A sample from an early work, based on a medieval Icelandic saga.
© 1975 by asotir. All rights reserved.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Swan-Maiden: Three
THE SOUND OF Orvar-Odd’s voice lingered between the high rafters of the hall amidst the smoke and fluttering moths. Even those children, usually so talkative, were still: for these were wondrous and impossible tales to them, of great battles and treasure-taking; and all they had known were sheep-shearing, and cow-milking, and taking in the hay in summer.
Raven-headed Swanhild lay back against the dark heavy stone, lifting her angular face toward the ceiling. The thick black braid fell in a curling loop down round her long slender throat, past the brooches over the front of her gown, moving quite slightly with the rise and play of her breasts. Her long eyes were slits, and through the curls of heat her face was seen to shudder; yet her lips were closed. Strangely still and calm had she borne herself that night: as if the soul of her had been drained out in the bleakness of the storm, and only the body come again to her father’s hall. Now her eyes were shut heavy, as if she slept: her head was fallen back and showed her nostrils, wide-seeming and dark. Then she sat bolt-upright and her eyes went open. A sudden heavy knocking sounded from the main door.
Three times the knock sounded, and leaped loudly down the hall’s length.
The men stood to their feet. Thorgrim laid his hands upon his axe-haft. Others also took down weapons from the wall. Rannveig, one of the thrall-women, gathered the children and took them grudging back deeper into the hall.
The great door swung outwards, and in leapt wind and chill and wet, blowing cinders and smoke from the firebed: and a great dark shape bundled in, manlike and fierce.
It stepped across the threshold-stone and pulled shut the door with a bang. The moan of the wind went out with that bang; so that, for a moment, there was quiet. The stranger stood bent over, face lowered, water dripping off his cloak and hair. Then he lifted up his head and looked them over there with a dark and angry eye.
‘Drink,’ he growled. ‘Drink and shelter from the storm!’
He was not tall, but he was broad: and that not all fat either. His dirty hair was dark with wet; his unbraided beard straggled down his chest. He shook himself, and the water flew from his hair and beard, as if he had been some fierce mongrel Dog upon two legs. He slapped his cloak upon the floor and stepped up to the long-fire. The men gave way for him, wordless at his boldness. The women stood far back, close together in a circle, the children peering out from between their skirts. Only Olaf’s daughter did not move at the stranger’s coming, but only sat, watching him with a faint wonder in her eyes.
The man leaned out his bulk over the ember-bed, wringing out his beard with two meaty hands. The water fell hissing in the fire, and waverings of steam swept up about his face. As he rubbed his hands and blew out breath he looked at Swanhild where she sat below him. She said nought, but met his look.
‘Hello, stranger,’ said Thorgrim behind, ‘if you are not an outlaw or enemy of this hall.’
The stranger threw back his hairy head. ‘Have you no ale?’ he asked. Big as Thorgrim was, he seemed a weakling beside the stranger. ‘Have you no mead to warm my belly? By the Christ, it is chill out there!’
Swanhild stood, went to the cask, and filled a cup. She bore it to the stranger: he took it and threw it back into his gaping mouth: smacked his lips, loosed a big belch.
‘Oh, but that’s good!’ he groaned, turning so that his buttocks might get some portion of the warmth. Catching Thorgrim’s mistrustful stare, he barked a short laugh. ‘No, I’m no outlaw, if that’s what you’re so fearful of! – Not yet at least: after the Assembly this summer, well, then I’ll see if I’ve any luck left still! My name is Hrap: come from the West Firths, and before that the Hebrides saw my birth. Don’t ask my father’s name, for you know as much of him as I! Do you have dry linens, or is guest-kindliness not your way?’
He squatted down at the edge of the fire and held his arms forth flat in front of him. The glow of the embers made his skin all coppery and reddish, as if it had been scalded. From beneath his brows he stared at Swanhild. She held again her seat by the firebed, somewhat farther down.
‘I left my pony in your stables and gave him hay,’ he said: ‘I’ll work to pay it if you want. Have I missed my goal, or are you Olaf Sigurdarson?’
Thorgrim shook his head, and sat again beside the highseat. ‘Olaf is away. I am chief of his supporters: Thorgrim is my name. Yonder sits Olaf’s wife Gudruda.’
‘And she, the black proud one, who is she?’
Swanhild looked away.
‘That is Swanhild, Olaf’s-daughter. What did you come here, Hrap, to seek of Olaf?’
‘What do I want?’ The big man laughed mournfully. ‘Some would call it a small thing: only my life, that’s all. As for this night, well, I would have stopped before, had I found one who would shelter me. When will Olaf return?’
‘That we know not. Soon is my wish. What have you to do with him?’
‘Hrap shrugged. ‘You look a man to understand. From the tales they tell of Olaf Sigurdarson, I deemed him the sort of man that would offer me haven. And I guessed the East might be a place of better luck for me. I slew a man back there.’
‘That is serious.’ Thorgrim frowned. ‘Murder or manslaughter?’
‘It was no secret deed, if that is what you ask!’
‘Was he kin or foe?’
‘No kin of mine. I’ve no kin in this land; anyway, not yet.’
What name bore he? I mind me of one who spoke of a recent killing – a pedlar that came by here.’
‘Gisli was his name.’
‘Fornald’s son?’
Hrap nodded over the coals.
‘Aye, I recall it now,’ mused Thorgrim. ‘Fornald is a mighty chieftain in those parts, man. He is not often thwarted in his wishes. Wasn’t Gisli his only son?’
‘Two others has he, but bastard-born, and ill-liked.’
