Read Raven: Sons of Thunder for Free Online

much of a beard. A good breeze would have blown it off, but I was proud of it, though it itched like Father Egfrith’s fleas. To make matters worse, the biting flies that love summer drizzle were gathering in faint brown clouds and beginning to test our patience. ‘That hoard we got from Ealdred must be fat enough to buy another dragon the equal of Serpent or Fjord-Elk ,’ I said. ‘We are rich men, Penda.’
    He shook his head. ‘It shines well enough, that trove,’ hesaid, gesturing to Serpent , which sat serene, gently dipping in the low tide, ‘but for me it’s like looking at another man’s wife.’ Two Norsemen had swum out to replace Bjorn and Bjarni, who were now wading ashore, their swords and shields held above their heads. ‘I will earn my own silver, lad,’ Penda said gruffly, touching the spear beside him. He stretched out a leg, kicking a burning stick back into the fire. It hissed angrily. Other Norsemen sat around more fires, waking slowly, drinking and talking in hushed voices. The day was foul but the air smelled green and fresh.
    ‘Sigurd knows your worth,’ I said, recalling the slaughter I had seen Penda make. The Wessexman was a rarity, a warrior worthy to join Sigurd’s wolves. He must have known it too, yet he still ached to prove himself as all warriors do.
    He shrugged. ‘When we run into that treacherous bastard Ealdred, your Jarl Sigurd will see me for what I am. My sword will talk for me. It will sing, Raven, like a good scop.’ He grinned, snatching some invisible thing from the air. ‘Then I will take what I am owed.’
    And so we spent the day complaining about the weather, playing tafl, looking to our war gear again – a constant job in wet weather – and being bored. Other than the scouting parties, we dared not venture far from the bay for risk of running into any Franks or in case we had to put to sea quickly because Fjord-Elk was seen in the channel beyond. But Fjord-Elk did not come. We ate seal again that night because the creatures were too stupid to get away from us, and the sky continued to spit on us, and this time there were few jokes around the fires.
    Sigurd brooded. The jarl kept his own company and Olaf was the only one who dared talk to him, though even he said little, wrapped in his own thoughts. Perhaps he thought of his son, white-haired Eric who had died full of arrows outside Ealdred’s hall. He had been Olaf’s only son and now there was no one to carry Olaf’s bloodline forward. I wondered if theman would ever return to the dead boy’s mother or whether he had set his course by another wind; a wind that would whip his own name into a story to be sung in future years in the stead of a living heir. For I had seen Olaf offer war against unbeatable odds on the English shore and this had made me believe that his heart was broken.
    The watches were set again and this time I was part of them. I was pleased to climb the wet hill, clutching tall saltbush stems and pulling myself up, the shield on my back, the sword at my hip and a spear in my hand. Penda went with me, though I guessed he was as reluctant to leave Cynethryth as I was.
    ‘The monk will watch over her,’ I said, breaking the silence as we climbed. We were about a hundred paces from a narrow ledge that wound steeply up and to the right above the northern end of the bay. This sheep path would take us to a headland crag of limestone, one of the lookout places from which a man named Osk from the previous watch said he had seen the Wessex coast, though the others said it was just low cloud on the horizon.
    ‘That old goat Asgot irritates me,’ Penda said eventually, hawking and spitting. ‘I’ve seen his eyes slithering all over Cynethryth and I like it about as much as I like wiping my arse with nettles.’
    ‘I’d take a burning arse over Asgot,’ I said, coming to a cluster of terns on their nests, which were shallow scrapes in the soft ground. I carefully stepped around the birds and