Beside him, Grod suddenly made the sign of the cross over himself. Euan hooted at him. Grod said, “Just for luck, that’s all. A man can always use a little luck.” In their webs of wrinkles his eyes looked sad and old.
“Come on,” Euan said, and ran off back through the gate, into Jorvik again, to look for his friends Edwy and Rogn and Ralf.
Benna had seen King Eric often enough that she could draw his picture. She did not make him as he seemed to her, fat and evil, but as she supposed his wife would want him: strong, handsome, a king’s son, a king himself. Then she took the shard up to the back door of Eric’s Hall.
The cook sat on the back step, buying vegetables from the first of a line of people with baskets and sacks of things to sell. Benna took the last place in the line and watched him buy onions and cabbages, three fresh-killed hares, some fish, and two loads of firewood, and when she reached him got the courage up to ask for Gunnhild.
“What do you want her for?” The cook scowled at her. “What is it about?”
Benna took the shard out of her apron and showed it to him. The cook’s eyes widened.
“Jesus and Thor.” He reached out for the shard and she drew it back out of his reach. “All right,” he said. “Go inside.”
She went into the back of the hall, where the empty tables stood, the air dusty and still; the far door was wide open, and the smokeholes let in shafts of light. Through that far door she could hear children yelling. She went forward a few steps along the side of the great room, uncertain, and turned around to look at the High Seat.
There she found the Queen, curled up against one of the lion-headed arms. The peaked back of the chair loomed above her. Her head was propped on her fist, her eyes shut. Benna thought she was asleep, but suddenly the woman’s eyes popped open, staring straight at her.
The look was like a blow, a finger pointing, a shout from inside her ears. Benna stood, mute. Gunnhild looked her over steadily, and after a moment said, “You are trying to find me?”
“Lady,” Benna said, her mouth dry, her tongue suddenly not working right, “I thought—I would like to show you this, that you might buy it.”
“Buy it.” Gunnhild stretched out her hand. “Come on, come closer, I won’t sting you. Here.” Benna went around the end of the table and up beside her, and gave her the shard.
Gunnhild took it, and like the cook blurted out an oath. She stared down at it, turning the shard slightly from side to side. “He has not looked like this for years,” she said, and gave a laugh. For a long while she studied it, and then lifted her gaze to Benna, her face altered, her look full of curiosity, and almost kind.
“Who are you? I believe I know you—the potter’s daughter? Yes, and now your father is dead, and you should come into our wardship, and we shall find a husband for you.” She lowered her eyes to the shard, while Benna considered the prospect of marrying somebody Gunnhild found for her. “You made this?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“You are very clever. No, I shall not buy this,” Gunnhild said. “I have the man in the flesh, I need no image of him. But—” Her hand rose to graze the side of her throat, and her eyes melted. She seemed abruptly to be only a girl, a beautiful, languid princess of a girl. Her voice was sweet as milk. “Would you make one of me?”
Benna started; she had not thought of this. Before she had felt the Queen’s look as a blow, and now it seemed the softest caress. “Yes, my lady—of course—if you wish. I have to go back for my ink and brushes.”
“Bring them.” Gunnhild sat upright in the High Seat now, her hand on the great lion-arm. “But not—” With one finger she flicked scornfully at the clay. “I will have something for you to place it on. Come back as quickly as you can.”
“I will, my lady.” Benna bowed down, her stomach watery, wondering if she could do this, and went back out the door.
Gunnhild thought about Eric a little, pushing him along in her mind; he had to do something, this time, but whatever he managed, even a little sheep raid, she could make into a great victory. Then more fighting men would come, eager for booty, glory, a season of raids and a soft life through the winter, and the favor of such a King as Eric Bloodaxe, and she could get him headed toward London.
