Kings and Pawns

by James L. Nelson

  All but Skafti. Skafti at least had the presence of mind to slip away unseen, to bring word to Odd.

  “Very well,” Odd said. “Let’s ride back and see what this is about.”

  “You won’t go alone?” Signy said. “Maybe you had best get some of the neighbors, go with some force.”

  “No, no. No time for that,” Odd said, his tone sharper than he meant it to be. The neighboring farms were miles away in all directions. It would take the bulk of the day to round up the men who owned those farms, and any able freemen who worked for them. It was ridiculous to think of it.

  Signy, of course, was worried about Odd’s safety, her first concern in such matters. She was Odd’s wife, mother of his three children. There were two farms to oversee, probably a hundred or more people besides his family depending on him, it was no wonder that she wished him to take care of himself in all things. It was a function of his importance in Fevik, and her love for him, which was why he felt a flush of guilt that her concern should annoy him so.

  “Come, Skafti, let’s get some men together and go. Your horse is blown, I’ll get you another. Do you have any weapons with you?”

  “No, Odd, I have none.” That was testament to how quickly Skafti had raced away from Thorgrim’s farm. No man in Norway would venture far from home unarmed unless he had absolutely no opportunity to arm himself first.

  “We’ll get you a sword then. Signy, see to Skafti’s horse. Come along.” Odd walked back up the path, his pace just short of a run, with Skafti right behind and Signy left to deal with the baby and the panting horse. The two men raced up the path through the trees until they came out in the open ground that surrounded the outbuildings and the hall.

  Work had stopped. The people had seen Skafti come riding in at a gallop, asking in a loud and urgent voice where he might find Odd. That had raised their curiosity enough that no one could do anything but wait to hear what was going on.

  You’ll have to wait longer still, Odd thought. He called out the names of the freemen who worked the farm, those he knew were within earshot.

  “Get arms and horses! We’re riding out this moment!” Odd shouted. The men paused, just for a heartbeat, then turned and ran off in various directions. Odd continued on and his pace did not slow until he reached the oak door of the entrance hall and threw it open.

  The hall was dark, with the long fire mostly embers, waiting to be stoked up again for cooking the náttmál, the night-meal, and only a few torches mounted on the walls casting light. The high thatched roof and the raised platforms that lined the walls of the long hall were mostly lost in the gloom, but that did not matter to Odd. He moved quickly across the familiar floor to where his and Signy’s bed closet was built against the wall.

  His weapons were hanging from pegs on one side of the bed closet. He reached up and grabbed his sword, which was called Blood-letter, and with a practiced motion he whipped the belt around his waist and buckled it.

  Thorgrim had given him the blade many years before. It had belonged to Thorgrim’s father, Ulf, whose prowess in battle the skalds still honored in their poems. Blood had washed over that blade like the seas washing over the beach.

  Odd wore Blood-letter whenever he went any distance from the farm, but despite its name it had only let blood seven times while in Odd’s hands, and only three of those it touched had died. Odd thought of Ulf, and of his father, Thorgrim. He thought of his brother, Harald, and he felt a flush of shame, as he often did when the weapon was at his side. A farmer such as him carrying a blade such as Blood-letter.

  A half dozen servants came rushing through the door, fearful of Odd’s disapproval for having abandoned their work to watch the excitement of Skafti’s arrival. Excitement was one thing that did not grow in abundance on the farm.

  “Get a sword and a cloak for Skafti, and be quick!” Odd said, once again speaking sharper than he had intended. Servants scattered and he said to the one left standing there, “Are the horses ready?”

  “Yes, Master Odd,” the man said. “Near so. The boys are getting the saddles on now. The men you called, they’re waiting on you in the stable yard.”

  A sword and cloak were handed to Skafti, and Odd tossed his own cloak over his shoulders as he rushed out the door, adjusting it so the brooch was positioned just at the right shoulder. He moved quickly across the open ground to the stable yard where a half dozen horses, sensing something was amiss, stood stamping and shaking their heads. Odd wondered if he was making too much of this, if perhaps the news that Skafti had brought did not really warrant such a reaction.

