Lucy slept till afternoon and came down in a rotten mood. Mother gave her breakfast and Father told her a story, but her sulks didn’t lift for hours. No one talked about what had happened the night before.
Chapter Three
WASSAIL
“Fine weather,” said Giles Crookleg, gazing up at the bright blue sky. The sun blazed along the icicles on the roof.
“Perfect,” agreed Jack. He picked up a birch rod and a skin bag full of cider. Father already had his. Their feet crackled the icy covering of the road as they set out for the village. Jack saw crows sliding down a small, snowy hill, exactly like boys on sleds. They landed with a
Apple tree, apple tree,
Bear good fruit!
Or down with your top
And up with your root!
“It’s not wise to threaten powers you don’t understand,” the Bard remarked, placing cider-soaked bread in the branches. The blacksmith belched thunderously and staggered off. “I’m glad this is the last of it,” the old man said to Jack. “You’d think I’d be used to drunks, living with Northmen so long, but they still irritate me. And speaking of irritation, we have yet to discuss what happened during the need-fire ceremony.”
“Yes, I see you understand what I’m talking about. You knew as well as Giles that Lucy had that necklace.”
“I did try to stop her, sir, but Father—”
“You’re thirteen years old,” the Bard said sternly. “In the Northman lands you’d be considered an adult.”
“Father doesn’t think so.”
“Well, I do. You’ve fought by the side of Olaf One-Brow. You’ve been to the hall of the Mountain Queen, seen Norns, and drunk from Mimir’s Well. You vanquished Frith Half-Troll, something even I was unable to do. How much more growing up do you need?”
Jack wanted to say,
“The Northmen won’t be back, will they?” Jack hoped he didn’t sound as appalled as he felt inside.
“Nothing so trivial as that,” said the old man. “I’m speaking of something that will topple gods and spread its influence throughout the nine worlds for centuries to come.”
Jack stared goggle-eyed at him. All
“But, sir, who could topple a god?” asked Jack. He knew, of course, that his own God was the enemy of Odin and Thor, and a good thing, too! Who needed bullies who told their worshippers to burn down villages? Less comfortably, Jack realized that Christians were opposed to his mother’s beliefs in the powers that ruled the fields and beasts. And some of them even denounced bards.
It was all mixed up in Jack’s mind. He was a good Christian—or tried to be—but he had been at the foot of Yggdrassil and had seen how everything belonged on it. What was wrong with the Christians having one branch and the Northmen another?
“I spoke too rashly. No one actually topples gods,” the Bard said softly. “They are simply forgotten and fall asleep.”
“That’s what happened during the need-fire ceremony?”
“Not exactly.” The Bard drew a pattern in the snow with the tip of his staff. It might have been a sunburst except that each ray had branches like a budding tree. It was the symbol on the rune of protection. “At the right time a very minor event—a hawk taking one chick and not another, a seed sprouting where it should not have grown—can have consequences that even the Wise cannot see. When Lucy failed the ceremony and Pega took her place, a profound shift happened in the life force. What this means has something to do with you three, but I don’t understand it yet. All I ask is that you take your duties seriously.”
“I won’t fail you, sir,” Jack said fervently.
“I hope that’s true.”
The old man frowned at the blacksmith, who had collapsed in the snow. Father knelt beside him in a fit of drunken remorse. “I should have been a monk,” Giles Crookleg moaned, rocking back and forth on his knees. “No farmwork, no worries. I would have been happy as a monk.”