“It isn’t good to be among the iron boys alone,” Jorun muttered, placing a hand on his sword discreetly.
“It isn’t good for a king to beg for help during a battle,” Sven replied, then turned and walked from the ship as if he felt no fear.
A smiling Jarl Sigvald was walking toward their dock.
“Welcome to Jomsborg, new king of Denmark. We have been waiting for you with dinner, my lord, and for your companions. Come with me to the house of chiefs.”
None of the other chiefs Sven knew accompanied Sigvald. Not Geivar, or Thorkel the Tall. The feeling of unease stayed with Sven. Boys waited in the entrance hall to take their weapons. Sigvald gave up his sword and knife first, the smile never leaving his face.
“Our meal has arrived today from the best of Wolin’s inns. Smoked geese, boar legs baked with plums, marinated herring. And what else? Ah, eels. My wife, Astrid, personally oversaw the cooking. We don’t usually have the honor of hosting a king. The last one…” Sigvald smiled apologetically. “That’s rather a bad comparison. The last one died in our care, but that was expected by you, wasn’t it, Sven?”
At the host’s invitation, Sven sat down at the long table laiden with food. Sven recalled that there were no servants in Jom. A jug of mead stood by every place setting, and the guests served themselves.
“Thank you for the meal,” Sven said as they began to eat. “I appreciate the show of welcome, but I didn’t come here as a guest. Eric’s fleet has sailed into Danish waters and even now may be fighting my men. I cannot linger.”
“I am aware, King.” Sigvald handed Sven a dish. “I have sent my scouts after them under Geivar’s command.”
“And?” Sven swallowed a piece of roasted meat. He wasn’t hungry; he ate only out of politeness.
“They are following the movements of the massive Swedish fleet. Or, if you prefer, the fleet of the one known as the Massive Swede.” He could only be referring to King Eric, the great bald beast of a man, and the light tone with which the Jomsviking spoke of Denmark’s enemy did nothing to settle Sven’s uneasiness.
“You promised me fifty war drakkars, Jarl,” he said, having had enough of the wordplay. He wanted to fight his enemies, not jest behind their backs.
“They are waiting in port, King.” Sigvald smiled. “Armed and ready. Did you not see them?”
“Their place is on the open waters. Let us sail before it’s too late.”
“It’s never too late. Wine? Arabian merchants came to Wolin with cargo in the shape of molten gold. Try some, my lord.”
“Jarl Sigvald, my patience is limited.”
“I promised fifty ships, and I have them,” the Jomsviking leader reassured him, lifting his glass. “The health of the king!”
Sven drank. The wine seemed strangely acrid.
“Where is your brother, Thorkel the Tall?” he asked the jarl. Sven knew Thorkel, and trusted him far more than he did Sigvald.
“He’s not in Jom. We had a commission,” Sigvald replied evasively. “As you know, King, the iron boys aren’t ones to boast of what they do. They simply get it done. I can say only that Thorkel’s mission has nothing to do with your business here. Oh, if you must know! He’s sailed to England. Does that reassure you, King?” Sigvald had neither lowered his goblet nor taken a drink from it.
“I had assumed he would fight on my behalf,” Sven said. “Where are the other house chiefs?”
“Geivar, as I already mentioned, is watching Eric’s movements. There are no others. I command the full stronghold.”
“Have you not named new chieftains of the other houses? Two are free, last I heard.”
“There is no need. More wine?” The host reached for the jug.
Sven shook his head.
“No, thank you, that’s enough. The feast is over. Let’s go.” Sven rose from the table, followed by Jorun and the rest of his crew.
“Forgive me, King, but I am lord here.” Sigvald’s smile disappeared.
“You forget that you speak to a king, Jarl,” Jorun said quietly, anger clear in his voice.
“Jomsborg recognizes no kings. Harald was the first, and the last. He died in the Sacred Site,” Sigvald replied, looking up at them from the bench, his goblet in hand.
The jarl was still sitting, though Sven was on his feet. The message was clear.
“Is that a threat?” Jorun asked on Sven’s behalf.
