‘What has that to do with the vala?’ he frowned. She smoothed it away.
‘Her words made me feel the same. That’s what we’ve done. We saw something beautiful and threw ourselves out into the empty air.’
Hakan said nothing. She knew he was thinking about what the vala had spoken over him. ‘I’m afraid,’ she whispered, ‘of all this running together. Now I have you, Hakan, you must always be mine. I hardly dare dream of the life we could live together. It’s too much happiness to hope for. And with this child. Your child.’ She turned his face towards her. ‘I have something so precious – and now, just when I have something to lose, the shadow appears. As if it has been waiting for me to have something it could take from me. Something it could destroy.’
‘Just stop,’ blurted Hakan. ‘Stop talking!’ He took her hands in his. ‘You sound like a bloody vala yourself. This isn’t you.’
‘I know, but—’
He leaned in, eyes shining with passion. ‘No one is going to take you from me. I don’t care what the vala said or what anyone sees, far or near.’ He squeezed her fingers so hard it hurt. ‘Hel take custom and oaths of blood or kin. Hel take lordship over our people, take gold, victories, the favour of the gods. Hel take it all! But not you. No one else can have you.’
‘Do you swear it?’ Her voice was trembling.
‘I do. I’ll die before I lose you.’
She wanted to believe him. ‘Because if we aren’t together—’
‘We will be,’ he said, final as death. ‘Besides,’ he grinned. ‘I’m lucky. A Chosen Son, remember? The Norns love me.’
She was glad to be able to giggle. ‘Not half as much as you love yourself.’
He pulled her towards him and burrowed under her chin, tickling her neck with kisses. But her smile quickly faded. ‘Please, Hakan. Let’s know now.’
He sat up, with a sigh. ‘Then let’s think. At winter’s end, you’re old enough to be wed.’
‘A month before Freya’s Feast.’
‘Can you conceal this till then?’ He touched her belly. ‘Folk wear more clothes during the white months anyway.’
‘I suppose.’ Then more boldly, ‘Yes. I can.’
‘The day you can be wed, I’ll tell my father I want you as my wife – that I’ll have no other. Oh, he’ll bellow like an ass, but I’ll persuade him. He goes on how I’m his only son – well, that knife has two edges. If he’s relying on me to carry on the Vendling name, he can’t have it all his own way.’ He smiled. ‘When will the baby come?’
‘Late spring, I suppose.’
‘A spring baby, eh?’ He winked at her. ‘I shouldn’t worry. Once everyone sees you blown up like a heifer, no one else’ll want you!’
‘Hey!’ She gave him a playful punch. She felt better having him close, even if it didn’t change things.
‘I figure the less time he has, the easier he’ll come round. I mean it’s not as though anyone else has asked for you, have they?’
Nausea lurched in her stomach, something between guilt and fear and anger. She’d told Einna not to tell Hakan about Konur’s visit. Said it would only stir up needless trouble, though trouble was what that snake deserved. And Tolla. She’d wanted to tell Tolla what he’d done. But the truth was she felt stupid. She knew she’d been naive. Tolla would have scolded her, cuddled her and afterwards made her tell her uncle. And then. . .
‘What’s wrong?’ he whispered. ‘You’ve gone so pale.’
The child. Their child. ‘What if he makes me give up the baby? What if he does away with it?’
‘I won’t let him.’ He gripped her hand fiercely. ‘I swear it.’
‘I’ll run away if I think he’d do that.’
He grinned at her. ‘Waddle away, more like.’
‘It’s not funny.’
‘It’s all right, my love – I’d run with you.’
‘Would you?’
‘Of course.’
‘Wherever I go?’
‘I’d follow you through all the Nine Worlds if that’s where you took me.’
She took his face in her hands, kissed each eye and then his lips. Suddenly all her fears were washed away on a wave of longing. She heard herself moan as he found her breasts. They felt hot and tender in his hands.
She pushed him away and stood up. Leaving her eyes on his, she undid her girdle, slipped her dress off her shoulders and let it fall to the ground, soft as a lover’s sigh. She watched his eyes roaming her body and felt bolder. Excited at her quickening pulse. She looked down at herself. Her skin shone smooth as soapstone under the light of the moon, her dark nipples drawn tight, anticipating his touch. When their eyes met again, his were drunk with desire.
