pinches her nose at the sight of Hakon rummaging among slimy walrus skins in the hold. ‘What a reek!’ She whispers an aside to me. ‘See the old man’s serk and breeches. His beard too! He is covered in it.’

  ‘Leather strips for rope-making,’ says Baldr from the helm. ‘Walrus hide makes the finest rigging.’

  Hakon is waist-high in the gungy slime. ‘We soak the hides in blubber oil to keep them supple,’ says he. ‘The smell ain’t so bad. You get used to it, lass.’

  ‘Don’t look like ship’s ropes to me,’ says M’lym. ‘Too short and too sticky; how could you tie a knot with them?’

  ‘They are not ropes yet!’ Baldr laughs at the way M’lym pinches her nose from the smell. ‘These raw cables will be stretched — maybe to ten times their length — stretched and twisted, and bound together in five-ply or six-ply; spliced into lengths; and dried till they become ship’s hawsers. Then they are coiled and steeped in blubber. Takes a long time to make a rope, doesn’t it, skip?’

  ‘Your brother was a rope-maker,’ replies Hakon with a sad shake of the head. ‘If anyone knows about ropes, my young friend, it is you.’

  Baldr sets to at the helm. He ties the tiller fast and trims sail, though the canvas set by Hakon is taut in the breeze — it barely needs adjustment.

  The skipper dips his arms elbow-deep into the slurry, feeling among the strips of walrus hide for an item that he has hidden underneath, or has been buried there by another. His face is red with effort, and with growing annoyance at not reaching his trove in the gunge.

  M’lym chews her dry fish and draws close to the oily cargo. ‘Hey, Skipper-man, why do your walrus hides wiggle like big worms?’ Hakon snarls to himself and ignores her. He is delving in a far corner of the hold.

  Baldr, perhaps preoccupied with thoughts of his brother, stares silently into the offing. He stretches his left hand fretfully to his neck and tugs at his tail of plaited hair.

  M’lym will get no answer from Hakon or his crewman. To keep the girl cheerful, I pull a length of walrus-hide from the hold. ‘Look how the carcase was skinned! The walrus-hunters flenched around the animal’s girth in a continuous spiral — a circle-wise cut. See how wide this big fella’s belly was, before they butchered him?’

  ‘Must be a whole herd of walruses in the hold,’ says the girl thoughtfully.

  ‘Found it!’ Hakon lets go a cheerful shout. He drags a sheath of leather out of the blubbery hold and sets his find — a rod-like length — amidships on the thwarts. ‘Now I must find the other!’

  The skipper rakes both arms through the raw walrus ropes and soon comes up with a second trove in the slurry. This leather bag is bigger than the first, and heavier. It makes a sucking sound, requires all Hakon’s strength to haul it from the blubber. ‘He taps his nose in disbelief. ‘How could I have missed it when I first trawled in that corner?’

  Dripping in blubber, Hakon settles on a rowing-bench amidships and unwraps the sheath of leather. Unwrapped first is the fine heft of a sword and then its blade, tempered grey and shining, which the skipper draws to it full length and then holds to his lips. ‘Thor give me strength! The bastards who did it will answer to me.’ This vow he makes in a quiet voice, almost a whisper.

  ‘What have you got in the other bag,’ asks M’lym, ‘the heavy one?’

  ‘Nothing that concerns you, lass,’ replies Hakon. Nonetheless his heated cheeks broaden to a grin, a grin that makes us believe he won’t be unhappy for the contents to be known.

  ‘Walrus tusks,’ shouts Baldr from the helm, ‘traded from ice-farers; all the way from Finnmark; best ivory you will ever see. Worth a small fortune!’

  *

  Apple woodlands hug the shoreline and cover the hillside. The slopes rise gently inland and fade at their higher reaches into summer haze. Only the crest of an occasional oak, towering darkly above the squat foliage of the fruit trees, interrupts the apple-green of the woods.

  Hakon guides the ship towards the shore. A breeze off land carries the salty tang of washed-up wrack and a sweetness of apples. The breeze robs the sail of its mild south-easterly and stalls our progress inshore. The late afternoon sun is in our faces as Baldr lets down the ship’s anchor in the shallows of the sandy cove. He dives in after the anchor and wedges it secure on the bottom.

  Hakon has decided against beaching the Meuris. He won’t touch land. He will keep the ship afloat for ease of casting off. The skipper has drawn up the mid-leach of the sail leaving two halves of canvas drooping as gull-wings from the yard. Trimmed like this, the wings of the sail catch little or no draught from the land breeze.

  Baldr stands beside me in the water. ‘I will walk with you to the forest eaves,’ says he pleasantly. ‘There’s a path through the woods. It will take you to the abbot’s fort.’

  The water is chest-deep for Baldr and me — too deep for M’lym to wade ashore. Hakon sets her on my shoulders. ‘Better we don’t know your name, stranger,’ says the skipper. ‘Don’t go chasing after runaway ships. You never know where you might end up!’ This is the sum of Hakon’s farewell.

