03 - The Islands of the Blessed Read online

  “I’ve never seen a sky like that,” he said.

  “I have,” said the shield maiden, “when I was very small. My mother carried me to a cellar where they stored vegetables. She was trying to protect me, and I remember her lying on top of me. I heard dogs howling, or perhaps it was the wind—”

  “We’d better get our chores done,” Jack said to change the subject. Thorgil’s mother had been a slave, sacrificed on the funeral pyre of her real father. All of Thorgil’s memories from that part of her life were evil. When she could be persuaded to speak of them at all, they drove her even deeper into despair.

  They hurried from farm to farm, delivering food to people in the fields and barns. The storage barns had floors of slate, over which was spread a layer of bracken. Bracken not only protected the hay on top from rising damp, but also cut into the mouths of rats and discouraged them from invading. Livestock depended on this fodder for winter. If it was spoiled by rain, it would rot and the animals would starve. The newly cut hay gave a rich, green smell to the air.

  In each field Jack saw people bending, slashing, and bundling. When possible, the workers used the blacksmith’s cart for transport. But speed was important, and for the most part, they had to carry the hay themselves. Those with no barns protected their haystacks with inverted cones of thatch, somewhat like giant hats, and hoped for the best.

  Months ago Jack had tried to hitch Thorgil’s ponies to a cart, but they fought the harness and were completely ungovernable. This was another fault held against him unfairly. Jack knew nothing about handling horses. It was Thorgil who had their trust, but she refused to train them for farmwork. They were warriors, she insisted, not thralls.

  Thorgil. Jack saw how the villagers cautiously accepted food from her and turned away to make the sign of the cross.

  They left the donkey in the last barn and walked on to check the hives. “We’d better hurry,” said Jack, looking at the darkening southern sky. Were there clouds? Something certainly teemed in the distance, and yet the air was still and dead. Leaves on the trees hung straight down.

  Even the bees knew something was wrong. They had stopped zipping to and fro in search of nectar, and warrior bees at the entrances danced around as though searching for a hidden enemy. The nests were protected by inverted baskets, somewhat like the hats over the exposed haystacks. The bees would have been far safer indoors, but moving hives confused them dreadfully. They would have to survive where they were.

  Father had built a stone barrier around them early in the year, to keep sheep from grazing too close, and now Jack was glad of this extra protection. “They’re acting as though it’s night,” he said, wondering. “They’ve almost all gone inside. Listen to that hum!”

  “You know, I can almost understand it,” said Thorgil, pressing her ear to one of the inverted baskets. “It’s like a birdcall. Isn’t that strange?”

  “Bees are creatures of the air. What are they saying?”

  “They’re frightened. They feel death is near—ow!” Thorgil slapped her ear and jumped away.

  “Move back. When one stings, the others join in,” advised Jack.

  But the bees stayed clustered in the hives. Jack and Thorgil crouched down some distance away to observe them. Whatever enemy the insects detected was too dangerous for them to confront.

  “Look!” Jack yelled in sheer disbelief. The southern sky was filled with towering clouds. The dark haze had resolved into shreds of mist flying toward them at such speed that Jack instinctively threw himself to the ground, pulling Thorgil with him. A second later the storm hit.

  From absolute stillness the air suddenly whipped into a hurricane that sent them skidding along the ground. One of the beehives lost its cone and fell over against the stone enclosure. The wind howled so loudly, Jack couldn’t make himself heard. He wriggled across the dirt, with Thorgil at his side, making his way to a sheep byre he knew existed at the far end of the field.

  He couldn’t see it until a flash of lightning turned everything white and a clap of thunder shook the ground. “By Thor!” formed Thorgil’s lips, brilliant in the light. They crawled furiously, freezing each time one of the bolts fell from the clouds. As yet there was no rain. They reached the byre and squeezed in with a trio of ewes who’d had the same idea. The wind tore across the top of the protecting ring of stone, but at the bottom, in a fug of sweaty wool, Jack almost felt safe.

  “By Thor!” shouted Thorgil again, pointing.

