by Hume, M. K.
Germanus looked puzzled when Arthur caught his eye.
‘What troubles you, Germanus? Come on! Out with it! No matter what it is, I won’t be angry with you after the travails you have suffered to come to my aid.’
‘What happened to Prince Eamonn? We know he’s dead but we’ve had no opportunity to speak to the young ladies since we arrived here. Everybody is working double time to return The Holding to its normal state, and, for a time, I simply assumed that Eamonn was with you on your campaigns in the north.’
Arthur felt his eyes prickle with tears but brushed his emotions aside and tried to speak in a neutral tone of voice.
‘Eamonn is dead! He was killed at Lake Wener in Skania, when we faced a Geat army that had invaded our allies in the north. His ashes lie in a far-off, watery grave, but I returned his sword to Blaise and Stormbringer sent her a fine black stallion and Eamonn’s share of the booty, for our friend fought and died with distinction.’
Arthur paused, his eyes very sad. ‘I will miss him every day of my life. And I blame myself for his loss.’
‘You’re taking too much on yourself, Arthur,’ Alfridda contradicted him. ‘I have been told that Eamonn chose to fight the Geats in the vanguard where the danger was the most immediate. That young man never shirked in his duty during a battle and he revelled in facing danger. You could never have stopped him,’ she added.
‘But I didn’t even try,’ he muttered, brushing away a single tear. ‘Where are your girls, Alfridda?’ Arthur attempted to change the subject before he disgraced himself.
‘They’re asleep in the women’s quarters. They’ve already greeted you, so you can become reacquainted with them in the morning once the formalities of your return are finalised,’ Alfridda explained a little brusquely. ‘They will be delighted when they awaken and discover that your arrival hasn’t been a dream.’
Alfridda spoke with a general’s confidence and Father Lorcan was impressed by her natural mien of command. He picked up her smooth, work-callused hands and kissed her knuckles.
‘Your brother is a very fortunate man to have such a kinswoman as you, Lady Alfridda,’ the priest said. ‘He could well have returned to his home to find burned earth and the corpses of murdered children if it weren’t for your leadership and courage.’
Alfridda flushed a deep pink, and then pulled her hands away quickly while assuring the priest that she was merely a prudent housewife who had been fortunate enough to have competent fighters to assist her. It was an understatement that no person present was prepared to believe.
‘Unfortunately, I must leave in the next day or two and rejoin Stormbringer’s fleet in the south of the peninsula,’ Arthur announced. ‘The Hundings have invaded our lands in the south and you can guess what they plan to do if they can gain a foothold on our soil.’
‘They would insist on the total subjection of our people and the annihilation of the Dene jarls,’ Alfridda answered slowly, her eyes darkening with anxiety. ‘And we’d be decimated, one island at a time, if Heorot should fall. Even the Sae Dene would fail if the land settlements were overrun – even the best and fastest ships must find safe harbour sometimes to replenish their supplies. Has Hrolf Kraki made any plans to repulse the invaders?’
Arthur grinned in the manner that Germanus remembered in the boy he had known before his departure into the northern lands.
‘Of course, his forces should be in the field, but he hunkers down in his great hall of Heorot with his witch-woman whispering in his ear that he’ll die if he takes part in a war, even an honourable one! I believe she’s in someone’s pay, probably the Hundings’, but the Crow King won’t listen to anyone else. Even Frodhi is ignored, and he’s the only jarl who has Hrolf Kraki’s ear. No, my lady! The Dene jarls will look in vain if they expect aid from their king.’
‘So when do you expect to leave for the south?’ Lorcan asked seriously. ‘I trust there’s time for sleep and breakfast before we depart.’
‘Oh, no! Not another damned ship,’ Gareth added in a woebegone voice.
Germanus almost laughed, until Lorcan stood on his foot to save their young friend any further embarrassment.
