by J. M. Hofer
“How are things?”
“Fine. The blacksmith’s name is Brokkr. His mother was a Brython, like us. He has a son our age. We don’t talk much, but he appreciates my work. How’s Arhianna?”
“She’s fine.” Taliesin prayed he would be able to say the same thing the next morning. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
That night, Taliesin was asked to sing again. Before he began, however, the hunchback he had spied long ago defiling the Grove entered the hall. Taliesin’s whole being lurched with disgust at the sight of him. Somehow, it seemed the Seer felt it, for he looked up and locked eyes with him from across the room.
Hraban gave the Seer only a cursory acknowledgement, eager to hear Taliesin sing again. Taliesin’s melodic voice kept the hall in rapture through yet another night.
When Hraban asked for music the next night, however, the Seer shot Taliesin a look filled with venom. He was clearly unhappy about having his position eclipsed, and seemed determined to reclaim it. “Perhaps Earl Hraban would enjoy a story tonight, before the music?” the Seer suggested benignly, but Taliesin felt he was weaving a trap.
Hraban seemed surprised by the Seer’s proposal, but it was clear the Seer had a certain influence upon the king. “Very well. Tell your story.”
The Seer eyed Taliesin and Arhianna with a wicked look. “This story has been told many times among our women, for men prefer stories of war, but I bid you all listen to it tonight.”
Taliesin felt increasingly uneasy as the Seer moved to the front of the hall and began his tale.
“The goddess Freya was journeying near the borders of her lands, near Svartálfaheimr, and came upon four black dwarves working at their trade. As she passed, a flash of gold caught her eye. Unable to resist gold, Freya drew near and asked to see what they were crafting.
“The dwarves were stunned by her beauty, and eager to impress her with their work. They stepped aside to reveal the most exquisite necklace she had ever seen. Its amber centerpiece utterly captured her, inviting her to look inside its honeyed depths. Enraptured, she held it up to the sun and gazed deeply into its heart, and there she saw the great Ash, Yggdrasil, with nine worlds turning around it. She looked deeper and saw the dragon, Níðhöggr, gnawing at its roots, and the eagle, Hræsvelgr, perched upon its highest branch, and the rainbow that connected her world to the worlds of men. Then, she looked past the tree, and more worlds began to appear, cradled within clusters of stars, beckoning her to follow. The necklace was then taken from her, and Freya looked up in surprise to discover the day was gone and night had fallen.”
Seduced by the story, the children of the clan came and sat at the Seer’s feet, as they had done with Taliesin the past four nights. The Seer smiled a wicked smile, patting the head of the child closest to him with a deformed hand before continuing.
“Freya insisted she must have the necklace, and offered the black dwarves enough gems that they could bathe in them if they wished to, but they would not sell it to her, insisting it was worth far more than any amount of gems she could offer. Desperate, Freya asked them what they would accept, swearing that, whatever it was, she would get it for them, even if she had to search all nine worlds for it.”
“The four dwarves spoke amongst themselves and announced there was only one thing in the world worth trading their most-prized possession for. Freya asked what it was. They told her, if she would agree to marry and lay with each of them for one day and one night, the necklace would be hers. Freya did not expect such a price, but she agreed, for never had she desired anything more in her life.”
The Seer began to cough, his raspy voice nearly spent from the long tale, his breath, weak and labored. Taliesin wondered why he had made such an effort. He soon found out.
“Clanbrothers, the Brisingamen, the very necklace of Freya herself, was stolen from us by the grandmother of that woman,” he said, pointing vindictively at Arhianna, “who dishonored our great king. She should be made to pay the same price Freya did for it, to every man in our clan, just as Freya had to pay the dwarves. Why should a mortal woman be allowed to pay less of a price than our own beloved goddess, Freya? How could Freya not be offended?”
Taliesin was horrified by his lecherous proposal. Arhianna was like a sister to him, and the thought of her being so terribly defiled burned in his gut, incensing him with rage. He found himself praying for the fate Arhianna had faced the night before—that of belonging to Hraban. As terrible as it had seemed at first, he knew it would be far better for her to belong to one man than to be abused by a hundred violent warriors.
