James Lovegrove - The Age Of Odin

by Lovegrove, James

  She said Balder's days were numbered. Hel awaited him. And his murderer, she added, would not even realise he was his murderer until it was too late.

  Then she sank back down into her grave and drew the soil over her like a set of bedcovers and resumed her everlasting slumber.

  I returned with a heavy heart to Asgard, where I informed the Aesir there was nothing we could do. Balder's fate was sealed.

  Frigga, however, refused to accept this. She was adamant that her beloved son would not die. So she set off and travelled across all the Nine Worlds, and in each one she exacted a promise from every living and unliving thing. She made them swear that they would not harm Balder. With her motherly charm and beauty she persuaded them all to keep to this vow, and then she returned home, content that Balder was now protected. For if all things were pledged to do him no evil, all animals, all plants, all the elements - the stones and wind and water - and all sentient beings besides, then surely he was safe and the portent of his dreams would not come to pass.

  Now, around this time, my blood brother was making mischief worse than ever he had before. Recently, for instance, he had arranged for Bragi's wife Idunn, keeper of the Aesir's apples of youth, to be kidnapped by a jotun. The jotun, name of Thiassi, liked the look of Idunn, and Loki's assistance in her abduction was a condition of his release from Thiassi's clutches, into which he had carelessly fallen. Deprived of our regular diet of the apples of youth, we began to grow hoary-headed and dull-witted, and I only just managed to browbeat my blood brother into rescuing Idunn from Thiassi, else we all might have perished of old age.

  Then he'd bamboozled Thor into paying a call on the frost giant Geirrod in Jotunheim without his hammer to protect himself. He convinced Thor he had no need of Mjolnir - he was formidable enough in himself. Thor foolishly fell for the ruse, and Geirrod did his utmost to kill the jotuns' sworn enemy, first by trying to drown him in a river, then by seating him on a stool that rose and nearly crushed him against the roof, and finally by flinging a red-hot iron bolt at him straight from the fire. He failed all three times, of course, but not for want of effort. More by luck than anything did Thor foil these assassination attempts.

  My blood brother had also stolen a necklace from Freya - an incomparable piece of jewellery made specially for her by the gnomes. While she was in bed he buzzed around her ear in the form of a fly. She removed her hand from the necklace, which she was wont to clasp in her sleep in order to protect it, and swatted at the fly. In a flash my blood brother took on his usual form and pilfered the necklace. He would have got away with the crime had he not then chosen to turn himself into a seal and dive into the sea in order to hide his booty in the depths. Heimdall heard the splash and was immediately suspicious. He ran to the shore, caught the thief red-handed with the necklace in his seal mouth, and forced him to restore it to its rightful owner.

  In other words, my blood brother - for the sake of convenience I shall use his name, distasteful though it is on my tongue - Loki had been doing little to curry favour among his peers. Quite the opposite. One by one he had managed to alienate the affections of all the gods and goddesses. It was simply in his nature to be like that, to sow discord, stir up trouble, foment dissent, earn enmity. He was born a jotun, you see, but unlike the rest of that race he was not large and shaggy and boorish and rough-mannered. Rather, he was good-looking, quick-witted and nimble-footed, for which reason when he and I met I felt an immediate affection for him and kinship with him. Hence we cut veins and swore an oath of blood brotherhood.

  The longer he stayed with us in Asgard, however, the more he changed. Perhaps his jotun heritage was stronger in him than at first it seemed. He had forsworn it, rejected it, but it would not be denied and gradually asserted itself.

  His misdeeds, to begin with, were harmless pranks, soon mended, easily forgiven. But then they became increasingly less do. He practised malice rather than mirth-making. Spite, not jest, grew to be his habit.

  Hence he beheld Balder with ever more envious eyes. For Balder was all that Loki was not: universally adored, implicitly trusted, greeted everywhere he went with smiles and embraces and cries of delight. Loki's behaviour had gained him naught but suspicion and an ill-disguised resentment. He had only himself to blame, but did not appreciate that. In his mind the Aesir and Vanir had taken against him for no good reason. Balder symbolised all that we admired and aspired to. So he would bring down Balder.

