by Hume, M. K.
The general, for so he proved to be, spat onto the ground at Arthur’s feet.
‘I am Mearchealf, son of Breoca, and I will not speak to any Dene mongrel. Nor will I speak to a Briton, a race who lies even lower on the list of men than any of the northerners. You can do your worst, but I’ll not give you a useful word.’
Arthur sighed regretfully.
‘You are boasting needlessly, Mearchealf, son of Breoca, because we both know that everyone eventually speaks under torture. I would happily spare you that, because it will give me no satisfaction. But you need have no doubt that you will provide me with the name and the information I require.’
Mearchealf spat again, and this time his aim was better. The spittle landed on Arthur’s boot. With a calm expression, the young man quickly cleaned it by scraping it through some melting snow.
‘Very well, Mearchealf, I will allow you to have your pangs of honour and then you’ll tell me what I want to know.’
Still, in the hours that followed, Arthur came to wish that there was some other way to extract the information he needed, for the torturer becomes as damaged as his victim, except that his wounds are invisible to the naked eye.
Morning came before Mearchealf’s spirit finally broke. By then, he had been convinced that his ceols had managed to depart with those survivors who had made good their escape. His hopes for his own salvation had vanished and his broken body betrayed him at the very end.
But he told Arthur everything he needed to know.
CHAPTER X
FORTUNA’S LAW
Man that is born of woman is of few days, and full of trouble.
He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he
Fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
The Bible, Job 14:5
Several weeks passed before the Hundings War was finally resolved and the last stragglers were chased back into Saxony. But the cold had come with six feet of snow, drifts that men could never hope to cross without snowshoes, and frozen water in the fjords that had turned into thick, blue-tinged ice.
Loki’s Eye and Sea Wife were drawn up into coves and put under covers in Ivar Hnaefssen’s lands, as were the other ships that made up the Sae Dene fleet. No one would be able to traverse the treacherous seas until the spring had released them from winter’s freezing fist.
Stormbringer was torn. Arthur had brought him the name of the traitor and, to the surprise of no one, that person was Aednetta Fridasdottar. But Arthur’s information was neither simple nor easy to understand, for the Hundings’ general had spat out several teeth and the disconcerting information that the king’s witch-woman had a secret lover who supplied her with funds, the benefits of a cunning intellect and the cold reason that had served to make Aednetta such an implacable enemy. The general had no idea who this enemy could be, but he cherished the knowledge that the Dene people had a clever traitor buried deeply inside the court of King Hrolf Kraki in Heorot. Like a fat rat, a traitor was listening in the rafters, concealed in plain view and as familiar to the courtiers as the layout of the king’s old building itself. Was he a trusted servant? Was he a warrior? Was he even male? Arthur had no way of knowing. Even though the general knew he was dying from the punishment he had endured during his torture, he still had enough breath and sufficient effrontery to taunt Arthur.
‘I hope she fucks up Hrolf Kraki’s kingship until he’s useless, both as a man and as a king,’ the general had muttered once he had recovered his breath after a particularly painful fit of coughing. This bout was accompanied by a clot of bloody phlegm, which warned Arthur that one of the body blows had probably driven a rib into the general’s lungs. Arthur owed his superior medical knowledge to that long-dead British healer, Myrddion Merlinus. Even now, with one gentle hand on the general’s side, Arthur could feel bones grinding and his eyes softened with pity.
The general saw the expression on Arthur’s face and accurately interpreted its meaning. Mearchealf had no desire to die and only his fierce will had kept him alive for this long, but Arthur’s pity curdled in the Hunding’s throat. To cover his rage at his fate, the Saxon jarl spat bloody sputum into the earth and asked for his wrists to be cut free of the thongs that bound his arms.
‘I wish to face my end like a man, rather than as a slave,’ he explained with a bitter snarl.
Arthur noticed that more fresh blood was seeping into the general’s moustaches from his nostrils.
‘As for Aednetta’s lover! She alone knows his identity, and he’s far too clever to be caught or you’d have captured him by now,’ the general added bluntly. He wheezed out an ugly, damaged laugh, wet and agonised. Then, with an obvious effort, he managed to stop another bout of painful coughing.
