“Asgard awaits you,” Jari now said.
The nod the dying man gave was acquiescence and welcome both. As Jari bent over with his knife, the man forced his eyes open, ready to meet the death blow Jari’s sure hand delivered to the hollow of the throat.
Hrald watched with narrowed eyes. Jari was Christian in name and in practice, but this Dane’s comfort could come only from the Old Gods. Hrald had sometimes mused on the dictum that no Christian should take another’s life as an act of mercy, only as an act of war. But he was glad that Jari ended this Dane’s suffering, enemy and renegade though he be.
A shake of Jari’s head at Orri told him Jari wanted none of what might be found upon the dead Dane. Jari was second in riches only to Asberg amongst the men of the hall, and the younger Orri, lately stationed at Saltfleet, had scant chance to win battle-gain. But Orri must wait to collect it, for first they must reach the plain upon which he had seen the fighting.
They had brought archers with them, six of them, to provide cover from a distance should any of them need to creep near to the field of combat. The hours that had passed since discovery and return rendered such cover unneeded. The fighting ground opened up before them at the end of the trail they followed, a tract of no great size running to oozing marsh along a stream bank. No man stood upright upon that field, and no remaining horse wandered the trampled ground, or skirted the trees, bereft of its rider.
None upon the ground lived. Their bodies had been so thoroughly plundered to tell at once of the need of the victors. Weapons, purses, jewellery, any protective gear these men may have donned, all was gone. Some of them were stripped naked; even their boots had been taken. Those still clothed bore huge rents in their tunics, rendering the blood-soaked items beyond use. The forsaken state of the shattered bodies and the desperation of their looting was underscored by the ceaseless buzzing of flies, circling above the dead, landing upon open wounds from which blood pooled.
Hrald looked upon this in fascinated horror. He had seen men, freshly killed, when he had fought Thorfast and his men. Thorfast had fallen by his own hand, and Jari had killed both Thorfast’s body-guards. Gunnulf, Jari’s brother and Hrald’s friend, had fallen first. These had been men Hrald had known, and in Gunnulf’s case, grown up with. More recently his men had felled Bork’s father and another man, in self-defence. This grisly spectacle before him was of far greater scope, and looking on the toll, it took every power of his inner command to keep his gorge from rising.
They counted the bodies of thirty-four men, considerable slaughter if eighty had engaged. The broken stream banks opposite showed where men and horses had fled, splashing in and climbing out of the water to bolt towards the forest beyond.
“No pennons, no flags,” muttered Jari, returning to where Hrald sat his horse. No golden dragon of Wessex, no green serpent of Mercia had been left behind, but then any such was a prize piece of booty. From what they could see it was true, what the dying man had told them. This was Dane against Dane.
Without war pennons or distinct battle cries it was ever hard to discern who might be facing which enemy on the field of battle. It was true that Saxon swords differed in subtle ways from those of the Danes, and that the Saxons most often bore as their knives the distinctive angled-bladed seax, hung lengthwise across the belly, instead of the straight-backed knives Danes carried at their hips. But many warriors adopted the weaponry of those they had vanquished. The several fractured shields remaining gave little clue as to who these men had been. Few were ever painted in such a way to directly signify that Saxon or Dane held them, and no war-chief asked that his men carry similar shields. One might see a rune carved or painted within the protective inside of a shield, where the bearer might see it and take heart, or a depiction of the Christian cross. Indeed, some men inscribed both. From the little left they could discern almost nothing, save the likely truth of the dead Dane’s final words.
The dissension in Haesten’s troops had grown so extensive that the followers of the greatest of these who had thrown in with him, Guthrum’s own son Agmund, were now openly hostile towards the men of their erstwhile leader. None could tell what had occasioned this deadly engagement. Had both set their sights on a common target, one they gauged they could conquer with two or three score trained men, such as Oundle, or Haward’s hall? Was it a squabble turned deadly over their limited resources? Warriors who have seen little success and less feeding will swiftly move to block any in their path to food and silver.
