A Burning Sea Read online

  ‘Depends what you want.’

  ‘A little talk,’ the hazelnut replied, already clambering onto the bench. ‘I’m a stranger here.’

  ‘You don’t say.’

  His clothes were as foreign as his accent: heavy folds of threadbare wool heaped on his shoulders, hanging almost to his feet, quite unlike the tunic and breeks of most men in the north. When he sat, Erlan noticed a sprout of white hair across the back of his head.

  ‘I won’t say no to an ale, young man,’ said the stranger amiably to Leikr. The boy shrugged and poured him a cup.

  ‘I’ve not heard that accent before,’ said Erlan. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Some way to the south.’

  ‘Frankia?’

  ‘No, no.’ The man chuckled. ‘Much further. To the south-east, if we are being precise. Beyond the Great Rivers. Beyond even the Friendly Sea.’

  ‘The Friendly Sea? Never heard of it.’

  ‘Some in the north call it the Black Sea, I think. Though why I cannot say since it is as blue as any other.’ The small eyes twinkled with amusement. His little head jerked towards Osvald’s high table. ‘If your lord is to be believed, you sound like an interesting man.’

  ‘I wouldn’t take what he says too seriously.’

  ‘And an outsider here like me.’

  Erlan shrugged and drank some more.

  ‘The other kingdom he spoke of – where is it?’

  ‘Due west from here, across the East Sea. The land of the Sveärs. I was once sworn to their king.’

  ‘Yet even there you were a stranger.’ A statement, not a question.

  Erlan’s eyes narrowed. ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘It is a lonely fate. To always be a stranger.’

  ‘Something you would know?’

  ‘Ha! Of that I do know a little, yes.’ He smiled. ‘But in truth, I was never fully alone.’

  Erlan sighed. It seemed the man liked to speak in half-riddles. ‘What’s your name, friend?’

  ‘Vassili. And yours?’

  ‘Erlan.’

  The man folded his hands before him and leaned a little closer. ‘No. It is not.’

  The nape of Erlan’s neck prickled. ‘What do you mean it’s not?’

  ‘Erlan is not your given name. What is your true name?’

  Erlan grimaced, feeling the chafe of his oldest and most precious oath. But he would not speak of his past. Not to this nor any man. ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Every outlander comes from somewhere. A place where he is known, where he is someone’s son.’ Vassili smiled. ‘Even. . . a chosen son?’

  Erlan jerked back from the table, startling Aska whose muzzle still rested in his lap. ‘Who the Hel are you? Do you know me?’

  ‘No,’ Vassili replied, still calm. ‘Not in the way you think. I know only what I see.’

  ‘It’s no business of yours to see anything.’

  ‘I cannot help what I am shown.’

  Erlan took a sullen swig and peered into the bottom of his cup. Chosen son. That was the meaning of his first name, Hakan. The name his father had given him. But Hakan is dead. Erlan walked in his shoes now.

  ‘Why are you so reluctant to speak of your past? Have you so much to hide?’

  ‘I swore I would not speak of it.’

  ‘My friend, the one from whom you hide most is yourself. But there is one who sees all that is in you.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘You’ve bound yourself with these words of yours.’ He paused and cocked his little head, as if listening to something. ‘And yet this is not the greatest curse in you. There is another.’

  ‘What curse?’ scoffed Adalrik. ‘What’re you on about, old man?’ He tapped his head at his brother. Leikr laughed, although with more nervousness than mirth.

  The stranger ignored them. Instead he stared at Erlan.

  ‘What do you mean, another?’

  ‘Your lord spoke of a journey into the depths below. What did you find down there?’

  Erlan’s restless glance shifted between the boys then back to the bald man. ‘Things you wouldn’t believe. . . I wouldn’t expect you to.’

  ‘Oh, I believe in things of the darkness. Just as I do those of the light. Tell me.’

  ‘I saw men who had become less than men. The darkness had made monsters of them.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And their lord. He called himself the Witch King. A Watcher. Azazel. . .’ He murmured the name, as if speaking it too loudly might summon him there. ‘I killed him.’

  Without warning, Vassili snatched Erlan’s wrist, his grip like iron tongs. ‘Dear God! You drank his blood, didn’t you?’ His eyes were round as shields.

