| Part Three: The White Wolf Chapter One: THE TALE OF BRYDDA
Brydda – not to be confused with that mysterious Bryd who has already appeared in this narrative – was a maid of Garholt. Her father served Guma the Marchwarden as one of his councillors and veterans: his name was Hilderinc. Her brothers all followed in Guma’s retinue. It almost goes without saying that they were brave young men, able to ride well and to wield the spear and the bow: what more particularly distinguished them from the other families of Guma’s rule was their skill in the working of hides, the making of all kinds of leather things, from the heavy tents and door-hangings to the soft jackets and skirts worn by the women of the tribe. Hilderinc’s folk worked with patience and love, and the things they made were sought after beyond Garholt; and Brydda, who was tall and strong, worked hard at the tanning and stretching, the cutting and sewing and beading; and she often sang as she worked.
But some time after her sixteenth birthday she ceased to be merry, and began to mope and grow listless. So one day her mother, Hygd, said to her: ‘Come, my dear, tell me what ails you. Why are you so sad nowadays?’
Brydda answered: ‘I am ashamed to tell.’
And Hygd responded: ‘But do tell me; for I promise that I will not reproach you unkindly, whatever is the truth of the matter.’
Then Brydda wept, and at last she said: ‘I love Eofor Guma’s son, who is nicknamed Swin. To me he is the most beautiful and the strongest of all the young men.’
And her mother asked: ‘Then why so sad?’
Brydda said: ‘Because he never looks at me. He often sports with the other girls, but I do not think that he has ever noticed me at all. And now, as we hear, he has been invited to go to the wedding of his friend in the great City of the Kings of the North; and he will go, and he may not return; and in any case he will not speak to me before he goes. Therefore my life is not worth living.’
And Hygd held her daughter in her arms; and when she had considered, she said, ‘My love, your plight is hard, and I have no comforting words for you. This youngster is handsome and strong, as you say, and all the maidens make eyes at him, and some of the married women also; yet he is poor and unranked, and his red hair sets him apart like a badge of ill-luck. The young men are jealous of him, and our lord looks on him unkindly even though he is his own sister-son. We wish to give you to some respected man of Garholt, one who can bring you a bride-price: and then you will be able to hold up your head among the married women. Listen again: your father believes that Swin would soon have desired to leave us even if that letter had not come, for he knows that his destiny does not lie among us, nor among any of the other tribes of the Knife. Listen again to what your father has said: although Swin is more than a youngster in years, being of full man’s age, he is still unknown to himself: there is within him a power and gift of strength that still lies slumbering. Not until it awakens, say I, will his heart be able to discern the woman who must be his true choice. Brydda, do you think that you have the strength to match such strength?’
Brydda’s head drooped. ‘I do not know,’ said she. ‘I only know that I love him.’
‘Yet he is lonely,’ continued Hygd thoughtfully; ‘and there are not many here who will truly grieve, as you will, at his departure. I do not know.’
And Brydda said to her mother: ‘I shall do nothing to hinder his going.’
And Hygd said no more; but Brydda felt the wisdom of her words, and resolved to look on Swin as on one who would soon be dead; and she even found in her heart some compassion for him. And so it came to pass, on a snowy morning towards the end of winter, as Swin trudged away from Garholt with Heathogrim swinging at his side, that he heard his name being called after him, with a cry of, ‘Wait!’
He had reached the copse, now leafless, at the end of the long home-paddock; he stood on the near side of the unfrozen stream that gurgled between white banks. He saw her come running, following the tracks he had made. She reached him and stood opposite him. She was red-faced and breathless, and she clutched her headscarf under her chin.
‘Why, Brydda!’ he said. ‘Have you come to bid me farewell? I thought no-one cared!’
‘But I do,’ said she. ‘I am sorry that you have to go away, and I shall truly miss you. And may Orom lend you all the luck of the chase.’
‘This is kind!’
‘And here: take this.’ She reached forward, took his hand and pressed something into it: a little bag of red leather, wrought with beads. ‘A gift made by one who knows – who knows that you are going forth to seek your fortune, all by yourself.’
