Troll and Trylleri

by Joyce Holt

  "Nei, surely she must be a Valkyrie, come from Asgard! Lovelier than, lovelier than—" His twelve-year-old tongue had not yet learned the phrases for praising a woman's beauty.

  "As regal as any Valkyrie. You have that right," Jorunn said with a wry twist to her mouth. "Kvien in the north is her home, so they say. Nine days' journey by ski and sleigh."

  A trek much shorter was what she had in mind. If Moen proved a haven, she'd need a full day's journey by snowshoe to go fetch Svana to safely.

  "Thor's goat, and Norns – and a Valkyrie!" Oddleif marveled, jiggling on his snowshoes. "The sagas spring to life at Dondstad!"

  "Will you be part of my saga, Oddleif?" Jorunn asked. Her voice cracked on her words. "Watch over Svana, I beg you, until I find a safe place for us."

  His eyes brightened. "Shall I do battle with the villain?"

  "Nei, nei! Don't draw his wrath. Just slip in and out like you always do. A friendly glance, a smile, that's all I'm asking, to keep her from despair."

  He grinned. "I'll play the nisse. Always helping, never seen."

  "Thousand thanks, Oddleif!" She squeezed his hand. "Come to the cookhouse. I'll beg you a bite before you leave."

  As they crossed the houseyard, Oddleif tore his glance away from Gyda to gawk at the size of the hall. "Does the Prince drink from a golden goblet?" he asked. "Does he sit a jewel-encrusted throne? Does he have a silver-tongued skald sitting at his feet?"

  Jorunn grimaced. "Nei. He has an adder-tongued daughter-in-law wielding the keys and shooting venomous glances like darts from her eyes." They passed the sledge from Moen, hidden by a small crowd of steading-folk. To think they had come so close to this same bloody fate. She shuddered at the racking memory. "The sagas spring to life indeed, all the gruesome parts. I want out of this tale."

  "What is this?" Groa asked in a growl when she caught sight of Oddleif in the doorway.

  "He brings me news of my sister in Morgedal," Jorunn said. "A morsel to hold him on his way back, I was wondering?"

  Groa pushed past, looked about the houseyard, ushered them out, shoving them toward the corner of the cookhouse. "Out of sight with you! How dare you presume to fetch all your filthy kith and kin at a time when we have guests of such high standing?"

  "Nei, he only brought tidings—"

  "No matter," said Oddleif with a grin, bouncing out of reach. "Don't need a morsel. I've feasted with my eyes, and I'm leaving no worse than I came. Farewell, Jorunn. Frigg keep you." He trudged away, circling the steading, staying out of sight of the fine folk in the houseyard.

  Jorunn watched him go, and heard behind her the smack of hands brushing off an odious task. She swallowed hard. Mend that snowshoe and leave at break of day. Let the fine folk feast and revel on Yule. No cinnamon could dull the sharp taste of scorn that wafted the air at Dondstad.

  9 – Loki Laughed

  At midday mealtime, all the kitchen drudges but Jorunn dawdled while in the hall setting out bowls and platters at trestle tables – staring, whispering to each other. The cooks themselves served at the dais, bowing deeper to the newest guests than to the rulers of their own steading.

  Jorunn had seen enough of the Golden Maid of Hordaland. She had no time to marvel at a radiant beauty, not when her own father was plotting such an ugly fate for her. Oddleif's warning blunted her hunger, honed the urge to be on her way. As soon as she had snatched a bite or two, she slipped out of the crowded hall and dug around in the snow-covered midden. She found an old belt and a length of frayed rope, and went to sit beside the cookhouse hearth, squinting in the wan flame-light as she lashed leather and hemp into the web of the damaged snowshoe.

  Sagas come to life at Dondstad, Oddleif had murmured. How she wished it could be so. If only Prince Dond patronized a master skald like those in legend, she might find protection. A highly skilled word-weaver could fend off any tyrant with the sword of his tongue, so said all the lore of the Nord Way. A scathing rebuke crafted in tightly woven verse carries such power as to make the fiercest warriors cower and flee.

  A skald's curse could scourge even the soul of her hollow-hearted, heavy-fisted father. Would tame him with fear, might even strike him senseless.

  But such were childish wishes. There was no skald. There was no master of the word sword, not for the low-born like her, mired in ash and cinders and drudgery.

