The Islands of the Blessed

by Nancy Farmer

  “Go on, ask,” Thorgil said. “I did, the first time I saw him.”

  “Ah, but I didn’t tell you the whole story, little sister,” said Skakki, who was lounging on a log with his long legs stretched out before him. “I told you he was a half-troll, but I didn’t say where we got him.”

  “Did you say ‘half-troll’?” said Jack. The offspring of troll/ human marriages were almost always doomed. They were forever torn between two worlds and either went mad or turned vicious. Frothi had devastated King Hrothgar’s hall and tried to murder Beowulf. Her sister, Frith, had sent a Nightmare to kill the Bard. When Frith fell into a snit, even berserkers climbed the walls to escape.

  Skakki grimaced. “Not all such beings are evil. Much depends on the parents. Frothi and Frith’s father had been rescued from an avalanche by the Mountain Queen and imprisoned in her harem. He spent the rest of his life bitterly regretting his captivity. He hated the sight of his daughters. Schlaup had a different father.”

  “I can see that he is a handsome lout,” said Thorgil, using the troll word for male. “I look forward to taking ship with him.” Schlaup turned a bright orange, the troll equivalent of blushing, and ducked his massive head.

  “Go on,” said Jack, but Skakki, to his annoyance, insisted on having breakfast first. Bread and cheese was brought from the ship and toasted before the fire. It was excellent bread, and the cheese was strong enough to bring tears to your eyes. Jack, who’d had nothing to eat that morning, was grateful, although he wished Skakki would tell the story and eat.

  But the Northmen weren’t like that. They preferred to do only one thing at a time. If pillaging, they gave their whole attention to it. If feeding, all conversation stopped until their bellies were stuffed.

  Skakki produced a large pot of salty black berries that had come from across the sea. He called them “olives,” and Jack thought they were delicious. So did the Northmen, who were besotted with anything salty and jostled one another aside to get at the treat.

  The sounds of chomping and slurping filled the air. Sven the Vengeful passed around bags of cider, with a large one reserved for Schlaup. A quarrel broke out over who had eaten the most olives, and Skakki clouted the crewmen nearest him. That was how his father had kept order, Jack remembered, except that when Olaf smacked someone, he stayed smacked for at least ten minutes.

  When the food was gone, Skakki suggested a burping contest. Thorgil eagerly joined in, and Jack drummed his fingers with impatience. He knew what the young sea captain was up to. Northmen loved to drag out a story until you were ready to scream and half the fun was making the listeners beg for the conclusion.

  When the burping contest was over—Schlaup won with a sulfurous belch that was pure troll—Skakki insisted that Rune produce a poem to celebrate their arrival. “Stop fooling around!” exclaimed Jack. “I want to know Schlaup’s history.”

  Everyone guffawed, with Schlaup producing a deep wuh-huh-huh, and Jack knew they had only been waiting for him to lose his temper. “Do you really, really, really want to know?” cooed Skakki.

  Jack sighed. “I really, really, really want to know.”

  Skakki paused for effect, and everyone leaned forward, though all of them, except Thorgil, must have known the tale. “One dark, snowy night,” began the young captain, “we heard a knock on the door of our hall. Everyone stopped what he was doing, for we knew few beings ventured out in the dead of winter. The ships were drawn up onto land, the sheep were locked into their pens. Honest folk, and even the dishonest ones, were sheltering inside their houses.

  “We listened. One knock meant a draugr was lurking outside. You definitely don’t want to open the door to a draugr, because—”

  “Don’t change the subject,” said Jack.

  Skakki smiled evilly. “I thought you were interested in draugrs. Thorgil says you’ve got one in the village.”

  Jack restrained himself with the greatest difficulty. Nothing entertained Northmen more than making you lose control.

  “Very well,” Skakki went on. “We waited and listened. Whoever it was knocked three times. We waited again and the sound was repeated. Yet you don’t want to be hasty, for all kinds of things are abroad in the dark. The men took up their weapons and sent the women and children to the back of the hall.” Skakki paused to gulp down cider, taking his time about it. Jack wanted to upend the bag over his head.

