The Monstrous Child Read online

  I am rain-drenched, sleet-cold.

  I wanted him to want me. I wanted his face to fill with joy when he saw me, not flash with light because he has seen Nanna. I wanted him to make my eye the first he seeks to catch. I wanted to be the one he shared his life and death with.

  I wanted him to want me.

  That’s over.

  33

  KNOW THE GODS will try to get Baldr back. They won’t let me keep him. They’ll offer me a ransom to let him ride home to Asgard. They’ll beg and plead and threaten, and I must decide what to do.

  Because if I can’t have Baldr no one can.

  I sit on my throne, the stone-faced god beside me, his body twitching with revulsion, and I wonder who they’ll send down on their wooing mission. His mother Frigg, weeping and wailing? A mother’s greasy tears mean nothing to me. I’d enjoy laughing at her. They’ll have to do better than that. One-Eye? Nah, he likes others to do his dirty work. Dear old Dad is unlikely, since he caused Baldr’s death in the first place. On the other hand, maybe he’ll come to make amends. Isn’t that his style? Make a mess, then charm his way out? What a pleasure that would be, spitting in his face.

  Already I can hear Gjoll’s bridge thundering under Sleipnir’s hooves. I wonder if Modgud will let whoever is coming pass over. After all this time, all that guarding, finally she gets to spring into action.

  Well, I’m not going to make it easy for what’s-his-face. My Hel gates are locked and barred. My fortress walls should keep out anyone alive, even a god: I built my ramparts high and strong for this moment.

  Garm barks, an eerie echoing howl. I feel living breath whoosh through our gloom. The mystery god is approaching. I am cold, detached, as if I am observing a scene, not about to take part in it. I want to see Baldr’s face when I raise his hopes, and then dash them. I am fire and ice: I am nothing now except hissing hate.

  He is making so much noise, Baldr’s would-be rescuer. I really, really hope it’s not Loki. He must be half dead (ha ha) after such a long ride to get here. The shadows tremble around me – the dead don’t like their slumber disturbed and recently it’s been one cataclysm after the other. You’d think they’d enjoy a bit of change, a little variety, something to break up an eternity of deadness, but no: eventually the dead seem to like being dead. How they moan if anyone troubles their grave mound. Variety isn’t the spice of death.

  In my mind, I see my half-brother prancing across Gjoll’s gold-thatched bridge as the icy waters of the final river churn beneath it. I hear the thrumming of my brother’s eight hooves. Niflheim resounds with their clatter. And now the mad galloping gets closer. Time to move. I leave Baldr the Fair, immobile on his High Seat, stony and hateful, and I creep into my chamber, pull the hangings across and sink into my musty bed.

  Whoever has come can wait. This is my party.

  There’s a whistling sound, then I hear the booming thud of Sleipnir landing hard, hooves smashing rocks. Odin’s horse, my half-brother, has jumped my gate. He’s inside my stronghold, and now there’s no way I can stop him.

  There is a brisk clump-clump clump-clump clump-clump clump-clump, which only stops outside Eljudnir’s open door. The dead shift and whimper, flapping like drowning insects.

  I peek through the curtains.

  A god appears in the doorway of my hall. Like Baldr, and yet not like Baldr. I recognise Hermod, One-Eye’s son, Baldr’s brother.

  This is my kingdom, I remind myself. These beings have done all the hurt they can do you. They are far from Asgard now.

  I keep Hermod waiting all night. I stay in my bed. It feels good to lie there and drift, to empty my mind.

  Finally, when I am as ready as I would ever be, I draw back the black hangings and slowly creep towards Hermod. I still don’t know what I will say, what I will decide. The fateless around me, decomposing bone-bags, are in tumult. Their eyes – those who still have eyes – are fixed on Hermod, sitting by the door. I feel him trembling. The Kingdom of the Dead dismays even immortals. Hermod is staring straight at Baldr; if he sees me enter he makes no sign. But I sense him watching me.

  I ignore him, creep towards my throne. My dragging legs are the only sound echoing around this oozing death cavern. Baldr is still sitting in the High Seat silent, beautiful. His pale face shines like polished marble. Even now, my heart lurches when I see him. I crush it like a fig.

