by J. M. Hofer
“Settled, then,” Elffin concluded, managing a half-smile. “Let’s return to the hall and get you and your men fed.”
Perhaps you were indeed born under a bad sign, my friend, Bran thought. He sighed and put a reassuring arm on his shoulder.
***
It was near dark when the ominous prows of the enemy ships were seen approaching from the north. This time, their tall silhouettes augured hope, instead of doom. The Saxon captives were taken aboard the Ceffyl Dŵr and shackled down below to await their fates.
Irwyn went down and spoke to them in their own tongue. From his tone, Bran could tell they were words of warning.
“Those lads are from Jutland,” Irwyn told them when he came back up. “It lies four days from here, if the sea is good to us—five or six, if she is not. I told them we would take them home and trade them for our own people if they would show us the way. They are quiet now, but they will talk.”
The way Irwyn stated his final words left no doubt in Bran’s mind that they would.
***
Everyone worked day and night to finish the Lonely Sister, only stopping to sleep a few hours. Irwyn spent the day overseeing the construction, and then returned to the Ceffyl Dŵr each night to see if any of their prisoners had changed their mind about talking. There was never any screaming from down below, or the sound of threats, and Bran wondered what strategy Irwyn was using. If it did not yield results before the ship was ready, he planned to go down and use his own. They would certainly prefer Irwyn’s. Eventually, however, Irwyn’s patience paid off.
“Hraban the Terrible is their Earl,” Irwyn announced triumphantly one night. “Their village is within the Lim Fjord, which I know well.”
Bran raised his eyebrows. “How did you make them talk?”
“I did not make them,” Irwyn said, shrugging his shoulders. “There is no glory in dying in the belly of a ship.”
***
Lucia tried to convince Bran to leave the Lonely Sister behind now that they had the enemy ships and a destination, but Bran flatly refused. “We need that ship—she’s the biggest we have. We must make this voyage with all the captives and warriors we have if we are to have any chance of winning this battle. We can’t afford to leave a single warrior behind.”
“And if we arrive too late, there won’t be anyone left alive to fight for!” she shot back.
He took her by the shoulders, as he always did when he was trying to make a point with her. “You may have the Sight, but I know how to win a battle. You’re going to have to trust me.”
That was the end of it.
In the agonizing days that followed, she put her efforts into helping wherever she could with the other preparations for the voyage—making arrows, assembling provisions, seeing the captives were fed, and other such chores. Bran and his men focused on battle strategy, who would captain each ship, what provisions they needed, and who would sail with whom.
It had now been two weeks. She felt herself teetering on the edge of madness, peering into an abyss she feared would soon swallow her. “How much longer?” she demanded. She had not slept more than a few hours a night since the enemy had sailed away with their children, and those few hours had been fraught with nightmares. She could not take any more.
“Irwyn says a few days at the most,” he replied impotently.
Lucia put her face in her hands.
“Everyone’s working day and night, Lucia—you included. There’s nothing more we can do.”
True to his word, two days later, Irwyn came up from the shipyard to find her. “We will finish the ship today,” he told her with a sincere nod. “We sail tomorrow.”
Lucia looked up at the sky and nearly wept. “We’re coming”, she whispered to her children into the wind, over and over. We’re coming.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The Return of the Brisingamen
The ships left the open sea and sailed inland to a sheltered village within a large fjord. It was there that they finally slid upon land, late in the afternoon. Taliesin and the others were roughly disembarked and dragged through the seawater onto a foreign shore. The only benefit to their icy march was that it washed away some of blood and excrement that had clung to them for the past five days. Many fell, their legs weak from the voyage, and were forcibly dealt with.
Their captors led them to a village where a great bonfire burned. They divided the women and took them elsewhere, stripped the men of their clothes, doused them with water, and led them to a longhouse with a high-sloping turf-covered roof.
The longhouse loomed over their heads as they entered. A long, rectangular fire trench ran the length of the hall, some four feet wide. Though he was frightened, Taliesin could not help but feel grateful for the warmth. Tables lined both sides, offering enough space to feast over a hundred men comfortably, with banks of earth built up on either side serving as benches. At the far end of the hall, on a raised platform with his own table, sat the massive, pelt-clad chieftain of their captors. A dark muscular man who looked to be a Brython commanded, “All hail Earl Hraban the Terrible, servant of mighty Woden! Come forward and offer yourself to him, stating what skills you possess.”
One by one, the men were summoned before the chieftain, until it was time for Gareth to step forward. “Blacksmith,” he stated.
This was of interest to the Brython. After some discussion with Hraban, he came down, cut Gareth’s bonds and inspected his arms and hands. After a moment, he gave a nod of approval. “You’ll work with me at the forge.” He looked toward a young man seated nearby. “Laust!” he barked.
The young man came forward with a blanket, threw it to Gareth and led him out.
Soon, Taliesin was the only one left. As he walked forward, the giants poked at his skin and pulled his hair, fascinated by its radiance.
