Kings of the North

by Kings of the North (retail) (epub)

  They trudged up through a fold of the hills. Snow had fallen during the night, and the land was white and featureless around them, the sky grey as wool. He was tired, and his mind seemed clogged; he would not think of the wolf, and so he could think of nothing else. He would go back again, just once. Just once.

  So, his senses stuffed with dreams, he led them stupidly into the ambush.

  * * *

  The cold was piercing and there was no sun. Laissa had her cloak bundled tightly around her, walking along in Raef’s track through the snow. The road took them along a crease beneath a hill, and, as they came around the curve of the hill, the men on foot rushed at her and she screamed.

  Raef lurched back, almost stepping on her. Down from the hillside came more Normans, with the Saxon Eadric Streona first. Streona shouted, “I knew you’d have to come this way!” He was swinging a sword as he ran.

  Laissa backed up rapidly, trying to find some place to hide, her arms wrapped around her belly. Out there on the road Raef was dodging and lunging among five or six men, but Leif had drawn his axe out of his belt and hammered one before they turned on him.

  Raef went sprawling. In a wild tangle of men, Streona hoisted up his sword into the air to drive it into Raef’s body. Leif jumped on Streona from behind, and then the other two rushed on Leif, and he fell on his back.

  The Normans closed on Raef, who still lay motionless on the road. Laissa pressed herself to a tree, stuck her fist into her teeth and whined. Streona raised his sword again, and from the far side of the road a huge white wolf leaped on him.

  The Norman screamed. He flailed with his sword at the wolf, and his men scattered, yelling, stumbling over one another. The sword went spinning off into the ditch. In the midst of the Normans, the great white beast dodged their blows, slashed and snapped among them. One fell limp to the ground before the others wheeled and ran, shrieking. The wolf charged after them.

  Leif was struggling to rise. He was bleeding from his side. He was saying, “Not bad, not bad,” but he sank down again, groaning. Raef still lay on the road, and Laissa went to him and put her hands on him.

  He was gone. She knew that at once, not dead, but gone.

  There before her lay a dead Norman, face down on the road in a puddle of blood. Beyond him Streona struggled onto his feet, one arm dangling. His face was covered with dust and blood, and his eyes stared wildly from this mask like shining stones. He got his feet under him and stood, and then the white wolf hurtled up from behind him and smashed him down again.

  Streona screeched and rolled, his arms flailing. The wolf lunged for his throat. Laissa flung herself at it.

  “No – he’s helpless – Raef! Raef!”

  The wolf spun around and knocked her flat and stood over her, and for an instant the savage blue eyes glared into her face as if she were a stranger, as if she were only prey, something to kill, and the bloody jaws reached for her throat.

  She whined. She gripped both arms tight over the baby in her belly. The white teeth snapped shut an inch from her. The wolf backed off, its head low, turned, and fled.

  On the road where he had been lying, Raef rolled over and stood up. He looked at her a moment, lowered his head, as the wolf had, and walked up the hill.

  Streona was scrambling away along the ground, using his feet and his good hand, getting some distance between him and them. Now he got up and shambled off, his arm flopping at his side, down the road after the others. Somebody down there shouted. A horse neighed.

  Leif sat up, breathing in sighs. He said, “Laissa, are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she said. Her lips were stiff. She was cold, not just because she had dropped her cloak. She got up, looking around. Down the road the Normans and Streona were hurrying away. They would not come back.

  In the other direction, Raef was still walking up the road away from them.

  Leif said, “I won’t let him hurt you; I won’t let him hurt you.” But he could barely stand. She went to help him, and, while he leaned on her and she leaned on him, somehow they went back to where her cloak lay.

  * * *

  Raef walked a long while before he stopped, stood, and thought about what had happened.

  He remembered the urge to kill. He had not thought, Laissa. He had thought only, Kill.

  He remembered the black wolf and put his hand to his ear. The wound there still festered. Half his ear was chewed up. When his fingers touched it a thin flick of pain ran down his arm all the way to his elbow.