  Too late now, Odd thought. He would look a bigger fool if he suddenly decided this thing was not so important after all.

  One of the boys held the reins of his horse as Odd put his foot in the stirrup and swung himself up. He looked over his shoulder and saw the others were doing likewise. He took the reins from the boy and kicked his horse to a trot and heard the sound of the twenty hooves behind him likewise thumping on the soft ground.

  They rode south and a little west. It was five or six miles from Odd’s farm to Thorgrim’s, through mostly open country of low, rolling hills, carpeted in green at the height of the summer. Ledges of blue granite poked through the knee-high grass here and there, and in some places the hard-packed dirt road ran though stands of oak, maple, and birch, and the ubiquitous pine and spruce.

  After a mile or so of trotting Odd slowed his pace and turned to Skafti who was riding to his side and a little behind. Odd gave a nod of his head and Skafti moved his horse up to Odd’s side.

  “Tell me more of what happened,” Odd said.

  “We were at our work, just a day like any. Making hay, mostly, with the fine weather. Some of the women was up in the barn. The milch cows have been giving a lot, and they was eager to get butter and cheese made…”

  “I’m sure they were,” Odd said. “But about the men who came?”

  “Oh, yes, right,” Skafti said. “So they just came riding in, about a dozen I should think. No one saw them coming until they was riding into the house yard. Good horses, like I said, good hindquarters, good top line, nice length of neck. Not straight shouldered.”

  “And the men?” Odd interrupted.

  “Ah, yes, the men. They wore fine capes and silver-hilted swords. Mostly. Some were not so fine. Anyway, they just started saying, “you go here, you go there, you fetch this for us,” and the folk at the farm, they did like they were told, because these men, they seemed like they must be obeyed. And me, I fled, because I thought you should know, and I figured they wouldn’t let me go if they saw me.”

  Odd nodded. “That’s good, Skafti. You did the right thing. But no idea of what they wanted?”

  “No,” Skafti said.

  “Not robbers? Bandits?”

  “Not dressed like any bandits I ever seen,” Skafti said. “And they seemed too…orderly for folk coming to rob.”

  They continued on over that familiar road, which Odd had traveled probably once a week since Thorgrim and Harald had sailed off. How long ago? Two and a half, maybe three years? Thorgrim had never met his new granddaughter, Hallbera, named after his wife, Odd’s mother. Harald had never held his youngest niece.

  Three years, and never a word. No, that was not true. It was about two years back, a man who had sailed with Thorgrim and Ornolf aboard Red Dragon returned to Vik. He had tired of raiding and so worked his way home as a sailor aboard a knarr from Dubh-linn. He traveled to Odd’s farm and gave Odd word that his grandfather, Ornolf the Restless, had been killed in a fight at an Irish longphort called Vík-ló. The man told Odd that when he left Ireland Thorgrim Night Wolf and Harald were still alive.

  That was two years ago. Since then there had been no word.

  Your father wants very much to return home, the man had said, but the gods it seems do not want him to. He’s been pushed back to Ireland time and again.

  The thought made Odd feel anxious, near panic. It made him feel impudent and pathetic. His fath
er, his brother, out there beyond the western horizon, tormented by the gods, and him safe on his farm, with no greater danger than wolves among his sheep to concern him. He pressed his lips together and spurred his horse back to a trot, and the men behind him did likewise.

  They were half a mile from Thorgrim’s farm when Odd slowed his horse again. The farm itself was hidden from view by a ridge of low hills. Odd’s eyes were fixed on the stretch of blue sky just above where he knew the farm to be. He could see a few thin columns of smoke, and that was good. They were from cooking fires, or the blacksmith’s forge. They were not the great, rolling black clouds of a hall or a barn put to the torch.

  They came to the top of the hill and Odd held up his hand in a signal for the men to stop. Thorgrim’s farm was not much different from his own, if perhaps a bit more extensive. From the vantage of the horse’s back Odd looked down at the grand hall, the stables and byre and workshops. The shipyard down by the water. Or at least the place where the shipyard had been. There had been no sort of shipbuilding since Thorgrim had sailed to the west.

