Votan and Other Novels (FANTASY MASTERWORKS)

by John James

  Then on the coffin I threw a clod of earth. As the peasants on Baldur’s coffin, so I threw in Njord’s grave a turf from my own field, that none but I would crop. From the centre of the Heath, I brought a turf stained with Varus’s blood.

  Then I rode on, past the Asers, past the peasants. Slowly I rode over the causeway. I walked Sleipnir to the Gates of Asgard, over the path where a man might lead a packhorse, but where no man had ridden before. I rode into the courtyard of Asgard where no man before had sat a horse. I looked at the Kingless Vandals who filled the courtyard, and I heard their shouts, and I knew that now I was Lord of the Amber Road, Ruler of all the Asers. I dismounted and I went into Valhall.

  The thrones of the Asers were no longer as they had bèen. They were no longer as they had been even that morning, when Frederik went out to the grave. What did I have Vandals for?

  I took my place at the centre of the high table of Valhall. Tyr sat at my right hand, Hermod at my left. Freda, Frederik, Donar, Bragi, sat at the sidetables. Heimdall entered. He laid before me on the table Njord’s whetstone.

  We ate Njord’s Funeral Feast. There was enough ham for all the Vandals who came crowding into Valhall. Good honest men, they were serving me as they once served Loki, hating Loki now, hating the Burgundians who filled their old places. Who would now dare say a word against Votan Allfather? I spoke an oration fit for a Funeral Feast.

  ‘Thus in wisdom spoke the great Asers at the first, that never should weapons go with them to the grave. The place for swords is in the bright dry air, not rusting with damp bones. Let all those swords hiss in the hands of men, who know how to fight for what they live by.

  ‘An enemy comes at us from the east. Treacherously he tries to steal our trade. He undercuts us when we offer furs, he overbids us when we buy our Amber. Soon he will go further and take to arms, and bring the Burgundians about our ears.

  ‘And so I call all loyal Vandals, and all the Lombards under both their Kings, about the Raven Flag of Votan, to fight for Freda, Frederik and Donar, led by farsighted Heimdall and wise Hermod, and by the bravest man of all, One-handed Tyr. This shall be the war to end all wars, to bring peace in the north for ten thousand years, the Aser Peace, Trade, Amber and Goodwill!’

  The Amber War

  1

  So all the Asers, and all their allies, called for war on Loki. Yet I would not attack him. Let the blame lie at his door, that he marched upon us.

  March he must. All through the winter we had planned, all through the spring we worked. We outbid Loki for Amber and furs, and we outbid him for all the wine and glass and cloth. Where men bought less than they sold, we promised them interest on what they left with us. When Loki too put up the prices he offered, we outbid him, and we lowered our selling prices. Even if for a whole year we barely doubled our outlay, cut our profits to the bone, still we could outbid Loki. We never sank to that low level. Soon we drained Loki’s stores of silver, and never made the least impression on our own. Loki had nothing left to pay his Burgundians, nor could they be fed except from their farms. He must attack us if he wished to live. Beaten in trade, he must turn to war.

  We had, I reckoned, till August, till the Burgundians had gathered their harvest. No army would march till the harvest was in. To make sure, at that time the Polyani would burst out of their forests, raid the Burgundian farms, burn the crops, so that Sigmund must march or starve. However the raids went, the Asers and their allies would not starve. We had great stores of food, in secret places in the forest.

  When was easy. But where?

  Loki must march on Asgard. Asgard with its stores of treasure, its furs and Amber and food, must draw him. It would give him enough to feed the Burgundians through a dozen campaigns. Asgard was the trap. I did not fortify Asgard. Why should I frighten the mouse away?

  No need, though, to lose all the cheese. The reserves of Amber, and much of the silver, I got secretly out and packed them south where I knew they would be safe, train after train to the south.

  I packed the gold out too, all together in one train. There were twenty packhorses, and half a dozen Scrawlings, as few as I could do with. From Orm’s place we took the gold where it, too, would be safe. No one would go after it to the centre of the Heath. Nobody would ask dead Varus for it. The Scrawlings would never take it.

