Sidroc was one of the remaining six standing there. Toki and Asberg too were there, as was Gudmund, who had led them to Four Stones. They pulled the man back and away, to watch man and boar expel their last breaths at nearly the same moment.
That the hunter should fall victim to the hunted was irony not lost on the witnesses. The boar, headed for the belly of the one who had killed him, ripped that belly apart as its final act. Sidroc remembered, on one of his first raids, seeing a youth skewer one of his brethren with a toasting fork. The Dane had been knocked flat and senseless by a pot thrown by an old woman, and a boy of twelve years or so had delivered the death blow with a kitchen tool.
No man could know how he would meet his death, or if it would be ignoble or glorious. And rushing to claim what the Gods had not yet dealt out was fraught with peril.
Though Yrling did not ride forth to war that Winter, other Danes found their way to the gates of Four Stones. He they sought could afford to pick and choose those he would take in. More than a few times Danes were allowed no further than outside the closed gates. Uncle and nephews, Asberg, Jari, Gizur, and Gudmund would go out to them, look them over. Yrling favoured men well-equipped, the proof of their prowess on their backs, but did not turn away from any who were patently hungered; his own hunger on the move was still too close to do that. If the Danes were horsed and did not get off their mounts to address him, Yrling waved them on.
“If I were one, I would not get off my horse,” Toki complained. There was danger of course in doing so, all saw that, but Toki was blind to the arrogance it showed.
Yrling was unmoved. “If a man will not meet me on the ground on which I stand, he can take his fear, and his pride, and seek another Jarl.”
The Winter wore on, short days lengthening, the Sun setting ever further West in its low transit. The hard months on the move across Anglia and Lindisse were supplanted by the months of security and plenty at Four Stones. They built a longhouse, large enough to house twenty men, out in the shallow valley where they kept their excess horses, as a guard to that moveable treasure.
As the land began to green again, a feeling grew in Sidroc, of how good a place this was. Not just the keep with its tall palisade and many buildings, but the pastures, rolling meadowlands, deep forests, and coursing streams that marked the holding.
One day, riding his bay stallion from the valley of horses back to the hall, he considered what surrounded him. All his eye took in, he had helped win. It struck him of a sudden, his role in this wealth. It heightened his thoughts, made him ponder his own Fate, and means of working that Fate to his own best ends.
The stallion under him was young, strong, and highly spirited, well-matched for its rider. He felt aware of the beast’s great power, of the animal’s hot blood pumping from the mighty heart, of its urgings for speed and food and for calling mares to mount. The control and calm in which they moved now, down this pounded road, allowed him to embrace this union, and granted a deeper knowing too of his own distinct separateness. He felt his own blood as it coursed through his veins, fuelling the strength in his limbs, giving power to shield arm and sword arm, and speed to his long legs. It was blood and more than blood, this life-force, pulsing to and from that flaring centre of his being, the urgings of his loins. The animal’s strength heightened the sense of his own man’s strength, his keen and deep potential. Every impulse that had formed and created him brought him to this awareness of craving, and near-mastery. It was a taste that led him to desire more.
The sharp cry of nesting chaffinches flitting overhead awoke him to the landscape he moved through. Looking out above the spilling black mane of his horse he thought, This place is now my home; a better place than Ful’s farm, than even my father’s farm.
This was followed by a second thought, close upon the first: But there is a better. I will stay here until I gain enough treasure to set out for myself, to claim that better place. When I have silver enough, I will leave, take what I have won. Men too. Some of these men will follow me, want to throw in with me; Jari, I know, and Asberg, and others as well…
He had not thought of leaving his uncle before, but now realised that he would. He would not be ready to do so for a while, he knew, but the thought of leaving, of striking out on his own, his own men at his back, struck a deep and thrilling chord within him.
The road leading to Four Stones had begun to dry in the warming Sun of early Spring. Less mud meant easier travel, and down that ribband of drying clay came a group of horsemen. A moment’s study by the lookouts on the parapets told that these were Danes, not Saxon thegns.
