The Islands of the Blessed (6 page)

“Phew! It's hot,” exclaimed Thorgil, throwing her bags down among the bluebells. She lay flat on her stomach by a stream and splashed water into her mouth. “Mmm! This tastes as good as mead!”

Jack shared out oatcakes left over from breakfast. “The Bard says we're going to Bebba's Town in a few weeks.”

“I know. We have to buy grain. Isn't the light through those leaves marvelous? And those butterflies are like white flowers fluttering in the air.”

Jack braced himself for one of Thorgil's good moods. “I wonder how we'll get the grain back. The road is so full of potholes, you couldn't possibly drive a cart over it.”

“The Bard says we'll hire a ship,” the shield maiden said, sitting up. “Just think of having a deck beneath our feet again, the waves crashing against the prow, the wind howling about our ears! Do you remember the color of the sea in a storm, all gray and green with the foam blowing off the crests of the waves? You could almost see into the halls of Ran and Aegir,” she said, naming the Northman sea gods. “Do you remember?”

“Yes,” said Jack.

“Well, you don't seem happy about it.”

“Who could be happy about drowning? It's the only way you can visit Ran and Aegir.”

“That's not the point!” the shield maiden cried. “It's the
beauty of those colors! And the cold spray in your face. And the slosh of water around your boots. And the feel of the ship keeling over in a sharp wind. Olaf used to hand out coins when we were in danger of sinking, so we'd have a gift for Ran when we came to her halls. The sea kingdom isn't as glorious as Valhalla, but it isn't bad, either—”

“Thorgil,” said Jack.

“Yes?”

“Stop babbling.”

“I'm not babbling,” she said, too happy to take offense. “Perhaps we'll hire a
knorr
in Bebba's Town. They're not handsome, but they hold a ton of supplies and they make the loveliest sound all night—
knorr, knorr, knorr.
A
drekar
would be even better.”

“If the villagers saw a
drekar,
they'd run for the hills,” Jack said.

“And so they should! A dragon ship full of berserkers— what could be prettier?” Thorgil smiled up at the sunlight, shining green through the leaves.

“In my opinion, a barge loaded with grain.”

“You're as dull as a slug. Tell me, Jack. I've been puzzling about something that happened during the storm. I remember climbing out of the sheep byre and the hailstones striking me. Then I was lying in the field with the dead ewe at my side. You lifted me up—”

“The mind can plays tricks in an emergency,” said Jack, hoping she didn't remember what he'd said.

“I know, but it seemed I heard the words—clear as clear—
‘Oh, my dear. My love.' Isn't that funny? I must have imagined it.”

“You must have. The storm was too loud to hear anything.”

“The words were really distinct.”

“We should start collecting again,” said Jack.

Thorgil made a face at him. “Oh, very well! But I want a bath in that stream first.” She disappeared behind a clump of bushes, and soon Jack heard her splashing around.

He turned his back and occupied himself with whittling a Y-shaped stick. Thorgil emerged a few minutes later, having donned her clothes again.

“This is a dowsing rod,” Jack explained, handing it to her. “It has to be made from hazel wood because hazels have their roots in the life force. You hold the dowser by its arms, see, and when you're near an underground stream, it dips down.”

“You can't go five steps without finding a stream here,” said Thorgil, laughing, “but thanks. I'll keep it for later.” She tucked it into her belt. “Would you like to learn Bird?”

“Why—yes,” said Jack, astounded. Thorgil had actually thanked him! She'd also offered to share her lore. And taken a bath without being threatened. She
was
in a rare mood.

“Very well: This is how you say hello to Seafarer. First, you have to compliment his wings.” Thorgil cawed—something between a groan and a shriek.

Jack attempted to copy it and was corrected until he got it right. “Why do you have to compliment him?” he asked.

“Albatrosses are proud of their wings, and if you don't
praise them, they'll attack you. These are the words for getting him into the alcove. You offer to preen his feathers, but you don't have to follow through. It's a catchall phrase for ‘please settle down.'” She produced a low burble, followed by a sigh.

