TLV - 01 - The Golden Horn (29 page)

"It would be as well to have a few men-at-arms watching too," he said. His hands slid over small breasts firmed now with milk, and he drew her to him.

She pushed cold palms against his chest. "Harald, darling . . . no. I have not been well. I'm afraid for the child
..."

He lay in darkness for a bitter moment. "As you wish," he said coldly. "Good night."

A few minutes later, he heard her try to muffle her weeping, and felt a sudden pity. "It's naught. Forgive my temper. I've missed you."

"I want to be so much to you," she said, "and I am so little."

"Don't think thus," he said awkwardly.

"Take a concubine," she murmured. "I don't care. All men do, don't they?"

He could hear that she had to force the words out, but decided to follow her rede. It would have been done in any case, but she was good to say it herself.

The short winter days dragged by. Harald had no trouble finding a yeoman's daughter who would live with him for a while. Waking alone across the hall from the disturbed dreams of a woman with child, now and then he wondered how Ellisif felt, but did not know what to say to her. He did observe that she seldom went to church, and when he asked her why was told that she did not feel at home in the Roman rite.

"When I am king," he said, "we shall get an Orthodox priest or two for you."

Her smile broke forth like sunlight.

He took some care not to get his leman pregnant, for any king's son by any woman had a full claim to the throne and it would be better if he was succeeded by Jaroslav's grandchild.

Shortly after the new year, Elizabeth was brought to bed. She bore the child with many hours of pain. Harald sat them out drinking with Ulf; he could think of nothing else to do. Whenever a shriek came across the yard from the small house in which she lay, he would stiffen.

"I have not prayed much," said the Icelander drunkenly, "but let Christ comfort her."

"The Virgin," said Harald. "She was a mother too. I vow her a hundred candles if this goes well."

"You're a better churchman than I, though neither of us is very good," said Ulf. "Do you pray for her, and I'll cast a spell an old witch wife taught me." They heard another scream. His teeth snapped together. "By all the gods! Torn apart living . . . is there no other way than this?"

"They say it was a curse laid on Eve," Harald mumbled, staring into his horn.

"I think little of a God who would curse Ellisif for something another woman did," snarled Ulf. Sweat lay in the pockmarks on his face. He began to cut runes in a willow wand, slowly and carefully.

Dawn was chill and gray across miles of snow. Bells were ringing to matins when the midwife entered with something wrapped in a blanket and laid it on the earthen floor at Harald's feet.

He stared at the tiny wrinkled face. It hardly looked human. "What is it?" he asked. His skull was a hollowness filled with mists, the world was far off and unreal.

"A girl, my lord," said the woman, opening the blanket. "She seems to be sound."

"A girl. Well, then . . ." Harald stood up. "How is Ellisif?"

"She is awake, my lord."

Harald crossed the wintry courtyard to his wife. She looked up at him through eyes dulled by fading nightmare. He laid a hand on her wet forehead. "Are you well?" he asked.

"Yes . . ." He could barely hear her. "What do you want to call the child?"

Harald glanced away. "Maria," he said.

"For the Virgin? Yes.
...
My little Maria
..."

"Go
to sleep now," he
said. His lips brushed hers and she smiled wearily.

* * *

It was not to be expected that Svein would not know what had occurred in Norway: the Uplanders refusing Harald, but the Dalesmen hailing him, and talk of agreement with Magnus. Harald did not try to hide it. What he wanted to keep secret was the men who now and again slipped into his house after dark with word from the north. Svein made remarks about how Harald's folk were always armed and near the hall, but added a nervous laugh. It was plain, though, that he bore little love for his ally.

The bargain was made by such messengers. Both sides yielded something: Harald was to be king with Magnus, the younger man ranking first; their movable goods should be divided equally; they would meet to take oaths on this. Now he must get away from Denmark without a fight.

Spring came in all her ancient trickiness: a day of warm skies, melting snow rushing seaward, birds achatter above wind-ruffled puddles; then snow again, wet and heavy, and ice in the morning; then all at once every road a mud wallow and the woods breaking out their first shy green. Folk crept from their houses and grew aware of crusted winter filth; children leaped on water-gleaming gravel, their bare legs blue with cold but wild to be out and run. The yeomen were suddenly hitching oxen to the wooden plows and turning over the earth in the shadow of gray old dolmens. Springtime feasts were held; men and women danced in a ring, and the clergy labored to give centuried heathen customs a Christian meaning.

Harald went to Hafn and worked at readying his ships, paint and tar and bast caulking, new ropes of walrus hide, scrubbing and soaking, then out of the boathouse and into the sea! Spring blazed in his blood; this year he was going home.

He came back to find Svein raising the Danish levies. Now that seed was in the ground, men had time to fight, and the camps about Roskilde bellowed with them.

"My scouts have brought word that Magnus is preparing to leave Norway," said Svein. "But he seems to have no great fleet, so he must not plan to do much this year. God willing, we can fall on him with more ships and be done with him."

"That may be," said Harald. "I shall take my whole household, and we can sail straight north after the battle."

Svein looked narrowly up to him. "Sometimes I wonder about you," he said. "I hear talk."

Harald raised his high-tilted left eyebrow.

"You should understand me," said Svein. "By every saint, I too want what is my right. If you knew what a weary time it's been, ever coming back, ever seeing my hopes crumble
..."
He wrung his hands. "But I'll not stop fighting till Denmark is mine. If no other means will do, I'll outlive my foes."

