Kings of the North

by Kings of the North (retail) (epub)

  “My father said it was a curse.”

  “If he called it so, it was, for him. Be careful what you call it.”

  He said, “My brother Harald will already be the Danish King.”

  Raef shrugged. “You don’t need Harald’s help. Tell him to give you an army or you will fight him for Denmark. Get the Trondejarl to give you men and ships. There’s always Thurbrand. Don’t trust Thorkel.”

  Knut raised his head. His skin tingled, eager. “I will deal with Thorkel.”

  “To me, frankly, it makes no difference who is King. My concern is the Queen.”

  “The council freed her.” The council had freed all Ethelred’s prisoners also.

  “That was ill done. You must capture her. Keep her in England.”

  “The wasp that bit my father,” Knut said. “I saw it go into her bower. Did she murder my father?”

  “Not Emma,” Raef said. “But she is possessed, and the evil that owns her killed him. You remember how Aethelstan died. Take her and keep her close, watch her always, and never let her touch you.”

  “I want revenge,” Knut said. His hands fisted. Sweyn’s death burned in his heart like a coal, and now here was some balm for it. “I am his son; it is mine to avenge him.”

  “That,” Raef said, “may take some doing. Seizing Emma will be the easy part. I’ll help you.” His head turned, as if someone called him. “Go, they’re looking for you, back at your ships.” He stood up.

  Knut said, “Are you out here alone? Come to Brough— they’ll have bread and meat. Where is your boat?”

  “No, no,” Raef said, already walking away. “I can’t, goodbye.” On the third stride he vanished in front of Knut’s eyes.

  Knut stood a moment where he was, gaping at the empty air. The feeling swept over him that he had never been talking to Raef at all. Was any of it true, then? He started back toward his camp. Someone up ahead was calling for him. That much was so. Therefore, he would trust all of it – the promise, the knowledge that he would be King. He shouted back and went on.

  * * *

  In the morning Knut went down along the coast to Sandwich. When he arrived, to his surprise, Thorkel was waiting, his ships lined up on the beach, in order and ready.

  Knut had been stocking up all the way down the coast for the short cross-water to Denmark. He moved in beside the Jomsvikings on the pale, sandy shore. It was a cold, windy day.

  When he walked up on the beach, Thorkel came to meet him. They talked over some small things, neither saying much. There was still the matter of the hostages. Thorkel was dragging around more than thirty Saxons given as pledges for the oaths sworn and broken, and he wanted to hold them for ransom.

  Knut said, “You mean, stay here and wait for somebody to pay up.” They were standing in front of the row of dragons, and he swept his gaze along them. He had thought Thorkel was lying about having five hundred men, and now he saw how bad the lie had been. With his ships, there were twenty-one altogether; he would need many more than this.

  But he would win if he didn’t give up. He was almost sure that had been Raef he spoke to. He did not think he had such a gift as that, to invent a whole man, even to tell him what he wanted to hear.

  The sun was just rising. The tide was still wrong, but Knut was itching to set sail. If he raised the call soon enough in the North, he could bring an army back here by next summer, the fighting season, when he could keep a lot of men on the country. But he had to leave now.

  Thorkel was squinting at him around his bony nose. “Thirty ransoms. There will be gold enough for every man on the fleet. Some left over for us.” His eyes shimmered like coins.

  Knut realized his fist was clenched. He said, “All you think about is gold, Thorkel. Get those hostages out here.”

  Thorkel said, “Now, listen, boy—”

  Knut said, “No, you listen to me.” He lunged at Thorkel and grabbed hold of his shirt, and, although Thorkel was two fingers taller, Knut forced him back on his heels in a rush. Into the harp nose, Knut said, “I am King. You are almost useless, Thorkel, except when you do exactly as I say.” He shoved Thorkel away and punched him in the chest, not hard. “You understand that? And you call me boy once more, I’ll kill you.”

