Suddenly Ringast laughed, a long, ringing echo filled with mirth. ‘Gods, you old fool – of course we are! We’re stubborn because we are your sons.’
‘Baah! You defy me,’ Harald croaked, baring his daggered tooth. ‘But you hear this. Odin has demanded of me a sacred storm. And I swear to you, he shall have it.’
‘Maybe,’ Ringast replied, his voice steady now. ‘Maybe... If the peace is broken. But I swear to you, I will not be the first to break it—’
‘Then you are no son to me.’
‘Hear me out... If they breach first then I will ride.’ Lilla, her heart still thumping hard at her ribcage, opened her mouth to protest but felt Ringast squeeze her hand to silence. ‘Another month. These men can stay one more month.’
‘But we’ll starve come winter,’ she whispered.
‘We will find a way. And meanwhile we shall know once and for all whether Sviggar means to betray his oath and do us ill.’
‘How?’ demanded Harald.
‘The Sveärs’ Summer Throng assembles soon. Is that not so?’
‘It is,’ said Lilla.
‘If your father would play us false—’
‘He never would.’
‘I said if – he cannot break the peace without his earls’ levies. For them, he must make his plans known to one and all. We shall send someone to Uppsala to hear him. Someone who will pass unnoticed.’
‘I will go,’ said a smooth voice. They all turned. Young Rorik was standing in his seat.
‘You?’ barked Harald with contempt. ‘Why are you so eager all of a sudden? Is there some stable-boy you left behind whose arse you long to kiss?’
Lilla felt a pang of pity for the younger brother. His cheeks were burning.
‘Leave him be,’ said Ringast.
Harald scoffed and turned away in disgust.
‘Very well,’ Ringast nodded at Rorik. ‘If you wish to prove yourself, then let this be your chance. We’ll see to it that they will not recognize you. A disguise, then! That’s to your taste, is it not, Father? So it’s agreed. And if Rorik returns with so much as a whisper of Sveär treachery then – believe me, Father – I’ll be first to cry loose the wolves of war.’
‘And if not?’ the Wartooth growled.
‘If not... Then we must find you some other glorious death to die.’
He sank back down into his chair, his hand slipping easily into Lilla’s. She felt the reassuring strength in his fingers and her heart began to beat a little slower. Because she knew, while her father lived, there would be no treachery.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Bodvar’s long strides echoed down the length of the gloomy corridor. He seldom came to this part of the Great Hall, but today the king would see him in his private chamber.
Bodvar didn’t care where he saw him. He was more interested in finding a decent breakfast afterwards. The ride had put him in a foul mood. Three days in seven he’d been on horseback, to and from his hall in Vestmanland. And once the Summer Throng was over, he’d have to make the ride again. His arse wasn’t made for this.
At least things should be more settled now this feud was at an end. Provided it was at an end. Oaths had been sworn, but he had his doubts whether his sword would sleep for long.
It rarely had.
Still, his kin had come through it all relatively unscathed. He’d lost a nephew, a couple of cousins. But nothing that burned in his heart like the un-lanced boil that had been Huldir’s undoing.
Thank the gods for daughters.
Meanwhile, there was plenty to worry about at home. The harvest would be on them soon. He’d have to organize the cutting teams since the bond-families on his estates spent more time bickering than actually planning things through. Then there was a dispute about Karr’s broken harness, and his wife still nagging about the rotten beam in the north corner of the hall.
It would all have to wait until after the Summer Throng.
He groaned, thinking of the endless greetings, of headmen and thanes and small lords posturing like stags, of the same tired old exchanges. At least they would hear tidings from around the realm. He was eager to learn how the spring trapping had gone up in Botten. If his yields were good this year, he could trade his surplus for furs and skins. He reckoned that a good way of keeping his wealth – growing it, even. A bale of fox skins could buy a pair of thralls in the southern market harbours like Riba. Up north, it was worth only one.
