The Witches’ Kitchen

by Cecelia Holland

  “Is she here yet?” Palnatoki said.

  “I don’t think she’s coming,” said the black-haired man Hakon. “Or Grayfur. Where is Gunnhild, anyway? Why did she leave Norway?”

  Palnatoki said, “Grayfur makes a bad enemy, as you certainly have reason to know. Gunnhild has a house at Hrafnsbeck, on the big lake at Hedeby.” He turned to Corban, his eyebrows raised. “What was that shouting I heard earlier? Somebody getting into a fight?”

  “Yes,” Corban said. “Sweyn and Gold-Harald.”

  Hakon laughed. Palnatoki’s jaw dropped. He said, “They fought?”

  “No—they were getting into it when one of the King’s men stopped them.”

  Hakon said, “Gold-Harald, he’s a bag of wind, is all. He won’t start anything. You mind that boy of yours.” He leaned sideways, his mouth smiling, his eyes moving, always looking somewhere else. “Gunnhild, now, how can she keep herself there? Hrafnsbeck is not a big place, is it.”

  “She has her ways, and she keeps only a small household. Eelmouth, her servants. Gunnhild Kingsmother is her own army. I thought you were friends with her.”

  “Oh,” Hakon said, “I am friends with everybody,” and smiled again. He put out his hand to Palnatoki and went away out of the awning-tent.

  Palnatoki swung around to Corban. “What happened?”

  “Just some shouting,” Corban said. “The King’s man came in before they got to blows.” He nodded after Hakon. “Who is that, now? There was a Hakon, years ago, a King of Norway.”

  “No, no.” Palnatoki made an amused face. “That was Hakon the Good. The Ericssons killed him. This is another Hakon entirely. Not good. This is Hakon of Lade, as he said. His father had a great holding in Norway, but the Ericssons killed him, too. and Hakon fled down here. He turned Christian, and now he and Bluetooth are like thumb and forefinger on the same hand.” His eyes glinted, his face a shadow in the gloom of the gathering night; he levered himself up onto his feet. His gaze poked at Corban in the dimness. “Did you get the impression he already knew about Sweyn and Gold-Harald getting at it?”

  “It didn’t seem to surprise him,” Corban said. It hadn’t real seemed to surprise Palnatoki either, but he kept that to himself.

  The tall man nodded. “We should go to the feasting, if we are to get any decent meat.”

  “What did he want with you?” Corban followed him off into the fair.

  “Who, Hakon?” Palnatoki looked around him and beckoned, and some of his men came up around them. ,”I have no idea. That’s how it goes with him, you never really can tell what he’s up to. Where is Sweyn, damn it?”

  They walked through the fair toward a spreading glow of torchlight, in between the howes. In front of the awkward little church, a crowd was gathering; coming closer, Corban saw the table in their midst, all heaped up with roasted meat and baskets of bread, and the tubs of ale were full again.

  Behind the table was a carved high seat, twice as tall as a man, and on it sat the King.

  Corban had never seen him before. Bluetooth was older than he expected, with crooked shoulders and a long thin beard. He had been a bigger man once. He seemed shrunk down around his bones, a cloak wrapped around him like swaddling. He was looking steadily out over the crowd, his gaze moving over everything. Beside him, standing on the ground so that his shoulder came only to the King’s knee, stood a tall lanky man in a white tunic whose hem touched the ground. A white hat poked up from his head like the top of an onion.

  Palnatoki said, into his ear, “Poppo, the Bishop, who turned the King Christian.” His voice brightened. “There’s Sweyn.”

  He started forward, pushing through the crowd toward the table, and then the King saw Sweyn also.

  “Sweyn Palnatokisson!”

  The whole place hushed in an instant. Palnatoki went rigid as iron. Over there, by the far corner of the table with its halfpicked carcasses, the other men drew back, leaving Sweyn standing alone, facing the King.

  Not alone. Conn stepped up close behind him, and then, behind him, Raef.

  “My name is Sweyn Haraldsson,” Sweyn said, “as you well know, sir. I am here to ask you to give me a fleet of ships, as you did last year, and to hear my right name in your mouth.”

  His voice was clear and strong in the silence. Nobody else moved or spoke.

