The Broken Sword

VIII

The witch sat waiting, alone in darkness. Presently something slipped through a rat-hole. Looking down to the shadowed floor, she saw her familiar.

Thin and weary, he did not speak ere he had crawled up to her breast and drunk deep. Then he lay on her lap and watched her with hard little glittering eyes.

“Well,” she asked, “how went the journey?”

“Long and cold,” he said. “In bat shape, blown on the wind, I fared to Elfheugh. Often as I crept about Imric’s halls I came near death. They are beastly quick, the elves, and they knew I was no ordinary rat. But nonetheless I contrived to spy on their councils.”

“And is their plan as I thought?”

“Aye. Skafloc will fare to Trollheim for a raid in force on Illrede’s garth, hoping to slay the king or at least upset his readying for war—now that he has openly called an end to the truce. Imric will remain in Elfheugh to prepare defences.”

“Good. The old elf-earl is too crafty, but Skafloc alone can scarce avoid the trap. When does he leave?”

“Nine days hence. He will take some fifty ships.”

“Elves sail swiftly, so he should be at Trollheim the same night. With the wind I will teach him how to raise, Valgard can reach thither in three days, and I’d best allow him another three to busk himself. So if he is to greet Illrede only a short time before Skafloc, I must keep him here—hm, he will need time to get to his own men—well, controlling him will be no great task, since he is now an outlaw fleeing hither in despair.”

“You treat Valgard roughly.”

“I have naught against him, he not being of Orm’s seed, but he is my tool in a stiff and perilous game. It will not be near as easy to ruin Skafloc as it was to kill Orm and the two brothers, or will be to get at the sisters. My magic and my force alike he would laugh at.” The witch grinned in the half-light. “Aye, but Valgard is a tool I shall use to make a weapon that will pierce Skafloc’s heart. As for Valgard himself, I give him a chance to rise high among the trolls, the more so if they conquer the elves. It is my hope to make Skafloc’s downfall doubly bitter by causing the wreck of Alfheim through him.”

And the witch sat back and waited, an art that many years had taught her.

Near dawn, when a grey and hopeless light crept over the snows and the ice-leaved trees, Valgard knocked on the woman’s door. She opened it at once and he fell into her arms. Nigh dead of weariness and cold he was, with gouts of blood caked upon him and wildness in his eyes and ravaged face.

She gave him meat and ale and curious herbs, and erelong he could hold her close to him. “Now you are all that is left to me,” he mumbled. “Woman whose beauty and wantonness wrought this ill, I should slay you and then fall on my own weapon.”

“Why do you say that?” she smiled. “What is there bad?”

He buried his face in the fragrance of her hair. “I have slain my father and my brothers,” he said, “and am outlaw beyond atonement.”

“As for the slayings,” said the woman, “they do but prove you stronger than those who threatened you. What does it matter who they were?” Her green eyes burned into his. “But if the thought of doing away with your kin troubles you, I will tell you that you are guiltless.”

“Eh?” He blinked dully at her.

“You are no son of Orm, Valgard Berserk. I have second sight, and I tell you that you are not even of human birth, but of such ancient and noble stock that you can scarce imagine your true heritage.”

His huge frame grew taut as an iron bar. He clasped her wrists hard enough to leave bruises, and his shout resounded in the cottage: “What do you say?”

“You are a changeling, left when Imric the elf-earl stole Orm’s first-born,” said the woman. “You are Imric’s own son by a slave who is daughter to Illrede Troll-King.”

Valgard flung her from him. Sweat gleamed on his forehead. “Lie!” he gasped. “Lie!”

“Truth,” answered the woman calmly. She walked towards him. He backed away from her, his breast heaving. Her voice came tow and relentless: “Why are you so unlike the children of Orm or any man? Why do you scorn gods and men, and walk in a loneliness only forgotten in the tumult of slaying? Why, of all the women whom you have bedded, has none become with child? Why do beasts and small children fear you?” She had him in a corner now, and her eyes would not release him. “Why indeed, save that you are not human?”

“But I grew up like other men, I can endure iron and holy things, I am no warlock—”

“There is the evil work of Imric, who robbed you of your heritage and cast you aside in favour of Orm’s son. He made you look like the stolen child. You were raised among the petty rounds of men, and have had naught to rouse the wizard power slumbering within you. That you might grow up, age, and die in the brief span of humankind, that the things holy and earthly which the elves fear might not trouble you, Imric traded your birthright of centuried life. But he could not put a human soul in you, Valgard. And like him, you will be as a candle blown out when you die, with no hope of Heaven or hell or the halls of the old gods-yet you will live no longer than a man!” At this Valgard croaked, thrust her aside, and rushed out the door. The woman smiled.

It grew loud and cold with storm, but not till after dark did Valgard creep back to the house. Bent and beaten he was, but his eyes smouldered upon his leman.

