War of the Gods

by Poul Anderson

  XXXIII

  Over the Sound, up through Scania and Geatland, on into Svithjod flew the word. Hadding the Dane-king was gone, fallen at the hand of a madman. They who bore and believed the news were housecarles from Haven. Their chief, who sent them off, with others to go elsewhere around Denmark, believed it too. Each time their horses stopped, the tale raced across the neighborhood. It warned jarls, sheriffs, chieftains, and yeomen to busk themselves for trouble.

  None came. There was no uprising, no onset from abroad. When he knew that was so, the king rode back to his hall. Thence he sent messengers after the first ones, carrying the truth.

  But a huge storm had sprung up. It lashed the waters for days and nights. Until it ended, neither boat nor ship could cross over to Scania.

  Thus the tale came to King Hunding in Uppsala, from the’ lips of men he knew to be trustworthy. Hadding, his oath-brother, the man who had made him what he was, lay dead.

  The lord of the Swedes sat dumb when he heard. Then he said slowly, “That was a life longer than most, and it went more high than any other. But it was not long enough, and hence forward we must walk warily, now that the might which upheld our peace is no more.”

  Later he said, “To him who gave me all, I will give back all I can, a grave-ale worthy of him.”

  The year stood within two months of midwinter, when folk would flock here from far and wide for the offerings. He knew that most could not make the journey twice in so short a span. But he sent to every great man who dwelt nearby, bidding him come. With their families and followings, these guests would number two or three hundred. The kingly hall at Uppsala was the biggest and finest in the North. For a week it boiled with readymaking.

  The king was seldom on hand. Most often he was riding about the hinterland, ruthlessly spurring his steeds, through wind and rain and early gloom, trying to wear down his grief.

  The guests gathered. Hunding greeted them well, each by each. As they went to the benches, he and his wife took the place kept for those most honored. Across from it, his high seat stood empty.

  Fires blazed the length of the hall, beating back the chill outside. Dried herbs sweetened their smoke. On the trestle boards shone drinking vessels from the treasury, gold, silver, glass; even the horns were banded with costly metals. At the far end, workers had brought in a tub twice as wide as a man is tall and half his height, which they filled with ale. But first the women went pouring Southland wine from pitchers. The carven gods and heroes on the pillars, the woven heroes and beasts on the hangings, seemed to stir amidst the shadows, in the wavering light.

  Hunding stood up, his beaker aloft. “Drink we to Freyr, son of Njord, the god whose feast King Hadding did found,” he called.

  “Skaal,” rumbled through the sputtering of the fires.

  Hunding looked across the hall. “Drink we now to King Hadding, for whom I have kept my high seat open,” he said.

  The answer had an undertone of unease. Some of the folk shuddered.

  But no ghost came in. And now the servers brought the food, heap after heap of beef, pork, mutton, deer, duck, goose, grouse, swan, salmon, leeks stewed with chicken, wheaten bread, butter, cheese, honey, more and more and more. The drink became mead, Until heads buzzed with the summers that bred it. Talk and laughter went like surf, except when skalds stepped before the king to say forth the praises of him and his friend. He rewarded them freely.

  By the time the tables were cleared away, night had fallen outside and everybody was awash. The guests shifted around the floor like the waters in a tide-race, still gripping cup or horn. They gossipped, bantered, boasted, recalled days long ago, wondered about the morrow, forgot what they had been saying, and drifted to something else. Yet if anger flared, someone would quickly step between. For they were in the house of their king, mourning him whom that king had held to be above all others; and they too had been in awe of him.

  Hunding got up from his seat. “I will honor him,” he said thickly. “I will myself serve those who’re here to honor him.”

  His queen caught at his sleeve. “Stop,” she begged. “You’re being foolish.”

  “I am not;” Hunding answered. “I an honoring him.”

  He lurched to the tub. Though men and women were dipping from it as they liked, he filled his golden beaker and went about slopping ale into other vessels. Most of it splashed on the floor or onto clothes. Nobody said anything, but they looked. After a while he felt it.

  “Whatever you wish,” he said. “Be your own servers if you want. But I, I will bring a drink over to my bath-brother there in the high seat.”