‘It’s all very well for you lot to tease me, but I’m the one who has to put up with the misery of getting seasick,’ Gareth pointed out. But he couldn’t help but smile at his own discomfort, for he was happy; three long years of danger and death had been wiped away by their arrival here. ‘Still, things could be worse, for Justinian’s Disease seems to be disappearing from the northern climes.’
‘What’s Justinian’s Disease?’ Arthur asked. Alfridda looked puzzled as well.
Quickly, Lorcan and Germanus explained the disease that had racked the south as soon as winter was over. Alfridda gaped when she heard how whole villages were reduced to burned husks after the plague had killed every soul within its walls.
‘The only defence against the plague seems to be fire, and then it only seems to be effective for a short time,’ Gareth explained. ‘Then, when it begins to rage through the survivors once again, the people seem to go a little mad. We saw villagers, so-called human beings and members of the Christian faith, who reacted in ways that seemed crueller and more evil than anything that Satan could hope to devise. Cannibalism, crucifixion and prowling gangs of young children – the plague is surely one of the dark angel’s true horrors.’
For once, Father Lorcan was very serious when he gave his explanation. His large hands twisted together in a manner that described his fears more vividly than the words he selected with such care.
‘If the plague should come into your lands during the coming spring, you must forbid any trading ship to put ashore on your island. We know that ships carry the disease, even if we don’t know how the illness moves from one person to another. If you hear of any such disease on your island, you must refuse permission for any person to come to the farm or for anyone to leave. I can swear to you that only a total quarantine will defeat this illness. You must speak to your visitors from a distance and you must be brutally strong, otherwise more than half of the souls on this farm will suffer the most horrible of deaths.’
Alfridda’s eyes grew wide at the graphic descriptions given by her guests.
‘I’ll leave instructions with Maeve on how victims of the disease must be treated if I’m absent, although I hope we won’t be fighting all through the coming winter. Maeve has had experience with healing that she learned from her mother, the wise Elayne. You must pray your precautions keep the plague from your door.’
Arthur felt odd, almost dislocated, as if something was looming in the darkness of the future. What would he do if anything happened to Maeve? Or to his servants, especially the infant, Ingmar, who was totally dependent on Ingrid and himself? Even the difficult and ever-argumentative Sigrid? Arthur was surprised to discover that he cared for the Geat girl. As Germanus showed his audience the scars under each armpit, the young man thought of Sigrid’s perfect, golden flesh being marred so grossly, and shuddered.
I’m obviously in need of a woman, he thought. But Sigrid is only fourteen and she’s far too young for me.
Then he realised that she was the same age as Maeve and he had already agreed to Stormbringer’s proposal of marriage to his sister. And the Sae Dene king was considerably older than he was.
‘But that’s completely different,’ Arthur protested aloud to a suddenly-silent room.
‘What’s different, Arthur?’ Alfridda asked warily and watched in surprise as the Briton flushed with a deep strawberry-red hue.
‘Nothing! I must have been thinking of trifles and forgot for a moment where I was. But I’m obviously too tired for any more decisions right now. Just point me towards a deep pallet and I’ll sleep away the wonders I’ve seen tonight. I want to be freshened before I speak with the girls in the morning.’
‘Of course, Arthur,’ A
lfridda said. ‘I’ve been very remiss as your hostess. I’ll ensure you wake early so we can have a long discussion with the girls in the morning.’
Arthur pressed her hand and rose to his feet to follow a servant from the room. Gareth padded away behind his master. If he had his way, he would never permit himself to let Arthur out of his sight again.
Once they had left, Germanus spoke for them all when he rose, thanked Lady Alfridda and shuffled off to his own rooms, yawning hugely as he went. Lorcan followed soon after, while the servants began to clear this section of the hall with quiet efficiency.
In their wake, Alfridda heaved a sigh of relief. For tonight, she could sleep in peace.
As she slid under the warm covers, Alfridda thanked all the gods that ever were that The Holding had been protected and her brother was safe. If Arthur was correct, the fate of the Dene people rested on Stormbringer’s large shoulders, coupled with the military acumen of this young and alien warrior.
