Chapter 2 - Thrym's Hall
It was nearing the end of Einmánuður when soft, pale sunshine reflected over Jötunheimr’s everlasting snowbanks to threaten summer. Asgard’s royal family arrived in the middle of a snowy field, carried in the Bifrost’s glittering splendor. For a moment, the five æsir stood still, the sudden chill of the air biting harshly at what little of their skin was bared to meet it.
The Allfather was the first to move, sending his twin ravens ahead to announce their arrival and taking a confident stride to the west. His three children followed with the Allmother trailing behind. No words were exchanged as they walked the last half mile to Thrym’s great hall. Young Balder thought to himself that any attempt to break the silence would have left the chosen phrase suspended from his lips, dangling in a chain of frozen shards.
Odin and Laufey had decided on a feast to publicly announce the peacekeeping betrothal of their youngest sons, to be held at the palace of a distant jötunn relation: Thrym. Thrym was as well a son of Ymir, though further down the line of succession than would grant him birthrights of any consequence. He was a proud giant, and saw himself as a self made man, building his frozen keep far to the North of Laufey’s castle by the sea to tower at the edge of Jötunheimr’s black forests, at the cusp of endless night. His clandestine dealings across the realms had left him extraordinarily wealthy and extraordinarily disliked. Laufey had had no doubt of his eagerness to host the occasion in favor of piecing together the tatters of his reputation. Formal invitations had been sent out across the realms, save to lawless Helheimr, where the dishonorable dead kept their own peace.
Balder the Brave clasped his hands together against the wind and thought for the dozenth time since daybreak that he would rather meet his husband to-be in any way other than this. When Tyr and Odin had returned from their dealings at Laufey’s hall some weeks past, his older brother had not shared his father’s triumphant enthusiasm for this marriage. His dark eyes had grown stormier than usual, and he had dropped his great battle axe heavily to the floor when the Allfather finished his announcement. It was not unusual for the two of them to quarrel publicly, so Balder had thought little of it. He had retired to his chambers for the rest of the day to write a letter to his betrothed.
Dear Loki, he wrote, his goose feather quill scratching against the hundredth length of vellum he had devoted to the task, I take great joy in the news of our marriage. It is my hope that the peace between our realms will far outlive even the children of our children’s children. I await our meeting with great anticipation, and wish to make you happy from this day onwards to eternity. Our duty shall be not only to our realms, but to each other. Signed with the greatest of affection, Balder the Brave, son of Odin and the realm eternal.
He had tied his message to Munin’s leg and paid for its delivery with a strip of salted venison. As the weeks passed without a response, he began to suspect the damnable bird had deemed his bribe to be insufficient. However, with only a fortnight to go before their meeting, Balder spied a magpie at his window. With a chirp and a beating of its monochrome wings, the little bird had gone just as quickly as it had come, dropping a parcel in its wake. It had been a sprig of mistletoe and a whortleberry branch, tied together with a fine silk ribbon. Balder held the bouquet gently to his lips and imagined the delicate leaves to be the mouth of his betrothed, who he now imagined as a man of few words but clear sentiment.
He emerged from his fond reverie just as the doors to Thrym’s hall were being opened for the æsir party. On the other side, they were greeted by the giant himself, grinning broadly.
Thrym was a heavyset jötunn, built stout and low with a thick belly grown fat on black bread and dark ale. The intricate markings along his broad body shown like pearl inlay against his sea-glass blue skin. His smile was wide, pulled wider by the four great tusks that curled up from his bottom jaw like a wild boar’s. Each was fit with polished gold bands studded with precious stones that glittered in the emerald torchlight of his entryway. Balder noted, while trying to keep his face placidly composed and his eyes from wandering too pointedly, that the horns at Thrym’s temples had been filed down nearly flat against his forehead, which accentuated how far back his hairline had receded. What was left of his dark hair was kept in a well oiled knot at the base of his thick neck.
Allfather Odin took his hand when he reached for his, and smiled tersely when he knelt to clap an enormous hand against his shoulder.
“Welcome, brother,” Thrym boomed, in a voice like a birch tree bursting from the midwinter chill, “may your family see my humble home as an extension of your own.”
