Euthalia had judged the beautiful Freyja as the next to approach, after Odin’s dismissal. Freyja had not spoken to Euthalia as say, Gefjon had, but then Gefjon and Skathi had shown little further interest in Euthalia herself, and Freyja seemed to reside at the heart of Asgard. She might have Odin’s ear, as much as anyone might, and Euthalia had to choose a powerful ally.
Euthalia approached the chair. “Good morning, Freyja. My name is Euthalia.”
“I know your name.” Freyja took a drink.
Euthalia hesitated. Had Freyja meant to insult her? Was she misinterpreting the goddess? “I have come to ask for aid.”
“Whatever could you need aid for?” Freyja asked. “You are the wife of a powerful immortal. No mortal woman could complain in such a match. You have much luxury and privilege with little responsibility or care.”
Euthalia stiffened. “Sigyn might not agree with you.”
“Sigyn?” Freyja thought. “Oh, Loki’s woman?”
Euthalia nodded. “His wife. The mother of the boys killed yesterday.”
Freyja raised an eyebrow. “And what aid do you wish for her? I cannot return her sons.” She raised the horn to drink.
“No. But we could return her husband.”
“Free Loki?” Freyja nearly spit her mead. “Are you drunk or mad? Or only stupid, like the sheep you resemble?”
“He must be punished, certainly,” Euthalia said quickly, raising her chin and ignoring the insult, “but not tortured, not for hundreds of years.”
“No,” agreed Freyja. “Thousands.” She frowned. “You are a newcomer here, little Greek. Do you know what this Loki is?”
“I know he is sworn brother to Odin,” said Euthalia. “I know he brought Mjöllnir from the dwarfs for Thor and made the Asgard wall possible.”
Freyja sniffed. “I know he is the one who stood in Odin’s hall and declared to all that I had slept with every Æsir and álfr present at Odin’s great feast.”
Euthalia did not know how to counter this. “All know Loki as the Lie-Smith,” she said. “Surely no one would believe such an accusation. I at least know it cannot be true.”
“Of course it is true,” snapped Freyja. “Only he didn’t have to speak it so plainly.”
Euthalia tried to recover. “It is not for Loki,” she said, “but for his wife Sigyn, who has offended no one.” She had meant to ask after Vidar, not to speak of Loki, but now the thought returned to her: maybe, maybe, if Vidar saw her help Loki, maybe he would think she could love a monster.
Euthalia straightened. “I mean to petition Odin on her behalf. Surely you can find sympathy for her losing both her children and seeing her husband bound and tortured?”
“If I had been so ill-fated as to bear Loki’s sons,” drawled Freyja, “I would now be celebrating my having been relieved both of them and of him.” She took a drink.
There was no sympathy for Sigyn to be won here. Euthalia swallowed. “I will not trouble you further on this. But may I ask, if you see Vidar, will you tell him I am looking for him?”
Freyja lifted an eyebrow. “Ah, have you lost your husband? And so soon? I thought your eyes looked swollen.”
Euthalia tightened her jaw and immediately tried to loosen it, lest Freyja read her expression too easily. “I have not lost him. I am only looking for him.”
Freyja’s mouth curved. “Well, now so am I.”
Euthalia’s shoulders stiffened. “He is my husband.” She laid a subtle emphasis on the final word.
“And I am a goddess.”
Euthalia stared at her, trying to invent something suitably cutting, but she could think of nothing believable. In fact, there was no reason for Vidar not to welcome Freyja if she approached him now. The knowledge settled heavy in her stomach.
“There’s not much to be said for husbands, anyway,” said Freyja, and her careless tone was frosted malice over something else.
Euthalia lifted her chin and turned toward the door of Sessrúmnir. She had done this all wrong, she realized. She should have come not begging a favor, but offering a benefit. But what could she offer a goddess?
“Wait,” called Freyja. “Do you want my help to convince Odin, or not?”
Euthalia hesitated. “I thought you had no interest in helping Loki.”
