text: It had cost fionn more than half the silver which King Gorm had given him to get to Birka. He had bought passage on three different boats before going aboard a trading knörr whose skipper was as eager to reach Birka as Fionn was himself. The man had a hold full of bear, wolf, marten and squirrel pelts and feared the weather turning warmer before he got the chance to sell them at twice their worth. His name was Alver and he said he had seen too much meltwater pouring into the fjord for it not to mean that summer was around the corner. And so he sailed that broad-bellied ship with an impatience bordering on recklessness, or that was how it seemed to Fionn who did not know that coast and saw the rocks which broke the surface at low tide like seals' backs and which threatened to rip out Wave-Rider's belly, spilling men and furs into the sea. But Fionn stood at the side and revelled in the song of the wind through the lines because he was on the hunt. Did a stooping hawk, its talons extended, suddenly open its wings to slow its flight when it could almost taste the prey? No, it did not. Besides which, he could swim like an otter if needs be. Let them all drown, including his horses. Let it all sink to the fjord's bed and so long as he had his scían in his hand when he clambered up the rocks Sigurd Haraldarson would die.
  
  And yet when Wave-Rider clumped up to her mooring and he had bid his farewells to Alver and gone off to get an eyeful of all the bays and berths which Birka had to offer, Fionn began to think that he had made a mistake. That he had been too hasty in killing the farmer and his family before he had taken ship into the Jutland Sea. He should have asked them more questions, made it even more clear what they stood to lose by lying to him, for as it was it seemed they had done just that. That fat sow. Because Sigurd Haraldarson and his crew-light ship were not in Birka.
  
  No. They will come. Haraldarson will come. In my haste I am here before him, that is all. Patience is the hunter's weapon, he reminded himself.
  
  And so he would wait.
  
  'Well, I cannot even tell I have been drinking at all,' Bjarni said. He was standing on the table, an ale horn in each hand and a woman on his shoulders, just sitting there, her skirts up round her hips so that Bjarni's beard bristles must have tickled her inner thighs. Though she looked happy enough with the arrangement. And Bjarni was naked.
  
  'We started drinking properly at midday,' Svein said, a puzzled expression on his face, 'so I would wager we must have had one or two by now.' He grinned. 'But it would be a shame if we did not carry on a little while longer. It is not every day a man is drinking ale in such a place as this—' He frowned, trying to remember the name of the settlement.
  
  'It is called Birka, you brainless ox,' Bjarni slurred.
  
  'Ha! You had never heard of the place before we tied up to the wharf the other morning,' Olaf told him, downing the ale in his cup and dragging a hand across his beard and lips.
  
  'This is true, Uncle,' Svein said, 'but now that we do know of Birka, I am thinking Birka should learn a little about us.' He grinned up at the woman on Bjarni's shoulders who was moving her arms up and down in undulating, languid strokes, as though she believed she was a bird flying through the sky. A bird that was falling asleep, Sigurd thought, looking at her eyes which were beginning to grow heavy. She had done her best to keep up with Bjarni and the others on the drinking and it had been a worthy effort, but there was more chance of those flapping arms lifting her up and out into the night.
  
  'Tell your friend to get down,' the owner of the drinking house called across to Olaf, who waved a hand at the man as if to say he would get round to it in a moment.
  
  'I am glad we are here,' Bjorn said. Along with Sigurd and Moldof and most of the others crammed into the benches of that fug-filled, reeking, flame-lit tavern, Bjorn, Hagal and Solmund were sitting on stools, leaning against the wall. Solmund had been asleep and snoring for a good while now, which at least got him out of the drinking. The only two missing were Aslak and Asgot who were down at the wharf with Reinen. There were harbour guards down there whose job it was to see that men did not steal from other men's ships, but Sigurd would not trust that job to Svearmen he did not know.
  
  'This is what men like us should be doing when there is no one around who we ought to be killing,' Bjorn went on.
  
  'You are lucky that Sigurd is so generous with his silver,' Olaf said, at which Bjorn and his brother both raised their ale horns to Sigurd by way of thanks for keeping the stuff flowing like a river in spate.
  
  'When you want someone dead, we are your men,' Bjorn said, grinning. 'You just have to give us the word, Sigurd.'
  
