Even in her grief, though, she knew she could never give him a funeral pyre. Instead, she decided to have him buried in a barrow so that she could visit him every day and pretend he was still there, waiting for her return.
She arose early on the day of the burial. Not because she couldn’t sleep but because she wanted a quiet moment alone with her husband before he was gone from her forever. Sigrun threw back the bedclothes before it was even light. She chose the dark of pre-dawn so that she could imagine that Helgi was there with her, that he still breathed.
Even with the protective fire burning, it was dark in the room as she entered it. As she knelt before him, in the earl’s longhouse, she could imagine that his chest still rose and fell, that he was merely sleeping, waiting for her to wake him with a kiss.
Tears ran silently down her cheeks as she stared at Helgi, at his perfect physique. Her fingers followed the familiar battle scars, the ones she had traced a multitude of times before when he was still alive.
“I will never leave you, Helgi,” she whispered, leaning forward and resting her cheek against his. “We may be parted now, but I will always find you.”
Helgi didn’t reply even though Sigrun waited.
The earl’s wife entered the room, disturbing Sigrun. She leaned back, embarrassed to be found in such a personal embrace with her dead husband.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” the woman said before ducking back out of the room.
When the woman was gone, Sigrun leaned back in, draping her arms around Helgi’s cold shoulders. “I will avenge your death, my love. Dag will pay for what he has done to us. I have made sure that he suffers.”
And, in Sigrun’s grief, she imagined that Helgi smiled at her.
After seeing Helgi in private, she was now prepared to share him with the rest of the town. She was ready to bury her husband.
No, she would never be ready for that. Instead, she was resigned to the fact her husband would lay cold in the ground for ever more without her.
The village gathered around her as she marched towards Helgi’s burial barrow. Men had worked hard to dig it out. Now it lay like an open wound in the hillside, its maw opened wide and Sigrun wished it would consume her as well as Helgi.
Their children walked alongside Sigrun, except for Fell, who was secured in her wrap. He had suckled on her breast at the start of the journey. Now, he watched the landscape pass him by as Sigrun trudged along at the head of the crowd. His eyes drooped yet he fought the urge to sleep and Sigrun wished her life were as simple as his.
Sigrun stopped suddenly, her son’s head rocking back and bumping her chest. She closed her eyes briefly at the sight of the rocks laid out to represent a longship.
Opening her eyes, she saw many of the grave goods she had personally selected. Helgi’s favourite clothes, his weapons of choice. Some swords had been reserved to give to his sons, the rest were to follow him to Valhalla. However, there were many more items inside the grave. The community had gathered, all helping to contribute to Helgi’s afterlife wealth.
In the centre, was Helgi.
Sigrun wailed when she saw him lying there like he was merely sleeping. She dropped to her knees, covering Fell as she did so in an effort to protect the small child. She rocked forwards and wailed out her misery.
Chapter 18: HELGI
“What am I doing here?” Helgi looked around himself with confusion. Tendrils of memories darted quickly through his mind, giving him reason to believe something horrible had happened. “Where am I?”
“You are in Valhalla.”
Helgi turned and looked at the man beside him. He was tall, with a wide hat holding down white grizzled hair. When the man turned to look at him, Helgi could see the jagged flap of skin over one eye and he knew what was going on. “I have died, haven’t I?”
Odin nodded at him and Helgi felt a jolt through his heart. “Sigrun, poor Sigrun. How will she cope?”
As he spoke, it started to rain. Helgi frowned as he reached out his hands and let the water fall onto them. Did it really rain in Valhalla like it did in Midgard?
“She is the cause of this rain,” Odin replied. “Her grief is consuming her and every time she cries over your barrow, it rains here in Valhalla.”
Helgi clutched at his chest, the pain of his wife’s grief too much for him. Could he die here? If he did so, would he be reborn once more to become the lover of his Valkyrie wife? He wanted to ask Odin but also didn’t want to know the answers to his questions.