“Now I believe you,” he muttered, “nor is there aught else to believe. I saw ghosts and demons riding the gale, flying with the snow and mocking me as they swept by.” He stared off into a dark corner of the room. “Night closes on me, the sorry game of my life is played out-home and kin and my very soul have I lost, have I never had, and I see I was but a shadow cast by the great Powers who now blow out the candle. Good night, Valgard, good night—” And he sank sobbing on to the bed.

The woman smiled her secret smile and lay down beside him and kissed him with her mouth that was like wine and fire. And when his dazed eyes turned mutely to hers, she breathed: “This is no speech for Valgard Berserk, mightiest of warriors, whose name is terror from Ireland to Gardariki. I thought you would seize on my words with gladness, would hew fate into a better shape with that great axe of yours. You have taken gruesome revenges for lesser hurts than this—the robbery of your being and the chaining into the prison which is a mortal’s life.”

Valgard felt something of strength return, and as he caressed the woman it rose fiercer in him, together with hatred for everything save her. At last he said: “What can I do? Where can I avenge myself? I cannot even see elves and trolls unless they wish it.”

“I can teach you that much,” she answered. “It is not hard to give the witch-sight with which the beings of Faerie are born. Thereafter, if you like, you can destroy those who have wronged you, and can laugh at outlawry, you who will be more powerful than any king of men.”

Valgard narrowed his gaze on her. “How so?” he asked slowly.

“The trolls make ready for war with their olden foes the elves,” she said. “Erelong Illrede Troll-King leads a host against Alfheim, most likely striking first at Imric here in England, that his flank and rear be safe when later he moves southward. Among Imric’s best warriors, because iron and holy things trouble him not, as well as because of strength and warlock knowledge, will be his foster son Skafloc, Orm’s child who sits in your rightful seat. Now if you sailed quickly to Illrede, and offered him good gifts and the services of your humanlike powers as well as telling him your descent, you could find a high place in his army. At the sack of Elfheugh you could slay Imric and Skafloc, and Illrede would most likely make you earl of the British elf-lands. Thereafter, as you learned sorcery, you would wax ever greater-aye, you might learn how to undo Imric’s work and make yourself like a true elf or troll, ageless till the end of the world.”

Valgard laughed, the yelp of a hunting wolf. “Indeed that is well!” he cried. “Murderer, outlaw, and inhuman, I have naught to lose and much to gain. If so be I join the hosts of cold and darkness, then I will join them with a whole heart, and in battles such as men have never dreamed will drown my wretchedness. Oh, woman, woman, a mighty thing have you done to me, and it is evil, but I thank you fork!”

Fiercely he loved her; but when later he spoke above the gale it was in a chill and level tone.

“How shall I get to Trollheim?” he asked.

The woman opened a chest and took forth a leather sack tied at the mouth. “You must leave on a particular day that I will tell you,” she said. “When your ships are under weigh, untie this. It holds a wind which will blow you thither, and you will have witch-sight to see the troll garths.”

“But what of my men?”

“They will be part of your gift to Imric. The trolls find sport in hunting men across the mountains, and they will sense that yours are evildoers whom no god will bestir himself to help.”

Valgard shrugged. “Since I am to be troll, let me also be my blood true in treachery,” he said. “But what else can I give that will please him? He must have a glut of gold and jewels and costly stuffs.”

“Give him that which is more,” said the woman. “Orm has two fair daughters, and the trolls are lustful. If you bind and gag them, so they cannot draw cross or name Jesus—”

“Not those two,” said Valgard in horror. “I grew up with them. And I have done them enough harm already.”

“Those two indeed,” said the woman. “For if Illrede is to take you in service, he must be sure you have broken all human ties.”

Still Valgard refused. But she clung to him and kissed him and wove him a tale of the dark splendours he could await, until at last he agreed.

“But I wonder who you are, most evil and most beautiful of this whole world,” he said. She laughed softly, cuddled on his breast. “You will forget me when you have had a few elf women.”

“Nay-never can I forget you, beloved, who broke me as you would.”

Now the woman held Valgard in her house for as long as she deemed needful, making some pretence of brewing enchantments to restore his witch-sight, and spinning out her accounts of Faerie. However, this was hardly called for, since her loveliness and love-skill bound him more surely than chains.

Snow filled the dusk when at length she said, “You had best start out now.”

“We,” he answered. “You must come along, for I cannot live without you.” His big hands fondled her. “If you come not willingly, I shall carry you, but come you must.”

“Very well,” she sighed. “Though you may feel otherwise when I have given you sight.”

She rose to her feet, looked down at him seated, and stroked the lines and angles of his face. Her mouth curved in an almost wistful smile.

“Hate is a hard master,” she breathed. “I had not thought to have joy again, Valgard, but it is a wrench to bid you farewell. All good luck to you, my dearest. And now—” her fingertips brushed his eyes “-see!”

And Valgard saw.

Like smoke in the wind, the well-kept little house and the tall white woman wavered before him. In sudden terror, he willed to see them not with magic-tricked mortal eyes, but as they really were—

He sat in a hovel of mud and wattles, where one tiny dung fire cast a feeble glow on heaps of bones and rags, rusted metal tools and twisted implements of sorcery. He looked up into the dim eyes of a hag whose face was a mask of wrinkled skin drawn over a lolling toothless skull, and to whose shrivelled breast clung a rat.

