Betsy Tobin Read online

“He said it was bound to find its way into the world.”

  I nod, unsure what else to say. “It must be very beautiful,” I offer.

  “Yes, of course,” Berling says dismissively.

  “What does Grerr say?”

  “Grerr says the necklace is ours. He says it should remain with us for ever.”

  “I see. His attachment to it is very strong.”

  “The necklace is more his than anyone’s.”

  “Why?”

  The boy thinks for a moment. “Sometimes a thing owns a person. Rather than the other way around.”

  “May I see it?” I ask. “First, I mean. Before you take me to the others?”

  A flash of doubt crosses the boy’s face. I realise that I have erred, and raise a hand reassuringly to his arm. “Forgive me, Berling. I should not have asked.”

  He raises his chin defiantly. “No,” he says. “I’ll take you to the necklace. But you must give your word that you’ll not harm it, nor tell the others what I’ve done.”

  I smile. “Yes, of course.”

  He glances quickly down each of the tunnels, and when he is satisfied that no one is about, motions for me to follow. We take the furthest, the one leading to the workshop, and after only a minute, turn off to the right into an even smaller channel. The opening narrows steadily, and soon we appear to be walking in almost complete darkness. I stumble on a rock and Berling pauses. “Are you all right?” His voice floats back to me.

  “Yes.”

  “Grab on to my tunic. We’re nearly there.” I do, and we carry on for another minute, until he suddenly stops. He turns to the wall and I see him move his hands across the rock face in a smooth motion, as if he is seeking something. After a moment, he finds it. His hands lock tightly onto what appears to be a ledge in the rock and, bracing himself with his feet, he pulls it to one side. I see now that it is an enormous wheel of stone, cut so thin that it is imperceptible from the surrounding wall in the darkness. As the stone moves, light escapes from within. He pauses when there is a gap only just wide enough to squeeze through, and motions for me to enter. I duck down and go through the opening, relieved to be moving towards a source of light. Once inside, I stand.The cavern is small and perfectly square, as if hewn by hand, rather than formed by nature. A single torch is suspended from one wall, throwing flickering shadows all around the room, and in the centre is a pillar of solid rock no taller than my waist. My eyes are drawn at once to this pillar, for draped across its flat surface lies a vast square of black cloth. Berling seals the entrance to the cavern and stands behind me. I hear him take a deep breath, then he crosses to the pillar, and in one slow, deliberate movement, draws the black cloth to one side. He turns to me expectantly, the cloth dangling from his fingertips.

  But I am not looking at Berling.

  I am looking at the necklace. And all at once I feel ill. A wave of nausea sweeps over me and a dull pain bursts behind my eyes. I close them for an instant, wishing I had never come. When I open them a moment later, the necklace waits for me. It lies flat upon the smooth surface of the rock, arranged precisely, as if awaiting my inspection. I can see it perfectly from where I stand, for it appears to soak up all the light provided by the torch and hurl it back at me.

  “Are you all right?” Berling asks.

  I cannot speak. The necklace seems to mock me with its silence. Never in my life have I seen gold with such a lustre. Gold that surely must be warm to the touch, as if it had just been pulled from the fires. But it is not just the colour or the brilliance of the metal. It is the delicacy and the confidence with which it has been wrought, for the design of the necklace is unlike any I have ever seen. It lacks the bulky girth so often preferred by those keen to impress, and the frantic ornamentation that all goldsmiths seem to love. Instead, the necklace is made of minutely thin strands of gold interwoven like the tendrils of vines. At its centre is a small round pendant embossed with symbols of the sky.

  I step forward. The necklace draws me in like a fish upon a line. I stop just an arm’s length away, just as my legs give way beneath me. At once, Berling grabs my arm. “Hold onto me,” he says. I clutch at him, breathing deeply, struggling to clear my head. But I cannot tear my eyes from the necklace. “Freya,” he says urgently, his voice in my ear, “are you all right?”

  I smile uneasily. “Should I be?” I ask. My voice floats down to me from the ceiling of the cave. He shakes his head slowly. A wise boy, I think, this handsome dwarf child. For he divines at once the secret that is only just forming inside me.

