Oswald grunted, impressed against his will. He stood solid as an oak tree there beside Euan, his legs planted. He said, “That is an improvement, yes.”
Still squatting by the drawing, neatening the lines with his finger, Euan said, “Canterbury was much around the court.” The Archbishop of Canterbury was Jorvik’s archrival.
“Was he:’ Oswald said, with a sudden twitch; the skirts of his cassock swished around his ankles. “Is the King well?”
“No:’ Euan said. “He’s like to die, but it will take some time, and meanwhile such as Otkar and Byhrtnoth are deciding things.”
Oswald made a scornful sound with his lips. “Then I fear for England. Those featherheads.”
Euan dusted off his hands. The shape of the cathedral in the dust before him pleased his eye better now, the lines proportioned well, meeting in strong angles. He said, “Have you talked to any masons yet?”
Oswald’s skirts rustled again. “I have no money for masons.”
Euan straightened, thinking that as he was building traps for Oswald, so Oswald was building them for him; it was a kind of dance. The proportions of that pleased him somehow as much as the drawing in the dust. He said, “I will give you money for it. For the good of my soul, and Arre’s.” He hoped he had some money somewhere to do this, but he had long since discovered that promising money was often better than actually handing it over.
Oswald’s mouth kinked at the corners, his pale eyes steady on Euan’s. “In Jesus’ name I accept this as your wife’s penance. In London, then, you saw all these people? How are they disposed to us here?”
Euan shook his head. “They don’t want to think about Jorvik. We have to watch out for ourselves.”
“We have always watched out for ourselves,” Oswald said. “There were Christian men and women here when those fools in the south were still smearing blood on trees. They made no comment, I suppose, about this current infestation we are suffering?”
Euan smiled, glad to have arrived so nicely at the kernel of the work. “They said I should come back up here and see what could be done.”
Oswald’s belly shook in a silent laugh. His clear small eyes stayed fixed on Euan. “And what do you think should be done, Euan?”
Euan raised his eyebrows in what he hoped was a gesture of innocence. “I am here, sir, to find out what you think.”
Oswald leaned hard on the staff. “These men are pagans. They must leave Jorvik before they pervert my flock. Including and especially those two young men who are taking advantage of your good wife’s kitchen and her gullibility.”
Euan bowed his head. “Yes, Father. The issue is how to achieve that. There are a number of the Vikings, far more than any fighting men we can summon, if the King won’t help us. So we can’t just pitch them out.”
Oswald said, “To begin with, your wife could throw those imps out of your house.”
“Father, the boys have left.”
The old man snorted at him. Although his gaze held steady on Euan, his talk now swerved off on this other path. “Your wife is herself impudent and dangerously proud. You should restrain her better.”
“Father, I was Out of the city. Arre is a good-hearted woman, as you know, and people take advantage of her.”
“She is a woman, with a woman’s special frailties. That’s why God gave men dominion over them, because they cannot manage for themselves. She must learn humility. Which, considering where she came from, you would think she had already in abundance, but no.”
Euan’s ears went hot; he hated having that thrown in his face, as his mother did often, that Arre had grown up so low before he married her. He said only, “I was not in Jorvik, Father; she is very humble around me.”
Oswald gave a squawk of a laugh. “You lie, boy.” His eyes half closed. He said, “And in spite of what Otkar and Byhrtnoth said to you, what goes on in Jorvik is my matter, not yours, and I will not suffer those pagans to remain here. And since those idiots down in London said you should deal with this, then I want you to go down there to this Sweyn’s camp and tell him to get out.” His lips pursed. His eyes glittered, triumphant. “Good day, Euan. Thank you for your work on my minster.” He turned his head down toward the design, and nodded. “That is well done. You have some head for this, I think. But first the Vikings. Go and get rid of them.”
Euan said, “Father, that’s hard.”
Oswald’s lips drew back in a humorless smile. “My son, you have God on your side.”
