Enter Yours Truly, with sympathy and the hint that Odin was getting his sexual kicks from spying on women throughout the Nine Worlds.
‘You can see everything from that throne,’ I told him, over a jar of mead. ‘Women undressing, bathing, the works. No wonder Odin spends so much time there. It’s like an old man’s wet dream.’
‘Really?’ said Frey. ‘Despicable. Women undressing – bathing, you say? Shocking. Honestly, I’m shocked.’
‘Me too,’ I said and grinned.
We finished the mead in silence.
I found Frey a few days later, sitting in one of the gardens, listening to Bragi playing his lute and looking glummer than ever.
‘What’s wrong?’ I said.
‘Oh, everything.’
Well, there’s only one thing that can make a man want to listen to lute music. Turns out he’d sneaked into Odin’s high seat, and seen the girl of his dreams there. He’d spied on her, watched her undress, and now he was desperately in love.
Whatever. Love is boring. People in love are even more so, and I had to pretend to listen while Frey ranted on about his girl; her beauty, which was like radiant stars, her laughter, which was like nightingales, and all kinds of other quite frankly nauseating details, until he got to the bit where he was going to die if he didn’t get to meet her in person.
I tried to keep a straight face. ‘Well, why don’t you go out and get her, then?’
‘It isn’t as easy as that,’ said Frey. ‘If I tell Odin, he’s sure to ask how I found out about her in the first place. And there’s another thing . . .’
‘Really?’ I said.
‘She’s the daughter of one of the Rock Folk. A relative of—’
‘Let me guess. The builder who gave us our battlements. Oh, dear.’ I feigned sympathy. ‘His blessing’s out of the window, then.’
‘I’ve got to have her,’ said Frey. ‘I’ll die if I can’t have her.’
Well, that was a bit of hyperbole. No one dies of sexual frustration. Still, he looked pretty miserable, which made me increasingly cheerful.
‘I’ll see what I can do, shall I?’ I said, and went off to do some matchmaking.
First I went to the father. Gymir was his name, and he was as hairy and unpleasant a man as ever sired a daughter. The daughter was called Gerda, and I guess she took after her mother because she was fragrant and beautiful and smooth in all the right places.
I went in disguise, with a fake beard. I introduced myself as Skirnir, Frey’s servant, and informed the uncouth Gymir that Frey was desperately in love. Predictably, the father told me to perform an impossible sexual act but, on reflection, understood that he was more likely to benefit if he considered the offer.
Frey was the perfect mark, I said: ready to give up anything for the sake of gratification. I pointed out to Gymir that this was his chance to capitalize. If he refused, then he and I knew that Frey would take Gerda anyway, in which case her father would lose, both the girl, and any chance of recompense.
‘This way,’ I said, ‘you name your price. Go on. Ask for anything.’
Some people have no vision. When I say ‘ask for anything’, I expect to hear something better than a pigskin filled with gold, some sheep or a lifetime’s supply of dung. Still, the Rock Folk weren’t what you’d call the most sophisticated of people, and I sensed I might have to guide him.
I started by telling him something about Frey, the chief of the Vanir. I stressed his good looks, his flashy armour, his wealth of gold and treasures. I spoke of the ship, Skidbladnir, that folds up into a compass, and of the golden boar Gullin-Bursti, and of the runesword made for him in the early days of the war between Aesir and Vanir. Most of all, I described that sword, chased in silver and gold and fizzing with glam from point to hilt; that runesword, symbol of his might, his manhood, his authority . . .
‘Name your price. Any price,’ I said to Gerda’s father. ‘Don’t be afraid to speak up for yourself. A daughter is worth more than gold. More than cattle. More than rubies.’
Gymir scowled. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘My price for Gerda is Frey’s runesword. That is, if she wants him. If not . . .’ He shrugged. ‘I’m warning you. My daughter’s unusually headstrong.’
I hid my smile behind my hand. ‘Sir, you drive a hard bargain,’ I said. ‘Still, Frey did say he’d pay anything.’
Now to persuade the daughter, I thought. It shouldn’t be too difficult. A little flattery and charm; some baubles; a little poetry . . .
