The Road of the Sea Horse Page 4

  It is said that he was mounting his horse for this journey when some of his men came in haste with the news; Magnus Olafsson was fallen, and the enemy had left. For a moment Svein stood without moving, and they saw how a light grew in his face. Then he sprang to the saddle and cried aloud:

  "Now I swear by Almighty God, that never again, as long as I live, will I let myself be driven out of Denmark!"

  He rode with his warriors down through Scania, where the folk were as always ready to join him, and so to Roskilde. In the course of that winter, he brought the realm back under him, and was proclaimed king throughout the land. In the late fall there came to him Magnus's mother and half brother, with notice of the Norse ruler's last will and a warning that Harald Sigurdharson did not mean to abide by it. They stayed a long time at Svein's court, and he showed them great honor.

  III

  Of Thora Thorbergsdottir

  1

  Harald landed in the South, in Viken, and sent most of his men home with the ships. He kept about a hundred by him, warriors he trusted. Among these were his old Varangians, Dalesmen who supported Thori of Steig, and ambitious young fellows from anywhere in the land hoping to rise high in the king's service. Though harvest time was nearing and folk had work to do, he called the Borgar Thing to proclaim him sole ruler of Norway. No one spoke against this, for his right of inheritance was clear and his troop well armed.

  Thereafter he rode up through the country, and at one Thingstead after another was lawfully taken as king. Swift travel was necessary to get home before snow should fall, and the horses were gaunt by the time they had come halfway.

  As he prepared to leave the Sunnmaer Thingstead, a man came up to him. This was Thorberg Arnason, brother to Finn and Kalf, the sheriff and leader of the meeting; his family, the Arnmodhlings, was old and great, having been kings here before Harald Fairhair. He was a big man, heavily built, with the beginnings of a paunch but with an ox-like strength in his broad red face. His ruddy hair and full beard were stabbed with gray. For all his wealth, he was simply clad, in the rough wadmal breeches and coat of a yeoman, leather leggings, a woolen stocking cap. "I hope you are pleased with what has been done, my lord," he said.

  "Very much," answered Harald. "You were good to speak so well of me. In too many places, they only agreed to have me because they could not think what else to do."

  "True, you have the name of giving hard redes," said Thorberg, "but it seems to me that we need a strong king." He cocked a small shrewd eye upward. "Do you hasten too much, though? I've seen your horses; they won't stand the pace."

  "No, we shall have to lie over for a while."

  "Then why not come be my guests? I live at Gizki, off Hjorunga Bay, not far from here, and can promise you some fine ale if naught else."

  Harald smiled. He was getting so few welcomes that this one was oddly touching. "We shall be happy to do so."

  They remained overnight at the Thingstead, sleeping in the booths, and the next morning Thorberg joined his following to Harald's and led the way. They had a day's ride through steep-walled dales where the first yellowing frost lay wanly across woods. When they came out at the bay, Thorberg took them to a garth he owned where the horses could be left. Three ships rested on the beach, and with these the band rowed out to the island where he lived.

  "This is a famous bit of water," he said, pointing to the choppy gray waves. "Here Haakon Jarl the Great smote the Jomsvikings the Danish king had sent against him, a lifetime ago. There've been few such fights as that one. Some say Haakon offered his youngest son to the gods, and only thus had the victory. But then, many evil things are said of him merely because he was a heathen and defied kings."

  "He stood for the old ways, and the time was another," replied Harald sharply. "It's not strange he got a bad name."

  "Well," drawled Thorberg, "the man who is too far ahead of his time can also look for trouble."

  Harald made no answer.

  The island rose steeply from the sea, facing into a spouting thunder of surf. When the ships were steered to rest and the men had climbed an upward path, Harald saw a good-sized steading among wind-crippled trees, a dozen timber buildings and a bustle of housefolk. It could easily guest his hundred. "Most of my holdings are on the mainland," said Thorberg, "but I like this place to live. My kin have ever been traders and Vikings, like myself, and I would not sleep well away from the sea noise."

