Hrolf Kraki's Saga (29 page)

Drink flowed and merriment pealed. Not often had thirteen men taken the stronghold of a king! At last sleepiness came upon them. Yrsa sent for a youth who would see to their wants. “His name is Vögg,” she told
Hrolf, “a bit of a simpleton but good-hearted and nimble.”

The fellow arrived: small and skinny, crowbeak nose and not much chin beneath a shock of wheaten hair, shabbily clad, nonetheless hopping and chuckling. “Here is your new lord,” the queen told him.

Vögg’s pale-blue eyes frogged out. “Is
this
your king, you Danes?” burst from him in a boy’s cracked voice. “Him, the great King Hrolf? Why, he’s well-nigh as bony as me—a real kraki, him!”

Now a kraki is no more than a tree-trunk whose branches have been lopped to stubs to make a kind of ladder. In their aleful mirth and the glow of their deeds this day, Vögg’s words struck the warriors as the funniest thing they had ever heard. Even Svipdag guffawed and joined in the yelling: “Kraki, kraki, aye, hail, King Hrolf Kraki!”

He laughed too and said to the stripling: “You’ve given me a name which may well stick to me. What will you give me for a naming-gift?”

“I, I… naught have I to g-g-give,” stammered Vögg. “I’m poor.”

“Then he who has should give to the other,” said Hrolf. During the evening he had had several gold rings brought from his baggage, with the idea that he might want to reward somebody. He drew one off and handed it to Vögg.

The boy cackled thanks, put it on his right arm, and strutted around like a cock, holding the coil aloft to gleam in the firelight. It slid down to the elbow. His left arm he held behind his back. The king pointed. “Why do you do that?” asked he.

“Oh,” said Vögg, “the arm which has naught to show must hide itself in shame.”

“We must see about that,” said Hrolf, mostly because he saw Yrsa was fond of this loon. He handed him another ring.

Vögg nearly fell over. When he could find speech again, he squeaked, “Thanks and praises, lord! This is a wondrous thing to have!”

The king smiled. “Vögg grows joyous over little.”

The youth sprang onto a bench, lifted both hands toward the rafters, and shouted, “Lord, I swear that if ever you are overcome by men, and I alive, I will avenge you!”

“Thanks for that,” said the king dryly. His men nodded, not bothering to hide their own grins. No doubt this fellow would prove faithful as far as he was able, they thought, but how could so sleazy a wretch ever do much?

In a while Yrsa led them across the courtyard to a guesthouse. Though far smaller than the hall, it was more snug and bright and without lingering creepinesses of witchcraft. The hound Gram went along; the hawks had already been carried to the mews. In the chill beneath numberless keen stars, Yrsa took her son’s hands once more and said, “Goodnight, good rest, my darling. Yet have a care. Evil is everywhere around.”

“Should we not watch over you, my lady?” asked Svipdag.

“I thank you, old friend, but no need. It’s you he will be after.”

“All gods forbid we bring you into danger.”

“Goodnight.” Yrsa and her women left.

Within, a fire on the hearthstone and lamps along the walls gave light and warmth, albeit smoky air. Vögg showed the men how their goods had been stowed and benches made ready for sleeping. Bjarki warned, “Here we can be at ease, aye, and the queen wishes us well. She’s right, however: King Adhils will wreak as much ill for us as he can. It’d astonish me if we’re let have everything go on as it does now.”

Vögg shuddered and drew signs. “K-k-king Adhils … is a terrible maker of—of blood offerings,” he told them. “His like is not to be found. Hoo, how often at night I’ve heard ropes creak under their loads in the shaw, or ravens deafen the wind by day! Yet he gives no more than he must to the high gods. No, his worship is to a horrible huge b-b-boar—” He hugged himself. The teeth rattled in his head. “I don’t see how things can stay this smooth,” he said, woebegone. “Have a care, have a care! Sly and
ill-famed is he, and he’ll do whatever he can to m-m-make away with … us … by any means.”

“I think we need post no guard this night,” said Hjalti, “for Vögg isn’t about to fall asleep.”

The warriors laughed drowsily and stretched themselves to rest. They had long since taken off their fighting gear. The fires burned out and only Vögg lay forlornly awake, his earlier bliss sunk deep in dread.

At midnight the band was yanked back to awareness of cold and gloom. A racket outside was ringing in the very walls, gruesome grunts and squeals. Something battered at the house till it rocked, as if it went up and down on the sea.

Vögg wailed: “Help! The boar’s abroad, the boar-god of King Adhils! He’s sent it to get him revenge—and
none
can stand before that troll!”‘

The door groaned and splintered under blows. Bjarki’s weapon gleamed free. “Get your iron back on, my lord and lads,” he said. “I’ll try to hold the thing.”

