The Sign of the Raven Read online

  "I'd not have stayed behind," she whispered.

  He smiled and, making it seem by chance, lowered his head and brushed his lips across her cheek.

  "You've changed," she said. "You were so gloomy when we left Nidharos; but now you're like a young boy."

  He nodded. "Aye. There were evil tokens, I'd almost a mind to stop the whole faring. But since we wrestled that gale to its knees ..."

  He squinted out across the hurrying sea. "The heart of man is a strange thing," he murmured. "I had many doubts. . . . You, my dear, planted no few of them. And yet . . . look you, Ellisif. All these years, since I won the throne, I've done naught. I tried, I battered my head against a mountain. ... No, say rather I went around and around in a scummy pool, while the river flowed past me and I grew old. I could not bend the folk, I could not win Denmark, you know not what a bitterness that was."

  "Did it matter greatly?" she asked. "Your soul is worth more than any earthly gain."

  "It mattered," he said. "I am so made. But today there's an end of doubt. I'll not leave England till it's mine—ours—or till I'm dead. There's no more questioning about whether it can be done, or whether it's righteous, or . . . anything save the doing. A great venture and a last spending of strength, it's what I wanted and all I wanted."

  "You are a strong man," she said in pity, "and yet you flee from your own thoughts."

  He shrugged. "That's as may be, Ellisif. But riddle me this: now when I go to war against men who never offended me, there's no more hatred in me, not for anyone. I see that Svein Estridhsson is a wise and valiant man. . . . Only now do I see what courage it took to fight a losing war for twenty years, and never give up, and live by hope alone. And Haakon Jarl, there's another good warrior; and my namesake in England. . . . Oh, I'd fight them yet, but they'd be almost friends even as we crossed blades."

  He sighed happily. "Yes, much to do. I was wrong to war endlessly for Denmark when a whole world waited. After we have England . . . another voyage to Jotunheim, in a real fleet? Or seeking out this fair Vinland they seem to have lost again? Or—I know not. I know only that my heart has returned to me."

  3

  The Fafnir and her following reached Shetland after a quick passage, saw moorland rise steep from a smother of surf, and made landing at Lorwick to rest and refurbish for a day or two. The folk here were mostly Norse, smallholders who greeted their king well, but Harald did not wish to tarry. Erelong he steered south to the Orkneys, and in Scapa Row he found the rest of his fleet anchored with the Thorfinnssons' ships. It was a mighty array, the water seemed floored with strakes and Stromness was ringed by camp fires.

  Harald went ashore at the little town. Here for the first time he saw Scots, rangy kilted men who spoke a strange tongue; but again, the Orkney people had come mostly from Norway and their dialect was not much different from his.

  Paul and Erlend, tall weather-bitten youths, received him at their hall and gave him the high seat. They had good news: the English ship-fyrd had disbanded on the Nativity of St. Mary, and no few vessels were lost in the gales on their way home; likewise the land levies which Harold Godwinsson had kept out during summer were gone home; Earl Tosti would meet the Norse at Tynemouth with such English and Flemings as he had, to do homage and give help; the Normans were still weatherbound, and it was said desertion was melting William's army away. King Harold lay in the south, and it would be long ere he could reach north to help the Alfgarssons.

  Harold Hardrede drained the jarls of their knowledge. He had questioned so many, so closely, that it seemed he had already been in England; he knew where every Northumbrian river ran, and where the strongpoints were, and what to expect at each. There would be hard fighting, but he was certain his army could quickly take the northern shires; then, if the Normans should land, the southern English would look on him as a rescuer, and aid him. "But if need be," he said, "we'll break both nations. We'll hold England by spring."

  Under the walls of the town, Eystein and Maria found each other. They stood for long, only looking, until she gave a small cry, forgot the folk around and threw herself into his arms.

  He held her close, and did not let go her hands when she stepped back. "Each day you grow more fair," he said.

  "I was afraid for you," said the girl. "When I thought we were going to sink, I prayed God to take me rather than you ... or if He must take you, to have pity and bring me along."

