Kings of the North

by Kings of the North (retail) (epub)

  Someone had died, or at least was dying, and a group of quiet people sat around him. Raef was one of them. A man among them was bleeding from a gash on his face, and some others were slumped against the wall, obviously hurt. The whole side of Goda’s face was purpling into a bruise. Even Leif was limping. And it wasn’t over. She realized she was hungry and alone and this was not over.

  She realized suddenly that it would never be over. If not Uhtred or Raef’s demon, then some other evil would infest them. They would have to fight forever. She held the baby against her, warm and smelly; she had not changed her rags all day. She went down the stairs, to go find clean clothes for her child.

  Miru caught up with her. “Where are you going?”

  “To the church,” Laissa said. They were near the foot of the stair; Gemma snuffled, her nose running, and Laissa wiped the baby’s face with her sleeve.

  Miru said, “You have to be careful.”

  Laissa wanted to be alone, to think over this whole situation. “Could you bring me some—” Her eye caught on a white head, vanishing around the corner of a building.

  It was Tem, the old shepherd who had threatened her. A prickle of suspicion ran along her hands. She turned to Miru. “Come on.”

  “What?”

  “I just saw—” She led the butcher’s wife around the corner where the shepherd had gone and saw him, far ahead down the street, hurrying toward the river. She pointed. “What’s he doing?”

  Miru shrugged. “He’s an old busybody.” But she frowned. “Let’s go see.”

  They followed Tern’s white head down through the fringe of the village. On the wall even here people were laughing and dancing and celebrating, and nobody paid much heed to them. Ahead, Tem came to the bank of the little creek that ran down into the river just inside the wall.

  Laissa grabbed Miru by the sleeve and held her. “Look.”

  Tem was climbing down into the creek. He stooped below the high bank and disappeared from sight. Laissa looked up at the wall, where nobody was paying much heed to this.

  She said, “Where does that creek run?”

  Miru said, “Up that way.” She gestured vaguely toward the middle of the city. “It runs into the Ouse right by the foot of the wall.”

  Laissa looked into her eyes. “He’s sneaking out of the city.”

  Miru’s broad forehead rumpled. “Trying to escape, the miserable old coward.”

  Laissa said, “No – then he would go north.”

  The other woman’s eyes widened. She swung to stare down at the creek, whose bank hid Tem from sight. “The wretch.”

  Laissa laid one hand on her arm. “Go down and keep watch there. See if he comes back in.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To tell Raef. Whatever he thinks of me, he has to know this.” Laissa hitched the baby up on her hip and ran back up the slope toward the hall.

  * * *

  Uhtred said, “Who is this?” He stood up. The guard had come into the door of the tent. Uhtred reached for his sword, hanging in its scabbard on the tent pole.

  “Some peasant, my lord,” said the guard. “He’s offering to hand over the city to you.”

  “Bring him here.” He strapped the sword belt on.

  “He says for you to go to the edge of the camp, my lord. By the river.”

  Uhtred thought this over, but he had expected something like this. It should be obvious to everybody who would win here. They had almost won that day. If he had not put his archers in the wrong place, they could have shot down the men on the gate who changed the course of the fight, and all those people would be dead now or would have given up.

  It was almost sundown. He was planning to attack the next day, in another place, so this peasant had arrived at a good time. He took the guard and another man and went down through the camp, still trampled and disorderly from the loose horses. At the edge of the willows that marked the edge of the river he left one guard, in case he needed help, and followed the one who had brought the message down a thread of a game path through the tangled thickets.

  The bank here was deep, six feet down to the rushing water. Ahead the bank flattened down onto a shelving gravel bar. An old man in shepherd’s boots waited there in the last sunlight. The ripples of the river glistened faintly behind him.

  The old man said, “I can give you a way in without any trouble. Nobody else has to die. A key, like to the gate.” He grinned.

  “Good,” Uhtred said. “What?” He imagined a sneaky way into the city, maybe on the far side.

  “That Raef? That white-haired bastard who calls himself the King of Jorvik? I can get you his wife and child.”

