Votan and Other Novels (FANTASY MASTERWORKS) (12 page)

I smelt the sea, and that I could see a half mile from the crest. Between the ridge and the sea was a salt marsh. Down from the Standing Stone and across the marsh went a causeway of logs.

In the marsh stood Asgard. The great halls stood above the marsh, on a decking of wood, old and dry, but covered with clay that it might not burn. And this decking was carried on piles that lifted it twice the height of a man above the reeds and the brackish water. No man could come at Asgard, except along the causeway from the land, or along the jetties from the sea. Around the decking went a palisade of tarred wood. The marsh was too deep for a man to wade, and too shallow and full of reeds for a boat. No man came into Asgard unless he were asked.

I laid my spear against the ash, and tied the mare to the branches. I went to a house where there was a pile of firewood already stacked, and I took it and piled it on the crest of the ridge. I led forward the mare, and I cut her throat with the edge of my spear. Her blood poured out on the ground and her breath mingled with the wind.

I struck fire from the Standing Stone with the blade of the spear, and I kindled the brushwood and the pine billets. And when the smoke of the sacrifice rose to send the mare to draw the everlasting chariot around the earth, I leant on my spear and looked at Asgard.

As I stood with the south-east sun hot on my back and the first dryness in my mouth, I saw a man come out of the gate of Asgard and walk slowly and steadily toward me. He was of middle height and thick built. He wore a mail shirt, and trousers of leather. His helm shone with bronze, and his sword hilt glittered with gold and rings. His shield was painted with an eagle, and his green cloak was worked in gold and silver thread. In his hands he carried a broken crock with a little water, and a crust of rye bread. He came to me and shouted:

‘I am Heimdall that keeps the gate of Asgard. I know you, Votan Whitehair. If you come into Asgard my master Njord Borsson may let you eat the crumbs at the bottom of his table.’

But I said, ‘I am Votan, the old, the young, the first, the last. Myself a sacrifice to myself, myself dedicated to myself, nine days I hung in the tree. And I tell you, I will not come into Asgard till Njord Borsson himself come out with barley bread and bitter beer to bring me in.’

And he poured out the water on the ground and threw the bread to the dogs, and he went back.

When the sun stood west of south above my head, and my throat was dry in the heat, I saw a man come out of the gate of Asgard and walk slowly and steadily toward me. He was young and golden-haired. His trousers were of blue linen and his shirt of purple silk, and his cloak of fine white wool. There were gold chains about his neck, and gold rings on his fingers. His belt was a chain of Amber links, and the handle of his knife was Amber, and the sheath was carved from one piece of Amber. In one hand he carried a glass of wine and in the other he carried a loaf of white wheaten bread. And he said:

‘Votan, Spearbearer, Spearbringer, I am Frederik Njordson, and my father Njord Borsson bids you come into Asgard to dine with him.’

But I replied, ‘I am Votan, born and not born, from the south and not from the south. Wounded with my own spear, nine days I hung in the tree. And I tell you, I will not come into Asgard till Njord Borsson come out himself with bitter beer and barley bread to bring me in.’

And he broke the glass of wine on the Standing Stone, and he threw the bread to the sea-gulls, and he went back.

When the level west sun shone in my eyes, and my tongue was a stick in my mouth, I saw a man come out of Asgard and walk slowly and steadily toward me. He was old and frail, a great age, fifty or more, and his hair was white as mine. His trousers were of fine wool, and black, and his tunic of fine linen and black, and his cloak of heavy wool, and black. One gold chain was about his neck, and one gold ring upon his thumb, and a gold circlet in his hair. In his hands was a silver tray, and on the tray was bitter beer in a silver cup, and barley bread on a silver plate. And he said:

‘Votan, I am Njord Borsson. Lay your spear on your shoulder, and bear it into Asgard and take your place among the Asers.’

I sprinkled salt upon the bread and I ate, and I drank the beer. I took Njord’s right arm, and walked with him across the causeway into Asgard. To one side there were halls, and to the other side there were halls, and in front of us was the great hall of Njord, Valhall.

At the door of Valhall I bowed to Njord and I placed my spear in his hands.

