leaped aboard.
On the river beach their kinsmen leaned on their axes. Hella bore a deep cut on his cheek, Arngeir a wound on his chest that stained his tunic red, but otherwise they were in good fighting shape.
‘He’s going,’ said Grani.
‘He has said we must die,’ said Vigi. ‘It’s foreseen.’
‘Varrin and the king are no poets,’ said Arngeir.
‘They will tell the tale to a poet,’ said Vigi. ‘The words will fit our glory.’
Down the grassy hill behind the houses horsemen were pouring. It was nearly an hour since the lord had seen the village beacons and he and his bodyguard had ridden hard. There were around twenty of them, at least two armoured in byrnies, four carrying swords, the rest spears and axes. The thegns had come, and in numbers.
‘They can begin work on our saga very shortly, I think,’ said Arngeir.
‘We will be remembered for ever,’ said Vigi.
A bowshot away from the raiders, the peasants had cut through the staves and five horses jumped down the small cliff onto the beach. The Norsemen’s advantage from holding the gap was gone and now they had enemies on two sides.
King Authun hailed his men from the ship. ‘You have played your part in the destiny of the world. You die as heroes.’
The raiders saluted him with their axes as three horsemen dismounted and drew their weapons. Two stayed in the saddle, charging into the river after the departing boat. One tried to jump onboard but lost his seat and crashed into the water, the other was forced to pull up by Authun’s flashing sword.
Caught by the turning tide, the boat rounded a bend and the beach drifted out of sight. Then the king and Varrin heard the sound of the thegns’ charge.
‘There will be many widows in this country tonight,’ said Authun.
‘And eight more in our own,’ said Varrin.
The king lowered his head. Before the end of the journey, he knew, there would be nine. Still, the fate of his entire race was in his hands. When he returned his wife would fall into a coma and the false pregnancy the witches had laid upon her would end. When she awoke she would have a son, the magic child, the wyrd child who would lead his people to conquer the earth. Authun would have a poet sing of the death of his warriors and then he could go into his next battle ready to die. He would face his kinsmen in Odin’s halls and they would know he had done the right thing. He had secured the futures of all their descendants. All he had to do was work out which child he needed to present to his wife.
Authun turned his attention to the boys in the basket. Their mother was bending over them, fussing. He wanted to look at them again but couldn’t bring himself to pull her away. There would be time enough to examine them, he thought.
He sat back in the boat and took off his byrnie as Varrin steered out to sea on the outgoing tide. Which child? The witches would know; they had always known so far. The witch queen would cast her magic and the true heir would be revealed. How much would that cost him? He took out the priests’ book and began to pick apart the jewels and precious metal with his knife. He had that and two ornate candlesticks. Would that be enough? The witch had an insatiable appetite for gold.
Authun was not just a fighter; a successful king needs to be a politician too. His whole experience and upbringing as a man, a king and a warrior, however, made it impossible for him to recognise his blind spot. He considered only how to fight, persuade, cajole and manage men. He might be skilled and subtle in his schemes, practised at bending others to his will — but so were the women of the mountain.
2
The dead had never meant anything to Authun before. Their separation from the living seemed to him so slight that mourning or grief had never come to him. Death was just life in another place.
The manner of death was a different thing. Varrin needed to die but he should die like a warrior. The secret of Authun’s new heir must be absolute, and while anyone who was party to it lived there was the risk that the truth might seep out to whisper from the shadows of the feasting halls, hum through the markets, sing with the wind beneath the sails of raiding ships. Authun, though, would not kill his friend. The king had been raised to believe that a kinslayer is cursed eternally. It wasn’t that he thought of killing Varrin and then discounted the idea. It didn’t even occur to him.
Varrin’s death was a problem that he would solve the only way he knew how — in consultation. The Norsemen placed great faith in the power of talk.
The land was in sight and the ship laboured across a current. Progress would have been difficult with a full haul of oars. With only the sail and a partly co-operative wind the going was very hard. It was Authun’s last chance, though. Varrin had to die now so his body would be taken down the whale road out to the north or there was a risk it could wash up on friendly shores, raising difficult questions.
‘Varrin.’
‘Lord, I know I cannot return.’ The old warrior knew his king well and, even facing death, sought to lift the burden from his shoulders.
Authun lowered his head.
Varrin said, ‘What shall they say of me, lord?’
‘Your friends loved you and your enemies feared you. Of all men on the earth, you were raised the least cowardly. Who could hope for more?’
‘Will they sing songs?’
‘They already sing songs of you, Varrin. In death they will unlock a word hoard to your memory.’
Varrin stood and breathed the air like a man waking on a fine morning. He peered out to sea.
‘Lord, I see a sea serpent, a beast of venom and fury that could devour the world snake himself. Allow me the glory of testing my spear upon it.’ As death approached, it seemed Varrin was already writing himself into a saga: his language became finer, emulating the songs of the skalds. Authun joined in, to honour his friend.
‘You are right, brave Varrin. Fight and win honour. You will need strong armour against such a serpent. On you I bestow this byrnie, this sheltering roof of blows.’
Authun took his mail coat from its barrel and held it up. Varrin bowed, humbled by the honour, and allowed the king to dress him. When the byrnie was tight about him, the king took out the golden wolf helm, its ruby eyes part of a trove of plunder taken from the Franks of the south. He placed it on his friend’s head and knotted the straps. Then he tied on his rich cloak. Finally he put Varrin’s spear in his hand.
‘Tell my wife she was as fine a woman who ever kept a key,’ said Varrin. ‘Though she was given to me, I loved her. May my sons serve you as I have served you. Dispose of my daughters in marriage as if they were your own.’
By the prow, the woman slept with her boys in her arms.
‘You will dine at my right hand in Odin’s hall,’ said Authun.
‘We shall be drunk for all time,’ said Varrin.
Varrin turned to the side of the boat and put one foot on the rail. ‘Now, serpent!’ he said, his voice low with determination. Without a look left or right he dived from the longship, stabbing into the waves as he leaped. In Authun’s splendid byrnie and helmet there was no swimming, and in an instant he was gone. The king swallowed and turned away. Varrin’s death had been necessary; no more to think about it.
In the prow the woman and the babies stirred, though Authun was surprised to see she hadn’t woken. She had hardly closed her eyes during the voyage but it was as if she felt some comfort and security coming from the land and had finally given in to sleep.
Authun, in all his wars, had never killed a woman before. They were too valuable as slaves was the reason he gave himself. But there was something else.