  At that moment the woman up on Bjarni's shoulders opened her mouth and spewed a hot, stinking gush on to the table, which had men jumping from the benches and cursing her to Hel's cold kingdom and beyond.
  
  'At last we have found someone who holds their ale as well as Thorbiorn here,' Svein said, smacking King Thorir's son on the back as a foul-mouthed Bjarni deposited his burden. The woman cursed, spat and tried to grab Bjorn's ale horn but he held it beyond her reach and told her to fuck off, at which she cursed again and staggered away into the crowd.
  
  Bram leant over to a stranger sitting on the bench behind and swiped the man's fur hat off his head, tossing it to Bjarni who was still standing on the table, though now he was wearing something at least, even if it was wet and foul and had recently been inside the girl.
  
  'Where's my fucking h—' the stranger began, stopping when he looked up to see the well-muscled, well-scarred man wiping himself down with it.
  
  'I would forget about the hat if I were you, friend,' Valgerd advised the stranger, who looked at her, then at Bram and Olaf and Sigurd, and promptly turned back round to his cup.
  
  'I say we find somewhere else to drink,' Thorbiorn suggested, grimacing at the smell, though there were two thralls with water at the table now, trying to sluice the mess away without soaking anyone.
  
  'Then it is too bad that no one gives a bag of bollocks about what you say, whelp,' Olaf told him.
  
  'Get him off that table!' the drinking house's owner bawled again from beyond a press of men who were even more drunk than Sigurd's crew. If that were possible.
  
  'Brave when he's all the way over there, isn't he?' Black Floki muttered.
  
  Again Olaf raised a hand in the man's direction, then turned back to Bjarni. 'Down you get, lad,' he said. 'If you don't hide that worm of yours soon some bird is going to swoop in here and peck it off.'
  
  'Just as soon as I have seen the girl I am looking for, Uncle,' Bjarni slurred, sweeping his ale cup across the crowded place, 'for up here you get the best view.'
  
  'And which one are you looking for, Bjarni?' Sigurd asked him.
  
  'The prettiest one of course,' Bjarni said, drinking.
  
  'And by pretty he means blind,' Valgerd put in, which had them all laughing.
  
  They had been in Birka, on the island of Björko, three days now and were still full of it, none of them having ever seen a place like it. Unlike the kaupang at Skíringssalr, Birka was a year-round trading settlement, home to metal workers, bronze casters, wood carvers, bone carvers and leather workers. It buzzed with activity, with merchants and fur, hide and ivory hunters, who had brought their goods in readiness for the coming season and the arrival of the trade knörrs which would mark the beginning of summer. Iron mined all over Svealand was traded at Birka, as were slaves, their captors bringing them across the Baltic to the island where they exchanged them for silver, glassware, cloth, jewellery, weapons, wine or any number of other goods. It was enough to make the palms itch for the feel of silver, as Sigurd's father might have said. But easier to get hold of that silver as a trading man than a raiding one, Sigurd had said.
  
  Olaf had agreed. 'She's a sweet nut but she'd take some cracking,' he said as they took in the fortress surrounded by its earth and stone ramparts, which stood upon the great lump of bare rock due north of the settlement itself.
  
  'Still, makes the mouth water just to think of it,' Moldof had put in. 'All the treasures in a place like that. The riches which make men build such walls to keep other men out.'
  
  Birka's location was its greatest advantage, Sigurd knew, for it was protected from casual attack by a network of rivers, lakes and inlets, which would be guarded by ships full of Svear warriors. As it was they had been challenged by one such crew, whose skipper had wanted to see evidence of Sigurd's trade goods before granting him permission to enter the large harbour of Kugghamn at Björko's northern end. That itself had been no easy thing, requiring Solmund's experience at the tiller and Sigurd's own good eyesight, for the approach through the Skärgård and Løgrinn, the great bay of the Baltic Sea, had been strewn with rocks deliberately placed to make the way more difficult, hazardous even, for those new to Birka.
  
  A commotion turned Sigurd's head now and he saw the main throng of drinking men part to allow the owner of the place and five big, ugly, broken-nosed men to come through, each of them brandishing a club of some sort. There were no blades, other than eating knives, allowed in the place, all swords and scramasaxes being left in the care of thralls outside.
  
