The Raven's Table

by Christine Morgan

  Wolves left hungry, dogs denied dead bones to gnaw

  We have trimmed our nails short, we are at our ease

  We will win honor and victory, or a warrior’s death

  Our oaths sworn to Hjorleif and through him to his brothers

  We will fight for them, gaining glory for our own names

  We will fight for wealth plundered from our fallen foes

  For gift-given gold, gems, and silver from generous kings

  For the pride of forefathers, of our sons and theirs after

  Those with wives and women fighting for them as well

  Whatever else, we will surely be remembered and famed

  Yet, as the ship skips and skims with swift wind and wave

  As the sail bells, the mast creaks, the wake widens white

  And each crash of the hull on the swells casts up spray

  From the north sweeps a sudden strong gale, bitter-cold

  The exhalation of a thousand fierce frost-giants blowing

  A storm-wall of hail-clouds, ice and sleet whirling at us

  Whipping the world to a freezing white terror and frenzy

  The onslaught comes too quickly to be weathered or outrun

  It comes screaming and howling, sea and sky all one beast

  A ravenous gods’-wrath like the Fimbul-Winter foretold

  Hjorleif shouts for us to hold fast, to brace and make ready

  His words ripped from his lips by the teeth of the wind

  We throw ourselves flat, cling to oar-benches, and pray

  There is no other making ready for something such as this

  Prayers go unanswered, unheard, laughed at, or ignored

  Asgard does not interfere once fate’s threads are woven

  Leaks spring, water pours in, waves sluice over the sides

  The serpent’s head at the prow and the snarling stern-wolf

  Cracking loose, tumbling off, swallowed up by the storm

  Hull splintering to kindle-wood, high mast snapped short

  And our ship breaks around us like some child’s twig toy

  We are cast from our hand-holds, hurled from each other

  Plunging with cries and splashes into frothing, frigid seas

  The harsh salt-brine dashes, sharp and stinging, in our eyes

  We struggle to the surface, we gasp, coughing, for breath

  The water soaks our clothes, the sodden weight of wet wool

  Fur and leather, like iron, like anchors, dragging us down

  Those who cannot swim already lost to us, gone under

  We call out, voices feeble in the fierce face of the wind

  Futile calls for help, or to loved ones, or cursing the gods

  The deep chill surrounds us, seeping into flesh and bone

  Draining us of life’s blood-heat, sapping us of strength

  Leaving us clinging to wreckage as relentless sleet lashes

  Shivers wrack our bodies, hands and feet soon go numb

  Until the waves rush over and engulf us in foaming whorls

  The surge floods our nostrils, forces entrance at our mouths

  Sieving through clenched teeth in thin, gritty salt-streams

  Gorges lurch, gullets heave, we gag and choke on our bile

  And murk-cloud the dark water with our last-eaten meals

  Only to gulp throats and bellies full from the font of the sea

  A terrible gluttony, repugnant, unwilling and unwelcome

  Swallowing deep of the waters as they swallow deep of us

  Lungs ache and burn air-starved within the cages of our ribs

  The throbbing of our heartbeats like heavy hammer-blows

  As breaths burst from behind resisting close-clamped lips

  Silent screams rise confined in bubbles, wavering quicksilver

  This is not how our endings should have been, not like this

  Slain in battle, yes, by violence, a warrior’s glorious death

  But not this helpless, wretched horror as we drown and die

  Our heads pound, our chests crushed as if in Thor’s fists

  The very bones of our skulls seem to groan in our ears

  Far above, ever farther, the surface sky-shimmer fades

  We trail dwindling breath-bubbles like glimmering pearls

  Mouths agape, wide eyes staring through our drifting hair

  Pallid fingers sway limp in the tide, as if waving farewell

  In vain reach for Valhalla, or rescue that will never come

  Deepening waters darken in deepening shades as we sink

  From blue to grey-blue, and from grey-blue to dusk-black

  And then from dusk-black to a black even blacker than night

  Un-moon-touched, un-star-pierced, un-north-lighted, black

