The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1)

by Deborah Davitt

  The Valkyrie

  Book One of the

  Saga of

  Edda-Earth

  by

  Deborah L. Davitt

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2014 Deborah L. Davitt

  Maps and interior artwork, © 2014 Deborah L. Davitt

  Cover art by Elizaveta Gokoeva (http://ladyowl.deviantart.com)

  ISBN-10: 0-9860916-3-4

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9860916-3-6

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by any means, without permission.

  For more information on this and other books in this series, please visit www.edda-earth.com.

  Foreword

  I have offered this book solely in electronic form before, thinking that I couldn’t make print format work. I was wrong, and am delighted to be proven so. I have had to remove the “bind-runes” that marked each point-of-view and their affiliated appendix, but these were only introduced to make the e-book edition more readable.

  No book is ever written in a vacuum. Even the lonely hermit writing by the light of a candle in a shack by a chilly pond isn’t really alone; that writer has the company of thousands of ghosts. Every book a writer has ever read, whispers over your shoulder as you write. Everything you’ve ever agreed with in a book you’ve read . . . or in my case, more loudly, everything I’ve ever disagreed with in a book . . . comes to the fore. And there are, of course, your characters, directing you, once they’ve become live and kicking voices in your head, who sometimes, quite adamantly, won’t do something that plot requires, on the grounds that Plot is stupid, you the Author are stupid, and they know better. (And quite frankly, they’re usually right.)

  I do not speak Latin, Old Norse, ancient Sumerian, or Hebrew; therefore, I cannot translate the original texts myself. My languages in school were German, Anglo-Saxon, and Russian. Therefore, I have used many short segments of translations that are in the public domain. None are longer than what might be used ethically in an academic treatise—three to six lines, and little more. As I did not wish to break the reader’s immersion in a world in which, for example, John Dryden never lived, I couldn’t rightly attribute to him a translation of Virgil. Hence my decision to go with public-domain sources as much as possible for such translations. I make no claims to any of the translations throughout these books, and, indeed, hope that people will be inspired enough to go look up the original texts and read them! These are some of the voices whispering over my shoulder as I write, after all.

  People I’d like to thank include Nathan Mittlelman, for giving me the push I needed to explore the “Rome-that-never-died” idea that had been knocking at the back of my head for years, and asking the question, “Would they have magic?”; Alexander Thomas, for his extensive assistance with both Latin language and historical questions; Laura Ballegeer, for reading and responding, particularly in regards to First Nations issues, and many others. Especially, I’d like to thank my husband, Jason Davitt, for always lending his engineer’s eye, and letting me know when I’d reached the tensile limits of a character’s arc.

  A Note on Dates

  For a full calendar and timeline of important historical divergences, you may refer to the Appendices. All you need to know at the outset, is that all dates in Edda are not BC/BCE (before common era) or AD/CE (common era). They are noted as BAC/AC: Before the ascent of Caesar, and after the ascent of Caesar. All dates are offset by 44 years as a result.

  Thus, 1954 AC is 1910 AD.

  Part I: The Morning Star

  Caesaria Aquilonis in 1954 AC

  Chapter I: Beliefs

  Casca: Look you on Caesar; see how like a king

  He befits himself; no, no backless bench

  For him, like a senator with a toga

  Trimmed in purple. Nor is the curule seat

  Honor enough.

  Cassius: Pride rules him now, where once

  his passions did. A throne is his harlot,

  His mistress, the object of all his lusts.

  Cinna: Is Brutus with us? Will he be constant?

  Casca: We have his assurance.

  Cassius: Hold. Brutus comes.

  He will speak to Caesar. Stand ready, all!

  Caesar: Brutus, my loyal friend. What do you ask

  Of Caesar and his senate? What mercy

  Do you seek, for yourself, or for others?

  Brutus: Some here today plain for banish’d Cimber.

  I seek only justice, mighty Caesar,

  And speak only truth; I am no traitor.