‘The gods have been kind so far! Perhaps they’ll protect us from this horrible disease and the threats from the Hundings,’ she mused.
But the wind continued to blow harshly around the walls of the wooden building and whistled through the narrow upper windows with a moaning that boded no good. Somewhere beyond the hall, an owl shrieked, and as she sank into slumber Alfridda wondered briefly who was going to die. She tried to pray but sleep seduced her.
CHAPTER IX
When loki laughed
Be sure your sins will find you out.
The Bible, Numbers 32:23
The old jarl, Ivar Hnaefssen, stared out over the swampy ground with morose concentration. The furrows on his old-man’s face criss-crossed his weathered skin like the waterways separating the bogs from the few pathways through the inhospitable land.
‘Shite, boys! After chasing these buggers all over the landscape, they decide to hole up in a freezing, fucking swamp where we’ll lose scores of our warriors if we try to get to them. We could just sit here and pick them off as they come out starving, but that could take months.’
Arthur looked at the jarl with a cold grin, until Ivar shuddered at its chill humour.
‘The temperature is down to freezing, so I propose to use our archers to harass our friends into some sort of action. The Troll King’ll be thrilled to set fire to whatever cover the Hundings are cowering under. Then, if we succeed, the fires will leave them without shelter when the cold sets in. Shite, why should we waste the lives of our friends when we can use old Father Winter to kill the Hundings for us?’
The cold was a living thing. Arthur could smell the first snow in the air as winter came to life. A thin coating of leaves obscured the margins of the swamps where the shallow water was already beginning to freeze over. The reeds were brown and sere, ready to crumble at a touch. The bitter wind came from the sea with the taste of salt and ice in its maw, causing the warriors in their heavy furs and cold armour to shiver.
‘If Thorketil thinks he can set fire to the Hundings’ village, I’ll be happy to overlook the use of arrows, my boy,’ Jarl Hnaefssen muttered magnanimously.
That’s very generous of you, Arthur thought. The persistent prejudice against archery in the north irritated Arthur constantly because Saxons, Dene, Jutes and Angles all agreed that the bow was only a weapon for peasants, even though Caesar’s Romans had used bowmen to devastating effect in their conquest of Gaul. Arthur refused to believe that the northern warriors had such short memories.
The Hundings had commandeered a small village that stood on a slightly elevated strip of higher ground within the heart of the swamp. The village was obviously poor, to judge by the reed roofs and the poles used to raise the houses above any possible flooding. Arthur had seen similar structures in The Wash in Britain.
There were insufficient houses for the villagers to remain, so when Arthur’s force had taken up their attack positions they found that every villager in the settlement had been executed, including the women and children. Arthur had sworn a vicious oath when he saw the bodies piled high in the shallow, freezing waters of a nearby bog. Even now, several hours later, he was still shocked at the stupidity and superstition of his enemies. To leave so many dead bodies in open waters close to living quarters was an open invitation for disease to breed. To make matters worse, the stink would gradually become unbearable until the corpses froze solid.
Arthur could feel nothing but contempt for warriors who could treat their victims with such casual disregard.
‘The Hundings must believe that we’re not prepared to retaliate for this outrage. If so, they don’t know much about me,’ Arthur snapped angrily to Stormbringer. ‘With your permission, I’ll organise Thorketil and Rufus into place with the twelve bowmen who travel with them. Let me unleash my bows, brother, so I can burn them out and force them into fighting us in open battle.’
Stormbringer knew that any such strategic decision on the use of archery could result in a loss of prestige with the mainland jarls. Fortunately, he remembered that both the island and the Skanian jarls had originally held the same reservations until Arthur’s men had proved archery’s usefulness in earlier battles. Finally Stormbringer nodded his permission.
Thorketil was hovering anxiously outside Stormbringer’s campaign tent and once the decision to use archers was made, he was ushered in by Arthur with the complete lack of formality given to a respected and trusted friend.
