* * *
Bolesław left that same day. Not entirely alone, of course, but with a dozen members of his squad, and Zarad, Bjornar, and Duszan. Father kept Jaksa with him, wanting his experience of Połabie, forgetting once more not to call him a “Redarian wolf,” but it didn’t seem to bother Jaksa anymore. Bolesław went to Poznań first, where he learned that Karolda had given birth to a son.
“My firstborn!” he shouted, running from the stables to the palatium.
“Be careful, witches can have children, too,” Zarad whispered to him.
Bolesław didn’t listen. His heart beat as hard as a hammer. His first independent journey, first chance to be a leader without his father watching his every move. And his first son!
He swept into Karolda’s rooms like a summer storm. He found her with her hair tousled and her nightdress creased. Though it was the height of summer, she was crouched by the fire.
“My lady…” He stood in the doorway. “Are you unwell?”
She looked at him absently. One of her maids, or rather Oda’s maid, there to help Karolda, spoke up quickly:
“But the child is well, my lord. We’re making sure that your wife feeds him.”
“Where is he?” he asked, looking around the chamber.
The servant pointed at a cradle. He ran to it. Inside, on clean white sheets, lay a boy. He was asleep. He was small, his ribs clearly visible through his skin. He had dark fluff covering his head. Bolesław touched him.
“You can pick him up, my lord,” the maid whispered.
He didn’t know how. The child seemed so small and fragile, weighing less than a quiver of arrows. He picked it up and laid it across his shoulder.
“Is he healthy?” he asked the servant.
“Yes, my lord. Healthy. Your wife … well, she isn’t feeling her best, but the child is healthy.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“I … I can’t say, my lord. It would be best to speak with Duchess Oda.”
Bolesław laid the child back in the cradle. He didn’t wake, but Bolesław could see the tiny chest rising and falling. He went to approach his wife, but Karolda hissed and waved a hand to scratch him.
“Karolda? Do you recognize me?”
She watched him distrustfully. Then, suddenly, she threw herself at him, grabbing his hand and sniffing it.
“It’s me, Bolesław,” he said quietly.
She pushed his hand away and covered her face with her arms.
“She can sit like that for hours,” the servant said condescendingly. “When we give her the child to feed, she sniffs him first, too.”
Bolesław knelt by her and brought his face close to hers, whispering:
“Karolda, my girl, my brave, Magyar warrior. Can you hear me?”
She cocked her head, and her hair, stuck in long dark tangles, fell onto her face. He could see her watching him.
“Wife, Duchess,” he said, talking gently, as if to a child. “We’ll ride horses together yet. You, our boy, and I.”
She covered her ears with her hands. He rose and felt as if a great weight had settled on his shoulders.
“Look after my son,” he said hollowly to the servants, and left.
He went straight to Oda. Could he trust her? The duchess had enough reasons to spite him, but from what he could see, no harm was being done to his son. He called Bjornar and Zarad. He needed Zarad, his oldest friend, beside him more than anyone right now.
“Come with me, but don’t say a word,” he ordered.
Oda was in the common room with her two sons. Father John was reading psalms to them. He stopped when they entered.
“My lady,” the prince said, bowing respectfully to her.
“Bolesław.” She looked at him carefully and nodded. “So, you’ve been to see Karolda and your son?”
“What is this?”
“Your wife’s birth was violent and difficult. Karolda was behaving as if she didn’t know what was happening, as if she didn’t know she was pregnant and about to give birth. Your royal child. In the last few days beforehand, she wanted to go riding somewhere. She couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t let her mount a horse. My most experienced midwives were with her. You know that they brought my two sons into this world, your half brothers, Mieszko and Świętopełk. These women know what they’re doing. Karolda wouldn’t let them do what they could to ease the birth. She tossed and turned, tried to break free, biting at them…”
She does the same in bed, he thought. What if I mistook insanity for passion?
“The most important thing is that your son is healthy. As for Karolda? I don’t know.” Oda spread her arms. “I’m afraid she might refuse to feed him in this state. She does it reluctantly enough as it is.”
