She took a breath. This younger brother was the lord of a great hall. He would be able to command a treasure-bearing princess as his bride.
“Inkera would have little attraction to such a man.” Her voice was soft, even thoughtful, but the bluntness of her next words seemed to startle even herself.
“The daughter of a dead king, regardless how great, would not be enough for such a lord.”
Hrald was forced to consider this. The thought of Ceric marrying a maid such as Inkera seemed beyond the realm of any possibility, and given what Asberg had said about the sisters’ straitened circumstances he could scarce imagine young Edwin choosing such a maid, however winsome she be. All he could do was share his own thoughts.
“Everything… everything is in disarray now, both here in Anglia and in Wessex. Their King Ælfred still lives, we would have heard if he had fallen, but with so much war, anything can change. War-chiefs, Lords, and Jarls who today command many warriors and hold great treasure could fall tomorrow. They might lose everything, their lives and wealth be swept away…”
Hrald knew the peril faced by brides who wed into enemy camps in hope of serving as peace-weavers. If war nonetheless ensued these women could be taken captive by either side, to be used as ransom or debased in retribution as slaves. It was not a danger to be wished upon the heedless and carefree Inkera.
He said the next with renewed energy. “I only hope… I hope Ælfred will not fall.”
Her searching look in answer to his words made him go on.
“He was our greatest enemy,” he admitted. “My father fought against him. But Ælfred and your father Guthrum made the great Peace which allowed this –” he lifted his hand to the sweep of the valley and its horses. He ended with a firm pronouncement.
“Ælfred is a good man. And a great king.”
Dagmar was unused to any man who was an effective leader being called good, and was watching Hrald’s face carefully.
“I met him,” he said next.
Her startle showed in her question. “I thought you had not travelled thence, to Wessex?”
He must go on, having committed the first breach. “I did not. He came here. Or rather to Saltfleet, to speak to me. It was… just after Thorfast’s death. My father was there too, on his way back to Gotland.”
“Ælfred came, to speak to you,” she repeated. “A great honour,” she murmured.
She was aware of the awkwardness he felt; he had let words escape which he had not meant to utter. Perhaps his embarrassment hid her own; she felt abashed at her clumsy questioning, fearful he had seen the baldness of her goals. At any rate, she would end giving what comfort she could.
“Thank you for your counsel,” she said. Her voice, always low, carried with it an unexpected warmth. “I think Inkera’s prospects the better here, in Anglia.”
Hrald felt he had imparted almost nothing of value to Dagmar’s concerns for her sister. Yet the confidence she placed in him by asking meant more than he could easily express.
That night, lying in the alcove given her in the house of Asberg and Æthelthryth, Dagmar struggled for sleep. On the morrow they would set out to return to her cousin Haward’s hall. She did not know what might come after that. Haward had made it clear she and Inkera were welcome to remain as long as they wished. He had not intimated that he soon expected a formal call from Hrald and his uncle Asberg, but Dagmar suspected that he held this as a desired end. The Jarl of Four Stones had permitted Haward to hold on to his small ancestral hall, when with Thorfast’s death the huge garrison of Turcesig had fallen to Hrald. Her wedding the Jarl would benefit her cousin; she knew this. Hrald and his uncle would be dealing with Haward for her bride-price and dowry, elevating Haward, who was only two or three years older than Hrald, to a position of at least temporary authority over them both. She also knew that Haward was no schemer; and before she had herself met Hrald he had let drop that he counted himself fortunate that he had not in fact been swept from his hall, or one of Hrald’s own men be sent there to oversee it and its defence. Haward wanted this union, she was certain.
