“Lump on one side, pain on the other. Makes you think the brain is loose inside the skull, doesn't it?” the face went on conversationally. “That's why so many veteran warriors are—well—a little strange. We call it
“I'm King Hrorik of Hedeby and South Jutland. And you are?”
Shef grinned suddenly, realizing the gist of what was said to him. “I am your fellow-king, King Shef of the East and Middle Angles.”
“Good. I'm glad it's all coming back. We have these riots in the market-place pretty often, you know, and the lads have a drill for it. Throw sailcloth over all the weapons, and then clip everyone who looks dangerous while they're trying to get their blades free. We don't like losing customers permanently.” A large hand poured wine into what Shef realized was a golden cup. “Take some water with that and you'll soon feel better.”
“You lost a customer today,” said Shef, remembering the knife standing from the Swedish buyer's heart.
“Yes, bad business that. But my jarl reports that the dead man gave provocation. Besides…”
A plump finger jerked Shef's pendant from under the tunic which, he realized, someone had found and put back on for him.
“You're a man of the Way, right? So you don't have much time for Christians. None at all, from what I hear of your victory over the Franks, and I dare say they have even less for you. But down here I have to keep a very close eye on them. There's only the Dane-dyke between me and Othin knows how many German lancers. It's true they fight among themselves all the time, and it's truer that they're even more frightened of us than I am of them. But I really don't like to go stirring up trouble, especially in matters of religion.
“So I've always let the Christians send their priests up here and appeal for converts, and never said a word when they started baptizing the slaves and the women. Of course, if the poor souls wander off into the countryside and end up sold, or thrown into the bog for good luck, I can't do anything about that. I keep order in Hedeby and along the trade-road, and I judge disputes at the Thing. Telling my subjects what to believe or who to leave alone…” The fat man laughed. “
“But this is something new. This spring, when the priests came north from Hamburg, three or four of them, each one had an escort with him. Not big enough to call an army, not even big enough to be a serious menace, and plenty of cash to pay their way. So I let them in. But I tell you something,” the face leaned forward, “as one king to another. Very dangerous men. Very valuable men. I wish I could hire half-a-dozen of them. That one you saw, the blond one with the hair like stiff wire, my guard captain says he's the fastest man he's ever seen. Very tricky too.”
“Faster than Ivar Ragnarsson?” asked Shef.
“The Boneless One? I was forgetting that you had bested him.” Shef's vision seemed to clear as the wine did its work, and he looked more sharply at the big man leaning back in his wooden chair till the stout back of it creaked. Gold circlet on his head, heavy gold chain round his neck and thick bracelets on his arms. An air of simple good-nature, like the host of a peaceful town tavern. But sharp eyes under heavy brows, and a network of scars along the muscled right forearm, the places where a dueller picked up cuts. A successful dueller, for failed ones did not live long enough for the scars to heal.
“Well. I certainly owe you one for that. He used to worry me badly, and his brothers still do.” A heavy sigh. “It's a hard life for a king down here, with the Empire and the Christians growling the other side of the Dane-dyke, and fifty sea-kings to the north forever disputing which shall be king over all. The Christians say they need an emperor now. Sometimes I think we do too. But there. If we thought that we'd have to decide who it was. Maybe me. Maybe you. Maybe Sigurth Ragnarsson. If it was him neither you nor I would live to see the day, nor want to.
“But I'm forgetting myself. You've had a hard time, I can see that, and you look as if you could use a good dinner too. Why don't you sit in the sun somewhere this afternoon, till it's time for the night-meal? I'll see it's all safe.”
“I owe some money,” said Shef. “That man I hit in the slave-ring—he did bring me here, and feed me for a week. I ought to pay him. And then I need money to buy passage home. If there are English traders in the port, I can borrow from them, on my own credit and that of my co-king Alfred.”
Hrorik held up a ringed hand. “All dealt with, all paid for. I sent the Ditmarshers off very happy, I always try to keep in with them too, they can be a nuisance when they're angry. The one young one insisted on staying behind, though. Don't thank me, you can always pay me back.
“But as for the passage home. Well, not just yet.”
Shef looked at the shrewd, jolly face. In the corner behind it he could see ‘Gungnir’ propped against the wall. He had no illusions about being able to reach it.
“Stay here with you?”
“I've sold you on, as a matter of fact,” said Hrorik, winking.
“Sold? Who to?”
“Don't worry, not Skuli. He offered me five pounds of silver. The Christians went to ten, and a pardon for all sins from the Pope written in purple ink.”
“Who then?”
Hrorik winked again. “Your friends from Kaupang. The priest-college of the Way. Made me an offer much too good to refuse. Said something about a trial. Better than being tried by Sigurth Snake-eye, though? Wouldn't you say?”
With a length of stout blood-sausage in his belt, a long black loaf under his arm, and a twist of salt in one hand, Shef strolled out into the strong afternoon sunshine, bidden by King Hrorik to go out and rest till dinner. Half- a-dozen guards surrounded him, there to ensure at once that no-one molested him and that he did not escape from the town. Karli, for once rather subdued, accompanied them, sword still slung from his belt, and carrying Shef's spear over one shoulder.
For a few minutes the little group walked through the crowded streets of Hedeby, full of booths selling amber, honey, wine from the south, fine weapons, bone combs, shoes, pig-iron and everything else that might be traded into or out of the Scandinavian lands. Then, as Shef grew tired of the constant edging and jostling, he caught sight of a low green mound, within the town-stockade but without buildings or people on it. He pointed to it wordlessly and headed over. The pain in his head had gone, but he still walked slowly and carefully, afraid to set it off again by some movement. He felt also as if information from the outside was filtering through to him slowly, as if he were under a foot of clear water. He had a great deal to take in and think about.
He reached the mound and sat down on the top of it, looking out over the bay of the Schlei and the green fields to the north of it. Karli hesitated, then drove the butt-spike of the spear into the soft turf and sat down also. The guards exchanged glances. “You have no fear of the howe-bride?” asked one of them.
“I have been in a howe before,” said Shef. His belt-knife had gone, he noticed: Hrorik was taking no chances at all. He passed the sausage to Karli to cut up, and began to break up the bread. The guards gingerly sat or squatted in a ring around them.
After a while, belly full, back pleasantly warmed by the sun, Shef pointed out to the fertile landscape facing them outside the town's perimeter. The river Schlei ran to the north of the town, and on the opposite shore he could see hedged fields, plowmen driving their ox-teams, brown furrows growing along the green, and rising out of the trees here and there, the curls of smoke from chimneys. To an Englishman, the Viking lands appeared as the home of fire and slaughter, its inhabitants seamen and raiders, not plowmen and charcoal-burners. Yet here, at the center of the Viking storm, the land looked more peaceful than Suffolk on a summer day.
“I have heard that this is where the English came from once upon a time,” Shef said to the nearest guard. “Are there any Englishmen still living over there?”
“No,” said the guard. “Just Danes. Some of them call themselves Jutes, if they don't want to admit connection with the sea-kings from the islands. But they all speak the Danish tongue, just like yourself. That bit of land is still called Angel, though. It's the angle between the Schlei here and Flensborg Fjord on the other side of it. I dare say the English came from there right enough.”
Shef reflected further. So much for his hope, once upon a time, of rescuing oppressed Englishmen from Danish rule here in Denmark. Still, it was strange that the Ditmarshers did not speak Danish, living next to them as they did. Strange too what they did speak: not English, nor Danish, nor yet exactly that strange language the priest
