One King's Way

Queen Ragnhild, wife of King Halvdan, had no liking for her mother-in-law or the son whose bed she occasionally shared. Often she wondered whom she would have chosen for herself, if her father had been spared to arrange marriage for her. Sometimes she wondered if even Haki the one-armed berserk might not have made a better match, mountain-troll though he was. As she came to her full strength and influence she consoled herself when necessary with one or other of the stalwarts of her guard. Her husband insisted that no man might stay overnight on her island, for the sake of his own good name and the legitimacy of their one child. But much could be done in the daytime. Ragnhild was like Asa in only one further respect: she too centered her life on her only son, the boy Harald. If Ragnhild had allowed it, the boy's grandmother might have turned a fraction of her disappointed love from son to grandson. It was one theme where their interests ran together.

“Midnight already,” said Ragnhild in the warm silence. “He will not come.”

“Maybe he never bothered to try.”

“Men do not turn their back on invitations from me. I felt his mind as he stood on the dock. He could no more refuse me than my hounds a bitch in heat.”

“You describe yourself well. But you could have done as much without the play-acting. Bitch that you are, you could have sent your hound Stein to cut him down.”

“His friends of the Way would have protected him. That would have drawn in Olaf.”

“Olaf!” The old queen spat out the word. She owed her life to her stepson's forbearance, and the life of her child. She hated him the more, and the more still because her child did not feel as she did, consistently respected and deferred to his elder half-brother, for all Olaf's name for bad luck and Halvdan's history of conquest.

“And your son, my husband, would have supported his brother,” added Ragnhild, twisting the knife she knew was there. “It was better done as I did it. His body will be found in a week's time, when it swells, and men will say what fools the Enzkir are, to walk out on rotten ice.”

“You could have left him,” suggested Asa, determined to give her daughter-in-law nothing. “He was no risk. A one-eyed stripling from a country far away, from the slavelands. Who would think such a man a risk to a true king like Halvdan? Or even to your puny Harald? You would do better to fear that half-troll Viga-Brand.”

“It is not size that makes the king,” said Ragnhild. “Or the man.”

“You would know,” hissed Asa.

Ragnhild smiled contemptuously. “The one-eye had luck,” she said. “That was what made him dangerous. But luck lasts only till it meets a stronger luck. The luck that is in my blood, the luck of the Hartings. It is we who will make the One King in the North.”

The door behind them creaked open, letting in a blast of freezing air. Both women sprang to their feet, Ragnhild seizing the iron stake she used to summon her thralls. Through the door stumbled two men, one tall, one short. The short one pushed the door closed, dropped its latch, this time pushed home the peg that prevented it being opened from the other side.

Shef pulled himself straight, walked wearily across the room, sword still in hand, forced himself not to drop groveling in front of the blessed glowing embers. His features were barely recognizable, caked with mud and the filth of shore and forest. Blood and slime covered his hands and matted the hair on his forearms. Where his skin showed it was blue with cold, a touch of deadly white on his nose and forehead.

“You sent me a message, lady,” he said. “You warned me of the bridge-guards, but you lied about the ice. I met your dogs, too, here and there on the shore. Look, this is their hearts' blood.”

Ragnhild raised the iron spike she had snatched up, beat with it on an iron triangle hanging above the fire. As Shef moved forward, sword raised, she stood motionless.

The slave-girls had been asleep, though not yet dismissed, on pallets out of sight. Four of them tumbled through the door that led to the main hall and the other apartments, rubbing their eyes and pulling dresses straight. It was not wise at any time of night to be slow in answering the summons of either queen. As Asa often said, she would be entering her grave-mound soon now, and she still had not chosen who should keep her company in death. The women, young or middle-aged but all with weary careworn faces, lined up hastily, daring only to cast side- glances at the two strange men. Men? Or marbendills from the deep? Queen Ragnhild might press even a marbendill into her service.

“Hot stones into the steam-room,” snapped Ragnhild. “More fuel for this fire. Heat water in basins and bring towels. Bring two blankets—no, one blanket for that one and my fine robe of ermine for the English king. And girls —” The women halted in their first obedient scurry. “If I hear that anyone hears of this, I will not ask which one of you told them. There is always a Swedish ship in port, and space on the temple trees at Uppsala.”

The women ran out. Ragnhild looked from her full height down at Shef, still standing irresolute in front of her, and then across at Asa.

“There is no arguing with the stronger luck,” she said. “Best to join with it.”

Chapter Thirteen

Shef sat on a broad wooden bench which almost filled the tiny dark room, lit only by a single wick burning in a dish of whale-oil. Beneath it a covered trough of hot stones radiated heat, scorching heat that shriveled the mouth- lining and stung the nose with the stink of pine-resin from the wooden walls. He luxuriated in it, feeling the deep chill thaw from his bones. Feeling also the need for instant decisions recede. He was in others' hands now. Even Karli was no longer his responsibility. He did not know where they had taken him.

At the queen's instructions, the slave-women had pulled him away, taken off his filthy, clammy clothes. One of them had rubbed his face furiously with handfuls of snow taken from the fast-shrinking drifts outside, to prevent the frostbite that had already attacked it. Others had poured warm water over him, rubbed him with lye, scrubbed off the dirt and blood and animal fat from his hands. Dimly he had realized that they had also taken his sword, that something or other of the same kind was happening to Karli, but the sudden entry into warmth had half-stupefied him. Then they had led him into the steam-room and left him.

For a while he sat, not even sweating in the fierce heat, just letting the warmth soak through to his half- frozen marrow. Then as weariness came over him he lay back, propping his head against a wooden billet, and fell into a light, uneasy sleep.

Somewhere in the dark above him, his fate was being discussed. He heard the now-familiar rumble of mighty voices. One spoke for him, he realized, one against.

“He should have died on the ice,” said the hostile voice: cold, authoritative, unused to contradiction, the voice not only of the Father but the Ruler of gods and men.

“No-one should blame a man for saving himself,” argued the second voice: Shef knew he had heard it many times, recognized it as the voice of his patron, perhaps his father, Rig the cunning.

“He threw away the spear, the spear with my own runes on it. He denied me sacrifice. He does not follow the heroes' road.”

“The less reason, then, for taking him to you. He would not find a place in Valhalla, would not be an obedient recruit for your Einheriar.”

The first voice seemed to hesitate. “And yet… There is a cunning there. Too few of my champions have that. Maybe it is a quality I will need on the day of Ragnarok.”

“You do not need it yet. Leave him where he is, let us see where his luck takes him. He may do you service in his own fashion.” The second voice was lying, Shef knew, he could tell it by the sweet reason that dripped from its tongue. It was buying him time.

“Luck!” said the first voice, suddenly amused. “Let us see that, then. If he has a luck, it will be his own, for mine he has thrown away. And he will need powerful luck to survive the dangers of Drottningsholm. We will watch.”

The two voices drifted away in a rumble of agreement.

Shef came to himself with a start. How long had he slept? Not long, he thought. It was too hot for anyone to lie comfortably. He was sweating now, and the bench under him was damp. Time to get up and look about him. He remembered the lines of poetry he had heard from Thorvin: