The White Raven by Robert Low Read Free Book Online

replied, sonorous as if he was a real herald. 'He bids you come to the hall ahead, in safety. I was left here to guide you.'
    'Fuck you,' Finn growled and would have said more, about traps and stupidity had I not stilled him with one hand. I looked at him and he at me. Then I followed Stoor, alone.
    It was a wolf den now, Tor's comfortable hov; the idea of it drove a dry spear into my throat and clenched my balls up into my belly.
    'There is pleasure in renewing old friendships,' Klerkon went on easily. 'A pity about the misunderstanding earlier, but such things happen on a strandhogg. Men get excited chasing chickens, you know how it goes. No slight was intended and little harm done.'
    His voice made it clear that what I had lost in the way of livestock was well offset by the death of six of his men. Then he called for ale, which Thordis brought. She did not look at me when she laid the wooden cup at my elbow, but her whole body was hugged tight to her and there was a straggled lock of dark hair escaped from one coiled braid, which she would never usually have allowed.
    'Tor,' I said to her and she blinked once or twice. Klerkon gave a little laugh and men shifted out of the darkness, grating a bench into the light. Tor swayed on it, his face a bruise, his lips fat and raw as burst blood puddings. His feet, I saw, hung unnaturally sideways; hamstrung so that he would never walk again.
    'I did not think you would object over-much to having an awkward neighbour put at a disadvantage,'
    Klerkon said. 'We needed some bread and cheese and the men needed to dip their beaks a little, so this place seemed good enough.'
    'I am sorry for it,' I said to Tor and his single working eye flicked open.
    'Your fault,' he managed to puff through his broken mouth. 'Your kind. Your friends. You brought them here.'

    Men laughed at that. I stared at the bald patch on top of Tor's slumped head and felt sick. They were no friends to me, but he had it right — my fault, for sure. For bringing hard raiding men as neighbours to a peaceful bondi farmer. For thinking I could get away with it.
    Not now, all the same, for Jarl Brand would see it, too. Once this mess was fixed, he would sigh and have to admit that he had no use for us now that the fighting was done. He would be sorrowful, but point out that he could not have swords such as us waving about on his lands, frightening decent folk, inviting bad cess on them.
    Bad cess sat opposite, smiling his Pan-smile and sliding his platter across to me, the meat-grease cooling.
    I ignored it.
    'Not hungry?' he asked and men chuckled. 'Pity — that was a tasty horse.'
    'I hope you have silver left from other raids,' I managed to answer him. 'That meat you are enjoying will cost you. Jarl Brand will scour every wavelet for you after this. So will I. It will take a fat blood-price to still our hands.'
    He leaned back and waved a languid hand.
    'A risk worth taking,' he answered, narrow-eyed. 'I am betting-sure that you can afford a horse and more besides. I hear you have a mountain of silver to draw on.'
    Well, there it was. The circling rumours that had brought hard men flocking to join me had whispered in his ear and brought him. I knew Klerkon of old, had sailed with him on many a strandhogg, a supply raid, when we had both fought for Jarl Brand. Even among hard and vicious men like us, Klerkon was shunned as something sick.
    'Now you know more, so you know something,' I answered. 'I did not take you for a man who followed bairn's tales.'
    'Just so,' said Klerkon, watching me like a cat with a mouse, daring it to move. 'I am not. But just as priests parted us on bad terms, one brings us together, as friends. As partners.'
    My left knee was twitching and I could not stop it. The air was thick with rank breath, meat smells and the acrid stink of men sweating fear and he saw me struggle with the bewilderment and curiosity his words had forged. I had crossed him once, over a pair of Christ priests he had