“He has ever been the first into battle and the last to leave. He saved me when the Mountain Queen shut me into her cave, and he single-handedly forced the Elf King to give up the cattle he had stolen.” Jack looked at Olaf in surprise. These were stories he hadn’t heard. “Since Thorgrim’s death he has led my berserkers.” King Ivar raised his drinking horn high. “I honor him with this feast and look forward to hearing his victory poem. To Olaf!”
The king drained his horn, and the hall exploded with cheers and shouts. “TO OLAF!” boomed Tree Foot and Eric Pretty-Face.
“I honor him too,” came a voice as sweet as a summer breeze across a field of clover. In spite of the din, Jack heard her clearly and so, apparently, did everyone else. Once again the hall fell silent.
“Olaf has ever been generous as well as brave,” came Frith’s caressing voice. Jack tried to look up, but Rune forced his head down. “He has gifted us with gold rings and fine cloth. He has brought us a fine troll-boar for the midsummer sacrifice. And now he has brought us a real skald. Too long has this court been without music. Too long has King Ivar done without a poet.”
Wait a minute, thought Jack. I’m not being given to the king.
Olaf stood. Jack noticed that he didn’t look up either. His eyes were directed at the queen’s feet—and lovely feet they were too. They peeped daintily from beneath her gown, and then something else peeped out from behind her—an enormous cat! It muscled its way to the front, rubbing itself against Frith’s dress and purring loudly. More cats lounged in the shadows at the back of the dais. They all had long, red-gold fur, and they stared out at the hall with pale gold eyes.
“Great Queen, before my skald sings, I have something important to do,” said Olaf. “Thorgil went on her first raid and made her first capture. Instead of keeping it for herself, she insists on giving it to you, knowing that you like pretty children. I have always found Thorgil to be generous and brave. I would welcome her into my berserkers, if you would graciously agree.” Thorgil rose and bowed. Her face was flushed and happy. She was also somewhat rumpled from playing with the dogs. Olaf lifted Lucy from her seat.
No! thought Jack. Now that the moment had come, he felt he had to snatch his sister away no matter what happened after. But then he looked up and saw the queen.
She was as fair and innocent as a May morning. No harm could possibly come from her.
Thorgil took Lucy’s hand and led her up the steps of the dais. The cats came forward to inspect them, and Jack thought he saw Thorgil flinch. Certainly the creatures didn’t like her, or perhaps it was the smell of dog. They laid back their ears and hissed. Lucy leaned forward to pet one of the brutes; Jack tensed, fearing the worst, but it rubbed against her and purred.
“They like you,” said the queen.
“A cat kept me warm after I was stolen from the castle,” Lucy informed her.
“Ah! So you are a princess.”
“I’m your princess, silly,” said Lucy. “Don’t you remember? The trolls stole me from you when I was only a baby.”
A gasp went through the hall when Lucy said silly. Jack guessed that no one ever insulted Frith. But the queen only laughed. “Now that you mention it, perhaps I do remember I had a daughter. I’m surprised the trolls didn’t eat you.”
You’re half troll. You ought to know, thought Jack, and yet he couldn’t believe such foul ancestry when he looked at Frith.
“Oh, they wanted to!” cried Lucy. “They started fighting among themselves. ‘Shall we roast her with an apple in her mouth?’ they said. ‘Or shall we make her into a pie?’ ‘Pie! Pie!’ roared half the trolls. The other half shouted for roast baby. They began to fight, and soon they had knocked each other senseless. That’s when Father came and found me—I mean, my other father. The one who isn’t here.”
Lucy hadn’t talked so much for weeks. She slipped into her role as princess with amazing ease. Well, she’d been practicing it all her life, thought Jack. Lucy walked up to the queen and confidently hugged her knees.
“What an imagination!” marveled Frith. “I can see you’re going to be entertaining. Thank you, Thorgil. It is a most generous gift.”
Thorgil muttered something and waited awkwardly. Social graces were not her strength.
“Yes?” said the queen.
“Could I—I mean, would you—could you—let me join the berserkers?”
“A young child such as you!” warbled Frith in her lovely voice. “Surely you’d rather learn maidenly things like sewing and weaving and cooking.”
