The Broken Sword Read online

  ‘O thou of the many names, Prince of Darkness, Evil Companion,’ cried the witch, ‘I would thou did my wish, and for that I will pay thy ancient price.’

  The one for whom all men in all lands had names, but whom she called Sathanas, spoke, and his voice was slow and deep and endlessly patient: ‘Already you have gone far down my road, but not yet are you mine. The mercy of God is infinite, and only if you yourself reject it can you be lost.’

  ‘What care I for mercy?’ asked the witch bitterly. ‘It will not avenge me. I stand ready to give my soul unto you if you will deliver my enemies into my hands.’

  ‘That I may not do,’ quoth the Dark One, ‘but I may give you the means to entrap them yourself if your cunning be greater than theirs.’

  ‘That will be enough, Lord.’

  ‘But think you now, have you not had revenge on Orm already? ’Tis your doing that he has a changeling for eldest son, and the ill that being will wreak on him can scarce be averted.’

  ‘ ’Tis not enough. Orm’s true son prospers in Alfheim, and his other children grow apace. I would wipe out his accursed seed altogether, as he wiped out mine. The Aesir will not answer me, therefore you, Black Majesty, must be my friend.’

  The Devil’s strange deep eyes, in which were little flickering flames colder than winter itself, brooded long on her. ‘The Aesir are not out of this matter,’ he said slowly. ‘Odin, who knows the future, has some purpose of his own . . . I knew him of old, in my incarnation of Loki, and I liked it not . . . But you shall have my help. Power and knowledge and strength will I give you, until you become a mighty witch. Also I will tell you the only way to strike, and that way is certain unless your enemies are wiser than you think.

  ‘There are three Powers in the world which not gods nor demons nor men can stay, against which no magic shall prevail and no might shall stand, and they are the White Christ, Time, and Love.

  ‘From the first, and mightiest, you may wait only enmity, and you must be careful that this Power in no way enters the struggle. The second, which has many names – Fate, Destiny, Law, Wyrd, the Norns, Necessity, Brahm, and others beyond counting – is scarce to be appealed to, for it is not to be swerved in its way. But the third is a two-edged sword which may bring harm as well as help, and this you must use.’

  Now the witch swore a certain oath, and there the council ended for that time.

  Save that the changeling was fierce and noisy, he could not be told from the true babe, and though Aelfrida puzzled over the sudden change in her little son’s manner she had no thought it was not him at all. She christened the child Valgard as Orm wished, and often she sang to him and was gladdened by sight and touch. But he bit so hard that it was pain to nurse him.

  Orm was sheerly delighted when he came home and saw so fine and strong a boy playing in the yard. ‘A great warrior will he be,’ cried the chief, ‘a swinger of weapons and a rider of ships, a leader among men.’ He looked about the place. ‘But where are the dogs? Where is my trusty old Gram?’

  ‘Gram is dead,’ said Aelfrida tonelessly. ‘He sought to leap on Valgard and rend him, so I had the thralls slay the poor mad beast. But it must have given notions to the other dogs, who growl and slink away when the child comes near.’

  ‘That is strange,’ quoth Orm, ‘for my folk have ever been good with hounds and horses.’

  But as Valgard grew it was clear that no beast liked to have him around, horses snorted and shied away, cats spat and climbed a tree or wall, and the boy early had to learn the use of a spear to ward himself against dogs. He himself was no friend in return, but gave kicks and curses, and grew to be a relentless hunter.

  He was sullen and close-mouthed, given to wild tricks and refusal to obey. The thralls hated him for his ill will and the cruel jests he had with them. And slowly, fighting it all the way, Aelfrida came to have no love for him.

  But Orm was very fond of Valgard even if they did not always agree. When he had to strike the boy, he could draw no cry of pain however hard his hand fell. And when he had sword-play and his keen blade whined down as if to split the skull, Valgard never even blinked. He grew up swift and strong, taking to weapons as if born with them, and he showed no fear or pain whatever happened. He had no real friends, but there were many who followed him.

