Troll and Trylleri

by Joyce Holt

  There was still no sign of Oddleif. Jorunn's eyes blurred. The world felt a darker place without his flame of cheer. In the hollow of her heart rang his words, that day they parted. "I'll dance with you." No friend more true.

  What a horrid betrayal by fate, just as poor Oddleif was climbing out of the mire of poverty, to have stolen from him the very breath of life. Just as he seemed to be leaping, tall and lithe, into the role of the hero promised by the Norns to watch over Svana.

  She overheard Knut and Utlagi talking about the marriage arrangements. All they needed was the presence of six witnesses at a public gathering. No bride-price paid by Utlagi. No dowry paid by Knut, who would simply hand over his daughter as repayment of a debt.

  Jorunn moaned in despair. Her sweet young sister, traded like a heifer. She had to hurry her pace, must get to Svana's side before the gathering for Winternights.

  She spied on Lingormr, lying beside the central hearth in the mead-hall at Dondstad, tended by Rimhildr's women. To Jorunn's mind leaped the memory of the troll-mauled man from Moen. How little hope they had who suffered such wounds. Would Gyda's uncle die under the care of that grizzled old she-wolf?

  Rimhildr, the source of all Jorunn's troubles, and her mother's.

  On a whim, Jorunn tried again, telling the key, "The brooch stolen from my mother's keeping." She blinked in surprise at a flash of silver, seen all too briefly. The view through the key-bow went dark as soot. Then the shadow moved, a shadow fringed and ragged. The thief, the black-cloaked thief!

  Once again she glimpsed the tarnished sheen of silver, half-buried in a tangle of rags and straw. "Show me who hoards the stolen brooch," she hissed.

  The view widened, pulled back. Jorunn's throat clenched tight a moment, then let a laugh squeak through.

  The sooty black, ragged edge of a raven's wing flicked down and up. A raven, croaking a call into the evening light. A feathered, beady-eyed thief – notorious, long-lived scavenger of camp and cot. High in a spruce, in a ramshackle nest cushioned with rags, the raven had stashed a glittering, glorious treasure.

  Jorunn wished she could reach through the key bow, grab the wretch and wring its neck.

  * * *

  Jorunn woke the next morning to a dusting of snow on the ground. She rushed through firstfare and packing, urged her three mares to a trot, pushed them hard all that day.

  In late afternoon her saddlehorse went lame. Jorunn cried as she loosened straps, switched the saddle to one of the spare mounts, set the poor mare free. "Farewell, faithful one. Make your way to shelter. I'll come back for you, if I can, but—" Jorunn clenched her teeth. What would the next day or two bring? She couldn't, shouldn't promise a return.

  The key showed Utlagi again at Knut's hut, grabbing Svana, hauling her close for a kiss. He laughed at the fear in her face.

  Jorunn put the key away in horror and sped her pace until dusk darkened the path and forced a halt.

  * * *

  Midmorning the following day, Jorunn and her two remaining fjord horses staggered over the crest of a ridge. She was nearly as lathered with sweat as the mares, for she'd dismounted and trudged alongside to ease their burden climbing up that last rise.

  In the widening valley ahead, she caught sight of the slate-grey expanse of Kviteseid Water. At last! She clambered back into the saddle and urged a ragged trot high above the northeastern shore.

  From one vantage point she wondered at the speckles that appeared northward on the fjord. A swarm of lake serpents? she wondered. She'd had nisse and trolls, Norns and an Asgardian goat gamboling through the tale of her life. Why not a lake monster or two – or a dozen, like those?

  Whatever the creatures, they forged their way to the far bank, turning the lake's surface to a furry grey sheen from the ripples of their wakes. A spiral of smoke rose from a low headland there. Boats, she realized at last. A fleet of rowboats crossing to beach, øy, to beach at Freyr's Grove, the site of sacrifice.

  Dread filled her heart. The day of Winternights was upon her!

  By the time Jorunn came down to water's edge, there were no boats left on the northeastern shore. They'd all made the crossing. At a hut on the bank she found an old woman who nodded at her guess. The rites of Winternights would begin at noon.

  Jorunn whirled, aimed the silver key in the direction of home, and whispered Svana's name.

  Not there.

  She turned toward the lake, peered through the key bow at the base of the smoke tendril and tried again.

