The Last Light of the Sun Read online

  This particular Erling in Esferth tonight was no peaceful trader from the settled eastern end of this island. Not if he was still a Jormsvik mercenary.

  Stefa was alone in the alley now. He might not have been—it was a blessing, perhaps. Thorkell coughed, stepped forward, and spoke the man’s name, calmly enough.

  Then he twisted violently to his right, banging hard against the rough wall as Stefa wheeled, piss spraying, and thrust for his gut with a swiftly drawn knife.

  A man who knew how to fight. And drink. A long afternoon and evening’s worth of ale, most likely. Thorkell was entirely sober, and seeing better than Stefa in the dark. It allowed him to avoid the knife, pull his own blade in the same motion, and sheathe it between two ribs of the other man, up towards the heart.

  He, too, knew how to fight, as it happened. It didn’t leave you, that knowing. Your body might slow down, but you knew what you needed to do. He’d no idea, by now, how many souls he’d sent to whatever their afterworld might be.

  He cursed, afterwards, because he was in some pain, having banged his hip against the wall, dodging, and because he hadn’t meant to kill the other man until he’d learned a few things. Principally, what Stefa was doing here.

  A mistake, to have used the name. The man had reacted like a frightened sentry to a footfall in the dark. He’d probably changed his name when he got into Jormsvik, Thorkell decided, rather too late. He swore again, at himself.

  He dragged the dead man farther back into the alley, hearing the rats scuttle and scurry and the sound of some larger animal moving. He’d just finished doing that—and taking Stefa’s purse from his belt—when he heard another man at the mouth of the laneway. He stood still in the blackness and saw him enter, also, to relieve himself. There was enough light at the entrance from the torch outside the tavern for him to see that this was the other man he knew.

  He said nothing this time, a lesson learned. Waited until this one was busy with what he’d come out to do, and then moved silently forward. He clubbed the second Erling hard on the back of the head with the bone haft of his knife. Caught him as he slumped.

  Then Thorkell Einarson stood for some moments, thinking hard, though not especially clearly, supporting the unconscious body of the son he’d left behind when they exiled him.

  Eventually he made a decision, because he had to: perhaps not the best one, but he wasn’t sure what the best one would be, given that he’d already killed Stefa. He propped Bern against the wall for a moment, braced him with his good shoulder, and tied his trouser drawstrings, to let him be decent, at least. It was too dark to see his son’s face clearly. Bern had grown a beard, seemed bigger across the chest.

  Ought to have been more careful, his father thought. Should have known his companion had come out before him, have been looking for Stefa, on the alert when he didn’t see him. Thorkell shook his head.

  In some endeavours, the lessons you needed to learn might come over time and with no greater risk than a master’s reprimand. If you were going to raid on the longships, you could die if you learned too slowly.

  On the other hand, if he was understanding this rightly, Bern had managed to get himself into Jormsvik, which said something for a lad who had been condemned to a servant’s life by what his father had done. He’d taken himself off the isle, and more than that: you had to kill a fighter to join the mercenaries.

  He didn’t imagine Bern would feel kindly towards him now, or ever. He thought of his wife, then, wondering about her, though not for long: there wasn’t much point. A shared life gone, that one, like the wake of a longship when it moved on through the sea. You needed to steer clear of thoughts like that. They were dangerous as the rocks of a lee shore. Heimthra, longing for home, could kill a man from within. He’d seen it happen.

  Thorkell hoisted his son’s body over his shoulder and headed for the mouth of the alley and the street.

  Men passed out all the time near drinking places, everywhere in the world. Woke in grey dawn with rat bites and purses clipped. He had reason to hope the two of them would be seen as a tavern-goer carrying a drunken friend. He was limping with the weight and the pain in his hip. That might help the deception, he thought ruefully.

  It didn’t, in the event, happen that way. Someone spoke to him as soon as they reached the street.

  “Are you going to bring the other one, too? Or is he dead?”

  He stopped where he was. A woman’s voice. Across the way, from the shadows there. Thorkell stood still, cursing fate and himself: in equal measure, as always.

