Haakon let that pass by. “Would you say Eirik had been a good king before, that they welcomed him back?”
“No worse than most, I gather,” answered Brihtnoth carefully. “And unlike Olaf, he’d sent no scot to King Eadred, nor let Eadred’s men in to do things like snatching off the archbishop. Neither will he now, I believe.”
“Hm.” Haakon rubbed his short, golden beard. “What do you think Eadred will try?”
“He’ll not take it meekly, I’m sure. Otherwise, how can I tell, a simple priest?”
Haakon laughed, not quite mirthfully, and slapped his friend’s shoulder. “Priest, yes, but not simple. I know you better.”
Brihtnoth smiled, shook his head, and kept silent. They walked on. Shadows and the eastern sky darkened.
Haakon hardened again. “Do you think Eirik will be content with what he now has?”
“I know not. But I doubt it. And his sons have no love of peace.”
Haakon gazed ahead, as if through and beyond the stand of fir that gloomed near. “Therefore I must always be on guard against an attack from the west,” he said low. “Meanwhile the land bleeds. King Tryggvi and King Gudröd down south are faithful to me, but too young to take warlike leadership, yet not young enough that older men can very well do it in their names. Oftener and oftener, viking fleets harry these shores. We Norse can only fight them on the spot, and if they lose a battle, they slip free. Because of Eirik, I can’t spare the strength to go after the evil at its root. That’s in Denmark. King Harald Bluetooth bears no kindness for us. Pray for me, Father.”
“Always. I never stopped after you were gone. How I’d run whenever a ship came from Norway, to catch what word I could!”
In the grip of his thoughts, the king seemed hardly to hear. “On the whole, my folk like me. But this with the raiders—this, that I’ve waged no war, won no victory—it makes them wonder.” He sighed. “Also, I’m told, that I’ve taken no queen to me, whose kindred might help us. And, maybe worst, that I’ll have nothing to do with their heathen rites. By God’s grace, hitherto the harvests and fishing have been good, even overflowing. But should they fail, the Norse will soon believe their gods are angry with me.”
Brihtnoth crossed himself. “May the good years keep on—and you have your victory.”
“Could I be free of the threat of Eirik—”
“God will help you to that also, in his chosen hour. For you are his apostle.”
Haakon’s mood turned rueful. “Not a very lucky one thus far.”
“Why, even in England we hear of conversions.”
“Oh, yes, here and there my few priests still give baptism. Mostly, I fear, it’s taken for my sake, or in hopes of getting something from me. Not many have stopped sacrificing. I can’t disown them for that, can I? And each year, the number of those who’ll acknowledge Christ grows less. I think—I hope this isn’t the sin of despair—” Haakon too drew the holy sign. “—I think few are left who’ll forsake the old gods without stronger cause than I seem able to give them. A stubborn breed, the Norse.” His shoulders straightened. He lifted his head higher. The evening star gleamed into his sight. “Brave, though, hardy, honest. I cannot but love them.”
Brihtnoth held back from saying that not everybody in the Westlands would agree. “This Sigurd Jarl, our host, it’s easy to see he’s a mighty man. If he can be won over, Mother Church will gain a son almost as strong as you.”
Haakon sighed more deeply than before. “Would that might happen. But he stands by his gods as steadfastly as by his friends. Nobody makes richer offerings to them than he does.”
Dusk stole out of the woods and across Hladi. The breeze was going chill. Ever brighter shone the evenstar. More began to blink forth.
“And I can understand it,” Haakon said, well-nigh under his breath. “I’ve heard the tales, the lays, from long and long ago. Greatness, heroic hearts—” He jerked to a halt. Again and again he crossed himself. “No! No!”
Brihtnoth stopped likewise, there in the gathering twilight. Soon they must start back. “Nonetheless you have to keep Sigurd’s friendship,” he said slowly.
“Without him, I think, the kingship would slip from my hands.”
“That must not happen. You’re the king who brings the Faith.”
Haakon grasped Brihtnoth’s shoulders. “I believed that when I came,” he blurted. “It’s weakened in me. To you, already, Father, I confess my zeal has flagged. But now that we’re together— Help me; hearten me; be with me—I’ll go onward. We will.”
