The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction Sixth Series

by Edited by Anthony Boucher

  “Not like yours,” he said, looking up. Neither of them looked away again. “We sing rather than chant. I wish I had my guitar here—that’s a kind of harp.”

  “Ah, an. Irish bard!” said Hjalmar Broadnose.

  I remember strangely well how Gerald smiled, and what he said in his own tongue, though I know not the meaning: “Only on me mithers side, begorrah.” I suppose it was magic.

  “Well, sing for us,” asked Thorgunna.

  “Let me think,” he said. “I shall have to put it in Norse words for you.” After a little while, staring up at her through the windy night, he began a song. It had a tune I liked, thus:

  From this valley they tell me you’re leaving,

  I shall miss your bright eyes and sweet smile.

  You will carry the sunshine with you,

  That has brightened my life all the while. . . .

  I don’t remember the rest, except that it was not quite decent.

  When he had finished, Hjalmar and Grim went over to see if the meat was done. I saw a glimmering of tears in my daughter’s eyes. “That was a lovely thing,” she said.

  Ketill sat upright. The flames splashed his face with wild, running hues. There was a rawness in his tone: “Yes, we’ve found what this fellow can do: sit about and make pretty songs for the girls. Keep him for that, Ospak.”

  Thorgunna whitened, and Helgi clapped hand to sword. I saw how Gerald’s face darkened, and his voice was thick: “That was no way to talk. Take it back.”

  Ketill stood up. “No,” he said, “I’ll ask no pardon of an idler living off honest yeomen.”

  He was raging, but he had sense enough to shift the insult from my family to Gerald alone. Otherwise he and his father would have had the four of us to deal with. As it was, Gerald stood up too, fists knotted at his sides, and said. “Will you step away from here and settle this?”

  “Gladly!” Ketill turned and walked a few yards down the beach, taking his shield from the boat. Gerald followed. Thorgunna stood with stricken face, then picked up his ax and ran after him.

  “Are you going weaponless?” she shrieked.

  Gerald stopped, looking dazed. “I don’t want that,” he mumbled. “Fists—”

  Ketill puffed himself up and drew sword. “No doubt you’re used to fighting like thralls in your land,” he said. “So if you’ll crave my pardon, I’ll let this matter rest.”

  Gerald stood with drooped shoulders. He stared at Thorgunna as if he were blind, as if asking her what to do. She handed him the ax.

  “So you want me to kill him?” he whispered.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  Then I knew she loved him, for otherwise why should she have cared if he disgraced himself?

  Helgi brought him his helmet. He put it on, took the ax, and went forward.

  “Ill is this,” said Hjalmar to me. “Do you stand by the stranger, Ospak?”

  “No,” I said. “He’s no kin or oath-brother of mine. This is not my quarrel.”

  “That’s good,” said Hjalmar. “I’d not like to fight with you, my friend. You were ever a good neighbor.”

  We went forth together and staked out the ground. Thorgunna told me to lend Gerald my sword, so he could use a shield too, but the man looked oddly at me and said he would rather have the ax. They squared away before each other, he and Ketill, and began fighting.

  This was no holmgang, with rules and a fixed order of blows and first blood meaning victory. There was death between those two. Ketill rushed in with the sword whistling in his hand. Gerald sprang back, wielding the ax awkwardly. It bounced off Ketill’s shield. The youth grinned and cut at Gerald’s legs. I saw blood well forth and stain the ripped breeches.

  It was murder from the beginning. Gerald had never used an ax before. Once he even struck with the flat of it. He would have been hewed down at once had Ketill’s sword not been blunted on his helmet and had he not been quick on his feet. As it was, he was soon lurching with a dozen wounds.

  “Stop the fight!” Thorgunna cried aloud and ran forth. Helgi caught her arms and forced her back, where she struggled and kicked till Grim must help. I saw grief on my son’s face but a malicious grin on the carle’s.

