Swan's Path

by Asotir

  * * *

  WHEN HRAP FELL there was peace, but Swanhild did not stir.

  Now Skarphedin turned and wiped his brow; his mouth opened, as if to say some thing. Then he stopped. He blinked, and frowned.

  ‘Now I feel a very weakling,’ he said. ‘My hands sweat and my knees shake; and yet that was no great wound I got.’ Then he drew off his helm and sat down in the sand, and his face was riddled.

  Then Swanhild spoke. ‘Now you are slain, husband. And it was Njal that bade that blow.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘That I will not trust.’

  ‘It was Njal. What is this weakness in you? Why do you sweat and shiver? I will tell you. That was on our wedding-feast, that I went from the booth to the kitchen, and would fetch us meat and drink. But there were Gudruda and Njal, and she told him of the poison we used at Hof against the mice. And I have seen those mice die of it. Now Njal has used this in water, and dipped Hrap’s blade in it, held it over fire, and dipped again.’

  Skarphedin shook his head. He shut his eyes. He was leaning on his hands, and there was much blood draining down his back.

  She went on then, and her voice was as steady now as it had wavered the night before: ‘And belike Ragnhild had some hand in this as well. I ween this was the cause of their quarrel, that Njal promised her coins, and she thought he paid too little, for her help in such a thing as this. How much should a man pay, to send his brother on his Hel-ride?’

  ‘Now your words are envenomed as that blade,’ he said.

  Swanhild went over to him and sat beside him, and took him in her arms. Later he lay back, and he held his head upon her lap.

  Some skuas, smelling the blood, screeched, flew over the strand, and lighted round those other corpses. They were ugly birds, not all white, and their beaks were ill, their necks not long, their feathers not fair. Swanhild stared at them.

  Skarphedin grinned, and showed his teeth.

  ‘You are so unlovely, my Skarphedin.’

  Now she looked away, and out to sea. The mist had risen somewhat, and showed gaps here and there. Very bright it was upon the waves, and glaring. Far off rose the Reynisdrangar, the Rowan-Stacks: and those were pillars of stone, thin and high and weird, and some said they were giants once, and bigger than whales, but had been caught by dawnlight when they went back to their sea-lair, and so smitten into stone. But some thing moved upon the peak of the foremost of them, flew there and lighted. But so far away was it that Swanhild’s eyes were too weak, and she might see only a black spot there.

  Skarphedin said, ‘That was my wish, that I should fall by weapon; but then a shield-maid should come take me. And she should be no common woman, but tall and lithe, like an ash tree on a fell-top. She rides a war-horse, very mighty, but she needs no saddle nor cloth. And she wears not woman’s weeds but man’s armor, helm and sword and ring-byrnie: and that clasps her skin so close, it is as if it has grown together with the flesh.’

  ‘Hush, husband,’ said Swanhild. She opened her lips to say more, but only a choking sound came forth. But Skarphedin looked across the waves, and said,

  ‘And I see there are rings on her arms, and one about her throat, and they are of red gold. In her hand she holds a spear. There is a coal-blue cloak over her shoulders. All her weapons are shining white, like steel chased with silver. And her hair there is long and red, red as coals, red as blood, red as scarlet cloth.’