“A magic charm,” said Sven in a shocked voice.
“I’ve heard it before. I can’t think where,” said Olaf. “Is it likely to harm us?”
“I wouldn’t take a chance on it,” said Sven.
“Are you a bard?” Olaf asked Jack. For answerback sang the first verses of “Beowulf’s Saga”. It was one of his best pieces, full of adventure with a rousing melody. His voice was rather fine, he thought, even better than when he last sang for the Bard.
“Here! Take back your trash!” shouted Olaf, kicking the dagger away with a tinny sound. “Be off with you before I sharpen my axe on your skulls.”
The Picts carefully gathered up their goods. Olaf’s threat made no impression on them even though they were half his size. The giant hoisted Jack under his arm and strode off to the berserkers’ camp. The last Jack saw of the monk was his pale, unhappy face in the firelight.
Chapter Thirteen
OLAF EXPLAINS THE AFTERLIFE
They sailed the next day. The wind was strong, and the great sails filled and drove them along at a breathtaking pace. Olaf’s ship was by far the swiftest in a good breeze and left the others in the haze to the south. The land broke up into inlets and wide channels to their left, and the sea turned milky green. The air smelled fresh and wild. Gulls, terns, and puffins scattered before them, and even a few crows wheeled from the rocky islands as they passed.
“Odin’s birds,” said Olaf, pointing.
Jack nodded. The Bard had told him about that. The one-eyed god of the Northmen rarely left his fortress in the far north. Instead, his black-feathered servants flew far and wide to bring him news of war and bloodshed and other things that pleased their cruel master.
A gray bulge appeared in the water to their right. Eric Pretty-Face, a hulking monster with a scar running diagonally across his face, shouted, “Whale ho!”
“Turn! Turn!” roared Olaf. The warriors scrambled for the oars, which they had not been using because of the fine wind. They gave chase, and the gray bulge fled before them until it dived beneath the surface of the water. “We gave it good sport,” said Olaf, returning to his seat by Jack. “If we weren’t so laden, I’d hunt it down.”
“That was a whale?” said Jack. He’d heard of the creature. He’d never imagined how enormous it would be close-up.
“Quite right, young skald,” replied Olaf, using the Northman word for bard. “The trolls ride them for their horses. Fine sea ivory they contain, and lamp oil to light a village through the winter.” Ever since discovering Jack’s talent, Olaf had spent much time explaining things to the boy. He also taught him vocabulary and poetry. The giant had a wide repertoire of verses, though his voice was anything but sweet. “I want you to have the words when it comes time to sing my praises,” he explained.
Jack wasn’t sure he liked the attention, but it was better than being carried off by Picts.
He and Lucy were the only slaves left. The rest of the sad-eyed captives had been replaced by furs, pottery, metal tools, medicines, and bags of grain. This was in addition to the booty taken earlier. All the berserkers were going home rich and happy. All, that is, except Thorgil. She slumped hopelessly at her post in the stern of the ship. Sometimes she roused herself enough to pull Lucy’s hair, but most of the time Jack was able to protect his little sister. Olaf was inclined to listen to his complaints now that he knew Jack was a bard.
The other berserkers, too, were careful around him, as though Jack could unleash lightning on their sorry hides. He would have loved to fry them with a thunderbolt, but he didn’t know how. I wish the Bard had taught me how to drive people crazy, Jack mused as Olaf droned on about the uses of sea ivory. I’d send them all over the side for the whales to gobble up.
“I want bread and honey,” said Lucy, who was curled up by Jack’s knee. She had learned the berserkers’ language even faster than he and used it to order them around. She sounded utterly confident, like a real princess. Only Jack knew the fragile shell that protected her sanity. Only he saw the signs that indicated her despair. Lucy’s face had become pinched and somehow older. Her voice had a shrillness that bordered on hysteria. “I want bread and honey now,” said Lucy.
Olaf laughed and untied the lid of a food basket. “And what will you do if I don’t fetch it?” he teased.
“I’ll tell my brother to make your beard fall off.”
“Be quiet,” Jack said in a low voice. He was terrified someone would ask him to work magic.
“Oho! I’m shaking in my boots,” said Olaf, handing her the desired treat.