  “I opened the door a crack. Outside, the snow was coming down in flakes as big as my hand. Before me, almost invisible, were two huge creatures wrapped in cloaks of white wolf skin. ‘Trolls!’ I shouted. I tried to close the door, but one of them shoved it open so forcefully that it ripped off its hinges.

  “‘Put down your weapon, son of Olaf One-Brow,’ the creature said. ‘I bring greetings from Glamdis, the Mountain Queen.’ And she—for it was a female—held out a carving of an elk. Do you remember how Olaf loved to make toys out of wood and how he decorated our hall with wolves and bears? No one could make better animals. I recognized his work.

  “‘I am Fonn, daughter of the Mountain Queen,’ the troll announced. ‘This is my sister Forath. I speak for both of us, because she cannot use human speech.’ It was then that I felt the muttering of troll-thought in my mind,” said Skakki. “Meanwhile, the snow was blowing inside in great drifts.”

  “‘Olaf made this elk for us on one of his visits,’ said Fonn. ‘And once, while he was visiting our mother, he made Schlaup.’ She stepped aside, and I saw a third, smaller shape behind her. It was a young lout.”

  “Wait!” said Thorgil. “You mean Schlaup is Olaf’s son?”

  “Indeed, he is. When you get used to him, you’ll see the similarity,” said Skakki.

  “Another brother,” cried Thorgil, transported. “I knew he was quality the minute I saw him.”

  “Glamdis was so deeply in love with Olaf, she didn’t try to imprison him in her harem,” Skakki said. “That was most unusual, for Glamdis likes to enslave her louts and they, by all accounts, enjoy being enslaved.”

  “No one was ever able to control Olaf,” said Rune.

  Jack was appalled, not so much by Schlaup’s existence, but by Olaf’s part in it. Jotun females were eight feet tall with bristly orange hair sprouting from their heads and shoulders. Their fangs, though daintier than the tusks of the louts, weren’t what most men found attractive in a wife.

  “HE MADE A TROLL QUEEN FALL IN LOVE WITH HIM. WHAT A HERO!” bellowed Eric Pretty-Face.

  “Then why did she cast out his son?” Jack asked.

  All eyes turned to Schlaup, who seemed embarrassed by the attention. “Because I can’t think straight,” he said.

  “Nonsense,” said Skakki. “There’s nothing wrong with your brain. You just can’t pass thoughts through the air like the trolls. Neither can I.” He turned to Jack. “Fonn explained that Schlaup’s disability made him too isolated. She and Forath cared for him, but after Olaf died, there was no one who could carry on a real conversation with him. No troll-maiden ever selected him to dance. No lout invited him to play Dodge the Spear. It was decided that Schlaup had a better chance of happiness with his father’s kin.”

  “And so he does,” Thorgil declared warmly. She sat next to him and laid her head against his massive chest. “I, too, have a disability,” she said. “My right hand was paralyzed when I fought Garm, the Hound of Hel. At first I was devastated and wanted to die, but I remembered what Olaf always said: You must never give up, even if you’re falling off a cliff. You never know what might happen on the way down.”

  Schlaup rumbled deep in his chest like a gigantic cat.

  Jack was amazed. After all those months of lamenting about her hand, all those tantrums and fits of despair, Thorgil seemed perfectly at ease with her handicap. It must have been the presence of the Northmen and her brother—brothers, Jack corrected himself. Dear God, he was having trouble getting used to Hazel. She was at least human, not a seven-foot monster.

  But the Northmen didn’t judge people b
y their looks. They might be brutish, violent, and dangerous, but they were also loyal and courageous. If someone possessed those virtues, it didn’t matter that he had bristly orange hair and a belch that smelled like a dead whale. Of all the people in the village, Jack remembered, only Thorgil had never commented on Pega’s ugliness. And that was because she simply couldn’t see it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ALL ABOARD

  Jack and Thorgil ferried baskets to the ship until he thought they must have walked the distance to Bebba’s Town three times over. Even with the donkey’s help, the process was exhausting. They met the Northmen halfway, handed over their burdens, and returned for yet another load.

