by John Boyne
I declined to answer. Despite her mourning, Adela continued to seek me out every night in my chamber. Typically, she would join me as soon as the others had gone to bed, although she never stayed until morning, preferring to return to her own room when our games were over. The woman was insatiable, demanding so much from me that I found myself in a permanent state of exhaustion.
“Did you love him?” I asked.
“Who?” she replied.
“Your husband, of course.”
“No, of course not,” she said with a laugh. “Don’t be naïve. Kings and queens don’t marry for love. That’s not how the world works. But he was kind enough, in his way. Kinder than many men in his position might be. Obviously, he was an idiot, but that’s to be expected from those born to reign.”
I must have gasped at such brutal honesty, for she turned to look at me in surprise.
“He was never happy with his lot,” she explained in a tone that suggested she was talking to a child. “They never are, haven’t you noticed that? The moment a prince ascends his father’s throne he turns to a map of the world and asks himself which countries he wants to invade in order to prove how much better he is than the man who sired him. My husband had his eyes on England, did you know that? He considered the English King to be a usurper, but they’re all usurpers if you examine the lineage closely enough. Even I could have told him that invading an island nation is a lot more difficult than invading a landlocked one. I did tell him that once, in fact, but he just laughed at me and told me to return to my sewing. Really, if my husband hadn’t been struck down on the altar at Odense, then I have no doubt he would have perished on some English battlefield sooner or later. It was only a matter of time. I just hoped that he wouldn’t betray his stupidity until our son was old enough to rule. But now look at us,” she added with a sigh, signaling the empty road ahead.
“And you?” I asked. “When we reach Flanders, what will you do? Stay in Ghent? Retire to a nunnery?”
She burst out laughing and touched me on the arm so affectionately that surely the men riding behind us could see the intimacy we shared. “Oh, I’m glad you’re traveling with us, you stupid man,” she said. “You do make me laugh. Do I seem like a woman who was born to take the veil?”
“Well, no,” I replied. “Perhaps not.”
“I haven’t formed a definite plan yet,” she continued. “Securing the throne for my son is by far my most important obligation but I can’t make that happen on my own. I shall write to my allies around Europe. I’m related to half of them anyway so one will be sure to send help. The idea of that fratricide Olaf sitting on a stolen throne infuriates me and it will test the mettle of other sovereigns. If I have to, I’ll go back to Denmark and put a sword through his heart myself. Other than that, I suppose I’ll seek out another king to marry. Or a crown prince, if worst comes to worst. There’s usually a few in search of a useful alliance to be found scattered around the continent. That’s what we do, we queens. We marry, our kings get murdered or die, and then we keep on marrying until our looks fade. But I’m almost twenty-four years of age now, so time is not on my side.”
I didn’t doubt her intentions for a moment but, as committed as I was to fulfilling my promises and protecting her, I also found that this was proving to be a useful journey for my own purposes. Traveling such a long distance and stopping every dozen miles in order to rest the horses gave me an opportunity to meet people, and while others caroused in inns at nights, I made my way from house to house and table to table inquiring whether anyone might have crossed paths with my false-hearted cousin.
As a boy, I had developed some skills with art, even hoping to pursue this passion as an adult, but all that had been taken away from me after my wife’s death. I returned to it now, sketching a fair likeness of Hjalmar on scraps of paper, which I showed to townspeople along the way. So far, I had not discovered anyone who could help. Occasionally, someone might look at the image and display a flicker of recognition and, once or twice, even mention a man who fitted my description, so I hoped that I was at least journeying in the right direction. And when a serving girl spoke of a man who had spent an evening at a hostelry carving eagles into a pair of crutches, my spirits soared, knowing that my trail was a good one.
And then, finally, I struck gold.
* * *
• • •
We had stopped for the night in Enschede, where I behaved as I always did, feeding and brushing down my horse before finding a water pump to wash the dirt of the road from my body and then making my way from inn to inn with my drawing. When I entered an inn called the Noskleite Tavern I found it filled with all manner of men and women, carousing as a fiddle player sung songs by a fireplace; I wandered from person to person, asking my usual questions. After receiving negative responses from all, I retired to a table in the corner in disappointment to order some food and beer. A girl with a black eye and a severely bruised countenance served me a bowl of roasted chicken legs and when I asked her to sit with me for a moment, she shook her head, curling her lip in contempt.
“I’m no whore,” she said, spitting out the words. “Even if I get treated like one half the time. If you want something to mount, go back to your horse.”
“That’s not what I’m looking for,” I replied, sitting back in my chair and doing my best to look as innocent and honest as possible. “I only wanted to ask you some questions. Nothing more.”
She frowned, appearing defensive now. “I’ve done nothing wrong,” she said.
“I didn’t say that you had. Here”—I threw a few coins on the table—“if I give you this, will you at least sit with me while I eat?”
She stared at the coins for a few moments before sweeping them up in her hands and secreting them in the pocket of her apron. Sitting down opposite me, she brushed her hair from her forehead, and by the candlelight I could see that her bruises were beginning to heal, for they were already a sickly shade of purple and yellow.
