The Witches’ Kitchen

by Cecelia Holland

  “How do you know?” Sweyn turned sharply, following him with his eyes. “What do you know about it?”

  Euan leaned against the trunk of the tree, the bark rough against him even through the layers of his clothes. “Bluetooth has been King forever. This puny little army you have—”

  “I’ll draw more men, when I blood him.”

  Euan gave a shake of his head. He had worked on his accounts all morning; three of the captains now in the river owed him money, and he saw all this money vanishing into the air, as money had a way of doing. He eyed Sweyn once more, seeing a green boy here, dewy-cheeked, incapable of seeing what had to be.

  Of course, he thought, that meant he might change what had to be.

  It was a slim chance. Euan knew better than to think well of it. This money would be lost as soon as he gave it away. But doing this, getting the Vikings out of here, would put him up over Oswald, would make them notice him, down there in Wessex. Even with all else that was going on, they would know of him, down there.

  He said, “I will give you ships.”

  Sweyn surged toward him a step, his hands rising, as if he would snatch these ships out of the air. “How many?”

  “Two dragons and a kog. In the harbor now. Your army”— he smiled, to show Sweyn what he thought of this army—“will fit into them easily enough, I think.”

  “I need bread, and ale. Other supplies.”

  Euan pulled a face, although he had anticipated that. “I shall have them taken to your camp. But you must keep your men in your camp.”

  “I will.”

  “Can you?”

  At that the young man’s head jerked up, and even in the shadow of the oak tree his eyes blazed. “Yes. Damn you.”

  “Un-uh,” Euan said mildly. “You haven’t got anything yet. You need me. And you will leave within the week.”

  “More men are coming here. I must be here to meet them.”

  “One week.”

  “When will you bring the food to my camp?”

  “I’ll have it there before nightfall. Enough for one week.”

  “Two weeks.”

  “The second week when you leave.”

  “Agreed.”

  Euan watched him a moment, judging how to broach and went straight at it. “And when you are King, you will help me bring a dansker King to Jorvik.”

  The prince lowered his head a little, the shadows on his face like a mask. “What? You had one. You threw him out.”

  “Eric was a bad King,” Euan said. “Better no King at all than a bad King.”

  “But now you want another.”

  “I want a King not English. While the English have a King, we need one.” He put the bait out there again, shiny bright. “You could give us one.”

  “Well,” Sweyn said. He put his hand out. “First I shall be King of Denmark.”

  Euan took his hand, the clasp strong and dry, and for a moment thought, with a heady excitement, that he had won something. But then Sweyn stood back, and started off, and Euan saw again he was just a boy, and he remembered his father talking about Bluetooth, and his grandfather talking about Bluetooth, and he shook his head and told himself he was a fool. He started down to the river, to dicker the ships away from their captains. A hawk screamed somewhere. In the Coppergate, already, people were back to business, as if there had never been Vikings here. Up on the slope the church bell rang nones. He would have to hurry, to get the food to Sweyn’s camp. The hawk shrieked again. a piercing cry like a woman’s voice. He went down to the river.

  Arre stooped and hugged Aelfu tight a moment. “Now, just wait here, until I call you.”

  “Ama—” Aelfu held tight to her skirt. “Don’t go.”

  “I must. It will be all right.” Arre kissed her and Mint again and put the little girl’s hand in Aelfu’s. “Now, wait. Remember what I told you.”

  Aelfu felt like crying. She clutched Miru’s hand tight. They stood in the doorway of the church, with the warm sun on their backs, and the gloom before them. In there the terrible old man waited. If he called them in, then they would stay here forever and forever.

  If he sent them out—if he sent them away—

  Her stomach heaved. She wished she had brought something to eat.

  “Ow,” Miru said, and pulled her hand out of Aelfu’s grip.

  Aelfu got hold of her sister again. Arre was walking away from them, her hands pressed together, her head bent. When she reached the old man she knelt down before him. He stooped over her slightly. His hand rose. Aelfu through the bleary tears in her eyes saw him gigantic, glowing in the dark. With one word he could send her and her sister into hell. With one word save them. Her knees wobbled.

