Hadding kept his shield high, squinting over it, shifting it the least bit to and fro as he saw a blow coming. Some hit his mail or helmet, but did not cut the metal. Tosti hewed like a woodman. He was younger, he did not limp, he would wear his foe down. Hadding tried for neck, arms, legs, but drew scant blood. Mostly he saved his strength while he fell slowly back, up the slope of the strand.
Tosti bellowed and banged.
They reached the high-water mark. All at once Hadding spun on his heel and took a long sidewise step. He smote again at Tosti’s knee. The outlaw swung around barely fast enough. Now it was he who faced the sea. And now Hadding bore in on him with storm fierceness. His sword whirred, ring, pounded, bit. Tosti pulled farther back. Surely the old man would soon wear himself out.
Tosti betrod the dry sand. It crunched, slithered, gave-beneath his feet, not much but he lurched a little. His shield, half splintered away, wavered in his grasp. Snake-swift, Hadding struck at his neck. Blood geysered.
For a while, then, the king stood over the deathling and struggled for breath. The ships lay lean on the sea, too far off for anyone to see what had happened. As he rowed out to his, belike the vikings would turn tail. He would not give chase. Without Tosti’s baneful will to bind them, they would soon scatter, some maybe again to England, some maybe slinking forlornly about till the warders of the Danish waters caught and killed them.
“Yes,” he murmured, “I am old.”
He looked aloft. Clouds scudded from the west, their white going gray, rain on their heels. “I wanted one last victory that was wholly mine, as a man among men,” he said into the loudening wind. “But what has this been? I knew how it would go. He who called himself Gangleri told me I can die only by my own hand. I did not understand what he meant, and I do not, but now it comes back to haunt me. Do you hear me, you up yonder? What is it that you want of me?”
XXX
Uproariously though his men cheered him, ringingly though the skalds chanted his praises, the king’s mood stayed dark. “Better would it be were Frodi with us,” he said once.
A guardsman who heard blurted in astonishment, “But, lord, none could know when Tosti would come or by what sea lane. Watchmen had to lie in wait from here to Haven, and all down the Great Belt.”
“Frodi would not take a share in that,” Hadding answered.
His foremost son had snapped, “Should I sit the whole summer yawning till my jaw falls off, with an ant-small likelihood of getting anything to do? No, I’ve already told my friends I’ll lead them where fame and riches can be had.”
“You should have spoken with me first,” said Hadding. His voice fell dull.
Frodi tossed his handsome head. “Younger were you when you fared forth than I was when I first did on my own. Nor were you ever much for letting anybody’s wish rein you in.”
“In those days I knew nobody with the wisdom to show me what was best. What wisdom I now have was dearly bought. I hoped it would not die with me.” Hadding sighed. “Well, if you’ve given a promise, honor binds you. Go. We’ll talk after you come home.”
He did not say the unlucky word “if.” And indeed Frodi had thus far won all his battles, which were not few.
From the beginning he had loved weapons and weapon-play above all else. He became a horseman, hunter, and sailor, but no more skillful than behooved a well-born man. With sword, spear, ax, bow he grew deadly. Even as a little boy, fighting others with sticks, he bloodied their heads so often that at last none would agree to the game. But by then he was learning the use of iron, forged for his size. Those things must be made bigger each year.
At the age of twelve, he could lawfully go in viking, though skippers hardly ever did take striplings. Frodi asked if he could join a crew busking for a raid on Friesland. Belike they would have let him, he being the king’s son. However, the king said flatly no. When Frodi raged at him, Hadding gave the lad a backhanded cuff that sprawled him on the ground. Frodi stormed off. Nobody saw him for days. He came back ragged”, dirty, scratched, and starving. He would not tell where he had been, but folk guessed at the woods. Nor did Hadding dwell on the matter.
When his father left his mother behind in Norway, Frodi took it hard. He did not ask about it, nobody did, but he brooded. His scowls and curtness helped stir unrest in the housecarles and other warlike men. To quiet them, Hadding took a small fleet across the Baltic and harried about in Wend-land and Gardariki. On that faring Frodi went along, now fifteen, tall as most men and daily getting stronger. He and his father fought side by side, sat together at their campfires, stood watch and watch at the steering oar when a gale nearly sank them, grew closer than ever before or afterward.
The next year Ragnhild returned to Denmark and died giving birth to a dead child. Her son Frodi was not there. He and a band of youths, off overseas to fight and plunder, were wintering in Frankland. From that he gained less than the outfitting had cost.
His wedding cheered him. The bride was comely, and she brought lands and riches with her. It happened Frodi was not on hand when Hadding rode into Tosti’s trap, but later he went in the forefront of the avenging host and reaped a red harvest.
No wolf’s heart beat in Frodi’s breast. To his wife, children, and household he was kindly, at such times
