“Have a look, Hel-hide.” She gestured around them, taking in the town. “We have struck them a mighty blow–”
“Ælfred lives,” Geirmund said.
Her mood darkened, as if a shadow had passed over her eyes. “He slipped from our grasp; it is true. He is a cunning one, that Saxon king.”
“We saw him flee,” Geirmund said. “Me and a few of my warriors. We tracked him to a fastness in the fens to the south.”
“He is in Sumorsæte?” she asked.
“I do not know the name of that place, but he is behind the walls of a hold on an island in the marshes.”
She nodded slowly, as if thinking to herself. “Ælfred has been laying his hidden plans for a great long while. He had great ambitions for all the Saxon kingdoms of England, and he has them still.”
“There are no more Saxon kingdoms,” Geirmund said. “There is Daneland, and there is Wessex, but Wessex will soon fall.” He looked up the hill towards the temple. “I go to Guthrum now, to make plans for–”
“He will not see you,” she said. “I was just there, and he refused me. I have not spoken to him since we set fire to the pyres of the fallen. He talked of the Christian cross in a way that…”
“What?”
She shook her head. “He is a changed man, Geirmund. That I will say.”
“I see your tongue is not as free and honest as it once was.”
“Perhaps not,” she said. “But I hope it is wiser.”
“He may be changed, but he will not refuse me.” Geirmund moved to march past her. “I will make him hear me–”
She pressed a hand against his chest to stop him. “Tread with care, Hel-hide. Your tongue could make use of more wisdom.” Then she released him. “There are many trackways in life, and many whale roads. If ever the day comes when you are no longer sworn to Guthrum, you have a place in Ravensthorpe.”
“I thank you, Eivor.” He looked down the hill towards his mother’s hut. “I hope Ljufvina has a place there also. I hate to think of her alone in Jorvik.”
“She has a place.” The shield-maiden’s smile was sad and gentle. “And she knows it. But you know she goes where she will.”
Geirmund smiled also. “I do.”
“I am leaving Cippanhamm, but I hope that I will see you again.” She glanced up the hill, and her smile fell away. “A Northman in England will always have need of allies.”
They embraced and then parted. Eivor went on down the hill, and Geirmund climbed it until he reached the Christian temple, which looked much like the temple of Torthred and his monks, if smaller. The beams of the door in its side hung sundered by their ironwork and hinges, and as Geirmund stepped around them, he spoke out.
“My king? Are you here?”
“I am here,” came a reply within. “Is that Geirmund Hel-hide returned from the dead once more?”
Geirmund moved deeper into the dim temple, careful of his footing. Some of the windows held coloured glass, but others had been broken out of their frames, allowing in sharp blades of light that crossed the room like clashing swords. Geirmund felt the grit of the shattered glass beneath his boots.
“I have returned,” Geirmund said. “With news of Ælfred.”
Guthrum was silent for a moment, and then he simply repeated the name. “Ælfred.”
The king’s voice came from one end of the temple, and Geirmund pushed through the shadows, light, and dusty air towards him. “Yes, Ælfred. He hides in a hold to the south and west. Eivor named the place Sumorsæte. It is a treacherous land of deep marshes, but I think we can make a plan to root him out of it.”
Guthrum made no answer, and Geirmund found him standing before the Christian altar.
“Did you hear me, my king?” he said. “Ælfred is–”
“I heard you. Ælfred is in Sumorsæte.”
The way he spoke it said to Geirmund that he may have already known it.
“I have been thinking of how we might go after him,” Geirmund said. “The task will be hard, but it can be done. Not with a large army, but I would need more warriors than just my Hel-hides. If you give me–”
“You will leave Ælfred where he is,” Guthrum said.
“But, my king, it can be done. And Wessex will never–”
“You will leave him where he is!”
The swiftness of the Dane’s anger sent Geirmund back a step. “Guthrum, I mean you no dishonour. I only speak to you in this way because the fight for Wessex is not yet over.”
The king appeared to calm himself. “It could be over.”
“How?” Geirmund frowned, thinking of the many possible meanings behind Guthrum’s words. “What are you saying?”
Guthrum sighed, heavy and deep, and it seemed he almost shrank in size. “I am saying I am more tired of war than I was when I first came to your father’s hall.”
“We are all tired of war!” Geirmund shouted, his anger and grief raising his voice before he could bridle them. “Do you wish to hide from it? Here in this Christian temple?”
“Hide?” Guthrum turned away from the altar for the first time to face him. “You dare name me coward?”
“I hope not a coward.” Geirmund held himself still, thinking of what Eivor had said, weighing each word with care. “I see you are building defences here, and that is wise. There are times it is wise to retreat and gather strength. But a retreat for strength can easily last longer than it ought because of fear. You can be sure Ælfred is not idle in his hold. Every day that we leave him there gives him time to gather his strength also.”
“What of it?” Guthrum said. “He cannot take Mercia or East Anglia from us. He cannot take Northumbria. They are Daneland. He knows this.”
“For now,” Geirmund said. “But if we leave even one Saxon king standing, especially Ælfred of Wessex, they will one day take back their lands. You know this.”
