The Lost Tales of Mercia (22 page)

He remained there a long while, and did not
move again until the sun had nearly fallen.

*

The next day, everyone treated him
strangely.

At first, he thought he might be imagining
it. He
felt
different, first of all. When he woke up, he was
light on his feet, his frown lifted, his eyes bright. The memories
of his kiss with Tosti were fresh in his mind, and the taint of
Tosti’s sudden departure seemed to have vanished overnight. Tosti
had simply been overwhelmed and confused. If he had treated the
incident casually, it would have given the event less meaning. No:
his running away had been a good thing, and given them both a
chance to absorb what happened.

He knew that Tosti enjoyed it as much as he
had. That had been clear enough when their hips brushed.

But during the day meal, when he went to
find Tosti in the main hall, a strange thing occurred.

Tosti ignored him.

While Canute approached, Tosti sat with a
group of boys, laughing and snickering to one another. Canute
wondered what the joke might be, and hoped for once he might find
out and laugh along with them. But as soon as he stopped to take
his seat, everyone grew quiet, and no one moved over for him.

Canute looked to Tosti for an answer, but
Tosti would not return his glance. In fact, no one would look at
him at all.

“Tosti?” he said. His voice sounded strained
and cracked in his own ears, and he forced a swallow down his
throat.

Tosti’s eyes darted to Canute’s, only for a
second, then his face flushed and he looked away again. “No room
here, Canute.”

“I see.” Canute gritted his teeth, but chose
to quell his anger. Tosti felt uncomfortable, and that was
understandable enough. “This isn’t my place among you, anyway,” he
recovered.

But as he turned and walked away, he heard
the boys behind him laughing again. He paused and considered
turning to face them, but decided against it, gripping his plate
fiercely and continuing to his habitual spot on the bench.

His normal coterie sat in its usual place.
Their eyes flicked to him, then back to their plates. Soon no one
was looking at him at all.

Canute lingered on his feet, struggling not
to fume. Once again, he wondered if he imagined the strangeness of
their behavior. Normally at a meal, he got his food, sat down, and
ate without paying much attention to anyone. He would simply listen
in on their conversations, interrupt when he had something to say,
and answer any raised questions. Perhaps
he
was the one
acting strangely.

Instinctively this possibility disturbed
him, but he chose instead to embrace it. “Good morning everyone,”
he said.

They all shifted uncertainly in their seats.
A few muttered “Good morning” back to him. Then an even heavier
silence resumed. Refusing to be perturbed, Canute sat down and fell
onto his meal with a smile.

A long while passed and he got lost in his
thoughts, nearly forgetting the looming presence of his comrades.
But eventually one dared address him.

“Canute. Psst. Hey.”

Snapped out of his reverie, Canute responded
with a glare, then tried to soften his own expression. “Yes, what
is it?”

“I asked if you had a good time yesterday
with Tosti.”

“Yes. “ Canute studied the faces around him,
which were suddenly much too attentive. He pulled off some fish
meat with his teeth and chewed roughly. “Yes I did.”

The men exchanged glances with one another.
Some seemed to be repressing smirks.

“Is there something else you’d like to ask?”
Canute spat out a splintered bone.

“Yeah.” The young man took a moment to
gather up his courage, while the other aspiring Jomsvikings
encouraged him with their eager stares. “Who’s the girl? You or
him?”

Canute froze. Laughter roared around him,
but not so loudly as the blood in his ears. He hadn’t expected
this, and he did not like it at all. The first problem was how
everyone knew in the first place. They would only know if Tosti had
told them himself. And why would he do that? Canute doubted it
would be due to pride, based on the behavior he’d already
exhibited. The second problem was that everyone
did
know,
and if word got around, Sweyn or Thorkell—or both—would be very
displeased. Sweyn would consider it sinful. The Christian God did
not allow men to be with other men. Thorkell simply … wouldn’t like
it. But there was yet a third problem, and that was the response of
these men to the rumor. Some Jomsvikings took pride in taking other
men. Others found it womanly. But these men clearly found the
rumors laughably embarrassing, and even worse, they’d grown cocky
enough to flaunt such feelings in front of him.

