Geirmund's Saga

by Matthew J. Kirby

  “Go,” she said with a gentle smile. “We will speak more later, and tonight we will have a feast to welcome you.”

  “I’m very grateful,” he said, and then he left the hall with Hytham.

  They walked north under a few trees, above which Geirmund could see the tops of Roman pillars. He smelled the honeyed scent of wild flowers, and he heard a distant child laughing somewhere in the settlement, the first time in years that he had heard such a sound. A sense of peace and prosperity seemed to fill the air there, and Geirmund thought that in a short time it would be easy to forget that he still walked on Mercian ground, and not a land somewhere along the North Way.

  “I have heard much of Guthrum,” Hytham said. “It is said he killed Æthelred of Wessex.”

  “That is true,” Geirmund said. “I saw him throw the spear.”

  “He has become a mighty warrior.” Hytham strode with his hands behind his back, reminding Geirmund of Torthred. “But I believe he was not always so.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Only that it seems Guthrum has… obtained something.”

  Geirmund thought of Hnituðr and regarded the Syrland man with suspicion. “Such as what?”

  Hytham’s shoulders lifted with a slight shrug. “Bravery? Perhaps a new fire of ambition burns within him?”

  “King Guthrum was never a coward,” Geirmund said. “Perhaps you are simply speaking of his fate.”

  Hytham smiled. “Perhaps you are right.” Then he gestured towards a hut that had emerged from the trees nearby. “The seer is just ahead.”

  That was something Geirmund did not need to be told. He could now smell the potent smoke in the air, and he saw the cats prowling around that place, the herbs and mushrooms drying in the sun, the bones and skulls of humans and animals fixed to posts before it and hanging from its walls, and he knew it to be the dwelling of a seer.

  “I will leave you now,” Hytham said. “But before I go I would say one more thing to you, Geirmund Hel-hide. If you ever find something lost or forgotten, and you wish to understand it, seek me out. I will be here.” With that, the Syrland man turned and left.

  Geirmund watched him, wondering again what he knew about Hnituðr, and how he knew it, before turning his attention back to the seer’s hut. He approached its door with some reluctance, for seers spoke with the gods, and it was no small thing to go where gods had been.

  He raised his knuckle to rap on the door, but it opened before he could knock, and a young woman peered out. She wore a loose dress the colour of deep water and woad paint across her pale brow, nose, and cheeks. Her long hair fell in thick cords as black as the deep-night, woven with bits of bone, antler, and metal, while her eyes shone up at him with a depth and brightness that had nothing to do with their colour. The combination of her youth, her beauty, and her fearsome power as a seer struck Geirmund silent for several moments, during which she looked into his eyes, trapping his gaze, and waited.

  “I–” he began, and faltered. “My name is Geirmund Hjörrsson, sometimes called Hel-hide.”

  Still she said nothing.

  “If I may, I would speak with you,” he said. “I wish to know what fate you see for me. If you wish, I have silver, but little else to offer you.”

  “That is not true,” she said, her voice like warm rain trickling down Geirmund’s spine. “So long as you have something to lose, you have something to give.”

  He looked down at himself. “What you see is all I own.”

  “I see a Saxon blade.”

  She eased the door open and stepped through, closer to him, and he resisted the urge to back away from her. She reached down towards his waist, still staring into his eyes, and gently laid her palm over the plain pommel of the seax. Then she slid her hand and fingers around its handle, and Geirmund flinched as she pulled the weapon from its sheath.

  “If you would know the will of the Three Spinners,” she said, “you must offer this blade.”

  “Why?” Geirmund asked, then realized he sounded unwilling and sputtered, “You–you may take it; I give it freely. But… why the seax? It is a common weapon.”

  “You would rather I take your fine sword?”

  “No, that’s not what I–”

  “The gods do not tell me why. They only tell me it offends them and does not belong with you.” She turned the weapon over in her hand and looked up and down its blade. “Whose blood has it tasted? How did it come to you?”

  Geirmund understood then why the gods demanded it, and he also knew the seer heard their voices, for she could not have possibly known. “It was given to me by a Saxon priest,” he said. “I had no weapon then, and it has served me well in–”

  “It is a Christian blade.” She spat and sneered at the seax in disgust. “From this day you will be stronger without it.”

  “Take it, then.” He moved to untie its sheath from his belt, but she put her hand on his to stop him.

  “No,” she said. “Save a place for the weapon you will find to take its place.”

  He paused, but nodded, leaving the empty sheath on his belt, and the seer disappeared into her hut with the seax.

  “Come inside,” she called.

  Geirmund swallowed, then followed her, but could see little of her dwelling in the dim light and pungent haze of smoke that hung in the air. A post of sunlight stood in the middle of the room between the dirt floor and an opening in the roof, leaving the rest of the dwelling in shadow. Geirmund thought he glimpsed things moving in the corners, but he tried not to look too closely, fearing to see what a mortal should not.

  “Sit before the fire,” she said.

