Forged in Blood Read online

  *

  Yesterday, an old man whispered to me on the sly, while no one was looking. He is one of the new batch of slaves — the second round-up to come in days. He wears brown robes like a monk, but unlike a holy man his body and robes are filthy. He has a wizened, kindly face. No one, he said, least of all a priestly soul like himself, wanted to be heartless, but if he was seen to acknowledge my presence, less broth would come his way from Niamh. ‘I wish I could help you, my friend,’ he said, hand over lips. ‘Don’t blame me, or the others. We don’t want to lose what little food we have.’

  *

  My jaw aches. I cannot chew the foul-smelling cockles served from Niamh’s cauldron. A mouthful of cold barley, sucked from my hands, is all I could swallow yesterday on the sixth day after my re-capture. I gave the rest of my dole-out to a mangy dullard — a deaf-mute, who showed his willingness to barter by grunts and signs. He licked my share of the gruel off my fingers. I held out my filthy hands for him to eat from, held them out in the shape of a bowl till he had finished. This morning, in return, he helped me limp to the creek to bathe my wounds. My skin burned as I rinsed off the river-sand, the burning almost a pleasure. The tide was out, the river drinkable at mid-stream. I took my fill of the brackish water and, afterwards, once back on shore, I slept.

  Chapter 11

  This morning, my companion, the deaf-mute, is agitated with excitement. He is the young slave with whom I bartered food at the farthermost shore of Inis-dubh. In the days after the first whipping, when I could barely walk, he helped me into the river to bathe my wounds. He did it for a share of my gruel.

  My friend has a strange way, when excited, of clicking his tongue. He makes a ‘croup-croup’ sound with tongue and gums — a soundless cough — without being able to spit out his words. I named him ‘Kru’ as a harmless jest. During our months on Inis-dubh the name has stuck. I no longer use it to mock the young man’s disablement, but to recognise him as a friend. He licks old Niamh’s gruel from my fingers ‘like Kru’. While he walks, he shuffles on his chains ‘like Kru’. It matters not to him, what I have chosen to call him. He will never hear me, or anyone, speak his name. Whatever Kru’s true name might have been — if he was ever given a name — is lost forever.

  For a second time this morning Kru shakes me out of my doze. The first rousing was to tell me that Brennan was on the isle. The gang-master’s thugs had brought a cartload of fetters and chains. The word is that every slave on the isle will be sold.

  Kru shakes me till I am awake. His toothless mouth is shaped in a grin, his brown eyes a-twinkle. He points excitedly to the guards. They are hooking ankle fetters on M’lym and old Niamh. The old hag had believed that spying for Drafdrit would save her skin, but the fetters on her ankles show that she was wrong. Spying didn’t buy her freedom. Within days, like the rest of us, Niamh will be shipped out to Brythuniog.

  Kru lifts his chains and hobbles up the bank to the alders. From there he can see the jetties at the neck of Poddle Creek. He gestures excitedly towards the ships’ mastheads. He mimes gleefully to imitate the hauling on a ship’s rope. It is as if, to his mind, a sea crossing on a slave-ship — to no matter where — must be better than staying here. I watch Kru do a silly jig; see a wave of hope spread over his bright, trusting face — cheeks grubby and cheerful, glowing with expectation — and inexplicably a surge of belief takes hold of me. Try as I might, I can’t shake it off.

  Only my brother can save me. My faith in him is long since buried beneath bruises and beatings, indignities suffered on Inis-dubh because of him. It is futile to think he will come for me. My newfound belief is without cause. I have had no news from my brother since he took Finn’s word against mine and handed me over to Drafdrit — I am the crew’s scapegoat for what happened at Lymn’s Isle. I have heard nothing from Einar since he marched east at the head of his ship’s crew to join the King’s campaign against Osri. And yet, I have this vision of my brother coming back for me. He will relent; cast off his coldness, reverse his cruel betrayal. The prospect of release grips my chest. It almost takes my breath away.

  *

  While we are led in line across the causeway, while we are marched in chains uphill to the market at Linn-dubh, collars chafing our necks, shackles grinding our ankles, my earnest belief is unshaken. Even rowdy herd-boys, who call us slave-names and throw mud from the hay-stooks, cannot dent my hope. Once I have reached the hill-top, once I am inside the palings, I will come face to face with my brother. I am certain of it. Einar will be waiting to greet me. He will say little — he is a man of few words — but from me he will expect remorse.

