Votan and Other Novels (FANTASY MASTERWORKS) (29 page)

When this was over, Skirmir’s wife, who was the only woman in all that crowd of men, stood over the coffins. She struck Nanna through the heart with a sharpened alder stake, and when the struggles were over, without another word she made straight the limbs. Tyr and Heimdall folded the cowhides over the two dead faces, Baldur cold and dead, Nanna not yet cold.

Peasants took the ropes and lowered the coffins into the grave. Then each of the great ones, Asers and Kings, came near and threw into the grave their gifts. Freda’s gift was already on Baldur’s finger. It was a great gold ring, too big for her, that some man had stolen from a barrow. It was well known in the north, its name was Draupnir, and I had won it from Siggeir at dice. Njord threw in a gold chain, Tyr a drinking horn, and Heimdall another, though these were not a pair. The Kings too brought
gifts; Hoenir I saw place very gently on the coffin a glass cup, the only piece of glass he then had ever owned. Cups, plates and rings they threw on the coffin, Kings and nobles. Then the richer farmers came with jugs of ale and loaves of bread, roast shoulders of mutton and legs of pork and ribs of beef.

After the rich, the poor threw in what they had. Each man had brought a handful of earth from his corn field, or a turf from his pasture, and there were enough to fill the grave and more than fill it; and the rest was spread over the field where we stood. They raised no grave mound, and the snow kept on falling and covering everything. In the spring they ploughed the field and planted it with corn, that no one might find the grave again and rob it. But ever after the barley grew taller above Baldur.

Baldur’s chestnut horse we killed above the grave, and a black mare for Nanna, and the heads we left, but the bodies we roasted at the fire we made when we burnt the ship Ringhorn. We stood beside the fire, Kings and Asers and peasants, and we took our bread and beer and ham, and we ate our funeral feast. But do not think we had forgotten the main purpose of the Asers, and the cause for which Baldur had died, and Bors and Mymir before him. On each of the paths that led from the grave, about a mile from it, our Vandals had built booths of branches, and lit great fires.

By the time a man had walked or ridden a mile from the grave, then the heat of the fire and of the ale had worn off, and he was pleased at the chance to buy beer, or hot sausages, or even a heavier cloak or a blanket. Many of them were happy enough to spend a night in a hut by the fire safe from bears or wolves, and they paid for it; of course, the noise of our crowd had frightened all the beasts far away. Nor were there any bandits about, and men who would not have gone near a Vandal village slept happy enough guarded by Vandal swords.

It wasn’t only food and clothes we sold them, but brooches in lead, Mendip lead, in a shape we said was sacred to Baldur, and plaits of straw that had touched his coffin. What man would go home to his wife without something of the kind? And by what we sold, you would have thought that corpse had lain an hour at a time in every hayrick in Germany. That spring Baldur dead brought us in more silver than ever did Baldur living.

It was a day and a night and half a day again from Baldur’s grave to Asgard. The night we spent in a palisade where the packtrains stopped, and the fleas thought summer had come again and swarmed out to feast on us. The night on the return was decidedly more cheerful than the night we had had there on the way out. Conversation had been difficult with that ox-wagon and its burden in the courtyard, with the frozen Vandals standing guard round it, changed every half hour. Still, one of them died of the cold, and so did fifty peasants coming to or from the grave, besides the four who succumbed to an excess of religious feeling during the burial. And it was at that cold graveside that Njord caught his death, months though it was in coming.

After dinner that night, Siggeir drew me aside and got very confidential.

‘I’ve had enough of Sigmund. I can trust you, Allfather, I always could, you know how things work, no sham. Next spring I’m taking Bornholm, and I’ll clear the shallow sea. After that, when I can, I’m coming ashore on this side. I’ll not harm the trade, but I tell you this, I’ll not deal with Outgard. Do you know what Loki did? Before he killed Baldur, not after?’

‘Tell me.’

‘He sent one of Sigmund’s brothers to Jokuhaiinen to suggest that he lend the ships, and the Scrawlings the men, to raid Asgard.’

‘And Jokuhaiinen answered …?’

