[Unfinished: ouline of material still to be written]
After the holmgang. Everyone is crowding around Lochlann, congratulating him. He is very negative, saying in effect, don't be stupid, think of the strategic picture. Olaf's people have faded from the scene, apparently falling back towards Altborg. Lochlann despatches some little known trusted people to follow and find out what is happening. Meantime, he advises the rest of the folk to keep together, and fall back on Catriona's stead, which he argues won't be attacked because it is an important Christian centre.
It was a long time after the holmgang before I was able to get anywhere near Lochlann. It is hard to tell you how excited our people were, what it was like to be among them. I saw Trigvi row him back from the island. I saw two men hoist him onto their shoulders. But after that it was all noise and confusion. I was very tired, of course, and I had been very frightened, so that the shouting and the singing made my head ring. In truth all I wanted was to find somewhere quiet to sleep, but Catriona herded me about like an anxious shepherd-dog, keeping me close to folk we knew.
A tide of singing and cheering men swept us back across the field of the thing, and lapped up the further slope to drop us like driftwood at the front of Lochlann's booth. I pushed in. Inside, Lochlann was already arguing with Trigvi. I didn't understand, then, what it was about. I felt too tired to understand. I crept into the back of the booth, crawled into our bed, and fell asleep listening to the roar of that flood of warriors and dreaming of the stormtide crashing onto the red ness.
In the morning they were arguing still, too close, speaking in fierce undertones, movement jerky with anger and with weariness. Other men stood about, looking worried, unsure, frightened: the cheering crowd of the night before.
[Back at the stead. Crowds of people, more drifting in. Problems with feeding them/organising them. Spies come back reporting that the story Olaf is spreading is that he was defeated by a host of invisible demons, thus proving that Lochlann is a warlock. Trigvi, and others, urge Lochlann to attack quickly, while the enemy is still in a known place, and while their own folk are still wound up. Lochlann privately admits to Kirsten that this is the sensible thing to do, but instead despatches Peter the Judge as ambassador to try to negotiate guarantee of tolerance. Lochlann is very depressed. If Kirsten is pregnant, she can have morning sickness to add to the gaity of nations.]
[Olaf arrives with a formidable force, and camps in front of the stead, in fields of ripening corn. Emphasis on the wreck caused. He calls for Lochlann to be handed over as a prisoner, and says that if this is done, and all agree to be baptised and pay a forfiet, they won't be attacked. Trigvi's party are contemptuous; urge immediate battle, saying 'we can easily beat this lot'. Lochlann arranges to meet Olaf between the armies, to talk. It's late afternoon. He goes out with Catriona and Peter, as leading christians. Only Peter is armed. Olaf comes with two armed companions. Kirsten watches. For some time they seem to talk. Suddenly Olaf and his companions attack. Catriona is wounded. Lochlann drives them back with his staff, while Peter drags Catriona back to the stead. Warriors run forward to help Lochlann, but he urges them back, and prevents a skirmish developing.]
[Council of war; gathering dark. Trigvi is urging immediate attack. Lochlann acknowledges that they will have to fight, but argues that they should wait for daybreak, saying their less experienced forces will be at a disadvantage in the dark. Council reluctantly agrees; a strong watch is mounted, and women and children (including Catriona, who is quite seriously hurt) are quartered in the chapel for safety (Lochlann's suggestion). In private, Kirsten offers Lochlann her sword. He thanks her seriously, but says he still does not want to kill anyone, and in any case she may need it.]
"Trigvi is right, Lief. We will have to fight. And if we have to fight, this stead is an ill place to defend."
Lochlann stood bone weary. "I know. I know. It has come to that. But -- but let us wait to see the light of day. We have few men here who have seen battle in the dark. Olaf has many: let us not give him that advantage."
Trigvi stirred from where he sat hunched over the brazier. "That will look ill rede if they attack tonight."
"That's true; but I think that they will not do so. I still don't think that they will attack the church, and they fear magic. Peter, is it not true that they believe demons are stronger in the dark?"
Peter nodded. There was a silence. Trigvi looked at Lochlann.
"You will lead us against them tomorrow?"
"Aye."
"I have your word on that?"
"Aye."
"So. So we won't be going tonight, boys. We will stay Lief's men against the morning. What word, captain?"
