ADALFRIEDE AND HER HIRD

[Toffee 2843]

THE TALE OF

AND HER HIRD

 

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the Reinmaren were separate, and the tribes of Minitz lived in the Franklands in the town they called Kanunsberg, Leon the Second took a Waldenian woman to wife. They called her Adalfriede, of the family Rademacher with the grinning skull on its banner, and she kept this name even as the blood dagger swiped across her palm and she became one with the tribe of her husband.

 

A Frank arrived on the day of their wedding feast bearing a poisoned gift. A barrel of mead, he proclaimed, but the smallest spark set it afire, the tavern with it, and soon all of Kanunsberg stood at the mercy of the hungry flames. Trapped in the tavern with his cousin Adelmar, Leon’s face bore the brunt of the fire, becoming singed and blackened in the minutes ‘fore his hirdmen pulled him from the burning wreckage. Leon the Young, they had called him, for he was but fifteen years when he assumed the mantle of Chieftain, but now they called him Leon the Burned. The very same Frank who had slain his lord father, the man they called Roach, slipped into the city amidst the smoke and confusion and, like his insectile namesake, scuttled onto the gables to enact his foul plot. A vile potion he flung, shattering in the house of the physickers and spreading acrid smoke to the ill and injured within.

 

Goodwoman Isolde! called Adalfriede to the shieldmaiden. After him!

 

At once, meine Fürstin! Verily, the dutiful Isolde did climb to the rooftops with her spear in hand, but the Roach, craven that he was, had long since fled.

 

That very same year, Chieftain Leon sent two warbands into the Franklands—one afoot and one on horseback—to root out the Roach as a boar would truffles. The Roach they did not find, but instead came upon a Frankish war party. The Franks fell from the trees like rotten fruit and landed on the unsuspecting heads of Johanna Stroheim and Albert Barclay, the Chieftain’s own brother, hacking and slashing with battle axes and feathering the tribesmen with arrows. Isolde fought as a windswept storm, granting three of the Franks the sweet kiss of Death from the tip of her spear before they had time to cry for their mothers or their pagan gods. The tribesman Ælfred killed two of his own, yet the Frankish warriors dealing death to Johanna and Albert remained breathing. Adalfriede nocked a blue-and-green fletched arrow and drew it close to her ear. A warrior stood off to one side in the treeline, swathed in shadow. Verily, he had the look of a right-hand, a great shaggy goat pelt over his shoulders. She could let fly her arrow, sprouting from the throat of Johanna’s assailant to spare her life, or she could catch the Frankish right-hand in the leg so that he might be brought to Kanunsberg and put to the question. The mounted tribesmen thundered over the ridge just as the right-hand went down with a scream, Adalfriede’s arrow jutting from his leg.

 

Adalfriede the Ruthless they might have called her, a friend to none. Yet even a young, friendless chieftess needed a household around her, a hird, just as her husband the Chieftain had Sir Varik and Sir Stanton guarding his person as hirdmen. 

 

She started with Gertrude, the maid of fourteen years who was sister to Leon. Too old to be a cupbearer, yet too young to do aught of real import in her brother’s household, the gormless Gertrude floated, aimless, under their mother Helena’s wing. Adalfriede stole Gertrude away, taking her as her own lady in waiting, and thus her hird was born. Yet a chieftess and a lady did not a hird make; Adalfriede had need of hirdmen, warriors to fight and bleed at her side and keep safe her secrets. Men, she did not want. Give her shieldmaidens, warrior women cut from the cloth of Runhild. Who better a shieldmaiden than Isolde Sturmweber, she whose name meant weaver of storms?

 

Adalfriede took her up onto the walls at dusk, when the world glowed golden and purple and the insects hummed with autumnal laziness. She told her the tale of Gelimar and the birth of the first hird, which she herself had learned from the tracing of a runestone.

 

Theoderic and his warbands flung the might of their ancestors against the gates of Gelimar’s holdfast. Lo! cried Theoderic. Your people are slaughtered and your warriors abandon you! Open your gates and give unto me the plunder which is mine by rights.

