The Last Wife of Attila the Hun

by Joan Schweighardt

  “All that and more,” I said flatly.

  “Well, girl, the time has come for you to cast it off. I had hoped you would reach this conclusion on your own, but Sigurd will be back with us soon enough, and time is running short. Do not let him return to a bitter, joyless woman. Look around you.” He threw out his arm. “Now is a time for rejoicing. The hay is drying. The crops are cut. And how many other fortunes have befallen us? Sigurd and the gold, Gunner a changed man, full of the hope now that Father’s words failed to inspire in him, eight children born to the Burgundians this season, five of them boys and all of them strong and healthy.”

  “It is easy enough for you to count our fortunes, Hagen,” I said bitterly before he could think of more. I was staring hard at the sun, hoping a focus would help me to hold back my tears. In all the days since Sigurd’s departure, I had not cried once. To do so now would be to topple a dam confining high waters.

  Hagen took me by the shoulders and shook me. “You are not listening to me. I know your thoughts, though you keep them to yourself. But has it ever occurred to you that you might be mistaken? I wager you are. I wager Sigurd loves you as he always has. Aye, I saw the way he looked at Brunhild that night, but then I looked at her that way myself. The woman I love has none of Brunhild’s charms, but plenty of her own. Surely Sigurd feels the same. But do you think he will continue to do so when he sees you like this? You are no longer lovable, sister. You must do something—”

  “I cannot,” I cried. “This force, this blackness, has taken me over. Go away. Leave me alone. The woman you love… You speak to me from the spire of your own satisfaction. Come back when Vascar’s sister has tired of you. Speak to me then of hay and crops and hope. Then I will listen.”

  Hagen tightened his grip on my shoulders and spoke to me more harshly than he had ever. “You will listen now. Are you so weak that you have allowed this blackness, as you call it, to bury you? Go down to the pool at the side of the river and search for the image of your face, woman. Look past the scowl and the dull gaze and perhaps you will see what you fail to see now. You are a Burgundian. Does that mean nothing to you? You belong to a race of people who, despite all adversity, refused to perish. We were born to survive, cannot you see that? We are the ones who banded together and vowed to cherish life, to make a new life—perhaps not for our children, but for our children’s children and theirs. Does that not obligate each of us to conduct our lives in a vigorous manner? To grapple with these trifling matters… Have you forgotten, Gudrun, who fathered you? Whose blood beats in your veins? I see that you have. And why? Because the Burgundian history is but a story to you, an entertainment to be sung by free men—well, nearly free—in the safety of their halls. But our safety was paid for in blood. Do you think our ancestors thought of envy and love when they fought their way down from the cold countries? Did we think of envy and love when the Huns and the Romans came down on us? Rejoice, if for no other reason, that you have the leisure to contemplate such matters.”

  “Do go away, Hagen. You are truly tiresome today.”

  He let up his grip. I ripped a blade from the turf and stuck it in my mouth and looked toward the horizon indifferently. Hagen watched me for a moment. Then he slid off the roof and went for his horse.

  I regretted his departure immediately—though I could not will myself to call him back. As I watched him ride away, down through the lower fields and into the forest, I found myself thinking of Sigurd, and then of Brunhild, and the aura of innocence that I had detected emanating from her when I had last crawled past her sleeping body to quit the bower. All at once it occurred to me that perhaps she was an innocent, as Guthorm was. It was not her fault that she was as lovely as she was. I decided to go down to the river and contemplate these matters further.

  I slid down the roof and dropped to the ground, and as if to confirm the accuracy of my thoughts, I found myself face to face with Brunhild. We both let out shrieks of astonishment. Had she been moving any faster, I would have knocked her down. Some exchange was called for, and as “What are you doing up so early?” seemed inappropriate under the circumstances, I said, “It is warm today, even at this early hour.”

  She looked away. “Yes. It has not been this warm in some days. You would never know the cold season was already upon us.”

  We had had our exchange, and yet she lingered. It puzzled me. “I thought to go down to the river,” I dared to say. “There is a spring up behind the hall. Surely you have seen it. We burn peat there to heat the rocks so that we can bathe in the winter. But it is not as pleasurable as bathing in the river. That is why I thought that today, being so warm…”

  I ceased my rambling all at once. Brunhild had turned back to me, and with her head cocked to one side, she eyed me suspiciously. I noticed, for the first time, that her watery eyes were streaked with green. I studied her long fair lashes and her finely tapered chin. “It is warm,” she mumbled.

  Inspired by her indulgence, I cried, “Come with me! We can bathe together.” I held my breath to await her response.

  Her smile came slowly. “I am for it,” she said at last. Then she laughed her high-pitched laughter. “Let us go to the river, like sisters. I am for it.”

  My heart soared. I was speechless. I held up one finger to show her that I would be right back and ran into the hall to fetch the soap. Mother, who was helping Guthorm into a fresh tunic, jerked her head up and eyed me questioningly. I ignored her, and having found the soap, ran back out again.

  Brunhild was standing just where I had left her, the morning sun ablaze in her hair. Her smile was still in place, and I was grateful for it, although now it seemed to me that it was more a smile of amusement than camaraderie. She had called me sister, and I could not contain myself. Though she had not one line on her face, she looked older standing there grinning at me, wiser. I asked myself, Why should Sigurd not love her? She is a beautiful, wise, charming woman, a valkyria, my sister now, and when we have had our weddings, Sigurd’s sister as well. Why should Sigurd not love her in the same way that Gunner and Hagen love me? “Let us run,” I cried.

  Brunhild laughed. “Run? Why, I have only just awakened.” She cocked her head again and her eyes swam over the expanse of cloudless sky. “I will run,” she said. “It may do me good. It may wake me up, for I think I may be dreaming.”

  I laughed at her remark, and I felt as if I had never laughed before. I laughed and laughed until the dam burst and the flood waters broke free from my eyes. Brunhild saw them streaming and laughed too. We began to run. And while we ran I thought, We have been so unfair to you, Mother and I. No wonder you sleep late into each day. How terrible to find yourself in the hands of strangers who have lost their capacity for kindness. And since I could not very well say these words to her while we were running so hard and laughing still, I rearranged them in my head so that I might say them properly when we reached our destination.

  At the bank of the bathing pool, which was quiet and safe in the crook of the river’s arm, we collapsed, gasping for breath, our eyes still wild with laughter. I was anxious to make my confession. I had embellished it by now. Now I thought to be completely honest, to tell her how her beauty and her charm and Sigurd’s high regard for her had initiated my black thoughts and hence my unforgivable behavior. I imagined that she would laugh at me, and that then she would take me in her arms and console me. It was this consolation I craved. But when I finally caught my breath and was about to spit out my exclamations of love and sorrow and misery and regret, she turned to me and said, “Must he always follow?”

  I looked back toward the moor across which we had come and spotted Guthorm flying through it, his arms flapping in the air like broken wings. “He knows where I am all the time. I cannot get away from him,” I stammered. “He will not bother us. He just likes to be where I am. He will not bathe unless I force him to. He does not care to be wet. He—”

  Guthorm arrived and threw
his arms around my neck, not so much a hug as an effort to drag me away. I laughed at first as I tried to free myself, but when I saw the appalled look on Brunhild’s face, I ceased laughing. “Stop,” I shouted. Guthorm’s lower lip came out, but as his eyes slid away, they fell on a toad that was making its way along the bank, and he got down on his knees immediately to watch its progress. “He will not bother us now,” I said. But Brunhild’s expression remained repulsed.

  She sat back, so as to have a better look at Guthorm as he crawled along the bank. “He does not like me,” she mumbled.

  “He is afraid of you.”

  She laughed abruptly. “He is not the first. Men are always afraid that they will anger me and that then I will use my powers against them. Women are afraid I will use my powers to take their men from them.” She shrugged. “I do not much care. I would sooner have people afraid of me than not.” She picked a flower and began to twirl it in her fingers.

  Now I guessed that she knew my thoughts and was providing me with an occasion to utter them. All at once I felt manipulated. “I have not seen your powers,” I said softly.

  She stopped twirling her flower and smiled tauntingly. “Have you not?” she asked, her eyebrows rising. She got up slowly from the bank and began to undress. In a moment she had shed her masculine garments and was wearing nothing but the chain that hung from her neck, her only piece of jewelry. I had noticed this chain a thousand times, but the pendant which hung from it had always been concealed beneath her tunic. Now I saw that it was a small hammer, fashioned from stone and not unlike the one that had hung from Sigurd’s neck for as long as I had known him. I felt myself trembling. It was shinier than Sigurd’s but otherwise just the same. She saw me staring at it, and her hand came up to cover it. Her eyes flashed with amusement. “Is it his?” I croaked.

  She laughed and dove into the pool. She swam prettily, hardly disturbing the waters with her long, strong strokes. All at once she arched her back like some huge fish and went under in the place where the pool was deepest. I stood up to look for her. Moments passed. I struggled out of my robe and slid down the bank. The water was icy cold. Treading water to stay afloat, I felt all around for her with my feet. Whether I wanted to save her (for by now it seemed she had been under far too long) or merely to have another look at the pendant, I could not say. Then I heard the water break and Brunhild soared up behind me. I turned at once, and with my eye focused on her throat, I swam toward her. I could hear her laughter even above the splashing that I made with my wild, awkward strokes. Just as I reached her, she went under again. For a moment there was silence. Then she emerged close to the bank. She hoisted herself up and sat panting, her fingers around the pendant, her face aglow with sport.

  Trembling with cold and confusion, I swam back to the bank and climbed out. “You mock me. Is it his or not?”

  “It is not,” she snapped.

  I looked away. “Then why did you let me make a fool of myself?”

  “Why should I not? Since I came here, you have made your distrust plain enough.”

  “Then I have been mistaken?” I ventured hopefully. “Is that what you mean to say?”

  “Mistaken to let it be so obvious.” Her eyes were hard and cold now beneath their familiar mist. “Look, Gudrun, why not just say what is on your mind. What you want to know is, do I love him.”

  She was wrong. That I did not want to know. But as I stared back at her with my teeth rattling from the cold, she told me anyway. “I do. And moreover, he loves me.”

  “You put a spell on him,” I mumbled after a long silence in which I seemed to retreat from my very existence.

  She laughed. “I can see you would like to think so. But you are wrong. I had no need to. He will marry you. He feels he has no choice. And he fears your brothers’ wrath. But he does not love you. And thus I must marry your brother, for all that he is ugly and vain and weak in his will, so that I can remain close to Sigurd.”

  Now it was my turn to laugh. “You lie,” I cried. “If Sigurd loved you he would want you by his side. As it is, we plan to leave come next growing season. You will be here with Gunner, and we will be gone to live on Frankish lands.”

  To my horror, her expression did not alter. “Sigurd and I will work that out. There is plenty of time between now and then.”

  Her composure enraged me. Slowly, she got up and began to slip her tunic over her head. While her arms were still entangled in the sleeves, I stood up and slapped her shoulder. It was a weak gesture, the sort I might have used with Guthorm, but for an instant it rendered her motionless. Then, as if she had agreed that it was weak and could not be bothered to respond to it, she resumed straightening her tunic. I felt something on my leg. I looked down and saw Guthorm. I had forgotten him. I shook myself free and shouted into her imperturbable face, “Sigurd loved me from the time—”

  “Aye, loved!” she shouted back. “And I have no doubt he loved you well. But that time is over now. Go to him if you do not believe me. Ask him yourself. Do you think it took us three days to journey here because I could not bear to travel in the rain? The rain does not bother me, and neither does the cold. You forget that I spent my life living in the forest with no roof over my head. Look at yourself. Your urchin body is blue with cold. You tremble. Your teeth rattle. When I met you, you seemed more dead than alive.”