He turned, still bent low, and offered a curled index finger to Lady Freya, who graciously laid her hand on it, finding that she could barely cover his bent knuckle. Deepening his bow, Thrym pressed his massive lips to her delicate fingers.
Straightening up, Thrym turned his attention to her three sons, already loosening the clasps of their cloaks in the warmth of his hall. He offered his hand to dark eyed Tyr, who took it with a stare just on the wrong side of courtesy. To the flaxen haired heir apparent he offered a deferent inclination of his head and received a dazzling smile in return. When he fixed his red, square pupiled eye on the youngest Odinson, it was done with knife blade scrutiny.
“You must be Balder,” he said, extending his hand, “I extend my welcome to you, and to every member of your line across the branches of your family tree. May your union with my youngest nephew be a blessed one.”
“I am honored to accept your courtesies, sir,” said Balder, reaching out to shake Thrym’s index finger and hoping his voice didn’t break forcing its way through his dry mouth, “May I call you uncle?”
Thrym’s laugh roiled through the hall like distant thunder, and the force of his jovial hand clapped against Balder’s back nearly knocked the young óss’ feet out from under him.
“That you may, young Balder,” he said, before turning to lead the royal family into the great dining hall, where the other guests sat waiting.
“We bid welcome to the realm of Vanaheimr, and to the Allfather of the realm eternal that rules above us all,” Thrym announced as he stepped through the archway.
Their host’s dining hall was massive. Tall arched ceilings of glossy black stone towered so far above the æsir’s heads as to grow blurry in the distance. Enchanted emerald flames danced in the iron sconces dotted along the walls, casting their eerie light across the gathered parties. Benches were arranged in a wide horseshoe around the center table, which stood empty and expectant before its guests. The royal family of Jötunheimr sat along the right side of the head of the table, King Laufey seated closest to the center with his three children at his side. Loki sat immediately to his father’s right, his many gold adornments glittering in the torchlight.
Balder was so struck at the sight of his betrothed that his mouth fell open, and he scrambled to shut it before anyone noticed. Loki was smaller than his kin, easily Tyr’s height, and beautiful in a way that Balder lacked the words to describe. He wore a marital wreath of fiercely violet belladonna woven around his head, with stray blooms plaited into his raven hair. His was a sharp, jagged beauty; a beauty that went against the grain of nature. The fat, finely cut ruby at his widow’s peak gave the appearance of a third scarlet eye in the middle of his head. Balder thought, for a cruel and fleeting moment, that the sharp featured face of his betrothed, set against a mane of dark, flowing hair, was not unlike a spider sitting in the middle of a web of delicate gold chains. When Loki turned to him, his gold rimmed eyes were cold, and his scarred lips were set in a hard line.
Four places were set to Thrym’s left for the royal family, with representatives from across the realms seated along either leg of the U-shaped benches.
Following Thrym’s lead, the royal family of Asgard took their places at the head of the table, with Tyr taking the open seat immediately to their left. What little tense conversation had filled the hall before the Allfather’s arrival had turned to cotton-mouthed silence, with only the soft crackle of flames to fill it.
Thrym, seemingly oblivious to the disquiet flooding the room, reached across behind Laufey to put a hand on Loki’s shoulder as he sat down at the head of the table, directly at the center of the two royal families.
“Put your silver tongues to work, boy,” he encouraged, “I would have you spin a yarn to open this feast.”
Loki stood, and smiled graciously at his uncle.
“You honor me, uncle,” he said, in a voice like the third echo fading off a cavern wall, “as do you all, denizens from across the Nine, come to share in the joy and the joining of our two families; may they be joined as one to usher in a peace everlasting, that it may outlive even the children of our children’s children.”
Balder felt something catch in his throat as he heard Loki quote his letter. To think his words, edited a thousand times over across a hundred miles of vellum, had left enough of an impression on his husband-to-be that he would use them now before the assembled realms. It felt like a wink, a nod, a brush of his elegantly decorated fingers against his own. He realized, now, in a way more real and immediate than the way he had realized a thousand times before, that this strange creature with witchcraft on his ruined lips was to be his husband; their hands tied for as long as the Norns were to weave their golden threads. Balder the Brave, beloved by all creation, felt himself bewitched.