  I have a speech ready. I have rehearsed what I will say.

  ‘I am wiser, brother. True — it was an ordeal being on the isle. But I have had time to think things through. You had no choice. I know that now. The crew of the Hrafentyr — Finn, Ragni and others too — they put the blame on me. I don’t say they were wrong. They looked to their skipper for justice. If you were to keep their fear and respect, you couldn’t refuse their demands. And Drafdrit: how could you deny the King’s slave-master? He was after my blood for having lost a slave. I’m sorry, brother. Our oarsman Dugi died because of my folly. He followed me. I as good as killed him: a moment of weakness on my part — we shouldn’t have gone to help that child.’

  ‘Give us peace from your mumbling, Ostman,’ shouts Brennan. ‘Why can’t you be dumb like the rest? Keep your fecking trap shut!’ The tail of the gang-master’s whip strikes my legs. Today, the flick of the lash doesn’t sting. Nothing can hurt. My brother is waiting. My body is proof against pain.

  *

  Einar didn’t turn up yesterday — no sign of him this morning, no greeting sent — not a word.

  The slave traders returned to Linn-dubh three days ago. With it being end of season, only two ships have made the sea crossing from Brythuniog. On the hill-top, inside the palings of Amlav’s fort, Drafdrit’s slave-market has been open for business. The muddy paddock, where he keeps us chained, is less than a quarter-full. His supply of slaves has dried up. Our pitiful bunch from the isle — most of us dead on our feet — is all he has left. On the northern coasts the raiding season has come to an end. Merchant ships will pick up an occasional, luckless straggler before winter-fall, but captives won’t be shipped in ones and twos to Lin-dubh: they will be bartered as soon as taken — sold to Erse chieftains as tied labour.

  Inland from here, eastward along the river-course of An-Ruirthech, Amlav has routed the men of Osri. The king proved too strong for the Erse. From overseas — to swell his numbers — he brought a host of allies greedy for plunder. Some say he outnumbered his enemies by five to one. We have been told — whether true or false — from the water-carriers that Erse-men ran like deer from their hunters; that they fled east to the bog-lands to evade capture.

  What is not in doubt — we saw with our own eyes — is that many of the native fighters were taken prisoner and brought in chains to Inis-dubh. Those captured by Amlav in battle fetched a high price from the traders. The men of Osri are lithe and loose of limb; their small stature makes them ideal for the silver mines of Brythuniog.

  Last month the flood of Amlav’s war prisoners fell to a trickle. This month there are none. The word is — again from the water-girls — that Amlav’s campaign has been called to a halt, and that the King himself is no longer at Linn-dubh. He has travelled to Jorvik with shiploads of cattle and spoils ransacked from settlements deserted by the fleeing Osri.

  *

  Brennan sneered at the sorry look of our limping, laggard bunch, when he marched us yesterday into the paddock. He told us that we were the crud from the bottom of the pot and, once we are gone, the slave season will be over. This auction will be Drafdrit’s last of the summer.

  ‘It is a final scraping-out for us — the last ladle-ful dredged from the pot.’ The gang-master said it with a swagger, as if he, and not Drafdrit, were in charge of the King’s disposals from Inis-dubh. ‘You buggers have see
n the last of ‘black isle’. We will drop our poll price to the traders — let them take you off our hands for free — if that’s what it takes. This time the ships will take you to Brythuniog — make no mistake — if I have to carry you to the jetties and throw you on-board myself.’

  Since morning, traders have been looking us up and down, walking to and fro along the line, scanning each chained man with a practised eye, shaking their heads in disgust. They have been quick to challenge Drafdrit on poll price. Many of us in the paddock suffer from marsh distemper and show signs of frailty, injury or ageing — defects that will shorten our work-lives in the mines. Women and children are always priced separately from the men. Negotiation for them turns on a fine set of bones, on their comeliness or shapeliness, or, on rare occasions, so I am told, on the appealing brightness of their eyes. Usually, bidding for the softer end of the market is brisk, but not today. For youngsters remaining — lads or girls — not a single offer has been made.

  ‘Suits me if they don’t want us,’ cried M’lym-kun with a cocky grin, as Brennan passed her by. The girl has smeared dung on her face and legs, believing in her foolish innocence that a foul look and a fouler smell will deter the traders.

