The Broken Sword

XX

They spent no more than two days resting in the cave before Skafloc busked himself to go.

Freda did not weep, but she felt the unshed tears thick in her throat. “You think this is dawn for us,” she said once, the second day. “I tell you it is night.”

He looked at her, puzzled. “What mean you?”

“The sword is full of wickedness. The deed we go to do is wrong. No good can come of it.”

He laid his hands on her shoulders. “I understand you do not like making your kin travel the troublous road,” he said. “Nor do I. Yet who else among the dead will help and not harm us? Stay here, Freda, if you cannot bear it.”

“No-no, I will be at your side even at the mouth of the grave. It is not that I fear my folk. Living or dead, there is love between us; and the love is yours too, now.” Freda lowered her glance and bit her lip to halt its trembling. “Had you or I thought of this, I would have less foreboding. But Leea meant no boon in her rede.”

“Why should she wish ill on us?”

Freda shook her head and would not answer. Skafloc said slowly: “I must own that I like not altogether your meeting with Odin. It is not his way to set a low price, but what he really is after I cannot guess.”

“And the sword-Skafloc, if that broken sword is made whole once more, a dreadful power will be loose in the world. It will work unending woe.”

“For the trolls.” Skafloc straightened until his fair locks touched the smoky cave roof. His eyes flashed lightning-blue in the gloom. “There is no other road than the one we take, hard though it be. And no man outlives his weird. Best to meet it bravely face to face.”

“And we side by side.” Freda bowed her shining bronze head on his breast, and now the tears flowed heavily. “One thing do I ask, my dearest of all.”

“What is that?”

“Ride not out this eventide. Wait one day more, only one, and then we will go.” Her fingers dug into the muscles of his arms. “No longer than that, Skafloc.”

He nodded unwillingly. “Why?”

She would not say, and in their love that followed he forgot the question. But Freda remembered. Even when she held him most closely and felt his heartbeat against hers, she remembered, and it gave a terrible yearning to her kisses.

In some blind way, she knew this was their last night.

The sun rose, glimmered wanly at noon, and sank behind heavy storm-clouds scudding in from the sea. A wolf-toothed wind howled over the breakers that dashed themselves to noisy death on the strand rocks. Soon after darkfall there came for a while the far-off sound of hoofs at gallop through the sky, outrunning the wind, and a baying and yelping. Skafloc himself shivered. The Wild Hunt was out.

They mounted their elf horses, leading the other two with their goods, for they did not expect to return. Lashed across his back, Skafloc had the broken sword wrapped in a wolf skin. His elven blade was sheathed at his side, his left hand carried a spear, and both riders wore helm and byrnie under their furs.

Freda looked back at the cave mouth as they trotted off. Cold and murky it was, but they had been happy there. She pulled her eyes away and held them steadfastly forward of her.

“Ride!” shouted Skafloc, and they broke into full elf-gallop. The wind skirled and bit at them. Sleet and spindrift blew off the waters in stinging sheets, white under the flying fitful moon. The sea bellowed inward from a wild horizon, bursting on skerries and strand. When the breakers foamed back, the rattle of stones was like some ice-bound monster stirring and groaning. The night was gale and sleet and surging waves, a racket that rang to the riven driven clouds. The moon climbed higher, keeping pace with their surge and clatter of gallop along the cliffs.

Now swiftly, swiftly, best of horses, swiftly southward by the sea, spurn ice beneath your hoofs, strike sparks from rocks, gallop, gallop! Ride with the air loud in your ears and bleak in your lungs, ride through a moon-white curtain of hissing sleet, through darkness and the foeman’s land. Swiftly, ride swiftly, south to greet a dead man in his howe!

A troll horn screamed when they raced past Elfheugh harbour. Witchsight or no, they could not make out the castle, but they heard hoofbeats behind them. That thunder soon dwindled; the trolls rode not so fast, nor would they follow where their quarry went tonight.

Swiftly, swiftly, through woods where the wind skirls in icy branches, dodging between trees that claw with naked twigs-past frozen bog, over darkling hilkrest, down into the low country and across bare fields-gallop, gallop!

