The Witches’ Kitchen

by Cecelia Holland

  “Hey! I’m hungry!”

  Eelmouth was right, seize the place. He had enough men, now. This Archbishop was a fool to brace him. He felt the rising temper in him like a heat, blurring everything.

  That was not good. He made himself think cold again. If he was to be a King he had to stand above pride. He had to avoid making stupid mistakes for pride’s sake. Taking Jorvik, he saw, was a stupid mistake, likely to bog him down here, when he needed to get on to Denmark and take up his destiny. Going to Orkney meant going even farther away. He didn’t want to be a Viking, he wanted to go challenge Bluetooth, overcome him, and bring justice to Denmark again.

  His chest tightened, his belly knotted up. It didn’t matter anyway, because he couldn’t get out of Jorvik. That was the core of the problem: While he had over a hundred men, his fleet was only two ships, his own, and the battered old dragon Thorkel and his crew had rowed in the previous morning from the north. The rest of his army were men off the ships in Jorvik’s river harbor, who could easily disappear as soon as their previous ships left.

  Other things were going wrong. Gunnhild had given him some money, but that was used up. She herself had disappeared, and if Eelmouth had recourse to more money he would not admit it. Sweyn had gotten no word yet from Palnatoki, and there was no sign of Conn. Rubbed up against the realities of the world, his great design was unraveling like a worn blanket.

  “Who’s that?” Eelmouth said, and Sweyn lifted his eyes.

  A townsman was coming across the camp toward him, tall and angular, his hat jammed down on his head, and his long coat gripped up in his hands out of the dirt. He was alone. Not important enough to have men to attend him. Or very sure of himself.

  Sweyn dusted his hands off and got up. The townsman came up to the fire and said, “Are you the leader of these men?” His gaze rested on Sweyn; he knew already.

  “I am Sweyn Haraldsson,” Sweyn said. Eelmouth and Thorkel were still lounging by the fire, watching them. Probably everybody was watching. Sweyn’s temper edged him again. “Who are you and what do you want?”

  The townsman lifted his head an inch, annoyed. Arrogant purse-fingerer, Sweyn thought. The other man said, in a level voice, “My name is Euan Woodwrightson. I speak for the King, and the Archbishop—”

  “Your Archbishop!” Sweyn said. “Tell him if he keeps on preventing your people from selling to my men I’ll burn leis church around his ears. As for your king, he’s not giving orders to anybody anymore, I’ve heard.”

  The townsman reared back, his face darkening. “What you’ve heard. What I’ve heard, Sweyn Somebody’s-son, is you have a great enemy, who will come on you shortly, and we want you well clear of Jorvik when that time comes.”

  Sweyn could not hold himself back anymore. He bounded on the townsman, got him by the back of his fancy coat, and hauled him off out of the camp. After a brief useless struggle the townsman submitted, snarling. Laughter rose from the men watching. Sweyn dumped him on the ground at the edge of the camp and prodded him with his foot. An easy derisive cheer rose from all sides.

  “You want something well clear, try this—I’ll get what I need, whatever it takes. Tell that to your Archbishop. Get out.” He turned and strolled slowly away, back toward his fire, giving the townsman every chance to jump him.

  Nothing happened. Sweyn walked in among the other men; Eelmouth stood with his eyebrows cocked up, and Thorkel was tossing his knife up and down. When Sweyn looked back, the tall townsman was gone.

  Eelmouth said, “I know him from somewhere, that one.”

  Thorkel said, “He’s a high-up fahrman, is who he is.” He nodded at Sweyn, smiling gap-toothed, his eyes bright. “He’s got money, ships—take him for ransom and we’ll get somewhere.”

  Sweyn pulled on his beard with his fingers, his temper cooling, and considered what had happened. He wondered if he had just made another mistake. This one, though, he thought he could work with. “Not ransom,” he said. He pulled on his beard, his mind twisting and turning after all the possibilities in this. “But we have to get him in a place where we can lean on him. Eelmouth, come here.”

