Giants of the Frost (36 page)

"I want Halla," I said.

"You can't have her," Asbjörn said. "She belongs to our family. Go back to whatever heathen place you came from and leave us be."

I ignored Asbjörn; he was not the person who held the power in this community. "Isleif, Halla and I are in love and intend to be husband and wife," I said. "Hand her over to me. You hold her against her will."

"Her will has been infected by you," Isleif said. "Halldisa is a Christian woman, and as soon as her right mind is returned to her, she intends to take my dear friend Ulf as husband. You must leave the island so that Halla can recover her senses."

Anger burned brightly inside me and a flash glimmered behind my eyes. I knew that feeling too well, the rush of blood to my brain before battle, where images and sounds became sharp and hot. "Halla is mine," I said. "As I am hers. Bring her out here to explain."

"No, she is with her family. She will not see you again. Return to… your home; Work no more of your devil's magic here on Church Island."

"It is Odin's Island," I bellowed, and Isleif took a step back. My hands tightened on the haft of my axe. I knew precisely how it would feel to lift it and split Isleif's head open with the blade. I knew the exact weight of the swing, the sound it would make, the shudder of resistance vibrating up to my shoulders…

Then I thought about you, somewhere inside, held against your will and commanded to keep very still and quiet. You would not want me to kill Isleif. You would want me to be sensible and try to solve this problem with my brain.

I took a deep breath and forced my arms to relax. I could see Isleif relax too.

"I will return," I said, "and I will make Halla mine. But I won't spill your blood, Isleif. Tell Halla that she need not fear me."

"Give yourself to Christ, Vidar," Isleif said. "It's the only way." I bit my tongue and walked away. Shame tickled my face and neck. If my brothers could see me, backing down from a fight, letting a Christian bully me into meekness! Then I realized what my brothers thought of me was no longer my concern, and I felt liberated. Under the most pressing of circumstances, I had kept my wits and I had controlled my urge to kill. This meant for certain that I was shedding the curse of my blood. This meant for certain that I was worthy of your love and trust, that I was
becoming
. I had never turned from a battle before, nor had I ever tried to reason with my father. The first experiment had been successful, and that success heartened me for the second. Wisdom is not a lover's strength.

As soon as the sun sank I returned to Asgard. The long hall at Valaskjálf was alive with fires and music and chatter. From one end to another, members of my family, their friends and servants, warriors visiting from Valhalla, captives, concubines and Vanir slaves talked, laughed, sang, cooked, scowled, kissed, fought, ate and drank. These were our golden days, when my father's hall was bursting with warmth and company, not the unhappy place it is now. Smoke from the fires collected in the cavernous ceiling, escaping slowly through small holes in the silverwork. I stepped inside and looked around for Odin. He was nowhere in view and I grew irritated. I wanted to speak with him while my nerve still held, while the carefully rehearsed address was clear in my mind.

My eyes found my brother Vali across the hall. I weaved through the tables and the people and laid my hand on his shoulder.

"Brother!" he exclaimed, grabbing my hand and squeezing it firmly. His tongue slurred on the ale he was drinking. "You are returned. It has been too long since we have seen you. Come, sit, drink."

"Vali, I need to speak with Odin."

He fixed me with an amused gaze. "Really now? It sounds very serious."

"It is serious. Where is he?"

"Indisposed."

"Drunk?"

"We're all drunk." He gestured around the room. "Perhaps you wouldn't feel so serious if you were too?" He was gazing at me unevenly, a smile on his lips. I returned the smile. "It's serious enough to wait until he's sober. I'll speak to him in the morning," I said.

Vali pulled me down next to him. Two Midgard warriors were demonstrating a combat routine to a small group. I watched them battle, their spears and axes glinting in the firelight. One ran the other through and a great cheer went up as the victim fell to the floor with a crash and a groan. The victor reached for a mug of ale while his companion was dragged out in a smear of blood.

The entertainment over, Vali turned to me. "So, brother, what is this serious business? Something to do with the Christians on Odin's Island?"

"Yes, and no. They are bothersome, but not all Christians. There is one woman in particular…" I had no idea how to articulate to my brother what I felt. I knew that every attempt would sound to him like I was speaking a foreign tongue.