  I can but impute these motives to him. You would have to ask Loki himself if I'm right or wrong. I'm familiar enough with his character, though, to believe my assumptions are near the mark.

  Now, you might think that because Frigga had got every object in the Nine Worlds to agree not to harm Balder that he was entirely safe. My wife, unfortunately, had overlooked one seemingly insignificant little shrub. The humble mistletoe. She felt that so small and feeble a plant was not worth bothering about. It was an oversight she rues to this day.

  The Aesir decided to put her hard work to the test by standing in a ring around Balder and pelting him with various items. We attacked him with weapons, and all bounced off as though made of rubber. We threw rocks at him, and might as well have been throwing feathers for all the damage they did. We shot him with arrows which glanced off him as they would have a statue made of granite. He was truly invulnerable, and what sport we had proving it! How we laughed as we assailed him with ever larger and deadlier implements and he shrugged off the blows with scarcely a blink of the eye.

  An ancient crone came hobbling up to my wife during all this and asked what everyone was up to. Frigga explained, and the crone expressed astonishment that every single thing in all of creation had acceded to Frigga's request. My wife let slip that she had neglected to include mistletoe in her inventory, thinking it unimportant.

  The crone, needless to say, was the shape-shifter Loki in disguise, and armed with this crucial nugget of information he approached my son Hodur, who was standing aloof, alone, unable to join in the game of Balder-battering. Hodur, as I have said, was born blind. This was the first time that his disability had truly set him apart from the rest of us. Even sightless he was a tremendous warrior, possessed of immense strength. In battle he was always to be found in the thick of things, locating the foe by the sound of their voices alone. Once he laid hands on an opponent, that was it. They could not escape his clutches, or his crushing, lethal might.

  Loki invited him to take part in the proceedings. Hodur asked him how he might do that, and Loki placed a bow and arrow in his hands. He would guide Hodur's aim, he said. All Hodur had to do was draw back and bowstring and let the arrow fly.

  Hodur confessed afterwards that he'd had some misgivings about perpetrating this act, but he had so wished to share in the general merriment. It was a grievous misjudgement, and he paid a high penalty for it.

  The arrow, you see, was crafted from a twig of mistletoe. And Hodur, with Loki's assistance, sent it whistling straight into Balder's heart.

  Before our very eyes, the best of all Asgard died instantly - slain, as his dreams had foretold, by his own unwitting brother.

  Thirty-Six

  "That sucks," I nearly said, but didn't, because even I'm not that crass.

  Instead I kept a respectful, dignified silence and watched as a lone, fat tear rolled slowly down Odin's right cheek, navigating the wrinkled valleys of his skin. I was thinking of Cody and imagining how I'd have felt seeing him die right in front of me. Some things were too horrible to even contemplate.

  "It was..." Odin began, then stopped, then tried again. "It was as if that arrow pierced my heart too. And the hearts of all assembled. We all died a little in that moment. Frigga swooned and collapsed. I myself could not move. Then Hel appeared to gather up Balder's spirit. Though we entreated her to show mercy, to make an exception in just this one instance, she refused. Her transparent delight in claiming my son from me has guaranteed her my undying hatred. I have never seen anyone quite so elated as on that day. Hel considered i
t a personal triumph to lead Balder's mute soul away from us to Niflheim. It showed, more clearly than ever before, her supremacy over all. Even the noblest and greatest of the gods was, in death, mere grist to her mill."

  "But you punished Loki," I said. "Nastily. At least there was that."

  "For a time we did not know that he was the true guilty party," Odin said. "We blamed Hodur, and tragedy was heaped on tragedy, for Hodur had to atone for taking Balder's life and that could only be accomplished by surrendering his own. There is a balance that must be observed. Everything has a price. My wisdom, to take an example. Bought at the cost of an eye and nine days' suffering on a tree. The universe neither gives without taking nor takes without giving. For every action there must be a corresponding opposite action."

