Euan looked up at him. “That’s not true. I know it’s not true.”
Corban turned away, his belly rolling. He thought again of his father’s curse—everywhere he went, he did no good, but only caused trouble. What he did worked the opposite of what he expected. He thought, No, she is right.
Around him, little by little, the people were settling down. Some brought out bits of food, and shared it, and the jug of ale went from hand to hand, with people drinking directly from it. Grod was already very drunk, peddling his usual lies by the hearth, his voice rising in the smoky air. Corban moved away from Arre, from Benna and Euan; he lifted his hands to the coat.
A wash of cold fear went over him. The coat was his power, he needed the coat to fight Eric. He remembered how it had saved him from the wolf. He could not do this by himself. He had no idea what to do anyway. He stood there in the midst of the quiet and trembling people, his hands on the red coat, and wished he were another, bigger man.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“I told you,” Eelmouth said, “I sailed all down the coast, into the Humber, everywhere. The villages were empty. There was nothing even growing in the fields, not an ear of corn, not a cow, anywhere. But I heard—” He turned, looking around, to where Arinbjorn was standing. “The Lord Arinbjorn heard that some of these people have taken all their goods and gone up to Aidansby, in the hills.”
Arinbjorn, hearing his name, turned and listened and nodded. He said, “They think, if they go far from any river, you cannot touch them.”
Eric scowled at him. “Why did you not tell me this?”
Arinbjorn looked surprised, his eyebrows rising. He always managed to be looking down at everybody. Eric wondered why he kept him around, when he never fought. Except that Arinbjorn was rich, and usually made sure that Eric too stayed rich.
It did no good to have a storeroom full of gold when there was nothing to eat. Eric gave Arinbjorn another hard look, and lurched forward, planting his hands on the table. “Then go to Aidansby,” he said to Sweyn Eelmouth, “and prove to them that they are wrong.”
Eelmouth wiped his hand over his mouth. “I will. But you should lead us, my lord.”
Eric snorted. He straightened up, standing between the High Seat and the table, looking down at the other man. “Are you afraid?”
But then behind him, in the High Seat, Gunnhild spoke up. “Yes, Eric. You should lead your men. You don’t want them to teach these people a righteous fear of Sweyn Eelmouth. It’s Eric Bloodaxe they must learn some proper respect for.”
Eelmouth gave her a quick glance. The suspicion rose in Eric that they had planned this, together, his wife and his underling; he frowned from one to the other, trying to sort this out.
Gunnhild caught his eye. “Go,” she said, “and show yourself the king you are, my lord. That will do much to get you more warriors for the fall fighting season.” She twisted a tress of her hair around her finger. “And while you’re at it, take Corban Loosestrife with you, and see he doesn’t come back.”
“Ah,” Sweyn said, “Corban isn’t so bad—” and Gunnhild swiveled her head around to glare at him, and froze the words in his throat. He took a step backward, mumbling, his gaze pinned to the floor.
Eric hunched his shoulders. Aidansby was two or three days away in the hills. This would mean riding a horse, sleeping on the ground, leaving his wife behind. He sat down on the edge of the High Seat again, and gave Gunnhild a narrow look; he marked she wasn’t talking about doing this herself. “Why should I have to go? It isn’t even a real raid.”
Gunnhild was watching him with her eyebrows drawn down and her lips pressed tight together. Her gaze switched to Arinbjorn. “They have food there?”
“In plenty,” Arinbjorn said. “From what I’ve heard, they have a thousand sheep alone.”
Gunnhild turned her slit-eyed look on Eric again. He saw she meant to have her way in this; she showed her teeth, and the hand in her lap was fisted.
Her eyes flickered dangerously, and she said, “We could let Gimle lead them.”
Eric went cold down to his heels. He wheeled up onto his feet; his hand went to his belt where his axe should have hung. “Gimle?” he said. He took a step toward her, lifting his hand. “You think I’m an old man, hah? You think I’m finished? Is that what you’re saying? Gimle?”
