A Wizard in Midgard

8

Alea Larsdatter, have you a suitor?” the headman intoned.

Alea reddened, but bit back the hot words that came to her tongue. She had to be respectful here; she was in great danger, and a wrong step could hurl her into a lifetime of misery. “No, Master Senred, I have not.” As though he didn’t know, as though everyone in the village didn’t know! But he had to force upon her the humiliation of saying it herself, loudly and publicly, didn’t he?

Senred harrumphed and puffed himself up with self-importance. “If you were married or betrothed, it would be a different matter—or even if you had a suitor…”

He paused, seemed to be fishing for words, and Alea was surprised to realize he might feel badly about what he was doing, might be hoping that some young man would step forward to bid for her hand even now. None would, of course—no boy could be interested in a woman so tall and broad, so dangerously close to being a giant and likely to produce giant offspring. But Senred almost seemed to be hoping one would!

The baron’s steward stepped into the breach. “If you had a husband, Alea Larsdatter, there would be no difficulty, for of course he would inherit your father’s house and lands with you.”

Alea fought for patience, even lowered her gaze and joined her hands at her waist to appear demure. “I am twenty-eight, sir, and my father made me his helper in all matters of caring for the farm, even as my mother trained me in the care of the household. At the very least, I must make his ghost proud by looking after myself, and by managing his holdings! ”

“A woman manage holdings? How foolish!” the steward scoffed.

Even Senred scowled. “If your father taught you such unwomanly things, Alea, he offended both the community and the gods!”

Alea stared into his eyes and felt her stomach sink. He really meant it!

Then the outrage flowed, and she had to lower her gaze to hide it—but she couldn’t stop the trembling.

“I know it is a fearful matter,” Senred said, his voice soothing. It would not have been if he had known why she had trembled!

Even so, the steward didn’t like such gentleness. “No woman can protect a steading, so no woman may own one—and especially not a woman who may yet breed up giants among us! Turn a steading near the border of Jotunheim over to a giant’s brat? Have a giant’s outpost in our midst? We can never allow it!”

“I am not a giant!” Alea cried, tears starting to her eyes. “I am a good Midgard woman! You cannot take my father’s steading from me!”

“The baron can do whatever he wants,” the steward said, his voice iron. “The steading must go to those the baron can trust!”

“There is no justice in this!” Alea blurted out, and the tears flowed. “There is only cruelty! All I have left is…”

“How dare you accuse the baron of cruelty!” The steward was on his feet, catching Thor’s gavel and slamming it on the table. “The baron shall do what is right and just!” He looked out over the room. “Who among you most hated her parents?”

The room was quiet, everyone staring at everyone else, thunderstruck.

Then Vigran Wentod shoved himself to his feet. “I despised the man. What right had he to so much rich land, so fine a barn and house?”

Alea cried, “He built them with his own…”

“Silence!” the baron bellowed, pounding with the gavel. “The steading is yours, worthy man! The woman too is yours!” He glared down at Alea. “How dare you say the baron is cruel!”

“Because it is true! To take all I have and give me to those who hate me? What can be right in that?”

“It is right to make you an example to those who would resist the will of the baron and the gods!” The steward’s face purpled. “It is right that you should be be taught to obey and submit! You are half a giant and a willful, rebellious woman besides! If you do not learn to obey, you might turn on your neighbors, beat them, even slay them! Surely the only place left for you in this world is as a slave!” He glared at Vigran. “See that she learns to submit!”

“Oh, my lord, I shall,” Vigran purred, and Alea felt the chill of doom.

At least Alf hadn’t won her. There was that much triumph, at least.

It was little enough.

Birin, Wentod’s wife, had a round face that turned sour every time she looked at Alea, and she looked at her as soon as they came into the Wentod house. “Take the broom and sweep, slave! Then dust, and see you break nothing!”

