“Ormr? Who sparred with him?” Oliver asked. “Why?”
“Because the Úlfheðnar are fucking animals, that’s why,” Revna spat, her voice cracked and wavering.
“Rune shamed him.” Erik’s voice held a promise of violence. “In front of all of Aeretoll, and he wanted revenge. How bad is it, Olaf?”
“Bad,” the physician said, right away, shifting around the table. He’d pushed up Rune’s tunic and shirt and revealed a stretch of lean, muscled abdomen. The wound was just beneath his ribs, no longer bleeding, though a stack of bloodied bandages on the floor proved that it had bled a great deal.
As they all watched, Olaf pried apart the edges of the wound and peered down at the layers of exposed muscle and viscera beneath.
A sudden surge of cold nausea forced Oliver to turn his head. He closed his eyes and took a shallow breath through his mouth, fighting not to be sick. Had his father been like this, at the end? His Uncle William, and John? Had they lain on a muddy battlefield, full of holes, unconscious, while the last of their lives bled out of ugly, gaping wounds?
“Will he live?” Erik asked, and Revna let out a quiet choking sound.
Olaf said, “I shall do my best. The bleeding’s stopped, and from here” – slippery, squishing sounds issued from the table, and Oliver had to swallow a few times to keep from gagging – “it doesn’t look as if anything vital’s been punctured. There could be a slow, internal bleed, though.” He sighed. “We won’t know. I’ll clean him up best I can, and then it’s a matter of his own body fighting the ensuing infection.”
“He’s strong,” Revna said, voice watery. “He’ll make it.”
Head still turned toward the window, away from whatever Olaf was doing poking around in Rune’s cut-open stomach, Oliver saw a flash of movement at the door just before Bjorn said, “No, you can’t – get out of here.”
He turned. Ragnar strode into the surgery, still dressed, lean, close-shaven face taut with a closed-off, guarded sort of anger. “Erik,” he began.
Erik whirled away from the table. His dressing gown brushed Oliver’s arm as he stalked forward to meet his cousin – with a hand that he wrapped around the other’s throat.
Revna gasped.
Leif moved around the head of the table in a few startled, lurching steps. “Uncle.”
For his part, Ragnar went totally still: hands limp at his sides, chin lifted high, exposing himself, face going blank above the hand that gripped his neck. “Erik,” he said in a soothing tone. “They just came to tell me. How is he?”
“One of your men put a knife in his belly,” Erik growled, “how do you think he is?”
“Erik, I promise you–”
“I don’t want your promises.” The rings on his fingers flashed as his hand tightened; Ragnar’s mouth fell open, his next breath cut off. All of Erik’s teeth were bared, and there was nothing of the reindeer stag in him, now – no stalwart beast of burden. He was all wolf, rabid with fury. “You brought a murderer into my home and sicced him on my nephew, you cowardly, underhanded rat. You–”
Oliver stepped forward and put a hand on his arm. “Erik.”
Leif appeared on his other side; he met Oliver’s gaze with a stricken one of his own. “Uncle. At least hear what he has to say.”
“If you don’t mind,” Olaf said from behind them. “I don’t have time for another body on a table at the moment.”
Bjorn stepped up behind Ragnar and gripped the back of his tunic. “Let go, Erik, it’s all right. He won’t get away from me.”
Oliver could feel the flex and leap of the tendons in Erik’s arm; felt the fine tremors that gripped him, the effort it took to turn loose. But turn loose he did, albeit roughly, breathing harshly through flared nostrils, lips still pulled back in a snarl. “Explain,” he ground out.
Ragnar took a few gasping breaths and massaged at his throat. He looked decidedly less composed than when he’d first entered. “Do you think this happened on my orders? Erik. Cousin. You and I, we have our pissing contests, and I don’t usually agree with the way you do things here. But do you really think I would order one of my men to do this? To attack my own flesh and blood cousin? And a prince, no less? That’s an act of war.”
“Yes,” Erik said. “It is.”
Ragnar’s brows shot up. “Only if you allow it to be. Ormr acted on his own. This was the doing of a lone, stupid man, with a personal vendetta.”
