In Fairyland, the dead fairies had been made of glitter and clay. Valdis sawed with her knife and blood welled up around the cut, meat gaping out on either side. My stomach rolled, and I faced the other way. They couldn’t see me wince with every grinding sound. What had we just killed? Had it been smart, a person, maybe just angry we’d stranded it here? I didn’t want that on my conscience. Please, let it have just been a murderous animal. I had to remind myself that at best, it was a fairy, and they hadn’t seemed right. Like bugs in a hive mimicking people rather than real individuals.
Whatever. It was dead now, and if I’d helped murder someone, there was nothing I could do about it. It had acted like an animal and it had surely been eager to kill us. A choice between him or me, that I could deal with.
“That about does it. Do you think it was a troll?” asked Valdis when the sawing noises ended.
Eric sounded blandly uncaring. “I don’t know what they look like, but it was a monster, whatever name you give it. Brand won’t be happy that his goats aren’t coming back, but at least he won’t lose any more.”
I heard cloth noises, and risked a peek. It revealed Valdis wrapping the head up in a leather bag, which Eric slung over his shoulder as soon as she had it tied. With the bag and his giant crossbow, he looked like a pack mule. Whatever. I wanted the topic to move away from cutting off heads.
“If you’re taking me back to your home, how far away is it?” I demanded.
“It’s still early,” Valdis mused, staring at the sky, “If it was just me and Eric we might be able to make it back tonight if we hurried.”
“Then, we’ll make it back tonight,” I declared flatly, stomping past the two of them. They’d come from across the bowl with the hot springs, so I walked that way. I was a great walker, and I could barely feel the ground in these shoes.
They laughed, which made me want to walk faster, but I wasn’t going to give them that satisfaction. Anyway, it became clear enough that they’d taken me at my word, because we walked.
And we walked.
And we walked.
It didn’t take me long to start missing my mp3 player. To start missing it a lot. My music collection was out of date and pretty tiny, but I wanted to drown myself in Les Miserables. I wanted to escape the boredom. The boredom that went on and on and on. The boredom, and the uncomfortable feeling that I’d been dumped in someone else’s life that didn’t suit me. By the time Eric and Valdis started chatting with each other, I was too bored to follow their gossip.
The landscape changed. The farther we traveled, the more rocks and moss were replaced by flatness and grass. Small groves of trees, too.
We walked some more.
The sun sank. It took forever. It dropped below the horizon, and my calves and butt started to hurt. We kept walking. It took forever to get dark, but as the landscape dimmed, I got some relief. I saw lights ahead. They were way too far away and my calves were killing me, but it was a goal.
The sky turned black. Except it didn’t. I knew light pollution was a problem in the city, but this … where did all these stars come from? The sky glowed with them!
“There we go,” Eric cheered, “Peaceful Meadow. Our home.”
“Halfdan, who founded our village after crossing to Nieflheim from Midgard right after Ragnarok, had a sense of humor,” Valdis quipped.
I looked around. With a mostly full moon and all these stars, I could see fairly well. Aside from the village lights up ahead, flat grassland surrounded me. So, add Viking comedy to the list of things I didn’t understand.
The village itself was surrounded by a wall of sharp-tipped logs, with a huge wooden gate. Eric thumped it with his fist a couple of times, sending an echoing knock.
“Eric!” declared the graying man who opened the door. From the way they hugged each other, I figured this was Eric’s father. The one other than Thor.
Lamps emerged from houses, and a crowd drifted up. Far ahead of all of them, arrived a second man. He was … well, big. A hulk of a man softened by age, but not softened much. Except for the traces of black hair in the white of his hair and beard, he looked like he should be Eric’s dad. He didn’t look even slightly like Valdis, but she was the one who threw herself into his arms. “Our children are home, Nall, without a scratch on them. And with a foreign guest. A very foreign guest.”
“And with something else to show us, judging by the smell,” Eric’s father—Nall—chuckled.
The big guy kneeled down in front of me, and he was still taller than me. “Your dress tells me you are from Midgard, stranger,” he told me, “I am Magnus Leifsson. My friend here is Nall Fells. If we speak together, the rest of Peaceful Meadow accepts our word. If you will give us your name, we offer you the village’s hospitality.”
