by Nancy Farmer
“It’s so pretty,” she said, staring at the fire. One of Olaf’s girls came over and shoved her off the bench.
“Hey!” Jack yelled.
“Toad Face,” said the girl. “I think that’s what I’ll call you. Toad Face. It’s my turn to name a thrall.”
“Leave him,” said Heide, who had come up behind them as silently as a wolf. The girl fled. Jack put Lucy back on the bench. She stared at the fire as though nothing had happened.
“What’s wrong with her? Is she sick?” Jack cried. Inside, he thought, Is she insane?
“Her spirit hass fled,” said Heide. “It iss wandering in a strange place—a nice place, I think.”
“Father used to tell her she was a lost princess,” Jack said, somewhat reassured. “He said that someday knights would find her and take her back to the castle. I’m afraid Lucy believed him.”
“I haff seen thiss before,” said the dark woman. “In my land the winters are long and dark. People’s spirits wander sso that they do not go mad. When spring comes, they return.”
“I hope spring returns for Lucy.”
“It may with your help. You are a special boy. I know. I haff looked inside.”
“Are you a wise woman?” Jack asked.
Heide laughed, a sound as smoky as her voice. The other people in the house stopped what they were doing. It seemed everybody walked carefully around Heide. “Thank you for not calling me a witch,” she said. “That iss what they think.” She indicated the others in the room. “But yess, I practice sei er. ”
“Isn’t that…witchcraft?” said Jack.
“It iss woman’s magic. What skalds do iss man’s magic. It iss only witchcraft iff the two are mixed up.”
Jack wasn’t sure he understood, but it relieved his mind. He was a skald, and so the magic he did was all right. Thorgil wouldn’t be able to accuse him. “Where are you from?” he asked.
“Olaf won me in Finnmark. My father wass the headman uff a village, and Olaf wass trading for furs.”
So the giant doesn’t always kill people and steal things, Jack thought.
“I had many suitors. Many. A wise woman iss very valuable. But my spirit chose Olaf. I should haff married one uff the others, but”—Heide shrugged—“he wass so big and beautiful. I am not like them.” She frowned at Dotti and Lotti, who were examining their children for head lice. “I only stay iff big ox-brain treats me right. Iff he insults me, I will go.”
Heide went back to her pots of medicine and herbs. Jack stayed with Lucy. The little girl seemed happy enough, staring into the flames. When Jack brought her the wooden toys Olaf had carved, she set about playing with them. Jack asked Lotti for bread and cheese. He didn’t really understand his status—perhaps thralls got beaten if they asked for food—but Lotti gave him what he wanted and a cup of buttermilk besides. Jack fed the milk to Lucy.
One thing resulted from Heide’s interest in him: Jack and Lucy were left alone. No one pushed her off the bench again, and no one threatened to name him Toad Face.
Late in the day Thorgil showed up, and Jack was horrified to learn that she lived with Olaf’s family. She burst into the house, glowing and sweaty from her romp with the dogs. Heide ordered her to the sauna. Rune arrived for dinner, and Jack learned that he, too, was part of the household. “My wife died years ago, and none of our children lived past infancy,” he whispered. “Olaf’s hall is always as warm and friendly as a summer afternoon. It’s like a great light in the midst of a wilderness.”
Jack shivered. He’d heard those words before. “You mean it’s like Hrothgar’s hall before Grendel got to it.”
“Did I quote that poem? Yes, I suppose I did. It was Dragon Tongue’s finest work.” Rune stretched his feet toward the fire pit in the middle of the room. “I have lived long enough to know that nothing lasts forever. Such joy as Olaf’s will sooner or later attract its destruction. But I also know that to ignore joy while it lasts, in favor of lamenting one’s fate, is a great crime.”
Heide brought him a steaming cup of medicine to sooth his ravaged throat. They smiled at each other, and Jack felt the air tremble between the ancient warrior and the wise woman.
The evening meal was spectacular. Olaf’s wives and servants had toiled all day to make it memorable. The giant’s chair was dragged to the upper end of the fire pit. Tables set with wooden platters, spoons, and cups were lined up on either side. Each diner was expected to supply his or her own knife, but Jack was given one since his own was long gone.
