“One thing’s the same,” Thorgil said. “Those stupid birds are still going on about their utterly boring lives.”
Jack led the way. He took them past the field where the snowy owls had collapsed. He found the woodland of apple, walnut, hazelnut, and pear trees. “So this is where you got that food,” the shield maiden said.
“Listen.” Jack held up his hand. The hum of thousands and thousands of bees rose and fell ahead. It sounded as though you’d have to push them out of the way just to squeeze through.
“I don’t like bees,” Thorgil said. “I was stung by a lot of them once, when I tried to rob a hive.”
“They’re all right if you don’t upset them,” Jack said. “My mother taught me a charm to calm angry bees.”
“I’m not sure…I don’t understand their language as I do Bird, but it seems they’re not angry. And they’re too wild to be merely happy. I’d say they were frenzied.”
“Berserk?” Jack guessed.
“Something like that.”
You’d know, Jack thought. He remembered the kind of mad joy that had possessed Olaf and his men before they slaughtered Gizur’s village. Jack and Thorgil stood for a long time, listening to the incessant hum.
“Would your charm work on berserk bees?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” he replied.
“Well, it’s better than nothing.” Thorgil drew both her knives.
“What are you going to do? Stab all the bees?” Jack said. “We’ve been allowed to come here by the Norns. They’ll either let us get to the well or they won’t. Nothing either of us does is going to change that.”
Thorgil reluctantly sheathed her knives. She took Jack’s hand, and they went on through the grove. The land gradually inclined upward until it led to a large hill. “Look!” Thorgil cried. At the top rose an enormous ash tree— the Ash Tree, Yggdrassil itself rising up and up and up until you could hardly believe human eyes could see that far.
Branches swept everywhere, teeming with life. All the birds in the world roosted on its arms, and all the insects, too. Some bored into the bark and destroyed it. Some nibbled the leaves. Wherever the tree went, creatures fed on it, but they also bent it into bowers for their young. Jack saw deer with their fawns, wolves with their cubs, and men and women—for the branches reached into Middle Earth as well—sitting with their children in the leaves.
The roots plunged down on either side of the hill, some to the World of Fire and others to the icy halls of Hel. A giant serpent coiled in the depths and sank its fangs into the blood of the Tree. But in the high branches a giant eagle fanned its wings and drove the breath of life back into the leaves.
Up and down the mighty trunk scampered a bedraggled squirrel, shrieking insults. “That’s Ratatosk,” whispered Thorgil. “He carries gossip throughout the nine worlds.”
At the very top, so far up it seemed to be higher than the moon and yet so clear you were tempted to reach for it, was a golden fence with silver fence posts. Inside lay a heavenly green field and a grove of trees. Many fine palaces and towers rose over this field, but the finest of all had a gate so wide a thousand men could march through it at once.
“That’s Asgard where the gods live and that’s the gate of Valhalla,” gasped Thorgil. “Oh, tell me if you see Olaf. Oh, I want to go there now.”
“You can’t,” Jack whispered, holding her. She trembled like a wounded bird. “It looks close, but you could climb a hundred years and get no nearer. I know what this Tree is. It’s pure life force. It’s being chewed on and nibbled at and cut with axes, but it never dies because it’s the earth itself.”
“Never dies? What about Ragnarok?” cried Thorgil.
“That’s what the Norns want you to believe in, a future where all that exists is war followed by destruction. But their vision is only one leaf on the Tree. There’s the Islands of the Blessed, where the great queens and heroes go.”
“Where Maeve went,” Thorgil said softly.
“Yes, and there’s High Heaven for Christians like me and a lot of other places I don’t know about. Yggdrassil contains all of them.”
A constant rain fell out of the Tree like a shower of silver arrows, but the rain never reached the ground. Bees—and here at last were the bees—gathered the honeydew up in midair. Great golden honeycombs hung off the branches like heavenly fruit. No winter came here, and so the bees had no need of hives. They rose and fell in their thousands, and the sound of their humming was pure joy.