  Shapes flit and flick past our bodies, indistinct in the gloom

  We are brushed and bumped, nosed, nudged by curious fish

  And other sea-creatures, larger ones, large and ever-hungry

  This is their lair, their world, here in the vast darkness

  Where whalesong warbles eerie, uncanny and strange

  Where sharks glide, their unblinking eyes like jet beads

  As serpents writhe through the water with sinuous fins

  The hunters and the hunted, eternal predators or prey

  And somewhere, far below, in the bottomless trenches

  Jormungandr encircles all Midgard to bite his own tail

  We do not belong here, we should not die in this way

  This is no death for warriors, no death for brave men

  Denied our battle-glory and our places in Odin’s hall

  No blazing funeral pyres to consume our corpses to ash

  No grave-barrows with grave-goods, swords, and silver

  Not even a cairn-pile of stones or humble rune-marker

  We descend deeper, ever deeper, as we drown and die

  As we drown… as we have drowned, we must have

  The cold salt-brine fills our mouths, throats, and lungs

  We are dead, we must be, limbs unmoving, skin cold

  Our eyes are blind in the blackness; somehow we see

  Somehow we feel, the water’s weight an unbearable press

  We hear whalesong, but no longer our hearts in our ears

  We are drowned, we are dead, and yet… we are not

  Through this blacker than black utter night, lights appear

  Distant winks, quick white flickers darting and dancing

  Here a pale shine as of marsh-fire, there a sky-violet flash

  Rainbow ribbons and ripplings, sparkling silvery strands

  Tear-drops glowing golden amber, or clear blue-green

  Like stars, but not stars… like jewels, but not jewels

  Luminous beauty luring, lending sly guises to dire truth

  They are nightmares, these monsters, beasts of the deep

  Foul things of translucent flesh and pulsating organs

  Terrible fish bristling fierce teeth like fistfuls of knives

  Sharks whose cavernous jaws could take a man whole

  Great-bodied squids, glassy, coils seething and clenching

  Throngs of milk-jellies swarming thousands-strong

  Their tendrils tangles of venomous hair-thin threads

  Slowly, our cold corpses sink and settle onto wet sand

  Where no kelp grows, nor sea-grass; a bleak barren plain

  Strewn only by scatterings of shell-shards and stones

  Silt swirls up clouded, disturbed by death, then disperses

  All is silence, all is stillness, in this darkest of depths

  The ocean looms heavy, its endless vastness above us

  This desolate place now our lost and lonely grave-yard

  Though we drown and die, we still feel and hear and see

  We despair, denied our chance to fall bravely in battle

  To take up brimming mead-horns at Odin’s feast-tables

  And stand with gods against giants at the
world-end’s war

  Dreamed-of glories gone beyond grasp in this deep doom

  When we now would even welcome the grey road to Hel

  In whose realm wait the wretched, the aged, and infirm

  Moon-white crabs creep over us, scuttling, claws clicking

  Spiny urchins, sea-stars, spider-shrimp on long spindly legs

  Hagfish come, loathsome and coated slick with thick slime

  We would rather have rats and ravens, wolves and worms

  Dogs, carrion-crows and other scavenging corpse-pickers

  Better to feed their appetites than be this windfall bounty

  This unexpected meal from an unsuspected world above

  To think no one will know what’s become of us, our fate

  For our families, only mysteries, unanswered questions

  Our ship simply gone, vanished, sunken or far-sailed away

  Men missing, presumed dead perhaps, but not known so

  Reputations at the mercy of those who might disparage

  Claiming treachery or oath-breaking, or the worst shame

  Naming us cowards who fled battle to save our own skins

  But our skins are not saved; they soften, peel and slough

  Our bellies bloat, gas-bulging guts grotesquely swelling

  The vile sea-scavengers crawl and squirm at every orifice

  Each quick pinch of crab-claws, each sharp nipping bite

  Eating away at our substance in bloodless bits and pieces

  Naked gleams of ivory peeking through rot-spongy flesh