  "No," smiled Eystein, "you should not ask that. Whatever happens to me, I hope you will live to gladden the earth for many years."

  Her small fine head shook. "It will always be my prayer," she said, "that we go together."

  "Once this war is over, we will," he vowed, purposely misunderstanding her.

  "It will be hard to wait, and harder still not to know."

  "I'll send messengers." Eystein smiled. "Come now, my darling, this is no time for tears. We've a good three days ere I sail again."

  "I would I could live only for the hour."

  "What else does man have?" Eystein's head lifted, and he laughed. "No more of such sorrow. I go to win a jarldom for our sons. Meanwhile we have each other, and I want naught but your nearness."

  She blinked back the tears and laughed with him; for she was a king's daughter.

  On the last evening before the fleet went south, Harald and Elizabeth walked out alone. They did not reckon the guardsmen who followed several yards behind. "Shall we go along the shore?" asked Harald.

  "No," said the queen. "Inland, if you will. I hate the sea."

  "Oh, you've earth underfoot."

  "It, the sea, has taken too many men."

  Harald shrugged, but obeyed her wish. They left the town behind and followed an upward road. When they reached a height, they stopped and sat down on a rock.

  Heath and the little farms gnawed from it lay at their backs; the ling was blooming in purple, and gulls flew into the low red sun. Beneath them bustled the town, and Scapa Flow brawled with ships and men, but here they were alone where only the wind and the gulls had voice.

  "And so you sail," murmured Elizabeth after a while. "How long will you be gone?"

  "I know not. It shouldn't be too long. As soon as we hold Northumbria and Yorkshire firmly, I'll send for you."

  "May it be soon."

  Harald leaned back on his elbow. He saw her face graven across a hugeness of sky. Beyond, clouds were turning gold, as if to make a crown for her.

  "I've done you much harm," he said gently. "And I fear I always will."

  "It is naught," she answered, laying a hand in his. "You have done me more good, simply by being."

  "A strange life we've had," he mused. "What began as a wedding of two houses has become one of two humans."

  "Three," she replied.

  "Well . . ."

  "I hold no more grudge against Thora. She gives you something I cannot. Let that be to her honor."

  "You are the first," he told her. "At times I think you were ever the first, and I too blind to know it."

  Elizabeth smiled and looked down at him. "What should I say?" she asked. "Should I tell you to keep your feet warm, and not to fare forth without a mail coat? Or should I ask you to deal justly with your foes and remember God? I can give you no counsel . . . only wait."

  "It should not be for long. We'll have a merry winter, you and I."

  "I pray it be so." Something tore her voice. "If it is not . . ."

  "All men must die. If I should fall, Ellisif, do you look after our daughters, and lend Olaf your wisdom. He heeds you."

  The gray eyes blurred. "I would not be able to keep living without you," she said.

  He sat up and laid an arm about her waist. "Indeed you would. You've more strength than you know of. More than I, in some ways. How else could you have endured me?" He laughed.

  "Come, now," he said when she remained silent, "we've still an evening and a night together. I'd sail more gladly if I knew your soul was not too heavy."

  Elizabeth drew breath.
This much she could give him, she thought, mirth and courage and a highhearted farewell: a lie. It was not such an overwhelmingly great gift in return for the years she had had.

  "Why, I meant it not thus," she said with a smile. "I was but asking you to take care, and surely you will. Ever have you carried victory, and it will be something new when you hail me Queen of England." Her eyes shone at him. "Yet it was always enough to be wife of Harald Sigurdharson." They walked back to the hall hand in hand.

  XIII

  Of Kings in England

  1

  The wind shifted until it blew almost due south, and the Norse fleet went swiftly along the coast of Scotland. Looking on hills purple with ling and yellow with gorse, tumbling steeply down to the waters, Harald felt a stirring. This was his kind of land; he understood suddenly the fierce quick pride of its folk and almost he wanted to stop here and seek them out and league with them. But England the green lay ahead.

