The Wolf of the North: Wolf of the North Book 1

by Duncan M. Hamilton

  As he had when he was First Warrior, Belgar went out and walked through Leondorf every evening to speak to the villagers and gauge their sentiment on various things. There were so many strange faces now. Whenever he asked for their thoughts on the Ruripathians, it made him want to scream like a madman. None seemed to see what they were losing, and what the future held. They only saw the luxury that the southerners brought with them, and the food, and safety.

  It was some consolation that a few had made proud mention of the way Wulfric was able to beat the tar out of the soldiers in the inn. It made him smile to think of it, and he rued the fact that he had not been there to witness it. All down to his refusal to go to the inn because of its new ownership. He could remember a time when he would have been disappointed not to be involved. How quickly the years passed.

  The walking helped ease his painful joints and it tired him enough to sleep, the fatigue freeing him from the frustrations of his day. It was getting late as he passed by the Great Hall, skirting by its rear on his way home from the stockade where the horses being brought in for sale were kept. It was sad to see them go, but it was sadder still to remember what Leondorf had been like after the attacks by Rasbruck. Sometimes the lesser evil had to be accepted.

  His eyes fell on the spot where, as a child, he had pressed his ear to the wall to hear what was going on inside. He wondered if it still worked, what with all the new construction. His curiosity got the better of him, and his joints creaked in protest as he bent down to press his ear to the wall. He could hear voices. It surprised him to feel the youthful thrill of eavesdropping. He was perfectly entitled to walk inside to hear what was being said, but he was enjoying himself too much. Especially as there should not have been any business being conducted within at that hour.

  ‘I’ve been giving some thought to the request you made at our last meeting,’ a voice from within said.

  It was Donato’s. Belgar would recognise it anywhere, muffled though it was by the wall. Oily, smarmy; thoroughly unlikeable.

  ‘I’m delighted to hear it. I’m very eager to send word to the Markgraf that the girl is returning to his court. I trust the situation is well in hand?’ It was the Ambassador’s. He was the only southerner allowed into the Great Hall.

  There was a momentary silence, which even from outside, Belgar could tell was an uncomfortable one. He imagined Donato squirming in his chair as he always did when pressed on something he would rather avoid discussing.

  ‘In a manner of speaking, yes. There is a problem however.’

  ‘Problem? Of what nature? It’s hardly the most complicated of requests. Certainly not one I would have thought beyond the ability of a man of your aspirations.’

  ‘She’s involved with one of the warriors. I believe it to be why she came back in the first place. There was a marriage promise made before she left the village for Elzburg after the disaster.’

  ‘To whom? Pay him off if you must. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you what the Markgraf thinks of those who can’t carry out his instructions.’

  ‘You’re familiar with him, as it happens. That’s why I thought you might be interested in discussing some options for dealing with the matter, and perhaps assisting.’

  ‘Really? Who is it?

  ‘Wulfric. The warrior who bea— assaulted your soldiers.’

  Belgar pressed his ear harder against the wall until it hurt. What in hells could they be up to?

  ‘That is interesting, but as much as I’d like to see him swinging from a gallows by his neck, I do tend to prioritise things in order of importance. Girl going back to Elzburg being head of that list. Everything else is by the way.’

  ‘He’ll follow her to the ends of the earth and kill anyone that tries to stand in his way,’ Donato said. ‘There’s no way she’s going to go back to Elzburg as long as he’s around, and anyone who tries to force her will end up dead. He won’t bat an eyelid at money, land or titles. In the time she was gone, he didn’t so much as look at another woman. Their marriage is the talk of the village.’

  ‘So, the solution would seem to involve his death or disappearance,’ the Ambassador said.

  ‘If you want to take her back to Elzburg, he’ll have to be killed,’ Donato said. His voice wavered.

  Belgar imagined him nodding furiously, lickspittle that he was. He could feel rage swirling in his gut. He would have to let Wulfric know as soon as he could.

