Godgifu snorted. 'You weren't just there when Harold took the oath. You urged him to do it. Harold sees you as a witness to his sin, I think. Or perhaps even the demon who goaded him to it. That's why he keeps you close.'
'Providence shapes all our lives. If I were not close to Harold I would not be able to bring him the Menologium.'
'The what?'
'His prophecy,' Godgifu said dryly. 'You remember. Comets and kings and dubious poetry.'
'He still believes all this?' Orm said.
'Oh, yes,' Godgifu said. 'He's even been writing to Moor scholars in Iberia to have them check his calculations of the dates. '
Sihtric said, 'I have found an astronomer in Toledo, who has some philosophies about the comet.'
'What comet?'
Sihtric's face remained impassive. 'The one that will appear in March, according to the Menologium. Or rather reappear.'
Everybody knew that comets, hairy stars, were bad omens. But as signs in the sky they were quite unpredictable; they came and went according to the whim of God. 'If a comet appears in March, priest,' Orm said, 'I'll swallow my own sword whole.'
Sihtric glowered darkly. 'Don't make promises you can't keep, Viking.'
Godgifu said, 'Oh, don't be so pompous, Sihtric. He has a rival, you know.'
'A rival?'
'There is another sibyl hanging around Edward's court. A monk called Aethelmaer.'
Sihtric said, 'A buffoon who dreams of marvellous machines-'
'And who speaks of comets,' Godgifu reminded him. 'In laughing at him the thegns are learning to laugh at you too, brother.'
Sihtric snorted. 'I'll deal with Aethelmaer. Of course the challenge is interpreting the Menologium. I told you it couldn't be a coincidence that you are involved, Orm, a descendant of Egil. Now I think I have worked out how you can help me interpret the Menologium, and to persuade Harold to accept its advice.'
Orm frowned. 'You're going too fast, priest. Perhaps you should show me this prophecy of yours.'
Sihtric raised his eyebrows. 'Can you read?'
'I find it helps when some wily cleric in the pay of an illiterate Norman count puts parchments in front of me to sign.'
The priest had a small leather bag under the table. 'I have a copy of it here…' He drew out a parchment and unrolled it on the sticky tabletop. Orm saw the stanzas of the Menologium, neatly transcribed, but tangled in a thicket of notes and arrows, all in a crabbed hand that Orm presumed was the priest's. 'I told you it remains cryptic,' Sihtric sighed. 'Even after a lifetime's study. But look here…' He read the ninth stanza aloud.
The Comet comes/in the month of March.
End brother's life at brother's hand./A fighting man takes
Noble elf-wise crown./Brother embraces brother.
The north comes from south/To spill blood on the wall…
'A bit of nice symmetry about those lines, don't you think?'
'I'm no skald,' Orm growled. 'So a brother slays a brother. Why do you think it refers to Harold?'
'Who else? What fraternal rivalry matters in England save the feud between Harold and his fuming, exiled brother?'
'And what about the rest of it? What's all this about fighting men and elves?'
'That doesn't concern you,' Sihtric said dismissively.
'The truth is he doesn't understand that bit himself,' Godgifu said.
Suddenly all this talk of prophecies and politics was too much for Orm. He regretted coming. He longed to be free of this place, this cramped city, free of this grasping, manipulative priest with his entangling words – free to be with Godgifu. 'Just tell me what you want from me.'
'It comes here.' Sihtric pulled his parchment across the table. 'The seventh stanza. I need to understand these words.'
Orm glanced at the stanza: 'The dragon flies west./Know a Great Year dies/Know a new world born.'
'I believe this stanza hints at the ultimate prize,' Sihtric said, his face flushed. 'That in our grasp is not just England, but a new world.'
Orm looked at Sihtric. 'What new world?'
The priest smiled. 'Vinland.'
A young man in a drab black habit came into the tavern. Squinting in the gloom, he spotted Sihtric, hurried over, and whispered in his ear. Sihtric nodded, stood and hurried out.
Orm and Godgifu followed his lead. Orm called after Sihtric, 'Where are we going?'
'The King is dying, the doctors confirm it. And he has asked for Harold.' Sihtric seemed full of energy, as if this news had burned off the drink. 'The world pivots, this dismal afternoon.'
Godgifu said, 'And Harold has asked for you?'
'No, but I'm going to be there anyway. I bet you didn't expect all this when you paddled up the river in your dragon-ship today, eh, Viking? Come with me, but stay close.' And he bustled ahead.
VII
A crowd surrounded the palace that chill afternoon, drawn like moths to the black light of Edward's death. There was grief in the air, but there was an extraordinary crackling tension too. With the death of a king, everything would be different, and no man could be sure of his place in the new order – not even the Godwines.
Despite Sihtric's status as a confidante of Harold, it took some time to get past the royal guards. And while they waited in line before the great door, the priest ordered Orm to tell him about Vinland.
It was a story of Orm's ancestors. The Egil who had once faced Alfred's army at the famous battle of Ethandune had died of an undignified illness. The shame had been so severe that Egil's son, the next Egil, had felt compelled to leave his home in Denmark. He chose to join the great emigration of Northmen across the western ocean.
It was a heroic age, this, when the Northmen's dragon ships had broken into the heart of the old world, reaching as far as Constantinople – and at the same time they headed west. Vikings had settled the outlying islands of Britain, unoccupied save for primitive folk and a few eremitic monks. But some had sailed further west still, and found another island, much larger, which they had called the Land of Ice – Iceland. For the first time the Vikings found themselves in a land empty of previous peoples, a land they could shape as they liked. They worked out a stable and functional society, of a new sort. The great landowners would meet for a general assembly called an althing, at a spectacular central site called the thingvellir.
'I've heard of this,' Sihtric said. 'The remarkable thing is, these hairy-arsed settlers proclaimed they had no king but the law. Democracy, flourishing across the northern ocean! But I don't suppose you know who Demosthenes was, do you, Orm?'
And still more ambitious settlers had pushed even further west.
'A man called Eric the Red made the first journey,' Orm said. 'A son of Egil sailed with him. This was Egil's son's son's-'
'Never mind.'
Eric led settlers to this new island, which he enticingly called Greenland, and soon two healthy settlements developed. 'I visited them myself,' Orm said. 'My father once took me there on a trading voyage. They raise cattle and sheep, and they hunt walrus, seals, white bears, and catch fish. Some cling to the old faiths, as my father did, as I do. Mostly they are good Christians. They send tributes to the bishops at home, who send them on to the Pope.'
