by Alan Gordon
Two weeks after he began his retreat, Rolf and Gudmund came onto the island. They spoke briefly with Gerutha, then walked back to see Amleth. Horace stood nearby, watching.
“What cheer, fellow?” asked Rolf.
“None,” replied Amleth.
“None here, that is certain,” agreed Gudmund. “You are wasting away without entertainment.”
“What do you propose to do?” asked Amleth. “Put on a puppet show for me?”
“We would, but we lack puppets,” said Rolf. “But there is better entertainment to be had. We are going hunting this morning. There is good quarry to be had south of the fjord.”
Amleth looked back and forth between the two of them, then over at Horace, who stood impassively, his arms crossed over his chest. “Very well,” he said, standing. “Perhaps it will ease my mind.”
The three of them walked across the drawbridge where three horses stood waiting. Rolf and Gudmund bounded up on theirs, then turned to look at Amleth, and stared.
He was seated on his horse, but facing the beast’s rump. He looked at them curiously.
“Why do you ride that way?” he asked.
“It is customary to face in the same direction as the horse,” said Gudmund.
“But the horse is already looking that way,” said Amleth. “This way, I protect its rear.”
“How will you guide the horse?” asked Rolf.
“I don’t know where I am going,” said Amleth. “Therefore, there’s no reason for me to guide it.”
“But we are going hunting together,” said Gudmund. “Your horse has to stay with ours.”
“Yau lead,” said Amleth. “I expect the horse will know what to do. It seems like an intelligent creature.”
“Unlike its rider,” muttered Rolf. “Very well. Let us be off.”
The two of them trotted off. Amleth slapped his steed on the rump, and it trotted after the other two.
Rolf and Gudmund were grateful that their route took them south rather than through the town. The few passersby that they encountered nodded at the two, but then gawked in amazement as Amleth calmly rode by them, waving to them as he receded.
Amleth never once looked behind him to see where the other two were taking him, contenting himself to watch the landscape pass by on either side. Trees began popping into view, and soon he realized that he was in a forest a few miles south of the fjord, one that he had occasionally hunted in with his father. The sudden’memory almost brought tears to his eyes, but he regained his composure before the others noticed. An advantage to riding backward, he thought to himself.
The horse stopped. He heard no other hoofbeats, so he gathered that his companions had stopped as well.
“Is this where our quarry resides?” he asked.
“Nearby,” said Rolf. “Just down this path.”
“For what do we hunt?” asked Amleth, turning for the first time. “It occurs to me that I have neglected to bring either spear or bow. And I don’t observe any with you, either.”
“Some prey must be taken bare-handed,” said Gudmund, smiling. “I daresay that you will find this one worth the capture.”
“Is it dangerous?” asked Amleth.
“Very,” said Rolf. “So much so that Gudmund and I will not attempt to face it, for fear of being taken in its snares.”
“But you have no compunction about sending me in there,” observed Amleth.
“Yxt are the only man we would send down that path,” said Rolf. “And it is the love that we bear for you that keeps us here, for no man should face this creature alone.”
“Yet you will thank us in the end,” added Gudmund.
“This is not a hunt, it’s a riddle,” said Amleth. “You are being unfair to an addled mind such as mine.”
“It is a riddle of sorts,” said Rolf. “This is a prey that in the taking the taker will also be taken.”
“Clear enough,” said Gudmund, snickering. “Now, get you down the path, friend Amleth. Call if you need help.”
Amleth looked at the two, then reached behind him and took his reins. He shook them slightly, and the horse walked down the path away from his companions. As it curved out of sight, he drew a short sword from his belt, the same one his father had given him on his birthday.
He kept his eyes open for traps and attackers hidden in the brush that loomed on either side of him. Then the path widened into a clearing. The trees surrounding it were old and majestic, and the sun only pierced them at the top of the clearing, making an uneven circle of light at its center.
Standing in it was Alfhild.
Eighteen
“A dream itself is but a shadow. ”
—Hamlet, Act II, Scene II
Slesvig—1175 A.D.
“This is a dream,” she said. “I have had it before. I was lost in a forest, and you rode up on a white horse to save me. Only…” She looked at him, puzzled. “In my dream, you were riding properly. Why are you sitting on that horse backward?”
He slid down to the ground, speech deserting him. She waited, a touch of impatience in her eyes.
“This is not at all what is supposed to happen,” she said. “Say something.”
“This is no dream,” he said, finding his voice at last. It sounded hoarse to him, the words slurring.
She lunged toward him and grabbed his hand.
“This is not what is supposed to happen,” she hissed.
She pulled him with surprising strength to the edge of the clearing and pressed his hand against a tree.
“They are all around us,” she whispered. “Just like at home, only these are alive. Can you feel it?”
She pressed her face against the rough bark, closed her eyes, and inhaled.
“All those years shut inside that fortress,” she murmured. “Walled in by trees, jammed together, smelling of clay and pitch. Dead things. No wonder my mother couldn’t survive in there. I think I died there years ago. I couldn’t remember what trees were like anymore. Stockades, stone churches, closed carriages. One tomb after another. The smells here— they overwhelm me. The space, the size of it all. It’s wondrous and terrible all at once. I cannot bear it. Too many scents, and I cannot recognize them. Wild, ancient smells. They were never in my mother’s garden.”
