Death and Beauty

by Samantha MacLeod

  “That’s delicious.”

  Hel turned away again, her shoulder bone shivering. “Thanks.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question. What is the darkness? What comes next?”

  Her exposed collarbone shrugged. “Some say you simply vanish, like smoke. Others say you re-enter the world, starting all over again in a new body, wiped clean of your memories.”

  Hel was staring into the forest, showing me the back of her head. The dark hair of her living half had worked its way out of her braid to blow in long waves across her pale skull. I had the momentary, foolish urge to catch her hair and tuck it behind her ear.

  “Does it call to you?” I asked in a whisper.

  She laughed, a harsh, bitter bark. “Of course not,” she said, smoothing her dress over her knees as she turned back to the asphodel field. “I’m ruler of this realm. I can’t leave.”

  I grinned at her. “Sure you can leave. That’s one of the perks of being ruler, right? You can do whatever you want.”

  Hel gave me a severe frown. “Are you suggesting I abdicate?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not suggesting anything. But I suspect there’s, oh, at least a dozen people back there in your castle who’d be willing to take on the whole ruler position.”

  I thought she might be angry at that, but she sighed instead, turning the half-peeled fruit over in her hands. “Perhaps. But...I don’t think any of them would be as good at it.”

  That made me laugh. She frowned, both her blue eyes once again shooting daggers at me.

  “What’s so funny?” she demanded.

  “Oh, nothing. It’s just, we’ve got something in common.”

  She scowled and straightened her back. “I have nothing in common with you, Baldr the Beautiful.”

  “But you do. Because that’s just what I was thinking this morning. That’s why I’ve got to get back to Asgard. No one else can do what I do.”

  She turned away. I saw her skeletal teeth grind together. “And what is it you do?”

  “I keep them all from killing each other.” I sighed. “I’m basically Baldr the Babysitter.”

  I took a deep breath before I turned to gauge her reaction. I’d felt like a babysitter for a long time in the echoing halls of the Æsir, but I hadn’t dared share my feeling with anyone. It wouldn’t look good for Óðinn’s favorite son to whine.

  Hel gave me a fragile smile before she turned to unpack delicate meat-filled pastries and a wooden bowl of shredded carrot salad. She ate very little, said nothing at all, and spent most of the meal turned away from me, watching the trees in the forest. I guessed the darkness was calling to her pretty strongly, and I couldn’t understand why that thought should bother me. If she wandered off into those trees, maybe I’d be free to go back to Asgard.

  I finished my second pastry and stood, wiping my hands on my pants. “I’ll be right back,” I said. “Don’t leave.”

  My tone was fiercer than I’d intended, and she met my eyes with a flicker of surprise before giving me a silent nod. I wandered around the chariot to take a leak. The elaborately carved seat caught my eye as I walked back. There was another, much larger clasp on the far side.

  “Hel!” I called.

  “I’m here,” she said. I turned to see her come to her feet, pulling the blanket off the grass.

  “What’s in the seat?”

  She shrugged. “Hunting gear. Sparring equipment.”

  Hunting gear. I flipped the clasp, opened the seat, and grinned. There were a pair of bows, two quivers, several swords, and a dozen small daggers.

  “Oh, Hel,” I said. “I think I know something I can teach you.”

  I set up the first target at the base of the birch trees. Hel let me use the white blanket, which I folded over twice and propped against a thick trunk to make a target which would be small but hopefully not impossible to hit. By the time I got back to the chariot, Hel was watching me with a slightly unnerving gleam in her eyes.

  “Archery,” I said, handing her a bow and a single arrow before turning back to the chariot to dig out the full quiver. We’d be losing some arrows today for sure. “I’ll show you how to string it, and then—”

  The bowstring twanged, followed almost immediately by a solid thwack.

  Shit.

  I looked at the target first. The arrow I’d just handed Hel trembled against the birch trunk. It was embedded solidly in the center of the white blanket.

  “Oh, come on!” I cried. “When were you going to tell me you could shoot?”