  After two days another Northman ship, captained by Egil Long-Spear, anchored in the little inlet. Egil had gone on raids with Olaf, but he was not a berserker. His heart wasn’t in killing, and in better times he would have made a good farmer. Unfortunately, the Northman lands were barren. Most years the only source of food was plunder, and Egil, making the best of a bad lot, combined pillaging with trade. He much preferred trade.

  Of all the Northmen, he was the most presentable. He had an easy, friendly manner, spoke fluent Saxon, and genuinely liked Saxons. He had sailed from the Northland in a broad-beamed ship designed for transport, not battle. Jack had wondered how Skakki could have traded with anyone, but now he understood.

  Good-natured Egil had been the one who sailed into port, while Skakki lurked in the shadows. Egil traded furs, sea ivory, reindeer antlers, and amber from both ships. He returned with silver, casks of olives, salt blocks, Spanish wine, and, for his own ship, a flock of sheep.

  Jack found the sheep extremely interesting. They clustered together in a docile herd, and their wool was so thick, he could sink his hands in it up to the wrists. Egil said they had come from the same land as the olives and were called “merinis.”

  On the last night Jack’s parents threw a farewell party. Brother Aiden, the Bard, and the Tanners were invited. Mother baked honey cakes, Pega made an eel stew, and Father roasted a large salmon in the coals. Unknown to him, the salmon had been provided by the Nemesis, who had dangled his wiggly toes in the sea while Mr. Blewit waited nearby with a club. Also unknown to Father was the hobgoblins’ parallel party in the fields.

  The hobgoblins feasted on mushrooms and salmon, and toasted each other with Brother Aiden’s excellent heather ale. After dinner they began skirling. They puffed up like giant frogs and let the air out slowly, closing first one nostril, then the other to vary the pitch. The result was such a horrid wailing that villagers in houses all around clutched their crosses and prayed for deliverance. Some of them implored Thor and Odin for mercy, in case Jesus was busy.

  “You may need these in your negotiations,” Brother Aiden said, handing a parcel to the Bard.

  The Bard felt the package and nodded. “I hope it will not come to that.”

  Come to what? thought Jack. All day mysterious signals had been passing between the two men. They could not discuss the draugr openly, nor could they admit that Skakki’s ship was in port. That would have caused so much curiosity and so many expeditions up and down the coast that the secret of the Northmen would have been out. As far as the villagers knew, the trip was going to take place next month.

  Everyone at the party knew of the departure, of course, and Pega got teary-eyed when she gave Jack a basket of her special scones. The dough to make them had been pounded repeatedly with a mallet to preserve the finished product for weeks or even months. “I know you’ll come back before then.” Pega sniffled. “You must come back.”

  “I’m not going to die,” Jack said.

  “You never know what’s around the corner,” the girl said, wiping her eyes. “One of my owners went to the henhouse to gather eggs and was trampled by a bull. I was beaten because I was supposed to collect the eggs.”

  “If you had gone, you would have been trampled,” pointed out Hazel, who was in her usual place by Pega’s side. Her behavior had improved enormously since the Tanners had retreated to their hovel.

  “I didn’t count,” Pega said.

  Jack hated it when she spoke of her owners. It reminded everyone that she’d been a slave. “Nothing’s going to happen to me,” he insisted.

  “That’s what people always say.”

  “You count with me,” said Hazel, snuggling against Pega. The older girl stroked her hair, and it seemed to Jack that his sister was much fonder of Pega than she was of her own mother. Not that Mother didn’t try. But there was always a slight hesitation before she hugged Hazel. Father didn’t hug her at all.

  It will all come right somehow, Jack thought.

  “Would you like to see us off?” the Bard asked Brother Aiden.

  “Oh, no—I couldn’t,” said the little monk, turning pale. “The very sight of—”

  “Careful,” warned the Bard as the Tanner girls left off stuffing themselves and came over to listen.

  “Why doesn’t everybody come with us to say good-bye?” demanded Ymma. “We deserve a nice send-off.”

  “I don’t know why you’re all so hush-hush about it,” Ythla said. “People keep asking when we’re going, and I have to keep telling lies.”

  “Don’t nag the Bard,” Mrs. Tanner scolded. “Honestly, sir, I don’t know what’s become of them since their father died.”

  “I know what might become of them if the wrong ears are listening,” said Jack, and he was gratified to see all three Tanners flinch.

