The Broken Sword

VII

On a blustery fall day, with the smell of rain in the keen air and leaves turned to gold and copper and bronze, Ketil and a few comrades rode forth to hunt. They had not gone far into the woods when they saw a white stag so huge and noble they could scarce believe it.

“Ho, a beast for a king!” shouted Ketil, spurring his horse, and away they went over stock and stone, leaping logs and dodging trees, crashing through brush and crackling the fallen leaves, with wind roaring in their ears and the forest a blur of colour. Strangely, the hounds were not very eager in the chase, and though Ketil was not riding the best of horses he drew ahead of the dogs and the other hunters.

Before him in the evening glimmered the white stag, leaping and soaring, antlers treelike against the sky. For a time rain sluiced icily through the bare boughs ;in the blindness of the chase Ketil hardly felt it. Nor did he feel hours or miles or aught but the surge of his gallop and the eagerness of the hunt.

At last he burst into a little clearing, nigh caught up with the stag. The light was dim, but he launched his spear at the white shape. Even as he made his cast the stag seemed to shrink, to fade like a wind-blown mist, and then he was gone and there was only a rat scattering through the dead leaves.

Ketil grew aware that he had outstripped his companions and become lost from them. A thin chill wind whimpered through dusk. His horse trembled with weariness. Well it might, for they had come into a part of the forest unknown to him, which meant they were far west of Orm’s garth. He could not understand what had upborne the beast, that it had not foundered erenow. And the eeriness of what had happened ran coldly along his backbone.

But just on the edge of the clearing, a cottage stood beneath a great oak. Ketil wondered what manner of folk would live that lonely, and how they did it, for he saw no signs of farming. Yet at least here was shelter for himself and his horse, in a neat small house of wood and thatch with firelight cheery in the windows. He dismounted, picked up his spear, and rapped on the door.

It opened, to show a well-furnished room and an empty stable beyond. But it was on the woman that Ketil’s eyes rested, nor could he pull them away. And he felt his heart turn over and then slam within his ribs as a wildcat attacks its cage.

She was tall, and the low-cut dress she wore clung lovingly to each curve of her wondrous body. Dark unbound hair streamed to her knees, framing a perfect oval of a face white as sea foam. Her wide full mouth was blood red, her nose delicately arched, her eyes long-lashed under finely drawn brows. They were a fathomless green, those eyes, with golden flecks and they seemed to look into Ketil’s very soul. Never, he thought in his daze, never before had he known how a woman might look.

“Who are you?” she askeds softly and singingly. “What will you?”

The man’s mouth had gone dry and the pulsebeat nigh drowned out his hearing, but he made shift to reply: “I am Ketil Ormsson ... I lost my way hunting, and would ask a night’s shelter for my horse and ... myself ... ”

“Be welcome, Ketil Ormsson,” she said, and gave him a smile at which his heart almost left his breast. “Few come here, and I am ever glad to see them.”

“Do you live alone?” he asked.

“Aye. Though not tonight!” she laughed, and at that Ketil threw his arms about her.

Orm sent men to ask of all his neighbours, but none could say aught about his son. Thus after three days he became sure that something ill had happened to Ketil. “He may have broken a leg, or met robbers, or otherwise come to grief,” he said. “Tomorrow, Asmund, we will go search for him.”

Valgard sat sprawled on the bench with a horn of mead in his fist. He had ended a summer’s viking trip two days before, left his ships and men at a garth he had bought some ways from Orm’s, and come home for a while, more because of his father’s good food and drink than to greet his kinfolk. The firelight streamed like blood off his surly face. “Why do you say this only to Asmund?” he asked. “I am here too.”

“I did not think there was any deep love between you and Ketil,” said Orm.

Valgard grinned and emptied the horn. “Nor is there,” he said. “Nevertheless I will hunt for him, and I hope ’tis I who find and bring him home. Few things would seem worse to him than being beholden to me.”

Orm shrugged, while tears glimmered in Ailfrida’s eyes.

They set out next dawn, many men on horseback, dog-barks coming in frost out of mouths, and scattered into the woods according to plan. Valgard went alone and afoot as was his habit. He carried a great axe for weapon and bore a helmet on his tawny mane, but otherwise in his shaggy garments he might have been a beast of prey. He snuffed the crisp air and circled about looking for spoor. At tracking he was inhumanly gifted. Erelong he found faint remnants of a trail. He grinned again and did not sound his horn, but set off at a long easy lope.

As the day wore on, he came west into thicker and older forest where his rambles had never taken him before. The sky greyed and clouds flew low over skeleton trees. Wind whirled dead leaves through the air like ghosts hurrying down hell-road, and its whine gnawed at Valgard’s nerves. He could smell a wrongness here, but having no training in magic he did not know what it was that bristled the hair on his neck.

At dusk he had gone far, and was tired and hungry and wroth at Ketil for giving him this trouble. He would have to sleep out tonight, with winter on the way, and he vowed revenge for that.