The warriors in the clan cheered at the Seer’s proposal. Taliesin expected this, for they were a blood-thirsty and lusty lot, but, to his shock, many of the women did as well, perhaps eager to see her young beauty destroyed.
“It’s decided, then!” Hraban conceded. “She shall pay for her grandmother’s theft—but she shall belong to me first, for I know a maiden when I see one, and there is nothing sweeter!”
Taliesin looked around helplessly, feeling powerless to save Arhianna. He felt the focused heat of someone watching him, and turned around to see the Seer jeering at him maliciously, gloating. How had he known that he and Arhianna were close? They had never even spoken to one another since being brought here. Yet, somehow, he knew.
“After she has paid the clan, we shall sacrifice her to Freya,” Hraban added. “She shall make the goddess a fine handmaiden!”
The clan cheered more loudly. Though, inwardly, Taliesin was frantically thinking of a way to save Arhianna, outwardly he gave a calm look in her direction that assured her he would not allow anything to happen to her. She smiled, having no idea what fate had just been decided for her.
Hraban then commanded, “Bragi! More music! And Arhianna shall dance!”
The more Taliesin poured his magic into the music, the more beautifully Arhianna danced. Perhaps she thought that if she could captivate the old king, he would delay taking her to bed. Her dancing had the opposite effect, unfortunately. Without warning, Hraban stood up and grabbed her out of the dance, like a hawk catching a rabbit in its talons.
Arhianna screamed, realizing what was about to happen, and the clan cheered sadistically.
Taliesin felt a wave of nausea. The Seer came up behind him and whispered in his ear, his words made more horrible by his raspy voice. “Earl Hraban is very violent, especially with the maidens. Something about their fear disgusts him.”
A chill ran down his spine as the Seer then whispered in his other ear, “It is said that any man who takes a maiden after Hraban knows he was there.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The Wrath of Woden
What do I do? Taliesin thought. His heart beat frantically, like the wings of a trapped bird. He knew he could not attack Hraban as himself. He looked up to beg the gods for help and spied a raven perched in the rafters. Ravens were considered sacred to Hraban’s people and allowed to roost within the hall. If he could shift into the raven, he could cause a distraction.
He began playing a very simple rhythm. To his relief, the drummers latched on to it and took over, allowing him to stop playing without being noticed. He found a dark corner, pulled his hood up over his head so that none could see his face, and then threw his spirit into the great bird above.
The next moment, he was looking down over the hall through the strange vision of the raven. He flew from the rafters to the earl’s chamber at its far end. Hraban had already forced Arhianna down on all fours to take her from behind like the disgusting beast he was.
Taliesin attacked, furiously digging his talons deep into Hraban’s scalp and viciously stabbing him with his strong beak.
Hraban cried out, bellowing in pain, but the drums and carousing in the hall were louder and drowned him out. No one seemed to hear him, or perhaps they suspected he was crying out for other reasons. He let go of Arhianna and flailed his arms, trying to defend himself, but he was drunk and clumsy. Taliesin was quick to swoop around and attack his
face, intent on clawing his eyes out.
Hraban fell to his knees and curled himself tightly into a ball, putting his arms over his head to protect his face, yelling, “Woden! Forgive me!”
Cry for your god, it will do you no good. Taliesin granted him no mercy. He raked at Hraban’s arms and hands until it looked like they had been flayed. When his strength was spent, he flew back up into the rafters, Hraban’s blood dripping from his beak and talons.
Arhianna fled back to the hall, for there was nowhere else to go. Hraban stumbled toward a barrel of water, shielding his face and head from the possibility of another attack.
It was then that Taliesin saw something flash on the floor, as ravens have eyes for such things. Arhianna’s necklace. He dove down, caught it up in his beak, and then perched himself on the side of the barrel, opposite Hraban, so he would know he took it.
When Hraban saw the raven with the Brisingamen in its beak, he cried out and fell to his knees, begging again for Woden to forgive him. Taliesin let him grovel for a moment, and then flew out through the smoke hole in the ceiling, taking Arhianna’s pendant with him up into the clear, star-lit sky.
