by M. K. Hume
“You sound certain about this witchwoman, Maeve. Is it possible that you’re wrong, and we’ve made a big mistake?”
“You don’t think I’m wrong, do you?” Maeve answered, her eyes far wiser than her years. “I must pray now, for only God can protect us from the king and his paramour. I’ll pray for Stormbringer as well, and Frodhi, because they deserve better than to be killed for the criticisms we made of that bitch. Even now, she’s wheedling the king to finish Stormbringer off for good.”
“Yes, even now,” Arthur agreed.
• • •
A NUMBER OF slow hours passed while Arthur and Eamonn attempted to kill each other in simulated combat with the aid of wooden practice swords. The guards had handed over these children’s weapons with several demeaning jokes, but Arthur had refused to rise to the bait and respond to their good-natured banter. The three guards had watched the mock battles with amusement, even laying modest wagers on who would win each bout.
“These contests aren’t realistic,” Eamonn panted as he blew a lock of dark hair out of his eyes. In the close, dark confines of the storage area their bodies were slick and shiny with sweat and the wooden hilts of their makeshift swords became difficult to grip. Even as he spoke, Eamonn was crouching over his wooden sword with his eyes glued on Arthur’s face.
“You’re far too tall for any equal contest to take place between us because you’ve almost a foot longer reach than me,” Eamonn added, before laughing at the self-evident complaint. “You’ve always beaten me, anyway, so I’m wasting my time by whining.”
“Your opponent tomorrow will also have a height and reach advantage, so you’ll have to cope with it. Practice on me! I doubt, somehow, that my opponent will be short. The king has ruled that we must both win tomorrow, or we both lose. I’ll try to think of some way that we can gain an edge. All opponents have some weakness, regardless of how skillful they are. I can recall Bedwyr telling me that only one man could beat King Artor when the High King was young and almost invincible.”
Arthur was panting for, while Eamonn was smaller, he was an active and elusive target who used his speed to counteract Arthur’s power. Eamonn forced himself to save his breath and responded by raising one dark eyebrow.
“Artor’s sword master, old Targo, was barely five feet four inches in height, if Bedwyr is to be believed. When my father was twelve, they were the same height, proving that length of leg and reach of arms isn’t everything. Artor was growing at a phenomenal rate. Yet, time and time again, Targo would sit Artor on his arse. The years spent fighting for his bread in the legions had given Targo special skills, so he was a perfect example of how good technique can make a small man into a deadly opponent.”
Men of Arthur’s size were usually slow, but the prince was unnaturally quick and his reflexes were excellent. Still, battling against Eamonn was always a difficult proposition.
As they continued, Eamonn’s breathing remained loud in the quiet of the room. Meanwhile, the girls were employed in sewing torn tunics and robes back together, using most of the light while the men were forced to practice in virtual darkness.
“At least we’ll be able to see in the daylight,” Arthur said. His mind kept drifting back to those years when Taliesin had gathered the noble youths of Britain to build a defensive dyke and develop lasting loyalties among the fledgling young warriors from the British tribes.
Suddenly, Arthur swore as Eamonn broke through his guard and slammed his wooden sword onto the prince’s left hand.
“Ouch! That hurt!”
Arthur cursed his own stupidity. Only a fool allowed his mind to wander when they fought Eamonn, son of King Bors.
“Good! If my weapon had an edge, you’d be minus a hand.” Eamonn sounded gleeful at his winning stroke. “You’ve got something to learn about fighting a smaller man as well, so perhaps we’re even.”
He grinned with a flash of white teeth in his darkened face made even swarthier by his stubble of dark beard. Arthur imagined that his own face was also furred and quickly determined to find some way to shave, no matter how difficult it might be.
Eventually, Arthur managed to drive Eamonn into a corner and “dispatched” him. “You’ll have to work on that defense, my friend, or you’ll perish for sure. I haven’t enough friends to be able to afford to lose you.”