  Euan came home in a black temper, and would not speak to her, but settled over his tallies and his counting board. Arre went into her garden, which she was getting ready for the spring planting. She pulled up beanstalks and chucked away rocks for a while, but she came soon to the end of the garden, where even in the summer nothing grew but flowers, and she sat down there in the dead weeds and prayed.

  Oswald the Archbishop had sent to her to come to be cleansed. Now that the boys were gone, he would forgive her. He would hear her repentance, he said, and then take her back into the congregation, and all would be well. She prayed for a while, paters and credos in rows and rows, but she was still angry.

  She could not go back there. He had humiliated her for doing good. In front of everybody, withholding the Body of Christ from her. Yet she had done nothing, except obey God.

  She sat thinking about Jesus, as she loved to do when she prayed, how he walked with ordinary people, how he worked his miraculous kindness with people as lowborn as she was. That seemed to her the way to follow, Jesus’ kindness, his givingness, his everyday goodness. Yet this priest attacked her kindness in Jesus’ name. She thought, Oswald has stolen my Christ.

  Startled, she crossed herself, warm with guilt: That surely was blasphemous. She prayed again for help, for guidance, and the thought came again into her head, His church is not my church.

  She sat rigid, her hands gripped together before her. She wondered if Benna had infected her with some fearful heresy. But these thoughts made more sense to her than what the Archbishop Oswald said.

  She crossed herself again. The whirling uncertainty settled around her, but in a different shape than before. She saw what she had to do. Henceforth she would pray to her own Jesus. And to his blessed mother, who enclosed him in her womb, who nursed him, who stood at the foot of the cross, closer than anybody to him. The Pope’s church after all came down from Peter, who was only Jesus’ friend, and who three times denied him.

  As Oswald himself, she saw with a start, denied Jesus, when he condemned her for doing good.

  It all fit now. She felt very calm. She knew what she would do. She saw she could go back to Mass, to the congregation, even accept the Archbishop’s silly rite of repentance, because in that false church also lay, somewhere, her true church. And now with a sudden upwelling she felt the grace of God upon her, the comfort she needed, the peace, and she put her head in her hands and wept.

  Aelfu saw Arre in the garden, praying, and went carefully around her. Ama, she thought. Ama. She knew Arre was sad and wished she could make her happy again. Then Arre would love her more than Edward.

  She thought of her mother less now. She thought she had been wrong, and her mother was really dead. Or maybe Arre was really her mother and they had to hide this from Edward and Euan. If Arre were really her mother, she wouldn’t have to worry about Edward. As she stole out through the garden gate, not opening it, but fitting herself carefully in between two wooden slats, she thought she would find something for Arre, something nice, to make her happy again.

  The gate opened in a lane, but just at the top of the lane was the busy street where the fountain was. She ran that way, drawn to the sounds and smells. Sometimes she remembered the island, where everything had been so different, so quiet, so empty of people, but the streets of Jorvik were wonderful and every day she remembered less.

  She went up to the big open space where the fountain was, and watched the carts roll here and there, the wheels rumbling on the wooden street, splashing in the muck of the fountain square. She leaned against a wall, her hands behind her. She kept an eye out for boys, who would chase her, but nobody else heeded her ever.

  A little herd of swine trotted briskly down from the big bar in the city wall; their skins were pink and spotty and they smelled bad. The woman herding them kept them moving with bangs of her long switch. A moment la
ter the Archbishop himself came by, talking to a monk; they stopped almost in front of her and stood looking up at the spire of the church, and the fierce-eyed old man drew shapes in the air with his hands.

  She went on down the hill, toward the Coppergate, looking for something to make Ama Arre feel better. There were no flowers here, but she might find a pretty stone, a feather. She skipped as she went. The air was sharp against her face, but it would not rain; she could feel spring coming, all around her.

  Ahead of her voices rose, and she went quickly over to the edge of the street, out of the way. Down there, people were shouting, louder and louder, and—she saw, with a jerk of fear— some of them were Vikings, like her brother and Raef. She went up closer to them, wary, staying in the back of everything. She looked for her brother and for Raef, although she knew they were gone.