“Find my son a wet nurse, Duchess,” he said firmly. “And take Karolda out of the child’s room. Let the servants take care of her. Look after her, feed her, wash her, do her hair. Bring our son to her once a day so that she may remember she has one. If you decide her condition is improving, let her hold him, but only with servants present. Father John, Zarad, Bjornar, I take you as my witnesses that I have asked Duchess Oda to take care of my wife and son until my return. And that I’m immeasurably grateful to her for having looked over them as she has until now.”
He went to see his son one more time before departing. Karolda was no longer in the chamber. A wet nurse held the baby. A dark-haired girl who reminded him of Jaga and the Midsummer they’d spent among the trees. Bolesław shook the thought from his head and waited until the child had finished feeding, then reached for him.
“Duszan,” Bolesław called, then handed him his son. “You aren’t coming with me. You’re staying with him.”
The child lifted his eyelids and looked up at his father with dark, wet eyes—his mother’s eyes.
* * *
Bjornar and Zarad didn’t mention “the witch” again. They fell silent, as if no bad word had ever been spoken of her. They didn’t ask about his son either, probably trying to avoid evoking painful thoughts of the mother. Bolesław let himself think of Karolda, think of their time together and the happiness he had felt, only until they reached Silesia.
Bolesław had summoned one hundred armed soldiers from Głogów, and ordered another hundred to join him from Wrocław and Opole. A hundred came with him from Giecz. He had as many men with him as Mieszko had taken to Połabie. The locals brought scouts. They crossed the river in three places simultaneously and set out to defeat the Czechs.
14
DENMARK
Sven knew it worked in his favor that the widow empress had tied up her Saxon troops in Połabie; that war gave him time to fight his own battle against his father, for control of the Danish throne. But he also knew he had to hurry. The Reich lords tended to fight only in summer. Autumn rains turned roads into mud and swamps, making them impassable for heavy warhorses and carts. The thought of fighting on land had repulsed him since he’d been a child. Water was his element, his ship was his steed whose sharp beak could squeeze into the estuary of any bay or river. He loved the punch of the wind in a square sail, the leap with which the drakkar began its journey. The roar of the waves in his ears when the wind snatched at his long red hair.
Over a year ago, before the Jomsvikings had even set out against Jarl Haakon in Norway, Sven had come to Jomsborg to bid Palnatoki goodbye. He’d stood in the harbor as the greatest of Jom’s leaders had sailed to Valhalla to the sound of a black horn. Sven had hoped to shoot the burning arrow which would light the pyre on Palnatoki’s boat himself, but the Jomsvikings wouldn’t allow it.
“Jomsviking laws,” they said curtly. “Even kings and their sons don’t stand above them.” And the four house chieftains shot the arrows instead. The Zealand brothers, Thorkel and Sigvald, along with Vagn and Bue. Bue, who left the land of the living barely a month later; he’d died fighting Haakon, and what had it all been for?
Perhaps his father, Harald Bluetooth, had been a berserker in the past, a warrior who tur
ned into an animal, a warrior who felt no pain and ripped apart anyone or anything standing in his way, but since his father had allowed Otto to baptize him, he had been a shell of himself. A single blue tooth was all he had left of his painted canines, that he’d scarred and inked blue to seem even more frightening to his enemies. That’s what they had called him; “Bluetooth.” But only behind Bluetooth’s back, from afar, preferably from another island and against the wind. People were afraid of him, and Sven couldn’t understand what caused this fear.
No one, not even Sven, could say a bad word about Harald Bluetooth in Jomsborg without the Jomsvikings reaching for their weapons. Not even him, the strong young son.
The Jomsvikings were still chewing over their recent defeat, and if mulling over defeats could fill one’s belly, they would undoubtedly have been sated. First, Jarl Haakon in Norway had dispersed the Jomsvikings led by Sigvald, then the Swedish king Eric had destroyed his nephew Styrbjorn’s troops in the decisive battle on Fyrisvellir’s fields. Out of all those who had accompanied Styrbjorn, only one in twenty Jomsvikings had returned home.