  When they had piled the gold sacks on the ground beneath the ash, they turned and saw me with Gungnir in my hand, and knew. They didn’t resist, they didn’t even turn to run, they just waited. I laid the bodies on the sacks. I killed the horses too, and their breath mingled with the wind, and their blood flowed on the plain. Sleipnir stood still in all that smell of blood, and I rode him back.

  We sat in Hoenir’s hall, Tyr and I, and we planned the battle. We would not hold Asgard. We would concentrate our own army, nation by nation, on the Aser food stores in the forest. Then, when Sigmund came to the village before Asgard, he would find us waiting on the far side of the common where the villagers grazed their cows. There he must fight us, before ever he could think of taking Asgard. We explained all this to the Cheruscan King.

  ‘First,’ I told him, ‘I think you’ve met Gand, one of our Vandals. He has a sister, that Synfiotli Volsungson has taken for his mistress. She has a way of getting messages back here, never mind how. The night that Loki makes Sigmund call his assembly for war, she will know. On the second day we will hear of it. By the fourth day, Hoenir will have all his levy here, and the Vandals will meet Tyr at Baldur’s grave. The Saxons, and any Danes on our shores, and the Vandals who are out on packtrains, will meet us at Orm’s place. We reckon Loki cannot be at Asgard before the morning of the seventh day. We fight him then. And here, in the very heart of the Lombards, where no one would expect to find them, we have three hundred young Vandals, and Lyngi Siggeirson teaching them to be soldiers.’

  ‘This is a fine time,’ said the Sergeant King, ‘to be telling me Vandals can’t fight.’

  ‘I said making soldiers out of them. We’re not going to fight this in the German way, two shield walls walking slowly up to each other and fighting a long line of single combats, all according to the rules. We’re taking a legion as our model. I can’t make them charge in line, but they understand what I mean by a wedge. They won’t run, though, and they want to fight with their swords. Come over and watch Lyngi.’

  We could hear his voice as we came near to the exercise ground.

  ‘Fine soldier he’d have made if we’d got him young enough,’ said the Cheruscan. ‘Listen to him now, he’s doing vital areas. Throat, groin, kidneys. Oh, to be young again.’

  Lyngi had a squad waiting.

  ‘Now, we’ve got important visitors today, you let them know what you’ve learnt already You, there, on the end, what’s your shield? What do you use it for?’

  ‘To stop him hitting me, of course.’

  ‘You fish-brained little toad, what have you got between your ears? Horse-dung? You, next there, tell him.’

  ‘My shield is my principal weapon of offence – SIR!’

  ‘Next, you! What’s your secondary weapon of offence?’

  ‘My secondary weapon of offence is my spear – SIR!’

  ‘And you, what’s your shield rim for?’

  ‘To turn the edge of his sword—’

  ‘What? Where have you been all the week? You may have broken your mother’s heart, you’ll never break mine! You’re on stables tonight, and for the next ten nights. Next man, what’s the right answer?’

  ‘For striking at the back of a neck – SIR!’

  ‘And your shield boss?’

  ‘For hitting him in the face – SIR!’

  ‘Now we’ll show that. Form … WEDGE! Now, that line of straw dummies over there is the Burgundians, and about as much use too, if only you remember all this. At a good trot, now … Charge!

  ‘That’s it, when you reach them just push at the man in front with your shield, stab at the man on your right. Never mind about the man in front any more, you
r left-hand man takes care of him. And a stab down as you go over, for your rear ranker’s sake.’

  Vidar took the squad over. Lyngi came over, holding his helmet in one hand, mopping his face with the other. He was enthusiastic, could talk of nothing else.

  ‘The trouble we have getting these lads to go in at the run and use their weight. They all want to stand back and chop. They don’t fancy the idea of fanning out when they’re through the line and going for the backs. They think war’s a game.’

  ‘War’s no game,’ said the Cheruscan. He did well, for a sergeant in a regiment which had held the frontier for forty-two years and never been in action. ‘That’s because they’ve not been blooded. Kill them as you get over, kill them dead, or they’ll only get up and stab your comrade as he passes.

  ‘Now what do you want of me in your war, Votan? Do not remind me of my oaths. I was not sober when I swore, I send you no troops.’