She was grateful for whatever trust she could place in Haward, for she had no one else to turn to, save her young cousin. She had but slight acquaintance with her oldest half brother Agmund, who must be nearing forty Summers in age. Despite this she would risk trying to travel to him and ask his advice, if he had not already declared himself for Haesten. In doing so he became in her eyes a traitor to their shared father, and she would not seek out such a one to guide her at this critical juncture in her life. Yet he must know so much more than Hrald could offer, concerning her prospects for a favourable marriage in another Kingdom. She had dissembled in asking on behalf of Inkera; it was her own prospects she wished to ascertain, but she could scarcely ask on her own account, not when she felt certain Hrald wanted her as wife. And she profited nothing, for he could tell her little.
Agmund would know more, but by refusing to appeal to him she placed herself at odds with her own potential gain, and interests. She feared Anglia would fall by Haesten’s hand and those of his confederates, and yet would not ally herself with her one blood relation who could establish her as a war-lord’s wife when the kingdom was parcelled out. She would spare herself a debasing audience before him, pleading to be made a part of his future plans should he and Haesten triumph. Nor could she even expect Agmund’s help. He had not reached out to either her or Inkera, despite their distress. He knew the terms of the will as well as they did; better as it had been read out to him by the priest of St Mary’s; whereas she and her sister, excluded from this reading, had heard at second hand of its terms.
Her talk with Hrald today had only confirmed what she herself had long suspected, but she had needed to speak it aloud to accept it. Her greatest value – Inkera’s too – would be here in Anglia, where at least their blood carried with it the distinction of their great, lost father. A man desiring robust and war-like sons should prize a bride whose own sire had been the uniter of so many Danish war-lords, and been named King over them all. She must count upon that.
Her argument began and ended there. There was nothing else she could offer. Hrald wanted her, and was in fact the best match she could make. As welcoming as his mother had been, Dagmar felt her doubts about her ran deep. His sister Ashild had spared Dagmar several awkward moments, and seemed despite her brisk manner to understand, even commiserate with her. But she had felt woefully inadequate with the Abbess of Oundle. Ashild was right about that august woman – she did seem to know your thoughts.
Tomorrow when Hrald returned from escorting her back to her cousin’s she felt the young Jarl would face nearly as much scrutiny from his family as she had. What if, under their pressure, his interest began to wane?
She pressed her hands upon her face in the dark, needing to quell her doubts. She had thought several times during her stay at Four Stones that this had been a keep her father had known, that he had walked and ridden much the same paths here as she now did. It brought no comfort.
She felt instead a flash of anger at the dead Guthrum. It confused the loyalty and respect she also felt for he who had been both father and King.
Her thoughts of her father could never travel in any straight line. He had been indulgent and sometimes even playful with her. Yet before his death he cost her the greatest pain her young life had known, occasioned a loss she knew could never be compensated.
He had cast a young man from his hall and from his service – cast him out, and far worse, passed the decree of outlaw upon him. Everything Vigmund owned was forfeit, and though he was allowed to escape with his life, that was as good as forfeit as well, for if found he could be slain by any without penalty. Further, the decree of outlaw meant that any aiding him could themselves be slain, and their goods confiscated. And it was Vigmund whom Dagmar loved.
He was banished so swiftly and silently that it took her days to learn the truth. Her father would tell her nothing beyond the fact of the judgement, and even
puzzled over why she should care. He knew nothing of her and Vigmund. She knew only that his life was forfeit should he ever return.
At this point Vigmund was dead, or beyond recovery. She had lived with this knowledge for three years.
She forced her thoughts away from her past, and back to the pressing need of today. Being her father’s daughter was the one thing that distinguished her from any other dower-less maid, and she must cling to that. Guthrum would sometimes jest that women were his sole weakness. After his death she had seen how his surprise gifts of jewellery or trifling sums of silver hid the real neglect in his dealings with his daughters. She and Inkera were thrust upon their own slight resources, left dependent on male relations who rightly felt burdened by these dower-less girls. Why had not her father looked to these matters, why had all his thoughts been to his sons and nephews?
Tonight, admitting her father’s pridefully careless indifference, and her own faulty efforts toward a union with Four Stones, she felt herself wanting on nearly every front. She must be more than she was; more modest, more devout, more learned and able, possessed of more riches. She wished these things, but she could only live the truth of her life as she knew it now, and hope that was enough.
