by Matt Larkin
Sigurd told her, too, of his tutor with the sword, the one-handed warrior Tiwaz. Brynhild found it too much coincidence to swallow that a one-handed master swordsman should happen upon Sigurd and train him for years. But that, too, she could not say how Sigurd would react to if she spoke of her suspicions as to the man’s identity. The Aesir had done their work well, convincing the better part of the North Realms they were gods.
The valley ahead was drenched in mist and covered in fir and maple trees, seeming almost concealed from the world. At the center of the town rose Heimir’s hall, a partially restored Hilding fortress. A woman standing atop its ramparts could overlook the valley and catch sight of any approaching the town.
Indeed, as they drew nigh, warriors from Heimir’s hall came to meet them.
“What do you wish here?” the lead of three men asked. He didn’t brandish his spear, but he seemed more than willing to use it if necessary. Brynhild could always tell those comfortable with violence from the rest. He had the look, a bearing a man gained when he’d slain many others in combat.
“I’ve come to see my … aunt, Lady Bekkhildr.”
“And him?” He nodded at Sigurd. “He’s your guard?”
“I am King Sigurd Sigmundson of Rijnland. Her husband.”
Now the warriors exchanged a look. Clearly, they had heard of Sigurd. They beckoned them to follow and escorted the two of them through the town and to Heimir’s hall. Outside, several young men were tossing a ball about between them, and others had set to wrestling.
One of the young men broke off and trotted over, exchanging a few words with their escort before presenting himself to Brynhild. “You claim to be kin to Lady Bekkhildr?”
“I do not claim, boy, I am her kin. Who are you?”
“Her son, Alsvid.”
Brynhild did her best to keep a straight face. The man had to be Sigurd’s age. Her niece had a son Sigurd’s age. How was she to handle such news? Maybe this was why valkyries were told to sever all connection with their mortal lives. “A pleasure to meet you then, cousin.”
Alsvid grinned and inclined his head to Sigurd. “And an honor to have you here, King Sigurd.”
Sigurd clasped his arm, then Alsvid led them all around the back to find Heimir and Bekkhildr sitting in the sun playing tafl. Neither looked up at first, so Brynhild studied them. The pair had grown old, losing some of their vibrance, with hints of gray in their hair, especially in Heimir’s beard. What did he have now, forty winters? Was it more than that?
How merciless time was to mortals. And now, thanks to Odin, Brynhild could count herself among them once more. How long before the passing of winters would weather her, as it had her precious niece?
Alsvid spoke into his mother’s ear, and she rose so suddenly she bumped the table and sent several pieces scattering.
“Alsvid,” Heimir complained. “Can you not simply concede?”
His wife didn’t even look at him, instead striding for Brynhild and flinging her arms around her neck. Brynhild returned the embrace, sighing in sudden, unexpected relief at finding someone still left to her.
Finally, Bekkhildr pulled back, staring at her face. “Why did you not come for so long?”
“Brynhild?” Heimir said. “Odin’s grace, woman. You look as though time dare not touch you.”
Brynhild nodded absently. Maybe someday she’d tell Heimir the truth, since Bekkhildr clearly had not thought it her place to do so. “It touches me.”
“Yes, well, please come in. We prepare for Sumarauki. Already the boys celebrate and gather from around the neighboring valleys.”
Was it time for the summer solstice already? Brynhild could not have chosen a more opportune time to return. Everyone would be in good spirits to welcome in the new year. She cast a smile at Sigurd—he was already grinning.
Heimir gave them fine chambers in the upper reaches of the fortress. From their window, they watched Alsvid demonstrating his skills at falconry, his hawk soaring high and always returning. With Sumarauki well underway, the games and contests never seemed to stop here.
“We’ll have a son like him one day,” Sigurd said. “And daughters too, no doubt.”
“Do you think urd will be so kind to us?” Odin had known Sigurd would come to her when he placed the sleeping spell upon her. And he’d not have done so unless he had some reason, some scheme he set in motion. Brynhild found it unlikely their happiness factored into the Ás king’s plans.
