Page 84 of Heart of Winter
The prisoner shrank back, baring his teeth, whining in his throat like a cowed dog.
Erik pulled the torch back a fraction. “Why are you here?”
“You can tell him now,” Bjorn said, “or I can break every one of your fingers first.”
The boy’s nostrils flared as he breathed harshly a moment, the tension in him building – and then the words came tumbling out all at once, furious, harsh with an accent much stronger than that of anyone here in Aeres. “I’m here because you’re a traitor!” he hissed. “Themighty Erik Frodeson,King of Aeretoll – a traitor to the whole of the North! To your own ancestors!”
“Traitor?” Oliver blurted. He glanced at Bjorn and Erik, but both looked baffled. “A traitor how?”
He half-expected to be reprimanded for interfering, but he wasn’t. And the boy’s wild gaze rolled toward him and he sneered.
“Southerner,” he said like the worst sort of curse. To Erik: “You scheme with the South – you promise them our lands, our birthright, in exchange for silk, and honey, and pretty places to put your cocks.” The last was said with a hateful glance toward Oliver.
Erik stabbed the torch at his face, and the boy’s smirk disappeared as he flattened himself back against the wall. “Did your leader send you here to spy on us? Or are you just an enterprising little fucker?”
He refused to answer.
Erik stood, expression closed-off, and left the cell.
Oliver looked to Bjorn, who nodded and waved him out as well.
In the hallway, the guard locked the cell, and took the torch.
“Don’t feed him ‘til morning,” Erik instructed. “I’ll send someone down with a tray to question him.”
“Yes, your majesty.”
Erik didn’t speak again until they were out of the dungeon and back into the main tunnel. His expression, bathed in the light of the cressets, was tense and set. “We can’t talk here,” he cautioned.
Which was how Oliver found himself occupying an armchair in Erik’s study, while Erik paced back and forth in front of the fire, fiddling with the rings on his long fingers, and Birger and Bjorn stood with hands braced on the backs of their respective chairs. Oliver had a cup of wine in one hand, and a distinct feeling that he didn’t belong in this conversation, but he wasn’t going to get up and leave until someone made him.
He also wasn’t going to make more eye contact with Bjorn than he had to, given what the man had seen less than an hour ago.
“The Beserkirs have no way of knowing about our dealings with Drakewell,” Birger said, troubled. “Not unless someone here is passing information along to them.”
“My point exactly,” Erik muttered, and kept pacing.
“It’s no business of theirs regardless,” Bjorn said. His jaw was clenched so tight it left his beard bristling. He had the distinct look of a man who would enjoy bashing heads at the moment.
“The Beserkirs,” Birger said, addressing Oliver, “have long held the territory north of the Wolf Mountains.”
“They’ve been spreading,” Bjorn grumbled. “Crawling down south, like a disease.”
“They are the wildest and most martial of the Northern clans,” Birger continued. “They worship no god but war, and when they go raiding, they’re just as likely to kill the women as rape them. They plunder riches only so that they may take trophies; they can’t be reasoned with, or conduct any sort of real business.”
“Then why would they care what Aeretoll does?” Oliver asked.
“They think we’ve gone too soft, here on the coast. That we have forsaken our heritage as Northmen,” Erik said.
The Wall Between Worlds, Oliver remembered.
Birger said, “The enmity between Beserkir and Úlfheðnar runs old and deep.”
“And the royal family is descended of Úlfheðnar lords.”
“Aye, just so. The bear-shirts have long anticipated a day when Aeretoll would march on them in force, and claim their lands, and press them into servitude – the same way they treat their own enemies. If they think we’ve become even cozier with the South, they could well be thinking a united army is headed their way – and they can’t ever face us head-on in proper battle.”
“It’s nothing but raids and assassinations for them,” Bjorn said, disgusted.
