To Lie With Lions: The Sixth Book of the House of Niccolo

  ‘Well, I had to,’ said M. de Fleury. ‘After all those distress signals from Anselm. Now I’m bloody going away. He hasn’t got long golden hair. I’m not going to marry him.’ He was speaking in old-fashioned German, which was quite close to the Norraena tongues.

  ‘He was going to marry me,’ said the man with M. de Fleury, in the same language. He had a black beard, and an arm in a sling tucked into his jacket under the cloak and a bandage under his hat. He was not an Icelander. ‘But now I have seen his sister, I am not sure of my constancy. In any case, you, Nikolás, cannot even arrive in time to kill bears, never mind dragons. Introduce me.’

  ‘Your future bride, Anselm Sersanders, and his sister,’ said M. de Fleury obediently. ‘Anselm, embrace Master Paúel Benecke, Danish representative of the Hanse, whose sulphuric wish is to make you his prisoner, were it not for the fact that he is my prisoner already. You may kiss. What is that?’

  ‘Dinner,’ said Kathi. ‘Step back.’

  ‘What?’ said Paúel Benecke.

  ‘Oh my God,’ said M. de Fleury.

  The ground, which had begun to throb, growled. This time, the vibration came from below, not behind. This time her geysir was coming. She said, her eyes on M. de Fleury’s face, ‘You had really better stand back.’

  He said, ‘All right. Take me,’ and allowed himself to be pulled back by her gloved hand. He said with surprise, ‘You have only five fingers.’

  ‘Christ,’ said Paúel Benecke. ‘Be quiet, you fool.’

  She had seen it three times. She had never seen it like this. To begin with, the subterranean explosions were much stronger this time: eight of them, and growing in violence, so that the ground shuddered under their feet as if it were about to rise up, or buckle, or split. With the eighth came the first gush of scalding water, a mighty column hurled into the air with a thunderous hiss, and dissolving into clouds of white steam. It was followed in quick succession by others. Lumps of turf spurted up. Boulders flew, rocketing into the sky and bursting high over the billowing clouds. The columns rose higher and higher with a shocking roar. The main eruption, driving upwards in a single terrible explosion, ripped off the side of its base and shot a hundred feet in the air where it whistled, a boiling, unbroken pillar of water.

  This time the spout had brought something with it that was not a stone or a turf, and by playing under the thing, sustained it high in the glittering air, pagan with rainbows. Staring upwards, Benecke broke his dumbounded silence and swore. Kathi clutched at her brother. M de Fleury tilted his head back and gazed.

  Jerking to and fro in the sky, rising and falling, danced the torso of a white-shirted man, arms outstretched. Its legs and its head were horribly missing.

  The jet dropped. The thing tumbled into the basin and lay in the steam, rocked by the receding water. There was a throaty gurgle and silence, but for the mutter and hiss of the great evil field.

  ‘Plates?’ said M de Fleury. ‘Napkins? Knives? Or are we supposed to tear it apart with our fingers?”

  Paúel Benecke pulled off his felt hat and let the wind play about his dank hair. ‘What is it?’ he asked. His voice shook.

  Upon the good-looking face of Sersanders there appeared an exuberant grin. ‘It’s my spare shirt,’ he said. ‘A ptarmigan in either sleeve, and a breast of lamb packed in the body. Kathi’s idea. We buried a pan loaf as well, but I don’t think it’s risen. Not so high, anyway. Nicholas? Come on. We did all the work. You go and retrieve it.’

  *

  They held their feast in the tent; and although the birds fell apart in a welter of feathers, the mutton was done to a turn and went down well with some ale of the Bishop’s. ‘We shouldn’t have let Sigfús have any,’ said Kathi, ‘if we’d known he’d been drinking already.’

  ‘He has that reputation,’ Nicholas said. Since the geysir blew, Paúel Benecke had never removed his eyes from Kathi, even when the geysir blew again.

  ‘Oh,’ said Kathi.

  ‘I wish someone had told us,’ said Sersanders. ‘He was drunk as an auk. He would have scalded to death in the hot springs.’

  ‘So might you,’ the Danziger said. Kathi looked at him.

  ‘Well, we were sensible,’ Sersanders said. ‘We sent the man back with the bear. He said he knew of a farm. I’m afraid it’s too late for a pelt from the she-bear; the foxes will have stripped her by now. I expect you saw her. Didn’t you have a guide?’

