Read TLV - 03 - The Sign of the Raven for Free Online Page B

slumping voice. "Speak with me, jarl."
    As he stood up, Haakon saw that he wore good clothes under a plain gray cloak and a broad-brimmed hat. But rust spots marked his coat, and a red line across the forehead told where a helmet had been. For weapon he had only a nicked, worn ax.
    The jarl bent over to peer closely. He saw tangled brown hair and a short beard, eyes crowding a hook nose, full lips adroop. Breath hissed between Haakon's teeth, and a coldness ran down his back.
    Vandraadh gave him a bloodshot stare. The jarl thought of a dog which has been kicked and starved. "I've come to take my life from your hand, if you will give it," said Vandraadh.
    Haakon's fingers tightened on the bulwark. He looked down, bit his lip, remembered oaths, but remembered too that he had never betrayed a friend. Vandraadh—he who cannot decide for himself— waited with a dead man's patience.
    "Well—" Haakon shook himself. Turning, he called on two of his folk whom he believed trustworthy. When they came to him, he said in a hurried murmur, "Get into this boat and take my friend Vandraadh ashore and up to Carl the yeoman. Tell him, as token of who sent you, that he shall let Van draadh have the horse I gave him two days ago, as well as his own saddle and his son to guide him whither he wishes."
    The man in the boat bowed his head. "I shall not forget this," he said.
    "Nor I," said Haakon gloomily. "We may both hear more of it." He nodded curtly to his men, who gave him a strange look but climbed down into the boat and took the oars. Vandraadh steered, sitting hunched over.
    Much traffic was on the water, ships and boats moving about as men sought their friends or took the wounded ashore or gloated over the booty. Vandraadh went where there were the fewest. Now and again a Norseman hailed him, but Haakon's men said who they were and met no trouble. They rowed till a jut of tree-covered land hid them from the fleet, then Vandraadh grounded the boat and took a long way around to Carl's house.
    The yeoman, a burly gray fellow, was just dressing to go to work when they entered. The room was small, soot blackened, crowded with tools and chests; a hen pecked idly at the dirt floor; stalls for the beasts filled one end; a fire danced on the open hearth, pale against the young sunlight that streamed through the doorway. Haakon's men gave him the jarl's word. When Carl looked closely at Vandraadh, fright flickered in his eyes, but at once he clapped down the commoner's earthy mask.
    "Well, let it be so," he said. "But you must break your fast." He took a kettle off the fire and poured warm water into some bowls. "Here, wash yourselves."
    His wife came in from the stalls, carrying a bucket of milk. She was a lean and wrinkled woman, who gave the strangers a sharp good morning. "This has been a weird night!" she went on. "We could get no sleep for all the racket."
    "Know you not that the kings held battle tonight?" asked Carl.
    The woman shrugged. To her it meant little what the great folk did, so she was left in peace. "Who won?" she muttered as she poured the milk into a crock.
    "The Norsemen did," said Carl after looking out the door at the ships.
    His wife showed snag teeth in a sneer. "Then our king has fled," she decided and gave a stir to oatmeal she had boiling.
    Carl answered carefully: "Whether he has fallen or fled, that is something no one knows."
    The woman banged her spoon down on a shelf. Her lips set tightly. "God better that king we have," she snapped. "He's both lame and craven."
    Vandraadh winced. "The king is no coward," he said in a low voice, "but he is not a lucky man."
    Carl coughed. "Wash your hands, friends, the meal will soon be ready," he said loudly.
    Vandraadh was the last to do so. When the good-wife handed him the towel, he dried himself in the middle of it. She snatched it back and cried shrilly: "You've not been brought up well; thorp-dwellers don't get the whole cloth wet at one time!"
    Vandraadh smiled wearily.