  He pushed through the crowd back to the tub. Sticks had burned thin under a log in a fire-trench. They gave beneath it and it crunched downward. Sparks showered. Shadows flooded and ebbed.

  Startled, his eyesight bewildered, the king stumbled. He fell forward, over the tub and into it. His brow struck the rim. In a splash like a wave that breaks on a reef, he went down under his ale.

  Drunk, the guests were slow to understand what had happened and pull him out. Nor knew they what to do when he lay sprawled on the floor, breath and heartbeat still, unwinking eyes turned toward the high seat.

  XXXIV

  That year the weather around Yule was cold and calm. Folk swarmed to the offerings at Haven. The tents and booths of those who did not find housing ringed the holy shaw. By day the fires outside them sent smoke higher than the trees, by night the embers glowed redly up at the stars.

  From farthest off, Bralund in Scania, came Eyjolf Lysirsson, which he had never done before at this season. He guessed what sorrow must be in his old friend and king, and wanted to stand by as best he was able.

  The noise and stir became uproar on midwinter day. Low in the south, the sun shone heatlessly on the gathered beasts. Horses stamped and neighed, kine rolled their eyes and lowed, swine grunted and squealed and churned about in their pens. They knew something ill for them was toward, and the smell of their fear grew rank. But ropes snugged about their necks, strong hands took hold, and one by one they went bucking into the grove. Under its bare trees, before the halidom that stood at its heart, the altar stones waited. A hammer stunned, a knife slashed, blood spurted into bowls, the beast died and was dragged off, the next came up, while the crowding watchers shouted to the gods.

  Thereupon they pressed into the building. It loomed long and lean, darkly timbered, three tiers of shingled roofs above rafter ends carved into dragon heads. With brushes newly made from willow switches, the offerers sprinkled its walls with blood, both outside and inside. The same hot red spattered the folk as they passed the door. A great fire burned within. Kettles hung above it, in which seethed the flesh of the slain. At the far end reared the figures of Odin with his spear, Thor with his hammer, Freyr with his upstanding yard. On the pillars were graven doings of the gods, how Fenris was bound, the Midgard worm drawn from the bottom of the sea, the riding of the golden boar. Deep ale casks stood near the fire, and a heap of drinking horns. There too was King Hadding. No women or hirelings, but housecarles of his, sweating in helmet and mail, filled those horns and handed them to him. He made the sign of blessing over each and passed it above the fire to a worshipper. The men took long to go around. They packed the floor. More casks had been set about for their use.

  The king led them in draining the first draught to Odin, for victory and might, and the second to Thor, for freedom from evil beings. Thirdly they called on the Vanir for peace and good harvests. Thereafter they drank as they wished. Mostly they did so in remembrance of dear ones who were gone; but some of the younger raised the Bragi beaker and made loud vows to do this or that deed.

  When the food was ready, the king blessed it too. The cooks ladled it out into bowls the worshipers had brought, soup with chunks of meat, fat, and leeks, for the otherworldly power which is in that herb. So did the Danes feast, guesting their gods.

  Sunset was upon them when they left the halidom. In racketing gangs they sought their shelters an
d stoked their fires. Merriment would go on for two more days and nights before they wended home, and many a woman who had come along with her man, to partake in the rites that women held, would give birth nine months later.

  Those who had housing had farther to go. No few followed the king as he rode to his hall. The moon was nearly full. A crisp layer of snow glittered with its light. Hoofbeats rang loud.

  Eirik Björnsson was in front beside his lord. They spoke quietly together. “You seem wearied,” said the jarl.

  “I am,” Hadding owned. “More weary than you know”

  Eirik nodded. “I’ve marked it on you since we learned of King Hunding’s death, if not earlier. You should not let that burden you, lord. It was a mishap.”

  Hadding shook his head. “It was more. He, my oath-brother, died untimely because of a lie that I spread.”

  “Still, I say, a mishap.”

  “No. I feel it in my marrow. Hel was angered by a grave-ale drunk for a living man. I fear ill luck unless a rightful weregild allays the affront; and the king’s luck is the kingdom’s.”

