by Kim Wilkins
Loki rode off as Vidar ushered Aud inside. The firelight bathed the dark wooden pillars and beams in warm amber, chasing shadows into the alcoves.
“I’m sorry,” she said, making a taper to light the candles. “He insisted on bringing me.”
“I’m glad he did. You would have been caught in the storm.” A rumble of thunder shook the shutters.
“But now he’ll stay the night and you don’t like him.”
“Nor do I dislike him,” Vidar said, carefully placing two fresh logs on the fire. “I just don’t trust him.”
She offered him the four books. “This is all he would give me. I’ll have to go back.”
“No, these are enough.”
“You don’t understand. I have to go back because—”
Loki threw open the door. “What’s for dinner?”
“Welcome, cousin,” Vidar said, taking Loki in a brief hug. “Sit with me. Aud will prepare us a meal.” He led Loki to the bench nearest the fire.
Loki fingered the carvings around the pillar beside him. “Beautiful work, Vidar. Your own?”
“Of course.” Vidar had hewn and carved every inch of wood in this house of his own construction. He had thatched the roof, laid the hearthstones, hung every door and shutter. Then there were the fences, the stable, the chicken coop. His father had said such menial work brought shame on the Aesir. “Eternity is a long time to fill, Loki,” Vidar said. “It’s wearisome to be idle.”
“I agree.”
Aud brought them two cups of mead. Rain beat heavily on the roof, but inside was warm with the smell of woodsmoke and wax.
“Have you seen your father lately?” Loki asked.
“Not in five years. You?”
“I visit from time to time. I’m not always welcome.”
“Because you steal things.”
“I borrow things. I intend to return them all. Eventually.”
“How is he?” Vidar asked.
“The passing of time eases neither his arrogance nor his folly.”
Vidar smiled. “But is he well?”
“Oh, they’re all well. Your brother is well.” Thunder sounded outside and Loki pointed upward. “All the drunken sods in Valhalla will be cowering, thinking it’s him—Thor, the great god of thunder.”
“A sad fool with a hammer.”
Loki laughed loudly. “You can’t tell them, Vidar. They still think they’re gods. Nobody worships them anymore, their great hall grows emptier every year. I can’t remember the last time Odin was sober enough to raise a battle with Vanaheim. Yet their self-deception continues.”
Vidar sipped his mead. He preferred not to think of his family. Aud was in and out of the cook-room, her hair tied in a knot at the nape of her neck.
Loki followed his gaze. “Your bondmaid broke something that belonged to me today,” he said.
“I’m very sorry.”
“She can work it off. One day a week until the end of the year.”
“I’ll give you until winter.”
“It was an object very precious to me.”
“Did you steal it?”
Loki assumed a mock-indignant expression. “There’s that word again.”
“Until winter, Loki. It’s a long way to travel between our two homes. I don’t want her making the journey in snowstorms.” Loki was within his rights to demand some payment from Aud. Vidar just hoped it wouldn’t mean weekly visits from his cousin.
“Until winter, then,” Loki conceded.
Vidar waited until Aud had left the room. “And you are not to force her to lie with you.”
“I’ve never forced anyone to lie with me. They eventually come willingly. She will.” He hooked a thumb toward the cook-room. “I’d wager Heror on it.”
Vidar watched Aud as she held the door open with her hip. With her slender wrists and white skin, she looked very young and vulnerable. “Be kind to her, Loki.”
“Ah, here’s dinner.”
Aud approached with a tray. She handed them each a bowl of soup and a chunk of bread, then moved to sit across from them.
“What’s this?” Loki asked. “Your bondmaid eats with you?”
“It’s only the two of us,” Vidar said gruffly. “And you know she’s a princess of the Vanir.”
“She’s a bondmaid, Vidar. Have some dignity. She should eat with the horses.”
“I’ll go,” Aud said, picking up her bowl.
“No, you can stay,” Vidar said.
“I need to discuss something very sensitive with you, Vidar,” Loki said, shaking his head. “Make her go.”