“I need to go back to her,” Helgi finally said, turning around frantically, looking for some way home, some way back to his wife.
Odin reached out and clasped his hand around Helgi’s wrist. “You can’t leave Valhalla, there are no doors out of here for humans such as yourself.” The god looked bitter as he spoke the words.
“Not even for the likes of me?” Helgi asked, knowing very well that his and Sigrun’s lives were different from other mortal humans.
“For the time being, even for you,” Odin replied quietly. “However, I am not without a heart. I will allow you the concession of seeking your own revenge for your untimely death. It will help you to fill in time until Sigrun joins you once more.”
Helgi cocked his head at Odin, unsure of what the god meant. “Is this some kind of joke?” Helgi said. He had heard enough stories about the gods to know they could be petty and use humans merely for their own amusement.
“No, it isn’t,” Odin replied. “What has happened to you and Sigrun should never have occurred, and I am sorry for that.”
“You had a part in this?” Helgi asked, suddenly furious at the god. His memory was now returning as he spoke about the situation and he remembered the way in which Dag had killed him. “That was your spear!”
Odin stood like a bolder, still and impenetrable. Helgi wanted to clench his fist and punch the god. “Yes, I had something to do with your death. However, Freya has made me see the error of my ways and now I am offering you the only thing I can. I will offer you the chance for retribution.”
“Against Dag?”
“Unfortunately, not,” Odin replied. “I do not have the ability to grant you that while he still lives. And, since Sigrun has personally cursed him for his part in your death, I am unable to have him killed.”
Helgi smiled briefly at the concession before returning a bitter glare to Odin. At least Sigrun had taken matters into her own hands. He wondered what she had done to Dag and wished he could see. Perhaps, he could ask her next time she was in Valhalla. Then, he remembered Sigrun’s words, about how he would change in Valhalla, becomes someone who cared less about Midgard and more about Ragnarok. His smile dissipated.
“What sort of retribution?”
“You will have authority to order Hunding to his tasks,” Odin replied. “For as long as you want, you will be his master, to tell him what he must do when he should be relaxing at the great feast every night.”
“And, how long will this last?” Helgi asked, knowing there was always a barb to the god's words, a catch that always came out after a deal was struck.
“As long as you wish,” Odin said quietly. “I will allow you this concession as well. Your memories of Sigrun will dull but your responsibility for Hunding never will.”
Helgi breathed deeply. Not sure how he felt about that. If he had the choice, he would prefer to always remember Sigrun. Yet, did he really want this jagged pain in his chest for all of time? Already it felt like he had been in such pain for an eternity and the thought of always feeling this way welled over, causing Helgi to clutch at his sides. No, he didn’t want to feel like this forever. And so, he chose the one thing that would dull his senses, that would temper his anger and desolation at the loss of his wife.
“I will agree to this task,” Helgi said with resignation. For he had no other choice if he wanted to maintain his sanity. “However, I need to see Sigrun one last time on Midgard.”
Chapter 19: SIGRUN
Every day Sigrun made t
he long slow procession to Helgi’s barrow. A whole moon’s cycle had passed and still she felt as devastated as the day Helgi had died.
After all this time, she had hoped her sorrow would lessen. Grief was exhausting as it dragged her down. It made her feel old, made her feel human.
Sigrun sat at the fire, feeding Fell and gazing into the flames, lost to everything but her consuming misery. She hasn’t brushed her hair, hadn’t eaten for days. But it didn’t matter. The hole inside, the one that was once filled by Helgi now gaped wide open. She wondered if she could do anything to fix it, to help stop up the abyss in her heart.
One of her handmaidens was already awake and stoking the fire. Sigrun passed Fell over, the boy now sleeping. She asked the woman to tend to her children once they had woken. Then, kissing each child gently on their unfurrowed brows as they slept, she swept from the house, wrapping her heavy cloak around her. It hung over her, weighing her down as snow did to small saplings in the dead of winter. She wanted to collapse under its weight, to be lost once more to the oblivion of death, to wait her turn until she and Helgi were reborn once more. However, she still had to make this journey.
She knew the path well, she had traversed it many times now.
The sight of Helgi’s barrow always caused her conflict. While the overwhelming emotion was grief, there was also the strange surge of happiness at seeing it. Even though her husband was dead, his body was here, buried in the barrow as a permanent reminder to her that he had once lived, that they had shared a great love.
Her body shuddered with anguish as she approached. Every day she willed herself to be strong, to hold back the swell of emotions that always overwhelmed her. Today was no different to any other and she collapsed to the ground, one fist on the barrow, the other clutching at her side as she howled out her misery at the loss of Helgi.
Tears rained down on the ground surrounding the gravesite. Sigrun imagined how her grief would soak into the ground and hoped that her tears would eventually find Helgi’s corpse and mingle with it. It was the best she could do, the only way she could hope to be with him now.
Eventually, her sobs always subsided, her grief never gone but her body cried dry of tears. When this happened, she staggered to her feet, her body leaning into the burial mound as she embraced it.
“I love you, Helgi,” she said before departing.
While Sigrun knew the path to Helgi’s barrow well, there was another new place to which she was growing accustomed. Even though she didn’t visit it as often, it had certainly become a part of her ritual.
As Sigrun entered the dark forest, she revelled in it. Valhalla was never dark, there were never shadows to hide in or to explore. What you saw was what you got. She thought of her past life, of how much she had once loved Midgard over Asgard.
Sigrun shivered against the cold, against her new existence. But, most of all, she trembled against the knowing that her life was now in the hands of the gods. She turned her head upwards, to be greeted by the last few stars of the pre-dawn.
“Please, Freya, hear my plea,” she whispered. “Please let me see Helgi once more in this lifetime. It was too soon, there was no warning. It isn’t fair!”
While her plea had started gently, the last sentence ripped through her throat and she doubled down in agony. Folded against herself, she cried into her knees as she squatted in the dark forest, a lonely woman left all alone in the cold of the world.
She sobbed uncontrollably for a long time. The sun was shooting rays through the trees when she finally dried her eyes on her skirt and stood up once more. Sigrun looked around at the forest, the light piercing the fog. On any other day, she would be amazed at the beauty. She would turn and smile and stare at the wonder of it all, at how special the world around her really was.
Now, though, it was as if the sun were mocking her, showing brightness through the dark to highlight the fact she had no light left in her world now that Helgi had left it. Sigrun wiped her eyes some more and returned to her journey.
The deep shadows of the forest were opening out and becoming pockets of clearings. Sigrun kept scanning the landscape, looking, searching.
Then, she saw him.
Dag was cowering alongside a fallen log that was green with moss. He stared at her with frightened eyes. Sigrun stopped and observed her brother.
“How are you finding your new existence, Dag?” she asked.
His face was dirty, covered in mud. Sticks and leaves tangled in his hair and it looked like he had always lived here. Around his mouth was stained red and when he opened his mouth to snarl at her, hatred evident in the action, Sigrun could see flecks of skin and fur caught between his teeth. It was her brother’s only reply to her question. Then, he scampered away, dragging a half-eaten animal carcass with him.
Chapter 20: SIGRUN
Seeing her brother hadn’t changed anything, Sigrun realised as soon as she laid eyes on him. His suffering did not mend her own injury caused by him. Instead, it seemed to open it more, to make it fester like an infection. She felt even more miserable than when she had setting out this morning.
Trudging through the open meadow leading up to the town, Sigrun kept her gaze on the ground. She watched her feet draw through the grass and the ends of her cape soak up the morning dew as it picked up seed heads from the grasses she passed through.
“Sigrun!”
She snapped her head upwards at the sound of the earl’s wife. The woman rushed towards her, almost as if she had good news. But what news would make her happy other than the return of her dead lover?
