Kings of the North

by Kings of the North (retail) (epub)

  Aethelstan sat on the long table, at an angle to the high seat. He hardly ate, his spirits low. The word had come that morning that the high reeve of Dorset had been murdered and his body dumped into a pigsty.

  Everybody knew who had done this. Yet up there at the front table his father laughed full throated, his face red, and stuffed himself with meat, and around him his friends laughed too. Emma sat beside him, the wall behind her white with her women, and next to her, her older son Edward.

  Edward was only seven, and he did not laugh. He was pinching bits of bread into shapes and standing them on the table. Aethelstan had made such armies when he was small and captive at his parents’ feasts. Ethelred had brought Edward to court only the last winter, and the child was witnessing charters already. Ethelred meant to make Edward King after him. It was said now the boy was going to Normandy, in his father’s name, and the duke, his uncle, was preparing for a royal visit.

  Aethelstan saw this, and he knew that he had missed his chance to stop it. Hemming and hawing over his honor, he had let his honor dwindle away to nothing. Thorkel the Tall, who only a few years before had been burning England, now sat at the far table, already drunk; Thorkel’s men stood all around the King, and he kept an army around London. He had raided all over East Anglia and Kent; it was said a dozen villages paid him tribute.

  Whatever he got, it was thin on the hoof. There was no war, had been no war for years now; there was nothing to pillage or even to eat. Aethelstan himself had ridden around Wessex in the past year and seen the empty fields, the abandoned huts and villages. The wars had brought the famine; the famine had brought plagues. People were eating dirt while the Jomsvikings and his father and Eadric Streona chomped through heavy joints of meat.

  He wondered if it were pork. His belly rolled over.

  Beside Ethelred in the high seat, Emma was watching him, a strange little smile on her face. She had been more friendly to him lately. He thought maybe she was tired of Ethelred, who would not let her out of reach since he had discovered that she kept the ghost away. She turned and spoke to Ethelred again, leaning on him, a dumpy woman past her youth who had never been pretty. The King drained his cup and called for another. Aethelstan thought, I should have been a monk.

  He should have been King, as Edmund said, and saved his kingdom. He was as guilty as the men carousing at the high table. He got up, eaten with remorse, and went before his father to take his leave. As he bowed, he saw in front of little Edward a whole host of bread people.

  They were not soldiers, Aethelstan saw, surprised: They were priests, with mitres and crosses. In the middle was a little crucifixion.

  His father was so drunk his eyes seemed to cross; he shouted, “Go on, Aethelstan, go to bed like the old woman you are.” He roared with laughter, and along his table Thorkel laughed, and Streona. Aethelstan turned on his heels and walked out.

  He went through the hall to the wide square between it and the church. The sun was going down, and a chilly wind blew in from the north. He went into the church a moment, but he could not pray. God would not forgive him for his failures.

  As he left, a soft voice said his name, just inside the big carved doors of the church.

  He turned, startled. It was Queen Emma, alone, her eyes shining, smiling at him. He realized she had gotten Ethelred drunk on purpose so she could get away.

  He stood where he was. She held her hand out to him, the plump white palm soft and greedy. Her voice was a breathy whisper. She said, “Aethelstan, every man in England wishes you were King. I also. Please. Hear me. I have dreamed that I will lie in your arms one day.” Her hand grasped at him, the fingers curling. “Whenever I see you, I want you, Aethelstan. Come to me, and you will be King.”

  He listened to her, gravely courteous in the face of this monstrous offer, and then he turned without a word and went away.

  He started through the big double doors; behind him she gave a shriek that turned his blood to ice. He turned around. She was flying at him, furious, and for an instant he saw Emma and around her – a trick of the shadows – something else, huge and shapeless, fanged and dark. She clawed at his face with her nails, spat at him, and turned and hurried off into the shadows.

  He put his hand to his cheek. Just a scratch. He struggled with a sudden clammy fear. Just a harmless, stupid, greedy woman, willing to betray anybody. He went off to his house, down by the river.

  * * *

  Edmund muttered, “My God,” under his breath.