“Don’t fret, Arthur. I’m working on an idea or two, although I wouldn’t say they were very honorable.” Arthur presumed that his friend planned to tire his opponent out and then use a low blow to further his advantage.
“Who’s this Frodhi?” Eamonn asked once they’d allowed their muscles to cool. “I gather he’s Stormbringer’s cousin but he’s also the Crow King’s cousin. And I thought the ancestry of the British tribal families was complicated.”
Arthur flexed the fingers of the hand that Eamonn had caught with his wooden sword. Fortunately, there was no swelling and just enough of an ache to remind him to take care on the morrow.
“I’ve no real idea, Eamonn—none! He’s irritating when he’s amusing himself at our expense, but I think he really has Stormbringer’s best interests at heart. Frankly, I don’t know what to make of him.”
“He’s too clever by half,” Eamonn retorted. “He’s the sort of man who makes me wonder about his motives. On the one hand he seems as open as the wide blue sky, but I’ve noticed that he’s careful to guard his feelings with everyone.”
“If all goes well tomorrow, I’ll ask Stormbringer about him,” Arthur promised, although he was sure that Valdar Bjornsen would be insulted by any implied criticism of his kinsman.
At that moment, both young men turned as their noses and stomachs reacted to the wonderful aroma of a hot stew. Arthur had yearned for a hot meal during their weeks at sea. Then, during the past day, they had missed breakfast in the urgency of mooring Loki’s Eye and keeping their appointment with Hrolf Kraki. Consequently, four healthy young animals greeted Stormbringer’s warriors with the excitement that hot food merited.
“Bless him, hot stew!” Maeve said gleefully as she lifted the lid of a large container. She breathed in the aroma of the food as if it had been the finest perfume. “You’re a lovely, lovely man, Stormbringer!”
“And there’s hot water,” Blaise added, as she dipped one finger into a lidded leather bucket that a second warrior set down onto the floor. “We can bathe, Eamonn. I believe he presented us with this just for you to get rid of your smell.”
“At long last—we can shave!” Arthur added his own enthusiastic mite to the general air of celebration. “That is, if one of these fine fellows will lend us a blade that’s sharp enough to remove these beards.”
This final comment was spoken in rough Dene, a suggestion which almost caused the warrior carrying the food to drop the containers in surprise. Eamonn and Arthur quickly helped him to retrieve his burdens, while the girls continued to exclaim over the basket of bread brought in by two more warriors who appeared out of the gloom.
“Look at this, Arthur, he’s found us some armor!” Eamonn exclaimed. “Most of it is metal-reinforced oxhide, but it’s better than nothing at all. And there’re some clean tunics and soft boots.”
Blaise was ecstatic at her discoveries, although she examined the huge second pair of footwear with doubt.
“I don’t think you’ve much chance of fitting into these boots, Eamonn, but perhaps we can stuff the toes with padding.” She caused her friends to laugh by raising one large boot and putting it on her head. Its leather thongs were then tied into a bow under her chin.
“And here’s some mead, and more cold water and . . . heavens!” an incredulous Maeve exclaimed. “It’s milk! Stormbringer has found us some milk!”
“Our captain is a marvel,” Blaise added.
Blaise was aglow with joy, as if she had been given a fine, new Samhain dress. She had never been half so appreciative of much finer gifts in t
he past.
The young companions set about gorging themselves on beef stew flavored and thickened with turnips, swedes, and carrots. Leafy vegetables of some kind provided welcome bulk.
“And there’s no seaweed!” Blaise crowed with pleasure.
With greasy faces, the captives used thick slabs of black bread to sop up the remains of the gravy, leaving the whole pot of stew scoured clean. Their guards were also wolfing down another pot of stew, so Arthur saluted his captors with a gravy-soaked hunk of bread. With much laughter, the guards returned the salute; these brave men too had been surviving on a diet of cold fish soup for months.
As they ate, the men gulped down drafts of mead, while the girls merely sipped on the sweet, potent alcohol and used a little of their precious hot water to dilute its strength. Finally, replete and contented, they surveyed one another, their quarters, and the work that still had to be done before they could devote some time to sleep.
