Bracelet of Bones by Kevin Crossley-Holland

Solveig looked at Edith, and they both laughed.
    Solveig could see at once how well the fortress of Earth Town was sited, overlooking the bend where the wide waterway leading north from the lake met the great river.
    “Volkhov,” said Torsten. “That’s the river’s name. And we’ll ride her halfway to Kiev.”
    “Ride?” said Solveig.
    Torsten smiled. “On the back of our sea beast,” he told her.
    The quay lay right beneath the walls and guardhouses of the fortress, and several boats were already tied up alongside it. Two of them looked very much like Red Ottar’s, but at the far end Solveig saw a strangely shaped vessel. It wasn’t clinker-built, and it was very broad in the beam. Like a barrel, almost. It had quite a short mast, and its pennant glittered in the early-morning sunlight. Then Solveig noticed that there were at least a dozen smaller craft tucked into the harbor walls—cobles and knarrs and skutes and little boats without masts, good only for rowing, as well as a couple of hulks lying up on the quay itself, thick with barnacles and weed.
    “First things first,” Red Ottar announced. “You, Bruni, and Vigot, sort out the gangplank.”
    Before long, the whole crew was carrying boxes and rolling barrels down the gangway onto the quay, no more than fifty paces from another Viking trading boat.
    “Ulrik,” observed Bruni. “Your rival, Ottar. Your twin.”
    “A twin I can do without,” Red Ottar replied.
    “He always gets here first.”
    “But always sells the least,” the skipper added. “And buys the least as well. If you don’t sell much, you can’t buy much.”
    Once the crew had carried everything down onto the quay, Odindisa and Bergdis set up trestle tables and began to lay out their wares: hides and furs—sable and red squirrel, black bear, reindeer—hunks of wax, board games of checkers and chess, boxes of salt, two wooden platters glistening with honey scooped out of one of the barrels.
    “What about the weapons?” Bruni asked.
    “Tomorrow,” said Red Ottar. “Or the day after. We need something new each day.”
    “And the carvings?”
    “Three combs and a few oak beads,” said Red Ottar scathingly. He looked straight at Solveig, unblinking, and the roots of her hair tingled. “You’ll have to do better than this,” he warned her. “Much better, or you’ll end up as fish food.”
    Bergdis stared at Solveig, silver-eyed. “I warned you, Red Ottar,” she said loudly.
    Then Bergdis took Bruni’s arm, and the two of them walked several steps away along the quay.
    They’re talking about me, thought Solveig. They’re both against me.
    “Right!” Red Ottar told Solveig. “I want you and Slothi to watch over our goods. If you need to ease yourself, call Edith, and she’ll stand in for you. There’s a place at the end of the quay. Understand?”
    “Yes,” Solveig said. “And I’ll carve as I keep watch.”
    “No, I want two pairs of sharp eyes keeping watch at all times. If anyone looks like buying, give me a shout and I’ll come down with my weights and measures.”
    So while the remainder of the crew busied themselves aboard and went on errands into Earth Town, Slothi and Solveig kept watch over the merchandise, and Bard and Brita, chasing up and down the quay, used them as a base for their games.
    The very first men to approach them came not from Earth Town but from the strange-looking boat moored at the far end of the quay.
    “Bulgars,” said Slothi knowledgeably. “That’s a Bulgar boat. They come up the Volga and around to Ladoga. They’ll be after our furs.”
    “Do you know them, then?” asked Solveig.
    Slothi shook his head. “Look at their beards. Each as long as the other. And their baggy trousers. Red as rowan leaves in October. Bulgars! I’d recognize them anywhere.”
    “Have you often sailed here?” Solveig asked.
    “Seven years,” Slothi said. “Several times each year.”
    Each of the Bulgar men gave Slothi a handclasp and then