LIV
The story will now dwell upon Essero. He had been summoned to an assembly of his father’s stewards—of whom he was the chiefest—to determine the way forward now that the king’s war in the north seemed to be settled. While he was there, it happened that he went one morning to the cemetery to visit his dear brother, beneath his burial mound. Mounted atop it sat dragon-Bleygo’s skull, picked, polished, and painted with patterns of yellow and green.
‘Awldano,’ said Essero, ‘I was ever the hardier of us two, but while you lie at peace, I remain utterly shaken, my brother dead, my oath unfulfilled. What glory is to be found in life when fairer men lie dead?’
Then he fell to his knees and wept.
Only a little while later, a woman named Lasbela appeared. She was one of Essero’s junior thanes, and she told him he must make haste back to Pearmol.
‘Your father calls for you,’ she said. ‘The king has come!’
Essero rushed back to Pearmol at once, and there he found the king, thin and weary, sitting opposite Karvalo in the small fire room.
‘Sit,’ said Karvalo. ‘There is much to discuss.’
Essero sat down and said, ‘Say, what brings the king here? And alone?’
The king turned her eyes to the fire and said, ‘They are all dead.’
Karvalo shushed her. ‘It would now seem that the king’s war is, in fact, far from settled. She has told me of an attack at Bealnew, and one which she alone survived.’ Karvalo paused to gauge the king’s reaction, but she offered none, only a blank stare fixed upon the flames. ‘Her flight brought her here, but her hunters have followed her south of Fegennas and into my domain. I will not tolerate these upstart northerners bringing war into my land. They must be met.’
The king said, ‘They already have been.’
‘Say more,’ said Essero.
The king lifted her head. ‘One man stands against them—Thalo Thennelo. He brought me here, or most of the way, but he stopped at Oydnawl to delay them. I daresay he is already dead, and dead on my account.’
Karvalo could not help but grin as he said, ‘How fateful it would be.’
But Essero stood up, his hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘Say nothing more. Say nothing more! Wait for me, my oath-brother!’
Then he swept out of the room, calling up his thanes as he went, and they each answered. They picked up their weapons, donned only what armour they had within reach, and ran to their horses to ride behind their horn-helmed lord, shimmering in his battle dress.
‘Oy-oy!’ he said. ‘Oy-oy and out!’
So Essero led his troop away. They came to Oydnawl soon enough, crested the ridge at the top of the valley, and there they spotted Thrandeo’s thanes all huddled together, arguing about what they ought to do. Nearby, two bodies were slung over the backs of two horses. They were Thrandeo and Osfero. Then Essero saw a third body lying dead in the river, and that was Thalo.
‘So it is true,’ he said. ‘Of threefold avengers, one alone yet lives.’ His countenance turned grim, and he firmed his spear in his fist. ‘I will uphold my oath. I must!’
Then he raised his spear aloft, and with an almighty roar, he led his troop thundering down the slope.
‘With me!’ he said. ‘With me! Let each one die!’
Thrandeo’s companions saw then their deaths speeding towards them. The boldest among them seized their weapons to fight, but most turned at once for their horses. That proved to be futile, however, for their steeds had been all the quicker to flee, so great was the deadly fervour within Essero’s breast, so dread his roar. Only a fortunate few had been close enough to leap into a saddle and take flight before the horses bolted. The rest were slain as Essero came crashing against them, laying into them with soaring spear and twirling sword, his heart as hot as the midday sun, his blood burning beneath his skin. That man of fire! That man of flame!
When the battle was done and his fellows had begun plundering their foes, Essero rode his horse along the river, whooping for the victory. It was reckoned that only four of Thrandeo’s thanes escaped, while Essero’s side suffered nary a wounding, and no deaths at all.
‘That is,’ said Essero, ‘but one.’
He halted his horse near Thalo’s body, waded into the river, and pulled him out of the water, laying him in the grass on the bank.
‘Consider yourself avenged,’ he said, and he kissed Thalo’s forehead. ‘My oath is fulfilled, but alas that it should be so.’