  Her eyes danced. “Maybe you’re a better shot,” she said, handing me the bow.

  I tugged the bowstring. This wasn’t a great bow and, honestly, it had been a while since I’d practiced archery. Still. I had to be better than an animate skeleton, right? I notched the arrow and held my breath as I pulled back the string. Twang. My shot went wide, the arrow skidding past the tree and well into the forest.

  “Damn,” I muttered. “I think the balance on that arrow was off.”

  Hel’s lip twitched. It looked like she was fighting a smile.

  “Go ahead and gloat,” I said, handing her the bow. “You’re clearly a better shot. But now, let’s try swords.”

  “Shit,” I hissed.

  I was out of breath, and out of ideas. The point of Hel’s dark blade hovered inches from my exposed throat.

  By all Nine fucking Realms, Hel was an expert swordsman. No one had ever disarmed me that quickly. I didn’t know what hurt more, the hand she’d hit with the broad end of that black hunting sword, or my damaged pride.

  She’d beaten me again, and now she had me pinned against a tree trunk. Her eyes flashed and the loose strands of her hair fluttered around her neck, looking almost golden in the bright sunlight.

  “What’s next, Baldr?” she asked, arching an eyebrow at me.

  “Give me a minute,” I panted, holding my hands up in surrender. “You win with the swords.”

  I almost missed her response. If I’d been a second faster to bend down and reclaim my sword from the trampled grass, I wouldn’t have seen her smile.

  That smile. I froze halfway to the ground, staring at her. For the first time since I met her, Hel actually looked happy. But it was more than that; she looked different. Her face was flushed with color, and her pale eyes sparkled.

  She looked beautiful.

  It may have been a trick of the light, or my exhaustion, or just my embarrassment at being beaten so handily by a woman. But still, for a heartbeat, the fearsome ruler of Niflhel looked beautiful.

  She caught my eye and her expression changed, her smile vanishing as her back stiffened. She turned away quickly, and I was again staring at her exposed shoulder blade.

  “I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s nothing,” she said, her voice once again cold and distant. “Let’s go.”

  I picked up the sword, wiped the blade across my pants, and sheathed it before following Hel into the chariot. She was silent as I packed up the swords, bows, and arrows. I felt a pang of regret as I closed the clasp on the weapons, although I couldn't for the life of me explain why.

  “What do you have to teach me next, Baldr?” The sharp edge to her voice was unmistakable, and I wondered what the hell I’d just done to piss her off so much.

  I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to focus. My father Óðinn traded his eye for a drink from Mímir’s well, and all the knowledge and wisdom flowing through that magical water. I’d always thought he got a bit of a raw deal, but now I reconsidered. If I had Óðinn’s wisdom...

  I sighed. I had nothing.

  “What do you know about horses?” I offered, weakly.

  “I’m guessing I know more than you,” Hel said. “Hold on.”

  She did not look at me as the chariot jolted forward.

  CHAPTER 4

  “The thing about sailing,” I said, raising my voice over the hiss of water against the hull of our little skiff, “is to know ho
w the wind works.”

  I glanced at Hel. She crouched in the bow, wearing a heavy, dark dress despite the midday heat rippling across the water. She looked uncomfortable, and quite unimpressed.

  I carried on anyway. It was our third day together, and I was feeling lucky.

  “If the wind comes from the side of the boat, like it is now, it’s called—”

  “Reaching,” Hel said. “And the wind appears to be coming at a right angle to our boat, making this is a beam reach. Correct?”

  I muttered something very impolite under my breath. Hel’s eyes sparkled in the sunlight.

  “You’re enjoying this far too much,” I said.

  The exposed tendons in her neck flexed in the sunlight as Hel turned away from me, showing me the bones on her left side. I was starting to think she turned like that when I actually succeeded in making her smile.

  “Well, let’s see if I can surprise you, then,” I said.

  “I doubt it,” Hel replied.

