The Widow Queen

by Elzbieta Cherezinska

  “No. Jostein and Guthmund’s forces are larger than ours. You know that the ten thousand pounds of silver has not come from nowhere. If we were all fighting separately, we’d have nought but a couple of ships of plunder. I suspect that the English will mobilize their forces before spring, that’s why I want to support the growth of Odin’s Sword, not its destruction. Let’s send recruiters. To Norway, Scania, the Danish islands, anywhere we might find men. Not mercenaries, but men hungry for adventure…”

  “Like us,” Sven interjected.

  “Yes, like us.” Olav managed a smile. “England is not my goal, Sven. It’s merely a method by which I will reach my goal, and I don’t intend to spend any more time here than I must. I want to earn my money quickly, then set my sails for the true prize.”

  “In this, we agree.” Sven reached out an arm for his jug; he poured the liquid out slowly, watching it flow. “Although I’m of the opinion that England is a cow that could be milked forever. But…” The wine was finished, and Sven waited until the final droplets fell into his goblet before putting it back down. “If we work so well together here, why not continue? Maybe once we are finished with England, we can move against the Swede together and take away his title of ‘Eric Segersäll’?”

  To plunder, rape, and burn? Will you come to Sweden? Świętosława spoke in his memory from years ago. Yes, if you’ll agree, he’d told her. Now he felt his shoulders and neck stiffen, as if he were turning to stone. Even his jaws set; he had to shake himself to answer Sven.

  “And then you’ll sail to Lade with me and we will kill Jarl Haakon together?” He banged his goblet on the table. “Let’s make a pact, Sven. Let’s earn as much as we need side by side, to win back our thrones, then let’s stay out of each other’s way. The north is big enough for us both.”

  “For us both? Agreed. But there is still the third, Eric Segersäll.” Sven poured mead into Olav’s goblet and handed it to him with a smile. “Let’s drink again, Silver Ole. And don’t be angry, friend, but drunk or sober, I will try to convince you to join forces with mine against the bald one.”

  He’s not the third one for me, Olav thought, his eyes on Sven’s. He’s the other one. The one who got the woman who should be mine. Olav knew he shouldn’t say another word. If he opened his mouth, he wouldn’t be able to control what came out of it.

  They clinked cups, and Olav drank a sip. The mead now tasted like the one in his memory, the one in the hunting lodge seven years ago. When Świętosława’s eyes had gleamed green and gold when he told her: I’ll defeat your husband and ask for the queen dowager’s hand in marriage. Would that suit you? It was still what he wanted.

  He walked Sven out of the tent. The fires in the camp were burning out; the time for sleep was drawing near on the Island of Misty Visions. Weak moonlight reflected off the waters. The rich and defenseless England lay on the other side. Olav took a deep breath, the air a mixture of the cold scent of the ocean, moist earth, and fire smoke. He knew that this was the smell of the camp on the Isle of Wight, but what did that matter? He could only smell one thing: Świętosława from beyond the seas.

  26

  POLAND

  Astrid freed herself from Sigvald’s arms and sat up on the bed, sweeping back her hair. She could hear his even breathing; he should be asleep. She was shaky, she wanted to gather her thoughts and prepare for her journey. The tone of Bolesław’s summons left her in no doubt; Mieszko wasn’t well, and they didn’t know if he had months or days left. But before she left Wolin, she had to have Sigvald’s word that Jomsborg would remain loyal, even after the duke’s death. She felt faint at the mere thought that her husband might betray them. No, anything but that. The work to which she had dedicated her life at Mieszko’s bidding could not fall apart.

  “As…” Sigvald whispered. “Don’t run away, wife. We’ve only just begun.”

  “I’m getting some water. Do you want some mead?”

  “No.” Her husband laughed, sounding as if he hadn’t been fast asleep moments earlier. “I will drink only what the enchantress does when I’m in her presence. Give me water.”

  “I’m not an enchantress. I hate it when you talk like that.” She passed him a cup and sat on the bed’s edge.

  Sigvald raised himself into a sitting position. His long dark hair streamed over his chest. He didn’t hide his nakedness; quite the opposite. He always gave the impression of someone who was just as comfortable without clothes as he was in them.

  “Would you prefer for me to call you a witch instead?” he asked teasingly.

  “No.”