Swin gave a gulp and brushed a tear from his eye. He stared at her, and she knew that he was seeing her for the first time, and she returned his gaze. He laid his hands on her shoulders, and bent his head, and kissed her mouth. ‘Many, many thanks,’ he said. ‘It’s big enough, truly, to hold my whole fortune. Goodbye!’
‘Goodbye!’
He turned away and jumped over the stream. He floundered up the far bank. He went among the trees, and the snowflakes came down thickly as he disappeared.
A year passed. Brydda’s sadness passed with it, though she remained quiet and thoughtful, and she shook her head at all the men who sought her favour. Life at Garholt continued with undisturbed pace, though the travellers who constantly passed through might tell disquieting tales. In the summertime came the first news of Swin’s death; but this was garbled and embellished with mysterious figures, eagles, boars, dogs, dragons and what-not; while the essential fact, if fact it was, that Swin Guma’s son had been lamentably devoured by the Great White Worm of the far North, was indeed too fantastic to be taken very seriously. Summer was hot, and autumn mellow, and winter very mild, just as elsewhere; and it was on a balmy morning in January, just as the first daffodils were opening their golden stars and trumpets, that Swin returned.
As Brydda had been the last to see him go, so she was the first to see him return. She looked up from the bank, where she had been cutting the daffodils and putting them into a basket. A dark figure was approaching through the trees. As it came nearer she observed the tattered garments, black and grey, the wild beard and streaming red hair, the strange vacancy of the young man’s face and his aimless weaving walk. His eyes were wide open: he could see where he was going, and yet he held out both hands before him like a man walking in darkness. He came between the trunks of the trees, stumbled down the bank, splashed across the babbling stream and stood opposite her once again.
‘Why – why, Brydda!’ he said. His gaze was suddenly directed upon her, just as at the time of their parting.
She stood tongue-tied and blushing. Her world was being turned inside-out. Hardly knowing what to say, she made him a curtsey. ‘Good morrow, Master Eofor,’ she said.
His eyes stared past her. They looked at the outlying huts and barns at the top of the green field; they searched the soft blue sky and the fleecy clouds; they glanced down at the grass between his feet and hers, and then found her face again.
‘Have you come to say – to bid me farewell?’ The perplexity of his round blue eyes was like a great burden upon her, almost unbearable.
‘No,’ said she: ‘certainly not. Welcome back.’
‘Welcome?’ he asked, completely confused by this word. She turned to go. He stood stupidly rooted to the spot. So she took his hand and led him to the homestead.
As they came through the farm-gate thus hand in hand, their appearance caused a stir of interest; but not very much of one, for Swin’s arrival was not unlike the distressed arrivals that were a common feature of life at Garholt. Guma the Marchwarden was sent for.
‘Well, lad, so you’re back,’ said he when he came. Swin knelt before him as a suppliant. ‘Lost your sword, eh?’ For Swin now bore no weapon. ‘Speak up! Or have you lost your wits as well?’ Swin made no answer. ‘Who am I? Can you mind that?’
Brydda saw Swin suddenly remember him as he had remembered her. ‘Lord Guma Guthreo’s son,’ he said.
‘Glad to hear it,’ snapped Guma. ‘So how did your friend’s wedding go? Strange goings-on, as we hear?’
Swin looked all around, desperately seeking some kind of aid. ‘The wedding?’ he muttered: ‘When shall I depart?’
‘Hear me, lord,’ said Hilderinc, coming forward from the small crowd that had gathered round. ‘This young man is confused, but he has not altogether lost his wits. And maybe it would be good to know what has befallen him. I mean that it might be wise, for our own sakes, to inform ourselves: for we hear that he has been mixed up with the Powers of the North. Let him stay, in the hope that he may recover his memory.’
Guma stood with his hands on his hips, his boots firm in the mud of the yard. He gave Brydda a sharp glance as she stood trembling by her father. ‘Very well,’ Guma said to Swin: ‘you can have a month’s board and do what work you’re fit for. Get your wits back, tell your tale, and then we’ll think what to do with you.’
Swin lunged forward wordlessly and embraced Guma’s knees.
