by Oskar Jensen
FIFTEEN
Astrid had worked out Folkmar’s weakness, and it had not been hard: food. He would rip, with cracked and yellow teeth, into a side of spring lamb, or veal, or demolish a whole brood of duckling at one sitting. The juices would run down his bristling series of chins, and then he would leer, and burp, and talk and talk and talk.
‘Christ, a weakling? The Christ who was driving the moneylenders from the temple? You want power – my God is destroying whole cities when he is feeling so inclined. You never heard of Sodom? Of Gomorrah? Of the ten plagues of Egypt? Of the Great Flood …?’ And he would tell them, relishing each gory detail like a gobbet of flesh, and Astrid’s appetite, once boundless, shrivelled away to nothing.
Once, with great cunning, she asked if there were any Bible tales about dragons, but his answer – though there was definitely a beast in it – was so confusing, all about ‘revelations’ and sounding more like a vision of Ragnarok, that Astrid was left none the wiser.
She found she was welcome now at the high table, waved over by Haralt to sit between him and Folkmar, as the priest spoke to King Gorm of the benefits of the Christian faith. The only trouble was avoiding Knut. Her elder brother refused to join them, but sat at the lower benches, and was quick to call her over to him and Thorbjorn as they ate.
She had never felt so wanted in her life; it made the horror of mealtimes in the dark, crowding hall a whole lot easier to bear. This was worst when, as now, she had to sit next to Folkmar. They were hip to hip – or rather, her hip was disappearing into the folds of his side.
Sometimes, presumably by accident, Folkmar’s hand ended up on her thigh, and she had to poke it with her knife. Ugh.
Gorm fumbled for his drinking horn, and took a long, slow draught. ‘What I want to know is: would all my subjects have to convert as well? And follow just this Christ alone?’
‘Oh yes,’ smiled Folkmar. ‘It would be a wicked king indeed who is not saving all his people’s souls also. Pagans are not being tolerated.’
‘Pagans?’ piped up Astrid.
‘Pagans,’ explained Folkmar, ‘are like the lost sheep. They is needing – ahem – bringing back to the fold.’
‘Black sheep?’ she asked.
Haralt shot her a warning glance.
This was the point, she knew, that got Leif and her mother really cross. Everyone, they said, had to be free to choose. So she looked up at her father, expecting an angry reply. But Gorm was nodding, deep in thought.
‘I’ve always said we need a better way to keep the jarls in hand,’ he said.
Folkmar beamed, and sunk his face into a whole roast suckling pig. A little blood spattered onto Astrid’s hand. She pretended to ignore it.
‘… So of course I see it would be a disaster if Gorm turned his back on the old gods,’ she said to Leif.
They were sprawled on sweet-smelling straw bales in the stable where she now slept. It was dark, cool, private. The change of room had been, all things considered, an improvement.
‘But all the same,’ she continued, ‘this Christ himself doesn’t sound so bad. The way Folkmar puts it, he seems to be a great warrior.’
She paused. ‘Though there was this time he sent a plague of frogs. Frankly, I think he lost his touch a bit there.’
Leif shot her a strange look. ‘War, wrath, sin. Yes – that’s Folkmar’s god all right. But back at Hedeby, I knew Christians. And there, they spoke of peace, and love, and how to live a humble life and help others.’
‘Well, that doesn’t sound too bad either,’ she said, and looked at him. ‘If rather on the boring side. You never told me you were friends with any Christ-folk.’
‘My grandmother and they were on bad terms. But one – a woman – talked to me a lot. Johanna Svensdottir, that was her name; she was the first to really hear my gift for words, and said that one day I’d go far. She was a good person, and nothing like this Folkmar … But it’s him that’s here, not her.’
Astrid was silent. She had not yet chosen which god to follow above all others.
Leif went on. ‘And we’re not finding out enough like this. His plans – the beast – and why he’s come at all; you saw the way that he looked at the stones. We’ll have to watch when he thinks we’re not there.’
‘How?’
‘Could we not ask your friend Nisse to spy?’
