Bold Heart exploded off his perch, and Jack scrambled to his feet in alarm. He saw an enormous creature rise out of the muck in the farther pen. Filth streamed off its flanks as it sprang forward, mouth open, monster tusks aimed at his face. Jack tried to slam the gate, but the creature was too powerful. It barreled through, turned, and came for him.
Jack climbed the fence. He had only a second to make up his mind. He could leap into the muck on the other side—but the creature would only rush back—or he could jump for a roof beam. He jumped. Splinters pierced his hands as he struggled to pull himself up. He swung his leg over and balanced precariously with his arms and legs around the narrow beam.
What was that down below? Jack squinted into the gloom, and the creature raised its massive head and squealed. It was a giant boar! Even for a boar, he was bigger than any pig Jack had ever seen, and beneath the filth Jack saw a patch of golden hair. The animal would have been magnificent if he hadn’t been covered in muck. The creature screamed again, and Jack almost fell off the beam. He couldn’t hold this position for long. Slowly, carefully, he wriggled his body around until he was able to sit. He had to brace his hands against the roof to keep from tipping off. Now his backside hurt as well as his hands.
The boar squealed murderously as he paraded below. He reared up and gnashed his teeth. Where were the thralls? Jack thought. Didn’t they know he was in danger? Jack opened his mouth to yell when he heard another sound from outside.
Laughter. The thralls were laughing! They’d known about the boar and hadn’t warned him! In fact—Jack saw it now—there’d been no real reason to close the door. The two pens would have contained the pigs. But the darkness had been the point. The thralls knew the boar would be hiding in the muck and that he would be nearly invisible with the door closed.
“I’m such a fool,” moaned Jack. Yet how could he have imagined such malice? He’d never done anything to those men. They were all thralls together, and their enemy should be the one who’d enslaved them.
“Is he getting chomped?” said Dirty Pants.
“I hope so, the little weasel, sitting up there at the high table with his lordship,” said Pig Face.
“Maybe we should rescue him,” said Lump. “Him being a kid and all.”
“Naw, once Golden Bristles starts something, you have to let him finish,” said Dirty Pants. “Besides, we don’t want witnesses.”
“Suppose you’re right,” said Lump.
Golden Bristles must be the name of the boar, thought Jack. It was a glorious name, but there was nothing glorious about the beast in his current condition. He was so covered with black filth, his body seemed cased in a suit of armor.
Bold Heart warbled from his position by the hole in the roof.
“I can’t fit through there,” said Jack. “And I can’t fly to it like you can, old friend. I’ll have to wait till someone comes looking for me.” Even as he said it, Jack’s heart sank. His arms ached from the effort of keeping his position. How could he endure it for hours? And would anyone think to look for him?
Bold Heart warbled again. It was an unusually sweet sound for a crow, and Jack had never heard the like of it. “What are you telling me? What are you telling him ?” For Jack now saw that Golden Bristles had raised his muzzle and was watching the bird closely. “You like that,” the boy said, wondering.
And then it came to him. Mother sang to calm the ewes and rams. She sang to the bees before taking their honey. She’d taught Jack this small magic, but it hadn’t seemed important to him. It was trivial compared with the knowledge the Bard had to impart.
Jack began with a charm to calm angry bees:
Generous spirits of the air,
Rich and full your halls
When you return from the far fields,
The wind at your back.
He went on with a lullaby to soothe newborn lambs and then, from somewhere, came a new song full of joy and life. He sang of the deep forest, of drifts of acorns under oaks, of dappled sunlight and wild leeks to unearth and savor. When he was finished, he felt light and happy, as though he himself had been running through the woods.
He looked down to see Golden Bristles grunting softly and gazing up at him with adoring eyes. The change in the brute was astounding. The sows, meanwhile, had finished their mustard and were snuffling about for more. They were soulless creatures, Jack decided. Not so Golden Bristles, who whuffled seductively. Plain as plain, the giant pig was saying, More.
So Jack sang another song, and all the while he edged along the rafter (thereby getting splinters in his backside) until he’d gone as far as possible. He wasn’t out of range yet, but he had a chance to run to the outer fence before Golden Bristles caught him.
