Votan and Other Novels (FANTASY MASTERWORKS) (26 page)

Once I thought I could see someone on the beach, and I touched Edward. He knew what I meant, but he didn’t even
bother to look. Nobody lived there. But it must be habitable, there must be water, it was green.

We sat and looked at the green land and we heard water splashing. We sat on the deck and we began to die of thirst. It was the second time in my life that I began to die of thirst, and it made it no better that I was not alone.

There was no sun to dry us up. There was just a cloudy grey sky. I think the cloud saved us. We died slower. They say a man can last three days without a drink. We lasted four.

There was that last night. I had no dreams, no visions. I did not sleep. I just sat and looked up. There were no stars, just a black sky.

After a time it was morning. The ship was dead. It took me a long time to notice that she no longer moved, that she no longer swam, that she was dead. She just lay, heeling over a little. I decided, and I remember how slowly I worked it out, that we must be aground.

A little later it occurred to me that it might be interesting too see if we were aground on a sandbank or on an island. It might even be worth the effort of turning my head. It was a great effort, worth thinking over.

When I did, I saw that we were close under the cliffs. We had come ashore on Holy Island. We had come in at the peak of the tide, stern first. Now the tide was running out and we were left.

It was running out. Running. It was running. It was running out of the cliff. It was running out where the rocks changed colour. It was running. What was running?

It was water that was running. How interesting. Water. Water for some. With almost a physical convulsion I grasped at the thought. Water. Perhaps water for me. Water for some. Water for me?

Over the bulwarks. Hang down. Can’t hang long. What am I hanging for? Drop. Something still works, I land on my feet. Can’t stay on them. Lie down. Must lie down. Don’t lie down. Move. Pull. Hands and knees. It hurts my knees. Hands. Knees. Hands.

Choking noise. Not me. Oswy lying under the ship. Edward looking over the side.

Hands … Knees … Hands … Knees … pebbles hurt hands … Knees … feet … My feet. No, my feet behind me. Can’t pass … feet in way. My feet have shoes on. Feet. Somebody’s feet. Bare feet in way. Somebody’s feet. Somebody else’s feet.

Feet … legs … Man … Old Man … loincloth … cloak … Beard … Njord … not, not Njord, Beard … Beard-Njord, Beard-Njord, funny, Beard-Njord … not Njord … not Joy … Someone …

‘No,’ he said. His voice was rusty, a voice not often used. ‘No, not Njord, Votan Aser. Not Joy, Votan Aser. Joy left us long ago, Votan Aser, half-Aser, false Aser, beggar from the south, robber of dead men’s goods, stealer of women, digger of kings’ graves. Don’t know me, do you? You’re too young, too insignificant, too poor, to know me. You’ve never even heard of me. Njord wouldn’t tell you, he’d be ashamed, and nobody else would dare.’

My tongue was a piece of dry wood. I could hardly hear him. All this he was saying, it sounded so unimportant, so trivial. I just wished he would finish and let me reach the water. I said,

‘Water. Water.’

‘Water, you ask me for water? Great Votan Aser, asking me for water. Gold he has and bronze, furs and silk and Amber, and he asks
me
for water. He asks Mymir for Water. He doesn’t even know who Mymir is. Long long ago, we built Asgard, Bergelmir and Bors and I. We were rich and proud and happy, the Great Asers. And then Bors died, and Njord Borsson elbowed us out. Only Bors could control Njord, and then Bors died. Ask Njord how Bors died, kicking his head with his heels. Ask who brought him the mushrooms. When Bors was gone, we were wormed out of Asgard. Ten years have I been on this island. And who brought Loki into Outgard, that drove out Bergelmir? And where is Bergelmir now? Tell me that.

‘Njord drove out all the great Asers, the men of fine and royal blood. And in their stead he brought in this … this ordure, Baldur, Heimdall, Tyr … The only good thing that Njord ever brought into Asgard was Skazi, my sister Skazi. And what of the boy she bore to Vikar, before ever she went to Njord? And where are the two daughters she bore to Vikar again, when she left Njord and returned to him? Where are they now?

‘Now to this comes the latest of the Asers. A snivelling white-haired boy, crawling on the ground from his stolen ship, crying for water like a baby, licking his cuts, weeping. No water shall you have but your own tears. Die of thirst, thief!’