  'Only five?' Svein said. 'Now this whoreson is really nettling me. Five? What an insult.'
  
  'I've told you enough times to get your friend down off my table,' the owner said, pointing a finger at Olaf, which was not, Sigurd thought, the best idea the man had ever had. 'And he can put some clothes on while he's at it. Gods but nobody in here wants to see all that flapping about like a fish in the bilge.'
  
  That was when Olaf took hold of the man's finger and snapped it, and the man screamed and the fighting began. Olaf's fist in the man's mouth stopped him shrieking at least. 'It is hard to make so much noise when you are chewing on broken teeth and blood,' Svein said afterwards. But it took a purposeful blow to his jaw to shut the drinking house owner up completely.
  
  It did not last long. Bram, Svein, Olaf and Bjorn were in the thick of it, breaking noses, hammering fists into jaws and eyes, kicking men in the balls and generally making a mess of the place while Sigurd and the others looked on, trying to avoid the flailing limbs and flying ale. He would not have admitted it but Sigurd's bones still ached from his fight with King Thorir all those weeks ago. Besides which, this fight was not of his making and he was content to keep out of the way and let the others have their fun.
  
  Even Bjarni had jumped still naked into that seething cauldron, an unsettling sight as he grappled a man who was a head taller than he, until at Sigurd's word Olaf hauled him off, telling him to get his clothes back on before he earned Sigurd's crew the kind of reputation they did not want.
  
  And yet no one seemed to be enjoying the fight more than Thorbiorn. He leant against the wall, grinning like a dead hare.
  
  Solmund nodded in his direction. 'Maybe we should have left when the lad suggested it,' he said to Hagal, who for his part clearly did not think the fight worthy of one of his tales, for he seemed more concerned with emptying his ale cup down his throat while he still could.
  
  Everyone in the place, all the other crews, the traders, the hunters and the craftsmen, were all watching, and many of them did not look happy about what was being done to the ale house owner and his companions by this crew whom many of them had never seen before. One of these spectators, a lean, dark-haired man with only a nub of skin where one of his ears used to be, caught Sigurd's eye. It wasn't just the missing ear that drew his attention. It was the tilt of his head and the way he held himself. He was no silversmith or wood turner this one. He was a warrior and it did not take any cleverness to see it.
  
  Solmund noticed the man too. 'We are not going to make friends like this, Sigurd,' he said, turning back to see Svein pick up a discarded cudgel and walk over to a man who was on all fours, bloody spittle hanging from his beard as he tried to rise. Svein lashed the cudgel across the man's face and he dropped to the ale-and mud-slick floor.
  
  No one was doing any killing, that they knew of anyway, but Solmund was right. It was not as though they needed any more enemies.
  
  'Besides which, I doubt we will be served any more ale here,' Hagal said.
  
  Bjarni nodded at the ale house owner who was a moaning heap of misery. 'Not unless that turd has pissed in it,' he said, stumbling into his breeks and trying, not altogether successfully, to pull them up.
  
  'We're leaving,' Sigurd announced. 'Now.'
  
  'S'pose we might as well,' Bram said, looking at the wreckage of dazed, crumpled men around them. He seemed disappointed that there was no one left to fight.
  
  They downed the last of their ale and made for the door, other drinkers parting to let them leave, then poured out of the longhouse into the spring night, making their way past a line of warehouses, workshops and the jetties which provided access to them from the lake on the north-east of Birka. Dogs barked, horses in a nearby stable nickered and somewhere a baby screamed.
  
  'Well, the owner of that place will never chew a good mutton stew again,' Svein said, looking up at the night sky and retying one of his braids which had come loose long before the fighting began. Grey cloud was scudding westward, breaking up here and there to reveal swathes of black in which stars beyond counting blinked like the sparks from some god's fire in Asgard. It was a good night to be alive, Sigurd thought.
  
  'That is his own fault,' Olaf said. 'He was near enough picking my nose with that finger of his. A man should not shove his finger in another man's face unless he is certain he can put him on his arse.'
  
  'Maybe he thought he could put you on your arse, Olaf,' Moldof said.
  
