Kings of the North

by Kings of the North (retail) (epub)

  Leif took his can, reassured. People didn’t buy drinks for people they were about to arrest. He looked Streona over again, a handsome young man, a ready smile.

  The Saxon faced him, solemn. “You know, you yourself, Leif whoever you are, we would let you walk on anywhere you wish.”

  “Yes,” Leif said, his gut tightening. “But it’s somebody else, isn’t it? What’s he got himself into this time?”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “As far as I know, he’s at the court. The King summoned him this morning. You’ve lost him so soon? What about Laissa?”

  “Laissa. The girl? We have her.” Streona shrugged that off as unimportant. Leif lifted the can of ale, giving himself a chance to think about this. They had her. He wondered what that meant.

  “But you’ve misplaced Raef.” He cursed Raef silently for abandoning Laissa to them. “Where is she?”

  Streona turned, sharp eyed, and said, again, “We have her. Nice tender bit.”

  “Leave her alone,” Leif said roughly and at once regretted it.

  Streona’s teeth showed. “So. It’s her, is it. Not so happy with him, but you’d do a lot for her, wouldn’t you?”

  Leif lifted his head, silent, wishing he had been silent sooner. He met the Saxon’s pale, clever, mirthless eyes.

  “Tell us where he is,” Streona said. “We were supposed to kill him, but we missed. Tougher than he looks. Just take us to him, and we’ll let you and the girl go free.”

  * * *

  In the Queen’s bower Laissa sat up, panting, her hair all in her face, and looked around her; she was alone here. The place was pretty, with flowers of silk and jewels, painted jugs, and cushions and stools. The walls were covered with rugs. She thrust at the air with her hands, trying to get away.

  “Why am I here? Who brought me here? Where is my husband?”

  The door opened and the English Queen came in. The door swung shut behind her.

  Laissa fell still, wary. The Queen was young, roundly made, with fine little hands and a pretty smile, pretty like this room, but Laissa felt in her something else, something she had no name for and no way to see, but which she could barely resist, somehow, as if a flood pressed against her. She bent down, bowing.

  Emma said, “No, sit, my dear. Let me speak French to you. Do you speak French?”

  Laissa understood it, but her uncertain skill at speaking it abruptly vanished. “I – Me – I—”

  Emma laughed, sat on the soft cushions, and, reaching out, drew Laissa down beside her.

  “No need to talk. I knew when I first saw you we should be friends. I so need a friend here, you cannot know.” Suddenly her huge dark eyes quivered full of tears. Laissa shrank away. The pressure on her was like something crushing against her, all around, and yet she saw nothing but this innocent, eager child.

  “Please be my friend. My lord the King will give your husband all the preferment he wants.” Emma caught at Laissa’s hand. Her eyes were hot, still damp with tears, but the tears forgotten now. “Kiss me, let us be sisters.”

  “My lady.” Laissa twisted away. “I – Me – worthless. Me unworth.”

  Emma laughed again, a sound like birds or bells or breaking glass. “Let me determine that. I knew at once how good you are, how true and kind. Come, give me a kiss, to bind us together as sisters. Friends.”

  “No.” Laissa stood, trying to twist her arm out of the Queen’s grasp; how could so small a girl be so strong? “I go – My husband—”

  “I am telling you your husband will be great in the King’s eyes from this day on, if you will but grant me this one boon.”

  Laissa turned and looked at her, confused; the girl’s round face, with her milk-white skin, her deep dark eyes, seemed so innocent. Maybe Raef was wrong, she thought. Why should she fear such a gentle girl? She could make Raef a great man here, just for a little kiss. Slowly she drew nearer, her face uplifted to the Queen.

  * * *

  Raef reached the stable where they had spent the night; for their coupling he had taken Laissa deep into the low narrow back of the barn where the straw was high and nobody could see, and he went in there now behind the bales of hay and sat down. It was dim and shadowy here even in the middle of the day. He settled himself and shut his eyes, but for a moment his body was rigid as iron, would not let his mind out, a shrieking warning all along his nerves.