She leaned back, breathing deep, trying to take in as much air as she could. She had pressed her face against the tree so hard that her cheek was scratched and bleeding, bits of bark clinging to it. Amleth reached out to touch it, and she shied away.
“Don’t,” she cried. “Don’t touch me ever again. Not after…” She looked down. “A French whore. That’s what father said. We are all whores. He said that as well. He’s been telling me that since I was a little girl. I never understood it until now.”
“It isn’t true,” said Amleth.
“What isn’t?” she spat. “That we are not all whores?”
‘Abu are not a whore, and there was no other woman,” said Amleth gently, “’fbur father was deceived.”
“How can that be?” she scoffed. “Father is never deceived. He is never wrong.”
“He was deceived because I deceived him,” said Amleth, taking her hand again. “I never meant for it to reach your ears. He had Reynaldo follow me in Paris. I had a colleague play a farce with me for Reynaldo’s eyes. He believed what he was meant to believe. But I would rather have died than let it get back to you, Alfhild. Can you possibly forgive me?”
She looked at him sternly.
“’fou speak words, and you sound truthful,” she said. “But everyone says that you are mad. I have known you my entire life, and I thought that you were just feigning madness, but I don’t know anymore.”
She pulled her hand free from his grasp.
“Sometimes I think that I have gone mad myself,” she said. “I cannot tell. I am no judge of what is true. My world is all walls, even here. You promised that you would rescue me.”
“I did, and I meant it,” he said.
She turned away
from him.
“Father may have been right after all,” she said softly. “I would give myself to you right now if you wanted me. If you would take me away from here.”
“I cannot,” said Amleth. He took a step toward her, placing his hands on her shoulders. She shivered at the touch, but whether it was revulsion or something else, he could not say.
“Why can’t you?” she asked. “What chains you to this prison? We could run off to a place where nobody knew us and live our lives without fear.”
“What about Lother?” he asked.
“We could take him,” she said. “No one would think it unusual, a young married couple with her little brother in her charge. Let us exchange our vows here and now, before all of these witnesses, before they shut me up forever.”
She threw herself at him suddenly, seizing his head with both hands and kissing him hard. He found himself kissing her back, unable to stop himself. Above him, the tops of the trees seemed to lean over them, shutting off the circle of sky, spinning faster and faster. He began to sink to the ground, taking her with him, when in the distance a raven cawed, once, twice, a third time.
He pushed her away roughly, gasping for breath. She fell back, her hands covering her face.
“What is wrong with you?” she screamed. “Am I so hideous?”
“How came you here?” he whispered.
“What?” she said, bewildered, tears filling her eyes.
“How did you get out of the convent?” he said. “Who brought you here?”
“Your friends,” she said slowly. “Rolf and Gudmund. They said that you had sent them.”
He stood and staggered around, looking up at the surrounding trees.
“You are all devils!” he screamed. “Why do you persist in tormenting me?”
He sank back down to his knees and grabbed her, pulling her face close to his.
“Listen to me,” he whispered urgently. “Go back to the convent. Wait there. It may be days, it may be months, but do not leave unless I come for you myself.”
“But why?” she asked.
“Foul temptress!” he shouted. “Take your wares to the market and peddle them there, but keep your claws off me.”
She collapsed, sobbing, clutching her stomach. He leaned down and whispered, “Trust no one but me and Lother. There are tasks that I must accomplish before I leave here, but when I leave, I leave with you. Go back to the convent, Alfhild.”
“But what if you never come?” she cried.
“Then find yourself a living man,” he said, getting to his feet.
He jumped on the horse and galloped into the woods. She lay there, sobbing uncontrollably. She heard two horses approaching, and stood, expecting to see Rolf and Gudmund. But it was her father and Fengi instead.
She looked back and forth at the two of them, trying to comprehend what their presence meant. Gorm leapt down from his horse, his face red with anger.
“Whore!” he shouted, striking her across the face and sending her tumbling to the ground.
That, she understood. She curled into a ball, her arms covering her face, and waited for the beating to continue.
“Cease, Gorm,” Fengi commanded quietly. “She did nothing more than she was meant to do.”
“She offered herself to him right here,” shouted Gorm. “In the middle of this filth, she desired to become the foulest part of it.”
Fengi dismounted and knelt by the cowering girl.
“What did Amleth say to you?” he asked gently, patting her shoulder.
“What?” she whispered, looking up at him with an expression of sorrow and shame that nearly stopped his heart.
“What did he tell you?” he repeated, stammering slightly.
“Nothing but the ravings of a disordered mind,” she said, sitting up slowly.
“I told you that this was a bad idea,” said Gorm petulantly. “Putting her virtue into harm’s way just to gain information. Let me take her. She must be chastised sufficiently before I turn her back over to the sisters.”
“Gorm, you do all three of us a disservice by this behavior,” said Fengi sharply. “Now, go and fetch those two idiot friends of Amleth and then find that lunatic before he comes to some harm.”
