Mother of Kings

by Poul Anderson

  He shivered a bit and held his hands toward the lampflame, for the evening grew cold. “Enough. But think, I ask of you, King; think.”

  Haakon had no ready answer. His head whirled and querned. It struck him how Brihtnoth would mislike all this, and then that he really need not tell Brihtnoth. How much could a priest understand of what it took to be a king?

  VII

  Afterward Haakon often wondered whether that Yuletide forebode his downfall or foretold his upsoaring. Or both? He could not even ask his confessor. He knew what he would hear—useless to him unless he left Norway behind, everyone who trusted him and all his hopes for all of them. Here was naught of the straightforwardness of either the soul or the sword.

  He went to Hladi as promised, with no priest in his train. The Thraands were still too touchy about that. This time he stayed at Hladi hall. Sigurd Jarl made him overwhelmingly welcome, but he said little and laughed never. Too much churned around within him—what would happen, what to do?—and a king should not show himself unsure.

  He was not at the slaughtering itself, nor did most of the heathen think he ought to be. The gods might take that ill. Besides, men did not want their mood broken by glum outsiders.

  Haakon knew what went on. Folk came here from far and wide, bringing with them whatever they would need, and every kind of livestock for offering. Foremost among the beasts were horses. Wildly went the surging, shouting, screams. Axes thudded; knives flared; blood spouted and gushed, the holy blood called hlaut. Most was caught in the hlaut-kettles. Into these were dipped the hlaut-staves, carved with runes and frayed at the ends, to sprinkle the halidom and the gathering with red. Fires roared; flesh cut from the bones seethed. Ale casks were trundled forth, to fill horns. Sigurd led in blessing. First they drained Odin’s beaker, for victory and might to the king; then Njord’s and Frey’s for peace and good harvests. Then many would drink to Bragi and make boastful vows, for which they were sometimes sorry later on. Last was a drink to the memory of friends and loved ones who were gone.

  The early dusk drew in; a chill wind rattled leafless boughs; lesser folk went to whatever shelter was theirs; the great flocked to the hall. The king was already in its high seat. They hailed him, with watchfulness behind their eyes, and settled down along the walls. Flamelight wavered red, filled folds of clothes with darknesses, turned bloodstains black, gleamed off metal.

  Sigurd Jarl took the first vessel, a goblet of shining Southland glass brimful of Southland wine. He rose from his seat beside the king’s, a little lower, and said into a hush where only the fires gave tongue: “Blessed be this, a draught of life, luck, and faith. In Odin All-Father’s name, let us drink to our king.”

  He brought it to his lips, took a mouthful, and handed it over to Haakon. That they so shared was a sign of friendship, well-nigh brotherhood. If Haakon did not, he might as well dash it in the jarl’s face, or spit on every man there.

  The king gripped it left-handed. With his right he drew the Cross above, before he drank.

  Breath hissed; voices rumbled. A man sprang to his feet. Haakon knew him, Kaari of Gryting, rich and strong, a man whose word was heeded everywhere in the Thraandlaw. Gray hair and beard seemed to bristle as he cried, “What’s the king up to now? Will he still not make offering?”

  Sigurd answered at once: “The king does what every man does who trusts in his own might and strength. He hallowed the drink to Thor. He made the sign of the Hammer over it.”

  Haakon could say naught. That might well become deadly. Nor should he be unthankful to the jarl, whose quick wit had saved him from what Sigurd must have seen as sheer rashness. Sour fire seared his gullet. He quenched it somewhat with ale, set his teeth, and stayed where he was, even speaking when spoken to, until time for sleep.

  Next day, when they were to feast, men of standing bore in a hlaut-kettle full of cooked horseflesh: for the heathen holy days were not yet ended. They set it down near the high seat, went before the king, and asked him to eat.

  During the night, alone in his shut-bed, he had groped his way toward what he must and must not do. “No,” he said. “Not for anything would I. This is forbidden food.”

  The guards of his who were among the guests tautened. Others were not far off. If it came to a fight, belike he’d fall, but not before sending many down to Hell.

  The Thraands looked at his face. “Well,” said their spokesman at last, “will you drink of the broth, King?”

  “No.”

