The King's Hounds (The King's Hounds series Book 1)

by Martin Jensen

  Winston walked up to the door without hesitation and stopped politely when the three guards in mail shirts positioned themselves in his way. He looked at them questioningly.

  As I stood there in my shabby clothes with the highwayman’s sword at my waist, one of them gave me a look that conveyed just enough scorn to make me feel that I had been sized up and found wanting.

  A second housecarl, who wore a gold band around his arm that looked slightly heavier than those of his buddies, looked Winston up and down. Then in the guttural Danish spoken by men from the homeland—as opposed to the smoother Danish spoken in the Danelaw here in England—he asked, “What is your business here?”

  “I have been summoned by Ælfgifu, the Lady of Northampton.” Winston’s voice was polite and unafraid. That’s when I discovered that the man could keep a secret! He spoke Danish better than most Saxons. I stared at him wide-eyed, but his eyes stayed focused on the guard.

  “So?” The Viking guard didn’t move.

  “So if you would take me to her or let her know that I’m here,” Winston said, sounding somewhat less courteous. “I’m Winston the Illuminator, and this is my man, Halfdan.”

  The Northman looked at me blankly. “And you want to see the Lady of Northampton?”

  “Who summoned me.”

  “Summoned you?” The guard flashed his buddies a jocular look, which they responded to by grunting, which I suppose was their version of laughter.

  “Summoned me, yes. To perform a task.”

  “So our Danish king’s consort is summoning Saxons now?” The Viking spat between Winston’s feet. “Well, maybe that’s how the king wants things.”

  “And you have a problem with that, Ragnar?”

  None of us had noticed the man step into the doorway. He looked like he was the same age as me, but he was taller and broad shouldered, with a prominent, hooked nose and a narrow gold crown set on his dark blond hair. He was dressed in a leather tunic, with a blue doublet over it, and red trousers tucked into soft-leather ankle boots. A heavy sword hung from his gold-embroidered belt.

  As Winston bowed, he shot me a look, but he needn’t have worried. I wasn’t dumb enough not to bow before the man who had just conquered the country.

  However, the king paid no attention to the back of our bowed heads. He was instead glaring at his guard with a look that bordered on rage. The guard in question closed his gaping mouth and saluted by raising a hand to his chest.

  “Well, do you, Ragnar?” The king’s voice was quiet, but insistent.

  The guard shook his head.

  “Do you, Ragnar?” the king repeated, now in a voice that sliced through the air.

  “No, my lord.”

  “Good.” Cnut glanced at me and then at Winston. “You’re looking for the Lady of Northampton?”

  “She summoned me, my lord.”

  “So you said. To perform ‘a task’?”

  “She wants me to illustrate a manuscript.”

  “I see,” the king said. A hint of amusement flickered across his blue eyes. “With any specific illustration?”

  “With a portrait of my lord.”

  “Aha.” Now the king was smiling. “Ah, women. Yes well, unfortunately it will be difficult to—” He stopped midsentence and looked out into the square.

  We heard the guards cry out from somewhere behind us and instinctively turned to look.

  The housecarls in the middle of the square had lowered their spears to hold a man back. Though dressed like a nobleman and carrying a sword, he lacked a retinue. He looked somewhat older than Winston and appeared to be wealthy, but his clothes weren’t showy, apart from the blue cape over his shoulders, which was trimmed in expensive fur. The face beneath his graying hair was red, but I couldn’t tell whether from anger or exertion.

  “Not now, Osfrid,” the king ordered in a hard voice.

  “Not now, not yesterday, not last month, not tomorrow. Maybe never?” the man said. He could speak the language of the Danes, but there was no mistaking his Saxon accent.

  “When it suits me.” King Cnut nodded to the guards, who pushed the nobleman back with the tips of their spears. Though the man tried to force his way through, the housecarls dealt with him swiftly, spinning him around and nudging his coat-clad back out of the square.

