Harald mildened a little. “That’s good of you, but not needful. We can’t take a war-fleet when our aim is peace.”
“We can take as much as befits you.” Gunnhild felt the misgivings beneath Arinbjörn’s bluntness. “Besides being my king, you’re my foster brother. Let me hold by my oaths.”
So it was settled. Harald would tell his brothers and have them ward the kingdom while he was gone. He himself would sail in early summer, at a given time to a given spot in Jutland, where Harald Bluetooth was to meet him. “That will be a happy day for my lord,” said Fridleif before he went from them.
XVII
The wanderfowl began to come home. Starling, lapwing, and suchlike reached Denmark when cold still whistled over a sodden earth where ice puddles often crackled underfoot in the morning. Warming went onward; days lengthened; geese bore the spearheads of their flocks between clouds gone tall and white; their honking drifted lonesome over new grass and blossoms on boughs. Kine were let out to graze, ragged till they shed their winter coats. Leaf buds opened. Songbirds flitted and twittered among them. And then one bright day the storks were there, winging mightily back to their treetop and rooftop nests, bearers of rebirth. Folk welcomed them with balefires and dancing after dark; no few children were begotten.
Ever shorter and lighter grew the nights. Springtime swelled into summer. Already it was a good year, fields rippling in their fullness, shoals of fish agleam offshore.
For months, seafaring men had gotten more and more restless. They went over their ships and boats, caulking, tarring, making sure of tackle, talking with each other oftener than with their women. Fishers and sealers were the first to set forth. Soon thereafter the earliest traders stowed their wares, stocked their craft, and were off to Hedeby or Gotland or wherever markets were again astir. Some others sharpened weapons, oiled mail if they had any, and squinted into the sun-blink on the seas. Among them were Gold-Harald and his vikings.
It was hard for Haakon Sigurdarson to stay indoors as much as he did. Now that the lanes were opening, chapmen to Norway must not carry along talk about him being, after all, on his feet. If they did hear yonder that he lived, let them believe it was barely. Sometimes he went abroad after sunset in a hooded cloak, to walk or to ride at a gallop. This became easy to do in the light nights. Sometimes he met with the two Haralds at a well-guarded house. Sometimes he received visitors whom he could trust at his own dwelling; his servants there were handpicked, well paid, and deathly afraid of him. Then he could let his tongue and mind ramble, or his wit strike with its adder’s teeth. “Too long has the weight of dear Queen Gunnhild been laid on Norway. And laid and laid—” When alone, he spent hours on end working to rebuild the strength he had lost during his weeks abed; weapons flashed in a narrow room, he leaped to and fro between the walls. And he did his thinking.
Now and then the thoughts were wistful, about the books he had seen and the many more Gunnhild once told him of. If only he had them, if only he could read them. Defiant, he would empty a horn in honor of the gods and the Shrine-bride.
When he deemed it was safe, he called in the skippers of those crews who followed him from Norway. He had regained health, he told them and showed them. Shortly he would make a viking cruise, for he and they had spent what they brought here and ought not turn into mere hangers-on of the Dane-king. Themselves chafing, they swiftly made ready.
Harald Bluetooth heard, and went to the jarl to find out more. “No threat to you, King.” Friendliness throbbed in Haakon’s voice. “How could it be, and why should it, when you’ve been so kind to me? True, there is more behind this than I’ve given out. I’ve learned of things that must be dealt with. If I tell you now, it’s bound to get loose, and our plans will go aground. May I ask you, King, to wait a few days? Then we’ll put our heads together, for this is a pressing business.”
Harald let himself be talked over, though he ordered his guards to stand by. Haakon had awaited that.
A scout rode into Randers. He had worn out relays of horses posted beforehand. Harald Grayfell had come. He lay with three ships at Haals, a hamlet by the eastern mouth of the Limfjord. It had been agreed through Fridleif that this was where the Dane-king would meet him at about this time.
Gold-Harald embarked his men and set north up the Skagerrak with nine ships.