  'He was an ugly swine but he wasn't blind,' Olaf said.
  
  They turned on to a wider thoroughfare which led down to the harbour, passing between lines of houses leaking woodsmoke and snores and the sounds of folk swiving the night away. Most of these dwellings were wattle-and-daub affairs, but some were made of timber planks and still others were log houses caulked with clay; none of Sigurd's crew had ever seen a place where so many folk lived 'arse by arse', as Solmund had put it. 'A man with a long spear could poke his neighbour,' the helmsman said.
  
  'Or his neighbour's wife,' Bjarni suggested with a wicked smile, and they all knew he was thinking about a different sort of spear.
  
  'I am glad you young bone heads have had your fun,' Solmund said now, 'for we will likely be thrown out of Birka tomorrow.'
  
  'Bollocks,' Bram gnarred.
  
  'He's right,' Olaf said. 'This King Erik Refilsson sounds like a hard bastard. I heard some Svear cup-maker telling his friend that the king recently went hunting and killed a bear with nothing but a scramasax.'
  
  'Ha! I have killed a bear with a fart,' Bram said. Which was not altogether unbelievable.
  
  'There is no king in Birka now,' Hagal said. 'Erik is off fighting in the west somewhere.'
  
  'How do you know this?' Sigurd asked, his eye drawn to the whirr of bats overhead.
  
  'The most popular stories have kings in them,' Hagal said with a shrug. 'So if there is a king around the place I like to know about it so that I can put him in my tale.' He grinned at Olaf. 'I will get that bear story in there somewhere though. But . . .' he raised a finger, staggering almost sidewards across the street, 'but King Erik has a man looking after Birka in his absence. A hersir called Asvith, whom men call Kleggi.'
  
  Horsefly was a byname which told you all you needed to know about a man, so Sigurd was certain that Solmund was right and that they would reap the consequences of pummelling the ale house keeper and his men. And a hersir, whilst not a jarl, was still a powerful man, a warlord who was usually rich in both silver and battle experience, so this Asvith was not a man to be taken lightly. He was likely up in the hill fort north of the town with enough spearmen to defend Birka in case there was a king or jarl with the ships, men and ambition to sack the place. A half crew like Sigurd's would not give them cause for concern, but then you could hardly be accused of keeping the peace if outsiders were free to go around breaking fingers and noses.
  
  'No more fun tonight,' Sigurd said, glancing back to see that Bjorn had fallen behind and was pissing against the side of someone's house. 'We will sleep aboard Reinen and wait on what tomorrow brings.' There were some grumbles at this, because for the last two nights they had slept wherever they had drunk their last drop, and not all of them in the same ale house, though Olaf had not let King Thorir's son out of his sight, because of the lad's reputation. The last thing they needed was some man putting a sword in the boy for tupping his wife or daughter.
  
  'So who have you been fighting?' Aslak called from Reinen's side as they came down to the wharf against which four other ships were moored. He could tell just by the men's swagger that they had been causing trouble and he looked sorry to have missed out.
  
  'It was all Bjarni's fault so you will have to ask him about it,' Hagal said, gesturing at Bjarni who was twirling round and round, arms outstretched, his face turned up to the fleets of clouds skimming across the night sky, as though he alone could hear some music of horns and drums.
  
  'You won't get much sense out of him,' Valgerd warned, as they jumped down into Reinen which was sitting low on the ebb tide.
  
  'I will tell you all about it, Aslak,' Svein said, 'as soon as I have a horn of ale in my hand for I have a thirst that needs slaughtering.'
  
  'No good story ever began with a dry mouth,' Hagal agreed.
  
  Though it was cloudy, Asgot said it would not rain. They took their furs and skins and made their nests in the thwarts, each finding plenty of space, which was one good thing about being as crew-light as Reinen was. Sigurd had no sooner laid his head down on a rolled-up pelt than he was deeply and dreamlessly asleep.
  
  And in the morning, Asvith, whom men call Horsefly, came down to the wharf to bite them.
  
  Black Floki was the first to see them coming. He called to Sigurd, who was playing tafl with Solmund, the board and gaming pieces set up on a stool between two sea chests midships.
  