 

Verily, his tribe had seen much battle, and the grey-green rivers ran red, but it had been Theoderic who set the crimson spear at Gelimar’s feet to declare the feud, and Gelimar would not lay down in the face of such grave insult until his legs no longer carried him. Gelimar took up his battleaxe and mounted the nearest boulder, a great runestone carved with the story of his father and his father’s father, the chieftains Sigtrygg and Sigmund, great warriors both. Doomed or not, we must have courage, for the brave man can win glory among men while the feigling will wither and rot in his soiled honour. You who are my true brothers, come before me now! 

 

All but six of his men baulked. To the six who came forth, Gelimar asked them why they stayed, when certain death awaited them. Tis better to die boldly than live an imperfect life, one brother proclaimed, the warrior they called Ælfwig. We will stand with you until death claims us and we walk into the feast halls of our ancestors with honour. So Gelimar’s hird was born, and the seven of them fought the oncoming foe, raining arrows on them from above and hacking at the ones who climbed over the walls. Ælfwig cut down Alaric, son of Theoderic, with a mighty swing of his axe, the metal biting down deep into Alaric’s shoulder and spilling his lifeblood. Sick with grief, Theoderic called his men to him, so that Alaric might be burned with his stallion and warhorn and all the ivory and gold he could need in the spirit realm.

 

The feud now called for a blood debt to be paid, but Gelimar took his respite with gratitude. Better it is to avenge than to lament, he said unto his hird. When Theoderic slays me, have no rest until he is dead, and my spirit will find peace. In turn, Gelimar owed his hirdmen the duty of generosity, feasting them every night and ensuring the free flow of ale, mead, and treasure to hold them to himself as loyal warriors.

 

With the tale done, Adalfriede looked out over the rolling fields and farms of the Franklands. You will be to me as Ælfwig and the hirdmen were to Gelimar. So it was that Isolde spake her oath at a great feast Adalfriede held in her honour. I solemnly swear to faithfully serve as hirdman to Adalfriede Barclay of Hexenwald, to protect her person, honour, and that of her hird, with unwavering loyalty and commitment. I vow to uphold the values of the Reinmaren while in her service, to defend her hird against all threats, and to stand as her shield and her spear until my final breath. With my blood, I give my sacred schwur. Adalfriede and Isolde cut their palms and clasped forearms in a warrior’s shake, thus the vow was done and the schwur spoken. Adalfriede gave unto Isolde a spear, a symbol of Isolde’s loyalty and Adalfriede’s unwavering trust, which along the haft had been carved with runes and a scene of Isolde impaling a Frankish warrior through the throat.

 

Friendless she might have been, and cold, and scheming, but Adalfriede was still a mortal woman, and all mortals yearned for kinship. She found herself leaning on Isolde and enjoying her company, though she tried to keep a bulwark around her heart so that it could not be broken. When she rode to the hinterlands, that quiet place betwixt the pine trees and the river where their new home would be built, she brought Isolde with her. Not for protection but for companionship, a welcome figure at her side as they came to camp by the great waters gushing down into the gully below. Isolde sought her counsel on matters of the heart and of men, for Adalfriede was wedded, and Isolde still a maiden. Men do not know what they want until you show it to them, said Adalfriede. They will tell you that it is men who rule the world as princes and kings, pontiffs and knights, but each and every one has a woman behind him, aiding in his success. Isolde pondered on her chieftess’ words, throwing stones off the edge of the falls where they skittered down, down, to the river far below. She smiled then, and said, Reinmar is lucky, then, to have such a wise woman behind its Prince.

 

