Yes, these were men of Eirik’s, yonder was his own ship, but they were few camped here, only watchmen. Some cast her a glance, a swallow at this time of day. The little knife-winged thing swept above them and lofted anew. There it seemed to look about before it left them, bearing east-northeast.
He had said he would strike afoot into Cumbria if he came on a spot that was weakly held. She made out no signs of any fight at all. The track of his troop was easy to follow, trampled grass and grainfields, a hamlet gutted and burned. She flew.
The land lifted in rolling hills and rounded bergs. Sheep grazed the heights; farms filled the dales. Winds flowed up from the warmth below. They tossed her till she learned how to ride them. The viking spoor led her onward. They had sacked steading after steading and three manors, slaughtered kine for food, taken horses to carry loot, hand-bound and neck-haltered young captives to sell. Now she saw smoke drifting from lately blackened wreckage. Nowhere did she come on token of any real battle.
From its uppermost ridges the land fell downward again toward a wide river. That and the valley stretched farther than she could see, even from the sky. The lowland glowed green with woods and meadows, amber with ripening crops. The smoke rising yonder was from the hearths of untold homes, the fires of smelters and many smithies. Thorps, villages, churches clustered everywhere; afar lay a small town or a big monastery. Here wealth unbounded waited for the taking.
In the hills above this side, near a hamlet not yet harmed, men fought.
Over brush-begrown swells flanking a rutted road came the English. Already their ranks crowded in on the Norse ahead and behind. Already the grass was reddened, dead men trampled to pulp and splinters. Swords clashed; axes thudded; horns brayed; throats howled. Spears, arrows, and stones hailed from the slopes.
The Norse held firm. Their banners waved steady-footed, markers for living bulwarks. She kenned Eirik’s raven, oh, she kenned it, and there he himself was, tall, shining in helmet and byrnie, relentlessly hewing. She swung low, into the battle racket, among the hurtling shafts. She would fly above him, around and around and around, singing death away from the dear head, whatever it cost her, for as long as he needed to win his victory.
Something that was not wind seized and flung her. Something she could not hear shrieked. Something she could not feel struck ice through her. Helpless, she tumbled away. Almost, she crashed against a boulder. Barely did she slip free.
Again she tried, and again. The storms cast her back. The fight raged on unheeding.
She caught a clean updraft and let it bear her skyward. There she circled. There she watched what happened below her. She could only watch.
It was the slain, she knew, the wrathful new-made dead, rushing from the world. Nothing like her could cross their way to wherever they were bound, to Valhall with the valkyries or off onto hell-road or whatever it was. Men believed they knew, many and many a belief. She, the bare soul in the seeming of a bird, knew she did not.
To and fro the swallow went in heaven. The sun drew westward. It goldened an eagle that waited on high. Crows and ravens gathered lower down, black above the earth, ever oftener landing to pluck out an eye or tear off a strip of flesh. Eirik had always fed them well.
She watched the battle.
At first the Norse threw back each English onslaught. Eirik’s banners crossed windrows of their fallen. He got his ranks arrayed so that every weapon was free to smite and every bowman, spearman, and slinger had room to work. They clove a path forward. Now and then, in spans of hoarse breathing, the foe regrouped their own shattered troops. The vikings whooped at them.
But more English were arriving, a swarm across the hills, fresh for the fight while the Norse wearied and grew fewer. It was as though for any man whom Eirik’s cut down, three sprang up. They broke his right wing. He and his chieftains made the warriors left them into a shield-wall. Their shafts spent, they stood their ground, a rock amidst wild surf.
Bit by bit, the rock crumbled.
The sun cast level beams and long shadows from the west. The black flocks were now thick in the air and on the earth.
A horn call, a hundredfold shout, a crash of iron, and the English burst through. The battle became a maelstrom.
For a short while Eirik’s banner swayed above it. Then it fell. She could find him no more in that surging of men, but a roar rose over the din and the mightiest of the slain went by.