‘No,’ said Astrid at once. Little Nisse had moved to the stables too, and they could hear him scrabbling around above their heads. Clearly the spirit couldn’t stand being near Folkmar. Well, she could understand that all right.
‘I won’t offend him by asking him to do something he’d hate,’ she whispered, to avoid Nisse hearing. ‘Besides, I think it’s sweet he’s come out here with me instead of joining his friends above the great hall. I can’t send him away when he’s chosen to stay. You’ll have to think of something else.’
‘In that case, it’s time I tried some magic.’
It had never worked before, the old shaman’s trick his grandmother had tried to teach him. But then, Leif told himself, he had never sought to work it so close to the Yelling Stones. Everything was so much more powerful here.
He lay under a cloak, in his place on the earthen bench that ran the length of the hall. He closed his mind to the world – bustling thralls, droning flies, dusty light – and concentrated on dark, fear, hunger and the press of small spaces.
Leif found himself remembering the hovel he had shared for most of his life with his Finn grandmother. It smelt of age, and sweat, and wild garlic, and he had sat in a damp corner coughing smoke and cauldron fumes.
That was the world he had always tried to escape – first through his mind, and then at last, for good.
But right now, he had to send himself back there. To imagine himself small, lonely and scared, tucked into a sheltering corner. His nose twitched.
A cat padded past, tail brushing the cloak. And Leif – lost in the trance – quivered with fright.
‘Your king, he is jeopardised – his enemies accumulate around him now, he has not the escape!’
‘It may be as you say, bishop, for there are few here to defend him. Perhaps it is time to strike?’
A single spindle of light shone into Astrid’s old chamber, where Folkmar and Haralt sat closeted together. In the corners, where dust spooled, a mouse pricked up its ears. Deft-stepped, it scurried to the safety of the bed, darting up its headboard, to overlook the pair.
‘It is good advice you are giving me, Highness. If I move now, he is surrounded on three sides and his doom is near!’
Raised on its haunches, the mouse peered through the gloom. The vast priest and the tall prince were hunched about a table, poring over …
A game of hnefatafl! Leif – that is, the mouse – groaned with disappointment. Maybe there was no plot after all?
Then he ducked, as a walrus-ivory piece half his size came flying past his head. Haralt had brought his fist down on the playing board, scattering the pieces.
‘Priest, I tire of this game, of all this talk of kingship! Nothing you have said changes the fact that Knut stands to inherit the throne, not me. And what price then your Christian Kingdom of Denmark?’
‘But, sire, Our Lord tells us that patience is a virtue.’
‘Patience! Is that why you spend half your nights sat outside, just staring at those old stones? To be virtuous?’
‘Prince, you are mocking me. You know the strength of the Yelling Stones as well as any.’
‘Old skalds’ tales!’ said Haralt. ‘My father rules this land through a clever marriage and force of arms, not because of some magic rocks.’
‘So, you do not believe Jelling is a place of power?’
‘Of course it is.’ Haralt almost spat. ‘It lies on the Ox Road, halfway along the length of the realm. It’s close enough to Vejle Fjord to reach the sea and islands quickly, but not so close to need defending from raiders. For a strong ruler, it’s perfect. Now, if only you were to drain the marshes �
��’
Folkmar waved a fat hand dismissively. ‘No, no. You tease me still. I mean real power, the power that is coming from untold centuries of belief and worship.’
‘Come now, bishop. Surely, this sort of superstition is the first thing to be stamped out, if we get our way and convert the kingdom?’
‘Stamped out? Oh yes, just as you say!’ Folkmar’s piggy eyes were shining. ‘But idols must be being crushed –' he squeezed his fist – ‘because they are powerful. Nothing is to challenge Our Lord’s supremacy.’
‘That’s all very well,’ said Haralt. ‘But what about challenging my accursed brother’s supremacy, eh? The man’s a mountain, and what’s more, his men are the best, most loyal fighters this side of Miklagard.’
‘Certainly, Knut holds Jelling in his fist as a bear cradles an apple. But what if he were to depart from here?’
‘Bah! Knut won’t go a-viking, not with Father near his deathbed. He’ll want to be here at the end.’