  He looked left and right. No one nearby, no one to have heard her, a small blessing that might save him, and Bern. The tavern’s wall torch guttered and smoked in its iron bracket. He heard the steady noise from within. The same sounds from any tavern, everywhere a man might go. But, shouldering the body of his son, hearing a woman address him from the dark, Thorkell Einarson felt a strangeness take hold: as if he’d entered a part of the world that wasn’t quite the royal city of Esferth in the Anglcyn lands of King Aeldred—a place for which he could not properly have prepared himself, however experienced he might be.

  Given that unsettling thought, and being an Erling and direct by nature, he drew a breath and crossed the roadway straight towards the sound of the voice. When he drew near—she didn’t back away from him—he saw who this was, and that stopped him again.

  He was silent, looking down at her, trying to make some sense of this. “You shouldn’t be here alone,” he finally said.

  “I have no one to fear in Esferth,” said the woman. She was young. She was, in fact, the younger daughter of King Aeldred, in a thin cloak, the hood thrown back to reveal her face to him.

  “You could fear me,” he said slowly.

  She shook her head. “You wouldn’t murder me. It would make no sense.”

  “Men don’t always do sensible things,” Thorkell said.

  She lifted her chin. “So you did kill the other one? The first man?”

  Not at all sure why, he nodded his head. “Yes. So you see, I might do the same again.”

  She ignored that, staring at him. “Who was he?”

  He was in such a strange world right now. This entire conversation: Aeldred’s daughter, Bern on his shoulder, Stefa dead in the alley. A shipmate once. But for the moment, he told himself, he had one goal and the rest had to follow, if he could make it do so. “He was an Erling mercenary,” he said. “From Jormsvik, I am almost certain. Not a trader, pretending to be.”

  “Jormsvik? Surely not! Would they be so foolish? To try raiding here?”

  She knew of them. He hadn’t expected that, either, in a girl. He shook his head. “I’d not have thought so. Depends who hired them.”

  Her composure was extraordinary. “And this one?” she asked, gesturing towards the body he carried. “The one you didn’t kill?” She was keeping her voice low, not alerting anyone yet. He held to that, as to a spar.

  He was going to need her. If only to have her not call the watch and have him seized. He wasn’t a man to kill her where she stood; it was true, and she’d guessed it. Too sure of herself, but not wrong. Thorkell hesitated, then rolled the dice again, with an inward shrug.

  “My son,” he said. “Though I have no idea why.”

  “Why he’s your son?” He heard amusement, laughed himself, briefly.

  “Every man wonders that. But no, why he’s here.”

  “He was with the other?”

  “I … believe so.” He hesitated, threw dice again. There wasn’t much time. “My lady, will you help me get him outside the walls?”

  “He’s a raider,” she said. “He’s here to report on what he finds.” Which was almost certainly true. She was quick, among everything else.

  “And he will tell his fellows that he was detected and his companion captured or killed and that you will be ready for them, coming to find them, even. His message will be that they must sail.”

  “You think?”

  He nodded. I
t was plausible, might be true. The part he didn’t tell her wouldn’t affect Esferth, only Bern’s own life, and not for the better. But there was only so much a father could do once a boy was grown, fledged, out in the world.

  The woman looked at him. He heard the tavern behind him again, a rising and subsiding noise. Someone shouted an oath, someone cursed back amid spilling laughter.

  “I will have to tell my father, tomorrow,” she said finally.

  He drew a breath, hadn’t realized he’d been holding it. “But you will do that … tomorrow?”

  She nodded.

  “You would really do this?” Thorkell asked, shifting his stance under the weight he carried.

  “Because you are going to do something for me,” she said.

  And so, with a sense that he was still treading some blurred border between known things and mystery, Thorkell drew another breath, this time to ask her the question he probably ought to have asked as soon as he’d seen her out here alone.

  He never did ask it; his answer came in another way. She laid a sudden hand on his arm, holding him to silence, then pointed across the street.