C H A P T E R N I N E T E E N
At Hrafnsbeck the Bishop went around the hall, sprinkling water, intoning prayers, and waving his hands in the sign of the cross. After he was done Benna set fire to his bed. Every night, she went around the house tipping over chamberpots and pails and scattering ashes. The servants sneaked away; Poppo had to send to a nearby village to have his meals cooked. His guards, and the Germans, saw phantoms everywhere, even where she was not, grown men starting up like rabbits at a shadow, and weeping uncontrollably when the wind blew.
Another ship came by night to the wharf. The whole hall boiled with excitement. She watched the Bishop argue furiously, up and down the hall, with the German captain in the bird coat; by his gestures and his haggard pleading face, she knew Poppo was begging the other to take him with him, but before dawn the German and his men hustled into the ship and left Poppo behind. The Bishop paced up and down the hall, pounding his hands together and grinding his teeth.
She reported this to Corban, as she always did, making pictures for him. As if she had only to imagine them, the pictures appeared under her hands, fast and full of life. He frowned, studying what she told him, his fingers knotted in his beard. She wondered what he saw in this, not caring much; she could not fathom why he was so interested in the doings of these men, when their children were scattered all over the world.
She hated Poppo, who was keeping them here. She drew images of him on the walls of his bed, with stakes through his ears and knives in his tongue; all night he moaned with headache, and sores blossomed on his mouth. The next night he slept outside the bed cupboard, in the open, with the covers over his head.
Soon after that, while Corban was telling her stories of the island, and she was wondering how she could drag the table down on top of Poppo, she heard the clatter of the ladder poles up against the outside of the tower. Voices sounded. They were coming for Corban. She gathered herself up, put her arms around his neck, and rode his shoulder down to the hall.
“Damn you,” Poppo said, his voice rough as a burr, his face haggard. He stood behind the table in his gold-trimmed white coat, and stabbed his finger at Corban. “I have stood quite enough of this. Stop it.” His voice caught in a desperate rising whine. “Stop it now—all of it!”
Corban looked around him; the hall was a vast dark empty hollow. Only Poppo and three other men sat behind the table, and those men seemed to lean away from the Bishop, their eyes sleek. There were no servants anywhere in sight. A fine meal stood on the table, roasted meat and fresh bread and cheese and cups of wine, but no one was eating.
Corban brought his gaze back to Poppo and said, “I am doing nothing. You it is who keep me locked away in that tower, with nothing to eat or drink, now, for months. Let me go, and see what happens. Maybe then your merciful and loving Jesus will let you live in peace.”
Poppo’s face went rigid; he was not too afraid to get angry, and he leaned forward, lowering his arm, his fist clenched. He said, “I’ll kill you first. Perhaps God is angry with me because I’ve been letting you live.” But suddenly his forehead shone with sweat. His eyes softened with hope. Corban put his hand up to his throat; she was clinging to him tighter and tighter, so strong she choked him. He wondered that no one else noticed.
The Bishop said, “If I let you go, you would leave Denmark forever. And you would never go to Germany.”
“I will not,” Corban said. “I am not your slave, nor your man, nor your underling. I’ll go where I please.” At that, he saw the possib
ility, and turned and started toward the door, walking fast.
She pushed on him, eager, laughing. Behind him, someone, not Poppo, said something under his breath. No one else moved. The door was midway in the long wall of the hall; he remembered Eelmouth slamming down the bar across it, when they were fleeing away from Hakon. There was no bar now. He strode down the room toward it, and no one tried to stop him. A surge of triumph carried him the next few strides. He was going to walk free out that door.
Then the door swung inward, opening, and as if he had summoned him with his thoughts, Hakon came in.
Behind him were a dozen armed men, wearing helmets and chainlink shirts. Corban stopped; she pushed him, hard, but he stood fast. He knew he could not make his way through that wall. Hakon stopped also, his jaw slack. He swung a single wild look down the hall at Poppo and fixed Corban with his gaze again.
He said, “I thought if I came here I might find something interesting, but this exceeds my expectations. Why are you loose?” His attention flickered toward Poppo again and back to Corban. “Why are you alive?” His hand moved, and several of his men came around him and stood by Corban. “I’m taking you to the King. Bishop, you should come, too.”