  That was good, actually. She missed them, and wished she’d told them good-bye, but they didn’t belong here. If they came back something bad might happen.

  She could see the men arguing now. One was the man who kept the alehouse there, and he was standing in the door of his shop, his hand on the latch, and shouting.

  “I can close my shop if I want to!”

  “We came here to buy—we have money, damn you—let us in!” The Vikings crowded in toward him.

  “My shop is closed!”

  “He’s closed up, can’t you see—” Some other townspeople were pushing into the fight, taking the brewer’s side.

  “We have money!”

  “Damn foreign trash!”

  “Why don’t you all get out of here?”

  “We’re not going anywhere until we get some ale!”

  “Get out! Get out!” From all over the Coppergate now people swarmed down, shouting, their arms raised. Aelfu crept in along the wall of the alehouse, pressed against the withy wall; the mass of bodies before her hid what was happening, and she squatted down to peer between people’s legs.

  The crowd around her roared so hard her skin tingled and her hair stood on end. She shrank back hard against the withy wall of the alehouse. The brewer screeched and dashed into his shop and slammed the door. The close-jammed people before her surged ahead, and she heard screams, and a rock thudded into the wall above her shoulder.

  In front of her the crowd shattered. Some of it ran down the street and some ran up and some stood and some fell, and the Vikings rushed and charged around them, beating at them with swords and sticks. She hunched down as small as she could get. She put her hands over her face and watched through her fingers. A bloody boy fell to the ground before her. A big man with a horrible round hole in his face where his mouth should have been stormed up toward her, his knotted arms swinging a sword before him to clear his way.

  From the top of the Coppergate the crowd rushed back down. Aelfu bit her fingers. She held her breath. The man with the hole in his face stood square, his sword raised, shouting, and the Vikings around him rushed up beside him, and the crowd swept down on them and the sword hacked and blood sprayed up, an arc of blood drops hanging in the air.

  The townspeople were scattering away. The bloody boy sprang up off the ground and darted into the lane. The street emptied, except for the Vikings, yelling and stamping around. Two of them ran at the alehouse and began beating on the door. Aelfu cowered down, afraid to move. Then the man with the hole in his face saw her there.

  He stalked toward her. His eyes fixed on her, and her breath stuck in her throat. She crouched herself down as small as she could. She felt his gaze like a hot dirty hand taking hold of her. Then a horn sounded, three long blasts.

  He straightened, his gaze leaving her, looking up the street. One of the men at the alehouse door said, “Who’s that?”

  The other said, “Kill him “

  “No.” The man with the hole in his face held out one hand to keep them where they were. “Everything’s on the plan. That’s the King’s man. Somebody go get Sweyn.”

  Down from the top of the Coppergate came a lone man, in one hand a brass horn. Aelfu lifted her head, surprised. It was Euan.

  She stayed small. She did not like Euan, who had somehow made her mother go away, and it startled her to see him here, walking alone and unarmed down toward the pack of Vikings; she wondered what he would do if he saw her.

  His hat was jammed down on his head. He tossed the horn aside as he walked. His eyes were on the man with the hole in his face, who took a long step forward, put his hands on his hips, and shouted, “You! Tell these pigs to give us what we want or we’ll take it, and to hell with them!”

  Euan stopped; he had on the long coat he wore around the house, its hem and sleeves and collar soft with brown fur, and his soft house shoes; he must have rushed out the door to come here. He said, “Where is Sweyn Haraldsson?”

  The hole-faced man said, “That’s not what you called him before.”

  “I’m calling him that now,” Euan said calmly. “Where is he?”

  “He’s not here. We want ale, and bread, and we want it now, or this street will run blood, I’m telling you.”

  Around the edges of the street, in the lanes, in the windows, the townspeople began to appear, looking out, waiting. Aelfu heard the alehouse door open. Euan stood alone in the middle of the street, his hands at his sides, facing the Vikings.

  “Send for him,” he said. “I will only talk to him.”

  The hole-faced man took a step forward. The sword in his hand had blood on it. He was staring hard at Euan now and his forehead creased. “I know you from—” Abruptly his face jerked into a furious scowl. “Now I remember you! You’re that troublemaking brat! From when Eric was the King!”

  Euan stood his ground. “I remember you, too, Eelmouth, and I wouldn’t deal with you if you were God. I’ll talk to Sweyn and no other.”

  Eelmouth let out a roar and strode forward, the sword cocked in his hand, and then another man walked up between him and Euan.

  “Wait! Everybody stand fast!”

  The whole street fell still. The newcomer stood in the middle of the street, his hands out, as if he pressed Euan and Eelmouth apart. Aelfu held her breath; she had not noticed how many people were out here, the pack of the Vikings, and the swarming townspeople in the windows and yards. She fastened her eyes on the newcomer. He was young, not much older than Conn, his long curly hair red-gold, his wispy growing beard more gold than red. He was beautiful, she thought, and her heart lifted in a sudden gust of feeling.

  Euan was still glaring at Eelmouth, but now he turned slightly to face Sweyn. “Your men here were about to get into a lot of trouble.”

  Eelmouth let out another yell. “I’ll give you trouble— Sweyn, let me kill him. You don’t know what he did.”

  Sweyn’s face flushed red; he said, “Put up your sword, damn you. Everybody get back.”

  Eelmouth stood where he was. “I’m telling you, Sweyn—”

  Sweyn lunged at him, furious. “No, I’m telling you!” He got Eelmouth by the front of the shirt and pushed him back two steps, wobbling, staggering, and then stepped away, and wheeled toward Euan.

  “Do you want me to let him loose on you? Start talking to me, townman, if you want to live!”

  A breathless silence fell on the street. Euan stood a little crooked, one shoulder higher than the other, as if he heaved himself against some great weight. From the corners and windows and alleys the townspeople peeped out, watching. Eelmouth waited a moment where Sweyn had left him, the sword dangling from his hand, and then turned on his heel and strode off through the pack of the Vikings.

  Euan said, “Sweyn, what do you want?”

  Sweyn lifted his red-gold head. He had blue eyes, bright and vivid in his sun-darkened face. Aelfu thought he was the most wonderful man she had ever seen; she longed for him to look at her.

  He looked only at Euan. He said, “I want what you want of me, townman—to leave Jorvik.”

  Euan said slowly, “Then what can I do to make that happen?”

  The blue
eyes blazed. “Can you speak for that?”

  “I have no idea,” Euan said, but his voice was smoother and his shoulders settled, even again. He nodded toward the big oak tree on the corner. “Come over here, and let’s talk about it, and see.”

  Sweyn nodded. Turning to the Vikings, he said, “Thorkel, get them back to camp.”

  One of the Vikings said, “You need help.”

  “Get them out of here,” Sweyn said, and turned to Euan. “Let’s go, then.” They started down toward the oak tree. The Vikings burst into low talk; they turned and started away down the street toward the river. Aelfu burst up from the ground by the wall and sprinted away home.

  Sweyn said, “I understand Conn Corbansson is your nephew. He is in my company.”

  “Not by blood,” Euan said. He wondered how Sweyn had found that out and realized the prince had been asking about him. “He’s half Irish, anyway.”

  “Still you might favor his fortunes,” Sweyn said.

  Euan gave a laugh, startled at the notion his nephews had fortunes. They walked in beneath the widespread canopy of the oak; the buds of the leaves were just opening, and the tangled mass of branches shone with a fresh new green. He said, “I favor the fortunes of Jorvik. Therefore I will help you get out of here:’

  Sweyn followed on his heels. “I need ships. I have an army. I mean to go against my father Bluetooth, and seize Denmark. If you give me ships, I promise I will remember your help when I am King.”

  Euan snorted. He moved closer under the oak tree, toward the trunk, away from the curious men in the street. The trunk of the tree was deep-carved with signs and crosses. The city pigs kept the ground under it bare as a street, and the tops of the roots were burnished knobs in the dust. “You have all the chance of snow in August.”