  A hollow booming shivered in the rock, endless waters marching mightily from the rim of the world. Gulls mewed in the chill salt air, a snowstorm of wings under hastening lead-gray clouds. It was good to enter the fire-lit warmth of the hall. There the men sat down on the benches, and the carles began setting up the trestle tables. Thorberg gave Harald the seat of honor, and sat across the fire from him.

  "Welcome, my lord. We were hoping you would come."

  The king turned his head to that husky voice with a hint of laughter. A young woman gave him a beaker of ale.

  "Thank you," he said. As he looked closer, squinting through the flickering gloom, he put on the manners of the empire: "I had awaited a noble greeting, but not so fair a greeter."

  She met his eyes boldly. She was tall, with a white dress that lay close around the deep curves of breast and thigh; at the throat were raw gold and amber. Her face was wide and snub-nosed like Thorberg's, but good to watch. Her eyes were large and bright between smoky lashes, her hair a heavy deep-red wave down to her waist to show she was a maiden. "I am Thora, the older daughter," she said. "I had scarce hoped to meet the great King Harald Hardrede."

  "So that's what they're calling me!" he laughed. "Well, like most nicknames, it rings true." He gestured to the high seat, wide enough for two. "Come join me."

  Thora colored. "Thank you, my lord." She mounted the chair in one flowing movement. It was not uncommon for men and women to drink in pairs, though as a rule the whole company would do so together.

  Thorberg opened his mouth, but shut it again. After turning the matter over in his mind, he seemed to decide he was pleased.

  Harald felt a little light-headed; his weariness dropped from him and he drank thirstily. "This is good," he said. "Elsewhere, men have taken us in, but with small cheer."

  "I cannot understand that," said Thora. "Are you not the only rightful king, and a famous warrior to boot?"

  Harald stroked his short beard; in the dancing light, it was as if spun of red-gold wire. "Well," he replied. "I am perhaps too much of a king. But enough of that. Have you dwelt on this island your whole life?"

  "Yes, my lord, though we often go elsewhere guesting. Still . . ." She sighed. "At times it grows empty here. I would like to see more of the world."

  "I'm surprised so fair a maid, and the daughter of a mighty chief, is still unwed."

  "I have had suitors." The short nose wrinkled. "They smell of barnyard. Or else they are little, men, traders who may go as far as Finnmark when they're very daring. My father would not marry me off without my own yea, and after all I am but twenty winters old."

  Ulf sat gloomily, watching them sideways as they talked ever more eagerly together. He ate little and drank much. But after a while he made the acquaintance of Thora's sister Jorunn, a slim quiet girl with the same red hair, and that lightened his mood somewhat. The third child living here was Eystein, a bright quick lad who watched Harald with dog's eyes.

  "And how is it in the South? Is it true that in Miklagardh the streets are paved with gold?"

  "No, but there is gold aplenty for him who can take it. I mind one time, we were warring in Syria and came to a walled town which we stormed. That was where I got this scar on my wrist, see it here?"

  "That was a bad wound." Thora's blunt soft fingers brushed across it; looking down at her bent neck, Harald saw how the thick hair poured over strong shoulders and wanted to stroke it. "You must have been in great pain."

  "No, at such times you pay no heed, there's too much else to think about. Only later do the cuts begin to smart. Well, anyh
ow, we got inside the town. Some Saracens were making a stand in one house, so I went up on the roof with a number of men, broke through, and came into the upper story. We found many heavy caskets, so we cut a hole in the floor and threw these down on the foe. As they burst open, the floor below was covered with gold and silver monies. Surely that was an honorable death, smashed by a king's ransom! And I've heard that among some of the wild horsemen of the Asian plains, royal blood may not be spilled, so a captured king is put to death by having molten gold poured down his throat."

  When he had spoken of such things to Elizabeth, she had flinched and tried to change the discourse. Thora laughed aloud, clapping her hands together. She could describe her own sea journeys, and, with some malice, quarrels and intrigues to which she had been witness—even the hawking which Thorberg like other Vikings had learned abroad. It was surprising how much she knew of Northern affairs, but she admitted shamelessly stretching her ears when men had speech with her father.