Next morning after all had broken their fast Dagmar and Inkera prepared to return to their cousin’s hall. Hrald and twenty men, fronted by Jari, would escort them. There was no especial rush, and Hrald, though eager for the ride with Dagmar, was not looking forward to surrendering her to her cousin’s care. There was still much he wished to show her, and one particular desire prompted him to seek out his mother and speak to her alone in the kitchen passageway of the hall. The sisters were at that moment gathering their belongings in Asberg’s house.
“Mother,” he began, and then after a breath went on. “Dagmar. I would like her to see the treasure room.”
Ælfwyn straightened up from where she bent over the chest holding the bronze serving platters. She looked at her son’s face, reading his hopefulness even in the dimness of the passage. She took in his words. True, the treasure room was an armoury, and vault too for all the treasures of the hall, but it was also the most intimate of spaces as well, that where its Jarl slept. And after having spent time within the palisade, and then seen the foundation at Oundle, Dagmar needed no more proofs of the riches of Four Stones. There was no need to attempt to impress upon her the life that would await the bride of the young Jarl.
He did not expect his mother’s look of surprise. Her tone was gentle, but decided.
“Hrald. Your bed is there.”
He paused at her words. The room had always a dual nature. It was where the most trusted of his men, Asberg and Jari, would meet and talk with him, where his mother and sister and Burginde too had discussed the workings of the hall. It was where he and Asberg had treated with Thorfast for Ashild’s hand, and where she had met alone with him, attended only by Burginde, as he made his suit. And it was bed-chamber too, there, amidst the bound chests laden with swords and other weaponry and casks filled with silver. That broad bed in which he spent increasingly restless nights alone was no small feature of the room.
His uncertainty was there upon his face. He would do nothing to offend Dagmar, and saw now that his mother felt that admitting a young woman to his sleeping chamber was tantamount to such an offence.
“When she returns, she will see it then,” he decided. All Ælfwyn could do was smile and nod.
On the ride back to Four Stones Hrald fell into thought. He had returned the sisters to their cousin’s keeping. Haward’s respectful compliance to the will of Four Stones in all martial issues was gradually being replaced by a warm cordiality between the two young men. It placed Hrald in mind of the far greater number of men at Turcesig, a garrison he now both owned and commanded.
Hrald’s first trip to Turcesig as its war-chief had showed surprisingly little treasure there. On the day of the duel Styrbjörn had taken the key to the massive box lock of its weapons room from the inert body of Thorfast, and presented it in silent solemnity to he who had felled him. When Hrald arrived a few days after this, Styrbjörn had been at his side as he turned the key for the first time. Turcesig had been built by Guthrum and kept as a garrison by him, but any silver or precious goods he had amassed while there had been earlier transported to Headleage, or one of the Danish King’s other holdings. Its value was in its landmass and the trained men living there, the productive village which had grown up around it in the past five and twenty years, and now most vital of all, its position as a northern buttress to Four Stones, adding to its protection. For this alone Turcesig added great worth to Hrald’s holdings.
The chief men of that place had agreed to abide by Hrald’s rule the day he had struck down Thorfast. Yet four of these ten who had witnessed the conflict had deserted, fled to try their luck with Haesten. An additional score or two had followed. When he had gone to address the garrison, the massed folk of Turcesig, those of its warriors and hall and village, had listened well to Hrald’s appeal for loyalty. Yet he must do more to win it.
He turned to Jari, riding just at his left. “If I am able to wed Dagmar, it will bring Haward closer to Four Stones, as she will serve as peace-weaver between our halls. And as Guthrum’s daughter this would extend to Turcesig as well.”
Jari gave a grunt. “Haward will give you little trouble, wed her or not. With his brother Thorfast dead he is all too glad to stay in your shadow.”
Hrald must admit this view; Haward seemed to possess little of the war-like spirit of his older brother.
