The Yelling Stones

by Oskar Jensen

  The wagon slewed to a halt behind the horsemen, and again, the horns brayed out. By now, a large crowd had gathered, and the pair had to crane their necks to see past them.

  The hall’s high doors creaked apart, and Knut strode out, all furs and helm and gold around his arms. ‘What news, brother?’ he called. ‘What brings you back so soon, and in such a clamour? Some of us, lustier for the yeast-sea than you, have sore heads to stand such tootings!’

  Haralt slid from his saddle. ‘Where’s Father? I’ve a guest to greet him; we met his ship on the way to Odense.’

  ‘Within,’ growled Knut. ‘Will this guest not see me first?’

  The horns sounded again, more cautiously this time, and a man descended from the wagon as an avalanche descends a mountain.

  ‘You’re enormous,’ whispered Astrid, as she had before the wolf.

  He was a real whale of a man, and his robes were black waves, flowing over and around his massive girth as he lumbered towards Knut.

  If Knut is a like a bear, then he’s a boar, thought Leif. The man’s short black hair bristled out from beneath the top of his robes, creeping over mighty folds of neck to circle a bald head. He had no beard. Just small, dark eyes sunk deep in wobbling cheeks.

  He’s got sausages for fingers, thought Astrid. The stubby digits of his left hand gripped a gilded crook, its wicked metal point scoring the soft spring earth.

  The man juddered to a halt before Knut, spread his arms, and slowly passed his pudgy right hand back and forth across his body.

  Knut took half a step backwards, and they could see how hard his own hands were clenched. A spasm flicked over his face.

  ‘This is Bishop Folkmar, emissary of Otto, King of Germany,’ said Haralt. ‘And he’s come to speak to the king.’

  THIRTEEN

  Once more, the hall was thronged with watchers – women too – as Gorm sat in council. But the mood was changed entirely from the evening Astrid had brought Leif back to court. Shafts of light, thick with circling dust, pierced the walls like arrows; the air was free from smoke; most of the benches remained empty. The king’s men had all left for their homes the day before, and the only warriors left were Knut’s berserkers, ranged along one side, and Haralt’s Norwegian bondsmen, sat across from them. The space above their heads was still – Astrid sensed that the hall-spirits were keeping well out of the way of this new visitor.

  Leif now had one of the best seats in the hall, and Astrid sat with him where Arinbjorn the Unlucky would have been, except that the old Norwegian had shifted sides to be with his kinsmen. Her father and brothers alone sat in state upon the dais; the bishop had the floor. He fairly filled the high hall with his bulk, and his presence.

  ‘Greetings to you, Saxon,’ said Gorm, and his thin cold voice sent a breath of winter through that airy place. ‘What brings one of Otto’s liegemen to my realm?’

  ‘Majesty, I am arrived here at your palace, to endow you and all your subjects with the gift most precious that may be bestowed.’

  Astrid was surprised by how deep and rich the foreigner’s voice was. She had assumed he would sound, as well as look, like a pig.

  ‘You speak of gifts,’ said Gorm. ‘Lately, I was brought a worthy gift indeed –’ and he smiled in Leif’s direction – ‘and even when an old man feels the call of the grave, a fine thing to take to Odin’s hall is always welcome. Let us see what you have brought.’

  The bishop beamed, and Gorm leant forward in his eagerness. Even Astrid was curious: the wealth of Christ-men was well known, while the wealth of the Saxon king was the stuff of legend.

  Folkmar swept his crook high in the air. He seemed to be gesturing to the narrow shafts of sunshine. ‘Your Majesty, what I bring you is the light. The light of the world, and of the Word! I am giving to you … salvation!’

  ‘Ah,’ said Gorm. ‘I was hoping for an axe, you know?’

  The hall was split. As soon as they understood the priest’s proposal, Knut’s berserkers began to growl. Weland, sitting to Astrid’s right, hawked up a great gob of phlegm which he spat across the dusty floor. She shuffled as far as she could to her left without actually ending up in Leif’s lap. But on the far side of the fireplaces, Haralt’s men were whispering earnestly.

  At the high table, Gorm and his two sons threw the idea back and forth like dogs worrying a bone.