Erik’s head tilted to a dangerous angle. “Are you asking me for clemency?”
“No. I’m asking you to mete out punishment, and be done with it. Don’t let this drive a wedge between our peoples.”
“The punishment for attempting to murder a crown prince is death.”
Ragnar took a deep breath. “I know that.”
The cousins regarded one another for a long time.
Oliver traded another glance with Leif, who looked only worried and confused, and could offer no insight.
Finally, Erik said, “At dawn, then.”
Ragnar nodded, expression going grim. His gaze flicked toward the table. “May I see him?”
“No. You may not.”
Another nod, shorter this time, and then Bjorn turned him around and marched him from the room.
Erik watched him go, jaw clenched tight, muscle jumping in his cheek from the effort. He let out a slow breath – and his gaze cut finally toward Oliver, who still gripped his forearm. A fractional softening of his face, an acknowledgement, and then he eased out of Oliver’s hold and turned back to the table. They all did.
Olaf had stacked clean linen bandaging over the wound, and now held bleached strips of the same. “I’ve cleaned it and dressed it. I need to wrap it, now, if you’ll help me lift him.”
Erik and Leif moved to either side of the table to do so, working in wordless harmony.
As Olaf began winding the linen strips around Rune’s abdomen and under his back, Oliver moved to stand beside Revna.
Her face was puffy from crying, still more tears trickling down her cheeks, the pretty blue eyes so like her brother’s nearly swollen shut at this point. She cradled Rune’s head in both palms, and Oliver wondered if she was remembering him as a baby, when his fragile little skull had been small enough to fit cupped in one hand.
Unsure if he would be welcome to do so or not, Oliver put an arm around her shoulders. To his surprise, she leaned into him immediately; dropped her head heavily down onto his shoulder. She had to be exhausted, terror and impending grief compounding the natural fatigue of the night’s festivities.
“He’ll be all right,” Oliver whispered. “You lot are all too stubborn to let something as mundane as a knife get the best of you.”
She breathed out a congested chuckle. “Bless you, lamb.”
When Oliver lifted his head, Erik was studying them, his expression quietly devastated. Oliver had never wanted to go to him so badly. But he stroked Revna’s shoulder, and let her shudder against him while Olaf tied off the bandages.
25
It was funny the way everything could change in the span of a night.
As the first blush of dawn stained the horizon shell-pink, Oliver chafed his gloved hands together against the cold and watched his breath steam before his face. It would be a glorious sunrise, once it began, the sky cloudless and smooth as a black pottery bowl overhead. He stood dressed in last night’s feast clothes, the same ensemble that Erik had unlaced and shoved down and stripped off of him. His hair was a rumpled mess – he’d caught only a passing glimpse in the mirror on his way out – but the braids had survived, beads clicking together faintly as he shivered.
Revna stood beside him, close enough that their shoulders kept brushing; she’d dried her eyes, washed her face, and looked now like carven stone, drawn and cold.
On her other side, Leif stood tall and stoic, a new hardness to his face.
On the other side of the yard, the select few lords who’d been roused for the purpose of bearing witness breathed into th
eir hands or stomped their feet, most of them worse for the night’s drink: Lord Askr, Lord Ingvar, and, to Oliver’s surprise, young Lord Náli, the Corpse Lord.
Fitting, he supposed, if only in name.
A block had been set up in the center of the training yard, old, and heavy, and patinaed with old stains.
Erik stood cloaked in black fur, his hair in wild disarray and lifting in the breeze. One bare, ringed hand rested on the head of a massive, wicked axe, the end of the handle planted in the snow. It was no woodsman’s axe, but the sort of thing Northmen carried into war. The glacial fury on his face brooked no dissent.
A rattle of chains sounded, and the prisoner was led forward.
Bjorn held Ormr by one arm, and Ragnar held the other, marching him up to the block. Ormr didn’t make it difficult, though; with his hands bound in manacles before him, he walked with head erect, gaze defiant. He almost looked – proud, of what he’d done, Oliver thought with a wave of revulsion.