‘Get off me! Get up! And no more swords, d’you understand? You’ve had your sword and lost it! The other one’s mine! And just you keep out of my sight!’ He shook his fist angrily at Swin and strode off.
Brydda led Swin to the stable-loft where he had slept with the young herd-boys. She showed him to the herd-master and told of Guma’s decision. She squeezed Swin’s hand with all the strength of both of hers, and then she went back to the stream to fetch her basket.
Two days later, in the evening, she was summoned to the great thatched hall for an interview with Guma alone. She found him still sitting by the fire that still blazed in the midst of the hall, unneeded now and too hot. The dogs were keeping away from it. But Guma sat close in, sprawled in his carved seat; his face was flushed, his shirt unlaced and breast bare. He drained his goblet as she timidly approached him. The men of the hall, having finished their dinner, had left their benches and were talking out of earshot at the far end. Hilderinc was not among them.
‘I’ve had a word with your Mother and Father,’ said Guma.
‘Yes, my lord,’ she whispered.
‘Don’t be frightened, lass. Sit yourself down.’
She sat down uncomfortably. To her he seemed lustful and arrogant, cunning and suspicious; but also half ashamed.
‘It’s like this. Folk are saying as you’re sweet on my feckless rogue of a nephew. You needn’t answer. I’ll not pretend I’m glad to see him back. I wish the dragon had eat him up for good and all, and that’s the truth of it. But now he’s here, he’s here. We’ve got to do something, at least for a bit. That’s only Garholt hospitality. There’s no man as can say I don’t fully respect the old ways. There’s no man…’
‘My lord?’ she asked softly as he began to nod in his chair.
‘Ah yes,’ he said, ‘now where was I? Fill my cup.’
‘Is he all right?’ she asked as she poured out the wine.
‘He’s more than all right – he’s as fit as a fiddle. He’s got three times the strength he had before, says the stable-master, and that’s saying something. The other lads are keeping well clear of him. It’s uncanny, what he’s able to do. And he’s getting his mind a bit clearer. He remembers us – he knows all the ways of the place. But he can’t say what he’s been up to, or he won’t.’
‘Yes, lord,’ said she.
‘So that’s what I want you for.’ He stared at her with that glowering expression and she bowed her head. ‘He’s got no other friend here,’ said Guma. ‘Him and that red hair of his. He always was a freak and now he looks even more of one. But you, lass, do you want him to stay?’
She implored him: ‘Spare me, Lord Guma!’
‘Don’t beg, don’t kneel, don’t pray! Just answer the question! If you’re sweet on him, do you want him to stay?’
She said nothing.
‘Wench,’ said he, ‘if you don’t answer me I’ll have you beat.’
‘Yes, Lord,’ she whispered.
‘Good! Now it’s not as if I’m wanting for you to do him any kind of harm: it’s for his good, and yours. You be a friend to him. Get the true tale out of him, and there might be a few gold pieces and maybe a bit of land to start the two of you off together. How about that?’
‘As my lord wishes,’ she said humbly. ‘But how shall I begin?’
‘You can damn well cut his hair, for a start,’ was the answer. ‘And that lousy beard of his. He ain’t got no right to be wearing a beard yet, but we’ll make a man of him for you, eh? Off with you now.’
Brydda spent a sleepless night. The tale cannot enter into her feelings. Greeting her parents next day, she was pale but composed. She took a loaf of good bread and a jug of milk and went to see Swin. She found him alone in the great horse-barn, wielding a pitchfork, shifting the most enormous loads of dung and straw. She called his name very softly and he heard her at once.