“Freaking Jesus,” I almost swore, “I’ll offer you a different deal. I’ll tell you my name if you’ll stop all the ceremonies and speechmaking right now.”
“They say Midgarders are an informal people,” Nall commented dryly. He did a good kind-old-man smile. He couldn’t fool me. He wasn’t happy because of me. He still had his hand on Eric’s shoulder.
“They are.” Bowing his head, Magnus answered me, “I accept, but I’m throwing in our hospitality anyway. Take it or leave it.” Being teased stung, and my lips tightened, but he was teasing me on my terms, right?
“Okay, fine. My name is Mary Stuart.” I let out a sigh, but bit back any more sarcasm. These guys were being nice to me. My back was up from the chaos of the last two days, and I shouldn’t take it out on them.
“She’s alone, father. She needs shelter and protection,” Eric put in. I restrained myself by clenching my jaw.
“She helped us find this!” Valdis added eagerly, and gave Eric’s shoulder a shove from behind. Stepping between the two old men, he walked out into the middle of the crowd and untied his bag, then dropped it on the ground. The leather fell aside, and the head rolled out. I tried not to look at it. The smell was bad enough.
Things got chaotic. Instead of cheering, everybody started talking. More people came out of their houses, children now crowding around to look at the severed head. When I caught the word ‘feast’ I piped up loudly, “No, we haven’t eaten!” in the hopes it would get through the noise.
Magnus kneeled down in front of me again. “You’ve accepted my—” he started, and then grinned. Jeez, even his teeth were big. “I’m sorry. Would you like to eat?”
“Yes,” my stomach told him.
“I’ve met other Midgarders in my days a-viking,” he explained to me as he stood up, “The best I can tell you is that having a guest is very important to us, and it is hard not to be formal. But since you demanded it, I’ll treat you like family instead.” Then, the old jerk grabbed me by my shoulders and lifted me off the ground!
I kicked him in the gut as he picked me up. I kicked him again in the chest. He was one tough old man, because all he did was wince. “What the … crap do you think you’re doing!?” I yelled at him. That wasn’t exactly the right question, because what he was doing was pretty obvious. He sat me on his shoulder like I was some kind of freaking parrot.
“I haven’t had a daughter young enough to carry like this for ten years. Humor me, child,” he told me serenely as he started walking.
“Mary,” I corrected him, returning sour for serene.
“Magnus,” he returned.
Everyone scattered. Magnus headed for the biggest building at the far end of the village. From up here I could see the crowd better, especially as it split up, and I was surprised. Two dozen people? Three? This place was tiny.
It’s very hard to stay grumpy when you’re riding on the shoulder of a guy who must be pushing seven feet tall. My sore calves were certainly grateful for the break, and I felt like a slowly bobbing lighthouse looking down at the tops of everyone’s heads.
“So you’re the chief, or something?” I asked.
He shrugged. I was sitting on that shrug, so I could feel it really wel
l. “I was the last time we had a war. Other than that, we’ve never had to worry about who is in charge. Nall and I are respected, that’s all.”
The smell of cooking meat hit me, and I thought I’d faint. “So there is a feast, right?” No question was more important right now.
“Not what I’d call one. The best I can offer without making you wait,” he replied.
We reached the door to a huge wooden lodge. He had to duck under it so that my head would clear, but he didn’t miss a beat. I clenched my jaw again, this time to hold back a giggle.
At least half the building was one huge center room. A roaring fire backlit a big table, and Magnus set me down in a chair by the head of it. “Here. You’ll have to accept a place of honor,” he teased me as he sat at the very end. Eric’s dad, Nall, was already sitting across from me. Valdis fell in next to me. I forgot all of them, because a plate of freshly roasted beef was set in front of me.
All they’d given me was a knife, so I hacked off a slab and bit into it. No, not beef. Mutton? Who cared? It tasted so good. Magnus gave me a cup I had to wrap both hands around, and I lifted it to my—
“No beer. No beer, no wine, no whatever,” I snapped at him, pushing it back, “Have you got milk? You’ve got to have water.”