Hold—Dimly through the thickening twilight he saw a glimmer. No will-o’-the-wisp that; it was fire-shelter, unless it was a lair of outlaws. And were that the case, Valgard snarled to himself, he would have joy in killing them.

Night outraced him to the cottage. A thin wind-driven sleet stung his cheeks. Cautiously Valgard edged to a window, and peered in through a crack between the shutters.

Ketil sat glad on a bench before a leaping fire. He had a horn of ale in one hand, and the other caressed a woman on his lap.

Woman—almighty gods, what a woman! Valgard sucked a sharp breath between his teeth. He had not dreamed there could be such a woman as her who laughed on Ketil’s knees.

Valgard went to the door and beat it with the flat of his axe. It was some time before Ketil got it open and stood spear in hand to see who had come. By then the sleet was thick.

Huge and angry, Valgard filled the doorway with his shoulders. Ketil cursed, but stepped aside and let him in. Valgard stalked slowly across the floor. Water from the melting sleet dripped off him. His eyes glittered at the woman, where she crouched on the bench.

“You are not very guest-free, brother,” he said, and barked a laugh. “You leave me, who travelled many weary miles to find you, out in the storm while you play with your sweetheart.”

“I did not ask you here,” said Ketil sullenly.

“No?” Valgard was still looking at the woman. And she met his gaze, and her red mouth curved in a smile.

“You are a welcome guest,” she breathed. “Not ere this have I guested a man as big as you.”

Valgard laughed again and swung to face Ketil’s stricken stare. “Whether you asked me or not, dear brother, I will spend the night,” he said. “And since I see there is only room for two in the bed, and I have come such a long hard way, I fear me you will have to sleep in the stable.”

“Not for you!” shouted Ketil. The knuckles stood forth white where he gripped his spear. “Had it been Father or Asmund or anyone else from the garth, he had been welcome. But you, ill-wreaker and berserker that you are, will be the one to sleep in the straw.”

Valgard sneered and chopped out with his axe. It drove the spear against the lintel and split off its head. “Get out, little brother,” he bade. “Or must I throw you out?”

Blind with rage, Ketil struck him with the broken shaft. Fury flamed in Valgard. He leaped. His axe shrieked down and buried itself in Ketil’s skull.

Still beside himself, he swung about on the woman. She held out her arms to him. Valgard gathered her in and kissed her till their lips bled. She laughed aloud.

But next morning when Valgard awoke, he saw Ketil lying in a gore of clotted blood and brains, the dead eyes meeting his own, and suddenly remorse welled up in him. “What have I done?” he whispered. “I slew my own kin.”

“You killed a weaker man,” said the woman indifferently.

But Valgard stood above his brother’s body and brooded. “We had some good times together between our fights, Ketil,” he mumbled. “I remember how funny we two found a new calf that strove to use its wobbly legs, and wind in our faces and sun asparkle on waves when we went sailing, and deep draughts at Yule when storms howled about our father’s hall, and swimming and running and shouting with you, brother. Now it is over, you are a stiffened corpse and I gang on a dark road—but sleep well. Goodnight, Ketil, goodnight.”

“If you tell men of this, you will be slain,” said the woman. “That will not bring him back. And in the grave is no kissing or coupling.”

Valgard nodded. He picked up the body and bore it into the woods. He did not wish to touch the axe again, so he left it sticking in the skull when he raised a cairn over the dead man.

But when he came back to the cottage, the woman was waiting for him, and he soon forgot all else. Her beauty outshone the sun, and there was naught she did not know about the making of love.

The weather grew unrelentingly cold, until the first snow whispered down. This winter would be long.

After a week, Valgard thought it would be best if he returned home. Else others might come looking for him, and fights might break up his crews. But the woman would not come with him. “This is my place and I cannot leave it,” she said. “Come, though, whenever you will, Valgard my darling. I will always gladly greet you.”

“I will be back soon,” he vowed. He did not think of carrying her off by force, though he had done that to many before her. The free gift of herself was too precious.

At Orm’s hall he was joyously greeted by the chief, who had feared him lost too. None else was overly happy at seeing him again.

“I hunted far to the west and north,” said Valgard, “and did not find Ketil.”

“No,” replied Orm, with sorrow reborn in him, “he must be dead. We searched for days, and at last found his horse wandering riderless. I will ready the funeral feast.”

Valgard was but a brace of days among men, then he slipped into the woods anew with a promise to be back for Ketil’s grave-ale. Thoughtfully, Asmund watched him leave.

It seemed odd to the youngest brother how Valgard dodged talk of Ketil’s fate, and odder yet that he should go hunting—as he said—now that winter was on hand. There would be no bears, and other game was getting so shy that men did not care to go after it through the snow. Why had Valgard been gone that long, and why did he leave that soon?

So Asmund wondered, and at last, two days after Valgard left, he followed. It had not snowed or blown since, and the tracks could still be seen in the crisp whiteness. Asmund went alone, walking on ski through silent reaches where no life stirred but him, and the cold ate and ate into his flesh.