  He spent the last night at home. He tried to keep the peace by attending Father’s prayer session, something he hadn’t done for a long time. It wasn’t that he disliked prayers. He enjoyed listening to Brother Aiden even though he couldn’t understand Latin. It merely seemed that praying was a form of Christian magic, and some people were better at it than others. Father dwelled too much on grievances and sins. If Jack had been God, he would have preferred more appreciation for the things that did go right.

  When Jack rose before dawn, Pega was already waiting for him, pale and woebegone. Breakfast was a mostly silent affair, with Father exhorting him to avoid temptation and Pega quietly weeping. Hazel picked up her mood and started to cry too. Mother stared down at her hands. Jack couldn’t wait to get out of the house.

  “It’s only a short trip,” he protested as Mother accompanied him as far as the beehives. “I don’t know why everyone’s making such a fuss about it.”

  “You’re going off with Northmen,” Mother said. “Even if, as Thorgil swears, they’ve taken an oath to help us, Northmen attract danger as oak trees draw lightning.”

  The bees were flying to and fro, making use of the long summer days. The two surviving hives had grown into four, after careful watching to follow and capture new swarms. “I looked into the water,” Mother said.

  Jack tensed. Mother was a wise woman, though she took care to conceal it from Father. One of her arts was to gaze into a bowl of still water until the surface deepened, showing distant places and things that would come to pass. These visions were rarely clear. She might see a stag walking through a forest or a woman standing on a cliff. The meaning would become clear only later.

  “I saw you—you and Thorgil—in a little boat,” Mother said. “It was evening and the sun had marked out a path of shining gold on the water. I tried to call to you, but you raised your arm in farewell. You were holding a bard’s staff. That’s all.”

  “What does it mean?” said Jack. His staff had been lost when he freed Din Guardi from the grip of Unlife.

  “I don’t know, but …” She paused, and Jack was appalled to see tears on her cheeks. “It felt as though you were going on a far longer journey than to Bebba’s Town. It felt as though you were never coming back.”

  “Of course I’ll return!” cried Jack. “I fought my way out of Jotunheim and survived the dungeons of the elves, didn’t I? You must stop listening to Pega’s stories.”

  Mother smiled ruefully. “I suppose I have been listening to her. She t
old me about a man dying from a bee sting and someone else falling down a well.”

  “Her ex-owners all seemed to have bad luck.”

  Mother laughed, and Jack was able to leave her with a lighter heart. But he puzzled over the vision. He and Thorgil in a small boat? That wasn’t surprising. But the sun setting over water to the west wasn’t possible on this coastline. The sea lay to the east.

  The Tanners had large bags filled with clothes and cooking utensils, some of which Jack suspected came from his house. As they walked along, Ymma called out to a farmer that they were off to Bebba’s Town.

  The farmer cupped his hands. “What’s that? Is the ship here?”

  “Not yet!” Jack called, and turned on the girl. “I told you to keep your mouth shut.”

  “Why should I?” Ymma retorted. “Anyone would think we were going pillaging, like you did with those nasty Northmen.”

  “I didn’t go with them willingly and I never, ever, pillaged. If you knew anything about it, you wouldn’t suggest the possibility.” Jack was struggling to keep his temper.

  “I know what pillaging is,” Ythla chimed in. “It means having lots of nice things.”

  “It means killing and burning,” said Jack.

  Ythla shrugged, and her mother made no attempt to scold her daughter. It suddenly occurred to Jack that the Tanners were about to encounter real experts on pillaging. He felt a small glow of happiness inside.

  Most of the Bard’s cargo was already aboard, but important items had to be carried personally. The old man had the mysterious parcel Brother Aiden had given him, as well as a bag of his more important tools. Jack was in charge of Fair Lamenting, the Bard’s harp, and the great bird Seafarer. The Tanners complained bitterly when they realized Jack wasn’t going to help carry their belongings.

  “You can leave things behind,” he said. “I’m sure Pega could find a use for them.”

  “Not on your life!” said Ymma.

  “We’re being driven into the wilderness,” moaned Mrs. Tanner. “How can we abandon anything that might stand between us and destruction?”