Poul Anderson: The Sorrow of Odin the Goth

A slow roar, like an incoming tide, lifted from the men.

Solbern the sober walked down the hall. The crowd made way for him. Strewn rushes rustled and the clay floor thudded beneath his boots. “Did I hear you say ‘we’?” he asked through the rumbling. “No, you’re a boy. You stay home.”

The downy cheeks reddened. “I am man enough to fight for my house!” Alawin shrilled.

Ulrica stiffened where she stood. Cruelty lashed from her: “ ‘Your’ house, by-blow?”

The growing din died away. Men traded uneasy stares. It did not bode well, such an unleashing of olden hatred at such an hour as this. Alawin’s mother Erelieva had not merely been a leman of Tharasmund’s, she had become the one woman for whom he really cared, and Ulrica had gloated almost openly when every child that Erelieva bore him, save for this firstborn, died small. After the chieftain himself went down hell-road, friends of hers had gotten her hastily married off to a yeoman who lived far from the hall. Alawin stayed, the seemly thing for a lord’s son to do, but Ulrica was always stinging him.

Eyes clashed through smoke and shadow-haunted firelight. “Yes, my house,” Alawin called, “and Swanhild m-m-my sister too.” His stammer made him bite his lip for shame.

“Easy, easy.” Hathawulf raised his arm again. “You have the right, lad, and do well to claim it. Yes, ride with us, come dawn.” His glance defied Ulrica. She twisted her mouth but said naught. Everybody guessed she was hoping the stripling would be killed.

Hathawulf strode toward the high seat at the middle of the hall. His words rang: “No more bickering! We’ll be merry this eventide. But first, Anslaug—” this to his wife—“come sit beside me, and together we’ll drink the beaker of Wodan.”

Feet stamped, fists pounded wood, knives lifted like torches. The women themselves began to yell with the men: “Hail, hail, hail!”

The door flew open.

Dusk had deepened fast, when autumn was on hand, so that the newcomer stood in the middle of blackness. Wind flapped the edges of his blue cloak, flung a few dead leaves in past him, whistled and chilled along the room. Folk turned to see who had come, drew a sharp breath, and those who had been seated now scrambled to stand. It was the Wanderer.

Tallest he stood among them, holding his spear more like a staff than a weapon, as if he had no need of iron. A broad-brimmed hat shaded his face, but not the wolf-gray hair and beard, nor the gleam of his gaze. Few of them here had ever seen him before, most had never happened to be nigh when he made his seldom showings; but none failed to know the forefather of the Teuring headmen.

Ulrica was first to muster hardihood. “Greeting, Wanderer, and welcome,” she said. “You honor our roof. Come, take the high seat, and I will bring you a horn of wine.”

“No, a goblet, a Roman goblet, the best we have,” said Solbern.

Hathawulf came back to the door, squared his shoulders, and stood before the Elder. “You know what is afoot,” he said. “What word have you for us?”

“This,” answered the Wanderer. His voice was deep, and did not sound like the southern Goths’, or like any’s whom they had met. Men supposed his mother tongue was the tongue of the gods. Tonight it fell heavily, as if grief weighted it. “You are bound upon vengeance, Hathawulf and Solbern, and that stands not to be altered; it is the will of Weard. But Alawin shall not go with you.” The youth shrank back, whitening. A near sob broke harsh from his throat.

The Wanderer’s look ranged down the hall to lay hold upon him. “This is needful,” he went on, word by slow word. “I lay no slur on you when I say that you are only half-grown, and would die bravely but uselessly. All who are men have first been boys. No, I tell you instead that yours shall be another task, more hard and strange than vengeance, for the welfare of that kindred which sprang from your father’s father’s mother Jorith—” did his tone waver the least bit?—“and myself. Abide, Alawin. Your time will come soon enough.”

“It… shall be done… as you will,” lord,” said Hathawulf out of a stiffened gullet. “But what does this mean… for those of us who ride forth?”

The Wanderer regarded for him for a while that grew very still before answering: “You do not wish to know. Be the word good or ill, you do not wish to know.”

Alawin sank to his bench, laid head in hands, and shuddered.

“Farewell,” said the Wanderer. His cloak swirled, his spear swung about, the door shut, he was gone.

I didn’t change clothes till my vehicle had brought me across space-time. Then, in a Patrol base which masqueraded as a warehouse, I shed the garb of the Dnieper basin, late fourth century, and donned that of the United States, middle twentieth century.

The basic patterns, shirts and trousers for men, gowns for women, were the same. Differences of detail were countless. Despite its coarse fabrics, the Gothic outfit was more comfortable than a tie and jacket. I stowed it in the baggage box of my hopper, along with such special items as the little gadget I’d used to listen in, from outside, on the proceedings in the hall of the Teuring sachem. Since my spear wouldn’t fit, I left it strapped to the side of the machine. I wouldn’t be going anyplace on that except back to the milieu where such weapons belonged.

The officer on duty today was in his early twenties—young by current standards; in most eras he’d long since have been an established family man—and somewhat in awe of me. True, my status as a member of the Time Patrol was almost as much a technicality as his. I had no part in policing the spatiotemporal lanes, rescuing travelers in distress, or anything glamorous like that. I was merely a scientist of sorts; “scholar” was probably more accurate. However, I did make trips on my own, which he was not qualified to do.

He peered at me as I emerged from the hangar to the nondescript office, allegedly of a construction company, which was our front in this town during these years. “Welcome home, Mr. Harness,” he said. “Uh, you had a pretty rough go-around, didn’t you?”

“What makes you think so?” I replied automatically.

“Your expression, sir. The way you walk.”

“I was in no danger,” I rapped. Not caring to talk about it, except to Laurie and maybe not her either for a while, I brushed past him and stepped out onto the street.

Here also it was fall, the kind of crisp and brilliant day New York often enjoyed until it became uninhabitable; this year chanced to be the one before I was born. Masonry and glass gleamed higher than high, up into a blueness where a few bits of cloud scudded along on the breeze that gave me its cool kiss. Cars were not so many that they put more than a tang into it, less than the aroma of the roast chestnut carts that were beginning to come out of estivation. I went over to Fifth Avenue and walked uptown past glamorous shops, among some of the most beautiful women in the world, as well as people from all the rich diversity of our planet.

My hope was that by going afoot to my place, I’d work out part of the tension and misery in me. The city could not only stimulate, it could heal, right? This was where Laurie and I had chosen to dwell, we who could have settled practically anywhere in the past or the future.

No, of course that isn’t quite correct. Like most couples, we wanted a nest in reasonably familiar surroundings, where we didn’t have to learn everything from scratch and stay always on guard. The ’30’s were a marvelous milieu if you were a white American, in good health and with money. What amenities were lacking, such as air conditioning, could be unobtrusively installed, not to be used when you had visitors who would never know that time travelers exist. Granted, the Roosevelt gang was in charge, but the conversion of the Republic to the Corporate State was not very far along as yet and didn’t affect Laurie’s and my private lives; the outright disintegration of this society wouldn’t become a fast and obvious process till (my opinion) after the 1964 election.