They hunted together, rode together, trained and fought and feasted together. Sat together at Moot, whispering all the while. Wherever Adalfriede went, Isolde was not far behind, a smiling shadow with a very sharp spear. Yet when the Angel Raguel descended from the skies and spoke unto Chieftain Leon and his grandfather, the old Chieftain Brandt One-Eye who was now a cardinal, it was not Isolde who rode with Adalfriede through the realms of Canondom, spreading the Lord’s word, but her sister Mariola. Sisters not by blood but by tribe, for Mariola was a child of Malin, and Isolde a daughter of Horen. Still, those of the elfblood could rise high in the lands of Minitz; one need only look to Sir Varik to see the truth of it. So Adalfriede and Mariola took to the country roads on horseback, thundering through the Heartlands and even as far west as the lands of the Haensemen. The angel’s words they spread, to any who would listen, even when they were met with scorn and disdain from the non-believers. Man has shunned the Lord. They have put selfish desires over Him; the vicar of GOD has put secular affairs over his vow and commitment to our Lord. Too filled with rage, is one who must guide the flock of Man. Look, as the Kingdoms of GOD fight and ramble, so incessant in their needless rebellion against the Kingdom of Heaven. Be it so, then, that should this continue, that no Man will ascend to the Seven Skies again, and that I have been tasked to lock the gates of heaven. Verily, the old Chieftain Brandt became the Shepherd of the Lord’s flock, taking the name Caius Primus. He swept the Lord’s flame through the lands and burned them clean, placing heretics on the stands and demons on the pyre. The gentle, softhearted Gertrude retched at the smell of crackling flesh, but Adalfriede looked on unblinking, Isolde beside her, and took the demon’s burned skull to add to her array.

 

Life went on that way for a time, until the good kings John of Aaun and Aleksandr of Hanseti-Ruska released the Reinmaren from their oaths of fealty. The tribesmen of Minitz and Reinmar joined together in a long caravan, wending over farmlands and through valleys with all their livestock and worldly goods, the ritters and warriors serving as outriders in a wide net around them, keeping away the brigands and thieves plaguing the roads. Many weeks of travel brought them to the hinterlands, and the craftspeople among them struck up tents, dug latrines, and set fire pits to blazing. All the while, Adalfriede was great with child. She spent the journey in a wayn, not on horseback as she would have liked, and her daughter Josefina came screaming into the world some weeks later while the Reinmaren were still encamped, the new city slowly rising behind them under the hands of the stonemasons and carpenters. Too weak to ride or to hunt, Adalfriede sent Mariola to the edge of camp to watch for game or for bandits, both of which were to be shot. 

 

Adalfriede herself remained behind with the young Frederica, daughter and heir of High Chieftain Alfred, she whose mother had died just months before. As they sat amongst the sea of heather rolling all the way to the northern hills, Adalfriede tasked Frederica, a girl of nine, with a great burden. The girl was to be her right hand, a leader of the court she would one day rule as Princess in Reinmar. Thus Adalfriede’s hird grew again, though not in truth, for Frederica remained in the household of her father the High Chieftain. Daughter or no, part of her hird or no, nothing would stop Adalfriede from imparting her words onto Frederica, shaping her as a young girl while the fingers of grief caught and spun her. You must never let them see your pain, your frustration, your sorrow. You can weep in the privacy of your bedchambers and you can give way to your emotions with me, but from this day and to the end of days, no man will see you cry. Womanly emotions have power, you see. Men will mock us for them, as if it is a weakness, a softness in the soul like an old fruit. But they are afraid. They know that the strength of our hearts can level mountains and shift the course of rivers. That our rage can scorch the earth and salt the fields. That is why you must hold them close to your chest; lest they know how powerful you truly are and try to douse your flame before you have even begun to burn.

 

The city grew taller still, the dark stone spires of the temple scraping the belly of the sky. Even with the noise of construction and the camp teeming with life, a great white bear lumbered to the cook fire while a trout crackled on the spit. The beast maimed Nikolaus, the boy of Kanunsberg and Chieftain Leon’s dear cousin, raking its claws down his face, but ran off when Mariola charged with a hatchet in hand. She landed two deep blows, staining the pure white hide a bloody red, and the bear loped off to lick its wounds or haply die in a hollow log. Already had Mariola proven herself to Adalfriede, even training Gertrude in the sword and spear when all others thought it hopeless, but this act of bravery against the white bear made the thought solid and clear in her mind. Mariola would be her hirdman, standing alongside her sister Isolde. So did the ceremony come to pass, the first of its kind to be had in their new home, the city they called Kretzen. Chieftess and hirdman stood on the adler in the central square, and Mariola spake the same oath as Isolde, though instead of a spear, Adalfriede gave unto her a hatchet, the edge honed to an edge as keen as a winter’s frost.

 

She gathered her hirdmen to her that first week in their new city. Let no other raise a hand or whip in punishment to you, for you are mine, and honour demands that your discipline rest with me. Verily, those were the words she spake, yet the words the warchief heard were that he had no power to control his warriors, for Isolde and Mariola were hirdmen and soldiers both, sworn protectors of their chieftess but under the command of the warchief. Thus her feud with Wilhelm von Berkhoven began. Twas only after Chieftain Leon brought the two to talk that a conciliation could be reached, the feud between them done. This was not the first of Adalfriede’s feuds with the men who gave her husband counsel, and it would not be the last. First among them was Adelmar von Kanunsberg, cousin to Chieftain Leon and a man who loved her not, trusted her not.

 

Adelmar stood to inherit Kanunsberg from his father the Herzog Gottfried, for he was the eldest of his brothers, the most learned, and had been tried in battle. He had the chieftain’s ear, as trusted and loved as Leon’s own brother, and he in turn loved his chieftain. So much so that he tested Adalfriede, believing her devotion to be false, her dedication thin and flimsy. Again and again he searched for gaps in her armour, but again and again she turned his probing questions away, stonelike in her reticence. He pledged his troth to Isolde and Adalfriede thought it another trick, a way to steal her hirdman away. All changed the day the raiders of Ailmere came. They carried off Isolde while she scouted the Ferdenwald and kept her captive in their frosty northern camp. Hearing the news, Adalfriede snatched up her spear and readied her horse, but Adelmar waylaid her ‘fore she thundered out in search. I see you, he proclaimed. You play at being Reinmaren as the skalds play at ancient heroes. You have allowed Isolde to be taken. Adalfriede tried to ride past him but he seized her reins. Stay, and I will make you Lawspeaker. That highest of roles, the speaker of the Grand Kanun, the sacred lawbook that bound even princes and chieftains. Adelmar tested the bounds of Adalfriede’s ambition and the extent of her loyalty; finding her lacking, he would surely bring wrath down on her head. She pulled free of his grasp and rode out in search of her hirdman, thus passing his test, and a score of years later became Lawspeaker without his aid.

 

Once Isolde returned to the fold of the Reinmaren hale and healthy, Adalfriede took her to the waterfalls where they had sat years ago when the city of Kretzen was naught but forest and stones. Adelmar and I have feuded, Adalfriede said unto Isolde. He sparked my ire, saying I allowed you to be taken. In this, he is right. You are my bloodsworn protector, but so too do I have a duty to you. Thus, Adalfriede forbade her to face the raiders in battle again, not to rob Isolde of her honour, but to keep her close to home, so that she might honour herself in protecting Adalfriede and her hird from those threats which would surely come to their walls. By a twist of cruellest fate, the danger came not from without the walls but within, in the form of a sweating sickness burning through the districts. It laid Mariola low, keeping her bedridden for years, diminishing Adalfriede’s hird by one in truth if not by death.

 

So one hirdman remained to her, the faithful Isolde, betrothed to Adelmar with whom Adalfriede continued to feud, and in this she was not alone. Adelmar yearned for the life of a simple farmer, not a Herzog. He demanded Chieftain Leon release him from his schwur, for without such a release he would surely die from grief. The chieftain relented, though not without great strife, and branded his cousin Adelmar von Kretzen, a Kanunsberg no longer. Lest Kanunsberg fall into the lands of their half siblings, those with the blood of the Raevir in their veins, Nikolaus was honour-bound to turn away from his life as a man of the cloth and take up the Herzog’s mantle in his elder brother’s place. Are you not wroth with your intended? Adalfriede asked of Isolde. You were to be a Herzogin, and now you will be a farmer’s wife. Isolde pondered on this, though not for long. I did not accept his offer of marriage for the title he could bring me, but because of the man he is. Herzog or farmer or skald, he is still my Adelmar. What a foreign thing to the coldhearted Adalfriede, to think of love and not of status! 

 

Years passed and the feuds continued, simmering under the surface like a pot at constant threat of bubbling over. Harsh words here, a lesson there, even descending into outright duels, the spirit of the Grand Kanun turned into weapons. At last, Leon and Adelmar ended their feud, raising the Brother’s Stone to mark their peace and the brotherly love they had for one another. Adalfriede’s ire could not be tempered so easily. It was only when Adelmar bestowed many gifts upon her that Adalfriede relented and the feud was put to rest. These gifts became heirlooms: the Fürstinsbrok, a gold brooch with a shieldmaiden on its face; Guldaur Adalfriediskja, gold pendant earrings carved with the ouroboros, a snake devouring its own tail; Gildfaaesten, a smokeleaf pipe with the name Hexenwald carved in Reinmaren runes; and Juliaskjöld, a heavy oak shield with Saint Julia of Paradisus emblazoned on its front. Verily did Adalfriede wear these gifts every day, and smoke of her pipe, and carry her shield into battle. The feud was done, and when Adelmar and Isolde finally married, it was with joy in their hearts that no strife existed between them and their kin and chieftess. In turn, Adalfriede gifted to Isolde the Hirdmanbrok, a silver brooch carved with runes of loyalty, honour, and bravery, with a chip of unpolished sapphire at its centre bearing a rare, unrefined beauty. 

 

The feud with Adelmar may have been set aside, but Adalfriede continued to battle with his brother Nikolaus, now the Herzog of Kanunsberg. None knew from whence the animosity came, only that it seemed to flare when the topic of Gertrude arose, or Leon. Nikolaus misliked the influence and control Adalfriede held over his kin, and sought to remove her claws from them whenever he could, and lo, tempers flared so high that Nikolaus drew a dagger on Adalfriede and threatened to cut her. Verily did Isolde draw her spear and bade him stand down, for her brother by marriage Nikolaus may have been, and uncle to her son Theodemar, but Adalfriede was her chieftess, and Isolde her bloodsworn protector. Nikolaus took his leave from the keep, and the two strove for their paths never to cross, though this proved difficult. Both sat upon the princely Herrenhaus and gave counsel to the chieftains, and their duties brought them face to face more often than they would have liked. It was not until many years later that Adalfriede gifted unto Nikolaus the Herzogbrok, a brooch of shining silver for Nikolaus to pass to Theodemar, his nephew and heir, that their feud came to a tentative end, and Isolde had no more cause to stand between them as a shield.

 

So life went on. Anselm Barclay named Isolde a member of his warband in the march against Ravenswood, but Isolde was Adalfriede’s hirdman, and so she bore the right to claim Isolde has her own. Verily she did, naming Isolde, Adelmar, and the tribeswoman Ivona as her warband. The drums of war never beat and the warhorns never sounded, for the cravens of Ravenswood folded before the fighting began, but the warband set out on one scouting trip before disbanding. So too did Adalfriede train Frederica and Josefina to kill with knives and daggers; not to fight or to duel but to kill, as she was once taught to kill. Isolde came to know this well, for even in spars to first blood, Adalfriede could not feel the slice that meant Isolde’s victory, and would continue on with bloodlust glowing in her eyes. Still Isolde remained loyal to her and never wavered. 

 

I am content as your hirdman, Isolde said unto Adalfriede, when she had become the Lady Vandalore and sought to make Isolde a Vander Knight. I have no greater ambition of knighthood, and wish only to serve at your side. No dreams of becoming Herzogin, nor ritter, even when her position as hirdman to the Chieftess would afford her many and more privileges. Sir Varik, hirdman to the Chieftain Leon, had been named Geehrte, and later Herrenmeister, yet Isolde remained Auserwal, looked over for raising to Hauptmann in favour of younger, greener tribesmen. No longer! Lo, after twenty years of leal service did Isolde rise at last.

 

The hird of Chieftess Adalfriede saw another happiness, the return of good Mariola. Her illness had kept her bedbound for many a year but now her health bloomed like a springtime flower. Verily, Adalfriede’s hird was whole once more.

 

Spoiler

Cute wee sketch of the girls 😍

 

 

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SO THIS TALE ENDS, EVEN AS IT GOES ON

 

[DahStalker 3692]

Yvaine Conradine looks at her husband in guilt… for one thing remained true throughout the years. She loved women. Specifically very cool Reinmaren hird women. 
 

@PeachLova