Jack dropped to the floor. He fell wrong, and his feet slid out from under him. Instantly, he was back up, but Golden Bristles was faster. The boar bounded to the fence and stood between Jack and freedom.
The boy and the pig stared at each other. Then Golden Bristles came forward, panting and whuffling, his chin in the air, for all the world like a dog begging for attention. Carefully, Jack reached out and scratched the boar under the chin. Golden Bristles grunted.
“You’re an old softie,” Jack crooned as he did with the pigs back home. “You’d melt like butter if I did this. ” He rubbed behind Golden Bristles’s ears. The boar’s eyes closed in ecstasy. “Well, well,” said Jack. “I think the thralls are in for a surprise.” He penned the sows and the boar into the clean sty and climbed out to open the barn door.
Pig Face, Dirty Pants, and Lump leaped back.
“You were singing,” said Dirty Pants. “What was that about?”
“You ain’t chomped,” said Pig Face disappointedly.
“No, I’m not.” Jack stood before them proudly, his hands on his hips.
“But I heard Golden Bristles scream,” muttered Pig Face.
Jack was seething with rage, but he didn’t intend to show it. He had other plans.
The thralls galumphed inside. “Hoo! It’s foul,” commented Lump.
“Not my fault,” said Pig Face. “The boar’s too fond of human meat by half. He’s a troll-boar. I’m not getting close to him.”
“You will if Olaf tells you,” said Dirty Pants.
“That’s what the new boy’s for. Hey, boy! Come in here. You haven’t done your job.”
Jack went in and deliberately leaned over the fence. Golden Bristles trotted to him and lifted his chin to be scratched. “Gooood piggy,” Jack crooned. The thralls’ eyes almost dropped out of their heads.
“Sei er,” murmured Dirty Pants. “That’s what the singing was about.”
“So that’s why Heide was interested in him,” Lump whispered.
“This is skald’s magic, not sei er. ” announced Jack, who wasn’t entirely sure about it. “I’m a skald. I do not clean out pigsties.” He handed the rake to Lump, who took it automatically. “If you annoy me, I’ll make you come up in boils. If you try to hurt me, I’ll drive you insane—or worse!”
The thralls looked stunned. It was clear they were trying to figure out what “worse” could mean. “If I tell Olaf what you’ve just done, he’ll chop you into little bits.” The thralls’ white faces told Jack that this threat, at least, was entirely believable. “Now I’m going to the great hall for breakfast. I expect you to have the barn cleaned out by nightfall. And throw a few buckets of water over Golden Bristles. He’s not happy about being covered with muck.”
Jack strode out as if he were the captain of a drekar. He didn’t look back. He had little enough going for him in this horrible land. If he could bully the thralls into fearing him, so much the better. He owed them nothing.
Once out of sight, Jack collapsed under a hedge, and the terror of his near destruction came over him. He trembled and tears leaked down his face. Why were so many people out to get him? How could he possibly survive so many enemies? He looked up to see Bold Heart chuckling to himself nearby. “I have at least one true friend,?
?? Jack said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “And maybe I have two, if you can count Golden Bristles.”
Jack dug the splinters out of his hands while he calmed his nerves. He heard curses and shouts from the pig barn, so perhaps Golden Bristles wasn’t being such a good piggy anymore. This cheered Jack up considerably, and he sauntered to the great hall in a happier mood. Bold Heart followed him the whole way, not going off with the other crows as he had done before.
Chapter Twenty-two
Heide’s Prophecy
“This iss not well done,” said Heide as she arranged and rearranged Olaf’s magnificent scarlet cloak. It was late afternoon, and the household was preparing to attend King Ivar’s welcome-home feast. If welcome it was. In spite of Olaf’s gifts, Ivar had waited an insulting two weeks before acknowledging the triumphant hero.
“You are giffing Ivar the troll-boar, but iff the king sees that boy, he will want him, too,” said Heide. She fussed with Olaf’s beard, which had been decorated with ribbons, before presenting him with his party helmet. Jack felt cold when he saw it. It had the same weird, hawklike mask. But this one was covered in gold and engraved with designs—a line of warriors marched around the rim, and beautifully wrought vines covered the top.
