by Mark Coakley
4: THE HALL
As Halfdan lay stunned on the bumpy, grassy ground -- preparing himself to die for a reason he did not know, the pain of the arrow reaching deeper and deeper into his guts -- he turned his head sideways to look at the shadowy outer wall of King Lambi's hall.
This place had been the center of his life, ever since leaving the small, dull town of Os at sixteen. The first time Halfdan had seen the building from the outside, its size and solid construction had greatly impressed him. And the first day he had seen it from the inside, escorted there (when it was empty) by his nervous-looking Uncle Harald, Halfdan's mouth had dropped open in amazement. "Tor!" Halfdan had never seen a place like it before.
It had seemed to be a single large room (though he learned later that the King and Queen had a separate sleeping-room at the back). The room was so big! Halfdan had known entire families in Os who had fed themselves on farmland smaller than this! Some parts of the wood walls were undecorated, with bronze shield-hooks. Elsewhere, brightly-coloured wool tapestries hung on the walls, showing vivid scenes of men and gods feasting and in battle. Furs hung on the walls too: the grey skins of wolves, the larger brown skins of reindeer and moose and boar-pig, and the huge yellow-white pelts of the legendary northern bear. The bestial faces of these hunting-trophies snarled at the high ceiling.
Halfdan saw other faces too: there were small shelves on the thick oak beams holding up the roof, and on each shelf was resting the dried head of a man. Some looked like they had sat there for a long time. Messy, brittle-looking hair and beards dangled from the wrinkled, shrivelled grey skin of the lifeless and grimacing heads. Swollen blackish eyes bulged out of some heads; the eye-lids of others squinted or were completely shut. The top of each head was gone, and Halfdan could see the unlit tips of candles sticking up from the inside of each skull.
A single long fireplace stretched from one end of the hall to the other. Two rows of long tables went along both sides of the fireplace; dozens of chairs were stacked by the long inner walls. At the far end of the room was a raised platform, which held up a table running perpendicular to the rest, with tall, fancily-painted chairs behind it. In front of this king-table stood a bronze idol of a boar-pig, the size of a real boar-pig, that glittered faintly in the sunlight beaming in through small, high windows.
Straw and wildflowers were strewn across the dirt floor, giving off a nice, fresh smell.
Uncle Harald said, "When Lambi is in town, there are lots of folk hanging around in the evening here. The King and his fighters, the Queens and their serving-girls, local nobles, clerks, poets and too many slaves to count."
Harald had known this because, long before this time, he had once enjoyed a victory-feast here, as a reward from the previous king for brave military service in the Third Great Swedish War.
"When will King Lambi come back to Eid?" Halfdan asked.
Harald said, "Whenever he finishes visiting his other properties around the kingdom. He owns more farms than anybody else, all along the fjord, and he likes to check each of them regularly, to get some dirt on his hands and keep his local managers honest. And the business of ruling also pulls him all over the kingdom: taking gifts of silver from some nobles to keep them from getting too rich, giving silver to other nobles to keep them from getting too ambitious, and hearing reports from his spies. When he is done all that, he will be back."
"And then he will accept me as one of his fighters?"
Harald said, "He should. It has been arranged. My bag of silver-bits will get you in. But as I told you, getting accepted is not the hard part. After I pay your way in, you have to prove yourself on your own, or you'll be sent away."
"I will. No matter what."
"I know," Harald said. "You're good with a weapon and even better with a poem, and that's what Lambi looks for in a man." Harald placed a hand on his adopted son's shoulder. "You were born with strong luck. We are proud of the man you have become. Fate has something special planned for you."
A few days later, the king-ship had returned to the Eid docks, and things had gone as Harald had predicted. A clerk had taken the bag of silver, in front of witnesses. Harald and Halfdan had been told to report to the hall that night.
When darkness finally came, and Halfdan (wearing new clothes, and with fresh blue paint smeared around his eyes) went inside the hall for the second time, it was full of many different kinds of folk, as his uncle had described. Dozens of shields hung from the walls behind the tables. The candles sticking out of the man-heads on the shelves were burning and they, along with the cooking-fire in the middle of the room, filled the room with warm orange light. Many shaven-headed slaves were cleaning up after dinner or carrying beer buckets from table to table. The air smelled of male bodies and roasted meat. Men sat at tables in front of clay plates covered with bones and other dinner-waste. These men held silver-decorated drinking-horns and were talking and laughing until the two visitors from Os walked in. Then, all went quiet. Everybody stared at Halfdan. Usually he did not mind being stared at; he was used to it; most folk in Os had always viewed him as a freak. But now the staring eyes of this crowd of big-town folk made him more nervous.
On the raised platform at the far end of the hall, a man was sitting on the highest chair in the middle of the table. Unlike at the other tables, a few finely-dressed women were sitting up here. When the man in the middle of this table stood, Halfdan knew that this had to be King Lambi. The man was tall and thick-shouldered and fifty-seven years old.
Halfdan stopped and stared.
"Come," Harald said. "This is not a time to be timid."