  Thorkel shoved back at him. “Don’t talk to me like that.” He looked quickly around, to see who was nearby. There were a lot of people nearby, all watching, hands at their sides. Nobody was coming to help him.

  Knut went at him again, furious, shouting into his face. “You lost London, you bungled the siege, you let Edmund get to Winchester, you let him become King, you are a shiftless, worthless fool. It’s a puzzle to me how you ever got command of the Jomsburg. Get those hostages out here.” The words came out with some spittle, and Thorkel stepped back, daubing at his beard.

  Knut leaned toward him still, hoping he would pull a knife, or at least say something. His hot, surging temper wanted blows, wanted blood. A murmur went through the men watching them. Thorkel did nothing; something in Knut’s face forestalled him. He licked his lips and then turned and walked off. Raw with unfed anger, Knut lowered his eyes. Odd walked up to him. “When are we leaving?”

  “In a little while,” Knut said.

  “You’ve got him by the balls.”

  “I wish I didn’t have him at all.”

  Odd said, “Tronde ships are bigger. Get my father’s fleet.”

  “I hope I can.” He looked around, trying to see things broadly. That meant cooling down. He took a deep breath. It was, as Sweyn had said, something of a curse. Hastily, he backed off that word. A burden, anyway. To win this crown now, he had to lead this army, show each his place in it, and keep each one going.

  I am the King, he thought. That much was true. For how long I cannot foretell.

  The hostages had been scattered among the ships, like ballast. They gathered on the grey beach in a huddle, cold and wretched. Somebody built a fire. Thorkel came toward him. “Now, what? You’re going to let them go, is that it? Just dump them here?”

  Knut said, “They betrayed me. They betrayed Sweyn. Cut off something, from each one – a hand, an ear – slit their noses. I want everybody to know what liars those people are.”

  Thorkel grunted, surprised. This, though, he understood, and he turned and called up some of his Jomsvikings, and they tramped over toward the miserable hostages crowded on the beach. Knut turned to Odd. “We’ll leave when we’re done here.”

  Odd said, “Where are we going?”

  “To Denmark, first,” Knut said.

  From down on the beach came a chorus of wails and screams. Odd looked the other way. He said, “I could take my ship straight up to Lade. Talk to my father. Meet you, say, in the Limfjord.”

  “That would make it quicker,” Knut said. “We should try to get back here this summer. We’ll miss a whole year if we don’t hurry.”

  He looked down the beach. The screaming was still going on, but Thorkel and his men were walking away, axes and swords in their hands. Behind them they left a churning, sobbing crowd of people. Knut lifted his arm, and all along the row of dragons, men turned, and everybody watched him.

  “Let’s get these ships out there.” He started toward his own, a big stout dragon from his father’s fleet, shining in the new daylight.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Raef thought much about the Lady without coming to any conclusion. He felt his mind locked in an endless circle of doubt and fear. He lost interest in everything else. Laissa took care of his household without needing anything from him, and now that Gemma hated him he took no pleasure in the everyday things. He stopped going to the oak tree for his councils; Goda was sensible, the others respected him, and as long as the city was prosperous everybody was willing to get along. He had always meant to let them go on their own eventually anyway.

  Another thing he did not think about was something that had been there all the while before him but that foolishly he did not take the time to foresee.

  At la
st, on a warm spring day, he went down through Jorvik. There were new houses on the streets and more people he didn’t know, and he went slowly to catch their voices. Two women talking over a fence. A tinker, a cobbler. Somebody went by him speaking Saxon. He walked into the midst of a crowd of children at some game, and they shrieked and dodged around him until he was past. Nobody paid much heed to him. He turned the corner at the old street by Corban’s house.

  The dust of the street before it lay thick and undisturbed; not even birds landed there. He went up to the front door and stepped inside.

  For an instant his head whirled. He gulped. His stomach rose. Then he got himself straight again. The air around him seemed thick, like water he could breathe. He felt everything subtly shifting around him. When he moved, ripples spread out away from him. He went slowly, to keep himself together, and still had to wait for his foot to catch up to his leg once, and his whole elbow another time. Around him he could see nothing, only the ancient, moldering, empty house. For a long while he stood there, waiting.

