Poul Anderson: The Sorrow of Odin the Goth

But as for his own inward self, that remained hidden.

This did not mean that he sat sullen. No, he made words and music come forth asparkle as none had ever done before. Eager to hear songs, lays, stories, saws, everything that went about, he gave overflowing measure in return. For he seemed to know all the world, as if he had wandered it himself for longer than a lifetime.

He told of Rome, the mighty and troubled, of rts lord Diocletian, his wars and his stern laws. He answered questions about the new god, him of the Cross, of whom the Goths had heard a bit from traders or from slaves sold this far north. He told of the Romans’ great foes, the Persians, and what wonders they had wrought. Onward his words ranged, evening after evening—on southward to lands where it was always hot, and people had black skins, and beasts prowled that were akin to lynxes but the size of bears. Other beasts did he show them, drawing pictures in charcoal on slabs of wood, and they cried aloud in their astonishment; set beside an elephant, an aurochs or even a troll-steed was nothing! Near the ends of the East, he said, lay a realm larger, older, more marvelous than Rome or Persia. Its dwellers were of a hue like wan amber, and had eyes that appeared to be aslant. Plagued by wild tribes north of them, they had built a wall as long as a mountain range, and had since then been striking back out of that redoubt. This was why the Huns had come west. They, who had broken the Alans and were vexing the Goths, were only a rabble in the slanting gaze of Khitai. And all this vastness was not all there was. If you traveled westward till you had crossed the Roman holding called Gaul, you would come to the World Sea of which you had heard fables, and if there you took ship—but craft such as plied the rivers were not big enough—and sailed on and on, you would find the home of the wise and wealthy Mayas…

Tales Carl also had of men, women, and their deeds—Samson the strong, Deirdre the fair and unhappy, Crockett the hunter…

Jorith, daughter of Winnithar, forgot she was of age to be wedded. She would sit among the children on the floor, at Carl’s feet, and hearken while her eyes caught firelight and became suns.

He was not steadily on hand. Often he would say he must be by himself, and stride off out of sight. Once a lad, brash but skilled at stalking, followed him unseen, unless it was that Carl deigned not to heed him. The boy came back white and ashudder, to stammer forth that the graybeard had gone into Tiwaz’s Shaw. None went under those darkling pines save on Midwinter Eve, when three blood offerings—horse, hound, and slave—were made so that the Binder of the Wolf would bid darkness and cold begone. The boy’s father flogged him, and thereafter nobody spoke openly of it. If the gods allowed it to happen, best not ask into their reasons.

Carl would return in a few days, freshly clothed and bearing gifts. Those were small things, but beyond price, be it a knife whose steel held an edge uncommonly long, a scarf of lustrous foreign fabric, a mirror outdoing buffed brass or a still pond—the treasures arrived and arrived, until everybody of any standing, man or woman, had gotten at least one. About this he said merely, “I know the makers.”

Spring stole northward, snow melted, buds burst into leaf and flower, the river brawled in spate. Homebound birds filled heaven with wings and clamor. Lambs, calves, foals tottered across paddocks. Folk came forth, blinking in sudden brightness; they aired out their houses, garments, and souls. The Spring Queen drove Frija’s image from farm to farm to bless the plowing and sowing, while garlanded youths and maidens danced around her oxcart. Longings quickened.

Carl went away still, but now he would be back on the same evening. More and more were he and Jorith together. They would even stroll into woods, down blossoming lanes, over meadows, out of everybody else’s ken. She walked as though lost in dreams. Salvalindis her mother scolded her about unseemliness—did she care naught for her good name?—until Winnithar quelled his wife. The chieftain was a shrewd reckoner. As for Jorith’s brothers, they glowed.

At length Salvalindis took her daughter aside. They sought an outbuilding where the household’s women met to weave and sew when there was no other work for them. There was now, so that these two were alone in its dimness. Salvalindis put Jorith between herself and the broad, stone-weighted loom, as if to trap her, and asked bluntly, “Have you been less idle with that man Carl than you’ve become at home? Has he had you?”

The maiden flushed, twisted fingers together, stared downward. “No,” she breathed. “He can, whenever he wants. How I wish he would. But we’ve only held hands, kissed a little, and—and—”

“And what?”

“Talked. Sung songs. Laughed. Been grave. Oh, mother, he’s not aloof. With me, he’s kinder and, and sweeter than… than I knew a man could be. He talks to me as he would to somebody who can think, not just be a wife—”

Salvalindis’ lips pinched. “ I never stopped thinking when I married. Your father may see a powerful ally in Carl. But I see in him a man without land or kin, belike a warlock but rootless, rootless. What gain can our house have of linking with him? Goods, aye; knowledge; but what use are those when foemen threaten? What would he leave to his sons? What would bind him to you after the freshness is gone? Girl, you’re being a fool.”

Jorith clenched her fists, stamped her foot, and yelled through tears that were more of rage than woe: “Hold your tongue, old crone!” At once she shrank back, as aghast as Salvalindis.

“You speak thus to your mother?” the latter said. “Aye, a warlock he is, who’s cast a spell on you. Throw that brooch he gave you into the river, do you hear?” She turned and left the room. Her skirts made an angry rustling.

Jorith wept, but did not obey.

And soon everything changed.

On a day when rain blew like spears, while Donar’s wagon boomed aloft and the flash of his ax blinded heaven, a man galloped into the thorp. He sagged in the saddle, and his horse was near falling from weariness. Nevertheless he shook an arrow on high and shrilled to those who had come out through the mud to meet him: “War! The Vandals draw nigh!”

Brought into the hall, he said before Winnithar: “My word is from my father, Aefli of Staghorn Dale. He had it from a man of Dagalaif Nevittas-son, who fled the slaughter at Elkford so as to carry warning. But already we at Aefli’s had marked a ruddiness on the skyline, where surely farmsteads were afire.”

“Two bands of them, then,” Winnithar muttered. “At least. Belike more. They’re out early this year, and in strength.”

“How could they leave their grounds untended in seeding time?” asked a son of his.

Winnithar gusted a sigh. “They’ve bred more hands than they need for work. Besides, I hear of a King Hildaric, who’s brought their clans beneath him. Thus they can field greater hosts than erstwhile, which move faster and under a better plan than we’re able. Aye, could be Hildaric means to rid these lands of us, for the good of his own overflowing realm.”

“What shall we do?” an iron-steady old warrior wanted to know.

“Gather the neighborhood men and go to meet as many others as time allows, like Aefli’s, if he hasn’t already been overrun. At the Rock of the Twin Horsemen as aforetime, eh? It may be that, together, we’ll not hit a Vandal troop too big for us.”

Carl stirred where he sat. “But what of your homes?” he asked. “Raiders could outflank you, unbeknownst, and fall on steadings like yours.” He left the rest unspoken: plunder, burning, women in their best years borne off, everybody else cut down.