  Men rose and pressed in close. They reeked of wrath.

  “Always erenow have our kings given the gods their honor. At least take a bite of the fat, lord.”

  “No.”

  Everyone was unarmed within the hall, but the Thraands stirred and snarled as someone called, “Lay hands on him!” A clatter sounded from the foreroom where weapons had been stacked. The guardsmen swapped glances and braced themselves.

  Sigurd’s voice stabbed through the racket. “Peace! Peace, I tell you, I, your jarl! You gave your oaths to the king. No grass will grow on the grave of an oath-breaker. Peace!”

  Into Haakon’s ear he muttered hurriedly, “And you yourself told them you’d offer. You came here to do it. Doesn’t your own God want men to keep their promises? Let me settle this, lord. I don’t want to lose you.”

  Both were now on their feet. Haakon stood wordless. The noise died away like an outgoing tide that will in its time come back. “King,” said Sigurd aloud, “let us indeed make peace. We know how you were raised abroad, where they worship only Christ. We can bear with that, for you are a good king, who gave us our freeholds back, and wise laws, and avenged us on the Danes. But do you in turn bear with your folk and their ways, King, while we work things out between us. Come, breathe of the holy food, only breathe. That will be enough to keep peace and goodwill among us.” He stared around at the gathering. “I myself, with my men, will strike against whomever breaks this peace.”

  Something gave way in Haakon. What would the Faith gain if he died in strife with his naming-father, his staunchest friend after Brihtnoth? “Yes,” he said around a lump.

  They stepped aside for him as he walked to the kettle. He snatched a linen cloth off one of the boards set for the feast. This he wrapped around the greasy handle before he lifted it, bent over, and quickly gaped. Stiff-gaited, he returned to the high seat.

  Thereafter they could eat and drink in the hall, though not merrily as of yore. Next day the king made ready to go back south. Nobody was happy with the outcome.

  VIII

  Harald Bluetooth had given Harald Eiriksson a great holding in the north of Jutland, near Aalborg. That town, on the south shore of the Limfjord, was a busy market, the seat of a bishop. Westward the waters broadened from a strait to a salty tidal lake edged with marsh; at length they wound their way around many islands and through more straits to open on the North Sea. The hall bestowed by the Dane-king lay beyond sight of the town, other than its smoke, but word ran swiftly between them.

  Gunnhild had spent the summer after Poppo’s miracle guesting with this son of hers. His brothers had their own new homes scattered elsewhere. When he went off in viking with them, he left her to run things. She was still doing so as fall came. Her heart leaped when a boy sped in to cry that two longships had rowed in from the east, crowded with men and seemingly stuffed with booty. “Are they King Harald’s?” she asked, unmistakably meaning her King Harald. He had left with three, but maybe he’d sent one aside to leave men off nearer their dwellings, or maybe there had been a wreck, or—

  “No, my lady,” the lad told her. “I wriggled through the crowd at the wharf and heard. Then I thought best I get back to tell you.”

  She gave him a close look from her seat in the bower. She had been overseeing the weaving of a tapestry. Along with beasts and intertwined boughs, some signs were in it that none but she understood. They had been on the drum in the Finn-hut.

  He met her gaze half cockily, half slyly. Kisping was his name, son of a po
or fen-dweller. He had come here on his own a few months ago to see if he, aged maybe thirteen, could better his lot. Something about him spoke to her and she said that he could try. Nimble, quick to learn, ready with chatter and small mischiefs but close-mouthed beyond his years when need was, he had gone from sleeping in the stalls and eating with the lowliest to being a footling of hers, who sat at the end of the hall and got what the household servants did. Thus far she had only trusted him with lesser errands, such as going to town today and dickering for fine wool; but she believed he could soon cope with more. Though he would never be tall, his scrawniness had become a wiriness that filled the clothes she gave him, his black shock of hair was trimmed and the sharp-nosed, narrow-chinned face washed clean.

  “Who, then, is it?” she asked.

  “Arinbjörn Thorisson, Queen, from Norway. I think he’s got better than two hundred men with him.”

  How did the stripling know—yes, clearly he knew—what this was to her? She had not spoken of it while here. But of course folk who had been with her before would talk, bits and snatches which a shrewd, unheeded listener could fit together.

