Einar awoke, and almost immediately regretted it.
It was morning. That he could tell by the daylight pushing its way through cracks in the daub-and-wattle wall. Pain stabbed through his head and he screwed his eyes shut once more. The elves his mother claimed only shot their arrows at drunk people had got him again.
He squinted, taking stock of his surroundings, trying to remember what had happened the night before. He was lying flat on his back, sunk deep in comfortable, fresh straw, under a rich embroidered woollen blanket. He cautiously opened his eyes wider. Looking down he saw he still wore the same clothes as the night before. He could not remember how he got to bed and wondered who had taken him there. He knew he was not in the room set aside for the Orkney crew. Otherwise he would have been surrounded by snoring men.
Einar went to sit up and found he could not. A brief moment of panic dissolved as he realised that there was something heavy on his right arm that was preventing him getting up.
He froze.
‘Oh no…’ The words escaped his mouth in a disbelieving whisper as he saw why he could not get up. Lying on his right arm was Princess Affreca. She was fast asleep. Einar stared at her in disbelief, wondering if he was perhaps still asleep and in the depths of a dream. What on earth had happened the night before? It seemed obvious. Desperately he racked his mind for any memory but nothing surfaced. He could remember dancing, drinking more, raucous singing, but everything was all blurred together. He certainly did not remember anything between him and Affreca.
The princess was snoring gently. A trail of drool ran from the left corner of her lips but Einar could not help thinking she was still beautiful.
Was she naked?
The thought blazed in his mind like a bonfire. Realising that she could wake with any movement, Einar carefully moved his left hand to the edge of the blanket where, with ginger fingers, he clasped the wool and prepared to lift it away from Affreca’s chest.
‘What is going on here?’
The words tore through the air like a volcano erupting. Einar blinked, dropping the blanket again. He looked round to see his cousin, Hrolf, standing in the doorway. Einar’s mouth worked without sound as he stared, eyes as wide as the moon, while Hrolf glared back, taking in the scene that lay before him. His question seemed superfluous. The look of stunned disbelief on Hrolf’s face quickly dissolved as his nostrils flared and his cheeks flushed red with fury.
Einar pulled his arm from under Affreca and held both hands up. The princess grunted and opened one eye.
‘It’s not what you think,’ Einar said, unsure which one he was actually talking to.
‘Oh it’s not, is it?’ Hrolf said, beginning to stalk into the room. His right hand fell to the hilt of the knife sheathed at his belt. ‘Am I not looking at my betrothed, lying in a bed with my cousin?’
He ripped the knife from its sheath. The long blade glimmered in the weak light.
‘You’re dead. You’re both dead,’ Hrolf said, his voice rising to a hysterical pitch.
Einar sat up, his eyes searching the room for anything that he could use to protect himself. There was nothing. A stool sat near the door but there was no way he could get to it before Hrolf got to him.
The room darkened momentarily as another figure appeared in the door.
There was a flurry of movement as the newcomer brought something down hard on Hrolf’s head from behind. Hrolf froze, his eyes rolled up into his head then he pitched forward, sprawling face first onto the floor, knocked out.
Standing in the doorway was Ulrich. He had what looked like a large lump of firewood in his hand.
‘We’re in trouble,’ he said. ‘We have to go. Come on.’
Einar scrambled out of the bed, brushing straw from his clothes and hair. He turned and saw the princess getting up as well. To his slight disappointment she was not naked, but wore a long linen underskirt that stretched to her knees. Confusion played havoc with Einar’s mind.
‘I had too much to drink last night,’ he said. ‘Did we…?’
Affreca was in the act of pulling on her dress, which lay discarded beside the bed. His words made her stop and look at him, an angry frown creasing her brow.
‘It’s just… I can’t remember,’ Einar stumbled on, gripped by a panic as great as the one he had felt when Hrolf had drawn his knife.
Affreca scowled and resumed pulling on her dress.
‘If we had, you would remember, trust me,’ she said, her voice laden with caustic venom.
‘Well, this is a stroke of luck,’ Ulrich said, clearly noticing for the first time who the woman was. ‘She’ll make a good hostage.’
‘Hostage? What’s going on?’ Einar demanded. He saw that Ulrich too was still dressed in the fine clothes he had worn to the feast the night before.
‘I’ll tell you as we go,’ Ulrich said. ‘Hurry up. We need to get moving.’
‘What about him?’ Einar cocked his head at the prone body of his cousin on the floor.
‘We should kill him, but he’ll help us as another hostage,’ Ulrich said. ‘You’ll have to carry him.’
‘What’s all this about hostages? And why do I have to carry him?’
‘You’re a big strong farmer boy,’ Ulrich said, bending to lift Hrolf’s knife. ‘And I will be busy making sure the other hostage doesn’t escape. Come on. There’s no time to waste. Princess?’
The Wolf Coat beckoned to Affreca with the blade of the knife. Einar decided there was nothing else for it but to heft his cousin over his shoulder. Hrolf grunted and Einar realised he was already starting to wake up.