She did not grieve; she could not until she was again human. Nonetheless she flitted awhile yet overhead. Maybe she would see him. Maybe she could keep the ravens off him.
Some Norse got free as the fighting turned into knots of men who hacked at each other with blunted blades held in shaky hands. Most fled by themselves, ran, stumbled, gasped, blindly bound anywhere. Surely they would be hunted down like wolves. Two bands of a score or less had leaders who kept them together. They beat off whoever attacked them. Otherwise the English were still too busy or too battle-worn. One band headed seaward, one inland. They soon passed from sight among the darkening hollows between the hills.
She dared stay no longer. Night would have fallen before she could land and walk around to search through the tumbled dead; and she was not an owl. Were she still in her room by morning, she thought her sons would be worried enough to break down the door. If they found her lying like a Finnish shaman, and naked, it would mean trouble with them as well as with the folk. She must not risk that. She was the queen.
She dipped as low as the waning death-winds let her, once, flew back aloft, and winged toward the gathering night.
XXI
After three days, Arinbjörn led his remnant into York town. They had gone slowly, as wounded and hungry as they were, drinking at whatever mud-holes they happened on, hiding whenever somebody might spy them and tell the foe, until they were in lands they reckoned friendly. Four died along the way. The heat and pus in two more were going to kill them also.
Bathed, fed, his hurts freshly bound, he slumped in the honor seat and told his tale to Gunnhild and her sons.
“We saw beacon fires,” he said dully, “but thought they were mere warnings, for nowhere was any host, or even any bunch of armed yeomen. We put into Morecombe Bay and grounded, ready for a fight. Nobody met us. King Eirik said this showed Olaf Sandal was still more redeless than he’d believed. Cumbria must lie open clear to the Vale of Eden, on into our Northumbria. So we set off thither, and at first everything went well. Too well, I began to think, but that was nothing a man could say, was it?
“At Stainmore they waylaid us.”
Yes, Gunnhild thought as the words trudged on, Olaf had waited there. He must have had men out in swift boats, who brought him the news when they saw the viking fleet bound for his shore. Then did he gather his warriors and call for levies throughout the land.
He was not that cunning, and had he been, he could not have set this up by himself. Oswulf of Bamburh must have thought of it, been in touch with Eadred, guided Olaf, while he lied to Eirik and lured her man toward the trap. Oh, Eirik was not witless; he had sent his spies and scouts. But if Olaf and Eadred kept silence, it was not hard to mislead them.
She was still weary to the marrow. It was all she could do to sit straight. Inwardly she was too dulled to feel any depth of hatred for Oswulf. Later she would, a poisonous sea of it. Then she would have tried to throw a curse on him; but she’d lack the means, where she’d likeliest be. Later she would mourn for Eirik, weep for him when she was alone, see to the honoring of his memory and the morrows of his children. Today she could only hear:
“I saw my king fall. His mail hung in shreds. Bruises blackened him; his own blood reddened him. Yet he fought. The men around him died; the foe closed in on every side; an ax took him in the neck. Our ranks were shattered, our last hope gone. I rallied a handful and we cut our way out. We made for here rather than the ships, as others may have done, because it’s a long haul around Scotland and I wanted to bring you tidings as speedily as might be.”
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�That was good of you,” said Harald.
Yes, thought Gunnhild, ever was Arinbjörn faithful. Now she truly forgave him his friendship with Egil.
“You’ve given us warning,” Harald went on. “As soon as King Eadred hears, what will he do but come north against us? This goes as hard to say as Father’s death, but without him and his warriors we cannot stand. We shall have to withdraw.”
Take ship again, Gunnhild knew. Back again to Orkney.
