‘Don’t say that. You cannot die here, in bed. It is not a fitting end for a life lived so fiercely.’
That smile again. It made Harald want to punch it away but that would hardly be right. He ground the toes of his feet into the wooden floor.
‘Don’t hit a dying man, Hari.’
‘I wouldn’t.’
‘Really? Come, I have followed you since I found you bedraggled and torn beneath a bush at Stikelstad; I can read you like a battlefield plan.’
‘There will be no battlefield plans to read if you are not there, Ulf.’
‘Rubbish. I was always more your scribe than your creator and you will have Lord Torr.’
‘Lord Torr? Pah! He is not worth a hair on your big toe, my friend.’
‘I’ll have you know my toe . . .’ Ulf’s words descended into coughing and Harald watched, horrified, as Johanna rushed forward with a copper bowl and Ulf retched into it.
Blood hit the bottom, swirling iridescent in the sparkling container, and Harald felt caught in it, dizzied, drained.
‘Ridiculous,’ he admonished himself, turning away to give his friend the privacy to recover. ‘You have lived a life of blood, Harald – you can face a tiny bowlful.’ But right now he would take all the gore of the battlefield – all the hacked limbs and exposed sinews and spurting veins of open combat – rather than this. And so, he knew, would Ulf.
‘Otto.’
Harald turned back at the word.
‘Otto?’
‘He should be your marshal. He is a good man, Hari, and your son-to-be. Let him take the office as my wedding gift.’
‘I am in no mood for weddings.’
‘You prefer a funeral?’
Harald threw up his hands.
‘Ever, Ulf Ospakkson, you vex me!’
‘Pleasure to serve.’
Ulf smiled, more his usual sardonic grin than before, but Harald could see the effort was costing him valuable strength. He glanced to Johanna, hovering anxiously to one side. She would not thank him for troubling her husband but he had to ask one more thing.
‘Ulf?’
‘Hari.’
‘Should I invade England?’
‘How should I know? Just because I can see my own death ahead of me does not make me a soothsayer.’
‘I am not asking you to cast into the future, old friend, but into the past – our past. You know me better than anyone as a warrior so can I do it? Can I take the throne?’
Ulf reached out and took Harald’s hand. It felt strange in his – big and masculine – but he clasped it tight.
‘If any man can, Harald, it is you.’
‘But you think it a fool’s mission?’
‘No, I . . .’
More coughing. Johanna pushed past Harald with the bowl and a glare and he put up his released hand.
‘Just a moment more, please. I know he is your husband and I respect that, Johanna, truly, but he has been my friend all my adult life and I . . . I need . . .’ Words failed him.
‘You need my blessing?’ Ulf suggested hoarsely. ‘Maybe.’
Ulf took a sip of water and signalled Harald to pull him up on his pillows.
‘I am sick, Hari,’ he said. ‘I have been sick longer, I think, than I have chosen to admit even to myself. I have had no stomach for anything for some time, least of all a voyage into the unknown. This canker has robbed me of my spirit, I fear, but I beg you not to let it rob you of yours. You will make England a fine king, Hari, so, yes – sail with my blessing.’
‘But not your company?’
‘Sadly God calls this Varangian too soon for that. It has been an honour to serve you, Harald.’
‘Ulf, please . . .’
‘An honour and a pleasure and I ask just one thing of you now – do not die in bed, like this. It is not, as you said, fitting.’
‘No, Ulf, I was jesting. I . . .’
‘I know and I thank you for it, but trust me – you were right. Live well, Harald Hardrada. Die beneath your raven – though not for many years yet. I did not drag you out of that bush to get fat and lazy.’
Harald tried to smile but tears were in his eyes now and he dared not move a muscle for fear of releasing them.
‘Now go,’ Ulf said, offering him his arm. ‘Leave me to the womenfolk, for you have an invasion to organise.’
‘I cannot, I . . .’
‘Please, Hari.’ Ulf’s voice broke. ‘I do not wish you to see me this way. Please . . .’
