When Erik saw Cair go into that death clinch, his heart had fallen to his boots. In Vinland he'd seen a dying grizzly take a man into its embrace once. And this was much bigger than a grizzly bear.
He and several others—Manfred, Szpak, and Signy—and a metal bird rushed forward as the grendel fell, claws still tearing into Cair, who was underneath.
With a wail of despair, Signy flung herself onto her grendel half-brother and hauled. Manfred added his considerable strength, pulling it over. And Erik and Szpak pulled the arms apart.
Cair had made sure and doubly sure that it was dead. It was probably dead before he'd lunged up through the belly and into its heart, and had been trapped in that death hug for his pains. That didn't stop the metal bird from pecking the grendel's eyes out. Cair's ragged cotte was shredded—Erik saw the white of splintered bone in among the blood-streaming rags.
Weeping, Signy pulled her man free. "You can't die! You can't!" she gasped, holding on to him.
She pressed her head to his breast and clung, her golden hair spread across his bloody cotte.
All was still, but for her sobbing. The Norsemen stood respectful, silent.
The silence endured.
And then Cair's arm came up and around her.
And Erik saw that a golden circle surrounded his upper arm, and that the terrible gashes on it were already healing.
The arm-ring made all things whole . . .
The rheumy-eyed priest of Odin muttered, "Sacrilege." But he said it very very quietly.
Signy lifted Cair. You wouldn't have thought such a slight thing would have had the strength, but perhaps she drew it from her will. That was large enough.
She got him to his feet.
And as he stood, swaying, still held upright by her, the watching Norsemen began hammering the pommels of their swords on their shields, cheering wildly.
Cair raised his free arm. It was healed, and the arm-ring gleamed against the dark flesh. The Norsemen stilled.
He cleared his throat. "Do you not kneel before your new queen?" he asked loudly.
There was a stunned silence from the huge crowd. "I will challenge to single combat any man who doesn't," he said coolly.
And throughout the Vé, and into the field beyond, warriors knelt.
Fight someone who just killed a grendel, single-handed . . . and lived?
I don't think so, even if he is an outlander with a thrall brand.
"Long live the queen," said Manfred, with a grin to Erik and Szpak. "You wouldn't have a drink about you, Juzef? Even that cabbage liquor would do."
The two knights manhandled Bakrauf toward Kingshall. Behind her she heard the cheering.
He was dead, then. Grendel would not free his mother.
Spittle and blood were all she needed to call her hunt. She would extract such revenge on the stinking little Alfarblot . . . She bit her cheek and spat, calling.
The hunt came. From a tumble of ravens and crows the children of darkness took form. Tonight of all nights they were easy to summon. This was the longest night. The night when even the dead walk.
As the two knights yelled and dropped her, Bakrauf realized that the hags and sylphs and creatures of darkness had come for her.
Not to carry her away to safety, to her own place, but to extract their awful revenge for her entrapment.
It was not quite Joulu midnight yet.
Her own shrieks were lost in the roar of adulation for the new queen.
And the knights' attempt to come to her rescue was thwarted by a draug, blundering toward them out of the darkness. They turned to defend themselves as the thing that had been King Olaf lurched toward them, dripping. It was somehow managing to laugh with that ruined face.
On this the longest night, when draugar and disir walk . . . He was only dripping his way to his ship mound, where he wished to rest, when her spells were broken. He felt them fall and tear from the very fabric of the earth that he was part of. When the hunt came . . . he was ready.
As he retreated from bright swords and cold iron—that could not hurt him anymore—he knew what passes for satisfaction among the dead. His daughter would rule now, which was as it should be. Frightening a couple of heathen knights from rescuing the troll-wife who had murdered him and usurped his throne for her monster son was a pleasant way to ensure his little Signy's rule. And Odin himself would have appreciated the irony of it all.
He could rest now, with honor, in his ship mound. The hunt would shred her into gobbets and scatter them across the nine worlds.
The golden circle lay on the altar stone as if it had never been removed. The old high priest picked it up, muttering. But oaths must be sworn. And Joulu waited for no man or new queen. He slipped the arm-ring over his bony elbow. "Let Odin bear witness," he said, solemnly. "To oaths sworn on this, his symbol, the oath-ring of Odin and Telemark." He scowled. She'd insisted that he put that last word in. She claimed the ring was Telemark. "The oaths will absolutely bind you and yours. Step forward those of you would swear on the holy symbol."
The new queen did. She still wore ragged and blood-stained clothes. Men's breeches! But neither the priest nor the Norse nobility would have dreamed of letting any sign of disapproval show. That new jarl—best never to think of him as a thrall again—had already made it painfully clear that he would personally deal with even the faintest sign of disrespect.