And, though King Harald Bluetooth was the one to push the iron boys into every one of these conflicts, making him directly responsible for the losses they had suffered, they still didn’t dare curse him, led by a loyalty Sven couldn’t comprehend.
Palnatoki had been right in saying he should only have come to Jom the day after his father’s death, and not before. Let the gods make that day come swiftly.
Yes, he had bid Palnatoki goodbye over a year ago. Palnatoki, his teacher, the one he considered his real father deep in his heart. Afterward, Sven sailed out of the Viking stronghold knowing he wouldn’t return until he’d torn the life out of that son of a bitch Harald’s breast.
* * *
The old king hid himself in Roskilde. He surrounded himself with lookouts, a cordon of armed men who didn’t sleep, guarding the Bluetoothed Bull. Sven bided his time in Jutland, in the south of Denmark, at the beautiful manor in Jelling.
This is where our family is from, he told himself over mead every night. We are the Skjoldungs of Jelling.
His grandfather’s home had been uninhabited for years, but it hadn’t lost any of its grandeur. It was guarded by two cairns. Huge hills poured over the funeral pyres of Gorm and his wife Tyra. Beyond that were two runestones. Gorm had placed the first one there for his wife. The second one … this was the one which made Sven’s blood boil in anger. Harald had etched his name into it, so the world would remember he’d been the one to baptize Denmark. As if that was a thing to boast of. And he had built the church, too. A small wooden doghouse in which no mass had been said in years, but still it was guarded by royal men, as if it hid God-knows-what kinds of treasures. Sven had been there more than once. A cross plated with silver, a couple of tin chalices, some books—nothing more. What was there to guard? The sight of the great bell tower irked him daily, standing boldly against the horizon, until he realized it might very well be an opportunity for him. Sven went to the church once more, and the soldiers let him pass after he set his weapons down outside. No one searched him. When he emerged, he went straight to Karli the Dwarf and made his request.
Then, he invited the chieftains for Yule. The ones who had fought for Hedeby alongside him, and the ones he knew were dissatisfied with Harald’s rule. He even invited his half sister Tyra, named after their grandmother, Gorm’s wife. Their relationship had never been strong, but in a play for the throne it was wise to have all the board pieces within reach. Sven spared no expense in his preparations. The manor in Jelling was restored to its full splendor. The benches in the main hall were covered with fresh reindeer skins. The servants scrubbed the soot from the shields hanging along the walls, and polished the weapons that decorated the hall. The squeaks of strangled geese, the roars of butchered rams and pigs, and the clank of mead barrels rolled across the ground resounded in the yard for days.
Sven gave equal care to his own appearance. Little Siggi washed his long red hair. Kalle trimmed his beard. He donned a woolen tunic the shade of blood, and a cloak trimmed with white fur from an arctic wolf. Red and white was a good start. Silver bracelets adorned his wrists, and Mjolnir, the god Thor’s holy hammer, The One Which Crushes, hung around his neck. It hadn’t been forged by ancient dwarves, as the old songs described, but by Karli the Dwarf, the blacksmith from Jelling. Karli also studded the belt Sven buckled around his waist before his guests arrived, and he covered Sven’s gloves with iron plates.
As he greeted his guests, his betrothed stood beside him. Mojmira, the daughter of an Obotrite chieftain, who his grandfather Mściwój had ordered him to marry for more support against the Empress Theophanu’s armies. It was a wise decision; Sven’s own mother had been an Obotrite, after all, and a continued alliance with the Obotrites would secure Denmark’s southern border. Forging ties with the empire’s enemies was a necessity. But though Mojmira was here and Sven had paid her dowry, he hadn’t officially made her his wife. News of Mściwój’s failing health—the old man seemed to have finally succumbed to the pressures that leadership had placed upon him—held him back. Sven kept Mojmira as his intended, but was not yet certain if she would be the one he tied his fate to. Nevertheless, she was well cared for in his home.
