James Lovegrove - The Age Of Odin (51 page)

More than once the phrase
What the fuck have you done, Gid?
jangled through my head. Sacrificing myself to save everyone else wasn't something that came naturally. One of the first rules of soldiering: never volunteer. A motto which surely applied to executions more than anything.

The decision, however, had seemed logical at the time, and still did, just about. Nobody else could have struck the same deal, because nobody else had pissed off Mrs Keener quite like I had. In that sense, I hadn't had a choice. I hadn't been trying to be big and clever, I'd simply played the one measly bargaining chip I had left - myself.

I racked my brains over and over. Not long from now, a few hours perhaps, maybe less, I was going to die. Horribly. There was no either-or about that, no debate. But was there possibly some way I could use it to turn things around? Was there still a chance of redeeming the situation to some small extent?

After a while, when I'd paced enough and thought enough, I banged on the door. I demanded at the top of my voice to see Mrs Keener. The frost giant guards told me to go and perform some very uncomfortable acts. I persisted. Eventually they got tired of me making a nuisance of myself and one of them went off to fetch her.

"What's going on?" Mrs Keener said as she entered the cabin. "There a problem with the accommodation?"

"Not as such. The place smells like old jockstraps, but apart from that, no real complaints."

"Well, I am just so sorry, Gideon. Soldiers ain't always that big on their hygiene. I'd've lent you the use of the stateroom, 'cept that's mine. 'Course, you'd have even more to complain about if this was the real
Nagelfar
. Sides and decks of
that
ship are covered with fingernails and toenails, like fish scales, and the crew's all ghosts."

"I should count myself lucky, then, when you put it like that."

"Me too. I didn't take a fancy to travelling about in something quite so ghoulish. Wouldn't suit the way I am now. Same way I wasn't keen on wrangling proper monsters like Fenrir and Jormungand to attack Asgard with. I'm a fine, upstanding Southern lady. Don't need to be consorting with low, savage beasts, not when I can have stylish vehicles made for me that do the exact same job but with far less of the fussing and griping and cajoling."

"You actually believe you're Lois Keener, don't you?"

"Most of the time, yes," she replied, with casual frankness. "I've been wearing her skin so long, she and me have become one. That's a figure of speech, by the way - wearing her skin. I ain't Ed Gein or that queer fella outta
Silence of the Lambs
. I've adopted her form and I'm so at home in it now that sometimes I can scarce recall how I used to look."

"And she's dead, I suppose, the real Mrs Keener."

"As a doornail. I killed her with my own two hands in her kitchen and buried the body in the woods out behind the yard before the kids came home from school. I'm not sure why I chose her outta all the people I could have. Other than her name, 'course. Couldn't resist that. I suppose the reason was 'cause she was so attractive and unassuming and I just liked the idea of taking some nobody from nowheresville and rocketing her up the ladder to the most powerful position in all Midgard. It appealed to my sense of irony, as well as presenting a challenge to my wits and my silver tongue. Could I do it? Could I make the biggest of all somethings outta nothing? Turned out I could, no sweat. The people of earth - so easy to manipulate, so malleable. Such sheep. All I had to do was give 'em a vision of integrity and steel willpower, wrapped up in a physically appealing package, and they just fell in line. Piece of cake."

"And she never had a visitation from God, did she? You made that up after."

"Well, from
a
god, yes. Me. Nice little twist of the facts, that. Cover story to explain any changes in personality folks might notice. This fella came to her door, pretending to be a preacher, newly arrived in town, all steeple-fingered and pious as you like. And Mrs Keener, so trusting, invited him right in. My smiling face was the last thing she ever saw."

Mrs Keener said this with such a broad grin, I thought her head was going to split in two.

"Anyhoo, much as I'd love to stay and chat, Gid, I am on a schedule here. Lots to oversee - mainly the nice little doohickey we're busy building to kill you on. So what can I do for you? Why'd you want to see me?"

I tried not to imagine what the "doohickey" might be. Those kinds of thoughts were not helpful.

"I have a favour to ask. Two, actually."

"Really? You're haggling? You know you ain't in any position to do that. Not at this late stage in the game."

"A condemned man is entitled to a last request or two, isn't he?"

"Maybe in a Midgard prison, on death row. But we ain't in Midgard any more, Toto."

"Still," I said. "You've got me all lined up for a spectacular, messy death. I'm going to be putting on a big show for you. Consider this my fee."

"Your fee is the lives of those folks at the castle."

"Then I'm after a small raise. Honest, it's not much. At least hear me out."

She planted a fist on her hip and cocked her head. "All right then, I'll listen. I ain't guaranteeing I'll say yes, but I'll listen."

I outlined what I wanted.

The first thing I asked for brought a mildly puzzled frown and a cry of "Aww, cute."

The second, a crooked, wicked smile.

"Let me think about it," Mrs Keener said, turning to go.

An hour later: "Visitor."

The frost giants ushered Freya into the cabin. They hulked there with us, all four of them, heads bent under the ceiling. It was a hell of a squash. Freya and I had virtually no room to ourselves.

"Little privacy maybe?" I said.

"Orders," said one of them. "Neither of you is allowed out of our sight while you're together."

"We can barely breathe. How about you back off outside? Leave the door wide open. You'll still be able to see."

Eventually they agreed.

Freya and I sat side by side on the bunk. The silence simmered between us.

Finally she said, "You're an idiot."

"Not quite the words of condolence I was hoping for."

"How dare you do something so... so..."

"Brave? Self-sacrificing?"

"Selfish."

I bristled. "Buying other people's lives with my own is selfish how, exactly?"

She looked away. When she looked back, her eyes were brimming, and I felt bad for snarking at her.

