The Sorrow of Odin the Goth tp-7

by Poul Anderson

  He meant fire—uprising, war of Goth upon Goth, overthrow and death.

  None could tell whether the Wanderer’s face stirred. Shadows did, across the furrows therein, as lamps flickered and murk prowled. “Tell me what he has done,” he said.

  Tharasmund nodded stiffly at Randwar. “You tell, lad, as you told us.”

  The youth gulped. Fury rose through the bash-fulness he had felt in this presence. Fist smote knee, over and over, while he related roughly:

  “Know, lord—though I think you already know—that King Ermanaric had two nephews, Embrica and Fritla. They were sons of a brother of his, Aiulf, who fell in war upon the Angles in the North. Ever did Embrica and Fritla fight well themselves. Here in the South, two years ago, they led a troop eastward against the Alanic allies of the Huns. They bore home a mighty booty, for they had sacked a place where the Huns kept tribute wrung from many a region. Ermanaric heard of it and declared it was his, as king. His nephews said no, for they had carried out that raid on their own. He asked them to come talk the matter over. They did, but first they hid the treasure away. Although he had plighted their safety, Ermanaric had them seized. When they would not tell him where the hoard was, he first had them tortured, then put to death. Thereafter he sent men to scour their lands for it. Those failed; but they ravaged widely about, burned the homes of Aiulf’s sons, cut down their families—to teach obedience, he said. My lord,” Randwar screamed, “was that rightful?”

  “It is apt to be the way of kings.” The Wanderer’s tone was like iron given a voice. “What is your part in the business?”

  “My… my father was also a son of Aiulf, who died young. My uncle Embrica and his wife raised me. I’d been on a long hunting trip. When I came back, the steading was an ash heap. Folk told me how Ermanaric’s men had had their way with my foster mother before they slit her throat. She… was kin to this house: I sought hither.”

  He sank back in his chair, struggled not to sob, tossed off his beaker of wine.

  “Aye,” Tharasmund said heavily, “she, Matha-swentha was my cousin. You know that high families often marry across tribal lines. Randwar here is more distant kin to me; nonetheless, we share some of that blood which has been spilt. Also, he knows where the treasure is, sunken beneath the Dnieper. It is well that Weard sent him off just then and so spared him from capture. That gold would buy the king too much might.”

  Liuderis shook his head. “I don’t understand,” he muttered. “After everything I’ve heard, I still don’t. Why does Ermanaric behave thus? Has a fiend possessed him? Or is he only mad?”

  “I think he is neither,” Tharasmund said. “I think in some measure his counselor Sibicho—not even a Goth, but a Vandal in his service—Sibicho has hissed evil into his ear. But Ermanaric was always ready to listen, oh, yes.” To the Wanderer: “For years has he been raising the scot we must pay, and calling free-born women to his bed whether they will or no, and otherwise riding roughshod over the folk. I think he means to break the will of those chieftains who have withstood him. If we yield to this latest thing, we will be the readier to yield to the next.”

  The Wanderer nodded. “Yes, you’re doubtless right. I would say, besides, that Ermanaric envies the power of the Roman Emperor, and wants the same for himself over the Ostrogoths. Moreover, he hears of Frithigern rising to oppose Athanaric among the Visigoths, and means to scotch any such rival in his kingdom.”

  “We ride to demand justice,” Tharasmund said. “He must pay double weregild, and at the Great Moot vow upon the Stone of Tiwaz to abide henceforward by olden law and right. Else I will raise the whole country against him.”

  “He has many on his side,” the Wanderer warned: “some for troth given him, some for greed or fear, some who feel you must have a strong king to keep your borders, now when the Huns are gathering themselves together like a snake coiling to strike.”

  “Yes, but that king need not be Ermanaric!” blazed from Randwar.

  Hope kindled in Tharasmund. “Lord,” he said to the Wanderer, “you who smote the Vandals, will you stand by your kindred again?”

  Trouble freighted the answer. “I… cannot fight in your battles. Weard will not have it so.”

  Tharasmund was mute for a space. At last he asked, “Will you at least come with us? Surely the king will heed you.”

  The Wanderer was wordless longer, until there dragged from him: “Yes, I will see what I can do. But I make no promises. Do you hear me? I make no promises.”

  And thus he fared off beside the others, at the head of the band.

  Ermanaric kept dwellings throughout the realm. He and his guards, wisemen, servants traveled between them. News was that soon after the killings he had boldly moved to within three days’ ride, of Heorot.

  Those were three days of scant cheer. Snow lay in a crust over the lands. It creaked beneath hoofs. The sky was low and flat gray, the air still and raw. Houses huddled under thatch. Trees stood bare, save where firs made a gloom. Nobody said much or sang at all, not even around the campfire before crawling into sleeping bags. But when they saw their goal, Tharasmund winded his horn and they arrived at a full gallop. Cobblestones rang, horses neighed as the Teurings drew rein in the royal courtyard. Guards to about the same number stood ranked before the hall, spearheads agleam though pennons adroop. “We will have speech with your master!” Tharasmund roared.

  That was a chosen insult, a word used as if yonder men were not free but kept to heel like hounds or Romans. The captain flushed before he snapped, “A few of you may get leave to enter, but the rest must first pull back.”

  “Yes, do,” Tharasmund murmured to Liuderis. The elder warrior growled aloud, “Oh, we will, since we make you troopers uneasy—but not far, nor idle for long before we get knowledge that our leaders are safe from treachery.”

  “We have come to talk,” said the Wanderer in haste.

  He, Tharasmund, and Randwar dismounted. Doorkeepers stood aside for them and they passed through. More guardsmen filled the benches within. Against common usage, they were armed. At the middle of the east wall, flanked by his courtiers, Ermanaric sat waiting.

  He was a big man who bore himself unbendingly. Black locks and spade beard ringed a stern, lined face. In splendor was he attired, golden bands heavy over brow and wrists; flamelight shimmered across the metal. His clothes were of foreign dyed stuffs, trimmed with marten and ermine. In his hand was a wine goblet, not glass but cut crystal; and rubies sparkled on his fingers.

  Silent he abided until the three wayworn, mud-splashed newcomers reached his high seat. A time longer did he glower at them before he said, “Well, Tharasmund, you go in unusual company.”

  “You know who these are,” answered the Teuring chief, “and what our errand must be.”

  A scrawny, ash-pale man on the king’s right, Sibicho the Vandal, whispered in his ear. Ermanaric nodded. “Sit down, then,” he said. “We will drink and eat.”

  “No,” Tharasmund told him. “We will take no salt or stoup of you before you have made peace with us.”

  “You talk over-boldly, you.”

  The Wanderer lifted his spear on high. A hush fell, which made the longfires seem to crackle the louder. “If you are wise, king, you will hear this man out,” he said. “Your land lies bleeding. Wash that wound and bind on herbs ere it swells and sickens.”

  Ermanaric met his gaze and replied, “I do not brook mockery, old one. I will listen if he keeps watch on his tongue. Tell me in few words what you want, Tharasmund.”

  That was like a slap on the cheek. The Teuring must swallow thrice before he could bark out his demands.

  “I thought you would want some such,” Ermanaric said. “Know that Embrica and Fritla fell on their own deeds. They withheld from their king what was rightly his. Thieves and foresworn men are outlaw.

  However, I am forgiving. I am willing to pay weregild for their families and holdings… after that hoard has been turned over to me.”

  “What?” yelled Ra
ndwar. “You dare speak thus, you murderer?”

  The guardsmen rumbled. Tharasmund laid a warning hand on the boy’s arm. To Ermanaric he said: “We call for double weregild as an acknowledgment of the wrong you did. No less can we take and still keep our honor. But as for the ownership of the treasure, let the Great Moot decide; and whatever it decides, let all of us handsel peace.”

  “I do not haggle,” Ermanaric answered in a frosty voice. “Take my offer and begone—or refuse it and begone, lest I make you sorry for your insolence.”

  The Wanderer trod forth. Again he raised his spear to bring silence. The hat shadowed his face, making him twice uncanny to behold; the blue cloak fell from his shoulders like wings. “Hear me,” he said. “The gods are righteous. Whoso flouts the law and grinds down the helpless, him will they bring to doom. Ermanaric, hearken before it is too late. Hearken before your kingdom is rent asunder.”

  A mumble and rustle went along the hall. Men stirred, made signs, gripped hafts as though for comfort. Eyeballs rolled white amidst smoke and dimness. This was the Wanderer who spoke.

  Sibicho tugged the king’s sleeve and muttered something. Ermanaric nodded. He leaned forward, his forefinger stabbed like a knife, and he said so that it rang back from the rafters:

  “You have guested houses of mine erenow, old one. Ill does it become you to threaten me. And unwise you are, whatever children and crones and doddering gaffers may babble of you—unwise you are, if you think I fear you. Yes, they tell that you’re Wodan himself. What care I? I trust in no wispy gods, but in the strength that is mine.”

  He sprang to his feet. His sword whirred forth and gleamed aloft. “Do you care to meet me in fight, old gangrel?” he cried. “We can go stake out a ground this very hour. Meet me there, man to man, and I’ll cleave that spear of yours in twain and drive you howling hence!”

  The Wanderer did not stir; his weapon shuddered a bit. “Weard will not have that,” he well-nigh whispered. “But I warn you most gravely, for the sake of every Goth, make peace with these men you have aggrieved.”

  “I will make peace if they will,” Ermanaric said, grinning. “You have heard my offer, Tharasmund. Do you take it?”

  The Teuring braced himself, while Randwar snarled like a wolf at bay, the Wanderer stood as if he were only an idol, and Sibicho leered from the bench. “No,” he croaked. “I cannot.”

  “Then go, the lot of you, before I have you whipped back to your kennels.”

  At that, Randwar drew blade. Tharasmund and Liuderis snatched for theirs; iron flashed everywhere. The Wanderer said aloud: “We will go, but only for the sake of the Goths. Bethink you again, king, while yet you are a king.”

  He urged his companions away. Ermanaric began to laugh. His laughter hounded them down the length of the hall.

  1935

  Laurie and I went walking in Central Park. March gusted boisterous around us. A few patches of snow lingered, otherwise grass had started to green. Shrubs and trees were in bud. Beyond those boughs, the city towers gleamed newly washed by weather, on into a blueness where some clouds held a regatta. The chill was just enough to make blood tingle.

  Lost in my private winter, I scarcely noticed. She gripped my hand. “You shouldn’t have, Carl.” I felt how she shared the pain, as far as she was able.

  “What else could I do?” I replied out of the dark. “Tharasmund asked me to come along, I told you. How could I refuse, and ever sleep easy again?”

  “Do you now?” She dropped that question fast. “Okay, maybe it was all right, allowable, to lend whatever consolation there might be in your presence. But you spoke up. You tried to head off the conflict.”

  “Blessed are the peacemakers, they taught me in Sunday school.”

  “That clash is inescapable. Isn’t it? In the selfsame tales and poems you went back to study.”

  I shrugged. “Tales. Poems. How much fact is in them? Oh, yes, history knows what became of Ermanaric at the end. But did Swanhild, Hatha-wulf, Solbern die as the saga says? If anything of the kind ever happened—if it isn’t just a romantic imaginihg, centuries later, that a chronicler chanced to take seriously—did it necessarily happen to them?” I cleared my stiffened throat. “My job in the Patrol is to help discover what the events really were that it exists to preserve.”

  “Dearest, dearest,” she sighed, “you’re hurting so much. It’s twisting your judgment. Think. I’ve thought—oh, but I’ve thought—and of course I haven’t been there myself, but maybe that’s given me a perspective you… you’ve chosen not to have. Everything you’ve reported, throughout this whole affair, everything shows events driving toward a single goal. If you, as a god, could have bluffed the king into reconciliation, you would have, surely. But no, that isn’t the shape of the continuum.”

  “It flexes, though! What difference can a few barbarians’ lives make?”

  “You’re raving, Carl, and you know it. I… lie awake a lot myself, afraid of what you might blunder into. You’re too close again to what is forbidden. Maybe you’ve already crossed the threshold.”

  “The time lines would adjust. They always do.”

  “If that were true, we wouldn’t need a Patrol. You must understand the risk you’ve been running.”

