The Water-Method Man

So he did it, and he didn't lie, either. He mentioned all the other related works he knew of, then admitted to knowing nothing about the writings in Faroese. 'I don't have the slightest idea as to whether this work has any relation to Faroese literature in this period,' he wrote.

Holster said, 'Why don't you just say, "I prefer to reserve judgment on the relationship of Akthelt and Gunnel to the Faroese hero-epics, as I have not researched Faroese literature extensively."'

'Because I haven't researched it at all,' Trumper said.

Ordinarily Holster might have insisted on his point, or claimed that Trumper should research Faroese writings, but Trumper's demonic work habits had so impressed Holster that the old thesis chairman let it go. In fact, he was rather a nice man. One Sunday dinner, he asked, 'Fred, I would suppose that this work is a kind of therapy for you?'

'What work isn't?' Trumper said.

Holster tried to draw him out. He didn't mind Trumper living in his basement like a rarely-seen mole, and occasionally he would call down into the basement and ask Bogus upstairs for a drink. 'If you're having one,' Trumper would say.

The only thing Bogus wrote that wasn't part of his thesis was an occasional letter to Couth and Biggie, and even more occasional letters to Tulpen. Couth wrote back and sent him pictures of Colm; Biggie sent him a package once a month with things like socks and underwear and Colm's finger paintings in it.

He didn't hear from Tulpen. What he wrote her was almost purely descriptive of how he was living: Trumper as monk. But at the end of every letter he would add hesitantly, 'I want to see you, really.'

Finally he did hear from her. She sent a postcard of the Bronx Zoo which said: 'Words, words, words, words ...' as many times as it took to nearly fill the postcard. At the bottom she left just enough room to add, 'If you wanted to see me, you'd do it.'

But he threw himself into the end of Akthelt and Gunnel instead. Only once - when he heard the girl who knew Flemish crying in her library alcove and didn't go ask her if he could help - did he stop long enough to consider that Akthelt and Gunnel might not be good for him.

Akthelt and Gunnel ends rather badly. It's all because of the foul temper Akthelt gets into while he's tied to the mainmast, smeared with his father's gore and being flagellated with the shafts of the father-murdering arrows. Moreover, when his fleet arrives back in the kingdom of Thak, Akthelt discovers that Hrothrund has come to Akthelt's castle, attempted to abduct the Lady Gunnel, failed (or changed his mind), and fled.

Akthelt searches the whole kingdom for the father-murdering, would-be rapist without success. Then he comes home to the castle, wondering why Hrothrund failed to abduct the Lady Gunnel (or changed his mind about it). Did he even try? And if so, how far did he get?

'I didn't even see him!' Gunnel protests. She'd been in the garden when Hrothrund had come to abduct her. Maybe he simply couldn't find her; it was a big castle, after all. Also, most of the people who had seen Hrothrund weren't yet aware of Thak's murder; therefore his appearance wasn't any big deal until the fleet returned and told the evil tale. Then people went around saying, 'Why, that foul Hrothrund was just here!'

Akthelt is confused. Was Hrothrund the only one involved in the plot? Someone reminds him that it was just last Saint Odda's Fest when Gunnel was seen to dance with Hrothrund.

'But I always dance with lots of people on Saint Odda's!' Gunnel protests.

Akthelt behaves queerly. He demands a full search of the castle's laundry room and unearths one unclaimed pair of leather clogs, one unclaimed stained petticoat, and one unclaimed and boastfully large codpiece. Holding this grubby bundle at arm's length, he confronts Gunnel and attempts to make elaborate sense out of the evidence.

'What evidence?' she cries.

Hrothrund is not to be found anywhere in the kingdom of Thak. Reports trickle in from the coast that Hrothrund is at sea, is hiding in the northern fjords, is looting small and defenceless towns along the coast. A worthless pirate! Also, reports imply, Hrothrund is less interested in looting for gold and food than he is in sport. (In Old Low Norse, sport means rape.)

Akthelt delves dangerously deeper into himself. 'What is that mark there?' he asks Gunnel, fingering an old bruise on the back of her downy thigh.

'Why, from my horse, I think,' Gunnel says sweetly - at which Akthelt bashes her in the face.

She cannot go on being wronged this way, so she begs her husband to allow her to try to capture foul Hrothrund by her wiles and prove her innocence before all. But Akthelt fears the trick will be on him, so he denies her request. But she persists. (All this stupid intrigue is the most trying point in the text, actually.)

Finally, after a lot of dithering for twenty-two stanzas, Gunnel loads a rich boat with wares, her maidservants and herself, intending to sail north up the coast, hoping to lure an attack from Hrothrund. But when Akthelt discovers her design, he believes the lure is really set for him; in a rage, he casts her rich ship, her maidservants and Gunnel herself adrift. With no man to sail them and no weapons to guard them, the defenceless ship full of hysterical, useless females sails north up the fjord toward Hrothrund, and despite the pleading from many in the kingdom of Thak, Akthelt refuses to follow.

The expected happens, of course; Hrothrund falls upon them. What a self-fulfilling prophecy to haunt Akthelt for all his remaining days! His wife was faithful, but by suspecting her, he casts her into infidelity. What else could Gunnel do when her maidservants are beset by a boatload of hairy archers, and she herself is faced with the ruthless swine Hrothrund?

Actually, what Gunnel does is pretty fucking shrewd. 'Well met, Hrothrund!' she hails him. 'For months, tales of your brave insolence have reached us. Make me your queen and our lord Akthelt will be undone!'

Hrothrund fell for it too, but it cost her. For days and nights in his foul ship's cabin hung with animal skins, Gunnel gave up her body to his savage, slimy ways, until at last he fully trusted her. He would take her, unarmed, without his knife or broad-ax by his bedside, and rut like a contented beast, leaving her gasping. He was fool enough to think it was pleasure that made her gasp.

Then she had him. One day she told him about a safe cove he could sail into for the night; there, friends in favor of Akthelt's overthrow would meet them. So Hrothrund sailed right into the cove where the lookouts of Akthelt's fleet were always stat

ioned. She led Hrothrund right into it. Then, in the long night, Gunnel gave herself to him so untiringly that she finally had him spread out, spent and groggy, beside her. Though barely able to move herself, she had cherished this moment for so long that her will was not to be denied. Groaning her way from his stinking bed, she took up his broad-ax and cut off his smug, ugly head.

Then, perfumed with the aroma of her sex, Gunnel sweetly asked the cabin guard to fetch her a bucket of fresh eels. 'For his lord,' she said, letting her robe bare her shoulder, and the dolt fetched her the eels quick.

In the morning, Akthelt's fleet fell upon Hrothrund's boats and massacred everyone above deck, including Gunnel's faithful maidservants, long since defiled and humbled by the filthy archers. Then did the bold, righteous and avenging Akthelt stride to Hrothrund's cabin door and cleave it with his two-edged sword, expecting to find his false lady in the arms of the cowardly father-murderer.

But Gunnel sat waiting for him in her best gown, and on the night table in front of her was the severed head of Hrothrund, stuffed with live eels. (In the kingdom of Thak, a legend claimed that this recipe would never let a man's brain rest.)