  It was hardly politic to accuse him of treachery, but my face showed my bitter feelings, so he went on,

  ‘I give you better, I take away half your enemies and never shed a drop of blood. The Cat King has promised Loki that when he attacks Asgard, the Chatti will come against you too. But I will stand surety that the Cat King will never march when my war band roams his frontiers. I will keep your back, Allfather. Then, because I can count on the Cat King not fighting unless I actually cross his borders, I can let you have, let’s see … yes … mail shirts, three hundred, on loan, I’ll need them back. And to keep, heads, arrow, six thousand; heads, javelin, two thousand; heads, lance, six hundred; axes, throwing, six hundred.’ What kind of a soldier he was I never knew, but he was a fine quartermaster. ‘And for the kind of attack you’re making, you’ll need greaves. I’ll lend you two hundred and fifty pairs. I’ll withdraw them from my own bodyguard, and I’ll want those back too.’

  When we got back to the hall that day, Gambara met us with:

  ‘There’s another King come. I had to chase him out of my kitchen, or we wouldn’t have had a cheese left in the palace. I made him go and wash – it can’t have been much of a wash, here he comes now.’

  Tawalz was no longer the only one of the Polyani to boast a sword, or even the only one to have a mail shirt and a helmet. Aser support had made him into a King indeed, head of five thousand families. He squeezed on to the high table with us and refused roast pork.

  ‘Wheat bread and cheese and onions is a feast to me,’ he told us, ‘Meat, I can have all I want from the forest. I’ve got something awkward for you. Three things, to be precise, three heads.’

  ‘Good man,’ said Lyngi. ‘How did you take them? Did you—’

  Everybody kicked him. Tawalz went on,

  ‘These were Burgundians. We caught them crossing our river. They told us why too, before they died. We gave them long enough. They were on their way to the Lesny who live beyond us. They were to persuade them to raid us when Loki marches on Asgard. Of course, we only got three, others may have got across. So I have sent to the Russ, who live farther east. The Russ will raid the Lesny, if they raid us. But I cannot trust them, and so only half my families will go against Sigmund when he marches.’

  This was a blow. And Tawalz had not found out from his prisoners when the attack would come.

  2

  There was a night toward the middle of June, when we were sitting over Hoenir’s ale, and talking of the autumn campaign, when there was a commotion at the bottom of the hall. To the high table there came a man called Adils, who was one of the few who knew of Gand’s sister. He walked up to the table, and we knew from his face that there was trouble, and we made room for him, so that he could tell us quietly.

  ‘Sigmund’s out!’ he said.

  That was an end to all our planning.

  ‘He’s been out two days. He got a lot of his people in for the Midsummer feast ten days early, so that he had a sizeable war band ready. Then he just stood up at the end of dinner and said he was going to march at dawn with what he had, and pick up all his western families on the way. That’s how Gand’s sister wasn’t able to warn us earlier.’

  Everyone jumped up and argued and shouted and asked questions till I thumped my fist on the table for silence. I needed silence to think. I thought as fast as I could and that was not easy, I was as frightened as they were. Loki couldn’t do this, he couldn’t march before we were ready, he couldn’t come before the harvest, nobody ever made war before the harvest. The truth was the Burgundians were starving, they couldn’t even live till their own harvest, they had to march or starve, and in a way it was our fault. I pulled myself together, forced myself to think like a solid unemotional Greek, not like one of those volatile northerners. I asked:

  ‘How many men has he?’

  ‘Not as many as we expected. About half the nation, I should think, but of course the eastern families will soon be out after him.’

  I called the ambassador from the Polyani.

  ‘Olen, tell your uncle to raid. Tell him to raid at once, raid everywhere, burn crops, kill the women, destroy everything. Then the Burgundians that aren’t out yet won’t go, and the ones that have marched may want to go home. Off you go!’ And Olen went.

  ‘Then Asgard. Bragi, there’s still a lot of Amber left, take all the pack horses you can find and get the lot out and away south. The other Asers? They can wait, we can go back for them. Anyway they’re safe enough, we’ll fight before Loki can get at them.’ Later men would throw it up to me that I sacrificed the Asers for the Amber. Yet I did the will of my Father Paeon.

  ‘Now, Adils, have you twenty men you can trust? Good men, like yourself, not squeamish?’