  The Highlands fell away as his ships galloped south. Now there were wooded hills bearing wan hues of summer; garths and crofts were to be seen, and men driving their cattle inland as the fleet hove into view. Houses and outbuildings were made differently from those in Norway, lower and more plain but with a solidness that bespoke wealth. The further south he came, the more thickly settled the country was.

  When they passed the Tweed mouth, Hallvardh Flatnose told him: "This is more or less where Scotland ends, my lord. Henceforth we're going by England."

  "Should not Hadrian's Wall be near?" asked the king. "I am fain to see it." "Whose wall?"

  "The one the old Romans made, when they held England. And much else." Harald sighed. "A great folk, those of Romaborg. The rest of us, ever since Carl the Great, have been trying to do only a small part of what they wrought. And we have failed, every one of us."

  "Perhaps the time is another," suggested Thjodholf.

  "Aye, so. And then, the Romans took hundreds of years to eat the world. Can it be gobbled again in one lifetime?" Harald brooded for a moment, before he raised his head haughtily. "We are not a lesser race."

  No, thought the skald, but we come at an ill time, in an age of wolves. Still, if ever a man lived who could bend time itself to his will, he stands by me now overtopping us all.

  With the favoring wind, it was not a long run from the Tweed to the Tyne. They entered this on a gray afternoon with frost in the air and the sea chopping outside. A dozen ships lay to near the stockade of a little town whose men watched their approach with trepidation. One of the vessels was of great size and gaudily painted; her mast was up, and a green and gold banner flew at its tip.

  "Out anchor!" cried Harald. "Stand by! This must be Tosti Jarl."

  The royal standard-bearer today was Fridhrek Kolbjarnarson, a slender yellow-haired youth of good family, whose first war this was. He went to the chest where the raven flag lay, and took Land-waster forth and raised it on its staff. Wind caught the folds, bloody red uncurled and the swart bird seemed to flap its wings. "Now let them know this is the king's ship!" he said loudly.

  "Who could mistake it, lad?" drawled Gunnar. "No other boat'd have so long a man sticking up in her."

  The earl's craft swarmed with men, weapons blinked and hallooing went across the river mouth. Presently a boat rowed from her to the Fafnir. The men who had been seated in its bows leaped aboard, disdaining the hands which offered help.

  For a moment he and King Harald stood regarding each other. He was of middling height, slim waisted and broad shouldered, with a wildcat gait. Seldom had men in the North known one so richly clad, in silken shirt and broidered velvet coat, scarlet hose and sable-trimmed cloak made stiff by gold thread. His face, framed in thick brown hair that tumbled to his collarbones in the Danish manner, was very handsome, almost beautiful, with its short straight nose, full lips and wide-set gray eyes. Yet there was nothing womanish about him, and the sword at his waist bore marks of use.

  Against him the Norse king, in a plain blue kirtle and rough wadmal breeches, seemed a commoner . . . or would have seemed thus, had it not been for his clifflike height and the iron in his gaze. The men crowded about, hairy giants with a child's wide eyes; the planks creaked under their tread.

  "Greeting, my lord," said the Englishman, "and God speed your cause. I am Tosti Godwinsson, Earl of Northumbria and your faithful servant." He bent a knee.

  Harald stroked his beard and raised his left brow. A smoldering was in this man, wrath had eaten lines in his face and the mouth drooped downward. Yet that was all to the good; he was not likely to forget what he had suffered and make peace with his brother. Tosti, Day of Storm, yes, he had been well named.

  "Be welcome among us," said Harald. "It is known that I am hard to my foes but have ever rewarded troth. Together we may do much."

  Tosti got up. "I have only twelve ships, my lord," he said, "but they are large and well stocked, and every man aboard, English or Flemish, is of proven worth." His hot glance went over the Norse fleet where it sprawled vastly out into the sea. "Truly you're not one to take half measures!"

  "I think you'll find us a better ally than King Svein or Duke William," said Harold.

  Tosti flushed. "So you know that? Yes, my lord, I make no secret of it. ... I sought help where it was to be had. None but you offered it to me on any terms worthy of a king. Now I will stand by you as long as God gives us both life."

