by Scott Oden
A woman’s voice rose over the din. The attackers paused in their efforts so they might listen to her song—a song that was familiar to Étaín, in a tongue she spoke fluently:
Lo, I see here our fathers and mothers.
Lo, now I see our sisters and our brothers.
Lo, here is my husband, who is standing at the doors of Valhalla.
With him stand the Einherjar, who await Ragnarok.
He calls to me, so let me go to him.
Lo, do I see the daughters of Odin, the Choosers of the Slain!
The silence held for a moment before the clamor and clangor of the siege resumed.
“They’re Danes,” Étaín said, unable to believe what she’d heard. “The people inside Nunna’s Ford are Danes!”
“They came last year,” a voice behind them said. Quick as a snake, Grimnir twisted, drawing his seax in the same motion; for a heartbeat, Étaín saw a starveling Saxon standing there, his young face pale and thin. A few wisps of blond hair struggled to take root on the point of his chin. Then the youth recoiled, as much from the sight of naked steel as from the blazing red eyes and bared fangs of the one holding it. “Almighty Christ!” was all he had time to say before Grimnir’s fingers wrapped around his throat.
Grimnir slammed the young Saxon against the wall; a homemade shank of sharpened deer antler slipped from the lad’s grasp and clattered to the ground. He glanced down at it, then fixed the youth with a murderous stare. “Little fool!”
“Wait!” Étaín said. She hurried to Grimnir’s side. “Who came last year? Let him speak. Who came last year?”
Grimnir loosened his grip on the boy’s throat a fraction. “Answer her!”
“D-Danes,” he gasped. “Forkbeard’s army. They came last year and drove King Æthelred away. This lot took Nunna’s Ford, killed my da and shamed my ma. Not seen my sisters since.”
“Svein Forkbeard?” Étaín said. “The king of the Danes? Impossible! He was quarreling with the king of Norway, last year!”
“Well, he was quarreling with the king of Wessex, too!” the lad said. “Got his dander up a few years back after Æthelred killed his sister and every other fucking Dane in Wessex on Saint Brice’s Day. The lot of them deserved it, I’d say! Evil bastards and Forkbeard’s the worst! May God rot his bones!”
Étaín scowled. She started to speak, but Grimnir cut her off.
“Is Half-Dane with him?”
The young Saxon shrugged, looking at a loss.
Grimnir tightened his grip on the Saxon’s throat. “I said, is Half-Dane with him, you milk-blooded maggot?”
The lad’s face purpled. “N-Never … never heard of … h-him…”
Étaín tugged at Grimnir’s arm. “Perhaps King Forkbeard reached an accord with King Olaf; they are both good Christians, and both would not easily forgive Half-Dane’s betrayal,” she said. “He might be an outlaw among his own people.”
With a snarl, Grimnir turned the young Saxon loose. “Makes sense,” he admitted, but grudgingly.
The lad stared at them, rubbing his throat. His eyes narrowed to slits brimming with suspicion. “What game are you playing at? King Olaf? He was killed years ago. My ma always said his death was the work of the Devil.”
Étaín and Grimnir exchanged glances. She looked at the lad like he was addled. “Olaf Tryggve’s son is not dead,” she said.
“Go on!” the Saxon replied. “The heathens killed him at Svolder, the same year my ma said I was born. The Great Year.”
“That … That c-can’t be,” stammered Étaín. “The Great Year … this … this is the Great Year…” The color leached from her face as surely as if she had taken a knife and opened an artery. By her reckoning, this was the spring of what the abbot of Eynsham had called the Great Year—anno Domini 1000, the End of Days, when the Lord was set to return. With a trembling hand she crossed herself. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”
“What?” Grimnir said.
But Étaín didn’t hear him. She paced back and forth, agitated. “It makes sense. Impossible, God-forsaken sense. The devastation, why nothing he says is familiar … God preserve me!” She clasped her hands together, afraid to ask the next question. Afraid the boy’s answer would confirm her as either damned or insane. “What … What year is it, now?”
The young Saxon almost chuckled, but a look from Grimnir wiped the smile from his lips.
“What year?”
“The priests say it’s the year of our Lord one thousand and fourteen.” The Saxon crossed himself, as well.