  Uhtred clamped his mouth shut, bridling at this. It was a low evil, using a woman and a child. The old man was going on, “If you have her and the child, he will yield. I have seen him so loving with her you’d think she was his harlot. Agreed?”

  Uhtred said, tight-lipped, “What do you want?”

  “I will be your reeve in Jorvik – Jor’ck, as you call it. I will take the taxes and send people to you for the quarter day and keep the law.”

  Uhtred relaxed, pleased. When he had Jor’ck, he intended still to obey his orders: He would move out any survivors and level the place. This wicked old man would get nothing at all, not even what he had now. That evened out the dishonor of using a woman. He said, “How will you get her to me?”

  “I’ll bring her here, with the child, tonight at midnight. I and some of my men.” The old man puffed himself a little. Uhtred thought again, grimly, This was a low business, stealing women, and in the end it might not work. But if it did work, he would have the city. He nodded.

  “Midnight, then,” he said. “I will be here, and with a host of my men, so don’t try any tricks.”

  The old man leered at him and stuck his hand out, as if he thought Uhtred would shake his hand. Uhtred ignored it. Finally Tem went down the river toward Jor’ck, and Uhtred went back to his camp.

  * * *

  Tem poled his boat back up the riverbank; when the wall loomed up over the straggle of willows, he hid the boat under the overhang and waded the rest of the way, stooped over, until he came to the mouth of the Foss. The wall stood high over him, but the creek’s bank was steep here, undercut, and he crawled along it, close to the side, where no one could see him.

  The girl was staying in the church; it would be easy enough to grab her. He would bring a couple of his shepherds to do the work. If she fought, he would take the baby. She would do whatever he said for the baby’s sake. Crawling along in the muck he chuckled to himself, thinking how clever he was to have thought all this out so well. He went far up the creek until he knew that an old house would hide him from anybody on the wall and stood up.

  Then a hand fell hard on his shoulder. He started, his mouth going dry. A voice said in his ear, “I think the King wants to talk to you, Tem.”

  It was the fat man who had come here with the white-haired upstart. Tem said, “No – I have work to do—” His voice came out squeaky. “You can’t give me orders!”

  “Make a bet on that?” The fat man swung him up bodily off the ground and slung him over his shoulder. Tem yelled, beat his fists on the man’s back, kicked uselessly. The fat man laughed; he was much stronger than he looked. He carried Tem up the hill, while Tem began to think of any lie he could tell to get out of this, any lie at all. He squeezed his eyes shut, afraid.

  * * *

  Uhtred went down toward the river in the dark; he took along three of his men, but he left them at the edge of the willows as he had before. He could deal with a girl and her baby, and he did not think the old man was smart enough to hurt him. In any case, one shout would bring his men to his side.

  He wanted to see the girl alone, first, to let her know that he would protect her. That took some of the sting out of using her. He wondered, briefly, how grateful she would be for his protection.

  He found the path and threaded his way through the drooping tre
es to the riverbank. The moon was bright, glistening on the water, and when he walked out onto the bare pebbles of the riverbar, the girl stood there alone with her baby in her arms. He cast a quick look around and saw no one, not even the old man.

  He started toward her. “Don’t be afraid—” He sensed somebody behind him, and an instant later everything went away.

  * * *

  He woke up lying on a flagstone floor, at the foot of a high seat. There the white-haired man sprawled at ease, one foot stretched out before him, and the other bent at the knee. His right ear poked through his long white braided hair, but there was no sign of the left. The girl Uhtred had seen on the riverbar came up beside the high seat and put her hand on his shoulder; so she was his wife, as the old man had said.

  Uhtred cast a look around. He was in a hall, with one end wall missing and only half a roof. He realized he was in Jor’ck.

  The man on the high seat said, “You have a choice, Uhtred. I can kill you, or you can go back to Bamburgh. Which is it?”

