Ivar scratched the iron-grey hairs of his beard.
‘What are they up to?’ he said. Einar noted the lines age had carved into the old man’s face were deepened by concern. His bushy eyebrows were knitted as he considered what Einar had just told him.
Einar had not taken Skar’s advice to go back to the hut full of slave girls. His mother had warned him about such places and though the memory of those naked bodies he had glimpsed still disturbed his mind, her warning (that such places were dens of thieves who took all your money while you were otherwise engaged and were pits of disease that would rot your private parts) overcame his lustful yearnings.
Instead he had made his way through the bustling city to King’s Gard. It had not been hard to find. A fortress within a fortified town, the ramparts of King’s Gard overshadowed the streets beyond the slave market in the south-east part of Dublin. Like the outer defences, the king’s enclosure was surrounded by a ditch, behind which was a bank topped with a palisade of sharpened wooden stakes. This inner wall encircled many outbuildings and an enormous feasting hall that was by far the largest Einar had ever seen. As long as three ships and with a high, pointed roof, the hall of King Guthfrith was twice as long and half again as tall as that of the richest chieftain in Iceland. It would even have towered over his uncle’s hall in Orkney.
Ivar had left a man at the gate of the enclosure to vouch for Einar and on his word he had got in past the warriors on guard. Ivar and Einar now stood in one of the outbuildings of the hall that had been turned over to the Jarl of Orkney’s men as lodgings. A team of thralls had dragged three big wooden tubs of water in for them to wash in. Earlier the water had been hot and clean but by the time Einar got there all the others had taken their turns in the tubs, leaving it tepid and an uninviting grey colour. The other jarl’s men were now combing their hair and getting dressed into their best clothes in preparation for the feast. Einar was half submerged in a tub, rubbing his left armpit with a bar of chestnut soap.
‘Two washes in as many days? You should be careful,’ Ivar smiled. ‘You’ll make an Englishman jealous.’
‘I know, and it’s not even ‘Washday’,’ Einar said. Then he frowned, puzzled. ‘What do you mean about the Englishman?’
Ivar snorted. ‘They’re filthy pigs. We call the sixth day of every week ‘Washday’ but for them that day only comes round once a year. They also think we wash to try to steal their women, rather than because we have pride in ourselves. Can you blame those Englishwomen though? If you were an English lass, who would you want to share your bed? A stinking local or a Norseman who takes care of himself?’
‘How often do the women wash?’ Einar wondered. ‘I met an Englishman today and he was more preened than a rooster.’
‘Oh they’re proud, all right,’ Ivar said. ‘They spend a lot of time making sure they look good, but get close to them and the smell of sweat is awful. They change their shirts as often as they wash. But tell me more about this Englishman you met.’
‘I saw him in town,’ Einar said, wanting to confide in Ivar but remembering he had promised not to. His wash finished, he got out of the tub and Ivar handed him a cloth to dry himself with.
His thoughts were disturbed by a high-pitched squealing from outside. Pigs were being slaughtered.
‘It sounds like they’re preparing quite a feast to celebrate my cousin’s betrothal,’ Einar commented as he rubbed himself dry.
Ivar grunted. ‘You sound almost bitter. Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for the Irishwoman too? Thank the Gods I’m too old to be beguiled by a pretty face and a dainty round arse. If I didn’t know better I’d say she was a witch the way she casts her glamour on you young men.’
Einar felt his cheeks redden and he looked away. ‘The princess? I hardly noticed her,’ he muttered.
Ivar guffawed. ‘Really? Not like your cousin then. That fool’s like a moonstruck calf the way he dotes on her. She’s cast her spell on him all right. His father will be disappointed.’ At the mention of the jarl all the mirth drained from Ivar’s face and he looked distracted.
‘What is really going on, Ivar?’ Einar said as he began to pull on his clothes. His best clothes were lost to his Irish captors so to his embarrassment he would have to wear the shabby clothes he had arrived in to the feast.
Ivar looked round, chewing his bottom lip. Einar could see he was trying to come to a decision.
‘As you said in the marketplace, I am the jarl’s nephew,’ he coaxed. ‘You said I can be trusted.’
