The Sea of Trolls

winter night. The hearth poured warmth into the hall, but it tempered her not a bit. He felt the cold sucking at the rune on his neck. He looked up.

She was beautiful.

She was more than beautiful. Jack, who didn’t notice girls much unless he had to, was struck dumb. How could he have thought she was evil? Such beauty could only come from the gods—or the angels, depending on your religion. Her skin was as pale as cream; her hair—her hair—swept down in red-gold waves. It lay about her in a shining fall, all the way to the floor. It made Lucy’s hair look like old hay.

Queen Frith smiled, and Jack rose at once and bowed to her. He couldn’t help it. He hardly noticed when Rune pulled him down and forcibly turned his face in another direction.

Then—it was so odd—the coldness returned. When he wasn’t looking at her, he felt a chill from his toes to the top of his head. “Do not gaze at the queen, boy,” Rune whispered. “She will pull you to where she is, between the worlds. Concentrate on the poem. Go over your lines.”

So Jack went over and over his lines, but he wanted terribly to see Queen Frith smile at him again.

The feasting began, with entire roast pigs and deer being carried in on giant platters. Geese stuffed with hens stuffed with larks stuffed with coriander were put on every table. Mead, wine, and beer flowed freely, though Rune sternly refused to let Jack have any. He had to keep his wits for Olaf’s praise-poem.

And finally, when Jack thought it couldn’t get any better, the king’s cooks brought in bowls of flummery. “Flummery,” Lucy said softly, the first word she had spoken all evening. “The best kind, with nutmeg and cream.”

Jack had to choke back a strong desire to cry.

King Ivar rose, and the hall fell silent. “We are here to celebrate the return of our good friend Olaf One- Brow.”

“HEAR! HEAR!” shouted Tree Foot from the other end of the hall.

“He has ever been the first into battle and the last to leave. He saved me when the Mountain Queen shut me into her cave, and he single-handedly forced the Elf King to give up the cattle he had stolen.” Jack looked at Olaf in surprise. These were stories he hadn’t heard. “Since Thorgrim’s death he has led my berserkers.” King Ivar raised his drinking horn high. “I honor him with this feast and look forward to hearing his victory poem. To Olaf!”

The king drained his horn, and the hall exploded with cheers and shouts. “TO OLAF!” boomed Tree Foot and Eric Pretty-Face.

“I honor him too,” came a voice as sweet as a summer breeze across a field of clover. In spite of the din, Jack heard her clearly and so, apparently, did everyone else. Once again the hall fell silent.

“Olaf has ever been generous as well as brave,” came Frith’s caressing voice. Jack tried to look up, but Rune forced his head down. “He has gifted us with gold rings and fine cloth. He has brought us a fine troll-boar for the midsummer sacrifice. And now he has brought us a real skald. Too long has this court been without music. Too long has King Ivar done without a poet.”

Wait a minute, thought Jack. I’m not being given to the king.

Olaf stood. Jack noticed that he didn’t look up either. His eyes were directed at the queen’s feet—and lovely feet they were too. They peeped daintily from beneath her gown, and then something else peeped out from behind her—an enormous cat! It muscled its way to the front, rubbing itself against Frith’s dress and purring loudly. More cats lounged in the shadows at the back of the dais. They all had long, red-gold fur, and they stared out at the hall with pale gold eyes.

“Great Queen, before my skald sings, I have something important to do,” said Olaf. “Thorgil went on her first raid and made her first capture. Instead of keeping it for herself, she insists on giving it to you, knowing that you like pretty children. I have always found Thorgil to be generous and brave. I would welcome her into my berserkers, if you would graciously agree.” Thorgil rose and bowed. Her face was flushed and happy. She was also somewhat rumpled from playing with the dogs. Olaf lifted Lucy from her seat.

No! thought Jack. Now that the moment had come, he felt he had to snatch his sister away no matter what happened after. But then he looked up and saw the queen.

She was as fair and innocent as a May morning. No harm could possibly come from her.

Thorgil took Lucy’s hand and led her up the steps of the dais. The cats came forward to inspect them, and Jack thought he saw Thorgil flinch. Certainly the creatures didn’t like her, or perhaps it was the smell of dog. They laid back their ears and hissed. Lucy leaned forward to pet one of the brutes; Jack tensed, fearing the worst, but it rubbed against her and purred.

“They like you,” said the queen.

“A cat kept me warm after I was stolen from the castle,” Lucy informed her.

“Ah! So you are a princess.”

“I’m your princess, silly,” said Lucy. “Don’t you remember? The trolls stole me from you when I was only a baby.”

A gasp went through the hall when Lucy said silly. Jack guessed that no one ever insulted Frith. But the queen only laughed. “Now that you mention it, perhaps I do remember I had a daughter. I’m surprised the trolls didn’t eat you.”

You’re half troll. You ought to know, thought Jack, and yet he couldn’t believe such foul ancestry when he looked at Frith.

“Oh, they wanted to!” cried Lucy. “They started fighting among themselves. ‘Shall we roast her with an apple in her mouth?’ they said. ‘Or shall we make her into a pie?’ ‘Pie! Pie!’ roared half the trolls. The other half shouted for roast baby. They began to fight, and soon they had knocked each other senseless. That’s when Father came and found me—I mean, my other father. The one who isn’t here.”

Lucy hadn’t talked so much for weeks. She slipped into her role as princess with amazing ease. Well, she’d been practicing it all her life, thought Jack. Lucy walked up to the queen and confidently hugged her knees.

“What an imagination!” marveled Frith. “I can see you’re going to be entertaining. Thank you, Thorgil. It is a most generous gift.”

Thorgil muttered something and waited awkwardly. Social graces were not her strength.

“Yes?” said the queen.

“Could I—I mean, would you—could you—let me join the berserkers?”

“A young child such as you!” warbled Frith in her lovely voice. “Surely you’d rather learn maidenly things like sewing and weaving and cooking.”

It was as though the queen knew exactly what would upset Thorgil. The shield maiden turned red from her effort to control herself. Jack thought she probably wouldn’t succeed.

“Great Queen,” interrupted Olaf. “She’s the child of Thorgrim. There was never a finer berserker, and she has inherited his spirit.”

“Indeed,” said Frith somewhat coldly. “I wouldn’t have thought a shield maiden would wear such a feminine ornament as that necklace of leaves.”

So that’s her game, thought Jack, who had stopped looking at the queen. It made his mind clearer. She wants Thorgil’s necklace.

Thorgil undid the necklace and handed it to Frith. Jack could see it hurt her. “I don’t want it,” the girl said ungraciously. “It’s an ugly girl thing.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt me,” cooed Frith. “Why, thank you. Now you may return to your table. I’m anxious to hear Olaf’s praise-song and don’t want to wait another minute.”

Thorgil stumbled off the dais and threw herself down on the bench. Her face was purple with rage, and Olaf put his hand on her shoulder. “Later, my Valkyrie,” he whispered. Thorgil softened somewhat at his praise, but she still looked like a storm cloud full of lightning. She’d given up her first capture and the beautiful silver necklace, and she still wasn’t a member of the Queen’s Berserkers.

Jack looked out over the hall. At least a hundred faces looked back at him, many of them Ivar’s men. Olaf had moved Tree Foot and Eric Pretty-Face to his table and threatened them if they talked during the performance. They’d removed their party helmets to hear better. Rune smiled gently as he rested his chin on his harp. This would be his triumph too, though no one would know it. Thorgil had withdrawn into her rage, but Jack wasn’t singing for her anyway.