Free Oathsworn 1 - The Whale Road by Qaz

regardless, like a man pushing a plough through a stony field.
    The riddle of the saint's box had eluded him, it seemed. No one knew for sure, since he never let anyone look at the contents. Instead, he dragged in every trader who was trapped, like him, and had intense conversations with them behind the hurdle.
    Then, one day, as the ice dripped from the eaves and men actually started to stagger out of the stinking hov—and it would have reeked to any Greek, used to baths and oiled massages, even before the winter—
    Illugi, Valgard, my father and Einar were huddled in his little private chamber, as usual.

    And me. Youth had made me healthier than the rest and I was still almost permanently aroused. Since everyone else had more or less lost interest in the girls, I could pick and choose and had my eye on one, a dark beauty, almost as dark as the bluemen from the far south who were so prized in Ireland.
    I was craning for a look at her as Einar was speaking, which was why I missed most of it and only came in at the end, to hear him say: `. . . before that little shit Martin gets his hands on it. But no one reads Latin here, not even those who think this place is called Kaupang.'
    There were dutiful chuckles at that. Foreigners called Skirringsaal kaupang because they'd once asked what it was called and someone—probably deliberately—had told them 'a market'. So they had continued to call the town that, thinking that was its name.
    Einar sighed and shook his head. 'I hate relying on that Latin-reading Christ priest. It would be nice to know what it is he seeks in this.' He slapped the ornate chest.
    `Latin is a pain in the arse,' I said, yawning. 'If they have three words where one good one would do, they use them.'
    There was silence and it took me a while to realise everyone was staring at me. Einar's eyes were black, ferocious. 'How do you know that, boy?'
    Conscious of his tone, I considered cautiously, then answered: `Caomh taught me to read it, back in Bjornshafen—'
    I never got the rest of it out. There was an explosion of roars; everyone was talking at once. Einar was trying to hit me, scrambling to get up and out of his furs, Illugi trying to restrain him and my father and Valgard arguing with each other, all at once.
    Eventually, when it fell silent again, I raised my head. Einar was glowering at me and breathing as if he'd run up a hill. Illugi was watching him, holding his staff across his knees and between me and him. My father and the Trimmer sat staring at me, one astonished, the other stone-faced.
    `Can you read this?' Einar demanded, thrusting a few rustling leaves at me, similar to the ones I'd seen torn from that book-chest in Otmund's temple.
    Ì've never read from this before,' I told him. `Caomh drew the letters in the sand, or in the dirt.'
    It was clearer than that, of course. Easy.
    ' "The people here were lost to God's mercy," ' I read, squinting at the faded, brown letters. ' "They wallowed in their idol worship, until God Himself brought His word to them, though His humble servant, bound in duty to . . ." ' I stopped, scanning the lines ahead. 'It goes on and on—do you want to hear all this?'
    Einar leaned forward, dangerous-eyed, his voice frosted. 'Read it all,' he snarled.
    So I did. Otmund, it seemed, was full of the joy of coming to the lost people of the Karelians and returning them to the fold like so many strayed sheep. He listed, in considerable detail, his unstinting efforts to do that.
    His greatest triumph came, it seemed, when he managed to gain some followers among those skin-wearing trolls.
    In the end, as the chief declared for the White Christ, the last believers in the old ways stole their god's stone, on which lay the secrets of the tomb, and spirited it away south and across the sea, into the lands of the Krivichi at Kiev and to a chief named Muzum.
    `Read that again,' demanded Einar. Sighing, seeing my chance with the dark girl recede by the minute, I worked my way back,