Arthur had finally made the killing blow that sent Mearchealf to the shades because, at the very end, the general had begged for an immediate death. By this time, Arthur was beginning to feel true respect for his prisoner and a certain degree of sorrow at the nature of a war that had brought this brave man to such a pass.
Without any further hesitation, Arthur granted Mearchealf his boon and beheaded him with his sword. The young man knew that Bedwyr would have understood the necessity of using the huge weapon that he had given to his foster-son, and agreed that Mearchealf was an honourable man who deserved a speedy death. Bedwyr would also have understood that this fine warrior had been defeated by old hatreds that the Hundings refused to relinquish.
As soon as the necessary rituals of burial and cremation of the dead were completed, Arthur sent out scouts to discover the whereabouts of Stormbringer’s army. Once they were located, the decision was made to vacate the swamp with its ruined village. The Dene warriors who had survived could only cover the corpses of the innocent villagers with a thin layer of soil, because the earth had turned to iron in the bitter cold. Arthur felt he had failed in the task of giving the villagers a decent burial.
Snorri was the first scout to find traces of Stormbringer’s force. A thousand men left scars on the landscape when they passed, even in the kinder and warmer months. Footprints in the mud and slush, broken branches and felled trees used for fires left scars on the forests for those who chose to look. To Arthur’s forest-trained eyes, Stormbringer had moved through the landscape with little care for the marks of passage that he left behind him. Speed was important for, as winter deepened, his horses and oxen would become useless. Stormbringer was running towards shelter on the coast as fast as his plunder-laden force could travel.
The two forces met when Stormbringer was leading his men away from the border after starting the trek back to Ivar Hnaefssen’s holding where the host intended to spend the winter months. From the Sae Dene’s direction of travel, Arthur deduced that his friend was still ignorant of the state of the fleet and that the boats were landlocked now for the four months of deep winter. With his newly obtained intelligence from Mearchealf, Arthur decided that Stormbringer must be convinced to take immediate action against Heorot and its master, Hrolf Kraki.
But any movement must come from the land. The advent of winter ensured that this decision had already been made for the commander.
In a fit of jovial enthusiasm, Ivar was determined to host a feast of victory, now that the Hundings were a spent force and the Dene were masters of their world once again. On the other hand, Arthur intended to call for an immediate council of the jarls. Stormbringer solved the problem by agreeing to both, so the council would take place at noon and the feast would be held during the early evening.
For Stormbringer and his minions, feasts were debauched affairs where the strength of a man was measured by the number of horns of beer or mead he could drink in the shortest possible time. Roisterers would regularly stagger off to vomit copiously, then wash away the foul taste in their mouths with still more alcohol. Any council meeting held after the feast would be doomed to failure because men suffering fr
om huge hangovers always became belligerent and argumentative.
Arthur had no real objections to drunkenness, but he was abstemious by nature and, like Gareth, he preferred to keep his wits sharp. Fortunately, the Dene warriors from his ship forgave him almost anything because of his fighting prowess and his passion for justice, so little idiosyncrasies with alcohol were forgiven.
Hnaefssen’s long-hall had changed little in the two years of war that Stormbringer and Arthur had endured since the jarl had first offered them assistance. Neither Stormbringer nor Arthur had forgotten his generosity, for the man had also detailed one of his favourite sons to help with the relief of the besieged citizens of Skania. Such devotion and honour had earned Jarl Ivar Hnaefssen the respect of all.
Ivar’s holding was covered with a blanket of deep snow and glinting icicles were hanging from the guttering and roofs of every building in Hnaefssen’s small town. At first, Arthur was nervous of them, but logic told him that these very temporary knives of ice would only fall if a thaw weakened their hold. Even so, his eyes continued to steal skywards whenever he left the security of a building.
‘I just like to check,’ he explained to Father Lorcan as he walked quickly into the long-hall with one eye scanning the icicles above him.
Lorcan nodded with complete understanding.