  He drew in a long shuddering breath. The Lady had tricked him. She had heard him howling, and she had sent him what he wanted. He had done with her as a wolf what he would never have dared do as a man. And she had poisoned him, as surely as he had sown his seed in Laissa.

  * * *

  Leif’s wound was just a scrape, but Laissa made him lie down with his cloak and hers and went for wood to make a fire. She was not good at this, and she was still trying to get the wet, rotten wood to burn when Raef came walking back.

  She stood up, and, before she had thought of it, she had backed away several steps. He bowed his head. He went down on his knees by her miserable fire.

  But he spoke to Leif. “Take your axe,” he said, “and cut off my ear.”

  Leif threw the cloaks off and sat up. He seemed suddenly purposeful. He got onto his feet. “You were going to kill her.” He drew his axe.

  Laissa sat down on the ground, breathless.

  Still on his knees, Raef said, “Help me. While I was a wolf – something happened, and now she has – she – has— somehow – swarmed in my ear. I could do it myself, but it would be a botched job – help me!”

  Laissa rose. Leif took his axe in both hands and glanced at.

  “Hold his ear away from his head.”

  She pulled her sleeve down over her hand and cautiously drew next to her husband, where he kneeled. His ear stuck out through his long white hair.

  She gulped to see it. The whole outer edge of his ear was raw, eaten away and oozing purple and green. She took hold of the poisoned edge with her covered hand, and Leif hoisted his axe.

  “Stand back.”

  In his face she saw as plain as if he spoke that he thought of splitting Raef’s skull instead of his ear. Raef, kneeling at his feet, looked up and said, “Strike.”

  Leif brought the axe down. The blade passed cleanly between Laissa’s hand and Raef’s head and cleaved off the rotting ear.

  Raef yelled. Laissa still gripped the severed ear, and she flung it away, tore off her sleeve, and hurled the smoking cloth as far as she could. Raef kneeled there, the blood flowing from the gash along his head.

  She took her undersleeve, wadded up the cuff, and held it against his wound. They were all watching the ear, where it lay on the road, steaming.

  Laissa whispered, “God have mercy.”

  The shapeless flesh was bubbling, red and purple and green and blue; then the whole mass writhed up, clenching together like a hand gathering into a fist, only smaller and smaller, until with a burst of fire it disappeared.

  Raef put one hand against the wad over his wound. He turned and kissed Laissa’s hand, and then, still on his knees, put out his hand to Leif.

  Leif clasped it, hard.

  “You try a man. It went through my mind, what you know.”

  Raef said, “I knew you better.” He took Laissa by the wrist and drew her hand down from where his ear had been. The wound had already begun to heal. He said, “Let’s go find somewhere to spend the night.”

  * * *

  Up in the pass, a mile or so on, was an old rock house. Some earlier traveler had left wood under cover, and they built a fire and huddled together under their cloaks.

  Raef, after a while, said, “The hanged god gave an eye for wisdom. I can give up an ear.”

  Laissa said, “Are you wiser for it?”

  “I know I will not be a wolf again. I think that’s wisdom.” Beside them, Leif was sleeping. Laissa was hungry; they had eaten
nothing since around noon. She dozed, but she kept her arms around Raef, as if she could somehow keep him from leaving.

  * * *

  He did not leave. But he dreamed.

  He went down and down, along the spiral of steps, deeper and deeper. He had been here before. He knew what he would find at the end.

  At the bottom of the well he came to the door and opened it, looking out at the end of everything, the finish. The blank black collapse.

  A dread seized him: He felt drawn into it, felt himself leaning forward, falling, willing himself to fall, to be nothing.

  He said, “Face me. Are you afraid to face me?” while the hair on his head stood on end and his flesh turned rough as oak bark.

  A sizzle of light ran up and down around him, and there was a clash of filthy sound. A voice spoke inside his head. Do you think you force anything? You have done only what was intended. Take Jorvik. Stay in Jorvik until your doom comes.

