#In seeking a segway into this jungle

[rosheendubh]

https://books.google.com/books?id=jUcqNBkKA64C&pg=PA91&lpg=PA91&dq=atli+oddrun&source=bl&ots=uKYwuk7Bzy&sig=-42A0djD2v7azaXfubHX0AsUHiY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj3w-Gbh8fcAhUM7IMKHRRVCXY4ChDoATAEegQIBBAB#v=onepage&q=atli%20oddrun&f=false

Reference to Oddrun, sister of Brynhild and Atli/Attila, and lover of slain King, Gunnar. She journeys west after the defeat of the Burgunds in 437AD, mourning her dead King, and seeking escape from the ravages of warring tribes and nations in conflagration across the fragments of Rome’s west, eventually crossing the channel, and arriving in Hengist’s court, recently granted by his half-brother Vortigern, in the lands of the Cantici.

~

438 AD

Possibly old Segedunum/Carnarvon

~

A servant of Odin/Wotan, she senses a draw further west, where her skill and need are most keen--at the side of young Ygerna, the Irish princess and wife of Vortimer, Vortigern’s eldest son. Torn from the birth of her twins, Madrun and Anna, lying ravaged by the ignorance of monks no more knowledgeable of leechcraft or childbirth than a butcher, she lies dying, her husband--warrior bucking beneath the grim shadow of his greed-driven father, and his Jutish allies--grieving her torture, for the pain he's wrought her as well in the few months of their tumultuous marriage. 

Vortimer, who unknowingly bears the Sword of the Waelsungs, Sinfjotli’s progeny, Sigurd’s curse--a weapon blended of dragon-bone (read=dinosaur fossil), and star metal...(apparently, bone was sometimes mixed into the forging amalgam of a blade b/c the carbon content increased its strength?? I'm not sure how that works with fossils of dinosaurs...or, if swords are even forged, b/c I need to read up on smithing...something I had a brief intro into during the HighlandChalkenge, and something that's my fiance’s forte from his Medieval Martial Arts/Fencing and his reenacting...).  Shattered by the fire of Odin, and reborn at the breath of Wayland’s son, Withga, Oddrun enlightens the British Prince of the sword’s power.  And its curse. 

“What care I for pagan gods or pagan metal-smiths?” Vortimer asks, unmoved, “Thevblade is now a weapon of God, in the service of men of God--the one true God.  Your One-Eyed demon has no power here.”

Oddrun’s reply shows the irony of his pledge--appealing to a heathen woman for the salvation of his wife, a victim of Christian ignorance. Angered, about to dismiss her, Vortimer is stayed by his wife’s plea, spoken past her pain, to let Oddrun a chance to show her skill. In that shaking, breathless sorrow stirs Ygerna’s unspoken suffering in the months of her unwilling marriage, the tenuous affection that had begun to blossom between herself and Vortigern’s son, poisoned by Vortigern himself, possessed by the enchantment of Vortimer’s beautiful, young Irish princess. One last offering to Vortimer, to trust her, this time, with her own life as the price. 

Oddrun, watching Vortimer fall to his knees, promising Ygerna anything if she only lives, allows him a chance to show his love, feels again, the claws of her own sorrow still raw, mourning Gundohar’s death.  And the thread of her hatred, forever cursing her brother, Atli, to the fires of damnation, rejoicing when she received word on her journey west from the territories of the Danube, how Gudrun had slain his sons, and served him a hero’s feast from the skulls of his own children, burning his hall to the ground in retribution for the deaths of her family. Oddrun has little pity to spare for Gudrun’s loss, knowing Gudrun had sworn vengeance upon her own kin when they had brought the body of Sigurd back to their palace with a spear thrust through his back. Treachery bled with his life from the mortal blow.

Such grief as this, Oddrun ponders from a bitter heart, even here, on an island at the edge of the world, in a palace crowning a fort of Roman design, repaired by native British and Jutish workman, how Signey’s progeny darken fates, and Wayland’s vengeance yet spins its deadly destruction of lives and dreams.  Families and hearts perpetually broken by betrayal. 

But something here, something in this moment is different--Vortimer’s tears spilling into his dying wife’s breast, rising and falling in shallow in fits as she struggles for air amid the tremors wracking her worn frame. His sword, sheathed, rests by the door--a presence to Oddrun’s sense, as vital as any creature of flesh and blood, humming in a thirst for blood, taste of life before the kiss of death from its fatal edge. She hears the breath of her own God in that tremble crawling through the air, a hush beneath human sense, alive in her mind, a current raising hairs over her arms.

