TWENTY-FIVE

Only two people were still. Weland, sunk to the floor, the centre of a swarm of people, all asking the same question. And Thyre, frozen on the dais, hands still before her mouth.

Below her, all was chaos. Half the hall went to Weland; the other half surged around the blind king. Hands stretched before him, Gorm shuffled from the high table down to the hall floor. He spoke sharply to the first men to reach him, who bowed, backed away, and then darted past Thyre into the king’s bedchamber.

Astrid ran towards Weland. She could hear snatches of his speech amid the din. ‘Dublin –’ ‘ambush –’ ‘an arrow –’ ‘dead –’ ‘no other survivors.’

A wolf had hold of her heart, and was gnawing it to pieces.

Gorm meanwhile never paused, treading a straight path towards the doors, which still swung open, unheeded. ‘Stand back,’ he called. ‘I am still your king.’ A wary circle formed around him.

He never glanced at the prone Weland, never turned his head, even to acknowledge the return of the runners. One bore his sword – the Toledo blade Leif had given him – and placed it in the king’s right hand. Somehow he took its weight. The other carried, hooded on his arm, the king’s eagle, Hreggskornir; it hopped to the king’s left shoulder. Two more men walked behind, and between them was a chest – ornate, and heavy, to judge from the bowing of their backs.

Gorm’s grey gown billowed behind him in the face of the winter blast. His beard whipped up and the eagle spread its wings. Someone had slipped its hood and now it raised its beak, cawing in defiance of any who dared approach. There were three stuttering fires lit down the length of that great hall, and as the awful figure passed, each in turn went out.

One. Two. Three. Snuffed like candles when Gorm the Old went by.

‘Have the doors closed,’ a white-faced Haralt muttered to Arinbjorn. ‘This has gone far enough.’

The old Norwegian sent four men racing for the doors, but the wind rose as they bent to their task, huge icy fists dashing them back against the walls.

As Gorm approached the winds parted, closing on his tall grey frame and slamming the doors shut behind him. Now men ran to wrestle them open again, hauling the massive panels back and rushing out into the racing white night, after the blind king. Leif and Astrid slipped between them. Somewhere, a horse whinnied.

Incredibly, Gorm was mounted, sword raised in his right hand, eagle on his left wrist, the reins, let loose, tugged about by the wind. Behind him in the saddle was lashed the heavy chest. The horse was huge, and grey, and old, and their backs were turned to the milling crowd.

‘Hear me, old friends,’ cried the king. Somehow they knew the words were meant, not for any person there, but for the stones themselves.

‘All my life, I have offered you the blood of my sacrifices. In living, you have made me great! Do not fail me in my death!’

Without a glance, the king touched his heels to the horse’s flanks, and the beast cantered straight between the Yelling Stones.

An almighty thunderclap sprawled the watchers, and the horse reared up at the stones’ centre. Lightning flashed from between the stones; shot out to strike the newly raised earthwork.

For a moment, all were blinded, deafened, struck by the force of the lightning crack.

And then it was quiet, and the wind died, and the horse trotted calmly north. The great mound opened before the rider. The king rode into the mound, and the mound closed upon him.

People picked themselves up. Gorm the Old had gone. He had ridden into his own grave, and it had welcomed him.

Astrid’s eyes, impossibly, were dry as she fled the crowd and ran back into the horrid smoky press of the hall. Scrabbling about on the bench, she drew her harp from a bundle of cloaks.

‘Play on, shield maiden,’ her father had said. ‘I have your back.’

‘I’ll never play again,’ she said, and flung it in the fire. The strings snapped and the bridge cracked; greedy flames ate up the wood.

Leif looked from her, to the fire, to the dais where Thyre still stood, unmoving. And what was he meant to do now?

Night, and the gale returned with the dark. Ice lashed at Leif’s exposed cheeks as, in desperation, he strode out to the stones. ‘What would you have me do, you useless rocks?’ he shouted, words whipped away into the black.

Not even an echo greeted his words.

For a moment, he stood before them, thwarted. And then he stepped forward.

A monstrous adder reared up in his path, uncoiling from the foot of the nearest stone. It rose as high as his waist, jaws agape, and Leif staggered back. Its eyes were dead grey stone, and now it swayed before him, fixing those eyes on his own.

‘Now is the time: the tipping point is come! The jarls will gather here to mourn their king, and choose his successor.’

‘Haralt.’

‘Haralt. He and the priest will seek to turn their heads. You must strike now – talk to these men, draw first blood!’

Leif shook his head. ‘That isn’t what I meant. I meant, what can I do to help Astrid?’

‘Tcha!’ The snake shot its head at him; reared higher. ‘Forget the girl. She is but flesh. Now is the moment for word-magic, to conquer fate, to wield true power!’

‘No.’

‘No?! You dare oppose our will, boy?’

‘You all say I’m the one who makes the choices.’ And he remembered the words of the witch-rider. ‘Three choices. The first will be right.’ It was some comfort. ‘So Folkmar and the flyting can go hang. I make my first choice, and I choose my friend.’

‘Fool!’ spat the adder. ‘If we fall to the priest, then you fall too. Your words, your magic, they are pagan tools. They’ll kill you as a heathen! As a witch like us!’

‘And yet for all that, I will choose my friend.’

In a fury, the adder struck.

‘Rope,’ said Leif, with a curl of his lip, and the snake fell, harmless, to the ground. Leif turned on his heel, an idea burning in his mind. Astrid needed him. That was all that mattered now.