The Eighth Lost Tale of Mercia: Canute the Viking Read Online Free PDF

jerked
against his palm in response.
    He stood with the bird clutched to his chest.
He turned to everyone and grinned desperately at them. “No,
look—it’s still alive. See!”
    He held out the raven’s body, which after a
long while, twitched again. This time the spasm was so violent the
creature slipped from his hands and back to the floor, where it
continued to thrash about in the throes of death.
    As Canute gaped down at it, the world seemed
to spin. Tears filled his eyes and blurred his twirling
surroundings yet more. He did not merely look upon a dying bird. He
looked upon a dying god. He looked upon a dying god!
    Then he heard everyone laughing.
    At first the sound filled him with confusion.
Why would anyone dare laugh at an omen like this? He glanced
desperately from each of their faces to the next. Then he realized
they were not laughing at the raven. They were laughing at him .
    “Oh no, look out, it’s Odin!” someone
called.
    “Guess he couldn’t stand being in the same
room as Canute!”
    “No, no, look!” Everyone turned to look at
this speaker, who sounded quite serious. But then his voice changed
to mimic Canute’s. “ I think it’s still alive! ”
    A new howl of laughter, even louder than
before, rang over the congregation.
    Canute breathed so hard now that he might
have opened his mouth, if not for his clenching jaws. So they knew
about the raven, too. Tosti had not only told them about their
physical connection; he had shared one of Canute’s most intimate
secrets. There were reasons why his father had not made the
runewoman’s sighting common knowledge. It was incriminating. And
for the truth to come out like this, with a raven twitching to
death at Canute’s feet after a desperate attempt to escape …. it
was more humiliating than anything he could have imagined.
    Canute unsheathed the knife at his belt. He
hesitated only long enough to regain everyone’s attention.
    Then he knelt down and plunged his dirk into
the raven’s chest.
    The bird gave one last spasm, then went very
still.
    Canute pulled out the blade. The wound he
left behind was not so much a fountain of blood as a damp
indentation. But the edges of his dirk gleamed red with the liquid,
and he found this to his satisfaction as he stood again, holding
the blade aloft.
    He looked past its tip at Tosti, who stood
petrified with horror.
    Canute did not feel any sort of expression on
his face, but the look in his eyes must have been terrifying
enough, for Tosti trembled. “Canute ...” he gasped. “I didn’t mean
for any of that to happen. I thought … I thought it would be a good
thing. I wanted ...”
    Canute did not want to hear him speak another
word. The sound of Tosti’s voice brought too much pain. And his own
inclination to respond revealed that he could not trust his
feelings. He pulled back the knife, then flung it.
    Tosti’s fast reflexes saved him. Canute
rarely missed a target. He had better than normal vision, and his
hands grew steady when aiming, no matter his circumstance. His
blade would have pierced Tosti through the eye. But Tosti darted
out of the way; he ducked, swerved, and then ran away. He was
almost gone by the time the knife plunged into the far wall and
stuck there.
    Despite his exceptional eyesight, Canute’s
vision blurred again, and he blinked rapidly to push back a film of
thickening moisture. His calm composure wavered. He felt the weight
of all the Jomsvikings’ eyes upon him, and thought that if he stood
there too long, he would buckle underneath it.
    “You fools,” he said. “There is no Odin. Not
anymore. It should be as clear to you as it now is to me. The one
God is so powerful, there is no room for another.”
    Nor was there allowance for the relationship
he had nearly had with Tosti, he recalled. He took a deep,
shuddering breath.
    “And so ... He is my God now. If any of you
feel differently, I welcome you to worship this miserable
corpse.”
    He kicked the dead raven