Ulfar caught Sven and Sigurd exchanging glances, but the two old warriors snapped back to guard duty remarkably quickly.
There was a brief ripple of motion in the centre of the line and a gap opened up. A man of middle years stepped out. He was dressed simply, but there was a way about him that made the men behind him look smaller, somehow. He carried no weapons and wore little in the way of decoration. His thick brown beard was woven in two long braids.
A woman strode behind him. She was taller than him by half a hand, but she did not need the height to look down on the world. In the dusky light the blonde hair that fell straight down to her shoulders looked almost white.
This time Audun was prepared. As he knelt with the rest of the men he wondered whether that meant he was learning something about the world.
‘Speak,’ Forkbeard said.
Undaunted by the superior force, King Jolawer Scot weighed up his counterpart. ‘There are challenges to driving a force of men through the land of the Svear,’ he began. ‘And easy to see how a few bands of angry soldiers could peel off the main force and go raiding, and there would be nothing even the strongest of kings could do about it.’
‘Oh, he’s good,’ Thormund muttered.
Beside Audun, Ulfar nodded.
In front of them, King Jolawer Scot continued, ‘So I do not come here to speak of that. I bring you news of a mutual threat that, if left unchecked, will wash over both our lands like a plague of vermin. I invite you to join forces with me.’
Audun stole a look at Forkbeard, who was looking at Jolawer without even a flicker of interest. ‘Why should I want to “join forces” with your sad little group?’ he said, almost wearily.
King Jolawer Scot did not rise to the bait. Instead, he raised his arm. Audun didn’t need to look to know what was happening about a hundred yards behind them.
Led by Alfgeir Bjorne on the left and Prince Karle on the right, hundreds of men were walking very calmly out of the woods, filling the enclosed space with bodies. The fact that they were very carefully spaced out to appear twice as many mattered less than the surprise.
When King Jolawer lowered his hand, all his men banged their shields twice and screamed ‘SVEAR!’ at the top of their lungs, as planned. The noise sent a wave of black birds flying out of nearby trees.
There was a note of amusement in Forkbeard’s voice. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk.’
As one, the men of Stenvik rose. King Jolawer gestured, and Sven and Sigurd stepped up behind him. ‘These are my advisors, and they will stand beside me.’
‘Nonsense,’ the tall woman spat. ‘Sweyn, you’re not going alone against three men.’
‘Sigrid—’ Forkbeard began.
‘It’s nonsense,’ she said. ‘And you know it.’
Sigurd leaned in and said something to King Jolawer Scot, who nodded sagely. ‘My advisor suggests that we could go to one side and they would be most happy to wait with your wife,’ he said.
‘That will do,’ Forkbeard said.
The tall woman’s face turned sour in the blink of an eye and she stormed off to her left. ‘Fine. Do what you want,’ she hissed. Sigurd and Sven sauntered after her.
Forkbeard sized up his opposing number and nodded to the right. ‘Come on then. Tell me about this “threat” of yours.’
The two men walked off to the side.
‘What do you make of this?’ Audun said to Ulfar.
The tall Swede watched the kings for a moment. ‘There’s two ways this could turn out,’ he said after a while. ‘Either we fight now – or we fight later.’
‘Just my luck,’ Thormund muttered.
*
Karle and Alfgeir caught up with them just as King Jolawer Scot returned. Sigurd and Sven were just a step behind.
‘Well?’ Sven said.
‘Forkbeard accepted the truce,’ the young man said. He looked like he’d aged about five years since they saw him last. ‘I told him of King Olav, the northern chieftains and the risk he posed. To my surprise, he agreed. It didn’t even take a lot of convincing.’
‘I bet it didn’t,’ Sven said with a smirk.
‘What do you mean?’ Jolawer Scot said, glancing at Alfgeir Bjorne, who looked bemused.
‘Before he was king and before she’d earned her nickname, Olav and Sigrid were to be wed,’ Alfgeir said. ‘Then he ran off to go a-Viking.’
‘Judging by what we heard,’ Sven said, ‘Sigrid the Haughty has very little good to say about King Olav Tryggvason.’
King Jolawer Scot raised an eyebrow. ‘And none of you thought to tell me this before I talked to the man?’
The mirth vanished from the group and suddenly the terrifying warriors looked vaguely embarrassed.
‘Well, we . . . um . . .’ Alfgeir searched for words that didn’t come.
‘Long time ago,’ Sigurd muttered to no one in particular.
‘Wouldn’t have done you any good,’ Sven said. ‘Might have clouded your judgement.’
Jolawer Scot spoke next. ‘Fine. But don’t let it happen again. Next time I wish to have all of the available information.’
The urgency of the nods and murmurs all round made Ulfar smile. If a man had to choose a king to march with, he might as well pick one who could do that to these men.
*
That night the two armies camped together, but kept a distance. ‘But really, though: who’s in charge? Who decides what goes where?’ Ulfar asked Thormund as he inched closer to the sad little fire they’d managed to make with the soggy firewood they’d scrounged.
‘Just kind of happens, doesn’t it?’ Thormund said without looking up. ‘Get enough lads together who know what they’re doing and no one needs to shout much.’ His fingers worked constantly, twirling horsehair into rope.
The rhythmic metal scraping next to them stopped. ‘Jolawer, then Alfgeir and Sigurd, Prince Karle, Sven and Oskarl,’ Audun recited. ‘That’s who’s in charge.’ The scraping resumed as another blade hit the whetstone.
‘Hm,’ Ulfar said, frowning. ‘I suppose that means if I wanted to go and have a look at the other camp I’d have to find them, in that order.’
‘Yes,’ Audun said.
‘Excellent,’ Ulfar said as he got to his feet. ‘I will do that then.’
‘Good,’ Audun said.
‘Good,’ Ulfar said.
Thormund looked up as Ulfar left the light of the fire and headed to his tent. ‘He’s not going to do that, is he?’
‘No, he isn’t,’ Audun agreed.
Moments later Ulfar came out with a square board and a leather bag that rattled when he walked.
‘He’s just going to walk right into Forkbeard’s camp?’ Thormund said.
‘Yes, he is,’ Audun said.
Thormund coiled a long string. ‘Hm. I hope he lives. I was starting to like him.’
The two men both went back to their craft, working their hands in silence.
*
King Forkbeard’s camp was laid out simply, the rows of tents and lean-tos separated by broad walking paths. The tents formed a square with minimal distance from the far corners to the centre. Cook-fires had been erected in four different places, and people lingered close to the warmth and the light.
Ulfar sauntered up to the nearest one.
‘I don’t suppose there’s any stew going?’ he asked.
‘Get your own, Swede,’ the cook snarled back. ‘This is for Danes only.’
‘Ah, yes. Serves me right. No Dane would ever give anything away.’
‘Din’t say that,’ the cook grumbled. ‘Just said you can’t have any.’
Ulfar paused, as if he was thinking. ‘Do you know Tafl?’
A while later a small crowd had gathered.
‘You’ll have the shirt off my back next,’ Ulfar said
as the cook moved his king out of trouble. ‘My position is clearly lost.’
‘Let’s say that, shall we? You win this one and I get your shirt. It’ll be great for cleaning out my pots. And if you win, you can have all the stew you can eat.’
There was a cheer from Forkbeard’s men.
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ a woman’s voice said.
‘Why?’ the cook shouted into the crowd. There was some movement and a short blonde woman appeared.
Ulfar’s heart raced but he fought to keep his face calm.
‘Because I know him,’ Inga said. Behind her, Ulfar could just about make out the shadow of Arnar.
‘Oooh! It’s all coming down on you now, Swede!’ the cook said. ‘And how do you know him, girl?’
She looked deeply at Ulfar, searching for something in his face. When she was satisfied that it wasn’t there, she put on a coy smile.
‘None of your business, old man,’ she said to the cook and the crowd at large. ‘But let’s just say he knows how to take care of his pieces.’ Catcalls and whistles drowned out the sound of Ulfar’s next move.