  The king had already turned his attention back to Winston. “As I was saying, it will be difficult to take you to Lady Ælfgifu. She’s not here, you see.”

  “Oh …” Winston said, puzzled and disappointed. “She led me to believe that she would be.”

  “I decided otherwise.” The king obviously didn’t think his reason for this decision was any of our business. He turned, paused, and then turned back to us. “Have you traveled across the country?”

  Winston nodded. “I spent several months working at Ely Monastery. The lady’s message reached me there, and I’ve been walking for several weeks now to get here.”

  “And you?” the king asked me.

  I looked the king in the eyes. “I have been on the move a bit longer than that.”

  Cnut’s lips curled at the sound of my accent. “A nobleman?”

  “I was. Until my father was killed.”

  Cnut correctly surmised that my father had opposed him, and gave me such an uncomfortable stare that it was hard not to look away. “Your father fought against me,” he stated.

  He was quite astute! If my father had been on Cnut’s side, I would still be a nobleman.

  “And he paid the price.” I held my head high. I might have been face-to-face with my king, but I was still a free Dane, wasn’t I? Well, a half-Dane at least.

  The king was quiet. Then he nodded. “Did you fight against me?”

  I shook my head.

  “Good,” he said. “Hand over your sword and follow me, both of you.”

  Winston and I looked at each other in surprise but did as he commanded.

  A large fire was burning in the middle of the floor in the Hall. The walls were lined with bodyguards, and men were seated on benches between them. Judging from the men’s clothing, I surmised that they belonged to the uppermost echelons of the king’s entourage. There were several Christian clergymen, one of whom wore the white wool collar of an archbishop around his neck. He looked old, and I guessed it was Wulfstan of York himself.

  None of them looked up or paid any attention to us as we followed the king across the Hall to a wide, carved chair. After sitting down himself, he gestured for us to sit on two stools that two attendants scurried over with.

  “Now,” the king said once we were seated. “Tell me how you intend to draw me.”

  The king listened as Winston spoke at length of illustrations he had seen. The king nodded occasionally, as though he remembered having seen them at one time. Winston also spoke of his own work, describing scrolls, manuscripts, monasteries, and churches I had never heard of. The king watched him attentively all the while. He nodded once when Winston mentioned a picture he had painted in a manuscript ordered by Queen Emma while she was still the late Ethelred’s queen.

  When Winston was done speaking, the king asked him several questions. First about Winston’s work, then about his travels and the various monasteries and churches. Then about the abbots and bishops he had met, the towns he had lived in, and men he had met along the way.

  Each question was carefully crafted in such a way that it was easily answered but left room for an attentive listener to infer a great deal more than what was said. I could see in Winston’s face that he was fully aware of the king’s intentions, but apparently he didn’t mind.

  Finally the king asked Winston about his trip from Ely to Oxford. Winston recounted what had happened to him day by day, the roads he had traveled, and the people he had met. He reported how he had met me, and the king snorted in disdain at the account of how the two highwaymen had met their ends. Winston then went on to describe our experience in the hamlet the evening before, though I tried to stay his tongue with my eyes.
/>   When Winston had finished, the king turned and looked at me.

  “And what about you, Halfdan of Oakthorpe, scarer of Vikings?” His voice was firm, but I heard a touch of indulgence in it.

  “I have little to say. My father and my brother fell at Assandun, and my estate was taken from me.”

  “And you blame me for that?” Cnut’s eyes darkened.

  I shook my head. “No more than a horse, running around riderless after the battle, blames the Viking who grabs its reins. Soldiers fight, and they win or lose. My relatives lost.”

  “Hmm.” Cnut studied me for a long time. “But there is one person you hate.”

  I took a deep breath. “The dishonorable ealdorman who betrayed his own men and switched sides midbattle to fight for you.”

  “Him, yes. He is now rotting with London’s garbage,” Cnut stated.

  I nodded. “And yet my hatred for him lives on.”

  “Hate is wasted on a dead man. Grow up and learn to use your hatred instead of wasting it on the dead,” the king said, pausing to nod at a servant, who rushed over to offer us tankards of ale.