Chapter Thirty-six
Mimir’s Well
At foot of the tree, where Yggdrassil touched the valley, was a well. It was an unassuming little well at the top of a hill, with a bucket on a rope like the one beside Mother and Father’s house.
“It looks so ordinary,” Jack said.
“‘Always look behind the door before entering a house,’” said Thorgil, quoting a favorite Northman proverb. “Also: ‘Never set foot outside without weapons.’ Would you like one of my knives?”
“This is a spiritual quest,” Jack said with some annoyance. “Why do you always assume there’s an enemy lurking somewhere?”
“Because there always has been,” the shield maiden replied simply. “Anyhow, you have to sacrifice something of overwhelming importance before you can drink.”
“I don’t know…it looks too peaceful for that. Maybe all you have to do is walk up there.”
“Nothing is gained without suffering,” said Thorgil.
“I think that’s a Northman trick to squeeze pain out of a perfectly decent situation.”
“It’s so like a thrall to avoid heroism,” sneered Thorgil.
“All heroism means to you is a chance to get beaten up,” Jack snarled back. They were toe-to-toe again, and his hand itched to strike her. He could tell she was itching to strike him. The hum of the bees became almost deafening, and one bumped into Jack’s face. He stepped back. All around them swarmed an eager tornado of bees. Thorgil’s eyes were wide with alarm.
“Sit down,” Jack ordered. She obeyed. “Breathe deeply. Think of peaceful things.”
“I don’t know any peaceful things,” Thorgil said.
“Well, think of playing Dodge the Spear with the louts. Something happy.”
The shield maiden closed her eyes, and by the smile on her face Jack knew she was in a pleasant memory. He himself thought of sitting under a rowan tree with the Bard so long ago. The bees wandered back into the branches of Yggdrassil and continued their incessant gathering of honeydew.
“Why did they attack us?” said Thorgil, opening her eyes.
“They haven’t attacked us—yet. Bees are sensitive to whether someone’s angry or afraid,” Jack said. “My mother never gathered honey when she was upset. We were fighting, and that doesn’t seem to be allowed here.”
Thorgil started to reply when she glanced up at the bees and thought better of it.
All I have to do is walk up that hill, thought Jack, suddenly reluctant to move. That’s easy. I’ve drawn water hundreds of times at home.
“Want me to do it?” Thorgil said sarcastically.
“I’m just thinking.” Jack stood and forced himself to begin. The hill was steeper than it looked. By the time he was halfway up, he had to stop and catch his breath. He went on and on, edging closer to the mighty tree and the innocent-looking well. He heard Ratatosk the squirrel shrieking vile insults overhead. He heard the myriad worms and beetles chewing on bark. He got to the well.
What if I look over the edge and see Odin’s eye lying at the bottom? he thought. What if it looks up at me? His hands shook, but he forced himself to reach for the bucket. The instant he touched the wood it was as though a great hand reached out and swatted him away like a pesky gnat. Over and over he tumbled down the hill, rolling faster until his fall was broken by his head banging against a rock.
“Told you you’d have to sacrifice something of overwhelming importance,” said Thorgil.
“Stop gloating and help me!” cried
Jack. He saw blood drip onto the grass from his scalp. Thorgil pressed her hand on the wound until the bleeding stopped. She cut a strip from her new tunic to bind it. “You certainly know how to treat injuries,” Jack said grudgingly.
“Done it hundreds of times. Now, what are you going to sacrifice?”
“I don’t have anything,” Jack said.
“Of course you do. You could cut off an ear—I’d help you, of course—or smash the fingers of one hand so you’d never play the harp again. That’s a good one for a skald.”
“Chopping yourself to bits is for Northmen , not sane, sensible Saxons!” shouted Jack. “I can’t believe the life force demands such a thing.”
“You have to show you really care!” Thorgil shouted back, ready as always for an argument. “This isn’t some village fair where you win prizes by pitching walnuts at a target. This is Yggdrassil. Not even Odin approached it without sacrifice.”
