A King's Wish

Four great wooden statues stood at the edge of the shore, thrice the height of a man, each carved from the trunk of a single tree: the Stormfather and Hearthwife in the center, flanked on either side by the Blind God and Trustworthy Tryggvar. They were rough-featured and time-weathered, the Stormfather with his beard and axe, the Hearthwife with spindle in hand and wheel at her feet, the ravens on either shoulder of the Blind God. Tryggvar was almost featureless; only the vaguest impression of a head, eyes and nose had been carved from the trunk.

The four marked the place where the gods had first come ashore, after chaining the World-Serpent to the circle of the world. The lashing of the Serpent’s tail had broken the land and allowed the waters of the outerworld to come rushing in and fill the oceans and seas. The gods might have drowned then, but the Stormfather bore them up onto the waves, and they had set foot upon the land of Northrike here, King Ivar thought, right here, beneath his feet. He tried to sense their power and presence through the soles of his feet, but felt only stone and hard-packed earth.

The king with Queen Silfreyja stood directly before the four statues, with Hvatr and a few other jarls directly behind, and then the rest of the freemen and thralls who would accompany them to Thingvellir—the valley-plain of the Althing. The path to the shore led between the Stormfather and Hearthwife, and beyond them the king’s ship and eight others waited, tied to a long wooden pier.

Four Gardarike thralls stood before the statues, holding two ropes tied around the neck of a great brown stallion. Asgeir Stonejaw stood before the horse, chanting the prayer to the Stormfather, blade and bowl in hand. The logmathur was tall and gaunt, with a long and wiry white beard that nearly reached his belt. “Be ready,” Asgeir said to the thralls as his song ended. As always, he spoke almost without moving his lips, a habit that had given rise to his nickname. On either side of the horse, the thralls tensed.

Perhaps the Gardafolk made good thralls, Ivar thought, because they—like the Shayathids—submitted a singular and lonely god who demanded obedience, if in ways a trifle less strange than the Shayathid one. Better thralls than the Skoggrlanders at any rate, who just tried to kill themselves, or the Nithafolk, who just tried to kill their owners. He glanced sidelong at Silfreyja, beside him, and remembered what she had said about Mahdad, about obedience and finding other ways. It would be easier to be king of the Gardafolk, he admitted to himself, than we unruly, rebellious Northmen.

Perhaps new ways were needed.

Asgeir stepped forward, and sawed the blade across the horse’s throat, holding the bowl beneath the wound to catch the blood that gushed out. The horse tried to buck, screaming, eyes rolling, rear hooves kicking out, but the four thralls held it down, even as it strained and fought against the ropes. Two more thralls rushed forward, to help hold the horse still. They dragged it down, forcing it to its knees, as its screams grew weaker, until it thrashed one final time and was still.

Ivar bowed his neck slightly as Asgeir approached them with the bowl. Asgeir dipped a branch cut from the Stormfather’s ash tree into the blood, and flicked it over Ivar’s head, splattering his forehead and hair in red. “May you travel under the Stormfather’s cloak,” he said. “May you travel with fair winds and under far skies, with bright mornings and brave hearts. May the Stormfather guard you with that axe which he carved from the World-Serpent’s bones and may his lightning keep all evil from you. May he receive you and own you. May…”

“Get on with it,” Ivar quietly told Asgeir’s feet.

The law-speaker huffed in irritation, then began again. “May the Hearthwife give you comfort, the Blind God give you sight, Tryggvar give you wisdom.” Flick, flick, flick, a trifle sharply, Ivar thought, particularly that last one.

A clot of blood caught in Ivar’s eyelashes and smeared itself across his vision.

When Asgeir moved on to repeat the prayer over Silfreyja, Ivar blinked and wiped it away with the tip of his finger. As he turned his head he caught sight of Mahdad, standing with his hands clasped in front of his chest, a carefully guarded expression on his face. Ivar had a childish urge to call out to the man and invite him to join the ceremony, just to watch him squirm and try to politely decline.

He blinked again to clear the thought. No. It was only three years since he’d overthrown King Gorm, only one since he’d fought off his brother; he needed the Logafolk, their silver and steel and spices, to stay on the throne. In his youth he had sailed south, down the rivers of Vatnheim, across the dark, bottomless sea that bordered Logarike, and seen the massive walls encircling Miklagard, their great city. Over the bristling battlements, he had seen the spires and domes of their king’s palace, and known even the greatest Northrike hall was a hovel by comparison.

