IN THE MORNING they dismantled their camp and set off again. Their ride was taking them ever higher along a river valley that carved its way between two ranges of mountains, a gap that got narrower the higher they climbed. At a certain point they turned off the valley floor and took a path that wound its way up the heavily wooded mountainside, twisting and turning until the incline became too steep for riding and everyone had to dismount.
‘You said Brynhild’s warriors are cavalry?’ Hagan said to Gunderic as they puffed and panted beside their horses up the steep hill. ‘Do they ride goats or horses?’
‘We know very little about them, to be honest,’ Gunderic said. ‘Like our kingdom they do not welcome visitors and as you can see, her realm is not easy to get to.’
‘How do you know where it is then?’ Hagan asked.
‘Wodnas came by this path on his way to my kingdom,’ Gunderic said. ‘He and his Ravens know the way.’
They climbed on. Hagan could smell the cold in the air as they got higher. The trees and path began to be dotted with patches of snow. They stopped to put on fur cloaks and boots, mittens and other things to keep the cold out, then resumed the punishing climb. Hagan noticed that Wodnas still went barefoot, despite the freezing air and frost-covered ground. The skin on his feet must have been tougher than leather.
They marched along, shields slung across their backs, mail clinking and weapons clanking so it was impossible to move with anything like stealth. The trees kept the path from being submerged in snow but they also blocked the view so it was impossible to see very far ahead or around. Hagan began to get the old familiar feeling like his skin was crawling that told him that somewhere in the surrounding undergrowth eyes were watching them as they passed. He reasoned that they could belong to bears, wolves or boars and knew there was little point in raising an alarm over what was, after all, just a sensation.
At long last the column of warriors halted. A young man came running from the front. Finding Gunderic he stopped and bowed his head.
‘Lord King, we have arrived at the gates of Queen Brynhild’s realm,’ he said. ‘There is a problem.’
Gunderic and his bodyguards, plus Hagan, Gunhild, Geic, Wodnas, Lokke and Sigurd pushed their way through the halted column of warriors until they got to the front. There the trees ended and they found themselves on a ledge at the edge of a ravine. It looked as if some giant had ripped the two sides of the mountain apart, leaving a narrow gap between two cliffs that fell away to a dizzying depth filled from edge to edge by the rushing waters of a mountain river. Hagan felt his stomach lurch as he looked down the sheer drop to where the water frothed over boulders and fallen tree trunks far below. There were branches tangled and clogged in the river too, caught in rocks and blanched white by the ever-running water.
There were the beginnings of a stone-built bridge, but it ended abruptly in mid-air, perhaps the length of two horses out into the chasm. There was a matching construction on the other side, but nothing in between but air.
There appeared to be a line of sticks and hay piled across the end of what would have been the far end of the bridge. It was like a little barricade, but given the missing centre of the bridge the only thing it would hold back would be birds.
Beyond it was a large wooden gate in a palisade fence. The tall pine forest Hagan and the others stood in continued on the other side. Smoke rose from behind the palisade in several places, suggesting there was a settlement beyond it. Beyond that the mountainside rose in a steep slope.
‘How did you get across when you came this way before?’ Gunderic said to Wodnas.
‘There was a wooden bridge between those two stone lintels,’ the one-eyed old man said. ‘It was lightweight so they must be able to pull it away when they are not in the mood to welcome visitors. It’s a sound strategy. I’ve never seen such an effective drawbridge.’
There was no one on the other side. Gunderic and the others tried shouting but their words were carried away by the wind and the crashing water below. Geic unslung his large hunting horn and blew several blasts on it. This was more successful. A small door opened in the wooden gate and a figure stepped out.
To Hagan’s surprise it was a woman. This in itself was not unusual but she wore breeches like a man, her hair was braided and pulled back behind her head, and there was a sword sheathed on a baldric under her left arm.
‘Who are you who comes here surrounded by warriors?’ she called across the divide.
‘I am Gunderic, King of the Burgundars,’ Gunderic shouted back. ‘We mean you no harm. I wish to offer an alliance.’
‘I know who you are, Gunderic,’ the woman said. ‘We came to save you from the Romans a few years ago.’
Gunderic frowned and Hagan could see the clouds of anger forming on his face. He opened his mouth to retort but Wodnas laid his hand on Gunderic’s forearm, distracting him. The king looked at the one-eyed old man who shook his head. Gunderic nodded.
‘I wish to speak to your queen,’ he shouted. ‘I have an offer to make to her.’