  Hermod prostrates himself before me. Imagine that. One of the gods bowing before me, stretched out on my filthy floor.

  ‘Why have you come to Hel?’ I say. I want to hear him beg and plead.

  I let Hermod boo hoo about how much the gods missed Baldr, how empty and desolate Asgard is without him – ha! That makes me happy! – and then he asks me – I knew it – if I will let Baldr ride home with him.

  I sit in silence, looking down at the pleading god. I’m good at silence. I feel the world holding its breath, waiting for my decision. Outside my gates I hear my brother stomping his hooves, his hot, living breath pouring out of his mouth into the fetid murk. He whickers and I feel his fear.

  ‘And where were you when Odin kidnapped me and hurled me here?’ I ask. I speak slowly. My lips are unaccustomed to speech now; my tongue feels thick in my mouth.

  ‘The All-Father decides, and we obey,’ says Hermod.

  I know that, of course I know that. I just want to enjoy my moment of power. Can you blame me?

  ‘Yet now you want something from me.’

  Hermod bows his head.

  ‘The gods are weeping for Baldr. The world is weeping for Baldr, the much-loved.’

  Much loved. He knows nothing about much-loved, I think. I control my face, keep it grim and fierce. I don’t have love, but I have pride. The world loves him more than I did? I bristle. But I hold my face steady. If I betray myself, those hateful skalds and bards and poets will compose songs mocking me, and that I could not bear. ‘Death be not proud?’ I’ll be as proud as I like.

  ‘I’m not so sure that Baldr is so loved as you say. Why don’t we put it to the test?’

  Hermod’s face lights up. He is hardly daring to hope, yet I have not said no.

  ‘Anything,’ says Hermod.

  ‘If all things in the world, living and dead, weep for Baldr, then let him return with you to Asgard. But if even one thing does not weep, if even one creature speaks against him, then Baldr remains here, with me.’

  I can see Hermod struggling to control his face. He looks at Baldr, who suddenly flashes a smile. Baldr is confident that everyone and everything loves him. What must that feel like, to know that you are so beloved? I’ve never been loved and I cannot imagine it. I feel such a strong gush of hate that I am chilled.

  Then Baldr rises up and goes to his brother. He hands him a beautiful arm ring, heavy with gold. ‘Give this to our father, to remember me,’ he says.

  I should have claimed that ring as tribute, I think.

  Nanna, too, appears from the shades, holding a linen smock and other gifts. They walk with Hermod the desolate length of my hall, back to the door. I turn away, return to my diseased bed and pull the curtains. I don’t want to see Baldr happy in another’s company. The sight stabs my heart.

  Will the world weep Baldr out of Hel? Really? Every bird? Every tree? Every snake and every stone? Fire, and iron, silver and gold, all crying for him?

  Let the world and everything in it weep Baldr out of Hel and away from me.

  Because I won’t let him go otherwise.

  34

  O WAS I RIGHT OR was I right?

  The gods scoured the Nine Worlds, and the din of weeping reached even me.

  Yet no god returned, gleeful and rejoicing, to escort Baldr back to life.

  One giantess, Thokk, alone in her cave, refused to mourn. Her harsh words reverberated through the worlds, repeated and repeated, and finally drifted down to me.

  Thokk will weep

  waterless tears

  over Baldr’s funeral pyre.

  Living or dead,
/>   I loved not One-Eye’s son;

  Let Hel hold what she has.

  I smiled when I heard that, the last I would ever smile, and for nights I could not hide my glee. How I wished I could fling gold rings at that marvellous creature, lavish her with swords and shields and axes inlaid with ivory. I had my vengeance on One-Eye. How he wanted his bonny boy back.

  But mine was the victory. Baldr stayed with me. What a triumph. That’s one in the eye for the mortal gods. And even if Baldr does not love me, will never love me, at least the gods won’t have him either. A bitter win. He is here in body, but his mind, spirit, heart are elsewhere.

  Let Hel hold what she has.

  *

  And what do I have?

  Before Baldr came, I lived through ghostly dreams of him. Dreams of joy, dreams of happiness, dreams of love.

