Fenrir (69 page)

The boy thought for a little and then said, ‘It was years ago, before even the time of the great king Ingvar, who took the name of his mentor Helgi, called the Prophet, and, using it, conquered mightily so his renown echoed down the ages. In those days, as now, a mute slave was the most prized of possessions to those of royal blood, for all secrets do they keep. Just such a slave was in our lands, to the north. The slave had lived a long time, longer than her masters, but she grew neither old nor grey and was greatly valued for her diligence and honesty.

‘One year she travelled east with a princess to care for her and comb her hair as she went to marry a Wendish prince. The slave was well prized because, on account of a burn she bore on her face, no man would look at her so she was unlikely to fall pregnant and put herself at risk of death. The journey was smooth and the sea as glass, but on arriving at a certain market port the princess encountered a rich traveller who coveted the mute slave and wanted her for his own.

‘He offered the princess a great fortune for her – bars of gold and green emeralds – but the princess scorned him and told him she would rather die than part with such a treasured possession. The woman was blessed by the gods – or cursed – to never age so was an heirloom that would be passed to her sons and beyond.

‘Then the princess set off down a certain river to the land of the Wendish king and a fever set in on her ship. One by one her crewmen died until only the princess and the slave were left alive. Then the princess herself began to boil and bake and eventually died. The slave sat on the boat wondering what to do but then noticed the rich traveller sitting next to her on the deck.

‘“Who are you?” she said, because in this man’s presence she found her voice.

‘“I am a fever,” he replied, “and I have lived inside your companions. Now I ask you – as you have no master to refer to – will you have me?”

‘And the slave said she would. So she lay with the man on the boat of the dead and he reminded her that he had loved her many generations before and she had borne him two sons. She said she remembered but that her sons were dead.

‘The traveller said they had died because he, their father, was an enemy of the king of gods, Odin, who had wrapped them in his schemes. The dead lord drew them on to fight him here on Middle Earth, to act out the battle on the gods’ final day when the wolf will kill the All Father and then be killed himself. So the boys had grown and become men and then one became a wolf who ate the other, killed the All Father in his earthly guise as a witch and scattered the magic runes. Some fell near and some fell far, but all fell to be reborn in human flesh. So the boys were born once more.

‘While they were apart they were safe, but when they came together their destiny pulled them down to face Odin, in the flesh here on earth, enacting a ritual that embraced death and rejected it in the same breath. She did not know what he meant. She knew only that she loved him and was afraid of him.

‘So the mother fell pregnant again and put the children far apart. She raised another boy in the ways of magic, a wolfman, to try to fool the god, to let him be ensnared in the god’s death ritual and let her own son go free. But the plan went wrong because Loki, who loved her and loved her sons too, knew that death in one lifetime did not matter. He wanted to free the boys from Odin’s schemes but knew that it was the work of ages. Loki was bound, tied and pinioned on a great rock as his son the wolf was tied and pinioned. And though he could send his mind forth to travel the nine worlds, there was a limit to his powers because if his scheming came to the attention of the king of gods, his torments would double. So he could not approach the boys directly but needed to influence their fate by more subtle means.

‘So he pretended to be on Odin’s side and used a prideful and arrogant king who thought he could defy the gods to speed the dead god to earth. In looking to prevent Odin living in the world of men, Helgi drew the hanged god ever on.

‘But the boys too tried to fight the will of the king of gods, to run from him and avoid their fate. The god had been crafty and hidden his runes well when last he died. Some had gone to a child in the mountains, some to a Varangian princess beyond the Eastern Lake. But the dying god’s slyest and cruellest plot had been to send his runes to the girl who the brothers loved, a girl who had formerly borne only one rune – the howling rune that stood apart from all the others and drew the wolf to itself. Now Odin’s runes stood alongside the rune that would call his killer and guarantee his death.’

‘Why does this god seek to be born in the world of men, only to die?’ asked the boy’s father.