We Northmen like to imagine ourselves free, Ivar sighed inwardly, but we are as bound to the necessities of power as any other men, and to our gods and their rules, held like thralls by the sharp cords they used to bind the world together.

Ah, to be a blade, and cut yourself free.

Ivar felt Silfreyja touch his wrist and pulled his wandering thoughts back to the present. He blinked, squeezed her hand, and walked over to where Mahdad stood watching. The Northmen nearby fell silent, he noted, trying to listen without appearing to try to listen. Mahdad wore an oddly lopsided and peaked cap, with earflaps that tied under the chin. Despite the warm summer sun, the man was still wrapped in a woolen cloak. He was as thin as one of the Gardafolk monks, though their monks didn’t scream like draugr and charge into battle the way the Logafolk did.

“You did not enjoy our ceremony?” Ivar asked.

The Shayathid smiled thinly and blinked. Ivar had learned this meant Mahdad had not understood what he’d said.

“This,” Ivar pointed to the corpse of the horse and mimed flicking blood with a branch. “You like? No?”

“It is different in my house,” the man said, still smiling. House? Ivar wondered if he meant ‘kingdom.’ Sometimes Mahdad seemed to have trouble finding the right word. “I am here for learning. I see, watch, look. I don’t say good, bad.”

“To be sure,” said Ivar to himself. Then, louder: “Your god is different?”

Mahdad tossed his head, a short jerk upwards, which seemed to be a kind of noncommittal ‘Yes-but-also-no.’ “He is more like that one,” Mahdad said, pointing to the smooth-featured statue of Tryggvar. “Ayush is just, but he doesn’t want blood. He will win without blood, and then there will be a new world. This last thing is the same, for you and me. Our gods will fight: Your serpent and our Yimahan.”

Ivar nodded, thoughtful, putting a hand on Mahdad’s shoulder, letting his fingers dig slightly in. “Asgeir says your god is the World-Serpent. He says we should kill you.”

To his credit, the man showed no trace of fear, Ivar noticed. “We say is Vedfathir who is Yimahan,” the envoy replied. “If he is so sure then kill us both, Asgeir and I, and we will stand before god and see who is right. Ayush will decide. He decides everything.”

Ivar released Mahdad’s shoulder with a smile and a pat. Perhaps he would kill him, but not now, he thought. “And your king? He decides nothing?”

“Shahan Shayathiya Shayathiyanam is big thrall. Good? Best? Great? God’s great thrall. We are thrall to Shahan. But Shahan is thrall to Ayush.”

“Thrall, eh? Not sure I like the sound of that.” Silfreyja was right, he thought, the Logafolk god would bring order, but at the cost of subservience. Ivar nodded to where his ship was moored to the dock. “Will you come to the Althing? If you are here for learning, you will see how a king decides, in our land. There may be danger. You understand? Good, best, great danger.”

“Ayush decides—”

“No,” Ivar made a chopping motion, cutting short Mahdad’s words. He would not be a thrall, he swore, not even to a god. “No. It will be as I decide. Me.”

Mahdad only bowed in response. That wasn’t agreement, Ivar knew, but he’d settle for acceptance. People were saplings, bending under pressure but snapping back to their original shape the moment you released your hold.

They had to walk beneath the gods to reach the pier and the boats, Ivar and Sifreyja first, Asgeir, Hvatr and the other jarls behind, the freemen and thralls last. The wood of the gods’ posts had gone grey and was starting to crack, Ivar noticed. The old gods would have to go on the fire, and new ones made. He patted the Stormfather as he walked past. “But not just yet, old man.”

At his side, Silfreyja frowned but said nothing.

King Ivar’s personal ship was a large drakkar, 100 ells long, 20 wide, with space for three dozen rowers on each side. The prow was carved into the shape of a fanged serpent’s head, and towards the stern a raised canopy of red and gold had been stretched across the deck, providing shade beneath. The deck under the canopy was covered in white and grey furs, and plump silk cushions. Ivar threw himself on the cushions with a contented sigh, as Silfreyja sat beside him with somewhat more poise. He waved for the crew to cast off.

The tiny armada of nine ships pulled away from the dock and headed down the inlet, silent but for the rhythmic slap of oars in the water and the splash of waves against the bow.

