The Valkyrie (23 page)

“Yes, that
would be lovely.” Glory caught Liberty’s eye. Liberty was stuck
talking to Leto and Artemis. Glory started playing
Clair De
Lune
very gently. She quickly glanced out of the window and saw
that Hermes was holding it open and beckoning for her to climb out.
Suddenly she heard a clucking noise from the other guests as Apollo
entered the room in a big showy way. There to see his blushing
bride, apparently. This was Glory’s chance. She dashed out of the
window. On having seen Glory safely exit, Apollo quickly made his
excuses. On his way out he leaned in to Hera to explain that Ares
had wanted to speak to Glory on his own and he had asked Apollo to
create a small diversion so that Glory could leave without tongues
wagging. Hera winked at Apollo. She understood.

***

Glory was stuck
in Hermes’s living room. She was squeezed on the sofa between Ares
and Dionysius; Eros sat in an armchair whilst Hermes dashed about
playing the host with the most.

“Today has been
extraordinarily strange.” Glory broke the silence.

“Are you
normally this charming?” Dionysius said.

“I am when I’m
totally sober.” Glory said.

“Yes I wondered
if that was it. Well I like you both ways.” Dionysius said.

“Was that a
euphemism or not? I can never quite tell with you.” Glory said in
response.

“You see that
was actually a very mean thing to say but you delivered it so
captivatingly.” Dionysius said. “I’m rather confused now.”

“Do we think
it’s safe enough for me to go home yet? I’ve got so much work to
do. Why on earth was Aphrodite that deranged this time? I can’t
think of what I’ve done.” Glory pulled her phone out and text
Liberty to apologise for leaving her there so abruptly.

“You see,
utterly enchanting” Dionysius said.

“I doubt it’s
safe just yet. Could we shoot Aphrodite with a tranquiliser dart of
some sort to knock her out?” Ares asked looking pointedly at
Eros.

“What and risk
a century of being cock blocked? Not a chance.” Hermes said coming
into the room with tumblers of whisky and ambrosia.

“Could I just
have pure ambrosia please?” Glory asked.

“We could
always just go to the pub.” Dionysius said.

“We could just
go to the pub.” Hermes agreed.

“I’m going
home. There are cities to bomb tomorrow.” Glory said.

“That would be
so much more fun with a terrible hangover.” Dionysius said
hopefully “You could even get your housemates to come.”

“Was that a
euphemism?” Eros asked his cheeks were beginning to flush.

“I don’t know
myself anymore.” Dionysius said.

“Come on I’ll
drive you home. I’ll sleep on the sofa if you like in case
Aphrodite turns up and makes it rain fire.” Ares said. Dionysius,
Hermes and Eros all exchanged a knowing look. Ares did not sleep on
girl’s sofas. He did sleep with girls on sofas however.

“Is she capable
of doing that? You can’t get into the living room there are so many
bridesmaids’ dresses everywhere.” Glory said. Ares wondered when
she got so naïve. Not that he minded it was sort of adorable. A
moment later Apollo walked through the door a little bit
sweaty.

“I didn’t
realise Aphrodite was that fast. She realised pretty quickly that
you’d ducked out of the window so she followed me back to mine and
is still waiting out the front now. I had to put some Wagner on
loudly and lock the doors before evaporating here. Right, I have a
suggestion let’s all go to the pub. I need a stiff one.” Apollo
said looking at the group “Glory are you sober? You’re not nearly
as acquiescent as this normally. I’m not complaining it’s just
alluringly weird.”

“Will you all
stop calling me charming? It’s all anyone has said to me all day
and I’m finding it tiresome.” Glory was starting to feel a little
angry being wedged so close to Ares.

“Let’s go to
that boozer you and your girls go to all the time.” Dionysius said
getting up from the sofa with enthusiasm “Alright, it’s settled
now, let’s go.”

“Oh alright
then.” Glory said a little flustered.

“Come on let’s
get some air. Ares is making everyone angry. Are you in a bad mood
brother?” Apollo asked. Ares just shot him a look that said ‘you
cock blocking twat’.

Glory had found herself wedged
between Ares and Apollo in the back of Hermes’s car. Dionysius
wasn’t gentlemanly enough to offer her the front seat and Eros said
he’d fly over to The Queen’s Head after he did his eHarmony
matching for the day. It had been tremendously awkward as both Ares
and Apollo tried to press themselves into her, both maintaining
that their legs were too long to sit comfortably. Glory just looked
straight ahead and sang along to the radio with Hermes. The station
was playing music by this creature called Taylor Swift. Glory had
never heard of this Swift thing before but she bloody loved it.

