The Broken Sword

XXIV

At winter’s dawn, Freda stumbled into Thorkel Erlendsson’s garth.

The landholder was just arisen and had come out to look at the weather. For an eyeblink he did not believe he saw aright—a shield maiden, with arms and armour of an unknown coppery metal and clothes of altogether outlandish cut, groping ahead like one gone blind-it could not be.

He reached for a spear he kept behind the door. His hand dropped as he looked more closely on the girl and knew her: worn out, emptily staring, but Freda Ormsdaughter come back.

Thorkel led her inside. Aasa his wife hastened to them.

“You have been long gone, Freda,” she said. “Welcome home!”

The girl sought to reply. No words would come out. “Poor child,” murmured Aasa. “Poor lost child. Come, I will help you to bed.”

Audun, Thorkel’s next oldest son after the slain Erlend, came into the house. “ ’Tis colder outside than a well-born maiden’s heart,” said he, and then: “Who is this?”

“Freda Ormsdaughter,” answered Thorkel, “returned somehow.”

Audun stepped over to her. “Why, this is wonderful!” he said gladly. He clasped her waist, but ere he could kiss her cheek the mute woe of her fell on his heart. He stood aside. “What is the matter?” he asked.

“Matter?” Aasa snapped. “Ask what is not the matter with the poor sorrow-laden lass. Now go, you heavy-footed goggle-eyed men, get out and let me put her to bed.”

Freda lay awake for a long time, gazing at the wall.

When at last Aasa brought her food and made her eat, and murmured to her and stroked her hair like a mother with a babe, she began to weep. Long was that flow of tears, albeit oddly noiseless. Aasa held her and let her cry them out. Thereafter Freda fell asleep.

Later, at Thorkel’s bidding, she agreed to make her home there for the time being. Though she soon recovered herself, she was not the glad girl folk remembered. Thorkel asked her what had happened. She lowered a whitening face. He added quickly: “No, no, you need not speak it if you do not want to.”

“No reason for hiding the truth,” she said, so low he could scarce hear. “Valgard bore Asgerd and myself eastward over the sea, meaning to give us to a heathen king whose good will he would have. Hardly had he landed when ... another viking fell on him and put his men to flight. Valgard escaped, and Asgerd was killed in the strife. This other chief took me with him. At last, though, having ... business whereon I could not go ... he left me at my father’s garth.”

“That is strange gear you carried.”

“The viking gave it to me. He had it from somewhere else. I often fought by his side. He was a good man, for a heathen.” Freda looked into the hearthfire of the room wherein they sat. “Aye, he was the best and bravest and kindest of men.” Her lips twisted. “Why should he not be? He came of good folk.”

She rose and walked quickly outdoors. Thorkel looked after her, tugging his beard. “Not all the truth has she told,” he muttered to himself, “but I think it is all we will ever hear.”

Even to the priest by whom she was shriven, Freda said no more than that. Afterwards she went off alone and stood on a high hill looking skyward.

The winter was fading and this was a bright day, not overly cold. Snow glistened white on the silent earth, while overhead reached a cloudless blue.

Freda said quietly: “Now I have done a mortal sin, in not confessing who he was that I lay with unwedded. Yet I put the burden on my own soul and will bear it to the grave. All-Father, You know our sin was too dear and wonderful to be besmirched by the ugliest of names. Lay what punishment You will on me, but spare him, who knew no better.” She flushed. “Also, I think I may be bearing tinder my heart what you, Mary, must remember—and he shall not bear an evil name for the sake of what his parents did. Father and Mother and Son, do what You will with me, but spare the innocent child.”

When she came down she felt somewhat eased. The cool air kissed the blood into her cheeks, the sunlight ran in bronze and copper across her hair, and her grey eyes were bright. There was a smile on her lips when she met Audun Thorkelsson.

