‘You are a most curious priest,’ Halfdan said, brow furrowed as he strode through the upper corridors of the duke’s keep, his head rocking with that slight swimminess of just a little more wine than was good for him.
Beside him, the man in the long White Christ priest’s robes, with the aquiline nose and the slicked-back receding hair – receded so far, in fact, that his tonsure might be entirely natural – gave him a smile and a bird-like chuckle.
‘How so?’
‘I have met priests of your nailed god often in my travels. They range in their personality. I have met those who were so desperate to make every man believe that they were willing to flay or burn a man to persuade him. Such men burned my village and killed my father,’ he added darkly, remembering the hated Hjalmvigi. ‘And I have met priests who were too important to care about those of us who cling to the true ways. Men who would rather talk to a wall than to sons of Odin and Loki. I have met those who hate, and those who ignore, those who thirst for conversion, and those who burn with the desire to kill all who do not believe. What I have never met is a genial priest.’
This made Archbishop Ælfric laugh out loud. ‘Oh, you poor deluded pagan. Genial? Back in Angle-land, there are men who think I am the Devil incarnate, who think me proud and violent, and wicked, and dangerous.’ He gave Halfdan a sidelong wink. ‘I am, of course, all those things. But only among those who deserve it. In my home things are different, Halfdan of Gotland. Half our island is still inhabited by pagans and heretics, clinging to ungodly ways in their northern and western lairs, sacrificing and singing songs to demons long dead. If I had taken on the mantle of Jorvik with the intention of rooting out paganism and heresy, it would have taken the rest of my life without even managing to get as far as the old Roman wall. No, I leave the punishing of paganism to those men such as you describe – young, hungry, and at least slightly insane. For me, I am content in the knowledge that however much you enjoy your beer now, in the eternity of the hereafter you will burn forever, while I will look down on you from Heaven and tut like a kindly schoolmaster.’
Halfdan frowned. He hated talking to the oddly affable Archbishop of Jorvik, because half the time he couldn’t tell whether the man was serious or mocking. Usually both, he suspected. Ælfric was a complicated man, yet oddly Halfdan couldn’t help but like him. It helped that he was the first priest of the nailed god who had spoken to the jarl as an equal, of course.
‘So this Emma,’ he said. ‘She is a queen in your land, yes?’
Ælfric nodded. ‘Not the queen, but a queen. Her husband was king some years ago. I crowned the new king myself earlier this year, her son Edward. But he and the former queen are not on the best of terms. He has stripped his mother of all her property and wealth.’
‘And you ask the duke to help her?’
The archbishop gave a strange smile. ‘She is in a difficult position. Dispossessed in Angle-land, yet not overly popular here, despite being the duke’s cousin. She has retreated to Bruggis, and so I am here to beseech her cousin on her behalf. I am rather rueful, however, over my timing. To choose a time of rebellion to visit shows a distinct lack of foresight, I fear.’
Halfdan nodded as they returned to their rooms. The castle was rather quiet at this late hour, so long after the feast was finished. Most of the attendees had been abed for at least two hours, including the duke. Halfdan, however, had ended up in conversation with a small group of men, drinking the best wine on offer in surprising quantities. It seemed that one of the qualifications to become a bishop was a prodigious capacity for strong drink. Ælfric hardly seemed affected.
The archbishop was only one of the men who had attended the feast that had been thrown to test the support of the eastern barons. Forty-seven invitations had been issued to men of title, land and the Church, and twenty-six had attended, which left a worryingly large number of likely rebels. For Halfdan, the gathering had had an unexpected side effect. Naturally, for men of international politics, occasionally various conversations had turned to foreign lands, and the jarl had heard some baron mention Jarisleif of Kiev. That had pricked his ears, and he’d drifted into that conversation as it was something pertinent to the Wolves.
That had been when he’d heard the most important news since Miklagarðr. At the same time that the Wolves had been battling their way across Apulia, the thief Harðráði had returned to Kiev and married Jarisleif’s daughter, Ellisif. The thief remained for now in Kiev, which meant that the Sea Wolf would also be there, but it was said that he gathered support to come west once more, for in addition to his claim to the Norse throne his marriage put him in the royal line of the Swedes.
Everything had fallen into place that evening. Gunnhild had said there was some connection between the duke and Harðráði, and whatever it was, by sheer accident during a feast, Halfdan had heard exactly what he had hoped to hear. He was energised, and a little drunk, but mostly excited. He had what they had sought: information as to their prey. Better still, a little steering of the conversation had brought fresh insight.
