“Just so that you know. Whatever you trade, here, you must pay me half.”
Corban’s eyes widened; he was looking full at Eric now, ignoring his wife. He said, “Half, my lord.”
“Whatever you buy, whatever you sell, I get half,” Eric said.
He waited, expecting some argument, but the man in the red coat only shrugged. “I am here to trade,” he said.
“Good,” Eric said, relieved. “You may go, then. We have accepted you. I hope you do a lot of trading in Jorvik. You are staying in the Lady’s house?”
“Yes,” Corban said.
“I’ll send my men there, every day,” Eric said. “For my half.”
Corban said, “Ulf, are there taxes in Hedeby, for trading there?”
The captain’s head swiveled toward him. They were standing just inside the door of the Hedeby house, to which Ulf and his crew had brought all the cargo from the ship.
Ulf said, “Of course. King Harald Bluetooth rules there. Everybody pays him tax.”
“Do you know how much it is?”
“Depends on what it is you’re selling,” Ulf said. “One penny of ten, usually.”
Corban looked around him; he saw the barrels from the ship stowed along the wall, and the bars of iron in their special handtruck. “Well, Eric wants half.”
Ulf made a sound in his chest. “So that’s why no one is here to trade.”
Corban went a little on into the long cavernous room. The house was dark, and smelled stale, but it was clean, and a well-laid, banked fire burned in the hearth. Ulf came after him, saying, “There were some people here. I threw them out.”
“Ah,” Corban said, not surprised. The house had been empty for a while, and anybody could have moved into it. Yet it seemed in good condition. His gaze traveled along the wide sturdy benches on either side, now piled up with their blankets. On the heavy rafters overhead, there were oars and crates and planks of wood stored. He wondered if the Lady maintained it under some spell.
His hands rose to the front of the red coat. He should take it off, to go across the river. Yet he liked the way it made him feel: rich, and important. It would impress Benna and her sisters. He thought how excited they would be to see him, how pleased he would make them with his presents. He went to his pack, got the things he had for them, and left the house.
The sun was lowering into the west. He walked down the hill street to the river’s edge. The city seemed quieter than he remembered, the streets empty. Many of the houses he passed were shuttered up. He passed some people arguing in a doorway, and a peddler went by him the other way, carrying a basket of savory pies; his voice rose in a long, plaintive wail. Corban thought maybe he was just more used now to Hedeby, with its crowds and uproar; maybe Jorvik had always been this way, quiet and dull. Off somewhere he heard the clang of a hammer. In between two houses, several people were working with hoes in a long furrowed garden. He reached the river and went northward, to the crossing stones.
There he hesitated, his hands on the coat. Perhaps he should not be doing this. This was too fine a coat to wear jumping from stone to stone. He himself now was too fine a man for that. He lifted his eyes to the far bank, shrouded in willow and wild grass, to the rough log ladder there, and up on the top of the bank saw Grod.
The sight wrenched a yell from him, and he flung up his arm. Heedless of the coat, he ran swiftly along the stones over the river, and on the high bank there, in the grass, Grod looked around and saw him too.
“Corban!”
The old man leapt down the ladder, nimble as a cat; Corban reached the far bank. They came together like two hands clasping, arms around each other. Grod said, “Corban! You came back!” over and over. Corban lifted him up and swung him around and dropped him on his feet again.
“I’m glad to see you,” he said. “Are the girls up there still?”
“Of course. But—” Grod’s face settled, mournful, his cheeks drooping. “It’s very sad. Their father is dying. They are so sad.”
“Oh,” said Corban.
“Come, though,” Grod said. “Although there’s nothing to eat.” His eyes travelled down the red coat, and his brows arched up. “You look well fed.”
“I am,” Corban said. He followed Grod up the log ladder.
“Did you find your sister?”
“I did.”
Grod swung toward him, surprise in his face. “Where is she?”