‘There is no queen here,’ the woman on the other side replied. ‘We have no king either. No bishops, lords, counts or generals. This realm is a haven for women. Many who have suffered at the hands of men. Brynhild is our leader though.’
‘Can we cross?’ Gunderic said. ‘Will you put the bridge out for us?’
‘No,’ the woman shouted back. ‘We will not let men over the bridge.’
Gunderic looked at Wodnas.
‘Did they let you over?’ he said.
‘It was years ago,’ the old man said with a shrug. ‘Perhaps something has changed.’
‘Look, we just want to talk,’ Gunderic shouted back across the ravine. ‘Can you tell your… leader that Gunderic is here. He is with her old friends Gunhild and Hagan. We wish to discuss an alliance of our realms.’
The woman turned and went back inside the gate.
There was an awkward wait then the gate opened again. A line of people came out. They were all dressed in war gear with shields, helmets and spears. At first Hagan thought they were boys but then he realised they were women. They divided into two and lined up on either side of the gate, behind the small barricade of sticks and hay bales. After that Brynhild emerged.
It was fifteen years since Hagan had seen her. She looked a lot different but he still recognised her. She was no longer the girl he had seen supposedly dying on the grass outside Vorbetomagus. Now she was a tall woman with a body that was lean and muscled from exercise. Despite the cold her arms were bare. Her long black hair had black bird’s feathers – crows’ or magpies’ – tied through it. It tumbled around her shoulders and mingled with the sable pelt of a bear that she wore as a cloak. Her legs were clad in men’s leather riding britches. Her eyes were surrounded by black paint that made them stand out in stark contrast. A blonde-haired woman in similar garb stood beside her.
‘Who comes here with an army?’ Brynhild said, her voice echoing off the rocks of the chasm below.
‘We mean no harm,’ Gunderic said. ‘We have come to request an alliance.’
‘Brynhild! It’s us: Gunhild and Gunderic,’ Gunhild said, waving across the divide. ‘Don’t you recognise us?’
‘I recognise you, Gunhild,’ Brynhild said. ‘And your brother the royal Nibelung too.’
‘What sort of a welcome is this for old friends?’ Gunhild said. There was bewilderment and hurt in her voice.
‘This is the welcome we give to everyone,’ Brynhild said. ‘There are no exceptions. No one can enter. Especially not men.’
‘What has happened?’ Gunhild said. ‘You and your warriors once rode to help us. We need your help again.’
‘Once we were open to helping others,’ Brynhild said. ‘But the Alemanni used that against us. They sent a woman here claiming she was a nun. She said her nunnery was under siege by Alemanni raiders who wanted to rape them all then carry them off to slavery. We rode to their rescue, or so we thought. But instead we rode into an ambush. We fought them off and only just escaped. We lost many good warriors and it was not the nuns who were raped, it was those of my warriors who the Alemanni managed to capture. Women who had fled to the sanctuary of my realm because that very thing had happened to them in the first place. Women who I had offered protection to.’
Her Ie, which had been strong and defiant, cracked at this.
‘I let them down,’ Brynhild continued. ‘The only thing I can do by way of restitution is ensure the same thing doesn’t happen again. The gates of my realm are closed.’
‘And what if the Alemanni decide they want to come in?’ Gunderic said. ‘If they come with their warrior horde? Can you fight them off?’
‘They will have to get across this ravine,’ Brynhild said. ‘The only other way in is over the mountains. It is dangerous and freezing, even in summer. They would lose half their force on the journey.’
‘But they could still come,’ Gunderic said. ‘My spies tell me they are planning to attack both our realms.’
‘Your spies, Gunderic?’ Brynhild said, her voice betraying her scepticism. ‘Has your new kingdom grown so Roman already that you have spies?’
‘I have had some help,’ Gunderic said. He stood aside and the old one-eyed man stepped forward. ‘Tell her.’
‘It’s true, Lady Brynhild,’ Wodnas said. ‘My Raven Warriors range far and wide. They scouted deep into the Alemanni territory. They returned with news that the Alemanni have made an alliance with the Huns and are now preparing to attack first your realm then King Gunderic’s.’
Hagan frowned and glanced sideways at Wodnas. This was the first time he had heard this mentioned. Looking back across the gorge he saw Brynhild’s expression had changed. Some of the hardness had gone.
‘Is that you, Hagan?’ she said.
Hagan stepped forward, then realised he was close to the edge of the precipice and stepped back again.
‘It’s me, Brynhild,’ he said. ‘I thought you were dead.’