Olof of the Swedes was long gone, dead even before Halfdan and his friends had reached Georgia, succeeded by his son Onund, once a companion of Jarl Yngvar, and worse – or possibly better, Halfdan had yet to decide – the hated priest Hjalmvigi had become Onund’s personal confessor. It seemed that Halfdan’s enemies were re-emerging, gathering in the north. They might be powerful men – the glorious but untrustworthy Harðráði, as heir to numerous thrones, and the priest, against whom Halfdan had sworn a new blood oath, as a royal advisor – but Halfdan was a powerful man himself: veteran of wars, of the imperial guard, friend and protector to dukes and empresses.
A great conflict was coming.
Of course, that brought with it a somewhat unwanted memory: a dream of himself standing as Loki, on a bleak, blasted hillside, watching the great guardian of Bifrost, Heimdallr, emerge from a doorway to face him under a blood-red sky.
Ragnarok.
The jarl, his wits slightly dulled by the wine, realised that his mind had wandered as they walked, and that Ælfric had been speaking to him unheard all this time.
‘…and so there has to be some peaceful solution between the king and his mother. Though I have troubles enough in Jorvik.’
Halfdan gave a non-committal grunt and nodded, hoping that it appeared he had been listening.
‘If I cannot put my own house in order in the North, how can I hope to persuade King Edward to do the same. It is a problem. But for now, it is a secondary problem.’
The jarl continued to nod, lost, wondering what he had missed.
‘Some problems have to wait,’ he said sagely, hoping that fitted in with whatever they were talking about.
‘Are you invested in this war, my God-denying friend?’
That was rather a good question, and one he needed to discuss with Gunnhild. Did they really have to stay now? He couldn’t see what difference it might make to him and the Wolves whether the duke won or lost. Was it any of their business?
His uncertainty must have shown, for Ælfric gave him a sly smile. ‘Yes, I think that I, too, would like to find a fast ship for home before the fighting truly begins.’
‘I think the duke will win,’ Halfdan said suddenly, rather surprising himself.
‘Oh? He racks up enemies at an impressive rate. He is hopelessly outnumbered now, and it remains to be seen whether the King of France will have anything to do with him. Henri might just as easily throw in his lot with the barons. His relationship with William has rarely been good, and he might stand to gain a great deal in the region if the duke falls. Do you have some demon-delivered wisdom that escapes me, Gotlander?’
Halfdan grunted. He was starting to get sick of this whole ‘demon’ thing of which the archbishop was so fond, but the man seemed to say it in such a light-hearted tone it did not come across as insulting.
‘William will win, I think. He is desperate, and desperate men are capable of things that evade those with more to lose. He is clever, beyond the ken of most Normans, and that, I think, will see him drag the French in on his side. He is ruthless to the core, and so where others would baulk at doing the unthinkable in order to win, the duke will not. And perhaps, most of all, he is lucky.’
‘Luck is more important than power or prestige?’
Halfdan snorted. ‘Of course. Luck is the most powerful thing in all the worlds. Loki, time and again, sets himself against the greatest gods of Ásgarð and Vanaheim, and is it not his cunning and luck that sees him survive until the end of time? Who else but a lucky god could stand against both Thor and Odin?’
‘It makes my skin crawl to hear your words, Halfdan of Gotland.’ The archbishop gave a strange smile and stretched. ‘It may be that you are right. But whether he wins or loses, there will be a war to scourge the Earth in the process, and I have no desire to become caught up in it. I must soon take my leave and return to the coast. Anyway,’ he said, stopping and thumbing at the door they had reached, ‘this is my chamber. Fare you well, and may God come to you in the night and drag your heathen carcass from the dark into the light.’
There, again, blistering wicked words, spoken with a half-smile and a light voice that made it somehow almost a joke. As Ælfric closed the door and left him alone in the corridor, Halfdan shook his head, hoping to shake some of the fuzziness from it. He wondered whether Gunnhild would still be up. Other Wolves were – Bjorn and Ketil were both down in the hall, engaged in stupid competitions with the duke’s men, throwing axes and drinking beer. Leif and Anna had retired quite early. But Gunnhild and her sisters…
When had he started thinking of them like that?
He was still musing on that when he arrived at her door. He listened. He did not want to knock and disturb them if they were asleep, but the faint sound of murmuring came through the timbers, and so he rapped lightly.
