Odin’s Child (42 page)

All along the benches men and women imitated his cry and pounded the tables with their wooden cups, while old Louhi, tilting up her chin and raising her arms above her head with the palms outstretched, gave out half a dozen piercing notes, like the screech of a hunting bird.

Joukahainen pulled the girl to him, kissed her, then struck her across the face with his open hand. “Fetch more ale, little sister, quench my thirst.”

Her knees sagged and a trickle of blood ran from her nose, but she kept her head up and stood her ground—longer than I think I would have done if I'd been her—before she turned and went slowly to the ale vat.

The feasting resumed amid shouting and clatter and strains of song, and I attended to my plate and cup again. It had been long since decent ale had wet my lips. I would happily sit there the whole night through. But I was growing nervous about my performance.

Presently Hrapp left me and crept to Louhi's elbow. She squinted in my direction and sent him back to fetch me. Quaking inside and cursing myself for every kind of a fool, I shuffled the length of the hall. What, in my folly, had I hoped to gain by this? I would be laughed at and beaten for my trouble—or worse—and that would be the end of it. Hrapp was doubtless preparing to enjoy the sight.

Louhi's features, when I got near enough finally to see them, did nothing to raise my spirits. I noticed three things: the eyes, jet black slivers buried in folds of wrinkled skin; the teeth, small and brown and set with wide gaps between them like old tombstones in a row; and the hands, blue-veined with knobby fingers, curved and nailed at the ends like the toes of a bird. Hadn't Hrapp said that she could sing herself into the shape of an eagle?

And she stank. It was the stink of dirt, of death, of magic. I was afraid for a minute I might lose my dinner.

Touching my forehead, I stammered through some little speech of
salutation that Hrapp had rehearsed me in, although Joukahainen and the others around her continued to talk and eat without a glance at me. When I hesitated, uncertain whether to go on, she waved her hand impatiently for silence and, as the murmur of voices died, tilted her old face up to me, folded her hands in her lap, and indicated that I should begin my story.

Looking from that hideous countenance to the unfriendly stares of the others, I felt my throat constrict. But I called to my aid a common trick of storytellers for overcoming nervousness.

At the far end of the hall, behind Louhi's back, was a loft high up under the rafters where the house-slaves slept. Tonight, however, the warriors' children had scampered up to find their own amusements in its dark recesses. Looking up, I could see only bare legs and black-soled feet dangling down, but to their imagined faces I would tell my story.

With pantomime, grimaces and comic voices to eke out my meager store of words, I told how once upon a time, long, long ago, Thor and his two companions, Loki and Thialfi, had traveled to the land of the giants and offered to compete with them in trials of strength. But, to their chagrin, the gods were bested in every single contest, and it was only when they were on the point of leaving, feeling thoroughly ashamed of themselves, that the giants' king confessed how he had tricked them. For, he said, the man who could eat faster than Loki was Fire, and the youth who outran Thialfi was fleet-footed Thought, and the decrepit hag who had wrestled Thor to the ground was none other than Old Age itself.

“Then,” cried I, “Red-Beard flew into a rage and swung his hammer up, intending to destroy these great jokesters. But as he lifted it to strike”—I waved my fist above my head—“the giants' kingdom vanished! Leaving him and his friends bewildered, as you may imagine, in the middle of an empty field.” I spread my fingers on either side of my face and peered about with my eyes wide and my mouth in the shape of an O.

As I spun the story out, there were giggles from the loft, so I knew I was succeeding on that front. And with the Mistress, too, it seemed. Louhi sat with a dreamy look in her half-closed eyes, munching with her jaws and winding and unwinding a bit of ribbon around one finger. When I was done, she clapped her hands. The filthy old woman was childish!

There were other sounds of approval around the room as well, and now that it was over, I was seized by a rush of elation. How easily I had charmed these simple souls, how quickly I would win their trust!

But Joukahainen threw out an arm, sweeping cups and platters off the table, and lurched to his feet.

“This Thor of yours, Viikinki,” he sneered, “is a very great fool.”

He stood so close that I could feel his breath on my face. “We, too, have a god who thunders in the sky, his name is Ukko, and he is not so easily deceived.”

