The Islands of the Blessed

of slate, over which was spread a layer of bracken. Bracken not only protected the hay on top from rising damp, but also cut into the mouths of rats and discouraged them from invading. Livestock depended on this fodder for winter. If it was spoiled by rain, it would rot and the animals would starve. The newly cut hay gave a rich, green smell to the air.

In each field Jack saw people bending, slashing, and bundling. When possible, the workers used the blacksmith’s cart for transport. But speed was important, and for the most part, they had to carry the hay themselves. Those with no barns protected their haystacks with inverted cones of thatch, somewhat like giant hats, and hoped for the best.

Months ago Jack had tried to hitch Thorgil’s ponies to a cart, but they fought the harness and were completely ungovernable. This was another fault held against him unfairly. Jack knew nothing about handling horses. It was Thorgil who had their trust, but she refused to train them for farmwork. They were warriors, she insisted, not thralls.

Thorgil. Jack saw how the villagers cautiously accepted food from her and turned away to make the sign of the cross.

They left the donkey in the last barn and walked on to check the hives. “We’d better hurry,” said Jack, looking at the darkening southern sky. Were there clouds? Something certainly teemed in the distance, and yet the air was still and dead. Leaves on the trees hung straight down.

Even the bees knew something was wrong. They had stopped zipping to and fro in search of nectar, and warrior bees at the entrances danced around as though searching for a hidden enemy. The nests were protected by inverted baskets, somewhat like the hats over the exposed haystacks. The bees would have been far safer indoors, but moving hives confused them dreadfully. They would have to survive where they were.

Father had built a stone barrier around them early in the year, to keep sheep from grazing too close, and now Jack was glad of this extra protection. “They’re acting as though it’s night,” he said, wondering. “They’ve almost all gone inside. Listen to that hum!”

“You know, I can almost understand it,” said Thorgil, pressing her ear to one of the inverted baskets. “It’s like a birdcall. Isn’t that strange?”

“Bees are creatures of the air. What are they saying?”

“They’re frightened. They feel death is near—ow!” Thorgil slapped her ear and jumped away.

“Move back. When one stings, the others join in,” advised Jack.

But the bees stayed clustered in the hives. Jack and Thorgil crouched down some distance away to observe them. Whatever enemy the insects detected was too dangerous for them to confront.

“Look!” Jack yelled in sheer disbelief. The southern sky was filled with towering clouds. The dark haze had resolved into shreds of mist flying toward them at such speed that Jack instinctively threw himself to the ground, pulling Thorgil with him. A second later the storm hit.

From absolute stillness the air suddenly whipped into a hurricane that sent them skidding along the ground. One of the beehives lost its cone and fell over against the stone enclosure. The wind howled so loudly, Jack couldn’t make himself heard. He wriggled across the dirt, with Thorgil at his side, making his way to a sheep byre he knew existed at the far end of the field.

He couldn’t see it until a flash of lightning turned everything white and a clap of thunder shook the ground. “By Thor!” formed Thorgil’s lips, brilliant in the light. They crawled furiously, freezing each time one of the bolts fell from the clouds. As yet there was no rain. They reached the byre and squeezed in with a trio of ewes who’d had the same idea. The wind tore across the top of the protecting ring of stone, but at the bottom, in a fug of sweaty wool, Jack almost felt safe.

“By Thor!” shouted Thorgil again, pointing.

Jack looked up to see a dangling cone of cloud unlike anything he had ever encountered. It roared like a thousand enraged bees, and his skin crawled as though ants were swarming over it. The mouth of the cone gaped open, and he saw ropes of lightning twisting around inside, with tree branches and what might have been part of a house. Then it was gone.

The ewes screamed and huddled closer together. Jack burrowed in with them, but Thorgil suddenly tried to climb out of the byre. The wind knocked her back. She pulled herself up again and raised her arms to the sky. Her voice was no louder than a cricket’s chirp against the howling storm, but Jack could just make out the words: “Take me with you!”

“Get down!” he shouted, tackling her legs.

“No! No!” she protested. He dragged her down. She fought back, punching him in the stomach. He collapsed, trying to get his breath back, and she struggled up again. “Take me with you!” she screamed. Then the rain started, buckets of rain sluicing down and filling up the byre so that the ewes had to fight for air. They pummeled Jack with their hooves and one actually stood on top of him. The wind knocked her over the side and he heard her terrified bleating as she was swept away.

How long the rain poured down, Jack wasn’t sure. It seemed to be for hours. The temperature dropped rapidly, and for a brief period hailstones bounced over his head, big hailstones that hurt and made the sheep bellow. When that ended, the rain began again. During all this time lightning came in bursts and thunder rolled around the horizon.

But eventually the heavens calmed. The flashes became infrequent and the thunder grumbled away to the north. The southern sky turned a pale and beautiful blue.

Jack stood up cautiously and saw a scene of utter destruction around him. Every bush had been beaten flat. Branches from the distant forest were strewn across the ground, and not far away the ewe that had stood on Jack lay dead.

Thorgil, too, was outstretched in the mud. He hadn’t even been aware she’d left the byre! “Oh, Thorgil!” Jack cried, struggling out of the enclosure and rushing to her side. He lifted her onto his knees. “Oh, my dear! My love!”

Her eyes were wide open, staring. But they weren’t glazed in death. Jack was so relieved, he hugged her and then worried about whether she had broken a rib. “He wouldn’t take me,” she said in a faint voice.

“Who wouldn’t take you?” Jack said, thinking she was delirious.

“He saw my useless hand and knew I was no longer a warrior. He wanted me, but Odin wouldn’t allow it. Oh, Freya, I wish I were dead!” Thorgil began to cry, which worried Jack even more than if she’d started cursing.

“Are you hurt inside?” he asked anxiously.

“Nothing that death wouldn’t fix,” she said with a touch of her old spirit. “Even then, I’ll never see him again.”

“Who? What are you talking about?” The sun was breaking out to the south and the clouds overhead had turned white, with patches of blue between.

“Olaf One-Brow,” the shield maiden said, sighing deeply. “He was in the clouds, but he had to leave me behind.” 

Chapter Three THE HAZEL WOOD

“How could she have seen Olaf?” said Jack. “She said Odin was leading a Wild Hunt, but I only saw clouds and that… thing, hanging out of the sky.”

“That ‘thing’ sounds like a waterspout,” said the Bard, casting a handful of dry pine needles over the hearth fire. A pleasant odor filled the air. Thorgil lay deeply asleep on a bed of dried heather. Thanks to the Bard’s sleeping draught, she no longer thrashed about or tried to tear out her hair. It had been the longest hour of Jack’s life, dragging her to the Bard’s house while preventing her from doing herself damage.

Her hair had grown out in the past year, and it was surprisingly clean. No longer did it hang in an untidy fringe from being hacked with a fish scaling knife. It was a pale golden color, like sunlight on snow. In spite of the bruises—and Thorgil seldom lacked those—her face had a delicacy Jack hadn’t noticed before. She’d changed in the last year, he realized, becoming taller and more beautiful.

Jack turned away, his cheeks burning with embarrassment. What difference did that make? She was the