The Rood and the Torc Page 30

  “Perhaps you thought we would not know who you were,” the chieftain barked into the stillness, the gleam in his eyes growing as he spoke. Kristinge could not answer. He sat there mute. No, he realized. I knew you would somehow know. Everybody knows. Even as Kristinge thought this, Aelfin drew his great polished and sharpened broadsword from his iron-bound sheath. “Perhaps,” he said again, “you thought you could escape your fate.”

  “Fate,” came Kristinge’s barely audible echoing whisper. Fate? he thought, into the ensuing silence. Was it fate that his life would come to an end just as had his brother’s? And his father’s? And his father’s father’s? By the sword. This, certainly, was not fair. He had not chosen the fate of the warrior.

  Or had he? Had his return to Friesland itself been an acceptance of that path? Had he wanted all along to be discovered? He did not know. The silence deepened as Aelfin raised the blade with both hands. For just an instant then, as Kristinge watched his own death approaching, he was filled by a strange detached calm, frightening in its coldness. The thought crossed his mind how much better off he would have been were he back in Luxeuil. If he had never left there. He would have been better off, too, if he had stayed at Jouarre. Even in Danemark. There were a hundred thousand places he might be better off than sitting unarmed in front of a chieftain who suddenly saw him as a rival.

  A rival? Kristinge’s voice stuck in his throat. His calm disappeared. No! He wanted to protest. Not a rival. He had no desire for the torc. Not Friesland’s torc. Not Ezinge’s torc. He never planned on usurping Aelfin’s place as chieftain. He wanted to tell Aelfin that. But he knew it didn’t matter. He knew the Frisian code well enough to know that. A rival’s potential claim was as much of a threat as his desire. Aelfin had no reason to spare him. Kristinge closed his eyes, and wondered what the cold metal blade would feel like on his neck. Would it end quickly? Would he feel anything? He had seen Frisian warriors die slow deaths from battle wounds. The thought terrified him. He hoped for a quick and merciful end.

  But the end was slow in coming. When Kristinge could stand the tension no longer, he opened his eyes. And what he saw then, he did not at first understand. The chieftain of Ezinge had dropped down upon one knee in front of the young priest. He waited there now, holding his sword out in front in a gesture of homage.

  “The king has returned,” Aelfin said softly.

  There was a murmur throughout the hall.

  “The king has returned,” he repeated, a little louder. This time, some of the murmuring took the tone of assent. A few of Aelfin’s thanes rose to their feet, drawing their own blades.

  “THE KING HAS RETURNED!” Aelfin shouted. His voice was joined by a dozen more voices as he shouted it a forth time. By the fifth time, half the hall had joined him. By the sixth, the voice was unanimous.

  Kristinge did not know what to do. He did not know what to say. But his paralysis had been predicted by Aelfin. The chieftain knew what to do, knew what to tell him. He knew how to manipulate the gathering.

  “Take the sword!” Aelfin said, speaking quietly but firmly against the growing uproar as he stared fiercely into Kristinge’s eyes. It was not an offer, or even a suggestion. It was a command.

  Overwhelmed and at a loss, Kristinge complied. He took the sword from Aelfin and held it in front of him, grasping it by the hilt with both hands. For the first time in his life, he found himself holding a weapon. The weight of the blade took him by surprise. He almost dropped it. He had to work hard to hold it up. I never chose… he caught himself repeating. But things were moving quickly now. Too quickly. Aelfin had risen to his feet. He raised his hands and gestured for silence. It came across the hall at his command. Then the chieftain spoke, his powerful voice filling the silence he had just created.

  “The prophecy was true. Finn’s son has returned. The rightful heir to the Frisian throne.”

  “The king has returned!” voices shouted again.

  “Friesland has faltered for too long. The king’s torc awaits an heir. And now the heir has returned—the heir of Finn’s torc!”

  Aelfin turned to Maccus who stood beside him. “Now,” he said, holding out his hand and nodding toward his thane.

  Maccus reached his hand into his cloak and pulled out a large silk pouch crusted with jewels. He handed it to Aelfin. Kristinge continued to look on, speechless and unable to guess what the bag held, though inwardly he thought he should have known. When Aelfin reached in and pulled out a large shining golden object, Kristinge’s heart leapt.

