Hrolf Kraki's Saga Read online

  He reared back his horse. Hoofs smote, the latch cracked over, the gate groaned wide and Svipdag clattered into the yard.

  King Adhils sat outside the hall, splendidly clad, in a gilded chair. His twelve berserkers stood or squatted around, shaggy, filthy, surly, as foul to see as to sniff. They growled and glared through the hush which had fallen on the crowd. Adhils's words dropped slow: "That man goes heedlessly ahead. The like has never been dared before. He must think well of himself."

  Svipdag halted, dismounted, and beamed. "Greeting, King Adhils, my lord," he said, "for surely so finely arrayed a man must be you. I hight Svipdag, son of Svip Arnulfsson, who dwells off in the land of the Westmen but was known to you aforetime."

  "You come here more rashly than your father might have counselled," said Adhils.

  "No, lord. I asked to be let in, and wasn't. Such loutishness among your men dishonors you, and I hoped you'd call it well done of me to give them a lesson in manners." .. "What?" rumbled Ketil, foremost of the berserkers. "Why, I'll step on you like the cockroach you are—"

  He lumbered forward. Svipdag, always smiling, touched the ax at his saddlebow. "Hold!" ordered Adhils. "We'll talk first. I remember Svip. He fought stalwartly for me against Aali, that day on the ice. What does his son want from us?"

  "I would much like to enter your service, lord," Svipdag said.

  Adhils bade him be seated. He found a log by the chair and watched the ball game after it had started anew, while he and the king talked in friendly wise. The berserkers liked this ill, glowered and muttered. When the call to eat was heard and the king led the way inside amidst these dozen guards, Ketil told him: "We're going to challenge that wolf-head and cut him down before he makes more trouble."

  Adhils picked his nose. "I don't think he'll be easy to handle," he answered softly. "Still, hm, hm, yes, I would like to find out if he's as stout a fellow as he seems."

  Ketil grinned over his whole warty face. While men were moving to their seats he left the king, pushed his way to the youth, grabbed him by the cloak below the throat, and snorted, "Well, do you think you're as good a warrior as us berserkers, brashly as you bear yourself?"

  Svipdag flushed in the fluttering torchlight. He struck the bulky man's hand aside and spoke for the hall to hear: "Aye, I'm as good as any of you."

  A bellow lifted from the twelve. They moved to close in on Svipdag. Nobody bore arms indoors, and he had left helmet and bymie in the foreroom. Belike a dozen could pluck one apart. Men got out of their way, trying not to make that look like a scramble for safety.

  "Hold! Hold, I tell you!" cried Adhils from his high seat. "Be at ease. I'll have no fighting in here, nor any time this night."

  The berserkers bayed. Ketil spat at Svipdag's feet. "Dare you fight us tomorrow?" he roared. "Then you'd have to use something besides big words and overbearingness, and we'd find out how much stuff is in you."

  Svipdag flung back, "I'll take you one a time. Thus we'll see who's better."

  Adhils nodded. He liked the idea of a testing, for in the course of peaceful years it had become hard to know how useful any fighter really was.

  A clear voice said: "That man shall be welcome here."

  Svipdag looked through shadows and fire-flicker to her who had spoken. She sat by the king, no closer than she must: a woman not tall but proud of bearing, simply clad and marked by sorrow, yet her gray eyes alight and her hair a red-brown shiningness. She must be Queen Yrsa.

  Ketil hunched his shoulders and grated at her, "We've long known you wish us in hell. But we're not such weaklings we'll fall before mere words and ill will."

  She turned to her husband and said, "You'll get no good if you see this through, you who feel a need of using scum like these."

  Blue with rage, Ketil howled, "I blow at you and your stiffness! We're not afraid to meet him!"

  Adhils signed the women to bring drink in haste. The evening passed peacefully if not quietly. The berserkers sulked; the rest of the household were cheerier. Yrsa's look kept straying to Svipdag, where he sat near an end of the hall, talking, drinking, feasting, the blithest man beneath that roof.

  In the morning the holmgang took place.

  This is a usage among the heathen, when men wish to fight out a challenge. They go onto a holm, a small island, where few or none can watch them and maybe get to brawling. Four willow wands mark off a field, and he who is driven beyond them is deemed to have lost. Otherwise the blows go by turns. The business can be until first blood, or yielding, or death.