Hrald remembered the words of his father at Saltfleet, the day they had ridden there to meet Ælfred. Sidroc had reminded them all that Haesten’s men were hungry, and had followed their war-chief a long way, and with too little reward. How much hungrier would these men be now, Hrald thought, how much more desperate. Even with the destructive raids they had carried out, food so won was quickly consumed, and men could not live long on promises.
They turned their horses back the way they had come. Orri took the little he could from the man they had found alive, and Hrald awarded the man’s horse to him as well. The rest of the men rode through the encampment, taking anything of use. These were mainly articles of clothing and cooking implements, but one man found a bridle, and another a small store of silver in a worn purse stashed beneath bedding. Anything of real worth they would offer to Hrald, but those who had ridden to fight had taken all they had with them, and some of that must now be in the hands of Agmund’s men.
Hrald sat his horse as his men combed through the scant offerings. Several crows had alighted in a nearby tree, as if watching, and then flew off toward where the dead lay. The carrion-eating beasts of sky and woodland would have their fill.
Jari was also still horsed, and with Hrald watched the flight of the crows.
“If the Gods smile Haesten and Agmund will kill each other,” Jari offered.
On his return to Four Stones at dusk that day Hrald again sent riders to both Turcesig and to Haward. They carried the news of what they found, Danes who had fought and killed each other on the border of Hrald’s lands. That those retreating had taken a southwesterly track was all he could append. Still, the fact that the intruders had not driven northeast, with the abbey of Oundle or either Hrald’s or Haward’s hall as immediate target provided some relief.
He took the further step of sending thirty men to Oundle, as precaution. His mother had as much as asked for this, and he could not deny the abbey greater succour. He must grow used to the fact that a standing force of warriors need be left there. This was disruptive to the abbey and likely distasteful to its Abbess, but it must be done. Yet it left Four Stones with thirty fewer men for its immediate defence. With the doubled patrols along his borders and the fifty men always at the valley of horses to protect the animals he had fewer than ninety warriors within his gates. Those lately come from Turcesig he shared out amongst these duties.
Hrald’s thoughts turned to Dagmar. Indeed, his mind was never far from that young woman. He wanted her to return to Four Stones; the battle ground he had just surveyed was too near her for his comfort. She remained at Haward’s hall, but her half sister Inkera had returned under her cousin’s escort to her home at Headleage. Dagmar’s remaining behind was enough of a prompt to Hrald to encourage him to invite her again.
His mother knew Dagmar was there, and perhaps was not surprised when Hrald came to her with his request. He had awakened early considering it, and appeared at the gate of her bower garden as she was leaving for the hall. He had ever been respectful of his mother’s private enclave, and her inviting Dagmar and Inkera to dine with her there on their first visit had seemed a mark of her favour toward the young women. Since his boyhood he himself had been a rare visitor within that enclosure. He felt sure no man had ever ventured within; he had never seen his father do so.
His mother came toward him with the loving smile she almost always met him with, the slight crinkle about her eyes showing her interest.
“I would have Dagmar back,” he told her.
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br /> His mother paused before responding. “I should like to know her more,” she said, and then smiled again. “And for you to know her more, as well.”
Later that morning Hrald shared this with his sister. He would send word to Dagmar that he would arrive in two days to escort her to Four Stones.
“If she will come,” he ended. The small laugh he added was one at his own expense, and his briefly lowered chin did not hide the slight colouring of his cheek.
