Odin’s Child (19 page)

I nodded.

“Your Dead Ones miss you. They have captured your soul. It is a common thing. Now the noaidi must send his own spirit down to Jabmiidaibmu, where Jabmiidahka rules, and make them give it back. You understand?”

“Yes.”

The drumming grew faster and the old man's eyes stared, looking past me, past the faces that ringed me, past the ragged wall of his mean hut. Looking to the mountains. No part of his body moved except the hand that held the little hammer—almost a blur as it struck and rebounded from the drum.

Hours passed this way, or minutes—who can say? I knew nothing,
was
nothing, but the sound of that drumming and humming.

Then abruptly it stopped.

The Ancient's head snapped back as if jerked by an invisible cord, his eyes rolled up showing the whites, and the pink tip of his tongue protruded from his mouth. His little body arched up and back until his head nearly touched his heels, and he gave out a sharp cry like a woman in childbirth. The drum and hammer dropped from his hands, and he pitched over on his side, crumpled in his loose clothes like an empty wineskin. His chant was taken up now by the others in the hut—a droning hum that sounded like a swarm of bees.

Now I saw things that I would be happier not to tell about. I was waking and dreaming and seemed to be in many places all at once. The stinking haze that filled the hut was Hekla's sulfurous breath, and I was a child of ten again, stumbling down the mountainside, flying in terror from my terrible, mad father. But also, it was the smoke that reeked of bodies turning black in the flaming shambles of my home when I leapt up from my brother's side, shrieking and beating the sparks out of my hair, with no thought for anything but to save my life. I was in both dreams at once, and both of them more real than reality itself. Everything happened not once, but again and again until it was all one heat, one stench, one fear, one pounding of the heart and pumping of the legs. I was running … running … running away….

I thrashed on the floor, tossing my head from side to side, while four men sat on my arms and legs and Nunna's sweating face hung over me.

Sometimes I knew the face was his and sometimes not. For sometimes I believed I was looking into my father's face, and sometimes Gunnar's, and sometimes Mother's or Gudrun's, and all of them giving me such piteous looks that, if I could have moved, I would have torn myself apart in despair.

Through it all, the bees hummed, drawing out their long, vibrant syllable—thirty voices, or a hundred, or it might have been a thousand. I heard it even through my chattering fear, a sound like summer in the fields—the droning of bees in the hot sun and the humming of the women while they bundled sheaves. Nunna's cradling arms were my mother's, then Morag's. In my nostrils was the smell of new hay and women's hair. A low voice sang in my ear, “It's all right … it's all right. Rest now.”

For the first time in five weeks I sank into a deep and dreamless sleep.

I was alone when I awoke, except for a young boy who squatted on his heels beside me. Seeing me stir, he gave a shout. Instantly Kalf and Nunna came in, and behind them, creeping like a little ancient baby, the noaidi. Kalf helped me to sit up and told me that I had been asleep for more than a night and a day.

I had an evil taste in my mouth and felt light-headed with hunger. I looked from Kalf to our companion. “Nunna,” I said, “bring me food.”

“Hah! You know me, do you?” His good-natured face beamed.

It did seem strange, but I knew his name, and I knew where I was and why. Or, thought I did, anyway. Later, when I tested my memory against Kalf's, I realized how much out of those days I really had lost.

“All right, you wait.” Nunna went out and presently returned carrying a wooden trencher piled high with a steaming mess that turned out to be boiled salmon and cloudberries pounded into a paste. Nothing ever tasted so good. I asked for ale to wash it down.

“This the poor Lapps do not have,” he made a sorrowful face. “Probably for the best. Drink this instead.” He pushed a bowl of some dark, thick gruel at me. “Hot water and reindeer blood. Very good.”

Meantime the noaidi had sunk into his usual place against the wall and regarded me through half-closed lids.

“He is tired,” Nunna said, seeing me glance at him. “His spirit was gone many hours.”

“Nunna, he really spoke to my Dead Ones?”

“Gently, you'll spill your bowl.”

“Please, I have to know.”

“Tell me, friend Captain, are you cured?”

“Maybe … yes.”