“Well then, Odin was an idiot.”
“He was not! You take that back!”
“I won’t! Odin is a vicious bully, and so is everyone who believes in him. He makes shield maidens wait on tables in Valhalla.”
“That’s not true!” shrieked Thorgil. The bees had come down again and were swirling around in a loud, maddening swarm. “Odin stands for courage and honor, something a thrall would never understand!”
“How can you understand it, then? You were a thrall until three years ago!” Jack regretted it the instant he said it. Thorgil reeled back as though he’d struck her with an axe. He could see the light of true madness in her eyes. She was a berserker from a line of berserkers, and the fit came upon her whether she willed it or not. “I’m sorry!” Jack cried. “You’re not a thrall! You’re a shield maiden! Odin loves you, and he’d never make you wait on tables!” But he was too late.
“I vow,” said Thorgil, quivering with rage, “that I will kill myself after drawing water from Mimir’s Well. I offer my life up to bring it to Jack so that he may heal Queen Frith and save his sister. I swear this by Yggdrassil, Odin, and the Norns!”
“Don’t do this!” shouted Jack, but Thorgil was already racing up the hill. She pushed ahead, heedless of the wall of bees between her and the top. They roared around her in their thousands, but they didn’t sting. They seemed beside themselves with wild joy.
Jack watched the shield maiden struggle up the steep hill, but she never stopped to rest. She got to the well and reached for the bucket.
The same invisible hand knocked her back. Thorgil rolled over and over down the hill with the bees fleeing from her path. She bumped against the same rock. This time Jack treated the head wound. Thorgil seemed stunned, more than he. She stared blindly at him.
“They wouldn’t accept my sacrifice,” she managed to say at last. “The Norns…Odin…Yggdrassil. They wouldn’t accept my life. Is that…because I was born…a thrall?”
“No, no, of course not,” said Jack, holding her closely as he had once held Lucy after they’d escaped drowning. “Olaf freed you and named you daughter. The Jotuns honor you. No one thinks you’re a thrall because you’re so much, much more. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.” He stroked her hair and felt her sobs echo in his own body. “I think they rejected your sacrifice because you have to offer something of overwhelming importance. Your life means nothing to you.”
“It’s truly meaningless now,” said Thorgil. “I will kill myself anyway. I have nothing to live for now that Olaf’s gone.”
“You mustn’t do that! He wanted you to live. I want you to live.”
“Too late,” Thorgil said. She drew a knife, and Jack did the only thing he could think of. He was no match for her fighting skills or her determination, though he’d become as strong as she was in his time with the Northmen. He pulled the rune of protection from around his neck. At once it became visible.
It was a square disk of heavy gold. On it was a pattern that might have been a sunburst, except that each ray had branches like a budding tree. The tree, Jack realized now, was Yggdrassil.
“So that was what you hid around your neck,” Thorgil said, pausing with the knife in the air. “It burned me like fire.”
“That was because you tried to take it by force. The rune can only be given.” Jack felt empty and sad. It was his only link with the Bard. It had faithfully guarded him through danger and despair, and now it would be gone. He hung it around Thorgil’s neck.
“I suppose it will burn me anyway,” she said. “I’ll suffer greatly, but it’s only what I deserve.”
As Jack watched, the pendant vanished. He felt devastated.
“Mother,” whispered Thorgil. “I can see her in my mind.” She put down the knife.
“Queen Glamdis?”
“No…my real mother. Allyson. I was so cruel to her. I called her names and I never treated her kindly, even when she was crying. Father used to beat her. He called her useless because she bore him no son.”
“She did bear him a son. You had an older brother, and your father killed him.”
“I was to be his replacement, but I failed.” Tears rolled down Thorgil’s face.
“How could you possibly fail by being born a girl?”
“Mother cooked me special meals when Father wasn’t looking. She combed my hair and made me beautiful jackets and boots. I never thanked her.”
“Olaf said she never spoke.”
