What we did on Aerra Geola days
Servant No More
‘Tohrwulf, this isn’t right. I think of you as a comrade; a fellow west Geat and friend. You shouldn’t need to come to me for upkeep.’
‘None the less, Aetheling, that is how people see us. The west Geat Aetheling arrives with his poorly equipped fellow country man then all see a master and his servant.’
The aetheling pulled a long face, muttering to himself ‘How can a man be servant to a wol…finga.’
He stared down the length of the hall for a few moments, grimaced and turned to look Tohrwulf in the eye. He raised his voice and spoke for all in the hall to hear.
‘Tohrwulf. Here, I give you as a friendship gift these two silver arm rings and call you a free Geat. A warrior and an equal.’
Wistan pulled rings from his right and left arms, handed them to the erstwhile servant and clapped him on the back.
‘And I hope that we can call each other ‘Friend’ hereafter.’
A Tale of the Riverbank
Woden’s Day
A few days later, between bouts of chopping firewood to drive off the seasonal cold and damp, Wistan the Aetheling was monologuing.
‘If I’m going to go walkabout and forget my clothes, or not come home in time to put them on again, what I need is a somewhere, perhaps more than one, to keep some basics like boots, tunic and cloak. Somewhere that is easy to get to, outside the palisade.’
’Better to remember to come back in, no doubt, but being aware of time was a problem when I took that turn. I suppose practice may help but I must preparation while I have a man’s reason to help me, for I lose much of it if the fit comes strongly upon me.
‘Anyway, I was thinking about going out to scout around for hiding-holes, on two legs, and perhaps setting a few traps and snares along the way, before the weather closes in…’
‘Well,’ interrupted Tohrwulf, ‘what about the nightwalker’s cave?’
‘I doubt that’ll still be empty after three months,’ started Wistan, paused then, ‘but now you mention it, maybe it’s worth looking at just for that reason. Lytelman needs to know who or what is camping on our borders. Now where was that again… along over that way?’ Asked Wistan.
‘I thought it was that way…’
They’d pointed in different directions. After some head scratching and asking any who chanced by, one such was Saexbeorht who reminded them that the first sign of the nightwalker had been its bear raiding his fish traps downstream of Gefnhame and that the beast had escaped by swimming away further downstream.
‘We went there and back a couple of times in a day. It was just after the storms after the harvest, so Haligmonath. I suppose we might just about get there in daylight now?’ Wistan sounded doubtful. ‘And it means overnighting.’
Talking further Wistan and Tohrwulf agreed two might do for a local scout and trap excursion, but were too few for a journey that would see a night or more away. Although most of their comrades enjoying thegn Osgar’s hospitality were busy with pre-Yule visits to other steads, a companion might be found, suggested Tohrwolf, if perhaps Talorc were free?
Talorc being famously attached to Gefion’s priestess Nothgyth’s entourage, Wistan and Tohrwulf asked around Gefnhame for both, reasoning that either was highly noticable and that finding her would find him not so far away too. By chance finding Nothgyth first they explained their intention to go out for at least an overnight, and asked whether Talorc might be free of any duties to her as her, self-appointed, body guard for a day or two?
She glanced round, sighed and swept a strand of hair from her face before answering ‘Oh, Goddess, yes! Please, please, take him. For as long as you can. He’s lovely, loyal, obedient but he’s always here. I can hardly get a moment alone with… myself.’
As predicted, it was only a matter of waiting a short time before the tattooed outlander himself appeared. Wistan and Tohrwulf made their pitch and when Talorc understood enough of their entreaties (‘Go, kill pukels? Good!’) and looked to Nothgyth, she nodded her permission for him to go.
Thunor’s Night
A pre-dawn start was wisest, decreed Wistan, given the uncertainty about reaching the area of the cave in the short daylight available only slightly before Yule. So in the barest tinge of dawn, as sworn by Wistan, and black night as others saw it, the three set out from Gefnhame. By the time his companions could see a faint lightening of the sky they were passing a boundary stake, bloodstains from the Blotmonath sacrifice just visible in the grey light of the dawning Thunor’s Day.
