Valkyrie's Song

by M. D. Lachlan

  She waited. There was a lot of shouting and cursing from the church, which went on for a long time. The doors came open and she clamped shut her jaw to stop herself crying out. A naked man was carried out, held aloft by seven or eight warriors, all hurling insults at the man above them. She couldn’t understand a word that they said but she knew they were promising him death. Other warriors streamed behind, bearing torches, and the sight of the fire triggered a deep shiver, the idea of warmth deepening the cold.

  The shouting moved down to the water and she wondered if it would be safe to go into the church. It had to be. ‘Safe’ wasn’t a word that meant very much any more. To be safe from one thing was to be in danger from another. Flee the sword, face the cold. Flee the cold, face the sword. She had the odd thought that she wouldn’t mind being stabbed if only she was stabbed warm.

  That was the sort of grim joke her mother was fond of. Tola hadn’t seen her die.

  She ran back down the hill to the minster, dropping quickly into the shadow of its tower. The poor door was in front of her and she opened it very gingerly and stepped through, then through the leather curtain that separated the vestibule from the main building. The weak moonlight picked out a scene of slaughter. Four men lay dead, killed in the most hideous way. Their bodies had been reduced to carcasses, torn meat. She couldn’t think about that. Two of them still bore cloaks. She scuttled forward, grabbed one and returned. It was soaked with blood on the bottom but it was largely dry. She put it about her and drew it close.

  Men were in there, she could immediately tell – the hard-headed, obdurate note that made her think of castles and palisades. How many? She let her mind wander the church. Four? Five? Someone else was there, not like them. This person was ardent, full of passion, fear and defiance. The presence was like that of a warrior but it was female. She didn’t understand how that could be. The symbols from the well were still there too, chiming and sighing. Tola crossed herself. They terrified her, even more than the women up on the hill.

  The thoughts and dispositions of the people in the church floated in the darkness. She put herself into the mind of a warrior to see what he would want. Her mother had said Tola could read minds but that wasn’t true. She could imagine someone fully from the invisible scent they left as they walked, the way that the air seemed subtly altered by them having been there, to bear still a light that suggested the colour of their eyes or the sheen of their skin. She drifted towards the Norman warrior, imagined him – a tall man, uncomfortable in boots he’d stolen for their quality, telling himself the pinch would go once they were broken in. He wanted to go back to the fire. If any rebels had been there, they had gone. Tola cried out, a pain at her throat. The man had been struck, and hard, across the throat. Panic welled up in her, dread. She withdrew from his mind. Were her countrymen still here? She could contact them. Maybe that offered a way out. There was no feeling of them in that place.

  Screaming and shouting from behind the altar, down towards the crypt where the well had been. If the soldiers outside heard they’d be back very quickly. The darkness seethed with panic. The warrior’s presence faded. There was only the woman left. Freydis heard the sea sigh of the runes, saw the light of a moon on water ascending the stairs. The wolf rune inside her tensed and trembled. The figure who carried Styliane could have been mistaken by others for a man. Not by Tola. The warrior was a woman, despite her mail and her sword. Tola withdrew behind the curtain.

  Should she offer herself to this woman? No, she was an ally of Styliane’s, Tola sensed it. That woman had tried to kill her. Yet the wolf rune still keened for its sisters in the church.

  ‘What are you?’

  A woman’s voice, through the curtain. She saw a burning rune like an arrowhead, or rather envisaged it, floating by the poor door, lighting her up, questioning her.

  ‘Someone trying to live.’

  ‘Then stay away from me.’

  The runes moved on as if dragged away, like dogs from their food; the woman’s footsteps were heavy – flat and dead through the thickness of the curtain. Far away the church men were crying out in agony. When she heard the footsteps returning, she thought that death must have come for her but she lacked the strength to run.

  The curtain moved back and a weather-beaten, flat-nosed woman stood opposite her, Styliane on her shoulder, her breath rasping.

  ‘You led me here,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Someone away in the night was calling out the same word over and over again, a tone of agony. She sensed it was an invocation to God. But God had not intervened when his house was burned and his treasures looted, why would he come to help a man in pain?

  ‘You did. I think the magic is afraid of you. You have magic in you too. You carry the wolf rune.’

  ‘I have never given it a name.’

  ‘I heard it howling in the hills.’

  ‘It has been calling to something. I thought it was her.’ She nodded to Styliane.

  ‘Maybe too. Maybe it called us both,’ said Freydis. ‘For that I thank you because it saved the lady’s life. For that, though a wolf snarls behind your eyes, I offer you my protection.’

  Tola glanced at the good sword Freydis wore at her side. Sword! She wouldn’t have to worry about that. Freydis could crush the life from her with her hands. If Styliane awoke then she would be done for.

  ‘I cannot accept it.’