I found the girl in her father’s hall. A blonde and haughty piece of work – just Frey’s type, in fact. Blue eyes, creamy skin, legs that just went on and on. And that look that men like Frey seem to find irresistible; a look that says, On your knees, scum, because you know I’m worth it.
Well, I gave her the works. I wooed her. Lutes, flowers, perfume, the lot. But Gerda was impervious. Nothing seemed to entice her. Not gold, nor presents, nor flattery, not even the golden apples of youth. The woman was incorruptible. Seems she’d caught sight of Frey once and he just really wasn’t her type.
Well, I sympathized with that. But I’d told Frey I’d win the girl, and besides, I had my plan to consider. And so I went back home to Frey, to tell him the girl was practically his, barring a little paperwork.
‘Paperwork?’ repeated Frey. He was learning to play the lute, and doing it rather badly.
‘Well, formalities,’ I said. ‘The man has to check your credentials before he entrusts his daughter to you. Plus, his asking price was unreasonably high.’
‘Oh, pay him and be done with it!’ said Frey. ‘I’m going crazy here.’
I shrugged. ‘All right. It’s your funeral. But when Odin finds out about all this, as you know he will, I want you to remember that giving up your runesword to your prospective father-inlaw was entirely your idea, and that I opposed it.’
‘Whatever,’ said Frey. ‘It’s my sword. Odin has nothing to do with this.’
See what I mean? Love makes us weak. That runesword was beyond price. A triumph of runes and glamours, it rivalled Odin’s spear in strength and even Thor’s hammer in accuracy. It was a true indication of how badly Love had got him that Frey hardly even glanced at me when I told him Gymir wanted it.
‘Just as long as no one blames me,’ I said. ‘You know what people are like.’
Frey waved an impatient hand. ‘What am I, a child?’ he said. ‘I make my own decisions. Now go and take the sword with you, and don’t come back without Gerda.’
Well, what else was I to do? The man had spoken. The promise was made. No one could doubt I’d done my best to talk Frey out of this impulsive decision, as disastrous to the rest of the gods as it would prove to Frey himself. That sword was life insurance to them, and when the End of the Worlds came around, as I never doubted it would, Frey and the others would soon find out that there’s only so much you can do with a lute. Still, that was for later. For now, all I had to do was simply deliver the sword and win Frey’s girl.
Win her? That implies fair play. I, of course, was planning to cheat. There’s more than one way of skinning a cat, strangling a snake or winning a girl, and even Gerda, obstinate as she was, would be no match for my persuasive tongue.
Having failed to win her with flattery, poetry or jewellery, I moved onto some basic threats; dire warnings of worse to come; painted a bleak but convincing picture of Gerda, alone and abandoned by all, shunned for her rejection of Frey, growing old and cursing herself for missing the opportunity. I reminded her that Death was long and that worms would dance in her cooling flesh, while all her peers would laugh at her for going to the grave a virgin.
Then I spoke of the prejudice that had blinded her to Frey’s charm. I spoke of tribes divided by war; of the romance of love at first sight; of the fact that of all the girls in all the caves in all the mountains of the Middle Worlds, it was she who had caught his eye. Surely that meant something to her?
When it became clear that it didn’t, I followed up with
a desperate and colourful depiction of Frey’s magnificent hall in Asgard, with its formal gardens, its topiary, its ballroom and its ornamental fountains.
‘Really?’ said Gerda. ‘A topiary?’
Funny how even the most determined of women can be swayed by the prospect of nicely clipped hedges.
‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘Plus a rose garden, a lawn, a conservatory, some garden statues, a pond and a whole area devoted to decking and container plants. You’ll be mistress of the finest house in all of the Nine Worlds, and your friends will be green with envy.’
And so she and Frey were married, and Gymir got the rune-sword. Not such a wise investment for Frey, who realized when love’s pink haze died down that he’d just delivered his most treasured weapon into the hands of the Rock Folk, but by then there was nothing to be done. ‘Marry in haste and repent at leisure’, as the old wives of Inland say, and, let’s face it, they should know. It’s an open secret that old wives really run everything.