I could not move. I was on the edge of night. As long as he stood there, I could not pass. I could not move while he stood still. Then he made his mistake. He kicked me in the face. It was undignified. It was unnecessary. Besides, it was fatal.

I caught at his ankle and I clung to it. He pulled away, he staggered and fell on top of me. I let go his ankle and I went for his throat, he caught my wrist, I could not get a fair grip. I grasped his other wrist and kept his thumb out of my eye.

Like that we lay for a long moment. Had I been well there would have been a short ending. I was dried up, burnt out. I could scarcely hold him off. Those bony wrists were strong as mine. A bony knee ground into my groin. Those horrible blue eyes said only ‘Die, die, die!’ I could feel myself going, slipping away. Even his little strength would outlast mine. I must finish it quickly. I must pay.

I let go his wrist. My knife came of itself to my hand, the knife Joy had spun on the tavern table. The iron knew what to do. It was thirsty. His thumb came to my eye. I struck and struck and we both writhed in pain. Blood ran, eye ran, all was black and red and fiery, all was pain, pain, eye and head and face, all pain, blood, pain, hate, pain, death, pain …

It was dark for a long time. It was dark and painful and noisy and smelly and hard. There were rough hands trying to be gentle. There was food given in kindness and drink poured in solicitude that only nauseated. There was love that could not understand, and that hurt what it cherished. There were dreams and there were horrors that were not dreams.

After a million ages the world was still, the heaving stopped. There were hands that were gentle and smooth. There were cool things and soft things about me, and I knew it was bandages
over my eyes, though I didn’t know why. The voices were women’s voices. There was warm milk and honey that the voices brought. At last I was able to understand what they were saying, to hear Edith …

‘All right, my darling, you’re all right now, just lie here, just be still.’

‘I can’t see you … hurts … hurts …’

‘You’re all right now … quick, that cup … You’ll soon see me. Drink this. I’m holding you. Just press against me. Drink it all up, there’s a good lad.’

Dark again. They drugged me before they cut away the clotted bandages from my face. When next I woke I could see something. One eye was still bandaged. With the other I could see Edith, Edwin, Cutha Cuthson … how many more … Ethelred, Oswy Karlsson and his father Karl Cuthbertson … all of them. Edward was on his knees by the bed holding my hands.

‘I am your man for ever. All Saxons are your men for ever. For us you gave what you could, what no man can give and receive again. For us you gave all a God can give, no God can give his life. No God can die. For the water of life you gave the light of your life. For our lives you gave your light.’ I hadn’t known he was a bard. ‘Hail to Votan the Saviour, the King of Mankind, who brought us the water of life from the edge of the sea, who bought at a price beyond measure the water of youth.’

‘Mymir?’ I asked. ‘Mymir?’

‘His body we burned, the ashes we cast on the sea. Your kinsman the Aser we bore with respect to his pyre on the beach.’

‘The ship?’

‘The ship we sold to the Friesians, let them try to sail her, she nearly had us all drowned. The lead we leave to the Asers. One-handed Tyr came to seek you and bring you home. Yet while he waited to gather a crew, and Starkadder Eightarms and Sweyn brought ships from the north to row to the west and raid till they found you again, he saw us sail in to shore in that heavy old tub.’

‘Caw?’

‘We sold him to Starkadder Eightarms, to be chained to an oar, and row for the rest of time he knows not where.’

That was just what did not happen. Starkadder had too much use for a man who could tell by the smell of the air or the taste of the mud on the tallowed lead where he was anywhere up the coast of Britain or down to the edge of Spain to keep him in chains. Of course at last there was a foggy night, and Caw went over the side in a skin boat, and heaven only knows how much silver and Amber with him out of Starkadder’s chest, and he was never seen again. But when the fog lifted, there was Starkadder at the mouth of the Thames, and a dozen Imperial Galleys lying within a cable’s length, and if he had not been readier to run than they to chase him, there would have been an end to Starkadder the Pirate. But his end was not fated for years to come.

Edith got the men out of the room at last, and even, after a few days, persuaded them it was needless for them to march around the house daily at noon nine times with the sun, shouting ‘Long Life to Votan Aser’ in chorus.