Loki turned to Balder and gave a subtle inclination of his head, his heavy gold jewelry erupting into melodious chimes as he did so. Balder stood, eyes locked with his betrothed, his fingertips on the table before him as his voice echoed in well practiced courtly tones.
“May our duties be not only to our realms, but to each other,” he said, hoping that he was quoting his own letter correctly, and that the jötunn seated four places to his right could feel their sincerity. Loki’s gold rimmed eyes were unreadable.
Thrym clapped his great hands together and stood, spreading his arms to gesture at the gathering before him.
“Fine words from our fair princes,” he boomed, “and I shall venture to extend my own thanks to my honored guests. Less eloquent than my nephew’s, I am certain, but no less sincere.”
Balder sat back onto the bench inelegantly as Thrym launched into his speech, earning him a playful kick to the shin from Thor, seated to his right, separating him from the Allfather. Drumming his fingers against the horned helm he’d let rest on the table, Balder gave his brother a pained look and received a wink for his troubles. Asgard’s golden youth remained untroubled, in this and all other matters. Thor’s encouraging grin, punctuated by a scratch at his ruddy blonde stubble and a sidelong glance to the youngest Laufeyson, bolstered Balder’s spirits.
Thrym droned on, providing the names and titles of each guest in attendance and spinning what Balder suspected were speedily fabricated tales of their achievements. In truth Balder had enough experience at court to recognize that the gathered party was on the leaner side of meager. There were two dwarves sent from Niðavellir who stood at half the height of any óss and so a fourth the height of any jötunn. This difference in scale was resolved with a half dozen finely embroidered cushions stacked beneath each. Twice as startling was the size of the two Pit Spiders sent from the frozen realm of Niflheimr, who, seated between the dwarves and dark eyed Tyr, had to carefully arrange all sixteen of their legs to fit into the space allotted to them. Two flaming denizens of Mùspellheimr sat at the far end of the table, which had been enchanted to safeguard against their molten constitutions. The United Elven Realms had declined to send a representative, and Midgard, having long shut its doors to the affairs of gods and giants, had not responded to its invitation.
Once Thrym had made his round of the table he turned to introduce Balder’s lady mother, Freya, Allmother of the Realm Eternal. He bowed low and complemented her three æsir children. Balder tried to catch Thor’s eye again but couldn’t, and so was left to wonder what lurked beneath their jötunn host’s kind words. There was a jagged edge to his booming voice that suggested it wasn’t carelessness. The Lady Freya took Thrym’s speech in stride, smiling politely where appropriate, and giving him the full attention of her sparkling green eyes.
Finally, Thrym turned to address his kin, and with their eight gold rimmed eyes turned towards their host, Balder was able to turn his attentions onto them. Properly this time. Býleistr sat at the far end of the table, the spitting image of his father, his plumed mantle shinning beneath the enchanted emerald torchlight. To his left sat Helblindi, the gold cap at the end of his left tusk pulling Balder’s eye away from the broad, heavy features of his face. King Laufey, seated to Thrym’s right, wore a grim royal expression that reminded Balder of the war god Tyr, with his unreadable eyes and brooding brows. As they listened to Thrym’s flattery, every member of Jötunheimr’s royal family looked to have gulped down the bitter dregs of their barley wine. Every member save for Loki, who had his pointed chin propped up on his delicately folded hands, his sharp face turned up towards his uncle in wrapt delight.
Balder watched his betrothed’s thin lips pull into an easy grin as he listened to the praise lavished on his brothers. He idly spun a ring just above the first knuckle of his right index finger, and Balder watched transfixed as the three polished gems laid into the band made their rounds.
“He’s got a needling beauty,” said Thor under his breath, leaning back to sit closer to Balder but keeping his head turned to fix his eyes on the youngest Laufeyson, “gets under your skin a bit.”
“I’ll not have you speak unkindly,” said Balder, defensively.
“Was I being unkind?” Thor asked innocently, rubbing the ruddy blonde stubble on his jaw.
“Ungallantly, then,” Balder hissed, returning his brother’s kick to the shin. Loki must have heard the shuffle of their exchanged words because he inclined his extravagantly adorned head in their direction. Balder flashed what he hoped was a carefree smile. His betrothed’s eyes remained glassy and serpentine, but his face seemed to soften. Or else it was a trick of the torchlight.
