Votan and Other Novels (FANTASY MASTERWORKS) by John James Read Free Book Online

barbarian feast I ever went to. Each of us was given a pair of silver mounted drinking horns – on the top table, that is; farther down they brought their own. The retainers were crammed together; at least we had room to move our elbows.
    First the servants brought salt fish, to give us a thirst, and then filled the horns, one with barley beer, the other with mead. Afterthe fish, gross hunks of roast meat were placed on the table, with loaves of rye bread. My neighbour, with a great effort at courtesy, cut me thick slabs of pig and deer mixed together. He wore a cloak of wolf pelts, with a wolf’s head hanging down behind. On a golden chain round his neck were wolf’s teeth, dozens of them. He made a sport, he told me, a trade, a livelihood, of wolf hunting, with spear, with bow, with trap, even with poison, winter and summer. His own name he himself had almost forgotten. Everyone now called him Wolf. I could no more applaud his pursuit of wolves than I could approve of Occa’s attack on the bear, but in his name I found an omen. He had a healthy respect for his wolves, in spite of the fifty tails sewn on the hem of his cloak.
    ‘Only two good things about wolves. They make good cloaks and they can’t climb trees. Bear climbs trees, but not wolf. If you ever want to cheat them, get up a tree. Stay there. Stay there till they go. Hours, days, maybe, but stay there.’
    His main topic, that night, was the indignity of having to come, at Haro’s insistence, unarmed into the hall. He proudly showed a scar across his scalp, from front to back.
    ‘I got that at a feast, up with the Thuringians, big man he was, good fellow, know him well. Got some of the best wolf hunting this side of the great forest. I’ll take you up there one day, great sport. What? The scar? Yes, well, that was after the dinner, we can’t remember why, but he hit me with a bench. No swords, but it didn’t stop us fighting.’
    ‘If it had been a sword,’ my other neighbour observed – his name was Lothar, and, he was delighted to tell me, he had been across the border twice, once on a cattle raid and once into Carnuntum to market – ‘if it had been a sword, where would you be now?’
    He rolled up his shirt to show a fine scar across his stomach.
    ‘
That
was a sword. It was my wedding feast and my brand new brother-in-law did it. It kept me in bed three weeks – quiet, Wolf, we haven’t all got minds like yours. But there, if we’d all been hit on the heads with benches … Here, our guest’s plate is empty. Pass the beef – no, try this, a real local delicacy. What? Oh, bulls’ testicles, raw.’
    ‘Perhaps he doesn’t eat them,’ said Wolf in an interested way. ‘Oh, yes, he does, though. All right, they always taste like that at first, really. Try some more mead. Go on, drain it! Boy! More mead!’
    The mead finished me. The next thing I knew I was struggling out into the courtyard. I don’t know how I managed to reach fresh air without disgracing myself. Wolf was at my elbow, not jeering as I feared but bitterly regretting his own lack of capacity.
    ‘Small bladder, that’s my trouble, always has been. I can stand up to the liquor itself, strong head I’ve got, but once over the gallon and a half, out I’ve got to come. That’s right, boy, get it up, get rid of it, you’ll feel better then. Only good thing about the south, there’s not so much bulk to wine. All right? Let’s get back then, there’s still some cold roast pork left, and plenty of crackling. There, there, get it up. I thought you were finished for a moment, but … here’s some water, clear your taste. What,
over
your head? Are you sure? Well, all right then. No, better not go to lie down, it isn’t etiquette. Back we go, I’ll make sure they don’t press you to any more. Takes a bit of getting used to, I suppose.
    Here we grow up on it. Just sit still a bit. Lothar! pass me the pork.’
    I only wish now that I could recover from a drinking bout the