Troll and Trylleri

by Joyce Holt

  And kept going to the next shelf up.

  Jorunn worked her way around the crowded containers to a point directly above Gyda. "Be so kind and hand up the rope now."

  A bracket jutted out from the wall here, like the prow of a ship, supporting the shelf she stood on. She looped the rope over the projecting end of the bracket, then slid over the edge and swung down to land beside Gyda.

  "And just what is this supposed to do?"

  "Did you ever ride pig-a-back when you were little?"

  Gyda looked offended that anyone would imply she had ever done such an undignified thing.

  "Vel, did you?"

  Gyda made a curt nod.

  "Good." Jorunn tied a big, gnarly knot in the end of the rope, hiked up her skirts, and clenched the knot between her thighs. She turned her back to Gyda. "Climb on."

  Gyda shook her head, took a regal stance and crossed her arms. "Nei. Go fetch me a ladder."

  "I cannot move a ladder that tall. I would go fetch you a hero and a flying horse if we had time. But we don't. All you have is me and this rope, unless you want to stay here and become part of a love potion."

  "What?!"

  The voices down the hall grew louder, and footsteps thumped and echoed.

  "Quickly, Mistress! Now!"

  Gyda flung her arms around Jorunn's neck, gave a hop and wrapped her legs around Jorunn's waist. And Jorunn stepped off the edge.

  Perhaps she had misjudged the weight in the bag. Hard enough for one person to shove around, but not heavy enough to offset the weight of two people. As they plunged downwards and it zoomed upwards, it smacked into them and set them to spinning. Gyda banged into the second shelf, and then Jorunn slammed against the bottom shelf. Gyda fell off, and the bag started to haul Jorunn up again. She let go and dropped to the floor, then realized her mistake.

  Jorunn rolled over, crawled aside, dragging Gyda with her – and just missed getting dashed by the bag which burst and spilled its turnip-sized beans all across the floor.

  Someone large made a questioning sound that echoed along the hallways.

  Jorunn stood, hauled Gyda to her feet and pushed her toward the doorway. Gyda stalled for a moment, straightening the rowan twig crown on her head as if it were a costly silver diadem. Jorunn bustled her out the door and down the dark corridor.

  "Where are we going?" Gyda asked in a low voice.

  "Away from where we were." Jorunn had no idea which way to take to get out, and chose turnings at random.

  "What did you mean about the love potion?"

  "You've heard about the magical properties of a broth made from boiling a white snake?"

  "Ja."

  "Vel, the trolls do something similar with a white-skin. That's you or me, by the way."

  Gyda blanched, her skin turning whiter than white.

  An avalanche of noise came roiling down the corridor, nearly tumbling them over from the blast of it.

  "That," Jorunn told Gyda, "is Klump's father and Valka's great-great-grandmother discovering one of their ingredients is missing."

  They rounded a corner and collided with Dimplekin. She was amazingly sturdy for such a small creature. And she had an amazingly loud voice. "I find them! I find them! Here they be!"

  Jorunn picked up the brat, chucked her into the next room, wheeled and set off running with Gyda. They ducked into another dimly-lit room, but not quickly enough.

  Dimplekin was after them again and saw which way they went. The little troll howled as she burst in after them. "Nasty white-skins! I will eat it. I will eat it after all, and just too bad for Valka."

  More footsteps thundered. Jorunn pounced on Dimplekin and tried to stifle her cries – and yelped at the chomp of those sharp fangs. Gyda grabbed the creature's tail and hurled her back out in the hall. A shadow filled the doorway. A huge scaly arm reached around and pulled the door shut. There was the clink of a key turning in a lock.

  Jorunn and Gyda clung to each other for several long breaths. Then Jorunn broke away, breathing hard. Atop a chest the size of a sleigh sat a bowl of glowing lichen. She took it and scouted around the chamber. There was a bed frame the height of a table, piled with bearskins. There was a foul-smelling chamberpot as big as a washtub. There was no other way out.

  49 – Wolf Jaws, Bear Claws

  Jorunn stepped back, staring up at the door. Twice as tall as any in the world of mankind, and probably twice as thick, reinforced with bands of bronze. The hinges were here on the inside, but even if by any means they managed to yank out the hinge pins, they'd never be able to pull the door off its mounting. Jorunn studied the keyhole plate just above eye level.

