When they had gone down toward the river, Sweyn turned and called Corban to him. He said, “No one steals here except us.” He spat out the words, and laughed again through his hollow face. “You owe me two pence, hah? What is this, you have no money? And now you speak dansker.”
“You took all my money,” Corban said.
“Einar Ship-Farmann gave you money—what did he tell you to do, here in Jorvik?”
“What?” Corban asked, startled. “Nothing.”
“Hnnnh.”
Eelmouth veered off suddenly again into another bakery. They had swung back up around the northern edge of the city. Corban hung back, not so hungry now. The others walked in after their leader and came out carrying more bread. Corban looked away down the street; there on the corner, across from the big oak tree, sat the woman with her pots.
She was bent over something in her hands. He frowned; he had seen her do this before, and he wondered what she did. He remembered that crooked little secret smile.
Eelmouth brushed by him, going up the street. “You say you are not Einar’s man—why not then come up to Eric’s Hall? We have meat there every night, and good ale.”
Corban remembered that hall, where they had feasted, and he had gone hungry; he said nothing.
Eelmouth said, “Are you Christian?”
“No,” Corban said, without thinking.
But it was the right answer; Eelmouth twisted toward him, smiling wide in his dripping beard. “That’s good. I thought so. I am Thor’s man also. It was my father’s way. Good enough for me.”
Corban kept silent; that monk, all across England, had thought there were only two ways also, and he saw some refuge in that. Now they stopped in the street again and Eelmouth went into a brewery, and this time the other men stood around outside in the street with Corban. One squinted up at the sky.
“More snow. We’ll be glad for the fire this night.”
“You take the fire,” the other said. “I’ll take Hilda.” They both laughed; they glanced at Corban, and he laughed also, dutifully, and they nodded happily at him.
“She’s a good woman,” one said, and drove his elbow against the other’s ribs. “Good for what a woman’s good for. Right, Gorm?”
Eelmouth came out, carrying the wooden drinking cup level in one hand, full of ale. They stood there and passed it back and forth; Corban took a full drink of it. When it was empty Eelmouth went back into the brewery and brought it out again with ale to the brim.
The ale swelled up inside Corban’s head, fluffy and warm; he felt a great rush of gratitude for Eelmouth, who was feeding him so well. Connected to it a little pointed jab of fear that this might end. When they had all drunk, and the cup was empty again, Eelmouth sent the other two men off to harry the gamblers alongside the church wall. Corban stirred, uneasy, thinking of Grod. Eelmouth led him off across the plaza past the church.
“So, we’re fools, you think? We’ll believe Einar gives you money, but you aren’t his man.”
“It’s true,” Corban said. “I have no more money anyway.”
“Well, you still owe me two pence, which I would have had, if you hadn’t yapped to the King.”
Corban laughed, more at the strange word than any wit of Eelmouth’s. They had gone down past the church, and the street to the river opened on their left; on the right was a twisting lane, overhung with oaks, so that even now, with the sun high, the way was dark. A scatter of low buildings and withy fences lay on either side. Eelmouth glanced down the lane way, and turned to go toward the river.
In the street ahead of them was a large wagon, drawn up before the same house where Corban had unloaded a wagon two days before. He saw something blue in the doorway, and looked close; it was the man in the blue coat, whom he had seen at the King’s right hand.
“Who is that?”
Eelmouth gave a look that way. “Oh, that’s the Lord Arinbjorn.” He frowned at Corban. “Another friend of Einar’s.”
“Who is he?”
“A buyer and seller. He takes what Eric takes, and turns it into gold, so he is the King’s best friend, most of the time.”
“A farmann,” Corban said, understanding. “A ship-farmann—”
“Is a trader over the sea,” said Eelmouth. “How do you know Einar, anyway? An Irishman like—”
Behind them a yell went up. Eelmouth wheeled around. The yell rang out again, a screech, sounding down the shadowy lane up the hill from them, and Eelmouth strode that way, holding onto his sheathed sword to keep it from getting between his legs.
Corban followed him; ahead, several people were now shouting and screaming, and a horse neighed, a frantic frightened blast. Eelmouth broke into a run across the lane to a closed gate and pulled it open.
Corban followed him into a horseyard. Even as he stepped inside, a loose horse galloped up toward the open gate and he wheeled around and slammed it shut. When he leapt forward again the horse was shearing off, whinnying, and past the flogging mane and high-flung tail Corban saw a man in the middle of the yard laying around him with a quarterstaff.
Half a dozen other men were shrinking back toward the fences on either side, out of the way of the quarterstaff and the rampaging horse. The loose horse skidded to a halt against one wall of the yard and wheeled and galloped back across it, neighing; the man with the quarterstaff dodged away and a man sprawled on the ground rolled over and struggled to his hands and knees. The horse, bolting past him, sprayed him with sand and pebbles. The man with the quarterstaff reared back, the long stick cocked in both hands, and rushed at the man on the ground.
With a yell Eelmouth leapt forward, in between the man with the staff and the man on the ground. He caught the staff as it came down, wrenching it half out of the other man’s grip. The two men wrestled over the stick. Corban saw at once what to do; he bounded around behind the other man, and jumped on his back and wrapped his arm around his neck. With Eelmouth leaning on him from the front, they bore him swiftly down to the ground.
Corban scrambled away and stood up, dust sifting down from the front of his shirt, his cloak straggling down around his knees. Eelmouth straightened, the staff in his hands.
“What is this about? Who started this?” He wheeled, looking behind him at the man he had defended, who was getting groggily up onto his feet. Somebody had caught the loose horse.
“He—” The groggy man staggered, blood dribbling down his chin. He thrust out his arm toward the other, who was sitting in the dust at Eelmouth’s feet. “Sold me a lame horse.”
“She was sound when she left here,” said the man at Eelmouth’s feet. He was panting. “You’re the cheat, not me.”
Eelmouth lifted his head, scanning the yard; there were other men standing around watching, but when the Viking’s gaze fell on them, each one turned away, shaking his head. Corban could see they would give no honest answers. Eelmouth looked from the man at his feet to the other, swaying as he stood, his hands dangling; blood leaked steadily down from his hair.
“Take the horse and get out of here,” Eelmouth said to him.
The man with the blood on his face twitched all over. His mouth twisted bitterly, and he looked down at the horse trader, who was getting up off the ground. “He cheated me!”
“You want me to bring you to the King?” Eelmouth said. “I’m saying take your horse and get out of here!” He cast a look at the restive horse. “She looks mettlesome enough to me.”
“Too much for him,” someone among the onlookers said, and there was a rumble of laughter. The bloody man lowered his eyes. His hands were trembling. Unsteadily he walked over toward the horse; in front of Eelmouth the horse trader, still slumped in the dust, scrubbed his hand over his face. In silence everybody watched the bloody man take the horse and lead it up to the gate and out. It did seem to favor its off foreleg. Corban folded his arms over his chest, frowning; he wondered how Eelmouth had known who was cheating.
When the gate shut Eelmouth turned to the horse trader, and t
hrust his hand out. “Two pence,” he said.
The horse trader coughed, as if somebody had poked him in the belly. He stared at Eelmouth’s hand. “Why?”
“Shall I bring you to the King?”
The horse trader’s head rose an inch, and his gaze drifted away, as if he would see some alley of escape opening up before him. But his hand moved slowly to his belt and took out a purse. A moment later, Eelmouth was leading Corban out of the yard, two silver pennies in his hand.
They went back up to the main street, which led down toward the river. Corban said, after a while, “How did you know that the one man was the cheat?”
