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

by Martin Jensen

  “Just so long as we know where we stand with each other,” he said. His footsteps indicated that he was heading toward the door.

  I leaned over the table, caught Winston’s eye, and whispered, “That’s him.”

  “Him?” Winston stared at me blankly.

  “The Dane that Ulfrid and Torold met with.”

  “Nonsense,” Winston said, shaking his head dismissively. “You just told me you couldn’t remember what he looked like. It’s as dark as a dog’s behind in here and now you tell me that’s him?”

  “I don’t need my eyes to recognize his voice,” I hissed.

  “His voice? Are you sure?” Winston asked, suddenly sounding excited.

  I nodded.

  “Follow him. I’m coming,” Winston ordered, getting up so suddenly he tipped his stool over. When the girl came rushing over at the sound, Winston tossed her a couple of coins and followed me out the door.

  I squinted in the sunlight, peered up and down the street, and held up my hand in irritation at Winston, who was standing a little too close, breathing down my neck, asking whether I saw him.

  To the left there was nothing. A ways down the narrow street a couple of beefy-looking women were immersed in gossip, but the street was otherwise empty.

  To the right was one man walking away. He didn’t appear to be in any hurry, and it seemed safe to assume that he hadn’t recognized my face in the dark tavern.

  I tried to recall what that Danish nobleman had been wearing the day before, but I really had no idea. The man walking down the street was wearing leather breeches, neatly stitched shoes, and a bright red jerkin—I couldn’t see his tunic or sweater from where I stood. A sword hung at his side.

  It had to be him. So I set off after him. He was looking straight ahead and walked like he knew where he was going. I came up behind him just as he walked past a kitchen garden that was fenced in with man-height twigs. There was an opening in the fence about ten paces ahead of us and just as we reached it, I sped up and shoved him with my shoulder so that he tumbled into the garden. I followed him in and stuck out my foot, tripping him as he struggled to regain his balance. He fell to the ground.

  I dropped down to straddle his chest, grabbed his sword and had it drawn before he had a chance to catch his breath, which my knee had knocked out of him, and tickled his neck with his own sword blade.

  “Not so fast,” I told him. “We have some unfinished business to discuss.”

  He grumbled angrily at me and tried to stand up, but was stopped by the steel blade at his throat.

  “We don’t know each other,” he said.

  I could tell he was lying and turned to Winston, who had just stepped through the hole in the fence.

  “It’s him,” I confirmed.

  “Good,” Winston said, looking around. There was no one else in the garden aside from us. Perfectly straight rows of onions, leeks, and cabbages filled the garden, and a wooden bench sat under an elder bush in the far corner.

  “Let’s put him over there,” Winston instructed.

  The sword got the Dane moving, and he sat down on the bench, glaring at me. I smiled back at him. After all, I had two swords, and he had none.

  “Now,” Winston said amiably. “We have a few questions for you.”

  Chapter 33

  This Danish nobleman was rather hostile toward us, an attitude that did not appear to be due exclusively to my hard-handed way of getting him to talk. Sitting there on the bench, he fumed indignantly. His thick eyebrows had knitted together, forming a deep groove between them, and his eyes darted continually from Winston to my sword hand, back to Winston and across my face back to the sword, which I held steadily in my right hand.

  I stood still, making sure to keep a foot’s distance between the blade and my prey so that I could throw my weight into my sword arm and skewer him if I had to. Winston was still gasping from running to catch up and didn’t say anything as he waited to catch his breath.

  The Dane looked older than I was, but not as old as Winston. His hair was tinged with gray, his chin pointy, and his lips narrow. I guessed that his eyes would ordinarily have been blue—if they hadn’t been darkened with impotence and rage, as they were now.

  I perked up my ears, listening for any sounds in the street on the other side of the fence, but all was quiet. No one else had been in the street when I shoved him into the garden, and I couldn’t detect any voices or footsteps out there now.