  Erlan looked at him carefully. This man couldn’t know that. No one could. ‘What if I did?’ he said softly.

  ‘It was the blood of demons.’

  Leikr sucked a startled breath.

  ‘What?’ Erlan shook his head, suddenly confused.

  ‘Listen to me, friend. And hear me.’ Vassili leaned in. ‘Unless you drink the blood of the king of kings, you shall be a slave to that other, who called himself a king. You shall walk the Earth, cursed to wander. Hear me. Only the blood of the king of kings will set you free.’

  A voice rang out from the high platform. ‘Where is the holy man? Where is this priest from the south?’ It was Osvald’s. Evidently he was finished with his thrall and looking for new distraction. ‘Up here! You bring a message. Well, now’s your time to speak. Damn him – where is the fellow?’

  Vassili’s eyes darted to the platform and back to Erlan. ‘Seek him in the south. Do you understand me?’ But Erlan was as perplexed as ever. ‘Seek him there. And you will find him.’

  ‘Aha – there you are!’ Osvald at last caught sight of Vassili in their gloomy corner. ‘Come up here! It’s ill manners to keep your host waiting!’

  ‘My time has come.’ The twinkle returned to Vassili’s eyes. ‘God be with you.’

  ‘God?’ Erlan muttered after him. ‘What god?’

  Vassili had been speaking a long while before Erlan truly heard him. But gradually the man’s words filtered into his troubled mind.

  The little man carried a message from another – from his lord, he said, with a name far stranger even than his own. But this lord of his sounded like none that Erlan had ever known. He had no host of hirthmen, no hall, no wealth, no famous deeds of valour, nothing to mark him worthy of a man’s oath. ‘Only his words,’ declared Vassili. ‘His life. And his victory over death.’ Vassili declared he carried a message of peace from this lord – although what state of war existed between him and the Livi and why, he did not explain. Instead he turned to other things, to ancient things, his bright eyes burning, his small hands beating the air in his passion.

  The whole world, he said, belongs to one great good god, who made all, who rules over all. But there was a rebellion in his kingdom, in the heavens far above – Vassili’s arms stretched high above him – and after a terrible war, the rebels were defeated and thrown down from the heavens, cast into this world of men – he flung his arms with great violence to the floor. Here, they multiplied in their wickedness, and since the old times they have spread lies and deceit, binding up the souls of men, darkening their minds, demanding their allegiance, masquerading as gods when they were nothing but devils, corrupting folk with violence and greed and envy, blinding them to the truth and spreading lies about the great god above. ‘The wooden idols I see you worship – those of Odin and Frey and Thor – these have no power. Nor is your destiny after this life as you imagine it will be. It may be far better. Or else, far worse.’

  This strange talk stirred up many things in Erlan’s memory. Except that in the dismal gloom of Niflagard, the Witch King had spoken to him of a cruel tyrant, not of a great good god. True, the Watcher had also dismissed the old gods of the north as shadows and illusion. But now Erlan knew not who or what to believe. There were others in the hall, however, who took offence at this slander of their gods. The spell under which Va
ssili’s voice had, till then, held them was losing its power.

  One man stood and cried out, ‘You say we gain one destiny by bending the knee to your lord who died, yet somehow lives.’

  ‘I do!’ cried Vassili in answer.

  ‘And if not, we suffer some dreadful fate in a place of torment.’

  ‘It is a place of such anguish I hardly dare speak of it.’

  ‘Then what of our forefathers, hey?’ There was a murmur of support at this. The hirthman looked about him, encouraged. ‘They were not given this choice, even those who died with honour in battle. Are you telling us they do not wait for us on Odin’s benches – in the high Hall of the Slain? Instead they suffer in this for ever place of darkness?’

  ‘The fate of any man or woman gone before us is known to God and to him alone,’ replied Vassili. ‘I am certain only that he is just. But why do you think I came all this way?’ His tone changed, imploring now. ‘Why do you think I would carry this message even to the very ends of the Earth if I had legs to take me—’

  But his words were swallowed in the uproar against him, the crowd not liking this answer. More voices rose in anger. Erlan watched silently, noting that Vassili’s face lost none of its fervour at the crowd’s opposition.

