War of the Gods

by Poul Anderson

  That night fire broke loose. Nobody afterward knew how. One seldom did. A lamp knocked over, an ember unwittingly kicked, even a stray spark could touch it off. Great homes had cookhouses standing apart from them to lessen the likelihood. Few smallholders could afford that. This blaze took hold of a thatch roof. A stiff breeze had arisen to fan and spread it. Everybody got out alive, but the hamlet burned to the ground.

  “It seems we bring bad luck wherever we go,” said Egil as the flames crackled. Shadows deepened the furrows in his face.

  “No,” answered Hadding. “I do. But follow me yet a while.”

  They walked on. Thenceforward they begged their bread along the way, without naming themselves, and spent their nights in the open.

  When the high gables of his hall rose insight, Hadding ordered, “Go you in. Bring me a tent and whatever else I need. I will house in this field.”

  The men obeyed. Eirik Jarl was quick to rally around. Before long Hadding was on the road with a goodly troop.

  Never did he enter a home. Always battling wild weather, he fared about Denmark, among the islands, over them, across northern Jutland, wherever he had holdings. From these he chose the finest coal-black cattle that grazed them. Over land and water were they brought, and herded up through Scania, while still he gathered more.

  In Bralund was a grove-hallowed to Freyr. Within it stood the image of the god, carved man-sized, painted and gilded. Astride a golden boar, he brandished his yard, as long as his arm, for begetting, growth, and ongoing life.

  “What will you here?” asked Eyjolf.

  “What I must,” said Hadding.

  “How do you know what that is?”

  “Maybe from a forgotten dream. I only know that I know.”

  Word went around. From all over the shire, and farther, men came. They set up their booths as if for a Thing; but when the time fell, they, stood hushed.

  Fires burned before the god. Men led the black kine forth, one by one. Some grew frightened and struggled, bawling, but those were strong hands on the ropes. As each drew nigh, Eyjolf stunned it with a hammer and Hadding cut its throat. Blood gushed into bowls. Wisemen dipped switches carved with runes and sprinkled the onlookers. Yeomen standing by hauled the carcasses off, hacked meat from bones, and threw it into the seething kettles. Deep voices chanted olden staves.

  Then at last other men rolled casks of ale and mead forward. The feast began. It was mighty and mirthful. Hadding smiled through the blood that reddened him. He had lifted the evil spell. That night he slept under Eyjolf’s roof. Later he made his friend the jarl of all Scania.

  He had sent gold and silver to those who suffered because of him, the lawful amends for every loss and death with a gift laid thereto. More could a king not do. The Danes spoke well of him again.

  Each year after this he gave black cattle to Freyr. The wont spread beyond Denmark and long outlived him.

  XVIII

  After so much ill hap, Hadding could not soon renew his war in Svithjod. He stayed home the following year. There was enough to do, faring about on the king’s work and seeing to his own holdings. Yet he grew ever more restless.

  Thus he was twice glad to greet Ivar Bardsson in the springtime after that. He always made wayfarers welcome and listened closely to what they told of their homelands and travels.

  Ivar was a Norseman of the Nidering kingdom, some five hundred miles by sea from the Skagerrak, whence it was a good two hundred more to Haven. Ships from there seldom called in Denmark. It was a tricky way to go, past countless fjords and holms where vikings often lurked. Norway had no one strong king to put them down. Svipdag had brought together a few small lands in the south but then had gone into Svithjod. There his sons and grandsons had been ever since. Their Norse shires still paid them scot, but had otherwise fallen away from them in all but name. Now thinking of themselves as Swedes, they cared little about yonder poor acres.

  Hence goods from farther north mostly went hand to hand, which made them costly in the Danish marts. Nonetheless, from time to time a bold seaman dared the voyage. His cargo of walrus hides and ivory, narwhal tusks, furs, and the like would bring him a rich haul of amber, gold, thralls, Smith-land glass and wine and silk, and other wares that flowed to the Baltic trader towns. Ivar’s knorr, uncommonly big, bore enough of a well-armed crew that few rovers would care to attack. Besides, they were unlikely to spy her. A skilled reader of sun, moon, stars, and waters, he kept well out to sea. Only weather had given him trouble.