  There she was, her arm in the tight grip of their father, and Utlagi on her other side.

  "Where can I find a boat?" Jorunn cried to the old woman.

  "You won't. All over there."

  In a haze of panic, Jorunn stumbled to her mares which stood heads low, blowing misty breaths of exhaustion. "I'm sorry," she gabbled to them, her breath puffing into clouds on the chilly air. "So sorry." She stripped the saddle and pack bags, flung them to the ground along with her staff, gave the poor horses a quick rub down, all the while furiously thinking. She must get to the far side of the lake. Before noon. But the sun already rode high beyond the surly cloud cover, and her horses had come to the end of their strength.

  The lake narrowed just upstream, where the peninsula of Kviteseid jutted out from the ridges beyond. Could she race around the long inlet and out onto the promontory? And then swim the narrow channel to the far bank?

  Narrow? It looked ten times wider than Morgedal Tarn where she had splashed about on blazing hot days in late summer. This channel would be deep, rushing with water from one lake to another, and cold, so cold on an icy beginning-of-winter day. It would do Svana no good if she drowned herself.

  Jorunn sagged, leaning so heavily on her mare's neck the horse shifted feet and blew a cloud of protest. "Frigg, what should I do?" she cried in despair. Elbows on withers, she clutched her head in both hands. "I've done everything in my power, but it isn't enough! Skuld, Norn of all that's yet to be, help me! Thor, øy, Thor, send me Toothgnasher, I beg you!"

  "Uff da! Not you agai-ai-ain!" came a bleat.

  Jorunn leaped back to find Thor's large chariot goat butting his way between the horses, which neighed in fright and wheeled away.

  "I just sneaked my way into the orchard, ready to feast to heart's content, but nei, you have to go and call my na-a-ame."

  "One small favor," Jorunn squeaked. "I beg you! A short hop. Just a short one, that's all I ask."

  Toothgnasher snorted and stamped in a ring about her. "Do I look like a youngling kid? Do I look eager to hop?" He stomped, and the ground shook.

  "Over there." Jorunn pointed to the far shore. "I must reach my sister before they have a chance to call it done."

  The goat glared as it circled. "You want me to do – what?"

  "Carry me. If you'd be so kind."

  Toothgnasher swelled past pony-height. "Do I look like Sleipnir to you? Do I look like a stee-ee-eed?" The bleat sounded not comical in the least, more like the bellow of a bull. "I am a chariot-goat, you rude dimwit! I carry no one!"

  "I mean no offense," Jorunn began, but the goat's circling path widened and quickened, his feet pounding into such a blur it seemed he did indeed have eight legs like Odin's great horse Sleipnir. She stumbled, dizzy with trying to keep him in sight, and tripped over her own big clumsy feet.

  As she pulled herself upright again, Jorunn threw a despairing glance toward the headland across the fjord.

  And heard Toothgnasher's thundering footfalls change their pattern.

  Before she could whip around to see what that meant, something slammed into her backside, and she flew through the air.

  He butted me! she realized in shock, in that moment before hitting the ground in a tumble.

  Jorunn scrambled to her feet, then stared around in bewilderment. She stood a few paces up the shingle from two dozen beached lake-boats which still dripped from the crossing. Toothgnasher had butted her, in an eyeblink, clear across Kviteseid Water to the shore beside Freyr's
Grove.

  Jorunn cast Thor a joyful peal of thanks, and dashed off to find Svana.

  "Don't thank him!" a voice yammered on the wind. "He had nothing to do with it!"

  59 – Little Promise

  The ground on the headland swelled into a gentle rise. Bare-branched birches crowned the knoll. Trunks lifted pale limbs toward the heavy grey sky, and golden leaves crunched underfoot. A tangy taste to the air hinted at snow soon to fall.

  A multitude had gathered, seeking solace in this season of unease and turmoil. A white horse stood in a clearing in the midst of the birches, Jorunn saw as she wove in and out through the crowd. The doomed stallion still lived. The rites had not yet begun.

  Jorunn cut around to another angle. Folk on every hand muttered about the ill tidings from the coast, and the troubling changes one headstrong young king was wreaking across the land. She caught a glimpse of Roald and Hadd and their mother Rimhildr near the center of the gathering, as befitted their rank.

