They sat for a while, hearts thumping, waiting for noise of movement or challenge. Nothing came. Only the steady hiss of the wind in the trees.
Shef turned to Karli, muttered, “We'll go round the edge of this island, keeping to the ice by the shore. When we see the next bridge ahead of us we'll decide what to do about it.”
For some minutes they shuffled warily round the edge of the island. Once they caught a whiff of wood-smoke and stood stock-still. But the trees remained unbroken, not even a cottager's landing-stage jutting out into the water. They shuffled on.
The bridge to the next island almost caught them by surprise. They shuffled round a small spit of land, and saw it in front of them, not twenty yards off, and plain to see, two tall men leaning on their javelins. Could even hear their muttered conversation. Quickly the two intruders pulled back into shelter.
“What we ought to do,” whispered Shef, “is make a detour out to sea, to keep well away from them.”
“Don't fancy that,” muttered Karli. “I want to keep where the ice is thick.”
“If the ice wasn't thick enough, she wouldn't have told us to take it.”
“Women are funny. And she could be wrong. Anyway she's not out here with fifty feet of cold water under her.”
Shef reflected for a moment. “Let's try this, then. We'll start from here, and go parallel with the bridge, where the water's shallowest and the ice thickest. But we won't walk, we'll crawl. Keep right down, there's not so much for them to see. Anyway, they're watching the path, not the ice.”
As they set out, crawling awkwardly in their heavy clothing, beards skimming the ice, Karli began to wonder. If the ice is so thick, why are these Norwegians only guarding the bridges? Why are they guarded at all? Are these people just stupid? Or does the queen…?
His friend was yards in front of him and moving like an angry adder. No time for debate. And the ice seemed thick as ever. Karli crawled quickly behind, trying not to eye the seeming safety of the log-bridge twenty yards off.
As soon as they reached the second island both men crawled to the side away from the bridge, slithered round behind another of the many tiny spurs jutting out from the shore, stood up and bolted once more into the cover of the trees, breathing hard. The cold of the ice had bitten through their layers of wool and leather. They put their weapons down carefully, pulled off the sheepskin mittens Brand had given them, blew on frozen hands. Carefully Shef eased a leather bottle from its belt-sling, pulled out its stopper.
“Winter ale,” he muttered. “The last of it.”
Each took a long pull. “Tastes like ale,” muttered Karli, “but it doesn't feel like it. You can feel your gullet glowing as it goes down, no matter how cold it is. Shame we can't make this stuff where we come from.”
Shef nodded, thinking again for a moment of water freezing on ale, of steam leaping from a hot blade. No time to pursue that thought.
“Drottningholm's the next island,” he said. “We know the king isn't there, and that no men are allowed to sleep overnight on it. One more crossing…”
“And we're like two cocks in the hen-roost,” completed Karli.
“At least we can see what the queen wants from us.”
I know what she wants from you, thought Karli, but kept silent. Slowly, they worked their way round the shore of the second island.
The bridge this time was easy to spot, but well away from the point where they caught their first sight of Drottningsholm. They stood in the trees, looking across and calculating the odds. They were on the western point of another small bay, Drottningsholm perhaps a furlong off. The eastern point was another furlong away, and the bridge ran from its tip to the further island.
“Just as easy to start from here as go over near the bridge,” said Shef. “And we won't need to crawl. We're far enough away so no-one will see us from the guard-post, and we'll be getting further away all the time.”
“All right,” said Karli. “I guess if the ice was going to break, it would have broken by now. We've seen no holes in it. It hasn't creaked or anything.”
Shef gripped his shoulder, took his spear in both hands, and set out across the flat, black, windswept expanse.
“All right, where is he?” Brand stood in the doorway of the fetid communal hut, glowering down at the eight Englishmen facing him. He had been drinking worriedly in a tavern in the port of Kaupang with Guthmund and their crews, when he had been called away by news that the Way-priests' conclave had ended. After a brief interview with Thorvin he had headed straight for the quarters Shef shared with Karli, now treated as his body-servant. Found both missing, and headed on to the catapulteers' hut.
