Haakon took a backward step. He lifted a hand as if fending off. “Pour, pour water over him?” he stammered. “But I’m not a priest and—the water’s unholy—a heathen rite—” He came to himself and straightened. His breath had quickened.
“It would mean much, King, not to me alone but to all the Thraands.”
Haakon understood. Being of the higher rank, he could hardly foster the boy, but this would make a tie nearly as strong. And it would be a greater gift of thanks than any golden ring or sword or ship, a gift to match an undying poem of praise from the best of skalds.
He smote fist in palm. His lips moved wordlessly. Sigurd waited.
Haakon swallowed. “Yes,” he said. “I will.”
He spent most of the night that followed on his knees in the thick darkness of his shut-bed, begging God’s forgiveness. Or forbearance? This could be a sign, a harbinger of the winning of the Northland for Christ. Or could it be a snare of the Devil—of Odin, who brooded over the whole vast kingdom and would soon ride on its night winds to drink the blood of slaughter?
Where none but the saints could see him, Haakon wept. He knew so little. If only his priest were here to counsel him and shrive him. But Leofric lay left behind along the way, coughing, shaken with chill while his skin burned hot to the touch. Unless he was dead.
Brihtnoth would not have fallen sick. He was young and strong, yet already wise. He could read and write, arts about which Haakon had hardly troubled as he was supposed to, when horses and hounds, boats and bouts were calling. To Brihtnoth Christ’s love was like the sun in summer. Nonetheless he was so gladsome, they two had been so happy together, rollicking as children, testing their thews as boys, talking the long, awkward talk of youths, that Haakon had never felt how winter-wan that sun fell upon him. Were Brihtnoth somehow to walk into this house, he would carry the springtime around his shoulders.
Step by stumbling step, Haakon made his pilgrimage back toward hope. He must stop forgetting that he was the king of Norway, the queller of Eirik Blood-ax and Witch-Gunnhild. Not only did it behoove him to be manly; it would be death if he were not. His gift to Sigurd would be small enough for his staunch friend, mere bestowal of a name on an innocent babe. Though the deed would be heathen, why should good not come of it? It would strengthen him in Thraandheim, and thus throughout Norway.
Yes, in this coming year he should be able to send for more priests from the West, and more and more each year after that. He would hold his hand over them, he would build churches for them, as they went about their holy work. And at last—maybe—if God so willed, not too long from tonight—Brihtnoth could come too, whether as layman or priest. And Haakon could open his heart to him.
Comforted, the king fell asleep.
VI
Light flew like laughter over small waves, aglint and ashimmer in a hundred shifting hues, blue, green, tawny, foam-white. They murmured and chuckled as they played tag with the shadows of hurrying snowy clouds. Birds wheeled, soared, swooped, swam, swung again aloft, in their thousands, gull, guillemot, cormorant, puffin, razorbill, curlew, kittiwake, skua, fulmar. Their cries brought alive a breeze in which something of summer’s warmth lingered on into the fall.
Gunnhild had felt trapped indoors until she told her maidservants to stay behind and went off by herself. Nor did any man go along. They had gotten to know her moods. While she stayed in sight, she would be safe—or even out of their sight, for Thorfinn Jarl kept his Orkneys well scoured of troublemakers, but they would not allow that.
His hall stood where the biggest island, Mainland, pinched into narrowness before broadening again. It overlooked a sheltered bay, which opened on Wide Firth. Docks and ship-houses sprawled into the water. Around the hall and its outbuildings clustered lesser dwellings, storehouses, workshops, stables, and the like: more than a thorp, less than a town. At this time of day the fishers who lived here were out in their boats, the waterfront almost empty.
Gunnhild strode north along the shore, over grass gone sallow, the ground rising steeply beneath her feet. She had had enough of man-stench, smoke-stench, dung-stench, noise, crowding, and above all the chatter of women. She would be alone with the sky. Maybe its brightness could lessen the dark within her.