  ‘This must be what the little skald’s visions were warning us about,’ said Knut. ‘Even I can work that one out: we’ve a choice to make, between Christ and the old gods. And in my mind, it’s no choice at all. I’m too heavy to walk on water, and I don’t much fancy being one of those slaughtered black sheep – bah!’

  ‘I knew this day would come without omens,’ said Gorm. ‘Ever since the old man at Hamburg named those three Christ-men to rule in my towns. My towns! If they’d dared to show up, I’d have shown them who rules the Danes!’

  ‘But Folkmar isn’t from Hamburg,’ said Haralt. ‘He stands well at Otto’s court. We would be wise to win his friendship, or the next time he makes this offer, it might come on the point of a German spear.’

  ‘It’s happened before, you know,’ said Gorm. ‘You won’t remember it – it was the year you got your first teeth, Knut – but this isn’t the first time one of these bishops has come a-begging. Unni, the last one was called, and no comfort did he find in my hall.’

  ‘I say we send the fat man packing,’ said Knut.

  ‘He is a guest,’ retorted Haralt. ‘And we should hear him out.’

  ‘Oh, you follow what god you wish, little brother! I am for Thor and always will be. Father follows Odin. If this Christ can reward your allegiance, I’ve no quarrel with your choosing him. Just don’t start nagging me not to eat horse, that’s all I ask.’

  ‘It’s not a personal matter, Knut, this is political …’

  ‘Hah, hear what I said? “Nagging me not to eat horse” – maybe I’ll be a poet yet …’

  At the words, ‘this is political’, Astrid stopped listening, fixing her attention on the priest. Folkmar, she saw, had not so much as blinked, but stood, massive and somehow inevitable, waiting at the centre of the hall.

  Leif nudged her. Her brothers’ bickering was coming to a close.

  ‘Well, he’s not staying in our room,’ Knut was saying.

  ‘Give him our sister’s bed,’ said Haralt. Now Astrid really started listening. ‘She can sleep in the stables: the guests’ horses are gone and the stalls stand empty.’

  Astrid had just opened her mouth to object, when Gorm rose to his feet. ‘Quiet,’ he barked, like a grizzled old wolf. ‘Bishop, you are welcome to stay with us, and we will debate this matter further at our ease, in the days to come. There may be something in what you say. He who acts swiftly in battle may save his life, but he who bargains with his next life cannot afford to be so rash. This meeting is over.’ And, with a rueful glance at Thyre’s empty chair, the king melted back into his usual darkness.

  Folkmar bowed his head, turned, and waddled from the hall.

  The room emptied, Leif and Astrid among the last out. People were streaming past on either side, chattering or quarrelling. But Folkmar, they noticed, had come to a halt, ignoring the excited Danes.

  He was staring fixedly, with a look of such hunger and resolve on his piggy features that Astrid shrank back, her skin crawling.

  She noticed his free hand – the one not holding the golden crook – rapidly opening and closing, as it hung at his side. Each time the fat fingers made a fist they squeezed, as if cracking a nut.

  She looked back up; followed his gaze.

  Folkmar was staring – where else? – at the Yelling Stones.

  And now she remembered where she’d seen that look before: on Leif’s face, that first night they had talked about the stones.

  So she wasn’t surprised when Leif put his mouth to her ear and whispered. ‘I think our “something new” has just arrived.’

  FOURTEEN

  ‘I still don’t see why
I have to do this.’ Leif raised his left arm to wipe his brow, unthinking.

  ‘No, Leif, don’t – oh, never mind,’ said Astrid, and watched, as he hit himself in the face with his large, wooden shield.

  They were in the sacred grove, out of sight of the hall, and – she had made sure of this – upwind of where the grisly sacrifices still swung. Here, the air was heady with the scent of trees in leaf: a dizzy waft of bark and flower and catkin. Both had a shield strapped to their left arm. In their right hands, they held blunt wooden swords.

