“Can’t I lie down?” she complained. “I’m sooo tired.”
“We’ll rest when we get to the road. And you should stop getting a free ride,” Jack told Bold Heart. The crow only gripped harder.
The boy trudged on. Sorrow fought with joy in his mind. He was going home, but he had lost Thorgil and Rune forever. For the past months all he’d thought about was returning here. Now he felt let down. There’d be no more sailing, no more adventures. But he missed his family dreadfully. If only they didn’t live in a tiny village where the most exciting thing was a ewe having twins. How could he go back to hauling water, stacking firewood, and chasing black-faced sheep?
“I want to sit down now ,” said Lucy.
Jack could see the Roman road looming through the bracken. He led her to its moss-covered stones, and they both rested for a while. Jack shooed Bold Heart away. The crow landed nearby with loud caws of complaint. “If you don’t like it, go back to Thorgil,” the boy said. He rubbed his shoulder where the bird’s claws had dug in.
He took out food the Northmen had given him: roast goose and dry bread they had traded for farther north. Lucy nibbled the bread, and Bold Heart pecked at a shred of meat. Water dripped all around. They were getting soaked.
“How much farther is it?” said the little girl.
“An hour’s walk. Maybe more.”
“I’m tired,” she said.
To divert her, Jack took out the necklace of silver leaves. “Thorgil wanted you to have this.”
“Ooh!” Lucy grabbed the necklace and put it around her neck. “It’s from the queen,” she said, running her fingers over the bright metal.
“It’s from Thorgil,” he corrected.
“No! I saw the queen wearing it. She took me away to her palace. She gave me honey cakes and flummery.”
“That’s not true,” Jack said, losing patience. “You were sleeping on filthy straw and starving.”
“I was not! The queen sent me this necklace!”
Jack yanked it from Lucy’s neck. “You can have this back when you’re grateful to the person who really gave it to you.”
“You kindaskitur !”
“Call me ‘sheep droppings’ all you want, but—” Bold Heart cawed and flew into a tree. Jack was instantly alert. “Hide in the bracken, dear,” he whispered. Lucy, without a word, tumbled off the edge of the Roman road and scurried under a bush. She had certainly learned about avoiding danger.
Jack stood in the middle of the road. He heard footsteps and a tuneless whistling. He saw a figure emerge from the mist. At the same time the figure saw him.
“Don’t hurt me!” the boy yelled, turning and fleeing back down the road.
“Colin!” cried Jack, but the blacksmith’s son pounded away as fast as he could go. Jack looked down at himself. He was wearing the clothes the Mountain Queen had given him. Beneath his marten-fur coat he wore a fine green tunic and brown pants stuffed into his cowskin boots. He had a leather scabbard on his belt, and the knife from that scabbard was in his hand.
“Oh, my,” said Jack. “I look like a Northman. Come on, Lucy. We’d better get home before someone shoots me with an arrow.”
She climbed up and took his hand. “If I’m with you, they won’t shoot,” she said, which was so brave and perceptive, Jack leaned over and kissed her on the top of her head. They walked on. Bold Heart immediately fastened himself to Jack’s shoulder.
After a while they heard many voices in the distance. The mist was thinning and sunlight broke through, turning the autumn forest red and gold.
“There he is! Wait! Don’t shoot yet! There’s a girl with him!” said several voices.
Yet? thought Jack. They came out to a clearing. Several men crouched with the kind of weapons you found around farms. John the Fletcher had an arrow nocked to his bow.
“Father!” shrieked Lucy, running forward.
“Lucy?” said Father, dropping his scythe. “Jack?” He swept the little girl into his arms. John the Fletcher lowered his bow.
“It’s a berserker!” yelled Colin. “He came at me with an axe!”
“Don’t be silly,” said the chief of the village. “That’s Giles Crookleg’s lad, but he’s so big.”
Jack stood forth with his ash wood staff. Bold Heart sat on his shoulder. He knew he couldn’t have grown much in the time he’d been gone, but he must look entirely different. He certainly felt different from the boy who’d been dragged away by Northmen.