  Bluetooth rose in his seat. From somewhere behind him the giant Skull-Grim drifted up toward his left hand. “Your real name may never be known, boy. As for ships—I hear today you were brawling, like a common lout, disturbing the peace of my festival! Is that so?”

  Sweyn flung his head up; his face glowed with rage. “Gold- Harald—”

  “Don’t give me any whining excuses,” the King said, but he put one hand out. “Hold.” Hakon of Lade had come up around the end of the table to the high seat, and the King leaned down over the arm; Hakon cupped his hand over his mouth and spoke into the King’s ear.

  Sweyn said, “I’m not whining. I only want what’s mine.”

  Bluetooth pulled straight again, Hakon sliding away from him. The King looked angry. He turned and glared at somebody else, across the crowd. Hitching himself around in the high seat, he turned his furious gaze on Sweyn, standing there in front of him.

  “What’s yours, boy, could be pitched into one of these bread baskets. You arrogant pup! I’ll not have you making trouble here. Go back to Hedeby, and wait there at my pleasure.” His hand jerked, as if throwing something away. “Get you gone from here this night, now, at once. And Palnatoki, too.” His head swiveled, stabbing his gaze at Palnatoki. “But stay by Hedeby—if you want ships!”

  “Gladly, then,” Sweyn snarled, and turned around. “Let’s go!”

  The white Bishop, beside the high seat, put one hand up. “Wait. Where is the wizard?”

  Corban, who had been turning to follow Palnatoki, jerked his head around, startled. The watching crowd gave off a rustle of whispers. Palnatoki put his hand on Corban’s shoulder and, pushing him forward, said, “This is Corban Loosestrife.”

  The Bishop advanced a few steps from the high seat, leaning on his scroll-headed staff. He had a long lean face, hollow as driftwood, and deep sunken eyes. Lifting his hand, he made the Christian cross at Corban.

  “Is it true you are a priest of Satan?”

  Corban laughed, in spite of himself. “No,” he said. In the crowd also people laughed. The grave face of the Bishop flushed a little, but his eyes were fierce.

  “Then are you Christ’s man?”

  “I am god’s man, as are we all, will we or not,” Corban said.

  “Well spoken,” someone said in the crowd, and here and there others called out.

  The Bishop braced himself on his staff, his head cocked. “Are you then afraid even to speak Christ’s name?”

  Corban could feel everybody watching him, their expectations on him from all sides; he fought down a spurt of rage at Palnatoki. He said, “If Christ is God, as you say, then he is just, and will not burn me fora lie.”

  “If he is God!” the Bishop roared. “Proof enough!” But in the crowd also men were shouting.

  “Well said!”

  “Leave him alone—he’s done nothing!”

  “It’s him who should be here, not this white priest!”

  On the high seat now Bluetooth suddenly rose to his feet. He flung back the heavy folds of his cloak, cast a wide look out across the gathering people, and strode down from the high seat, down to the level of all the others. His gaze bored into Corban, cold with hate. Taking the Bishop by the sleeve he pulled him backward, never taking his eyes from Corban, and with the Bishop out of the way set himself square in front of him.

  “Yes!” Bluetooth shouted into Corban’s face. “I remember you—but you are nothing. The Lady said you were nothing.” He lifted his head now and, looking all around, shouted at the crowd. “He has no power. He is no wizard, it was all in the sister, The Lady herself told me.” He straightened around to glare at Corban again. “Get out. Go. All o
f you.”

  A great yell went up from all the onlookers. The King turned and went back to his high seat, gathering his cloak around him again, and Corban went quickly back away from the torchlight, into the dark. He realized Palnatoki was walking along beside him, and turned and scowled at him.

  “So that was why you brought me here.” Conn and Raef came running up behind him, with Sweyn trailing after.

  “What are you angry at?” Palnatoki said, smiling. “You did very well.”

  “For now,” Corban said. “You can’t think he’ll leave it at that. Besides—” He pressed his lips together. Out there, somewhere, someone called his name.

  Palnatoki said, “Besides what?”

  Corban said flatly, “Besides, now we have the whole long walk back to the ships, don’t we.”

  Palnatolci clapped him on the shoulder. “Oh, it’s easier going back, you’ll see.” He gave Corban a piercing look, and left him to himself.