“In helping Loki? None at all. But telling Loki I had the power to free him? Oh, that particular pleasure might interest me.” Freyja smiled, catlike and pleased. “Now, tell me how you plan to petition Odin.”
“I, er, don’t have a formal petition, not yet. I have only just thought to act.” Freyja had stopped her from leaving, so there was a bargain to be made, if only Euthalia could think fast enough to find it. She wished she had seen her father’s trading more than the single ill-fated trip to Byzantium. She needed bartering skill and the merchant’s knack of reading a customer’s true desire, maybe the one he himself didn’t know he had.
“I can advise you,” Freyja said, “or I can sway his opinion myself.” She smiled meaningfully.
Euthalia regarded her. All the Æsir, her own brother, and now Odin… Is there no other way you know to discourse than to open your legs? “What would that have to do with me?” She made her mouth a firm line, hoping she looked resolute and dignified. “Do you want me to step aside while you petition my husband as well?”
Freyja laughed aloud. “Oh, no! No, silly girl, if I want Vidar I shouldn’t need you to let him go. If I can’t sway a man, then he can’t be swayed.” She shook her head. “No, I require a handmaid. And you are, unless I am very much mistaken, presently without a husband and therefore available to serve me.”
Euthalia did not answer, caught between the sting of the accurate assessment and the surprise of the request. “Your handmaid?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“So you anticipate a quick reconciliation, then?” Freyja smiled. “Because otherwise, you will have no place in Asgard and you’ll be grateful for my patronage. Gods don’t keep discarded wives.”
Euthalia felt ill, hearing all her fears spoken aloud. “Until Vidar and I are reconciled,” she answered more bravely than she felt. “And if I am your handmaid, then you will… use your influence with Odin to negotiate Loki’s release, for the sake of Sigyn. And you will help to find Vidar.”
“For the sake of Sigyn?”
Euthalia knew it now, knew Freyja’s currency, knew she craved attention and power. “For the sake of bragging to Loki before all the feasting gods in Valhöll that he must thank you for his freedom.” Loki would not thank her for this arranged humiliation, but humiliation was better than centuries of agony. “And you will help me to find Vidar.”
“And I will find Vidar.” Freyja smiled, a smug, knowing smile. “Is it a bargain, merchant girl? Or shall we haggle further?”
Euthalia had not realized her background was so plainly known, either. She pushed her shame—but no, there was no shame in being a merchant’s daughter, not when she could not have been born a goddess—she pushed aside her confused feelings and acted for Sigyn and Vidar. “Yes, I will serve you.”
“Good,” Freyja said. “Our bargain is struck.” She clapped her hands, and a thrall came from the far end of the hall. “Take this girl and dress her properly,” ordered Freyja.
Euthalia looked down at herself. “But what is wrong with these clothes?”
One corner of Freyja’s mouth curved upward, as sly as Loki. “Servants do not wear gold brooches, to start. And if you are to be a thrall in my hall, you should be collared.”
“Collared?” repeated Euthalia in dismay.
“Shall she work in Folkvang, mistress?” asked the servant.
“Not in Folkvang,” Freyja mused, smiling. “I think I will keep her here in Sessrúmnir. Now go, both of you; I do not appreciate repeating myself to my servants.”
Euthalia lifted a hand to her throat, as if the rounded iron collar already hung there, and tried to think of something to say. “No—I didn’t mean—”
“You struck a bargain, merchant girl,” said Freyja, returning to her drink. “The deal is done.”
The servant took Euthalia by the wrist and gently pulled her away.
That intolerable brother-lover.
Euthalia’s hands shook with rage, humiliation, hurt. The jar of mead she held trembled with her suppressed emotion, and she thought she might spill when she poured.
Before her, a long table of the dead waited for her to fill their drinking horns. Valhöll was not the only hall of the dead; those who were not chosen for Odin’s battle elite came to Freyja’s hall Sessrúmnir, where her many thralls served them feasts in the evening.
Whore.