  That’s over.

  So how do I continue with my life?

  My Death Hall is too cheerful. The freezing mists, the toxic dead, are far too welcoming now.

  I think about moving.

  I could make my tomb-home near the dragon, in the lowest, darkest pit of Niflheim, where corpses wade through turbid streams into the serpent’s jaws. I would admit only murderers and perjurers, baleful company in my bleakness. My doors would face north and I would lie in sickness and disease, the only sound the dragon’s crunching jaws as he gnaws on corpses. I would lace my roof with vipers.

  I have no will to move from my bed. I have not moved for nights now.

  I focus my mind, and snakes burst from the walls and burrow themselves into the rafters. I hate snakes, so I wattle my roof with them. Serpents hissing and spitting and twisting, their heads blowing venom, with poison dripping down the walls from the smoke holes.

  That’s better.

  Now for my skull-guests.

  No more ale will be brewed. I won’t serve mead any more – the dead can have horns full of piss if they want to drink.

  No more sagas told. I will shut up the storytellers, stop their mouths. There will be no more noise.

  I will live in silence.

  Just so we’re clear. Just so you know. No one can die out of Hel, not even Baldr. You certainly can’t be wept out of the Underworld.

  So all that yowling from your kin achieves nothing.

  In fact, the din of weeping makes me crazy.

  ‘Quiet!’ I howl.

  Their lamentations circle and bind me into a coffin.

  And then their mourning cries join the dead who whirl around me in a cacophony of shrieking moans.

  The din of yakking voices is like a hammer cracking open my head.

  ‘BE QUIET, ALL OF YOU!’ I roar. ‘I decree, no one can speak unless spoken to.’

  And, just like that, silence descends in my hall.

  I see their mouths opening, and their cracked teeth, and they are screaming into the void.

  Silence.

  And still they move their green mouths, and wave their bony fingers, and open their lipless skulls to form angry words and – nothing comes out.

  The quiet of my grave hall is total.

  The burning inside me eases.

  Suddenly I can breathe again. The pounding in my head stops.

  The relief is indescribable.

  I don’t have to hear any more whining and wailing and moaning and groaning.

  Why hadn’t I done this before?

  I sit up and pull my mucky bedhangings closed.

  I will lie and rot on my bed and I will hate for one long everlasting winter’s night without end.

  I smell like festering regrets and carrion too rank for ravens. I won’t be bottling my scent I STINK any time soon.

  I scream silently, for eternity.

  I lie behind foul curtains on my damp bed. A mildewed blanket is pulled up to my waist. My servant Lazybones spends one night bringing me a glass of wine, so slowly that I barely see her move, then another night removing the empty goblet. I listen to the rustling of the dead as they prowl my hall, hear the hissing snakes, watch poison dribble down my walls.

  Oh, how could I forget – I still name things. My gold plate I’ve renamed Hunger – it is never filled. My knife I call Starving. It cuts nothing. I’ve spent longest naming my bed hangings. Right now they’re called Shining Harm.

  I called them Rickets for a millenia, then I fancied a change. I might try Glimmering Misfortune next.

  I am alone and I am unloved. Loneliness gnaws my core like a cancer.

  Enough of these thoughts. Thinking them brings me no peace.

  My bed didn’t start out putrid. My bed hangings weren’t always threadbare. My plate wasn’t always empty. But after Baldr – no, I’ve sworn not to think about him, I have cut him out of my heart along with hope. I lie still in the gloom, while everything moulders around me. Grief lies beside me, swelling the blanket.

  All I have now is revenge. That’s what I wake to, that’s what I sleep to. My revenge on the gods.

  PART 4

  35

  IGHTS PASS. WEEKS. Years. Centuries. I’ve no idea. Time has no measure here. I just want to lie and decay, and the world won’t leave me alone. What’s that Viking saying? You wait forever for a chariot, and then three turn up at once.

  I am inert on Sickbed. (Where else would I be?) My face to the wall. My thoughts black as tar. Listening to the drip drip drip of snake venom dribbling down the walls.

  I hear the bed curtains part. They’re brittle now; they rip and crumble. I don’t move. Not sure I can move any more, even if I wanted to.

