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CHAPTER XIII

Will thought there were better ways to spend the night before embarkation than working up a hangover, but that was the Danes' way. "It is a custom more honored in the breach than the observance," he thought. People took that line the wrong way, he remembered. How did they take it wrong? He couldn't recall.

There had been a general search for the dead man, whose name had been Halgeir, and Feng and his men had questioned Will particularly. "He swam away down the brook," Will had told them. Not exactly what Saxo recorded, but close enough. Will wondered idly if he was capable of withholding the lines Saxo fed him. As an academic, he felt something like a compulsion to give the right answer when he knew it, and as an actor he hated to miss a cue.

He got up from the bench and left the feast to use the privy. Men looked away from him as he passed. No one smiled. Ever since Halgeir's death, suspicion had hung over him, aggravated by the taboo of his madness. All but Guttorm, Katla and his mother gave him wide berth.

He shivered as he left the hall. Accustomed as he was growing to living in the past, Will had trouble with the nights. It was truly dark in the Dark Ages—dark as he had never known it in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries. The stars were holes burned by cigarettes in a velvet curtain draped before an ammonia fire.

He had feared the dark in his old life. In this one it was worsening with each night. The darkness teemed with watching eyes and coiled power. He had a creeping sensation of being at the bottom of the food chain, like a rabbit or a mouse.

He remembered the elf woman speaking of "the christening" as an event that had restrained and restricted her kind. He'd studied enough history to consider Christianity a historical disaster—the beginning of an era of repression and violence that had destroyed everything beautiful and gentle in European culture.

But the people who wrote the history books had never stood in one of these unchristened nights and faced the things that lived in it.

He was used to a friendly universe, one where he could imagine that the only spirits around were angelic ones—perhaps motherly black women or lovely Irish girls. But that was a universe after the christening. Students of history wouldn't believe it, but anyone who passed, as he had, from one age to the other would understand.

He thought of pagan images he had seen—not the humanistic sculptures of later Greeks, but the works of real pagans—bulging eyes and gaping mouths and brazen Canaanite molochs with outstretched hands meant to be heated red so the babies could be laid on them.

He shuddered from head to foot. He was a murderer. He had blood on his hands. He felt it like Lady MacBeth. Anyone with eyes to see, he was sure, would know him for a manslayer—one who had killed coldly and with a certain pleasure. That made him different from the Will Sverdrup of the twenty-first century. If he ever returned to his own time and place, he wouldn't be the man he had been. And the spirits there, he was sure, would see his guilt as easily.

He slid a silver ring off his arm, one he had found in Amlodd's personal chest. He threw it deep into the trees, calling out, "Take this! Leave me alone!"

He did his business in the privy. On his way back he was stopped by two men named Hrolf and Gudbrand. They were the standard Abbot and Costello pair, only blond and not funny. Hrolf was Abbot and Gudbrand was Costello.

"We're for England in the morning," said Hrolf.

"So it would appear," said Will.

"A grand adventure."

"Let's hope so."

"A pity Halgeir couldn't be with us," said Gudbrand.

"Perhaps he'll show up."

"What do you think became of him?" asked Hrolf.

"Down the drain," said Will.

"How would a big man like Halgeir go down a drain?"

"Very carefully."

Hrolf stepped forward, hand on sword hilt. "Are you jesting about Halgeir?" he asked through clenched teeth. "Halgeir was our friend. What are you saying about him?"

"Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progess through the guts of a . . . porker."

"We do not like your jests," said Gudbrand. "And we do not like you."

"Then take your leave of me. 'You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal.' "

"Would that we could. But we are bound together, we three, for the voyage."

"How so?"

"The jarl has set us as your keepers, to see you come to no harm."

" 'Such officers do the king best service in the end. He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw, first mouthed, to be last swallowed. When he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you and, sponge, you shall be dry again.' "

"Say what you will, madman, we'll do our duty by you and the jarl. Get used to our faces." They sauntered off with the bravado of fear.

"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern," said a thin voice in English.