“He saved me from a horrible monster. And he fought trolls and dragons!” Lucy told Father.
Father looked completely bewildered. “You’re alive,” he said. “My son, you’re alive.” Giles Crookleg began to cry, and Jack began to cry too, which spoiled some of the grand effect he was trying to make.
“I know what’s different,” the chief declared. “See that crow? Ow!” he said as Bold Heart snapped at him. “That’s what bards carry on their shoulders. Jack went off an apprentice and has come back a full-fledged bard—about time, too. The old one hasn’t been making any sense.”
Everyone congratulated Jack then, and Father hugged him. They set off for the village with John the Fletcher running ahead to spread the good news. In a low voice Jack told Colin, “If I had been a berserker, your head would have rolled on the ground before you’d gone three steps,” and he was gratified to see the boy turn pale.
An eager crowd waited outside Giles Crookleg’s farm. They cheered when they saw Jack and Lucy. The little girl danced before them, basking in the attention. Her dress was a wonder never seen in the village. Heide had made it after the style of her people. It was bright blue, with green embroidery at the neck and hem and white flowers scattered over the rest. Lucy looked like a real princess.
Everyone laughed and clapped. The little girl didn’t even notice Mother standing far back, at the door of the house. But Jack went to her immediately, fending off the hearty congratulations of well-wishers. Father had begun to recount the brief story Jack had given him of their captivity. “He saw trolls and dragons and giant spiders!” Father cried.
“Go on, Giles, that’s just one of your fantasies,” someone yelled.
Jack and Mother slipped to the back of the house. “I should fetch Lucy,” the boy said.
“Let her have her moment,” Mother said softly. “What happened to her hair?”
“It’s a long story. You won’t believe what happened.”
“I might. We suspected you’d been taken by berserkers. Father thought you were dead, but I never believed it. I looked into the water and saw you standing in a swarm of bees.”
Jack shivered. Mother was a wise woman, though she was careful to hide it. He wasn’t sure what “looking into the water” meant, but he’d seen Heide staring into a bowl, and everyone else tiptoed around when she did it. “How’s the Bard?” he asked.
She sighed. “He eats and sleeps, but his behavior is that of an infant. He screams at odd times, and he keeps waving his arms.”
“Is he at the Roman house?”
“He can’t take care of himself,” Mother said sadly, “and he’s so difficult that Father had to build him a shed near the back fence. People take turns caring for him. I don’t know what we’ll do when winter comes.”
They went down a path to the fields. Giles Crookleg’s farm was in magnificent shape. Stands of wheat were heavy with grain. Black beans and broad beans, turnips and radishes, parsnips and carrots grew in orderly rows. It had been a wonderful year, aside from getting raided by blood-thirsty berserkers from across the sea.
“You look very bardlike with that staff and that crow on your shoulder,” Mother said. “Is he tame?”
“Sometimes he snaps at people,” Jack said. But Mother fearlessly stroked the bird’s feathers, and Bold Heart warbled deep in his throat.
“You’d almost think he was talking.”
“Actually, he is. A girl I knew could understand what he said.”
“My! You have had adventures. I can’t w
ait to hear about them.” Jack heard screams in the distance. His hand went automatically to his knife. “It’s only the Bard,” said Mother. “Sometimes he keeps it up for hours. We don’t know what he wants, and he can’t tell us.”
Jack approached the shed with a feeling of dread. Those cries! They were scarcely human. “Is he violent?”
“No, only very frightened. Everything we do frightens him.”
The door was secured with an iron bolt. Jack pulled it back. The inside of the shed smelled bad. The Bard scuttled to the far wall. His hair was wild and his fingernails as long as claws. His clothes—a rough tunic belted with a rope—were smeared with excrement.
“We try to keep him clean, but he gets so agitated when we attempt to bathe him that we’re afraid he’ll die of fright,” Mother said.
“Sir, it’s me, Jack. I’ve returned. Your enemy Frith is gone. You don’t have to be afraid.” But the old man only cowered in the deep straw that covered the floor. “I’ve brought you something that might heal you,” said Jack. “It’s song-mead from Mimir’s Well. There’s only a few drops, so you can’t waste them.”