A year and a half, she thought, a year and a half in this land of heath, bog, rock, turf houses huddled on crofts where crops grew meagerly or sheep and kine grazed. True, it bred wonderful seafarers. Its vikings had raided Mother Norway herself till Harald Fairhair laid the Orkneys, Shetlands, Hebrides, and Isle of Man under himself. They still harried widely elsewhere. Traders also brought in wealth. The jarl, at least, lived well. But the sameness! When he moved from one of his holdings to another, it was from one treeless, windswept island to the next; and often blinding fog or crashing storm kept him penned in for endless days.
Oh, yes, Thorfinn Skull-splitter had made Eirik Blood-ax and Eirik’s following welcome. He housed them, fed them, helped them in every way he was able. After all, he and Gunnhild were kin. His father Einar and her mother Kraka had both sprung from the loins of the great Rognvald Jarl. Einar, having fought his way to the lordship of Orkney, caught Snaefrid’s son Haalfdan Longleg and cut the blood eagle on his back, opening the rib cage and spreading the lungs. Thus he took revenge for Haalfdan’s share in the burning of Rognvald. Gunnhild herself had had somewhat to do with bringing down Haalfdan’s warlock brother; she did not speak of this, but whispers about it had drifted even across the North Sea.
Thorfinn had not acknowledged Haakon Aethelstan’s-foster his king. He still gave Eirik that name. His grip on Orkney was firm, he could call many fighting men to him, but he had no wish to swap blows with the newcome warriors. Rather, he stood to gain thankfulness, and belike riches. He and Eirik were soon friends. Already that first summer Thorfinn’s brothers Arnkel and Erlend had sailed off with their guest to raid in Scotland and northern England.
Likewise had Gunnhild’s son Gamli.
In this second year, her second son Guthorm also went along.
And she stayed behind. She, who was used to meeting with the highborn from all over Norway, with travelers from all over the known world, and, yes, with her spies and witches—she, who once sat with gold and silk and fine linen upon her, drinking wine, while skalds chanted, sagamen told of gods and heroes, chieftains weighed what deeds they should do—she abode in drafty rooms or turf-built bowers among louts, yokels, and women as witty as any other brood-mare. Were it not for her children, she thought she would have gone mad. But must her life shrink down to nothing else?
If she could fare like a man, herself leading men to war and fighting in their forefront, like Hervör of old—but that was a fireside tale. Could she send her soul forth to watch over Eirik, and in the body brew harm for his foes—but nowhere here was there any haven, any den, free for any length of time from eyes and ears and tongues. She had ridden out to brochs, cairns, cromlechs, menhirs, and barrows, such as stood manifold hereabouts. The awe of age and unknownness went cold through her blood. She longed as she longed for her lover to find if she could raise those ghosts, awaken those powers. But she was never left by herself with them.
Black and often gale-wild though the winter was, at least Eirik had been here. Then she had her stallion, and, more than that, a man who gave heed to her. His very nearness, as well as the news he brought—and the loot—struck a spark in Thorfinn Jarl. They talked eagerly. When she deemed it wise, Gunnhild asked questions. Having thought the answers over, she took them up with her man.
Thus she knew that young King Eadmund of England had died, murdered, about the same time as she and Eirik reached Orkney. Before then, he had driven out the two Norsemen from Ireland who had grabbed lordship of southern Northumbria, formerly the Danish kingdom of York. Now it fell into bloody disorder. Eadmund’s brother Eadred took over and got it back under his sway. But it stayed restless. Many of its folk stemmed from Norway as well as Denmark. None had ever really known the peace that Aelfred and Aethelstan laid on
the Danelaw farther south.
Seek out chieftains of theirs, Gunnhild told Eirik. Make promises; make bargains. Get us a foothold of our own. And she gave him thoughts about how to do this.
But again he was gone, he and the Einarssons and their fleet, these weary months. And so was Gamli, and so Guthorm. She could merely wait.
No, today she would go to an outlook more broad than at the end of the bay. Open sea was nowhere nearby. Islands, holms, and skerries hemmed this water in. But at Crow Ness the shore bent westward. Seen from there, the eastern headland stretched on the right, with Shapinsay across a channel beyond, but most things northward lay under the rim of sight. Standing on Crow Ness she could gaze over the waves, sway too slightly within her cloak for any watcher to know, sing too low for any to hear, and let the light upon them dazzle her eyes and dance into her head until maybe, for a short span, she became one with them. Then she could cast her wishes forth, and maybe they would fly on the wind as a shadow-spell to find him and whisper him a word of luck.