  He gathered himself; he made his mind creep out onto the field of light and time.

  Here in the city the field was no smooth circling glow but a fire heap of hot and dark, lights flashing and leaping in arcs, the seething and spinning of the hundreds and thousands of people all going different ways, all up or down or sideways with their thoughts; he flew through it like a bird through a thick, burning forest, weaving and soaring and diving.

  Yet he saw Laissa at once, far away, the bright golden light of her, all his love in one moment. Around her, swirling thick and black and stinking, was his enemy, about to surround her, envelope her, consume her entirely.

  He saw not a thing but a hole in the light field, trying to draw Laissa into the abyss.

  He flung himself across the space between them, banging and scraping around the upheaving light field like a bird through a burning forest, and dove headlong into the filthy stench and the howling. He screamed, although the roar around him soaked up the sound entirely. All around him was the smoke, heavy, full of grit, choking. He thrashed at it, trying to scatter it. The Lady had hold of Laissa. He knew that even as his mind began to shiver and shake and crumple. That made her weaker against him, having to keep hold of Laissa. He was falling into shreds. Scraps of color flew by. He saw Merike’s hands; he heard Conn’s voice. For an instant, he was on the island, carrying fish. Each swift piercing instant flew away empty. He thrust forward what of his mind he still controlled, into the stench and the heat and smoke, screaming his name so he could remember who he was.

  * * *

  Laissa bit her lip so hard the blood ran on her chin; she cast a quick look at the gate into the bower. There were men outside, the Queen’s knights. What they would do if they found her this way she dared not risk finding out.

  The Queen had frozen, was still as ice, not even breathing, her eyes wide. Her grip on Laissa’s hand was like a steel ring. There was no one else in the bower, and yet all around the air had gone suddenly dark and dirty, with a horrible stench, and it whirled around her like a storm wind. In the middle of it Emma sat like a stone.

  Laissa pulled at the Queen’s hand on her wrist, made claws of her fingernails and ripped at the white skin of Emma’s arm. Nothing moved the grip on her. Then she remembered finding Raef this way, and she swung her arm and hit Emma as hard as she could on the face.

  The girl startled all over. For a moment her white-brown eyes turned on Laissa, soft, confused. Laissa pulled free of her slackening grasp. Then the brown eyes dissolved into a wild spinning fire, and Laissa lunged for the door.

  * * *

  Raef felt Laissa break free and gave a yell of joy. The Lady boiled around him, a fury hotter than the clearest flame, iron smoke, hideous deafening screams in his ears, encompassing him, a smothering of shit, of offal, a twist of pain all through him like a wire through his spine. Then abruptly she released him. He hung an instant in the bower, Emma before him, the filthy smoke seeping back into her through every pore.

  He held there only a moment. He knew he had not beaten the Lady. She had gone to do something else. He had to get out of here. Wheeling, he followed Laissa.

  * * *

  Laissa ran all the way to London, through the crowds of people on the river street, to the stable where they had spent the night. She called his name, but he was not there. She went back past the stalled horses, a line of rumps hipshot in the dark. Where they had slept on the comfortable straw was empty, cool, and dim. Their cloaks and packs were still buried in the straw under the rick. She stood, panting, her mind numb. Then she remembered lying wrapped around him in the
dark.

  She crawled around behind the rick, pushing on her hands and knees through the heaped straw at the back, where he had hollowed out the space for them, safe from other eyes and ears. It was dark there, even now, and close.

  He sat at the back end of the hollow.

  She said his name. She went up before him. He did not move. Like the Queen he was stone still, his eyes stared, and his mouth hung open. Then, before she could cry out, she saw him come back.

  His eyes widened, and his skin flushed. He lifted his head and looked at her and smiled. She went slack with relief. He leaned forward and kissed her. “Come on. We have to find Leif and get the hell out of London.”