“He’s going to sing my praises, woman. What good is that without an audience?”
“And whhhat”—Heide drew out the word like a sigh of wind off the sea—“will the king think iff you haff a skald and he does not?”
“Ivar’s all right,” said Olaf uncomfortably. “I’ve served him all my life. He’s an honorable man.”
“He wasss,” Heide said with a sigh, “before she arrived.”
“Yes, well, you’re not changing a thing. Get my sword, boy. I’ll have to take it off at the door, but it looks good with the cloak.”
And so it did in the new scabbard Skakki had decorated with jewels he’d pried from a looted cross. Jack could hardly lift it, but Olaf strapped it on easily. Skakki would attend as well in his own finery, bearing a sword he had won in battle. He would never be as large as his father, but there was no mistaking his bravery.
Jack liked him. He had his mother’s intelligence. He was gentle with the younger children and unexpectedly kind to the thralls. Olaf said regretfully that Skakki had not inherited his berserker tendencies, but he was proud of his son in spite of this flaw.
Dotti and Lotti were covered in jewelry—rings on every finger, bracelets, necklaces, charms, and three large brooches, two fastening the straps of their jumpers and one in the middle. From these brooches hung further items on copper chains: keys, combs, scissors, knives, and a small silver scoop Dotti said was a nose-picker. They had learned about nose-pickers from Heide and found them most useful.
Rune looked every inch a skald in a white robe with his harp slung on his back. He was unable to sing, but the music had not left his fingers. Even Thorgil had unbent enough to wear a clean green tunic. The necklace of silver leaves she had fallen in love with shone at her neck. At Jack’s neck was the iron collar of a thrall.
Jack was nervous about meeting the queen, but after he sang ( without mistakes, Rune warned him repeatedly), he could melt into the background. The real problem was Lucy. She would be given to the queen, and Jack couldn’t do a thing to stop it. Olaf said Frith liked pretty children, perhaps because she had none of her own. She treated them well when she wasn’t in a snit. As to what happened to the children when she was in a snit, Olaf was silent.
“At last! At last! I’m going to my castle!” Lucy cried. “I’m going to see my real parents.”
“Mother and Father are your real parents,” Jack said.
“No, they aren’t,” declared Lucy, and Jack didn’t have the heart to disillusion her.
“Aren’t you going?” he asked Heide, who was still in her stained work dress.
“The queen doess not like my presence,” she replied in her smoky voice. “It makes her nerrrvousss.”
Jack was disappointed. It would have been nice to have someone around who could make the queen nervous.
“I haff thiss to say, dear ox-brain,” Heide continued as Olaf made ready to leave. “Iff you take this boy and his sister to the court of King Ivar, it will be your doom. I haff spoken uff this often, but you haff not listened. Now for the last time I entreat you. Do not show them to the queen. I haff seen you lying in a dark forest with your lifeblood soaking into the earth.”
Rune looked startled. “You didn’t tell me this, Olaf.”
“Women’s ravings,” said the giant.
“I don’t think anyone has ever accused Heide of raving.”
“Listen well, old friend. Those who spend sheltered lives are ever afraid of danger. But you know danger is what we warriors were born for. Our spirits drive us seaward to sail the salt wave. Our happiness lies in risking all in some adventure, and if we survive, so much sweeter is our homecoming. But to all men, eventually, comes doom. Our only choice is to meet it boldly. It will come to us whatever we do.”
Rune’s eyes were shining. “You deserve the finest poem a skald could ever write.”
“I do, don’t I?” said Olaf, brightening up.
“You deserve a kick in the backside,” cried Heide. “Who ever stuffed men’s heads full of such nonsense? Whhhy can’t you avoid trouble and fight another day?”
But no one listened to her except Jack.
The afternoon was cloudless and warm. The fields were covered with a haze of bees, and the farm horses frisked along the fence. Even Cloud Mane, who was more reserved, whinnied as they passed. First came Olaf, carrying Lucy. Beside him was Skakki. Clustered behind were Dotti and Lotti, Rune, Thorgil, and Jack. And to the rear groaned the cart on which Golden Bristles was penned. It was pulled by oxen and flanked by Thick Legs, Dirty Pants, and Lump, who, if not well dressed, were at least clean. Pig Face was at home recovering from a bite taken out of his leg, courtesy of Golden Bristles.