  ‘What should we care why you’ve come?’ yelled one.

  ‘Sure, it’s ’cause he’s a halfwit simpleton with sheep shit for brains,’ bawled another.

  ‘Aye,’ said a third, ‘or some shape-shifting fiend in human flesh. Come to turn the gods against us.’

  ‘No!’ Vassili cried, his pale palms turned outwards in appeal. ‘I bring you only the truth. I came here out of love for you.’

  ‘If it’s love he wants, someone fetch him a bed-slave,’ drawled one wit to skirls of drunken laughter.

  Then Osvald rose. He wasn’t laughing, nor – judging from his shifting eyes – was he sober. Seeing him on his feet, all fell silent.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said slowly. ‘This, I did not expect.’ He gave a long yawn. ‘It is late so I’ll be brief. I took you for a holy man. I welcomed you as a guest. You eat my food, drink my ale. And after this kindness, you open your mouth and what comes out? Some drivel that dishonours our gods, slanders our ancestors, makes mock of my hospitality. And you say I must bend the knee to some lowborn nobody who you claim has conquered death. If I do, say you, it is to my gain. But if I don’t, it will go ill for me when I die.’ Here his thin lips became an angry white seam. ‘Very ill.’ He paused, looking out over his retinue. ‘I can’t say it makes any sense to me. But it seems a curious way to poison men’s minds.’

  Osvald scratched at his cheek. Then, finding a louse, he rolled his fingers and flicked it away. ‘What lord could let such poison leach across his lands? On the other hand, any fool can see your sincerity. Tell me. More than anything, you long to join this lord of yours somewhere –’ he wafted his hand airily at the rafters – ‘up there?’

  ‘My hope depends upon it,’ the holy man replied.

  ‘Very good. Then what I propose will be to our mutual gain.’ He turned to the pair of guards standing behind his seat. ‘Seize him.’

  The guards moved quickly, but their speed made little difference; Vassili showed no desire to resist them. Instead he submitted meekly as they drove him to his knees, twisting his arms behind him.

  Erlan had watched all this unfold, curious but now wary of this Vassili, of this little man who saw so much.

  ‘Now then.’ Osvald fell back in his seat. ‘Aurvandil!’ Erlan’s head shot up. ‘Aurvandil?’ Erlan stood. ‘You have your sword with you.’ Erlan wished he did not. ‘Come here. Tonight we will add to your long list of great deeds.’

  ‘My lord. This is hasty—’

  ‘Do you defy me, Aurvandil?’ Osvald’s fist slammed on the table, sending a horn bouncing to the floor. ‘I didn’t accept your oath nor feed you for an entire winter for you to question me. Now come up here and send this bald shit-spewing stoat to Hel!’

  The men around Erlan eyed him. Many, he knew, would be only too happy to stick a blade in him to mollify their lord. Jealousy followed him everywhere – though, gods knew, there was little enough to envy him.

  With a glance at the twins, he pulled himself off the bench. There was a squall of laughter as he limped through the muttered insults and mock encouragement towards Osvald’s table.

  To refuse the order of an oath-lord was tantamount to breaking the very oath he had sworn. And to break that oath. . . For as long as he could remember, he’d had a terror of being an oath-breaker. His boyhood nurse Tolla had put that fear into him. A man’s word was the most precious thing he had, she’d said. To break it sent a tremor to the very roots of Yggdrasil, the Tree of Worlds, where the three Norns sat spinning his fate. A broken oath turned their malice against him.

  He snorted. As if those blind bitches weren’t set against him already. . .

  He reached the platform, his gait ringing unevenly off the wooden steps like a seiðman’s drum.

  ‘Draw your blade,’ said Osvald.

  With the schick of steel, the hall fell silent. For a second the only sounds were the crackle of the fire and the soft murmurings on the lips of the wretched holy man.

  ‘Hold him still.’

  The guards braced Vassili’s wiry body. He uttered not a word of protest. He was staring down at the planks under him, his scrawny neck exposed under the tufts of white hair, still muttering in a tongue Erlan did not understand. The hearth flame shimmered off his leathery pate. Erlan raised Wrathling, the ancient ring-sword of his ancestors. A weapon of honour. But not this night.

