Page 31 of Haakon's Fate
“Wolf, his three sons and I went to find the trader and his son,” he started, “but they weren’t at home. The daughter, a rather sour woman in her thirties, refused to tell us where they were. We eventually found them at the harbor, trying to sell a dozen children to the departing Dane merchants. Some of the children were little more than babes, if you’ll believe it.”
“Lord.” Elstan shook his head, disgust twisting his mouth in a grimace. “You would have thought they had learned their lesson after you warned them last time.”
“You would.”
Normal human beings would have. But these men, as Haakon had just established, had been vermin.
“The confrontation soon turned ugly. Half a dozen merchants, who had already purchased their slaves, refused to let them go and got involved in the fight. Two of the older boys, aged fifteen or sixteen, joined forces with us while the rest took the smallest children to safety. We won but it was a close thing.”
He didn’t need to give any more detail. The man didn’t need to be told that Steinar had almost been killed, that one of the Danes had died coughing up blood or that the slave trader’s son had been felled by two simultaneous sword strikes.
“The two youths who helped told us they had been abused by the trader’s daughter while they waited to be sold, the woman we had seen earlier. We were all aghast, as you can imagine. Of course we could never have killed a woman, but had we known what she had done at the time, we would…”
He shook his head. They would have found a way to make her pay. He and Wolf had returned to the house while the others had taken Steinar back home, only to be told by the two young women she kept as her personal slaves that she had fled, anticipating the result of the punitive expedition.
“Don’t worry. I will track the woman down,” Elstan told him grimly. The assurance did little to ease Haakon’s fury.
“The problem is, these two men are now out of action, but how many more are there?”
“I know.” His friend sounded just as defeated. “Since my election, I’ve seen more proof of human depravity and violence than I care to think. For every criminal that gets punished, twenty more are allowed to walk away free. Knowing that is a heavy burden to carry. I will be glad to relinquish it to my successor in the winter, even if I worry he might not be as firm or efficient as could be wished.”
Haakon understood the man’s dilemma and he couldn’t help but deplore the fact that the reeve would soon be replaced. No man would do a better job. Elstan was a strong, capable and honest man, who was not afraid of hard work and didn’t let anything stand in the way of justice, least of all prejudice. With him, Saxons, Norsemen and Normans were all treated equally. He hoped the next man to take on the job would be as fair and reasonable, since good relations between them and the local Saxons were vital to the community’s comfort.
“Are you not considering being re-elected?” Haakon asked. This might be the best solution. Thanks to his measured and serious approach, he had no doubt garnered enough support during his time as reeve to guarantee another success.
“No.” A sigh. “I would consider it, were it not for Gytha.”
Gytha? What did she have to do with this? Surely she wouldn’t begrudge him the decision to carry on as reeve? On the contrary, it seemed to him that she was proud of her father’s achievements and enjoyed helping him. It was unlikely she would stand in his way if he decided to prolong his tenure.
“What do you mean?”
“When I first considered taking on the role of reeve, she was eighteen, and had just started to see a young man from the other side of town called Theodebert.”
Haakon’s jaw tightened. This was the last thing he had expected to hear and he didn’t know what to make of the declaration. He adjusted his position on the chair. Did he want to hear about Gytha’s sweetheart? No, he bloody well did not. But he could not stop Elstan now, could he, not when he’d asked for an explanation.
There was no other option. He would have to sit there and listen to the tale of Gytha and another man. More importantly, he would have to do his best not to imagine her in the arms of this Saxon, whom he imagined as frightful as thedraugrsofhis mother’s stories, these undead, rotting creatures roaming the land of the living.
“Theodebert was her first love, but he was slightly older than she was and didn’t seem as keen as her. Nevertheless, my wife and I didn’t think it wise to say anything. Youth must be allowed to run its course and we trusted Gytha would soon come to see he was not the man for her. What harm was there in letting her see for herself where this first experience would lead?”
“Mm.” Haakon found himself nodding when privately he thought that the man was a fool for not valuing the treasure he’d found in Gytha and her parents irresponsible for not warning him against the foul, decayingdraugr.
“The day after I announced would stand for election Theodebert asked her to marry him. She was delighted and never thought to see a link between the two. Neither did we, frankly, until he retracted his offer a week later when I lost to another candidate by the name of Æthelbald.”
“Yes. That would have made it quite obvious he was only interested in an alliance with a powerful man’s daughter,” Haakon said through gritted teeth. If Theodebert didn’t really care for Gytha as a person, why had she stayed with her? Mm, perhaps it was better not to wonder why, for fear of doing exactly what he had vowed not to do and imagine the two of them in bed together. Because there was no doubt that the man had stayed for sexual gratification. “But wait, did you say you lost the election?”
Yet he was now reeve. How was that possible?
“Yes. Two days after the election, Æthelbald was found dead in his house, stabbed. Evidently, he had made enemies who did not wish to be punished now that he was reeve. I offered to find out who his killer was and when I did, was given the position in his stead. It had been a close vote anyway.”
Now that he mentioned it, Haakon seemed to remember Wolf telling him something to that effect.
“I bet Theodebert was mightily displeased to see he had missed the opportunity to join a powerful family,” Haakon sneered. It was hard to feel sorry for the man.
“Not at all. The next day, he was back with a gift of precious cloth and a second offer of marriage for Gytha, saying he had been too hasty and made the mistake of his life. This time my wife and I knew we would tell her what we thought of him and his motives as soon as he left. We shouldn’t have worried she would be taken in by his duplicity, though. She was so incensed at his presumption that she gave him the tongue lashing of his life.” Elstan gave a laugh tinged with tenderness. “You don’t know my daughter very well and she can appear quite meek, but let me tell you, she hides quite a fiery nature.”
Oh, Haakon knew that. He had never thought her a particularly timid creature, however. She certainly wasn’t above haranguing potentially dangerous criminals when they caused her to drop her embroidery into the mud—or kiss lust-filled, coarse Norsemen who talked about impaling her on their cocks.
Not that he could tell her father that, of course.
