The Sword of the Lady

by S. M. Stirling

″Friend, you′ll find that Mary can take care of herself well enough, you betcha,″ he said mildly, and then strode over to where Harberga waited at the door of her kitchen′s cold store. Fred sniggered wordlessly as he scooped up two burlap sacks of rye flour and followed Ingolf with one over each shoulder.

  The Bjorning flushed, leaned his dreadful polearm against a wall and picked up the practice equivalent—a four-foot helve with a mock blade of light pine, wrapped in felt and rags; no matter how shielded, the seven-pound head of the original would smash bone like kindling if driven hard. Then he took stance, the ax slanted across his body with his hands wide-spaced near butt and helve—an expert′s grip. The man was about halfway between Rudi and John Hordle in size, and from the look of him he had the shoulders to move the massive weapon quickly. When he struck the air hummed, but Rudi thought he was pulling the blow.

  Mary leapt straight upward over the swing, her own chest-height from a standing start. The Bjorning had expected to strike, or at least to have the blow blocked by the longsword she wore across her back with the hilt over the right shoulder. Instead as it met only air the momentum of the strike pulled his body around irresistibly. The Ranger′s hand darted out and tweaked his nose painfully; then she went into a series of backflips that left her half a dozen yards away.

  Tsk, tsk, Rudi thought.

  He was a fine gymnast himself, but that sort of thing had little place in actual fighting to his way of thinking. In a fight you should move precisely as much as needed to attack or defend, neither more nor less. The Dúnedain tended to be a bit showy, though.

  Some of the onlookers cheered her. Others hooted in wholehearted mirth, bending over and clutching themselves or slapping hands on their thighs—as Edain had said, the two clansmen found the dwellers here a bit doomful by Mackenzie standards, but this was a joke after their own hearts. A few of the women watching called comments to the ax-bearer that would have had Rudi′s ears flushing, and made the man bellow with anger in his mouse-colored braided beard. He brought the weapon up to guard and began a rush, then halted in wariness.

  Now Mary had the chain unwound from her waist, both ends crisscross ing in glittering arcs as she whirled them clockwise and counterclockwise; one held a sickle-shaped blade, the other a steel ball. That was a weapon she′d taken up during their stay in Chenrezi Monastery, in the Valley of the Sun. The monks taught it, and Master Hao said she was a natural for it—it was a yin weapon anyway, suitable to her changeful nature.

  The Bjorning decided to treat it as if it was a quarterstaff, and struck at the middle spot where her hands turned wrist-over-wrist to keep the chain moving. Mary dropped promptly to one knee, and let the steel links slide through her gloved palms. There was a rattling chunk as one end of the chain whipped around the ax helve, and a muffled curse as it bound hand to ashwood. The sickle struck his forearm in a way that would have laid it open to the bone if the sharp blade hadn′t been encased in its leather sheath.

  He pulled back, trying to free the haft and throwing his far greater weight and raw strength against hers through the metal link. Mary came with the pull and at the same instant the other end of the chain wrapped around the man′s knees, whirling itself into a tangle with the steel ball thudding into his thigh muscle with paralyzing force. He began to buckle forward; Mary′s booted feet struck him neatly in the stomach, her back hit the ground, and she used his own momentum to throw him roaring over her head with an arching twist and pivot.

  There was a heavy, meaty thud as he landed in a patch of last night′s snow not yet trampled or stained. It puffed up around him in a cloud of glittering crystal, and through it Mary pounced with a cat-screech of Sindarin that Rudi translated without effort:

  ″So long, sucker!″

  She landed astraddle the man, her long narrow dagger out and hovering above his eye. He glared at her for a moment and then his lips quirked up in a smile. That turned into a roar of laughter, and he threw his arms wide in a theatrical gesture of surrender.

  ″Hrolf Homersson gives you best, shield-maiden! I give you best. What a pity you′re wedded already!″

  Mary simply snorted as she rose and helped him untangle himself. Ritva sauntered over and put her hands on her hips as she watched.