It was as though the queen knew exactly what would upset Thorgil. The shield maiden turned red from her effort to control herself. Jack thought she probably wouldn’t succeed.
“Great Queen,” interrupted Olaf. “She’s the child of Thorgrim. There was never a finer berserker, and she has inherited his spirit.”
“Indeed,” said Frith somewhat coldly. “I wouldn’t have thought a shield maiden would wear such a feminine ornament as that necklace of leaves.”
So that’s her game, thought Jack, who had stopped looking at the queen. It made his mind clearer. She wants Thorgil’s necklace.
Thorgil undid the necklace and handed it to Frith. Jack could see it hurt her. “I don’t want it,” the girl said ungraciously. “It’s an ugly girl thing.”
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt me,” cooed Frith. “Why, thank you. Now you may return to your table. I’m anxious to hear Olaf’s praise-song and don’t want to wait another minute.”
Thorgil stumbled off the dais and threw herself down on the bench. Her face was purple with rage, and Olaf put his hand on her shoulder. “Later, my Valkyrie,” he whispered. Thorgil softened somewhat at his praise, but she still looked like a storm cloud full of lightning. She’d given up her first capture and the beautiful silver necklace, and she still wasn’t a member of the Queen’s Berserkers.
* * *
Jack looked out over the hall. At least a hundred faces looked back at him, many of them Ivar’s men. Olaf had moved Tree Foot and Eric Pretty-Face to his table and threatened them if they talked during the performance. They’d removed their party helmets to hear better. Rune smiled gently as he rested his chin on his harp. This would be his triumph too, though no one would know it. Thorgil had withdrawn into her rage, but Jack wasn’t singing for her anyway.
He cleared his throat. He felt, rather than saw, the queen behind him. I mustn’t think of her, Jack thought. Cold ran a finger down his spine. He began:
Listen, ring-bearers, while I speak
Of the glories of battle, of Olaf, most brave.
Generous is he, that striker of terror.
Lucky are they who sit in Olaf’s hall
Gifted with glory, treasure, and fame.
The wolf-headed men call him leader.
Odin’s skull-pickers name him friend.
Jack warmed to his task as he sang. He forgot about the audience. He forgot about the queen. The life force shimmered all around in spite of the gory theme of the song. It was drawn, Jack thought distantly, by the magnificence of Rune’s poetry. It made each line more lovely and Jack’s voice more resonant. He was dimly aware that one of Odin’s skull-pickers—a crow—was sitting in the rafters high overhead. This disturbed him briefly, but he forgot about it.
When he finished—and it was a very long poem—not a sound was to be heard. Even the hearth fire had stopped crackling. Then the great hall burst into cheers. “WONDERFUL! WONDERFUL!” bellowed Tree Foot, dabbing his eyes with his beard.
“IT CHOKES YOU UP, DOESN’T IT?” agreed Eric Pretty-Face.
“I really liked the part about skull-splitting,” said Egil Long-Spear.
“And wading in blood up to your ankles,” said Sven the Vengeful.
“It’s not fair!” Thorgil said loudly. “Jack gets all the glory for doing nothing. He never fought a battle or pillaged anything!”
Rune sat with a quiet smile on his face. The compliments flowed around him like warm honey. Jack wished
he could give him credit, but that would be dangerous at the moment. Perhaps someday Jack could show his gratitude.
“What a charming tune,” trilled the queen’s voice from behind him. Somehow the way she said it made Rune’s achievement seem trivial and silly. Jack whirled around, ready to defend the old warrior’s art. He remembered his peril in time and turned the movement into a bow. “Don’t you think that was a pretty tune, Lucy?” Lucy, who had dozed off on the queen’s lap, sat up and nodded.
“Life has been rather dull of late,” said Frith. “What treats we have in store for us, with our new skald.”
“He’s my brother,” Lucy said proudly.
“All the more reason for him to live with us. Don’t you think so, my lord?”
Olaf, do something, thought Jack.
Ivar rose to his feet. He looked deathly pale and exhausted, as though some disease ate at him. “Is this skald a gift, Olaf?”