  Not to the tavern door or the alley, but towards a small, unlit chapel two doors farther up. Someone had stepped outside, letting the chapel door swing shut behind him. He stood a moment, looking up at the sky, the blue moon overhead, and then began to walk away from them. As he did, a shape detached itself from blackness and padded over to him. And with that, Thorkell knew who this was.

  “He was praying,” Aeldred’s daughter murmured. “I’m not sure why, but he’ll be going outside now, beyond the walls.”

  “What?” Thorkell said, a little too loudly. “Why would he do that? He’s going to his rooms. Had enough of the celebration. His brother died.”

  “I know,” she said, eyes still on the man and dog moving down the empty street. “But your rooms are the other direction. He is going outside.”

  Thorkell cleared his throat. She was right about the rooms. “How do you know what he’s doing?”

  She looked at him. “I’m not certain how, and I don’t like it, but I do know. So I need someone with me, and Jad seems to be saying it will be you.”

  Thorkell stared at her. “With you? What is it you want to do?”

  “I want to pray, actually, but there isn’t time. I’m going to follow him,” she said. “And don’t ask me why.”

  “Why?” he asked, involuntarily.

  She shook her head.

  “That’s moon-mad. Alone?”

  “No. With you, remember? It’ll get your son out of Esferth.” Her voice changed. “You swear you think it will deter them? The raiders? Whoever they are? Swear it.”

  Thorkell paused. “I’d say yes in any case, you know, but I do think so. I swear it by Jad and Ingavin, both.”

  “And you won’t run away to them? With your son?”

  That would be a thought she’d have, he realized. He snorted. “My son will want nothing to do with me. And I’d be killed by the raiders for certain, if these are who I think they are.”

  She glanced down the street again. The man and dog were almost out of sight. “Who are they?”

  “The leader’s name won’t mean anything to you. It’s someone who will want a report that Esferth and the burhs are unassailable.”

  “We are. But same question back: how are you so sure?”

  He was used to this kind of talk, though not with a woman. “Different answer: I’m not certain. This is a raider’s guess. My lady, we’d best move if you want to follow that Cyngael.”

  He saw her take a breath this time, and then nod. She stepped into the street, lifting her hood as she did so. He went with her, along an empty, moonlit lane that seemed of the world and not entirely so. The tavern noises receded, became sea murmur and then silence as they went.

  The man below was an honoured guest, a prince, companion of the Cyngael cleric the king had been watching for all summer. Ebor, son of Bordis, up on the wall-walk by the western gate, answered a quiet summons and came down the steps to that lilting voice.

  The gates loomed in the dark, seeming higher from down on the ground, newly reinforced this past year. King Aeldred was a builder. Ebor saw a man with a dog, greeted him, heard a courteously phrased request to be allowed outside for a time, to walk under moonlight and stars, feel wind, away from the smoke and noise of the great hall and the town.

  He was country-born, Ebor, could understand such a need. It was why he was up here so much of the time himself. It occurred to him, suddenly, to invite the Cyngael up to the wall-walk with him, but that would be a great presumption, and it wasn’t what the man had asked of him.

  “It isn’t quiet out there tonight, all the tents, my lord” he said.

  “I’m certain of that, but I wasn’t intending to go that way.”

  Some of the others in the fyrd didn’t like the Cyngael. Small, dark, devious. Cattle thieves and murderers, they named them. Mostly that came from those Anglcyn north of here, near the valleys or the hills where the ghost wood ended, along which the Rheden Wall had been built to keep the Cyngael out. Years of skirmishing and larger battles could shape such a feeling. But Ebor was from the good farmland east of here, not north or west, and his own dark childhood stories and memories were about Erlings coming up from the dangerous sea. The people of the west were no real enemy compared to longship berserkirs drunk on blood.

  Ebor had nothing, himself, against the Cyngael. He liked the way they talked.

  The night was quiet enough, little wind now. If he listened, he could hear the sounds from outside, though. There were a great many men sleeping in tents (around to the north) with the fyrd here and Esferth full to bursting in the run-up to the fair. No danger presented itself to this royal guest out there, unless he found a drunken dice game or took a woman with too-sharp fingernails into a field or hollow, and it wasn’t Ebor’s task in life to save a man from either of those. The Cyngael had spoken with dignity, no arrogance. He’d offered Ebor a coin: not too much, not too little—a sum fitting the request.