  ‘Don’t make me go over it again,’ Astrid said, as Leif rubbed his swelling forehead. ‘And take your guard. No – like I showed you – left knee forward, shield out, sword raised over your right shoulder. Facing forward. No – with the point forward, Leif, like a horn, that’s why it’s called the ox guard …’

  Pity and fascination fought for control of her features as she watched him try to get it right. ‘We’re doing this,’ she reminded him, ‘for practice. In case we have to fight the beast.’ They’d worked it all out. If Folkmar was the new power that had come to Jelling – and what else could he be? – then it stood to reason that he was the one controlling the beast that had killed the troll. Christian priest-craft was one of the strongest sorts of magic – even she knew that.

  And it wasn’t only the troll: shepherds and farmers were telling tales of all sorts of weird creatures and spirits, found dead in the fields and forests around Jelling. Spirits of trees, spirits of rocks, found dead, their bodies slashed and burnt. The Danes saw these beings as guardians who gave them luck, and the sudden spate of killings had everyone worried. Everyone, of course, except Folkmar … and Haralt.

  ‘But we can’t prove that Folkmar is the one behind the beast,’ Astrid said again, taking up an identical guard to Leif’s, only without all the wobbling. ‘And we’ll need proof if we want to stop him. Now: shield up!’

  In slow motion, she stepped forward with her right foot, thrusting her wooden sword at Leif’s unprotected head.

  Scowling, he raised his shield just in time to block. ‘I still think we should just spy on the priest,’ he said.

  ‘Switch legs and cut!’ she ordered, pulling out of the attack and swinging her sword low all in one slow movement, aiming at his exposed left knee. ‘But the beast clearly isn’t with him,’ she said. ‘So we’ll have to go looking for it.’

  Leif executed an awkward hop on the spot, throwing his left leg back out of danger and leading with his right. He grinned with pride. ‘I did it!’

  ‘You forgot the cut,’ she said. ‘You must cut at my head as you switch legs. Lesson number one: practice makes perfect. We’ll have to start again …’

  ‘But if the beast’s a dragon, as you say,’ he objected, ‘I don’t think it’ll use a sword and shield.’

  The problem, as Astrid saw it, was this. Leif’s idea of action was sticking close to Folkmar, listening in dark corners, waiting for him to let something slip. Whereas the very thought of being stuck in an enclosed space anywhere near that revolting man brought her out in a cold sweat. Action, to her, meant exploring. Hunting. Fighting. And doing it outside, where sunshine dappled their skin beneath branches, birds sung, and fallen oak leaves and soft pine needles rustled underfoot.

  That was why she was trying to teach Leif the basics of swordplay.

  ‘Never hurts to be prepared,’ she said. ‘We’ll go over it once more – full speed this time.’

  Still grumbling, Leif took up the position.

  She thrust – he parried – slipped – she shifted her swing, thwacking the flat of the wooden blade hard against his exposed behind.

  ‘Ow!’ he yelled, and dropped his sword.

  ‘That’s known as a “shaming-stroke”,’ she said. ‘If you were a real warrior, you’d be dishonoured for letting me do that.’

  ‘It’s lucky for us both, then, that I’m not,’ he said, rubbing his bottom. ‘That warrior stuff’s all stupid anyway.’

  ‘Some of the greatest skalds have been legendary fighters,’ she said. ‘Your hero Egil Skallagrimsson for one.’

  ‘True. But he was also three times my size,’ Leif pointed out. ‘If you want to fight, I’ll do things my way.’

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘What’re you going to do, talk to my shield and make it burn?’

  ‘There’s more than fire to my magic,’ he said. ‘On guard!’

  Intrigued, she raised her sword. Only, it wasn’t a sword any more …

  ‘Hear the sun and soil call: shrug off your man’s shaping,’ said Leif.

  Astrid found that she was holding a flowering shrub in each hand. Laughing, she threw them aside.

  ‘Lesson number two,’ she said. ‘Always improvise!’

  Leif yelled, as Astrid dived for his legs, sending them both rolling on the springy, moss-grown forest floor. With a cry of triumph, she kneeled over him – pinned his arms – his face so close that she could feel his breath, hot and ragged on her cheeks …

  There was a cough, close at hand. They looked up.

  Standing, arms folded, beneath the foamy spread of a new-budding linden, flanked by slender birches, one eyebrow raised impossibly high … was Queen Thyre.

  Astrid gulped. ‘Hello, Mother,’ she said.