  ‘Forty, if you like.’

  ‘Twenty will do. Ride to Asgard. Clear the village on the ridge, send all the people to Orm’s place, tell them to take their cattle, anything the Burgundians can eat.

  ‘Then get over to the Black Sheds where they make the Honeydew. You’ll find a half dozen Germans there, and about a hundred Scrawlings. Kill them, kill the lot. Don’t let anybody get away, kill them all.’

  ‘But they make the Honeydew.’

  ‘Look, Adils, we can buy more Scrawlings. We can make more copper pipes, fire more pots, so smash all you can see. But if Loki catches the men who make the Honeydew, then our secret and our power are gone. Take all the Honeydew you can find, it’s in big jars, and put it in the village. Put a jar in every house, and all the jars over, leave in the street. Don’t let your own men get at it; leave it for the Burgundians, and watch what it does to them. Then burn the Black Sheds, and get into Asgard.’

  Adils went. A man called Pybba took a group of archers off east to hold the Burgundians up. Nothing teaches you to walk warily so much as an arrow from nowhere in the ribs.

  3

  That was improvisation. Now for the plan and the army.

  ‘Right,’ said Tyr. ‘I’ll call out the Vandals.’

  ‘Call them,’ said Hoenir gloomily. ‘They won’t come. It stands to reason, you can’t ask men to come out this time of year. It’s the hay-making, and the barley’s just beginning to turn. You’ll never raise a host, and I’m not even going to try. Why not buy them off? There was never a King yet who couldn’t be bought.’

  ‘I’m not asking Vandals,’ said Tyr. ‘I’m telling them.’

  ‘You can’t, you’ll never get them out. Mine aren’t coming, anyway.’

  ‘If there are no Vandals and no Lombards,’ I said firmly, ‘then I will meet them with Tyr, and the Saxons that are on the roads now. They came out to fight and fight they will.’ Privately, I meant to do no such thing.

  ‘Maybe, they’re only lads, they don’t know what war is. My men know. They won’t come till after the harvest, and I’ll not ask them.’

  ‘Coward!’ It was Gambara, she was furious, white with rage, in a flaming temper. ‘Do you want me to go? Do you want to see the Lombard women fight because their men are afraid to go to war? Too busy with the harvest? Who in heaven’s name do you think actual
ly gets the harvest in? Who do you think turns the hay and stacks it? What else is a man good for but to fight?

  ‘And if you fight for no one else, you must fight for Votan! Whose fault is it you are still a King? Who gave you your wife? The very sword you are afraid to draw you gained through him. If you are afraid to use it, give it to me. If you have no blood, let me shed mine.’

  And I think she would indeed have gone to war herself, for the men of the Land of Norroway are fierce and blood-thirsty, and their women no better if the tales Donar brought back are true. With such a choice between Sigmund in arms and Gambara in fury, Hoenir took the lesser evil. He went to war.

  The Lombards came, of course. They came grumbling, and cursing, but it was Sigmund they cursed for fighting out of season. Every Lombard noble who came straggling in with his six or eight axemen was convinced that only he had answered the call, and each, prophesying massacre and disaster and a bad harvest, came prepared only to die beside his King. But a day or two on the Aser stores of bread and beef and beer put heart into them. Lombards, and Vandals too, went out to war.

  4

  We looked down from the edge of the wood across the common. No cows grazed there now. On the ridge opposite, the black ruin of the Honeydew sheds still smoked. Farther along we could see the roofs of the village. It was all very still. There was very little wind.

  ‘Are they there?’ Tyr wasn’t the only one to ask. If Sigmund was in the village, he was looking at the wood and asking the same question. If Sigmund was in the village, then he was between us and Asgard. He might even be in Asgard.

  ‘We’ll have a look,’ I said. Lyngi and I rode down on to the common. Suddenly the ridge was thronged with helmets. We were closer now, and we could hear a good deal of shouting. There was singing too. We went nearer, and the men began to come down off the ridge and get into some kind of order. Synfiotli seemed to be in charge, and having a hard task. We went closer still, and a few optimists loosed arrows at us. They couldn’t reach us, but we took the hint, and went back a little.