  This time he brought news of something worse than • robbers.

  Coming down through the Sound, he stopped off at Haven. He was bound for Gotland but thought to rest here a short while and maybe do a little business. When he heard the king was at the hall nearby, he took a few of his men and ferried across from the island to pay a call. Hadding gave him the guest-seat of honor and bade the whole band stay the night, or as much longer as they wished. Those two had met before and hit it off well.

  Only one hearth fire flamed and smoked, for doors and windows stood open to mild air. Afternoon sunlight streamed in, bright on hangings and metal, soft on graven pillars and wainscots. The noise of household and thorp came low, voices,’ feet, hoofs, wheel-creak, a hammer ringing on an anvil. Well-born women brought beakers of mead to the warriors and sailors on the benches. Beside Hadding sat Gyda, his leman when he was hereabouts, a handsome young woman. Her braids fell fair over red apron panels and pleated white gown; rings on her arms, brooches at her shoulders were of heavy silver. The king was likewise richly clad, in brocaded tunic, blue linen breeks, kidskin cross-garters, and buckskin shoes. A headband with gripping beasts woven into the wool circled his own yellow locks. Others sat quietly and listened while he talked with the skipper.

  “Well,” he asked after a while, “how go things in Niderland?”

  Ivar frowned. He was a lean, sharp-faced man with brown hair and beard turning gray. His sea-worn wadmal and leather were offset by a gold chain about his neck, from which hung a small silver hammer “Not well, lord,” he answered. “Woe is upon us. The shame to come will be worse”

  Hadding straightened. “Say on!”

  Ivar had foreseen he must, and readied his words beforehand. “You may know that a jotun hight Jarnskegg has long dwelt in the wild uplands of the Dofra Fell. That’s three or more days’ stiff trek from the great fiord. Hardly anyone lives around there, and they lowly folk with naught worth reaving. So we formerly had little or no trouble with him. He was hardly ever even seen, striding along a ridge against the sky or in the pine gloom of some deep dale.”

  Hadding nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard tell of such a one” He did not add that that had been at his fosterers’. Vagnhöfdi had never met Jarnskegg, only gotten word of him. Those few giants who abode in Midgard wanted aloneness.

  “But I don’t suppose you know about King Haakon’s daughter, Ragnhild,” Ivar said. “She’s a young woman now, very fair to behold, but on the reckless and stubborn side. Always she loved the mountains and sought to them. Her father let her. She’s his only living girl-child and he cannot easily say her nay. Of course, he sent guardsmen along, as well as her serving maids.

  “Last year, up in those wilds, it befell that Jarnskegg came upon her. She stiffened with horror at the sight of him, but he was smitten with her, it seems, unless this was a whim of his. I should think he might well go a bit mad after so many human lifetimes by himself. Be that as it may, he bawled at her to come with him. Her following drew close around her, weapons aloft. Maybe they were too many for him, maybe not. He’s not in any way a warlock, as I’ve heard some giants are. What he growled was that he didn’t want a fight in which she might be hurt, but that she would be hearing more from him. Then he stalked wrathfully off toward the heights.

  “A while after this he found a cowherd grazing his kine. He told the man to bear word to the king for him. If not, he would kill the beasts and burn the little homestead. Of course the man obeyed. For token he brought a wisent�
�s skull, roughly set with quartz rocks in the eye sockets, which Jarnskegg gave him to give Haakon. The word was that the giant wanted Ragnhild. If he got her, he would fight for the king whenever need arose.”

  “That in itself shows he’s not quite right in the head,” murmured Hadding, remembering Vagnhöfdi.

  “If he was refused, he would lay the kingdom waste,” Ivar went on. “As you’d guess, lord, no father would willingly give a daughter to so foul a being. Haakon sent the cowherd back with that answer, and guards to keep him from suffering what bearers of bad tidings ofttimes suffer. Jarnskegg heard him out and said King Haakon might change his mind later. Then he returned to the wilderness.