  'Told you we'd be hoisting the sail today, lad,' Solmund muttered, disappointed to be finishing the game early, because he was winning.
  
  'I have not said we're leaving,' Sigurd said, standing to look in the direction Floki had pointed, thinking that in truth they might not have much choice in the thing, judging by the forest of spears which was coming down to the harbour from the town.
  
  'Keep your mouth shut, Bjarni. You too, Svein,' Olaf told them, muttering that it would have been nice to stay a few more days in Birka. 'The rest of you, try not to look like yourselves. Maybe we can convince this Asvith that the ale house owner started it.'
  
  'You think the turd will believe a Norse crew over a bunch of Svearmen?' Solmund asked. 'That he'll take your side against a man from whom he likely gets his ale?'
  
  'No,' Olaf admitted, 'but I'd wager that a man whose jaw I cracked won't be saying much of any sense to anyone this morning.'
  
  This got a chuckle from the others just as this hersir Asvith came on to the wharf, which was unlikely to help their cause, Sigurd thought, nodding to the man in greeting. He had brought some thirty warriors down from the hill fort north of Birka, which made for both an impressive display and a clear warning, if not a threat. The ale house owner was there too, with two of his swollen-faced, sullen-looking men at his back. No doubt the other three had been in no fit state to come down to the harbour.
  
  'Byrnjolf Hálfdanarson,' Asvith Kleggi called. He was not a big man, nor broad or otherwise physically impressive, but he made up for all that by looking rich. His black boots, green breeks and red tunic embroidered with gold thread were obviously expensive. So was his brynja, for it had some gold rings scattered throughout it, each of them gleaming against the iron grey, which must have looked even more striking on a sunny day. Over his chest hung a silver Thór's hammer on a gold chain.
  
  'I am Byrnjolf,' Sigurd said, going over to the side. At least it was a rising tide, so that he was not having to crane his neck looking up at the man. Byrnjolf was the name Sigurd went by in Birka, for, far as they were from his enemies King Gorm and Hrani Randversson, it was safer if no one knew his real name.
  
  'Who are you?' Sigurd asked, though he knew full well who the man was.
  
  'I am the law here in Birka. My name is Asvith Grettisson. I speak for King Erik Refilsson.' The man's hand fell to rest on the pommel of his sword, a gesture clearly intended to ring louder than the words he had spoken.
  
  'Well, if you have come with wergild for the injuries my men received at the hands of that ugly troll and his men, you did not have to. I am feeling generous this morning, Asvith Grettisson, and will let him off.'
  
  There were some chuckles from the row benches at that, but Asvith did not look like a man who did much laughing. The muscle in his cheek was twitching as he glared at Sigurd with eyes that must have seen all types of men tie up their boats at his wharf, from outlaws and killers to boasters and drunkards. Here he had all those types in one ship.
  
  The ale house owner gestured at one of his men to come forward, which he did, speaking in Asvith's ear whilst the hersir continued to stare at Sigurd. Then Asvith looked across at Olaf and nodded. 'I am told on oath that this man started the fight last night,' he said, pointing at Olaf.
  
  'Are you?' Sigurd looked at Olaf. 'Did you?' he asked.
  
  Olaf scratched his beard. 'Is that what he says?' Olaf asked Asvith, pointing at the ale house owner whose face was as lumpy as curds before straining. 'I want to hear it from him. If he is the man I am accused of fighting.'
  
  This was a reasonable request had Olaf not guessed that the man's jaw was broken like a clay pot dropped on a rock, meaning he could not speak – and yet he tried his best. He stepped forward and attempted to accuse Olaf himself, but the words were mangled. They came out of the ruin of his mouth in a garbled mess of bloody spittle that hung from his beard. His eyes glistened with tears of pain or perhaps frustration.
  
  Olaf held out his arms and looked from Sigurd to Asvith. 'Can someone tell me what he is saying? For I have heard more sense from a two-day-old bairn.'
  
  Asvith looked resentful of the man and told him to stop mumbling because he was making a fool of himself. Then he looked back to Sigurd, gesturing for one of the ale house owner's men to come forward with the sack he was holding. This was the one whom Sigurd had last seen wrestling with a naked Bjarni, the two of them rolling round on the floor and Bjarni's arse shining like the moon. The man moved gingerly now, though at least he had the pride to try to hide his pains. He reached into the sack and pulled out a wooden cup, which might easily have been the one from which Sigurd had been drinking the previous day, then gave it to Asvith.
  
