Hrolf Kraki's Saga

by Poul Anderson

  "Yrsa will do what she can for his safety and honor."

  "But Adhils—I never liked Adhils, useful though it seemed he could be to us. And what I've since heard of him does not leave me unworried."

  Valthjona cast him a troubled smile. "You'll never swerve Helgi," she warned. "So don't drive a wedge between the two of you. Stay quiet, wish him well, and give him as glad a send-off as you are able."

  X

  Adhils seldom left Uppsala. But as wide a realm as Svithjodh, holding many different tribes, under-kings, and lesser headmen, was bound to suffer uproar from time to time. If they did not seek to withhold his scot or break away altogether, they were likely to fall out with each other. To quell this, he kept a large household troop. Foremost were twelve berserkers.

  That kind of men were so called because they often fought without mail, that is, in their bare sarks. They were huge and strong but ugly to behold, unkempt, unwashed, surly and bullying. In battle a madness came upon them; they howled, foamed at the mouth, grew swollen and purple in the face, gnawed the rims of their shields, and rushed forward like angry aurochs. Then their strength was such that no ordinary man could stand before them. It was said that iron would not bite on them, either. Truth was, the wounds they got, save for the deepest, hardly bled and closed up almost at once. After the rage was past, they were weak and shivery. By that time, however, most who had tried to fight them would be dead or fled.

  Goodfolk loathed berserkers . . . and feared them. The dread they awoke went along with their might to help them plow through a battle line. While Adhils was not the first king who used this kind of men, it was reckoned against him. He cared little about that.

  He did care when his twelve, and most of his other warriors, were away, and a scout galloped in to gasp that a score of ships had come up the channel from the Baltic Sea to Lake Malar, which even then they were crossing. Soon after, a boy brought a message from that fleet. It had lain to at the river mouth; upstream, escape might be barred. Its lord had gotten hold of the boy and given him a piece of silver to seek the royal hall and say: "Helgi the Dane-King comes in peace, to visit his ally and talk over what matters may lie between them."

  Queen Yrsa was on hand. Adhils turned to her. "Well," he asked, half grinning, "how would you like me to receive him?"

  She had stood wholly still, save that red and white flew across her brow and cheeks, down her throat and into her bosom. Now she must gulp, and her tone was less than steady: "You must settle that for yourself. But you know from aforetime ... the man is not found ... to whom I owe more than to him."

  Adhils combed his whiskers, padded about, muttered to himself, before he said, "Well, then, we'll have him here as our guest. I'll send a man who can, hm, hm, make known without offending him—um-m—best he not bring his whole strength along."

  Yrsa wheeled and walked quickly off.

  Adhils did give that word. Thereafter he sought another trusty man in secret. "Hasten to where the berserkers and their following are," he bade. "Tell them to leave what they're at and come back as fast as may be. Near Uppsala, let them hide in the woods and let none but me know they are here. I'll tell them what to do next."

  When Helgi got the hint in the Swede-King's invitation, he chuckled to his chief skipper: "Rightly do they call Adhils a stingy fellow! I wonder if those who stay to watch the ships won't eat better than we will who go to him."

  The seaman scowled. "If treachery's afoot—" Helgi snorted. "I don't think him worth being careful about. Remember, we made sure his crack fighters are afar. He'll hardly risk his own dear hide against us." He swung away, quivering in eagerness. "Come, let's be off!"

  He and his captains mounted horses they had brought. A hundred men tramped after them. They were a brave sight, there along the gliding, gleaming Fyris River, between the rich farmsteads of the lowlands on its far side and the high, greenwooded west bank. Helgi rode haughty, in gray ringmail, gilt helmet, scarlet cloak. Above him, borne by an also mounted youth, floated his banner, the black raven of his forebear Odin on a blood-red field. Behind the riders, a ripple ran over sunlit spearheads.

  That night, though, housed by a wealthy yeoman, he slept little. He woke his band before dawn and made them keep a hard pace. At eventide they reached Uppsala.

  Its stockade loomed above them, swart against a sallow heaven, as they climbed from the river road. The king's guardsmen came forth to meet them in flash and jingle of metal, lowing of lur horns; through sundown shadows, shields shone like moons. Within the gates men found a big, sprawling town, abustle with folk who dwelt in well-timbered houses that were mostly two floors high. Yet those walls cast the ways between into gloom at this hour, making burghers, women, children into blurs which buzzed and slipped from sight. There seemed to be uncommonly many swine about—the chosen beasts of Frey, who was the first Yngiing. They grunted, rooted in muck, shoved coarse-bristled flanks hard against legs.