‘But what I am saying is, were we to make it impossible for him to stay …’
Haralt grinned then, the blue dye in his teeth slashing his smile open horribly. He leant close to Folkmar, brow furrowed, and the mouse leant nearer too, and –
‘Leif! Leif!’ And Astrid was tugging at him where he lay on the bench, and he left the mouse, and the plotters in the dark, and never had his own body felt so heavy and hard. He tried to rise, to force his eyelids fully open, but he was too slow. And dimly he saw that as she turned from him Astrid was crying, the hot tears crumpling her beautiful face.
SIXTEEN
Why wouldn’t Leif wake up? Astrid tugged at his tunic. She needed him.
Haralt was striding out of her old room, shouting at her to be quiet. She lost her head and ran in past him, slamming the door and flinging herself down on what used to be her bed. Ragged sobs escaped her as she heaved, and trembled, and seethed.
She bit her arm. Time passed. Slowly, she realised she wasn’t alone.
‘You know, princess, that is my bed now …’ Astrid sat up, startled. For the first time she could make out Folkmar, sitting across from her in a massive chair.
His scent was everywhere – heavy, sweet, not half so repellent as she had expected. He must wear musk, or oils, like Muslims were said to.
Folkmar chuckled. ‘I must say though, the bed fits you better! Me, my feet stick out, and my arms flop – thus.’ He lolled hugely in his chair, looking so truly ridiculous that she couldn’t help but giggle.
He scraped the chair closer. ‘That is more like it,’ he said. ‘You should not be crying, when God gives you such a face.’
Astrid paused. Her heart was still racing, but now, more in anger than terror. She needed a way to fight back, but more than that, she needed to know her own mind: to be more than a piece in other people’s games. In men’s games.
‘Folkmar,’ she said. ‘What does your Christ have to say about women?’
The huge man pursed his lips, scratched his pate.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘is quite a lot. You know two of his most important followers were being women, for beginnings.’
‘Just tell me one thing: can women marry for themselves? Here, a married woman may leave her man and keep her own wealth, but first we’re bargained for, like – like cattle.’ Her voice was bitter with emotion.
Folkmar rose, breathing hard with the effort. His glistening face grew animated. ‘Now, Astrid, you are talking of a question being very near to my heart: marriage.’
He reached out with a trembling hand towards her face. ‘Is anyone ever telling you, how beautiful you are being?’
‘Oh, by Njord’s fair feet, what is it with you men?!’ Astrid sprang up fast as a falcon, and ran from the room.
Leif found her in the herb garden, walled from the wind. Astrid lay among rows of rosemary, picking at the scurvy grass that grew in clumps along the rocky border. She was face down, nose buried in the turf.
‘Astrid?’
‘Oh, it’s you,’ she spoke into the soil. ‘Enjoyed your nap?’
‘I wasn’t asleep!’ he protested, stung. ‘I was being a mouse.’
At that, she looked up. Grass and mud clung to her red, wet face. ‘A mouse?’
‘I went into a trance to spy on your brother and Folkmar. They do have a plan. But you turned up before I found it out. Which reminds me. Why have you been crying?’
‘I wasn’t crying!’
He waited.
‘All right, I was. Leif, look at me a moment. What do you see?’
‘Mostly, dirt. And rage. And – a trick question?’
She sighed. ‘Well, at least you admit that I’ve got a mind of my own.’
‘Please, Astrid, tell me why you’re so upset.’
She gestured at a patch of ground beside her. He sat. She gave him a leaf of scurvy-grass. He nibbled it.
‘It’s very peppery,’ he offered.
She almost smiled. ‘This morning, Knut sent for me,’ she began. ‘He wanted me to take a message …’
That morning, Astrid had been put at work in the yard, preparing overwintered leeks for a stew.
Thunder-faced, Knut appeared, and shouted to his sister. ‘Astrid, take Hestur and ride over to Hellir. I’ve a message for Thorbjorn.’
‘To Hellir? But I’m not allowed …’
He waved her objections aside. ‘Tell Thorbjorn not to bring the men up to Jelling today. They’re to stay put, and I’ll join them for dinner. If he asks my reasons, tell him this: that the early summer heat prickles many men’s nerves, and Hellir is cooler than Jelling when tempers run hot.’