It was plain that Freyja used her body as a tool, not for love but for possession and gain. Euthalia did not think it wrong to enjoy a man’s embrace, and now Vidar had taught her many pleasures—but that was for love, not for power. And she did not know if Freyja were even capable of love.
Liar.
And Freyja knew something. She had known Euthalia could have lost Vidar, which meant she knew about Vidar, and she enjoyed knowing what Euthalia did not. Euthalia would learn it.
Euthalia moved among the dead and filled their horns, answering their thirsty calls and ignoring the hands which brushed and groped her as she pushed among the crowded tables. She kept her eyes forward, her jaw clenched. She would not react, she would not allow Freyja to observe her discomfort, and above all she would not cry.
“What is this, little Greek?” Freyja’s voice cut into her resolution. “No smile for your mistress?”
“My service is sufficient, I think,” Euthalia said.
“Not if I say it is not,” Freyja returned. “I am owed a smile, I think.”
“You have my service,” Euthalia said. “You do not have my heart.”
Freyja’s hand caught her upper arm and jerked her about with superhuman strength. “That is not an answer to give to your mistress.”
“I am the wife of a god, as you said to me only this morning.”
“You are a thrall.”
“And even a thrall has still a heart and a mind.”
Freyja slapped her across the face. “That is not an answer to give to your mistress!”
Euthalia stared, her hand to her stinging cheek, stunned. She had not expected to be mistreated, and while performing her assigned task.
Freyja leaned close to her. “You are a thrall now, and my thrall. That was your bargain, your trade to find the husband you lost and to help an eel-tongued wretch who wouldn’t lift a finger to your aid. This is your choice. And you must understand that you are no god’s wife, not now, not here.” She shoved Euthalia into the arms of two of her table’s guests, a short man and a stout woman. “Beat her,” Freyja ordered. “Not too badly that she cannot work, but enough that she knows her place.”
“No!” cried Euthalia, but the stocky woman was already drawing back her arm. She struck Euthalia just above the ear, and as Euthalia twisted away the man seized her arm with crushing force and struck her across the back hard enough to knock her down. They stooped to follow her, and she curled into herself defensively.
The beating was brief, and not as fierce as it might have been. Freyja had already turned back to her feast, and without her eye the two guests lost interest and wanted to return to their own food and drink. Euthalia uncoiled, trembling, and folded her bruised arms about her bruised torso. Her clothing was dusty and torn where they had pulled at her and kicked her, but she had no broken bones and only a few scrapes.
She got to her feet and looked toward Freyja, but the goddess was laughing with someone Euthalia did not know, and she did not look back at Euthalia.
Euthalia limped back down the hall, tears burning her eyes and stinging the abrasion on her cheek.
I will find Vidar, she swore. I will find Vidar without you, despite you. And I will free Loki for Sigyn. And I will do it all without your help.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Freyja went to Valhöll the next night, instead of dining in her own hall, and Euthalia saw her chance. She followed at a distance and waited a few minutes after Freyja had entered the longhouse. Then she clenched her fists, took a deep breath, and pushed open the door.
Freyja was further up the tables, laughing with a table of men and women. She did not look back as Euthalia entered. Euthalia took a tray of food from another thrall. “I’ll do it.”
“Thanks.”
Euthalia started up the aisle. Freyja did not look back. Euthalia tightened her fingers on the tray and passed the table, head rigidly forward. Freyja turned, said something to the table behind Euthalia to draw grins and cheers, and then turned back to the first table. She had spoken directly across Euthalia’s path but had not noted her.
Euthalia’s supposition had been correct: Freyja did not care to notice thralls, and one was as another unless she needed something in particular from one of them. If Euthalia did not draw too much attention, she could move about Valhöll without her mistress’s knowledge.
Someone shouted and reached for the bread on her tray—one of the einherjar, sharing it out among his friends—and she looked over the tables nearest her. There were many tall men, many muscular men, many bearded men, but none she recognized as her husband. Of course, she would not know him. She had barely seen him, and his face had looked human for only an instant before twisting into its monstrous form.
