One King's Way

Erkenbert had carefully dyed his worn black robe so that it shone even blacker, a violent contrast with the furs and homespuns that surrounded him. His attendant had also once more shaved every inch of his tonsure, so that the bald ring on his head stood out even more strongly. “We don't want to hide away,” Bruno had said. “That's the old style. Trying to get by on sufferance. We want them to see us. Get Christianity in their faces.” Erkenbert had meditated a sharp reply on the virtue of humility, but had withdrawn. For one thing few men any longer cared to answer back to the Master of the Lanzenorden, as men were already calling him. For another Erkenbert could see the sense in the policy.

The Smaalanders were selling off slaves, as usual. Mere bags of bones, most of them, ill-fed during the winter and now a doubtful speculation for the summer and the work-period. The emissaries of the Uppsala king Orm were buying the cheapest, as usual. Don't bother with most of them, Bruno had said. Funds are low. But this one he had to have.

A burly farmer pushed forward into the ring as his turn came, towing with him in one fist an emaciated figure. The slave was dressed in no more than tatters, and shook uncontrollably with cold. Through the rags his ribs showed. A cough racked his body every few seconds, and he stank of the midden where he had slept for warmth.

A chorus of jeers greeted the arrival, from the seller's neighbors. “What do you want for him, Ami? If he was a chicken you'd have to use him for soup. Even the Swedes won't take him. He won't live till the next sacrifice.”

Ami glared round indignantly. His eye fell on Erkenbert advancing deliberately across the sale-ground. Erkenbert walked composedly up to the thin man, put his arms round him, held him closely.

“Don't worry, sirra, we have heard of you, we are here to rescue you.”

The stink attacked Erkenbert's nostrils, but he bore it, remembering the Book of Job. The thin man began to weep, causing a fresh barrage of jeers and hooting from the crowd.

“How can you rescue me, they will take you too, they are animals, they care nothing for the rights of God…”

Gently Erkenbert disengaged himself, pointed behind him to the group from which he had come. Ten Ritter of the Lanzenorden stood in a double line, every man mailed, helmeted, with metal gauntlets shining. In each man's right hand was a short pike, butt on the ground, point forward at exactly the same angle. “These people are good warriors,” Bruno had said. “But they have no discipline. We will show them some. It keeps them uncertain.”

“What do you want for this man?” said Erkenbert, speaking loudly so the watchers could hear.

Ami, a devout disciple of Frey, spat on the ground. “To you, Christling, twenty ounces of silver.”

Derision from the crowd. Eight ounces was a good price for a man in full vigor, twelve for a pretty girl.

“I will give you four,” shouted Erkenbert, still playing to the crowd. “You have saved the other sixteen on food and clothes over the winter.”

Ami did not see the joke. Face purpling, he strode forward towards the much smaller man.

“Shaveling! Four ounces! You have no rights here. By the law of the Smaalanders any man who catches a Christ-priest has the right to enslave him. What is to hinder me from taking you and your four ounces.”

“You have the right to enslave a Christ-priest,” replied Erkenbert unmoved. “Do you have the strength?”

At the psychological moment the uncanny shape of Bruno made its way out of the crowd, from the point opposite the watching ranks of the Ritters. He pushed gently through the watching men, edging them aside with his ape-like shoulders. He carried no pike, but wore the same armor as his men. His left hand rested on the pommel of his trailing, over-length sword.

Arni glared round him, observing the sudden silence, realizing that in an instant he had become the one under test. He tried to rally the crowd round him.

“Are we going to take this? Are we going to let these men come in here and steal our slaves away?”

“They're paying cash,” observed a voice from the crowd.

“And what will they do with the men they take? Such as these—” Beside himself with fury, Arni turned and cuffed his slave violently across the side of the head, sending him sprawling and weeping to the ground. “Such as these should go to the groves of Uppsala, as a sacrifice to the true gods, not go back to preach more lies about sons of virgins and the dead risi—”

Ami's voice cut off in mid-syllable. Moving like the tufted lynx of the forests, Bruno had covered the four paces between them. His hand shot out faster than anyone could see. But they could all see now that his gauntleted fingers had closed on the throat-ball, the Adam's apple of the Smaalander, held it in steel pincers. He lifted slightly, and the farmer rose on struggling tiptoe.

“Filth,” said Bruno. “You have laid hands on the servant of the living God. You have spoken blasphemy against our faith. I will not kill you in the doom-ring, where blood must not be shed, but do you care to meet me in the dueling-ground, with sword and buckler, or axe and spear, or any weapon you care to choose?”

Unable to move or speak, the farmer goggled helplessly.

“I thought not.” Bruno released him, turned on his heel, barked a command. In one drilled movement the front rank of his Ritters stamped forward, paces one-two-three, stood at attention once more. “Continue with the sale.”

“Four ounces,” Erkenbert repeated. We mustn't rob them, Bruno had said, or they will fight. But we don't have to pay over the odds either. Still, we must rescue Sirra Eilif the priest. Only he knows anything of the kings in the back country behind Birka. We need him to help us with our search. I am anxious to hear more of this King Kjallak they speak of, from up on the borders of Iron-bearing Land.

Massaging his throat, the farmer wondered whether he dared hold out for more, met Erkenbert's black hostile eyes, decided he did not. He nodded.

Erkenbert threw a small purse at his feet, took Eilif the priest gently by one arm, withdrew with him to the ranks of the Ritter, now joined once more by Bruno. The priest and the deacon moved to the security of the central file, Bruno snapped commands, the armored men sloped their pikes and marched away, feet slamming down together like a single man.

The Swedes and Smaalanders watched them go, turned again to their business.

“What did you think of that?” said one tall Swede to another.

“Think of that? That's the bastard who killed King Orm's man at Hedeby. He must make a habit of this. I don't know what he wants, but I'll tell you this. We're seeing some new kind of Christian.”

The other nodded thoughtfully, looked round to see if any might overhear. “If there's a new kind of Christian around, maybe we all need a new kind of king to deal with them.”

Chapter Sixteen

Brand had protested briefly and furiously at the unexpected appearance of four women from the boat. Not enough horses. We'll have to leave them. When they told him what had happened on Drottningsholm his protests ceased. “We'd better get out of here,” was all he said. “Now his son is dead Halvdan won't rest till everyone involved is dead as well. Or he is. I don't think he'll touch my crew, or not till he finds out that I left with you. But we have to be out of the Westfold faster than anyone has ever left before. You drop behind—you're left behind.”

Shef said nothing to all this. Stumbled as he walked with his dark thoughts still on the island. And the dead boy. Some part of him was still trapped back there, sealed between the warm thighs, engulfed by large breasts.

They had set off along a path that led directly up into the mountains, twisting and winding through the everlasting dark pine- and fir-forest. Ten Englishmen, four women, Karli and Brand, with a dozen horses between them. And deadly pursuit sure to follow them in the morning.

Yet almost from the start it seemed that Brand's fears had less ground than he thought. One of the ex- slaves, Wilfi, had said immediately that in his life in England he had been a forerunner, the slave sent on ahead of his master when his master travelled, to see to his lodging and food at every halt. Running forty miles a day, Wilfi