“Well, I had a dream of my own,” Hadding told them all. “It made me wonder. I’d not speak ill of anyone here without more grounds than that. But I had these men of men come over byways and yesterday night slip into the shaw behind the howe. That was a cold camp they made, and they might have had to stay there till I went home. But they kept faith. When they heard my horn call, they sped to my side.
“Now, where is Gudorm?”
“I’ll go look,” said the leader of the housecarles. He and four others kindled torches at the hearth and trod out into the night.
They soon returned. “He lies a little beyond the gate,” the leader said. “He must have taken his sword away with him. He’s fallen on it.”
The ice of Ulfhild broke. She lifted claw-crooked hands. “Witchcraft, black witchcraft!” she shrilled. “Ever has trollery clung to you, Hadding Jotun’s foster!”
“That’s as may be,” said the king. He sat for another while. The fire and the lamps guttered low.
He rose. His words clanged. “Hark. This could have been Gudorm’s work and nobody else’s. I do think you goodfolk are honest. But it could be part of something deeper and wider. Everybody will stay here for the next few days. We’ll give out that I’m dead, and see what happens.”
His voice sank. “Now I am weary. Can someone who dwells nearby lend me a bed? I’ll not sleep under this roof again.”
XXXIII
Over the Sound, up through Scania and Geatland, on into Svithjod flew the word. Hadding the Dane-king was gone, fallen at the hand of a madman. They who bore and believed the news were housecarles from Haven. Their chief, who sent them off, with others to go elsewhere around Denmark, believed it too. Each time their horses stopped, the tale raced across the neighborhood. It warned jarls, sheriffs, chieftains, and yeomen to busk themselves for trouble.
None came. There was no uprising, no onset from abroad. When he knew that was so, the king rode back to his hall. Thence he sent messengers after the first ones, carrying the truth.
But a huge storm had sprung up. It lashed the waters for days and nights. Until it ended, neither boat nor ship could cross over to Scania.
Thus the tale came to King Hunding in Uppsala, from the’ lips of men he knew to be trustworthy. Hadding, his oath-brother, the man who had made him what he was, lay dead.
The lord of the Swedes sat dumb when he heard. Then he said slowly, “That was a life longer than most, and it went more high than any other. But it was not long enough, and hence forward we must walk warily, now that the might which upheld our peace is no more.”
Later he said, “To him who gave me all, I will give back all I can, a grave-ale worthy of him.”
The year stood within two months of midwinter, when folk would flock here from far and wide for the offerings. He knew that most could not make the journey twice in so short a span. But he sent to every great man who dwelt nearby, bidding him come. With their families and followings, these guests would number two or three hundred. The kingly hall at Uppsala was the biggest and finest in the North. For a week it boiled with readymaking.
The king was seldom on hand. Most often he was riding about the hinterland, ruthlessly spurring his steeds, through wind and rain and early gloom, trying to wear down his grief.
The guests gathered. Hunding greeted them well, each by each. As they went to the benches, he and his wife took the place kept for those most honored. Across from it, his high seat stood empty.
Fires blazed the length of the hall, beating back the chill outside. Dried herbs sweetened their smoke. On the trestle boards shone drinking vessels from the treasury, gold, silver, glass; even the horns were banded with costly metals. At the far end, workers had brought in a tub twice as wide as a man is tall and half his height, which they filled with ale. But first the women went pouring Southland wine from pitchers. The carven gods and heroes on the pillars, the woven heroes and beasts on the hangings, seemed to stir amidst the shadows, in the wavering light.
Hunding stood up, his beaker aloft. “Drink we to Freyr, son of Njord, the god whose feast King Hadding did found,” he called.
“Skaal,” rumbled through the sputtering of the fires.
Hunding looked across the hall. “Drink we now to King Hadding, for whom I have kept my high seat open,” he said.
The answer had an undertone of unease. Some of the folk shuddered.
But no ghost came in. And now the servers brought the food, heap after heap of beef, pork, mutton, deer, duck, goose, grouse, swan, salmon, leeks stewed with chicken, wheaten bread, butter, cheese, honey, more and more and more. The drink became mead, Until heads buzzed with the summers that bred it. Talk and laughter went like surf, except when skalds stepped before the king to say forth the praises of him and his friend. He rewarded them freely.
By the time the tables were cleared away, night had fallen outside and everybody was awash. The guests shifted around the floor like the waters in a tide-race, still gripping cup or horn. They gossipped, bantered, boasted, recalled days long ago, wondered about the morrow, forgot what they had been saying, and drifted to something else. Yet if anger flared, someone would quickly step between. For they were in the house of their king, mourning him whom that king had held to be above all others; and they too had been in awe of him.
Hunding got up from his seat. “I will honor him,” he said thickly. “I will myself serve those who’re here to honor him.”
His queen caught at his sleeve. “Stop,” she begged. “You’re being foolish.”
“I am not;” Hunding
