This did nothing to ease the sailor’s fears. ‘She could do anything. We are all in her power.’
Fighting to control another surge of excitement, Valgard asked, ‘Who was she? Where did she come from?’
‘She raised the dead,’ the sailor muttered. ‘She was beautiful …’
‘And she came with you?’
‘Not us. Skargrim. Someone told me she murdered Ormar with his own knife. She was the magic of the north. She’ll find me. I can’t. I can’t abandon the gods. She’ll find me.’ The words tumbled out as silent tears streamed down the raider’s cheeks. ‘I can’t,’ he muttered, lapsing into silence.
After a moment’s thought, Valgard stood up and moved to his workbench. He came back with a small leather flask. ‘Here. Drink this. It’s for your throat. To make sure you breathe right.’ The prisoner gestured to his tied hands and Valgard snorted. ‘Forgive me. I’m thoughtless. Here.’ He leaned forward, touched the spout to the bound man’s lips and tilted very carefully. ‘Sip, but be careful.’
The sailor drank from the flask, sighing when Valgard took it away. ‘Thank … you,’ he managed before drifting off.
‘No. Not at all. Thank you,’ Valgard replied. He watched the sleeping man and listened to his breathing slow down. As it became more laboured, the sailor’s eyelids fluttered. The time between breaths increased. Then the man on the floor was still.
Exhaling, Valgard thought back on when he’d first seen someone die. He hadn’t been much more than eleven summers. She was an old woman; her hacking cough had irritated him. Passing in and out of sleep, she woke up in the hut where Sven used to teach him about healing. She shouted her husband’s name, confused and frightened. Then she fell silent. Valgard had watched as she sank back on her pallet and the life just … left. He’d gone out of the hut and vomited. He was easily rattled back then: a sickly, weak boy.
Seventeen years had passed and Valgard had seen more than his share of death since then. Like birth, it tended to involve blood, slime and screaming. Like birth, it was a lot more important to the people it was happening to than the rest of the world. It was a cycle, and it would keep on repeating.
Or so he’d thought.
He replayed the moments again in his head. As much as Valgard had been intent on his own survival when King Olav’s army walked into Stenvik, he had not been able to take his eyes off Harald when the raider captain started screaming on the wall, his wife Lilia kicking and squirming in his arms. He’d watched with growing horror as Harald denounced the leaders of Stenvik, mocked King Olav and ripped through Lilia’s throat with a jagged piece of wood, sacrificing her to the old gods, throwing her to the ground like a sack of grain. Valgard was on the point of turning away when he saw Ulfar rushing the stairs and charging the sea captain, only to be beaten back by Harald’s mad fury. Ulfar stumbled and Audun strode into the fight, throwing himself on Harald’s sword to get at the furious raider.
Valgard had seen Audun die in Ulfar’s arms after Harald crumpled before him. For all the raiders’ jibes, he knew what death looked like. He’d seen the sword come out of the man’s broad back, watched the muscles seize up and felt the life leave the blacksmith’s body, like it had left countless bodies before him.
And then he’d seen the tiniest bit of movement on the wall. Audun had moved. The shock on Ulfar’s face had told the rest of the tale.
Valgard had watched Ulfar jump over the wall, holding Audun – and then the survival instinct kicked in, tore him off the spot and hurtled him along. Blind panic pushed him to his hut just in time to retrieve the cheap cross he’d secretly bought off a travelling merchant when he’d heard the rumours of King Olav’s ascendancy. Valgard threw himself to his knees and started praying in Latin, not two breaths before King Olav’s soldiers burst through the door.
Since then he’d done his best to please his new master, but he couldn’t forget what he’d seen on the wall. Audun had cheated death, and it had to be connected to the attack somehow. That, or something to do with Ulfar.
In his quest for information, Valgard had volunteered to join Finn in christening the captured raiders from the north, but most had either drowned or Finn had snapped their necks when they refused to convert. A handful had come over to King Olav’s side, but Valgard did not trust them. This was the first tangible bit of information he’d received about the mysterious presence on Skargrim’s ship; there had been a bit of talk about a small, knife-wielding woman who’d been Skargrim’s boatman, but after living with raiders his entire life and spending a lot of time with Harald, Valgard discounted that as nonsense. He’d heard the stories after Audun killed Egill Jotun, but anything from the battlefield was to be taken with a pinch of salt too. No women’s bodies had been thrown on the pyre.
