The Liar's Key (The Red Queen's War 2)

To my mind the Norse vilification of Loki seemed an odd thing. Of all their heathen gods Loki was clearly the most intelligent, capable of plans and tactics that could help Asgard in its wars against the giants. And yet they spurned him. The answer of course was all around me in Harrowheim. Their daughters weren’t being wooed, or seduced, they were being taken by raiders. In the ancient tales, to which each Viking aspired, strength was the only virtue, iron the only currency that mattered. Loki with his cunning, whereby a weaker man might outdo a stronger one, was an anathema to these folk. Little wonder then if his key carried a curse for any that sought to take it by main strength.

Had Olaaf Rikeson taken it by force and drawn down Loki’s curse, only to have his vast army freeze on the Bitter Ice? Whoever had given Snorri that wound had more sense than the Dead King. Using half a ton of Fenris wolf to claim the key might seem a more certain course but such methods might also be a good way to find yourself on the wrong end of a god’s wrath.

“Ale?” Tuttugu started filling my drinking horn without waiting on my answer.

I pursed my lips as another thought struck me—why the hell did they call them mead-halls? I’d emptied several gallons from various drinking horns, flagons, tankards . . . even a bucket one time . . . in half a dozen mead-halls since coming north and never once been offered mead. The closest the Norse came to sweet was leaving the salt out of their ale. While pondering this important question I decided it time to go empty my used beer into the latrine and stood with just the hint of a stagger.

“Still getting my land legs.” I set a hand to Tuttugu’s shoulder for support and, once steady, set off for the door.

My lack of the local lingo didn’t prove an impediment in the hunt for the latrine—I let my nose lead me. On my return to the hall the faintest jingle of bells caught my attention. Just a brief high tinkle. The sound seemed to have come from an alley between two nearby buildings, large, log-built structures, one sporting elaborate gables . . . possibly a temple. With a squint I could make out a cloaked figure in the gloom. I stood, blinking, hoping to God that this wasn’t some horny but myopic clansman who was going to attempt to carry me off to a distant village even more depressing than Harrowheim.

The figure held its ground, sheltered in the narrow passage. Two slim hands emerged from dark sleeves and pushed back the hood. Bells tinkled again, and the girl from the window revealed herself, a saucy quirk to her smile that required no translation.

I cast a quick glance at the glowing rectangle of the mead-hall doorway, another toward the latrines, and seeing nobody looking in my direction, I hastened across the way to join my new friend in the alley.

“Well, hello.” I gave her my best smile. “I’m Prince Jalan Kendeth of Red March, the Red Queen’s heir. But you can call me Prince Jal.”

She reached out to lay a finger across my lips before whispering something that sounded as delicious as it was incomprehensible.

“How can I say no?” I whispered back, setting a hand to her hip and wondering for a moment what the Norse for “no” actually was.

She wriggled out from beneath my palm, bells tinkling, setting her fingers between her collarbones. “Yngvildr.”

“Lovely.” My hands pursued her while my tongue considered wrestling with her name and decided not to.

Yngvildr skipped away laughing and pointed back between the buildings, more sweet gibberish spilling from her mouth. Seeing my blank look she paused and repeated herself slowly and clearly. The trouble is of course that it doesn’t matter how slowly and how clearly you repeat gibberish. It’s possible the word “pert” was in there somewhere.

High above us the moon showed its face and what light it sent down into our narrow alley caught the girl’s lines, illuminating the curve of her cheek, her brow, leaving her eyes in darkness, gleaming on her bell-strewn hair, silver across the swell of her breasts, shadows descending toward a slender waist. Suddenly it didn’t really matter what she was saying.

“Yes,” I said, and she led the way.

We passed between the temple and its neighbour, between huts, edged around pigsties where the hogs snored restless in their hay, and out past log stacks and empty pens to where the slope mellowed toward Harrowheim’s patch of farmland. I snatched a candle-lantern hanging outside one of the last huts. She hissed and tutted, half-smiling, half-disapproving, gesturing for me to put it back, but I declined. A tallow stub in a poorly blown glass cowl was hardly grand theft and damned if I were ending the night with a broken leg or knee-deep in a slurry pit. Wherever Yngvildr planned to get her first taste of Red March I intended to get there fit enough to give good account of myself.