  “So what should I call the woman who healed a dozen dying Jomsvikings? Twelve men over whose injuries swarms of flies were already circling?” His eyes shone oddly in the gloom. “I won’t forget the sight of their wounds, and the stinking green pus…”

  “Stop it. It was the venom from poisoned Finnish arrows.”

  “But what to call such a woman?” He touched her shoulder.

  “Call me what you will.” She shook his hand off. “Sigvald, I need to get ready to leave, you know that.”

  “You leave in the morning, and right now it’s a beautiful dark night.” He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her into bed. “Come here, Astrid. I need to make the most of having you here before I lose you.”

  “You won’t lose me,” she said, and once again felt cold fear squeezing her throat. “Where did you get that idea?” She rolled from her back onto her front and looked in his eyes. “Do you mean to leave me? Me, and the alliance?”

  He kissed her lips and smiled, studying her face as if trying to read the thoughts behind it.

  “No,” he replied slowly, touching her lips with his fingers. “No. For so long as you’re loyal to me, Jomsborg and I will be loyal to you, to your father, and your brother after him.”

  He leaned close as he said this, and she felt his breath on her face. She didn’t know how to feign love. She couldn’t offer words she knew to be untrue.

  “I am loyal to you, Sig,” she said, and reached for him.

  He responded by pulling her tightly to him, pressing his lips to hers in a kiss that had the flavor of a bite. She felt a wave of desire hit her belly like a storm. They clutched one another as if they hadn’t made love for years, though it wasn’t even the first time that night. No, she wouldn’t lie to him by professing her love; she didn’t love him. But he did awaken a wild, animal craving in her. A burning desire for fulfilment, that quickly turned to disgust after. Toward herself, for letting him wake the beast in her again. And toward him, Sigvald, a man she could never respect, because she knew his dark secret. The secret of Hjorunga Bay, eight years ago, when he, Jarl Sigvald, had been the first to call for his forces to retreat. And she knew that not all the iron boys had heeded their jarl’s command. That there had been some, like young Vagn, who said no, and fought Haakon’s forces. Yes, she knew the stories of his cowardice. The fear which caused him to run from the sea battle with Jarl Haakon. Sigvald had veiled this fear with stories of dark powers that supposedly fought for their enemies. She couldn’t love a coward, but she had to live with him, and what’s more, she was often afraid of him. She saw the evidence of his cruelty, the unpredictable changes in his moods, and his bravado. Who was he really? The coward who had run from a fight, or the hero who had imprisoned King Sven in Jom and forced a ransom to be paid for him? Whoever he was, all these thoughts were pushed out of her head by lust, like the wind which blows clouds out of its way. The beast in Astrid did not think, it desired the long-haired man with his catlike movements, who took her with the passion of a predator tearing into its prey, never closing his eyes, who seemed to revel in even the bloody scratches she was leaving on his back.

  “As!” he hissed as he climaxed.

  “Sig!” she replied, falling back onto the bed.

  Her heart beat in her chest in a violent rhythm, and her vision darkened. She gulped in air quickly, and let it out slowly. Two, three, four … she slowly felt more like her
self. The beast had fled into the night.

  “Ah, my beautiful As,” Sigvald murmured lazily. “I never doubt your loyalty when we’re in bed. Why do I fear for it so when you leave?”

  Because you’re a coward? she thought without opening her eyes.

  “I don’t know,” she replied quietly. “Maybe you are judging me by your own standards, Sig?” She tried to make her voice sound affectionate. “Maybe you want to break the alliance?”

  He lay on his side, propped up on an arm. A chain with the silver wolf head of Jom glistened on his chest. He was eyeing her as if he wanted her again.

  “No, Astrid. I’ve known many women, and none have pleased me as much as you. If a feast of many different dishes awaits me every night, I’d be a fool to look elsewhere.” He stretched a hand toward her and slid it along a strand of her hair, to her breast. He squeezed her nipple. It hurt. “You have my word that I will not look for another, but you have a promise of your own, just as important: if I find out that you grace another with your touch, then our duty to each other will end. I will be loyal to your family only for so long as you remain loyal to me.”

  “I have never betrayed you.”

  “Then pass on what I’ve said to your father and brother.” He smiled and kissed her lips.

  She didn’t flinch, though she tasted something bitter.