Fine wheat bread, rounds of cheese, salmon baked in fennel, geese oozing delicious fat, stews wafting the seductive odors of cumin and garlic—all these and more were carted in by the servants. Buttermilk, cider, beer, and mead were there for the asking. Bowls of apples sat on every table. Jack had never seen so much food. It made up for the ghastly graffisk earlier.
Olaf sat in his great chair at the head of the fire pit. Rune and Jack were to one side of him, while his sons brawled for the best cuts of meat on the other. The wives and daughters, when they weren’t fetching things from the outlying kitchens, dined in a more orderly way farther down the hall. Heide looked after Lucy. Even the thralls were given a place near the door. As far as Jack could tell, they got the same food as everyone else.
It was a joyous gathering with much impromptu singing. Only one person sat apart and did not join in the festivities. Thorgil was placed midway between the male and female family members. Olaf had relented on his threat of placing her with the thralls. Yet she was not in the place of honor and Jack was. She sat alone, a little patch of misery, in the noisy celebration. Where is her family? Jack wondered.
“You can help with the clearing up,” said Heide to the sullen girl.
For answer, Thorgil dashed her wooden platter to the floor. “I do not do women’s work!” she cried.
“There iss no shame in it. You are one of us, like it or not.”
Everyone stopped talking. A breathless silence fell over the hall, broken only by the crackling of the fire.
“Pick up your things,” roared Olaf suddenly, sending a shock wave through the gathering.
“I’m not like them! I’m a shield maiden!” shouted Thorgil.
“You’re an orphan living on my goodwill. If any of my men behaved as you did, I’d grind his face into that mess you’ve just created. NOW MOVE!”
Thorgil knocked over her stool and fled out the door. No one tried to stop her. Heide shook her head and bent down to clean up the scattered stew and bread.
Jack sat back, his heart pounding. He felt sick to his stomach. He’d been next to Olaf when the giant roared, and his ears still rang. Even worse, the rage and anguish coming from Thorgil had struck him like a blow. He couldn’t understand it.
He was trained to serve the life force. When his mind was calm, he could feel its currents in the air, in the earth. He felt it between Rune and Heide, but that was no surprise. Heide was a wise woman and Rune was a skald. He liked them.
He absolutely hated Thorgil. She was crude and vicious. She gloried in death. There was nothing remotely attractive about her character, and yet…Jack remembered her walking up the street without a single person to greet her. Olaf had called her an orphan, so she had no family. He looked sideways at Rune calmly dipping his bread in his stew. “Where will she go?” Jack asked.
“Thorgil? She’ll sleep in the sauna.” The old warrior didn’t seem worried about it. “If there’s enough moonlight, she’ll go up the hill and crawl in with the king’s dogs.”
“Her brothers and sisters,” said one of Olaf’s sons, a stocky lad with the beginnings of a beard. His eyes were slightly tilted, and Jack guessed his mother was Heide. “They’re the only ones who’ll put up with her.”
“That’s enough, Skakki,” said Olaf. “She can’t help her rages. She gets them from her father, and Odin knows, there was never a finer berserker.”
Everyone murmured assent. “Are the king’s dogs big and gray?” asked Jack.
&nb
sp; “I see you’ve met them,” said Olaf.
It was amazing how quickly the giant could switch from fury to cheerful good-naturedness. But Jack knew he could switch back just as fast. “They ran at Lucy and me this afternoon, but they didn’t hurt us,” he said.
“They’d never hurt a child,” Skakki said. “You could put Hilda in their food dish”—he pointed at a somewhat overblown infant suckling noisily at Lotti’s breast—“and they wouldn’t even growl.”
“Don’t let them see a wolf, though,” said Olaf. “Thor himself couldn’t hold them back then.”
“You might as well tell him the story,” said Lotti, moving Hilda, who screamed at the interruption, to the other breast.
Olaf leaned back in his great chair, making it groan dangerously. “Thorgil’s father,” he began, “was the greatest berserker who ever lived. His name was Thorgrim. He was always the first into battle and the last to leave. By the time he was sixteen, he had a necklace of troll teeth. His greatest bane, though, was his rage. When it came upon him, he neither saw nor heard what was around him.”