  He said, “Under your roof I was born. You bought me in my mother’s womb. You and I are bound. I want to know—”

  A surge of electric fire went through him, an instant’s furious pain. Nothing is bound. You misunderstand. You cannot compel me.

  The dark stirred, streaming wraiths of smoke. Eyes in it. Faces rose and disappeared. Suddenly he saw Corban’s face, floating in the dark; Mav’s, the same face, torn to pieces and gathering again; Benna’s; and a flash that emptied out the inside of his head like an eggshell.

  Raef cried out, blind and thoughtless. The voice sounded again. They broke their promise: They bound me. Nothing is bound. They bound – they bound. Nothing is bound—

  Then the darkness was a wild stinking uproar, shredded light and rasping shrieks, hot against his face, and the voice blasted from all around him, outside and inside. You will die for me! You will die of me! You will die—

  He woke startled, lying in the moonlight, his ears ringing. He remembered Gunnhild saying, She is mad. When they struck her down in Hedeby, they took away whatever was good in her. Then Gunnhild let loose the evil and came to him to make it better. A spurt of fear and rage and resentment went through him. He put his head in his hands. You will die for me. He shut his eyes but did not sleep.

  Chapter Nine

  Aethelstan said, “London is the finest city in England. Even better than Winchester.” The hawk stretched out one wing and a talon and settled again on his wrist. All morning they had been down on the marshes east of Southwark, on the other side of the river, hunting hares. He loved the long gallops by the river; the clean, rushing air; the stoop of the hawk. “Look, there, you see that? That was a Roman palace once.”

  “Roman,” Edmund said. “You mean – the pope?”

  “No.” Aethelstan laughed and turned and cuffed his little brother’s arm, companionably. Edmund delighted him. “The pagan Romans. They were here once. A long time ago. Caesar and Claudius. Don’t you remember old Bede? A very long time ago.” He remembered mostly trying to avoid reading old Bede’s endless Latin.

  Edmund turned to stare at the ruined building. It was only three irregular walls, the stones black with age, but Aethelstan had no trouble envisioning something much larger, vague in his mind but grand. His brother said, “How do you know?”

  “You can tell Roman work,” Aethelstan said. He did not want to say that he had actually heard this from someone else. He liked Edmund’s awed looks at his knowledge. “The roads. That’s an old bath, up there.”

  “A bath?”

  “Like a sweathouse but fancier.”

  Edmund looked obediently where he pointed. Aethelstan searched around for something else to impress him with. Ahead of them was a burned-out house. He turned quickly away from that; Edmund already knew too much about how that had happened.

  Yellow flowers sprouted in among the char. Spring was coming. The wooden bridge carried them up and over the deep narrow trench of the Wall Brook.

  “There is the King,” said Aethelstan and lifted his horse into a canter down to the river street.

  Edmund loped beside him. He was a fair rider, and Aethelstan considered finding him a better horse than his placid little gelding. By the side of the street, Aethelstan reined around and took off his hat, and Edmund imitated him exactly.

  The King was coming toward them on his black horse. Obviously he was just down from Bishopsgate. Eadric Streona, Uhtred of Bamburgh, and a few other lords rode behind him, all in a cloud of pages and knights and hangers-on. Aethelstan and Edmund bowed, and their father lifted his hand to them.

  “Come with me! I would not have you idle – attend me now and I will find tasks to your hands.” The King’s voice boomed out. Ethelred was in a fine mood, his cheeks glowing red, and his eyes snapping.

  Aethelstan said, “Father, just command us.”

  “Yes,” Ethelred said, “better me than somebody else, anyway. Come on, then.”

  They rode after him, part of the loose mob of men who were riding and on foot around the King. The herald and some pages ran along ahead of everybody, calling the way. The river curved to the left, and the road followed the bank toward the King’s hall. The long ridgeline of the roof cut straight across the upright of the minster tower just beyond it.

  Another bridge crossed the ditch there. The herald and the pages went clattering over it; horns blew, announcing the coming of the King.