  ″I′m not,″ she pointed out with cheerful helpfulness. ″Are you, Hrolf Homersson? Not that I′m proposing, you understand.″

  Ingolf came back from his task, working his shoulders. He spoke to Mary in the elven tongue, slowly and a bit clumsily:

  ″Herves″—wife—″you can throw me on my back and leap upon me when you will, but I may grow resentful if you do it to other men . . . unless there′s a dagger in your hand.″

  ″Herven″—husband—″with you I will use not the dagger of war for your eye, but the feather-duster of tickling for your man parts!″

  Virginia Kane was demonstrating what you could do with a lariat from horseback; seeing one of their dodging, running number caught and dragged a few yards was another way to tickle the Bjorning funny bone, evidently.

  ″Their sense of a jest is something . . . robust, here,″ Rudi observed.

  ″I like it well enough,″ Edain said.

  ″That′s no surprise. You near killed yourself laughing that time the cow I was milking caught me in the face with a well-beshatted tail.″

  Edain snickered at the memory. ″Chief, a man in his eightieth summer would have thought that funny, and him dead also, much less a boy! The expression on you! And you rubbed dung in my hair, as I remember, and we were both covered head to foot by the time we′d stopped scuffling like a pair of puppies.″

  Rudi sighed reminiscently. ″And then your da came out and took us by the ears and pitched us both into the pond,″ he said. ″Lucky it was that was a warm day and we weren′t wearing anything but old kilts.″

  Edain shuddered. ″Lucky indeed, Chief. You ran back up the hill to Dun Juniper. I had to face me mother!″

  Just then Harberga came back out the door and called, smiling:

  ″If the children are finished their play, the meal is ready!″

  A herald more formal came out of the main doors of the hall and blew the summoning horn, a long harsh huuuuuuuuuu through the cold air.

  The twin doors were twice man-height, thick oak slabs strapped with iron on either side of a framework of beams, and at the end of the long rectangular structure. The roof above towered high and steep-pitched; the gable beams crossed in snarling dragonheads above the snowy shingles, and a steady trickle of smoke came from the mortared fieldstone chimneys. Pillars on either side of the entranceway were carved in a strong stylized style.

  The shapes were a red-bearded man who bore a hammer and a woman with a distaff and hair of bright gold; gold covered the elk antlers above. Within was a square stone-flagged chamber ringed with benches, trunks, pegs and racks where outer clothes and weapons could be left. Rudi was wearing his good kilt and plaid beneath his winter gear today—a kilt wasn′t as warm as trousers, but it was more than enough for a while, if you had drawers on beneath.

  He offered his arm to Mathilda as they went through the inner doors to the hall proper, and she took it.

  ″Father Ignatius is going to duck out later,″ she said.

  ″And you′re not, my heart?″

  ″No. I . . . want to see. It isn′t like participating, after all.″

  Is it not? he thought, but kept his silence. Well, that′s between him and you at your next confession.

  Bjarni had seated Rudi at his right, and Mathilda at the Mackenzie′s side; those were positions of honor, and let him talk to the Bjorning chieftain. Evergreen boughs in wreaths on walls and rafters scented the air, and a decorated fir tree stood tall in the center. The feast was to be long and leisurely. Rudi enjoyed it—potato soup, roast pork, braised red cabbage, more potatoes prepared in half a dozen ways, a meat pie not quite like anything he′d tasted before—

  ″Now that′s not beef, nor venison either, I think,″ he said thoughtfully
after he′d chewed and swallowed; the ground meat was mixed with minced onion and some herbs, and it had a musky undertone, not exactly rank but strong. ″Though it′s more like venison or elk than any tame beast I′ve had.″

  He plied his fork again: ″Tasty!″

  ″Moosemeat tortiere,″ Harberga said, smiling at his enthusiasm. ″Most households here take a moose in the fall, when the frosts set in; we make all the pies then and freeze them in the cold pantry for use all winter. There′s near half a ton of meat on a big moose, and the bones and sinew and hide are all useful too, but they take a good deal of killing.″

  Bjarni′s eyes lit and went to one of the spears on the wall; it was a long hunter′s weapon, with wings forged into the base of the head to prevent an irate beast from running up it to express one last opinion of the human who′d stuck it.