  The elder bush we found ourselves under was quite a ways from the entrance and tucked away in the far corner of the garden. Unless someone actually stepped into the garden itself, no one would spot us from the street. I hoped that the garden’s owner would stay away for a while.

  “Your name?” Winston asked, breathing calmly once again.

  No response.

  Winston sighed ever so faintly.

  “I’m Winston, and my companion here is Halfdan.”

  Silence.

  “We’re here on behalf of the king. We are acting in his name,” Winston continued.

  An angry look.

  Harding once told me that it’s difficult to tell the difference between a scared man and an angry man. And yet it can be done: Threats will get a scared man’s tongue moving, but will cause an angry man’s to freeze up.

  I didn’t move; I simply held the sword calmly so that the blade glinted against his chest. I did, however, lower my voice a bit. Being too loud is a sign of weakness, Harding had taught me.

  “Perhaps you would rather speak to the king’s housecarls?” I asked him.

  He hadn’t moved, but a drop of sweat glistened on his neck.

  “Or maybe to the king himself? I’m sure he would be very interested to hear about a conspiracy against him,” I pointed out.

  “Rubbish,” the Dane replied, his voice rasping dryly. His neck was now covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

  “Rubbish?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “You don’t think the king should be interested in plots and conspiracies against him?”

  Strange. I hadn’t thought about my brother in days, and now I was reminded of him for the third time in quick succession. I remembered him saying: “Once a scared man opens his mouth, he can rarely stop himself from talking.”

  “I am not part of any plot against the king,” the Dane said, clearly making an effort to keep his voice calm.

  “You’re not? Well in that case you owe us an explanation for why you met with two Saxon noblemen in secret yesterday.” I spoke so softly that he had to lean forward to hear me, and I smiled to myself when his chest almost touched the tip of the sword.

  “We didn’t meet in secret,” the Dane said, also speaking softly. Then he cleared his throat and continued more loudly: “It wasn’t a secret at all.”

  “Oh?” I asked, my voice laced with skepticism. “Then why did you try to have me killed?”

  He did not respond, which was not to my liking, so I leaned forward, and, still holding the sword in my right hand at the ready, I grabbed his shoulder with my left and shook him. “I said, why?”

  “I … I didn’t try to have you killed,” he said, his lie sticking in his throat.

  “You didn’t? I heard you yell to your partner that he should kill me,” I pointed out.

  The Dane shook his head. His mouth twitched and then he looked me in the eye.

  “I heard a racket out in the street and when I came running out I saw you two fighting,” the Dane responded. “I assumed you’d attacked him, and my guard was entitled to defend himself. That’s why I told him to kill you.”

  He was lying. I was convinced he was lying.

  Winston stepped in: “I asked you your name.”

  “Sven.”

  “Could you be any more specific, Sven?” I growled. Winston poked me in the side with his finger to rein me in.

  “I’m the son of Toke,” the Dane said.

  “And you’re a soldier in Cnut’s army?” Winston started asking questions in rapid successio
n in case I hadn’t understood his signal to stop talking.

  The Dane nodded.

  “What was your business with Saxon noblemen like Ulfrid and Torold?” Winston asked.

  At that, Sven clammed up, causing Winston to lean forward slightly, menacingly.

  “My partner asked if you’d rather talk to the king’s housecarls. Would you?” Winston inquired.

  “I … I’ve won a lot of plunder. My brother back home got the land and the farm, but now I can buy my own. Those Saxon brothers were selling a large estate,” Sven said.

  I gave Winston a look that proved to be unnecessary. He did have a brain after all.

  “And you had to meet in secret about that?” Winston asked.

  Earlier, Sven had denied that the meeting was secret, but it seemed that he’d had a chance to think about what it must look like when three men hold a meeting in a ramshackle shed. In most cases, it suggested a desire to avoid prying eyes.