Once he had taken London, more men would come. He would be King of all England, and with that wealth of gold and men, he and she could turn then to seize the rest of it, one kingdom at a time. Each one adding power to the thrust. Norway, Denmark, Sweden to the east, perhaps ultimately even Rus—and, westering, Iceland, that nest of outlaws, and the Orkneys, Ireland, Man, all the lands around the northern sea. One piece at a time they would lay the whole world together under one house. Her house. She looked down at the shard of clay, with Eric’s face on it, smiling. He would make a king after all, with her to help him.
She could follow him now, in her mind; seeing his face made that easier, somehow, and she went along with him a while down a dusty road, toward Aidansby. She had lost track of Corban Loosestrife already, which annoyed her.
Gimle came in, his head down, and his face long. He had wanted to follow Eric on the raid, but the King had ordered him to stay, with his little brothers, to command in his absence. Which of course meant nothing since Gunnhild was here and Gunnhild commanded always, in absence and presence. Gimle went up the hall toward her, striking the benches with a horsewhip. He gave her an evil look.
“Well, little man,” she said, and put the shard aside. “Why so sour?”
“I’m never going to get to fight!”
“Oh,” she said, and drew him over to her, and stroked his hair back. He was a very handsome boy, she thought, although little Harald would be more handsome.
He pulled away from her, angry. “I’m not a baby!”
“Ah, you brat,” she said, and slapped his cheek. “Go out, go fight with your brothers, if you want battle.”
“Mother—”
“Do as I say.” She turned away from him, and clapped her hands; two of her women appeared, and she sent them for the casket with her jewels and her fur cloak. It was a hot day, but she needed the cloak. “Go, Gimle,” she said, when the boy lingered. “I have things to do.” Her gaze drifted toward the shard again, the image of Eric, a fine and wonderful Eric. A prickle of lust coursed through her, not for her husband.
She should keep after him, on the way to Aidansby, make sure that everything went as it was supposed to. But it was such a long, empty ride, and she wanted to see herself like this, a fine and wonderful Gunnhild, an everlasting Gunnhild, wife and mother of Kings. Surely Eric could manage this himself, a little sheep raid, anyway. She called impatiently to the women, to bring her the jewels and the fur, and settled herself on the High Seat, and composed herself as she wanted the girl to see her.
Grod said, “I think this is a bad idea, Euan.”
“Think what you want,” Euan said shortly. He glanced behind him; he had found almost twenty boys and young men from the city to come with him, and they were following him now in a tight pack up the road, under the clear summer sky. In the dust before them Euan could see the fresh prints of King Eric’s horses, a pattern of dimples leading away into the distance. He rubbed his nose, which wanted to sneeze. He wondered if Grod was right, and for a moment his will faltered, but then in his mind he saw the order in it, like the abacus, and he stiffened. Abruptly, to his amazement, Arre’s little sister Gifu was walking up beside him.
“Where are you going?” she said. She wore a man’s shirt, patched and torn and patched again, with a heavy belt around her waist, and a knife through that, and the sling hanging beside it. On her feet were stout boots, her long brown legs bare. She had a string of colored beads around her neck, and her face was dirty.
He said loftily, “We have important deeds to do, Gifu. Go home and tend your goats.”
She strode along beside him; her blue eyes ran over him, over Grod, and over the boys hurrying along after them, and at last returned to Euan again.
“I’
ll help you.”
“You can’t,” he said. “You’re just a girl.”
“I can help you,” she said. “I know a fast way to Aidansby, for one thing.”
Euan sneered at her. “That’s what you know. We aren’t even going to Aidansby.”
She frowned at that, but opened her mouth to argue again. He said, “Well, wait.” He was thinking now that perhaps she should go with them; he had seen her down a squirrel with a rock, once, at thirty paces, and she had roamed all over this country. He said, “Do you know the Westmoreland road?”
“All the way to Aidansby,” she said, angrily.
“Good,” he said. “Come along, then. Maybe you can help, after all.”
Gunnhild gave Benna a sheet made of hide, scraped and stretched stiff, to draw on; one side was striped with lines of marks in dark brown ink, but the other side was fresh and clean. Benna laid it on the table, put her pot of ink beside it, and picked up the brush.