But it was the formalities he dreaded most: Vithar droning his way through the Sveär law, and then the endless disputes. Most years he hardly knew why they bothered arguing the case. Judgement always went with the man most able to persuade the freemen to support his cause. And ‘able’ usually meant silver or the like. This year none of the disputes were interesting. Unpaid dowries; nephews and uncles fighting over land; a couple of angry fathers over kisses (and more) stolen from their daughters. No blood feuds. At least that meant the assembly wasn’t likely to get ugly. The law decreeing all weapons to be left out of the meeting circle had never been much of a guarantee that there would be no bloodshed.
Then there were the king’s announcements, his plans for the year, and of course, his naming young Erlan as Earl of Nairka. With Huldir’s sons all dead or outlawed, who was left to begrudge Erlan the title? Though Bodvar did wonder how he would cope running the Nairka estates. He chuckled. Erlan would soon discover that some problems couldn’t be solved by wielding his pretty sword.
Bodvar was nearing the king’s private chamber when he stopped. A sudden lick of putrid air rankled his nostrils. He covered his mouth, just as a short-shanked thrall hurried out of the chamber with a basin and a hunted look.
Bodvar went inside.
His eye went at once to the wasted figure lying in the vast bed. Only Sviggar’s hands and face were visible above the black fur coverlet. They were grey as stone, his long beard laid out between his hands like an ancient cobweb. Beneath closed eyelids, his eyes darted restlessly. The reek of corruption was overwhelming. Bodvar clenched his throat, holding down his revulsion. He noticed a dribble of yellow fluid leaking from Sviggar’s ear. The veins in his neck had swelled to ugly black tendrils snaking into his beard. Still more horrible was the sound of his breathing, scraping, scraping, in and out.
Only then did he notice the queen seated beside the bed clutching a dampened cloth. She looked up.
‘Welcome, Lord Bodvar.’ Her smile was plaintive. ‘You’ve come directly from Vestmanland?’
‘Aye, my lady. I would have come sooner – had I but known... But the king, is he—’
‘In good hands. Although his breathing is very weak.’ She paused, and the silence was filled with the dreadful scraping air again. ‘The best we can do is make him comfortable. I watch over him and pray the gods be kind.’
Sviggar’s head lolled towards Bodvar. ‘Who is it?’ he wheezed. ‘Who speaks?’
‘Earl Bodvar, sire.’
‘Bodvar? Is that you?’
Bodvar moved forward and knelt by the bed. ‘I’m here, sire.’ The stink off him was unbearable. Sviggar tried to lift himself onto his elbows but the furs might have been made of lead for all he could move.
‘Be still, my darling.’ Saldas laid her hand on his chest. ‘You must let our remedies do their work.’
Sviggar groaned, sinking back. ‘Bah! Sickness is the curse of men’s bodies.’
Bodvar frowned. He had no words.
‘The Norns are laughing, Bodvar. Gods – someone must be! I’ve fought many men who tried to take my life. But none so strong as this sickness.’
‘None yet conquered you. Nor will this.’ Bodvar wished he could believe his own words.
‘Aye... This is not my end. There is too much—’ A sudden hacking swallowed up whatever he was going to say, shaking him like a child’s doll. Saldas dabbed at his brow, leaving a glisten to his pallid wrinkles. ‘This blight is in my chest – and now my bowels as well, curse them. But it will abate, I’m sure of it.’ He smil
ed. A skull grimacing. ‘I must be on my feet... to address my people.’
Bodvar glanced at Saldas. She gave a slight shake of her head. Sviggar uttered a long groan. His whole body shuddered, his eyes clamped against the pain.
He lay like that a while. But soon he began flopping his head from side to side. His mouth hung open – a dark maw from which the vapours of death seemed to rise with each rank breath.
Suddenly he lifted his hands above his head, waving them as though warding off something falling on him from above. His distress was strange, unnerving, his grey fingers clawing at the air. Then they stopped, flattened, as if shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun.
‘What’s he doing?’ Bodvar whispered.
‘I don’t know. He does it often. As if he sees something there in his mind.’
With a sudden start Sviggar sat bolt upright, shaking his arms. He coughed hard, then words came tumbling over his lips.
