A Mighty Dawn

by Theodore Brun

  ‘And what if they do?’

  ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me.’

  ‘Friendship with the Karlungs cannot harm you. Indeed, it could do you much good. I have the ear of Lord Arve. Add to this that Harald favours me even over his Danish earls. I am sworn to him, but a war between the Jutes of the North and the Danes gains me nothing. The Karlungs could prove your surety against the Danes.’

  ‘Our surety? You mean you would stand with us against the Danes?’

  Karsten gave a rueful shake of his head. ‘It need never come to that, kinsman. But I would put the full weight of my words at your back.’

  Haldan considered this. The weight of Karsten’s words. What good are they?

  ‘If war were to come,’ Karsten went on, ‘how do you think your thousand spears would fare against the Wartooth’s ten thousand?’

  Haldan’s jaw tightened. It was a grim thought.

  ‘Fight him and you condemn your people. Where will the blood of Vendal the Grey be then?’ He snorted. ‘Nothing more than a stain in the dirt.’

  Haldan peered into his kinsman’s cold, dead eye. ‘And friendship with you would stop that?’

  ‘Listen, oath or not, one day you may have to kneel.’ Haldan could almost hear his father’s growl of protest. ‘But better you’ve a friend who can persuade Harald kneeling is enough. Without that, he’s like to take your head, together with your son’s, and grind his boot on the neck of your people till they choke.’

  Must it come to this? There was truth in Karsten’s whisperings. How long would the world leave his lands in peace? Raiders would come – those choosing the Viking way. Vikings would always come. But a king? A forger of realms? A greater lord to make him kneel? Sometimes steel and shield were not enough to throw back the grasping hands of greedy men.

  ‘And the price of your friendship is Inga.’

  Karsten threw back his head and laughed. ‘For my son to stop his moaning – aye, that means a good deal to me. For that, I would offer friendship.’

  ‘Inga is beautiful,’ Haldan mused. Worthy of a lord. Worthy even of a king. Yet, with Inga, it was never simple. He was very fond of her. . . more than fond of her, but. . . No – no good would come from dwelling on that. ‘I owe it to my brother to make the best match I can.’

  ‘Your ward has her charms, I’ll grant you. But when all’s said, she is nothing but the daughter of a dead younger brother. She brings no lands.’

  Haldan smiled to himself. The Whisperer was bargaining now, and he was crafty as a Wendish fishmonger when it came to striking a deal. ‘Why so easily swayed by your son’s whining then? What do you really want?’

  ‘Something of value to us both. Vindhaven.’

  It was Haldan’s turn to laugh. ‘Vindhaven! Friend, Vindhaven is destroyed. Surely word reached you? We burned forty good men avenging the blood those Vikings shed.’

  ‘We heard.’ Karsten sniffed. ‘May the Spear-God be grateful for the gift.’ Instinctively, his hand went to his dead eye at mention of the god. ‘Vindhaven may be destroyed, but it can be rebuilt.’

  ‘Its people were slaughtered to the last child. The harbour is burned. Only ashes and blood remain. If it can be rebuilt, work certainly won’t begin till spring.’

  Karsten leaned closer. So close Haldan could smell the mead on his breath. ‘And what if I offer to seal my son’s pledge to your ward with timber and turf enough to rebuild it all, and the men to do it? Now. Quickly. Before the first snows.’

  ‘Why would you do that? Vindhaven isn’t on Karlung lands.’

  ‘Maybe not. But it lies not far to our north.’ His dark eye shone. ‘Think on it. A restored market harbour could bring you much prosperity. Great wealth even. Vindhaven could become a name to rival Rerik. Or even great Riba in the south.’

  Haldan stroked the knotted remains of his ear.

  Vindhaven was certainly a wreck. Its destruction had weighed heavy on his mind, he had to admit. They needed a market harbour. Without it, there might be trade along the long, empty strands skirting his realm, but it would be scattered, haphazard. Without it, it would be a hard winter on meagre provisions. They would cope – they always did – but come the spring, it would take time to rebuild Vindhaven. Time his folk could ill afford when they should be sowing their crops and looking to their flocks. And time before the traders came back.

