The Sea of Trolls

arms and then her perfect face. Except that it wasn’t perfect. The one thing poets always mentioned about women was their eyes, and Frith’s eyes were like doors opening onto nothingness.

Her hair! He could sing about that. It indeed was worth praising, a red-gold river fanning out around her like a cloak fashioned by elves. It flowed down to the floor, fell like sunlight from her white brow. Even Freya’s cats were no fairer.

At the mention of cats one of the beasts turned his head and sank his teeth into Jack’s leg. He shouted in surprise. The spell was broken, for spell it had been. Jack had felt the life force strongly, as when he called up fog. Frith’s hair had become more golden, had fallen ever more gracefully. Had fallen.

With the breaking of the spell, Frith’s hair simply detached itself from her head and fell to the floor with a little sigh.

The party guests held their breath. Frith looked uncertain, as though she hadn’t realized what had happened. “It’s sei?er!” yelled Thorgil, breaking the silence. “See? There’s his familiar in the rafters!”

Bold Heart croaked balefully and sailed out the door.

“A crow?” Frith said, wondering. She felt her head. Then she screamed, a terrible scream unlike anything human. Her body bulged in a dozen places. Her features rippled and twisted like the beasts carved on the walls. Her head turned pale and bulbous, with gaping eyes and a mournful mouth. She screamed again and again. The hall emptied out, with warriors scrambling over one another and whimpering in a most unheroic way.

Jack tried to reach Lucy, but he was snatched away by Olaf. The giant cleared a path for his wives and friends, while Skakki brought up the rear. Tree Foot and Eric Pretty-Face carried Rune between them. The old warrior was too frail to fight his way through the panic. When they got outside, Olaf marched them to the edge of the forest. He watched as the party guests gathered a respectful distance from the hall.

The screams had stopped. The night was full of stars and a full moon hung at zenith. A faint glow on the horizon showed that even at midnight, the midsummer sun was not far away. No one spoke, and Jack was afraid to ask questions. What would happen now? What would happen to Lucy?

Finally, Rune whispered, “That was the biggest snit I ever saw.”

It broke the tension. Olaf laughed ruefully. “Heide was right. She always is. I shouldn’t have taken the children to the party.”

“It was fated,” Rune said.

“I’m sorry,” said Jack, bracing for a blow, but Olaf was too preoccupied to hit him. He watched the door of Ivar’s hall.

“Should I fetch the thralls, Father?” said Skakki at last.

“Yes,” the giant replied. “Take Jack with you. He can calm the troll-boar while you unhitch the oxen.”

They made their way back to the party guests, and Jack asked people what had happened to Lucy. No one knew and no one wanted to go inside to look for her. Jack wiped tears away as he followed Skakki down a path to Golden Bristles’ cart. Thick Legs, Dirty Pants, and Lump were hiding under it.

“What was that sound?” whimpered Lump.

“The queen got into a snit. You can come along now,” Skakki said. “Unhitch the oxen. We’re getting out of here.” The men worked with the beasts while Jack sang softly to Golden Bristles inside. All the while he sawed with his knife at the leather straps holding the pen’s door. Finally, Skakki called him away.

“Good-bye, piggy,” Jack whispered. “Good luck.”

They walked in silence through the forest. The full moon marked out the path, and shadows massed under the trees on either side. But it was a clean darkness and not the perverted gloom of King Ivar’s hall. Jack saw a crow cross the face of the moon, keeping pace with Olaf’s party.

Chapter Twenty-four THE QUEST

The next morning Olaf sent Cloud Mane to the king. “It may cool his anger. We haven’t a hope of cooling Frith’s rage.”

“We should take ship and escape to Finnmark,” said Heide. “My brothersss will protect us.”

“No offense, dear wife, but I don’t want to live in a smelly tent with your brothers. Nor do I want to be called a coward.”

“Escape is the only sensible thinggg,” Heide said, drawing out the last word.

“It’s shameful. I’m King Ivar’s man, not an oath-breaker.”

“So you’d rather let us get slaughtered than risk your precious reputation.” Heide was capable of standing up to Olaf as no one else could.

“Reputation is all a man is. Anyhow, you won’t die. I know Ivar. He may punish me and certainly Jack, but it won’t go farther.”

Jack would have welcomed the chance to take ship and escape to Finnmark, wherever that was. He wouldn’t have minded living in a smelly tent forever, but he didn’t have a choice. He was confined to the main hall, his slave collar fastened by a leash to a heavy table. As if I were a dog, Jack thought.

Thorgil, too, was confined, but she was trusted to obey. Olaf had been angered by her outburst in Ivar’s hall. “As if things couldn’t get worse,” he’d growled, “you had to accuse Jack of sei?er!”

“He talks to crows,” she’d muttered under her breath.

Skakki burst through the door. “You’ll never guess what happened! Golden Bristles smashed open his pen and escaped. The queen is furious about it.”

“Worse and worse,” groaned Olaf. “They say when a man’s fate calls him to death, everything he does goes wrong.”

“The king wants you in his hall,” Skakki said. “He wants Jack and Rune, too.”

“Rune?”

“As a lore-master and expert on skald’s magic. And he wants Thorgil because of her accusation of sei?er.”

“Me?” shouted Thorgil, outraged.

“You haff never known when to keep quiet,” said Heide.

Everyone dressed quickly, and Rune wore his white robe because he was being consulted on affairs of magic. They trudged through the forest, with Olaf holding Jack’s leash. Like a dog, the boy thought again. He wondered how the queen would punish him. Perhaps she’d steal his wits, as she had the Bard’s. Or throw him into Freya’s Fen to sink slowly. Or roast him over a fire. Jack could come up with a dozen possible fates, all of them horrible.

At least Golden Bristles had escaped. True, he was a vicious hog, and true, he probably didn’t deserve mercy, but Jack liked him. It was rather flattering to have even a swine appreciate one’s poetry.

The king and queen were seated on the dais. Their warriors lined the hall, and at the front were the priests of Odin and Freya. “The priests have been unable to reverse the spell,” said the king.

Jack was relieved to see Lucy at the queen’s feet. But when the little girl looked up, he saw that her mind had fled. Her eyes were vacant and she didn’t recognize him. Where was her spirit? Not in the castle, certainly, and not in a fantasy with Frith Half-Troll as her mother.

He glanced at the queen, and at once her eyes caught his and held. He was unable to look away. She’d regained her human shape, but she no longer had her luminous beauty. She looked coarse and lumpy, like dough that hadn’t been kneaded properly. Her hair lay in a basket on the floor, and she wore a shawl over her head.

“I want him punished,” the queen hissed. The air stirred behind her, and Jack saw she’d lost none of her fell power. “I want him to suffer as no one has ever suffered before. I want it to take days. I want him to despair, feel hope, and despair again.”

“If you do that, you’ll never regain your beauty,” said Rune.

“And how could that be? When he’s dead, the spell will undo itself.”

“I’m afraid not,” said Rune. “This isn’t some flimsy conjurer’s trick. Jack was trained by Dragon Tongue.”