“Whatever makes my honored guest feel at home,” he declared, theatrically grandiose. I kicked him in the knee. He acted like he didn’t feel it. I was actually kind of impressed. These shoes hadn’t gotten any less like hammers.
The milk came, and I really set into eating. The meat was juicy, the bread sweet and sticky with honey, and I even tried the asparagus—it wasn’t bad. Everybody talked, and I didn’t listen. It had been a dull, tiring day and I wanted to gorge myself. As I got full, I started to feel comfortable, and I wanted to enjoy that. Valdis told the story of how they killed the fairy, and Eric seemed happy to watch her tell it without adding anything himself.
I really did feel comfortable, and the room was warm, and I wasn’t sure when I fell asleep.
I woke up in a very dark room. Fur blankets on top and underneath stifled me with heat. Still, they were soft and padded what felt like a plank of hard wood that formed my actual bed. Orange light peeked through the cracks of a door, turning blackness into murk. Valdis lay asleep on another bed of logs and furs, and between the two of us, we filled most of this small room.
And I was naked. Completely naked. My jaw clenched. If it hadn’t been Valdis who undressed me, someone was going to get kicked in the teeth, not the …
Oh, of course it was Valdis. My clothes lay right beside the bed, and I slipped them on while keeping the covers over me as best I could. As hot as the room was, my cheeks got hotter as I slipped my shoes on. How had I slept so deeply someone could undress me and put me to bed? I never slept like that. My mom said I slept with one eye open. Damn right, I—crap. Sorry, Rat.
With the heat and the furs and the good food I felt deeply, completely comfortable, and that made me uncomfortable. I dropped off the bed as lightly as I could and pulled the door open very slowly, slinking through the smallest crack that I’d fit, and out into the main room of the lodge. It worked. Valdis didn’t stir.
It looked like everyone was still asleep. The fire burned listlessly, throwing orange light everywhere, and the open doors showed a starry sky outside. I plodded across the room, running my fingers over coarse, splintery logs making up the wall. The furniture had all been built out of heavy wood. Everything in the room was brown, even three huge tapestries that hung on the walls. I couldn’t make sense of the endless rows of stylized armed men, but they broke up the monotony. Instead of bare, the lodge felt simple and rugged. Comfortable. It itched at the back of my neck, but no one could see me, so I smiled and fingered the crude, worn cloth of a tapestry, following it down to try to figure out where this chaotic army was going.
Tink. Tink. At the end of the row I heard it, faint metallic sounds. Rhythmic, but not even. A little hall branched off this end of the main room, and at the end, more firelight shone around a hide curtain. I crept down to the curtain and peeked through it.
This room took up the end of the building, and I knew that because doors stood open on the other side, spilling firelight out onto the gray nighttime grass. Wow. That big fire pit, the block of metal in front of it, the iron tools all over the walls—this was a real old-fashioned smithy. A shelf full of fat, crude iron nails caught my eye. Pretty cool.
A big guy like Magnus fit the role of blacksmith perfectly. He looked right at home in a room full of big hammers and twisted metal braces. He just wasn’t doing anything blacksmithy. Bent over a broad table, the massive old man instead held a tiny little hammer and chisel, chipping away at something that gleamed. He moved delicately, and the contrast was also pretty cool.
I didn’t want to relax like this, but oh well. I edged up to him and peered over the tabletop at what he was working on. It turned out to be a gold disk, like a large coin. On it, a beast man like the thing we killed today twisted backwards with two arrows and a sword sticking out of it. As I watched, the old man set the chisel against the disk and smacked it, then did the same thing a fraction of an inch away, then did it a third time. He left three little lines like a tuft of rough hair on the monster’s tail.
“It’s a present. When Eric brings me his bow tomorrow, while I check it for damage, I’ll fit this onto the side,” he explained, his voice hushed and rumbling.
Of course he’d seen me. He’d just played it so cool I hadn’t been able to tell. “I like it,” I admitted, “You do this as well as the blacksmithing?”