  Roald Rygg, patron of the cleverest smiths in all the mountains, wielded an old, tarnished, battered short-sword. Jorunn barely glanced at the ancient talisman, and paid no heed to the chant that opened the ceremony. She had spotted her father's greasy leather cap.

  Jorunn's heart leaped. She wormed her way closer, coming in from the side.

  There stood Svana, face as white as the first snowflake that landed on her shoulder. Her restless fingers worried at the edge of a thread-bare cloak.

  So tall she was, Jorunn marveled. A maiden nigh-grown! And yet so slight. So young. Little more than a child.

  Utlagi hulked nearby, shifting weight from foot to foot as if itching to be done with the saddling of a horse he meant to ride.

  Jorunn edged forward, waited until her father turned to mutter to Utlagi. She hissed then, and waved, then clapped hands over her mouth to signal silence.

  Svana's eyes grew round. Her mouth opened, then pinched shut, and one hand flew to her throat. Her gaze slipped sideways toward Knut, whose fingers gripped her shoulder.

  Jorunn pointed at Svana then at herself, then jabbed a thumb back and away. You and I, flee.

  Her sister gave the tiniest of nods. Another crystalline flake swirled through the yearning space between them.

  Jorunn held up a finger to say, Wait one moment, then melted back into the press of people. She came up behind her father, sized up which leg bore most of his weight, took a deep breath, then kicked hard the back of that knee.

  He collapsed with a yelp.

  Jorunn snatched Svana's wrist, dragged her into the crowd.

  Utlagi bellowed and came after them, shoving folk aside, plowing like a bull through a cluster of calves.

  The two young women crouched low and darted behind the ranks of observers. Jorunn had no plan in mind except to lose that pursuit. She whipped off her cloak, reversed it to lining-side-out, and wrapped it around Svana's shoulders in the simplest disguise – a change of attire.

  "You've come, you've come!" Svana sobbed in Jorunn's arms.

  "I promised." Jorunn's voice cracked with with joy, with fear. What should they do next? All her belongings lay on the far shore of Kviteseid Water.

  "So long – all alone – I despaired," Svana cried.

  "I was trapped in the Otherworld, in Svartalfheim, where time goes wrong." Jorunn peered around. They must make their way into the woods, unseen.

  "You, too? So has—"

  Jorunn shushed the questions spilling from her sister's lips and drew her further around the crowd. She couldn't hear Utlagi. Had they lost him?

  She faltered, then led the way into a knot of folk. Her father was coming around the other direction.

  Jorunn drew up her cloak's hood to shadow Svana's face and hissed, "Stand straight. Pose yourself easy and tall but do not look back." She stepped a pace aside. He'd be looking for two runaways slinking about together. "Øy Frigg, let the snow come!" she prayed. "Let it thicken! Let it veil our escape from merciless eyes!"

  After many pounding heartbeats, Jorunn risked a look around. Knut had passed them by. She heaved a great sigh of relief – then sucked a sharp breath.

  A bystander was frowning at her, frowning in recognition. The steward of Dondstad. Before Jorunn could even flinch, he grabbed her arm. "You!" he growled. "Come back for more pickings, have you, thief? The lady will have a word to say about that!"

  "I'm no thief. Let go!"

  He ignored her protests and hauled her away from the gathering, though she struggled like a goat on the way to a slaughter-house.

  Svana trailed along, darting fearful looks to all sides. She squealed in dismay and ducked behind the steward.

  Knut strode up, his dark and furious gaze tracking after Svana, then landing on Jorunn. He grunted in surprise and swerved for her. "Many thanks, my man," he growled as he reached for Jorunn. "The two vermin nearly got away."

  The steward blocked Knut's hand. "Not for you, lout. Stand back. This one is for Rimhildr's judgment."

  "Ungrateful sluts though they be, these are my daughters! Deliver them up. I'll punish them well, the both of them."

  The steward crooked a finger, and two burly men stepped to his aid, barring Knut from coming any closer.

  Utlagi pounded up, glanced over the scene, and tried to grab Svana. "My wife," he declared.

  "Not now nor ever," Jorunn cried out, still trying to wrench her arm free.

  "Him, too," the steward told his men. "The whole rat's nest has spewed upon our sacred ground," he growled as he hauled Jorunn further from the heart of the grove.

  Svana came along, panting with worry, blinking against swirls of snowflakes.