Alea bit her tongue and bowed her head, blinking hot tears from her eyes as she took the broom from the corner and began to sweep. The urge was strong to strike Birin with the stick and jam the bristles into her mouth, but Alea reminded herself that this must be what the gods wanted, since it was the fate the Norns had spun. If she swept well here on earth, she might die to sweep in the glory of Valhalla until Ragnorak. She closed her ears to the gloating chuckles of Vigran, his son Silig, and his daughter Yalas as they watched her wield the broom. She tried especially not to look at Silig; he was nearly twenty, as tall as his father, though nowhere nearly as fat, and the way he looked at her made her skin crawl.

“Can you not get it all in the dustpan?” Birin snapped. Alea bit her tongue again; the women knew the sweepings couldn’t all slide into the dustpan on the first brooming! She set the pan at right angles to the line of dust and swept: “I marvel your mother did not teach you how to do it properly,” Birin sniffed.

The criticism of her mother sent the blood roaring through Alea’s head, and she stood rigid a moment.

Birin’s hand cracked across her cheek. “Sweep, you lazy slut! No tarrying here!”

The pain of the slap dazed Alea, as though she were waking from a dream of life into the torments of fire. She bent to the sweeping again, her work blurred by a haze of tears—but she realized Birin’s game now: to goad her into reason for beating! After all, they had promised the baron’s steward they would teach Alea to obey and submit!

Vigran sat heavily in his huge chair by the fire. “Unlace my boots, slave.”

Outrage flamed through her, but Alea remembered their game and went to kneel in front of her new master, unlacing, his boots.

Birin’s hand cracked across her cheek. “I did not give you leave to stop sweeping, slut!”

Anger almost got the better of her then, but Alea rose and took the broom again.

Vigran leaned back and swung a kick into her buttocks. “You’ve only unlaced the one!”

Alea lurched into the wall. Anger spread a red haze over the room as the teens’ laughter rocked around her. She pushed herself away from the wall and swung the broomstick at Vigran.

It took him by surprise, cracking across his pate—but the other three roared in anger, and Silig leaped forward, slamming a fist into her belly, then another into her cheek. Yalas was there an instant later to slap her left cheek, then Birin her right. By that time, Vigran recovered and surged to his feet, bellowing in anger and swinging a huge fist to strike again and again.

So the day went. She could do nothing right, of course, and try as she would, they managed to goad her to anger twice more, beating her each time. The last time, Birin told Silig, “Tie her hands to the post!”

“No!”Alea screamed, panic tearing within, but father and son dragged her kicking to the pillar that held up the ceiling beam, and Vigran held her hands fast, chuckling, while Silig bound them.

“Bare her back, Yalas,” Birin directed. “You men look away!”

They didn’t, of course; they watched with hungry eyes as Yalas tore open the black dress, the only good dress Alea was ever likely to have again. Pain tore into Alea’s back with a smack; she cried out once in sheer surprise, then clamped her jaw shut and refused to let out a sound as the willow wand struck again and again, and the men’s laughter gained a hungry note. Her very silence must have angered Birin even further, for the blows became sharper and sharper. When they finally ceased, Birin panted, “Loose her!”

They did. Gasping to keep down her sobs, Alea turned to see Birin’s right arm hanging while she massaged it with her left, glaring at Alea as though the pain of so much swinging of the willow wand was her fault.

She swept until the floors were spotless, she peeled and chopped in the kitchens, she drew water from the well and hauled it to the kitchen, she cooked their dinner and served it in spite of their carping and criticizing of every mouthful—though Alea knew it was better than Birin could do!

Then she had to scour, wash, put away, be scolded for doing it wrong and be beaten once again. She had to haul the scraps to the hogs and was allowed to brew a little gruel for herself.

Finally, tottering with fatigue, she went out to the barn, as Birin had told her to go sleep there. Despite the pain in her back, belly, and face, she managed to climb the ladder and collapsed into the haymow to let the sobbing begin.

The sobs grew louder and louder until she was almost howling with grief and hurt. How could her parents have left her to this! How could her father have dared die and leave her! And why, oh why, had the Norns spun such a doom as this for her? Why had they let her be born, if this was all she was for?

