Valkyrie's Song

by M. D. Lachlan

  ‘I will take the runes.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Here.’

  The corpse stretched a long finger to the wall and Gylfa saw it was not a wall at all but, as he had thought, the skin of a great bubble.

  ‘No!’ he shouted, but it was too late.

  The long sharp finger breached the skin of the wall and the black waters smashed in upon him. Sowilo, the day rune, turned in his mind. He felt energy coursing through him, felt his cock stiffen to the point of pain, felt full of a hot energy; he saw a vision, two men he knew to be brothers, striking at each other, a mother slain by a son’s hand. Fehu lit up inside him and he was back on his farm in the north, tending the cattle but the cattle were sick. He felt dull-headed, stupid and afraid. Finally Dagaz lit with its pink dawn light but he knew it was the light of journey’s end, the light the hero faces, returned home, failed.

  ‘What gifts are these?’

  ‘Gifts and burdens. You will carry them to where they need to go.’

  ‘They are a poison in me.’

  ‘To ascend godhead, to conquer them, you cannot be a man.’

  ‘What must I be?’

  ‘That revelation comes at greater price.’

  Gylfa kicked and swam towards the light of the dawn. The air burst on him and he sucked it in, in desperate gulps.

  ‘Where is he?

  Where is he?

  The god of the hanged and the battle dead.

  Over the sea,

  Over the sea,

  Lies the king of murder, the earth his bed.’

  He had no idea what that meant but, for an instant before his hand struck the rim of the well and he realised he was in darkness, he thought he saw three women looking down at him, and in their hands were skeins of sinew and skin, a warp for life, a weft for death.

  He pulled himself out of the water and the day rune lit inside him, lighting the passageway as clearly as if it were noon but its light was hard upon him, like sunlight to the hungover drunk.

  He saw what he needed to do, to get out of this water, to go to the girl, find her, make her work upon him, help him control these singing symbols sprouting inside him. Then he would decide who to kill. She was a sorceress, Styliane too. He needed to find them. He had to get out. All he had to do was lift the slab.

  31 The River

  Tola was sure she could not wait too long to cut Loys down. She was numb with the cold herself, so she was sure he could not survive for long nearly naked. She saw the magician Ithamar sneaking to the stake to cut the stone from Loys’s neck. A big risk for a small trinket. If he could move in the half light, so could she.

  No. She dare not. Ithamar had got away with his daring, meaning he might have used up all the luck to be had. The stupidity of that thought was not lost on her but still she felt it fundamentally right. The Normans did occasionally venture out to piss or to change the guard on the gates. There was a limit to the number of sneakers and creepers they could miss.

  She had plenty of time to find something to free him with and, after a little searching, settled on the deformed blade of a knife she dug from the cold ground. It was no bigger than her finger but still, despite the fire, held an edge. It would do. And if it did not? The cold froze all thoughts of failure from her. It had to work. They had to get warm somehow.

  Night sucked the light from the land and she became colder, which she had not thought possible. Tola had to go now. She made her way down through the blackened stumps of houses, her legs entirely without feeling at first, then exploding into pain as the blood and the heat came back into them.

  She had no idea how she would move Loys but she was sure she could carry him if needed. How far was another question. The dirty moon was on the river, giving just enough light to see by. She sensed he was alive but, when her mind explored his further than that, she recoiled. Whatever was prowling in his heart did not welcome her thoughts mingling with its own. He chilled her. In place of the void she had felt within him was something nearly as terrifying – an animal, stinking, snarling, presence. The only solace she took was that it didn’t seem hungry. Its animosity just sat and simmered, there was no need impelling it, nor any sense that she was a particular threat.

  It was only when she reached the stake that she realised he had been tied higher than she could reach. Was it worth trying to release him?

  She touched his leg but could not really feel if it was cold or warm. Her fingers were like stone and told her nothing. She tried to climb the stake but her frozen hands could not be made to grip the wood.

  Up on the hill, two men were talking. There was no humour in their exchange, just a sullen grief, an anger about the men they had lost. In the cold, still air, the sound of their pissing was like a waterfall.

