The Book of Swords

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  Not alone, no. Eileifr was never alone. Egill. Hjallr. Eileifr’s cousin Birgir. They were always together. Halli thought of the shovel, but Father had taken that. He had not a rock, not a stick for a weapon. He was standing ankle deep in mud and water with no defense.

  “Oh, leave him alone,” Birgir said, who was no friend of his either. “He’s burying the old nithing. In seven days his father can drink the sjaund and claim the title for his own.”

  Not even a belt with a buckle on it. He could take them all on. But Birgir alone outweighed him and topped him by a head. Never doubt they were armed.

  “What did you put with the old man?” Eileifr asked. “Gold rings? A great sword?”

  That raised laughter from Eileifr’s hangers-on. Eileifr was Ragnbjorg’s heir—the richest man in Lejre. Eileifr was a gray ghost in the fog at the moment, but never doubt he had a sword, and fine gear. Eileifr would afford a ship, next summer, and maybe, Halli hoped, he would take his friends aboard it and all sink in the deep sea.

  “Where is the sword, Nithing’s-heir? Where is your inheritance? Will you kill all your pigs and invite the village in for the funeral-feast?”

  “Those scrawny pigs might feed Birgir,” Egill said, to more laughter.

  Saying anything invited a fight, and in a fight, he would lose. He might die out here, and his father would be alone in his own old age. They had no kin. They lived at the edge of the village. They would spend the winter keeping the pigs alive, and hunting such as they could.

  “Where is the sword?” Egill asked, taking up the theme. “Is it buried with him?”

  “Heorot’s luck is,” Eileifr said. “Buried in that muddy heap. Lejre’s luck. The old lord’s luck with it, under heaps of mud. Look at him, the nithing, the moon all waned to a sliver of itself, no glory, no gut, the hollow, hungry moon. Burying this old fool won’t end the curse. Gold will. Beg me, nithing, beg me to go a-viking with us next summer.”

  “Ha!” was the most Halli could muster of the anger boiling up in him, anger tempered with Grandfather’s cold good sense. Time to walk out of a fight, or at least gain ground less boggy. Run? He’d walk. If they attacked him, he’d take down one of them. Egill, maybe. He’d concentrate on Egill. Eileifr went in ring mail, with rings on his fingers.

  He walked. He walked past them, and heard their hooting and their jeering, but he kept walking, and they chose not to attack him…or to give him a fair challenge, either. They fell behind him in the fog and the gathering night, and as he walked he thought it was time for a rock to come at his back—that was one of their amusements in the village—except all the rocks to be had were in the mound with Grandfather.

  And if they had not set on him, it was only because a beating there, over Grandfather’s grave, at that hour, might come back on them in village gossip. There were blind eyes turned to what Eileifr did, and if the weak suffered, that was their fault for being weak, but attacking him at night, while he was burying his grandfather—that attached them to his grandfather’s legend, just one more sorry, ugly deed that hovered over Grandfather’s extended and cursed existence. Halli Eclafssen to die weaponless, battered to death at Grandfather’s feet? It was no noble deed, and Eileifr was hungry for glory…like someone else he could name, but the world never would.

  Beowulf the Geat. The man Hrothgar had trusted most in the world, since Hrothgar had spent gold on Beowulf’s uncle, and bought off a death-feud, paying the man-price for the Geat and saving him from his fate. Hel would not be cheated. Gold would not end all hatred. Hrothgar had disregarded Grandfather’s counsel, rebuked him through his friend Aeschere, and silenced his good advice. Yet the skjalds made Beowulf a true man.

  Why? Because Beowulf had become king in Geatland. And gave gold he had gained from Hrothgar. With all of that to give, Beowulf fared very well in legend.

  So had Hrothgar…for a season.

  But Beowulf had taken more than gold. He had taken Hrunting, the sword that could not fail in battle…more, he had reported it a failure, a lie and a deception.

  And now the Danes had a dog for a king. A small, one-eyed dog, a cur that the king of the Swedes had set over them, saying that if any man came to him to say that dog was dead, that man would die the death.