Alea bit her lip and tried to force back her tears, force her body to be pliant and unprotesting. If this was what the Norns willed, if this was her doom, then she could only submit to it without complaint, accept it without protest. She would try, she would really try…

But she knew she would fail, that she would scream protests, even fight. A brief, lurid vision flashed in front of her, of Vigran grinning all the wider because of her resistance. She forced the picture away, shuddering and sobbing, ashamed and angry at herself for being so willful, so contrary, willing herself to accept without complaint what the next night might bring—but the anger at her father blazed up, for dying and leaving her to this!

It was a blaze that subsided to ashes in minutes, though, for she remembered how worried he and Mama had been that she had no suitors, was not married. She remembered how impatient she had become with them for insisting that she should accept whatever match they could make for her. She’d thought they had been cruel at the time, but now, now she understood and, understanding, cried herself to sleep.

The Wentods made her cook all the meals, sweep and dust, beat the carpets, feed the livestock, even hoe the kitchen garden. The worst was having to go with them to help spread lurid lavender paint over the lovely wood panelling of her parents’ house, the same paneling that she and her mother had so lovingly waxed every month. The only blessing was that Birin didn’t want to move into their new house until she had redecorated it to her own taste, every bit of which screamed offense inside Alea.

Birin stayed to supervise, so Silig and Vigran couldn’t do anything there, and Alea began to realize why the woman had made her go sleep in the hayloft, instead of an ash-filled corner on the hard tiles of the kitchen hearth.

She still couldn’t accept her fate meekly. She broke down and screamed protest at Yalas and Birin, even struck at them. She knocked them down of course, for she was so much bigger and stronger—but their cries of fright were enough to bring both men, and she couldn’t beat off all four of them.

So she tried to do as she was ordered in silence, for the gods and for fear of their blows—but try as she might, grit her teeth as she might, she knew she couldn’t simply lie there and let it happen, not the next night, or the next. She decided that she’d rather be dead.

So when dusk fell and she went out of the house, she didn’t go to the hayloft, only ducked around the barn and, with it between herself and the house, went out across the barnyard, forcing herself to run as well as she could in spite of the aching of her bruises, trying to ignore her weariness. The trees along the stream seemed to open their branches to embrace her, and she fled into their shadows. There she had to slow down, to pick her way through the darkness, but she waded the stream till it led her into the wood, and her first night of freedom.

When the world began to glimmer with the coming dawn, she was able to find a cave under the roots of an oak, and pulled herself in to munch the handfuls of berries she had gathered as she went. Soaked and shivering, she curled herself into a ball and prayed for death. But she blessed the Norns for her birth near the border; one more night and, with good fortune, she would be out of Midgard and into the strip of wasteland that separated her birthland from Jotunheim.

She knew she should have submitted to the fate the Norns had measured out to her, and fell asleep praying apologies to them for her failure—but she knew she couldn’t even try any longer. If she’d been born the daughter of a whore, it might have been a different matter; she might have grown up knowing that lot in life and able to accept it. But she had been the treasured daughter of a loving couple, and the sudden plunge into humiliation and degradation was more than she could bear. Even now she felt dim traces of outrage through her exhaustion, but they didn’t last, for she fell asleep.

“I shall never be a shield-maiden in the hall of the gods now,” she told Gar bitterly. “If my soul survives this life at all, it will go only to torment and misery.”

“I can’t believe that,” Gar told her, “and I can’t believe your doom could be so far from your weird.”

Alea lifted her head, incensed. “What do you know of my weird?”

“I know that you’re a woman of spirit, daring, and courage,” Gar told her, “and those qualities do not fit a doom of meekness, and submission to the cruelty of others.”

She stared at him with wondering eyes. “You cannot mean the Norns had another doom in mind for me!”

“I mean exactly that,” Gar answered. “If you have read your weird at all, you have read it badly.”

“Oh, have I indeed!” Alea exclaimed. “What weird would you read for me, then?”

