The Gospel of Loki (13 page)

Odin was furious, of course. But even he could hardly blame me for what had happened. He took to spending even more time alone, with only his ravens and Mimir’s Head for company. Sometimes I heard him talking in a low and urgent voice – though whether it was to the ravens, to himself or to the Head, I could only speculate. As for myself, I’d managed to carry out another covert act of sabotage, and I was feeling pleased with myself – at least until the hammer fell, taking me wholly by surprise . . .

LESSON 5

Marriage

They don’t call it ‘wedlock’ for nothing.

Lokabrenna

Y
ES, THE HAMMER
. I should have known that Odin would find a means of, if not actually punishing me for my part in Frey’s misadventure, then at least of restraining me for a while. This time, the blow was delivered by Frigg, Odin’s wife, the Enchantress, who, in the wake of Frey and Gerda’s nuptials, now turned her matchmaking eye on me.

‘Loki’s just a little wild,’ she said. ‘He needs a good woman.’

I didn’t see the danger at first, or expect the disastrous consequences. It was only when the General announced that he was giving me a wife that I realized how neatly I’d been caught, and how hard it would be henceforth for me to get away with
anything
without attracting the vigilance of my new and eager spouse . . .

It was Sigyn, of course. Who else? She’d had her eye on me from the start. What was more, she’d confided in Frigg, who had confided in Odin. The result was one of those female conspiracies that men are powerless to resist, and I found myself under attack from both sides, and helpless.

Of course I protested. But the damage was done. And Odin made it abundantly clear that his generous gift was both
non-returnable
and
non-negotiable.

Frigg was delighted. As far as she was concerned, Wildfire had been tamed by love. Sigyn, too, was delighted, and prepared for a life of domestic bliss. Freyja was rather less happy – she’d just lost her favourite handmaid, the plain one she liked to keep around because she made Freyja look prettier. As for Yours Truly, he was in shock, stunned at the speed of his downfall, trying to work out just
how
he’d been caught, and how he might manage his escape.

For a start, until that point I’d had no idea how much women
talked
to each other. Nothing was private any more: my personal habits, opinions, tastes and every intimate detail that a loving wife could discover and share with her various cronies.

Was I ungrateful? Perhaps I was. But Frigg, who was wise enough in other ways, had totally failed to understand my nature or, indeed, my needs. A month of living with Sigyn in her little place in Asgard, all chintz and roses round the door, of eating Sigyn’s home-made cakes, of listening to Sigyn’s views on Life, of sleeping with Sigyn (lights out, of course, and veiling her charms beneath an assortment of almost impenetrable flannel nightdresses), was enough to confirm my initial belief that Frigg was wrong and that what I
really
needed was the love of a very
bad
woman.

And so I went in search of one, telling my wife that I needed space; that it wasn’t her fault, it was me; that I just needed to find myself; and, in my bird Aspect, I ventured out as far as the forest of Ironwood, that stretches over a hundred miles between the plain of Ida right up to the shores of the One Sea.

Ironwood was a good place to hide. Dark as night, and teeming with predators and demons. Most of them had glam of some kind, stolen scraps of Chaos, bartered from other realms or brought into the Worlds through Dream. The river Gunnthrà ran through it; it was swarming with snakes and ephemera. It was a dangerous place, but it was as close as I was ever likely to get to Chaos again, and I made for its shelter with relief.

My quest was not a romantic one. While I was among the Rock Folk, I’d heard a rumour that Gullveig-Heid, the renegade Sorceress of the Vanir, had established a stronghold in Ironwood in the hope of attacking Asgard. I thought that if I could contact her, then maybe we could join forces – but Ironwood was a vast place, hissing with glam and signatures, and Gullveig – if she was there at all – had shielded herself with so many runes that finding her trail was impossible.

