"Verdande," Odin said to the mother version of Urd, and "Skuld" to the ancient version. There was a definite tremor in his voice. Oh how he did not want to be in a room with these three.
"All-Father," Verdande and Skuld replied. Usually a term of respect round these parts, but from their lips the title sounded sarcastic, even contemptuous. They were scornful of it, and of Odin.
The Norns gathered together in the centre of the room, and it was like a snapshot of three generations. Grandmother, mother, daughter. Which would have been charming if they weren't so eerily alike in every way. Triplets born across a span of several decades.
"We are busy," said Urd. "There is much work to be done."
"The tides in the affairs of gods and men are in full spate and reaching flood," said Verdande. "We must weave and divine as never before."
"Yet we have made time for your visit," said Skuld. "How could we fail to? We are the Norns. It was foretold."
"We are grateful," said Odin.
But they didn't much seem to care for further niceties. "Be seated," Urd instructed, and Odin and I did as told, finding places for ourselves on a settee between the sticking-up springs and the outbursts of horsehair stuffing. A one-bar electric fire buzzed hear our feet, shedding some warmth but no further up our legs than our ankles. Funnily enough, I couldn't see where the fire was plugged into. It didn't even appear to have a flex.
"What has Odin told you about us?" Urd asked me. "About how we work?"
"Little, I'd imagine," said Verdande.
"The All-Father is loath to acknowledge that we exist at all," said Skuld. "Or that, as we prove, there are things beyond his control."
"We see all."
"While he sees not nearly so much."
"Nor nearly so far ahead."
"One eye only."
"The other sacrificed in return for a drink from the Wellspring of Wisdom in Jotunheim."
"Plucked out and given to Mimir, the only wise jotun that ever lived. A poor exchange."
They were ripping the piss out of Odin, and he just stared at the middle distance and took it. I felt a bit sorry for him.
"For wisdom by itself is never quite enough," said Urd.
"Not when unaccompanied by foresight," said Verdande.
"Oh what it must be to understand all, but be able to predict the outcome of naught," said Skuld.
"How sad."
"How limiting."
"How short-sighted."
"Come on, girls, leave it out," I said. Someone had to stand up for the old bugger. He obviously wasn't going to himself. "So Odin's missing an eye. Never stopped Columbo, did it? Means he can't enjoy a 3D movie, but that's about the only drawback I can think of."
"Don't defend me, Gid," Odin said. "This… teasing is just their way. The Norns must be endured and never — I repeat — never antagonised."
"What's the worst they can do? Slag me off to death?"
The three women laughed in unison, a horrible sound, jarring and jangling like a bad guitar chord.
"Gideon has spirit," said Urd.
"Gid does," said Verdande.
"A hero born," said Skuld.
"No, whoa, what?" I said. "Hero? Oh no. That's enough of that."
"Modest?"
"Or ignorant."
"Or in denial."
"Denial of his future path."
"Shall we show him, sisters?"
"Show him the course we have set for him?"
"The thread we have selected?"
"Ought we?"
"He has come. We ought."
"He wants truth."
"We shall give him truth."
They were talking so fast now, I was having trouble keeping up with which of them was saying what. The three-way rota of Urd then Verdande then Skuld had been abandoned. They were all speaking at once, or finishing one another's sentences, or doing alternate words, I wasn't sure which.
"It is the price."
"The price of truth."
"To be shown the truth of himself."
"A truth for a truth."
"Does he wish to see what is to be?"
"As if he has a choice."
"In our house."
"On our terms."
"He cannot refuse."
Then, like that, they were gone, whisking out of the room in a flourish of skirts. I looked at Odin.
"What the hell was all that — "
And suddenly they were back, wheeling a TV set. It was sitting on a rickety hostess trolley, with a VCR on the shelf beneath. The telly was vintage; fake wood veneer, bulbous screen, loads of knobs and buttons. Mid 'eighties at the latest. The VCR was much the same. A top-loader the size of a kitchen sink, with clunky lever switches you had to press hard.
"Once, we spun threads," said Urd. They were back to speaking in turn, thank God. That overlapping dialogue of theirs had been freaking me out.
"One for every mortal," said Verdande.
"But so effortful," said Skuld. "So laborious."
"A grey thread for the common man whose life is never to amount to much."
"Occasionally a colourful thread for the freeman or the farmer, he whose lot is to provide for others and set a good example."
"And rarely, very rarely, a golden thread, for the chieftain, the king, the hero…"
"The uncommon man."
"The exception."
"The great."
"But that was then, and this is now." Urd produced a videocassette. It gleamed brightly. It looked for all the world like an ordinary plastic-cased VHS tape that someone had spray-painted gold. I glimpsed my name scrawled on the stick-on strip on the side.
"This is yours, Gideon," she said. "This is you. Your past…" She handed the tape to Verdande.
"Your present," said Verdande, passing it on to Skuld.
"And your future," said Skuld, slotting it into the VCR.
The telly, like the fire, lacked a plug cable. Still it came on when Urd prodded the main button. Verdande manually selected a channel. Skuld pressed "Play" on the VCR. The machine's drive motor whined and churned.
"Sit back."
"Watch."
"It will be instructive."
Out of the corner of his mouth, Odin said, "I was afraid this might happen. Those who come to the Norns seeking knowledge must pay for it somehow. In your case, the cost is submission to a demonstration of their power. If you weren't a hero, or so unintimidated by them, they wouldn't feel the need to flaunt their superiority. The greater your destiny, the stronger your character, the more they must try to belittle you."
"With a video?" I muttered back. "A Blu-Ray disc, a forty-inch plasma display, now that would impress me. But this?"
"They have modernised."
"Hardly."
"Nonetheless, I urge you, don't watch. Or watch for as long as you can bear, but close your eyes and stop your ears when it becomes too much."
"It's pre-digital technology," I said. "There aren't even remote controls. I'm not worried."
The TV screen flickered into life. A wash of static. Then…
Twenty-five
There is a baby.
He gurgles.
He has a teddy. A woollen Rupert the Bear his nan knitted for him. It doesn't look much like the actual Rupert the Bear, but it had the yellow checked scarf and crude red jumper.
He loves that teddy. He sucks one ear so hard, it eventually comes off. Nan sews it back on, and the teddy is never quite the same from then on, but he still loves it.