The mastery of that blade lies in the grip of kings, strength tethered with wisdom.  Few men, none in fact, posses the skill to match the spirit of Gram. Even the best of all warriors, Sigurd, fell to the price of that sword. Until now, here, where a man, a prince yet to realize his kingship, leaves his weapon abandoned. He chooses his wife, dying flesh over living steel, begging forgiveness of his young bride, broken in heart and body, to find one more measure of will, and step back from that darkness.  It's here, Oddrun realizes, something is different, this man who carries the blood of the wolf, also bears the fire of the dragon, a yearning for beauty and peace in an era of death. A vision of something rejuvenated, a Dream of Rome, but beyond Rome even--realms of earth and of mind. 

Ygerna’s gaze rests upon her husband, shadowed by fever and pain. And, there. A spark, a flicker of spirit, determination--a bright shaft through her delirium. She doesn't want to die, not yet, and not this way, some element of self-mockery in her drawn features, scorn at her body’s vulnerability that touches Odddrun with an absurd moment of joy, brief as it is, but heartening.  Love, belatedly realized, but pure in its essence, binds them. Ygerna’s fingers curl around her husband’s powerful grip, shaking and weak, but tender and purposeful, belying everything she hasn’t the strength of voice to speak, her reserves failing. Vortimer has asked her to fight, and Ygerna means to defy death, whatever the cost.  

For this reason, Oddrun will defy her God as well. What arts of the Valkyrn were her sister’s, Oddrun too, has learnt. A woman’s battlefield may be different than a man’s, but the dangers of the childbed are no less fatal.  Runes and leechcraft abound in her armament, wielded for the life of this shining soul. A price though--there's always a price. Heavy in sorrow, Oddrun sees.  Future advances, a woman who will be a mother of a king, begotten in shame and vengeance, father upon son. This man, husband kneeling at her side will not be the sire, but brother instead, progeny of the same father. The curse of Signey stains her children still.  A king, an emperor of the West once more. *Uter ap Vortigern*, and his queen--ah, his queen...

*Gwenafyr*, the name her god whispers, seeps through her mind, and washes into her skin, dread and desire and yearning, a wave of hunger. Her god awaits the feast and the ravishing, eager to taste her, and live in her flesh.  He fears though, and this, this is something new. Oddrun has never felt fear rising from All Father. Whatever this queen, from wherever she comes, his anticipation mingles with...bemusement. An odd word, capturing immortal fascination with mortal paradox.  What she’ll embody, he has sought through the ages.

*Revolution*, she ponders in her silent voice. *What you sought in my sister, that she rejected at the expense of a hero’s glory? What you awoke in Gudrun, that resulted in a bane of destruction for her hatred? And you think to find this...enlightenment? At long last, in the soul of some Pictish princess born at the edge of civilized lands? You've grown deluded, Old Man. Or desperate.*

*Wiser*, is the laconic reply, the hush of wind in leaves soaking her sense.

*She’ll be your death,* Oddrun cautions.

*She’ll be my life,* his words hang in her mind, an echo of a lover’s endearment. *A queen like no other.*

*And her king? This boy, yet to be conceived?* Oddrun challenges, wishing for a thousandth time Grim would leave these lives untouched, in peace.  

*They seek me, daughter.  Their desires summon me. What they ask in dreams, I fulfill. King, this son of wolf and dragon. His queen, my Daughter of Ravens--cauldron and starlight, sea and sky, my dark eye and light. Together, infinite promise.*

*And what price, this promise?*

No words, now, image only, floods inner-vision, the way a god shapes events of future making. 

“No!” Oddrun gasps, overcome, staring into the space before her, where Vortimer remains crouched at his wife’s bedside. 

Curiosity and wariness alive in his eyes, “You refuse to help her then?” he asks, misreading Oddrun’s involuntary denouncement.

She shakes her head, sorrow imprisoning her voice. How to explain her reluctance in a way that a Christian prince would not condemn as heathen superstition.

Ygerna, it is, who allays her husband’s fears, and instills a newfound calm in Oddrun. Her acceptance shaped by lips scarce strong enough for speech cut a wound in Oddrun’s conscience that will forever weep to the end of her days. “I know. I've seen as well, and I know.  This island belonged to a goddess long before your One-Eyed God claimed these shores.  And it will always belong to Her.  I'm not afraid, whatever comes of this night, and after. I'm not afraid.”

A child of old magics and older gods too, Oddrun guesses from Ygerna’s words, her conversion to the Christ’s teachings have been a recent thing. Wrought, perhaps, by the contingencies of her marriage with this British prince who shares common heritage with Waelsung, Jute, and Roman. 

Reservation rather than anger marks his scowl. What Vortimer follows of the women’s enigmatic exchange is rationalized as some sort of feminine absurdity, an intuition kin to their sex, and therefore of little consequence to the graver immediacies of men. "You'll help her?”

In the silence, Vortimer’s gaze hangs heavy upon her.  Scarcely older than her supplicant, Ygerna no more than seventeen at that time, Oddrun wavers before his desperate hope. Trust placed in her abilities, unwilling as it might be, distasteful and dangerous this route, accepting a heathen sorceress to heal his young wife. But love speaks a language more elemental than any religion, and Vortimer’s devotion to his one true God has been usurped in these months by a fresh welling of devotion to his wife, much to the consternation of bishop and priest. 

