The Rood and the Torc Read online

  “And Theoderic? What did he do?”

  “There was little he could do. The hand of God was against him. He sent Columbanus back to Luxeuil with warnings—which the old abbot ignored, of course. There was also the time he was interrupted in his prayer retreat by a bear wandering into his cell…”

  By the time he had finished his stories, they had reached the river. It flowed northwestward out of a gap in the hills. Where the northbound road met it, it was only about thirty feet across, cascading through a narrow ravine. A footbridge had been constructed above the river, but Hildeburh turned aside and kept to the south bank. She led them upstream another half mile above the ravine to where the river deepened and the bank was more accessible. The air had warmed considerably in the hour they had been walking, turning into the mildest day since their coming to Danemark. Along the riverbank the sun was melting the thin layer of powdery snow left the previous night. “This spot is where Jiorlic often comes,” Hildeburh explained. “He claims there are fish here, though he brings few back to Heort. I wonder that Fjorgest keeps him, except that he is a chieftain’s son and is too weak to survive long in battle.”

  Willimond responded by taking off his outer garment, setting down his basket, and going to the water’s edge with his line. He stood looking at the water for a time, holding in his hand the long pole he had fashioned the day before. “Perhaps I should have brought a net,” he commented, staring down at the pole in doubt. “I wonder if we could build weirs here.”

  “It has been tried,” Hildeburh replied. “Too much ice and floods, I am told. There are weirs in a few smaller streams, but they provide few fish.”

  “But how do I use this?” Willimond asked, looking down at the strange implements in his hand. “The Danish trader was only able to pass on to me what he had heard from the Frankish trader before him. Which, judging from his lack of success, is not promising.”

  “You’ll have to learn somehow,” Hildeburh said, with an amusing smile. “And trust our God.”

  Willimond nodded. He had gathered an assortment of baits to use. In his basket were some small strips of meat, a few hardy insects which had not disappeared with cold weather, and some feathers. He held up a small handful of feathers and looked at them skeptically. It was the feathers they had been told to use. The other baits Willimond had brought of his own initiative. Neither he nor Kristinge had been able to imagine catching a fish on a feather. “Maybe they eat birds?” Kristinge had suggested.

  “I think if anything had worked, he wouldn’t have sold us the line,” was Willimond reply. Now, while Kristinge and Hildeburh found themselves a dry rock several yards up the bank, Willimond hooked a small beetle onto his line. It looked like the most promising of all the baits. Extending his pole as far over the river as it would reach, he dropped it in the water. They all stared expectantly, thinking perhaps that a fish would immediately jump out and entangle itself on the line trying to get the beetle. But no such thing happened. The beetle floated on the swift current a few feet, then sank under the weight of the hook and line. A short time later, the line had pulled taut in the current and the beetle was up again dragging on the surface.

  Kristinge watched for a time, curious as to whether the older monk would have any success. “Try casting your net on the other side of the boat,” he jested, after several attempts failed to produce any fish. “It worked for Saint Peter.”

  Willimond ignored him and continued plying the water. Kristinge’s mind began to wander. His thoughts had turned to Aewin and he was just wondering where she might be now when his mother’s voice distracted him. He looked up quickly, thinking that perhaps Willimond had caught a fish. But the neophyte angler, who by this time had moved several yards up the river, showed no signs of success. Kristinge realized his mother was talking to him. “You have told me little about the Frankish court,” she was saying. “I have heard of the Frankish kings. What was his mead hall like? Was it like Finnsburg? Or Heort? And what did you sing before the king?”

  “It is a big hall,” Kristinge replied distractedly. His thoughts were still on Aewin. “Much bigger than any I have seen in Friesland. As for the wealth, I cannot describe it. I think there is more gold in a single room of that palace than in all of Friesland.” He paused as his thoughts drifted back to his visit to Paris. “And yet it is a cold place. They are not hearth-companions who drink together there. It is no mead hall.” He continued his description of Clovis’s wickedness, giving a brief account of their appearance in the great hall and of the songs he had sung.