  Gyda's breathing was growing more rapid and shallow as she followed Jorunn's movements. "We're trapped, aren't we?" A note of panic rang in her voice.

  Jorunn crouched and looked under the door. It gaped, but not wide enough to squirm under.

  Voices boomed with laughter. Tremors ran through the stone floor. It sounded like several jotuns were dancing for victory in the hall, and she could see their horny toenails glinting like claws.

  "Ja, we're trapped." Jorunn sagged. "Fine plans often go foul, so they say. At least there's no pet wolverine guarding this chamber."

  Gyda ripped the crown of rowan twigs from her head and dashed it to the floor. "A lot of good you've done me. Out of the wolf's jaws and into the bear's claws."

  "All too often too early I came," Jorunn quoted under her breath as she bent to pick up the wreath of rowan, "and other times too tardy. The ale was drunk or not yet drawn—"

  "Stop that!" Gyda screeched. "Don't natter old sayings at me. Get us out of this mess!"

  Jorunn straightened. "I'm thinking. Please be quiet."

  Gyda sputtered in indignation.

  "I got you out of the wolf's jaws, didn't I?"

  Gyda reined in her breathing, clenched fists at her sides. At last she said, "Ja, you did."

  "Do you have any ideas?"

  After a pause, Gyda said, "Nei, I don't."

  Jorunn put the crown on her own head and closed her eyes. After a while she shook her head. "I don't know what to do."

  Outside the door Dimplekin threw a tantrum. "I hungry! I wanna eat 'em now!"

  "Hush now, darling. Mormor be heating water to a boil. You get one, after boil into broth."

  "But I want eat one live and squirming!"

  Gyda squeaked and staggered back against a chest.

  Jorunn clapped a hand over her own mouth.

  Somebody dragged Dimplekin away. Jorunn could hear wailing and the kicking of small feet mingled with the tread of large ones. It grew quieter outside the door.

  She crouched and peered underneath again. The hallway was vacant. She stood and studied the keyhole then glanced over her shoulder at Gyda. The haughty king's daughter looked more like a cotter now, her fine clothing smudged and torn, and her hair straggling loose of her braid. She was wiping angrily at her cheek. Nei, she would not want to be seen crying.

  Jorunn drew her key from its hiding place and stretched up towards the keyhole. Ill-fated attempt, she knew. The thing had been forged to fit some treasure chest in a dwarf's dwelling.

  Yet she had to try. She inserted the key and gave it a twist.

  There came the click of a lock.

  "What's that?" Gyda appeared at her side before she could withdraw the key.

  Jorunn grabbed the latch of the door and hauled it open. "Out of the bear's claws. Let's go." She wriggled the key out of the lock.

  "Let me see that." Gyda held out her hand.

  "Nei, come along."

  "You don't give me orders, girl."

  "In here, I do."

  "How dare you challenge me, girl!"

  Something snapped deep inside Jorunn. "My name is not Girl, not Daggle-Tail, not Rabble. It is Jorunn. I'm not a thrall, and I'm not your drudge."

  Gyda rose to her most imperious stance. "Impudent wretch! You are in my service."

  "While we are in Svartalfheim, I am the
mistress, and you will do what I say, if you wish to regain our own world. And once we do, I am leaving. From then on, I will be in service to no one but myself."

  "How dare—"

  "To argue is to choose death. Are you coming with me or not?" Jorunn spun and stalked out into the hall.

  Gyda sputtered and caught up. "You are not my mistress."

  "You will do what I say, if you wish to live. And that is the same thing." She held up the bowl of glowing lichen to light their way. "You reign in the hall. I reign in the wilds."

  Gyda followed in silence, except for a whistle of breath through flaring nostrils.

  The clattering of pots sounded from far down the maze of corridors. A whine mingled in, and the stomping of feet.

  Jorunn peered about. She couldn't use the key, not that it needed hiding anymore. She had no name to call to help direct the view. But something seemed different about the look of their surroundings. Perhaps it was the crown of rowan twigs she wore. One direction seemed brighter somehow. She took one step – then paused and glanced back.

  There was a twisted look to Gyda's face. Perhaps, like Dimplekin, she'd never been denied her will and pleasure.

  Jorunn held out a hand.