The tale passes quickly over the events of the next week. She brought him his food, she encouraged him to talk and on several occasions they walked together in the woods. Everyone kept out of their way. She reproached her mother for betraying her secret to Guma; her mother replied, not without some confusion, that it had become no secret: everyone, even Guma, had been aware of it from the moment of Swin’s return. Brydda herself asked Swin about his year’s journey. He answered with all sincerity that he had no memory, none at all, of the interval between his departure and his return: between his leaving her and his finding her again in the same place, all was completely gone. She asked the Bard for advice. ‘If I counselled you to have nothing more to do with this red-haired fellow, would you heed me?’ was the pleasant but stern answer: ‘Against both your heart’s inclination and your lord’s command?’ She cajoled Swin to let her cut his hair and beard, which were indeed filthy and verminous, and at last he consented. For this task she borrowed and carefully sharpened her father’s best dwarf-made shears. It was a day of thanksgiving: the Druid had come to bless the new colts that had been born over the last autumn and winter, and so the whole homestead had gone out to the pens with garlands, food and drink. Brydda and Swin would have the place to themselves, with the hens and geese that quietly walked about the yard.
He sat down, straight-backed and broad-shouldered, on a round bale, while she poured water over his head, rubbed in a handful of soap and washed the dirt out. He leaned back his head appreciatively as she dried it with a towel. Then she began with the scissors. She was inexperienced at the task, and he yelped with pain, and she had to say sorry; but presently his locks were arranged more neatly around his shoulders. ‘Now,’ said she, ‘the beard.’
‘Must you?’ said he, with reluctance.
‘Yes I must,’ she answered. ‘O, what is this?’
‘What is what?’ he asked.
‘This scar,’ said she, ‘this purple mark. Does it hurt when I touch it?’
‘A little,’ he answered, ‘but your touch is soothing.’
‘It feels hot,’ she murmured. ‘How far does it go? How far?’ And then she cried out in grief and astonishment: ‘Swin! What was done to you? It goes all round! All the way round your neck!’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It does ache a little. Does it look sore?’
Though fresh and livid, it was the mark of a well-healed wound: and yet such a wound as no other being, mortal or immortal, has ever recovered from: the full severance of head from body. And there were other marks on his neck, smaller scars ranged round the continuous band, above it and below. Brydda continued bravely to touch them, lightly and caressingly, as she said: ‘Do you know what it looks like?’ To which he made no answer. ‘It looks,’ said she, ‘as if someone cut your head off while you were away, and then sewed it back on again.’
Swin said: ‘Trim my beard, if you’re going to. I want to be quiet for a little while.’
She continued with her work. The strong red curls slipped down the front of his shirt and gathered about his feet.
‘There,’ she said when she had finished. ‘You look much smarter now.’
‘Thank you, sweetheart. Come here.’ In one irresistible movement he embraced her neck, drew her to him, gave her a full kiss on her mouth and released her. She blushed scarlet. She stood with her head bent, running her finger over the scissors to remove the last few hairs from the blades, and he ignored her confusion. ‘We all want to know what happened to me during my absence,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘and you have been told to try to help me remember it. Which is all very well, but I’ve a feeling that the truth must be rather painful. Like an ache.’
‘What sort of an ache?’ she asked.
‘An ache of pain! All over me! And now I think of it, I believe that it’s always been there – I mean, since my return. It did not start just now. It had been continuing, as it were, in the background; but I became aware of it when you touched me.’
‘I am sorry,’ she said.
‘No,’ he replied, ‘I am grateful to you, for I desire to recover the truth of my past, even if pain comes with it. Let us go to the well.’
The well was in the middle of the yard. It was surrounded by a low wall and sheltered by its own wooden roof. Swin dropped in the heavy bucket and drew it out again, full, without needing to make the least effort. He then took hold of his shirt. ‘I haven’t taken this off since I got back,’ he said. It was the usual sort of woollen winter undergarment, foul-smelling and greyish-brown where not streaked with black dirt. ‘I’ll take it off,’ he announced, ‘and then you can wash me, and then we’ll see what we see.’
He took off the shirt and stood bare-chested; the tattered breeches were now his only garment. The thick coppery hair of his chest was tangled and clotted with dirt. Even so, more scars as terrible as the one round his neck were visible. For the moment Brydda ignored them. She dipped the shirt into the bucket, wrung it out, squirted soap onto it from her leather soap-bottle and began to scrub at him vigorously. Washed and rinsed down, his flesh told its own tale of incredible woe and horror. The ugliest mutilation, of those that had so far been seen, was the one that began between his nipples and ran downward, passing the navel and deepening to a ridged furrow, purplish-crimson, as if a ploughshare had been run down his belly. The stitch-marks were there also.