Harald nodded. He rose and clutched his dear friend’s arm tight, a warrior’s clasp.
‘God be with you, Ulf.’
‘And with you, Hari. Though one thing more . . .’
‘What is it?’
‘I hear English beer is awful.’
He smiled, his full Ulf smile at last, and though the tears were falling now, Harald smiled back, then turned and left. He did not want to sail without his friend, his liegeman, but he would not fail him by refusing to do so. Let the winds blow – he would say his prayers for Ulf in York.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Sognafjord, July 1066
It was a sight to stir even a timid heart and though Tora knew hers was more timid than most, she could not help but feel strangely uplifted by the great mass of vessels at anchor in the mouth of the Sognafjord. Almost three hundred ships were ranged out across the sparkling water which lay as blue as Our Lady’s robes. Forever after this Tora was sure she would see blue as the colour of hope. Hope and more – purpose, determination, ambition.
Elizaveta had told her what Finn had said to Harald of his ambition and she had hated her lost uncle for it. Her own heart would choose to keep Harald here, in Norway, living out his reign in peace but it was not what he wanted. Nor, it seemed, was it what anyone in the country wanted, for on those ships were the best part of ten thousand men, every single one of them eager to set their sails to the west and win those ever-glittering Viking prizes – land, riches and glory. They trusted Harald to lead them and to do that Harald needed to trust himself. It was not for Finn to rob him of his hard-won confidence.
For months now vessels had sailed into the mouth of the fjord, some great jarls’ warships with full crews of sixty, some humbler fishing craft hastily adapted for braving the open seas. They bobbed on the water like moons around the great sun that was Harald’s magnificent new warship. Thirty-three benches long, with high sides and sleek ends curving gracefully up towards the sky, it was fronted by a huge eagle painted in gold, its wings spread wide over the waves. Elizaveta’s eagle, Tora thought, brave and free and desperate to soar high. And perhaps she was right.
Even from up here on the hilltop, Tora could hear the excited cries of sailors preparing to journey. Between the warships hundreds of skiffs buzzed across the water like insects, carrying barrels of water and dried meat, of cheese and the precious cloudberry, gathered up on the heathlands to keep the sailor’s disease at bay. On the sloping shores where the fjord gave way to the sea, men sat around fires mending ropes and sails, sanding steer-boards and oars, and weaving that most important of all journeyers’ provisions – dreams.
‘Is it not thrilling?’
Tora turned to see Elizaveta coming up the hillside, skirts clutched so high in her hands that she could see her ankles.
‘Lily – dignity!’
‘Dignity? Come, Tora, you know me better than that now. Sometimes I long for hose. When I wore them for the Rapids Race it was so easy to move.’
Tora pursed her lips over her instinctive response – Elizaveta was just looking to shock her as she always did and she would not rise.
‘All is set?’ she asked instead.
She longed for a negative, for a last reprieve, but Elizaveta just nodded.
‘All is set. The men are taking to the boats now. Harald says the winds are with us and as soon as the tide turns he will set sail for the Orkneys.’
‘And from there . . .’
‘To England. Lord Torr has harried the
south as he said he would. By all accounts he lost more ships than he gained but Harald does not need his men, just his maps. They look to meet at some river called the Forth where Torr takes shelter with King Malcolm of Scotland and from there to York where Harald says he will build Ulf a church.’
Tora smiled.
‘Ulf would like that – though in truth he might prefer an alehouse.’
‘As might Harald. He says he has a pagan heart, Tora.’
‘He may be right. When news came that Duke William would be marching under a papal banner he said he did not see what use a jumped-up Roman priest in a white dress would be to an invader.’
‘I hope he is right. He always said the Normans were fearsome fighters.’
Tora looked at Elizaveta and saw something new in her fiercely beautiful features.
‘Lily – you are afraid for him?’
‘Of course. I would be a fool not to be. He may have to defeat two armies: the English and the Normans. We can only hope they meet each other before he arrives then whichever is the victor will be weakened. If he must beat them both, though, he will – if any man can perform such a feat, it is Harald. He will follow his raven, Tora, and I will follow him.’