  Tola felt and heard the runes around her now, rather than saw them. They burned, snorted, jingled and fluttered. Her own rune prowled around them, like a fox around a hen house, and they began to sing – a high, piping, off-key music like wind in the mouth of a shell. It was a call, she felt it, they were sounding like the shepherd sounds his horn in the hill, like the warrior in battle or even the pedlar in the dales. It was a drawing, pulling, imploring sound, ‘I am here,’ it said. ‘You should be too.’

  Two men cried out together. ‘Seca! Seca!’, or something like it. They were begging for help, their need was so sharp she felt it in her guts.

  ‘You will not come with us?’

  ‘The magic inside me tells me to make my own way.’ This was a lie but she could not tell her Styliane was her enemy. Tola felt like crying and, when she spoke next, it was as a child to her mother. ‘What shall I do?’

  ‘Die, I think, if you will not come with me. It is not such a big thing. Or perhaps not. You have survived so far,’ said Freydis.

  ‘Who is that warrior who pulled me from the well?’

  ‘You were in the water?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He is an enemy.’

  ‘Whose enemy?’

  ‘Everyone’s.’

  ‘Like the devil?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I travelled with him a little way.’

  ‘He is not your enemy, then.’

  ‘I thought he might offer me a way forward. He only brought me back to where I started.’

  ‘But he didn’t kill you?’

  ‘No. I found him …’ She searched for the word. ‘Kind.’

  ‘Can the devil be kind?’

  ‘God can be cruel, so why not?’ said Freydis.

  She put her hand to Styliane’s throat, checking her pulse.

  ‘What happened in the waters?’

  Tola wanted to say that Styliane had tried to kill her but she was afraid of what the warrior woman would do if she told her that. So she said nothing, though she could feel her lower lip wobble and knew she was close to throwing herself into this woman’s arms and telling her everything. Despite the runes, despite this woman warrior’s loyalty to Styliane – a thing she felt emanate from her like the love of a child – the warrior was the first person since the burning of her farm who seemed straightforward and honest.

  ‘It is a magic well,’ said the woman
. ‘Odd things happen there. No wonder you cannot speak of them. I am Freydis.’

  ‘I am Tola.’

  ‘You cannot stay in this church, Tola, and you will not come with me. What will you do?’

  ‘Stay here a while. Perhaps the Normans will move on.’

  ‘You will be safe here for a short time. It’s the poor door. None of these warriors will come through it or leave through it even to save their lives. Thank God for the vanity of men. You are a magical creature?’

  ‘My father’s people called me Volva.’

  ‘A sorceress?’

  ‘Not willingly.’

  ‘Nor I. Where will you go?’ said Freydis.

  ‘I will try to live in this land until it’s warmer. Then I’ll go home. They can’t keep burning forever.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s the end of the world.’

  ‘I think it is. But I’ll try to survive just in case it isn’t.’

  Freydis smiled.

  ‘Spoken like a warrior, not a witch. Goodbye, Tola. I am frightened of you.’

  ‘Goodbye, Freydis. And I of you.’

  Freydis tried the poor door and peered through. Seeing nothing, she went into the dark night, Styliane across her shoulder. When the door was closed again, Tola sat in the darkness, the cloaks pulled tight about her. She heard warriors streaming through the church and she pulled herself tight to the door arch, her back to it, hoping that anyone who looked in would miss her. She needn’t have bothered. The screams of the men in the church pulled everyone past the door. After a while, when a washed-out light crept under the poor door, she heard the men leave. She let her mind wander the church. They were gone.

  For the first time, she slept, her thoughts drifting from the cold of the floor to the cold of the well and then back out again.

  She sensed the Normans at their fires, she sensed the skulking Ithamar, moving about by the river like a rat, and she sensed agony. It hit her so sharp that she cried out, jolting herself from sleep. The man who had come for her in the water, the void-minded enemy who Freydis had called kind, was alive in her mind. She had not been able to find him, not wanted to. But now it was as if he arose from a sleep and stood before her, like Christ on the cross, tortured and forsaken. The wolf rune in her stirred and called and there was an answer, an animal miasma drifting through her thoughts, a howl-stink, a demented scream like the sound of a snared fox.

  The emotion was like a fire to the frost of her thoughts. He was fear, a nightmare come to life. But she would go to him and she would help him. The wolf rune howled and she cracked the door of the church to see when it would be night and she could move.

  30 Merkstave

  Gylfa crawled down the tunnel. It was not like the other tunnel, lined in sharp bricks, but instead it was like a wormhole dug through rock. As he moved on he saw other tunnels coming off it and he was reminded of the meat in the bad Last of Goat stew they’d eaten on the farm – all little pipes and knots. Better than no meat, though, as this was better than no way forward, no light.

  The song sounded in the passageway. It was in his own language.

  ‘Two without fate on the land they found,

  Ask and Embla, empty of might.

  He recognised it as the poem about the formation of the earth. The first men, Ask and Embla, were powerless before the gods breathed life into them and, with it, destiny. To live was to have a destiny. His father had told him that – no dodging it, no hiding. Strap on your sword, grip your shield and get ready for whatever yours might be. The voice was cracked, full of agony, singing as a man who had broken his leg might sing to distract himself from the pain.

