The Apples of Idunn

by Matt Larkin

  Gudrun spun Odin around and kissed him again. She drew him from the room by his hand. “He will be,” she called over her shoulder.

  Odin followed as she led him back toward their bedchamber. Fear threatened to drown his lust until he found himself disgusted by the reaction of his own body, unable to stop himself from rising again at her call.

  40

  Shouting from beyond the smithy. Angry cries, grunts of effort. Damn it.

  Tyr raced around the building. Three of Hadding’s men surrounded Vili, fists raised. Another lay in the snow. Blood pouring from his broken nose and split lip. Damned berserk.

  “What in Njord’s name is this!” he demanded.

  One of Hadding’s people leapt on Vili’s back, wrapped an arm around his neck. Vili lunged backward, slamming the man into a post of the smithy. Force of it cracked the post—damn nigh split it in half.

  Another man stepped in, swinging.

  The crack of his fist against Vili’s jaw.

  The berserk turned to face his attacker. Grinning. Fucking grinning.

  Bears don’t look fast. But they can be. Berserkir too. Vili had the man by the throat, hefted off the ground before anyone else had moved. The Hasding man’s eyes bulged. He clawed uselessly at Vili’s grip.

  Tyr wasn’t a berserk, but the apple made him strong. He seized Vili’s wrist and shoulder and shoved the man. Borr’s son released his victim. Spun on Tyr.

  “Enough!”

  Vili glowered.

  “These are our hosts.”

  “Poor fucking hosts.” Vili spat. “We’re not fucking wanted here. Let’s be gone, and Hel take these trollfuckers.”

  Would that they could. Odin had ordered them to remain here, hold Halfhaugr. Even against its own ruler.

  Angry shouts agreeing they ought to leave. At this rate, the whole town would rise against them.

  Tyr scowled at the gathering crowd. “Everyone calm down. Go back to your work.”

  They didn’t.

  More of the town arrived with each passing moment. Watching, simmering. Ready to boil over.

  Tyr’s hand drifted toward the sword on his back. Not the way it ought to go.

  Vili grinning again. Fucking imbecile. Cracking his knuckles.

  Wodan warriors had begun to form a crowd on the other side. A few had drawn blades, axes. Blood would run these streets.

  And then the Hasding crowd began to part. Making way for someone.

  A woman, bearing sword and shield. Tyr had seen her a few times in the past moon. Olrun, wife to one of Hadding’s thegns. A shieldmaiden, and clearly one these people respected a great deal.

  Olrun planted her sword in the ground—mushy snow and mud now. Looked from Tyr to Vili and back, barely acknowledging the rest of the crowd. “Jarl Hadding has grown displeased with this alliance.”

  Because Odin had fucking betrayed him. Denied him the damned apple and then run off.

  Olrun locked his gaze. Understanding. Warning. “The jarl believes it is time for the Wodan tribe to return to Eskgard or wherever else suits you.” Shouts of agreement from the crowd. Anger was rising fast, but they deferred to her.

  Vili spat.

  Tyr cracked his neck, barely stopping himself from scowling at the man. Fool berserk wanted a war. “It suits us to remain here. Until our jarl returns.”

  Some of Hadding’s people began to beat weapons against their shields. Odin’s warriors immediately started doing the same.

  Damn it.

  “I’ll fight you,” Tyr said.

  “What?”

  Some of the Wodanar laughed. Tyr ignored them. “A duel. I win, we stay. You win, we go.”

  Olrun glanced at her people, and at the Wodanar. Glowered. Yes, she was aging. Past her prime. And he’d given her an unworthy challenge, damn him. She had no chance, and they both knew it. So why had he said such a thing? Hel, this scheming for Odin’s throne was wearing him down. It was the kind of thing he’d have said long ago, as champion to Hymir. As a jotunn’s bloody sword arm.

  The shieldmaiden sighed. Wrapped her hand around the sword. Now he’d have to fight her. Not to the death. He’d try to spare her, best he could. Hel take him for this.

  The girl, Sigyn, raced to Olrun’s side. Put her hand on her shoulder. Whispered in her ear.