“Wud- duh. Gaaw,” said the Bard. He raised his clawlike fingers to defend himself.
How am I ever going to get anything into his mouth? thought Jack. He took a step forward, and Bold Heart suddenly swooped from his shoulder and flew straight at the old man.
“Wud- duh !” shrieked the Bard.
Caw, caw, caw! screamed Bold Heart. The two collided and fell to the floor as though struck by lightning.
“No!” cried Jack. He rushed to the old man and lifted him up. The Bard’s eyes were staring, and he wasn’t breathing! “Mother! What should I do?”
She knelt on the other side and felt the old man’s pulse. “His heart has stopped!”
“No, no, no,” moaned Jack. He’d been so close.
“Pour that song-mead or whatever it is down his throat!” said Mother. She pulled open the Bard’s jaws, and Jack upended the bottle. A spoonful of bright liquid fell into the old man’s mouth. Jack shook the bottle, and one more drop formed.
“That’s all there is,” he whispered.
Suddenly, as though he were waking from a deep sleep, the Bard quivered and opened his eyes. “Jack, my lad,” he said in a hoarse voice.
“You’re back! You’re back!” Behind him Jack heard a fluttering. Bold Heart was struggling to rise. “Frith’s power is broken, sir. You’re safe.”
“I know,” said the Bard. “My stars, I’m a mess! Hasn’t anyone given me a bath?”
“We tried,” said Mother, laughing and crying at the same time.
Bold Heart staggered through the straw. His wings hung down as though he’d forgotten how to use them. “What’s wrong?” Jack said, alarmed. He reached for the bird, and it slashed at him viciously.
Bold Heart shrieked, backing against the wall.
“Has he gone mad?” Jack said.
“No, he’s only a poor, frightened bird,” said the Bard, rising with Mother’s help. “These past few months have not been kind to him.”
“But—but he was my friend. ”
“ I was your friend, Jack,” the Bard said. “Don’t you remember the story of Beowulf? How I threw myself into the body of a pike? When Frith hunted me down, the only way I could escape was into the body of a crow. I traded places with him. It was touch and go getting back, though. If you hadn’t roused me with that song-mead, both of us would have died.”
“ You fought the troll-bear? You talked the dragon out of eating me? You brought back Lucy’s spirit?”
“I have some skills, even in the body of a bird,” the Bard said with understandable pride. “Brains, you know. But don’t discount your own contributions. You’ve shown remarkable ability. Remarkable.”
Jack glowed under the praise.
“All this time I’ve been trying to reason with a bird,” said Mother.
“You can’t reason with a bird. It isn’t bright enough,” said the Bard. The old man stretched his fingers and toes as though getting used to them again.
“Bold Heart,” murmured Jack. In spite of what the Bard said, he missed the cheeky crow. Surely something of its character had remained when the man had taken over its body.
“He’ll have to learn to fly again,” said the Bard. “I’ll keep him with me until it’s safe for him to be on his own.”
“And I’ll heat water for a bath,” said Mother.
“Another thing you can’t do with birds,” the Bard said, wrinkling his nose, “is house-train them.”
They were sitting under the rowan tree in the little valley. Bold Heart was in a cage some distance away. The Bard had opened the door, but the crow was too frightened to go out.
“He can fly and he’s healthy enough,” said the old man. “He just lacks confidence.”
Nearby a bubbling spring fed a small pool. Some of Mother’s bees still explored the smooth gray branches of the tree, though the time of rowan flowers was gone. Perhaps they liked to be where the life force was strong.
“How did you find me, sir?” said Jack. “After I was taken.”
“I asked crows on the way. They’re great gossips. Know everything that’s going on. They didn’t know you personally, of course, but something like a Northman ship heading up the coast caught their attention. The storm forced me to take shelter, and I didn’t reach your boat until it turned eastward for the last long stretch of the journey.”
“Yet you followed me over the sea.” Jack was deeply moved.
“It was foolish. If you hadn’t called me down, I would have drowned.”
