He turned to his saddle. He owned three, and six horses. The bay stallion was broad-backed and still gaining flesh. Sidroc had seen a chafe on the beast’s back after his last ride, caused by the ill-fitting saddle in his hands. Now with chisel he chipped away at the wooden underframe of the thing, to shape it.
As he worked he thought of the shield-maiden.
He should have laughed at himself for thinking of her as such. The shield-maidens descended over the fields of battle on their magic horses, plucking up downed warriors and carrying the valourous dead off to Asgard, to feast in the Halls of the Slain. Some men believed the shield-maidens did even more; that they might hover on their flying steeds above the contest, and choose with pointed throwing spear those men they most admired.
They were proud and fierce, and he thought they must also be beautiful.
This one, come with Yrling’s wife – the white pony was hers. She rode, and somehow with her look she had chosen him, singled him out, as fell a touch as a spear point to the breast.
He shook his head. She knew nothing of this; felt nothing of it. His hand grasped the chisel and pared away at the saddle-frame, but his thoughts were not his own to guide.
He had not seen one like her.
He recalled her look when he had mentioned the wealth of Mercia, the flare of her nostrils at his suggestion he might raid there. She was indeed like a beautiful mare, one who had never been backed or bridled, wild and free.
He considered her person, the green eyes, the striking hair. It was not red, like that of Jari. It was more the ruddy gold of certain choice ornaments he had glimpsed in the treasure trove of Yrling. But she was not treasure of Yrling, he was quick to remind himself. In this land Yrling could take but one wife, and he had taken the Lady Ælfwyn.
He was already thinking of her like this, the wife of Yrling. The shield-maiden – he had not expected her. He had not even pictured the woman Yrling was to wed coming with any other women, but of course now he realised that like the first to come here she would have at least one serving woman with her, some trusted thrall or freedwoman to tend to her body and her dress. The big and blustering one was she; the older woman’s possessiveness and care was clear in the sharpness of her look, and pitch of her voice. But the maid with the bright hair...
She had not Ælfwyn’s stature, but her hips and breasts bore a generous curve that the older maid lacked. In her speech too she seemed older than her looks, or perhaps it was the boldness of her words, and the way she lifted her eyes to his. Those green eyes looked fearless, even if at times her lower lip trembled. Her gaze seemed to question him, even when her lips were silent.
She was not kin, and not serving woman to Ælfwyn; the lady had named her friend. She was not bound to come in Ælfwyn’s train, yet had somehow chosen to do so. Her loyalty must run deep to follow her here. He knew from his own life that a child’s loyalties could be stronger than those formed later. He thought too that such a bond bode well for the forging of an even deeper bond, with a mate.
Her name...he knew of few names of the women of these parts, but her name had an odd and alien sound to it. But then she was not of Wessex, but another land, Mercia.
He thought of the exchange he had just had, with both maids. He had been harsh with them, taken aback by their forthright boldness and their challenging of him. They had stood up to all of it. It was in their blood to do so; both came from noble stock, though the shield-maiden had told him her father was dead. Ælfwyn’s father was not; he was rich and had drive enough to make a Peace with Yrling on his own terms, not waiting for his King, Æthelred of Wessex to act. His thoughts flickered to his uncle, who had sat with Ælfsige and made this Peace with him. Yrling would be glad indeed to see the beauty the reeve had sent him, a daughter as desirable as the golden plate Ælfsige had displayed.
Of a sudden Sidroc could not wait for his uncle to return. He did not know when that would be, tonight or the next day, surely. Whatever he and Guthrum had discussed, however far they may have ranged on a hunt for upland boar or deer, he must return soon.
The chisel had been still in his hands; he had been caught up in this thoughts. He looked down at his work, the small pile of light-hued shavings from the elm the saddle frame had been crafted from. He thought of his bay, and the fact that the shield-maiden could ride. He wanted to ride out with her.
