Hrolf Kraki's Saga (24 page)

“Gladly will I do as you wish,” said Bjarki, “but I think it’s unmanly to throw offal at anyone or deal badly with children and weaklings.”

“Then you do well,” said the woman, catching his hands in her own worn fingers, “for these look mighty to me, and my Hott could never stand before your blows.”

Bjarki bade the old couple farewell and rode on according to the way they had told him. The rain was past, the sky dazzling, sunlight asparkle on puddles in the brown earth and on wet boughs where a few leaves still flamed. Starlings flocked, robins hopped in fields, curlews whistled merrily through a cool damp breeze. Bjarki paid scant heed. A scowl was on his brow. He had not looked to find king’s men who behaved like trolls.

Heath and marsh gave way to richer country, where
steadings stood plentiful and cattle drowsed rust-red behind fences. Here many folk went to and fro. Bjarki stopped to talk with some. Maidens smiled at the red-haired giant, but he was not in a mood for them today. The questions he asked in his thick Upland burr had to do with King Hrolf and the royal household.

Aye, said the yeomen, this was a good king, a wise and righteous king, withal strong to fend off rovers from abroad or ride down outlaws and hang them…. Well, yes, his troopers were an unruly lot; he really ought to curb them, but no doubt he had too much else on his mind…. He’d been away this summer. Year before last, he’d brought King Hjörvardh of Fyn under him and (ha!) his sister under Hjörvardh. With his rear thus made safe, all the islands in his grip, he was going after the Jutish realms. Once he had those likewise, an honest man could till his fields and never dread outside onslaught. Of course, first the king must spy out the Jutland shores. So he’d only taken a few shiploads of warriors along this season. The rest had stayed home in Leidhra and, aye, in their idleness gotten above themselves…. The king should be home any day, now when the fall storms were come. Maybe he already was. A yeoman wouldn’t know about that. Yeomen had their work to do, butchering time and so forth. Let the great folk see to their own, hey?

Bjarki rode on along the stream. In the afternoon, Leidhra lifted before him.

At this time of year, when little traveling was done, the stronghold lay quiet within its stockade, gates open and unwatched. Women, children, thralls, craftsmen were much about, but few warriors. Bjarki supposed most of those were off hunting or whatever. He rode through muddy ways to the richly carved wooden cliffsides of the royal hall. Flagstones in the courtyard rang beneath his horse’s hoofs. He dismounted at the stables. “Put mine in beside the king’s best,” he told a groom, “give him oats and water, curry him well, and stow my gear in a clean corner till I send for it.” The man gaped after him.

In costly clothes, a knife and the sword Lövi at his waist, but wearing neither helmet nor mail, Bjarki strolled into the main chamber of the hall. However dim and smoky when he had trod straight in from beneath the sky, it was sunnier and airier than he had thought such a place could be. Bright shields, broad horns, fair skins, sconced rushlights, birch wainscoting lined the walls. The figures on panels and on the roof-pillars were of beasts, vines, and heroes; he saw no gods among them. The posts of the high seat bore Skjold and Gefion. A few workers moved over the juniper boughs on the floor, which lent their freshness to the air, and a few hounds lay about. Otherwise the reach of the room seemed empty. The Norseman sat down on a bench, near the door, and waited for whatever might happen.

Soon he heard a rattling in a farther corner. His eyes used to the inside, he could make out a heap of bones over there. A hand was just coming above the top. Bjarki rose and strode close. The hand, he saw, was nastily black. He wrinkled his nose at the stench of rotting shreds of meat. “Who’s in here?” he called.

A youth’s voice, thin and frightened, said, “I… I… I’m named Hott, wellborn lord.”

“What are you doing?”

“I am m-m-making me a shield-burg, lord—”

“Woeful is your shield-burg.” Bjarki reached in, got hold of an arm, and in a clatter hauled forth the one who had crouched behind the pile.

A skinny shape writhed, helpless in the big man’s grasp. The voice yammered: “Now you’ll slay me! Don’t do that—not when I’d fixed it this well! You’ve pulled down my shield-burg—”

Bjarki peered. Hott was about fifteen, he guessed, tall but wretchedly thin. His locks were so tangled and greasy that one had trouble seeing they were yellow; his face seemed to be all sharp nose and huge eyes; he shook in his kirtle. “I was laying it high around me to keep off the bones you’ll throw,” he sobbed. “It was almost f-f-finished.”