  What if they rebuilt it now – and bigger than it was – in time for the first trading in the spring? What if it flourished? His folk would prosper, might even grow rich, and a rich folk was secure. A rich folk could raise more spears to keep their lands safe. Safe even from King Harald if he ever came. The Vendling blood would be stronger.

  And when I’m gone, Hakan will be secure.

  ‘This is your bride price?’

  ‘If it’s agreeable to you.’

  ‘What would you have in return?’

  ‘Half the market rights.’

  ‘Half?’ exclaimed Haldan. Why was he surprised?

  ‘A small return,’ smiled Karsten. ‘Given the investment we would be making.’

  ‘Your memory must be failing, kinsman. Did you forget this isn’t your land? And you expect half the market revenues?’

  ‘Half seems fair. Vindhaven is not ours, but it lies not far from our lands. A word from me, and every skinner, every smith, every craftsman in Middle Jutland would bring their wares to your markets. That’s a lot of trade.’

  Haldan pulled at his beard, considering. ‘A place that prosperous would have to be well defended. I would have to provide the men.’

  ‘Come – these are details. I offer you friendship against the Wartooth, a new market harbour that will make what stood there before seem a piss-sodden pig pen, and the goods to fill it.’ He snorted. ‘Take your head out of your sandhill, cousin! It’s only fair the Karlungs have something worth our while in return. And all this sealed by a marriage bond. Your brother’s beautiful daughter, and my son and heir.’ He suddenly laughed. ‘Why, I would even be in your debt for shutting up Konur’s whining.’

  All this, and yet a shadow of doubt remained in Haldan’s heart. That scrap between their sons at the Feast of Oaths. To others, it might have been nothing but a drunken brawl, but he’d seen something else in it. Seeds of hatred. Who knew how those seeds would grow? Hakan must have the best chance I can give him. He would have battles enough without a feud brewing with the Karlung blood. Inga would grow into a woman of calm counsel, he was sure. She could be the ice to cool the heat between their sons. It were better she were there.

  ‘Settle for a third. And I will provide half the men to build.’

  Karsten’s good eye flitted between his own. ‘So it is,’ he nodded at last. Then chuckled. ‘For a third, it’s you who should be asking for a daughter of mine, if only I had one to give. Ha! A third then – and Karlung and Vendling will be joined together by new blood.’

  ‘And one thing more.’ Haldan fixed his gaze on Karsten’s dead eye.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘If the Wartooth ever makes war on us, you forsake your oath to him and stand with your kin.’

  For a long time, Karsten didn’t answer. But at last, he seemed to make up his mind, and held out his hand.

  Haldan took it.

  And the match was made.

  The place was a mess.

  A row of pits, half-filled with foetid water and charred stumps – the wreckage of the dwellings that had stood there before.

  Vindhaven. . . what was left of it.

  The smell of embers lingered, together with the tang of rotten flesh. In front of the wreckage of the meet-hall was a circle of rain-soaked ashes. The fire had blazed high that day. Hakan remembered the stench of burning bodies, drifting on the wind to where he lay hidden. Drizzle settled on the bristles of his beard. He kicked at a potsherd in the mud.

  ‘A fine fucking shithole they left this place,’ said Dag to no one in particular, sifting through the blackened remains of a smithy with the butt of his spea
r. Something caught his eye. He bent and picked it up, turning it over. After a moment, he flung it away.

  ‘Bloody magpies. They haven’t left much. Won’t be nothing worth a toss in all this mess.’

  ‘What do you expect?’ Hakan answered. ‘It’s three months since this was done.’ Though it felt like a lifetime. Burned, flattened, finished. But that hadn’t stopped the mud-folk living along the Sound from salvaging anything useful that the raiders had left behind. Down to the last rivet. They were welcome to it. They were alive.

  The raiders were dead.

  ‘Those boys knew their business, all right.’ Dag had done his share of raiding down the years, so he should know. The other men were wandering among the burned-out dwellings clustered along the Sound’s northern shore. Dag leaned on his spear, eyeing the ruins of the gangway collapsed in the water. He snorted and spat a gobbet of phlegm in a well-practised arc. It landed on a patch of ground, stained darker than the rest.

  Hakan recalled the line of villagers kneeling just there; the noise of the blade carrying with the stench. Schuck. . .