Harald went to his own hall, where he found Elizabeth sitting on a bench outside with the child in her arms. She was still weak after the birth, but Maria grew apace. Harald picked the baby up and swung her over his head, laughing. "Oho, Maria!

Are you ready to go in viking with me?"

Sunlight lay snared in the baby's thin fine hair. It was gold, and the great eyes were gray. Elizabeth tried to reach up to the small threshing legs. "Do you think she's a bird, Harald, so high you lift her? Yes, she is, she's my own sweet bird, and now it's time for her meal."

"Whew! Messy little beast." Harald gave her back and wiped his hands.

"You were yourself, once," smiled his wife. "Wee and red and noisy. Somehow I can like any man better when I think that that is also true of him."

"Well, enough of this. Make ready, Ellisif. We go on shipboard tomorrow."

Fright was suddenly in her face, but she nodded.

The men walked to Hafn and boarded the waiting vessels. Lean figure headed dragon, heavy buss, broad knarr, the waters were decked over with them. Harald had his men and goods on their own craft. His numbers were not great beside Svein's fleet, but they stayed together. Against a gusty wind, they rowed up the Sound and lay to that evening at Elsinore village.

Harald went ashore to talk with Svein. The house which the king was using was bright with fires and noisy with men. He took a seat by the Dane, and was greeted coolly. They drank together in stillness for a while.
i

"I think we can best wait here," said Svein at last. "Magnus must come by us unless he means to fall on Fyen or Jutland."

Harald nodded. "He knows what treasures I have along; they'll lure him hither."

"You have not been overly generous with your gold," said Svein. He had been drinking heavily, and his face was flushed.

"It is mine," said Harald. "I'll need it later."

"Well, well." Svein seemed to regret his remark. "So be it. What of all you own do you consider the most valuable?"

Harald thought of Ellisif, waiting in the warship with their child in her arms. "My banner Land-waster," he said after a moment.

"So?" Svein's nose thrust forward curiously. "What is so valuable about it?"

Harald measured him, thinking that haughtiness might provoke him into showing somewhat of his secretive mind. "Because men say that he has the victory who bears it before him, and this I've found to be true as long as I've owned it."

Svein emptied his horn. His voice was a little thick, and he said sneeringly: "I'll believe that if you bear it in three battles with King Magnus, your kinsman, and win them all."

Anger jumped within Harald. "I've not forgotten my kinship to him, without your reminding me," he said, "and even if we bear a war shield against each other now, it doesn't mean that we should not long ago have met in more seemly fashion."

Svein whitened and answered with a harsh tone: "There are those who say, Harald, that erenow you've only held to that part of a bargain you thought would best serve yourself."

Harald stood up, his shadow swallowing the other man, and said like a spitting cat: "You've less ground to reproach my breaking agreements, than King Magnus has to speak of your broken oaths to him."

He turned on his heel and walked out of the hall and down to the shore. As he was rowed to his ship, he thought coldly that matters were finally coming into the open.

Ulf helped him aboard. The fleet was shadowy under the stars; waves lapped on the hull and dew was already cold on the planks. A candle inside a holder of thin-scraped horn threw the Icelander's face into guttering highlights. "You look wrathful," he said.

"I am," Harold told him. "But we'll see. I'll not sleep in my usual place tonight, for it seems there may be treachery abroad. I saw that my friend Svein was embittered at the free speech I used. Keep watch tonight and tell me if aught happens. But make no needless outcry."

He roused Elizabeth, where she lay in the bed he had rigged in the bows, and brought her and the baby aft; in his own spot he placed a billet of firewood. The sail was stretched across the lowered mast for an awning, and the men grumbled themselves to sleep.

Elizabeth shivered in the sleeping bag Harald had given her. Night air seeped under the sail, chill and damp; muttering waves, creaking anchor cables, snoring men made the only sounds. "I am afraid," she whispered. "We should not have brought the little one with us."

"Safer here than elsewhere," Harald replied.

"Go to sleep."

He lay for a while, thinking mostly that his wife was not meant for the sea. It was not only the sickness; she could hardly get down the salt food, and was pitifully shamed by her own necessities even though two serving maids held a blanket before her. Well, let her stay behind in Norway, then. He rolled over, weary with a long day's work, and drifted into darkness.

It was not usual to keep a watch when a whole fleet lay at anchor. Ulf crawled between cursing men some hours later and shook Harald awake.

"Well?"

"I heard a boat come alongside our prow," said the Icelander. "The man in it lifted the awning, struck with an ax, and rowed off with some great haste." He regarded the other closely. "From the way you spoke to me earlier, I thought I'd best let him go. Was he a man of yours?"

Without answering, Harald slipped from the bag and went to his bed. An ax stood in the log he had put there. He nodded and told Ulf to rouse the men without noise, while he kindled a torch. When the sail was rolled up, he stood forth and pointed to the weapon.

"Svein Estridhsson has ordered this," he said. At their quickburst of oaths: "No, be still! We're too few to fight him when he thus brings treachery against us. Best we get away while yet we can. Take the ship's boat, go wake the crews of other craft, and let's be off in silence."

Ulf's face never stirred.

Halldor said dryly: "You've given Svein some cause to distrust you."

"Hardly to murder me by stealth," said Harald coldly. "I meant to do what was best—make peace with Magnus, aye, but see if peace could not also be made with Svein. He could have had his old rank of jarl back. Now I'll hunt that fox to his death."