Chapter 3: An Unwelcome Guest

“Vesheill!” The great cry rang out from thrice two hundred house-carls, the great wooden cups and the horns filled with the foaming Yuletide Ale raised high, then drained to the dregs in a roaring wave of voices and laughter, and I, I sat to the side and a little behind my son, Thorstein, the King, at the High Table, and his chief men and such of his younger brothers as were men, they too sat at the High Table. The servant girls moved with alacrity with their jugs, from which the cups and horns were refilled, and busy indeed was the refilling, for the ale was good indeed, so all said, and all called for more, so that the servant girls were kept running.

My eyes looked out over the Great Hall. Over a sight familiar from two score years of marriage to Thorstein’s father, the old King. King Harald Wolfs-Fang, the Old Wolf, the Wolf of the North. My husband, now dead and buried with his dragon-ship within the great barrow freshly built on the headland, and he had been my husband these many years.

Two score years and a little more now, since that day he had rescued me from the followers of Horsa, father of Hengist, after I had killed Horsa and sliced his parts from him, long before he drew his last breath, feeding them to the dogs as he screamed through those last long minutes of his life. King Harald Wolfs-Fang had watched, laughing, before he took me as his wife, where an hour before, I had known I was dead, and I had been praying that death would come quickly, for I was the last, and I had seen and heard what had happened to those who were before me, and one of those had been my maid, the last survivor of my escort, and I had wept with terror and fear and anger as she died, and I had been dreading my end, but Horsa had died, and I had lived.

Now, on this Yuletide Eve, Horsa’s son, Hengist sat in this hall with a hundred of his men, guests of my son, protected by the Yuletide Peace, and this Hengist I watched, for there was no trusting him, who wished my death, and my son’s death, and the death of all my children, for I had slain his father, and this Hengist had sworn the blood-feud on me, and he had waited all these years, until King Harald Wolfs-Fang was dead, to seek his revenge, for if this Hengist, Horsa’s-son had arrived while my husband, Harald Wolfs-Fang, was alive, Harald would have done as I wished to do, with no prompting from me.

Hengist had been admitted as a Yuletide guest, for this was now my son’s Great Hall, and I, I was no longer the King’s first wife, for my oldest son, Thorstein, he was now the King and married, and his wife, Yrsa, she was now Queen, and my son knew not Hengist as I knew him by repute and tales passed on, and so had bid him welcome, where I wouldst have turned him from the doors, or better yet, ordered him slain out of hand, disregarding that it was the Yuletide Eve.

Slay him, turn him away, that I could not order. For I was but the King’s mother now, honored, but I knew my place, and the house-carls were no longer at my command, and so I sat quietly in the background, watching, as I had watched these savage people for so many years. So many years since I had left Northern Wei, a gift of a Wei bride to a Khan of the Western Rouran, those who were known in this land by rumor as the Avars, a gift from Wei to the Rouran to seal their neutrality for a time, but alas, their neutrality had made no difference, and my fate had been strange indeed to have led me here to this cold and desolate northern land so far from my home, here to see out my days.

Of this fate I did not complain, for Northern Wei had fallen in dissension and defeat long ago, and there, I would likely have been dead these many years. Here, I had been a King’s wife, and now I was a King’s mother, but it was at times like this I missed my homeland. This Great Hall in which I now sat, made of huge logs hewn from the primeval forest, it’s great rafters blackened by the wood-smoke that clouded the thatched roof, lit and warmed against the winter cold by great roaring fires laid in a trench down the center, this Hall was a far cry from the marbled and tiled palace lit by lanterns and warmed by silent ducts of smokeless air from the furnaces below, in which I had grown up.

These huge and savage warriors, men with great golden beard’s, long flowing hair the color of gold or of the winter wheat, or indeed of ice, men with savage eyes of pale winter blue, iron-thewed, fierce of visage, loud and uncouth, they too were a far cry from the black-haired, almond-eyed people of Northern Wei, my homeland so far away now in both distance and in time, for Northern Wei had fallen these many years gone, and my father and my brothers had fallen at the Emperor’s side in those last days of war.

This I had known even before my fate had led me to become the wife of Harald Wolfs-Fang, for news travelled as fast as a galloping horse on the steppe, and of the Fall of Northern Wei and the death of my Father and my Brothers I had heard, even before I had been captured by the Xiongnu, and then from the Xiongnu by a Magyar raiding party, and from the Magyars by Rus.