But I did come across someone else. Angrboda, the Witch of Ironwood. Mad, bad and dangerous, she lived in the heart of the forest, half in and half out of Chaos. Like me, she had left the primal Fire to explore the emerging Worlds; like me, she enjoyed new sensations; and, like all demons, she was alluring. Dark-skinned, long-haired, a ring on every finger and toe, eyes like red-hot embers and every muscle, every nerve charged with a sexual energy that I hadn’t known I craved until the craving was satisfied.

We spent a number of nights together, both in our human form as well as in various animal Aspects, cavorting through Ironwood, hunting, destroying and generally raising Chaos, until exhaustion got the better of me. Angie’s tastes ran to violence, and every inch of me was sore. Not that I was complaining but I needed time to recover.

And so I returned to Sigyn’s arms, her cooking, her love of Bragi’s lute-playing, her attentions and her curious affinity with wildlife of all sorts – Sigyn’s most annoying trait, which meant that she was often surrounded by little woodland creatures, birds, raccoons, squirrels and so on – teeming and twittering constantly.

‘Now, sweetie, be
nice
to my little friends,’ she would say as I swiped at a fieldmouse climbing up the curtains. ‘You never know, one day you might
need
that little mousie.’

Yes, before you condemn my faithlessness, that’s what Sigyn was like, folks. And all in all, with Angie’s help, I think I managed to cope pretty well. I lived in Asgard most of the
time, and when domesticity became too much for me, I fled to my mistress in Ironwood. The concept of monogamy was not unknown to me, of course, but, like pain, lutes and poetry, I just didn’t see the point.

Sigyn bore with my faithlessness rather well, on the whole, I thought. Of course she liked to complain to her friends about my beastly appetites, but I don’t think she was all that surprised. In Sigyn’s world, men often stray, but always return to their faithful wives, who show their forgiveness by baking cakes, tending wounds and placing hands on fevered brows. Vengeance comes later, in the form of bedtime headaches, snide remarks and that business with the snake – yes, I’ll be getting to that soon enough, so don’t think I got away scot-free. Odin knew what he was doing, all right, when he handed me over to her. But at the time, I was pleased with myself. I thought I’d managed to reconcile my two opposing natures. I tolerated Sigyn whilst enjoying Angrboda and managed to persuade myself that frolicking with her in Ironwood constituted some kind of secret rebellion against the Old Man.

I know; I lost focus. Perhaps that’s what Odin intended. Perhaps he was trying to stop me from doing any more mischief by keeping me in a perpetual state of sexual exhaustion.

But, idyllic as it was at first between Angrboda and myself, it was inevitable that, in time, our . . . activities . . . would bear fruit. Demons often tend to . . . let’s say
exotic
progeny, and in Angie’s case, this was especially true. Over our twelve-month liaison, she presented me with three offspring: a cute little were-wolf called Fenris, an undead half-corpse-daughter called Hel, and Jormungand, an enormous snake, which proved to be the final straw between me and Angrboda.

So shoot me. I can’t stand snakes. But she liked to push the boundaries. We argued – well,
she
argued. She said that I needed to take responsibility for my actions; accused me of fearing commitment; said she felt violated and used and finally screamed at me to go back to my wife, whom I obviously was
never going to leave, and with whom she wished me a long and happy future. And so I went back to Asgard for good, feeling more or less relieved, and leaving Odin to figure out what to do with Fenny, Hel and Jormungand.

Well, the snake was the easiest. By the time we reached a decision he’d grown so large that only the One Sea could safely hope to contain him. So that was where we threw him, to lounge in the ocean mud and feed on fish for the rest of his days, and he became the World Serpent, spanning the Middle Worlds with his girth, tail in his mouth, biding his time till Ragnarók.

As for Hel, by the time she was grown, everyone wanted rid of her. It wasn’t that she was evil, as such, she just wasn’t a social animal. She could clear a room in two minutes; her conversation was minimal; everywhere she went, there was gloom; parties fell flat as storm-blown tents.

Even so, Odin tolerated her for my sake, at least until she was in her teens, when, as well as developing the most shocking case of adolescent acne, she also developed an equally bad case of puppy-love towards Asgard’s favourite Golden Boy, aka Balder the Beautiful. It eventually got so embarrassing that at last Odin made a decision and gave Hel her own realm, the Land of the Dead, on the near bank of the River Dream, and waved her merrily on her way.