  'Eight cups,' Asvith said. 'One for each of the six men your crew attacked. One for King Erik because you have broken the peace in his town. One for me . . .' he pointed to the boards beneath him, 'because I have had to come all the way down here to speak with you. You will fill all of them with silver, or amber if you have it.' He smiled then but it was as brittle as new ice. 'Fill these cups and that will be an end to it.'
  
  'Will it now?' Sigurd said, glancing at Olaf.
  
  All the silver that Sigurd had was in Reinen's hold and there was not much of it. He would need all of it and more, much more, and it would be a dry day in Rán's kingdom beneath the waves before he gave more than half of it to this shiny turd of a hersir.
  
  'I had thought men called you Horsefly because you are annoying, flying around the place biting people, making a nuisance of yourself,' he told the man. 'But I see you also got the name because you spend your time around shit,' he said, gesturing at the ale house owner and his men.
  
  Even Sigurd's crew thought this was a dangerous thing to say, for they stood up from their sea chests and bristled, looking for their spears and shields though not yet laying hands on them.
  
  Asvith's face was all frown, as if he could not quite believe what he had just heard. 'Are you still full of ale, Byrnjolf?' he asked. 'Or have you come to Birka to die?'
  
  'Neither, Horsefly,' Sigurd said. 'But nor will I give you eight cups of silver today.' He raised his hand. 'However, I will give you eight good pelts. Not as an admission that we began the trouble last night, but as a gift because I am a generous man and because we like it here and would stay a few more days if you are agreeable.'
  
  'I do not want your rancid furs,' Asvith said. 'I will have my eight cups of silver or else I will have your ship.' His warriors, who stood in two lines across the wharf behind him, stirred like a forest in a gust, lifting shields and rolling shoulders and sensing that they might soon be called on to fight.
  
  'You will get no silver from me, Horsefly,' Sigurd said. 'But I will gladly give you steel if that is what you want.' He glanced across to see that Solmund and Hagal were standing by the mooring ropes, axes in hand should Sigurd give the word to cut Reinen free of the wharf that they might fly from Birka. The others were picking up shields and spears now and coming over to the side.
  
  'I can see now why you only have half a crew, Byrnjolf,' Asvith said. 'Either you got the rest killed, or else these are the only fools who are mad enough to sail with you.'
  
  Valgerd gripped her bow and Svein his long-hafted axe. Aslak and Moldof were fetching oars from the trees, which they would use to push Reinen away from her berth before Asvith's warriors could leap aboard.
  
  'You have struck the nail square with that,' Sigurd said. 'But you are forgetting that one Sword-Norse is worth two or three of you Svear.'
  
  'Norse arsehole,' a warrior behind Asvith called.
  
  'Sheep-swiving shits,' another man growled, but Asvith raised a hand to quieten them.
  
  'How old are you, Byrnjolf?' he asked. 'You are barely into that beard of yours and yet you lead these men?' He glanced at Valgerd but did not correct himself. 'Are you a man of reputation, Byrnjolf?'
  
  'I have always been a friend to the wolf and the raven,' Sigurd said, 'and have never been accused of letting them go hungry.'
  
  'Give the word and we're gone,' Olaf said in a low voice. 'No point getting into a proper fight with this prick.'
  
  'But I have an eye on that brynja of his, Uncle,' Sigurd said, loud enough for Asvith to hear.
  
  'If you make an enemy of me, you make an enemy of King Erik Refilsson,' the hersir said. 'Not that that will concern you, for you will be dead.' He touched the silver Thór's hammer on his chest and Sigurd wondered why, until he looked over his shoulder and saw Asgot up on the mast step, staff raised, eyes closed as he communed with the gods in words as unfathomable as those which had come from the ale house owner's broken mouth.
  
  'I will have the silver I came for,' Asvith said. 'And this is the last time I will say it.' With that he turned and gave a command and five men came forward with ropes and grappling hooks. They spread out on the wharf along Reinen's length, uncoiling their ropes and making ready to hurl the hooks into the ship's thwarts.
  