These savage warriors whose King was now my oldest son, they sat on wooden benches, they sprawled full length on the packed clay floor, they rutted with the servant girls at the back of the Hall, or they strode about to seek their comrades. They drank mightily from foaming ox horns or great wooden cups, they gorged themselves on great hunks of rye bread torn from the loaves, they ate chunks of meat cut from the whole oxen roasting on spits, their teeth tore the meat from racks of pork ribs or from great coils of sausage dripping fat, carried through the hall on wooden shields held by the house-thralls.

The walls of this Hall, they were hung with shields and with strange weapons and standards while chests of gold and silver were stacked in the King’s chamber, for King Harald Wolfs-Fang’s dragon-ships had ranged far, bringing back to his Great Hall the spoils of war, of which I had been his most precious, but I, I had come willingly, for my choices at that time were limited, and to be the wife of Harald Wolfs-Fang had not seemed so ill a fate when compared to the alternatives at that time and place, and I had been happy with my choice.

These men, they were wolves, and all the world was their prey. They exuded arrogance and pride from their savage and forbidding eyes, as my husband Harald’s eyes had been savage and forbidding, but on me they had gazed first with desire, and then with love, and perhaps even a little of admiration, for I had been no swooning maiden, but neither had I been a blonde-haired Valkyrie.

No, I had been a black-haired, almond eyed girl from a far foreign land, a sword-maiden who had killed his sworn enemy, and killed him slowly, and his amusement and pleasure had been great indeed on that day of our meeting so many years in the past, and none were alive from that day now but I, and only I remembered all that had taken place.

Only I.

Those heads that filled the Great Hall, they were a sea of gold, and that white-blonde, all but for my children and a few Finnish thralls. My sons and my daughters, they all had the hair of my people, a fine silky black, and all had lived. All had been seated on their father’s knee, and accepted before the folk, and in this, good luck had been with me, for most mothers were not so fortunate, and many were the babies and children who died before their fifth year. Two score and more years I had been married, seven sons and five daughters had I, all with their mother’s hair, and my oldest son, Thorstein the King, he was no exception.

My oldest son’s hair was mine own black, not the spun gold of his father. My oldest son’s eyes, they were in part my almond-eyes, but they had also that savage and wolfish look of his father’s people, for my son, Thorstein, the King, he was the Young Wolf, as savage and feared in battle as his father before him, and the Old Wolf had gifted him his arm-rings, his byrnie of chain mail, his sword and his shield, given to him from the Old Wolf’s hands before the folk as he lay on his death-bed, and the folk had acclaimed Thorstein as King on the Old Wolf’s death, and all had been at that gathering.

“A song, a song in memory of the Old Wolf,” a man cried from the Hall, and all took up the cry, and at the great doors, more men filtered in from the snow and cold outside, and amongst them was one I did not remember, but he seemed in some way familiar, so I must have seen him before.

An old man, leaning on a staff, his beard long and white, and he had but one eye, and that eye caught mine and he smiled as he took a bench seat at the rear of the Hall, and I, I returned his smile, as was polite, bowing my head a little out of respect for his age, for three score years as I was, he was yet older than I, and I struggled to remember who he was amongst the folk, but now the call for a song drew my attention, and I forgot the old man.

“A song, a song for the Old Wolf and the Young Wolf,” and Hengist did not look pleased at the acclaim for my husband and my son, and at this and the chagrinned look on his face, I smiled, and he saw that smile, and I knew he had not put aside that blood feud.

Thorstein gestured, and the skall stepped forward, and his song was such as these people sang, and it was a song of the North Folk, not a song such as my people would have sung, but there were none but I to sing the songs of my own people. None but I to understand the musical beauty of my own language. None but I, and so I listened to the song of this skall.

