In due time we were fetched back to Gorodische and Harald put to bed in Ingigerd’s own chamber. And the next morning his dragon ship arrived and tied up to the landing slip. One hundred and twenty Norwegians poured over the side, demanding angrily to see their young chieftain. Almost unnoticed in this crowd were Yaroslav and Einar Tree-Foot.
“What a business, what an outrage!” lamented the prince as he leaned anxiously over Harald’s prostrate form. “Eilif and the whole druzhina are out scouring the countryside at this very moment. He insisted on it himself and rode out before it was even light—uncommon early for him. He’ll pull their roofs down over their heads, have no fear.”
Yaroslav, prepared for any eventuality, had brought along both a priest and a physician—the latter being, like Jarl Ragnvald’s, a Greek from Miklagard. But Einar shoved his way to the front, and swore, by the Raven, that no one knew more about blade wounds than a Jomsviking. After some dispute, he was allowed to take charge of the patient.
“Boil me six onions cut up in a little water,” he ordered.
A serving woman was sent in haste to prepare this dish. While we waited, he studied his patient. The blood had by now been washed away, revealing a black-encrusted stab wound about three fingers wide.
“The question is,” said Einar tugging his beard, “are his guts pierced? Those other giblets don’t matter a fart in the wind so long as the guts ain’t pierced. If they are, start digging his grave. Now, youngster, drink this.” The onion soup had arrived; he held the bowl to Harald’s lips.
“Someone count to a hundred slowly. By the Raven, must I do all!”
Yaroslav being, by everyone’s admission, the best educated among us, offered himself for this service.
As the count neared its end, Einar bent over the wound. “Easier when she’s fresh, but it can’t be helped,” he muttered, and with his fingers pulled apart the crusty flaps of skin, ignoring Harald’s groans. A trickle of bright red blood began at once, but Einar put his nose next to the wound and sniffed.
“Can’t smell a thing; he’ll live,” was all he said, straightening up. He left it, as a task beneath his interest, to the Greek to patch up the wound.
That very afternoon, by Dag’s order, Harald, swaddled in furs, was laid gently on the deck of his ship. I took the helm and put her about. We rowed past Novgorod and downriver another ten miles to Harald’s dvor—the one he had been given by Yaroslav. He had visited the place once already and purchased some slaves for it, including one lovely young girl that Stavko let him have for a song.
That evening Dag and I sat beside Harald in his bed-closet, with the door shut, and held a council.
“Sunsets!” Dag swore. “Nightingales! And the whole time leading us into an ambush! The first time we passed Perun’s grove must have been to alert their lookout; she didn’t take us that way just to argue religion with Odd here—which, by the way, my young friend, had better not happen again. Personally, I don’t care if you dance naked under the moon, but keep it to yourself. This is a Christian court, as you may have noticed, and talk like yours has a way of getting to the wrong ears.”
“Yes, Dag, all right—but an ambush? You’re not serious.”
“Never more. Why—you think she isn’t capable of it? No, dammit, everything fits. Have you ever seen a battle with no dead left on the field, not so much as a single weapon dropped? Believe me, I looked. They left nothing behind that could be traced to them.
“And then back comes Eilif the next day without a single prisoner to show for his efforts, but with five wounded of his own, and claiming to have won a battle with the ‘pagans’, after which he hanged all the survivors, says he, and burnt down their village. Which I don’t doubt—the hanging and burning—to make it look good. But those casualties were none other than the men we wounded, being smuggled back into town.”
“And all this was done for the purpose of killing Harald?”
“And you and me, yes. And they damn near succeeded.”
“You’re forgetting the princess was wounded too.”
“A sham. Self-inflicted. For a heathen, friend Odd—if that’s really what you are—you seem strangely anxious to pin the guilt on them. Or does the fair Ingigerd’s guilt disturb you even more? Don’t set your foot on that path, my friend, it’s a slippery one.”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“I worry about everyone.”
At that point Harald, who was so weak he could barely talk, gritted his teeth and raised himself up on an elbow. “I blame you for this, Dag Hringsson!” he said between clenched teeth. “You persuaded me to take refuge in Gardariki—refuge, you said. And what do I find but swords drawn against me! I’m as sore wounded as I was on the field of Stiklestad and it’s your fault! Now, I want that woman dead—you hear me? I want her palace burned to the ground, I want her head brought to me on a pike, and Magnus’s head with it! I’ve got six score Norwegians here ready to die for me, and every one of them a match for five Swedes. Now, you see to it, goddamn you, or it’ll be your head on a pike, you hear me … ahh!”
He fell back, clutching his belly; fresh spots of blood showed through the bandages.
Dag leaned forward and said in an earnest voice, “You’re right, my friend, I underestimated her. I blame myself. I simply didn’t expect her to move so soon. Now listen to me carefully, Harald. I wouldn’t have brought you here if I didn’t think the prize was worth the hazard. What happened today won’t happen again. From now on we guard you well—a dozen of our best men with you at all times—waking, sleeping, shitting, drunk, sober. But as for Ingigerd, we smile and do nothing—no violence, no threats, no accusations—nothing. We bide our time. She has enemies; I know who they are. More important, we have a friend. Yaroslav. He favors you already, soon he won’t be able to do without you. He must realize that he put his head in a Swedish noose the day he married that vixen. She and her relatives have just about stolen his country from him. And that’s where we come in. We’re the lesser of two evils, and not just to Yaroslav—the boyars will see it that way too.”
“Then let’s waste no time,” I said. “I’ll pay a visit on the mayor and arrange a parlay. It’s a skald’s job.”
“Good. Do it at once,” said Dag. “But disguise yourself somehow. Ingigerd has eyes everywhere.”
Harald roused himself again. “I’ve never heard Dyuk Osipovich speak Norse. How are we to parlay with him?”
“I’ve been hard at work on my Slavonic,” I said. “I’ll manage.”
“You—” he said with an expression that seemed to convey equal amounts of wonder and exasperation. I didn’t like his tone of voice. We looked hard at each other.
After an uncomfortable moment, Dag resumed. It would take time, it would need caution. But when the moment was right we’d settle accounts with Ingigerd, Eilif, Ragnvald, Magnus—the lot. “But hit back wildly, Harald, like a blind man dueling, and we lose everything. As for our Norwegians, they must continue to believe in the pagan ambush for a while longer; I want no brawling with the Swedes, not yet.”
“How do we explain the bodyguard to them?” he asked.
“Your dignity requires it, that’s all. You’re practically a boyar, aren’t you?” Dag folded his arms and leaned back against the wall, his handsome face frowning. “Now you know what you’re up against and you know my plan. If it doesn’t suit you, say so and you’ll see the last of me.”
There was a long pause—too long. Harald gave him a sullen nod.
That night I sat up late, chewing over the events of the past few days. The last thing I wanted was for Harald to be killed—on his success rested all my hopes. And I was more than half persuaded that Dag was right about Ingigerd, and that, having failed once, she would try again. And with what result? If she didn’t succeed in killing Harald, he would surely kill her, whatever Dag said. The leash that held him in check was growing more frayed every day; sooner or later it must snap.
The thought of Ingigerd’s death sent an unexpected rush of feeling through me, and left me with my heart beating fast.
A second thought came on its heels. Why, in the ambush, had I only been knocked down? Why had I escaped death, unless my attacker’s purpose was not to harm me but to keep me out of harm’s way? And, if so, on whose orders? Who cared so much that I should live?
That night, as if Perun of the Silver Face still watched from his Russian sky and muttered some warning to me, it thundered.