Beside him, Revna sucked in a breath.
When they reached the block, Bjorn shoved him roughly down to his knees, pushed his chest forward onto it, and held him in place with a boot between his shoulder blades.
Birger, his gray hair sleep-rumpled, and his beard not much better, stepped forward, face grave. “Do you understand the crime of which you are accused?”
Ormr craned his neck just far enough to smirk up at the advisor.
“That’s what I thought,” Birger said, grimly. “You face, then, the punishment of a man accused of attempting to murder a crown prince and heir of Aeretoll. Justice will be meted out by King Erik Frodeson. May the Val-Father take you – if he’ll even have you.” The last was muttered with disgust, and then Birger stepped back.
And Erik stepped forward.
With the sinuous, rolling gait of a predator, Erik walked around the kneeling prisoner, lifted his axe to his shoulder, and settled into position, feet braced apart. His awesome strength was evident in every line of his body as he lifted the axe – and brought it down.
Oliver forced himself to watch, only flinching a little, biting hard on the inside of his cheek.
Blood fountained in rhythmic jets, flowing with the last throb-throb-throb of Ormr’s dying heart.
The head rolled across the snow, the smirk replaced now by the last wide-eyed gape of pain and shock.
Erik handed the bloodied axe to Bjorn, turned, and walked silently back into the palace.
~*~
The great hall was deserted this early; the servants had finally cleared the last of the night’s drinking detritus, and only a few candles burned, set well away from the glittering, decorated fir tree that would be taken down today. In the silvery, pre-dawn glow, the garlands and wreaths and ribbons and baubles all struck Erik as needlessly gaudy.
He was halfway across the floor when Ragnar’s voice sounded behind him. “I am sorry, cousin. You must know that.”
Erik ground to a halt. He could still feel the axe handle against his palms; could still feel the rippling impact of blade meeting bone and flesh in his elbows, and shoulders, and back. He took a careful breath before he turned around, and found Ragnar a dozen paces away, his posture – like it had been in the surgery – without resistance or aggression. Open and willing to accept whatever wrath was thrown his way. “Must I?”
“Ormr is dead,” Ragnar said, “and I’m on my way now to gather the rest of my men. We’ll leave before the rest of the palace is awake.” He edged a step closer. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, Erik. I like Rune, always have. And” – the first note of steel in his voice – “if I wanted to challenge your rule, I would call you out myself. I’m not a Beserkir to slink along shadowy roadways and send assassins after princes.”
Erik didn’t respond.
Ragnar continued. “But what happened proves what I told you before: there is unrest in the Waste. There are those who no longer trust Aeretoll to stand watch on the border with the South. You have to come to the festival, and you have to bring Oliver. You have to prove yourself.”
“I have to prove myself,” Erik repeated, his tone flat. His hands curled, and he wanted the weight of the axe in them, steadying them, grounding him. “I’ve ruled this kingdom for twenty-three years, through the longest spell of peace the North has ever known, but I have to prove myself.”
Ragnar’s head titled back, eyes pale as a snowbank in the low light. “What’s more important? Your pride? Or the people you love?”
Erik suppressed a growl – barely.
“You’ve made your decisions, Erik,” Ragnar said. “And decisions have consequences, like it or not.” When Erik kept silent, he said, “Bring your lover to the gathering of the clans. Let them all see what you have seen in him. I’ll even vouch for him myself. But.” He took a step back, half-turning to retreat. “You cannot continue with things as they are now. You know you can’t.” He put his back to Erik, and walked away.
Erik thought of the blood on the snow outside, and wondered how much more he would have to spill in the days and weeks to come.
~*~
Before breakfast, Oliver went to tell Tessa what had happened.
“Oh, gods,” Hilda exclaimed, clapping both hands over her mouth and then speaking through them. “Not the prince! Oh, his poor mother. Will he – is he…?”
Tessa sank down slowly onto the edge of the bed, face gone pale, clutching the bedpost with one hand.
“He’s still alive,” Oliver said. “He’s still in Olaf’s surgery, but I think they plan to move him to his own room later today.”