Faced with an angry man nearer seven feet high than six, the ex-slaves reverted to servile custom. With imperceptible shuffles they moved into a tight group with at its front Osmod and Cwicca, the burliest and most self-confident of them. Their faces took on a look of stony ignorance.
“Where's who?” said Osmod, playing for time.
Brand's enormous fists opened and closed. “Where—is—your—master—Shef?”
“Don't know,” said Cwicca. “Ain't he in his quarters?”
Brand took a step forward, murder in his eye, paused as he saw Osmod, once captain of the halberdiers, cast a quick glance towards a rack of weapons. He turned, marched out, slamming the door.
Outside Hund, Shef's childhood friend, now a faithful priest of Ithun, stood patiently in the crusty snow. “They won't talk to me,” Brand snarled. “You're English. They know you're his friend. See if you can find out what's up.”
Hund stepped into the hut. A murmur of voices, all talking English in the thick Norfolk dialect common to them all. Finally Hund appeared, beckoned Brand once more into the hut.
“They say they don't know for sure,” he translated. “But putting one thing and another together, they're fairly sure he got a message of some sort. They suspect that he has gone to visit the queen Ragnhild at Drottningsholm. He has taken Karli with him.”
Brand goggled. “Gone to Drottningsholm? But no man's allowed on the island overnight. And the bridges are all guarded.”
Cwicca grinned, his gap teeth showing. “That's all right, skipper,” he said in the Anglo-Norse pidgin of the Wayman army in England. “We're not so dumb. We know that. If he's gone, he'll have slipped across on the ice, see? We went down and had a little look this afternoon. It's still plenty thick enough, no sign of cracking.”
Brand stared at Cwicca and the others, horror evident on his face. He tried to speak, failed, tried again.
“Don't you English fools know anything?” he said in a hoarse whisper. “In the fjords this time of year, the ice doesn't crack. It rots from the bottom up. Fills with water. Then one morning it isn't there any more. It doesn't crack. It just sinks!”
The wind struck them with redoubled force as soon as Shef and Karli were well out on their last stretch of ice, as if they had come out from under the lee of some unseen headland. With it came a whirl of horizontal, driving rain. Shef flinched as the first drops struck his face, expecting stinging hail or ice-storm. Then he put his hand up to the drops that trickled down his face, and wondered. Rain. So the frost had broken. Would they be able to get back, once across? No time to worry about that now. And in the rain they had no need to fear being seen by the bridge-guards.
“Listen,” he said to Karli. “I don't like this rain. The ice may crack. We can both swim. The thing to do, if it cracks under us, is keep your head up. Don't get caught under the ice and not know which way to turn. If we're in a hole in the ice, swim to the edge of it and put your weight on the ice. If it cracks, go forward and try again. When we get to somewhere thick enough to bear us, crawl out and keep crawling. And Karli, tuck your sword in your belt again. You may need two hands.”
As Karli fumbled to obey, moved by some impulse, Shef looked up at the dark shore still a hundred yards in front, hefted the ‘Gungnir’ spear in his hand, trotted two paces forward, turned and hurled the spear ahea
d of him. He saw it streak forward, land, and skid on along the ice, its clatter drowned by the hiss of the rain.
As his foot came down he felt the ice give. Both men stood motionless for a moment, listening for the crack. Nothing. Still ice under their feet.
“Maybe it just came loose from the shore,” muttered Karli.
They stepped on, cautiously, planting their feet with utter delicacy. One step. Two.
Cold bit into Shef's boot as he put it down. Water. A puddle on the ice? Water in the other boot. Suddenly the cold was at his knees, his thighs, he felt his vitals retract convulsively. Shef stared round for the break in the ice, but there was nothing there, his feet were still planted solidly but the ice was dropping beneath…
The black water closed over Shef's head and he found himself struggling desperately to stay afloat. There were hands round his neck, clutching from behind, hands like Ivar's, as if Ivar were back from the dead.
