The Widow Queen Read online

  “The Saxons will gather their armies and attack.” Harald shrugged and collapsed carelessly on the bench. “Mead!”

  Adla leaped over with the jug. Sven hoped that it was the same jug he had given her before the feast. The girl poured some for Harald and looked at Sven. She blinked slowly.

  “I’ll drink to the bishop’s escape, why not! I’ll drink to the short victory of the Veleti, and I’ll drink more than once! But before my hangover is over, the Saxons will humble them and dip them in blood.” Harald chuckled and took a swig from his horn.

  The mead from the chosen jug did its work; sooner or later even the strongest heads would be conquered. Harald drank, and Sven knew that he was already gone. He heard the whispers behind him of at least three of his father’s military leaders. He would strike the iron while it was still hot. He just had to hold his tongue for the moment. Say only the right amount and not a single word more. He spoke calmly.

  “I have no intention of letting this occasion slip by, Father. The Saxons are busy with the Veleti and have taken their eye off our southern lands. Yes, I say ours, because even though you humbly allowed the emperor to take it, I still consider it to be our land. And I will go there with armies. I will take back the great Hedeby from Saxon hands. Who’s with me?” he called louder, looking at his father stretched out in his large chair.

  Harald glanced with a dull eye at the guests who had gathered around the benches. His head was wobbling again.

  “Son.” He waved a hand carelessly. “How old are you to…”

  “Twenty-three, Father,” Sven announced loudly. “Twenty-three. And I swear that before I’ve lived another year, Hedeby will belong to the Danish once more!”

  “Eee…” Harald burped. “Eee…”

  “Do you want to bet?” Sven said quickly. “If I lose, I promise I will shut my mouth and never question you again. But if I win, you’ll give the throne to me yourself! You’ll go to your wintry sleep willingly.”

  Adla poured more mead into Harald’s cup. The horn was endlessly full.

  The king swallowed and shrugged. He muttered something. His eyes were falling shut.

  “Did you hear that?” Sven shouted. “The king agreed. Who will come to Hedeby with me? Who will attack the Saxons with me? Which one of you leaders wants to sail under Odin’s sign once more?”

  A roar broke out over the hall. “We sail with the young king!”

  Sven walked between the benches, grasping their right hands.

  “To the boats!” he called as he neared the door.

  On his way, he pressed a silver brooch into Adla’s hand. She deserved it. The door of the manor was thrown open, and a river of Danes surged through it, thirsty for Saxon blood.

  The old king slept.

  * * *

  Palnatoki waited for Sven by the smaller stable, the one housing the farming horses and the servants’ mounts. If it hadn’t been for the previously decided upon place and signal, Sven wouldn’t have recognized him. The great jarl of Jomsborg, the Viking stronghold, home to the infamous Jomsviking mercenaries, was dressed in a simple gray cloak, and looked more like a poor wanderer than the wise warrior he was. Sven and the jarl entered the stable and closed the door. Once inside, Sven embraced his teacher. Palnatoki had been like a father to him all these years, while Harald had been doing everything he could to avoid acknowledging Sven as his son and heir.

  “I don’t want to be seen here.” Palnatoki pulled the old sailor’s hood back from his face. “Even if half your father’s men have followed you tonight, the other half has remained loyal to him. Remember them, boy.”

  Sven smiled. Palnatoki was the only man who had the right to call him “boy.”

  “Won’t you sail with me?” he asked, but his old friend shook his head.

  “You know I can’t openly stand by you yet. Besides, I’m needed in Jomsborg. Someone has given us a job worth pure silver, and you know that we haven’t had too much of that recently.” He smiled a crooked smile. “But I’ve brought you two young men to fight in my stead. Sigvald and Thorkel. They’ll be happy to sail to Hedeby.”

  “Are they yours? Jomsvikings?”

  “Not yet, boy, they’re still too young. Reckless, like you. Let’s say that I’m keeping an eye on them.”

  “They’ll be welcome in our fight,” Sven said, clasping Palnatoki’s shoulder. In truth, he would welcome anyone who might help him achieve his goal.

  “You haven’t told anyone?” Palnatoki asked after a moment.