  ‘This is going to be one bastard job,’ sighed Gunnrek, a burly bondsman from south of Vendlagard, with a beard so thick up his cheeks Hakan mused whether an ancestor had rutted a she-bear.

  ‘My father said the Karlungs will send men to help. It’s all agreed.’

  ‘Well, if we’re here and they ain’t, that makes us the dopes.’ Dag scratched at a scab on the back of his neck. ‘Better save ’em some shit to do.’

  Hakan reckoned they would be along soon enough. The way his father told it, he wanted a close eye on the Karlung men; on everything they did and wanted to know. Apart from that, he hadn’t told Hakan much – that they were rebuilding Vindhaven; that he’d accepted an offer from Karsten to partner them in the work; that he should get there at once. His father wanted as much done as possible before the snows came. When Hakan had asked what was the Karlungs’ upside, his father just glowered. A thriving Vindhaven would profit both their clans, he said. They both wanted it done fast, and they had reached an agreement. That was all he needed to know, and he had better bury any trouble with the Karlung lad. When he’d opened his mouth to protest, his father lost his temper. There was no talking to him then.

  Still, reluctantly, Hakan had promised to bury his grievances. There were more important things at stake, Haldan said, with that solemn look of his. ‘I’m trusting you, son. This could do our folk great good.’

  Thus, cleaning up this wreckage was the task of a lord. Funny how it feels more like scrabbling around in a mire of shit. . . Maybe that’s often the way.

  His father had given him half a dozen men. The first day was miserable. They worked all day under a leaden sky. By nightfall, the place looked as bad as ever. After the second day, at least he could see a difference. They burned the remains of the bodies first, then threw on the debris after them, putting aside any wood worth salvaging.

  The jetty was foul work: up to their waists in slime, hefting out broken shivers of half-burned timber onto shore, while a sharp easterly spat rain in their eyes and chilled their bodies to the bone. When night fell, they used what they could of the shelter that had survived, sleeping round a fire under sheepskins.

  By the fourth day, Hakan could at least hope that if the snows didn’t come early, they might soon start planning how to rebuild the place. His father had said it was to be the greatest market harbour in all the East Sea; looking at the bereft shoreline, that was hard to imagine.

  Well after noon, the sun had wormed through the clouds, scattering shards of light onto the dreary waters of Odd’s Sound.

  He left off dragging a length of wattle towards the pile of salvaged wood and called to Dag, ‘Two days and we’ll have broken the back of this.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Dag grumbled. ‘No thanks to those Karlung whoresons.’

  ‘They might have to feel the prick of your knife, Dag,’ said Aldi, a younger lad, fond of stirring. ‘If they do ever come. . .’

  ‘Baaah!’ Dag growled back. ‘They should send some women up here instead. Happy to give them a feel of a prick, all right.’

  There were a few chuckles. Gunnrek came up, flung a slab of turf into the fire. ‘You can ask ’em yourself,’ he said, jutting his chin off west.

  The others turned and saw a horse trotting along the path, its rider joggling on top.

  ‘One man?’ hissed Dag. ‘What fucking use is that?’

  The rider wore a long hooded cloak, face in shadow. But Hakan knew him at a glance. ‘Earl Karsten’s son.’ Aye – one man. And the last man in the Nine Worlds he wanted to see.

  He snorted, remembering his promise to his father, and called up a cheery greeting.

  Wouldn’t he be proud?

  ‘Good day, Hakan,’ answered Konur, pushing back his hood. He looked down at the other men’s sweat-stained faces, warily. After all, he was one. Hakan had six, and Dag’s glowering eyes were like to throw any man off his stride.

  ‘Old Karsten’s got giant’s blood, has he?’ said Dag.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You’d have to be one strong sod, tha’s all.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ replied Konur, puzzled.

  ‘Why else would your father send one man to do the work of a dozen?’

  Konur grunted without mirth. ‘You seem to like a jape. For a miserable-looking bastard.’

  ‘Believe me.’ Dag’s hand coiled around the haft of his knife. ‘You don’t want to find out what makes me look happy.’

  True enough, thought Hakan. ‘One more man isn’t much use to us.’