Gunnhild sat in the High Seat. She seemed much greater now, with a cloak of glossy black fur spread out around her, a collar of jewels around her neck; her hair was sleek as gold, and her face resolute and calm, as if she looked down from some height inaccessible to ordinary folk. Benna stared at the white sheet before her, and suddenly, for the first time in her life, she could not draw.
Nothing she did would be good enough. Her stomach knotted up. The space around her seemed to crinkle. A boy around Gifu’s age came in, kicking at the furniture, and the Queen called him over and patted him, and then abruptly sent him away with a push. Benna fixed her gaze on the blank white page, which she dared not touch.
She could not do it. She would not do it well enough; she had never done it well. It hadn’t mattered, before, but it mattered now, and she would fail.
It mattered now. It mattered for Corban’s sake. For Corban’s sake she had to do it.
A calm fell over her. The crinkling faded around her. She looked up at the woman on the High Seat, and reached for her brush. She could do this. To do it properly—to capture her as she really was, that would be hard. But as she wanted to be, that was easy.
She made the image as large as the piece of hide, putting in the fur, the jewels. She left out the harsh lines of Gunnhild’s mouth, and let her smile a little, as she had when she was petting her son. Benna’s stomach felt evil. She was not doing a good enough job; the hide absorbed the ink differently than clay did, the texture was wrong.
The line of the arm was good, though. The eyes were good. Bit by bit, she made what was good better. She worked all the afternoon, while Gunnhild sat there smiling at her. Finally, as the slaves were going along clearing the tables, she put her brush down and turned the page around.
She felt tight as a drum inside, knowing she had not done it nicely enough; she never could get close to what she saw in her mind. Gunnhild leaned forward to see, her eyes hot and intent.
“Bring it to me,” she said, and Benna picked up the drawing carefully between her two hands and went around the table, and laid it on the Queen’s knees.
Gunnhild sighed. She looked down at the image of herself, a smile curving her lips. One finger twined in a curl of her golden hair. The other hand played softly over the drawing.
“Be careful,” Benna said. “It might still be damp in places.”
Gunnhild murmured. She did not take her eyes from the picture, and her fingertips grazed over it, caressing it. Benna waited a moment longer, relieved. She wondered in a corner of her mind if Gunnhild would now buy the picture, but she did not know how to ask, and Gunnhild took no more notice of her. Finally she went out the back door.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Corban remembered that the way west led by the gibbet, where the hanged men had saved him and Grod when they first came to Jorvik, but Eric did not take his army along that road. Instead, soon after they left Jorvik, they swerved off to the north, along the river valley, following a dusty path that led along the low ground west of the river. Off to their left, long sloping hills rose in soft heaps of late summer green and brown, threaded with dark seams of trees. The road went past fallow land, which had been planted once, but now sprouted mats of weeds and brambles. Corban thought of Euan and Grod, who had been standing there in the ditch by the Jorvik bar, and his belly clenched; he fought off a burst of fury.
His whole plan was collapsing, such a poor plan as it was. Euan and Corban would never catch Morcar in time to bend his course to Aidansby. Now Corban himself was riding along in the midst of the men who had murdered his family and destroyed his home, and they were going on to do that to another place, another people, and he was helpless to prevent it.
He thought of Mav, and his whole body seemed to wrench toward her, as if he could propel himself across the sea, and be with her again, one with her again, and out of this.
The sun climbed in the sky, baking the valley floor, so that the distant hills wrinkled in the shimmering heat. Around him the danskers groaned and complained about the horses, shifted and stirred around in their saddles, trying to get comfortable. Corban stayed well back in the pack, away from Eric, who rode next to Sweyn Eelmouth, talking in a loud voice.
“You have to ride hard on these people, or they get presumptuous. Never let them get their faces off the floor, that’s what my father told me. I’ll drop the tax, at harvest time. They’ll be so glad, they’ll kiss my feet in gratitude.”
He laughed, and the other men all guffawed along with him. Corban glanced around toward the empty land beside the road; there would be no harvest here. He thought Eric was blind, or crazy.