Guthrum turned back towards the altar. “Perhaps there is a way to make a lasting peace with Ælfred.”
“A lasting peace?” Geirmund said. “What is this talk? What has happened to the Dane that came to Avaldsnes? You swore England would be ours, but only after we take Wessex. That is what I sailed to these shores to do, and that is the oath I swore to myself. That is why I swore to you! I turned my back on my father, my mother, my brother.” Geirmund pressed his fist against his chest as if stabbing it with a knife. “My father died here! I have lost warriors and friends! Their deaths will not be for nothing.”
The king sighed again. “I thank you for your honesty, Hel-hide. I will think on what you have said. But for now I am finished speaking of it. Leave me.”
Geirmund stood there for several moments, stunned into silence, trembling with rage. He could see he would get nowhere with the king, and he worried what his anger would drive him to say and do. He turned and stormed away.
31
“You should kill him,” Birna said.
Her words surprised Geirmund, and they seemed to surprise the other Hel-hides gathered around the evening fire. Several days had gone by since they had come back together at Cippanhamm. Eivor had left, and Geirmund’s mother had gone north to await Hámund’s return in Jorvik. The king had refused to hear Geirmund since the last time they had spoken, and aside from the town’s defences, had made no move or plan against Ælfred or Wessex. Even so, for Birna to speak openly of killing Guthrum did not seem to fit with her honour, and it also did not seem to sit well with the other warriors.
“Take care with idle words,” Eskil said. “Some might mistake your meaning.”
“My words are not idle,” the shield-maiden said. “And I do not speak of murder. Geirmund should challenge the king openly. Many would follow him.”
“The time is not right for that,” Steinólfur said. “Guthrum is still too strong.”
Geirmund knew the older warrior spoke of Hnituð
r, but there were only a few in that circle who understood his full meaning. Eskil knew of the ring’s power, and so did Skjalgi, but the others did not. They knew only of Guthrum’s feats in battle, how he had slain Æthelred, but that seemed to be enough for them to agree with Steinólfur, even if Birna scoffed.
“If Guthrum is so strong,” Skjalgi said, “why does he not slay Ælfred? What does he fear?”
Geirmund had asked himself the same question many times. Hnituðr gave the king power to march on Sumorsæte almost as an army unto himself. For Guthrum to hold back at Cippanhamm suggested to Geirmund that the king had either lost trust in the ring, or he had a hidden and bewildering plan unknown to anyone but him.
“Fear comes from many places,” Vetr said. “I have seen mighty warriors brought low by fear of a small spider.”
“It was a poisonous spider,” Rafn said next to him, sounding irritated. The Dane was able to sit up now, and he had more colour in his cheeks. He still slept for most of the day, but Steinólfur said he had crossed the strait of greatest danger and would heal. “A deadly spider,” Rafn said.
“I think the spider Ælfred is spinning a web,” Eskil said.
“Perhaps Guthrum spins a web of his own,” Skjalgi said.
“To spin a web,” Vetr said, “a spider must leave its lair and risk climbing out on the branch.”
Geirmund looked up at the silhouette of the hilltop temple against the night sky, its windows a deeper black, except for the single faint light that flickered at one end. He did not know why Guthrum stayed in that place but it troubled him. Völund and the völva had both spoken of betrayal in Geirmund’s fate, and he was beginning to see what that meant. Guthrum had betrayed him and the Danes, but not fully, and not yet to utter defeat, though at times it felt that way. Geirmund often had to remind himself that the seer had also said that he had been given the way to overcome, if only he knew what it was. He rose to his feet.
“Where are you going?” Steinólfur asked.
Geirmund nodded up the hill. “To try again.”
“Go, then,” Birna said. “Keep talking. But the moment will come when words fail and there is nothing left but to act. Do not put that moment off, and do not hide from it, if you want warriors to follow you.”
Geirmund gave her a nod, not in agreement but to let her know he had heard her. Then he left the fire and trudged up the hill. A wind blew that night, wrenching the treetops and dragging thin clouds across the stars, and the higher he climbed, the rougher it scoured the hill. He walked hunched against it with downcast eyes, and barely noticed the two figures slipping away from the temple door as he crested the rise.
They did not look like Danes. Though only shadows, Geirmund could see the robes of a priest flapping about one of them in the wind, while the other wore strange garments with tassels, and a cap. They scurried like thieves over the far side of the hill, away from the town, and Geirmund dropped low to give chase, but he soon lost them to the darkness among the trees and the flocks of sleeping sheep.
He thought of Guthrum, and rushed to the temple, fearing the king may have been slain, and he pounded on the newly hung door with his fist.
“Guthrum!” he shouted. “My king, can you hear me?”
A moment later, the door opened, but only partway, and the king looked out at him through the gap. “I was sleeping,” he said. “What do you want?”
Geirmund did not hear sleep in Guthrum’s voice, nor see it on the king’s face. He glanced in the direction the thieves had gone, and he almost mentioned them but stopped himself.
“Well?” the king asked.
“I am sorry for waking you,” Geirmund said. “I must have heard something in the wind.”
