The Constant Queen

by Joanna Courtney

  Harald looked across to the lead ship. It was captained, at the man’s own request, by the reinstated Jarl Kalv and over these first weeks of raiding he had proved himself a wily and capable general. Harald trusted his abilities implicitly – but his loyalty? Kalv Arnasson’s loyalty was to himself alone and that made him dangerous.

  Kalv had taken Harald and Tora’s sons under his fearsome wing in much the same way Einar had done with the last King Magnus. He had ordered them tutors, built them homes and commissioned them clothes befitting not just princes but kings. He paraded them at court whenever he could and Harald could scarcely object – Magnus and Olaf were his proclaimed heirs and fine boys besides. In a strange way, though, their very existence threatened his own. If Norway were to lose him now, they had kings to play with and powerful local lords to control them. It was a situation the county had oft been used to in its history. Even at the start of this century the jarls of the north had ruled for fifteen years without any king at all and Harald was increasingly convinced that Kalv was seeking a return to such blissful times. Plus, Elizaveta hated him.

  Harald looked back to the beach, scanning the gentle rise of the grass-strewn dunes for any sign of an ambush. All was still.

  ‘If Svein is setting a trap,’ he said, ‘he’s doing it very well.’

  ‘So we must turn it to our advantage,’ Halldor said quietly. ‘Send the lead ship in.’

  Harald looked at him.

  ‘To draw out the attack?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So we can then land strategically in the best place to back them up?’

  ‘If that seems appropriate, yes.’

  Harald eyed his hunched lieutenant curiously. Halldor had not spoken openly against Kalv but Harald had seen him watching the northern jarl very carefully and knew he distrusted him.

  ‘What’s your plan, Hal?’

  Halldor kept his eyes firmly on the horizon.

  ‘No plan. Simply that Jarl Kalv has a very high opinion of his generalship so it seems only fair to give him a chance to prove it.’

  ‘It does,’ Harald agreed, ‘but Finn . . .’

  He glanced back to his foster father’s two ships, bringing up the rear. Finn was past his sixtieth year now and recently his proud frame had become hampered by a stiffening disease. He was slow to move in the mornings and his fingers, in particular, were twisting painfully, making it harder for him to accurately wield a sword. Harald had taken to putting him in the rearguard both for his calm head in a tricky situation and, increasingly, to protect him from the worst of the fighting.

  ‘Finn is six boat-lengths back,’ Ulf said, moving in at Halldor’s side. ‘He is not here to attack.’

  Harald considered. His comrades spoke sound military sense. Their tactics were entirely justifiable – should they ever be called upon to justify them – and any other motivation would be lost in the fog of battle. If any such there was.

  He looked across the water, ostensibly assessing his position, though in truth he was seeing Jarl Kalv’s actions the day they had set sail from Norway. Much of the court had gathered on the beautiful new jetties at Oslo to see off the invasion force that had sworn, once again, to finally take Denmark. Harald had ordered pennies thrown into the crowd and two barrels of mead to be opened so all the fast-growing city could toast their king on his way, and the mood had been buoyant.

  Harald’s ship had been launched into the water to huge cheers and he had stepped confidently up to board her, turning first to bid his family farewell. Such events had become slightly awkward affairs with Tora and her two boys on one side and Elizaveta and her girls on the other but that day it had been made easy by Maria. His feisty little Maria, soon to turn five, was heart-breakingly similar to her wilful mother, with an all-too-large helping of his own daring and stubbornness thrown in, and he sometimes felt as if she could see into his own mind.

  ‘Come on, Magnus,’ she’d said loudly that day, grabbing his hand. ‘Let’s say Godspeed to Papa.’

  Magnus, who, like much of the court, was dazzled by his confident half-sister, had gone eagerly enough and Harald had even, to his amazement, caught a look of almost complicit fondness between the two mothers. He’d held his arms wide to embrace both children, delighted that the world would see how obedient his unusual household was to his authority, but at that moment Magnus had been snatched back. The boy, startled, had cried and Maria, furious, had rounded on his captor, hands on her slim little hips.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she’d demanded of Jarl Kalv.