  I will not rest until I have the necklace.

  THE NORNS

  When Freya came to us, we saw the dark fate of Asgard laid out before us like blackest obsidian.The Norns are time’s witness: we have been here since the earth began.We have seen the continents collide then fracture, watched the oceans flood the voids and mountains rise and fall.We know the earth is like a gull’s egg, its crust thin and breakable, a spectrum of layers buried inside. Deep down, the core is ferociously hot, beyond the reach of ordinary minds. It is circled by a swim of liquid rock and gas where heat runs in currents. It writhes and coils like a giant serpent that will not be contained. Men will never see this place of molten beauty, though it governs their existence. One day, it may surge and smother us all.

  DVALIN

  Dvalin rides hard across the barren glacial plateau. All around him, the earth is dead. Little grows but an occasional splatter of yellow lichen that has attached itself to tiny fissures in the rock. To his right looms an enormous mountain of grey ice that towers above the surrounding peaks and craters. He has been riding for two days and nights, with only an occasional pause to rest and water his mount, ever since he received word of his sister’s collapse. His head aches from lack of sleep and his hands are cracked and chafed from the cold.

  He comes to a vast lava field, and the horse slows its pace, threading its way carefully around jagged rocks, sulphurous pools of mud and the occasional spiral of steam. The field is eerily quiet. No birds soar overhead, no lizards scamper among the rocks. Dvalin can feel the horse tense beneath him. He too feels uneasy, and will be glad to put this place behind him. Not for the first time, he curses Idun’s husband for bringing her to this desolate corner of their land. He may be one of the Aesir, but as far as Dvalin is concerned, Bragi is a coward: a man of words rather than deeds, who closes himself off from society and flees at the first sign of danger.

  After what seems like an eternity, they reach the far edge of the lava field, where the ground rises up in a steep bluff. The horse pants and blows its way up the slope, its head bobbing from the effort. At the top, they pause. The edge falls away sharply to reveal a wide green valley in the shape of an enormous bowl, the first habitable land they’ve seen all day. A glacial river cuts directly through the centre of the grassy valley. Even from a distance, he can see the river is deep and swift-running, the water eerily pale. Uncrossable, he thinks with dismay. One could perish trying. Beyond the river, he can just make out the edge of Bragi’s farmstead, tucked into the base of the mountain. Dvalin traces the river up the valley to its source, where he can see it cascade down a series of waterfalls from a high granite cliff.

  He urges the horse down the grassy slope, and at once can feel the animal’s relief to be on soft turf again. The horse breaks into a swift trot, and after a few minutes they reach the river’s edge, where Dvalin dismounts to look for a crossing point. The horse stares at the pale waters, its nostrils quivering, but does not drink. Instead, it turns back towards the long grass they have come through and begins to graze. Dvalin picks up a large rock and hurls it into the centre of the river, where it sinks without trace. He walks up the shoreline, a knot forming in his gut. He does not like fordings at the best of times. And his mount is already overtired from the journey. It would surely not survive the crossing. He therefore has two choices: he can leave the horse behind and swim. Or ride further south in search of a crossing point, but lose several hours in the proce
ss. Neither option is attractive. And somewhere beyond the river, his only sister lies unconscious, perhaps even dead.

  Dvalin stares at the icy waters and remembers a time as children when he and Idun attempted to swim across a swiftly flowing river on a dare. They set off at the same time and within seconds were swept downstream. With some effort, he managed to reach the opposite shore, only to find Idun clinging to a large rock in the centre. She was frozen with fear, unable to move. And for the next hour, he pleaded with her to release her grip and let the river carry her to safety. When he had nearly given up, an enormous swan the size of a small bull came out of the sky and swooped down, grabbing his sister in its talons and carrying her to safety. He watched as his mother, now in human form, laid Idun gently in the grass next to him. And then he vomited. Afterwards, he could not read the look in his mother’s eye, could not tell whether it was anger or disgust. Now, without realising, he raises his face to the sky, just as he used to as a child. A lone bird soars overhead. An ordinary plover, he thinks, made of no more than bone and feather. Not a mythic woman-bird who appears without warning and disappears all too easily and for ever. After a moment, he forces his gaze back to the river. He will have to swim.