“We have no lengths of cloth to hang that will guarantee the girls some privacy while they bathe, but I’m damned if our sisters should be exposed to the gaze of our guards,” Eamonn said with a smoldering determination in his voice that Arthur found heartening.
Arthur beckoned to one of the guardsmen who possessed a smattering of Saxon to ask if the warriors would be prepared to move to a distant corner of the storage area so the ladies could wash their bodies in private. After some ribald comments in Dene, the warriors agreed and allowed Eamonn and Arthur to join them. The two young Britons used the opportunity to borrow a pair of rather blunt knives for the purpose of shaving.
“We’re finished—so you can come back now,” Maeve eventually called. The men traipsed back to the circle of light created by the pitch torch. The girls sat primly, wrapped tightly in their cloaks. They had used some of the rope that had been neatly coiled atop a barrel in order to create a makeshift clothesline, so their shifts and underclothes of linen were now hanging discreetly from rafter to rafter, creating a temporary division in their living space.
Maeve unbound her wet hair so Blaise could carefully comb the superb abundance of red tresses with a battered comb, another example of Stormbringer’s largesse.
Eamonn and Arthur used the last of the warm water to scrub at two weeks of accumulated salt and grime before sluicing their whole bodies. With a little of the conserved hot water, they used their borrowed knives to scrape away at the remaining stubble on their chins. Very little blood was spilled, although the blades were blunt. Finally, both men took the opportunity to wash some of their more intimate clothing with the very last of the shaving water. Clean now, and with their cloaks wrapped around them for modesty’s sake, they soaked their dirty feet and did what they could to trim their toenails.
Embarrassed, Arthur allowed Blaise to untangle his mane of hair. This intensely private action was embarrassing for both parties, but Blaise persisted. Arthur’s riotous curls disguised the true length of his hair, which had grown almost to his waist. With patience and a little pain, Blaise managed to force it into some kind of order and then carefully plaited his forelocks. Then, once she was satisfied with her efforts, Blaise turned towards her brother with the battered wooden comb in one hand.
“Don’t think you’re coming near me with that thing. I’ll untangle my own hair, thank you very much,” Eamonn complained with a mulish expression on his face.
“You’ll have a painful time of it, judging by the state of that bird’s nest on top of your head,” observed Arthur.
“Humff!”
As Arthur and the girls settled themselves to sleep, they were entertained by the spectacle of Eamonn tearing his hair out at the roots as he fought his way through three weeks of neglect.
Eventually, the captives and their guards slept, for who can escape from the halls of Heorot, where the malign spirits of Grendel and his mother keep guard over all those souls who enter its dark and secretive corners?
Chapter X
BY THE TRUTH OF THEIR BODIES
For the Lord seeth not as man seeth: for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.
—THE BIBLE, 1 SAMUEL 16:7
Arthur felt sick. He flexed his muscles and began a series of exercises designed to warm his body and prepare him for the day that was about to begin.
He had awoken in pitch darkness and, during a moment of panic, had wondered where he was. The floor was still, so he knew he was no longer aboard Loki’s Eye. As the tide of panic gradually subsided, his agile mind began to work and he remembered the disastrous audience with Hrolf Kraki. He stirred and forced himself to his feet, naked under his tangle of cloak, recalling the coming contest when he would be forced to prove his skills as a warrior.
The faint touch of a damp cloth on his face reminded Arthur that his clothes had been left to hang on the makeshift clothesline and would be stiff from the cold morning air. With fumbling hands, he searched along the line for his trews and a tunic, but such was the drug of good food and clean bodies that his companions didn’t stir from their sleep. Then, with a heart heavy for the day ahead, Arthur picked his way towards the faint glow of light that came from the gaps between the closed doors of the hall.
Had he not tripped over one of the sleeping guards in the impenetrable darkness, Arthur might have reached the door without being challenged. But the Dene warrior sprang to his feet with his sword drawn and the blade against Arthur’s throat in an instant. Only by hissing his name had Arthur prevented the guard from splitting his neck from ear to ear.