‘Come in, my jarl.’
It no longer came as any surprise that Gunnhild might know who it was, before word or sight, and so he pushed the door and entered the chamber.
‘If Odin is an aspect of God,’ Cassandra was saying, ‘just as in the Holy Church, the Father, Son and Spirit are all one, then we can see so many parallels. Gunnhild, even your story of the three gods creating the first man and woman is but a mirror of the Trinity and the creation of Adam and Eve. The hanging on a tree is clearly an interpretation of the crucifixion, and your Valkyries are but the angels of the Lord.’
Gunnhild turned, fixing Cassandra with a withering look. ‘Cease your prattle, girl,’ she said with thin lips and narrowed eyes.
Cassandra looked ready to argue, and the ever-talkative Anna was clearly winding up to take part in the discussion, but as Halfdan cleared his throat, with a flick of her fingers Gunnhild dismissed her sisters and turned to the visitor.
‘My jarl.’
‘I have news of both Harðráði and Hjalmvigi,’ he said, words tumbling out with the ease of the wine-loosened tongue.
She nodded as though she knew this already, which slightly annoyed him. ‘Time is almost upon us,’ she said.
‘Almost? Gunnhild, Harðráði comes west as heir to two kingdoms. Hjalmvigi stands by the throne of the Swedes. The time is now.’
‘No, Halfdan, it is not. You are not ready. Be patient.’
Normally, these days Halfdan knew better than to argue with the völva, but the wine had done its work.
‘Gunnhild, this is not our war. We should leave before—’
‘Leave how? Patience, young jarl. Ulfr Sveinsson builds you a ship, and even a month is far from up yet. We are not done here.’
‘If we get caught up in the war—’
‘Then it is as it should be. Threads are woven by the Norns, not by men.’
‘Gunn—’ he began afresh, but stopped, blinking, as she held up a silencing finger a couple of inches from his nose. ‘I just think…’ he started again, but her brow creased in irritation and she wagged her finger.
‘Hush,’ she hissed, and then looked up and about as though sensing something in the wind, even in her peaceful room.
‘What is it?’
Suddenly he felt that twinge of anticipation, a slight itch in the Loki serpents on his arm, and without needing to will it, all the wine seemed to have drained from his system, the fog lifting.
‘The duke needs you,’ she said suddenly.
‘I’ll get my byrnie.’
‘No time. Go now.’
Halfdan frowned, but the wine was no longer blanketing his wit, and the look on the völva’s face brooked no argument. In two heartbeats he was out in the corridor again, pounding along it in his soft boots, unarmoured, yet as ever with the Alani short blade at his waist, balanced by a sax at the other hip. The duke was in danger, it appeared. And if there was no time for him to find his chain shirt, then there was certainly no time to find the other Wolves and call on them.
As he ran through silent, deserted corridors, heading for the duke’s rooms, he paused momentarily at one of the keep windows. His mind was replaying the fall of the castle at Valognes and their desperate flight from the place, leading him to wonder whether he was facing a repeat of that troubled night. One glance outside suggested it was otherwise. He could see the duke’s soldiers patrolling the walls, and there was no hint of trouble. This was something else, then, which was good, given that they were at William’s seat of power and there was nowhere else really to run.
The bastard’s suite of rooms stood on the uppermost floor, occupying the whole thing, and so there were always two men on guard at the doorway that led upstairs to those chambers. As Halfdan turned a corner and saw ahead an empty corridor, that doorway ominously unprotected, he knew that Gunnhild had been right. There was a true threat to the duke at this very moment. He hoped he was not too late as he ran closer, and, even as he closed on the doorway, he couldn’t quite say why he hoped. Had he not been saying to Gunnhild that this was not their war?
Still, he slowed, making his pace light, calming his breathing, and closed on the doorway.
Still no guards.
He ducked around the door frame, just exposing one eye, peering into the gloomy staircase. It was dark, but there was enough of a glow from above to illustrate that it was empty. A quick glance down on instinct, and it did not take much to spot the blood spatter that spoke silently but eloquently of the guards’ fate. He listened, holding his breath.
There were faint sounds from above – murmurs and scrapes, nothing readily identifiable. The urgency of this insisted itself upon him once more, and he began to climb, taking the stairs two steps at a time, trying to stay as quiet as possible while moving fast. He reasoned that if there was trouble in the duke’s rooms and he couldn’t hear much, then no one would easily hear Halfdan climbing the stairs. He reached the top in twelve bounds and leapt round the corner, weapons out, sax in one hand, sword in the other, ready to take down any enemy lurking there.
