A Burning Sea Read online

  The mound of furs on the massive bed stirred. A head of sandy hair appeared, matted with sweat. ‘Lilla?’

  She sat on the bed frame. He reached out a wasted fist. She took it, feeling the warmth in her hand drain into his cold, bloodless fingers. ‘Did you sleep?’

  ‘It is not sleep,’ he answered hoarsely. ‘I close my eyes and faces fly around me, full of fear and fury.’ His head shook. ‘I once thought death would bring peace. But now I fear it.’

  She stroked her thumb over his knuckles. ‘Speak not of death, husband. When the fevers pass, you’ll soon recover. I believe it.’

  ‘You’re a poor liar, my love.’ His cracked lips formed a sad smile. ‘I’m sorry. I failed you.’

  A tear welled in her eye. She blinked it away. ‘How could you have failed me? You’ve done all things well.’

  ‘Not all. I’m leaving you alone. I should have given you a son.’

  ‘You did. It was me, it was. . .’ Her voice trailed off and she had to look away. She had carried a child in her belly. For a time. Although only she knew it was not this man’s seed that had put it there. ‘Maybe when you’re well again.’

  ‘Lilla, I’m dying. You are barren. It’s just as she said—’

  ‘No!. . . No. She was destroyed. Her words have no power.’

  Although she willed this to be true, she couldn’t help but see in her mind’s eye Queen Saldas standing proud and untamed, long black hair streaming, the cup of poison she would drink for her crimes raised high as she cried dark curses to the wind.

  ‘We should have cut out her tongue as soon as we took her.’

  ‘Her power was broken before she spoke those words.’

  Ringast snorted. ‘Yet here we are.’ He tried a rueful smile but some shiver of pain twisted his face into a grimace. ‘Still nothing from Thrand?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s two weeks since we sent word, as you asked.’

  Thrand was Ringast’s brother. A fire mountain to Ringast’s sun. He was also a king of sorts. His seat lay at the hall of Leithra in Danmark far to the south. Thrand had sworn an oath of fealty to his older brother, although Lilla often doubted whether Thrand remembered this.

  ‘I have need of him here.’

  ‘If he’s true to his blood, he’ll come.’

  Ringast sighed and sank deeper into his pillow, his eyes rolling back into his skull. For a grim moment, Lilla thought he had breathed his last. But then, by some vast effort of will, his eyes peeled open and focused on her again.

  ‘I’m still here.’ She reached up to stroke his cheek. But she found her gaze drawn down again, to his half-hand resting on the coverlet, the fetid wound swollen black under its useless bandage, suppurating pus. With your death, your realm will be cloven, clean and bloody as your hand. Those had been Saldas’s words, spoken before her execution. Was that lump of rotting flesh to be the fate of the Twin Kingdoms? Lilla shuddered at the thought.

  ‘I needed Thrand here,’ croaked Ringast, recollecting his thought. ‘I wanted him to hear it from my lips.’

  ‘Hear what?’

  ‘This.’ With his good hand, he reached out and clutched the amber necklace around her neck and pulled her closer. It took all her will not to gag at the smell seeping from his throat. ‘When I’m gone, you must rule in my place.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes. You are your father’s true heir. Your people trust you.’

  ‘No woman has ever ruled alone—’

  ‘Please,’ he rasped. ‘Don’t argue. There’s no time.’ His arm failed and fell to his chest. ‘No time. . . Just listen.’

  She clasped his withered fist.

  ‘You have the heart to rule your folk kindly, and the mind to rule them well. Like your father.’

  ‘What about Thrand? He will be the last male heir of Ívar Wide-Realm. His claim is stronger—’

  ‘No!’ The word escaped his grey lips in a brutish snarl. ‘Not Thrand. Not him. He must never rule here, you understand? He hates the Sveärs. And he is cruel. It would only lead to more bloodshed. . . An ocean of blood,’ he murmured softly, like some refrain in a skaldman’s song. ‘Promise me, you will keep him from the Sveär throne.’ The black rims of his eyelids sank lower and lower. ‘Promise me. My wife. . .’

  ‘I promise,’ she said, squeezing his hand in her passion. ‘You have my word.’