  'This Horsefly really is beginning to bother me,' Olaf grumbled into his beard, because Asvith seemed to know his business. If it came to a fight those men would hook Reinen like a fish. Yes, Sigurd's crew would cut the ropes, but it would be no easy thing to do it whilst also defending the ship from Asvith's thirty warriors and pushing off from the mooring. The chances were that a good number of these Svearmen would spill aboard in the first rush, and with Sigurd's lot fighting in the thwarts, more of Asvith's men would climb over the side and Sigurd's crew might never leave Birka.
  
  'Asvith Grettisson,' someone called and the lines of Svear warriors parted to allow a knot of four men to come on to the wharf and approach the hersir. The one who had called the hersir's name was the lean, dark-haired, one-eared man Sigurd had seen watching the fight the night before. There was no mistaking him with his long hair tied back and that little piece of gristle on the left side of his head where his ear used to be. A sword stroke had likely done that, Sigurd thought, and if not for a good brynja the same blow might have cleaved into his shoulder, ruining the use of his shield arm at best.
  
  'What do you want, Knut?' Asvith asked. 'I have heard you were at Fengi's place last night. Did these Norse scum cause trouble with you too?'
  
  'Not with me,' this Knut said, shaking his head. 'But they dealt with Fengi and his men the way you or I would deal with a pack of unruly hounds.' All three men with Knut looked like grizzled fighters, scarred and dangerous, their arms adorned with silver rings and their beard braids knotted with more silver.
  
  Asvith flicked a hand towards the men in Reinen. 'So these Norsemen started the fighting? Three of Fengi's men are in their beds with broken bones.'
  
  Knut looked at Sigurd and nodded. 'Yes, they are to blame,' he said, 'and you should kill them now while you have the chance, and dump their bodies out in the fjord.' Asvith nodded and commanded his men to make ready to attack, but Knut lifted a hand and Sigurd noticed that two of the fingers on it were mostly missing, having been cut off at the knuckle joints. 'Or you could take four cups of silver as wergild and be done with it. These men will sail away and no one needs to die this morning.'
  
  'If you had two ears, Knut, you would have heard this young fool tell me that he will not give me any silver. His best offer is some furs, and I have no need of furs.'
  
  'I will fill four cups with my own silver,' Knut said. 'And I will take these men away from Birka. You will have made a handsome profit for little effort and King Erik will be happy with you.'
  
  'What would you get out of it, Knut?' Asvith asked.
  
  'You need not concern yourself with that, Asvith,' Knut replied, then he walked up to the edge of the wharf while his men stayed where they were, eyeballing those aboard Reinen with as much hostility as Asvith's men were.
  
  'Are you agreeable to this arrangement, Byrnjolf?' he asked, and Sigurd had met enough killers to know that Knut was one of them. From the look of him he was a difficult man to kill, too, though clearly it had not stopped folk trying.
  
  'What do you think you are buying with your four cups of hacksilver, Knut?' Sigurd asked him.
  
  'Your sword, Norseman, and those of your crew. And your woman,' he added, nodding respectfully at Valgerd. 'I serve a man who has need of good fighters. It seems to me that you have not come to Birka to trade. Perhaps you are running from your enemies.' He shrugged. 'Or maybe you are out to make yourselves rich. Do a little raiding here and there when you think you can get away with it.' He hitched his cloak back over the sword at his hip and put his right foot up on to Reinen's sheer strake. 'What I can be sure of,' he said in a lower voice, 'is that you did not come here to get yourselves killed by this preening cock behind me.' He grinned at Sigurd and then at Olaf. 'You Norse are not renowned for your cleverness. Even so, you must know you will die if you fight these men. Seeing as I do not think it is your wyrd to end your lives here in Birka, it must mean you will accept my offer.'
  
  'Which is? Remind me,' Olaf put in.
  
  Knut nodded. 'To fight for my lord Alrik against his enemies.'
  
  'We have plenty of enemies of our own,' Sigurd said.
  
  'What would we earn fighting for this Alrik?' Olaf asked.
  