"Loki might have let everyone go free," she said.

"I doubt it."

"But he might have. If you'd just kept your peace, there's every chance..."

"You know that's not true. Besides, hello? It's Gid you're talking to. I open my mouth and crap comes out before I can stop it. It's the curse of being me."

"Why couldn't one of the others have done it, though? Why did it have to be you?"

"I dunno," I said. "I suppose I've become the leader, by default. No, that's too grand. The spokesman. The mouthpiece. So it sort of had to be me. Tall poppy syndrome. You rise up, you have to expect to be cut down. But also..."

I thought hard. I'd been doing little else but thinking hard since getting locked up in this cabin.

"I should probably have died in that car crash. Or if not then, immediately afterwards, thanks to those wolves. I was damn lucky. I got a second shot. So everything since has been gravy, as far as I'm concerned. A bonus life. Which makes the idea of losing it that much easier to adjust to. I've had fun. These past few weeks have been baffling, painful, intense, sometimes fucking awful - but what a laugh! I've done shit I'd never in a million years have dreamt of doing, and I've been a warrior again, and fighting a fight worth fighting, what's more. Nothing questionable about working for Odin and defending Asgard. This wasn't some spurious war cooked up by civil servants and businessmen to keep the oil flowing and the rebuilding contracts flooding in. This had
meaning
. It was clear cut - like the Second World War and unlike any of the conflicts since, except possibly the Falklands. A definite bad guy with nefarious ambitions, and us the last, best and maybe only hope against him. A soldier couldn't ask for more than that."

"So at least
you've
got something out of it."

"Don't be like that."

"Like what?"

"All bitter and twisted. I was going to go on to say something else. One of the most amazing things about this entire situation is that I've met... well, you. Bear with me here, because I'm hellish clumsy when it comes to this sort of stuff. But... I don't know what you think of me, Freya, but I think you are pretty incredible. And incredibly pretty. But mostly pretty incredible."

I spotted the guards making stupid, leering faces through the doorway.

"Oh fuck off, you," I snapped. "This is difficult enough as it is, without cockfaces like you getting involved."

"Concentrate on me, Gid," Freya said, taking my hands. "Ignore them."

I tried. "I'm a hard-shelled bastard, I know it. I come across like nothing bothers me, nothing gets to me. I love my son, but that's about it as far as finer feelings go. Otherwise, all front, no depth. That's the impression I give, and that's more or less how it is. But you, Freya... I can't get over the fact that you're
you
and you chose me. You could have anyone, you could go out with gods, but it was humble little mortal Gid Coxall who got the nod. I'm not pretending I don't realise that it's chiefly been about humping one another senseless. I get that. Any port in a storm, and so on. And I'm not against shaggery for shaggery's sake. Far from it. Bring it on, I say. But if there was more to us than that, if I've been more to you than just a convenient booty call, I have to know. You have to tell me."

"You choose now to ask this? When you're moments away from dying?"

"It's that close, is it?"

"They're nearly ready. Your 'audience' is being gathered."

"Shit. Then yes, this is precisely the time to ask. When better? And don't just tell me what you think I want to hear. Be honest. Straight from the heart. Is it possible for a goddess - I'm going to use the word
love
- to love a mortal? Can it happen?"

There was a pause. A long one. Then, gaze averted, in barely a whisper, Freya said, "It can. Yes. It can."

I sat back, contented. "I think I can go to my grave happy now."

"Truly?"

I nodded. "I mean, let's face it, I've loved a goddess and she loved me back. Doesn't get much better than that."

The frost giants were bombarding us with mocking "ooh" and "wooh" noises, but it hardly registered.

"If I could help you in any way," Freya said. "As I helped those men they pinned to Yggdrasil..."

"You would, I know, and I appreciate the offer, but you can't, can you? Not from out of the crowd. You won't have a gun."

She lowered her voice. "I could slay you now. Spare you that way from what's in store."

"With your bare hands?"

"You know I could."

"And then the frosties would kill you too."

"So?"

I smiled at her, sincerely. "I don't want that. And more to the point, if I die here now, Mrs Keener won't need to keep her half of the bargain. Much as I hate the idea, I've got to go through with this. It's shit, but there's no other way."

"Time's up," one of the frost giants announced.

"Loki promised us half an hour."

The frost giant shrugged. "We jotuns don't run our lives by clocks like you do. I don't even know what an hour is. Your ladyfriend's been here long enough by my reckoning, so say goodbye to her."

I muttered something uncomplimentary. The frost giants just laughed.

"Gid..."

Freya took my chin in her hand and guided my face towards hers, and we kissed.

Our first ever real kiss.

And our last.

Sweet, and firm, and deep, and over all too soon.

But a kiss I would have remembered for all my life, even if I were to live to a ripe old age.

Sixty-Eight

My lips were still tingling from the kiss when, not much later, Bergelmir came to collect me.

Outside they'd built a scaffold out of wood. The timber had come from Yggdrasil itself. Several lower branches had been lopped off and sawn into planks. The stumps wept a sap so dark orange it was almost the colour of blood, and I could sense somehow that the World Tree was in agony. Just something about the way its other branches drooped, the way the breeze shivered its leaves. It was sacrilege, to dismember Yggdrasil like this - I sensed that, too. I glimpsed the squirrel Ratatosk scurrying this way and that along boughs in an absolute frenzy, squealing with rage, his tail a furry exclamation mark. There was nothing the little rodent could have done to prevent the frost giants from desecrating his home. He was doubly pissed off for that reason.

The scaffold was large and crudely put together, but sturdy-looking. It consisted of a platform with a simple framework built on top, a rectangle with cross-braced corners. Wooden pegs had been used for nails. Short ropes were attached to all four cross-braces.