There was relief -- gaity -- in his voice. Lochlann bowed his head and ran both hands through his hair. He seemed somehow to shake himself.
"Right. First, guards. Trigvi, take charge of that. Everywhere you'd think to put a guard, put three, and see to it one has a horn -- Oh, and no fires at the guard posts. It's a warm night, and they'll want their night sight... Don't over do it. We want a few men rested against the morning. Erik, that's your job. See to it all the pups get their heads down. And mind, everyone sleeps in war gear, and their weapons by them. Peter, Kirsten, find all the women and children about the place and get them into the chapel. Find Hilda, Peter, and get the christwomen to stand round the chapel all night and pray -- ask them of their kindness to pray peace. Keep a light by the cross.
"So: that's for your night attack, Trigvi. Will it do?"
Trigvi nodded. He was on his feet now; his fatigue seemed to have dropped away. He was even smiling.
"Next, we need to think of what to do if things go ill. Where's a place we could defend, that's within a days march?"
Haakon the Judge stirred for the first time. "There is my own place at Vesteby. It's an island, a good place to defend."
Various people agreed, saying it was a good place. Lochlann nodded. "I remember it. Yes, it will do well. So. Erik, the sleepers. Everyone who can gets sleep. But get them to sleep across the front there, just within the paling. It'll give us a fighting line we'll all find in the dark, if the worst comes. Also, bring the horses in from the orchard, and have each man that has a horse picket it hard by where he sleeps. We may find we want to move folk fast. Have folk lay food by for the morning, too, before they sleep. We attack as soon as the sun clears the hill there. Go. Trigvi, back here when you can: we need to plan the attack."
When they were all gone, Lochlann sat on the stool Erik had used. He still looked tired, but even he seemed more relaxed. The decision was made. He held out his arms to me, and I went into them. He rested his head against my belly.
"Can you feel her yet?"
I laughed, and shook my head. It warmed me he should assume a daughter, and amused me. It was the man he was. I though of how awkward he was with Gillechrist, and imagined him with a little lass.
"She's growing, though. You'll not wear that gown again till she's here."
"No... Lochlann, this fight in the morning. Will we win?"
"No. We won't win, I think. What I'm hoping is that Olaf will lose, but it's not a chancy thing to judge a fight before it's over. The ground doesn't do much for either of us. Whoever attacks has to get across the ford before the other is ready to defend it. If we can't do that, in the morning, we'll hold to our own bank. But the main point of fighting tomorrow is to give us a chance to pick better ground for the next fight. Whichever way it goes, we'll need to move quickly, so have all your gear by you, and well stowed... Ah, Kirsty, I'm sorry. I should not have let you come..."
"Oh, Love, leave that. You could not have stopped me. Look, will you take my sword against the morning?"
There was a flash of anger in his eyes, so that I regretted saying it, but it passed. "No, no... No. I'll not wear a sword. I vowed not. And I've no will to kill anyone, if it can be helped. No. I will fight with my staff. It's a good enough weapon, Kirsty. It makes it easy to knock a man out of the fight, and hard to kill him. Also, if it goes ill you might find you have need of it yourself. Keep it by you, Kirsten. Look, get yourself together. Get everything you treasure packed, and leave everything you can live without. If we win, it will be safe enough, and if we don't you won't worry about it -- Fetch the horses, lass, and bed yourself under that apple tree there. I'll join you when I've talked with Trigvi."
[Night attack: dark, confusion. The thatch on the chapel is fired. In the confusion, Lochlann and Kirsten are separated: she sees him going towards the chapel. She is fighting for her own life; thinks in the course of doing so that she kills at least two people, but isn't sure. She sees Erik die. The group she is with are driven away from the stead, and as dawn breaks meet up with a larger group making an effective and disciplined retreat. It is led by Trigvi. Throughout the day, beating off succesive attacks, and gathering up other stragglers, they fall back on a friendly fortified steading, arriving exhausted at dusk. Kirsten thinks there are half as many of them as there had been the previous day. As night closes in, another, much smaller party arrives, led by Lochlann. Many of the folk with him are burned or injured, but he has most of the women and children from the chapel. Catriona is not with him. She is dead. About half of Lochlann's original company are dead or missing.]