“Who did that to you?” I asked.
“Who do you think?” she replied, nodding toward the bar, where an obese man stood behind the counter, singing along loudly with the fiddle player.
“Your husband?”
“No, thank Christ.”
“Your father?”
“My uncle. I work for him. This is his inn.”
“And what did you do to deserve such a beating?”
“What do I ever do?” she asked with a shrug. “Said the wrong thing, looked at him the wrong way, spilled a glass of wine. It never takes much to anger him. He enjoys it, that’s the truth of it. All you men enjoy hitting women, don’t you? You get a thrill out of it.”
I shook my head. “Not all men,” I protested. “Not me.”
She rolled her eyes. It was obvious that she had heard such avowals before and quickly discovered them to be false. “There’s not a man in here who doesn’t punch his woman when he feels like it,” she said, leaning forward. “Tell me you’re different and I’ll call you a liar.”
“Believe whatever you like,” I said. “But it’s the truth.”
“So, what do you want, then? You just enjoy looking at a girl’s sullied face while you eat, is that it? Gives you more of an appetite?”
“I’m searching for someone,” I told her. “A man. I wondered whether you might have seen him pass this way.”
“This is Enschede,” she said. “Do you know how busy it gets in these parts? Hundreds pass through every day, thousands probably, traveling in every direction, and very few of them are memorable to me. Sometimes, one might say please or thank you, and that’s enough to make them seem special, but I still put them out of my mind the moment they’ve paid their bill and left.”
“The man of whom I speak has twisted legs and walks on sticks,” I continued. “An accident from when he was a boy.”
She said nothing for
a moment, reaching down and taking a piece of meat from my plate before tossing it into her mouth, where she chewed it slowly while tapping her fingers on the table. I sensed from her expression that something I’d said had rung true with her.
“There’s men with deformities all over the place,” she replied eventually. “Look at him,” she added, nodding in the direction of a man a few seats away who had only one leg and also walked on sticks. “He lost his leg when he fell off his horse and the animal tumbled after him, crushing his bones. And him over there with the scars on his face. Branded for sleeping with another man’s wife. And do you see him?” She pointed now into the corner of the room where a young man with a pleasant visage was cleaning a table with his left hand, for his right arm had been sliced off at the shoulder, leaving a grisly stump in its place. “Well, I don’t even want to tell you what happened to him.”
“I’m not interested in any of them,” I said, reaching forward to make her look at me again, but she reared back as if I’d been about to strike her. I wanted information, nothing more. “There’s only one man who concerns me. Here, look at this.”
I removed the drawing from my tunic and handed it across to her. She glanced at it for a moment and raised an eyebrow. Looking around, almost in fear, she leaned closer to me and lowered her voice.
“Well, him, I remember,” she said quietly.
“You do?”
“Oh yes. But what’s it worth to you to know?”
I took another few coins from my pocket and handed them across.
“He lived here,” she said with a smile, gathering them up. “In Enschede, for a few months. There was a…” She paused for a moment and, once again, glanced around anxiously. “Wait here,” she said, standing up and making her way over to the other side of the room, where she sought out the one-armed boy. I watched her talk with him for a moment but then lost them both in the crowd of people standing up to join in the singing. I considered following her but was afraid that I might lose her entirely and so remained in my seat, trying to keep my excitement at bay. When she returned, I looked up expectantly but, to my disappointment, she shook her head.
“My mistake,” she said, handing me back my drawing. “I don’t know that man. I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
“But you just said—”
“I told you, I don’t know him. No such man has ever passed through here.”
“You’re lying,” I said, standing up and growing angry.
“I’m not!” she insisted. “And, what’s more—”
Before she could finish her sentence, however, her uncle arrived at my table. He was wiping drool from his chin and looked to me like a man who was accustomed to getting his own way.
“You’re finished eating, friend,” he said, lifting my plate and mug and throwing them over his shoulder with absolutely no regard for where, or on whom, they might land. “No charge. You’ve eaten for free, so it’s a fortunate night for you. Be on your way before some damage falls upon you.”
“Good evening, sir,” I said. “My name is—”
“I have no more interest in your name than I have in the size of your cock. There’s nothing for you here. It’s time for you to go.”
“I don’t know why you’re getting so angry,” I said, growing frustrated now. “I only want to know if—”
“Either you leave quietly or I’ll throw you out,” he said, stepping forward aggressively, and I gave in, sensing that my time in the Noskleite Tavern had drawn to a close. Several men had gathered around him and at that time of night, with drink coursing through their veins, I knew they would have enjoyed nothing more than to get into a fight with a stranger. Annoyed and unsatisfied, I said no more and left.
It was obvious that Hjalmar had been there at some point but something had made the girl lie to me. I began to walk back in the direction of the tavern where Queen Adela and our party were staying, but had only made it a short distance when I heard the sound of footsteps from behind me and turned, my hand on my blade, fearful that some of the men had decided to follow and cause me some fatal injury. I narrowed my eyes, trying to make out who it was, and felt a burst of relief when I saw that I was not about to be confronted by a gang of drunken thugs, but instead by the one-armed boy, whose attitude suggested that he did not intend me any harm.
