The Age of Odin - James Lovegrove [37]
"But still you've signed up with the Valhalla Mission?" I said.
"Aye, well, it gets into your blood, doesn't it?" Miserable yet philosophical. "I think I speak for all of us when I say that. The military is like women. Can't live with it, can't live without it."
I recharged everyone's tankards from the jug in the middle of the table. Beer was apparently not on the menu and we were drinking, no word of a lie, mead. The first gulp of which had made me gag - sickly-sweet and potent at the same time, like Golden Syrup laced with meths. After a couple more swallows, however, I'd got used to it, and now I even quite liked it. Liked the buzz I was getting from it, anyway.
"Listen," I said, "not being funny, but can any of you tell me what exactly is going on here? What's this about? The training, everything. What's it all for? I've been puzzling it over and not got anywhere near an answer."
"Yeah, well, that's the phone-a-friend question, innit?" said Cy.
"You mean you don't know? You don't even know why you're running around in the snow doing drill and learning to ski and the rest?"
"Odin's told us we'll find out soon enough. I mean, some of us have a vague idea, but mostly we're taking it on faith."
"Faith? Isn't that just a bit, well, wishy-washy?"
"I'm getting paid," said O'Donough. "The cheques are piling up, and I'm not complaining about that and I'm certainly not going to start rocking the boat. As long as the money keeps rolling in, I'm onside with the big man Odin. That's yer faith right there."
"But who are those people?" I said, nodding towards the top table.
"The Aesir, and some of their elder cousins from Vanaheim, the Vanir, who are the race of gods who came before the Aesir," said Cy. "Which of them don't you know? Those three to the right, yeah? The younger ones? Those are Odin's other sons, Tyr, Vidar and - what's the last one called again, Baz?"
"Vali," said Butterworth. "They're all half-brothers. Same dad, different mothers. Odin used to put it about a bit. A lot, actually. And the pretty golden-haired lass over on the other side, that's Sif, AKA Mrs Thor. She's wasted on him. Far too nice to be saddled with a bonehead like that. And next to her, the boyish one with the short choppy hair who looks a bit like the pop singer, Björk. That's Skadi. She's a Vanir. Freya's auntie, believe it or not. You'd think they were more like sisters, to look at them, nobbut a year or two apart, but that's the thing with gods, they don't age the way we do. Skadi's into skiing. She's a right little speed demon on the snow. And then -"
"This is all very interesting," I said, "but it's not what I was getting at. You're telling me who they say they are. Who are they really? Any idea?"
Blank looks.
"The Norse gods," Ling said eventually, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Who else? The great pantheon from the Sagas. I studied them at school, in Comparative Religion."
"Chopsticks got privately educated," Cy confided.
"Ohh," I said. "Eton?"
"I have, thank you, full up now," Ling said. "Arf, arf. No, my teacher made us read much of the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda, so I know what I'm talking about here. All the tales about the gods and the Nine Worlds and how creation came to be and the Aesir's struggles and rivalries and vanities, and... those are them," he said, pointing to Odin and his associates. "They are. I'm convinced of it. They can only be."
I looked at him. Was he serious? He was serious.
"Take Tyr, for instance," Ling continued. "See he's missing a hand? Lost it to a wolf."
I rubbed my bandaged wrist. I had some idea how that might feel.
"Not just any wolf, either. The wolf. Big bad Fenrir. And Vali next to him? Him and Vidar are war gods. Tyr likewise. They're helping with our training, under Thor's overall command, and they're going to head up separate units when the time comes. I can see how sceptical you are about all this, Gid."
Sceptical? That was putting it mildly.