Vidar smiled at Aud apologetically.
“I’ll take my food to my room,” she said.
“Thank you, Aud.”
Aud quietly took herself away.
“She has her own room? She doesn’t sleep with you?”
“She’s not mine to sleep with.”
“You’re too kind. You know the Vanir wouldn’t be as kind to you.”
“I know.” The Aesir and Vanir were locked in a perpetual blood feud. There were periodic stretches of truce and hot flashes of extreme violence. The resentments ran deeper than measure. “What did you want to discuss with me?”
Loki gestured to the Midgard books stacked beside them on the table. “Why?”
“I’m learning the language.” Vidar broke off a piece of bread.
“You already learned the language.”
“I want to learn it better.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s an interesting language.”
“Why?”
Vidar smiled. “Because it’s a whore which allows any new word in, and because it has conquered nearly all of Midgard.”
“You’re not thinking of going, are you?” Loki’s pale eyes narrowed. “Not after the mess you got yourself in last time?”
“I have no intention of going to Midgard,” Vidar said.
“You’re lying.” Loki put aside his soup.
Vidar shook his head. “I’m not lying.”
“Lying, lying, lying,” Loki said with a wild laugh, leaning forward so his elbows rested on the table. “I can tell. You’re going to Midgard.”
“I’m not going to Midgard.”
“You can’t do it alone. You’ll need me to help you.”
“Loki, if I were going to Midgard, I could manage to get there myself.”
Loki smiled and tapped his fingers on the table. “You don’t even know, do you? Odin put out an order shortly after you moved here.” Loki straightened and puffed up his chest, putting on an uncanny impersonation of Odin’s booming, slurring voice. “‘If anyone sees Vidar near Bifrost, I want to be told immediately.’”
A cold arrow shot into Vidar’s heart.
Loki waved his finger. “Aha! I can see it in your face. You didn’t know that. Heimdall will see you, he’ll ask questions. He’ll interfere.” Heimdall was the guardian of the bridge between Asgard and Midgard. If he focused, he could hear a blade of grass moving twenty miles away.
“I’m not going to Midgard,” Vidar said evenly.
“I can help you.”
Vidar didn’t reply. He concentrated on eating his soup.
“I know how to get past Heimdall. I can help you get to Midgard.”
Vidar sat back, brushing crumbs from his hands. “You waste your breath, Loki.”
Loki turned his attention to his meal, a knowing smile on his lips. The rain pounded outside and the fire crackled in the hearth. The last thing Vidar needed was to be forced into confidence with his unpredictable cousin. And yet, he had to cross Bifrost unnoticed. Halla was over on the other side and he needed to see her, to speak to her. Knowing she was nearby and being separated from her was torture.
But her name wasn’t Halla. Vidar had returned to the seeing-water that afternoon while Aud was away. He had spent nearly an hour gazing, watching her, until the water grew so cold he feared it would make his skin freeze.
Halla was a modern woman now,
a scientist who had just arrived at the outpost on Odin’s Island. She wore her hair cut blunt to her chin, and her clothes clung to her figure and her eyes were painted dark. She was both a new woman and the same woman. And her name was Victoria.
Five
Early-morning shadows fluttered across the path as Aud made her way to Loki’s on horseback. The air was dewy and cool. She had left Vidar sitting by the fire with his Midgard books. Firelight glimmered in his dark hair. Where she had hoped to see some sign of sadness at her absence, she saw instead a distracted frown.
“Where are you going?” he had said.
“To Loki. Remember?”
“Ah, yes. Take Arvak. I don’t want Loki bringing you home again.” Then he had returned to his book.
Why had he become so obsessed with the Midgard books? Did he intend to go there? When she questioned him, he said he had no plans to leave Gammaldal and gave that half smile he always gave her. As though he wanted to smile at her kindly, but was afraid such a smile would bend her heart too firmly toward him.
Too late for that kind of caution.