There were two score of them, formidably equipped in full war-kit, each man with helmet and ring-shirt, a sword at every side, a spear in each right hand. Only the richest of war-chiefs could so afford to arm his men thus, and the lookouts on the ramparts of Four Stones knew those approaching must be only a small fragment of a much larger force. The lookouts made quick count of the number, then whistled over the work yards, calling attention to all warriors of Four Stones. In a few moments Yrling and his chief men had climbed the ladders to the parapet, and themselves gazed upon their visitors.
They came at a walk, collected, their horses showing no sign of hard usage. Attackers would come at a canter.
The village these riders passed through had fallen silent, all doors suddenly shut, all children plucked from where they had been sitting just moments before as their haggard and thin mothers worked over wash tub or scraped a few seeds into the ground. What terrors these women felt as they closed themselves within, no man riding nor watching could fully ken.
Yrling, up on the parapet flanked by his nephews, had as well Gizur at his side, his marksman’s arrow nocked in his long bow. They all stood the straighter as the troop reined up a few horse lengths before the closed gates.
The visitors had resolved into ranks of four. Now one of the horsemen in the first rank touched his mount’s flank. The horse, a roan stallion with tossing head, moved up a little.
Of all the men in that war-troop, his rider was perhaps the least impressive. Being mounted on the stallion did not mask his relative lack of stature. He was a man of less than average height. This made him the more interesting to those who gazed down on him.
He wore a brown mantle, trimmed with some dark and plush fur along border and hem, making rich show where that fur rested against his horse’s white-flecked rump. The rider’s legs were clad in bright blue leggings, and the reddish-brown hue of the short boots on his feet gave strong contrast. The steel helmet on his head was highly polished, and had cheek-pieces extending down almost to the jaw-line. Between this, the eye-surrounds, and the strip of steel that served as nose-guard, little of the man’s face could be seen.
The rider lifted his head to those looking at him.
“You that are Yrling, show yourself.” The voice uttering these words was steady, and full of command.
Upon the palisade Yrling moved his head.
“You stand before him,” he answered.
The visitor spent a moment looking through the eye-holes of his helmet at Yrling. Then he spoke.
“I am Guthrum.”
There was no man on the rampart that did not feel startle, even if few betrayed it. The Dane who was the greatest of their war-lords here in Angle-land stood before them. Guthrum was renowned for his courage and ability, and even more for his canny and careful approach to his opponents. He had, as well, true kingship flowing in his blood, being a nephew to slain King Horik of Dane-mark. If ever a man might one day be called King here in Angle-land, it would be Guthrum. Now he was at their gates.
Yrling was nothing if not decisive, and his first act was to show this to his guest.
“Welcome in,” he called down. He turned his head a moment to order, “Open the gates.”
Yrling and his nephews were down from the ramparts by the time Guthrum and the first rank of his warriors rode in. Yrling waited by the broad oak door of his hall a
s they all came inside, filling the forecourt. Sidroc and Toki, at their uncle’s side, had been joined by Jari and Asberg, an impressive line to meet the great Guthrum’s gaze. Notwithstanding his greeting, Yrling had taken the precaution to have Gizur stay above on the palisade. If Yrling’s welcome was to be met by treachery, the bow-man would avenge him.
Every warrior of Four Stones was also now ringing the area between hall and stable. The paddock was just beyond, and Yrling gestured that his men help lead the visitors’ horses to the troughs there.
Now off his horse, Guthrum stood by the beast’s handsome head. Yrling took the few strides to meet him. Yrling was not overly-tall himself, but was a full hand-span taller than the famed warrior he greeted. Yrling pointed to one of his men, signalling that he take the reins of the roan stallion, and lead him to the stable where he would be more fully cared for.
Then with a nod he gestured his nephews forward.
“Sidroc, my brother’s son,” he told Guthrum. “Toki, my sister’s son.”