  Uhtred faced him and laughed, unbelieving. He could not fathom this, any of it. He got cautiously up onto his knees. He wasn’t bound. He looked around again; there were other people behind him, men and women, everybody watching. The white-haired man gestured, and a boy brought Uhtred a cup of ale. Thirsty, he took a deep draft of it.

  “What is this choice?” he said. “To die or to lose nothing? What choice is that?”

  The white-haired man’s long mouth curled up at one corner. He had bright blue eyes, and his look made Uhtred uncomfortable, as if he saw straight through his skull.

  “You go back to Bamburgh. You can play the ealdorman there all you wish. Leave me alone; leave Jorvik alone.”

  Uhtred said, “I am Ethelred’s man.” On his right, now there stood the fat, balding man with the axe, who had led the countercharge over the gate, and on his left, the redheaded butcher, his knives in his belt and his face all black and blue. Uhtred lifted his gaze to the man on the high seat. “I swore oaths to Ethelred, true Christian vows.”

  Raef stirred in the high seat. “Did you swear an oath to Eadric Streona? to Emma? They’re the ones ruling England. You know this. This is what you will lose, heeding me – the Queen and her knifeman. You will still have your own lands. I want only Jorvik and to make her great again. Leave Ethelred to Streona and Emma. Don’t be stupid. Go along with this.”

  Uhtred stared at him, his mind working. He already hated Streona and Emma and what they had made of Ethelred. But Ethelred was King of the English. He looked away from the blue eyes, trying to untangle the knot.

  “What is this hall?”

  “This is the King of Jorvik’s hall. King Eric Bloodaxe’s hall.”

  Uhtred swallowed; he studied the white-haired man a moment. He had thought all Bloodaxe’s sons were dead. He knew this hall had been rubble the last time he was here. He said, “Where are my men?”

  “Outside,” the King of Jorvik said. “They know we’re talking things over.”

  Uhtred’s gaze rose to him, savoring this wording, which left him a way to stand honorably with his men. “What am I supposed to tell Ethelred?”

  “Don’t tell him anything. Do you think this was his idea?”

  Uhtred shook his head. He saw no way to go save to take this. “You’re too clever for Ethelred. Maybe for Streona and Ethelred together. All right. I will go to Bamburgh. Jorvik is yours; I don’t care.”

  “Good. And in the meantime,” said the man on the high seat, “it being so near the quarter day, and your owing me a sort of ransom now, there is something you can do for me to pay it. Since you have all these men here, you can dig me a ditch. It’s not a very big one. A few days’ work for all these men.”

  * * *

  Laissa sat beside him in the high seat, and they passed a cup back and forth. She had slept only a little while since she ran up here from the church, and the ale made her dizzy. Miru had taken Gemma away. The hall was full of people.

  Down there Peter was playing his pipe, and the others were dancing around the fire, celebrating. Leif kicked his feet lightly with Edith, their hands joined. Goda stood clapping his hands. He was as pleased with himself as if he had fought Uhtred single-handed.

  All the Jorvikers were jubilant. Through the afternoon, ever since Uhtred had packed up and ridden off south, a river of the city’s people had been passing through the hall, drinking the King’s ale, eating the King’s roast meat, saluting Raef on his high seat, and congratulating themselves on their victory. Tem was not there. She suspected she would never see Tem again; Raef, or more likely Leif, would see to that.

  Now the villagers had mostly left. Raef slipped his hand inside her gown. He had run to meet her when she came back; he had swung her up in his arms, Gemma and all, there in the middle of the street, whirled them around, carried them skipping and jumping all the way back to the hall.

  “Am I Queen of Jorvik now?” she said.

  “If you want.” He fingered her nipple. “But you cannot go away again.”

  “I think I will just be Laissa,” she said. She drew his hand out of her clothes. “I want you to promise me something.”

  He caressed her throat under her hair. She felt soft, eager for his touch. He had this way of making her forget everything bad. He said, “Whatever you want.”

  “Promise me you won’t teach her anything. Promise me what I mean by that.”

  He said, slowly, “I promise it.” His fingers stroked her nape. “But it will do no good to teach her anyway, if she has no gift.”