I don't suppose anyone has a clear memory of their first real fight. I haven't. I can't remember how I woke. I can't remember what happened to Lochlann. I can only remember the fear and sickness in my stomach, and the screaming, and the wicked flickering light from the roaring thatch of the chapel roof. The din of weapons, the shouting, the darkness. I remember clearly only one thing: fighting a man who is stronger than me, and wearing a helmet and a chain byrnie and I only in my homespun. That, I remember yet.
I found myself at dawn standing under an oak tree, watching the blood drip from my sword, dark and sticky as honey. Smoke smudged against the first sunlight about four bowshots away, and nearer in the shadows the roar of battle still sounded. My legs were trembling. I still did not understand what was happening. I stood dazed as an ox waiting the priest's knife. Sverrir lay slumped against the tree beside me.
"Kirsten..."
he said: his voice didn't come out right.
"Kirsten... water."
I looked at him puzzled. What was he saying? What did he mean? His jerkin was dark across the shoulder as if he had been rolling in mud.
"... water..."
But there was water just by us -- a beck. Was that what he was trying to tell me? I stared at him stupidly as the light cleared. The muck on his shoulder was dark red, just like the blood on my sword. Suddenly I stumbled down to the beck and retched into it, throwing up sharp bile. I scooped water to wash the taste from my mouth.
"Kirsten..."
I looked at Sverrir. Fresh blood welled sluggishly from the hollow of his shoulder and trickled glistening down his crusted sleeve. Sverrir was thirsty... Hurriedly I scooped up more water, and turning awkwardly, stumbled so that I spilled it. I scooped more. I climbed the bank to the tree, the precious water cool and limpid in my hands... but Sverrir was dead. I sat on my haunches and wept.
It is well that the band who came by me were of our party, else I would not be telling this tale. They bade me get up and run; and I got up, and we ran, through most of that day, as the sun blazed down out of a blue sky. Trigvi had sent them, they said, to round up stragglers. We were a dozen when I'd joined; by late morning, a hundred or more. It was not only people of who'd been with us at the Thing that joined us, but the people of the small farms we passed, Catriona's neighbours, old men and bairns.
We went west across the land, keeping to copses and woodlands. We feared arrows, for few of us had mail. We kept in sight of a dark line rippling across the landscape behind us: our host, falling backwards steadily, covering our retreat. Now and again we heard the roar and clatter of fighting from them, but as the morning heated up it sounded less.
About the middle of the day Ljotolf Arnasson rode up on a sweating horse, and told us to head for a hill we could see. He said the fighting had not gone well, and asked that the two men who had carts with us await the host, to carry wounded. He said Trigvi was leading the fighting, and all men trusted him. No one asked where was Lief.
Just by the hill we found a village, and a great crowd of folk; many bands of people had been gathered here. There was a lot of milling about, and I was very tired and also frightened, so I don't remember much of what was happening. Men on horses were pushing through the crowd, telling people who could fight to wait for the host, telling people who had carts to wait for wounded, urging everyone else to hurry west. I waited, more because I was so tired and felt so lost than because I felt fit to fight again. There was no-one about that I knew.
I think I slept a while, sitting at the wayside with my head on my knees. I woke when someone shook me. It was Trigvi.
"Kirsten! Kirsten, where is Lief?"
I shook my head, stupidly. There were crowds of men all around me, dusty, leaning on gore spattered weapons.
"By the jaws of Valgrind, where is he?"
I shook my head again.
"I don't know... I don't know. I haven't seen him..."
I started to weep again. Trigvi pulled me to my feet and ruffled my hair clumsily.
"Sverrir's dead, Trigvi, and I haven't seen Lief..."
"Don't weep for him, Kirsten. He'll do well enough. I'll bet the gutless nything's running yet."
I pushed him away and screamed something hateful at him. He took a step towards me, but then turned away. Another man spoke to me: it was Ulfjot.
"Do not be angry with Trigvi, Kirsten. It is he that's kept us together this morning. And if Lief had had the courage to fight yesterday, there'd be Sverrir with us, and Catriona, and Peter the Judge, and Erik of Betelheim, and many more of us. And if he were with us now surely we'd have held them... don't be angry with Trigvi."
