by Joan Lennon
“I…” he said in a strangled sort of voice. “I… um…” And suddenly he was gone, racing for the latrines.
“Granny!” I hissed.
“Someone must have shared their cup with him,” she whispered back defensively. “What, do you think I’d give it to him deliberately?”
There was a pause as the crowd exchanged puzzled glances.
“Um… there seems to be a lot of that going around,” said my father wearily.
“I’m happy to wrestle someone else, sir,” said Manni politely.
“That’s very decent of you,” said my father. “But apparently there have been a number of disqualifications and we, um, we appear to have run out of competitors.”
The Widow had already stepped forward to congratulate her contestant on being the winner by default, when…
“Not quite!” shrilled Granny.
“What?” said my father. He looked pained, as if he were getting a headache.
“You’re not quite out of contestants,” said Granny.
I looked about, relieved. Who had shown up? Was it Brand? Or Haki? Not either of the twins, I hoped. They were both useless at wrestling. Who was she talking about?
“Just give me a moment to strip him down, and he’s all yours,” called Granny. And then, for no reason that I could see, she grabbed me by the sleeve and dragged me away in the direction of the Hall.
“Wha… what?!”
“It’s you or nobody,” she grunted. “Now get your shirt off.”
I could not believe what was happening. I tried to pull away.
“What about Haki? Or the twins? Or – ”
“Haven’t you been paying attention? Haki’s sprained his wrist, Brand’s wrenched his shoulder, and the twins have been disqualified for trying to nobble some of the Hildefjord wrestlers before the event.” Granny snorted. “I wouldn’t mind them having a go, if they’d been any good at it. But they weren’t. So, undress yourself now – or I’ll do it for you!” she said, as we arrived in the Hall.
Reluctantly, I started to pull my shirt over my head, thinking all the while, Manni is going to massacre me. My entire body’s about as thick as one of his arms. Why does my granny hate me all of a sudden? Then, as I emerged,it got worse. She had a pot of something horrible and stinky in her hands, and a strange gleam in her eyes.
“What’s that smell? Hey!” I squealed.
“Stop wriggling,” my granny scolded, as she rubbed great globs of the foul-smelling stuff onto me. “It’s my best quality goose-fat ache ointment.”
“But I’m not sore!” I cried, trying to squirm out of her bony grip.
“You will be,” she muttered, not letting go at all. “You will be.”
And then, after checking that I was entirely basted in ointment, she herded me outside, and back to the wrestling ring.
Have I mentioned I’m not exactly fully-grown yet? That might not give you a completely clear picture. Think shoulders of a ferret, arms of a plucked chicken and the overall physique of a rat in a lean year, and you’ll understand that stripping me down to my shorts is not the way to see me at my best. But, there I was in the wrestling ring, being seen by everyone I have ever known and quite a few strangers besides.
It was a nightmare in the daytime.
Basically, I could barely move for embarrassment, and it could have all ended right then and there, if it hadn’t been for my granny’s stick, which has quite a sharp pointy end, and which she unexpectedly poked my bottom with.
I lunged forward with a sort of stifled war cry. Manni assumed I was attacking and grabbed at me – and I scooted straight out of his hands and across to the other side of the ring.
“What?” both Manni and I exclaimed.
There was a moment of stunned silence in the crowd, and then…
“Bet he can’t do that twice!” crowed someone.
“I’ll take that bet!” yelled someone else – and then he gave me a shove, sending me right back at Manni with a flying leap.
And it happened again. As I slithered wildly out of his grip all I could see was the astonished look on his face. He’d never had an opponent like me before!
The crowd called out for more. Everyone was laughing – but they were cheering too. Before anybody else could ‘help’, I dove back into the fray and slid wildly across Manni’s chest as he tried to grab hold of me and completely failed. Granny’s goose-fat ointment had turned me into something utterly ungrippable.
“It’s like watching a big old bear trying to catch a salmon!” I heard someone say above the laughter and applause.
I’m an uncatchable fish! I was starting to get excited. Could there possibly be some way of turning this whole embarrassing episode into something worthy of a real champion?
I turned for another go, and then I noticed that Manni had started to wheeze weirdly. He began to stagger. Was this my chance? I flung myself at him one more time, slid off at an angle, landed on my feet, and turned just in time to see him crash to the ground.
Abruptly, the crowd fell silent. Manni was shaking and twitching and making a strange noise. What had I done? Was he having a heart attack? I know the sagas talk about men makingtheir first kill when they’re only young, but… but… Manni was nice…
“Manni? Manni! Are you all right?” I rushed over to him, completely forgetting that this might well be a trick to get me within arm’s reach. But there was nothing here that seemed like a ruse. He was breathing in great gulps, and there were tears streaming from his eyes, and he was clutching his stomach.
“Oh, Manni – I’m so sorry – I–”
Then my father hurried into the ring and pushed me to one side. He knelt down and began to examine my fallen opponent for broken bones or internal injury. My heart was twisting in my chest like a hooked eel. The crowd was completely silent. Then my father slowly stood up. He had a peculiar expression on his face.
