“Easy in this game to give a scratch,” Guthmund remarked. “But a scratch won’t settle it. Loss of blood, if it goes on a long time—but it never does.”
The fight had reached a kind of pattern, one man trying to close, stabbing always underneath the two arms, jerking and grabbing at the rope that joined them. The other ignoring the rope, keeping away, flicking quick slashes at arm or leg, but taking care not to let his knife catch, to trap him for an instant.
He did it once too often. The bald father, bleeding from a dozen minor wounds, took yet another slash high up on the left biceps. Caught the retreating hand, the knife-hand, with his own tied left. Started to twist it savagely, shouting something Shef could not catch over the crowd noise. The seducer lashed out with his own left hand, desperately trying to catch the other’s knife-hand in his turn. But the older man had twisted, holding the knife away behind his body out of reach, feinting to thrust low, then high, twisting the caught wrist all the time.
With no other hope left the trapped man kicked both feet off the ground, tried to catch the other’s thighs in a scissors grip, sent him staggering. As the two fell locked to the ground Shef saw blood spurt, heard the groan of released breath from the spectators close up. The judge stepped forward, pulled the two men apart. Shef saw one knife jutting from deep in the chest of the young man. As they rolled the other over he saw a second hilt standing up from the older man’s eye.
Women were shrieking, rushing forward. Shef turned to Guthmund, ready to rebuke a system that lost a woman husband and father in the same heartbeat, and a child father and grandfather. But the words died in his throat.
Cuthred was striding down the hollow, spiked shield in one hand, sword in the other. Behind him trailed Fritha and Osmod, Udd a pace or two after them, all carrying crossbows but looking helpless. As Shef started to shove his way forward, he heard Cuthred’s crazy voice lifted in pidgin Norse.
“Bunglers! Nithings! Have to be tied together not to run away. Hold a man to be cut. Fight an Englishman, why don’t you, one with hands free. One hand tied, give you choice. Hornungs, sons of drabs! You, you there.”
White spittle was flying from his mouth, and a circle was steadily widening round him, leaving him isolated with the two dead men at his feet. Staring down, Cuthred slashed suddenly at one of them, opening a great gash across the young man’s dead face. He began to stamp his feet and breathe in great gasps, ready to charge the entire crowd.
Shef stepped in front of him, waited for recognition to show in the mad eyes. Reluctant recognition.
“They won’t fight,” said Shef slowly. “We’ll have to find a better time. And striking a corpse is foul play, Cuthred. Foul play for an ordwiga, a herecempa, a frumgar like yourself, a king’s champion. Wait for the Ragnarssons, for the killers of your King Ella.”
Cuthred’s face worked at the string of honorifics, all of which he had earned in former life as captain of the King of Northumbria’s guard. He looked at his bloody sword, at the corpse he had struck, threw his weapon down and burst into racking sobs. Udd and Osmod closed on either side, took his arm, started to lead him away.
Mopping sweat, Shef turned to meet the disapproving look of the duel-judge, the law-speaker.
“Mutilating a dead body,” the Norseman said, “is punishable by a fine of…”
“We’ll pay,” said Shef. “We’ll pay. But someone ought to pay for what has been done to that live one.”
The next morning, Shef stood by the narrow gangplank leading to Brand’s prized and cherished ship, the Walrus. Guthmund’s Seamew, already loaded, rocked easily in the water twenty yards out, a row of faces looking over the low gunwale. Loading the ships had not been an easy business. Each rowed eighteen oars a side and carried a normal crew of forty. To this had had to be added Shef, Hund, Karli and Thorvin, the eight men of the catapult crew, the four women they had rescued from Drottningsholm, Cuthred, and the train of runaways they had attracted in their ride across Upland and Sogn—nearly thirty all told, a large number to add to the cramped quarters of two narrow ships.