  Too late for warnings. Too late. Blood boiled in both crowds. Boiling blood led to blood staining the snows.

  Olrun said something back. The women argued a moment. Then the shieldmaiden looked to her people. “All of you, disperse. Hadding’s daughter commands it!”

  At her sharp tone, the warriors faltered. Angry murmurs about a bastard child. About mist-madness or alf possession.

  Tyr looked to his own people. “In Odin’s name.” He pointed away. “Get gone. We will not strike the first blow against our hosts.”

  Vili grumbled. Looked apt to challenge him. Instead, the berserk spun, walked over one of the men he had felled as he left. Ground the poor bastard into the snow.

  As both crowds began to disperse, Sigyn strode forward and grabbed Tyr’s arm. Dragged him away from the smithy and toward another house. Same house where Olrun stood out front.

  “What’s going on here?” he demanded.

  “Come inside, please.”

  He joined her in the house, and she settled down on the one of the bed shelves.

  “I cannot believe Odin would marry my sister only to invite war with our people.”

  Odin did a lot of things Tyr couldn’t believe. Unsure what to say, he watched the girl.

  She tapped a finger against her lip. “You asked me what’s going on. I was fostered with Agilaz and Olrun. But Jarl Hadding is my father, and I can try to speak with him and with Frigg, try to persuade Father against this course. War benefits no one.”

  “The losers least of all.”

  “If you intended to take Halfhaugr by force, I think you would have done it already.” She leaned forward now. “Why did Odin ride off to Reidgotaland? What does he hope to gain in the north?”

  “Odin keeps his own counsel.” A half truth made one nigh as bad as a liar. What was he becoming? “You share a bed with his blood brother. Why not ask the foreigner about Odin’s mind?”

  Sigyn neither flinched nor denied sleeping with Loki. Smiled even. “Was that supposed to distract me from my question? Or do you not even know the answer?” Sigyn tapped her lip again. “It’s no matter. While he is away, you seem to want to prevent bloodshed, yes?”

  Tyr folded his arms.

  “The Hasdingi stand on edge because of the Godwulfs.”

  “I’ve heard.” A tribe ruled by varulfur was apt to bring chaos. Tyr’s spy among them should have reported back to the Athra. But from here, Tyr had no idea if that had happened.

  “We sent my foster brother among them, in marriage, hoping to secure peace. Only now we learn the jarl there conspires with the King of Njarar to seize some or all of Aujum. Perhaps this makes Jarl Alci a common enemy.”

  “He’s your uncle.”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes the family who chose you matters more than blood.”

  Tyr did not even know who his blood relatives were. Some had whispered Hymir himself had spawned him on a human woman. Tyr refused to believe, save in his darkest moments. “What would you have me do?”

  “You’re Odin’s champion. If you were to aid the Hasdingi in this issue, it would go far toward smoothing over the injury Odin did here. The people only know that Odin angered Father and Frigg both and then fled. But you and I know about the apples. My father is going to die because Odin would not part with one. If that happens as matters stand now, Frigg will be like to divorce him in her grief.”

  He grunted. Such a divorce would cost Odin any support among the Hasdingi. Maybe cost him the throne. “So you want me to go to Alci.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think Jarl Alci wants to hear of peace now. He is drunk on dreams of glory. No, find Hermod—my foster brother—and Agilaz. They are among
the Godwulfs now. To have peace, the Godwulfs must have a new jarl. And you are known among all the tribes as a champion of Borr. They cannot turn you away.”

  To murder a jarl. Tyr groaned. “Your father approves of this?”

  “My father would not act against the bonds of brotherhood. But Alci leaves us with little choice now. Do this, Tyr, stop Alci. And I will stay here and do all I can to maintain the alliance between our peoples. My father and sister both are ill disposed to the Wodanar at the moment, but I can sway their minds. But you must save …”

  “Save?”

  She shook her head. “Just save us all.”

  More schemes. Plots. A warrior ought to meet threats with a sword in hand. A song in his heart. Instead, to make a king, Tyr worked in shadows and lies. Betrayals. He’d ask Idunn, but he knew what she’d say. Odin must become king. And it sounded like that meant Alci must fall.