  ‘The outlanders are playing a game,’ replied Brennan out of the side of his mouth. ‘Those two Brychein bastards are in it together. They expect to barter us down. Never fear, my dirty young whelp, one of them will bag you in the end.’

  By evening Drafdrit had dropped his poll price, but the traders kept their purses closed.

  Tonight we are held in the market without fire or food. It is not so bad. This morning we were given oat-bread and ale to make our faces glow — in a bid to impress the traders — not that the ploy did much good. The traders weren’t so easily fooled: they play a waiting game.

  Brennan and his guards have slunk off to their night grog. The gang-master has nailed our chains by hasp and staple to the stumps of huge oaks. Tall oak-trees once grew on the knoll. They were cleared to make way for a hill-top fort, and the timber used for defensive palings. The oaks were felled years before, the stumps blackened with age, weathered hard as iron, and strangely un-rotted. The face of each tree-trunk is pitted by hundreds of staple-marks, the traces of countless slaves, who sat like us on the mud, and waited.

  Kru and I are chained to one stump of oak. He passes me a water-bag left for us by Brennan. The bag has done the rounds before it reaches us. Greedily I tip the nozzle of bone to my parched mouth. Water barely wets my lips. I tip it full and slake my thirst. I shake the bag — it is empty. I have denied Kru the last dribble.

  While speaking aloud to my friend — Kru studies my face in wonder — I make word-signs and touch the shackle-bolt under his chin. I turn an imaginary key to unlock the slave-collar, as if I had power to free the ring from his neck. ‘Trust me, Kru, I won’t let you down. Soon as my brother comes, I will speak on your behalf. Einar can afford it. He will pay for my release — and yours.’

  The old priest-man, his lungs choked by marsh distemper, is chained to the stump next to ours. ‘Just as well,’ says he and stops to have a wheeze. ‘Just as well that your friend is deaf as a post — he doesn’t understand a word you said — but it is you I pity, Ostman.’ The man wheezes to catch his breath; he looks at me with piercing eyes. ‘Why do you deceive yourself? This brother you speak of — he will not come to save you.’

  *

  I am awake at first light. I wait for Einar.

  The heavy gates of the fort are opened to let a cartload of salted cattle-hides pass inside the palings. Gate-men beckon the tanner through without a word. Once the hand-cart moves inside, they hurriedly close the gates. The hides, from brine-pits on the shore, are offloaded at a tanning shed next to the slave-market. Three men appear out of the morning mist, climbing a steep track from mud hovels lower down the hill. They yawn and scratch their heads. They are un-booted, bare to the thighs, soiled neck-cloths tied over noses and mouths. They climb into wooden troughs that the tanner has filled with a scouring ferment of rain-water and hound-dung. The tanner closely inspects each salted hide taken off the cart before immersing it in the bating troughs. His trough-men will tread on the hides to soften them. The tanner’s wife and daughters arrive with shoulder-baskets of fresh droppings from the royal kennels. The girls chatter and tug at each other’s hair, and earn a clip in the ear from their mother.

  Kru lies curled up at my feet, snoring. The old priest-man wheezes in restless slumber with his crooked back against the stump next to me. I stare at the gates, resisting sleep. I must stay alert. Come daylight, when the fort gates have re-opened, I will catch sight of my brother — no doubt with Finn at his back — pacing up the hill to the compound. On Einar’s belt I will spot a seaman’s purse stuffed with hack, enough silver to re-claim me from the clutches of Drafdrit.

  *

  In a fevered dream I am confronted by young Baldr, his hairless face fleshy and ripe, weathered red by a sea voyage under summer sun, and now in my clogged-up ears I hear a voice like Baldr’s, clear and shrill, as if he stood next to me on the deck of the Meuris, hailing his skipper from stem to stern — the shout of a seafaring man above the rattle of wind on sail.

  ‘Hakon, over here! I have found him.’

  I hear myself mumbling. ‘Are we out at sea?’ My question goes unanswered.

  ‘Here he is,’ repeats the voice that sounded like Baldr. ‘No wonder,’ the man’s words continue, ‘No wonder we didn’t recognise him, what with his beard in clay and his neck twisted by an iron collar. The big man has wasted to a shadow. And these poor souls — two heaps of rags-and-bones —are lying huddled at his feet.’

