The Sea of Trolls - Farmer Nancy - Страница 42

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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.

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.”

“Dragon Tongue!”shrieked Frith. The warriors ducked and covered their ears. King Ivar turned ashen. “He’s dead! He’s dead! He’s dead!”screamed the queen.

“His lore lives on,” said Rune. “He was the most powerful skald in Middle Earth, and Jack is his heir.”

“Now I know I want the boy dead!”

“Great Queen,” said the priest of Odin, “if this is Dragon Tongue’s work, only the person who cast the spell can undo it.”

“That’s right,” agreed the priest of Freya.

Frith paused, seeming to gather her forces. The shadows behind her stopped moving. “Well then, boy,” she said in a voice that was almost sweet, “what are you waiting for?”

Olaf pushed Jack to the front. The boy felt waves of cold wash over him. “I—uh—I—” began Jack.

“Go on! Remove the spell.”

“I don’t know how,” Jack muttered.

“What?”

Jack swallowed. “I don’t know how.”

Then the queen did scream, and everyone, even Olaf, dropped to his knees.

“Well, that’s done it,” said the priest of Odin.

“I’m sorry, boy,” groaned Olaf. “I thought we had a chance there.”

“We still do,” Rune said. Thorgil helped him rise and dusted off his knees, for the straw on Ivar’s floor was littered with bone and gristle, not to mention fleas. “Jack may not know the magic now, but he can get it from Mimir’s Well.”

“Mimir’s Well?” The priest was flabbergasted. “That’s in Jotunheim!”

“I didn’t say it would be easy.”

“It is perilous beyond belief to pass into Jotunheim,” said King Ivar. “I know. I’ve been there.”

“And I as well,” said Olaf.

“But with safe passage, it might be done,” Rune said.

All turned to Frith, who glowered back at them. “I have no love of Jotunheim. My own mother cast me out.”

“She didn’t cast you out,” King Ivar said patiently. “She married you to me.”

“Same thing,” sneered Frith. “I wanted a fine ogre or a goblin, but no.Mother insisted I marry a puny human.” King Ivar passed his hand across his eyes as though he’d had this argument many times.

“It looks like—” Jack cleared his throat as Frith’s attention was drawn to him. Even in her diminished form, she made his mind go blank. “It looks like your only chance to be cured is for me to find this Mimir’s Well and—and—what am I supposed to do with it, Rune?”

“Drink the song-mead it contains,” the old warrior said softly. “It’s the dream of every skald. I’ve wanted it all my life—well, no point regretting what can never be. Song-mead waters the roots of Yggdrassil, the tree that rises through the nine worlds. It’s pure life force, as Dragon Tongue would have said.”

As Rune talked Jack felt a strange sensation. It was like wind over the sea and hawks diving with their wings furled and far-off hills covered in mist. He could see himself walking through a forest of giant fir trees. The air was filled with the smell of ice off a glacier. Good heavens,thought Jack. I think I like this adventure.The feeling was so unusual, he wondered if he was sick.

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