  * * *

  Emma lay sobbing on the cushions, and Ethelred rushed in ahead of the guards who had come and gotten him when the girl fled. The King sank down on the cushions by his wife and caught her in his arms.

  “Now, child. Oh, Emma. Hush. Hush. I’m here.” He held her against him, her body trembling. “What happened?”

  She raised her head, her face all sick with tears. “Someone— someone came at me—” She put her hand to her face. “Hit me—” Ethelred gasped; he saw the bruise growing on the side of her head and laid his hands on her cheeks and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Oh, child. Who? Who?”

  “I don’t know who – a Dane—”

  “A Dane.”

  He spat an oath in his guttural language. He set her gently down on the cushions and sent one of the guards for her maids. It did not occur to him to ask why she was here anyway without her maids. To the other guard, he said, “Go find Streona. Tell him now it begins. Tell him the word – Strike.” In the corner of her eye she saw him swell with the power of saying this. She gave another shuddering sob.

  “I will kill every Dane and every half Dane in my kingdom,” the King said. He bent down and laid his hand on his sobbing wife. His voice was slick with a strange kind of lust. “There, there, cry no more. I shall avenge you.”

  * * *

  Leif came out of the alehouse onto the street. “Well, I guess he’s not there either.” The afternoon sun was bright and low, and he shaded his eyes.

  Streona came up beside him. Two mailed men, Normans, walked behind them, muttering to each other in French. Streona wasn’t smiling anymore, his thick brows folded over his nose. He said, “You have any more ideas where he could be? I thought you knew him well.”

  “I thought he was at the court,” Leif said, looking away. He wanted to know where to run when Streona finally turned on him. Off down there was a market, where the people were beginning to pack up their stalls for the day; at the edge of the street some baskets of unsold nuts and bruised cabbages stood beside a furled awning.

  Then a Norman on a big horse galloped up from the other direction. Streona at once stiffened, alert, and the other knights stood sharp. The horse slid to a stop on the muddy street. Still in the saddle, the Norman raised his fist.

  “The filthy dogs attacked the Queen! The King has ordered them all slain!” He spoke French. “Today we get rid of all the Danes and their friends!”

  Streona yelled, “Starting with this one,” and turned toward Leif, drawing his sword. But Leif, understanding the French well enough, was already running into the market.

  He vaulted over the stacks of cabbages and nuts, into a street where people were packing up their goods on mules and into wagons, but, before he had wound his way through the wagons, he could hear screams in the next street. Streona bellowed behind him. He ducked into a lane down between two withy fences, panting. He was too old for this. He had always preferred anyway to think of a way through things rather than fight.

  He watched the street he had just left until he saw Streona and his men pushing their way through the crowded market, shouting, striking at people to get them out of the way. Still after him. He sprang over a low fence and went through an orchard of bent, gnarled trees, going toward the stable where they had spent the night before.

  He had to find Laissa. Raef could take care of himself, damn him. Laissa needed him.

  The sun was going down. The streets streamed with a raw red light. He came out on the high street and saw a mob of armed men on foot surrounding a house, and, even as he stood there in the alley getting his breath, he saw them drag two men out of the house and hack their heads off.

  Inside, women were shrieking, and on the thatch there grew up a tree of fire.

  He went down the street on the side away from the mob; there was smoke now rolling up from the center of the city too, and a howl rose somewhere nearby like the baying of some vengeful animal. Two men ran by him, looking back, and plunged away down the street, and then almost at once after them came a stream of horsemen. Leif shrank against a wall. The horsemen caught up with the two running men, and the first rider leaned out from his saddle and slashed them down with his sword like a boy knocking the heads off daisies with a stick. The horses galloped on; the two bodies lay in the street. Leif hurried on, looking all around now, his palms clammy.

  Kill all the King’s enemies. Someone had attacked the Queen. They had Laissa – they had taken Laissa. He turned a corner and saw two more houses burning and a pile of bodies in front of them, and, as he watched, two men hurled another body on top, a child, a little child, all bloody.

  He reeled away from that, fumbling his way blindly downhill, and then someone called his name.