  On a height outside the burg lifted the mightiest temple in the North. It was made in the wonted way of a building raised to the gods, roof piled upon roof as if the whole were about to fly skywards. But these gables and monster-headed beam-ends stood clear against the shaw which lowered behind, being neither tarred nor painted but sheathed in gold. Inside were the images, wooden but tall and richly bedecked, of the twelve high gods—Odin with the Spear, Thor with the Hammer, Frey on his boar brandishing the huge sign of his maleness, Baldr whom Hel has taken to rule beside her over the dead, Tyr whose right hand the Fenris Wolf bit off, Ægir of the Sea whose wife Ran casts nets out for ships, Heimdal bearing the Gjallar Horn which he shall blow at the Weird of the World, and others of whom there go fewer tales. At holy times, most of the shire could crowd within. Then the foremost men slaughtered horses, caught the blood in bowls, sprinkled it off willow twigs onto the folk; in giant kettles seethed the meat, of which all partook. Otherwise women tended the temple, cleaned it, washed the gods in water from a holy spring.

  But in the shaw both men and beasts were hanged up, speared, and left for the ravens. Thither Adhils was wont to go by himself, to make offerings and wizardries. "A wonderful sight," said Helgi's flagbearer. The Dane-King scowled. "We've more to do with men than gods, I hope," he answered.

  Adhils's headquarters stood in the middle of Uppsala, a widespread square of buildings inside a stockade of its own. They were handsome, and at their middle a broad, flagged courtyard rang beneath hoofs and boots. Yet Helgi's frown deepened when he saw the hall. "Gloomy is that for Yrsa to dwell in," they heard him mutter.

  Servants milled about through the dusk. A groom took his bridle. He swung down and strode toward the door which gaped for him like a cave mouth. Then he stopped dead, and it was for him as if nothing else was save that white-gowned one who came to meet him.

  "Welcome, King Helgi," she said, and, faltering the least bit, "my kinsman."

  "Oh. Yrsa—" He caught her hands in his. In the blue twilight he hardly saw her face; but sky-glow lingered in her eyes. Above her the evenstar blinked forth.

  The chief guardsman said, "My lord awaits you." Yrsa said, "Aye, come," and led the way. Helgi followed, shoulders held stiff.

  Adhils sat wrapped in furs upon his high seat. Gold shone around his brow, across his breast, wrists, and fingers, though somehow the longfires and rushlights left him in darkness. Maybe this was because much smoke drifted about, gray and stinging. "Be greeted, King Helgi my friend," he purred beneath the crackle of wood. "Glad I am that you have sought to me."

  Unwilling, Helgi took the pudgy hand. Adhils talked on, in words which never quite said that the Skjoldung had come to acknowledge him his overlord. Yrsa broke in: "Let our guests be seated, let us drink in each other's honor before we dine."

  She brought Helgi to the place across from his host's.

  Throughout the evening she took him his ale and mead. At such times he let their fingers touch, caught her gaze and smiled a strangely shaky smile for so famous a warrior. In between, in chosen words, he and
Adhils swapped news of their kingdoms. Their men mingled more cheerily. A skald chanted lays. Among them was one in praise of Helgi, for which the Dane-King gave him a whole arm-ring. His look across the floor, to Yrsa where she sat by her husband, said: You told him to make those staves, did you not?

  A week went by. Adhils housed and fed his guests well, showed them around, had huntsmen take them forth on chases, spoke about trade and fisheries and such-like business—never about that for which he must know Helgi had really come. Nor did the Dane-King raise the question. He bit back his feelings and abided his chances to see Yrsa alone.

  They came more than once. The first was a couple of days after he arrived. He had been out chasing wisent and rode into the courtyard near nightfall, still wet and mud-splashed, men at his back, bow slung at saddle. Dismounting, he took the weapon to unstring it. "My lord Adhils is away," said the groom. Helgi glanced upward. On the gallery of an offside sleeping-house stood Yrsa. So high aloft, she was still in sunlight, which shone tawny on her gown and struck fire-glints from deep within her hair. The sky behind her was an endless blue.