  Orm had other children by Aelfrida – two more sons, red-haired Ketil and dark Asmund, who were both promising boys, and daughters Asgerd and Freda, of whom the last was nigh an image of her mother. These grew up like other children, glad and sad by turns, playing about their mother and then later rambling all over the land, and Aelfrida loved them with a deep and aching love. Orm was fond enough of them, but Valgard was his darling.

  Strange, aloof, silent, Valgard grew up. He was outwardly little different from Skafloc, save that his hair was a shade darker and his skin whiter and that there was a flat hard shallowness to his eyes. But his mouth was ever sullen, he smiled only when he drew blood or otherwise gave pain, and then it was a wolfish skinning of teeth. Taller and stronger than other boys of his age, he had little use for them. He would rarely help with the work of the farm, and often went out for long lonely walks.

  Once Aelfrida had the priest come to talk to him, and Valgard laughed in his face. ‘I have no use for your snivelling god,’ he said, ‘or for any other gods for that matter. Insofar as appealing to them makes any sense at all, I think my father’s sacrifices to the Aesir are of more use than whatever prayers he or you give to Christ. For if I were a god, I might well be bribed by blood and burnt offerings to send good luck, but any who dared annoy me with a mealymouthed prayer I would stamp on – so!’ And he brought his heavy-shod foot down on the priest’s.

  Orm roared with laughter when he heard of it, and Aelfrida’s tears were of no avail, so the priest got no satisfaction out of the matter.

  Valgard liked best the night. Then he would often slip from his bed and go outside. He could run till dawn with his loping wolfish gait, swift and tireless and driven by some strange moon-magic glimmering inside his head. He knew not what he wished, save only that he was driven by a sadness and a yearning for which he had no name, a black gloom lighting only when he slew or maimed or brought to ruin. Then he could laugh, with the troll-blood beating in his temples and drowning all else in its dark rush!

  But one day he took notice of the girls working in the fields with their dresses clinging to their big fair bodies, and thereafter he had another diversion. He had, for his part, strength and good looks and a glib elf tongue when he cared to use it. Sometime thereafter Orm had to pay goodly sums for thralls or daughters wronged.

  This the chief did not care about, but it was another matter when Valgard quarreled in his cups with Olaf Sigmundsson and afterward waylaid and slew him. Orm paid the weregild, but saw that his son was not safe to have around. That summer he took Valgard in viking.

  This was very pleasing to the boy, who soon won the respect of his shipmates by prowess and reckless daring in battle, though not all liked his wholesale killings and burnings. But soon the berserkergang began to come on Valgard, he trembled and frothed and gnawed the rim of his shield, he rushed forward howling and slaying. His ax was a red blur, he did not feel weapons bite on him, and the sheer terror of his rage-twisted face froze many men even while he cut them down. When the fit was over he was weak, but he had heaped corpses high.

  Thus only the rougher and more lawless men cared to have much to do with him, and these were the only ones he cared to lead. He was out plundering every summer, even when Orm did not go, and as his full growth and strength came to him he won a frightful name. He bought his own ships and manned them with the worst of evil-doers, until even Orm forbade him to land his crew.

  The other children of Orm grew apace, and they were fine youngsters who were much liked by all folk. Ketil was like his father, big and merry, ever ready for fight or frolic, and often went a-roving when he was old enough; but he quarreled fiercely with Valgard and so sailed his own way. Asmund was
more slender and quiet, a good archer but no lover of battle, and came to take over more and more the running of the farm. Asgerd was a big fair may with blue eyes and gold hair and cool strong hands, but Freda was growing up with all her mother’s beauty.

  Thus matters stood when the witch decided it was time to draw the threads of the web together.

  7

  On a blustery fall day, with the smell of rain in the keen air and all the forest leaves turned to gold and copper and bronze, Ketil rode forth with a few comrades to hunt. They had not gone far into the woods when they saw a white stag of so huge and noble an aspect they had scarce ever dreamed its like.

  ‘Ho, a kingly beast!’ shouted Ketil, spurring his horse, and away they went over stock and stone, leaping fallen logs and dodging trees, crashing through brush and crackling the fallen leaves, with wind roaring in their ears and the forest a wild blur of color. Strangely, the hounds were not very eager in the chase, and though Ketil was not riding the best of horses he drew ahead of the dogs and the other hunters.

