Kushiel’s Dart

They have their poetry, of course, and of that, there was an abundance. In addition to the Skaldi war-songs I knew and those homelier tales I learned from the women, I heard endless heroic sagas, humorous stories, epic lays that related tales of warring Gods and Giants, and a new, growing body of verse-the rise of Waldemar Selig.

Of him, many wonderous things were told. It was said that when his mother died in childbirth, a she-wolf was heard scratching at the door of the great hall in his steading, of which his father was the lord. When his thanes opened the door, they saw the wolf, and none dared harm her, for her fur was as white as snow and they knew her for a supernatural creature. She padded through the hall and straight to the infant Waldemar, lying beside him, and he reached for her fearlessly, taking hold of her white fur with his chubby fists and nursing.

They said that when he was still a lad, though half a head again taller than any man in the steading, and fully as broad, his father gave him a handful of gold and bid him to see the land. Thus did Waldemar travel disguised, with only two loyal thanes to accompany him. To all who gave him hospitality, he revealed himself and paid them in gold. Those who shunned him, he challenged, and defeated every one, revealing himself only after the victory.

So did his name and his fame spread across the far-flung Skaldic territories, and he came to be spoken of in terms of awe. He freed an owl caught up in a trapper’s lines, who turned into a wizard and gave him a charm that would blunt the edges of his enemies weapons so they would deal him no wound. He met a witch, they said, whose son was of Giant blood; him he slew by discovering that his life was held in a gnarled root-ball the witch kept in her cupboard, which Waldemar threw upon the fire. He threatened to slay the witch as well, but she begged for her life, and gave him a charm to make him proof against poison.

When he came home at last to his own steading, he found his father slain, and the most powerful of his thanes, Lothnir, had wed his sister and laid claim to the steading and the leadership of the tribe. Lothnir met him with an embrace, and offered him a poisoned cup in welcome. Waldemar drank it down and threw the cup upon the snow, where it hissed and gave forth fumes, but he was unharmed. Then Lothnir came upon him at night while he slept, and struck at him with a dagger, but the edges of the blade turned dull and slid from his skin as if from a stiff-cured hide, and Waldemar only sighed in his sleep. In the morning, he challenged Lothnir and slew him with one cast of his spear, so mighty it split his shield and pierced his heart. He was acclaimed as leader, and gave his sister to one of his steadfast companions to wife.

These were the tales of Waldemar Selig, and if I was not naive enough to believe them the literal truth-indeed, I recognized in some the echoes of ancient Hellene tales-the glee with which the Skaldi heard and told them made me uneasy. Of a surety, they reckoned this man a hero; and not, from what I knew, without reason. If no other part of these stories was true, one thing was. He had united the contentious Skaldi tribes in their admiration of him.

Soon enough, though, a new dispute rose out of the cloistered life we led, providing the steading with a new distraction from the tedium of winter. And this dispute, unfortunately, had Joscelin at its center.

The young Skaldi woman Ailsa persisted in her interest in him. True to her word, she had washed and mended his Cassiline garb, presenting it to him with an insinuating smile. Joscelin blushed and smiled, there being naught else, as a slave, he could do. When he did not don it, but continued to wear the woolens given him by Thurid, Ailsa pouted and flounced about the hall, flaunting her displeasure until he put it on to quiet her.

I know Hedwig had a sharp word with the young woman, reminding her that Joscelin was a slave, and Gunter’s property. Ailsa, however, was clever enough in her own right, and pointed out that as a D’Angeline lord’s son-and it had been Gunter himself who’d put about word that Joscelin was a warrior-prince-he was as much a hostage as a slave, and therefore of a worthy status.

Gunter kept a wary eye on these proceedings and had no great trust of Ailsa, but the prospect of a ransom intrigued him. When he asked Joscelin if his father would pay money for his safe return, Joscelin, all unwitting, promptly answered that he was sure he would, as would the Prefect of the Cassiline Brotherhood, although, he added, not unless I accompanied him.