Maroboodus: A Novel of Germania (The Goth Chronicles Book 1) (20 page)

They did.

‘More men,’ said Njord below us. I had not noticed him coming forth, but he pointed a finger where the glints had been apparent.

Indeed, I saw men, but not that many. I hesitated as I stood on the ledge of the rock, and wondered at the Saxons and their firm belief there was something more than a few hunters. Perhaps it was some Goth lord out to hunt the regular Svea raiders, or to pay back for some insult that had been given earlier in the year, a feud solving in the process. ‘Shit and Donor’s balls,’ Ceadda cursed crudely and pulled me to my belly. Dozens of men appeared, tiny specs at the edge of the river. There were too many men, well-armed and dangerous to be a local party and indeed, I could now see slinking shadows of dogs as they loped to the edge of the water to lap up some of the clear water. Gasto bred dogs, I remembered, were often silent in the hunt. They were infamous all across the land for being disciplined, uncannily obedient, and terrible in battle. The ones I saw were like just such slavering, nasty beasts they used in the hunt and battle both.

‘You have great eyes,’ I stated after a while ‘But why are they by the river? Pausing for a camp?’

‘Look now,’ he said softly. ‘To the
water
. Forget the bastards dragging their feet across shit in the woods. Look at those other bastards.’

And I saw them as well.

I had been looking at the woods, but there were large boats rowing on the river and the boats were filled with rowers. They were not the seagoing ships we used to travel the stormy coasts, heavy and clinker-built, but lighter, longer ones with high prows. I noticed many of the men sitting on the benches were glinting dully as the chain mail on their torso gleamed. I shuddered with fear.

‘Is it possible it’s your father?’ Njord asked, having placed his spear in the grass to avoid it shining in the light.

I shook my head reluctantly. ‘Not likely. Those must be Bero’s champions. Maino, certainly, shall be there, slavering for my head.’

‘You shouldn’t have cut off his beard,’ Ceadda said. ‘But it was amusing, I give you that.’

‘He’ll be there, hoping to shear off my fingers, toes, nose—‘

‘Cock,’ Njord added unhelpfully.

‘That too,’ I said softly. ‘Unfortunately. Yea, he shall be there if he wasn’t crippled. Danr, Eadwine. And Gasto. Perhaps Friednot’s former men. But Gasto, yes.’ I said the last name with dread, as he was a great tracker and the dogs were his, no doubt.

‘The dog lord?’ Ceadda said. ‘Yes, we once had a shieldwall broken by those slavering bitches from Hel. His dogs, not his daughters.’

‘His girls feed the dogs, I hear, and train them with Gasto,’ I said sullenly.

‘Perhaps your lord Bero is out there as well,’ said the Saxon with almost perverse happiness at being hunted by so many. ‘There is a man with long black hair and a brooding, dastardly face. Tilted to his side he is, like a man with only one useless ball.’

‘You cannot see that far!’

‘No, I cannot,’ he grinned. ‘But I bet he is there nonetheless. Let’s hope your father is there as well. Though that might not make any difference to how things will end, right?’

I nodded. ‘He wanted to exile me. My grandmother thinks I should be sacrificed,’ I stated. ‘Let’s try to make it out of this without my father, in any case. He might be tempted to knock my head off, and not just knock sense into it.’

He gave me a long look and then at the girl. ‘Go now. Speak with her and then we leave. You two make a great, if strangely ill-omened couple. Let’s hope they stay down there for the night indeed, and the dogs are in a lazy mood, but they will get to the river’s end before us. They can use those smaller rivers to get before us and those dogs will make life miserable for us. They’ll swing north, they'll swing south and will always have dozens of men near. We will have to rush west and hope we cross those hills and fields,’ he nodded to the land directly north of the three rivers crossing each other in the west. ‘We have to get to that village before they cut us off.’

‘Gasto will pick up the trail,’ I said with dread. ‘No matter what. They are sure to have something of ours that the dogs can smell, and—‘

‘We will deal with him if he gets close,’ the Saxon said with a grim grin. ‘We are not easy pickings, even without our shields.’ He gave me a long look. ‘Go and speak with her.’

‘Why?’ I said, feeling reluctant and scared suddenly, and that made me smile, since she was scarier than the hounds.