  Nothing seemed out of place, as far as Odd could see, but still it seemed strange, something amiss. And then he knew what it was: there was no one around. Normally when he came up over the crest of the hill he was looking down at a bustle of activity, animals being driven here or there, women walking with purpose between the hall and the outbuildings, the smith or the carpenter working at some task, children running about. Now there was nothing. No one to be seen.

  “Come,” Odd said. He flicked his reins and walked his horse down the far side of the hill to the farm below. His eyes moved from north to south, scanning the grounds and the buildings, alert for any surprise, but still there was no one to be seen.

  Their approach was being watched, of that Odd had no doubt. The men who had come to the farm would have to be fools to allow themselves to be taken by surprise. Still, it was not until they reached the flat land at the base of the hill and had approached to within a hundred feet of the hall before they saw any sign that they were not entirely alone.

  The door to the hall was a great oak affair, carved with delicate, intertwined serpents and hung from massive iron hinges. It swung open and the motion caught Odd’s eye, the first thing he had seen moving since cresting the hill. He did not slow his horse as the first of the men stepped out into the light. He did not slow as the next stepped out behind him, and the next and the next.

  Fourteen in all, standing in a rough line just outside the open door. Odd approached slowly, watching for some move on their part, running his eyes over them, evaluating. They left no doubt as to the hierarchy among them.

  One man stood in the center of the line and a few paces ahead of the rest He wore a cape that was dark green on the outside, lined with red, and a tunic of the same green cloth. His dark hair was neat and bound in a long queue, and he wore a thick moustache which ran down either side of his mouth and terminated at his chin, as smooth and orderly as a cat’s fur.

  A seax hung horizontal from his belt, and a sword at his side. The pommels of the seax and sword glinted in the sun. Even if Odd had not recognized him, which he did, he would have known he was the leader of that band of warriors.

  Behind this man stood five others. Some wore beards, some did not, some had long hair and some had heads shaved, but all were in the fine clothes of wealthy men. Behind them stood the rest, rougher looking men with clothes and weapons not so fine. They were not impoverished looking men, not homeless vagabonds by any means. The fact that they each carried swords was proof enough of that. On their own they would have seemed like any other men. It was only in contrast to the others that they seemed shabby at all.

  The man with the moustache spoke. “Odd Thorgrimson,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes,” Odd said.

  The man took a step forward. “I am Einar. Einar Sigurdsson.”

  “I know who you are,” Odd said. Einar was the sœlumadr who served Halfdan, the one who administered the king’s holdings, who saw that taxes and duties on imports were paid, and land distributed as it should be. Odd had met Einar twice, but it had been a few years and Einar apparently did not recall. In the past there had been little intercourse between the sœlumadr and landholders such as Odd.

  Einar smiled. “Of course.” He stepped forward again and extended a hand. Odd sat on his horse for a moment and regarded Einar and the hand and debated what to do. To shake his hand could send this meeting down one path, to refuse could send it down another. There was an arrogance to Einar that put Odd on notice and made him dislike the man. On the other hand, he had no idea what Einar’s business might be.

  Odd slipped down from his horse and shook Einar’s hand, and the rest of Odd’s men also dismounted. They had seemed a formidable force riding together toward Thorgrim’s farm, but now, next to Einar’s men, they seemed a weak company.

  “What business do you have here?” Odd asked.

  Einar spread his hands as if to indicate that his business was all-encompassing. “We’re here to take inventory, mostly,” he said, and gestured to the man beside him. Odd saw that the man held a slate on which he had written runes and made marks, a thing Odd had not noticed before.

  Odd looked around, not sure which of the dozen questions would come out of his mouth next. “Where are the people?” he asked. “The people who work the farm?”

  “They’re in the byre,” Einar said. “Some of my men are watching over them. Better that way. If they’re kept from doing anything stupid then there’s less chance anyone will get hurt. And trust me, it’s not my men I fear for.”

