Kings of the North

by Kings of the North (retail) (epub)

  “Yes,” Uhtred said. “I will.” He thought of someone else he would summon, as well, and with what.

  * * *

  Edmund said, “You’re sure?” He held the folded cloth in his arms and stroked his hand over it. The red was faded but still lovely. He could see just the tip of a wing of the golden dragon sewn onto it.

  “They are calling a council tomorrow to announce it. In Winchester, at the Great Hall there.”

  “The King is dead.” Edmund turned to Godwine. “That’s what it meant, when the armies withdrew.” Suddenly, almost overnight, a few weeks before, both the little Danish forces opposite the walls of London had drifted away.

  Godwine said, “This could be a trap, Edmund.”

  Edmund turned back to the boatman who had brought the news and the banner itself down the river. “Who sent you here?”

  “I cannot tell you. But he means you well, sir, or I wouldn’t have brought it.” He straightened, leaning on his boat pole. “You can trust this, sir.”

  Edmund’s blood coursed with excitement, and his skin tingled with the urge to act. He felt as if he had been let out of his coffin, his life begun again. King Sweyn was dead. What had seemed an impossible task now was within his reach. His gaze fell again to the red banner, the Wessex dragon, the standard of Alfred, who had thrown out the Danes a hundred years before. Edmund was called to this, and he would answer. He turned to Godwine: “We’re going to Winchester. Send for horses.”

  * * *

  As Thorkel had foreseen, many of the thegns and lords who had sworn their oaths to King Sweyn were still around Winchester, expecting to be summoned back into council anyway. When the call went out, they gathered swiftly, pouring into the city and coming at once to the great hall.

  Few knew yet of the death of the King, but rumors swept them. Uhtred, as he greeted them, turned aside their questions— Sweyn is not here, he said, truthfully. No, Sweyn is not here. Thorkel, the Jomsviking chief, is here.

  One of the Wessex thegns frowned at him. “The last I heard, the King was deathly ill. What’s going on?”

  “Wait,” Uhtred said. “He was sick, yes.” He went on to meet a swarm of men from Wessex, surrounded by their underlings, coming in the door.

  He went up to the high table, where Thorkel stood before the empty high seat. The Jomsviking chief was looking out over the hall, his brow rumpled. Uhtred said, “There’s many of them, see, and all the important ones.”

  “Thurbrand isn’t here.”

  Uhtred snorted. “Did you ever think Thurbrand was coming?” When Thorkel shrugged, frowning a little, Uhtred turned away, altering his judgment of Thorkel’s wit. Then his gaze caught on another parade of men coming in the door.

  “God have mercy on us,” he said. “The vultures are coming in to roost.”

  “What?” Thorkel said, and turned. When he saw who had come in, he muttered a nasty Danish oath.

  “Eadric Streona,” he said. “That snake. You know he betrayed Ethelred to Sweyn.”

  Uhtred grunted. He had not known, but he had suspected this. “Whatever he did, he’s here now. I think we have a full hall, here, don’t you? Let’s get started.”

  Thorkel said, “No, wait, we have to—”

  Uhtred brushed past him, moved up by the high seat, in front of the wall. He threw a look over his shoulder at the wall. Where the Wessex dragon had hung was a patch of lighter wood. Sweyn had taken it down when he came, but Uhtred had kept it, and now he wondered if the banner had gotten where he had sent it.

  He turned toward the crowd again and raised his arms. “God’s peace to all men here,” he said, and the place quieted. “Christ have mercy on us.” He crossed himself.

  The prayer rumbled back through the hall toward him. Now they were all watching, even Thorkel. Uhtred licked his lips. He had no notion what this could come to, but he knew where he wanted to go.

  He said, “I am to tell you all that King Sweyn is dead.”

  For an instant, the whole hall fell silent. Then, like a pot full of noise, it boiled over, everybody turning and speaking, a foam of white faces. Thorkel came up beside Uhtred; he had finally caught on.

  “The King named his son as his heir, his son Knut,” the Jomsviking chief called. “The Danish army hailed him King. Now we are here to recognize him as the King of England.”

  Uhtred said, “Knut. Who is this? A boy, a greenling.”

  Thorkel’s face flushed dark. “King Sweyn named him—”

  “And he is not English,” Uhtred said.

  A roar went up from the crowd. In the hall, men were pushing closer to the front, climbing over the tables, filling up the space before the high seat.

  “Uhtred, speak!”

  “We are Englishmen—”

  Thorkel bellowed, “You all swore to obey Sweyn’s will, and his will is that Knut follow him, King of England.” His voice carried over the clamor in the hall. A tall man in a long green coat rushed up across the table from Uhtred.

  “We’re with you, Uhtred. Keep on.” He banged his fist on the table.

  On the far side, Streona, still wearing his short black Norman coat, thrust up his arm into the air. His waxy voice rolled out. “Sweyn’s gone. England’s free again. We shall not follow this stripling boy!”

  Thorkel shouted, “If you defy him, this will bring war, and war, and more war—”

  Then, in the back of the hall, the doors flew open. The great crowd swayed, hushing. Thorkel fell still, his mouth open. The crowd yielded, half to one side, half to the other of the hall, and down the aisle they left rode a file of horsemen.

  Their leader was Edmund Aetheling.

  He wore the heavy mail coat he had put on when he began his rebellion against Ethelred. The sword at his side had been Aethelstan’s. After him came another man with a staff, and on it, the Wessex dragon.

  As Edmund passed through the crowd, the men stilled and stood to face him; many bowed, and many more kneeled. He and the man with his banner rode straight up the hall to the high seat. Uhtred glanced at Thorkel. The Jomsviking had clamped his face shut. The lord of Bamburgh faced Prince Edmund.

  “Welcome, my lord Prince.”

  “I have brought this,” Edmund said, in a voice that carried through the hall, “to put it back where it belongs.” He waved his hand at the great red banner above him, and the watching men burst into a bellowing, jubilant applause.

  “My lord,” Uhtred said, “it is your honor to put Alfred’s banner back in Alfred’s hall.” He hesitated a moment, to give weight to this next. “My honor is to greet you first as King of England.”

  A roar went up from the surrounding men. Thorkel stood still, his shoulders hunched. Edmund waved to the rider behind him, and he and others took the great banner of Wessex up, climbed up behind the high seat, and shook it out, red as blood, the winged dragon flying on it as if alive. They hung it on the wall where it belonged. Then Edmund turned and stood before his father’s high seat, looking out at the crowded Saxon nobles.

  Thorkel was sidling away. Uhtred kneeled. Everybody was kneeling, paying homage to their new King. Some wound had been healed that Uhtred had carried since Sweyn’s crowning. England, he thought. We English have made the King of England. He bowed his head, grateful that at last he had done something good.

  * * *

  Edmund went to Lark Hill a day later. They rode in the gate to the courtyard and dismounted, and Godwine took their horses away. Edmund went around to the bower behind the hall, but he met her on the way there, coming up from the garden.

  She startled, seeing him. He stopped, wondering again if he should have come. She was older. Not as pretty as he remembered. He wished her well away from the court, anyway; he had much business there and could only stay here a day, even less. But his body was already quickening; she came toward him with her hands out, and he went into her embrace with delight.

  * * *

  In Gainsburgh, Knut said, “They elected Edmund.”

  Thorkel sai
d, “It was Uhtred of Bamburgh, that lying dog. He got them to throw aside their oaths.”

  Knut gave him a hard look. He blamed Thorkel too, mostly because it pleased him to do so. He paced away from Thorkel, remembering to keep his temper, to see this wide and deep. In the bottom of his mind, he realized, he had been expecting this.

  But it was his kingdom. He wanted it, whatever his father had said, dying. The fleet had shouted it to him. He stood at the door of the hall, looking out over Gainsburgh, down toward the river. Only two days before, Sweyn’s gilt-headed dragon had sailed away down that river, taking the dead King home.

  He had done this, a son’s duty. Served his father’s wishes, honored him as the mighty man he was. What to do next was more of a problem.

  Thorkel said, “They swore sacred oaths and broke them. I’ve got five hundred men. Call back Thurbrand, and, with the crews here, we can go down there and raid the whole of Wessex. Wipe out Edmund. Sack all those cities, the churches, the monasteries, the manors. Whatever’s left, you can be King of.”

  Knut said, “I saw how your men fought at London.” He said nothing about Thurbrand, who had gathered his horsemen right after the King’s ship sailed and ridden back home to Lindsey, across the river. Thurbrand had been Sweyn’s man. Knut doubted Thurbrand was his.

  “Damn Uhtred,” Knut said. “Where are those hostages?”

  “I sent them down to Sandwich, with the rest of my men,” Thorkel said. “Where did it get you to fight so hard at London? Each Jomsviking is worth ten of the Saxons.” He crept closer, whispering into Knut’s ear. “Now, you know, we could take fat places: Glouchester, Glastonbury, Bath, the places Sweyn left alone for the sake of their homage. You saw Winchester. You can strip enough gold off the walls in Winchester to make a crofter rich.”

  Odd had come out of the hall and stood listening to them. He said, “I told you that you were going to have to fight for this. Go to the Tronders. My father will give you an army.”

  Knut looked into the street. People moved briskly along, the market wives with their baskets and a man leading a goat. A dog went loping down the street. On the thatch above his head, a cock crowed. A shutter opened in the row of little houses across the way, and a woman leaned out to flap a dusty cloth. All this was Saxon, he thought. They would always outnumber him.

  He had to decide what to do. There were fifteen dragons down on the beach. Thurbrand’s men were better off back in Lindsey. With a force this size, he could not take a city, much less the whole kingdom. He said to Thorkel, “Where are your ships?”

  Thorkel said, “Sandwich. We beached them proper too; they’re kept.”

  “Then I will meet you there,” Knut said. He turned to Odd: “We will go with the tide, on down to the Humber.”

  Odd’s head bobbed. He glanced at Thorkel; like Knut, he probably wondered whether Thorkel would be in Sandwich when they got there. It mattered little to Knut, one way or the other. He went out into the street to walk around, restless.

  He stood on the river street and watched the brown water roll by. Where the Trent met the top of the Humber was the mouth of the Ouse, and thus he would be two days from Jorvik. He thought of Raef, up there, and wondered what he would say about all this.

  * * *

  In Jorvik, under the stars, Raef knew that ships crowded into the wide estuary at the southern edge of his kingdom. Although Laissa slept close enough by to realize he was gone if she woke, he let his mind rise out of his manifest self and floated down the light field to watch.

  Especially near Brough, the little village where they could get pilots, the ships were knarre, laden with iron and glass and fine goods to trade for the wool of Jorvik. But it was the lone dragon ship that drew his interest. This ship’s dragon head was sheathed in gold, and in its belly it carried a dead man.

  It was anchored, not beached for the night, out away from any mischief. He floated around it awhile. Sweyn’s soul was gone, only the eaten and moldering body left. Yet it was clear to Raef what had happened. He rose into the air again.

  As he did this, he realized Knut was thinking of him, which surprised him. But he went back to Laissa, who still slept.

  He lay beside her, wakeful, cursing himself. He had let himself expect that Sweyn would be King here awhile and that he would keep the peace. Do Raef’s work for him. Raef knew himself for a willful fool. He had taken this easy way, all this while that the Lady was hindered and cooped up, thinking that he could somehow teach the bloody-minded Knut to be a good king and keep her quiet forever.

  She had not stayed quiet. Sweyn had her pent up tight, but she had killed him anyway. Now there would be another war. His skin crept. Like a beast rousing hungry from a long sleep, she was returning to the hunt.

  He thought back over every time they had fought. When he attacked her the only way it seemed he could, while they were both in their elemental form, he had no impact on her. He wondered if he could attack her in his manifest body. He saw no way to do that, except to kill her host, but it was not Emma who was evil. The Lady would escape anyway, probably lessened, but not for long.

  He remembered the hole he had seen in the light field and her fumes boiling forth. It came to him that he had never even seen her. The stinking, filthy smoke was not her – was, he thought, the mark of her passage through the world, like the wake of a ship. Calling her “she” was false too; it could be she needed a female body because of what she lacked, not what she was.

  He touched the edge of his bad hand. He put his good hand up to his ear – where his ear had been. Piece by piece, he was disappearing. She would finish him someday, unless he found some way to destroy her. She would finish the world. He had to find another way to battle her.

  He thought of Knut, sailing up the Trent. Maybe Knut was not such a waste after all.

  A few days later, he said to Laissa, “I have to go. You must keep the bearskin closed over the sleeping bench and let no one near my body.”

  Her eyes opened wide with shock. She glanced quickly around them. “Now? You must not. What if she – This is why she thinks you are demonic.” She clutched his arms. “Raef. No. Do you want her to hate you?”

  “I am going,” he said. “Keep her away.” Gemma was off in the city, helping the sheepmen with the new lambs; she loved all baby creatures. “Keep the bearskin down.” He turned toward the bench.

  She grabbed him by the arm. “Come, at least. When I call you. Come.”

  He went into the bench. He knew she would protect him, whatever she said. Gemma hated him already. He was not used to doing this in the daytime, and the light was bright. He rolled over facing the wall. In a moment he was going down the river toward Brough, on the north bank of the Humber.

  * * *

  As Knut’s ships rowed, picking their way down the Trent, Knut said, suddenly, “My foster father sailed these rivers like a long drink of ale.”

  Odd said, surprised, “Thorkel?”

  Knut said, “No, the wizard, Jorvik. He knew the water like his own blood. He had better ale too.”

  He could taste the ale, brewed somewhere they were always turning out the first clean new batch. It nagged him that they were going so close by Jorvik. He saw nothing in what he was doing that would lead Raef to help him. Yet now he wanted Raef’s advice as keenly as he remembered the ale. Odd started to say something and stopped, seeing him deep in thought.

  Ahead lay the broad white shoals along the neck of the Humber. Jorvik would be two days away if he could find a horse at Brough. He had sworn he would never see Raef again. He thought anyway Raef did not want him.

  They came in by Brough at midaftemoon. His men beached their ships, and many went to the tavern that was the village’s only large building. The hovels around it were no bigger than their villagers’ fishing boats. He let Odd handle the ordinary work of settling the crews. He walked along the riverbank, still wondering what to do. He could take his ships and Thorkel’s and try to overthrow Edmund in one great strike. That would pu
t him in Thorkel’s debt. He could go back to Denmark, to Norway as Odd said, and raise another army. He hated to leave England.

  He remembered when he had come here and met Sweyn, and then through his mind unfolded all his life with Sweyn, the greatest of the Vikings. He remembered his father’s hand on his shoulder. Sweyn’s laughter, telling jokes. He strode along the bank of the river. There, on that meadow, he had played ball once. Here, where the brush grew down, he had beaten Harald with his fists. Up ahead, past the bend of the river, he had gone to fish.

  He went around the bend, through a stand of willows, and came on Raef, sitting on a stump.

  Knut stood, his mind frozen. He met the other man’s blazing blue eyes. It was Raef, tall and stooped, with his strange left hand and the waist-long, white-blond hair that Laissa kept neatly braided. Knut gathered himself.

  He said, “Did you call me here?”

  Raef said, “The King is dead. I saw his ship pass. How did he die?”

  “A wasp stung him. I think.” He half shook his head. “I might be wrong.” He stroked his hand over his hair. His voice burst out, “I never thought I would be glad to see you, but I am. I need your advice. Everybody talks to me from some narrow view. You alone, I think, sees this broadly enough to know what I should do.”

  Raef said, “You want to be King.”

  Knut’s hands fisted. “I am the King. The army acclaimed me. My father left it to me – but Uhtred betrayed me.”

  “Uhtred has his own mind and his own fate. Take what you want,” Raef said. “I saw you the crowned King of England before I ever met you or knew who you were; it was foretold before you were ever born. For how long, I cannot say.”

  These words hit him like gold hammers. He felt a shock down his backbone, a new will, a sudden soaring triumph. Fate, he thought. It is my fate to wear the crown.