“Have you
texted your housemates?” Dionysius asked swivelling around in his
seat.

“Yup Lib is
going back to check that KW2 is ticking over.” Glory said.

“Tell her not
to worry it’s ticking over just fine so she may as well come
straight over.” Ares hadn’t really noticed that Apollo had a thing
for Glory before, but he was relieved that Glory ignored him pretty
much.

“Will do.”
Glory said, continuing to text away on her phone “I sent Bea and
Honour to Valhalla tonight as we hadn’t been for a few days and our
absence had been noticed. Honour says that they’ll join us later
about 9pm ish. I think they’ve been penned into a corner by Freya
whose been going on at them for twenty minutes about her waxing
routine. Sigyn got sent to the tea party in lieu of Freya so she’s
missing a sycophant to talk at.”

“Who’s Sigyn
again?” Dionysius asked.

“She’s one of
Freya’s handmaidens. She’s married to Loki and she is enormously
boring. Sigyn is very sad to look at.” Glory said. Apollo looked
downcast.

“And we’re
here.” Hermes said pulling into the car park at The Queen’s Head.
There was another awkward moment when both Apollo and Ares held
open the door for Glory. She got out of Ares’s side not to
encourage Ares so much as to rile Apollo. He was an engaged man
after all. Every now and then when she did things like that she
wondered if Eros had lied to her when he agreed to take her
feelings and put them in a box. Then she vaguely remembered a
sub-clause about occasionally acting the way her feelings would
have made her if they’d still been there. Her feelings did exist
just not in her so she felt neither the pain nor the ecstasy of
love but it made her look like an idiot very occasionally.

They walked
into the pub. Hermes offered to get the first round in, Dionysius
went to reserve a pool table, and Ares, Apollo and Glory went to
find a booth.

“Glory I missed
what you said you wanted.” Hermes said from over by the bar, good
old Geoff was pouring away.

“I’m good
thanks. I’m not drinking tonight.” Glory said.

“What?” Geoff
said dropping a pint of Guinness. “Don’t say that I’ll go under.
They’ll turn my pub into luxury flats.”

“Calm down
Geoff dear. I’ll be back on it by tomorrow.” Glory said although
somehow she didn’t think this was true.

“Pool anyone?”
Dionysius said as he found their table.

“Go on then.”
Apollo had realised that he may have been a little too brash
earlier. He needed to keep up the semblance of a god about to get
married to another girl for Athena’s blessed plan to work, even if
he didn’t want to leave Ares alone with Glory for too long.

“So what
exactly happened with Aphrodite this morning then?” Glory always
thought that you shoot the elephant in the room squarely between
the eyes rather than skirt around it, pressed up against the walls
trying to avoid its great hulking mass.

“I dumped her.”
Ares said.

“That explains
that. Can you break up with a love goddess? I mean is that even
possible?” Glory asked.

“Well I just
did it.”

“Will she
self-implode now or something? Surely you’ve just proved that
Aphrodite is fallible when it comes to being in love?” What Glory
really wanted to ask was why he dumped her but she didn’t want to
hear the response.

“Well when you
put it like that it does beg the question.” Ares sidled up to Glory
in the leather booth.

“Well this is
going to be a very interesting week.” Glory said.

Hermes returned
from the bar with a tray of miscellaneous booze. “What were you
talking about?” Hermes asked as he sat down. Apollo noticed over
his shoulder that Ares and Glory were no longer alone together
which set him at ease.

“Nothing” Ares
said.

“Whether
Aphrodite will blow up now that she got dumped.” Glory said.

“Good question.
I suppose that it is a possibility. If she blew up what would she
be made of?” Hermes asked.

“Well she’s a
literal walking cock so she’d probably just be left with a jizz
explosion.” Dionysius said bobbing his head around the corner.

“How vulgar of
you to say so.” Glory took what little was left of the moral high
ground in the conversation.

“What does it
matter?” Ares said. He could smell Glory’s hair.

“Where is she
by the way Hermes?” Glory asked curiously. She was a little worried
about being ambushed on her way home.

“Well she was
at the Taj Mahal, then she went to Venice and now she’s at the
Eiffel Tower.” Hermes said raising an eyebrow. “How curious.”