  Then he was straightening. Arre was straightening up off her knees. They were turning toward Aelfu and Miru, and the fearsome old man beckoned to them.

  Aelfu took Mint’s hand again, as Arre had said she should, and led her forward. “Now, be good, Miru.” She could not look at him; she fixed her gaze on the floor at his feet, and walked up before him.

  “So these are the small girls.” His voice tolled like a bell over them. “Yes, they have a very Irish look about them.” He laughed, an odd kind rumble of a sound. “Non anglae sed angelae,” he said, and his hand descended onto Aelfu’s head. She flinched an instant, and then steadied, feeling the warmth and weight of the hand, his power, now cast around her and her sister, too. Suddenly her heart buoyed up. She lifted her face up to look at him, and found him smiling down at her. He moved his hand down to cradle her chin.

  “We will bring these children to Christ, Arre,” he said. “They are too beautiful to be damned.”

  “Yes, Father,” Arre said. She stooped, and picked Miru up. Aelfu stayed where she was, smiling up at him, who had saved her.

  “Say ‘Thank you, Father,”‘ Arre murmured.

  “Thank you, Father,” Aelfu said. She thought she had never been so happy. He was turning away already, making some sign over her as he went, but she was here now, she belonged here. She felt suddenly light as a sunbeam. Turning, she skipped after Arre, walking out of the church.

  C H A P T E R T W E N T Y

  The sun was hot and bright for so early in the year, and Euan was sweating under his coat. Beside him on the river bar Sweyn Haraldsson was staring at the kog, anchored in the deep water on the far side of the river, and now he turned sharply around.

  “I can’t use that ship.”

  “It’s a perfectly sound ship.” Euan shrugged half out of his coat. He had known the kog would be a problem. Fat as a sow, with the high freeboard and beaky prows of a river trader, the ship had come into Jorvik carrying a load of sheep, and the stink reached him from here.

  Sweyn said, “You told me three ships. I need dragons.”

  Euan laid his hands together, rubbing his fingers, looking for the way through this. He said, “This is a sound ship, fulfilling my promise. You can’t change the terms of the agreement now.” He saw Sweyn was not listening, was staring away up the river bar, and he turned to look. All over the river bar the crowds of men were quieting, all staring toward the broad sloping way down from the bank.

  A woman was walking down toward them. She wore a long white gown glittering with gemstones. The long hair hanging in a thick braid down her back was streaked with gray, but she walked like a young woman. Euan recognized her at once although he had not seen her in twenty years, and remembering what had happened then he stepped back and turned his eyes down and bowed deep to her, getting well out of her way, out of her notice.

  She went straight by him. She gave off an elusive dry fragrance he could smell only when he didn’t try to. Her gown rustled like feathers and sparkled all over in the sunlight. She went up to Sweyn and said, “Well, Bluetooth’s son, are you ready to set forth?”

  “My army is larger every day,” Sweyn said. Euan knew that only that morning another ship had arrived, with more men to join him. He glanced toward the kog, seeing possibilities here.


  Gunnhild Kingsmother faced the young man straight on, with no deference. Behind her stood old Sweyn Eelmouth, carrying her cloak. Everybody was watching her. She spoke in a clear loud voice like an order. “You have to set out at once,” she said. “Bluetooth is gathering a fleet; he means to attack you. He gets stronger every day. You must strike first, now.”

  Sweyn stood solid before her, his hands on the hilt of his sword. “Where is Conn?”

  “I left them down at Humbermouth, along with two more dragons of men from Orkney, come to join you. They will hold anyone coming into the river until you get there. But you must go, now, Sweyn, he has fifty ships already.”

  “Did you see anything of Palnatoki?”

  “No. Funen was too far for me.”

  Sweyn turned to Euan. “I need another dragon.”

  Euan fixed his gaze on Sweyn and tried to ignore the woman now watching him, too. He kept his mind on what he wanted. He said, “That is the only ship available. It’s here, now, when you need it, take it, it will serve.” He gave Sweyn a sop, and a chance to accept easily: “I will add three more days’ worth of supplies, seventeen days in all, and I’ll bring all down at once, this afternoon.”