  Two hours later, Dvalin is sitting, half-frozen, in Bragi’s large hall, but he has still not set eyes on Idun. Bragi rode off at dawn leaving strict orders that no one was to see his wife in his absence. Various servants and farmhands have come and gone from the big hall, but the chief enforcer of Bragi’s orders is a tooth-sucking old woman with sunken breasts and a milky eye who busies herself running the household. Since his arrival, the old woman has wordlessly offered him bowls of curd and a change of ill-fitting clothes, but has refused steadfastly to let him see Idun.

  But he is relieved to know that she lives. He is seated on a low bench by the large open fire. The hall is enormous, its walls made of solid wood panels and ornately painted roof timbers. A long, narrow strip of woven tapestry runs the length of the room, depicting scenes of heavily clad warriors feasting in the Hall of the Slain. The room is richly furnished with several large chairs and a long wooden table, but there is little natural light and the air is heavy with smoke from the peat fire. At the far end of the hall he can see two small chambers: one for food storage, the other a bedchamber whose panelled doors remain firmly closed. Idun sleeps within the latter. He knows this from their glances. Shortly after his arrival, the old woman disappeared behind the panelled doors for a long interval, bolting them from within. When she finally emerged, he leapt to his feet, but she raised a finger to her lips and shook her head, as if he was a child.

  And he looks like a child. As if his size was not enough, the garments she has given him are for a man two heads taller than himself. He feels a fool wearing them, and does not relish meeting Bragi in such a manner, but his own clothes are soaked through. He leans back against the wall. It would be so easy to sleep, he thinks, closing his eyes. Perhaps this is what happened to Idun. Within a few moments, he is dreaming of horses, of the clattering of hooves, and of men’s voices as their mounts are pulled to. And when Bragi finally strides into the hall followed by his men, Dvalin has fallen off the edge of consciousness into sleep.

  He wakes with a start. Bragi stands in front of him, arms crossed, head tilted. “Time to rise, Brother.”

  Dvalin sits up slowly, his head thundering with pain. He looks at Bragi, momentarily confused. Then he remembers Idun and the panelled doors. He struggles to his feet. “I came as quickly as I could,” he says, glancing towards the bedchamber. “But I’ve not yet seen her,” he adds with a hint of accusation.

  “I went for advice.There is little to be done, it seems.”The older man gives a long and weary sigh. He is exhausted, thinks Dvalin, and frightened for her.

  “May I see her?” he asks.

  Bragi nods towards the bedchamber. “Yes, of course. But I must warn you: she is not herself.”

  They walk towards the door and when Bragi opens it, Dvalin sees his sister’s body laid out upon the bed. They have covered her with furs, and her dark hair is fanned out across the cushion, but what startles him most is the extraordinary whiteness of her skin and her wide-open eyes. He rushes forward in alarm.

  “Idun!” He drops to his knees by her bedside peering at her face intently. He had not expected her to be awake. And yet she does not stir at the sound of her name, and takes no notice of his presence. He turns back towards Bragi. “But . . . she’s awake.”

  Bragi sighs and shakes his head. “She neither sleeps nor wakes. She remains just so.”

  Dvalin reaches for her hand and holds it between his own. “Her hands are cold,” he murmurs. “For how long has she been like this?”

  “Nearly a week.”

  “You found her in this state?”

  “I found her worse. Half-drowned. Her limbs nearly frozen. Only the ghost of a pulse. I pulled her from an ice crevasse.”

  “She fell?”

  Bragi says nothing for a moment. He stares at the body of his wife, then raises his hands to his face and closes his eyes. When he speaks, his voice is barely audible. “She jumped.”

  Dvalin feels his heart leap. He turns to Bragi, aghast. “You know this?”

  Bragi nods slowly. “I saw her. From a distance. Like some horrible dream. I could not get to her in time.”