The laughter grew louder, and Canute
struggled to contain his temper. Thorkell always told him to keep a
cool head. The longer Thorkell was away, the more difficult that
practice became. But he endured, and in fact he lowered his voice,
so that when he spoke everyone grew quiet in order to hear him.

“I’ll buy you a dress,” he whispered, “and
show you.”

The insubordinate Dane gaped and flushed.
Some of the men guffawed; a few chuckled uncertainly. But the
others only looked upset.

Canute stuffed the last of his food down his
mouth, though he had lost his appetite, and left as quickly as he
could. He tried to shake the strange morning from his memory, but
throughout the day, similar circumstances pestered him. After the
meal he supervised a group of Jomsvikings in their practice of
battle advances, and though they continued to obey his instruction,
they seemed to take longer than usual, and a gleam of rebellion
pervaded their eyes.

As soon as he could, Canute sought out Tosti
again. He needed to confront Tosti about how the men treated him
today, but also ... he simply wanted to see him again, and
preferably alone.

He could not find Tosti anywhere. He looked
until he had no choice but to start asking around, ignoring the
knowing smirks on his inferiors’ faces as well as he could.

“He went hunting with a few others,” someone
told him at last.

Canute felt both disappointed and angry, as
if Tosti avoided him on purpose. And perhaps he did.

By the time the day was over and everyone
regrouped in the main hall for the night meal, Canute’s mood had
spoiled completely. A simmering temper, even more foul than usual,
had replaced the good spirits he woke up with. His head ached from
clenching his teeth and chewing violently on his food; he became
glad that no one would talk to him, for he felt that one more sly
word would send him toppling over the edge.

Then Tosti returned.

He did not sit down to eat, even though he
entered the hall with a group of his friends, who did. Instead he
caught Canute’s eye from afar and cocked his head towards the exit.
Canute, who was already half-standing, threw down his scraps and
followed him out. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that
almost the entire hall was watching him. None of that seemed to
matter so much as seeing Tosti again.

Outside he slid to a stop, looking every
which way for the hasty fellow. He saw a trail in the grass and
hurled himself around the corner, hands curling into angry fists
before he caught sight of his prey.

“Canute, listen—”

Canute grabbed his shoulders and thrust him
against the wooden planks of the hall. He wouldn’t let Tosti run
away this time. Tosti grunted but lifted his hands in
surrender.

“
What
did you tell them?” cried
Canute, sounding more hurt than angry, which was not what he’d
intended.

“I told them ... what happened.”

A tremble weakened Canute’s grasp. His gaze
drew to Tosti’s plump lips, even though he should have been looking
Tosti in the eye, measuring his sincerity. “Why?”

“Don’t know. I wanted to hear what they ...
thought of it, I guess.”

Canute’s hands slipped from Tosti’s
shoulders, his grip becoming a light caress. He stepped closer, as
if to entrap Tosti with his own body. His voice lowered further.
“All that matters is that they respect you. Beyond that, you
shouldn’t care what they think.”

“Don’t
you?
”

Canute wanted to say “Of course not.” He
wanted to scoff and kiss Tosti again, to embrace him, to press
against him completely. Instead, he felt the presence of the
Jomsvikings nearby like the heat of a fire. He turned his head
slightly, and stiffened at the sight of dozens of them, lingering
near the exit of the main hall and shamelessly watching the two men
together.

Involuntarily, Canute drew away. And as soon
as he did, he flushed with shame. He had just demonstrated the
truth to Tosti, without ever saying a word.

When he looked to Tosti again, however, he
found the young Jomsviking’s face soft with empathy. “Canute.” He
grabbed Canute’s shoulder with a firm hand. “I want to show you
something.”

“Show me what?”

“Something … something that made me feel
better. See … I was a Christian, yesterday. I didn’t want to do
something forbidden. But I found something today … a sign from
our
gods.”

Canute frowned. He did not care for
surprises. “What
is
it?”

