And now Dernhelm was coming home, with money and false promises from Gallienus. Morcar opened his eyes, looked at the wide sea, and smiled. Oslac thought no one knew he had paid the witch to curse Dernhelm. Perhaps when that failed, Oslac would turn to more practical measures. Oslac was mad with love for that slut Kadlin. What lengths would he go to if he happened to find her with Dernhelm? … Morcar had arranged more difficult things.
XXV
The Island of Varinsey
Ballista reined in on the last rise, and looked at the home of the gods. The young tended to accept their surroundings as natural and immutable. Ballista had never dwelt on the meaning of Gudme. Now, seeing the place again, somehow, it was evident. The settlement was set in a sacred landscape. The lake of the gods and their springs marked its western border. From up here, he could see the Hill of Sacrifice a mile or two to the north, the Hill of the Gods beyond the lake, and the Hill of the Shrine off to the south. When his great-grandfather Hjar had taken control of the island of Varinsey — over a century before — he had realized that he needed more than his marriage into the ruling Waymunding dynasty, more than his success in war. He had needed the authority of the gods. Hjar had built his hall here at Gudme, the home of the gods, overlooked by those he had claimed as his divine supporters.
Hjar had been no fool. For three generations, the gods had been kind. Gudme had flourished. Now it seemed to stretch for miles. There must have been sixty — a hundred — individually fenced farms. They were gathered in groups on the low hills, fields and meadows in the lowland in between. To Ballista’s eyes, long accustomed to the towns of the imperium, it was strange. It had a centre in the great hall of the Himlings, but no other civic buildings; no central agora with council house and temples. Some of its paths were paved, but they followed no pattern, were flanked by no porticos, no statues. There was not a stone building to be seen, not a tiled roof. No wall encircled Gudme. Apart from the lake, it possessed no real boundaries, nothing to mark the urban from the rural.
The lack of an enclosing wall did not mean it was indefensible. Each farm had its own palisade. They were sited on the higher ground. An attacking force would get split up in the meadows. There were dead ends, natural killing places among the interlocking fences and buildings. In such an environment it would be difficult to keep control of the men. Best to start at the east, take one hillock at a time, move methodically through to the great hall. If you had artillery, site it on the neighbouring rise, use it to keep the defenders’ heads down until just before each assault. If time was short and you were unconcerned about plunder or what happened after, you could attack with the wind behind you and use fire; the thatched, wooden buildings would burn unless the weather was very wet.
‘Big, is it not?’ Maximus said. ‘Has it changed?’
‘Not really.’ Ballista was glad of the interruption to his line of thinking. After all these years, he had returned to the seat of his family’s power, was looking at Gudme, the home of the gods, and in his mind he was weighing up ways to destroy the place.
‘It has no wall,’ Zeno said. ‘Like ancient Lacedaemon, its safety must lie in the courage of its men.’
Ballista inclined his head at the implied compliment. ‘Yet when the Spartans took chains to enslave the men of Arcadia, they were the ones who wore them.’
Now Zeno gracefully accepted the flattering reference from Herodotus to the courage of his ancestors.
Ever since they had been among the Heathobards, the demeanour of the imperial envoy had changed. Perhaps, Ballista thought, Zeno had come to realize how things really lay in this embassy. With luck, Ballista would be able to spare the feelings of the Greek, and not be forced to produce the secret imperial mandata from his baggage.
Ballista checked over the column. The five slaves were with the beasts of burden and baggage at the rear. In front of them were twenty-eight armed men on foot, Romans and Olbians mixed together. The Rugian pilot was with them, having chosen to give his oath to Ballista, rather than be left among the Heathobards. The other ten were mounted with Ballista at the front. Discounting Zeno, the eunuch Amantius and the slaves, there were thirty-seven fighting men. Drawn from different peoples, it was a respectable hearth-troop for the return of an atheling to Gudme of the Himlings.
Things had gone better the day before, when the Warig had beached at the port of Gudme, than they had back on Hedinsey. The defence of Gudmestrand was in the hands of an older eorl called Eadwine. Ballista had half remembered him from boyhood. Eadwine had provided lodgings and a feast. They had drunk with his warriors. There had been no fights. Ballista had given an arm ring to Eadric, the son of the eorl. In the coming days, it would be important to have men well disposed to him among the leaders of the Angles. A tangible expression of Eadwine’s goodwill were their mounts and the baggage animals.
Ballista gave the signal, and, with Zeno at his side, led them into Gudme. As they crossed the final bridge, its guard blew a long blast on his horn. An answering note came from the great hall far ahead. They went between the farms and workshops. Women and children came out to point and stare. Skilled craftsmen — workers in gold, silver and steel, bone and wood — put down their tools to watch. They climbed north up the hill to where the hall of the cyning stood, the smaller halls of his chosen warriors beyond. Like the Allfather’s Gladsheim with Valhalla beyond, Ballista thought; Gudme, where Hjar of the Himlings had re-created Asgard on Middle Earth.
Even to one who had seen the Forum of Trajan, the scale of the hall was still not unimpressive. More than fifty paces long, the ridge of its thatch roof dominated the skyline. To those who had never left the north, it was simply the biggest building in the world.
Ballista and the others dismounted in its lee. A large black bird regarded them from the roof. When the ravens leave Gudme, the Himlings will fall. The horses, baggage animals and slaves were taken away. The doorway was at the midpoint of the long wall. It was surmounted by the gilded prow-beast of a longship which the theoden Starkad had taken from the Heruli.
Throwing his travel-stained black cloak back over his shoulder, Ballista adjusted the roseate brooch which held it in place. The brooch of gold and garnets had been a parting gift from his father. The cynings of the Himlings gave out few of the distinctive ornaments. Wearing one declared a man either one of the dynasty, or an important, highly favoured ally, lord of his own people. Ballista checked the gilded things on his belt: the battered bird of prey which his mother had given to him when he left the north, and the Mural Crown, the original of which he had been awarded by the emperor Philip the Arab. He took off his helmet, tucked it under his left arm, pushed back his hair.
Zeno came and stood to one side, and a little behind. His white toga with the thin purple stripe was badly creased. It was an impractical garment in which to ride. Futilely, the envoy attempted to smooth its folds.