I made her get a mirror, she knew what one was all right, not like the Scrawlings, so that I could see my face. The local doctor, Aldhelm, had made a good job of the eye. I’ve seen too many of these cases not to be impressed by what he was able to do. Usually the wound goes rotten, and it spreads back into the head and you die. He’d stopped that, somehow.

No, on second thoughts, not somehow, I know exactly how. He took the most magical liquid he could think of, and that was Honeydew which Tyr had brought. He washed his knives and needles in it, and he washed the wound. I’ve tried it myself since, and it works. Not always, of course, but often enough the patient doesn’t die. Not straight away, at least. As long as a patient lives to pay the bill, the doctor counts it a cure.

Later when I got back to the Old City, my father cleaned it up and padded it out, and I had a smooth gem of glass set in it, so that to the casual glance it never looked worse than half closed. But the eye was gone, and in the north I always wore a patch over it to keep out the wind.

Life is different with one eye. You stop taking risks, you don’t do anything that might endanger the other. You always have a blind side. And you can’t judge distances any more. Long distances are all right, you can tell if a ship is one mile out or two,
but under a bowshot it becomes very deceptive. Spear throwing is something you can’t do any more either, and as for putting a horse at a fence, I never risked it again except on Sleipnir.

The penalty of virtue and a clear conscience is a short convalescence. Too soon I rode with Edith to the Grove, her last ride till after the baby came. I left the gelding, and I leaned Gungnir against the fence. Together we went to the cart. Before the Mother I spread the gifts I had brought her, polished pebbles from the brooches and armlets I had brought back from the Picts. I cast the mounts in the bog. Silver for the Gods above and Those Below. Stone for the Mother.

When that debt to the Mother was paid, I whistled Sleipnir, and he left the mares and came. I rode east to meet with my own Vandals who had come to see me home. The Saxons came with me to their borders, Edwin and Cutha and all my crew, and I embraced them all and so many Saxons more I cannot count.

After the Saxons there was a crowd of Danes to meet me, and with them Donar, who had gone to look for me in the Land of Norroway. To seek me, he said, but I believe he had still been in search of the land of fire, where a smith may live and beat out the iron, and never pay a penny for charcoal nor for carriage. Still, he seemed quite glad to see me back, and so did Tyr and Baldur who had come out with the Vandals.

They were all intrigued by the absurd song the Danes sang, about how Votan bought the water of youth of Mymir at the price of his eye, after he had driven about the seas in his magic ship, turning the wind to speed him which-ever-which way he wanted to go. I said nothing, I just pulled my grey hood down over my blind eye.

At the head of the causeway to Asgard, I dismounted. The Danes had gone back long ago, but there were still enough Vandals and Lombards to give the whole thing the look of a triumph, as if I had come back with all the pearls of Britain and all the gold of Ireland in my sacks, not drifted home hurt and broken and empty handed.

There at the end of the causeway Freda waited, all glorious in gold, and she threw her splendid arms around my neck. She took my arm to lead me into Asgard, and I felt that all the world was
mine again, and that all would come right, and that no one had as much to boast of as I had.

And then, like any other woman, when her husband comes home tired out and all he wants is a little rest and quiet, she yammered and muttered and nattered and nittered and yappity-yapp-yapped as hard and as fast as she could. The harvest was good and Njord was keeping well except for his rheumatics and the maids were unreliable and she was short of hams and she didn’t know how she’d have things ready for the Amber Feasts and Scyld was teething or whatever babies do …

‘The new baby,’ I asked, ‘did you have it all right?’

‘Oh yes, it was the most beautiful baby girl, we called her Brunhilda, the loveliest blue eyes, I was keeping it a surprise, I was going to bring her to you in the hall …’

‘What? Didn’t you expose it?’

I mean, what else do you do with girl babies, they’re only an expense. But to my surprise, Freda burst into tears there in the courtyard, and called me brutal and heartless and a beast thinking of my own pleasures and several other choice things. As if she thought that losing an eye and risking death by drowning and thirst and by being eaten alive was pleasure. You never can tell with women, and she didn’t quieten down till I gave her everything I’d taken from Morien, and half a dozen other brooches beside.

It was a good thing I had come back to Asgard. The accounts were in a terrible state, and as for the warehouses. … Everything was piled in hugger-mugger, fur and fish on top of Amber and bronzes, and no records kept. Skirmir’s wife had a silk dress. One day I’d settle with him.