The Broken Sword

II

Imric the elf-earl rode out by night to see what had happened in the lands of men. It was a cool spring dark with the moon nearly full, rime glittering on the grass and the stars still hard and bright as in winter. The night was very quiet save for sigh of wind in budding branches, and the world was all sliding shadows and cold white light. The hoofs of Imric’s horse were shod with an alloy of silver, and a high dear ringing went where they struck.

He rode into a forest. Night lay heavy between the trees, but from afar he spied a ruddy glimmer. When he came near, he saw it was firelight shining through cracks in a hut of mud and wattles under a great gnarly oak from whose boughs Imric remembered the Druids cutting mistletoe. He could sense that a witch lived here, so he dismounted and rapped on the door.

A woman who seemed old and bent as the tree opened it and saw him where he stood, the broken moonlight sheening off helm and byrnie and his horse, which was the colour of mist, cropping the frosty grass behind him.

“Good evening, mother,” said Imric.

“Let none of you elf-folk call me mother, who have borne tall sons to a man,” grumbled the witch. But she let him in and hastened to pour him a horn of ale. Belike what crofters dwelt nearby kept her in food and drink as payment for what small magics she could do for them. Imric must stoop inside the hovel and clear away a litter of bones and other trash ere he could sit on the single bench.

He looked at her through the strange slant eyes of the elves, all cloudy-blue without whites or a readily seen pupil. There were little moon-flecks drifting in Imric’s eyes, and shadows of ancient knowledge, for he had dwelt long in the land. But he was ever youthful, with the broad forehead and high cheekbones, the narrow jaw and straight thin-chiselled nose of the elf lords. His hair floated silvery-gold, finer than spider silk, from beneath his horned helmet down to the wide red-caped shoulders.

“Not often of late lifetimes have the elves gone forth among men,” said the witch.

“Aye, we have been too busy in our war with the trolls,” answered Imric in his voice that was like a wind blowing through trees far away. “But now truce has been made, and I am curious to find what has happened in the last hundred years.”

“Much, and little of it good,” said the witch. “The Danes have come from overseas, killing, looting, burning, seizing for themselves much of eastern England and I know not what else.”

“That is not bad.” Imric stroked his moustache. “Before them, Angles and Saxons did likewise, and before them Picts and Scots, and before them the Romans, and before them Brythons and Goidels, and before them—but the tale is long and long, nor will it end with the Danes. And I, who have watched it almost since the land was made, see naught of harm in it, for it helps pass the time. I would fain see these newcomers.”

“Then you need not ride far,” said the witch, “for Orm the Strong dwells on the coast, distant from here by the ride of a night. Or less on a mortal horse.”

“A short trip for my stallion. I will go.”

“Hold—hold, elf!” For a while the witch sat muttering, and her eyes caught what light came from the tiny fire on the hearth, so that two red gleams moved amidst the smoke and shadows. Then of a sudden she cackled in glee and screamed, “Aye, ride, ride, elf, to Orm’s house by the sea. He is gone a-roving, but his wife will guest you gladly. She has newly brought forth a son, who is not yet christened.”

At these words Imric cocked his long, pointed ears forward. “Speak you sooth, witch?” he asked, low and toneless.

“Aye, by Sathanas I swear it. I have my ways of knowing what goes on in that accursed hall.” The old woman rocked to and fro, squatting in her rags before the dim coals. The shadows chased each other across the walls, huge and misshapen. “But go see for yourself.”

“I would not venture to take a Dane-chiefs child. He might be under the Asir’s ward.”

“Nay. Orm is a Christian, though an indifferent one, and his son has thus far been hallowed to no gods of any kind.”

“Ill is it to lie to me,” Imric said.

“I have naught to lose,” answered the witch. “Orm burned my sons in their house, and my blood dies with me. I do not fear gods or devils, elves or trolls of men. But ’tis truth I speak.”

“I will go see,” said Imric, and stood up. The rings of his byrnie chimed together. He swept his great red cloak around him, went forth and swung on to the white stallion.

Like a rush of wind and a blur of moonlight he was out of the woods and across the fields. Widely stretched the land, shadowy trees, bulking hills, rime-whitened meadows asleep under the moon. Here and there a steading huddled dark beneath the vast star-crusted sky. Presences moved in the night, but they were not men—he caught a wolf-howl, the green gleam of a wildcat’s eyes, the scurry of small feet among oak roots. They were aware of the elf-earl’s passage and shrank deeper into the gloom.

Erelong Imric reached Orm’s garth. The barns and sheds and lesser houses were of rough-hewn timbers, walling in three sides of a stone-paved yard. On the fourth, the hall raised its gable ends, carved into dragons, against the star clouds. But Imric sought the small lady-bower across from it. Dogs had smelled him, bristled and snarled. Then before they could bark he had turned his terrible blind-seeming gaze on them and made a sign. They crawled off, barely whimpering.

He rode like a wandering night-wind up to the bower. By his arts he unshuttered a window from without, and looked through. Moonlight shafted over a bed, limning Ailfrida in silver and a cloudiness of unbound hair. But Imric’s gaze was only for the new-born babe nestled against her.

The elf-earl laughed behind the mask of his face. He closed the shutters and rode back northward. Ailfrida moved, woke, and felt after the little one beside her. Her eyes were hazed with uneasy dreams.