Betsy Tobin

by Ice Land (v5)

  “I believe so, yes.” She laughs. “Yes,” she says again with more emphasis.

  He too laughs. “Then all is well.We shall be happy. I promise you. We must wed soon. In the early autumn. Just after haymaking, when food is plentiful. I’ll speak to Hogni.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  He reaches for her hand, and suddenly, despite his age and self-assurance, they both sense the awkwardness of his touch. He carefully folds her hand into his own, then gives it a tentative squeeze. “Already I feel ten years younger!” He gives a small self-conscious laugh. “Twenty, even!” She smiles up at him. He stops short then, and leans down, lightly pressing his lips against hers. She feels her heart racing, and catches his scent as he draws near. His lips are thick and warm once they are upon her, and the coarse hair of his beard brushes against her chin. She feels a strange sensation, as if her mind and body are somehow detached from each other. After a moment, he pulls away, looking down at her. “You have graced me with your favour, Fulla, daughter of Jarl,” he murmurs softly. “I will not disappoint you.”

  “I know this,” she replies. “And it is I who have been fortunate in this match.”

  “What’s this then? A match we speak of?”They turn to see Hogni standing in the doorway, a twinkle in his eye.

  “She has consented to marry,” says Rolf.

  “Thor’s blessing on you both,” says Hogni heartily. He crosses over to them and plants a kiss upon Fulla’s brow, before clasping hands warmly with Rolf. “You’ve made an old man quite content.”

  “Two old men!” says Rolf. They both roar with laughter.

  FREYA

  After my night with Alfrigg, I do not return to the caves until late in the afternoon. It is Berling’s evening, and the arrangements are more complicated. Berling has told his mother that his stepbrothers need him to tend the forge overnight. We are to meet in Dvalin’s cave, since he is away. Grerr devised this plan. He seems anxious to conclude the sale, and grows increasingly irritated over Dvalin’s absence, as if it is some sort of personal affront.When I asked him whether Dvalin was expected to return soon, he almost snarled. “Dvalin comes and goes as he pleases,” he said bitterly. “He has no regard for his responsibilities here.” Berling, on the other hand, adores him. When the boy speaks of Dvalin, it is with a kind of zealous devotion. The fact that Dvalin is frequently absent only serves to heighten his allure, for young Berling is obsessed with the world outside Nidavellir.

  That evening, I follow Berling’s directions to Dvalin’s cave. It is some distance from the others, down a narrow, dark side tunnel. This does not surprise me, as he is by all accounts a private man. There is no sign of Berling when I arrive, and the air in the cave is thick with cold. Despite the chill, the room exudes a strong sense of its owner. For a man who apparently does not care for worldly things, he certainly has a lot of them, I think. The cave is cluttered with objects of all kinds. A trio of battered wooden chests lies along the wall nearest me, together with piles of old horse tack. There are furs of every animal scattered about, as well as old woollen blankets, most of which are tattered and moth-eaten. In the corner is a mass of carved wooden staves covered in runes, and at the base of his sleeping platform lies a pair of vast, red-veined granite stones painted with images of idols.There is no table for eating, only two long, low benches by the fire. Beside one of these sits a large earthen bowl filled with glass beads of all shapes and sizes and colours. I sit by the hearth and run my fingers through the beads, wondering where he obtained them. Is he a raider? Or merely a finder of things, a hoarder of the past?

  I am surprised to feel some warmth in the fire’s ashes, so I set about relighting it with bits of straw and kindling from a pile on the floor. After a few minutes’ effort, I succeed in coaxing the ashes into flame. Berling’s voice comes from behind me. “I lit it yesterday.”

  I turn to see him standing in the doorway. “I didn’t hear you.”

  “Sometimes I come here when Dvalin is away,” he adds a little sheepishly.

  “Does he know?”

  “Yes, of course.” There is a false note in his voice. I raise my eyebrows. “Actually, no,” he admits. “But I don’t think he would mind.”

  “Then why not ask him?”

  He shrugs. “He’s not here for me to ask,” he replies.