The first rays of sunshine emerged over the horizon, glittering on frosted leaves. Aud turned Arvak off the path and down the slope to Loki’s house. It sat very still and quiet in the gloomy shadows of the trees. She dismounted and set Arvak to wander nearby in the morning sun that bathed the road. Opening the door, she called out, “Loki?”
No answer. Had he forgotten she was coming? She glanced around at the shelves, remembered last time and touched nothing. Dust lay on every surface. She wondered if she should just start working. She grabbed a log from the pile and fed it to the fire.
“Aud? Is that you?” His voice came from behind the doorway at the end of the hall.
“Yes, I’m just getting the fire started.”
“Don’t touch anything.”
“I just—”
“Come here.”
Aud went to the door and pushed it open. She found Loki lying among blankets on the floor. His shoulders were bare and his black hair was loose.
“You woke me,” he said.
“I’m sorry. I thought I should come early.”
“I don’t mind that you woke me,” he said, smiling slowly, “but Aud, you mustn’t touch anything in my house unless I expressly ask you to.”
“Yes, Loki.”
“It may seem like a mess to you, but to me everything is perfectly in order.”
“I understand. You need only let me know what you want me to do.”
He threw back his blankets to rise, and Aud saw that he was naked. She quickly turned her back while he dressed.
“What does Vidar make you do?”
“I clean and cook. I spin and weave. I grind the barley and milk the cow.”
“Hm. I don’t care much for any of those jobs. What else? How do you spend your days with Vidar?”
A smile touched her lips. “We are companions for each other,” she said.
“Companions?” He stood beside her now. A quick glance told her he was dressed. “Is that really so?”
Aud thought about his question. Vidar spoke little, shared nothing of himself, asked her no questions about her life. He was kind, he was warm and often funny, but none of the intimacy that would translate to companionship was apparent. Her heart drooped.
“Ah, your face says it all.” Loki touched her shoulder. “Come, Aud. You can be my companion. Let us sit by the fire and you can tell me stories.”
A cold squally rainstorm blew in that morning as Aud recounted to Loki some of the histories of her ancestors. Stubby candles sputtered in the alcoves between the pillars and the room filled with smoke. From time to time, Loki would declare he was bored with the facts, and made her retell a battle story as a love story, an adventure as a domestic comedy. Laughing, she would comply, enjoying inventing more and more outrageous plots and casting the less-loved members of her family in them.
“Now you tell one,” she said, her voice exhausted after hours of continuous use.
He waved a long finger. “No, no. You are the servant.”
She bit down her pride. “Of course.”
“There’s a story you haven’t told me,” Loki said. “How did you come to be in Asgard?”
“I was sentenced to a thousand years—”
“Yes, I know that. But why? What terrible crime did you commit?”
A cold ache stole over Aud’s heart. “No crime,” she whispered.
“You must have done something awful to receive such a punishment. Who ordered you out? Was it your father?”
She shook her head. “I wish not to speak of it.”
“You must speak of it. You are in my service for the day and must do as I say.”
In the five years she had lived in Asgard, she had never revealed her story to anyone. Although she had longed to unburden her sad heart to Vidar, he, ever gentle with her feelings, had never asked. She didn’t want to tell Loki, who might make fun or shrug coldly. But she was in his service.
His pale grey eyes were fixed on her face. “Oh, I long to hear this story,” he said. “You look so unhappy, it must surely be a beautiful tragedy.”
“It’s real,” she snapped, then softer, “It’s not just a story. It’s my life.”
He sat back. She thought he looked chastened. “Tell me, then,” he said.
“I was sentenced by the Norns. You know of them?”
“Those ridiculous hags? Of course.”
“When I came to womanhood, I was chosen as a student of the seidhr and sent to wander in the roots of the World Tree as an initiation. You have no doubt been to the World Tree, Loki. You know that a man can wander for years and never see another soul. And yet, on the first day I entered the tree, I happened upon the abode of the Norns.”
Loki’s body flexed forward, eagerness in every muscle. “You know where they live?”