“So then, why do you ask? It's as I told you. The dead, you must know, are always jealous of the living. They can't help it, poor things. It's their nature. And so they will catch a man's soul, knowing that his body must soon follow. But the noaidi spoke very sternly to your dead. They were hard to deal with, like all you Norse. Oh, how they grumbled and complained. But in the end they had to confess the truth, that they are no braver than you, only unluckier.”

“They
said
that?”

“Oh, yes. And they are quite ashamed of the tricks they played on you. They have given you back your soul and will bother you no more—except that, from time to time, your father may make himself known to you, if you want his help. He hopes you will not hate him.”

I sat for a while, turning this over in my mind. “All the same,” I said at last, “they have a claim on me. They have a right to vengeance. Nunna, will I avenge them someday? Can the noaidi tell me this?”

He shrugged and scuttled over to the old man's side and they had a long whisper together. Coming back, he hunched down on his heels in front of me and said, “The noaidi sent his spirit into the gray wolf, and into the albatross, and into the seal. Everywhere he searched for the end of your fate, but it lies a great way from here, and even he cannot see all the threads of it. He says that you will travel far and, for a time, will forget your home. But one day, he says, the time of your returning will come, and when it does, you will know it without a doubt.”

“There will be a sign? A dream?”

“You will know it, just as the reindeer know when it is time for the winter trek, who can say how? Then you will go back to your country and do what is necessary—though it may not make you happier.”

“Why not, Nunna, can't your noaidi speak more clearly?”

The little man smiled. “Our noaidi is very old. He loves riddles as a child does. But his riddles come true.” From the shadows the dry leaves rustled. “The noaidi says that he has done enough for you now. He will answer no more questions.”

I struggled to my feet, dizzy with the sudden motion. “I have no more questions, Nunna. Tell the noaidi I thank him from my heart.”

Outside, I stood by the door, blinking in the bright sunlight. Across the wasteland of stone and scrub, the great, gray mountains—the Sacred Mountains—half filled the sky. Even to an Icelander it was a bleak and forbidding landscape. But the air was clear and fresh and tingled deep down when I drew in a lungful of it. I shivered and sneezed three times—big sneezes that rang in my ears like three magic handclaps, waking me from a poisoned sleep.

“Goodbye, Dead Ones,” I said aloud. “I don't forget you, but I put you away for a while. One day we will see each other again—but not today, not today.”

I held my hand out in front of me—it no longer shook.

Kalf came out and stood beside me. “How are you feeling?”

“Weak as a baby and glad to be alive. For the second time, Kalf, I owe you my life. How will I ever repay you?”

“There's no reckoning between friends.”

“Fate stole my brother from me, Kalf. There's a saying, ‘One's back is bare without a brother.' Take his place, my friend. Be my sworn-brother.”

He hesitated. “Brothers fall out sometimes, Odd.”

“But we won't. I'm not what you'd call a steady sort of fellow, Kalf Slender-Leg. I need your sound head and good heart. Will you do it?”

For answer, he drew his dagger and cut his thumb and mine. We mingled the blood together with earth, and then knelt and swore that each of us would avenge the other like a brother.

“Brother, I must tell you,” he said, “that you'll soon need more friends than one. Come and look.”

I followed him ‘round the side of the hut to where there was a view across the inlet. There lay our ship with a good portion of her cargo strewn on the beach, and beside it, my crew with a crowd of Lapps amidst heaps of furs, whalebone, and antler. With much wagging of heads and waving of arms on both sides, a lively barter was going on.

“Who ordered this?”

“Stig's taken over as captain.”

“And the others?”

“Hogni's his strongest supporter. He hates you—the rest only fear you. Who knows why? He came within a whisker of splitting your skull
when you were, ah, distracted.”

“What d'you think they'll do when they see me alive?”

“Kill you. They'll have to. Mutiny's a hard thing to take back, even if some are willing. Odd, I was talking to Nunna before—it's possible to go to Norway overland with the Lapps, on their winter trek. Let the ship go, Odd. The two of us can—”

“Can run? Let them bury me here first! Where are my weapons?”

“Inside. Don't, Odd, you haven't got the strength of six.”

