Free God of Vengeance by Giles Kristian Page A

with word from Avaldsnes, Olaf,’ Jarl Harald said without turning to those approaching. ‘They say our king is appalled by all that befell us in the strait yesterday.’
    Olaf muttered something and one of Gorm’s men turned and nodded respectfully to Olaf, for all men knew him. ‘The king’s heart is broken for the loss of his people in Skudeneshavn and for the deaths of Jarl Harald’s sons Thorvard and Sigmund, though he was consoled to hear that their brother Sorli was able to save himself by jumping overboard.’
    ‘Frigg’s arse!’ Sorli exclaimed, glancing at Olaf, but Harald cut off any further opinion with a raised hand. The jarl showed no signs of the wounds he had taken and neither would he reveal any weakness in front of Biflindi’s men.
    King Gorm’s man might have come with words but he was dressed for battle in brynja and helmet, for all that the face beneath his fair beard was flushing red as the men and women and even the children of Skudeneshavn gathered around him and his uneasy-looking companion.
    ‘The king was as surprised by events as you were, Jarl Harald,’ the messenger reassured the jarl, turning from him to Olaf and back to Harald. ‘Two of his captains had been bought by the rebel Randver and we did not know that they were attacking your ships until it was too late.’
    ‘Too late?’ Olaf blurted. ‘We fought the dogs until our blades dulled and still the king did not send help!’
    ‘We were trading arrows with Jarl Randver’s other ships,’ the man said, ignoring the insults that the spectators were flinging his way now like pebbles into the mire. Clearly his companion had no words to deliver, served no purpose other than to soak up some of the ill-will aimed their way lest the messenger swallow his own tongue through fear.
    ‘The king thought it wise to deal with the threat to himself first for he would be no use to you if he were sprouting arrows,’ this man managed. ‘Indeed we were surprised when we saw you had been overrun. We thought you would hold them off longer. To give us a chance to send ships across.’ The man was on thin ice now and must have known it, which meant he had a backbone beneath that mail and it likely saved his life.
    ‘Bollocks,’ Olaf said.
    ‘My warriors sit in Óðin’s hall while traitors live and breathe,’ Harald said and Biflindi’s man did not know whether the jarl was talking about the king or Jarl Randver, or the two captains who Biflindi claimed had sold their loyalty to Randver, and that was just as Harald intended. ‘You say the king has not pissed on our oath of allegiance. And yet somehow that oath has lost me many men and two ships.’
    Despite no doubt wondering if he would walk out of Skudeneshavn alive, Biflindi’s man was sharp enough to pierce the skin of that for he nodded sombrely. ‘The king would pay you for your loyalty . . . your steadfastness out there,’ he said, nodding towards the sea. ‘You will receive a horn’s worth of silver for each man lost and your ships will be replaced with two of the king’s own.’
    Harald pulled his beard between finger and thumb and eyed the man like a hawk appraising a mouse.
    ‘Furthermore,’ the man went on, ‘he has sent silver to the traitor Jarl Randver to buy back the bodies of your men. The king invites you to Avaldsnes to receive your weregeld, to hear the pledge that you shall have the ships and to collect your dead so that you might bring them back to their kinfolk and pay them the respect they deserve.’
    This was balm to many of the widows gathered, so that their tongues ceased their lashing and the messenger forged on. ‘You will also renew your oaths each to the other so that the waters may be clear between you again,’ he said. ‘When this is done you will lay plans for Jarl Randver’s defeat. The traitor must be killed before he can build on his success.’
    ‘This has a stink to it,’ a man named Asbjorn said. Asbjorn had not been in the fight