Glam changed the subject and went more into a travelogue. Indicating the general area to the east with a broad sweep of his hand, he said in his most officious voice: 'There. Over there are trackless lands that have never seen the foot of man. Others where only the wildest savages live half man, half horse great hordes of them… small gnomes whose legs are bent so badly they can hardly walk on the ground because they've spent so much time on horseback that their legs have grown crooked. And there are others almost as bad. Hundreds of thousands of them. Still they are only specks on the great steppes of Scythia and the even more desolate region that runs untold leagues beyond. Mark my words, Casca. One day we will have more than our share of trouble coming out of the east. If those devils ever start to move, they won't leave enough grass behind them to feed a family of grasshoppers.'
'You have seen these people you talk of, Glam?' 'Aye, Lord Casca, I have. Several came as emissaries once to the king of the Alani when I was renting him the use of my sword as a bodyguard for a while. He was having family problems at the time and didn't trust his own men too closely. Yes, these ugly bowlegged little bastards even conducted their treaties from horseback. I got one stewed on fermented mare's milk which they drink and learned a little from him. They are indeed going to be moving west sometime. Now there is only a trickle this way, but, from the little bastard I talked to, I learned that they have their problems, too. Even greater and more terrible tribes are pushing them out of the lands they inhabit on the endless prairies near the wall, 'The Wall That Goes on Forever' at least that's what he called it, though I am sure he is a bit of a liar. A wall that goes on forever! Indeed!' Glam snorted through his mustache at the idea. 'From what I saw of those beasts they would be extremely unpleasant to have as neighbors. They have absolutely no sense of appreciation for the finer things of life as we of the northlands do.'
Glam squashed a particularly fat louse and blinked as the body popped between his thick nails. He ambled on, unaware that Casca was sore put to keep from breaking out in laughter at Glam's wounded sense of propriety and sensitivity.
He was the mainstay when Casca met Lida at Ragnar's Hold.
Lida.
Now there was something strange.
Glam knew all about women as women. And he expected Casca to be like himself. But the thing between Casca and Lida, golden-haired, lovely, beautiful young Lida, daughter of Ragnar the Brutal One, was like one of those romances the poets sang about. From the moment their eyes touched, something passed between them that was above and beyond the normal way of man and maid. Old Ragnar found out, of course. Old Ragnar, to whom even a daughter was only property that no man dared touch. In his insane rage when Lida had the temerity to stand up to him and say, 'I have eyes only for Casca,' he had blinded her with a torch jerked from the wall, crying, 'Then, by Thor, you'll have no eyes!' And when he ordered Casca tossed into a dungeon to starve to death, even his hardened warriors were so frightened by Ragnar's enormous rage and brutal act toward his own daughter that they carried out his orders, smothering Casca by sheer weight of numbers before the Roman could find out what had occurred in Ragnar's rooms for they sensed that if he knew, even the force of the Aesir would not hold him back.
Once secured in the dungeon, though, Casca had been told by Ragnar himself whose sense of vengeance was as strong as his hate. Casca raged, but even his great strength was of no avail against such great stones as enclosed the dungeon.
Old Ragnar was a mean old shit, so used to having his way that he never doubted he would always have it. Casca stayed in the dungeon for six months until one day Ragnar, sure that Casca was long dead, gave orders for a new prisoner to be lodged there. But when the door opened, Casca came out, naked as a jaybird, nothing but bones and skin. He had eaten all his clothing even the lacings on his leggings along with every insect; bug, and rat that dared showed itself in the black cell. Water he licked from the walls where it condensed in drops. Surely there was not enough to keep any man alive two weeks, much less six months, but Casca lived.