Shef turned furiously inside Karli's panic clutch till they were face to face, brought his hands up together inside Karli's embrace, joined them and swung them down edge first on the bridge of Karli's nose. Reared up out of the water and swung again, felt gristle give beneath the blow. Reared up to swing again, felt the strangling clutch release.
“Sorry, all right, I'm all right.” Karli let go and began to tread water. Shef realized at once the furious bite of the water. He had swum in cold water often enough, in the fens, for sport or to cross where there was no bridge. This was different. The cold had bitten through every garment he wore, filled them all, was draining the strength from his body with every instant that passed, the cold and the waterlogged wool and leather both combining to drag him down into the mud.
And he had lost any sense of direction. Shef thrust his body out of the water as high as he could manage, twisting his one eye round to see if he could see the island, or the other shore, or ice still solid to swim towards. Nothing. Nothing.
Or there? Was that a deeper black in the night? He caught the shape of Drottningsholm against the sky, seized Karli's shoulder, dragged him in the right direction. Both men began to strike out with the strength of panic, first with a clumsy overarm stroke, then as their sodden clothes pulled them down with a gasping short-armed breast-stroke. Their legs trailed under them. Kick your boots off, thought Shef. They always say, kick your boots off. But mine are laced with rawhide, and anyway. Anyway it's too cold. I have to get out or die.
The first touch of mud under his feet made him try to stand immediately, and his head sank instantly beneath the surface. He pulled himself up, flailed again overarm till he felt mud beneath his belly. Staggered up, felt his feet slide from under him, seized a tree-root on the shore and dragged himself forward and out. From behind came a gasp, feeble splashing. Shef marked the helpful root, turned, plunged back into the water, seized Karli and dragged him by main force the last few yards to shore. With one hand he grabbed the root again, twined the other in Karli's curly hair and shot him forward onto the freezing beach. Both men rose gasping and choking to their knees.
As they did so Shef knew for certain that if they did nothing they would die there of cold, in less time than it would take a careless priest to say a Mass. The water had burned like fire. Now they were out in the air the cold was even worse. Already he had little sensation across his body, the feeling of bitter pain was going, he felt a pleasant relaxation pulling him down.
“Strip,” he snarled to Karli. “Get your clothes off. Wring them out.”
His own hands fumbled at the toggles of his coat, seemed unable to find them. Karli had somehow got his sword out of his belt and out of his scabbard, was sawing at his own fastenings. He passed it to Shef, who dropped it from numb hands. For moments, a desperate silent struggle in the dark as they peeled off layer after layer. Naked at last, they were flayed by the wind, doubled over. But the rain flurry had gone, the harsh wind dried them in seconds. Shef groped for his tunic, wrung it out, doubled it and wrung it out again, driving out the half-frozen salt slush. As he struggled into it again, for an instant he felt an illusion of comparative warmth.
Pure illusion. They would still die here on the shore before daybreak. But at least a moment to think.
As Shef groped for his breeches, he saw movement in the trees. Not men. Too low down for the queen's guards. Wolf-shapes creeping closer, belly-down, lips already drawn back over snarling teeth. But not wolves. The queen's wolfhounds, bought at fabulous prices from the market in Dublin, and turned loose each night for her safety.
Only the water's edge saved the two men in their first rush, for the men backed into it by some primeval instinct, and the dogs could not come at them from all sides. As the big leader ran silently in, Karli, sword snatched up, swung a violent blow at its head. The edge turned as it connected, still gripped in inexpert hands, and the dog seized Karli's wrist in its jaws.
It had seized a fighter of instant reflex, poor swordsman though he was. In a moment Karli had thrust his left thumb deep into its eye, shaken it off, mad with pain, and thrust the sword into Shef's hands, snarling incoherently. Shef met his first attacker with a barefooted kick in the throat. As it came back for a leap at his groin he snatched the sword, dropped the point, and spitted its heart as it sprang.