  “Leif!”

  He wheeled, and Laissa ran into his arms.

  “Oh, girl,” he said. “Oh, girl.” He hugged her tightly. Raef stood behind her, his eyes half-closed, his face drawn and worn.

  “We have to get out of here,” Raef said. He thrust Leif’s fur cloak and the pack at him.

  “You found her,” Leif said. “Eadric Streona said—”

  “Come on. They’re after us.”

  Raef led them back up toward the high street, following the narrow lanes through the gathering dark. Leif swung the pack over his shoulder; the last of the money jingled softly in there. He clutched Raef’s arm, trying to turn him off this path.

  “Not that way. They’re killing people up there.”

  “They’re killing people everywhere,” Raef said. “We have to warn Arre.”

  “Why would they go after her? She’s just a woman.”

  Raef said, “They’re from Jorvik. They’re half Danes.”

  He led them swiftly, certainly across another wide street, where down a hundred yards a house burned and men ran back and forth shouting. Leif kept hold of Laissa by the hand. He thought, We have to get out of here. He almost stepped on a body. The thick smoke rolled down the street, and he stooped a little to breathe. Suddenly in the street ahead of them, the ground collapsed into a pit the size of a grave.

  Raef, in the lead, muttered, grabbed Laissa’s free hand, and towed her off down a lane; Leif followed. They were still going away from the river. He kept hold of Laissa, his breath short.

  They went almost running along the bank of the dirty little brook, past the bridge. As they went by the bridge, a sudden fierce gust of wind knocked Laissa down. Raef scooped her up, her knees over one arm and her shoulders over the other. Turning, he caught Leif’s eye.

  “She’s chasing us,” he shouted. His blue eyes were wild.

  “Who?”

  “Keep moving,” Raef said. He was still carrying Laissa in his arms. “We have to keep moving. There’s—” He pointed ahead with his chin.

  Across the narrow square Euan Woodwrightsson’s great house stood two stories high behind its fence. Lights gleamed in the yard. The gate of the fence was locked. Leif said, “Are you sure we should—” and then the house burst into flame from top to bottom, all at once.

  Raef stopped still, the ruddy light like paint on his face. Laissa, in her husband’s arms, whimpered against his chest. Raef said, “Too late. They’re all dead now.”

  “Let’s go,” Leif said.

  They hurried on. Behind them a stone wall collapsed on the street wher
e they had been, and Raef glanced back and began to run, Laissa in his arms with her arms tight around his neck. Leif ran with him. They came to the old stone wall of the city, and Raef led them along it. They came to a main gate, crowded with shouting people, and turned back the other way.

  Steps led up the wall to the rampart. Crouching in the cover of the notched battlement, they looked south over the city. Flames and smoke rose from down near the river, in patches from their left and right. Leif looked over the edge of the wall. He could not see the bottom.

  They made a rope of their belts and cloaks and Raef’s dalmatic. Leif climbed down first; the rope ended in midair, and he dropped into the dark.

  He hit the ground only a few feet below. Laissa shinned down the makeshift rope after him, and Raef drew it up, lodged it against the battlement, and swung down after her. From the bottom, he twisted and shook and swung the rope until it came loose. Beyond the wall came the muffled screams and cries of the city. Off in the east, beyond a line of trees, the late moon was rising. They strapped their belts on, and Raef put his shirt back on; they swung their cloaks around them and ran off into the dark.

  * * *

  Aethelstan stood boldly there before the King, where none of the others dared even speak a word, and said, “This will be our doom, my lord. You have stained your name forever with this bloodshed. You killed your own people today, as well as Danes. This will only give Sweyn Forkbeard another excuse to come down on us.”

  Ethelred sat on his throne, one leg cocked up. He had just eaten. His beard was scattered with crumbs. The boy Edmund, standing shyly behind his brother, thought Aethelstan the bravest man in all the world to confront his father, the King, like this. His younger brothers had not come at all, hiding behind their nurses.