“You’d better,” the little girl said. She licked the honey off and started to work on the rock-hard bread.
“Olaf,” Jack said hesitantly.
“You’re hungry too? You kids are worse than a pack of wolves.”
“I’m not hungry.” Jack wasn’t sure how to approach Olaf on this subject. Much of the time the man appeared friendly, but he was capable of great rages. “I was thinking…. You don’t need Lucy. I mean, she’s awfully little, and you’re going to get twice as much work out of me. Singing your praises and so on. Couldn’t you—couldn’t you let her go? I mean, drop her off at a monastery so she’d be taken care of.” Jack talked rapidly, for he could see Olaf's face turning red. “I’d pay you back somehow. I don’t know how, but I’d do it. Please—”
The blow knocked him sideways into the bilge. Jack’s ears rang, but he knew Olaf had pulled his punch at the last minute. He’d just got another kitten scratch. A full-grown cat mauling would have sent him into the next world.
“Stop it! Stop it!” shrilled Lucy. “I forbid you to hurt my brother! You’re—you’re a rotten kindaskitur!” The curse took Olaf completely by surprise. He bellowed with laughter and swung the little girl around in a kind of dance. The boat swayed dangerously.
“So I’m a pile of sheep droppings, little Valkyrie. You must have been taking language lessons from Thorgil.” The giant plumped her down on a bundle of furs. Jack crawled to his feet. It had been worth a try, but he saw now that being a bard didn’t protect him from everything.
He rubbed the blood from his nose on his sleeve. He didn’t dare cry. Nothing disgusted the Northmen more than sniveling. Jack hugged himself to keep from shivering. He had to stay in control if they were ever to survive.
Presently, Olaf sat down to continue Jack’s lessons as though nothing had happened. “You have to learn the ways we speak of important things,” he said. “It’s not enough simply to say ‘ship’. That doesn’t show respect, and so we call it the ‘horse of the sea’ or ‘ocean’s chariot’. In the same way, a sword is not merely a sword, but a ‘serpent of battle’. That honors its ability to bite.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Jack said, interrupting what promised to be a long discussion. He’d been watching Thorgil. The girl had been slumped against the side of the ship for hours. She’d neither moved nor spoken.
The giant shaded his eyes as he looked toward the stern. “The brjóstabarn? She’s unhappy because she didn’t fall in battle.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She didn’t die. She wasn’t killed.”
“Now I’m really confused,” said Jack, watching the drab, dirt-streaked face of the shield maiden.
“I told her, wait a while,” said Olaf. “We can’t all die the first time we go out. Sooner or later you’ll make it. But she didn’t listen. She’s always been inclined to gloom.”
“Why would anyone want to die?” cried Jack.
“It’s the only way to get into Valhalla. Surely you know that? But of course you’ve been raised a Christian.” Olaf then explained about the various heavens a Northman could try for. The best was Odin’s stronghold called Valhalla. There the best and brightest spent all day in ferocious battle, killing and being killed. At evening the dead rose and spent the night feasting and drinking with their murderers. The roast boar never ran out, the mead cups were always full. It was a wonderful place, but only those who had be
en slain in battle were allowed in.
“Some warriors, and women who have died bravely, are chosen by the goddess Freya to live in her world,” Olaf explained. “Personally, I’d find that boring. Freya is interested in love, so there’s no fighting there. You get to farm and train horses. The women spin and sew. It’s like ordinary life, only there’s no suffering.”
“Sounds all right to me,” said Jack.
“If you die at sea, you are taken into the halls of the god Aegir and his wife, Ran,” said Olaf. “That’s a fine place. The beer is good, the feasting excellent if you like fish. You get to sail in all kinds of weather, and you never have to worry about drowning because you’ve done that already. To be really welcome, you bring Ran a gift.”
“That’s why you passed out gold when we were about to sink,” said Jack.
“Very good! You were paying attention.” The giant beamed.
“But the captives didn’t get any.”
“Of course not. They’re only thralls.”
“So where do thralls go?” Jack asked.
“To Hel,” Olaf said simply.
