Freyr

The Price of the Crossing

Beli put one foot on the sack of barley and waited for Freyr to draw his sword.

The sack lay at the edge of the ford. Behind it, a woman held the halter of a little grey horse, and six people stood with bundles against their chests. Their shoes were dark with river mud. On the farther bank, freshly turned earth lay in long, empty strips.

Freyr’s hand had gone to his hip before he could stop it.

Beli saw.

The giant smiled and shifted his weight. Under his heel, a few grains cracked.

“Where is it?”

“Let them cross.”

“I asked about your sword.”

Freyr lowered his hand. He could still remember the pressure of the hilt against his palm, then its weight passing into Skirnir’s keeping. He had wanted news of Gerd so badly that the giving had seemed the smallest part of the errand. Now a woman was watching his empty belt, and a giant had his foot on her spring sowing.

“It is given away.”

“To whom?”

“Someone who is not here.”

Beli leaned on a club cut from the trunk of a young tree. Its roots had been hacked short, leaving a knotted head heavy with dried earth.

“Then you have brought me nothing.”

The woman tugged the halter. The horse tossed its head, but there was no way past the giant on the narrow approach. Upstream the water ran deep against a wall of rock. Downstream it broke white over boulders. Here alone a low gravel ridge made a crossing.

“There are other sacks,” Freyr said to her.

“Four.” Her eyes stayed on Beli’s foot. “There were five.”

“Enough for your fields?”

“If we sow thinly.”

A boy beside her bent to gather three loose grains from the mud. Beli lifted the club just far enough to make him straighten.

Freyr stepped between them.

“Your toll is paid by me,” he said. “Let the horse go.”

“With what?”

“What grows beyond this water. A share of the harvest, brought to you without a spear raised against you.”

The woman’s fingers tightened on the halter. Freyr met her glance.

“From my share,” he said.

Beli scraped a shallow line across the sack with one blackened toenail.

“You would pay me with a field I cannot eat.”

“With grain when the grain is ripe.”

“And until then?”

“The people who cross will feed you.”

“Will they?” Beli looked over Freyr’s shoulder. “Will you?”

No one answered. Water knocked small stones together in the ford.

The giant laughed and pressed down. The cloth split. Barley poured around his heel.

The woman made a sound that brought the horse sidling against her. Freyr caught the animal by its bridle before its load could strike the rock.

“Enough,” he said.

Beli lifted his foot. There was barley stuck to it.

“I would rather have the sword.”

An Empty Hand

Freyr crouched by the torn sack.

The grain nearest the river was already moving. A pale trickle slid between the pebbles and vanished into the brown current. He cupped a hand beneath the rip and folded the cloth over it. What remained made a poor little mound.

The boy knelt beside him, pulling dry grains out of the giant’s footprint.

“Leave the crushed ones,” Freyr said.

“My mother says every grain has a field inside it.”

“Then keep those that can still grow.”

The boy opened his fist. Mud striped his palm, but among it lay five whole grains. Freyr pointed to the woman’s pouch, and the boy carried them to her with both hands.

Above them, Beli tapped his club on the stone.

Freyr stood. The hillside beyond the ford faced south. He could feel warmth entering it, water sinking beneath its broken surface, the patient readiness of the earth. Another few days and its best sowing weather would be gone. He could bring rain to an empty furrow. He could warm a field that held nothing. Neither would put seed into it.

“You have heard what I can give,” he said.

“I have heard what you would like me to take.”

“Name something that is here.”

The giant’s eyes moved over the horse, its four sacks, the boy’s pouch, and at last settled on Freyr.

“Your knees.”

The woman stopped soothing the horse.

Beli struck the ground with the club. A crack ran through the flat stone under its head.

“Down. Say whose crossing this is. Stay here until I tire of looking at you.”

Freyr looked at the people behind him. One carried a spade worn nearly to a point. Another had bound a seed basket shut with a strip torn from his sleeve. They had come expecting the river to be their difficulty. Now they waited to learn whether a god’s pride would keep them on the wrong bank.

“The horse crosses first,” Freyr said. “Then all the people. You will not touch them or what they carry.”

Beli’s smile widened.

“And you stay.”

“Until they are safe.”

“Until I let you go.”

Freyr held his gaze. At last he nodded.

He bent one knee to the broken stone.

The boy stared at him. Freyr turned to the woman.

