In the Court of the Yellow King Read Free

seek refuge, seek safety hiding in the woods and the hills.
    A Viking ship, a longship, a ship of pagans and killers from the savage north! A raid! Fire and plunder, murder and rape!
    He should have fled already.
    Yet he was unable to so much as move. The boys clung to him, quaking.
    The oars rose and fell, rose and fell. Upon its oar-benches sat men in mail-coats, men in leathers and furs. Their faces were pale, their hair fair and stirred by the same wind that filled the striped sail, though no wind rustled the leaves on the shore and no wind tugged at Wigleof’s own hair or clothing.
    A row of shields hung along the ship’s side. Round shields of lime-wood, some with rims and bosses of iron. Shields painted... painted not with horses or ravens, dragons or wolves... painted with... symbols? letters?
    Wigleof of course could not read, but he had seen some writings. And if these were letters, they were like none he had ever seen. They were...
    They were hideous, those painted symbols, those yellow signs. Hideous and horrible. Loathsome to the eye, to the mind, in much the same way as the strange fish had been. Unnatural. Vile.
    The ship glided on. The oarsmen never turned from their labor. If they noticed the fisherman and his sons on the river’s bank with their fish-traps and baskets, they gave no indication.
    At the stern, upon the steering-platform, stood a tall figure, wrapped in a long and tattered cloak of yellow leather trimmed with the jaundiced-looking fur of a far-northern bear. He wore a gilded helm with a lank yellow horse-tail for a plume, the coarse strands blowing about his shoulders in that same unfelt wind. His helm’s visor was made from ivory or bone, its aspect pallid and inhuman.
    He alone among the men turned his head as the ship passed by. His gaze sought and held the three of them, there on the shore. Through his visor, his eyes seemed to blaze as black as the stars.
    ...as black... as the stars?
    How could that be? That could not be. That made no sense. No sense at all.
    Rising and falling, the oars cut the water. The striped sail swelled full from the mast. The yellow-cloaked Viking kept a thin-fingered hand curled to the steering-oar. He tilted his helmed head ever-so-slightly in wry acknowledgment, then faced forward again, faced the carved prow, faced upriver in the direction of the unsuspecting village and abbey beyond.
    Skeins of mist whirled and wafted about the longship’s stern. It became shape again, shape and shadow. Then it was no more to be seen.
    Wigleof blinked, as if one emerging from a dream. He glanced at the baskets and fish-traps, and saw that every last fish – even those not yet pulled to land – lay or floated lifeless.
    Somewhere, very faint and very far, a lone gull cried a dirge. Rain began to patter on the leaves, in the mud.
    The boys looked at their father. Both had soaked their breeches. Becoming aware of the clammy wetness at his crotch and thighs, Wigleof realized he had done the same.
    The village. The abbey.
    His house. Aelda and the girls, and the baby.
    Raid, rape and plunder. Fire and murder and blood.
    Those shields, painted with those yellow signs.
    He crouched and put an arm around each of his sons. He hugged them tight to his sides, picked them up, held them to him. They twined their little arms around his neck, and buried their faces against his shoulders.
    Neither of them struggled as he carried them into the river, wading deeper to the dark channel where a strong current swept toward the sea. Nor did they make a sound, even as the cold water closed over their heads.

    The blinded monk had passed another bad night. His urgent wordless gurgles grew louder, into raving grunts and groans. Though his hands were swaddled in soft wool wrappings, he tugged at them, pulled at them with his teeth, until Sister Gehilde was forced to restrain his wrists with strong bonds.
    At last, she’d been able to persuade him to drink a sleeping-draught, though the sleep to