‘Stand strong on the right, bleed the sky red, my raven-children.’ He mouthed a terrible scream but only an eerie hiss escaped his throat, his eyebrows arched, terrible as the Thunder God’s. ‘No, no! I couldn’t stop her, she threw me and ran away.’ Now his voice was meek as a child. ‘Forgive me, won’t you forgive me? ... Fifteen marks? What’s this? More, I say! Send the birds, they know where to go, it’s too hot, send them to the raven-roads, eastward. Far-off to where he fell.’ Suddenly he started clawing at his own face. Bodvar shuddered. ‘My word is iron. Heed me, you dogs! We must have more. More!’ He yelled the last word then flung himself back against the pillow. Slowly his hands lifted, wrists limp and weak, and again he began picking at the air.
‘Is he dreaming?’
‘I cannot say.’ Saldas mopped his brow. ‘He has a fever.’
‘But the Summer Throng... we meet in three days.’
‘Alas – not him, I think.’
‘Will he recover?’
‘If the gods are good. We made offerings to Eir for healing. We can do no more.’
Bodvar gazed on the withered figure of his king. His arms had now sunk and he lay still.
‘I should leave you.’
‘Fear not, good Bodvar. I know how you love my husband.’ Saldas smiled. ‘We will not forget it.’
Bodvar turned to go, but brittle fingers caught his wrist. ‘Bodvar! Old friend...’
He knelt again, ignoring the cloud of fetid breath. ‘I’m listening, my lord.’ This was death. He could smell it, eating this man from the inside out.
Sviggar blinked at him blindly. ‘The kingdom will be great again, my friend. I have such plans... the All-Father will be honoured. My people will be rich... The gods,’ he hissed, ‘... the gods...’
His grip failed and he fell back. The pillow seemed to swallow him, all but the awful rattle of his breathing. Bodvar rose, shaken, not knowing what to say.
‘He must rest,’ murmured Saldas. ‘Make it known that the arrivals need not attend him. Not until he shows signs of recovery.’
‘Certainly, his subjects cannot see him like this.’
‘You’re a true friend of his crown.’
‘Good leave to you, my queen.’
‘And you.’
At the doorway Bodvar turned and took a last look at the man he had served since boyhood. And he knew.
He was looking at a dead man.
CHAPTER FORTY
Erlan had watched riders come in all afternoon.
They came in their dozens – noblemen flanked by servants and sons, gangs of karls in summer cloaks with bucklers slung across their backs, freemen hobbling in on underfed horses, clan chiefs and their thanes glittering with gold and silver arm-rings.
As the crowd grew, each newcomer was sized up like a bull at market. Erlan overheard many names: the Gislung brothers from Gislamark; Arwakki Arvinsson, the Earl of Gestrikland; his cousin Kafli-Karl, the clan-father of the Bredlung; Egil the Bald, a champion from King Ívar’s day. Every shape and shade of man from the other famed clans – the Bjarnungs, the Gunnvorang, the beardless Halvarung, the monstrous Jotnungers, their necks and arms daubed with tattoos.
Naturally, the talk was about the Danes and whether the peace would last. Erlan leaned against a buttress, observing, feeling more detached from the Sveär folk than ever. That morning he had gone through the motions with Budli the forester, marking timber for the first twenty ships that would launch Sviggar’s vision. ‘A new age of gold,’ Sviggar called it.
Maybe he was right. But Erlan wouldn’t be here to see it.
He scanned another batch of horsemen, but the face he wanted wasn’t among them.
Kai had been gone four days now. If all was well, he should have been back today. Erlan glanced at the sky. A bright afternoon was already softening to evening.
He should be back...
They had debated long into the night about where they should go. North and west seemed too hazardous, taking them only deeper into Sveär lands. Kai’s preference was south into Gotarland, reasoning that since its folk were familiar to him they could pass unmolested. But Erlan ruled it out: Kai was probably outlawed there, after all. Although in part, Erlan didn’t want to go anywhere near Lilla. That wound was too raw.
They had settled on the rivers of Garðaríki, first by boat to the harbour of Rerik. After that south and east, following the long, winding waterways and portages all the way to the Black Sea. Away from the Wartooth, away from Lilla, away from the great Sveär king. Kai had baulked at the idea of crossing the East Sea. The biggest boat he’d ever been in was barely twelve feet long. Erlan was hardly more enthusiastic, but there was no other way by his reckoning.
