Huginn's Yule

My eyes looked out over the Great Hall. Over a sight familiar from two score years of marriage to Thorstein's father, the old King. King Harald Wolfs-Fang, the Old Wolf, the Wolf of the North. My husband, now dead and buried with his dragon-ship within the great barrow freshly built on the headland, and he had been my husband these many years.

Two score years and a little more now, since that day he had rescued me from the followers of Horsa, father of Hengist, after I had killed Horsa and sliced his parts from him, long before he drew his last breath, feeding them to the dogs as he screamed through those last long minutes of his life. King Harald Wolfs-Fang had watched, laughing, before he took me as his wife, where an hour before, I had known I was dead, and I had been praying that death would come quickly, for I was the last, and I had seen and heard what had happened to those who were before me, and one of those had been my maid, the last survivor of my escort, and I had wept with terror and fear and anger as she died, and I had been dreading my end, but Horsa had died, and I had lived.

Now, on this Yuletide Eve, Horsa's son, Hengist sat in this hall with a hundred of his men, guests of my son, protected by the Yuletide Peace, and this Hengist I watched, for there was no trusting him, who wished my death, and my son's death, and the death of all my children, for I had slain his father, and this Hengist had sworn the blood-feud on me, and he had waited all these years, until King Harald Wolfs-Fang was dead, to seek his revenge, for if this Hengist, Horsa's-son had arrived while my husband, Harald Wolfs-Fang, was alive, Harald would have done as I wished to do, with no prompting from me.

Hengist had been admitted as a Yuletide guest, for this was now my son's Great Hall, and I, I was no longer the King's first wife, for my oldest son, Thorstein, he was now the King and married, and his wife, Yrsa, she was now Queen, and my son knew not Hengist as I knew him by repute and tales passed on, and so had bid him welcome, where I wouldst have turned him from the doors, or better yet, ordered him slain out of hand, disregarding that it was the Yuletide Eve.

Slay him, turn him away, that I could not order. For I was but the King's mother now, honored, but I knew my place, and the house-carls were no longer at my command, and so I sat quietly in the background, watching, as I had watched these savage people for so many years. So many years since I had left Northern Wei, a gift of a Wei bride to a Khan of the Western Rouran, those who were known in this land by rumor as the Avars, a gift from Wei to the Rouran to seal their neutrality for a time, but alas, their neutrality had made no difference, and my fate had been strange indeed to have led me here to this cold and desolate northern land so far from my home, here to see out my days.

Of this fate I did not complain, for Northern Wei had fallen in dissension and defeat long ago, and there, I would likely have been dead these many years. Here, I had been a King's wife, and now I was a King's mother, but it was at times like this I missed my homeland. This Great Hall in which I now sat, made of huge logs hewn from the primeval forest, it's great rafters blackened by the wood-smoke that clouded the thatched roof, lit and warmed against the winter cold by great roaring fires laid in a trench down the center, this Hall was a far cry from the marbled and tiled palace lit by lanterns and warmed by silent ducts of smokeless air from the furnaces below, in which I had grown up.

These huge and savage warriors, men with great golden beard's, long flowing hair the color of gold or of the winter wheat, or indeed of ice, men with savage eyes of pale winter blue, iron-thewed, fierce of visage, loud and uncouth, they too were a far cry from the black-haired, almond-eyed people of Northern Wei, my homeland so far away now in both distance and in time, for Northern Wei had fallen these many years gone, and my father and my brothers had fallen at the Emperor's side in those last days of war.

This I had known even before my fate had led me to become the wife of Harald Wolfs-Fang, for news travelled as fast as a galloping horse on the steppe, and of the Fall of Northern Wei and the death of my Father and my Brothers I had heard, even before I had been captured by the Xiongnu, and then from the Xiongnu by a Magyar raiding party, and from the Magyars by Rus.

These savage warriors whose King was now my oldest son, they sat on wooden benches, they sprawled full length on the packed clay floor, they rutted with the servant girls at the back of the Hall, or they strode about to seek their comrades. They drank mightily from foaming ox horns or great wooden cups, they gorged themselves on great hunks of rye bread torn from the loaves, they ate chunks of meat cut from the whole oxen roasting on spits, their teeth tore the meat from racks of pork ribs or from great coils of sausage dripping fat, carried through the hall on wooden shields held by the house-thralls.