  Sweyn didn’t bother to argue. He turned to Gunnhild and said, “I’ll leave as soon as everything’s on board. Where is Bluetooth now?”

  “In the Limfjord, in the eastern bay. He has Hakon’s fleet with him, and more ships every day join him.”

  Euan drew back. He knew something of how the land and water lay in Denmark; the Limfjord was a chain of sounds and inlets that reached the sea only at the eastern end, and the bay there was accessible only by narrow passages from the sea. Tucked inside it Bluetooth would be virtually impregnable until he chose to move. Quietly Euan backed up again, eager to get away from Gunnhild. He thought again that this was money gone to hell, all this lavished on Sweyn, although now he saw some chance of recovering the kog, at least.

  Aside from that, he had satisfied Oswald’s demands, and done it in the name of the King. That was currency he had no way of valuing, yet, especially as word had come from Wessex only that morning that the King was failing.

  Sweyn was talking to some other men, giving them orders. He seemed capable enough. Still, it was a lot of money, and likely for nothing. He hoped Bluetooth never found out about it. He wondered if there were a way to get in with Bluetooth, too, so that he won out either way.

  As he thought that, on Sweyn’s far side, Gunnhild Kingsmother lifted her eyes and looked at him. Euan started. He blinked. For an instant his mind seemed stuck. He wondered what he had just been thinking about. She and Sweyn were moving off. The day was clear and strangely bright and empty. He went up toward his storehouse, to arrange for the supplies.

  She had told him to attack Bluetooth. She had not told him how.

  Sweyn poked at the fire; the dark was settling down around them, and the day’s dank drizzle was turning into a steady cold rain. He had rigged up an awning from his ship for a tent. The rest of his men were spread out in their own quick shelters down the beach. Where the soft waves purred along the hightide line, the dragons reared up their high curled heads, barely visible in the streaming dark.

  So far things had gone smoothly. He had rowed out of Jorvik with six ships, counting the kog, which Euan Woodwrightson had packed so full of supplies there was hardly room for the crew. They reached Humbermouth and found Conn and Raef waiting there with the dragonfly, and four more ships, men come down from the north, bored farmers, old enemies of Bluetooth’s, shiftless Vikings, green boys looking for their first fight, with hardly three swords between them.

  Sweyn distributed these men into the nine dragons, divided up the supplies among them, and left the kog behind. He knew the townsman would reclaim it immediately; but Euan had done him some favors, and he might need more from him, later on.

  With fair skies and a following wind, they sailed from Humbermouth across the sea to the wild Frisian coast and followed it north, fighting against a headwind the whole way. Now he was hauled out on the lee shore of one of the long sandy spits off the west coast of Denmark, and the rain was tailing off, and when it stopped the wind would likely swing around.

  Now he had to do something, and he had no idea what.

  Where he was he had been before. He knew that the western edge of the Limfjord began somewhere not too far north of where he was and a little inland, in a chaos of marshes and coves that trickled eastward toward the broad bays and narrow channels that fed into the Danish Sea. Somewhere in that entanglement of land and sea, Bluetooth lay with his great fleet.

  If Sweyn sailed on, up through the narrow ways between Denmark and Norway, to attack him from the east, Bluetooth would know he was coming for long days before he got there, would set some trap.

  He would have to see the trap first. Lay some countertrap. At least he knew those waters well.

  He stared into the fire, trying to pick this apart into some kind of plan. Someone else came in under the awning, dumping down a heavy pack; he glanced around and saw Raef Corbansson settling down nearby.

  Raef kept his eyes on the fire. Sweyn knew he would not speak until someone spoke to him. Sweyn remembered wishing he could get rid of Raef, but now he liked him better, not just for Conn’s sake. He was strong and sure, and he thought deep: Kveld-Raef, some of the others were already calling him, for his twilight gloom.

  Sweyn looked into the fire again. He wondered if he could get his men to carry their ships across the strip of coast between the North Sea into the western end of the Limfjord, wherever that was. He had heard of men doing that in the long river voyaging of Gardarik, to the east.