“You couldn’t stop him,” said Skakki. “I remember.”
“He had no proper wife—no one would marry him,” Olaf said. “But he had a thrall. A Saxon. I forget her name.”
“It was Allyson, dear ox-brain,” said Heide. “Trust you to forget a woman’s name.”
“Anyhow, this Allyson gave him a son called Thorir. I told you what happened to him.”
“Yes,” said Jack, remembering the terrible murder.
“Afterward Allyson wasn’t the same. She hardly seemed aware of anything around her. When she had a baby girl, the only word she said was ‘Jill.’ That was her name for the child.”
“Only she had no right to name it, being a thrall,” Skakki said.
“The midwife took it to Thorgrim, and he rejected it.”
“ Rejected it?” cried Jack. Such a thing was unheard of. No matter how ugly a baby was, it was sent by God. You had to love it.
“It is a father’s right,” said Olaf, looking sternly at his numerous offspring. It was obvious he’d never rejected one, and they didn’t look at all worried about it.
“He wanted a boy,” whispered Rune. Everyone fell silent to let him be heard. “He wanted one to replace Thorir, and when the child was a girl, he ordered it thrown out into the forest.”
Jack was so shocked, he couldn’t speak.
“So the midwife took it far from the house and laid it under a tree,” Olaf continued. “King Ivar had received a pair of Irish wolfhounds as a gift, and the bitch had given birth not long before. She went for a run in the forest and came upon the infant. I guess it was screaming.”
“Like my Hilda,” Lotti said fondly, unplugging her infant.
“She threw herself down and nursed it, just as though it were a puppy. When the keeper went to look for the bitch, he found her curled around the infant, keeping it warm.”
“You keep saying ‘it’ when you talk of the baby,” said Jack. “Wasn’t it a girl?”
“It was nothing yet,” said Rune. “It had not been accepted.”
“But now Thorgrim had a problem,” Olaf said. “Our law says that a child, once suckled, cannot be abandoned. Like it or not, the royal dog had suckled it. Thorgrim was forced to take it—now her —back. He named her Thorgil and handed her over to Allyson.”
“Who never looked twice at her,” said Heide. “She fed her and that was all. Thorgil’s father ignored her too. The only one to give her any love was the bitch, and afterward her puppies.”
So that was the story! It was as amazing as any tale the Bard had taught Jack. It would make a wonderful poem, except that it was so sad. It needed a happier ending, one Jack promised himself to work on.
The conversation turned to other things. After a while the warmth and good food made Jack extremely sleepy. Heide led him away to an outlying hut, where he was given a heap of straw and a rough blanket. Several young thralls were already snoring. Lucy had been put to bed in a corner of the great hall.
The blanket was full of fleas—Jack felt them hopping about—but he was too sleepy to care. He was vaguely aware when Pig Face, Dirty Pants, and Thick Legs came in later, smelling of sour beer and sweat, to burrow into the straw.
Chapter Twenty-one
Golden Bristles
The next day Jack learned that no matter how well treated he’d been at the feast, he was a thrall, would always be a thrall, and would always look like a thrall to anyone he met. At daybreak he was pulled roughly from his bed by Dirty Pants and marched over to the farm’s forge. There Dirty Pants hammered a slave collar into shape. The man forced the open ring around Jack’s neck and wrenched it shut with a pair of tongs. “I made it big so you’d have room to grow,” he commented. “You’re to muck out the pig barn. It’s that building near the apple trees.”
Jack stumbled from the forge, numb with despair. His throat hurt where Dirty Pants had bruised it. The collar was cold against his skin and too large to hide beneath his tunic.
He walked in a dark dream toward the distant building Dirty Pants had indicated. The life force seemed far away, and even the rune, nestled invisibly on his chest, took on a chill from the iron collar. A flock of crows rose from the pigsty. They circled, complaining loudly, before settling down. They had nothing to fear. It was only a thrall coming to muck out the barn.
One of the birds, finer and glossier than the rest, pranced along the edge of the roof. “Bold Heart!” called Jack. “Don’t you remember me? It’s Jack.” But the bird gazed at him coldly and made no move to come nearer.