It was only fair, given that her brother already ruled the One Sea. As for Fenris, for the next fifteen years he lorded it in Iron-wood, dismembering small creatures and generally running amok. They had to restrain him later, of course, though for the time being he was considered insufficient threat to count. But Hel was smart, and had to be dealt with a little more sensitively.

Odin made it sound as if she was performing a crucial task on behalf of the gods and gave her a runemark of her own –
Naudr
, the Binder – and almost unlimited power – but only within her realm, of course. The Old Man was planning to avoid Death for as long as he could, but even then, in his prime, he was already laying the foundations for a possible alliance – with a view to
finding a loophole when the inevitable occurred.

As for Angrboda – well. She went her way, I went mine. I hoped there were no hard feelings, although, with Angie, you never could tell. Sigyn’s arms were always open, and she was endlessly forgiving, but what with the chintz, and the animals, the cooking, the nagging, the lutes, the scented candles, the pot-pourri and the cuddling, I would have lost my mind if I’d stayed. And so I fled the domestic scene and returned to my digs in Asgard.

No, I didn’t abandon her – Frigg would never have let me do
that
– but I managed to convince her that I needed my personal space. By then she was pregnant anyway, and her energies had been channelled into knitting bootees and little hats. A good time for me to make my excuses, I thought – and after that, she had the boys to occupy her.

Yes, the boys. My twin sons, Vali and Narvi, with my green eyes and my temperament, whom Sigyn (wrongly, as it happened) assumed would awaken my sense of responsibility. In fact, they had the opposite effect, with the result that over the next few years I took every excuse to travel as far and as often from my loving family as possible.

What can I say? It’s my nature. Besides, what role models did I have? An absent father in Chaos, and an absent mother in World Above. That’s hardly a wonderful start in life. Still, if I’d done things differently . . .

But no. Regrets are for losers. What’s done is done, and there’s no point in wishing for anything else. Didn’t I pay for it in the end? Maybe I even deserved it. And maybe I should . . . but none of that now. It’s easy to be wise
after
the Worlds have ended. The Black Fortress of Netherworld is filled with that kind of wisdom.

And so I went through fatherhood like a grain of wheat through a goose, unscathed and unremembered. And if there ever was a time when I wondered what it might have been like to play a game of catch with my sons, or teach them to fly, or shift
Aspects, or educate them in such essential life skills as lying, cheating and treachery, I wisely kept the thought to myself. And yet, I was conscious that
something
had changed. Something inside me had shifted. The knot of barbed wire inside my heart was suddenly less intrusive. I could spend whole weeks and months without even thinking about revenge. One day, I flew into Asgard from one of my jaunts in hawk Aspect and saw my sons, aged seven or eight, playing on the battlements. And just for a moment, I almost felt . . .

Yes. I almost felt
happy
.

I should have known there was something wrong. Face it, it wasn’t natural. But after years of trying, at last, Odin had corrupted me. No, it wasn’t
love
, of course, but it
was
a kind of contentment. Suddenly, I wasn’t alone. Suddenly, I had people. And suddenly, the End of the Worlds couldn’t be too far away, as I looked at my sons from afar and thought:
Perhaps this was what I was missing. Perhaps I belong here after all . . .

LESSON 6

Bridesmaids

Something borrowed, something blue.

Lokabrenna

A
FTER THAT
there came a stretch of generally crisis-free existence. Not that I was slowing down, but it was Asgard’s summertime, and all of us felt the sunshine. We were at our zenith then; worshipped throughout the Middle Worlds. Anything we wanted, we had. Gold, weapons, wine, women. Odin and Thor were the popular ones – along with Golden Boy, of course – but even Yours Truly had his share of songs and sacrifices. Ice Folk and Rock Folk were both at peace; Frey was happy with his bride and Skadi was on one of her trips to the North, meaning that there was no one there to cast a damper on the festivities.

