The Islands of the Blessed (22 page)

“I'm touched,” said the Bard, holding his hand up for silence. “You are most noble companions, but you have duties at home. Even Olaf didn't wait for ships that had been taken into the halls of Aegir and Ran. It is the way of the whale-road,” he said, using the Northman expression for
sea
.

Skakki opened a keg of mead to toast the adventure, and the Northmen gathered around, eagerly holding out their drinking horns. Jack wandered off down the beach. He always felt uncomfortable around such parties, for the tempers of berserkers were uncertain. He could hear their drunken revels in the distance.

The men had begun a
flyting
, a recreational insult session. Someone accused Egil of using seagull poop on his beard and someone else roared that Eric the Rash spread it on bread. Each Northman strove to top the others, inventing practices that Jack found difficult to picture, let alone understand.
Eventually, as all such contests did, the insults degenerated into a free-for-all, until Skakki shouted, “Calm them!” to Schlaup. Afterward things became very quiet indeed.

Jack sat on the sand and listened to the waves. It seemed that no matter how hard he tried, something always messed up his plans. Now he couldn't go home. He'd have to sail north to some dark, spooky place inhabited by sea hags. It might take months. Pega would think he was dead. Father would think he'd deserted them. The hobgoblins would take Hazel away. And there wasn't a thing he could do about it. The more Jack thought, the more depressed he became. Why couldn't he lead a safe life like John the Fletcher or the blacksmith?

“No one's life is safe,” said the Bard, appearing out of the darkness. Jack shivered. It was eerie the way the old man always knew what he was thinking. “The world is ever dying and being reborn, like the great tree Yggdrassil. Most people hide from such knowledge, but even they have moments of revelation. When John the Fletcher's sister died, he was shaken out of his daydreams for an entire afternoon.”

They sat together. The old man wedged his staff in the sand and said words Jack didn't recognize. A gentle light radiated from the staff and turned the foam on the waves pearly white. “Was that the language of the Islands of the Blessed?” the boy said.

“Indeed, it was the Blessed Speech. Someday I'll teach it to you.”

A fox trotted out of the woods. It waded into the water
and snapped up something that looked like a small crayfish. It caught a few more before returning to the trees. On the way back, it nodded politely to the Bard.

“Why was Father Severus so unfriendly?” Jack asked. “Thorgil and I helped him escape the dungeons of Elfland. We camped on the beach for weeks until he was well enough to travel. He acted as though he'd never seen us before.”

“Severus is an able and courageous man, but he has a fatal weakness,” said the Bard. “He loves power. He can't resist forcing his will on others, whether they be mermaids, monks, or kings. He has made himself the real ruler of Bebba's Town. Brutus is too lazy to resist him—which is a great shame, for Brutus has a generous heart. The abbot didn't want to recognize you, lad, because you reminded him of when he was unimportant.”

Jack thought this over as the waves hurried along the shore and the night wind brought them the odor of pine trees. After a while the Bard took up his staff and they made their way back to the inlet. Northmen were sprawled in untidy heaps here and there on the sand. Eric Pretty-Face lay with his legs half submerged in water. It looked as though nothing short of Ragnarok could awaken these warriors, but Jack knew this was a illusion. He'd seen Northmen go from a drunken stupor to full battle readiness in seconds. Whether their brains were awake was another matter. Berserkers didn't need brains to fight.

“So many duties, so little time,” murmured the Bard, gazing at the collapsed warriors. “The
draugr
must be laid to rest
and grain delivered to the village—two tasks that pull us in opposite directions. In the middle lies Ethne. My heart cries out to rescue her, and yet the greater good demands that I wait. It's only for a while, of course. I'm sure she'll be all right if we provide her with supplies before we leave Bebba's Town. Pangur Ban can keep an eye on her. …”

Jack had never heard the old man sound so uncertain, and it worried him.

“Promise me this, lad,” the Bard said. “If things don't work out in Notland, you must return and rescue my daughter.”

“Of course I will,” said Jack, deeply moved. “You don't need to ask.”

“I know,” the old man said, looking off into the darkness over the sea.