“You’ll see.”

The Viking prince looked uncertainly at
their growing crowd.

“Let them see, too,” said Tosti. “You will
be glad they did.”

This made him even more uneasy; but Tosti
reached out and clutched his hand, squeezing it gently where few
could see, and this gave Canute the strength to respond. “Very
well.”

Tosti grinned, his wiliness returning as his
hand slipped away again, and then he dashed into the dimming light.
“This way!” Struggling not to look too eager, Canute made after
him.

And behind him, several dozen Jomsvikings
followed after.

Tosti led him away past several shacks,
through various sparring and weaponry arenas, until they approached
one of the primary living lodges, in which most the men slept.
Canute hesitated. “What in Valhalla would be
here?
”

Tosti only paused at the entrance to wave
inward. “Come and see!”

“Don’t be stupid,” he growled, though Tosti
had already disappeared within the lodge. He realized he spoke to
no one but himself. Once again he sensed the large crowd behind him
like a cliff’s edge; one step back and he would fall into the
abyss. “Too late now,” he muttered.

He followed Tosti into the darkness of the
lodge.

The building smelled of sweat and dirty
blankets, as it usually did. His lips curled and he kept moving. He
thought that if Tosti was given the choice, surely he would want to
stay in more comfortable quarters, like Canute’s. Fortunately, the
lodge was mostly vacant of bodies right now—at least until Canute
and his followers arrived.

Tosti knelt down by what must have been his
own bed and rummaged through a pile of belongings next to it.
Canute struggled to repress his trembling. What on earth did Tosti
have to show him? For some reason, Canute dreaded finding out.

“Here!” cried Tosti, and held up a sack.
Only a small object seemed to occupy the sack—but that small object
was moving. Tosti grinned from ear to ear as the bag swayed in his
hand. “Close the doors!” he called.

Someone obeyed, trapping them all as
witnesses to whatever was about to occur.

When Tosti opened the sack and the black
bird flew out, Canute did not feel surprised. He did not feel much
of anything.

There, captured and released for Canute’s
own sake, was a raven.

His breath fled his body and left him
standing, transfixed, watching the dark wings flap. The raven’s
reach extended further than he had imagined; it seemed a tremendous
creature, almost monstrous, within the confines of the lodge. It
cast a sharp silhouette against the waning sunlight, trickling
weakly through the cracks of the walls, slicing at the brightness
like so many knives.

But the sound emitted suddenly from its
gullet was the most awesome, and terrifying, feature of all.

No one else in the room dared make a noise,
anyway; but even if they had all raised their voices at once, the
caws of the raven would have cut through the sound. It shrieked
with the agony of a magnificent creature contained for a day within
a woolen sack; it screamed with the rage of its injured pride; but
most of all, it cried out with the despair of a dying soul.

Its caws grew louder and louder, shriller
and more piercing, until it released the power of its wings in a
sudden burst. It sped through the air like a dark streak of
lightning, propelled towards the largest beam of light from the
wall.

But the raven struck the wood, its cry
stopped sickeningly short. The beast bounced back, drooped, and
plummeted to the floor.

Thud.

No one moved for a long while. No one said a
word. Canute delayed inhaling for breath until his head swam with
dizziness. Meanwhile his eyes remained locked on the black,
unmoving shape on the floor, like a blot in his vision blinding him
to everything else. Sensation returned to his limbs first,
trembling; then stretched to his fingertips, curling; then came
rushing out of his throat.

“
No!
” he cried.

He rushed to the crippled creature before he
even became aware of what he was doing; he pushed gawking men aside
in order to make his way to the beast. He swooped down to its side
and reached out, hands shaking, to grab it. He gasped as it jerked
against his palm in response.

He stood with the bird clutched to his
chest. He turned to everyone and grinned desperately at them. “No,
look—it’s still alive. See!”

He held out the raven’s body, which after a
long while, twitched again. This time the spasm was so violent the
creature slipped from his hands and back to the floor, where it
continued to thrash about in the throes of death.