  ‘What everyone else should,’ he’d snarled back. ‘You may kiss your precious papa if you must but Magnus will be the last to say farewell and alone.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he is the heir to Norway.’

  ‘Why?’

  Why was Maria’s favourite word. Usually Harald found it endearing but that day with all of Norway looking on he had wished her, for once, a more passive child.

  ‘Because he is a boy,’ Kalv had told her, eyes narrow with patent hatred.

  ‘And I,’ Maria had fired back, ‘am the eldest.’

  Kalv had laughed nastily.

  ‘That counts for nothing, Princess. Can you defend your country? Can you fight for it, as a ruler must?’

  ‘I can fight better than him,’ Maria had said, pointing disparagingly at Magnus, who’d obligingly shrunk back.

  The crowd had started to laugh and, recognising the danger of that, Harald had quickly gathered Maria up, kissing her loudly. It had not mollified her and damned Elizaveta, whose sympathies were so clearly with her outspoken daughter, had done nothing to help.

  ‘I will bring you fine jewels if you are a good girl and don’t make a fuss,’ Harald had whispered to Maria.

  ‘Don’t want jewels.’

  ‘What then, sweetheart? What do you want?’

  ‘A sword.’

  He’d promised her – what else could he do? – and if Elizaveta didn’t like it, it was her own fault. Except, he recalled now, that Elizaveta had liked it; had laughed and called Maria her little warrior. He shook his head as the thought of his beautiful wife made him ache with longing; why did he waste summers away from her?

  ‘To win Denmark,’ he reminded himself fiercely, ‘and after Denmark, England.’

  It was a far-off dream but were they not the best sort? Elizaveta often received news of England. Ever letters flowed in and out of her rooms, as if she and her sisters were weaving a web of words across the world and so far King Edward of England had no heir, though there was worrying talk of the bastard Duke William of Normandy paying court to the old king.

  Now an adult, William had miraculously dodged all his would-be assassins to take full charge of his duchy and had recently wed Matilda, daughter of the powerful Baldwin of Flanders. But William was a brigand, a petty power-hunter whose only experience was with his own back-stabbing nobles; he, Harald Hardrada, would make England a far more competent king. First, though, Denmark.

  He looked to the beach. They had to attack now. If they had taken the locals by surprise they should capitalise on that and not bob out here like seals waiting to be hunted. And if it was an ambush they should draw it out or, rather, Kalv should.

  ‘He’s a nasty man, Papa,’ Maria had said to him by way of parting.

  ‘But a good fighter,’ Harald had told her, putting her down to shake open, solemn hands with little Magnus. Well now they would find out how good.

  He put up his arm to Kalv to signal an attack.

  ‘You lead,’ he called across the soft murmur of the light waves. ‘We’ll fan out to back you up when we see the lie of their troops – if there even are any.’

  Kalv looked uncertain.

  ‘To you the spoils,’ Harald reminded him.

  The lead ship always took the first choice of plunder and already the jarl’s men were leaping eagerly to their oars so Kalv was left with no choice but to urge them on. Behind him, Harald commanded his central ships into a
line parallel with the sloping shore, with Finn commanding the two rearguard vessels further out at sea. Harald watched from his dragon-prow as Kalv gave the order to up the rowing pace and his sleek warship shot through the gentle breakers and rammed onto the sand. Instantly his men were out, swords and shields to hand, scrambling through the shallows and onto the beach, coming together in a tight arrowhead formation with Kalv’s patterned helmet clear just behind the tip.

  For a moment it seemed as if nothing would happen, as if they would be able to march up the beach, shaking the sea from their boots as they went, and over the horizon into the first village to claim their spoils. But then suddenly a blood-curdling yell rang out from behind the dunes and the sea grasses came alive. Hundreds of soldiers – more than any local militia could ever command – flew out and poured down the beach, swords swinging.

  ‘Massacre!’

  The whisper went round Harald’s boat like a death prayer and instinctively the rowers reversed their stroke, pushing the boats away from the carnage on the sand. The Danes reached Kalv’s unit, coming at them from both sides, and crashed into their flanks. The Norwegians had closed into a tight shield wall but they were hopelessly outnumbered and could only last a short time without relief.