  I did. I made myself confront it. Nexus points do occur, where it matters how the dice fell. They aren’t oftenest the obvious ones, either.

  An example bobbed into my memory, like a drowned corpse rising to the surface. An instructor at the Academy had given it as being suitable for cadets out of my milieu.

  Enormous consequences flowed from the Second World War. Foremost was that it left the Soviets in control of half Europe. (Nuclear weapons were indirect; they would have come into being at approximately that time regardless, since the principles were known.) Ultimately, that military-political situation led to happenings which affected the destiny of humankind for hundreds of years afterward—therefore forever, because those centuries had their own nexuses.

  And yet Winston Churchill was right when he called the struggle of 1939-1945 “the Unnecessary War.” The weakness of the democracies was important in bringing it on, true. Nonetheless, there would not have been a threat to make them quail, had Nazism not taken control of Germany. And that movement, originally small and scoffed at, later chastised (though far too mildly) by the Weimar authorities—that movement would not, could not have come to power in the country of Bach and Goethe, except through the unique genius of Adolf Hitler. And Hitler’s father had been born as Alois Schicklgruber, illegitimate, result of a chance affair between an Austrian bourgeois and a housemaid of his…

  But if you headed off that liaison, which you could easily have done without harming anybody, then you aborted all history that followed. By 1935, say, the world would already be different. Maybe it would become better than the original (in some respects; for a while) or maybe it would become worse. I could imagine, for example, that humans never got into space. Surely they would not have done it anywhere near as soon; it might well have occurred too late to rescue a gutted Earth. I could not imagine that any peaceful Utopia would have resulted.

  No matter. If things back in Roman times changed significantly because of me, I’d still be there; but when I returned to this year, my whole civilization would never have existed. Laurie would never have.

  “I… don’t agree I was taking risks,” I argued. “My superiors read my reports, honest reports they are. They’ll let me know if I’m going off the track.”

  Honest? I wondered. Well, yes, they related what I observed and did, without any lies or concealment, though in spare style. But the Patrol didn’t want emotional breastbeating, did it? And I wasn’t expected to render every last trivial detail, was I? Impossible to do, anyway.

  I drew breath. “Look,” I said, “I know my place. I’m simply a literary and linguistic scholar. But wherever I can help—wherever I safely can—I’ve got to. Don’t I?”

  “You’re you, Carl.”

  We w
alked on. Presently she exclaimed, “Hey, man, you’re on furlough, vacation, remember? We’re supposed to relax and enjoy life. I’ve been making plans for us. Just listen.”

  I saw tears in her eyes, and did my best to return the cheerfulness she laid over them.

  366–372

  Tharasmund led his men back to Heorot. There they disbanded and sought their own homes. The Wanderer bade farewell. “Do not rush into action,” was his counsel. “Bide your time. Who knows what may happen?”

  “I think you do,” said Tharasmund.

  “I am no god.”

  “You have told me that more than once, but naught else. What are you, then?”

  “I may not unhood it. But if this house owes me anything for what I have done over the years, I claim the debt now, and lay upon you that you gang slowly and warily.”

  Tharasmund nodded. “I would in any case. It will take time and skill to bring enough men into a brotherhood that Ermanaric cannot stand against. After all, most would rather sit on their farms and hope trouble passes them by, whoever else it may strike. Meanwhile, the king will likeliest not risk an open breach before he feels he is ready. I must keep ahead of him, but I know full well that a man can walk farther than he can run.”

  The Wanderer took his hand, made as if to speak, but blinked hard, wheeled, strode off. The last sight Tharasmund had of him was his hat, cloak, and spear, away down the winter road.

  Randwar settled into Heorot, a living remembrance of wrongs. Yet he was too young and full of life to brood very long. Soon he, Hathawulf, and Solbern were fast friends, together in hunt, sports, games, every kind of merriment. He likewise saw much of their sister Swanhild.

  Equinox brought melting ice, bud, blossom, and leaf. During the cold season Tharasmund had gone widely around among the Teurings and beyond, to speak in private with leading men. In spring he stayed home and busied himself with work upon his lands; and every night he and Erelieva had joy of each other.