  Laissa took his hand. “Let’s go down to the sleeping bench, where we can be alone.”

  He stood, following her. He said, under his breath, “Everybody has a gift.” She pretended not to hear and took him away to their lair to lie together.

  * * *

  Later, when they were all back home and asleep, Raef went out and walked to the wall and looked out again. The Lady had not come. She had sent Uhtred because she could not come. For the first time he had found a limit to her. She could not reach this far. He was safe in Jorvik.

  He did not think that would be good enough, for him to be safe in Jorvik. There was more to come of this. And he still knew nothing of how to defeat her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Winchester

  In the inner room, the king was screaming, not even words anymore, just a rhythmic, ringing shriek; Edmund turned away, his nerves raw. Eadric Streona was walking up and down the antechamber, saying, over and over, “I can’t talk to him. I can’t talk to him.” Most of the men in the crowded room were staring at the walls, their faces set.

  “Where is the Queen?” Edmund said.

  Archbishop Alphege stood beside him, his hands folded, and his meaty face set. They had called him in as soon as the King began to rave, but he could do nothing. In a clipped voice, he said, “The Queen is in confinement. No one gains entrance to her chambers save her closest women.”

  Edmund said, “When the Queen is here, he is not haunted.”

  Alphege said, “Yes. I’ve noticed that too.” His lips pressed together. Edmund saw he was jealous of whatever power this was that Emma held. He said, “God acts in mysterious ways.”

  Streona barged up between them; he had overheard them. “But we can’t wait for her to have her baby and return to the King’s side. The Danes are attacking now.” He faced the archbishop, ignoring Edmund. “Your Emminence, there must be something you can do.”

  Alphege lifted one hand and let it drop. “What’s the latest news from the west?”

  Streona shook his head. “No better.”

  Edmund stepped back from them. He had heard enough. The earlier news had been as bad as possible. Summer had come, the fighting season, and Sweyn Forkbeard close behind. The King of Denmark attacked in Kent and started westward across the country, and in spite of Ethelred’s alliance with Richard, a Jomsviking fleet in Sweyn’s pay had sailed boldly into the narrow sea. They had swept aside the few English ship
s that came against them and attacked Exeter on the southern coast, and the Duke of Normandy had not lifted his hand to stop them.

  “Exeter has fallen,” Streona said. “The Norman garrison gave in without a fight. The Jomsvikings are marching across country. They aim to meet Sweyn in the middle. Whitsuntide has come and gone, and we still have no army. Morcar and his brother have sent excuses, Uhtred isn’t even answering us, the thegns in Anglia and Wessex will not leave their strongholds, and only a few of the fyrd have gathered. And when they see the King as he is – you see—” He flung his hands up, empty.

  Alphege made the sign of the cross, his head turning away. Edmund went up to Streona. “Where is my brother?”

  Streona glanced at him. “Aethelstan has gone away to Wessex, somewhere near Salisbury. He has all the men he could raise from his own lands. He’s trying to get between the Jomsvikings and Winchester.” He swung back to the archbishop, his voice pleading.

  “I have sent to Morcar once more, whatever good that will do. Thurbrand Hold in Lindsey will not come. The western lords are sitting behind their walls and praying. The Jomsvikings are coming east from Exeter along the high road. They will reach Winchester in a matter of weeks, if Sweyn doesn’t get here first from the other direction. You have to do something.”

  “I can do nothing,” Alphege’s voice ripped through his churchmanly calm and rose to a shout: “The King is damned!” He thrust out with one hand at Streona and walked past him toward the door. Edmund left soon after.

  * * *

  By noon Edmund was jogging his horse along the old road to Land’s End, glad to be out of the crowded, stinking city. He had brought bread, some sausages, a cheese, a flask of ale. He passed a steady tide of people coming the other way, carrying sacks on their backs, pushing handcarts, herding a few sheep, a cow. Bringing their children by the hand. Their faces were set and grim. He did not try to talk to anybody. Nobody else was going west.