Betsy Tobin Page 6

  “And you a worthy brother. Idun often spoke of you. She missed you terribly.”

  Dvalin stares into the fire. “She was ten when we were separated. When my mother left, she took Idun away with her to live among the Aesir. We did not see each other for many years.”

  “You were not bitter?”

  “Towards Idun?” He shakes his head. “We had different fates, that is all. Hers was with the Aesir. Mine was with my father’s people in the caves.”

  “I meant towards your mother.”

  Dvalin hesitates. “I was sorry to lose Idun. By the time I saw her again, our childhood was over.” Dvalin’s last words seem to hang in the space between them. He coughs a little self-consciously. Bragi takes another deep drink from the horn. He is the only one drinking now, and his face is flushed and pop-eyed from the mead. He wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve. His expression brightens.

  “Idun has often said that you should take a wife.”

  Dvalin smiles. “She is forever saying this. As a child, she made me act the groom to her bride.” His smile fades as he sees a look of consternation form on Bragi’s face. “It was child’s play, nothing more,” he adds quickly. Bragi looks at him a moment, then turns his face towards the fire.

  “It is late,” he says heavily, “and we must sleep.”

  “Bragi.” Bragi turns to him, his expression distant. “Idun will recover. I am sure of it.”

  “I’m glad one of us is.”

  The old woman makes up beds for them on wooden pallets by the fire. Dvalin lies with his head near Bragi’s feet and sleep takes him instantly. He is still exhausted when, many hours later, the old woman rouses him with her bony clasp upon his shoulder. Her face is so close that he can see the cloudy membrane stretched across her eye, and smell the vaguely sour scent of age. The old woman nods towards the bedchamber, and he is instantly awake. He rises and crosses to the doorway, where he sees Bragi kneeling by Idun’s side, their hands clasped together.

  “Please do not leave me again,” murmurs Bragi.

  “I will try not to.” Idun raises her eyes, and a slow smile forms. “Dvalin,” she says weakly.

  Dvalin approaches the bed and kneels down by Bragi’s side. “You’re awake.”

  “I thought you were a ghost.”

  He smiles. “Not yet.”

  “How wonderful to see you. I’ve waited all this time. Bragi, he has finally come.”

  “Yes, my dear. He feared for you. We all did.”

  Her face creases with concern. “I’m sorry. So very sorry.”

  Dvalin kneels down. “Don’t be. All that matters is that you are well.”

  “Dvalin, let me look at you.You’ve hardly changed.”

  “Not taller?” He asks with a grin. She shakes her head and they exchange smiles.

  “When did you come?”

  “Only last night.”

  Idun frowns and turns to Bragi. “How long have I been ill?”

  “Nearly a week.”

  “A week!” She gazes down at the bedclothes and her eyes fill with alarm. “I remember the cold. It was so cold. I thought that I would freeze.”

  “Do not speak, my dear.You must rest.”

  “What happened?”

  Both men stare at her for a moment, unwilling to respond. “You do not remember?” asks Bragi tentatively. Idun shakes her head slowly. He hesitates, then takes her hand. “You fell. Into a crevasse. Luckily, I saw you from a distance, and pulled you free.”

  “Oh.” Idun frowns. “I remember the ice. It was so beautiful. I never realised how beautiful the ice could be.” Her voice trails off, and for a moment she seems lost again.

  Dvalin and Bragi exchange glances. “You must rest,” says Bragi.

  “Must I?”

  “Yes. And take a warm drink. Something to strengthen you. I’ll see to it now.” He turns to go and Dvalin starts to follow, but Idun grabs his hand.

  “Do not leave me!” Her voice is filled with alarm. Dvalin glances at Bragi, who raises his eyebrows briefly, then turns and leaves the room. Dvalin sinks down to the edge of the bed, still clasping Idun’s hand. “Please do not leave me,” she whispers. He bends forward and kisses her forehead.

  “Be silent now. I am here.” She takes a deep breath and lies back on her cushion, still holding tightly to his hand. They sit for a time, and she closes her eyes. After a few minutes, she opens them again.

