“He is outraged, my lord, and unhappy. They declare themselves to have been assaulted, injured, and robbed on their way to Esferth Fair. By one man, if I understand properly. An Erling. He took a horse. A good horse, I gather. Meant for you, in Esferth. They are … they are displeased with the protection being offered to visitors.”
Aeldred looked from the cleric to the man in the cart. His eyes had widened.
“Ibn Bakir?” he said, looking at the merchant. “My stud horse? My manuscripts?”
Ceinion translated as best he could. Then, somewhat belatedly, told the visitors who the man on the bay horse was.
The Asharite merchant straightened, too quickly. The cart was a precarious place to stand. He bowed, almost fell. One of his fellows steadied him. The merchant had a wound in his right side; blood welled through what appeared to be green silk. He had a dark bruise on the side of his head. He nodded energetically, however. Turned, reached down, still being steadied, and pulled some parchment scrolls from a trunk behind him. He waved them in the air, the way he’d waved his hand before, calling for aid. Someone laughed, then controlled himself.
“Ask him,” said Alun ab Owyn, his voice strained, “if the Erling was unusual in his appearance.” They hadn’t heard him come back.
The king glanced over at Alun. Ceinion asked the question. He didn’t know the word for “unusual” but managed “strange.” The merchant’s effusive manner grew calmer. With the overexcited manner fading, he seemed more impressive, notwithstanding the fluttering green garment. This was a man who had, after all, travelled a long way. He answered gravely, standing on his cart.
Ceinion heard him; felt a wind in his soul.
“He says the Erling was white as a dead spirit, his face, his hair. Not natural. He surprised them rushing out from the trees, took only the horse.”
“Ragnarson,” said Alun, unnecessarily. He was looking at Aeldred. “My lord king, we must ride. We can beat him there—they lied to you this morning, back in the meadow. He wasn’t with their messengers to the ships. He’s just ahead of us!”
“I believe,” said the king of the Anglcyn, “that this is so. I agree with you. We should ride.”
Five men were detailed to escort the merchants to Esferth and lodge them with honour. The rest of the fyrd turned west and south. They paused only to fill their flasks and let the horses drink. It was Alun ab Owyn who led them splashing into the River Thorne and across, and it was Alun who set the pace after, alongside the woods, until some of those who actually knew where they were going caught up with him.
The king, his bay horse galloping beside Ceinion’s, asked only one question on the long ride that followed.
“Ragnarson is the man who led the raid last spring? Brynnfell? When the Cadyri prince was killed?”
Ceinion nodded. There was nothing more to say and a great need for speed.
They never caught up with him, never saw more than the sign of tracks ahead, alone at first, then merging with those of another horse—following it, not side by side. The tracks ran back south-east a little as the river curved between ridges of hills. Both sets, cutting at precisely the place where the Anglcyn outsiders had thought they might. They followed, galloping, between stream and forest, and they came at length to a sheltered strand of stones, and the sea.
Westering sun on the water by then. White clouds on the breeze. Tang of salt. Clear evidence of ships having been beached here, and a large company of men, very recently. Nothing more than those signs; empty the wide sea, in all directions. No way to know, none at all, which way the ships had gone. But Ceinion knew. He knew.
The king ordered the fyrd to dismount to let tired horses graze along the beach, up a little way where there was grass. He gave time for riders to rest as well, eat and drink. After which, he called his thegns to council. Invited Ceinion to come, and Alun ab Owyn, a generous gesture.
At which time it was discovered that Alun and his dog and his Erling servant were nowhere to be found.
No man had seen them leave the strand. Half a dozen outriders were dispatched. It wasn’t long before they returned. One of them shook his head. Ceinion, standing beside the king, took a step towards them and stopped, without speaking. Owyn of Cadyr, he was thinking, had only the one son living now. He might lose them both.
One of the riders dismounted. “They have gone, my lord.” That much was obvious.
“Where?” said Aeldred.
The rider cleared his throat. “Into the forest, I fear.”
