Warriors of the Storm by Bernard Cornwell Page B

stubbornly alive.
    And Ragnall, I thought, would be listening and watching for a sign too. I prayed that the owl would call to his ears and let him know the fear of that sound that foretells death. I listened and heard nothing except the night’s small noises.
    Then I heard the clapping sound. Quick and soft. It started and stopped. It had come from the fields to the north, from the rough pasture that lay between Ceaster’s ditch and the Roman cemetery. Some of my men wanted to dig up the cemetery and throw the dead onto a fire, but I had forbidden it. They feared the dead, reckoning that ancient ghosts in bronze armour would come to haunt their sleep, but the ghosts had built this city, they had made the strong walls that protected us, and we owed them our protection now.
    The clapping sounded again.
    I should have told Ragnall of the ghosts. His insults had been better than mine, he had won that ritual of abuse, but if I had thought of the Roman graves with their mysterious stones I could have told him of an invisible army of the dead that rose in the night with sharpened swords and vicious spears. He would have mocked the idea, of course, but it would have lodged in his fears. In the morning, I thought, we should pour wine on the graves as thanks to the protecting dead.
    The clapping started again, followed by a whirring noise. It was not harsh, but neither was it tuneful. ‘Early in the year for a nightjar,’ Finan said behind me.
    ‘I didn’t hear you!’ I said, surprised.
    ‘I move like a ghost,’ he sounded amused. He came and stood beside me and listened to the sudden clapping sound. It was the noise made by the long wings of the bird beating together in the dark. ‘He wants a mate,’ Finan said.
    ‘It’s that time of year. Eostre’s feast.’
    We stood in companionable silence for a while. ‘So are we really going to Eads Byrig tomorrow?’ Finan finally asked.
    ‘We are.’
    ‘Through the forest?’
    ‘Through the forest to Eads Byrig,’ I said, ‘then north to the river.’
    He nodded. For a while he said nothing, just gazed at the distant shine of moonlight on the Mærse. ‘No one else is to kill him,’ he broke the silence fiercely.
    ‘Conall?’
    ‘He’s mine.’
    ‘He’s yours,’ I agreed. I paused, listening to the nightjar. ‘I thought you were going to kill him this morning.’
    ‘I would have done. I wish I had. I will.’ He touched his breast where the crucifix had hung. ‘I prayed for this, prayed God would send Conall back to me.’ He paused and smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. ‘Tomorrow then.’
    ‘Tomorrow,’ I said.
    He slapped the wall in front of him, then laughed. ‘The boys need a fight, by Christ they do. They were trying to kill each other earlier.’
    ‘I heard it. What happened?’
    ‘Young Godric got in a fight with Heargol.’
    ‘Godric!’ He was my servant. ‘He’s an idiot!’
    ‘Heargol was too drunk. He was punching air.’
    ‘Even so,’ I said, ‘one of his punches could kill young Godric.’ Heargol was one of Æthelflaed’s household warriors, a great brute of a man who revelled in the close work of a shield wall.
    ‘I pulled the bastard off before he could do any harm, and then I smacked Godric. Told him to grow up.’ He shrugged. ‘No harm done.’
    ‘What were they fighting over?’
    ‘There’s a new girl at the Pisspot.’ The Pisspot was a tavern. Its proper name was the Plover and that bird was painted on its sign, but for some reason it was always called the Pisspot, and it was a place that sold good ale and bad women. The holy twins, Ceolnoth and Ceolberht, had tried to close the tavern, calling it a den of iniquity, and so it was, which is why I wanted it left open. I commanded a garrison of young warriors and they needed everything the Pisspot provided. ‘Mus,’ Finan said.
    ‘Mus?’
    ‘That’s her name.’
    ‘Mouse?’
    ‘You should go see her,’ Finan said, grinning. ‘Sweet God in His heaven, lord, but