Hraban leaned forward to look at him. His ice-blue eyes peered down piercingly from his wind-burned face, and his hands looked like they had rarely released their grip on a weapon for very long. His cheekbones were sharp, like his eyes, riding high and merciless on either side of a nose that had clearly been broken many times.
“What can you offer Earl Hraban?” the Brython asked Taliesin.
“I am a bard.”
The Brython translated and Earl Hraban smiled for the first time since they had entered the hall.
“Earl Hraban is pleased,” the Brython said, cutting his bonds. “You will play for him tonight. If your voice proves captivating, you shall have the honor of singing here, in the hall.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Taliesin asked boldly.
The Brython frowned. “Then you shall have the honor of being fed to his dogs, instead.”
Taliesin was made to sit on the floor at Hraban’s feet and tossed a blanket as well.
Then, they brought in the female captives, and Taliesin’s stomach lurched with dread as he spotted Arhianna among them. He and Gareth had foolishly assumed she had escaped capture, for she had not been on their ship.
Her beauty burned like a torch from within the quivering crowd of naked women. She was nearly a head taller than most of them, and her hair blazed like a torch in the firelight. She stood out like a wild rose blooming among spear thistles.
As Taliesin feared, Hraban noticed her immediately and signaled she be brought forward. He came down off his dais for the first time that night, looking as if he intended to drag her away to his bed that very moment. He pushed her hair away to inspect her breasts and Taliesin cringed, barely able to watch.
When Hraban noticed her pendant, however, his face changed from lust to shock. He yanked it from her neck and held it up in his huge hand, his face full of awe. “De Brisingamen,” he said under his breath, holding the stone up to the firelight. He grabbed her chin and turned her face toward him, barking a question at her, but she would not look at him. Her eyes remained fixed on the air above him, as if she were gazing at a star above his head. He knew she could not understand him, so he turned to the Brython.
>
“How did you come by that necklace?” the Brython asked her.
“It belonged to my grandmother.”
This, Hraban understood. He smiled wickedly, stepping back a few feet to look Arhianna over once more. He threw his head back and laughed, and then gave an impassioned speech to an invisible audience in the heavens.
Taliesin thought he saw pity in the Brython’s eyes as he translated Hraban’s speech for Arhianna. “Earl Hraban says your grandmother was the powerful sorceress Agarah, who was once his favorite slave. She escaped from him by using seidr magic, and stole his clan’s most-coveted treasure—the stone you’ve now brought back to him. He says his gods have heard his prayers, for all that was taken from him long ago has been returned—both the stone, and the woman—for you are your grandmother, reborn with hair of fire instead of gold, as young as she was when he captured her. You shall take her place in his bed.”
Fear leapt into Arhianna’s eyes, but her pride would not allow her to cry or struggle as she was led from the hall.
Taliesin felt more helpless than he had ever felt in his life.
***
The hall became a different place after dark, filled with clanspeople eating, drinking, or playing dice.
Many of the Oak women had been made to serve in the hall, Arhianna among them. Her tresses were braided and coiled upon her head, and she was clad in a woolen dress embroidered about the collar. Her sole duty was to stand near Hraban and serve only him, keeping his drinking horn filled with mead.
Hraban eventually called for a song, and a servant brought Taliesin a stringed instrument, similar to his own harp. He could not help but smile, for it was a beautiful instrument. From the moment his fingers touched the strings, all the horror of the past week drained away. The relief was palpable, and it was all he could do to keep from weeping. He felt the presence of the gods, drawn down by his music. Though they were not gods he recognized, he knew they were not evil. He chose to surrender to their inspiration, and out burst a song that pulled at the soul, drawing it from the body into the rapture of its spell.
He did not understand the words of the song he sang, but a vision came to him as clearly as if he were dreaming. He was not sitting in the hall, but suspended in the heavens, with stars above him, and nothing but blackness below. He watched as an ash sapling appeared before him and slowly grew into a tree. It reached ever higher and outward with its branches, and ever deeper and downward with its roots. It grew more and more immense until, like the Great Oak of his childhood dreams, it held all the stars within its branches, and penetrated all the darkness below with its roots. Nine worlds then formed on its roots and branches, like fruit—some of fire, some of ice and mist, some lush and green—four above, and four below, and between them lay the world of men, connected to the world that crowned the tree by way of a rainbow.
When the song ended, the tree and the stars faded away, and Taliesin found himself once more in the hall of Hraban the Terrible. It had become a different hall, however, no longer filled with threatening strangers. Everyone had come closer. The children were seated around him in a crescent, mouths open in wonder. Nothing but the sound of wood crackling in the fire could be heard, until Hraban at last cried out, “He is Bragi, come to us in the flesh! We have captured one of our own, and brought him home!”
The hall erupted with cheering, and the children hugged Taliesin as if he were a brother. From that moment on, Taliesin was known as Bragi among Hraban’s people, and he found he understood their speech. He marveled that what had but moments ago been nothing but guttural sounds, had become words with meaning for him.
Hraban bid him sing another song, and another, and another, each more rousing than the last, until the entire hall was dancing. Hraban drank so much he passed out upon his pile of furs.