No enemy waited, blade in hand, but two bodies heaped by the side, coated in blood, answered the question as to where the guards had gone. Several facts struck him rapidly with just a glance at the pair. Firstly, the attacker or attackers had to be strong to drag armoured men up the stairs. Secondly, he or they had to have been considered a friend, or at least no threat, for both men had died from a blade drawn across their throats from close range. To get so close, the guards had to have allowed it. Lastly, the attacker – or the attackers – knew the layout of the place and what to do without being noticed, for to kill and drag bodies around could only be done if you knew you could do it unnoticed. That all combined to suggest someone who knew the castle, and the duke and his guards well, probably from within the duke’s assembly.
Halfdan tried to recall the layout of the lower floors, but quickly realised that this one had to be different anyway. He’d never been up to the duke’s rooms since they’d been here. He peered off ahead. A glow emerged from two sources. Slowly, he approached the first doorway, tense, weapons at the ready. There was no noise there, or at least only the crackling of a fire, which could in truth cover the slightest of noises. From the second doorway he could hear the sounds of a struggle. He ducked his head around the edge of the first door.
This was a guardroom, the accommodation for half a dozen of the duke’s most senior and trusted men. For a moment, he frowned as he peered around the interior, for it appeared to be a scene of such normality it seemed odd in the circumstances. Then he realised that the three men at the table in the centre were not moving. There was no blood, but even from the doorway, he could see how they had died. All three were slumped in their chairs with glassy expressions, foamy drool at their lips. A half-full glass of wine sat on the table in front of one; his neighbour faced a glass lying on its side, the wine pooled on the surface and dripping onto the floor. The third glass lay broken on the floor close to its owner, wine puddled beneath his chair. A jug sat at the table’s centre.
Once again, the work of a perceived friend.
In that moment, Halfdan’s mind pieced together the sequence of events. Whoever it was had arrived at the bottom of the stairs with a jug of poisoned wine, had been granted admittance, had delivered it to the guardroom, and then retreated. While his victims drank their final drink in that room and choked out their lives, he returned to the bottom of the stairs, where he swiftly killed the two men with a knife to the neck, his attacks entirely unexpected and coming from behind. In two moves, the attacker had removed all the protection that lay between him and the duke’s room.
One man, Halfdan decided as he stepped past the door and bore down on his destination. Two men would have put the guards on more alert. One man delivering wine after a feast could play the visiting friend card. Two could not.
Four more steps and Halfdan was at the next doorway, peering in. The room seemed empty for a moment. It was not furnished as richly as he’d expected, and in that moment he remembered William’s room at Valognes. He’d had an antechamber full of men. It seemed the same here.
As he stepped inside, he could see the connecting door into the duke’s personal chamber, firmly closed, and could hear clonks and grunts and growls from beyond it. A body lay before the door, and after more than two weeks at Falaise, even a stranger knew the shape of the Count of Crespon, William’s right-hand man, the Seneschal of Nordmandi. Crespon had been present since their arrival, the first man to greet the duke upon his return, and probably the most trusted man in the land. He had died badly, his neck, arm and leg all rent and bloodied, his face mangled from a sword blow that had almost removed the lower jaw.
Halfdan felt a twitch that made his eyelid jump. This was treachery, and only when the traitor had reached the solid Count of Crespon had he been challenged. But Crespon’s own sword, lying close to his hand, was also bloody, suggesting that he had succeeded at least in making his opponent pay for his death. Halfdan, aware that the attacker and the duke were in the next room, and probably alone in there, stepped over the body and pulled open the door.
The bedchamber was dimmer than the previous room, lit only by the guttering fireplace and a single candle, prepared for slumber, and it took Halfdan’s eyes a few moments to adjust.
William was fighting for his life, but the jarl had to give him credit. The fifteen-year-old duke had been surprised by an attack from within, while unarmed and abed, yet he had managed somehow to get from the bed to a large ornate chair – more a throne than anything – and duck behind it. Better still, he had somehow managed to snatch a long iron candleholder, almost as tall as William himself, and was using it to jab and swing and hold his assailant at a distance that made it difficult to strike a blow.
He saw William register his arrival with the tiniest flick of an eye, but the lad was clever enough not to let his opponent realise, saying nothing. Despite Halfdan’s having pulled open the door and stepped inside, the noise of the struggle was enough that the assailant, with his back to the door, had not heard the fresh intrusion. For critical moments, the man was unaware of Halfdan’s presence.
He had but heartbeats to make his decision. In moments the man would become aware and turn, and then the fight would be more difficult. Halfdan lifted his sax and hurled it. It was not a well-balanced blade, and flipped and turned in the air, but his aim at least was true. The knife hit the attacker on the back of the head, pommel first. The man let out a yelp of pain, for even the pommel would hurt, and turned on a bloodied, wounded leg, wincing, free hand going to the back of his head.
Halfdan had not waited, though. The moment the sax had left his hand, he had started running, and by the time the attacker had fully turned to take in the new threat, the jarl was on him. He hit the man at full pelt, slamming him back into the chair, where he fell awkwardly on his wounded leg, trying to lift his long sword for a blow. Halfdan had the upper hand in more than one way, though. In addition to the surprise of his attack, while the Norman’s heavy long sword was difficult to bring to bear in such close quarters, Halfdan’s short blade was perfect for the circumstances. Even as the man struggled to push off his assailant and rise from the chair, Halfdan pulled his arm back and stabbed. He felt the tip of the sword press against the heavy cloth of the man’s rich tunic, then felt the pressure ease as the garment’s resistance caved, and the blade pressed down into flesh, burying itself in the man’s organs just below his ribcage. The man gasped and twitched as Halfdan pulled himself back.
As the traitor continued to gasp in shock and pain, yet managed somehow to pull himself upright, the jarl took a single pace back and looked at his foe properly for the first time. He vaguely recognised the man. A new arrival at Falaise, he had only been there a day or two, joining them for the feast; one of William’s perceived loyal lords.
The man staggered a step and miraculously managed to bring his long sword up ready to face his enemy, though as he did so, the wound in his cut leaked a sheet of blood and a small coil of intestine protruded, threatening to slip out.
The man was struggling, tears in his eyes, even as he prepared to fight. He would not survive, and he knew it. All he could do was fight to the last. Halfdan, recognising the pain the man was in, took another step back, forcing him to advance again. This time, as the blood sluiced afresh, that coil of gut did slide free, and the man, realising something was very wrong, reached down with his free hand and pushed it back in as he raised his sword.
Halfdan ducked away again, and the man lurched another step. More blood. Fingers failed to contain the coil as the wound opened up with the movement, and a further stretch of gut slid free.
The sword dipped, the pain and effort too much for the would-be assassin, and with no defence raised, Halfdan stepped forward, swinging his sword. It was not made for slashing and cutting, rather for stabbing, but its edge was kept keen anyway, and the blade slammed into the man’s neck, cutting through muscle, tendon, cartilage and flesh. The blood sprayed, an artery severed. The man’s sword fell, and Halfdan pulled back, then pressed forward again, this time driving his blade into the man’s heart, sliding it hilt-deep between ribs.
The man took another step, gasped again, made a keening noise, and then fell to his knees, where he stayed a moment longer, the whining noise filling the room until he toppled face first to the flagged floor, dead.
Halfdan breathed deep and stepped over to one of the very expensive-looking wall-hangings, which he used to carefully clean his sword of gore before sheathing it. He then located his fallen sax and stooped to collect that, too.
By the time he was composed once more, William had replaced his candleholder and come out from the protection of his throne. He looked perfectly serene for a man who had so narrowly escaped death.
‘It seems that inviting your enemies to dinner is a bad idea,’ Halfdan murmured conversationally. ‘Who could have guessed such a thing?’
William gave him a hard look. ‘My men would not let someone untrusted get so close, Gotlander. This is William Montgommeri, Viscount de Hyèmes. He is one of my closest aides, one of the few men on whom I have relied since the start.’
‘Then even those closest to you can no longer be trusted.’
The duke nodded, sighed and scrubbed his scalp. ‘This will change things. That business at Valognes was an opening blow. This was meant to end things, but when my enemies discover that even my closest and most trusted cannot get close enough to kill me, they will not try again. This will be the end of knives in the dark, Halfdan. The next move will involve many swords, horses and machines of war.’
‘We are here on the word of Gunnhild,’ Halfdan said flatly. ‘If war comes, do not count us among your army.’
William responded with a sly smile. ‘As long as you are within these walls, you are part of it, my friend. Now go and pray to your demons, for there comes a storm on a biblical scale.’