The Age Of Odin

Now Odin stepped forward. 'My son.'

'Father.' Thor bowed low.

'Leading by example, as ever.' Just the tiniest hint of mockery in Odin's voice.

'They are keen to see combat, these men,' Thor replied, bluffly, 'but discipline is in short supply. Some of them have not known active service in a long while. Every now and then they need reminding who is in charge and how the command structure works.'

'As long as showing them who's boss doesn't mean killing them.'

'It would never come to that, father. And who is this?' Thor said, frowning at me.

'This is Gid,' said Odin. 'He turned up a week ago.'

'Ah yes. The wolf attack man.'

I detected a sneer on Thor's face as he said this, but I let it pass.

'Waylaid by a few stray dogs, were you?' Thor went on.

I held his gaze. Thor's eyes were small and dark and if they had been set any closer together, he'd have been a Cyclops.

'Wolves,' I said carefully, 'are not the same as dogs.'

'A few measly pups. Me, I'd have just patted them on the head and told them to be off.'

'Thor…' warned Odin.

But son paid father no heed. 'What happened, did one of them lick you a little too hard? Is that why you require a walking stick?'

Keep a lid on it, Gid. Calm and cool. Don't let your goat be got. 'I was in a car crash as well.'

'Ooh, a car crash!'

'And for your information, sunshine, it wasn't a few wolves, it was a whole pack.'

'Still, if it had been me, I'd have sent them away with their tails between their legs.'

'Well, aren't you the big beefy macho man?' I retorted. 'Look, Thor, or whatever you real name is, I don't care what you think of me and I've no idea why you're trying to get a rise out of me. I'm just not in the mood, so give it a rest, eh?'

I turned and started walking off.

'And your friend didn't make it,' Thor said to my back. 'He must truly have been some kind of weakling. Was it even worth the wolves' while eating him, I wonder? I can't imagine someone so lacking in substance would have made much of a meal for them.'

That wasn't the final straw.

'Oh, scared to face me, are you?' he bellowed. 'Coward!'

That was the final straw.

I halted in my tracks and spun round.

'What did you just call me?' I snapped.

'You heard.'

'Say it again. Say it to my face.'

The crowd, which had been dispersing, rapidly un-dispersed. They sensed what was brewing.

Thor very slowly and very deliberately repeated the word.

'Coward.'

Oh dear.

Ten

This was what always used to get me into trouble, back during the bad days, post-discharge, post-divorce. Someone only had to say the wrong thing, look at me in the wrong way… Hell, they didn't even have to do that. All it needed was me thinking they were saying the wrong thing or looking the wrong way, and I'd bristle.

Alcohol played a part, but by no means every time. I didn't have to be drunk to lose my rag, although, let's face it, drunkenness made a flare-up a lot likelier. Mostly, though, I was just looking for any excuse to start a scrap, and finding it. I was like a balloon in a roomful of porcupines. Only had to float a few inches in any direction and pop!

Coward was the one word that could be absolutely guaranteed to set me off. It, of all insults, really rankled. I had a short fuse as it was, but coward nipped it to the quick. No idea why, unless it was simply that I'd been a soldier, I'd fought for queen and country, I'd faced enemy fire, heard bullets whizzing past my ears, seen mortar rounds turn men to mince, and I'd never once flinched — so what the fuck would you know?

I'd believed it was all behind me now, that period of easy aggravation and overenthusiastic readiness to ruck. I'd believed I had that hair-trigger temper of mine under control.

Apparently not.

I flicked a glance at Odin. He gave the slightest of shrugs: Please yourself. I'm not going to stop you. On your own head be it.

'You shouldn't have said that, you big fat twat,' I said to Thor. 'Now I'm going to have to kick your arse.'

'Come on then, dog's dinner,' he replied. 'Give it a try.'

He beckoned to me.

I limped over to him. The crowd clustered around us.

It was insane. I was in no shape for this. I'd only just risen from my sickbed. An anorexic dwarf could have mopped the floor with me.

But that didn't matter. Consequences were irrelevant. Just as in the old days, the bad days, this was about me hurting someone else in order to make myself feel better. And if the other person managed to hurt me back, that was almost a plus.

I made a show of leaning heavily on the walking stick, looking like I was in dire need of it. The hope was that Thor would underestimate me, and the crowd would sympathise. A couple of them did give me a grin and a thumbs-up, but cash was already changing hands again and I could make a pretty good guess which way the odds were going.

'I shall be gentle,' Thor said.

'Don't patronise me, you great nonce,' I said. 'You're the one who's started this. If you're not going to follow through in any meaningful way, why bother?'

'Very well. Then this won't take long.'

'Ooh, you've really got me cacking in my Calvin Kleins,' I said, and then I hit him.

Or rather, before I'd even completed the sentence, while he was under the impression we were still in the trash-talking phase of the fight, I hit him. Hoicked the walking stick up between his legs, and the thwack! it made brought a collective sharp intake of breath from the men all around.

Thor's eyes bulged, his cheeks too, and as his hands flew to his tender parts I followed up with a heel stamp to the inside of his ankle bone, then clouted him round the head with the stick.

He reeled, and from the crowd's reaction — oohs of surprise — I knew that it was the first time anything like this had happened. Someone had actually staggered Thor.

I myself was a mite disappointed. I'd been counting on him falling, but he stayed upright. Worse, once he'd got over the initial shock and the pain had started to fade, he looked across at me with eyes ablaze, and I realised all I'd managed to do was piss him off.

'This is supposed,' he said, 'to be hand-to-hand.'

I shrugged. 'Nobody told me. Not my fault if you didn't lay down the rules at the beginning.'

'Were I to draw Mjolnir now, that would be the end of you.' He patted his hammer. 'But I, at least, will play fair. Besides, that stick is no real weapon at all.'

'Oh yeah? It's done pretty well so far. You're just jealous because mine's longer than yours.'

The audience liked that one, although Thor didn't. He growled and lumbered at me.