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For four days they've been marching for Gainsborough -- the few men who've been there give their word that they're going the right way, but so far it doesn't seem like they've gotten anywhere but lost.
It's growing darker. Snow begins to fall as the line moves to a sluggish stop and the men disperse to make camp. With relief like the one that comes with lifting an aching foot off the ground they fall onto their backsides one by one, having lined up logs around their firepits to see them through the night. The skies here may be strangers to the northern lights, but the men almost all knew a childhood lived beneath their watch; it might be an old habit from that time that brings them all to stare at the horizon eagerly, sipping their mead and waiting for the beacons of home to appear.
Even Thorfinn falls into the trap, waiting for lights and colors that will never come. He feels like a dog pawing at an empty carcass, knowing that there's nothing but still having to check -- he swears he sees some flash of green out of place above the trees before Canute sits across from him and breaks his concentration.
The next in a long line of pretenses the prince has dropped, he didn't stop to brush off the dirt and snow for his royal ass before slumping down. It's strange -- like a cicada he'd shed everything he used to be all at once and emerged shining and golden all while nobody was looking. It used to be that he would wince at nothing: a rattle in the cart, a bird in the trees. But now he refuses to flinch at all as if on matter of principle alone (even when doing so would be wise; who wouldn't balk at Thorkell's meaty fist coming for their face? Thorfinn did).
His eyes are all brand new but just the same, tired, burdened, and they deign to watch Thorfinn from beneath evenly trimmed bangs. Some things can't change overnight. Thorfinn supposes it's the way of nature, or something -- everything great and strong was once harmless, after all. Even bears and wolves were all once cubs.
Maybe it's just his fault he mistook Canute for a rabbit this whole time.
Askeladd made no such mistake, having latched himself firmly in servitude to Prince Fancypants since the very beginning. Thorfinn mistook that too, but as simple power-grubbing; it wasn't as if Askeladd had ever been opposed to kissing ass to get by, and how many grifters got the opportunity to earn a royal's approval in their life? But one simple look at the new prince is enough proof, regrettably, that Askeladd isn't entirely full of shit when he says he can look into a man's soul by looking at his eyes. Maybe it takes one to tell one.
And if Askeladd says Canute deserves to be king and his father doesn't just because of their faces, well. Thorfinn's just gonna have to take his word for it.
Canute is still just looking at him, however, and although his patience for the prince lasts longer now (his survival instincts give him pause when he thinks to confront someone with eyes like that), Thorfinn has had enough.
"What?"
"Nothing," Canute says simply, and decides something else is more worthy of his gaze.
The men -- Thorkell's men, plus Atli and Thorgrim who somehow survived the coup, have already begun setting up tents and preparing for bed. Day four, it seems, is the day the march has finally gotten them all weary enough that they're ready to skip the usual drinking and partying in favor of much-needed rest. Thorfinn glances at the woods, but thinks better of it; he'd rather stay and finish the jerky in his pack than go hunting. He's seen enough of this countryside soaked in blood to last him a lifetime.
Thorkell himself is at the campfire next over, easily knocking back what would otherwise be a feast for 10 people. Of course he was the first to land on his ass, his men bringing his enormous chair and fawning over him like some monstrous queen bee -- Thorfinn lets his gaze linger on his new eyepatch, lets his great-uncle see him do it too, for more than a moment. Thorkell just flashes a huge smile and turns back to his worker bees. "Hey, Snorre! Do you still have that thing with the strings?"
"I have my lyre," one of the men calls out helpfully. Thorkell finds a stick on the ground and chucks it at him.
"Play a lyre in my camp, and I'll have you killed," he says, and a scattered cheer follows. Recently Thorfinn has learned that a lyre is an instrument, and a snobby rich man's instrument at that. Some man grown of nobility with too much time on his hands might be able to appreciate such a thing, might even find it worthwhile, but to men of the battlefield? It's just another shiny thing in a pile of treasure. Askeladd emerges from the woods in a clipped limp and collapses on the log beside him to groan along.
"Please tell me nobody is gonna play a lyre. Had to play one of those when I was a kid, and I swore if I saw one again I'd turn it into firewood."
The man who must be Snorre plucks a velvet bag off his back and delicately begins undoing the rope on it. It births a carved wooden thing the length of his arm, dramatically pear-shaped with three shining horsehair strings. It's beautiful and it looks like it's been polished recently in spite of the crack in its side. Accompanying it is a long piece of wood, slightly curved like a longbow with more horsehair pulled taut between the two ends.
"Yes, that," Thorkell sighs, "What a lovely sound it makes."
"I got it off some guy from the southern sea," Snorre explains, turning it so the paint along its broad face can be seen in the firelight. "It's called a rebec."
At Thorfinn's side Askeladd leans in, eyes bright -- of course he'd care once he found out it's valuable. "But can you play it?"
"Sort of," Snorre says, "But I'm better when I've had some mead."
"What a coincidence!" Thorkell cheers at his lowest volume, still a boom that spooks birds out of the trees, "I happen to have some right here. And I'll trade it for a song."
For being one of Thorkell's very own blood knights, Snorre seems the softer sort -- the sort to play an instrument -- and he nods his agreement silently. He gulps the mead all at once and gets to tuning, taking all the love and tenderness a parent gives a newborn just fiddling with the strange knobs at the very top of its slender neck. The fat end fits beneath his chin, and as he draws the bow along the strings Thorfinn notices a drop of blood still left behind on Snorre's cheek.
The sound that comes is low and sharp, carrying through the crisp winter's air like birdsong. Another note follows but not quickly, lethargic and flowing along in a soft crescendo for another moment before Askeladd groans, "Cut that out. Come now. Now isn't the time for sad tunes, is it?"