  When Baldr and I wade to knee-high in the waves, within a step or two of the water’s edge, I slip M’lym off my back. She lands with a splash on floating seaweed. ‘Why not gather a handful of dulse,’ says I to the girl. ‘No, over there. We can eat while we walk.’ She scurries ashore, whooping in childish laughter, kicking up watery seaweed in her wake.

  While I watch her run on the sand, my eye alights on two stooped figures at the eaves of the woods. Baldr has spotted them too. ‘Monks,’ he says. ‘You can tell by their brown robes.’

  ‘What are they doing?’

  ‘Gathering windfalls,’ he explains. ‘Fruits brought down by the storms — the brothers mash them and use the pulp for laundry — don’t ask me why.’


  M’lym is out of hearing, or perhaps she didn’t understand what Baldr said of the monks’ curious dog-like behaviour, their rummaging on hands and knees for apples, their sniffing and raking around under the trees. She fixes her eyes fearfully and suspiciously on the robed strangers.

  Baldr and I burst into laughter.

  A man’s voice breaks from behind the tree-line.

  ‘Here, master, come quickly; come and see what the tide has washed ashore!’

  Out of the trees strides Brennan, our hated guard from Inis-dubh. Immediately after him, answering his excited call, Drafdrit, with three other guards at his back, running red-faced and breathless towards us. Sweat on the slave-master’s brow tells of a long day’s exertions in the woods. His darkened face leaves me in no doubt of his fury.

  ‘Better than nothing, I suppose,’ growls Drafdrit, ‘but two out of six ain’t worth all this trouble.’ He smacks a blow on the back of M’lym’s head, knocking her off her feet. ‘Take that, you little shit. That will teach you to filch my keys.’

  Baldr cries out in protest and runs to pick up the girl.

  I aim a punch on Drafdrit’s chin to pay him for his assault on the child. Before I can land a blow, the slave-master’s guards have me to my knees, my head forced low at his feet. I hear my nose crack from a hefty kick. The mud from Drafdrit’s boot gives off a smell of forest earth and sodden leaves, of rotting apples and acorns, the fouling of wild pigs.

  *

  ‘Six ran off last night,’ replies Drafdrit in answer to Hakon’s enquiry after the skipper has waded ashore to join him. ‘No sign of the other four,’ says the slave-master. ‘Must have fled north. The old woman got it wrong; she told me south.’

  Baldr lifts M’lym to her feet. I take a shuffle towards the girl. The chain rattles. I’m pulled back. Brennan, while I was out cold, has clasped iron to my neck. Blood on my lips and a pounding on the bridge of my nose; I see men’s faces blurred through one eye. Their words fall heavy on my ears.

  ‘Little chance of their crossing north,’ returns Hakon with what looks to my dimmed eyes like a shake of the head. ‘The flood was too strong from upriver. It was touch and go for us, making it out into the estuary.’

  ‘When was that, then?’ asks Brennan.

  ‘Not much after daylight,’ answers Baldr.

  ‘You were crazy to put out in a storm river,’ says Drafdrit with a sneer.

  ‘We had no choice in it,’ replies the skipper. ‘My ship was cut loose from its moorings and sent out on the water to scupper. Two of my crew had their throats cut. We only managed to get aboard before the ebb-tide took us from the creek.’

  ‘Why did you pick up runaways?’ Drafdrit asks.

  ‘We didn’t,’ answers Baldr. ‘They were already on-board.’

  M’lym darts a glance at me while the slave-master ponders Baldr’s reply. ‘Old Niamh was right after all,’ says he. ‘They did take to the creek. Are you sure they didn’t do the dirty on your lads?’

  ‘No, not them,’ says Hakon.

  ‘You brought them here, though,’ says Brennan; ‘to this handy cove; helped them escape.’

  At this I fall back on my knees.

  ‘Not so!’ the skipper answers defensively. ‘We let the hull drift for a bit in the estuary. That’s why we are here. We were without canvas. Only three of us to get our sail aloft — that ain’t easy on the Meuris — and we had our two men to bury at sea.’

  ‘You say the ship was cut adrift,’ says Drafdrit, his tone becoming at once suspicious and sarcastic. ‘Who would do a fell deed to an honest seaman?’

  ‘A shit like Einar Raffson,’ comes the quick-fire answer from Hakon. ‘I mean to re-pay him for his trouble — and for what he did to my lads!’

  Drafdrit gives out a splutter of a laugh. ‘You weren’t to know, Skipper,’ says he, ‘or you, young pigtail.’ He motions to Baldr who has M’lym encircled in his arms. ‘You weren’t to know the bastard you helped to escape. This arsehole is Raffson’s brother — an out-and-out killer, outcast-by-law from his own people in the ice-lands!’

  M’lym breaks free of Baldr. The child’s eyes blaze in defiance — suddenly she finds her tongue. ‘I thought all Ostmen were arseholes and killers!’

