Hemming’s settlement was impressive, containing five big longhouses. There were ramparts — one with a gate — on every side of the settlement apart from that adjoining the winding sea inlet — or river as it now was. A smaller version of the sea wall being constructed at Haithabyr extended from the rampart into the water in a semicircle with a chain across the entrance from the river. Vali didn’t know whether to marvel at the skill of its construction or despair at how difficult it would make escape. There were only a couple of lookouts on the sea wall but, thought Vali, how many does it take to raise an alarm? No ship could come or go unless the chain was lowered, and if Vali and his companions tried to escape overland, Hemming would simply alert the surrounding farms.
A jarl in a bright yellow tunic conducted him to the hall, a huge structure with bulging sides like a ship’s. You could have fitted two of Forkbeard’s halls inside it.
A door was opened and he went in. At the far end he could just see through the haze of the fire a tall thin man sitting on a large stone seat. As Vali was led forward he saw the king more clearly. He was richly dressed in bright blue silks, his eyes elaborately decorated with kohl and his lips smeared with the juice of berries.
Kneeling at his side was the drab figure of a Christian priest, his head shaved into a tonsure. He was scribbling on a tablet and Vali would normally have been intrigued to look at what he was doing. On Hemming’s other side was a pretty woman in a long silk gown of pale yellow. She came forward to Vali with a drinking horn. It was a beautiful thing, polished and inlaid with silver.
The woman spoke in an exotically accented Norse. ‘I am Inga, queen of the Danes, and I bid you welcome to our court. Drink, guest. Accept the mead of friendship from Hemming, king of the Danes, mightiest ruler of this Middle Earth.’
‘My gratitude to the noble queen. I accept this drink in recognition of our friendship, now and in the future,’ said Vali.
He took a sip.
‘Formalities over?’ said Hemming, who had been preoccupied with a parchment. He handed it back to the kneeling priest and looked up at Vali. ‘Good. You are welcome, Vali of the Horda, over and above the high words with which we honour you.’
The king spoke perfect Norse without a trace of an accent.
‘Your majesty is good to see me so soon after my arrival,’ said Vali.
‘All other business ceased when we knew you were here,’ said Hemming with a short smile. The king then sat in silence for a moment, staring at Vali.
Vali wondered if he was expected to say something, but he couldn’t think what that might be so he just kept quiet.
‘Why are you here? The truth.’
‘To ask your permission for the Rygir to attack Haarik, or for you to order him to compensate us for our loss.’ Vali did not like to lie but there was a saying, ‘A lie to an enemy is no lie at all.’ Hemming was a potential enemy so deceit was allowable, honourable even. An oath, however, well, that would be a different matter.
‘That is not why you are here,’ said Hemming. His manner was calm: there was no threat at all in his voice. Only the sudden restlessness of the priest gave Vali any indication that anything was wrong. The man glanced at the king and went pale. Vali remembered that, at least in word, these priests were opposed to killing, though confusingly they did eat human flesh. If someone lied in front of Forkbeard he could expect to be given to Odin before he had the chance to tell his next one. Was Hemming similar, if with quieter manners?
There was another long silence. This time Vali did feel the need to break it first.
‘I am here on a fool’s errand,’ he said.
The king raised his eyebrows, indicating that Vali should go on. Vali tried to think fast. He needed to describe his mission in a way that Hemming would find acceptable.
‘I was sick as a boy,’ he said, ‘and a healer in Rogaland tended me and cured me. I vowed to her then that any service I could do her, I would. Her daughter was taken in Haarik’s raid and her mother begged me to find her and free her. It is an oath I made before Odin, lord. I had to act upon it. Forkbeard was not keen to help me find a lowly freewoman’s daughter. Hence here I am, in the only transport I could muster. I am looking for a girl.’
‘Go home then. An oath in front of idols and false gods means nothing,’ said the priest. His accent was thick and strange.
Hemming held up his hand. ‘To us, father, an oath in front of a goat or a duck is worth something. A man is only a man in as much as he can keep his oath.’
The priest remained motionless; Hemming puckered up his mouth in thought.
‘Not the whole story, is it?’
‘Lord?’
‘Were you running towards this girl or away from Forkbeard?’
Vali smiled. ‘Something of both, sir.’
‘Lord of wisdom, help me now!’ said Hemming to the rafters.
The priest smiled uncertainly.
Hemming shook his head and looked Vali up and down. ‘So what am I to do with you?’
Vali said nothing.
‘No, really, I want your advice. Come on. You started this mess, let’s see you get us out of it. What shall I do with you?’
‘Help me find the girl.’
Hemming laughed and waved the back of his hand at Vali as if to swat him away. ‘She is Haarik’s taken in war. And besides I don’t think she’s even his to give by now.’
‘She’s been sold on?’
The king didn’t answer the question but sat back and gave Vali that appraising look again. ‘What do you know of sorcery, prince?’
‘Very little.’
‘You are too modest. The lord Odin has his intelligencers and I have mine. Do you want me to tell you what my ravens whisper to me?’
The priest shifted again.
‘Anything the king wishes to tell me, it will be my honour to hear.’
‘You fight foes with neither spear nor sword. Mighty war bands fall before you, defeated by mobs of boys and old men. You consult gods in the mire. You miraculously escape the most secure captivity and consort with wildmen and shape-shifters. Seers and wizards from the four corners of the earth look into their ponds or take to their hanging trees, and the visions they see are of the son of the wolf eating up the world. A boy escaped from some hags of the north of your country tells, as he dies, a story about a great enchantment being laid, again for the son of the wolf. Is that not how you are known, prince, as the son of the wolf?’
‘These stories are exaggerated. I am a sore disappointment to my father, I can assure you of that.’
‘I hear that as well,’ said Hemming. ‘If I believed half the seer babble I’d hang you now and take the consequences.’ He paused and seemed thoughtful, then looked straight at Vali. ‘Understand my problem. Your father is stricken.’
Vali tried to stop the alarm registering on his face. He failed.
‘Yes, I know. Your mother rules in his place. That makes you very important, for the moment. If one of your cousins or uncles seizes the throne, however, it makes you less important in one way, more in another. Your value as some sort of bargaining counter drops, but I think the new king would pay well to have you returned to him, breathing or not. On the other hand, were I to give you a few ships to conquer your homeland then a good many of your kinsman would rally to you and, with luck, I would have another king paying me tribute from overseas, the proper oaths having been extracted. That said, I’m always interested in short-term gain. Forkbeard is keen on seeing you again. You could still be valuable there.’
Vali opened his mouth to speak but Hemming held up a hand to silence him.
‘What am I to do? I’ve enough problems to contend with without this.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m looking for a reason to let you go but I really can’t find one.’
‘I eat a lot and am expensive to keep,’ said Vali. He tried to keep his manner light. If he had no bargaining power with the king at all, at least he could try to make him like him.