  “Soon he began striking out at men. The cowherd was the first to die, his head crushed with one blow after the guards went home. Jarnskegg then raided throughout the uplands. The few men in a lonely steading cannot hold him off. He’s murdered them and their families. Those who ran off and hid, he’s searched out to kill.

  “Moreover, he’s come into the foothills and at last the lowlands. Again and again has he burst from the night to batter down gates and doors, slay folk and herds, set houses afire. Sometimes more strength has been mustered against him than he could readily deal with. Then he’s needed only to withdraw, faster than they could give chase. But he’s bound to smite again soon, elsewhere. Everybody lives in dread of him, whether he’s come near them or not. Now and then he’ll shout at them that whenever King Haakon wishes for an end to this, he has but to send Ragnhild alone to the Troll’s Hood for him to claim.

  “Of course the king’s ordered troops out to do away with him. Each time they’ve blundered uselessly around in the mountains. Clear it is, Jarnskegg’s known where they were, and kens that wilderness better than any man. He can easily keep from them till they quit. He might well slip off while they’re searching and find yet another helpless home to smash.”

  “Has not the king called on the gods?” asked Hadding.

  “Indeed he has, again and again, with mighty offerings,” Ivar said. “Nothing has come of it. No wizard, no spaewife, no dream has been able to tell anybody why Thor won’t make an end of this monster.”

  Hadding’s look went far away. Men barely heard his voice: “I’m no soothsayer myself, but what I’ve seen in my life whispers to me that sometimes the gods themselves must go by strange roads toward ends that are unknown to men.”

  Ivar scowled. “However that may be, lord,” he said, “folk mutter that somehow the king has angered the high ones. They say more loudly that he has no right to squander them for the sake of one willful girl. When I left, things were looking hopeless. Everywhere I was hearing that the king ought to yield her up and be done. Else they’d overthrow him and send her off to the giant. Thus far that was only talk. But let their grief grow much greater, and I think we will have an uprising.”

  Hadding stroked his beard. “Hm,” he answered after a silence in which the fire crackled loud. “What has the woman said to all this?“

  “I’ve heard different things about that as time went by,” Ivar told him. “It’s understandable. There must be a storm in her, blowing now this way, now that. At first she was as haughty as her father. Never would they crawl before a stinking huge hog. Later, when the landwasting had run for months, she swore she’d kill herself rather than lie with him. But—I know not from my own ears, but they say that lately she thinks if she went to hell instead of to him, Jarnskegg’s rage would be the worse. I wonder if she hasn’t begun to hope she can find a way to kill him in his sleep, once they are together.”

  “I doubt she could,” said Hadding grimly. “I know his breed.”

  “But why would he lust after her?” blurted the housecarle Svein. “A giant and she—” He broke off, flushing. He was young.

  “He may split her in twain the first time, do you mean?” said Gunnar. “Maybe he hasn’t thought of that, or maybe he doesn’t care after hundreds of years with nothing better than elk cows, or maybe he’d enjoy it.”

  Arnulf snickered. “Or maybe he’s not so well hung for his size.”

  “Or he might make her please him in other ways,” said old Egil. He spat. “Yes, she’s better off dead.”

  Hadding lifted a hand. “Be still,” he bade them. “This is a grave matter. More than kingly honor is at stake. Kingship itself may be. We cannot let the harm done to a goodly folk like the Niderings go unavenged. Otherwise lawlessness will spread like wildfire, along with trollery and everything else unhuman. Could this be why the gods hold back their help?”

  He leaned forward. “Ivar” he asked, “how much longer do you think Haakon will hold out?”

  “I know not, lord,” said the Norseman. “He’s a brave and proud one, him. And then there’s his love for the daughter She’s very fair and winsome. But I fear I’ve seen her for the last time.”

  “Maybe not,” said Hadding low. “Maybe not. Stay a few days while we speak further.”

  “We need to reach Gotland in time for the mart, lord.”

  “Ha, if I keep you from that, I’ll make it up to you. Bide here. It will be good guesting.”

  Eagerness flickered in Ivar’s eyes. He had not stopped at Haven without unspoken hopes of his own. Being a trader, he kept his face blank and said merely, “As the king wills.”