  Before him in the dim forest evening glimmered the white stag, leaping and soaring like a misty wraith, with his antlers towering tree-like against the sky. Rain came for a time, sluicing icily through the bare limbs, but in the blindness of the chase Ketil did not even feel it. Nor did he feel time or distance or aught but the wind of his gallop and the eagerness of the hunt.

  Then at long last he burst into a little clearing, nigh caught up with the stag. The light was dim, but he launched his spear at the whitely looming shape. But even as he made the cast the stag seemed to shrink, to fade like a wind-blown mist, and then he was gone and there was only a rat scuttering through the dead autumn leaves.

  Now Ketil grew aware that he had outstripped his companions and become lost from them. It was growing dark, with a thin chill wind whimpering through bare branches, and his horse stood trembling with weariness. He had come into a part of the forest unknown to him, far west of Orm’s garth. And the eeriness of the wind and the dusk ran coldly along his backbone.

  But just here, on the edge of the clearing, a cottage stood under a huge gnarled oak. Ketil wondered what manner of folk would live so far out – but at least here was shelter for himself and his horse, in a neat little cottage of wood and thatch with firelight glowing cheerily from the windows. He dismounted, picked up his spear, and rapped on the door.

  It creaked slowly open, showing a well-furnished room. But it was on the woman that Ketil’s eyes rested, nor could he tear them away. And he felt his heart turn over and then slam within his ribs like a beast attacking its cage.

  She was tall, and the thin dress she wore clung lovingly to every curve of her wondrous figure. Dark unbound hair streamed to her knees, framing a perfect oval of a face white as sea foam. Her wide full mouth was red as new-spilled blood, her nose delicately arched, her eyes long-lashed under finely drawn brows. They were a fathomless green, those eyes, with little golden flecks in their lustrous depths, and they seemed to look into Ketil’s soul. Never, he thought wildly, never before had he known how a woman might look.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked in a soft voice. ‘What will you?’

  The man’s mouth was dry and the thudding blood nigh drowned out his hearing, but he made shift to reply: ‘I am – Ketil Ormsson . . . I lost my way hunting, and would ask a night’s shelter for my horse and . . . myself . . .’

  ‘Be welcome, Ketil Ormsson,’ she said, and gave him a smile at which his heart almost left his breast. ‘I have little company, and am glad to see guests.’

  ‘Do you live here – alone?’ he asked.

  ‘Aye – but not tonight!’ she laughed, and at that Ketil threw his arms about her.

  After three days were past, Orm became sure that something ill had happened to Ketil. ‘He may have broken a leg, or met robbers, or otherwise come to grief,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow, Asmund, we will go look for him.’

  Valgard sat sprawled on the bench with a horn of mead in one hand. He had come back from a summer’s viking work two days before, left his ships and men at a garth he had bought some distance from Orm’s, and come home for awhile, more because of his father’s good mead and ale than any love for his kinfolk. The red firelight seemed to stream like blood off his shadowed sullen face. He spoke slowly: ‘Why do you say this only to Asmund, Orm? I am here too.’

  ‘I knew not there was any great love between you and Ketil,’ quoth Orm.

  Valgard grinned and emptied the horn. ‘There is not,’ he said, ‘but none the less I will hunt for him, and I hope ’tis I who finds and brings him home. Naught would seem worse to him than being beholden to me.’

  Orm shrugged, but tears glimmered in Aelfrida’s eyes.

  They set out the next day, many men on horses, with dogs barking in the crisp cold air, and scattered into the forest. Valgard went alone and afoot as was his habit, loping swiftly and silently with his crouched wolf-pace. He carried a great ax for weapon, and had a helmet on his tawny mane, but otherwise in his hairy garments he might have been a hunting beast. He snuffed the air with his inhumanly keen nose and circled about looking for signs. Erelong he found faint remnants of a track. He grinned again, and did not sound his horn, but set off at a long easy lope.

  As the day went on, he came west into thicker and older forest where he had not been before. The sky grew gray and cold, with swollen clouds flying low over the bare trees. A bitter wind whirled dead leaves through the air like ghosts hurrying down hell-road, and its shrill whine gnawed at Valgard’s nerves. He could smell a wrongness here, but having no training in magic he did not know what it was that bristled the hairs on his neck.