“Lead the horse where the water is smooth. Keep its head upstream.”

She hesitated only a moment. Then she took the halter in both hands and stepped into the river. The horse followed, snorting. Water rose above its knees and tugged at the hanging sacks. Behind it came the people, leaning on their tools. Freyr watched each foot find the gravel ridge.

Beli stood very still beside him, savoring it.

The boy was last. He had stopped to knot his mother’s pouch more tightly. When he hurried past, a grain slipped from the seam and fell beside Beli’s foot.

Beli planted the club across his path.

“One escaped.”

The boy stopped.

“He is included,” Freyr said.

“I said one escaped.”

The boy bent for the barley.

Beli raised the club.

Freyr rose into the blow. He caught the shaft with both hands, and the impact drove his heels through the gravel. The boy stumbled against his leg.

“Cross.”

The child ran.

Beli twisted the club. Freyr held it, but the wet stones shifted under him. The giant put a shoulder into his chest and hurled him sideways into the river.

Cold closed over his head. His back struck a submerged rock. For a moment there was only the roar of water and the painful strength of his grip, still locked around the wood. Then Beli wrenched the club free.

Freyr surfaced below the ford.

The giant had turned toward the boy.

The Hart’s Horn

Freyr caught an exposed root and pulled himself into the shallows. Across the river the woman was struggling to turn the horse. She meant to come back. Her son stood in water to his thighs, too frightened now to take the next step.

“Stay with the grain!” Freyr called to her.

Beside his hand, something pale moved among the roots. Floodwater had lodged a tangle of branches there, and caught in it was a shed hart’s horn, broad at the base, its tines worn smooth by stones.

He pulled it free.

Beli heard the roots tear and turned. His gaze went from the horn to Freyr’s face.

“Is that what she left you?”

Freyr came up the bank without answering. Water ran from his clothes. He gripped the horn close to its base and kept the longest tine pointed low.

Beli swung the club across the path.

Freyr ducked beneath it. Bark burst from the tree behind him. Before the giant could draw back, Freyr drove a shoulder against his middle and shoved him away from the ford. Beli staggered one step. A second would have put him on the broad bank, clear of the crossing, but he caught his balance and struck down with both hands.

Freyr lifted the horn.

The shaft lodged between two tines. The smaller broke with a sharp crack, and the club glanced off Freyr’s shoulder. His arm went numb. He stumbled to one knee.

Across the water, the boy moved.

Freyr saw him reach the horse’s tail and seize it. His mother leaned down, caught his wrist, and hauled him onto the gravel.

Beli saw the movement too.

With a grunt he dragged the club free and took a step toward the ford. Freyr could have let him go past. There would have been room to strike his back. There would also have been time for the giant to send that uprooted trunk into the horse and the child beneath it.

Freyr stepped into his way.

Beli checked, surprised, and brought the club up for the short downward stroke that needed no room at all.

Freyr moved closer.

He caught the shaft in the remaining fork of the horn and turned it with all his strength. The great knotted head struck the ground beside his foot. Before Beli could raise it, Freyr stamped on the wood, tore the horn loose, and drove its longest point upward beneath the giant’s ribs.

Beli’s breath stopped against Freyr’s face.

His hands opened. For an instant his weight hung upon the horn. Then his knees struck the gravel, and Freyr stepped clear as the giant fell across the place where he had demanded a god should kneel.

The club rolled until one root caught in the torn barley sack.

No one on the other bank moved.

Freyr stood with his injured arm hanging at his side. His other hand was still closed as though it held the horn, although he had left it with Beli. He opened his fingers slowly.

“Bring me the empty basket,” he said.

The woman looked at the giant. Then she set the boy safely on the bank and came back through the water alone.

Together they lifted the broken sack away from the club. Freyr held its mouth while she swept the dry barley into her basket. They left the crushed grain where it lay. The river had taken the rest.

When they crossed, the boy was waiting with a small knife held flat on his palm.

“You can have this.”

Freyr looked at the blade. It had been sharpened so often that it was scarcely wider than a finger.

“What will you cut your supper with?”

“I could borrow it back.”

Freyr took it. He set the point beneath the cord on the nearest sack and cut the knot. Barley settled with a dry whisper as he folded the mouth open.

The woman put down her basket and reached inside.

Freyr returned the knife to the boy. Then he carried the open sack to the first furrow and held it ready while the sowers filled their hands.