Part 18 (1/2)
”Frightened,” he said.
”Of what?”
”Of you.”
She shook her head as though he'd uttered some charming bit of childish nonsense.
”Eat this.”
A spoonful of soup came toward his mouth. He slurped it and felt a spreading warmth. He would gladly starve for a thousand years if he knew at the end of it there'd be his mother's soup.
”More, please?”
”Sit up.” Frigg fluffed his pillows and fed him another spoonful. ”You came to me badly hurt, Hermod. What happened to you?”
”Did I come here alone?”
”You were with a Valkyrie. And a very loyal dog. He would not leave your side.”
Winston rose up and put his paws on the bed, panting and s...o...b..ring on the furs.
”Good dog. Where's the Valkyrie?”
”My servants are seeing to her needs, as I will see to yours. What happened to you?” she asked again.
Could he lie to his mother? Not quite. Perhaps, though, he could try evasion. ”Things have gotten absolutely mad in Midgard,” he said. ”It's an age of wolves over there. And my need to poke my nose where it doesn't belong is still stronger than my sword arm.”
”You've always been one to keep your own counsel,” Frigg said, her smile sad. ”I suppose there's even less chance you'll tell me what you have been doing since your brother's funeral.”
She meant Baldr's funeral; it was the last time he'd seen his mother. Since then, glaciers had advanced and receded over Midgard more than once.
”Are we going to be coy, Mother? Everyone else seems to know what I'm doing and where I'm doing it. Surely you do as well.”
”I didn't say I didn't know,” Frigg said with reproach. ”I said that you wouldn't tell me. The difference between the two is as vast as Ginnungagap. Why will you not trust me, Hermod? Am I not your mother?”
There was such genuine sorrow in Frigg's face. How could one not love her, not want to make her happy? She was not just Hermod's mother; she was motherhood itself. She was life budding from fertile soil after the long winter. She was life in the womb.
Hermod understood that if he didn't take an oath to help her bring about the destruction of worlds-and mean it-he would not leave here alive. Maybe it was the dip in Mimir's Well that had given him this insight. Maybe it was his brief possession of Odin's eye. More likely, it was the thousands of years he'd had to think about things, culminating in a point at which he could no longer deny obvious conclusions.
”At least tell me why you had Baldr murdered.”
”It was necessary,” she said, offering him another spoonful of soup. Hermod declined it. ”Fate stretches before us and after us as a chain of linked events. For there to be Ragnarok, Baldr must die. For Baldr to die, there must be Ragnarok.”
”That's the part that makes no sense to me. Why must there be Ragnarok? Why did you have to tell Loki about Baldr's weakness to mistletoe?”
”How long has it been winter, Hermod?”
”Three winters. No summer between.”
”It has been winter much longer than that. It has been winter since the first shoots of gra.s.s pushed up from the earth. From its very first moment, the world has been dying, just as an infant's first breath makes certain its last. I am life in renewal, and I crave the new green world to come after Ragnarok. To rail against the end is merely preserving a corpse.”
”So, Ragnarok is an act of euthanasia. And once it's over, you and Vidar and whomever else you've drawn to your side can preside over the reanimated corpse.”
”We see things differently, Hermod.”
He leaned back against the pillows and closed his eyes. He was so tired. ”Why did you send me to Hel to ransom Baldr? Was that just cover, so Odin wouldn't suspect?”
”No. It was my genuine hope that you would win Baldr's life back. Baldr had to die, but that didn't mean I wanted him to spend his death with Hel. Do you not think I love my children?”
”Did you love Hod less?”
Frigg didn't answer, but Hermod felt a change in the air pressure, like a storm building. He shrugged and instantly regretted having done so. His arm had started to ache and burn.
”I a.s.sume you love everyone and everything,” he said, ”but you'll eat your own young if it serves your purpose. What are your plans for me now?”
”No harm will come to you as long as you remain with me.”
No harm, as long as he stayed in bed and ate soup. As long as he sat back and let the world die.
”I'm sorry,” Hermod said. He sprang from the bed and punched his mother in the throat. She sank to her knees and emitted a choked whistle. Frigg's power didn't rely on muscle, nor was she some special-effects magician who could shoot purple lightning from her fingers. She could speak to life and convince it to do her bidding, but in the short term, Hermod had her number. Frigg clutched her throat and gawped like a fish.
Winston, demonstrating discretion, kept his distance from Frigg and Hermod both. He didn't even bark.
With only one fully usable arm, Hermod went about the slow business of dragging Frigg's hands behind her back and tying them to the bedpost with the linens.
He wept as he did so. Frigg was intent on the greatest ma.s.s murder of all time, but it was impossible to watch his mother struggle for breath and not despair.
He wiped tears from his eyes and gagged her.
MIST AWOKE in the bath when a grating screech struck her in the head like a rusty spear, the sound of a million diamonds sc.r.a.ping against a million windows. She pressed her hands to her ears, tighter and tighter. Chunks of ceiling fell about her, and she looked up to see lightning draw cracks in the sky. If the bolts were accompanied by thunder, she couldn't hear it. There was just the continually rising scream that, despite its colossal power, sounded like a giant chicken.
The rust-red c.o.c.k will raise the dead in Helheim, the sibyl had said, and the golden c.o.c.k Gullinkambi will crow to the G.o.ds.
Her head still buzzing, Mist shot from the steaming bathwater and put on her clothes, which were now soft, mended, and smelled like spring flowers. d.a.m.n Frigg and her hot bath and nouris.h.i.+ng food and Stepford matrons. While Mist had been lounging in the tub, Hermod had been left alone and vulnerable. Had Mist been so fatigued that she'd fallen for it, or had Frigg's house cast an enchantment of fog over her?
She crossed the narrow bridge that connected her room to a network of stone walkways and found the household in chaos. The rooster's cry had shattered calm and physical structure alike. Crushed stone and splintered timber lay everywhere. With the house in shambles, she couldn't retrace her steps back to Hermod.
She heard a group of attendants coming her way and ducked into a small alcove. Casks and baskets of grain lined one wall, and set into the other was a wooden door. Over the sound of rain coming in through the gaps in the ceiling, Mist eavesdropped on the ladies in the hall.
”He attacked Mother?” one of them was saying, incredulous. ”Is she harmed?”
”Not as badly as he'll be when we find him. The Valkyrie has left her room too.”
”Find her and kill her.”
My, but these Stepford matrons were mean. Mist moved farther into the alcove as more ladies approached. She barely had time to hide behind a stack of barrels before three of the matrons poked their heads in and shone torchlight into the corners. Mist held her breath until they withdrew.
There was still too much activity in the outer corridor for her to dare venturing into it, so she went for the little door on the other side of the alcove. Cautiously, she cracked it open. On the other side, two ladies lay dead beneath a fallen beam. They weren't dressed like the others, instead outfitted in chain-mail vests over their gowns and armed with swords.