Vali grinned suggestively. "Pretty, is she?"

"I should like to take her as wife."

"A Midgard woman?"

"I'm in love with her." I couldn't meet his eyes, braced myself for the barrage of mockery.

"He won't let you," Vali said dismissively, draining his mug.

"He has to let me," I said.

"Why can't you find somebody here?" Vali said, indicating those around him. He singled out a dark-haired woman near the roasting spit. "How about her?"

"She is nobody. She is anybody. Halla is irreplaceable; she is always and forever all I will ever love."

"Good luck," Vali said coldly, with a derisive snort.

"If he won't let me bring her here, then I'll go there and stay," I declared, pounding a clenched fist on the table. "I'm not a prisoner."

"Of course you're not," Vali said, meeting my gaze unevenly.

I pulled myself to my feet. "Brother, I will save the rest for Odin. I have no heart for celebrating, so I'll go to my bed now."

Vali nodded, already turning away. Another fight was about to commence. "Sleep with your problem, Vidar, and perhaps by morning it will be solved."

My room was in an outbuilding at the western end of Valaskjálf and north a hundred paces. I lit the fire and lay down next to it, watching the flames for many long hours while I turned my problem over and over in my mind. I missed you wildly. I hadn't known that somebody's absence could create such an ache in my bones. I had to be with you, and in order to be with you, I had to gain my father's permission to bring you back to Asgard. Isleif could not attempt to control you here in my father's hall, nor could your actions bring dishonor to your family. I closed my eyes and imagined you next to me. Despite the echoes of revelry that occasionally drifted to my ears on a gust of sea air, I fell asleep. When I woke, it was with disquiet in my belly. A sound had disturbed me. What was it? It was still dark, but bird-song told me day was bare moments away. Then the sound again.

Dogs.

Wild dogs, released from the pit. Odin's dogs, his war companions; four feet at the shoulder and ravenous for warm flesh, and only Odin could control them. Their savage loyalty meant that anyone else who approached would lose at least a limb. If the dogs were loose, their master was not far behind. I started upright, leaped to my feet. Odin's horn sounded. The dogs barked in frenzy. I ran to my door, but found my way barred by some unseen object. I turned to the shutter and lifted it, eyes straining to focus in the mist.

A blur of animal bodies streamed past. Then Odin, on top of Sleipnir, twice as fast as any other horse known to the Aesir. His torch glimmered off his helmet, his hunching shoulders were clothed in fur, his axe gleamed. Vali, my traitorous brother, rode in his wake.

"Odin!" I cried, hoping vainly that he wasn't taking the dogs to Bifrost. To Midgard and Halla. The last shred of night was unraveling, Bifrost would be closed at any moment, and the door defied every attempt I made to open it.

"There is no love, Vidar," Odin called, and his voice whipped behind him on the wind. "There is only fate."

How can I describe to you the agony of anxiety that day brought me? By the time I had hammered my way out of the room—an oak table with a boulder upon it had blocked the door—it was daylight. Bifrost was closed.

I saddled Arvak and waited all day by the gleaming stone towers for the first shadow of night to come. Thoughts burned in my brain amid confusion and terror. Somewhere, under layers of hope and denial, I knew you were already dead, but still I constructed detailed fantasies, where Odin killed every member of your family but spared you. The sun sank behind me. Heimdall arrived, grinning at me knowingly. My panic was too focused to allow another thought in. The bridge opened, I plunged down its colored contours toward Midgard.

The world was all torn to pieces.

I could smell smoke and blood. Ice hung from the trees. A wind howled down the ragged corridors between their trunks. My heart weighed in my chest like a stone, sick and frozen.

"Odin?" I called. "Vali?" I tentatively moved Arvak out of the wood, toward the camp. There was a horse's screech behind me, the whimper and thump of brainless dogs. Somebody laughed, then the laughter faded. My family, disappearing to Bifrost and home.

The panic was hot and heavy in my mind. Arvak broke the cover of the trees and the camp was laid out before me.