  ‘Do I detect an ulterior motive here?’ There was silence for a moment before the Ambassador spoke again. ‘It matters not. I know what he did to my men at the inn, and it is not my intention to allow that to go unanswered. I have no issue with killing him if it makes things easier on us both. I assume you’ve thought through how we will go about it?’

  ‘We have,’ Donato said.

  We? Wulfric killed? Belgar pressed his ear harder against the wall, but could not hear a third person.

  ‘Of course you have,’ the Ambassador said. ‘I presume it will involve my soldiers?’

  ‘It does.’ A third voice. Belgar racked his brain to recognise it. Rodulf. That one-eyed viper was always going to be involved in something like this.

  ‘Well, let’s hear it then.’

  There was the sound of a chair scraping on the floor.

  ‘Preparations are already underway for their marriage,’ Rodulf said. ‘I’m told it’s planned for two days hence. A marriage means a feast, and a feast needs meat. That means the warriors are going to go out hunting for it.’

  ‘And you propose to send my men after them? To kill Wulfric? In the forest? I don’t think your son is playing with a full deck of cards, Mayor. Wulfric’s a savage. My lads have been brawling in bars since they were weaned off the tit, and he took them apart like they didn’t know a punch from a kiss. If he can do that to them in their own environment, what do you think he’ll do to them in his?’

  Belgar couldn’t help but smile. They might not be showing Wulfric respect, but at least they feared him.

  ‘I’ve thought of that,’ Rodulf said. ‘We split them up to get the hunting done faster. Send some of your men out with them. Say it’s their punishment for the fight, and we want them to have put their differences behind them by the time they get back. Best interests of the village and all. They’ll respond to it when it’s put like that. They may be ignorant savages, but they’d cut off their arm for the village if it was asked of them. We send one of your soldiers with each of them. Any more than that and they might get suspicious. We can say the soldiers want to learn from them. Play to the arrogant bastards’ vanity.’

  ‘So, you’ve separated him from his cronies, and put one of my men with him. I still don’t see how that improves our chances,’ the Ambassador said. ‘From what I’ve been told, Wulfric was responsible for most of the damage done at the inn all by himself. And that was several men.’

  ‘He might be able to fight,’ Rodulf said, ‘but an arrow kills every man just the same. The man that goes with Wulfric leaves a trail for some bowmen to follow. They wait until Wulfric and your soldier are camped for the night, and fill him with arrows while he sleeps.’

  There was a long pause. Belgar wanted to rush straight over to Wulfric’s house and tell him what he had heard, but he needed to know everything. He couldn’t go just yet.

  ‘So, he’s dead. What then? I don’t give a damn about him, or settling whatever personal vendetta you seem to have with him. It’s the girl I’m interested in. How do you get her to go back to Elzburg? I’d really rather not have to drag her back kicking and screaming, although I will if that’s what is needed.’

  ‘She has no family here,’ Rodulf said. ‘The only family she has left is in Elzburg. With nothing to keep her here, she won’t need much convincing. I dare say she’ll go of her own accord.’

  Silence inside. Belgar felt his blood boil. He wanted to go into the Hall and kill the three of them himself.

  ‘Fine,’ the Ambassador said. ‘I want it done soon, which seems to suit th
e timetable anyway. My tenure here is up, thank the gods, and I’m heading back to the city. I want it dealt with before then. We can bring her back with us. If it all works out, this will reflect very well on you, and confirm the confidence the Markgraf has shown in you thus far. Fuck it up, and when he annexes Leondorf into the Elzmark he’ll ennoble a pig in preference to you. Am I clear?’

  ‘Perfectly,’ Donato said. ‘It will work, I assure you. Rodulf and I have thought this all out very carefully.’

  There was the scraping of chair legs on wood and the sound of footsteps. Belgar moved his head from the wall and rubbed his ear. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He hated Donato and Rodulf; they were a pair of greasy, cowardly, coin-counting rats, but even Belgar could never have imagined them conspiring to murder someone from the village. That was a new low to sink to. And the talk of annexing and ennobling? What was that about? That could wait though, he had to warn Wulfric.