On the headland, Within the barrow, Stands a hero’s ship. There we placed the Old Wolf’s body, And with golden tribute Made his shroud. There never was A vessel so well equipped: Bright steel, swords and mail, helms of iron, Broad-gold and rings, And glorious gifts, Thralls to serve him, Maidens to please him, Lay around that mast. Placed in the barrow, That precious booty, And all of this, Was as his own people Provided for him: Honored he was, The Old-Wolf at his funeral. Above the barrow, His final home, We set the horse-head standard, The sacrifices to Wōdan, For the Old Wolf was ever, The raven-feeder, Then giving him honor, Praising his prowess, Mourning his passing, We gave him to that barrow. And the truth of that last voyage, No wiseman, nor hero under heaven, Can say who will gain that cargo, But now the Young Wolf, The ring-giver, the raven-feeder Leads us to victory Far to the Southland he will lead us His warriors he will take into battle Riches and fame Women and ale Again lie before us, A kingdom we will carve In the South Land Drink now we will, To victory in battle To a new land to take To the Young Wolf who leads us To the Old and the New...

A storm of cheers arose from the gathered throng. My son smiled and tossed the skall a coin of gold from his pouch, for all knew the ambition of Thorstein. To lead his folk in our dragon-ships to the rich lands of the south, to the lands from which the Rome-folk had fled or been driven from. To carve out a kingdom as the kings and war-leaders of the Franks, the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths, the Lombards, the Burgundians, the Vandals, the Bavarians, the Sarmatians, the Bulgars, the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes, all were doing, and rich was the land to be won by heroes, held by sword and spear, and in this I would not attempt to gainsay my son, the King.

Was I myself not from such a people. Had not my own homeland of Northern Wei been carved out from the old empire of the Han, and held by the swords and bows of my ancestors, the Xianbei, warriors from the northern steppe? Had not my father and my brothers led the armies of Northern Wei? Was I not from a family of warriors, servants of the Emperor himself to the bitter end? Longed I at times for the comforts of my homeland, the great palaces, the gardens, the cities that stretched mile upon mile, thronging with people, but at heart, I was a woman of my people, and my people were warriors.

Were not the Rome-folk such as my own people? Perhaps, I was not certain, but that they had been soldiers and conquerors, I knew. But as Northern Wei had, as the Jin Dynasty of the Han had in centuries past, the Rome-folk had fallen in defeat. Only tales and rumor of tales reached my ears, but it seemed so, and I remembered Miklagard as the dragon-ships rowed by, and that was a fortress that Harald Wolfs-Fang had not attacked, for feared were the soldiers of that city, and only half a dozen long-ships had we been at that time, although there had been more with us when we returned to the Dane-mark, where Harald had carved out his kingdom in the lawless lands between the Danes and the Swedes, and all had welcomed him, for he bought peace to the land with his sword and his justice.

The Rome-folk, they had been rulers of a vast empire, an empire as fast and powerful as the Han empires before Northern Wei, and the empire of the Rome-folk was one within which the petty kingdoms of these north-folk were but drops in the ocean, and indeed, this kingdom that was now my son’s was lesser in size and in men than the personal estates of my father had been in Northern Wei, less by far. But here, the Rome-folk remained only in the east, in far of Miklagard, and few were the folk who had travelled to that fabled city. Here in the west, far to our south, the Rome-folk had fallen in defeat, the western half of their empire but a memory, just as the Han had fallen to my own people long in the past, and many were the tales of that fall that had made it to my son’s Great Hall here in the north land,

Now, now was the time of men like my son, Thorstein. Now was the time to seize a new land, now was the time to rule the vanquished as my own people had ruled the Han, with sword and spear and bow, and held I out the hope that my son would be such a man as the Emperor Daowu, my ancestor, he who had defeated the Yan and founded Northern Wei, and Northern Wei had stood strong and undefeated for five hundred years.

Did not the blood of the great Emperor Daowu himself flow in my veins? Was not my father, now long dead, the chief General of Northern Wei to the end, feared by his enemies unto death? Had not my dead husband, King Harald Wolfs-Fang, been one of the most feared and worthy Kings of these north-folk, respected by all for his prowess in battle, his wisdom and his ring-gifting? Was not Thorstein proven in battle, acclaimed by the folk as King without dispute, for all recognized him as a worthy successor to his father, a leader of warriors, a raven-feeder, a ring-giver, and all were gladdened that the Old Wolf was succeeded by the Young Wolf.