Ivar looked round once more, double-checking that the rest of the jarl’s men in the room were too far away to overhear. He then nodded and took a step closer to Einar.
‘All right,’ he said, speaking in a lower tone. ‘We only told you half the story before. Your cousin’s wedding is part of the plan, but there is more to it. Thorfinn is not really interested in peace with Guthfrith. Or rather Eirik Bloody Axe of Norway isn’t. You’ve seen with your own eyes, Einar, how rich this city is. The wealth of the world flows through here. It sits at one end of a trade network that stretches as far as Miklagard. In the west it’s the richest market outside Hedeby in Denmark. The Danes control the two biggest markets in the world.’
‘But Guthfrith is King of Dublin?’ Einar knitted his brow.
‘And Guthfrith is a Dane,’ Ivar continued. ‘Well, a half-Irish descendant of a Dane. His allegiance is to King Sigtrygg of Denmark. Both Sigtrygg and Eirik covet each other’s realms the way a man bored with his own beautiful wife lusts after his neighbour’s comely spouse. The time is coming when they will fight it out and the victor will take both kingdoms.’
‘So what’s the point of this marriage then?’ Einar asked, his bottom lip jutting out.
‘It’s supposed to give Guthfrith the impression that your uncle means peace,’ Ivar said, ‘but as you know Thorfinn is already moving against the lands in the north, and the Irish king there pays tribute to Guthfrith. Guthfrith will not be happy losing land to a vassal of Eirik of Norway, nor will his own overlord, Sigtrygg. It brings Norway one step closer to Sigtrygg’s realms. One step closer to Dublin.’
‘So I was my uncle’s pawn but he in turn is the pawn of King Eirik?’ Einar said.
‘And Guthfrith is the pawn of Sigtrygg the Dane,’ Ivar said. ‘And like that little Wolf Coat said, the kings are the pieces on the tafl board of Odin. But what of this marriage agreement, you ask?’
Einar nodded, pulling his long, rough woollen shirt over his head.
‘What we were supposed to do was sail here and confirm the betrothal,’ Ivar said through gritted teeth. ‘Guthfrith is placated. He’s no fool but the arrangement suits him as much as Thorfinn. He won’t expect the father of his new son-in-law to attack him, will he? That would be a bit personal. Also it puts his own little set of eyes and ears – his daughter – inside the household of his rival, Jarl Thorfinn.’
‘So how does that help?’ Einar asked.
‘The plan was supposed to be that we would sail away taking the princess with us,’ Ivar sighed. ‘Then if Guthfrith decides to take umbrage at the land grab in the north we have his daughter as a hostage. Only now it looks like that young fool, your cousin, may have actually fallen in love with the girl. The Gods alone know what he’ll do now. Will he follow the plan through or…?’ he trailed off.
‘Or what?’ Einar said.
Ivar shrugged. ‘Take her father’s side? Betray us? Who knows? When a man falls in love with a woman, all his wits leave him.’
‘Can you blame him?’ Einar said as he began running a bone comb through his hair and beard. ‘She’s beautiful.’
Ivar raised an eyebrow, a smile playing across his lips. ‘I thought you said you didn’t notice her?’ he said.
At that moment the door crashed open and Hrolf swaggered in. He was dressed in a magnificent blue-dyed tunic, embroidered with many twisting animals in bright coloured threads. Einar looked at his cousin’s finery then down at his own drab clothing, ruefully noting the obvious contrast that everyone else would see too. Especially the princess.
‘Look at the state of you, Einar,’ Hrolf sneered. ‘I suppose that’s regarded as the height of fashion in Iceland? It’s my betrothal feast tonight. You look like you’re going to muck out the horses.’
Einar blushed and looked at the floor.
‘Are you all ready?’ Hrolf spoke to the rest of the men in the room. They answered with nods and ‘ayes’. ‘Then let’s go to the feast! By the Gods, men, the Irish know how to throw a party. We’re in for a great night.’
He turned on his heel and left the room. The others began filing out after him.
‘Keep your eyes and ears open at the feast, lad,’ Ivar muttered out of the corner of his mouth as he and Einar fell in line behind them. ‘And let’s hope Hrolf loves his own father more than his new wife. Otherwise we’re all dead men.’