As she neared the point, that thin hope shattered. A man had been sitting, hidden from her by a tall gorse bush. He climbed to his feet, a slender man who leaned on a staff to help his lame leg. Though he was not elderly, his face was haggard and his hair gray. She kenned Dag Audunarson, the skald of Eirik’s who had fared with him for many years and had chosen to follow him into homelessness. Fighting at the king’s side last year, he had taken a sword cut such that his left foot was of scant use.
“Greeting, Queen,” he said in his grave way. “Is something wrong, that you gang alone? Can I somehow help?”
Gunnhild could not find it in her heart to tell this man that he could go away. She thrust bitterness down and answered, “I hankered for a fresh breath. What brings you here?”
“I needed peace and quiet. The poem I’m making goes harder than most, I know not why.” From the way he bore himself and spoke, Gunnhild knew. His pain must be bad today. Nonetheless he smiled. “But, Queen, your nearness will unbind me. Not that you must stay if you don’t want to.”
A faint thrill went through her. Sometimes a poem was more than words. “What is it to be?” she asked under the shrieking seabirds.
“In honor of my king when he comes back.”
What else? If he came back. No, she would not think that ill-foreboding thought. Let her listen and will that the words call him. “Tell it to me.”
“It’s not done, my lady. It can’t be, really, till I’ve learned what happened—” The voice cracked a bit. “—I who could not be there.”
“Give me what you have.”
“It’s not ready, Queen. It’s earned no reward.”
“But I’ll keep this day in mind, Dag Audunarson,” remembering whether or not he had obeyed her.
“As the queen wishes. I do have a beginning, however rough.”
He looked not at her but out over the firth to where it met the sky. Clouds were rising and spreading yonder, darker than overhead, belike forerunners of rain. At first the staves came wooden.
“Hearken, you who hear me.
He who feeds the wolf pack
as freely as his followers
get feasts and riches from him,
and offers blood to Odin,
Eirik, has come home now.”
They caught at him and started to sing.
“The fire of battle flickered
forth against the ship-moons—”
Yes, Gunnhild thought, without the truth to fill it and give shape, this was merely a warp and weft of kennings. At best, it would never cry with the wind and crash with the sea. Dag was skillful enough, but he was no Egil Skallagrimsson.
Egil!
A black tide drowned the voice and the sun. Egil, who murdered her boy, called wreck down upon her house, scorned and scoffed at her, stole away faithfulnesses that had been hers, slew her man’s men, made light of her man’s law, had stood high with the Aethelstan who fostered Haakon Haraldsson, troll-ugly Egil, for whom fair and friendly Thorolf had in the end forsaken her, this death-foe walked free, beyond reach of the vengeance that alone could redeem rightness in the world, slake her hatred, and soften her grief, Egil, Egil.
Dag broke off. The sound of a horn also drew Gunnhild back. Two miles away on the eastern headland, but blown from full lungs and borne on the wind, it was a deep haro through the bird-cries to say that the lookout posted there had spied a ship.
It did not become a queen to run. Gunnhild walked fast. She must hide the hammering in her breast, keep ready to take bad tidings tearlessly. Dag hobbled after her, falling farther and farther behind, often stopping to lean on his staff and gasp.
Thorfinn and his guards stood armed on the docks when she got there. They held back the lowly who milled half eager, half afraid, but they drew aside for her. The two older of their sons whom their father had told to stay here, flaxen-haired Harald and red-haired Ragnfrod, had pushed their own way to the forefront. And somehow her daughter Ragnhild had slipped past. She ran to join her mother. “Is this the king?” she asked. Gunnhild could not but throw an arm around the thin shoulders and hold the girl close to her. The light that so brightly and wildly hued the firth struck fire in those loose bronze tresses.
