Scramasax by Kevin Crossley-Holland

Author:Kevin Crossley-Holland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quercus Publishing
Published: 2012-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

13

‘Clear off!’ exclaimed Solveig.

With both hands she swiped them away, not all the tireless, jumpy sandflies attracted by her damp wrists, the insides of her elbows and salty folds of her neck, but the tiresome young Vikings who had a way of gathering around her, sometimes in small swarms.

Without making any particular effort to do so, she attracted them and made them somehow homesick, recalling their own sisters and mothers and the girls on neighbouring farmsteads, reminding them of the creature comforts of home.

Yes, sometimes they surrounded her, sometimes jostled her, and of course this didn’t escape the attention of the other women accompanying the Varangian guards – Vibrog and Edla and the drudges who did the endless round of cooking and grooming the horses, Silkisiv and the women, tawny-eyed and dark-eyed as lionesses, with whom the guards pleasured themselves.

Vibrog and Edla were jealous of her and wagged their tongues at the way Harald Sigurdsson so favoured her, but the others simply ignored her. None shared secrets with her in the way Edith had done.

They’re as tough as the men, Solveig thought. At least they pretend to be. Perhaps this is what happens to women who spend too much time in the company of mercenaries. They grow a shell.

Is there no room in our ranks for pity – or for grief?

Is a man less of a man if he allows himself such feelings?

Solveig braced her shoulders and stuck out her elbows. ‘You’re as bad as a cloud of mosquitoes,’ she told the young guards.

‘That’s right,’ said Egil. ‘We drink blood.’

‘Go away!’ she exclaimed.

‘Away?’

‘Why?’

‘When we’re enjoying ourselves?’

‘And annoying me.’

‘Come on, Solveig. Life’s for living.’

One guard, Gorm, put his arm round Solveig’s shoulders. ‘I can help you,’ he said. But all he got was a sharp elbow in his ribs.

‘Not a chance,’ another guard told Gorm. ‘She’s sweet on Tamas.’

‘I’m not,’ Solveig protested.

‘Yes, how long was she down in those horse-stalls with him?’ asked Egil.

‘Quite long enough!’

All the young guards, at least half a dozen of them, guffawed.

‘Sweet!’ they taunted her. ‘Sweet!’

But even as she denied it, Solveig knew that she was.

At this moment, Harald Sigurdsson walked past.

‘You layabouts!’ he reproached the young guards, without breaking his pace. But then he thought better of it and swung round. ‘Pestering an innocent young girl.’

‘She was lonely,’ said Egil in a mournful voice.

‘And lovelorn,’ added Gorm.

‘Anyhow,’ Harald told them, ‘it will be a different story tomorrow. I’ve got that obstinate Turk to see sense at last – after two precious days. We’ll strike camp at dawn.’

The young Viking guards cheered and waved their fists, and Gorm put his arm around Solveig again.

Harald towered over them, squeezing his blonde beard. ‘Yes, Solveig,’ he said. ‘I told you. You’ll be needing your scramasax one way or another.’

Solveig lowered her eyes. ‘I can look after myself,’ she told him.

‘And in the meantime,’ Harald told her, ‘go and look after your father.’

‘Why?’ asked Solveig. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Ask him,’ said Harald. And he walked off.

‘What is it?’ Solveig asked her father once she had found him, sitting on one of the oarsmen’s benches aboard their ousiai.

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