  “He was fearless!” came the voice of Willimond. Startled, Kristinge looked up. Still with no catch, the older monk had taken a rest from his labors and was now standing a few feet away listening to Kristinge’s story. “Your son has left out the best parts of the story,” Willimond went on, as he sat down on the rocks beside them. Despite Kristinge’s verbal objection, he gave several embellishments how Kristinge had told the story of Daniel and the Babylonian kings, leaving the younger monk both embarrassed but also a little proud that his mother could hear what he had done from other lips than his own. Hildeburh’s eyes grew wide as she heard of the danger her son had risked. “Alas,” Willimond concluded, looking down at his fishing line in disgust. “I think I will have no such success as Kristinge had. I can see why the old trader was eager to be rid of this. I do not think man was intended to take fish on a line.”

  “Have you tried the feathers?” Kristinge tried.

  Willimond shook his head. He sat there silently for a few moments, then shrugged, reached into his basket, and proceeded to tie a feather onto the hook. “It cannot be any less successful than what I have tried.”

  As Willimond returned to the waters edge, Hildeburh continued to question her son. At her prompting, Kristinge went on to tell of other nights he had played the bard, from his first song at Gundomer’s estate on the night he had been given his harp again all the way until his landing on the shores of Friesland. Of Aewin he said nothing at first. Though memory of her returned often to his thoughts, he did not mention her by name. He said only that he had sung in the hall of Frotha. He did not say that he had sung the song Daelga had so long ago composed for Hildeburh herself. Only when Hildeburh spoke of her own remembrances of Frotha and his brother Froda, did Kristinge shyly mention Aewin and the two times he had seen her.

  Hildeburh’s eyes lit with a distant memory. She spoke in the soft melancholy voice reserved for things long lost. “A beautiful young girl. Not from the most powerful of clans, but she would have been a good wife to a chieftain. Fiery, if I remember. So was her brother.” She turned to Kristinge. “You know she was to have been wed to your brother Finnlaf when she grew older. If—” She fell silent and did not finish the thought. “So many years have passed. She must have grown even more beautiful. I wonder to whom she was wed.”

  Kristinge did not say that he wondered the same thing. Of his hidden hope that perhaps…

  A shout from Willimond caught their attention. Kristinge looked up to see him on his hands and knees scrambling in the rocks and mud at the edge of the river. Thinking the old monk had fallen into the water, he leapt to his feet to give aid. But before he had taken two steps, Willimond had arisen and was proudly holding aloft a small fish. Despite his drenched and muddy clothes, there was a huge grin on his face. “A feather!” he exclaimed. “It tried to eat a feather.” He picked up his rod which he had cast aside, and brought his catch up the bank to be examined by his two companions. The fish had risen from the bottom of the river and greedily grabbed at Willimond’s drifting bait, but the hook had not set very well. The monk had managed with his rod to bring it to the edge of shore where the fish had flipped off the line in the grass just inches from the water. Only a quick plunge had prevented its escape.

  “I thought perhaps you had caught it with your teeth, like a bear,” Kristinge joked, but he was impressed. “Like Bjorn. Half man. Half bear.” He picked up the rod and examined the end of the line. The feather was
only slightly bent, and the line undamaged. Somewhat baffled by why a fish would want to eat a feather, he handed the rod back to Willimond.

  A short time later, Willimond managed to lure another fish into striking his hook but he could not bring it to land. Moving along the river several yards in both directions, he received several more such strikes before landing a second fish. No sooner had he the fish ashore when a stranger appeared from downstream. It was a short man, with skinny arms, a small face, and a long bent nose. Over one shoulder he carried a large sack of what looked to be fishing supplies. Kristinge guessed quickly enough that this was the fisher Jiorlic of whom Fjorgest and Hildeburh had spoken—the ungainly youngest son of some distant Danish chieftain who had banished his offspring to Fjorgest’s care. In his right hand was a sword. From the mix of surprise and consternation on his face, Kristinge guessed also that he had been watching them and had seen Willimond’s catch.