Glory turned to
Hermes “Thanks for sorting out all those deliveries for me Hermes.
You can just charge it to Valhalla for the work crap and the hen do
ones can be charged to Prometheus. I bet all those sodding dresses
were a nightmare. Honour and I made a night of sorting them
out.”

“Are you
organising Liberty’s hen do then?” Ares was keen to get on to the
subject of weddings.

“Yes, I totally
forgot about it until yesterday. It’s starting to get slightly out
of control.” Glory said.

“Oh really?”
Ares asked.

“Well yes,
between Olympus and Asgard alone there’s a stupid number of
goddesses and nymphs expecting to be invited so in the end I just
invited everyone the world over to avoid any trouble. I even
invited Eris. I’m just going to get her drunk and put her in a
corner where she can’t do anyone any harm.” Glory said.

“Yes that’s not
a bad plan.” Dionysius popped his head around the corner again.
“She’s nice when she’s plastered.”

“Where are you
having it then?” Hermes asked.

“I’m having it
at Avalon, my mother’s old place in the country. She extended it
over the centuries to keep up with new styles so now it’s a hodge
podge of different buildings, it’s quite large. I’ve booked a DJ
for in the Great Hall.” Glory said.

“Can I come it
sounds better than what we’re doing for Apollo’s?” Hermes
asked.

“No you can’t.
What are you doing for Apollo’s?” Glory asked. Apollo’s ears
burned. He hated that Glory was involved in his sham marriage to
Liberty. He hated that the hen party was going to be at Avalon
where he first spoke to her. He hated that she talked about his
wedding so casually, but he knew deep down it must hurt her. Apollo
was so in love with Glory in that moment that he wanted to throw
up. It was making him lose the game of pool to Dionysius. He went
over to the juke box and put on
War
by Edwin Starr as a
small act of aggression.

“Strip club.”
Dionysius said.

“Strip clubs
are so easy. Someone else has to clear up the mess at the end.”
Glory said causing Hermes to spit his drink out.

“Sorry… You’re
a little filthy aren’t you?” Hermes said.

“Not any more.
I’m banned from most of the strip clubs within a 3,000 mile
radius.” Glory said. No one could work out whether she was serious
or not.

“You know
Valour right?” Glory asked.

“The one who…”
Hermes began, they exchanged a glance that said they understood the
pretence they were about to carry out.

“Who quit
recently. She’s sunning herself on a beach at the moment. Well she
invented strip bars.” Glory said.

“Why don’t we
go drinking with you lot more?” Hermes asked.

“I doubt you
could keep up with us.” Glory’s phone buzzed, it was Honour calling
“Hey babe, ok cool. So what like twenty minutes. How did today go?
Awesome, I’m super proud of you two. Yeah, the more the merrier.
Who? That’s probably not a good idea. Well if they’re that
determined then I can’t stop them. Ok see you later.” She put the
phone down and turned to the boys and said “We’re going to need a
bigger table.”

“Oh are there
more Valkyries coming?” Dionysius asked wiggling an eyebrow.

“Yeah I can’t
tell whether you only talk in euphemisms either.” Hermes said as he
and Glory nodded at each other.

***

Liberty turned
up at The Queen’s Head not long after Glory put the phone down.
She’d gone home and changed and now was wearing a laid back pair of
jeans, a grey t-shirt and a pair of American sneakers. Her hair was
pulled up in a messy bun. She walked into the pub and saw Glory
chatting at the bar with Ares. Liberty interrupted their
conversation by putting her arm around Glory’s shoulders and saying
“Hey, can you explain The Great Window Escape for me now? You set
tongues wagging. You’ve got another reputation now as terribly
charming and rather mysterious to add your collection. Hera kept
going on about the piano for forty minutes after. I’ve lived with
you for how many centuries now and I had no idea that you could
play the piano. I know you were in the Valhalla Brass Band for a
bit but still, you’re bloody good. What is wrong with you today
you’ve been enthralling everyone left right and centre?”

“I have no
bloody clue. I’m starting to get concerned. I’ve been as vile to
everyone as I normally am and yet everyone is on the verge of
losing it.” Glory said shrugging her shoulders. “My mother forced
me to learn the pianoforte in the Eighteenth Century (CE) every
time I went back for the weekend, before we fell out of course. I’m
also a very accomplished water colourist. I’m afraid I’m rusty
though.”