I grabbed his arm – I needed to know. “Tell me – is he going to be all right? Have I… killed him?” I felt really, really awful – andthen I realised that things weren’t quite the way they seemed.
Manni wasn’t dying.
He was laughing.
He was rolling around on the ground, not in pain, but because he was crying, wheezing, hooting with hilarity. I had rendered my opponent helpless by being funnier than anything he’d ever come across in his whole life.
At that moment, I almost wished he were dying.
My father just stood there, looking from me to the still-giggling Manni and back to me again.
He didn’t know what to do.
But the crowd did.
“The winner’s Little Salmon!” they cried.
“Slippery Fish! Slippery Fish!”
“Best laugh I’ve had all year!”
It was too much for any grease-covered champion to face.
I turned tail, and ran.
CHAPTER SIX
Surprisingly Uplifting
But not even embarrassment could keep me away from the final event of the Games.
The weightlifting.
The rules for Viking weightlifting are simple. There is a big boulder. There is a track. Each contestant picks up the big boulderand sees how far they can carry it along the track. Perfectly straightforward.
But in these Games, nothing was straightforward. First Wandering Nell, our eccentric escape-mad cow, came blundering over to see what all the commotion was about. She managed to leave several large steamy cowpats on the track while I was trying to get her to go away again, and guess who got to clean that up?
Then there were the very different smells of the feast drifting distractingly down from the Hall. Sometimes this is where you can start to lose the crowd. But today, with Blogfeld about and all theweird happenings, nobody was going to risk missing out on anything, even for first dibs on the roast meat.
So, as we gathered down by the stream I wasn’t surprised to see that there was an especially good crowd of spectators. However I couldn’t help n
oticing there was also a definite – and worrying – shortage of contestants.
“Where is everyone?” wondered my father anxiously. He was standing by the weightlifting boulder. All in a cluster beside him were the Widow, Harald Blogfeld and my granny. It was impossible to separate that lot! And my granny had another one of those pleased-with-herself looks all over her face.
Oh-oh, I thought.
What on earth was she up to this time?
“Where are they?” my father repeated, peering about. “I really don’t understand.”
Then my granny spoke up.
“Oh, I was supposed to tell you all – quite a number of the young men said to start without them,” she said in a clear, carrying voice. “They’ve all gone up the mountain for a while.”
My father wearily closed his eyes.
“Why?” he asked.
“Oh, because I’m almost certain I saw an enormous eagle,” my granny said innocently. “Circling over the Weirdly Crag. I told all the young men I met about it. I may have also mentioned how impressed we’d all be with the one who could catch such a bird to present to our honoured guest.” She leered up at Harald Blogfeld and I have a horrible feeling she may have winked. “I know you’d look ever so fine with an eagle on your fist,” she said sweetly.
She was right. Blogfeld would look amazing with a huge bird like that. Anyone would! For a moment I could see myself with such a mighty creature…
…its tearing talons clasped with an iron grip on the leather guard the champion wore on his great right forearm, its cruel beak ever ready to rip and rend, its glinting golden eye staring into his, searching for signs of fear or weakness, searching in vain…
And then common sense kicked in, and I had to admit that a bird like that would probably weigh as much as I do, and trying to attach one to my arm would immediately tip me over onto my face.
“Well then, I suppose we’ll have to call it a day,” my father was saying. “If there is no one from any of the settlements willing to come forward and compete?”
It was a depressing end to our Games. We’d worked so hard to make them the best, and what with the special mead and the boar’s bottom and the whole fiasco with me and the grease and then all the contestants disappearing on this wild-goose eagle chase, it had turned into a fizzle.
Then someone stepped up to the mark.
It was my granny.
“What are you doing now?” moaned my father.
“What does it look like? I’m entering the competition.”
“But… why?”
“Why, for the honour of Frondfell! Look, I see it this way. If there’s only one competitor, that competitor wins, am I right? And since I’m the only one here, that means I win. Frondfell, the host settlement, wins. I don’t see how anyone can argue with that.”
“But you… you haven’t even picked up the boulder!” protested my father, a truly desperate note in his voice.
“Is that all?” said my granny. “Well, I’m happy to give it a go. How hard can it be?”
With one voice, my father and I groaned. With one voice, the crowd cheered! My granny, of course, listened to the crowd. She waved and grinned and then, first carefully laying down her stick, she spat on her hands, grabbed the boulder – which was not far off being as big as she was – and heaved.
Nothing happened.
My granny shifted her grip a little and heaved again.
And again nothing happened.
The crowd was willing her on, but my father had already stepped forward to put an end to it when the Widow Brownhilde did something truly amazing.
Very calmly, without any fuss, she walked over to where my granny was struggling with the boulder. She looked at her for a moment, then bent forward, wrapped her arms around Granny and the boulder and, astonishingly, picked them both up. Without even a grunt or a groan she carried her burden right to the end of the track and then even further, on to theedge of the stream and then…
…she dropped them in!
Well, you have never heard language like that! My granny came to the surface spluttering and swearing and sopping wet. She was mad, all right. But, like a cat or a hen, old people can look a whole lot smaller and more fragile when you drench them, and I think the Widow must have got a shock when she saw just how tiny my granny looked, standing there up to her hips in the chilly water. Whatever the reason, Brownhilde leaned over and held out a hand.
