The Witches’ Kitchen

by Cecelia Holland

  Outside the wall, the land rolled away from them, the low hills buried in trees. Along the outer course of the wall the trees were cleared away in a wide band, but just south of where they stood now, sprouting out of the side of the earthen wall around the city, another earthworks ran off from Hedeby into the west. Rocks cobbled its foot. A little way down its flank from where it joined the city wall, a young tree grew up out of it like a stray hair on a bald man. Just above, a ledge made of wood stuck out of the top of the earthworks, and there someone stood watching them.

  “The Danewirk,” said the young man walking beside him, one of Palnatoki’s warriors. He was taller than Conn, widechested, with bright red-yellow hair. “Where did you come from, that you are so green?” Around him the other men, watching, chuckled a little.

  Conn said, “Wherever I am from, at least I am here now, and seeing all these wonders for myself. You can make me wiser— what is this Danewirk, then?”

  “You are well spoken, for a country lout. It’s a great wall, as you see, that stretches all across Denmark, from sea to sea, and keeps the Germans out.” The other boy puffed his chest out suddenly. His beard was already sprouting thick along his chin, lighter red than his hair. “It’s King’s work. My father built a lot of it.”

  “Sweyn!” Palnatoki called. “Come here.”

  The boy mumbled something and went trotting up toward the older men. Conn looked around. They were walking along a little lane into the woods, and after only a few steps they came to a clearing, where stood a hall, built the way his own home was built: the heavy posts at the corners, the woven walls.

  Unlike his home, this was a grand place. Other, smaller buildings clustered around it; the land fell away a little past it, and he could see more sheds down there, with fences around them. In the yard before the door several men were gathered, and some great beasts, and at the sight of these his breath left him and he reached out and grabbed Raef by the arm.

  “Horses. She was right, my mother.”

  Raef grunted at him. Raef’s head was sunk down into his shoulders and his arms were clutched tight against him. Conn laughed at him, slapped him on the arm, and pulled him on.

  “What now, scared again come on! We’re home, Raef!” He laughed again, buoyant. Corban cast him a sideways look. They walked up to the crowd of people in the yard of the hall; Raef and Corban hung back a little, looking around, but Conn moved in among the strangers, toward the horses.

  There were three of them, great dark brutes, bigger than deer, their heads tied with straps and their backs draped in cloth; they carried the men on their backs comfortably enough, stamping their feet and snorting and shaking their long rippled manes. Conn licked his lips. He wanted to touch one, to ride one. Their great liquid eyes seemed full of wisdom.

  The men on the horses slipped down to the ground and went to greet Palnatoki, clasping hands and paying each other praises. The tall man stood with his head stooped slightly listening to them, and then sent them off with a wave. Sadly Conn watched them lead the horses off.

  But Palnatoki was speaking now to Corban, and about Cone. “Welcome to my hall. Come in and we’ll have some talk and some ale. Sweyn—” The tall chieftain cocked a finger at the boy with the red-gold hair, who stood waiting like a servant a few steps away. “Take these two young men into your company— they being, of course—” He turned toward Corban.

  “Conn and Raef,” Corban said, nodding from one to the other.

  “Good enough,” Palnatoki said. “Conn Corbansson and Raef Corbansson. Take them, Sweyn, and treat them as befits the honor of my hall.”

  C H A P T E R E L E V E N

  Corban sat back, his belly full of the first good meat he had eaten since he left the island, and took another deep draught of the first ale he had drunk in more than fifteen years. A girl came at once to fill his cup again, and smiled at him, her eyes sideways. He was still getting his mind around the way his name had thrived here, with him gone, and somehow grown into a monster.

  He said, “I am very grateful to you for your welcome, sir. I’m sure I don’t deserve all this honor. But in any case I have something else to do, and I can’t stay long.”

  The tall man in the high seat to his left swung toward him, leaning one arm on the arm of the chair. “In truth I was just thinking how poor a greeting I had made for such as you.” His pale blue eyes, housed in wrinkles, were mild as a woman’s; Corban felt himself warming to his kindliness. “All know you for a great wizard. You have been long gone from Hedeby, though; no man has seen you since the day you slew the witch.”