All but Hengist, that grizzled warrior of two score and ten years, who had been ten summers of age when I had slain his father, and fed his parts to the dogs, and his yet breathing body to the wolves, and all knew that story, and all had laughed, for while there were none here now but me who remembered that encounter, Horsa had not been a man well-liked, and few had mourned his passing, and many there when I had killed him had watched and laughed as he died.

Those who had not laughed that day, they had been Horsa’s men, and they too I had slain on that night, one by one, as Harald and his men drank the Yuletide ale and laughed.

Hengist the boy had not laughed at his father’s death.

Hengist the boy had sworn blood-feud on the killer of his father those two score years passed, and he had not forgotten that oath, for here now he was, in Thorstein’s Great Hall, and here now I was, the women he had sworn to kill as his father had not, and all my children were gathered here too.

Hengist rose from his bench and strode to the dais on which the High Table sat, and my hand slipped to the hilt of my sword, for Hengist had been guested, but not with honor, and his guesting had been unbidden, his arrival unwelcome, for he was a quarrelsome a man as his father had been before him. His father, Horsa, who had died by my hand on the steppe far to the east where I had been captured from the Magyars so long ago. The Magyars, who had captured me from the Xiongnu, the Huns, who had in turn attacked and killed my escort as I rode to the Khan of the Western Rouran, the Avars, as his intended bride.

Such had been my fate, who had been sent as a bride to the Khan of the Western Rouran.

Such had been Horsa’s fate, for he had attempted to take me by force, and sacrifice me on the funeral pyre of his shield-brother, Erik Bloodaxe, and seeing Hengist, Horsa’s son, stride towards the dais, I smiled, for I was as willing to see the son dead as I had his father, and after these many years as Harald Wolfs-Fang’s wife, death was a thing I was not unaccustomed to.

“Young Thorstein,” Hengist said, and he had no words of praise and thanks to my son, arriving as he had, unwelcome, uninvited and unexpected, with a hundred chosen warriors at his back. “I see no guest gifts yet given to me or my men”, and, looking around at the walls, he sang: --

“The young wolf’s jaws with fear are shaking; Standing before him, I see him quaking, While my men drink in this hall Brave spoil they see decked on the wall -- Shield, helms, and armor, all in row, Stripped in the field from lifeless foe. In truth no royal mail comes near Thy splendid hall, this precious gear. Gifts my men are eagerly waiting, Best the boy-King be not bating.”

Thorstein laughed, and his voice rose in song next, and all listened, for a song-duel was not such an event as happened often, and even less often between such Lords of men, for Thorstein was a King, and Hengist was a grey and grizzled Jarl, a leader of warriors with his own war-hird, and not many warriors were as quick with words as were these two, and such a song-duel rarely ended without the ravens having been fed, and in my own mind I had no doubt on whom the ravens would feast should Hengist push his luck, and he had already pushed his luck far, and I listened to Thorstein’s words, glancing around the Hall, and the one-eyed old man at the rear, his single eye caught mine, and he smiled as my son’s words filled the Hall, for my son had the voice of a King, and all heard him clearly.

“Foolish are you, or so I was told To arrive uninvited, an action bold; You come with armed men, to my land Saying you seek, a sister’s hand. And so I bid you in to come To cherish this Hall, as thy home; And thou who comes, from the east In Thorstein’s hall, shall find a feast -- In Thorstein’s house shall find a home -- At Thorstein’s court I bid you welcome. But now you demand from me a gift, Know you that such, receives short shrift. Such a demand, I refuse to meet, Your guesting here is indeed deceit. Let me explain how it lies here, King am I, and that is clear A guest as you keeps strictest peace, All threats of force this moment cease. As King I entreat thee not to break The Yuletide peace for vengeance’s sake!”

“A true King does not entreat.” Hengist spat on the floor, all pretense now cast aside, his hand on the hilt of his sword, and his intent was open now, and clear to all. “A true King commands, and all obey, and poor was the luck of your folk if you are indeed King.”

“Come, Hengist, wouldst challenge me now, on Yuletide Eve?” My oldest son smiled, his voice gentle, and I had heard Harald speak thus, and I knew that such was my son’s wish, and assuredly in him, both his father’s and his mother’s blood ran true.

