The Sea of Trolls - Farmer Nancy (читать книги онлайн без TXT) 📗

Now the land was continuous, broken only by streams and inlets. The air smelled of heather, and a few crows came out to inspect the ship. Bold Heart talked to them for a long time. “He’s not saying anything important,” Thorgil said. “Just ‘How are you?’ and ‘Nice weather we’re having.’”

“He’s taking a very long time for something that simple,” Jack said, as he had before. “Aren’t you leaving something out?”

“You’ll never know,” Thorgil said happily.

They came to the wide bay and the town where Jack had almost been traded to Picts. He looked with dislike at the fine wharf and prosperous houses. These were people who dealt in slaves. They asked no questions about how the Northmen obtained their captives. They merely bought them as you might buy apples.

Here, too, Skakki spent little time. He and Sven went into town to see merchants while the rest of the warriors made camp. They would sail at dawn. “Why aren’t we waiting for market day?” Jack asked Rune as they sat around a fire roasting gobbets of meat on sticks.

“The goods we carry can be traded privately and quickly,” the old warrior said. “We have no time to waste. I can feel the storms brewing in my bones.”

“We’ll make up for it next time,” one of the men volunteered.

Jack stared at him. “What does that mean? ‘Next time’?”

“Oh, um…” The Northman seemed to have trouble thinking of an answer.

“It means they’ll come raiding,” Rune said.

Jack was flabbergasted. The thought had simply not crossed his mind. “No!”he cried.

“They’re warriors,” Rune said.

“They don’t have to be! They can farm.”

“We have barely enough decent land to feed ourselves in a good year. Most of our years are bad. We live by trade and plunder.”

“You’re worse than trolls!” Jack shouted. There was a murmur of anger among the assembled Northmen, but Jack didn’t care. He’d been lulled into thinking of these people as friends. They were still foul, evil destroyers!

“Listen well, young skald,” said Rune, and he looked dangerous in spite of his age and many scars. “When you visited Jotunheim, you were protected by the Mountain Queen. You may have a rosy picture of Jotuns, but let me assure you that they’re capable of slaughtering whole villages down to the youngest child. They’re enemies, though they have honor.”

“Yes, well, you don’t have to imitate them,” said Jack.

“Need drives us. Nothing you or I say is going to change that. Skakki has taken an oath not to harm your village, but no such oath stands between him and others of your kind.”

Jack couldn’t believe his ears. Kind, likeable Rune, who’d saved him from Olaf’s wrath and given him his best poem, had turned into a monster. Jack felt betrayed.

“For a long time you felt safe on your little island,” Rune went on. “The ocean protected you. Your lives were as warm and friendly as a summer afternoon. But your land was too beautiful, and so, like all bright things, it attracted destruction.”

“Like Hrothgar’s hall,” Jack murmured.

“Frothi destroyed Hrothgar’s joy, and her sister Frith brought desolation to you. Now that such attention has been drawn here, it will not turn away. Tales of the Holy Isle’s wealth have echoed throughout our lands,” said Rune. “Even now Magnus the Mauler and Einar the Ear-Hoarder are building ships and planning war.”

“It’s so unfair,” whispered Jack. He looked across the beach to where evening shadows were gathering. In the blue dark between the houses he thought he saw a Pict.

“Life and death are in constant battle. There’s no way in this world for happiness to exist alone,” said the old warrior.

“But what are we to do?”

“Wake up,” Rune said simply.

When night came, Jack stayed on the ship with Lucy. He didn’t want her to meet any Picts, and he didn’t want to talk to the Northmen. Skakki and Sven returned, clanking with many new weapons. They’d had a successful day. Late into the night Jack heard them singing and playing their silly games. Thorgil got into a belching contest with Eric Pretty-Face and won.

They sailed past the lonely towers of the Picts. There was never anyone around them, and Jack never saw friendly trails of smoke to show anyone was warming himself or cooking a meal. The few villages appeared deserted as well. Bold Heart went off with a flock of crows.

“He’s leaving us!” Lucy cried in alarm.

It wouldn’t surprise me,Jack thought. Everyone here is evil and faithless.But Bold Heart returned at evening. After that he took many trips to the mainland, to Thorgil’s annoyance.

“He has such interesting things to say,” she complained. “Not like the other birds.”

“Too bad,” Jack said, turning his back on her.

“Those are really nice trees on the shore,” she said. “What are they called?”

Jack ignored her. He thought about calling up fire and burning the ship when they camped at night. That would fix the Northmen, but it wouldn’t do anything about Magnus the Mauler or Einar the Ear-Hoarder.

The ship sped south, far from shore to avoid attention. This was the coast Olaf had raided, and Skakki wanted to avoid complications. And at last they came to Jack’s land. They drew up on a deserted beach in late afternoon. The Northmen brought down several geese and roasted them over a fire.

“It’s our last night together,” said Rune. “Let us spend it with good stories and good food.”

“Ooh! I love stories,” cried Lucy.

“We have two skalds here, so we should have no end of tales. I’ll go first.” Rune told them of Loki, whom Odin had met in Jotunheim.

“I thought he was a god,” Jack said, intrigued in spite of his determination to snub the old warrior.

“He was a shape-shifter like Frith. His father was a troll and his mother a goddess. If you think a Jotun/human cross is bad, you should see what happens when you mix gods and trolls. Loki appearedto be handsome and clever, and Odin was besotted with him.”

“BIG MISTAKE,” said Eric Pretty-Face.

“Odin named Loki brother. They cut their wrists and mingled blood to seal it. God blood flowed into Loki’s veins and shape-shifter blood into Odin’s. It didn’t do either of them any good. Ever after, Loki had the run of Asgard. No one dared throw him out. Odin gave him the goddess Sigunn for his wife.”

“A great waste,” said Skakki.

“Sigunn was gentle and sweet, so of course Loki was bored with her. He went straight back to Jotunheim and married an ogress. She was nasty enough to entertain him. They had foul, monstrous children—a giant serpent, a giant wolf, and Hel, whose icy hall waits for cowards and oath-breakers.”

Jack was trying to remain uninterested in Rune’s story. He wanted to hate the Northmen, but they kept being nice to him. If they noticed Jack’s silence, they didn’t show it. They were probably used to people who got angry and sulked.

“Fenris, the giant wolf, was so fierce, the gods imprisoned him on an island covered by iron trees. But Fenris grew. Soon he was beyond the power of the gods to control, and Odin decided he would have to be chained. The problem was, of course, how to get the chain around his neck.

“They made a game of it. ‘Here, wolfie, wolfie, wolfie,’ called Thor. ‘Wouldn’t you like to play with this string? A big, strong beast like you could snap it in an instant.’ Fenris was flattered. He let the gods put the heavy chain around his neck, and then he snapped it in two.”

“It was the biggest one they had,” added Skakki.

“So they had to ask the dwarves for help,” Thorgil burst in for the first time. She looked truly beautiful in the firelight, Jack thought. Her eyes shone, and her hair—vigorously washed that evening—framed her face like a dandelion puff. She had always been beautiful, the boy realized, but her blighted spirit had hidden it. Now she was happy. Jack felt an ache over his heart. She would be leaving in the morning. He’d never see her again, not even in Heaven.