  I tried not to grin as I leaned on the tiller, turning the little skiff until we were running in the same direction as the wind. It was quieter this direction, with just the purr of the water under our hull. I reached for the mainsheet and let it out, extending the blinding white sail as far as it could go. The waves sliced open before us, sending rainbows of spray across the bow and over our faces.

  Damn, what a fantastic day for a sail.

  “Oh, yeah!” I shouted. “And now what are we doing, Queen Hel?”

  Hel leaned across the bow, her skeletal fingers almost touching the wavetops. She turned to me with a raised eyebrow on her living face, and what looked like a barely suppressed smile on her lips.

  “Running,” she shouted. “Going downwind is called running.”

  I smiled at her. Hel was almost standing now, reaching across the bow to the little rainbows flying from the waves. She was off balance. And right behind her was the sort of freakishly large wave I’d been looking for.

  “Right,” I yelled. “And what about this?”

  I shoved the tiller hard, spinning the little boat. We slammed broadside into the big wave. Hel screamed as cold water knocked her off her feet and into my chest. I grabbed her waist instinctively, pulling the tiller back to face the skiff upwind and make sure we wouldn’t capsize.

  Hel jumped away from me. The boat rocked with her sudden movement. “Oh, you jerk!” she screamed.

  I wiped saltwater from my eyes with a grin. “You know what that’s called?”

  “Being a complete jackass,” she said, pushing her wet hair from her eyes.

  “I was going to say, ‘surprising you.’”

  “Well, that was a horrible surprise.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, don’t tell me. You know more about surprising someone too?”

  Hel smiled, her eyes dancing. The wave had soaked her heavy dress, making it hug her living side. Her nipple was hard, outlined by the wet fabric. She had a nice breast, I realized. A very nice breast.

  Two hands hit me square in the chest. I flew backward out of the boat and crashed into the ocean. The water was cold enough to make me forget all about Hel’s perfect breast. I surfaced to the sound of her laughter ringing across the waves.

  “Oh, Baldr, I’m sorry, but you should have seen your face!”

  “Well, clearly you know more about being a complete jackass than me,” I called, swimming back to the boat.

  Hel’s skeletal hand shot over the side of the boat to splash me. I dunked under the waves, then spat an arc of water toward her. It fell well short of the boat, and she laughed even harder.

  There it was again. Her cheek flushed with color, her eyes sparkled, and she actually looked pretty. No, more than just pretty. Despite the bones of her left side, or perhaps because of the contrast, Hel’s living side was suddenly gorgeous.

  She reached for me as I approached the boat. “Come on. I’ll help you.”

  I took a mouthful of ocean water before I accepted her living hand. She grabbed my wrist and leaned back, helping me scramble into the hull. Once I had the tiller, she pulled away and sat down, smoothing her wet dress across her lap.

  “So, Baldr the Beautiful, what’s next?” she asked.

  I sprayed my mouthful of seawater over her head. She shrieked, pulling up her skirt to cover her face and exposing a considerable amount of leg. Her left thigh was bone and tendons, but it was the creamy, pale skin of her right side that drew me in.

  As I tried not to stare, it occurred to me I might actually miss Queen Hel when I returned to Asgard.

  But, no matter what I tried, I couldn’t teach her a damn thing.

  Hel knew more than me about chariots, about archery and sword fighting, about farming and sailing. She knew the dozen ways you could make mead, plus a dozen more I’d never heard of. She told me of the Greeks’ new science called philosophy, and the Chinese invention of gunpowder. She’d heard of the bloody civil war among the Elves, and she could actually explain the source of the conflict. She even told me how Angrboða had seized power in Jötunheimr. She knew so damned much about everything I started to wonder if she’d had a drink from Mímir’s well herself.

  It was late afternoon on the third day, the final day, and I was feeling almost desperate. We’d walked along the river after our morning of sailing, and then, after lunch, I asked if we could return to the orchard. This was where Hel seemed the least comfortable; for some reason, this orchard threw her slightly off her game. It was my last, desperate chance. Perhaps I could stumble on something out here.

