The Aesir reflected on the meaning of their brother’s words. Some looked again at the scene below, at the broad Middle-earth on which their worshipers were a mere scattered fringe. Their faces set immobile like the faces of horse-copers who have seen an unnoticed bargain.
“But your son will not bring my son back.”
“The prophecy is that after Ragnarök, those who are spared will see a new age and the rebirth of Balder in a fairer world. But you will not be spared, father. Fenris-Wolf waits for you, as Surt for Frey. But if there is no Ragnarök, if there is no Ragnarök, can we say that Balder cannot just the same be reborn? Once even Loki is prepared to weep for him? If you wish to see your son again outside the halls of Hel, then you must take another turning.”
This time it was the face of Othin that changed to that of a man who sees advantage far off.
“How did you get away?” asked Svandis. Facing her sat the woman she had met and wept with in the fountain-court of the Caliph, Alfled the fair, once her enemy, now her colleague.
Alfled shrugged disdainfully, swept the hair back from a face that was reddened with sun. “The little black bastard told the bastard with the wide shoulders to turn us into nuns. Berthe—the Frankish girl you met, you remember—she was happy with the idea, she has never had much use for men. But Ouled has no mind to be a Christian, and I, I have no mind to be a nun. I saw little enough of men, or of any man, while I was in the harem of the Caliph. I have time to make up!”
“So, how?”
“Oh, men are easy to handle, you know. In the convoy that was taking us to some Allah-forsaken spot, I talked to one of the guards. Told him how unfair it was to be locked up half your life and then taken away to be locked up again. Looked at him till he looked at me, and then looked a second more before I dropped my eyes. Made him think I admired him. They are so vain, so weak.
“When he came to me in the night I let him loose the door-chain and sweep me into the bushes. He did not see Ouled behind him with the hairpin.” She laughed suddenly. “He was a brisk lover, I will say that for him. It may be that he died happy. Then Ouled and I made our way from one village to another, exchanging this and that for what we needed. You told me you had done it too.”
Svandis nodded. “And now, what do you want?”
“They say the king here is an Englishman, and a freer of slaves. Even the men here say they are freed slaves, those that speak English. Surely he will free me too, give me passage home.”
“Your kin will not be pleased to see you,” observed Svandis. “A dishonored woman. You have no husband, but you have not the right to wear your hair loose like a virgin.”
“I am a widow,” said Alfled firmly. “Widows have the right to remarry. And no husband can blame them if they know more about some things than a virgin. Ouled and I know a lot more than any virgin, or any wife in Christendom. I think I can find myself a man, here or in London or in Winchester. As for Ouled, she wants only passage to Cordova, for she thinks the same of herself as I do.”
“What do you think of the men here?” asked Svandis.
“Not much. The ones who speak English are the sons of slaves. When I was captured by the raiders no thane would speak to such without a whip in his hand. I cannot understand why they should have been freed. There is not one who looks like an atheling.”
“That one does,” said Svandis, pointing out of the window at Styrr walking by sucking an orange with his great horse-teeth.
“He looks like a warrior, at least. But those are the Norse-folk. Like you. Your people captured me, sold me down here. I could not live easily with one of you.”