Kings and Pawns Read online

  “Well, I’m not sure I agree,” the bishop said. “And as to him hearing about this, I have no doubt he will, and soon. I sent word to him, you see, just yesterday.”

  Chapter Four

  I sing to thee the fourth.

  If foes assail thee ready

  on the dangerous road,

  their hearts shall fail them,

  and to thee be power,

  and their minds to peace be turned.

  The Poetic Edda

  The building at the center of the priory at Christchurch was, unsurprisingly, a church. It consisted of a long hall that extended out to the east from the base of a tall, square tower. Thorgrim knew the Christ men called it something other than a hall, but he could not recall what, and was not sure he ever knew.

  The whole thing was stone-built, in the manner of the Irish and English churches. His own people back home in Norway did not build in that manner, but he had to admit it was impressive. There was a permanence to it that was lacking in the timber, plank and sod construction in his native country.

  Why they built the tower Thorgrim did not know either. A place from which archers could fire down on an enemy? Perhaps, but it was really too high for that purpose. A lookout post? Maybe. If so it was not well used, as the English seemed to have had little warning when Thorgrim’s fleet arrived. The men-at-arms who were quartered there were caught in their nightshirts, and fought Thorgrim’s men with only the weapons they had managed to snatch up. The great wealth of the church had not been carried off or hidden.

  Thorgrim at least was grateful for the tower. From the top he could see for miles over the low country all around. He could see out over the wide, shallow bay they had crossed to reach the priory. He could see little columns of smoke that marked where hearth fires burned in farmhouses. He could see the thatched roofs of the houses that surrounded the monastery and the places where roofs had been torn away and weaker structures blown flat by the same frightful gale that had driven them clear across the open water from Ireland to Engla-land.

  It was weeks before that he and his men had taken the priory and they had remained there since, happily ensconced. The folk of that town might have been near starving, but the priory’s storehouse was crammed with barrels of salt pork and beef and dried fish and ale. His men had eaten well, a luxury they did not always enjoy.

  A few days after they had taken the place, the first of the locals who had fled in terror returned. Thorgrim watched them from the high tower as they moved warily around the wall that surrounded the monastery, expecting no doubt to be set upon by the heathens. But there was nothing that those poor people had that Thorgrim and his men might want, and no reason for the Northmen to leave the luxury of the church. After a while the people realized as much, and more and more of them returned to their homes.

  Thorgrim could see the people of the town struggling to set things to rights. He could watch them from on high as they poked through what remained of their pitiful possessions and rowed their boats out to sea to catch what they could, which was not a great deal as far as Thorgrim could tell.

  And, most pleasing of all, Thorgrim could see the seven ships of his fleet pulled up on the muddy shore. They looked like toys from so high up, perfect little toy ships with their yards lowered and sails furled and oars stowed. Thorgrim had no concern that any harm would come to them. The people of that village would be too afraid of retribution to try any such thing, nor did they want to discourage the Northmen from leaving.

  On that particular morning Thorgrim was not alone at the top of the tower. Harald and Godi were there, as were Jorund and Halldor and Hardbein and the others who commanded their own crews. As fine as it was at Christchurch Priory, they all knew they could not stay there for very much longer.

  Thorgrim pulled his eyes from the view of the bay and the blue sea beyond and turned to the others. The roof was flat, about twenty feet on each side, with a stone wall, waist height, encircling it. It was a fine place to be on a warm, sunny day such as it was.

  “Well?” he said.

  The others glanced at one another. No one much cared to be the first to offer a thought. But Jorund was the oldest of them, and had commanded half the men who were now with Thorgrim. He was a leader, and as such not afraid to speak his mind.

  “That fellow that came on the horse, the Englishman,” Jorund said.

  “Oswin,” Harald supplied.

  “Him,” Jorund said. “He didn’t blink when Thorgrim told him a hundred pounds of silver. So either such a price is no trouble to him, or he’s lying, to give him time to raise an army.”