Ulrich prodded Affreca through the door and Einar struggled out behind them. Outside it was a grey early morning and a mizzling rain was falling. Einar saw that they had been in one of the many booths and outbuildings that ringed King Guthfrith’s magnificent hall. He could tell it was very early as the whole King’s Gard was deserted. All the denizens of the enclosure would be in their beds, sleeping off the effects of the night before.
Einar checked himself. It was really too quiet. Even in the blue hours before the dawn there should be guards watching the gates and now there were none. One of the tall, heavy wooden gates was actually open, revealing the way downhill through the buildings outside. Even without Ulrich’s furtive behaviour he knew now something was wrong.
‘Why are there no guards?’ he said as Ulrich led the way to the open gate.
‘I killed them,’ Ulrich said.
‘Thor’s Blood! What did you do that for?’
Ulrich glanced over his shoulder. ‘To make it easier for us to get away. Last night while you were all drinking and making fools of yourselves I left the hall and went back into town. I had business to attend to.’
‘What sort of business is done in the dark hours of the night when most men are in their beds?’ Einar said. Hrolf was starting to move on his shoulder and he knew his cousin would soon be awake and then he would be in difficulty.
‘The sort that doesn’t want people sticking their noses in where it isn’t welcome,’ Ulrich said. ‘I had to go back to the Merchant of Death to conclude our deal. When I told Ricbehrt that my king would be ordering more swords from him he suddenly remembered that he had overheard that your girlfriend here’s father intended to betray us. Thank the Hanged God for human greed. Our deal is worth a king’s ransom so Ricbehrt didn’t want to see it die with us. The bastard would have left us to our fate otherwise.’
‘I’m not his girlfriend,’ Affreca said, dragging against Ulrich’s arm that gripped her wrist, pulling her along.
‘Well, you looked pretty cosy all tucked up in bed together there,’ Ulrich said.
‘We had too much to drink,’ Einar said. ‘I don’t know how we ended up in the same bed.’
‘Last I saw of you before I left the feast you were dancing together,’ Ulrich said.
‘Look, this is hardly what’s important right now,’ Affreca said. ‘What’s this about my father betraying you?’
‘As if you don’t know,’ Ulrich spat.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Affreca said. ‘I’m not his favourite daughter. He tells me nothing of the affairs of the kingdom.’
‘Are you seriously expecting me to believe that? Your father was plotting to kill us, and your betrothed – that piece of shit,’ Ulrich said, his top lip curling as he bobbed his head in the direction of Hrolf, ‘was in on it too, but you knew nothing about it?’
Affreca shook her head.
‘No matter. You’ll make a great hostage that will help us get out of here.’ Ulrich said.
‘So you came back for us?’ Einar said. ‘I owe you my thanks.’
Ulrich stopped and turned to Einar, an expression on his face that suggested Einar was so stupid it offended him. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said. ‘Yesterday afternoon Ricbehrt gave us samples of the goods we want to buy off him and we stashed them in the hut where the rest of the Orkneymen are while we went to the feast. I came back for those. Sigurd from my crew is over there getting them. When I saw Hrolf going into that hut I thought he might be useful as a bargaining piece so followed him in. Don’t flatter yourself. That’s the only reason I was there. But as you are here now, hurry up. We need to get to the ship as fast as we can.’
They jogged across the muddy paddock. As they neared the open gate they got a better view down the way outside.
They stopped dead.
At the bottom of the street the way was packed with armed men. The early light glittered on the steel of polished helmets, spear points and sword blades as they advanced towards the Gard gate. Their shields, painted many bright colours, locked together as they came. There was little doubt this was a war party.
‘Shit! We’re too late,’ Ulrich swore through clenched teeth. ‘Back to the others.’
At that moment Hrolf came awake and let out an inarticulate shout. Einar felt him squirm on his shoulder and he twisted himself from under him, letting his cousin drop to the ground. Hrolf landed heavily on his back, his eyes rolling around in his head as consciousness returned to his mind.
‘Leave him,’ Ulrich shouted. ‘Run.’
The little Viking took to his heels, running back into the enclosure, dragging Princess Affreca behind him.
Einar hesitated for a moment, then delivered a swift kick to Hrolf’s head, sending his cousin reeling onto his side. He turned and ran after the other two.
They sprinted away from the gates, back across the open space before the great hall to the doorway of the outbuilding that the Orkneymen had been lodged in. Just as they arrived, the door opened. One of the Wolf Coats, who must be the Sigurd Ulrich had mentioned, came out, a leather bag over his shoulder. He wore a mail shirt and helmet which Einar assumed he had got from the ship. Behind him was a bedraggled-looking Ivar, who still looked worse the wear for the drink he had taken the night before.
‘Is what your friend here says true?’ Ivar said, fixing a bleary eye on Ulrich.
‘Yes,’ Ulrich said. ‘Get back inside. Guthfrith’s men are on their way already.’
They hurried into the building and closed the door almost shut. Sigurd left it open a crack so he could watch what was going on.
‘At least if they try to get in this door we can fight them one at a time,’ he said.
‘Aye,’ Ivar said. ‘But we’re trapped in here.’