King of the Norse (Varangian Book 2)

Book summary

The second book in Stuart G. Yates’s historical fiction series follows Harald Hardrada's ambitious quest to become the king of Norway. In a turbulent era marked by the fall of Emperor Michael V, Harald shifts his focus from Byzantine intrigues to his northern ambitions. Amidst a backdrop of treachery, war, and political maneuvers, he finds himself entangled in Byzantium's deadly games, manipulated by General Maniakes and others vying for power. With limited options and the ever-present threat of death, Harald must make critical choices to secure his future.

Excerpt from King of the Norse (Varangian Book 2)

England, early September, 1066

LANDING

The wind cut like hounds’ teeth, biting deep into the exposed flesh of Edgar’s face and neck, and he screwed up his eyes in a gargoyle mask of misery. He stood on the headland; feet planted wide against a gale so strong it almost bowled him over, and stared out to sea. Amongst the boiling fury of the sea, the waves cutting up in a rage of spray and noise, he thought he saw a ship. A tiny dot, barely visible through the sheets of rain that lashed down, it could not possibly stay afloat much longer. He strained forward to get a better view, and witnessed his fears become reality. It was a ship, battling through the mad maelstrom, tossed and thrown as if it were a mere toy, fragile and flimsy. As he looked, the vessel reared up, seized by the waves to spin in wild, haphazard violence, control all ripped away.

The vessel came clean out of the water and slammed down again, with a crash louder than the roar of the boiling sea. Wooden sides shattered amongst the foam, and the ship yawned and pitched, and at last capsized, disappearing under the screaming water, to sink into the seething, swirling depths. Gone, consumed by the raging ocean.

Edgar dragged a hand across his face, bunched his shoulders, and turned away. If he believed there were people on board the stricken ship, he showed no sign of caring. Besides, how could anyone survive in that? Any cries of desperate men lost amongst the howling wind, hope lost. He put his head down and tramped through the sodden grass, putting all such thoughts from his mind. Life, for him and everyone he knew was hard, brutal and quick. No time to spend thinking about the deaths of others.

Deaths of others.

He was fifteen summer´s old. As with everything, this was more guesswork than accurate calculation. He may have been sixteen-summers old for all he knew, perhaps even seventeen. As his mother had died two summers ago, he had no real way of checking. Father, who rarely came home, seemed infinitely old. A great bull of a man, massive shoulders, arms like tree trunks, a gnarled face framed by a wild beard that gave him a ferocious look. Eorl Hereward the people called him, if they spoke to him at all; most quaked in his presence. On the few occasions Edgar saw him, any words he may have wished to utter he kept inside. Hereward seemed like a man troubled, his face grim with concern, the lines cut deep around eyes lost in thought. So the villagers stayed away, and Edgar kept himself far in the background.

The small, bustling village lay in the bowl of a fertile valley, the various houses and outbuildings placed haphazardly in a crude circle, in the centre of which stood a large meeting hall. Edgar came over the far rise, the rain streaking down from a leaden sky, and shouldered through fellow villagers, all busy with the constant daily battle to survive. He drew the neck of his cloak tighter around his throat and scowled upwards. How long had it been since the sun last shone? Edgar couldn’t remember. He knew the crops were in danger of being ruined, the ground so clogged with mud. Peas and beans might still grow, but the wheat. The wheat was something else.

He put his head down and moved on, stumbling almost at once into Roderic, the village elder, who swore at him, and threw out a backhanded blow, which Edgar nimbly dodged.

“Look where you’re going!”

The old man turned away, bent forward against the lashing rain. Edgar moved on without a word. He had been about to tell Roderic of the ship, but the old man, always so quick to temper, annoyed him, so he left it. Why was it the old became so cantankerous? Was that how it was with age, he wondered. Other elderly folk appeared indifferent to life’s grinding turn, but they seldom smiled, and Roderic least of all. Perhaps the responsibility of his position made him so tetchy? Edgar didn’t care. Let him find out about the wrecked ship for himself, when the bloated bodies washed up on the beach.