  They will devour us until nothing but bare bones remain

  Here we are to stay, dead men and drowned, lost forever

  No funeral pyres for us, barrow-mounds, or grave-goods

  Ours oaths to Hjorleif and his to his brothers, unfulfilled

  Ruins of proud men amid ruins of once proud war-gear

  Leather decaying, leaving buckles and brooches behind

  Mail-coats corroded, sharp bright blades dulled by rust

  None so much as touched by bloodstain, victory or defeat

  Then something stirs in the dark depths, stirring within us

  Like a sound, an unsung song, a horn-call only we can hear

  Hjorleif twitches, he sits up, blond skeins of hair floating

  He rises, our oath-sworn lord and leader; we rise with him

  Bodies struggling upright, flesh sagging wetly from bones

  Stiff joints bending, sinews creaking like ropes under strain

  Dreadful things that we are, hideous dead horrors, we rise

  Silt again swirls, disturbed by clumsy and staggering steps

  As we drag our feet onward with determined, grim purpose

  Shedding crabs and sea-stars the way snakes shed their skin

  We gather our war-gear from where it lays strewn on the sand

  Donning mail-coats, fitting helms over skull-loosened scalps

  Grasping our sword-hilts and axes in wet, cold-fingered fists

  For, though we drown, though we die, we are restless and rise

  Fish and eels scatter from us; even sharks flee our approach

  We had yearned for Valhalla, glorious war-death in battle

  For our bodies to be honored and names long-remembered

  Denied such worthy ending, we still would have welcomed

  The walking of the hard and grey weary road to Hel’s realm

  But it is a different road we must walk now, a deep sea-road

  Through untold fathoms of darkness to again find the light

  BRYNJA’S BEACON

  “Here, girl. Wrap yourself in this. The wind today is colder than Hel’s own breath, and it would not do to have you freeze before we reach Skuthorpe.”

  So saying, the man, who’d told her that his name was Sjolfr Hyggsson and he was steward to the Lady Gethril, dropped a woolen cloak over Unn’s shoulders.

  The weight of it, heavy with rain and damp sea-spray, staggered her. But the warmth of it was welcome, for she had been shivering in her thin and ragged linen dress. She pulled the edges close around herself as she continued following him up the steep, wending path.

  A donkey on a rope lead plodded along behind, pulling a cart laden with the goods Sjolfr had purchased at the trade-market. Among them were iron tools and cookware, bowls hewn and polished from soapstone, a sack of good wheat grain, casks of butter and soft cheese and salted herring, two cowhides bought for a fair bargain, and six fat geese in a wicker cage.

  And of course there was Unn…

  Unn the Mouse, as she’d been called, when she’d been just one more of the many daughters of Bertold the Swineherd and Aud his wife. Unn the small one, Unn the quiet one. Unn of the dun-brown hair and eyes, while her sisters were blonde and fair, red-cheeked and comely.

  When the raiders had come in their long ships, striking like Thor’s own lightning so fast and so fierce… when they’d come with swords and spears and fire… when they’d slain the farmers and herdsmen, cut down the aged and infirm, seized women and girls and sturdy youths as well as silver, pigs, cattle and sheep…

  It had not gone well for Unn’s many comely sisters.

  Not that it had gone well for Unn herself, taken from place to place and village to village until she no longer knew how far she was from home. As new slaves were obtained and others sold, she saw those who’d been neighbors, friends and kin led off, and at last only strangers surrounded her. At times she could scarcely recall the faces of her parents, her sisters.

  She’d huddled with the others in wave-tossed ships and old cattle-byres where they slept upon dank straw. She’d eaten what little was given her, and shed no tear even when hunger growled like a beast in her belly. She’d trudged uncomplaining even when the twine-bound leather about her feet fell apart into scraps. Those slaves who complained, who resisted, who fought their captors or tried to flee, suffered for it with lashings, with beatings, even with death.