Étaín expected rage from Grimnir. She expected a black tirade of curses and threats ending in yet another display of violence; with Grimnir’s vengeance denied once more, she was certain the young Saxon had breathed his last with those words. But the skrælingr simply released him. The youth slid to the floor, rubbing his bruised throat, as Grimnir turned away.
Étaín sank down on her knees. She felt sick. “Fifteen years? In less than a day? How is that possible? How—?”
Grimnir hissed her to silence. He muttered under his breath in the tongue of his people, a harsh and guttural language, before slipping back into the speech of the Danes. “… must be what Gífr meant, that poxy bastard. He never could speak plain. Time has no meaning across the branches of Yggðrasil. Time! A day, a week, a month? What of it? Time means nothing between the worlds.”
“We could go back to Heathen’s Howe,” Étaín said. “Go back and reenter the doorway … you remember the words the dwarf used to open it, surely? We could return to the Danemark.”
Grimnir laughed. “Oh, aye! And what happens when we find ourselves a hundred years out of sorts, eh? Nár! I’ll take what we’ve got and thank the Sly One for it. But if that wretch Half-Dane still dwells in Wessex after fifteen years I’ll kneel to your Nailed God.” He walked to the door and stared out at the siege, his eyes blazing as bright as the fires below.
Étaín thought of Njáll—injured and alone. Had he survived? Had he come for her? Had he searched high and low, year after year, and finally given her up for dead? Étaín’s heart ached for her Danish friend, so much like the husband and protector she always wanted but never had in her old life. Tears coursed down her cheeks as she bowed her head and prayed. “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name…”
3
Forgotten for the moment, the young Saxon gingerly massaged his neck, dabbing at the welling blood drawn by the beast’s black-nailed claws. He glared at the pair of them; there was hatred in his eyes, cold and malicious, as he quietly got his feet beneath him. He made only the barest hint of a sound as he backed away, retracing his steps. This was his ground, his element. He was a skulker. And he knew exactly how to make this Dane-loving bitch and her demon pay. Smiling, the lad faded into the shadows.
4
It was the faint crunch of a rotting tile beneath his heel that gave the Saxon away. Grimnir whirled, snarling a curse. Before he could stop him, the whelp hared off into the night.
“Spies!” he bawled at the top of his lungs. “Spies! Danes in the ruin!”
The Saxon’s cry echoed even over the tumult of the siege. It reached the camp of the army attacking Nunna’s Ford, well back from the lines and nestled at the foot of the hill, where those not engaged in battering down the walls of the town took their leisure. Wounded soldiers heard the warning and added their own voices to it; it spread to the camp followers, to the sutlers and the whores, the blacksmiths and the fletchers, who added their shouts to the din.
“Danes in the ruin!”
Gimlet-eyed, Grimnir saw soldiers turning. He saw their captain, a hard-looking bastard with a beard like rust, twist in the saddle; the man gestured to a green-cloaked lieutenant, a rawboned man clad in the leather-and-mail of a Welsh prince. Nodding, he cantered over to the few rogues held in reserve—men chafing for some measure of glory. After a bit of jostling, Grimnir watched a score of torch-bearing West Saxons, mounted and on foot, peel off from the reserves and follow their lieut
enant up the hill.
Grimnir hawked a mouthful of phlegm and spat. He rasped his seax back and forth in its scabbard and rolled the kinks from his shoulders. “Off your knees, foundling,” he snarled. “Time to leg it, and quick!”
5
Étaín did not move. She did not react to the young Saxon’s flight, nor to Grimnir’s warning; she paid no heed to the jingle of harness and the shouts of the men charging up the hill at them. She remained there on her knees in the flickering orange glow of bonfires—her head bowed, her eyes closed, and her voice a low murmur as she continued with her prayers.
“It’ll be close but if we skin out now we can make it back across the stream before that rabble reaches us.” Grimnir hurried past, snatching at the shoulder of her habit.
Étaín shook him off. She didn’t look at him, didn’t rise and follow; instead, she settled back on her knees and resumed praying.
Grimnir stopped and glared at her. “No time for games, little fool!” He grabbed her again, this time by the scruff. “Let’s go, I said!”