“You’ll need it no longer,” said Bjarki.

Hott shriveled. “Do you mean … to slay me … right away, lord?”

“Don’t whimper that loud,” said Bjarki. He must give a cuff or two before the starveling quieted down. Then he picked up the form, gone limp from dread, and bore him outside. It was not far to the nearest stockade gates. A short ways beyond, he had seen how the stream widened to make a pool. Few paid him any heed.

Bjarki hauled the filthy tatters off the boy, pitched him into the pool, knelt and hand-scrubbed him till no boiled lobster could have been more clean or red. Rising, he jerked a thumb at the kirtle and said, “You wash that wipe-rag yourself.”

Hott obeyed, and trotted dripping after him when he returned to the hall. Bjarki took the same place on a bench as before. He pulled the lad down beside him. Hott could speak no two words. He shuddered in every limb and joint, though he saw through the haze of fear that the stranger wanted to help him.

Dusk fell. The king’s warriors began to drift in. They spied the newcomer and hailed him well, for this household was proud of its hospitality. One asked Bjarki what he was here for. “I thought of joining your troop, if the king will have me,” said the Norseman.

“Well, you’re in luck,” said the guard, “for he’s come home this very evening. He’s tired and dines in his own tower along of a few best friends. Tomorrow you can see him, and surely he’ll take on as stout a fellow as you.” He leered at the cowering Hott. “Kick that sniveler aside, though,” he warned. “Over-bold are you to set him … it… among men.”

Bjarki glowered. The guard looked up and down his bulk, decided not to press the matter, and swaggered off. Hott started to go. Bjarki clamped onto his wrist. “Stay,” said the Norseman.

“B-b-but they’ll kill me—for sure—when they get drunk … if I dare sit here,” blubbered the stripling. “I’ve g-g-got to work and—let me go build up my shield-burg again!”

“Stay,” said Bjarki. He kept hold of the wrist. Hott might as well have tried to drag away a mountain.

The longfires were stoked, the trestle tables brought in, food heaped on trenchers and horns filled with drink. Bjarki and Hott sat alone. None of the men would have that butt of scorn for benchmate. The more they drank, the more they glared at him, as did the kitchen servants he was supposed to help.

At last the warriors began casting small bones his way. Bjarki acted as if he did not see. Hott was too frightened to take either meat or mead. Bjarki, who could now let go of him because he dared not move out into the open, ate and boused for two.

Loud grew the uproar of voices above the fire-crackle; dogs barked and growled in the smokiness. Suddenly light flickered red on a huge thighbone which flew through the air. That was a thing which could kill.

Bjarki hooked it in midflight, inches from the skull of shrieking Hott. Rising, he took aim at him who had thrown it, and cast it back. Straight to the head it went. There was a
crack
, and the guard toppled dead.

Horror yelled through the hall. Men snatched weapons and boiled toward Bjarki. He thrust Hott behind him. His sword Lövi he did not draw, but he rested hand on hilt, knocked over the first few attackers with his fist, and thundered that he wanted to see the king.

Word came to Hrolf in his tower room. That was a broad chamber, paneled in different woods, giving on a gallery which overlooked the courtyard, more simply furnished than might have been awaited from so rich a lord. He had eaten, and sat quietly drinking and talking with Svipdag, Hvitserk, Beigadh, a few others who had been along on this summer’s faring.

A pair of troopers thudded up the ladder and panted their news: that a bear-sized warrior had come into the hall and killed one of their number. Should they cut him down out of hand?

Hrolf stroked his short coppery-gold beard. “Was the man slain without cause?” he asked.

“Yes … yes, so to speak,” said the talebearer.

In the same mild tone, King Hrolf wanted to know just what had happened. The whole truth came forth.

Then he sat straight on the bench, winter came into his eyes, and they remembered that this slight, soft-spoken man was the son of Helgi the Bold. “By no means will you get leave to slay him,” he said; they flinched at each word. “Here you’ve given yourself back to that foul habit of casting bones at harmless folk. It’s to my dishonor, and the worst of shames. Often have I scolded you, but you would not heed. By Mimir’s hewn-off head, the time is overpast that you got a lesson. Bring the man before me!”

Amidst bristling steel, Bjarki entered. He seemed quite unruffled. “Greeting, my lord,” he said proudly.

Hrolf looked at him for a while. “What is your name?” he asked.

