A Walk on the Island

Solrun's beauty was ruined. Her skin was not smooth or soft anymore, but scarred by knives and spears, branded and burned and mutilated. Wicked runes were upon her flesh, and the words of fell curses, and any who looked upon her would be unmanned to see the torment she had suffered. Not an inch of her was spared. Neither back nor front received mercy; not her muscled thighs nor her shapely flanks. Her body had become a testament to the profane, wrecked by the mad dwarf in his wrath. Not even her breasts remained unmarred, but only her face, and so she hid her face lest anyone think her beautiful.

So it was that at last she returned to her father's holding. So it was that, a year and a day after she had left, she at last came home, and she went to the place where three roads meet. There was Baldur, waiting for her, and he made to give his challenge to her.

"I have no more excuses to give you," she said before he could speak. "I have gone to the elves and to the dwarves, and I have returned with their gifts. I have my shield and my armor, and I have learned much of the making of weapons and war gear. I have learned much, too, of the making of house and home, of the softness of a good woman and the rearing of children—and yet these things will never bring me joy. So I ask of you one more night, Prince Baldur. Let me come to you tonight and, in the morning, if you wish it, we will walk upon the foe-shore. Two of us will go down and one return, if that is your desire."

He waited for her that evening. He alone was at the fire when she came. All his folk were asleep in Orm's house, where they had long accustomed themselves to day, but Baldur waited for his bride in the woods that night. He made her a fire, and he sat beside it and watched the forest. He watched the shadows and the moon, and when the moon hid its face he knew that she had come.

Naked she came to him. Her body was as a dancing flame: her sun-gold skin glowed bright by the light of his fire, and strange shapes moved upon her flesh. These were the words of curses, the vile insults scrawled upon her, carved into her, burned and branded onto her. She wore only her veiled helm when she came to him: that helm that not even the dwarves could endure, which so filled men with dread that none had ever met her gaze when she wore it. Yet Baldur did not shrink from that dread countenance but met her eyes boldly, becoming lost in the endless blue vaults of her eyes.

Naked she stood before him, waiting to be cast out. He would see the terrible scars that marked her. He would see the ruin that was her body. He would see the curse carved onto her belly and he would know that this woman was not worthy of his trouble. He would send her away. He would call for his folk, for his thanes and his servants, for his friends and his companions, for his horse and his provisions, and he would ride away to the north, and never more would he be seen in this place. He would not miss the daughter of Hard-Handed Orm; he would forget her name and that he had ever pursued her, and he would find another more worthy of his affection. When he saw the wreck of her body, he would spurn her, and this made her heart rejoice, for then Baldur would be saved. So she stood before him, motionless in the firelight, awaiting his judgment.

"Not a night has passed that I have not longed to see you again," said Baldur. And he took her in his arms and wrapped his cloak about her, and he held her naked form against his. "I could think only of your beauty, shield-maiden. I have thought of nothing else. And yet my memory has wronged me: for you are more beautiful even than I remembered."

"Do you mock me?" said Solrun, for she could not believe her own ears. "Or have you gone blind since last we met? Speak plainly, O Prince of the North! Cast me aside as is your right, but do not taunt me with lies! The loss of you is already almost more than I can bear."

"Mock you?" said Baldur as he held her before the fire. "No man should ever mock you, fair one. Even if you forgave him for it, I would not: the tongue is the head's bane, and I would spill his blood for you."

"Did you not see what was done to me?" said she, and the light of tears glittered upon her cheeks. He brushed them away, and gently he lifted the veiled helm from her head. "Did you not see the scars? I am ugly! Ugly! Ugly and worthless."

"I see my love," he said. "What more could I wish to see?"

"No man could love what I have become."

"Then tomorrow I will die for love, and gladly will I fall."

"That I cannot bear," she said, her shoulders shaking as sorrow whelmed over her. "I will fall upon my sword. I could not end the curse, so let the curse end me instead."

"Do that and I will follow you."

"No!"

After that, no more words were spoken that night. They lingered near the fire, and neither slept before morning. When the first glow of the sun came upon the east, Solrun arose and let slip his cloak from her shoulders. "I go now to walk on the island," she said. "Will you walk with me, beloved?"

"I will," he said.

And so they met upon the foe-shore, and tales of their duel survive to this very day. It is said that Solrun's throw split the sky with the spear Whisper, and that only Baldur the swift and strong could have dodged that throw. It is also said that Balder's blade fell like an avalanche, a blow fit to sunder mountains, and that only Solrun Spear-Crow could have turned such a blow upon her shield. It is even said that they two fought for a day and a night, and fought still at dawn on the second day, that neither was winded, nor had any asked for rest or respite. Yet all of these are lies, for none bore witness to that dread contest.