  “Aaah,” Corban said, thinking of the cold dark space, back there in Hedeby, where the Lady’s house had stood. “I think you give me too much.”

  “Is that not true? You destroyed her in mind-war, and freed Hedeby from her. Yet none has seen you since. Where have you been, although I am bold to ask?”

  Corban said, “In the west.”

  “Orkney? We would have heard that here. Or Iceland?”

  “No—in the west, that is all I can tell you.”

  The tall man pursed his lips, sorrowful. “Why do you put me off?”

  Corban laughed. He drank more of the ale, which he realized he had missed more than he knew. “No, I am telling you only what I can. There is no name to that place you would recognize. I mean no harm. And I have no power. I can give you nothing You have no reason to keep me here.”

  Palnatoki blinked at him. His voice came slowly, as if he dragged the words up from some deep fund. “I wonder you think I need any reason but the honor of having such a guest.” He made a little putting-off gesture with one hand. “Yet now you tell me you have come back from a far country. For this council?”

  “I had no knowledge of any council.” But that explained much, Corban thought. He said, “Is Gunnhild Kingsmother at this council?”

  “You have business with her?”

  “Some, yes.”

  “Eelmouth seemed liable to kill you, if he could have. Eelmouth is still her man.”

  Corban said nothing. Under Palnatoki’s curious probing look he turned his gaze away, watching down the hall, where Conn and Raef sat at a table digging their way through roast meat and bread. Raef sat rigid, stuffing his mouth while his eyes darted everywhere, but Conn was already the middle of a cluster of other young men, half hostile, half fascinated, babbling questions and jibes at him. Leader of them was the handsome redheaded boy Palnatoki had made so much of. He and Conn sat face to face, tossing off questions and jibes that set the others now and then into roars of laughter.

  Corban scanned the rest of the hall. Palnatoki had a good crew with him, thirty or thirty-five men at least. He said, “A war council, is it?”

  “Is it?” Palnatoki said swiftly. “What do you know?”

  Corban laughed “Nothing, I promise you. I am ignorant of it all. I could not name the King of Norway to you.”

  Palnatoki’s face contracted in a grimace. “You dissemble too much.” He nodded to the serving girl, who poured more ale into Corban’s cup. “I am just a simple farmer, you understand—I know very little of these intrigues and alliances. Were you summoned here? Not by Bluetooth. I guarantee you he does not know you are here.”

  Corban said, “What is the business of this council?”

  Palnatoki twisted in the high seat to face him better. His arms folded over his chest. “On the face of it, it is to divide up Denmark.”

  “Really. Bluetooth is still King here, is he not?”

  “Yes, of course, which is why I doubt the whole issue. In the generations he has been King, Bluetooth has given up nothing, shared nothing, brooked no rival. Yet here is this big council for giving away all his kingdom.”

  “To whom?”

  Palnatoki stroked his shaven chin. “First is his nephew, another Harald. There are many Haralds in this, all of which calls for a pruning, if you ask me, husbandman that I am. Harald Bluetooth’s brother Knut had a son, Harald, who has been aviking, and now come
s home, with much gold, and much talk of how he will now share the throne with his uncle, as is the custom of our people.”

  “Is it?”

  Palnatoki gave a little chuckle. “There are many customs we Danes honor by keeping their observance very rare, you know. Anyway, this Harald, whom we all call Gold-Harald, because he is so burdened down with wealth, wants half of Norway, and Bluetooth pretends he will give it him.”

  “Pretends how?”

  “Calling this council. And also he has summoned here Harald Grayfur, who is King of Norway, so you know, to give to him lands that have by custom”—he made a little gesture with his hand at that word, and laughed—“belonged to the Ericssons. And that, too, goes against this rule: that Bluetooth gives up nothing. So I am suspicious.”

  Corban put his cup down on the table and laid his hand over the top before the girl could fill it again. “This Grayfur is Harald Ericsson,” Corban said. “Bloodaxe’s son, and Gunnhild’s.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where does she stand in this?”