  After a moment's hesitation, Gyda took it. Together they pattered down another passageway through the lair of trolls.

  Several turns later, Jorunn stared around a door jamb into another vast chamber carved from the mountainside. At a barn-sized table a towering troll stood leaning in and out, in and out, and a cloud of powder poofed from the high surface.

  "Its back is turned," Gyda whispered. "Can we creep past, do you think?"

  Smoke streamed from a crater in the far wall, partially blocked by slabs of stone. An oven, Jorunn realized. This was a kitchen. "Along the wall, like mice," she whispered. "Freeze if she turns around. Make no sound."

  They crept like mice. Jorunn kept a wary eye on the huge cook. Flatbread, she realized. The troll was rolling flatbread!

  Halfway along to the next doorway, they froze. The troll had stopped her rolling and stood tall and straight as a pine tree, nostrils whuffing like boughs in a wind.

  Gyda's eyes gleamed with terror in the dim light of the kitchen. Jorunn steadied her with a hand on the arm.

  The giant cook went back to her work. Gyda sighed. Jorunn whirled to press a finger to her companion's lips, but too late.

  The rolling pin hit the table like a felled tree, and the troll spun around. It had a face like a battered shield, a great spike of a nose in the middle, and axe-clefts for mouth and eyes. The nostrils flared, and great flabby ears twitched.

  Jorunn clapped a hand over Gyda's mouth again, but it was too late to stop the gasp of horror.

  The troll lurched and bent and swooped, scooping them both into her floury grip. "What's this?" the cook growled, sweeping them with her foul breath, then nearly sucking the air out of their lungs as she inhaled their scent.

  Jorunn gagged and struggled. The great horny fingers clenched so tight she feared ribs would snap, but then the jotun dumped them onto the table and penned them under her overturned flour bowl.

  They covered their faces with their skirts, coughing and hacking against the powder swirling all about. Jorunn could hear footsteps thumping away, and a voice rumbling, "Caught some vermin, I did! Come see! Tell me what I got! Don't smell like nothing in the pantry!"

  "Trapped!" Gyda shrieked. "How do we get out?"

  "She's blind," Jorunn said. "Did you see her pinched eyes? Look what she missed." She tugged at a staff pinned under the bowl's rim. Dim light showed through the gap it made between bowl and tabletop.

  "What good is that?" Gyda gripped the rim and heaved, but couldn't move the bowl. "Help me!"

  "Not like that. Here, you help me." Jorunn pulled up on the staff as a lever. With Gyda's aid they widened the gap, but the movement made the bowl skid sideways.

  "Now what?" Gyda said. "If either of us lets go and tries to crawl out, it'll smash down again."

  "Look, we're near the dough. Ease it that way."

  With three more heaves, they managed to wrest the bowl onto the edge of a knee-deep spongy mass. Gyda dropped her hold and wriggled out. Jorunn followed before the bowl had time to sink into the dough. She hauled the staff out after her. It was the handle of a giant wooden spoon, crusty with drying dough.

  "They're coming back!" Gyda yelped.

  "Do what I do," Jorunn barked. She leaped up onto the dough and ran across, leaving deep footprints.

  Gyda made a parallel track, but at the far edge Jorunn grabbed her arm and led her along the table's rim, circling around to the other side which rammed up against the wall.

  "There was a stool there!" Gyda cried. "We should have hopped down, gotten to the floor—"

  "Just so. They'll see our footprints in the dough, and figure that's what we've done. Now we hide and wait." Jorunn wedged herself behind a stone jar twice the size of an apple barrel. It smelled of vinegar.

  Gyda blew out a long breath and joined her.

  Trolls of myriad sizes crowded into the kitchen, checked under the flour bowl, shook it, peered all around. One pointed out the footprints in the dough.

  "What? What?" pealed Dimplekin's voice. Her shaggy head appeared once, twice, thrice as she jumped, trying to get a view.

  "From table to stool to floor," someone grunted. "Lost 'em again!"

  "My pot's a-boiling, ready to throw the white-skin in. Come on, you lumps, find them!"