  It took until dusk to finish the mending, what with tasks Groa meted out, pots to scrub and barley meal to grind. By now, bonfires blazed at either end of the steading, warding the night's gloom and the troll's prowling. Jorunn put her needle back in its whittled case, wrapped it well, and stashed it in her belt pouch – alongside the ingot.

  Would the silver buy her a pair of skis? A swifter escape than by snowshoes.

  Not here, though. The Dondstad-folk would surely think she'd stolen the ingot.

  Wouldn't folk think that, wherever she went? How could someone garbed in rags have lawful claim to such a treasure? Jorunn shook herself. Snowshoes would have to do.

  At end of the working day while helping tidy the cookhouse, she came across a bag stashed beside a barrel – the sack with the flatbread bits she'd given Inga. "Uff da," Jorunn murmured and shook her head. The maiden would be in trouble before long. She left the bag where it lay and went to join the huddle of housegirls, settling in shoulder to shoulder and layering their blankets for sleep.

  Someone flailed in the night, whomping Jorunn in the shoulder. "Au!" she yelped, and shoved at the boot or knee or whatever it was. Her hand found a hard, ridged pole that jerked out of reach. She flinched in alarm and came fully awake.

  Thor's chariot-goat glared down at her. "He la-a-aughed." The creature ground his jaw.

  Jorunn stared, wide-eyed. "Who? Loki?"

  "Who e-e-else?" Toothgnasher lowered his head as if to butt again. "He laughed and said there's more to skaldic arts than echo-words and churning. What haven't you told me, Sparrow Maid?"

  Jorunn cowered. "The Norns were mistaken to send you to me. Go beg them—"

  "Oh nei-ei-ei. You'll not weasel out of it. You vowed to help with three-ee-ee proverbs, and that's only one." He stepped on the skirts of her gown, pinning her in place, teeth grinding again. "Why didn't echo-words and churning sway the Trickster?"

  "Alliteration and kenning. A good start. Too simple, perhaps, for one so great as—" As Loki, she meant to say, but the goat broke in.

  "Are you calling me simple?" Toothgnasher narrowed his slit-pupiled eyes.

  She shrank back again. "Add some cadence to your kenning. The clatter of words, like hoof steps along a stony path." Jorunn spoke of beat and rhythm, and the repeating pattern of lines in a verse. "Like leaping from ledge to ledge, the same number of heavy thuds on each, amidst a scattering of lighter steps."

  "And this word-clatter will sway Loki where churning and echoes did not?" A blast from the goat's nostrils riffled the hair of all the sleepers.

  Jorunn cringed. "Word-clatter alone, t-too simple as well. Use all the poetic arts together."

  "If this doesn't work—" Toothgnasher loomed over her, and stomped the ground alarmingly close to her thigh. Sleepers nearby stirred at the tremor underfoot.

  "I never promised you any success!" Jorunn squeaked. "It's the Norns' mistake!" She caught herself, bit down on the next phrase ready to leap from her lips. It's not my fault!

  "Word-clatters, hah! I'll clatter you if this fails." He gave another great snort, wheeled, and vanished into shadows blacker than soot.

  Jorunn lay awake most of the night, chewing on those thoughts. Not my fault. The Norns' mistake. But when did the Fates ever err?

  At first light she padded her boots with straw, made mufflers of rags, snugged her shawl tight, and with snowshoes in hand headed for the door.

  Groa snagged her arm. "After Yule, we agreed," she barked. "You claim your mother was honest? Prove it by keeping your word."

  "There's danger for me in staying," Jorunn said. "My father—"

  "There's a gre
ater peril if you try to take leave before I give leave." The cook wrenched the snowshoes out of her grasp, then called to the wood hauler, "Auni, take these misshapen things to Lodmundr. Tell him to hold them for me."

  "I'm not a thrall!" Jorunn cried, straining to break free. "You can't hold me against my will!"

  "I'm not holding you." Groa let go after the boy darted out. "I'm holding your snowshoes. Go ahead and set off without them, if you will."

  "Now who's the thief!"

  The cook slapped Jorunn's cheek. "Leave, or get to work. Porridge by the barrel we'll need today." She stomped away.

  As Jorunn stood, chest heaving, staring after her in outrage, Yrsa hissed from the flatbread table. "She's like that every Yule. The feast of all feasts, and never enough hands to prepare it."

  Jorunn pressed a hand to her cheek. She'd had her share of bruises, at her father's hand. And a broken nose from one hard blow. But she'd left that all behind. Or so she'd thought.