Sweyn Eelmouth said, “Harald Fairhair was a great King, I’ve heard.”
“You’ve heard, have you?” Eric growled. “Let me tell you, my father was the greatest man who ever drew a sword to hew down his enemies. You should get down and pray thanks you weren’t his enemy, I tell you.”
Sweyn laughed. “These days, who you pray to is what makes you enemies.”
The man riding next to Corban murmured something. Somebody else said, “The whole god thing is getting too confusing, that’s for certain.”
Eric said, “My father was as close to god as I need.”
Nobody had anything more to say about that. The road wound around the foot of a hill; up ahead, they saw, far down the low ground, three or four sheep hurrying away. Eric flung his arm out.
“Take them.”
“Too far,” Sweyn said, making no move to obey him. “They’ll get into the bog down there, and we’ll never find them.”
“Well,” Eric said, “when we come to Aidansby, we’ll have plenty to eat, anyway.”
Corban bit his teeth together. Their horses plodded on through the heat of the day. They went through a stand of trees, where all the trees had died; their barkless white trunks stood like ghosts among the green veils of vines and brambles growing up over them. The men straggled out along the road; he thought they could have walked there faster.
“I’ve done a lot of wrong, in my life, but one thing I can say,” Eric was saying, “I never turned against my father. I wonder how long it will be before this oldest boy of mine turns on me.”
“Oh, he’s a good boy, Gimle,” Eelmouth said.
“He’s all Gunnhild’s,” Eric said. “And none of mine.”
Another of the men said, “That’s the way of sons, that’s all. They strut off thinking they can do so much better than their fathers, and they all end up just wishing they could do as well.”
“I never left,” Eric said. “I never had to. I did everything he told me to do. Some of my brothers defied my father. He sent me to deal with them, and that’s where I got the name Bloodaxe. And so will I deal with Gimle, if he doesn’t watch out.”
There was a little silence after this. Finally, Sweyn Eelmouth said again, in a thready voice, “He’s a good boy, Gimle.”
They followed the road up into the hills, and stopped for a while by a spring, in a copse of trees. Corban got stiffly down from his horse. The men aro
und him called out loudly, and stamped around, and laughed; he went quietly out of their midst, to the edge of the little wood, and looked out over the yellowing hillside.
He leaned against a tree there, and remembered the forest in the far western land, with its fabulous creatures. He longed to be back there again, where this evil could not reach. A dank black mood dragged at him. He thought of Mav, whom he was betraying, and for no real good: he wondered what the Lady would do to her, when she found out he was trying to destroy Eric. Another murdering brother. He thought of Benna with a hurtful, tender sadness.
He had put her in danger, too, and all for nothing.
Benna was strong, she would wend her way out of whatever he got her into. He remembered thinking once that there was a web of women’s power, like a caul over the world; Benna was part of that web, Benna and Mav, the Lady and Gunnhild. He laughed, remembering how Benna had broken the pot shard, spurning her own gift.
Abruptly, he thought, I am doing that.
A thrill went down his spine. To Benna and Mav, what seemed strange and potent to everybody else was only their way of knowing; was it not the same for him? In his mind the web of power widened, and he was part of it, one little part, with a little power, and yet real, and necessary; he felt himself taking a step up, as if on a great stairway, a rainbow bridge winding into the sky—
“Corban!” Suddenly Eelmouth was beside him, slinging an arm around him. Corban jumped, startled almost out of his skin. The stairway vanished from his mind. He felt tumbled down to earth, and he turned, angry, to snarl at Sweyn, and saw on Eelmouth’s face a strange, stiff look he had seen once before.
He shut his mouth, seeing also, over Sweyn’s shoulder, Eric Bloodaxe tramping away toward the spring. Eric had been just behind him, while he dreamed of his rainbow staircase, his own little conceit of power, Eric and his axe.
He gathered in a long shuddering breath, his back cold. He reminded himself again that thinking he knew anything was dangerous. He nodded to Eelmouth. “Thank you.”
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