I slumped back onto the bank and looked at the dirt, tears oozing through the dust of my face. I didn't look at him. Behind me I could hear Trigvi's voice calling the men for sods, telling them to get to their feet, to hold the line, to get moving. The tramp of feet, the mutter of voices, the clank and creak of gear poured around me and faded westward. High in the afternoon sky above me a lark poured out its song. I wanted to kill that lark.
It was Ulfjot who came back for me, and bullied and cajoled me back into the host; but later in the afternoon, when I had become dizzy, and had fallen in the road, I found that it was Trigvi who was carrying me.
[There is a confrontation between Trigvi and Lochlann. Trigvi blames Lochlann for their defeat and calls him a coward. Lochlann makes no reply. Trigvi hits Lochlann. Still he makes no reply. He hits him a second time, and Lochlann falls. Kirsten confronts Trigvi with her sword drawn. Trigvi curses them and tells them to go. They leave, into the night, without having rested, knowing the enemy are all about them.]
[Travelling fugitive across country. They stop to rest at Erik's farmhouse, giving the news to his widow. While they are there, a messenger rides in. He has come from Trigvi. He says Trigvi sends his apologies, and begs Lochlann to rejoin him. He says he has beaten Olaf in a battle, and believes that he can defeat him altogether. Lochlann says, thank you, and his love to Trigvi, but thinks Trigvi will do better if he (Lochlann) doesn't join him. Messenger says Trigvi expected that, will Lochlann at least wait for him at his (Trigvi's) home? Messenger returns Kirsten's pack, which she had abandoned when Trigvi sent them away.]
[They go on to Trigvi's stead, and rest there some days. They hear news of Trigvi's continuing successes, and references to `Jarl Trigvi'. Lochlann and Kirsten decide to leave for the west again; Kirsten [if pregnant] is anxious for her child, and Lochlann is unwilling to meet Trigvi. Cut to the waterfall scene and return to the existing story.]
So. I have nearly reached the end of this story; and I have taken much longer, and said much more, than ever I intended. But I will tell of one more day that happened then, and I am telling it because, as I said before, the acts and incidents of love are not often told; yet in my life they have been at least as important as the acts of struggle. In any case, I have been talking so long that none of us will get to bed this night, so I might as well go on.
Four days up the valley from Trigvi's, we came again to the place of the high force. We had made good time, and got there in the heat of the day -- and that was a day the sun blazed down on the forest, so that we were hot even in the shade of the trees. As we had struggled up the uneven deer track, the sweat had been dripping off my chin, and trickling itchily down between my breasts. My mantle had been rolled and bound to the strap of my pack since we set out that morning; my jerkin had long since joined it, so that the pack was heavy and the strap dug into my aching shoulder.
Lochlann was sweating too. His pale, fluffy hair was dark and stringy with it. Part way through the morning, when a twist of the track brought us down to the edge of the flashing water, he had stripped off his sark, dunked it in the river, and slung it dripping like a shawl around his shoulders. After that, for a while, I struggled onwards sticky, itching, and resentful.
There was no sound in the forest. The heat had driven all the forest creatures into cool lairs. No breeze rustled the leaves. The thick leaf mould hushed our footsteps. Even our panting breath seemed to be sucked in by the heavy air. The sweat ran down between my shoulders, trickled down my spine, and soaked my breechcloth. The backs of my knees itched. My crotch itched. My scalp itched. My tits felt rubbed and chapped from jigging against the damp linen of my sark. My shoulder felt raw from the heft of my pack. My feet slipped and rubbed inside my sodden brogues.
And when, at last, we got to the foot of the force, I just dropped my pack and fell into the icy golden depths of the pool, and let the surging crashing waters have their will of me. And it was cold, cold, cold, so that the gooseflesh raced across my arms, and my nipples hardened like hazlenuts.
The pool had changed since the spring. Where before it had been quiet and bare, now at the end away from the force it bore rafts of white water lillies; huge heavy dragonflies patrolled round it, contesting the air with the screaming swifts that whirled above.
At last the water was too cold for me, and I climbed out onto the rocks. I pulled off all my clothes, and laid them on the rocks in the sun. As I was untucking my breechcloth, I noticed Lochlann, lying back against the trunk of a great tree, within the shade of its branches, legs spread, arms hanging wide, head back, eye closed, already sliding towards sleep. So I flicked soaking linen at him, flinging a flight of flashing rainbow sparks to burst on his bare body.