She watched him, unafraid, her eyes remote. She said, “Then lead them yourself, Eric.” Her voice grated, like the crunch of ice. “If you are not an old man.”
He clenched his fist. She stiffened, wary, her eyes on his hand, but he knew it would gain him nothing to hit her. He opened his fist, and rubbed his palm over his mouth, struggling with a low nausea of doubt.
He began to get angry. He would prove he was still King here. He glared at her, to show her he was not forgetting this, and turned to Eelmouth.
“Very well. I will lead you. Everybody comes. We’ll take horses. Make sure everybody gets a horse. Swords and helmets, don’t worry about heavy armor. We can bring some of these sheep back to sell to the people in the city, too, that will make them happy.” He glanced at Arinbjorn, sitting impassively at the table, watching. “I’ll even lower the tax again, maybe. Have they food there besides sheep?”
“A lot of cattle,” Arinbjorn said. “Pigs.”
“We’ll take it all,” Eric said. “I’ll show them nobody can hide from me.”
“Good,” Gunnhild said, and smiled, relaxing. She reached out and laid her hand on his arm.
In the early morning, with the fog still lying on the river, Corban went up the hill to find Arinbjorn to arrange to buy more fleeces, which now somehow Arinbjorn had in plenty. When he reached the top of the embankment, where Arinbjorn had a house near to Eric’s hall, he found a crowd gathered by the King’s front door. Arinbjorn in his fine blue coat was among them; Corban worked his way in through the crowd to the dansker merchant’s side, and just as he reached him, the door to the hall opened, and Eric came out.
With him was the emissary from the English king, whose name, Corban remembered, was Morcar. Corban realized what they were all doing here, and stood there beside Arinbjorn while Eric and the glum-looking Englishman said loud good-byes and gave each other presents.
The sun was climbing into the sky; it would be a hot day. Corban was sweating under the heavy coat. Arinbjorn took a step sideways toward him and said, quietly, “I am leaving for Orkney, as soon as I can load my ship. If I were you, I would get out too.”
“What?” Corban replied, startled.
“Gunnhild has it in for you, that’s obvious.”
Corban lifted his gaze from the merchant’s face toward the hall; there in the doorway Gunnhild was standing. When his gaze fell on her a wave of dizziness struck him, and he shivered all over. He turned to Arinbjorn.
“Thank you. I hope you fare well, wherever you are.”
Arinbjorn stuck his hand out. “I wish you the same, Corban.” They shook hands.
The ceremony was ending, with Morcar on a tall red stallion riding away up the road to the great bar in the city wall, his men straggling behind him, some on foot and some riding. The rank of men behind Eric broke up, everyone wandering off in his own direction; but the King turned and tramped over toward Corban and Arinbjorn.
He wore his magnificent clothes, his great collar of gold, and the majesty that somehow Gunnhild clothed him with. His great fat belly seemed to spread him out behind it, as if it rolled him flat, his shoulders thrown back, his legs turned out. Above his beard the skin of his nose and his cheeks was grainy, like tanned leather. He nodded coldly to Arinbjorn, who bowed, and turned to Corban.
“I am taking my men up to Aidansby, in the hills, to do justice there, and I want you to come with us.” He pulled his mouth into a humorless smile. “I may need you to buy goods from me.”
Corban twitched. He wondered what justice Eric could do. Abruptly he realized this was a raid, overland; they were going to attack Aidansby. Those were the goods he might buy, plunder
and loot. Slaves. The King was watching him steadily, as if he knew what Corban was thinking. Corban pried his jaws apart; he had no way to refuse this.
“As you wish, my lord.”
Arinbjorn grunted. He started off down the hill, walking fast. The King ignored him, his stare pinning Corban in his place. “We’ll leave before noon. I’ll find you a horse.”
“I’ll walk,” Corban said. He turned on legs like sticks of wood and went away down the worn path in the embankment, toward his house.