The Bard, Jack, and Thorgil returned to Din Guardi. King Brutus sulked charmingly because they had missed his party, but he soon forgot and planned another one. Each day the Bard and Jack went to the market square to sell their goods, while Thorgil was hired to train the king's horses. “They're shockingly behaved,” she complained. “All they do is roll on the grass and eat daisies.”

“Somewhat like their master,” the Bard remarked. With the money they made, Egil's men bought grain and loaded it onto the ship.

Beelzebub's Remedy Against Flies sold out because everyone was plagued by flies in the heat. The potions for locking
and unlocking bowels were also popular, along with salves for rash, pinkeye, and the traveling itch. The Bard sat under a tree and people whispered their ailments to him. He would tell Jack which medicine to fetch.

Some folk whispered that they needed curses, and the Bard sent them packing. “Be off with you! I don't deal in curses,” he shouted. “Go ask at the monastery. I'm told they have curses to spare.” He was still smarting over his reception by Father Severus.

They rode out to meet Pangur Ban in the evenings. Ethne was slightly more cheerful, the cat reported. She liked the flowers the Bard sent her. She had begun to sing again. She could almost, but not quite, touch a ray of sunlight that came through the chapel door and landed beneath her narrow window. Jack's heart burned with indignation at her imprisonment even though it had been her choice.

When everything else had been sold, the Bard thrust aside his pride, and he and Jack approached Father Severus again. “I don't have time for your foolishness,” the abbot said angrily. “I've got someone who's come down with flying venom in my infirmary. We had to burn his house to keep it from spreading.”

“This won't take long,” the Bard said. “I have a selection of Brother Aiden's inks to sell.” He placed a basket on the floor.

The abbot had signaled a hefty monk to remove the intruders, but at the mention of Brother Aiden he sent the man away. “Is that the ink they used on the Holy Isle?”

“The same,” said the Bard. “Rose red, heavenly blue, leaf
green, the yellow of morning sun. It is as though you looked through a stained-glass window.”

Jack smiled, remembering the window in the monastery storeroom. It had been small, made up of fragments of the original on the Holy Isle, but even those shone with a glory not altogether of this world.

“No one ever made finer colors than Brother Aiden,” said Father Severus. “I'd pay handsomely if he were willing to part with the formula.”

“Let me tell you a story,” the Bard said. “Aiden, like all Picts, holds the secret to making heather ale.”

“I've tasted it,” the abbot said. “If you were burning in Hell, one drop would soothe your entire body.”

“A Scottish king captured one of Aiden's ancestors and threatened to kill him. But he promised a hoard of gold and the hand of his daughter if the man would reveal the recipe for heather ale. The man preferred to die. That's the resistance you're up against if you want to learn how Aiden mixes ink.”

Father Severus sighed. “What outrageous price do you demand?”

The Bard named a sum and added, “I want to see my daughter.”

The abbot laughed. “I'm afraid that isn't possible. Ethne chose her penance willingly and her immortal soul depends on it. No male speaks to her, not even me.”

“I'm her father!”

“A mere accident,” said Father Severus. “A year ago you didn't even know she existed.”

“But I do now!” The two men faced each other, and Jack felt a thrum of power from the Bard's staff. Equally, he sensed a cold wall of resistance from the abbot. Where had he encountered that force before? Was it when he saw the powers of the living world dash themselves against the walls of Din Guardi? Was it Unlife he felt?

“Thorgil could visit her,” Jack said before the confrontation could come to blows. Both men turned to look at him. “She could check on Ethne's welfare.”

“It's true,” the abbot said unwillingly. “Thorgil isn't a male, though you'd have to look twice to prove it.”

The Bard nodded. “Very well, Thorgil can take my place, but with these conditions: The bricks sealing up my daughter's cell must be replaced by a door. I don't want Ethne trapped should there be an earthquake or a fire. I also insist that you store jugs of water in her room in case of an emergency.”

“The door must remain locked at all times,” bargained Father Severus, “and I alone shall keep the key. I want no misguided rescue attempts. Also, Thorgil must come unarmed and in women's clothes.” The abbot smiled and Jack's heart sank. He had yet to see the shield maiden unarmed or in a dress.