  Today there were more watchers than common. Adhils had had himself rowed out together with the twelve and sat among them, on a stump, peering across the staked-off meadow. Under the trees on its far side, iron gleamed around a slight figure in a blue cloak. Yrsa had come too, and a score of those warriors who attended her and felt bound to her more than to the king.

  Svipdag stood tall in kirtie and trews. Save for his helmet, he had left off mail, because he would not be reckoned unfair toward his foes in this proof of his mettle. Nor had he a shield, his ax being a two-handed weapon. Yrsa bit her lip when she saw this; her head drooped.

  Ketil glimpsed that, and leered at her before he trod forth into the long grass. He began swaying, working himself up into the rage of his kind. Slaver ran down his beard. His cheeks puffed and purpled. He gnawed his shield-rim, waved his sword, and made beast noises.

  Svipdag yawned. "I'd not have said you could have the first blow," he called, "did I know how weary a while you'd take to lift up that mare's heart of yours."

  Ketil shrieked and charged. His sword whirled on high and whistled down. Svipdag's ax met it midway, in a clang and a shower of sparks. Then the heavy head flew back, and forward again, to crash on shield and send the berserker staggering.

  Yrsa clasped fists to breasts and breathed swiftly,

  Ketil recovered. He hewed and hewed—no more thought of taking turns—and mighty were those blows. Ever Svipdag halted them, and ever he battered the shield of his foeman. His ax was gripped by hands, driven by wrists and shoulders, which had logged trees and rolled rocks across mountains. The thunder sent flocks of birds crying aloft.

  Of a sudden the ax smote full on Ketil’s helmet. Half stunned, the guardsman let drop his shield. Svipdag's edge went into his ribs with a meaty thwack. Ketil yammered and sank to one knee. His neck was bent. Svipdag sheared it through. Ketil sprawled and gaped at himself.

  "Svipdag, Svipdag, oh, Svipdag!" Yrsa laughed and wept.

  "By my balls," hooted another berserker, "I'll cut yours from you for that, before you die!" And he sped out after revenge.

  Svipdag, though sweat-soaked and panting, flashed a grin and strode to meet him. Reckless, this man was easier game. Svipdag got back breath while playing him as, on his father's homestead, he used to play bulls for fun. At the right time, he laid his enemy's belly open. Blood foamed forth.

  Maddened, a third berserker sprang from the king. He gained speed as he charged across the meadow, his own ax swinging overhead. Svipdag sidestepped and thrust out a long shank. The monster tripped. Svipdag's weapon came down across his backbone.

  Aghast. Adhils yelled to his men to stay where they were. A fourth did not heed. Svipdag spun on his heel barely in time to meet that attack from behind. The berserker leaped, trying to overrun him and knock him to earth. Svipdag's ax flew so that blood made a tail behind it. He went down under the other man's shield, indeed; but he had smashed a kneecap. He freed himself in a heave, rolled clear, grabbed the ax and sprang to his feet. The madman felt no pain, belike did not know he was crippled. Yet he could not rise, and in his raving he made a poor one-legged defense. Svipdag was quickly past his guard. Again the ax bit. Four dead men lay in the daisies, the flies already thick around. Yrsa cheered and cheered.

  Svipdag, red-splashed, bearing flesh wounds, clothes sodden and hair lank with sweat, heaved after air. Wild in rage, King Adhils rose to shout, "Great harm have you done me, and now you'll pay for it! Men—all o
f you together—slay him!"

  "Never while we live!" Yrsa cried, and ran forward. Her guards dashed past her to form a shield-burg around Svipdag as she bade.

  The eight berserkers who were left circled around, growled, mewed, spat oaths and taunts, made as if to rush. The queen's men stood firm, spears and swords aloft. Behind them, their archers strung bows and twanged these, a deep sound as if angry wasps were on the way. It was no use trying to overcome that many.

  Yrsa went to her husband, where he shuddered and croaked, stood before him and said, "Call off your dogs. My men are going to defend Svipdag till you give him peace."

  "Oh, you're happy today, aren't you, Yrsa-bitch?" Adhils answered. He made as if to strike her. She clenched fists, gave him look for look, and said:

  "This fight was none of his asking. He came in good faith to offer us his service. They set on him, those trolls. Well, see what he's shown them to be worth! Glad should you be to get that blubber out of your battle-line. Make peace, I say! You'll win more honor with this one man than with all the berserkers who ever befouled the earth."