  A quiet man, something on his mind. Far from home just now. Ebor looked at him and nodded his head. He took the iron key from his belt and unlocked the small door beside the wide gate and he let them out, the man and the dark grey hound at his side.

  A minor encounter in the scheme of things, far from the first time someone had had reason to go out after dark in peaceful times. Ebor turned to go back up to his place on the wall.

  The other two called to him before he reached the top.

  When he came back down the steps and saw who it was this time, Ebor understood—rather too late—that there was nothing minor unfolding here, after all.

  The man this time was an Erling, carrying someone over his shoulder, passed out in drunkenness. That happened every night. The woman, however, was the king’s younger daughter, the princess Kendra, and it never even entered Ebor’s head to deny her anything she might ask of him.

  She asked for the door to be unlocked again.

  Ebor swallowed hard. “May … may I summon an escort for you, my lady?”

  “I have one,” she said. “Thank you. Open it, please. Tell no one of this, on pain of my displeasure. And watch for us: to let us back in when we come.”

  She had an escort. An Erling carrying a drunken man. It didn’t feel right. With a sick feeling roiling his guts, Ebor opened the small door for the second time. They went out. She turned back, thanked him gravely, walked on.

  He closed the door behind them, locked it, hurried up the stairs, two at a time, to the wall-walk. He leaned out, watching them for as long as he could as they went into the night. He couldn’t see very far. He didn’t see when the Erling turned south alone, limping, carrying his burden, and the princess went north-west, also alone, in the direction the Cyngael and his dog had gone.

  It occurred to Ebor, staring into night, that this might have been a tryst of some kind, a lovers’ meeting, the Cyngael prince and his own prince
ss. Then he decided that made no sense at all. They wouldn’t have to go outside the walls to bed each other. And the Erling? What was that about? And, rather belatedly, the thought came to Ebor that he hadn’t seen any weapon—no sword or even a knife—carried by the young Cyngael who had spoken to him so softly, with music in his voice. It was desperately unwise to go outside without iron to defend yourself. Why would anyone do that?

  He was sweating, he realized; could smell himself. He stayed where he was, watching, staring out, as was his duty here, as the princess had told him to do. And in the meantime he began to pray, which was a duty all men had in the night while Jad did battle beneath the world on their behalf, against powers of malign intent.

  He laid his son down by the bank of the stream. Not far from where they’d come walking this morning and found the royal children idling on the grass. With time now (a little) and a bit more light, with the blue moon reflecting off the river, Thorkell looked down at the unconscious figure, reading what changes he could, and what seemed to be unchanged.

  He stayed like that for some moments. He was not a soft man in any possible way, but this had to be a strange moment in a man’s life, no one could deny it. He hadn’t thought to ever see his son again. His face was unrevealing in the muted moonlight. He was thinking that there was danger for the boy (not a boy any more) if he was left here in the dark, helpless. Beasts, or mortal predators, might come.

  On the other hand, there was only so much a father could do, and he’d made a promise that mattered to the girl. He probably wouldn’t have made it out without her. Would have tried, of course, but it was unlikely. He looked at Bern by moonlight and spent a moment working out how old his son was. The beard aged him, but he remembered the day Bern was born and it didn’t seem so long ago, really. And now the boy was off Rabady, somehow, and raiding with the Jormsvikings, though it made so little sense for them to be here.

  Thorkell had his thoughts on that, on what was really happening. His son’s breathing was even and steady. If nothing came here before he woke, he’d be all right. Thorkell knew he ought to leave, before Bern opened his eyes, but it was oddly difficult to move away. The strangeness of this encounter, a sense of a god or gods, or blind chance, working in this. It didn’t even occur to him to run away with Bern. Where would he go? For one thing, he was almost certain who had paid for the Jormsvik ships, however many there turned out to be. He shouldn’t have been quite so sure, really, but he did know a few things, and they fit.