  “No. I said only as much as you suggested. About the Slavs spreading flames. Not a word about how the Veleti have sent Brenna up in smoke as well. Or about how the margrave of the North March, noble Ditrich what’s-his-name, ran so fast that all he left behind him was a cloud of dust. Father is sure that the Saxons are able and will certainly take their bloody revenge on the Veleti still this summer.”

  “Good. Let him believe that, it will keep him in Roskilde.” The old man patted his mount’s neck and gave Sven a smile. “So you managed to hold your tongue. That’s something to be proud of.”

  “Yes. Father doesn’t know that the Saxons have more to worry about than the bloody Slavic revolt. He has no idea that the emperor has been taught an expensive lesson by the Saracens in Italy or that he has trouble gathering any kind of army.”

  “Yes, the emperor is as short of breath as an old goat,” Palnatoki agreed. “Today, your father has no idea what a difficult situation the Saxons are in, but when he sobers up tomorrow, and hears from his spies the day after that, he’ll know what’s what. It’s in your interest to be at least a step ahead of him. To show everyone that you are young, bright, and quick. Time for me to go, boy. For you, too. Your new army is loading the boats with weapons. You have to rein them in to sail through the Great Belt.”

  “I’ll split up my men,” Sven said, watching Palnatoki’s reactions carefully. “I’ll send half through the Little Belt.”

  His teacher’s gray eyes were calm. He nodded as he said,

  “It’s not a bad idea. No one should see how many boats you have. It’s not a bad idea at all. I’ll give you another one. If you run into trouble, go to your grandfather, in Hamburg. Mściwój loved his daughter, your mother, very much. If you only knew how much.”

  “He also loved Harald Bluetooth, his son-in-law,” Sven snorted. “I remember how they drank together when Mother died.”

  The memory of his mother’s funeral was a thorn in his heart. Mściwój, the Obotrite leader, a Christian like his father Harald, allowed for her to be buried in the earth rather than burned. Damn it! He had been haunted for years by a dream in which Tove showed him how she was rotting underground. They hadn’t budged from the idea that, since she had been christened, she must also have a Christian funeral to allow for her resurrection, but then they had drunk and cried, their grief the strongest evidence of the frailty of their faith in the resurrection of the dead.

  Palnatoki led his horse from the stable. Sven followed.

  “Think what you will, boy, but remember: in the allegiance with the Obotrites, with your mother’s people, you’ll be twice as strong. And if you aren’t the one to reach out to Mściwój, your father will. You must be the first to do it, Sven, because to Mściwój, you are his blood. He’ll accept you.”

  Then he clasped Sven’s hand and slipped a foot into a stirrup. Palnatoki wasn’t one for sentimental goodbyes. Pulling himself up, he added:

  “When you take back the south from the Saxons, when you open the beautiful port in Hedeby to the Danish once more, and you stand here, in Roskilde, before old Harald and all the nobles…”

  “What then?” Sven smiled. “Am I supposed to also say: ‘Father, the Obotrites stand with me today like they once did with you. I have taken one of their beautiful daughters for my wife, and when she bears my son, you can jump into the Roskilde fjord with a stone around your neck, because there is nothing more for you here?’ Should I say something like that?”

  Palnatoki
nodded, his eyes on the royal Roskilde manor. The servants were cleaning up after the feast, putting out the torches. The great carved doors had already been closed.

  “Don’t start a war with Harald until you have Mściwój on your side. And don’t think about whether he has been baptized, that has nothing to do with it when you are fighting on the same side. Who cares about some Christ! Besides, if my spies aren’t mistaken, when Mściwój led the Obotrites in burning Hamburg, I don’t think that he was particularly careful in avoiding the abbey and church there. You have to know who to side with and when, that’s what I’ll leave you with.”

  * * *

  The next day, thirty armed ships pushed off from the port in Roskilde, and at Sven’s command, set sail west. When he felt the wind from the Kattegat, wind that smelled of the wide North Sea, he gave a signal to the helmsmen to bring the ships closer together. He greeted Jarl Haakon from Funen, whose ship carried a dragon’s head at its bow. And Thorgils from Jelling, who brought five ships, and sailed on the sixteen-benched Vengeful Dog. And Gunar from Limfiord, the one who gained fame by his daring attacks on Frisian shores. And the two new companions, Sigvald and Thorkel, the brothers Palnatoki had sent.