As he walked with his uncle deeper into the hall, between the long tables towards the far end, Halfdan saw more of the man who many poets called the strongest and the wisest of all Norse kings.
Purple paint circled each of King Lambi's eyes. His beard and hair were thick and yellow, with some grey twisting through his long, braided beard. The king wore a full-length gown of shiny red silk -- a magic kind of imported cloth that only a king or the richest of nobles could afford. King Lambi's belt, glittering with bits of honey-yellow amber, held a sword that was almost as long as his leg. The sword-handle was of plain, well-used leather; it had obviously been chosen less for display than for use.
King Lambi then spoke, in a booming deep voice, saying, "Is this the boy who wants to fight for me?"
Harald said, "Yes, my lord. This is my nephew, Halfdan son of Gødrød, and he is the best young fighter in the town of Os. He will serve you well."
King Lambi said, "Why is your nephew's face so black?"
Harald said, "His mother was an outlander, and passed on her looks to him."
"Can it even speak Norse?"
"He can, my lord. Perfectly. In fact, he is an excellent poet."
King Lambi leaned forward and placed both of his fists on the table-top and said to Halfdan, "Then tell me a poem, troll-faced boy. Make one up about why I should hire you."
Harald glanced at Halfdan, taking a step backwards.
After a long pause, Halfdan said:
My lord is famous for
Feeding crows with unlucky foes
Blood-steaming battlefields
Gave birth to your worthy rule
All have heard of your riches
How you spread it around
Your fighters wear fancy clothes
With such fine treats to eat
Halfdan gestured with one hand towards the feasting-tables surrounding him, and there was some laughter from the men sitting in the chairs.
More confident, Halfdan glared at King Lambi and shouted:
Since youth I yearned to serve
You, and join your war-ship's crew!
I knew that I needed
To serve you, or serve nothing!
After a pause, Halfdan said lamely, "The end."
There was some clapping, and a few hoots. The men at the tables had all heard better poems, but also many much worse. Most were impressed to hear it from someone so young and so odd-looking.
King Lambi was still standing behind his table on the platform. He seemed to be nodding slightly in approval. Finally he said, "If you can fight as well as you rhyme and alliterate, you may be worthy. Come back tomorrow at noon, alone."
Halfdan walked out of the hall with a big grin across his face.
The next day, again wearing newly-bought clothes and fresh blue paint smeared around his eyes, Halfdan showed up at the hall for the hall-joining ritual. The king and some others waited for him outside the hall, standing in a group on a field. They all wore fancy clothes and face-paint too. King Lambi was wearing a long white linen gown.
A grey stallion was tied to a stake in the ground.
King Lambi said, "Halfdan son of Gødrød. Kneel in front of the horse."
When Halfdan had done so, King Lambi said, "Do you choose to join my bodyguard, knowing that you can never leave my service, except by your death or by my command?"
"I do," Halfdan said.
He was distracted for moment by the buzzing sound of a hornet flying past his head, then he forced himself to concentrate on what the king was saying.
"Do you vow to protect me from all foes, both inside and outside Fjordane?"
"Yes."
"If I am struck down, do you vow to take revenge on my killer, even if he is of your family?"
"Yes."
"And will you accept the greatest suffering and the greatest shame known to man or gods, if you should ever break your vows made here today?"
"I do."
King Lambi said, "Then let us see if the gods approve." A man in priests' clothing gave King Lambi a wide, bronze-bladed knife. King Lambi held the horse's head with one hand and, with the other, cut its throat.
As Halfdan knelt in front of the startled beast, the cut sprayed and drenched him in hot, sticky blood. It went onto his eyes and blinded him. He had to hold his breath to keep the reeking gore out of his nose.
A low, bubbling groan from the dying horse. It reared up to its back legs. It raised its big front hooves and started kicking wildly over the blood-soaked head of the unmoving young man kneeling on red-drenched grass.
Halfdan did not flinch. His knew that his good luck would not let him be struck by any of the random hoof-swipes, and he was right.
When the horse stopped kicking, and fell down dead, the group of men cheered.
"The gods approve!" shouted the priest who had brought the knife.
"Stand up, Halfdan the Black," King Lambi said. "Get yourself cleaned up. Your new life starts now."
Halfdan finally allowed himself to move; he stood. A slave handed him a bucket of water, then put a big wood box at his feet. Halfdan took off all his bloody clothes and washed his body clean with a cloth dipped in the bucket. When the last of the horse-blood was off him, Halfdan opened the lid of the box. He saw with joy that it was full of fancy-looking new clothes. Fine wool pants and thick wool socks and a puffy-sleeved white shirt made of the same linen as the gown King Lambi now wore. In the box there was also a pair of shiny cow-leather shoes and a pig-leather belt. On one end of the belt was a silver belt-buckle shaped, as described earlier, like an unnatural-looking beast with gripping hands.
"My first gift to you," King Lambi had said.
That night in the hall, Halfdan drank horn after horn of mead and beer, feasted on horse-steak and listened awe-struck to King Lambi singing sad old songs and playing a silver harp.
