Milady de Chevreuse had been forced to change her routines. Francesca did not like doing so. But the winter weather was just too appalling. Furs were all very well, and beautiful and soft, but the wind out of the north cut through or found its way into everything. It was, she gathered, exceptionally cold, even for here. Walking in the snow was . . . unpleasant. Walking in sleet was simply out of the question. Her mind turned to Alexandria, where it did neither, where the sharpest minds of the modern world met in a blossoming of culture, art, and knowledge. Where the pleasures of the flesh met the pleasures of the mind on balmy nights . . . most unlike this gray sky, gray sea of winter Copenhagen. The food was fattening, one was cold and therefore hungry. And her constitutional brisk walks were curbed by the weather. And now, on this, the first rain- and snow-free day for ages, that oleaginous lardball admiral had to accost her. The man with him looked less obnoxious at least. The furs he was wearing spoke of three things: Vinland, money, and hard wear.
The florid-faced admiral bowed, with a creaking of whalebone corsets inadequate for the job required of them. "The divine Francesca! Your beauty brightens up a dull day! Milady, allow me to introduce my new friend, Fleet Captain Lars McAllin of Vinland."
He bowed, "Honored, milady. What brings a southern flower to these cold northern waters?"
She waved a delicate hand at him. "We go where we must, Fleet Captain. I might ask what brings a Vinlander, and a military man, here to Copenhagen?"
He smiled. "We do what we must too. And what we had to do was deal with a damned pirate. He thought we'd wait 'til spring, but with our Danish friends' help we bearded him in his lair, when he least expected us. We didn't even need the sled teams."
"And which pirate might this be?" inquired Francesca. "One of the infamous Redbeards?
"Nothing on that scale! Besides, although there have been reports that they're starting to harry shipping outside of the Pillars of Hercules, our routes tend to be in northern waters," he said.
"Fascinating! Who then?" she asked.
"A local kinglet. Or should I say, ex-kinglet. We left his ugly head on his gates," answered the Vinlander.
The admiral shuddered. "What a thing to talk about to a lady, Lars!"
Francesca shook her head and smiled warmly on the Vinlander. "It makes an interesting change from on-dits about the affairs of the notables of Copenhagen. It is far too cold to stand around and talk, though. I am making the best of this patch of better weather to take some exercise. Why don't you walk with me and tell me about it?"
"A pleasure, milady. May I offer you my arm?"
Francesca inspected it thoughtfully. "Why, thank you. I have always space for another one in my collection. I do not saunter, Fleet Captain. I walk. I hope that you can keep up."
He allowed himself a look of amusement. "If I fail, you get to keep the arm."
They set off and she said, "I can only assume that you attacked either King Hjorda, Jarl Orm, or King Vortenbras. If it is the latter, I want to know, and the admiral," she gestured at the puffing man, "doesn't want me to."
"The admiral is safe this time. King Hjorda, milady. The ruler of Rogaland. Or should I say the ex-ruler. He won't make the mistake of raiding a Vinlander fleet again," said the man grimly. "He thought he'd be safe until springtime when he and his rats would have gone into hiding and laughed at us from the mountaintops, but we stole a march on him."
"He . . . still . . . got . . . away with . . . the gold," panted the admiral.
Francesca raised an eyebrow at him. "I thought you couldn't take it with you, Admiral?" she said archly . . . to no one. The admiral had sat down, grasping a stone bench like a drowning man clinging to a spar.
"He is a little plump for this sort of exercise, milady," said the Vinlander cheerfully. "And I fear that I may have to learn how to cope with having only one arm."
She laughed. "I'll spare it, provided you don't take too many liberties with it. Manfred of Brittany has a habit of removing undesirable arms," she said. "Now tell me about the gold. A fascinating subject, gold." It was indeed. Gold, not steel, won or lost wars, she'd concluded. Steel decided battles; gold, wars.
"There's not much to tell. Two of the vessels had considerable gold aboard. We recovered—in large part—the rest of our cargoes, freed a goodly number of slaves. The gold, alas, appears to have been spent. Old Hjorda had bought himself yet another bride in the desperate hope of an heir. His third try, poor lasses."
"How odd it is that when noblemen sell their daughters' virtue outright, it is an honorable thing, but should a girl venture on temporary rental, it is prostitution," commented Francesca dryly. "Was the woman relieved to be a widow? I had heard that he was a less than pleasant monarch."
"She hadn't even been delivered . . ." He made a face. "Makes her sound like a bale of fleeces doesn't it? Anyway, several of my fellow captains were all set on taking the raid to Telemark to reclaim the money. But the Danes wouldn't budge."
"Wise of them," said Francesca. "Firstly, the Emperor would not have been pleased. Secondly, where would you raid? Their king's seat is far inland, for just that reason."
He looked startled. Plainly he hadn't expected a pragmatic and well-informed reply. But he took it in his stride. "And Vortenbras is a tougher nut to crack, milady."
She nodded. "So tell me, has the map been rearranged? Are the Vinlanders and Danes attempting to hold Stavanger at least?"
"They'd have liked to. But it appears that they're wary about it. The enclaves at Oslofiord and Trondheim appear to have provided a few bloody lessons."
"So Rogaland is now a kingless state? A place without a ruler?"
He shrugged. "It could be described like that."
"And that," she said, detaching her arm from his, "could be even worse for shipping and the region. Now, if you will excuse me," she twinkled at him, "a little more really brisk exercise is called for."
Later she took up the issue of Rogaland with the earl of Fyn, a far more intelligent and able man than the admiral.
"My dear Francesca," he said consideringly, "I must tell you that military adventurism is seldom as well-paying as it might appear. The Norse do have queens ruling, from time to time, but you'd find it even colder and less cultured than Copenhagen."
She rapped him over the knuckles with her fan. "Silly man. I have no intention of being queen—at least, not of some howling wilderness. As for military adventurism: I know that, and you know that. But do others who might blunder in know it? A power vacuum is a dangerous place."
"Relax, m'dear," he said, cheerfully. "The jarls are still there, even if Hjorda has gone. His own claim to the throne was tenuous, which was another reason he wanted to marry this girl. Her maternal line are among the strongest claimants. And, on the basis of precedent, his betrothed wife-to-be could be enthroned anyway. It won't be the first time a woman has been widowed before she's been wedded."
"I have gathered corpses make for quite complaisant husbands," she said, removing his hand. He was a great source of information, but a terrible old lecher. Fortunately, he could take no for an answer, at least temporarily.
That evening she composed a letter to the Emperor that contained several nuggets of valuable and potentially dangerous knowledge. She'd tried to gather information about the late Hjorda's betrothed. But information on Princess Signy of Telemark was scant. Apparently she was a slight girl, quiet, reserved, and very much under the spell of her powerful step-mother. Old to marry among the Norse. At twenty-four she was nearly on the shelf.