During the previous winter, the priest had almost been impaled by an enormous icicle that plummeted to earth from a high tree branch. It had burst into dozens of razor-sharp shards of ice that scattered themselves over the mud of the roadway in the nondescript Saxon town. Lorcan had been shaking and nauseous for at least an hour after.
The agenda of the council meeting began with the obligatory huge horns of foaming beer and mead. However, once those present had drunk their toasts to the great victory over the Hundings, Stormbringer called on Arthur to recount everything he had learned from the destruction of the Hundings’ commanders and the information he had extracted from General Mearchealf.
‘So that’s it,’ Arthur said flatly, once he had described the details of the past few weeks. ‘Aednetta Fridasdottar and her mysterious lover will continue to meddle and damage Dene society wherever they can. The reason I wanted to speak to this council is that, with an army already assembled, you have the perfect opportunity to set Heorot to rights.’
Ivar Hnaefssen looked sideways at Arthur as if he suddenly found cause to distrust the Briton, but Stormbringer smiled secretively at his friend.
‘What sort of treason are you proposing, boy?’ Ivar asked abrasively. ‘I have no reason to like Hrolf Kraki, but the man is my king. I, for one, will never raise a sword against him.’
‘I don’t propose treason at all, my lord. But we must ask ourselves how we can inform Hrolf Kraki of the information we have gleaned. Or do you propose we avoid telling him that he’s bedding a sworn enemy of the Dene people? That’s the real treason – staying silent! Do you think that we can continue as we have done in the past? Hrolf Kraki will never forgive anyone who took part in the recent battles against the Hundings because you’ve shown up his cowardice.’
Ivar had never considered what might occur after the Dene victory. Deeply conservative and honest to the bone, the old man nodded his recognition of the points that Arthur had made so forthrightly. Hnaefssen would never deny the truth, and nor would he try to lie.
‘You and I are outlaws in the Dene homeland because Hrolf Kraki has banished us from Heorot, Arthur,’ Stormbringer interrupted. ‘Perhaps you should explain to Ivar what you believe we can do.’
Arthur’s face flushed with enthusiasm and he spoke with more animation than usual.
‘We’ll never have a thousand men at our backs again, my friends. And, as we have such a numerical advantage, I believe we should march on Heorot to force Hrolf Kraki and the jarls of the north to listen to what we have to say. I’m not proposing a revolt and neither do I propose that we commit treason. I’m aware that any true Dene could never live with the dishonour of deposing a rightful king. Treason is not the Dene way and for what it’s worth, I agree with you. By all reports, Hrolf Kraki was once an excellent king who ruled for the good of your people, so I’d like to believe that he could return to being one.’
‘But you’ve no reason to love the Crow King,’ Ivar Hnaefssen muttered suspiciously, as if he doubted Arthur’s motives. Ivar had some cause; deep down, Arthur knew that people rarely changed once they had strolled down the dangerous road of tyranny.
Ivar was aware of Hrolf Kraki’s behaviour in recent years, but he chose to blame any flaws on the witch-woman. For his part, all hints of criticism must be excised from Arthur’s voice because while the jarls might be willing to find fault with Hrolf Kraki, no outsider could, and certainly not Arthur, no matter how great his reputation might be, or the strength of his friendship with the Sae Dene king.
‘I may be an outsider, Lord Hnaefssen, as all the men in your council are aware, but I count my own honour just as highly as you do. Unfortunately, I have discovered that Hrolf Kraki respects only one thing, and that is the mailed fist. If we arrive in Heorot and place our army in bivouac outside the city, he will be forced to listen to our complaints. In fact, we need only point out the obvious. We can explain that Stormbringer has received certain information of an urgent nature that caused us to be concerned for Hrolf Kraki’s safety. As the Sae Dene has been banished, his warriors are only in Heorot with him to ensure that he is given a hearing. Nothing else under heaven but force will make that stubborn man listen to our grievances or alter his opinions, and this certainly applies if his emotions are engaged. I think we must assume that the witch-woman has a sensitive part of his anatomy under her control. She surely commands his head and his heart. He’ll never admit to his mistakes or accept any guilt for the deaths and injuries his decisions have caused to his people. Nor will he willingly accept the guilt of Aednetta Fridasdottar, even if it is proved thrice over.’