A stir, then silence among those gathered. Ceinion saw men making the sign of the sun disk. He had just done the same, a habit as old as he was. What, he thought, am I going to say to the father? A wind was blowing now, from the east. The sun was going down.
“Their horses’ tracks go in there,” the outrider added. “Into the woods.”
Of course they do, Ceinion thought. It was madness, entirely so, what Alun wanted to do. Coming here they’d followed the coastal path all the way, skirting the wood. Of course they had. That was how you went: from the south you travelled along the coast; if you were starting north you went through the watchtower gates of the Wall. But not the forest. No one went through the woods.
But the coastal path would only take you back to Cadyr in the south, and Arberth—and Brynnfell—would be four days beyond that, up the river valleys. Retracing the coast road would be a wasted, meaningless journey. It wouldn’t do. Not if you had decided that the Erlings were heading for Brynn ap Hywll’s farm again. If you had decided that, and you knew Ivarr Ragnarson was aboard, then you could do something shaped by madness …
Ceinion felt old again. That seemed to be happening to him more and more. The man’s voice had sounded genuinely regretful just now, reporting the tidings. The young Cyngael prince had saved King Aeldred’s life this morning, they had all seen it. They would be sorry to see a young life end in this way.
Someone swore, savagely, breaking the mood. Athelbert. He strode angrily away up the strand. Stones there, some grass, grazing horses, light glittering on the water. It would be dark in the woods, and they stretched all the way to the Cyngael lands, and no one went through them. Ceinion closed his eyes. It was growing cooler, late in the day, edge of the sea, the sun going down.
He would die in there, Owyn’s younger son.
I am too old, Ceinion thought again. He was remembering—so vividly—the father as a young man, equally reckless, even more impulsive. And now that man was an aging prince, and his son was about to find his own end trying to go through the untracked woods carrying a warning all the long way home. A desperate, glorious folly. The way of the Cyngael.
CHAPTER XI
Bern backed down on hands and knees from the ridge when he saw the Anglcyn archers begin to shoot. There was a disaster happening, crisp and bright in the sunlight: blue river, green grass, deeper green of trees beyond, the many-coloured horses, the arrows caught by light as they flew. He felt ill, watching.
You didn’t abandon shipmates, but he knew what he was seeing. His task was to get back to the coast alive with his warning and these tidings of catastrophe. The Anglcyn were riding for the sea.
Breathing deeply, struggling to calm himself, he led Gyllir away from the battle, to the very edge of the forest. Even in daylight the trees felt oppressive, menacing. Spirits and powers, not to mention hunting cats and wolves and wild boars were in such woods. The volurs who put themselves into trances to see along the dark pathways of the dead said that there were animals that housed the spirits of the old gods, and wanted blood.
Looking at the darkness on his right, he could half believe in such creatures. But for all that, a more certain death lay in the other direction with the fyrd. They’d ridden at least as fast as he had to get to this place, which was unsettling. Back home, the old women said, An Erling on a horse of the sea, an Anglcyn on a horse … still, he’d not have thought Gyllir could be matched.
Aeldred’s riders were here, though. He couldn’t linger. Wait
ing would bring them across the river.
Bern used the trees as a backdrop, riding right alongside them, so as not to appear clearly against the sky. Even so, in the moments when he passed up and then down along the ridge and had to be in view, his heart felt painful and loud, as if his chest were a drum. He leaned low over Gyllir’s neck and he whispered a prayer to Ingavin, who knew the ways of secrecy.
No cry went up. Just as Bern Thorkellson crested that ridge, an agitated party of merchants from Al-Rassan was hailing the fyrd, coming towards them, loud with indignation. They saved his life, for the outriders turned to see.
It happens this way. Small things, accidents of timing and congruence: and then all that flows in our lives from such moments owes its unfolding course, for good or ill, to them. We walk (or stumble) along paths laid down by events of which we remain forever ignorant. The road someone else never took, or travelled too late, or soon, means an encounter, a piece of information, a memorable night, or death, or life.