“Here – I’ll help you,” she cried.
Big mistake, I thought, seeing the look on my granny’s face. Big, big mistake.
I was right.
My granny looked at the hand that was being stretched out to her, and she looked at the way the Widow was a bit off balance, and she grabbed that hand with her bony old fingers and pulled.
The splash Brownhilde made as she hit the stream was colossal. When she rose up out of the water again it was like watching a breaching whale. Fearing she might be feeling rather lethal, my father rushed forward to rescue my granny and Harald Blogfeld went to rescue the Widow, and somehow they both managed to fall into the stream as well. And then all the spectators got involved, trying to rescue them, and then each other, and by the time the feast bell was rung, there were more soaking wet guests than dry ones, and everybody had great big grins plastered all over their faces.
The Viking Games had ended not with a bang, but with a splash, and we all headed with a good will towards the Hall and the feast.
CHAPTER SEVEN
But Who Won?
By midnight, even the greediest of our guests was starting to slow down. The young men who’d spent the last part of the day hunting Granny’s imaginary eagle had returned. They were all full of tales about how close they’d come to trapping the bird and what hungry work it had been. They certainly did the Frondfell feast justice. (The ones who’d spent the same amount of time in the Frondfell latrines were a bit more careful.) My sisters were dragging themselves back and forth, continuing to serve the company with fixed smiles and gritted teeth. Why do visitors never seem to notice when it’s time to call it a day? I leaned back against the wall and imagined how popular I would be if I were a magician. A champion magician who specialised in Go Home spells. I would rent myself out to anyone hosting a feast… I would be much sought after… treated with huge respect…
I opened my eyes, half expecting our Hall to be emptied of guests. But, of course, even a dozen magic spells wouldn’t get anyone to budge until we’d heard the results of the day’s competition – who was to become Harald Blogfeld’s latest recruit?
But before we could find out the answer to that, we had to find out what had become of Harald Blogfeld. Nobody knew where he’d got to. And another thing – where was the Widow Brownhilde? She, too, seemed to be missing. It was very strange…
And then, the answer to our questions strolled in through the door.
Harald Blogfeld and the Widow Brownhilde, together!
There was a strange expression on the big man’s face, and the Widow looked like the cat who’s got at the cream. They were walking arm in arm.
At the sight of the Scourge of the Seas every man in the Hall scrambled upright and tried to look full of energy and totally untouched by the day’s efforts. But Harald Blogfeld didn’t appear to notice.
It was my father’s place to put the contestants out of their misery.
“So, honoured guest,” he said to Blogfeld. “You have seen our young men compete, and now the games are over. Can you tell us who has been chosen?”
This is it! I thought, and my mouth went dry. This is when he tells us who it’s going to be! Will it be Karl? What’s he waiting for? Why doesn’t he say? Get on with it!
“Hmm?” said Blogfeld.
My father looked a little surprised. “We want to know who you’ve chosen,” he said, a little louder this time.
“Chosen?” murmured Blogfeld. “Eh?” And forsome reason, that word made the Widow giggle.
We all looked at each other in bewild
erment. Where was Blogfeld’s storm-at-sea voice? Where were his flashing eyes and booming laugh?
“Oh! Oh yes, I’ve chosen,” he went on, with a very silly grin. “I’ve chosen… the finest woman in all the land.”
“What?” cried half the Hall.
“Who?” cried the other half.
“This dear lady and I are going to be married. As soon as possible. If not sooner.” And Blogfeld turned to the Widow and smiled in a really embarrassing way. She simpered back.
I turned to look at my father. He seemed to have forgotten it was his job as host of the Games to get the great man back on topic. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more relieved, ecstatic look on a person’s face before. Brownhilde wasn’t after him any more. He’d been saved!
But those who hadn’t just been reprieved from a ghastly fate had other things on their minds.
“But who have you chosen to take raiding with you?” cried one of the contestants. They were all crowding forward now.
“Tell us!” shouted another. “We have to know – who won the Games?”
Harald Blogfeld, Champion of the Waves, Scourge of the Seas, the Viking’s Viking, paused and looked around vaguely.
“Won?” he said dreamily. “Who won?”
“Yes! Who won the games? Who have you chosen to take raiding with you?”
“Raiding?” He actually sounded puzzled by the word. “Oh no, not this year. I’m not thinking of any raiding this season. In fact, I don’t expect I’ll be going raiding again. Ever. So I guess that means, um, you all won. Congratulations!”
There was a silence you could have cut with a blunt axe. It was wall-to-wall goggling eyes and dropped jaws. I know I must have looked just as gob-smacked as the rest of them. But Blogfeld and the Widow didn’t appear to notice. In fact, they didn’t seem to be aware of anything at all, except each other.
Yeurchhh!
As they wandered out into the night again, they passed quite close to where I was standing. Blogfeld was gazing at the Widow Brownhilde. There was a look on his face that for some reason made me think of puppies.
“I feel as if I’ve died and gone to Valhalla,” he murmured huskily. “You are my Valkyrie.”