  * * *

  The yard of Poznań’s palatium was busy. Carts filed in and out, the servants rushing their tasks as if they were expecting guests. Laundry was hung to dry in the sunny part of the yard; snowy white sheets and heavy tablecloths for the duke’s table. Sturdy housewives, the rulers of Mieszko’s kitchens, commanded all movement like chieftains at war. At their orders, barrels were rolled toward the kitchens, baskets of vegetables carried in; cages of ducks and chickens, and nets full of fish, were brought. Hay-filled baskets of eggs and Hungarian wine. Since Bolesław had conquered Silesia, Lesser Poland, and then Slovakia and Moravia, a wealthy trade route had opened and goods from the south traveled to Poznań along a well-guarded road, including Bolesław’s favorite sweet Hungarian wine.

  Either he likes the beverage, or he drinks it when he misses the dead, Astrid thought, handing her horse over to a stable boy. She was a strange one, Karolda. An outsider that none of us really knew.

  “Run, Pecheneg. I’ll catch you anyway, coward!” The air was pierced by a wild shriek.

  The cries of housewives jumping out of the way followed swiftly:

  “Mary, Mother of Christ, the young Piasts!”

  “Purest of Ladies, save us, a civil war again!”

  “Lord deliver us from another Piast reunion!”

  Two boys chased each other across the yard. The elder was Bolesław and Karolda’s son, dark-haired and stocky. His name was Bezprym. He was chasing Mieszko and Oda’s youngest son, the chubby-cheeked blond five-year-old Lambert. The younger kicked up mud as he ran, screaming back to Bezprym:

  “You’re the wild one! Black Hungarian! I don’t want to be a pecheneg again. I want to be a margrave.”

  “Shitgrave, that’s what you can be.” Bezprym aimed an old apple at him; his aim was true.

  Lambert burst into furious tears, but he searched for a stone he might use to regain his honor. A third boy jumped out from behind the stables, the eldest of them all, nine-year-old Mieszko, Oda and Father’s first son, named after his father. He crossed his arms over his chest and made a menacing face as he said:

  “Silence now! The lord duke Mieszko speaks!”

  The boy lifted his chin so high that he didn’t see the chicken pecking at his feet, and the association Astrid’s mind made between it and father’s hawk was so comical that she burst out laughing.

  Bezprym retrieved a slingshot from his belt at lightning speed, took aim, and hit Mieszko’s knee with a pebble. The chicken ran away, losing feathers as it clucked throatily.

  “I defeated you,” he shouted happily. “And now, hand it over, you’ll pay homage to me. On your knees! And the fat pecheneg, too. Homage to Bezprym! And I’ll add a tribute to that, too. Lambert, you’ll give me the honey cakes from dinner, and you…”

  He didn’t get a chance to finish, because Oda’s servants caught up with them and separated the children. The housewives who had hidden away at the sight of the Piast battle returned to their tasks.

  Astrid noticed Unger’s tall silhouette in the distance: the new bishop. She nodded to him, and he raised a hand and held it in the air. He had once greeted her with the sign of the cross, not knowing she hadn’t been baptized. Now he knew, so he let his hand drop and returned her bow. She walked into the palatium, and though she wanted to run straight to Father’s chambers, she turned her steps toward the main hall first. She heard a child’s singing, so sweet that emotion clutched at her throat. And then a voice:

  “Astrid, it’s so good that you’ve arrived. Girls, welcome your aunt, the great Astrid of Wolin.”

  Four-year-old Bogumiła and three-year-old Regelinda, both dressed in wide blue dresses, both fair-haired and chubby, with flower wreaths of rue, lilies, and chamomile, bowed politely. Astrid bowed lower, saying:

  “Good day, my little princesses.”

  “May peace be with you, Astrid,” they said almost in unison.

  Emnilda, Bolesław’s wife, embraced her like a sister.

  “And where’s your son?” Astrid asked.

  The girls lifted fingers to their lips and pointed. Little Mieszko, their two-year-old brother, was sleeping on a bearskin, his arms wrapped around two of Bolesław’s big dogs.

  “How long ago did you arrive?” Astrid asked, lifting Regelinda into her lap.

  “My lord husband has been here for two weeks, the children and I joined him three days ago. The journey from Kraków took a week. Do you know how hectic it is when you drag a procession of wet nurses with you?”

  I don’t, Astrid thought, and suddenly felt sad as she looked at this little herd.

