Half a King

Yarvi slowly, fearfully, painfully raised his head and saw two great boots capped with scuffed steel. Then baggy trousers, striped red and white. Then a heavy belt with a golden buckle, the hilts of a great sword and four knives. Then mail of steel with zigzag lines of gold forged in. Then a white fur about great shoulders, the wolf’s head still on, garnets set into its empty eyes. Upon it, a chain of jumbled lumps of gold and silver, precious stones winking: pommels twisted from the swords of fallen enemies, so many that the chain was looped three times about a trunk of a neck and still hung low. Finally, so high above Yarvi that the man stood a giant, a craggy face, lop-sided as a wind-blown tree, long hair and beard hanging wild and streaked with silver-gray, but about the twisted mouth and eyes a smile. The smile of a man who studies beetles, wondering which to squash.

“Who are you, person?” asked the giant.

“A cook’s boy.” The words were clumsy in Yarvi’s bloodied mouth, and he tried to work his crippled hand into his damp shirt sleeve so it could not betray him. “I fell into the sea.” A good liar weaves as much truth into the cloth as they can, Mother Gundring once told him.

“Shall we play a guessing game?” the giant asked, winding a strand of his long hair around and around one finger. “Of what my name might be?”

Yarvi swallowed. He did not need to guess. “You are Grom-gil-Gorm, Breaker of Swords and Maker of Orphans, King of the Vanstermen.”

“You win!” Gorm clapped his massive hands. “Though what you win remains to be seen. I am King of the Vanstermen. Lately including these ill-doomed wretches that your countrymen of Gettland have so freely robbed, butchered, and stolen as slaves, against the wishes of the High King in Skekenhouse, who has asked that swords stay sheathed. He loves to spoil our fun, but there it is.” Gorm’s eyes wandered over the scene of ruin. “Does this strike you as just, cook’s boy?”

“No,” croaked Yarvi, and he did not have to lie.

A woman stepped up beside the king. Her hair was shaved to black-and-gray stubble, her long, white arms covered from shoulder to finger with blue designs. Some Yarvi recognized from his studies: charts for the reckoning of the future in the stars, circles within circles in which the relationships of the small gods were plotted, runes that told of times and distances and amounts permitted and forbidden. About one forearm five elf-bangles were stacked, relics of great age and value, gold and steel and bright glass flashing, talismans worked with symbols whose meanings were drowned in the depths of time.

And Yarvi knew this must be Mother Scaer, Gorm’s minister. She who sent the dove to Mother Gundring, luring Yarvi’s father to his death with promises of peace.

“What King of Gettland ordered such slaughter?” she asked, her voice every bit as harsh as a dove’s.

“Odem.” And Yarvi realized with some pain it was the truth.

Her lip wrinkled as if at a sour taste. “So the fox killed his brother the wolf.”

“Treacherous beasties.” Gorm sighed, turning a pommel absently around and around on his chain. “It was sure to come. As surely as Mother Sun follows Father Moon across the sky.”

“You killed King Uthrik,” Yarvi found he’d spat from his bloody mouth.

“Do they say so?” Gorm raised his great arms, the weapons at his belt shifting. “Then why do I not boast of it? Why are my skalds not setting the story to song? Would my triumph not make a merry tune?” He laughed, and let his arms drop. “My hands are bloody to the shoulder, cook’s boy, for of all things blood pleases me the most. But, sad to say, not all men that die are killed by me.”

One of the daggers had eased forward in his belt, its horn handle pointing toward Yarvi. He could have snatched it. Had he been his father, or his brother, or brave Keimdal who died trying to protect his king, he might have lunged for that blade, sunk it into Grom-gil-Gorm’s belly and fulfilled his solemn oath for vengeance.

“Do you want this bauble?” Gorm drew the knife now, and held it out to Yarvi by the bright blade. “Then take it. But you should know that Mother War breathed upon me in my crib. It has been foreseen that no man can kill me.”

How huge he seemed, against the white sky, hair blowing, and mail shining, and the warm smile on his battle-weathered face. Had Yarvi sworn vengeance against this giant? He, half-man, with his one thin, white hand? He would have laughed at the arrogance of it were he not shivering with cold and fear.

“He should be pegged on the beach and his guts unwound for the crows,” said Gorm’s minister, her blue eyes fixed on Yarvi.

“So you always say, Mother Scaer.” Gorm slid the knife back into his belt. “But the crows never thank me. This is just a little boy. It is hardly as if this outrage was his idea.” Truer than he knew. “Unlike the noble King Odem, I do not need to swell myself with the killing of weak things.”