Tora jumped at the mention of the landwaster and felt in the leather bag she carried over her shoulder. The package was still there. She closed her fingers around it to pull it out but lost her nerve.
‘If he wins, Lily,’ she said, ‘I may never see you again.’
Elizaveta frowned at her.
‘Why not?’
‘You will be Queen of England and you will have your sister Agatha at your side. You won’t even think of me.’
‘Now you are being foolish. Of course I will think of you. I will be Queen of England, yes, and you of Norway. We must write always.’
‘We will be a whole sea apart.’
Elizaveta took hold of her face and planted a kiss, swift and sudden, on her nose.
‘It is not a big sea, Tora.’
‘It looks vast to me.’
Elizaveta peered closely at her.
‘You have never sailed it?’
Tora shook her head.
‘Only near to shore; never out in the ocean.’
‘Then this, my sweet, will be the perfect chance to try it. ’Tis barely two days’ sail to England and you will want, surely, to see Olaf in his new realm?’
Tora shuddered. Olaf was nearly sixteen. She could hardly bear to let him go and only his excitement at standing at his dizzying father’s side had stopped her begging for him to remain behind. Waiting for Magnus to return from the west had been a year of purest agony and she wasn’t sure she could face it again, especially with certain battle ahead. Olaf was tall enough, strong enough too but, like his brother, he was a peaceable soul. Her fault perhaps. She had cosseted them, kept them too close, and loved them perhaps too dearly.
‘I will keep an eye on him, Tora,’ Elizaveta said softly.
‘As you did on Magnus?’
‘Magnus came home,’ Elizaveta said stiffly and Tora hated herself for being so mean. It was just that everything felt so spiky as if it were she, not the eager warriors below, held at sword-point.
‘As did you,’ she said softly, ‘and you know, Lily, I was almost as pleased to see you as him.’
‘You were?’
‘I have a weak heart.’
‘Nay, Tora, you have the strongest, biggest, dearest heart I know.’
‘I do?’
‘Of course. Why would you think otherwise?’
Tora shifted.
‘I am not so . . . passionate as you.’
Elizaveta shook her head, smiled.
‘I sometimes think passion is the weakness, Tora. I promised Harald once I would be his constant queen, but in truth you have been far more stable than I.’
Tora opened her mouth to deny it but for once she silenced her self-doubt. How many times had Harald come to her over the years? She had told Elizaveta the day they first met that Harald needed her and perhaps, despite all he had with his exotic Rus wife, it was just a little bit true.
‘We have, it seems, worked well together,’ she admitted.
‘We have. It is hard to believe I hated you once.’
‘Hated me?’ As ever, Elizaveta’s frankness caught Tora unawares.
‘Of course – as you hated me.’
‘Hate is a harsh word, Lily.’
‘And they were harsh times but they are behind us. We have triumphed, have we not? Somehow we have been queens together and when I look back now I cannot imagine it any other way. You have given him sons to rule after him.’
‘And you daughters to rule him now.’
Elizaveta smiled, stepped away.
‘Maria seems sometimes almost to read his mind,’ she admitted, ‘and certainly to twist it to her own ends. She unnerved me when her arm ached for Harald’s injury at Nisa.’
‘Coincidence?’
‘Too much wistful sword play, or so I hope. And at least now she has Otto to preoccupy her. Harald says they will marry in England, when his new marshal is made earl.’
‘Poor Maria.’
‘The wife of an earl?’
‘No, not that – she will like that. I mean the waiting. It is hard on her, I think.’
‘You had to wait a long time for your marriage bed too, Tora. I am sorry for it.’
‘Oh, not as long as you think.’
The words slipped out before she could catch them. Elizaveta stared at her and Tora feared a blast of her friend’s stormy temper but instead she smiled.
‘When?’
‘No matter. I shouldn’t . . .’
‘When, Tora? Before he left Norway? Before Stikelstad? Oh!’ Her hands went to her mouth. ‘You were his first! You devil!’