“She did to me, in Saxon,” said Thorgil. “I made fun of her for using a slave’s speech. That’s when she stopped talking. And then—and then they sacrificed her so she could accompany Father to Valhalla.”
“You know what? I don’t think she went to Valhalla at all. Dragon Tongue said you get to choose your afterlife. I think she went to the Islands of the Blessed with Maeve.”
“I hope so,” said Thorgil. “Oh! I just remembered. One of the last things I said to Olaf was ‘I hate you.’ How could I have done that?” She burst into fresh tears.
“I imagine people told Olaf they hated him at least once a day,” Jack said dryly.
“That’s true,” said Thorgil, brightening up again. But then she remembered other crimes from her past. She seemed to have an endless fund of them. She had smashed Heide’s loom after the wise woman made her a dress. She had jeered at Rune’s voice when he tried to sing a praise-song for her. She had tied together the tails of Slasher, Wolf Bane, Hel Hag, and Shreddie to make them fight. And these were dogs who loved her, practically the only creatures who did.
Jack couldn’t imagine harboring that much malice. The stories poured out like pus from a wound. It seemed to be the first time Thorgil even realized she’d done anything wrong.
“I feel so strange. Like something’s missing.” She picked up the knife again, and Jack was afraid she’d try to stab herself. “You know…I don’t feel like killing myself.”
“That’s good.”
“No, it’s not. It’s not like me. I don’t want to fall in battle, either.” She sat up suddenly, staring wildly.
“ Now what?” said Jack.
“I’ve lost the desire to slash and burn! I don’t want to kill people! I don’t remember how to run berserk! I’m not a shield maiden anymore! ” She completely lost control then, rolling on the ground, pulling up handfuls of grass, keening and groaning and sobbing for all she was worth. Jack could only watch her. He didn’t know how to deal with such extreme grief.
After a while Thorgil tired herself out. She lay, pale and exhausted, on the ruined grass. She’d managed to gouge a few holes out of the earth with her knife as well.
“I think I know what’s happened,” Jack said when she was calm enough to listen. “The one thing I valued most in this world was the rune of protection. Now I’ve given it to you. The one thing you valued most was being a berserker. The rune made you value life rather than death, so you can’t go berserk anymore. You’re still a shield maiden—hear me out,” he said as Thorgil attempted to argue. “You’re like Skakki now. He’s no berserker and never will be. Heide??
?s good sense runs in his veins. He’s a brave, intelligent warrior, and he’ll live long to protect his family and village.”
“We’re both losers. So what?” said Thorgil.
“We can both drink from Mimir’s Well, that’s what.” Jack pulled her to her feet.
“If I drink, I might become a greater skald than you,” Thorgil said with a hint of her earlier malice.
“Don’t count on it. The well, as far as I can tell, gives you the knowledge you need. Odin asked for mastery and got it. I need poetry to undo the charm I cast on Frith. What you need is anybody’s guess.”
Hand in hand they walked up the hill. This time it didn’t seem steep at all, and when they arrived at the top, they both laid their hands on the bucket—quickly, before they could get swatted away. Nothing happened. Jack sighed in relief. “See? I was correct.”
“The bees are gone,” Thorgil observed. They could still see them dancing in the upper air, gathering the honeydew that fell from Yggdrassil.
“Here goes,” said Jack. He heard the bucket splash far below and pulled it dripping from the depths. A marvelous smell rose from it, of flowers and green fields and pine forests and honey. “It’s the smell of life,” said Jack, smiling.
He drank first. It was sweet, but not the heavy sweetness of mead that drugged you with sleep. Rather, it woke you up. Jack thought it tasted like light captured in water. A dozen memories ran through his mind. He was a young boy watching his father build their house. He was sitting in front of the beehives listening to his mother sing. He was under the rowan tree with the Bard. Every green smell and warm flavor came back to him. Every bright cloud floating over a mountaintop, every fish rising to snap at a fly, every swallow turning in the air appeared before him. It was all wonderful. It was all full of life.
“Did it work?” whispered Thorgil. “Can you heal Queen Frith?”