‘That’s true, Arthur, but what’s to be gained by bearding Hrolf Kraki at Heorot? He’ll lose some of his prestige if we challenge him, and he’ll not like that,’ Stormbringer stated with certainty.
‘It’s possible that we might be able to extract the name of Aednetta’s lover from her, because the Crow King may agree to her being questioned if he thinks she has been playing the game of the two-backed beast with another man. I’ve lost my taste for torture, even if Hrolf Kraki allowed me to touch her, which I doubt. I believe he’d try to extract the information himself. Even if he champions her innocence, the possibility of a royal betrayal will eat away at him, and sow the seeds of suspicion in his mind so that he’ll act eventually. In fact, I’d prefer to suggest that the witch-woman has been duped, and to offer our assistance to find the hidden traitor. We’ll never know the truth, Valdar, if we leave the investigation to the Crow King or his minions.’
Stormbringer nodded, for Arthur’s arguments were cogent and logical.
‘Yes, my lord!’ Arthur grimaced. ‘Before you raise the subject, I admit that I believe your king to be a despicable human being. How could I not loathe this man who has done his very best to have me, my friends and members of my family killed? Hrolf Kraki has been false as a human being, but he is the born king of the Dene people and must be given the respect owed to the ruler of your nation. The gods have elevated him to the throne and I have no right to argue with them. But if we choose to leave matters as they stand, what do you think Aednetta’s lover will do? Do you believe for one moment that the traitor will go away? Not he! He will do his best to remove you! We are morally obliged to finalise this whole conflict while we can.’
Stormbringer agreed and several of the jarls gave their reluctant assent. But Ivar and some of his older compatriots were still undecided.
‘Do you think that Hrolf Kraki will choose to make a further attack on The Holding if the opportunity arises, Valdar? And do you remember what his orders were? His warrio
rs were to hang the bodies of your little girls on the outer walls of your long-hall so that their brutalised corpses would be the first things you saw when you returned.’
Stormbringer winced and made a small gesture of disgust with one hand. Ivar too began to pale at what he was hearing.
‘Will the king decide to attack you and yours in the spring after you set sail for Skania, Ivar? There’s no guarantee that my three friends will appear at exactly the right time to save those souls who live at your farm.’
Arthur’s voice was implacable as he described what could happen to Ivar’s wife and the rest of his family, and all who lived in his village.
‘I now have a large stake in The Holding and I’m concerned for the safety of all who are domiciled there. My sister is betrothed to Stormbringer, and I’m fearful that Hrolf Kraki will send assassins to kill her. Hrolf Kraki must be brought to heel and the poisonous influence of the witch-woman must be crushed, for she hates my sister like poison. There are wheels within wheels here, Lords of the Mark, but all is not yet lost.’
The silence was alive with suspicion.
‘And what about you, Ivar, and the problems you have been facing in recent times? Your cows graze in fields that are a stone’s throw from Saxon fields and Saxon thieves. How many generations of your family have fought and died to protect your hall? Do you believe that Hrolf Kraki will come to your aid if the Jutes decide to attack your lands again in the spring? The Crow King didn’t turn into a lamb overnight. If anything, he’ll have lost the respect of most of his warriors because you’ve defeated his enemies in battle despite his absence as leader. Who will become the scapegoat for the loss of his dignity?’
Arthur paused to allow his message to sink in.
‘Yes, Master Ivar. The Crow King will blame you. He’ll wait until you’re off guard and then he’ll make you bleed for any imagined insults, slights or treacheries. After all, what crimes did Stormbringer commit that warranted his banishment? He brought Loki’s Eye back from Britain groaning with plunder, all of which Hrolf Kraki kept, including Stormbringer’s share and the crew’s. The ostensible reason for this punishment was that we insulted Aednetta Fridasdottar. Do you understand the implications of his actions, Ivar? We now know that Aednetta occupies the centre of the king’s web of sins. She isolates the king by driving away every loyal and decent lord, and leaves the sycophants and fools behind to fill the void. And all the while the real traitor is waiting, watching and laughing at our stupidity from behind his hands.’