  That was to say, preserve this king, you bickering Danes, since your lords have all killed one another. Preserve this king. Keep this little dog alive. And learn restraint.

  Could a people fall any lower?

  All for the loss of a sword. The loss of their luck.

  Mist hazed the village, veiled the little house, veiled everything. Halli pulled the latchstring, pushed the door open, and smelled ale, a great deal of it, ale, no little of it spilled on the boards. His father, still in his muddy clothes and boots, sat by the fire, drinking. Halli dipped up a cup for himself and sat down.

  The bench was scant one person now. But it had been, through Grandfather’s illness. So they drank, and his father asked:

  “Are you satisfied?”

  Halli asked himself that question. He thought, and drank two long sips that did nothing to quiet the anger roiling in him.

  He said, finally: “Eileifr and his gang have already found the place.”

  “Did you fight them?”

  “Am I dead? No. I didn’t.” A third sip, that went down like bitter shame. “Did you ever see the sword, Father?”

  “Not to my memory,” his father answered.

  “I know why Grandfather lent it.”

  “Hrothgar ordered him to lend it. Because he insulted a guest in Heorot.”

  “Grandfather questioned a guest’s reputation. He gave ample room for the man to come back with a good tale in good humor if he could deny it. Beowulf only half denied it. No. I know the lord was upset at Grandfather that morning. But Grandfather said Hrunting’s enchantment was just one simple thing. It would never fail a hero in battle. It failed Beowulf. So it proved Grandfather was right to challenge the man.”

  “Small good being right could do us. Beowulf lost the sword. And still came back alive.”

  “And Hrothgar gave him the gold. Hrothgar loaded him with all the gold he could carry. And Beowulf sailed away with it, never looking back. Hrothgar thought the gold he gave would bring warriors to bring more gold. But the luck all went with Hrunting. And the warriors all went with the gold. Beowulf’s Geats have all fled to Sweden and left us to face the Franks and the White God, with no king but a flea-bitten dog. Our luck is lying at the bottom of that lake, with Grendel’s bones, and the truth is lying with it.”

  “Nothing we can do about it.” His father got up, dipped up another cup of ale. “The old man’s gone. The sword’s gone. We’re facing a sjaund in seven days apt to lose the house and land if we don’t slaughter at least half the pigs and put on a feast for the village. We go hunting tomorrow. We see if we can come up with hide to trade and a way to save our pigs.”

  It was the law. It was the sjaund, the drink for the dead, that confirmed an inheritance, and what his father inherited came down to a small house with only room for pigs in the underside, and maybe no pigs, because they had to feed the village and share the ale, so that all the village would admit the inheritance was rightfully theirs.

  Eileifr and his crew would be there, boasting about their boat, boasting about great plans, and their good fortune.

  Eileifr’s father and mother would be there, looking down their noses at their little house and its poor goods.

  Great-grandfather Eclef had wielded Hrunting himself, had gained battle-gold, had helped raise Hrothgar to the height he had reached. A great man. A real hero, who had never lost a battle, who had helped keep the Franks from Danish soil.

  And Eileifr would sneer at them, while Father tried to plan a way to save their pigs.

  “No,” he said. “You hunt, Father, and Odin guide your arrows—but I am going to Grendel’s lake.”

  “No! No. No such thing.”

  Halli stood up. He had been cold through. He had never she
d his coat nor his boots, either, and the ale had warmed him to the point of sweating. He went to the pegs where they hung their hunting gear and took his own, and a knife they used for butchering.

  “Son.” Father was on his feet. “Son, it’s the ale talking. Come to your senses.”

  “I have, Father. I have come to my senses. I am going to Grendelsjar to see what I can see. Grendel is dead, is he not? His mother, too. What danger can there be?”

  “It’s a foul marsh. A cursed place.”

  “The curse is our giving up. The sword isn’t lost until we give up. And I’m not giving it up. Grandfather will rest easier when he has it. And maybe we will not have a dog for a king.” He strung a piece of leather through the hole in the butchering knife, tied it, and slung it from his shoulder. “You hunt for a deer, Father. I’ll hunt for the sword. And I’ll be back before the sjaund.”