  Geirmund blinked and noticed a ring of stones resting upon the ground within the footprint of the light-beam. He took a few steps and sat down in the dirt before the circle, where he felt the glowing heat of the red coals upon his face. His heart pounded loud and fast in fear and awe as the seer sat opposite him on the other side of the hearth, almost hidden in the shadows until she leaned forward into the waterfall of sunlight. She looked at him, the vast gleam in her eyes as fierce as an empty and sweltering summer sky, and she tossed the seax into the fire. Nothing happened for a moment or two, but then the wooden handle began to smoke and smoulder, until it finally caught fire and burned.

  “Perhaps if you had killed the priest to claim it,” the seer said, “the gods might have allowed you to keep it.”

  “I understand,” he said as he watched the seax blacken, feeling some grief at its loss. He would never have killed John for it, and he remained grateful for the priest’s trust and kindness, but that was in the past, not Geirmund’s future.

  “What about your fate would you know?” the seer asked.

  He watched the flames dancing along the blade, turning it red beneath a crust of cinder. “I was told once that my fate would lead to betrayal and surrender. I have seen both, and I wish to know what now lies ahead of me.”

  “Are you certain you wish to know that? Before you answer, remember that the gods care nothing for whatever it is you hope to hear. They speak only the truth, and only the truth they choose to speak.”

  Geirmund took a deep breath. The air in the hut tasted of ash and dried blood. “I am certain.”

  She nodded, and then she leaned back, out of the light and into the shadows, but Geirmund could still see the soft glow of her eyes. She stared at him for a long while, until she no longer seemed to see him, and it felt as though her eyes looked through him, inside him and beyond him, to a treacherous place he would never dare go, where madness and wisdom became waves over the same sea.

  “Betrayal and surrender,” she said. “They are yet a part of your fate.”

  Geirmund sighed, having hoped that both were behind him.

  “But,” the seer went on, “you have already been given the way to overcome them.”

  “What way
?”

  “That is for you to learn,” she said. Then she closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she leaned back into the light and looked at him as she had through the doorway to her hut, seeing much, but not as the gods see. “You have your answer,” she said.

  “I do.” His own eyes burned and watered from the smoke. “But, as you warned me, it is not the answer I hoped for.”

  “You have a war inside you, Geirmund Hel-hide. In that way you are much like Eivor Wolf-Kissed.” She glanced down at the seax in the fire. “But the gods can favour you now as they would not have favoured you before. May they watch over you.”

  He nodded. “I thank you,” he said. Then he rose to his feet and stumbled across the hut, through the doorway, and out into the sun, where he blinked and rubbed his eyes and sucked the clean air deep into his chest until he felt steady on his feet. Then he wandered back to the hall, where he drank more ale and rested with his warriors until evening fell. Then Eivor held the feast she’d promised, where Geirmund ate his fill of meat, almost more than he had seen during their entire stay with the monks at the monastery. He devoured boar, and goat, and goose, along with so many horns of ale and mead that he lost the ability to count them. He laughed and played toga hönk with the folk of Ravensthorpe, but quickly learned that the winning side of the rope would always be the one anchored by Tarben, a bear of a man who had been a feared berserker before becoming a baker and turning his paws to bread-kneading for Eivor and her settlement.

  As guests of the feast grew drowsy, some staggered home to their beds, while others fell asleep where they were, on the benches and floor of the hall. Eivor found Geirmund and sat next to him with a contented sigh, something he thought might be rarely heard from her.

  “A good feast,” she said.

  “It is the closest I have felt to home since leaving Avaldsnes,” Geirmund said. “I do not know where my home is now.”

  “What of Bjarmaland?”

  “I’ve never been to Bjarmaland. My mother says they have towns and halls by the sea, and they are much like Finns, but they do not look like Finns. Some of them make offerings to our gods, but they also pray to a god called Jómali.”

  “Have you ever thought of sailing there?”

  “My father has never given me a ship to sail anywhere,” he said. “But I would like to go there one day.”

  She looked at him for a moment. “Is it true?”

  “Is what true?”

  “What they say about you and your brother? Did Ljufvina trade you both for the son of a thrall?”

  Geirmund could not remember the last time someone had dared ask him about that, though he had often known that question to be on many minds whether asked or not. “I see your tongue is still free,” he said.

  “I’ve had much to drink. And you do not have to answer if–”

  “Yes, much of the story is true. But not as it is often told. It began when my brother and I were born too early.”

  “It is often so with twins,” she said.

  “It is, but that frightened my mother. She was young and newly married. She spoke little of my father’s tongue, and he was often away at sea. He was still almost a stranger to her. She feared what he would do when his sons looked nothing like him. She feared he would think she already carried us by another man when she married him.”

  Eivor nodded with gradual understanding. “And the thrall? Is that true?”

  “Her name is Ágáða.” Geirmund felt his throat tighten at the thought of her. “She had just given birth to her own son, and she understood my mother well enough to know the root of her fear. She wanted to help. But I do not think she meant to offer what my mother demanded.”

  Eivor shook her head. “Gods, then it’s true.”

