The Sea of Trolls - Farmer Nancy (читать книги бесплатно полностью без регистрации сокращений .txt) 📗

Ivar rose to his feet. He looked deathly pale and exhausted, as though some disease ate at him. “Is this skald a gift, Olaf?”

“No, old friend,” the giant said simply. “I have given you much of my wealth-hoard. I have done so freely and gladly. I captured the great troll-pig on the borders of Jotunheim and gave him to you for Freya’s sacrifice. Is this not enough?”

Ivar bowed his head. “I am ashamed to appear greedy.”

“I’ve never thought of youas greedy, old friend,” said Olaf.

“I suppose that means I am,” the queen said. She stood up, dumping Lucy to the floor. Her cats came out of the shadows and surrounded her skirt, walking round and round like a stream of living gold. Lucy cried briefly and fell silent with her thumb in her mouth.

Frith came up to Jack and touched his lips with the tip of her finger. Ice coursed through his body, warring with the heat of the rune. “ Sucha lovely voice. What a pity not to hear it raised in your praises, Ivar.” The cats rustled around Jack’s legs now. They came up to his waist, so large were they, and their incessant movement made him dizzy. “Very well, then! I amgreedy—but only for the glory of your court, dear husband. I want this skald for my own.”

“Great Queen,” began Olaf, and Jack noted that he called Ivar old friend,but there was no such warmth when he spoke to Frith. “Great Queen, do not ask this.”

“But I doask it.”

“Take something else,” said King Ivar. The look the queen gave him caused him to stagger back into his chair.

“I have a new warhorse,” said Olaf, and Jack could see it hurt him to say this as much as it had hurt Thorgil to give up her necklace. “I think his sire came from Elfland, and I intended him for my son Skakki. You may have him, if you leave the skald.”

“I do not bargain, noble Olaf,” said the queen. “Dear me! I’m not some fishwife in the market. The horse is of course welcome, but that doesn’t settle the question of the boy.”

“Yes, it does,” said Jack. He was horribly afraid. He had to fight against her will and the cats walking incessantly around his legs. Then, too, he had to fight her beauty, but it was easier with the life force still hovering in the air. Frith was not as alluring in its presence. He glimpsed a shadow behind her that was in no way like her human form.

“This land has laws,” Jack struggled to say. “Ivar is king, and he’s told you not to take me.” His throat almost closed up with fear, but he heard a murmur of approval from the hall.

“Father alwaystells Mother what to do,” chirped Lucy. A ripple of laughter, quickly stifled, went round the room.

“I’ll sing your praises, Great Queen,” said Jack. “But I must honor King Ivar’s will.”

Frith’s form wavered ever so slightly. The fish-oil lamps sputtered and the hearth seemed to dim. Then all returned to normal. “I see you are as clever as you are musical,” the queen said. “I accept this compromise—for the moment. Give me a praise-song, boy, and I’ll tell you if I like it.”

Jack felt ready to collapse. He had no song ready, and his mind was emptied out. The cats continued to weave around him, now buffeting him with their bodies, now treading on his feet. “Could you—call off your cats?” he said weakly.

“They’re not mine,” trilled Frith. “They belong to Freya. They pull her sacrificial cart and obey her will. Icertainly can’t tell a goddess what to do. Her beasts have chosen to like you, and that’s that.”

“Liking” was not what Jack thought the cats had in mind. They bumped into him roughly and their feet were heavy. He’d played with farm cats back home. Sometimes they got into a mood, and just when they seemed happy, they’d decide you were prey and attack.

However, he had no choice. What can I say? What can I say?he thought. All the praise-poems he knew were about brave deeds or accomplishments such as playing the harp or swimming. They could be applied to men or women. None of them were suitable for Frith. Could he lie? No,thought Jack. A bard’s skill came from the life force, and you couldn’t lie to it.

So what was left? Her beauty. In praise-poems a woman’s beauty was mentioned in general terms. It was there. It was good. Far more important was her character, but Frith had no character except lust and greed. Beauty it would have to be, then.

Jack began awkwardly. He was having to make things up on the spot. He raised his head and saw the crow hidden in the rafters. Bold Heart! It had to be him. He must have followed them from Olaf’s hall. Bold Heart bobbed up and down, seeming upset. He couldn’t have been happy about the cats. They could have swallowed him with one gulp and yowled for more.

“Why have you stopped?” said the queen.

Jack turned and saw her with Lucy snuggled once more in her lap. Or rather, Lucy was doing all the snuggling. Frith would never do anything so lovable. His sister’s life was in his hands. He hadto please Frith or find out what happened to children when she got into a snit.

He looked directly at the queen. Her beauty stunned him as it had before. He began singing, first of her white arms and then her perfect face. Except that it wasn’t perfect. The one thing poets always mentioned about women was their eyes, and Frith’s eyes were like doors opening onto nothingness.

Her hair! He could sing about that. It indeed was worth praising, a red-gold river fanning out around her like a cloak fashioned by elves. It flowed down to the floor, fell like sunlight from her white brow. Even Freya’s cats were no fairer.

At the mention of cats one of the beasts turned his head and sank his teeth into Jack’s leg. He shouted in surprise. The spell was broken, for spell it had been. Jack had felt the life force strongly, as when he called up fog. Frith’s hair had become more golden, had fallen ever more gracefully. Had fallen.

With the breaking of the spell, Frith’s hair simply detached itself from her head and fell to the floor with a little sigh.

The party guests held their breath. Frith looked uncertain, as though she hadn’t realized what had happened. “It’s sei?er!” yelled Thorgil, breaking the silence. “See? There’s his familiar in the rafters!”

Bold Heart croaked balefully and sailed out the door.

“A crow?” Frith said, wondering. She felt her head. Then she screamed, a terrible scream unlike anything human. Her body bulged in a dozen places. Her features rippled and twisted like the beasts carved on the walls. Her head turned pale and bulbous, with gaping eyes and a mournful mouth. She screamed again and again. The hall emptied out, with warriors scrambling over one another and whimpering in a most unheroic way.

Jack tried to reach Lucy, but he was snatched away by Olaf. The giant cleared a path for his wives and friends, while Skakki brought up the rear. Tree Foot and Eric Pretty-Face carried Rune between them. The old warrior was too frail to fight his way through the panic. When they got outside, Olaf marched them to the edge of the forest. He watched as the party guests gathered a respectful distance from the hall.

The screams had stopped. The night was full of stars and a full moon hung at zenith. A faint glow on the horizon showed that even at midnight, the midsummer sun was not far away. No one spoke, and Jack was afraid to ask questions. What would happen now? What would happen to Lucy?

Finally, Rune whispered, “That was the biggest snit I ever saw.”

It broke the tension. Olaf laughed ruefully. “Heide was right. She always is. I shouldn’t have taken the children to the party.”

“It was fated,” Rune said.

“I’m sorry,” said Jack, bracing for a blow, but Olaf was too preoccupied to hit him. He watched the door of Ivar’s hall.

“Should I fetch the thralls, Father?” said Skakki at last.

“Yes,” the giant replied. “Take Jack with you. He can calm the troll-boar while you unhitch the oxen.”