The pain-crazed leader had seized another dog in its jaws and the two were rolling over and over in a snarling tangle. Padding round them a fourth animal the size of a calf gathered itself and made a leap for Karli's throat. He met it as he would a rough-and-tumble fighter in the brawls of the Ditmarsh, dropping his head instantly to butt it in the teeth, hooking with both hands at its body, trying to break ribs, rupture liver. The dog fell back, off balance, caught itself and poised for a second spring.
As it did so Shef leaned across and swept off one foreleg at the knee-joint, flashed the point in the muzzle of the dog that was threatening him, cut forehand at the dogfight still going on a yard away and instantly backhand at the last dog springing forward. Don't go for the kill, he thought. Take the easy maim instead. Dogs are safer than men for you only have their jaws to worry about.
One wolfhound was down dead, another hobbling off on three legs. The half-blind leader, further disabled by a slash on the side, had had its throat torn out by the dog it had attacked. That animal was backing off, disconcerted, a low rumble in its throat as warning, but not ready to continue the fight. Only one hound still faced them, teeth showing, lunging a few inches forward and then backing off again as it eyed the menace of the sword-point. Karli, bleeding now from both head and wrist, scrabbled in the water for a rock, dragged one out and hurled it furiously at three feet range. Struck on the shoulder, the dog whuffed indignantly, turned and streaked into the shadows.
The two half-naked men staggered again towards their clothes, groped in the freezing pile of wool and leather, struggled again to wring them out and get them on. As the adrenalin of the fight faded, Shef realized that he had no movement left in his fingers at all. He could use them as hooks, but tying a lace or fastening a belt was beyond him.
Slowly he wrapped his fingers round the sword-hilt again, knelt by the body of the dog he had spitted. Drove the point deep into its belly and sawed feebly downwards. A rank smell of punctured gut and coils of pale intestine pushing their way out. Shef dropped the sword, pushed his frozen hands into the body cavity and groped for the creature's heart.
A dog's body temperature is higher than a human's. The still-hot blood poured over Shef's fingers like liquid fire, seemed to run up his body. He thrust his arms deeper into the body cavity, up to the elbows, wishing he could crawl entirely inside. Karli, seeing what he had done and why, hobbled painfully over and fumblingly followed his example.
As sensation came back, Shef withdrew, pulled on his wet but no longer dripping breeches, fastened the belt, clambered into his water-sodden leather coat. His woolen hat was somewhere in the waters of the fjord, the sheepskin mittens lost in the darkness. Against his warmed hands, his feet felt like blocks of ice. Slice
open another dog? Short of absolute necessity, he could not make himself do it. Clumsily he tipped water from his boots, thrust his feet inside, feeling as if the toes might break off at any moment. He made no effort to refasten the cut thongs on boots or coat.
“What do we do now?” asked Karli. He passed Shef the sword, holding on to the wooden scabbard as a makeshift club.
“We came to see the queen,” said Shef.
Karli opened his mouth to reply, then closed it. The woman had trapped them, that was obvious. Unless maybe it was her husband all along. He had known deceits like that before. But the queen's hall and its outbuildings were the only shelter on this island. If they did not have shelter and fire they would be dead before dawn. Karli plodded after Shef through the fir-thickets, hoping to stumble on a path. He had hoped for a princess. He would settle now for a friendly drab, any draggletail housemaid with a fire and a blanket in a corner.
In the endmost room of the queen's hall at Drottningsholm, two women sat facing each other from either side of a glowing fire. Each sat straight-backed in a hard wooden chair, each glittered with ornaments, each had the air of a woman rarely refused, and never safely. Other than that they were dissimilar. They had hated each other from the moment of first meeting.
Queen Asa, widow and murderess of King Guthroth, mother of King Halvdan, had centered all her hopes on her boy. But as soon as he grew beyond infancy he had feared and distrusted her. Had she not killed his father? In youth he had pursued women as had his father and in contempt of his mother, in manhood he had turned Viking and spent every summer on campaign, every winter planning the next or consolidating the last. Disappointment had withered Asa, turned her brown, shriveled and cruel.
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