Kings and Pawns

by James L. Nelson

  We’re safe for the night, at least, and we’re not going anywhere until daybreak, he thought. Time for food and sleep. With that thought, Thorgrim felt a great sense of relief. No reason to make any decisions just then, because there was nothing to be done immediately in any event.

  They spent the night on the sand, with only a perfunctory watch set, relying on the water surrounding them to keep the English at bay. Thorgrim slept well, and he woke feeling more ready to make a decision, but he still had no notion of what that might be.

  He was on his barrel seat once again, staring off in the direction of the channel entrance, considering his choices while the men stoked fires and got breakfast together. Hall approached and spoke, hesitantly, not wanting to break Thorgrim’s concentration, apparently.

  “Lord Thorgrim?”

  “Yes?”

  “That prisoner you took, after the fighting back there? Well, he’s still alive. Surprised me. Didn’t think he’d live the night. He’s an old man and he took a hard hit to the head. Starri hit him, and Starri doesn’t usually leave them alive, as you know. Anyway, he’s awake now. I don’t know what he’s saying, talking his foreign talk, but he seems like he’s saying something that’s supposed to make sense.”

  The prisoner… Thorgrim had forgotten all about him. “Good. Bring him to me. And fetch Harald. He seems to know their tongue pretty well now.”

  Hall nodded and trotted off. Thorgrim thrust his wounded leg straight out, adjusting the angle, finding the position in which it hurt the least. By the time he had found that position the prisoner was coming down the gangplank they had rigged over Oak Heart’s bow. Hall was leading him and Harald was coming behind. The prisoner was moving slowly and with care, as one might expect of a man whose head had been nearly knocked in, but beyond that he did not seem reluctant to come.

  Thorgrim watched them approach. The man’s helmet, mail and sword were gone, of course, and he wore a black tunic and leggings. As he drew closer Thorgrim could see that the tunic was linen, very fine linen, and highlighted with gold thread.

  The man himself had longish hair and a neat-trimmed moustache and goatee, all of which were mostly white and shot through with strands of black, somewhat the opposite of Thorgrim’s own hair and beard. Thorgrim guessed he was older than himself by at least ten years, but he looked hale and fit, not ravaged by the struggle to survive. Not a man who had seen hard labor all his life, but still one who was willing to stand in the center of a shield wall.

  A jarl of some sort, or whatever these English call it, Thorgrim thought. The man carried himself with dignity and not a trace of fear, despite having no idea of his pending fate, and having every reason to fear the worst.

  Thorgrim gestured toward another barrel a few feet away and the man sat. He folded his hands on his leg, met Thorgrim’s stare and held it.

  “Father, this man is named Leofric,” Harald said, pronouncing the odd name with surprising ease. “He was the leader of the men who set the trap. The men on the east side of the channel.”

  Thorgrim nodded. He turned to a knot of men nearby who were staving in the head of an ale cask. “Fetch this man some drink,” he said, gesturing toward Leofric, “and me as well.”

  A moment later he and Leofric held horns full of ale, and they lifted them and each took a long, deep drink. Leofric did not pause to let Thorgrim drink first. He did not seem worried that the Northmen would poison him. Good.

  “Ask him, is he the king hereabouts?” Thorgrim said to Harald. “Tell him to speak the truth.”

  Harald translated, and Thorgrim could hear the boy put a threatening tone in his words, warning this man not to lie. But the man’s expression did not change, and still he showed no sign of fear or even vague concern when he replied.

  “He says he’s the lord of the lands around here,” Harald said. “But he serves an…overlord, I guess. The overlord rules a bigger part. Not all of it, just a part they call…I couldn’t understand the word.”

  Thorgrim nodded. Before he could speak, the man was talking again.

  “He says they all serve a king, who is king of all this country. This country is called Wessex.”

  “Hmm…” Thorgrim said. It was very complicated, but then again he knew that his own country would seem that way to a stranger. Nor did the hierarchy of this country—Engla-land, Wessex, whatever they called it—matter in the least to him.