  “I see.” By now I’ve managed to light a small bundle of straw and the first spiral of smoke begins to rise. I add a few pieces of turf to it. Berling comes forward and kneels down beside me. With the softness of a lover, he places his palms upon the ground and leans in towards the fire, gently blowing. The flames surge. After a few moments, he rocks backwards on his heels. We watch the fire spark and spread. I spread some furs out in front of the fire and seat myself, patting the space next to me. Berling hesitates, blushing.

  “Sit,” I order. He does.

  “I meant to come earlier,” he says apologetically. “My mother needed me.”

  “No matter. I enjoyed meeting her last night.”

  “And she, you.”

  “Nonsense. She did not approve of me.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I’m alone.”

  He shrugs. “So is she.”

  “No, Berling. She has you.”

  “Oh.” He blushes a little.

  “Besides, I think she harbours an affection.”

  “An affection? For whom?”

  I shrug. “Whom indeed?”

  Berling frowns.The idea clearly unsettles him. “I wouldn’t know,” he says, after pondering a moment.

  “And what of you, Berling?” I enquire teasingly. “Do you harbour an affection?”

  “Not me,” he says a little grudgingly. He picks up a stick and probes the fire.

  “You’ve not been with a girl before.”

  He shakes his head, continuing to prod at the fire in little jabs.

  “But you’ve dreamed of it,” I continue.

  He shrugs. “Who hasn’t?”

  “You’ve made a start, then,” I say reassuringly. “Besides, anticipation is half the pleasure.” He looks at me askance, as if this latest information is deeply worrying. I laugh. “Maybe not half. Perhaps one-quarter.” Berling sighs. He practically radiates discomfort. “So you have no one special, then,” I say gently.

  “Not really.” After a moment, he fixes me with a pointed look. “Do you?”

  I laugh, surprised. Berling waits expectantly for an answer. “I was married once,” I say cautiously.

  “And?”

  “And now I’m not.”

  “What happened?”

  “My husband had a restless nature,” I say. “He found it difficult to be tethered to a place. Or a person. In the end, marriage proved too settled an existence for him. So he left. I suppose I was just a brief stop on a much longer journey.” I think of Od: of his easy smile and his warm grey eyes and their unfathomable remoteness. I have come to understand that he was never really present in our life together. A part of him was lost to me from the beginning.

  “Where is he now?”

  “I don’t know,” I reply simply. For it is true.

  Berling frowns. “Did you love him?”

  How can you love a shadow? “I thought I did,” I say. “But I was young. And very foolish.” I smile. “So the answer is no. No, I did not.”

  “But you were sad when it finished.”

  This last is not a question. Berling looks at me intently and I wonder how he knows. “Yes,” I say. “I thought somehow that I had failed.”

  “Do you still think that?”

  “You ask too many questions, young Berling,” I reply.

  He blushes. “I’m sorry,” he offers apologetically.

  “Let us speak of you now.What is it that you most desire?” I ask. He glances up at me, and a look of confusion mixed with panic crosses his face. “What is it you have dreamed of?” I ask more gently.

  Berling stops prodding the fire, but does not take his ey
es from it. “I should like a kiss,” he says finally. He gives a small, embarrassed smile.

  “A kiss it is, then,” I reply.With deliberate slowness, I lean forward, until my lips are but a breath away from his. Berling does nothing, neither moves towards me nor away, but remains frozen. I move my lips to one side of his, allow them to trail lightly across his cheek, follow the line of his jaw, then down his neck to his throat. He swallows. I look him in the eye. “You see?” I murmur. “A kiss is not so very difficult.” He is breathing deeply, for I can see the rise and fall of his chest, and can almost hear the warm rush of his blood. I lean towards him again, and this time I let my lips brush up against the softness of his own. I let them linger for a few moments. Berling’s eyes are closed now and he responds slightly with his body. I feel the weight of him move towards me, feel the parting of his lips. I let my tongue just touch his own. A jolt runs right through him, as if I’ve burnt him with an anvil from the fire.

  At once, he stops and looks at me, his eyes wide, his chest heaving. “I’m sorry,” he says. He rubs his hand across his face.

  “Are you all right?”

  He nods. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Do you think,” he says then, “that we could . . . talk?”