Well, except for Lilia’s.
Now, however, it looked like things were finally moving his way. He’d felt the truth in the sailor’s words. The man had been terrified. As sceptical as Valgard was of the old ways, the stories from the far north had always appeared to support the idea of magic, or some kind of connection with the gods. Now it fell to him to determine whether this was true or not. This was what he needed. He needed to go north – but how?
‘You must come.’ Finn’s voice shook Valgard out of his thoughts. The big soldier could move quietly when he wanted to. ‘To the longhouse.’
‘Why? What’s going on?’ Valgard said, rising slowly.
‘Hakon Jarl has replied, apparently,’ Finn said. His face did not give anything away.
Valgard raised his eyebrows. ‘Has he? Well then. Let’s go.’
Finn did not ask about the body on the floor.
*
When they entered the longhouse, Jorn was already there, sitting to the right of King Olav. It was very faint, but Valgard still heard Finn’s snort of displeasure. The longhouse wasn’t anything like as great as it had been in Sigurd’s time. War trophies had been ripped off the wall, along with weapons and shields. In their place was a big, broad cross that the king had ordered built out of broken weapons, to signify how faith overcame war, apparently. It caught and broke the rays of the sun. Valgard couldn’t help but think that a handful of Harald’s men would have turned the components of that cross back into tools of pain and death in an instant.
The king spotted them and gestured to the dais. They walked past an old farmer, sixty if he was a day, clad in muddy rags and clutching a sack that looked heavy. He was flanked by two watchmen as he shivered in the cold air. King Olav paid him no mind; the rough and discoloured woollen sack had all his attention.
‘Sit, Finn,’ the king commanded, gesturing to his left. Valgard took a seat by the wall. King Olav nodded very briefly to acknowledge his presence. Then he turned to the old man. ‘You bring a message from Hakon,’ he said.
‘Y-yes,’ the farmer stuttered.
‘In parts?’
‘That’s what the riders said,’ the old farmer mumbled. His voice trembled and he did not dare look the king in the eye. Judging by the sound of King Olav’s voice, Valgard thought that was probably a good idea.
‘So riders came from the north and brought you this,’ Jorn said. Sitting on the king’s right, the self-proclaimed Prince of the Dales looked altogether too pleased with himself. A lucky strike against the Viking Thrainn in what was supposed to be the Stenvik raiders’ last stand had given him some notoriety among the men; turning on Sigurd had not worked against him as much as Valgard had thought it would. Always well dressed and groomed, Jorn looked at home as the king’s right-hand man. He pressed the old farmer. ‘Why didn’t you tell them to bring the whole message themselves?’
‘They … they threatened me, my lord,’ the old man muttered. ‘They told me to take it to … the king … or I’d be on a spike.’
‘Very well,’ King Olav interrupted. ‘What’s in the sack?’
The old farmer shuddered, swallowed twice and drew a deep breath. Then he grabbed the bottom corners of the sack and tipped its contents
out onto the floor.
Two rag piles landed with a thud.
‘Oh, the—’ Finn muttered before he bit his lip.
Jorn stared dumbly at the rags. ‘Is that … his—?’ The messenger’s left hand had been cut off, as had his right foot. The farmer shook the sack. Another two bundles tumbled out and clattered onto the floor.
‘The men said … they said Hakon Jarl says you can come up to Trondheim and collect the rest any time you want.’
Like Jorn and Finn, Valgard held his breath. The tense silence was broken when King Olav smashed a mailed fist on the armrest of the high chair. ‘Why won’t he listen?’ he growled. ‘I bring peace. I bring prosperity. I bring a better life for him and his stinking herd of miserable sheep!’
‘The northern lords haven never been famous for caring much about their flock, my King,’ Jorn said. ‘Hakon Jarl has always been a hard master. I don’t think he would like to be ruled by anyone else.’ After a brief pause, he added, ‘It is a shame that he doesn’t understand what is best for him and his people. We’ll show him who rules next summer. Or next spring, even. Before he expects it.’