Bern stayed low in the saddle, his neck hairs prickling, till he was sure he was out of sight. Only then did he straighten and give Gyllir his head, galloping towards the sea. He saw gentle, rolling country, rich land. The sort of soil that made a soft, easy people. Not like Vinmark, where cliffs crashed jaggedly down in places where the sea gouged the land like a blade. Where rock-strewn slopes and icebound winters made farming a wounding aspiration on farms never large enough. Where younger sons took to the sea roads with helm and blade, or starved.
The Erlings were hard with cause, reasons deep and cold as the black, still waters knifing between cliffs. These people over here, with their loamy, generous soil and their god of light, were … well, in fact, these people were smashing the best raiders Vinmark had right now. The story didn’t seem to hold. Not any more.
The shape and balance of the world had changed. His father (he didn’t want to think about his father) had said that more than once on the isle, after he’d decided his raiding days were over.
Thorkell really shouldn’t be here, Bern thought. Riding south at speed, he felt too young to sort it through, but not too young to be aware that the changes were happening, had already happened.
There was a distance still to go, but not so much now, as he finally began to recognize where he was. Gyllir was labouring, but so, surely, would be the mounts of Aeldred’s fyrd behind him. They’d be coming, he knew it. And—sudden thought—they’d see his tracks and realize he was ahead of them. He had to outrace them to the water with enough time to get the ships offshore. He was dripping with sweat in the sunlight, could smell his own fear.
When he saw the valley he remembered it. Gave thanks for that. He followed it south-east and, almost as soon as he did, smelled salt on the wind. The valley opened out. He saw their strand. Only two ships still anchored; the other three already out in the straits beyond.
He began to shout as he galloped up, continued shouting as he leaped from Gyllir’s back, stumbling into the midst of the encampment. He tried to be coherent, wasn’t sure if he succeeded.
These were Jormsvik men, however. They moved with a speed he’d not have believed possible before he’d joined them. The camp was struck, and the last two ships (undermanned, but no help for that) had oars in place and were pulling to sea before the sun had swung much farther west. This was their life, salt and hardship, dragon-prows. An Erling on a horse of the sea …
Brand’s own ship was last. They were rowing after the others when someone called out to them from shore. Another of those moments when so much may turn one way or another, for they might have been just a little quicker from shore, and so too far out to hear. Bern did hear it, though, looked back from where he stood beside the one-eyed leader of their raid.
“Who is it?” Brand Leofson rasped, squinting.
A rider in the water, waving one arm, forcing a reluctant horse into the sea after them.
“Leave him,” said Bern, whose eyes were very good. “Let him be killed by Aeldred. He lied to us. From the start. Ecca kept saying so.” He felt fear, and a cold anger.
“Where is Ecca?” Brand asked, turning his good eye to Bern.
“Killed in Esferth. Their king was there. Hundreds of men. There’s an accursed fair going on. I told you—Ragnarson lied.”
The man beside him, captain, raid leader, veteran of half a hundred battles across the world, chewed one side of his moustache.
“That’s him in the water?” Brand said.
Bern nodded.
“I want to talk to that misbegotten bastard,” Brand said. “If he’s to die, I’ll do it myself and report it at home. Back oars!” he cried. “Ramp out! Sling for the horse!”
Precise movements began. This is a mistake, Bern was thinking. Couldn’t escape the thought as he watched the strange, deadly man on a magnificent, inexplicable horse come closer through the waves. It seemed to him, feeling helpless as a child, that this was a moment in which his life—and not only his own—might be hanging, as in a merchant’s balance.
In the afternoon light, under swift, indifferent clouds, Ivarr Ragnarson was taken aboard.
“That,” said Brand One-eye, gazing into the sea, “is an Asharite horse.”
Bern had no idea if this was true or not, couldn’t see why it mattered. The horse was pulled up, a sling drawn under its belly by a man who knew how to swim. They all threw their weight to the far side, to keep the ship in balance as it happened. A difficult exercise, done with ease.
The balance seemed to tilt in Bern’s mind as he turned from watching the horse lifted aboard to regarding the twist-mouthed, dripping wet, white-faced, white-haired, pale-eyed grandson of Siggur Volganson, last surviving heir of the greatest of all their warriors.