  Eirik drew his cloak about him against the chill. “You’ve ever been closer to such things than other men. What are you thinking of?”

  Hadding lifted his head beneath the stars. “If naught else, I will honor my oath-brother as he honored me.”

  “With as great a feast—and a better outcome? Well, this is the time of year for it.”

  “No.” Hadding laid a hand on the jarl’s arm. “I have no heart for giving hospitality. Stand by me now, as you have often done before. Be the host in my stead. See to the well-being and good cheer of my guests. Tell what is true, that a sign has come to me and I have business with the gods that cannot wait.”

  “Yes, I can do that much,” said Eirik unwillingly.

  “You can do more. In the past, when I was abroad, you steered the kingdom for me, and steered it well. Should any-thing happen to me, you can again. Keep the peace that I built. Send a ship off in search of Frodi as soon as weather allows. He won’t be hard to find. Bid him come straightway. See him-hailed king. That is all.”

  Eirik frowned. “It does not seem small to me. Troublous days lie ahead. If I may speak frankly, lord, your daughter Ulfhild—”

  Hadding sighed. “I have my thoughts about her, but I will not utter them. She is still my daughter, and Ragnhild’s. Let her be, to wed whom she will. Whatever shall come of that lies with the Norns. And well do! know that the soul of Frodi is as wild as hers. But so mine once was. I have done what I ‘could. All things end.”

  Eirik gazed at him a long while before murmuring, “Memory dies not, the memory of what a man did in his life.”

  They rode on to the hall without further talk. Though the bathhouse was too dark to use, servants had set forth tubs of hot water. Men stripped, washed off the clotted blood, donned clean clothes, and laid themselves to rest, in beds, on benches, around the floor.

  Hadding rose at dawn. Stealing among the sleepers, he opened the shutbed given Eyjolf and shook the Scanian awake. “Come,” he whispered. “We ride today, do you remember? No need to stir up a fuss.”

  “I’m with you, lord,” said the man as softly, and swung his feet out onto the rushes.

  “You always have been,” answered Hadding.

  They had spoken of this before the offering, by themselves. The king had said merely that he must leave right afterward for a few days and would like fellowship. Otherwise he had told only two housecarles, men whom he knew could hold their tongues.

  They had horses and travel gear waiting. A few yawning thralls saw the four ride off. Sunrise found them on the road north along the strand.

  Nobody else was upon it, nor did they spy many during the day. To the left were snow-decked fields, murky groves, scattered farmsteads, now and then a hamlet where boats lay drawn ashore and dwellers mostly sat inside at their peat fires. To the right the waters of the Sound lapped on stones and kelp and shimmered below the hills of Scania. Gulls mewed, crows cawed. The air was clear, cold, and still.

  “You look rested, lord,” said Eyjolf.

  Hadding nodded. “I slept well. The weight that lay on me is slipping off.” His back was straight, his head high.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You need not. I’ve something to see to, then you can return.” Hadding clapped Eyjolf ‘s shoulder. “Thank you for coming along. Friends make faring gladsome.”

  Seeing the king in a good mood, Eyjolf gave him a rueful grin and said, “Well, I was looking forward to the drinking and swiving back there. But maybe we can make it up later.”

  “You will, if I know you,” laughed Hadding.

  He went on to speak of bygone times, and roused such talk that the other man lost any forebodings and well-nigh forgot that their errand was unknown to him. They had all their years to call forth, strife, joy, threat, gain, grief, deeds, fun, wonders, tumbling around the North from Denmark to Gardariki, from haunted wilderness to wealthy town, and for Hadding always the seafaring, throb of waves in hull and thrum of wind in rigging, spindrift salt on the mouth, foam and surge before the eyes. They hardly felt the short day pass.

  But when the sun went from them, they fell silent. It was as if they had emptied the horn of memory. A full moon rose out of Scania to throw a shivery bridge across the water and strew sparks over the snow. Elsewhere the Winterway frosted heaven; the Wain wheeled upward around the Lodestar; Freyja’s Spindle gleamed amidst glittering throngs. Here at the northern end of Zealand were no dwellings, only heath hoar under the moon, thickets, and a few lonely trees standing black upon it. Off in the west gloomed an edge of wildwood.