Though hardly older than she, he was tall and strong, a skilled husbandman and promising in weapon-play. His curly fair locks gleamed about a face blushing and shyly smiling in return, like a girl’s, and he ran to join her. “I ... was looking for you ... Freda,” he said.

“Why, was I wanted?” she asked.

“No, save-well-yes, I wanted-to talk with you,” he mumbled. He walked by her side, now and then stealing a glance from downcast eyes.

“What will you do?” he blurted at last.

The blitheness faded from her. She cast one look into the sky and another across the fields. The sea was not visible from here, but the wind was such today that its voice came faintly to her ears, tireless, relentless.

“I know not,” she said. “I have none left—”

“Oh, you have!” he cried. His tongue locked and he could say no more, however much he cursed himself for it.

Winter bled away under the joyous weapons of spring. Still Freda dwelt in Thorkel’s house. None held it against her that she carried a bastard; something would have been wrong with her had she not, after what was past! Because of health and strength, if not some lingering elven-breath, she suffered little from morning sickness. Thus she could work hard, and when there was no more work to do could go for long walks, alone by choice though Audun often came along. Aasa was glad of help and of a talk-friend, having no daughters and few working girls; this household was nothing like what Orm’s had been. But she did most of the talking. Freda answered in well-bred fashion when spoken to, if she heard.

At first, time had been her torturer, less by the weight of her sin and the loss of her folk-those she could bear, and the new life within her was some cheer for them-than by the loss of Skafloc.

No sign, no word, no sight since that last stricken gaze by Orm’s howe in the winter sunrise. He was gone, ringed in by his foemen, off into the grimmest of lands for a prize that must bring doom on him. Where was he this day and that day? Did he live yet, or did he lie long and stiff on the ground with ravens picking out the eyes which had shone for her? Did he yearn for death as once he had yearned for Freda? Or had he forgotten what he could not stand to remember and left his humanness for the cool forgetting that was in Leea’s kisses-? No, that could not be, he would not cast his love adrift while he lived.

But lived he yet—and how, and for how long? Now and again she dreamed of him, as if he stood living before her, their hearts throbbed together and his arms were both hard and tender around her. He murmured in her ear, laughed, spoke a love-stave, and play became love ... She awoke in the darkness and thick air of the shut-bed.

She had changed. The life of men seemed a dull and niggling round after the glamour of the elf court and the mad, yes, glad days of their troll-hunt through a winter wilderness. Thorkel having been christened merely so the English could deal with him, she rarely saw priest—and, knowing her heart sinned, was glad of that. Dreary was a church after the woodlands and hills and sounding sea. She still loved God—and was not the earth His work, and a church only man’s?—but she could not bring herself to call on Him very often.

Sometimes she could not keep from slipping out in the middle of the night, taking a horse, and riding a ways northward. With her witch-sight she might catch a glimpse of Faerie—a scuttering gnome, an owl hatched from no egg, a black ship coasting by. But those she dared hail fled her, and she could get no word of how the war went.

Even so, that briefly seen world, weird and moonstruck, was Skafloc’s. And for a short miraculous time it had been hers.

She kept herself too busy for overmuch brooding, though, and her young healthy body bloomed. As the weeks passed into months, she felt the same stirring within her that brought back the birds and called forth buds like clenched baby fists. She saw herself in a pool and knew she had become woman rather than girl—the slim shape fuller, the bosom rising and swelling, the blood coursing steadier just beneath the skin. She was becoming a mother.

Could he see her now-No, no, it must not be. But I love him, I love him so.

Winter went in rain and pealing thunder. The first soft green spread over trees and meadows. The birds came home. Freda saw a pair of storks she knew, wheeling puzzled above Orm’s lands. They had always nested on his roof. She wept, quietly as the rains of late spring. Her breast felt empty.

No, not that, it was filling again, not with the old boundless joy but with a stiller gladness. Her child was growing within her. In him—or her, it mattered not-all burnt-out hopes rose new.