  I smile at him, surprised. “Of course.”

  He exhales, his relief almost palpable. “Thank you,” he says, a little hoarsely.

  “You are very welcome.” An embarrassing silence stretches out between us. Berling concentrates his gaze on the fire and his expression turns serious. “You must be careful with the necklace,” he says after a moment.

  “I will guard it with my life,” I say facetiously.

  He shakes his head. “You don’t understand. It’s not the necklace I fear for. It’s you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He pauses for a moment, struggling to find the words. “The necklace can do things.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “It can make things happen.” I look at him with scepticism. He chews one lip uncertainly. “The night we cast the gold for the pendant,” he begins, “there was an explosion in the furnace. I don’t know what caused it, only that the fires were very hot. I was loading more fuel into the furnace when it happened. Suddenly, there was a tremendous bang, and the fire leapt out at me. I lost consciousness for a few minutes, and when I woke, I couldn’t see. Everything was blackness. Dvalin was with me. He carried me home, and my mother bathed my eyes with cold compresses for two days and nights. It was a terrible time. I can still hear the sound of her sobbing. On the third morning when I woke, my vision had returned. I was overcome with joy, although I noticed at once that the world looked different. Colours didn’t seem as vibrant as before, almost as if they’d been washed away. Still, I was so relieved I didn’t say anything. Later that day, I went to the workshop to see what progress they’d made during my illness. I was amazed when I saw the necklace, for the colour of the gold had been altered by the explosion. The metal had been exceptionally pure to begin with, but now it had the most extraordinary lustre, a wonderful sheen that I’d not seen before. It was almost as if the fire had been trapped inside it.” Berling pauses then. “I think the Brisingamen stole something from me that night,” he says softly. “A part of me stayed with it. Even now, the world does not seem as bright a place as it once was.”

  “Berling, I’m sorry. But surely it was just an accident?”

  “Don’t be sorry,” he says quickly. “I’m not. If the Brisingamen has taken something from me, then it was worth it. For now you have come and changed the course of things.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Our lives will never be the same. I can feel it.”

  “Because of me?”

  “Not you,” he says shaking his head. “Because of the Brisingamen.”

  I stare at him and ponder his words. Is that not why I came here? To change the course of things? “I hope you’re right,” I say slowly.

  “Trust me. I am.”

  I raise my hand to brush a lock of golden hair out of his eyes. “I’m very happy to have met you, young Berling,” I say. “And I do trust you.”

  He smiles. “Then you will not deny me one more pleasure.”

  I laugh. “Of course not. Isn’t that why we’re here?”

  “Not that,” he says quickly, his face turning pink.

  “Then what?”

  He leans towards me. “Tell me of the outside world.”

  I smile at him in disbelief. He is quite serious. “What is it you wish to know?”

  “Your people, tell me about them.”

  “The Aesir?” He nods emphatically. Where do I begin? With our deceit, our jealousies, our failures? Or with our own imagined triumphs, the heroic tales we’ve told each other for so long we now believe them to be true? I look at Berling. His eyes practically shimmer with excitement. “Yes, of course,” I say finally. He beams and stretches out upon the wolfskin, his head propped up on one hand.

  I do not have the heart to give him damning truths. So instead, I tell him the myths of my people, tales invented long ago as a means of consolidating our power. I speak of Odin and Thor and Loki, of magic hammers and eight-legged horses and ships that fold themselves away into your pocket. I tell him of Valhalla, the Hall of the Slain, and of Niflheim, the world of the dead, and Nidhogg, the dragon that devours corpses.

  But even as I speak, I realise that the lines between truth and falsehood have long ago become blurred in my mind. For the names are real enough. And so are many of the places. It is the stories themselves that have been embellished over time. They have been told and retold so many times that it is no longer possible to say which parts are real and which have been imagined. And my own part in the myths, what can I say of that? I know what is said of me, and I know what is true. But I do not know who I am without them. And neither do my people.

  Berling listens intently for what seems like hours. It is as if having satisfied the man inside him, I must now feed the little boy. And all the while, Gerd’s words ring inside my head. Perhaps he is a child after all.