  ‘Hel?’

  It’s Modgud. It has been aeons since I’ve seen her, aeons since I’ve heard another voice. Strange, I’d forgotten all about her.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she whispers. ‘Why are you just – lying here? Why are there snakes everywhere?’

  I’m not sure I even remember how to speak.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ I say. My voice is hoarse. My mouth tastes of sand.

  ‘You don’t have to be like this,’ says Modgud.

  ‘Go away.’

  ‘We could throw stones into Gjoll again,’ says Modgud. ‘I’ve learned how to make them skip – I can show you.’

  I don’t reply.

  She tries again.

  ‘You should see the grave-wagon of stuff that just came over the bridge. Very generous kin.’

  Does the stupid giant really think a few trinkets can cheer me?

  ‘You left the bridge,’ I say. ‘It’s forbidden.’

  Modgud takes a step back. ‘A god is coming,’ she says. ‘I came to warn you.’

  I open my heavy eyelids.

  What is this, Asgard by the swamp?

  ‘Why didn’t you stop him?’ I hiss. ‘You’re supposed to guard the bridge, not offer guided tours. You stupid troll.’

  Why can’t everyone just leave me alone? I don’t care about anything. I want to die.

  ‘Hel,’ she begins. ‘Please –’

  ‘Get back to the bridge,’ I say.

  Modgud’s face bleaches whiter. She turns and leaves.

  And then my father swaggers in.

  36

  OKI SWAGGERS IN as though we’d just said farewell a few nights ago.

  He looks the same. Handsome. Jaunty. Treacherous with his viper eyes of red and green.

  ‘Hello, daughter. Aren’t you looking well,’ he says, leering at me through my slimy curtains. His eyes glitter. Then he pushes through the drapes, stands over me and twists his face into a smile.

  I don’t even bother to raise my head. I never thought I would see him again.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ I say. I close my eyes.

  ‘Is that any way to greet your dad?’ he said. ‘Your loving dad?’

  I’ll have to handle this myself.

  ‘Are you dead? Your days and deeds finished? Please say yes.’

  Dad grins his wolf smile. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’

  ‘Can’t a father visit his daughter wit
hout having a motive?’ he says. ‘I’ve missed you.’

  ‘You seem to have managed fine without me,’ I reply.

  ‘That’s more than I can say for you, daughter,’ he says. ‘Look at the state of this place. You’re a queen … I wouldn’t kennel a dog here.’ He wrinkles his nose.

  What do I care what he thinks of my décor?

  ‘Go to the trolls,’ I say.

  ‘And after I’ve travelled all this way …’ he says. ‘You surprise me, Hel. Especially when I come bearing gifts.’

  Gifts?

  Despite myself I slowly open my eyes. I have a weakness for gifts. Maybe I believe if I gather enough goods I will feel less empty.

  ‘Trust me, you’ll like it,’ he says, holding out an intricately carved wooden eski. He flips open the lid.

  Inside the box is a single brown nut.

  I stare at him. He is mocking me. Why? Loki usually picks more challenging victims to tease.

  ‘Well?’ Dad keeps his voice level, but I can feel his excitement. He wants something from me. I am sure of it. My father has come to ask a favour.

  As if I’d grant him anything.

  ‘You’ve come to the world of the dead to bring me a nut,’ I say. ‘What kind of stupid trick is this?’

  Dad snorts. ‘You’re not the only one who hates the gods, Hel,’ he says. ‘This is the goddess Idunn.’

  ‘Who?’ I ask. There are so many gods it is hard to keep track. Not that I want to, anyway. I am unlikely to be invited to join the children’s table at any Asgard family gatherings any time soon.

  ‘Hel, you’re a stinking sow,’ says Loki. ‘Idunn!’

  I don’t know why he thought shouting her name would make any difference.

  ‘Idunn, the Goddess of Youth, the keeper of the gods’ immortality. Her golden apples keep the gods young. Without her …’ He drew his finger across his neck. ‘The gods are dying. Every last one of them. Odin included.’ He beams. ‘Then flickering flames will devour their halls, and even their names will vanish from the world.’