Thor had taken the news of his engagement well, clapping a hand cheerfully against Balder’s back and announcing that they must hunt down a boar to mark the occasion. Though his brother’s support was treasured, it also set Balder’s mind ill at ease. Thor was heritor to all nine realms, destined to become the Allfather as his father had, and his father before him. Charming though he was, a skilled tactician and a fearsome warrior, Thor had no head for matters of state, brushing off his courtly responsibilities and leaving them to Gentle Balder to navigate. It troubled the young óss how quickly the Thunderer’s opinion of the clan of Ymir was swayed. Some very short weeks ago he had gone off to Jötunheimr and returned with Mjölnir blackened at his hip, and now he sat happily in a jötunn hall preparing to sip on barley wine and juniper ale, noting the elegance with which Loki had plaited his belladonna wreathes into his hair. Balder worried that his brother’s flippancy would soon evolve from a boyish facet of his roguish charm to a sincere threat to the safety of the realms he was sworn to protect. He thought again of the gravity of this engagement, and the responsibility it placed on two young princes. His mouth felt dry.
Thrym concluded his speech with a flourishing bow, bending at the waist until his broad nose nearly brushed the table in front of him. Balder could see the hall exchanging glances to see whether or not they should clap. Their indecision was short lived. Thrym rolled back up with none of the expected difficulty of a giant his age and clapped his great, heavily ornamented hands together twice. Faintly, one could hear the icicles snapping off of the outside of his dining hall and falling to the snow covered earth like a shower of knives.
The many servants of Thrym’s hall took their cue immediately, pouring in from the adjoining corridors to load the table at its center until it threatened to give way. Gold and silver platters sat piled high with roasted game, hunted in the forests of Jötunheimr and fired with aromatic herbs, dried and carried to the frozen wastes from warmer climes. Great, ferociously pink fish pulled from the icy black sea lay staring at the ceiling with empty gold eyes, each glittering orb easily the size of King Laufey’s head. Thick grey loaves of freshly baked barley bread sat beside plates piled high with bilberries, plums, freshly picked bullaces, and saucers of hawthorn berry jam. At the center of the table was an ornately crafted silver dish, set with precious stones and coronation scenes carved into panels of unicorn horn. It held a rich black pudding made to Svartalfheimr’s standard and sent by the United Elven Realms as an engagement gift. Strong, golden mead was brought in great barrels from Vanaheimr, where the finest honey in all the Nine went into its making.
Thrym’s hall was a place in which times were never harsh nor lean. His guests needed no further prompting, they fell upon the feast before them as soon as it was set down.
Balder pulled meat off his dagger and drank spiced wine from his chalice, feeling more and more at home among the festivities. Thrym’s icy hall seemed in this moment not unlike any of those which lay in his father’s keep where óss and vanr broke their bread. It seemed so natural to him now to see giants engaged in the same. A band of goblin musicians played from the far corner of the hall, and the air came alive with their cheerful melodies. These were soon joined by the buzz of a table warming to the thought of casual conversation. Amid the flutes, drums, and panpipes of the motley musicians, Balder spied a small knock kneed, pigeon toed troll at the center of the merry band, strumming a lyre whose sheep gut strings were stretched over a great horned skull of a creature unknown to him.
Meat, mead, and melodies soften the hardest of hearts, and Balder watched as Thrym’s hall underwent a thaw. King Laufey, dead eyed ruler of Jötunheimr, sat with his father, lord of all creation, their heads bent together as they whispered with their lips brushing the rims of their silver cups. Freya, his lady mother, was leaning over Tyr to chat amicably with the two enormous Pit Spiders; one of her elegant hands resting against a great, furry black leg closest to her as if it were the shoulder of an old friend. Young Balder cast his gaze across the table to where Loki sat, his two older brothers visible over his great gilded head. Loki ate delicately, nibbling at a slice of bread topped with jam and butter, his sharp features arranged into a well practiced expression of noble peace. He had a royal air to him that his brothers did not, and bore the signs of a young man practiced at holding court. The jötnar were a warring people, with little say in the matters of their sister realms, but the youngest Laufeyson’s influence had grown regardless. His silver tongues had woven his laurels at elven, dwarven, and even troll and goblin courts, sowing the seeds of jötunn interests among other personae non grata across the nine.