  “There is an army,” Halldor said. “Ofeig saw them when he was sent scouting.” Heads nodded.

  “Don’t know why they haven’t come to fight us yet,” Godi said.

  “It’s not a big army,” Thorgrim said. “Two, three hundred men. But only a small number are men-at-arms. The rest are farmers with spears, such as we saw often enough in Ireland. I don’t think they care to attack us.”

  There was quiet for a moment, and then Fostolf of Dragon asked the obvious question.

  “How do you know that, Lord Thorgrim?”

  “He knows,” Starri chimed in. Starri always attended such meetings, whether or not it was his business to do so, which it never was. “Trust me, Thorgrim knows.”

  Heads nodded again. The men who had been with Thorgrim for some time all knew about the wolf dreams. Most of the others had heard rumors. No one really wanted to query Thorgrim on the point, and when they understood that Thorgrim’s knowledge came from some place not of this world, they did not care to hear any more.

  “The one thing we cannot do is be taken by surprise,” Godi said and that was followed by a murmur of agreement.

  “You’re right, Godi,” Thorgrim said. “We’re getting fat and lazy here in all this luxury. We’ll send scouts out in every direction, keep them out, rotate them between all the men. We’ll send our best to keep an eye on the army that’s coming near.”

  “That Oswin fellow,” Harald said, “he told us the army was an enemy to him as well as us. Two English armies, and they are enemies of each other?”

  “I don’t know what we’re in the middle of here, and I don’t much care,” Thorgrim said. “If this Engla-land is at all like Ireland, then they’re all fighting each other, and we want no part of it. They can give us the silver, we’ll give them the prisoners and then we’ll sail away.”

  More nodding, then Halldor asked, “What if there is no silver?”

  “Then it’s the slave market for these men,” Thorgrim said. “I’m not eager to do that. It’s a lot of trouble. I’d rather have the silver. You don’t have to feed silver or try to keep it alive. But we won’t leave these bastards behind, either, not when they’re worth so much.”

  “This Oswin’s been gone for days,” Jorund said. “How long do we wait?”

  “We don’t know how far away his jarl…or whatever he’s called…”

  “Ealdorman,” Harald supplied and Thorgrim looked over at the boy. Back in Ireland, motivated to speak to a girl whom he loved, Harald had picked up the language very quickly. But now he was learning English quickly as well, and Thorgrim wondered if his son had some gift from the gods for such things.

  “Right, what Harald said,” Thorgrim continued. “We don’t know how far away he is, how long Oswin had to ride to bring word. Or how long it will take them to collect the silver.”

  “Or how long to raise an army against us,” Starri said, but he did not sound worried. Just the opposite, in fact.

  “That, too,” Thorgrim agreed. “But with scouts a’field we’ll have fair warning of any army coming our way.”

  “Scouts will be a good thing,” Jorund said, “but they can be tricked, and it’s a fool who’s taken by surprise. This monastery is as fine a place as any dwelling I’ve had, but it’s right in the middle of this town. It’s protected by a stone wall that a crippled man could climb over with ease. Not exactly made to defend
.”

  Thorgrim looked down at the monastery below. The low wall encircling the place was, as Jorund said, not much of a barrier. Nor was it meant to be. As Thorgrim understood from Louis the Frank it was more of a symbolic thing. It was easily half a mile in circumference and Thorgrim did not have enough men to defend every part of it, or even half of it. An enemy could attack from any direction, or from several directions if they were clever, and they could swarm over the wall. He nodded his head.

  “You’re right about that, Jorund,” he said. “There’s no defending this place. You are most certainly right about that.”

  Nothwulf waited for word from Leofric, and when he was told the thegn was just a few miles away he sent the poachers out.

  His army had been in camp, within a day or two march of Christchurch, for more than a week. He and Leofric had tried to catch the Northmen at Swanage, soon after they first came ashore, but that had been a failure. Despite their clever plan and stealthy execution—hiding their men in the abandoned town at night with the intention of a dawn assault—the Northmen had escaped. It might have been luck, or they might have known that the English were lying in wait, but either way the sun came up to reveal the seven longships gone.