‘Aye, those are powerful folk. How was the killing done?’
‘Fairly and in equal battle. Gisli attacked me.’
‘Hm. That is not the tale I heard; but if it is true, then your course should be a simple one: dig up Gisli’s corpse and summon him in suit for the attack. Then Fornald will not have the right to sue you for compensation. Still, you ask for Olaf’s aid in this, not mine. You are welcome to stay here until he returns if Gudruda gives her leave.’
‘I do not give it!’
Gudruda had come down the longfire to where she might overhear their words: but at the saying of the intruder’s name she had stiffened. Now she stepped forth, picked the wet cloak up off the stone and held it out to Hrap.
‘Thorgrim, you may have forgotten who this man is, but I have not. Hrap he names himself, but I think he is better known as Killing-Hrap! Three poor men has he slain in the West Firths, and when Gisli Fornaldarson came to ask for atonement on behalf of the widows, Killing-Hrap gave him guest-cup, then slew him when he had put weapons aside! It is no wonder to me he might find shelter in no other hall. Go your way now, Killing-Hrap: you’ll find no shelter here!’
Hrap muttered, standing over Gudruda like a frost-giant above a dwarf. Then with one heavy hand he reached down and took up the little brass cross that hung from her neck. ‘By this sign I call upon you for help and shelter,’ he said. ‘Are we not all brethren?’
‘Were they your brethren you slew westaways, when you had stolen their wethers?’ Gudruda asked, and snatched back the charm. ‘What charity did you show their widows, Killing-Hrap?’
‘You will not call me by that name, goodwife.’
‘Beware that you threaten here,’ said Thorgrim, and held his axe in readiness. Hrap saw that look in his eye and stepped back a pace: put his hand down and fingered at the peace-strings that bound his sword in sheath. Gudruda stepped between them.
‘Thorgrim, this is not your hall,’ she said. ‘And now, Killing-Hrap, I shall call folk whatsoever I wish while I am in my husband’s hall; and until my husband should return, no one but I will choose who shall get guesting here. Now go, and take with you your murdering ways.’
But now Thorgrim drew Gudruda a ways apart, and muttered to her these words: ‘This were unseemly, to cast any man out, how vile he be soever, and above all on such a night as this. But a great-hearted man will offer meat to his bitterest foe, though that try his temper to the uttermost.’
But to that Gudruda answered in no small voice, ‘That I am not a man, and I will cast this one out, and above all on such a night as this. But there is a thing called righteousness, and I will try to cleave to that. Now put up all these words of yours, Thorgrim, for in this I’ll not be moved no whit.’
Before this fierceness, in so plump and mild-seeming a woman, Hrap stood unsure. The menfolk saw him waver and stepped in closer, weapons in hand. Then he shrugged; slung the dripping cloak across his sword side, and stepped backward to the door. But at the threshold he stopped and eyed them again. They stood, all the men and Gudruda, and the women far behind. But only one still sat, on the stones at the fireside.
‘You there, proud one,’ Killing-Hrap called. ‘It seems to me you have as much say here as any other. Now, many will say I was never a beggar-man, but you I will ask. Will you give me leave to abide here?’
Swanhild looked up at him, her eyes wide and dark. She looked to Gudruda, Thorgrim, and back to the stranger. She sat quite still, as if become stone, while all the others looked to her: and so a moment passed.
‘Be it thus then,’ Hrap growled. With a heavy shoe he kicked the door wide open behind him, letting in all the rain and wind. And he laughed gloomily, to see all the folk within a-shivering. ‘You have withheld from me shelter and peace,’ he said against them, ‘clean against all the uses of the land. Now you put me out on a night like this. But maybe, Gudruda Sharp-Tongue, there are others, and their ways are somewhat unlike these of yours: maybe too there will come some day when I may do you some other good turn.’
With that he strode out into the night, leaving the great door open behind him and the storm blowing in. Thorgrim stepped upon the threshold-stone and peered out into the blackness. ‘If this were a dry night we might soon have flame for our bedmate,’ he muttered. ‘Bjarni and Ulf, go you out and see that he does us no hurt. Sing out if he threaten, but beset him no more. But get him gone by all means.’
The two nodded, and took on cloaks with hoods to keep the rain off their heads. They took swords and shields, and stepped out after Hrap. Thorgrim drew the door shut after them and stood back in the hall.
‘Those were no fearful words, Gudruda,’ he said. ‘Olaf can be proud to have such a one for a wife.’
Gudruda nodded; her look still held fast to the door. Light and quick came her breath. ‘You do not deem he will give us trouble, do you?’ she asked.
‘Not this night.’ Thorgrim laughed. ‘Saw you his eyes whenas he left? We should name you Gudruda Hrap-Tamer after this!’
‘Please do not.’ She sighed, and drew her hand across her face. ‘I should never have done this were I not so fretful after Olaf. What can it be that holds him?’
Heavily she turned and went back to her seat. The others drew round her, praising her deed and toasting her with mead. Shortly Bjarni and Ulf came back in: did off their rain-cloaks and went among the rest. Swanhild sat where she had before, and held her gaze down into the fire.
But they had not long to wait. Now from the door sounded a heavy bang, and again it came, like a knocking, and quelled the words of praise. The men rose up, took swords and axes once more in hand: stood to ready. Gudruda looked up with great trouble upon her simple face. Swanhild half-smiled, but not for any cheer. Then the door swung out, and a great bristly shape showed, unformed against the darkness. It stepped across the threshold-stone: then all at once they knew him and raised a shout.
That man was Olaf Sigurdarson.
The godi, the hall’s master, had come back.