Then to the river, and along near to the southern bank, keeping within sound of the flow, downstream and to the east. As they moved Wistan pointed out frequent pukel tracks, great and small in patches of slushy snow and ice rimed mud. So busy was he with his fieldcraft that Tohrwulf must call out when, late in the day, the Aetheling walked straight past the river crossing for the nightwalker’s cave.
It was a tricky crossing in the late summer with the river swollen by post-harvest storms. It looked even less inviting in the gathering gloom at the end of a winter day, the flow full and dark and edged with ice. Crossing in the icy cold, with light fading and the many pukel tracks in the area, seemed an uneasy chance to venture.
The Gefnhamers moved off and sought out a concealed placesite to camp for the night. In the final fading of the light just before Frige’s eve they found the lee of a small rise where a rocky outcrop overhung with small trees and scrub bushes gave the barest of shelter. The night cold mandated a fire. Only winter-wet fuel was to hand, which smoked fiercely for the little heat it gave. No one expected a quiet Frige’s night as Tohrwulf stood the first watch while Talorc and Wistan tried to rest, weapons close at hand.
Frige’s Night
It seemed only a moment to Wistan before Tohrwulf’s urgent shout of ‘Awake!’ came, given emphasis by fast footfalls, creaking armour, pukel grunts and the crash and crackle of bodies forcing past and through bushes in their hurry to close. Thanks to Tohrwulf’s fine-strung night nerves though, the pukels’ stratagem of encircling the Geats’ before a concerted rush failed, but only just. The party from Gefnhame faced a pukel horde converging on them from all sides, even dropping down from the top of the sheltering rocks, but in uneven groups not an overwhelming wave. On the flanks Tohrwulf and Wistan occupied the attentions of near half a dozen pukels each, while Talorc was a whirlwind of destruction in the middle, charging pukelmen with his spear, striking and tripping them, bowling one over another, constantly moving to avoid their blows and attempts to concentrate against him.
A desultory rain of stones and branches from pukelings on the crest above was nearly as much of a threat to their own pukel comrades in the moving action of the fight, as to the two Geats and their ally. The random blows from above, unseen, discomforted several though the Geats perhaps less so as they may have benefited from better protection than the average pukel.
The pukel mob lost heart when their chieftain fell beneath Talorc’s spear and with doleful cries the survivors broke off and ran. Wistan might have pursued and harried them further, but his concern for his fellows’ wounds lost him the moment. The departing crashes through the brush quickly quietened as outright flight turned to skulking departure.
A fitness report round-up found Tohrwulf in much need of catching his breath, but Wistan and Talorc professed themselves hale enough after the fighting. Then the night’s quiet reverted to the rush of wind and sleet splattering through the trees, hisses from the damp wood of the fire and the final gurgles of the corpses.
Friges Day
The morning’s accounting split silver gathered from the fallen foe three ways. Of the other victory spoil Wistan awarded Talorc first pick as the hero’s right, so to him went a fine langesaex, and then Wistan granted the next selection to Tohrwulf, in recognition of his first victory in battle as a free warrior in his own right; Tohrwulf chose a fancy leaf broach from the cloak of the Pukelman leader, with scratchings patterned on it that might, just possibly, be a rune, though neither of the Geats had the learning to be sure.
While beheading the corpses Wistan noticed some of the pukelings were wet of hair and clothes with river water, rather than blood or other oozings common from battle’s victims, while the pukel men were bloody and oozing, in the nature of things, but not otherwise wet. Some at least then had crossed the river, the two Geats agreed, but did this mean the dry ones joined from this side of the river? There was much casting around then on Wistan’s part to understand the pattern of trails. In a short time — but already mid-afternoon — the three were standing looking at the crossing for the nightwalker’s cave again, where all trails converged.
