Thunder might have been speaking: “Hail, Braki. I bade you always to come by yourself, when come you must. Why have you brought this pack along? Am Ito kill them for you?”
The thrall wailed. Men stiffened in their seats. Gudorm flushed angrily. Braki waved them to stay quiet.
Looking straight up at the thurs, the chieftain said, “It’s not for my own sake I’m here this time, Vagnhöfdi. I needed guards along the way lest harm befall the sons of my king.”
“What are they to me?”
“This. Their father is fallen in war. His foeman, the Norse King Svipdag, now holds Denmark and means to seek lordship in Svithjod and Geatland as well. Let him gain his wish, and he will rule on either side of you. Likewise will his son after him. Folk are breeding children who grow up land-hungry. Svipdag and his kindred have sworn no oaths with you.”
“Hunh,” rumbled the jotun. “This I knew not.” After a bit: “Well, I will guest you overnight, at least, and we will talk.”
Braki’s followers loosened their grip on their weapons. Things were going as he had promised them.
Once this giant had murderously raided farms newly founded along the edge of the wilderness. When warriors from the whole shire drove him back, he sent blights on the crops and murrains on the livestock. But Braki’s grandfather had also known somewhat of magic. He broke those spells. Then he sought out the giant by himself.
The two of them came to agreement. Vagnhöfdi would let men be if they did not fell trees, hunt, or otherwise make trouble in these high woodlands off which he lived. Since then, the chiefs in Yvangar had seen to it that the pact was kept. Now and then one of them had had reason to seek him out—such as Halldor, to settle what should be done about beasts wild or tame that strayed off their rightful grounds, or Halldor’s son Braki swapping iron tools for furs.
Nonetheless Vagnhöfdi understood that there were bounds upon him. He was a terrible foe who might well put a host to flight, but if too many men came at him for too long, he would die. It would happen very fast if they offered to Thor and the god chose to help them.
Thus Braki and his following led their horses into that end of the house where other kine were, saw to them, and sat down, feeling bolder than before. They found themselves in a single vast room. Dim eventide light straggled in through scraped skins stretched across the windows. More came from the fire leaping in a trench dug in the earthen floor. Heat billowed, sparks glittered, smoke curled blue and bitter. By the restless glow eyes made out rough-hewn pillars and, barely, the crossbeams and rafters above. Night already lurked in every corner, slipping closer as the sun outside went low. There were neither high seat nor benches; one sat on the ground, drank ale from bucket-big wooden cups passed hand to hand, gnawed coarse bread and roasted meat.
Only two others dwelt here, Vagnhöfdi’s mate, Haflidi, and their daughter, Hardgreip. The mother was withdrawn, a half-seen bulk busy at cooking. Hardgreip served, then squatted nearby, eagerly listening. The guests thought she would be sightly, in an unkempt way, if she were of human size.
Cross-legged before Vagnhöfdi, who hulked over him like a cliff, Braki said: “You may have heard that kings and other highborn men commonly give children of theirs to lesser folk to raise. It is a mark of honor, and helps make fast the bond between the families. Well, I have been foster father to Gudorm here, and did my best for him till he was ready to return to King Gram.
“Now, as I told you, Gram is gone, slain in battle against King Svipdag. Before leaving for that war, he sent Gudorm back to me for safekeeping. He felt the lad was too young to go along with him. Svipdag’s a ruthless one who’d most likely have him killed lest later he seek revenge. Gram had a second wife who bore him this second son, the bairn Hadding. When she got the news, she also sent her child to me, with a trusty man and a wet nurse.
“Gram and I were good friends, who’d fought side by side in the past. But I’m no more than the leading yeoman in an outlying shire of the Danish kingdom. If Svipdag’s men come ransack my steading and neighborhood, I can do nothing. It seems me best that I hide the boys away with you. You’ll find that the Skjoldungs are not an unthankful. breed.”
“Hm, hm,” growled Vagnhöfdi, tugging his beard. “We here are strangers to humans, ill fitted to rear the sons of a king.” He was not being lowly, which was not in him. His hundreds of years had made him canny.
“Gudorm is close to manhood,” Braki said. “As for Hadding, belike from time to time I can smuggle in whatever he may need, or come myself to help teach him. I’ll leave his nurse, too.”
“No,” said Vagnhöfdi. “My daughter has lately borne a child, which died. The milk still aches in her.”
He did not, then or ever, say who the father had been. Maybe he did not know. Maybe she did not. She had met someone in the woods who kindled her—another giant? A god, with something in mind that went beyond lust?
The thrall wench gasped, then broke into sobs of gladness, off on the rim of the men’s ring.
“I must think on this,” the jotun added. “Stay the night and we will talk again tomorrow “
The sun went down. He and his woman sought the high-piled skins on which they rested, and drew other pelts over them. Braki and his troop laid whatever each of them had brought along on the floor.
“Ugh,” muttered Gudorm in his ear. “Must I truly den in this filth and loneliness?”
“Take what you can get,” answered
