The Sea of Trolls

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 pendant 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 awhile 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?”

“I don’t know how yet,” Jack said, “but I will when the time comes.”

Thorgil drank then. The deadly pallor that had come over her in the field below lifted. Her cheeks became rosy. Her eyes, so sad and hopeless, filled with lively interest.

“The birds!” cried Thorgil as she put the bucket down. “They’re actually interesting, in a featherbrained way. And the flowers—look at the flowers!—they’re red and blue and yellow and pink. I never saw such colors. And the light under the Tree. It’s moving all the time, like the waves of the sea.” Thorgil wandered off down the hill, exclaiming at each new discovery. She was lost in the wonder and beauty of the little valley.

Jack took out the bottle with the poppy on the side. Its contents had been used up, and Fonn had washed it for him. Jack dipped it into the bucket.

No, said a voice full of shadows.

Jack saw the young Norn standing next to the Tree. She held out her hand for the bottle. It’s for Rune, Jack said in his mind. He’s too old to come here, but he’s earned the right to drink.