“Brother, I haven't got the strength of one—but they don't know that. Nunna,” I yelled through the bark wall, “bring me my sword!”

The manikin appeared in the doorway accompanied by a boy, his youngest son, who struggled with both hands to carry my sword, trailing the belt on the ground behind him. Giving me a cautious eye, he stretched up to his father's ear and whispered something.

“Please,” said Nunna, “he asks if the battle will be very ferocious, for he has never seen the giants fight before.”

Kalf and I looked at each other and burst out in laughter. It hadn't occurred to us that
we
were the terrible giants of the North!

“Say to him, friend Nunna,” I replied, “that he will tell his grandchildren of it.”

The cacophony of bartering faded away when we were spied coming along the beach. The Lapps shooed their women and children to safety while my men gathered around their two ringleaders and grimly stood their ground. Ignoring Hogni's glowering looks, I walked straight up to Stig. He stood at ease, facing me squarely with his arms hanging loose at his sides.

“Steersman, I don't remember telling you to do anything with this ship's cargo.”

Before Stig could answer, Hogni struck in: “I guess you don't remember much of anything, seeing as how you was out of your wits!” He held up his hands and shook them, imitating my palsy. “And you've been up to some black sorcery, too, haven't you? We heard the wailing and the drumming. Now, I say the thing to do with madmen and heathens is drown 'em. Stig for captain, and the deep water for this one, eh lads?”

There was a chorus of ‘ayes,' though not as loud as might have been expected. They liked Stig all right but not Hogni, who was a bully—and not much of a seaman either. During Hogni's speech, Stig had said
nothing at all but only watched me with that same cool, inquisitive look that he had turned upon me in earlier days—the one that asked,
What are you made of? What are you game for?

I decided to stake all on that look.

“Hogni Hard-Mouth,” I said mildly, “what is it that puts you in such a temper? Is it being deprived of a diet of mare's ass to which you're addicted or is it heart-sickness for that troll who uses you as a woman every ninth night?”

A snort of laughter came from Stuf and Otkel; thin smiles from Starkad, Brodd, and Stig. Hogni's jaws began to work like two millstones.

“Hot to kill me, are you, Hogni? Good. No need for anyone else to bleed. Hogni and I will settle this.” The truth was, I doubted I could beat Stig on my best day—which this was far from being.

Suddenly Hogni changed his tune. “What if they've made his hide so as it can't be cut, or what if they've charmed his sword? They can do that, these sorcerers….”

He looked from face to face, and the faces looked stonily back. They might share his fears, but all the same they didn't respect a coward. Hogni sensed it. “Make him use a different weapon, that's all. I'll fight him, him and his ghosts. Jesu, he looks like a bleeding ghost himself! Ha, ha!” He cleared his throat to spit as he always did when he wanted to seem cocksure.

“Mind the wind, now, Hogni.”

The men brought shields and helmets from the ship. Hogni chose to fight with his axe. I chose an ash wood spear because I knew I was too weak to manage anything heavier.

“Finish him fast,” said Kalf—advice I didn't need. Nunna, coming close to my elbow, whispered encouragingly, “The noaidi has not seen your death in this place, my friend, and our noaidi is never mistaken.”

“Well, let us by all means not embarrass the noaidi!” I said under my breath.

The fight started badly and got worse. Hogni was a clumsy fighter but a strong and determined one, and he knocked me about pretty hard, aiming smashing blows against my shield until it was battered to pieces and my arm was numb.

I feinted and retreated. In seconds I was gasping for breath. My legs wobbled. The faces of the spectators swam in front of me. In Hogni's eye
was the gleam of victory. Desperately, I flung my spear and pierced his shield. With a snort of contempt he tossed shield and spear away. He raised his axe in both hands and drove in for the kill.

But hadn't my father stood weaponless when Strife-Hrut went for him at the trial? Hadn't my father crouched and thrown his shoulder against the charging man and flung him into the air?

I don't say that those thoughts passed knowingly through my brain, but somewhere near me—and not for the last time in my life—I caught a strong scent of Black Thorvald in the air and knew the noaidi spoke truth.