  She kept her breath steady as she nodded. “He must want to meet with King Harald. We shall make ready to receive them.”

  They arrived toward evening, the long light burning on their mail and red on the dust that hoofs and feet raised off the road. Gunnhild went inside and took the high seat. The hubbub in the yard died down. Arinbjörn strode in alone. He did not seem to have changed, the blocky, slow-spoken man. “Greeting, Queen,” he rumbled when he halted before her. “May all be well with you and with your son, my foster son, King Harald.”

  “In his name, welcome.” She kept her voice cold. “Lodge here till he comes back. That should be soon. What brings you?”

  “Queen, you gave me leave to go order my household and other business in Norway. That’s done. I spent this summer raiding in Saxland and Friesland. When we reached Haals at the east end of the Limfjord, I made known that I’d seek the sons of King Eirik and hereafter fare with them. Whoever wanted to go on to Norway was free to do so. They did, in one of our three ships; but she was rather thinly manned, for most chose to follow me. They’re good warriors.”

  A sudden waxing of strength, she thought. However, she held her gladness hidden and waited. Newly stoked fires crackled in the gathering dimness; smoke drifted sharp.

  “Yes,” said Arinbjörn doggedly, “Egil Skallagrimsson was with me. He skippered the third ship after we bade farewell.”

  “I want to talk further with you, under four eyes,” she told him. “But now take the honor seat and drink, while the, housefolk see to the lodging of you and yours.”

  The hall brawled with cheer and brags until late that night. Gunnhild caught tales of wild sailing and fighting. Over and over they were about Egil, his boldness almost berserk, leaping across a ditch that nobody else could and cutting down a swarm of yokels, hewing his way back to the ships through another pack and thus turning the battle for the Norsemen, the staves that rolled and rang from his lips, he, first of every skald who ever lived. She spoke, in few words, merely when spoken to.

  Often her eyes rested on Arinbjörn. Across from her, he glowed as if with the fire itself; his laugh boomed; he was sheer manhood. Lust seethed up in her. So many years of nights alone. She held it leashed within her loins. Otherwise gossip and snickers would whittle away at the awe she needed.

  In the morning she asked him to walk with her, rather than that they go into a loftroom. Let folk think this was for seemliness’ sake. It would in truth keep her safe from him—or him from her, she thought wryly.

  Besides, it was better for her thinking. She was much outdoors, afoot or on horseback; the few guards who trailed had learned not to break the silence.

  The sky was an unbounded blue overhead, full of wings beneath strewn clouds, the calls of wanderbirds blowing down like dead leaves off branches. A breeze drifted to and fro, a touch chilly, smelling of wet earth. From the east the sun wanly lighted a land wide and low. A glimpse of the fjord shimmered on the edge of sight. Elsewhere lay shorn fields and sallow meadows, hayricks, woodlots gone brown and yellow. Among them hulked three dolmens. Folk feared those giant-works from an age forgotten and left offerings to slake whatever drows haunted them. Feared, too was a mire some ways off. Reeds and willows ringed sullen water and unkempt hummocks, over which still sneaked strands of night-fog. Many beasts and a few humans had blundered in there and never been seen again. Sometimes on hot summer days weirdnesses wavered above it, like twisted glimpses of things elsewhere or things altogether unknown. Afar to the southwest gloomed wilderness.

  Hope rose in Gunnhild from the day she first beheld it all. Here might be a land where she could again make herself more than a woman, more than a queen—a witch, to work upon the world for the furthering of her blood.

  She and Arinbjörn had walked awhile along a path, four guardsmen well behind them, before she said, “Now tell me how it really is with you and Norway.”

  “My lady—” He broke off.

  Her gray-green eyes, which in this light seemed cat-golden, caught his. She warmed her voice. “Tell me fully and frankly, old friend. I shan’t be angered. You’ve shown how true you are.”

  “Well—” He cleared his throat and looked straight ahead. “Well, I tried to help Egil in his case, but King Haakon would not be moved. So I paid Egil. It was right, after what he did for my kindred. This summer, as you heard, we went together in viking. Now he’s turned back to Norway. He’ll winter with my kinsman Thorstein, whom he met in England, and then, he says, go home to Iceland. I don’t think we’ll see each other again.”