  He crawled on.

  ‘What is this place?’ he muttered.

  The singing stopped.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘Ah, a liar. You are welcome at my table. Crawl forth so I might see you.’ The words came out in gasps.

  Gylfa crawled on. The passage opened into a cave hung with icicles, great teeth of rock jutting up from the floor. On a plinth by a trickle of water that fell from the wall sat a torn corpse. It was tall, two or three heads higher than any man Gylfa had ever seen; a shock of bright red hair on its head, its body pale and ruined. Half of the torso had been torn away, most of the right arm too. The corpse wore a cloak of hawk’s feathers but apart from that it was naked. He had seen worse in war but he could not rightly remember quite when.

  ‘Sit and eat,’ said the corpse. It must be a corpse, thought Gyfla. No man could survive such wounds. ‘I have plentiful food.’

  ‘Now who is the liar?’

  ‘You sir, you. You said you were here when I see plainly that you are there.’ The corpse smiled and blood burst in a gout from his lips. It did not seem to trouble him any greater.

  ‘You say you have a fine table when I see nothing,’ said Gylfa.

  ‘I said I had plenty to eat. Nothing’s plenty for dead men.’

  ‘I am dead and you are the devil.’

  ‘Oh, that again,’ said the corpse. ‘I always get that.’

  ‘Always?’

  ‘Lately. Since Christ climbed up his tree and became the king of pain. A good idea, really. So much pain, such a large kingdom, so many subjects in it, eager to bow the knee.’ The corpse inclined its head, not its knee, in a little bow.

  ‘So am I dead?’

  The corpse cracked a wide grin. ‘Well I don’t think you’re very well. Not very well in the well. Well, well, well. All’s well that ends well but all’s not well that ends in a well. We’ll see what wells in the well. Well or ill, well met, ill met, well we’ve met in a well, what do you see?’ He fell to coughing, leaning hard over the table.

  ‘You make no sense, sir.’

  ‘I was ever in tune with the times. You are a coward, I think.’

  The boy felt himself colour. ‘I have tried to be brave.’

  ‘They all try that. All men are cowards, especially the true heroes. They run into the enemy’s spears, they fight the wolf and the bear but they do so because they fear what men will think of them. Have you ever met anyone as dull as a hero? Have you ever met a hero?’

  ‘I was with one. A strong man. He killed many men.’

  ‘Was it a man you saw? Or a beast wearing a man’s pelt?’

  ‘A berserker, I think. He fought like a bear.’

  ‘What you saw was not a man. It was a wolf creeping in a man’s flesh. What was he doing?’

  ‘He said he was seeking death.’

  ‘A coward, true. I am seeking death too.’

  ‘Are you a coward?’

  ‘I thought I was but I have disappointed myself with my bravery. I have lost an enemy and don’t know what to do. I would have him back.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The king of battles, the Lord of Slaughter, Odin, Woden, he who loves the sight of blood, death himself, he who hung … Am I boring you?’

  ‘You are puzzling me. Death has not gone. Death is everywhere.’

  ‘Had his people not abandoned him … Had he lived then would old Harold have caught you napping by the bridge? There is a rightness to slaughter, I see that now. Tribute paid to fate, warriors to fill the halls of the dead god and ride at his side. That makes the gods happy and the land bountiful. But this? The women cut down, their children too, the land ravaged. This is not his work but that of the Christ god, who hates all nature, who would call the cycles of life sinful and shameful, who obliterates all passion but that for him in his suffering. And let’s face it, he got a better death than his followers are granting the men of this land.’

  Gylfa felt dizzy. He could taste iron in his mouth and he had the sense that behind the light of the cave lurked blackness. He was in a bubble of light that could pop at any moment a
nd return him to the freezing dark of the well.

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘Spoken like a northern man, always ready to slice to the nub of it,’ said the corpse. ‘This well contains the old symbols, the runes, the fragments of the god. You need to take them on. Then you need to find the others. Some of them left here and some will be called to find you. They will be buried.’

  ‘Where buried?’

  ‘In human flesh. You will need to dig them out. Take the girl and kill her. She is the key. She carries a powerful rune and, if she can kill your friend the hero at the appointed place, then the god will be dead forever. If you are there when the wolf waters the soil with her blood, however, the god might rise in you. I have told her a story. It will lead her to where she needs to be.’

  ‘I don’t understand you.’

  ‘Kill the girl. You’ll be divine. No more “woman” taunts there. No one will question your manliness. Or godliness. Or whatever-you-say-you-are-ness. It’ll be up to you.’

  ‘Is not magic womanly and beneath the warrior?’

  ‘Or godly and above him.’

  ‘And the alternative?’

  ‘You might survive. You might die. But you will live on without fame. You will likely die of the cold or at the spears of your enemies. I’m aware I’m not painting a very attractive picture here.’