XXII
Shortly after they got there, three warcraft rowed into the haven at Wide Firth. Woefully undermanned, some aboard them weakened by wounds, they had nonetheless made a fair passage from Morecombe Bay—that much luck they kept. The skipper of Eirik’s dragon was her brother Aalf the Shipman. Thorfinn’s brothers Arnkel and Erlend lay dead at Stainmore, along with many another Orkneyman.
The jarl was guesting the queen and her sons here, and had found housing for the men, women, and children who came with them. Likewise he received Aalf well, if not cheerfully. Thereafter he said little as the newcomer told of the battle and escape, the burning of those hulls for which he had no crews, and the voyage home. Locked into himself, Thorfinn had been brooding on something. Gunnhild wished she knew what it was.
“Now that I’m back,” sighed Aalf when the telling was done, “you, my sister and nephews, are of course welcome to stay with me, though my home is not as big and fine as this.”
They thanked him and answered that they would pay calls. However, otherwise they would abide where they were. “It’s a better spot for keeping track of things and a grip on them,” said Gamli. “We’ll soon have our own built—in time, more than one—fit for kings.”
“Until we gain the true kingship that is ours,” Guthorm laid to this.
Gunnhild saw Thorfinn’s brows draw into a scowl. He quickly masked his face anew. She foresaw trouble. There was nothing to be done about that today.
“We waited with Eirik’s grave-ale in hopes you would be on hand for it,” she said to Aalf. “Now we shall hallow his memory.”
She wondered if anything ever could. Surely the emptiness where he had been was unfillable. But his fame would live, and so, through his sons, would his mightiness. Henceforward, that was her life’s task. In doing it, outthinking and outlasting whoever stood against it, she could maybe find some easing of the hurt in her, and in the end, maybe even a healing.
She had already set work afoot on the feast. It would last long, unstinted. Every man of standing left alive throughout Orkney was to come. Gifts to them would be kingly, gold, weapons, fine clothes, even some ships. Besides being right for Eirik, that would buy goodwill for his house and faith in its strength. Both were sorely wanted after what had befallen. Yes, then the treasure on hand would be scanty. But his viking sons could win more than they had spent, while taking blood revenge for him.
A storm blew in during the feast. Wind yelled; rain brawled; seas roared. Gunnhild thought that good. They too mourned him.
Smoke from the longfires drifted bitter through the hall, lamplight flickered over arm-rings and eyes, as the skald Dag Audunarson stood forth to say the poem he had made for his lord. The staves clanged amidst the wildness beyond the walls.
“In a dream I saw how Valhall
ere daybreak readied its welcome.”
He shifted into the voice of Odin.
“I had bidden my men to straw
the benches and wash the ale horns.
Worthy are those who will come
of the wine the valkyries are fetching.
With gladness I now await
the warriors out of Manworld.
“Bragi, I hear the thunder
of a thousand fighters faring.”
Dag gave words to the god of poetry:
“The benches shiver as if
Baldr were bound back hither.”
Odin: “Unwisely you spoke there, Bragi.
Well do you know it is Eirik,
the Blood-ax, who wakes these echoes
as he enters into Valhall.
“Sigmund and Sinfjötli,
go swiftly to meet him in honor,
the hero, if this be Eirik,
he for whom I have waited.”
Bragi: “Why is it not another
than Eirik, among all kings?”
Odin: “His blade he has often bloodied
in battles through many lands.”
Bragi: “Then why did you make him fall,
as fearless as ever he was?”
Odin: “Can you guess when the Wolf shall run loose?
The gods have need of his kind.
“Hail, Eirik! Your strength and wisdom
are welcome here among us.
But who are those boars of war
you bring along behind you?”
Eirik’s own haughtiness gave the last answer:
“Five are the kings that follow
their foremost, myself, the sixth.”
Everybody praised the poem. The sons rewarded the skald well.
It was not a bad one, Gunnhild thought. Yet—if only Egil Skallagrimsson were not a foe!