  ‘Attack!’ The cry came from the rearguard ship, hoarse and urgent. ‘You must attack, Harald, or they will die.’

  ‘But if we attack,’ Harald said to Ulf and Halldor, ‘we will surely all die? They have archers – see! They will be ready for us in the shallows and will have us down before we can even get over the gunwales.’

  With a raven cry, the Danes split one side of Kalv’s arrowhead and Harald caught the acrid tang of fresh blood on the seaward breeze. For a moment he recoiled from it then he dug his fingers into the whorls of his dragon’s red neck and stood firm. Hardrada – ruthless.

  ‘Retreat,’ he called, putting up a hand to his trumpeter. ‘Sound the retreat.’

  The men in the ships did not need the horn’s plaintive cry to respond. Already they were turning to the steer-board side, heaving the ship round for all they were worth. Within moments they were round, their fellow ships with them, and all five sails grabbed at the wind and took over, driving the boats towards the rearguard, which had not moved.

  ‘Attack,’ the cry came again, ‘attack, you miserable cowards!’

  Harald saw Finn pounding the gunwale as he roared the command, his ageing face purple with rage, but no one paid any attention, not even his own crew, and quickly the main fleet drew level with his two craft.

  ‘You are leaving them to die, Harald,’ Finn screamed across the water.

  ‘No,’ Harald corrected him calmly, ‘I am saving everyone else.’

  ‘You sent him on purpose.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Kalv. You sent Kalv to his death on purpose.’

  The men looked back. The Norwegians were flattened, carrion already, as the Danes scrambled over their savaged corpses to lay greedy hands on their deserted ship.

  ‘Jarl Kalv asked to lead,’ Harald said. ‘He knew the risks and, as a noble Viking, he embraced them. He has died in glory.’

  ‘He has died for your cowardice.’

  Rage shot through Harald, as sharp as if a Danish archer had skewered him with it.

  ‘I am many things, Jarl Finn,’ he roared across the rising wind and the triumphant cries of the Danes on the beach, ‘but I am not a coward.’

  ‘Worse then – a murderer. Of your own men.’

  ‘Have I murdered these men? Or will that, Finn, be your doing when the blood-drunk Danes come after us in our own ship? There was nothing I could do.’

  ‘No,’ Finn called back, ‘you chose to do nothing. You have robbed me of a noble brother, Harald, and I no longer consider you my son, or my king.’

  ‘Finn, no . . .’

  But Finn was ordering his bewildered men towards the bloody shore, his gnarled fingers clutching at the gunwales in a sort of madness. Harald saw the soldiers looking at each other, torn between obeying their king or their captain, but in the end a good Viking always did as his immediate commander instructed and Harald wasn’t surprised when they picked up their oars.

  ‘You will die,’ he called. ‘Finn, please – I don’t want you to die.’ It sounded weak, pathetic almost. He could see the men exchanging sardonic glances but he didn’t care. Finn Arnasson had raised him, had supported him as King of Norway. He could not lose him now. ‘What about Tora’s boys?’ he demanded. ‘Your future kings?’

  Finn, however, was in a mist of his own making.

  ‘Good luck to them,’ he growled, turning back to his vessel. ‘Row!’

  He struck the first oarsman with the flat of his sword and the man began to row, the others following in a bedraggled, reluctant mess of white water.

  ‘We will not die,’ Finn was calling to them, ‘but live to serve a true master who does not sacrifice his own. We will live to serve Svein Estrithson.’

  And as Harald watched, horrified, his foster father – his ever-devious but ever-loyal foster father – ran a white flag up to the top of his mast and made for the heart of enemy territory as, on the dunes, a sparky young man in a shining crown appeared. Svein! Ulf nudged at Harald’s arm.

  ‘Hari, we must go – now. If Svein is there himself he will not be slow to use this. We could be trapped.’

  ‘As an audience before a poet,’ Harald said, his head swimming.

  Kalv was gone, yes, but with him Finn and all Harald had to show for his fifth summer raiding Denmark was another ‘bold escape’ for the mead-hall’s entertainment.

  ‘Not so much “ruthless”,’ he told himself bitterly as the sails filled and they sped out into the sapphire-blue ocean, ‘as useless.’