  Aethelstan laughed, or gasped something like a laugh. “Not as you remember me, ah.” He lay still, panting. There was only one candle in the room, but even in the dark, he was horrible. His hair had fallen out and his beard. He lay on his back on the bed, naked, his flesh mostly gone and his body covered with sores, like holes poked through the skin with an awl, red and oozing and stinking. Thin blood dribbled from his nose, from the corners of his eyes.

  Edmund had last seen him only a month before, when they had hunted together south of Winchester. Aethelstan had been hale then, strong and young and handsome. They had come on a boar, and Aethelstan had brought it down by himself with only a spear. When Edmund had heard he was sick, he had not believed it could be serious.

  He said, “What happened?” He reached out as if to touch his brother’s cheek, and Aethelstan shrank from him.

  “Just a scratch. No, no, please, it hurts—” He began to cough. Red foam formed at corners of his lips. “God, have mercy on me, for I am a sinner – Edmund,” he said, “you were right.” He coughed.

  Beyond the bed, the old servant said quietly, “My lord, don’t make him too tired.” In his hand a basin, a bloody cloth. He had been bathing his master, in spite of the prince’s objections.

  “No,” Aethelstan said. “Tired. I am dying. Pray God take me safe away and not give me to the monsters.” His head rolled toward Edmund, his eyes gleaming alive in the leprous mask of his face. “Edmund. You must go on. You must stand against the King, save England. You are…” He coughed. “Watch out for the Queen.”

  “Me,” Edmund said, startled. He groped for his brother’s bloody, bony hand. He began to weep. “Aethelstan.”

  “You must be King now,” Aethelstan said. “I am leaving you the sword, and you must take it up. Be wiser than me. Take the kingdom. Save England from Ethelred.”

  “Aethelstan. Don’t give up.” He thought, suddenly, that his father had at last done away with his own son too.

  Or the Queen. He wondered what monsters Aethelstan meant.

  Aethelstan was charging him to the highest cause. He wondered if he were able. He had to be, he thought. For Aethelstan’s sake.

  “I am almost done,” Aethelstan said, and his fingers tightened. “Pray for me. I waited… until you… He began to cough again, and then was choking, his fingers stiff. “Had to… see…” He hacked up a gout of black clotted blood. Blood covered his face, seeping from his eyes, from his nose, oozing now out of his ears. After a moment Edmund realized that he was dead.

  Edmund sat there a long while, holding onto Aethelstan’s hand. He did not want to let go until he understood perfectly what lay ahead of him.

  He had not been idle in the last few years. He wore the mail shirt whenever he went out; he had grown used to the weight. He had learned to fight. He had a good company, now, more than twenty men, and he had trained them, running down outlaws, riding with Morcar in the thegn’s incessant border war with Thurbrand the Hold of Lindsey, raiding Thorkel’s Jomsviking outposts in East Anglia.

  He thought of his father as he had last seen him, drunken and slack, and of the greedy, scheming Queen. He remembered the Vikings jeering at him. “English. Always lose.” More than anything, he wanted to redeem his kingdom’s honor.

  He should start with Morcar, who would surely come to his side. Gather more of the great men, each with his piece of the kingdom. He could stitch it whole again; he knew who his enemies were, and he did not fear them. He went out into the next room and told t
hem that Aethelstan was dead, and finally he wept.

  * * *

  The word of Aethelstan’s death spread slowly, and Raef did not hear it for over a month, until he went down on the Humber to meet with Thurbrand Hold of Lindsey.

  Lindsey was the country south of the Humber and east of the Trent. Most of the people were half Danes, and they spoke dansker and favored the Danes in the wars. Their lord, Thurbrand, had hair like copper wool and too many teeth in his mouth. He picked fights with everybody, but his worst enemy was the Saxon Uhtred of Bamburgh. Jorvik lay between them, and Raef did not suffer them to reach across it. Uhtred had tried once to sneak his green jackets down to attack Thurbrand, but he would not do that again. Thurbrand was constantly wheedling Raef to join him in a war against Uhtred, but he was smart enough not to try to step north of the Humber.

  Every year he and Raef met in boats in the middle of the estuary, the neutral ground between them, to talk over such matters as salvage and piracy. This time, as soon as the boats closed gunwale to gunwale, Thurbrand said, “You have heard that Aethelstan is dead.”