  A shriek rang out. Hoofs clattered, and Ethelred’s horse stood straight up on its hind legs, neighing. The King himself was hanging half out of the saddle. The men behind him scattered away. Shouts rose. The King stayed on his horse, but his face was twisted and his eyes bulged. He it was who had screamed first. He screamed again. He was staring at the bridge, and then his horse bounded backward as if something rushed at him from the bridge.

  “Get rid of her! Can no one get rid of her – Kill her – Kill her—”

  He lashed his horse around as if circling some obstacle and galloped over the bridge and on toward his hall. The other horsemen were strewn across the road, shouting out, and looking all around. A horse bucked, and somebody went flying off.

  Aethelstan said, “Come on,” and trotted his horse after his father. Edmund followed, but he was twisted in his saddle, looking back over the bridge at the confusion there. His face was white.

  “Who was that woman?”

  Aethelstan swiveled his head toward him, keen. “You saw her?”

  “Yes – I have – I’ve seen her once before, I think.” Edmund looked up at him, his face worried. “She must be mad, to run at him like that. Why was he so frightened? He won’t kill her, will he?” His face altered. “Didn’t you see her?”

  They rode into the stable yard of the King’s hall, where grooms waited to take their horses. Aethelstan gave the hawk to a servant and dismounted.

  “No. I have never seen her. And he did kill her,” he said, looking across the saddle at Edmund. “On Saint Brice’s Day. Come inside, he said he wanted to talk to us.”

  * * *

  Ethelred’s face was spangled with sweat. He sat in his high seat and shouted at them, “Don’t get yourselves involved in the feuds of this kingdom, I warn you. Make sure you know who your friends are. And they’re not always who claim to be your friends, boy.” He banged his fist on the arm of the chair. He drank more ale.

  Aethelstan said, “My lord, we are loyal. We serve only you.”

  Edmund lowered his eyes, remembering the meeting in the inn with Morcar and his fat, balding brother Sigeferth. His father knew everything, and he was glad of Aethelstan’s honor. He thought of the woman he had seen, rushing at him there by the bridge, her coif half off and her eyes dark with rage. She had shouted something. He caught himself making the sign of the cross on his chest. They said that on Saint Brice’s Day hundreds of people had died, all over England.

  Ethelred was still hammering at them, the same thing about making sure of their friends. He did this sometimes, went on and on, just to keep them standing there. Aethelstan had stopped trying to talk
to him. They both bowed whenever the King paused for breath, and finally he waved at them.

  “Go away. I have some charters to write tomorrow and I’ll need you both to witness.”

  Aethelstan’s face was white, his cheeks stiff. He said, “I’m going to tend to my hawk. I’ll see you at dinner,” and went off. Edmund drifted toward the far end of the hall.

  He thought about the woman in the messy coif. Slowly he made himself admit that she was a ghost, one of Ethelred’s victims. Why had he seen her, and Aethelstan not? He wondered what it meant to be good and honorable, in a place where such things happened as Saint Brice’s Day. If obeying Ethelred meant agreeing to murder, what was the right thing to do? His gaze moved around the room, taking in the other men around him, in their fine coats, their sleekly combed beards, the rings on their fingers and arms, all very polished. On the wall, the great banner of the House of Wessex floated in the drafts, the golden dragon writhing on its red field, the pride of Alfred, the hope of England.

  All this elegance meant nothing, a gilded lid above a cesspit. The world was evil, he thought. He wondered if he was evil. Maybe that was why he had seen the ghost. Unhappily, he went off to find something to do.

  * * *

  Aethelstan said, “This happens often?”

  “More and more,” said the physician. The King was still screaming but muffling his own voice with a pillow stuffed into his mouth. He sat in his nightshirt on the side of his great bed, shaking so hard the whole bed trembled.

  Aethelstan said, “He seemed very well yesterday.”

  “The Queen’s news cheered him. But then he had a dream, a terrible dream,” said the physician. “And he saw the ghost again yesterday.”

  “Where is the Queen?”

  “She has left; she cannot endure this – it is most harmful to her condition.”

  Aethelstan went to his father and kneeled at his knee. “Papa,” he said, and Ethelred turned toward him.