War of the Gods

by Poul Anderson

  Hadding smiled. “Well, now, that’s sweet to hear. But I told you, I know not when it can be.”

  “Before Yule, surely? You’ll be at Haven. You almost always make your midwinter offering there. And first you take your ease, after the year’s trekkings and strivings. Say you’ll come when we ask you. Promise me, father!”

  She stood there before him in the morning light, his daughter who looked so much like his Ragnhild, and held out her arms to him. “It’s a good thought,” he said. “Yes, if nothing holds me that I can’t break loose from, I’ll come. And thank you, Ulfhild.”

  “It’s we who must thank you,” she breathed.

  He rode off, followed by his household. Once more, after the losses on Lolland, they were so many that their camp had overflowed a meadow. For a while he was merrier than they had seen him be in a long time. But lying idle until Tosti came by, he began again to brood. His slaying of the outlaw seemed only to lay a deeper darkness over him.

  Afterward he went around in the kingdom as of yore, meetings his folk at their Things and in their homes, giving redes and judgments, calming those who were at odds, telling them it was better to build and trade than burn and rob. Men spoke among each other, sometimes with grins, of how the wild young rover had become the mild old grandfather. But some said, “It’s as though he’s bidding us farewell.”

  In Scania he stayed a few days with Eyjolf. “I’d like to go on north to Uppsala and greet King Hunding,” he said on their last evening. “The road between friends should be trodden oftener than ours has been, these past years. But the season wears on. I’d best turn homeward.”

  “You’ll surely meet again, you two,” the jarl answered, “and I’ve a feeling that that’s not far off.”

  Hadding sighed. “One can hope.”

  Back in Haven, he went to see Frodi and they had speech at the fen. He returned to his hall and the dream came to him. A week later he heard that his son had left Denmark.

  —Soon after, Gudorm’s men arrived.

  They were four, sturdy carles whose legs dangled down close to the fetlocks of their shaggy little horses. Hadding knew them by name. They stood awkwardly before him in his high seat. “What brings you here?” he asked.

  “Well, lord,” said the leader, “they at the garth sent us to ask if you’d come visit for a bit, if you’ll do them the honor. They told me you’d told them you would if you could, nowabouts. That’s the word we was to bring you, by your leave.”

  “Did they say why they want this?”

  “Well, I understand it’s for family’s sake, like. They’d rather you come with only us, if that’s not beneath you. But it’s not for me to know, lord.”

  Hadding gazed at the honest red face and murmured, “No, Olaf, you and your fellows can hardly know. Maybe I myself don’t. But I did promise. Yes, I’ll go, No man may flee his weird.”

  The men shivered. Housecarles who overheard looked askance at the king. He smiled a tight-lipped smile. “I’ve a few things to take care of first,” he said. “We should be able to set forth the day after tomorrow. Then we’ll get there the day after that, as short as the days have become. Meanwhile rest yourselves here, goodfolk.”

  “May one of us head straight back and tell them, lord? The lady Ulfhild said as how she wanted to have everything ready, fit for you.”

  “He may as well,” said Hadding.

  A youth rode off at once. The others saw little more of the king until they left with him. They thought that was best, as lost in thought as he seemed. They could drink, gab, and be cheerful with the workers, around the hall and with such guardsmen as cared to join in.

  The next day Hadding drew the new chief of his house-caries aside outdoors. They spoke long and earnestly. Afterward the chief sent off a score of men. He gave out that he had heard there might be a robber denning in the midisland woods, and wanted to learn whether the tale was true and, if so, track the man down.

  As for Hadding, he went into his treasure hoard. From it he took a splendid battle horn, made from the horn of an aurochs, banded with silver in which the smith had hammered Valkyries bearing fallen heroes to the gods.

  At sunrise he rode from his hall. None followed him but the three men from the garth to which he was bound. They fared silent, for so the king did.

  As night drew nigh, they halted at a house he owned on the Isefjord, where he kept a yacht. The caretakers put a meal together That also went glumly. However, at the end the king got up and said, “Bring these men as much more ale as they want.” To them he added, “Refresh yourselves. I’m going for a stroll.”