Yrling arrived that night, and close enough to the evening meal that nearly all the men were already gathered within the hall. The watch-men posted along the road at a distance spotted him, and one rode ahead at speed to let the hall know he was come. The gates were opened, and Sidroc and Toki stood by the stable to greet him, oil-soaked torches in hand. Yrling rode in, twenty men clattering behind him. Dusk was deepening, but the yard, now full of the stamping of horses and laughter of men, was full of life. One of the pack horses bore a gutted boar slung over its back, proof of the success of the hunt, and of Guthrum’s liberality in sharing its fruits with his guest.
Once off his horse, Yrling fell in with his nephews. They made for the hall and the meal awaiting them. Before the ruins of the larger hall were the two big waggons, high-hooped, the tarpaulins laced tight. Yrling slowed.
“They are come,” Sidroc told his uncle, of the waggons. He extended the torch further out, so the glare would not blind them as they looked.
“They?” Yrling answered. “The daughter of Ælfsige of Cirenceaster, you mean.”
“Já. And another maid.”
For answer Yrling gave a grunt of acknowledgment; of course she would bring a serving maid with her.
Toki was quick to speak. “You will be sorry not to bed both,” he told Yrling. “But the second will be my woman.”
Toki said this last not looking at his uncle, but at his cousin. Sidroc would let no anger show on his face. Toki rarely missed a chance at mockery, aimed at anyone who might possess something which Toki himself could not attain. The only surprise Sidroc felt was his cousin’s already knowing that he wanted the other maid.
Yrling’s step had slowed as he looked at the waggons. It was far too dark to accept their contents now; a show must be made of it before all the men, and in good daylight. They moved forward, to where the hall door stood open for them. He had a word for Toki, though, as they reached the steps.
“You will touch nothing that is of my wife,” he warned. “And you have a wife, better than you deserve, in Jutland. Next year or so, we can send for her. Other women too.”
The men within were loud in their acclaim when Yrling walked in, and grew the louder when he had the boar carcass hauled before them. Yrling now saw what his two nephews and all others within had already seen. The old straw, which had been ankle-deep in many places, had been raked away from the floor by the thralls. Fresh straw, pale yellow and clean, had been strewn, with a generous margin left bare around the fire-pit. There they trod upon the hard but clean surface of the red-and-black stone floor, of which most men had but dim memory.
“Your wife, already at work,” Sidroc told him, at which Yrling gave a nod of satisfaction.
Yrling took his place at the high table, his nephews at either side, and the food was brought. The ale as ever was good, the bread also, but the porridge of dried beans and lentils was much the same fare they had subsisted on throughout Winter. Soon Spring greens could be plucked to lighten it. And soon, Yrling hoped, this young wife of his would take hall and village in hand.
The ale went round long after the wooden plates and crockery bowls had been cleared. All knew the treasure sent by Ælfsige of Cirenceaster would be unloaded on the morrow, and that the hand-fast would be held, with a bride-ale to follow. There was eagerness for all these things. Their war-chief was returned, and they would enjoy pleasures soon to come. But some also suspected that Yrling’s time at Turcesig with Guthrum had not been given over entirely to the chase. Yrling seemed in no haste to share news with those picked men who broke their bread at the high table with him. Asberg often sat next to Sidr
oc, and as the meal was coming to a close raised his eyebrows to him in question. There had been rumours enough of coming battle, would Yrling speak of it?
That the men were restless in their way deepened their curiosity. Winter, with its mud, wet, and snow was not a time of raiding. And so much had already been claimed. Yrling had held off from any attacks on the easternmost reaches of Wessex, as part of the Peace with the reeve of Cirenceaster. Lindisse and all of Anglia was won, or nearly so, as was Northumbria; the trading town of Jorvik had become a prized destination for Danes with silver to spend. The vast Kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex alone remained.
When at the end of the meal Yrling rose and nodded to his nephews, all eyes at his table followed them. Yrling turned to the thick oak planks that made up the dividing wall which marked the treasure room, that wall on which Aki had drawn the raven. In the dimness of the hall the bird could scarce be seen. The three stood at the treasure room door as Yrling slipped his key into the box lock. Toki had grabbed a torch, and carried it in with them, setting it in an iron holder nailed into the wall.