That was sure to change, now. Where Loki once held sway perched on the ledge of an exiled realm, his balance was now sure to be offset.
Balder’s too. Balder the Brave, the Bold, the Beloved was soon to be crowned the beleaguered, beguiled, besotted. The rumors had already started, long before he’d lain eyes on his betrothed. Asgard’s throne falls to jötnar influence! The Allfather leads his youngest son to slaughter! Were the black halls of Laufey’s dark keep so flooded with conspiracy? Did the jötnar concern themselves with matters of court? Was it naïve or blatantly insulting that Balder had to wonder if they did?
Balder had never known a life outside of courtly responsibility. He had been tasked to supplement Thor’s disinterest in stately affairs since he was a child. The Allfather’s youngest son, a compendium of Asgardian summers, with laughing hazel eyes inherited from his vanr mother, had been the balm to follow Odin’s ire and the diplomacy to supplement his might. Loki had been a child of war and grew to be charming in spite of it. Balder was born into warm goat’s milk and spiced honey wine, destined to the influence the Laufeyson had fought for. He felt guilt curdle in him stomach at the thought.
Balder thought of the treaty he had negotiated for this past winter, to secure safe trade routes through goblin controlled territory along the sea cliffs of Niðavellir. The travel had been arduous but the talks had been fruitful. His hosts had been gracious and all parties had left the table with plenty gained to balance out their concessions, the young Odinson had made sure of it. But had his reason truly won that day? Was it his skill that had guided his negotiation or the threat of his family name?
A clatter to his left from the flaming denizen’s of Mùspellheimr snapped Balder’s attentions back to the present moment. He refocused his eyes to find the crowd seated at the table had thinned. Kings Laufey and Odin were holding up the wall, their heads bent together beneath a sconce of enchanted emerald flame. Only four of their children remained, both Thor and Tyr having excused themselves at some point during Balder’s reverie. His betrothed, conjured up from the center of his daydreams, seemed to be returning to his seat just as Balder looked back at him, catching his eye as he lowered himself onto the bench and giving the young prince a conspiratorial wink. Don’t let them know, was laced into the toss of his raven hair. Know what? Did it matter? Balder’s heart raced for a moment at the thought that before the evening drew to a close, they might sneak away that Loki could tell him.
Just as he was summoning up the courage to venture over to the right side of the table’s head, he felt Thrym’s massive hand clap over his shoulders. The jötunn’s fingers rested easily over the full breadth of his back, his long black claws curling over the prince’s arm.
“Where have your dear brothers wandered off to, sweet nephew?” Thrym hummed above his head, “Seems an ill wind through my hall to have two war minded æsir prowling the length of it.”
Before Balder could think of a sufficiently diplomatic answer, his host had moved down the table to direct the same question to his lady mother. Thrym seemed in high spirits, but it was unwise for Thor and Tyr to wander off together. No matter how innocent their conversation, it would not be presumed as such. Already Balder was not the only one to note their absence, and the longer it stretched on the more it would be whispered over. The gods of war and thunder had, not so many weeks past, painted the snow banks black with jötunn blood. Now was a delicate time, the start to a tentative thaw. It would be a rare and momentous bit of folly for his brothers to ruin it now, when it could hardly have been said to have begun at all.
Though the sticking of his courage to the sticking place had been interrupted by their host, Balder had not lost his mettle. With a steadying, determined breath, he pushed himself up from the table and carried his half drained glass two dozen paces to his right, to sit beside his recently reappeared betrothed. Loki sat staring dreamily into the middle distance, tracing the pad of his middle finger along the wet rim of his chalice. Balder cleared his dry, constricted throat, and watched as Loki’s serpentine eyes turned to meet his own.
“May I refill that for you?” he croaked.
The Laufeyson smiled, his thin lips pulling up to reveal needle sharp teeth and pitch black gums. He placed his cup down on the table and, framing the stem with his middle and ring finger, slid it across the table towards Balder.
“You would do me an honor, Odinson,” he purred.