Thorfinn scoffs. "If now isn't the time, when is?" The men tried to betray them and all wound up dead -- not that the world is any worse off -- Askeladd's own legs are full of arrow wounds and even though he did try to stubbornly march along with the rest of them, the relief on his face was evident when he joined Thorfinn in the cart under Canute's orders. Bjorn, the only other survivor of their band, is lying prone in a different cart still bleeding from his gut. And only a fool would think that doesn't count him among the dead already.
A fool he must be, to want a happy tune at a time like this.
Askeladd elbows Thorfinn's broken arm, earning a wince and bared teeth, "I might be full of holes, but there's no need to pout over it. Play us a happy one, Snorre."
A nod, a press of the bow back to its rightful place; Snorre smiles as he draws the strings together again, and within four or five notes that smile is beginning to spread.
It's such a funny thing, how just a couple flicks of his wrist, a twist of his arm can make an entire company in one turn as jovial as they were depressed before. The damp quiet of encroaching night is fleeting now, and the newest tune reminds Thorfinn of rabbits leaping between patches of wildflowers in the spring.
"Better!" The more Askeladd drinks the louder he gets. With one swig he finishes what's left in his horn and rises -- he probably thinks nobody sees him shaking, but Thorfinn does. "Would the prince care to join me for a dance? It is the end of the world, after all."
Then there's just a flash of what used to be in Canute's face, bright blue eyes wide and taken aback for an instant before he hardens once more -- he takes the hand offered to him and stands as well. It bothers Thorfinn somewhere deep down to notice that he and Askeladd are the same height.
"So long as I don't have to dance in the woman's role," he says, with a smile and a sigh; it's almost as if the demand might be something borne of the past. Canute is the younger of two brothers, he recalls to himself, and wonders if that might have something to do with it.
"Anything for his majesty," Askeladd says, and shuffles backwards from the fire into the open space between camp circles and tents. Canute is wondering again, eyes a little wide when Askeladd yields to him and lets him lead the dance.
"You know 'majesty' is only reserved for the king," Thorkell calls -- he's left his fire and come to take Askeladd's spot beside him. Thorfinn grumbles.
"I know," Askeladd says.
They keep stepping in time to the tug of the strings, Canute lingering on the balls of his feet as if he's truly enjoying it. One, two, they bounce rhythm between them like they bounce quips, wit, exchanges they both, now, are so quick with -- even when Thorfinn can only watch dumbly because, words… he's never been so good with words.
But in spite of where they are and who they are and what they're doing, en route to Gainsborough to overthrow Sweyn Forkbeard, two fools dancing (and the older and certainly more masculine of the two happily taking the woman's place), they seem so at peace. They both seem so sure they're in their rightful places, making circles of footprints in English snow.
Canute has his eyebrow raised, but he's still smiling, "You're certainly happy, for someone who thinks the world is ending."
"So long as the moon is still in the sky, your majesty," Askeladd speaks like he knew what Canute would say from the start, like it's all rehearsed and he knows his lines better than any of the other actors in this play, "I can say that at this moment all is well."
How strange, Thorfinn thinks. Askeladd is supposed to be just as, if not more suited to bear the crown than Canute. The prince said as much himself. He has a bloodline behind him -- something he doesn't give a damn about, but apparently most people do -- and he led their merry band well for years (until, well. Recently). But here he is, yielding his time and his steps and his place to the teenager before him, taking the place of a girl so Canute can practice his dancing.
"And what sort of world do I inherit, then," Canute says, "What shall I do, as the king of a moribund Europe?"
"You can only do your best, your majesty. Simply keep a cool head. You have a leader's heart; you'll know what to do."
Politely the tune slows and bows out, and the union of their dance breaks. Thorfinn has been watching but doesn't know enough about this to know who's supposed to be the girl. Both kings, his brain helpfully supplies.
Canute looks at him again, those eyes always cast down like eternally from a palace window looking upon filth and he sighs, "But what will we do with your boy, Askeladd?"
A mark blooms on his cheek, pink as the flesh tears open and then oozing red in long lines down his chin.
"Give him a break," Askeladd says, "I'm the one who made him this way, your majesty. Punish me in his stead."
Fool, Thorfinn thinks but does not say. You could tell him, order him, cicadas always return to dirt and if the real king ordered him down Canute would have no choice but to obey --
Right?
-- Askeladd is gone. Into the snow he's simply vanished, no footprints, no blood. Not even a remnant of the tune he last danced to. Thorfinn leaps to his feet.
His hands are still reaching for his daggers when the ground rises up and hits him. He's face-first in it now, a mouth full of snow and dirt clawing in, trying to crowd down his throat, trying to drown him.
Canute kneels before him. Again there is the tired boy who jumped at the sound of owl hoots -- who looked at him in awe once -- and his eyes are filled with sorrow while the cut on his face just bleeds and bleeds. "I'm sorry," he says, but not to Thorfinn, "This is the best I can do for him." His hand is running through shaggy unkempt hair, and though he tries to move away he can't, his body held fast where it is.
"If he were king, you'd have been the prince, I suppose," he says, softly to himself. Thorfinn is filled with the need to know what his blood would feel like, tasted off the broad end of his blade. "But, the world you inherited would still be just as doomed… perhaps it's better this way."
He awakes on a slave ship, one packed fish lying shoulder to shoulder in a long straight line of others. There's a hole in the roof and it's leaking icy sea spray onto them drop by drop by drop.
The best Canute could do was this: stand in the empty space between two dead kings, the scion to Ragnarok and northern Europe's rotting corpse. Apologize to him when none of his guards were in earshot, and stay to listen to the responding sobs as penance.
Watch Thorfinn leave in chains, his hands still bloody.
Outside, it's growing darker. Sea snow begins to fall.