XVI
Eirik spent the first summer and winter of his return more on horseback than aboard ship. Riding around the whole of Yorkish Northumbria, he hunted down outlaws, often with hounds. He gave judgment to folk and gifts to their leaders. He readied them to fight if need be for a land that was now healing itself. His sternness and aloofness won him scant love but high standing in their eyes, together with some hope for a better day. That was all he wanted.
Likewise it went in York town. While cold toward those men who had sent him away, he did not penalize or openly sneer at them. For their part, they hastened to do whatever he called for. Even the priests and bishops said nothing to him about the heathen offerings he and many of his followers made. They did it well off in the hinterland, no more than twice or thrice a year. He heard mass a little oftener than that, though he never unbent enough to confess and take the Host. After all, the churchmen told each other, it was King Eadred who had clapped hands on their archbishop.
Mainly Eirik at home received outsiders: chapmen from abroad, hersirs and warriors from Orkney, vikings stopping to pay a friendly visit. Some of these last were sea-kings, men who claimed that name because a forebear or two had been of a kingly house, although their holdings were merely thorps or strongholds scattered around the Westlands—those, and their ships and wild crews. All such Eirik guested well. They broke the sameness here, gave his restless soul a look beyond these walls, brought news, bore off his messengers and spokesmen. Gunnhild welcomed them as eagerly.
Otherwise, aside from Eirik and her children, she was lonely. But then, she thought with a shrug, she always had been.
Through these men she followed, however brokenly, what was going on in the world. King Eadred, she learned, was not outright busking for a new war in the North. But during the year he invited Olaf Sandal back from Ireland and gave him the wardership of Cumbria, the earldom to the west and northwest of Yorkish Northumbria. When Eirik heard that, he barked a laugh. “Now we’ve less to worry about yonder,” he said.
“Still,” Gunnhild warned him when they were alone, “best will be to keep a sharp eye out. He’s no weakling.” She stood awhile in the guttering lamplight. “And yet,” she murmured, “this might give us an opening.”
Eirik tautened like a wolf catching a scent. He had come to know that mood of hers. “What do you mean?”
“Kings in Dublin have left other sons. With Olaf out of their way, those will be reaching for more than they now have. Might we show them it’s worth their while to snatch not at York as aforetime, but at England?”
“Thor hammer me, what a thought,” Eirik whispered. His eyes flamed. “What a queen I’ve got!” He seized her as he would seize a prey and bore her down onto the bed. His hands hauled on skirts and breeks.
He could be too quick and rough, like this. She was no cow in heat; she wanted to be kindled. As always, though, she bared her teeth in a grin and ground her hips against his. It was one of the tricks that kept him hers.
Let him tumble whomever he liked away from home, but let him never care for the wench or set her whelp on his knees. Let him never bring any in as his leman, giving her gold and a household of her own. Gunnhild understood that much of the awe she aroused, with the power that it led to, came from her being the one wife, the coequal in all but name, of Eirik Blood-ax.
Besides, she was greedy of him.
While he thrust and rammed, she counted back the days since last her blood
ran. It should be safe enough tonight. She hated secretly killing with herbs a life that might have taken root in her womb. Nor was that very safe for her. Well, it happened seldom. Mostly the spells she cast, also in secret, seemed to shield her.
For she wanted no more children. She was still slim and supple, her hair still raven black, her skin white and firm. She was not sure if other spells of hers were helping with that. But the breasts were hanging looser, the belly was no longer altogether flat. Nothing could overcome Elli, the hag who wrestled Thor himself to his knee. She could merely be staved off awhile. Thereafter most men would begin looking elsewhere.
Seven living sons must be enough to keep hold on a kingdom won back and keep the house standing through all the storms of time to come. In a way, it was good luck that Eirik lost Norway when he did. Those sons had left their foster homes early, or never been in any. Since then they had grown up under one roof; Arinbjörn was no more than a teacher and helper. Yes, they were haughty and touchy, as was right, but, with day-by-day knowledge of each other, they hunted together across the world. They were not going to fall into the murderous strife of Harald Fairhair’s offspring. Together they would gain wealth, power, and fame.