  Jiorlic stormed down toward Willimond with his sword held threateningly before him. “What right have you to fish this river?” he demanded. “By my right, I claim whatever catch you have unlawfully taken for yourself.”

  Before Willimond could reply, Hildeburh had risen to her feet. “He fishes here by the command of Fjorgest,” she replied sharply.

  Jiorlic spun around to see who had spoken and was surprised to see Hildeburh there. He bowed, but only slightly. “I did not know you were with him,” he said. “Nonetheless, I demand by right that he depart from this spot.”

  Hildeburh’s face had grown red, but before she could speak Willimond interrupted. “I have no desire to take your rightful spot,” he said, in a calm and humble manner. “I will gladly yield the river to you and move elsewhere. Our chieftain Fjorgest has truly instructed me to assist your pursuits in supplying Heort with fish for the winter. He told me as well that there was room on the river for both of us, and that I was to give you first preference.”

  Jiorlic, who apparently had expected a battle, looked baffled by Willimond’s calm acquiescence. But he regained his haughty composure. “Then be gone. This spot is mine.”

  “May you be as blessed here as I was,” Willimond replied. Before Hildeburh could say what was on her mind, he took her arm, gathered his belongings, and the three of them moved upriver past several bends in the stream, well out of sight of Jiorlic.

  “You did not have to give way before that whelp,” Hildeburh said in an offended tone when they had settled again. Willimond only shrugged and returned to his task. While he fished, the other two continued to converse. Though Hildeburh at first was unwilling to speak of her life among the Danes, if Kristinge questioned her enough she had no shortage of interesting tales to tell: descriptions both of joyous Danish weddings and also of their mournful hopeless funerals with their great pyres; the tragic deaths of some of the chieftains and great warriors who were their distant kin; the events that lead to the decline of the Hoclinges and the waning of their power; and also warnings gleaned from the few monks who had ventured to Danemark as missionaries and quickly found their martyrdom. Though Hildeburh herself was full of joy in the presence of her son and former friend, her tales were full of a brooding sense of tragedy which left Kristinge in a dark mood.

  Fortunately the weather was beautiful, and Willimond met with success beyond what any of them had hoped for. By the middle of the afternoon, he had put seven more fish into his basket, though not without interference from Jiorlic. Thrice the jealous rival appeared from nowhere after Willimond had caught a fish and demanded that Willimond relinquish his spot on the river. However while Jiorlic with his nets caught nothing, the monk met with equal success wherever he went—all using his new fishing line with the hook and feather. Had he managed to bring to shore every fish that struck the hook, he would have gone home with several baskets full. But his tenth fish brought an end to the day. Late in the afternoon Willimond walked up to where Kristinge and Hildeburh were sitting on the shore talking. His eyes were wide open with awe.

  “What is it?” Hildeburh asked.

  Willimond held out his pole. The line was broken.

  “A fish?” Kristinge asked.

  “A leviathan,” Willimond replied, finding his voice. “It must have been ten feet long. I did not known such monsters of the deep dwelt in rivers.”

  “A sturgeon,” Hildeburh said. “They are prized not only for their flesh, but for their eggs and skin as well.”

  “Whatever it was,” Willimond continued, his wonder still evident in his eyes, “I will need either a heavy net or much stronger line than this to bring one home. I don’t even think it felt the hook. Just one snap of its head and the line was broken.”

  Willimond was hesitant to depart, but Hildeburh assured him he had already caught as many fish as Jiorlic did in a week. They started their walk back to their new home.

  CHAPTER 10:

  Songs of Winter

  That same afternoon, Fjorgest and his men returned to the village. The loud laughter of high-spirited warriors announced the band’s arrival several minutes before the men reached the door of Heort. Thus it was that the chieftain found his bard and new fisher, eager to present their catch, already waiting for him at the mead hall. Seeing the basket full of fish, Fjorgest grinned in obvious satisfaction and slapped the two men on the back. “I see the gods are with you,” he proclaimed in a loud voice. “The best meat, bread, and drink of Heort shall be your board if you continue provide us with such bounty as this.”