  The bowstring rang.

  She hailed him. "Welcome, kinsman!" Her tone drifted down clear and cool among the darting swifts. "Come have a stoup and a talk till King Adhils returns."

  "Thank you, my lady," he called, and tried not to hasten through that door and up that ladder.

  A serving-girl offered them mead. Reading the queen's look, she closed the door behind her. They stood on the gallery in full view of everyone; none could backbite them, but neither could anyone hear what they said. The royal garth reached below them, and the smoky shadowy town, and the grainfields beyond where the River Fyris ran until it lost itself in southward woods. There went a faint grumble of wheels, hoofs, feet, voices; a smith was beating iron somewhere, it sounded like bells; now and again a dog barked. But mostly quietness dwelt around Helgi and Yrsa. The breeze chilled him in his wet garments.

  She raised her goblet of outland glass. "To your health," she said. He clashed his on hers and took a long, warming draught. They lowered them and stood a while before either could find words.

  "It's good to see you," he said at last. "After seven years."

  She had become altogether a woman. Slender above the thin bones, she moved more slowly—almost heavily— then erstwhile. Shadows lay under her cheekbones and around the big grey eyes. Lines had begun to show in her skin. Paler than of yore, it seemed to drink the level sunbeams. Their shiningness washed down over her breast until it picked out how her fingers strained on the goblet stem.

  "They have marked you, those years," she said tonelessly. "You've grown gaunt. You're turning gray."

  "I've missed you, my darling." Helgi stopped. "Likewise has your son," he added. "It would gladden you to see what a fine boy he is."

  "Your son—ours—" She twisted her head away. "No. That's forever behind me."

  "Must it be? I didn't come here about herrings or— you surely understand. I want to bring you home."

  "No. I beg you, by everything we ever had, no, . . . Father."

  Helgi's mouth writhed. He stared beyond her, to the temple on its hill and the darkling trees. "How is your life here?" he asked.

  She did not answer, save in quickened breath.

  "How does he treat you?" Helgi nearly shouted.

  She cast a look at the courtyard, where household folk moved, and to the door behind which her maidens sat, eyes and ears, eyes and ears, tongues, tongues, tongues. "Hush," she begged. "You'd not have me speak ill of him I plighted my faith to."

  "You gave me yours first," said Helgi.

  She dropped her glass. It shattered. Mead pooled about her feet and dripped down between the gallery rails. Her hands wrestled. "We knew not what we did!"

  "Did you know with Adhils?" he attacked.

  She straightened. "Yes."

  "And—?"

  "It's been about as I awaited."

  "He shows you your rightful honor, does he not?" She heard how much he hoped she would say no.

  "Yes," she told him. "You've seen for yourself. I go about as first lady of a strong land. He . . . has not even other women." She stopped to wet lips and clear throat. "In truth, he doesn't often seek me. Which suits me well enough."

  "How lonely you are," he said like a man with a spear in him.

  "No, no, no. Things aren't that bad. I have my girls— you've seen them, they look on me as a kind of mother. I hear their woes and give them my redes and, and try to see they marry well. ... I have my duties, in the household, in the temple, in everything that becomes a queen. I can go sailing on the lake when I'm here. We have guests—"

  "Many? I never heard Adhils called hospitable."

  She flushed. He knew she was ashamed of her husband's niggardliness, and forbore to say he knew it. "Men who come to take service here," she said hastily. "Jarls. Chieftains. Skalds, merchants, outlanders. They bring news of a world beyond this. And I—I'm taken up in cookery." Her smile was forlorn. "You'd not believe how skillful I've grown about herbs. Also healing herbs, every kind of leech craft, why, I, I, I'm on my way to becoming a wise-woman."

  He peered back at the temple. "Or a witch?" he growled.

  "No!" Horror rode her voice. He thought of dead bodies rocking in the wind below yonder branches, and of Adhils on his witching stool, hunched by a kettle where nameless things boiled. "No, I’ve naught to do with that!" She turned on him, clenched her fists and said shakenly: "I won't do anything unbeseeming a Skjoldung. Not even ... return to you . .. oh, my dearest."

  They could not speak much longer. She must go oversee the readying of the hall for her husband and the evening. Helgi was curt at that meal and drank hugely.