  “He thinks that I am well,” she murmurs.

  “You are.”

  She shakes her head slowly. “No.”

  “You need rest. And food. That is all.”

  “My mind is running swiftly now. Like a river. So many thoughts, crowding one another.” She hesitates. “I am starting to remember.”

  “There will be time later, Idun. Right now, you must rest.” He forces a smile, but the look on Idun’s face alarms him, for she is clearly frightened.

  “All these days, I have lain right next to death. Have felt its clammy touch upon my skin. But it is not death I am afraid of.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There is something evil inside me.”

  He frowns. “You are unwell, that is all.”

  “No.You must listen. While I slept, I dreamt a raven came to feast on my entrails. I watched it scavenge from my belly. Dvalin, the flesh inside me was rotten. I am rotting from within. That is why I cannot carry a child.”

  She begins to weep and he takes her in his arms. At that moment, Bragi enters carrying a dish of broth. He rushes forward with alarm.

  “Idun!” Dvalin moves away and Bragi throws him a dark look. “Leave us now,” he says. Dvalin slips out of the door, and goes to sit by the fire. He is relieved that his sister is awake, but also exhausted from his journey. The old woman wordlessly offers him a bowl of thick soup from a cauldron by the fire. He takes it and drinks deeply, all the while pondering Idun’s words. Perhaps some evil has befallen her. Or perhaps it is her own conjuring.

  When Bragi emerges from the bedchamber, his face is drawn with concern. He pauses in front of Dvalin and stares down at him. “She wants you,” he says. The words are flung like stones. Dvalin takes a deep breath and rises, leaving Bragi standing motionless behind him. “Dvalin,” he calls sharply over his shoulder, “please do not distress her.”

  Dvalin frowns, then enters the bed chamber. Inside Idun waits for him, her face composed but pale. She manages a half-smile. “I’m sorry.” He shakes his head, lowering himself onto the bed.

  “No. It is I who am to blame.”

  She glances towards the other room and lowers her voice. “He is prone to anger. And jealousy.”

  “I know. He told me himself.”

  “Sometimes the Aesir seem like children,” she says conspiratorially.

  “You forget that you are one of them.”

  She shakes her head. “No. I am neither one nor the other. Like you.”

  He smiles ruefully. “How can you be sure?”

  “Because you told me so.”

  He frowns. “I said that?”

  She nods. “When I was five.”

  “Wise words from a nine-year-old. And you heeded them.”

  “I always have,” she says. He takes her hand and kisses it. “Dvalin, you must help me.”

  “Of course.”

  She hesitates. “You must go and see Menglad.”

  Dvalin takes a deep breath. He has not seen Menglad in many years. He had banished her entirely from his thoughts. Idun senses his reluctance.

  “Please, Dvalin. You must go to her. You must tell her of my dream. And of my illness. She will know if something is wrong.”

  “But why me? Why not Bragi?”

  “Bragi is an old man. Too old to travel to Jotunheim.”

  Dvalin rises and begins to pace the room. He knows that she is right. If Idun is unwell, Menglad may be able to help. But the thought of seeing her again makes his stomach roil.

  “Will you do this for me?”

 
He turns to her. Her long, dark hair is fanned out across the bed linen, and a little colour has risen in her cheeks, perhaps in anticipation of his answer. But as he stares at his beloved sister, his mind has already turned to Menglad, has already drawn the fullness of her upper lip, conjured her laugh in his ear, and the scent of earth which clung to her always. Idun watches him with wide eyes, oblivious to the fact that he does not see her. For he is lost to that other place and time, and to that other woman.

  “Of course I will.”

  THE NORNS

  The people here do not realise that the land beneath their feet drifts on hidden tides. Our planet is a vast cauldron always on the boil, perpetually seeking to shed its terrible heat. Heat runs in currents: it seeps outwards from the core and travels towards the crust, then turns and journeys back again. The crust it encounters is not seamless, but a series of curved plates that fit together like a puzzle. As the currents circle and writhe they drag upon the plates, pulling them apart or thrusting them together.The plates buckle to form mountains, or slide beneath one another, melting back into the earth’s mantle.When they are wrenched apart, new crust rises up from the fevered depths below. In this way, the crust of the earth neither grows nor shrinks, but continuously regenerates itself, like the skin of a lizard.