  “There are Saxons who do not look kindly on their fellow countrymen selling off their land and property to Danes,” Sven admitted.

  So he had had time to think. That lie was so believable it could even be true.

  “And the man who tried to kill my companion. Who is he?” Winston asked.

  Sven wet his lips with the tip of his tongue.

  “I … I didn’t know him,” he said.

  “You’re full of lies!” I bellowed so loudly that Sven jumped. Then I continued in a more subdued tone: “I overheard you talking about what happened the day before yesterday. About the attack on me. You said someone hadn’t understood an order. So, tell me the truth.”

  My left fist struck him right on the breastbone, and he flinched from the pain. He looked as though he were going to deny it again, but then reconsidered.

  “Ulfrid and Torold were the ones talking about that. It seems that you had had some kind of run-in with a Viking who recognized you and wanted revenge,” Sven said.

  This time I hit him just above his right eye, so hard that his head jerked back, and my hand stung.

  “You’re lying!” I said.

  “No,” he said, his hands coming up into a defensive posture. “It’s true. I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

  “But Ulfrid and Torold did?” Winston asked. He elbowed me in the side as he asked this question. I got the message and bit my tongue.

  “I don’t know why you were attacked,” Sven said.

  “You are going to have to make up your mind now,” Winston said angrily. “Who sicced that Viking on my companion yesterday? Did he attack because he wanted revenge, or were the Saxons pulling the strings?”

  Sven sighed and looked around for a way out, but realized that we had him cornered like hounds on a fox. He licked his lips again.

  “It was both. Ulfrid and Torold hired the Viking to keep an eye on you,” he said, nodding at me. “But he was the one who decided to kill you when he saw his chance.”

  “And where do you come in?” Winston asked.

  Sven mulled over Winston’s question, then shrugged.

  “Ulfrid and Torold wanted the person following your buddy there to be a Viking. I happened to know a few Vikings who were up for anything as long as they were paid,” Sven said.

  “So you put them in touch with each other?” Winston said, but continued before Sven had a chance to respond: “Ulfrid and Torold didn’t want to hire Saxons to keep an eye on my companion here, because they wanted to cover their tracks? A Viking would be harder to trace back to them?”

  Sven nodded.

  “So why did you meet with Ulfrid and Torold yesterday?” Winston asked.

  “They refused to pay since they didn’t want anything to do with an attack. They had wanted someone to keep an eye on a man, not kill him,” Sven explained.

  “So you brought the Viking to the meeting?” Winston asked.

  Sven nodded again. “I didn’t trust them.”

  With good reason, probably. Only one question remained, and I asked it: “Why would anyone need to keep an eye on me?”

  Sven’s face went blank.

  “I have no idea,” he said. “I don’t ask questions like that.”

  That sounded about right. Men like him aren’t interested in anything other than being paid. And they know that some things are better left unknown.

  We let Sven go. He was brazen enough to ask for his sword back, but left when I told him I’d stick it behind the elder when I left.

  “And,” I continued, “if I see you in the street out there when I come out, or if I ever run into you with your weapon drawn, you’d better be ready to use it.”

  “He’s full of lies,” I said.

  “Of course,” Winston said, nodding. “There’s a plot. Why else would threatening to call in the housecarls work?”

  I’d had the same thought. No one would bat an eye at a Dane who had hooked some noblemen up with a few warriors willing to do their dirty work for them. That’s what men do. It’s either self-defense, as when I killed the Viking, or they’re avenging a relative. I couldn’t imagine housecarls caring one way or the other about that sort of thing. However, they would not look very kindly on a plot against the king. Surely Cnut wouldn’t either.

  “Earlier you said the king could work out the details for himself. Isn’t that our job?” I asked.

  Winston shook his head.

  “We’re just supposed to solve the murder,” he reminded me.

  “But shouldn’t we at least tell the king about the plot against him?” I asked.