Once inside the cousins surrendered their keys to their uncle, who restrung them on the ring by the door hinges. The shadows of all three men were huge, flickering over the bare wood of the floor, dancing brokenly upon the chests and casks piled against the walls.
Yrling turned to them.
“Hingvar and Svein have struck deep into Wessex,” is what he said.
It was perhaps the last thing either cousin expected to hear. Hingvar and Svein were brothers who had fought for Yrling. Their tenure at Four Stones was brief. They had joined up when Yrling began slaving in earnest, and after a few months had ridden off, their saddle bags burdened with silver from their share in the takings. Though good warriors Yrling had not been sorry to see them go. They were, despite being brothers, often at each other’s throats, and had a talent for involving other men in their many quarrels.
“How many men have they?” asked Sidroc. They had ridden off alone; he had not forgotten that either they had invited no man to join them, or if they had, that none would take up with them.
“Three score and five,” came Yrling’s muted answer.
Five-and-sixty men. It seemed impossible they could have gathered so many warriors so quickly, and yet they had.
“How does Guthrum know?” posed Toki.
“Guthrum has as many outriders as I have men,” his uncle shot back, only a slight stretching of the truth. “In two days, three at most, he knows all of importance in the borderlands.”
The report of the brothers’ success hung in the air. Yrling now had ninety warriors, and was looking for more, Sidroc knew. But he had a base, a good one, the fortress of Four Stones, and had been named Jarl by Guthrum, the greatest of all Jarls here. Hingvar and Svein had attracted three score and five men with none of that, just with their fame and the silver they could offer. And their plans to win more.
Both cousins were staring at Yrling, waiting for him to speak.
“Guthrum is certain they will aim for Æthelred.”
Kill the King of Wessex. Sidroc lifted his eyes to the timbers far above his head. Thick as they were they were almost lost in darkness, the torch light by which he had been watching Yrling’s face failing to extend much into the gloom.
Toki had given a snort. “When do we ride?” he asked. He was already grinning at the prospect.
“Svein will not be happy to see your face again,” Sidroc answered. Toki and Svein had come to blows over a dice game, Svein claiming that Toki had cheated. Yrling had not stopped them as they traded punches, but had stood watching until Svein broke off. Later Svein complained, loudly and to all who would listen, that Toki was shielded from the justice of a thrashing he deserved.
“If we ride, it will be to join Hingvar and Svein, not to fight them,” Yrling said.
Yrling did not often confide in his nephews, and both were listening with intent.
Sidroc would hazard a question. “Ride – with Guthrum?”
“The two brothers may soon rival Guthrum in power. That is all I can say.”
Yrling’s eyes, always sharp under his hooded brows, stared back at Sidroc.
Sidroc looked back at his uncle. Danes at war were fluid; grouping and splitting, re-forming under a new war-lord whose chances at plunder they deemed greater. Ties were loose and easily sundered. Any chief’s war-band could swell or diminish on a single rumour. Even the most famed of Jarls here in Angle-land faced this. But Sidroc had more than once seen Guthrum, and had lived amongst Hingvar and Svein.
He studied his uncle’s face a moment longer. Yrling had made a blood-oath to Guthrum, on the great bracelet of gold circling that war-chief’s wrist. He must ask the next, to see how far his uncle’s thoughts had resolved.
“How will Guthrum move?”
“He may not,” came his uncle’s answer. “He will watch from afar, gauge the brothers’ chances, I think, then make decision.”
Toki could not accept such caution. “And let Svein and Hingvar win Wessex?” He shook his head, his yellow hair brushing against his shoulders as he did. His next words were spoken to his uncle, as much challenge as call to action.
“Either with the brothers, or against them, I say we move now.”
“At what cost?” Sidroc countered, turning to face Toki fully. “Even for Guthrum there is risk, to move so many men so far. Four Stones must be defended. It would take two-thirds of our men just to match Hingvar and Svein’s forces; by the time we arrive they may have many more. And to meet two who can never be trusted, two who were always warring between themselves.”