  "What care you for my honor, Yrsa?"

  "Little enough, in truth; yet more than you, it seems."

  Thereupon Yrsa spoke soothingly. The years had given her a ready tongue for showing where wisdom lay. In the end she did make peace between Adhils and Svipdag. When the newcomer returned to the mainland and the household learned what had happened, they swarmed about him and avowed that never before had such a wight come to be their brother in arms.

  Nonetheless the queen found a chance to whisper to him, "Be wary. Those eight will not long abide by the oath they gave you."

  He nodded. Yestereven, down at his end of the hall, he had heard in full about the slaying of King Helgi nine years before. He thought in youthful hotness that that had been the worst of nithing deeds; and today, this woman who suffered most from it had saved his life.

  "Yes, I think I've done them less scathe thus far than I ought to, lady," he told her.

  Her eyes widened in fright. "What do you mean? No, Svipdag! Beware! Never be alone!" Then other folk drew nigh and there could be no more frankness between them.

  At the queen's urging, Adhils gave Svipdag the seat of honor opposite him that evening, and courtesy and praise as long as men drank together. The berserkers were not on hand. Adhils had already talked to them, out of everybody else's earshot. He said later that he had been calming them. Svipdag had marked how they slouched off seeming grimly pleased. The yeoman's son had acted as if he awaited nothing untoward, and as if he spent the afternoon whetting his ax merely because any good workman would do so. When the king said he should not sleep on a bench tonight, rather in a guesthouse across the courtyard, Svipdag had thanked him . . . then quietly, under cover of dusk, borne mail and weapon in a bundle of underpadding, not to that house, but to a corner of the hall's foreroom.

  Much drink went down. It was late when Adhils bade him goodnight. Outside lay drizzly gloom. The forechamber was like a well of pitch. Svipdag was glad of that. He could don helm and ring-byrnie by feel, unseen and thus not warning anybody.

  On firm legs—he had drunk far less than he pretended —he crossed the yard. Near the guesthouse, that happened which he awaited. The eight berserkers came from shadow and fell upon him.

  He laughed, got back to wall, and let them come. In the murk it was hard to see. He, alone, was free to strike anywhere, and he was iron-clad.

  He had killed one when the racket of what should have been a quick and silent murder brought men stumbling out of the hall. They hastily stopped the fight, and raged at the shame that this had brought on them.

  Adhils could do naught else than say likewise, and tell the berserkers they lied in claiming that he had egged them on. He outlawed them on the spot. They left under scorn and jeers, storming off into the rainy night, vowing to come back and harry the whole of Svithjodh.

  "I give that threat no worth," said Adhils, indoors again. "You've shown how there's nothing to those loons."

  "I'm not so sure, lord," answered Svipdag. Now that he dared, he drained a mighty stoup of mead.

  "Well, you must become what they were supposed to be, and give me no less guarding than the twelve of them did," said the king with his narrow smile. His glance flicked across Yrsa, whose eyes shone upon Svipdag like suns. "The more so," he added slowly, "since the queen wants you to take their place."

  "Will you?" she breathed. "May a good Norn give that you will!"

  Svipdag was still for a bit. He no longer really cared to serve this Adhils. However, having today won a high name, he might hope for even more of the honor, as well as the wealth, which he had come for. And Yrsa beseeched.. ..

  "Yes," said Svipdag. "I do thank you, my lady."

  III

  Hrolf Helgisson had but sixteen winters when the chieftains made him king of a shattered Denmark. Though they meant well in the guidance they gave him, none was a Regin or a Sævil. He must grope his way forward into the craft of masterdom. No matter how apt, he was bound to make blunders. He was too mild with his guardsmen, who thus became a wild and overbearing lot; and many folk misliked it when he followed the way of Adhils and, one by one, took a dozen berserkers into his service.

  Patiently he explained to those who spoke against this: "I am more like my uncle Hroar than my father Helgi. I would rather build than burn. However, Hroar could not have been what he was nor done what he did, without his brother for sword and shield. I am alone, these are hard times, and before we can hope for peace, we must put down violence. To that end, I use what means come to hand."