  ‘The time for play is at an end,’ said Thyre. ‘Get up.’

  They scrambled to their feet, dusting twigs and blossom from their clothes. For the first time, Leif noticed the queen’s height, the way she held her head, and how much she looked like all that was strong in her three children.

  ‘I return from Baekke to find commoners complaining of slain guardian spirits, and a priest sat at my table. A priest!’ She fairly spat the word out.

  ‘And so I turn to you, little skald, because it strikes me that the choice, the danger, that you have twice foretold, is now come upon us.’

  Leif nodded. ‘That’s what we thought. The shepherd, the crowned man – both my visions hinted at the White Christ.’

  ‘And priests,’ Thyre said, ‘are ever jealous of the rights of their god. I’ve seen it in my dealings with the Saxons. Our faith is like the World Tree itself: a broad embrace that welcomes all to its branches. Odin, Thor, Frey; spirits of tree and stone; fetches, elves and dwarfs –' here she smiled at Leif – ‘all find room in the boughs of our belief.’

  Then the queen frowned. ‘But the Christ-men’s faith is like a bright and righteous flame, and once we let it in, it will consume the tree, and all that shelter in it. The flame will not admit of any but itself.’

  Leif was impressed. Maybe he could make a poem out of the image …

  ‘So I am not ready to suppose,’ Thyre cut across his thoughts, ‘that Folkmar’s arrival, and these reported killings, are unconnected. The priest will seek to stamp out all traces of the old ways.’

  The queen turned to Leif. ‘You’ll be done for, for a start. There’s no room for pagan skalds in a Christian court. Those who refuse to convert will be killed, like these creatures are being killed already. The question is: how is he doing it?’

  ‘There’s a beast,’ said Astrid, and explained what they had learnt from the troll.

  ‘Yet we have no proof,’ Thyre mused. ‘Haralt and his party will support the priest; that much is clear. And as my son’s guest, I cannot simply throw him out. It would weaken our whole family in the eyes of the kingdom. Which makes it tempting to take stronger measures … but then again, were he to be killed, others would follow. Folkmar won’t be acting alone, Haralt’s right about that, and King Otto would send others after him. No; this must be done fairly, to show the Saxons they have no place in our lands. Which means we must have proof, if my husband is to be convinced of Folkmar’s real danger.’

  ‘I thought,’ said Astrid, ‘that we could go on a hunt for the beast. It can’t be far away.’

  Thyre’s eyes flashed like summer lightning. ‘Need I remind you, child, that you are forbidden from leaving Jelling?’

  ‘N-no, Mother,’ said
Astrid, looking at the ground.

  A hush descended on the grove. Bees thrummed through the blossom on a hawthorn bush. Somewhere above, the sleek brown shape of a pine marten skittered, and an alder leaf, sticky with sap, drifted slowly down to catch in Astrid’s hair.

  When next she looked up, her mother’s face had softened.

  ‘I just want to see you safe,’ said Thyre, very slowly, each word a stone let fall from her hand. ‘My family. My people. Don’t forget that the eastern half of the kingdom is mine by right, not your father’s. And I won’t –' her voice was rising despite herself – ‘I won’t see the old ways deserted, my people compelled to worship a god they’ve never known, and my husband lose all hope of entering Valhalla in the afterlife, all because one meddling, poxy pig of a Saxon convinces Gorm that Christ makes a better master than Odin.’

  At times like this, her mother reminded Astrid of a wild cat at bay. Terrifying. Dangerous. Beautiful.

  ‘So here’s what you do.’ Thyre had herself under control again. ‘I can trust you both, and you’re not stupid.’ She glanced doubtfully at her daughter, but let it stand. ‘That sets you apart from most here at Jelling. I want you to follow Folkmar. Spy on him. If you’ve any magic, little skald, now’s the time to use it. I need to know his plans, his link to this beast of yours …’

  She took a deep breath. ‘And I need to know just how far my son Haralt is getting himself mixed up in all this.’

  They nodded.

  ‘Not a word to anyone,’ said the queen. And then she vanished, back between the branches of the linden tree.

  They stared after her.

  ‘That’s my mother,’ said Astrid. ‘Amazing, isn’t she?’