"What is your name? Who do you serve?"
"I'm Gunnar Ulfrikson, and I serve my father who serves Hrolf the Strider, who is master of this land."
The Frank raised a thin brow, and a wicked smile formed on his red lips. "A fine ransom you will make. I'm already repaid for making this damned journey."
"And who are you?"
The leader clucked at Gunnar and frowned. "I am your master; that is all you need to know. What difference could it make to you, pup?"
"If I don't know your name then when I sing about the day I killed you I will have to call you the Frankish Pig."
The leader burst into laughter. Gunnar had expected a beating, but instead the Frank dismissed him to another who started to bind his arms behind his back.
Toki was shoved forward next to Gunnar, and he gave a wan smile. "I'd forgotten what this was like."
"You've been captured before?" Gunnar had never heard of such things. His father's exploits were always of great victories and never of defeats.
"Not something I've enjoyed, but yes. This one is hard. We only struck one blow before defeat."
Gunnar was about to reply when a Frank slapped his head and yelled for silence. Soon, all of them were bound and being led toward the Frankish camp. A glance over his shoulder revealed shattered bodies splayed out in the grass. Gunnar swallowed hard, faced forward, and dared not look back again.
Chapter 35
Ulfrik stood at the center of the dead bodies, flocks of birds circling overhead and screaming at him and his men for disturbing their repast. He hardly knew these men, having been only with him for a short time, yet their deaths pressed on his heart. Einar and the others walked quietly among the slain like cloaked phantoms, bending over the fallen to close eyelids or place hands on weapons. The corpses were already cold and hardened in death, and fat black ravens had already pecked and tore the eyes from most of the bodies. Flies buzzed over the thick pools of blood and unlike the birds persisted in their feast.
Gunnar and Toki were not among the dead. He had searched every body, scoured every inch of ground, and found nothing. It was small comfort, realizing the two of them plus a handful of others had become prisoners of whoever had overcome them. The mass of hoof prints indicated Frankish cavalry working with a contingent of footmen. The remains of a camp were over a low crest, meaning they had come from a distance, most likely Paris, though he could not be sure.
"The day is late," Einar said as he joined Ulfrik. He squinted up at the flocks of birds crying in rage. "We've no sign that Clovis took the bait yet. What will you have us do?"
Ulfrik tucked is helmet underarm and scrubbed his face with both hands. "This was not how it was to end. There was never to be another Frankish army out here. These men were not to be run down like animals. My son and brother were not to be taken captive. I was not supposed to have you do anything more than shatter Clovis's army."
He bit off his last sentence, aware that his voice was both rising and breaking. The men with him were veterans of long service, and hardened to the worst the battlefield could offer. They would understand his frustration and anger, but they would never brook indecision or self-pity. A few dark faces glanced at him, then returned to dragging the corpses together. Others searched for stones to build a rough cairn for the slain. No one had asked them to do it. They simply knew these men deserved better than to be fodder for ravens.
"This is fate," Einar said, putting his hand upon Ulfrik's shoulder. "You cannot blame yourself, for what is done is over. You've told me that yourself, do you remember?"
Ulfrik smiled and nodded. "Fate rules the lives of men, how true. But it is cruel and spiteful. Today Hakon will be freed, and Gunnar takes his place. Worse still, I fear I know where these Franks are going with him."
Both men shifted their eyes toward the east, back the way they had come, where Clovis's fort held a salient of Frankish land in Hrolf's domain. The trail leading from camp pointed straight for it.
"Then we must make haste to catch them before they can get to Clovis." Einar touched the silver amulet of Thor's Hammer at his neck and spit on the grass.
"We must travel throughout the night if we're to have any hope," Ulfrik said. "I can't be certain of their numbers, be we might be enough to challenge them. But if Clovis arrives ..."
Both men stood silently, neither wanting to give voice to the thought of being outnumbered and exhausted in a fight. Ulfrik watched two men carry a stiff corpse between them, a shattered spear thrust through the trunk and thick ropes of blood dangling beneath it. He had seen worse, far worse, but the silhouette of death broke something inside him. He heard Gunnar's voice in his head, saw his eyes widen in surprise and confusion the moment he had recognized his father intended to use him as bait in a trap.
