The Monstrous Child

by Francesca Simon

  Don’t misunderstand me. Even if some sun-dappled meadow with gurgling stream and gambolling sheep existed down here, I wouldn’t build my hall there. Are you crazy? All beauty does is highlight my ugliness. I prefer to hide in the shadows. There and not there. This hall would be mine and I could please myself. A ripple of pleasure pricked me at the thought.

  2. My hall must be far from Modgud’s bridge. Let my guests get past the Shore of Corpses and the dragon first before they find my gates and slip inside my door, never to leave again.

  3. My hall must be far from Nidhogg. The dragon can keep the bloody pit in which he lives. I want nothing to do with the valley where he gnaws on corpses and the great Yggdrasil’s roots. I do not want a dragon for a neighbour. Ditto the howling chained dog that Modgud described. Not in my courtyard.

  4. My death realm must have high walls; Hel will be a fortress within Niflheim. The ramparts round my kingdom must reach higher than the walls of Asgard. Won’t that make the gods rage with jealousy when they hear of the palace I have created?

  5. Within those towering walls I will build a hall. Not just any hall, but the largest hall in all the worlds. One-Eye’s golden palace will look like a privy beside it. (Mine will smell worse than one, but let’s pretend we don’t notice.)

  6. I like naming things, and I will call my grave mound Eljudnir. My Rain-Damp, Sleet-Cold Hall. No Rose Palace or Mount Pleasant for me. And I’ll build icy pitch-black portals named Corpse Gate and Carrion Gate. I think I’ve excelled myself with those names. What? You think I should have called my lovely entrances Welcome Home and Rest Your Feet? Built a gleaming palace of light and happiness? Ha! I don’t want to entice anyone in under false pretences. ‘If only we’d known the hideous welcome awaiting us in this dismal hall, we’d have gone elsewhere …’

  7. Corpse Gate and Carrion Gate, which will lock in the dead forever, must be made of iron, tightly wrought and impassable. I want them oozing, like molton metal, dreadful and oily to the touch. If I can’t stop the dead from swarming in, at least my barred gates will keep out any living creatures who might slip past Modgud. I will host no one beyond those I must. If the living want to sneak down here to learn wisdom, they’ll get no joy from me. And any wisdom they glean will be too late, as they won’t return to Midgard to enjoy it.

  8. Inside Eljudnir will be one vast, cavernous space, a banquet hall of halls (just without the banquets, of course). I see chandeliers, hearths, tables laden with jugs and rich hangings on the stone walls. On second thoughts, no hangings – they would only rot and the dead won’t appreciate them anyway. That’s where the dead will congregate, on benches stretching into infinity. Those mouldy walls will contain an infinite number of bodies. I will also build a lavish bedchamber just for me, curtained off, where no one may enter. That way, I will host the dead but never have to see them. Oh, and treasure rooms. Lots and lots of treasure rooms. And two High Seats, carved and imposing, befitting a great queen. One for me, should I ever decide to receive guests. And one for my love. Because one night Baldr will come to find me – I know he will. And I must be ready for that night.

  No kitchen required, obviously. The mead goat that will provide drink can wander about; the dead aren’t fussy. And, frankly, I don’t care if they are – it’s my hall and I make the rules. I need no food as I don’t have to eat. I just want storerooms for my treasure, and a private bedroom for me. And beyond the hall, stables, ready to receive the horses that have been sacrificed with their masters.

  There. My dream home. Not exactly fussy, am I? A gigantic one-bedroom hall with no mod cons.

  Perfect.

  For a long while I planned and honed my designs, adding a turret here, a palisade there, as I groped my way northwards and downward from Modgud’s bridge, pushing through stinging fog and shrieking winds. Building a palace filled my mind. It is astonishing how much plotting and planning dampens sorrow, like ash poured on fire.

  At last, after much wandering, I found a wind-swept plain stretching far off into the gloom in all directions. The air was fetid, and blasting winds blew, and darkness reigned. I had found the spot for my kingdom.

  I claimed it for my own.

  And then I built my hall, and my kingdom, myself.