Something, sometime, was bound to go wrong. We had all become
far
too complacent. Suspicion and Survival are twins – lose one, and the other soon follows.

One morning after a drunken night, Thor awoke in his empty hall to find that his hammer was missing. For a while he assumed that Sif had tidied it away, then that one of the others had maybe hidden it for a joke, but when everyone denied knowledge and finally, Yours Truly was called and accused of having stolen it, we realized we had a problem.

‘What in Hel’s name would I want with your hammer?’ I
said.

Thor shrugged. ‘I dunno, I thought—’

‘Don’t try to think,’ I said, and cast
Bjarkán
, the rune of true vision. It revealed a shielded signature – the colours of which I recognized immediately. ‘That signature belongs to Thrym, one of the chieftains of the Ice Folk. He must have found his way in here – he likes to travel in eagle form – and stolen it when you were asleep.’ I looked at Heimdall. ‘Where were you? Drunk again? Gods, the security in this place . . .’

‘Watch your tongue,’ Heimdall growled. ‘Or I may relieve you of it.’

I arched an eyebrow. ‘Go ahead. Enjoy yourself while you still can. Because as soon as the news gets out that Thor’s lost his hammer, we’re going to get pounded on all sides by every little warlord who fancies his chances against us.’

There was silence, as everyone realized that I was right.

I turned to Freyja. ‘Your falcon cloak.’

She nodded. Even she knew what would happen if Mjølnir were lost. It wasn’t just the hammer, but the loss of credibility. Odin’s empire was built on bluff and the knowledge that no one dared to strike, but our enemies were like wolves around a bonfire: at bay, but let them scent blood, just once, and they’d be on us before we knew it.

Odin watched as I flung on the cloak. ‘Talk to Thrym,’ he told me. ‘Find out what he wants from us. And, Loki – please. Be careful.’

I was surprised. It had to be the first time that the Old Man had shown any interest in my personal safety. I guessed he knew they’d need my skills if they were to retrieve the hammer. I’ll admit, I felt rather flattered; Odin had put his trust in me, and I was looking forward to showing him what I was capable of. And so I flew to the Northlands and found old Thrym in his courtyard, making collars for his hounds and looking very pleased with himself.

I flew down to join him and perched on a branch, just out of
reach of his big hands.

‘Loki,’ he said, and showed his teeth. ‘You’re looking very chirpy today. How are the Aesir? The Vanir?’

‘Not so good,’ I told him. ‘Not now you’ve stolen Thor’s hammer.’

Thrym gave a broad grin. ‘Have I?’ he said.

‘I thought you knew better than this, Thrym,’ I said. ‘Do you really want to see the whole of the Nine Worlds at war over a hammer? It won’t just be Asgard in trouble, you know. What you’ve done is likely to destabilize Order and Chaos. You’ll have Lord Surt on your doorstep before you can say “death wish”. So give Thor back his hammer, and we can all go back to staying alive. What do you say?’

He grinned again. ‘I don’t want Thor’s hammer.’

‘That’s nice. So what
do
you want?’

‘I’m in love,’ he said.

I cursed. ‘Oh, gods. Not you as well?’

‘I’ve buried the hammer in World Below. You’ll never find it in time,’ he said. ‘But you can have it back as soon as I get the Goddess of Desire as my bride. You have nine days to deliver.’

Freyja! Gods. I should have known. That woman was nothing but trouble. So I flew back to Asgard as fast as I could – time was short – and found the Thunderer waiting, rather impatiently, in his hall.

I took off Freyja’s feather cloak, ready to drop with exhaustion.

‘Well?’ said Thor.

‘Well, a drink would be nice. I’ve been flying for days, you know.’

Thor grabbed me by the throat. ‘
Well?’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘I talked to Thrym. And he’s happy to return the hammer, on condition that we agree to give him Freyja as his bride.’

Thor gave the matter some three seconds’ thought, then said: ‘Fine. We’ll tell her.’

