Maidensong (8 page)

 
“Come with me, and we will journey along the
mighty branches of the World Tree to far-off lands,” she
urged. Almost to a man, her audience leaned forward.

 
“
We start in Asgard, that holiest place, home of the gods and of Valhalla, hope of every valiant heart, where the brave may ever live in joy.” She caressed the
words and thought she sensed the pulse of her audi
ence ticking upward. “The All-Father joins us there.
Odin, the One-Eyed, the wisest of all. He marches be
side us, desirous of bearing us company on our journey through the nine worlds, for he has an appointment, a
grim task ahead of him.”

 
Brilliant as a lightning bolt and sharp as a blade, she
felt the connection. Beyond the bond of a performer
and her audience, the mystic umbilical bridged be
tween them. Rika felt a delicious shiver tickle down
their spines, and if any in the hall were still eating, they
laid their knives on the benches, the better to listen.

“Next we fare to Aelfham, where all manner of plea
sure abounds and the Fair Folk who dwell there are
gilded with light. But human hearts can only bear so
much exquisite joy. Our stay must be brief, but as we
leave that enchanted world, the ethereal music of the Light Elves echoes in our ears.” Rika's voice floated
over the hall, dulcet-toned and airy. From the corner of
her eye, she saw Gunnar’s jaw sag with desire.

 
“
Odin urges us to haste as we stop in Vanaheim,
home of the All-Father’s brother-god, Frey. Mighty god
of strangled sacrifice, Frey, the Horned One, knows
that all life springs from death, just as a seed must die
before the abundance of harvest can ever be.”

 
Solemn nods greeted this pronouncement.

 
“
The branches of Yggdrasil take us to the fiery edge of Muspel, first of all worlds, but we dare not enter
that bright, hot place. The border is guarded by one
with a flaming sword, who waits for the dreadful day when he is loosed to burn the whole world with fire unending.”

 
Rika scanned the sea of rapt faces. Did they feel the
heat and smell the sulfur belching from that white-hot
sphere of molten rock?

 
“
The thick trunk of Yggdrasil runs through the
beautiful realm of Midgard, this very Middle Earth,
the homely land of all the races of men,” Rika said
simply, as her audience relaxed a bit with the familiar. “
Midgard, where the lives of mortals run their course
and each man’s mettle is tried by his fate.”

 
Rika lowered her arms and shifted her stance as the mood of her tale took a darker turn.

 
“Odin warns us past the land of Utgard, hidden high
in the sky-mountains, where giants and trolls burrow
in foul caves bestrewn with the bones of unwary men. We shun the evil world of Svartaelfham, home of the
maggot-bitten Dark Elves. And let us not wander into
Hel, that cold hall reserved for the dead by sickness
and old age. The welcome there is Scarcity and the dish served at
nattmal
is Hunger.”

 
She pursed her lips, and slanted her eyes at her au
dience. “For tonight, Odin has doings in Niflheim,
where ice-bonds lock the limbs and all lust is stilled in
nothingness.”

 
Cold fire flashed in her eyes as she thrust her hands
toward them. “Hear the sayings of Odin as he hung
upon the World Tree, Yggdrasil’s frozen root in the dark
domain of eternal winter. Hear the words of the Wise
One as he plundered Niflheim to bring us mortals the
secret of runes. I give you," she paused, "the
Havamal."

 
Every eye in the hall was trained upon her, trans
ported to the misty realm of Niflheim, that accursed
place of ice and shadows.

“On the windswept Tree, did I hang f
or nine nights.”

 
She started softly, wringing every drop of meaning
from each syllable, each percussive consonant and
sibilance. Rika’s lips moved, but the crowd seemed to
hear Odin, the All-Father describing his own sacrifice in order to bring the secret of runes to his people.

“With spear was I pierced

And offered to Odin

Myself to myself

On that Tree

Whose roots

No man can know.”

 
Her voice grew stronger, rasping with agony, the
tension in her arms showing how the frigid bonds had held the Wise One fast.

“No bread was I given.
No drink from the horn.”

 
Her audience shifted in their seats guiltily. Every full
belly in the hall churned at the thought of Odin’s hunger and thirst.

“Into the depths I peered…”

 
Rika’s eyes widened in terror. She seemed to actually
see Niflheim and the runic symbols etched on icy slabs
before her, enshrouded with ghostly phantoms of mist.
She heard several gasps around the hall as her listeners
caught the same horrific image.

“The runes, I
grasped
...”

 
She clutched at the invisible lettering, her voice edged with hysteria.

“Screaming, did I grasp them—”

 
She jerked violently and stutter-stepped backward
half a pace, as if toppling from a branch on the
World Tree in that icy realm far away.

“And then to Midgard bearing treasure for men, did I tumble back.”

She whisked her
audience with her along the gnarled trunk of Yggdrasil, back to warmth and light in one blinding moment.
Rika finished in a whisper that circled the hall and
echoed off the hardened leather shields hanging on the
walls.