  Chapter 10

  The whipping has left me raw from shoulders to hips. I daren’t lie on my back. If river-sand gets into my wounds, it will foul the flesh; add to my torture. My lower ribs are crushed. I cannot take rest on either side or belly. To stop the iron from grazing my throat, from choking me breathless, I hold the collar a thumbs-breadth from my chin. It gives some ease, but drains my strength; turns my wrist numb. I suspect my jaw is broken. I grit my teeth; hold still — motionless at every joint of my body — a foolish attempt to defeat the pain. Wasted effort. Only sleep or death will save me.

  I stare skywards, deep into the dark bowl of stars. I deceive myself that, if I stare long enough into the bottomless gloom of night, I will sink into a trance and put an end to my wakefulness. I yearn for sleep. I cherish notions of the merest moment of rest. Death is what I earnestly wish for — death more than rest — descent from life, taking me somewhere without awareness, without senses, where there will be no pain.

  *

  My thoughts are dark and sickly. They roll around me in waves, churning, tossed and confused. They dip and swell like a night sea around a darkened ship. I have only a faint memory of my scourging at the hands of Drafdrit. I blacked out before the slave-master did his worst. It was my luck — if you call it luck — that I was unconscious, while his lashes landed on my flesh. The lick of the whip is nothing compared to these long days and nights of after-pain.

  I recall that, after Brennan untied the rope from the whipping-stake and hauled me off my knees, I headed north on the isle by the shore, turning my back on the jeering witnesses of my ordeal, tramping, trudging with some vague sense of purpose — a purpose that right now, try as I might, I can no longer bring to mind. Was I searching blindly for Helga? For the soft safety of her wifely embrace? Was I hoping to find Einar, to ask for mercy, to beg for my release? Was I hoping to find my brother and kill him with my bare hands?

  *

  While I trudged by the shore, I kept sinking fetter-deep to my ankles in mud left by the floodwaters. Night was falling on the creek by the time I dragged my bleeding body to the northern tip of Inis-dubh. On this tongue of sand newly raised by the flood, the old, the sick and the dying are gathered. They have returned from higher ground of the isle, where they took refuge under alders during the storms. Once here, I felt safe among faceless shadows in the darkness, safe within their fold, safe in the empty silence of their nether world. They don’t want me here. If they were bold enough to voice it, they would curse me and wish me gone, but they are too resigned to their fate to protest.

  I sit among ‘the broken ones’, among the silent, the unjudging and hopeless. These folk are too faint-hearted to do me harm. They have found respite on a corner of the isle, respite from other slaves, who would prey on them.

  *

  Now I know why I am here. I came not to nurse my pain — not to find Helga or Einar, but to escape from my former companions at the men’s fire. They had stood by with mocking calls, with cruel jeers, while I was flogged. I couldn’t bear their spiteful joy at my re-capture; couldn’t bear the hideous smile from old Niamh; the accusing disappointment in M’lym’s eyes.

  *

  Here at the far edge of Inis-dubh, the shore has been raised to a greater height by the flood. Dwindling floodwaters have dumped a twisting trail of black sand above the waterline. The trail glistens silvery under the moon like the curl of a newt’s tongue. I am a fly at the end of a newt’s tongue.

  *

  Last night I was able to make out the odd-shaped whorl of sand in silvery moonlight, and turn my gaze towards the stars. That was before my vision failed. Tonight I am barely able to see my feet. My sight is dimmed, my eyelids heavy, my eyes glued by clots of blood from wounds on my brow that
I hadn’t been aware of. A moment ago, I spat on my fingers — sucked them wet from scanty moisture in my parched mouth — hoping to free my bleary eyelids with a lick of spittle. It might have worked; it might have cleared my vision, had I not just now lost all feeling in my fingertips: the penalty for holding the iron collar from my neck.

  *

  I awake before dawn with a snort. I feel a jolt. It knocks me over like a fist punching my chin. A shudder of pain, first in my jaw and then in my nose. The pain tells me that Helga is not beside me. I am not in Idgar’s flax field at Twaindale, where my summery dream had taken me. I sit up, slowly. My ribs ache. My back is stiffened by a numbness that grips worse than pain. River-sand has got into my wounds. I am aware of shapes around me, motionless shapes huddled in the gloom. The glow, seemingly distant, from a smouldering fire throws no light on them. Only a hoarse wheezing here and there from folk choked by marsh distemper gives any hint of their nearness in the night.

  *

  At feeding time M’lym doles lukewarm broth, thick scrapings crusted on the side of the pot, into my cupped hands, spilling the lumps — carelessly wasting the meagre share of slops that is my due. Old Niamh has poisoned the child’s thoughts against me. Others — even the ‘broken ones’ — shun me. I wait till everyone is served before I trudge to the pot.

  *

  The able-bodied men on the isle have grown bolder in speech since the flood. They have taken to sitting by the causeway stones, as if ready to make a break for it. Safe out of hearing from the guards, they hatch unlikely schemes to unpick their ankle-irons. The guards have been doubled since my failed escape. They are kept on edge by Drafdrit. There is little chance of escape.