Jack learned this one easily, for it was close to music. “How do you know this? Even the Bard had never seen an albatross before.”

“It's simply … part of me,” Thorgil tried to explain. “Since tasting dragon blood, I've had a fellowship with the creatures of the air. When we first returned to Middle Earth, I had to concentrate very hard to understand birds, but with the passage of time, their voices have become clearer.”

“That's a wonderful gift,” said Jack enviously.

“No, it isn't.” Thorgil plumped down on the grass. A pair of thrushes caroled to each other from the trees, and Jack wondered what they were saying. All at once he became aware of the complex lives threading in and out of the hazel wood—the moles blindly pushing dirt, the fish with their mouths pointed upstream, the dragonflies darting through dappled sunlight. The wood was like one creature whose mind was bent to—what?

Thorgil interrupted his thoughts. “At first it was fun, knowing something others didn't. Then it became a curse. Birds never shut up, you know. You can't imagine how horrible it is, waking up every morning to yammering about earthworms and itchy feathers.”

Her head drooped. She looked so woebegone that Jack
forgot her dislike of sympathy and impulsively put his arm around her.

“Don't pity me!” Thorgil snarled, shoving him away so roughly, he banged his head into a tree.

“What's wrong with you! I'm only trying to be nice!” Jack said.

“You're treating me like a stupid girl.”

“You are a girl,” Jack said.

“I'm a shield maiden, not a sniveling Saxon cow.”

“Why don't you stop yowling about how awful
my
people are and look at yourself,” cried Jack, stung. “You have no more gratitude than a bog rat. You insult everyone six ways to Sunday.”

“I don't lower my standards just because I live in a pigsty,” said Thorgil haughtily.

”Pigsty?
How dare you say that about my parents' house! I remember when you slept with dogs in the Northland because they were the only ones who'd have you.”

“Even a Northland dog has more honor than a cringing Saxon.”

“Really? Well, even a cringing Saxon dog has more honor than a half-Northman thrall!” shouted Jack.

“I'm not a thrall!” shrieked Thorgil, grabbing her collecting bags. “And I'm never entering your parents' house again!” She stormed off before he could reply.

So much for Thorgil's good mood,
thought Jack, rubbing his bruised head. He went off in a different direction.
After a while Jack's temper cooled and he began to regret his hasty words. But Thorgil was so infuriating! Even Olaf One-Brow used to knock her flat when she got into a snit. Of course, Olaf had knocked everyone flat, including Jack, at one time or another. It was the Northman way.

Jack sat in the shade of a tree trying to regain that odd impression he'd had earlier, of the woodland being a creature with one mind. Perhaps it was the pooling of the life force, or perhaps—a cold finger touched Jack's heart—the hazel wood was a corner of the realm where the Forest Lord held sway. He remembered the subtle whispering among the leaves in that realm and the way a root humped up to catch an unwary ankle.

This isn't the Land of the Silver Apples. I'm being foolish,
he thought. The Forest Lord would never have allowed his trees to be cut back as these were. This was Jack's country, where folks were sensible. No Pictish gods here.

He cleared his mind to call to the life force.
Come to me. Reveal yourself. Show me the paths by which you travel.
The wood remained as before, with birds darting to and fro, frogs cheeping, and spiders connecting the spokes of their webs in the branches above.

The sun began to incline to the west, and Jack remembered he hadn't collected the herbs the Bard had asked for. He began exploring along the border between the hazel wood and the oak forest. He found a bed of mint and chewed a few leaves to stave off hunger pangs. He gathered elecampane for coughs, fennel for stomachaches, and valerian for troubled
sleep. He picked mugwort to use against the flying venom that traveled from house to house, bringing fever in its wake.

Under a birch tree Jack discovered
atterswam,
a beautiful but very dangerous mushroom. It had a bright red cap spotted with white, and the Bard said Northmen sometimes used it to go berserk. “It gives them visions, and occasionally it kills them,” the old man had said. “Too bad it doesn't work that way more often.” Jack wondered whether Thorgil had ever taken it.