  ‘Glímu-Sveinn. We sent him back with his dog to find Sigfús. You said Sigfús went back with the bear?’

  ‘He knew of a farm with a sledge and some ropes. If he ever got there.’

  ‘He means the bear-cub,’ said Kathi modestly. ‘We caught it.’

  Paúel Benecke removed his black stare to Nicholas. ‘Your young brother,’ he said. ‘So what now?’

  ‘Glímu-Sveinn will find the farm, the bear and Sigfús, and they will all duly arrive back at Skalholt, demanding a price for their services, which they will receive.’

  ‘Or if we perish, they sell off the bear.’

  Kathi said, ‘They didn’t make us come here.’

  ‘No, you were coming here anyway,’ said Sersanders sourly.

  ‘So was M. de Fleury,’ said Kathi. ‘And aren’t you glad?’

  ‘I’m glad,’ said Paúel Benecke cheerfully. His beard was covered with grease. ‘I’ll stay as long as you like, but I have to say this. I think Herra Oddur is going to be a very surprised man when he sees us.’

  ‘When he sees Kathi and me,’ Sersanders said slowly. He generally reached the right conclusions eventually. ‘But you’re from the Hanse. Or was he suspicious of Nicholas?’

  ‘I think,’ Nicholas said, ‘that he thought we were all cheating Bergen together. He couldn’t make out Paúel’s intentions, but felt a lot safer without him.’

  There was a pause. Sersanders said, ‘And what are Paúel’s intentions?’

  ‘Ask your friend Nikolás his intentions,’ Benecke said. ‘It is my ship which is dismasted and lying under his guns.’

  ‘I was relying on the bear,’ Nicholas said. ‘We began with Paúel’s head and his arm, as you see. A trifling effort would finish him off. How about if we tied him into his shirt like the sheep? He’d go high. Anything over two hundred feet’d be a record.’

  ‘You’re going to hold Paúel Benecke to ransom?’ Sersanders said. He sounded irritable.

  ‘Well, that would be stupid,’ said Kathi. ‘M. de Fleury would have to stay a pirate for the rest of his life. Mind you –’

  ‘It is rather attractive,’ said Nicholas. ‘I have access to a Greek-speaking parrot and some unclaimed treasure and the crew have learned to chant “Hale and Howe Rumbylowe” and all the right ditties. I even know a one-legged man.’

  ‘What has that to do with pirates?’ Kathi said.

  ‘He is one. I suppose,’ Nicholas said, ‘the world is full of natural pirates and those who are trained by their nurses. Ask René of Anjou. Ask the Emperor Frederick. Ruthless.’ He paused, feeling slightly distrait. Outside, the small geysir rumbled and then began to spout in vehement gusts. It was disturbing. Sersanders got up and went out.

  ‘So who goes to prison?’ said Kathi.

  ‘We haven’t decided,’ said Paúel. ‘You wouldn’t like to come to prison with me? We have some delectable tortures in Bergen.’

  ‘Nobody is going to prison,’ Nicholas said. ‘But don’t tell Sersanders, he’d be so disappointed. Kathi. I want to spring the springs. Are you coming?’

  Kathi jumped to her feet. To the pleasure of Nicholas, so did the Danziger. Even Sersanders, although muttering something about returning to Skálholt, joined them outside in the glittering, shifting, rumbling playground of giants and dwarves and accompanied the three of them on their tour. They were moved to imitate the puttering mud, warmed their hands in the streams, blew alcoholic fumes into the profound, steaming basins. They collected stones and fed the gurgling orifices and counted in unison until the geysirs burst forth. They put Ser
sanders’s hat into one, and a glove which emerged like an insect.

  They made up rhymes and spells and orders which they timed contrapuntally to several geysirs at once, after they had found how to set the explosions. Sersanders, relaxed with judicious applications of wine, joined in boisterously. Benecke played his supporting role without stint, but without giving voice. It was his dry remark which at last made them all stop and listen. ‘Snow is coming. You should strike your tent and move, while you can see.’

  It was, of course, sensible. Sersanders agreed. Nicholas, deeply involved with Kathi in a monstrous experiment with the largest geysir, felt like being obstinate, and was. After a sharpish argument, he gave in, largely because of a short fall of snow which, while it lasted, reduced visibility to nothing and made the risks of leaving the hot springs quite apparent. It happened again before, laden, they managed to walk half of the way to the horses. By common accord they sat down where they were until it ended. The ground was warm. The next random step might have plunged any of them into a simmering basin. The snow, fine as powder, danced about them in clouds and so did the steam mingling with it.