He reached the house he shared with the sons of Stowell the baker, and ducked in through the doorway. He pulled off his sodden cloak and fell down in front of the fire to dry himself. Great clouds of steam rose from his clothes, and he drew up his knees and held them close to his body with arms that dripped moisture. It was supposed to be summer, or so the birds told him. So where had the sun gone? What did it mean?

A shadow fell over him and Edgar turned to see Gyrrth, a thegn of immense stature, filling the doorway. Almost as large as Edgar’s father, Hereward, he grunted when he saw Edgar, and stepped inside. He kicked Edgar’s discarded cloak. “We must go,” he said simply.

Edgar watched him move over to the far corner, where he rooted around amongst various objects stacked up there. Edgar coughed. “Go? Go where?”

“King Harold has called a general muster of all the fyrrd. News has come of an invasion, in the far north.” He swung round, hefting in his great hands a large, round shield together with two sturdy looking spears. “We are to assemble over at Sparrow Hawk Hill, then march across to London.”

Without warning, Gyrrth threw a spear sideways towards Edgar, who shot out his hand and caught it around the thick shaft. Gyrrth grunted, impressed. “You’ll do,” he said, voice flat, without emotion.

Edgar turned the weapon and studied the metal point. “My father always said that when I first saw battle, he would give me a sword.”

“Well, your father’s not here. He went north at least two moons ago, when the reports came about the Norse bringing their black ships back to our land. Your father left with a group of housecarles to meet up with Lord Morcar to face those pagan scum. We’ve heard nothing since.”

“I know.” Edgar did not want his voice to betray any of the emotions that rumbled away inside. His father’s departure had been sudden, unexpected, and he’d left no word of where he was going, or why. Edgar suspected that something of enormous importance had occurred somewhere, but this was only a guess. He had no evidence to back it up, until now. Gyrrth’s announcement suggested events were moving fast. “Are we going to the north too, to find my father?”

Gyrrth hawked and spat into the hard-packed earthen floor. “Your father ... no one knows what has happened, whether battle has been joined, lost or won. All we know is that the Norse are here. On our land.”

“When must we leave?”

“Now.” Gyrrth scooped up Edgar’s cloak and tossed it to him. Edgar caught it and held it out before the fire. “Unless this cursed rain stops, our march will be longer still. I will try to acquire a horse, but I doubt if there will be any. Stowell had a pony, but he will use that for himself.”

“Stowell is also going?”

Gyrrth gave the boy a measured look. “I told you, this is a general muster. Every man must be ready.”

Edgar nodded, gathered the cloak over his still soaking shirt and shivered. “How far do we have to go?”

“That is as much a mystery to me as to where all this rain comes from! All I know is that today we go to Sparrow Hawk Hill and there we will receive our instructions. Rumour has it that the king and his brothers will be there, together with many lords and earls of England, and their Housecarles.”

“It’s serious then.”

“Boy,” Gyrrth failed to keep the impatience from his voice. “It is more than serious – it is Vikings. The enemies of our blood.”

Edgar watched the great man disappear outside and turned to stare at the fire. So, the king himself, Harold Godwinson, lord of all he surveyed, was come to call the people to arms. The Vikings, the Norse had returned. Why now? What force, what ambition had spurred them on, he wondered. It was common knowledge that for longer than Edgar had been alive, the Norsemen were no longer the power they once had been. He knew the stories, had listened to the elders talking around the campfires at night, tales of raids, terror and death. How an ancient king, Alfred, had tamed them and how a Viking had once sat on the throne of England: Cnut. The stories described him as a great man. But a confessor had restored the land to Saxon blood, and Godwinson gave it strength. And now, they were back, back to reclaim what they believed was theirs.

This land.

He dragged a hand over his face; a face still wet from the rain, and realized he was desperately tired. The call made, battle lines drawn across the dirt, he had no choice but to comply. Edgar stared into the flames and wondered what manner of man could bring the Norse back to greatness? A man who had to be great himself.

A man unlike any other.