  Jack looked up to see a dangling cone of cloud unlike anything he had ever encountered. It roared like a thousand enraged bees, and his skin crawled as though ants were swarming over it. The mouth of the cone gaped open, and he saw ropes of lightning twisting around inside, with tree branches and what might have been part of a house. Then it was gone.

  The ewes screamed and huddled closer together. Jack burrowed in with them, but Thorgil suddenly tried to climb out of the byre. The wind knocked her back. She pulled herself up again and raised her arms to the sky. Her voice was no louder than a cricket’s chirp against the howling storm, but Jack could just make out the words: “Take me with you!”

  “Get down!” he shouted, tackling her legs.

  “No! No!” she protested. He dragged her down. She fought back, punching him in the stomach. He collapsed, trying to get his breath back, and she struggled up again. “Take me with you!” she screamed. Then the rain started, buckets of rain sluicing down and filling up the byre so that the ewes had to fight for air. They pummeled Jack with their hooves and one actually stood on top of him. The wind knocked her over the side and he heard her terrified bleating as she was swept away.

  How long the rain poured down, Jack wasn’t sure. It seemed to be for hours. The temperature dropped rapidly, and for a brief period hailstones bounced over his head, big hailstones that hurt and made the sheep bellow. When that ended, the rain began again. During all this time lightning came in bursts and thunder rolled around the horizon.

  But eventually the heavens calmed. The flashes became infrequent and the thunder grumbled away to the north. The southern sky turned a pale and beautiful blue.

  Jack stood up cautiously and saw a scene of utter destruction around him. Every bush had been beaten flat. Branches from the distant forest were strewn across the ground, and not far away the ewe that had stood on Jack lay dead.

  Thorgil, too, was outstretched in the mud. He hadn’t even been aware she’d left the byre! “Oh, Thorgil!” Jack cried, struggling out of the enclosure and rushing to her side. He lifted her onto his knees. “Oh, my dear! My love!”

  Her eyes were wide open, staring. But they weren’t glazed in death. Jack was so relieved, he hugged her and then worried about whether she had broken a rib. “He wouldn’t take me,” she said in a faint voice.

  “Who wouldn’t take you?” Jack said, thinking she was delirious.

  “He saw my useless hand and knew I was no longer a warrior. He wanted me, but Odin wouldn’t allow it. Oh, Freya, I wish I were dead!” Thorgil began to cry, which worried Jack even more than if she’d started cursing.

  “Are you hurt inside?” he asked anxiously.

  “Nothing that death wouldn’t fix,” she said with a touch of her old spirit. “Even then, I’ll never see him again.”

  “Who? What are you talking about?” The sun was breaking out to the south and the clouds overhead had turned white, with patches of blue between.

  “Olaf One-Brow,” the shield maiden said, sighing deeply. “He was in the clouds, but he had to leave me behind.”

  Chapter Three

  THE HAZEL WOOD

  “How could she have seen Olaf?” said Jack. “She said Odin was leading a Wild Hunt, but I only saw clouds and that… thing, hanging out of the sky.”

  “That ‘thing’ sounds like a waterspout,” said the Bard, casting a handful of dry pine needles over the hearth fire. A pleasant odor filled the air. Thorgil lay deeply asleep on a bed of dried heather. Thanks to the Bard’s sleeping draught, she no lon
ger thrashed about or tried to tear out her hair. It had been the longest hour of Jack’s life, dragging her to the Bard’s house while preventing her from doing herself damage.

  Her hair had grown out in the past year, and it was surprisingly clean. No longer did it hang in an untidy fringe from being hacked with a fish scaling knife. It was a pale golden color, like sunlight on snow. In spite of the bruises—and Thorgil seldom lacked those—her face had a delicacy Jack hadn’t noticed before. She’d changed in the last year, he realized, becoming taller and more beautiful.

  Jack turned away, his cheeks burning with embarrassment. What difference did that make? She was the same foul-tempered Thorgil no matter how she looked.

  “I’ve never known a waterspout to be so destructive,” remarked the old man, rummaging in a chest. “It plowed a road through the forest and probably carried off Gog and Magog.”