“Who are you?” I asked, my words echoing in the quiet of the forest. “What do you want?”
“Alfred of Enschede,” he replied quietly, approaching me with caution. “The girl in the tavern, the one you were talking to, she’s my cousin. My father is the man who threw you out.”
“And what made you follow me?” I asked.
“She told me who you were looking for. She showed me the drawing.”
“You recognized him, then?” I asked eagerly.
“His name is Hjalmar,” he said.
“It is!” I cried, my excitement building. “How do you know him?”
“How do you?” he asked suspiciously.
“He’s my cousin,” I replied. “I haven’t seen him in a long time and am trying to find him. There is…unfinished business between us.”
“We were friends,” he said, looking down at the ground, and I noticed a small crack in his voice as he spoke. “He lived here in Enschede for a time but left some three weeks ago now.”
“And what did he do while he was here?”
“He worked at a forge, creating shoes for the horses. That’s where I first met him. My father’s horse needed to be shod and I brought the beast to his stable. We started talking. We became friends.”
“And?” I asked. “What became of him?”
“He fled,” he told me.
“But why?”
“Something happened.”
I felt my patience beginning to grow thin. “Just tell me,” I said. “What did he do? Did he hurt you in some way? Did he do that to you?” I asked, nodding toward his stump. The flesh at the end was red and seemed tender. It looked as if he had lost it only recently and, although Hjalmar had caused me so much trouble, it would have surprised me to learn that he had turned to violence.
“Hjalmar would never even think of hurting a soul!” he cried, looking up at me now, and I could tell by his tone that he truly believed this. “He was the kindest, most honorable man I have ever known.”
I stared at him. There was a time when I would have said the same thing, of course, but no more.
“What took place between you?” I asked, stepping forward now so almost nothing separated our bodies in the night. “Just tell me. I have no interest in pursuing your personal scandals but it’s important that I know. Were you lovers? Is that it?”
The boy nodded.
“And what happened? He hurt you in some way?”
“My father discovered us. A fight ensued and, luckily, Hjalmar got away. I never saw him again. If you find him, tell him that he must not come back here. My father says that he will kill him if he lays eyes on him again.”
I nodded. “And you?” I asked. “Did your father do this to you?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding toward his right shoulder. “First, he chopped off my hand. A week later, he took off my arm at the elbow. A week after that, my arm at the shoulder. It seems he’s done for now—I can’t clean tables if I have no arms—but he’s made it clear that if Hjalmar returns, he will do the same to the other one, then to my right leg, and then to my left. And he will do even worse to him. I am to be married now, it seems. A few days from now. To—”
“But do you know where he might have gone?” I asked, interrupting him. “Hjalmar, I mean. Did he ever suggest where he might go if he was to leave Enschede?”
He shook his head. “Never,” he said. “And if I knew the answer to that question, I would not be here now. I would be with him. He’s gone forever. No, you’ll never find him.”
<
br /> “Everyone can be found,” I told the boy, handing him a few coins for his trouble. “It just takes time, that’s all. And patience. And fortunately, I have plenty of both.”
SWEDEN
A.D. 1133
IT SEEMED THAT I WAS NOT the only member of our party engaged in a romantic interlude, for my older brother, Janne, had succeeded in seducing Queen Ulvhild’s lady-in-waiting, Ulla, and appeared to be completely smitten by her. I could scarcely comprehend his attachment, for not only did Ulla look as if she were the product of a forced mating between a camel and a goat, but she sported a beard that would have made a Viking envious. Added to this was the fact that she stank to the heavens, for she had a deep aversion to water.
Before Queen Ulvhild had been forced to leave Copenhagen, Ulla had somehow become engaged to a Danish count and lost no opportunity to complain of how she had been robbed of her chance to be elevated to the aristocracy simply because she’d found herself, in her words, in service to a Norwegian whore who had once been Queen of Sweden, then became Queen of Denmark, and was now returning to Stockholm to become Queen of Sweden once again.
“The stupid woman can’t decide which throne she likes better,” Ulla grumbled when her mistress was out of earshot. “She bounces between them all, hoping the cushions in each palace will be a more comfortable fit than the one before. She murdered her first husband, of course—”
“You don’t know that for sure, Ulla,” said Janne cautiously. “So have a care with your tongue lest she cut it out.”
“I know what I know,” she insisted. “And she made King Niels’s life a misery in Denmark. The poor man was probably happy to end up slain like his brother Canute, although at least his jezebel of a wife, Adela of Flanders, had the comfort of knowing that her husband was murdered in the Lord’s house and not on the streets of Schleswig.”
I had never heard of Adela of Flanders and nor had I ever been to Schleswig, but I felt a shiver run down my spine at the mention of their names, as if a stranger had walked over my grave.