  He whom I name a friend, I hold for life.

  You are set round with enemies, a bull

  Baited by mongrels; their teeth at your throat.

  Get you hence! Fly, Caesar, or fall here, with me!

  CONSPIRATORS, enraged, attack BRUTUS. BRUTUS falls, dying, to the Senate floor. CAESAR, surrounded by Legionnaires, falls back.

  Caesar: He who bares a blade on the Senate floor

  Defiles it, defies the gods. The bootless blood

  Of butchered Brutus stains your hands and souls,

  And if the gods’ curse falls not on you for it,

  Then know that mine will.

  Legionnaire: Caesar, your orders?

  Caesar: Guards, take them all. They have defied both laws

  Of men and of the gods; the law will be

  No more or less merciful than the gods.

  Exeunt omnes except CAESAR.

  Caesar, cradling the body of Brutus: You came to me and spoke words of warning,

  Unveiled your heart and unburdened yourself

  Of the treachery they tried to instill

  In you. But you were constant and faithful,

  As steady as Polaris and as bright.

  Let all who ever hear the name Brutus

  Hear in its place, assurance of trust.

  — Seneca the Younger. The Triumph of Julius Caesar. Act IV, Scene ii, ca. 103 Ascensio Caesare.

  ______________________

  Martius 5, 1954 AC

  “It’s plainly evident that the Aten is the one true god.”

  “It’s not evident in the slightest. What is the Aten, but one god out of a whole host of half-beast, half-man creatures, propped up by a pharaoh who’s been rotting in his sarcophagus for over three thousand years?”

  The words, all spoken in Latin, the lingua franca of many nations, fell into a sort of void, as the various murmuring voices in the hotel lounge went silent. It was the sort of gap that one experienced on saying something embarrassing, usually while drunk, at a party.

  The two men at the bar didn’t seem to notice the heads all around them turning and looking, being far too involved in their dispute. One wore a sun disc of Aten, in gold, prominently displayed at his throat, his crisp white dress shirt open to reveal it. He looked vaguely Ptolemaic, with dark hair worked into braids, and dark eyes, outlined in kohl . . . but his olive skin was a little pale, as if he’d not often been out in the light of the sun he worshipped, of late.

  The other man had an aquiline nose—sign of Roman descent, most likely—and piercing dark eyes. In spite of the warmth of central heat in the hotel lounge, he wore a short cloak in gray gabardine over his white shirt with its careful lacing, and matching gabardine slacks. The bull’s-head brooch that clasped the cloak at his throat clearly showed his affiliation with the Mithraists.

  The lounge was dimly lit, with sconces along all the walls glimmering with the light of incandescent bulbs, which flickered now and then, like candle flames. The power from the grid was uncertain, drawn from the ley-lines in the earth, and was evidently unconditioned here, at the outskirts of the metropo
litan Ponca area. In that dim amber glow, dozens of businessmen and businesswomen sat around tables, eating their dinners with varying degrees of gusto.

  The solo travelers were easy to spot; they sat alone, now eyeing the arguing pair over the edges of newspapers written in Latin, Gallic, or Gothic—the letters were Roman in two out of three, but the Gothic papers used stark, dark runes, instead. The Gauls in the crowd wore crisp white shirts and, if they were of Pictish descent, plaid kilts that bared their knees. Most of them had tossed their plaids over their chair backs, and a few boasted blue clan tattoos, made visible as they rolled up their sleeves to eat. The handful of Romans in the room, like the Mithraist, tended towards slacks and light gabardine or wool cloaks. There were even a few Nahautl, from far to the south, easily distinguished by their darker skin-tones, more vividly-dyed clothing, and their bold, black tattoos and partially shaved heads. A small group of them seemed to be attending a pharmaceutical company’s conference, and had been drinking mescal and laughing as they discussed the benefits of this drug over that one, and the stupidity of the Empire’s food and drug regulations. A couple even wore long jade earrings or golden earplugs, by personal preference. Formal accoutrements to add to their white shirts and business cloaks striped in scarlet or gold.