The admiration flashed in his eyes—almost, she would have thought, worship. Then it was gone, masked, but only masked, she knew it was there, would always be there, and she sat shaken to the core, even though there had been nothing of desire in it.

“I don’t know you well enough to guess your weird,” he told her, “but I do think you have the courage and strength to try to move the world, if you had a lever long enough with a place to rest it—and the Norns have led you to a man who is considering doing just that.”

“What?” Alea asked, aghast. “Moving the world?”

“Changing it, at least,” Gar said, “changing it to a world of peace, in which no one will be allowed to debase another human being as these Wentods tried to debase you.” His eyes gleamed with admiration again, though he managed to mute it. “They would have failed, you know. No matter how long and how hard they tried, they would never have managed to break your spirit. You are too courageous, too determined—and, way down deep, you still respect yourself too highly.” Alea stared at him, feeling the blood drain from her face. “I’m not like that,” she whispered, “not like that at all. I’m only a woman.”

“What do you mean, ‘only’?” Gar asked, with a wry smile. “Every woman moves the world a fraction when she bears and rears strong children—and every woman has access to a depth of timeless power that men can only dream of, the power of the void, from which women bring forth Life.” Alea found reason for indignation; it gave her a hold on herself again. “Not all women are witches!”

“No, but all women are magical.” For a moment, Gar smiled into space, reminiscent, and Alea felt a stab of jealousy. She scolded herself for it on the instant—it was no concern of hers, which women he had enjoyed! She had no interest in him at all, other than as an aid to survival!

Then his gaze returned to her, and he became grave again. “There have been women who have changed the world far more directly, and as greatly as any man. When you say that you could not submit to degradation, you are also saying that you have integrity and strength of character. No one of such courage should have to submit to such exploitation. No one of any kind should.”

Her heart fluttered, but she hid it with a jibe. “Would that be part of this new world your peace would bring us?”

“I certainly hope so,” Gar replied.

She was startled by the notion, then regarded him narrowly. “You can’t change the whole world overnight, you know.”

“No, but I can make a start,” Gar told her, “though it will probably take a lifetime. Offhand, it seems to me that the dwarves, giants, and slaves have common cause.”

Alea frowned. “How so?” Then she stared. “You mean they all hate the Midgarders? No!”

“You don’t hate them?” Gar asked evenly.

“Well … yes, for what they’ve done to me, and more for what they would have done if I hadn’t run, or if they catch me,” Alea said slowly. “But as a giant would hate them? My own people? No!” However, she remembered how gentle, almost sympathetic, the giants had been to her, and felt a qualm of guilt.

“What of those who haven’t escaped?” Gar asked. “What of those who have been caught and brought back?”

“After the way they’ve been punished, they won’t have spirit enough left to hate anybody.” Alea shuddered at the thought of the lifelong punishments that awaited her if she were caught, then turned her mind away from the worst of them. She wouldn’t remember that, she would not! “Anyway, what matter if they did all hate the Normals? What good would it do?”

“Yes, what good,” Gar mused. “That is the question, isn’t it? After all, it’s one thing to hate, and another to do something about it.”

Alea looked up, shocked. “Do something about it? What?”

“Make a change, of course.” Gar smiled. “But for that, the dwarves, giants, and slaves will have to join together.”

“That’s impossible,” she said flatly. “How can they league when they’re leagues apart? The giants are in Jotunheim, to the west of Midgard, and, the dwarves are in Nibelheim, hundreds of miles to the east! The slaves are in between, sprinkled throughout Midgard, seldom out of hearing of their masters! How could the three nations even talk to one another? Besides, they wouldn’t if they could, for they fear and hate one another too much for any but the harshest speech.”

“There’s always a way.” Gar smiled as though he already knew of one, though he only said, “I have to admit I don’t know what it is yet, but there’s always a way to set people talking.”

“How can you say that when you don’t even know these people?” Alea cried.

“I can say it because I don’t know them,” Gar replied. “I’ll have to learn much more about them before I’m willing to admit there’s no way to set up dialogues between them—and I suspect that once I do know them, I’ll be able to think of a way to induce them to band together.”