No sooner had he left than Haakon went to Harald Bluetooth. They shut themselves away in a loftroom. “Now,” said the jarl, “I’m not sure but what we’ll row off to war and nevertheless have war-gild to pay. Gold-Harald’s on his way to kill Harald Grayfell and then take kingship in Norway. But do you really believe he’ll keep the promises he’s made you, when you’ve given him that much power? He told me this winter he’d kill you if he could.”
Harald Bluetooth sat not altogether shocked. From the first, he had been doubtful of his nephew. Gold-Harald’s later demands made it worse. In truth, it was mostly Haakon’s counsel that had stayed his hand.
The other man leaned forward, smile white in the dark beard, talking fast. “But if you, lord, promise me I’ll have to pay you only a light wergild, I’ll undertake to do away with Gold-Harald. Then I’ll be your jarl, plight my troth to you, and with your help keep a hold on the Norse and send you their scot. Then shall you rule over two kingdoms, and be a still greater king than your father.”
They did not speak together very long.
Gold-Harald had taken nine ships. Haakon came after him with twelve.
XVIII
Also to Norway, at last, springtime brought warmth, sunshine, quickening, and hope. If crops were still small, it was only because too much seed grain had been eaten. Those fields that were sown bore lushly; there would be seed enough next year. Meanwhile kine, with no dearth of grazing even in the mountain meadows, bore young that would live. Swine fattened in the woods. The fish in the seas bade fair soon to teem as of yore. Folk looked at the world and each other in wonderment, like children.
Harald Grayfell had meant to go first down to Vikin. If he started thence for Jutland in good weather, it should hold through the short crossing over to the Kattegat. The day before he and Arinbjörn left Hardanger, Gunnhild had asked him to walk around for a while with her. “At best, the time will be long before we meet anew.” She was not one to speak wistfully; nor did this quite sound like that. He had much to do. Nevertheless he shrugged, half grinned, and nodded. “Since you wish it, Mother.”
Four guardsmen behind them, they went from the hall, away from the town and the water, on a road winding through farmland. The sun had baked its ruts dry; they could hear their footfalls under a hush that else was broken by birdcalls and a lark high overhead. A few clouds floated in a boundless blue. On their right, a thin mist floated above an oatfield. Behind a rail fence on the left, grass mingled with clover, a hundred shades of green, starred with wildflowers, the cows that cropped it rusty red. Here and there rose trees not cut down when the south half of Stord was cleared, gnarled and wide-spreading oak, pillarlike beech, soaring elm. Light and shadow dappled their crowns. Smoke from a farmstead in the offing lost itself aloft. The men at work yonder seemed ant-small. Thyme lent a slight sharpness to sweet earth-smells.
Neither Harald nor Gunnhild had anything to say at once. The walk began to pain her left hip, as had been happening of late. She gave no sign and did not let it show that she limped. In this, at least, she thought wryly, skirts were more helpful than breeks.
At length the king, gazing straight ahead, spoke, somewhat awkwardly. “I think we can look for trouble-free sailing.”
“That’s tomorrow,” said Gunnhild low. “Today take gladness in the sun.”
“It bodes well. Everything seems to.”
“For whom?” she murmured.
“For my faring. For us. For everything.” He crossed himself, which she did not often see him do. “Let God not take that amiss. I’m not as pious as the priests hold I should be—” His voice stumbled.
That was a guess, Gunnhild thought. None of t
hem other than, maybe, Aelfgar would risk saying it aloud.
“But before we go, we’ll hear mass and give thanks for these blessings,” Harald ended.
Only in her mind could Gunnhild wonder why the Christians had not blamed their God, in those long years when he never heeded their prayers, but Sigurd and Erling were slain while the land suffered and seethed. “The heathen also are offering to their gods,” she said.
Harald scowled. “Sira Aelfgar believes the true God’s been angry with them, that they will not hear the word of Christ.” Harshly: “We may yet see about that.”
“Why has Svithjod fared so well?” she flung forth.
The heathen bargained, the Christians beseeched, she thought. But was mankind really altogether strengthless against Heaven?
Harald’s stride faltered. His look at her was almost shocked. “Mother, that’s a wicked question.”
Her thoughts ran on, an underground river. Could it be merely that more Finns lived nearer to the Swedes, and when they helped their own land the spells reached out to their neighbors?
But how then could the Swedes and Norse make booty of them, while the Kvaens felled their woods, drained their marshes, and pushed them from their olden ranges and the graves of their forebears into far northern wilderness?
“I won’t press it if it frightens you,” she said.
Her coldness covered an inward shudder. Might the ill luck that had hounded her and hers be vengeance for Aimo and Vuokko?
No, unlikely. The Finns were not a vengeful folk.
And yet—if a great wrong had been done, could it of itself so upset the world that harm must follow, like a fisherman’s boat capsizing when he sailed too recklessly? Could she, her man, her sons have been clinging to a keel throughout the years, till the storm-waves plucked them off and hauled them down, one by one?
A sudden, astonishing tenderness drew her back to the sun. Harald had stopped. She did too. He turned to her. It was as if beneath the strong-boned, golden-bearded man-face there fleeted a glimpse of the little boy she met on her all too short visits to his foster home. “Mother,” he burst out, softly, shakenly, “I meant no cut at you. Always you’ve striven for us. Your findings, redes, wisdom have been a, a torch in the dark. And—and—I’ve wondered about some things. Many men have. But I didn’t ask, did I? Nor did I ever let anyone ask. Oh, sometimes I’ve wished—” He swallowed. “But that shall stay between you and Christ.”
The words hardened and clanged: “I’ll never forsake you.”
Love rushed like a tide-race at her girlhood home.
She came near crying, “You’re about to, Harald. After all my warnings, forebodings, bad dreams, and, yes, rune-casts, you’re bound away. I beg you, don’t break my heart.”
No. She reined herself in. It was his pride as much as his troth that had uttered the vow. Hers could be no less. She was the mother of kings.
And she might, she might be mistaken.
“I was going to ask you this one last time to think again about your faring,” she said.
He had regained steadiness. “I knew that.” He sighed and smiled. “Well, I’ll bear with you.”
She shook her head. “No. It would be useless.” She took his arm. “Come, let’s walk together through this lovely day, for as long a while as you can spare.”
That was an hour or two. Mostly she kept them talking about such quiet, happy times as they had had together. Now and then she made him laugh.
Afterward the short night fell. A few stars glimmered through its half-dusk.
In the morning, two longships left on the outgoing tide. Harald skippered one, Arinbjörn the other. A third would join them in Vikin. The water glittered; the lean hulls danced. Strong young men crowded the bulwarks, to wave and shout farewell. The racket startled gulls, cormorants, puffins, auks, every kind of seabird into a storm of wings and shrieks. Because the ships went in peace, their haughty figureheads were down; but Harald stood at the prow of his, a flame-red cloak fluttering from his shoulders.
Yardarms rattled up masts. Bright-striped sails, the blackness of a raven across Harald’s, caught the wind. The ships canted and took bones in their teeth.
“Farewell, farewell,” called the men, women, boys, maidens on the wharf. “Thor help you; Njörd be kind to you,” wished some, and fewer: “Christ and his saints be with you.”
Gunnhild stood unspeaking, her guards walling her off. She must not make any heathen offering. Her spells had failed. She could not tell how Christ would take it if she in her sins prayed for her son. Therefore she dared not.
XIX
A horn blew, wild as the bellow of the aurochs which had borne it. Gulls, wheeling white, gave answer. Men peered seaward. Their gleeful yells rang across the water.
Before them lay the long Limfjord, about half a mile wide where it opened on the Kattegat. A salt breeze ruffled it; a midmorning sun struck gleams and flashes. Land stretched low and green from sandy strands, wooded on the south. On the north were also woods, oak and beech, looming behind paddocks and sown fields. Folk here were more fishers than farmers, swineherds, charcoal burners, or hunters. They lived together in Haals. That hamlet stood at the mouth of the bight, a huddle of dock, boathouses, homes, and workshops. In back of their row, two newer works, ordered by King Harald Bluetooth, reared above thatch and turf roofs, a chapel and a gallows. Black against the sky, something swayed at the end of a rope, the lich of a thief or robber. The fowl had taken eyes and flesh but, dried by the wind and this warm summer, enough sinew was left to hold some bones in the rags.