His mind was racing like a rabbit, darting back and forth, looking for a hole to escape through, a place to hide. He hardly noticed anything around him; when he reached his house he went blindly in the door and stood, in the dimness, trying to breathe. He was hot; he put his hands to the coat. All his nerves were jangled, out of order. He jerked at the coat, and for a moment it seemed to tighten around him, as if it might grow on him, another skin.
His temper snapped. He wrenched at it, ripping the sleeve from cuff to armpit, and tore the coat off his body, and threw it down on the floor.
At once he was cooler, calmer, and the thought leapt up into his mind: this was a chance, this raid, maybe the best chance he would have against Eric.
Gunnhild would not go, for one thing. And they would be riding overland, into the rough upcountry, not over the sea, in their ships, where they were strongest. There would be a lot of them. Surely Eric would take all his men. But he had fewer men than usual. This was a chance, if only he could figure out a way to take advantage of it.
He went up the room toward the hearth. Grod was lying on the bench before the steady crackling fire, the jug cradled comfortably in his arms. Corban took the jug and put it away again in the cupboard. He went back down to the far end of the room, to the bench where Arre was lying.
The girl lay on her back, covered still with Euan’s shirt, her head swollen under her hair; they had cleaned the blood off, and put on some kind of poultice, a wad of greens and clay. Her hair was spread out in curling waves across the bed.
Benna sat beside her, drawing something on a piece of pot. Euan was dozing on the next bench. Corban stood a moment looking down at Arre, who twitched and trembled in her sleep, her eyes moving under the lids.
He bent down and stroked the girl’s hair. Beside her, Benna looked up.
She flushed, her fair skin all rosy. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said what I did, yesterday. When you saved all those people from the King’s men—”
“Oh, no,” Corban said. “You were right.” He smiled at her. “I think your sister is waking up.”
“Yes.” Benna turned around toward Arre, and took hold of her hand. “She did wake, a little while ago, just for a breath of time, but she knew me.” She lifted her gaze to his face. “What will happen to us?”
“I don’t know,” Corban said. “I need some help. Euan, are you awake?”
The tall boy stirred, and lifted his head. “What is it?”
Corban sat down on the bench beside Arre. “The King is going off to attack someplace called Aidansby. Do you know where that is?”
Euan blinked at him. “Yes, I think so, somewhere up the Westmoreland road.”
“I want you and Grod to go out after that Englishman, Morcar, who was just here. He left by the great bar. Go tell him where Eric is going, get him to help us.” Morcar only had a dozen or fifteen men. Eric would take sixty at least. Corban’s rabbit brain was scurrying around again, looking for a hole, for a path. “Morcar must know where to find more men. At least he can warn the village.” There would be more men at the village, maybe a lot of men. He began to see a way to do this.
Euan said, “What about you?”
“The King has ordered me to go with him.”
The boy’s face quivered. “He means to kill you.” Benna murmured something, pale again, her eyes fixed on Corban’s face.
“Maybe,” Corban said. His stomach was tucked up against his backbone. “I’ll deal with that. You get Morcar to help—tell him they can catch Eric in the country, without ships.” He laid his hand on the boy’s arm. “Do whatever you can, Euan.”
“I will,” Euan said. He took off his hat suddenly and raked his hand through his lank hair. “I will.”
“Take Grod,” Corban said. “If you can get him to wake up.”
“I will.” Euan went away up the hall, calling the old man’s name.
Benna said, “What can I do?”
He said, “I don’t know. I think—there is something we have to deal with, and maybe only you can do it. We need to distract Gunnhild, the King’s wife. I don’t know what she could do, but we have to keep her busy somehow.”
Benna’s jaw dropped. “How can I do that?” She gave a disbelieving laugh.
“I don’t know. But I know you have a power, and I need you to use it now.”
She gave another, frightened laugh. She seemed small and harmless, her shoulders hunched, sitting in front of him, but her eyes were steady. “I’ll do whatever I can.”
“I don’t think—” He licked his lips. “I don’t think there is much danger in it—for you—not for you especially—” His voice ran out. He looked away, gathering some breath, and brought his gaze back to her; she stood waiting, watching him.
“I love you,” he said. “I would not put you into danger unless I really needed it.”