  Then he began to feel Corban’s presence in the thick air around him, slow, deep, layered in echoes. Like the waves of air against his ears, he sensed his uncle’s breathing next to him. A sudden excitement stirred him. He felt himself open like a flower in the sun, and then Corban was all around him and within him, as if they stood in the same place, shared the same body, soul on soul.

  In his mind, Corban said, “Raef. Raef. Son of my heart.”

  “I need your help,” Raef thought. “Help me.”

  “The Lady.”

  “Yes. Help me. I can’t do this alone.”

  “Only you can do it.”

  “How? Nothing I have done makes any difference.”

  “Only you can do this.”

  “How?”

  “Force her out of her host body. And stay inside yours. Make her come to you and take her in.”

  “How?”

  “Use the coat.”

  “The coat,” he said, aloud, astonished.

  The air rippled around him, broken into waves by the sound of his voice. In his mind, Corban said, “Take her in. You are greater than she is.”

  “I don’t understand.” He said this in his mind again.

  “You just took me in,” Corban said.

  “I’m not afraid of you. I love you.”

  “You must not be afraid of her. Take her in. She does not belong here. You do. You belong to this being; you are stronger than she is. All this being dwells in you.”

  The coat, he thought, in a wild panic; he had forgotten about the coat.

  “Take her in,” Corban said. He was fading; Raef’s fear was driving him out. In a moment he was gone, and Raef stood alone in the house, empty as a shell.

  Take me with you, he thought. Uncle, take me with you.

  No one answered. After a while he turned slowly to the door and made his way out.

  * * *

  Laissa was at the church with Gemma; often they slept there after they had worked. The hall was empty except for a couple of the men sitting around the fire. Raef remembered finding the coat, years before, but he could not remember what he had done with it. He went around the hall, looking, but he saw nothing and could not remember. Finally he went up to the high seat and sat down.

  He was afraid; the fear held him rigid, like an iron skin.

  It was fear that would ruin him. That would ruin the world in him. He remembered Gunnhild slapping him. “Raef. You are such a coward.” He made himself calm. He thought of Corban, his mother, Conn, Laissa, Gunnhild, Gemma, everyone he had ever loved, and the love settled him. Love drove out his fear. He sat there for a while thinking of nothing but how he loved them, and then slowly he came to realize where the coat was.

  He stood up, pulled the old chest out from under the high seat, and tipped the lid back. He plunged his hand down into the dark hollow and felt a ring of leather and a great heap of coins. And beside it was a dank, moldy mass of cloth.

  He took it out, sat down again, and set it on his knees. It was rotten and crumpled, too small to fit even a child. He remembered the old story, how the Lady had given this to Corban to keep him bound to her will and how he had flung it off and freed himself. He spread it out, and it crumbled in his hands— filthy, useless. He still did not understand. He put his hand to his bad ear, afraid again.

  * * *

  Laissa kneeled at the altar and prayed a few moments; she tried to find words to speak to God for her husband, whose strange grief was locking him away from her, but she knew no god for Raef. Gemma came up beside her and crossed herself.

  “Mama. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she said, which was not true. What was wrong had too much to do with Gemma to disclose it to her. She looked up at the long Jesus on his tree, wondering why she could not find peace here.

  She heard footsteps behind her; she signed herself and stood up. An old man leaning on a stick was trudging up the aisle toward them. When she turned, he stopped, spread his arms out, and smiled.

  “My children,” he said. “God bless you. God bless you for being here, and for this church.”

  Laissa said, puzzled, “Welcome, sir, whoever you are.” He wore a ragged dark robe with a rope for a belt, his feet bare; she had never seen him before.

  He said, “For your welcome, I thank you, most humbly.” He looked up at the Jesus and then around at the whole church. “I am home,” he said. “God have mercy on me, at last I am home.”

  “Home,” Gemma said, bewildered.