  “Comrades! We’re sailing to feed our hungry swords with blood! The Saxons are dead. We’ll take our revenge on them as we would on a knife through the gut of one we loved. Because Hedeby is our family, kidnapped in youth.” He lifted his sword, and a shout answered him from the decks. Waves rocked the ship. Sven spread his legs to catch his balance. He lifted an arm and shouted,

  “When I was a child, my father, Harald Bluetooth, baptized me. He allowed for the emperor to become my godfather and to give me the Christian name Otto—his name. Otto! Was that a name given to our forefathers? No!” Sven took a deep breath and roared with all of his might: “I’m sailing to kill my godfather, whose power I refuse to acknowledge! I sail with Odin’s name on my lips. Odin!”

  “Odin! Odin! Odin!” a hundred throats replied to him, and the water amplified the shout.

  “Odin! Accept from us a sacrifice of Saxon blood!” Sven leaned his head back and let his long red hair fly in the wind.

  POLAND

  Świętosława was a summer child. Dobrawa had given birth to her on Kupała, the shortest night of the year. She said later that while she fed her, the milk in her breast smelled of flowers. So, every year when the days grew longer, when the sun lay on cheeks in golden spots, Świętosława came back to life. The clearings brightened by cornflowers, sky-blue fields of flax, the blushes of poppies and golden freckles of chrysanthemums, this was her time.

  When her mother was alive, they would spend the warm summers in a small village by the Warta River. Away from the raucous courtly life. They would have a dozen ladies with them.

  Bolesław had stopped coming with them as he got older, when Świętosława had been about four years old, so she had no memories of summers with her brother. Only with Astrid and Geira, her half sisters. Mieszko’s daughters from his marriages before Dobrawa. From the dark times before the baptism. Świętosława adored Astrid, who was only a few years older. Świętosława loved her sister’s hair, the color of dark amber. And Astrid’s strong hands, which always saved her at the last minute. They pulled her from hollows which were too deep, confidently lifted her down from trees, pulled her from the water when she suddenly lost her footing. Dobrawa also liked Astrid, calling her “Bogumiła,” dear to God, as that’s what her northern name meant. Maybe that’s why Astrid clung to Dobrawa so? Perhaps she longed for the maternal warmth which Dobrawa had in seemingly endless supply. The rest of the year, Astrid lived with her grandfather Dalwin, the master of Wolin’s port.

  Geira was older. Her mother, Gunn, a northern woman, had come to Mieszko’s country as a slave, but Mieszko, spellbound (or so the story went) by her beauty, bought her out of slavery and settled her somewhere by the Vistula. Świętosława liked her sister’s sharp chin, her straight, heavy hair which fell below her waist. She had the cold, northern beauty of her mother, and Mieszko married Geira off when she was still young, to Gudbrod, one of Bornholm’s jarls. Apparently, her marriage had made it easier for him to build his human fleet. A human fleet consisted of ships used to carry slaves, which made their father large sums of money. And so Geira, the daughter of a woman sold into slavery, became a lever in the slave market. The winds of fate can be cruel and strange at times. But now, that was in the past, as Gudbrod, Geira’s husband, had died. A widow sister, how odd that sounded when Świętosława herself was still treated like a young girl.

  Apart from the sisters, Dusza always accompanied them. This was father’s will, not mother’s. Mieszko, driven by a half-forgotten tradition, had found children who’d been born on the same day as Świętosława and Bolesław. A girl and a boy. He paid their families with pure silver, and he didn’t stint. He paid them the weight of the children. He ordered for the children to be raised together, so both of Mieszko’s royal heirs had human shadows. They were called Dusza and Duszan, names meaning soul or spirit. Neither Dusza nor Duszan looked like her or Bolesław. Nobody kept a record of their parents’ names. Duszan raised no doubts. He was a skillful, if quiet, boy. But it was different with Dusza. After a few years, it became clear that she was mute. She could hear, but she couldn’t make a sound. Mieszko was furious. Dobrawa cried that it was a bad sign for her daughter. But Świętosława wouldn’t allow anyone to tear Dusza away from her. She spoke enough for them both anyway.