  It had sparked panic in Nothwulf’s heart. King Æthelwulf was at Sherborne, and Cynewise was frothing to find some means of making him, Nothwulf, appear incompetent and feckless. How better than to order him, as if she had that authority, and in the company of the king, to drive the heathens out, only to see him fail. And he had indeed failed at Swanage. He could not fail again. If he did he would lose his seat as ealdorman, and perhaps even his life, and he did not know which he feared most.

  They were still in Swanage when they learned that the Northmen had gone to Christchurch Priory, plundered the place and settled in, and Nothwulf saw his chance at redemption. He and Leofric had an army nearly three hundred men strong, and they began the march to Christchurch Priory as soon as they had word.

  And then Nothwulf began to wonder if three hundred was enough.

  The Northmen were a powerful force. They had seven longships, which could have been nearly four hundred men. And they would be fighting men, warriors bred to the work and well experienced with blood-letting, while at least half of his own army was made up of the fyrd, those common folk called to bear arms when needed. In battle they were not likely to stand up long to the heathens.

  He talked it over with Leofric. Leofric was one of the thegns, one of the wealthiest, powerful and influential thegns, and Christchurch Priory was on his land, so he had good reason to want to see the Northmen gone. They agreed that Leofric would go to the halls of the other thegns within two days’ ride, round up the men-at-arms who were sworn to them. They would augment their army with more fighting men, real fighting men, and then they would march for Christchurch. If the heathens made ready to leave before that, then Nothwulf would attack with what he had.

  And now Leofric had returned. Nothwulf was informed that he and three other thegns and two hundred men-at-arms were half a day’s march away. Nothwulf called for Bryning, captain of his hearth-guard, his second in command.

  Bryning appeared moments after being summoned. “Lord Nothwulf?” he said.

  “The heathen scouts, they’re still out there?”

  “Yes, sir,” Bryning said. The heathens had been sending men to keep an eye on the English army, as Nothwulf would expect them to do. The men moved with care and stealth, but they were not as careful or stealthy as they thought they were.

  Nothwulf had stealthy men of his own, in particular two brothers from Shaftesbury who were notoriously good at moving unseen across country. They were known to be poachers, but they were good enough at the business that they had never been caught, which was why they had never been hanged. They were part of the fyrd and Leofric saw to it that they were always called up when needed.

  Soon the two men were standing nervously in front of Nothwulf. They were young men, lean, with arms and legs that seemed too long for the rest of them. Nothwulf guessed they did not like standing in front of a man who could sentence them to death, and that was good. It would assure their diligence.

  “The Northmen’s scouts, they’re still out there?” Nothwulf asked.

  “New ones come this morning, Lord,” the older of the two said. “Two of the bastards, beg pardon.”

  “They’re hiding in the tall brush just to the south of us, Lord,” the other said.

  “Good,” Nothwulf said. “Time to bring them in. Will you need help with that?”

  The brothers looked at one another. They looked back at Nothwulf. They shook their heads.

  When they were gone there was little left for Nothwulf to do but wait: wait for them, wait for Leofric, wait for word from the men he had watching Christchurch Priory.

  It was midafternoon when Leofric arrived. He rode in at the head of a column of men-at-arms, the other thegns riding beside him and the warriors strung out along the road. Some were on horseback but most were on foot, and all of them looked like good men. Some wore mail and others wore leather, but they all had armor of some sort, and shields and seaxes and swords and spears. These were the men that the thegns counted on to protect their homes and their persons and their families, to enforce their instructions and see that the common folk did not get any radical notions. It was in the thegns’ best interest to see that these men had the best weapons and training that their treasuries could bear.

  Nothwulf greeted Leofric with a hug and called for wine and bread, meat and cheese, while Bryning saw to the refreshment of the other new arrivals.

