An ancient crone came hobbling up to my wife during all this and asked what everyone was up to. Frigga explained, and the crone expressed astonishment that every single thing in all of creation had acceded to Frigga's request. My wife let slip that she had neglected to include mistletoe in her inventory, thinking it unimportant.
The crone, needless to say, was the shape-shifter Loki in disguise, and armed with this crucial nugget of information he approached my son Hodur, who was standing aloof, alone, unable to join in the game of Balder-battering. Hodur, as I have said, was born blind. This was the first time that his disability had truly set him apart from the rest of us. Even sightless he was a tremendous warrior, possessed of immense strength. In battle he was always to be found in the thick of things, locating the foe by the sound of their voices alone. Once he laid hands on an opponent, that was it. They could not escape his clutches, or his crushing, lethal might.
Loki invited him to take part in the proceedings. Hodur asked him how he might do that, and Loki placed a bow and arrow in his hands. He would guide Hodur's aim, he said. All Hodur had to do was draw back and bowstring and let the arrow fly.
Hodur confessed afterwards that he'd had some misgivings about perpetrating this act, but he had so wished to share in the general merriment. It was a grievous misjudgement, and he paid a high penalty for it.
The arrow, you see, was crafted from a twig of mistletoe. And Hodur, with Loki's assistance, sent it whistling straight into Balder's heart.
Before our very eyes, the best of all Asgard died instantly — slain, as his dreams had foretold, by his own unwitting brother.
Thirty-Six
"That sucks," I nearly said, but didn't, because even I'm not that crass.
Instead I kept a respectful, dignified silence and watched as a lone, fat tear rolled slowly down Odin's right cheek, navigating the wrinkled valleys of his skin. I was thinking of Cody and imagining how I'd have felt seeing him die right in front of me. Some things were too horrible to even contemplate.
"It was…" Odin began, then stopped, then tried again. "It was as if that arrow pierced my heart too. And the hearts of all assembled. We all died a little in that moment. Frigga swooned and collapsed. I myself could not move. Then Hel appeared to gather up Balder's spirit. Though we entreated her to show mercy, to make an exception in just this one instance, she refused. Her transparent delight in claiming my son from me has guaranteed her my undying hatred. I have never seen anyone quite so elated as on that day. Hel considered it a personal triumph to lead Balder's mute soul away from us to Niflheim. It showed, more clearly than ever before, her supremacy over all. Even the noblest and greatest of the gods was, in death, mere grist to her mill."
"But you punished Loki," I said. "Nastily. At least there was that."
"For a time we did not know that he was the true guilty party," Odin said. "We blamed Hodur, and tragedy was heaped on tragedy, for Hodur had to atone for taking Balder's life and that could only be accomplished by surrendering his own. There is a balance that must be observed. Everything has a price. My wisdom, to take an example. Bought at the cost of an eye and nine days' suffering on a tree. The universe neither gives without taking nor takes without giving. For every action there must be a corresponding opposite action."
"Hodur killed himself?"
"As good as. Willingly allowed himself to be killed. Vali took the responsibility of striking the fatal blow with his sword, but it was suicide in all but name. Hodur put up no resistance. He offered his bare breast and Vali, sobbing, plunged his blade in. It was right. It had to be done. The scales were evened up, and none profited."
"Except Hel."
He laughed emptily. "Another soul to add to her ranks, yes. The only who ever truly gains from the deeds of gods and men is Hel."
"How long did Loki manage to get away with it before he was rumbled?"
"Not long. His own arrogance proved his undoing. There was a period when all seemed bleak and meaningless in Asgard. We went about our business glumly, feeling as though there was little point to anything. Balder was gone. Nothing mattered. Frigga took to her room and would not emerge. Whenever I spoke to her, I got little in the way of reply. She'd lost both of her sons, don't forget. I had others but she had none. It was a devastating, crippling blow."
"She seems to have come to terms with it."
"Ah, the creature that you see today — the Frigga who smiles and is kind and giving and patient and oh-so-obliging — is but a shell, a mask for the real Frigga beneath, a woman lost in the ache of perpetual bereavement, a woman with a void at the core of her. As for the rest of us, in the aftermath of Balder's death we went through the motions of living but were pale imitations of ourselves. Only Loki continued to evince any animation or zest, which should perhaps have alerted us to his guilt, but we were too lost in misery and too numb with grief to notice. In hindsight I can see how obvious it was. He feigned sharing our sorrow but he was laughing at us behind his face. His eyes ever sparkled with barely concealed joy. What a coup for him! How artfully had he pulled off this, his most audacious trick yet, his most vindictive act, the acme of treachery. None could question his superiority to the Aesir now that he had contrived the murder of the finest among us. But a successful deceit is no fun for the deceiver unless others are aware that he was responsible."
"Don't tell me, he owned up to it. Couldn't help himself."
"It was during a banquet. Time had passed, the wound of Balder's death was beginning to heal, life in Asgard was returning to normal, and we had recovered some of our vivacity and confidence. Loki sat at the table listening to us banter and laud one another, much as we had done in times gone by, and it stung him to the quick that everyone ignored his witty comments and no one would praise him for his achievements. Eventually it became too much. His resentment boiled over and he flew into a spiteful rage. He abused us all, calling us prigs and dullards and simpletons and many more vicious names besides. My family dared not respond in kind, out of respect to me, since Loki was my blood brother and therefore under my aegis. So I felt obliged to chastise him myself. This, though, only angered him further, until at last he could contain himself no longer, and out it all spilled. How it was he who'd been the crone who'd approached Frigga, he who'd convinced Hodur to loose off the arrow, he who's substituted the shaft for one fashioned from mistletoe…"
"Talk about stitching yourself up like a kipper."
"The Aesir rose up as one in fury, and Loki, recognising that he had gone too far and needed to save his neck, fled. With the aid of Huginn and Muninn I sought him out and found him in a house in a remote corner of the realm. There, by the hearthside, he was knotting lengths of string together in loops, something no one had ever thought to do before. As soon as he heard the Aesir coming for him, he threw what he was making into the fire, turned himself into a salmon and jumped into a stream. He thought we could never catch him in fish form, because he would be too wily to latch on to any line we cast into the water. He would not fall for a baited hook. Sadly for him, we recovered the mesh of string from the fire and used that to catch him instead. Too clever by half, Loki had been the architect of his own downfall. He had just fashioned the very device which trapped him — a net."
"Silly arse."
"Thor wrestled him out onto dry land and squeezed him back into his true shape. Together we then secured him in a cave with a poisonous serpent above him."