Freda began to know the way. The wind still drove sleet before it in these parts, but the clouds were thinning and the crooked moon cast glitter on ploughlands and paddocks locked in snow. She had been here before. She remembered this river and that darkened croft, here she had gone hunting with Ketil, there she and Asmund had fished throughout one lazy summer day, in yonder meadow had Asgerd woven chains of daisies for them-how long ago?

The tears froze on her cheeks. She felt Skafloc reach out to touch her arm, and she smiled back into his shadowy face. Her heart could scarce endure this return, but he was with her, and when they were together there was nothing they could not stand.

And now they were reining in.

Slowly on their panting, shaking horses, not saying a word but riding hand in hand, they came into what had been the garth of Orm. They saw great snowdrifts, white in the moonlight, out of which stuck charred ends of timbers. And high at the head of the bay bulked the howe.

A fire wavered over it, roaring and blazing in blue-tinged white-heatless, cheerless, leaping far aloft into the dark. Freda crossed herself, shuddering. Thus had the grave-fires of the old heathen heroes burned after sunset. Belike her unholy errand had kindled this one; it could not be Christian ground wherein Orm lay. But however far into the nameless lands of death he had wandered, he was still her father.

She could not fear the man who had ridden her on his knee and sung songs for her till the hall rang. Nonetheless she was racked with trembling.

Skafloc dismounted. He felt his own clothes drenched with sweat. Never before had he used the spells he must make tonight.

He went forward—and stopped, breath hissing between his teeth as he snatched for his sword. Black in the light of moon and fire, a shape sat moveless as if graven atop the barrow, under the howling flames. If he must fight a drow—

Freda whimpered, the voice of a lost child: “Mother.”

Skafloc took her hand. Together they climbed the barrow.

The woman who sat there, heedless of the fire, might almost have been Freda, thought Skafloc bewilderedly. She had the same pert features, the same wide-set grey eyes, the same red-sparked brown hair. But no, no ... she was older, she was hollowed out by sorrow, her cheeks were sunken, her eyes stared emptily out to sea, her hair streamed unkempt in the pie. She wore a thick fur cloak, with rags beneath, over her gaunt frame.

When Skafloc and Freda came into the light, she slowly turned her head. Her glance sought him.

“Welcome back, Valgard,” she said dully. “Here I am. You can do me no more harm. You can only give me death, which is my fondest wish.”

“Mother.” Freda sank to her knees before the woman.

Ailfrida stared at her. “I do not understand,” she said after a time. “It seems to be my little Freda—but you are dead. Valgard took you away, and you cannot have lived long.” She shook her head, smiled, and held out her arms. “It was good of you to leave your quiet grave and come to me. I have been so lonely. Come, my little dead girl, come lie on my breast and I will sing you to sleep as I did when you were but a baby.”

“I live, Mother, I live—and you live—” Freda strangled on her tears and must cough. “See, feel, I am warm, I am alive. And this is not Valgard, it is Skafloc who saved me from him. It is Skafloc, my lord, a new son for you—” Ailfrida climbed to her feet. Heavily she leaned on her daughter’s arm. “I have waited,” she said. “I have waited here, and they thought I was mad. They bring me food and other needs, but do not linger, because they fear the madwoman who will not leave her dead.” She laughed, softly, softly. “Why, what is crazy about that? The mad are those who leave their beloved ones.”

She scanned the man’s face. “You are like to Valgard,” she said in the same quiet way. “You have the height of Orm, and your looks are half his and half mine. But your eyes are kinder than Valgard’s.” Again she uttered her tender laugh. “Why, now let them say I am mad! I waited, that is all, I waited, and now out of night and death two of my children have returned to me.”

“We may bring home more ere dawn,” said Skafloc. He and Freda led her down the mound.

“Mother lived,” whispered the girl. “I thought her dead too, but she lived, and sat forsaken in the winter-What have I done?”

She wept, and Ailfrida comforted her.

Skafloc dared not wait. He staked out the howe with his rune wands, one at each corner. He put on his left thumb the bronze ring whose stone was flint. He stood on the west side of the grave with his arms raised. On the east side roiled the sea, and the moon fled through ragged clouds. Sleet blew in on the wind.

Skafloc spoke the spell. It wrenched his body and seared his throat. Shaken with the might that surged up in him, he made the signs with his lifted hands.