For the first time in years, he felt a hotness in his eyes and a weakness in his limbs. Einar spotted the change, and drew closer. "What is it?"
"What have I done? What have I become?" He looked Einar in the eyes, and his young friend frowned in confusion. "I used Gunnar to bait a trap that has snared him instead. I've let Hakon linger in the hands of a monster when I could have saved him. I've deceived my wife, my friends. For what? Victory over my enemies? Glory? What?"
His voice rose and he did not care. Those nearby paused to stare at him, but he was not seeing them, only noting their presence. His thoughts were filled with his sons. "Not even my father would have done this, and he could be cruel."
"Ulfrik, you could not have known the Franks were on the march."
"Don't you see it? These dead men were slain for no better purpose than to deal a clever blow to my enemy."
"And so it is for all jarls," Einar raised his own voice, though tamed it as he realized his disrespect. "This is no different from all the other battles we've fought."
"No! I sent them out unsupported."
"We are the support!"
Einar's shout stopped the others at work, and they faced him with curious looks. Ulfrik too was snapped from his self-pity, and he blinked a few moments to gather his thoughts.
"I do not deserve what I have," Ulfrik said, far more quietly. He turned away from the others and began to walk slowly away. Einar followed.
"That is nonsense. You've more than earned your renown; Hrolf respects you above all others save Gunther One-Eye. That says much."
"Yes, and while earning that respect I have shamed myself before my family. Look at what I have wrought for my sons. I did not give Hakon to Throst, but I've left him there longer than needed. What excuse do I have? What if Throst maims him in the days I allowed Hakon to remain captive? I should be fed to dogs, Einar. If dogs would find my bones worth gnawing."
"Gods," Einar muttered his curse as he pulled Ulfrik to a halt. "Konal is with him and responsible for Hakon now. You have turned your enemies' wiles back upon them. It will make a song for skalds to praise you for ages."
Ulfrik laughed without mirth. "That is the problem. I thought the same, and I traded both my sons to make it so. I have driven my wife to near madness and lied to all of you about my intentions. I am mad for glory, Einar, blinded with it and destroyed by it. Do you know I left Toki on the Faereyjar all these years without any thought of what it did to him, just so I could say I possessed those lands? Even if I never intended to visit them again? How could I have done that to my greatest friend and such a noble warrior? He deserved better of me. And now he is lost as well."
Ulfrik stared at the horizon across the rolling plains of brown grass, and the stains of twilight in the east were chasing away the light. Stars already peered through the cheerless blue sky. Einar had no answer for him, and Ulfrik silently chuckled.
"I have much to make amends for," he continued. "I am sorry to have spilled out my bile in front of you. I am shamed once again. Men follow me because I win battles and give them gold and glory. But I've traded off too much of myself to do it. Now fate has shown me what it exchanged to make me the jarl of Ravndal, and it is a bitter price."
"Ulfrik, you talk as if you are defeated. That is your only shame to my mind. If you suffer so much for your son's fates, then by Odin's one eye do something about it rather than piss yourself with remorse. You want to win this battle, then fucking fight it."
Einar's face burned with intensity and his lip curled in a snarl. Ulfrik stood astonished and embarrassed, but he instantly recognized the truth. Einar grabbed his arm and shook him once as if to wake him from a dream, and he did feel as if he had slipped into a fog. He clasped his hand to Einar's arm and squeezed it.
"You are right. Completely right. You'll not hear my complaints again, nor will the men. My sons must come first. Gunnar might yet be saved, and all my imagined terrors need not come to be. I've wasted time. Let's finish the cairn for the dead and be on the march tonight."
Einar's face melted into a smile, and he gave a slow, solid nod. "I'll hurry the men."
He turned toward them, and as he left, Ulfrik called him back. "Thank you, Einar."
The huge man flashed a shy, boyish smile and then walked off to his task.
Ulfrik sighed heavily, not willing to forgive himself and still not comfortable looking too deeply into his heart. When the battles were done, there would be time to set right his mistakes. For now, Gunnar was his priority, and he prayed the gods that Hakon was now freed and on his way home.