She regarded him for a moment, her hard expression completely gone now and a little of the open, playful innocence he had known to be in her when she was a girl resurfaced for a moment. There was an odd wistful expression on her face, as if she were looking at something that once was important to her, that still mattered a little but now belonged to the past. Then it was gone and her face clouded over with suspicion, contempt and challenge once more.
‘As you can see I am very much alive,’ she said. ‘No thanks to you, who left me alone and bleeding on the riverbank fifteen years ago.’
‘You—’ Hagan began to speak but consternation clogged his throat.
‘I have come to offer an alliance,’ Gunderic interjected. ‘I wish to propose we unite our two realms.’
‘Unite our realms, Gunderic?’ Brynhild said. ‘What would that gain us?’
‘Our war hordes would be one,’ Gunderic said. ‘Together we will be stronger and the Alemanni will be deterred from attacking. My foot warriors would complement your cavalry and vice versa.’
Even at a distance Hagan could see Brynhild’s sneer at Gunderic’s use of the Latin phrase.
‘Persuading her to fight alongside Rome is going to be a challenge,’ he muttered out of the side of his mouth. ‘Perhaps this is a lost cause.’
‘Get her married then subjugate her to your will,’ Sigurd said, speaking in a low enough voice that his words would not carry across the chasm. ‘That’s how it usually works.’
‘Really?’ Gunhild said, raising one eyebrow.
‘You and I are different,’ the big man said with a shrug and a smile. ‘I am not a king. As yet.’
Hagan saw the look that passed between them and realised for the first time that the pair cared much for each other. He felt the ache of loneliness return.
‘We could carry the war to the Alemanni together,’ Gunderic continued. ‘We will hit them before they hit us. Apart we are strong but together we will be even stronger again. We will be a fighting force the world will fear. We will be strong enough to resist anyone who tries to attack or enslave us.’
Hagan had to admit he was impressed by Gunderic’s rhetoric. He had learned much about the power of words and the crafts of persuasion in the years since they were last together. Or perhaps he had always known these arts. His father was a king after all.
‘The fact that we are old friends is not enough for my people to trust outsiders,’ Brynhild said. ‘Especially men. There are women here who have suffered terribly at the hands of men. They will not believe you come here with good intentions.’
‘I come with an offer of marriage, Brynhild,’ Gunderic said. ‘I did not think I would do it this way, but I ask for your hand. What better way to unite our two realms and show my good faith than with the union of we two, the leaders?’
Hagan saw Gunderic was doing his most disarming smile and trying his best to look her in the eyes, even though they were separated by the ravine. For a moment it felt like they were young lads in Gunderic’s father’s hall once more, trying to impress the girls.
‘Lady Brynhild,’ Wodnas said. ‘I urge you to consider this offer. The Huns are coming like the great cascades of snow that tumble down these mountainsides. The trees that stand alone are swept away. The trees that stand with others stop the avalanche.’
‘Lord Wodnas, I know you are a very wise man,’ Brynhild said. ‘And I respect you and your folk, but I have my own people to think of. And for all Gunderic knows I could be married already. He did not deem to ask.’
She put her arm around the shoulder of the blonde woman who stood beside her.
‘Such alliances as these always end up with the king ruling both realms. You are not the first king to come here offering such an alliance, Gunderic. For that reason I have set a challenge to anyone seeking my hand in marriage. I have sworn before my people that I will only marry the bravest of men. Someone who has proven his right to rule through courage and skill by completing this challenge.’
‘I never shirk a challenge,’ Gunderic said, spreading his hands. ‘Tell me what it is. Whatever it is, I will do it. I accept your challenge. I will prove before all these people – my warriors and yours – that I am worthy.’
‘Wait—’ Hagan began to say but it was too late. He felt his heart sink as he saw Brynhild smile for the first time. Gunderic had walked into whatever trap she had set for him. Gunderic’s arrogance had always got him into trouble. Now he had to either complete the challenge or be humiliated in front of Brynhild’s warriors and worse, his own.
Brynhild took a ring from one finger and placed it on the ground before the gate.
‘Whoever wishes to marry me must jump this ravine, on horseback,’ she said. ‘I leave my ring here. If you make it across, pick it up and come to me. Oh and just to make it more interesting…’
She nodded to one of the women around her. The woman dashed inside the gate and returned almost immediately with a flaming torch in her hand. She passed it to Brynhild.
Brynhild tossed the torch onto the little barricade. The sticks and hay that made it up must have been soaked in oil as it exploded into flames, creating a line of fire from one side of the far end of the bridge to the other.
‘Good luck,’ Brynhild said, with a taunting smile.
The women around her all laughed and grinned. They filed back behind the palisade, closing the gate behind them.