  Gerald turned to look. Ketill’s blade came down and slashed his left hand. He dropped the ax. Ketill snarled and readied to finish him. Gerald drew his gun. It made a flash and a barking noise. Ketill fell, twitched for a moment, and was quiet. His lower jaw was blown off and the back of his head gone.

  There came a long stillness, where only the wind and the sea had voice.

  Then Hjalmar trod forth, his face working but a cold steadiness over him. He knelt and closed his son’s eyes, as token that the right of vengeance was his. Rising, he said. “That was an evil deed. For that you shall be outlawed.”

  “It wasn’t magic,” said Gerald in a numb tone. “It was like a ... a bow. I had no choice. I didn’t want to fight with more than my fists.”

  I trod between them and said the Thing must decide this matter, but that I hoped Hjalmar would take weregild for Ketill.

  “But I killed him to save my own life!” protested Gerald.

  “Nevertheless, weregild must be paid, if Ketill’s kin will take it,” I explained. “Because of the weapon, I-think it will be doubled, but that is for the Thing to judge.”

  Hjalmar had many other sons, and it was not as if Gerald belonged to a family at odds with his own, so I felt he would agree. However, he laughed coldly and asked where a man lacking wealth would find the silver.

  Thorgunna stepped up with a wintry calm and said we would pay it. I opened my mouth, but when I saw her eyes I nodded. “Yes, we will,” I said, “in order to keep the peace.”

  “Then you make this quarrel your own?” asked Hjalmar.

  “No,” I answered. “This man is no blood of my own. But if I choose to make him a gift of money to use as he wishes, what of it?”

  Hjalmar smiled. There was sorrow crinkled around his eyes, but he looked on me with old comradeship.

  “Erelong this man may be your son-in-law,” he said. “I know the signs, Ospak. Then indeed he will be of your folk. Even helping him now in his need will range you on his side.”

  “And so?” asked Helgi, most softly.

  “And so, while I value your friendship, I have sons who will take the death of their brother ill. They’ll want revenge on Gerald Samsson, if only for the sake of their good names, and thus our two houses will be sundered and one man-slaying will lead to another. It has happened often enough erenow.” Hjalmar sighed. “I myself wish peace with you, Ospak, but if you take this killer’s side it must be otherwise.”

  I thought for a moment, thought of Helgi lying with his skull cloven, of my other sons on their garths drawn to battle because of a man they had never seen, I thought of having to wear bymies every time we went down for driftwood and never knowing when we went to bed whether we would wake to find the house ringed in by spearmen.

  “Yes,” I said, “you are right, Hjalmar. I withdraw my offer. Let this be a matter between you and him alone.”

  We gripped hands on it.

  Thorgunna gave a small cry and fled into Gerald’s arms. He held her close. “What does this mean?” he asked slowly.

  “I cannot keep you any longer,” I said, “but belike some crofter will give you a roof. Hjalmar is a law-abiding man and will not harm you until the Thing has outlawed you. That will not be before midsummer. Perhaps you can get passage out of Iceland ere then.”

  “A useless one like me?” he replied bitterly.

  Thorgunna whirled free and blazed that I was a coward and a perjurer and all else evil. I let her have it out, then laid my hands on her shoulders.

  “It is for the house,” I said. “The house and the blood, which are holy. Men die and women weep, but while the landred live our names are remembered. Can you ask a score of men to die for your own hankerings?”

  Long did she stand, and to this day I know not what her answer would
have been. It was Gerald who spoke.

  “No,” he said. “I suppose you have right, Ospak . . . the right of your time, which is not mine.” He took my hand, and Helgi’s. His lips brushed Thorgunna’s cheek. Then he turned and walked out into the darkness.

  I heard, later, that he went to earth with Thorvald Halls-son, the crofter of. Humpback Fell, and did not tell his host what had happened. He must have hoped to go unnoticed until he could arrange passage to the eastlands somehow. But of course word spread. I remember his brag that in the United States men had means to talk from one end of the land to another. So he must have looked down on us, sitting on our lonely garths, and not know how fast word could get around. Thorvald’s son Hrolf went to Brand Sealskin-boots to talk about some matter, and of course mentioned the stranger, and soon all the western island had the tale.