  The steward would answer none of their questions, just stood there stony-faced, his hand a grip of iron on Jorunn's arm.

  "Don't fret," Jorunn told her sister. "We'll think of something." Could she call on Toothgnasher again? How he'd raged at one plea already. Better not push her luck. Perilous to annoy the creatures of Asgard.

  She had no silver left with which to buy her freedom. Three winded horses, would they do?

  Roald's voice boomed out from the center of the grove. "For a good year and peace!"

  "For a good year and peace!" the crowd echoed back, although for the freedom-loving mountain folk the coming months showed little promise of either.

  The multitude milled. Flurries sifted the air. People headed back toward their boats on the strand.

  Utlagi paced about, waving his arms. "The assembly! It's breaking up. I need to state my business before the assembly! Hand over the pretty one, at least. She's to be my wife, done here and now!"

  The steward's men held him back. Utlagi turned his wrath on Knut, pushing, punching, calling him an oath-breaker.

  Rimhildr came hobbling along, led by a boy who must have been under the steward's orders. She looked gaunt, her hair all turned to white in the five years that had flown past. Knobby fingers curled around her walking staff. She squinted at Jorunn, and her face drew sharper, furrowed with age and fury. "Thief and daughter of a thief!" she croaked. "So you return, on this day of all days, spoiling our hopes for Freyr's favor. Shame and woe to you, destroyer of peace, profaning our sacred grounds!"

  There was no one for Jorunn's defense. No one and nothing to help – nothing but the memory of the most magnificent of women. She drew Gyda's character upon herself like a shawl and stood tall, chin high, gaze piercing like an arrow straight into Rimhildr's watery eyes.

  The woman lurched close, raking her slitted gaze down Jorunn's face to her neck branded with the blotchy birthmark. "You're the one, for sure! Skulking under my own roof, a thief like your cursed mother! You won't slip away this time."

  Jorunn called on Gyda's poise as she spoke back. "Just downhill from your byre stand three ancient ash trees—"

  "Be silent!" snapped Rimhildr.

  "Three ash trees with a spindly spruce in their midst," Jorunn went on, her voice thrumming with a power that surged from belly to throat. "Send a lad up the spruce to fin
d the raven's nest perched high in a fork. Have him pry apart the nest, and you'll have your brooch back. My mother was not a thief, nor am I."

  "You spin a wild story. Lies, all of it!"

  "Haughty keeper of keys," Jorunn called out, fixing Rimhildr with an iron-hard stare. "Kin to the wolverine! Snarling, raging, snatching. Snapping at hapless folk!"

  A storm of indrawn breaths rustled from folk nearby. Rimhildr's eyes went wide.

  Into the sudden hush, Jorunn pushed on with rhyme and half-rhyme, weaving kenning and alliteration into a net of words that rang on the air. "Sharp of tooth, sharp of tongue! Tyranny! Villainy! Venom and vile vengeance—"

  "Cast no spells on me, you witch!" Rimhildr reeled under the assault of king's verse, pressing a hand to her heart. "Remember where we are! You profane this sacred site!"

  Jorunn filled her voice with the ringing, regal tone Gyda always used when speaking from the high table. "I honor Freyr with truth, with full striving for peace, mending rifts of the past."

  "Send her off," Rimhildr told the steward, pushing away from her prey as vehemently as she had swooped in before. "She opens old wounds, the spiteful creature. Keep her from my sight!"

  Folk hurried away, casting wary glances at the young woman who wove words of power and trylleri. The steward's grip had lightened to a mere touch, with which he tried to turn Jorunn away from his mistress.

  Knut bullied his way close. "What's this? You'll not have her whipped? I'll do it for you."

  "The den's greatest danger," Jorunn cried. "Dire the bear-sire's coming! He who hearth-ward should be, harms his own flung-off young. Wither and wilt away, witless baleful ale-slave!"

  Knut backed off, shaking his head. Before she could spin the last two lines of verse and seal his doom, he roared, "A curse upon you useless thing, you wretched witch! Never a husband. Never a home. Wander the world forever cast out!"

  Jorunn staggered back as her father stomped away. His fury had spilled out in alliterative verse, through no intent of his own, and she felt the strike of his words.

  Svana caught her arm, steadied her. "Pay him no heed," she whispered. "You don't deserve his curse. It will return to bite him."