  Now, Unn too had been sold. Bought by this steward on behalf of his Lady, and she had heard him say to the tradesman he had been bidden to purchase the lowest, meanest, and cheapest of slaves to be had in all the market.

  The tradesman, Unn recalled, had shown surprise at this. And why should he not, when Sjolfr paid from a purse of silver coins? When there was also hidden deep amid the cart’s load a carved and inlaid wooden box, holding two bone combs adorned with amber, and a headscarf stitched with the most delicate embroidery? Sjolfr’s Lady Gethril could only be a woman of wealth, so should have had as many slaves as she liked, all of them stout and hearty.

  Sjolfr merely shrugged. “That is what she bade me, and I would not draw down her anger.”

  With that, he had led Unn away. He did not strike her or seem unkind, no more than he did to the donkey as it placidly pulled its load. He gave her a mouthful of ale and a chunk of bread to strengthen her before they set out, and a strip of dried meat to gnaw on the way. He shed his own cloak to cover her against the bitter wind, striding ahead in tunic and breeches, an arm-ring of hammered metal glinting when some feeble rays of sunshine pierced the grey clouds.

  Unn saw the arm-ring and wondered if he had earned it in battle, for he also wore a short blade at his side.

  “Are you a warrior?” she asked when next he paused to rest the donkey and water it from a fast-flowing creek that rushed down a cleft in the rocks.

  He looked at her, bushy brows rising. “Ah, so the mouse can speak after all! I’d begun thinking you a mute, which is a fine quality in a woman and a finer one in a wife.”

  “Am I to be your wife?” she asked, startled, for such had not occurred to her.

  His laughter pealed forth until tears ran from the corners of his eyes, and he slapped his thigh. “One of those, little mouse, I already have! Though the gods did not see fit to gift her with muteness either, to the sorrow of my aching ears… which she would scold from my very head if I brought home any other! No, no. You are to serve the Lady Gethril, who rules over Skuthor
pe from its timbered hall.”

  She nodded, and said nothing, and pushed a windblown tangle of hair back behind her ear.

  “As for your question,” Sjolfr went on, patting the weapon that hung at his waist, “any farmer or herdsman may be called upon to fight, if there is need, to defend our homes, our fields and our livestock. I, since I go about so much on Lady Gethril’s business, must be able to look after myself. She entrusts me with silver and goods, so should any wretch seek to attack me, he will pay for his troubles in blood.”

  “Your arm-ring—”

  “Once, yes, when I was younger, I took up a shield and a helm and a spear, and went to war. Came back with a scar on my hip where a foeman’s axe bit deep, but I stuck him through the throat and stood over him as his last breath gurgled out.” He lifted his arm, bent at the elbow, to gaze with pride upon the hammered metal. “I was given this as a prize for my bravery by my lord, Hrothgar Firehair.”

  Again, Unn nodded and said nothing.

  Sjolfr, however, proved glad enough to keep talking now that he knew his slave charge was neither deaf nor mute, for the most part both speaking and understanding his tongue. Some of his words were strange, or said in ways strange to her. He spoke of places she had never seen and people she had never met… but Unn listened, and learned, suspecting she would see those places and meet those people soon enough, when they came to Skuthorpe.

  It was, by his recounting, a country of bluffs and boulders and farm-hollows, with woodlands above and a curved inlet of the sea far below. Oats and barley grew well in the fields, and onions and cabbage. They kept many goats and pigs, and some sheep, though the pasturage was not such that they could keep many cattle or horses. The men hunted boar and wild fowl, and fished, and gathered mussels, and sometimes hunted seals along the rocky shores.

  All the land from the river Sidaec to a rearing headland that Sjolfr called Brynja’s Beacon was owned and overseen by…

  There, Sjolfr hesitated. Unn, who happened to be watching him closely, saw his brow crease and his mouth turn downward. He gave a brusque shake of his head.