Hrolf Kraki's Saga (20 page)

Likewise did the other guardsmen as friendships ripened. Next year, they said, the king would take the field himself, not just have a few shipsful out. Then he would be ready to win back Fyn, second of the Danish
islands. Many a chance would there be for a warrior to gain renown. Meanwhile were ease, merriment, traveling about among the Thingsteads, hunting, feasting, sports, a hearty life under an unstinting lord. Svipdag, Hvitserk, and Beigadh agreed they had come well to harbor.

So time passed through the summer and to the fall, when the berserkers came home.

Svipdag bristled to see those hairy hulks tread in, armed as if for battle, so much like those that had troubled Yrsa. He had been warned of their custom. They went from man to man, and their leader asked each who sat whether he deemed himself as good as them. Not even the king was free of this. To keep the peace with those beast-men, who were of high use in war, he was wont to answer something like: “It’s hard to say, for surely you’re fearless, you who have won such honor in weaponstrife and bloodspilling among many folk both north and south.” The rest of the troop did likewise, hitting on different words which would not sound like outright cringing. Still, it was easy to hear both fear and shame in their voices.

A bearded giant loomed over the eye-patched Swede and hawked the question. Svipdag sprang up. His sword hissed forth. (Hrolf let his men bear arms in the hall, saying he would not dishonor them by mistrust.) “In no way am I less than every one of you!” he shouted.

Shock brought stillness along the snapping, fluttering fires. The berserkers gaped, until their leader shook himself and challenged: “Hew at my helmet!”

Svipdag did. Metal rang. His edge would not bite, either on the helmet or on the mail which this band wore in spite of their name. The berserker bawled and drew blade. They squared off to fight. Hvitserk and Beigadh snatched their own weapons out.

King Hrolf came on the run. He sprang between them, nearly getting cut down. “You must not do this!” he cried. “We’ve foemen enough without squandering each other’s blood. Hereafter, Agnar, Svipdag, you’ll be reckoned alike, and both good friends of mine.”

The men snarled and glared. But their king stood in
their way and spoke words both stern and mild. Too many brawls had there been in this troop, he said. He would have no more of it. Strong they all were, and he would hate to lose any of them. Nonetheless, whoever picked a fight with a brother in arms, be it these three from Svithjodh who had slain the twelve of Adhils—at that the berserkers grew thoughtful, insofar as they were able—or somebody longer here and highly honored: that man would be sent away forever, outlawed in Denmark. Let them make peace!

In the end, Hrolf had his will. Thereafter the one-eyed newcomer was looked upon in awe.

VI

When springtime came around again, the Dane-King gathered a host and fared off to Langeland. Thence they overran Turö and afterward the whole southern half of Fyn. They had victory wherever they came. All the kings whom Hrolf overwhelmed, he made to swear him troth and pay him scot. His following swelled as the weeks went by, for men swarmed to join him, who was known to be more fair-minded and openhanded than other lords. He could pick and choose whom he would take into his household troops.

One failure did he have. Svipdag reminded him of those treasures King Helgi his father had gotten from King Adhils. The latter had sat on them ever since Helgi fell. “But they are rightfully yours,” Svipdag said. “It’s not to your honor that you don’t claim them. Besides, the way you break rings, you have need of as many as you can clap hands on.”

Hrolf chuckled, but soon did send men to his mother Queen Yrsa and asked her for the hoard.

She answered that her duty was to see to this if she could, but it lay not in her unaided might. “King Adhils is too greedy; nor does he willingly do anything that might gladden me. Tell my son that if he himself comes here to fetch the goods, I’ll help him with redes and however else I can.” The messengers thought she whis
pered, “And I will see again, Hrolf;” however, they were not sure.

They bore the word back to him where he was camped. Having so much else to do, he decided he must put off that quest.

He was then in the midst of weighty dealings. The old king at Odense, who had broken loose from Leidhra, was dead. Hjörvardh his son had taken the place, but was rather a weakling. Though he could raise more men near home than Hrolf could ferry across the Belt, he offered to talk peace. Hrolf received him well and they bargained back and forth. The Danes were ready to quit warfare for this year, anyway. By the time they got a firm grip on what they had already won, raising up trusty jarls and sheriffs, harvest season would be nigh.

Hrolf would not let go his demand that Hjörvardh become his underling, though the latter stalled and spoke of alliance instead. Was not Hrolf’s sister Skuld of marriageable age? In the end, they parted in seeming friendly wise, and Hrolf invited Hjörvardh to come visit him next year.