  The fires were down to coals when the drinking ended. Men laid themselves on the benches or spread their sleeping bags on the juniper-strewn floor. Harald was given a shut bed into which he folded his giant frame, but was long awake.

  Weeks had passed since he had bedded a woman, and he had not really spoken freely to one since . . . well, since he had left Maria. Almost, he wished Thorberg were a Dane, so he could bear Thora away. He didn't think she would struggle more than decency required.

  2

  In the next few days, the king's men sat about taking their ease: drowsing, trading stories, going onto the bay to fish or ashore to hunt. They were content to let time slip past them. But Harald's mind prowled. So much to do! He had Norway to secure, Denmark to win back, perhaps Sweden to fight ... or even England, since the old treaty between Magnus and Hardhaknut gave him some claim to that throne. There were churches to build; only the Church and its learning could bring his wild folk up with the times, and yet it would not do to let Rome become too powerful. It was necessary to nourish trade, bring new arts into the land, catch and hang robbers. And ever he would have most of the stiff-necked chieftains against him. At whatever cost in blood and gold and treachery, they must be whittled down or his son would never sit easy.

  His son. He wondered about that. Ellisif had not been well since the birth of Maria, and he knew from Nidharos she had not conceived again. True, he had been too much away to give her a great chance, but many women grew barren after the first child. Even if she gave him a boy, how strong was the lad likely to be?

  Almost unawares, he turned to Thora Thorbergsdottir, and spoke much with her. The sheriff and his plump shy wife left them alone, not wishing to cross Harald Hardrede, nor did the island offer a place for unseemliness. The king thought only that he enjoyed her wit and looks.

  On the last day before he was to leave, he saw that she was weaving in the maiden's bower and that her face was downcast. Sticking his head through the door, he said: "Leave that for now and come walk with me."

  "As my lord wishes," she answered low. Color flooded her cheeks, but he liked the way she paid no heed to the shocked eyes of her women.

  She matched his stride; he need not hobble his steps as he did for Ellisif. The sun was bright in a gusty sky, flimmering coppery off her hair and tossing the blue cloak behind her. They strolled out of the garth and into the little patch of woods beyond, saying naught.

  "I'll be sorry to go," he said at last.

  She did not look up at him. "Must you?" she replied.

  The high, noisy wind ripped a handful of yellow leaves from a tree and flung them across the footpath.

  "Yes." He looked into sun-flecked shadows. A squirrel chittered and shot up one gray bole. He wondered how squirrels had come to the island. . . . Swum, perhaps?

  "I cannot wait longer," he said. "The snow will be here soon, and too many roads impassable. I must get to the Ora Thing in the Throndlaw before then. An old belief is that no king has really been raised till they hail him there; and the Thronds are not friendly to me."

  "I cannot see why men should be unfriendly ... to you," she murmured.

  "Here in the North, they've made a religion of pride," he said. "Having been where customs are otherwise, I can now see it more clearly than most. A man who is not stubborn and ready to fight has no weight. So I must be harsher than anyone else, though it earn me foes. Better to have peace, but that cannot be."

  "Not unless you yield on a few things," she laughed, "and that you will never do." Her lips were wide and red about the white gleam of teeth. He thought they would be soft.

  "It isn't in me," he admitted.

  They came out of the woods and up a slope where the grass was thick and sere, turned into hay by the summer which was now dying. When they sat down, they caught its dry sweet smell, and Harald thought of the horses he had tended as a boy. They dangled their legs over the edge of a small cliff. Below them, the sea was a swirl of white and green, galloping in to smash hooves against stone. Now and then a mountainous wave spurted its scud up toward them.

  A salt taste dwelt on their mouths. Wind shrilled through the pale cold sky, and Thora shivered. Harald spread his cloak around them both. When her body touched his, he felt half drunken.

