The Islands of the Blessed

Chapter Thirty-four THE SHONEY’S FEAST

Nothing happened quickly in Notland, Jack discovered. The fin folk were masters of indirection. They knew that the Bard had come to see their king and did nothing to bring it about. Shair Shair had looked the visitors over and gone away. Whush invited them to follow him around. He seemed to have no particular goal in doing this.

“Can’t we just ask to see the Shoney?” Thorgil said. Both she and Jack were tired of wandering around aimlessly.

“That’s not how things get done here,” the old man said. “If we try to hurry the fin folk, they’ll simply melt away. They have a saying: ‘The longest way around is the shortest way there.’”

“It’s already long enough,” said Thorgil.

Whush, for reasons known only to himself, led them on a tour of the farms. They observed the white cattle, the barley fields, and the chicken-of-the-sea coops. They endured a long and exceedingly boring description of kelp harvesting. They were introduced to sea goats, or capricorns. These were handsome creatures with long horns and flowing hair, and Whush informed them that the hair could be used to spin cloth. Instead of hind legs, the goats had fish tails. They could both swim and leap, and were altogether charming in the way they frisked around.

But even capricorns got tedious after a while. Jack was tired and thirsty, and when they came to a dark stream, he asked whether it was all right to drink from it. Not that stream, said Whush. It comes from the queems. It wouldn’t be good for you.

“Queem?” Thorgil said. “That’s the Pictish word for ‘tunnel’.”

Yes. Tunnels of the dead.

Jack looked across the stream and realized that what he’d taken for small hills were in fact barrows. They were covered with thick grass that had turned an autumn yellow and were humped up like cats waiting to be stroked. “Tunnels going where?” he asked.

“Remember what I told you about mirrors,” the Bard said. “They are called ‘endless water’ because they are believed to be a portal to another world. The dead swim through them to a long, dark queem that leads to a bright new sea where winter never comes and the water is as clear as sky. Departed fin folk are buried with mirrors for that reason.”

I’ll bet the draugr’s barrow doesn’t contain a mirror, thought Jack. That’s why we’ve brought one. He wished they could simply drop the wretched thing off and go home, but that would have been too simple. The longest way around was the shortest way there.

Fortunately, Whush next took them to a farmhouse, where they were offered food and drink. The water was salty and the oatcakes had too much seaweed mixed into them. The farmer’s wife, a sea hag with so many barnacles that it looked like she was wearing a helmet, tried to interest Jack in one of her daughters.

Rest here. The banquet will begin late, said Whush. It was the first time anyone had suggested that they might attend the banquet. The sea hag—fin wife, Jack reminded himself—showed them into a courtyard. Kelp was heaped up for beds. It was unpleasantly clammy, but Jack was too tired to care.

It was dark when a pack of small merlads sprang upon him like so many puppies and rousted him out of bed. The dome of cloud over the courtyard flickered with lightning. A distant rumble told Jack that a thunderstorm was taking place in the outside world.

“It’s so humid,” groaned Thorgil, who had been awakened by a group of little mermaids bouncing up and down on the kelp. “I’d give anything for a swim.”

“You can swim in the air,” Jack said. He leaped upward, much to the delight of the merlads, and did a somersault.

“It isn’t the same. I feel hot and sticky.”

Jack realized that he hadn’t felt a breeze since arriving in Notland. Thick, muggy air pressed down on him, and he felt a sudden longing to be on a ship with a crisp wind at his back.

The Bard was still asleep. Jack knelt down to wake him. “What? What’s that?” said the old man, instantly coming alert.

“It’s nighttime,” Jack said. “I think we’re supposed to get ready for the banquet.”

“I don’t know how much readying we can do,” the Bard complained, rising painfully from his bed. “Drat this seaweed! It always makes my joints ache.” He walked around the courtyard to get the stiffness out. “I’d give anything to miss the banquet, but we won’t get anywhere with the Shoney if we don’t attend. He’ll insist on showing us his wealth and power. When we’re suitably awed, he’ll ask for our gifts. Then the bargaining begins.”