He was up quicker that you would believe and had me by the arm; and in a moment I was lying on the sun-hot turf and he was upon me. He kissed me so that I was sure that my lips would bruise, and I gave him as good back. Then he raised himself and started to struggle with the thongs of his breeks, hurried, jerky. And I looked at him, there, propped awkwardly on one elbow on the very edge of the water; and one good twist and thrust with my hips and he was in, under, up spluttering, floundering, staggering, surging out, grabbing for me, and me laughing at him, dancing back from him, flicking at him with the breechcloth. In the end, of course, I was caught again, because that was what I wanted, and thrown again onto the herb-sweet grass; but still he couldn't get his breeks off, so I was able to wriggle away again, laughing, mocking. We dodged and danced around the trees and the pool for a short while before I was caught again, but this time, when we were through with kissing, before he raised himself from me, he took me by the wrists and bound them with my own breechcloth to a tree root.
He stood then, and leasurely stripped himself, and I saw his cock standing like one of the old ones' stones against the sun, and the hollow in my belly hurt in its force. And after that I was not hollow, but filled and pounded till the sun itself was pale beside the brightness which flowered within me. The strength of him, the force of him, the power of him, was greater than any monster I had dreamed; and I have never dreamed of monsters since that day.
I cannot remember how many times we fucked through that long afternoon, quick and hard and forceful or long and tender and powerful, trying all the ways our bodies would fit together, all my openings a cock could fill. He freed me before the end, but only to lift me in his arms, impale me once more, and leap with me into the thundering water. And after that, we dried ourselves, rolled together into his great mantle and slept a long time.
The day after that there was thunder, and rain that fell as though it were the ocean, and we sat snug in the cave under the force watching the vivid glow of the lightning shatter the tumbling curtain of the force into shards of wild colour, and talking quietly, idly, about the coming winter, and the hall we would build, and the names of our children, of the warm lands of the south where the snow doesn't fall, and, stranger, of the lands on the road to Ch'in where it never rains; and the clothes the women wear there, and the camels that Trigvi was named for, that they ride, and a thousand other things which don't matter. And really all we were saying was that we had past a high place, and that the warm plains of our life together were spread out before us; and that we were glad to be going forward together. The next day, we rose early to go out into them.
No-one is ever ready for the hiss and thump of arrows arriving. Two. They stood together, shaking with silent laughter, from the back of Lochlann's jerkin where he lay suddenly, still, on the forest floor. The grey wool turning sticky dark about the shafts. Fingers clenching in the dead leaves. I beside him, gently turning him. Dying fast... no words, no voice, blood bubbling on gasping breath, eye holding me, hand gripping mine. Clutching mine. Gone.
Ah Lochlann, where have you gone?
Strong hands pull me off his body, thrust me away. They are standing all around -- warriors, swords drawn, some with bows still strung; a dozen of them or more, and a christman brown among them. None I can put a name to, but one or two that had been with Jarl Olaf at Altborg. They speak among themselves, pleased, excited, proud. I do not want to remember the things they say. They approach him furtively, as if they are still afraid of him, dead, him that none of them would have faced in life. One of them turns him over with his foot. They make small, cruel jokes -- I hear them yet in my sleep, some nights.
I stand there, watching as they paw at him. My sword hangs in its scabbard -- the time I might have used it, I have forgotten it is there. After all, what is the point? Their blood would not bring him back.
Cawing overhead, harsh, heavy. A little grey flycatcher whirrs out of the trees to perch on my shoulder. A branch sways as a raven set down on it; and another, another, another. The men start up, looked around. Everywhere black wings dropping through the trees, cawing, cawing. The Christman holds up his cross, shouting at the birds.
The man who has turned Lochlann looks around wildly -- "The girl -- where is the girl??" -- He is looking straight at me: straight through me.
Others quickly cast about, some so close I might touch them; they do not see me. The shouting of the Christman stopped suddenly. I look round to see his face slimy streaked with green and white. His eyes are wild with terror, his arms flapping. He runs wildly back the way we had come. One by one the other men flee after him. The harsh calling of the ravens falls away. Stillness fills the wood, so that the sound of the falling leaves can be heard. The great black birds sit in the trees all about, silent as mourners, watchful as an honour guard.
