Hrolf Kraki's Saga Page 25

  "Bold must you be to have called me," he whispered. She looked up the hulk of him and said: "I have need of your help, kinsman." He waited.

  "I know how to raise beings from outside the world of men," she told him, "but they may well rend me unless a might like yours bids them stay their fangs."

  "Why should I ward you?"

  “That the High King's peace may be broken."

  "What is that to me?"

  "Do not ships plow your waters, more every year, and never a manslaughter aboard to feed your conger eels? Do men not fare out in yearly greater numbers, unfrightened, to club your seals, harpoon your whales, raid the nests of your cormorants and gannets, drag then-nets full of your fish, and wreck the sky-clad loneliness of your outermost islands? I warn you, I who am half human, I warn you: man is the foe of the Old Life, whether he knows it or not, and in the end his works will cover the world—never again will it know freedom or wild magics—unless we bring him down, haul him before it is too late back into the brotherhood of Beast, Tree, and Waters. For your own sake, help me!"

  "Would you not merely replace one king with another?"

  "You know I would not. Not really. I would use folk."

  Long and long he stared at her, there in the windy dark, until she herself grew frightened. At last he laughed, a strangely shrill gull-noise out of so vast a throat. "Done! You know how such a bargain is made fast,"

  "I do," said Skuld.

  When she had taken off her clothes and followed him into the dolmen, she must bite her lips against the cold weight and scaliness and smelL clench her fists against the hugeness that battered her bloody. She knew this would happen often again.

  But he would stand by her when she called horrors out of the earth.

  Toward dawn she rode home. Clouds had wholly shrouded heaven. Her nag stumbled in the gloom. Dry snow blew over the ground. Shuddering with cold, her body one ache of weariness where it was not in pain, she nonetheless held her head aloft in a pride no hawk could have matched.

  Of sudden, hoofs resounded. They did not thud, they rang, and went swifter than moonbeams. The steed which overhauled hers was the hue of milk and silver, unearthly fair. Likewise was the woman in the saddle. In robes which gleamed and shimmered as if woven of rainbows, she had the face and midnight hair which were Skuld's; but her eyes were golden, and sorrow was upon her.

  "Daughter," she cried, "wait! Hear me! You know not what you are doing—"

  Other hoofs—too many hoofs—roared over the sky. Hounds bayed up yonder, horns blew, iron flashed. He who rode before that troop was on a stallion which had eight legs, and wore a cloak which flapped like wings and a wide-brimmed hat which shaded his one eye. He hefted his spear as if to cast it at the woman. She wailed, wheeled her horse around, and fled weeping. Skuld sat where she was, watched the Wild Hunt rush by, and laughed.

  In the morning, as she and her husband made themselves ready for the Yule offerings, she sent their servants away. Across the room she strode to grab Hjorvardh's wrist. Her nails drew blood. He looked at her: worn out, darknesses around the sunken eyes, yet a flame clad in flesh.

  "Hear me!" Though her voice was low, somehow it shook him. 'I’ve told you before how unfitting it is that you bow down to Hrolf Kraki. I tell you now, it need not go on, and it will not"

  "What—what—" he stammered, "What are you thinking of?"

  "I have gotten signs that promise us victory." "My oaths I swore—"

  "The night which is past heard other oaths. Hjördvardh, you are my man. You must then be man enough to take revenge for the scurvy trick my brother played on you long ago—and moreover get the lordship of Denmark." He opened his mouth. She laid a finger across those lips, smiled, and purred: "I've thought out a plan which should work. Listen.

  "Strong is King Hrolf’s household. However, we can raise more fighters than that, and if we take him by surprise, he'll have no chance to send a war-arrow among the yeomen. You ask how we'll get such a band of our own, without his knowing? Well, there are many who've no love for him, chieftains he's humbled, berserkers he's sent away, outlaws skulking hungry, Saxons, Swedes, Götar, Norsemen, aye, even Finns who'd be glad to see him cast down, and... others I know of.

  "We need wealth for bribes and to pay for weapons from abroad, smuggled hither. I've hit on a way to get that—keep it, rather, keep what's rightfully ours. We'll send word to Leidhra, asking leave to withhold payment of the scot for three years, and at the end of that time to bring it all at once."