Étaín came roaring off her knees. She shoved Grimnir away, punching him in his mailed chest. “Then go, God damn you. Go! Run, you miserable bastard! I’m done with you!”
The vehemence in her voice stunned even Grimnir. He blinked, staring at her through slitted eyes as if truly seeing her for the first time. “Those whiteskins are out for blood,” he said slowly. “Looking for a pair of Danes. We—”
“Then what do I have to fear?” Étaín replied. “I am no Dane. I am West Saxon, you fool. Wipe that snarl off your face! What are you going to do? Kill me? Then have at it!” She bared her throat to him. “Draw your blade and end this wretched hell you’ve dragged me into! Everything I’ve ever known and loved is a thousand miles and fifteen years in the past. Because of you, you miserable bastard! You and your insane quest to kill some other miserable bastard I’ve never heard of. Well, God damn you and your revenge! Kill me, if that’s your answer! Strike me down and have done! No? Then run!” Étaín shoved him, again. “Run, little goblin! Run and find a hole to hide in! Join your wretched kin in the shadows!”
Wrath blazed in Grimnir’s eyes. He took a step toward her, but Étaín didn’t flinch; her ice-blue gaze gave back the same measure of heat. His lips curled in a snarl of hate, and slowly he leaned forward and spat at her feet.
“Good riddance, foundling,” he hissed. “But remember this: when you tell them how much of a West Saxon you are, make sure your Danish accent doesn’t betray you, eh?” And Grimnir bared his teeth as the slightest flicker of apprehension creased her forehead.
Outside the ruin, men shouted; mail clashed and hooves thudded, tearing at the earth. The soldiers were close, now. Étaín stiffened, her eyes drawn by a torch, slung by a horseman, arching over the wall of the ruined villa. It struck the mosaicked floor in an explosion of embers. She turned back …
Grimnir was gone.
Étaín nodded. And good riddance to him, too. She smoothed her filthy habit as she exhaled and conjured forth the spirit of good Brother Aidan—Aidan of Wessex, who vanished fifteen years ago on the road to Roskilde, on a pilgrimage to convert the heathen. She exhaled. Étaín wished for a psalter and a crucifix, some banner to uphold so the good Christians out there would recognize her instantly as one of their own. She had nothing. Not even a cross around her neck.
It will surely be enough if I but put my trust in the Lord. The Almighty will provide a way.
Étaín drew up her hood, squared her shoulders, and walked out the front of the villa with all the confidence of a priest shielded by the armor of faith. Soldiers pounded up the slope—Saxons in corselets of leather and mail, their trousers dull and filthy, with horsemen cantering along their flanks. They shouted at one another, a cacophony of voices she could not precisely understand.
Étaín crossed herself. “Good men of Wessex!” she shouted, raising her arms to get their attention. “Hear me!” The green-cloaked lieutenant spurred his mount forward; he cut across the front, thundering straight for her with his sword drawn. She fought down the urge to flee. “Hear me, I said!”
“Shut your mouth, Danish scum!” the horseman roared. He swung at Étaín, who danced away from the blow.
“Wait!”
The horseman spun his mount and leveled his sword at her. “Take him alive! Search the ruin! The boy said there were two of them!”
“Listen to me, please!” Étaín held her arms up, imploring the horseman’s attention. She didn’t see the foot soldiers charging up behind her. She didn’t see one of them swinging the butt of his spear like a club. “Please—”
“Danish bastard!” The haft of one soldier’s spear cracked across Étaín’s shoulders. She screamed in pain, twisting away from the blow. A second spear butt caught her along the base of the skull. She stumbled forward, her vision awash in blood-tinged spots of light.
“D-don’t … p-please…”
The last blow was the lieutenant’s boot. His heel smashed into her forehead, dropping her like a marionette with its strings cut.
6
Grimnir bolted out the back of the villa. With every skidding step down the ancient path to the stream, he cursed under his breath. “Old fool. Soft in the head, is what you are. Should have just grabbed her up … hauled her out of there like a sack of barley!”
