A Burning Sea by Theodore Brun (snow like ashes series TXT) 📗

slavering jaws, men cursing, but they were too many, with kicks and punches landing everywhere, and finally a cudgel blow broke across his back. He fell flat, stunned. The club rose a second time. There was a yelp. . . and then nothing.

‘Slit its throat and be done with it,’ growled one.

‘No!’ Ramedios snapped. ‘Tie it up.’ Then he added with a chuckle, ‘Everything has its price. Even that walking carpet.’

‘I killed for you, Greek,’ groaned Erlan, his head spinning.

‘So you did, Northman. Too many.’

‘What shall we do with him?’

‘Sling him in the hold. His days as a free man are over.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

Rain, thick as fog. Rain to blot out the sun, to soak through wool and flesh and marrow. Rain to drown all hope. . .

The season was on the turn. An unpleasant time for seafaring. Lilla didn’t know which was worse – the biting frost of her homeland or this dreary coastline, where warmth and dryness seemed as remote as the stars.

Their skipper, a shiftless man named Harding, stood leaning on his steer-board, doing his best to catch a weak breeze blowing from the west. Einar sat on their sea-chest gnawing on his fingers. He’d hardly moved off it in three days. The chest contained no clothes, no food, no tools. Only gold – and it was his charge to keep it safe. Gerutha was huddled against the gunwale, trying in vain to keep the rain off with her cloak, which was already soaked through.

Einar shuffled on his chest. ‘I tell you, after three days of skinning and salting, my arse is about ready for the smokehouse.’

‘Sure, there’s enough meat on it to make good eating,’ chuckled Gerutha, the rain dripping off her long, straight nose.

Dusk was close, but the river traffic was still busy. No one paid them much heed as they drew alongside a rain-slick jetty – an unobtrusive end to their voyage. Harding’s boat had carried them all the way from Sigtuna, across the East Sea and then the Gulf of Estland. Every league of it in foul weather. Lilla was glad it was over. For now at least, she felt safe from the reach of Thrand’s long arm. ‘It doesn’t look like much.’

‘This is just the harbour,’ croaked Harding. He pointed a bony finger up into the murk. ‘The ring-fort and Osvald’s hall are up there on the hilltop.’

Lilla peered through the rain and could just about discern against the gloom the outline of palisade walls and roof pitches. Two beacon-flares gamely flickered on against the drizzle. Lilla wondered what awaited them up there.

They paid Harding his fee – a couple of slivers of hack-silver – and climbed ashore. Mud was everywhere, glutinous as tar, sucking at her shoes and the hem of her dress. She saw fires burning smokily under wood-shingled shelters, men sitting round them, warming hands and talking in low voices. She supposed they worked the river – fishermen, carpenters, pitch-makers and such – men glad to see the back of another grim day.

‘Can you manage that?’ Lilla asked Einar, nodding at the chest.

‘I ain’t going to trust no one else with it if that’s what you’re asking.’ The cask must have weighed near a hundred marks but Einar hefted it under one arm as if it were full of goose down.

‘As you wish. Gerutha, are you all right?’

‘I will be,’ her servant replied. ‘Once we get out of this weather.’

They trudged on, following the path up the hill where it joined a broader wain-rutted track, then turned east on its approach to the gateway through the palisade walls.

‘Dunsgard,’ huffed Einar, stopping to catch his breath. ‘For what it’s worth.’

The place looked almost abandoned with no one but them foolish enough to be out on the road in the rain. Even so, at the gate, a sentry stepped out and levelled his spear. ‘What’s your business?’

‘Three travellers from over the sea in need of a fire and a feed,’ answered Einar amiably.

‘Over the sea? What are you – Gotlanders?’

Lilla hadn’t come all this way to bandy words with some gatekeeper. ‘We’re here to see your lord and king. At once.’

‘Can’t anyone just walk in here and demand to see the king. Who the Hel are you?’

‘I am Lilla Sviggarsdottír, Queen of the Twin Kingdoms, and I demand to see your lord.’

The sentry snorted. ‘Sure you are!’ He covered one eye. ‘And I’m the Slain God and Lord of bloody Valhalla.’ He chortled. ‘What are you? A pimp and a couple of whores?’ He looked them over. ‘You’re a pretty one, I’ll give you that. Tell you what, darling – how about I give you your first business, hey?’ He leered at Lilla.

‘I suggest you take us to Osvald without delay,’ replied Lilla coldly. ‘Else I’ll see him cut your balls off and feed them to his pigs. Do you understand?’

The place reeked. Heat, foul breath, the stink of over-boiled meat and unwashed bodies were all trapped under the clouds of smoke that hovered under the rafters. With heavy rain and no wind, the smoke-hole was next to useless. Bodies were strewn everywhere, some blanketed and asleep, others slumped against the wall or sprawled on tables, overcome with ale. In the darker nooks, she noticed several couples grinding and pawing at each other. That didn’t help the ripe smell in there, none.

The guard led them through the main hall to a smaller chamber that lay beyond and told them to wait and to help themselves to an ale-pitcher on a side table. Einar wasted no time in pouring out one for himself and, two drained cups later, for his female companions.

‘Cheery place, ain’t it?’ he said, wiping his beard.

‘I see no power here.’ Lilla peered idly up at the dusty hangings and battle-scarred shields that adorned the walls. She felt angry with Einar, that he could so blithely quench his thirst when all hope hung by a thread. Angry with everyone, in truth. But she knew