  Harald wondered. A proud and avaricious earl with half of England as fief would likely prove troublesome in years ahead; not for nothing had the English chiefs outlawed him. But if he remained true until the realm was well in hand, that would be enough.

  "Let us go ashore if we can, and rest tonight and talk of our plans," he said aloud.

  The townsfolk opened their gates on promise of safety; Harald took only his leaders and some guards inside, leaving the rest of his men to ring the burgh in. He and Tosti held feast at the best house, together with the Norse chiefs and Tosti's young sons Skuli and Ketill. Harald questioned the outlaw carefully.

  "Yes," said Tosti, "my brother Harold is not a weakling. And his Housecarles are a troop to reckon with, the very core of the English fighting strength. But he's far to the south, in London I think, and in no case—" he drained his beaker at a gulp and mumbled out his anger—"in no case will God help a perjurer."

  "They say no grass will grow on the grave of any who's sworn falsely," said Harald. "But my namesake is not yet in the earth."

  "We can hold the North long before Harold can reach us, and raise its levies against him," said Tosti. "They may not fight very willingly for us, but sheer numbers . . . Edwin and Morkar are the earls we must beat. Brave men, but hotheaded and without deep knowledge of war."

  Harald rested his chin in a hand and looked thoughtfully at his ally. The leaping firelight splashed Tosti's face with red. "How does it feel to battle your own brother?" he murmured.

  Tosti started. His voice cracked. "Ha' done, my lord! They say that a slayer of his own kin was never lacking in the Yngling race."

  Eystein jumped to his feet, grabbing after a sword; but Harald laughed. "I was only testing you," he said. "I like a man without guile."

  Tosti slumped back. "The world is splitting asunder," he mumbled. "Naught is left of Alfred's house save one sickly child. Your claim is better than William's, my lord, and at least as good as Harold Godwinsson's. I'll stand by you to save what can be saved from the wreck, and . . . and to come home again."

  "That wish I can understand," said Harald gently.

  They talked at length of what was to be done. Harald found it odd, the liking which sprang up between them. Sometimes it happened thus, men looking at each other as tenderly as at a woman; friendship could be as mysterious as love. Tosti was sullen, touchy, guilt ridden, driven as much by greed as anything else . . . but he had charm, and his will and skill were not to be surpassed.

  At dawn they went to the church, and there the earl swore faith on the altar and laid his hands between Harald's. For his part, the
king promised him dominion over half of England, the northern and eastern shires which he loved.

  Thereafter the fleet set out again.

  2

  It was needful to strike fast, so that the north could be taken ere Harold Godwinsson arrived to dispute it. At the same time, Harald Hardrede thought it wise to test both friend and foe. He decided to harry the coasts as he went on down toward the Humber.

  At Cleveland, therefore, the Norse landed. So swiftly had they come that no war word had gone before them and no army was raised. They swarmed ashore and across the countryside. Farms and hamlets stood ablaze, cattle were slaughtered on the strand, men cut down when they fought and women passed from hand to hand. Then the horns summoned the warriors back and they stood out to sea anew, shouting and singing and wild with the feeling that they already gripped England in her helplessness.

  Their next landfall was at Scarborough, a sizable town: walled, like all the English burghs, and defended by men who cried defiance and sent an arrow sleet from their towers. Harald and Tosti led the host, swords belled on shields and the townsfolk were driven back within their gates. But here they in their turn sent the Norse reeling away.

  "Now what's to be done?" asked Eystein. "Have we time for a siege?"

  "No," said Harald. He looked about him. The land rose steeply. A nearby hill overlooked the walls. "Do you take some men, Eystein, and go around to the farms hereabouts and take every pitchfork you can find."

  "Pitchforks?" cried the sheriff. "That's a weird booty."

  "I've seen stranger." Harald looked at the high wood and earth palisade before him and remembered the day he and Ulf and Halldor thundered at the gates of Messina. And now Ulf was dead, and Halldor sat on his farm out on Iceland with scarcely a word, and Harald Sigurdharson fought alone. But . . . work to do.