Adalwulf: The Two Swords (Tales of Germania Book 1) (2 page)

“One sword from a Goth lord,

To kill a Roman bore.

Another from a beast,

To enslave the god of feast.

Three fates shall entwine,

Tears will fall on a grave of pine.”

“Yes, we’ll come and fetch the sword. We’ll not burn you out, but eat you raw.”

Raganthar to Adalwulf

NEAR HARD HILL  (CAPITAL OF THE MARCOMANNI, B.C. 16)

T
hief.

The stabbing shame was back.

It’s impossible to escape it
, I thought. I chased it away, but it returned like dog to its vomit. I tried to drown it with a smile, but it turned the smile sour. I pressed the sides of my head with both hands, and rapped my skull, trying to squeeze and beat the bothersome, stabbing knowledge of my crime out, but the brief pain didn’t help at all. I reasoned with the shame, hoping it might dissipate like a cloud on a hot day, but the irksome thought remained there, shaming and mocking my efforts.

And so, I let it win.

A thief. A damned, thieving bastard. That’s what you are,
I thought, and let go of my skull before anyone saw and thought me mad, and I sulked instead.

Not even the distance helped. While I rode far from my home that bright summer day, long miles and miles from the hills of my homeland, I would not escape the humbling thought of my crime. Awake or dreaming, the thieving crime was there, always there. I had escaped my homelands, hoping for new winds. While I loved the new sights, the odd lands I passed, embraced the possibility of a fresh start so far from the lands of the Chatti and Mattium, I felt the same. Occasionally, the shame grasped my heart, squeezed it brutally. I had never imagined shame might be so strong it could physically hurt one.

“Gods, let the distance heal me,” I whispered, but only the insufferably happy birds answered, their high, excited calls glorifying the summer as they flew low across a barley field. The crime took place in the lands of the Chatti. That oppidum, a mighty hill fort was far, it was true.

But not so the object of the crime.

The reason for my hardship was between my legs. Nay, there was no woman involved.

The horse.

I had stolen a horse, and rode it.
I had my thighs wrapped around my shame,
I thought. I chuckled at the irony, felt my belly rumble from hunger, and contemplated on eating Snake-Bite, the horse, not for the first time since I entered the lands of the Marcomanni. Would that erase the crime?

No.

The horse had little real worth, I kept telling myself. It was old, though a great beast of ancient bloodline, but I loved it because of
what
it was. It was an anchor, like the heavy stones men throw to the river, tied to the boat to keep it still in the currents. I would not part with it.

It had belonged to my father.

Yet, fathers die, no matter the age of their sons and daughters. He was gone one morning of winter, dead of snot and cough, and then everything he had owned belonged to my uncle, Germain.

No, do not think I hated Germain. I did not. Nor did I hate his wife, or my cousin, with whom I grew up. He was Ansgar, near my age. How could I hate a man who found me hugging my dead father, assured me I would be fine, that life would go on, and I’d meet father in the halls of the gods, one day? How could I hate the man for showing me how to be a man, how to hunt, how to fight? Wasn’t he the lord who gave me a shield and a spear before all his warriors?

And yet, I’m a thief.

Like any orphan living under someone else’s rich roof, there were moments I hated Ansgar. He always had that special position, the attention, and the smile from a proud father. I knew Ansgar would have more opportunities, and successes I would not be able to mimic, because he would be rich, and Germain was a famous warlord. And while Father had been rich enough, I knew it would not be easy to regain his former lands from Germain. Uncle had grown richer and mightier with the fields, woods, and halls of Father. With those riches, he had gained fame, and such fame was not easily halved, if one meant to pay his men in cows and recognition. Life was not fair, and that was all there was to it. I knew it, somewhere in the back of my mind.

I stroked the horse, and it whinnied, as if in agreement.

Death robs us of happiness. Woden kick Father in the balls for dying.

I frowned, and swatted at some stubborn flies, as if to chase away the guilt. Germain had treated me well, while not as a son, but well enough. Perhaps I was a selfish, stupid bastard, as well as a thief. If my extended family now had a feud against me, which they surely did, then I had deserved it.

“Thief,” the voice whispered to me, and I noticed I had uttered it aloud as Snake-Bite’s ears shot up.

Feuds would come back to haunt me. Men would hunt me. That was the other nagging thought which had bothered me down the lengths of the wooded hills of the Chatti lands, even after I left Mattium’s fortified top, the great oppidum’s gates.
A thief, and a failure,
I added in my head,
should be hunted down
. Uncle would hate me for my ill deed, for my disobedience, for shaming him. Why shouldn’t he, despite the low worth of the horse?

Pride would force him to find me.

He would send men, and forget the blood, because he would not let men see him as a weakling. That would mean some of those men would challenge him, steal from him, and threaten him and Ansgar.

I stroked the beast again, and it shuddered appreciatively under the touch, and seemed to nod its head as it navigated some large ferns. I stopped it to look around. I gazed at the sky, where perfectly white clouds travelled like peaceful thoughts, and I wished I were a hawk, so I could find the great river I was seeking.
I was committed
, I decided. It was too late to undo the deed, even if I had nearly turned back so many times, especially when I was still riding across our own land, the land of the Chatti.

I had still occasionally considered returning after I had left the lands of the last lord, exited the furthest of the border gaus, and arrived at the banks of the River we called Silver Scales, and the Romans called River Moenus. I had travelled the north bank of the river, headed west for the great River Rhenus as the Romans named it, hailing the Quadi Suebi tribes living on the northern shore, brave men who squatted in the middle of our hostile Chatti tribes, the savage horse-warriors of the Matticati of the northern hills, and the eastern menace of the mighty, merciless Hermanduri, and I visited their halls as a guest.

