Two Ravens by Cecelia Holland

side.”
    The king laughed. The game was well begun, and they turned their attention to it. There was no more talk of gods. Bjarni won the game. For that, the king gave him no gifts.
     
    AFTERWARD, on the stairs going down, Bjarni came on the Norse priest; he said, “Why do you let him speak such calumnies of your god through you?”
    “Ah, you horse-eating pagan,” the Norseman said. “It is your fault.”
    They went down together without speaking again. Then at the door the priest turned to Bjarni.
    “He is the king. Only a fool denies the king. You ought to remember that.”
    He left the tower ahead of Bjarni. They separated, going across the wide crowded yard in the rain.
     
    GIFU HAD TAKEN to straying around the city while Bjarni was at the king’s court. One evening she did not come back to the inn.
    He went to the reeking stableyard. Her horse was gone. In the late twilight, when the streets were thronged with people coming in from the fields outside the city, he climbed the hill to the Norman tower.
    At the back of the tower, above the midden, and far from the great door where the king went in, there was a pen where the city lawmen kept prisoners. Bjarni let himself through the gate. Above the reek of the midden, he smelled hot metal. Ahead, beside the pen, three men were standing at a little fire heating a brand.
    The pen was made of withies. Inside it half a dozen people stood linked arm to arm with rope. One groaned; another swore; a third wept; a fourth argued with someone who was not there. The fifth was Gifu.
    She saw him. She rushed toward him; the rope caught her. “Bear,” she cried. “Bear, they took my horse.”
    He drew his knife and cut her free. The three lawmen left the brand in the fire and strode toward him. One drew his sword. Bjarni took her by the hand and started toward the gate.
    In loud French the three men challenged him, blocking his way. The man with the sword wore a coat of iron links over his shoulders. Bjarni stood a head taller than the tallest of them.
    Gifu hugged his arm to her side. “They said I must have stolen the horse—tell them we got it honestly. Make them give me back my horse.”
    He looked around at the three men, ranged in a half-circle across his path. He clenched his fist. One by one their voices stilled, and their faces lengthened with doubt. The sword gleamed in the faint light from the fire. He stepped toward them, and the man with the sword backed away. One step behind, the others retreated after him. Bjarni led Gifu away around the tower.
     
    GIFU NAGGED HIM to get her horse back. He kept her close by him, for fear she would be taken again. He had tired of Lincoln and thought of going on to London. He had been gone from home more than half the year. He dreamt of Hiyke, but in the dream he could not see her face, and Hoskuld stood behind her.
    The king fell sick. He sent for Bjarni.
    The tower was silent. The air had an unhealthy smell. In the king’s bedchamber the king’s friends stood solid against the walls. Red William lay propped on cushions, his hair combed over his shoulders. The cup in his hands was jeweled with rock crystal. He saw Bjarni above the heads of the others and summoned him to the bed.
    The Norse priest was not there. The king lay back on his pillows and called in a fretful voice. His minions stirred and shifted their feet, and one came forward through the others, sliding by Bjarni to the king’s side.
    It was the man who dressed as a woman. Now he wore men’s clothes, but his face was painted with red cheeks and lips and dark eyelashes. He spoke in English.
    “The king is mysteriously sick. You have the gift—that is known. How may we break the curse?”
    The king’s blue eyes bulged; he looked gaunt. Bjarni looked him over, wondering if he were truly cursed. “He does not look fey to me,” he said. Inside the collar of the king’s nightshirt a string of hide encircled his neck. Bjarni reached down and lifted the string. He