  The argument at the bar continued now, the Atenist sitting up, clearly offended. “Half-man, half-beast? The true nature of the Aten was revealed to us before your people even learned how to chisel letters, let alone how to smelt bronze. Akhenaten revealed the truth to us. The old representations were metaphors. The hawk-headed man and the sun-disc itself were merely symbols. The Aten is the symbol of the true Creator, the god above all other gods.” He reached out and poked his companion in the shoulder with one finger, breaching the bubble of space between them. “If you’re going to dispute with me, you may as well get your facts straight.”

  The Mithraist looked down at the finger that had poked his shoulder, then glanced up at the ceiling, as if for patience, and set down his glass of Gallic uisce beatha . . . what people outside of Gaul and Novo Gaul often slurred into the word whiskey. . . with deliberate care. “Look. I’m not really here for an argument. I just wanted a drink with my dinner before we head back to the conference tomorrow. But now, you’re starting to take it a little too personally.”

  The Egyptian man flipped his hand in mild irritation. “Porphyry, you’re the one who brought up Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun, and how the Romans have filched your god for their own purposes—” The Atenist was a belligerent drunk, it seemed. At least, one who liked to argue.

  Almost everyone in the room was, at this point, staring at the pair at the bar. The sole exception was a couple at the side of the room, who were only regarding the pair out of the corners of their eyes. They sat in a booth, both their backs to the wall, to the left of one of the wide glass windows, and didn’t seem to be business travelers. The man had olive skin, and lively, liquid-dark eyes and a neatly-trimmed dark beard. Unlike the other travelers in the room, he wore denim jeans. In spite of the heat of bodies and the warmth of the kitchen, which blasted out at the pair every time the swinging double doors beside their booth opened, the man kept his heavy gray cloak around his shoulders . . . . though loosely enough, that he could reach under it, if he needed to do so. A particularly sharp set of eyes might have noticed the leather straps under the cloak, over his white shirt, which hinted that the man might be carrying a concealed firearm. His hair was long enough that it still tumbled out from under the raised hood of this cloak, and in spite of the mouth-watering aromas of sausage, venison, rouladen, mushroom sauce, and warm bread, he was picking, desultorily at a salad in front of him, delicately flicking items out of it with a fork.

  His female companion might have been Cimbric or Frisian. It was certainly possible; the greater metropolitan area of Ponca was situated between the provinces of Nova Germania and Novo Gaul, and in the close vicinity of several smaller petty kingdoms. The woman had tossed her cloak beside her in the booth, revealing a brown leather bodice currently worn without an undershirt. She’d laced it tightly, showing the clean strength of her long arms and pale skin. But like the man beside her, she also wore blue jeans. No earrings, which could be pulled or twisted or torn from her lobes by an assailant. No silver or gold torc at her neck, and no rings, either. While her pale copper hair was long, it was tied back in a single thick braid and knotted at the nape of her neck. The only trace of softness in her was the hair that had pulled loose around her face after a long day of travel. And at the moment, she appeared far more interested in the food in front of her, than in the argument at the bar.

  “Shrimp,” the man muttered to the woman, in Latin. He had a heavy regional accent that suggested it wasn’t his native tongue. “I was pretty specific, wasn’t I?” He held up the pink, fleshy item, offering it to her. “You want this? I can’t eat it.”

  “Me? No. They’re vile.” Her accent was Gothic, and while she was fluent in the language of the Empire, she’d never lose the accent of her home. Now, she gave him a faintly amused glance, the warmth going no further than her cold gray eyes. “I don’t envy you your diet, Adam. Was there nothing else on the menu?”

  He set the shrimp, gingerly, to the side. “Sausage. Pork chops. Pies baked with lard in the crust.”

  She poked the steak on the plate in front of her with the tip of her knife, and held it up, dripping juices onto the plate. “Bison?”