  “Shall we smoke them for winter?” Willimond asked. “You will eat more than enough salted fish in the days to come,” the chieftain replied. “Bring half of the day’s catch to the smoke house, but let the rest be cooked now while it is still fresh. My hunters have also brought seal and mallard from the coast. Heat up the hearth fire. Let us have a feast!”

  Willimond and Kristinge bowed and departed. “The God, not the gods,” Willimond mumbled gruffly as they walked away, but Kristinge did not think he had ever before seen such a great smile on the older monk’s face, especially when they walked past Hildeburh’s hut and saw that she had been standing in the doorway watching the entire exchange.

  “He was with you,” Kristinge agreed.

  It was not long before Fjorgest’s instructions had been carried out. Willimond, who had already gutted the fish, brought some to the smoke house while the cook took the rest to prepare for the feast. Meanwhile the hearth was set to blaze, other food was brought from the storehouses, and a supply of mead and ale was set out in vats. By the time the stars were visible, the chieftain’s hearth companions—his thanes, warriors, and retainers—had gathered. The mead hall had sprung again to life. As Fjorgest promised, the food was plentiful. Willimond and Kristinge sat next to each other on a bench not far from the fire, enjoying the rich board and the warmth of the blaze after a long day of work. Hildeburh sat across the hearth from them, now and then risking a smile at her son. The chieftain occupied his own bench with a drinking horn in one hand, a plate before him, and a content half-smile on his face. The seats nearest to him were inhabited by his closest thanes, whose faces Kristinge recognized from the treasure-giving of the earlier evening. Missing were the two visiting chieftains who had returned with their thanes to their own villages. But the hall was fuller than before, for many women—who were not always welcome in the mead hall, or who did not feel comfortable there—had joined their husbands and brothers. Wives beamed with delight at finally having their seafaring men home for the winter.

  Anticipating Fjorgest’s return and still nervous about his small repertoire, the young bard had struggled over three days to compose two new songs even as Willimond had worked to provide a catch of fish. Buoyed by his success a few nights earlier and anticipating his mother’s presence again that night, he was anxious to present them. He was also glad for the women in the audience. It felt to him—even though he was still a stranger—more intimate. When he found that Sceaptung had not come to the feast and that he would have no competition, his excitement grew
further. He ate only a little, eagerly awaiting his call.

  And he did not have long to wait. Because of the skald’s absence, it was still early when Fjorgest called upon him to entertain. Full of nervous excitement, he stepped to the hearth. Men and women both, with food and drink still in hand, quieted and turned to listen. The young bard began with an abbreviated version of Deor’s Lament, a song he had sung for them only a few nights earlier but which he risked singing again, remembering the praise it had garnered both in Heort and among the Franks. His audience, friendlier and more relaxed than the first night, warmed at once to the song. He followed it with a well-known tale of Scyld Scefing—a favorite story of Hildeburh when she had been a young girl in Danemark. Absently, he almost introduced the song as for his mother and only caught himself at the last moment. Nervous at how close he had come to a possibly fatal mistake, he sang more quickly than he intended. Still, his audience cheered with delight when he was done. Though every person in the hall had heard some version of the tale a thousand times before, none of the Danes had grown tired of it. And the familiar story broke down a few more barriers between the bard and the unfamiliar audience.

  Sensing the time was ripe, Kristinge followed the Lay of Scyld with a longer seafarer’s tale that he was sure would merit the praise from any who had ever ridden a boat upon the seas. He had heard something akin to it only a few nights earlier from one of the traders who had led them to the village—a poor lyre-player, and one with no great voice, but a gifted story-teller nonetheless. Having just finished a sea voyage, Kristinge had been deeply moved by the song and had committed the first part of it to memory. Later he had composed a few new lines, and rearranged other parts for his own style. He sang it now.

  I sing a true song, speak my own tale,

  tell of my troubles: how in toilsome days

  sorely I suffered sorrowful times;

  how pains often bitter planted in my breast.