The door smashed down. Beyond lay frosted flagstones, black walls and roofpeaks, high stars. Most was blotted from sight by the shape whose hump filled the doorway. What light there was showed its shagginess and the tusks which rose from the snout like crooked swords. A rank swine-smell choked nostrils. The grunting made earthquake thunder.

“Hey-ah!” shouted Bjarki. His blade whirled down. It rebounded so he nearly lost his grip. For the first time, Lövi which had slain the flying monster would not bite.

The hound Gram snarled and lunged.

As his jaws closed, the troll-boar squealed, a noise which went through flesh like a saw. The two beasts ramped out into the yard. Bjarki followed. If his sword would not cut, it could still club. The boar whirled on him and charged. Gram’s weight held it back, and Bjarki sidestepped. The boar tossed its head, flailing Gram about. The hound did not let go.

Hard was that fight while the king’s men busked themselves. But of a sudden the boar’s chuffing turned into a
scream. Gram tumbled aside. Bloody in his jaws were an ear and the skin of a jowl. As if a single wound was enough, the troll fell over dead. The ground shook. Gram lifted his head and belled till echoes flew.

Bjarki did not join the cheers of his friends. “Best I don my own mail,” he said. “And let’s drag what we can across the doorway. This night is not yet at an end.”

“You … y-y-you … met the thing that took so many men—” Vögg stuttered. “Oh, how can I evermore be aught than brave?”

The rest paid him no heed. They were listening to a noise from beyond the garth: horn-blasts, cries to war, rattle of iron and tramp of feet.

Into the yard poured the whole host of Adhils’s guardsmen, and more from the town besides, to fill it from wall to wall. A humpbacked moon, newly rising over a dragon gable, made their mail and whetted metal glimmer, made their breaths a ragged fog through the cold, but left faces in shadow. The Swede-King must have had spies, for his folk lost no time in ringing the guesthouse.

“What do you want?” Bjarki shouted through the door.

“This, you who slew my brother,” answered someone. After a few heartbeats, they heard the thatch overhead crackle. Flames burst into being. The house had been fired.

“Soon we will not lack for warmth,” said Hjalti.

“An ill way is this to die, if we should burn in here,” said Bjarki. “A sorry end to life for King Hrolf and his warriors. Rather would I fall to weapons on an open field.”

Svipdag peered at a hedge of spears. “That doorway’s too narrow,” he said. “They’d stick us like pigs as we came out one or two at a time.”

“Aye,” answered the Norseman. “I know no better rede than that we break down a wall, and thus plow forth together, if that can be done. Then when we close, let each take his man of them, and they’ll soon lose heart.” He cocked his head. “Hear how shrilly they call around or try to taunt us? I know that note. This day’s work, and now the slain god of Adhils, those have shaken them.”

“Good is your rede,” said King Hrolf. “This I think will serve us well.”

They used benches for rams. No child’s play was it to smash the planks. Over and over they rushed, while the roof blazed and embers showered down upon them, flames barked and smoke bit. Then in a sundering crash, the wall gave way. They grabbed up the shields they had taken from Adhils’s storerooms, leaped out, and fell on the Swedes.

Swords whistled, axes banged, men cursed and yelled beneath the moon. At first the Danes went in a kind of swine-array, that slashed through their unready foes like an arrowhead. When in the thick of them, they made a ring. No, it was more a wheel, rimmed with blades, which rolled unstoppable to split and shatter any line that tried to stand fast.

Higher rose the moon, the burning, and the din. Wildly went the strife. Ever King Hrolf and his fellows thrust forward. Behind them they left a road of hurt men, dead men, men who stared unbelieving at lifeblood which pumped out onto the frost. Soon they won free of the garth and into the town. What ranks were left to fight them thinned out—for though they took bruises and flesh wounds, they knew well how to defend each other, and none else was so stout that he need not veer before their blows.

Wings flapped over heaven. King Hrolf’s hawk High-breeks swung from the burg, stooped, and settled on his master’s shoulder. Mightily proud did he look. Bjarki panted: “He behaves like somebody who’s won great honor.” Nor did he flinch from the weapons which sought after his lord.

At length the fray ended. However many against thirteen, the Swedes could not bring their numbers to bear in the narrow lanes between houses. Moreover, as Bjarki had heard, they were badly shaken to begin with. What order they ever had was now broken up. Few of them cared to lay down his life for a king who was not even in sight. And their wiser leaders came to dread that the Danes would break into a house, snatch a brand off a
hearth, and start a fire of their own which could eat all Uppsala.