‘Pah,’ the cook exclaimed, ‘he’s not as good as he thinks he is. His position is—’ The move was quick, obvious and— ‘. . . shit.’ Wrong. He’d walked straight into the trap.
Ulfar looked him in the eye. ‘By rights I could now take your entire pot.’
‘No! I said all you could eat!’ the cook wailed.
‘Well, yes,’ Ulfar said. ‘But you didn’t specify a time, and I am pretty sure I’d get through it eventually. However, I doubt your men would love you well if you told them that you’d gambled away their stew, and I am nothing if not a kind soul. I’ll take a bowl for me and one for each of my friends here.’
The cook huffed, and scooped the thick reindeer stew into three bowls. ‘Here you go, Swede,’ he growled.
‘Thank you,’ Ulfar said. ‘And for what it’s worth, you had me for a while. At least the first five moves.’ He dodged a lazy ladle swing without tipping any of the bowls and retreated. ‘See you later,’ he said and then turned to Arnar and Inga, who had lingered after the crowd dispersed. He handed them a bowl each and sat down.
‘So. You’re here,’ he said.
‘So are you,’ Inga said. Arnar sat next to her, frowning deeply. ‘What happened back in the marshes?’
Ulfar looked at both of them in turn. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘but if what he said was true, Loki possessed Goran when he’d been fatally wounded, and then came to me to convince me to lead an army against Jolawer.’
This time they both frowned.
‘Do you expect us to believe that?’ Arnar rumbled.
‘I don’t know if I believe it,’ Ulfar said, sighing. ‘But Audun – my Norse friend – is in the same boat. He’s over in Jolawer’s camp.’
‘Humph,’ Arnar said, but he didn’t move away.
‘How did you come to be here, then?’ Ulfar chanced.
‘We ran into Forkbeard’s men soon enough after leaving you,’ Inga said. ‘They took us in. Arnar fights, I mend things.’ She scraped up the last of the stew, then put her spoon down. ‘I really don’t know what to think about you. On the one hand I saw you murder a friend. On the other, Lilia loved you truly. I guess we’ll find out soon enough what you are. See you around, Ulfar.’ With that she got up and left, Arnar following soon behind her.
Ulfar watched them leave. ‘That went well,’ he muttered. Then he finished the stew and licked the spoon clean. Around him, snow fell gently on the rows of tents. Ulfar didn’t notice the tall, hooded figure almost gliding through the camp; he didn’t notice how Sweyn Forkbeard’s men found urgent reasons to be somewhere else.
Suddenly a soft voice behind him asked, ‘Who are you?’
Ulfar spun around, his hand unconsciously reaching for the hilt of his sword.
‘Drawing iron in here would be a bad idea,’ the figure said, with a hint of a smile to the voice. She was a woman, clad head to toe in light blue, with a fur-lined hood, and almost Ulfar’s height.
He drew a sharp breath and forced the hand away from the blade.
‘You are not one of ours,’ she said.
When he finally identified the voice, Ulfar felt the hairs on the back of his hands start to rise. ‘No, your Majesty,’ he said.
The woman drew back her hood and blonde hair fell over her shoulders. Her pale skin seemed to shimmer in the cold. She smiled at him, and Ulfar fought the urge to retreat.
‘Please. Call me Sigrid.’
THE FAR NORTH
DECEMBER, AD 996
Grey skies. The black trunks of snow-covered trees. Jagged mountain ridges in the distance. Valgard scoured the horizon for any movement at all, but there was nothing alive for miles around, save for him and his fellow travellers. The first time he’d seen the fleeing animals, the day they’d set off from Egill Jotun’s valley, he had been shocked. Now he would have been more surprised to see any animals at all.
After Loki had told him where to find the runes, Botolf Arnarson had been a good one to try them on – he’d been dying anyway. The results had been, for want of a better word, eye-opening. The others had been stunned into a fearful silence, which had allowed him to keep reading the old runes out loud, and with every pass the words had fit better in his mouth, sounded better coming out. He’d still lost a few to mispronunciations and skipped words; the results of that had not been pleasant.