“Still in Hedeby.” He shrugged off Grod’s questions, not wanting to say any more about any of that, not to any of these people. He was glad, though, that Grod obviously admired his coat.
They walked up through the trampled meadow toward the low brushy hovel. It seemed more sunken in than before, with weeds growing all over it, as if the green things would drag down the hut to the level of the ground. Corban looked for the goats, but did not see them—Gifu would be taking them to good browse, he knew, so she might not be here. But ahead there, surely that was Arre, stooping in a garden patch, pulling weeds.
Grod cried out, “Look who is here,” and went on ahead.
Arre straightened, and tossed back her reddish-brown hair. A smile spread across her face. “Corban,” she said. She came out of the garden, her apron mud smeared, her smile wide, and came up to him with her hands held out. “You came back.”
He clasped her hands. “I said I would—but your father—Grod said—”
At that the smile slid down off her face, and her gaze went toward the hut. “Everything is terrible, now, Corban,” she said. “You should have stayed away.” Shaking the worst of the dirt off her apron, she led him to the hut, and the stooped down to get through the door.
Inside, the hut was steaming hot. A single goat was tied up in the pen, a heap of thorny brambles before her. Corban blinked in the dim light, trying to see better. The old man lay on his mat, his eyes closed and his mouth open. He groaned when he breathed. Beside him, Benna lay, curled up asleep.
Corban swallowed. He wanted to touch her, yet she seemed somehow out of reach, sunk in her sleep. The old man was much thinner, his skin yellow, his lips crusted. The hut stank. And it was empty; no chickens, no pots, only the two people sleeping, the old man, the girl, the one lone goat.
He could not bear to see this; he turned and went outside again. Grod and Arre followed him. In the healthy air he stood, breathing deep.
“Where is Gifu?”
“Off in the woods,” Grod said. “She has learned to hunt. Not as well as you, but she’s getting better. She’ll have something for us to eat.”
“Where are the goats?”
“The King took them,” Arre said. She twisted her hands in her apron, staring away across the river. “First he came and took half, and then he came and took half of what was left, and so on.” She tossed her long tangled hair back. Her voice was steady and even, as if she were bored. “Now when he comes, we hide the one we have left under a blanket.”
“What about Benna’s pots?”
The girl faced him. Her dark eyes were wide, and clear, and brimming with tears. “There’s no sense in making pots. The King takes all she earns.”
He swallowed. He felt like a fool in his red coat. He had imagined them running to meet him, glad for his return, grateful for the stupid little presents he had brought.
Arre said, “She will be happy you’re back, when she wakes up. She needs to sleep—she was awake with him all the night, he raves sometimes.” The tears spilled down her face in shining streaks.
He said, “I’m sorry.”
She said, “You’re back, anyway.”
“Yes.” He reached into the pocket of the coat and took out the gaudy trinkets he had brought them, all in a heap, the beads, the comb, the looking glass. “Here. These are for you.” He thrust them into her hands, and turned, and walked back toward the river.
Grod went along beside him. “Where are you going?”
Corban said, “I’ll do something.”
“Should I come with you?”
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“Yes,” Corban said, and gripped the old man’s arm. “Come along.”
Now he understood better why Jorvik was so quiet. He went back over the river, and up the market street. The church bell rang, and an old woman leaning out a window crossed herself. It occurred to him that once there had been pigs and chickens all through these streets, and dogs, but there were none now. The shops were closed up, even the bakery. He thought: the King takes it all. There was a ringing in his ears, an insect trilling. He turned to Grod.
“Where can I find bread?”
Grod watched him mournfully. “You have to have real money, and lots of it.”
“Take me there.”
Grod trotted off up the street, toward the wooden spire of the church. Corban walked along beside him. “Is everybody starving?”
“Some,” the old man said. “We are not, actually, because of Gifu, and Arre’s garden, and the last goat, who gives milk. But the father dying—” He shook his head. “Benna is dying along with him.”
Corban’s heart jumped into his throat; he said, “She is sick too?”
“No, no.” Grod shook his head. “I don’t mean she will die, really, but her spirits—she is so low, she may give up. Arre is more worried about her than the father, even.” He nodded. “There, that baker sells. He always has flour, people say he gives the King a bribe.”
He led Corban past a string of shops. Most were closed up, except for a cobbler, who sat at his bench in the sunlight, cutting up a piece of leather, and the bakery, marked by its wooden loaf hanging in front. Several men were sitting against the front wall. As Corban came up, one called out, “Mercy, good sir—have mercy—” and thrust out his cupped palm. The others said nothing, but watched him, their faces lean.
Corban thought: I cannot feed them all. He wondered if he could feed even himself. The coat felt too small, hot and burdensome, and he pulled quickly at the sleeves and the collar. He went into the shop, which smelled deliciously of freshly baked bread. Grod trailed after him, sharp-eyed. The baker came out of the back, and seeing Corban in his red coat bowed.
“My lord. Let me serve you.”
“I need bread,” Corban said loudly. He took his purse from his belt. “I am opening up the Hedeby house, I shall need bread, every day, for me and my men.”
The baker’s eyes glinted. “Three pence a loaf.”
Corban grunted. In Hedeby, he knew, good loaves of bread went for a farthing. “I will need you to bring bread to my house, every day. Six loaves a day.” He opened the purse, and began to put money down on the counter.
The baker’s jaw dropped, and his eyes followed the coins, which Corban began to pile on his table in stacks of three. When he had made ten stacks of coins the baker said, “Stop, I have no more bread than that.”
Corban nodded. “This is for tomorrow’s.” He went on making stacks. “And the day after.”
“If I can get the flour. The miller too must pay the King.”
Corban was staring at the money, and realizing that the purse was as heavy now as when he had started. Slowly he counted out more money, the baker gawking at him.
“This is to pay the King,” he said, pointing to the second pile. “Tell the miller to come to me, at the Hedeby house.” He weighed the purse in his hand, remembering what she had said: he would need no more than this.
He resisted the temptation to turn the purse over, and pour the money out onto the floor, and see how long it kept coming.
The baker went around the table, and brought up a basket. In it were half a dozen flat round loaves. Corban could not see himself carrying an armful of bread around. He said, “Put them in a sack.”
The miller went into the rear of the shop and returned with an old flour sack, into which he stuffed the bread. Corban shoved the money at him. Grod was watching with round eyes.
When they turned to go out, he said, “Where did you get all that money?”
“I serve one who has more money than anyone here has ever seen,” Corban said. He stuck the purse carefully back in his belt. Grod goggled at him, properly impressed. Grod always followed money.
They went out the door, into the street. The three men were still slumped against the front of the bakery, and the one again stretched out his arm, saying, “Mercy, sir—” Corban took a loaf out of the sack and gave it to him.
The man yelped. He bounded up at once and dashed off, and the others scrambled up, rushing at Corban.
“Give us—Give us—”
“No, I meant that one for all three of you,” Corban said. “I need the rest. Get yours from him.”
One of the men wheeled and ran after the first, who was hastening away down the street with his loaf clutched to his chest. The third man planted himself in front of Corban. “He won’t give it to us. You have to give me one.”
“Get it from him,” Corban said. “Share it, or you’ll all die, damn it.” He brushed past this man and tramped down toward the street where his house was.
Grod danced along beside him. “Who is your master? Are you a prince now?”
Corban kept the sack tucked under his arm; the meeting with the three beggars had shaken him, as he saw he had done little good, there. Grod bothered him, with his greed, his questions. For an instant, he wondered if he could trust the old man. He pushed that feeling off, and dug up another loaf out of the sack.
“Take this to Benna.”
Grod took it and hid it away under his shirt. They stopped at the crossroads; to Corban’s left ran the street down to the river. Grod started off that way, and then turned back to him, sharp-eyed. “I’ll take this to her. But then I should come back to you, shouldn’t I? I’m your man, after all.”