Balder reached for a flagon of barley wine and filled his glass, keeping his eyes cast down towards his task and scrambling to think of something to fill the silence that would stretch after its completion. Loki relieved him of his burden.
“Quite the guest list we’ve managed to attract,” he said snidely.
“Not the finest of the nine,” said Balder, laughing with more force than the comment warranted, “but surely a reflection of our birthrights.”
“Does my lord Balder find his lacking?” Loki quipped.
“He finds it happy among present company,” Balder parried, “And I meant only that the realms sent a reflection of what they thought to gain.”
Loki made a sound low in his throat like dead leaves falling against late winter frost, “What a shrewd assessment of our engagement, Odinson.”
“Shrewd but not unkind,” said Balder, bolstered by the way Loki’s finger had returned to the rim of his glass, by how his raven hair fell over his shoulder as he leaned towards him, “Asgard has, after all, sent all that it has.”
Balder couldn’t read the flutter that passed over Loki’s odd face as he said it, his features seemed to light up separately, like a disturbed swarm of fireflies. How had those serpent eyes ever seemed cold or uncaring? They shone like fresh blood in the enchanted torchlight, and Balder felt himself drawn into their depths. The young prince found his thoughts interrupted once again by a jötunn hand at his back, eclipsing his broad shoulders. It was a transparent but effective tactic, and as Helblindi and Býleistr sat themselves down on either side of the intended, Balder felt quite small.
“You do us an honor with your patronage, lord Balder,” said Býleistr over his shoulder, his icy breath spilling down the side of Balder’s neck as he loomed over him.
“It is you who honor me with yours,” said Balder, “allow me to pour my brothers some wine.”
“So we are brothers then,” Býleistr purred, “I had grown so used to being fodder for the Asgardian hordes. To meet an óss who caters to the game with which he stocks his woods is a rare honor.”
“Could we expect the same kindness from lord Thor?” Heldblindi grunted from over Loki’s shoulder, beleaguering the point. Balder saw Loki’s face change again at the sound of his brother’s name, pulled from its practiced composure into the same bustle of fireflies. In fact, if it weren’t for the enchanted emerald glow throughout the hall that called such things into question, Balder could almost swear he saw his cheeks flush.
“We are all of us here to atone for the blood spilled between us,” Balder said evenly, taking up the thorny subject, “had my brothers and I not waged our father’s war against you we would not be here to remedy it. Our blood was spilled across Jötunheimr and now our bloodlines will begin their joining, that the rift between our peoples can be mended.”
Býleistr made a disgusted sound halfway between a spit and a hiss, “By the shining threads you even sound like one another.”
“We revel in your approval, dear brother,” said Loki calmly, holding Balder’s gaze from beneath his dark lashes. He shrugged out from Helblindi’s grip on his shoulders and stretched to take the silver flagon that Balder had set between them. As Loki refilled the three chalices around him, he raised his head to watch the opposite end of the table.
“If you wish your concerns addressed by those you raise them against, I believe you’ll now have your chance,” he said. Balder watched Helblindi and Býleistr snap to attention, their enormous horned heads spinning to follow Loki’s gaze, an animal fear rising in their cold red eyes. The young prince turned as well to find Tyr leading Thor back to his place at the table, a hand planted firmly on the back of his neck. Thor’s face was flushed with too much mead, golden wisps of hair plastered across his cheeks. Balder felt his own face burn as his brother was muscled back into this seat, turning to the other end of the table to wink a twinkling blue eye in his direction. Norns…
Thrym’s thunderous baritone filled the hall and the merry band of troll and goblin musicians stopping their playing abruptly and discordantly to accommodate his announcement, “Wonderful! The night grows dark around us fair friends. Let us gather to present our young princes with their engagement gifts.”
Engagement gifts? Balder thought as the gathered parties began rising from their seats. He hadn’t expected there to be any for the announcement of the marriage of two youngest sons. Perhaps the represented realms had more to gain from this union than he first thought. The heavy-laden table at the center of the hall had been vanished to make room for the assembled guests to line up and present their gifts. Thrym made his way towards the right side of the table where the four princes were seated. Balder and Loki rose to meet him, Loki’s heavy gold jewelry chiming against itself like freezing rainfall as he stood. The old jötunn took their hands into his own and lead them to the center of the table, sitting them down and pressing their hands together at its center. Loki’s slim fingered, spider-like hand rested softly over Balder’s tanned and calloused skin. The cold metal of his stacked rings and layered bracelets was interrupted by the soft, smooth skin of his palm through which Balder could almost feel his black lifeblood pumping. He felt a fluttering pulse in their intwined fingers beat against his own.