The wind at the top of the valley had been cool, but something about this place held on to the warmth of summer. Dandelions and clover still dotted the grass, and frogs peeped in the marsh grass around the pond.
“Why didn’t you come back here?” said Jack.
“Too dangerous. Frith could find me as long as I was in this body. And she would have made sure that everyone in the village was killed. Besides, I rather liked being a crow. Sometimes I liked it too much.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“There’s a danger in taking another form. Sometimes you forget who you are.”
“Like when we first got to Olaf’s house?” Jack guessed.
“I was so glad to get to the end of that beastly voyage—what with storms and fog and the burning of Gizur’s village—I took a vacation. Went off with a flock and clean forgot I was human.” The Bard shivered at the memory. “When I realized what I’d done, I was careful never to leave you again.”
A crow soared overhead, circled, and came down to the cage. “Look,” whispered Jack. The crow warbled deep in its throat, going on and on as though trying to reason with someone. Bold Heart stuck his beak out the door. Warble, coo, warble, said the strange bird. Then it flew off. Bold Heart tumbled out of the cage and took off after it, cawing wildly. He disappeared over the rim of the valley, still calling.
“You see all sorts of things other people miss when you serve the life force,” said the Bard.
“Even when you tell them, they don’t believe you.” Jack had described his adventures to the villagers, and they’d listened politely. But when he was finished, they said, Tell us what really happened. We’re used to Giles Crookleg’s lies. No amount of protesting shifted them.
“Don’t be angry,” the Bard said. “Most people live inside a cage of their own expectations. It makes them feel safe. The world’s a frightening place full of glory and wonder and, as we’ve both discovered, danger. Flying isn’t for everyone.”
Jack had worked up the courage to ask the one question he thought might upset the old man. “Sir…was I right to give Thorgil the rune of protection? She’s still a shield maiden and she’s still our enemy.”
The Bard smiled gently, gazing at the empty cage. “No kindness is ever wasted, nor can we ever tell how much good may come of it. The rune was meant to go to Thorgil. The life force demanded it, and she, lik
e it or not, has been enlisted in its service. I’m sure she’ll be peeved when she finds out.”
“Why didn’t you tell her who you were?”
“Oh, I did. The tiresome child refused to believe me. The Mountain Queen saw through my disguise at once. Very little is hidden from her.”
“I’d love to hear the story of how you melted a hole through her wall,” said Jack.
“Not today,” the Bard said firmly. “I’ve hardly got my voice back after all the screaming my body did while I was gone. Let’s just sit here and watch the last of summer.”
And so they did. The bees hummed over the remaining flowers, the spring bubbled, and the rowan tree rustled in a warm breeze. The magic was deep and harder to reach here than it had been in Jotunheim, but it was more humane. There was no other place on earth, Jack decided, that he’d rather be.
Appendix
The Holy Isle
The destruction of the Holy Island of Lindisfarne on June 8, 793, shocked the Anglo-Saxons in the same way 9/11 shocked Americans. It was a completely unexpected blow from a completely unexpected direction. The Saxons believed the sea protected them. They also believed that no one would attack a peaceful, trusting group of monks. They were wrong.
The abbey of Lindisfarne was founded inA .D. 635, and by 793 it was a center of great learning and art. When the raiders arrived, the monks ran to greet them and to invite them to dinner. The description of what happened next is in The Sea of Trolls and is taken from The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle . Amazingly, one beautifully illuminated manuscript survived the fire: the Lindisfarne Bible.
This attack was the beginning of two hundred years of Viking raids on the British Isles.
Northmen
Viking is a term that means “pirate” or “raider.” Vikings could come from Denmark, Norway, or Sweden, and I have chosen to use the word Northmen for them in the book. They would have spoken Old Danish or Old Norse. Jack would have spoken Anglo-Saxon.
Languages change over time. Anglo-Saxon morphed into Old English and then into the English we speak today. Old Norse changed into Icelandic, which is what the Northmen in the book use. Kristin Johannsdottir, an Icelander teaching in Canada, very kindly provided the correct translations.