I knelt beside him again; tried to pull the arrows out so that I could lay him down quietly, on his back; but they were barbed, so I could not. I cut them off with my knife. I turned him over gently then. Wiped the blood from his mouth. I straightened his clothes and tidied his hair, closed his eye. He looked so beautiful then, as if he were only sleeping, so that I listened at his chest for if his heart were yet beating. It was silent. I clambered on to him and pressed all my body against his, weeping into his beard, willing him to hold me, to enter me. But he was gone.
Ah Lochlann, where have you gone?
After I had wept, I unbound his great mantle from the strap of his pack, and carefully laid it over him, smoothing it out, and tucking it all about him. I gathered dead branches, and laid them by him, building a great pile around him, over him. The ravens sat quiet in the trees, only occasionally shuffling their wings to keep balance. The day passed. At last it seemed to me that the pyre was big enough, and I took my flint and struck light from the back of my knife to let him go in the way of our folk.
I sat in the light of his death fire, and sorted through his pack, knowing I could not carry it all, wondering what I should bring back for you to know him by. There were two of his beautiful sarks, all made of silk from Ch'in, and those I brought, and it was one of those that you wore when we went to the gathering this summer; and there was his little curved knife from Araby, that is at your belt now; and there was the comb of walrus ivory, with which you tidy your hair when I can get you to; but the black book from Betelhiem I cast into the fire, for I had had enough of christmen then. And when I had done that, I sorted my own gear, and made myself ready to leave, and sat and watched the fire burn to embers, half hoping that the trees around would take flame from it, so that I would follow him.
Ah Lochlann, where have you gone?
The quiet shapes of the reindeer outlined themselves dark against the red glow of evening, as I crept quietly up to crouch behind the last screen of birch leaves. The high meadow was still and quiet in the soft, bruised light. Far down the slope, on the little shoulder between its two lochans, the tattered camp of the Sami leaked smoke into the dying day. The deer cropped the grass and moved, cropped the grass and moved. And all else was still.
And so I pushed the screen of leaves aside, and walked down to the camp. The folk greeted me with courtesy, as they had before; but in their own speech, as they had before. They shared their food with me, and sat around the fire, talking and laughing together, while I sat in the dusk and felt the cold of my loneliness surround me like a blanket. For the first time since he had died, there were folk around me I need not fear; for the first time since he died, there was laughter to my ears, and song -- but I could not share it, for he was dead.
"He is not with you, the friend of the ravens."
The old man spoke, a statement seeming, not a question.
"He is not with me. They have killed him."
"They have killed him. Aahhh...." He lamented wordlessly, quietly, his eyes looking beyond me, through me, to that dark land where the dead of his folk walk. And the wrinkles of his face shifted, so that the glint came back into his cloudy dark eyes: and he said -- "Ah, Wanderer, Wanderer, you went to find the kingdom of the prince of peace... I told you -- did I not I tell you that the prince of peace walks only with the dead? Ahh, but you've found your peace now..."
Tears curved through the carved furrows of his face, and soaked into the wisps of his beard; and still he stared beyond me.
"Old man", I said, at last, when the silence had come too long for me -- "Old man... he is dead, but I have his child within my belly to watch for. Where shall I go, old man? How shall we live?"
"How does the bear live, in the land where the wolf is hungry?"
"Ach, the bear has nothing to fear from wolves..."
"and are you so big and powerful that you have nothing to fear from the wolves?"
I didn't answer; the question didn't need it.
"So. And how do the lemmings live, in the land where the wolf is hungry?"
"The lemmings breed so fast the wolves could never kill them all..."
"and have you so many children to follow you that some are bound to survive the wolf?"
Again, I had no answer to give.
"So. And how does the hare live, in the land where the wolf is hungry?"
"It is that the hare can outrun the wolf, but I cannot, that you are saying?"
"It is that the hare can outrun the wolf, but we cannot, that I am saying. So... So. So how does the deer live, in the land where the wolf is hungry? The deer hide in the dark thickets, and walk wary and quiet, away from the trails the wolves run. If you had a pretty brooch pin, would you lay it on the path by where the magpie nests?"
