“Put some clothes on, you ape,” Cruix said. “Where were you last night?”
“Drinking with Ardel. You didn’t look like you wanted to be around people.”
“I had just found out what a pig toilet was. Let’s change the subject. What’s on the itinerary?”
“This was on the itinerary?” Cruix asked.
We sat on a parade float, an ornate wagon pulled by dozens and dozens of slaves. They were dressed for the occasion, but you always knew thralls. It was their collars and close-cropped hair.
Even slave girls wore their hair short and uncovered.
A band went before us, beating the air with drum and pipe. Young women followed and scattered coins and flowers. Behind us ambled an honour guard. Heroes all, they dazzled in their armour and their jewelry.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” I said. “The king has declared a week of celebration!”
“Just for us?” Cruix said. “Mina prepared the way, I know, but I didn’t think they’d go this far.”
“Ardel wasn’t always a prince,” I said. “His father wasn’t always a king. King Garvel used to be just one jarl among many. But through strength and clever alliance he expanded his jarldom and made Heorot the greatest city in the Northlands.”
Cruix was silent. The float went on, rolling quietly down the wood-block road. The rest of the way wasn’t so quiet, what with the band playing, the people cheering, and the honour guard drunkenly singing.
“Can’t say I like the idea of a unified Northlands,” Cruix said. “But from what I can see, they have a ways to go. Does this look like a people accustomed to being organized?”
I looked back. The honour guard didn’t march so much as stroll. Some were openly drinking.
There was no shortage of refreshment—I saw bottles and pitchers and entire kegs in the crowd.
Trays of food passed around. You had but to hold out your hand and it would be filled with foaming tankard or heaping plate. A fine custom, but it did nothing for the honour guard’s marching. I’d seen more precision in elven militia.
Ahead of us, one of the young women paused from scattering flower petals to lift up her top. The cheering intensified. The band played well enough, but members would occasionally step to the side or else flick something off their boots. It’s a bad idea to follow the cavalry.
And then there were the cover-ups. From time to time the parade would round a corner and I would see… nothing. Just tall wooden fences. They were everywhere in Heorot. They covered a house here, a viewpoint there. Sometimes entire neighbourhoods were walled up and whitewashed.
“Heronimo, answer me something. Do I look an idiot? Are my brains leaking out my ears?”
“Of course not!” I said.
“Then do I look like a tourist? Am I holding a guidebook and a sketchpad? Why am I getting the idiot tourist treatment?”
He swept a hand out. “They’ve covered up a good thirty percent of this city.”
The crowd cheered. Cruix turned the sweep of his hand into a wave. “Thirty percent! What are they hiding?”
The procession would stop at every market square for a performance. Among the songs, speeches, and dances were short plays from legend.
The Song of Heimdallr
The god Heimdallr walked along the seashore.
There was no mistaking him. His armour was the same as that of the Colossus. Only a god could get away with that huge horned helmet. It was clunky, easy to grab, and likely to snag on low ceilings. But then, what’s the use of being a god if you can’t break a few rules?
Heimdallr walked along the seashore. Each ‘wave’ was actually a painted shield held by a bearded warrior. From the guffaws, they were having a great time.
“Whoosh! Whoosh!”
“That’s not what the sea sounds like!”
“It’s white noise, innit?”
“Shut up in the back!”
“Not if it’s coming out your face-hole!”
“Shut up!”
“Whoosh! Whoosh! Everyone whoosh with me!”
“Shut up!”
“Shut up, everyone who says shut up!”
Heimdallr turned to the audience. “It is a troubled sea we have to-day.”
He walked until a hut assembled itself in the square. It was a crude little thing, and from the sound of livestock it housed animals as well as people. Heimdallr approached and the front of the hut pulled away, revealing a man, a woman, and some cows and pigs. These were actually children in costume. They were all the same size, but the cows went Moo moo moo! and the pigs went Noff noff noff!
“Hello the house!” Heimdallr said.
“Hello yourself!” the man said. “Welcome!”
The man and woman were slaves, obviously: he had a shaved head and she had a pageboy cut.
They were good hosts nonetheless, and shared freely of their horsebread and nettle soup.