Wouldn’t you know it? thought Jack. It wasn’t enough to take people captive and destroy their lives. The berserkers had to mess up their afterlife as well. Not that Jack believed he would go to one of Olaf’s heavens. The Bard said people wound up with the afterlife they expected, so it was important to have a good one. He said he intended to retire to the Islands of the Blessed with the ancient kings and queens of Ireland.
The giant had stopped speaking. He gazed out at the ocean, his blue eyes soft with admiration. It was a fine day, with waves neither too large nor too small and with a following wind. The great sail bellied out over a ship loaded to the gunwales with booty.
Jack saw that Lucy had fallen asleep with a half-gnawed crust of bread in her hand. He got up and covered her with a fur. Then he stood brooding over the deep water, wishing he’d never seen Olaf and his evil crew. At the same time the rushing waves stirred something deep in Jack’s soul. His lungs filled with a cold, bracing wind. It was a great thing to be alive. The world was a beautiful place even if you were a thrall. The sun was as warm and the air as sweet to you as it was to Thorgil. Better, probably, to go by her sour face.
“Father talked a lot about Hell,” Jack said after a while. “You got there by being wicked.”
“Hel is a monster, not a place,” corrected Olaf. “She claims cowards, oath-breakers, and people without honor. Her fortress, the World of Ice, is filled with mist and darkness. It’s forever cold. The silence is broken only by the slither of snakes.”
“Our Hell is hot, but I suppose it doesn’t matter,” said Jack. “It’s a nasty place for people you don’t like. I still don’t understand why Thorgil wants to die.”
“You haven’t been listening,” said Olaf. “Warriors have to fall in battle. If they die of sickness or old age like any sheep-herder, they’re deemed cowards and wind up in Hel’s fortress with the thralls. Thorgil has set her heart on Valhalla. She will not be happy until she gets there.”
Olaf sent Jack to bail out the ship. This was a constant chore and one the Northmen shared now that they had no adult slaves. Jack toiled alongside Eric Pretty-Face, whose bulging arms could lift five times as much water as he. Eric whistled a tuneless song through broken teeth. One of his legs was ravaged by what looked like an enormous bite.
Steeling his nerve—for Jack knew all the Northmen were quick to anger—he said, “How did you get that?”
“EH?” said Eric, whose ears had been dulled by years of blows and who bellowed all the time.
“How did you get that?” Jack pointed at the scar.
A ragged smile broke out on Eric’s face. “TROLL BITE,” he replied.
“It’s—it’s so big.” Jack’s stomach did a flip-flop as he calculated the size of the mouth that had caused the damage.
“NAW, IT WAS A LITTLE BUGGER. GOT HIS TOOTH HERE.” Eric hauled up a lump hanging on a thong around his neck. It was a fang the size of a billy goat’s horn. Eric, not much on conversation, went back to bailing.
These people are crazy, thought Jack as he bent to work. I couldn’t drive them mad even if I knew how. They’re already as loony as the crowd in the Valley of Lunatics. They deserve to spend eternity in Valhalla.
At last the three ships reached a lonely island, where a small colony existed. Low houses made of turf bulged out of the soil. They looked like small hills. Or graves, Jack thought with a shiver.
This was the last stop before the ships turned east. They would sail out of sight of land now. They would be alone on the gray ocean with only the whales—or troll-horses, as Olaf called them—for company.
The warriors traded for freshwater and dried fish. One last time Jack looked at the land as it fell behind them. It was barren and windswept, but to the far west lay a gentle light. It was as though something lay shining beyond the margin of the sea. It was the Islands of the Blessed, where the old gods ruled and where the ancient heroes and heroines still had their dwelling. Perhaps the Bard was there, sitting under an apple tree.
To the east, the direction they were traveling, the sky was leaden. No light there. Jack sighed and felt for the rune of protection. So far it had done its work. He and Lucy hadn’t been murdered. They weren’t shut up in one of those dark Pictish towers. Of course, he was miserable and Lucy wasn’t far from madness, but the rune promised only life, not happiness.
Chapter Fourteen
THE LOST BIRD
The unending water filled Jack with a kind of dread. With each day his home fell farther behind on the trackless waste. Even if, by some magic, he was able to gain control of the ship, he could not ply the oars or reef the sail. He would never find his way back.
