Free Hrolf Kraki's Saga by Poul Anderson Page A

shame on
us!”
    “And who brought it?” Hroar answered, suddenly sharp-tongued. “Who deserved it?”
    Helgi lifted a fist as if to strike him, then snarled and flung down the ladder and out of the house.
    Through that winter he kept to himself as much as might be, was harsh toward underlings, curt and niggardly toward those of higher rank. Men whispered their fear that the blood of the dark-souled Skjoldungs was rising in him. After he began holding secret talks with those fighters who had ever been closest to him, many thought he must be plotting to do what Frodhi did.
    But when gloom waned before daylight, snow melted in rushing streams, the storks and the swallows came home, Helgi grew calmer. His household knew he was busy readying something, though what it was, he told nobody save chosen men. One morning early in summer they were gone, and the king, and the speediest of his ships.
    Mast raised, raven sail unfurled, she flew before a following wind. It skirled, cold and salt, kissed cheeks and tousled hair. Waves rumbled and gurgled, spindrift scudded above their wrinkled gray crests and blue-black troughs, sunbeams aslant through clouds struck green fire off them. The hull bounded, strakes sang, walrus-hide tackle thrummed. Helgi took the steering oar. While the land which was his rolled by him to starboard, he smiled, for the first time in almost a year.
    When Mön lay aft, he had the dragon head of war set onto the prow.
    Yet they fared carefully, that crew, sheering off from whatever other vessels they saw, camping nowhere. At the Little Belt they hove-to until dark, then rowed on north by moonlight.
    Ere dawn they reached the cove which their pilot had chosen for them. It lay several miles south of Olof’s lodge. Trees crowded a small beach. Helgi ordered the ship grounded. Her boat he put on watch at the mouth, lest a foe take them unawares and block their flight. Thereafter he slept a few hours. Those who stood guard ashore heard him chuckle in his dreams.
    At sunrise he bolted some food and busked himself. He went clad in beggarly rags. Slung across his shoulders were a sword and two chests full of gold and silver.
    The going is hard through a wildwood. Trees soar, oak, beech, elm, larch; their crowns rustle green-gold in sunlight that speckles the shadowiness beneath; birds sing in their thousands, squirrels streak up the boles like red fire; the air is warm and full of the smells of growth. But underbrush makes a wall, snagging feet, blocking breast, stabbing at eyes, scornfully crackling. It is not strange how often settlements are only reachable by sea.
    Helgi was a huntsman. He found game trails and glided along them as readily as a deer. Soon he drew nigh his goal. In a hollow trunk he left his sword, under a bush he half hid his chests, and went onward. At the roadway, out of sight of the lodge, he waited.
    A thrall of the queen’s came by. He carried a basketful of eggs, bought for the household from a farmstead. At sight of the big man he drew back. Helgi smiled, spread empty hands, and said, “Have no fears. I’m homeless but harmless.”
    The thrall was not surprised. Gangrels were common, in these days when Slesvik suffered upheaval. As for reaching this island from there, that is the narrowest of channels. “How go things hereabouts?” the stranger asked him.
    “Naught save peace,” said the thrall, easing a bit. “Whence do you hail?”
    “No matter. I’m just a poor stave-carl. See here, though. I’ve stumbled on a hoard in these woods. Shall I show it to you?”
    The thrall saw no reason why the wanderer should attack him. Besides, he bore a stout staff. He came along,and drew a shaken breath when he saw the glitter beneath leaves. “Great things indeed!” he said. “Who might have left that here? King Helgi, maybe, for some reason, before he sought our queen last year and she made a laughingstock of him?”
    “I know not,” said the gangrel roughly. “Tell me, is she greedy