  Laissa said, “Home?”

  “Yes.” He sat down on the ground before them. “I am Wulfstan. Once I was archbishop of this place, but the wicked King Ethelred cast me into prison for telling him his sins. But now the new King has set me free, and I have come back.”

  Gemma let out a cry. “Mama!” She wheeled toward her mother. “It’s our priest.”

  Laissa went down on her knees by the old man and seized his hands, her heart galloping. “You have come. We prayed for you to come.” She looked into his clear, pale eyes, and, when he smiled, she saw the light in his eyes and could not but smile back. He was good. She could see the faith and joy in him. She clutched his hands. “All this time, we have been keeping the church. Making it ready—” She began to cry. “We never really knew if – but you have come back. God has sent you back to us.”

  “Ah, child.” He patted her hands. “All this while, you have kept the church? How good, how good. Your faith is like a fire to me. God bless you.” He kissed her forehead and got himself crookedly up onto his feet; he was very old. He said, “Let us then pray together.”

  At the far end of the aisle the door creaked open. “Laissa? Is that you?”

  “Miru,” Laissa called. She danced down the aisle a few steps. “Miru, come, it’s the priest! The priest has come at last!”

  She reached back and caught old Wulfstan by the hand again. “Here he is – our priest! All our prayers have come true.”

  “Come,” old Wulfstan called, in a strong, high voice. “Come and let us give thanks to God Almighty, who has preserved us through the darkness.”

  Miru gave a whoop of joy. “Wait – wait – I shall bring others—” She ran out of the church, shouting.

  * * *

  Wulfstan went up before the altar and raised his hands. It had been years since he had done this, but the words rose from his memory as if God spoke them into his ear.

  “I will go into the altar of the Lord.”

  Behind him, the few voices said, “Amen,” and the hollow of the church echoed the voices back like sacred music.

  Wulfstan thought he would burst with happiness. He had walked all this way, not knowing what he would find, and what he had found passed all his hopes. The church was clean, and the people faithful. Now the word of God came from him like cool, pure water to wash away the sins of the world. He had his church back. He had the first of his flock here.

  Someone had brought him bread, and he laid
it on the altar and made the sign of the cross over it. Someone had brought wine, and he poured it into the chalice. He raised the blood and body of the Lord, tears on his cheeks, grateful for Jesus, whose love filled the cosmos, and behind him, the faithful cried out, “Amen.”

  * * *

  Raef was sitting in his high seat, and Gemma flew in the door and rushed up before him in an attitude of great bravery. She said, “Papa, you cannot be false anymore. The priest has come. God is back in Jorvik. You must get down on your knees and pray to Jesus to save you.”

  He lifted his head. She was like a young tree, all straight and clean and golden leaved, and yet she stood against him like an enemy and said this ridiculous thing. He said, “Why have you turned on me?”

  “You must be saved, Papa.” She leaned intently toward him. Laissa had come in behind her; she would not meet his eyes. “Jesus loves you, but he cannot save you unless—”

  “Jesus,” he said, his voice harsh, “I have seen men in Jesus’s name stick pikes through other men like a second backbone, girl. You are a fool if you believe—”

  She flew at him. “You can’t say that! It’s sinful!” Her little hands slapped at him; he reared back, his arms up, but he did not fight her, only let the painless blows bounce off him. She cried, “I cannot live here – not until you kneel!” She flung herself down on her knees, her hands clasped, her eyes lifted toward the sky. “Dear God, help him.”

  Laissa said, “Gemma. Stop. He is your father.”

  Gemma got up and backed away. Her face was flushed. Her hair seemed to crackle with her righteous fire. She said, “My real father is God Almighty. You told me this. You tell me one thing in the church and another thing here. Only Father Wulfstan tells me the truth.”

  “Wulfstan,” Raef said. “Who’s that?”

  Laissa came up beside him. “The archbishop has come back. He is at the church.” She passed one hand over her face. “I did not see – until now – what this means.”