The fin wife showed up with two sturdy merlads bearing torches and invited them to dine before leaving. The Bard thanked her graciously. Jack wondered why they would eat before attending a feast. “She’s being polite,” explained the old man. “She knows humans don’t like ocean meat, and that’s all the Shoney’s going to serve. There are twelve huge Pictish beasts to get through, and the fin folk won’t leave until they’ve devoured every scrap. They’ll wash it down with buckets of kelp lager, a kind of beer. Stay away from the lager. You’ll be running for the bushes all day tomorrow, and there aren’t any bushes in this place.”

The fin wife had laid a table with dishes Jack recognized as Pictish beast bones, and they were each given a hardboiled seagull egg and a bowl of oyster stew. A single roast salmon graced the center of the table. The cow’s milk, served in hollowed-out whale teeth, tasted strongly of seaweed. “The flavor comes from what they eat,” pointed out Thorgil, who didn’t mind the taste at all. “During famine years the Northmen feed their cows with seaweed, and the milk is just like this.”

Afterward the entire farm family, numbering at least twenty, set out for the castle, with merlads going before and behind with torches. Everyone was excited, and Jack found it impossible to sort out the babble of voices in his head. The sky lit up with distant flashes of lightning, and dull rumbles ran around the horizon, yet the air was perfectly still. Farm smell—hay, manure, chicken-of-the-sea coops—seemed trapped next to the earth. The air seemed thicker at night.

Jack was queasy from the seaweed-flavored milk, and he glanced up at the cloud cover with longing. If only he could be out there with a wind throwing cool spray into his face!

The path took them past the black stream. Jack realized that although the water had seemed to rush past earlier, it had made no sound. Now he could see only the dark gash where it lay. Beyond, the barrows lay in a lightless land. They had melted together into one shadow.

With, of course, the queems snaking around underneath like the roots of a midnight forest.

“Will you look at that!” exclaimed Thorgil. Jack looked up to see the castle outlined in light. It seemed that the very air had come alive and twinkled with a thousand tiny sparks. They surrounded the partygoers, who were streaming in from all sides. Even the currents the fin folk made in passing glittered briefly before fading.

Presently, the glittering sparks found Jack and the others and illuminated them. He tried to see what they were, but the sparks winked out before he could focus on them, to be replaced by others. “They’re sea mites,” said the Bard. “They come out on warm, humid nights, somewhat like our fireflies. I suspect they’re attracted by the smell of kelp lager. Thousands of them manage to drown themselves in it—another reason to avoid drinking the wretched stuff.”

Once inside the walls, Whush appeared and led the Bard, Jack, and Thorgil up to a dais overlooking the courtyard. Torches blazed everywhere, making the air even warmer and more breathless. Fire pits smoked with dripping blubber. Buckets of lager were lined up against the walls, and Jack noticed that they glowed brightly with drowning sea mites. Fin men, fin wives, mermaids, and merlads descended on giant platters of roast beast, dipping down to bite off chunks and swimming away, the heavy fin wives moving more ponderously than the others.

Until then Jack had accepted the fin folk as odd almost-humans, just as he had once accepted the trolls. Now they seemed utterly alien. They resembled nothing so much as crabs tearing apart a dead seal. No emotion except ravenous hunger showed on their faces as their V-shaped mouths tore at the beast flesh. Between bites, they plunged their heads into the buckets and sucked up both lager and mites with mindless ferocity. Even the beautiful mermaids seemed devoid of intelligence.

Imagine being married to one of those, Jack thought. You’d have to live in this dank kingdom under the sea, knowing that your bride is not really human. That was why Father Severus had never considered marriage with his mermaid. For the first time Jack felt a slight sympathy for him.

“Pay attention,” murmured the Bard. Jack had been so riveted on the scene below, he hadn’t noticed what was on the dais. At first he thought he was looking at a jumble of rocks, but their brightness and color told him he was wrong.

