“How wonderfully domestic,” Loki said dryly. “What are you cooking?”
“Rabbit stew.”
“Do you ever eat anything other than rabbit?”
“If you don’t want my rabbit stew, you can leave.”
“And to think, you were once a powerful witch who did interesting things.”
“I still am a powerful witch, and you would do well not to forget it.” She spooned the stew into bowls and passed one to him, and they sat down on opposite benches at her new table. “How are things with the gods?”
He prattled on, pausing only to eat. And as Angrboda listened, she tried not to wonder at the bitterness creeping into his voice as he told his tales of Asgard.
* * *
• • •
One rainy night a short time later, Angrboda was sitting in her chair by the fire when Loki appeared at the mouth of her cave, drenched and stumbling. He closed the door behind him, facing away from her, his shoulders hunched and shaking. His hood was up. She could not see his face.
“Loki?” she asked hesitantly, standing. “What brings you here so late?”
He shuffled over and sat on the bench, put his head down on the table. His breath came in ragged, wet gasps, and his fists were clenched so hard that his knuckles were white.
Alarmed, Angrboda went over and sat on the bench beside him, carefully placing a hand on his shoulder. He twitched away and lifted his head a bit to reveal a small puddle of blood on the table. Angrboda paled and made to rip his hood back, but he put his head down on his arms and would not move.
“What did you do?” she asked him.
“Nothing,” he said, his voice muffled and odd. “Why do you assume that I did something?”
“Because ‘things’ are generally what you do. It seems to me in the time we’ve known each other that you can’t keep your mouth shut to save your life.” Her scowl deepened as she took note of the blood now seeping onto his forearms. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
She put her hand on his shoulder again. “Let me see your face.”
“No.” Loki sat up, his features still hidden by the hood, and at this point Angrboda could see the blood soaking the front of his tunic. “Leave me be.”
“You wouldn’t have come all the way here in the first place if you wanted me to do that.”
“I had nowhere else to go,” he said, very quietly.
Angrboda threw the hood off his head and he turned his face away. She could feel his shoulder shaking feverishly under her hand, and she moved closer to him and said, “I cannot help unless you show me.”
At last, he turned to her so she could see the source of the blood: His mouth was a mangled mess, crudely stitched shut with a thick cord and without much care for evenness. He’d clawed about half the stitches out, and the bloody cord was dangling free on one side.
The breath left her as she stared first at the wounds and then at his green eyes, which were bloodshot and glassy as he looked back at her helplessly.
Angrboda didn’t say anything more. She drew her knife—a recent gift from Skadi, a fine blade with an antler handle and a thick leather sheath that hung from her belt—and cut the dangling cord as close to his face as she could, and her nimble fingers began to gently pull the stitches out. Loki winced at her touch, his eyes watering, but he said nothing. When she was done, she had him hold a dry rag to his mouth to stanch the bleeding and told him she would be right back. He stared past her with glazed eyes and nodded.
The rain had let up a bit. She fetched two pails of water from the stream and poured one into her pot above the fire, and when it was hot, she wetted a clean linen scrap and dabbed silently at his mouth. This time, Loki did not so much as flinch.
“Shall I ask what they did to you,” she said at length, “or what you did to them to deserve it?”
“I made some mischief and fixed it, as I’m wont to do. But in the meantime, I simply could not stop myself from shooting my mouth off.” He rolled his eyes. “As you would say.”
She gave him a wan smile as she continued to dab his lips. “Shocking. What sort of mischief was this that you pulled?”
“You know of Thor’s wife, Sif? Well, while he was off drinking with the rest of the gods, I snuck into their chambers while she slept and cut her hair off. She didn’t so much as stir as I did it, but in the morning, you could hear her screaming all over Asgard. And then they heard me screaming as Thor chased me down and threatened to break every bone in my body if I didn’t fix it.”
Angrboda blinked and gestured for him to hold the rag to his mouth. “And why, exactly, would you do such a thing to her?”
“It was more a prank on Thor than a prank on her. He loved her hair.” Loki gave a shrug, but his voice sounded oddly pained as he added, “I thought it would be funny.”
“I question your sense of humor,” Angrboda said dryly. She crossed the room to her potions cabinet, where she got to work making a fresh healing salve. “Among other things. What happened next?”
“I lost a bet. I went to the dwarfs seeking new hair for Sif and got two more items out of the deal. Then I went to another pair of dwarfs and bet them they couldn’t make items as fine as the first set, but the gods liked the second set better. If it weren’t for my own boundless cleverness, I wouldn’t have a head right now.”
“How so?”
“I bet my head. They couldn’t have my neck, you see. So they settled on sewing my mouth shut with an awl.”
Angrboda said a quick chant over her salve in its tiny clay pot, then turned and gave him a sideways glance. “That’s a stupid deal, and the outcome was stupider yet.”
“Not completely. Now the Aesir have nice things, thanks to me.”
“What sort of nice things?”