  ‘My father’s mustering a gang. They’re waiting for a man he reckons the best builder in his lands. He sent me ahead to get the lie of the place. Or leastways, to make a start of it.’

  ‘We already made a start, case you hadn’t noticed,’ said Dag.

  ‘Well, he’s here now.’ Hakan offered up his hand. ‘Alone or not – you’re welcome.’ They shook, neither smiling. ‘We’ll put your horse with the others.’

  Konur slid down. Hakan collected his cloak and beckoned Konur to follow, while the others went back to work.

  ‘Been here before?’

  ‘A while ago now,’ Konur nodded. ‘Looked a lot different back then.’

  Hakan gave him a sideways glance and saw he was making a joke. ‘The folk who lived here probably would have thought so too. Only there aren’t none of them left to say so.’

  ‘Aye – a bad business. Still, the way my old man talks, it could soon be back to how it was. Better even.’

  Better? Tell that to the women lashed to that mast. Small comfort for them.

  After tethering Konur’s horse with the others, Hakan offered him something to eat. But Konur said he’d rather take a look around.

  ‘Best place to start is up there.’ Hakan pointed to the shallow ridge to the north of them.

  It didn’t take them long to get up there. The ridge was hardly a fine lookout, but at least they stood high enough to survey what was left of the little settlement.

  Odd’s Sound snaked east, widening out to the open sea, its shores bounded by reed beds. Except on the north side, a distance beyond the settlement, was a shallow sweep of dirty sand. Ideal for unloading goods from trade ships, fishing boats, skiffs. . . craft of all sizes and shapes from around the East Sea and beyond.

  Naturally, the little harbour of Vindhaven had grown up close by. For generations it had sat there, happy enough. Until it turned out the beach was just as good for a ship of war, Hakan told Konur. Probably they landed pretending to be traders. Or slipped ashore under cover of night. Whichever, the scattering of corpses suggested the tradesfolk had been taken by surprise.

  Hakan described where everything had been before. The forges, the smithy stalls; barns for drying skins and furs, barns for grain and hay; spinner stalls, tanning vats, butchers’ slabs; cookhouses, a brewery, and small dwellings dotted at the western end of the settlement, each hardly more than a hovel sunk into the e
arth. Amid all these had stood the meet-hall, where feasts would roar, and visiting traders could find a roof for a night.

  Konur snorted. ‘Look at it now.’ Blackened stumps, refuse pits, timber, charred and splintered. Spaces empty as eye sockets in a skull. ‘What happened?’ Hakan told him all he’d seen.

  They sat there a while. Konur wanted to know how the story went on: of the pursuit and the battle on that northern fell. He listened, and afterwards he too told of his experiences in ‘Skogul’s Storm’, as he called it. Bloody combat – skirmishes, raids. For once, he just told it how it was, best as he could remember. Hakan found himself interested, almost forgetting the hatred he’d nursed for Konur since the summer. Since their childhood, come to that. Forgotten the sharp stab of jealousy as he’d watched Konur lead Inga out of the hall.

  The hour was late. Twilight shadows were falling. The others would be finishing up. They strolled back down the slope.

  Suddenly, Konur laughed. ‘You know, I’d pegged you for a mule-headed arse. I was sure we’d be enemies, you and I, and there was nothing doing. But. . . you’re all right.’

  Hakan grunted. ‘Could be, you are too.’ They twitched a grin at one another. Would you look at us? My father will throw a bloody feast.

  ‘Makes me almost glad we’re to be close kin.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘What do you think?’ exclaimed Konur, suddenly beaming. ‘My betrothal, of course! To your cousin.’

  Bile suddenly soured Hakan’s throat. ‘My cousin? You mean Inga?’

  ‘Of course to Inga! Don’t know any other cousins of yours I’d care to marry.’

  Hakan could only gape, incredulous.

  Konur wasn’t blind. ‘By the fires!’ he crowed. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t know.’

  Hakan shook his head, dumb as an ox.

  Konur laughed, long and loud. ‘This is too good! The son of the great Lord Haldan, and he hasn’t told you he plans to marry off his ward.’

  A thousand thoughts burst like a storm in Hakan’s head. ‘H-how?’ he stammered.