Ivarr strode to stand directly in front of Leofson.
“How dare you leave shore without me, you worm-eaten lump of dung!” he said. You couldn’t get used to his voice. No one else talked like that. It was icy, and it cut.
Brand Leofson, so addressed, looked at Ivarr with what seemed genuine perplexity. This was his ship, he was leader of a Jormsvik raid, a captain of many years’ standing, surrounded by his fellows. He shook his head slowly, as if to clear it, then he knocked Ivarr to the deck with a backhanded blow to the face.
“Pull away!” he called over his shoulder. “Hard on the benches, all of you! Out of sight of shore, sail up, whichever way the wind takes us. We’ll have a lantern council at darkfall. Signal the others. And you,” he said, turning back to Ragnarson, “will stay where you are, on the deck. If you stand up I will knock you down again. If you do it twice I swear by Ingavin’s eye and my own I will throw you into the sea.”
Ivarr Ragnarson stared up at him but didn’t move. The too-pale eyes, Bern decided, held more black rage than he’d have ever thought to see in a man. He looked away. His father (he didn’t want to think about his father) had warned him.
THE YOUNGEST of the mercenaries turned away. Ivarr saw fear in his face. Ivarr was used to both: people avoided looking at him all the time, after furtive glances of horror and fascination, and there was often fear. Ivarr Ragnarson was white as a bone, malformed at one shoulder, his eyes were strange (and not good in bright sunlight)—and men were riddled with fears of the unknown, of spirits, of angry, unassuaged gods.
This young one—he couldn’t remember names, people didn’t matter enough—had a different quality to his apprehension, though. Something more than the obvious. Ivarr couldn’t say what it was, but he could sense it. He had a skill that way.
To be considered later. As was the fact that he was going to kill Brand Leofson. He’d been struck twice today by mongrels from Jormsvik. One of them, Skallson, had already been slain by the Anglcyn, denying Ivarr the pleasure. This one here would have to be allowed to live a little longer: Leofson was needed, if this raid was still going to work. Sometimes pleasures had to be deferred.
Lying on the deck of a ship, salt-soaked, bruised and exhausted and bleeding, Ivarr Ragnarson felt sure of hi
s control of events, even now. It helped that almost everyone you dealt with was a fool, weak, though they might think themselves hard, undermined by needs and desires, friendships and ambitions.
Ivarr had no such weaknesses. He was cut off by his appearance from any possibility of leadership and acceptance. That disposed of ambition. Friendship, as well. And his desires were … other than those of most men.
His brother Mikkel—dead in a Cyngael farmyard, one of Ingavin’s great hulking fools in life—had actually thought he could be a leader of the Erling people, the way their grandfather was. That was why Mikkel had wanted to go to Brynnfell. Revenge, and the sword. With the Volgan’s sword in hand, he’d said, ale cup sloshing about, he could rally people around him, to the family’s name.
He might have, if he hadn’t been thick in the head like a plough ox, and if Kjarten Vidurson—a man Ivarr had to admit he wondered about—hadn’t clearly been readying himself for a claim of kingship in Hlegest, with infinitely more weight than Mikkel would ever have had.
Ivarr hadn’t said anything about that. He’d wanted Mikkel’s raid to happen. His own reasons for going were so much simpler than his brother’s: he was bored, and he liked killing people. Vengeance and a raid made killing all right in the eyes of the world. With nothing to aspire to, no status to seek or favour to attain, Ivarr’s was an uncomplicated existence, in some ways.
When you looked only to yourself, decisions came more easily. People who harmed or crossed you were to be dealt with without exception. That now included those Cyngael at Brynnfell who had sent him fleeing through a night wood, then desperately back to the ships last spring. That also meant this maggot, Brand One-eye, right here, but only after he’d done what Ivarr needed him to do, which was get him back west.
There were deaths to be accomplished there first. And he still wanted to see if he could grasp and spread someone’s lungs out on the red, cracked-open cage of their ribs while they remained alive, bubbling, blood-soaked. It was a hard thing to do. You needed opportunities to practise before you could do something so delicate.