  ″Yes, that′s fine sport,″ he said enthusiastically. ″None better, except bear or tiger—and the stripe-cats are still rare here. There weren′t any at all in this country when my father founded Norrheim; they came up later from the troll-lands.″

  A scowl: ″And too many of them are man-eaters by choice. Bears leave humans alone, usually, and so do wolves—though they′ll both eat our stock, ayuh! But the tigers are a menace, and there are more every year.″

  ″They′re common in Montival, unpleasantly so sometimes,″ Rudi replied.

  Mathilda leaned across and touched the tip of Rudi′s nose; there was a tiny, barely visible fleck of scar there.

  ″I was there when a tiger did that to Rudi with the very end of one claw,″ she said proudly. ″He held it away on a spear until it died.″

  ″It was already wounded,″ Rudi said lightly.

  Then a faraway look came into his eyes. ″Remember those lions we came across in the Sioux country?″

  ″Lions?″ Bjarni asked, intrigued. ″I′ve heard of them, but there are none here. Too cold in winter, I suppose.″

  ″Probably too many trees, as well; the beasts don′t like close forest. They′re spreading north from the desert countries, from the Rio Grande. We were being chased at the time, and sort of ran into them, and through them, at a gallop. It was lucky, in the event—they′d just had time to get good and angry when our foemen arrived expecting to cut our throats and found the lions instead . . .″

  Bjarni and his wife chuckled, and so did the rest of the Bjornings within hearing; evidently that appealed to the Norrheimer sense of humor too.

  ″What′s an angry lion like?″ he asked.

  ″Every bit as nasty as an angered tiger, and they run in packs like wolves. You″—he pointed his fork at Mathilda—″wanted to keep that cub as a pet!″

  ″It was cute,″ Mathilda said.

  ″It was young. I′ve had many a shrewd scratch from ordinary moggies who meant no real harm. One that weighed three hundred pounds, with claws like knives . . .″

  They spoke more and pleasantly, of hunting and then local lore; evidently Norrheim was a loose federation of quasi-independent chieftain-ships, each heading a tribe comprised of bondar—yeomen—who pledged allegiance to a godhi of their choice, who lead them in war and sacrifice and presided at assembly. The farmers changed the allegiance if it suited them; Mathilda looked faintly scandalized at that, but held her peace about it. Local folkmoots called things met each spring to hear cases and vote on laws, and an Althing in the summer did the same for the whole. Eriksgarth was the senior chieftainship, its master head of the Bjornings, and home of the Althing′s meeting ground.

  They didn′t take a census here, but Rudi estimated from what his host said that the Norrheim folk were about as numerous as the Clan Mackenzie; threescore thousand or a little more, and growing fast, more by births now than by outsiders joining.

  ″My father made us a people,″ Bjarni said proudly. ″He knew what must be done—when to speak, when to show an example, and when to break heads. Folk who were cast adrift in a world made strange saw it. Others of his Bjorning kindred who came north with him became godhi of their own tribes too, as he set them here or there to help put the land in order. I remember a little of the beginning of it; I was six when the Change came, and we left Springfield. That was a thorpe near Boston.″

  ″Boston!″ Ingolf said, from the other side of the chieftain. ″I′ve been to Boston . . . if your father made his escape from there, and took his people with him, then he was some sort of a man.″

  The lamps were lit on their iron wheels and hoisted up the pillars as the evening proceeded; there was unstinted food, drink, song—Rudi came to keenest attention as a harper performed—stories sad or merry or moving—and chanted ancestral epic:

  ″There was a man named Orm the Strong, a son of Ketil Asmundsson who was a yeoman in the north of Jutland; and this was before the Dane-lands were one kingdom. The folk of Ketil had dwelt there as long as men remembered, and held broad acres. The wife of Ketil was Asgerd, who was a leman-child of Ragnar Lothbrok. Thus Orm came of good stock on both spear and distaff sides, but as he was the fifth living son of his father he could look for no great inheritance. So Orm was a seafarer, and from his youth spent most of his summers in viking—″

  The ways and arts here didn′t have Dun Juniper′s quick bright shifting glitter, with its ever-present tang of the Otherworld. But there was a deep steady sonorous music to it all, one that had its own harsh magic and strong-boned beauty and spoke to his blood.