It then happened, as Essero arose and stepped away, that Ondayo emerged, Thalo’s oldest companion. Though he had been shooed away, he dared not stray far from his beloved friend. He nosed gently at Thalo’s face, but he did not stir. He nudged him again, and again, and then he whinnied.
Essero bowed his head and said, ‘Noble steed, how my heart aches for you. I would offer you what comfort I could, but I fear that if you could understand my words, they would nonetheless fall utterly short. Come, there is nothing to be done but to make away. Let us be off.’
Then Essero slung Thalo’s body over Ondayo’s back, and they returned to Pearmol.
Upon his return, Essero went straight into the hall, Thalo’s body in his arms, and told Karvalo what had happened at Oydnawl. He spoke of the scene he had found there, of the slaughter of his foes, and of the booty he had taken from them, but Karvalo heard every word with a mind unmoving.
‘Essero,’ he said, ‘you have proven your worth in war, but your honour may yet be squandered. In your hands you hold the body of a murderer, an outlaw. Why have you brought it into my house?’
Essero said, ‘For burial, of course. It would not be fitting to put his grave anywhere but beside Awldano’s.’
‘No. I will not allow his wretched corpse to sully the graves of my friends and ancestors, your kinsfolk.’
‘Then tell me, what of Awldano? Does he not deserve to lie beside the man he loved?’
Karvalo scoffed. ‘I will not be governed by the desires of the dead, and least of all those whose desires killed them.’
Essero scoffed in turn as he said, ‘And yet you would be governed by the pettiest of your grievances, grievances which would lead you to dishonour your son, and likewise yourself. That is not the father I knew. Whatever has become of him?’
Karvalo did much not appreciate that sort of talk. He arose, and without a word he came down from the platform and stood face-to-face with Essero, his son, his only equal in stature and pride alike. He put his hand on his cheek, and in a low, solemn voice he said, ‘So be it. Honour the undeserving if you wish, but I will have no part in it. This will, in time, be your house to hold, so let it be your burden to bear when it crumbles, rotted from the ground up by the taint in the earth, when your crops wither and die, and famine prevails. Let it be your burden when Pearmol falls, and our line is brought to ruin.’
Then Karvalo stepped away and left the room.
Essero thought little of Karvalo’s warning, an old man with an old grudge. He sent a gang of men off to the cemetery to build a pyre, and then he found a spot to lay Thalo’s body and asked Ormana if she wished to prepare it.
‘Ormana,’ he said, ‘I think it would be most fitting for you to do this.’
But Ormana refused, saying only, ‘That would be too much for me.’
‘Are you quite sure? You two were ever very close.’
Ormana said again, ‘That would be too much for me,’ and then she walked away.
No one else wanted to take up that task, and so it fell to Essero. He stripped Thalo of his clothes, washed his skin, and decked him in what little finery he yet had. But as he did this, he took to rifling through Thalo’s belt-bag, in which he found a very peculiar thing, an acorn of gold.
‘Whatever is this?’ he said to himself. He held it up to the window, and it was as if the sunlight set it aflame, so radiant was its sheen. ‘Queer men hold queer things, I suppose.’
Then he put the acorn in his belt-bag, covered Thalo’s body with a modest funerary cloth, and sat down to oversee the visits. No one came. Indeed, the only visitor at all was young Lasbela, coming late in the afternoon to tell Essero that the pyre was ready. They took him over to the cemetery at once, although the procession was similarly sparse. Essero walked at the front, singing dirges as he went, and behind him was Thalo upon a board borne by four of his thanes. Then there was the king.
‘I owe this man my life,’ she had said, ‘as I do many others. It is only fitting that I should honour his death.’
Behind the king were the rest of Essero’s thanes, who had come only at their lord’s bidding, and at the back, her hand in Yondea’s, was Ormana. She had initially refused to come.
‘I could not bear it,’ she had said. ‘I could not bear to look into that fire yet again, to see all the years burn and crumble as if they had never passed at all, as if it had all been for nothing—every smile, every tear, every pain pointless. All is lost in the flames.’
But Yondea had said in reply, ‘Look into the fire. See its light, feel its heat, and know that you live on. What has been has been, but you live on.’