Thrym loomed behind them as the royal families resumed their places at the head of the table and their guests lined up before them. For the first time that evening, Balder could feel the weight of so many eyes resting on him. Loki’s hand draped over his did little to lessen the load on his shoulders.
“Thanks are due to the United Elven realms, whose blood pudding graced our table,” Thrym boomed, “and to the sun soaked realm of Vanaheimr whose fine mead filled our drinking horns this night.” The giant inclined his head to Lady Freya, who raised her glass in recognition.
“But we have more gifts to bestow on our young princes before this night is through. From the rocky realm of Niðavellir, I am honored to present Brokkr and Sindri.”
The two dwarves stepped forward with their shining gifts, forged in gold in the dark heart of their gem filled mountains. The first, with a red beard oiled and brushed to shine as brightly as his bare head, came forth with a great golden boar. The beast was over twice his height, every coarse hair on its great body glittering in the enchanted torchlight, its eyes bright pinpricks in its shining face like stars against the midday sun.
“This creature,” the dwarf announced proudly, “is called Gullinbursti. Its hide gives off a light brighter than any star, and it will light your way through the darkest night, the deepest cavern, or the blackest sea. It will run faster than any steed could carry you, even through water or through air. It is our honor to present our gift to you, Prince Balder the Bold, shining youth of Asgard.”
Both dwarves bowed low, and the boar, proving clever as well as bright, put forward a cloven hoof to bend its great tusked head towards the floor. Balder tried very hard to shut his mouth, which had fallen open as soon as the creature had been brought forward. When he spoke, his heavy tongue stammered through his words, “It is my honor to accept it,” he managed, “may Gullinbursti’s hide speak to the future that our realms will share.”
He felt Loki tap his fingers gently over the back of his hand as he chuckled. Balder felt his cheeks flush as he snuck a glance to his betrothed. Loki winked at him.
The second dwarf, whose wirey red beard was braided down to his potbelly, stepped forward with a great gold ring in his hands. It seemed to bend the torchlight that reflected from it into glistening petals in the air.
“This, Prince Loki, we call Draupnir,” he said, raising the ring up to the level of his eyes, “From this ring, on every ninth night from this night, eight new gold rings of equal weight and splendor will emerge.”
Loki looked enraptured. Balder felt his fingers twitch against his hand unwillingly as they itched to reach for it. They’d certainly picked a gift well suited to its recipient, Balder thought, passing his eyes again over the maddening criss cross of jewelry over Loki’s body.
“You honor me greatly,” he said, lowering his eyes demurely, “your craftsmanship is unparalleled.”
Damn, no attempt at wit, and sincerity over flattery. Balder felt himself bested. The dwarves took their final bows and then took their leave, leaving their precious gifts on the table before the young princes. Gullinbursti, too clever and well mannered to attempt to clammer up beside Draupnir, arranged his hooves daintily beneath his great frame and sat on the floor. Seated so, Balder was able to reach a hand over the table to ruffle the gold bristles at the top of his head. It felt like passing his hand through sunbeams filtered through the boughs of a forest overhead. The boar snuffled good naturedly in response.
Next were the Pit Spiders of Niflheimr, who approached single file in order to fit their great mass of limbs between the U-shaped bench. The first, in a voice that seemed to emerge from somewhere in its massive many-eyed head that Balder couldn’t be sure was its mouth, spoke to Loki.
“Sweet prince,” it intoned, bringing one of its legs forward towards the table, “it would honor us, were you to wear this veil at your hand tying. We have woven it in spider silk, a treasure to us more precious than gold.”
Draped over the creature’s extended leg was a silvery white veil, its gossamer threads woven together like steam rising from a fire, trapping the light of a waning moon in their weft. The spider lowered it onto the table beside Draupnir, where it pooled like a spoonful of mist.