"Just what I was thinking," said Will, before he thought to wonder who spoke. He turned to see a silvery-blue light shining in a man's shape among the trees. The light coalesced rapidly into a recognizable form—a man in a clerical collar and black suit. He recognized the apparition he'd seen in the theater just before he fell through the trapdoor. It did not look as frightening now, but its eyes were still red.

"You're the ghost from the theater," said Will. As in the movies, the ghost was somewhat transparent, but Will had a feeling he was no less transparent to the ghost.

"Say the rest," said the ghost.

"What?"

"Say, 'the hypocrite, the child abuser, the suicide. The man who brought God's ministry into disrepute.' "

"It's no concern of mine."

"You're a careful man. If you'd accused me, I'd have thrown your murder in your face."

"Murder. I can't believe I've murdered a man."

"When in Rome. Killing doesn't shock these people."

"No, but hiding it does. Amlodd would have announced the manslaying from the housetops, paid a few pounds to the family, and come out with respect."

"As I said, when in Rome. You've killed your first. You must do it again to survive. You know that, don't you?"

Will sat on a tree stump. "I don't think I can."

"You're very young, aren't you? When you're older you'll realize that we do what we need to do in life. Things that would have appalled us at first become possible when we must do them, and easy when we've done them enough."

"This is what I have to look forward to? To becoming you? Will I kill myself as well?"

"Let's not compare sins, shall we? I never killed anyone. Except myself."

Will rose and turned away. "I do not like this conversation," he said.

"Stay," said the ghost. "I've come far to speak with you. I've traveled the way between the worlds."

"So have I. We both came down the same rabbit hole."

"Not quite. I was in Hamlet's world with the rest of your troupe."

"Hamlet's world?"

The ghost explained what had happened to the other actors.

"I can't believe it," said Will.

"I should have been Hamlet's father," said the ghost, "but the monster boy pushed me from my place. I didn't know what I'd do, but the raven showed me the way here."

The one-eyed raven Will had met before flew down from somewhere and lit on the ghost's shoulder. How does a bird sit on a spirit?

"And what do you mean to do here?" Will asked.

"I shall be the ghost here. I shall show you the way."

"I'm not sure Hamlet's father's ghost wasn't a demon. Come to think of it, I'm not sure you aren't either."

"Of course I'm a demon. We're all demons—me, this bird, and you. You're possessing someone else's body—what do you think that makes you?"

"My friend Peter Nilsson says all dead souls go to Heaven or Hell. He said ghosts are just demons, impersonating the dead."

"He's generally right. But people who die in despair, especially suicides, sometimes remain awhile in the place where they died. That was my case, until I was pulled down the trapdoor with the rest of you."

"Neither Heaven nor Hell?"

"No, it's Hell. Hell is a state of being more than a place. Wherever I am, there is Hell for me."

"All right. What would your gracious figure? What's your plan?"

"The raven will teach you how to carve runes, so that you can do what needs to be done with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Then, when you've gotten Amlodd's revenge, I'll show you the way to Hamlet's world. Once there, you can meet your old body in the flesh, and your souls will naturally return where they belong."

"Why not show me the way back now, and save a lot of trouble? You can bring the real Amlodd back here, and let him do the business."

"Because I'm nothing to him, and can teach him nothing he needs to know. I want to play my part.

"Like all men in Hell, I am a failure—more than most. I failed in my duty to God, I failed as a man. This is my last chance to matter in the world. In this place I can be Hamlet's father, a great figure in history."

"Will that make Hell easier for you?"

"Nothing makes Hell easier. But it's a matter of pride. If I'm damned, I'd rather be damned for pride than for my other sins."

"You swear you know the way between the worlds?"

"The oath of a damned soul means nothing. But I tell you it is so."

"I'm not sure I can do what I need to do next. To kill a man in self-defense is one thing. To kill with premeditation—that's something else."

"The death of those men is no less self-defense than that other. They're in league with the jarl to kill you by premeditation of their own."

"Hamlet wasn't sure whether his father's ghost was a damned spirit. I have no doubt of it, yet I'm going along with you."

"Good," said the ghost. "Raven!"

The bird took wing and flew onto Will's shoulder. "Learn the riddle of the runes . . ." it began.