“Well, Thor now has a hammer with a short handle—make of that what you will—and actual golden hair for Sif. Odin has a spear that won’t miss and a magical ring, and Frey has a golden boar and a ship that you can fold up and take with you, and which always has a fair wind.”
“Those seem like great gifts. You can put the rag down now.”
“Yes, well, it didn’t stop Thor and Frey from holding me down as the dwarfs sewed my mouth shut.” He watched Angrboda with the wariness of a child being presented with something new for dinner as she came back over to him and stuck her finger into the clay pot. When she smeared some of its pasty green contents across his mouth, he made a face at her. “Is this the stuff you sell to your friend Skadi? People trade her actual goods for this?”
“This will heal the wounds faster than they would heal on their own. But you’ll have scars. They’ll be worse on the side where you clawed your face like an animal. And this is fresh and more potent because I made it for your wounds, so it will work faster than the pots of stuff I trade to Skadi to distribute to just anyone.”
“That makes me feel loads better.”
“As well it should. You’re in good hands, if I do say so myself.”
“You mustn’t be so humble.”
She rolled her eyes. “I try. Very occasionally, I succeed.”
“I knew that knowing a witch would come in handy one day. When can I wipe this off my face?”
“When you stop bleeding.” Angrboda smeared the last of the pot’s contents on his mouth with more force than she intended, causing him to wince. “A little gratitude would be nice.”
“Gratitude? I can’t imagine where you’d get that from. Maybe you should trade some more of this smelly stuff to your friend Skadi and see if she can find you some.”
“Stop moving your mouth or you’ll undo all I’ve done.” She sighed, put the clay pot down on the table, and folded her arms. “I feel as though this won’t be the first time I’ll have to get you out of trouble.”
“You’re not getting me out of trouble. You’re fixing me. I
got myself out of trouble.”
“And which is the more difficult task, I wonder?” Angrboda picked up a new rag and dabbed the beads of fresh blood that had formed on his lips and seeped through the layer of salve. “See? You’ve started bleeding again from talking so much. You should probably just keep your mouth shut for a while and let the damage heal.”
Loki reached up, took her wrist, and gave her a crooked smile. “Not likely.”
That smile, bloody and twisted though it was, gave her pause. Her hand stilled, the rag pressed against the corner of his mouth.
“Thank you,” he said, his eyes half-lidded and his expression uncharacteristically soft.
She shook herself and pulled away from him, and started collecting all her bloody or otherwise soiled rags into one of the buckets. “You are a wholly irritating man, Loki Laufeyjarson.”
He made a rather offended noise at that. “Wait, what?”
Angrboda picked up her bucket. “I’m going down to the river to wash these. There’s more water in the other bucket for you to clean yourself up.”
“I could just go stand out in the rain for a bit and save myself the trouble.” He tugged off his muddy leather shoes and soggy woolen socks and threw them in a heap at the cave’s entrance.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” she said, pursing her lips as she thought of all the dried mud she’d be sweeping out of her home tomorrow morning.
Loki got to work unwinding the long strips of cloth that wrapped each of his calves: a common garment for men. “I really am irritating you, aren’t I?”
Angrboda ignored his question, carried the bucket over to the door to her cave, and peered outside with a frown. The rain was coming down harder than before. “Perhaps I won’t bother with this until morning.” When she turned around, she immediately looked away, as Loki had just cast off his bloody tunic and had it between his thumb and forefinger as he dunked it in the other bucket.
“That’s not how you launder clothing.” She sighed and set her bucket down, then bustled over to him to snatch the tunic, sneaking a brief glance at him as she did. The small bit of muscle on his body was visible only because he was thin. She told herself not to look too closely, and directed her attention to the tunic; she spread it out on the table and started working at the bloodstains with a rag.
“My pants are dirty, too,” Loki said innocently as he reached for the drawstring on said garment.
Angrboda put a hand up to stop him. “You needn’t take them off just yet.”
“So you want my dirt in your bed?”
“When did my bed become a factor in this?”
“I could always wear one of your dresses to sleep in. I quite like dresses. Unless you only have the one. And it seems rather dirty to me. Do you sleep in that?”
Angrboda decided not to ask about the dress comments. “Why is it any concern of yours what I sleep in? And I don’t suppose you’re under the impression that you’re sleeping in my bed tonight, it being my bed and all.”
“Then I suppose we’ll have to share.” Loki shrugged a shoulder. Much to her relief, his pants were still on. “I’m wounded and I’ve crossed worlds today to get here. The least you can do is give me a decent place to sleep, Angrboda Iron-witch.”
Angrboda gave a small smile, for the name had a ring to it. “I suppose you’re calling me after my home, then?”
“No, I’m calling you after your steely disposition.”
“How kind of you.” She finished and hung his sopping tunic off the back of her chair to dry. “Your pants aren’t dirty enough to need washing, but I’ll try to get the spots out, and the pants needn’t come off your body for me to manage that.”
“Fine.” He flopped down on the bed. “I’m hungry.”
“Then get up and get your own food. Am I your mother?”
