The Extremely Epic Viking Tale of Yondersaay (26 page)

“Entrails,” Asgrim interjected, leaning forward.

“Sorry, entrails,” Isdrab continued. “She moves bloody entrails about with her fingers and reads messages from the gods in them. It’s not scientific. And I’ve never once seen her wash her hands afterward.”

“You’re kidding!” Asgrim said. “She always hands out sandwiches to the gathered hordes. Eww. And I usually eat them!”

“Very tasty sandwiches,” Hamish Hjorvarth put in.

“Yes, that is true,” Asgrim conceded.

“Besides,” Isdrab said, “the medicines she sells at the market have been proven to work no better than placebos, her methods have been discredited so many times—”

“Let me guess,” Scathe said. “They’re not verifiable?”

“Precisely!” Isdrab said.

Scathe thought for a mere second and said, “Let’s see what she says;
then
we’ll decide whether or not we believe in her divining authority.”

“Good plan, sir,” Asgrim said.

“I don’t think that’s very fair, sir,” Isdrab said.

“I like it!” Hamish said.

“But … but …” Isdrab said with his hand in the air like he wanted to ask a question.

“Yes, very good plan, your jarlship,” one of the five twins said, grinning.

“Then it’s settled,” Scathe pronounced. “Isdrab, you are dismissed.” Scathe turned back to his other men and roared “
Bring me the oracle
!”

“
Bring him the oracle
!” Asgrim shouted.

“
Bring him the oracle
!” Hamish shouted.

“
Bring him the oracle
!” the men around them shouted.

Nobody moved.

“Go on then!” Scathe said, and one of the airport twins shuffled off.

“I always have to do everything,” the twin muttered to himself as he wandered through the Great Hall and out the front gates.

Dry now, and over the trauma of having been spat at by a whirlpool, Dani and Granny thanked Rarelief for all his advice, promised to say hi to his mother should they see her, and set off after Hamish and Ruairi as quickly as they could. Following Rarelief’s instructions, Dani twisted the large square-looking boulder two times counterclockwise when they reached the banks of the River Gargle. Then they waded through the river, just between the whirlpool and the tumbling waterfall. They were neither spun out nor spat at. They picked their way up the bank of the river on the other side and made across the dunes to the Beach of Bewilderment.

Halfway across the Beach of Bewilderment, they were forced to stop their trek.

“They look green to me,” Dani said to Granny.

“They’re clearly blue,” Granny said.

“
Green
!” Dani shouted back.

Granny stopped dead, turned, and shouted at Dani, “
Fine
! They’re a greeny-blue,”

“
No
! They’re a bluey-green,” Dani said.

“Fine, fine, fine. They’re not blue. They’re greenbottle blue!” Granny said.

“That just means blue,” Dani said. “You’re trying to win by pretending you’re giving in. Why not bluebottle green?”

“Because there’s no such thing as bluebottle green,” Granny explained, getting agitated again. “And greenbottle blue is an established and very recognizable color!”

“So you say!” Dani snapped.

“I think we’re getting off the point a bit here. Is it really that important?” Granny asked, motioning to what was approaching. “Rarelief warned us about this.”

“About what?” Dani asked.

“He said we’d get bewildered on the Beach of Bewilderment, and that we must take care or we’d lose focus,” Granny said.

“He did?” Dani asked, looking confused. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything. How long have we been here?”

“Look,” Granny said.

While Granny and Dani had been standing in the middle of the beach, bewildered, arguing with each other about whether the creatures which had slowly but solidly emerged from the water lapping up on the beach were in fact green or blue, the creatures, the Yondersaay tarantulafish, as large as Mum’s mauve hire car, had slowly and quietly, unfettered and unencumbered, crawled closer.

And closer.

And closer.

“We’ve just been standing here when we should have been running for the hills!” Granny said.

“And now that they’re right beside us, Granny,” Dani said, “I absolutely see what you mean; they are definitely a bluey shade of greenbottle blue.”

“With rusty legs.”

“Hairy rusty legs.”

“And bright orange underbellies.”

“Their faces are black, though,” Dani noted.

“Very black,” Granny said, and Granny and Dani moved closer together.

“Can they kill you?” Dani asked.

“Well …” Granny hesitated.

“Well?” Dani turned and faced her great-great-great-grandmother.

“Their bites are pretty nasty, I’ve heard. Poisonous,” Granny said. “And they have fangs. But before they even get close enough to bite you, they can sting you with the barbed hairs full of venom that they flick off their bellies with their back legs like poison arrows.”

“Poison! Venom! And is it lethal?” Dani was getting very worried now.

“It won’t kill you outright, I don’t think,” Granny explained, “but its effect can be medically significant. When you’re down on the ground writhing in agony, they wrap you up in their silk, bring you back to their underwater burrows, and eat you with those things on their faces.”

Dani’s voice came out in a high-pitched shriek. “Writhing in agony! Eat you!
Medically significant
! What the
hell
does
medically significant
mean?”

“I think it means we should get the heckadoodle out of here,” Granny said.

“At last we agree on something!” said Dani.

They made to run, but Granny and Dani were completely surrounded. Some of the tarantulafish were already lifting their back legs to pluck poisonous hairs from their bellies, ready to flick them. Granny and Dani could hear sickening clicks coming from the faces of the tarantulafish. The man-eating, venom-flicking, poison-fanged tarantulafish were getting ready to feast on an old woman in her good maroon coat and her good maroon hat with the puffin feathers and a young, red-haired girl in multiple layers of winter clothes.