  ‘Bit late for a stroll, Grandfather.’

  Belgar froze in the spot; it was the accent of a southerner. He turned slowly to have his fears confirmed. One of the Ambassador’s men stood watching him, spear in hand. His warrior’s instinct told him what was coming, but his old and worn body could not get him out of the way in time.

  DONATO, Rodulf, and Ambassador Urschel were sitting at the table in the Great Hall when Belgar came back to his senses, as was the soldier who had knocked him on the head. He was sitting before them, tied to a chair.

  ‘How much did you hear, old man?’ the Ambassador said.

  ‘What? Don’t hear too well. Speak up.’

  The Ambassador laughed. ‘Yes, very good. Very clever. Now tell me, how much did you hear?’

  ‘Fuck yourself,’ Belgar said.

  Donato rubbed his face. ‘This is a damned mess.’

  ‘It’s not a problem,’ Rodulf said. ‘One death. Two deaths. Makes no difference.’

  ‘I agree,’ the Ambassador said. ‘Kill them both. Keep things clean.’

  ‘People don’t just go around murdering each other in a village like Leondorf,’ Donato said. ‘It’s not the city, you know.’

  ‘Really?’ the Ambassador said. ‘I’m glad you pointed that out. I’d not have noticed otherwise. I still don’t see a problem.’

  ‘Why do you think we’ve hatched such an elaborate plan for Wulfric?’ Donato said. ‘We can’t have anything look suspicious. If they find out I’m killing off warriors, the villagers will turn against me faster than you can click your fingers, and when they’re done gutting me your door will be the next one they turn up at.’

  ‘Perhaps your son has more of a stomach for difficult decisions than you do,’ Urschel said.

  ‘We can make it look like an accident,’ Rodulf said.

  Donato raised his eyebrows and smiled.

  ‘You’re a fucking whoreson snake,’ Belgar said. ‘You don’t have the guts to kill a man.’ He spat at Donato, but the spittle fell short.

  Donato laughed.

  ‘Your father didn’t either,’ Belgar said. ‘Even after he found me lying with your mother. You’ve the same yellow streak he did.’

  This time the Ambassador was the one that laughed.

  Belgar smiled. ‘Poor woman needed some pleasure in her life, living with a limp prick like him. I’d have said that he wasn’t up to whelping a turd like you and that you might be mine if it weren’t for the fact that I only started putting a smile on her face after you crawled out into the world. I’d have said you didn’t have it in you either, if that one-eyed piece of rat shit over there wasn’t so obviously your boy.’

  Even the soldier was laughing by this stage. Donato’s face was bright red and screwed up in fury. Rodulf’s was not far behind. Donato stood, walked over and slapped Belgar across the face.

  Belgar swallowed a mouthful of blood and what felt like a tooth, rather than show Donato that it had caused any injury. ‘Your mother hit harder than you, too.’

  ‘Take a look at the horses tonight, did you, Belgar?’ Donato said.

  Belgar said nothing.

  ‘Of course you did. You do it every night when they’re brought into town. The habits of a worn out old man who’s lived longer than he should.’ Donato turned to the soldier. ‘Take him out to the horse pen and throw him in. Make sure the job’s done before that though. No blades, mind. It has to look like he fell in and got trampled to death.’

  The soldier nodded and pulled Belgar roughly from the chair.

  Donato turned to the Ambassador. ‘That won’t be a hard one to swallow. Everyone knows the sentimental old bastard likes to look at the horses. It’s not too much of a stretch of the imagination that he fell in. Still think I don’t have a stomach for this type of thing?’

  ‘Fine,’ the Ambassador said. ‘Anyway you want it, so long as it’s done.’

  Donato nodded and turned back to Belgar. ‘Well, off to Jorundyr’s Host with you. I’m sure you’re looking forward to it.’

  Belgar spat at him again, but this time his aim was true.