  She hurried out to the houseyard. The boy had vanished. She had no magic key to spy him out.

  Jorunn stared at the vast snowfields flanking the mountainsides, feeling at the lump in her pouch. How she yearned for a pair of skis. She waited until the chill worked its way to her bones, but the boy did not reappear. She whirled, went back inside, set water to boiling. As she slaved, Jorunn worked up a scathing poem against the cook who had gone turn-about from well-doer to tyrant.

  Shortly after the pots and platters went to the hall for the Yule feast which would last all afternoon, Inga tottered through the cookhouse doorway, a palm print on her cheek. Jorunn looked up from the table she was scouring. Her own cheek burned in sympathy. "Ah. She found out."

  Inga narrowed her gaze and drew breath to make a retort, but instead had to scramble for her pot. She retreated to the far side of the cookhouse and hunkered in misery again.

  "The flatbread bag is right where you left it." Jorunn turned back to her work.

  "I felt so much better this morning," Inga said after some time. "I thought it was past."

  "Øy, to be that lucky."

  "I heard about you. Come pig-a-back with the household of Roald's third wife, did you? Sneaking onto the steading like a thief."

  Jorunn whirled. "Heard that – where? Who's talking about me?"

  "The gossip came halfway up the lower tables before your pucker-mouth friend cut it off."

  Jorunn groaned. She clenched fists, muttering the old proverb about gossips who never mind their meddlesome tongues. She needed to flee this place.

  But to get her snowshoes back, she had to toil till after Yule. She stomped to the hearth, swatted old coals aside with a fire iron, dredged a pail of cold ashes, and stormed off to the midden on one more chore out of many.

  In the houseyard young folk milled in dusk's half-light. Children shouted and laughed as a group of youths raised a pole in the center of the courtyard. The Yule sheaf.

  "The wheel, the wheel!" boys cried, now running to a gap between buildings.

  High on the hill overlooking Dondstad, torches bobbed, lighting new fires that marked a circle. A wheel nigh as tall as a man soon flickered with flames along its spokes and rim. Gleeful shouts filled the air as the fiery disk spun into motion, rolling down the hillside – a glorious symbol of the year's wheel now turning past the longest, darkest night of winter.

  For Jorunn and Svana, Yule had rarely brought anything more than an extra hug from her mother. Her father had scoffed when she and her sister filled their boots with hay to set outside their door overnight. "You truly think the Yule goat will visit our grimy hut?" He'd wasted half his horn of ale, dribbling it into their hay offerings, then growled them back into the cot.

  Now she stood shivering among the throng of fine folk whose only worry this Yule night was keeping the bonfires stoked and a watchful eye out for the trolls prowling the wilds. As she turned to trudge back to the cookhouse, a hand grabbed her elbow and drew her aside.

  "Here's the girl I spoke about," Groa told someone.

  Not Rimhildr! Panic gripped Jorunn as she whipped her head around, heart thudding.

  It was the woman who had fetched Inga earlier in the day, her garb a muted green with tablet-woven trim in brown and buff stripes along the edges. She had sandy brows and lashes that paled against her skin, and a dimple in her chin.

  Groa pushed Jorunn forward. "Not much to look at, but she's a hard worker, does as she's told if you keep a firm hand. She's a stray, none of ours, seeking position."

  "Perhaps she'll do," the woman said. "But her gown will not. Ashes and cinders, rags and tatters. Come along, girl. I'll get you a cleaner one."

  Jorunn made to protest, but the woman marched her along – to the hall.

  "Not much taller than me. You can wear one of my spare gowns. My name is Drifa. I serve Brynja. You'll tend to Gyda's needs for a day or two until we can find a more fitting maid for her. You're not with child, are you?"

  "Nei!"

  Drifa hauled Jorunn through the doorway and past a cluster of people standing near the first hearth. At the center of their circle lay the wounded man on a pallet, Jorunn saw as they edged past. She shuddered at a glimpse of reddened linens, at the coppery odor of blood.

  "Married?" Drifa asked. "Betrothed? Beset with suitors?"

  "Nei!"

  "Didn't think so," Drifa said. "They'll be pursuing the pretty ones. You must scrub your nails, file the rough edges. I'll not have you snagging Gyda's fine weaves."

  "I'm not suited for fine weaves nor fine folk. I'm not at all what you're looking for. It was a mistake for me to come to Dondstad." Jorunn eyed the dais and upper tables as they drew closer, balking like a willful pony, fighting to break the lifelong pattern of instant obedience. "I can't do as you ask. I must be on my way." She worked her arm free of Drifa's grasp and spun to flee.