He was the money’s man, Corban thought. He wondered why he had been glad to see Grod. But there were the girls. “My house is up ahead, that long one, with the high roof, do you see it?” Corban pointed. “Bring them back too, if they’ll come.”
He doubted the girls would come. He wondered if they even should, in the long run of things. They might be better off where they were. Grod bounded away, off toward the river, and Corban went back to his new house.
Bluetooth said, “So he’s come near to eating up Jorvik, as he did in Norway. The man’s a fool. He has no gift of husbandry.”
“But he must move soon,” the Lady said. “Which gives us the opening. We need only nudge him toward the right direction.”
She sat with her head turned slightly toward Mav, who was at the far end of the hall, singing as loud as a brass horn, her voice resounding through the rafters. In the benches the slaves all grumbled against her; she had been singing all night, and kept everyone awake. The slaves, like Bluetooth, had no entrance to the song, to the beauty of it, the stream of meaning; it was all just noise to them.
She turned toward Bluetooth. “I suggest you offer him some ships, since it sounds as if he has few ships.”
“He cannot keep a great hall, and so the men leave,” Bluetooth said. “Likely they’re in Orkney. He can make swords now, but will the men come back to carry them?”
“Men always flock to him.”
“Not when there is no plunder, and you say he has stripped Jorvik bare.”
The Lady grunted at him. These were all only minor details. She said, “You see, it is going as you wish.”
Bluetooth snorted at her. “I am less than convinced that you have anything to do with it.”
She shrugged. He had brought her gold, two little ingots, like two little bricks of a wall. It was a wall she meant to build much higher. “You shall see,” she said. “Now, go, I have much to do.”
“You don’t dismiss me,” he said. But he was going anyway, obeying her, which was better than the gold. She stroked her hands over the front of her gown, pleased.
Let him rule the world-ring. She would rule him.
Mav was singing of a forest somewhere, flocks of birds, and monsters in the trees. Her voice was as loud as a clarion; she sang all day. Her brother had
poured some new life into her. The Lady brushed off a rash of annoyance. In the line and tenor of the song she sensed that the girl was trying to master her gift, to steal it away for herself, shut the Lady out of it somehow. Better it had been when she sickened, her voice softer but still readable, her will failing, needing the Lady more and more.
Now Mav was resisting the refuge offered her, and she was as strong as ever. She found a center in the baby, and folded herself around that. The Lady hated the baby, anyway, its maleness like an insult, an invasion, and she thought that Mav should hate it, too, for its father’s sake. When it was born, the Lady would see that it died; that would take only a moment, while the girl was distracted, helpless in her pain. When the child was dead, in her grief and loss the girl would turn to her, and the Lady would breathe her in, and have her to herself, forever.
All her long life she had taken in the minds of women, of knowing women, had sought for them and courted them and gathered them into herself, so many now that she had lost count. Soon Mav too would give up resisting, and join her power to theirs, and the Lady of Hedeby would grow and prosper.
If Mav still did not yield, then there was always the brother. She had seen how they were together; she could use the brother to control Mav. Whatever happened, she would come out well. The Lady picked up the two little gold bars, and went around to her treasure house, to put them away.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Benna lifted her head. The hut was dark, except for the little flickering fire, and full of smoke. By the door Grod and Arre and Gifu were all gathered, talking and eating something. Benna got hastily up off the floor.
“What do you have? Did you save some for me?”
Grod turned toward her, smiling wide. “There is plenty. Here. Corban is back.” He thrust a chunk of bread into her hands.
“Corban!”
“And he is rich now,” Grod said, “and serves some great prince, and we can all move into the city to his palace and live there.”
Benna tried to eat slowly, and not gobble, but she was so hungry she bolted it all. Grod gave her another piece of the loaf. She had forbidden herself to think of Corban; now it was hard to let herself do it again. The little bit of food in her hand would be gone at once, never enough. Cautiously, she said, “Where is he?”
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