He snapped the jailer's neck with one of his strange blows, took the man's weapon, and like some weird nightmare of a man, wild beard falling from his chin, he sought out and killed old Ragnar at his own table where the brutal old bastard was entertaining guests. Glam had been there, having found himself local employment in order to keep an eye on Lida. Casca had told him to wait, no matter how long, and from the things Glam had seen on the trail, he believed the strange Roman. Joyfully, Glam shouted and reached for his sword when this filthy, starved, weird-looking wretch leaped into the middle of Ragnar's table with an axe in one hand and a leg of mutton in the other. He scared the crap out of everyone there, sending all but the sturdiest warriors running for their lives. They thought he must surely be some demon out of the netherworld sent by Loki. Glam roared with amusement as he watched Casca bashing out the brains of old Ragnar with the leg of meat while whacking two of the household bodyguards with the axe and never missing a bite. Glam's own joyful efforts to assist Casca helped speed up the demise of the few who dared resist them. For the rest, the sight of the lord being debrained by a hairy, filthy skeleton of a demon wielding a leg of mutton and a battleaxe was too much. They fled the house, leaving Ragnar's Hold to the madman. They were afraid of nothing human. But this was too much…
Forty years ago Lida was a golden-haired thing of light and silver. She moved like a summer breeze…
Old Glam snuffled in his beard. Even sightless she knew every inch of the Hold that was then hers and Casca's. Casca became the Lord of the Hold, and none disputed it and lived…
Wiping a tear from his eyes, Glam thought, I loved her, too, Casca. And she was beautiful to the end. A lovely lady with a heart for everyone and everything. Especially you, you lousy dago.' This had been a good place for them. It took only a few fights around the neighborhood to show that this was no place to muck about with.
Glam shivered as he saw again those clear white sightless eyes of Lady Lida. Forty years and she never knew Casca's secret… That's the greatest miracle of all. I never saw a man love anyone as much as he did her. When she died, I thought for a moment he was going to have himself buried with her. But then he's a strange little bastard. Those touched by the gods always are. He has his fate to follow, and personally I don't envy him. But the years have been good…
Laughing in his mead, Glam chuckled and muttered softly: 'What was it he first called me? Turnip dick? Ha!'
ONE
Dr. Julius Goldman entered the magnificent doors leading into the sacrosanct interior of the Boston Museum of History. He was late. His footsteps clattered over the polished marble floor, his own sense of urgency seeming to precede him with the echoing sound as he passed the priceless relics of antiquity, the emblems of vanished civilizations. Vases from China. Amphorae from Greece. Each a lonely and mute survivor of its past. Ancient weapons. Time-forgotten ornaments. Each seemed ready to speak, to tell some dark secret of the ages. Despite his haste, Goldman felt the atmosphere of the museum seeping into his brain.
He turned left down an exhibit hall leading toward his destination, the newly acquired exhibit of Mesoamerican art from Mexico. On the way, though, he approached a well-used and exquisitely preserved set of Roman gladiatorial armor, its great helmet and famed Roman short sword hanging expectantly in the silent museum as though suspended in time. Involuntarily his steps slowed, and he stopped in front of the carefully mounted pieces. A gash ran along the belly of the armor, exposing the leather wrappings beneath. Goldman wondered how the man who had been wearing it had come out. As he stood before the armor, images flashed in his brain, and a feeling of second sight came over him, a tumbling of memories lost and found and then gone again before awareness. He saw in his mind's eye a massive stadium filled with people crying for blood. He saw men wearing the armor of the Secutor and the Mirimillone locked in mortal combat, straining to let the lifeblood out of their opponents, and not with any reluctance for they were glorying in their strength. Goldman felt himself part of the Roman games. The smell of the blood-soaked sand stank in his nostrils.
He turned from the armor and entered the Aztec exhibit. The museum had just opened and was practically empty, but Goldman had been here the previous week and he recalled with particular distaste seeing two aficionados of this pre-Columbian culture standing before these exhibits, indulging themselves in a form of controlled, vicarious, mental masturbation… as if by touching and looking at these relics they could claim some kinship with the ones who had actually worn and used the items. Their attitude had been not dissimilar from the