‘I will come to that,’ said the boy. He poked a stick into the fire and went on: ‘The mountain child had guessed her divine identity. She tricked one of the brothers and kept him close, using him to track the other runes, to free them from their human carriers by death. She made him skilled in shapeshifting magic, strong and clever, so he might find the wolf and play his part by dying under its teeth. But this part of the god, who had by instinct sought the rituals to bring out and nurture the runes within her, thought the runes had been sundered only in two, when they had been split in three. Her enchantments failed her, and the brother she had deceived saw through her and killed her, placing her head before his true love’s feet.

‘Through many battles, which are too mighty in number to recount on a night so cold, the brothers fought to save the girl while one fell to his old ways and became a wolf. They came at last to a barrow, a hollow place for the dead, and they went inside. There brother slew brother and the god was made flesh in the girl.

‘This has happened many times and will happen many times again in years to come. There are three women – the Norns – who sit spinning out destinies beneath the world tree and even the gods must bow to them. The women require Ragnarok, they require the death of the gods. So Odin – wise in magic – gives them their deaths, ever rehearsing the gods’ final battle here on earth, played out by himself and the wolf made flesh. It is a ritual, but a ritual performed by the father of gods, an offering to destiny, to keep the end at bay. But when he fails in his ritual, as one day he will fail, then Ragnarok will happen for real. The twilight of the gods will be upon us and the old gods, those ancient savages, will die.

‘Old Loki works to this end. He is an enemy of the gods. And, though he sped the brothers to death at Aldeigjuborg, he knew in that death were the seeds of life. The wise and kind god Vidar had taken flesh as a fat warrior and, with Loki’s help, survived to kill the wolf. It is he from whom this story springs. He will carry the message to eternity, so that the humans who are the victims of Odin’s great ritual can realise their role and resist it.

‘It is said the telling of this story brings good luck, for if the brothers are reborn they may hear it and perhaps, in this lifetime or many to come, eventually avoid their fates. The god Loki, the lord of lies, prince of the darkened air, enemy of the gods of Asgard, blesses this story and smiles upon those who tell it.’

The boy finished his story and the traveller laid the wolf pelt before him. ‘Loki does bring you luck, boy, for the tale has won you this fine pelt.’

‘I thank you for it, sir.’

‘I hope my gift will encourage you to tell this tale in Miklagard. For I tell you this: if you do, you and your family will prosper to the tenth generation. Tell it when you can on the steps of the church of wisdom and you will have a greater reward than just a wolf pelt.’

‘Are you a seer?’ said the boy’s father.

‘To make the future is to see it, so I suppose I am a seer,’ said the traveller. He stood.

‘Let us at least offer you a cup of ale for your generosity,’ said the boy’s father.

‘It is you who are generous to share such a story,’ said the man, ‘but now I must leave. There are others I must visit before the night is over.’

‘You will be a welcome guest if you bring such gifts,’ said the boy’s father.

‘I am always well rewarded for my exertions,’ said the man with a bow.

The next morning the bright winter sun woke the boy and he wondered if he had dreamed the night before. But the wolf pelt was beside him. His father was up and making some porridge. He smiled at the boy as he came out of the tent.

‘I didn’t know we had a famous storyteller among us, Snake in the Eye. Where did you get that tale from?’

The boy walked to his father’s side. ‘Didn’t you tell it to me?’

‘One like it,’ he said. ‘It was said your great-grandfather once fought a great wolf, though few believed him when he said he had.’

‘He returned with a great treasure, didn’t he?’

‘He did, and tales of the east.’

The boy nodded. ‘Perhaps one day they will tell tales of me.’

‘Perhaps they will, Snake in the Eye, for you have a poet’s heart and so will be sturdy in battle. The emperor will let you write your own story.’

‘I will write it with my sword on the bodies of my enemies,’ said the boy.

‘You are a poet and a warrior,’ said his father. ‘I am proud to call you my son.’

‘I will be a great slayer.’

The boy touched the stone at his neck for luck. In the clear morning the ocean was visible. In a day they would sail towards the dying sun, he thought, west for Miklagard, for hope and for a future of blood.

Thanks to Adam Roberts for reading the first draft of this book and for his supportive comments. Thanks to Claire my wife for taking more than her fair share of childcare to give me the chance to finish this. Apologies to Eddo Brandes for taking the biscuit.