Read Online Bracelet of Bones by Kevin Crossley-Holland - Free Book Online

to avoid the islands.”
    “Why?” asked Red Ottar. “They weren’t after us.”
    “He’s right,” Torsten said. “Otherwise we’d never have escaped.”
    “I’m not changing course,” the skipper told Torsten. “Not because of a silent ship.”
    “We must make a sacrifice for our escape,” Odindisa said. “Otherwise Ægir . . .”
    “What?” asked Bruni. “What can we sacrifice?”
    “Something living.”
    The traders looked at each other. They looked at Bergdis.
    “Ægir and Ran won’t think much of mice or rats,” Bergdis said, “even if we can catch them. So . . . apart from ourselves . . . the only living things are the three chickens.”
    “That settles it,” Red Ottar said. “One of them.”
    So Bergdis told Solveig to fetch one of the chickens from the cage beside the mast. “The plump one. The black one.”
    Solveig shook her head. “It’s such a waste.”
    “A waste?” said Torsten. “A waste to sacrifice to the gods?”
    “Oh, no,” said Bergdis, smiling. “She won’t go to waste. All the gods want is the chicken’s spirit.”
    When Solveig returned with the squawking black chicken, she saw Bergdis had slipped on a strange bracelet. She and Edith examined it.
    “It looks as if it’s made of little finger bones,” Solveig said, and she counted them. “Seven of them. Braided and lying side by side.”
    “Is that what they are?” Edith asked.
    Bergdis didn’t reply. She just looked at Edith, and her eyes glittered.
    Then she pulled out of her deep cloak pocket her filleting knife, the same one she’d brandished over Solveig’s head. She grabbed the chicken from Solveig, held her up, and with a scream slit her breast so that her blood and gizzards spewed over the deck.
    The traders got to their knees. Edith retched; all the others gave thanks to Ægir and Ran.
    “When we sailed from Sigtuna,” Bergdis warbled, “our sea horse was kicking and prancing. But the black ship swam out of the dark. You guided Torsten’s hand, you gave us safe passage . . .”
    After Bergdis had finished, Torsten said, “Don’t forget the ale. Ægir’s always thirsty.”
    “He can have mine,” gurgled Edith, and she retched again.
    “Half the mug behind us and half before us,” Red Ottar told her.
    So Edith threw her ale onto the thirsty waves.
    “Ægir and Ran be praised,” said Slothi. “And Christ be praised.”
    “What?” snapped Red Ottar. His bull neck turned red and the veins stuck out. “How dare you? I’m not having anyone call on the White Christ on my boat.”
    “You’re no husband of mine,” Odindisa told Slothi in a low, cold voice. “Christ . . . Christ.”
    “You can worship the gods and Christ at the same time,” Slothi said. “That’s what I do.”
    “He brought war to Sweden,” the skipper went on. “Blood and death.” He rounded on Solveig. “And to your countrytoo. When King Olaf came back from Kiev and fought in Christ’s name at Stiklestad.”
    Solveig slowly nodded and closed her eyes. “I know,” she said under her breath, and she remembered the ghosts of men who died at Stiklestad swimming in the water as she sailed to Trondheim.
    Red Ottar looked at her thoughtfully. “You’ve been there?”
    “And never left,” Solveig replied. “Whoever goes to Stiklestad never leaves Stiklestad. That’s what people say.” She looked gravely at Red Ottar.
    “They had their time,” Red Ottar said, “and it was their time to die. Right! Let’s hear no more of Christ. His men killed my brother and my brother’s son.”
    Then Bergdis turned to Solveig and gave her the mangled remains of the black chicken. “Pluck her,” she said. “Save what you can for the pot.”
    So Solveig sat with her back to the mast and plucked the luckless chicken. The sea wind swept away the feathers, even the sticky ones. Scenting the blood of their own sister, the remaining two chickens squawked anxiously inside their cage.
    Torsten. He knows