  Maybe from now on he should concentrate on Norway and creating a solid, secure country for his children to grow up in – to inherit. It was a worthy aim, surely, but even as his ships limped away from Danish shores he was not sure it was one he could keep to. He was a Viking after all and his veins were only half blood. The other half – the itchy, fast-running, glorious half – was all sea.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Austratt, September 1051

  The court stood sombre in the lashing rain as the choir, water streaming down their faces and into their mouths, drowning their notes, sang a requiem for Jarl Kalv and his men, lost in the service of the country to which he had so recently returned.

  ‘I feel as if this is Finn’s funeral too,’ Harald whispered to Elizaveta, his fingers grinding into hers.

  ‘More so,’ she whispered back.

  In truth no one would miss Kalv but even she would feel the lack of loud, lively Finn and she knew it stung Harald like a barb beneath his skin. She clasped his hand tight, trying to squeeze out the pain. Throughout the service he had stood dutifully at Tora’s side, an arm around her shoulders, but now that the monument to mark Kalv’s passing was being blessed, his handfast wife had stepped forward without him, taking just her two sons for company. Elizaveta watched Tora, her head high and her blonde hair bound up in a dark headdress, clutching Olaf to her hip and Magnus to her side, and knew that she, too, was mourning the loss of Finn, her beloved uncle, more than Kalv.

  ‘Surely Finn will return,’ she murmured to Harald. ‘He would not leave Tora alone.’

  ‘She is not alone.’

  ‘No. She has you.’

  ‘A bit of me, maybe.’

  ‘Too little to be of real comfort,’ Elizaveta said honestly.

  She hadn’t as much of her husband as she would choose but she had more than Tora and somewhere along the twisting path past her thirtieth year she had learned to be grateful for that. Was that dignity, or just compromise? Or did they, in the end, come to the same thing?

  Tora, standing before everyone with water running off her headdress, was the picture of dignity. She always had been and Elizaveta felt something dangerously like admiration for her rival.

  ‘I will send messages,’ Haral
d was saying, still whispering as the choir struggled to the end of their requiem and the court looked longingly towards Kalv’s great farmhouse, lit up in the mid-afternoon gloom and sending warm, meat-scented air out of the doors in steaming clouds. ‘I will beg his forgiveness, even though I see nothing to forgive.’

  ‘You acted as you had to.’

  ‘Yes and yet . . .’ He leaned in to Elizaveta, so close his wet hair tangled in hers. ‘I wonder, if it had not been Kalv spearheading that first troop, would I have acted differently?’

  ‘Harald, hush! Of course you would not.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed, kissing her cheek. ‘No, you are right – of course not. But, Lily, the loss of Finn pulls at my heart. Perhaps I am growing old – old and soft.’

  Elizaveta squeezed his arm, taut with muscle.

  ‘You are not soft, Harald, or only occasionally.’

  She looked pointedly at Maria, stood fiercely upright with her new sword strapped defiantly over her dark gown. It was made of blunted steel with a hilt set with amber and Maria wore it always, so that she would be ready to ‘fight for Papa whenever he has need of me’.

  ‘Maria is under my skin,’ he admitted with a fond smile. ‘But she makes me proud. And teaches me strength besides.’

  Elizaveta smiled.

  ‘This has just been a setback, Hari, like when Einar and Kalv came for Magnus. Kalv was plotting, I am sure, as Einar was plotting back then.’

  ‘You told me I was stupid to kill Einar.’

  ‘Maybe I was wrong. What’s past is past. Come, the choir is finally done and you should lead Tora out of this hellish rain.’

  Harald kissed her again.

  ‘You are sending me to Tora, Lily? Perhaps it is you growing old and soft?’

  ‘Perhaps it is.’

  Elizaveta reflected on Harald’s words as she took her place in the hall, accepting a soft linen cloth from Aksel to dry herself as best she could. This should have been a day of triumph for her with both senior Arnassons gone. Only Tora’s brother Otto, now a man of thirty-two, was left to muster the northern jarls and he had been long in Harald’s service and was devoted to him. Tora still had her precious princes but they were so very young and must be more a burden than a support.