Which form was true?
Her tray was empty. She moved away, her back to Freyja, and took up a jar of mead. She glanced at the table where her mistress sat and then started for the enormous and ornate chair at the head of the hall.
Odin’s single eye shifted toward her while she was yet three long tables away. She swallowed and kept going forward under the heavy weight of his gaze. Finally, as she neared the reach of his arm, she glanced down and bowed her head. “My lord.”
He made a curious gesture with his fingers and then held out a drinking horn to her. “You have not come as a guest to this hall.”
She was ashamed of her torn clothing and bruised face, but there was nothing to be done for them. “No. I am a thrall to Freyja.” She poured mead into the horn.
He frowned. “Why? You have no home of your own, true, but why Freyja?”
“She told me she could help me,” Euthalia answered. Best not to say that Freyja had bragged she could sway Odin to her will.
Odin grunted. “Freyja helps only herself.”
“I believe I have learned that,” said Euthalia.
Odin laughed, dark and cold.
Euthalia steeled herself. “I came here tonight first to look for Vidar, and if I could not find him, then to ask again for your aid.”
“And are you truly looking for him?”
Her whole body tightened. “Is he here? Now?”
Odin crushed her with a word. “No. No, he is not here tonight.”
Euthalia nodded, swallowing her disappointment. “Can you tell me where he is?”
Odin shook his head. “He has not spoken to me.”
Even if Vidar were not in the long hall, Odin’s magic could still reach him. “Can’t you see him?”
“It is likely, but not without some seeking.” He gestured, and one of the ravens hopped forward from the throne to his hand, dwarfing even the Æsir’s massive fist. “I can look for him, but he may not wish to be found.”
Euthalia thought of the wail diminishing into the night and tried not to agree with Odin. “I want to speak with him. To—to apologize to him, and to ask his forgiveness, and to see if he will have me again.”
“If he will have you?” Odin seemed surprised. “You still want him?”
Euthalia swallowed. “We were happy before I saw his face. I think we could be happy again.”
Odin nodded slowly, considering. “It pleases me to hear you say this.”
He spoke to the bird in words Euthalia did not know, and then both ravens lifted themselves into the air and blurred into the smoke trailing up
ward from one of the hearth fires.
“He looked like a man—an Æsir—at first,” she said. “Then his face changed. I—which is his true face?”
Odin scowled. “He is cursed.” He took a drink, but it seemed to be more an excuse to gather his words than to slake his thirst. “My son is cursed.”
Euthalia kept her eyes on him. “What kind of curse?”
“It can be seen only through the eyes of love.” Odin gestured down the empty hall. “When you were in Valhöll, among so many, you did not know him from the others. You looked upon none of the einherjar or the Æsir with love, and you did not know the face of him you loved, and so you could not perceive the curse’s aspect in him you loved. When you knew him, however, and loved him, the illusion would manifest.”
She worked her way through this. “The curse only affects him if I recognize him?”
Odin was irritated with her thickness. “It affects him always. But only those who love him see it.”
So Vidar had remained in the dark, that she could never look upon him with love. It was heartbreaking to think on it.
“The curse was laid upon him with a powerful magic. Thus Vidar thought never to have a wife, or to father children only by force. To be offered a bride who did not know him or the curse, who might learn to trust him through his peculiar request that she never look upon him, that was his only hope of love and family.”
And so he had been so very careful of her, needing not only her love but her unfailing trust. And she had betrayed him.
The wave of guilt threatened to overwhelm her.
A cheer went up as some of the einherjar finished a story or a brag, and Odin glanced sharply in their direction. Then he turned his attention again to Euthalia. “Go, and come again to me another day. I will tell you what I have learned.”
“I do not know when I will be able to escape Freyja’s eye again.”
One corner of his mouth curved upward, the nearest she had ever seen of a smile in him. “I think you will find you may escape your mistress’s eye whenever you find the desire. Not because she is careless of her toys—indeed, she is a jealous possessor of her baubles—but because I think you are clever.”
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