  I felt power surge through me. I didn’t need masons or carters or diggers to carve rock out of the bleak land. I didn’t need to hoodwink some poor giant. With one sweep of my arms the rocks and boulders piled themselves atop the other and immense walls loomed above me.

  Then fearsome gates bolted with iron. No dragon, no living person, would squeeze through them. The mighty fortifications rose, black and sheer, until they encircled my kingdom.

  The restless dead began to gather, waiting.

  Then I stepped inside to raise my hall, Eljudnir, from the slime and entrails of the fog world. First, foundations appeared, then stone walls, interlaced with bones. Skulls stacked themselves around empty hearths. (For decoration only, mind. They will never be lit – the dead don’t need warmth.) The turf roof thatched itself. Never have I felt more like a goddess as I watched my creation form around me.

  You were right to fear me, One-Eye. I too can create order from chaos.

  And while I built, all I could think was Baldr Baldr Baldr. Did Baldr know my feverish thoughts? Would he come to rescue me? He was One-Eye’s son – maybe his evil father would listen if Baldr pleaded for me. If only. If only …

  And when my mind was not filled with thoughts of Baldr, I gnawed on revenge. How I could destroy the gods for what they’d done to me. Wild plots and schemes played out in my mind. I had time. I would find a way to lead an army of the dead and ransack Asgard.

  *

  When my hall was finished (don’t ask how long it took. An hour? Fifty years? It’s all the same to me, remember?), I stood on the threshold and surveyed my handiwork.

  I admired everything.

  And so will you.

  Sconces made of skulls hung on the walls. Chandeliers criss-crossed with bones dangled from the roof, festooned with unlit candles – why waste wax on the dead? Stone lamps smoking with fish oil glowed, tiny pools of light in the bitter black, like wolf eyes in moonlight.

  I stumbled along the packed-earth floor, trying not to crash into the numberless benches and tables and the low platforms fast against the gold-flecked walls. I’d made two High Seats, richly carved, with side posts, on a raised dais. If anyone ever asked who the other throne was for, I would just say (if I deigned to answer), ‘An honoured guest.’

  I can’t believe I have created all this.

  I have a room to myself, curtained off behind the High Seats with a bed hidden behind thick hangings and furnished with grave goods. I’ve never had a separate place to sleep before.

  Picture my richly embellished chamber, a candelabra burning a hole in the dark. Heavy, embroidered curtains shield my bed, which I call Sorrow. My blanket is Mildew and my bedhangings Hide Me. These fine furnishings will all rot soon enough. No matter. I’ll just replace them. As is fitting, the dead bring many offerings, and grave goods are no use to the dead.

  Of course Eljudnir is freezing and forbidding. The wind still howls down the roof vent. The air is rank. It is always night, always winter. The terrible gloom never ends: a smothering blanket of fear and solitude and bricked-up misery. It’s always wet and draughty. What do you expect? It’s the hall of the dead. Death is a serious business.

  Don’t think I haven’t heard my kingdom described as riches and glittering treasures surrounded by foulness, horror, decay, phantoms, mud, filth, stench and squalor. That I am nothing but the queen of a great pestilent burial mound.

  That’s a bit harsh. A bit ungrateful. I could have let the dead roam the fearsome wastes of Niflheim. Instead I created a barrow for them in my storm-wracked world.

  21

  EFORE YOU AND I meet face to face, learn the true history of the world as you know it. Remember what is inscribed here. Repeat it round your fires and in your halls.


  The rest is just stuff.

  Burning ice and flame. Frost and sparks. No sand. No sea. No sky. No warmth. A great void at the beginning of time.

  The giants were first, the oldest inhabitants of the Nine Worlds. The gods, the great tormentors, came afterwards.

  Odin and his brothers create Midgard out of the void from the body of the unlucky giant Ymir.

  Giants fight gods.

  The treacherous gods imprison the frost giants in the ice.

  The treacherous gods kidnap my brothers and me and take us to Asgard.

  I meet Baldr.

  The source of all evil, Odin, hurls me into Niflheim.

  Bronze.

  Fighting.

  Iron.

  Fighting.

  Steel.