She stood in twilight with the blossoms of an apple tree overhead, drifting down on her at each mild breeze. The winter was gone. Skafloc lived in the springtime, in cloud and shadow, dawn and sunset and high-riding moon, he spoke through the wind and laughed through the sea. There would be winter, and winter again, in the great unending ring-dance of the years. But she bore the summer beneath her heart, and every summer to come.

Now Thorkel made ready for a trading voyage to the east (with maybe a little viking work, should the chance come along) that he and his sons had long planned. Audun was no longer happy about it, and at last he said to his father: “I cannot go.”

“What is that?” cried Thorkel. “You, who have daydreamed of this more than any of us, would stay behind?”

“Well, I-well, someone is needed here.”

“We have good housecarles.”

Audun looked uneasily away. “So did Orm.”

“This is a smaller farm than Orm’s, thus has nearer neighbours. And have you forgotten how the folk hereabouts decided on keeping watchers out this year, after what happened?” Thorkel’s shrewd eyes stabbed his son. “What ails you, lad? Speak the truth. Are you afraid of fighting?”

“You know I am not,” flared Audun, “and unblooded though I be, I will kill whoever says I am. It is not my wish to go this time, and there is an end of that.”

Thorkel nodded slowly. “Freda, then. I thought as much. But she is without kindred.”

“What of that? Her father’s lands must be hers. I myself will get money when I sail out next summer.”

“And the child she bears, by this wanderer of whom she does not speak but always seems to think?”

Audun looked angrily at his feet. “Again, what of that?” he mumbled. “ ’Twas not her fault. Nor the child’s, for that matter, whom I would right gladly set on my knee. She needs someone to help her-yes, and to help her forget the man who wantonly cast her off. Could I find him, you would see whether I fear to do battle!”

“Well—” Thorkel shrugged. “I can command you, but not your will. Stay behind if you feel you must.” After a while he added: “You are right, those broad acres should not lie fallow. And she ought to make a good wife, with many strong sons in her.” He smiled, though his eyes were troubled. “Woo her, then, and win her if you can. I hope your luck is better than Erlend’s.”

After the grain was planted, Thorkel sailed with his remaining boys and other young men. Since they meant to seek more than one land on the far side of the North Sea, their homecoming was not awaited before late fall or early winter. Audun gazed wistfully after their ship. Yet when he turned and saw Freda beside him, he felt well repaid.

“Did you really stay just to oversee the harvest?” she asked.

His ears were hot, but he answered brashly: “I think you know otherwise.”

She glanced away and said naught.

The days lengthened and earth burst into its fullness. Warm winds, shouting rains, birdsong and deer and fish silvery in the rivers, flowers and light nights-More and more Freda felt her babe stirring.

Ever oftener, too, was Audun by her side. Now and again, in a rush of unhappiness, she bade him begone. Always his sorrowful mien brought remorse to her.

His wooing went with lame words to which she scarcely listened. She buried her face in the fragrance of the flower-bunches he gathered for her, and through the petals she saw him smile, shy as a puppy-strange, that so big and sure a youth was weaker than she was.

If they wed, it would be him that was given to her. He was not Skafloc, only Audun. O unforgotten beloved!

But the memory of Skafloc was becoming a summer that was past, recalled in a new year. He warmed her heart without searing it, and her longing for him was like a still tarn whereon sun-glints had begun to dance. To mourn without end was to be weak: unworthy of what they had shared.

She liked Audun. He would be a stout shield for Skafloc’s child.

There came an evening when they two stood on the shore, the waters murmurous at their feet and the sunset red and gold behind them. Audun took her hands and said with a lately learned steadiness: “You know I have loved you, Freda, from before that time you were taken away. In these past weeks I have frankly sought your hand. First you would not listen and later you would not reply. I ask for an honest answer now, and if it is your wish, I will trouble you no more. Will you wed me, Freda?” She looked into his eyes and her voice was low and dear: “Yes.”