“But wedding her will only help,” Jari conceded. “If you wed his kin, the temptation to throw in with Haesten or any other must be weighed against the great gain to him in alliance with you. He and his sixty men will be glad to stand behind the shields of our almost two hundred.”
Hrald nodded. “I must bring the men of Turcesig that close to us.”
Styrbjörn, second in command at Turcesig, had adhered to his oath made there at the duel in which he watched his war-lord Thorfast die. Hrald remembered how Styrbjörn had placed himself at his right when he went to Turcesig to address the warriors thereof. He must build on this good will.
Hrald spoke his plan. “Let us send three score of our men there, to live and work amongst them, and they do the same, that they might know each other the more, and share the partnership of defending both keeps.”
Though Asberg had taken a number of warriors with him when he took over the running of Turcesig, neither he nor Hrald had considered such an exchange of men before.
“Já,” considered Jari, with a decided nod of his shaggy head. “Those who are young and unwed. They are those you must win, those looking for gain and to make their marks. Asberg will choose at Turcesig, and I will help you pick those from Four Stones.”
At this Hrald must smile. “Já, the hot-heads, as you like to call them.”
“A man with a wife and babes causes less trouble, that is the truth,” Jari confirmed with a laugh of his own. “You will soon be one such,” he ribbed.
Hrald grinned, but said nothing. Yet he silently uttered a prayer that his long time body-guard was right.
At Haward’s hall that night Inkera climbed into Dagmar’s alcove. All was quieting. It was late enough that only a few of the serving folk still moved about, but the younger sister’s curiosity would allow her no sleep. The banked fire in the middle of the floor glowed iron-red from behind flaking chunks of charcoal. It threw just enough light to move from alcove to alcove. Dagmar edged over to make room for her sister, and curtain pulled, they lay side by side in the dark.
Inkera asked, “So. Will you wed him?”
Dagmar paused just long enough that Inkera answered, for herself.
“I would. But he is such a sober-sides. Does he never laugh?”
Dagmar turned her head to Inkera. In the low light she could barely make out the line of the girl’s pert nose. “He does laugh,” she defended. “You have seen him do so.”
“Já,” the younger girl grumbled, “but not as if he meant it.”
Dagmar pushed herself up on one elbow to face her younger sister. “What has he to laugh about? We are on the verge of war. There is war, now. We have just had luck enough to be out of its way, so far. What do any of us have to laugh about?”
“Oh, Dagmar, do not scold.”
“I am not scolding, silly. And I think as you do. Hrald is my best hope for a good match.”
A long moment passed, and when Inkera spoke again her voice was soft, her words almost hesitant. “Do you… care for him?”
Even young and sometimes thoughtless as she was, Inkera would not pain her older sister by the mention of her earlier attachment.
Dagmar spent a moment considering. She had not asked herself this question. Now perhaps she had the right to. Her answer was voiced in a low and thoughtful tone.
“I think I do.” She added two reasons why she should. “I find Hrald well-favoured, and I believe he is kind.”
“He is good-looking,” Inkera offered. “But he is young. Three years younger than you.”
Dagmar dropped down upon her back again, and squeezed her eyes shut.
“And he is Christian. You will be his only wife,” Inkera added. She hoped the same for herself, when she wed.
Inkera’s thoughts had gone on. “At least here you are far from Bodil.”
Dagmar stared up into the dimness of the roof rafters far overhead. The light from the fire-pit made a slanted webbing of their shadows against the broad wooden planks of the roof. Like a spider who was drunk on mead, she thought.
“Já,” she answered. “This travelling we have been doing… the best part of it has been being away from Headleage, and my mother.”
“The best part is the hope of finding husbands,” Inkera corrected, with the return of a merry lilt in her tone.
Dagmar now had a question for Inkera. “If I wed Hrald, what will you do? Would you live there at Four Stones, with me?”
For Me Fate Wove This Page 6