  Fighting.

  Fighting.

  Fighting.

  Gunpowder.

  Lots of fighting.

  The stirrup is invented.

  Next the canon.

  Snorri Sturluson writes horribly about me in his book called The Prose Edda. (Do not read his lies!)

  Snorri Sturluson is murdered by his son-in-law – serves him right. He did not get a warm welcome from me when his sorry shade shambled down here.

  Guns invented – yes!

  Plague – yes.

  Black death – yes yes yes.

  Flying chariots.

  Bombs.

  Antibiotics – boo.

  Vaccination – boo.

  Space chariots.

  War.

  Midgard heats up.

  The Frost Giants break free of the ice. Unfortunately, the gods defeat them.

  Axe Age, Sword Age.

  The Gods die.

  End of World.

  Have I missed out anything important? I don’t think so. When you live forever, you get a perspective on how little most things matter.

  You imagine you’re special? You’re not.

  22

  Y DEATH HALL was ready. For a long moment, I took in the silence, Eljudnir’s desolation before the pit opened and the dead flowed in. My home would never be empty again. I listened to my breath, soft in the shadows. Fog to fog. My shuffling footsteps echoed in the vastness. My doors would be ajar for eternity, open to the howling wilderness.

  I didn’t want this peace to end. But since when has anyone cared what I want?

  Let them come in.

  I was tired and needed to rest after my great labour, but I stumbled towards the massive doors and pushed them open for the first and last –

  Wait. What’s wrong with that sentence? Not the exhaustion – even gods need to take it easy occasionally –

  Why am I opening the doors? I’m the queen. Where are my servants? Who will get out the buckets, unpack the drinking horns, set the holders on the tables, start brewing the mead and kick the goat who at this moment is gnawing on a table leg and splintering it?

  Who’s going to collect and sort and stack all my grave goods? And change my bedlinen? And freshen my drink? Someone’s got to milk the mead goat and fill the horns. That someone isn’t me.

  I needed a man and maidservant.

  When I lived with my mother in Jotunheim, we had servants. I had no idea how they came to live with us, or where they came from. I never asked. They were slaves, and beneath my notice.

  How was I to find servants down here?

  I sat on my uncomfortable throne – I would seek out cushions from my tribute as soon as possible – and watched the dead pour through the open doors and spill into my hall, stumbling as they crossed the threshold, ducking their rotting heads and stooping at the entrance, accustomed as most of them are to low hovels. (I told you I get the riff-raff.) It’s like emptying a bottomless chamber pot; a river of corpses which never stops flowing, the way the dead slop in here. They shivered in the cold, dripping with hoar frost.

  The rich ones brought their tributes of gold and jewels and ivory and swords. The poor held tight to their useless wooden cups and needles and buckets. I took it all. Every night down here will be my birthnight, a feast of never-ending gifts. I’d never had a gift before. I lurched off my throne and grabbed an arm bracelet, heavy with bright gold, then another and another. I sieved through the growing pile of grave goods, tossing aside the broken pottery and soapstone bowls and dried fish, snatching up earrings and a silver buckle. I snatched like Fen after rats.

  I placed the jewels on my wrists and fingers, pinned a filigree brooch to my robe while the newly arrived, bewildered and angry, flailing, smelly and grumbling, milled about the ghastly hall seeking their place.

  ‘Sit anywhere,’ I said. (Except next to me, of course.) ‘There is no rank here.’ Oh, how they wailed and gnashed at that.

  I eyed the dead for likely servant material.

  What are my requirements?

  1. Ugly.

  2. Quiet.

  3. No one decomposing.

  Like I said, I’m not Miss Fussy.

  Number one was easy. Two and three seemed impossible.

  I saw wraiths and cadavers, decaying and freshly buried; fretful spirits fluttering about like greasy shadows; and corpses with peeling skin and maggots dripping from their heads.

  Every body was worse than the next. Most were old. And bony. And putrefying. All talking at me. I thought the dead would come in quietly. Sit down. Be still. Act dead.

  But oh no. The din was horrendous. Jabbering, querulous voices. Moaning. Yelling. Gathering around my High Seat, shrieking and screaming like stuck pigs.