A deep breath, and finally, a crumb of serenity rising above the rumble brooding in her mind, Odin’s presence ever abiding.  Bowing her head, Oddrun’s solemnity silences even the God for a moment. “I will try.”  

It's all Vortimer needs to hear.  He nods once, hiding the emotion twisting his features, attention falling back to his wife. His hands folded over hers, he lowers his head upon the ragged rise and fall of her breast, as though straining for her heart beat between the spasms catching her wraithlike frame. 

From this moment, Oddrun swears her life to this family, to Ygerna and her children.  She has subsisted on the carrion of sorrow and hatred in the months since Gundohar’s death, aimless and errant through the lands of the Danube and the Rhine. What she sought, non-existant, eluding her amid the rustic halls of self-styled kings, grandiose egos larger than the piecemeal territories they carved out of once great cities, the rich fields long since deserted to waste and rot. Oddrun wandered like a phantom through these lands of shattered temples and twig-built hovels. Gradually, she realized she was being drawn by a current toward a fathomless destination, a thirsting beast following the scent of water, still beyond reach. 

Her dreams grew violent and vivid, flurried images that made no sense, of times and men either past or present, that she might have known in life or only in song. Always, always though, that blade, the sword of Odin, claimed by Sigmund and Sinfjotli, a god’s breath and vision in that mad weapon, and bright in her dreams.  The source of everything she had lost, never realizing as a little girl what she now knew as a woman.  Memory, her constant thorn. Sigurd, striding into Budli’s hall, confidant in his power, beauty of the war-god molded of perfect form, muscled arms, broad chest, and strong legs shod in armor that glinted as brilliant as his hair, gold and silver and the very light of the sun shimmering in his wolf’s eyes. And that sword, shimmering in its scabbard strapped across Sigurd’s back, its hilt stone glowing of red-gold and fire, amber holding the shadow of a serpent forever frozen in previous resin.

Oddrun was too young to understand the sudden awkwardness dimming his bold features when he caught sight of Byrnhilde. How her sister’s dark intensity transformed to eerie beauty for perhaps the first, and only time in her life.  Her wildness hovered beneath the surface of a restless gaze and sharp-tongued wit, captured in the set of pointed chin and chisled cheek, accentuated by the close-cropped black fuzz coating her scalp. An ensemble radiating the ferocity of a wild hawk, she moved with the grace of a wildcat, and the lethal speed of the hunting bird, a complexity the fearsome warriors of their father’s court found too intimidating to be beautiful.

Brynhild still drew her suitors, the allure of her dowery matched by the temptation of a champion’s prize, defeating her in single combat, and winning the bride thereby.  It had been Sigurd who bested her, Sigurd she accepted, Sigurd who asked leave to claim the horde of Andarvi as her bride-price, returning a season later with a host of richly armed men from Burgundian lands. In the name of his father’s sword had Sigurd come to claim his prize, the betrayal of a vow sworn to a woman’s heart, in the name of a brotherhood Sigurd had sought since the death of his foster-father, Fafnar, by his own hand and blade. The same one he now swore in his allegiance to the Burgund King, in the wooing and winning of Brynhild. From that moment, when Brynhild’s quick mind finally pieced what had transpired, was it a matter of time before her hatred and her pain would consume them all.  

No one knew the fate of Sigurd’s sword by the time the flames of his pyre had cooled. Brynhild, a husk of scorched bones embracing his blackened skeleton, had taken its length into her heart as she stepped into the blaze. Some thought Sigurd’s grieving wife had wrested the weapon away to an unknown place, hidden from her treacherous brothers. Others insisted Odin had stolen the sword back to Valhalla, to be wielded by its true champion, forever more a hero. 

Whence Oddrun had arrived to Britannia, her purpose solidified into a single feat. Her mantra, a repitition of defiance to her own past: destroy the blade. Her own damnation, flung in the face of All Father, but at least ending the havoc brought by that rabid steel. 

Yet, there it rests, propped by the entryway, in its scabbard, point down. Harmless, but humming to her ears, hungering to be wielded.  Oddrun readies her implements on a small side-table, beneath a window overlooking the courtyard from Ygerna’s quarters.  What has been a symbol of atrocity Vortimer--Gwerthemyr Fendigad, Emrys--means to transform into a symbol of justice. In  the name, not of his God, but of Ygerna, and their Dream. His love, the fire of his purpose. The ancient sovereigntry of Queen to King, as they struggle to form a nation of new emigres and native citizens, shifting borders and beliefs. 

And Oddrun’s heart lifts, freed by something she doesn't quite dare name yet, as happiness, let alone hope. 

[anastasiawcm-blog]

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