Gunnhild knew the longship that glided from the channel named the String and down the bay toward her, forty oars swinging to the same beat, the lovely sweep of her strakes, the shields hung along her bulwarks—ship-moons—and the red-black-and-gold paint no less high-flown for being weathered. The threatening figurehead had been lowered, not to anger the land-wights, but this was a craft of Eirik’s.
Folk shouted. The ship moved swiftly, larboard oars withdrawn at the last eyeblink, to lay alongside the main wharf. Men there caught the lines tossed them and made fast. Men aboard shot out a gangplank.
It thundered in Gunnhild. Where among that crew was her husband?
Gamli, their first son Gamli, was first off. His beard had thickened. It shone, close-cropped, within the wings of his hair. How like his father he had become, Eirik when Gunnhild the girl beheld him. Though he had not taken time to don good clothes, but still wore sea-stained leather and wadmal, how like his father he walked.
He greeted Thorfinn in fitting wise. Through the buzz she heard that the jarl’s brothers were also coming; he had outsailed them. Then, then he strode over to her.
“Hail, Mother and Queen,” he said most weightily. Oh, underneath the manliness he was young yet. “I bear the best of news. Father has dealt with the Northumbrians of York. He showed them it was better that he guard than gut them. Now he sits in the town of York as their king. He sends for his household. I’ll bring you to him within this month.”
Ragnhild yelled her glee. She skipped about like a kid goat. All at once she remembered what beseemed a king’s daughter and went stone-stiff.
Gamli’s words grew a bit awkward. “They can’t take anybody who’s not Christian. Father has let the priests sprinkle him. So have I and Guthorm and most of the rest. So must you and my siblings. Christ is strong, Mother. In England I’ve seen what strength he gives them.”
That was a little thing, Gunnhild thought amidst the whirling. Maybe later she would find it was a great thing. Well, she had long wondered about it. Here on the wharf she knew only that Eirik—heeding her winter redes, she thought, but she’d say nothing of that unless to him alone—Eirik had won a lordship for himself and his brood. Striking from there, he should win back Norway. At least, once she’d learned more about England, she’d know better what to look for and what to do.
For now she could again have a shut-off room and open the locked box of herbs and bones and everything else.
Now, to begin with, she could throw her own curse over Egil Skallagrimsson.
VII
The church on the Sognefjord still smelled of fresh timber. It stood with the dwelling of its English priest, well apart from anything else, half hidden by a stand of fir. Thorleif the Wise had told King Haakon this would be best. It was uns
eemly that the houses of God and God’s thane huddle, as small and stark as they were, by the great hall and the roomy homes of steward and foremen. Worse, some heathens would think the sight of them every day was unlucky. They could take it into their heads to rip the walls down, once the king and his troopers had left. If not, then still those who might otherwise be willing to hear the Good Tidings could feel shy of going in under the eyes of their friends and afterward being mocked.
Haakon and the Christians among his guards came out and started back toward the hall. Clouds lowered heavy. A bleak wind soughed through darkling boughs. It ruffled whitecaps on steely water. Beside the king walked the graybeard, stoop-shouldered and squinting but a wealthy man whom everybody looked up to and called Thorleif the Wise.
Hearing mass again after so long had stirred Haakon’s heart. “If only they all would!” broke from him.
“You’ve made a beginning, lord,” said Thorleif.
Three ships from overseas this past summer, bearing half a dozen priests altogether. Three churches raised thus far. Here and there a handful of converts, not all of whom had stopped offering to the land-wights or even to the old gods. Haakon himself had learned not to have a chaplain along as he fared around Norway. He would never let such a man eat at the far end of the hall and sleep in a byre like a wandering beggar. But neither would the chieftains at most steadings let such a man sit amidst them. The land would soon again have been in uproar.
“Too little,” Haakon groaned. “Too slow.”
“A hunter moves softly and unhastily, lord. Often he stands and waits for the quarry to draw nigh.”
“This is no hunt; it’s a rescue. How many will go to Hell who’d have been saved if they’d gotten the Word sooner?”
“By now no few have heard it,” said Thorleif dryly.
“They have not understood it!”
Mother of Kings Page 22