The walk to the hall was through darkness, over packed snow. She had the sense she was moving between buildings, but she couldn’t see what they looked like. The entrance to the hall itself blazed with light. Freddy had been vaguely expecting something out of the Lord of the Rings films and was surprised to see a much cruder sort of building. It was certainly huge, but the timber that made up its walls was rough-hewn logs, not all of them straight and many of them blackened by fire. The roof was out of sight in the darkness. Torches were set around the hall’s main doors, which were flanked by several men in chain mail. Freddy, looking nervously at the people streaming towards the hall, felt underdressed. She had wrapped some of the furs from Bragi’s house around her shoulders, but really, she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Everybody else was in some sort of finery. Even Josiah, she was noticing belatedly, had changed out of his usual anonymous twenty-first-century wear and into a red tunic and a dark grey cloak. He looked completely natural. Freddy knew she didn’t. The men glittered with brooches, bracelets, necklaces, rings, and hair ornaments.
“My clothes aren’t right,” said Freddy as they stepped through into the hall. It was, as far as she could tell, complete chaos. There was an open hearth in the centre, so the hall was hazy with smoke. Running parallel to each of the two long walls was a table with benches drawn up to it. People were milling about, moving from table to table, while huge dogs ran back and forth across the hall, skirted neatly by short-haired women carrying pitchers. Freddy thought she could see a high table at the distant end of the hall, but it was hard to distinguish in the general confusion.
“No one will care,” said Josiah. “Let’s find Heimdallr and Bragi.”
Bragi was easy to find; he was sitting near the doors at one of the low tables. He looked as bewildered as Freddy felt. “He’s just young still,” said Josiah, “and he hasn’t earned much honour in battle. Well, he never really will, but he’ll end up famous in the end.”
Freddy racked her brain for some knowledge—any knowledge—of Vikings. All she could think of was Thor and H?gar the Horrible and mezzo-sopranos in horned helmets. She didn’t expect those were going to help her much at the moment. “They had a thing about fame,” was all she could ultimately manage.
“They have a thing about fame,” said Josiah. “Try not to think of them as being in the past. Right now, they’re not. Yeah, they do, and he helps formalise it.” He nodded towards Bragi. “Eventually. He’s got hidden talents. No one respects him for them yet because they haven’t come into play.”
Freddy’s head was going strange again. “I don’t get it.”
“You’ll see,” said Josiah.
Bragi waved at them as they went past, but they didn’t stop at his table. Josiah steered Freddy all the way down the hall. Though people turned to watch as they passed, no one approached them.
Heimdallr was seated near the end of the high table. He looked harassed. Beside him was an enormous man with a braided beard and chunky gold rings on every finger. He was leaning towards Heimdallr, bellowing happily at him through mouthfuls of food. It seemed the meal had begun already. People were helping themselves from dishes ranged along the tables. Glancing around the hall, Freddy could see no women at all seated at the lower tables, though there were several serving girls. Three women sat at the high table. She figured one of them was the Jarl’s wife, and one could have been his daughter. The Jarl himself was at the centre of everything, unexpectedly quiet as he drank thoughtfully from a jewelled cup. He was about half the size of the man having a one-sided conversation with Heimdallr.
As Freddy struggled against the urge to cough the smoke out of her lungs, Josiah pointed to the third woman, a girl of Freddy’s age who was pressed firmly against the arm of a man in his twenties. “That’s the girl who caused the raid. Ingifríthr Rauthsdóttir,” said Josiah. “Silly girl. The Jarl’s idiot son is even sillier. They fell in lust a couple of days ago and nearly caused a war. Now they’re to be married. They’ll hate each other before the year is out.”
The Jarl had noticed them. Freddy saw him hesitate, then jerk a nod at Josiah, who nodded back and towed Freddy over to the end of the high table. “We have a strange status here,” he explained. “Everyone is sure we’re gods in terribly transparent disguises, but it doesn’t do to mention it. The fact that there are currently two of me isn’t bothering them as much as the fact that I’m here at all. Loki’s caused some strange problems. They think I’m here to keep him under control, so they leave a seat for me at the high table and otherwise ignore me. They haven’t the faintest idea what to make of you. They’re uneasy that we’re both disguised as thralls.”
“As what?” said Freddy, sliding onto the bench.
“Slaves,” said Josiah.
She stared at him.
“The short hair,” he said. “Only thralls wear their hair this short here.”
“But … slaves?”
“Integral part of their society.” Josiah picked up what looked suspiciously like an entire pig rib. “We won’t be here long enough for it to offend your twenty-first-century sensibilities. Eat something. I’m not sure when we’re going to get our next chance at food.”
Freddy narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“I know any number of things you don’t,” said Josiah.
There was no use protesting any of this. Still fighting the headache and the cough tickling the back of her throat, Freddy copied the other people at the table, who were picking up food in their hands. She thought she remembered that people in the Middle Ages hadn’t known about forks. It seemed to mean that eating was about making as big a mess as possible. She nibbled at her own pig rib and watched the men cover themselves with grease as they dipped their hands into and out of the piles of meat. Someone served her some sort of drink in a cup. When she sipped it, it turned out to be bitter and sweet simultaneously. She knew what beer tasted like; this had the same alcoholic twist but a different basic flavour. She didn’t think she liked it much. Her brain started trying to think about the whole situation. She told it to leave her alone.
The feast dragged on. Nobody bothered her. Even Josiah was concentrating on the food. Eventually, the men in the hall stopped bouncing back and forth across the floor and settled down to some serious eating. The Jarl interrupted once with what seemed to be a long speech, but no one paid him much attention except to shout what sounded like “Hai!” and pound on the tables at intervals. No one ever clapped for anything; there was table pounding, foot stomping, and occasionally knee slapping instead. Muzzily, she wondered where and when clapping had been invented.
Her sore head made events blur together. At some point, she noticed a man with a musical instrument doing a kind of chanting thing in the middle of the hall. As with the Jarl’s speech, no one was listening to him. It wasn’t proper singing, but it had a rhythm to it. “What’s that thing he’s playing?” asked Freddy.
“A kind of lyre,” said Josiah. “He would call it a harp. It’s a bawdy song everybody’s supposed to sing together, but he’s out of favour, and the thegns know the Jarl wants him ignored. Any minute now—ah, there they go.” Someone had just thrown a hard chunk of bread at the singer. Freddy had noticed people using these chunks of bread as plates; she had one, too.