  “Did you send a messenger to Sigtuna? Does Świętosława know?”

  “She does. Bolz says that if he knows his sister at all, she’ll come.”

  Emnilda called Bolesław “Bolz,” the word Saxons used for an arrowhead. She couldn’t have chosen a better nickname. She also called him, out of respect for Mieszko, “her duke,” that is, the duke’s son. Since the two wed, Bolesław had stopped surrounding himself with mistresses. And who could be surprised at that, the woman was pure light and joy. She gave him a new child every year and seemed to only grow more beautiful. Astrid’s thoughts were unbiddenly drawn to her sister Geira, who had so longed for a life and a love like this.

  “I think that Bolz is mistaken, because how could it be?” Emnilda continued with a worried voice, caressing Bogumiła’s pale hair with slender fingers. “How is Świętosława meant to come here from the distant Sigtuna across the great ocean? She has a child there, a son. Will she come with such a young boy? I’m worried. He needn’t have worried his sister by sending her that message…”

  “Her little boy is older than Bezprym, who defeated two of Oda’s sons just moments ago, and demanded they pay him homage,” Astrid laughed.

  “That also worries me.” Emnilda gazed at her with blue eyes. “Those children are constantly fighting.”

  “Sons are like pups that must grow into hunting dogs.” Astrid shrugged and pinched Regelinda’s cheek affectionately. “Not like sweet little girls who sing in silver voices, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes, Aunt,” Regelinda agreed seriously. “Lord Father says that daughters are the joy of fathers.”

  You don’t know the cost of being your father’s joy yet—she thought of Mieszko and finally brought herself to ask after him.

  “There are better and worse days. Sometimes he doesn’t recognize us, he calls Bolz Czcibor, his brother, and me…” She was flustered. “… he calls me the names of many women. But he always recognizes his duchess, and becomes different with her around. You know…”

  “Submissive?”

&nbs
p; “Obedient. It irritates Bolz. Please, go and see for yourself. Talk to your brother; he’s been waiting for you.”

  * * *

  The last few years had hardened Bolesław; he’d spent them almost entirely in the saddle, on a never-ending mission of conquest. He had filled out and grown his beard, which he kept neatly trimmed, unlike the chestnut locks which reached his shoulders. Brother and sister embraced.

  “How do you make such beautiful children?” she asked, kissing his rough cheek. “And when, since you’re always off fighting?”

  “Do you want to send Sigvald for a lesson? Bishop Unger has set up a school by the cathedral, but I don’t know if he’ll reveal the secrets of an bedchamber. How is your husband? Will Jomsborg remain loyal to the dukedom?”

  “Give me a personal guard to ensure that the only guarantee of the alliance isn’t killed by bandits,” she said. “The roads from here to Jom are dangerous.”

  “They are?” her brother asked, anger in his voice. “The devil take them! I’ll order the castellans be chained up, their bloody job is to ensure the safety of all the travelers.”

  “Wait, wait, don’t rush to that end. I have arrived in good health.” She held her arms out as if for proof. “But the roads could be made safer, that’s all I meant. Now tell me, how is Mieszko?”

  “Like you said. The Saxon bitch is feeding him something. Poison.” He walked across the chamber with long steps, fuming, the very picture of fury.

  “I never said she was poisoning him,” Astrid protested. “I said, she gives him mead mixed with henbane—it alleviates pain, but also grants visions, hallucinations, sometimes mixes up the mind.”

  “So, she’s poisoning him.” He heard only what he wanted to hear. “Do you know what I think?” he said, pausing midstride. “Theophanu’s death was the last straw for the Old Hawk. He hated the empress. He allied with her, since he’d decided it was ultimately in his favor to do so, but he hated her, and she him. Father never forgave her that, even though the empress acknowledged our rights to the south and sent us her troops, she kept Bishop Unger under lock and key in Germany, not granting Father his full Christian rights. So, although she upheld the terms of their alliance, she made sure to also bare her claws. It doesn’t matter to you, pagan,” he said, brightening up, “but for the dukedom, the loss of a bishop was grave indeed. Father and Theophanu met at the Hoftag in Quedlinburg last year, and she gave him the title ‘dux Slavonicus’ to anger the Czechs, treating the Old Hawk as the most important of the Slavic leaders. They smiled at each other, drank together, exchanged compliments. But on our way back, he spoke so venomously of her…”