‘I’ll make him understand,’ King Olav snarled. ‘I can’t run the country while I wait for him to assemble an army.’
Valgard’s face felt hot and his heart hammered in his chest. The chance was here, right now. He cleared his throat. ‘Then why wait for spring?’
He barely managed to stand his ground when King Olav turned towards him. ‘What do you mean?’ Fury was burning in the king’s eyes.
‘Hakon is a savage, we all know it. He has been ruling the north for longer than I can remember, and he is by all accounts a strong chieftain.’
Jorn frowned. ‘Why are you telling us this? We know—’
‘But where do you fit into Hakon’s world, your Majesty? What are you to him?’ Valgard continued, addressing the king and ignoring the dirty look from Jorn. ‘An upstart? One of many challengers? Someone to be squashed? Or someone to be feared?’
‘More than five thousand men follow me. And the word of Christ,’ King Olav said.
‘And why do you think he had your messenger killed?’ Valgard said. The longhouse was suddenly very silent. ‘You knew he wouldn’t step aside. He certainly knows it. He also knows that autumn is here and winter is on its way. So he gambles. He decides to send a statement of his strength, to taunt you and eliminate the one man who could have told you what his forces are really like. While you stew down here, he gathers strength. Word will get around that he defied you; when winter clears, his stinking herd of miserable sheep may have grown significantly.’
King Olav watched Valgard intently. ‘So—?’
‘Take it. Take his challenge – but take it now.’
Jorn nearly jumped out of his seat. ‘That’s foolish! You could never—’
‘Stop.’ King Olav’s calm voice cut Jorn off. ‘Listen. You should listen more.’ The Prince of the Dales slumped back in his seat, and the king sat in silence for a little while. When he spoke again, he sounded almost curious. ‘Go north in autumn, you say.’ His words were directed to Valgard, but he looked to the sky. ‘I will … think about this. Leave us.’
Valgard followed Finn towards the door. The look on Jorn’s face as they left was not lost on him.
*
‘A-a-and then what?’ Runar said.
‘He just sat there. Didn’t say a word. Then he got up and went over to his little prayer table with the Bible, knelt down and started mumbling. He kept looking up at the roof. After a while I just left. I don’t think he noticed,’ Jorn snapped, whittling at a stick.
‘Th-this does not sound good,’ Runar said. He paced in the hut they’d been forced to share. Five thousand men were squeezed together in and around Stenvik, growing more hungry and restless by the day. ‘But we n-need to th-think about this. There may be opportunities.’ Outside, someone saluted as they passed by but got no reply.
‘But when? When do we do something? Anything?’ The knife bit into the stick and sent wood chips flying into a growing pile at Jorn’s feet. ‘I’m sick and tired of playing nice. Poisoning the food didn’t work, and—’
‘W-w-wrong,’ Runar stammered. ‘Poisoning the food worked just f-f-f-fine. Little f-food for them-m, n-n-n—’ Runar took several deep breaths to get the words out. ‘No b-blame for us,’ he added, smiling. ‘A-and we m-move when the moment comes. You’ll know,’ he added. ‘Y-you’ll know.’
‘This doesn’t feel very heroic,’ Jorn grumbled. ‘I’m not doing anything. The men will not think I’m doing—’
‘Th-th-that’s good, th-th-though. Because right now, K-King Olav is making a m-mistake. Or at least he’s thinking about it.’
Jorn sighed and rose. The house they’d been given was wooden, well made but simple, with only a few trophies mounted on the walls. They’d cleared out the dresses and a strange collection of leather bottles and had found a chest under the bed containing an impressive assortment of blades, axes and mean-looking spearheads – killing tools. They had kept these for themselves.
‘You forgot that there’s also less food for us,’ he grumbled.
Runar shrugged. ‘That’s no problem. You were s-s-starting to get fat anyway.’ He grinned. ‘Now all w-we need to do is w-wait until he decides how to m-mess this up.’
There was a knock on the door.
‘Who’s there?’ Jorn asked.
‘The king requests your presence,’ a boy’s voice piped up. ‘Wall. Now. Both of you,’ he added.
Runar smiled again, winked at Jorn and motioned towards the door.
*
They found King Olav standing above the north gate, looking out. In front of him, Stenvik Forest was a wall of red, yellow and brown, with only occasional dabs of green.
‘I have sought guidance on the matter. We will send a delegation to Hakon Jarl.’
‘A delegation, my lord?’ said Jorn. ‘But Hakon will—’
King Olav turned and looked at them. His smile was cold. ‘Jorn, you are a loyal servant and Christ commends you for your work. But you speak too much and too quickly. Like I said: listen more. We are going north to talk to the jarl. Our delegation will number three thousand men.’
Jorn took a few breaths to compose himself and digest the information. ‘As you wish, your Majesty. Who do you want with you, and who are you leaving behind?’
‘I will take you both with me. Finn will stay behind, command in Stenvik and speak with my authority.’ King Olav turned again, and Jorn risked a quick look at Runar. He got a grin and a wink in return.
‘Very good,’ Jorn hazarded. ‘Which men will you take?’
‘I want at least eight hundred archers, eight hundred foot, pike and as much experienced horse as we can carry. The rest is at your discretion. You’ve got a head for this.’
‘Thank you, your Majesty,’ Jorn replied.
‘That is all.’
‘Yes. Yes, thank you,’ Jorn said. Runar was already moving towards the stairs.
When they reached the ground, Runar turned towards him. His eyes positively sparkled. ‘W-we n-n-n-need to talk!’ he stuttered.
Jorn simply gestured towards the hut.
Once they’d closed the door, Runar bounded around the cabin. ‘Perfect. Perfect!’ he exclaimed. ‘You’ve already got the men from the Dales on your side. I’ve t-talked to some of the boys from the southeast – some of them could be swayed. Skeggi, B-b-botolf and his brother Ingimar might all cross over, and I think that would make up a good four hundred at the least. Now all we n-n-need to do is get them on the right boats. Put K-king Olav in a boat with us, thirty of our men, boat gets lost and the king finally gets to meet his precious m-m-maker.’ Runar grinned from ear to ear.
Jorn frowned. ‘Keep your voice down. I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all. It sounds stupid to me, and King Olav isn’t stupid.’
‘Even s-smart people make mistakes,’ Runar said, still grinning. ‘Sometimes they don’t know they�
�re m-making them until it’s too late.’
*
Valgard shuddered and pressed harder into the chair. It was starting to feel like King Olav’s longhouse would never be warm. They’d been in the middle of converting another raider to the good side when the boy had come to summon them. The man had not been … cooperative. Yet another soul which would not be joining Christ in heaven. He couldn’t help but think that the way this was going, the other side would be having one bastard of a war party.
King Olav gestured for them to approach. ‘I have consulted with higher powers. You were right yesterday, Valgard. We should strike, and strike now. Waiting is the wrong thing to do. So we’ll take three thousand men up north. Finn, you will stay behind and control this town in my stead. Valgard, you will stay with him to negotiate with the men of Stenvik. You’re one of them; they will trust you.’
Valgard had to fight to keep the panic off his face. He hadn’t been able to go back to his hut after yesterday’s meeting. Instead he’d walked the town, treading paths he’d stopped walking since the battle, allowing his mind to wander and listening to the sounds of the town, the voices in the huts. He’d almost been able to taste it; in his mind he had been on his way to the mysterious north to seek the source of the magic. To find the power. And now it was all being taken away. He had to think of something, fast. ‘Erm, your Majesty, I am not sure they’ll trust me too much. They will not forgive me for abandoning the old gods.’
‘Do you fear them?’ The king looked mildly curious.
‘I am not a warrior,’ Valgard said. ‘I have lived in this town all my life, endured their taunts – they hated me because I couldn’t fight, they despised me because I knew things they didn’t, and now they fear me because I believe in the one true God. I do not doubt that if you were to leave me here, some of them might seize the opportunity to do me harm.’
‘Finn will be with you, as my voice. I’ve known and believed among the savages, and with Finn by my side no harm has yet befallen me. You will be his advisor. He will be acting chieftain of Stenvik.’
The Valhalla Saga Page 32