“But…” began Gorm, motioning toward his daughter.
“Now!” commanded Fengi. “I will escort her to the convent myself. Go!”
Gorm, his every movement betraying his reluctance, mounted his horse and rode off.
Fengi squatted down and looked at Alfhild, who was wiping her eyes with a kerchief.
“So,” she said bitterly. “This was your plan all along. To transform me from an encloistered virgin to the spymasters whore.”
“You were safe,” said Fengi. “We were watching you.”
“I am the more shamed for it,” she said. “Why have you used me thus?”
“To see if Amleth was truly mad,” said Fengi. “Why wouldn’t he leave with you? What reason did he give?”
“There was something he had to do first,” she said.
“What was it?”
“He would not tell me,” she whispered.
He held out his hand to help her to her feet. She took it hesitantly. They stood together, and she turned to go. He did not relinquish her hand.
“Truly,” he said, then he cleared his throat. She looked at him fearfully, then down at her feet. “Truly, a man would have to be mad to reject you.”
“Can you get me out of the convent?” she blurted out.
“Only with your father’s consent,” he said.
“Then you had better take me back there, hadn’t you?” she said, looking him directly in the eyes.
His mouth was suddenly dry. He choked out something in response, then lifted her onto his horse and climbed up behind her.
The journey to the convent, with her jolting before him on the horse’s back, was the most exquisitely agonizing experience of his entire life.
* * *
“There he is,” called Rolf as he sighted Amleth galloping across a meadow, still sitting backward.
“How does he do that?” wondered Gudmund.
“Never mind,” snapped Gorm. “Let’s stop him before he does any real damage.”
Amleth waved merrily to the three when he saw them in pursuit. He was determined not to look behind him until the ride was over. Occasionally the horse would leap some obstacle, and he would grip its flanks with his knees, clinging for dear life. He soon began anticipating when the steed was preparing itself to jump, which made the maneuver a little easier.
What he did not expect was the horse coming to a dead stop when confronted with a fence that was beyond its capabilities. Amleth flew backward over the horse’s head. He had enough time to gather himself into a ball while he was flipping end over end, and in a brief moment of clarity saw the fence as he passed over it, along with the thorny brush that awaited his imminent landing. All right, bad idea taken too far, was his last thought.
“Well, at least the horse is none the worse for wear,” commented Rolf as they rode up. “Looks like our friend will need some patching.”
They looked across the fence at Amleth, who was ensnared in a tangle of branches, his clothes shredded in numerous places. He struggled feebly, and a branch gave way, sending him with a thud to the ground. He lay there, breathing hard.
“I should leave you there,” said Gorm. “If I thought you would learn the error of your ways as you bled to death, I would. But I have been charged with bringing you back home.”
“I will make my home here and you shall be discharged,” said Amleth. “Have you been hunting in these woods as well, Appollonius? I saw prey worth the taking, but it was too young for serious sport. Perhaps I shall hunt here again in a year.”
“A few more bruises and cuts would not be noticed on him, would they?” muttered Gorm, and Rolf and Gudmund smirked.
“Come with us, Amleth,” called Gudmund. “We have had enough entertainment for one day. Let us go
dine.”
Amleth rolled out of the bush, stood, and brushed himself off.
“I am yours, gentlemen,” he said.
Then he ran.
“Here we go again,” said Rolf, spurring his horse on.
* * *
When they returned to the island, Rolf and Gudmund kept Amleth pinioned between them. Gerutha nearly fainted when she saw his scratched and bloodied face. He ignored her and shrugged off his two companions, then went back to his fortress of stakes and sat down. Horace came up shortly thereafter and sat next to him.
“’feu do a very creditable raven,” muttered Amleth.
“Thank you,” said Horace. “I do some other birdcalls. Would you like to hear them?”
“Some other time,” said Amleth. “How did you know I was being watched?”
“I’ve been keeping an eye on Rolf and Gudmund,” said Horace. “When I saw the three of you go into the woods, I hobbled my horse and ran along the side of the trail. When you went on ahead, they started talking about whether Gorm and Fengi were in position or not. I circled around and saw their horses. I figured it was a trap of some kind.”
“So you became a raven,” said Amleth. “The bird of knowledge. A good choice.”
“What exactly happened in there?” asked Horace.
“They tried to use Alfhild,” said Amleth. “It almost worked.”
“Is she siding with them, then?” asked Horace.
“I don’t know,” said Amleth. “I hope not.”
* * *
Gorm sat with Gerutha at the main table in the great hall, quietly telling her what had transpired that day. Fengi joined them when he had reached the part about finding Amleth in the brush.
“It’s that girl of yours,” said Gerutha. “He’s become obsessed with her.”
“It didn’t strike me as obsession,” said Fengi. “If anything, he threw her off. There’s something else.”
“What?” asked Gerutha.
“I don’t know yet,” said Fengi. “But I cannot let him return to Paris in this condition.”
“I agree, milord,” said Gorm. “We cannot be sure how he will act, or what he will say. We don’t even know what he knows about our plans.”