  "Why?" Hjördvardh got out

  "We'll explain that we need it to buy ships and goods which'll further outland trade. Hrolf ought to like that. And it'll help make the work, the comings and goings hereabouts, seem harmless to him.'' "But—but—"

  "What's the risk? At worst he'll refuse us, and then we must stay at peace. I don't think that'll be needful. If we can keep back the wealth, why, we'll feel our way forward, doing nothing till we're sure of our next step, making no move till any doubt is dead that we can overwhelm him.''

  Hjördvardh was unwilling, but Skuld kept after him day by day, night by night. At length he agreed, and messengers went off across the Great Belt.

  They brought back word that King Hrolf was happy to let his brother-in-law put off payment for as long as was asked, and wished him well in his undertakings.

  Thereafter Hjördvardh began searching out those who had grudges against his overlord, and every kind of ill-doer. Egged on by Skuld, his eagerness waxed as he saw his strength building up. For her part, she found cunning ways to keep hidden from Leidhra what was really going on. If one who was loyal to Hrolf Kraki began wondering aloud about some of the men who came to Odense, and if the story given out did not set his mind at ease, she had spells to blind and dazzle.

  No longer did she pester her husband. Instead, she was so Löving to him that he became like a worshipful puppy. Even then, he never got the courage to ask what she did on those nights when she rode alone from the hall.

  Thus three years went by.

  As for King Hrolf and his men during this time, what can be said other than that they lived in happiness, and the land which he steered did likewise? In the welfare and safety of folk, in righteous laws and judgments, in good harvests and burgeoning markets, in growth of towns and sowing of new fields, in man dwelling at peace with his neighbor, are no tales to tell—only, afterward, memories.

  Surely the troopers found much to do. Besides attending the king, they had their own ships and farms to look after. No doubt Bjarki went back to the Uplands and greeted his mother and stepfather, taking along many fine gifts; and Svipdag fared away off to Finland in search of furs; and Hjalti sailed to England to see what he could see; and it may well be that they rowed up the rivers of Russia or along the Rhine to Frankish countries. If so, they were traders. Big and well-armed as they were, nobody tried attacking them.

  At home they had merriment, every night a feast in the king's hall where the boards well-nigh buckled under the meat and horns were always filled, skalds chanted, wanderers yarned about their travels, and Hrolf Kraki the ring-breaker stinted nothing. There would be daily weapon drill, and the care of steel, and such-like chores; but there would also be hunting, fishing, fowling, wrestling matches, races afoot or on horseback or in boats, stallion fights, games of skill like draughts or gambling with knucklebones, long lazy talks, gadding about and chaffering with yeomen, planning, daydreaming; and somewhere in or near Leidhra burg, each man had at least one woman, and thus fell into those bonds which the hands of small children weave.

  There is nothing to tell about those seven years of peace, save that Denmark has never forgotten them.

  At the end, King Hjördvardh and Queen Skuld sent word to their kinsman King Hrolf. They would come spend Yule with him, bringing the scot they owed.

  Said he to the messengers: "Tell them how glad I am of that, and how welcome they shall be."

  II

  The week around midwinter was a time for feasts,
fires, meetings in mirth and love, a break in that season when a day was no more than a glimmer in the night But never was there more honest joy than in the hall of Hrolf Kraki.

  On this Yule Eve the flames bawled, horns and cups clashed together, laughter and song and talk surfed everywhere around till the walls boomed. In a sable-trimmed kirtle embroidered red and blue, trews of white linen, gold heavy on arms and neck and brow, the king in his high seat glowed before them all. At his feet panted the hound Gram, on his shoulder perched the hawk High-breeks, close to him were the sharers of his farings, beyond them the best men and ladies of the whole wide realm he had forged. He smiled, happy to see this much happiness. Yet a slight sorrow was in him and he said to Bjarki: "Why are Skuld and Hjördvardh not among us? Could they have been shipwrecked?"

  "Hardly, lord, on that short a trip and calm as the weather's been," answered the Norseman. "Belike something came up that held them back from starting, and they're beached for the night on Zealand's west coast and will row into Roskilde harbor tomorrow."

  "Unless she's come to grief from one of those businesses she's forever running and runing after," muttered Svipdag. He had never liked the king's sister or her dark crafts.