  Eventually, Bjarni rose—for the first time since the feast started, except once when he′d darted over to quiet two half-drunken brawlers by the simple expedient of grabbing their necks and banging their heads together hard enough to make Rudi wince. Their friends had laid them out under the tables, and the rest had gone on unconcerned with the fallen serving as footstools. Now he hammered the hilt of his seax on the table, and silence fell, more or less; he spoke into it.

  ″Bjornings, and guests come from far lands! Tonight our luck is strong. The seidhkona Heidhveig has come to Eriksgarth and will take the High Seat of prophecy and speak. Let all here behave in seemly wise, as do true men and true women.″

  Men moved the table before them, and placed a high carved chair with arms on the dais before the hearth. Heidhveig entered from the door that led to the house; Rudi had seen little of her until now, and his hosts had merely said that she rested and felt out the wights—which was what the Norrheim folk called the spirits of place. Now she paced slowly through the hall, an old woman in a midnight-blue cloak and gown with a cap of black lambskin. Her wrought staff went thunk . . . thunk . . . as she walked down the row of pillars, helped by a stern-faced middle-aged woman and several others who were younger but nearly as serious.

  ″Who′s the other woman with a staff?″ Rudi murmured.

  ″Thorlind Williamsdottir—she really runs the seidh group these days. She was one of the first ones Heidhveig trained as a gydhja, a godwoman.″

  Mathilda started to cross herself, then refrained; it would be impolite, under the circumstances. Instead she touched the place on her tunic where the crucifix rested below. The helpers set another box on the dais so that the old woman could climb onto the elevated seat; it had a cushion embroidered with ravens, and two carved from wood stood on the seat back. The younger gydhja sat on a low stool next to the tall seidhjallr, the Chair of Magic. Heidhveig held her staff between her knees, gripping it with both gnarled hands as if it were an anchor planted in the ground.

  Bjarni′s sister Gudrun took a basin of water and moved around the great room, sprinkling each one with drops flicked from a twig and murmuring:

  ″With water from the Well of Wyrd

  All ill that has been;

  All ill now becoming;

  All ill that shall be;

  I banish away.″

  The younger godwoman took a drum and began to beat it; a walrus-ivory ring skittered across the taut surface, making the beat throb with a burring tone that filled the hall. She spoke from her stool, her voice low and hieratic:

  ″This
hall is hallowed for Heimdall′s children,

  Safe we sit at the sacred center.

  Who will dare the waiting darkness?

  Who will walk the way of wisdom?″

  ″I will,″ Heidhveig said.

  The seeress′ voice was hoarse but strong. Rudi felt the skin prickle on his neck and between his shoulders as she pulled the thin veil draped around her shoulders over her head, so that it hid her face. When Thorlind spoke again, her words seemed to come from a depth—from a cave, perhaps, or a wildwood, or simply from the deeps of time:

  ″Sink down, then, and be at ease. You know the road well, the way through the Wood between the Worlds, and the plain of Midgard that lies within. Fare onward, wise one, down and around beneath the root of the Tree . . .″

  Rudi found his own eyes closing, images forming behind them as the woman went on, leading them from world to world and depth to depth, to the very walls of Hella′s kingdom, that he had never expected to see as a living man.

  ″Down and around we fare, until we come to the Eastern Gate. Here we must wait. For one and one only the gate will open . . .″

  Rudi sighed, resisting the unexpected attraction of that passage to the Otherworld. He could feel Matti sitting stiff beside him, and squeezed her hand, as much to keep himself firmly grounded as to comfort her.

  Thorlind spoke again:

  ″The gate to knowledge gapes before us.

  Seeress, is it your will to go through?″

  ″It is,″ the seeress said.

  Thorlind began to sing; one by one the rest of the Bjornings joined in. The tune was strange, full of odd sharps. It had a feel of ancientry to it, like old stone still strong but covered in moss and worn with the rains and frost of countless years:

  ″Seeress, thy way through the worlds thou must win,

  Farther and faster and deeper within,

  Fare onward, ever onward, ever on.″

  Then she spoke sharply: ″Tell us what thou dost see?″