There was more at stake, in Sidroc’s eyes. To make a move to either fight or join with the brothers could be easily read as betrayal by Guthrum. He need not add that Yrling was counting on Guthrum to aid him in any future claim in Wessex.
Sidroc had a final question, for Yrling.
“Why did Guthrum tell you this?”
A slow smile spread across his uncle’s face. “That, I have been trying to decide. But all I know is that I am one who he also watches.”
Yrling gave a shake of his head now. “More ale,” he declared, turning for the door. The noise of the hall had not abated in their absence. “Ale, and then let me go up and see what Ælfsige of Cirenceaster sent me.”
The meeting did not go well. Yrling held his ale as well as any man, and better than most, but the long ride, the news he bore, the lateness of the hour all conspired to give his first encounter with the Lady Ælfwyn an edge unwarranted by her youth, beauty, and worth. Toki had nearly beaten the door down, that door to her narrow chamber lying at the end of the wooden stair, and all three females within could hide neither their fright nor their ire at this intrusion. They stood defenceless yet united in the harsh glare of the torch, their fingers digging into the woollen mantles they clutched about them. Any man being so roused would have drawn his weapon in response; these women had naught but their pride and their anger to bolster their fear.
Once again the bright-haired one had moved to shield her friend, tried, without speaking, to show her displeasure at the affront they had committed in almost forcing their way inside. Sidroc in turn had attempted to smooth their exit, prodding both Yrling and Toki to leave them be for the night. It was an act which had earned him a look from the shield-maiden, a look that seemed to hold some thankfulness to him in it. The men had but one torch with them, but dark as the room was behind the women, Sidroc could not help see the narrow beds from which they had arisen. Could not help see, and wonder which was that she had lain in…
The three came down next morning, into the hall when Sidroc, Yrling, and Toki were at table. They came in a kind of procession, one at a time, and with measured step. It was in every way the opposite of the night before, when Yrling and his nephews had burst into their room. They came now as they wished to present themselves, and Sidroc, sitting there, fixed his eyes on them as they appeared. The shield-maiden
came first, in a gown of a shade that was a deeper echo of her own hair. About her waist, and pulled snugly enough to show off the roundness of her hips, was a long sash, covered over with needle-work in many shades, of birds flying and strutting. She wore no gemstones, but the thread-work alone told of leisure enough to stitch such things. The chestnut gold hair was wealth in itself, barely contained or controlled by her head wrap of white. Her eyes flicked past Toki to him, he felt, before fixing on Yrling.
Just behind her was Ælfwyn of Cirenceaster, arrayed as she had been when she sat so stiffly on the waggon board, in a gown of deep blue, and a mantle of brilliant red over her narrow shoulders. But this morning she had placed a multitude of jewellery on gown, wrists, and fingers, including at the neckline a round brooch set with garnets. Sidroc had never looked on a queen, and even the glimpses he had seen of the richest war-lords’ wives in Dane-mark did not prepare him for this splendor of colour and precious metal. Resting on her breast was the choicest prize of all, for she had placed the great pearl about her neck, that which Sidroc had chosen for her from the store of Yrling’s treasure.
Sidroc had not had time to tell Yrling of this, and his uncle’s surprise at seeing the pearl was great. Ælfwyn had stopped and made a bow, and the pearl, hanging down freely from her slender throat on its gold chain, was as bright as a small Moon.
Yrling rose and came around the table to her. “The pearl – how did you get it?”
The lady looked almost as puzzled as Yrling. “Why, I wear it as your gift. Toki delivered it to me on the road here.”
She looked now at Toki, who with a smirk glanced at Sidroc. Yrling chanced to look at Sidroc, and was made to understand.
Yrling carried it well. “I had forgot,” he told her. “It was many days ago that I sent Toki with that charge.” He had cause to grin, not only for the resourcefulness of his nephews, but for his bride’s evident pleasure in the pearl, wearing it for him like this. The grin softened to a smile as he looked at her. “My gift is worn well.”
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