  Lady Rimhildr was straightening from the injured man's bed, speaking to her sons, giving orders to a youth, blocking the path to freedom.

  Jorunn sucked breath through her teeth and backed up a step, into Drifa's reach again.

  "Nonsense. Nothing to fear. Just do what I do and no one will give you a second look. Come now."

  Jorunn let herself be drawn along to a chamber at the far end of the hall. Drifa hummed as she stripped off Jorunn's worn gown and dressed her again with a linen shift, a tan gown of heavy wool weave, and a pale green yoke-apron fastened at the shoulders with copper pins.

  The woman regarded Jorunn and let her thoughts ramble aloud. "Hangs short, shows too much of those saggy sacks you wear for boots. Are your feet really that large? We should ask the stablemen if anyone has a spare pair. Sit, here, this basin, do your nails. I'll rebraid your hair. Hush, hush, no need to tremble. Gyda doesn't often lose her temper like that, and Inga had it coming, the foolish girl. Forever shirking and sassing and sulking, and now—" Drifa clucked her tongue. "Taking on such airs. Thought serving a king's daughter made her a person of importance."

  "Gyda, a king's daughter?" Jorunn moaned. "I'm not fit for a king's household! I'm just a cotter!"

  "All the better. You'll not be giving her any sass, now will you? Stand up, let me see. Øy, unfortunate. I have no spare cap to lend you to cover that dull hair. Ah, a kerchief, this will do. Ja, much better. Now we'll wait for Gyda to return, present you, then you just do as she bids."

  Numbly Jorunn trailed after Drifa into the hall. She ducked her head so the folds of the bleached linen kerchief blocked her face as they passed Lady Rimhildr.

  "Gyda and Brynja went off to watch the children set out the nisse's Yule porridge," Drifa said. "When our maidens return, we'll take their coats and cloaks, they'll come sit, we'll remove their boots. See? Slippers already packed with heated rocks from the fireside. Keep your hands warm, by the way. Icy fingers on Gyda's fair ankle may earn you a kick."

  Kick me right out the door, Jorunn thought, glancing at Rimhildr. Out to the yard, fetch shawl from the cookhouse, find my snowshoes, tromp over the ridge and far from this
cursed place.

  Uff da! Then Drifa could lay charge against me for stealing her gown. She fingered the lump in her belt pouch and wondered if it would buy her a set of garments and a pair of skis both.

  Several children burst in through the door, bringing their own snowstorm as they shook themselves and shed their coats. Brynja came next, merry smile flashing and cheeks pink with cold, followed by Gyda, not a hair out of place. Drifa fell in close to Brynja's elbow, and shot a meaningful glance.

  Jorunn stepped up to match stride with Gyda, gulping to walk so close in her shadow.

  "There's two of you today, Drifa," Brynja said with a laugh. "Isn't that your gown?"

  "She had nothing of her own fitting to wear for the hall," the woman answered. "Mistress Gyda, this is Jorunn. She will take Inga's place for a day or so."

  Those bellflower-blue eyes, now sharp as icicles, turned on Jorunn, studied her face a moment then glanced over the rest of her.

  Jorunn tucked the sorriest boot behind the other and dared a glance up through her lashes. What flawless, creamy skin Gyda had, and every feature in perfect balance, from the curve of cheekbone to the arch of her sculpted brows to the fine line of her nose and its delicate nostrils.

  "Did you check for lice?" Gyda asked, leaning forward to take a sniff. Two keys and other small oddments dangled by chains from her brooches, clinking with her movements.

  "I found no nits," Drifa said.

  "She'll do for now." Gyda shoved cloak and coat into Jorunn's arms. "The young men won't be chasing this one about."

  Jorunn's cheeks burned at the truthfulness of Gyda's sharp words. A sparrow of a girl, the Norns had called her. Dull and brown she was, in the shadow of this king's daughter who strutted in glorious plumage like a crested lapwing whose feathers shimmered iridescent in the sunlight.

  Watching every move of Drifa's, Jorunn shook the garments well and hung them on wall pegs. She hurried to the hearth to fetch warm slippers and fit them to dainty feet. The rest of the evening she stood silently by, or darted about on errands at the young woman's whim, staying silent, keeping her head down whenever Rimhildr joined them.