She shook her head. “I will come to that. Because the Norns are the guardians of fate, they decided that my finding them was an act of fate, and chose me as their intermediary. I was to visit them regularly with news of the world above ground, bring them gifts, spend time with them as a companion. And so it continued for seven years.
“In my youth, in my thoughtlessness, I took a lover from the elven lands. He returned immediately to Alfheim, but I bore his son. Helgi.” His name stopped up her throat and tears pricked her eyes.
“You have a child?”
She nodded, pressing her lips together. “Yes,” she said softly. “I have a son, his name is Helgi.”
“Go on,” Loki said, “I’m fascinated.”
“My father was enraged about my birthing a half-elven child, so I took myself away from court and lived simply on an old apple farm that belonged to my family. I raised Helgi alone, with very few cares. In time, my father relented and invited me home, but I was stubborn and I loved the intimacy of the two of us. I played with Helgi, I told him stories and sang him songs. He was a bright, loving boy, with soft plump arms and trusting eyes . . .” Aud took a deep, shuddering breath. She could almost taste his skin on her lips and the unending sadness rolled over her like a wave. “But one day, on his third birthday, it all changed. Everything changed.”
The fire crackled and popped and the smoke stung her eyes. Loki sat very still, watching her. She didn’t want to lay her heart so bare to such an unsympathetic audience, but the story had gathered its own momentum; the words spilled out of her.
“I wanted to collect some apples for breakfast. Helgi was sleeping when I left. He looked so peaceful that, rather than wake him, I chose to leave him there. I intended to dash to the orchard and return within minutes. But I found one of our goats wounded and caught in a rope trap I’d hung for foxes. She was panicked and made it impossible to unpick the knots. We relied on the goats for our milk and cheese, so I persisted, finally setting her free and gathering the apples. I dashed home.
“By this time, Helgi had been alone for nearly half an hour. I hoped he was stil
l sleeping, but a hundred feet from the cottage I knew my hopes were dashed. I could hear him crying . . . wailing like he hadn’t wailed since he was a tiny baby.
“I ran to the house, dropping the apples, and found him next to my bed, sitting on the floor and sobbing. I scooped him up to comfort him, and soon his sobs turned to hiccups and he said to me, ‘Mama, you were gone for so long.’
“‘Shh, shh,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’
“‘It’s my birthday, Mama. It’s not nice to be so unhappy on my birthday,’ he said.
“‘I know, my precious, I know. What special treat would prove how sorry I am?’
“He looked up at me. His face was red and tear-stained, but he managed a smile. ‘Could we ride on Steypr?’
“Steypr was one of my father’s horses. I had been granted her when I left court. She was a mighty beast and I was afraid of riding her. I would certainly never let Helgi ride her, but he adored her. He spent hours sitting astride a fallen log by the fence and pretending it was Steypr. I said, ‘No, Helgi, you know Steypr is too big and too strong to be ridden by such a little boy.’
“He sobbed again, so hard that his little body shook in my arms, and wailed, ‘But I am big. I am three years old!’
“I felt so guilty for leaving him alone on the morning of his birthday that I conceded.”
Loki leaned forward, his hands pressed together between his knees. “You regret this.”
“Oh, yes.” Her voice was little more than a whisper, choked by tears.
Long seconds passed, and Loki waited with a patient smile.
“Go on,” he said at last. “He fell, didn’t he?”
“I thought it would do no harm if I propped him on Steypr’s back, held the reins myself, and led him round in a circle. But Helgi was too excited. He giggled and shouted and squealed, and grabbed her mane and yanked. Steypr reared, the reins pulled from my hands so violently that the flesh tore away with them, and she galloped straight to the fence. Helgi screamed. I called out to him to hold tight. Steypr looked like she would take the jump, but balked. Helgi flew from her back and hit the ground with such a thud . . . like all the love in the world falling to the bottom of a deep pit.” Tears spilled onto her cheeks and she palmed them away.