  "Hoy, that's too uncheerful." Bjarki drained a silver goblet of beer, wiped the foam off his red mustache, and shouted for more.

  Vögg sprinted to obey. The boy from Uppsala was become a young man. It could hardly be told; he was still short, scrawny, almost beardless upon what little chin he had, his hair tangled regardless of how hard he combed it. The troopers had given up trying to make a warrior of him. At weapon practice, weak, slow, awkward, he won merely bruises, and a few times broken bones. However, they liked him well enough—his pale eyes dwelt upon them with such endless awe—spoke kindly to him, saw to it that he was well-fed and well-clad. In return he fell over himself in his eagerness to run any errand or do any job. His proudest boast was that he had worked his way up to being cupbearer to the king and the twelve great captains.

  "Thank you," said Bjarki. He peered through the roiling, juniper-smelling warm smoke and added across the din: "Why, you've sweated yourself as wet as a fresh-caught haddock. Sit down, lad, have a stoup and let the women serve for a while."

  "M-m-my honor is to be at your beck," stuttered Vögg.

  He turned his head birdlike back and forth along the row of them. "D-does anybody, any of my lords want more?"

  "Aye, you can fill this," said Hjalti and handed him an aurochs horn twined with gold. As Vögg scuttled off, his arms and legs pumping, Hjalti laughed, "You know, I think his trouble is he needs to get laid. So do I, as far as that goes."

  "Well, you've a right pretty sweetheart," said the king. "Why didn't you bring her tonight?"

  "She was too scared at the thought of going home after dark on Yule Eve. And home she'd've had to go, because here's no place to bang her, guests stacked like cord-wood." Unlike Bjarki and the other ranking guardsmen, Hjalti owned no full-sized house in or near Leidhra. He felt it was too much trouble, when he could be out hunting or fishing.

  Vögg came back and bent the knee as he offered the full horn. Hjalti stroked his own short fair beard—he still did not have thirty winters behind him—and said, "Of course, we do have haymows and such around. Vögg, my friend, how would you like for a Yuletide gift that I told off a thrall girl to pleasure you?"

  The youth's jaw dropped. A while he blushed, sputtered, shifted from one foot to the next, before it dragged from him: "I, I, I thank you, lord, b-b-but—no, if she didn't want—" He jerked a bow and fled.

  Hjalti chuckled and shrugged. Bjarki turned a look more earnest onto the king. "My lord," he began, "I've spoken of this to you before, but being reminded—your only living children are female."

  "And I should beget a son, best by a wedded wife?" said Hrolf Kraki.

  "Yes. An heir for us or our own sons to raise on a shield, that Denmark may go on beyond your life."

  "Goodly matches can be had in Svithjodh since King Adhils got rid of himself," Svipdag said.

  Hrolf Kraki nodded. "You're right, all of you, and I've waited too long. There was a girl once—" Pain touched his voice. "She died. I ought to set her ghost free of me. Let's talk further about this, the next few days."

  The Golden Boar was borne in. Though the king and his men no longer had much to do with any gods, they had not given up the old usage of making Yuletide vows. He himself was first. He rose, laid his right hand on the image, gripped a beaker of wine in his left, and spoke the words he did each year: "As best I can, I will strive to be Landfather . . . for everyone." His tone was low but carried from end to end of the room. Men sat hushed while he drained the cup. Then they cheered forth their love.

  Soon after, Hjalti asked leave to say goodnight. He had several miles ahead of him before he could cool his lust A groom, sleepy and shivering, brought his harnessed horse out into the courtyard. Over the crupper were slung mail and shield, and he bore a spear as well as a sword and knife. Unlikely did it seem he would need any of this in the king's peace. He mounted. Hoofs clattered on flagstones, pounded down lanes where houses loomed like cliffs, passed through the gates and left the burg behind.

  He rode north at a brisk pace. The night was quiet and chill; breath smoke white from man and beast, hoarfrost formed on iron, the clop when a rock in the road was kicked rang far across rime-gray meadows and murkily huddled farmsteads. Overhead were many stars and a vast, shuddering sheaf of northlights, from whicti rays of wan red and glacier green fanned out over half the sky. The Bridge glittered, the Wains wheeled on their unending ring around the year. Once an owl went soundlessly by, and Hjalti thought of fieldmice huddled in fear of those wings ... like men in fear of the Powers?

