Chapter One

Herning coughed behind his hand. He had woken that morning with a splitting headache, and all he wanted at that moment was to go home where his wife, Margret, could fuss over him and cushion the pounding in his skull with hot compresses and sweet words. He was not very excited about spending the day dancing attendance on the king's brother, high and powerful though Prince Feng might be. Herning was a man who liked his comforts when he could get them. As lord of the city of Struer in the land of Denmark, ruled by his sovereign majesty King Horwethil, he had a right to them.

He rubbed his head and squinted at Feng. King Horwethil was a handsome man in the prime of his middle years, who walked with power in even the swing of his arms. A pity that his brother's not so handsome, thought Herning, surveying the short Feng. The prince's vulpine eyes raked the land from where he stood on the battlements, roving, prowling in a way that made the hair on the back of Herning's neck stand up. Herning did not like Feng, and neither did Margret. "A snake," she'd once called the king's brother when safely out of earshot, "coiled around the king's heart." The description came to Herning's mind now, and he shivered in the cold air.

Feng turned to look at him, his face pinched by the cold of mid-December. "Lord Herning," he called, "come here." Herning obeyed, forcing his frozen feet to carry him next to his prince. "Look down there," Feng ordered, pointing. Herning followed Feng's finger and saw a slight, slender figure, crowned by a glorious mane of flame-red hair, walking slowly among the dead plants of what was the king's garden in the spring and summer. The figure was swathed in a thick woolen cloak richly embroidered at neck and hem, and moved with quiet grace and dignity.

"My lord?" Herning asked, confused. "It's Queen Gerutha."

Feng expelled a sigh, his breath a visible cloud in the chill. "Aye," he said. "Queen Gerutha."

Herning looked sharply at Feng, his eyes narrowing. He would have had to be a fool to miss the naked longing in Feng's tone, the way his voice caressed the queen's name, and Herning was no fool. Is that your game, my lord? he wondered. Is it for love of the queen that you keep away from your brother, that you drag us all to the battlements when the king reads in his library? He looked back at the queen. Gerutha was Norwegian, a princess of unearthly beauty and nobility, given to King Horwethil as a dynastic bride – but Horwethil had been a young man then, and Gerutha his age, and love had quickly blossomed between the powerful king of Denmark and the ethereal Norwegian princess. Herning could well imagine Feng's despair if he loved Gerutha.

Then Feng turned abruptly away from the battlements, his cloak whipping around him with the sudden movement. "My lord?" Herning asked as Feng strode silently back into the castle, not giving so much as a backward glance to his retinue of noblemen. Groaning and wishing his headache at least would leave him alone, Herning pulled his own cloak around him and followed the prince. He could hear Feng's retinue follow him. Herning smiled in satisfaction, for he thought he could guess Feng's game. He was going to confront Gerutha while she was alone, make her try to deceive the king. Aye, you play your hand, my lord, thought Herning, and I will counter it with mine, and with your retinue as my witnesses. Lay a hand on the queen without her consent, and I will protect her with my life.

But to Herning's confusion, it was not the door outside that Feng made for. Rather, it was the corridor that wound deeper within the castle, that would take Feng to the very heart of the keep. Not Gerutha? Herning thought. Who, then?

Feng gave no sign that he knew that his train of men were following him. He simply strode ahead. Behind him, Herning saw Feng's hand stray to his sword hilt, belted at his side, and he felt unconsciously for his own blade. What is he doing? Where is he going?

Herning realized what was happening when Feng reached the door of Horwethil's library. Oh, Lord, Herning thought, please, Lord, no, don't make him that foolhardy!

Feng pushed open the door, his hands open and empty at his sides. Horwethil looked up from the book he had been reading. "Feng," he said, and shut the book. From where he was, hurrying down the hall after Feng, Herning could see that the leather cover was beautifully embossed with gold leaf and chips of jewels. He could also see that Horwethil was on uneven ground, unsure how to behave before his recently estranged brother. Herning broke into a run, his feet pounding on the stones of the floor, desperately hoping that he had read Feng entirely wrong.

He had not. Horwethil was still unsure, still confused, when Feng reached down to his belt and ripped a small sharp dagger free of its sheath. Herning, almost at the library, saw the gleam of the blade and shouted – a warning, a cry of despair, a shriek of failure, he never knew – and flung himself at the door. Horwethil, a soldier despite his crown, reached to grab his own dagger out of its sheath at his waist. Feng, his thin face contorted with hatred and jealousy, stepped up close to his brother and buried his dagger up to the hilt in Horwethil's chest.

Horwethil made a sound, a choked, blood-thickened noise that would come back to haunt Herning's dreams all the rest of his life. Herning reached the library at last, too late, and clung to the door with shaking fingers. With horror in his eyes he watched his sovereign fall. Horwethil made a last, heartbreakingly brave attempt to avenge himself, tearing free his own dagger and trying to stab his brother. His face white and pinched with triumph, Feng coldly plucked the dagger from his brother's dying hand and turned it against its master, stabbing it too up to the hilt in the throat of the king. Herning choked on his own fear and disgust. Horwethil crumbled, falling to lie a supplicant at the feet of his brother. He jerked a few times, as if he was having a seizure, and then lay stiller than any man should lie.