  Dvalin reaches for his sister’s hands, examining each of her fingers in turn.Then he pulls aside the bedclothes to look at her feet. He pinches each toe gently, studying the skin for signs of damage. Finally, he covers her again. “You’ve done well, Bragi. Saved her life, no doubt.”

  Bragi hesitates. “She breathes.Yet she is hardly alive.”

  The two men stare at Idun in silence. A farmhand comes to the door and clears his throat. Bragi turns to him and nods, and the farmhand disappears.

  “There is one more thing you should know, Dvalin. Some weeks ago she lost a child. It was the third time. She was convinced there was a curse upon her womb. Perhaps this is what led her to seek death. It is the only reason I can think of. Prior to that, she seemed content.We led a quiet life, but it was not without its rewards.” His voice trails off.

  Dvalin looks at him and sees not one of the Aesir, but a man tormented by the failings of his own life. “You’ve done your best, I am sure,” he says. But even as he speaks, he is conscious that his words mock them both. For a man whose wife is driven to suicide has surely failed by any standard.

  “I am needed elsewhere,” says Bragi. “Please, stay with her as long as you wish.” He turns to go, but pauses at the door. “I am grateful you have come, Dvalin.”

  “She is my kin. I could not have stayed away.”

  Bragi nods and leaves. Dvalin turns back to the bed. He stares at Idun intently for a long moment, then leans forward and presses his lips to her pale, cool forehead.

  “Take all the time you need,” he murmurs. “We will wait. Just do not leave us.”

  Later that night, Dvalin and Bragi stare into the fire. They share a drinking horn of mead that has been replenished many times by the cloudy-eyed serving woman. She moves silently about the hall attending to her tasks, and each time she approaches Dvalin, his eyes are drawn to the translucent frog-skin of her gaze. When Bragi speaks to her, she does not look at him, and when she fills the horn, her eyes are fixed on a point somewhere beyond the thing itself. And yet the horn does not overflow. And her movements are surprisingly deft. It is as if she sees, but does not see.

  He is unused to drinking. At first, the mead seemed to ease the persistent aching in his temple, but now a somewhat duller pain has taken its place. They have eaten a meal of stewed calf earlier in the evening, and he feels desperate for sleep. But Bragi seems in need of companionship, so Dvalin endeavours to oblige, for his sister’s sake at least.

  “Why did you settle in this place?” he asks.

  Bragi takes a large swallow from the horn and shakes his head. “I grew tired of life among the Aesir. There was so much deceit. S
o much corruption. When a race of people is universally admired, their hearts turn to stone.”

  “Perhaps not universally.”

  “Perhaps not. I should have mentioned their conceit.” Bragi smiles. “And then I met Idun. She was young and full of hope. And she had something that the rest of us had lost. Idun had integrity. She carried it with her like a charm. And helped me to regain my own.When she agreed to marry me, I could not believe my good fortune. After all, I am more than twice her age. But you know this, of course.”

  He breaks off and Dvalin nods slowly. Bragi chuckles a little self-consciously. “Perhaps it was a father she was looking for, rather than a husband.”

  Dvalin returns the smile but says nothing, for Bragi’s words strike him as only too likely. The older man stares into the fire, his expression sober. “I suppose I feared that if we stayed among the Aesir, she might come to see the folly of her choice.”

  Dvalin frowns. “Idun was always worthy of your trust.”

  “Yes, of course. But it wasn’t her I doubted. It was myself.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Jealousy is like a ghost that does not rest. I saw it everywhere among the Aesir. Even though she gave me no cause. I hoped that it would not follow me to this valley. And I was right. Away from others, I could devote myself to Idun and her happiness.” He pauses for a moment, passing a rough thumb over the carvings on the horn. “But I could not give her all she wanted.We both longed for a child. An emblem of our love, and of the life we’d made together. But a child is not an emblem. I know that now. And we were not to be so lucky.”

  “I am sorry.”

  Bragi shrugs. “Once I lived for many things. Idun is all that matters to me now.”

  “She will recover.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps I will join her, wherever she is. I have no wish to live out my days in solitude.”

  “You are a worthy husband.”