This the Odense king did, with a following who made a grand show. Hrolf guested him in all honor. Skuld was there at Leidhra. She was now seventeen.

When Hjörvardh first saw her, he gaped. Blood rose in his cheeks. He was a ruddy young man, snub-nosed, his brown hair getting thin while his belly was thickening. On the whole, he looked good, for he kept beard and nails well trimmed and wore none but the finest clothes. “I, I had heard you were fair to behold, my lady,” he stammered. “I did not understand … you are more than fair.”

“Swart, then?” Skuld smiled teasingly and ran fingers down her midnight tresses. It showed forth the better how clear and white her skin was, how storm-green her eyes. The last childishness was gone from that narrow face. The body, in a rich gown, was slender but wholly a woman’s, save that she moved in a soundless, rippling way that disquieted some.

Other men might have wooed her erenow, had it not
been for the uneasiness which hung about her. She had learned to be smooth-tongued, to seem to yield while really getting whatever she wanted. But she stayed harsh toward humble folk, given to shrieking fits, grasping for gold and chary of giving it out. Everybody knew she wrought witchcraft; nobody knew how deeply she was into it and what she did when she went off alone.

Folk were astonished that she, who had hitherto scoffed at talk of wedding, was suddenly sweet to a man whom she knew had hopes of winning her, “I could wish myself fair for you, King Hjörvardh,” she murmured, and took him by the hand.

“I would, would, would wish you no otherwise … than what you are,” he said.

“Come, let us sit and drink together,” she offered. Each evening thereafter those two were side by side, so eagerly holding speech that they hardly heeded anyone else.

Svipdag drawled to his brothers: “From what I know of her, she’s after becoming a queen. And not the wife of a scot-king, either. I daresay she’ll stiffen Hjörvardh against giving oath to Hrolf—”

“How will she stiffen him?” asked Hvitserk, and guffawed.

“If Hjörvardh doesn’t knuckle under, it’ll be war,” said Beigadh, “for along of him goes the whole half of Fyn that’s left. Hrolf’s bent on regaining everything his forebears had.”

“And if these kings part unfriends,” Hvitserk wondered, “how shall Skuld be wedded?” For, her father being dead, her brother ruled over who should get her and on what terms. Among the heathen, a woman may choose second and later husbands for herself, if widowed or divorced; and as for first marriage, her kinsmen seldom gainsay her wishes. Wherefore Svipdag answered:

“I’d not put it beyond her to run off with Hjörvardh. But somehow I don’t look for that. Our Hrolf’s a deep one, and he’s working on some plan.”

What that was, broke upon the world several days
later. The two kings had gone hunting at the head of a big troop. Merrily blew the horns and belled the hounds, down the long leafy halls of the greenwood; deer bounded away, their rusty coats flecked by gold spots of sunlight, till they fell before twanging bows; a wild boar turned and charged, earth shuddering as he met the spear; when the band stopped to rest in a glade, everyone was happy and at ease.

Hrolf, standing, unbuckled his sword belt. “Will you hold this?” he asked Hjörvardh. The Fyndweller nodded and took the hilt. Somehow the sheath withdrew, and Skofnung gleamed bare in his grasp. Hrolf smiled. “That’s all right,” he said while lowering his trews. “It handles well, no?”

“Wonderful!” Hjörvardh cried, and brandished it before returning it to the scabbard Hrolf had reached him.

Having let his water, the Dane-King took back his weapon, fastened it on, and said loud and clear: “This we both know, that whosoever holds the sword of a man while that man takes the belt off his breeches, he shall be the underling ever afterward. And now you shall be my under-king, and do my bidding like others.”

A shocked hush fell. Hjörvardh sputtered that this was meaningless: that, yes, in plighting troth one did take the sword of the chief in hand, but not like this, and he’d sworn nothing, and— Softly, sometimes even smiling and clapping him on the shoulder, Hrolf spoke of his wish to stay friends, to spare both lands a costly war, to make them one. As scot-king, he said, Hjörvardh should have more renown and wealth, within a realm waxing rich and mighty, than ever before, the more so because Skuld was his sister….

Haggling went on for days, often in sharp words, and men kept their arms by them. But the end of it was that Hjörvardh owned himself Hrolf’s man, and wedded Skuld in a feast of overflowing splendor.