  ‘Unlike Hesdin,’ Nicholas said, ‘everything works.’ The remark had no point, except to himself, but Kathi took him up anyway.

  ‘I knew you would enjoy it,’ she said. ‘Lucifer, Master of Secrets. Did you notice the rainbow? A regnbogi Nikuds, they call it. Nikudr is the old name for Odin. Old Nick.’

  ‘Robin told me,’ he said. ‘It is also the name of a water-goblin with inverted hooves. You can’t tell whether I’m coming or going, so help me Frey a and Thor and the Omnipotent God. Do you know the expression concupiscientia oculorum?’

  ‘Visual curiosity, leading to sensory and imaginative excitement. It’s a sin,’ Kathi said. ‘And you’ve got it much worse than I have. Why did you leave Robin back at the Markarfljót?’

  ‘I wanted a holiday. Robin believes it his duty to keep me advised about my duty. St Cuthbert’s sandals. I got paralysis of the feet.’

  ‘You made him your page,’ Kathi said.

  ‘I also prefer to take him back alive to his father,’ Nicholas said. ‘Was that thunder?’

  ‘No. You should have taken the trouble to bring him. Don’t you see how he has changed in five months?’

  ‘You mean he’s getting younger?’ Nicholas said. ‘That would be a distinct help. Look, I like him. He was disappointed. He’ll get over it.’

  ‘You sound,’ Kathi said, ‘as if you think you’re doing more for him than he’s doing for you. And you’re right in thinking he’s more mature than you are. Dr Andreas believes you’re fourteen.’

  Nicholas turned and stared at her. Her knitted hat lidded her eyes. Behind him, Sersanders had jumped up and was standing impatiently. He had an idea that, also behind him, the Danziger had heard every word. Nicholas said, ‘I wager he said you were fourteen as well. Anyway, what’s wrong with being fourteen? Holy Jesus, that was thunder. Wasn’t it?’

  ‘That was thunder!’ said Sersanders, bending down.

  ‘Wrong!’ said Kathi. ‘As declared St-’

  ‘– as declared St Augustine’s congregation at Hippo when he misquoted the Bible. Your brother isn’t St Augustine. He’s right. Thunder.’

  Unusually, she insisted. ‘It was the geysirs. Several at once. I felt them. My Sole cleaveth to the Pavement. Didn’t you?’

  He felt them too, as she spoke: several extraordinary thumps underneath him, followed by a long shiver. Behind him, Paúel scrambled to his feet. He said, ‘If the wind would drop, we could hear.’ A moment later he said, ‘Someone is calling.’

  ‘The Destroying Angel,’ Nicholas said. ‘Thor the Thunderer, Father of Slaughter and Desolation. Troops of infernal spirits passing by, bearing the doomed. It’s calling Herra.’

  It was the voice of Glímu-Sveinn. Talking, Nicholas had begun to heap their belongings together, his eyes meeting those of the other two men, who at once came to help him. The snow was thinning, and the voice repeated its call. Nicholas said, ‘Answer back, Kathi,’ and as she launched into her high, clear warble, added his own remarkably powerful voice.

  This time they all felt the shaking, followed by a long rolling boom underground. At the same moment, there was a short, loud report from directly over their heads, followed at once by another.

  ‘Thundering applause. We are all correct,’ Nicholas said. ‘St Augustine and the Hippos: I’m going to start walking forward. If you see the poles, take them to walk with. If I fall in, I’ll bubble.’

  ‘I shall walk beside you,’ Benecke said. ‘Stretch your arm. Sersanders, walk behind touching your sister. If one falls into trouble, the other can help.’

  The snow was thinning. The wind was so fierce at their backs that they had to brace themselves, deafened, but already they could see a short distance. Then the wind rose higher yet, flinging the soft powdered snow into the air while they felt their way forward, half blinded. They set their feet where the snow lay intact on the lava; sometimes ankle deep, sometimes up to the knee. Once they stepped across the black steaming line of a stream; once Paúel’s foot slipped on the snow-covered ice of a basin, and his cry warned them all. Behind the wind, they heard several times more the shouts of Glímu-Sveinn, guiding them over the patched and dangerous waste.