‘Because,’ the Saxon explained, ‘you’re a young man and could use a kiss. Go and charm the girl, my lord. Do so for all of us. Make sure she is really into you. She is the key to our boat, isn’t she?’

‘Yes, of course,’ I said, much more terrified than I had been when I fought Maino, I made my way down the boulder. It was mossy, and some gave away from under me and I fell and rolled down with a shriek. I bumped to the muddy ground, bit my lip, and tasted blood.

‘Not like that,’ Ceadda said, and then roared with laughter, which he subdued into chuckles as I picked myself up. Aldbert scowled at the Saxons that were all laughing like damned bastards, walked over, and pulled me up. I also found the girl hovering near, her eyes hard, but mouth twisted with mirth.

‘Maroboodus …’ Aldbert began, but I shook my head at him.

‘Later, over a mug of ale,’ I said, not looking at him. ‘Many mugs. I need to be drunk to have a discussion with you.’

‘Later, yes. And drunk,’ he agreed and I made my way to the girl. She squinted as she looked up to me and got up and brushed off her furs and tunic from brambles and mud. It made me feel somewhat better to think it was important for her to look presentable before me.

She scowled as she saw the relieved smile on my face. ‘I’d brush myself off for the meanest peasant. I don’t like to look untidy. I’m a—‘

‘Princess,’ I said.

‘A woman,’ she corrected and smiled to take off the bite. ‘You’re clumsy as a newborn horse when I’m around, but you know I’m relieved it is you who saved me,’ she said with a small bow and nodded towards the woods. ‘Come, walk with me. Didn’t your Saxon dog tell you to have a chat and make sure I won’t have you lot stretched nude on an altar to one of our gods? We do have some gods we don’t share with you, cousins, and their vitka would make your belly churn. Literally. With a knife.’

‘He did ask me to make sure that will not take place,’ I told him and looked away from Aldbert who had begun to say something, but went quiet. ‘You stay here.’ He nodded and obeyed.

She pulled me higher up the hill, and we navigated the heather bushes under the steady eyes of the Saxon sea wolves and Aldbert, who was frowning after us. I followed her willingly, happy she had brought up the subject of our future, and after some time, she found a log, where she sat me down. I pulled the sword out and put it on my side and she adjusted the ax as well and we both smiled at that. She gazed at the weapons and put her weapon aside. She looked at my lip with a small frown, kneeled before me, and touched it. Her finger came off bloody and she sucked it clean. I started to speak, but she waved me down. She stared at me steadily for a moment and then finally took a deep breath, as if awakened from a dream. ‘Your father is Hulderic the Goth, no?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He is my father, and Bero is his brother.’

She nodded steadily and smiled. ‘My father speaks of your family quite often. You are of the old blood, very old indeed. The oldest, he says. He is Gislin, of Snowlake, and we are of ancient blood as well. Father claims we are as old and holy as you.’

‘Everyone thinks they are old and holy,’ I smiled.

‘Yes,’ she said with a small laugh. ‘People think themselves special. Why live otherwise?’

‘Do
you
have a name?’ I asked.

‘Yes, one very much like your Saxon friends,’ she said mischievously. ‘I’m so happy you finally got around to ask it.’

I frowned. ‘Saxon name? They have names, yes, but—‘

‘My name is Saxa,’ she said incredulously. ‘Princess of Snowlake. But call me Saxa.’

‘Not of Snowlake?’ I asked her, watching her eyes as I did. There was a brief stab of pain in her eyes, but she shook her head and hid the emotion.

‘No. As I said, I won’t go back there. And should I one day go that way, my father must be dead and I won’t stay. I’ll spit on the land, and leave it.’

‘Why? Why are we going to some other village?’ I asked her and she looked confused for a moment.

