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The home of Winnithar the Wisentslayer stood on a bluff above the River Vistula. It was a thorp, half a dozen houses clustered around a hall, with barns, sheds, cookhouse, smithy, brewery, and other workplaces nearby: for his family had long dwelt here, and waxed great among the Teurings. Westward reached meadows and croplands. Eastward, across the water, wilderness remained, though settlement was encroaching heavily upon it as the tribe grew in numbers.
They might have logged off the woods altogether, save that more and more of them were moving away. This was a time of unrest. Not only were plundering warbands on the trail; whole folk were pulling up stakes, and clashing when they met. Word drifted from afar that the Romans were often at each other’s throats too, while the mightiness which their forefathers had built crumbled. As yet, few Northerners had done anything bolder than to raid along the Imperial borders. But the southlands just outside those borders, warm, rich, scantily defended by their dwellers, beckoned many a Goth to come carve out a new home for himself.
Winnithar stayed where he was. However, that forced him to pass almost as much of each year in fighting – especially against Vandals, though sometimes against Gothic tribes, Greutungs or Taifals – as he passed in farming. As his sons neared manhood, they began to yearn elsewhere.
Thus matters stood when Carl arrived.
He came in winter, when hardly anybody traveled. On that account, men made strangers doubly welcome, who broke the sameness of their lives.
At first, spying him at a mile’s reach, they took him for a mere gangrel, since he fared alone and afoot. Nonetheless they knew their chief would want to see him.
He drew nigh, striding easily over the frozen ruts of the road, making a staff of his spear. His blue cloak was the only color in that landscape of snow-decked fields, stark trees, dull sky. Hounds bayed and growled at him; he showed no fear, and afterward the men came to understand that he could have stricken those dead that attacked him. Today they called the beasts to heel and met the newcomer with sudden respect – for it became plain that his garments were of the finest, and not the least way-stained, while he himself was awesome. Taller than the tallest here he loomed, lean but sinewy, a graybeard as lithe as a youth. What had those pale eyes of his beheld?
A warrior went ahead to greet him. “I hight Carl,” he said when asked: nothing further. “Fain would I guest you a while.” The Gothic words came readily from him, but their sound, and sometimes their order or endings, were not of any dialect known to the Teurings.
Winnithar had stayed in his hall. It would have been unseemly for him to gape like an underling. When Carl entered, Winnithar said from his high seat, “Be welcome if you come in peace and honesty. May Father Tiwaz ward you and Mother Frija bless you.” – as was the ancient custom of his house.
“My thanks,” Carl answered. “That was kindly spoken to a fellow you may well think is a beggar. I am not, and hope this gift will be found worthy.” He reached in the pouch at his belt and drew forth an arm-ring which he handed over to Winni-thar. Gasps arose from those who had jostled close to watch, for the ring was heavy, of pure gold, cunningly wrought and set with gems.
The host kept his calmness, barely. “That is a gift a king might have given. Share my seat, Carl.” It was the place of honor. “Abide for as long as you wish.” He clapped his hands. “Ho,” he shouted, “bring mead for our guest, and for me that I may drink his health!” To the swains, wenches, and children milling about: “Back to your work, you. We can all hear whatever he chooses to tell us after the evening meal. Now he’s doubtless weary.”
Grumblingly, they heeded. “Why say you that?” Carl asked him.
“The nearest dwelling where you might have spent last night is a goodly walk from this,” Winnithar replied.
“I was at none,” Carl said.