“I’ve never seen so many jewels,” Thorgil said in an awed voice. Like all Northmen, she had a huge respect for wealth. “I don’t even know what most of them are.”

“Emeralds, rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and pearls,” said the Bard. “Amber, tourmalines, and jade. You name it, the Shoney has it. Everything’s available at the bottom of the sea. The gold and silver coins have been taken from sunken ships.”

“Do you suppose he’d miss—” began Thorgil.

“Don’t even think of it. He knows to the very last emerald the contents of his hoard.”

The shield maiden frowned. “If he pillaged it, others have the right to do the same.”

“The Shoney found it,” the old man emphasized. “All things that fall into the sea are his, including the gold dust he’s using for a floor down below.” Mermaids diving to retrieve shreds of meat caused the gold dust to spurt up and fall down just as quickly. It was very heavy.

“Well, what’s the point of heaping all this wealth in front of us?” demanded Thorgil.

The point is to make you desire it and know that it is beyond your reach, a voice suddenly said. A tall, shadowy figure had materialized on the dais. It was cloaked in shimmering silver that reflected the torchlight. The creature threw back his hood.

“Shoney!” the Bard said heartily. “What a pleasure to see you!”

The Shoney regarded him from yellow, slitted eyes like those of a snake. He was larger and older than any fin man Jack had seen before. No visit of yours is ever an unmixed pleasure, he replied. The creature waved his hand, and merlads swam to the dais with chairs. These were made of dark wood inlaid with ivory. Thorgil ran her fingers over the beautiful patterns before she sat down. Do you covet my chairs, shield maiden? the Shoney asked. Jack felt uneasy. How did the creature know she was a shield maiden?

“Indeed I do,” Thorgil said enthusiastically. “I’ve never seen such fine work.”

They were made in a land to the far south where the seas are ever warm. The ship that carried them was swift and strong. It had eyes painted on the prow to find the way, yet it did not see the rocks that slew it. Do you truly, truly covet them, shield maiden?

“Absolutely! And I can’t tell you how much I want to pillage all the gold and jewels you’ve got lying around here. I don’t know when I’ve been so jealous of a wealth-hoard.”

Ahhhh, sighed the Shoney, half closing his eyes. That’s what I like about Northmen. You can always count on them for heartwarming envy. Not like you, Dragon Tongue. You care nothing for earthly wealth.

“That’s not true,” the Bard said. “I love beautiful things, and these chairs are certainly beautiful. I’d welcome them in my house.”

Bah! You’d be just as happy with a chunk of driftwood. What of you, apprentice? The Shoney turned to Jack. Again the boy was uneasy that the creature knew so much about him.

“Well… I like silver.” He struggled to say something that sounded sufficiently greedy. “I don’t have experience with jewels, you see, so I don’t know how to crave them. Not that yours aren’t wonderful. I once had a silver-hoard, but I gave most of it to my parents.”

Gave it to your parents! cried the Shoney, almost making Jack’s heart stop. You have corrupted the boy with morals, Dragon Tongue. He stood up as if to leave.

“My heart-father, Olaf One-Brow, was the most covetous man in Middle Earth,” announced Thorgil. “Shall I tell you how he burrowed into a dwarf forge and stole thirty-seven gold rings?”

The Shoney sat down again. I have often longed to get my hands on dwarf rings. Alas, I am chained to the sea. Tell me more, shield maiden.

And so Thorgil related many fine tales of Olaf’s cunning and greed. She began with the thirty-seven dwarf rings and went on to Olaf’s pillaging of an entire shipment of wine meant for a Frankish king. She told of how he tricked a jeweled goblet away from a troll by using loaded dice and of how he made off with the Mountain Queen’s scepter, although she got it back.

After each exploit, the Shoney sighed with pleasure. He sounds like a man well worth knowing. I hope to meet him in the halls of Ran and Aegir someday.

“He has already been taken into Valhalla,” Thorgil said.