  C H A P T E R T H I R T E E N

  So they went back to Hedeby, to Palnatoki’s hall there. On the morning after they got in, Corban slept late; he woke to find the place empty, except for some girls sweeping up. He went out looking for his boys. The day was very fine, but cool and gusty, and the trees around the hall were losing their leaves in drifts whenever the wind blew. He walked down the slope toward the long lean-to where Palnatoki kept his horses. Even before he reached it Raef came up to meet him, slouching, not looking him in the eyes.

  “Hello, Uncle.” He seemed to search for something to say while Corban greeted him, and Corban turned and scanned the lean-to and the horse pens around it; the Danewirk loomed just behind, a wall of weeds and grass.

  “Where is Conn?” he said, turning back to Raef, and Raef flushed and mumbled. Corban grunted. “Let me guess. He’s with some girl. I hope you never have to protect any secrets of mine.”

  Raef jammed his foot against the ground, mumbling. His ears looked hot. Corban looked again toward the stable, saw nothing of Conn, and got Raef by the arm and steered him away, back along the path through the little woods, toward the road to Hedeby.

  “Come with me. I want to move the ship.”

  Raef shrugged. They walked along together down the path, kicking through the masses of fallen leaves.

  “That was strange,” Raef blurted. “What happened, up there.”

  “At Jelling, you mean. Yes.” Corban swung toward him, eager. “What do you think about it?”

  Raef shrugged. “Nothing. I—” He lifted his gaze at last and stared at Corban. “You look strange,” he said, and jerked his gaze away.

  “What do you think about Palnatoki?”

  “Nothing,” Raef said, between his teeth. “Leave me alone:’

  Corban gave up. The boy was Mav’s son, he had something of her power in him, but he would not use it. He thought of Benna, who had once feared her own power.

  He thought of Benna, remembering what Raef had just said: “You look strange.” He felt strange; he had dreamt of her all the night, as he did every night now, dreams as real as waking, that clung to him, more insistent every day; now he almost felt as if she walked beside him, leaning on his arm.

  They were coming up to the gate into Hedeby. Corban slowed, not wanting to mix with the crowd waiting there to get by the tolltaker, who was busy with a big wagon. Raef said, suddenly, “These people here call me Raef Corbansson.”

  “So,” Corban said. “I told them to. Does that offend you?”

  “No.” Raef smiled down at the ground, rubbing his foot against the dirt. Corban suddenly noticed, as if he had not seen him for a while, how tall he was getting, his arms shooting out of his sleeves, his jaw sprinkled with downy beard. He reached out and slapped the young man’s arm, as he usually did, but this time he held on.

  “You need some decent clothes,” he said. “Maybe we can find something, somewhere in Hedeby.”

  Raef said, “Conn got a red shirt.”

  “Really. How?”

  “He won it from Sweyn at some game.”

  Corban let out a roar of laughter; the people nearby turned and looked at him. He said, “That’s Conn, isn’t it. Did you play?”

  Raef muttered, “I lost my knife. But he won it back for me.”

  Corban shook his head. He nudged Raef; the crowd was moving on, and they trudged along at the tail of it, in through the dark hollow of the gate, past the toll-taker and his guards, and into the hot stinking uproar of the city.

  Raef was glad to be with Corban, familiar as his own hands, who knew who he really was and still loved him. They walked around a while, looking at everything, came on a shop selling cloth, and bought some heavy homespun for a shirt for him. Corban brought out the little sack of silver bits Ulf had given him when they left the island and paid for the cloth, the while haggling with the shopkeeper over sewing it up into a shirt. The shopkeeper agreed on a price, and turned his head and called.

  A girl Raef’s own age came out of the back of the shop. She had long yellow braids and bright blue eyes, and when she took the cloth and began to measure it against him he went into an agony of heat. Even through layers of cloth her touch was like a nettle over his skin; when she bent to measure his side under his arm, such a rich ripe flavor arose from the folds of her bodice that his legs went watery and he was afraid he would collapse. When she moved away with the cloth, he was sure everybody noticed how his old shirt suddenly stuck out in front of him. He bolted out the door of the shop onto the boardwalk, gulping air.