‘He didn’t. He asked my advice. He said he wouldn’t mind killing Njord, or you, especially you, but he has some kind of blood bond with Donar. In the end I persuaded him it would be more profitable if he went for Sigmund when I attack Bornholm.’

Sweyn followed Siggeir.

‘There’s something you ought to know, Allfather. Starkadder Eightarms saw me before I came.’

‘Indeed. Why didn’t he come to the funeral?’

‘And face Donar? Be serious. One of Sigmund’s brothers came to him, and offered him land.’

‘What land?’

‘This land. Asgard, to be precise. He said if Asgard fell to Starkadder’s pirates, he could keep it and no interference from Loki. Starkadder said he thought the land was a bit dear, but of course, Loki still thinks he may do it.’

‘Won’t he?’

‘No, he was quite keen on tackling Donar, but he didn’t want to hurt you. But look, if you want help in the summer, I’ll be in the islands, and I’ll always have ten ships ready to come down to you at a day’s notice, and thirty more in three days.’

He moved away. Edwin came over. He was in a good humour generally these days, Edith was pregnant, he saw himself safe. But tonight he was particularly buoyant. He jerked his head at Sigmund.

‘Look at that idiot Burgundian. There he is, so brave, so bold, so beautiful, a gift to the world. He hasn’t heard yet, I killed his brother last week.’

‘
You
did?’

‘Oh, no, Allfather, not personally. We used him for the head game. A bit heavy, not like these Danish heads, they’re empty. This one was Solar. He
was
a fool. He let Edward get to windward of him with three boats full of men, and then he couldn’t sail away fast enough. We can’t all sail against the wind, you know; in fact, none of
us
can. We heard he’d been down among the Friesians, trying to raise a fleet.’

‘What for?’ I knew, of course, it was monotonous.

‘He wanted them to raid Asgard. The Friesians wouldn’t come. They said us on the coast, and Starkadder in the strait, and Sweyn among the islands weren’t serious, but you and Donar were more than they wanted to tackle. Listen, Allfather. You’ll find there are a lot of Saxon packtrains on the roads this year. Lots of men and not very much to carry; except their saxes.’

I went away to think all this over. What did I need Ravens for? If Loki and Sigmund wanted to attack Asgard, then I would make them do it themselves, openly, and take the blame on their own backs.

The following night, in Valhall, we held our great Funeral Feast for Baldur, a private one for Kings and Asers. I sang again in Valhall, the song of Baldur-Adonis, not now as a desperate speech over a body, but as an entertainment. I sang loud to drown Njord’s coughing. I sang long and loud, I stretched each line to a stanza, the patterns of alliteration growing wilder and wilder as I strove to make my mind too full for thought.

We had gone to table as usual. Boar and whetstone lay on the board. The Asers and the Kings stood in their places.

Then the curtains opened at the far end of the Hall. Freda entered. 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 between me and Njord. About her neck there hung a chain of stone. A chain it was of thirty-six rings, each ring was in the shape of a fish that held its own tail in its mouth, and each fish was green but its fins were white.

While the feast went on, while we ate and drank and made stilted conversation in rhythmic phrases, taking care of metre and alliteration as Kings and Asers must, I kept on thinking, Where did she get it? How did she get it? Yet all the time I knew, and I did not dare to know.

Njord went to bed early, coughing. I left with him. It was my turn, of all the Asers, to be up early next morning so that whenever a King might wish to depart, there would be one of us to see him go. I went round the gate and the wicket, spoke to all the guards, did much else. Tyr and Donar could look after the guests.

I went to my own house. Freda was sitting in the great bed, her golden hair loose over her bare shoulders, her bare arms, in the light of a dozen candles. We were the rich, the happy Asers.

‘Come to bed, Votan. Do come to bed, darling.’

‘How did you get it?’

‘How did I get what? Don’t stand there, darling, come into bed and tell me all about it.’

‘Tell me how you got it. That necklace, tell me how you got it?’

‘What, that old thing? I bought it, of course. Now, don’t be silly, come into bed, do.’

‘No! If you bought it, what did you pay for it?’

‘Not much, I forget how much, a trifle.’

‘Not much? I offered them gold, Amber, furs, garnets. I offered them a ship, free passage and safe conduct from here to India or anywhere else they pleased. I offered them free quarters here for life, horses, dogs, women, all of these things together. They would not sell. What more could you offer?’