  Now if Gerald had known he must give notice of a man-slaying at the first garth he found, he would have been safe at least till the Thing met, for Hjalmar and his sons are sober men who would not kill a man still under the protection of the law. But as it was, his keeping the matter secret made him a murderer and therefore at once an outlaw. Hjalmar and his kin rode up to Humpback Fell and haled him forth. He shot his way past them with the gun and fled into the hills. They followed him, having several hurts and one more death to avenge. I wonder if Gerald thought the strangeness of his weapon would unnerve us. He may not have known that every man dies when his time comes, neither sooner nor later, so that fear of death is useless.

  At the end, when they had him trapped, his weapon gave out on him. Then he took up a dead man’s sword and defended himself so valiantly that Ulf Hjalmarsson has limped ever since. Jt was well done, as even his foes admitted; they are an eldritch race in the United States, but they do not lack manhood.

  When he was slain, his body was brought back. For fear of the ghost, he having perhaps been a warlock, it was burned, and all he had owned was laid in the fire with him. That was where I lost the knife he had given me. The barrow stands out on the moor, north of here, and folk shun it, though the ghost has not walked. Now, with so much else happening, he is slowly being forgotten.

  And that is the tale, priest, as I saw it and heard it. Most men think Gerald Samsson was crazy, but I myself believe he did come from out of time, and that his doom was that no man may ripen a field before harvest season. Yet I look into the future, a thousand years hence, when they fly through the air and ride in horseless wagons and smash whole cities with one blow.- I think of this Iceland then, and of the young United States men there to help defend us in a year when the end of the world hovers close. Perhaps some of them, walking about on the heaths, will see that barrow and wonder what ancient warrior lies buried there, and they may even wish they had lived long ago in his time when men were free.

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  ~ * ~

  RACHEL MADDUX

  Stories by Rachel Maddux have appeared in Collier’s, Harper’s and Story, but never before in a fantasy collection. She can, with luck, write a short story in a day — and has been working on a four-volume novel for eighteen years. By the time this anthology appears, that novel (reduced to one volume) will have been published; and the gReen kingdom (Simon & Schuster) should, prove to be one of 1957’s more off-trail and interesting fantasies: a blend of adventure, suspense, character study and science fiction in the Robinsonade of five lost people in a primeval Lost World in the Rockies. Her great good fortune, she says, is that she is “married to a man who understands writers”: but the good fortune must be partly his as well, since his wife is a writer who understands marriage — as she demonstrates simply and touchingly in this peculiarly contemporary ghost story of a revenant who could return only in the 1950’s

  FINAL CLEARANCE

  “Hello. Oh, Evvie? Nice of you to call. Oh, I was just trying to get some of these sympathy notes acknowledged. You and Ed have been swell, but honestly, you don’t need to worry about me. As a matter of fact, I’m going to turn in very soon. Yes, I have my sleeping pill and my glass of brandy and my book all laid out beside the bed. I’ll call you tomorrow, Evvie.

  “The notes? Well, I don’t see how you could help, really. It isn’t anything anyone else can do for you very well. Evvie, you’d be amazed. Do you know there are at least a dozen from people I never even heard of? There’s one (I must show it to you) so very touching, in the most labored handwriting, from a man who owns a fruit store where Tom used to stop on his way home. Tom never even mentioned him and this Tony what’s-his-name must have poured out all his troubles . . .

  “What? Yes, he was. The most wonderful. I can see him so clearly standing there chewing on an apple, giving this little man that vague smile he had and nodding his . . . nodding . . . Evvie, I’m slopping over again. Sorry. Call you in the morning.”

  Madeline replaced the receiver carefully and pressed the back of her hand against her lips. This treacherous blubbering that sneaked upon her without warning served no purpose. It neither assuaged grief nor eased bitterness; it did nothing but choke up her mouth and bring on another spell of vomiting.