Guthrum grunted and shut the door, leaving Geirmund outside in the cold, wondering about the two thieves. He realized, as he thought back to what he had seen, that they had come from inside the temple, and the king was awake and unharmed, having lied about being in his bed. Geirmund knew if he had asked about the strangers, the king would have lied about them also, and perhaps taken steps to keep him from finding out the truth.
After that, Geirmund lay in hiding each night among the sheep near the foot of the hill, watching the woods and the slope for their return. He told no one, not even Steinólfur, and for eight nights he watched, and for eight nights he saw nothing and crawled into his bedding aching and cold each morning before sunrise, but on the ninth night, the thief in the priest robes returned alone.
Geirmund sneaked up on the stranger and threw him easily to the ground, scattering the mewling sheep, then pinned him down with his father’s seax at the man’s throat. Only then did he see who he had taken.
“John?”
The terror in the priest’s eyes faded. “Geirmund, praise God.”
“Do not praise him yet.” Geirmund left the edge of his blade where it was. “What are you doing here, priest?”
“I-I’m here…” He sputtered and stammered. “I come to see how the Danes are treating the people of Cippanhamm that they have enslaved.”
“Is that what brought you here nine nights ago?”
The whites of John’s eyes grew a bit larger in the moonlight. “I–”
“You were in the temple with Guthrum, and you had another with you. Who was he?”
The priest hesitated. “He was a minstrel.”
“What is that?”
“A storyteller, a–a kind of singer.”
“A skald?”
“A Dane might call him that.”
Geirmund noticed a leather satchel about the priest’s shoulder. “What do you carry?”
“Nothing,” John said. “Some food. That is all.”
“Give it to me.”
“Geirmund, please–”
“Give it to me! Or I will take it from you.”
Instead of cowering, some of John’s fear seemed to fade, as if he had been feigning it. His eyes narrowed, and his body relaxed despite the weapon at his throat, and Geirmund caught a glimpse of a man inside the priest that he knew nothing of, and had not seen in all the days they had spent together.
“Will you kill me, Hel-hide?”
“Do not call me by that name.” Geirmund bent down, grasped the leather satchel, and ripped it from the priest’s arm. The tussle sliced the seax against John’s neck and left behind a thin ribbon of blood. Geirmund pulled the blade away and stepped back. “You are much changed, priest. What has Ælfred made of you?”
“He has shown me the kingdom of God.”
“I have had my fill of kingdoms. Get up.”
John stood slowly and wiped the blood from his neck with two fingers while Geirmund looked inside the satchel. He saw several pieces of parchment, rolled up and folded and realized John was simply the messenger, but now Geirmund had the message, and the priest did not know he could read. “Go,” Geirmund said. “Go back to your marsh-king.”
“What will you do with my satchel?”
“I will take it to Guthrum.”
John nodded, and it seemed in the darkness that he smiled. “What if I choose not to go?”
“I will not kill you, priest.” Geirmund sheathed his blade. “I wonder now if I ever knew you, but for the sake of our past travels together I will not kill you.”
John bowed his head. “I am grateful for–”
“But the other Danes will kill you, when I call them, and it will not be a quick death.”
The priest glanced up the hill. “You would do that?”
“I will,” Geirmund said. “I do not know why you are here, but I give you your life as a parting gift, along with a warning. If we meet again, it will be as strangers, Northman and Saxon, pagan and priest.”
John did not move or speak for several moments, and then he bowed his head again. “I will still pray for your soul, Geirmund Hjörrsson.”
Geirmund shrugged. “It is your breath to waste.”
John smiled, and then he turned and walked away without hurry. Geirmund watched him go until he vanished into the shadows beneath the trees, and then he climbed the hill towards the temple.
He did not go straight to Guthrum, but went back to the Hel-hide campfire, and by the light of its flames he read the messages in John’s satchel. He found some of the words difficult, but he understood enough of the writing to finally see the depth of Guthrum’s dishonour and betrayal, and he knew that part of his fate had been fulfilled. With that knowledge came peace, but it was the bitter, unforgiving peace of winter over a frozen land. He knew what he would do, and he roused Steinólfur to share what he had learned.
The older warrior might not have believed Geirmund, were it not for the pieces of parchment in front of him, and his mouth hung open in shock. “I do not understand,” he said. “Guthrum and Ælfred work together?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. But there is to be another battle between the Danes and the Saxons, and Guthrum will surrender there. He will be baptized a Christian, and he will receive the lands east of the Roman street called Wæcelinga. Ælfred will keep Wessex.”
“Why would Guthrum do this?”
“Only he can know that. I have learned there are unseen forces at work in England, ancient brotherhoods and orders. My father and mother fought them in Jorvik, and it seems that Ælfred has had some part in it all.”
“And now he has snared Guthrum,” Steinólfur said. “Perhaps Ælfred really is a spider.”
“There is one more thing,” Geirmund said. “Ælfred demands that Guthrum give up the ring. I will not let that happen.”
“What will you do?”
“I am going to take it back.”
“How?”
“I do not know yet. But the seer said I already have the way.”
“When?”
“Tonight. Now. Ælfred’s messenger will tell him I took the satchel of messages, and he will surely act on it.”
The older warrior moved to rise. “Then let us–”
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