“Oh my.” Hilda shook her head, her eyes flooding with tears that she dashed with the towel draped over her shoulder. “Oh, this is terrible. And then the king having to do that. Just terrible.”
Oliver’s attention was on his cousin. Tessa stared into the middle distance, breathing through parted lips. He saw the moment determination overtook her: the way her jaw firmed, and her shoulders squared, and she stood, no longer unsteady.
She met his gaze. “I need to go to Revna. She’ll be a mess.”
“A bit of one, yes.”
Tessa nodded and reached for her mantle. “She’s down in the surgery?”
“Yes.”
“Right. Hilda, let’s go down and see if there’s any food we can take to her. She won’t have eaten, I imagine.”
“Yes, my lady.” Hilda sounded eager to have something productive to do.
Oliver saw them both off down the hallway, but didn’t follow, his own steps slowing and eventually halting, as if mired in deep mud. Below, he could hear the palace beginning to stir, the deep, resonant murmurs as if a great machine were at work, people bustling about, lighting fires, starting breakfast, seeing to the needs of all their many guests.
Oliver stood before a window, and he turned his head to look out through the leaded panes, across the smoke-blue fields, and the spiky tree tops of the forest beyond. The sun was just breaking over the mountains in molten golds and pinks, a spill of warm light across a cold, cold landscape.
Each time he blinked, he saw Ormr’s head tumbling across the snow.
When his eyes were open, he couldn’t stop envisioning the look on Erik’s face, afterward.
Doubtless there were even now meetings being thrown together, lords being gathered to discuss what had happened. There would be dozens of people vying for Erik’s attention today, and he probably ought to be down in the great hall now, Birger on one side of him and Bjorn on the other, a reassuring, kingly presence amidst these troubling times.
But some instinct tugged Oliver the other direction, and he made his way slowly toward the royal apartments, instead.
The guard shift had changed, and the two at the door nodded to him in silent greeting, and let him pass between them through the door. The common room was empty, the fire all but burned out. Without pausing, Oliver made his way to Erik’s chambers and, after only a moment’s hesitation, let himself inside without knocking.
The go
ld-pink dawn light fell on the rumpled bedclothes that gave evidence to their quick departure, the depressions left by two heads marking the places where they’d slept, so close together, only a few hours ago.
Erik sat slumped in an armchair before the fire, bent forward at the waist, forearms braced on his thighs, the curved line of his back one of doubt, and worry.
He glanced over, fleetingly, when Oliver entered, but didn’t speak – only held out a hand, after a moment. A silent request that tugged hard at Oliver’s gut, and had him crossing the room in a hurry. He slid his palm into Erik’s, and with his other hand he tucked a messy, silver-streaked braid behind the king’s ear. Erik leaned into the motion of his fingers, so he kept stroking his hair, smoothing it back from his brow and down the back of his skull.
“I’m sorry,” Oliver said, feeling helpless, not knowing what else to say. “Erik, I’m so sorry.”
Erik took an unsteady breath, his face lined, stripped naked of all the fury and hardness he’d worn in the surgery, and in the yard. He wasn’t trying to hide anything from Oliver, here where they were alone together, and that show of trust was staggering.
“You were right, about his stubbornness.” One corner of his mouth flicked in a poor attempt at a smile. “Rune’s young, and strong, and if anyone can pull through such a thing, it’s him.” He sobered, and his voice grew thick. “And it’s me who should be apologizing to you.”
“Whatever for?”
Erik turned his head to look at him fully now, looking up at him. His hand tightened on Oliver’s, and the other hooked in the front of Oliver’s belt, holding him still; Oliver sensed it was a grip that was more for Erik’s comfort than his own, given his troubled expression; wide, pleading eyes shifted back and forth over Oliver’s face.
“I’m sorry for what I’m about to ask you, Oliver. My cousin is an asshole, and he’s wrong about many things – but in this instance, unfortunately, I think he’s right.
“I set out for the Midwinter Festival in the Waste in three days’ time, and I must be there, after what I’ve done today. And I must take you with me.”
Heart of Winter (The Drake Chronicles Book 1) Page 32