  He had inherited great treasures and gave them out freely. No king's men were better housed, feasted, clothed, armed, and ring-bedecked than his. Rough they were, but they loved him. Had he wanted, he could have led them in storming Asgard. (Some said it in just those words, because Hrolf, like his forebears, was no very eager worshipper of the gods.) He found plenty for them to do. And all the while he was learning.

  In four years, he scoured robbers out of the Zealand woods and vikings from the coasts. Hrok Jarl made an uprising in Scania; Hrolf fared across the water and won a battle wherein Hrok fell; for the sake of Signy the mother, Hrolf gave his foe a lavish burial, but he also made sure of getting a man in that part whom he could trust. He regained Mön, Langeland, and some lesser islands. Once more safe, Roskilde nourished. Likewise did the little fishing port on the Sound, drawing traders until they began to call it Cheaping-Haven. In between his warfarings, Hrolf went about among the shire-Things, or sat in his hall in Leidhra, heard men out, gave judgments, and strove to make them agree to better laws.

  "I would see you get back what you had under Frodhi the Peace-Good and Hroar the Wise," he told them, "in a kingdom so big and strongly timbered that it will not crumble again around you."

  Meanwhile his half-sister Skuld was growing.

  After Ingjald the Saxon sent Freyvar Hroarsdottir home, she was wedded to Ulf Asgeirsson, a mighty headman in the north of Zealand. Hrolf raised him from sheriff to jarl and gave Skuld into his keeping. Ulf steered his district well, so that the busy king had scant reason to see him. But at the end of those four years, he sent to Leidhra and invited his overlord to come visit after the Harvest offerings. The messenger added in Hrolf s ear; "He says it's a heavy matter; he did not tell me why."

  Hrolf looked hard at him. "Can you yourself guess?" he asked. The man grew unhappy. Hrolf smiled, albeit with small mirth. "Well, I'll not squeeze you," he said. "I'll merely come."

  He made a brave sight when he rode into Ulf’s garth. Hrolf did not tower as his father had done; he was no taller than most, and of spare build. Still, he moved like a wildcat, winning fights with much bigger men by sheer speed and skill. Amidst wings of reddish-yellow hair, his face was high in the cheekbones, wide between the large gray eyes under their darkly arching brows, the nose straight and a little tilted, mouth full in the lips and quick to bend upward. But under a soft, close-cropped amber be
ard jutted the Skjoldung chin. His voice was light, usually rather slow and seldom loud.

  He was also akin to the wildcat in cleanliness. If a bathhouse was anywhere near, he went into its steam, scrubbed and doused himself, daily. Men laughed that King Hrolf was hospitable to all the world aside from fleas. He liked good clothes. Today he wore a white linen shirt, red kirtle stitched with gold thread, belt of tooled leather with a broad silver buckle, blue breeks with white cross-gaiters, sealskin shoes, gilt spurs, saffron-dyed cloak trimmed with marten and held by a garnet-studded brooch, gold around head and arms and fingers and scabbard.

  He had only a score of guardsmen along. North Zealand being a poor and sparsely settled land, he did not want to lay a burden on its chief. However, these young man were in iron that shone and jingled, and in colorful cloaks. As they neared their goal, they each winded a horn and broke into a gallop. It was a storm, noisy and full of rainbows, that gusted into the garth.

  Ulf and Freyvar made them welcome. Nonetheless, plainly they were a troubled pair. Hrolf said he would like to see the grounds during the afternoon, and his host and hostess grabbed at the chance.

  They went afoot from the hall, a few men following out of hearing. This was a chilly fall day. Wind boomed across stubblefields and the gray heath beyond them. Clouds hastened through an ice-pale sky where a flight of storks was outward bound, high and high above. Closer down, some ravens flanped black and grukking. Off on one side lifted a wood, leaves ablaze in red, russet, brass, bronze, ripped loose and whirled away by the blast. Afar northward, a steel glimmer bespoke the sea.

  "What did you want to talk about?" asked Hrolf.

  "Your sister Skuld," said Freyvar. She was a slender woman; her husband was short and stocky. "She makes us fear for our own children, what she may lead them into."

  "I'm wary of what she may bring on the whole land," said Ulf. He waved around. "Here is a stern earth at best, full of secret places and uncanny beings. There are fens from which many a man or child or beast has never come back. There are barrows where heatless fires and walking shapes are seen after dark. Often have I myself heard hoof-beats and hound-howlings go through the night air. Wise folk give such things a wide berth. I fear Skuld does not."