Authors: Brian Bates
Around me thanes weaved about trying to obtain a clearer view, shouting encouragement and abuse as the two warriors materialized in the cleared space, each gripping a sword in his right hand and a light, brightly coloured round shield in his left. The two men circled each other warily, shield-bosses gleaming in the firelight, carefully placed feet scuffing through the floor-straw. One of them faced directly towards me. He was clearly younger than his opponent, with large eyes and short blond hair, his knuckles white on the sword-hilt. Suddenly he whipped his sword through the air at knee height and with a sense of revulsion I expected to see his opponent’s legs cut from under him. Incredibly the older man leapt high, his tucked legs clearing the swinging sword blade while the attacker, thrown off balance by his failure to connect, spun through the crowd and crashed into the wall. A dislodged tapestry flopped into a dusty heap by his side.
Shouts and jeers rang in my ears. My heart pounded like a hammer and my tongue was dry as leather.
The young warrior heaved himself away from the wall and back into battle. His older opponent made no move to attack but stood still, peering through slitted eyes, his jaw clamped with concentration and his breath sucking deeply and noisily through his nose. His lean, lined face betrayed no emotion as he deftly altered his leather shield-grip so that it was strapped around his left forearm and clasped his sword in both hands, twirling it softly in front of him. Swiftly he stepped forward and swung sideways at his opponent’s body, then at the last moment changed the direction of his blow; the blade arced upward towards the dark rafters and swept down hard. The younger fighter anticipated this and the powerful blow cut deeply into his raised wooden shield. The big swordsman wrenched his weapon free, showering shield splinters into the fire.
I swallowed hard, trying to control the feeling of nausea that had gripped my stomach, and stared unblinking as they circled again, their breath rasping and hissing. The smaller man struck once more; whirled his sword above his head and swung it down, swivelled his wrists and sliced the blade directly at his opponent’s neck. The older thane met the blow with his shield and the sword carved into it and locked. Frantically the young warrior tried to jerk his sword free; I caught a glimpse of his eyes, wide and panic-stricken like those of a trapped rabbit. In that instant the big man’s sword again arced overhead and hurtled downward. The smaller warrior crouched under his useless sword and moved close to his opponent, inside the swing of the sword-blade, but the heavy hand-guard of the weapon cracked against the side of his head and he swerved across the room in a blind stagger, hit his head against a wall timber with a sickening thud and fell into a soft, crumpled heap. His head spilled crimson on the floor-straw.
With a tremendous roar the thanes surged around the victor, hoisted him to their shoulders and carried him around the hall. I stood alone on the table, with a clear view of the fallen man; he lay absolutely still, skull gleaming whitely through blood-soaked flesh, body twisted unnaturally, eyes staring blankly. My knees trembled and I felt sick. Slowly I climbed from the table, walked unsteadily across the hall to collect my cloak and made my way to the door. The guards had left their posts to join the others in toasting the health of the victor and I stood alone, unnoticed, an outsider in the shadows. I pushed hard against the heavy door; it groaned ajar and I slipped out into the cool night air. A fresh breeze cleared my head and I breathed the sweet scent of a summer night as I hurried through the deserted compound, still dazed and shocked; I had seen people die of age and sickness, but never had I witnessed a life snatched away in a drunken brawl.
Reaching the porch of the guest-house, I turned back to look at the hall, shrouded in darkness. The sounds of celebration drifted faintly from the building and I could hear the stamping and snorting of tethered horses, nervous in unfamiliar stables. Suddenly my eye caught movement on the roof of the hall. I scanned the roof-line and eaves, barely discernible against the dark night sky. Then I saw something that caught my breath: two ravens were perched on the roof near the smoke-hole, their black silhouettes motionless. I remembered Wulf’s horrific prediction and with a shudder I turned quickly, entered the house and slammed the door shut behind me.
A low fire glowed in the fire-pit. I stared through the gloom; Wulf’s bed was empty. I sat on my bed, leaned forward and warmed my hands in front of the fire. I was not cold, but my legs still trembled with fear and the warmth of the fire was comforting. At first I was obsessed by the image of the ravens but eventually, as time passed, I was able to dismiss their appearance as a coincidence. There were many ravens in the forest and two on the roof of the hall were no more significant than the pair we had seen at the river.
I stretched out on my mattress. I was not sleepy, but my head reeled with wine-glow. I suddenly felt very depressed and frightened and hopelessly inadequate for the Mission with which I had been entrusted; the events in the hall had shaken me badly and I just did not know how many more such experiences I could stomach.
Suddenly the door latch clacked open, the low fire jumped and swirled in the sudden draught and Wulf stepped into the room. He closed the door, squatted in front of the fire and stirred the embers; in the light of the awakening flames I could see him regarding me intently.
‘Why did you do that?’ I hissed, sitting up and swinging my feet to the floor. ‘Why did you leave me to witness such barbarity? A man was killed over there.’
Wulf sat on his bed and looked at me steadily.
‘I thought you wished to learn about our ways,’ he said, his voice almost a whisper.
‘Your gods and customs, not your brawls,’ I protested angrily.
‘I am sorry if it upset you,’ he said gently, ‘but such things happen.’
‘You make the process of killing sound natural!’ I retorted. ‘How can the smashed skull of a warrior be dismissed so lightly?’
‘Surely warriors wield swords in your homeland, Brand?’
‘When men come to God there will be no more killing,’ I said, trembling with anger.
Wulf snorted in derision. ‘The warrior kings will use your god as an addition to their sword power. He will become another justification for their military exploits. Warriors are people who choose to live by the sword; they wager their lives against the odds of losing it, in exchange for the golden gifts of a warlord. They are ruled by the destiny of death.’
He leaned across the fire-pit towards me, his expression softening.
‘I am not condoning that kind of violence,’ he said softly, ‘but you fail to understand. What I want to tell you is that death stalks us constantly and eventually will claim us all. The one thing we can be sure of is that we are bound to die. Life and death are the summer and winter of Middle-Earth. One is not possible without the other, for a perpetual summer would burn up Middle-Earth like a funeral pyre; a perpetual winter would return it to the grip of the Frost Giants.’
I was too upset by the grisly murder to listen meekly to Wulf’s heathen homilies. ‘Our death is in the hands of the Lord,’ I protested resolutely. ‘Our life on this Earth is but a preparation for the call of the Lord.’
Wulf shook his head slowly. ‘The secrets of life and death are different for the sorcerer. The patterns of wyrd far exceed the tiny horizons of the ordinary person, for he is capable of seeing only short spans of time. Your eyes break up the course of life into tiny segments and label them as separate entities. The eyes of a sorcerer do not have this false focus. Life is composed of waterfalls, rapids, eddies and whirlpools, but they are all part of the same watercourse. For me, life and death flow together as aspects of one river. For you, life is like a series of unconnected rain puddles and death comes when the sun dries them all up.’
He was wrong, of course, for he knew nothing of our belief in the Heavenly Kingdom. But he was neatly sidestepping the important issues with shields of images.
‘But Wulf, what has your view of life and death to do with a warrior being hacked to pieces? Surely he had many more winters and summers to live?’
Wulf shrugged again, as if there were no issue to answer.
‘Both warriors who fought in the hall had probably accepted the inevitability of death before they even stripped for combat. The finest warriors use death as a resource, for they must live with their wits all the time, whereas for most people life is based on the assumption that they will live to an old age. With the illusion of time to spare, their lives lack urgency, intensity. A life of fantasy takes over like a fungus. Thoughts become clouded with images of future events and the actions and emotions of the moment are postponed indefinitely. The warrior must accept, deep within his heart, that one day he will be dead and that day could be today. The greatest fighters live as an arrow, not a target. The arrow speeds through space cleanly, swiftly, directly; alive and moving, it has direction and an end point, but in between it soars. The target merely stays still, waiting for something to happen.’
Wulf stopped talking just long enough to ensure that I was still listening.
‘For the sorcerer, also, death is a resource, for living with wyrd takes us to the limit. Your life, in which avoidance of death is paramount, means that you live constantly within your capabilities, for to push to the limits is to risk death. But the sorcerer has to accept his own death, because when he approaches the spirits he is like a moth heading for fire-flames.’
