The priest who had been pushed away was back again, dodging the guards, spreading out his arms and shouting passionately.
“What’s he say?” muttered the guard by Shef.
“He’s trying to forbid the sale,” Shef answered, catching some part of the gabble of Norse and Low German that the priest was using. “Says they have no right to sell a priest of the true God.”
“They’ll sell him too if he doesn’t shut up,” said the guard.
Indeed, the Swedes had thrown another purse on the ground, exchanged words with the auctioneer, were walking forward towards both men, satisfaction on their faces.
Another man stepped from the crowd and the satisfaction faded, replaced by looks of wary calculation. Shef, used to judging warriors, could see immediately why.
The newcomer was not a tall man, shorter than the shortest of the Swedes. But he was immensely broad across the shoulders. More, he moved with an easy confidence that set men back. He wore a padded leather jacket, worn and with different strips let into it here and there. His left hand rested on the pommel of a long horseman’s sword. His hair stood up like a stiff, blond brush, over a face tight-drawn, clean-shaven, as hard as stone. But it was smiling.
The blond man put a toe under one of the purses, flicked it back to the Swedes, flicked back the other.
“You can’t have him,” he said in stilted Norse, his voice carrying in the sudden silence. “Neither of them. They are priests of Christ, and they are under my protection. The protection of the Lanzenorden.” He called suddenly in a louder voice, and swept his arm around. Shef realized there were a dozen men mailed and armed close to the ring. They outnumbered the Swedes. But there were two hundred Norsemen watching, all armed as well. If they made common cause against the Christians… Or if King Hrorik’s men decided to protect their trade and market…
“We’ll pay for one of them,” called the blond man conciliatingly. “Eight ounces. Christian money is as good as heathen.”
“Ten ounces,” said the leader of the Swedes.
The auctioneer looked questioningly at the blond man.
“Twelve ounces,” he said in a slow, deliberate voice. “Twelve ounces and I will forget to ask how one of you comes to have a Christian priest—and what you others want Christian priests for. Twelve ounces and think you are lucky.”
The Swede slipped his hand further down the handle of his axe, spat on the ground.
“Twelve ounces,” he said. “And the money of Othin rings better than the money of any smoothface gelding of a Christian.”
Shef felt the guard beside him start to move, saw Hrorik’s jarl also begin to step forward. As he finished speaking the Swede threw his axe up to grip it in striking position. But before any of them had completed his movement there was a streak in the air, a thud, a gasp. The Swede was gaping down at a brass hilt protruding from the center of his body. Shef realized that the blond man had never attempted to draw sword, but had instead flicked a heavy knife from his belt and thrown it underhand. Before the thought had formed, the blond man had already taken three steps forward, drawn, and was standing with the point of his long sword resting exactly on the throat-ball of the seller.
“Do we have a sale?” he called, looking for an instant sideways at the hesitating jarl.
The seller, slowly and cautiously, nodded.
The blond man flicked the sword away. “Just a private disagreement,” he remarked to the jarl. “Doesn’t affect the market. Happy to settle with his friends anywhere outside the town.”
The jarl hesitated, then nodded too, ignoring the shouts of the Swedes bent over the body of their leader.
“Pay the money and take your man away. And hold that noise, the rest of you. If you call men names you’d better learn to be quicker. If you have a grudge you’re welcome to fight it out. But not here. Bad for business. Come on, somebody, get the next lot up here.”
As the Christian priests embraced and the blond man rejoined his knot of mailed supporters, bristling with weapons, Shef found himself thrust forward on to the knoll. For a moment panic seized him, like an actor forgetting his lines on an unexpected cue. Then as Nikko bustled forward, and he saw the worried face of Karli just behind him, he remembered what he had to do.