‘Then follow me now, my love.’
She went to the edge of the pool and slid into its shimmering waters. Behind her, she heard him pulling off his clothes, stumbling after her.
CHAPTER NINE
Lord Haldan rode back from the orchards enjoying the shades of autumn. Behind him, the hall-folk were gathering in the apple crop that should see them through to spring. The old oak trees standing outside the gate were a blaze of fire. On the hill, the beech wood shone golden in the sun.
Autumn’s fading beauty.
Many leaves had fallen. Winter’s bitter breath would soon be on them.
More than three months had passed since their return. The dead brought home were long dispatched on floating pyres, out onto the Western Ocean. With those left behind, they numbered four dozen. Many of his best.
Blood cannot go unanswered. Every lord knew it. But sometimes the answer seemed a futile cry against the wind.
Yet the line of Vendal the Grey lived on. His blood had flowed through the lords of this land for twelve generations. Haldan would see it last another twelve. Duty bound him to his fathers, as it did to his son and his sons after him. Duty binds
blood and land together. His folk served him; he served them. The land carried them all, fates interwoven, stretching into the mists of What Will Be.
He recognized Old Rapp the smith hurrying along the track at a stumble.
‘Lord Haldan,’ he wheezed. ‘We’ve ’ad a noble rider come.’
‘Who?’
‘None less ’n Karsten, lord of the Karlung lands.’
Haldan grunted. Karsten. The Dark Stone. Though most called him the Whisperer. He was distant kin, but that wasn’t reason to ride so far from his seat at Karlsted. Haldan hadn’t thought of him since that trouble with his son at the Feast of Oaths.
He found his kinsman in his chamber, sitting in his chair, feet on his table, drinking his mead. No less than I expected. The Karlung lords were earls, sworn to the headman of the Middle Jute clans, but had risen no higher, though many had figured they ought to. Karsten more than most.
Haldan had hardly entered than his guest was on his feet, lithe as an old cat.
‘Greetings, cousin,’ he said, clapping his shoulder. His cheerful manner made odd company with his whispering voice. ‘You look about as happy as a corpse.’ Karsten laughed, his one dark eye sparkling. The other showed nothing – milk white and dead.
Haldan gave a grudging snort. Karsten wasn’t the first to see something cold in his face. ‘Welcome, kinsman. Sit. Drink.’
Karsten nodded his thanks, resuming his seat, although refraining from swinging his long legs back on the table. Haldan stood six feet tall, but Karsten had some inches on him, and stood straight as a spear. Impressive for a man of fifty winters. He had been handsome once. Some might say he still was, but for his skew nose and leathery jowls running to fat, and the mottled scar in his neck. It was rumoured the arrow tip that had reduced his voice to a breathy whisper was still lodged there.
Haldan wasn’t one to spin out pleasantries. After pouring another drink, he asked why he was here.
‘You could say it’s to our mutual profit. I wouldn’t bother riding up here if it wasn’t.’
‘I’m listening.’ There was rarely anything mutual about any
proposition of Karsten’s.
He smiled, sardonically. ‘I’m having a little trouble with my son.’
‘Don’t we all? Now and then.’ Haldan remembered Karsten’s son from the Feast of Oaths. A good-looking lad. Tall, like his father. Arrogant. Like his father. ‘What kind of trouble?’
‘He’s sick.’
‘Sorry to hear it.’ No man wanted a sickly heir, though he didn’t see why it should concern him.
‘It’s no worse than what most men have suffered.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Love.’ Karsten raised his cup. ‘Here’s to it. We’ve all known it. Even you.’
Haldan snorted. ‘Long ago.’ Love and he had been strangers for many years.
‘Not so long you’ve forgotten how it goes. My son is sick as a goat for your brother’s girl. Inga – isn’t that her?’
The name took him by surprise, but immediately he knew he should have seen it coming. Should have guessed it the moment he’d heard Karsten’s name. Inga. This was a game he’d known must come one day, yet here he was, wrong-footed. Unprepared. ‘She’s too young to think of marriage.’