  We sleep finally, exhausted by words. The stories have disturbed something deep inside me, a grave of memories I thought I’d laid to rest. Even when sleep takes me, the Aesir crowd my dreams and will not let me be. I dream of Odin’s great hall, and of my father and brother. They are all there: Nord and Freyr, Odin and Loki, Odin’s wife, his son Balder and countless others. They are holding a feast, a celebration of some kind, and I am the last to arrive. No one notices my entrance. They are all engaged in drinking and merrymaking. I make my way through the crowded room towards the fire, where a goat roasts upon a spit. I freeze in horror. Flanking the goat on two smaller spits are my cats. I recognise them instantly, for unlike the goat, they are still alive. They are trussed tightly to each spit, but I can see their wild eyes dart about, and their tails lashing frantically from side to side. I lunge forward with a cry, but as I do my brother Freyr emerges from the crowd to grab my arm. He grips it so hard that I wince with pain. We struggle for a moment, until I scream. At once, the room falls silent. They form a circle around me. Odin’s wife steps forward with a stern look upon her face. “What is it?” she demands.

  “Please,” I say, pointing to the cats, “Let them go.”

  “Cover yourself Freya!” she snaps. I look down and see that I am half-naked, my dress torn during the struggle with my brother. Freyr drops my arm and turns away in disgust. My father shakes his head slowly from side to side. Loki looks at me and smiles.

  I wake in a sweat. Berling and I lie side by side next to the hearth. The fire has died to no more than a handful of embers. Apart from their dull glow, the room is black, the torches having burned down hours before. I sit up quickly. Berling sleeps soundly. I can just make out his form next to me, his breath deep and regular. But it is the other sound I hear that unnerves me, for I sense another presence, a third heartbeat, in the room. I turn and quickly scan the shadows, but ca
n see nothing in the darkness. “Who’s there?” I demand. My voice sounds oddly strangled. It bounces back at me, followed by a silence so great that it seems to swell and envelop me. I wait for what seems like an eternity. And then I hear the faintest sound of footfall near the door and the soft pattern of steps retreating in the darkness. I strain to listen until they finally disappear.

  Afterwards, I cannot sleep. I lie awake, disturbed by thoughts of the Aesir and the twist of fate that brought us to Asgard in the first place. We were a bribe, my family and I. An offering of peace, designed to quell the unrest between two races. We will come and live among you, said my father. Share your bread and drink your wine and prove that we are one. But we were never united, even as a family. Freyr was everything I was not: responsible, diligent, earnest. We fought constantly as children, but never left each other’s side. Did we really emerge, hand in hand, from the womb? My father said it was this that killed my mother. Freyr and I would not be parted, even in birth.

  I wake Berling at dawn, so he can return to his mother’s without raising suspicion. He is difficult to rouse at first, but eventually comes to a bit sheepishly, yawning. He looks even younger this morning. The ease we felt last night has melted, and we exchange only a few words. Berling seems embarrassed. I too am uneasy, troubled by my dreams and by the strange presence in the night, though I do not speak of either to Berling. We leave together, but once we reach the main tunnel we separate.

  The caves oppress me. I do not think I will be able to endure their stultifying air much longer. Once again, I feel an overwhelming need to escape, and when I am finally outside I am enormously relieved. Again, I fly over the mountains to the thermal springs. It is light now, the sky a vast plane of grey. From high in the air, I see a lone horse grazing nearby and a man in the water. I am surprised to find the springs occupied, for the area around is largely uninhabitable. Perhaps he is a traveller, though few people pass along this route. I land at some distance and stow my feathers underneath a bush, before climbing the slope to where the spring lies, tucked beneath the face of the mountain. The man has emerged and is just finishing dressing, his back to me, when I approach. He hears me coming and turns around. He is small, perhaps my own height, but squarely built with broad shoulders and muscled forearms. His hair and eyes are dark, almost black, and his jaw is wide and square, with just the thinnest of beards. He wears a tunic of plain brown cloth, but his cloak, though worn with age, is made of rich green velvet. When he sees me, he stops short. The look on his face is one of complete surprise.