  At dusk he had gone far, and was tired and hungry and angry with Ketil for giving him this trouble. He would have to sleep out tonight, with winter on the way, and he vowed revenge for that.

  Hold – Far, far ahead he saw a glimmer through the thickening twilight. No will-o’-the-wisp that, it was fire – shelter, perhaps, unless it was a robber lair. And were that the case, Valgard snarled to himself, he would have great joy in killing them.

  It was utter night when he reached the cottage, and a thin stinging sleet was blowing on the rising gale. Cautiously Valgard edged over to a window. It stood high, but he was tall enough to peer in.

  Ketil was there, seated on a bench before a leaping fire, glad and gay. He had a horn of ale in one hand, and the other was caressing the woman on his lap.

  Woman – almighty gods, what a woman! Valgard sucked a sharp breath through his teeth. He had not dreamed there could be such a woman as the one laughing on Ketil’s knees.

  Valgard knocked thunderously on the door with the flat of his ax. It was some time ere Ketil got it open and stood there with spear in hand, and by then the sleet was thick and cruel.

  Valgard stood in the door, huge and angry, filling it with his shoulders. Ketil cursed, but stepped aside and let him in. Valgard stalked slowly across the floor with water from the melting sleet streaming off him. His eyes glittered on the woman, crouched on the bench.

  ‘You are not very guest-free, brother,’ he said, and laughed, a flat mirthless bark. ‘You let your brother, who has traveled many weary miles to find you, stand out in the storm while you play with your sweetheart.’

  ‘I did not ask you to come,’ said Ketil sullenly.

  ‘No?’ Valgard was still looking at the woman with his hard flat eyes. And she met his gaze, swimming in a mist of loveliness, and slowly her red mouth curved in a smile.

  ‘You are a welcome guest,’ she breathed. ‘Not ere this have I guested one like you.’

  Valgard laughed again and swung to face Ketil’s stricken stare. ‘Whether you asked me or not, brother, I am guest here tonight,’ he said softly. ‘And since I see there is but room for two in the bed, and I have come such a long hard way, I fear me you will have to sleep outside tonight.’

  ‘Not for you would I do that!’ shouted Ketil. He poised his spear. ‘I did not ask you to come. Had it been Father or As
mund or anyone else from the garth, he had been welcome, but you, ill-wreaker and berserker that you are, will be the one to sleep in the forest.’

  Valgard sneered and chopped out with his ax, splitting the head from the spear. ‘Get out, little brother,’ he said. ‘Get out ere I throw you out.’

  Blind with anger, Ketil struck at him with the broken shaft. A white rage flamed in Valgard, he leaped forward and his ax shrieked down and buried itself in Ketil’s skull.

  Still raging, he swung about on the woman. She held out her arms to him. Valgard gathered her to his breast, kissing her so that blood ran from their lips, and she laughed aloud.

  But the next morning when Valgard awoke, he saw Ketil lying in a gore of clotted blood and brains, the dead eyes meeting his own in an unwinking stare, and suddenly a mighty remorse welled up in him.

  ‘What have I done?’ he whispered. ‘What have I done?’

  ‘You have killed a weaker man,’ said the woman indifferently.

  But Valgard stood above his brother’s body and brooded darkly. ‘We had some good times together between our fights, Ketil,’ he murmured. ‘I remember laughing with you once at a new little calf striving to use its wobbly legs, and the wind in our faces and sun a-sparkle on waves when we went sailing, and deep drinking at Yule when storms howled outside the warm hall, and swimming and running and shouting with you, brother. Now it is all over, you are a stiffened corpse and I gang my own dark way – but sleep well. Goodnight, Ketil, goodnight.’

  And he picked up the body and bore it into the forest. He did not wish to touch the ax again, so he left it sticking in the skull when he raised a cairn over the dead man.

  But when he came back to the cottage, the woman was waiting for him, and he soon forgot all else. Her beauty outshone the sun, and there was naught she did not know about the arts of lovemaking.