  “Cnut’s not dumb. He may not be aware of it, but he knows this kind of thing is going on. And he may want to remain ignorant of the details,” Winston said.

  I didn’t understand.

  Winston explained: “It doesn’t matter in the least if a couple of Saxon noblemen and a handful of Danes come up with some plot against Cnut. They don’t have the power to back it up. And if people find out about it, Cnut will just call in his axmen again to wipe out the plotters. But that isn’t what the king needs right now. He needs all the nobility to get along tomorrow. And even if Cnut can’t make them do that, he needs to make the meeting appear harmonious.

  “If we present him with information about a plot, he will be forced to take action and kill the conspirators, which will sow discord instead of unity. So, let’s solve the murder and hope that whatever evidence of a plot we find isn’t clear enough that we’ll be forced to report it to the king. Believe me, he won’t thank us if we have to do that.”

  “Now what?” I asked

  Winston got up off the bench where we’d been sitting since Sven had left.

  “Now it’s about time we go catch up with those Saxon brothers-in-law,” Winston said.

  Chapter 34

  Of course the guards at the lodging house refused to let us in. Were we the only ones they were so enthusiastic about keeping out? They flatly rejected Winston’s assertion that he was there on the king’s business.

  “Then I would like to ask that you pass on a message to two noblemen in there, Ulfrid and Torold, sons of Beorthold,” Winston said with an angry glint in his eyes, though he managed to keep his voice calm.

  The leader of the guards, a broad-chested soldier with the thick braid of a West Saxon hanging down his back, spat into the dirt and stated that he was not an errand boy, he was a guard, a comment that caused Winston to walk all the way up to him, stare him right in his scarred face, and, through clenched teeth, declare that he’d better listen up. The soldier blinked in surprise at Winston’s cold fury.

  “Now, please decide if you’re going to do what I asked,” Winston said, his voice like ice. “Do it, or prepare to take the matter up with a division of housecarls. Because I swear to you on the Resurrected One Himself”—this was the first time I’d heard him swear to any god—“that I am authorized to summon as many housecarls as it takes to crush you and your colleagues.”

  The guard stared wide-eyed at my partner, whose whole body radiated a c
ool rage far more frightening than the noisy swearing typical of soldiers.

  “And,” Winston continued, “perhaps you’d like to give some thought to what excuse you will give to everyone inside when their front door is battered down by the Viking warriors who constitute the king’s elite housecarls, Vikings that your stupidity will have brought down upon them.”

  “Well fine. I suppose we all pick our battles,” the guard said, puffing out his chest in an attempt to preserve some dignity. “What is your message?”

  He kept us waiting. When the guard finally returned, he gruffly informed us that he had passed the requested message on to the two Saxon noblemen: “Meet with Winston and Halfdan, King Cnut’s investigators, so that they can decide which of you is a murderer.”

  While we were waiting for the guard to return, I contemplated how Winston, who had so recently rejected the notion that Osfrid’s brothers-in-law could be murderers, could suddenly be so sure that they were.

  I asked Winston, of course, as soon as the door closed behind the soldier’s braid, and he responded with only a smug smile. It was only when I angrily pointed out to him that his words might result in two sword-swinging noblemen storming out at us—and since I presumed he didn’t want to face them on his own, I would darn well like to know why I should single-handedly defend us—that he nodded and pulled me out of earshot of the other guards.

  “One of them killed Osfrid,” Winston said quietly. “Although the murderer could certainly have been anyone involved in the plot, one of these two dealt the fatal blow. And whichever one it was, he did it with relish, for a reason that I now grasp, and which you, too, ought to be able to see.”

  That was all I could get out of him and, though I twisted my brain in knots trying to figure it out, I didn’t get any closer to the answer.

  When the door finally opened, it wasn’t the guard but a short Saxon nobleman who stepped out. A faint smile played on his lips as he walked over to us.

  “Winston the Illuminator and Halfdan. …” He hesitated.