Surely it was the same crow. He was missing a claw on his left foot. “I know it’s you, Bold Heart,” said the boy. “I called you out of the sky and saved your life. I told Lucy you came from the Islands of the Blessed, and maybe you do. You’re awfully clever.”
Jack stood on a bucket and tried to reach the edge of the roof. His fingers brushed the bird’s feathers. He flew away. Jack lost his balance and fell off. He saw the crow disappear into a tree, and though it was a small thing, the bird’s desertion was the last in a long line of terrible events. Jack curled up on the ground, sobbing wildly. “It’s true! It’s true! I’m only a thrall. Even the birds know it. I’m like Dirty Pants and Pig Face! Oh, I wish I’d drowned in the sea! At least then I could have walked to the Islands of the Blessed and found the Bard.” He was speaking in Saxon, which was unusual now. He used Northman all the time, except with Lucy.
Jack felt something pull his hair. He looked up and saw the crow bobbing and weaving. Bold Heart talked and talked in crow language, now keening, now warbling, dipping down to pull on Jack’s hair or tunic. He ruffled his feathers. He swayed back and forth. If Bold Heart had been a dog, Jack thought, he’d be rolling on his back in abject apology.
“It’s all right,” said Jack, sitting up to smooth the crow’s feathers. “I understand. You were off with your crow friends and forgot about me. It’s natural you like them better.”
The bird hopped onto Jack’s lap and leaned against his chest. His warbling dropped down to a murmur. He shivered.
“I wasn’t angry, you know. I was sad,” said the boy. “There’s a big difference. Who wouldn’t be sad with a horrible slave collar? But I can put up with it as long as I have a friend.” Bold Heart clacked his beak to show what he thought of slave collars. “Now I have to work,” said Jack. “I don’t know what they do to lazy thralls around here, but I’m sure it’s nasty. You can watch me if you like.” He found a rake leaning against the barn and went inside. Bold Heart followed, gliding to a roof beam. Three sows looked up expectantly.
As in Jack’s village, most of the animals foraged outside during summer. Pigs roamed wild in the forest to be brought down as game, but a few piglets were captured and tamed every spring. They were intelligent beings. They’d follow you everywhere and oink contentedly when you scratched them behind the ears. This is what made things difficult when fall arrived, for in fall all
the pigs were slaughtered, except for a pregnant sow that would provide piglets for the Yuletide feast.
The sows crowded up to the railing. They were pale, athletic creatures with long legs, unlike the squat black-and-white pigs Jack was used to. Their ears stuck up alertly and their eyes sparkled with interest as they thrust their long snouts at him. They looked like they’d bowl him over in a second if he let his guard down.
“Look at all that muck.” Jack sighed. The sows were knee-deep in it. The stench made his eyes water and must have bothered the animals, for Jack knew swine were basically tidy creatures. They kept themselves neat and clean if at all possible. He saw a small, clean pen at the side and understood this was where the animals should go while he worked on their sty.
Jack went outside to find something to tempt them. To his surprise, he saw Pig Face, Dirty Pants, and Lump sitting on a fence. No doubt they were delighted to have a newcomer to boss around. They certainly hadn’t been doing their jobs lately. “Looking for fodder?” called Lump. Jack nodded. The man pointed at a stand of wild mustard.
“You’ll have to close the door to keep them from running when you switch pens,” said Pig Face. Jack gathered an armful of mustard and went back. The stench was enough to make a bird drop out of the sky. Jack saw that Bold Heart had sensibly positioned himself near a hole in the roof.
The only light came from that hole when the door was closed. The darkness made the barn somehow sinister. Indistinct shapes of farm equipment hung from the rafters and reminded Jack of the imps Father said lie in wait for wicked souls.
“I’m letting my imagination run away with me,” he scolded himself. “That’s a rope and that’s a scythe—I think—anyhow, something sharp. That’s a saw.” Jack climbed into the clean pen and dropped the mustard on the floor. The sows whuffled eagerly.
He found the gate between the two pens and opened it. The sows raced through, knocking him over in their eagerness. This part of the job was certainly easy. “Enjoy yourselves, ladies,” he said, laughing at their greed.