“Your guardsmen call me Hott-fence,” laughed the Norseman, “but I hight Bjarki, son of Björn who was son of the Upland king.”

“What do you think you should give me for my follower whom you killed?”

“Nothing, lord. He fell on his own deed.”

“M-m-m, I must deal with his kinfolk…. Well, will you become my man and take his place?”

“I’d not turn that down, lord. Not in itself. However, Hott and I must not be parted because of it, and we must both be seated closer to you than the other fellow was. Else we’ll fare off.”

The king frowned. “I see no gain to be gotten from Hott,” he said. After looking anew into the face above him: “Still, he can always have food here.”

Bjarki took oath at once on the sword Skofnung. No one thought to demean this by asking Hott to do the same. The Norseman went back to the hall, beckoned the youth to him, and looked for a place to sit. He did not choose the best; nor did he take the worst. Nearer to the high seat than was intended for him, he pitched three men sprawling off the bench, and put himself and Hott there. When angry words arose, he shrugged and said, “I’ve seen how good the manners are hereabouts.” King
Hrolf likewise told the men they could not gripe if they too were bullied.

Thus Bjarki and Hott abode for some weeks in the hall. None dared do anything against them, and slowly the boy put on weight and began to stop flinching. But none would be their friends either.

V

As it drew toward Yule, folk grew fearful. Bjarki asked Hott what this came from.

Hott shivered: “The beast.”

“Stop clapping your teeth and talk like a man,” Bjarki said.

The tale stumbled forth. “For two winters, a great and horrible beast has come hither, this time of year, a winged and flying thing. Widely it harries, killing among herds and flocks; nobody can build byres for all they may own. That was what wrecked my parents’ livelihood and sent me here.”

“This hall is not as well manned as I thought, if a beast can freely work harm on the kingdom and the holdings of the king.”

“The men have tried to kill it. Their weapons didn’t bite, and some of the best of them never came home. It’s no beast, really, we think. It’s a troll.” Hott glanced around and brought his lips to Bjarki’s ear. “I’ve overheard Svipdag and his brothers wonder if it’s not a sending of the witch-queen Skuld. They say she broods bitterly over being wed to a mere scot-king, there by Odin’s Lake where thralls are drowned to honor the One-Eyed.”

Afraid to speak further, he scurried away to work. He had become the Norseman’s groom, scrubber, fetch-and-carry knave. Between tasks he got bruising training in the use of weapons, which he hated and tried vainly to beg off.

At Yule Eve the offerings were ill-attended, since none dared be out from under a roof after dark. The feast in the royal hall was glum. King Hrolf stood forth and said: “Hear me! My will is that everyone keep still and calm
tonight. I forbid my men to go against that fiend. Let it do with the kine whatever luck may choose; but I do not want to lose any more of you.”

“Aye, lord, aye, aye,” said the relieved voices. Bjarki sat quiet, unheeded.

The fires guttered low. The king and the leman he then had went to his tower. The guardsmen stretched out on the benches, wrapped in blankets. They had been drinking hard to quell their fears, and soon the gloom was loud with snores.

Bjarki arose. He prodded Hott, who slept on the floor below him. “Follow me,” he whispered.

He had marked where in the foreroom his battle gear was, and fetched this in the dark. Outside, the night stretched cold and silent, clear and starry, a crooked moon casting wanness over hoarfrost and the smoke of breath. Bjarki laid his mail and underpadding on the flagstones. “Help me into this,” he bade.

Hott smothered a wail. “Master, you don’t mean to—”

“I do mean to tie your backbone in a knot if you wake anybody. Stop that whining and give me a hand!”

By the time Bjarki was armored, Hott was too frightened to walk. “You, you, you’ll lead me into danger of my life,” he moaned.

“Oh, belike it’ll go better than that,” Bjarki said. “Move along.” The youth could not. Bjarki picked him up, slung him over a shoulder, and strode from the garth. Getting a horse would have made too much noise.

They heard racket enough shortly after they had gone out a gate of the burg. Cows bawled in terror, from one of the king’s own meadows a mile thence. Bjarki broke into a hammering trot over the frozen ground, along the darkly sheening stream. Near the meadow, this broadened somewhat into a bog, where dead reeds poked stiffly out of ice.

Above the pen, a shadow blotted out stars. Through the cattle-clamor beat a leathery rustle and a rushing as of mighty winds. “The beast, the beast!” Hott shrieked. “It’s coming to swallow me! O-o-o-oh—”