“No. A fact,” Sigvald answered.
Sven knew that if it came to a fight, they would lose. His twelve men against all of Jom? Besides, he hadn’t come here to fight, but for aid in a war. It took all his self-control to answer Sigvald calmly. The emotions coursing through him could only worsen their position.
“Forgive me if I offended your dignity, Jarl. I am a warrior king, not a smooth-tongued courtier. You know why we’re here, and surely you can understand our impatience. Please, give me the fifty drakkars as promised, I need to lead them out of Jom at once.”
Sigvald looked at him with a look of surprise that Sven might have sworn was a true one, if not for the feeling of mistrust Sven felt at his core.
“You misunderstood, King,” the jarl said, looking the king in his eyes. “I promised fifty longboats, and I keep my word. But there was no talk of you commanding them. The Jomsvikings will not sail under anyone else’s orders. I will lead them, and you will be my guest in Jom until the war is over.”
Sven’s crew began to mutter behind him. Jorun reached for his knife; only when he touched an empty belt did he check himself. Sven, simmering now, felt a laugh escape his lips. He was nearly hysterical. How could this be happening?
“A guest or a hostage?” he asked. “Whose side are you on, Sigvald?”
It was the jarl’s turn to bark a laugh.
“That is up to you, my lord, whether you’ll feel like a guest or hostage in Jom. I give you the house of chiefs for the duration of your stay. And my men, as your royal guard. You will want for nothing, they will give you whatever you ask. Apart from women, considering our laws. And if you ask whose side I’m on, I’ll draw your attention to who my wife is; I have no intention of angering her, or her family. And now, forgive me, my lord, but the drakkars await.”
With that, Sigvald turned and left the hall. When the doors slammed closed, Sven collapsed onto the bench. Jorun poured him wine; it tasted even more acrid than during the meal.
“There are new loyalties in Jomsborg,” Jorun observed gloomily. “Mieszko’s sons-in-law have made fools of us. Eric and Sigvald.”
Sven recalled now that it was in this very hall that Palnatoki, the most beloved of the old Jomsvikings and the man Sven had trusted like a father, had told him of the Piast duke’s daughters.
“And who’s the third?” he asked. “Who did Geira marry?”
20
POLAND
Mieszko had many reasons to celebrate, but the pain in his lower back caused him to push back the feast again, and again. A feast for which guests had already arrived. But he was unable to drag himself out of bed.
Oda came into the room almost soundlessly. He watched her for a moment from beneath half-open eyelids. She placed a jug of fresh mead and a bouquet of flowers on the table; she laid out a new towel and threw the old one into the washing basket. She walked to the perch his hawk was sleeping on and reached out a hand. It pecked her gently.
“Do you feed it, wife?”
The duchess flinched at his voice. “You’re awake, my king? No, I don’t feed it, how could you think that, my lord?” She approached the bed and studied him with care. “Are you still in pain?”
“It’s passing,” he lied. “I’ll rest, then we can invite the guests.”
She smiled, a look of relief on her face.
“Astrid has arrived, with a few men from Wolin,” she said, stroking his unshaven cheek.
“Astrid? Tell her to come to me, I want to speak to my daughter.”
“Before the feast?” A flash of displeasure crossed Oda’s face. She hid
it quickly, adding: “As you wish, husband,” leaning down to kiss his forehead.
That’s how you kiss an old man, he snorted to himself, watching her go.
“My lord.” Astrid appeared moments later.
He could see at once that she brought good news. He tried to raise himself into a sitting position. He hissed in pain. Astrid knelt by the bed and helped him prop himself up.
“What’s wrong, my lord?” she asked, her eyebrows drawn together with concern.
“They say that old age doesn’t hurt.” He forced a smile. “So this is probably something else.”
“Will you let me examine you?”
“What else do you want from me? Isn’t it enough that Oda is putting some monastic creams on me, which take away pain as quickly as they steal my clarity of thought…”
Astrid was watching him so intently that he burst out laughing.
“Everything’s all right with my head, daughter.”
“I never thought otherwise, but I know there are herbs which ease pain at the price of reason.”