The walls of this Hall, they were hung with shields and with strange weapons and standards while chests of gold and silver were stacked in the King's chamber, for King Harald Wolfs-Fang's dragon-ships had ranged far, bringing back to his Great Hall the spoils of war, of which I had been his most precious, but I, I had come willingly, for my choices at that time were limited, and to be the wife of Harald Wolfs-Fang had not seemed so ill a fate when compared to the alternatives at that time and place, and I had been happy with my choice.

These men, they were wolves, and all the world was their prey. They exuded arrogance and pride from their savage and forbidding eyes, as my husband Harald's eyes had been savage and forbidding, but on me they had gazed first with desire, and then with love, and perhaps even a little of admiration, for I had been no swooning maiden, but neither had I been a blonde-haired Valkyrie.

No, I had been a black-haired, almond eyed girl from a far foreign land, a sword-maiden who had killed his sworn enemy, and killed him slowly, and his amusement and pleasure had been great indeed on that day of our meeting so many years in the past, and none were alive from that day now but I, and only I remembered all that had taken place.

Only I.

Those heads that filled the Great Hall, they were a sea of gold, and that white-blonde, all but for my children and a few Finnish thralls. My sons and my daughters, they all had the hair of my people, a fine silky black, and all had lived. All had been seated on their father's knee, and accepted before the folk, and in this, good luck had been with me, for most mothers were not so fortunate, and many were the babies and children who died before their fifth year. Two score and more years I had been married, seven sons and five daughters had I, all with their mother's hair, and my oldest son, Thorstein the King, he was no exception.

My oldest son's hair was mine own black, not the spun gold of his father. My oldest son's eyes, they were in part my almond-eyes, but they had also that savage and wolfish look of his father's people, for my son, Thorstein, the King, he was the Young Wolf, as savage and feared in battle as his father before him, and the Old Wolf had gifted him his arm-rings, his byrnie of chain mail, his sword and his shield, given to him from the Old Wolf's hands before the folk as he lay on his death-bed, and the folk had acclaimed Thorstein as King on the Old Wolf's death, and all had been at that gathering.

"A song, a song in memory of the Old Wolf," a man cried from the Hall, and all took up the cry, and at the great doors, more men filtered in from the snow and cold outside, and amongst them was one I did not remember, but he seemed in some way familiar, so I must have seen him before.

An old man, leaning on a staff, his beard long and white, and he had but one eye, and that eye caught mine and he smiled as he took a bench seat at the rear of the Hall, and I, I returned his smile, as was polite, bowing my head a little out of respect for his age, for three score years as I was, he was yet older than I, and I struggled to remember who he was amongst the folk, but now the call for a song drew my attention, and I forgot the old man.

"A song, a song for the Old Wolf and the Young Wolf," and Hengist did not look pleased at the acclaim for my husband and my son, and at this and the chagrinned look on his face, I smiled, and he saw that smile, and I knew he had not put aside that blood feud.

Thorstein gestured, and the skall stepped forward, and his song was such as these people sang, and it was a song of the North Folk, not a song such as my people would have sung, but there were none but I to sing the songs of my own people. None but I to understand the musical beauty of my own language. None but I, and so I listened to the song of this skall.

Within the barrow,

Stands a hero's ship.

There we placed the Old Wolf's body,

And with golden tribute

Made his shroud.

There never was

A vessel so well equipped:

Bright steel,

swords and mail,

helms of iron,

Broad-gold and rings,

And glorious gifts,

Thralls to serve him,

Maidens to please him,

Lay around that mast.

Placed in the barrow,

That precious booty,

And all of this,

Was as his own people

Provided for him:

Honored he was,

The Old-Wolf at his funeral.

Above the barrow,

His final home,

We set the horse-head standard,

The sacrifices to Wōdan,

For the Old Wolf was ever,

The raven-feeder,

Then giving him honor,

Praising his prowess,

Mourning his passing,

We gave him to that barrow.

And the truth of that last voyage,

No wiseman, nor hero under heaven,

Can say who will gain that cargo,

But now the Young Wolf,

The ring-giver, the raven-feeder

Leads us to victory

Far to the Southland he will lead us

His warriors he will take into battle

Riches and fame

Women and ale

Again lie before us,

A kingdom we will carve

In the South Land

Drink now we will,

To victory in battle

To a new land to take

To the Young Wolf who leads us

To the Old and the New...