  “Finn’s torc,” came a hushed whispered from nearby, as Aelfin held up the heavy, soft, gold neck band. Kristinge recognized the torc, wrought by the jeweler Deomaer during the final year of Folcwalda’s life. He had seen it many times in his youth, adorning the neck of Finn the king—the neck of Finn his father.

  “Yes. Finn’s torc,” Aelfin repeated. He turned toward Kristinge and spoke to him, but with a voice loud enough that all in the small hall could hear. “Shortly after the battle of Finnsburg, when Finnlaf your brother was killed, Finn sent this torc to me for safe-keeping. Perhaps he guessed that his own doom was nigh upon him. I do not know. He told me then what I had long ago guessed but had kept to myself: that you were his son and the son of Hildeburh, the rightful heir of the torc and rightful ruler of Friesland. He told me too that he hoped you would one day take this from me, charging me to keep it for you until that day. I never saw Finn again. Just a few months later, he died at Hwitstanwic. And with him in his defense died many great heroes and loyal thanes whose names we will not forget.”

  Aelfin fell silent for a moment, allowing the memory of those names to linger. Then he continued, his voice growing louder as he spoke. “Daelga the poet came to Domburg just a few weeks after the fight. He told the tale of your going from Hwitstan, and the tale of Finn’s final battle. It was the tale of the treachery of the three Geatish brothers whose names we will not repeat, but whose acts now have been avenged. He told these tales so that the truth would not be utterly lost. Then Daelga disappeared into the south and was not seen in Friesland again. For seven years I have held this torc, sharing the hope of Finn and the hope of Daelga. The hope that you would one day return. For seven years I have held the torc of Finn. Let it now rest on its rightful neck.”

  And as Kristinge stood there trembling, still holding the heavy blade awkwardly in both hands, Aelfin stepped forward. He pressed his hand firmly down on the young priest-bard’s shoulder, indicating what he should do. Kristinge understood. The youngest son of Finn knelt before the chieftain, still holding the sword but letting the weight of the blade rest on the ground beside him. Nobody else moved as Aelfin took the torc in both hands and lifted it up. Then slowly, with all watching, he bent the soft gold band around Kristinge’s neck.

  “Heir of Finn’s torc, the king has returned!”

  Aelfin pulled Kristinge to his feet. It was as if he had raised Finn himself from the dead. The hall erupted. Aelfin’s warriors filled the room instantly with loud shouts and the sounds of swords beating against benches. Kristinge grew dizzy. Suddenly aware of the significance of the torc about his own neck, for the first time that evening he noticed that three of the warriors also wore gold torcs. So there were other chieftains in the hall that night besides Aelfin. This event extended beyond Ezinge. Now Kristinge could feel it pulling him in too, like the pull of the Hwitstan river when he was just a young boy and would wade a few steps out into the strong tidal current to help Lopystre and Willimond with the weirs. He fought against the frenzy growing around him, fought being sucked in by it. He tried to remain calm, tried to understand what was happening, forced himself to look around. It didn’t help.

  These other chieftains came forward now, each in turn bowing before Kristinge as they placed their swords at his feet, symbolic of their vow of service to a new king. Aelfin spoke their names and the names of their clans, and the names of their fathers and fathers’ fathers who had served Finn and Folcwalda before: Theoman son of Theofor
, who ruled at Beowic; Wihtred son of Wihtlaeg who ruled at Aalsum; and Isernfyst who ruled another Saxon clan at Heorotburg. All nearby villages. Meanwhile the din in the hall slowly shifted from a loud clamor to the steady rhythmic beating of sword on wood. Once again, all eyes were fixed on Kristinge, waiting for him to speak. Once again, he knew not what to say. And yet once again, Aelfin rescued him.

  “Let us celebrate the day! It is a time for rejoicing.” The chieftain gave the order. Servants entered the hall carrying mead and ale, enough for all present, with plenty to spare. There was another loud cheer. For a few seconds, swords were beat against benches again. Then, as the sound of swords was slowly silenced and replaced by the sounds of drinking, Dyflines leapt for the second time that evening to the cold hearth. As always, his lyre was ready and so was his tongue. And for the next hour, his laughter-filled voice resonated through the hall, recounting tale after tale of Frisian heroes, and of the victories and achievements of Folcwalda and Finn, and the names of those who had died in battle at their sides, and of the founding of Friesland and the defeat all who had since tried to conquer it. And all were sung in such a way that Kristinge knew that he himself was the great hero being celebrated. And still he had not spoken a word, but sat there with Aelfin’s sword resting on his lap.

  And so the night swept past, like a strange, dizzying storm. And Kristinge just sat there at Aelfin’s side, at once both keenly aware of every movement, and every ale cup filled, and every vow of service given him, and every gift given by Aelfin in his behalf, and also at the same time lost in a fog as if none of this were happening—as if he were watching it happen to somebody else, or distantly observing his own dream. Or was it a nightmare, magnified by the dizzying effects of too much mead?

  Early the following morning, when the celebration was over and the late summer sun was just beginning to lighten the sky over the distance horizon, Kristinge was still sitting in Aelfin’s hall. Around him, not a wakeful soul was to be seen. Aelfin was laying asleep or drunk at Kristinge’s side. The other three chieftains also lay sleeping on benches, with a few of their closest thanes scattered around the hall nearby. The rest of the war bands had taken to the ground outside, as the celebration had overflowed the small building into the surrounding village.

  A gentle breeze of a warm summer night wafted past Kristinge, enticing him to stir from his trance. He rose, and absently made his way toward the door, stepping over bodies while trying again to make some sense of what had happened. What had happened? he wondered. He wasn’t sure he knew. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to know. He remembered Aelfin speaking to him late in the night, some time after Dyflines had finished with the last of his songs. Kristinge had hoped to learn something from the chieftain then. Had hoped to hear some explanation. But he hadn’t. By then, most of the warriors had been well on their way to drunkenness. And though the chieftain, himself half drunk, had displayed a tongue looser than usual, his thoughts had been turned to the past and not the future.

  “When drunk, I slay no hearth-companions,” he said, boasting of his worthiness to receive the service of his thanes. “Neither did Finn,” he went on. “He was a good king.” He took another long draught as if to warm his memories further, and then he began to speak about his days in Hwitstan and of the great fellowship that had once inhabited Finnsburg. He told of the day so many years ago when he had first met Folcwalda, when the great warrior-king had sailed to Domburg, in part to rescue it from Frankish raiders and in part as a veiled threat to its former chieftain Ecgwalda. He told how Ecgwalda had finally pledged himself to the Frisian king, sending a war band to Hwitstan under the command of his most trusted thane Aeltar. And how Folcwalda had told Aeltar to bring his young son Aelfin with him to Hwitstan. Thus Aelfin had grown up in Finnsburg, and though some years the senior of the two, he had later become close friends with young Finnlaf. They had hunted together. Trained as warriors together. But they had not died together.

  At that point, Aelfin’s thoughts had become more sullen, jumping to the subject of his own troubles. He had no children of his own. No heir to his torc. His wife had died childless. After saying this, he had looked straight at Kristinge. And Kristinge had understood that look. “You are my son.”

  And all gathered had understood, when Aelfin gave gifts in his hall that night—gold rings, and armbands, and old swords and spears—that the gift-giving was in the name of Kristinge, the new prince.

  Now all lay sleeping from the drink. Their snoring filled the air. Kristinge needed to get away. Tired as he was from a night without sleep, he needed to walk. Life in Luxeuil had not prepared him for this. Not even his childhood in Hwitstan, or his few months in Danemark prepared him for this. He wandered around the perimeter of Ezinge for a long time, following the axwei and letting his thoughts wander, watching the day dawning in the eastern sky. When the sky changed from gray to red, and then from red to blue as the first rays of sun pierced the cloudless sky, he stopped by the river Hunze and splashed his face in the water. It felt good. He did it again. He rose then and left the ox-path, wandering further from the terp past the cattle-herds tending their cows in the fields to the north of the village, and along the few flax and barley fields west of the village where the laborers were already at work. Some of the peasants who recognized Kristinge greeted him as he passed, but they looked at him strangely. At the time, he didn’t fully comprehend why this was, thinking perhaps it was only the tired expression on his face or his wet unkempt hair from his dip in the river. But there was something else that they were looking at—something around the young priest’s neck, and something that he was holding, things that were out of place.