Guthrum pulled off his helmet before them. More than a few flecks of grey streaked his light brown hair, and the short and curled beard hair was also showing grey at the chin. His eyes of blue-green scanned the person of the tall Dane, took in the long scar that marred the left cheek, then flicked up to Sidroc’s flint blue eyes. At this point Sidroc had been so looked at by many fighting men. Guthrum’s gaze set him apart. He seemed not to be gauging Sidroc’s worth as a fighter, his own odds of besting him, or any such common inner inquiry. The look was something deeper, and yet perhaps simpler, some basic sorting into types, a Já or Nej about him.
Guthrum repeated his scrutiny with Toki, who shifted slightly under that steely gaze. A movement of Toki’s lower lip told of his discomfiture as those cool eyes assessed him.
Asberg, looking on and realizing the next step was to offer refreshment in the hall, beat a discreet path to the kitchen yard. All there knew that visitors had ridden in, but they must be marshalled to provide food and drink.
Yrling at this point was holding open the door leading the few steps down into the hall. Though Spring, it would be cold within, and he trusted that some of the thralls would have sense to poke up the fire to shed more warmth for his guest. None had, but he jerked his thumb at the fire and sent two men at work mending a broken bench scurrying to tend to it.
A loud, scattered, and disorganized period followed, but at its end Yrling was sitting at the long table at which he and his chief men always sat. Guthrum was at his right, Sidroc next to Guthrum, and Toki at his uncle’s left side. Guthrum’s chief men then sat interspersed with Yrling’s at other places along the length of the ancient oaken board. This table sat just before the treasure room wall, that wall on which Aki had drawn the raven with its outspread wings, so the great bird overlooked all.
The rest of the warriors divided themselves at the remaining tables so that to Yrling’s left sat his men, and to Guthrum’s right, his own. These two groups looked the other over, the men of Yrling not failing to note the superior war-kit sported by Guthrum’s troop. Indeed, they felt themselves at disadvantage, for their own armaments were stowed, and they had only the brawn of their persons and worth of their knives to display in return. Those fine helmets owned by the visitors now sat upon the scarred and time-worn planks of the table-tops, and most of Guthrum’s men had placed them so they balanced forward on the nose-guard, the empty eye protectors seeming to regard those who studied them across the fire-pit.
Ale came, the quality of which Yrling could have no qualms over. The cups that ale was poured into were mostly of thick-walled pottery. Only at the high table were they of bronze, many of which were well-made and highly embossed. Before his guest was seated Yrling had gone into the treasure room and withdrawn from a pair of locked and nested chests the large footed cup of etched metal he had taken from the stone table at the temple of Beardan. This cup was not only wrought of silver but the foot and rim were gold. It was this he placed before Guthrum, a cup that he himself had never yet drunk from. His guest’s eyes rested on it a moment, and the strong hand closed around that stem when the cup was filled. That wrist bore a bracelet of gold, two thick rods of it twisted round each other, a fortune encircling his lifting hand.
Yrling could be reckless, but it was a calculated recklessness. Watching Guthrum’s cold eyes fall on the precious cup moved him to speak.
“This cup is my gift to you.”
It was a gift fit for a king, and Guthrum, having defiled many temples of the Christians here, knew it was also fit for a God; the markings on it told him so. He had a second horse with him, one nearly as good as his first; he would as token leave it as answer to his host’s rich offering.
He nodded in thanks.
Bread of fine crumb, well-leavened, came with the good ale, but there was as yet little milk from which butter could be drawn, and of course, no cheese. Bread and ale were served out by men and women of the hall who in their hesitant and clumsy movements could not hide their fear of the warriors surrounding them.
Once thirst had been slaked Guthrum looked over the hall, then back at his host. Yrling had pulled benches so that Guthrum sat on the end of one, and he himself on another. Their talk so far had been of the most general sort, but now his guest went deeper.
“You have no wife,” Guthrum noticed aloud.
