Haraldr turned to the other young man, whose martial spirit he did not have to rely on but without whose understanding he could not endure. His son and heir, Olaf, did not need to nod his approval; this had been the precociously wise Prince’s counsel the previous night. Haraldr sought the love in his son’s lucid blue eyes and considered the legacy Norway’s King was now forging for his people. A mighty northern Empire, at last on the verge of unification. Eystein Orre with the sword to preserve it, quiet Olaf with the wisdom to govern it. And, of course, Maria. Eystein and Olaf would be their own men, and that was all Norway would need. But in his daughter Maria, the King himself would live on.
Haraldr waited for the half-hearted cheers to erode into the inevitable murmur of relatively polite grumbling. Then he signalled for his stewards to unlace the leather thongs that tightly cinched his byrnnie. The stewards lifted his byrnnie away from him like foundry workers removing a plaster caste from a statue. The King emerged in a glass-smooth blue silk tunic, and his army buzzed with astonishment. ‘Warriors! I do not need armour to accept hostages and appoint governors. So I leave behind my Emma, the woman who has been truest to me in battle. Besides, the day will be hot. And this lady’s tight embrace would boil me like a fat goose in a kettle!’ The King stroked his thickening middle to illustrate the reason for the tight fit. The army followed with a vast exhalation of laughter. Eystein Orre stepped out of his byrnnie and the fashion of the day was established.
As the Norsemen stripped off their body armour – they retained their helms, spears and swords, as they would on a journey to a market or church – the English Pretender Earl Tostig sought Haraldr’s ear. ‘My Lord,’ he said, his ruddy forehead scowling, ‘I do not advise this. I have ruled over Northumbria myself, and if the English are the most untrustworthy of folk, the Northumbrians are the most untrustworthy of Englishmen.’
Haraldr studied Tostig’s perpetually tormented face. He often wondered what fate had encouraged him to care for this difficult man, whom he had disliked so much at first. Tostig’s offer to sponsor a conquest of England, against Tostig’s own brother King Harold Godwinnson, had seemed preposterous as well as treacherous at first. And yet as Tostig’s case had unfolded, as Haraldr had learned how he had been favoured for the succession by old King Edward, only to be undone by his rivals at court, Haraldr had pitied him. And when he saw the man’s remarkable, unwavering love for his wife, Judith, the sister of the Duke of Flanders, he had begun to like him. (If only Haraldr’s love for his Queen Elisevett had been as constant.) And finally it had been Ulfr who had convinced King Haraldr that Tostig was a man who would be true to him. Ulfr. God in Heaven, if only Ulfr could be here! What fate had taken dear Ulfr on the eve of the triumph he had so long laboured for, even during the times when his King had lost hope?
‘It is a risk I must take,’ Haraldr told his English ally. ‘I learned that bitter lesson in Denmark. To rule without the affection of a people is to wage endless war. Crush the army, yes. But the people are won with fairness and mercy. However, I do not entirely discount the risk you remind me of.’ Haraldr recalled the portents that had pursued his great fleet like screeching gulls throughout the long voyage from Norway. Someone had dreamed of ravens perched on the stern of each ship; another man had seen a wolf precede the English armies, a Norseman in his bloody jaws. Haraldr himself had spoken to his dead brother Olaf in a dream and had received a foreboding of danger; but then perhaps that was merely his own fear of conquering where Olaf had never dared. All great ventures spawned great anxieties; so far the ravens had fed only on English corpses. Still, when fate cautioned, only a fool laughed. How ancient were the scars of that truth on his weary heart.
Haraldr beckoned to Olaf and Eystein Orre. ‘My eaglets!’ he said in greeting to their unlined, ready faces. ‘I go to accept a surrender, which is a duty appropriate to a man who has been bowed by five decades. I want to leave behind my strength, however. I will take most of the allies and half our Norsemen with me; that should be sufficient to impress the English. But I want my best Norse fighters to remain here and guard the ships, without which we are all lost. Eystein, you will command them in my absence. And, of course, Olaf, you must also stay. I go to grasp the future. But without my brave and able eaglets to nurture it, that future will be as good as stillborn.’
Eystein and Olaf gave their assent, and Haraldr Sigurdarson, King of Norway, the greatest warrior of his age, made the announcement to his army. Overhead in the warming sky, a line of ducks soared south in a sharp, dark vee.
The last butterflies of the season still frolicked over the verdant banks of the River Derwent. Stamford Bridge, the crossroads leading to the city of York, was less than a rowing-spell away across the gentle green land. Haraldr walked with his new Marshal Styrkar and the Earl Tostig. The unarmoured army behind them was almost ten thousand men, a loose, lazy formation that frequently lost many of its constituents to the beckoning meadows and cooling river.
‘You know this William the Bastard, do you not?’ Haraldr asked Tostig.
‘Yes. Duke William of Normandy is married to my wife’s niece.’
‘Do you believe that his invasion fleet has already sailed?’
‘They have been gathered at the mouth of the Dive for some time. The weather delays. Or perhaps William’s caution. But should they land, the Normans and their allies will only be a factor after we defeat my brother. My brother is no fool. He will turn to meet the greater threat with his strength undiminished. Duke William is an able huntsman. You are Haraldr Hardraada. My brother Harold will face you first.’
‘But will your brother come north to confront us, or wait in defence of London? If he is as skilled as his reputation suggests, he will wait and allow us to extend ourselves.’
‘He is unpredictable and moves rapidly. But if he comes north, we will have at least a week to prepare for him.’
Haraldr nodded. ‘Whether he comes north or not, I must rely on the goodwill of the people of Northumbria to guard my back. That is why no armour can help us win the battle I am waging today.’
The King suddenly increased his stride and walked out ahead of Tostig. The Royal Marshal Styrkar held Tostig back. ‘The King wishes to take his own counsel,’ whispered Styrkar.
‘I understand him,’ said Tostig. ‘I entertain my own demons. When my wife is with me, they are kept at bay. I presume his daughter does the same for him. The pretty daughter. The changeable one. Maria.’
Styrkar laughed. ‘We say that our King and his daughter Maria are so close that there is but one life between the two of them. You can see the way their eyes go to each other at the table. They know what the other is thinking. He will begin a sentence, she will finish it. They will both laugh when no one else does. It is shame that he cannot be as close to her mother. Queen Elisevett is a fine woman.’