Eelmouth hooted at him. “I didn’t. All I knew was, he didn’t likely have any money, but Alfric there—Alfric’s the horse trader—he would have two pence.” He clapped Corban on the arm, grinning at him. “I told you, here nobody steals but us,” he said. “One for you, one for me. That was good work, what you did, back there.” He tossed the silver pennies into the air and caught them in his hand, watching Corban, grinning, making no move to give him any. “So you only owe me one pence now, you see?”
Corban nodded at him. The muzziness of the ale had worn off. “I see, yes.”
“Good,” Eelmouth said, and started off back down the street toward the river.
Mav sat in the closed-in bed in the front wall of the Lady’s hall, wrapped in a blanket, and sang. When she sang such colors and sounds rose up around her that she was dizzy with them and hardly knew where she was. She saw Corban, walking, winged in blue and red, and then she saw Corban standing before a blaze of purple light, and voices sounded in her ears and she sang them out, true and clear, like veins of quartz in dull, dark rock.
Out in the hall, at their tasks and chores, the other people grumbled; they muttered that she was too loud, they could not sleep, or think. Their looms clattered, their jugs and pots rattled together, ringing like bells, and she gathered them into her singing, with everything else.
The Lady sat with her and listened, held her hand, and listened to all of it.
When the song swelled in her she could not keep still; it fountained from her in sparkling streams of music, but sometimes Mav did not sing. She sat quietly, trying to struggle some order out of this, trying to understand. All the while her mind overflowed with knowing. She felt as if the hinges of her mind had loosened, and everything went flowing together, in and out and top to bottom. She could not move, then, it all tugged her in every different direction.
The Lady sat with her in the morning, every day. They ate bread and drank mead and the Lady gave her clothes to wear, stroked her head, kissed her forehead. At first Mav wanted to lay herself on the other woman’s breast, but within her the baby grew that the Lady had wanted to kill. She clasped her arms over her middle, and sat up straight, struggling to stack all the pieces of her mind together again.
The Lady was there, was real, constant; who always smiled, who fed her, sheltered her, kept her from any harm. Who desired something back for those kindnesses, something Mav did not understand.
Once the Lady bent and tried to kiss her lips, but Mav saw her mouth open and imagined herself, like a little wisp of breath, drawn in, and turned her face away.
“Have you no name?”
The Lady gave a chuckle, pouring the thick foamy mead. “My name is legion, for we are many. Why do you love this baby, who came from such pain?”
“Such pain,” Mav said. Under her clasping arms the baby stirred, beloved.
She saw: the baby. Herself around the baby. The house around herself. The city of Hedeby around the house. The sea around the city, the sea at the center of the world. Rays of light flickered around the comers of her memory and music swelled up within her and poured out her mouth in a high wild lust.
Somewhere else the Lady sat, before her the cold King Bluetooth. He wore a gold fillet on his hair, and gold rings on his arms.
He said, “Harald Fairhair brought Norway under him, and that I can abide, because easier to overthrow one king than many. But the wrong son has taken his crown, and now that has led to all this trouble.”
“Harald had too many sons,” said the Lady. “Which I think you could take warning from. Bloodaxe is unlucky, and a fool besides. I never saw why Harald chose him over all the rest of them, save the rest were such a shabby lot. All but Hakon, and now Hakon has proven it.”
She chuckled. The King before her, another Harald, sucked at his teeth and shook his head.
“A man’s sons are usually his undoing. Hakon is lucky, and no fool.”
“True enough. Mark me, all this turns in your favor, ultimately, if you will lie in wait. Even Hakon will not hold Norway, the men of the Trond will break him over the White Christ. And better him than you. When they have bled each other dry, then you will be there to pick up the crown.”
“Yes, yes, so you tell me, but I thought it better done when Eric was King of Norway.”
“Pagh. Eric is very useful where he is, if we can but influence him in the right ways.”
“You and your influences. This girl, here, this is another of your tricks, isn’t she? And where have you gotten with her?”
“Where the brother walks, she sees. Through her I have seen Eric in his high seat, with Gunnhild ruling him, as always.”