Jack felt helpless, like a bug on a floating leaf. Anything could send the leaf spiraling down. Or a sea serpent could rise and swallow the ship. Olaf swore he had seen one on the way over.
Lucy stared at the gray expanse with listless eyes. “I want trees,” she said. “I want it to stop moving.”
“Me too,” said Jack. The seasickness he’d had in the early days came back. The ship slid up and down in a gut-wrenching way. When it didn’t meet the waves directly, it tipped to one side, sloshing the bilgewater over everyone’s feet. Jack understood now why the Northmen’s boots smelled so vile.
At first the wind was gentle but steady enough to fill the sail. The warriors lounged around and played a board game called Wolves and Sheep with movable pegs that fit into seven rows of holes. A peg in the middle was the wolf. Around it was ranged a flock of thirteen sheep. The object was for the sheep to crowd the wolf into a trap, while the wolf tried to devour the sheep. It was an interesting game, and Jack watched it when he wasn’t being sick.
But soon the wind strengthened. Foam began to form on the tops of the waves. Oh no! Not another storm, Jack thought. The mast creaked ominously, and Olaf gave an order to shorten the sail. The warriors bent to their oars. “Now would be a good time to use your skills,” rumbled the giant from over Jack’s head.
Jack knew what Olaf wanted. He was supposed to calm the waves, and he didn’t know how. He wasn’t really a bard, in spite of what he had allowed Olaf to believe.
The terrifying Northman loomed over the deck. Everything, from his smelly boots and tree-trunk legs to his ice blue eyes peering out from under a single, bushy brow, spelled doom. Jack knew he had to do something quickly.
“I need complete silence,” he said, inwardly quaking with fear.
“You louts keep quiet!” roared Olaf at his crew. “If I hear one word, I’ll send whoever it is to Aegir’s halls. Anything else?” he asked Jack.
“I want Lucy at the other end of the ship. Feed her sweets or something to keep her quiet. She’s too little to understand. But if I hear Thorgil hurting her, I’ll stop doing magic.”
“Fair enough,” said Olaf, lumbering to the stern to threaten Thorgil.
The wind was stronger now. Waves wer
e beginning to spray over the side. Two of the warriors stopped rowing and started bailing.
The only thing I know is how to make fog, Jack thought desperately. What good is that? And how can I do it here, out of sight of the trees and land? Then, as though a voice were speaking in his ear, he remembered something the Bard had said: I was telling you about how the life force flows in streams deep in the earth. It is this that feeds the great forests and meadows sweet with grass. It is this that calls forth the flowers and the butterflies that are so like flowers. The deer follow its courses as they browse. The badgers and moles build their homes over it. It even draws the swallows in the midst of the sea.
In the midst of the sea! If birds could feel the life force in the air, he could certainly call to it down here. Jack closed his eyes and felt with his mind the bowl of ocean surrounding him. He breathed in the sharp odor of the wind. He heard—yes, heard!—the moans of the whales as they followed their paths over the deeps. He cast his mind down to where the light failed and found, far below, a current of fire. Come forth, he called. Come forth to me. Cloak the air with your gray presences. Bring sea and sky together.
Sunlight muted. The wind faded—was it leaving him or he it? Dampness flowed into his lungs. Water soaked into his clothes, but it was a clean wetness, not like the bilgewater. After a while he opened his eyes and saw Olaf looking—was it possible?—scared.
A heavy fog cloaked the sea, and the ship bobbed gently. Of course. Fog and wind did not happen together. Without realizing it, Jack had hit on the one thing that would calm the waves. I did it, he thought exultantly. I’m a real bard.
But he remembered what had happened when he stopped calling up fog by the Roman road. The wind had risen, blowing the clouds away and revealing him and Lucy to the Northmen.
Jack closed his eyes again. He reached out to the life force and found it everywhere. It swirled in the hidden currents far below, carrying a flurry of creatures that glowed in the dark. Jack had never seen such things before. He didn’t know how he could see them now. He felt the quicksilver movement of a school of fish near the surface. He felt a crow coasting the upper air above the fog bank. Sunlight polished its black feathers.
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