Conqueror

XII

When Orm and Godgifu left the palace, it was evening. It had been cloudy for some days, but now the sky was clear, and a pale light filled the sky – the moon, perhaps.

'I grow sick of this place,' Orm said, his face tight. 'The stink of compromise. The hypocrisy. These fools who follow prophecies like gullible old women. And I am sick,' he said harshly, 'of your brother.'

'Well, I sympathise with that. What will you do?'

'I'll go back to Normandy. In training the English thegns' sons to fight I consider I have discharged my debt to Harold, and I tire of the disdain of these flabby men. At least with William you get a good clean war, and I am respected by his followers.' He studied her. 'Are you shocked that I'm thinking of joining the enemies of Harold?'

She looked into her heart. 'No. In fact,' she said slowly, coming to the decision even as she spoke, 'I'm thinking of going to join Tostig myself. My father was his thegn after all. I have a place there. Everything is too murky here. And I too would like to get away from my brother, after today.'

'So we are separating.'

'It's a year of war, I think. Not of love. When this is over, one way or the other-'

'We'll find each other.'

But she wondered if that could be true.

He turned, and in a moment was gone into the dark, narrow streets. She returned to her lodging-house, and prepared for bed alone.

In the middle of the night she was woken by Sihtric. He had received a new letter from Ibn Sharaf in al-Andalus. Sihtric brandished this before her, his face round in the spectral moonlight that filtered through the unglazed window. 'He has seen it,' he breathed. 'The comet. It has appeared in the southern skies of Iberia…'

Too impatient to light a lamp, he had her throw on a cloak, and they went outside to study the letter by the moon's glow.

'The comet was faint – and perhaps not visible from our latitude, or under our murky English skies. But it first appeared in March, just as the Menologium promised. It has come true! Now the empire of the north longs to be born-and Harold must do as I say.'

Godgifu felt chilled at this talk. 'You are arrogant, Sihtric. A priest who would command a king.'

Sihtric said, 'But even Harold is a mere tool to enable the fulfilment of the grand scheme of the Menologium.' His eyes were bright in the eerie light.

Not for the first time she wondered at the motives of the agent who was truly behind all this: the author of the Menologium, the Weaver. What kind of being was he, who dreamed of establishing an Aryan nation in the north?

And then she saw the King himself, standing by the wall of the church. Harold's tall figure was unmistakable, as he stood with close companions, a couple of housecarls and an archbishop or two, and peered up at the sky, revealed for the first time in days.

She looked up, the way they were looking. And her skin prickled with cold.

'Ah,' Sihtric breathed, staring at Harold. 'He looks every inch a king. See how the gold thread of his tunic glitters in the moonlight.'

Godgifu looked at Sihtric. In his grimy nightshirt, his tonsured hair tousled, he looked oddly vulnerable, much younger. 'You really are unworldly,' she said. 'You have obsessed over this comet all your life, and yet you don't even look up at the sky, do you? Sihtric, that isn't moonlight.'

Now he looked up, and saw a glowing silver cloud suspended in the sky, with tails like lengths of hair washing away from it. He gasped, and mumbled a prayer.

Godgifu explored her own emotions. For all Sihtric's elaborate interpretations she had never really believed in the Menologium. But with the comet in the sky, this was no longer just an intriguing game played out by an eccentric young priest. The prophecy's fundamental truth had been demonstrated. Everything was different now, she thought.

And while Lunden lay silent under the comet's unnatural light, to north and south fleets were being assembled, armies massed, vast forces stirring. She wondered if the Weaver was content.