  The ale was better than any I had drunk in a long time. I emptied mine, but Winston took only a sip.

  “Have I given my lord what you wanted?” Winston asked.

  The king’s lips curled. “You have confirmed many things I already knew, and that’s a good thing. I may have need of you, so your trip here won’t have been in vain. And of you, as well,” he added, snapping his fingers at me.

  Just then a commotion erupted by the door. People were shouting in both Saxon and Danish, and we heard steel striking steel. A guard toppled backward through the doorway, and was followed by a screaming figure whose arms were spinning like mill wheels.

  The king showed no reaction, but housecarls rushed forward from all sides with their spears lowered. The interloper was soon standing in the center of a circle of spear tips, which, however, had no effect on the screaming.

  I looked at Winston, whose face shared my surprise at a woman bursting into the king’s Hall. Before either of us could open our mouths, however, the woman pointed an accusing finger at the king, unleashing a scream that reverberated through the Hall: “Damn you who call yourself king but are no more than a common murderer!”

  Judging from the woman’s Saxon accent and appearance, I guessed that she was a nobleman’s wife in her mid-thirties, but it was hard to tell, since her silhouette was dark, backlit against the bright doorway. The king nevertheless seemed to recognize her.

  “You’re not making any sense, Tonild. Go back to your husband and ask him to teach you how to behave.”

  “My husband! My husband?” Tonild screamed. “Whom you’ve had murdered and tossed like some dog in a common alleyway?”

  The king stood up so abruptly that he tipped his chair over. “What is this nonsense? I saw Osfrid healthy and alive just a short time ago.”

  “I suppose you’ve been sitting here surrounded by witnesses while you had one of your Danish dogs stab him,” the woman spat, frantic with despair.

  “Godskalk!” The king took a step forward and bellowed the name again. An opulently dressed housecarl rushed over. “What is this woman talking about?”

  “I don’t know, my lord, but I have men waiting outside.”

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  No one stopped us from following closely on Cnut’s heels—which we did both out of curiosity and because the king hadn’t finished talking to us yet. He hustled out the door with three housecarls in front of him and Godskalk at his side. Outside, three men were lying dead on the ground. Though the housecarls and Saxon soldiers alike were breathing heavily at each other, all their weapons were now lowered since the Saxons were clearly outnumbered and the presence of the king held the housecarls in check. Three housecarls escorted the woman out of the Hall and paused as the king brusquely ordered her to take him to her husband. “To his body,” he said, correcting himself. “Your men will stay here.”

  We walked across the square, down a narrow street, where people stepped well out of our way, and took a sharp right into an even narrower alley. The woman stopped before a small group of people clustered outside the open door of a shed. The king had his housecarls clear everyone out of the way so that he could step up to the doorway. Winston and I followed behind him unimpeded, and we all peered together into the shed. The man we had seen earlier lay on a white-scoured floor, his unseeing eyes staring straight up into the air and blood congealing on his stomach. A faint scent of horse manure emanated from the room.

  The king whistled as he inhaled deeply, and then he turned to the gawkers behind us. “Did anyone see anything?”

  The people backed away in horror, not wanting to get involved in such a serious matter. People might have a certain natural curiosity about a killing, but one that had drawn an obviously irate king to the scene of the crime was beyond dangerous.

  I watched in amazement as Winston walked into the shed, sniffing. Then he bent down over the body and slowly inhaled through his nose.

  The king noticed him as well. “Just what in the name of all the saints do you think you’re doing?”

  Winston looked calmly at Cnut. “It might be easier to find this man’s killer than one might think.”

  “What do you mean?” The king stared at him, not understanding.

  “I’m almost certain he wasn’t killed here. I think he was killed somewhere else and then dragged to the shed. A murderer who strikes in a back alley may do so unseen. Someone who carries his victim around afterward will have a harder time.”

  Cnut shook his head. “Explain yourself, man.”