  Dusza was like a mirror to her. She could see herself in those gray eyes. They understood each other through a language of gestures, blinks, and grimaces. Świętosława could share the full depth of herself, of her anger, in front of Dusza. Everything that stewed within her from dawn until dusk, everything that boiled inside. Everything that she had to hide from the world and keep silent about; all that came of being the only legitimate daughter of a great Piast duke. Of being the one with the holy name.

  4

  RUS

  Olav left his crew on board and ordered Geivar to replenish their supplies.

  “As if we were planning to leave today,” he whispered to his friend. “But do it discreetly, so the news doesn’t spread around the port.”

  “The water carries, and the Dnieper is wide.” Geivar gave a crooked smile.

  “Narrow it to the crevice of your lips.” Olav winked at him and made his way on horseback to Kiev. He had gifts for the royal couple in his saddlebags, and only one thought in his mind: This is the last time.

  * * *

  Olav Tryggvason was paying off his debt.

  His memory was divided into two: the time of slavery, starvation, abuse, and the time after, of endlessly proving his gratitude to his saviors.

  He’d been only three when the ship he and his mother had been escaping on had sailed straight into a slave ship. He hadn’t seen his mother since. He could hear her piercing scream, though, as clearly as if it had been yesterday, and he could see her fair hair grabbed by a bearded bald man who placed a slave’s collar around her neck. Olav, along with twenty others like him, found himself on the market in Loksa, in the country of Estonians. His first owner had paid for him with a bunch of dead ducks. A year later, he’d been sold on, and he was worth a pretty goat by then. When he turned five, a man called Eres had to exchange a cloak embroidered with a silk thread for him. Then when Olav was eight, a man came to visit Eres’s home to collect taxes on behalf of Prince Vladimir, the ruler of Rus. The tax collector was tall, had fair hair, and bore the name Sivrit. He took one look at Olav and seemed to recognize him.

  “What’s your name?” the tax collector had asked Olav, looking at him carefully. “Olav, son of Tryggve.” The newcomer’s eyes had widened. He’d grabbed Olav by the shirt and picked him up as if he were no heavier than a baby. “Your mother’s name?” Sivrit had whispered. “Astrid, Eric’s daughter,” Olav had replied. “Eric?” the newcomer had repeated after him, and suddenly his voice had caught in his throat. He put Olav back on
the ground. “Eric from where?” he asked after a moment. “From Ofrustadir, my lord. That’s where my grandfather is from. But I’m…” Sivrit had put a hand to Olav’s mouth and whispered: “Don’t say it. If you value your life, don’t say it, because in the best case you’d never leave slavery. I know who you are. The same blood runs in our veins. My name is Sivrit Ericsson, and I’m your mother, Astrid’s, brother. She was running to me when you were intercepted by the slave ship. Remember her name, but for your own good, forget your father’s name today.” And Olav, obedient to his kin, forgot.

  Sivrit bought Olav from Eres, though the latter insisted on being paid in gold.

  “I’ll take you to the court of Vladimir in Holmgard,” he said. “There are many of our people there, merchants and warriors alike. The king surrounds himself only with Varangians*. His ancestor was Rurik himself, who traveled here from the north.”

  Holmgard, known by those who lived there as Novgorod, turned out to be a city pulsing with life and riches, a center of culture within the spreading Rus empire, which had recently conquered Kiev. How was it that in this lively crowd he was spotted by Duchess Allogia? Olav hadn’t asked any questions, not then. Allogia held the title of duchess, and she was one of Vladimir’s many wives.

  She had welcomed Olav with open arms, cried over the story of his separation from his mother, and gave Sivrit silver to search for his sister, Olav’s mother, Astrid. Then, she kissed Olav’s forehead, and with that one kiss, he felt that the years of pain might have finally come to an end.

  Olav became a ward of the royal couple. Vladimir allowed him to train with his Varangian squad, and he rejoiced at Olav’s strength. Olav himself had no trouble gathering people in his corner. Perhaps it was because he had a good ear; he learned languages quickly and perfectly. He had a talent for the spear and bow, and was patient when learning the sword.