  41

  More than a moon had passed since Odin had come to her, and they now had fallen into an easy rapport. He had not yet managed to evoke or bind any spirit, but he would. He would learn the Art and become a sorcerer of Hel, as Grimhild had commanded. He needed only a bit more time.

  They walked through a garden of ice sculptures in the central courtyard. Gudrun did not know where these statues had come from, for they had rested here her whole life, but she knew what some few of them represented. The nine sons of Halfdan the Old, the progenitors of the Old Kingdoms as Odin called them. He drifted along beside her, a man half dreaming and so eager to escape his life she needed fewer and fewer of her potions to keep him here.

  Without a sense of time, he murmured about all the things he would do, how he would become King of the Aesir, how he would stop his brother Ve from transforming into a troll. The former, perhaps, he could have done, and made a better life for his people. The latter … no. Probably not even this Odling ghost could stop the changes the mist wrought in Odin’s brother.

  Gudrun’s own brothers, her two younger brothers, sparred through the garden. Hogne leapt upon the fountain’s lip, flipped around, teasing their youngest sibling to chase after him. Gunnar did so with admirable gusto, never showing the barest hint of fatigue. Ten winters. Very soon the boy would be inducted into the mysteries of the Art and, if he survived at all, would lose what remained of his childhood. She drew to a stop, watching as her little brother laughed, running, playing, though he’d have called it training. And she could no more save him from his urd than Odin could save his own brother.

  But she could dream of it, as Odin dreamed.

  “You love them.”

  She turned to Odin, unable to quite find the right words to explain to him. “Love is … complex. They are my brothers.”

  “And you love them. I know, I love my brothers. They … they should be here too. We’re all family.”

  Gudrun stiffened and ground her teeth. Oh, to have a family where love came so simply. Odin had no idea how much fate had blessed him. Could she even afford to love her brothers? Guthorm, her half brother and Grimhild’s eldest—he was their mother’s favorite, for which he had suffered almost as much as Gudrun, though he did not seem to realize it. He and Gudrun shared a bond, true enough, though she would not have called it love. More a mutual devotion to the pursuit of the Art and the return of the days of glory.

  “Hogne still treasures Gunnar,” she said. “And I … care for them.”

  “Why do you hesitate to embrace the bonds of family? What greater connection exists between people?”

  She swallowed. “You do not yet understand.” Each of them was, or would become, a tool in Grimhild’s arsenal, a weapon aimed at Midgard and the descendants of the enemies of the Niflungar, all while the queen plotted and schemed to claim all the world in the name of Hel. “You would be king of a single people. My … mother will take the throne of all Midgard.” And her father, too, of course, by her side.

  “You are lucky to still have your parents.”

  Gudrun chuckled. “You have not met Grimhild. But you soon will. Tell me then, if you still think any of us lucky to have her.”

  Odin paused then. “You … hate her.”

  This Ás was more perceptive than a man under her spell ought to be. He had a strong will, an iron in his soul that would bring him all the more pain as Grimhild broke that will, ground him beneath her heel. The thought of it opened a hole in her stomach as deep and dark as the Pit beneath Castle Niflung. What had come over her? She grieved at the thought of Hogne and Gunnar slowly falling into the abyss of darkness that consumed all sorcerers. But thinking of Odin like that, of him becoming one more victim in Grimhild’s unending machinations to claim all lands, it hit her like a physical pain, squeezing her heart.

  A disgusting sensation, as if … as if she had drunk of her own draughts. In Hel’s name … She had let herself feel for this man. Grimhild had sent her to him as a whore, intent to capture this king, though why she cared so much for one more pawn, Gudrun did not know. Except, Odin was not a pawn—he was a king on the tafl board, and Gudrun could no longer bear the thought of losing him.

  Hel damn her for her weakness.

  As the Queen of Mist would damn Odin and devour his soul.

  42

  Loki had an inexplicable love of high places. That and fires. Often when Sigyn sought him out, she found him either staring into a flame or perched atop a building, a rock, or some other precarious place. Actually, she sort of loved that about him. This time, he stood at the cusp of the spiked wall surrounding Halfhaugr, staring out north so intently she’d have almost thought he could see something she couldn’t.

