Crowbone by Robert Low

in, but the rats had eaten well on the pair of them, it was hard to tell. Two monks, all the same. This Drostan is dead.’
    ‘Then who was with Hoskuld the Trader?’ demanded Olaf, leaning back on the High Seat and spreading his feet to the fire – sensibly shod feet, Ogmund noted with surprise but then, the name ‘
cuarans
’, Irish Shoes, was only given by Norwegians and Danes as a sneer against the Dyfflin Norse, who were all thought to be half-Irish of lesser worth because they had forgotten how to be true people and taken to wearing Irisher sandals.
    ‘Hoskuld came to Dyfflin with a monk, but I never saw him,’ Olaf went on, fiddling with his beard rings. ‘Hoskuld came with a preposterous tale of how this monk knew where Eirik’s old axe was and that this monk he had was prepared to reveal the where of it for money. The monk, Hoskuld said, would only come to me in person once assurances had been given – which was not a little insulting, I was thinking.’
    ‘I thought it the worst attempt to gull you out of silver I had heard in many a long day,’ Sitric rumbled and his father nodded and grinned ruefully.
    ‘Aye – but Hoskuld is a good trader and valued, so I let him have his night’s hospitality, as if I considered the matter. Truth was I had already decided to send him packing back to his shy monk, or else bring the charlatan before me – but before I could do anything, Hoskuld left my hall. In haste. In the night. That was even more insulting, as if he thought I would do him harm.’
    ‘Not so stupid, though,’ Sitric growled, ‘since that is what he deserved for such a tale.’
    His father looked sharply at him.
    ‘Yet here is Gunnhild’s last son, come from Orkney looking for a monk,’ he said. ‘A man with the sense of a stone can see that this tale of Hoskuld’s now has legs on it.’
    ‘Find Hoskuld,’ answered Godred and Olaf soured the jarl with a hard look.
    ‘Good idea,’ he snarled. ‘I had not thought of it at all now that it is clear Gunnhild seeks him hard enough to send her last son.’
    Godred’s cheeks grew pale, then red, but he said nothing, merely picked moodily at a loose thread on the hem of his own tunic and perched on a bench in his own hall while Olaf lolled in his High Seat and his son grinned.
    ‘I want this Hoskuld,’ Olaf declared suddenly, ‘but unlike Gunnhild I do not have the ships to spare – I need them and you, Godred, for the war that is coming.’
    Godred merely nodded and said nothing. Olaf Irish-Shoes had been thrashing around in a fight with Domnall and the southern Ui Neill for years and, only this year, Domnall had finally decided to throw it all away and enter the monastery at Armagh. Good news all round, Godred thought bitterly – but now the old man had decided to wave his sword at the new leader of the Ui Neill in the north, Mael Sechnaill.
    ‘In five days,’ Olaf declared, levering himself stiffly out of the chair, ‘I want you and your men in Dyfflin. Then we are off to teach this Ui Neill puppy a lesson. Send your best man after this Hoskuld – but no more than a snake-ship’s crew.’
    Godred nodded and watched the old man stump off, calling for Sitric and complaining of the damp as he hauled his fur tighter round him. Battles, he thought bitterly. The old fool lives only for battle and will risk everything on the outcome of a stupid fight; he has lost as many thrones as he has gained. The thought of losing everything here on Mann if the old war-dog failed made Godred waspish.
    ‘Find Hoskuld,’ he snarled at Ogmund. ‘Take the
Swan Breath
and same arses you got to lie for you over the Gudrod business and see you make more of a fist of matters when next you meet that Orkney bitch-tick. Get this Hoskuld and the secret he holds. I was going to send Ulf, but you have contrived to get him killed. Now you will have to do.’
    Ogmund watched Hardmouth leave the hall, the anger burning in his chest so hard that he found himself