Everard nodded. “I promised I’d find her a decent man.”
She was wistful. Still, practicality takes precedence over romance in this era, as it does in most. It may be hard on him later, seeing his family grow old while he only fakes it. But what with his missions through time, he’ll have them for many decades of his life; and he’s not brought up to the American kind of sensitivity, after all. It should go reasonably well. No doubt the women will become friends, and league to quietly rule Captain Pummairam’s roost for him.
“Then… oh, my lord!” The youth leaped to his feet and pranced.
“Easy, easy.” Everard grinned. “On your calendar, remember, you’ve years to go before you’re established. Why delay? Seek the house of Zakar-baal and report to the Zorachs. They’ll get you started.”
For my part… well, it’ll take me a few days yet to wind up my stay at the palace in graceful and plausible fashion. Meanwhile, Bronwen and I – Everard sighed, with a wistfulness of his own.
Pum was gone. Feet flying, kaftan flapping, the purple wharf rat sped to the destiny he would make for himself.
THE SORROW OF ODIN THE GOTH
“Then I heard a voice in the world: ‘O woe
for the broken troth, And the heavy Need of the Niblungs, and
the Sorrow of Odin the Goth!’ ”
– William Morris, Sigurd the Volsung
372
Wind gusted out of twilight as the door opened. Fires burning down the length of the hall flared in their trenches; flames wavered and streamed from stone lamps; smoke roiled bitter back from the roof-holes that should have let it out. The sudden brightness gleamed off spearheads, ax-heads, swordguards, shield bosses, where weapons rested near the entry. Men, crowding the great room, grew still and watchful, as did the women who had been bringing them horns of ale. It was the gods carved on the pillars that seemed to move amidst unrestful shadows, one-handed Father Tiwaz, Donar of the Ax, the Twin Horsemen – they, and the beasts and heroes and entwining branches graven into the wainscot. Whoo-oo said the wind, a noise as cold as itself.
Hathawulf and Solbern trod through. Their mother Ulrica strode between them, and the look upon her face was no less terrible than the look on theirs. The three of them halted for a heartbeat or two, a long time for those who awaited their word. Then Solbern shut the door while Hathawulf stepped forward and raised his right arm. Silence clamped down on the hall, save for the crackling of fires and seething of breath.
Yet it was Alawin who spoke first. Rising from his bench, his slim frame aquiver, he cried, “So we’ll take revenge!” His voice cracked; he had but fifteen winters.
The warrior beside him hauled at his sleeve and growled, “Sit. It is for the lord to tell us.” Alawin gulped, glared, obeyed.
A smile of sorts brought forth teeth in Hathawulf’s yellow beard. He had been in the world nine years longer than yon half-brother, four years more than his full brother Solbern, but he seemed older, and not only because of height, wide shoulders, wildcat gait; leadership had been his for the last five of those years, after his father Tharasmund’s death, and hastened the growth of his soul. There were those who whispered that Ulrica kept too strong a grip on him, but any who questioned his manhood would have had to meet him in a fight and been unlikely to walk away from it.
“Yes,” he said, without loudness, nevertheless heard from end to end of the building. “Bring forth the wine, wenches; drink well, all my men, make love to your wives, break out your war-gear; friends who have come hither offering help, take my deepest thanks: for tomorrow dawn we ride to slay my sister’s murderer.”
“Ermanaric,” uttered Solbern. He was shorter and darker than Hathawulf, more given to tending his farm and to shaping things with his hands than to war or the chase; but he spat forth the name as if it had been a foulness in his mouth.
A sigh, rather than a gasp, ran around the throng, though some of the women shrank back, or moved closer to husbands, brothers, fathers, youths whom they might have married someday. A few thanes growled, almost gladly, deep in their throats. Grimness came upon others.