“I need the latrines,” Arthur stated truthfully.
Fortunately, the warrior knew Arthur well and remembered his contribution during the storm at sea, so he grumbled, hawked, and spat before sheathing his sword and leading his charge out into the dark and damp morning.
With some difficulty, both men had hauled one of the great doors of Heorot open, a movement that alerted Hrolf Kraki’s guards, who had been on picket duty around the building throughout the long night. In a light drizzle, they were sheltering in the lee of the hall as they tried to keep warm. While the warriors’ speech was far too rapid for Arthur’s limited understanding, the young man lost his concentration and looked around him from his vantage point on the cobbled forecourt of Heorot.
At first glance, the village below seemed to be asleep. Then Arthur saw lights in the narrow windows and signs of workers abroad in the outbuildings as they milked cows, collected eggs, and fed the pigs and other livestock.
Mist and fog boiled up to the steps of Heorot from the fjord, where only the top of the mast of Loki’s Eye was visible. The mist dissipated slightly as it rose through the narrow streets of the town but, from the flat forecourt, Arthur felt as if he was standing high in the sky in Stormbringer’s Asgaad and was gazing downwards, godlike, on the small ants of humanity laboring below.
The mists not only concealed, but they deadened the sounds of human activity within a rolling blanket of whiteness. The rasping of the guards’ feet on the cobbles sounded unnaturally loud and intrusive in this dripping-wet world.
A feeling of intense loss swept over Arthur. He hungered for the close and misty skies of Britain, and homesickness struck with such suddenness that his eyes filled with tears. Below him and to his right, half-seen trees reminded him of Arden, where he had climbed into the treetops and seen the crowns of great oaks rise out of autumnal mists like heavy green and gold clouds. Then, as he bent to touch the slick, wet cobbles of this foreign land, he swore that he would return to his homeland one day. He would once more climb his tree and carve his own place in the world now owned by the Saxons, who would forever be his mortal enemies.
And, once ensconced again in the bosom of his homeland, he would discuss the fate of Gilchrist with Bran, although neither man would gain any satisfaction from such a conversation.
The common latrine was relatively clean and discreet, but the smell drew Arthur’s a
ttention long before he saw it. With a brief nod to his guard, he relieved himself without embarrassment while the hall’s warriors examined him closely to see if he possessed marked physical differences to them.
“Just when I credit the Dene with good common sense, they prove themselves to be backwards in such surprising ways,” Arthur said aloud in his own language, his voice heavy with irony. “Ah, well. Perhaps it’s time to dress and prepare myself for what is coming.”
Although the Green Dragon of the Deep had promised him that he would prevail, he was aware that he stood on a knife’s edge, where the slightest error could cost him his life and jeopardize the girls’ safety. Besides, what power could a dream possess? And how could Eamonn hope to succeed if he sensed Arthur had doubts for the success of the trials that lay ahead of him?
“If you want my bones in your fine ossuary, Beast of the Boneyard, you’ll need to wait until the oceans boil and turn you into so much cooked meat,” he added. His voice was so clipped and aggressive that the guards shifted carefully with their hands on the hilts of their swords.
“Can you point me to clean water to wash my face and hands?” Arthur asked his guard in stumbling Dene. “I apologize for causing concern to your friends this morning, but I was very nervous—as I’m sure you understand. But you can be sure that I’m determined to perform at my best, regardless of the strength of the warrior that your king selects as my opponent.”
The warrior pointed laconically at a large butt of rainwater against a wall at the back of the hall. Meanwhile, he repeated the explanation given by Arthur to his compatriots. The hall guards laughed, and Arthur heard one name spoken with awe and a certain degree of reverence—Thorketil, the Hammer of Thor.
So Thorketil is my opponent, Arthur thought, while breaking a thin skin of ice from the top of the water. He forced himself to display a feigned nonchalance as he doused his face, hair, and hands in the freezing liquid.