The fire roared taller. The wind shrieked like a lynx and clouds swallowed the moon. Skafloc cried out:

The barrow groaned. Higher and ever higher raged the icy flame above it. Skafloc chanted:

Then the howe opened with leaping fires, and Orm and his sons stood in its mouth. The chieftain called:

Orm stood leaning on his spear. Earth still clung to him, and he was bloodless and covered with rime. His eyes glared unblinking in the flames that roared and whirled around him. On his right stood Ketil, stiff and pale, the gash in his skull black against his hair. On his left was Asmund, wrapped in shadow, arms folded over the spear wound in his breast. Dimly behind them, Skafloc could see the buried ship and the crew stirring awake within it.

He bit back the fear that came out of the grave-mouth and said:

Orm’s voice rolled far and windy and strange:

Freda stood forth. “Father!” she cried. “Father, know you not your daughter?”

Orm’s dry eyes flamed on her, and the wrath faded in them. He bowed his head and stood in the whirling, hissing fire. Quoth Ketil:

Ailfrida came slowly up to Orm. They looked at each other, there in the restless heatless firelight. She took his hands; they were cold as the earth in which they had lain. Quoth he:

“That I have not strength to do, Orm,” she said. She touched his face. “There is frost in your hair. There is mould in your mouth. You are cold, Orm.”

“I am dead. The grave lies between us.”

“Then let it be so no longer. Take me with you, Orm!”

His lips touched hers.

Skafloc said to Ketil:

Quoth Ketil:

Skafloc shook his head. Then Ketil leaned on his sword and chanted:

Now Asmund spoke from where he stood with his face in shadow, and sorrow was in his voice:

Horror came on Freda. She could not speak, she crept close to Skafloc and they stood facing the sad wise eyes of , Asmund. He said slowly while the fires flamed white around his dark shape:

The howe closed with a shattering groan. The flames sank and the moon gleamed wanly forth.

Freda moved away as if Skafloc were become a troll. Like a blind man, he stumbled towards her. A dry little sob rattled in her throat. She turned and fled from him.

“Mother,” she whispered. “Mother.”

But the howe was bare under the moon. Nor did men ever see Ailfrida again.

Daybreak stole over the sea. The sky was low and heavy, clouds hanging as if frozen above an empty white land. A few snowflakes drifted down.

Freda sat on the barrow and stared before her. She was not weeping. She wondered if she could.

Skafloc returned from sheltering the horses in a thicket. He lowered himself down beside her. His face and voice were dull as the dawn: “I love you, Freda.”

She said no word. After a while he went on: “I cannot do other than love you. What matters the chance which made us of the same blood? It means naught. I know of folk, human folk, who commonly made such marriages. Freda, come with me, forget the cursed law—”

“It is God’s law,” she said with no more tone than he. “I cannot knowingly break it. My sins are too thick already.”

“I say that a god who would come between two who have been to each other what we have been, is not one I would heed. If he dared come near me, I would send him home howling.”

“Aye—a heathen you are!” she flared. “Fosterling of soulless elves, for whom you would rouse the very dead to new anguish.” A faint colour tinged her. “Well, go back to your elves! Go back to Leea!”

He stood up when she did. He tried to take her hands, but she wrenched them free. His wide shoulders sagged.

“No hope?” he asked.

“None.” She started off. “I will seek a neighbour garth. It may be I can atone for what I did.” Suddenly she swung around to face him. “Come with me, Skafloc! Come, forget your heathendom, be christened and make your peace with God.”

He shook his head. “Not with that god.”

“But ... I love you, Skafloc, I love you too much to wish your soul anywhere than in Heaven.”

“If you love me,” he said mutedly, “stay with me. I will lay no hand on you save as-as a brother. But stay with me.”

“No,” she said. “Goodbye.”

She ran.

He followed. The snow crunched beneath their feet. When he passed and stopped in front of her, making her stop too, she saw that his lips were drawn back as if a knife were being turned within him.

“Will you not even kiss me farewell, Freda?” he asked.

“No.” He could barely hear her, and she looked away from him. “I dare not.”

Anew she fled. He stood watching her go. The light struck coppery sparks from her hair, the only colour in this grey and white world. She rounded a dump of trees and was lost to sight. He walked slowly the other way, out of the empty garth.