An hour later Will headed back into the steading. He met Gerda walking in the yard.

"Amlodd!" she said. "I was looking for you."

"Now, mother, what's the matter?"

"I'd speak with you. You sail on the morning tide. You've always bid me farewell alone the night before embarkation, and I've always made you a gift. I have a new shirt and trousers for you, and a new shield." She motioned and a thrall girl came forward with the clothing, while a thrall boy came with the shield—flat and circular, painted red and decorated with bronze plates in the shapes of ravens. The thralls set the gifts on the ground, and Gerda sent them away.

Will embraced Gerda and kissed her. "I wish I could stay with you always," he whispered.

"Silly boy. If you stayed by your mother all the time you'd never do great deeds to make her proud."

"Would you really rather have me risking my life in England than staying by you?"

"Of course."

"Suppose I should die?"

"Do not die. We have our vengeance to finish."

"What if we forgot about vengeance? What if we forgot the past and simply tried to be happy?"

"Happy? Unavenged? Honorless? You frighten me, Amlodd. You talk like a madman indeed."

"Then why not do it tonight? Burn them in the hall as we planned?"

"Because they are watching you. They do not trust you yet. Time is the thing. In time they will grow easy with you, and then we shall eat our vengeance cold."

Will sighed. "All right, Mother, forget I said it. I shall make you proud in England and get your revenge for you when I return."

"Only do not feel too much at home in England."

"Why should I?"

"Have you forgotten all? Your father's mother was a British princess. She loved you much. Surely you remember her."

"I've forgotten much indeed. But I shall not forget you, though I sail to the house of the west where the sun sleeps."

They embraced again. Looking over her shoulder, Will saw Katla standing nearby.

"Katla," he said when he'd released Gerda. "Will you do me a favor?"

"Surely," said the girl.

"I think you're in no danger. Saxo said nothing about you dying."

"Who is Saxo?"

"A man not yet born. Will you promise me this? Stay away from rivers and streams."

"If you wish it."

"Good." He gave her a quick kiss and went to his house to sleep alone.

Back | Next
Contents
Framed

Back | Next
Contents

CHAPTER XIII

Will thought there were better ways to spend the night before embarkation than working up a hangover, but that was the Danes' way. "It is a custom more honored in the breach than the observance," he thought. People took that line the wrong way, he remembered. How did they take it wrong? He couldn't recall.

There had been a general search for the dead man, whose name had been Halgeir, and Feng and his men had questioned Will particularly. "He swam away down the brook," Will had told them. Not exactly what Saxo recorded, but close enough. Will wondered idly if he was capable of withholding the lines Saxo fed him. As an academic, he felt something like a compulsion to give the right answer when he knew it, and as an actor he hated to miss a cue.

He got up from the bench and left the feast to use the privy. Men looked away from him as he passed. No one smiled. Ever since Halgeir's death, suspicion had hung over him, aggravated by the taboo of his madness. All but Guttorm, Katla and his mother gave him wide berth.

He shivered as he left the hall. Accustomed as he was growing to living in the past, Will had trouble with the nights. It was truly dark in the Dark Ages—dark as he had never known it in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries. The stars were holes burned by cigarettes in a velvet curtain draped before an ammonia fire.

He had feared the dark in his old life. In this one it was worsening with each night. The darkness teemed with watching eyes and coiled power. He had a creeping sensation of being at the bottom of the food chain, like a rabbit or a mouse.

He remembered the elf woman speaking of "the christening" as an event that had restrained and restricted her kind. He'd studied enough history to consider Christianity a historical disaster—the beginning of an era of repression and violence that had destroyed everything beautiful and gentle in European culture.

But the people who wrote the history books had never stood in one of these unchristened nights and faced the things that lived in it.

He was used to a friendly universe, one where he could imagine that the only spirits around were angelic ones—perhaps motherly black women or lovely Irish girls. But that was a universe after the christening. Students of history wouldn't believe it, but anyone who passed, as he had, from one age to the other would understand.

He thought of pagan images he had seen—not the humanistic sculptures of later Greeks, but the works of real pagans—bulging eyes and gaping mouths and brazen Canaanite molochs with outstretched hands meant to be heated red so the babies could be laid on them.