We called a meeting of the gods – all of them – in Odin’s hall. ‘There’s good news and slightly less good news,’ I said. ‘The good news is, I persuaded Thrym to give back Mjølnir. The slightly more ambivalent news is . . .’ I smiled dazzlingly at Freyja. ‘Now, before you shoot me down in flames—’

‘You’d better not be about to say what I think you’re about to say,’ said the Goddess of Desire, through her teeth.

‘Ah, come on,’ I said. ‘Be fair. Thrym’s a decent guy at heart. And he’s a king, for gods’ sakes. It’s not like I’m trying to pair you up with a labourer. Think about it. You’ll be Queen of the Ice Folk. You’ll have a crown of diamonds and a wedding dress of mink.’

She gave me one of her looks. ‘No. I’d rather go to war.’

‘With
what
? Thrym has Mjølnir, in case you’d forgotten.’

‘I don’t care. I’m not marrying one of the Ice People. They’re ugly, and uncouth, and all of them smell of fish.’

‘What’s wrong with the smell of fish?’ said Njörd.

Freyja looked appealingly at Odin. ‘You can’t want me to do this,’ she said, fluttering her eyelashes.

But since the business with Dvalin and the necklace, Odin had been a lot less indulgent with Freyja. Most of the time he didn’t let his anger show, but I knew him too well to misread the signs.

‘We need the hammer, Freyja,’ he said.

‘Meaning you don’t need
me
?’ She started to cry, which was her usual way of dealing with adversity. In this instance, no one seemed to care much. Freyja dried her tears. ‘I see. You’d rather see me sold, like a whore.’

I hid a grin behind my hand, but not before she’d seen it.

From his throne, Odin caught my eye. I knew what he was thinking, and so did Freyja. Anger made her tremble. She started to shift to her Carrion form – that monstrous personification of all-consuming, selfish Desire – and in the violent discharge of glam, the golden choker around her neck broke apart, scattering its links and gems all around Odin’s high
seat.

‘My,
that’s
appealing,’ I said, and grinned again.

Freyja gave an anguished scream. ‘I hate you all!’ she said, and ran out.

I said: ‘I’ll take that as a no.’

The gods exchanged uncomfortable glances.

‘We still have to deal with Thrym,’ I continued. ‘The King of the Ice Folk, in his stronghold, surrounded by his people, armed with runes and all kinds of local knowledge – not to mention Thor’s hammer . . .’ I paused to allow time for this to sink in. ‘Thrym wants a bride. We have no choice. I say we give him one.’

There was silence. Everyone looked glum.

Frey said: ‘Freyja won’t have him.’

‘I see her point, of course,’ I said. ‘But we have to give him
someone
. And, wrapped in a wedding veil, covered in gems, one bride looks a lot like another.’

‘You think you can fool him?’ Heimdall sneered. ‘As soon as he finds out he’s been duped, he’ll slit the bride’s throat.’

‘Not if she slits his first,’ I said. ‘It all depends on who we send.’

Everyone was looking at me now. I grinned again and turned to Thor.

‘You’d better not be thinking what I think you’re thinking,’ he growled.

‘I’m thinking floor-length taffeta under a cloak of snow-white mink. Plenty of skirts to make your hips roll. And your hair tucked under a sweet little cap . . .’

‘No way,’ said Thor dangerously.

I ignored him. ‘We’ll fix Freyja’s necklace,’ I told them. ‘It’s her signature piece, and Thrym will be expecting to see it. And we’ll hide his face under a veil, and walk him right into Thrym’s place without anyone suspecting a thing. Then, when Thrym brings out the hammer . . .’

Odin was smiling now. ‘It could work.’

‘No
way
,’ said Thor again.

I said: ‘I’ll be your handmaid, Thor. Don’t worry, I won’t steal your thunder. You’ll make a
gorgeous
bride.’

Thor growled.

‘And don’t worry about the wedding night. I’m sure Thrym will be very gentle. I’ll tell him it’s your first time—’

His blow, had it connected, would have left nothing of me but a smear on the floor. As it was, I evaded it easily and danced away, still grinning.