Heimdallr ate and made merry. And by made merry, I mean he slept between the couple and made love to the wife while the husband snored. There was a fair bit of nudity. The wife used
Heimdallr’s helmet-horns as handlebars.
“So this is what passes for high culture in the Northlands!” Cruix said.
Heimdallr took his time enjoying the couple’s hospitality. Three nights passed. We know this because three scantily-clad maidens glided past, each one holding up a paper moon.
Heimdallr moved on. The hut was disassembled and carried away. The god walked further inland until he came upon a farmhouse. This was a proper longhouse, with plenty of benches, and it was not necessary to bed down next to livestock. The fire-pit provided enough warmth for the couple inside.
“Hello the house!” Heimdallr said.
“Hello yourself!” the man said. “Welcome!”
This man and woman were freemen. His tunic and trousers were blue and red, her dress was a deep green. He wore a sword, while from her belt hung all the keys of the house. They set upon the table rye bread and ale, buttermilk and cheese, salty butter and saltier cod. The god ate and made merry. And by merry…
“Sure is a lot of skin in this play,” Cruix said.
I’d have objected, but the girls with the paper moons were back, this time wearing even less clothing. Again the wife used Heimdallr’s helmet-horns as handlebars.
The god moved on. The farmhouse was carted away. The god walked further inland until he came upon a palace. This was a grand timber mead-hall, ornamented with gold, and it commanded the land from the hill where it stood.
Heimdallr climbed the stairs to the front door and said, “Hello, the house!”
“Hello yourself! Welcome!”
The man and woman here were nobles. The man was bare-chested, as befitted a warrior, while the woman wore a fortune in brooches, necklaces, and bracelets. They set before the god wine and mead, white bread and honey, beef and all kinds of venison. There were strawberry pancakes, almond cookies, and marzipan cakes. Heimdallr consumed it all.
“I think they cast a professional eater,” Cruix said.
“Is anyone else getting hungry?” I said. “I’m getting hungry.”
I leaned over the side, caught the eye of a halfling vendor, and bought all her fried chicken.
“What, the whole basket?” she asked.
“I’ll also take some pies and a couple of beers.”
I paid her and she skipped away, her work done for the moment.
“Even in the Northlands, there’s nothing like halfling cooking.”
“How did you know she was a halfling?” Cruix asked. “She was tall enough. She had blonde hair and freckles. Yet you didn’t mistake her for human.”
“It’s… hey, what is it when one side of your body matches the other side?”
“It’s called symmetry.”
“Yes! Symmetry! Halflings don’t have it.”
Cruix gave me a sideways look, so I explained: “Say an elf stood near a mirror so it only reflected half of them. What would you see?”
&n
bsp; “An elf messing around with a mirror,” Cruix said. “Probably Angrod.”
“Did you know that if a halfling did that, they’d look like a different person? We take it for granted that one leg is exactly as long as the other leg. That the lines on one hand are a match for the lines on the other hand. It’s true for most races. Halflings, though…”
Cruix scanned the crowd. “You’re right, they’re easy to spot. They’re just a bit crooked. Like someone glued the wrong halves together.”
“Can you imagine?” I said, through a mouthful of chicken. “They shouldn’t be able to walk straight!”
In the square, Heimdallr once again had his way with the woman of the house, the husband snoring to one side. The half-naked moon girls strutted by.
“I can understand one husband sleeping through it, but three husbands?” Cruix said. “For three nights apiece?”
I laughed. “In some versions of the story, the husbands were awake, and participating.”
“Why not show that? What difference would it make? It’s just apes humping.”
“They did not want to risk showing anything that could be considered unmanly.”
“You Northlanders are obsessed with masculinity.”
Heimdallr left the mead hall and then the stage, his part over. The hut, farmhouse, and palace reassembled in the square. Nine women paraded by. Not the ones from before, these all wore belly-hugging gowns. The moons they held up were identical, but each woman looked more pregnant than the last. So, nine months. A baby’s cry made me jump. The women had given birth.
The baby from the hut, his parents sprinkled him with water.
The baby from the farmhouse, his parents sprinkled him with water and wrapped him in linen.