  Odd shook his head, the only gesture that seemed appropriate in this bizarre chain of events. “I’m still waiting to hear what business you have here.”

  “Inventory, as I said,” Einar said. “By order of King Halfdan.”

  “And what business does King Halfdan have here?” Odd asked. Halfdan was the king of that region, and had been for ten years or so. Odd had met him a few times, twice at least at feasts put on by Ornolf in Halfdan’s honor, and a few times when Halfdan had visited Thorgrim at this very farm. Halfdan was ambitious, Odd knew, but other than the taxes he collected every year, his presence was not much felt in East Agder. Or Fevik.

  “This is part of the land King Halfdan rules,” Einar said. “Of course he has business here.” Rather than simply explaining, he was making Odd drag the information out, bit by bit, and it was making Odd increasingly angry. He folded his arms and stared at Einar, frowning, and did not speak. The men behind Einar shuffled nervously and Odd heard his own men do the same. At last Einar continued.

  “It doesn’t please me to say this, but it’s been three years since your father was heard from and at this point we must consider that he will not return.”

  “Two years,” Odd said.

  “What?”

  “Two years. A year after Thorgrim sailed we had word of Ornolf’s death, and with it word that my father and brother were still alive.”

  “Very well, two years then,” Einar said. “It’s still a long time. I know that he and Ornolf had intended to raid for one season only. So now we must assume that he is dead. Like Ornolf.”

  “I’ll assume no such thing,” Odd said, “but even if he is, what business is it of yours? Or Halfdan’s?”

  “Your father owed taxes when he left, and he owes taxes still. Quite a debt that has gone unpaid.”

  “Nonsense,” Odd said, struggling with only partial success to keep the anger from his voice. “My father owed nothing when he left, and I have been paying the taxes on this farm in his absence. If you don’t know that, then Halfdan certainly does.”

  Einar gave a look that suggested pity for Odd’s ignorance. “Perhaps you are unaware of this,” he said. “But the king keeps track of such things, and his men, me among them, do too. Thorgrim owes taxes and we’re here to take an inventory to see nothing is removed before King Halfdan takes possession of this property.”

/>   The words were like a slap across Odd’s face, just as shocking and sudden and unforgivable.

  Take possession of this property?

  He could hardly believe what he had heard. Grandson of Ornolf the Restless, son of Thorgrim Night Wolf, his first instinct was to draw Blood-letter and drive it through Einar’s heart. But he was not his father or grandfather. He was Odd Thorgrimson and he held his passion in check. He could drive his sword through Einar’s body, but he would be dead before he managed to pull it free, and the men with him as well.

  And if he was dead he could not prevent this atrocity from taking place. Which he would do.

  “Yes,” Einar said. “We’ve been patient. Halfdan knew your grandfather and your father and he had great respect for them. But now it’s time. The farm must be given up for the taxes owed.”

  You will not have this farm, Odd thought. I swear on my sword you will not have it. He was resolved and it felt good, gave him some relief, but still the fury, the humiliation and the helplessness burned like flames in his chest.

  Chapter Six

  Bravery in the world

  against the enmity of fiends,

  daring deeds

  against devils,

  thus the sons of men

  will praise him afterwards

  The Seafarer

  Early Anglo-Saxon Poem

  It took Nothwulf two days to move his army to Christchurch, just as he thought it would, and he was glad for it. Nothwulf did not want his men tired out before the fighting began. What’s more, the heathens were living like kings in the priory, he imagined, and they would be stuffed and dull with the food they had plundered. And drunk as well. That could only help.

  Nothwulf’s men, and Leofric’s, and the men-at-arms under the command of the lesser thegns and the men of the fyrd, broke camp on the same evening that Leofric returned. Then when the sun was down and the moon made its appearance, enough to allow them to see the road, they moved out in a column half a mile long. With Nothwulf and Leofric at the head they tramped down the road, making surprisingly little noise for so many. The creak of the wagons, the soft thump of the horses’ hooves, the jingle of mail and weapons were the only sounds, and even they sounded muted in the dark.