The Hammer and The Cross

Shef threw the iron parts he was holding onto the floor. “Let the slave go, Steinulf, in payment for what he has told us. Show him how to get well away from here, so the Ragnarssons do not catch him. We can make our own machine without him now.”

“Have we time to do it?” asked a Viking.

“All we need is wood. And a little work in the forge. There are still two days till the Army meeting.”

“It is new knowledge,” added one of the listeners. “Thorvin would tell us to do it.”

“Meet here tomorrow, in the morning,” said Shef decisively.

As they turned away, one of the Vikings said, “They will be a long two days for King Ella. It was a dog's deed of the Christian archbishop to hand him over to Ivar. Ivar has much in store for him.”

Shef stared at the departing backs and turned again to his friend.

“What is that you have there?”

“A potion from Ingulf. For you.”

“I need no potion. What is it for?”

Hund hesitated. “He says it is to ease your mind. And—and to bring back your memory.”

“What is wrong with my memory?”

“Shef, Ingulf and Thorvin say—they say you have forgotten even that we blinded your eye. That Thorvin held you and Ingulf heated the needle, and I, I held it in position. We only did it so it would not be done by some butcher of Ivar's. But they say that it is not natural for you never to speak of it. They believe you have forgotten your blinding. And forgotten Godive, for whom you went into the camp.”

Shef stared down at the little leech with his silver apple pendant.

“You can tell them, I have never forgotten either for a moment.

“But still.” He stretched out his hand. “I will take your potion.”

“He took the potion,” Ingulf said.

“Shef is like the bird in the old story,” Thorvin said. “The one the Christians tell of how the English in the North became Christian. They say that when the king Edwin called a council to debate whether he and his kingdom should leave the faith of their fathers and take a new one, a priest of the Aesir had said they might as well, for following the old gods had brought him no profit. But then another councillor said, and this is a truer tale, that to him the world seemed like a king's hall on a winter evening—warm and brightly lit inside, but outside dark and cold, and a world no one could see. ‘And into that hall,’ said the councillor, ‘flies a bird, and for a moment it is in the light and the warm, and then flies out into the dark and cold again. If the Christ-god can tell us more surely about what happens before man's life and after man's life,’ said the councillor, ‘we should seek to learn more of his teaching.’ ”

“A good story, with some truth,” Ingulf said. “I see why you think Shef could be like that bird.”

“He could—or he could be something else. When Farman saw him in his vision, in Asgarth, he says he had taken the place of the smith of the gods, Volund. You do not know that story, Hund. Volund was caught and enslaved by the wicked king Nithhad, and hamstrung so that he could work, but not run away. But Volund enticed the king's sons to his forge, killed them, made brooches of their eyeballs and necklaces of their teeth, gave them to their father, his master. Enticed the king's daughter to his forge, stupefied her with beer, raped her.”

“Why would he do that if he was still a prisoner?” asked Hund. “If he was too lame to run away?”

“He was the master-smith,” said Thorvin. “When the king's daughter awoke, and ran to her father and told him the tale, and he came to kill the slave-smith with torments—then Volund put on the wings he had made secretly in his forge. And flew away, laughing at those who thought him crippled.”

“So why is Shef like Volund?”

“He can see up and down. In a direction other men cannot see. It is a great gift, but I fear it is the gift of Othin. Othin Allfather. Othin Bolverk, Othin Bale-worker. Your potion will make him dream, Ingulf. But what will be in those dreams?”

Shef's sinking mind was brooding on taste. The potion Ingulf had sent him had tasted of honey, which was a change from the foul brews he and Hund usually concocted. Yet beneath the sweetness there had been another taste: of mold? of fungus? He did not know, but something dry and rotten beneath the mask. He had known as soon as he drank it that there would be something to be endured.

And yet his dream started sweetly, like one he had had many times before any of his troubles began, before even he had known that they meant him for a thrall.

He was swimming, in the fen. But as he swam on and on the power of his strokes doubled and redoubled, so that the bank seemed to fall away behind him and he was swimming faster than a horse could run. Now his strokes took him clear from the water and he was lifting in the air, no longer striking with his arms, but first climbing, and then, as fear left him, sweeping forward again, rising higher and higher in the air, like a bird. The country beneath him was green and sunny, with the new leaves of spring breaking out everywhere, and meadow rolling higher and higher to sunlit uplands. Suddenly dark. In front of him now there was an immense column of darkness. He had, he knew, been there before. But then he had been in the column, or on the column, looking out: he did not want to see again what he had seen then. The king, the king Edmund, with his sad and tortured face and his backbone in his hand. If he flew in carefully, and did not look out or back, he might not see him this time.

Slowly, cautiously, the wandering soul closed on the enormous darkened tree-trunk. To it was nailed, as he had known there would be, a figure with a spike projecting from its eye. He looked at the face with care—was it his own?

It was not. Its one whole eye was closed. It appeared to take no interest in him.

By the figure's head there hovered two black birds, with black beaks: ravens. They turned bright eyes on him, cocking their heads curiously. The flight pinions of their wings ruffled and shifted slightly as they maintained their positions without strain or effort. The figure was Othin, or Woden, and the ravens were his constant companions.

What were their names? That was the important thing. He had heard them somewhere. In Norse they were—That was right, Hugin and Munin. In English that would be Hyge and Myne. Hugin/Hyge. That meant “mind.” That was not the one he wanted. As if dismissed, the one raven spiraled down, perched on its master's shoulder.

Munin/Myne. That meant “memory.” That was what he wanted. But he would have to pay for it. He had a friend, a protector among the gods, so much he realized already. But it was not Othin, whatever Brand might think. So a price must be paid. He knew what the price must be. Again unbidden, another scrap of verse came to him, again in English. It described the hanged man, on the gallows, who swayed there creaking for the birds, unable to raise a hand to protect himself, while the black ravens came…

Came for his eyes. For his eye. The bird was there suddenly, so close that it blocked out all other sight, its black beak like an arrow only an inch from his eye. Not his good eye, though. His bad eye. The one he had already lost. But this was memory, back in a time when he still had it. His hands were down, he could not move them. That was because Thorvin was holding them. No, he could move them this time, but he must not. He would not.

The bird realized he would not move. It came forward with a shriek of triumph, driving its nail of a beak deep through his eye and into his brain. As the white-hot pain stabbed through him, the words shot into his head: the words of the doomed king.

In willow ford, by woody bridge
The old kings lie, keels beneath them.
On down they sleep, deep home guarding.
Four fingers push in flattest line,
From underground. Grave the northmost.
There lies Wuffa, Wehha's offspring,