Exasperated, she scoffed, “You think you can do anything you want, don’t you?”

Gar turned grave. “No. There are many, many things I can’t do, and I know it. They’re the things that ordinary people do every day and don’t even think about. Sometimes they don’t even realize how much satisfaction those mundane, common things give them.”

Alea stared at him, at the sudden bleakness of his face, and felt the guilt rise, and with it a surge of tenderness that surprised her, a yearning to fill that inner void that she suddenly sensed in him, to comfort this huge, capable man who seemed all at once to be powerless, defenseless, tossed about by the gales of chance.

But that sudden rush of feeling scared her, shocked her; she forced her heart to hardness, so that it wouldn’t be hurt. “If I can’t do those everyday, human things, though,” Gar told her, “I’ll do the odd things I can—and some of them are very odd indeed.”

Fear of her own tide of feeling made Alea’s voice harsh. “How will you do them?”

“I won’t know until I’ve talked with people of all three nations,” Gar said.

“What then?” Alea challenged him. “Even if you can make them talk with one another, what can you do?”

“Yes, that is the question, isn’t it?” Gar stood up, shouldering his pack. “After all, there’s no point in trying to make a change if you don’t know what change you want to make, is there?”

Alea stood up too. “What change do you mean?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Gar told her, “to ask them. Let’s find a dwarf, shall we?”

One morning when they pitched camp, Alea frowned up at the graying sky and said, “It feels as though we’ve only been walking half the night—but we’ve been hiking northward for six weeks now, and the nights should be growing longer again.”

“Nights become shorter as you go farther north,” Gar told her. “We’ve come more than three hundred miles, so we’ve lost an hour or two of darkness.”

Alea transferred her frown to his. “You must have traveled a great deal, to know that.” Envy sharpen her tone.

“Oh, yes,” Gar said, intent on the fire he was lighting. “A very great deal.”

The tilt of his head couldn’t hide the bleakness in his face, and Alea’s heart went out to him as she realized the cause of his traveling. What could have happened to make so huge a man lose his home?

Any number of things. She had begun to realize just how ingenious people could be when it came to meanness and cruelty. She spoke a bit more gently. “If we’ve lost darkness, at least we’ve lost people, too. It’s been ten days since we’ve seen a Midgarder band, and eight since we’ve seen a giant.”

He had been fishing in a stream, quietly and alone, but they had heard a deep voice from a nearby grove calling in a mother’s tones, with a lighter voice, a mere baritone, answering. Even so, Gar and Alea had stepped farther back into the shadows of the trees before they moved past, as silently as they could.

“It has been peaceful,” Gar agreed. “I think we could even begin traveling by daylight.”

The words sent alarm through Alea, but kindled a longing too—to be able to see more than a few yards ahead! To see an enemy that might be coming! But caution prevailed. “There are still the dog packs and the pig herds.”

“The dogs find us by night, too,” Dirk reminded.

“Strange that the hunters didn’t.” Alea frowned. “We’ve only seen three bands, setting out on the day’s patrol or pitching camp, and they never looked our way.”

“Something else on their minds, no doubt.”

Alea glanced at him suspiciously; his tone was too casual. But there was no way he could have anything to do with the minds of Midgarders, so she let it pass. “You mean any band coming this far north won’t be looking for us?”

“Not likely,” Gar agreed. “Don’t mistake me—we’ll have to be even more watchful than we have been—but I think we can start traveling by daylight. We’ll have to, if we want to march more than four hours a night.”

“True,” Alea said reluctantly. “We’ll have to slumber when the sun does.”

“We’ll have to shift our sleeping schedule bit by bit,” Gar said. “We’ve been awake six hours, to judge by the stars, so let’s nap for an hour or two, then walk till mid-afternoon and see how long we can sleep,”

“That could work,” Alea admitted, “but we’ll be starting very early tomorrow.”

They rested for a while, eating a light meal, then set off again—but they had only been walking a few hours when they met the giant band.