  The throng broke up, leaving no lump behind but the blind cook. She sniffed at her bowl, sneezed once into the air and twice into her hand, cursed, groped the edges and surface of the dough, snotty fingers and all. "Huh," she grunted. "Itty bitty footprints. Should've ate 'em when I had 'em in hand. Pah!" Spittle sprayed the table. She lumbered to the oven, heaved the slab covers to the side, blew the coals to a fierce flame. She patted the wall till she found two monstrous peel sticks hanging there, scooped up the round of dough and slid it onto a griddle in the oven.

  Jorunn sucked a lip and frowned in thought, then gave a wry half-smile. Who better to choose as cook among trolls than a blind hag who wouldn't mind the glare of a hearth?

  The troll-cook thumped another ball of dough onto the table and set to work with her rolling pin. Jorunn glanced at the dough tray, big as a horse's trough. Two more balls to go after that.

  She tapped Gyda's arm, mimed rolling dough, held up three fingers. She leaned against the wall, folded her arms, closed her eyes – then peeked.

  Gyda's mouth quirked in understanding. She nodded and followed suit. Let Dimplekin's kin poke into every corner of their lair. The two of them would wait in this nook wreathed in vinegar fumes until the hubbub died down. Till the sharp-eared, sharp-nosed cook finished her work and took herself elsewhere.

  Her back turned to Gyda, Jorunn drew out the key, mouthed, "Dimplekin," and hunted for sight of the little wretch. Found her, at last, scurrying about, looking high, looking low, kicking things around.

  "Svana," she breathed.

  At home, cleaning a trout. There was a bruise on her cheek and a hollow look to her eyes, clear to be seen in bright summer sunshine.

  Jorunn clenched her jaw against the wrench in her heart. Silence! she ordered herself, though she reeled with pain. Pain, and shock of another kind. Back in Midgard, the seasons had already turned to summer. Her toes curled at the shock of it.

  Oddleif wasn't with Svana this time. Jorunn found him sitting with another youth at a trestle table like those they had in the mead-hall at Dondstad. She'd seen the other boy somewhere before, but couldn't place him. He looked as splendidly attired as Gyda's younger brother Toli.

  She blinked. Oddleif no longer wore rags. No tatters. A circular bronze pin fastened a flowing cloak to his shoulder. Garb of plain weave but well-made.

  His face looked different. Leaner.

  A stronger line to his jaw, and a longer one to his nose. A determined chin. Hazel eyes glinted with the same merriment as e
ver – though set deeper than she remembered.

  His shoulder-length, tawny-brown hair was combed. She'd never seen it combed before. And the cap he wore was different – still green, but not mottled nor shapeless. Patterned trim decked the lower edge.

  What was he doing, gallivanting around with the wealthy while Svana slaved away in dread! The Norns' hero had never arrived, and now Oddleif had abandoned her, too.

  Jorunn shook with dismay, and lost the view. She couldn't bear to see more. She turned the key bow from south to west. "Eirikr of Hordaland," she mouthed.

  She found Gyda's father out to sea, leading a fleet of dragonships northward along the Way between the isles. A carved and painted dragon head was mounted at the prow of his ship. No peaceful mission, this.

  Among the flotilla skimmed another dragonship with a sail striped in red, blue and white. "Solve Cleft-Chin," Jorunn breathed, and the key's eye sped like an arrow to that very ship. There stood the square-shouldered seaman who'd met Gyda only months ago. Now he bore a crested helm, and he wore his forked beard longer than before.

  Brightly painted shields lined the bulwarks. Going to war. Why northward?

  Jorunn flared her nostrils as the reason hit her. "Harald of Vestfold," she mouthed.

  She found him to the north, sailing south. His own fleet, armed, manned, ready for war. A sea battle was coming.

  Jorunn's hands shook. She clutched the key to her belly and stared into the smoky gloom of the cavern. Time was flying in the world of mankind, perils befalling, and she was trapped behind a pickle jar on a giant's table in Svartalfheim.

  50 – Three Heifers

  Oddleif sat with Bjørn at the first table below the dais at Dondstad. He drummed his fingers on the leather lute case. They hadn't asked him to play yesterday, and today the talk sounded just as grim.

  Grim with loss, fossegrim. If Jorunn were here, she'd make a play on words.

  She'd gone to Valdres, Bjørn said, in the service of that vision of beauty. Bjørn still sighed when her name came up. Gyda the glorious ice maiden who had stirred up all this trouble, then vanished.