  She searched the burned quay. There was a good sized stone that the fire had dislodged from a house. She rolled it down towards the stake, her hands agony against its cold. It was heavy, though the slope towards the river helped her and it rolled easily enough. Too easily. She lost control of its movement and it tumbled forward to thump against the stake. Loys stirred. The pissing stopped. She stood counting her breaths. She got beyond her numbers before the men up the hill started talking again.

  She stood on the stone, holding on with one hand to the stake while the other gripped the blade of the knife as best as she could. His hands were tied above his head at the very limit of where she could reach and she stood on the wobbling stone sure she must fall or cut the man on the stake. He moaned and shifted.

  ‘Don’t cry out, I’m cutting you down.’ She would not say ‘rescuing you’ because she knew how particular even the farming men of the dale could be about accepting help in physical matters from a woman. How much more so a warrior?

  The rope frayed and stretched.

  Normans stamped and hallooed. They must be changing the night watch.

  She hacked still at the bonds.

  He murmured again. What was he saying?

  He leaned forward off the stake. All that was holding him was a thin sinew of rope.

  She sawed at it. He found his voice.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘Do not cut me down. Not yet. It is not safe for you.’

  The rope frayed and snapped and he dropped to the ground, not slumping, as she had expected but onto all fours, an animal crouch. His ordeal had not harmed him.

  ‘Run from me,’ he said. ‘I am not yet my own master.’

  He sniffed at the air, craning his neck around, trying to catch a scent. He paused and stared out over the bridge.

  ‘Survive,’ he said. ‘Live. I will come back to you.’

  ‘I’m afraid. You must help me.’

  He led her down to the water, where a little rowboat lay like a cranefly killed by the cold.

  He lifted her into it and she could see that, despite the freezing weather, he was sweating heavily.

  ‘Lie flat,’ he said. ‘And when you are away from here and get the chance, make a fire. Don’t fear it. I will find you. Please. Go. My mind is full of rage.’

  He held her hand. The dark, coiling, sinuous wolf that wound its way around her thoughts, called him on, wanted him.

  ‘I need you,’ she said.

  ‘And I you.’

  ‘Please.’ She squeezed his hand, her fingers so numb that it felt like stone.

  ‘I am an enemy of destiny, an enemy of death,’ he said.

  ‘Then keep me from destiny and death.’

  He put his arms around her. ‘I’ve missed you for so long,’ he said. ‘I …’

  She didn’t know what to think of this but she felt a terrible attraction to this man, well beyond lust or infatuation. He was necessary to her. Fulfilling. She felt guilty when she thought of Hals. She loved Hals. This was something different – the attraction of the
moon to the night. Unanswerable. He felt it too, she didn’t need to be a seer to realise that.

  ‘Lie flat,’ he said.

  She lay back as he said, looking up into the thin mist and the ice-locked moon.

  He put the oars inside and shoved the boat out into the water. How could anyone bear to wade out like that? How could a man spend so long hanging naked in the cold and emerge unharmed?

  He stepped into the boat and lay beside her, his warmth against her so welcome.

  The river bore them on and she pulled the cloak about her as tight as she could. The old kings had gone off like this, so it was said, but in blazing ships not frozen ones.

  32 Giroie at the Well

  They found Gylfa in the church, kneeling as if in prayer.

  ‘How did we miss him?’

  ‘Never mind. Kill him before the boss gets back. None alive.’

  ‘He might lead us to the others. I tell you there are more Englishmen than we’ve found around here, it’s giving me the creeps.’

  ‘Can you speak to them?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Kill him then.’

  Gylfa did not turn to see them, did not wonder how he understood them. He sensed them as little burning flames behind him, delicate, almost precious, like a candle in a draughty house. Gylfa thought he was perhaps in two places, odd as the idea seemed. One was the church, its solid buttresses stretching up to the broken roof. He was also at the root of a great silver tree, the runes settling in its branches like silver leaves. One rune was like ivy, clinging to it, its white stem climbing up into the stars from his eyes and ears, its roots in his head, curling around his brain, protecting it, making it something new. Another grew from his belly button, anchoring him to the floor with silver, shining roots that sang when he looked at them. He understood the men perfectly in a way he had never understood anyone. Their words were plain to him, but also their souls.