  "I remember a storm once, when we were sailing back from a visit in Raumsdal," she said after a while. Her eyes, deep gold-flecked green, were turned to the horizon. "We came near being swamped. I remember seeing a wave rise over the side, it seemed to hang there forever and I thought it would never break. Then it did, and I was drenched and cold, with water over my ankles. But somehow I was merry, as if I'd drunk much ale. Oh, sheer joy, the wind and the water, darkness, the ship standing on her thwarts; I was never so happy as then."

  A gull dipped and soared overhead, riding the wind. Thora's eyes went up to it. "When I get to heaven," she said, "after many years in purgatory, that will be the greatest joy, to fly. I've ever wanted to fly ... up around the moon!"

  "And scorch your pinfeathers near the sun," grinned Harald. "That may be a longer trip than you think. I talked with a Saracen once, a very learned man, and he thought the world was round and the stars so far away no one could dream how far. Afterward, at night, I looked up and tried to imagine myself falling up to the Carl's Wain." He paused. "The only time I was really frightened."

  Thora crossed herself. "I don't understand that," she said. "It's not good to deal with wizards. I never even liked the old witch-wife near here who spaes with runes and cooks healing brews. God knows she's a harmless creature, but I don't understand what she does."

  "It were worth trying to understand," he said. "I would there were more time to think about these matters."

  "You would not be afraid," she told him softly. Her face turned to his, and somehow the freckles dusting her nose were sweet to him.

  "Nor you." He felt a prickle of sweat along his ribs, but tried to smile. "I'll wager you'd even sail to battle with your husband."

  Her eyes glowed. "That were something to live through!"

  "The thing's . . . mixed ... at the time. You strike at someone, but seldom know what good it does. Only shouting, and hitting, and your mail hot and heavy. . ." He had a sudden feeling that somewhere, sometime, he had lived through this before. It was eerie, and he crossed himself, until he remembered speaking in much these words to Maria Skleraina. Her image was vague in his mind; instead he saw the sunlight shards against Thora's thick fair brows.

  "I've practiced with the box," she was saying, and then, breaking off: "You look so unhappy all at once."

  "Oh . . . it's naught." He shook himself, smiling a little stiffly. "I regret having to leave this place. Nothing more."

  Hardly aware of what she was doing, she moved closer against him, and his arm stole around her shoulder. "Will you come, back?" she asked. Her words were hurried, and a pulse fluttered in her throat.

  "Yes. Surely. How could I stay away from such, such good company?"

  "You have a wife, a Russian princess," raspe
d from her. "She must be happy."

  Harald did not answer. Down below him, the sea worried the island like a dog with a bone.

  "I . . ." Thora bent her head away, rubbing her eyes with one fist. "No matter."

  "But you're crying!" he said.

  "No. Wind in my eyes, it stings."

  "The wind is from the side." He tried to make a jesting tone, but his throat was tightened and a hammering went in his temples.

  She pulled away from him and sprang to her feet. "I must go now," she said thickly.

  "No—" He rose and ran after her. His hands closed on her waist and swung her around to face him. They stared at each other. Her lips moved, but there were no words.

  It was hard to say whether he drew her to him or she fell into his arms.

  3

  Thorberg tugged his beard unhappily. "You are wed, my lord," he said.

  "That means nothing," said Harald. "I . . . had hoped—"

  "Let's talk frankly," said Harald. "I want your daughter, and she is willing. There's naught shameful about a leman; such have been mothers to no few kings. St. Olaf fathered Magnus on Alfhild, and gave her the rank of queen. I shall do the same for Thora, and add thereto a morning-gift of three estates. And you, of course, will always have my help and friendship."

  The chief bit his lip. "She's a headstrong sort. You may have trouble with her."

  "I could have as much with a church-wed wife. Thorberg, I hope for your support, but we two will have each other with or without the consent of anyone else."

  "Well . . . well ..." The man sat for a while, stroking his beard.

  "You shall have great dignities from me, and if you wish I will see that your other daughter makes a good marriage." Harald grinned to himself. The fish was hooked. Already Thorberg was weighing his gain like the hardheaded Viking he was.