Hardly any boats lay moored. Having learned that the Norse meant no harm when they got here three days ago, the fishers went back to their work. Not to risk a brawl—over a woman, say—Harald Grayfell had gone on inland a mile. Nor did he want to risk suddenly having to launch grounded ships at low tide. He stayed anchored, allowing only a few at a time to go ashore. The crews grumbled, though not in his hearing or Arinbjörn’s.
Now cheer leaped in them. “The king!” they whooped. “Bluetooth is here,” and lifted arms in greeting. “We’ll feast, lads!”
The Danish ships strode on oars, past a holm and past the hamlet. Harald scowled. They were nine, all dragons. Shields were not hanging on the sides but inboard, ready to snatch up. Sunlight flared off helmets, byrnies, spears. Harald glanced across to Arinbjörn, who stood in the bow of his own craft. He saw that the hersir did not like the look of this either.
“Break out the war-gear,” said Harald quietly. “Blow the same order to the rest. Make no move, though, till we know what these men have in mind.” A snarl went the length of the hull, a stamping and growling as warriors crowded around the sea chests.
The lead Dane drew hailing-near. Harald himself cupped hands around mouth and called from the depths of his broad breast, “Ahoy, there! Are you from King Harald Gormsson? Here is King Harald Eiriksson of Norway, come to deal with him as he asked.”
A tall man in the other prow gave back, “Here is Harald, son of King Knut Gormsson. I bid you to battle, Harald Gunnhildsson, for your evildoing, bad faith, and the kingship you wrongfully hold.”
“The Dane-king will have your head.”
“The Dane-king sent me.”
Harald stood silent for the span of a bowshot, hardly hearing the outrage aft of him. He scanned to and fro. The nine ships were in a line across the fjord. Wind and tide were against him. He spied no way to slip between. Two or three could lay alongside each of his. Whatever hope was left him flickered on the land.
“I’ll meet you ashore,” he roared, “and take your head myself. God send the right!”
He swung about and rapped his bidding. The anchor came up; the oars came out, driving the ship till her keel grated in the northside shallows. His other crews did likewise. Overboard they sprang and waded up onto the sands. The last men off dropped anchors again. This fight would likely end before the tide turned.
One helped the king don his mail. While the rest were noisily m
aking ready, he got a few words with Arinbjörn.
Wrath glared ice-blue. Nevertheless he spoke evenly. “With lies were we lured here. Men should forever after spit at the name of Harald Bluetooth. I had no thought he’d turn like this on one he used to called his foster son.”
“From what I’ve heard, lord, he’s not that cunning.”
“I’ve an inkling—too late—that Haakon Sigurdarson’s behind it. The queen mother tried to warn me.” Harald bared his teeth. “Well, now there’s nothing to do but break this tool of his.”
“The odds are heavy,” said Arinbjörn in his slow way. “However, once in a while men have won against worse. It’s not for me to tell you your trade, King. Still, I think we can only win through this by sheer will. Let me rede you, lord, to hearten the boys and rouse rage in them, till they don’t care whether they live or die if they can but kill.”
Harald nodded. “Well thought. I will.” His gaze and his voice softened. He laid a hand on Arinbjörn’s shoulder. “Old friend, we’ve fared long and far, the two of us. Never were you anything other than faithful. Even when troths clashed in you— I forgave that years ago, Arinbjörn. Today I believe I understand it.”
“Thank you, King,” said Arinbjörn. “It behooves a man to stand by his friends and his lord. I—I’m glad I can.” He turned his craggy face aside and knuckled an eye. “Best we get to our business, I think.”
Harald’s crews had armed themselves. Their headmen had gotten them into ranks. Banners waved in the sea-wind. Half a mile toward Haals, the foe had also landed and were mustering. With their greater number, it went more slowly. Harald had time to tread before his following, raise his hand, and say to them:
“Men of Norway, sprung from heroes, hear me, your king to whom you gave your oaths! You know we came here in peace and honestly. Murderous falsehood lay in wait for us. No man foresees his weird, nor may he flee it. His freedom is in meeting it undaunted, so mightily that his name lives on ever afterward, even to the end of the world. Scant is the honor to be won on a sickbed. Happiest is he who falls in the fight after reaping a harvest that grieves his foes, for never will men forget him and what he did.
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