  One of the men was a willing adventurer, driven on by the prospect of plunder in new lands, his mind humming like the grass in the wind at the prospect of confrontation. The other was a more stolid presence, a man who had come from hard, flinty soil that blunted his harrow, yielded few crops. He was numbed by slaughter, his mind labouring as if into a headwind, enduring, waiting, until the winter and the mundane work of killing, the confrontation, was gone and he could get what he had come for – red soil, golden crops, a full belly and some strong sons. He was subordinate to the adventurer, tired of him, but still following out of long habit.

  A heavy boot landed in the middle of the boy’s back, driving him forwards.

  Gylfa’s hands went onto the flagstones. He felt the rumble of the rivers that fed the magic well beneath them.

  ‘Kill him.’ Gylfa said.

  ‘What?’ The subordinate man spoke.

  ‘He speaks Norman,’ said the adventurer. ‘Kill who, you pig? Don’t give me orders. Don’t …’

  Gylfa allowed the silver tendrils of the root rune to grow from his mouth, engulfing the lower man’s legs, snaking up his body, pushing tubers into his throat and his eyes. Red soil, thick red soil, clodded the Norman’s mind, a clinging goo of resentment. He smashed his sword down across the back of the adventurer’s head. Gylfa saw light splurge to the ceiling, pool about the floor. The warrior was leaking light that was blood and blood that was light.

  Gylfa stood. He was warm, full of energy. And then something horrible. The feeling reversed, it was as if he had a great stone on his chest, he convulsed in a shiver, fell down.

  ‘This is witchcraft!’ shouted the remaining Norman. ‘What have you done to me? I did not do that. I did not kill him.’ The bloody sword in his hand told a different story.

  Gylfa retched, tried to stand, but his head felt fit to burst. More noise from the back of the church. ‘What’s happening? What’s going on?’

  Oh, lord, he recognised that voice. Giroie, the Norman he’d escaped.

  ‘Lord!’

  ‘What? Christ, get light, I can’t see anything in here. Why is it the English can see to kill us but not us them?’

  ‘Lord. I have one of them. He’s a sorcerer. Careful, he is rich in magic.’

  A torch was thrust into Gylfa’s face. The tree still stretched above him but the runes on its branches seemed rotten fruit now, unpleasant to look at, never mind to touch.

  ‘This isn’t a sorcerer, it’s a shitting farm boy!’

  How could Gylfa understand the Normans, he wondered. The runes. It had to be the runes.

  ‘I swear, sir, he made this sword leap out of my hand and strike down Geoffrey!’

  ‘Great lord,’ said Gylfa but the buzzing in his head undid any further thought.

  Giroie drew his knife.

  ‘No,’ said Gylfa. ‘No.’

  The day rune lay before him, floating in the air, its closed X almost palpable. ‘Do not, sir, do not.’ He tried to think. He didn’t want to incriminate Loys. The warrior had helped him and, besides, if he found out Gylfa had betrayed him then Gylfa’s days might be few. Who?

  ‘Loys, the foreigner, he was seeking a witch. She is the source of all his magic. She has gifts to give. She could make you mighty.’

  ‘I am mighty, I am the Conqueror’s right hand. I am …’

  The day rune lit, its harsh light aching in the eye. Gylfa retched again. The pain in his head was fierce but he allowed the rune to shine through him.

  ‘He has a stone. A magic stone. She gave it to him. He used it to escape from you. No ordinary man could deceive a great lord like you.’

  The rune shone on Giroie, its light playing on his face like sun on water.

  ‘What is this light?’ said Giroie.

  ‘It was planted in me in there.’ He pointed back to the crypt. ‘Under the earth. They were all delving down there, all of them, delving for magic.’ If only Gylfa could make the runes kill again but he found even the light hard to bear now.

  Giroie crossed himself. ‘Show me.’

  ‘Lord, I am weak.’