  'For a start, four cups of silver, the wergild for Fengi and his men. Give me your word that you will fight for Alrik and that debt is as good as paid. You will earn more silver for yourself soon enough and all of Alrik's men enjoy plenty of food and ale.' He scratched that little nub that was all that was left of his ear. 'You fight for Alrik, perhaps until autumn, perhaps longer, and you get rich on plunder.'
  
  Sigurd looked at Olaf and could tell that he thought it was a proposition worth considering.
  
  'It's not as though we have a great deal of choice,' Olaf said. This was true as far as Sigurd could see. 'And we are going to need more silver before this thing with the oath-breaker is done.' He gestured for Sigurd to follow him over to the mast step where they could talk without being overheard. 'We go with this Knut and we fight for his lord but we keep our heads down and maybe we make an alliance or two that might come in useful.' The rest of the crew were still poised for a fight, their shields forming a rampart along Reinen's side. Sigurd knew they would fight if he gave the word and he was proud of them for it.
  
  'What do you say?' Olaf asked him. 'If we meet this Alrik and he turns out to be a toad's arsehole who is not worth our sweat, we'll be on our way. If he tries to stop us . . .' Olaf shrugged. 'We kill him, then go on our way.'
  
  Sigurd nodded and turned back to Knut. 'I will fight for your lord but I will not swear to him. Neither will my crew for they are already sworn to me.'
  
  'Are you a jarl then?' Knut asked.
  
  'Not yet,' Sigurd said. 'But they are sworn to me. We will fight and you will see our worth, but I will not let your lord waste their lives.'
  
  'So we are agreed? You will come with us? I have your word?'
  
  Sigurd jumped on to the sheer strake and stepped across on to the wharf, gripping Knut's forearm as the one-eared warrior gripped his.
  
  'You have my word, Knut,' Sigurd said.
  
  'I am glad you have found some new meat for Alrik's shieldwall, Knut,' Horsefly said. 'I will be still more glad when I have my four cups of silver.'
  
  'You know I'm good for it, Asvith,' Knut said.
  
  'I do,' Asvith said. 'When will you sail?'
  
  'Tomorrow? The day after? When we have the wind.'
  
  Asvith nodded. 'Tell Alrik that King Erik wants that troll-swiving Jarl Guthrum dead before the Jól feast.'
  
  Knut gave the man a warning look. 'You know as well as I do that my lord Alrik is not sworn to King Erik, nor any other king.'
  
  'I like the sound of this Alrik,' Olaf muttered to Sigurd.
  
  Asvith gave Knut a smile that was as greasy as swine fat. 'Not yet, perhaps,' he said. 'But once King Erik has got oaths from all of the western jarls, he will come east to mop up the last dregs from here south as far as Götaland. Your lord Alrik is no fool. He knows that resisting King Erik would be like trying to turn back the tide.'
  
  'We will see what happens when that day comes,' Knut said. 'In the meantime we have our own fight.'
  
  'You do,' Asvith said. 'We hear that it is not going well for you.' He turned back to Sigurd. 'Your crew is the caulking to stop Alrik's boat shipping water,' he said. Knut did not deny it.
  
  'Then Alrik is a lucky man, for with caulking such as this, he could sail to the edge of the world,' Sigurd said, grinning.
  
  'Let us hope there is more to you than a good boast, Byrnjolf, because you have already cost me enough silver,' Knut said, though there was a smile on his lips which looked at odds with his hard, battle-scarred face.
  
  'Back to the borg then!' Asvith called, turning to his warriors, who if truth be told looked just as happy that they would not have to fight anyone that morning after all. They slung their shields across their backs, tucked hand axes back into their belts and began to head back to the town in loose order, their chatter a low hum in the dawn.
  
  'So that's it for Birka then,' Svein said as they laid their own weapons down in the thwarts and removed their helmets. 'It was good while it lasted.'
  
  'The wound-sea calls us,' Hagal said, meaning that they would be sailing a sea of blood before long, which was a dark way of looking at how the morning had turned out.
  
  'I prefer to think that we are heading into an ice-sea,' Olaf said, which was not the best kenning for silver that anyone had ever heard, but they knew what Olaf meant and anyway they preferred it to Crow-Song's foretelling. For Knut had promised them fighting. And where there was fighting there was plunder.