  “Just to be clear,” Thorgrim said, “this fellow, and his overlord, they are not the ones who paid us the danegeld?”

  Harald translated. “No, Father, that was not Leofric’s overlord. It was another who wishes for that title.”

  Thorgrim sighed. This was doing nothing for his temper, or the throbbing in his leg. “Ask him why they tried to stop us. This other lord paid us to leave. They could have been rid of us for free.”

  When Leofric had answered, Harald said, “He says they did not want the other one to get credit for driving us off. If they could have stopped us, it would have done them honor. That, and they would have taken the danegeld and our plunder for themselves.”

  “The dog is honest, I’ll give him that,” Thorgrim said. He and Leofric held each other’s eyes. The Englishman did look honest, a man of honor, though Thorgrim had lived long enough to know that the way a man looked was hardly proof of anything.

  Leofric spoke next. “He says we seem to be trapped here, in this harbor. He says we can’t get through the channel unless they remove the sunken ships.”

  Thorgrim had already realized as much. It would take considerable effort to clear the channel, and he and his men could not do it if they were being fired on from either shore by the deadly English archers. They could try to drive the men-at-arms off, but he doubted they could hold them at bay long enough to get the wrecks clear. And the English armies could be reinforced. His could not.

  He wondered just how important this Leofric was, if by holding him hostage he could get the English to remove the wrecks. He doubted it. This whole business seemed to rise above the life of any one man, save perhaps the king whom Leofric had mentioned.

  The Englishman spoke again, and again his calm self-assurance was quite clear, even if his words were not.

  “Leofric says if we return the plunder then they’ll allow us to leave,” Harald said. “He says we may keep the danegeld.”

  Thorgrim smiled at that. “Tell him he’s very amusing.”

  Harald translated. Thorgrim had no way of knowing how accurately Harald rendered the words, but Leofric gave a slight nod of the head and Thorgrim thought he saw the hint of a smile on the man’s lips and he imagined that Harald got it about right.

  They were quiet for a moment. “Tell him we seem to have trapped one another,” Thorgrim said to Harald. “Tell him if we must, we’ll fight our way out, and that will not go well for him, or for his overlord.”

  Harald relayed the words. Leofric’s expression did not change as he considered them. He seemed ready to speak and then he stopped, as if a thought had brought him up short. He turned and looked back toward the east, toward the channel that led to the sea. He turned the other way and seemed to be looking at the Northmen’s still impressive fleet, run up on the beach. He spoke.

  “Leofric says he may have thought of something that would be of great benefit to us both,” Harald said.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “There is no reason to hesitate in killing all of them.

  It will also,” said Helgi, “deter others from attacking us.”

  Bolli Bollason’s Tale

  There were few secrets in Fevik. Word flew so quickly from place to place it seemed to be carried by the larks and the sparrows. For that reason Odd knew, for some days before, that his neighbors had been summoned to the king’s hall in Grømstad. Those same neighbors who had gone with him to speak with Halfdan. Those same neighbors who had been standing with him, more or less, until then.

  He and Signy were together when they heard the news. They were lending a hand w
ith the butchering and smoking—hard work, unpleasant, but vital to seeing the farmstead through the long winter that seemed always to be fast approaching. Vermund Jurundsson came riding with purpose down the trail from the lower fields, and brought word of the meeting to them.

  “The king has called our neighbors?” Signy asked, as if she did not hear Vermund’s words clearly. “With their men? Under arms?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Vermund said. “What I heard. And I don’t doubt but it’s true.”

  She turned to Odd. “Will you go if Halfdan calls you?” she asked. “Will you bring armed men to serve the king?”

  Odd studied his wife for a moment. He tried to divine whether this was a genuine question, or if she had misheard Vermund, or if she really did not understand. That last seemed unlikely—Signy was usually more perceptive than he was.

  She doesn’t understand because she does not want to understand, Odd concluded.