I shuddered, for that smile was his father’s, but that look in his eyes, that was mine own father’s, and all who had once known his father knew that smile for what it was. The smile of the wolf who led the pack, about to rip the throat from his rival. That look in his eyes, that was the cold calculation I had oft seen in the eyes of my father, the Prince Yuan Cheng’s eyes, and my father had loved me, but he had ever been such, and if my oldest son did as his smile indicated that he wouldst, first drawing his sword, he would break the Yuletide Peace and forfeit the loyalty of his folk, for he would be foresworn before all, but his eyes said otherwise, and I could not read his intent.

That breaking of the Peace, that, I had no doubt, was Hengist’s objective, to cause my son to lose his temper and draw his sword first, although also, I had no doubt that Thorstein would indeed kill Hengist. Had I not trained Thorstein myself in the art of battle, and was I not Shaolin trained? Had I not fed the ravens often myself, and I but a woman. A woman who could slay any warrior in this Hall one-on-one, should I choose, and that had included my beloved husband, Harald Wolfs-Fang, and Harald had known that too, and he had treasured me the more for my sword-skill.

My son’s eyes contradicted his smile, and that cold calculation puzzled me a little, for Thorstein was a man who did not convey the image of a cold and calculating ruler to his men, but Hengist obviously thought he could provoke him into drawing, and his mocking smile said as much.

“Challenge you, puppy?” Hengist spat on the floor of packed clay, his face working, and his hand was on the hilt of his sword. “What need have I to challenge you, for all here know me as a seasoned warrior and a leader of warriors, a Jarl, one who has raided the Wends across the sea, the Franks and the Saxons, and even the Rome-folk far to the south, and the Old Wolf was my great-uncle through my mother’s lineage, and I am a Jarl and as entitled to the throne as you, so step you down and leave with your life, slink from here as the black-haired mongrel cur you are, together with her who stands behind you, the Old Wolf’s bitch, black-haired as a Finn witch, her and her other whelps, before I hew your head from your shoulders and cast your corpse into the midden.”

Behind him, Hengist’s house-carls sat, poised and alert, hands ready to axe or sword but not yet drawn, for this was the Yuletide Peace, and he who first drew sword or other weapon was foresworn. Around the Great Hall, Thorstein’s housecarls reached for their swords and their axes and their spears, for loyal to Thorstein they were, having followed him into battle, having fought at his side, and no few of them owed their lives to his battle-skill, and at the Thingmoot, they had acclaimed him as King on the death of his father, my husband and my true love, King Harald Wolfs-Fang, the Old Wolf, only weeks ago, and Harald’s barrow lay fresh and brown on the headland, with the horse head standards and the sacrifices to Wōdan still there, hanging from the great poles, a ghastly sight, starkly shrouded in the winter snow.

“Thorstein,” I said, now standing at my son’s back, my hand on my son’s shoulder, and I know not what my words would have been, for they were cut off by this would-be usurper. He whose dragon-ship lay safely now in one of our boathouses, having nosed its way in uninvited, making its entrance through the ice this very morning, laden with his warriors, and the dragon’s head lay within, not mounted on the bow, and the shields had been stowed, signaling he had come in peace, asking for the hand of my oldest daughter in marriage.

Subterfuge.

I knew that, and I trusted Hengist not, but my son might not break the Yuletide Peace to slay him out of hand, as he otherwise might have done, for he was the King, and in this I must needs gainsay his temper, for he was still young, if not a youth, and he had led our men in battle many times, and was a proven war-leader. I knew the mind of our people well, long having been the confidant of my husband, who had been King for many a year before Thorstein, and my temper was not as Thorstein’s, who at times still had the impetuousness of youth, despite he was nine and twenty and in his prime.

“Yes, Mother?” my son said, his smile mocking Hengist. “Give me your words of wisdom before I lay judgement on this fool who stands before me.”

“Thorstein King...” I began, but my words were cut off, as being from one who is of no account.

“Silence, Witch Woman,” Hengist roared, making the sign of the hammer, his voice almost shaking the rafters in his anger and his fear and his hate and his desire for vengeance for his father’s death, and, no doubt, desire to possess the King’s seat. His outburst silenced all conversation in that Hall, and I know not what else I would have said to my son, for my anger boiled up within me at that old slur of my dead husband’s enemies, and at the very back of the Hall, the old one-eyed man stood, staff in hand, shrouded in his cloak, and he was smiling.

Witch woman?