 
Silence hovered over the hall so potent that no one wanted to break the spell. Rika had taken them on a dizzying sojourn through the nine worlds, to Niflheim and back, and her listeners could scarcely draw a breath.

 
“By all the gods,” Bjorn swore softly. “Rika, you
are
a skald.”

 
She turned to Bjorn and gave him the first real smile
that had graced her lips since she’d discovered Mag
nus face down in the straw.

 
“Rika, Rika.” Jorand started the chant and a
couple of the nearby fighting men joined in. The cry was taken up around the hall, accompanied
by scores
of fists pounding on the benches. “Rika, Rika.”

 
She raised her hand to silence them before starting
on the Saga of Sigurd. The joy of her art sang in her
veins, flooding her with power and charging her body
with so much energy, it seemed to flash from her fin
gertips as she gestured.

 
Bjorn leaned forward, the better to watch her face.
He’d never seen the like. And to think he’d believed he
could take this woman captive. As he listened to her weave another spell with words, he realized that he was the one who was in real danger of being captured.

 
He was drowning. Again and again, the waves closed
over his head, dragging him down. He gulped for air,
but got a mouthful of brackish water instead. Yanking off
the mail shirt, he kicked back to the surface. The tips
of his fingers bumped something solid. Ice. Panic rose
like bile in the back of his throat.

 
Bubbles escaped his lips and skittered along the un
derside of the ice sheet, seeking a way to the world
of light and air. He followed them; searching for the
opening he must have slipped through. The freezing
water stung his eyes. He pounded the ice with his fist, but it was too thick.

 
His lungs burned, screaming for oxygen. They
threatened to burst out of his chest, red and pulsing like a gory blood-eagle. He’d seen done it once, a man’s lungs ripped through his ribs and spread out like
spongy wings across his dying back. A vicious death
reserved for the vicious crime of patricide. Now he
knew what it felt like.

 
He began to sink, his sodden clothing pulling him
into oblivion. The frigid water slowed his movements and lack of air disconnected his mind from his flailing
limbs. He was bound for
Hel,
with no chance of Val
halla. An ignominious death by drowning would not
lure the Valkyries to bear him to glory. His eyes closed
as he stopped struggling and accepted his fate.

 
Suddenly, he twirled in the water and he snapped
open his eyes to see what had disturbed the current
around him. A flash of green scales and cold, reptilian
eyes swished by him.
Jormungand,
the World Serpent.
The monster turned in the dark water and headed
straight for him, gigantic maw gaping, ridged with a
thousand flesh-tearing teeth.

 
He used the last bit of air in his lungs to scream.

*
  
*
  
*

 
The strangled cry woke Rika from a deep sleep, and in
the dark, it took her a moment to remember where she was. Bjorn the Black’s bed. But surely the piteous sound she’d heard couldn’t have come from that beast.

 
“No!” He thrashed about, tearing through the furs and blankets that made up his bedding. One of his
hands found her at the far edge and pulled her in close.

 
Rika realized he was still asleep and she shook him
with no gentleness at all. “Wake up,” she said sharply. “You’re dreaming.”

 
Bjorn jerked, chest heaving, holding her as tightly as
if she were a life rope. He inhaled deeply. Rika felt his
heart galloping in his chest.

There was nothing amorous in his embrace, so Rika
didn’t struggle. His body shuddered once. The fear
some raider was more like a small, frightened boy now,
and she wondered what phantasmal image could’ve reduced him to this weakened state.

“A dream,” he repeated. “It was just a dream.”

 
“Do you want to tell me about it?”

 
“
No,” he said with force. “I don’t need to relive it again.”

 
She felt his barely suppressed tremble and, for just a
moment, she pitied him. “Sometimes, when Ketil has a
bad dream, it helps him to tell me about
it,”
she
rasped.

 
“That’s all I need,” Bjorn muttered. “Now you rank me with a half-wit.”

 
Rika pulled away from him and sat up. “My brother is a kind and gentle person, a pure spirit who wouldn’t hurt anyone. The day hasn’t dawned when you’re
good enough to be ‘ranked’ with him.” Her voice had a raw edge to it.

 
“I suspect you don’t like me. You’ve been
subtle about it, but it’s beginning to sink in.” He sounded weary. “What’s the matter with your voice?”

 
“It’s just tired. I’ve never told so many tales in one
night before, but they wouldn’t let me stop.”

 
She had recited for hours, sagas and eddas one after the other, the long room alternately ringing with laughter or gone silent with hushed expectancy. Bjorn must have seen her sway on her feet from exhaustion because he’d finally stopped the storytelling by lifting her
over his shoulder and carrying her bottom first out of
the great hall.

 
Once they were in the privacy of his small room,
she’d protested that she wouldn’t stay with him. She’d
be no man’s bed-slave. He pointed out that her only
other recourse as a thrall was to sleep in the main hall with all of Gunnar’s retainers. When she realized that
her choice was fighting off fifty men or just one, Bjorn
won the argument.

 
“
A drink would help,” she said, massaging the soft
skin at her throat. Rika pushed back the bedclothes and started to get up, feeling her way.