"No", I snorted -- "for the magpie would take it..."
"Yet if you covered it with mud so that it did not glisten, would not the magpie pass it by?
The old man's eyes came back, at last, from where they had been wandering, and he spoke to me clearly and directly.
"Take the child into the thickets and away from the wolf trails. Smear him with mud so that no glint catches the magpie's eye. And -- that torc that you are wearing: that torc and those armrings. They will catch the magpie's eye; aye, and the wolf will smell them."
"I know; but he gave them to me, and I will wear them."
And so I returned to Dun an Cuil, which is the Fort which is Hidden in the speech of the west, and here you have lived; and here you have been safe. And here you have learned to be a man, and I hope you'll make a good one. And here is Jarl Trigvi, who was your father's steersman, offering to put you on the throne that your father left empty, if you will take up his sword and fight for it as men have done down all these years.
That is why I have told you all this story, so that you will know more about who your father was; and that is why I have said so much more than I meant to when I started. Because Trigvi has told you that in the Northlands men are saying that your father was the Old Wanderer, and that therefore you are the son of the Old Wanderer, and therefore they will follow you.
Now, I don't know whether your father was the Lord of the Raven or not. I think that you will know from some of the things I have said that there were times when I thought that he was. But he was also a man, and the man that he was was greater than any god. I'm thinking that if you follow the man that he was you will not come to any harm.
But remember, your father was born. Trigvi remembers his birth, and played with him as a child. He knows. So, the christmen's god was born as a child, and who is to say the Allfather is less cunning and tricksy than the white christ? But the old stories do not talk of the Allfather being born as a man. Your father died. I held him as he died; I know. The white christ died, and the christmen tell us that because he is a god, so he is still alive, although I don't know how this can be true. But the old tales tell us that Fenris is the Lord of Val Hall's bane.
The Allfather in his wisdom speaks to all the folk of Midgard. You will hear folk say that your father spoke to every man in his own language, and indeed I never saw him unable to understand any speach. But Trigvi did. Am I not right, Trigvi? Is it not true that he had to learn the speach of the Turkic folk, and that he struggled with the words of the folk of Ch'in?
You will hear folk say that your father spoke with Thought and Memory. I do not know that this is true. Ravens would come to him. He spoke to them. I do not know that they spoke to him. I do not know that they were always the same ravens.
You know that your father had just one eye. But you know too that he pulled his other out himself, and gave it to Mareidh's father as blood-price. There are folk in this hall now who saw him do it.
Your father was a man who carried no weapon. He was not ashamed to be gentle. He was always generous, and patient, and caring. In the old stories, the Rider of Sleipnir leads the wild hunt. If the old tales are true, then Lochlann was not the old wanderer; or else he had changed greatly. No. If you would follow your father, follow the man, not the god: for your father was a man of peace, and there are no gods of peace.
So. Your father's sword I can't give you, for he gave it to the sea, and the sea has eaten it. But here is my sword, that was my father's. It's a good sword -- good enough to make it worth killing the Frankish christman who made it, to steal it. But it didn't save his life. It was a sword the pair of this that my Uncle Olaf used, when he slaughtered my mother's folk in Frankland, and brought her home for his little brother to play with. But it didn't save his life. It was the sword my brother Rognvald used when he massacred Anna's folk in Andeluz, and brought her home to weep in his bed. But it didn't save his life.
And mind well: here's Trigvi offering to put you on the throne that was your father's. Well, there's folk who will tell you that the high seat at Altborg was your father's, and that's where Trigvi wants to put you; but there's more who say his high seat is in Asgard where the dead feast. And whichever of your father's seats you go for, I know fine which one I think a sword will get you. Your father's sword I can't give you, for he flung it into the sea when the taste of blood gagged in his throat. Your father's sword I can't give you, for he didn't take a sword when he went to confront his brother's peace in the North. Your father's sword I can't give you, for your father knew that the only peace that swords will shape is the peace of the dead. Your father's sword I can't give you, his sword that was sharp as grief; but here is my father's sword, and it has bought much grief in its time.
Will you take it?
Copyright © Simon Brooke
1992-1996
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