‘Well do we know this spear,’ he said. ‘It is called Gungnir. It was once a sword, a sword of heroes. Many the shields it spoiled in battle, many the heads that rolled before it. Then it grew thin and weak with much honing. Here it was beaten into a spear head, beaten by smiths of immortal cunning.’ And he gave me back my spear. And I went into the hall that stood on the right of the door of Valhall, and the Vandals brought me water and lye, and they brought me clothes both grey and gay, and I washed myself and combed out my long white hair, and I dressed in grey.

I walked alone into Valhall, and the sidetables were full of men in rich clothes. Behind the top table sat Njord in a great high-backed chair, and on his left were two chairs, and on his right were two chairs.

Frederik spoke into my ear:

‘Go on, Votan; take your rightful place among the Asers.’

Which was my rightful place? Not so difficult. Njord’s son must sit at his right hand, so I went to the far left seat, and modestly waited to be moved higher, next to Njord. On my left hand, at right angles to me at the head of the side-table, was One-handed Tyr, and opposite him at the other sidetable was a handsome man in green called, I found, Baldur. We looked down the hall, and Heimdall with a flourish pulled back a curtain, and Freda entered.

Was there ever anyone like Freda? Well, frankly … no. There may have been others like Edith, and even others like Bithig, difficult though that may be to imagine. And there are ten thousand like Ursa or Gerda in every nation in Germany. But never anyone like Freda.

Freda came up the hall. She was white-clad and gleaming, golden-haired and willowy, shining and splendid in the red and yellow torchlight. Gold rings were on her fingers, gold bracelets on her arms, a great gold brooch was at her shoulder. Behind her were her maidens in yellow or green or crimson. She sat at my right hand between me and Njord.

On the table in front of Njord, Heimdall set a whetstone. A strip of stone a foot long, square, it bellied in the middle to two
inches thick, narrowed to the ends. At each end it was carved with four faces under one crown, red painted, gilded. It had never sharpened sword or knife. When the whetstone was on the table, the meal began.

All in the hall ate off silver, but Njord and his children and I ate off gold. All drank from horns, gold-lipped, gold-mounted, but we drank from glass. What we ate or drank that night I cannot remember, but it was probably no different from any barbarian feast that I attended anywhere else.

For that night already I knew I must have Freda. That night she scarcely spoke, and I was drawn only by her beauty, her fragrance, her keen look, her clear grace. Later I found there was a clear mind too behind those great blue eyes, and a complex way of thought you could never guess from a few conventional phrases like, ‘Have another boar’s head,’ or ‘Please pass the chickens.’ Clear, complex, but, I must admit, limited.

Next morning I woke in my new house, and a Vandal brought me bread and beef and beer. I went to Njord and said:

‘I am, then, Votan Aser. You, great Njord, have said so. What am I to do in Asgard?’

‘Come with me,’ he said, ‘and see what the Asers do. Whatever we do not do, that do you.’

So all day I watched what the Asers did. All day Njord sat at the gate like Loki, and as the merchants rode in and out, he spoke with them and drank with them.

Baldur rode out. In the village at the top of the ridge, and in a hundred villages, the peasants grew corn and meat for Asgard. Baldur ruled them, and they planted what he told them to plant, and they gathered it when he told them to gather it, and all went well. While the young and handsome Baldur planned, all prospered, and the peasants were well paid in silver and salt for corn and meat; for raw wool came furs and fish, and for raw hides, dyed cloth and made shoes.

One-handed Tyr rode out with a dozen Vandals. These men
were themselves Captains of Vandal escorts, horse-breakers and horse-traders, and packtrain masters. Tyr ruled them, kept the palisades in order, said who should travel and who not, and where and when.

Frederik took a gang of men down to the jetty. Some worked repairing the planking, others unloaded a ship full of salt fish. This was about Frederik’s limit. Any brain in that generation had gone to Freda.

Where was Freda? She was working harder than anyone. There were always a hundred mouths in Asgard to feed, and in all the palisades. There was grain to be ground, bread to be baked, beer to be brewed, and all was done under her hands, there was nobody in the kitchens to be trusted.