  “It did what?” said Jack. After running home to check up on his parents, he’d spent yesterday afternoon helping the Bard prepare elixirs. It was now morning, and Jack hadn’t been near the village since the storm.

  “The blacksmith’s son told me that Gog and Magog have disappeared.”

  “Perhaps they ran away,” Jack suggested. The thought of the men being pulled into the sky was horrible.

  “I fear not. The blacksmith said they liked to sit outside during storms. It was the only time he ever saw them smile, and since it was their sole pleasure, he left them to it. A mistake, it would seem.”

  Jack had seen Gog and Magog squatting in the mud during a thunderstorm. They’d sat together, swaying back and forth, with their faces turned up to the sky. Their teeth had gleamed in the lightning. They’d seemed possessed with a wild joy that Jack neither understood nor cared to see, and he’d hurried away as quickly as possible. He shivered. “Where are they now, sir?”

  “That depends on who conducted the Wild Hunt.” The Bard laid out a collection of pots, sniffed each one, and made a selection. He lifted down a large mortar and pestle from a shelf. “Oh, yes, the Hunt is real,” he said, grinding the herbs. “Who leads it depends on who sees it. Brother Aiden was its quarry as a child, until Father Severus rescued him. Aiden was convinced he saw the Forest Lord and his hounds. Severus thought he saw Satan leading the damned.”

  “And Thorgil saw Olaf One-Brow,” said Jack.

  “If she’s correct, Gog and Magog might have been taken to Valhalla. Wouldn’t that make her cranky!” The Bard’s blue eyes twinkled. “Ah well, Thorgil wouldn’t be Thorgil if she wasn’t cranky.”

  “If you say so.” Personally, Jack wouldn’t have minded if the shield maiden were pleasanter—more like Pega, for example. It was extremely wearing to mediate between her and the enemies she always managed to make. And yet, when he’d seen her lying next to the sheep byre, dead for all he could tell, like that poor ewe—

  “She’ll be fine,” said the Bard, with that uncanny ability to know what was passing through Jack’s mind. “Now I want you to mix the contents of this mortar with a lump of butter the size of a hen’s egg. Knead a handful of flour with enough water to make a stiff paste, blend everything, and roll out pills the size of peas. Dry them before the fire.”

  “Which pot should I store them in?” asked Jack, who had done this before.

  “The green one for headaches. Dear, dear, the garden is almost picked clean. I’m going to need plants from the forest.”

  Soon they were walking down the path, leaving Thorgil to sleep. The Bard had put on his better robe, belted up to protect it from mud. His white beard fanned out over his chest, and his feet were encased in tan leather boots that laced up the front. Old as he was, he barely needed to lean upon his black ash wood staff, though he needed Jack to carry elixirs and the harp.

  Jack could feel the life force stirring in the air around the staff, and it filled him with longing. Once he too had owned such a magical thing. He’d owned the rune of protection as well, if you could say such a thing belonged to anyone. The rune passed from person to person, following its own destiny, which was beyond the understanding of whoever sought to possess it. Once gone, it could never return. Jack sighed inwardly, remembering its living gold engraved with the image of Yggdrassil. It had preserved the Bard for many long years before coming to Jack, and then—in a moment of weakness, he thought darkly—he’d given it to Thorgil.

  The fields were strangely bare, like plucked chickens, and more than one house had its roof missing. Water oozed out of hillsides. Streams cut new channels into soil, and here and there sunlight flashed from ponds.

  Jack looked back at the Bard’s house, perched dangerously on a cliff over the sea. It had weathered the storm beautifully.

  Whether this was due to luck or the old man’s magic, Jack didn’t know, but it clung to the rocks like a limpet.

  They made their way through the village, dispensing medicine where needed, and good advice. At the blacksmith’s house the Bard played music to raise the family’s spirits.

  “Gog and Magog were like my own lads—well, if they’d been brighter and more presentable,” the blacksmith amended, looking fondly at his handsome daughters and sons. “I was that used to them. They slept in a heap with the cows, and if a wolf came near, they put up such a mooing, not one calf was ever lost. I’ll miss them, by God I will, the poor, witless creatures.”

