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Looking back, Wulf Sternhammer would have been hard put to it to say when it was that he first became aware of Aud – when, that is, her individual outlines first clearly emerged from the amiable haze of their infancy. But long before he himself attained to man’s estate, the odd girl from the next hut had become a constant in his consciousness. Rare was the day when the deep, slow absence of interest that constituted life for the young in a Viking village of the Ninth Century was not a little alleviated by Aud’s latest adventures in lexicography. Aud hoarded and studied words as a warrior would collect his trophies. And oft-times it was Wulf to whom she bore the fruits of her investigations.
“‘Cucumber’,” said Aud. “From the Latin cucumis. A wandering scholar told it me.”
“‘Cucumber’,” Wulf repeated. He rolled it around his tongue, musing. “I like it.”
“A sort of gourd, or so he said. Long and green.”
“‘Cucumber’.” Wulf was not really listening. “It is a good word – a man’s word. I shall use it, often.”
***
Years passed, having little say in the matter. Aud grew tall and comely, with great dark eyes such as might snare a Viking’s soul, always granted that he had one (theological opinion was divided on this point). Wulf now stood a man among men, swinging what was even by contemporary standards a remarkably large hammer. Few, if any, of the villagers were surprised when the two erstwhile playmates became something more.
Aud’s only flaw, in Wulf’s view, was her unduly censorious attitude to the nights he spent quaffing mead with the other young warriors of the village. Wulf had tried to defend this practice with reference to a droll story concerning the sea, a drinking horn, Thor the Thunderer, and the putting of the first into the second to confuse the third, but the attempt had not ended happily. It had all sounded so much better the way the skald sang it.
When, therefore, Wulf stumbled back to the hut late one night after a particularly intense quaffing session, he fully expected to meet a tirade that would make the Three Villages Flyting Champion, whom he had just drunk under the table, look like an also-ran. But Aud already lay asleep. The light from the open door did not awaken her.
Wulf swayed on the threshold, abashed at the sight of so much moonlit beauty. It struck him that lovely things were few in Midgard, and little time was given to a man that he might worship them. Wulf was so moved by the profundity of this sentiment that he fell over.
Once Wulf regained his feet, he was visited by another, most pleasing notion. Why should not all beautiful things be collected together, as Idunn of old had gathered the apples of the gods? It so happened that the folk who lived in the next hut bred rabbits. Such soft pelts, such liquid eyes, could not but set off the sleeping loveliness of his Aud. Wulf lost no time putting his plan into operation.
It soon became apparent that Wulf had somewhat overestimated the pleasure quotient of waking up to the discovery that lots of small furry things with big teeth are crawling all over you. Aud did not take this awakening well. Indeed, her reaction was such that “Audscream” as a kenning for “distress” almost immediately entered the local dialect, so giving generations of philologists as yet unborn something over which to scratch their heads.
Shortly thereafter, Wulf and Aud decided to go their separate ways. To put it more accurately, Wulf went his separate way, while Aud stood still, hurling abuse and kitchen utensils at his broad retreating back. Aud’s throwing arm was strong and accurate. Though a slip of a thing, she did not lack for muscle.
***
Although his bruises at the time might have suggested otherwise, Wulf had, in fact, got off lightly with the ballistic kitchenware, as he discovered when the business with Olaf came to light.
Aud had left for another village, across the sea. Reports of what had transpired there were vague and contradictory, but it was clear that men with big hammers had continued to exert a fatal hold over her affections. Freud was still several centuries in the future, of course – which was just as well for the good doctor, since otherwise Wulf would have had to give him a seeing-to. (In fact, he later did. But that was in the line of business, as a necessary part of a Search and Destroy mission, and nothing personal, old cucumber.)
The village elders had murmured darkly over what exactly happened to Olaf. Wulf had not paid much attention, since murmuring darkly was pretty much what village elders were for. He was therefore less worried than he probably ought to have been when he staggered back from the tavern one evening to find Embla, his current companion of choice, deep in conversation with his first love, who should by all rights have been on the other side of the ocean. But even Wulf’s mead-disordered wits registered that Aud was drinking in Embla’s words with a thirsty attention that verged on the disturbing.
“…more time at that tavern than he does with me,” said Embla. “Sometimes I wish that the big dolt might never again know a woman’s enduring love. Serve him right, that would.”
Aud grinned. Wulf, squinting again at her face, decided that their years apart had not been kind. Surely no one born of woman should look like that?
“Done,” said Aud.
***
A little while afterwards, Johnny Alpha walked into Wulf’s life. Wulf exchanged the boredom punctuated with violence of his native time for a career as a Strontium Dog at Johnny’s side. Life continued to be just as violent (Allfather be thanked), but boredom was quite literally a thing of the past.
On one especially bemusing mission, a radical Time-Tech malfunction temporarily stranded the two of them in early twenty-first century California, which turned out to be a lot more interesting than the history books had suggested. There was a persistent trans-dimensional nexus, which had probably been responsible for pulling them off-course in the first place. There appeared to be an apocalypse in progress. There was a shed-load of vampires, a prospect which did not gladden Wulf’s heart. Whatever certain authors would have you believe, Wulf knew that Johnny and the dead did not make a happy combination.
There were three separate misunderstanding fights, two of which happened simultaneously. There was a waif of a girl with hair as red as Wulf’s and eyes as strange as Johnny’s. And, last but not least, there was Wulf’s first girlfriend, who had apparently taken the scenic route to the twenty-first century by spending a thousand years as a vengeance demon.
Some initial awkwardness had had to be surmounted, of course. They had not parted, after all, on the best of terms; the afore-mentioned apocalypse had left everyone on edge; and matters were further complicated by the presence of one of Aud’s subsequent exes. Wulf had initially havered between beating this fellow up for having been with Aud and beating him up for not being with Aud anymore. But Wulf had swiftly come to like the lad, who wore the scars of battle with a mien that the Lord of Asgard might have envied. Indeed, they were all good people, and valiant. It grieved Wulf that he and Johnny would have to exploit a window for their T-Tech and depart before they could lend these folk their aid. Their foes were many, and such as he would relish introducing to The Happy Stick.
Still, the little time available was well spent. Johnny had disappeared for an angst-off with the blonder of the pocket Valkyries, so the two old lovers sat outside watching the sunset together, as they had often done in the village long ago. Eventually, Anya sighed, and turned to Wulf.
“I’m sorry for cursing you, Wulf. You did drink too much. And you still do things to language that I wouldn’t have done to Casanova. But that doesn’t really excuse what I put you through.”
“The fault was mine,” said Wulf. “I was young and foolish, and had not found my place in the world. I should not have acted as I did.”
“Still, you didn’t deserve Embla’s Wish. There’s nothing I can do about that, I’m afraid. The power comes from D’Hoffryn, not from me. I would undo it, if I could.”
Wulf looked out into the street. Just visible in the distance, Johnny was returning. The setting sun traced fire across his weapons as he walked, everything a fighting-man should be. Wulf sighed contentedly.
“That is not needed, old cucumber,” he said. “That is not needed at all.”
FINIS