“You were going to stop with herbs,” he protested sharply. “That’s good for forest women, but not for a duke’s daughter. It didn’t help your mother, either.”
“You never talk about her,” she said quietly, shyly.
“But the older I get, the more frequently I think of her,” Mieszko said, his voice unexpectedly light. “Give me the mead.”
She rose to fill his goblet.
“Dalwin also had me bring you some Italian wine.”
“Good, we can have it during the feast. There is much to celebrate, daughter.” He took a gulp of mead and asked her to pour some for herself. “Let’s drink to my greatest success. I’m a fisherman who has cast his net and the bait. And Empress Theophanu has taken it and helped me catch a beautiful, fat fish.”
“Father.” Astrid’s eyes betrayed her unease. “I don’t understand.”
He laughed.
“You’re not the only one. I think that not even Theophanu knows how it was that with her blessing and the help of Saxon soldiers, who she so loyally sent to me, I took Upper Silesia, Lesser Poland with Kraków, and now Bolesław has almost finished adding Moravia to our lands.”
He lifted his goblet and took a sip.
He could drink to that for weeks. A victory on the battlefield was always dizzying. The heart beats so loudly it drowns out the shouts. Senses of sight and hearing are sharpened, the body shivers as though one were finishing inside a woman. But it was nothing compared to a diplomatic triumph.
The Ottonian empire: Theophanu and her entourage. The arrogant Saxon lords, who never tired of showing him he was lesser, a barbarian they must tolerate in their bright marble palatiums. They were surprised that, while they focused on their small wars, he, without asking anyone’s advice, much less permission, had accepted God’s word and baptism in running water, of his own free will.
They didn’t look to the east, as if the civilized world ended at the Oder, and the band of thick dark forests indicated only wild men living beyond. They didn’t see him for a long time; and one day, an Arabian merchant enlightened them to the existence of Mieszko, the ruler of lands between the Vistula and Oder rivers. The lord and leader of three thousand well-equipped heavy-armed soldiers, and ten thousand light-armed cavalrymen. The duke whose men even the Saxons had to admit were a force to be reckoned with. And now, after years of warring and maneuvering, he had proven to both them and himself that he was not only a master of the battlefield, but also of courtly intrigues.
He drank the goblet’s contents. Time passed so quickly. Thirty years of ruling had gone by as if it had been merely a week. His father’s death, and the torch he used to light the funeral pyre. And his brothers’ deaths, Czcibor’s and Dobronieg’s. His hawk had still been a chick then. It was funny, but he’d had an eagle chick first, and decided he wouldn’t let it die, he’d tame it and teach it to hunt. But his eagle … what had happened to it? And why not an eagle but a hawk? Oh, yes. Czcibor had said that an eagle cannot be tamed. No, it hadn’t been Czcibor. Someone else. Or when Dobrawa had come to Poznań. Her procession seemed endless, and she …
“The feast that Duchess Oda mentioned is to celebrate the victories in Silesia and Moravia?” Astrid smiled at him with her mother’s eyes. She’d been a remarkable woman … but what was her name?… and when had it been?…
“Pour me some more, child.” He offered her the goblet. “What are you asking about?” His daughter’s face was beginning to swim before his eyes, as if streaks of rain were smudging her image.
“About the feast, my lord.”
No, it wasn’t rain that smudged her face. It was the mead …
“Damn it!” He threw the goblet down onto the floor.
Astrid leapt up.
“What is it, Father?”
“Did you drink this mead?”
“No.” She shook her head and sniffed at the contents of her goblet. “But … you’re right, there’s something wrong with it. Maybe it fermented for too long?”
“Help me get up,” he decided.
Astrid offered him an arm. She was surprisingly strong, this quiet daughter of his. She pulled him up, and though he hissed in pain, once he was upright she didn’t let him fall back onto the bed. He was embarrassed about his weakness in front of his daughter, but even more humilated at his ignorance; that he had drunk and drunk of the mead, not realizing it was to blame for his mixed-up thoughts. Astrid led him to a basin of water in the corner of the chamber.