“What is it?” Sigrun asked when Jorunn came to a stop in front of her.
“I have some strange news,” the earl’s wife replied, panting slightly from the exertion. “I was ready to find you at home when I saw you approaching out here.”
“What sort of news?”
“A woman in the village said she saw a man at Helgi’s barrow—”
Sigrun didn’t listen to another word. Rather, she turned and ran in the direction of her husband’s grave.
Her breath was tight in her chest as she approached the burial cairn. She hadn’t had time to think, all she concentrated on was her journey here, at how fast she could run without her skirts tangling precariously between her legs.
Sigrun didn’t have time to wonder at the story, over whether it might be real or not. She simply ran as fast as she could, her hope leading the way.
As she approached, she could see a dark form in front of the barrow, sitting on the boulder on which she liked to sit.
“Helgi!” She screamed it out even though she barely had enough breath to run. Did the figure turn towards her call? She ran faster, approaching the barrow in a frantic flurry of raw emotion.
“Sigrun?”
She stopped dead in her tracks. Rubbing her eyes, she looked again.
“Helgi! It’s you, it’s really you!” Sigrun threw herself forward and Helgi reached out his strong arms and snatched her before spinning her around.
Her breath caught in her throat as she witnessed him up close. “It’s you, it’s really you!” she repeated over and over again until Helgi set her down.
Still, she stared at him, amazed to be in his presence once more. Gingerly, she reached out and touched his brittle hair.
“Your hair is frozen,” she said with confusion. “And, your clothes are wet through.”
Sigrun frowned deeply as the wetness of his clothes now chilled her after their embrace.
“It is your very tears that have done this,” Helgi replied, diving in to kiss her deeply. Sigrun responded, her own warm body heating his up as they touched. “Every time you sat upon the barrow and cried for me, you pelted me with your tears.”
“Oh, Helgi,” Sigrun replied, kissing him once more, her warm hands reaching up and cupping his cold face. “I am so sorry, I didn’t know it was causing you this much trouble.”
“It isn’t any trouble, my love,” he replied, leaning in so their foreheads touch
ed. He gazed deeply into her eyes and Sigrun felt tears welling in her own. She swallowed hard, fighting the urge to shed them and to wet Helgi once more. “There is no trouble with it, dear wife. I welcomed your grief every day, your tears falling on me allowed me to feel you once more, to imagine I was living in the world again. But, please, let us not talk of our parting. I have come here to see you, to reassure you that I am well, that we will be alright. Fate just needs to play out as it should.”
Sigrun peered at Helgi, absorbing the mere sight of him, relishing the fact that he was here now, and she never thought she would see him in the flesh again after Dag killed him. She smiled at him, wide and welcoming, forgetting her long days and nights of sorrow, remembering only Helgi and how much she loved him.
Standing, Sigrun took Helgi’s hand and led him towards the barrow. As she approached, she stared at the sky, begging Freya to see her, to allow her this one concession. Without even looking, she walked them straight at the barrow, her eyes closing as they neared, giving herself up to the will of the gods.
When she opened her eyes again, they were in darkness. Sigrun blinked rapidly, forcing her eyes to quickly adjust to the inky blackness. Finally, she started to see shapes and the world came into a shadowy focus. She remembered all of these items, had hand selected many of them herself. Even the bed that Helgi was now laying her down on was one moved from their own house. Sigrun wanted Helgi to sleep on a platform they had both shared so that it would seem as if she laid with him down in the cold earth of the barrow.
“We need light,” Sigrun said, readying to get up from the bed once more. “I want to see you. I need to see you.”
“Shh,” Helgi whispered, putting his fingertips against her lips in order to silence her. Sigrun stilled her tongue and watched as Helgi set about striking the fire. Everything here was ready for Helgi, for them. Sigrun had made sure of it. She had figured this preparation would be for Helgi in the afterlife and not for this moment. However, she was thankful that she had supplied her husband with so many offerings upon his death.
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