He shuddered from head to foot. He was a murderer. He had blood on his hands. He felt it like Lady MacBeth. Anyone with eyes to see, he was sure, would know him for a manslayer—one who had killed coldly and with a certain pleasure. That made him different from the Will Sverdrup of the twenty-first century. If he ever returned to his own time and place, he wouldn't be the man he had been. And the spirits there, he was sure, would see his guilt as easily.

He slid a silver ring off his arm, one he had found in Amlodd's personal chest. He threw it deep into the trees, calling out, "Take this! Leave me alone!"

He did his business in the privy. On his way back he was stopped by two men named Hrolf and Gudbrand. They were the standard Abbot and Costello pair, only blond and not funny. Hrolf was Abbot and Gudbrand was Costello.

"We're for England in the morning," said Hrolf.

"So it would appear," said Will.

"A grand adventure."

"Let's hope so."

"A pity Halgeir couldn't be with us," said Gudbrand.

"Perhaps he'll show up."

"What do you think became of him?" asked Hrolf.

"Down the drain," said Will.

"How would a big man like Halgeir go down a drain?"

"Very carefully."

Hrolf stepped forward, hand on sword hilt. "Are you jesting about Halgeir?" he asked through clenched teeth. "Halgeir was our friend. What are you saying about him?"

"Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progess through the guts of a . . . porker."

"We do not like your jests," said Gudbrand. "And we do not like you."

"Then take your leave of me. 'You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal.' "

"Would that we could. But we are bound together, we three, for the voyage."

"How so?"

"The jarl has set us as your keepers, to see you come to no harm."

" 'Such officers do the king best service in the end. He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw, first mouthed, to be last swallowed. When he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you and, sponge, you shall be dry again.' "

"Say what you will, madman, we'll do our duty by you and the jarl. Get used to our faces." They sauntered off with the bravado of fear.

"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern," said a thin voice in English.

"Just what I was thinking," said Will, before he thought to wonder who spoke. He turned to see a silvery-blue light shining in a man's shape among the trees. The light coalesced rapidly into a recognizable form—a man in a clerical collar and black suit. He recognized the apparition he'd seen in the theater just before he fell through the trapdoor. It did not look as frightening now, but its eyes were still red.

"You're the ghost from the theater," said Will. As in the movies, the ghost was somewhat transparent, but Will had a feeling he was no less transparent to the ghost.

"Say the rest," said the ghost.

"What?"

"Say, 'the hypocrite, the child abuser, the suicide. The man who brought God's ministry into disrepute.' "

"It's no concern of mine."

"You're a careful man. If you'd accused me, I'd have thrown your murder in your face."

"Murder. I can't believe I've murdered a man."

"When in Rome. Killing doesn't shock these people."

"No, but hiding it does. Amlodd would have announced the manslaying from the housetops, paid a few pounds to the family, and come out with respect."

"As I said, when in Rome. You've killed your first. You must do it again to survive. You know that, don't you?"

Will sat on a tree stump. "I don't think I can."

"You're very young, aren't you? When you're older you'll realize that we do what we need to do in life. Things that would have appalled us at first become possible when we must do them, and easy when we've done them enough."

"This is what I have to look forward to? To becoming you? Will I kill myself as well?"

"Let's not compare sins, shall we? I never killed anyone. Except myself."

Will rose and turned away. "I do not like this conversation," he said.

"Stay," said the ghost. "I've come far to speak with you. I've traveled the way between the worlds."

"So have I. We both came down the same rabbit hole."

"Not quite. I was in Hamlet's world with the rest of your troupe."

"Hamlet's world?"

The ghost explained what had happened to the other actors.

"I can't believe it," said Will.

"I should have been Hamlet's father," said the ghost, "but the monster boy pushed me from my place. I didn't know what I'd do, but the raven showed me the way here."

The one-eyed raven Will had met before flew down from somewhere and lit on the ghost's shoulder. How does a bird sit on a spirit?

"And what do you mean to do here?" Will asked.

"I shall be the ghost here. I shall show you the way."