Sigurd laughed. “As long as we’re together, I think we can bear most aught urd has to throw at us. Apart … perhaps not.”
Brynhild smiled, wanting so very desperately to believe him.
Sumarauki passed and the new year dragged on. With summer on the wane, Sigurd insisted he needed to return once more to Rijnland and see to things in his kingdom. Brynhild was half inclined to go with him, but he promised to return before the onset of winter, so instead she watched as his ship disappeared off into the mists.
Alone, she made her way back to the valley, lost in thought. Sigurd had offered her the chance to come and reign as queen of Rijnland and, though the idea of such prestige certainly appealed, Brynhild could not abandon Laaland while they stood at the very edge of war with Samsey. Instead, she found herself contemplating an attack on Castle Niflung, though such an effort must surely lead to slaughter of Heimir’s warriors. Still, with enough numbers—perhaps gained in alliance with one of the other kings of Reidgotaland—they might destroy King Gunnar and thus remove the threat.
Of course, that would leave the other kingdoms poised to conquer Laaland in Gunnar’s stead.
Either way, come next summer it seemed more like than not, war would hold this land in its crushing grip, and Brynhild’s place had long been among those who fought—first as a commander, and later as a valkyrie.
But could she, a fair unknown these days, truly get all the kings of this land to let her command their forces? She would need to visit Hjalprek and perhaps Beowulf during the winter and hope to secure their support. The former she felt fair certain she could count on, but King Beowulf was famed for his pride and might not prove keen to fight under her banner.
Brynhild shook her head as Hlymdalir came back into view. Could she spare this valley the tide of blood she saw brewing? Try as she might, it seemed unlikely.
23
The dreams grew worse, and stranger. Oh, the visions of Niflheim Gudrun might attribute to torments wrought from her own broken mind, or those visited upon her by Snegurka, or even premonitions of her eventual urd. Those she could dismiss. But at other times, Gudrun dreamed of her brothers on a hunt, yet falling before a golden stag. She dreamed of hawks, soaring high above. She saw an army of rats swarming over Castle Niflung.
Unfathomable portents with meanings naught in her experience would allow her to unravel. A shame, in truth, for if these dreams represented some development of the Sight, they might have proved useful. But without context or interpretation, they served only to leave her restless.
Maybe that was why, despite herself, despite lifetimes of loathing for the woman, she found herself treading down to Grimhild’s underground sanctuary. A long staircase led to dungeons, and beneath those, the Pit. A landing before the dungeons held an iron-banded door engraved with sigils.
Gudrun pushed the door open, revealing a long hall lit—barely—by flickering candles spaced every so often. A number of chambers along the way held unguents, reagents, and Hel-knew-what else Grimhild kept around for her alchemy, stinking of piss and sulfur and putrescence. Past those doors lay the sorceress’s brewing and evocation chamber, it too behind a warded, iron-banded door.
After pausing for a time to make certain no chanting sounded within—one never interrupted a sorceress—Gudrun knocked.
A moment later, the door drew open and Grimhild stared at her, a hint of a frown creasing her otherwise once again smooth face. She’d regained her youth, or at least the appearance of it, by sacrificing young girls and bathing in their blood. Th
ree girls murdered on each solstice, so Grimhild could feel beautiful.
“Are you out already?” Grimhild demanded.
Gudrun had to give her mother her due for one thing at least—the woman did not begrudge Gudrun the draught she made. When Grimhild first offered it after learning Gudrun slept little, and fitfully at that, it had been with the explanation it would help her drift into deep slumber. Now, Gudrun couldn’t sleep at all without it. Besides which, it did give her dreams which might have held some portent worth understanding.
“Not yet. May I come in?”
Grimhild nodded, waving Gudrun inside.
The chamber had sigils carved into the floor, ceiling, and walls, and yet others painted in blood. In a corner, outside a circle of runes, sat a giant cauldron the queen used to brew her tonics. Two tables were laden with various compounds, scrolls, and tomes. Did Grimhild think to try to recreate the grimoire she’d lost? She still had no idea Gudrun had taken it, though now she’d lost that to Odin.