He flew over the forest to a tree that towered above the others, and looped the pendant around one of its sturdy branches, high above the canopy. As he inspected it to be certain the chain was secure, he found he could not help but gaze into the stone—it was as if he had heard a song calling to him from within it. Deeper and deeper it pulled him in, until he, too, saw the great tree Freya had seen. It was all he could do to pull himself away. He could not stay. He had been gone too long.
Taliesin left the raven’s body and returned to his own. Luckily, no one had noticed his absence. All eyes were on Hraban, who had the Seer’s neck clutched tightly in his hands. “If you cannot advise me on the will of the gods, you serve no purpose!” he thundered in furious anger. “You advised me to take the girl, you fool, and now you have brought the wrath of Woden upon me—he has taken back the Brisingamen!”
Hraban tightened his grip on the Seer’s neck until he convulsed, his arms and legs thrashing uselessly against his power, until, at last, he hung motionless from Hraban’s outstretched arm. He dropped him in disgust. “Get him out of my sight. Leave him in the forest for the wolves.” Four men came forward. Each grabbed a twisted limb and carried the Seer out of the hall.
Then, Hraban addressed his people. “Everyone return home and make an offering to Woden tonight.” He then turned to a woman who always sat at his table upon the dais. “Ragna, take the girl. She will live with you, now.”
All did as they were told. Only Hraban’s servants remained in the hall, Taliesin among them. The healer came, but Hraban refused any salve or washing of his wounds, saying they had been inflicted by Woden as just punishment for his deeds. He then retreated to his bedchamber, somber and bloody.
The night’s chores within the hall were seen to, and then all went quietly to sleep. None dared to risk disturbing the earl.
Taliesin had been given a bed of straw in the hall that he retired to, not far from Hraban’s chamber, but he did not sleep. He knew he needed to get Arhianna’s pendant back before anything happened to it. It was clearly of great value to Hraban and his people, and was perhaps the only thing they would be able to barter their freedom for in the future.
He needed to leave the hall, but it could not be within his own body. To his disappointment, there were no birds roosting in the rafters anymore, which left him with only mice or dogs to choose from. He dared not go out into the night as a mouse, so he chose a dog that slept not far from where he lay.
He shifted into the dog and made his way out of the hall. He ventured into the forest in the direction of the tree he had hung the pendant on, waiting for an opportunity to shift into a bird, for that was the only creature that could easily retrieve the pendant from where it hung.
Eventually, fortune blessed him, for he came upon an owl—no creature flew more silently, nor had keener eyesight within the darkness. He shifted into the owl and felt the dramatic change. It took him a moment to adjust from the heavy bulk of the dog’s body to the near weightlessness of the owl, as well as the astonishing difference in sight and hearing. There was nothing he could not see through the owl’s eyes. He flew up into the night and soon retrieved the pendant from where he had hung it earlier.
He flew back to the hall, silently dropped the pendant down onto his own chest, and then returned to his body.
It took him a long time to recover. Shifting was exhausting and disorienting, and much more so when performed multiple times in a short period of time.
When his fingers no longer felt like wings, and his eyes returned to their normal state, he felt for the pendant on his chest and clutched it in relief.
The fire trenches in the hall provided enough light for him to peer into it, and his heartbeat quickened as the world tree, the Yggdrasil, appeared to him again from deep within the amber. Slowly, all of the worlds and creatures that lived within it began to wink into view. The longer he gazed, the richer and more detailed those worlds became. He noticed that, when he would follow a branch or a root, it eventually led him to another tree, in another grove, with yet more worlds within its branches, until he began to feel overwhelmed by the vast number of different worlds he was glimpsing.
He was on the verge of looking away, when he saw a tree within a grove that he knew as well as he knew himself. His heart pounded as the Great Oak appeared within the stone. She called to him as a mother would, opening her arms and beckoning him home like she had when he was a small boy. He desperately wanted to go to her, picturing the Grove in intense detail.