Angering the Headsman was no part of my plan. “Thor is oftentimes a fool, sir,” I answered mildly, “but he strikes hard blows for all that.”

“Does he? In your country, perhaps. But you know who strikes the hard blows here, Viikinki, don't you? Hai!” He drew his sword half way from its scabbard and laughed.

But Louhi pouted, looking reproachfully at him, and complained in her piping voice that he was a surly man and forever wanting to spoil her fun, and maybe she was tiring of his haughty ways—that was the drift of it.

Tight-lipped, Joukahainen touched his forehead and bowed before his Mistress.

“He won't frighten you again, boy,” she chirruped. “Louhi is pleased with you. Now, go away.”

I mumbled my thanks and was turning to go when I found myself caught by a pair of green eyes that, half-hidden behind a post, watched me intently. The taut, brown face around them was all angles—the cheekbones high and sharp, the jaw square and ending in a pointed chin. For an instant I met Ainikki's stare, then dropped my gaze and passed her by.

Back at my bench I found that Hrapp hadn't much to say in praise of my effort. Was the man really so stupid as to be jealous of me?
No matter
, I thought.
I've made a beginning. Somewhere here is an advantage to be pressed—time will show it to me
.

I poured myself ale, leaned back, and sighed deeply.

†

The hour grew late. Many of the feasters had staggered off to bed or snored noisily where they sat. From time to time I looked down the row of tables and observed Louhi. She appeared not to be a great feeder, but she downed her ale, cup for cup, with the men.

Just as I was falling into a doze myself, a commotion began at that end of the hall. With a scraping of benches, they got to their feet—Louhi, the Headsman, and a half dozen of the men near them, men with rippling beards and filets around their temples, whom Hrapp had called her sorcerers.

Standing apart from them, Louhi lifted her arms and gave out with another series of piercing cries, wild and shrill with a high little sob at the end. Then, dropping her voice, she sang a sinuous line that repeated again and again while the bass voices of her magicians throbbed under it. The effect of it was weird and beautiful.

Hrapp awoke with a start and gave a mighty shudder. Ainikki heard it too. With a scream of hate she flung herself at Louhi, and would have knocked the old woman down if Joukahainen hadn't stopped her with a blow on the chin that sent her to the floor. What a fighter this girl was!

The Mistress paid no attention, but started down the hall in our direction—dancing on her short legs in a sort of hopping, dipping, stamping gait. Behind her, bearing torches lit from the hearth, followed the sorcerers, imitating her step, their shadows leaping ahead of them on the floor. I shrank back lest the shadows touch me.

As they went by and out through the door, Joukahainen, marching a few steps behind, turned his head back and, looking me full in the face, cocked an eyebrow and smiled, for all the world as though we were friends passing in the road.

The great hall emptied quickly as the other guests, bench by bench, fell into step with the procession. Beside me Hrapp croaked, “It's back to the shed with us, my popular friend. Our welcome's over. We'll tell your mates what an evening you've had while they lay listening to their bellies growl.”

I pushed him away and joined the tail of the procession as it went out the door.

Outside, a full moon lit the scene in flashes between wracks of scudding cloud. A raw wind blew from the sea in gusts. We wound ‘round the corner of the hall to the side where the hill loomed, and approached to the foot of it. There we halted and formed ourselves into a wide semicircle. I saw now, for the first time, a flight of narrow steps crudely hacked into the dirt, which curved up and around the belly of the hill.

On the lowest step, within a ring of torches, stood Louhi, piping the
same few monotonous verses of her song. I strained to catch the words and could make no sense of them except that I heard again that word which I had overheard the peasants use.

Sampo.

A trembling hand touched my shoulder, making me start. It was Hrapp again, fairly gibbering with fear. “Come away!”

I made no answer.

Then, a scream. Not from the hill, but behind us—a man's voice, but so tortured it sounded barely human. A pair of warriors, dragging a bound figure between them, raced past us and flung down their burden at Louhi's feet.

Hrapp's shaking fingers tightened on my arm, for coming toward us was the Headsman himself.

