"So at least you've got something out of it."
"Don't be like that."
"Like what?"
"All bitter and twisted. I was going to go on to say something else. One of the most amazing things about this entire situation is that I've met… well, you. Bear with me here, because I'm hellish clumsy when it comes to this sort of stuff. But… I don't know what you think of me, Freya, but I think you are pretty incredible. And incredibly pretty. But mostly pretty incredible."
I spotted the guards making stupid, leering faces through the doorway.
"Oh fuck off, you," I snapped. "This is difficult enough as it is, without cockfaces like you getting involved."
"Concentrate on me, Gid," Freya said, taking my hands. "Ignore them."
I tried. "I'm a hard-shelled bastard, I know it. I come across like nothing bothers me, nothing gets to me. I love my son, but that's about it as far as finer feelings go. Otherwise, all front, no depth. That's the impression I give, and that's more or less how it is. But you, Freya… I can't get over the fact that you're you and you chose me. You could have anyone, you could go out with gods, but it was humble little mortal Gid Coxall who got the nod. I'm not pretending I don't realise that it's chiefly been about humping one another senseless. I get that. Any port in a storm, and so on. And I'm not against shaggery for shaggery's sake. Far from it. Bring it on, I say. But if there was more to us than that, if I've been more to you than just a convenient booty call, I have to know. You have to tell me."
"You choose now to ask this? When you're moments away from dying?"
"It's that close, is it?"
"They're nearly ready. Your 'audience' is being gathered."
"Shit. Then yes, this is precisely the time to ask. When better? And don't just tell me what you think I want to hear. Be honest. Straight from the heart. Is it possible for a goddess — I'm going to use the word love — to love a mortal? Can it happen?"
There was a pause. A long one. Then, gaze averted, in barely a whisper, Freya said, "It can. Yes. It can."
I sat back, contented. "I think I can go to my grave happy now."
"Truly?"
I nodded. "I mean, let's face it, I've loved a goddess and she loved me back. Doesn't get much better than that."
The frost giants were bombarding us with mocking "ooh" and "wooh" noises, but it hardly registered.
"If I could help you in any way," Freya said. "As I helped those men they pinned to Yggdrasil…"
"You would, I know, and I appreciate the offer, but you can't, can you? Not from out of the crowd. You won't have a gun."
She lowered her voice. "I could slay you now. Spare you that way from what's in store."
"With your bare hands?"
"You know I could."
"And then the frosties would kill you too."
"So?"
I smiled at her, sincerely. "I don't want that. And more to the point, if I die here now, Mrs Keener won't need to keep her half of the bargain. Much as I hate the idea, I've got to go through with this. It's shit, but there's no other way."
"Time's up," one of the frost giants announced.
"Loki promised us half an hour."
The frost giant shrugged. "We jotuns don't run our lives by clocks like you do. I don't even know what an hour is. Your ladyfriend's been here long enough by my reckoning, so say goodbye to her."
I muttered something uncomplimentary. The frost giants just laughed.
"Gid…"
Freya took my chin in her hand and guided my face towards hers, and we kissed.
Our first ever real kiss.
And our last.
Sweet, and firm, and deep, and over all too soon.
But a kiss I would have remembered for all my life, even if I were to live to a ripe old age.
Sixty-Eight
My lips were still tingling from the kiss when, not much later, Bergelmir came to collect me.
Outside they'd built a scaffold out of wood. The timber had come from Yggdrasil itself. Several lower branches had been lopped off and sawn into planks. The stumps wept a sap so dark orange it was almost the colour of blood, and I could sense somehow that the World Tree was in agony. Just something about the way its other branches drooped, the way the breeze shivered its leaves. It was sacrilege, to dismember Yggdrasil like this — I sensed that, too. I glimpsed the squirrel Ratatosk scurrying this way and that along boughs in an absolute frenzy, squealing with rage, his tail a furry exclamation mark. There was nothing the little rodent could have done to prevent the frost giants from desecrating his home. He was doubly pissed off for that reason.
The scaffold was large and crudely put together, but sturdy-looking. It consisted of a platform with a simple framework built on top, a rectangle with cross-braced corners. Wooden pegs had been used for nails. Short ropes were attached to all four cross-braces.
Everyone had been mustered in front of it. Frigga was there, dragged away from her patients. Vidar, Bragi, Skadi, Freya of course, Valkyries, plus Cy, Backdoor and the couple of dozen other surviving mortals. Frost giants. Some men I took to be the tanksuit operators, out of their machines and looking quizzical and bloodthirsty — executions like this clearly not an everyday occurrence for them, but something worth experiencing nonetheless. And, waiting on the platform itself, Mrs Keener. She watched me approach with the air of a society hostess about to welcome her guest of honour. She even clasped her hands together as I climbed the scaffold steps, with Bergelmir prodding me from behind.
"I am so glad you could make it!" she exclaimed.
"Wish I could say the same," I replied.
"Come now, don't be like that. It's your big moment, Gid. In some strange way I think you even want this. A grand finale." She pronounced it fin-ayl. "An ego like yours, it wouldn't be satisfied with you just dying along with everybody else. It had to be public and splashy and meaningful, didn't it?"
"What can I say? I'm a fame whore."
"Plus it gives you one last chance to show off how goshdarn down-home courageous you are. Quipping and wisecracking, a wiseguy all the way to the end. We'll see how it easy it is to keep the jokes coming once Bergelmir's started in on you." She looked over my shoulder. "First, though, if my eyes don't deceive me, I see that we have some last-minute arrivals."
Everyone followed her gaze. From the shadows beneath Yggdrasil a trio of female figures emerged, walking out into the thickening afternoon light. One strode gracefully, one waddled, and one hobbled along with the aid of a walking stick.
The Norns halted at the scaffold's edge. I found it oddly consoling to see them. In some weird way it seemed to confirm the rightness of what I was doing. It was as if they'd come to give my death their seal of approval.
"The Three Sisters," said Mrs Keener. "How generous of you to grace us with your presence. We are honoured. Tired of one another's company, huh? Decided to leave your cottage and actually witness events for a change, 'stead of viewing them through your scrying well or whatever it is you're using these days?"
"It is Ragnarok," said jailbait Urd.
"The end of all things," said motherly Verdande.
"The cutting of many threads at once," said bent-backed Skuld.
"We Norns have long foreseen this time."
"And anticipated it."
"And dreaded it."
"Now it is upon us."
"All destinies converge."
"The spinning ceases."
Once again the three of them were doing that thing where they spoke one after another so flowingly and seamlessly, it was as if they had a single voice.