Trusted? I looked at how things went in the warehouses. Njord sat at the gate, but the trading was done by a crowd of men under Skirmir. I never liked the man. I watched the way it was all done, straight barter of furs against glass, Amber against silver, salt from the Saxon saltpans against wine, salted fish against pots. It was no wonder Skirmir looked so fat and dressed so well. I saw what the Asers did not, what I could do.

I talked to the three I could trust, Tyr and Freda and Njord. I asked Njord if he had bought anything himself lately, or been into the storehouses.

‘No, I leave it all to Skirmir. Are you trying to say the Asers are being cheated?’

‘Well, not cheating exactly. Let’s call it friction. But if you look in the warehouses you see the result. Furs bought by the bale uninspected, common furs at the same price as ermine. Old-fashioned bronze winestrainers nobody will buy from us, black cloth when nobody wears black but you. And grey and dark blue, too. Whoever heard of a German wearing those colours from choice? As long as you go about things this way, by barter, there’s always going to be a way for salesmen to bribe our buyers.’

‘How do we stop it?’ they all asked.

‘There are two essential tools of business. One is writing, and the other, we’ll begin with that, is …’ I looked at them. ‘Have you ever heard of money?’

And of course, they hadn’t. Everything went by barter. I couldn’t talk about coin, there, of course, but I could talk about weight of silver. It took me the best part of the summer to work out just what we had in the storehouses and calculate prices for everything depending on how big our stocks were. I drew everything out on the sand of the beach.

Soon the merchants began to get used to doing everything in terms of pounds weight of silver. They got used, too, to the idea that ermine was a more profitable proposition than bear, and to the fact that old-fashioned bronze buckets brought only scrap prices, and that thin wine was paid for as vinegar. And at the end of every day, each of our own dealers had to give some explanation of what he had sold, and show what he had bought. Skirmir began to look less prosperous.

After dinner, each evening, I walked with Freda on the jetty. It is not a thing I would recommend to try in any German village. But there, Asgard was not a real German village, Freda’s appearance in hall showed that. And I was Votan Aser, Old Man, Young Man, no one knew what, but very definitely a Holy Man and Freda, well, she was Freda, Njord’s Daughter, and a law to herself.

We walked and talked on the jetty.

‘Why do you do all this, Votan?’ she asked. ‘What do you want from Asgard?’

‘Why, what does anyone else want from Asgard?’

‘Anyone else?’ she was contemptuous. ‘Who else in Asgard would want what you want? Tyr or Baldur, who can think of nothing but corn and horses? Frederik, that blockhead who can’t tell copper and glass from gold and diamonds?’

‘There are other prizes besides gold and silver, and other Asers besides those.’

‘And who has been telling you about them – Tyr?’

‘I hear things from Cutha Cuthson.’

‘Not much passes Cutha. Votan, Votan, why were you so long in coming?’

You cannot ask for a woman’s hand when your own is empty. I preached constantly to the Asers the great truth that bullion is the only wealth, that gold and silver are the true aim of all trade. How then could I ask for Freda and not bring gold and silver to Asgard?

I listened to the tales the merchants told, and the songs they sang, especially the men from near the Rhine. I heard again and again the songs of the great battle in the wood, when the three legions went down. What these men told me was one thing. The things they thought I knew were quite another.

I went to Njord.

‘Give me a horse,’ I said. ‘The God has come upon me,’ and I knew that he could not deny me. The Aser horse stables were beyond the ridge, in the village. I went there with Freda and Tyr. Njord, once I had come to Asgard, never passed the Standing Stone again but once. At the stable door, with the long line of stalls in front of me, on both sides, I asked Freda to bind my eyes.

I knew I was expected to choose a white mare; this was the usual mount of a Holy Man. The mare under the Tree of the Spear had been white, and it was a white mare Loki had given me. But instead, blindfold, I walked down the aisle between the stalls, and stopped at random. Then I spun on my heel several times, and stretched out both my hands in front of me till I felt a flank. I took off the bandage myself. It was a stallion, and a black, the biggest horse I ever rode on. He was fast too, some people used to say he must have eight legs he went so fast.

I put a bridle on him, and a saddle, and led him over the causeway into the gate of Asgard. Njord looked at him.

‘When the spear was made,’ he said, ‘a mare was brought. When the mare was taken, a colt was left. This is the colt. It is Sleipnir.’