  Winston looked over the king’s head at the woman, who had finally fallen silent. “I’m sorry for your loss, my lady. I wonder if you could tell me, did Osfrid visit the stables often?”

  “The stables?” Tonild looked at Winston as though he were a raving lunatic. “My husband was a thane. He had men for that.”

  The king shot an irritated look at Winston. “I said explain yourself.”

  Winston ignored Cnut and looked at me. “Did you notice Osfrid’s cape earlier when he was leaving the square?”

  “It was blue.”

  “And dirty?”

  I shook my head, because it hadn’t been dirty. It had looked fairly opulent, actually.

  “And yet this place stinks of horse shit.” Winston looked at the king. “If I’m right, my lord, the cape beneath the body is smeared with horse manure. And if that’s the case, he was killed somewhere other than here.”

  At a nod from Cnut, Godskalk walked over and took hold of the dead man. With some effort, he turned the corpse over, and we all stared at his cape. It was indeed caked with blood and horse manure.

  The king inhaled, whistling again, and looked at Winston. “I see that you can think. I have a job for you.” Cnut glanced at me. “For both of you. Follow me.”

  Chapter 7

  The king’s back was straight as a spear shaft, his footsteps heavy, and the back of his neck flushed with anger as we followed him back to the Hall. Alert housecarls marched on all sides of us. Godskalk, his eyes vigilant and his hand on the hilt of his sword, walked on the king’s left.

  When we reached the front door of the Hall, Cnut strode through, his footsteps reverberating through the floorboards. A guard stepped up to challenge Winston and me, but one look from Godskalk stopped him, and we were able to follow the king inside. The king settled back into his chair, which seemed to serve as a sort of simple throne, his long legs stretched out before him and his face looking up at the smoke-blackened rafters.

  The men sitting on the benches had stopped speaking the moment the king entered. Once Cnut was seated, two of them stood and approached him. One was the man I thought must be Archbishop Wulfstan of York, the king’s main adviser, and the other was a tall Viking with a chiseled jaw and iron-gray hair. The Viking wore gray breeches but, unlike the king, his tunic was largely covered by a thin, finely worked ri
ng-mail byrnie. Hanging from his sturdy, silver-laden belt was a heavy sword, whose hilt was adorned with elaborately intertwined dragons curling down the blade, clearly the hallmark of a talented blacksmith.

  Though Cnut glared at the two men, they looked him calmly in the eye. When the king spoke, he confirmed the clergyman’s identity.

  “You’re right, Wulfstan,” Cnut began. “Without laws, my land will be squandered and drowned in blood. Odin himself is sending us discord where I wish to create peace.”

  The archbishop’s face remained impassive, despite Cnut’s flagrant reference to the pagan god. Wulfstan undoubtedly remembered, as we all did, that Cnut had been baptized only a few years before. Wulfstan surely understood that even true Christian aspirants were still in the habit of ascribing power to the old gods.

  “Thorkell—did you order Osfrid killed?” the king asked, looking from Wulfstan to the Viking.

  Ah, so this was Thorkell the Tall. I was curious to see this man who may have cinched Cnut’s victory by agreeing to fight at his side. If anyone was responsible for the conquest of my country, it was this man.

  “No,” Thorkell said in the deep and booming voice of a man who was used to making himself heard over the din of battle and winds of the North Sea.

  “You heard Jarl Thorkell,” the king said, looking back at Winston. “And what I said earlier. Neither I nor my men ordered this killing.”

  Winston didn’t respond. His eyes had taken on a contemplative look.

  “And now that you know this,” the king continued, “you can begin the task I am about to assign you.”

  “I am an illuminator,” Winston said matter-of-factly.

  Cnut nodded. “Who came here to serve at the behest of my Lady Ælfgifu,” he began. “But the lady is not available at the moment. Would you prefer for your trip to have been in vain, or would you like to take on the job I’m offering you—not only to gain your king’s favor but also to earn some money? What was the lady going to pay you to paint me?”