Odin was furious, of course. But even he could hardly blame me for what had happened. He took to spending even more time alone, with only his ravens and Mimir’s Head for company. Sometimes I heard him talking in a low and urgent voice – though whether it was to the ravens, to himself or to the Head, I could only speculate. As for myself, I’d managed to carry out another covert act of sabotage, and I was feeling pleased with myself – at least until the hammer fell, taking me wholly by surprise . . .
LESSON 5
Marriage
They don’t call it ‘wedlock’ for nothing.
Lokabrenna
YES, THE HAMMER. I should have known that Odin would find a means of, if not actually punishing me for my part in Frey’s misadventure, then at least of restraining me for a while. This time, the blow was delivered by Frigg, Odin’s wife, the Enchantress, who, in the wake of Frey and Gerda’s nuptials, now turned her matchmaking eye on me.
‘Loki’s just a little wild,’ she said. ‘He needs a good woman.’
I didn’t see the danger at first, or expect the disastrous consequences. It was only when the General announced that he was giving me a wife that I realized how neatly I’d been caught, and how hard it would be henceforth for me to get away with anything without attracting the vigilance of my new and eager spouse . . .
It was Sigyn, of course. Who else? She’d had her eye on me from the start. What was more, she’d confided in Frigg, who had confided in Odin. The result was one of those female conspiracies that men are powerless to resist, and I found myself under attack from both sides, and helpless.
Of course I protested. But the damage was done. And Odin made it abundantly clear that his generous gift was both non-returnable and non-negotiable.
Frigg was delighted. As far as she was concerned, Wildfire had been tamed by love. Sigyn, too, was delighted, and prepared for a life of domestic bliss. Freyja was rather less happy – she’d just lost her favourite handmaid, the plain one she liked to keep around because she made Freyja look prettier. As for Yours Truly, he was in shock, stunned at the speed of his downfall, trying to work out just how he’d been caught, and how he might manage his escape.
For a start, until that point I’d had no idea how much women talked to each other. Nothing was private any more: my personal habits, opinions, tastes and every intimate detail that a loving wife could discover and share with her various cronies.
Was I ungrateful? Perhaps I was. But Frigg, who was wise enough in other ways, had totally failed to understand my nature or, indeed, my needs. A month of living with Sigyn in her little place in Asgard, all chintz and roses round the door, of eating Sigyn’s home-made cakes, of listening to Sigyn’s views on Life, of sleeping with Sigyn (lights out, of course, and veiling her charms beneath an assortment of almost impenetrable flannel nightdresses), was enough to confirm my initial belief that Frigg was wrong and that what I really needed was the love of a very bad woman.
And so I went in search of one, telling my wife that I needed space; that it wasn’t her fault, it was me; that I just needed to find myself; and, in my bird Aspect, I ventured out as far as the forest of Ironwood, that stretches over a hundred miles between the plain of Ida right up to the shores of the One Sea.
Ironwood was a good place to hide. Dark as night, and teeming with predators and demons. Most of them had glam of some kind, stolen scraps of Chaos, bartered from other realms or brought into the Worlds through Dream. The river Gunnthrà ran through it; it was swarming with snakes and ephemera. It was a dangerous place, but it was as close as I was ever likely to get to Chaos again, and I made for its shelter with relief.
My quest was not a romantic one. While I was among the Rock Folk, I’d heard a rumour that Gullveig-Heid, the renegade Sorceress of the Vanir, had established a stronghold in Ironwood in the hope of attacking Asgard. I thought that if I could contact her, then maybe we could join forces – but Ironwood was a vast place, hissing with glam and signatures, and Gullveig – if she was there at all – had shielded herself with so many runes that finding her trail was impossible.
But I did come across someone else. Angrboda, the Witch of Ironwood. Mad, bad and dangerous, she lived in the heart of the forest, half in and half out of Chaos. Like me, she had left the primal Fire to explore the emerging Worlds; like me, she enjoyed new sensations; and, like all demons, she was alluring. Dark-skinned, long-haired, a ring on every finger and toe, eyes like red-hot embers and every muscle, every nerve charged with a sexual energy that I hadn’t known I craved until the craving was satisfied.