  “You’re mad.” Father went to the table in the corner, took the ashy loaf of bread that was yesterday’s baking, took it in muddy fingers, and gave it to him. “Take this with you, at least. Have a look at the place. And come back early. I’ll have a deer. I’ll need that knife.”

  “I’ll hope to bring you better,” he said, and hugged his father, clapped him on the back. “Find us a deer, at least, pabbi.”

  —

  He did not walk through the night. He did not stay under the roof with Father, either, to be persuaded of his folly. He found a place in old Olaf’s haystack, not the first night he had spent in that snug shelter, and was gone in the morning, in the first glimmering of sun in the fog. The fields about Lejre he well knew, but when he had reached the end of the last barrow, he took the old traders’ track, the way the children of Lejre dared each other even to set foot on. It was no more than a game trail now, but so long as he could make it out, he walked it, well beyond any venture he had made before—walked on determination and with a ragged remnant of last night’s encounter still lively in him—dark thoughts, on an ill-omened track, memories of Grandfather’s poor burial, and their neighbors—

  Their neighbors had not turned out when they bore Grandfather to his burying. The few out and about had changed direction, gone back in, shut their doors, as if Grandfather, dead, were shedding bad luck on them all. Not a one had come to help or offer regret.

  Eileifr had seen them. Eileifr and his lot had taken on a load of ale and watched, waiting for him to come back with Father, and when he had not, why, they had come looking. But the whole village had known Grandfather was gone. Gossip spread like wildfire. It would be spreading now.

  Have you seen Eclef this morning? Have you seen his son? Well, it’s a relief to the whole village, the old man finally in his grave, good riddance to him.

  If neither he nor his father ever made the sjaund and lost the house and all, it going up to be claimed as ownerless, why, who else would claim house and land and all, but Ragnbjorg, Eileifr’s father? Not to live there, no. Ragnbjorg had a fine house. He’d probably house goats on the property, use the house for a shed. Or let Father live there as a tenant, working for him.

  There was a worse turn for their luck to take. He could not abide the thought.

  But even anger ran out, when hunger began to turn him light-headed, and by then the fog lay still thicker, so he began to fear he might have gotten off the track.

  Well, so, it was the better course to sit down for a while, stay warm, and take a bit of the bread Father had sent with him. The fog might lie thickest in low spots, but even so, it had stopped raining, and when the sea wind came, past noon, the fog would thin out. He had every confidence it would, even if he had walked into a low place and come into one of those places fog loved.

  He was careful, in sitting down, to face the same direction he had been going, not to make that mistake, and end up turned about—trolls might prowl about in such lonely places, and try to trick people into bogs and pits. Trolls might look like trees, of which there had been a few along the way, or stones, of which there was no scarcity here, and a butchering knife was not much defense against them, but he was curiously beyond fear of that sort of harm.

  Grendel was dead, he had reminded Father. If that was not true, then there was the worst of all trolls to fear, him, and his mother, sun-fearing, going about by night, and fog, and in dark places. But—dead, he said to himself. Grandfather had been convinced of that. Never had the pair troubled Heorot after Beowulf had come back, bearing the mere hilt of a sword that had availed against the troll-mother, where Hrunting had failed. Halli had heard the story sung, how the great hero had prevailed, though Hrunting had not—how Beowulf had cast Hrunting aside, and found another sword amid the hoard of gold, a Jotunn-forged sword that had melted clean away when it touched a troll’s hard heart.

  From the bottom of Grendelsjar, the deep lake, the great hero had brought up Grendel’s head, and the Jotunn sword hilt.

  Yet, the same song had said—on departing Heorot with a massive load of Hrothgar’s gold, Beowulf had sent a man to deliver a sword to Grandfather. Sent a man. And sent a sword. As if that paid all, for casting away the treasure of Eclaf’s line.

  One could all but pity the trolls, the old folk of stone and earth and water, old as the hills, and living under them. Jotunn themselves, such creatures, born of the land, and preferring places where men did not dwell. The Allfather let them live, while they kept to their places. The great Jotunn, the Frost-giants, were another matter, but trolls—generally kept to themselves, doing no harm.