They walked up the mountain through pine forests and meadows. Lemmings bounded through drifts of wild garlic, and elk withdrew behind stands of cloudberries and cranberries. Jack saw a falcon hover and then dive to pluck a small, squealing rodent from the grass. He went back to check on Golden Bristles.
“This looks good to you, doesn’t it, piggy?” he whispered, and the boar oinked in reply.
“Don’t get attached to him,” said Lump. “He’s to be sacrificed to Freya.”
“Sacrificed?”
“You don’t keep a brute like that around for his looks,” said Dirty Pants. The thralls had become friendly to Jack, once they realized he wasn’t going to make trouble for them.
“I thought he was for—you know—making baby pigs.”
“He’s done that, all right,” Lump said, snickering.
“He’s not a normal boar,” explained Thick Legs. “They’re vicious enough, but his kind came over the sea with the Jotuns. He’s in a class by himself. He killed a man when he was taken, and he ate two pig boys.”
That’s why you put me in with him, thought Jack, but he didn’t say it aloud. “I suppose it isn’t any worse than killing him for meat.”
“Oh, it is. Much worse,” said Dirty Pants. “They’ll throw him, cart and all, into Freya’s Fen. He’ll sink slowly. Sometimes it takes hours, and he’ll know what’s happening. Pigs are smart.”
“That’s—that’s horrible!”
“It’s what he deserves, the human-eating monster,” said Lump. “Too bad Pig Face can’t watch it.”
Jack walked along with the boar, singing in a low voice. He didn’t want to attract Thorgil’s attention. He sang of the Islands of the Blessed, where snow never came and where the air was ever sweet and the water clear as sky. Golden Bristles seemed to understand, for he grunted softly.
They came out of the forest to bare ground. Thorgil ran off at once to find the king’s wolfhounds. The promontory known as Fang Rock jutted out over the fjord, and Ivar’s hall loomed at the very end. It dwarfed all the outlying buildings. It ev
en dwarfed Olaf’s hall. Its humpbacked roof extended at least twice as far and was supported by at least two dozen pillars on each side. For all that, it was ugly. It reminded Jack of a giant sow bug with pillars for legs. Smoke rose from a dozen fire pits outside.
Other guests shouted greetings—Sven the Vengeful, Egil Long-Spear, and a new man introduced as Tree Foot. Tree Foot was shaped like a beer keg. His broad chest was covered by a curly red beard, but his most distinctive feature was his left leg. The lower half had been replaced by a beautifully carved wooden stake. It was decorated with the same fanciful designs that covered the beams of Olaf’s hall.
“HA! HA! HA!” bellowed Tree Foot, stumping along. “SO YOU CHEATED THE FISHES.” He slapped Olaf on the back.
“How’s the leg?” asked the giant.
“NEVER BETTER. YOU’RE A MASTER CARVER.”
Tree Foot was evidently as deaf as Eric Pretty-Face, and when that warrior showed up, Jack had to cover his ears. “What happened to his leg?” he asked Rune when they’d got far enough away from the two bellowing men.
“A troll bit it off,” said Rune. “The same one who tried to get Eric Pretty-Face’s leg.”
More and more people came. They hovered by the fire pits to savor the odor of roast pork, salmon, goose, and venison. Rune struck up his harp, and people gathered around to sing. It was a happy crowd, but Jack couldn’t help noticing that no one went into Ivar’s hall. The area Jack could see through the huge open door was curiously dark. Windows weren’t a feature of Northman halls, but they were brightened by hearth fires. There was a long hearth fire inside Ivar’s hall. It seemed muted, as though the surrounding darkness was so thick, even light had to struggle to escape.
Since it was high summer, the sun was slow to go down, and when it did at last disappear, the twilight lingered. The snowy mountains to the north glowed red. Jotunheim, thought Jack. Home of people who bite off legs. The redness seeped into the sky and turned the earth the color of dried blood.