“Viikinki,” he purred, “you have saved me the trouble of fetching you. I wanted you to see this thing—to see great Louhi's power. I fear you dread her too little. The hullu will tell you—he has seen it before, haven't you, hullu?” Hrapp, moaning, tried to hide behind me. “Louhi wished for pretty Ainikki to see it, too, but the little fool made me strike her—too hard, perhaps—and now the hour can't be put off.”

The screams of the terrified figure on the ground nearly drowned his words.

“Joukahainen, what poor devil has deserved this?”

“What? You don't know the voice? It is the one named Eystein Crickneck. I chose him myself.”

Eystein! The simpleton who liked to give away his possessions to others and who would always throw back his head and laugh louder than the rest at his own nonsense. Hrapp's arms locked around my chest. His shaking voice repeated in my ear, “You can't save him—you can't save him—you can't—”

“Why him, Joukahainen?”

“Why, because he is young and full of juice—and he's an idiot, is he not? An idiot's thing is always of great size. The Bridegroom grows small on the thin juices of the peasants but this one will make him frisky again. Hai!”

They ripped Eystein's trousers away and Louhi knelt down between his legs with her little, bright-bladed knife. What had he done wrong? Eystein asked between his sobs, and if they told him, he would never,
never do it again. Then he made a sound that I still hear in my dreams—that pulls me from my sleep, sweating and trembling.

The hag held up his severed manhood in her dripping hands while the body jerked and shuddered at her feet, pouring out its foaming blood onto the barren earth. Hrapp's fingernails dug into my muscle.

Eystein Crickneck, I swore silently, to your ghost and to the others, by Odin and by Christ and by every other spirit of Heaven or Hel, I promise you these lives.

Then one of the magicians handed her a bowl for the thing, and another gave her a small lamp. With these in her hands she began the ascent of the hill, her body bent nearly double, her arms outstretched before her to balance herself. And all the while she kept up the shrill singsong, which became with every step, more distant, more breathless, and more urgent.

Up and up rose the twinkling lamp flame until it reached the summit—of Louhi herself, wrapped in her black shawls, one could see nothing—and there it continued to glow while the strains of her song drifted down to us.

“Now—” breathed Joukahainen at my side, and just as he said it, the light winked out.

There was silence on the hilltop. Like the giants in my story, Louhi had simply vanished. A long exhalation of breath hissed from a hundred throats.

“So,” said the Headsman to me. “you have seen great Louhi go to the Bridegroom, who is our wealth and strength. No one can see more, not even I. These men will lock you up now. Sleep well.”

Guards appeared and began to push Hrapp and me through the crowd. I felt sick inside and made no struggle.

“And Viikinki,” he called after me, “I did like your story.”

On the day following Louhi's feast, we were sent to the meadow to gather the last of the hay. All morning long in the thick and hazy air, we worked along the meadow side where the forest runs. We were strung out in pairs, one to pitch and one to bundle.

I had hardly slept. Eystein's killing left us all shaken. As I sweated and choked in the hay, throwing forkfuls of it up to the rick where young Bengt sat drowsing, my eyes burned with tiredness, and my limbs were as heavy as my heart.

I was bending for another forkful when something, a stone or a clod of earth, struck me on the back. In a flash of anger I spun around, thinking it was some stupid joke of Bengt's, ready to kill him—my temper was that worn—but his fright on seeing the pitchfork upraised in my hands seemed genuine, and I faltered.

“Bengt, the, uh, handle is coming loose,” I stammered to cover my confusion, “go ask for another fork, will you?”

He looked at me strangely, but jumped down from the rick and disappeared among the haymows.

When he had gone, I glanced around, puzzled at seeing no one nearby who could have thrown at me. I shrugged and sat down in the straw to steal a minute's rest.

“Viikinki! Viikinki, over here!”

Without bothering to wonder who called me or why, I ran toward a
nearby stand of trees from where the voice seemed to come.

She crouched in a hollow just beyond the tree line, hidden by a screen of pine boughs. I recognized the corn-colored hair in its long plait and the angular jaw, swollen where Joukahainen had hit her.