‘I’m sorry.’ Tora knew she was blushing furiously. ‘I was young, so was he. Did you think . . . ?’
‘That it was me? Lord, no, but I always counted on some slippery Byzantine concubine. Oh Tora, I’m so glad it was you.’
‘You are?’
Tora looked nervously into Elizaveta’s dark eyes; even after all this time with her mercurial fellow queen she was never sure of the turn of her moods.
‘Of course I am. It means he is all ours.’
‘You think?’ Tora waved sardonically to the myriad warships below. ‘He is theirs, is he not? Their commander, their hero, their inspiration.’
Elizaveta slid an arm through hers.
‘In a way, yes, for he is a king, Tora. It is how it has to be, but he is a man too and that bit, my sweet, is ours.’
‘That bit?!’
‘Tora, no! Honestly, I try to be serious for once and you . . .’
But now Harald was coming up the hillside, his chain mail glistening in the sun and his ice-blonde hair locked beneath an iron helmet and suddenly everything felt very, very serious. Tora looked to Elizaveta but for once her fellow queen was frozen, her eyes on the Norwegian grass around her dainty feet, and it was left to Tora to say the words she had long dreaded: ‘You are ready to sail, Hari?’
‘Almost. I need my banner.’
Tora’s hand went again to her bag. Elizaveta stared at her.
‘Tora? What do you have in there?’
Tora fumbled awkwardly with the package, half withdrew it.
‘I asked Harald for it. I hope you don’t mind. I knew you wouldn’t have the time and you don’t like sewing as I do and . . .’
‘Oh Tora,’ Elizaveta interrupted, ‘stop gabbling and let me see.’ She seized the package and unwrapped it. ‘Oh!’
The raven flew free and now, all around the edges of the golden rectangle that contained it, the black and red border swirled, proud and glorious. Elizaveta stared at it and Tora thought she saw tears in her friend’s eyes.
‘You did this?’
‘I wanted to help. To contribute.’ Still Elizaveta stared and Tora felt herself curl up inside; she had not wanted to offend her, not now, with her
sailing to the Lord knew what. ‘I’m sorry. I thought . . .’
But suddenly Elizaveta was enveloping her in a hug so tight she thought a vice might have closed around her.
‘It’s beautiful, Tora. So, so much better than I could ever have done it. Now we will carry a little bit of you with us to England.’
Tora wiped away tears and clasped Elizaveta in return. She had never truly grasped her dear friend’s moods and maybe now she never would. She looked to Harald.
‘You will . . . you will take care.’
‘Take care?’ Harald lifted the banner high, admiring it. ‘I will take care to ride into battle before they do.’ Tora shivered and Elizaveta pushed at him. He relented. ‘I will try, Tora, though it does not come naturally to me.’
‘You will, at least then, win.’
He took her hand and bowed low.
‘I will win.’
Tora saw him again, then, leaping from a skiff, a wolf in the magical dusk of midsummer. He had chased her down that night and she had been a willing prey. Through it all, she had been a willing prey but now he was sailing away again as if none of it had ever been.
‘My wolf man,’ she said fondly, and then she was in his arms, hugging him so tight his chain mail pressed into her skin and then tighter again in the hope that its ringed imprint would stay there, etched upon her, until she heard he had won and he was safe.
‘You will come to the jetties, Tora?’ he asked when finally they drew apart. ‘You will come to see us off?’
She did not wish to. She wished to stay up here where the ships looked like toys and the men like speckles across her imagination. She wished to keep away from this mission that promised to gain them all so much and yet threatened to lose them everything. But she was Queen of Norway now, Harald’s regent, and she knew her duty. Always she had known her duty.
‘I will come,’ she said.
And so Tora stood on Norway’s western shore, Magnus at her side and a handful of guards at her back as the rest of her beloved country’s men – or so it felt – drew up their anchors, turned their prows to the open sea and set sail. She stood with all her precious country’s wives, mothers, and daughters, caught in the painful gap between pride and fear, and waved until the three hundred ships moved around the Solund Isles and tipped their red and white sails over the horizon.
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