Bluetooth gave a harsh humorless bark of a laugh. “Is this supposed to impress me? This everybody knows.”
“Ah, you are a stone. You see only what is in front of you.”
“What else is there to see?”
“And so it is. I shall have now what you promised me, when you asked me to do this.”
“Asked you! I never asked you anything, you crone.” The King bent into the glow of the lamp. His voice kinked. “What did I ask you?” In his long smile, one dogtooth shone dark.
“Why,” the Lady said, with delicate surprise, “to find you a spy in Jorvik, to watch out what Eric does.”
“I see no spy. I will pay you nothing, you are an old fraud, as they say all over my kingdom. I am a fool for coming here and I am leaving.” He drew back suddenly, out of the light, and stamped away.
The Lady smiled. She leaned over her lamp, cupping the light in her hands. “Yet Gunnhild is worse than you, King, she does not even see what is in front of her. He stood there before her and she let him go. When you come back, King, the price will be higher.”
Mav knew this, as she knew all things, slipping in and across her mind in all directions, streaming with colors and sounds. The Lady was seeing what she saw, and to some end, some long purpose beyond even the cold hunger of the King Bluetooth. Sometimes Mav thought she put on the Lady’s knowledge, when she sang; sometimes she saw it all blindingly clear, for a flash of time, so plain she could have named it—and then event and name were gone again into the entwining streams of light and shapes all around her.
Sometimes all this failed. Sometimes all around her was only a featureless grey emptiness, and she wandered there alone and freezing, too sad even to cry.
Always, in one layer of her mind, she saw her brother. But now he was not coming after her, he was sitting, doing nothing.
CHAPTER EIGHT
All the rest of the day, trailing after Eelmouth, Corban collected food, carrying it along in a lap of his cloak, so that when he met Grod he would have something for the old man to eat. But when he went to the church Grod was not there and he did not come. Corban finally ate it all himself, and sat in the back of the church, not even waiting any more.
He was as alone as a star in the night. No one knew him, no one wanted him. He had lost Mav—even Grod had abandoned him. He remembered what the woman in the High Seat had said, “He is nothing. Nobody.” His heart had leapt then to hear it, thinking it freed him from the King, but now he thought she had seen him true, and condemned him.
He dozed off, and finally morning came. He went out of the church and washed at the fountain, and went down through the town on the steep little street toward the oak tree.
On the
opposite corner the potter woman was just setting her pots out, taking them from an old box-cart, and beside the cart stood another girl, and Grod. Corban stopped, angry, and Grod saw him.
The old man called out, and waved, cheery as a bawd, and came toward him; Corban stood where he was. Grod gave him a sharp look. “I told you to come there,” he said. “What, you slept in the church again?”
Corban grunted at him. “I waited for you. These people are poor—why take from them?”
“I help,” Grod said, looking indignant. “Their father is old and feeble. They have no man to do heavy work.” He started back toward the pottery. “Come meet Arre, you’ll like her.”
Arre was laughing; Corban liked her already, with the width of the street between them. Only half-willing, he followed the old man back to the corner, to the company of these other people. The black-haired woman sat in the midst of the pots, looking as if she wished them all away. Grod told Arre Corban’s name, and the girl smiled at him; she was very pretty, sweet and open as a running brook.
But she was leaving. She said, “I must go back to Papa. Benna, I will come in with the nones bell.” She waved to Grod and rolled off with the empty cart, her long loose russet hair straggling over her shoulders, her strong round arms pushing the cart along.
Grod said, “Well, I’m going to church.” He gave Corban a wide, happy stare. “Come with me?”
Corban snorted. He had no interest in Eelmouth catching him among the gamblers. He glanced at the black-haired woman among her pots, looking steadily away; he knew she wanted them gone.
“Good-bye,” he said to Grod. “I’ll see you later.” Grod went off up the street, his step jaunty; clearly these poor girls were feeding him also.
“I’m sorry about him,” Corban said, to the black-haired woman.
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