  He and Yrsa spoke a few more times alone. The end was always the same. Oftener he talked to Adhils, of course, and did his best to sound out the Yngling. The latter stayed polite. "Yes, yes," he said, taking Helgi's arm as if he did not notice how the Dane winced, "I am glad you came, kinsman, glad we can reach understanding. Strife should never happen between kinsmen, as you and I well know, eh? And I think we two are bound closer than most—my wife, your daughter—that unluckiness of yours and hers which I may make bold to believe I've set aright, by giving her honorable marriage and by offering to the gods and, hm, hm, elsewhere."

  More than one of his own men warned Helgi: "Something's wrong here, lord. I'm not friends with any of the Swedish captains, no. But I've drunk and gone fishing or hunting or played games with a few who're at their call —yes, ha, played games with a girl or two—and something's afoot. They've told me how their chiefs go warily about and mutter in comers. Mark them, lord, you who nightly sit amongst them, and see if their manner don't strike you the same."

  He, his heart full of Yrsa, would give back: "Oh, belike that trouble northward, which has most of the household warriors away from here. They'd take it unkindly if I pried."

  After a week, the secret came to Adhils that his troopers had swiftly fared back at his behest and lay in the woods for his orders. He made an excuse and hurried off. To the head berserker, a hairy, warty, slouching hulk named Ketil, he told what had happened and bade him and his band lie in ambush, to fall upon King Helgi while the Danes were returning to their ships. "I'll send a number from the burg to help you," he promised. "They'll attack at the rear and put our foes in a pinch. For those are our foes. I'll set everything at stake to see Helgi does not escape. Well have I marked, he bears such love for my queen that I'll never be safe while he's alive."

  Meanwhile Helgi and Yrsa had a last talk which could not be overheard. "Since you won't come away," he said, "I'll take my leave."

  "Live gladly," she whispered, "my darling."

  "You bear up well," he said. "I can do no less. But I wish—" He smote hands together and left her. She gaze i after him, long beyond the time when he was gone from her sight.

  To Adhils, Helgi said he would be starting home. Queen Yrsa told her lord, not loudly, yet to be heard by everyone
in the hall: "I think, because our guest sought us himself to bind our houses in friendship, it behooves us to send him off with gifts that will show how much this means to us."

  "Why, indeed, indeed," said Adhils at once.

  "He does not even blench," mumbled a drunken man of his. "What's got into the fat miser?" Everyone else was too happy at so good an ending to pay any heed. Even Helgi brightened somewhat. None could now say he had fared for naught.

  And in the morning, in sight of the many who were gathered, Adhils ordered forth a wagon drawn by six while Southland horses. "This and these I give you, kinsman," he smiled, "and a bit more besides." Cheers arose as carls brought the things out of his storehouses: heavy golden rings and brooches, silver caskets full of coins from Romaborg, shimmering axes and swords, cunningly carved ivory of walrus and narwhal, jewel-crusted goblets, garments of costly weave and dye, amber, furs, oddly wrought goods from none knew where, until the axles groaned.

  Helgi reddened and had trouble finding the right words for his thanks. He could not tell whether this smirking smooth-talking young man did mock him or seek to buy him off. Then his glance fell on Yrsa, and he saw such yearning that he thought it must all be because of her.

  The king and the queen of the Swedes took horse to follow him part of the way. Adhils chatted glibly; Held and Yrsa were still. After a while the Yngling reined in.

  "Well, kinsman," he said, "I fear we must bid you goodbye, looking forward to when next we are together."

  "Come be our guests," said Helgi hoarsely. "Both of you."

  "We can send word about that," said Adhils. "Meanwhile, fare speedily, King Helgi, to the place where you are bound."

  He turned his steed. Helgi took Yrsa's hands. "Live well," he whispered in haste. "Always I'll love you. Someday—"

  "Someday," she gave him back, wheeled her beast and trotted off after her lord and his men.

  Helgi rode on at the head of his own troop. The river murmured and blinked in sunlight. Tree shadows dappled it. A kingfisher darted, blue as the hovering dragonflies. Hoofs plopped, leather squeaked, metal clinked. The air was thick and hot; men sweated and swatted at bugs. Westward above the leaves was piling a violet wall of clouds, and thunder rolled across miles.