  The road had become a track, but there was not much farther to go. Where the trail gave out, a but of wattle and daub stood by itself, behind it a bubbling spring. Hadding drew rein. “I keep this for when I wish to hunt hereabouts, or be by myself for a span,” he said. “Wayfarers may use it, but they seldom come. It will do for the night. If you open the door, you’ll have moonlight enough within. You’ll find split wood and kindling, should you want to start a fire and warm your food.”

  “What, you’ll not stay with us?” asked Eyjolf.

  Hadding shook his gray head. The moon whitened it. “No. I told you I’ve business with the gods. If I’m not back by morning, seek me at the strand.” He pointed northward, onward.

  The two housecarles glanced at each other. Under cover of shadow, one drew with his finger the sign of the fylfot, the sun.

  Eyjolf’s look was on the king. “Is this your will?”

  Hadding smiled. “You should know me well enough by now to know that it is. Goodnight, old friend.” He reached forth to clasp Eyjolf’s hand. “Fare ever well.”

  He spurred his horse and rode off over the heath. Their gaze followed him until he was lost to sight.

  The land had been rising a little the last part of the way. Where it met the sea it dropped in a steep bluff down to a strip of cobbles. An oak tree stood on the height, gnarled and twisted by untold human lifetimes of wind. Its boughs reached like arms, its bare twigs like fingers, athwart the stars.

  Here the Sound opened out into the Kattegat. Scania was no more than a darkness in the east. Otherwise the eye found only sea. It murmured to the land, moonlight shattered where small waves broke, but beyond went the long, easy breathing of the deeps, as mighty in their sleep as ever in their wrath, and the light ran over them like a fire as &old as the air.

  Hadding dismounted. He tethered his horse to a bush. It whuffed and drooped its head. Hadding rumpled the rough mane. “You’ve done your work,” he said. “Take your ease.”

  Untying the bundle behind the saddle, he spread it on the ground. The moonlight showed bread, cheese, smoked meat; other gear for the road; and a rope, which no one had seen him put in. He uncoiled an end of it, ran fingers over the noose there, and nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I have my skill yet.”

  Hanging it over his shoulder, he walked to the brink of the bluff. For
a while he watched the sea that was his. Stars came out of it eastward and sank into it westward, as do ships faring by.

  Then, “Here I make my last offering,” he said aloud, “for my honor, my blood, and my folk. Wherever I am bound, know, know well, you yonder, he who comes was a king.”

  He turned and strode to the oak tree. There he unslung his sword, drew it, dropped sheath and belt, and drove the blade upright into the earth. Moonlight sheened On iron.

  He tossed off his cloak and bared his feet. Reaching, he caught hold of the lowest branch and began to climb.

  Aloft and aloft he went. So had he climbed when he was a boy, laughterful, afar in wilderness and all unaware of any strangeness in his life. As he rose, he saw ever more widely across the waters he had sailed, toward lands where he had warred, won, lost, and gone back to win anew. Scania became a moon-misty ridge. Beyond it, northwesterly, lay Ragnhild’s Norway. Ever had she yearned for its mountains. South and west reached Denmark, low in the arms of the sea. Overhead were the stars.

  The tree was not big. Too long had the sea winds grieved it. The topmost limbs would not bear his weight. But he had risen far enough. With a boy’s nimbleness, he walked out until his footing bent beneath him. With a sailor’s deftness he hitched his rope to the branch above. The noose he laid around his neck. A while more he stood looking at the moonlit sea.

  He sprang.

  Eyjolf and the housecarles found him in the morning. A wind had awakened. Whitecaps chopped. The rope creaked as Hadding swung to and fro. On each of his shoulders perched a raven. They had not taken his eyes. As the men drew near, they spread black wings and flew off eastward.

  XXXV

  Leaves rustled, alive with sunlight. He stood beside an lash tree whose trunk was mightier than a mountain and whose crown reached higher than heaven. Those boughs spread as wide as all the worlds, and he knew that three roots ran down to three of them, the worlds of the gods, the giants, and the dead.