A storm of cheers arose from the gathered throng. My son smiled and tossed the skall a coin of gold from his pouch, for all knew the ambition of Thorstein. To lead his folk in our dragon-ships to the rich lands of the south, to the lands from which the Rome-folk had fled or been driven from. To carve out a kingdom as the kings and war-leaders of the Franks, the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths, the Lombards, the Burgundians, the Vandals, the Bavarians, the Sarmatians, the Bulgars, the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes, all were doing, and rich was the land to be won by heroes, held by sword and spear, and in this I would not attempt to gainsay my son, the King.

Was I myself not from such a people. Had not my own homeland of Northern Wei been carved out from the old empire of the Han, and held by the swords and bows of my ancestors, the Xianbei, warriors from the northern steppe? Had not my father and my brothers led the armies of Northern Wei? Was I not from a family of warriors, servants of the Emperor himself to the bitter end? Longed I at times for the comforts of my homeland, the great palaces, the gardens, the cities that stretched mile upon mile, thronging with people, but at heart, I was a woman of my people, and my people were warriors.

Were not the Rome-folk such as my own people? Perhaps, I was not certain, but that they had been soldiers and conquerors, I knew. But as Northern Wei had, as the Jin Dynasty of the Han had in centuries past, the Rome-folk had fallen in defeat. Only tales and rumor of tales reached my ears, but it seemed so, and I remembered Miklagard as the dragon-ships rowed by, and that was a fortress that Harald Wolfs-Fang had not attacked, for feared were the soldiers of that city, and only half a dozen long-ships had we been at that time, although there had been more with us when we returned to the Dane-mark, where Harald had carved out his kingdom in the lawless lands between the Danes and the Swedes, and all had welcomed him, for he bought peace to the land with his sword and his justice.

The Rome-folk, they had been rulers of a vast empire, an empire as fast and powerful as the Han empires before Northern Wei, and the empire of the Rome-folk was one within which the petty kingdoms of these north-folk were but drops in the ocean, and indeed, this kingdom that was now my son's was lesser in size and in men than the personal estates of my father had been in Northern Wei, less by far. But here, the Rome-folk remained only in the east, in far of Miklagard, and few were the folk who had travelled to that fabled city. Here in the west, far to our south, the Rome-folk had fallen in defeat, the western half of their empire but a memory, just as the Han had fallen to my own people long in the past, and many were the tales of that fall that had made it to my son's Great Hall here in the north land,

Now, now was the time of men like my son, Thorstein. Now was the time to seize a new land, now was the time to rule the vanquished as my own people had ruled the Han, with sword and spear and bow, and held I out the hope that my son would be such a man as the Emperor Daowu, my ancestor, he who had defeated the Yan and founded Northern Wei, and Northern Wei had stood strong and undefeated for five hundred years.

Did not the blood of the great Emperor Daowu himself flow in my veins? Was not my father, now long dead, the chief General of Northern Wei to the end, feared by his enemies unto death? Had not my dead husband, King Harald Wolfs-Fang, been one of the most feared and worthy Kings of these north-folk, respected by all for his prowess in battle, his wisdom and his ring-gifting? Was not Thorstein proven in battle, acclaimed by the folk as King without dispute, for all recognized him as a worthy successor to his father, a leader of warriors, a raven-feeder, a ring-giver, and all were gladdened that the Old Wolf was succeeded by the Young Wolf.

All but Hengist, that grizzled warrior of two score and ten years, who had been ten summers of age when I had slain his father, and fed his parts to the dogs, and his yet breathing body to the wolves, and all knew that story, and all had laughed, for while there were none here now but me who remembered that encounter, Horsa had not been a man well-liked, and few had mourned his passing, and many there when I had killed him had watched and laughed as he died.

Those who had not laughed that day, they had been Horsa's men, and they too I had slain on that night, one by one, as Harald and his men drank the Yuletide ale and laughed.

Hengist the boy had not laughed at his father's death.

Hengist the boy had sworn blood-feud on the killer of his father those two score years passed, and he had not forgotten that oath, for here now he was, in Thorstein's Great Hall, and here now I was, the women he had sworn to kill as his father had not, and all my children were gathered here too.