She smiled sadly. ‘Like it is with you, Father and I don’t see eye to eye on many things. Our village is not large, but our family commands great respect across the Svea lands, as we have a special … role to fill.’ I could see she hoped I’d not ask for more information, but I had to, and she saw I would and put a finger over my mouth, while fingering my long, red hair with her other hand. ‘He is a very … holy man, Maroboodus. A man devoted to the gods, one god especially. We live in the villages around the Twin Prisoners, the hills where we live, and sometimes … under them. Our homes were in the coast, but that was the place of worship, where they would travel few times a year. Now it’s home, a cold, sullen home. I hate it. As for me? I’d wed a cousin, eventually, I’m well past the age, but I was lucky and the first such cousins died in Goth wars these past years, but the last one didn’t and so I’d have wed him, and I wasn’t very happy with the thought of being forced to live with the mongrel. He can barely speak, little less be gentle. Then Father held a Thing, and the marriage was canceled.’

‘You were to marry a Goth instead. Our enemy,’ I stated.

‘That’s right,’ she said unhappily. ‘I was to marry so many times, but it felt I never would. Then the Saxons came. I didn’t like Cuthbert, of course, but for a moment there, when they had slaughtered many men in the village, I hoped I’d come to enjoy life elsewhere, eventually and so when they chained me and dragged me off to marry someone, not likely Cuthbert, I didn’t drag my feet.’

‘I think most young people feel like that,’ I said with a smile. ‘Rather live in misery elsewhere, than in the misery they know.’

She tugged at my hair playfully and nodded. ‘Yes. Most people might be like us and hate the choices thrust on them by the darkness of this world, our duties, the needs of our families, but my reasons were deeper. Our lives in Snowlake were …are driven. People there are mad, perhaps? Yes, definitely.’ She had a haunted look on her face.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked her, fighting an impulse to take her hand, though for some reason I thought she wanted me to. She looked at my hand, and grabbed it and I wondered if she read minds. 

‘Father is always waiting for a sign.’

‘A sign?’

She nodded vigorously. ‘A sign indeed. Our god might one day awaken from his slumber, escape his prison, and that is what our village waits for. We wait. Wait and wait. We live by the old, ancient temples, listen to the spells and bitter, long-dead words, and sometimes, if feels just utterly mad to spend one’s life like that, waiting, wondering, hoping, cursing, suffering, and just breeding more fools to start the cycle again. All for a god, who keeps sleeping. And should this god awaken? Well, we’d die. The whole world.’

I remembered Father’s words about Ragnarok and felt my blood turn to ice. ‘Indeed?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘As I said, people there are mad. Then I was freed from them. The Saxons,’ she said with a smile and gestured down the hill where two such pirates were looking up at us, making sure we were safe and not running away, ‘were different. Driven by hunger and thirst, they make plans for the next year. They live, love, murder, and I loved to listen to them speaking about the future. I was exhilarated. I was to be taken to some Goth across the sea, I heard, and that thought didn’t please me, but for some reason I thought it would all be well, soon enough. And then I saw you.’ She smiled at me, her eyes glittering like stars and my breath nearly stopped.

I stammered on. ‘That is crazy.’

‘What?’ she laughed, though there was a hurt look on her face and I half hoped Ceadda would be there, pulling my sleeve or slapping my mouth shut, but I was on my own.

I struck my head. ‘No, I mean it’s not crazy. It’s …unexpected. And I have nothing against you being mad.’

‘I am mad?’ she asked softly, which I had learnt meant I was in danger, while squeezing my hand.

‘Gods, help me,’ I cursed and slammed a fist on my thigh to focus. ‘Not mad, but different, outspoken. So fine.’

‘That’s better,’ she said and relaxed her grip. ‘Much better. You should beat yourself more. I can, if you want?’

I ignored her teasing and went on, stubbornly, hoping I’d not ruin the moment. ‘But I’m a man, and a man needs to understand everything and so I have to know why do you act like you have … feelings for me? You don’t have to. I’m committed anyway. You say you saw me there, that day, fighting and it makes me feel warm like the fires of Muspelheim were coursing inside my veins, but I guess I need to know—‘

‘If I really mean it?’ she asked and tilted her head at me, and grasped another lock of my red hair. ‘Tell me, my boy, what do you feel?’

I stammered and swallowed like a fool with a bone in his throat, until I managed to calm myself and stroked her hand, still holding my hair. ‘I felt like all the other maidens I have ever seen were smoke and mist and you are the Sunna, chasing them all away, across the horizons, to the cracks of the Midgard, and they never were more than a dream.’