“Well then,” Grimhild said. “Was there something you needed?”
Gudrun turned slowly back to her mother. How she had hated this woman. How she had loathed her and wished for her suffering. While Skadi held possession of her, she’d tortured and tormented Grimhild without mercy. And yet, when Gudrun finally returned to Castle Niflung, broken and alone, Grimhild had welcomed her back. Had helped her recover.
Because she too had once suffered possession by Skadi? Because she knew the profound self-loathing it left a person with?
Gudrun grimaced, finding it hard to find the words. “Do you … do you know much about oneiromancy?”
The queen opened her mouth, then murmured something under her breath, shaking her head. “Interpretation of dreams was never within my purview. The problem lies in separating the metaphor from literal prophecy, even assuming we could tell the difference between dreams brought on by manifestations of the Sight and those engendered by bodily fatigue.”
As far as Gudrun could tell, her own gift with the Sight, while not extraordinary compared to that of some oracles, significantly exceeded the capacity of either of her parents. She could clearly see into the Penumbra, though she avoided doing so these days, wanting no reminder of the awful things lying just beyond normal human senses. Even before taking her mother’s draught, she’d had dreams that clearly held some prophetic import.
Now, though, those dreams seemed both magnified and muddled, wrapped in the chaotic turmoil of her mind.
“So you cannot help me learn what these strange visions mean?”
Grimhild frowned and raised her knuckles to her mouth for a moment. “We just received word that Heimir’s foster daughter has returned home after long away.”
A rather abrupt change of topic. “Fascinating.”
The queen favored her with a withering glare that, in the past, would have had Gudrun grinding her teeth and half ready to piss herself. “While I can never be certain of such things, I have reason to believe the woman may have passed across the Veil. Bodily passed across it.”
Well that was different. “She’s a sorceress?” Outside of the Niflungar themselves, the witch-queens of Pohjola, and a handful of wandering wizards, Gudrun knew of few true practitioners of the Art left on Midgard.
“I think she is, or was, a valkyrie.”
Gudrun scoffed. “You jest.”
“Rarely, daughter. Do you think the priestess of Hel knows naught of our mistress’s enemies? Valkyries served the lord of Alfheim, but in the past decades, I believe Odin has been bending them to his will.”
All Gudrun could do was stare openmouthed at her mother. Not only that the woman knew such things, but at the sheer breadth of the Ás king’s temerity. It was truly boundless. He now thought to contest his will against that of both Hel and the Elder God of Sun? And somehow, despite such actions, he yet lived. Urd seemed to favor Odin. The man should have been dead a hundred times over for all the chances he took.
“I don’t understand,” Gudrun finally managed to say. “What does this have to do with my visions?”
“Those who have passed beyond the Veil oft know many things. If you befriend this woman, perhaps she can help you. At the very least, no harm comes from having an ally in a king’s daughter.”
Gudrun nodded. It seemed to her this all might well have been Grimhild’s own way of getting Gudrun out of her lethargy, forcing her to leave Castle Niflung and take action. Still, if this princess had any chance of helping her, she’d have to take it.
24
In the last days of summer, a train of women and their guards landed on the shore of Laaland and made for Hlymdalir. When the slaves informed her, Brynhild donned her mail coat and rode to meet them at the valley’s edge, bringing a small war band behind her.
These women wore deeply embroidered gowns, especially the one at their center, a blonde woman with a silver crown atop her brow and a long braid.
“Who are you?” Brynhild demanded.
The woman quirked a smile. “Princess Brynhild. I’m Princess Gudrun of Samsey.”
A Niflung, and Gunnar’s own sister no less. Brynhild forced her face to remain impassive. Since Gudrun came here with but a few warriors, this had to be some kind of peaceful envoy. Why? Did the Niflungar think to bargain?
“Be welcome in Hlymdalir, then,” Brynhild said. “Come. I’m sure King Heimir will have food and ale brought for you.”
The Niflung smiled in acceptance, and Brynhild guided her and her ladies to Heimir’s fortress. When she told her foster father of the envoy, he ordered every servant and slave he had to wait upon Gudrun and the others. They spread plush cloths over the floor and carried platter after platter of fish and vegetables and reindeer meat to them. And ale—lots of ale.
Gudrun’s ladies-in-waiting fell into various games with the women of Heimir’s court. Gudrun, however, sat alone, her back against a pillar, watching without seeming to even see. From across the hall, Brynhild studied the Niflung princess. The woman had not yet bothered to explain her presence. Heimir would have considered it rude to ask, of course, but Brynhild could hardly fail to see some import for having Niflungar under her very roof. Surely Gudrun had not travelled here to wrestle or to play tafl—at least not on a board.
Finally, Brynhild drifted over to where the Niflung sat and slunk down beside her. “Does the feast not amuse you?”
Gudrun turned her gaze on Brynhild, wearing an obviously forced smile. “It’s been said you are wiser than any woman on Midgard.”
Brynhild scoffed. “A gross overstatement, without doubt.”
“Then you don’t bring knowledge from the Otherworlds?”
Brynhild’s smile faltered. Could the Niflung know about her? Did she suspect Brynhild had been a valkyrie? Sorcerers had, on some occasions, tried to overmaster valkyries and enforce their will upon them as they did upon vaettir. Such efforts most oft ended poorly for both sorcerer and valkyrie. “Why do you ask?”
“Honestly? I … I have dreams.”
Brynhild scooted around so she could more clearly look into Gudrun’s face. “What sort of dreams?”
Gudrun ground her teeth a moment, shutting her eyes before meeting Brynhild’s gaze. “I … I have been through a great many things. I need to know … is it true that you have seen worlds beyond our own? That you hold knowledge beyond the ken of mortals?”
Brynhild swallowed. She wasn’t about to admit that to anyone, much less a Niflung. Was this all some elaborate ploy to uncover the depths of her power? “Tell me about the dreams, Gudrun.”
“I dreamed I had a hawk with golden feathers. It sat upon my wrist and I loved it more than aught else in the world.”
“Maybe the dream means you should take up falconry.” And give over attempts to conquer Midgard.
Gudrun frowned, then rubbed her hands along her cheeks. “I’ve been taking … tonics to help me sleep. They drive me ever deeper into realms I cannot understand. Symbols, I think, or portents.”
Porte
nts. Certain brews could enhance the Sight, without doubt. If the Niflung sorceress had the Sight and combined it with drug-induced trances, she might well have seen portents of both literal and symbolic futures. But that she’d come here, seeking insight from Brynhild, that seemed to indicate the Niflung princess had grown desperate. Unless this was some scheme of hers, or of her mother’s.
Brynhild spread her hands. “The hawk might mean you are destined to marry a prince.”
“There’s more. I dreamed … of you. I knew who you were the moment I saw you, for I’d seen you before in my dreams.”
Brynhild cocked her head at that. This grew more disturbing with each passing moment. Why would the Niflung dream of her?
“We … you and I and my brothers, we walked in the woods on Samsey and we saw a magnificent stag, larger than any other deer. His fur was gold—not only golden in color, but as if strands of actual gold were beaten into fine hairs.” Gudrun bit her lip a moment. “We all wanted to catch the stag, but I was the one who did. It was … I marveled at it.”
“And?”
“And then you shot it.”
Brynhild frowned. The problem with interpreting dreams was that they could mean any number of things, or—perhaps more likely—mean naught at all. Sometimes, the mind played tricks when overwrought or when the night meal sat poorly. Other times, such portents seemed specific to the viewer and thus lacked any sort of general meaning. “Is there more?”
“I wept in despair on my knees as the stag died … and you … you gave me a wolf cub, drenched in the blood of my brothers.”
Brynhild shuddered. She forced it down, tried not to let the other woman see, but from the way Gudrun suddenly looked sharply at her, the princess hadn’t missed it. “I think … I think there will be war between us. And it will cost the both of us all we hold dear.”