North of the city Tanais the Don River wound like a shining snake, like
the lightning itself in a godlike calm, through rolling plains where
horses pastured. In early summer the land blazed blue with cornflowers.
On the west side of the Don, from the Azov Sea as far northward as
their might would take them, dwelt the Rukh-Ansa. They were a proud
folk--warriors, horse breeders, and weapon makers; their women walked
with long fair locks garlanded and dresses of linen wind-blown around
their tall bodies; their chiefs rewarded a bard's song with golden
rings.
Nonetheless, these were ill times, and, when Tjorr the Red came home,
folk sacrificed bullocks in the hope that he carried better luck. From
wide about the chiefs came riding, until Beli's hall rang with their
iron and the ale flowed merrily. They guested Beli not only to hear
what his returned son could tell them of far farings, but because there
had been tales of a king whom Tjorr had brought with him. Sorely did
the Rukh-Ansa need a wise king.
His was a strange band when it rode to the river's east bank and was
ferried across with gifts from awed tribesmen. Tjorr himself did not
lead it, though the redbeard shone in Parthian mail and glittered with
Grecian silver. He was captain of the warriors, several score Alanic
horsemen guarding a rich baggage train; his own wagon was full of gold,
armor and three lovely concubines. When he related how all this had
come to him through the luck in his hammer, many folk went on their
faces; surely that hammer held lightning.
And yet Tjorr acknowledged another man his _disa_--a very tall man with
long wheat-colored hair, a lean withdrawn face, the sun written on his
brow, and one green eye. This Eodan did not dress much like a king; his
mail was serviceable but unadorned; he claimed no trolldom or god-power
in his weapons. Moreover, he had only one wife--a slight girl with dark
hair and violet eyes who rode like a man but nursed a son in her arms
and had one a year older in a carrying-cradle at her saddlebow. Eodan
would not even accept the overnight loan of another woman; he smiled in
his distant way, thanked his host and then returned to his Phryne.
So the Rukh-Ansa wondered at Tjorr ... wondered even if the Phryne girl
were not a witch who had ensnared both him and her husband ... and
then they would come to speak with Eodan, and after a while they would
understand why Tjorr called him King.
Fires burned high in Beli's feasting hall. The chiefs of the Rukh-Ansa
clans sat at table and raised ox horns heavy with silver and beer, to
the honor of Tjorr and Tjorr's lord.
Gray Beli blinked dim eyes at his son. "Will you not tell us the whole
tale of your wanderings?" he asked.
"Not in one day," said Tjorr. "There are many winter evenings' worth
of telling. Let it only be said now that I was sold through Greece and
Italy until I ended in a Roman galley. But then Eodan and Phryne freed
me. We seized the ship and sailed eastward, until we found the court of
King Mithradates."
"The same whose general hurled us back three summers ago from the
Chersonese?" asked Beli.
Tjorr nodded. "Aye. I wish I had fought with you, but at that very
time, as the gods willed it, I was fighting on Mithradates' behalf,
down in Galatia. He was a good master to us. Why did you war on his
realm?"
Beli shrugged. "It was a hungry year. We have had many hungry years
of late; there are too many of us. But the raid failed, and now the
Chersonese is barred to our horses."
"I will have somewhat to counsel you about that," said Eodan. He had
already learned the Alanic tongue, as it was said he knew several
others, besides reading and writing. Yes, a man of deep mind, with
witch-powers he would not show to just anyone--yes, yes.
"Where then did you go?" asked Beli.
"We fell out with Mithradates," said Tjorr, "and for a while we
were two men and a woman, alone on a cold plain. But we had killed
some Romans, who had fat purses. So we bought huts and sheep from
the Phrygians, to live that winter. In spring we continued through
Lycaonia; it is too friendly with Rome these days, so we did not stay,
simply bribed our way past. There are tribes in the Mountains of the
Bull, hunters and warriors, who made us welcome. We aided them and
lived there a year since my king's first son had to be born. Next
spring we came to Parthia with a following of young men and offered
the lord there our services, he being Rome's foe. There we had it well
since the favor of nobles came to us, once they saw what a man they
had in my king. We dwelt in a fine city and had only enough warlike
missions on the border to keep us amused. Yet we longed to be among our
own sort of men again. So this spring we got leave to go, and came up
through Armenia and behind the Caucasus until we found Alans--and thus
your home, My Father."
"Much have you seen," said Beli. The war-chiefs of the Rukh-Ansa
clashed their ale horns under his words.
"I have seen less with two eyes than my King has with one," said Tjorr
humbly. "He has learned the arts of many nations. He would teach his
own people whatever of it they can use."
"Where are your folk?" asked Beli of the stranger.
"North," said Eodan. "They were the Cimbri once. Now they are any who
dwell where heather blooms and beech forests blow."
"We will go north, my king and I, to rule in his land," said Tjorr.
"There are not many dwelling in it. No few of the Rukh-Ansa could
follow us, find new homes in the North and become great."
"Some of the younger ones might," agreed Beli.
"Might?" cried Tjorr. "Why, if I know my clans, they will be at
spearheads over the right to come!"
"Not all," said Beli. "Not even most. For if you fare north you will
become something else than what you are."
"That is true," said Eodan. "Yet what is it to live, than to become
something else?"
"Forgive me," said Beli, "but there are men who would not follow a
one-eyed king."
"Let them stay home, then," snorted Tjorr. "I'll pasture my horses on
the edge of the world if he leads me there."
"Yes," nodded Beli. "Yes. There are such kings. But how did it happen
you lost your eye, Lord?"
Eodan smiled. It was a wry smile, not ungentle, but wholly without
youth. He had known too much ever to be young again. He said, "I gave
it for wisdom."