  “I have no idea where the butcher put his hands before he cut that, let alone what he did with his knives, Sigrun.”

  “There was salmon gravlax, too.”

  “That’s made by burying raw fish in the ground and letting it ‘ferment.’ That’s another word for ‘rot.’” He made a face.

  “There’s usually salt involved. And it’s better than lutefisk.”

  “Do I want to know what that is?”

  “Fish cured in lye.”

  “. . . wouldn’t that turn it into soap?”

  “Only if you let it soak too long. Then yes, you could probably use it to clean floors, if you could abide the stench.” She cut into her steak once more, and wolfed down a bite. “My point was, you have options. The gravlax would be allowable.”

  “Allowable, yes. Tasty, no. I also don’t see you eating it, Sig.”

  “I’m not fond of fish,” she returned, with aplomb.

  Adam grinned at her. “You are hardly a good representative of the people who built the boats who brought the armies of the Empire to these shores, Sigrun.”

  She lifted her head, and her lips curled back from her teeth. It was not quite a smile.

  Back at the bar, the argument had picked up speed and steam once again. “You stubborn fool, you revile Aten as being half-man, half-beast, but what about your bull-slayer god, eh? I’ve been to your temples for the Birth of the Unconquered Sun at midwinter. You show him at the altar, naked, with a lion’s head on his shoulders, wrapped in a serpent’s coils! How is this any different from the early, best-forgotten practices of my ancestors—”

  The Mithraist had clearly had enough. He leaned forward, and began to bait the Atenist now. “It’s not just your ancestors who bowed down before hippos and crocodiles,” he pointed out, needlingly. “Everyone else along the banks of the Nile still does. You’re a sect, at best. How many worshippers does your god have? Ten, fifteen thousand, at the most?”

  “We are working to educate our people! All the other, lesser gods who were below him are dead, slain in the reign of Akhenaten, may he reside forever in glory with his father, the great god himself. . . .”

  “That’s not what the Ptolemies say, right down through our beloved emperor, Caesarion the ninth. You’re not calling the Imperator of Rome a liar, are you?”

  That got heads to turn. Various people stirred uncomfortably. This was the sort of conversation that tip-toed right on the very edge of treason. The hooded man in the corner lifted his head, and seemed to mark the pair at the bar out. “Let it go, Adam,” th
e woman advised, quietly.

  “Just keeping an eye on it, Sig.”

  “We are off-duty, and I would prefer to remain so.”

  Back at the bar, the Atenist seemed to realize he was on treacherous ground at last. “I’m not calling him a liar,” he said, walking back from the precipice. “I’m saying that he’s mistaken. A man can be mistaken, and not be a liar, or dishonored.”

  “I think that the emperor would be rather fully informed about whether his godly ancestors through his grandmother of honored name, Cleopatra, are alive or dead.” Bland words. The Mithraist was enjoying himself now, it seemed.

  “And an emperor cannot be lied to, eh? Cannot be blinded with falsehoods, just as other, lesser men are? Just as you yourself have been blinded your whole life with lies. Your Mithras is nothing more than Aten in another guise, and you will not see it!” Vehemence now, the Atenist almost spitting in his haste to get the words out.

  “Not according to the god-born. I’ve met a god-born, a descendant of Mithras. And he’d actually seen the face of our god. Been touched by his very hand. I think I can take his word that my god and your god are not the same.” The Mithraist’s heavy eyebrows beetled over his aquiline nose.

  “The god-born? A bunch of sorcerers and liars who’ve banded together to hide the truth from others. To keep us enslaved to a hundred false gods, and to the ‘god-born,’ with them.” The Atenist had a prepared response for every question or statement, it seemed.

  For the first time, the woman’s head came up at the table where she and the dark-haired man sat in the corner, her eyes flicking over the increasingly agitated and drunk Atenist. The Mithraist was now clearly stringing the angry man along, giving him enough rope with which to hang himself.