  She heard the sadness and thought what a kindly farewell that must have been, and what words—yes, from Egil’s side, poems—would cross the seas between these two. If Egil ever did get home. Maybe she could yet do something about that. She thrust the whole question aside and pounced on what overshadowed it.

  “Drop such bygones. What of yourself?”

  He shrugged his thick shoulders. “It’s not good between King Haakon and me. I’m not outlawed, but because of Egil he no longer trusts me.” With a sigh: “I’m afraid Thorstein too stands low in King Haakon’s mind.”

  Later, slowly, little by little, she could show him what reason this gave, besides bonds of troth, to help her sons win their birthright. Today she only asked, “What of Haakon himself? We get news here now and then, but you must be much better aware.”

  “He’s been having his own woes, Queen. Maybe that’s partly why he’s so harsh about Egil. Be that as it may, his—um—apostleship?—making his folk Christian, as I’ve heard King Harald Bluetooth is making his—it’s not been going well. Above all, in Thraandheim this last winter.”

  The tale of that had flowed from end to end of Norway. As she listened, as she asked Arinbjörn more and more about what had happened and who the men against Haakon were and what they might do, her mind went winging.

  Those heathen hersirs and rich yeomen would hardly want to bring in her sons—the sons of Eirik Blood-ax, and Christians to boot. But they seemed very close to striking a blow for what they looked on as their rights. It would not take much to push them to it. A sign or two, as if from their gods—

  When her son Harald came home victorious—he must soon; he must be alive and victorious—she’d get him to give her a small house of her own. Meanwhile she could secretly be making ready. Her gaze roved from dolmens to mire. Yes, in this ghost-ridden land she could well do her Finn-weavings.

  IX

  They were chieftains, the eight who met late in fall—Kaari of Gryting, Aasbjorn of Medalhus, Thorberg of Varness, Orm of Ljoxu from the outlying shires; Blotolf of Olvishaug, Narfi of Staf in the Vaerdale, Thraand Hook of Eggju, Thorir Beard of Husabo from the inner Thraandlaw. The day was dark outside the house; rain dashed on hollow-voiced gusts. Fire flapped inside; lampflames guttered; light brought stern faces flickeringly forth amidst shadow and smoke-haze. The me
n sat benched around a board on which stood some jugs of ale. They filled their own horns when they wanted, for nobody else was in that room.

  Blotolf took the first word. He had called this meeting, he whose name meant Wolf of the Blood Offering. “Enough with greetings and everything else. Let’s go straight for the throat. I couldn’t give my messengers much to tell when I sent them around to you, but you know what it’s about. You’ve all brooded on it.”

  “Yes,” said Aasbjorn in his slow way, he who had spoken for the yeomen at the Frosta Thing a year ago. “The king threatens our freedom. And yet—yet he’s a good king, mostly.”

  “You may not have heard of how he’s behaving toward the kinfolk of Thorir of Sygnafylki,” growled namesake Thorir Beard.

  Orm shrugged. “That’s down there.”

  “But it bodes what we may await unless we stand up,” Blotolf said. “Dreams have come to me, nightmares. The same, over and over. I stumble lost through a land gray, cold, bare. Everywhere lie dead bones, gnawed by trolls. In an endless wind I hear a mockery, ‘You have forsaken the gods. So the gods have forsaken you.’ ” He shivered, which none had seen him do erenow. “What can it be but a sign?”

  Kaari, who had cried out against Haakon in Sigurd’s hall, clutched his horn till knuckles whitened. “Are we, then, doomed?”

  “No,” growled Thorberg. “We’re being warned. I’ve had that dream myself, Blotolf. This can’t be happenstance.”

  “Whatever our doom may be, we can meet it like men,” said Narfi.

  “But—but I’ve had a sign too—I think,” said Thraand. “Shortly before your man reached me, Blotolf, I slaughtered a ewe to Frey. No big giving, but a daughter of mine was going to be wedded, and I thought— Well, it was a clear, crisp day. All of a sudden, a swallow darted overhead. Thrice it winged around me, then flew southward. A swallow, at this time of year?”