  Or, if I had to beg for more time, this was probably the place to do it.

  “Are these all apples?” I asked. I’d given up trying to offer her some knowledge. Instead I was asking a thousand questions in the hopes she’d slip up.

  Hel shook her head. Her back was stiff, and she’d turned her living face away from me. The trees around us were flowering, filling the air with their delicious perfume. Soft, white petals drifted in the space between us, falling like snow.

  I wished I could ask her why the orchard made her uncomfortable, but I didn’t imagine that question would go over particularly well.

  “So...pears? Cherries?”

  She shook her head again, although I wasn’t sure if she was telling me I was wrong or if she was just trying to brush off the stray petals caught in her hair. She was wearing it loose today, and it tumbled down over her shoulders, softening the severe lines of her aggressively unflattering dress.

  “Would you even tell me if I guessed?” I asked, with a smile. I picked a blossom from a tree and brought it to my nose. It had a light, sweet fragrance. I examined it. Five soft, white petals unfurled casually from a pollen-laden yellow core.

  “Apricots?” I glanced at her.

  She looked away so quickly her hair whipped across her shoulders. At the same time her dress snagged on a log hidden in the thick grass, and she stumbled.

  I moved without thinking, catching her arm in mine. It was only after I closed my hand around the twin bones of her skeletal forearm that I realized it didn’t feel right.

  She was warm and soft against my palm. Like skin.

  Hel met my eyes and a deep red flush burned across her neck and living cheek. She yanked her arm out of my grasp and stumbled backward.

  Interesting. Perhaps she wasn’t totally immune to my charms after all.

  “Pardon me,” I said, holding my hands up in front of me. “I just didn’t want you to break your nose.”

  Her lips twitched with the barest hint of a smile, and an absolutely insane idea bubbled through my consciousness.

  “Oh, there is something I can teach you,” I whispered.

  “Excuse me?”

  I stepped closer to her, so close our chests almost touched. Her back stiffened, although she held her ground. I met her eyes, trying not to be distracted by the way her breath was suddenly coming faster.

  “You’d have to trust me,” I said.

  She laughed. It sounded force
d. “Trust you? You really think you could do anything to hurt me?”

  “I’d never hurt you,” I said.

  I raised my hand and ran my fingers softly along the curve of her living cheek. Her entire body shivered in response, but she didn’t back away.

  “And we should be somewhere private. Where we won’t be interrupted.”

  “I know all about sex,” she hissed. But her voice trembled.

  “I’m sure you do.” I dropped my fingers, tracing the line of her jaw. “You’ve read all the books.”

  She inhaled sharply as I ran my thumb down her neck. Her pulse raced under my touch.

  “Stop,” she whispered.

  I dropped my hand and met her eyes. A storm of emotions rolled through their pale blue depths, and tears pooled in the corner of both her living and her empty, skeletal eye. Some distant part of my mind realized I didn’t mind looking at her anymore.

  No, more than that.

  I wanted her.

  “Hel,” I said, surprised by the roughness in my voice. “There is something I’m very good at, and I’d like to show you. But you have to want it too.”

  Her living cheek turned bright red. She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth and bit it. That shouldn’t have turned me on - nothing about her should turn me on - but my body responded just the same. I’d been intimate with so many women, and more than a few men, because they were pretty or useful. It was a nice change to want someone because she was interesting.

  “If I say no,” she whispered. “What happens?”

  I held my hands up. “I walk away. You win. This is the only thing I have left, Hel.”

  She closed her living eye. A tear pushed through her eyelashes and ran down her pale cheek, trembling on her jawline. I wanted to wipe it away, but I forced myself to stand still. A single flower petal fell on her collarbone, winking in the golden sunlight.

  “The orchard is private,” she said, without opening her eyes.

  I blinked in surprise. “Here?”

  “No one comes here. Not unless I ask.”

  I held my breath. Oh, by the Realms, I wanted to crush her to my chest. I wanted to taste her, to know if the rest of her would feel warm and soft too.