"I'm not sure Hamlet's father's ghost wasn't a demon. Come to think of it, I'm not sure you aren't either."

"Of course I'm a demon. We're all demons—me, this bird, and you. You're possessing someone else's body—what do you think that makes you?"

"My friend Peter Nilsson says all dead souls go to Heaven or Hell. He said ghosts are just demons, impersonating the dead."

"He's generally right. But people who die in despair, especially suicides, sometimes remain awhile in the place where they died. That was my case, until I was pulled down the trapdoor with the rest of you."

"Neither Heaven nor Hell?"

"No, it's Hell. Hell is a state of being more than a place. Wherever I am, there is Hell for me."

"All right. What would your gracious figure? What's your plan?"

"The raven will teach you how to carve runes, so that you can do what needs to be done with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Then, when you've gotten Amlodd's revenge, I'll show you the way to Hamlet's world. Once there, you can meet your old body in the flesh, and your souls will naturally return where they belong."

"Why not show me the way back now, and save a lot of trouble? You can bring the real Amlodd back here, and let him do the business."

"Because I'm nothing to him, and can teach him nothing he needs to know. I want to play my part.

"Like all men in Hell, I am a failure—more than most. I failed in my duty to God, I failed as a man. This is my last chance to matter in the world. In this place I can be Hamlet's father, a great figure in history."

"Will that make Hell easier for you?"

"Nothing makes Hell easier. But it's a matter of pride. If I'm damned, I'd rather be damned for pride than for my other sins."

"You swear you know the way between the worlds?"

"The oath of a damned soul means nothing. But I tell you it is so."

"I'm not sure I can do what I need to do next. To kill a man in self-defense is one thing. To kill with premeditation—that's something else."

"The death of those men is no less self-defense than that other. They're in league with the jarl to kill you by premeditation of their own."

"Hamlet wasn't sure whether his father's ghost was a damned spirit. I have no doubt of it, yet I'm going along with you."

"Good," said the ghost. "Raven!"

The bird took wing and flew onto Will's shoulder. "Learn the riddle of the runes . . ." it began.

An hour later Will headed back into the steading. He met Gerda walking in the yard.

"Amlodd!" she said. "I was looking for you."

"Now, mother, what's the matter?"

"I'd speak with you. You sail on the morning tide. You've always bid me farewell alone the night before embarkation, and I've always made you a gift. I have a new shirt and trousers for you, and a new shield." She motioned and a thrall girl came forward with the clothing, while a thrall boy came with the shield—flat and circular, painted red and decorated with bronze plates in the shapes of ravens. The thralls set the gifts on the ground, and Gerda sent them away.

Will embraced Gerda and kissed her. "I wish I could stay with you always," he whispered.

"Silly boy. If you stayed by your mother all the time you'd never do great deeds to make her proud."

"Would you really rather have me risking my life in England than staying by you?"

"Of course."

"Suppose I should die?"

"Do not die. We have our vengeance to finish."

"What if we forgot about vengeance? What if we forgot the past and simply tried to be happy?"

"Happy? Unavenged? Honorless? You frighten me, Amlodd. You talk like a madman indeed."

"Then why not do it tonight? Burn them in the hall as we planned?"

"Because they are watching you. They do not trust you yet. Time is the thing. In time they will grow easy with you, and then we shall eat our vengeance cold."

Will sighed. "All right, Mother, forget I said it. I shall make you proud in England and get your revenge for you when I return."

"Only do not feel too much at home in England."

"Why should I?"

"Have you forgotten all? Your father's mother was a British princess. She loved you much. Surely you remember her."

"I've forgotten much indeed. But I shall not forget you, though I sail to the house of the west where the sun sleeps."

They embraced again. Looking over her shoulder, Will saw Katla standing nearby.

"Katla," he said when he'd released Gerda. "Will you do me a favor?"

"Surely," said the girl.

"I think you're in no danger. Saxo said nothing about you dying."

"Who is Saxo?"

"A man not yet born. Will you promise me this? Stay away from rivers and streams."

"If you wish it."

"Good." He gave her a quick kiss and went to his house to sleep alone.

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Contents
Framed