Poul Anderson - The Broken Sword

“She has no home,” Skafloc said, “and I will not cast her out into beggary who has already suffered more than enough.” Gibing: “Why do you care what two mortals do?”

“I care,” Leea said sorrowfully, “and I see my spaedom was right. Like calls to like—but not her, Skafloc! Take any mortal maid save this. There is doom in her; I can feel it, like a chill in my marrow. Twas not simple chance you found her, and she will wreak great harm on you.”

“Not Freda,” said Skafloc stoutly, and to change the talk: “When will Imric return? He had been summoned to council by the Elfking when I came back from Trollheim.”

“He will be here soon. Wait until then, Skafloc, and it may be that he can see clearly the doom I only sense, and warn you.”

“Should I, who have fought trolls and demons, fear a girl?” snorted Skafloc. “That is not even raven-croak, it is hen-cackle.” And he led Freda away.

Leea stared strickenly after them, then fled through the long halls with tears aglimmer in her eyes.

Skafloc and Freda wandered on through the castle. Her words at first came piecemeal and grave. But the philtres she had drunk and the charms he had cast made eagerness mount through head and heart. More and more did she smile, and exclaim, and chatter, and look at him. At last he said: “Come outside and I will show you something I made for you.”

“For me?” she cried.

“And maybe, if the Norns be kind, for myself too,” he laughed.

They crossed the courtyard and passed through the high brazen gates. Beyond, sunlight dazzled on blue-shadowed whiteness, and no elves were abroad. The humans walked on into the ice-flashing woods, Skafloc’s cloak wrapped around them both. Breath steamed out into unclouded heaven; to breathe back in stung. The surf droned, and a breeze soughed through darkling firs.

“Cold,” shivered Freda. The ruddy-bronze of her hair was the only warmth in that whole world. “Outside your cloak it is cold.”

“Too cold for you to wander begging on the roads.”

“There are those who would take me in. We had many friends; and our land, now mine, I suppose, would make a—” her tongue grew unwilling “—a good dowry.”

“Why go forth to seek friends when you have them here? And as for land-see.”

They topped a hill, one of a ring about a dell. And down there Skafloc had made summer. Green were the trees beside a little dancing waterfall, and flowers nodded in sweet deep grass. Birds sang, fish leaped, a doe and fawn stood watching the humans with utter trust.

Freda clapped her hands and cried out. Skafloc smiled. “I made it for you,” he said, “because you are of summer and life and joy. Forget the winter’s death and hardness, Freda. Here we have our own year.”

They went down into the dell, casting off their cloak, and sat by the waterfall. Breezes ruffled their hair and berries clustered heavily around them. At Skafloc’s command, the daisies she plucked wove themselves into a chain which he hung around Freda’s neck.

She could not fear him or his arts. She lay back dreamily, eating an apple he had urged upon her-which had the taste of a noble wine, and seemed to do the same work—and listened to him:

Laughter from your lips, dear, lures me like a war-cry. Bronze-red locks have bound me: bonds more strong than iron.

Never have I nodded neck beneath a yoke, but I wish now the welcome warmth of your arms’ prison.

Life was made for laughter, love, and eager heartbeat. Could I but caress you, came I to my heaven. Sorceress, you see me seek your love with pleading: how can Skafloc help it when you have ensnared him?

“This is not meet—” she protested feebly, while smiles and sighs possessed her.

“Why, how can it but be meet? There is nothing else so right.”

“You are a heathen, and I—”

“I told you not to speak of such things. Now you must pay the gild.” And Skafloc kissed her, long and with all his skill, softly at first, wildly at last. She sought for a moment to fend him off, but she could not find the strength, for it only came back when she joined in the kiss. “Was that so bad?” he laughed.

“No—” she whispered.

“Your grief is fresh, I know. Yet grief will fade, and those who loved you would not have it otherwise.”

In truth, it had already gone. Tenderness remained, and a fleeting wistfulness: Could they but have met him!

“You must take thought for your morrow, Freda, and still more for the morrow of that blood which you alone now bear. I offer you the riches and wonders of Alfheim, aye, asking no dowry save your own dear self; and you and yours shall be warded with every strength that is mine; but first among my morning gifts to you will be my undying love.”

It could not be compelled, but since it would have come of itself, elven arts had hastened the thawing of sorrow and the springing forth of love; for its blossoming, no other sunshine was needed than youth.

The day ended and night came to the vale of summer.

They lay by the waterfall and heard a nightingale. Freda was first to sleep.

Lying there with her in the crook of his arm, an arm of hers across his breast, listening to the soft breathing, himself breathing in the odours of her hair and her humanness, feeling her warmth, remembering how with tears and laughter she had wholly come to him, he suddenly knew something.

He had laid a snare for her, mostly in sport. Such mortal mays as he had spied now and again in his Sittings about the land were seldom alone, and when they were, they had seemed to his elven mind too lumpish, in body and soul alike, to be worth his while. In Freda he found a human girl who could rouse lust in him, and he had wondered what it would be like to lie with her.

And the snare had caught him too.

He did not care. He lay drowsily back on the grass and smiled up at the Wain where it glittered in its endless wheeling around the North Star. The cool, cunning elf women had many powers; but, perhaps because they always kept their own hearts locked away, they had never drawn his out of him. Freda-Leea was right. Like called to like.

Several days later, Skafloc went out alone to hunt. He travelled on wizard skis which bore him like the wind, up hill and down dale, over frozen rivers and through snow-choked woods, well into the Scottish highlands by sunset. He had turned homeward, a roe deer lashed over his shoulders, when he saw from afar the glimmer of a camp-fire. Wondering who or what was camped in these bleak ranges, he went whispering over the snow with his spear at the ready.

Coming close through twilight, he descried one of mighty stature who squatted on the snow and roasted horseflesh over the blaze. Despite a chill wind, he wore only a wolfskin kilt, and the axe beside him flashed with unearthly brightness.

Skafloc sensed a Power, and when he saw that the other had but a single hand, his spine crawled. It was not thought good to meet Tyr of the /Bsir alone at dusk.

But too late to flee. The god was already looking towards him. Skafloc skied boldly into the circle of firelight and met Tyr’s brooding dark eyes.

“Greeting, Skafloc,” said the As. His voice was as of a slow storm through a brazen sky. He kept on turning the spit over the fire.

“Greeting, lord.” Skafloc eased a little. The elves, without souls, worshipped no gods, but neither was there any ill will between them and the Rsii; indeed, some served in Asgard itself.

Tyr nodded curtly in sign for the man to unburden himself and hunker down. Stillness lasted for a long while, save for the low flames which sputtered and sang and wove highlights over Tyr’s gaunt grim face.

He spoke at last: “I smelled war. The trolls mean to fare against Alfheim.”