“No, old friend,” the giant said simply. “I have given you much of my wealth-hoard. I have done so freely and gladly. I captured the great troll-pig on the borders of Jotunheim and gave him to you for Freya’s sacrifice. Is this not enough?”
Ivar bowed his head. “I am ashamed to appear greedy.”
“I’ve never thought of you as greedy, old friend,” said Olaf.
“I suppose that means I am,” the queen said. She stood up, dumping Lucy to the floor. Her cats came out of the shadows and surrounded her skirt, walking round and round like a stream of living gold. Lucy cried briefly and fell silent with her thumb in her mouth.
Frith came up to Jack and touched his lips with the tip of her finger. Ice coursed through his body, warring with the heat of the rune. “Such a lovely voice. What a pity not to hear it raised in your praises, Ivar.” The cats rustled around Jack’s legs now. They came up to his waist, so large were they, and their incessant movement made him dizzy. “Very well, then! I am greedy—but only for the glory of your court, dear husband. I want this skald for my own.”
“Great Queen,” began Olaf, and Jack noted that he called Ivar old friend, but there was no such warmth when he spoke to Frith. “Great Queen, do not ask this.”
“But I do ask it.”
“Take something else,” said King Ivar. The look the queen gave him caused him to stagger back into his chair.
“I have a new warhorse,” said Olaf, and Jack could see it hurt him to say this as much as it had hurt Thorgil to give up her necklace. “I think his sire came from Elfland, and I intended him for my son Skakki. You may have him, if you leave the skald.”
“I do not bargain, noble Olaf,” said the queen. “Dear me! I’m not some fishwife in the market. The horse is of course welcome, but that doesn’t settle the question of the boy.”
“Yes, it does,” said Jack. He was horribly afraid. He had to fight against her will and the cats walking incessantly around his legs. Then, too, he had to fight her beauty, but it was easier with the life force still hovering in the air. Frith was not as alluring in its presence. He glimpsed a shadow behind her that was in no way like her human form.
“This land has laws,” Jack struggled to say. “Ivar is king, and he’s told you not to take me.” His throat almost closed up with fear, but he heard a murmur of approval from the hall.
“Father always tells Mother what to do,” chirped Lucy. A ripple of laughter, quickly stifled, went round the room.
“I’ll sing your praises, Great Queen,” said Jack. “But I must honor King Ivar’s will.”
Frith’s form wavered ever so slightly. The fish-oil lamps sputtered and the hearth seemed to dim. Then all returned to normal. “I see you are as clever as you are musical,” the queen said. “I accept this compromise—for the moment. Give me a praise-song, boy, and I’ll tell you if I like it.”
Jack felt ready to collapse. He had no song ready, and his mind was emptied out. The cats continued to weave around him, now buffeting him with their bodies, now treading on his feet. “Could you—call off your cats?” he said weakly.
“They’re not mine,” trilled Frith. “They belong to Freya. They pull her sacrificial cart and obey her will. I certainly can’t tell a goddess what to do. Her beasts have chosen to like you, and that’s that.”
“Liking” was not what Jack thought the cats had in mind. They bumped into him roughly and their feet were heavy. He’d played with farm cats back home. Sometimes they got into a mood, and just when they seemed happy, they’d decide you were prey and attack.
However, he had no choice. What can I say? What can I say? he thought. All the praise-poems he knew were about brave deeds or accomplishments such as playing the harp or swimming. They could be applied to men or women. None of them were suitable for Frith. Could he lie? No, thought Jack. A bard’s skill came from the life force, and you couldn’t lie to it.
So what was left? Her beauty. In praise-poems a woman’s beauty was mentioned in general terms. It was there. It was good. Far more important was her character, but Frith had no character except lust and greed. Beauty it would have to be, then.
Jack began awkwardly. He was having to make things up on the spot. He raised his head and saw the crow hidden in the rafters. Bold Heart! It had to be him. He must have followed them from Olaf’s hall. Bold Heart bobbed up and down, seeming upset. He couldn’t have been happy about the cats. They could have swallowed him with one gulp and yowled for more.
“Why have you stopped?” said the queen.