  Palnatoki waited a moment. Behind the wedge of his nose his eyes drooped, pensive. Finally he said, “It’s odd that she is corning down to this council, too. The word is, she has cut herself off from Grayfur, for being too enthusiastically Christian. And she and Bluetooth despise each other. It’s unwise of her to put herself within his reach like this.”

  “I thought never to care about such matters again,” Corban said.

  He glanced down toward his boys once more, remembering something long unheeded about Raef, something that maybe now was important.

  Palnatoki was scratching his stubbled chin. “Now you are come here, too. Something is going on.”

  Corban said nothing; Palnatoki, simple fanner, had his own oar in this somewhere. He thought of Eelmouth, storming toward him with his sword, and wondered how he could get face to face with Gunnhild without being killed.

  A roar went up. Down there around Conn several of the strange boys had leapt to their feet, shouting. Corban wrenched around, alarmed, until he saw they were not fighting, not yet. The redheaded boy was going around the others shaking hands and slapping shoulders, while Conn climbed over the table into the space in the middle of the hall.

  “Hunh,” Palnatoki said. “A little entertainment. Fortunate: I brought no skalds.” He gave Corban a sideways look.

  Corban sat back, saying nothing, and shot a glance at Raef, who still sat on the bench, hunched over his food. In the middle of the hall Conn and the other boy, taller, with longer arms, sidled around each other, their hands out. Sweyn, his name was, the other boy, Corban remembered, and a princeling, by his clothes and Palnatoki’s favor. His friends drew back, grinning, nudging one another in the ribs. Corban set his teeth together; he thought, They have trapped him.

  Sweyn lunged, his hands out, reaching for Conn, and Conn met him straight on. Their arms wound together, their faces went nose to nose, and they locked, each one straining so fiercely the veins stood out on their faces.

  Each one was unable to budge the other. Corban saw Conn gather himself and improve his stance slightly, but Sweyn at the same time stiffened and lowered his shoulders and they remained locked together, straining, fierce, and immobile as stones.

  Then suddenly Conn moved, too fast to see, falling backward, and lifting the other boy forward up on his toes. With Sweyn off balance, Conn surged up again, his shoulder driving into Sweyn’s midsection, and the redheaded boy left the ground, arched neatly over Conn’s shoulder, and landed flat on his back on the floor. Conn drew away, his chest heaving for breath, his hands spread wide.

  In the sudden, shocked silence, Corban unkinked his muscles and sat up straight, relieved. From the benches where the warriors sat there rose a low, amused cheer. Sweyn sat up, looking dazed, his hair full of straw. Conn went over and held out his hand to him, to help him to his feet.

  The murmurous cheer turned to a ripple of applause. Corban lifted up with pride. He thought, This is a man I brought here. Around the hall all the other men leaned forward, watching. Sweyn reached up, got Conn by the hand, and surged up again, and at once, again, they were locked together, nose to nose.

  So they stood only for a moment. Then Sweyn laughed and broke his grip off. He thrust out his hand to Conn and said something nobody else could hear.

  Conn straightened, smiling. He took the other boy’s hand, like some kind of pledge. Corban grunted; he could see something was growing between these two, just in these moments. The two young men went back to their places on the bench, while all the warriors called out and beat their hands together. Corban sat back, reaching for his cup, which was full again. Palnatoki was grinning at him.

  The applause died off. The tall man turned and beckoned to someone behind him, and when that person came up, Palnatoki took one of the gold rings from his arm. “Take this to Conn Corbansson.”

  The servant went scampering. Not a servant. Corban watched the skinny little boy run down the hall with the gold ring in his hand. He rubbed his hands together, uneasy. Somewhere beneath the calm of Palnatoki’s welcome, the rough edges of this place ground together like broken bones.

  Down there, Conn took the ring with a yell. He looked up at Palnatoki, and stood, and flung his right arm up in an outlandish salute.

  The onlookers murmured, laughing, but Palnatoki only leaned back in the high seat and cast up his own arm, in the same salute. A swell of laughter filled the hall. The tall man settled down again, smiling.

  “Your son is a good fighter.”

  Corban said, “Conn is who he is. Is that your son, there, Sweyn?”

  “Not my son,” Palnatoki said, grinning.

  Corban looked down toward that lower bench again, where Conn sat pushing the gold ring up onto his upper left arm. Conn glanced up toward him and their eyes met, and when Corban smiled Conn flushed dark as a beet, lowering his eyes, smiling, too. Raef was still eating, having paid little heed at all to the wrestling. Certainly none to the gold ring.

  Palnatoki’s gaze remained steady on Corban. He said, “Tell me what could bring you back across the whole world, then, if not a summons. Is it from Gunnhild?”

  “No, no,” Corban said. “Matters of my own, only.” He was looking back over the summer, seeing things differently now; he wondered again about the shark. He said, “Sometimes, though, you never know about these things until much later.” He ran his fingertip around the gold rim of the cup, hunting the right question. His gaze drifted down the hall again, toward the red-gold hair of the boy who was not Palnatoki’s son.

  “If not yours, whose?”

  Palnatoki fingered his chin again. The kindly blue eyes watched Corban steadily. “That depends on who you talk to.”

  Corban said, “I’m talking to you, now.”

  “I say he is Bluetooth’s son.”

  “Ah. And Bluetooth—”

  “Says he is not.”

  Corban sat back, the pieces falling into place now. “How many sons does Bluetooth have?”

  “None,” said Palnatoki. “Except this one. Which he got on a maidservant in my hall in Funen, when he was staying with me once. Oh, yes.” He nodded at Corban. “We have long years behind us, Bluetooth and I, and some of it not pleasant.” He put his finger against his nose, his smile rigid. “Much of that involving sons. That is all settled and over, but this, that he will not acknowledge this stout, brave, good-headed boy as his own, is the worst.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “I know the maid, and trust her. You know—some said the Lady cursed him, that he should have no heirs, when he turned Christian, but that of this pure maid he managed one, curse or no.” Palnatoki’s eyes poked at him. “You would know nothing of that, I suppose.”

  “I think he turned Christian long after you claim I killed her.”

  “She knew much.”

  “That’s true,” Corban said. “But a lot is true, and still means nothing.” He was getting drunk. It occurred to him that at least now he had
a bed to sleep in. He looked away down the benches again, toward the boys; they seemed farther away than before.

  He was losing them, he knew, their courses splitting off from his, their lives carrying them unknowably away. That he could not stop, nor even wished he could. What held his mind now was something else, something long and old and deep going on, of which they were all only little whirling parts. He thought of the shark, of the great maw of the shark, reaching for him.

  “The council is here, in Hedeby?”

  Palnatoki sat back. “No. It’s in Jelling, to the north. In a few days’ time I must go there, and I hope you will go with me.”

  Corban pushed the ale away. In Hedeby, everything was bought and sold. He wondered what Palnatoki might consider the value of an ignorant Irish wizard, and who he thought would pay it. Nonetheless, whatever was going on was bringing within his reach those people he had the most interest in finding: Gunnhild, and the Lady of Hedeby, whose way of being dead might be something other than most people’s.

  He said, “I will go, but I am warning you, again, I have matters of my own.”

  Palnatoki chuckled. “I consider myself to be warned, then. Drink deep, now. I shall not have it said any guest of mine went to bed sober.”

  Sweyn said, “Are you Christian? If so, you still have our respect, but we are Thor’s men here.”

  Behind them, higher on the slope, Palnatoki’s hall still rang with noise. As Sweyn talked he led them down the long slope toward the sheds where they kept their horses. The long shape of the Danewirk rose behind the sheds, silvery in the moonlight. Then at the corner of the bigger of the sheds Sweyn turned and put this to Conn about God.

  “Are you Christian or no?”

  Conn laughed. Sweyn said sharply, “What, this is a joke with you?” He put out his hand to his friends, who had followed them, eight or nine young men their own age.