  ‘Good.’ He seemed to recede then, his soul making ready to withdraw, leaving his shrivelled body to its ruin. Lilla’s heart grew heavy, filled with a terrible pity for this man whom she had at first thought hard and cold, but who had proved himself wise. And good.

  ‘Kiss me,’ he murmured, softer than breathing.

  So she did, swallowing her revulsion, her warm soft lips brushing against his, so cold and brittle.

  ‘I’ve always. . . loved. . . you.’

  ‘I know… And I—’

  She stopped. His eyes had changed, become hard like glass. Just like that he had gone. She reached up and closed his eyelids. ‘I love you,’ she finished, feeling tears chase down her cheeks. But he couldn’t hear her, and she was alone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The mess was sickening.

  But not half so sickening as the glee on the faces of Osvald and his retinue, or the cheer that went up as the holy man’s head bumped off the platform into the hearth in a billow of sparks, or the speed at which the hall-hounds moved in to lick up the gore.

  Meanwhile, Erlan had made up his mind.

  He left the hall as soon as he could get away, left Osvald slumped on the table, a spill of mead lapping at his arms. The other hall-folk were already asleep or soon would be. Erlan passed the twins on his way out. ‘Where are you going?’ asked Leikr.

  ‘To get some rest,’ he lied. ‘You should too.’ Then he went to work.

  He fetched his gear from a chest he kept in the far corner of an outer hall where he slept, then slipped down to the row of jetties on the bank of the Dagava. Aska followed at his heel through the darkness.

  It was cold, but the sky had cleared and the residual snow made it easy to see. He soon found his boat, pulled a short distance up the bank where he’d left it. The little knarr had been a gift from King Ringast when he’d left Uppsala. It had carried him across the East Sea. Smaller than most cargo vessels, it could be handled by a light crew or even one man, if he had skill. He put his shoulder to the prow. The slope worked in his favour and he soon had the stern easing into the dark waters with barely a sound.

  He was tense with excitement, something inside goading him on. Seek him in the south. The phrase kept turning in his mind, more urgent with each repetition.

  He unbuckled Wrathling and was about to lay it in the boat when he stopped and pulled the blade half from its sheath. The steel shimmered in the starlight. He had cleaned off Vassili’s blood. Shame he couldn’t erase the memory of what he’d done so easily. He swore and slammed the hilt back into its sheath, angry to have shed innocent blood twice that day, angry to have ever taken orders from a worm like Osvald.

  It only made him more certain of what he had to do. He had been shown too much. Vassili had known things he couldn’t possibly have known, had seen things he couldn’t possibly have seen, unless. . . Well, whatever magic had given the man that sight, it was far beyond Erlan’s ken. A curse.

  Was he cursed?

  He almost dared not answer his own question.

  More words came to his mind: ‘The blood of the demon. . . The king of kings. . . Beyond the Friendly Sea. . .’

  Gods, it was a damned thin thread to follow.

  He tossed the ale-skin he’d swiped under the thwarts and was about to sling his boot over the gunwale when Aska gave a low growl. Erlan turned to see what had got his hackles up.

  Two tall silhouettes were coming down the path. They were armed with spears. Watchmen. He cursed. That was all he needed. He squared off to them, scouring his mind for some plausible explanation.

  ‘Bit dark for fishing, ain’t it?’ said one.<
br />
  He recognized the voice, and saw now the two silhouettes were identical. ‘What are you jokers doing here?’

  ‘We could ask you the same—’

  ‘We’re coming with you,’ Adalrik said, cutting off his brother.

  ‘Like Hel you are. Go back to bed and forget you ever saw me.’

  ‘Our father’s been sailing us up and down this river since we could fit in his boot. The only fella knows it better than us is him.’

  ‘I don’t need to know the river. I’m heading west across the Gulf, then south. To Rerik.’

  ‘Aye, and then?’

  Erlan didn’t answer because he didn’t know. Admittedly his plan needed a little refining. He meant to reach Rerik, the biggest market harbour on the south shore of the East Sea, then find a skipper who could take him to the Black Sea. For the right price.

  ‘The holy man said the Black Sea, didn’t he?’

  ‘Beyond the Black Sea.’

  ‘Well,’ said Leikr, pointing upstream, ‘the quickest way to the Black Sea’s that way. Up the Dagava, far as you can go, a four-day portage that’ll break your back, then three weeks with your feet up floating down the Dnipar.’

  ‘That’s the easy part,’ added his twin.

  Erlan looked east where the first rumours of dawn were breaking up the horizon. ‘Upstream, huh? Who told you all this?’

  ‘Our father, of course. He’s the only man in Dunsgard ever been to the Black Sea.’

  ‘Does he know you’re here?’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ The twins looked at each other and laughed. ‘He’d flay our hides if he thought we were even thinking of it.’

  ‘Then go home.’

  ‘And if we did, how’re you planning on shifting that thing upstream?’

  ‘I’ve got a sail.’

  ‘A sail won’t get you there, bonehead! What happens when the wind turns against you?’

  ‘Or there’s no wind at all?’ piped his brother.

  ‘You’ll need to row.’

  ‘That’s where we come in.’

  Erlan looked them up and down. They were lanky brutes, that was for sure, and they had some nerve if they thought he’d even consider it. They also had a point. He couldn’t row the knarr on his own. He remembered his father’s helmsman, Esbjorn, always said a tall man with a strong back was the best sort on the end of an oar. Here were two of them. ‘I don’t even know where I’m going.’

  ‘South, ain’t it?’ said Adalrik.

  ‘And far away from here,’ added Leikr.

  ‘That’ll do for us.’ The pair of them were grinning like crescent moons.

  Erlan scowled. ‘Go on then. Stow your gear in the bows.’

  The twins yelped with delight. Adalrik punched Leikr for good measure. There was no doubt they knew their way round a boat, and probably better than Erlan. In a short while they had everything ready. Erlan untied the bows and pushed the prow into the stream, wading along the steer-board side through the biting cold water.

  There was a sudden drumming noise in the boat.

  ‘Yargh!’ squawked Adalrik. ‘The damn dog’s pissed all over me!’ He leaped up while Leikr cracked into paroxysms of laughter.

  ‘Aye. He does that. There’s a bucket under there.’ Erlan pointed forwards.

  He held the boat while Adalrik sluiced away Aska’s piss. This done, Erlan was about to jump in the boat when he cast a final glance towards the hall. He noticed a small shadow crouched twenty yards up the bank. ‘Someone’s watching us.’

  A small pair of eyes was twinkling in the gloom. ‘The little brat,’ Adalrik growled in disbelief.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Our baby sister.’

  ‘Your sister! What in Odin’s arse is this? Some family migration?’

  ‘Tikki!’ hissed Adalrik. ‘Come ’ere!’ The shadow rose to its full height – which wasn’t much – and trotted down to the water.

  ‘Did you tell her what we were doing?’ Adalrik asked his brother accusingly.

  ‘Mebbe I did. She woke up. She knew something was up and said she’d start yelling if I didn’t tell.’

  ‘Idiot.’

  ‘I want to come with you,’ said the girl.

  ‘You must be mad!’ laughed Leikr.

  ‘Get rid of her,’ snarled Erlan.

  ‘So where are we going?’ she asked, already wading out to the boat.

  ‘I said get rid of her. Else you can all of you piss off and I’ll sail west.’

  Adalrik went to the bows and rummaged around in his gear. He soon returned and crouched down so his face was level with hers.

  ‘We’re off to find the king of kings, little sister. But it’s too dangerous for the likes of you. Stay here and we’ll tell you all about it when we come home.’

  ‘Papa will come after you.’

  ‘Not if you don’t tell him where we went. Here.’ He produced a knife in its sheath. The haft was an elegant blend of ashwood and antler. ‘Take it.’

  ‘Your knife?’ Her eyes were wide as platters.

  ‘Yours now,’ Adalrik grinned. He tossed it to his baby sister. She caught it and gazed down at it, her mouth gaping with admiration.

  ‘Not a word to Father, mind. At least not until we’re long gone.’

  ‘Two days at least,’ said Erlan.

  ‘Aye. Two days.’

  Tikki nodded, her eyes still on the knife.

  ‘Right,’ said Erlan. ‘Say your farewells.’

  This they did, then told her to run off home, the knife apparently having bought her obedience. Erlan had his doubts she would keep her mouth shut for long.

  ‘Let’s get on with it.’ He shoved off and took his seat by the tiller while Adalrik and Leikr began their long pull on the oars. Aska perched on a thwart in the bows, his long nose sniffing at the coming dawn.

  ‘I can’t believe you gave her your favourite knife,’ muttered Leikr, swinging his body with the sweep of the oar.

  ‘I didn’t,’ Adalrik chuckled. ‘It was yours.’

  The days turned into weeks and the rowing made them strong. Erlan took his turn at the oar as much as the others, levering the little knarr deeper and deeper into a fathomless land of sombre browns and greys. In the main, the river coursed south-east, although it twisted north and south like a writhing serpent.

  The labour was brutal, hardening their backs into knotted muscle, shredding their hands, soaking their tunics with sweat every day. The twilight fire was needed as much to dry them out as keep them warm or cook their supper. Further inland, it turned colder despite that spring must be close. Leikr took this badly, reckoning it unjust and a sure sign the gods had taken against the whole damned business. Maybe they had.

  On a bad day, Leikr could croak as hard as any of the marsh frogs that kept them awake at night, but Adalrik wasn’t much better. He griped about his hands, which had been sanded away to a mess of bloody skin and weeping pus.

  Despite the physical hardship, they ate well. Leikr’s hook and the abundance of bream and trout in the Dagava, and even the odd carp in the smaller tributary streams, kept their bellies full. They drank water straight from the river and suffered nothing for it. And in time, Adalrik’s hands became hard as old leather, Leikr’s back grew strong as a yew-bow, the cold eased, the stream weakened, and the snowy floodplains melted away into sparse woodland. Then, at last, came the first buds of spring.

  The folk they came across were few in number and grew ever fewer. For each, they had only one question: did they know the Dnipar? The answer was always the same: a wave of the hand upstream. ‘Further, further.’

  Always further.

  One night they camped at the confluence of the Dagava with a large tributary whose name they didn’t know. In the morning a swineherd approached them. Once he had overcome his amazement at the brothers’ towering height, he answered with great enthusiasm that, yes, he knew the Dnipar. But instead of further up the Dagava, he pointed up the tributary.

  Whatever was the name
of this smaller river, they never found it out. It grew narrower and more winding, ever more clogged with weeds and sandbars until it came to an abrupt end about four days later at the head of a broad, crooked lake fed by rock-streams with no navigable way on.

  ‘This is where we get out and pull, boys,’ Erlan said. ‘I hope you’re feeling strong.’

  ‘As an ox,’ grinned Leikr.

  ‘Ugly as an ox, you mean,’ Adalrik sniggered.

  ‘Then that makes two of us, cock-breath.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Erlan. ‘Everything on the bank.’

  Willing they may have been, strong as oxen they were not. Even with the three of them, it was soon clear the knarr was going nowhere without more help. So, leaving Adalrik and Aska to guard the boat, Erlan took Leikr and headed inland. They soon saw a smoke skein curling into the sky and under it they found a small village – a miserable cluster of shacks and ox-hide tents. At first the headman was suspicious but this soon gave way to curiosity.

  They led him and some of his men back to the river. He was a sharp-nosed old buzzard, grasping their predicament quickly enough – and his opportunity to make some silver – even though they could barely understand one word of his in ten. His thralls proved tough as mules, helping them drag their boat up the riverbank. Then negotiations began.

  The twins’ estimate of a portage of four days would have been a blessing indeed. Instead, it took six days of butting and heaving and shoving the boat over its timber rollers, cajoling and coaxing the headman’s wretched oxen with whips and goads over the upland terrain till they were more sweat than muscle. And at long last they were sliding the hull down a silty bank into the mighty Dnipar.

  In the six days past, Erlan had learned a few words of the headman’s language. When they were ready to push off, he thanked the old man and paid him his silver.

  ‘The big river,’ the headman intoned. ‘Runs east a while. Then south.’

  ‘And then the sea?’

  The headman shrugged his bony shoulders. ‘It runs where it runs.’

  With fair weather and the stream in their favour, the twins’ mood improved a great deal. They were good company, all things considered, and Erlan was satisfied he’d been right to let them come along. Truth was, there was no way he would have got even this far without them.