  FREYA

  When Freyr and I were young, we once climbed to Hekla’s summit. It took us many hours, and when we finally reached the snowline, we looked around us with dismay. Up close, the snow was brittle and grey, as if it had lain there for centuries. Undeterred, Freyr made a snowball and threw it at me. It hit my face, a hard ball of granular ice that stuck briefly to my skin, then fell to the ground. He walked over to me and raised a hand to my cheek, where an angry welt was already forming. We both looked down at the dirty ball at our feet, stunned by its violence.

  Now when I think of Freyr, I imagine the youth that walked beside me that day, rather than the man he has become. Looking back, it is difficult to fathom how close we once were. We spent all our days together, and could read each other’s thoughts without trying. Where is he now, the boy who threw the ball of ice that day? And what happens to our former self when we change? Does its soul hover around us, like an unseen mist? Or does it die and disperse, like ashes in the wind?

  Adolescence wreaked havoc on my family. Freyr and I were torn asunder by the changes in our bodies. He grew restless and irritable, and I became rebellious. My beauty had fast become a burden. By the time I was thirteen, men halted mid-sentence when I entered a room, mouths agape, their thoughts momentarily forgotten. I fled from their attentions. The falcon cloak set me free: with it I disappeared often, and at length.

  My father too was disconcerted by the changes. He doted on me as a child, but his affection dwindled as I grew. As I approached puberty, my burgeoning sexuality alarmed him. One day, I emerged dripping from the baths, and he looked at my unclothed body as if seeing it for the first time. His face flushed and he immediately turned away. “Cover yourself, Freya,” he said with an irritated flick of his hand, as if my nakedness was an insect that would not let him be. Gradually, it dawned on me that he did not know how to father a woman, only a girl.

  But it was Freyr who was most affected, for my beauty tormented him. As children, we had tumbled like spring lambs, our limbs constantly entwined. And for much of our childhood we shared the same bed, often waking in each other’s arms. But as puberty loomed, Freyr distanced himself. Suddenly, he could no longer abide my teasing, and if I laid a hand affectionately upon his arm, he instantly withdrew. His behaviour puzzled me at first, but I came to understand that Freyr could not reconcile himself to his own desire. He wanted me, just as all the others did, but dared not show it, even to himself.

  Even Odin was not immune to my beauty.The day he gave me the feather form, he waited for me in the forest. I saw him from the sky, standing in a small clearing some distance from my father’s house. At once I understood that the cloak was not a gift but a privilege I must pay for. I landed softly on the ground beside him, shrugging off the cloak in one movement. No words passed between us. The air was warm, but even so I trembled as his hands began to remove my clothes. He undressed me slowly, with quiet deliberation, as he’d done a thousand times before with a thousand different women.

  When I was naked, he ran his hands down the length of my body, pausing at the join between my legs. Not once did he remove his gaze from mine. Did I want him? I was sixteen and still a virgin. Like most girls my age, I was obsessed with men. Though Odin was as old as the hills around us, he had the virility of a young man. His masculinity terrified yet enthralled me. I’d been taught from childhood that he alone had perfect knowledge. That day, I was frightened he would see right through me to the core of my desire, for I thought that I was somehow aberrant in my yearnings. But I wanted a clue to the mysteries that were unfolding in my body. So I lay with him on the damp, cool earth, thinking it was only right that he should be the one to have me. I knew as well that it would infuriate those around me: my own father, of course, but most especially, Freyr.

  Afterwards, the spell was broken. I did not lie with him again, though he entreated me on several occasions. Soon, I realised that sleeping with him had conferred upon me a special power. When I returned to my father’s house, Freyr looked at me and in an instant knew what had transpired. He stood in front of me, blocking my way into the house.

  “Where were you?” he demanded.