“No. I work with iron as well as doing this. It’s not a task of joy like making something beautiful, but the village needs iron. When traders come to Peaceful Meadow, the wealth I bring us with rings and brooches buys us much of what we need. Outside our village, men have forgotten the mighty deeds of Magnus Liefsson, but they know his craftsmanship.” It should have been a speech, but he old guy spoke with a dry, lazy irony.
If he’d engraved the monster, then he’d engraved the interlocking lines around the edge of the badge. Now that had taken skill. “You don’t look like you’ve got this light a touch,” I said.
That should have been too blunt, but he replied easily, “My first wife taught me that I have to be gentle as well as strong.”
The subtle innuendo hit me by surprise, and my cheeks burned. While I tried to cool off, Magnus leaned down and took hold of me by the waist. I should have kicked him, but even I couldn’t think it was threatening. Lifting me up, he set me down on a stool next to him. He passed me a rough-edged, paper-thin circle of copper and a wooden box full of funny-shaped chisels. “Small hands do have an advantage. Try it yourself,” he urged.
What the heck. The hammer was pretty heavy, but a good tap on the butt of a chisel would leave a line printed in the copper. Another tap extended that line, and I realized I’d better know what I was drawing before I went any further. I’d circle it around, then make another circle, and engrave a spiked collar. Might as well be myself, right?
I tapped my way around the curve of the collar, and at the sharper end I switched to some chisels that were already rounded. I tried carving in a spike at one end. I was no artist, and the spike was too big, but I was pretty pleased.
“You have talent. More importantly, you enjoy the work,” Magnus said. His voice rumbled when he was happy.
Wha—?! I nearly fell off the stool. How long had I been fiddling? I’d forgotten … everything else. Everything.
“If I had talent, I’d have known the lower edge of the band’s going to mess up anything I try to engrave over it,” I groused.
“No one becomes an expert on their first try, but you’d be worth teaching.”.
Uh.
When I didn’t answer, he continued, “Like any man, I wanted to teach my skills to my children and have them continue my work after I’m gone. Like her mother, Nilda is happier as a wife, and Valdis wants to take after me as a warrior, not a cr
aftsman.”
Huge arms wrapped around my shoulders, his hands covering mine where I held the tools. Tap. Tap. Tap. He hit the chisel with perfectly even force as he engraved the next spike for me. My lines had been jagged, but his were perfectly smooth. As creepy as it felt to be held like that, I was fascinated by his skill.
“You’re okay with that? We … back home in Midgard, we like to think we’re pretty unusual because we let women be warriors,” I probed. Seriously, these people were supposed to be primitive.
“It’s not common, but if a woman has the skill and the courage, she is welcome to try. My objection is, as a father, knowing his child wants a life of danger. I wanted to let my children follow their own path when they grew up, and now I have to accept that it’s not the path I wanted.” While he explained all this wistfully, he kept plinking away at the copper disk. He didn’t even need his full concentration to produce lines like this. I felt jealousy niggling at me, and I wasn’t sure if it was for him or Valdis.
“I think she’s crazy, but it’s what she wants,” I hazarded. Staying neutral wasn’t something I was good at. “Goldsmithing sounds a lot better than killing people.”
I must have said the right thing, because he kept going. “Destiny calls most Midgarders to heroism, but not all. At your age, I’m sure you just want to go home. Eric and Valdis would love to try and help you get there, but if you decide to stay instead, you’ll be welcome. Valdis will go off a-viking soon, and it’s been lonely since her mother left. I have room in my life now for a daughter and a student.”
Oh god. He sounded so detached and casual. He didn’t want me to hear how much he really wanted me to stay. “I’m not going home,” I blurted out. Stupid, that sounded like you were agreeing, Mary. I’d known this old man six hours, tops. Those dumb tree trunk arms around me made me feel weirdly safe, that’s all. “How long ago did Valdis’s mother die?” There. That would lead the conversation in less friendly directions.
“I hope she’s still alive. I let her go back to her family. There came a day when I wanted her to be happy more than I wanted her to be mine, and she wanted to return home more than she wanted to stay with Valdis and I.” He sounded wistful. The arms around me stopped tapping at the copper.
Quite Contrary Page 7