Those were words that not a warrior here would have dared utter when my husband had yet lived, for treasured I was by King Harald Wolfs-Fang, ever first among his wives, although he had taken younger women, but those I had never begrudged him. First among his wives I had been, from the day he laid eyes on me, and treasured I had been by him to his last breath, and was I not now Mother of the new King, and mother also of many sons and daughters, and did not some of those younger women, the most pleasing to the eye, the ones who were not of great families or with kinfolk to speak up for them, lie with him now, within the barrow.

Not, I hasten to mention, by any request of mine, but by acclaim of the folk, and they had drunk the funeral mead and gone to their doom in a stupor, and this was the custom of my husband’s folk, and naught could I do to prevent this, filled with horror though I was, for it was the will of the folk in honor of the King. Even though I was King Harald’s wife, I was not of the folk and I could not gainsay that evil practice, and had I not experienced that horror myself in my youth? Luck had been with me then, as it was not with those women who went to the grave with my husband, there to serve him in the life after death.

My husband, the Old Wolf, Harald Wolfs-Fang, the King before Thorstein. Thorstein’s father.

It was that Kingship that Hengist had come here to claim, the leadership and rule of the folk, and it was that Kingship he would not have, for that slur had given me all the excuse I needed, in the eyes of our folk at least, and it was they whose eyes counted in this matter, and I? I cared not one whit for their Yuletide Peace, and I had not sworn to keep that peace, for I was a woman and not a warrior such as the folk counted warriors.

I had not sworn, as I had not sworn on the Yuletide eve on which Hengist’s father, Horsa, had died, and this insult would be accepted by my son’s folk as an excuse for what I would do, for all our people knew me. They knew me as this get of Horsa’s did not.

“Witch Woman?” I hissed, somersaulting through the air over my Thorstein’s head, feet brushing the table as I propelled myself towards this Hengist, and I was as fast as I had been as a girl of fifteen, faster perhaps, for I had trained and practiced all my life, and my life had been a hard school indeed. My sword whispered from its sheath in that blindingly fast draw of the Iaijutso school of Yamoto that my childhood instructor had drilled down to my very bones so long ago, and that I had practiced almost every day of my life since, again and again.

I cut as my kiai shattered the very air of the Great Hall, even before my feet touched the floor. So fast was I that Hengist had barely blinked and begun to draw his sword from its sheath, so that later all would agree that he had indeed been the first warrior to break the Yuletide Peace. All also had later agreed that I had not sworn to the Yuletide Peace, being a woman, and so was not bound by an oath I had not sworn, to refrain from responding to such an insult.

My own blade sliced through his neck and his spine, cleanly through, from one side to the other, faster than the eye could follow. My treasured blade of Yamoto steel, older than I, far older, an heirloom of my family for two generations, gifted from the hands of the ruler of Yamoto himself to my grandfather, for my grandfather had led an embassy to the Court of the ruler of Yamoto, gifted to me by my father on the morning of the day I departed from Northern Wei forever. My sword, it was sharper than a razor, stronger than an axe, and it was as if I cut through silk, and Hengist’s head sat, standing as he stood, unmoving, still on his shoulders, but a thin line welled in a ruby necklace of the bright red ravens-drink. His eyes blinked but the once, slowly, as if it was difficult to move them, and perhaps it was, but only he could tell, and he would not be speaking now.

“Silence yourself, kin-slayer,” I said, into that sudden silence, for all knew that Hengist had slain his own brother, my husband’s cousin, and that he was such a swordsman as should be feared, for many were the men he had killed in hólmganga, and my voice was clear as all watched in sudden silence, and only I and my son, and perhaps Hengist, knew that he was already dead as he stood there, hand on hilt, sword half-drawn, and perhaps his men expected that hand to draw that sword, but I did not.

My sword, my treasured sword, carried from my far of homeland of Northern Wei so many years before, gifted to me by my father’s hand on that morning of my departure, that sword was red with his blood, as it had been red with blood so many times before. The red of ravens-drink, the red of the raven-feeder, the red of the Yuletide flames that flickered down the length of my son’s great hall. The bright red of blood, and at the rear of the Hall, the old one-eyed man was standing, watching, his staff in his hand, and the shadows made it look as if a raven sat on his shoulder.