Without ever telling them so, Gunnhild had raised them to that. She was doing it yet with the youngest, during these years when their mother meant more to them than they knew. Even the older ones, when they quarreled, settled it peacefully. If they could not by themselves, they asked her what she thought. Sometimes she wondered whether a lasting bond between them was her foremost, her only true dear wish.
Eirik shouted, shuddered, and got off her. She purred and stroked his beard while she hoped that now they could undress and blow out the lamp.
XVII
Word between York and Dublin traveled slowly, by fits and starts, and was never forthright. Eirik chafed because he could not go there himself and deal. Gunnhild was as glad of that, seeing that she could not well have come along to sit in. At least while this went on, which it likely would for a year or two, the Irish Norse stayed their hand.
There seemed to be peace with Northern Northumbria too, the English earldom east of Cumbria along the northern marches of the Yorkish lands, up to the Firth of Forth. It had helped Eadred in his war. After withdrawing to Orkney, Eirik had raided it more than once. But since his return here it lay as quietly as the English king himself. Spies found no busking for battle.
Winter closed in with gloom and snow and stormy seas. Fires burned high on hilltops and ale flowed freely in houses at Yuletide, everywhere around the land, whether or not the dwellers reckoned themselves Christian.
Easter was the time that well-nigh everyone kept holy. Any heathens would think it unlucky to offer to their gods while Christ went down into death and rose anew, victorious. Yet much of what folk did seemed to Gunnhild to hark far back. On Good Friday many of those out on the land and even some in town went around with blazing torches, crying on witches and evil spirits to begone. On Holy Saturday they brought in the Corn Mother. On the Sunday itself they kindled needfire near the churches. On the Monday they feasted, sang, and danced around a garlanded pole, praying to their saints for a good harvest.
At the Easter mass Gunnhild felt in her bones something of the power in the White Christ. She could only beg of it; and she would not. She, like Eirik, did take Holy Communion, for to keep from that at this highest point of the Church year would have upset too many in York. But their confessor was a mousy old man whom she had taken some pains to put in fear of her. If he had an inkling of how much she left untold, he said nothing about it and gave her only a few prayers to say when he shrove her.
She didn’t believe it fooled Christ. Maybe he understood and forgave. If not, maybe she could make it up someday when her work was done. However that went, she would keep striving with every strength and skill that was hers, on behalf of the house of her children.
Besides, there were other powers. Who could tell which of them had the roots running deepest down into the world and most widely below the earth?
Meanwhile spring stole back, shyly at first, then teasingly, brightness and bleakness, thawing and freezing, sunlight and squalls, until suddenly foals and calves tottered on greensward where earlier-born lambs skipped and the wanderbirds came home, kind by kind, from wherever they had been. Men pulled ships out of sheds to caulk and pitch and otherwise make seaworthy.
Eirik oversaw the work on his own. This summer he would fare again in viking.
He not only wanted to; he must. His men were beginning to grumble. His coffers were dangerously low. A king who was not openhanded with food, drink, goodly gifts above all, lost honor and risked losing kingship. Too many farms had not yet been built and sown anew; there was not enough scot to be had. Levies on trade helped. Now King Eadred had forbidden it with York. Any wares that came from there, his reeves seized wherever they could.
Moreover, the island chieftains, who were to rally to Eirik when he needed them, would lose faith and fall away if they gained nothing from the alliance. He felt that things were well enough in hand at his seat that he could go after booty.
Four of his sons were now of age to sail with him, and ragingly eager— Gamli and Guthorm as before, flaxen-haired Harald and red-haired Ragnfrod this time. Gunnhild stood among her women and guards on the wharf, watching the ships row down the river till they were lost to sight. Then she went back to steer the kingdom.
A while later came a letter from the north. The bearer was a close-mouthed Englishman. Brought before Gunnhild, he told her that he knew not what it said, but he was to warn that it should be unsealed with nobody to see who could not be trusted to keep silence. He was unhappy that he could not give it to King Eirik. Coldly, she bade him hand it over. Warriors stood by, armed. Eirik had ordered them to obey her as they would himself. The messenger heeded.
Alone, she turned it around and around. The parchment felt cold and dry under her fingers, like a snake’s skin. What could lie here waiting to strike? If only she could read it! In the Christian letters lay a might and mystery beyond the reach of her runes. How much of its power did Christendom draw from them?
She sent for her tame priest.
What he read aloud to her was from one Oswulf, King Eadred’s high reeve at Bamburh on the North Northumbrian coast. Newly given that rank, he wrote of his wish for peace and goodwill. He believed he could tell things King Eirik—yes, he or his scribe wrote “King”—would be glad to hear. He offered to come to York and talk about it.
Gunnhild frowned. This was strange. Did Eadred know? Maybe not. He must needs often let his men in these far parts do whatever they deemed best, without spilling time while words trudged to and from Wessex.
She sent the messenger home with her own word, that Eirik was abroad but should be back in late summer or early fall, and that he had said before he left that on this cruise he would not harry English soil. It was true. She had urged it on him. Witless, to stir the banked fires of wrath when he could as well go elsewhere.
This turned out to be a year of bad weather. Rain and hail lashed the earth; gales drove billows crashing and spouting ashore. Gunnhild yearned to loose her soul in search of her man. But no, that was always risky, belike the more so here where the Cross lifted high. Besides, whatever she found, she could do nothing. Let her set her teeth and keep in mind his doughtiness.
One day broke sultry and overcast. The wet heat thickened hour by hour until clothes hung heavy and reeking with sweat while throats felt choked. Nobody brooked much from anybody else if they could help it; hard words snapped. At last a breeze stirred. It strengthened swiftly to a west wind. A darkness lowering yonder drew eastward. Lightning flickered in it. Thunder muttered.
Gunnhild had been walking around the yard to think and breathe. Turning back to the hall, she passed near the women’s bower. The door flew open. A serving maid stumbled forth. She held hand to cheek and sobbed.
“Hold!” Gunnhild cried. “What’s wrong here?”
“Lower that hand.” Gunnhild saw a raw red mark that would become a great bruise. “Go where you will.” She would not stoop to questioning a lowborn while others stared. But her daughter Ragnhild was in the bower. Gunnhild made her work there for a few hours almost daily. Fine weaving was a craft which it behooved every lady to know. The maid fled. Gunnhild stepped through the door. Lightning forked overhead; thunder crashed, Thor’s wheels. The wind moaned.
The room inside was now dusky, but heat had called sweet smells from herbs mingled with the strewn rushes. The loom stood man-high, fathom-wide. Ragnhild whirled about from a tapestry taking shape on it. When she saw who entered, she seemed almost to crouch. Another maid cowered back into a corner.
“What’s this?” Gunnhild asked. “Why did that girl run off?” However small the happenstance, it might besmirch the house.
Ragnhild straightened and glowered. “I told her she was a sloven, and slapped her,” she answered sullenly. “She is.”
“What did she do?”
“She was filling the next shuttle and dropped the ball of yarn.” Ragnhild pointed. “See, it unrolled and got dirty.”
“That was no ground for striking her. Nor did you hit with your hand. You used the sword beater, didn’t you?”
“I was angry. This has been a nasty day. Everything’s gone wrong.”
“Get out,” Gunnhild told the maid. She scuttled through the door. Gunnhild closed it behind her. The unshuttered window flashed and flashed; thunder rolled through the wind; there went a sough of oncoming rain. Gunnhild turned back to her daughter. “Only a witling flies into a rage over something so little.” And seldom lives long. “Never give pain when it’s useless to you. That’s sheer wastefulness. Let me not hear of anything like this ever again.”
“Yes. I’ll go.” Ragnhild took a stiff-legged step.
“Halt!” rang Gunnhild’s command. The maiden jerked to a stop. “You won’t sit and sulk and feel sorry for yourself. You’ll learn from what’s happened. I’ll give you another task in the hall.”
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