  The shrieks of those fathers whose sons were too mean to bury them with gold and who discovered they’d arrived here with a wooden bowl and a dented axe.

  The stupid slave girls who’d volunteered to be sacrificed, thinking that if they follow their chieftain in death they’ll be his wife here in Hel. Where do they get these ideas? Ladies, it isn’t going to happen. Save yourselves. Don’t volunteer for any funeral pyres. Everyone journeys to me alone.

  ‘Have I been chosen by Freyja instead of Odin to live in her hall?’ asked one pudgy, bloodstained warrior, looking around in amazement. He gazed at me uneasily, seated on my throne, my silver hair exploding around my lead face, a blanket covering my legs.

  ‘Is this Asgard?’

  ‘Does this look like Asgard to you?’ I asked.

  His eyes widened.

  ‘I thought every warrior who fell in battle went to Valhall!’ he howled.

  ‘Well, you thought wrong,’ I said. ‘Only the best and greatest warriors go to Valhall. Which obviously excludes you.’

  His fellow warriors shuffled unhappily.

  I braced myself.

  ‘Where’s the banquet? Where’s the never-ending ale in the curved horns?’ they screamed. ‘Where’s the roast pork and the maidens serving?’

  The disappointment and fury of the first-class arrivals, the kings with their servants and animals aboard their iron-shielded ships, when they end up here. Just as stinky as the grimiest thrall, the filthiest troll. I wanted to laugh.

  One stormed up to me, haughty and full of majesty in his silken tunic with gold buttons and fur hat, his slaves dragging in carts and wagons and jewels and bright swords.

  ‘I demand you receive me as a great lord,’ he boomed.

  ‘Or what?’ I said. All the timber and amber and rings didn’t alter the fact that he was – er – dead.

  ‘There’s some mistake,’ others protested.

  Nope.

  I covered my ears, ignoring them all. The corpses buzzed and whined around me like angry wasps.

  ‘Where’s my throne?’

  ‘I’m not sitting with him!’

  ‘Don’t touch that jug – it’s mine.’

  ‘You stink!’

  ‘Give me that –’

  ‘I want to go home …’

  ‘What am I doing here?’

  ‘My sister, the greedy cow, she kept my ivory comb!’

  ‘It’s not fair –’

  Then out of the gloom I saw an old
crone, carrying an empty gold plate, coming towards me.

  An ancient man shuffled beside her, holding a knife and a cup.

  I watched them approach. I am not sure that approach is the right word. Were they actually moving? It was hard to say. Time slips away here. Time is of no importance. I was having to learn this.

  But one thing became clear as inch by inch they came closer to my throne. Both of these grey-haired, filthy thralls were alive.

  The hordes of the dead parted to let them through.

  ‘We’ve been waiting for you, mistress,’ said the crone. Her thin, grey plaits twisted beneath a dirty cap the colour of dung. Her words fell out of her mouth in long, slow syllables, like pus oozing from a wound.

  ‘We’ve been waiting forever,’ said the old hag spawn. His matted tufts of white hair stuck up on his bald head like horns.

  They had no names, so I named them: Ganglot the Lazybones and Ganglati the Slowpoke.

  ‘Here is your plate – Starving,’ said Lazybones.

  ‘Here is your knife – Famine,’ said Slowpoke.

  ‘Here is your cup – Thirst,’ they said together.

  Fine dining was evidently not going to be their forte.

  When I write that they said these words, I have written them down as sentences. That’s not how they talked. Slowpoke and Lazybones spoke as if they died after every word, and then slowly came back to life to speak one more word before dying again. It took them a day to cross a room, a night to cross back. They moved so slowly they almost appeared not to budge. In the time it took them to set down my plate, knife and cup, I could have staggered up the fog road back to Midgard (if only). Watching them lift an arm to wipe their noses on their crusty sleeves could take an eternity.

  Not exactly first choice for servants.

  But they, like Modgud, were alive. And I loathe the dead even more than I hate the living. I too can only move slowly. And in a world without time, what’s the rush?