Only then did Feng look up. His eyes were lit with a cold fire that Herning knew could and would consume him and his family if he stood against it. He thought of Margret, his wife, who hated and feared Feng only a little less than she did the Devil. He thought of his daughter, Olwa, who was all of three years old. He looked at Horwethil, stained with blood too red to look real. He looked at Feng, whose hands were as red as his brother's throat.

"Lord Herning," said Feng. It was a challenge, Herning knew that. He answered it in the only way he could.

He bowed his head. Bile rose to choke him, and he could not tear his eyes away from his freshly-killed king, but Margret's and Olwa's faces swam in his mind, twisted in a rictus of death identical to Horwethil's, and he could not bear the thought. He thought he could find it in him, somewhere, somehow, for their sakes, to bear the murderer Feng as king.

"Good," said Feng. Herning looked up. Feng's retinue had arrived. No fools they – they took in the grisly sight of Horwethil with two daggers in him, Feng's red hands, the scent of blood, the cold iron in Feng's eyes, and bowed. Herning longed to spit at the sight, but held back the impulse. He himself had done the same, to survive.

Feng reached down and tore a strip of cloth from Horwethil's tunic. Disdainfully he wiped his bloody hands on it and tossed it aside. "Someone must inform the queen of her husband's death," he said. "She will rejoice, be assured – my brother the late king has abused her for the past year." His eyes roamed the assortment of noblemen and lit upon Herning. "Lord Herning," he said, "I confer this honor upon you."

Herning bowed. The stench of blood filled his nostrils, and he nearly gagged. "My lord, I thank you," he said, and left.

He did not think, kept his mind carefully blank of images as he went at almost a run to the garden. He was grateful for the protection of his cloak when he went outside again. From far off he could see Gerutha – her red hair made her an easy beacon. Out of nowhere he remembered that that very morning, Horwethil had taken breakfast with the court and had tugged Gerutha's hair playfully. The tears that might have risen to his eyes froze at the cold of the day. He forced his mind blank again and made his way over the frozen ground to bow before the queen.

"Rise, Lord Herning," she said, smiling. The wind had colored her cheeks so that her whole face was like a rose in full bloom. "What news do you bring me?"

Herning straightened and found he could barely look Gerutha in the face. "The worst, my queen," he said softly. "Your husband is dead."

Gerutha stared at him in disbelief. "You lie," she said, the roses fading from her face. "He was hale as ever this morning."

"He was," Herning agreed, feeling his throat seize up. He must choose his words with care if his family was not to suffer from Horwethil's murder. "A most foul deed has torn him from Denmark and sent him to Heaven."

"I cannot believe you," Gerutha whispered, but her pale cheeks betrayed her. "It cannot be."

"It is," Herning confirmed. Gerutha turned eyes full of despairing, hopelessly disbelieving pain on him, and he broke under her beauty and her anguish and her fear. "My queen, it is true. Your husband's brother held the daggers that did it."

Gerutha screamed, a reflexive action that she stifled a moment later, clapping a hand over her own mouth and choking on her cry. The tears that had frozen in Herning's eyes burned hotter in Gerutha's – they spilled out and flooded her face. She wavered on her feet, and then sank in an eerie copy of Horwethil's death to the frozen earth.

Herning knelt beside her and took her small hands in his, chafing them and shaking her gently to bring her around. "Majesty!" he whispered urgently. "Majesty, wake up!" Eventually he saw her eyelids flutter, and she opened her eyes. "Oh, thank God!" Herning gasped.

She sat up carefully, pulling her dirt-stained cloak close around her. Her eyes were hollow. Herning could not help but think back to that morning – she had been so alive, so bright, so sparkling, that to see this pale, wan replica of her was heartbreaking. Damn you, Feng, he thought angrily, damn you and your anger and your jealousy to Hell! "What can I do?" Gerutha whispered. She sounded for all the world like Herning's own little Olwa, his beloved daughter, that his heart went out to her, and he put his arms around her and held her close.

"You must live," Herning whispered close to her ear, "so that when the time comes you can confront Feng with what he has done."

"I?" she asked bitterly. "I am a foreigner, and I am a woman. I will live, but there is nothing I can do to give him pause." She lay quiet in Herning's arms, but he could feel her slender body shake with suppressed sobs. Finally she gathered herself. "But there is one who can do something," she whispered. Suddenly Gerutha gripped Herning by the front of his tunic, her eyes desperate with hope. "Lord Herning, promise me. Go to my son. He is honor-bound to avenge his father's death. Swear to me that you will protect him."

"Whatever my protection is worth, he will have it," Herning answered, thinking bitterly of just how little his protection had meant to Horwethil.

"Thank you." Gerutha slumped again. "Now I can live." She made to stand, and Herning got to his feet and helped her up. She drew about her the nobility of a queen, wiping the tears from her face. Herning was stunned that he had forgotten that Gerutha was more than just a heartbroken woman. "Go to him now, Lord Herning," she said. "Go to Amleth."