The two men shook hands, and it seemed to Jack that the Bard winced when Father Severus touched him.

“I swear,” fumed the old man as they rode to Din Guardi, “I'll come back and wipe the smile off that pompous ass's face. If I wasn't so worried about the
draugr
, I'd do it right now. But with Thorgil's help, Ethne's existence should at least be bearable until either I or Skakki return to free her.”

Either?
thought Jack, depressed.
Why not both?
It seemed the Bard wasn't all that confident about returning from Notland. The boy puzzled over the change in Father Severus's behavior. The man had always been inflexible and grim, but there had been a real core of kindness in him. He'd rescued the child Aiden and taken him to the Holy Isle. He'd cared for Jack, Pega, and Thorgil in the dungeons of Elfland. What had happened to him?

Jack braced himself for a fight with Thorgil about the dress, but she surprised him. “It's a good trick,” she said, “like the time Thor put on a dress and pretended to be Freya. He went right up to the gate of Jotunheim. ‘Oo, let me in, you big strong Jotuns,' he said. ‘I think you're all so cute!' Of course, once he was inside, he beat the snot out of them. How we used to laugh when Olaf told that tale!”

“I know you did,” said Jack, thinking,
All Northmen are crazy.

The next morning Thorgil, dressed in the finest robes King Brutus could supply, set forth on a white palfrey to visit the daughter of the Queen of Elfland. She wore a long, green dress and sky blue tunic. Around her waist hung a belt decorated with gold coins, and on her head was a white veil. Brutus had found her a diadem of amethysts for her brow. She could use only one hand, but she rode as well as any warrior with two. Horses instinctively obeyed Thorgil.

Jack and a pair of knights rode by her side, for it would have been dangerous for a lady to set forth in such finery without protection. “I hope you don't have a knife
concealed somewhere,” Jack said, knowing the shield maiden's habits.

“Why on earth would you imagine such a thing?” cooed Thorgil. “Besides, none of those monks is going to search me.”

“Just don't do anything awful.”

They came to the monastery and Father Severus observed Thorgil suspiciously. “You've changed a lot,” he said.

“Haven't
I?” warbled Thorgil. Jack closed his eyes and waited for a sarcastic follow-up, but she held out her arms to him instead. He helped her dismount.

“Don't think I trust you,” the abbot said. “I've seen what your kind do. You're not visiting Ethne alone, and if you try anything stupid, I have a dozen monks around here who used to be murderous felons.” He clapped his hands and a grimlooking nun appeared. It was the first time Jack had seen a nun, though he'd certainly heard about them. She was a great, strapping woman who could have wrestled an ox to the ground. Jack noticed a large scar on the palm of her hand. She had been subjected to a trial by ordeal.

“Sister Wulfhilda will escort you, Thorgil. She has the key to the door.”

“Why, thank you, Sister Wulfhilda,” the shield maiden said sweetly. Lifting the corner of her gown as elegantly as any lady of King Brutus's court, she followed the nun into the chapel. Jack and the knights were forced to remain in the courtyard.

They waited. And waited. Father Severus went off to discipline
a few monks for gluttony. He returned, glanced irritably into the chapel, and excused himself for prayers. The bell clanged for lunch. Father Severus hurried back to invite Jack and the others to join him.

Jack remembered the dining hall vividly and looked forward to a feast, but the menu had changed drastically since the year before. Gone were the juicy slices of ham, the roast capons, the oysters nestling on beds of lettuce. Now they were served barley bread mixed with ashes, to remind the monks of mortality, as well as nettle soup and cider that was well on its way to becoming vinegar. Each man was allotted a tiny hard-boiled egg, except those who were being disciplined for gluttony. They sat in a mournful row, following every bite with their eyes.

Father Severus spoke at length about the reforms he had made at St. Filian's. “The monks attend prayers seven times a day, and the rest of the time they work. Every afternoon I counsel them on obedience. Wherever they walk, their heads must be bowed and their eyes cast down. They must be content with the most menial treatment. They must admit they are inferior and of less value than the vermin crawling upon a dog's belly. Also, laughter is forbidden.”