  “I won’t have it,” she said aloud. She reached for a cigarette and finally got the match flame aligned with the end of it. Every handkerchief she owned was a small hard ball lying in the laundry hamper. Even all of Tom’s were used up now. The thing was she had to wash tomorrow, absolutely. She got up from the desk and walked into the bathroom. Even the Kleenex was gone. This very afternoon she’d been in a drugstore and hadn’t remembered. She blew her nose on a piece of toilet paper and missed the wastebasket when she tried to throw the paper into it. With a grotesque kind of patience she bent over slowly to pick up the toilet paper, holding on to the wash basin against her dizziness. When the phone rang again she straightened up slowly and limited herself to a deep sigh. Against the ringing she told herself to remember that somewhere she had left a cigarette burning.

  “Hello? Hello? Oh, yes, Uncle George. Why, I’m all right. How are you?”

  The cigarette, she saw, was safely here in the ash try on the desk and she reached for it gratefully.

  “That’s very kind of you and Aunt Emily, but really I’d rather be here. I’m just more comfortable in my own place, you know. Oh no. Don’t come. I mean, I wouldn’t think of it. No, please. Why, you’d have to get the car out and everything and it’s so late. Really, I’m all right. I’m fine. Certainly. I’m keeping busy, as you suggested.”

  That emergency frustrated, Madeline leaned back in her chair and discovered that, at a certain angle, it would produce a squeak. Now, by moving forward and back only a little, she could punctuate Uncle George’s endless talk with little squeaks.

  “Yes, I know you did, Uncle George (squeak, squeak). Tom was so fond of you both (squeak). Oh, you did? That’s very kind of you. I’m so stupid about things like insurance (squeak, squeak). I know Tom would appreciate . . .”

  She sat through two more cigarettes saying yes, saying no, saying thank you and squeaking the chair. It sounded exactly like a pig and for a while she played with the picture of having turned the phone over to a small white pig. She could see Uncle George talking pompously on and on, Aunt Emily hovering nearby, while at the other end of the line the neat, white pig squeaked back appropriate responses.

  Even this came to an end at last and now she sat at the desk, too worn out to tackle the notes of sympathy. The big thing was, did it really matter if she washed her teeth or not? If she just fell on the bed, for once, and didn’t carry on, what would happen?

  “What?” Tom had said after that Anderson’s party. “You mean your pores aren’t cleansed? You’re going to leave them clogged up all night, choking, like it says in the ads?”

  Suddenly a picture of her proper little mother came into Madeline’s mind and filled her with such warmth and affection that she actually smiled. Relatives had swarmed over the house after her father’s death so that her mother, in order to escape them for a moment, had walked into the bathroom while she was
lying in a hot tub. Her mother had closed the door firmly and, with a sigh, had let her very proper widowhood slip from her. “If Cousin Norma asks me one more time what I’m going to do now, I’ll spit in her eye,” she said. The two of them had started giggling there in that house of death. Madeline had crawled out of the tub and put her arms around her little mother while they tried to stop the sound of their giggling lest they shock one of the relatives. She had started to shiver and they had seen then that her mother was all wet from the bath water.

  Cutting as it did through so many years and such a distance the phone’s ring frightened her so that she knocked her elbow against the edge of the desk and, cradling the sharp pain of it, she let the phone ring twice again before she could answer. But that fright had been as nothing to the fear which, at the sound of the voice on the telephone, had her at once on her feet. She was electrified with fear and she put out one hand to hold onto the desk while, with the other, she carefully moved the receiver away from her ear and laid it upside down on the desk. Her knees simply fell away from her and she sank into the chair staring with horror at the receiver which went on calling her name: “Madeline, darling, are you there? Muffin, are you all right? Look, it’s Tom. I was afraid to walk in on you without warning. Muffin, Muffin, please say something. . . .”