XXIII
A man of Thorfinn’s told Gunnhild that the jarl wished to speak with her about a weighty matter. She said that she would meet him in her room. It was upstairs in the hall, and not big, but it was hers while she dwelt here. He should come to the queen, not she to him.
The morning was bright, almost warm. She left the door to the gallery open, for the fresh air and outlook over the sparkling firth. Thorfinn entered by himself, better clad than he was wont during the day. Gunnhild had donned a white linen gown, embroidered panels, and silk headcloth from abroad.
“Hail, my lady,” he rumbled.
She gave him a cool look. He stood heavy and foursquare, grizzled, snout-nosed, squinting. “Greeting to you, Jarl,” she said, in a voice meant to recall his rank to him. “Be seated.” There were chairs. “Will you have a stoup of ale?”
“That’d smack well.” He did not thank her while he sat down facing her, as if to make her remember that it was his ale. But he did then add, “Queen.”
Gunnhild signed to the wench she had kept on hand, who bowed her head and went out. Something better than small beer would indeed be good. Again her thought had touched on the news lately arrived from England, that King Eadred had made Oswulf earl over York, over everything yonder that had been Eirik’s. As before, a burning rose in her throat. Ale might quench it. “What have you in mind?” she asked.
“I’ll speak of it with your—with King Eirik’s sons, of course,” Thorfinn began slowly. “But it seemed to me, Queen, you being their wise mother—if we two agree, they’re bound to. Not that I believe they wouldn’t. But I’m loth to have wrangling between us.”
She nodded. “You have dealt with us as behooves an honest man of ours.”
He reddened. His utterance harshened. “Well, I am the jarl of Orkney.”
“And my sons are its kings.”
“Haakon Haraldsson off in Norway says otherwise, I think. We’ve not forgotten how his father came over our fathers.”
Gunnhild waited. Let him make his own opening.
“I stood by King Eirik. He was the rightful king. But he’s gone, and most of his strength with him.”
“His sons are rebuilding it.”
Thorfinn raised bushy brows. “Enough? Can they? The Orkneymen too have lost much. They wonder how bare to King Haakon we lie.”
“Thorfinn Skull-splitter does not fear Haakon Aethelstan’s-foster, does he?”
The man bit his lip. “Queen, it’s not that we haven’t kept faith with you,” he said, word by hammering word. “My two brothers laid down their lives for King Eirik.” And the hope of booty, she withheld telling him. “Now his sons claim his rights over us and his scot from us.”
“You’d like something in return,” she murmured.
“Best for everyone will be that we bind our houses together, for the whole world to see.”
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Gunnhild foreknew what was coming. A breeze off the firth gusted suddenly chill.
“Otherwise, Queen—who can say?”
“What are you leading up to?”
“You know my son Arnfinn is widowed. He’s my oldest; he’ll have the jarlship after me. Were he to wed your daughter Ragnhild— You understand me.”
“Say on.”
“His wife bore him no sons that lived. His and Ragnhild’s son will get the jarlship from him. Meanwhile I and all of us will do everything we can to help your sons back to the high seat in Norway.”
That wouldn’t be enough, she knew. It couldn’t be. But if Thorfinn was refused this wish, any help he gave would be half-hearted at best, and belike if Haakon came he’d yield without a fight. Then Eirik’s sons would be no more than sea-kings.
“It’s worth talking further about,” Gunnhild said.
The maid brought in two goblets.
XXIV
The afternoon turned cold and blustery. Sunlight speared between hurrying clouds. Whitecaps chopped. The seafowl still wheeled and screamed in their thousands. Gunnhild liked being out in such weather, her heart at one with the winds and wideness. It was Eirik’s kind of weather.
Knowing her daughter, she led the maiden into it, ordering the guards to stay. They walked silent to Crow Ness, where they stopped and stood. Ragnhild gazed at her mother’s hard-set face, shivered a bit, and wrapped her cloak tightly around her. “What’s this about?” she asked, not quite steadily.
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