Meanwhile she fed his fears as she fed his dreams. In the fourth year he began riding widely around the kingdom. He needed no more than two or three followers, mainly for helpers. There were no robbers left. He gave out that he wanted to talk with men elsewhere about some undertakings he had in mind. Those he called on were those Ulfhild had named to him, and he spoke to them according to her redes.
“Yes, as nearly as I can tell, if Hadding dies while Frodi is abroad, they’ll stand by me,” he said to her upon coming home from the last of these farings.
“Then we should see to it that that is what happens,” she answered.
“How?”
“Think. We’ll take this up later.”
They did at the barrow. Their fifth year together was waning. A wrack of clouds flew low above bare fields and sere grass, before a skirling, biting wind. The woods behind the howe roared with it. Dead leaves broke loose, whirled and rattled, fell on an earth that had gone cold.
Ulfhild drew her cloak close around her. “Here we can be truthful,” she said from below her hood. “Your forebear the land-wight watches over us.”
Gudorm knotted his fists. “Say on.”
“It’s as if the gods do too. You know that, late though the season is, Frodi and his men have left for England and will winter there. I’ve asked some visitors from his neighborhood about it—they came by while you were away—and learned that it was shortly after his father had been to see him Knowing them, I think Hadding tried to curb Frodi, and only made him ireful. He’ll hardly return till the end of next summer, if then, as ravenous as he is. We’ll have time to make ready for him.”
“How do we know Hadding won’t still be alive?”
“We will make sure.”
He had fought in his head with the horror. Now that she uttered it, he could only say, leadenly, “No. He is my king.”
“Too long has he been. Whatever usefulness he ever had is gone from him. He squats in his seat like a toad while our hopes wither. If he wished to do well by his Danes, he’d at least lay down the kingship. But no, he’ll outlast us all, that barren troll, draining dry the land that should be yours and your sons’, unless we take from him what is ours.”
“You’re berserk. Who but you would want to lift a spear against him? Who would dare?”
“Yes, he is well guarded. But you recall that I got him to say he’ll come here when we ask, if he can. At the time, my thought was mostly to lull any doubts he might have gotten about us. Now—He’ll be by himself, unaware. One slash of a blade can set us free.”
Gudorm staggered where he stood. “Murder? Under my own roof?” The wind howled with him.
“No, not at your hand,” said Ulfhild swiftly. “Folk would indeed take that amiss. He has other foes.”
Her eyes burned at him. “Hear me. I’ve been delving into the past, finding things out, holding my own secret meetings. Some forty years ago, thieves broke into the king’s treasure house. Its warden, one Glum, had been slack about keeping watch. Hadding hanged him for that, old and honorable though he was. A son of Glum’s had died a while earlier, soon after his wife, but left a son of his own, hight Styr, whom Glum was raising. Because of what the king did to his grandfather, Styr grew up poor, a worker for others wherever he could find work, never able to wed, his name besmirched, nothing left to him but hatred. The thought that he might avenge himself has kindled him as lightning kindles a parched woodland. Little he cares what becomes of him afterward.
“I think his stroke will be more deft if he knows he can bolt out the door, and afterward meet somebody who’ll give him some silver and lead him to someplace where he’s not known.” She grinned. “That somebody may, instead, kill him. Or he may be cut down straightway after the deed. We can think about that. What matters is that Hadding will be dead.”
“No,” croaked Gudorm. “No.” But already he knew she would win.
XXXII
That spring, on his way to the Skaw to lie in wait for Tosti, King Hadding had stopped at Keldorgard. “No, we’ll not need a levy for this,” he told Gudorm. “You’ll be of more use here, working your land and keeping my peace.”
In the morning, before he left, Ulfhild drew him aside and asked if they could talk alone. They walked along the rail fence of a paddock where mists steamed off the dew that glistened on the young grass and cows stood rust-red above it, the sound of their cropping loud in the quietness. “Father,” she asked, “when will you come here again and abide a while?”
Hadding shrugged. “How can I tell? If none of our outposts catches the illdoer, I mean to hunt for him as long as need be. And even if we take him soon, I’ve my rounds of the kingdom to make. There’s much for me to see to.”
“But how seldom you see your kindred.”
Her head drooped. He heard the sadness in her voice. “Do you want for something? Everything here looks well-off to me.”
“I feel myself sundered from you, father.”
He stopped in midstride. “Now that’s a surprise. Ever were you willful, Ulfhild. I thought you’d be happy to move to a home of your own.” After a bit he frowned and added slowly, “And of late Gudorm has somehow grown cold toward me. I know not why. But when we meet, his words are curt. I hear how he’s been riding around sounding men out about some.
or other undertaking he has in mind. I’d be glad to give him counsel and help. Yet he, who brushed death at my side, tells me nothing.”
“He feels restless, unfulfilled. And I-harking back, I begin to ken how