The passage of years since Thorketil’s combat with Arthur in the halls of Heorot had wrought massive changes in the Troll King’s physical appearance. His upper body was even more powerful now than it was in his days as Hrolf Kraki’s undefeated champion. Since Thorketil’s mortal combat with Arthur and his eventual acceptance as one of the young prince’s captains, the Troll King had practised obsessively with the bow, increasing his strength to almost supernatural levels. Thorketil’s arms now matched the thickness of a normal man’s thighs; likewise, his always powerful neck was now a column of pure muscle on which his head seemed unnaturally small and delicate.
At the time of his wounding, Thorketil had begged Arthur to put him out of his misery and kill him, especially when the Crow King had cast him out of his personal guard. But Arthur knew Thorketil was intelligent, sensitive and loyal to a fault. With his new purpose as an archer, the Dene Warrior was restored to manhood.
In many ways, Thorketil’s lower body seemed unnatural. One leg was heavily thighed and strong, the other shrunken and seemingly shorter, giving the Troll King an odd and lopsided look. But such was Thorketil’s certainty in his own skills that none of the jarls thought of him as a cripple.
Arthur still continued to feel guilty whenever he gazed on his friend’s wasted leg. But the Troll King had done his best to forget Hrolf Kraki’s treachery. ‘I’ve gained more renown as the Last Dragon’s bowman than I ever won as a warrior. Women come to my bed now just to hear my tales of our exploits. The price of my freedom was my knee, but I consider it to have been a cheap price to pay.’
Arthur introduced Thorketil to the assembled jarls, many of whom remembered him well from his days in Heorot. Within five minutes, they were forced to admit that Thorketil was a changed man. He had schooled himself to be gregarious, well spoken and even amusing, and he was able to poke fun at himself as the old Troll King would never have attempted. Further, he was now standing taller than he had ever stood before, despite his ruined leg and the cane he leaned upon, for Arthur had showed him that he had hunched over in the past. Thorketil could now look every man squarely in the eye, regardless of their status.
When Arthur explained the tactical situation to Thorketil, the big man grinned boyishly in response.
‘I’ll enjoy burning that cesspit to the ground, especially for the sake of the babes who were tossed into the bogs when the Hundings took their homes. I’ll try to kill any of the mongrel dogs that comes within bowshot of the corpses
, and I’ll also fire off some of my barbs on the crows and ravens that try to steal their eyes. We can always burn the corpses once we’ve taken control of the village. I can only hope that their shades are close enough to our world to know that we’ll also be burning their murderers to revenge them.’
Several jarls noted that old Ivar’s face held a perplexed look as he gave his unwilling authorisation to an activity that he considered dishonourable. Of course, the Troll King spotted Ivar’s ambivalence immediately.
‘Don’t fret yourself, my lord. All the men in my troop are warriors, trained and tested, who have been wounded in battle during their many years of service to the king. Once, their lives were considered to be over. But no longer! Perhaps you can still tell me that my archers have no place in battle when we fill the night with fire.’
The jarls were embarrassed because so many of the Troll King’s observations were true, so Arthur hustled Thorketil out of the tent to let the Dene leaders speak frankly. Outside, Rufus and twelve other men were assembled with a large supply of arrows and two braziers for lighting fire arrows. All still young or in their early middle years, they had the unmistakable bearing of fighting men, except one unfortunate warrior with the concave chest and hacking cough of the feared lung disease. The man’s pallor and the trace of blood at the corners of his mouth warned Arthur that this particular warrior was deathly ill and he would have sent the man back to the tents, but Thorketil stopped him.
‘Yes, Arthur, our boy is dying. But I’ll not willingly deprive the boy of a chance to strike a blow for his family and his tribe. He desperately wants to make his mother proud . . . and I’ve promised that I’ll allow him to give service to you. Please, Arthur, for he’ll soon be sleeping till the end of time.’
Arthur allowed The Troll King to have his way.