Storms gathered upon the shore. Lightning wreathed that island where they walked alone. Solrun's helm blinded all who beheld her, and on that day even the sun hid from her spear. And whatever men may say, that they fought all day and all night, or that their contest lasted for three days and three nights, what is known is only this: that the storm raged for fully nine days and nine nights; that three went to that place together: Solrun, Baldur, and Orm; and that only two returned.

Hard-Handed Orm, seeing that his beloved had found the man who would match her, seeing that neither could gain the advantage over the other, and knowing that his accursed sword could never be sheathed until blood was spilled, moved to stand between Solrun and Baldur. Between the Prince of the North and the Spear-Crow. Between his daughter and the death that had too long dogged her steps. I will not say I know this for certain, for only Solrun and Baldur could know the truth, and neither has spoken it. I say only, rather, that this must have happened: for Orm loved his daughter, and there was no other way.

"How dangerous a son you have brought me!" he must have said to her on that day. "Solrun, my secret sun, my light and my joy: you have made me proud. Go and love and be happy."

The next day, they raised a mound over Hard-Handed Orm. On the day after, they two were wed, and Solrun lay the accursed blade across her husband's thigh as she knelt before him. And she lay her head upon his knee and wept, and he could not understand her weeping. Then he laid the sword aside, and he took her in his arms, and he asked her why she cried.

"Because now the curse is yours," she said to him.

"You are no curse," he said to her, and he kissed her, and she delighted in him.

In time, they would leave the frost-rimed shore and journey into the north. After a season, they would pass beyond the night wall and out of memory, and none still live who know what deeds they may have done in the realm of giants. But first they tarried awhile on the winter shore: Solrun and Baldur alone, for Baldur sent his folk ahead, to prepare his home for his wife. They tarried together, that man and wife, and it is said that Solrun was the best of wives, and that her husband wanted for nothing in those days, and yet each night Solrun lay awake and gazed at the sword where it waited above the hearth.

"Will you swallow my blood?" she asked in the dark.

"I will if you ask it," the sword answered her again and again.

And of her husband she asked, "Can you truly love me? Look how I am marred. See how I am cursed. And my womb is barren: I have not quickened to your seed. Will you cleave to me forever? I would release you from this unjust promise."

Each night she spoke to him in this way, and each night he loved her over and over until, sweat-clad and panting, they lay spent in one another's arms. Even so, she would ask him again the next night, and the next, until at last he could bear it no longer.

"It is but a little thing," he told her. "Ask and you shall be mended. My craft is equal to the task: for I know the lore of giants, and theirs is the mastery of healing, and they can forge flesh as easily as steel. If that is all you desire, then I shall give it, and I will not count the loss. You have but to say the words and it shall be done."

"Yet how could it be loss?" she said to him, hearing his words. "To lose so scarred and ugly a woman and gain what I was before—what man could call that loss?"

"Do you think I know not how you were given those scars?" he said to her. "Those are dwarf-runes upon you. They are dwarvish curses carved into you. What fool wouldn't guess that you gave yourself for me? That you hoped to buy your freedom from the curse, to save my life even if only so that I could love another?"

Then Solrun's high and haughty cheeks blazed scarlet, and she was all the more beautiful in her shame. Never had she spoken of all that she endured on his behalf, and yet somehow he knew. "How?" she demanded, her face still ablaze with embarrassment. "How could you know these things?"

"Because each night I asked the stars to watch over you, and each night they brought me tidings of you. You they could watch better than all others: because wherever you go, the moon flees, and the stars burn all the brighter."

"How could you ever love one so low as me?" said Solrun, and she hung her head. "Knowing all that you know..."

"Because I cannot do else," he said to her. "What other man loves a woman whose love for him is written upon her skin? Surely, I am blessed above all men."

Then Solrun fell before him and kissed him. She lay her head on his thigh and kissed him. She clasped his hands in hers—his mighty, sword-hard hands—and kissed them, and she wept until she bathed him with her tears. "I do not deserve one such as you," she said to him and before all the gods. "But if this be love, then mend me not. Let me wear your love. And add to it! Because so few words cannot tell all that I feel for you. My joy in you could never be told, even though I grow old in the telling, so I beg you: never stop writing!"

"Then it will be as you say, my love," said Baldur to his wife. "I cannot do else."