Poppo’s voice croaked. “Take him—I meant to send him to the King, but there was—there was a matter of transport. I am going to Bremen from here.” He came up the hall toward Hakon, his face hollow as an eggshell, his hands moving. “Nothing of interest—I must speak to—to another bishop, a synod of bishops, in fact—doctrinal matters—”
Midway through this Hakon began talking over him, loud. “I see you have supper ready for us, thank you very much. I for one am hungry. I will speak to you later, but you are going to the King, I assure you, not to Bremen.” He started a step toward the table and turned, his eyes on Corban again. “Join me, wizard?”
Corban pulled on his tangled beard, sorting all this out. After so long alone in the tower, he felt the busyness and uproar of the room like a great swarming around him. Getting out of the tower was one thing, getting away from Hakon would be something else, but at least he was moving again. He said, “Thank you. I have not had meat in a long while.” He went to the table, and standing beside Hakon he fed on the Bishop’s roast venison.
Poppo sank down on the bench opposite, pale in the cheeks. Hakon’s men filled the hall, and the food vanished in a breath. Poppo said, “I must go to Bremen.”
“First you must go to the King,” Hakon said. “Why were you letting this man walk right out of this hall, just now?”
Poppo’s eyes were dull. He stared away down the hall, as if he saw more, or less, than anybody else. “Where is the King?”
“At the Limfjord,” Hakon said. “With the fleet that will destroy Sweyn Whoever’s-son-he-is and Palnatoki and everybody else who opposes Bluetooth once and for all, and make Christ triumphant forever in Denmark. Don’t you want to see it?” He waved at the table. “Bring out the rest of the wine. We’re all leaving in the morning anyway, it would only go to waste.”
Corban offered to walk, but Hakon insisted he ride one of their horses. By midday he was already tired of the saddle and they had far to go. Yet all around him was the sprouting green of the fields, wildflowers in rippling sheets of purple and gold; the sky arched enormously above him. He felt as unbounded as the air, and he could not see enough.
Ahead of him the Bishop and Hakon rode along arguing, Poppo in a flat voice insisting Hakon had no power over him, piling words on words, mentioning books and the Roman Pope and Jesus as proofs Hakon had no power over him, the while Hakon was carrying him away into the north. Hakon fended him off with sarcasms and pretended ignorance and deference to the King.
They traveled through woods and wild places, and by broad farms, plowed fields, often a cluster of buildings in the distance; once the people had come out to watch them pass by, had stood there open-mouthed by the side of the road, amazed. In the evening Hakon sent most of his men ahead of them, and shortly they rode up to a hall.
It stood empty, except for Hakon’s men by the door; the table inside was set for a dinner, and the meat was on the spit over the fire, and the bread was warm in the baskets, but nobody else was there. Hakon led them all in, and they sat at the table and ate.
“This is the kind of magic I like,” Hakon said. He glanced at Corban, sitting on the bench down to his right. “Sword-magic. More reliable than either Thor or Christ.”
Poppo made the sign of the cross at him. He was drunk. “God have mercy on you. The wizard at least blasphemes from ignorance, but you, you have seen the truth, and love lies anyway.”
Hakon made a wordless snarl at him. Corban wondered where the true owners of the hall were now, probably hiding out in the woods. He said, “Until you face somebody with stronger swords. You handled Grayfur well enough, I guess.”
Hakon laughed, a flash of white teeth in the round circle of his trim little beard. “Not Grayfur. Gold-Harald caught him coming ashore in the Limfjord with only two ships of men and took him easily. I had more trouble with Gold-Harald than I expected.”
“Why are you still here?” Corban said.
Hakon gave a start. His fingers tapped on the arm of the high seat. “What are you talking about?”
“It was Grayfur drove you out of Norway,” Corban said. “But Grayfur’s dead now. The Ericssons are finished.”
The long fingers drummed hard on the carved wooden lion head at the end of the arm of the high seat. “The King needs me here yet, until he destroys Palnatoki.”