Brydda burst into tears. She flung her arms round him and laid her head on his breast, as if her tears might have some power to heal or to cancel his disfigurement.
He clasped her gently as she knelt before him. ‘Lass, dear lass, don’t take on,’ said he. ‘I’m all right! I’m better now, I’m strong! See how strong I am!’ With another of those easy movements he stooped, gathered up the lower half of her body with one arm and lifted her up. She embraced his neck, buried her face in his shoulder and went on crying. ‘All I needed you’ve given me,’ he soothed her: ‘It’s thanks to you that I’m well! The poor wanderer needed a loving welcome, and who met him? The kindest, loveliest, prettiest maid of Garholt!’ She tightened her arms around his neck. He was now walking away from the well. He was carrying her somewhere. Clinging to him, she accepted her doom. ‘What if I’ve had some bad luck on my travels? To have you meet me at my homecoming makes me twice lucky, I reckon. And I had to come home to find you, didn’t I? What an ass! What a perfect fool! When you were here all the time!’
She asked: ‘Where are you taking me?’
He answered: ‘Up to the hayloft.’
She asked: ‘Why?’
He replied: ‘Don’t you want to count the number of my scars? I do, and I need your help.’
Her voice was muffled as she said: ‘Get a skin or a bed-cover.’
They went to her family home and borrowed a bearskin rug. He had to put her down at this point, but when she was holding the rolled-up rug in her arms she said, ‘I want you to carry me again.’ And he did carry her, rug and all, back to the stables and the loft which was his bedchamber. It was reached by a stout wooden ladder fastened to the log wall; even this, as he held her tightly to him with one arm, seemed to cause him little difficulty. The hayloft smelt sweet and musty, of hay and horses; but a sunbeam came in through the small unshuttered window, with a breeze that was mild and springlike. Swin unrolled the rug on the straw, in the place where he now slept. His jerkin was there, and nothing else, for he had no other possessions. She sat down on the rug with him and helped him to take off his breeches.
Together they reckoned up the grim total. She laid both her hands on the dreadful garters that showed where his thighs had been severed. He drew in a shivering breath; his naked body was regaining its own memory, and thrills of subdued pain were coursing through his limbs. He asked her: ‘Was it all cut off?’
She traced the course of the last scar with her fingertip. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘all of it was cut off.’
‘I think you’re right,’ said he, and gave a tremendous shudder.
‘Does it hurt you still?’
He murmured a few confused words. She had taken hold of his prick and his balls. She felt the heat and the surge. The great shaft suddenly stood up in her hand. He drew her to him, reached under her dress with both hands, ripped her undergarment with a loud noise and pulled her down. With a confidence that was without arrogance, a sureness that even strangely partook of humility, he spread her legs apart and thrust into her, tearing and splitting her open. She suffered severe pain, but clung to him with the fullness of her own strength. The rocking hammerblows pounded into her, deeper, deeper and deeper. And then all was still.
They lay together quietly. She rested her head on him, and played again with his front scar, the one that ran from chest to groin, running her fingers up and down its length. His only movement was the slow rise-and-fall of his breast. She felt the continuing fiery pain, with the slow flow of wetness, the leakage. She gathered drops of liquid and brought them back for him to see: the redness of virginal blood, mingled with the oozing whiteness of his seed.
‘Many thanks,’ he said when he was ready. ‘You are the bravest as well as the kindest and most beautiful of all girls. I cannot believe that any, any at all in the Knife, can compare with Brydda.’
She trembled with joy.
‘But I haven’t got much to offer you, alas! Once I had my sword Heathogrim, and my harp, and a purse of silver. O! It was you, was it not, who gave me that purse. Did you make it yourself?’
A breath of regret, like a chill March wind, ruffled the hidden pool of her happiness. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Well, I have lost it somehow, in my time of darkness. I am very sorry. It seems that all I have, apart from my own strength, is straw. Yet such as I am, I offer myself. You are the best of girls, the only girl, and I love you. If you will be my wife, I will love you always, and cherish you, and labour for you with my whole strength.’
There was in his voice not the least shadow of falseness, weakness or overblown pride. She heard his words with relief and pleasure. His love was genuine fondness, his good faith not to be doubted. What, then, was lacking? By ordinary standards, nothing at all. Brydda might well consider herself lucky to have been so considerately addressed. Despite his poverty he would be a good husband to her. She wanted to marry him. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ll be glad to be your wife. And your uncle has promised us a dowry, and some land, if we can make you remember your story.’
Swin frowned. ‘Has he, indeed?’ he said. ‘I’d trust no promise of his. Still, if I can’t remember, maybe we can make up something to satisfy him.’
‘Do you want to stay here?’ she asked.
‘In Garholt? No,’ he answered. ‘Do you mind the thought of leaving?’
Already the talk had slipped down to a brisk businesslike level. She had made no avowal of her own long-hidden passion; he had not required it of her; and the opportunity was past. And on his side the note of passion, of difficulty, of intensity, had been missing from the start. His love-talk was all easy, all genial. Yet Garholt marriages were seldom undertaken in a grandly passionate spirit. A sensible business-arrangement was precisely what a marriage ought to be. And yet again, had it been very sensible, even on this level, to accept one who could offer her only straw? Swin and Brydda talked for another half-an-hour, then kissed goodbye. He returned to his work, and she went out to join the festive procession.
In the evening she talked to her mother and told her everything that had happened. Hygd shook her head at Brydda’s recklessness, but agreed that the proposed match held some hope even if the true tale of Swin’s absence could not be discovered. She advised her daughter to treat Swin, before the eyes of Guma and the others, as a declared but as-yet-unaccepted suitor. In this relation the pair were able to meet sometimes without having to be secret; and they tried to make plans for the future. And thus the next few weeks passed by, until Brydda knew, by the clear signs, that she was with child.
She met Swin that same evening, the evening of the day of her first certainty. She was very anxious, and had cause to be, for nowadays the offence of bastardy is punished most severely among the Nibyth. (This, we learn, is one of the new laws that their Druids have brought in. If an unwedded woman bears a child, the father must step forward to claim the child as his own and to marry the mother. If none does so, then she is beaten with rods, and both she and the baby are driven from the gates. On account of this custom, bastard birth has become rare in Doroech, as it is among the Punchkins.) Swin, meanwhile, was also ill-at-ease. They walked in the direction of a certain dark grove; for Swin had not yet revisited all the haunts of his former life, and this was one that he still desired to reacquaint himself with. And as Swin and Brydda walked together she clung to his arm, and told him of her pregnancy; and he listened kindly, and patted her hand, and bade her be of good cheer. Walking along, they saw many crocuses beside the lane, with daffodils that danced and nodded their heads; but within the grove were a multitude of bluebells that had not yet flowered, and also, not far off, a low bank of red flowers that appeared unseasonal, or else unlike any that had ever been seen before in that vicinity. Then Brydda said to him, ‘Let us not go into this ugly haunted grove, my love, for I hear the sound of some animal crawling and sniffing within it; rather let us return to my father’s house, and sit at peace.’
And he replied to her, ‘Sweet Brydda, I fear no beast of the wood, and I desire to look more closely upon those red blooms; for they seem to speak to me out of my darkness. So stay here, or come along with me, as you will.’
And he parted from her, and went into the grove, whose trees were ancient oaks and ashes; and then she ran after him in fear; and so they came to the bank together. And there was before it a shallow trench in the earth, filled with flowers, like a pool of blood.
Then Swin stripped his fore-arm, and the skin of it was smooth, for none of his strange scars were in that place. And he said, ‘This is the greatest mystery of all. For in this place I swore a blood-oath with my friend Melohtar, whom Orom and Dryhten defend. In this place we gashed our arms and mingled our blood. And I do well remember that I have always had the scar of that gashing; yet now it has vanished. And now it comes back to my mind that he invited me to his wedding; and whether or not I attended it, I pray to all the Gods that he be safe and happy with his Princess.’