  Raef said, “I had not heard.” He had seen it as soon as he saw Thurbrand close enough to read him, the prince’s death being uppermost in the half Dane’s shallow mind. He knew at once who had killed the Aetheling, although Thurbrand did not. The half Dane talked about wasting disease and rebellions. Uneasy, Raef wondered if the Lady had lost her patience with Aethelstan, who would not start a war. She had been quiet a long time. He had been lulled, and he had gotten nowhere in learning how to fight her.

  Thurbrand fixed him with a taut look. “I say we throw Ethelred out. Call in Sweyn Tjugas to be King.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Raef said. “Since he’s coming anyway.” He glanced toward Brough, on the north shore, where Leif and Sweyn’s younger son were waiting for him. The boat was drifting, and he steadied it with a stroke of the oars. What Thurbrand had said about Sweyn interested him, the more because he had already heard it, in almost the same words, from Uhtred of Bamburgh, a few months before. Of course if Thurbrand had anything to do with it, Uhtred wouldn’t, but still, it was interesting.

  “Have you mentioned this to anybody else?”

  Thurbrand cracked his knuckles. His eyes were always moving, as befit a man with so many enemies. Raef said, “Morcar, for instance?”

  The redheaded half Dane snorted a laugh. “I don’t talk to Morcar.” He stressed the word talk.

  Raef said, “As long as everybody in England hates everybody else in England, you could call down Jesus Christ himself and nobody would notice.” But Sweyn, he thought, that would solve a lot of problems. Sweyn kept the peace very well in his own country. Sweyn was England’s biggest threat anyway.

  He brought his mind back to this meeting. He said, “In the meantime you keep your hands off my ships.”

  Thurbrand grunted at him. “If a ship sinks on my shore—”

  “You towed that ship there. You’re lucky I didn’t burn the whole village.”

  “Hey,” Thurbrand said. “I had nothing to do—”

  “If it happens again, I’ll burn out the whole place, Thurbrand. And who knows if I’ll stop there.”

  Thurbrand glowered at him. Fear made his eyes shiny. Finally, he said, “What about Sweyn?”

  “Do what you want,” Raef said, and lifted the oars; they had drifted far down the Humber, talking, and he turned the boat and rowed back upstream toward Brough.

  * * *

  Brough, which lived on the upriver trade, was a tiny village, and Knut Sweynsson had walked the length of it, bored, until he came to the meadow behind the tavern. There, half a dozen boys were kicking around a leather-covered ball, and he stood and watched a while. Leif was back in the tavern getting drunk. Raef was off doing some tiresome chore he thought meant he was really a king. Knut watched the ball bounce around the meadow, and then one of the boys called, “Want to play?”

  He hopped up and down a little, eager, but he was the son of a king, and these were churls. The big boy who had spoken kicked the ball toward him.

  “Come on, play. You’re Jorvik’s boy, right?”

  “No,” Knut said, but he kicked the ball, which went surprisingly far, and then chased it. It was a hard game, all footwork, beating the others to the ball or worming it free of a dozen legs, knocking it out to the open so they could chase it again. He and the big boy, Tomlin, stood over the ball kicking each other’s shins; Tomlin backed away from the blows, and Knut blasted the ball out toward the tavern.

  Leif was sitting there against the back wall of the tavern in the sun, watching. Knut burrowed into a pack of trampling boys and nudged the ball loose again.

  After a while Tomlin called out, and the boys all stopped to catch their breath. The big boy came over toward Knut. His shins were turning black and blue, and his eyes had a bad glint.

  “If you’re not Jorvik’s boy, then, who are you? You came here with him.”

  Knut said, “I am the son of the King of Denmark.”

  Tomlin guffawed. “Did you hear that? What a liar!”

  The other boys roared, agreeing with him. They did not believe him. He started to insist, but they began kicking the ball again, and this time they were all kicking it at him. He jumped at Tomlin, and the ball struck him full in the stomach and knocked him flat, breathless.

  A moment later Leif was in among them, and the other boys were backing quickly away. Knut was still struggling for breath. Grabbing him by the arm, Leif got him up on his feet and pulled him back toward the tavern.

  “Liar,” Tomlin called, after him.