Ashild kept her eyes upon him, taking him in. There was a ringing hopefulness in those four words. She felt of a sudden filled with a rush of love, and pity both, for her younger brother. She tried to master this sensation, squeezing her hands into fists, so that her fingernails bit into the flesh of her palms. She felt outside of her own control, and in these past few weeks grown a stranger to herself. The weepiness she disdained in weak women was something she fought against almost every day. And she never knew what would bring it on – the sight of the men sparring together, a glimpse of the baker’s daughter with leathern mitts braving the heat of the oven to pluck steaming loaves from its glowing mouth, or a foal frisking joyfully alongside its dam. Almost anything could make her cry. She found it almost impossible to marshal her thoughts as to imagine the life ahead for her and her child. She had made two quick and momentous decisions – her lovemaking with Ceric, and the second, not to rid herself of its produce. Both had transformed her, but the second, surrender to the coming babe, was altering the course of her life.
Add to this the changes to her body, the morning retching which met her when she awakened, the ever-tender breasts, that sense of constant bloat presaging the swelling of her waist – and she was utterly unsettled in her own skin. And it was all made the worse by the fact that only her mother and Burginde knew. Hrald, with whom she had shared so many secrets, with whom she had a deep understanding – he was outside the knowledge of this great change wrought in her. And she yearned to tell him. Right now she could not. She must respond to his appeal for support.
She always knew her brother must wed, just as she once thought she must, as well. But she had never been able to picture the helpmeet Hrald would choose. Now, faced with a woman as impressive as Dagmar, Ashild grappled with her own mixed feelings. She wanted Hrald’s happiness as much as she wanted her own; more she understood now, as she felt she could not realise her own happiness.
He must wed a woman worthy of him, and one who would be worthy of her new estate. None could know if Dagmar might be such; perhaps she was. All that was certain was Hrald’s wife would become the Lady of Four Stones. On her management and judgement would depend the future welfare of hall and village. Their mother would be there to guide her, but such guidance could be ignored. A new Lady of Four Stones would impose her own standards, could dismiss or reassign any or all of the kitchen and hall folk who had faithfully performed their duties under their mother. And Ælfwyn herself would no longer be essential; she would become a relic of a past Dagmar had no part in. The current Lady of Four Stones might choose to re-order her life at Oundle, as her own mother had…
Ashild took a breath. “Oh, she will come,” she answered.
Hrald sent Kjeld with his invitation. He rode back with the news that Haward would bring Dagmar himself; Hrald need not come for her. Hrald was struck by this. It seemed significant to him, as if her cousin were delivering her, handing her over as a true guardian might, to her new home. It implied his consent.
Haward did not linger after the welcome-cup, taken two days later at the high table. He gave his thanks to the Lady of the hall, and parted from his cousin with affectionate words. Yet he seemed to move with new ease and comfort amongst them, regarding all he looked upon within the hall with a familiarity not before noted. It was Hrald’s mother and sister who noticed this, and the snapping dark eyes of Burginde, which rarely missed anything. Hrald’s attention was taken up by his guest. Dagmar looked as well as she always did, her long and rich brown hair cascading from the new linen head wrap she had completed, much adorned with coloured thread work in blue and green.
Once her cousin left, Dagmar was again shown to the empty house of Asberg and Æthelthryth. She had not slept here without her sister, but was told by the same serving maid who had attended to her on prior visits that she would sleep within as well, should she be fearful of being alone in a strange place.
“I have not felt so safe anywhere, as I do here,” her stately visitor confessed.
The weather had turned unusually warm, with a kind of crackling dryness to the air almost unknown in Lindisse with its abundant rain. The rye had already been gathered, the threshing floor deep with it as the men flailed in the slight breeze blowing in the open doorways of the common granary. In the fields barley heads trembled in the heat on their golden stalks, and tender lettuces in the vegetable plots of village and hall went from leaf to tough and bolted stalk in a single day.
Such weather did not favour riding out nor hawking, though Hrald was eager to again do both with his guest. Instead they walked out the palisade gates together, pausing before the preaching cross, its stone warm to their touch. Not much presented itself before them, save for the villagers’ huts with their roofs of thatch, sitting snug within woven wattle fences. But off to the left lay the burial ground, where the village folk had long been buried. It was rimmed by a score of yews, their sober yet evergreen boughs serving as reminder of death and immortality. These yews proclaimed by their height and girth they had been planted long before the memory of any who yet lived. Their scaly-barked and ruddy trunks supported growth that shot Heaven-ward, green arms lifting and interlocking far over their young Jarl’s head. The burial ground they encircled was by nature a solitary place, but one not devoid of its own attraction, and they made for it now. The yews were dense enough that no paling was needed to keep a loose cow or sheep from straying in. A low and rough gate was there as the only opening, and they stood at it as they looked in.
It was a grassy place within, its growth scythed down twice during Summer. Markers for those who lay resting there were few, and of uncarved rounded stones chosen for their shape or colour. Fragments of planed wood showed where crosses had once been pounded upright, and now as was fitting were allowed to return to the earth, just as those whose brief passage here had. Roses were also within, a tangle of them in red and pink and white. The bees that flew drowsily amongst their blossoms made one forget this was a place of death; to those tireless workers it was one more garden.
Dagmar was quiet looking on this, and when she spoke did so with a musing thoughtfulness.
“There is a loveliness here,” she offered, with a slight smile at Hrald. “One even in a place like this.”
He took her remark to mean Four Stones as a whole. While he knew his home to be a worthy bulwark, he was glad she found beauty here as well, and not only within his mother’s bower garden.
Her eyes had returned to the heaped roses rising amongst the green tips of the grass.
Her nearness, the softness of her voice, the gentle melancholy of where they stood, pressed him onward. He would risk speaking to her.
First he craned his neck over his shoulder. Their backs were to the village, and though they were far from earshot he knew the eyes of some of his folk must be upon them. Sure enough, a few old women, standing at their scrub basins, had turned in their work towards them. Sure enough, they ducked their heads and scrubbed with greater industry when he looked in their direction.
He knew that his guest should not be left strictly alone with him. Neither of their sisters were near to serve as chaperone. But when they had set off it seemed to Hrald that the village itself acted as such; they would be within sight of many as they worked about their crofts. Now he would have a few words alone with Dagmar, and would hazard his next action. With a lifted hand he invited her to walk with him along the line of yews surrounding the burial ground. Hidden behind their shelter they would soon be outside the sight of any but the few sheep they might encounte
r in the far pasturage.
They moved off together, walking side by side, with only the slight soughing of the yew boughs and the chirping of an orange-beaked blackbird as company. Hrald had in mind a question. Dagmar had spent weeks at her cousin’s hall, broken only by her trip to Cruland and her visits here to Four Stones. Hrald wanted to know about another destination she had mentioned.
“You spoke of going to Dane-mark, on your first visit here,” he began. It had been at the first meal they had shared together, there in his mother’s bower garden, when Dagmar of a sudden proclaimed her interest in travelling to the land of both their fathers.
He could hear the uncertainty in his own voice, as if he feared her response. Yet he must ask.
She answered, in mild tone, with a question of her own.
“Do you never desire to see Dane-mark? It is your true home,” she said in way of return.
He gave thought. His father had rarely spoken of his life in Dane-mark, and never with regret. He had made it clear that seeing Angle-land, with its endless forests and fertile soil, dearth of folk and ready riches to be found in its keeps and holy houses, put Dane-mark out of his mind forever. And Hrald was not only of Dane-mark. His mother was a woman of Wessex.
“All I own is here,” he answered. He lifted his hands as he said this, as if to include the whole of Four Stones, and even beyond. His next words were offered with lowered voice, and a look at her from under his dropped eyelids. “All I care for is here.”
She did not answer, prompting him to speak. “And you – do you still wish to go there, to Dane-mark?”
She looked down as well, the dark lashes veiling her eyes, and then up at him. His eyes met hers fully.
“No, I no longer have that desire.”
This admission signalled a shift, one that could only benefit him. Before he could speak she went on.
“Your hall and men, your family and lands,” she numbered. “You have much to remain for.”
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