‘Perhaps I asked them nicely.’

I went rooting through the hall like a boar. I flung things about, I rummaged in chests and cupboards. I counted, I weighed.

‘What did you give them? There’s nothing gone here, you haven’t had anything out of the store-houses. What did you give? What did you promise?’

‘I promised them nothing. I gave them nothing you valued.’

‘But something you gave.’

I pounded about the hall. The women scurried terrified into the night. I looked for my precious things, my shield, my sword, my helmet, my gold cuirass, the old leather bag that was the last Greek thing I had.

‘What was it? What was it?’

I wouldn’t come to it, I was afraid to come to it. I could hear Loki’s voice at the Feast of the Dead: ‘… and if you had something really fine, and there wasn’t anything else you really wanted, then you could have Freda herself …’ All the Asers had heard it, all the Vandals, all Germany had heard it by now.

‘What was it? What did you give them?’

She saw it in my eyes, she tried to boast of it.

‘Something you didn’t want, never wanted, always off riding around, worse than Baldur, after everything else that moves.’

‘You slept with one of them.’

‘All right, I slept with them, both of them.’

I slapped her face, back and fore, back and fore.

‘Yes, both of them, two in one night, two in one night, little brown men.’

I hit her again.

‘Slut! Bitch!’

‘Little brown men, yes two in a night, cut and come again, what a night we had of it.’ She sat naked in the bed and ranted at me. ‘Better than you, you played-out satyr, better than you, young man, old man whatever you are. Look at yourself, white-haired, one-eyed wreck! Randy stallion of the Shallow Sea,
he
called you. Why shouldn’t I have my fun too, why shouldn’t I?’

‘You’re my wife, that’s why, that’s reason enough.’

‘And what’s it mean to you? A meal when you want it, a bed when you want it, a chance to make money and that you always want, all the wealth you can think of, all the wealth that’s going – aye, and where’s it going, tell me that, where’s it all going? Aser silver, furs, Amber, and where’s it all going? Nobody but you can understand the accounts, where’s it all going?’

‘I work for what I get.’

‘Hard labour it must be, in bed with the Queen of the Saxons, rolling about with painted trollops – and what about Gambara?’

‘All right, all right! I slept with Bithig to save my neck. I slept with Edith to save a good wise old man from being ploughed into the earth like dung. And I slept with Gambara out of pure lust, and that’s something you never felt in all your life. All you want is pretty things. Never heard of desire, did you, you toad-in-the-bed, you sluggish cold snake. I never slept with anybody for greed, no not even with you!’

I paced up and down. There was a jug of wine on the table, I flung it over her as I passed, without thinking. I was frantic with rage and shame. I turned on her again,

‘And how many more since we were married? How many more?’

She wasn’t being brazen any more, she was terrified.

‘This is the first time, the first time, I tell—’

‘You lying whore! That boy, who’s his father? Tell me that! Ginger-headed bastard, who’s always got him, who’s always fondling him, who’s pushed me out, tell me that!’

‘You can’t say that!’

‘I can say it, it’s true, isn’t it? Isn’t it? Who was flitting around the forests before I came? I hear things, you know, other beings talk besides ravens. Who was always here, in and out, in and out?’

‘It’s not true.’

‘Now we can see you squirm, now we hear you scream – too near the truth, is it, too near the bone? We’ll go nearer to the bone yet.’

And at that point, when I had Gungnir at her throat, when I could have killed her, would have killed her, as custom and law allowed me to do, even commanded me to do, the noise outside our hall grew till even we could hear it. And still we might have taken no notice, if Skuldi, the oldest and the bravest of Freda’s maidens – and maiden was a courtesy title at that – had not come back in to us, and stood at the door of the hall screaming.

‘Allfather, Allfather, they’re fighting in the hall, in Valhall, Donar is dead, the Kings have killed him.’

‘Oh no,’ I prayed. ‘Oh no, don’t let the Kings and Asers fight, don’t let the peace be broken and the trade spoilt.’

I pulled my cloak about me, I went out of the hall across the courtyard in the bitter cold. Freda sat on the bed and screamed, she screeched and cursed after me as I went,