  Knut twisted, trying to get free and go after Tomlin, but Leif kept a good grip on him and made him sit down.

  “You have to know when to fight, boy. Look how many they are, and all bigger than you. And over what?”

  The boys had gone back to their game, moving a little farther out on the meadow. Raef came around the corner.

  “What’s going on?”

  Knut hunched down on the bench. His belly hurt where the ball had struck him. Worse was Tomlin calling him a liar. “You stay out of this,” he said, and darted one hand toward Leif’s belt, where his axe hung. He lifted it neatly out of the slings before the fat man even turned and lunged up off the bench, starting toward Tomlin.

  Raef got him by the back of the shirt with one hand, and with the other took away the axe. “Oh, no, you don’t.”

  Down there, the boys had stopped playing, were watching this. Knut said, between clenched teeth, “They insulted me. I’m the son of a King. I have my honor. Even if you don’t.”

  Raef held the axe out to Leif. His other hand let go of Knut’s shirt. He said, “I have my law.”

  “Yes,” Knut said, with a fine sneer. “I like my way—”

  Raef fixed his blue gaze on him, and the words stopped like a plug in Knut’s throat. For an instant he could not draw breath, nor could he move. Raef said, “You know, you talk too much.” He stared at Knut a moment, and the boy stared back, fighting to get a word through his throat. His body loosened, but nothing came out of his mouth. Finally he looked away, giving up. Know when to fight. Raef pushed him hard toward the tavern. “Go in and pack; we’re leaving.”

  The boy coughed up a great gout of phlegm and spat it aside. He trudged into the tavern. Tomlin had done the crime, but as usual he was being punished. He hated Raef.

  * * *

  They had come down the river in an old double-ender and went back the same way; Raef steered them neatly through the snags and bends while the other two rowed. They fished as they went. At sundown they camped, made a fire, and grilled the fish. The moon rose, fat through the trees.

  Knut was still brooding over Tomlin, who had escaped his revenge. He wondered if he could get away from Raef and Leif and go back to Brough. At that, he saw Raef glance at him and knew he would have to be careful. He had suspected for a while that Raef knew what he was thinking, which was why he was always ready for him, always ahead of him.
Knut would not let this stop him: It just meant he had to be quicker, or better.

  Raef turned to the fat man across the fire. “Do you have any new stories, now?”

  Leif said, “I always have a new story.”

  Pleased, Knut folded his legs up and wrapped his arms around them, ready to listen. He liked the fat Icelander, who had taught him to hunt and to throw an axe. He put off thinking about running away. Leif went through the good old familiar tales, about Ragnar Ludbrok and Thorfinn Skullsplitter, Harald Fairhair and Hastein’s great raid, Arrow Odd and Palnitoki, and Conn Corbansson. Knut loved this. The story poured into his ears as he stared into the fire, and a crackling army rose before him, the fluttering manes of horses, flames of swords, battling the air. At night he dreamed of fighting, but in the dream he was always carrying a stick, not a real sword.

  He had never learned to wield a sword. Leif said he was good with the axe and that he could shoot a bow better than any man in Jorvik. But those were tools, not weapons. He longed to have a sword, with one use only. He thought Raef probably didn’t even have a sword. Not a real king; not a real warrior.

  Raef gave him a sideways look and turned to Leif. “There’s a new story sometime?”

  Leif replied with one of Loki and Thor and a giantess, which Knut had never heard, and which got even Raef laughing at the end. Then Leif was back to the far North, the Frost Giants, the demons howling in the wind, and then on to the distant East with its roofs of gold and great heroic deeds. Knut listened until the fire was a bed of dying coals.

  “That’s the way men should live. Nobody does that anymore.”

  Raef gave him a long look. To Leif, he said, “Does it make it easier to tell stories when you don’t know anything?”

  “Oh, definitely,” Leif said. He glanced at Knut. “Raef and I, see, we’ve been all over. Raef has even been to Vinland.”

  “Vinland,” the boy said, startled.

  Raef shrugged. “Not exactly Vinland. It’s gone forever now anyway.” The dark was settling over them. Knut looked up at the sky, at the moon climbing up through the net of the trees. Raef said, “It was Chersonese I loved.”