Hengist rose from his bench and strode to the dais on which the High Table sat, and my hand slipped to the hilt of my sword, for Hengist had been guested, but not with honor, and his guesting had been unbidden, his arrival unwelcome, for he was a quarrelsome a man as his father had been before him. His father, Horsa, who had died by my hand on the steppe far to the east where I had been captured from the Magyars so long ago. The Magyars, who had captured me from the Xiongnu, the Huns, who had in turn attacked and killed my escort as I rode to the Khan of the Western Rouran, the Avars, as his intended bride.

Such had been my fate, who had been sent as a bride to the Khan of the Western Rouran.

Such had been Horsa's fate, for he had attempted to take me by force, and sacrifice me on the funeral pyre of his shield-brother, Erik Bloodaxe, and seeing Hengist, Horsa's son, stride towards the dais, I smiled, for I was as willing to see the son dead as I had his father, and after these many years as Harald Wolfs-Fang's wife, death was a thing I was not unaccustomed to.

"Young Thorstein," Hengist said, and he had no words of praise and thanks to my son, arriving as he had, unwelcome, uninvited and unexpected, with a hundred chosen warriors at his back. "I see no guest gifts yet given to me or my men", and, looking around at the walls, he sang: --

Standing before him, I see him quaking,

While my men drink in this hall

Brave spoil they see decked on the wall --

Shield, helms, and armor, all in row,

Stripped in the field from lifeless foe.

In truth no royal mail comes near

Thy splendid hall, this precious gear.

Gifts my men are eagerly waiting,

Best the boy-King be not bating."

Thorstein laughed, and his voice rose in song next, and all listened, for a song-duel was not such an event as happened often, and even less often between such Lords of men, for Thorstein was a King, and Hengist was a grey and grizzled Jarl, a leader of warriors with his own war-hird, and not many warriors were as quick with words as were these two, and such a song-duel rarely ended without the ravens having been fed, and in my own mind I had no doubt on whom the ravens would feast should Hengist push his luck, and he had already pushed his luck far, and I listened to Thorstein's words, glancing around the Hall, and the one-eyed old man at the rear, his single eye caught mine, and he smiled as my son's words filled the Hall, for my son had the voice of a King, and all heard him clearly.

To arrive uninvited, an action bold;

You come with armed men, to my land

Saying you seek, a sister's hand.

And so I bid you in to come

To cherish this Hall, as thy home;

And thou who comes, from the east

In Thorstein's hall, shall find a feast --

In Thorstein's house shall find a home --

At Thorstein's court I bid you welcome.

But now you demand from me a gift,

Know you that such, receives short shrift.

Such a demand, I refuse to meet,

Your guesting here is indeed deceit.

Let me explain how it lies here,

King am I, and that is clear

A guest as you keeps strictest peace,

All threats of force this moment cease.

As King I entreat thee not to break

The Yuletide peace for vengeance's sake!"

"A true King does not entreat." Hengist spat on the floor, all pretense now cast aside, his hand on the hilt of his sword, and his intent was open now, and clear to all. "A true King commands, and all obey, and poor was the luck of your folk if you are indeed King."

"Come, Hengist, wouldst challenge me now, on Yuletide Eve?" My oldest son smiled, his voice gentle, and I had heard Harald speak thus, and I knew that such was my son's wish, and assuredly in him, both his father's and his mother's blood ran true.

I shuddered, for that smile was his father's, but that look in his eyes, that was mine own father's, and all who had once known his father knew that smile for what it was. The smile of the wolf who led the pack, about to rip the throat from his rival. That look in his eyes, that was the cold calculation I had oft seen in the eyes of my father, the Prince Yuan Cheng's eyes, and my father had loved me, but he had ever been such, and if my oldest son did as his smile indicated that he wouldst, first drawing his sword, he would break the Yuletide Peace and forfeit the loyalty of his folk, for he would be foresworn before all, but his eyes said otherwise, and I could not read his intent.

That breaking of the Peace, that, I had no doubt, was Hengist's objective, to cause my son to lose his temper and draw his sword first, although also, I had no doubt that Thorstein would indeed kill Hengist. Had I not trained Thorstein myself in the art of battle, and was I not Shaolin trained? Had I not fed the ravens often myself, and I but a woman. A woman who could slay any warrior in this Hall one-on-one, should I choose, and that had included my beloved husband, Harald Wolfs-Fang, and Harald had known that too, and he had treasured me the more for my sword-skill.