  Hadding lifted his beaker. “Come, let’s drink, let’s be merry,” he cried. “Hard thinking can wait till tomorrow.”

  “All at once you’re ashiver,” his leman, Gyda, whispered to him.

  He laughed. “Well, at last I’ve something to be impatient about.”

  However, mirthful though he was for the rest of that day and evening, he beckoned men one by one to the high seat and talked softly, earnestly with them—men of weight and wisdom. In the morning he sent messengers off, bidding some more who had not been there to come at once. These messengers went no farther than two days’ hard ride. Meanwhile he was much alone with Ivar and with the redegivers he had called upon earlier.

  On the third night, as they lay in their shutbed, Gyda said to him, “You are going to Norway, are you not?”

  “What makes you think that?” he asked.

  “I have come to know you as well as anybody does, though that is not very much,” she sighed in the darkness. “You will be leaving soon, too. If you felt no need of haste, you’d have sent for chieftains from more widely around, to get everything battened down here at home.”

  He chuckled and laid an arm around the warmth of her. “You’re shrewd, my love.”

  She stiffened. “Why are you bound off? What is this to you?”

  “Well,” he answered slowly, “as I said before, it’s wrong that a high-born maiden fall into the grasp of a filthy unbeast that wins her by running wild through her father’s land. If such a tale got around, it’d hearten too many outlaws. Best the thing never happen.”

  “You’ve more in mind than that.”

  “True. The Niderings are the strongest folk in Norway. It would be helpful to have bonds with them, loosely though Uffi holds the southern shires. He’d think twice about attacking us.”

  “Bonds of wedlock? The Norsemen call Ragnhild comely.”

  Hadding laughed. “I’ve never seen her myself.”

  “But she is a king’s daughter. After you are dead, the Danes would more likely hail a son of yours by her than any of the by-blow, you’ve got scattered around among them.”

  “I ought to look beyond my own lifetime, yes. A fight between sons of mine could wreck everything I’ve wrought.” Hadding laughed again. “But you stray from what we know or can foresee. AM know tonight is that you are shapely and you are here.” He drew her to him. The straw mattress rustled beneath them. Her unbound hair smelled summery “Give me a glad send-off.”

  “Oh, I will that.” She swallowed hard. “And a glad welcome home, if you come back. If you want it.” Her mouth found his, there in the narrow and lightless shutbed.

  A few days later, Hadding was on his way.

/>   He had indeed not taken time to put matters fully in order. After hasty talks with the Zealand chieftains, he left Eirilc Jarl to steer the kingdom. He had bought Ivar Bardsson’s cargo for more than the traders could have gotten on Gotland. They sailed with him, to be his guides and helpers. The freight they now bore was horses.

  Otherwise he had but one ship. He could not have raised a war-host fast, if at all. Anyhow, the giant would have kept clear of it, to wreak havoc elsewhere. Hadding alone, with his knowledge of wilderness and of jotun ways, had any hope of dealing with Jarnskegg.

  The craft was his darling, the Firedrake, a longship of thirty oars. A crew of housecarles hung their shields from the bulwarks. She danced on the Sound, red and black and golden-trimmed. Mast up, the brightly striped sail caught wind. Not until he was well at sea would Hadding break out the dragon head and set it on the stempost. He had no wish to anger the land-wights of home. But already the ship leaped forward like a wolf at prey. He must keep on a longer tack than needful, not to outrun the knorr. His warriors shouted. They also had been too idle for their liking.

  Gyda stood on the wharf, in front of everybody else gathered there, and watched until the hulls were lost to sight.

  XIX

  When had passed through the narrows into the great fjord, Hadding did not make for King Haakon’s seat at Nidaros. Sailing through the light night, he followed Ivar to a spot on the Bight of Buvik where the skipper dwelt. Trees walled the steading off, and a boat shed meant for the knorr hid Firedrake. Ivar told his family and household folk to stay on the grounds. These were guests whose coming should not be noised about. He himself saddled a horse and set forth to Nidaros.

  The town was not fat He came back the same day. “I thought the king would lodge you overnight and want to know how you are home again so soon,” Hadding said.