The baby from the palace, his parents sprinkled him with rosewater and swathed him in silk. As well, they gave him a wet nurse—the woman from the hut, the slave and wife of a slave. Her own baby cried while she held another woman’s child to her breast.
“Am I missing something?” Cruix asked. “I don’t understand all of this.”
“This is an old story,” I said. “When Heimdallr sired Tharl, Karl, and Jarl, he laid the foundation of our society. The three sons represent the three classes of men.”
“Ridiculous! Even the play shows that the poor and the rich existed before him. And if the three sons are his, then they are both demigods and brothers. Shouldn’t they be equals?”
I put my beer down. “Would you abolish all rank? Who’s being ridiculous now? We should all be as strong, as smart, and as wealthy as each other. But even among your friends you can see that it is not so.”
He crossed his arms. “Dragons never lorded over one another.”
“You treated each other as equals in every way?”
He hesitated. “The alpha males did get the best mates.”
“And how did alpha males win their position, if not through strength?” I laid a hand on his
shoulder. “My friend, the truth is that society works the way it does because it works. It shows who must lead and who must follow. If that were not clear, men would need to fight at every first meeting to establish dominance.”
“As I recall, that’s how you and Angrod met. Forget it. I’ll have some of that chicken after all.”
We watched as they cleared the square for the next performance. Cruix bit into a drumstick.
“This is good chicken.”
“They fry it in lard,” I said.
He dropped the chicken.
Chapter 14: The Coming of the Northlanders
In the beginning: silence and darkness.
The square stood empty.
Women leaped onstage, trailing wisps of silk. They windmilled their arms and flared their gossamer sleeves. They twirled, their gowns transparent. They danced in a circle and there came a sound like the wind. Offstage, a man brushed a mallet along a thin metal sheet. Then he struck.
Thunder boomed! Thunder drummed! The women danced and the man beat time. Blue silk swirled and dark clouds grew.
Then: Boom!
A dancer struck flint and steel and ignited a circle of oil. Fire leaped high: the dancers disappeared. I could feel the heat from where we sat. Then the flames turned to smoke and drifted away. Inside the smouldering ring were men, women, children. They looked around, bewildered.
“This is where it gets good,” a woman said. She had climbed into our wagon.
“Who are you?” Cruix said.
She extended a hand. “Name’s Dianne.”
“You’re a Fighting Nun,” I said. She wore the steel bracers of that order.
“I am a lay nun, yes,” she said. “But first I am a scholar. A student of the past.”
“So, a historian,” Cruix said.
“Goodness, no! I try not to have anything to do with runestones and elder tomes. Most of them were written by men, which is a significant point against them. But I’m babbling. You were having trouble understanding the show.”
“How long have you been eavesdropping?” I asked, but she had grabbed a drumstick and a beer.
“Y’see, dragon, this scene depicts the moment our people arrived in the world,” she said. “You’re familiar with fairy rings?”
“I know that they brought you apes over here,” Cruix said. “Here, in the world. From the ape planet.”
“Not just apes. All sorts of creatures. The area around a fairy ring is always especially rich in plant and animal life.”
She coughed. “For our purposes, let’s focus on how the ancestors of humans, elves, and dwarves all came through fairy rings. It’s still happening, you know.”
“I actually met one,” I said. “A halfling from another world. She had no wilderness experience at all.”
“There’s a steady trickle of these… interdimensional refugees,” Dianne said. “They either get themselves killed or are assimilated into the halfling population.”
She took a bite of chicken. “But look at the stage. What’s different?”
Men, women, children. And chickens. Also cows. The people wore cloaks and carried packs.
They shouldered spears and farm tools.
“An entire village on the move,” Cruix said. “They’re colonists!”
“Exactly! This unusually large portal bore especially rich fruit. Our ancestors may have come to the Northlands by accident, but they had everything needed to establish a foothold. And boy did they need it.”
The colonists hadn’t even set up camp when they were swarmed by beast-men. One of the colonists drew his sword.
“To arms, my brothers!”
The fight was incredibly bloody. Stage combat in the Northlands is not much different from real combat. Everyone in the audience knows how to fight, so they won’t accept fakery. And the actors are all humans anyway. They can take a blading.
A severed hand sailed over our heads.
Dragon Sacrifice (The First Realm Book 3) Page 11