  “Well?” Leofric asked after he had drained one cup of wine and held it out for Nothwulf’s servant to refill.

  “Heathens are still in Christchurch Priory,” Nothwulf reported. “No change.”

  “When did you last get word from your scouts?”

  “Yesterday. Midday. But the Northmen must still be there because their scouts are still here.”

  Leofric nodded. “Should we send the poachers out for them?”

  “I already have,” Nothwulf said. “One of the heathens was killed in the taking, but the other is mostly alive.”

  “Let’s have a look at him,” Leofric said.

  Word was passed and soon Nothwulf’s man Tilmund and another approached, half carrying the Northman between them. His hands were bound behind his back though he seemed to lack the strength even to lift his arms. Tilmund was a great brute of a man, and Nothwulf relied on him to extract information from captives, and other such work.

  They pushed the man to his knees in front of Nothwulf and Leofric. He had long blond hair with a single braid hanging down one side. He was not particularly big, built more for running than fighting it seemed. A natural scout. He wore a green tunic, now ripped and blood-stained, leggings and soft leather shoes. One eye was swollen shut, his lip was lacerated and twin streams of blood ran from his nostrils down into his yellow beard.

  “What did he say?” Nothwulf asked.

  The man next to Tilmund, one of the few in the camp who could speak the Northmen’s language, replied. “He said their leader is a man named Thorgrim Night Wolf. He says there are six hundred warriors under him there at Christchurch Priory.”

  Nothwulf snorted and Leofric chuckled. “Here’s the problem with getting information Tilmund’s way,” Leofric said. “These sons of whores will say anything after a while.”

  “Anything else?” Nothwulf asked.

  “Nothing of use,” the translator replied. “He said they had near two hundred English men-at-arms captive, along with the folk from the priory. He said if we attacked the priory they’d start killing them.”

  “Ha! English men-at-arms in a priory! What an imagination the dog has!” Nothwulf said. He looked into the Northman’s face. The Northman was staring back, tight-lipped and defiant. “Very well, take him out some ways from here and kill him.”

  Nothwulf and Leofric stood as the Northman was half-dragged away. Leofric s
tretched muscles made stiff and sore by many hours in the saddle. “What now, Lord Nothwulf?” he said.

  Nothwulf had been thinking on this question all day. “The heathens will miss their scouts soon enough and that might make them wary.”

  “Of course,” Leofric said. “There’s no good can come from our waiting to move against them, I don’t think.”

  “No,” Nothwulf agreed. “There’s no call to wait.”

  He looked up toward the sun, which was well past its zenith and heading toward the western hills. “The men you brought with you are weary from the march. Let them eat and rest. We’ll have a half moon tonight, enough for the men to start for Christchurch. We’ll go part of the way tonight, the rest of the way the night after. We’ll enter the village after dark, lie in wait, and attack the heathens at dawn. Catch them asleep and unawares.”

  “Good,” Leofric said nodding. The two men were silent for a moment. Then Nothwulf spoke.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Leofric,” he said.

  “You do, lord?”

  “Yes. You’re thinking that this is just what we did at Swanage, and the heathens slipped through our fingers.”

  Leofric nodded. “That thought might have occurred to me,” he said.

  “Well, that will not happen again, I can assure you,” Nothwulf said.

  “I’m sure not, lord,” Leofric said.

  Nothwulf looked away. He looked back at Leofric. He was about to offer his reason for believing that would not happen again, but even as he opened his mouth he realized that he had no reason to believe that, no reason at all.

  Chapter Five

  Go now ever where calamity may be,

  and no harm shall

  obstruct thy wishes.

  The Poetic Edda

  Odd could not quite fathom what Skafti was saying about the men at Thorgrim’s farm, but he could tell that Skafti did not really know himself what was happening. Men had appeared, they had begun to order the people around, to demand food and ale and that their horses be attended to. They were men of means, the sort who were accustomed to having their orders followed, and so the farm people had followed their orders.