“No, and I’m grateful for that.” He sprawled out and put his hands behind his head, bent his knee, and propped the other ankle up on it. “If you were my mother, I’d have a rustic accent like yours. No, my mother was a piece of work.”
“It must run in the family,” said Angrboda as she sat beside him to scrub at a patch of blood on his pants. “Why do you use her name in Asgard, then? Why not call yourself after your father?”
“Well, she was more like the Aesir than my father was. Or at least I think she was.” He scowled. “I don’t know. Maybe she was one of them. He was a giant for sure, though. That much I remember.”
Angrboda paused. “You don’t know?”
Loki looked over at her, oddly serious. Her salve was doing its work; she could see the scabs starting to form beneath the green paste. “I don’t remember much before Asgard. Don’t tell me you remember much before you were Gullveig.”
“No, and it has long troubled me,” she said, finishing up the last spot on his pants. They weren’t pretty, but the stains were less noticeable than before. She handed him her last clean rag. “Here—you can wipe your mouth off now.”
“Maybe it’s not important, then,” he said. He obeyed and then tossed the green-smeared cloth into her now-overflowing bucket. “It doesn’t really matter where we came from, does it? We’re here now. We’re ourselves. What more can we be?”
Angrboda stood and deposited her own rag with the laundry, feeling suddenly drained. She put more wood on the fire, then grabbed her bone comb from the table, undid her braid, sat down in her chair, and started untangling her hair. As she did so, she heard Loki shifting on the bed, but neither of them said anything more.
“Do you ever stay still?” she asked when she was nearly done. When he didn’t reply, she turned around and saw him sprawled out on his stomach under a pile of furs, snoring unconvincingly.
Angrboda got up and went over to the bed, meaning to take one of the furs from him so that she might make herself comfortable on her chair for the night, for she still did not sleep much. But when she got closer, she saw he was shivering and was reluctant to take anything from him.
After hovering there for a moment, she removed her belt, the cloth square she’d tied about her waist as an apron, and her woolen overdress, leaving only a linen underdress she’d been meaning to wash. Had she been alone that night, she would not have changed it—but after a sideways look at the “sleeping” Loki, she pulled another linen gown out of a chest Skadi had made for her and discreetly changed into it.
A short time ago, she’d come to Ironwood with only the clothes on her back. She considered herself fortunate to have the time and the means to make herself some spare garments, and out of such quality fabric as the warm wools and thick linens Skadi had procured for her. It seemed Skadi’s suppliers of plants also grew flax and owned many sheep, and apparently had a lot of time on their hands to prepare, spin, and weave.
That was just fine with Angrboda, who found such activities frustrating and tedious where many women found them productive and cathartic. The more power to them, she often thought. I’ll gladly trade my wares for theirs.
“I thought you weren’t inclined to share,” Loki murmured as she slunk into the bed beside him. He stuck out his upper lip. “Is it because I’m cold and wounded?”
She sighed internally and was grateful that she’d changed clothes with some modesty, having suspected him of being awake. In her experience, when he was really asleep—usually facedown at her table—his snoring was far more obnoxious.
“Perhaps it’s because you’re pathetic and I have an overwhelming urge to care for pathetic people,” Angrboda said under her breath. “Almost like your urge to keep talking when you should probably stop and think instead.”
By way of a response, he proceeded to move over such that there was the smallest possible space between them without their bodies actually touching. And within minutes he was asleep, leaving her awake to listen to his snoring. Leaving her to feel an odd fluttering in her chest, an unwelcome stirring inside her, l
ike something was awakening that would be better off asleep, better off in the farthest recesses of her mind, where it couldn’t bother her.
But Loki was nothing if not bothersome.
* * *
• • •
A loud clamor awoke her, followed by Loki’s muttered curses.
Angrboda sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, but she felt considerably more awake when she saw the mess Loki had made of her cooking utensils.
“I was trying to make breakfast,” he whined when he noticed her looking. Thankfully, his tunic had dried during the night and he had put it back on.
“Out of what?” she asked, climbing out of bed.
“Uh,” he said. “Dried animal meat and some eggs, I suppose. That’s all you have in your stores. And I’m hungry. You’re a bad hostess.”
Angrboda ignored that, considering she had not only healed him but also washed his clothes and allowed him to share her bed last night. “How are your wounds?”
“Well, I’m talking, aren’t I?”
“That tells me exactly nothing of import.” She approached him and examined his mouth. His gaze softened again, as it had last night. Something in her chest fluttered—her heart, she realized—and she cursed it.
“See?” he said quietly, gesturing to the scars. “All healed.”
Angrboda shook herself and stepped away from him, suddenly claustrophobic. He was taking up too much space—both in her cave and in her head.
“Have a drink. I’ll go gather some berries to go with breakfast.” She could see the sun shining through the cracks in her door and figured it for a warm morning, so she decided to forgo her woolen overdress, but still put on her belt and tied her apron atop it. Then she poured a cup of ale and slid it across the table to him.
The Witch's Heart Page 3