They asked few question, cared little for the reasons of a lonely Chatti riding their lands, shared food and shelter willingly, and stoically planned their raids, cattle rustling expeditions—some against my people—and dispensed justice while I looked on. A Quadi, a lord of a gau called Tallo, had spoken with me, and boasted how many horses he had stolen from my people. We had toasted each other, and he had made me feel better about my thievery. It was a matter of livelihood in Germania, to steal. He had seen my turmoil, smiling wistfully, and gave me useless advice.

He had clapped my back like a father. “Speak it all aloud. I stole my brother’s flock once, because he had hidden some of the herd from our raid for himself. I felt guilt, being young, so I kept reciting it to the birds, and that helped, boy!” he had said. “Forgot all about it in a few days. You do that as you travel. We all steal. How would we eat otherwise? I have a cow in my stable that has changed hands at least a dozen times, and some bastard will probably steal it this summer.”

I had liked Tallo and the Quadi.

I had tried his advice. I kicked the horse, and it moved off and tried it again, despite it having been unsuccessful previously, and spoke with as much confidence as I could muster. “Why shouldn’t I have left? And taken the horse? Was it not a matter of my livelihood? Hadn’t Germain taken his entire household for himself when Father died ten years ago? He had. Yea, he had raised me as his own, and I had loved him and his son, Ansgar, well enough. All true! But that wasn’t enough, having a roof over one’s head! A dog has that.”

I sat on the horse, and brooded, stroking it gently.

What happened that last day had been too much.

Germain gave me a shield and a spear, made a man of me during the Drimilchi, not two months past, and I had had hopes I’d be accepted, revered, and elevated, allowed to share what had been Father’s, but that day, the hammer had struck, and it had been a heavy blow. I remember the terrible betrayal, and would forever. It felt like voiding yourself of all hope, and feeling utterly empty with nothing left to wish for in the world.

I had seen Ansgar, my cousin, come out of the hall, and he had stopped, looking troubled, his thick beard swinging as he shook his head and avoided my eyes, and he had walked away. That day I had asked him to ask his father when he would let me serve in his warband of a hundred Chatti. It was only natural to think he would, but for some reason, he had not suggested it.

By the look on Ansgar’s face, Germain would not have me in his warband at all. He naturally took Ansgar in, but not me.

I dodged some branches as Snake-Bite navigated a dry patch of grass, and smiled wistfully. While the day was warm, the memory was chilling, bitter as winter, or perhaps just like life. No god ever designed our journey to be an easy one, but full of piss and shit. Only those who resolutely tread in such a morass can one day look back and smile.

I hadn’t smiled when I had stalked to the hall to confront Germain. I had paid no heed to the people there, as I squinted my eyes and coughed, as the ever-present smoke invaded my lungs. It drew attention to me, and I had seen Germain’s wrinkled brow wrinkle even more, as he guessed what was coming. I doggedly tried Tallo’s advice, and spoke aloud on the horse, trying to catch my mood that day. “Am I not as worthy as he?” I had asked him. “Ansgar,” I had added needlessly, because he was not a fool.

He had sat on his seat, a bit drunk on his bitter, ash-colored ale, already greatly bothered by the many petitions from his servants, and his oaths-men. He had stroked his beard in a way I recognized as annoyed and short-tempered. I took his voice, and the horse raised its ears in shock, because I was not a half bad mimic.

“If you are asking me whether or not I think you can fight like he does, then, yes, I do think so. Neither has been tested, mind you, Adalwulf, not once in a shieldwall, but I think you’ll do very well. Your young beard is a man’s beard. Your speech is confident. You are strong and sturdy, and brave, no doubt, since we are related. You did well while we trained all these years, and Old Hand said you’d make a very good warrior.” He seemed to bite on a rock as he went on, his voice tight with determination to press out his words. “And I don’t need Old Hand to tell me this. I know you are stronger than Ansgar, and there is something about you that makes me think you will perform great deeds during your lifetime.”

“Then
why
?” I had demanded. The horse chortled, and I wondered if the answer would have been obvious to Snake-Bite, even if I had had no clue.

He spoke plainly. “I asked a vitka. He looked at you, and said there is a cloud of storm hovering around you. It’s a stench of a god breath. It lingers on your skin like the stink of death, like a promise of violence. I see my boy, and he is just like the rest of us, but when I, and many others, see
you,
we see shadows and dust, and rage and that makes you queer. I can’t put my finger on it, neither could the vitka, really, but I think you’ll be a rare warrior, your life will be glorious. No matter how short.” He had looked troubled, and people had sensed it and moved away.

His words put me back. I had stood there, shuffling my feet.
Stench of death?
Was that an insult? Or did it make me more valuable?
I had decided to find out. “And why, lord uncle, do you not let me serve under your standard? I would do you proud. You hint, but do not give an answer,” I had asked. “I saw Ansgar, and he didn’t look at me. It was no god’s breath that made him look away, but shame and sorrow. You said “no,” when he asked you for me.”

And he, reluctantly, had answered. My voice no longer sounded like his, because I was enraged, but still I mimicked him. “A warband, Adalwulf, is a tight knot of brotherhood. I decide what we do, as dictated by Oldaric, of course, or his family, and they respect me enough to obey me. They object little, and they do so because I feed them, take care of their families, praise them, and make them famed men who hear their names sung in the halls of their fathers, but the men are one, and learn to love those who are ablest. And one day, I will be gone, and who shall they turn to?”