Mum was having troubles of her own. “Put me down, Brokk the Chiselled and Kind of Heart,” she said. “I have not assented to marry you. You have further wooing to do.”

“But you will, you will assent, Róisínín Rose White,” he said. “And by the way, you’re beautiful when you’re angry.”

“I mean it, Brokk. I know you’re intent on this wooing business, but you are coming on a little strong. It’s very kind of you to tell me I’m beautiful, but the compliment loses a lot of its impact when you imprison me against my will. Now please. Put me down.”

“You won’t run off again?”

“I won’t run off again, I promise,” Mum said.

“You’ll let me woo you?”

“I’ll let you
try
to woo me,” Mum said.

Just as Brokk was loosening his grip on Mum, they heard a voice shouting at them. “Hey, you! Let her go!”

“Another one?” Mum groaned.

Brokk looked around and saw a man, soaked to the bone, approaching. “I’m very sorry, Róisínín, I can’t really let you go now he’s told me to. I’ll look weak.”

“I’m the only one here; Aldis has gone to fetch more mead. And I certainly do not think you weak, Brokk the Chiselled and Kind of Heart. You really can let me down,” Mum said.

“All the same, if you don’t mind,” Brokk said, “I’ll keep hold of you for just a few minutes more. Who knows who heard him shouting like that? It really will not look good for me if I let you down now.”

Mum sighed and rolled her eyes. “Men!”

“Who is this dripping person anyway?” Brokk said motioning to the approaching man.

“I have no idea,” Mum said.

The man striding up the embankment from the shore was very tired-looking, very wet, and not wearing Viking clothes.

“What has come over all of you?” he said. “Why are you all dressed like that? Lewis, why are you manhandling my wife? Really. I expected more from you.” At this, Dad looked Lewis MacAvinney, the baker, up and down. “Or should I say, I expected less of you.”

Brokk and Róisínín looked at each other, puzzled. They did not move.

Dad waited for a minute, then said again, “Go on. Let go of her!”

Brokk took a step toward Dad. A big man, Brokk growled fiercely at Dad, who instinctively took a step back.

“Are you all right, Róisín?” Dad croaked.

“Róisínín,” Mum said.

“Róisínín then,” Dad said.

“I was until you showed up,” Mum said.

“Oh, you were, were you?” Dad said.

“Yes. He’s wooing me, but he was about to let me go until you ordered him to. Now he can’t without losing face.”

Dad looked at Brokk, who shrugged.

“What are you talking about, Róisín? Come on now. Stop messing around. Get out of the arms of Tarzan here, and let’s go and get a coffee.” Nobody moved. Dad tried again, softer this time. “I’ve had a long night. I’m exhausted, I’m hungry, and I’m wet—I had to wade to shore from a boat. I’m really not in the mood for this!”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Mum said, pleasantly but firmly. “Sorry.”

“Look, if this is about the fight we had before you left with the children, I’ve already apologized for that. And I’ve come all the way here. That should be enough for you. You can stop punishing me now.”

“It’s not about that,” Mum said.

“It’s not?” Dad asked.

“No, of course not. I don’t know you. I’ve never seen you before. How could it be about … whatever you just said?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! I don’t have to take this nonsense!” Dad said and blustered off. Mum noticed him glancing back to see if she had relented and was following him. She was not. She was still in Brokk’s arms, letting him stroke her hair. Dad stormed straight back up to the two of them and grabbed at Brokk, trying to lever his arm away from Mum. But Brokk’s arm didn’t budge an inch. Dad put both his hands around Brokk’s forearm and pulled. Nothing. Dad walked up Brokk’s leg to his knee, and yanked hard. He was all the way off the ground, almost horizontal, but it didn’t work. Red in the face, Dad climbed down. He spoke to Mum again as if none of it had happened. “If it’s not that, then what’s stopping you?”

“Even if I were to agree to go for a stroll with you, whoever you are, I can’t. Brokk still has a pretty firm hold on me, as you can see, and he’s not going to let me go just because you say so.”

“Right,” Dad said and backed up a few feet. He ran at Brokk and barged into him with his shoulder. Brokk barely raised an eyebrow as Dad glanced off his muscles and fell backward onto the ground. Dad tried that one more time with the same effect. “Okay then,” he said midrun, “what can I do?”

“You can go away,” Mum said.

“I’m not going away,” Dad said, standing up again and crossing his arms.

“Or you can meet him in combat,” Mum replied.

“Meet him in com—
what
?” Dad said.

“You know, hand-to-hand or with battle-axes, whatever you decide between the two of you,” Mum explained.

“I vote battle-axes,” Brokk said.

“I do love a good battle-ax fight, don’t you?” Mum said.

“I’m
not
going into combat with him!” Dad said.

“Oh!” Brokk and Mum said together.

“Not much of a catch, is he, Róisínín?” Brokk said to Mum. “Refusing combat in such a cowardly fashion.”

“I know!” Mum said. “And for a minute there, I sort of thought he was quite attractive, you know, in a puny, pasty sort of way.”

“Please stop talking about me as though I’m not here. Look at him,” Dad said. Brokk and Róisínín both looked Brokk up and down, nodded, and smiled, “and look at me.” They turned and looked at Dad and shook their heads.

“I would cleave him verily in two. There is not much doubting it,” Brokk said.

“It would be murder—and as he says there would be heaving and in-two-ing—and I really don’t want to be responsible for a respected member of the Yondersaay community going down for the rest of his life. It wouldn’t be fair on him,” Dad said.