  “Not overly gladsome at seeing daughter and grandkids again, is he?” muttered one of them when the tall shape had limped out the door.

  “Hold your jaw,” said Olaf. “Kings, they got much on their minds, they do. I’d not willingly be a king, I wouldn’t. Hoy, this is a mighty tasty brew here. Let’s swill while we can.”

  —Dusk closed in. Hadding stood on the shore, looking north over the water. It lay still, a steely glimmer broken by the black hulk of an island, out to the worldrim and beyond. Once he said into the hush and chill, “I think you are the home I have ever been seeking.” A few stars trembled forth, small and far. “But how can a man have his home in the sea?”

  He turned and went back to the house. The men were already snoring on the benches. By the light of the dying fire he found his own place. In the morning he did not look as though he had slept much.

  They reached Keldorgard before midday. The sky hung low, a sunless gray. A mile or so northward the shaw stood like a stronghold wall for jotuns, the barrow a hill before it. Lesser dwellings stood nearer, and neighbor farms afar, their smoke more dear to sight than the dwindled buildings. Otherwise the land stretched flat, shadowless, bare fields, withered grass, tangled briars. The air was not very cold, but it gnawed.

  The garth bustled. Hoofs rang in the flagged yard. Smells of roasting meat rolled around it. Folk milled about the newcomers, shouting. Even their most faded woad-dyed wadmal was colorful today, and Ulfhild’s red cloak blazed like her hair as she hastened forth to greet her father. Gudorm lagged behind, well enough clad but his face locked.

  Hadding swung down from the saddle. Ulfhild caught both his hands. “Welcome, welcome!” she cried. “Thank you for that you’ve come. Did you have a good journey? You shall surely have a good stay with us. Now, into the house with you, a stoup of mead, a bite of food if you like, then the bathhouse.”

  “Yes, welcome,” said Gudorm roughly. “We have much to talk about.”

  Hadding’s eyes met his. “We have much to remember, you and I,” he answered.

  “We’re happy to see you, lord.”

  “I keep my promises.”

  In the entry Hadding unslung his sword and racked it, as was the usage with weapons. He carried a bundle he had along to the shutbed set aside for him, and unrolled fresh clothes from it. “Yes,” he said, “I’m more than ready for cleanness.”

  A thrall in the bath poured water on red-hot stones. Hadding basked and breathed. As the hut cooled, the man dashed a bucketful over him while another brought in more heated rocks. After the third time, they toweled him dry and he came forth aglow. In a room alongside he dressed himself in green woolen breeks with kidskin cross-garters, calfhide shoes, tunic brocaded and marten-trimmed above linen shirt, silver-buckled belt and silver brooch at throat, gold coils on his arms, gold headband circling his well-combed locks. He entered the house smiling and sought Ulfhild out among her busy women.

  “Well,” he said, “now I’m fit to meet with the children and see how they’ve grown since last. I’ve brought a few little things for them.”

  “I’m sorry, father,” she told him. “I thought they shouldn’t be underfoot, and sent them off to stay with a crofter of ours.”

  “Oh.”

  “We’ll fetch them back before you go, of course. But first there’s this feast, and then tomorrow we’ll have everything to talk about, the thr
ee of us.”

  “Yes.”

  Hadding went over to where Gudorm sat, moodily whittling on a stick with his eating knife. “I gather you’ve more to take up with me than you’ve let on,” he said.

  Gudorm’s gaze did not leave his hands. “We’ve met too seldom,” he mumbled.

  “Maybe. I would like to hear about whatever hopes they are that have had you going up and down the kingdom.”

  “You shall. Later.”

  “As you wish. I’ve not forgotten that night under the boat.”

  “Nor I.” Gudorm rose. “Forgive me, lord. I’d better see to things. They’ll soon bring out the tables.”

  The winter day was well into its afternoon. Already the house was gloomy, high though the hearth fire crackled. One could not eat in seemly wise by flamelight, though drinking might well go on till sunrise.

  Servants bore in the trestles and laid the boards across them. There was no high seat, but Hadding took his place at the middle of the platform bench along the south wall. Across the rush-strewn floor from him were Gudorm and Ulfhild. To right and left on both sides sat three or four men, clad in their rough best. They were the foremost of Gudorm’s caries, skilled smallholders in their own right, together with the most well off of his neighbors. He would have affronted those had he not asked them to come the first evening and meet the king.

  Women went about pouring ale for them. Hadding whispered to one. She brought him something from his shutbed, wrapped in a cloth.

  Gudorm stood up, lifting his beaker. “Drink we to the gods,” he said into the smoky, flickering twilight, “Njord, Freyr, and almighty Thor,” the gods of fishery, harvest, and weather.

  “Skaal,” rumbled through the room, and men drained their draughts. The women refilled for them.

  “Now drink we to our guest King Hadding,” said Gudorm. Suddenly his voice was harsh. “Health and long life be his.”

  “Skaal, skaal.”

  The king rose. Firelight glinted off the cup of costly outland glass he had once given this household. “Drink we to Gudorm, our host and my reeve in the shire, and to his lady, Ulfhild, my daughter,” he called. “May their honor be ever as high as their worth.”

  Gudorm caught his breath. Ulfhild sat unstirring.

  As the ale went down, Hadding unwrapped the battle horn. The long curve of it sheened in his hands. “Gudorm,” he said, “I know you for a warrior, a man born to do great deeds and win great fame. Take this of me, and may it soon call up the men that we want.”

  A woman carried it between them. Gudorm held it aloft for all to see and wonder at while he spoke slurred thanks. He had already been drinking hard. The house boomed with cheers. Ulfhild hung the horn by its sling from a peg in the wainscot above her.

  Now trenchers and trays came laden from the cookshed. The men fell to. Talk growled and buzzed, often breaking into guffaws. Gudorm was mostly silent; Ulfhild answered mildly whenever someone spoke to her. Hadding stayed grave, as befitted a king and an old man, though willing enough to swap words.

  Yet his eyes were always watchful, the eyes of a hunter or a sailor. The day waned. Servants kept wood on the fires and brought in lamps, but still the light dimmed. Hadding saw a man come in by the rear door and sit down at that end. Though the room was warm, he hunched in a shabby hooded cloak, another shadow.

  Hadding pointed. “Who’s that?” he asked Olaf on his left hand.

  The carle peered. “Urn, hard to see from here, but I ken him. A poor wretch hight Styr, lately shifted to this neighborhood from somewhere else. Gudorm lets him sleep in a barn, help the thralls, and share their food. I take it Gudorm’s told him he can have a bite and listen to somebody besides the cows. He’s a kindly fellow, him Gudorm.”

  Eating came to an end. The housefolk took the tables away. Two of them rolled in a cask of ale, set it upright near the hearth, and knocked the end off. Men whooped. As they went to fill their cups and horns for themselves, the free women of the garth, no longer needed for serving, and having had their own food beforehand, returned to drink and mingle likewise.

  Gudorm and Ulfhild joined them on the floor. Even the lowly Styr crept from his corner. Hadding kept his seat, as a king should, and let those who wished speech with him seek him out. They took his cup to and fro for him as he emptied it.

  Blithely chatting, Ulfhild drifted toward the far end of the room. Not only women but men wandered that way, for in the shifty dusk she was brighter than the flames and lovelier to behold. At length they were all gathered laughing around her. Styr, whom nobody cared to talk to, stood alone.

  He glanced at Hadding, squared his narrow shoulders, and shuffled toward the king. “Well?” Hadding asked. “What would you of me?”

  Styr halted before him. Within a nest of hair and beard, the hollow face twitched. “This,” he said hoarsely. He flung back his cloak. Beneath it hung a sax. “This, murderer! “-

  He whipped out the curved blade. Flamelight followed its whirring leap.

  Had his dream not made him wary, Hadding would have died then and there. As was, he sprang aside. The edge bit into the platform where he had been. Styr bounded after him. Hadding withdrew across the floor. His eating knife was in his hand, but no match for the sword.

  Men shouted, women shrieked. They did not at once understand what was happening, as murky as the room was. It stunned them. Styr bore in on Hadding. The king reached the north wall. He snatched the horn he had given Gudorm and set it to his lips. All the while he was dodging his attacker. The war call blasted forth.