With the hint of the wet and dry pukels, some fresh gouges in the river mud below the bank suggested there was some method of crossing for the pukels of status. Wistan’s keen sight picked out a hastily hidden structure on the far bank. Perhaps a raft, or a log bridge? Tohrwulf and Talorc braved the icy waters to swim across to inspect the mystery. When it turned out to be a bridging log the three made efforts to drop it into a position to allow passage across with more in the way of arms than swimming permitted, and for the Aetheling to cross dry of foot.
This turned out to be rather more easily proposed than executed with three men than would perhaps have been the case with of a mob of pukeling labourers under command, but a slightly unstable crossing was in place as the sky darkened again. Hand weapons were carried across, but bulkier armour and shields mostly left concealed in scrub bush by the south bank. Armed, and with improvised pine branch torches cut from the trees about them ready to light the cave’s blackness, three made the ascent towards the Nightwalker’s cave.
As they climbed Wistan remarked on the clump of bushes where the bear had walked his length on the first sortie against the nightwalker. But now was no time for happy reminiscence. Ahead, on the ridge above to the cave, pukeling figures briefly sky-lined against the last faint glow of day. Wistan hurried to scout what waited at the cave itself while his companions set to light their resin-rich torches. All he found was a silent, empty pukel den, stinking of them, but housing only the dead; injured pukels from the night’s fight, their throats freshly cut, perhaps when they could not flee further.
Saetur’s Night
As night was falling even a pukel den’s stench was preferable to camping outside in the winter night, once the corpses were cast into the bushes beyond the entrance cleft. Wistan and Tohrwulf speculated whether the pukels might come back again in force this night. Talorc answered them by shedding his clothes.
‘Talorc follow Pukels, see how go.’ He clutched an amulet, a black cat’s head protruding from his fist. For a moment Talorc stood there, naked, then a large black cat bounded out of the cave.
Hours later Wistan heard a faint whisper of fabric on rock from the cave’s cleft entrance. Talorc walked in from the dark, somehow already wearing the cloak he’d shed before leaving.
‘Pukels run. Rough country. Easy for cat. Hard for human. Harder in winter. Other pukels. Other things. Things I just run from. Sleep now.’
Saetur’s Day
Still more hours later, just before the late sunrise, Talorc woke, but could add little detail to his account. Dispite the lack of imminent threat, there seemed little profit in remaining and so the three made ready to recross the river and return to Gefnhame. At first fortune was with them. The bridge log was still in position, undisturbed by hand or water, and there was no sign of man or pukel on the south bank. The Aetheling went first, throwing some spears across the river mostly as the easiest way to transport them and a for a slim chance of flushing an enemy. Spears across safely and not even a bird startled from the bushes, Wistan walked the log confidently and safely to land, dry shod again.
Tohrwulf, though, misstepped and overbalanced by the weight of the bundle of all his worldly goods was in the water. Desperately he clung to his wealth, new found as a free man, as bundle and Geat swept downstream. The river flowed slightly faster than a man might walk, but slow enough for Wistan to jog along and catch up on the bank, calling encouragement and helpful advice.
‘Make for the side, Torhwulf!’
‘There’s a bend coming!’
‘Oh, watch out for that rock… Oh, I say! Ouch! That looked sore!’
At first the bundle floated proudly, buoyed by trapped air and not weighed down by overmuch silver for all it seemed a gleaming mountain to its present, perhaps temporary, owner. Then inch by inch the river claimed it, and Tohrwulf’s strenuous efforts to push it to the side became less and less effective, until exhausted and dangerously stiffened in his limbs by the cold, he must choose either to save himself or take his wealth with him to the bottom of the river.
Wistan counselled him, ‘It’s only wealth!’
’Save yourself, Tohrwulf!
’Don’t be a fool!