  46

  Donato woke early, and was agitated all morning as he waited for Belgar’s body to be discovered. Perhaps the Ambassador was right. Maybe he didn’t have the stomach for that kind of thing. Finally, the alarm was raised. One of the stable hands spotted something in the stockade that shouldn’t have been there, when bringing the morning feed out for the horses. Donato went there as soon as the news was brought to him, playing the concerned mayor. The body was bruised and battered almost beyond recognition. Either the soldiers were very thorough, or the horses had finished what they started. It took longer than he expected for them to identify it as Belgar.

  The other warriors arrived, and Donato felt incredibly pleased as Wulfric and his two cronies reverently lifted Belgar’s broken old body from the churned up mud and carried it back toward his house. It surprised him how remarkably easy it was to kill a man, particularly when someone else was doing the killing. He might have to make it a more regular feature of his governance, although the power of life and death was one of the prerogatives of a feudal lord. Feudal lord. Baron Leondorf. Lord Leondorf. Some days it felt like the sun was shining on him no matter where he went. Perhaps he did have the stomach for it after all.

  He fought not to smile as the warriors walked past, trying to wear an expression of suitable solemnity. He watched Wulfric as he went. He would be following Belgar to Jorundyr’s Host in only a day or two, and then the road to nobility would be unobstructed. He knew killing Wulfric would be more difficult a task than a broken-down old man, and that he was placing a great deal of faith in the southern soldiers. Still, Rodulf’s plan was sound. There would be plenty of them, and how difficult was it to fire quarrels into a sleeping man from point-blank range? He wondered if he should arrange some poison for the tips, just to be sure.

  There was movement from the broken bundle the warriors carried. Donato’s gut reacted before his brain did. It twisted and he thought he would throw up. He heard a groan come from the broken body. He wanted to believe that he was imagining it. Suddenly the sun felt very far away indeed. What kind of idiot was the soldier, that he couldn’t even beat an old man to death? Although alive, Belgar seemed to be unconscious. Perhaps he would die without ever waking. Was that too much to hope for?

  A BLACK CLOUD descended over the marriage preparations when news of Belgar’s injuries spread through the village. He was the last of his generation. The last of a way of life that might never be seen again in Leondorf. Aethelman said it was unlikely he would wake; that he would probably drift off in his sleep, and take his place in Jorundyr’s Host.

  Belgar had done well to last as long as he had. Wulfric had to be grateful for having had the benefit of his wisdom for so long. Belgar’s demise made him feel as miserable as his father’s death. It was difficult to put a brave face on things, but there was a wedding to prepare, and a future to plan for.

  A BOY, no more than nine or ten summers ran up to Wulfric. ‘There’s hundreds of
them!’

  ‘Hundreds of what?’ Wulfric said.

  The boy was excitable at the best of times, but today he looked fit to burst. Every time a herd of deer or a particularly large boar or belek sighting came in, Wulfric’s door was the boy’s first port of call. He was perhaps the only one in the village who still adulated the warriors. The news was, however, of interest to Wulfric. With his wedding only a couple of days away, the proximity of a large herd of deer was auspicious. They would be able to hunt plenty of meat and ensure that everyone in the village went home after the wedding celebration with a full belly and a smiling face.

  ‘Are there any harts?’ Wulfric said.

  The boy shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Well, I suppose I should go and take a look.’

  The boy’s face lit up in delight at the realisation that his news was to be acted upon. He followed Wulfric as he walked through the village calling out for Stenn and Farlof to prepare their things and join him for a hunt.

  ‘What’s all the commotion about?’ Donato said, as he walked out of the Great Hall.

  ‘A herd of deer have been spotted not far away. We’re going hunting.’

  ‘Hardly a surprise,’ Donato said. ‘All you lot seem to do is hunt and eat the village to near starvation.’

  ‘Remind me where all the meat comes from,’ Wulfric said.

  Donato sniffed. ‘I need to talk to you before you go.’