But the oddest thing was that, despite her clothes and having her hair wild and undressed, like some great golden-blond halo from one of these heathen Christian ikons, she looked like a queen. She did not need that watchful-eyed grendel killer of hers standing watchfully behind her to get respect. Already some of the Norse ladies were surreptitiously unpinning their hair. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And suddenly a lot of women who had followed the false Queen Albruna's lead in their comments and manner to her stepdaughter wanted to do a bit of flattery really, really badly.
It didn't seem that she'd even noticed. But then, the true ruler need not. Toad-eaters are what those of lesser legitimacy need.
Her imperial counterpart's gear was equally shabby. But he walked like a prince, too, even if he was not wearing the armor of his fellows. He wore honor instead, and it shone brighter.
The oath was sworn.
And at the end of it, the queen turned to her outlander ex-thrall jarl . . . and laughed.
He looked as if he'd bitten one of those foreign spices. A peppercorn.
Many other oaths were sworn.
But there was no blood-eagle sacrifice at the end of it.
The old priest thought rulers should stay out of religion.
The crowds were dissipating, heading toward the warmth of the feasting hall. Groups of Norsemen, still stunned with the knowledge that they had been there, walked, talking in low voices. They had actually seen what the skalds would sing of across the Norse kingdoms. And they had really been there to see it . . . Already the stories were beginning to grow, by the snatches that Erik overheard.
Manfred took a deep pull of the flask Szpak had sent someone to procure, as they joined the drift back to Kingshall. "That's vile," he said cheerfully to the Polish Ritter. "Well, we're done. Sweden sorted out. Arm-ring found, treaty ratified. Now I can get back to Francesca in Copenhagen. I know she'll have a good hundred young Danish second sons ready to become confrere knights. You can trust Francesca to have it all wrapped up."
"She's here," said Juzef. "She arrived while all the excitement was going on, along with a load of Danes and Vinlanders. I heard about it from one of my men who got the news from one of the Norsemen."
Manfred grinned even more broadly and quickened his stride. "Well, what are you waiting for? Let's get across there. This is even better than that sailor from Lesbos's magic tricks."
As he said that, Erik paused, midstride. Then the Icelander started to laugh. And then laughed some more. And sat down on the snow to laugh, clutching his aching sides.
"What's wrong with him? He's had hardly any of that schnapps," said Szpak, looking puzzled.
"Cair's magic tricks," spluttered Erik. "Weren't tricks."
"What?" asked Manfred, frowning.
"I just figured it out," said Erik, clutching his knees, beaming like an idiot. "Cair, the sceptic who didn't believe in magic, went through huge performances to fake magic—which always appeared to work . . . Which, considering that he was an amateur, is surprising. Impossible, really."
Szpak looked curiously at him. "You mean you thought he was a fake?"
"Yes, he thought he was a fake!" said Erik, struggling with his gravity. "And he believed it so hard he convinced the rest of us. But he'd fooled himself. He was going through the rituals of magic, without believing they'd work. He thought it was his tricks working. But it wasn't. It was the real thing. Oh, priceless!"
Manfred's eyes narrowed. "That bird. Signy is a witch all right, and not quite human. But she wasn't even there when he did that bird—and you two hurried out before it exploded and the dwarves found out that it was a fraud! And then it came flying to his rescue. Oh, priceless indeed!"
Erik nodded. "No wonder he always appeared able to do the magical! No wonder he always managed the improbable! He must be kicking himself. Our too clever, chess-playing, think-every-possible-move-ahead corsair missed something basic in his calculations. He got it all wrong . . . And now he's a Telemark landholder, obliged to let the richest prizes he ever saw go."
"What are you two talking about?" demanded Szpak.
Manfred hauled Erik to his feet, helped him dust snow off himself. "About, among other things, me having to explain to my uncle that the corsair captain Cair Aidin is now subject to a treaty with the Empire and that a price on his head would be diplomatically awkward."
"And that price is not about to be collected by any Norseman," said Erik, shaking his head, ruefully.
Then it was Manfred's turn to start laughing. "But I think Charles Fredrik is going to be pleased with me after all. No wonder that smart Turk was looking so sour at the oath. As one of Signy's citizens and landholders, he's just forsworn attacking not just us, but the Empire's shipping, too. Priceless! No wonder Signy was laughing. She's a smart woman, that. She's kept him home."
Erik grinned. "All right. So it is all done then. I agree. Now all we have to do is get out of Norway."
"As fast as possible!" agreed Manfred. "Away from trolls, kobolds, real fake magicians, and too-clever women. To somewhere warm."
Juzef Szpak grinned. "That's a nice thing to say when I have to go back to Småland!"
"Ah. But you will have your cabbage liquor," said Manfred comfortingly.