Страница 100 из 130
The lamps were lit on their iron wheels and hoisted up the pillars as the evening proceeded; there was unstinted food, drink, song-Rudi came to keenest attention as a harper performed-stories sad or merry or moving-and chanted ancestral epic: ?There was a man named Orm the Strong, a son of Ketil Asmundsson who was a yeoman in the north of Jutland; and this was before the Dane-lands were one kingdom. The folk of Ketil had dwelt there as long as men remembered, and held broad acres. The wife of Ketil was Asgerd, who was a leman-child of Ragnar Lothbrok. Thus Orm came of good stock on both spear and distaff sides, but as he was the fifth living son of his father he could look for no great inheritance. So Orm was a seafarer, and from his youth spent most of his summers in viking -?
The ways and arts here didn?t have Dun Juniper?s quick bright shifting glitter, with its ever-present tang of the Otherworld. But there was a deep steady sonorous music to it all, one that had its own harsh magic and strong-boned beauty and spoke to his blood.
Eventually, Bjarni rose-for the first time since the feast started, except once when he?d darted over to quiet two half-drunken brawlers by the simple expedient of grabbing their necks and banging their heads together hard enough to make Rudi wince. Their friends had laid them out under the tables, and the rest had gone on unconcerned with the fallen serving as footstools. Now he hammered the hilt of his seax on the table, and silence fell, more or less; he spoke into it. ?Bjornings, and guests come from far lands! Tonight our luck is strong. The seidhkona Heidhveig has come to Eriksgarth and will take the High Seat of prophecy and speak. Let all here behave in seemly wise, as do true men and true women.?
Men moved the table before them, and placed a high carved chair with arms on the dais before the hearth. Heidhveig entered from the door that led to the house; Rudi had seen little of her until now, and his hosts had merely said that she rested and felt out the wights-which was what the Norrheim folk called the spirits of place. Now she paced slowly through the hall, an old woman in a midnight-blue cloak and gown with a cap of black lambskin. Her wrought staff went thunk… thunk… as she walked down the row of pillars, helped by a stern-faced middle-aged woman and several others who were younger but nearly as serious. ?Who?s the other woman with a staff?? Rudi murmured. ?Thorlind Williamsdottir-she really runs the seidh group these days. She was one of the first ones Heidhveig trained as a gydhja, a godwoman.?
Mathilda started to cross herself, then refrained; it would be impolite, under the circumstances. Instead she touched the place on her tunic where the crucifix rested below. The helpers set another box on the dais so that the old woman could climb onto the elevated seat; it had a cushion embroidered with ravens, and two carved from wood stood on the seat back. The younger gydhja sat on a low stool next to the tall seidhjallr, the Chair of Magic. Heidhveig held her staff between her knees, gripping it with both gnarled hands as if it were an anchor planted in the ground.
Bjarni?s sister Gudrun took a basin of water and moved around the great room, sprinkling each one with drops flicked from a twig and murmuring: ?With water from the Well of Wyrd
All ill that has been;
All ill now becoming;
All ill that shall be;
I banish away.?
The younger godwoman took a drum and began to beat it; a walrus-ivory ring skittered across the taut surface, making the beat throb with a burring tone that filled the hall. She spoke from her stool, her voice low and hieratic: ?This hall is hallowed for Heimdall?s children,
Safe we sit at the sacred center.
Who will dare the waiting darkness?
Who will walk the way of wisdom?? ?I will,? Heidhveig said.
The seeress? voice was hoarse but strong. Rudi felt the skin prickle on his neck and between his shoulders as she pulled the thin veil draped around her shoulders over her head, so that it hid her face. When Thorlind spoke again, her words seemed to come from a depth-from a cave, perhaps, or a wildwood, or simply from the deeps of time: ?Sink down, then, and be at ease. You know the road well, the way through the Wood between the Worlds, and the plain of Midgard that lies within. Fare onward, wise one, down and around beneath the root of the Tree…?
Rudi found his own eyes closing, images forming behind them as the woman went on, leading them from world to world and depth to depth, to the very walls of Hella?s kingdom, that he had never expected to see as a living man. ?Down and around we fare, until we come to the Eastern Gate. Here we must wait. For one and one only the gate will open…?
Rudi sighed, resisting the unexpected attraction of that passage to the Otherworld. He could feel Matti sitting stiff beside him, and squeezed her hand, as much to keep himself firmly grounded as to comfort her.
Thorlind spoke again: ?The gate to knowledge gapes before us.
Seeress, is it your will to go through?? ?It is,? the seeress said.
Thorlind began to sing; one by one the rest of the Bjornings joined in. The tune was strange, full of odd sharps. It had a feel of ancientry to it, like old stone still strong but covered in moss and worn with the rains and frost of countless years: ?Seeress, thy way through the worlds thou must win,
Farther and faster and deeper within,
Fare onward, ever onward, ever on.?
Then she spoke sharply:?Tell us what thou dost see??
Heidhveig?s voice was distant, as if she told of a dream: ?I see the dark lake and on it the black swan swimming.
On the shore many fires are burning.
The ancestors are awake and waiting.
What would you know??
Thorlind chanted: ?The spell is spoken, the Seeress waits Is there one here who would ask a question??
For a long moment Rudi thought nobody would; the tension in the hall was palpable, almost like a taste of something sharp and acrid at the back of the mouth. Eyes gleamed in the shadows about.
Then the godhi stood. He cleared his throat and spoke in a voice that carried through the hall: ?I?ve a dispute with the men of the Hrossings. Both tribes have used the land between the Old West Road and Blood Creek for pasture in the summer and for hunting, but our numbers grow and we need to clear and till land there. Bjorning steadings are closer and the empty land should be ours alone, at least as far as the river. How shall we end this quarrel? Will Godhi Syfrid see reason, or shall we take it to the Althing and the law-speakers? Or must swords be drawn??
The gydhja spoke: ?Cease not, seeress, till said thou hast,
Answer the asker till all he knows.? ?I see the autumn woods,? Heidhveig said, her voice distant.?The stags are fighting. They clash their antlers, tear up the soil, grunting and heaving. The does are watching. Oh… there are wolves in the woods. They circle and leap, carry off some of the does…?
There was a sharp intake of breath in the Hall, and a moment of silence before the seeress went on. Her voice was less distant now, as if she had come halfway back to the world of men: ?I see now the meaning. You and Syfrid are so busy butting heads you don?t see what?s going on around you.?
The tension broke in laughter; Bjarni flushed but flung up a hand for silence, and the seeress went on: ?Watch out, or the human wolves will destroy what you?re fighting over.?
There was a ripple of comment in the hall; Rudi thought he heard approval. ?Ask for a meeting. You may have to give up something to make peace, but that?s better than losing all. It?s an ill time for good Norrheim men to draw blades on each other. This you know, would you know more?? ?Thank you, seeress,? Bjarni said drily.?I think I understand.. .?
The gydhja spoke, her tone formal:?Well hast thou asked and well been answered. Is there another who has a question??