“Cold,” shivered Freda. The ruddy-bronze of her hair was the only warmth in that whole world. “Outside your cloak it is cold.”
“Too cold for you to wander begging on the roads.”
“There are those who would take me in. We had many friends; and our land, now mine, I suppose, would make a—” her tongue grew unwilling “—a good dowry.”
“Why go forth to seek friends when you have them here? And as for land-see.”
They topped a hill, one of a ring about a dell. And down there Skafloc had made summer. Green were the trees beside a little dancing waterfall, and flowers nodded in sweet deep grass. Birds sang, fish leaped, a doe and fawn stood watching the humans with utter trust.
Freda clapped her hands and cried out. Skafloc smiled. “I made it for you,” he said, “because you are of summer and life and joy. Forget the winter’s death and hardness, Freda. Here we have our own year.”
They went down into the dell, casting off their cloak, and sat by the waterfall. Breezes ruffled their hair and berries clustered heavily around them. At Skafloc’s command, the daisies she plucked wove themselves into a chain which he hung around Freda’s neck.
She could not fear him or his arts. She lay back dreamily, eating an apple he had urged upon her-which had the taste of a noble wine, and seemed to do the same work—and listened to him:
Laughter from your lips, dear, lures me like a war-cry. Bronze-red locks have bound me: bonds more strong than iron.
Never have I nodded neck beneath a yoke, but I wish now the welcome warmth of your arms’ prison.
Life was made for laughter, love, and eager heartbeat. Could I but caress you, came I to my heaven. Sorceress, you see me seek your love with pleading: how can Skafloc help it when you have ensnared him?
“This is not meet—” she protested feebly, while smiles and sighs possessed her.
“Why, how can it but be meet? There is nothing else so right.”
“You are a heathen, and I—”
“I told you not to speak of such things. Now you must pay the gild.” And Skafloc kissed her, long and with all his skill, softly at first, wildly at last. She sought for a moment to fend him off, but she could not find the strength, for it only came back when she joined in the kiss. “Was that so bad?” he laughed.
“No—” she whispered.
“Your grief is fresh, I know. Yet grief will fade, and those who loved you would not have it otherwise.”
In truth, it had already gone. Tenderness remained, and a fleeting wistfulness: Could they but have met him!
“You must take thought for your morrow, Freda, and still more for the morrow of that blood which you alone now bear. I offer you the riches and wonders of Alfheim, aye, asking no dowry save your own dear self; and you and yours shall be warded with every strength that is mine; but first among my morning gifts to you will be my undying love.”
It could not be compelled, but since it would have come of itself, elven arts had hastened the thawing of sorrow and the springing forth of love; for its blossoming, no other sunshine was needed than youth.
The day ended and night came to the vale of summer.
They lay by the waterfall and heard a nightingale. Freda was first to sleep.
Lying there with her in the crook of his arm, an arm of hers across his breast, listening to the soft breathing, himself breathing in the odours of her hair and her humanness, feeling her warmth, remembering how with tears and laughter she had wholly come to him, he suddenly knew something.
He had laid a snare for her, mostly in sport. Such mortal mays as he had spied now and again in his Sittings about the land were seldom alone, and when they were, they had seemed to his elven mind too lumpish, in body and soul alike, to be worth his while. In Freda he found a human girl who could rouse lust in him, and he had wondered what it would be like to lie with her.
And the snare had caught him too.
He did not care. He lay drowsily back on the grass and smiled up at the Wain where it glittered in its endless wheeling around the North Star. The cool, cunning elf women had many powers; but, perhaps because they always kept their own hearts locked away, they had never drawn his out of him. Freda-Leea was right. Like called to like.
XII
Several days later, Skafloc went out alone to hunt. He travelled on wizard skis which bore him like the wind, up hill and down dale, over frozen rivers and through snow-choked woods, well into the Scottish highlands by sunset. He had turned homeward, a roe deer lashed over his shoulders, when he saw from afar the glimmer of a camp-fire. Wondering who or what was camped in these bleak ranges, he went whispering over the snow with his spear at the ready.
Coming close through twilight, he descried one of mighty stature who squatted on the snow and roasted horseflesh over the blaze. Despite a chill wind, he wore only a wolfskin kilt, and the axe beside him flashed with unearthly brightness.
Skafloc sensed a Power, and when he saw that the other had but a single hand, his spine crawled. It was not thought good to meet Tyr of the /Bsir alone at dusk.
But too late to flee. The god was already looking towards him. Skafloc skied boldly into the circle of firelight and met Tyr’s brooding dark eyes.
“Greeting, Skafloc,” said the As. His voice was as of a slow storm through a brazen sky. He kept on turning the spit over the fire.
“Greeting, lord.” Skafloc eased a little. The elves, without souls, worshipped no gods, but neither was there any ill will between them and the Rsii; indeed, some served in Asgard itself.
Tyr nodded curtly in sign for the man to unburden himself and hunker down. Stillness lasted for a long while, save for the low flames which sputtered and sang and wove highlights over Tyr’s gaunt grim face.
He spoke at last: “I smelled war. The trolls mean to fare against Alfheim.”
“So we have learned, lord,” answered Skafloc. “The elves are prepared.”
“The fight will be harder than you think. The trolls have allies this time,” Tyr gazed sombrely into the flames. “More is at stake than elves or trolls know. The Norns spin many a thread to its end these days.”
Again was silence, until Tyr said: “Aye, ravens hover , low, and the gods stoop over the world, which trembles to the hoofbeats of Time. This I tell you, Skafloc: you will have sore need of the Rsii’s naming-gift to you. The gods themselves are troubled. Therefore I, the war-wager, am on earth.”
A wind shook his black locks. His eyes smouldered into the man’s. “I will give you a warning,” he said, “though I fear it helps naught against the will of the Noras. Who was your father, Skafloc?”
“I know not, lord, nor have I cared. But I can ask Imric—”
“Do not so. What you must ask Imric is that he say naught to anyone of what he knows, least of all yourself. For the day you learn who your father was will be a dark one, Skafloc, and what conies on you from that knowledge will also wreak ill on the world.”
He jerked his head again, and Skafloc took a hasty departure, leaving the deer as a gift in return for the rede. But as he swept homeward with the noise of his passage loud in his ears, he wondered how good Tyr’s warning had been-for the question of who he really was rose stark in his mind, and the night seemed full of demons.
Faster he fled and faster, heedless of how the wind cut at him, yet could not outrun the thing saddled on his back. Only Freda, he thought, clutching for breath, only Freda could banish the fear from him.
Ere dawn the walls and towers of Elfheugh were in sight, high athwart heaven. An elf guard blew on a horn to signal the gatekeepers. Through the opened way whizzed Skafloc, into the courtyard and on to the castle steps. Kicking off his skis, he ran into the keep.
Imric, returned early that evening, had been talking in private with Leea. “What if Skafloc be taken with a mortal maid?” He shrugged. “ ’Tis his own business, and a small matter indeed. Are you jealous?”