Why Harald tolerated this odd communion between his slave and his men, I cannot say. But then, neither had I worked out why he wanted me in the first place. The whole business was inscrutable to me. Still, I took comfort in the familiar companionship of Gunnar and the others; I am not ashamed to say they were my friends.
Although he had never been so far south, Thorkel seemed to know the region well; Gunnar remarked on this, whereupon the pilot smiled and leaned forward confidentially. "I have a skin, you see," he confided, tapping the side of his nose meaningfully. What he meant by this, I soon discovered, was that he had an oiled sheepskin on which was drawn a crude map.
"Here is Kiev," he said, unrolling the skin which he kept inside his shirt. The rivers were black scratches and the settlements brown spots. He placed his finger on one of the spots, and then, moving further down, stabbed at another brown spot. "And here is Miklagard. You see? We are almost there."
"But we have a very long way to go yet," I pointed out.
"Nay," he replied, shaking his head and frowning at my ignorance. "All this," he indicated a blank expanse above Miklagard, "here and here-all this is calm water. We can easily cross that in three or four days if the wind favours us."
He passed the skin to me and I held it to the fire and bent my head low over it. Much worried and wrinkled, the skin was dirty and faded, but there were yet legible a few letters and fragments of Latin words. "How did you come by this map?"
"My father was Thorolf, helmsman to Jarl Knut of the Straying Eye; he bought it from a helmsman in Jomsborg," Thorkel declared proudly. "This fellow got it from a merchant in Frencland-or was it Wenland?-I do not remember which. It is very valuable."
Thorkel's map soon proved its worth. Two days later we arrived at the trading settlement known as Kiev.
Set on the broad bank of the Dnieper, Kiev had grown from a small Danish trading outpost into a large market town carved out of a forest of birch, beech, and oak, surmounted by a hill on which was erected a large timber fortress where, it was said, the masters of Kiev stowed all the silver they took in trade. Furs of mink, marten, beaver, and black fox, silk cloth from the east, swords and knives, glassware and beads, leather, amber, ivory in walrus tusks and horn of elk and reindeer-all this and more passed up and down the river, and the trading lords of Kiev took their toll in silver denarii and gold solidi.
There were seven ships moored along the riverbank when we arrived, and two more joined us soon after; these had come up from the south where their crews had spent the summer trading with the Slavs and Bulghars. They were Danemen-some of them were from Sjalland, and others were from Jutland-keen traders all. Indeed, it was Danes from Skania who had settled Kiev to begin with, and most still spoke the Danish tongue, albeit with a strange embellishment.
King Harald ordered his four ships to be roped together and ten men to stay behind to guard each one, as he did not trust the other Danes to leave his boats in peace. Not until he was satisfied with these precautions did he allow anyone to go ashore, and then not until everyone had sworn a solemn blood oath not to breathe a word of our destination, lest any of the other Sea Wolves took it into their heads to raid the City of Gold and ruin our chance of taking the citizens by surprise.
Then the king gathered his karlar around him and made his way into the market. The first thing he did was buy a goat, a sheep, and four chickens, which he took directly to a place in the centre of the market surrounded by a half-circle of tall poles. The ground underfoot was damp, and the place stank of blood and rot; the skulls of various animals lay scattered about the open ring of posts.
Harald advanced to the centre of the ring. There, before an upright post carved with the likeness of a man, the king threw himself down upon his face. "Jarl Odin," he cried aloud to make certain everyone heard him, "I have come from afar with four longships and many good men. We have come seeking good trade and much plunder. And now I have brought you this fine offering!"
So saying, he raised himself up, drew his knife and promptly slit the throats of the animals which his karlar held for him. Beginning with the goat and the sheep, he slaughtered the poor beasts and collected some of the blood in a wooden bowl as it gushed onto the ground; this blood he smeared on the post and flung onto the surrounding poles. The chickens he beheaded and threw into the air so that the blood could spatter all around, on the post and also the poles, which were Lord Odin's wives and children. When the animals were dead, the king divided up the carcasses, leaving choice pieces for the god and sending the rest back to the ship for his supper.
