leave), Vikar warned him, “Jesting aside, Cnut, be careful. One of these days your excesses are going to be your downfall.”
“Not one of these days. Now,” Cnut proclaimed jovially as he crooked a chubby forefinger at Inga, a passing chambermaid with a bosom not unlike the figurehead of his favorite longship, Sea Nymph. “Wait for me in the bed furs,” he called out to her. “I plan to fall down with you for a bit of bedplay.”
Vikar, Trond, and Harek just shook their heads at him, as if he were a hopeless case.
Cnut did not care.
But Vikar’s words came back to haunt Cnut several months later when he was riding Hugo, one of his two war horses, across his vast estate. A normal-size palfrey could not handle his weight; he would squash it like an oatcake. Besides, his long legs dragged on the ground. So he had purchased two Percherons from Le Perche, a province north of Norsemandy in the Franklands known for breeding the huge beasts. They’d cost him a fortune.
But even with the sturdy destrier and his well-padded arse, not to mention the warm, sunny weather, Cnut was ready to return to the keep for a midday repast. Most Vikings had only two meals a day. The first, dagmál or “day-meal,” breaking of fast, was held two hours after morning work was started, and the second, náttmál or “night meal.” was held in the evening when the day’s work was completed. But Cnut needed a midday meal, as well. And right now, a long draught of mead and an afternoon nap would not come amiss. But he could not go back yet. His steward, Finngeir the Frugal (whom he was coming to regard as Finn the Bothersome Worrier), insisted that he see the extent of the dry season on the Hoggstead cotters’ lands.
Ho-hum. Cnut didn’t even bother to stifle his yawn.
“Even in the best of times, the gods have not blessed the Norselands with much arable land, being too mountainous and rocky. Why else would we go a-Viking but to settle new, more fertile lands?”
“And women,” Cnut muttered. “Fertile or not.”
Finn ignored his sarcasm and went on. Endlessly. “One year of bad crops is crippling, but two years, and it will be a disaster, I tell you. Look at the fields. The grains are half as high as they should be by this time of year. If it does not rain soon—”
Blather, blather, blather. I should have brought a horn of ale with me. And an oatcake, or five. Cnut did not like Finn’s lecturing tone, but Finn was a good and loyal subject, and Cnut would hate the thought of replacing him. So Cnut bit back a snide retort. “What would you have me do? A rain dance? I can scarce walk, let alone dance. Ha, ha, ha.”
Finn did not smile.
The humorless wretch.
“Dost think I have a magic wand to open the clouds? The only wand I have is betwixt my legs. Ha, ha, ha.”
No reaction, except for a continuing frown, and a resumption of his tirade. “You must forgive the taxes for this year. Then you must open your storerooms to feed the masses. That is what you must do.”
“Are you barmy? I cannot do that! I need the taxes for upkeep of my household and to maintain a fighting troop of housecarls. As for my giving away foodstuffs, forget about that, too. Last harvest did not nearly fill my oat and barley bins. Nay, ’tis impossible!”
“There is more. Look about you, my jarl. Notice how the people regard you. You will have an uprising on your own lands, if you are not careful.”
“What? Where? I do not know—” Cnut’s words cut off as he glanced to his right and left, passing through a narrow lane that traversed through his crofters’ huts. Here and there, he saw men leaning on rakes or hauling manure to the fields. They were gaunt-faced and grimy, glaring at him through angry eyes. One man even spat on the ground, narrowly missing Hugo’s hoof. And the women were no better, raising their skinny children up for him to see.
“That horse would feed a family of five for a month,” one toothless old graybeard yelled.
His wife—Cnut assumed it was his wife, being equally aged and toothless—cackled and said, “Forget that. If the master skipped one meal a month, the whole village could feast.”
Many of those standing about laughed.
Cnut did not.
Good thing they did not know how many mancuses it had taken to