I laughed nervously. Talk of death always made me feel uneasy, even physically weak. But Wulf’s views were so alien, dark and disturbing that I did not wish to deal with them. I reached for the comfort of my faith:
‘I am listening to all you are saying, Wulf, but it is impossible for me to understand because my faith is so very different. We believe that when God’s hand is laid upon us, then He is calling us to follow Him into the Heavenly Kingdom. The body and soul part and the soul enters Heaven as spirit. But it is not for us to determine when and how this blessed event should take place.’
Wulf smiled suddenly, quickly and nodded in agreement.
‘We too believe in the presence of soul and its disappearance at death.’
For a moment I was stunned—Eappa had not prepared me for this.
‘How is that so, Wulf? I thought you denied the existence of the soul?’
‘You have been ill informed,’ he said, chuckling cheerfully. ‘Within each person, three forces surge like three streams converging on a whirlpool. These forces are the life-force, soul and shield-skin. Life-force I have told you about. The soul is the essence of wyrd, present in everything, It is the very being of which we are formed. The soul is what gives form, direction and pattern to all things, for it forms a shield-skin around the life-force, enveloping vitality in a recognizable shape. The form of the shield-skin defines the kind of creature we are. The shield must be continually maintained with each succeeding breath, for if it is not then life-force would burst from it like molten metal, shapeless, uncontrollably leaking back into the earth. The soul is the essence and at the moment of death, when the shield-skin ceases and life-force returns to the Mother Earth, the soul leaves the body and leads an existence separate from it.’
My mind whirled, trying to grasp these concepts together. I was particularly fascinated by his view of the soul, for there Eappa’s interest would be most surely gripped.
Wulf leaned back on one elbow, thoughtfully staring into the fire.
‘Whatever has no soul, does not exist in Middle-Earth, for without a soul there can be no concentration of life-force and no shield-skin to envelop it. That is why everything you can see in Middle-Earth has soul.’
I nodded knowingly; I now remembered that Eappa had taught me that the pagans ascribed spiritual power to every manner of creature. But this mistake was as nothing compared with the monstrous error of claiming that soul was present in everything. Only man has soul, for only man is divinely blessed and created in Gods image.
‘How can you believe that soul is present in everything, Wulf?’ I said gently, afraid that criticism might discourage his talkative mood.
Wulf sat up and spread his hands, palms upwards, in a gesture of futility as if being asked to explain the obvious.
‘It is apparent that the soul is present in everything observable in Middle-Earth, for the soul continually breathes out the shield-skin which strikes your eye. Without it, the object would be invisible and therefore have no soul.’
Smiling to myself, I leaned forward and pointed to one of the large rocks which formed a fender encircling the fire-pit.
‘Rocks do not breathe, Wulf. Surely then, they cannot have soul?’
Wulf watched me steadily, through narrowed eyes. ‘Rocks breathe,’ he said evenly. ‘But each breath lasts longer than life and death for a man. Hills and mountains breathe, but each breath lasts a thousand human lifetimes.’
There was no possible reply to this assertion and I leaned back in satisfaction. The terrible event in the mead-hall was at least yielding invaluable information. As before, I was impressed by Wulf’s sincerity and conviction but abhorred the comprehensive errors of his beliefs. Chuckling to myself, I pictured Eappa’s incredulous expression when I told him that pagan rocks have souls.
Suddenly Wulf threw back his head and bayed with laughter so raucous that I practically jumped from my bed with alarm. He doubled up, cackling and hooting, and I soon began to feel angry for I had no idea what he was laughing at.
‘You do not, do not...’ he gurgled, waving a hand helplessly towards me. ‘You do not believe a word of this, do you?’
I smiled back coldly. I could not see the humour.
The fire leaped and spluttered as another piece of wood collapsed into the flames. Wulf’s laughter subsided as quickly as it had arisen.
‘All right,’ he said, nodding to himself. ‘All right! I shall tell you can believe.’
He fixed me with a look that chilled me to the core, his eyes clouding over strangely so that his pupils seemed enormous. Then he spoke: