17. SEVENTEEN
SEVENTEEN
That night, once most of the wedding guests have drunken themselves into an impenetrable slumber, Gunther—now dressed in his pink pyjama coat, sleepy with wine and grinning stupidly—retires to the bridal bedchambers.
As he nears the end of the path of white rose petals, one of the palace guards summons out the twelve Icelandic shieldmaidens with a knock on the big oak doors.
They file out into the hall without a giggle or a whisper.
The first of them, whom he vaguely remembers is Brünhilda’s head shieldmaiden, or first-lady-in-waiting, or whatever she called her, hangs a wreath of white flowers around his neck as he sways back and forth, and without smiling says, “Good luck, sire. Be gentle.”
“I shall be most gentle!” he says as they hurry off to the servant’s quarters. Then he turns to the guards. “You are dismissed.”
“I’m afraid not, sire,” replies the guard on his right, his gaze fixed straight ahead into the darkness of the hall.
“What do you mean? I’ve dismissed you! You’re free to go! Or did you intend to stay here and eavesdrop on the nuptial doings?” He chuckles deviously. Then, even with so much wine pulsing in his cheeks and fogging up his mind, it occurs to him that they are fully armed and on high alert.
“No, sire, we’ve received a tip that there may be an attempt on your life by one of the tribal lords, sire.”
“Oh really? Is that so? Who gave you this tip?”
The two sentries remain silent.
“Your king asked you a question! Wait—No, I know who tipped you off. It was Sigurd, wasn’t it?”
The guards shift uncomfortably.
“And he made you swear not to tell me! Unbelievable! That scoundrel! Get out of here! Go guard the treasury, or Princess Gertrund, or some cart by the road! Go! Before I strip you of your rank and station!”
Gunther shakes his head as they clamber off into the dark, then opens the big oak doors and shuts them quietly behind him.
Brünhilda is reclining provocatively on the immense bed, wearing nothing but a polar-bear-skin. Her golden hair is loose, curling down over her naked shoulders. She paws the bedsheets with her bare foot. “Gunther, at last!”
Pink heat swells in cheeks, all sense of intoxicated drowsiness now rallied into excitement and youthful vigour. “Yes,” he says, “at last.”
“You should not have made me wait so long. I have been aching for my husband since you left me on Mount Hindfjall!
“I am sorry my love. A king’s time is not his own.”
“Hurry! Ravish me!”
“I shall!”
“Quickly!”
He pounces on the bed, and with one hand in her hair and the other on her hip, he seizes her and kisses her deeply. But as he slips his tongue between her lips, she turns away.
“Oh Gunther, I want to feel your power. I want to be helpless against the might of your body. Conquer me again as you did on the summit of the Hindfjall!
“Er—What?”
Suddenly, the bedchamber flips upside down and Brünhilda is on top of him, holding down his hands, no longer wrapped in the polar-bear-skin.
His heart pounds in his throat as he drinks in the sight of her.
He tries to wriggle from her grasp, but his hands are encased in stone; and as the passion cools in her eyes, his excitement turns to panic.
“Brünhilda—”
“I knew it! I thought there was something fishy about you!”
To his relief, she backs off the bed and turns away from him as she covers herself again in the polar-bear-skin.
“You’re not the man who won me!”
“I don’t know what to tell you, my dear—I am King Gunther of the Burgundians. It was King Gunther who conquered you on Mount Hindfjall, and it was King Gunther to whom you said your marriage vows. I am your husband.”
“How can you be my husband? You are a weakling!”
He wiggles his fingers at his side, the gears of his sharp minding whirring, “You’re right,” he says, “I have only the strength of the average man. I conquered you with whit and magic.”
“You tricked me somehow! You cheated!”
“Well, I don’t know about cheated. I merely used the resources that were at my disposal in the most viable way to ensure my triumph.”
“But the trials were supposed to be tests of strength!”
“And I used what strengths I have. That is what a king does, what a man does. There is no reason for you to be upset, my love. I rescued you from that volcano and brought you back here to become my wife and live in happiness with me. Come, let us lose ourselves in passion.”
But Brünhilda is trembling. “How could I have any passion for a man such as yourself?” she says, “Not only are you incredibly weak, but you are an underhanded, lying, deceitful, wicked little coward! You have shamed me. You have dishonoured the sacred traditions of my ancestors!”
The thunder in her voice rattles the bedchambers, and Gunther remembers Sigurd’s concern for his safety. He slips down off the other side of the bed and begins to move in as if to console her—his true intention, to get closer to the door.
“Brünhilda, I’m so sorry you feel this way. I never meant to hurt you or dishonour your ancestors. I just so longed to have you as my wife.”
“You fool,” she says darkly, “such was the desire of so many champions before you, who for their failure, I cast down to their fiery doom. If that is how I dealt with those who sought to claim me in fairness, how much greater shall my wrath be unto he who would claim me through treachery and deceit!”
He gulps. “I—well—” With a squeal, he bolts for the big oak doors and wrenches them open, only to have them crash shut again. Brünhilda glares at him, her eyes cold with hate, her arm slapped across the doors, barring his escape.
“Where you do think you’re going, worm? You think you can get out of what’s coming to you?”
He backs away, nervously. “Let’s t-t-talk about this.”
“Why? That’s all you do, talk-talk-talk! And trick people!”
He wishes now that he hadn’t dismissed the guards. “What do you intend to do? You cannot kill me. Even with your strength, you’ll never leave Worms alive.”
“No,” she says, sauntering towards him, “I won’t.”
Pottery rattles as he backs up into a table stand in the corner of the room.
There’s a window several feet to his right.
The five-storey plunge into the Rhine might not kill him, if he can throw himself out before she reaches him.
On the other hand, he might be jumping out the window right into Hel.
“So,” he says, meekly, “you don’t intend to kill me then?”
His blood rises again, intensified by the thrill of peril as the polar-bear-skin slips to the floor.
“No,” she says, “I will let you live.” He holds his breath as she steps in close and reaches for the belt of his burgundy pyjama coat. “I will keep you as my plaything, my pet to tease and torment.”
His temples are throbbing as she loosens the knot and draws the belt very slowly out of his pyjama coat. “That—that sounds utterly excruciating,” he says, “but I deserve to punished. I’ve been very, very bad.”
She slides her hands over his bare chest and up over his shoulders, causing his pyjama coat to drop around his ankles. “Yes,” she says, “you need to be punished.” She looks up at him as she sinks to her knees.
“Mmm, punish me.”
Suddenly, the floor shoots out from under him and slams into his back. A dull ache floods his chest and kidneys. The ceiling is spinning. Before he can cough, an incredibly strong hand rolls him onto his stomach, pressing his face into the cold stone floor.
“Ouch!” he squawks, “Brünhilda!”
She snatches him by the wrists and pulls his arms behind his back, and using the belt of his pyjama coat, hogties his hands to his ankles.
With an awkward movement, he shifts himself over onto his side. “Untie me please, this is very uncomfortable!”
She grins cruelly as she squats down in front of him and pats him on the head. “Sleep well, husband.”
“You can’t just leave me like this! I could become paralyzed!”
Brünhilda shrugs and clothes herself with Gunther’s pink pyjama coat. “You should have thought of that before you deceived me.”
“Can I at least have a pillow?”
“No.”
Gunther clamps his jaw. “What if I have to use the chamber pot?”
“I guess you’ll have to hold it.”
“For the whole night?”
“Yes.”
“Oh come on!”
Brünhilda pulls back the bedsheets and sits down with a yawn. “Oh Gunther, I’m so tired. It’s been such a long day. I’m going to bed.”
Gunther scowls. “I hope you wake up with a kink in your neck.”
“I’m not the one who will wake up with a kink in my neck,” she says. “Goodnight, Gunther.”
She blows out the candle, and in the dark, Gunther swears foully as he attempts to shift himself into a more comfortable position.