  Suddenly Vassili’s head turned and looked up at Erlan – and for a second his hollow features blazed bright as the sun, clothed in a startling beauty. ‘I forgive you, chosen son,’ he said. ‘Remember. The blood of the king of kings. Seek him in the south.’

  ‘Do it!’ screamed Osvald, the blast of his rotten breath rankling Erlan’s nostrils.

  And Wrathling’s cruel edge came sweeping down.

  CHAPTER TWO

  In twenty-two winters, Lilla could not remember one so cold. Cattle froze to death in their stalls, snowdrifts tall as frost giants buried the halls, hanging mead-skins turned into blocks of ice. Even the hearth fire seemed to have lost its heat.

  Lilla’s breath steamed around her as she hurried back towards the Great Hall. The snow and ice on the path through the Kingswood nipped at her toes through calfskin shoes.

  Maybe it just seemed worse, she thought. Maybe the cold was inside her, maybe it was the chill winds of fate that had left her heart numb.

  Everyone was dead. Everyone she loved. Father, mother, brothers, sister, friends. Even the child that had been growing inside her. The last, secret connection to the man she loved.

  As for him. . . Erlan had left many moons ago. Where to, she had no idea. That was a question with which she no longer tormented herself. She had, of course – in the days after he’d gone. She had thought of little else, her mind flying after him like a swallow fleeing winter. But the wheel of her thoughts brought her no closer to him and so at last she had forced herself to give it up.

  Instead she had resolved to give herself wholly to her husband: King Ringast, son of the Wartooth, victor of the Bravik Plains, who that day had won the Twin Kingdoms of Danmark and Sveäland and been hailed King-Over-Them-All. He had since even taken on a new name, joining his own with her father’s: Sviggar-Hring. A sign to heal the wounds between their peoples. But few used it. Most folk called him by another: the Half-Hand King. Half he lost on that bloody plain. The half he kept was killing him.

  It came on slow. So slow even she had failed to notice. The work to rebuild their riven land was never-ending and Ringast drove himself hard. At first he complained of dizziness after the long hours spent in council. Lilla persuaded herself he was just tired, that he needed more sleep, and with the onset of the long winter nights he would get it. But his condition grew worse. When they lay together, his skin was col
d to the touch, like a wight’s – as if he were half-dead already. Now Lilla saw it had only been his extraordinary strength of will that had kept him alive this long. A weaker man would have succumbed weeks, perhaps months, before.

  That morning she had gone to the old ash at the heart of the Kingswood to make sacrifice to Eir, hoping that the healing goddess would open her mind to some new knowledge that could save him. She had listened and heard. . . nothing.

  The truth was stark. She could not save him.

  Maybe this last loss would come as a relief – bringing her to that final, inexorable state of being completely alone. And yet she felt a horror of it.

  The entrance to the mead-hall loomed before her, welcome shelter from the wind gusting across the hall-yard. But for a second she didn’t want to go back in, didn’t want to listen to those ragged breaths rattling in his throat, or to see his once piercing grey eyes grown so dim.

  Gathering her skirts, she forced down her reluctance and went inside. ‘He’s asking for you again, my lady.’ The voice belonged to Gerutha, her Gotar maidservant. A year ago they had never met. Now Gerutha was her only friend.

  ‘Have you changed his blankets?’

  ‘Twice since you’ve gone.’ Gerutha’s cheekbones cast sharp shadows down her face. ‘The fever still holds him. But he’s conscious.’

  ‘Bring fresh water. I’ll go to him.’

  It was strange to walk these corridors now – the same approach to the same chamber, once her father’s. The same smells of oak beams and dusty tapestries and fur hangings that evoked her childhood, when laughter had resounded off the walls. It had only taken a short time to turn all of that upside down. A short time for all laughter to die.

  Now the chamber belonged to the son of her father’s enemy. The man she had chosen for duty’s sake, whom she had come to care for deeply, even love in a way, although he had never possessed her inmost heart. That belonged to another.

  She pushed aside the drape and braced her throat against the rancid smell that hit her nostrils. ‘I’m here, husband.’