  Behind them, as they crossed it, they also seemed to hear, raised in concert, all the myriad cavernous tongues of the springs; the glottal, gurgling voices of trolls, the subterranean chortle of demons. The wind rose until they could hear nothing else; and then ceased. The haze parted. The landscape lay, steaming, distinct, at their feet. And beyond the springs, beside the shifting shapes of their horses, sat the mounted figure of Glímu-Sveinn, his arm raised.

  Nicholas shouted and, raising his own arm, increased his speed to a circumspect run. Benecke, now apart, ran beside him. Kathi said, ‘Listen. Stop.’

  Nicholas stopped and looked round. So did Benecke. Sersanders said, ‘Don’t be silly. Come on, while it’s clear.’

  Kathi said, ‘Listen.’ Her face, losing its liveliness, had become intent. She said, ‘There is nothing to hear.’

  Nicholas returned to her side. For a moment he stood. Then without saying anything he walked back over the snow to first one dark, steaming vent, then a second. Beyond that was the icy-rimmed basin upon which Paúel had slipped. He stood there for what seemed a long time, and then saw that Paúel was standing beside him. Neither spoke.

  The fifty-foot basin was dry, which was normal. The water which had recently filled it had spilled from the edge and was still making its way, steaming, tricking over the snowfield. The central pipe still emitted steam, which blew about in the abated breeze. The geysir was one they had timed. The water retreated sixty feet down the pipe, boiled, ascended, and finally exploded once more in the air. Nicholas stepped into the basin and looked down. He heard Kathi call out in warning, but Paúel beside him made no effort to hold him back.

  There was no danger, because there was no sound of simmering water. There was no sound, because there was no water and, as he looked, the upper surface of the pipe became dry. The geysir was dead. And so, inert in uncanny silence, lay every spring in the field. The steam, as he watched, began to thin and to fade. Dry and silent, the crust of Hell lay around them, the voices withdrawn.

  They stood, looking about, while in front of them, Glímu-Sveinn called again, pointing. They turned to the south-east. Against a deep charcoal sky, a white mountain glowed in the distance. From it trailed a plume of pale russet smoke.

  ‘Hekla,’ Benecke said.

  Behind Hekla, to the east, lowered the mighty Vatna glacier with its burden of ice three thousand feet deep. To the south floated the great southern glaciers of Myrdals and Eyjafjalla, over five thousand feet high: a pack of icy-blue whalebacks against the dark sky from which arose, feather-white, another column of vapour. Nicholas studied it, one hand at his throat. He said nothing.

  A flock of crows fled overhead in an abrupt storm of nois
e. A moment later, like a darn in the silence, could be heard the faint scratchy sound – reu, reu, reu – of hastening ptarmigan. Then the silence returned. Benecke said, ‘I think we should hurry.’

  Watchfully then, all four of them started to run. Around them, the tormented arena lay cooling and dumb, its violence throttled, its trickling waters and mud-beds congealing. Now and then, something pattered or cracked. Once, Sersanders attempted to speak, but Nicholas shook his head. Glímu-Sveinn had the answers.

  Glímu-Sveinn, his beard in his chest, sat and watched them approach. He had roped the horses together; they stood in a huddle, their great heads poking over each other’s backs, their eyeballs glittering. The Icelander’s wide otter-eyes were veined red. He said, ‘Mount, and throw down anything you do not need. You felt the tremors?’

  ‘The springs are dry,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘All this last week the ice-caps have shrunk, and for two days the ewes have held back their milk. I should have known. I will take you west with my family, and from Skálholt you will go to the Governor’s house at Bessastadir. When it is over, he will find you some ship.’

  ‘We have ships,’ said Benecke sharply. They were already mounting.

  The reddened eyes turned and glared into his. ‘You cannot reach them. The valley of the Markarfljót will be impassable. Even the Hvita has changed since you crossed it.’

  ‘Why?’ said Anselm Sersanders. Beneath his tight hand, his pony was wild-eyed and fidgetting. The spare horses were trampling and snorting. Sersanders himself appeared alert and determined, the way he did in his armour when fighting. Kathi wore the same expression. For once, they looked like brother and sister.

  The Icelander turned and spoke to them all. ‘There have been earthquake tremors all afternoon. Among the geysirs, you would not distinguish them. There will be more. They are dangerous in themselves, but also, they affect the rivers, the glaciers. They can cause a skidáfall, a landslide, a snow-slip. The thunder, too, can bring very bad lift-fire.’

  ‘Lightning,’ said Kathi.

  ‘It can kill men, and horses. And at the very worst, with all this motion, the fire-pipes in the mountains may crack. Hekla may explode.’