Wild with horror, he stumbled to his feet. The witch leered at him. “Beloved, beloved,” she cackled, “shall we not away to your ship? You swore you would not part from me.”

“For you I am outlaw!” Valgard howled. He grabbed his axe and struck at her. Even while he smote, her body shrank. Two rats sprang across the floor. The axe thudded into the ground just as they went down a hole. Foaming, Valgard took a stick and thrust it into the fire. When it was well alight, he touched it to the rags and thatch. He stood outside while the hovel burned, ready to hew at anything which might show itself. But there were only the leaping flames and the piping wind and the snow hissing as it blew into the fire.

When naught but ashes was left, Valgard shouted forth: “For you I have lost home and kin and hope, for you I am resolved to forswear my lifetime and league with the lands of darkness, for you I have become a troll! Hear me, witch, if still you live. I will take your rede. I will become earl of the trolls in England-maybe one night king of all Trollheim—and I will hound you down with every power I then have. You too, like men and elves and whoever gets in my way, you will feel my wrath, and never will I rest until I have flayed alive you who broke my heart with a shadow!”

He wheeled about and loped eastward, soon lost in the snowfall. Crouched below the earth, witch and familiar grinned at each other. This was just as they had planned.

The crews of Valgard’s ships were the worst of vikings, most of them outlawed from their homelands and all of them unwelcome wherever they went. Thus he had bought a garth of his own where they might winter. They lived well, with thralls to serve them, but were so quarrelsome and unruly that only their chief could hold them together.

When word of the murders reached them, they knew it would not be long ere the men of the Danelaw came to put an end to them, and they busked the ships and themselves to sail. But they could not agree on whither they should go, now in winter, and there was much dispute and some fighting. They might have sat thus till their foes were upon them had Valgard not returned.

He came after sunset into the hall. The burly hairy men sat draining horn after horn until their shouting deafened ears. Many snored on the floor beside the dogs; others yelled and squabbled, with onlookers more apt to egg them on than step between. To and fro in the shifty firelight scurried the terrorized manthralls, and women who had long since wept out their tears.

Valgard stepped up to the empty high seat—a tall and terrible figure, mouth set in yet grimmer lines than his men remembered, the great axe which had begun to be called Brotherslayer slanted over one shoulder. Quiet spread in waves as folk saw him, until at last only the longfire had voice in that hall.

Valgard spoke: “We cannot abide here. Though you were never at Orm’s garth, folk will make what happened into any excuse for getting rid of you. Now that is just as well. I know a place where we can win greater wealth and fame, and thither we sail the dawn after tomorrow.”

“Where is that, and why not leave tomorrow?” asked one of his captains, a scarred old fellow by name Steingrim.

“As to the last, I have a business here in England which we will attend tomorrow,” said Valgard. “And as to the first, our goal is Finnmark.”

An uproar arose. Steingrim lifted his voice above it: “That is the most foolish babble I ever heard. Finnmark is poor and lonely, and lies across a sea which can be dangerous even in summer. What can we win there save death, by drowning or by the sorcerers who dwell in that land, or at best a few earthern huts to huddle in? Near at hand are England, Scotland, Ireland, Orkney, or Valland south of the channel, where good booty may be gotten.”

“I have given my orders. You will follow them,” said Valgard.

“Not I,” answered Steingrim. “I think you have gone mad in the woods.”

Like a wildcat, Valgard sprang at the captain. His axe crashed down into Steingrim’s skull.

A man yelled, grabbed a spear and thrust at Valgard. The berserker sidestepped, yanked the shaft from his hands, and knocked him to the ground. Pulling the axe from Steingrim’s head, Valgard stood looming in the smoky light with his eyes like flakes of sea-ice. He asked quietly: “Does anyone else wish to gainsay me?”

None spoke or moved. Valgard stepped back to his high seat and told them: “I acted thus harshly because we cannot go on in our old loose way. Our lives are lost unless we become like a single man, whose head I alone am fit to be. Now I know my plan looks unwise at first, but Steingrim should have heard me out. The fact is, I have word of a rich man’s garth built in Finnmark this summer, where anything we could wish is stored. They will not await vikings in winter, so we can take it easily. Nor do I fear rough weather on the way, for you know I have some skill at foretelling it and I snuff a good wind coming.”

The gang remembered how Valgard’s leadership had been to their betterment. As for Steingrim, he had no kin or oath-brother here. So they shouted they would follow Valgard wherever he went. When the body had been dragged out and the drinking taken up anew, he gathered his captains.

“We have a place nearby to sack ere leaving England,” he told them. “ ’Twill not be hard, and good plunder is to be had.”

“What place is that?” asked one man.

“The garth of Orm the Strong, who is now dead and cannot ward it.”

Even those reavers thought this would be an evil deed, but they dared not talk against their chief.