  “I would go if I was called,” Odd said. “I’m loyal to my king, I always have been. But I won’t be called, because Halfdan is gathering the men to come against me. Against us.” He gestured to indicate the hall, the farm, all of the buildings and land and people that Halfdan was coming for.

  Signy’s eyebrows came together, her mouth slightly open. She turned to Vermund for confirmation.

  “It’s true, ma’am,” he said. “At least, I think it is. No one knows what Halfdan will do, save for Halfdan. But I’d wager all that he’s coming here.”

  The three of them were quiet for a moment, then Signy said in a much more subdued tone, “What will we do?”

  It was, of course, the very question Odd had been considering in the few moments since Vermund had given them the news. Actually, he had been considering it for more than a week, because he had guessed it would come to this, him and Halfdan. There was no one, simple answer. What he, Odd, would do was different from what he would ask his people to do, and that was very different from what he would tell his family to do.

  “Sea Hawk is all but ready to get underway,” Odd said. Sea Hawk was the ship that Ari had been building since the early spring. She had been launched just a few weeks before, a little ahead of schedule, Odd sensing that the time to have a ship handy might be near. He had named her Sea Hawk, rather than something more war-like, to convince both Signy and himself that he had not built her to go a’viking.

  “If Halfdan comes here with an army, you and the children and the other women will go in her,” Odd continued. “I’ll send men enough with you to work the ship. We’ll get you safe, then the rest of us will see to some sort of defense.”

  “You mistake it, husband,” Signy said. “The children and the other women will go in the ship. And the men to work it. But I will not.”

  Odd looked at his wife. She wore an expression which he had seen before, often enough to understand the futility of arguing the point.

  “Yes, just the other women and children,” he said. “You and me, we’ll see to things here. But remember, all we know is that our neighbors have been summoned by Halfdan, and even that’s just a rumor. We don’t know if it’s true. We’ll say nothing to the others. There’s no need to cause a panic yet.”

  “Odd…” Signy said, and there was a strange note in her voice. Worry. It was not something Odd had often heard from his wife. “Odd, will we have to fight Halfdan…by ourselves? Just us, here on the farm?”

  “I don’t know,” Odd said. It was as truthful an answer as he could give. “I hope not. But I don’t know. All we can do is wait and see.”

  But rumors continued to wing their way to Odd’s farm. They grew in detail and frequency until finally they became something more than rumors. Until the people knew with certainty that Halfdan had summoned armed men, and Odd was not one of them.

  All that time Odd and Signy continued to work with the butchers, turning the slaughtered hogs into smoked hams for the winter. The rhythms of the farm work did not change, but the sense of impending danger did, building like summer storm clouds. And finally Odd could ignore it no longer.

  There were preparations to be made. Odd had been putting them off because he did not want to believe his king would do such a thing as lead his neighbors against him. Which was ridiculous. He knew what Halfdan was willing to do. He called Vermund over even as the final decision was forming in his mind.

  “We have to get ready for a visit from Halfdan and the others,” he said. “Let’s get anything of value out of the hall: stores, cookware, clothes, blankets, anything. Secure them in one of the outbuildings. But no panic. I don’t want to frighten the people. I don’t want them to know what’s going on.”

  “I reckon they know already,” Vermund said. “They probably knew before you and me.”

  If they know what’s going on, they know more than I do, Odd thought. He said to Vermund, “Signy and me, we’ll carry on here a while more. Then we’ll come lend you a hand.”

  They worked through the rest of the morning, Odd and Signy and the butchers, cleaning out carcasses and cutting up what remained and hanging it in the smokehouse. Sharpening tools and shoveling entrails. And off in the hall a steady line of servants and slaves moved whatever there was of value from the big building to a smaller storehouse a hundred yards away. They moved with urgency but not panic, and Odd was happy to see that.

  It was getting near midday when Odd and Signy finished turning their live hogs into preserved meat, scrubbing the blood from their hands and arms, which was no easy thing. Odd’s thoughts were turning toward eating when one of his people called across the open ground.