  “I was sick.”

  “You are weak. You do not deserve a man like Sigurd. You had no appreciation for his quest. He told me so. You hardly lifted your head to hear his words when he told you and your brothers how he came to slay the dragon and acquire his gold.”

  “He said that to you?”

  “He said a good many things to me. We spoke of you at length during the course of our journey. A fearful little thing, he called you. But when we were quite near to your hall, we came to a cave, and after that we did not mention your name again.”

  “No more,” I cried.

  “We knew by then that Sigurd’s precious honor would make it necessary for us to part soon enough, and thus we used what time we had left well, so well that we could not bring ourselves to leave in time for your feast, so well that all through the night we did not give a thought to the consequences of our delay.”

  “Sigurd would not have done such a thing. He is a brother to my brothers. He would not have—”

  “Betrayed Gunner? Yes, yes, I know all about it. Sigurd went on and on about it even as he was laying down his cloak for us. Let me take you there now. Let me show you the place where Sigurd built the fire just at the mouth of the cave—not for warmth, we knew we would be plenty warm in each other’s arms—but so as to be able to see each other’s faces while—”

  I could hear no more. I pushed her toward the edge of the bank, but as she was falling, she grabbed hold of my arm, and we fell in together. I swallowed water, but I got my footing on the steep, sandy bottom and propelled myself upward. For an instant I saw her face, and I heard Guthorm moaning loudly from the bank. Then she was gone and Guthorm was gone, and I was being held under. I found her legs and toppled her. We emerged together, scratching, pulling, pushing, gasping for breath. Guthorm was howling now. She pushed me under again. I grabbed hold of her foot, but it slid out of my hands. When I emerged again, I saw her climbing up onto the bank, her tunic clinging to her, her muscular limbs straining against it like rocks. I made to grab her foot and pull her back in, but she was up and out before I could do so. I slid back into the water and watched while she wrung out her hair. Then she picked up my robe and threw it in. “Scat!” she shouted, and Guthorm, who had been perched on the edge of the bank with his arm stretched toward me, jumped up and ran away. “There,” she said. “I am refreshed. I believe I will return to the hall and have your mother prepare me something to eat.” She turned and started for the path.

  The City of Attila

  9

  WHILE THE OTHERS remained indifferent to
my words of greeting and gratitude, there was one among my various attendants who bothered to acknowledge them with a nod and a half-smile. And thus, one morning when the girl appeared with my milk bowl and basket of bread, I gathered my courage and said to her as she was leaving, “Tell Edeco that I should like to bathe.” The young Hun stopped near the doorway and glanced at me over one shoulder so that I could see the glint of fear in her eye. “I must be allowed to bathe,” I repeated.

  When the curtain was drawn later that day, I prepared myself for the sight of Edeco’s face—though I had not seen him, or anyone, other than my attendants, since the night that Edeco had brought me the sheepskin parchment which I had refused to accept. That was when the weather was still cold. Now it was warmer, and I had spent the best part of the new season isolated, full of fears, and sustained only by the hope that Edeco’s last words to me had been truly said, and that they anticipated an allegiance that we would one day share. But it was only the girl again, hauling in a large bucket of water. Gravely disappointed, I got to my feet to help her set it down. It was less than half full, and when the girl backed away from it, I saw where the rest had gone. “Forgive me,” the girl mumbled when she saw me eyeing her wet robe. I took a step closer to her, but her face took on the fearful look that it had when I had spoken to her earlier, and she backed toward the door. I spread my fingers out pleadingly and struggled to tell her that I was grateful for the water, that it was no matter that most of it had been spilt, but that I wondered why it had been necessary when it would have been so much easier for Edeco to come as he used to.

  The girl blinked her eyes, and I saw that she had failed to understand me. I tried again, speaking slower and rearranging my fragmentary sentences as best I could. Finally the girl nodded. “Edeco is gone,” she said.