To his surprise, it began to appear around him, its details fading in and out, right there within the hall. The more he concentrated, the more solid it appeared, but he forced himself to look away. He could not leave Gareth and Arhianna behind. He knew if he were to surrender, that would be exactly what would happen.
He found himself once more within the hall of Hraban the Terrible, clutching the Brisingamen, his heart racing and his body drenched in sweat.
***
Hraban woke before dawn, whispering obscenities as he plodded across the hall and went out into the dark.
Taliesin longed to know where he was going, but was too weak from shifting the night before to follow him in anything but his own body. He decided to risk it, and crept silently from his bed.
He found Hraban far easier to track than expected. The chieftain made as much noise as a horse riding through the forest, snapping twigs underfoot as he went. Never once did he look behind him. Taliesin could have followed him with the help of his ears alone.
Hraban pushed his way deep into the forest until he came to a tall, graceful ash tree—the same one that Taliesin had hung the Brisingamen on the night before. It presided over a round clearing with carved idols, a large bonfire pit and a flat, blood-stained stone at its center. Taliesin shuddered. The Ash was by far the tallest and strongest tree in the forest outside of the village. It did not surprise him that it was the tree the clan had chosen to worship and perform their sacrifices under.
Hraban dropped to his knees in front of the ash, gripped its trunk and began to pray to Woden, asking for forgiveness and guidance on what he could do to appease him.
So pure was Hraban’s humility, and so passionate the devotion of his prayer, that Taliesin felt a small spark of compassion for him kindle within his breast.
That compassion was quickly forgotten, however, when Hraban returned to the village and announced how he planned to appease Woden.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Arhianna’s Secret
Hraban decreed that Arhianna and all of the virgins they had captured on their raids would be sacrificed to Woden in a week’s time. Taliesin despaired, knowing it was because of what he had done that Hraban believed he had angered his god. Day and night he thought of ways they might escape, seizing every opportunity he could to speak to Gareth.
“
I’ve hidden some weapons in the forest,” Gareth told him the morning the girls were to be sacrificed. “I’ll wait until the flames of the bonfire are high enough that none will be able to follow me, and then I will free her.”
“They would slay you before you could untie the first knot,” Taliesin said as gently as he could. He knew how many dogs and warriors Hraban commanded. “And where would we go? We need a different plan.” He fingered Arhianna’s pendant in his pocket as he thought. Caressing the smooth surface of the amber stone was calming, and he understood now why it had been a habit of hers. Then, as if the pendant itself had spoken, he realized where their salvation lay. “Gods, Gareth! It’s been here, right beneath my nose for days!”
“What?”
He gripped the pendant and held it up. “It can save her!” He handed it to Gareth. “Look inside!”
Confused, Gareth peered into it, but before he could comment, they heard Brokkr returning. Taliesin snatched it back and put it in his pocket. “It can save her,” he repeated before disappearing.
Taliesin started thinking of ways to get the stone back to Arhianna and tell her what to do, for in all the years she had worn it, not once had she ever mentioned seeing anything within it. He wondered if she had any idea what it was capable of, but he did not think so, for the three of them had no secrets from one another.
He made his way to Ragna’s house to look for her, but there was no one there. The sound of drums soon met his ears and his heart quickened with dread. The ritual had started. He rushed back into the village where a sight both lovely and stomach-churning greeted him.
Arhianna and the other maidens who were to be sacrificed were bound and dressed in white robes, wearing crowns of summer flowers. Many of them were crying, but not Arhianna. A crowd of villagers surrounded them. One by one, women and children walked up to them and strung chains of flowers about their necks, murmuring prayers.
Taliesin felt a tug upon his trousers and looked down to see a small girl offering him a chain of flowers, thinking innocently that perhaps he, too, would like to offer a prayer to Woden. He quickly saw his chance. He took the chain of flowers from the little girl. Behind it, he hung the Brisingamen. He walked up to Arhianna and strung them both around her neck. Then, quickly, in the guise of a prayer, he whispered, “It can take you home!” before being pushed out of the way. “Look inside, deeply—picture the Grove.”