He considered his travelling companions. Botolf had already started growing and was easily a head and a half taller than him now. Ormslev just seemed to firm up, somehow; he was as close as they’d get to a walking wall. Skeggi’s skin had turned white as the snow, then taken on the bluish tinge of a frozen lake. A strong man to start with, he now looked like he could wrestle a bear and win. Skeggi’s two young toughs, Ormar and Jori, who had survived the caves, were also growing bigger, broader and taller by the day. And they all did what he told them – no potions, no tricks, just command. He didn’t understand it yet, but it was working.
Valgard winced as his back reminded him just how much he’d walked. He had considered using the runes on himself, but something made him hold back. He’d heard the echo of a whispered voice in the back of his mind, the voice he’d heard since very early on. The voice that dripped with contempt at the sight of the big, strong raider-boys showing off, laughing at him for being a cripple. The voice that had kept whispering, saying he was different from the others. Better. ‘I’m special,’ he said, smiling to himself. The others heard him but didn’t speak. They hadn’t, in fact, for a while. They spoke when spoken to, but speech didn’t seem to be high on their list of needs. ‘Let’s move,’ Valgard said.
They continued walking south, back the way they’d come a long, long time ago, towards Trondheim.
Chapter 4
JOLAWER’S CAMP, SOUTH OF SWEDEN
DECEMBER, AD 996
Audun applied the final touches to the last blade.
‘Your man has been gone a while now,’ Thormund said.
‘He’ll be fine,’ Audun said. ‘What could happen to him, anyway?’
Thormund did not reply but glanced off to Audun’s right.
Audun looked up. In front of him stood a rather haggard young man who wore his years badly next to a young blonde girl with hard eyes and a mean mouth. There was a distinct similarity to their features. Cousins, he thought, or something like that, anyway.
‘Is Ulfar here?’ the young man asked.
‘Good evening to you too,’ Audun said, and received a mute stare in return. ‘No, Ulfar is not here,’ he continued.
‘Well,’ the boy said, and when the girl elbowed him none-too-subtly in the ribs, added, ‘Tell him that – that Greta and Ivar wish to see him. To apologise.’
‘I will do that,’ Audun said.
Without a word, the
pair turned and walked away.
When they were out of earshot, Thormund turned to the darkness behind them. ‘You can come out now,’ he said.
Ulfar walked into the circle of firelight. ‘Apologise. Don’t believe it for a moment. But consider me told. We’ll see what’s what in daylight.’
‘They’re quite a pair, them two,’ Thormund said.
‘They are,’ Ulfar said. ‘Sometimes I think she’s more dangerous than he is.’
‘Women can be very dangerous indeed,’ Thormund said.
‘They can,’ Ulfar said. ‘And on that subject . . .’
‘Oh – now what?’ Audun said.
The stars twinkled up above as the lanky man sat down by the fire. ‘I think we may have a little bit of a problem,’ Ulfar said.
*
Prince Karle clambered out of his tent just in time to catch the very first rays of weak sunlight creeping over the horizon. He stretched, grimacing all the while, and rolled his shoulders. ‘Damn that, damn all of this and damn all of you,’ he muttered to no one in particular.
He looked around at the camp gradually waking up around him. Alfgeir Bjorne was already stomping around the tents, growling and threatening. If the big man noticed that Karle wasn’t where he said he’d be the night before, he didn’t say. ‘Bah – he can do the morning rounds.’ He pulled his cloak tight around his shoulders to fend off the morning chill. ‘Galti!’ he snapped.
Within moments, Galti’s angular form was close enough for conversation. ‘Yes, my Prince?’
‘Walk with me. I’m bored. Tell me what the men are saying,’ Karle said as he stepped onto a path between the tents.
‘Well,’ Galti said. ‘Ehm. Well. I think – I think the men are content, more or less.’
‘Galti,’ Karle said, a note of warning in his voice, ‘we talked about this. How many people are listening?’
‘None, my Lord.’
‘And what do you say then?’
‘Everything, my Lord.’
‘So what are the men saying?’
‘They’re tired and cold,’ Galti offered.
Karle shrugged. ‘Better, but that’s the deal, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘Food?’
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