Free The White Raven by Robert Low Page A

turned back into those eyes. He stood, chin up and challenging and, for a moment; reminded me of the Goat Boy as he had been when we found him on Cyprus. About the same age as the Goat Boy was then, I noted. Of course, we had stopped calling him the Goat Boy when he had grown into resenting it — Jon Asanes he was now, being schooled by a trader I knew in Holmgard, which the Slavs call Novgorod.
    'I am from Norway and a prince,' the boy added. Throst Silfra gave a loud laugh and those strange eyes swung on him, eagle fierce. I saw Throst quail in an eyeblink, then recover as quickly, also angered at having been so disconcerted by a thrall boy. He moved, lip curled.
    'Stay,' I warned and, for a moment, he glowered at me, then lowered his hand and stepped back.
    'I am a prince,' the boy insisted.
    'Aye, just so,' thundered Finn, ducking into the middle of all this. 'Wipe the muck off every thrall and they will swear they were pure gold in their own country.'
    'A prince of where?' I asked.
    The boy stirred uncomfortably. 'Somewhere,' he said, hesitantly. Then, more firmly: 'But my mother was a Princess. She died. So did my fostri. Klerkon killed them both.'
    'There isn't so much as a bead in this place,' Finn growled, ignoring the boy. 'Klerkon did not return here with his loot, so he must have sailed straight to Aldeigjuborg.'
    'The storerooms are full,' Kvasir added, coming in to the hall. 'Winter feed. Honey in pots, seal and deer hides, fox pelts, feathers for pillows, sacks of acorns . . .'
    'Feathers,' sneered Finn. 'Fucking acorns.'
    'Take it, load it,' I said and Kvasir nodded. 'When you have everything, burn this place to the ground.
    Leave the thralls —they take up too much room and they are not what we came for.'
    Kvasir ducked out of the hall, bawling for people to help him; Red Njal came in and glanced at me, then looked away. His knees and hands were clotted with gore where he had knelt to plunder a woman and the bairns he had killed; I had stepped in on him and being watched had shamed him away from the small bodies.
    'Is it wise to burn it?' Finn asked.
    'Wise?'
    'You know Klerkon,' Finn offered. 'Unless we finish him, he will have his revenge. He has already torched Gunnarsgard and half of it was mine — he may decide to kill all the thralls and Thordis with them, out of fury.'
    He was right and this was reason enough, as Finn often pointed out, for not owning anything you could not stuff into a sea chest. Yet, outside, I could hear what we had brought to this place, in the screams and the harsh laughter. Humping a dead woman on the flank of a dead ox in the yard was the least of it. I said that, too and we glared at each other.
    'Fear the reckoning of those you have wronged,' Red Njal said mournfully and I shot him a savage glance; he, above all, had much to fear, for I suspected the bairns whose blood he had been paddling about in were Klerkon's own.
    He saw my look and stiffened, then shrugged.
    'The shame you cannot lift you had better let lie, as my granny used to say,' he muttered darkly.
    'Happy woman who never saw you guddling in the blood of bairns for what you could steal,' I spat at him and he winced away from it. It was unfair, for others had done worse and none of us were snow-pure.
    'I know where Klerkon's gold is,' the boy said. 'I will tell you if you do not fire the steading.'
    'If I tickle you with a hot blade you will tell us anyway,' Throst Silfra growled, but the boy's double-coloured eyes never left mine.
    'I would have thought you would warm yourself at such a fire,' I said, flicking the iron collar. He flinched.
    'The thralls you leave will die without shelter,' he replied. 'It is enough that you take their food. They are not able to run, are not to blame and some are my friends here.'
    'Other princes?' chuckled Finn scornfully.
    The boy grinned. 'No. But some have been kinder than kings. The free folk here are another matter and I have my own thoughts on that.'
    Was he the age he