  He lifted his head. Not him!

  Thyra his leman dwelt alone in a hut, small but stout, which he had bought for the use of those women he found among thralls or poor crofters. When they grew swollen with child, or he otherwise wearied of them, his custom was to send them off with enough gold—and their freedom, if they had not had this before—that they should be able to marry fairly well. Nonetheless they sometimes wept.

  He stabled the horse himself, feeling his way, and beat on the house door. "Who's that?" trembled from behind shutters.

  "Who do you think?" Hjalti teased.

  "I... I'd not looked for you—"

  "Well, here I am, and badly in need of warmth!"

  Having left a clay lamp lit, she could unlatch the door and lead him inside at once. His hands roved in the light of that wick and the embers of a banked hearthfire. Thyra was a big young woman, fair-haired, full-breasted, goodly to see.

  She clung to him, her fingers so taut as to belie the rounded softness of everything else. "Oh, I'm glad, I'm glad," she whispered. "I was frightened. I kept having gruesome dreams, and waking, and trying to stay awake, only they came back—"

  He scowled; for strangeness walks ever abroad on Yule Eve. "What dreams?"

  "Eagles tearing at dead men, men who'd been horribly hacked . . . ravens above them, and darknesses beyond, lit by flashes like those lights out there tonight. . . . We had an old neighbor when I was little, he called the northlights the Dead Men's Dance.... Then a voice went on and on in my dreams, forever, as if it and I fell down a bottomless gash in the world, but I couldn't understand what it said—"

  For a heartbeat Hjalti was daunted. Remembering his thought as he rode hither, he then smiled. "I've that which'll soon drive such things out of you, my dear."

  They hastened to bed, where he made love to her thrice in a short time. Afterward they fell asleep in each other's arms.

  But the dreams came upon him too: gallopings and shouts through a windy sky, wingbeats, cruel beaks and claws, a feeling of loss unspeakable and unbounded.

  He struggled awake. "I will not fall back to that!" he said aloud. Thyra moaned at his side. And did he catch another noise, in the thick night where he lay?

  Aye, something moved and shrilled, miles away
across the loneliness. Hjalti glided from beneath the covers. Cold gnawed at his bare flesh. He fumbled across the floor to a window and threw back its shutters.

  Still the land lay hoar and empty, beneath leaping spears of light and the utterly withdrawn stars. Here and there, trees stood like blackened skeletons. Quartering the world-rim, from Roskilde Fjord toward Leidhra, moved a host.

  Hjalti had keen eyes; and he knew too well what the gleam of iron meant, the bulk of men by the many hundreds massed together, muffled sound of boots and hoofs, trundling of carts laden with war-gear. Yet this was no wholly human gang. Wings toiled dark and ragged overhead; monstrous shapelessnesses stalked, crawled, writhed on the flanks of the warriors.

  The truth burst upon him. He shouted.

  Thyra started from sleep. "What is it?" she wailed.

  "Come here." The answer was raw in his throat "Look."

  He pointed. "Friends don't fare like that," he said. "Too late, I see what was keeping King Hjördvardh and Queen Skuld. They got fighters to meet on Fyn, landed on an unpeopled strand, and now—and now—it has to be them! Who else but that witch would bring such beings ... and she withheld the scot—O gods!"

  They have a revenge in the North which they call cutting the blood-eagle. The man is held down on his belly, and a blade loosens ribs from backbone till they spread out like wings. It would not have drawn from Hjalti the shriek which the woman heard this night.

  "Outnumbered, unwarned," he groaned. In another yell: "Light! Start the lamp, you lazy slut! I have to get ready—and find my king!"

  It may be that she was hurt by the sudden nothingness which she had become in his eyes, and wanted to strike back a little, to remind him of herself. Or maybe she was only shallow, did not grasp what danger was upon King Hrolf, who had been almighty as long as her young memory reached, and she hoped to brighten her lover's mood by a jest. She is dead these hundreds of years and cannot speak. As Hjalti, in mail and helmet, led forth his horse, Thyra stood in the doorway. The lamp she bore cast a yellow flicker on a cloak she had thrown over her shoulders and the pride of her beauty beneath. She smiled and called, however shakily: "If you fall in battle, how old a man should I marry?"