  Men dashed to help. They got in each other’s way. None was any better armed than Hadding. Styr barred the floor between them and the weapons they had left in the entry. The first of the yeomen reeled, clutching an arm slashed open. Blood hit the hearth fire and hissed. He stumbled back to the others.

  “Get together!” bellowed Gudorm. “Stand close!” Bewildered, knowing him for a warrior, the men clumped clumsily in front of the women.

  Twice and thrice did Hadding wind the horn amidst Styr’s onslaught. Then he smote with it as though it were a sword. It stopped the next blow but shattered in his hand. He cast the stump. It hit Styr on the brow. The man tottered. Hadding made for the entry. He was too slow on his lame foot. Styr recovered, headed him off, drove him back.

  “We’ll go around the house,” Gudorm called. “We’ll get our weapons and stop this.”

  Blindly, the men followed him out the rear door and into the night. Under its cloud deck they must fumble their way along the wall. Inside, before the eyes of the women, Styr worked Hadding into a cornet.

  Gasping for breath, the old king tautened. He would not – finish his jump, but his knife might find his foe.

  With a roar of wrath and a rattle of iron, his housecarles burst in from the entry. Styr barely saw them before a flung spear pinned him. As he fell, the warriors stormed thither. They hewed him to shreds and splinters.

  Their headman laid hold of the king by both arms. “Are you hale?” he cried.

  Hadding slumped. The knife dropped from his grasp. “Yes,” he answered. “Thanks to you.” They helped him to a bench. He sat down and stared into the shadows at nothing they could see. “Thanks to you, Ragnhild,” he whispered.

  Ulfhild ran from among the women. “Oh, father, father, you live!” Her arms were spread wide to enfold him. But the housecarles in their byrnies had thrown a shield-wall around their lord.

  One by one, dumb, shaking, the yeomen and caries crept in. Under the stern gaze of the guards they sought to the women in the rear. Only Ulfhild stood at the middle of the floor, alone, straight, her face become a mask. Her kerchief had fallen off. Firelight played over the coils of her hair as if they too were burning.

  “Bring me a stoup,” said the king. A warrior hurried to do so. When he had drained it he straightened and spoke firmly. “Open ranks. I must find out about this.”

  The guards moved right and left, though they kept spears in hand, axes on shoulders, swords drawn.
Hadding looked through the smoke and hush. “Where’s Gudorm?” he asked.

  “I know not,” answered Ulfhild as steadily.

  “Strange,” said Hadding. “Strange how he did not think to lead a rush or have men throw things, and was so slow to take them around the house. I’d have been dead by the time they got back, and Styr begone out the rear. Strange, too, how skillfully that wretch wielded his blade. Who gave it to him and taught him its use?”

  “I know not,” said Ulfhild. “I only hope this is a nightmare, and I soon wake from it.”

  “Well, I had a dream of my own,” Hadding told them all. “It made me wonder. I’d not speak ill of anyone here without more grounds than that. But I had these men of men come over byways and yesterday night slip into the shaw behind the howe. That was a cold camp they made, and they might have had to stay there till I went home. But they kept faith. When they heard my horn call, they sped to my side.

  “Now, where is Gudorm?”

  “I’ll go look,” said the leader of the housecarles. He and four others kindled torches at the hearth and trod out into the night.

  They soon returned. “He lies a little beyond the gate,” the leader said. “He must have taken his sword away with him. He’s fallen on it.”

  The ice of Ulfhild broke. She lifted claw-crooked hands. “Witchcraft, black witchcraft!” she shrilled. “Ever has trollery clung to you, Hadding Jotun’s foster!”

  “That’s as may be,” said the king. He sat for another while. The fire and the lamps guttered low.

  He rose. His words clanged. “Hark. This could have been Gudorm’s work and nobody else’s. I do think you goodfolk are honest. But it could be part of something deeper and wider. Everybody will stay here for the next few days. We’ll give out that I’m dead, and see what happens.”

  His voice sank. “Now I am weary. Can someone who dwells nearby lend me a bed? I’ll not sleep under this roof again.”