“Pour some over my head,” he ordered. “Quickly.”
Astrid did as he asked, and poured out most of a full jug. The cold water covered his face, and streamed down his chest and back and along his spine.
“You’re good at this,” he told her.
“I’ve helped my husband more than once.” She laughed. “The sound of the horn carries well over water. The Jomsvikings have often blown it, calling their chief, when Sigvald was finishing his dinner with me in Wolin and many drinks in.”
“Another jug,” he asked. “Just over my head.”
After she had poured another, Mieszko shook himself. Cool needles stung him even under closed eyelids. A stream flowed from his beard.
“I didn’t drink much,” he said, when she wiped his face. “Only what I had since you came in.”
“Don’t worry, my lord. It’s badly fermented mead, nothing more.” She smiled kindly at him.
She only calls me Father on special occasions, he realized. And he answered the question she had asked him earlier.
“Yes, a feast to celebrate the great victories. Lesser Poland, Silesia, Slovakia, and Moravia. There is much to be happy about. And now, tell me what you’ve come with, because I can see in your eyes you have news that cannot wait.”
“The Danish forces have been vanquished. Eric’s army reached as far as Hedeby, and took control of the port. Sven’s chiefs scattered and disappeared without trace. Sven himself is my husband’s hostage in Jomsborg.”
For a moment, Mieszko wondered whether his mind was playing tricks on him. No, he was sober. But he wanted to hear it again.
“Say that again, Astrid,” he asked her.
“Yes. Yes, Father,” she said, using the most initimate title before she could stop herself. He had seemed so vulnerable only a moment ago, so unlike the fearsome duke she’d known for most of her life. “Sven is a hostage in Jomsborg. Eric and the Swedes have scattered Sven’s armies and taken Hedeby from the Danes. You were right, then, you know…” She was flustered again. Neither of them liked to recall that conversation. “Do you remember what you said? ‘Even if Sven inherits an expansive Denmark, he will end up in a country as small as a fishing village.’ Father, you were right. You gave each of your children a task, and we have all fulfilled them.”
Mieszko no longer felt the pain in his lower back. He pushed himself from the bench and grabbed Astrid’s face between his hands. He kissed her forehead. She flinched in surprise.
“Where are my sons-in-law now?”
“Eric is celebrating in Hedeby. He is collecting the payment owed to a victor. Olav is keeping an eye on Eric. Sigvald is guarding Sven in Jom.”
He threw back his head and began to laugh wholeheartedly.
“And your brother Bolesław is occupying Moravia. They say that a man should have many sons, but I say that there can never be enough daughters. Women multiply happiness, while sons-in-law are the strength of their father-in-law, and I don’t need to worry about how to divide my lands between them because they themselves are adding to my victories. Astrid, you will sit on my right during the feast.”
“But Duchess Oda—” she began.
“Damn Oda, her creams, her medicines, and everything else. You chased the pain away. When will you give me a grandson?” he asked, his joy making him blunt. In that moment, nothing in the world seemed more special to him than be able to watch his family and his country grow as one.
“I don’t know,” she said and added, meeting his eyes, “‘Jarl of Jomsvikings’ isn’t a hereditary title. And, if we’re being honest, Sigvald wouldn’t make a good father. And perhaps I shouldn’t be a mother. I’m sorry, my lord.”
“You’re talking to your father,” he answered gently. This woman before him was a special one, a daughter he had often neglected. Her mother before her had been special, too. Her smile, her power, her visions of the future that she’d helped him make a reality …
“I’m sorry, Father,” Astrid said.
“I won’t deny the sense in what you say, if we are being honest,” Mieszko said, smiling sadly and easing himself down to the bed again. He grabbed her hand. “But I want you to know how much I want Geira to give birth to a healthy child.”
“You want to spread heirs, Father.” Astrid understood the duke—her father—well. “A grandson on the Swedish throne, a grandson on the Norwegian throne … if you had another daughter, you’d marry her to Sven, wouldn’t you?”
So clever, he thought, but he neither denied nor confirmed her words. Instead, he asked a father’s favor:
The Widow Queen Page 24