The Eighth Lost Tale of Mercia: Canute the Viking (3 page)

Canute sighed. He could not go back on his
word now. “When I was born, a runewoman saw a raven perch on the
roof of our lodge. The raven stayed there until the moment I came
out of my mother’s womb and started crying. Then ... it flew away.”
He grew quiet again.

“So?” Tosti pressed.

“So ... my mother took it as a sign that I
was chosen by Odin to become very powerful, even more powerful than
my brother Harald. Father, however ...” He stopped walking,
grimacing as if his knee was in pain and this was reason enough to
catch some respite. He went over to a tree and leaned against it,
the bark massaging the bare skin of his back. Tosti propped his
elbow against the trunk and stared at him expectantly.

“Sweyn believes in Jesus now,” the other
offered.

Canute made a noncommittal grunt. His father
claimed to be a Christian, but Canute wondered if he only acted as
one for political convenience. “He said that if the raven was truly
Odin, then Odin chose to abandon me.”

“And what do you think?”

Canute turned away, feeling his stomach churn
within him. Tosti’s granite-like gaze suddenly seemed hard to
endure. “I think it means nothing.”

“Then why do you keep looking at the
sky?”

“Because ...” His chest ached as he took a
deep breath. “That is the strangest part. I’ve never seen a raven
in my life.”

“What?”

The surprise in Tosti’s voice stung. Canute
scowled at him. “From a very far distance, perhaps. But never close
by. It is as if they are always flying away from me.”

Tosti was quiet a moment, then he chuckled
softly. Once he started chuckling, something seemed to release
within him, and he burst out laughing.

Canute watched him with a curious expression.
“Do you find the gods amusing?”

“Sure,” he said gleefully. “Don’t you?”

The Viking prince considered a moment. “I
think the gods are very real. And I think they are no laughing
matter.”

At last, Tosti stopped laughing. “So you’re
not Christian?”

“I’m not sure yet. The Christian God seems
real to me, as well.” He looked up at the sky, its hues shifting to
red with the setting sun. “It seems to me that all the gods are
fighting now, and Jehova will be the victor.”

Tosti’s face held a strange expression, torn
between grimness and the lingering urge to laugh. Canute turned to
face him, and stared at him long and hard.

“The strongest god will be my God. It is as
simple as that.”

The look on Tosti’s face changed again, this
time into something completely new. His eyes darted from one
section of Canute’s face to the next, restless, searching. He
leaned closer.

Canute pushed himself from the tree and
stepped forward. Tosti glided back slightly, swaying in his usual
graceful way, dancing with a moment of hesitation. Then he grew
very still. Canute moved closer, holding Tosti’s eyes with his own.
Tosti breathed quickly, his chest rising and falling rapidly with
the strain, his thick lips parting. Canute reached out and put his
hand against Tosti’s chest, pressing until he felt the racing beat
of Tosti’s heart against his palm. Tosti trembled, and Canute
feared that he might flee. He slid his hand up, around Tosti’s
neck, and gripped it tightly.

Then he pulled Tosti close and kissed
him.

At first Tosti went completely still, his
body so stiff it seemed that all the water within him had frozen to
ice. But Canute only pulled him closer, gripping him until he
melted. Tosti’s arms folded around Canute, his braids tickling
Canute’s chest, his thigh sliding along Canute’s.

Their hips locked, only for a moment; then
Tosti jumped away again.

Canute felt dizzy, his breath gone as if
Tosti had taken it with him. His eyes swam, his hands searched, but
Tosti only drew further away.

“Hey … hey!”

Tosti turned and ran.

“
Tosti!
”

The young Jomsviking only ran faster.

Canute fell back, his raw shoulder colliding
with the tree and knocking the breath back into his body. A tremor
wracked him, and he yelled with rage.

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 trembled 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.