But Brydda did not hear these words, for while he was yet speaking the Princess herself emerged from the shadow of the trees, in her bewitched form of a great white wolf. But neither Swin nor Brydda knew that it was she. Princess Gauriel pawed at the ground, and lifted her nose, and howled once. Then she turned and slipped away. And Swin stood looking after her, as still as one turned to stone.
Next day, as Brydda was serving the midday meal to her father and mother and brothers, Swin came in to them. And they said to him, ‘Welcome: sit down and eat with us.’ And he said to them, ‘Nay: but I have a thing to say to my betrothed, and I would that all of you should hear it.’ And they said to him, ‘Say on.’
Then Swin said to Brydda, ‘Dear heart, I shall now do you a wrong that will be beyond all forgiving: for I have to go from Garholt a second time, and from this going there will be no return. Thus I abandon you and our child to shame, unless you can find some other to befriend you. Otherwise you must be driven forth as a beggar: this I know. But the white wolf of the grove appeared to me again last night, and the Oath that I swore is upon me, and it is pulling in my mind and in my heart, or in the very flesh of my body, as the hook of the angler pulls up the fish. I must follow the wolf, though I go hence in black blame and dishonour. This is the only thing that I know. And so farewell.’
With these words he turned to go. Then Brydda’s brothers sprang upon him, and would have kept him by force; but he dashed them to the floor. Then he went into the hall, and he raised Guma in his hands, and he squeezed him by the throat until Guma granted him the things that he required for his journey. And so he packed up his bag, and departed from the place of his birth, and all the folk cursed him at his going, and the boys and youths threw stones after him, which bruised his back and cut the back of his head.
But Brydda stood moveless when she heard the words, as he had done, seeing the wolf; and the dish of meat was still in her hands. Then, when Hygd took the dish, Brydda fell down in a swoon and did not awake.
The news of her abandonment spread swiftly among all the folk of Garholt, and before evening it had come to the ears of certain Dwarves who were lodging in one of the guest-houses. They were resting there for a day, before they set out on the last stage of their journey to Tingrod, and among them was one who had helped to make Heathogrim, the copy of the Elf-sword. Frag was his name. When Frag and his Dwarves heard of Brydda’s misfortune, they begged leave to come and see her; which Hilderinc granted, for he would that her affliction might be seen by all, and the infamy of her betrothed lover published as widely as possible. So the Dwarves came into the chamber where she lay on a bed; and her mother wept over her. And Frag said, ‘Surely she is not dead, but sleeps?’
And Hygd answered, ‘That is so, but we cannot awaken her, and if she will not awaken, she will die, and the child within her will die also.’
The Dwarves were filled with pity for Brydda, seeing her youth and loveliness. So they left the chamber, paid the guest-master, packed up their baggage immediately and marched away at full speed. Then, when they had come to their own city, they quickly wrought for her a glass chest, in which she might lie and be preserved from death and decay; which being done, they put it into a cart and again with all speed brought it back to Garholt, arriving less than three days after they had departed.
Then the people laid her in the chest and carried her out to the grove, which from then on was named the Grove of Betrayal. They placed her among the blood-red flowers, and the Druid blessed her, and the Bard sang a song over her. And he sang in the tongue of the Knife, which the Dwarves did not understand. So, in the coming-away of the mourners, Frag the Dwarf questioned Hilderinc, father of Brydda, and said: ‘What did your Bard say in his song?’
Hilderinc answered, ‘Many things he said, all such as are known to you; but he also foreboded and spoke, telling that when the young girl awakens she will bear a Son. And he will be the saviour of this land, and of the whole kingdom of the Knife. Yet apart from this: what payment would the Dwarves of Tingrod think fit to ask, for so beautiful and magical a lichdwelling?’
And Frag answered, ‘The Dwarves require no payment for now, since the chest was presented as a boon unasked-for, in token of pity. But if ever the the girl should awaken and the son be born, then we shall ask for payment.’
And so they left her. Long she rested in the glade, and her body decayed not; and the white flowers of Memory came to mingle with the red flowers of the sacrifice.
| |