Where was she? She'd make good on her threat to stay away from Jack's house. Once declared, a threat was as good as an oath with her. He'd have to explain to Mother and Father why she didn't visit anymore, but they'd be pleased. Everyone was growing weary of Thorgil's constant battles with the Tanner girls. Where would she go? John the Fletcher might put her up in his barn. He admired her skill with horses. When winter came, she'd have to move in with the Bard.

Jack collected a few of the red mushrooms, making sure to keep them separate from everything else. A squirrel scampered up a tree with an
atterswam
in its mouth. Jack threw a stick at it, trying to make it drop the poisonous fungus, but the squirrel climbed beyond his reach and continued eating.
Perhaps squirrels like visions,
he thought, hoping the creature wouldn't fall dead from its perch.

The sun slid behind the hills. Darkness flowed into the woodland and a mist fumed from the boggy ground, making the trees appear as though they were floating in a white sea.
And suddenly, the birds stopped calling. The boisterous chatter that accompanied sunset vanished as though an unseen enemy had appeared under the trees. Dusk became darker, cold deeper, earth danker.

Jack stood perfectly still.

Was it a wolf? Or, God forbid, a bear? Oddly enough, he smelled seaweed, though the breeze had died.
Has one of those paths between the worlds opened?
Jack thought, both excited and afraid. If so, what had stepped through?

A cold presence spread through the mist. It enveloped him with such malevolent force that he gasped and almost dropped the collecting bags. Such chill he had not felt since confronting Frith Half-Troll. It was like a door into the heart of winter. His body grew numb and his mind went blank.

In the distance Brother Aiden rang the prayer bell. It was a frail sound, hardly louder than the call of a chick, but so pure that it pierced through the gathering gloom. The spell was broken. Jack clutched the bags to his chest and fled down a long, pale avenue of bluebells, now gray with twilight. Mist swirled about his legs. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. His feet sank into pockets of mud, almost sending him sprawling, but he kept going until he broke out into a field.

He ran until the hazel wood was only a shadow against the oak forest. The sky outside was still blue, with wisps of clouds catching the sunlight from beyond the hills. The field, although ruined by the storm, had a normal, friendly look about it. Jack bent over to catch his breath.

Brother Aiden struck the bell a second time, and a scream erupted from the woodland. It went on longer than any creature could possibly scream and finally died away into a low, shuddering moan. But by that time Jack was at the other end of the field. By his side ran a fallow doe so panicked that she paid no attention to the human within arm's reach of her.

They both collapsed at the same time. The doe turned dark, appealing eyes toward him, and he put his hand on her warm flank. “It's all right,” he whispered. “It will not come into the light.” He fervently hoped this was true. She stared at him, her sides heaving with terror. Brother Aiden's bell sounded again, and both boy and deer turned toward the woodland.

But nothing further happened. After a while the doe rose to her feet and walked away. Jack rose too, perplexed about what he should do. Normally, he would return to the Bard's house. The old man was waiting for his herbs, and Thorgil might be there too.

Jack looked back at the forest. The shield maiden had been headed toward the fields when he last saw her. She would have put distance between herself and him, and that meant she would have gone to the sea. Thorgil always went there when she was upset. When she recovered, she would probably return to the Bard.

The thought of the Roman house and the old man waiting inside was very attractive. That scream, though, had been aroused by Brother Aiden's bell. Last night the creature had been on the beach. Tonight it was in the woodland, much
closer to Brother Aiden's hut. Its intent was most certainly evil. The cry from the woodland had been steeped in hatred. It wasn't the hunger call of a predator, but the voice of something exiled from all earthly joy.

Sighing, Jack turned toward the village. He ran through the darkening meadows, past outlying sheds and houses, until he saw the little monk kneeling by a fire outside his hut.

Jack knelt too, not wishing to disturb Brother Aiden. He couldn't understand the prayers, yet the words soothed him. Pega often said it felt like summer near the monk's hut, no matter how cold the winds were elsewhere. There was something so angelic about Brother Aiden that even the frost giants walked carefully around his dwelling.