Astrid nodded – a ride was more fun than cooking – and made to leave.
‘Oh, and, Astrid,’ he called after her. ‘If Thorbjorn asks for anything else – anything, mind – be sure to let him have it.’
It was all very strange, but she saddled up eagerly enough. Knut must be trying to avoid a fight breaking out between his men and Haralt’s. As for his last words – well, who cared? It was sunny and she was free. She might as well enjoy the moment.
Hellir lay just east of Jelling, and was where Knut’s berserks lived when not at Gorm’s hall. Astrid had hardly ever been there, though it was so close. The place was out of bounds to all women and children … and in any case, she remembered, gasping, you smelt Hellir before you saw it. Hestur bridled as the stench of sweat, blood and worse things flooded their nostrils.
Alighting a safe distance from the camp, Astrid tethered Hestur to a branch. She knew too well the fate of horses left unattended within Hellir. Mustering her courage, she strode down the single dusty street. ‘Thorbjorn!’ she yelled.
The place seemed deserted. On either side ran squalid huts, roofed with turf, more like forest caves than proper houses. Not a door was open. Feeling very small, Astrid went up to one and knocked.
No reply.
She tried the handle; it didn’t budge. It felt as if a heavy object was wedged against the door from inside.
Now she thought about it, the whole place had the air of a camp under siege. And it was nearly noon – even warriors couldn’t be sleeping in this late …
A wheelbarrow, overturned, split apart. A battleaxe abandoned in the dust.
Smoke rising from a burnt-out hut, a pine tree toppled to lie in solitary ruin amid the embers, like a spear resting in the ribcage of the roof.
Just what had been going on here?
Too late, Astrid had the answer. And she began to run, to run for her life, as a shadow fell across the path, and behind her, she heard the beat of heavy wings.
It was here; the beast was here, now, coming closer. A single door lay ahead of her at the street’s end, and Astrid hurtled towards it, slamming her body against the cankered oak planks.
The planks held firm. The sound of wings grew louder. She could have wept.
‘Open up!’ she panted, breathless. ‘Please!’ She beat at the lock with her fist.
The wings were silent. In the sudden
hush, Astrid dared to hope. Had it gone?
And then she heard the lazy tread of heavy feet, coming down the street towards her.
Think, she told herself. A lock: it must be Thorbjorn’s door, the best hut in Hellir. It was the lock that kept her out, nothing more.
If Leif were here, he would talk to it, ask it to open. She couldn’t do that. Could she?
Astrid opened her mouth, but found no words. The footsteps were nearer now.
No words – but a tune that rose unsought to her lips; that danced upon her tongue.
From behind her came a fierce heat, a harsh smell, a dryness. The beast was moments away.
And Astrid sang: a nervous, queer little melody – a rising scale with a quiver at the end. The sound of a secret almost told. She was searching for one final note to end the tune, to form the key …
And she had it! With a click and a creak, the lock turned, and the door swung.
A metallic rasping from behind her and a rushing of air, but she was through through through, and slamming the door behind her.
An inhuman shriek of fury from outside shook the hut. Frozen, Astrid listened, as the beast paced about, footfalls heavy in the dust. At last she heard the whump and whirr, as once more its wings churned the air, and then it faded, and faded, and the beast was gone.
She wouldn’t cry. Not yet. She still had a message to deliver.
‘Thorbjorn?’ she said.
The darkness in the hut was near total. It stank worse than outside, but there was a new note in the stench – honey, sickly sweet. Astrid peered into the black.
The smell came from young mushrooms, growing through the floor, bulbous pale heads thrusting up from fat white stems. She bent closer. Death caps, she decided, and shrunk away from the fleshy growths.
‘Who’s there?’ The growl came from the depths of the hut.
‘It’s me. Astrid.’ She crept further in. Something hard cracked under her foot. Bone? It flashed whitely as it rolled aside, into the gloom. She bit her lip.
‘Stay back,’ said the voice, thick and brown. ‘It isn’t safe.’