Grimnir hesitated on the banks of the ford alongside the mill. He swore and spat. “Ymir’s blood!” This unaccustomed dithering, he told himself, had nothing to do with any great sense of loyalty he felt toward Étaín, nor did it come from any concern for her plight. No, the little wretch could rot in her Nailed God’s hell for all he cared. But he still needed someone who knew their way around this godforsaken pisshole of a country, and that meant going back for his wayward hymn-singer. Grimnir swore again. He unconsciously clenched and unclenched his clawed fist as he weighed his options …
Suddenly, he glared back at the villa, baring his teeth in a reckless grin. “I am no old woman, to run and hide from trouble. That little fool is mine! Let those milk-blooded Saxon whoresons try and take her from me.” All hesitation vanished. He spun round and had taken three bounding steps back up the path when the question became moot: a horseman, the green-cloaked lieutenant, barreled around the corner of the ruin.
Quick as a fox, Grimnir dropped to a crouch and scuttled into the undergrowth alongside the path. Even still, the horse caught his scent; the creature shied, ears flattened in fear. Grimnir’s slitted eyes gleamed like embers in the darkness as he watched the rider struggle to control his mount.
A dozen or more Saxons boiled out of the ruin and around the far side—hard-looking men eager for a fight, bearing torch and sword or taut-stringed bows. “He’s not inside!” one of them hollered.
“Fan out,” the rider said, gesturing with his torch. He was no Welshman, after all, but a dark-haired Saxon, his unkempt beard threaded with silver. “Wulfric! Can you track him?”
“Aye, Cynewulf.” A leather-clad archer stepped to the fore, older than the others, his body thin as whipcord and knotted with gristle. He handed off his bow and took a guttering torch from one of the other soldiers. “The rest of you little bastards stand ready. I’ll flush this whoreson out,” he said.
Grimnir watched as this man, Wulfric, read the damp ground; he knew what he would see: churned earth, bent grass, the spoor of Étaín’s slender foot alongside his own heavier sandal prints. Grimnir hoped the man was not much use as a tracker, but he recognized patience; saw the Saxon’s brow furrow as he let the ground tell the tale. Wulfric was a hunter. Grimnir breathed a foul oath as he drew near.
“He’s a big sheep-fucker, this Dane,” Wulfric muttered. A spear’s length from Grimnir’s hiding place, he crouched and touched a print in the loam with his free hand, studying its outline in the greasy light of his torch. “Long stride, heavy.”
Unseen, Grimnir tensed, lips peeling back in a snarl. He dropped his hand to the hilt of his seax.
Wulfric stood.
He raised his torch, peering into the undergrowth. “He came this way! If the Almighty be with us—”
Grimnir did not give him a chance to finish. With a blood-chilling howl, he burst out from the foliage; his seax hissed from its scabbard. Driven by muscles of spring steel and twisted iron, the blade crunched through Wulfric’s wrist on the upswing. The Saxon screamed as hand and torch spun away. Before he could react, Grimnir stepped in and drove a balled fist into his sternum. Bone shattered. The blow crushed Wulfric’s chest like a mace; he hit the ground a corpse, body crumpling into a lanky heap. His fallen torch struck the damp earth and snuffed itself out in an explosion of sparks. Grimnir faded away in the sudden darkness.
Cynewulf bellowed a warning. Bowstrings twanged. Grimnir, whose eyes were better suited to worlds of gloom and shadow, watched their arrows fly wide of the mark. Saxons charged down the path, their torches flaring. He retreated from the circles of light until the waters of the ford lapped at his ankles. He considered creeping into the ruined mill—that edifice squatting like a mossy stone toad to his left—but thought better of it. Too easily could it turn from trap to tomb. No, he needed room to move. Wraithlike, making barely a sound above the splashing water, Grimnir disappeared back across the ford.
7
The darkness exploded with agonizing jags of orange light, each one a hot knife that pierced Étaín’s eyes and buried itself in her skull. She felt hands on her, rough and callused; hands that hurled her down upon the churned earth, the cold mud reeking with the fetid stench of rot and human waste. Étaín vomited. She rolled on her back and pried her eyes open; soldiers surrounded her, Saxons whose dull and vicious expressions reflected only the basest desires of the soul. They were angry; they wanted joints of beef, tankards of ale, and some golden-haired Danish whores to service them. They wanted to live, fight, fuck, and loot before going home to toil again under their lord’s lash. Étaín saw all this in their faces, in the eyes that glared at her with unvarnished hate.