“I think our lord played no prank, that day in the glade,” Svipdag told his brothers. “He must already have made plain to Hjörvardh that he could overwhelm him.
Yet it’d have meant heavy losses for us. This way, Hjörvardh can save his pride by saying he was tricked; and, to be sure, he gets the woman he wants.”

“He seems to bear a grudge, even so,” Hvitserk said.

“I think Skuld bears more of one,” said Beighadh.

Svipdag nodded. “Aye. He’d be no danger by himself, that sluggard. Given her, though—we’ve not seen the tail of this beast.”

Skuld and her husband went to his hall in Odense, paid scot to her brother, sent warriors at his behest, steered their land after his laws. Rather, she did, for she soon ruled Hjörvardh in every way. A hard life she led him, too, and she was barren as well. Yet he never dared lie beside anyone else, nor forbid her to bring in Finnish wizards and fare off whenever and wherever she chose.

A fisherman whispered how once he had been blown from his home waters, till at last he and his sons got their boat ashore on the lonely strand along Hindsholm. He left them to keep it while he went off looking for fresh water, theirs being gone after stormful days. At dusk, spying someone on a high bluff over the sea, black across flying iron clouds, he hefted his ax and went to see if it might be a helpful soul. From behind a gnarly brake he saw Queen Skuld—yes, surely her, he had seen her before when he sought Odin’s Lake to offer for luck—standing at the edge of that headland. Wildly streamed her gown and unbound locks. She had raised a pole whereon was a horse’s skull, the worst kind of ill-wishing, and pointed the empty eyes east toward Zealand. That way too did she shake her fist and yell forth curses, while she wept for sheer wrath.

I

West of the Westmen in Svithjodh, the mountains of the Keel rise ever higher and steeper, until a wayfarer reaches the Uplands of Norway. Here formerly the king was named Hring. Only one of his sons lived, called Björn. While this was a promising lad, folk did not want to risk the Thor-descended royal house perishing with him. So when the queen died, they as well as the king thought that was great scathe. Everyone urged him to marry again. Though he was getting somewhat old, at length he agreed. He sent men southward to find him a worthy wife. At their head was a captain of guards who hight Ivar the Lean.

They rode down the dales to the Oslofjord, where they took three ships and steered for Jutland. Hardly were they in the Skagerrak when a frightful storm arose. Bailing, rowing, seeking naught but to claw off that lee shore, they rounded the end of Norway. Still the gale raged. The crews could only run before it, north along the coast. Each time they thought the weather had slackened and turned their bows, they got first heavy headwinds, then more gales out of the watery vastness beyond Ireland.

Two ships went down. The horny skin wore off the hands of Ivar’s men; raw palms and fingers, arms from which the strength had drained, could no longer wield oars. He must raise sail and keep it poled well out, to stay clear of reefs and cliffs where he heard surf bawl through the sleety wind.

After days and nights he won in among islands, to a fjord which stabbed far into ice-helmeted mountains, and
beached his craft. It leaked at every seam; he dared no longer trust the tackle; broaching waves had reaved or ruined most of the foodstuffs aboard; the season was well along and foul winds kept on yowling through murky skies. He saw no help for it but to lay over that winter, hunt and salt down meat, make leather and bast rope for repairs. “Maybe we can trade with the Finns, if we can find any,” he said. “We’re surely in their lands.” He cackled laughter. “Maybe a wizard will sell us fair winds, tied up in a sack.”

His crew huddled shuddering in their cloaks. Mists blew around them, the steeps gloomed overhead, they were cold and wet and wretchedly hungry.

Once camp was made, Ivar took half a dozen men and struck inland to scout around. They climbed stony heights till they came to a pinewood where soft brown duff whispered underfoot and between the trunks they spied the gleam off a glacier. Toward dusk they found a log house, small but stoutly made. Reindeer stood in a paddock. A hound came to meet them, coal-swart and glowing-eyed, looking as huge as Garm who will devour the moon. It neither barked nor growled, but they felt something eldritch here and knocked most carefully on the door.

A serving-maid let them in. Two more women sat at the hearthstone. One was well clad and not ill to see, for all the years upon her. Ivar’s band had eyes only for her companion. Like the others, she was plainly Finnish: short, richly curved of body, with high cheekbones, golden hair, slanty blue eyes; never had they heard of a face more lovely. She smiled and bade them welcome in the Norse tongue as if three women alone had nothing to fear from armed men. Ivar thought this was indeed so. Along the walls he saw runic wands and bones, flint knives, bags of odd-smelling dusts, an overly big cauldron, things that bespoke witchcraft.