  Corban stayed behind a moment, doing something with the silver, and when he came out he was smiling. He gave Raef a laughing look but he said nothing.

  Raef said, “Where is the shirt?”

  Corban started off down the boardwalk. Ahead was a place where some of the boards had broken, and they pushed into the narrow stream of people circling the hole. “We’ll come back later to get it. She has to sew it up.”

  “You mean—back there?” His voice cracked. “We’re going back there?” Corban laughed, and kept on walking.

  They took the little ship down the edge of the lake a few hundred yards, away from the big dragons, and walked back along the shore, sometimes wading in the water. Raef could tell Corban was gnawing on something in his mind; he fought off his own itchy feelings, trying to be stupid.

  They wandered into the city. At a big open shop full of people they ate some bread and cheese and drank cups of ale, standing up all the while, as if they had to rush off at once. Everybody in Hedeby seemed to be going somewhere fast.

  They drifted along the wooden walkway again, looking at cloth and bells and amber. He wondered if Corban was lost; they had come to the waterfront again. Then, as they walked along the broad street that went along the shore, Corban came suddenly up short, and Raef bumped into him.

  As he staggered back, mumbling an apology, he looked down the boardwalk and saw there the roan-haired man with the hole in his face, Corban’s enemy, Eelmouth.

  He clutched at Corban’s sleeve. Eelmouth was sitting on a pier, just above a stretch of sand where some big dragons were drawn up; he had not seen them. “Uncle, come away.”

  “It has to happen sometime,” Corban said, “and call me Pap, damn it.” He strode forward. Down there, on the pier, the redhaired man turned and saw them. He jumped down off the pier onto the boardwalk and cocked his fists up, and Corban walked straight up to him.

  “I’m tired of looking over my shoulder for you, Eelmouth. If you want to kill me, start trying. But you should give it up anyway. This is between me and Gunnhild, not you.”

  Eelmouth lowered his fists. He put one hand on Corban’s chest and pushed him. “So she told me. I’m not to meddle with you, she says. You’ll come to Hrafnsbeck on your own, she says, and when you do, you’ll have a hard time getting out of there.” He smiled, a long snake-like grin, fallen in a little at the middle.

  Corban yielded easily to the push, and gave Eelmouth an answering shove. “When that happens it happens. In the
meanwhile leave me alone.”

  “I will. I always liked you, Corban, that’s what made it so hard.” He nodded at Raef. “Who’s that? He has a sort of familiar look, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “He’s my son,” Corban said. “And I do.”

  Raef went up on the far side of him from the red-haired man, who sprayed everything around him when he spoke. Eelmouth climbed comfortably back onto his post and picked up a battered wooden cup. “Have a seat. Watch the show, here. These are Trondheimers, they can use an axe.”

  Corban leaned on the pier next to Eelmouth’s. Raef stood beside him, watching the men below them, on the sloping mucky lake shore between the edge of the boardwalk and the prows of the beached dragons.

  The men stood on a clump off to his left; two at a time, they were throwing axes down the beach at a stack of barrels full of rocks. Half a dozen half-naked boys were loitering around down there, picking up the axes and running them back up the beach.

  Corban was still talking to Eelmouth. “Where is Hrafnsbeck?”

  “Down at the far end of the big lake, on the north shore. It’s an old hall, which is why she likes it, very old. You can know it by the stone watchtower. They say the Romans built it but I don’t believe that.” Eelmouth gave a grunt of laughter. “She’s right. You are going to go down there.”

  “I have to make amends. I saw you weren’t at Jelling.”

  “No. You were? What happened?”

  “Nothing. Bluetooth threw us out before the thing even started.”

  “What for?”

  “Sweyn was fighting with Gold-Harald.”

  Eelmouth laughed. “I thought that was the whole idea.” He hailed somebody passing by in the street, who brought a bulging leather sack and filled his cup with ale. Raef’s mouth watered; he watched the man with the sack going off, wishing.

  “Who else was there? Did Harald Grayfur get there?” Eelmouth said. Down on the beach, somebody called his name, and he waved him off. The sound of the axes striking the barrels was like a slow drum; the topmost barrel was nearly hewn away, its scraps of staves held together only by the hoops, leaking rocks with every blow.