Jack was fairly certain she was stretching the truth about Olaf, but you never knew. Olaf had been willing to pillage anything, though brute force rather than cunning had been his specialty. And Thorgil was an excellent storyteller.

After a while the Shoney ordered a bucket of kelp lager brought to him and drank deeply from it. You please me, shield maiden. Ask for a boon and I shall grant it.

“Actually, the Bard has a request,” she said. “My wish is that you grant it.”

Oh, bother! More tiresome morality, grumbled the Shoney. Very well, Dragon Tongue, but if you want the four human children, the answer is no.

“I have something more serious to discuss,” said the Bard. “First, I would like to show you the gifts we have brought. Thorgil, unwrap the mirror and comb.”

I have heard of them, the Shoney said, and his eyes glinted with desire. The shield maiden first presented the magnificent mirror, and the creature looked into it with undisguised delight. At last he wrenched his eyes away and covered it with the cloth. Enough! If I continue gazing, I shall find myself swimming to the other world. I wish my daughter had been granted such a portal.

Jack didn’t dare look at the Bard. The Shoney was far too intelligent and might guess his thoughts.

Thorgil held out the comb. Deer antler from a buck in his seventh year, said the Shoney. The carving is masterful and the dyes will not fade for a millennium. This was made by the librarian on the Holy Isle.

“You know of him?” said Jack, astonished.

I had reason to watch for a certain monk on the Holy Isle. I kept hoping he would go for a swim, but he never did.

Jack felt cold. That had to have been Father Severus. Fortunately for him, he considered swimming a sinful waste of time and never did it.

The little librarian swam often, said the Shoney.

“His name is Aiden,” Jack said.

Aiden. A good name. It means “yew tree” in Pictish. I could tell he had fin blood by the way he took to the water. Once he went out too far and was too tired to return to shore. I held him up so he wouldn’t drown. I don’t know why I did that.

“It was kindness,” said the Bard.

The Shoney glared at him. It was for my own pleasure. I liked to see Aiden paint pictures by the water. None of the other monks did that. His colors were as brilliant as the colors of my jewels.

“He isn’t a half-bad ale-maker, either.” The Bard unwrapped the parcel he’d been carrying.

That wouldn’t be—that can’t be—heather ale!

“The same.” The old man placed the heavy bag into the Shoney’s hands.

The creature stood up, and at once two merlads swam over. Call Shair Shair. Tell her we have a rare treat. Tell her to hurry. The Shoney seemed hardly able to wait. Soon Shair Shair came speeding across the courtyard and sprang with a great leap onto the dais. Her eyes were feral, like a wolf’s when interrupted at a kill. Her dress was flecked with bits of meat. A shudder passed through her body.

This had better be good, she said.

Heather ale, the Shoney said, holding up the bag. Immediately, she reached for it, crooning and wheedling, and he poured ale into her V-shaped mouth before taking some himself. The two of them entirely forgot they had company. They circled each other, uttering wild cries. They bounced around like capricorns, offering each other sips or teasingly holding the bag out of reach.

Thorgil turned her back and sat with her legs dangling over the side of the dais. “I don’t know about you, but I find this somewhat embarrassing.”

The Bard and Jack sat beside her. “It’s really good ale,” the Bard said. When they eventually turned back, the royal couple had gone and Whush was there.

The Shoney says you are to have the best bedroom in the castle, he said. He asked me to bring you man food and anything else you might require. He will discuss your request in the morning.

They gratefully followed the fin man through a door and down a winding hall to a large, round room with a domed ceiling as smooth and pink as the inside of a shell. It was lit by lamps made of a frail, transparent substance that cast a soothing light without adding heat. Whush brought them a platter of grilled eel, fried oysters, and clams. With it was a keg, surely salvaged from a ship, of fresh, sweet water.

“It is possible to have a good meal in this place,” said Jack, tucking into the eel.

“Yes, but the beds are still made out of kelp,” complained the Bard.