Corban was tired, and ahead of him was Bluetooth, whom he was supposed to bring down, but who seemed always stronger than before, whose power was drawing everything into his grasp, not only Corban but Conn and Raef, too, with Sweyn, all of them wheeling helplessly down toward some black center. He said; “Then who will he set on you?”
“What?” Hakon turned and stared at him. Beyond him, Poppo was dozing, his head tipped forward and his mouth ajar.
Corban said, “Why do you think you’re any different from the others?”
Hakon met his eyes, for once, direct, intent. “He’s the King. I’m only the Jarl. But I’m to have Norway.” He paid out the words like money, buying something.
Corban looked away, wanting to sleep; he could feel Benna warm around him, weary also. He said, “Whatever you say. I’m going to find a bed, Hakon. Good night.”
Hakon stared ahead across the hall, his hands fisted in front of him. The wizard had told him nothing that had not occurred to him before.
He had thought about it and pushed it out of the way, into the back of his mind, but now he was thinking about it again.
He had done everything right. When Grayfur moved against his father, Hakon had been in another part of the country; hearing of the old man’s wicked murder, he had wasted no time trying to fight back right away. Instead he had taken all his ships, and while Grayfur’s fleets waited for him in the inside passages he sailed far out to the open sea and fared south well out of sight of land, and came to Denmark. There, seeing how that sea ran, he had taken Christ for his God, although the rituals bored him and the priests set his teeth on edge. He had made himself so useful to the King, so close in his counsel, that Bluetooth had offered him Norway. In the course of things, he had gotten Grayfur killed, avenging his father’s murder, which still gave him a deep satisfaction whenever he thought of it.
Yet he was stuck down here in Denmark, running Bluetooth’s errands for him. He had to go back to Norway, which was a wreck and a ruin after years under the Ericssons, but he could not get away. Instead he wasted his time here chasing boys in a cockleshell ship and escorting this bishop, whom he trusted even less than Bluetooth.
All around the hall his men were lying down for the night, moving in on benches already full, curling up on the floor near the fire with their heads on each other’s ankles. The Bishop had slumped over sideways on the bench, and one of his servants came up quietly and roused him with some difficulty and took him away.
Hakon pretended not to notice. He knew the Bishop was lying about going to Bremen; his itch to be out of Denmark was like a visible rash. Something was going on.
Take him to Bluetooth. Make Bluetooth deal with it.
Then what the wizard had said came back to him, like a knife in the gut, and he set his teeth, and sat there, sleepless in the quiet hall, thinking.
Eelmouth said, “You know what I’d do. What Bloodaxe would have done. Seize Jorvik and take what we need. The ships, the supplies.”
Sweyn said nothing. On the far side of the fire from him, the captain who had joined them only yesterday waggled his knife at him like a chiding finger. “You should move up to Orkney. You’ll find men there in plenty, all ready to go aviking.” His name was Thorkel. He was cutting his fingernails and flicking them into the fire. “But Eelmouth is right, burn Jorvik first.”
Sweyn grunted at them, irritated at their constant advice. He wished Conn would come back. He moved his gaze over the camp around him, once again counting the men there; he had accumulated nearly a hundred, with more arriving every day, so many he had moved his camp up from the river bar into the meadow south of the old Roman embankment. From here he looked out over a spotty ground of campfires and tangles of gear and men lying and sitting and walking around, among them people from the city, a bakerwoman with a basket full of bread, down there, surrounded by Vikings, and idle barefoot town boys, and here and there some other tradesman, a tinker, a cobbler sitting cross-legged on the ground mending shoes, people with bundles of firewood on their backs.
But only a few of these. In the beginning many more peddlers and hucksters had come down here, bringing everything his men needed. He cast a look up over his shoulder at the city, rising behind him on its bank, with the spire of the church at the top. Eelmouth, who still knew people in the city, brought him all the rumors and gossip, and he knew that every day this Oswald, the Archbishop here, was blasting sermons from his pulpit against Christians who consorted with pagans. People were obeying him: The bakerwoman in front of him was the first all day selling bread, and now her basket was empty, and she was walking away, leaving an angry little crowd behind her.
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