  Not until he stepped through the door and into the chapel did the significance of those expressions become clear. Kristinge’s right hand still held tightly to Aelfin’s sword. Kristinge the priest. And he still wore Finn’s torc. But he didn’t remember where his harp was.

  The momentum of that night and the events set in motion by Aelfin would carry Kristinge through the next few weeks and into autumn. He hoped that first day to continue his life as a priest, doing what he had been doing since arriving in Ezinge, as if nothing had happened. Ignoring the torc that now lay hidden in a box in the corner of his hut with his remaining coins. Ignoring the sword, too big to be hidden, that stood beside the box staring at him like a strange reminder of the cross. But he soon found that he was unable to go on as he had. Aelfin had other plans for him.

  Late in the morning, Kristinge was at the chapel praying and beginning his penance for the carrying of a sword. Aelfin, the aftereffects of his drunkenness having nearly worn off, appeared at the door. When Kristinge became aware of the chieftain’s presence, he grew tense. But he kept his eyes closed and his head bowed in prayer, hoping not to be disturbed further.

  Aelfin entered. “It is good that you have taken off your torc for now,” the chieftain of Ezinge said after a moment. “The time to wear it again will come soon, but for the present it is best to be cautious.”

  Kristinge’s concentration was now completely broken. Still, he kept his head bowed and said nothing. He was not sure there would ever be a time for him to wear the torc.

  Either oblivious of Kristinge’s prayer posture or not caring, Aelfin continued speaking in a low and serious tone. “The celebration last night was good. The seeds have been planted. But you know that despite my bold proclamation, you are a long way from being king.”

  At this, Kristinge lifted his head. A long way from—

  “Farther than a day’s journey from here, nobody even knows your name.” Aelfin laughed as if it were a funny joke, as if that detail were unimportant in his quest to make a king of Kristinge, his self-proclaimed foster-son. But the laugh was unconvincing. A moment later, he took a seat next to Kristinge. Then he stood up again, looking uncomfortable in those surroundings. “Come with me. There is much to discuss.”

  Kristinge nodded. There was much to discuss, much he needed to tell Aelfin. Still, he said n
othing just yet. Where would he begin? He rose and followed Aelfin from the chapel. Last night there had been no time. No choice but to succumb. Today was different. He did not have to follow Aelfin’s plan. How could he wear the torc? How could he carry the sword? It was the same question. He would speak to the chieftain. Soon.

  But the chance never came. Aelfin did not lead the way back to his hall as Kristinge expected, but toward the northern end of the village. When they came to the edge of the terp and looked down the drop, there were Maccus and Ceolac waiting with four horses.

  Kristinge looked at Aelfin. “Where—?”

  “We will ride,” Aelfin answered. “To Hwitstan.”

  Kristinge sucked in a deep breath. He had hoped to return again one day to his home village, but he was not sure now was the time. He looked down at the horses, two of which stood riderless. Among the Frisians, horses were more commonly kept for meat than for riding. Few even of the warriors could ride, especially among those of Saxon descent. And fewer still could fight on horseback. On his voyage south to Luxeuil many years earlier, however, Kristinge had learned to sit on a horse and not fall. He followed Aelfin down off the terp. A minute later, the four of them were riding north along with Hunze river heading toward Hwitstan.

  For a time the entire company was silent. It was many minutes before Kristinge felt comfortable on the back of his beast, and he gave little heed to their surroundings nor did he have much extra concentration to devote to conversation. By the time he was able to look around, they were already out of sight of Ezinge. It was then that Aelfin began to speak. And for the rest of the afternoon the young heir of the torc said little. Perhaps it was the thought of Hwitstan that left him silent. Or perhaps it was just that Aelfin gave him little chance to interrupt. The chieftain spent most of the ride explaining in detail the current situation in Friesland so that Kristinge would understand what was needed in order for him to become king. With occasional comments from his two thanes, Aelfin went on to name the major clans of Friesland, and their chieftains; where the largest villages and best halls and beaches were; what sorts of weapons could be found and at what price; and many other things his newly adopted son lost track of.