The Age of Odin - James Lovegrove [32]
I'd no doubt have stood there all day, tongue lolling, mesmerised by the motion of Freya's behind - like a pair of balloons alternately inflating and deflating - if Odin hadn't taken me by the elbow and suggested we go back to the castle. He wanted Frigga to take a look at me and check I was all right.
All right?
In a world where magnificent-bottomed honeys like this Freya roamed wild and free, how could a bloke not be all right?
Then a surge of nausea hit me, and I bent over and threw up.
After which I passed out. A-bloody-gain.
Eleven
Two more days in Frigga's tender care. Two more days of poultices and vile-tasting but remarkably effective medicine. Two more days of Frigga clucking and fussing, only this time with added apologies for Thor's behaviour.
"My stepson," she said, "is a brute. Uncouth, shallow. Mud for brains. But then what would you expect with an earth goddess for a mother? What Odin ever saw in that Fjorgyn I will never know. A pair of plump fertile breasts will turn any man's head, I suppose. It certainly couldn't have been her conversation. 'Oh look, a flower! Oh look, a pebble! Oh look, another flower!' And those are among her more intelligent utterances."
I laughed. With Frigga and at her. It was clear to me that mass delusion was the order of the day at Asgard Hall. Odin was at the centre of it, a sort of nucleus that the rest of them orbited around - his wife, the Valkyries, Thor, even the delectable Freya. He'd drawn them all, family members and outsiders alike, into his Norse-god fantasy. Like one of those lunatic-fringe evangelical types, a Jim Jones, a David Koresh, only instead of extreme Christianity he was peddling another faith, this one long defunct. He had the charisma. He had the willing acolytes.
He also had soldiers. And guns.
So what was he planning? What was the point of it all? What the fuck was the Valhalla Mission?
I couldn't guess, and I wasn't sure I wanted to know anyway. My main imperative was leaving. Quick as I could. Get back out into the real world, where the sane people lived. My set-to with Thor was a setback, but Frigga had me on my feet again in a jiffy. By the third day I was feeling hale and hearty. Had some beautiful bruising - chest like a sunset, ankle purple from heel to calf. But over all I was perky. Everything in basic working order, even my wrist. So I headed out into the grounds to recce an exit strategy. It didn't take me long to discover a main drive that led down from the castle, curving smoothly through the contours of the landscape. Snowmobile and tyre tracks pointed the way. I walked along the drive for a couple of miles past silent white forests and a tinkling ice-encrusted stream, until I came to a guardhouse next to a bridge.
A man stepped out from the guardhouse as I approached. He wore a parka and a fur-lined hunting cap, the kind with the earflaps, and he had a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt and a gun strapped to his back - an AK-47, weapon of choice for guerrillas, pirates and bongo-bongo-land paramilitaries everywhere, the Big Mac of assault rifles. He also had a thermos in his hand, and was in the midst of pouring himself a cup of steaming hot chocolate.
"Want some?" he said, proffering the cup.
Taken aback, I said yes. I'd anticipated being challenged. Who goes there? and the business end of the Kalashnikov being shoved up my nose. But a glug of hot choc went down a treat.
"Heimdall, right?" I said.
He gave a comical salute. "That's me. Watchman of the Aesir and Vanir. Guardian of the Rainbow Bridge. And you, if I'm not mistaken, are the fellow the Valkyries brought past me the other night. I must say, you're looking a lot better than you did then."
"I'm a new man."
"Good old Frigga. I wouldn't be astonished if my dear stepmother could raise the dead."
"In my case she virtually did." I liked Heimdall already. He was the most down-to-earth