M. Lachlan: Fenrir

‘Bring the merchant in.’

Leshii hobbled into the great hall feeling as if he might be sick. His leg was very painful despite the Raven’s artful splints and herbs, and it was beginning to swell and blacken. It had been shattered, and had it not been for the Raven’s medicines Leshii would have been unable to stand. The Raven had offered to remove the leg but Leshii had refused. He knew his time was up and saw no reason to spend what he had left in any more pain than he needed to.

Still, he could not quite bring himself to leave his swords and used the bundle in which they were tied as a sort of cumbersome crutch as he came before the king.

The murderous thing stalking the fog meant that no stranger would be allowed in to town. Leshii, however, had known the guards and been led to the king to bargain for his companion’s entrance while they waited on the ice. He was not hopeful.

Only the certainty of his death had given him the courage to enter the town. He still had to find the lady for the Raven and Ofaeti if he could but he was glad he would not have to sell her. He would be protecting her, saving her from the teeth of the wolf. And if the Raven fulfilled his threat to kill Helgi? So what? Leshii knew he did not have long and Helgi, he felt sure, would punish him for returning empty-handed.

But he would die at home, after a life on the trail. No foreign sands would cover his bones; he would lie in no perilous forest or high mountain pass. He would die within a few paces of the market where he had traded for thirty years, within an apple-pip spit of the land upon which he had hoped to build his comfortable house and fuck his dancing girls.

Helgi was seated on his big chair, the one he used on market days to judge the people’s disputes.

‘Dread khagan,’ said Leshii, attempting a bow.

‘You have the girl?’

‘No, lord.’

‘Then you are a bold fellow, returning here. What is your purpose?’

‘I seek news of her. She should be here by now — I sent her ahead.’

Helgi’s face was a mask. ‘You do not fear the wrath of your lord?’

‘I do, khagan, but I am old and I tried very hard to bring her here. We were separated to the north of Francia and I have not seen her since. I was with her on a boat but was washed overboard in a high sea. Thankfully a whale delivered me to the shore and I was saved, but the lady was gone.’

Leshii did not want to admit he had been thrown off the ship by the Vikings because that would have made him look weak. Neither did he want to start mentioning werewolves as he knew there were those in the town who might think he had brought the fog monster with him.

‘A whale?’

‘Yes, lord.’

Helgi nodded. ‘I have heard it said they will sometimes save a drowning man.’

‘And so it proved for me, lord. But I set the lady on a ship with paid guards. I am surprised she is not here by now.’

‘Did you not fear for a lady on a ship full of strangers?’

‘She is a powerful sorcerer, lord. Men move against her and die like mayflies. She appears from the shimmering air; kings fall dead before her, and evil powers cannot touch her.’

Helgi nodded. ‘These are the signs I expected. It was your doing that she came by boat to Aldeigjuborg?’

‘Yes, khagan.’

‘And the wolfman?’

‘Dead in north Francia.’

Helgi turned to a druzhina. ‘Bring the merchant a bench — can’t you see he’s wounded. And a cup of hot wine.’

Leshii had to resist the temptation to rub his ears. He couldn’t quite believe what he had just heard.

The bench was provided and Leshii gulped the wine down. Then he knocked back another cup.

‘A third,’ said Helgi, and the merchant’s cup was refreshed again. The prince was staring at Leshii like a money changer who suspects a coin to be false but can see no proof that it actually is.

‘But who are the two who travel with you?’

Leshii thought he should stress the fine qualities of Ofaeti and Hugin in order that Helgi might find them some service if their mission to find Aelis failed. ‘They helped me on my journey here. One is a mighty warrior of the north, a prince in his own realm. He is the most formidable warrior I have ever seen — next to yourself, khagan.’

‘Bring him in and let’s test that claim,’ said one of the druzhina. Helgi waved his hand to silence him.

‘On a ship here he was unarmed and yet went unflinching into a battle with five men and emerged the victor. He throws a spear well enough to pin a fly to the wall and is a mighty and formidable poet. His name is Ofaeti but he has many others that speak flatteringly of his battle prowess.’

‘And the other, his companion?’

‘A sorcerer and servant to your northern gods. He bears a message for you and would seek an audience.’

‘What is his name?’

‘Hugin, my lord.’

Helgi swallowed. ‘Did he travel with another?’

‘His sister, my lord. The witch Munin, though she is dead.’

Again Helgi swallowed and called for wine himself. Then he stood and spoke:

‘Over the spacious earth each day

Hugin and Munin set forth to fly.

For Hugin I fear lest he not come home,

But for Munin my care is more.’

He sipped at his cup. ‘Do you know the rhyme, merchant?’

‘I have heard it at the fire, khagan.’

‘Do you know where it comes from?’

Leshii didn’t want to belittle the northerners’ religion by calling it a story, so he said, ‘Is it not holy lore?’

‘It is the sayings of the mad god Odin, god of kings, magic and the hanged. So Munin is dead.’

‘The sorceress died in Flanders.’

Helgi nodded. ‘I had never thought that verse could be a prophecy too.’

Leshii knew better than to question kings uninvited but he wondered to himself what exactly it might prophesy.

‘The signs are all here,’ said Helgi, ‘all of them. This fog is not natural and a mighty warrior walks out of the ice in the company of ravens.’

‘That is not as mysterious as it sounds,’ said Leshii. ‘We met another sorcerer on the boat, a man of great power. He guided us here, helped us on our way.’

‘How?’

‘He caused the wind to blow and the frost to melt away. We sailed past the lake and a good way up the river before he took the ship and turned back.’

Helgi went white. ‘No man has power like that. Magic is a woman’s art. Only the gods in man’s form can perform such feats.’

‘This was a man, sir, tall and pale. One of your people, by his hair.’

‘What of his hair?’

‘It was bright red. As red as the comb on a cock, all stood up in a shock. He steered us here himself and kept us from the shore, which was a good thing because the Franks and the Jomsvikings have the whole coast in flames between them.’

The prince threw his cup down. The god, the one who had wandered in from the blizzard — Loki, on a ship. Helgi recalled the prophecy:

A ship journeys from the east.

The people of the land of fire are coming over the waves,

And Loki steers.

There are the monstrous brood with all the raveners.

It was a prediction of what would happen in the end time, before Odin fought the wolf on the Gods’ final day. This ship came from the west, though. But what was west? It had come through the Eastern Lake. Prophecies, he knew, were rarely clear.

The khagan regained his temper. ‘See the merchant is rewarded,’ he said. ‘Give him fifty dinars and he may stay in our hall if he wishes. Or wherever he chooses. I expect he wants a bed slave, and these Slavs have a peculiar love of solitude in such matters.’ He turned to a druzhina. ‘It is time,’ he said. ‘Bring the girl to the gate.’

‘And the foreigners on the ice, lord?’