Jack turned and saw her with Lucy snuggled once more in her lap. Or rather, Lucy was doing all the snuggling. Frith would never do anything so lovable. His sister’s life was in his hands. He had to please Frith or find out what happened to children when she got into a snit.
He looked directly at the queen. Her beauty stunned him as it had before. He began singing, first of her white arms and then her perfect face. Except that it wasn’t perfect. The one thing poets always mentioned about women was their eyes, and Frith’s eyes were like doors opening onto nothingness.
Her hair! He could sing about that. It indeed was worth praising, a red-gold river fanning out around her like a cloak fashioned by elves. It flowed down to the floor, fell like sunlight from her white brow. Even Freya’s cats were no fairer.
At the mention of cats one of the beasts turned his head and sank his teeth into Jack’s leg. He shouted in surprise. The spell was broken, for spell it had been. Jack had felt the life force strongly, as when he called up fog. Frith’s hair had become more golden, had fallen ever more gracefully. Had fallen.
With the breaking of the spell, Frith’s hair simply detached itself from her head and fell to the floor with a little sigh.
The party guests held their breath. Frith looked uncertain, as though she hadn’t realized what had happened. “It’s seiðer!” yelled Thorgil, breaking the silence. “See? There’s his familiar in the rafters!”
Bold Heart croaked balefully and sailed out the door.
“A crow?” Frith said, wondering. She felt her head. Then she screamed, a terrible scream unlike anything human. Her body bulged in a dozen places. Her features rippled and twisted like the beasts carved on the walls. Her head turned pale and bulbous, with gaping eyes and a mournful mouth. She screamed again and again. The hall emptied out, with warriors scrambling over one another and whimpering in a most unheroic way.
Jack tried to reach Lucy, but he was snatched away by Olaf. The giant cleared a path for his wives and friends, while Skakki brought up the rear. Tree Foot and Eric Pretty-Face carried Rune between them. The old warrior was too frail to fight his way through the panic. When they got outside, Olaf marched them to the edge of the forest. He watched as the party guests gathered a respectful distance from the hall.
The screams had stopped. The night was full of stars and a full moon hung at zenith. A faint glow on the horizon showed that even at midnight, the midsummer sun was not far away. No one spoke, and Jack was afraid to ask questions. What would happen now? What would happen to Lucy?
&nb
sp; Finally, Rune whispered, “That was the biggest snit I ever saw.”
It broke the tension. Olaf laughed ruefully. “Heide was right. She always is. I shouldn’t have taken the children to the party.”
“It was fated,” Rune said.
“I’m sorry,” said Jack, bracing for a blow, but Olaf was too preoccupied to hit him. He watched the door of Ivar’s hall.
“Should I fetch the thralls, Father?” said Skakki at last.
“Yes,” the giant replied. “Take Jack with you. He can calm the troll-boar while you unhitch the oxen.”
They made their way back to the party guests, and Jack asked people what had happened to Lucy. No one knew and no one wanted to go inside to look for her. Jack wiped tears away as he followed Skakki down a path to Golden Bristles’ cart. Thick Legs, Dirty Pants, and Lump were hiding under it.
“What was that sound?” whimpered Lump.
“The queen got into a snit. You can come along now,” Skakki said. “Unhitch the oxen. We’re getting out of here.” The men worked with the beasts while Jack sang softly to Golden Bristles inside. All the while he sawed with his knife at the leather straps holding the pen’s door. Finally, Skakki called him away.
“Good-bye, piggy,” Jack whispered. “Good luck.”
They walked in silence through the forest. The full moon marked out the path, and shadows massed under the trees on either side. But it was a clean darkness and not the perverted gloom of King Ivar’s hall. Jack saw a crow cross the face of the moon, keeping pace with Olaf’s party.
Chapter Twenty-four
THE QUEST
The next morning Olaf sent Cloud Mane to the king. “It may cool his anger. We haven’t a hope of cooling Frith’s rage.”
“We should take ship and escape to Finnmark,” said Heide. “My brothersss will protect us.”
“No offense, dear wife, but I don’t want to live in a smelly tent with your brothers. Nor do I want to be called a coward.”
“Escape is the only sensible thinggg,” Heide said, drawing out the last word.