  Off in the rainy dark the other men were still bustling around. Conn had gotten a huge gang of them together to forage, not by giving orders, but by doing it himself. Conn seemed always happy, whatever he was doing. Sweyn endured a pang of resentment and envy. It was evil to think ill of someone for being happy all the time. He felt hollowed out, an unworthy man. He struggled to hold his sense of his destiny, but he felt as if he were dissolving away, all his special graces an illusion, until he disappeared, like a grain of sand into the sandy beach. Maybe he could never be King.

  He thought of what a great King would be like, tall and strong, like a father to the whole kingdom, a good father. When he thought that, a deep old knife turned in him. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Raef, who had taken an awl from his pack and was mending his outlandish bear-fur boots. He thought of what he knew about Raef, but pretended not to.

  He said, “Where did you get those boots?”

  Raef shot him a shy sideways look. “From—where we lived. My aunt made them for me. Conn has some, too, but he won’t wear them.”

  “Conn’s mother,” Sweyn said.

  Raef cleared his throat and looked away, and mumbled something, and bent over his work with the awl. Sweyn said, “When I was a child I thought Palnatoki was my father.”

  Raef turned to look full at him. “I thought so, when we met you first. He favors you so much, he always puts you forward. Doesn’t he have any sons?”

  “Several. They’re around. One is famous, Apple-Odd. He’s in Gardarik somewhere, a far-voyager.”

  “Apple-Odd,” Raef said. “That’s a strange name.”

  Sweyn rubbed his hands together. “You don’t know the story? Well, you wouldn’t. Palnatoki used to be a famous bowman. When he and Bluetooth were much younger they were friends, until one night at a feasting they both got very drunk and Bluetooth commanded Palnatoki to shoot an apple off his son’s head. He shot the apple clean, drunk as he was, but he’s never touched a bow since. That was Odd, the son, so he’s Apple-Odd.”

  “Palnatoki said he would meet us, didn’t he?” Raef said. “Where do you suppose he is now?”

  “I don’t know. There’s been no word from him. He’s . . Sweyn tapped his fingers on his knee, turning his gaze back into the fire. “He’s not much of a fighter. I always felt . . . He never rep
aid Bluetooth for doing that to him. I have always thought that was very small of him.” He turned toward Raef. “I don’ t know if I can count on him for this.”

  Then suddenly Conn was pushing in under the awning, loud and wet, and carrying a sack. “Thought you were done for the night, hah?” From the sack he dumped out several flat glistening fish. Sweyn yelped, delighted; he grabbed for one of the slippery bodies and pulled out his belt knife. Conn said, “Find some cooking rocks, Raef. It’s pouring out there. I’m already soaked.” He sat down across the fire from Sweyn, smiling wide, his hair sodden against his head.

  They cooked the fish on flat rocks and ate. The rain beat hard on the awning. Sweyn flipped the fishbones into the fire, thinking again of how to attack Bluetooth. Conn laid more wood on the bed of coals; he was steaming, giving off a strong fragrance of sweat and dirt and fish guts. He said, “Raef. Did you tell him?”

  Raef hunched up his shoulders, picking the last shreds of white fish meat from the ladder of bones on the rock in front of him. A piece of skin like a silvery tapestry lay under the bones. Sweyn said, “Tell me what?”

  Raef glanced at him and back at the fish. “You know Corban is not my father.”

  Conn snorted. “Not that, clamhead.”

  Sweyn, pleased, knew something had happened between him and Raef. He said, “I know.”

  Raef nodded, his jaws moving, chewing up fish. He swallowed, and said, still looking down at the flat rock, “There is a way between the seas here.”

  Sweyn twitched, sitting up straight, and fixed his gaze on Raef. “What?”

  “I can . . .” Raef shut his eyes. “I know this. Don’t ask me how. Up a little way the coast opens, there’s a way through all this stretch of land here to the sea on the far side.”

  “Can you pilot us through it?”

  Raef’s head bobbed. Sweyn stared at him, wondering about this with a tingling excitement; he realized that Raef was talking about the Limfjord. It was true, he had heard in the past that sometimes in stormy winters the western end of the Limfjord breached and the sea rushed in. If it were so now, then they might catch Bluetooth from behind, and unawares. He looked past Raef to Conn, and met his clear gray eyes, and Conn smiled at him.