There was hardly a thing left of it. The three cabins were razed and smoldering. The church burned slowly. I dismounted and moved closer to inspect it. My father or my brother had soaked the wood on the west wall so that the flames were low and green. Hanging from the wood, pinned up with spears, was Isleif's corpse. I kicked open the door and peered inside, then turned instantly and tried to forget what I had seen. The women and children, hanged and burned, like ghastly dolls. Among them, no flash of white hair. You weren't there. I felt my lungs expand. Perhaps you had escaped.

I moved through the choking ruins toward the fjord and down into the trees again. I found the remains of the men near the water. Had they tried to fight, or had they stood like hapless deer while Odin's dogs ripped them to pieces? A groan nearby made me catch my breath and spin around. Asbjorn, pinned to a tree. The dogs had started on him but not finished. I approached. His pale eyes met mine, but there was no recognition in them. He was not dead in body, but I suspected Asbjörn had long since ceased to be in mind. I carefully placed the tip of my spear over his heart and ended his suffering. He shrieked and twitched, the last mortal instinct, then fell slack against his bonds.

Still, I had not found you.

I took a deep breath. "Halla?" I called. "Halla?"

Maybe you were with my father and brother, a captive in Asgard. Even though I knew how captives were treated at Valaskjálf, the thought gave me joy. Alive, I could help you, I could speak to you and hold you. Dead, you were separated from me forever.

I gathered my courage and moved into the woods, scanning every inch around me for a glimpse of you. Until the very last moment I thought it might be possible you had survived; convinced myself of it so deeply that the sight of your hair, catching the moonlight at the foot of a rock in the clearing, almost failed to register.

But it was you. I ran to you and skidded to my knees.

Odin had done this, I knew his work. You had run from him, he had chased you here out of the cover of the trees, and he had killed you with an axe blow to the back. Blood stained your hair, but the dogs hadn't found you.

I removed the axe and turned you over, pressed myself against you and sobbed like a child. As the night deepened and the ice melted from the trees, I held you. You were cold and your head flopped about and your skin was blue instead of cream. I was covered in soil and moss and blood, my clothes were damp and I shivered with the cold and the shock. Every possibility of comfort had evaporated eternally. I laid your body down and sat back to stare around me like a simpleton.

A gleam of steel caught my eye. I rose and moved toward it.

Hjarta-bítr, rescued from the sea, thrust into the ground a bare five yards from where you had died. My hand closed over the crosspiece and I pulled it from the ground and felt its familiar weight in my hand. In an instant, I had thought of the one thing that might bring a glimmer of satisfaction. To take this blade and plunge it into my father's heart.

I released Arvak near the stables of Valaskjálf. The salty wind leaped down my throat and dried the last of the tears on my cheeks. As I strode up toward the hall, my heart pounded in my ears. Dark clouds gathered out at sea and crowded in on me, blocking out the stars. I trudged up the hill and saw the outline of the hall, and it seemed as though the walls themselves were quaking. My intention, to kill my father, was poison and ruin to our world. Lightning flashed, illuminating figures running from the hall. Odin knew I was coming, he was clearing out the usual crowd of revelers. By the time I flung the door open, the sky had fallen all around me. Hail began to beat off the roof, thunder split the heavens. Fires still burned, mugs of mead littered tables, half-eaten meals cooled, but the hall was as silent as death.

Outside my father's door, twenty of his servants formed a barrier.

"Stand aside!" I shouted, drawing my sword and noticing a smear of your blood on my wrist. They all gazed at me mutely.

"Stand aside at once or I will remove your heads from your bodies." A man, grey and stooped, stepped forward. "You will not enter your father's chamber," he said.

"Stand aside, old man."

He shook his head, planted his feet. I felt the hurricane of pain and anger and injustice tighten within me, lashed out and felled him. When I kicked the body aside, another took his place.

"You will not enter your father's chamber."

One after the other they stepped forward, and I mowed them down without thought, tasting the satisfaction like a drowning man tastes air, until there were only five left. Then Odin's door quietly opened. My heart jumped, but my father did not appear. Instead, another ten servants filed out. It finally occurred to me what was happening.

My sword, waiting for me in the clearing.

These willing victims, falling at my feet in a pool of blood and sad resignation. Odin
wanted
me to kill them. He wanted me to be a killer again, to be the son he had nearly lost to love. I gazed around me with a sick heart. Blood zinged on my tongue, my hands were smeared, my shoes were soaked in it.