One King's Way

the formula for the election of a Pope.

A figure rose, swaying wildly, from the throng in front of them. A man lifted on a shield by a dozen eager supporters. Once he caught his balance, he looked round, drew his sword, shouted out his name and the traditional formula of proclamation. “I am the king of the Gauts. Who denies it?”

A moment's silence, then the clashing of weapons again. A week before, and a dozen chieftains would have denied it. Fighting it out hand to hand would have deprived the Gautish peoples of most of their ruling class, the rich and the god-born together. So for days the meeting, the Gautalagathing, the Thing of those bound by the Law of the Gauts, had been abuzz with messengers, rumors, offers of support and retractions, deals and promises. Now it was all settled. Till the next shift of power.

The crowd began to disperse towards the smell of roasted oxen and the great vats of beer which the new king would provide as part of the price of his election. The German Ritters watched them with a certain envy, a certain scorn. Bruno decided to hold them in their ranks a little longer, to make certain no-one went down to the party, got into a fight.

Another figure was coming towards them, the scrawny black-clad Englishman, Erkenbert. As he came closer Bruno saw a slight flush of excitement on his pale face, and felt his own heart thud in anticipation. The Englishman was holding one of his everlasting lists.

“Do you think you've found it?” said Bruno as soon as the other was in earshot.

“Yes. Down at the tents I found an old man. Too old to attend the election, but not so old that he had lost his memory. He was at the raid on Hamburg. More than that, he was among the men who sacked the cathedral. He remembers closely who was there—especially closely, for he feels still that he was cheated of some share of the loot. He gave me a complete list of the chieftains present, seven of them who led more than a dozen ships' crews, he says. Now, and this is the important thing. Six of those chieftains we have news of already, and we know they do not fit.”

“So it must be the seventh?”

“So it would seem. His name is Bolli. He is jarl of the Tronds.”

“And who in Hell are the Tronds? I've been in this God-forsaken country half a year, I've heard of more tribelets and kinglets than my father has pigs in sties, and I never heard of the Tronds.”

“They live far in the north,” said Erkenbert. “Far up the North Way, where they seek to control the fur- trade.”

“Far in the north they may be,” muttered Bruno, “but if there were a new king there, an emperor-in-being, we would still have heard about it. I begin to wonder if our method is wrong. Or could even the holy Rimbert have made some mistake? Perhaps there is no Holy Lance.”

“Or perhaps it is lying in a treasury, unnoticed.”

Bruno's face took on an expression quite unfamiliar to Erkenbert, one of depression and defeat. “I can't help thinking,” he said, “you tell me the Lance is in Norway. We hear also that the great struggle for power in the North is going to take place where we left in the spring, at Hedeby in Denmark, everyone is full of it. And here we are, running round provincial gatherings in Sweden.”

“Gautland,” corrected Erkenbert.

“Same place. I have gone in the wrong direction.”

Erkenbert reached up and patted the disconsolate knight on his enormous shoulder. “Whom God loves, he chastises,” he said. “Think of King David in the wilderness. Think of Samson at the mill, and how in the end he brought down the great temple of the Philistines. God can bring forth a miracle at any time. Did He not deliver Joseph from Potiphar, and Daniel from the lions' den? I will tell you the holy text you must remember: Qui perseravabit usque ad finem, ille salvabitur. He who shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved. To the end, though. Not to near the end.”

Bruno's face slowly cleared. He wrung Erkenbert's hand in a careful grip. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you. Wise words. We shall find out more about these Tronds. And meanwhile, I shall hope that God has some errand for me in sending me to these parts.”

Hrorik, King in Hedeby, gnawed his beard as he listened to the reports of his scouts. “Definitely the Ragnarssons?” he queried.

“Definitely. We got close enough to see the Raven Banner.”

“Flown only when all the bastards are together. Well, at least there's one bastard fewer of them now. And him the worst bastard of them all. A hundred and twenty ships, you say, and harbored on the mainland opposite Sylt?” Hrorik calculated thoughtfully. “Well, the Ragnarssons are always bad news, but that could be worse. They have to get through the marsh first, and then they have to get over our good wooden walls. I know all about their rams and the tricks they learned from their father. I think we ought to be able to see them off.”

One of the scouts cleared his throat. “More bad news, lord, I'm afraid. Catapults. We saw them unloading them. Big jobs, weighing a ton, I would say. Three or four of them.”

Hrorik's face regained its concerned expression. “Catapults! What sort were they? Were they the stone- throwers we've heard about, or the dart-throwers, or what?”

“We don't know. Never seen one work. We've just heard these stories, same as you. They all come from men who've been defeated by them.”

“Thor help us. This is where we need some men who know about these things.”

Hrorik's port-warden, sitting in on the conference, broke in. “I can help you there, lord. I got a report from a skipper yesterday. He was up at the Gula Thing. He said there had been a lot of excitement up there—I'll tell you another time. But at the end of it he said that one of our ships had recruited two Englishmen and was bringing them south. Englishmen,” he added with emphasis. “Those are the real experts. These are guys who were there when Ivar got his, and the Frankish king too. Ship should be in in a couple of days.”

“So. While Sigurth Snake-arse crawls through the marsh, we can have these men building machines to fight his machines. That's good. But let's do the obvious things too. If the Ragnarssons are there on the west coast, the east coast's clear. So let's get ships out to King Arnodd, and King Gamli, and ask them to send every ship and man they can spare. Clean out the Ragnarssons, and we'll all sleep easier.”

“Clean out the Ragnarssons,” said the port-warden, “and maybe it'll be time to have just one king in Denmark.”

“Just don't say that anywhere else,” agreed Hrorik.

Many days' sail to the north, far from the gathering war-storms that would determine the fate of many kingdoms, Shef and Cuthred crouched immobile in the shadow of a rock. Twice they had got into what they thought was good cover. Both times Echegorgun had moved them out, muttering in his own strange language. “You Thin Ones,” he said finally. “You don't know how to hide. Or how to look. I could walk through one of your towns in broad daylight and you would never see me.” Shef did not believe him, but he had to acknowledge the uncanny skill of the Hidden People in vanishing, in the day, at night, or in the pale twilight that had come again after another long day of sleep and waiting.

In front of them, Echegorgun stood knee deep in the water at the edge of the inlet. He had led them down to it by barely manageable paths, the men slipping and scrambling on the rock, propped up by Echegorgun or Miltastaray, sometimes lowered from one place to the next. Finally, once they were concealed to his satisfaction, Echegorgun had told them to sit motionless, and watch. Watch what a True Person could do. They would see something no Hairless One had seen for many a lifetime. How the True Folk called their kinfolk, the whales.

Now Echegorgun stood facing out to the open sea. High above, Miltastaray kept watch for any boats that might appear, ferrying men or meat between the place of the grind and Brand's threatened home on Hrafnsey.

In one hand Echegorgun held a long paddle, its blade curiously rounded, cut laboriously with stone tools from the trunk of a mountain-aspen. Strange curlicues ran around its inside face. Echegorgun held it up, high above his head, the grotesque length of his arm suddenly clear. Then he brought it down with all his strength on the calm water. The sound of the slap seemed to run from horizon to horizon, as the ripples ran out into the Atlantic swell. Again Echegorgun brought it down. And again. The two men crouched, wondering how far the sound would run above water. And how far below it.

After a dozen blows, Echegorgun turned and put the paddle carefully on a rock on the steep shore. He took another implement, a long tapering tube, made out of layers of coiled and glued birch-bark, and took another