  “In the forest,” I replied. I stepped past him and he grabbed my arm, pulling me around sharply towards him.

  “Alone?”

  I looked him in the eye. “With Odin.”

  He stared at me, his hand still tightly clamped around my arm. “You fool,” he said bitterly. “The skalds will speak of this for generations.”

  “Your concern for my reputation is touching,” I said drily.

  “For nine months we shared the same womb, Freya! What hurts you also damages me.”

  “Then perhaps it was you I should have slept with,” I countered evenly. We looked at each other for a long, angry moment. I had spoken the unspeakable: Freyr could not abide such candour. He released my arm, pushing past me out of the door. Three weeks later, he met Sif and proposed to her at once. Now his love for her is all-consuming, just as his love for me once was. Freyr hates me now, precisely because I am not his.

  After that, I avoided men altogether, until the day I met my future husband. Od was the first man I ever came across who did not stammer in my presence. He was indifferent to me, and I loved him for it. Instantly and blindly, and with a reckless abandon I have since become famous for. The day we met, I had flown deep into the central highlands, seeking a spot where I could be alone. I found it on a high desert plateau, where a hidden spring had forced its way up through the lava shield, forming an oasis. The water was a brilliant cobalt blue. It spread like fingers across the plateau, and all around it lay a bed of thick, luminous green moss. I lay upon the moss, turned my face to the sun and listened to the birds call around me. Eventually, I slept.

  When I woke, it was to the sound of splashing. I sat up and stared at the spring, where I saw a man swimming. I watched in stunned silence, for the area was remote, and I could see no horse on which he’d travelled. At length, he hauled himself onto the moss some distance away from me, the water running from his chest in little streams. I could see he was not young, for his dark hair was streaked with grey. But he was fit and strong, and I liked the way he slid his lean frame into his tunic, and the care he took with his feet, which he dried separately, forcing the cloth in between each toe.

  After he finished, I saw him finger something in the grass, and when he stood, he held a flower. Curious, I walked over to him. He was staring down at the flower: a delicate purple blossom on the end of a long, slender stalk. He raised his head and looked at me without surprise. “Butterwort,” he said. “Full of grace, yet it kills without mercy.” He held up the base of the stem, which sprung from a small crown of hairy y
ellow leaves. Something moved in the leaves and I peered more closely. A tiny insect struggled in their centre, held fast by a sticky liquid. “Soon, the edges of the leaf will curl,” he explained, “trapping what’s inside. By nightfall, the insect will be gone.” He handed me the flower. “You see? It’s not only men who are murderous.” Then he picked up his satchel and turned to go.

  “How did you get here?” I asked.

  He looked surprised. “On foot,” he said. “How else?”

  I was nineteen at the time, and Od was twice my age. He’d been married twice before. Both wives had died: the first he’d lost to illness, the second to the sea. Od had not mourned their passing, he told me, but rather, had wished them well on their journey to the afterworld, and turned his sights towards new horizons. I suppose this was an early warning I should have heeded: a red flag heralding his deep conceit and self-regard. But I was nineteen and naïve enough to think that I could contain Od’s affections in a way his first two wives could not.

  Ours was a brief courtship. At my insistence, we married quickly. By then I was anxious to escape the confines of my father’s house. Od had travelled widely, had been as far east as Babylon, as far south as Bavaria, had sailed to Greenland and Vinland, and even to the Emerald Isles. He’d studied the runes, was fond of poetry, and had accumulated some degree of wealth on his travels. He was also a keen botanist.

  “Look,” he said one day, holding up a delicate fern we’d come across. He laid the long, slim tendrils gingerly upon the ground. “We shall call it Freya’s Hair,” he said, caressing each frond with the tip of his finger. And for the moment, I was pleased that his love of plants and his love for me had somehow merged. But some weeks later, when he discovered a tiny white flower and named it Freya’s Tears, I grew unsettled, as if the flower itself was a portent of things to come

  Only a few months into our marriage, I came across him in our bedchamber hurriedly stuffing spare clothing in a satchel. I was speechless at first, and in his haste he took no notice of my reaction.