  "Hodur killed himself?"

  "As good as. Willingly allowed himself to be killed. Vali took the responsibility of striking the fatal blow with his sword, but it was suicide in all but name. Hodur put up no resistance. He offered his bare breast and Vali, sobbing, plunged his blade in. It was right. It had to be done. The scales were evened up, and none profited."

  "Except Hel."

  He laughed emptily. "Another soul to add to her ranks, yes. The only who ever truly gains from the deeds of gods and men is Hel."

  "How long did Loki manage to get away with it before he was rumbled?"

  "Not long. His own arrogance proved his undoing. There was a period when all seemed bleak and meaningless in Asgard. We went about our business glumly, feeling as though there was little point to anything. Balder was gone. Nothing mattered. Frigga took to her room and would not emerge. Whenever I spoke to her, I got little in the way of reply. She'd lost both of her sons, don't forget. I had others but she had none. It was a devastating, crippling blow."

  "She seems to have come to terms with it."

  "Ah, the creature that you see today - the Frigga who smiles and is kind and giving and patient and oh-so-obliging - is but a shell, a mask for the real Frigga beneath, a woman lost in the ache of perpetual bereavement, a woman with a void at the core of her. As for the rest of us, in the aftermath of Balder's death we went through the motions of living but were pale imitations of ourselves. Only Loki continued to evince any animation or zest, which should perhaps have alerted us to his guilt, but we were too lost in misery and too numb with grief to notice. In hindsight I can see how obvious it was. He feigned sharing our sorrow but he was laughing at us behind his face. His eyes ever sparkled with barely concealed joy. What a coup for him! How artfully had he pulled off this, his most audacious trick yet, his most vindictive act, the acme of treachery. None could question his superiority to the Aesir now that he had contrived the murder of the finest among us. But a successful deceit is no fun for the deceiver unless others are aware that he was responsible."

  "Don't tell me, he owned up to it. Couldn't help himself."

  "It was during a banquet. Time had passed, the wound of Balder's death was beginning to heal, life in Asgard was returning to normal, and we had recovered some of our vivacity and confidence. Loki sat at the table listening to us banter and laud one another, much as we had done in times gone by, and it stung him to the quick that everyone ignored his witty comments and no one would praise him for his achievements. Eventually it became too much. His resentment boiled over and he flew into a spiteful rage. He abused us all, calling us prigs and dullards and simpletons and many more vicious names besides. My family dared not respond in kind, out of respect to me, since Loki was my blood brother and therefore under my aegis. So I felt obliged to chastise him myself. This, though, only angered him further, until at last he could contain himself no longer, and out it all spilled. How it was he who'd been the crone who'd approached Frigga, he who'd convinced Hodur to loose off the arrow, he who's substituted the shaft for one fashioned from mistletoe..."

  "Talk about stitching yourself up like a kipper."

  "The Aesir rose up as one in fury, and Loki, recognising that he had gone too far and needed to save his neck, fled. With the aid of Huginn and Muninn I sought him out and found him in a house in a remote corner of the realm. There, by the hearthside, he was knotting lengths of string together in loops, something no one had ever thought to do before. As soon as he heard the Aesir coming for him, he threw what he was making into the fire, turned himself into a salmon and jumped into a stream. He thought we could never catch him in fish form, because he would be too wily to latch on to any line we cast into the water. He would not fall for a baited hook. Sadly for him, we recovered the mesh of string from the fire and used that to catch him instead. Too clever by half, Loki had been the architect of his own downfall. He had just fashioned the very device which trapped him - a net."

  "Silly arse."

  "Thor wrestled him out onto dry land and squeezed him back into his true shape. Together we then secured him in a cave with a poisonous serpent above him."

  "Venom in the eyes. That's got to hurt."