  “My mother would tell you she wasn’t in her right mind. She would tell you it was a hard birth, and she let her fear and pain make the choice.” Geirmund looked upwards into the smoke that curled around the rafters, while his mind’s eye turned towards his memories. “If she were here, she would say she never planned to leave us with Ágáða for so long. She would say that she only wanted to keep us safe, and that she regretted her choice the very next moment and every moment since. She would tell you she should have trusted my father, but by the time she realized this it was done.”

  “How long were you–”

  “Four summers.” He felt a cold hollow forming inside him as he said it. “We lived with Ágáða for four summers.”

  “Do you remember her well?”

  The hollow in Geirmund grew wider as more of him fell into it. “I do.”

  “And is it true that a skald revealed the secret?”

  “No,” he said. “Bragi was simply the first person with the boldness to say what everyone else could see.”

  “Even Hjörr? Could he see it?”

  “My father is no fool. I think he had to know the truth. There are times I think he only forgave my mother’s lie so easily because he knew that by leaving it unchallenged all that time he had been party to it.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  Geirmund shrugged. “He loved my mother. He saw what he wanted to see. Until Bragi made him see his sons.”

  “And what happened to the thrall’s boy?”

  “Three summers after he returned to his home, he died from weak lungs. It is said that he was born frail and often sick.”

  “And his mother? What of her?”

  “When the truth came out, my mother released her from bondage. My father gave her and her husband land. My parents said they wanted to make things right, but I think they wanted her away from us. I wasn’t allowed to see her again for a long time.”

  “Did you miss her?”

  The hollow inside ate the last of him. “I looked to her as any son would look to his mother.”

  Eivor said nothing else for some time. “The truth may not change by who speaks it, but I am glad to know the truth of all this from you.”

  “There are very few people with whom I have spoken of it so readily.”

  They kept drinking, until Geirmund could drink no more, and then Eivor guided him towards a comfortable corner stuffed with blankets and furs. He leaned on her as they walked.

  “A ship leaves for Jorvik tomorrow,” she said. “Would you like to be on it?”

  “I would,” Geirmund said. “But I am drunk, and you might need to remind me of that in the morning before the ship departs.”

  She laughed. “I will.”

  “And I will go to see Hjörr and Ljufvina,” he said.

  They reached his bed, and he collapsed into it, his limp arms and legs twisted like roots.

  Eivor stood over him, grinning and shaking her head. “So the name Hel-hide no longer bothers you?”

  “It does not,” he said. “Guthrum gave it new meaning.”

  “Many things only ever have the meaning we give them,” she said. Then she laughed again and gave him a gentle kick. “Sleep well, Geirmund Hel-hide.”

  24

  The ship rowed up the River Ouse through a cold rain, approaching Jorvik from the south. Clouds draped their tatters of mist so low to the ground they almost became a fog that hid much of the town, but their gloom matched Geirmund’s mood well.

  He had left his warriors behind in Ravensthorpe, feeling strongly that he had to make this journey on his own, and for once even Steinólfur had agreed with him. Geirmund did not know what he would say to his parents, or to his brother, as his shame and his anger fought for control of his heart and his words. He had left his family in pride and anger to meet his fate, and he returned to them without lands and without much silver, carrying only his reputation, which now accused him of slaying the kinsman of a Dane-king. But he also raged inside at his father for claiming he could not spare a single warrior of Avaldsnes to go with Geirmund, only to later surrend
er his kingdom without a fight and land in England himself.

  At Jorvik the River Foss flowed down from the east to join the Ouse and the town rose up on the wedge of land that lay between the two waterways, defended in the same way that Readingum had been, but it had also spread its buildings to its western bank. Geirmund noticed Jorvik’s walls had been built by Romans, like the walls of Lunden, and the Danes had strengthened them further, making Jorvik the most impressive stronghold that he had yet seen in England.

  The ship rowed up the Ouse and soon moored at one of the town’s wharves near a stone bridge, and Geirmund found a wet, unhappy Dane there overseeing the loading and unloading of cargo. His name was Faravid, and he told Geirmund where he could find Hjörr and Ljufvina, in their house at the top of the hill near the inner Roman walls to the north.

  Geirmund thanked him and made his way in that direction through the town, keeping the hood of his cloak up as much to stay dry as to avoid being recognized, for if word of him had reached Lunden, it may have also reached Jorvik. The wooden planks that lined the roads flexed beneath his boots and kept the streets passable despite the rain that collected in flowing channels beneath them. Where there were no planks, the ground was a mire that smelled of piss and shit, both animal and Dane. Geirmund crossed a large market emptied of merchants and trade by the foul weather, travelled down narrow byways, and slowly worked his way up through the jumble of Dane-houses and Roman ruins towards the cloud-covered hilltop.

  When he reached the ancient, inner fortifications above the town, a house of dark wood emerged from the fog and rain. Its steep roof touched the ground and rose to a sharp peak where dragons perched, and Roman pillars surrounded it like the dead trunks of a stone forest. It was not a hut but a humble building compared to a king’s hall or a jarl’s longhouse, and Geirmund wondered how it could be that his parents had willingly traded the strength and beauty of Avaldsnes for such a place. A second, lower roof fronted the house over its door, and he strode towards it in trepidation, pausing before finally shaking his head and calling a greeting as he knocked.