  ‘No bother, I am strong.’

  Giroie picked up Gylfa by the scruff of the neck, bundling him down the steps. The other Norman followed, a torch in his hand, flickering against the rune light.

  ‘Should I send for the others, sir?’

  ‘Why?’

  They approached the crypt and saw the scene of slaughter.

  ‘This is what the magic did, this is it!’ said Gylfa.

  ‘Christ’s nuts!’ said the Norman.

  Giroie looked around him. ‘There weren’t enough English to do this. This would have taken a mighty force.’

  ‘Magic,’ said Gylfa. ‘I told you. There was one, a woman. She went into that hole as nothing and when she came out, this. This slaughter.’

  ‘It’s safe for me in there?’ said Giroie.

  ‘Yes. I came in and out.’

  Giroie pointed at Gylfa but he spoke to his soldier. ‘If I don’t come out of there,’ he said. ‘Kill him.’

  ‘Yes, lord.’

  Giroie lowered himself into the hole, taking down the torch.

  Only the rune light shone now, cold and shifting.

  The Norman did not sheathe his sword. Gylfa was too weak to stand. He wanted the day rune to dim its light but it would not. They sat for a long while, Gylfa’s eyes on the sword he was certain would kill him.

  Shouting and lights from within the church.

  ‘Lord, lord, the foreigner has gone! He has cut himself down and fled! Lord!’

  Six soldiers ran down the steps towards the rune light.

  ‘Where is Lord Giroie?’

  ‘In there!’ said the Norman.

  A great cry came from down the tunnel. Without hesitation two warriors climbed into the hole.

  ‘He had better live, sorcerer, or …’

  The Nor
man’s voice was hoarse with fear.

  ‘What is this bright thing?’ It was Giroie’s voice.

  A scraping and thrashing from below. A soldier’s head appeared at the hole.

  ‘Help me,’ he said. ‘Help me! He’s raving!’

  The soldiers reached down and Giroie came coughing from the darkness. He was soaking wet.

  ‘What?’ said a soldier.

  ‘Fill in that hole,’ said Giroie. ‘Move over the slab!’

  He grabbed Gylfa. ‘What is it in there?’

  ‘Magic,’ said Gylfa.

  ‘How do I get it?’

  ‘I don’t know. The witch is the key. She knows everything. Find her.’

  ‘The foreigner was searching for her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then he will know how to find her. Get me to the waterfront.’

  ‘The foreigner is gone, sir. Downriver, I think. A boat is missing.’

  Giroie coughed again. ‘Do you know where he’s gone, boy?’

  ‘Downriver, sir. That’s where the witch said she was going!’ said Gylfa.

  Giroie stood haltingly. A soldier went to help him but he waved him away. ‘Get me dry clothes and let’s get after him! I want that magic stone and I want that witch.’

  In the dark air of the church Gylfa caught a glimpse of something else – a rune like a glittering icicle. Giroie had taken the magic. He gazed up at the symbol twinkling in the dark. No one else seemed to see it, no one but Giroie, who turned his eyes from it.

  ‘That is a curse,’ said Gylfa.

  ‘I know,’ said Giroie. ‘Let us find the witch.’

  33 Pursued

  She lay beside him in the boat as it slipped through the mist of the grey river. Loys was naked, though not yet cold and he feared what that meant. His mouth was wet and he had a strong urge to chew. Her smell was sharp in his nostrils, fear and dread sizzling on her skin like spices in a pot of pork.

  He itched to kill her, but the smell that goaded the wolf inside him brought other, kinder memories too. He was a prince by an expanse of bright water, this woman at his side who he would never give up; he was a wildman trudging through another snowy country, leading a reindeer sled on which the same woman sat in deep furs; he was a man in a green wood, shaking crippled limbs into life, amazed and appalled at the transformation that had come over him. That was when the god had lived, when the story was still being told. Now the god’s story was shattered and its players enacted its fragments. He had thought her like Beatrice, his lover, so long dead. But she was not Beatrice, just someone who stood where Beatrice once stood as one May Queen stands where generations of others have been.