Wolfsangel

20

‘Ma, it’s me. Ma.’

Jodis’s house was much smaller than Disa’s — not much more than a hut sunk into the earth, its walls just waist high. With its flat turf roof you could hardly see it until you were right on it.

Vali knocked at the door. ‘Ma, it’s me, Vali. Ma, it’s all right, they’ve gone.’

The door opened and Jodis peered out. She was trembling though trying not to show it.

‘How many dead?’

‘I don’t know. It could have been worse. We beat them. They’ve gone, Ma.’

Jodis wiped the tears from her eyes.‘Adisla? Ma Disa?’

‘That’s why I’m here,’ he said. ‘I-’

‘O Freya, guard them,’ said Jodis, who had guessed no good had come to the women. ‘What?’

‘Ma Disa is dead and Adisla taken,’ said Vali.

Jodis could no longer hold on to her tears.

‘I’ll avenge the first and find the second,’ said Vali.

She gave him that look again, the one she’d given him when she’d heard that Forkbeard had planned to hang Adisla, but then she tempered it. She was very fond of Vali but regarded him as something of an idiot. The capture of the wolfman had shown that he wasn’t.

‘Do you even know where they’ve gone or who they were?’

‘I suspect they’ll go to Haithabyr, at least eventually. They were Danes — Haarik and his men.’

‘They could take her to his court or sell her in the east, or do many other things with her. She could be anywhere.’

‘Which is why I’m here,’ said Vali.

Jodis looked blankly at him.

‘I want you to work Ma Disa’s magic. It took me to the wolfman; it can take me to her.’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve never done it. Ma Disa had a gift for that. I just helped her.’

‘Then you know how it’s done?’

‘Yes, but it’s not possible, even if I wanted to. The fire herbs are all gone. They grow only in the spring and they’re very rare. We won’t be able to harvest any for months.’

‘Those herbs are entirely necessary?’

‘Yes.’

Vali breathed out heavily. He had no faith at all that the berserk would yield information under torture, though that wouldn’t stop him trying. Did the berserk know anything anyway? He was a hired hand. Vali knew that when Forkbeard went on raids with berserks he kept the target secret until they were at sea, to prevent them going it alone. As much as it would please him to try to beat information out of Bjarki, Vali doubted he actually had any.

‘There is no other way?’

Jodis shrugged.

‘What?’ said Vali.

‘There is, but it will kill you.’

‘What is it?’

‘You go to Odin at the mire,’ said Jodis.

‘Meaning?’

‘It’s not been done since I was a girl, but if the prophecy is important enough to you then it’s worth it. You go to Grimnir’s Mire and present yourself to the god of the hanged, the god of the drowned, and you ask him what you want to know.’

‘How do I do this?’

‘By drowning,’ said Ma Jodis.

‘How can the prophecy be any good to me if I die?’

‘You go to the edge of death, and there you bargain with the gods for your life. You offer them what you can, and if it pleases them they take it and tell you what you need to know.’

‘What can I offer a god?’

‘Your suffering,’ she said.

Vali stiffened his jaw and gave a short nod. ‘Have you done this?’

‘No, but I have seen it done. It was many years ago now. Princess Heithr went to the mire.’

‘I thought that was just a story. Was it a success?’

‘She revealed four traitors in her father’s court and the location of the Thjalfi hoard.’

‘They found the hoard?’

‘They did. Though she never got to see it. The ordeal killed her.’

Vali put his hand on the low roof and thought for a moment. What was his life without Adisla anyway? Everyone has to die, it’s just a matter of when. Only a fool would throw his life away, though.

‘Can you do it? I don’t want to die for nothing, Ma.’

‘It’s straightforward but more a question of whether you can do it. You drown at the sacred mire, the place between land and water. It’s a gateway that leads to other places in the nine worlds. The force of your will is all you’ll have to help you find the path. You need no more preparation than a warrior dying in battle does to make it to Valhalla.’

Vali gave a curt nod. ‘How long will it take?’

‘Who knows? You must drown and revive, drown and revive, until the vision comes to you or you drown and do not revive. It could happen the first time; it could happen the tenth or never. And it’s not easy to force yourself back to those waters, no matter how much you’re burning for an answer. You’ll fight it, so you’ll need to be tied.’

Vali had vowed to ask Odin for nothing but his was a circumstance he had not foreseen.

‘I’ll do it,’ said Vali.

‘There is one other thing,’ said Jodis. ‘The gods aren’t the only things waiting in the nine worlds. We’ll put a noose on you. It’s a symbol so the god can find you, but if you snap your bonds or begin to speak as a giant or witch, or worse, then we’ll use it to kill you. Don’t converse with giants, Vali, nor with the other monsters you may see down there.’

‘Bring your rope,’ said Vali. ‘If this is the only way, then this is the only way.’

‘You’ll need men to help you in and out of the water. Even in your bonds you’ll need to be held down,’ said Jodis, ‘and I haven’t the strength to strangle you or the sureness to shorten your suffering with a knife.’

‘Is your grandson in there?’

‘He is.’

‘Then send him to Hogni and Orri,’ said Vali. ‘Come on. We need to begin.’