One after the next, they cried for peace. The wish spread as swiftly as a snowslide. Hrolf gave quarter and asked where King Adhils was. Nobody knew.

Weapons unsheathed, blood wiped off to let the steel flash across night, Hrolf and his men tramped back to the garth. They found its folk toiling to keep the blaze from going further. “This work seems well in hand,” Hrolf remarked. “But I see we must use the king’s house after all.”

He led the way in and called for lights, beer, and the making up of bench-beds. “Where shall we sit meanwhile?” asked Bjarki.

“On the royal dais,” answered King Hrolf, “and I myself will take the high seat.”

After they had been drinking a while, Hjalti the High-Minded said, “Would it not be best that someone go see to our horses and hawks, after this much unrest?”

“At once, at once,” chattered Vögg, and was off.

He came back in tears to tell how shamefully the poor steeds had been used. The Danes roared their wrath and wished every kind of bad luck on Adhils. “Go see about the birds, then,” ordered Hrolf, while his own High-breeks spread wings above his head.

This time Vögg blurted wonders. “In the mews … all the hawks of King Adhils—dead—ripped apart by beak and claws!”

Highbreeks preened himself. The men shouted. Thus they got back the joy of their victory.

V

In the morning Queen Yrsa came before King Hrolf and greeted him in solemn wise. “You were not received here, kinsman,” she said, “as I wished and as was your right—” Her words stumbled a bit: “But you mustn’t stay any longer, my son, in such an ill place. Surely Adhils is gathering a host to get you killed.”

“Such takes time, Mother,” he answered. “We’ll not
run off like robbers. No, we’ll get together what’s ours, with your help; and meanwhile we’ll rest and feast.”

Her smile quivered. “I should gainsay you, but I can’t Not when this is belike the last meeting we’ll ever have.” Turning, she walked quickly from the hall.

“Lord,” said Svipdag, harsh-toned, “the least we can do is guard her.”

“She has warriors of her own,” said Hrolf.

“Nonetheless we can show her honor for what she’s done.”

The king looked gravely into Svipdag’s eye before he nodded. “Do as you see fit.”

The Swede shouldered his ax and followed the queen. She had stopped in the yard, near the ash and charcoal of the guesthouse, her back turned to the world. Workers were moving about. A dozen warriors waited some strides away. They hailed Svipdag. He reckoned they had not been among his foes of yesterday. This morning was likewise bright and bleak. The sounds of footfalls, words, beasts snorting and stamping, a magpie’s caw, came sharp as the sunlight.

Svipdag stopped behind Yrsa and cleared his throat. She showed him her face, now that she had reined it in. “Greeting to you,” she said.

“I thought we might talk a while, my lady,” he got out.

“Like old times? No, dead years can no more be reborn than dead men. But of course I’d be glad of your company. Let’s walk down by the river.”

The troopers came well behind. Nobody spoke as they made their way through the bustle and chatter and many-fold stares of Uppsala town. Beyond the gates, Yrsa headed south along the bank. Though the path was frozen hard, ice was breaking up on the river, gray sheets of it borne on a murmurous brown flow. Beyond stretched the Fyris Wolds, here almost empty save for a couple of farmsteads whose smoke rose straight up into the windless chill. On the right, the bluffs were overgrown with brush and topped with woods, leafless.

“My lady—” said Svipdag at length. He swallowed “My lady, we’re taking you home … aren’t we?”

She looked away from him. He could barely hear her. “No.”

“But that’s madness! Adhils—”

“I have no fears for what he may do to me.” Now she sought his gaze and caught his arm. “Hrolf, though—Svipdag, can’t
you
make him understand you must go? Adhils, if he has to, Adhils will raise every shire in Svithjodh, and the most frightful magics, for your undoing. You can’t think how rich in hatred he is!”

Svipdag’s knuckles whitened around his axhaft. “Should I … should your son leave you alone for that to spill over you?”

“I have my men.” She nodded backward. “Not only those. Enough more. They may have sworn me no open oaths, but they’re in my debt and acknowledge it. Here I helped a family through a famine, there I got a judgment softened, or I freed a thrall when I saw how his eyes would follow an eagle—well, you know what the highborn can do.” Into her tone entered a shrewdness he had often heard from her son and brother: “Self-interest, too, among a number of chiefs and strong yeomen. They know how ruthless and greedy the king is. I am a counterweight to him. And he knows that they know that. He dares not touch me. Rather, he lives in fear that I’ll be smitten by some deadly sickness which’ll seem to be from his witchcraft. Then would his days be few!” Her laugh was brittle. “Did you not believe, Svipdag, the daughter and wife of King Helgi the Skjoldung could learn how to take care of herself?”