Yrling’s wife would have stood with him to greet the visitors, and welcomed them in. A wife would have assured the prompt delivery of food and drink, and even now, behind her smile of attention to the conversation about her, be planning the evening meal for so many additional men. No such capable help-mate had stood by Yrling’s side. Indeed, there had been few women at all seen, and seemingly all of a thrall’s estate.
There was nothing for Yrling to say save the truth.
“The daughter of Merewala – she died in the taking of the hall.”
Guthrum gave a nod. The fingers of his hand lay gently curled about the graceful foot of the precious cup before him. Something about the way he held and drank from this cup told all watching that here was a man used to drinking from silver and gold. He lifted the cup and took another draught of the good ale within.
“Win one, if you do not wish to starve,” the older man advised.
It was the last thing Yrling expected to hear, but he saw the wisdom in it. None of his men had shown the ability the dead Bjarne had possessed at managing stores, and no real chain of command had emerged amongst the surviving hall and kitchen folk; the haphazard and faulty service of those moving about the hall was proof of that, as were the diminishing supplies in grain houses, root cellars, and store rooms. If not for the alert Asberg, sitting at the end of the table, even this welcome-ale would have been delayed.
Sidroc and Toki were of course privy to these words, though both remained silent. For his response Yrling slowly nodded, and in a way that made clear Guthrum had been heard.
“Your taking of Four Stones was not expected,” Guthrum said now.
Yrling had practice in maintaining a neutral demeanour, which aided him here. Again, it was almost an observation made by the war-lord. In tone it was far from an accusation, but the thought could not help flash into the minds of Yrling and his nephews that Guthrum himself had had designs on so great a prize as Yrling had won.
The new lord of Four Stones decided silence was the best response. There was no need to justify his desire for a hall to the man who had conquered so many throughout Anglia, in Northumbria, and even here in Lindisse.
Guthrum went on, nothing deterred by his host’s silence.
“Tell me of Merewala’s death,” he said now. It was more command than invitation, though Guthrum’s hazel eyes were full of inquiry.
Yrling rapidly gauged what the Jarl could have heard of the falling of the old lord. Guthrum was known for his ability to learn what others could not, and to use that news to serve his ends. He was forming his response when Toki, at his elbow, piped up.
This, from Toki, who had not been there; had been still upon his horse, ranging through the work yards and the faltering ranks of thegns attempting to rally to their lord’s defence.
Guthrum did not fail to register how Yrling’s hand had jumped slightly on the table at this claim, nor how his lips parted as if in protest. Yrling’s chin turned down, and his back turned the more against his nephew, as if to check his words.
Yrling’s silence was no longer serving him. He must speak.
“We squared off, as my nephew says,” he began, to put the best face on Toki’s brashness. He inclined his head to Sidroc. “My other nephew was there, backing me; and Jari and Asberg were spearmen, fending off those who would break into our match.” Yrling raised his hand and pointed out the men he named, sitting at the high table with him. He knew that Merewala had been famed as a warrior in Lindisse; how much greater might Guthrum’s estimation of the dead man be. Every word Yrling spoke now mattered, and he would not disparage the dead.
“It was evenly matched; Merewala’s body-guard was kept active by my spearmen, so he and I could fight without hindrance.”
Guthrum sat listening with the same look of inquiry. Yrling had seen enough to know a becoming restraint in his telling would serve him better than any bluster from Toki or any other witness.
For this was the problem: Yrling had not killed Merewala. None knew this save those who had been at their sides in that fatal battle. And of those who had been Merewala’s thegns, all had fallen. This left Yrling’s closest men with the knowledge. A few had died later in the battle, but Sidroc, Jari, and Asberg all lived. They had seen Yrling get in a strike at the old lord’s forearm, seen the seam of blood begin to run through his ring-shirt. But actual killing blow there had been none. They had watched Merewala’s enraged face pale to ashen hue, seen the hand that clenched the sword rise to chest and throat. He had been felled by his own failing heart, the end of many a man of his years.
Sidroc the Dane Page 39