  And she could see farther and clearer than ever since he had given her the apple. What else would the apple do to her? Would she gain magic powers like stories claimed Freyja or Idunn had? Would her other senses enhance to match her vision?

  He didn’t turn at her approach, but his posture loosened almost imperceptibly. How did he know it was her? One more mystery she’d have to unravel. And now she had all the time in the world to do so.

  “He’s been gone too long,” Loki said at last.

  Odin. After the fight Odin had had with Frigg, part of Sigyn expected him to never return. Indeed, part of her hoped he never would. Already the Wodan jarl had brought such upheaval to her life, and though grateful for the bounties he had endowed her with through Loki, she feared the greater changes he seemed to have in mind. Perhaps that was selfish—after all, if not for Odin, she would not have become an immortal, nor found someone to share this new life with.

  Instead of answering, she slipped her arms around Loki’s and tucked her chin over his shoulder. “What do you see out there?”

  Through her embrace, she felt him swallow hard before answering. “The future. Always.”

  What did that mean? Did Loki also fear Odin’s plans? Or could he mean it more literally? The apples seemed to affect each of them a little differently. Was it possible Loki now suffered the visions as Frigg had?

  “And what is the future?”

  “He is.”

  “Then why didn’t you go with him?”

  “You know the answer.”

  Sigyn suspected she did. Loki seemed inclined to see himself as a teacher to his blood brother, though he looked little older than Odin. He obviously wanted Odin to learn some things on his own. Agilaz had often said a lesson learned for oneself was worth ten lectures. Did Loki then send Odin off alone on this sojourn as a means of preparing him for something grander still? If so, the lessons seemed cruel and lonely. But then, maybe all the strongest lessons were like that.

  “I have to go after him.”

  Sigyn sighed. Somehow she’d known it would end with that. “I’ll come with you.”

  “I wish you could, but I need to travel swiftly, and I can best do that alone. I cannot allow Odin to fall into the shadows or succumb to the mists, however alluring their calls might seem.”

  She squeezed him tighter, savoring his warmth. “You’d better come back to me.”<
br />
  “Naught would stop me from it.”

  At that, he slipped from her arms, kissed her forehead, and leapt over the wall. Sigyn leaned forward to gaze at where he had landed, crouched in the snow nigh fifteen feet below. Damn. Could she do that? Would the apple prevent injury if she tried such a foolhardy maneuver? Part of her wanted to try it, to feel the rush. Yet enough people in the village thought her mad already.

  A chill wind swept over her, as Loki disappeared off into the mist.

  Sigyn’s father had forestalled his decision to cast out the Wodanar at her behest, though his patience seemed nigh at an end. As did his life. The ever creeping thickness clouded his lungs and his eyes while Frigg and Fulla fretted over him like the invalid he was fast becoming. And Sigyn had no more words of comfort for her sister.

  She sat upon the low stone wall surrounding Agilaz’s house in Halfhaugr, staring out at naught and somehow still seeing more than she ever had. Her eyes kept getting stronger. Her ears too. Footsteps crunched snow as someone made his way around the corner of another house.

  Shortsnout rounded the bend and took off at a trot when he saw her, drawing a smile from her even as the hound leapt about below her knees. A moment later, Hermod slogged forward, burdened with a heavy pack and Njord knew what other weight.

  Sigyn leapt from the wall and raced over to her foster brother, pausing just long enough to cuddle the hound. “What are you doing here? Where is Agilaz?”

  “Father remained at the Godwulfs to keep an eye on things.” Hermod embraced her, then held her by the arms.

  He still held her like a brother, and yet, somehow, that no longer hurt. She was happy to see him well, for certain, but … it had changed. Or maybe she had never really loved him like that. Maybe she’d convinced herself that any mutual affection between her and a man who accepted her must represent a romantic connection, and, in so doing, had failed to acknowledge the value of other bonds. Because being loved as a sister did matter, after all, and not every woman had that.