  "In ancient times our worshippers believed earthquakes were caused by Loki writhing in agony below the ground," Odin said. "Perhaps they were right."

  He lapsed into musing. I didn't know what to say. One of the trolls broke the silence by lifting a buttock and letting out a tremendous, ground-shaking fart.

  I wouldn't have sniggered if Odin hadn't sniggered first.

  "An apposite comment from below," he said.

  "Applause from the cheap seats," I said.

  "Sometimes it takes the digestive tract of a troll to remind us what is important." Odin clasped my shoulder. "Go, Gid, and fetch me more of these malodorous lummoxes. Just try not to get yourself asphyxiated in the process."

  Thirty-Seven

  The Taking Of The Trolls

  by the bard Bragi

  In ages hence, in lands afar,

  This tale will oft be told -

  How men and gods in unison

  Went out collecting trolls.

  Decree there came from Odin's lips

  That none should dare relent

  From capturing the ogreish things,

  His forces to augment.

  In Jotunheim, in Svartalfheim,

  In Alfheim, all around,

  Gods of Asgard, men of Midgard,

  Ran those trolls to ground.

  They baited traps with hapless goats -

  Bleating, trembling prey.

  The trolls could not resist the lure.

  They took it, come what may.

  From caves below, the beasts were rousted,

  From dens on mountain slopes,

  Then were steered and stunned with gunfire;

  Caught and bound with ropes.

  Some resisted, some fought back,

  Some raised a fearful yammer.

  None, however, withstood long

  Once struck with Thor's dire hammer.

  Sleipnir's pilots plied the skies

  Flying to and fro.

  Twice or thrice, e'en four times daily

  Out and back they'd go.

  And so it grew, and grew and grew,

  The toll of captive trolls,

  And more and more was Asgard pocked

  With large empenning holes.

  Until at last the All-Father

  In voice unduly gruff

  Announced the numbers did suffice.

  "That's it," he said. "Enough.

  "We've thirty now at least, I think,

  Or forty - maybe more.

  I've kept my eye on things, but still

  It's hard to know the score.

  "What's certain is the stench is bad,

  And more will make it worse.

  The trolls should be a blessing here

  And not a nasal curse."

  Their smell is rank, I can't deny,

  Enough to make one wince.

  Heimdall caught a whiff of it.

  We haven't seen him since.

  Huginn and Muninn overflew

  The troll pens and - don't groan! -

&
nbsp; They plummeted to earth just like

  Two birds killed with one stone.

  Still we must the bright side see.

  We must remain firm-chinned.

  The trolls will smite our foe ere long -

  Not least if he's downwind.

  Thirty-Eight

  Shagged out.

  Done in.

  Cream-crackered.

  A fortnight we'd been doing our "bring 'em back alive" bit with the trolls. Day after day in-country, exploring their known haunts, with Freya using her tracking skills to find their lairs or stalk them on the move. Night after night under canvas listening to the lament of the wind, and occasionally the baying of distant wolves.

  Alfheim: where the air was thin and the aurora borealis snaked greenly among the stars, and where I never saw a single elf despite Freya's insistence that they were watching our every move.

  Svartalfheim: barren and grim, a lifeless lunar landscape of black volcanic rock and ancient lava flows, dotted with billowing geysers and patches of glassy obsidian.

  Jotunheim: along the borderlands, the regions of intersection where it cold-shouldered Asgard.

  The trolls were everywhere, but never in bands of more than two or three and more often than not solitary. Invariably they blundered straight into the traps we laid. They didn't always get to feed on the tethered goats we put there to sucker them in, either. Often Thor would leap out from hiding and cosh them on the head while they were still rubbing their tummies and smacking their lips in anticipation. It never once occurred to any of them to question why an animal was standing tied to a peg at the end of a blind canyon or next to an outcrop of rock large enough to conceal several soldiers. The prospect of a free, easy meal made the creatures even dumber than normal.