‘We don’t have the choice,’ I told him again. ‘It’s this, or lose Mjølnir. What do you say, folks?’

They all agreed. And that was how, eight days later, the Thunderer, dressed in one of Freyja’s gowns, drenched in her perfume, arms and legs waxed, fingernails gilded, wearing Freyja’s necklace and an expression of murderous rage (happily, hidden under the veil), set off on the road to the Northlands with Your Humble Narrator at his side.

His chariot left a furious trail of scorch-marks and potholes behind it, visible for miles around. It was Thor’s usual way of travel, of course, but a purist might have condemned it as a little too aggressive for a lady on her way to her forthcoming nuptials. I’d managed to shield the signature that would have proclaimed his presence in a broad red stripe of glam all the way from Ida’s plain into the northern glaciers, but there was nothing I could do about the collisions on the way, or the grinding of Thor’s teeth under the jewelled bridal veil.

On arrival, I explained to our host: ‘Freyja was keen to arrive, Lord Thrym. Besides, we women charioteers . . .’ I shot him a smile from beneath my handmaid’s headdress. I make a more convincing woman than Thor and, being beardless, had no need to wear a veil. In any case, Thrym seemed to approve, and chucked me under the chin, and said:

‘If the mistress is half as pretty as the maid, I think my luck is in tonight.’

I giggled. ‘Oh,
you
! Get
away
!’

Then, avoiding Thrym’s roving hands, I ushered the fake bride into the banqueting hall of the Ice Folk, where tables had been laid for a feast. Haunches of meat, whole salmon, pies, mountains of cakes and candied fruit. Branches of candles everywhere, giving the place a festive glow. And mead, lots and lots of mead; enough for an army of drinkers.

I could hear Thor muttering to himself, and hissed at him, ‘Be quiet. All right? Let me do the talking.’

Thrym’s people led us to our place at the table, on Thrym’s left side. I cleverly manoeuvred Thor away from the place where the warriors sat, and settled him with the women.

Thrym was nearby, but not near enough for any hankypanky. The man had wandering hands, all right, and I didn’t want Thor losing his temper – at least not until we had the hammer, at which point Thor was free to run amok as much as he liked.

‘Just try to eat something,
my Lady
,’ I hissed, poking Thor in the ribs. Then, turning to Thrym, ‘She’s a little shy. I’m sure she’ll unbend when she’s eaten.’

Well, Our Thor has always had a more than healthy appetite. On this occasion he surpassed himself, managing to put away a whole roast ox, eight salmon and
all
the little delicacies – sweets, cakes, biscuits, candied fruit – that had been put out for the women. I tried to warn him, but Thor and food are friends that can’t be parted. And after that, he started on the mead, downing three whole horns of the stuff before I managed to make him see sense.

Thrym watched him in astonishment. ‘She likes to eat, doesn’t she? How does she keep her figure?’

I giggled and fluttered my eyelashes. ‘Oh, Lord Thrym, but my mistress hasn’t eaten or drunk
a thing
since your flattering proposal. For eight days she’s been on a strict fast, she was so worried about fitting into her wedding dress.’

Thrym smiled fondly. ‘Ah, bless,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t need
to diet for me. The bigger the cushion – now don’t be shy . . .’ He made a lunge for Freyja and managed to peek under her veil.

What he saw there seemed to make him uneasy.

‘Freyja’s eyes . . .’ he stammered.

‘What?’ I patted his arm and smiled up at him.

‘They’re so fierce – they burn like embers!’

‘Oh, but my mistress hasn’t slept for eight nights,’ I explained. ‘She’s been so keen for her wedding night – her wedding night with
you
, my Lord.’

‘Oh,’ said Thrym.

I smiled. ‘She’s heard all about you, my Lord,’ I said. ‘Your vigour, your handsome looks, your
size
. . .’

‘Really?’ said Thrym.

‘Absolutely,’ I whispered. ‘Look at the way she’s watching you now. She’s practically
squirming
with anticipation.’