“Its beauty is unmatched,” said Loki graciously, “and it would be my honor to wear it.”
The spider bent his body low towards the ground and shuffled back to make room for its brother, carrying a dagger in its hanging fangs. The creature lowered its head to the table to place the weapon in front of Balder hilt first.
“To Lord Balder we present a dagger forged of spider’s silk and tempered with spider’s venom,” it said, its voice echoing out from its head in the same eerie detached way as its brother’s.
“It would be my honor to carry it,” said Balder, picking it up in his left hand. The balance of it was divine. He could get lost in the way the torchlight shone off the tempered silk, folded in on itself a thousand thousand times in the icy blue flames of an eternally frozen realm.
The spiders, having given their works, made of the most precious parts of their selves, took their leave. The flaming denizens of Mùspellheimr had brought nothing but their empty bellies, and having filled them, fled cackling and crackling from the hall.
The night thus adjourned, it came time for the royal families to take their leave. They gathered in Thrym’s entrance hall, their jötunn host poised to hold open the great oaken doors shielding them from the billowing frost. Odin and Laufey, who had kept their heads bent low and their voices hushed for the duration of the feast, stood side by side at the mouth of the hall. Balder stood by the door with his spidersilk sword at his hip and Gullinbursti on a bilgesnipe leather lead, looped over his great shining head and attached to an iron bit slipped between his heavy tusks. The creature snuffled peaceably at his lady mother’s hand. Thor stood to his left, his red dragonhide cloak fastened back around his shoulders and the drunken blush now vanished from his cheeks. He gave Balder a sheepish but wholly unapologetic smile.
“Your courtship is to last through the summer months,” Odin announced. His messenger ravens were back on his shoulder, murmuring to one another from either side of his great grey head. The great gilded antlers of his helm sprouted up to reach King Laufey’s lower ribs; but only just.
“You will be welcomed at my court through Haustmánður, prince,” said King Laufey, his glassy red eyes fixed on Balder.
“It would be my honor to attend,” Balder replied politely.
“As it would be my honor to host you,” said Laufey, the cold dead ice of his voice sitting in sharp contrast to the crystalized honey of his words.
“And it will be your honor to be welcomed at my court, in the realm eternal, through Gormánður,” Odin barked at Loki, “you are to be wed at the equinox.”
“I’m humbled by such accolades, Allfather” said Loki, punctuating his words with a waist-deep bow.
Balder sensed movement at his side and saw Thor brushing past him, closing the distance between himself and the youngest Laufeyson in two long strides. The Thunderer took Loki’s hand, extended outwards in a flourish, and pressed his heavily adorned fingers to his lips.
The blow struck by the gesture was as violent as his touch was tender. Balder watched as flames rose in his father’s eye and as Laufey’s stern face set into a merciless scowl. Býleistr and Helblindi’s cruel mouths hung open in surprise. Balder shut his eyes and cursed his brother for a carousing fool, not daring to turn and and face the disapproval on his mother’s face. Loki seemed frozen. He stared down at the Thunderer’s face pressed to his black clawed fingertips with his thin lips gently parted and his red eyes blown wide.
“May the Norns weave kindly until our threads entwine again, brother,” Balder heard Thor whisper.
“May their stitches be swift,” the Laufeyson managed.
“And may they weave it so for us all,” Balder called out, forcing cheer into his trembling voice. Neither his brother nor his betrothed turned to hear him, nor did anyone else gathered in the newly frosty entrance hall. The tension stretched through the air like catgut threatening to burst, the uncomfortable silence broken only by Gullinbursti’s heavy breaths. Balder felt his frantic heart beat thrice before he watched Thor lift his head from Loki’s hand.
Thrym cleared his throat behind him and lifted the great oaken bolt from across his entryway. He bowed low, bending at his waist so his great heavy tusks nearly brushed the floor, and escorted the Asgardian royal family beyond the threshold of his hall, Odin brushing past his eldest son in enraged silence. Balder felt Thor’s hand clap cheerfully across his back, but before he could turn to try and find some shame in his brother’s face, and before their jötunn host had fully closed his door behind them, the young prince felt himself spirited away in the Bifrost’s brilliant rainbow light.