As the marketplace emptied and most of the townspeople went home, a few vendors remained with inferior animals. They watched the grove of trees with great attention. The shadows seemed to stir, and Jack clutched Lucy’s hand. Olaf stood in front of a bonfire, waiting.
It was clear the giant didn’t like the painted men, but he was there to make a profit. The Picts carried a clanking assortment of weapons and bags of ornaments as they made their stealthy approach from the forest. They spread these on the ground before the fire.
“Troll spawn,” murmured Thorgil. A strange light gleamed in her eyes.
Jack had to admit the weapons were beautiful. They were decorated with fanciful designs much like the patterns on the Picts’ skin. The jewelry—pins, brooches, earrings, and bracelets—was finer than anything Jack had expected from such wild creatures. Perhaps they weren’t so bad. But he looked into their brooding eyes and knew that nothing good could be expected from such folk.
The Picts examined the captives. They seemed uninterested in the scars on the men’s backs or the lameness of one of the women. They drew back when the other woman screamed at them but returned at once with secretive smiles. They were clearly delighted by the plump monk. They pinched him all over, exclaiming and hissing. Sven the Vengeful translated, setting a price for the lot.
Then it was Jack and Lucy’s turn.
A broad-chested Pict with a shaggy beard and drooping eyebrows inspected them. He seemed to be the leader. He felt Lucy’s fair hair and admired her small hands and feet.
Jack clenched his fists, longing to drive his head into the man’s stomach.
The Pictish leader smiled and brought out a weapon not displayed yet. It was a magnificent sword with a dragon etched along its shining blade. The handle was of dark wood inlaid with gold. Thorgil gasped.
“It’s your decision,” Olaf said in a low voice.
“Yes,” said Thorgil with that strange light in her eyes.
“You would please the queen if you kept the girl. You would please me, too.”
“I
These chants I know. No noble lord or lady knows them.
The first is called “help”. It helps me against strife.
It saves me from every sort of misery.
The second is to hold my foes in check.
I blunt the blades of enemies.
The third is this: If men put shackles on my legs,
My chant will let me walk free.
The chains fall from my arms.
Olaf looked absolutely stunned. “Is that what I think it is?”
“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.”
“
“Quite right, young skald,” replied Olaf, using the Northman word for
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.
Jack mused as Olaf droned on about the uses of sea ivory.
“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
“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
“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
“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 been 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.
he
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
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.