When the chieftains had arrived and taken their seats in the hall, Sven greeted them all, celebrating the presence of each one of them with a toast. He toasted his half sister, Tyra, Harald Bluetooth’s daughter, who could rally around her those who did not approve of Sven’s open disdain for Christianity. He toasted Jarl Stenkil from Hobro, who controlled much of the land north of Jelling. Uddorm from Viborg, the land rat who shouldn’t be underestimated, because, thanks to his fertility, half of Jutland was related to him. Ragnfrid, known as Ragn of the Islands, because he had over a hundred stony strait islets, and though many of them were little more than rocks shat on by seagulls, each could become a port and hiding place during a sea war. Ragn, then, was welcomed with special affection. Jarl Haakon of Funen, Gunar of Limfiord, and his neighbor Thorgils of Jelling he greeted with a double toast, because they had fought alongside him against the Saxons in Hedeby. He knew none of his guests had truly accepted the new faith. The only one he couldn’t be sure of was Tyra, his sister. There were too many years between them.
Sven fed them and quenched their thirst during the first day. He did the same on the second, and added in his gifts. He had planned carefully, plotting the surest way to gain each guest’s support for when he challenged his father. The time of Harald Bluetooth and Christianity in Denmark was nearing its end, Sven would see to that.
On the third day of the Yule, a hailstorm hit the roof of Jelling’s manor.
“Hail is the coldest grain,” Sven shouted, raising a toast, his horn full with an endless supply of mead. He drank a long, sweet gulp, and passed the horn along.
“Voice carries over ice,” Thorgils of Jelling said, passing it to Gunar.
“Reindeer run across hard snow,” the lord of Limfiord passed it to Haakon of Funen.
“The hawk’s grip is strong,” Haakon called out.
“The naked freeze on ice.” Ragn drank gloomily and passed the horn to Uddorm.
“Loki’s luck is deceptive,” the land rat announced.
“Gold is an expensive decoration,” Stenkil of Hobro recited.
The horn reached his sister, sitting beside him.
“If you light a fire, expect the smoke to char you,” she said, and drank a sip from the horn.
He listened to her sentiment warily, but thanked her for the toast with a smile.
“Since my sister has evoked fire, I invite you all to the burning.”
“Logs have been burning in the yard since our arrival,” Uddorm protested sleepily, his desire to remain seated clear in his voice.
“Logs burn through an ordinary Yule, Uddorm of Viborg,” Sven said. “But I have invited my guests to an extraordinary one. Come, the mead will accompany us. Servants!” He clapped hi
s hands, and attendants already dressed in cloaks displayed the jugs they hid beneath the fabric. “Come.”
He led them onto the flat square in front of the church. His squad had killed the guards of Christ’s church before the feast had begun, and their bodies were nowhere to be seen. Dry straw surrounded the small block of a church. His servants poured mead into his guests’ horns. They made another toast, and Sven started the fire.
“Let’s bring back the time of the Skjoldungs of Jelling. An end to the foreign faith. And end to the cold, dead god my father raised houses for. A new time is coming…”
“Sven’s time!” Haakon of Funen poured his mead into the flames, sending up sparks.
“The undefeated leader!” Gunar of Limfiord shouted.
“Sven, under whose rule we will fight and conquer!” Thorgils drank and poured out the rest, feeding the flames.
Tyra’s voice pierced the air then. “Brother, you are a sight! Your red hair, the flames! It’s as if Thor himself stands before us!”
Sven swept back his cloak and walked to her.
“This terrifies you, sister? Thor was a victor. Don’t be afraid.”
But she was clutching her head, shielding her face from him, twisting in all directions.
“You have Mjolnir on your breast, iron-clad gloves, a triple belt.”
Sven laughed loudly.
“The cross which had been left in this miserable tabernacle was forged by the blacksmith into The One Which Crushes, Thor’s hammer. The iron bars which guarded the hideouts of the chalices were remade to decorate my gloves. And the leather binding of the book is now the belt on my hips. Look, Tyra. The church burns to celebrate the old gods. There is nothing to be afraid of.”
Laughter rang out from the crowd, and Gunar called out:
“Mead! To Sven, the god of our war.”
Tyra shook her head, still hidden in tightly enclosed arms, and turned away from the church, never once looking over her shoulder as she vanished between the trees.
The Widow Queen Page 17