Hadding left the house. He was away for three days and nights. The bond that had held him there was broken.
VI
He came back toward evening, halted in the open doorway, and stood while his sight wonted itself to the gloom within.
The three thursir sat eating. Even cross-legged on the floor, they loomed higher than he, shadowy bulks, fleeting glitter off eyes and teeth. Smoke from a low fire drifted about them. Its sharpness mingled with smells from the cowstalls at the rear. After the woodland, that was a thick air to breathe.
“Welcome back,” rumbled Vagnhöfdi, and “Are you hungry?” asked Halflidi. Hardgreip sighed.
“No, I have fed today on my kill,” Hadding said, “but I will drink farewell with you, for tomorrow I go home.”
“What?” cried Hardgreip. “Here is your home!”
He shook his head. “Denmark is mine. Too long have I been away. Too long has my father’s foeman been alive.”
“If you go against him alone,” said Vagnhöfdi, “it’s not he who’ll fall. Are you a berserker, to howl and slash at a throng of men till they cut you down?”
“You promised you’d fight at my side.”
Now it was the giant’s shaggy head that shook. “Once do I dare do that, but no more. If they knew a jotun was warring in their world, they’d call on the gods, and Thor would soon be there. I have no shield to stop his hammer.”
“I am a Skjoldung,” said Hadding, “kin to the gods.”
“And a tricky lot they are,” Vagnhöfdi growled. “Stay, lad, at least a few more days, and I’ll try to help you think.”
“Oh, stay,” Hardgreip breathed. “Would you so coldly forsake those who love you?”
Her look clung to him. Tall and broad-shouldered he stood, lithe and strong, in a huntsman’s green wadmal kirtle and breeks, knife at belt, spear in hand, bow and quiver slung on his back. The light streamed in to make molten gold of the hair that fell from a headband to his collarbones. As yet he had no real beard, but down of the same hue glowed on cheeks and chin and above the firm-set lips. His nose was straight, his eyes glacier blue, his voice rolling full out of the deep chest.
She saw a slight wavering on his face and said gladly, “I know you’re not heartless and thankless.”
Hadding sighed. “Well, if you want it so much, I will stay those few days, but no longer. I will not. I cannot.”
“Yes, I feel that,” Vagnhöfdi said heavily. “You are whatever it is you are, and no man may flee his weird.”
“But come in, do,” Haflidi bade, “and we’ll be merry together this evening as of old.”
That did not happen. They drank, they talked of small things and their former days, but Hadding grew fiery and Vagnhöfdi more glum. Hardgreip alone kept trying for lightness.
But when Hadding and Haflidi had lain down to rest, he made out through the darkness that Hardgreip drew her father aside and whispered with him.
In the morning after they had broken their fast she smiled down at Hadding and said, “Shall we take this day free, you and I? Let’s seek out places we like and enjoy them anew” He thought she hoped it would lessen his eagerness to be off. Nothing could do that, but meanwhile he was willing to take some ease. There would soon be little of it for him.
They walked off together, she matching her stride to his, from the house on the hilltop into the woodland beneath. The day was mild and bright, a few clouds catching the sunshine aloft, a breeze sweet with young grass, new-budded leaves, and the earliest flowers. Trees made a rustling roof over the game trail they took, through which light fell in shafts and flecks amidst the shade. A squirrel ran up a bole, a ruddy streak quickly gone in the green and gold above. Birdsong trilled.
“Yes, this land is fair, and I will ever remember it,” Hadding said.
“Is that all you will do, remember?” Hardgreip asked. Looking up, he saw a glint of tears on the great face. Their eyes met, turning at once away, and both of them flushed.
After a while they came to an opening. Here rocks heaved up, thickly mossed, to hold off the beeches that ringed them in. A spring gurgled and glittered among them. It made a shallow pool from which a streamlet purled off. One bank of the pool was free of boulders, blanketed with the same moss, soft and springy.
The day was growing warm. It baked rich smells out of the ground, smells of the life everywhere swelling and begetting, drunk with lustiness.
“Ah, I know this spot,” Hadding mumbled into the silence.
“Well you might,” Hardgreip said, “as often as you’ve watched me here.”
Suddenly she grasped his arm. Her hand was huge and hot, he felt the blood throb in it, but the grip was tender. Astonished, he looked again into her eyes. They shone upon him like the sun.
“Hadding,” she gasped, “don’t go away. Stay. Take me, have me. Now!”
“What?” he blurted, staggered.
“Make me your first woman, take me in your arms, me who took you in mine when you were new-born, me at whose breasts you drank, who kept you alive. Give back what I gave you!”
He stared, bewildered. She let go of him and withdrew by one of her long paces. Still he saw her towering, clad merely in a shift, her bare feet catching at the earth and her arms raised high above the tousled black hair. She broke into a chant.
Why and for what have you whiled away
Your life all alone, this length of years?
Your wish is for war, you want naught else.
No loveliness lures; you’ve left it aside,
Willful and wanton and wild as you are.
You’ve hardened your heart against happiness,
You seek but to slake
