The Age of Odin - James Lovegrove [40]
"No one raises a fist to me and gets away with it," she said. "Especially not a man."
I wasn't sure if she meant man as in male of the species or man as in mortal being, and I wasn't about to query the point. It could have been either and was probably both.
"Didn't mean to," I croaked. "You surprised me. I reacted. Overreacted. Don't slit my throat."
The sheath knife didn't move. Somewhere overhead I could hear the squirrel tittering scornfully. There was no other way to describe it. If squirrels could mock, this was exactly the sound they'd make.
"You were so easy to sneak up on," Freya said.
"Was I?" I had to admit the way she'd completely blindsided me was somewhat embarrassing, and I couldn't even blame my knackered ear. She'd come from the right. I should have heard her and hadn't. Talk about stealthy.
"Very easy. Were you a rabbit, or an enemy sentry, your blood would now be reddening the snow."
"Then I'm glad I'm neither of those. Look, will you put that thing away and let me get up?"
"I don't know. Ratatosk, what do you think?"
She was talking to the squirrel, and bugger me if it didn't pause from its tittering for a moment, as if considering, then delivered a stream of chirrups and chitters by way of a reply.
"He thinks," said Freya, "that you're ill-mannered and obnoxious but, after all, only a human and we should take that into account."
More squirrel chatter.
"And he says if you agree to apologise to the World Tree for besmirching it with your waste product, all will be forgiven."
"I say sorry to the tree, and everything's hunky dory again?"
"That's it."
"And you promise you'll put that knife away?"
"Certainly."
"Then you have yourself a deal." Granted, a cockeyed deal with a knife-wielding woman who talked to squirrels, but a deal nonetheless.
Freya got up, slipping the blade into the scabbard on her belt. I stood, brushed snow off me, then bowed my head, solemn as a churchgoer.
"Yggdrasil," I said, "I sincerely regret what I just did. I peed on you, and that was wrong and thoughtless of me. I should have known better. Maybe you could use the moisture and the ammonia to help you grow? Just a thought. But I'll never do it again. All right?"
The "All right?" was directed at Freya, but the tree seemed to think it was being addressed and ought to respond, so it shook its branches.
No, obviously it didn't. A stray wind came in out of nowhere, puffed against Yggdrasil and made all of the leaves shiver, releasing a fine dusting of snowflakes on our heads. That was what happened. The tree wasn't fucking answering me, like something out of an Enid Blyton book. That would have been absurd. It was a random coincidence, nothing else. A gust of wind. On a night as breeze-free and still as any I'd ever known. But still, just the wind.
Ratatosk the squirrel seemed satisfied, at any rate, and scampered off into the upper branches.
"So what brings you out here?" I said to Freya. "Why aren't you inside in the warm, partying with the others?"
"I could ask you the same."
"Not my thing, really." Not these days, not any more.
"Nor mine. I prefer not to gorge and guzzle. My pleasures are simpler, purer. The majesty of a night sky, for instance, and the knowledge that live prey awaits me out in the woods."
"You're going hunting?"
She nodded.
"For what?"
"Deer, rabbit, fox... Any wild game I can find. I'm not picky. The odd human occasionally."
"You're joking."
"Perhaps," she said in a way that implied she was. "I caught you, didn't I?"
"True." I was embarrassed enough by that to want to change the subject, so I jerked a thumb in the direction the squirrel had gone. "Anyway, what's up with Ratatouille there? It's dead of winter. Shouldn't he be hibernating and keeping his nuts warm?"
"Ratatosk is no ordinary squirrel," Freya said. "He keeps Yggdrasil free of worms and pests. Normally that's the Norns' job but they're exceptionally busy right now so Ratatosk has pitched in to help."
"Do I count as a pest? Was that why he was so peeved?"
"Very much so."
I was hoping for a flicker of amusement from