  Grendel had crossed that line and become a menace. He had kept coming at Heorot, as trolls had to travel, at night, entering in the great mead hall, and killing—killing the warriors Hrothgar’s gold had drawn to him.

  Grandfather had seen him. “Tall as a tree,” Grandfather had said, himself standing tall before the fire in the hearth. Grandfather had flung his arms wide. “Wide as a bear, and roaring like one. That was his voice. Like timbers breaking. Like great stones rolling. No one could understand his speech, but they were words he spoke. His brow was sloped. His hair and beard were wild. He wore bits and pieces of armor, and wielded a sapling tree for a staff, all knotty, still bearing some twigs. He was a shadow and he was quick. Warriors scrambled for their armor, and Grendel climbed, he threw over benches, he swung on the great beam, and he was gone out into the dark, leaving dead in his wake. Three of the warriors were never seen again, whether they fled or whether he killed them.”

  Halli had asked for that story over and over, and sometimes it was tall as a tree and sometimes shaped like a bear, but overall, Grandfather had been sure about the three warriors.

  Troll, maybe, but he had been this land’s troll. Part of their stones, their earth, raving mad at Hrothgar’s men. Or at Hrothgar, for what cause the songs told no tale.

  Hrothgar had not treated Grandfather well, either. Hrothgar had not cast Grandfather out, but Grandfather had had no honor in that hall afterward. Grandfather had told Hrothgar not to marry his daughter to Ingeld; Hrothgar had coldly spurned his advice, offered peace to his old enemy, and sowed distrust in his own house—bringing down a spate of kinslaying and bloodletting unmatched in legend. Four lords in one year, two in a single hour—that had brought Heorot down.

  Halli ate a portion of the bread, spat out bits of sand—their millstone was not the best and getting worse, and one was always careful. He protected the loaf inside his shirt, under his coat, seeing it might have to last him a little. A meal a day. Three days was the most he allotted.

  A meal, and a little rest. His feet were warm for the moment. There was nothing stirring, no sound in all the world. And fear of trolls was low by daylight, such as it was. He pulled the badger-skin hood over his head, tucked down and slept a little, catching just a little rest before another tramp toward—what? What would he see? A lake he’d heard about all his life? A pit of a lake, rock-rimmed, where trolls had lived?

  He was too tired, too sore to think much on it. He had a direction, that was all, and for a moment he was warm, saving a
ll his body warmth inside wet wool clothes and a leather cloak.

  Nothing stirred, until a breeze slipped inside the hood and touched his face.

  He was elsewhere warm, sun-warm; but a brisk wind was whispering in the grass, and there was bright sunlight on the stones. He gathered himself up, and above him and a little distant, formerly unseen in the fog—rose a hill. On that hill, charred timbers, black and broken, rose against a blue sky.

  Heorot. The cursed place.

  —

  It had been a great hall, indeed, larger than Ragnbjord’s house and any three of the village houses combined. He felt constrained to go up to it, at least, to say that he had been there, and he had touched the beams, which were too thick to have burned. Those timbers, set deep in the earth of the hill, and the stones of the hearth, were all that had survived the fire.

  Grandmother had died here. So had all Hrothgar’s line, all the Skyldings, sons of the Half-Dane.

  He wandered what would have been the center of the hall, where warriors had stood and fought against Grendel. He saw a stone edge where Hrothgar’s seat would have been, lord of the hall and all the land roundabout. He saw a gap where the door would have stood.

  How had Grendel gotten in? Through the doors? Grandfather said they had been barred inside—how not, with an enemy abroad? The smoke vents? Those were small.

  Enchantment? Perhaps. Surely runes and charms of every sort were about the place. Halli stood at the very place Hrothgar would have sat, at the head of the hall. All about the walls, under the high roof, would have been benches, and there the warriors would have sat, exchanging tales, drinking, joking in the way men would. The feasting platters would go round, every night, in such a great hall. There would be every sort of good thing, a feast such as Lejre had never held, he was sure. Strong men and battle-skilled had gathered here, every night a feast, every day a wager and a contest, drawn by the gold and the glory of a great lord…