Then she spoke this verse:
‘As joy will ever pass to strife,
so death will ever yield new life.’
‘Or so they say.’
Thus, Ormana agreed to join the procession, although she left her twin sons at home—they may yet have been spared their father’s legacy.
Karvalo also stayed at home, as did Seyglena, so when the procession came to the shrine in the middle of the cemetery, no one was sure who was to perform the rites.
‘Sedweo,’ said Essero, ‘you know words. You do it.’
‘Gladly,’ said Sedweo, and he hopped up onto the dais. He tossed some soil and some water onto Thalo’s body, and then, with a big old grin on his face, he spoke these verses:
‘It’s by my count (though I can’t count)
that this bloke’s glories all amount
to sixty-odd, or maybe more,
or maybe less. I can’t be sure
‘In any case, I’d wager yet
that this bloke’s glories as one set
fall nonetheless so very short
of each of those my lord has wrought.
‘As short, I’d say, as his full height
would fall beside my lord’s full might;
as short, I’d say, as his stick-sword
would fall beside my lord’s broad board.
‘My point, I’ll say, should be quite plain:
my lord’s the one who’s not yet slain.
Though both might keep the eagles fed,
my lord’s the one who’s not yet dead.’
Essero was pleased with this praise, ill-timed though it was, and dismissed Sedweo before the pyre was set alight. All watched on as the flames rose around Thalo, and the fire consumed him. That was the time for weeping, but no one wept for him. Indeed, one tear alone fell that evening, rolling down Ormana’s cheek as she turned her gaze away from the pyre.
‘The smoke is thick,’ she said, ‘and harsh in the eye.’
Yondea wiped her tear away. ‘What has been has been, but you live on.’
Once the fire had burnt out, Essero oversaw the gathering of the bones and any surviving finery, and this was all put in a funerary urn. Last of all, he took out Thalo’s silver ring, kissed it, and added it to the urn.
Being the husband of a lord, Thalo was to be buried beneath a mound beside Awldano’s. Essero laid the urn amid the other grave goods, though these were few—there lay his mail coat, a shield and a spear, Asfoa’s old helmet, and also Ondayo’s riding gear. A wide basket was placed over the furnishings, just big enough to cover everything, and that would be the mound.
Essero threw on the first fistful of soil and said, ‘Let not this loss be lasting.’
Thus was Thalo truly dead, but there would be no feast in his honour, no mirth, no music, only a man beneath a mound built in the night. A man had died, and the day went on.
That evening, after dinner, Essero came to Ormana as she sat alone. In his left hand he held Thalo’s golden acorn, and in his right his sword, splendid Sleme—it was meant to have been buried with him, but Essero had forgotten to bring it to the cemetery. Instead, he offered them both to Ormana.
‘You ought to have something,’ he said. ‘Something by which to remember your friend.’
Ormana cast a grim eye upon the sword, though her gaze was soon drawn past it to the acorn. She had never seen such a thing before, but the very moment she laid her eyes upon it, a certain dread seemed to well within her.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I have enough to remember already.’
‘Come,’ said Essero, ‘your heart may yet hurt, your grief profound, but in due course, you will come to be glad for whatever token you might have. Let these be those.’
Ormana wanted neither sword nor seed, but neither was she keen to make a fuss of it. She took the acorn from Essero’s hand, the smaller of his gifts, and bade him keep the sword himself.
‘You were his sworn brother,’ she said, ‘and I will have no use for it.’
Then Essero was satisfied. He bowed his head and left the room.
Ormana kept the acorn for a little while thereafter, though she did so with much uncertainty. Whenever she looked upon it, it seemed to fill her with awe, or fear, or shame, as if it exuded some great malice, some ancient evil, as if a single touch would invite some sickness to seep into her skin, her bones, her mind. Even so, it would not be fitting, she thought, to simply cast it aside, so enchanting was its lustre, so marvellous its gilded glint.
So it was that Ormana found herself beside Thalo’s burial mound only a few days later, a spade in her hands. She dug a small hole nearby, planted the acorn, and then she said:
‘As joy will ever pass to strife,
so death will ever yield new life.’