It was a fine day for sailing, the king thought. A strong and steady breeze was blowing, running its cool fingers through his hair, ruffling the sea into gentle waves that went scurrying across their wake. He could lean back among the sprawling, overstuffed cushions on deck, cup of wine in hand, the sun on his face. Not a cloud in the—ah, but no, here came a cloud now.

“If we might speak alone, my king?” Asgeir stood at Ivar’s feet, frowning with his thundercloud eyebrows and leaning on the long white staff that marked the logmathur’s office. Asgeir looked at the queen.

“Hm, what, oh Silfreyja?” Ivar patted her hand. “Not to worry. She attends all my counsels.”

“My king, I must—”

“Have you been talking with Mahdad, Asgeir? You’ll have me swearing off sausages next. She stays.” Ivar said flatly, then tried to smile to take away the sting of his words. “Can’t bear to be parted, you see. You’ll indulge me this one thing.”

The queen smiled thinly, though the look she shot Asgeir was as pointed as a serpent’s fang and twice as venomous. “I’m sure I won’t understand a word, anyway,” she said flatly.

In the awkward pause that followed, Ivar thought he heard an angry buzzing, like irritated bees. He looked around, but there was nothing but open water and the far-off mountainous shore. Asgeir had both hands clenched tight around his staff of office, Ivar saw. Perhaps he heard it too? Ivar frowned, and shook his head as though to dislodge the sound.

“I have a proposal, my king,” Asgeir began.

“About Baldr’s jarldom?”

“The same,” the law-speaker nodded. “No doubt you are planning to name some karl or thane to fill his place and sit in his hall.”

“That would seem the sensible thing to do. But you have another idea?”

“Any name you put forward will lead to war. We have fought two in the last three years, and can ill-afford another.”

“So?”

“So name no one.”

Ivar raised an eyebrow. “No one? Baldr’s brother and the neighboring jarls will only seize the land and squabble over it if there is nobody to defend it. Not to mention how weak I will look if I do nothing. War would still come, only that much quicker.”

“You will dedicate it to the Stormfather and Tryggvar. Say that Aslaug used witchcraft to kill her husband and the lands must be purified, and give them over to your priests.”

Ivar found himself nodding without thinking, almost in spite of himself. Well, it would simplify things. The disposal of Baldr’s lands would no longer be a test of loyalty or his kingship but of piety. If anyone objected they’d be insulting the gods. Well, why not—

“The priests? Such as yourself?” said a voice.

Ivar blinked, and the thought receded. Silfreyja was watching him intently, one hand on his arm, the other at the Hearthwife amulet at her throat. A warm touch, he thought, and it thrilled him in a way it hadn’t for many long years, like the sky before a lightning storm.

“If I might?” she said.

“Yes, my dear?”

“Asgeir is perhaps half-right. Name no one. Instead, claim the lands yourself. It was Sweyn’s land before it was Baldr’s, and you are Sweyn’s only surviving family. Add his lands, his wealth, his power to yours.”

Asgeir thumped his staff on the deck sharply. “The jarls will never stand for—” he began, through clenched teeth.

“Then crush them,” Silfreya said simply. “When Sweyn’s lands are added to your own, you will have enough money and men. Crush those who object, and take their lands, too. Oh, throw a few scraps to Hvatr and the others who support you, but take the rest. If you must have a steward, then appoint one of our sons, or else an able karl or thane to rule in your name, someone who will be appropriately appreciative.”

Asgeir, Ivar noted, had gone quite pale. He had drawn himself up to full height, standing tremblingly still, eyes locked on the queen, and hers on him. There was that sound again, Ivar felt, just at the edge of hearing, a nest of bees, or else an army of ants crawling inside his head. It felt as though they were pushing against his skull from the inside, trying to turn him inside out, stretching and tearing at his head and pushing and pushing and—

“Enough! I will decide,” he barked, and the buzzing receded. He realized he was breathing hard, like a man who’d climbed a mountain or fought a battle. “Me. I decide.”

“As you wish, my king,” Asgeir said guardedly, just as Silfreyja murmured “Of course.”

Neither, Ivar noted, was looking at him.

He frowned and would have said more, but another sound intruded. Hvatr was yelling something across the water from where he stood at the prow of his own boat, but the sound was lost amid the waves and wind, the creak and crash of oars. Probably a wager, an insult or a joke, or some vulgar combination of all three, Ivar thought.

He rubbed a temple with one hand, and lifted the other in salute.