She reached out and took hold of his hand. “I love you, too, Corban,” she said, and came into his arms.
He held her tight, his face against her hair, glad of her. Unwillingly, he thought of Mav, off in Hedeby, very near her time, now; what danger was this for her—what would become of her now, his sister?
He could not know. He never knew. He had to keep going straight on, doing what he could.
Maybe that was what had saved him against the wolf; not the coat, but going straight on.
He stood holding Benna tight for a moment longer, and then let her go, and stood back. “If I don’t come back, remember me.”
“Where are you going?”
“With the King,” he said. He went back up the hall, to the bench where he slept, and kept his gear, and dug into his pack. In the bottom of it he found his old cloak, the red and blue cloak he had gotten in exchange for the Cymryc boat. Benna had come after him. Up by the hearth Euan had Grod up on his feet, groaning and cursing, but moving toward the door.
“What are you going to do?”
He was afraid to tell her anything; Gunnhild might discover anything she knew. He shook the cloak out and swung it around him. “Be careful,” he said, and bent and kissed her.
She flung one arm around his neck, kissing him back, hard. They stood so for a long heartbeat, and then Euan called, “Corban! Someone is here for you.”
He straightened. “I’m coming.” He looked down at her, and tried to smile. She stepped back, her eyes all glossy with tears. He went up the hall to the door.
Outside, in the street, Sweyn Eelmouth stood, holding two horses by the reins. “Are you ready?” He had a stiff, strange look on his face.
“I think so,” Corban said, and went out into the street.
Euan dragged Grod along, making him walk, all the way up through Jorvik toward the great bar, where the deep main gate cut the wall like a cave and the road led off to the west. Although it was full morning there was nobody around in the street; Euan thought he saw the miller’s boys, away down in Coppergate, but all the shops were shuttered and barred. When they reached the gateway, the only people there were two of King Eric’s men, sitting on the ground looking bored.
Euan kept his eyes away from them. After the work of the day before, he hated them worse than ever. He and Grod went out onto the road, which wound away through meadows and gardens and stands of trees. The late summer sun hung over everything in a golden haze. Bees hummed in the thick drying grass in the ditch below the wall, and in the tree beside the road, a crow squawked and flapped.
Morcar had left the city only a little while be
fore, and Euan could see a cloud of dust, far down the road, probably kicked up under the hoofs of his train. He chewed thoughtfully on his lip, watching the dust cloud, which wasn’t even going in the same direction as Aidansby.
Grod said, “We’d better hurry if we’re going to catch him.”
Euan was putting thoughts together in his mind, even and orderly. He said, “He didn’t help us yesterday, when he was right here in Jorvik.”
“Well, he couldn’t, then, with Eric—”
“This is Eric again.”
“What do you mean?” Wide-eyed, Grod glanced around behind them, toward the gate porters, back inside the bar, and turning intensely back to Euan lowered his voice to a quiet hiss. “Corban said we were to get him to help us!”
“Corban is desperate,” Euan said. “He doesn’t know what else to do.” He rubbed his hands together, excited, and swung around, back toward the center of the city. “I have a better idea.”
“Euan,” Grod wailed. “No—we have to do what Corban said—”
He wheeled around suddenly, and leapt off the road, pulling Euan with him into the ditch. Out the gate a great parade of horsemen filed. Lead among them was King Eric, massive as a mountain giant, one hand on his hip, talking to the man who rode beside him. Eric wore a breastplate of iron-studded leather and his great battle-axe swung by his thigh, the curved edge gleaming. His army followed after him through the gate by twos and threes, slouching on their shaggy horses, long swords slung behind their saddles or hanging from their belts, their helmets clanging. In among them, with no sword, no helmet, rode Corban, in his red and blue cloak.
He saw them; his head turned toward them. Euan met the Irishman’s wide grey eyes, and then he was riding past, crowded alone and unarmed in the middle of the Vikings.
Euan stood straight, his heart thumping in his chest; he watched them progress on along the road, and vivid in his mind he saw what he had to do.
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