Taliesin breathed a sigh of relief—Arhianna’s maidenhood would be safe for at least one more night.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Freya’s Price
Taliesin’s night of sublime singing and assumed kinship granted him privileges among Hraban’s people that the Oaks did not have. The following morning, Hraban sent him to visit each of the homes that had taken one of the Oaks as a slave, in order to provide his services as a translator for their new masters. This gave him the opportunity to see who had survived the voyage and how they were being treated.
Being free to wander the village, Taliesin was able to keep an eye on the forge as he went about his business. He watched it closely, eager for an opportunity to speak to Gareth.
Fortune granted it to him a few afternoons later, when he spied Gareth leaving to fetch water. He slipped away and followed him to the river. “Gareth!”
Gareth whipped around and his face broke into a smile. “Taliesin! How are you?”
“I’m well. How are you being treated?”
“Well enough. He’s been no harder on me than Einon, to tell you the truth. How did you get out of the hall?”
“Hraban sent me on errands.” Taliesin looked around to be certain no one saw them together. “There’s something you need to know—Arhianna was captured, too. She’s serving in the hall.”
Gareth’s face went white. “What?” He dropped one of his buckets.
Taliesin picked it up, eyeing the village, hoping no one had heard anything. “She’s fine—she’s been made cupbearer to the Earl.”
“Then she’s safe?”
“Yes, for the moment.” Taliesin grappled with telling him the whole truth, but decided against it. There was nothing Gareth could do about it. He would only worry, and might do something that would end up getting him beaten or killed. “I have to go now. Come at this same time each day to fetch water, if you can. I’ll meet you and tell you what is going on.”
Gareth nodded and bent down to fill his buckets. “See you tomorrow.”
***
Gareth returned to the forge. It seemed all the candles he had burned in Gofannon’s name had not gone unnoticed by the great god of blacksmiths, for he could not have ended up in a better place.
Einon often said he showed more promise as a swordsmith than any apprentice he had ever taught. He even nicknamed him “Little Eircheard,” after the legendary smith who had forged his father’s sword, Caledgwyn, many years ago. When he had first started working at the forge, he discovered he had an unnatural tolerance for heat and fire. He could work for hours, undaunted by the smoke and heat that drove others outside regularly for fresh air.
One day, early in his apprenticeship, Einon saw him reach directly into the heart of a blazing pile of logs and rearrange them. After examining his unburned hands, Einon became convinced he was a male Firebrand, like Aelhaearn, whom he had also apprenticed at the forge. Einon rushed off to tell his father of his suspicions. Seren was summoned to see if she could help him manifest his ability, but to no avail. No matter how many hours he spent with her over the ensuing months, he could neither conjure flames, nor influence them. Eventually, everyone accepted that he was simply impervious to fire and heat, yet not a Firebrand, as they had all hoped. Gareth knew his father was disappointed, though he would never admit it.
No one knew it, but since then, Gareth had practiced daily what Seren had taught him, attempting to manipulate the fire in the forge while he worked. He felt certain that if he could manifest the Firebrand, then his father would start treating him like a man.
The countless hours he had spent at the forge had not yet manifested the brand, as he had hoped, but they had honed his skills as a smith. Already, with only a few years’ experience, no one in the clan could tell the difference between his work and Einon’s. With his skills, it would not take long to prove himself invaluable to the blacksmith he now served. He knew that was the key to everything. It seemed among these people, slave or not, a man could earn himself privilege by merit. Surely, Brokkr had not been born among them, and he had risen to a position of respect within the clan.
One way or another, he would forge his way out of servitude
and earn his freedom.
***
Taliesin was summoned to play in the hall again that night. Again, he succeeded in weaving his spell around those who listened, enchanting them with music so sublime that man and woman alike laid their hearts open at his feet. Again, he heard Islwyn’s words in his mind: No warrior, however violent, is immune to the power of music, for music reigns supreme in the domain of the soul.
He worked the clan into a dancing frenzy for the second night in a row. At one point, Hraban turned to Arhianna and demanded she go out and dance for him. Taliesin nearly froze with fear.
At home, Arhianna was the first one to jump up to his music and the last one to sit down, but instead of being thrilled by the prospect of watching her, like he usually was, he felt overcome with dread. Though his music had managed to protect her virginity the night before, he knew it would likely betray her if she danced to it tonight.
He could do nothing but watch as she rose up and took flight, sailing upon his song like a falcon upon the winds. She flashed in the firelight like a jewel among stones. It was obvious to anyone who beheld her that she was neither peasant nor slave, for she danced like a goddess who had never known misery or sorrow. She did not know how to be anything less than herself, any more than a star could cease to burn in the heavens, or a rose could resist opening itself to the sun. She unwittingly became the most desired woman in the clan that night.
When she finished, Taliesin put all his effort into playing the most rousing songs he could muster. He dared not stop, for he knew if he did, Hraban would drag her to his bed. He played until his fingers bled on the strings, until, once again, the clan collapsed from dance and drink. Thankfully, Earl Hraban was among them.
The sun rose but a few hours later. He went to visit all of the slaveowners again, eager for the opportunity to exchange a few more words with Gareth at the river.