‘I’ll get you more if your kit is lost forever, my friend…’
Considering his own wealth to be insufficiently important a treasure to bide with it in his grasp at the bottom of the river forever, Tohrwulf chose life, chose the riverbank, and crawled from the river. It was cold lying soaking on the bank so he chose to gather himself up and to stagger along after Wistan, already away along the river bank, still in pursuit of the slowly sinking bundle.
The last corner of the bundle was just about to sink beneath the surface, when a bright blue bird landed on it. An odd occurrence, thought Wistan, the kingfisher is never seen in winter once the waters are like to freeze. Perhaps…?
‘I say, Sir! You there, Sir. Sir Kingfisher. That’s my friend’s bundle you’ve landed upon. I’m afraid he mislaid it a few moments ago. Would you mind terribly helping him to retrieve it? He’ll be along in a moment. I’m sure he’d be jolly grateful!’
By the time Tohrwulf caught up to Wistan, he’d moved on further downstream again to a misty curve of river. The Aetheling was talking to a figure in clad in cloth of bright blue and red, who sat upon a flat rock protruding from the far bank, with a lyra in his lap. When Tohrwulf squished up to join the conversation the blue man asked him just how grateful he would be, what would he give, for aid in retrieving his bundle — now entirely lost from view.
Would Tohrwulf give his eyes? No.
Well then, his ears? No.
The blue man pouted and waspishly observed that the bundle didn’t seem to be so valuable to its former owner after all and certainly not worth his trouble if he was not to get a reward worthy of his time and effort. What would Tohrwulf offer of his own accord?
Tohrwulf bit his lip in thought for a few moments, then tentatively suggested a story, perhaps? Perhaps. An entertaining story the river lord might take in at least part payment, but he would be the judge of its worth.
‘It had better not be a tedious tale of some murderous, muddy brawl over cattle or women or the like,’ warned the man in blue.
Wistan swore he had a story that was none of these things. A story only recently praised by the noted skop, Fraomar the Far-Travelled, a story still fresh, concerning events at the close of Winterfell. He conceded that it might be said to involve livestock, two women and a battle, but a battle against the Hyrneta and though a somewhat sticky situation, very little mud at all.
‘A battle against wasps? Why should I take interest in your flailings against mere insects,’ the lyra bearer mocked.
‘Eotan hyrneta,’ added Wistan, and launched into his tale of a god’s test, travelling to the Eotan ‘Summer Country’ to stand in a battle to the death in the rivalry between two queens; a god enlarged as a result; and all personally attested as true personally by the Aetheling, as a participant himself.
The Kingfisher sneered at the skill of the telling and rebuffed Wistan’s attempted apology for his poor voice, but allowed that it was a better story than he had expected. It was almost worth a favour. So he proposed to retrieve the bundle, but at the price of one item from it. Or it could just sink to the bottom of the river, he implied.
Having little choice but to agree with this offer after Wistan had spent his story, Tohrwulf acquiesced. The little river lord assured him the bundle would be a little downstream and easy to find. A little downstream again, then and out of the mist, the bundle had lodged on a sandy spit at another curve of the river. Through still tied when Tohrwulf unbundled it, neither he, nor Wistan looking over his shoulder, found it in any way surprising the leaf broach was missing.
They rejoined Talorc and, with what remained for the day after the pursuit of the bobbing bundle and a lengthy tale telling, the three made their way back to Gefnhame. They were only passing the border stake as night fell so they took shelter in the keeper’s gear hut by the fish traps where a thread of this skein of tales started, when visited by a bear.
Sun’s Day
In the morning it was a short walk into Gefnhame to break fast and tell their tale. The shape-changing kingfisher is locally known as the Merleking, the Gefndene locals told the outlanders, who knew no tales of such a creature. Though the taxonomy and antecedents of such wights of the Geatlands absorbed the attention of the two West Geats for some hours, Talorc, understanding fewer of the words, lost interest and wandered off to find what Nothgyth was about and so unintentionally inhibit her from doing it.