Three days later, Valgard returned. Folk had gathered at Orm’s garth from widely around for the grave-ale, and the feast went apace. The berserker slipped grim and close-mouthed through the crowded yard.

Ailfrida plucked at his sleeve. “Have you seen Asmund?” she asked shyly. “He went into the forest and has not come home yet.”

“No,” said Valgard shortly.

“Ill would it be to lose two tall sons in the same month and have only the worst left,” said Ailfrida and turned away from him.

At eventide the guests met in the great hall for drinking. Orm sat in his high seat with Valgard on his right. Men crowded the benches down both the long sides of that room and lifted horns to each other across the flames and smoke of the fire, where it burned in the trench between. Women went to and fro to keep those horns filled. Save for the host family, the men had grown merry with ale, and many an eye followed Orm’s two daughters through the hazed, restless red light.

He bore a cheerful mien, as befitted a warrior with scorn for death; none could tell what lay beneath it. Ailfrida could not keep from weeping now and then, quietly and hopelessly. Valgard sat wordless, draining horn after horn until his head buzzed. He only deepened his gloom. Away from the woman and the alarums of war alike, he had naught to do but brood on his deed, and Ketil’s face swam in the dusk before him.

Ale flowed until all were drunk and the hall rang with their noise. And then a knocking on the main door cut loud and clear through the racket. The latch was up, but the sound drew men’s heed. Through the foreroom, into the big chamber, trod Asmund.

The firelight limned him against blackness. He stood white and swaying. In his arms he bore a long cloak-wrapped burden. His hollow gaze swept the hall, seeking one man; and bit by bit, a great silence fell.

“Welcome, Asmund!” cried Orm into that quiet. “We had begun to fear for you—”

Still Asmund stared before him, and those who followed his look saw it fixed on Valgard. He spoke at last, tonelessly: “I have brought a guest to the grave-ale.”

Orm sat moveless, though he paled beneath his beard. Asmund set his burden on the floor. It was frozen stiff enough to stand, leaned against his arm.

“Cruel cold was the cairn where I found him,” said Asmund. Tears ran from his eyes. “It was no good place to be, and I thought it shame that we should hold a feast in his honour and he be out there with naught but wind and the stars for company. So I brought Ketil home—Ketil, with Valgard’s axe in his skull I”

He drew aside the cloak, and the fire-glow fell like new-spilled blood on that which was clotted around the axe. Rime was in Ketil’s hair. His dead face grinned at Valgard. His staring eyes were filled with flamelight. Stiffly he leaned on Asmund and stared at Valgard.

Orm turned slowly about to confront the berserker, who was meeting that blind stare with his own jaw fallen like the corpse’s. But on an instant rage came. Valgard leaped up and roared at Asmund: “You lie!”

“All men know your axe,” said Asmund heavily. “Now seize the brotherslayer, good folk, and bind him for hanging.”

“Give me my right,” Valgard shouted. “Let me see that weapon.”

None moved. They were too shocked. Valgard walked down the hall to the foreroom doorway through a breathlessness where naught but the flames had voice.

Weapons were stacked nearby. Passing, he snatched a spear and broke into a run. “You’ll not get free!” Asmund cried, and moved to draw sword and bar the way. Valgard lunged. Through Asmund’s unarmoured breast the spear went, pinning him against the wall so that he stood there with Ketil still leaned against him, the two dead brothers side by side gaping at their murderer. Valgard howled as the berserkergang swept over him. His eyes blazed lynx-green and froth was on his lips. Orm, who had followed him, bellowed, grabbed up a sword, and attacked. Valgard whipped forth his eating knife, knocked Orm’s blade aside by striking the flat of it with his left arm, and buried his in the chiefs throat.

Blood spurted over him. Orm fell. Valgard took the sword. Others were coming. They blocked his escape. Valgard hewed down the nearest. His howling rang between the rafters.

The hall boiled with men. Some sought to get into a safe corner, but others to capture the crazy one. Valgard’s blade sang. Three more yeomen toppled. Then several bore a plank from the trestle table before them. With this, by their weight they pushed Valgard well away from the stack of weapons. Folk armed themselves.

But in that crowded space, it did not go fast. Valgard slashed at those between him and the door who bore nothing. They fell aside, several wounded, and he won through. A warrior who had gotten an iron-rimmed shield as well as a sword stood in the foreroom. Valgard smote. His steel hit the shield rim and broke across.

“Too weak is your blade, Orm,” he cried. As the man rushed at him, he reached back and wrenched the axe from Ketil’s head. In his haste, the other man was careless. Valgard’s first blow battered the shield aside. His second took the man’s right arm off at the shoulder. Valgard went out the door.

Spears hissed after him. He fled into the woods. The blood of his father dripped from him for a while, until it froze and gave no further help to the hounds set on to his trail. Even when he had lost them, he kept running lest he too freeze. Shuddering and sobbing, he fled westward.