The plan, then: Kai was to slip away to the harbour village of Sigtuna on the shores of the Great Bay, there to procure a boat capable of the voyage and a guide who could navigate them out through the Throat until they reached the open sea. But before he left, Kai had met secretly with Bara and spelled out – in the most lurid terms he could express – the danger she was in.
‘She’s coming,’ Kai reported.
‘Just like that?’
‘Well, not exactly.’ In fact, Bara had been stubborn as a lame ox, refusing to leave now she had the queen right where she wanted her, that this was her home, and all the rest of it. She’d been especially outraged when he’d suggested they use a few links from her gold necklace to pay for the boat.
‘What convinced her?’
‘I told her I love her.’
‘And do you?’
‘Well, I don’t want her dead if that’s what you mean.’
‘Not exactly.’
Anyhow, it had been agreed. Bara was to prepare her things and meet them in the woods south of the Great Hall at midnight on the eve of the Summer Throng. Till then, she was to go about her duties as normal.
Erlan had passed her a couple of times since Kai’s departure. She hadn’t spared him so much as a glance. Either she was admirably discreet or else she was going to be cold company on the road. Still, that was no reason to leave her to a fate far worse.
Suddenly he heard someone call his name, breaking into his thoughts. And there was Kai, leading the stocky little pony he’d stolen from his stepfather all those moons ago.
‘Is everything ready?’ Erlan asked eagerly when he was sure no one else could hear.
‘A pleasure to see you, too!’
‘Well, is it?’
‘All done, just as you asked, master.’
‘The boat’s secure?’
‘It is.’
‘And hidden up?’
‘Loki himself couldn’t have done a better job.’
Erlan sighed with relief, but even as the breath was leaving him a sudden commotion kicked up near the hall. They turned and saw the crowd part for a man striding towards them.
‘Isn’t that the careless beekeeper?’
Kai’s name for Aleif Red-Cheeks – a karl Erlan had always done his best to avoid. ‘Where’s he going in such a hurry?’
The crowd followed
after him and the two companions fell in behind.
‘What’s going on?’ Erlan asked someone in the crowd.
‘A declaration.’
‘By him?’ said Kai. ‘Since when did the king give that pock-faced prick anything worth the saying?’
A few faces turned back to the hall. A thin sound, high and skirling, was coming from its entrance. But the Tiding Mound was close and Aleif had soon bound to its summit. The crowd swelled with craftsfolk, drawn to the mound from their booths down the road.
‘Now hear this,’ Aleif began. Everyone fell silent. ‘Lord Sigurd Sviggarsson, Prince of Sveärs, son and heir to the crown of this land, makes known these tidings.’ He paused, evidently enjoying the crowd’s rapt attention. ‘Your king... is dead.’
There was a ripple of astonishment. Whispers buzzed. Erlan felt an involuntary tremor through his bowels.
‘How’d he die?’ someone yelled. Aleif ignored him. ‘Lord Sigurd further declares this: “We will honour my lord father by vigil this night. On the morrow, we will set his course on the fire-road to take the place the All-Father prepares for him. The Summer Throng will proceed, according to our law, in three days’ time.”’
With that, Aleif descended the mound at a run and strode off towards the hall, deaf to all entreaties for more details. Meanwhile, a hundred conversations erupted around the two companions.
‘The king dead?’ Kai murmured. ‘What does it mean?’
Erlan didn’t answer. Instead he looked around, at the King Barrows and the Sacred Grove and the looming gable of the Great Hall, as if for the last time. Everything was about to change.
‘Erlan.’ Kai was tugging at his arm. ‘What does it mean?’
‘It means we leave tonight.’
Darkness fell at last. In the corner, the brazier glowed. Above it, a torch hung off the wall, its solitary flame twisting restlessly.
The provisions were ready, their weapons arrayed on the table – Wrathling sheathed in leather, waiting to be carried away to some other land, to the service of some other lord.
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