Chapter 36
Weak light suffused the morning sky, a pale and cold swath that framed the bare trees of the woods. Throst drew his cloak about himself as he waited for Astra to show. Her voice had been so thin when she whispered through the wall to rouse him, he still wondered if he had dreamed it. His breath puffed before him as he laughed at the thought of running out to meet a dream. Her voice had been small but urgent, filled with promise of something that grew more dire with each moment. Dream or no, he had to meet her on the hill with its lone oak as the voice had asked.
A crunch of dead leaves alerted him, and he leapt to the other side of the oak to find Astra climbing it in the gloom. Her hair was disheveled and her face smeared with dirt, making him realize that in past meetings she had paused to clean herself before seeking him. As much as the thought flattered him, her carelessness now spoke to her urgency and a spark of worry flickered in his chest.
"You are alone? No one saw you come?" she asked in a husky, low voice.
"You managed to only wake me and Dan, but I convinced him to return to sleep. You have news?"
"It's all a trap," she said, scrabbling the distance to tumble into his arms. "You are in danger."
He pushed her away and in the stain of dawn saw her eyes bright with fear. "What trap? Slow down and explain."
Drawing a breath, she smoothed her skirt and tried again in a steadier voice. "Lord Ulfrik sent Konal and his men to you on purpose, to free his son and kill you."
"What? You told me Konal was true, that he and Ulfrik fought and was banished. I found him camped at the border." Throst stopped, suddenly realizing how skillfully the deceit had been crafted. No one knew but Ulfrik and Konal; everyone else had been made to believe Konal's disgrace was genuine. Ulfrik knew Throst needed more men, particularly those with a grudge against him. He just set Konal out to be discovered, a means to ease any suspicions. A fire began to smolder in his guts and his teeth gnashed in anger.
"I was fooled," Astra explained, waving her hands palm out. "Everyone was fooled, even Gunnar and Runa."
"But why has Konal waited so long? And what has happened with Gunnar? I expected that he would be ready to follow you out of Ravndal."
"I don't know what delays Konal, but Gunnar is gone. He went with his uncle and thirty men to Rouen seeking aid from Hrolf the Strider."
Throst's brows raised at the news. Thirty men were little more than token guards, and Clovis might be willing to reward him for information that led to Gunnar's capture. Yet it was of little value if he could not slip Konal and his men. He hated to believe it, but his own warriors were little better than dogs and hardly a match for any of Konal's. He cursed himself for not seeing through the ruse, for not realizing these men were too good to be what they had seemed. While he had every confidence of victory in a one-on-one fight, Throst knew he could not defeat all of them.
"Listen to me," he said, grabbing Astra by the arm. "There is value in that bit of news, and if I can get it to Clovis in time he might be willing to pay for it. If he could capture Gunnar on the march that would make Hakon more valuable to him. But there is the issue of Konal. If he is delaying, it is because there is more to this trap than we know. What else have you learned?"
"Nothing more. It happened so fast, and I came here directly after Gunnar left."
"Does Gunnar suspect you, or anyone else for that matter?"
"Gunnar was strange when he left. I don't know for sure. Maybe he was afraid not having his father to hold his hand. But no one else knows my role."
Throst nodded, turned away to search the brightening sky. The situation had become far more desperate in the space of a few moments. Astra had probably spared his life. His best course was to fetch his mother and sister and fade away. But that would be a defeat. Defeat was not necessary, not when he still held a strong weapon in Hakon. Striking the thought from his mind, he began to mull other choices. Astra touched him as if to speak again, but he threw her arm off and hushed her. After several moments of consideration, he had settled upon his plan.
"Take word to my sister that she is to go with our mother to the caves where we hid before. I don't know if she will be able to find it on her own, maybe not, but they are not safe to go with me. After you do this, return to Ravndal."
"But what if I am discovered?" Astra grabbed his arm again, her fingernails digging into the flesh of his forearm. "I can't return until nightfall, or I will be discovered. I am amazed I slipped out so often without being caught. Anyway, if anyone marks my absence they might suspect me as your informer."