‘My friend, I understand – I do.’ Karsten leaned back, running fingers through his sandy hair. ‘I told my son the same. Told him that would be your answer, but he wouldn’t listen. No surprise, there. I remember what it’s like to feel that burn. The passion soon cools once you dip your beak in other pails.’ He gave a conspiratorial wink of his good eye. The dead gaze of the other was disconcerting. ‘“Go, drink your fill,” I said. “Come back in a couple of months and tell me how you feel about this girl then.”’
‘And here you are.’
‘Here I am.’
Haldan remembered the fight at the Feast of Oaths. It hardly boded for a propitious bond between their families. ‘All this from one encounter?’
‘One?’ Karsten looked confused. ‘Two – so far as I know. He was so taken with her he rode straight back here after your son’s feast. I believe you were off fighting.’
Did he just? The gall rose in Haldan’s throat. He didn’t like surprises. Least of all from a man like the Whisperer. His ignorance must have been plain to see.
‘This was news to you?’ Karsten rapped the table with amusement. ‘You see! Young love must have its secrets.’
‘Young love and old power – they have secrets both. Some might call them lies.’
‘That’s a little hard-hearted, cousin.’ Karsten turned out his hands. ‘So you see, I’ve come a-begging. Begging you to save me from my lovesick son. I swear I’ll go mad if I have to listen to his bleatings all winter.’ His shoulders shook with breathy laughter. But when Haldan didn’t laugh with him, he added, ‘You do understand me?’
‘It would be simpler if you spoke plain.’
‘As you wish, kinsman. I ask for your niece’s hand for my son. Consider this a formal offer.’
There it was. Haldan nodded stiffly. ‘Come – let’s drink.’ He stood and held out his cup.
‘Gladly,’ returned Karsten, rising with him.
‘To the blood we share.’
‘To the blood.’ The cups clattered and they drained them.
‘You honour me to ask this. I know you don’t ask lightly. But I must refuse you.’
Karsten nodded, wiping delicately at his lips. ‘I honour you, yet you dishonour me, is that it?’ His mouth screwed into a smile, but his dark eye glinted, hard and mirthless. ‘The girl may be too young now, but that is hardly a reason. She will be of age soon, as I understand—’
‘My answer now is no.’ Haldan heard the edge in his own voice. Sharper than was wise. A man’s honour was bruised easier than an apple in this kind of business. ‘If your lad is so moonstruck, let’s see if his passion outlasts the winter. Meantime, I shall speak with her.’
Of that, dear Inga may be certain.
‘Listen, Lord Haldan.’ Karsten weighed heavy on the word.
As you should. Karsten was an earl, who answered to his overlord. Haldan answered to no man.
‘I know you’re a man who won’t be swayed once he’s picked his course. But perhaps you’d take a word from an elder kinsman. I don’t say wiser, but one you can trust.’
Haldan trusted no one. It mattered little whether he was kinsman or foe.
‘It’s better to agree to this now,’ Karsten went on. ‘The match would serve both our families. A union between Karlung and Vendling blood would bring you power. And. . .’ He barely concealed a smirk. ‘Power, you certainly need.’
‘The Vendlings have power enough.’
‘Is it so? Tell me, kinsman – who are allies to the Northern Jutes?’
‘A people’s power doesn’t rest on its allies. I could call on a thousand spears if it came to that.’
‘As many as a thousand?’ Karsten’s eyebrow rose in feigned admiration. ‘And all of them bog-farmers and rabbit-skinners. Truly, a fearsome host.’
‘The Amundings found us fearsome enough.’
Karsten snorted. ‘A heap of corpses was your father’s legacy. Don’t be as blind as he was. You need friends of steel.’
‘My father left the world bloodier than he found it, true. But men followed him. That’s legacy enough for me.’
‘Your father had a talent for making enemies at every turn, that much I grant you. Difficult to keep faith with a man who so loved the stench of death.’
‘It was his allies who broke faith.’ Haldan felt his temper fraying. He’d been a young man then, not much older than Hakan, but he still remembered the taste of bile when they realized Koldir, son of Kelling, had betrayed them. Never trust a Dane. Koldir had promised them twelve warships, and sent them two. Rotten skiffs filled with rotten men – all of them spears that fell cheaply. The Vendlings could have finished the war that day, could have ended the feud with the Amundings once and for all, if Koldir had but kept his word. Instead, there was a deal more blood before the killing was done. ‘My father never forgave the Danes their betrayal. Afterwards, we never doubted it was best to stand alone.’
‘You had little choice.’
‘You had a choice though,’ returned Haldan. ‘You Jutes of the Middle Lands have plenty of kin among my people. But I don’t recall one of you raising so much as a fart to help your kinsmen.’
‘You do me wrong, cousin. I tried to persuade Lord Arve to raise our spears. But he said he wouldn’t help a folk who’d broken faith with King Harald Wartooth.’
‘Piss on the Wartooth! Piss on the rest of you – whipping boys to that old boar.’ Haldan slugged back his mead, and poured himself another. ‘Baah,’ he growled. ‘It’s all past now. The web is woven. One thing my father did right: he freed us from any overlord.’
‘And how long will that last?’ For once, the sardonic expression was gone, and Karsten’s jowls were flushed with sincerity. ‘Listen, cousin. I stood before King Harald’s high seat at Leithra, not one month ago. Listened to him railing about the Skaw, that it should be his. Heard him spit poison about you pitiful Northern Jutes.’
‘Harald speaks of us?’
Fifteen years, Haldan had been lord of the Northern Jutes, subordinate to no other. He had long since stopped fearing King Harald Wartooth, the Danish overlord, would come to force fealty on him once more. Was that time coming to an end? Blood will run in the furrows. The vala’s words boded ill. ‘We’re no enemies of his. Neither are we allies, nor vassals. We’re nothing to him. If ever we have need to raid again, it won’t be Danish lands or Danish harbours. How do you think we have managed this long? When the wolf sleeps in his lair, only a fool goes in to wake him.’
‘If you’re not his vassal, then by his reckoning, you are his enemy,’ urged Karsten. ‘I know you’re not as blind as your father. You can’t sit up here with your head in the sand.’ His dark eye flared. ‘The world is coming to you, cousin! Don’t you see that? Maybe not this year, maybe not next. But it’s coming
– like it or not.’
Haldan’s wi
ntry eyes were staring right through his kinsman, already far away, lost in slaughter.
Was there always more?
‘Let them come. We will fight. Fight like a bull-bear raised from Hel, if we must.’
‘Now you sound like your father. He was always too quick to fight. Look where that got him.’
Haldan scowled. ‘What would you do?’
‘Why fight when you can get what you want by talk?’
‘You mean like you? With a honeyed tongue in every lord’s ear?’
‘I’d have it in every lord’s arse if it would get what I want.’
Haldan laughed. ‘Shouldn’t an earl have more honour?’
‘Don’t speak to me of honour, cousin.’ He tapped beside his dead eye. ‘I’ve seen enough of blood and honour and oaths and all the rest. They got me no closer to what I want.’
‘What do you want?’
He held up his palms and smiled. ‘I have five sons. I want silver, and I want land.’
‘You think I can bring you those?’
He shook his head. ‘You misunderstand me. Listen. You cause the Wartooth no trouble – so you say. But you could.’
‘Go on.’
‘His gold chests grow heavy from the trade up and down the East Sea and through the Juten Belt. If you wanted to, how much do you think you could disrupt that?’
‘We don’t want to. I give them no cause for quarrel.’
‘Maybe. Now. But if you don’t, another could. Your son. Or his. The Danes have overlooked you till now, but they will come for your lands one day. I’d wager my head on it. Sooner or later, the Skaw must come under oath to the Danish Mark.’
‘Never in my lifetime. I swore it.’ That was a black night. And a black oath. The rain had whipped their faces as they fled the shores of Raumarika, his father’s blood dripping dark from his fingers, leaking from the wound Arnalf Crow-King cut in his chest. That was when his father had cursed Koldir to the blackest chasms of Hel, had sworn not another grain, not a ring of gold, not a sliver of silver would ever go to King Harald’s hall again. He swore enmity with the Danes, and made him do the same. ‘It was the last thing I ever promised my father. I can never kneel, even if they do come.’
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