  “Master Odd! Riders!” The man pointed toward the south. Odd could see them as well, a dozen or so mounted men. They were riding slow, their horses at a walk. They did not look like a column of warriors riding to the attack, bent on savaging the farm.

  “Who is this?” Signy asked. “Do you know?”

  “No, I don’t,” Odd said. “But I have an idea.”

  He and Signy walked toward the path along which the riders were coming, a worn brown trail cutting across the open fields on which the milch cows grazed. They stopped there and waited for the horsemen to approach, and soon Odd could see that his guess had been right.

  “Amundi Thorsteinsson!” Odd called as the riders drew into earshot. He lifted his arm in greeting and Amundi lifted his arm as well. Odd tried not to show how relieved he was to see the man, tried and largely failed. Because he was very relieved. Because even if Amundi was not there to fight with him, at least he was not joining Halfdan to fight against him.

  Signy turned and waved for one of the servant girls and the girl rushed over. “Get some of the others and fetch food and ale for these men,” she said.

  “Ma’am, we’re taking the food and the ale from the hall now, ma’am,” the girl said. This all seemed too confusing for her to follow.

  “Then bring some back, enough for these men, the best we have,” Signy snapped. Her usual patience and charity were deserting her.

  Amundi climbed down from his horse. The others behind him did as well. They were Amundi’s men. Dressed for battle. Odd recognized many of them.

  He stepped over and took Amundi’s proffered hand and shook and the men slapped one another on the shoulder.

  “Amundi! Welcome!” Odd said. “I don’t know what brings you here, but I can guess. Though I’m sure there’s much more to the tale I don’t know.”

  Odd was right on both counts. Soon after, he and Amundi, Signy and Amundi’s man Thord were seated on benches outside the hall with ale and platters of meat and bread. The rest of Amundi’s men were seated at various places around, similarly outfitted. For five minutes Amundi had been speaking without interruption.

  “This morning Halfdan told us why we had been called together. Not that any of us hadn’t guessed. We were to ride against you, take you and your family prisoner. Claim your farm.”

  “You wouldn’t have taken me prisoner,” Odd said.

  “I’m sure Halfdan knew that,” Amu
ndi said. “And that would have been fine, too.”

  “But you didn’t join Halfdan?” Signy asked.

  “No,” Amundi said. “I told him that we have laws, that free men should not be treated that way, but he wouldn’t hear it. I left, me and my men. Not to come warn you, I’ll admit that. I was on my way home. Pretending to myself I could just stand aside and watch. But of course I couldn’t, I knew that, so I turned about and came here.”

  Odd nodded. That was pretty much how he guessed it had played out.

  “But the others?” Signy asked. “The other men, they stayed with Halfdan?”

  “No,” Amundi said. “Ulfkel was the first to join me. And then the others. We all walked out of Thorgrim’s hall and rode away. As angry as the other landowners are with you, Odd—and they are very angry, don’t doubt it—they wouldn’t stand for Halfdan treating a fellow free man in that way. Setting such a precedent.”

  “They’re taking a brave stand,” Signy said. “Boldly returning to their farms and their beds.”

  Amundi raised his eyebrows. “Don’t judge too harshly, Signy,” he said. “It’s what I meant to do.”

  “Yes, but you changed your mind,” Signy said, and there was bitterness in her voice.

  But as it happened, Amundi was not the only one to change his mind. Soon after Signy spoke those words, Ragi Oleifsson came riding down the path with his own men behind him. Then came Ulfkel Ospaksson with a dozen warriors, and his neighbor Vigdis with ten, and then Vifil behind him. Last came a man named Bolli Thorleiksson. Like the others, he led the armed warriors he had brought to Halfdan.

  Odd greeted them as they came, and Signy greeted them as well and called for more food and ale, and each of them expressed surprise to see the others there. Each apparently thought they alone had the mettle to join Odd in his stand for a free man’s rights.