  You had a power of work out of them for the crusts of bread they were fed, thought Jack uncharitably.

  The Bard played his harp. The blacksmith’s wife tapped her foot to the rhythm, and Colin, the blacksmith’s youngest son, performed an impromptu jig.

  And yet if Gog and Magog hadn’t come here, Jack mused, who knows what fate might have been theirs? They might have ended up as slaves in a lead mine. At least they had some joy, mooing with the cows and worshipping lightning. What is happiness, after all? He thought of Thorgil, whose hope had been to fall in battle; and of his father, Giles Crookleg, who relished disappointment; and of Father Severus, who enjoyed cold baths and fasting. The elves pursued an endless round of pleasure—much good it did them, doomed as they were to fade at the end of days.

  Happiness is a puzzle and no mistake, Jack decided.

  The Bard roused him and they set off again. Shreds of mist rose from a hundred rivulets left behind by the storm, and a scarecrow was bent double in a ruined field. “He didn’t protect anything,” Jack commented as they squelched past in the soft earth.

  “Odin’s crows take more than a heap of straw to be impressed,” said the Bard.

  Jack and the Bard trudged on, observing the devastated barley and oat fields. Half of the sheep were missing, according to the villagers, although most of them would probably turn up. The chickens and cattle had been protected indoors, and Thorgil’s ponies had also survived. The Tanner girls had pulled them into their hovel when they saw black clouds approaching.

  It was an amazing feat, considering that there was scarcely enough room for the Tanners inside. The girls had forced the horses to lie down and then lain on top of them with their mother between. It made a stifling crush of horse and human flesh, but all had lived.

  “That means we’ve earned the right to ride them,” Ymma, the older Tanner girl, declared when Jack and the Bard stopped by to check on their welfare.

  “You’ll have to discuss that with Thorgil,” the old man said.

  “Pooh! She thinks she owns everything. Who’s her father, I ask you?” the girl said rudely. “Where’s her family?”

  “Everyone says she acts like a Northman,” added her younger sister, Ythla.

  The Bard turned on them so suddenly, the girls shrank away and their mother grabbed their arms. “What do you mean, talking back to the Bard?” Mrs. Tanner cried. “Go down on your knees at once and beg his pardon. Honestly, sir, I don’t know what’s become of them since their father died.” She pushed the girls down and they apologized loudly.

  Jack wasn’t surprised. One look at the old man’s face and you understood why he was known as Drago
n Tongue and why even Northman kings were afraid of him. But the girls had only said what everyone else was probably whispering.

  They found Mother sitting by the beehives. Only two colonies had survived. The rest were dying of cold and wet, the bees creeping over the ground or struggling weakly in the mud. Mother had built a fire nearby—not too close, for smoke could harm them as well—and had laid out chunks of bread covered with honey. The insects clustered eagerly around the food.

  “They’re the last of a royal line,” she said sadly, “brought here by the Romans. The women of my family have guarded them since time out of mind. No Saxon bee matches them for strength and industry, but they will be lucky to live through this winter.”

  The Bard played his harp and Mother sang, using the small magic that calmed nervous animals. Her voice was not unlike a drowsy bee-hum itself. She told them of sunny days to come, of new flowers and warm breezes.

  “How’s your supply of candles?” the Bard asked when he had handed the harp back to Jack.

  “I know what’s in your mind,” she replied. “The crops are ruined, and if we are to survive this winter, we must barter for grain. Whatever I have is yours.”

  “I can always count on you, Alditha,” said the old man warmly, clasping her hands.

  From there the Bard and Jack made their way to the hazel wood that lay in the shadow of the oak forest. This woodland, though littered with debris, had been spared. A tangle of branches and gnarled roots was crossed by odd little paths carpeted with bluebells. You might meet anything in the hazel wood—long-eared hares, badgers, a wolf folding itself into the twilight, or even a bear. It was a secret, knowing place, and you didn’t enter it carelessly after dark. The leaves now shone with an eerie brightness, and the air was fresh and delightful.