We spent a number of nights together, both in our human form as well as in various animal Aspects, cavorting through Ironwood, hunting, destroying and generally raising Chaos, until exhaustion got the better of me. Angie’s tastes ran to violence, and every inch of me was sore. Not that I was complaining but I needed time to recover.
And so I returned to Sigyn’s arms, her cooking, her love of Bragi’s lute-playing, her attentions and her curious affinity with wildlife of all sorts – Sigyn’s most annoying trait, which meant that she was often surrounded by little woodland creatures, birds, raccoons, squirrels and so on – teeming and twittering constantly.
‘Now, sweetie, be nice to my little friends,’ she would say as I swiped at a fieldmouse climbing up the curtains. ‘You never know, one day you might need that little mousie.’
Yes, before you condemn my faithlessness, that’s what Sigyn was like, folks. And all in all, with Angie’s help, I think I managed to cope pretty well. I lived in Asgard most of the time, and when domesticity became too much for me, I fled to my mistress in Ironwood. The concept of monogamy was not unknown to me, of course, but, like pain, lutes and poetry, I just didn’t see the point.
Sigyn bore with my faithlessness rather well, on the whole, I thought. Of course she liked to complain to her friends about my beastly appetites, but I don’t think she was all that surprised. In Sigyn’s world, men often stray, but always return to their faithful wives, who show their forgiveness by baking cakes, tending wounds and placing hands on fevered brows. Vengeance comes later, in the form of bedtime headaches, snide remarks and that business with the snake – yes, I’ll be getting to that soon enough, so don’t think I got away scot-free. Odin knew what he was doing, all right, when he handed me over to her. But at the time, I was pleased with myself. I thought I’d managed to reconcile my two opposing natures. I tolerated Sigyn whilst enjoying Angrboda and managed to persuade myself that frolicking with her in Ironwood constituted some kind of secret rebellion against the Old Man.
I know; I lost focus. Perhaps that’s what Odin intended. Perhaps he was trying to stop me from doing any more mischief by keeping me in a perpetual state of sexual exhaustion.
But, idyllic as it was at first between Angrboda and myself, it was inevitable that, in time, our . . . activities . . . would bear fruit. Demons often tend to . . . let’s say exotic progeny, and in Angie’s case, this was especially true. Over our twelve-month liaison, she presented me with th
ree offspring: a cute little were-wolf called Fenris, an undead half-corpse-daughter called Hel, and Jormungand, an enormous snake, which proved to be the final straw between me and Angrboda.
So shoot me. I can’t stand snakes. But she liked to push the boundaries. We argued – well, she argued. She said that I needed to take responsibility for my actions; accused me of fearing commitment; said she felt violated and used and finally screamed at me to go back to my wife, whom I obviously was never going to leave, and with whom she wished me a long and happy future. And so I went back to Asgard for good, feeling more or less relieved, and leaving Odin to figure out what to do with Fenny, Hel and Jormungand.
Well, the snake was the easiest. By the time we reached a decision he’d grown so large that only the One Sea could safely hope to contain him. So that was where we threw him, to lounge in the ocean mud and feed on fish for the rest of his days, and he became the World Serpent, spanning the Middle Worlds with his girth, tail in his mouth, biding his time till Ragnarók.
As for Hel, by the time she was grown, everyone wanted rid of her. It wasn’t that she was evil, as such, she just wasn’t a social animal. She could clear a room in two minutes; her conversation was minimal; everywhere she went, there was gloom; parties fell flat as storm-blown tents.
Even so, Odin tolerated her for my sake, at least until she was in her teens, when, as well as developing the most shocking case of adolescent acne, she also developed an equally bad case of puppy-love towards Asgard’s favourite Golden Boy, aka Balder the Beautiful. It eventually got so embarrassing that at last Odin made a decision and gave Hel her own realm, the Land of the Dead, on the near bank of the River Dream, and waved her merrily on her way.
The Gospel of Loki Page 11