  ‘Is he awake? Does he know who we are?’

  ‘He is in a hunger-fever, Skip, he needs water and a bite to eat.’

  ‘Ask the tanner over there to part with some oat-bread. Tell him we will make it worth his while.’

  ‘Aye, aye, Skip.’

  A turn of the neck, the swish of a pig-tail and Baldr’s face disappears. Now in front of my eyes, two fat, hairy jowls — the skipper of the Meuris.

  ‘Easy does it, lad,’ says Hakon, breathing close into my face. ‘We will soon have you out of irons. Brennan has gone to fetch the keys.’

  *

  The wheels of the tanner’s cart creak on the rutted track. The cart reeks of hides recently skinned. The outers of the bullock hides are black and hairy — a soft bed to lie on — the under-sides flaky and raw, still warm after skinning.

  The cartwheels rumble over stones. As they bump on the track, our bodies knock against the raised bulk-head of the cart. Kru shivers. I dislodge my head from his arm and look ahead. The tanner is harnessed between the shafts. The man plods under his burden, resisting the downhill pressure of his load. He treads warily on the rutted, winding path that leads to brine-pits on the shore. A jolt on the track and I come to my wits. I feel around my neck. The iron collar is gone. Kru too is freed of his shackles. At our feet on the cart, another body stirs, a face among the hides, and on the little dung-smeared face, eyes, startled at the sight of Kru and me. M’lym looks outwards on both sides of the cart. She wipes her filthy arm over her lips.

  *

  On the shore, Kru and I purge our sores in salt-wash among steeping cattle-hides. M’lym won’t join us in the brine. ‘I will keep dung on my body,’ she says, ‘in case they return’. To replace our rags, when we are done soaking, Baldr has brought serk and breeches for me, a sleeveless jerkin for Kru.

  ‘Oh,’ says Baldr. He unloosens a thong from his neck. ‘The old man gave me something for you. Said you should have it.’

  ‘Who?’ I ask.

  ‘The old man at the slave-market,’ he replies. ‘Used to be a monk, I think. Died of marsh fever. He was spitting blood at the end.’ Baldr unfolds a seashell in the palm of his hand, the open-half of a cockle-shell no bigger than a finger-nail.

  ‘Why give me this?’

  ‘Look closely,’ says Baldr. ‘There, on the smooth inside, the
sacred mark of a cross.’

  I stretch out my hand from the brine-pit and take the shell from Baldr. It has an unusual shape for a cockle — not unlike the emblem of a heart. I study the under-side. ‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘There is a mark of sorts. I wouldn’t have noticed. But, yes, it does look like a cross.’

  ‘Before he died,’ says Baldr, ‘he was most insistent — he was anxious that you should wear the shell as a keep-sake — and not throw it away.’

  ‘I liked the old man. I am sorry he is gone.’

  ‘And there’s a message too,’ says Baldr. ‘These were his last words. Make of them what you will: “Tell that young Ostman I was wrong to doubt him. He was right all along. He believed that his brother would turn up — and, sure enough, in the end his brother came!”’

  THIRD PART

  Chapter 12

  This will be our last voyage of the summer. Winter-fall is only weeks away. Storms are gathering off the coasts. Hakon has no fear of stormy weather, but being an old sea-hound — that’s how he named his ship — he knows better than to brave heavy seas on a vessel that has become ‘beam-hefty’ like the Meuris. Our skipper plans to lay up at Vadrar-fiord until Vali’s day while the ship’s hull is razed of its barnacles. Under-strakes and keel will be scraped clean of shells over winter, and the hull sealed with a fresh coat of pine-tar before the new sailing season.

  A shadow cast by the killings of Lunan and Kotter hangs over the skipper. From my first day on the Meuris he has talked of revenge. No one on-board can doubt the depth of his hatred for ‘that devil Raffson’. Nor does the story of my quarrel with Einar, as told by Hakon, put me in much better light. Hakon has swallowed the nonsense spread abroad by Drafdrit — inventions and lies — how my brother and I were hounded from the ice-lands for being ruthless killers. My fellow crewmen hold me in awe. It puzzles them that the skipper favours me. Some on-board, like Fjak, think that Hakon has a scheme afoot — involving me — and are determined to get to the bottom of it.